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pokeexehasstoppedworking · 1 year

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Diamond In The Rough Ch7 Settling Down In Circhester P2

(Warning: Reader's hand gets burnt a little bit by hot chocolate and someone tries to take a swing at Gordie but no contact is made. Thank you to everyone who commented on what pokemon they wanted on where I post my stories. I was only able to pick three from what everyone commented and I did it at random. Here's the ones we'll get going along with the story. Scolipede, mightyena, and glacion. Know all I need is names and genders. Tell me which ones you prefer for which pokemon.)

Things were going well for you at this moment in time.

Your notes and books from Sonia arrived and you were able to work on that one report you'd surely have one problem with for later when the school year kicked back up in a few months. There was also talks of some other GIANT projects you worked on a little bit, you'd wouldn't have to worry about it knowing what they were about before hand. The only good thing you could say about her. There was two or three other big projects you'd have to worry about but you'd be able to take care of most of them by yourself in your spare time. By the time you got back from your weekend of taking care of your pokemon and doing that small project of yours, your job was still pretty busy. Except for Wednesday night, that night was really REALLY busy seeing as it WAS Circhester's Foundation Day. The whole town was filled with food vendors, people partying, noise, and lots and LOTS of people going in and out of the cafe for food and drinks and it was like a there was a monsoon of people spawning outside with out many times people went in and out cramming against the walls or even waiting in lines that went almost all the way to the door. Safe to say both yourself and Sapphire were BEAT rushing to grab napkins, shovel out drinks, rushed to ring out people, meanwhile in the back kitchen you could literally HEAR Bobby and Billy Bob shouting at one another over the noise of pots and pans and sizzling foods that they struggled to chuck out into your arms to serve to customers. At one point you had to stop to go do other things while Sapphire tried to handle the crowds while you were gone, fighting against the crowd to grab dishes and clean tables, going into the back to grab MORE to-go Styrofoam boxes and bags, more clean dishes from the dishwater, more food or drinks for shouting customers- Now you knew why the two chefs wanted to hire more help. Sheesh. At least most of the orders were to go anyways so you all could just give someone their food and they'd leave only to let another person take their place. Sigh. But...GOOD NEWS!! Luckily it seemed things were starting to wind down because while it was still crowded and tiring, there was starting to get less people now. Bad news....It was already after closing time. Bob's Your Uncle closed at five pm. It was already midnight now and it doesn't look like anything would be dying down soon. You were starting to get tired and your feet were starting to be sore and your stomach growled from not being able to eat for a while. Sigh. Oh well. At least the tips were plentiful. You had just handed a woman a styrofoam box with a curry inside it and waited for her to move before groaning and stretching your back with a pop. By now it had gotten dark, late, and loud bangs were coming from outside. Fireworks most likely. It would be super cold by the time you got back, you just hoped that none of your pokemon would cause any trouble while you were gone. Meanwhile a middle aged woman who looked like she had seen a make up tutorial 'not for beginners' and tried to do it herself only to end up looking like a clown, and a haircut that looked like a monkey cut for her walked up to your counter with a face looking like she was angry and just bitten a lemon right after. You of course smiled and was about to ask what she wanted when too brightly painted nails snapped at you making you full on stop.

"Hey! Give me a hot chocolate! And make it snappy! I don't have time to deal with you today!"

That...certainly caught you off guard but you quickly forced a smile and exchanged a stunned look with Sapphire just for a moment before she was forced to tend to yet another customer walking up to her. With an inhale you turned to the coffee machine area behind you still forcing that smile.

"Would you like a size large, Ma-"

"OF COURSE I WANT A LARGE!!," her shrill voice shrieked at you like a broken record making you wince as it battered your eardrums, "When someone orders a hot chocolate of course they want it large with everything on it unless they say something else! Are you dense or something?!"

Sapphire gave another look as you had to will yourself not to crush the styrofoam cup in your grasp and to just make the darn hot chocolate. Just make it. JUST. MAKE. IT. And hand it to her so she'll go away and leave you alone. You know recognized this woman as someone every store owner feared. A Karen. Just give her the darn hot chocolate and get her out of here. So you got the large and HOT sugary drink full of more sugary whipped cream and marshmallows and just held it out for her with a forced smile.

"Here you go! That'll b-"

"IT TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH!!" The cup was snatched from your hand so fast the contents from the cup rocked and some spilt from your hand.

Immediately the hot liquid hitting your hand made you have a reaction.

"AH!!" It was like a mini volcano went off and spewed lava all over your hand, despite it only being maybe a small teaspoon's worth of hot coco, but it was still enough to make you cry out and pull your hand back to clutch it.

"Y/n!," Sapphire shouted and whirled back around to you when you shouted eyes wide. "Oh my gosh! Are you ok?!"

"My hand got burnt!," you shouted back hissing and then looking at your hand. A few trickles of liquid fell down your hand when you unfurled your fist, and stared in shock at the now lighter pink looking parts on your hand from where the liquid drink hit it and you gaped in shock....before it quickly got replaced with anger. "YOU LITTLE-" You had snapped your head up back to yell at the woman but she was gone. Replaced with yet another customer who looked annoyed at waiting for you but didn't say anything. "WHAT THE!?" You scanned the crowd of people for any signs of her. "Where'd that slimy weasel go!? She didn't even tip me!!"

"I don't know," Sapphire replied also looking around but stopped when realizing something. "...But she didn't pay either!"

True to her word the woman was gone as neither of you could see her through the still crowded place, making you even MORE mad. "RRR!! GREAT!! HOW COULD THIS NIGHT GET ANY WORSE!?"

"Wait...What's that sound?"

.....

......

Maybe you shouldn't have asked that-

You both looked towards the door in question as what sounded like a heavy rain came forward, and the door was pushed open to let the source of the noise come in. And both you and Sapphire's eyes POPPED open comedically as a HUGE tidal wave of people started walking in pushing the already big crowd like the last wave of a boss fight in a video game. You were half expecting boss music to start playing. As the crowd started rolling in you just stood there and stared clutching your still sore hand. It was like a sudden reality hit you. All the exhaustion from the last few hours just dealing with all the people annoyed without a break and without sleep, constantly on your feet and now your hand throbbed with some pain-...Well it hit you like another tidal wave with the arrival of so much more shouting and people grumbling for late night meals demanding to be made to help them combat the cold outside. Sapphire had an almost equally horrified look on her face before it deflated into tired defeat and she could only tiredly let go of you and turn her attention to the first person who annoyedly demanded she get him a black coffee that instant. Well sounds almost blurred together as you just started and felt something gather in your eyes.

"Y/n!" An almost angelic voice shouted out to you and you blinked looking up to the bulky figure who pushed his way through the crowd and was now leaning against the counter with his sunglasses off staring at you. "Hey. Are you alright? You're crying."

You were what-..

Instead of answering your good hand reached up to wipe at your face. Yes. The man who spoke to you, was in fact, Gordie the gym leader. Why was he here instead of tending to his party?...Well to answer that the party was dying down to be honest, it was late and since the fireworks were the man attraction thar was over with, about everyone was heading home now including him, but he wanted to stop by and see how his friend was doing (NOT because his heart was beating a mile a minute at the thought of you-) but he hadn't been expecting the giant crowd in here or the sight of you crying lightly. When he pushed his way to the front he was smiling expecting to see you there, but had been completely thrown for a loop when he caught the sight of your current state. Leaning with your back against the wall with slight bags under your eyes, hair frizzy, clutching your hand, and crying lightly. You had looked shocked when he had gotten your attention but had quickly wiped your eyes and forced a smile when you saw him.

"H-Hey, Gordie. W-What's up?"

...He blinked. "What's up with me? What's up with you?" He asked gesturing to you. "You look a right wreck!"

"Well, working none stop all day and seven hours after you were supposed to go home will do that to you."

"Seven hours!? Why didn't your bosses close up shop by now!?" You were still working?? AT MIDNIGHT!? He opened and closed his mouth a couple times before he asked at how stunned he was.

"I don't know i-if they can."

"Why?"

In response your good hand gestured to the shouting people around you with a defeated look. "Too many people. We're already back up as it is!" You practically shouted back to him. "I can barely hear you right now."

At first Gordie gave a look of almost disbelief but then a calm face washed it away. Which was strange but at this point you were too tired to care. But you watched none the less as the Gym leader just calmly turned back to the crowd and stopping...taking a long, LONG moment at the people around him all. Before he proceeded to do something you all weren't expecting at all. He ever so slowly lifted a hand to his mouth to place two of his fingers to it. What was he doing- And then he proceeded to give THE. LOUDEST. WHISTLE!! You had ever heard in your life. It made you wince and sink into yourself closing one eye, but it seemed to work for everyone else too because immediately everyone talking or shouting, the closest ones to him even ducking and having their hands fly up to their ears. The dreaded sound only lasted for maybe five seconds, but it had an instant silence afterwards. Everyone staring in his direction or too busy rubbing their sore eardrums in the aftermath.

"ALRIGHT!!" A hand was thrown up and if Gordie didn't have everyone's attention before he sure did now. "PARTY'S OVER!! Everyone out!!" Immediately afterwards a murmur of complains and groans came from the crowd. You heard some 'ah man's and 'You gotta be kidding me!'s and one or two 'But I've been waiting here for hours's included at the end, but that only made the gym leader scowl deeper. "I SAID BUGGER OFF!! It's late enough! For Arceus's sake, it's the middle of the bloody night! Ya can make your own drinks at home! Anyone else already eatin' hurry up and pay your tabs!"

More murmurs until one man in the front frowned and said, "I'm getting my coffee! I've been standing here for twenty minutes!" He snapped back to both you and Sapphire and shouted again. "Why don't I have it yet!?"

"Because they're overworked and there's too many people here that can't see it!," Gordie countered back giving this man a particular look. "If you're that desperate for it mate, make your own pot at home.''

"I said I want my coffee!! And I'm not leaving here until I have it!!", He shrieked into Gordie's face, and to the gym leader's credit he remained calm just looking at the slightly taller man.

"'Lright, bud. Back it up." He held up his hands and started to herd the man back from the counter. "These girls are overworked and need some rest n' by the way yer actin' so do you. Go home."

His response was to take an actual swing at the gym leader but what proceeded to happen next shocked you again. Gordie like an expect easily side stepped the clumsy swing and with his left hand grabbed the man's arm, yanking the man to hunch over before his right arm quickly darted over to hook around the guy's neck. And the end result was that the man yelled curse words at Gordie, now finding himself held in a headlock against Gordie's side flailing uselessly like a fish out of water.

"Maybe ya didn't hear me clearly," he yelled louder than you had ever heard him yell before at the crowd. "I SAID EVERYONE GET OUT!!"

Everyone stood stunned for a moment but when the Gym leader started marching his way towards the door with the man still cussing him out and that seemed to motivate everyone else because they either stepped aside or began flocking to the door to get out of his way. Soon the large crowd started to file their way out one after the other and you could only stand there staring....before sliding down the wall until you sat upon the ground and gave a GIANT side of relief. It was as if a weight was lifted off your shoulders. Thank you Arceus. Arceus just THANK you for finally giving you a break. Sapphire practically collapsed against the counter with a half choke half dry chuckle looking like her body would fall over from being made of jello. After a moment the door opened again with a ding from the bell and this time he was...silent. His form paused and blinked for a moment not seeing Y/n anymore before he slowly walked up to the counter and peeked over blinking at your form just sitting tiredly on the floor.

"....Where's the owners?"

Sapphire pointed a thumb behind her where you could still faintly hear the sounds of pots and pans coming from the back kitchen. Gordie again didn't say anything after that but you were surprised to see him literally place one hand on the counter before jumping over it and you blinked when he just...waltzed on into there like he freaking owned the place. You silently sat there and listened. The pots and pans stopped. And there was silence again-

"WHY DIDN'T YOU CLOSE!?"

Sapphire yelped nearly tripping over as you both stared wide eyed at the doors, an angry yell coming from behind the kitchen. If you both were surprised, you couldn't imagine how surprising it was to the chefs to see a Gym Leader just walk into their kitchen.

"I WALK ON IN HERE N' ALL I SEE IS AN OCEAN WORTH OF PEOPLE BACKED UP ALL THE WAY OUTSIDE!! AND THEN I FIND OUT YOUR SERVERS WERE OVERWORKIN' UNTIL MIDNIGHT!! ONE OF YOU BETTER GIVE ME A BLOODY RIGHT GOOD ANSWER TO THIS!!"

You...unfortunately could NOT make out what Bobby or Billy Bob were saying because it was muffled and not as loud as Gordie's yelling. But you made out a few snippets. "-e didn't mean..." and ''not fault..." and what you maaaayybe thought was ''-ard for us''.

"OH!! HARD FOR YOU!? THE ONE WHO'S SITTIN' IN A CHAIR IN FRONT OF A GRILL LEAVIN' JUST TWO PEOPLE TO DO EVERYTHING ELSE WITH ANGRY CUSTOMERS!!"

One of them said something that sounded like ''-n't mind-"

"THIS IS WHY CIRCHESTER HAS A LAW ABOUT WHAT TIME STORES CLOSE ON HOLIDAYS!! YOU TWO KNOWINGLY BROKEN THAT LAW AND AS A RESULT TWO PEOPLE SUFFERED!! YOU'RE BLOODY LUCKY IF I DON'T DRAG YA OUT AND SERVE YOU TO OFFICER JENNY ON YOUR OWN SILVER PLATTER!! NOW GET YOUR BUTTS INTO GEAR AND GET THIS PLACE CLEANED UP!! I WANT IT CLOSED DOWN!! RIGHT!! NOW!! AND IF I FIND OUT EITHER OF YOU TWO PULL SOMETHING LIKE THIS AGAIN, 'BOB'S YOUR UNCLE' WILL BECOME 'BOB WENT OUT OF BUSINESS'!!"

Both of you still stared wide eyed at the door...before footsteps approached and the door swung open letting Gordie out. The gym leader stood there for a moment silently before inhaling and giving out a sigh and holding out his hands.

"Ladies! ...You officially have the REST of the week off. No need to thank me. Just grab your coats and head home."

You both remained quiet for a moment before Sapphire asked quietly, "Wat?"

"I said you both need to get out of here. Go on. Go HOME. Get some rest. Go to sleep. Get warm! All of that stuff! Take your pay for the night and vamoose."

"But...what about-"

"Those chefs seem pretty relaxed. I'm SURE they got plenty of energy to clean up their own mess."

"Oh thank you so much!," Sapphire all but practically sobbed and wobble-walked herself on tired legs away from the counter but you didn't have the energy to do so.

Gordie must've noticed because he squatted down next to your exhausted form and gently placed a hand on your shoulder. "Hey. Are you alright there?"

Tiredly you nodded quietly. "I just wanna go home."

"Yeah..Alright. C'mon," he said as you felt an arm start to pry you away from the wall, "Let's get ya on your feet and get you home."

You were pushed up onto shaking feet and forced to walk on sore feet. It was a bit of a blur and you weren't sure how, but you managed to squeeze your coat on and found yourself tiredly trudging back through the snow and cold of Circhester at nearly one in the morning, until you kept stumbling from how slippery the ground was and how tired you were- Until on your third trip, you felt yourself become light as something just lifted you up and you found yourself staring face to face with Gordie carrying you bridal style through the snowflakes.

"G-GORDIE!? PUT ME DOWN!!"

"Relax. Jeez, you're more hard headed than a diamond."

After maybe a minute, you were tired to fight and just allowed him to carry you all the way to your hotel room. Imagine your pokemon's surprise when you were carried all the way in by the gym leader and gently placed down on the bed in your room gently before giving a frown.

"Hey...Are you alright?"

You tiredly nodded barely able to keep your eyes open now and reaching a hand up to your mouth as you yawned. "Ye-Yeah. I-I'll be...*yyyyaaaawwwnn* F-Fine. I just need to sleep...Thank you so much for the help."

He nodded with a concerned look. "'Course...Ya want me to stay with you or-"

You waved him off tiredly. "Honestly, no. I just wanna be left alone so I can sleep."

Again he nodded and stood back up. "Alright...It's late anyways. I should head back and make sure the crowd from the party's died down without any damages...Are ya sure you'll be alright?"

"Yeah...I'll be fine."

"Right. ..Goodnight then. I-I'll see myself out. Get some rest. Ok?"

Well he left and the first thing you did was clonk out then and there on your bed. Completely passed out into possibly the deepest sleep you've ever had. In fact it was so deep, that you didn't even wake up until the next day around eleven in the morning. When you woke, you were still wearing your coat with your hair all frazzled and you found four faces looking at you. Silver looked concerned. Zen was giving you a puzzled look. Sparky was just floating around telling you that you had slept through your alarm and was late for work. And Cerberus was sitting with a pout on his face and his food bowl in his mouth. He let out a whine before just letting the bowl drop from his muzzle with a clatter and barked at you clearly hungry for food.

"....Right. *yyyyaaaawwwwnn* 'M on it."

One shower and change of clothes later, you had fed the three pokemon and gave Sparky a battery to suck the life from as you just plopped yourself back on the bed. You were still tired and just wanted to sleep the rest of the day away if you could but you couldn't because just as you considered going back to sleep there was a loud knock at the door, which made you groan and drag yourself slowly from the bed. You slowly trudged towards the door and when you got close you noticed a delicious smell coming from the other side of the door. Room service?? But you hadn't ordered breakfast or lunch. Well you opened the door and was hit with the delicious smells of ...bannanas?? And Hot chocolate? Well on the other side of the door was none other than Gordie, and in his hands was a small styrofoam box and cup containing said foods. He stood there but smiled when he saw you open the door.

"Hey, Y/n. Good mornin'!..Or should I say afternoon?"

"Gordie?," you asked blinking confused, "What are you doing here?"

"Well I just checked on Sapphire to make sure she was doing ok after last night-"

Oh right..That actually happened! "Is she alright!?"

"She's fine. Just tired and somewhat cranky. I just finished up evrything else so I wanted to drop by and make sure you were alright."

You gave another tiny yawn. "I'm fine thanks. Just a bit tired, but I feel a lot better now. But why do you have that?" You asked gesturing to the food.

"Oh! Well my Ma heard about what happened last night and she made ya this." He held out the food to you. "It's sweet tropical curry, and hot chocolate. Maybe a bit more on the junk food side o' the spectrum, but it's sure to make a good lunch on a cold day."

"Oh..How nice!" You smiled and stepped aside. "Come in."

"Huh? Oh thanks." He stepped right in and was greeted with your small herd. "Ah. I see that Houndoom of yours is lookin' better."

"Yeah. The food and exercise are really working wonders." You closed the door and walked on over to him taking the food. "Tell your mom thanks for the food. And I can't thank you enough for what you did for us last night. I swear I'd still be there working my feet off if you hadn't stepped in."

"Hey. No thanks needed. My ma would've done the same thing if no one had shut it down. There's a reason we have a law in Circhester that prevents stores from stayin' open late on any holidays. The crowds like to gather big and then it causes problems for the small businesses that can't handle the hoards of people! It happens every Halloween and Christmas! I can't believe they'd pull somethin' like that after that got some new help!...*sigh* Don't worry. I made sure to swing by earlier today and make sure they knew not ta do it again. I'm pretty sure they got my message good."

"I hope they don't fire me-"

"They won't," he stated bluntly looking at you, "If they do they know they'll be in BIG trouble, you on the other hand don't have to worry about a thing. You get to enjoy the rest of the week off so no worries."

"Ah. Well that's one good thing." It was then at that moment that your stomach growled and you let out an embarrassed chuckle. ''All this talk about the cafe is making me hungry. I wanna try this food out! Smells delicious."

You smiled and held up the food and it was at THAT exact moment he froze. Eyes in full view of your hand and then his eyes widened- "What the- W-W-What happened to your bloody hand!?" He asked pointing to your hand and it was then you turned to the now MOSTLY faded light pink marks on your hands.

Aw crap. You forgot about that. "Oh yeah." You scowled at your hand for a moment. "Some old hag decided to spill her drink on me and burnt my hand a bit."

"SHE BURNT YOUR HAND!?"

"It's not too bad," you assured him as he no gained a panicked look, "It doesn't hurt anymore and it'll go away in a couple days. I'm more mad she didn't pay than anything else- Wha- HEY! GORDIE!!"

He didn't even bother to listen to the last part of your ranting before he literally but gently removed the food from your hands and quickly shoved it onto a small side table and you froze when he grabbed your hand. Blue eyes squinted from behind those sunglasses as his hands gently held yours to his face...and you blinked. F/c eyes watched as he gave a look to the back of your hand before gently turning it over to give a look over at the bottom of your palm. For someone who could throw out someone in a headlock his grip was..soft. Gentle even as he gazed across your hand for a moment. Seeming to examine each part of it like how a scientist would examine a new cell particle, until eventually he slowly turned it back over to where the light pink was the most...and he sighed.

"'S not serious. Thank Arceus," he mumbled in relief.

"I mean...Yeah. It was only a little bit. I'm still mad tho." He hummed again before one of his hands released yours and reached into his coat pocket to pull out a small toothpaste looking tube and held it out to you. "What's that?"

"Burn cream. I've noticed a while ago that a lot of my guests tend to get burnt by hot drinks, and being an older brother you kinda get used to three lil brothers always making messes and causin' trouble. You wouldn't believe the amount of times they spilt things all over me. Nowadays I always carry one or two of these on me in case anyone ever needs it."

"Oh I think I believe you." You could still clearly remember one of Gordie's brothers making Allister spill his own drink the year before. "But...thank you." With a soft smile that made him pink you happily took the small tube from him happily. "That's really kind of you. You've actually been really nice to be lately and a big help. I wish there was some way I could make it up to you-"

"A-Actually.." His face felt pink- No. RED as he gulped down the rock in his throat letting it travel to his stomach letting the heavy feeling sink in. Especially when you blinked back at him. "I-I was wonderin' i-if ya- W-Well- ONLY IF YOU WANNA 'COURSE!! Y-Y-YOU'RE TOTALLY FREE TO SAY NO!!" You blinked at his sudden increase in pitch as he wanted to suddenly punch himself in the face for that embarrassing moment. "I mean if you wanna-..I m-mean-...I-I remember when you came 'round with Piers a lil while back! W-W-When ya helped us o-out with those dynamaxed pokemon..I a-a-asked ya to dinner b-b-but understandably you were a b-bit busy at the moment. S-So..m-m-maybe i-if you only wanna that is...Maybe you'd l-like to ha-have that dinner...With me?"

You continued to silently stare at him. And he shrinked into his coat under the staring. HOLY ARCEUS HE MESSED THIS UP!! WHY'D HE EVEN DECIDE TO ASK AT THIS TIME!? He wanted to ask you last night so he went to see you but then the whole incident last night happened and he asked without thinking this through at all! OF COURSE YOU'D BE IN NO SHAPE TO SAY YES!! HOW COULD HE LET THAT FLY OVER HIS HEAD!? Granted he-...was kinda interested in this for a while. Dinner with Y/n he meant. Sure he showed some interest in other girls before but he never felt like-...THIS before. Not so...intrigued by your sudden boldness and bluntness and how pretty you were and how you didn't seem to give him special treatment and got through his thick skull and how nice you were and how you helped his slowly start to regain his family he missed so much and how much patience, care, understanding, and genuine emotion- OH ARCEUS HE WAS STILL STARING LIKE AN IDIOT!! He cursed himself eternally for going off on a puppycrush rant inside his head as he unknowingly stared at you still like an idiot making his face even REDDER in comparison to his pale white-blonde hair. You however took a LOT longer to process what he was asking you...and it seemed like everything about his behavior clicked now and your f/c eyes widened in realization.

"...Gordie," you slowly asked making him flinch, "Just so we're clear. Are you...asking me out?"

OH SWEET ARCEUS HE WAS GONNA GET REJECTED SO FAST!! RIP RAIHAN!! HE'S ABOUT TO KNOW HOW HE FELT!! he only slowly gulped again. "Um....Y-Yeah?"

"Oh. Ok then! What time?"

RECORD SCRATCH-

His mind blanked for a moment. "......wot..."

"I said sure. When do you wanna go out?," you calmly responded with a smile.

Again he could only stare. ".....Did you just say bloody YES to ME!?"

"Yes?," you slowly asked raising a brow. "Is that surprising?"

"W-WHY THO!?"

"Because you asked nicely? And you're really nice so why not? At least you're not being really pushy about it like Raihan was...I still need to talk to him about telling others about my business without asking." Gordie opened his mouth, closed it, and just had trouble processing this. "Are you ok there?"

"HOW ARE YOU SO CALM ABOUT THIS?!"

You gave him a deadpanned look now. "Gordie. I have dealt with being bowled over by Milo's wooloo, dropped from the sky into a corviknight's nest, falling out of a tree, living with THE worst mom ever, battling against two legendary pokemon TWICE, stopping powerful rich dudes who think they can just use said legendary pokemon to run rampant, getting hit in the head by a roof tile and ending up in the hospital, THE worst room mate to ever exist, almost getting my face getting bit off by a houndoom, and having Raihan and two hairdo weirdos flirt with me and genuinely make me uncomfortable!" Gordie stared. "I think being asked out by you is the least shocking thing I've ever had to deal with up to this point." You left out the magically transported into a video game world part out for obvious reasons.

He raised a hand and opened his mouth-...Before slowly lowering it. "Ah..Well when you put it that way..*cough cough*." He straightened back up. "So uh-...T-Tomorrow works for you?"

"Friday? Sounds great! Can't wait for my first date."

AGAIN RECORD SCRATCH-

"Hold up!...First date? As in-...Y-You never went out with someone before?!"

"No not really. But I'm sure it'll be fine with you..." You paused looking down. "Um..Gordie."

"Y-Yeah?"

"You're still holding my hand."

In an instant he looked down, saw his hand holding yours, freaked out, let go, and immediately began freaking out even more. "I-I-IM SO SORRY!! I DIDN'T REALIZE!! IT WON'T HAPPEN AGAIN I PROMISE!!" His face deepened a red the more you smiled at him.

"Hey it's ok."

"No it's not! I was h-holding your hand without permission and we haven't even had a proper date yet," he insisted before he again paused and then grabbed his hair. OI!! GORDIE YOU BLOOMING DUMMY!! "I-I-I HAVEN'T EVEN THOUGHT IT THROUGH THIS FAIR!!!" Before you could even say anything he held up his hands and backed away. "D-Don't worry! I'll have everything ready! Don't worry about it-" And then he quickly turned on his heel to zip out the door- Only to forget the door was closed and full on smack into the door with a loud thud. "OW!!" A hand grabbed his face. Mumbling curses to himself, he grabbed the doorknob throwing the door open before turning with a nervous smile and giving you his signature salute. "Don't worry 'bout anything! I'm fully in control! Just leave it all ta me!"

You only watched as he proceeded to trip over the doorframe on his way out leaving the door partially opened as you stood there blinking....before you again smiled and laughed his response. You weren't sure how this date was supposed to go but it would sure be-....

THIRD RECORD SCRATCH-

A date. You just agreed to have your first date with GORDIE in less than twenty four hours and you have absolutely no idea how a date was supposed to go.

"....SPARKY!! CALL SONIA!! I NEED ADVICE NOW!!!"

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echantedtoon · 6 months

Text

Diamond In The Rough Ch7 Settling Down In Circhester P2

Things were going well for you at this moment in time.

"Hey! Give me a hot chocolate! And make it snappy! I don't have time to deal with you today!"

"Would you like a size large, Ma-"

"Here you go! That'll b-"

"IT TOOK YOU LONG ENOUGH!!" The cup was snatched from your hand so fast the contents from the cup rocked and some spilt from your hand.

Immediately the hot liquid hitting your hand made you have a reaction.

"Y/n!," Sapphire shouted and whirled back around to you when you shouted eyes wide. "Oh my gosh! Are you ok?!"

"I don't know," Sapphire replied also looking around but stopped when realizing something. "...But she didn't pay either!"

True to her word the woman was gone as neither of you could see her through the still crowded place, making you even MORE mad. "RRR!! GREAT!! HOW COULD THIS NIGHT GET ANY WORSE!?"

"Wait...What's that sound?"

.....

......

Maybe you shouldn't have asked that-

You were what-..

"H-Hey, Gordie. W-What's up?"

...He blinked. "What's up with me? What's up with you?" He asked gesturing to you. "You look a right wreck!"

"Well, working none stop all day and seven hours after you were supposed to go home will do that to you."

"Seven hours!? Why didn't your bosses close up shop by now!?" You were still working?? AT MIDNIGHT!? He opened and closed his mouth a couple times before he asked at how stunned he was.

"I don't know i-if they can."

"Why?"

"I said I want my coffee!! And I'm not leaving here until I have it!!", He shrieked into Gordie's face, and to the gym leader's credit he remained calm just looking at the slightly taller man.

"'Lright, bud. Back it up." He held up his hands and started to herd the man back from the counter. "These girls are overworked and need some rest n' by the way yer actin' so do you. Go home."

"Maybe ya didn't hear me clearly," he yelled louder than you had ever heard him yell before at the crowd. "I SAID EVERYONE GET OUT!!"

"....Where's the owners?"

"WHY DIDN'T YOU CLOSE!?"

"OH!! HARD FOR YOU!? THE ONE WHO'S SITTIN' IN A CHAIR IN FRONT OF A GRILL LEAVIN' JUST TWO PEOPLE TO DO EVERYTHING ELSE WITH ANGRY CUSTOMERS!!"

One of them said something that sounded like ''-n't mind-"

"Ladies! ...You officially have the REST of the week off. No need to thank me. Just grab your coats and head home."

You both remained quiet for a moment before Sapphire asked quietly, "Wat?"

"I said you both need to get out of here. Go on. Go HOME. Get some rest. Go to sleep. Get warm! All of that stuff! Take your pay for the night and vamoose."

"But...what about-"

"Those chefs seem pretty relaxed. I'm SURE they got plenty of energy to clean up their own mess."

"Oh thank you so much!," Sapphire all but practically sobbed and wobble-walked herself on tired legs away from the counter but you didn't have the energy to do so.

Gordie must've noticed because he squatted down next to your exhausted form and gently placed a hand on your shoulder. "Hey. Are you alright there?"

Tiredly you nodded quietly. "I just wanna go home."

"Yeah..Alright. C'mon," he said as you felt an arm start to pry you away from the wall, "Let's get ya on your feet and get you home."

"G-GORDIE!? PUT ME DOWN!!"

"Relax. Jeez, you're more hard headed than a diamond."

"Hey...Are you alright?"

He nodded with a concerned look. "'Course...Ya want me to stay with you or-"

You waved him off tiredly. "Honestly, no. I just wanna be left alone so I can sleep."

Again he nodded and stood back up. "Alright...It's late anyways. I should head back and make sure the crowd from the party's died down without any damages...Are ya sure you'll be alright?"

"Yeah...I'll be fine."

"Right. ..Goodnight then. I-I'll see myself out. Get some rest. Ok?"

"....Right. *yyyyaaaawwwwnn* 'M on it."

"Hey, Y/n. Good mornin'!..Or should I say afternoon?"

"Gordie?," you asked blinking confused, "What are you doing here?"

"Well I just checked on Sapphire to make sure she was doing ok after last night-"

Oh right..That actually happened! "Is she alright!?"

"She's fine. Just tired and somewhat cranky. I just finished up evrything else so I wanted to drop by and make sure you were alright."

You gave another tiny yawn. "I'm fine thanks. Just a bit tired, but I feel a lot better now. But why do you have that?" You asked gesturing to the food.

"Oh..How nice!" You smiled and stepped aside. "Come in."

"Huh? Oh thanks." He stepped right in and was greeted with your small herd. "Ah. I see that Houndoom of yours is lookin' better."

"I hope they don't fire me-"

Aw crap. You forgot about that. "Oh yeah." You scowled at your hand for a moment. "Some old hag decided to spill her drink on me and burnt my hand a bit."

"SHE BURNT YOUR HAND!?"

"It's not too bad," you assured him as he no gained a panicked look, "It doesn't hurt anymore and it'll go away in a couple days. I'm more mad she didn't pay than anything else- Wha- HEY! GORDIE!!"

"'S not serious. Thank Arceus," he mumbled in relief.

"...Gordie," you slowly asked making him flinch, "Just so we're clear. Are you...asking me out?"

OH SWEET ARCEUS HE WAS GONNA GET REJECTED SO FAST!! RIP RAIHAN!! HE'S ABOUT TO KNOW HOW HE FELT!! he only slowly gulped again. "Um....Y-Yeah?"

"Oh. Ok then! What time?"

RECORD SCRATCH-

His mind blanked for a moment. "......wot..."

"I said sure. When do you wanna go out?," you calmly responded with a smile.

Again he could only stare. ".....Did you just say bloody YES to ME!?"

"Yes?," you slowly asked raising a brow. "Is that surprising?"

"W-WHY THO!?"

"HOW ARE YOU SO CALM ABOUT THIS?!"

He raised a hand and opened his mouth-...Before slowly lowering it. "Ah..Well when you put it that way..*cough cough*." He straightened back up. "So uh-...T-Tomorrow works for you?"

"Friday? Sounds great! Can't wait for my first date."

AGAIN RECORD SCRATCH-

"Hold up!...First date? As in-...Y-You never went out with someone before?!"

"No not really. But I'm sure it'll be fine with you..." You paused looking down. "Um..Gordie."

"Y-Yeah?"

"You're still holding my hand."

"Hey it's ok."

THIRD RECORD SCRATCH-

A date. You just agreed to have your first date with GORDIE in less than twenty four hours and you have absolutely no idea how a date was supposed to go.

"....SPARKY!! CALL SONIA!! I NEED ADVICE NOW!!!"

#diamond in the rough #pokemon shield #pokemon swsh #pokemon sword #pokemon sword and shield #pokemon gordie x reader #pokemon gordie #gordie x reader #reader x gordie

0 notes

softxsuki · 3 years

Note

Please I need more fluffy Yoongi one shots it’s always angst for him ❣️💕💞💓💗💖💘💝

Yoongi with Reader Who Wants A Late Night Snack

Pairings: Yoongi x Gn!Reader

Warnings: None

Genre: Fluff

Post Type: One-shot

Work Count: 1.1k

Summary: In which you wake up in the middle of the night feeling hungry, so you run to the kitchen to make some food. You end up making too much noise and waking Yoongi up, so he makes you food as well (once again, my summaries suck, I’m sorry).

[A/N: I think we all need and love soft Yoongi fluff. I don’t know why there’s so much angst out there for him :( he’s a soft babie. ANYWAY, thank you so much for the request anon! I got a little creative and it honestly took me a while to come up with this, idk why. I hope you all enjoy reading this! :D]

You quietly uncover yourself and slowly slither out from your boyfriend's grasp who was fast asleep. Your stomach had been gurgling for the past hour and you couldn’t handle it anymore. You grab your phone from the nightstand and read the time on your home screen.

“12:45am. That’s not too late,” you mumble to yourself and continue to try and sneak out of your shared room.

You creep out the bedroom door and quietly close it behind you as you continue on your way to the kitchen.

It’s dark in your small apartment; the only bit of light seeping through was from the street lights outside. Not wanting to risk turning on the kitchen lights and having the light leak under the bedroom door and waking Yoongi, you decide to use your phone flashlight.

The small bit of light makes it easier to travel through your kitchen into the cabinet with your pots and pans. You grab a pot and place it on your counter as you then to look for something quick you could cook up. You weren’t the best cook, but you just needed to have something to ease your stomach until the morning.

You grab a few ingredients and head back to your pot on the counter. While chopping up your ingredients, your elbow accidentally collides with the pot at the edge of the counter which comes crashing down onto your foot with a loud bang. You stifle your scream as you grab your foot and start jumping up and down, rubbing the painful area. You hear shuffling in the bedroom and the door bursts open as a frantic Yoongi comes running out ready to fight the source of the noise. He relaxes a bit when his eyes meet your hopping figure in the dimly lit room.

“What happened, are you okay?” he asks, walking towards you and switching the lights on.

“The pot fell on my foot,” you whine while continuing to rub the spot that was throbbing.

He shook his head and helped you walk over to the couch in your living room. As he guides you to sit, he walks back into the kitchen without a word. A few seconds later, he returns with a bag of frozen vegetables and places it on your foot. You quietly thank him and sit together with him in silence.

“Sorry for waking you up,” you break the silence.

“It’s fine. Why are you up anyway?” he questions.

“I was hungry.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?”

Your eyes shoot up to his own. You wonder if you heard what he just said correctly. The man who loves his sleep just asked why you didn’t wake him up for some stupid midnight food cravings.

“I just didn’t want to bother you. I know you love your sleep,” you shrug.

“Yeah but I love you more,” he flashes his gummy smile at you, “I’m sure you prefer my cooking anyway. How does ramen sound?”

“Ramen sounds amazing,” you say as your stomach grumbles once again.

He reaches over to fluff your hair and walks back over to the kitchen without a word. You follow after him, wanting to keep him company as he cooks. He reaches over for an apron, ties it around his waist, and moves his attention over to the ingredients that you had pulled out earlier. You sit at the island stool quietly watching him cut up the ingredients and placing them aside.

You love the way he’d go serious and stick his tongue out a little while he cut up the ingredients. You admire the way he rolled his neck around to stretch it every once and a while to loosen his stiff muscles up from looking down at the cutting board. Your ears perk up as he starts softly humming to himself while setting the pot of water on the stove and throwing in all the ingredients as the water begins to boil.

Yoongi then turns his attention to you and walks over to the other side of the island, right across from you. He places his elbow on the counter and copies your pose of having your hands hold your face up (if that makes sense NJFEAJ). He tilts his head to the side for a second before leaning in and leaving a gentle peck on your nose.

“Next time, please wake me up. I don’t want you getting hurt,” he whispers inches away from your face.

All you can do is gulp and slowly nod your head in response as you feel the heat rising to your ears. He smiles a little at your red ears and reaches out to cup them in his hands.

“I’m glad I still have that effect on you.”

“I don’t! It’s not fair,” you pout in embarrassment.

“Don’t worry baby. You still get me all blushy as well,” he blushes.

When the food is done, he takes the pot of ramen and places it on the living room table and you both sit on the floor and turn the television on. You slurp your ramen in a comfortable silence as you sit side by side.

Once you finish you feel your eyes start to get heavy, so you lean your head on Yoongi’s shoulder who has also finished eating. After a few minutes Yoongi hears your breathing slow down as you fall asleep. He admires your face as you sleep peacefully on his shoulder. He wondered how he got so lucky to be with an adorable dork like you. You make him so happy and he always promised himself that he’d do the same in return.

Shaking himself out of his thoughts and his eyes away from you, he leans your head against the sofa so he can clear up the living room. He takes all the dirty dishes and leaves them soaking in the sink so he could wash them in the morning.

Yoonig walks back into the living and bends down to lift your sleeping form into his arms bridal style and walks you back into your shared room. He places you gently on your side of the bed and tucks you in before walking to the opposite side of the bed and quietly lying down next to you. As you stir a bit, he reaches over to rub your back to soothe you back to sleep. Your eyes peak open a little as you look up at him.

“Thank you Yoongi, I love you,” you let out before closing your eyes once again.

He smiles once again to himself and brings you closer into his arms, “Anytime baby. I love you too.”

And with that, the both of you drift off to sleep in each other’s arms with full bellies for the night.

REQUESTS ARE OPEN :D

Posted: 5/5/2021

251 notes · View notes

farfromsugafanfic · 3 years

Text

Sutures - Chapter Four: Urge

Genre: Soulmates AU, Idiots to Lovers, slight Enemies to Lovers

Pairing: Yoongi/Named Reader

Warnings (chapter specific): mentions of hickeys, Sumi’s ex is a dick, making out, heavy petting, smut lead up, smut themes

Synopsis: “A person often meets his destiny on the road he took to avoid it.” –Jean de la Fontaine

There was only one thing you and Min Yoongi had in common that night. You were both brokenhearted. You only intended to be together for one night, but when you both end up in the hospital the next day you discover that you are soulmates. It could kill you to be apart. As you and Yoongi attempt to sever the bond between you, will another be formed?

Notes: This was originally written and completed on Wattpad between 2018 and the beginning of 2020. I’ll be slowly posting the chapters here. I may make a tag list depending on if enough people want to follow along with updates. Leave me some feedback if you would like added to a tag list.

Previous | Series Masterlist | Next

You hugged Kitty to your chest and made your way to the kitchen. You heard the rustling of pots and pans and Jimin's laughter. Even though you'd only known Jimin for under two days, his laughter quickly become one of your favorite sounds, something that never made you smile. However, most of the time you weren't horrendously hungover.

"Morning," you said, trying to muster a small smile, even though your head was pounding.

Three of the seven boys who lived in the dorm turned to look at you. Yoongi was already sat at the table, scrolling through his phone, a bowl of fruit in front of him. Hoseok was in the kitchen and Jimin sat on the opposite end of the table from Yoongi, his legs swinging freely. You smiled at how close the boys were and how comfortable they were with each other. It made you feel even worse for intruding in on the bond.

"Good morning," the boys said, nearly in unison.

"Jimin," you said. "Did you put Kitty in the box to come here?"

Jimin shook his head, glancing down to the stuffed cat you held in your arms.

"No, I put him in the donation pile as you wanted."

"Huh," you said, holding Kitty out in front of you and smiling at her fondly. "Well, I'm glad she found her way here anyway."

Jimin smiled at you, his eyes some mixture of happiness for you and worry.

"Did we get internet back?"

The boys exchanged glances and nodded.

You looked over to Yoongi, who was now looking up from his phone. His dark eyes were boring straight into you, and you suspected he already knew what you were going to ask.

"Did you find out who got the shoes?"

The room fell silent, except for the tap which Hoseok accidentally left on as he had looked up at you. You didn't know who it could possibly be that would elicit such a response, but Yoongi's face softened as he stood.

"Park Minki."

You blinked in disbelief, wondering if the hangover had somehow messed with your hearing. Yoongi's eyes were softer, the softest they had been in the seventy two hours you'd known him.

"My ex?" you choked out.

Yoongi nodded.

---

You took a deep breath as you stood in front of the full length mirror and strategically placed the scarf around your neck. The bruises weren't as prominent as the day before, but you feared Minki would still notice them. The rest of your outfit was quite simple, a pair of jeans and a nice top. You wore your hair down, hoping it too would help hide Yoongi's marks on your neck.

When you'd broken up with Minki, you'd thought you'd never have to see the boy again. While you still loved him, you knew seeing him again would hurt you, but you wanted to handle this yourself. For whatever reason bought the shoes, you knew it couldn't be settled with money. He wanted to see you again, wanted you to see him again.

While you normally would just forget the shoes, Yoongi's reputation was on the line. And yours for that matter. You may not be an idol, but the fact you were connected to one, could be enough to destroy you.

"Do you really want to look that good for your ex?" Yoongi said, entering your bedroom with a soft knock on your open door. He was dressed wearing just a simple sweatshirt and jeans, a snapback covering his dyed hair and a mask pulled down under his chin.

"What? Jealous?" you smirked, giving up on arranging the scarf and turning to face him.

"No," he said. "I just thought you didn't care what he thought anymore." He walked closer to you, the faint smell of his cologne tickling your nose. His fingers reached up and moved the scarf so it that it covered the half of a hickey that was still partially visible. "Obviously, you do."

He stepped away from you the scent of him still lingering in his place. You were almost disappointed when he stepped away, wishing you could fall asleep in his scent.

"I'm sorry you have to come," you said. "And miss out on work."

"I can work when we get back," he said. "Besides, it would be a whole lot worse for both of us if I didn't come." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a mask. "Wear this, if we run into any paparazzi it will be harder for them to identify you."

You nodded, looping the mask around your ears and pulling it up over your mouth. Yoongi pulled his up and nodded to you, asking if you were ready.

You nodded in affirmation, but you felt the butterflies in your stomach. You didn't think you would ever be ready.

---

You entered the cafe first. You spotted Minki almost immediately, he was seated at a table near the middle, you could see the shoes placed on the table. You already felt a twinge of embarrassment, knowing he'd displayed them so publicly.

You pulled down the mask and sat down across from him. His mouth widened into a smirk when you sat down, something you used to love about him, but now it just felt like he was mocking you.

"You look nice," he said.

"Thanks," you said, trying not to meet his gaze.

You noticed Yoongi walk past you and sit at a table behind Minki's view, but facing you. You met his eyes momentarily but didn't want Minki to see your wandering gaze. Minki had a temper occasionally, and while he had never hurt you, you feared he wouldn't hesitate to hurt Yoongi. And even though you and Yoongi weren't exactly friends, you still didn't want him to get hurt because of you.

"So, why'd you leave the shoes at the bar?" Minki asked.

"Does that really matter, Minki? They're mine, I just want them back."

"You fucked him? Didn't you?"

You clenched your fists and looked at the black pumps sitting on the table. You sighed and tried to collect your thoughts.

"How'd you know they were mine?"

"You don't think I wouldn't recognize the shoes I bought you for your birthday last year?" The smirk was on his face again, like a mosquito that you wanted to kill, but that was just out of your reach. "I picked them out especially for you, remember?"

You did remember. How he told you that he went to multiple shoes, trying to find the perfect shoes. Settling on a pair of black pumps. "Simple, like you," he'd said when he gave them to you.

"Now that we've broken up, they're mine now? Since I paid for them?"

You wanted to bang your fists down on the table and scream at him until he was as scared of you as you were of him. You wanted to swat the smirk from his face. You wanted to point out all the things you'd bought him. All the baseball game tickets. The T-shirt he wore. Half the down payment on his car.

"I don't care," you said. "Do whatever you want with them. I just want to leave."

Minki softened then. He'd seen you break down multiple times before, he knew the signs. The way you hid your face. The way you tried to curl yourself into a ball, no matter where you were.

"He's here, isn't here?" your ex asked. "You're not mine to protect anymore." His hand cupped the fabric of your knee. You felt shivers run down your spine as tears pricked at your eyes.

You noticed his eyes wandering down to your neck and where the scarf had moved aside. There was no sense in trying to deny what the scarf revealed.

"Huh," he said. "You never let me do that."

"I never was yours to protect," you said, your eyes red and tear stained, trying to ignore his last comment. You reached down and moved his hand from your knee. You felt his palm beneath your fingertips and the sensation ran through your body. You felt his hands on you again, your body grew warm, but not in the pleasant way. You needed to get out. Without any more thought, you grabbed your things and ran from the cafe.

---

Yoongi's body stiffened as he watched Minki's hand grab your knee. He wanted to push Minki away from you, shield you from ever having to feel the other boy's touch again. He saw the way your cheek's flushed, although not in the cute way. He saw as you tried to shift away, he could feel your discomfort.

Your scarf had slipped slightly, revealing part of one of the bruises. Yoongi knew the other boy saw based on the way he shifted forward.

"Huh, you never let me do that," the other boy said.

Yoongi's jaw stiffened. Part of him wanted to rip him apart for bringing attention to something that you obviously hadn't wanted Minki to see, but there was a small buzzing inside of him. One night and you allowed him to do something you'd never allowed your previous boyfriend to do for years. He repressed the pride as you tearfully ran out the door.

Yoongi waited a moment to get up and follow you, not wanting to draw too much attention. He made eye contact with Minki as he walked past, pulling down his mask momentarily, but pulling it back up as he walked through the door of the cafe.

---

You curled yourself into the car seat, pulling your legs into your stomach and hiding your face against the car door. You put on your seatbelt, knowing Yoongi would follow you out.

Yoongi opened the car door a minute or so later, greeting the driver as he did so and telling him to take both of you back to the dorm. He pulled down his mask and put on his seatbelt.

"Why do you let him talk to you like that?" Yoongi asked.

You scoffed, trying to hide your tears. The last thing you wanted was Yoongi to see your tears, you felt like if you allowed yourself to cry in front of him, it would somehow strengthen the bond. Yoongi was so strong and allowing him to see your weakness terrified you.

"He's my ex for a reason, okay?"

"Well, we still need to get the shoes back somehow. You sure money won't work with him?"

"He just wants to humiliate me," you said, choking slightly on the words. "Do we really need to get them back? I mean, they're just shoes. How much harm could really be done?"

Yoongi's eyes widened and his form stiffened.

"You really don't realize, do you?" He looked out the window in slight disbelief before turning back to you. "I guess, this explains how you didn't recognize me."

"Yoongi..."

"Even just the rumors of what happened between us could destroy both of us," he said. "My fans need someone they can trust and look up to. Most of them don't even know I'm not with Jihee anymore. They know about the soulmate thing, but we only used that to find you. We're going to deny it later, anyway."

"You didn't have to sleep with me then," you said. "If you would've just pushed me off your lap, none of this would've happened."

"If you wouldn't have fallen in my lap, none of this would've happened."

You sighed, silence ensuing. The road noise the only sound. Even the driver was silent from behind the partition.

"Sumi..." Yoongi said, his hand suddenly coming to rest just above your knee. His fingertips digging into the fabric of your jeans. His touch was warm, but instead of overheating as you did with Minki's touch, your temperature matched his.

"What?" you asked, but your question was soon answered as you felt heat rise in your stomach. Suddenly, Yoongi appeared less like the image obsessed jerk of a few minutes ago and looked more like the man you met at the bar three days ago.

You unhooked your seatbelt and straddled Yoongi's lap, your hands coming up to cup his cheeks as his ran up to play with your hair. Your lips connected and nearly immediately his tongue slipped between yours.

Yoongi's hat--which you hadn't paid much attention to before--suddenly was in your way. You ripped it off, exposing his messy hair. It was obvious he hadn't styled it before putting on the snapback, but you liked it better that way, it allowed your fingers to tangle in his hair.

"The windows?" you asked, falling back onto the seat as Yoongi unhooked his seatbelt and hovered over you.

"They're tinted," he said, grabbing hold of your scarf and pulled it over your head. It landed somewhere on the floor of the car, out of sight. "Don't worry, no one will see."

He leaned down and latched onto your lips once again. His hands wandering under the hem of your shirt, causing it to ride up slightly. You splayed your fingers against his firm chest, causing him to stop momentarily.

"What?" he asked.

"I think...I think this is what the doctor was talking about..." you said. "I think we need to stop."

Despite your words, your hands slipped underneath his sweatshirt, feeling the warm skin beneath. You wanted to feel that skin against you, but before you could pull it over his head, he surprised you, by pulling up your shirt, exposing your stomach.

"I'll do it lower this time," he said, his voice raspy and lower than normal. "So you don't have to worry about hiding them." His lips latched onto the skin of your stomach, causing you to release a small moan as you ran your fingers from his hairline and down to the nape of his neck.

"Yoongi..."

"Why'd you have to wear that perfume for him? It drives me crazy."

He curved his two index fingers into the belt loop of your jeans and tugged slightly, not to pull them down, but rather to tease you.

"You're for my eyes only."

"Yoongi," you said. "We need to stop."

Yoongi pulled away, a sheepish look crossing his face. He pulled down your shirt and sat back in the seat.

You, too, sat back up, trying to catch your breath. Your heart was racing, partially from the thoughts of the feel of his lips, but you were scared. You felt so out of control, something had taken you over entirely. It wasn't a secret that you were attracted to Yoongi, you did willingly sleep with him, but the urges pulled you together, even when you least wanted it.

"That was...that was...weird..."

Yoongi nodded in agreement, reaching down and retrieving your scarf. You did the same with his hat and you exchanged the items.

You watched out the window as the car pulled into the driveway of the dorm. You glanced back over at Yoongi, noticing a bit of your lipstick managed to cling to his bottom lip. You chuckled slightly before reaching over and using your thumb to wipe it from his lip.

He watched you, not making any movement to stop you, but your gaze shifted downward, not able to meet his eyes.

"Lipstick," you said.

The driver opened the door and the two of you walked back into the dorm.

---

Jihee (9:02 am): Good morning handsome :)

Jihee (11:15 am): I heard about the shoe business. You always use to complain about having to take off mine.

Jihee (11:17 am): You should tell her to be more careful though. :)

Jihee (1:20 pm): Babe...please just respond to me...

Jihee (1:21 pm): You're making me seem desperate.

Jihee (4:45 pm): Her picture's out there now, you know? Some guy saying she cheated with you.

Jihee (5:00 pm): She doesn't look like the type to cheat.

Jihee (6:34 pm): The more I think about it...the less she seems like your type. Especially for a rebound.

Jihee (7:00 pm): You could do much better if you wanted to Oppa. She's kind of pretty and all, but don't you think she's a little simple?

Yoongi (7:02 pm): Whatever this is, is between us. Leave her out of it.

65 notes · View notes

artificialqueens · 3 years

Text

Chase the Shadows Away (Taywhora) - Juno

Summary: It’s April 2020, the UK is in lockdown, and Tayce gets a hand-delivered letter from her neighbour Aurora which may change her life.

A/N: So this is set during lockdown and does mention covid, so please bear this in mind when reading if this will be a worry, but otherwise I hope you enjoy. CWs in place for alcohol, mental health mentions, and non-adherence to lockdown rules at one point.

Otherwise it’s quite fluffy with some h/c. I hope you enjoy.

The first letter Tayce got was in early April.

She hadn’t had much post since the whole country had been locked down, no one allowed to move outside their front doors for more than once a day for threat of fines and penalties and even getting sick. Most of the letters she was getting this week had been birthday cards for her absent housemate. She’d put the various brightly-coloured cards and Amazon boxes in a pile outside Viv’s bedroom door, and gave the pile the middle finger every time she walked past it.

But today there was a plain, white envelope, with “Hi” written on it in glittery red pen, and when Tayce opened it, she found a piece of notebook paper that had been folded at least four times, and Tayce nearly threw it across the room with the effort it was taking to open.

This had better be worth it.

When she got it unfolded, she read the three lines in the same glitter pen, then again, and once more just in case.

‘Hi, I’m Aurora. I’m on my own in my flat 7D because my housemate moved home because of lockdown, and you seem to be alone too. Want to write to each other? X’

And Tayce couldn’t hold back the rush of emotion, as much as she tried - but she was alone, and she took comfort knowing only these four walls would see tears stream down her face.

——

Tayce was on her own in the flat.

In the day time she opened her work laptop, thanking god she was allowed to work from home; throwing a hoodie over her pyjama top just in time for the 9am meeting where her boss grinned at everyone and told them all to keep swimming and chin up and whatever other self-indulgent bullshit she had read in her How To Motivate Your Teammanual in the chapter about Managing Pandemics.

Tayce was still surprised at how much bullshit her workmates seemed to swallow; all of them with the same broad smiles and straightened hair and shaved chins and eyeliner, for fuck’s sake - but Tayce copied them, knowing that not painting her own smile and her own eyebrows on was damning herself for the inevitable call and the simpering It’s Good To Talk conversation, followed by u k hun xx to be flashing repeatedly in the work WhatsApp group from all the team.

In the evenings, the only noise was the clink of the glass bottle against the wine glass. One glass was enough to make her a little sleepy, two was enough to make her dance, and three was enough to make her post something cryptic on her insta story and see if anyone DMed her.

Sometimes they did.

Joe liked to crack a few morbid jokes about how it was the apocalypse and we were all going to be dead by 2021, which didn’t help Tayce in the slightest. Ginny would message “You alright, bab?” at three in the morning, but never reply to any other message. Tia would send Tayce a picture of the banana bread she’d baked as if that would cheer Tayce up.

And Cherry sent her a message one time, telling her to look after her mental health, and then Tayce felt bad because Cherry worked for the NHS and only seemed to work and sleep right now, her insta photos showing her looking more and more gaunt, with #ClapForHeroes and #ProtectTheNHS appearing at the bottom of all her posts.

Nothing curbed the gaping black hole in Tayce’s chest, sucking everything that was good from her body and leaving her a shell.

Until the letter arrived.

——

Two days after she’d posted her own letter back to 7D, another letter arrived, in the same glittery red pen, this time addressed to her, with Tayce written on the front of the envelope this time.

‘Hi Tayce (sp?) nice to meet you, don’t worry I don’t know what to say either! Where in Wales are you from? I’m from Nottingham but I came to London for uni and didn’t leave! Are you still working rn? I got furloughed which is a bit shit. And my housemate is staying with her boyfriend so she can’t move back. Have you been clapping for the NHS? Someone on my floor was banging a pan or something!! Hope your ok? WB Aurora xx’

“I’m making a new friend,” Tayce had said to her mum on the phone later that night.

“In lockdown?”

“She’s delivering me letters.”

“How?”

“By hand, mum.” Tayce forced a laugh. “You know. Through the letterbox like a normal letter.”

“I hope you’re washing your hands before and after you open them, are you?”

“Yeah, of course,” Tayce grimaced as she said it.

“Good. Stay safe. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

One of these days, Tayce thought as she disconnected the call, she might be able to say it without her voice breaking.

——

By mid-April, a full month since lockdown had started and two weeks after the first letters between them, Aurora had given Tayce her instagram handle, and Tayce had given hers in return. Tayce found herself spending all of her Good Friday skimming down the page on moreauroramore, looking through all of her new pen pal’s photos and trying desperately not to look like an idiot by accidentally double-tapping any that were obviously over a year old.

Tayce had pictured Aurora in her mind as being over-excitable, short, with dark hair and lots of dusty pinks and baby blues and other pastel colours as her aesthetic, maybe with pot plants and cat pictures and cutesy little slogans surrounded by hearts. Instead she’d found a smolderingly attractive woman with a ridiculously versatile and sophisticated sense of fashion; one photo in a rococo-inspired summer dress, and the next in a cerulean blazer, matching trousers, and stilettos. Her hair was platinum-blonde, but it was hard to tell her eye colour as she seemed to own a never-ending plethora of colour contacts; and the eyebrow ring in the early pictures was replaced by a silver septum ring in later ones.

Her own insta looked quite plain in comparison, Tayce thought to herself. The landscapes she liked to post were interesting to her but probably not to the magnificent person on Aurora’s insta. The last picture Tayce had taken was of herself with her brother and niece in red rugby shirts just before the Six Nations was on; the last selfie before the last time she’d gone home which was … only February, she realised.

February felt like years ago.

When Tayce had awoken the next morning, she was greeted by the doorbell, and an Amazon driver sprinting away the moment she opened the door. A letter was on the doormat, in the familiar red glittery pen, and a single chocolate Easter egg.

‘Happy Easter Tayce. Don’t know if you celebrate but lol thought you would like some chocolate anyway! Don’t eat it all at once. Aurora xx’

It made Tayce’s gut wrench with guilt that she hadn’t thought to get Aurora one.

But it made Tayce even more pained, once she had clicked onto her instagram, to see that moreauroramore had liked all thirteen of the pictures she’d posted this year.

——

The zoom call at the end of April with the others from her uni group, saw not just Cherry missing, but also Ellie and Veronica.

“Ellie’s moving this week,” Lawrence nodded at the screen, “but that was all she’d tell me. She didn’t say where. Or if she’s staying in Dundee or anything. I just know she’s still trying to get her internet set up and I think she’s a bit stuck.”

“What about Vee?” Ginny asked in a low voice.

They all recognised the somber tone. They’d all taken it up. A change in their voices that all of them recognised in a kind of collective telepathic awareness. A hush in the calls, as if someone were dying, or had just died. Whenever anyone was missing, it was always the same worry circling all of their minds: what if it’s covid what if it’s covid what if it’s -

Tia was shaking her head. “It’s not covid,” she said, reading the minds of everyone through the internet, but her voice was still solemn as she continued. “I spoke to her mum. She’s -“

“Say depressed, Tia, it’s fine.” Bimini spoke gently, but not all of them were as open as Bimini was. Especially when it came to Veronica, who was a brick wall when it came to showing what she was feeling.

“She’s - not in a good place.”

“Say mental health,” Bimini said, shaking their head. “It’s okay to not be okay.”

“I don’t think that’s gonna make her feel any better, Bim.” Tia rolled her eyes.

“We’re all feeling this,” Pip nodded. “We all need to talk to each other.”

“Veronica won’t. Not yet. We just need to be there for her when she does. Anyway, who’s done anything interesting? Anyone else been trying banana bread? Everyone managed to find bogroll from somewhere now? No one is having the same problem that Joe had when she -“

“I don’t think we need to go any further with that one, love,” Joe muttered.

“I’ve made a pen friend.”

Everyone sat in stunned silence at Tayce’s sentence, mouths open like fish at feeding time.

“A pen friend? What is this, 1986?”

“Shut up, Ginny. I think that’s kind of cute, actually,” Tia mused, tilting her head to one side.

Tayce nodded. “Something a bit different. She lives in my block of flats. Two floors up from me. Been nice, to talk to someone, ever since Viv buggered off to her boyfriend’s house. Seriously, as soon as Boris announced lockdown she was jumping in her car and off to Liverpool.”

“You said she was a bit flaky,” Tia said sympathetically. “What’s your new pen pal’s name?”

“Aurora.”

“A-what?” Ginny raised their eyebrows. “Can we just call her Rory?”

“No.”

“We should get her on a call with us when Veronica’s back. Ronni and Rory, sounds like Ant and Dec will have some stiff competition when they get wind of that.”

“Ginny -“ Tia began, but Tayce was trying to hold back a chuckle.

——

‘Someone is talking about a street party on the 8th of May. Are you gonna go? I was gonna stay indoors but if you’re gonna go outside i will too xx’

Tayce knew she shouldn’t be thinking of meeting strangers outside her flat while the pandemic was ongoing, but she hadn’t seen a familiar human since March other than on a zoom call screen.

‘Hi Aurora, yeah i will go outside for a little bit. Look forward to meeting you properly instead of over letters! Tayce’

And Tayce finally stopped hesitating, adding two kisses on the end for the first time.

The weather was meant to be lush for a May bank holiday, as Tayce knew because her colleagues wouldn’t shut up about it. Almost eight weeks of lockdown were beginning to show the cracks in all their faces - no more eyeliner, and even Linda in Accounts had stopped posting boomerang videos of her kids doing Joe Wicks workouts while she waved her arms behind them.

So Tayce was over the moon when Friday rolled around and she could slam the Dismiss button on her phone alarm, turn over and sleep in until noon. Once she woke up though, she sat up with a jolt in her bed and realised she’d have to get ready; somehow it was important that she looked right today.

It was a power play, she knew it. An armour. But there was just something about clothes that made her mood turn in an instant. Her favourite leather jacket was probably a bit too heavy for the warm sunshine - warm sunshine? In May? - so she opted for the black denim instead and a skirt that hugged her slender figure, leaving her hair loose and wishing she’d gone for a trim before the lockdown. Maybe she should take her scissors to it?

She held the only scissors she had to hand - a pair of craft scissors - and wondered what her hairdresser mum would say if she knew that her daughter had taken non-styling scissors to the 30-inches of hair that she had.

No - better not. Her mum could give her a go over once the lockdown period had ended.

Someone was playing tunes on a speaker already when Tayce came down the stairs, dragging the garden chair Viv had left behind and brushing the digestive crumbs off it. One of the neighbours she recognised from her floor handed her an ice-cold can of Fosters which she sipped, not really enjoying the taste but relishing the freedom of it all. She knew to keep two metres from everyone, and she knew Cherry would absolutely murder her if she disobeyed that rule.

As soon as Aurora came into view from the block of flats, Tayce knew that keeping to the two metre rule would prove a little harder than she had first thought.

Aurora’s insta pictures showed a fashion model trapped in a little box on a screen, striving to get out - but in the flesh, she looked as if she had just rolled out of the living room after a Tiger King marathon. The grey jogging bottoms paired with the crop top and zip-up hoodie were probably too warm for today - 23 degrees, the radio kept repeating - but she made them look so effortless and stylish that Tayce suddenly wanted to buy some. Her platinum hair was piled in a messy bun, dark brown roots showing but the lackadaisical nature made it seem like Aurora meant it that way.

On her insta page, Aurora was way out of Tayce’s league; but here in life, she seemed a lot more accessible, a lot calmer, a lot more real.

Maybe it’s armour for her too. All this perfection in the photos. God. Why did I wear this?

She dropped her own deck chair down a reasonable distance from Tayce, taking another can of Fosters from the same neighbour and cracking it open. She took a swig, wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, and waved.

“Hi, Tayce. Here we are, then!”

“Yeah,” was the only thing Tayce could think of in response. Really cool. Very clever.

But Aurora was talking animatedly about how much she’d missed the sun, as she pulled a pair of sunglasses from her pocket and leaned back against the deck chair, claiming “Tesco are having them on sale - two for £12, so I got two - what else am I gonna do on furlough other than sunbathe!”

And the more the Fosters flowed - their neighbour’s 24-pack almost completely gone before 5pm, he seemingly wanting to give a can to the whole block - the more Aurora opened up her life history to Tayce.

How much she wished she was still in Worksop and could go on the long walks into the forest. How she’d give anything to hug her mum, a care-worker, and how she FaceTimed her shielding grandad every Sunday at 6.30 just after he finished his tea.

But most of all, how lonely it was every single night being alone in a flat in a huge city. Aurora dabbed her watery eyes with her thumbs as she described how much she loved everything that London had to offer when it was full of people, not dead to the world like it was now - and in this hollow place that lockdown was, she’d discovered that a city - any city, however exciting - was just a built-up area if you had no one to share it with.

Tayce hadn’t expected to cry. She’d cried maybe once or twice this whole time in lockdown, still too numb to have taken everything in that was happening. But the moment she’d opened her mouth, suddenly the Fosters had started talking for her too, and she was spilling out her worries onto the pavement below them as Aurora rubbed her back.

How her mum was furloughed from the hairdresser and her dad was always out in the lorry up and down the country. Her brother and sister-in-law, and her niece, were all still fine in Newport, but Tayce had missed her niece’s birthday, having to settle for blowing her a kiss down FaceTime and promising her through gritted teeth and cold fear that she’d give her the biggest cwtch ever as soon as this was over.

But now Tayce was in tears again, this time on Aurora’s shoulder, releasing her sorrows onto this woman who she had only exchanged written words with; now seeing her true soul laid bare in emotions that just refused to stop once she started. Aurora’s gentle hands ghosted through her hair, but then gripped Tayce tightly to her chest, planting a long, tender kiss on her hairline.

How had this happened? How had social distancing become this? Two people, thinking they were islands, clinging to one another for dear life?

Tayce held her for too long.

Aurora’s hands froze as she realised what she had done at the same moment Tayce had.

Cherry is gonna kill me.

Aurora walked with Tayce back to her flat as the sun was setting. It was nine in the evening, the heat finally starting to break, and both of them were aching and tired, spent from their tears. Aurora gave Tayce’s hand a gentle squeeze but said nothing else, her eyes red underneath her sunglasses, and Tayce had felt herself harden once again, turning the key in the door and closing the outside world back to where it should be.

——

After two weeks had passed, both of them not developing any symptoms after their contact, Tayce had an idea.

She put the letter through the letterbox in 7D at midday when she broke for lunch, and had a reply by half past one, a new record for Aurora.

‘Tayce, I’d love to form a support bubble with you. I thought you would have one already thats why i didn’t ask! Want to put on a film tonight and just chill? Bubble bud? Aurora xx’

So Tayce saw inside Aurora’s flat for the first time that same evening. After work, she practically sprinted up the stairs, thankful to get away from more of u k hun xx and her still-simpering colleagues.

It was very clean, as if it had only just been cleaned that day - freshly-washed surfaces, hoovered carpets, a sparkling bathroom - and Tayce marvelled at how tidy and orderly things were, a stark contrast from her own living space which had evolved into a nest of mess by now. Aurora’s living room and kitchen space were one area, with a mismatched sofa and chair facing the tv screen, hooking up a PS4 - Tayce hadn’t counted Aurora as a Dishonoured player either. The wall opposite the window was filled with small pictures of past fashion models - Kate Moss, Agyness Deyn, Cara Delevigne - all with matte black frames which had obviously been painted in lockdown, as one was on the coffee table drying over a copy of Hello magazine.

“My housemate’s not coming back, I can see it happening now,” Aurora shrugged, “so why not make the house the way I like it while I look for someone else to live with?”

Aurora poured Tayce a huge glass of wine, and that was followed by another; while she topped up her own glass liberally and kept shifting on the sofa as if trying to get comfortable. Tayce, for her part, took the chair instead, while Aurora tapped on the PlayStation controller to try to get Netflix up. The more she drank, the more cumbersome the controller seemed to become in her hands, until Tayce leaned over and took it away from her, Aurora’s fingers lingering a little too long on it before relinquishing.

When Aurora got up, meaning to pour them both a fourth glass of wine, she slipped on something and tumbled into Tayce’s lap in the chair, tittering something that sounded like “god I’m clumsy” through the giggles that came from her, unable to stop. Tayce slapped her on the back as she started coughing, but as that died down, Aurora straightened up, picking up Tayce’s hand in hers and drawing her up and away to join her on the sofa.

Lockdown had been so fucking lonely.

Aurora’s hand in hers was all Tayce needed to dissolve every wall she was still rebuilding from May Bank Holiday.

Aurora’s eyes were on her, she knew; through her peripheral vision as she tried desperately to cling to her focus on whatever episode of Tiger King this was.

When Tayce finally met her gaze, she averted it, turning her face to the window opposite them. Almost … playfully.

So Tayce looked back at the TV screen, but Aurora’s hand squeezed at hers, thumb in her palm pressing right in the centre, the pressure somehow travelling all the way to her gut. Tayce turned back to her, and this time Aurora did not look away.

“God, you’re gorgeous.”

Aurora looked at her through her eyelashes, lips parted in a smirk, curiously searching Tayce with her gaze as if wondering what her next move would be.

Tayce blinked incredulously. “Me? Like this? What do you mean, I’m gorgeous? Have you seen yourself?”

“And that accent, oh my days -“

“Go to Newport, we all sound like this.”

But the wine was hitting hard now and oh god lockdown is so fucking lonely and Tayce’s feet on the floor suddenly felt unsteady and Aurora was so fucking close to her on the sofa -

——

Once the hangover was gone, the memory of rest of the night felt like a dream, or maybe a nightmare. Tayce wasn’t entirely sure when she’d gone back to her flat, but she had, long before night had fully fallen and long after she was sure the burgeoning friendship she was finally making with someone lay in tatters two floors up from her.

The wine had washed away the strength she’d had, leaving her raw and vulnerable, and all the affection that had been growing since Aurora had first held her bubbled and burst into life. And Aurora must have felt the same magnetic pull, drawing them together across the sofa, nail marks still present in Tayce’s back that she could see in the mirror, a bruise forming on Tayce’s collarbone as Aurora had dipped a little lower.

It had been Tayce who had halted it - not because she hadn’t wanted to, but because she couldn’t decipher how much of this was affection and how much of this was just two lonely people, starved of company, starved of normality, seeking and clinging to it in any form.

And now it was the following day, and Tayce still didn’t know.

The group call at the end of the day was interesting. She stretched over the back of the sofa in her living room to grab her water, and that must have been enough to flash a sliver of skin.

“What’s that?” Lawrence asked loudly, prompting everyone else to go quiet. “Tayce? What’s that on your chest, hmm?”

“I didn’t see anything.”

“You’re not wearing your glasses, Ginny, you can’t see shit. What’s that on your chest? Why d’you have a bruise there?”

“Hi!” Ellie’s voice as she joined the call unexpectedly saved Tayce any further embarrassment; everyone shrieked when she came on, having missed the last two zoom calls following her move. “Thank God my internet is working now, I’ve missed all your faces!”

Tayce silently thanked Ellie’s timing and contentedly listened to the rest of them as they chatted about everything and nothing that they’d all missed. All of them were there; even Cherry showed up about twenty minutes in to wave at them and blow them kisses, her face even more pallid than before; before ducking back out to go to bed.

Only Veronica was still missing.

“She’s been messaging me,” Tia explained, “and she said she’s feeling a bit better, but since she got furloughed, she’s feeling like there’s no point getting out of bed or getting ready because there’s nowhere to go.”

“Send her some love,” Tayce said, but Tia snorted.

“You send her it! She’s gonna feel better if she knows we all miss her.”

It was true though, Tayce realised after they all disconnected. They all seemed to be drifting apart, no more energy to continue with these online gatherings, even though there were so many virtual meetup groups and apps that there almost seemed to be no excuse now.

She looked back through her phone messages. She hadn’t messaged Veronica since early April, taking her silence as a sign that she wanted to be left alone; but what if it wasn’t? Veronica was a closed fist, everyone knew that. And Tayce’s brother? Again, early April, and a quick call the week after for her niece’s birthday.

Lockdown, and self-isolation, seemed to be one and the same.

So Tayce spent the rest of the afternoon sending messages to everyone she had neglected since then. Maybe they would reply, and maybe they wouldn’t - but there was no harm in reaching out, no negative consequences.

By the end of the day, she was fielding messages back and forth from everyone she thought she’d lost through lockdown, the grey cloud over her head starting to lift, the fuzzy feeling disappearing and clarity settling in. She felt light, lighter than she had in weeks; and warm as the summery days they were getting in this late-May spring.

Towards the end of the day, she got a message back from Veronica at last.

Veronica: I’m doing ok. I got up and went for a walk today just to the park and back. It’s really nice although my hay fever sucks. Thanks for checking in on me i appreciate it x Veronica: Oh also Tia said you had a hickey on the group call haha tell me what her name is x

Tayce was surprised to realise she was grinning at the phone as she read Veronica’s message, her fingers stroking the mark on her collarbone as if to savour the vivid image that it sparked in her head.

——

It was three days after their drunken kiss on the sofa that Tayce had another letter through the door. The same red glittery pen, the same scrawl, but the writing a little smaller as if Aurora wanted to diminish herself.

‘Hi Tayce. I’m really sorry if i came on too strong this week. Can we go back to friends? Want to hang out tonight, bubble bud? Aurora xx’

Tayce swallowed down the part of her that immediately rose up and cried that she … didn’t want to just be friends.

Then it hit her.

God. I only met this girl properly this month. What’s wrong with me?

But she replied and immediately started clearing the house.

She put the pile of Viv’s birthday cards and presents from the hallway floor into a cupboard under the sink, giving it the middle finger again; put the six-weeks worth of laundry on to wash; cleaned all the dishes; and dragged the hoover out of the tiny airing cupboard and got to work on the carpets. The hard floors she swept, and carried the bin bags out to the communal bins, all before midday.

“Who needs Joe Wicks workouts?” She muttered to herself, panting, as she tugged some marigolds over her hands to sort out the rest of the kitchen.

By the time it was six, and time for Aurora to arrive, Tayce thought the house looked much better, and honestly, she felt much better too. The little spring clean she’d given the place had cleared a little clutter from her head as well.

It’s nothing to worry about. She’d just coming over for food and -

Tayce grimaced as she realised she hadn’t thought of what to do for food. She thought back to the beans on toast she’d had at four and kicked herself for not thinking of that. Dominos was still delivering, so she brought up the app and busied herself looking through the list of pizzas.

Aurora hadn’t arrived by ten past six, and Tayce started to worry.

Maybe she’s changed her mind.

But Tayce refused to let that thought take any root. She looked at the clock, which of course seemed to slow down from having eyes on it, and firmly told herself that she would message Aurora at quarter past if she wasn’t here before.

With a minute to spare, Aurora turned up, grinning merrily and waving the bottle of rose in Tayce’s face.

“Hey bubble bud! Sorry I’m late, well I’m always late, sorry in advance if you expect me on time for anything!” Aurora took a step inside and her jaw dropped. “Wow, your place is well nice!”

“Thanks,” Tayce grinned, although she wasn’t sure what Aurora was looking at. Tayce wasn’t allowed anything on the walls from what her landlord said, but Aurora wouldn’t stay still - checking out the titles of the handful of CDs Tayce had brought down to London with her; scanning a nail along the books on the shelf above the TV.

“It’s nice to hold a book sometimes,” Tayce shrugged, “rather than just read it on the kindle app.”

When Aurora got to the kitchen, Tayce cringed. She’d have to confess.

“I haven’t got in anything to eat. Only - only some bread.”

“And pot noodles,” Aurora added, opening a cupboard and helping herself to the contents as if she’d lived here her whole life.

“And pot - oh, are you thinking, maybe …”

“No way!” Aurora slammed the cupboard door and grabbed her keys again. “Be right back!”

Ten minutes later and Tayce was at the hob over the oven with Aurora, dicing onions while she cut up a red pepper, mince that Aurora had grabbed from her own fridge was out and ready to go in too.

“I needed to use that up anyway,” she shrugged. “Please tell me you don’t just eat bread and pot noodles, Tayce, please. I need to give you a cooking crash course if you do! Didn’t you learn to cook at uni? Or didn’t you do much cooking before you went? Oh my days - no fry the onion off first, with the garlic - I’ll chop the mushrooms, Jesus Christ pot noodles …”

“I know how to cook, give me some credit!” Tayce murmured, but she couldn’t stop smiling. “I just haven’t been to the shop yet, it’s been a long week.”

Aurora closed her eyes and hummed in appreciation. “Just keep talking to me, please.”

“What about?”

“Anything! Your life, your family - I don’t know, house prices, I don’t care - but that accent, ugh -“ Aurora shivered.

“Yours is cute, too,” Tayce smirked.

Aurora looked at her reproachfully. “You’re lying.”

“Yeah, I am.”

It was no use. The air was full of electricity, static around them, and before Tayce knew what was happening, suddenly they were kissing again, this time stone-cold sober, while the onions burned shadows into the bottom of the pan.

——

Viv gave her notice on the flat at the start of June.

“I just can’t afford to live here anymore,” she explained, sighing, when she got back and started to pack up everything in her room. “I’m gonna see if I can get some work back home.”

Tayce was numb, although she knew Viv didn’t mean it personally. It wasn’t her fault that she’d been made redundant straight after the lockdown ended, and it made sense that she wanted to be near her family. It was now four months since Tayce had seen hers, and she missed them every day, although she had been sticking religiously to her new routine of calling her parents every Saturday night and her brother’s family every Sunday afternoon.

“I’m sorry that’s putting you in a tight spot, Tayce,” Viv muttered, hugging her, and Tayce hugged her back.

“Can’t be helped,” Tayce replied, which was all she could think to respond with that wasn’t an inarticulate growl in frustration.

Viv was adamant she would pay her final month’s rent, and pay her half the utilities even though she wasn’t there. But she had to go home.

“How was your move?” Tayce asked Ellie on the next group call on zoom.

“Shite,” Ellie replied, “but partly because we struggled finding someone to move us. There’s plenty of places around, plenty of places to rent and stuff, because everyone’s moved back to where they came from.”

“You’ll find somewhere else to live, bab,” Ginny murmured in a soothing voice to Tayce, stroking the side of the laptop screen as she liked to do to show affection now that she couldn’t hug anyone.

“I know,” Tayce sighed. “It’s just a pain in the arse.”

She wasted no time. One of the spare room websites was always open in the background, and she was refreshing, looking maybe a little further out from central London to see if anywhere was cheaper, but nowhere was.

Then she spotted the dot in her own block of flats, and clicked the advert.

That’s - that’s Aurora’s flat.

Now she remembered. Aurora had mentioned something about her housemate moving out! It must now be official.

She read through the advert - how was it £50 cheaper than what she was already paying? - and looked at the contact name for the housemate, and there it was in black and white pixels: Aurora Martin, use form below.

Grabbing a piece of notebook paper - one of the last bits left, she’d been ripping them all out to write to Aurora - she penned a letter, one of what might well be the last ones, and jogged upstairs to post it through her letterbox.

The response came back to her in less than an hour, a new record for Aurora.

‘Tayce! I’d love it if you wanted to move in here! OMG. My landlord will want references from yours, but if you can get them quick then he can approve you really fast, he’s working from home. OMG you made my day. Come up at 7pm xx’

“Work contacted me today too,” Aurora beamed as she settled with Tayce on the sofa. “They want me to start back next week! Can’t wait. Need to get that coin again now! I mean, I’m dead grateful, you know, that I still have my job and I was on furlough so the government paid most of my wages, but it will be nice to have the full package again!”

“What is it you do again?” Tayce asked.

“Oh - I work as a fashion buyer. But because fashion’s kind of stopped right now, most of the designers are shut. Reopening now, especially the ones in mainland Europe! Can’t wait to be on the phone to them all again.”

“Wait. You speak to designers in other countries?”

Aurora nodded. “I speak French and Spanish.”

“You -“ Tayce was dazed. “I didn’t know that!”

“Well why would you? I mean you’ve only known me a couple of months!” Aurora laughed, and leaned back closer to Tayce, her perfume overwhelmingly sweet in the air. “You’re not gonna know everything about me yet, bubble bud.”

“No,” Tayce purred, “but I can’t wait to find out.”

——

By the Monday after the move, early July, Tayce was all set up to go. She’d moved the bed into the corner as she liked it, arranged her books into a rainbow as she liked them, and unfurled the posters she’d been unable to hang in her last flat, mostly punk bands that she liked, Bimini’s band’s poster, and the noticeboard with all the tickets tacked to it of all the gigs she’d been to. The vanity with the mirror that she’d brought from home fitted perfectly next to the window so she could do her makeup with natural light; and it was large enough for her work setup, which was where she was now.

The flat layout was almost identical to the one she’d just left, and the room was the same one - Aurora having the slightly bigger room - but it felt a lot more comforting, knowing she wasn’t alone here any more, knowing she had a little more freedom in decorations, and knowing that the hollow feeling in her chest was starting to slow down for good.

She turned off her work laptop at five as normal, which was when Aurora came in. Tayce pulled her in, giving her a peck on the lips.

“They’re gonna love you, I promise.”

Aurora just made a moan in the back of her throat and put her face in her hands, shrinking away from the vanity.

Tayce turned on her personal laptop, logging into zoom and connecting to the group chat. Her monthly uni call was set to half four today for some reason, and everyone else was already all there.

“Tayce! We wondered where you’d got to!”

It was Veronica’s voice, and Veronica’s face was in the top left. She still looked a little tired, and the shirt she was wearing looked suspiciously like a pyjama top, but she was here with them all, and this was a big step for her.

Tayce beamed at her. “So good to see you!”

“The move went alright then, bab?” Ginny asked.

Tayce nodded. “And there’s someone you should meet.” She pulled Aurora into frame, who still looked uncharacteristically shy for a moment before waving at the people on the screen. “This is Aurora.”

“Aurora!” Tia squeaked. “Like the princess!”

Aurora rolled her eyes. “Yes.”

“So we’ve got Rory and Ronni here together at last!” Lawrence exclaimed, while Veronica gave the camera two fingers.

But Tayce just grinned at her friends on the screen, far apart but together in this strange way. Aurora’s nails dug into her shoulder, still a little nervous, but even that was fading as she got more comfortable.

Aurora had been right - the city was just a lot of bricks in intricate patterns without someone in it that made it a home.

And this just might be becoming one.

#rpdr fanfiction #rpdr uk #tayce #a'whora #taywhora #ginny lemon #lawrence chaney #veronica green #tia kofi #ellie diamond #uk2 #lesbian au #fluff #hurt/comfort #juno #tw covid lockdown #tw mental health mentions #submission

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tundrainafrica · 4 years

Text

Title: Household Planning (1/2)

Summary:

"It was Levi's household. The plates were arranged and sorted by color and use, the way Levi liked it. The cabinets and the storage were arranged in a way which would be efficient for cooking, or at least the way Levi would have wanted to cook."

Levi gets sick and Hange is left to navigate household chores.

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Notes: Set in the same verse as “Rough day” and “Sugar Rush”

"You're taking a week off?"

Hange wished no one would be there when she dropped by the queen’s office to give the letter. It was painful as it is to fathom what the next week would be like. Making her way to her familiar office in civilian clothing and seeing Historia there in the room only added salt to the wound.

“I’ve asked Armin to take over first. It will only be for a week at the most,” Hange explained.

"No. Take as many days as you need. I don't think you've even taken the day off since the war ended." Historia gave Hange a reassuring smile as she placed the letter back in the envelope.

Hange was sure the queen would give the week off with no arguments. Queen Historia had always had been understanding about any excuses related to family. Somehow, the response had come as a big surprise to Hange. As she walked out of the office and into the courtyard, she felt the late afternoon breeze seep through the cotton of her civilian shirt. It felt oddly nostalgic and Hange was reminded that she had not taken a day off in years.

“It’s not like I’m gonna be resting anyway.” Hange muttered to herself as she made her way through the courtyard and into the main road to call for a taxi.

"Where to, Ma'am?”

“Paradis Central Hospital.

20 hours earlier

Levi was usually the one who opened the door for her when she got home. That night, she was surprised to find their seven year old Luke by the door waiting for her.

“Shouldn’t you be asleep? Where’s daddy?” Hange asked as she helped her son stand up. The young boy’s eyes were drooping and Hange was sure he would fall asleep as soon as she put him to bed.

“Daddy’s asleep.”

“Really?” Hange glanced at the clock on the mantle as she carried Luke to his room.

It was only a quarter to nine and she had known Levi long enough to know he would never be asleep at that time. In fact, most nights he was the one who would welcome her home. He would be cleaning, organizing or mixing tea in the kitchen while she showered and got ready for bed. She always fell asleep to the clatters of plates and mugs, the clanks of pots and pans and the opening and closing of cupboards. Funnily, she always woke up to them too, a testament to the odd sleeping patterns of her partner.

Luke had fallen asleep in her arms. Hange lay him gently on his bed and put the blanket over him. As she turned off the lights and closed the door behind her, Hange was made aware of the fact that the house was unnaturally silent without the sounds of Levi tinkering with something in the kitchen. She hurried to the bedroom she shared with Levi to find him on the bed, his back to the door.

“Tiring day?”

Levi was a light sleeper. Some nights when Hange did wake up next to him, she could usually elicit a reply or reaction from him with almost any sound no matter how soft. At that moment though, Levi was not responding.

She approached the bed, letting her footsteps resound loudly on the wooden floor under her. He still did not react. Levi was covered up to his chin with blankets. Not wanting to disturb the set up, Hange rested her hand on his cheek, only to recoil at the heat being released.

How was he this morning? Hange felt a twinge of guilt when she realized she did not remember much of it. She had still woken up to the same banging of pots and pans and a full breakfast. There was nothing out of the ordinary.

"Hey, are you okay?" Hange asked, as she shook him lightly.

"Just… need to rest." Levi did not open his eyes. In fact, his face tensed as he said those words and Hange guessed that that slight effort was already causing him pain.

How much pain was he in? They were both soldiers in another life and they both had higher pain tolerance than most people. It had set off some alarms inside her and Hange was considering calling a doctor then and there just to be on the safe side.

Am I overreacting? The last time Levi had needed medical attention, they managed in the middle of the forest with a little first aid.

Hange changed into her pajamas and settled on the bed next to him.

She scooched closer to him. The heat emitted from his body alarmed her but Hange reassured herself by focusing on the rhythm of his rough breathing. He was still very much alive.

“Just make sure to tell me if the pain gets worse. ” Hange whispered.

Levi let out what sounded like a whimper. A wave of concern washed over Hange. She put her arms around her partner, hoping that even just a little she could absorb the heat that was resonating from his skin.

She let the rhythm of his breathing lull her to sleep.

Household Planning

When Hange woke up again, the sky was still dark. The sound of birds chirping just outside the window was enough though for Hange to conclude that it was at least late enough that the sun would rise soon.

“Good morning,” Hange whispered. His body was not as hot as it was the night before and Hange found herself squeezing her partner lightly in relief. “You scared me last night.”

“Hange…”

Hange unwrapped her arms from around her partner and sat up. “You okay?”

Levi curled up into a ball, his arms wrapped around his stomach. “My stomach...hurts…”

Hange had seen Levi in worse situations in the battlefield but never in her life had she seen him so vulnerable. She had brushed off her worry the night before but as she took in her partner, lying curled up like a ball, the ragged breathing and the uncharacteristic whimpers, Hange conceded that she could not take the risk of omission. “Levi. I’m sorry I’m calling a doctor.”

Hange wished Levi had protested the whole set off. At the least, she wished he were conscious or aware enough to even notice a sleepy and confused Luke next by his bedside. He was lying prone on the bed as the doctor put his shirt up and ran his hands through the stomach area.

Hange’s blood ran cold as she watched Levi squirm in pain at lightest touch. She had worked with injured soldiers long enough to know it was a common symptom of internal injuries. The question that lingered was how exactly had it gotten to that point.

“This doesn’t look good Mrs. Zoe. We're going to have to get him to a hospital quick. He might need emergency surgery.”

“Do what you need to do.”

Hange walked out of the room and sat her son down on the living room sofa. She could hear the doctor making his way to the phone, quickly dialing a number and a few seconds later, he was rattling off vitals.

Hange had a fair amount of experience with first aid but the science and technology brought back from Marley was a tall order for her to master and Hange had to admit she probably would have only understood 70% of what the doctor had told the paramedics.

She spent the next few minutes explaining the situation to her son Luke over a quick breakfast and while walking him to school. Luke had ended up late as he had asked too many questions.

Why didn't daddy make breakfast?

Where are they taking daddy?

Are you okay mommy?

By the time Hange made it to the hospital, Levi was being prepped for surgery. He was completely unconscious as they unbuttoned his pajamas and switched it with a hospital gown.

Hange stayed nearby just in case he did wake up through it. She occupied herself by marveling at the improvements made in the hospital and the new developments by Marley. It was her first time back there for at least three years having shifted her focus into railways and street car installations. A nurse put a needle through his wrist which was attached to a bag on a rack. Hange had forgotten the name of that invention but deduced that it was to get medicine into his system.

"How long will he be in surgery?" Hange asked.

The nurse shook her head. "We don't know the extent of the damage yet but internal bleeding of this severity should take at least two to three hours."

Internal bleeding. That usually meant certain death in the field. Hange could not help but think, if Levi had experienced that sickness only just a decade ago, he would have been dead.

"Thank you for all your hard work," Hange said.

She resigned herself to the fact that she would have to wait out until news on her partner came out. She made a brief detour to the outdoor payphone to call sick for the day. Armin would be able to take over anyway, he was very familiar at least with the plans Hange had for the transportation route through the city.

Hange could not shake the feeling that she would be missing out though. Her best ideas always came when she was in the office looking through blueprints and construction updates.

She willed herself to dial the familiar number of her office and explain her current situation.

Armin who had answered the phone was understanding and had given genuine well wishes to Levi. When Hange went back to the waiting room though, she started to reflect on the fact, that maybe the one who did not want the day off was just her.

As she sat back on the chair of the waiting room and looked up at the blank ceiling of the hospital, Hange knew she was miserable.

She was left to do what she had not done in years, sit idly by and wait.

Household Planning

"A burst appendix with abscesses around his stomach area. It was pretty bad, a very high risk of infection. We will need to monitor him for at least a week and he'll be on a strict antibiotic plan for a while."

An appendix. She knew that organ. It was the useless organ yet it caused so much damage in Levi's system. "How long will he be…"

"We set up a room for him. He'll be staying for at least a week since we will need to monitor signs of post surgical infection and possible surgery again. He's not out of the woods yet."

Hange followed the doctor into one of the rooms on the third floor, noting that there were a lot more nurses making their rounds on that floor.

A nurse was there putting the covers over her partner when Hange arrived in. Her stomach dropped as she saw the tubes that all connected to some part underneath the blankets. Even for dying soldiers, she had never seen that type of medical treatment before and maybe if it hadn't been on Levi, she would have been excited at the prospect of seeing first hand the medical technology involved in keeping a patient alive.

At that moment though, her thoughts were all on Levi, how much he remembered, how much pain he was in and most importantly, if he were going to live through it.

Hange walked to his bedside and put her hand underneath the blanket, feeling for his hand. His hand was limp but it was neither too warm or too cold. She grasped his hand tighter, focusing on its warmth as a reprieve from the events of the past few hours.

"Hey four eyes, where's Luke?"

"He's in school…" Hange rubbed her eyes, still adjusting to the waking world.

"His classes are until eleven. It's one."

Hange sat up and look at the clock at the end of the room. "Wait what?" How long have I been sitting here?

Levi was half sitting up on the bed, conscious but groggy, looking particularly surprised. "Did you forget our kid?"

The realization of what had just happened dawned on Hange a split second too late. By then, Levi’s eyes narrowed into an accusing glare, a quick change from that of disbelief only a second ago.

Hange felt blood rush into her face "I’m sorry. A lot has been happening. You're stuck in the hospital… I don't know what to do…"

"Son first. Questions later."

Household Planning

The next question, Hange found herself tackling was where to take Luke. It was an obvious logistical choice yet it took Hange enough brain space that she ended up cringing at the state of her mind at that moment.

She had considered leaving him at home but could not come up with someone who could stay with Luke at a last minute request. She knew she would probably be with Levi for a while in the hospital, possibly until late night. It was a risk, leaving a child with a sick parent in a hospital ward but it at least trumped the idea of leaving him alone at home.

Somehow, leaving Luke with a sick, possibly immobile Levi, still seemed to be enough to give her some peace of mind.

"You promise to stay good, okay. Daddy needs rest," Hange said as they stood in front of the door to his room.

"Promise."

The promise was short lived. As soon as the door opened before him, Luke ran towards Levi's bedside and Hange had to grab him as he motioned to jump on the bed next to him.

"Daddy!"

"How was school?"

"I was the only one there. I thought nobody was going to pick me up."

Levi sneaked a glare at Hange with their son's last statement.

"Sorry Luke. Mommy got carried away. Daddy's going to be sick for a while and there was a lot to think about." Hange hugged her son from behind.

"How long will daddy be here?"

"A week at least," Levi answered.

So the doctor at least explained the situation to him.

Levi still looked like he was in pain and Hange wondered how much of his motions were a front he was putting up in front of their son.

"Mommy and Daddy need to talk. Could you give us some space?"

There were nurses all over the floor and Hange was sure at least one of them would have the time to take care of a kid. It was a quick search and within a few minutes of going out into the hallway, she at least had the peace of mind that someone was taking care of her son. The fact the nurse was helping with homework was an added bonus.

"I feel like shit," Levi admitted as Hange entered the room once again.

"You're doing great. I thought you'd be asleep the whole day to be honest."

"I don't think I'd even be able to relax anymore. Imagine waking up to realize my wife forgot about our kid."

Hange gave her husband an apologetic smile. "Just give me a list of everything I need to get done, everyday. While you're here. I'll get it done."

"Don't you have work?"

Household Planning

By evening, Hange had filed her leave for the week, she had her to do list on hand and Luke was at least distracted with toys she had just bought him from the gift shop next to the hospital.

Her first challenge was dinner. She had the cooking skills but the way everything in the household was sorted out made Hange hesitate to touch anything.

It was Levi's household. The plates were arranged and stalked by color and use, the way Levi liked it. The cabinets and the storage were arranged in a way which would be efficient for cooking, or at least the way Levi would have wanted to cook.

In the cupboard, they were so tightly stacked on top of one another that Hange feared that she would break something just by pulling something out.

Hange sighed, resigning herself to the fact that she was still left shocked by the events of that morning. Less than 24 hours ago, she would not have imagined having to learn to navigate the household all by herself.

I'm gonna need a while to adjust.

"Luke, we're going out to buy dinner."

Household Planning

"What do you want for breakfast?"

"Omelette!"

30 minutes to eight. Luke should be in school by eight.

"It's pretty late for an omelette… What about bread?" In fact, Hange did know Luke liked omelettes. She did not want to admit it to her son yet but although she had spent a fair half an hour looking through the kitchen, she could not find the eggs.

The only food stored places within reason were the bread and the fruits which were displayed in a basket and a bowl on the kitchen table. The bread was covered in cloth, neatly folded when she found it though. As she put back the bread after eating it that morning, she could not recreate that same intricate folding pattern Levi had done.

"There were eggs in the fridge."

Where? Who puts eggs in the fridge?

Hange chose to pretend to ignore it. "Let's just get you to school. What time do I need to pick you up?"

"Two." Luke was avoiding her gaze and Hange could tell he was trying to hide disappointment.

"I'll take note of that." Hange took a pen from her kitchen table and wrote the time on her wrist. "Just eat this for breakfast." She wrapped a piece of bread on paper and dropped it in his bag.

It's my first time having to be the one to cook breakfast, of course there will be a few bumps.

"I didn't know where you put the eggs so I just gave him bread for breakfast."

"Where did you think the eggs were?" Levi asked, not even trying to hide the disappointment in his gaze. Hange inferred that it could have also been from the meager breakfast he was given that morning of pudding and fruit which Levi was mixing as he listened to the developments that morning.

“I looked everywhere, the cupboards, the storage, I even checked our bedroom.”

“It’s in the refrigerator.”

“And that’s what Luke said. I checked it after dropping him at school but it wasn’t there.”

“I put it towards the back so it wouldn’t break if it ends up accidentally falling out.”

The new refrigerators that came from Marley were a welcome improvement to the icebox that most people in Paradis were used to. Having busied herself with other things, Hange never really bothered to learn its different compartments. It looked like Levi did not want her to learn it either. The latter had preoccupied himself buying them at the best bargain when they were finally available and had spent a fair amount of days since they got it, organizing and reorganizing all their spoilable goods.

“Why do you put your eggs in the refrigerator? Even if you leave it out, it won’t go bad.”

“It’s an animal product, you don’t know what it touched.”

Levi had researched his household plan well and Hange only appreciated it more when Levi took a pen and paper and drew the fridge compartments, perfectly from what she had remembered. He explained the contents compartment by compartment, with the rationale for each.

“Why don’t we keep the eggs in the compartments by the fridge door? You cook them everyday.”

“The sudden temperature changes can make the eggs go bad faster.”

“Why put vegetables in the lowest compartment?”

“Vegetables in the drawer below because this compartment has higher humidity levels for fresh produce.”

Levi made sense. Hange had done her fair share of experiments to quickly understand Levi’s logic behind everything. She was still taken aback by how far he had thought ahead and how meticulous the whole process of organizing the refrigerator was for him. It almost made her hesitant to take anything out of the fridge for fear of destroying any part of the intricate plan Levi had set up for all their spoilable goods.

Levi dropped the pen and sighed. “So I’m assuming you didn’t get any cooking done if you still don’t know where everything is. What did you pack Luke for lunch then?”

Household Planning

Levi probably would not have approved of Luke enjoying a late lunch of two soft serve ice creams and a slice of bread. That was the only way Hange saw herself pacifying the young boy who looked to be on the verge of crying and shouting at his mother when she picked him up from school. At the same time, the reminder from Levi was enough for Hange to at least have enough motivation to remember to show up on time to pick him up.

“Don’t tell your father about this.” She muttered, as she led him through the market. Levi had left her a grocery list before she left to pick up Luke from school. At that point, she was determined at least to not fuck up the grocery shopping.

Another tray of eggs, bread, spinach, oranges, apples. The list was straightforward. When Levi and Hange had planned the list, they considered the easiest things for Hange to prepare, cook, eat and store for the next week while Levi’s fate was still undecided. She only had to buy enough for the two of them at least.

The markets were designed that all types of produce and goods could be caught with one loop around the market. In thirty minutes, Hange had gone through everything on the list.

As Hange made her way to the exit of the market, she felt a tug on her hand. “What are you looking at?” Hange followed her son’s gaze to see the tea and coffee shop on the side.

“Daddy might want tea.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He only has three more bags left at home.”

Household Planning

Hange had dreaded the process of storing the food she had bought. She imagined having to empty the fridge and make wild guesses on where Levi would have wanted each product and whether or not she angled them in a way where it would be most convenient for those who opened it or less likely to spill.

Levi had explained a lot of it to her but many parts of it were going quickly into one ear and out the other due to the detail he put into such mundane concepts. She found that the crazy amount of detail and the fact that she possibly left things out, had left her blank at what exactly to do when she opened the refrigerator door.

“Daddy likes the stem facing outwards.” Luke pointed out as he grabbed the spinach from the bag and put it inside the half open vegetable drawer.

“The eggs?”

“You have to push the cheese out of the way when you put the eggs in. Tray opening facing outside...”

Hange at least knew where the fruits and the bread went. She lined up the fruit bowl and the bread basket on the kitchen table and added the fruits she had bought from the market on to the pile.

Luke reached out for the oranges on the top and distributed them evenly towards the edges of the bowl. “Daddy said it might fall if you let them sit unevenly on a pile.”

Hange unfolded the cloth on the bread basket and put the bread inside. She attempted once again to fold it similarly to what Levi had been doing before. Luke scooched closer to her and Hange could only gape as Luke deftly folded it into the same tight pattern she had seen it in that morning.

“Daddy taught you all of this?”

#levihan #levi x hange #levi ackerman #hange zoe #fanfic

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greensaplinggrace · 4 years

Note

Hello! This is kind of out there but I was wondering if you could do a post apocolypse au? With tons of Barret but not very shippy. With lots of found family though! Thanks

“I know you didn't list Barret as one of the character you write, but you also said that the list was only a sort of guideline and not actually hard rules. If that's the case could you maybe do a prompt for some Dad!Barret and Marlene fluff? Thank you 💞💕” - Anon

Filling two prompts at once here, so I hope this fits the bill for both! Also I got really into this prompt so I’m honestly probably going to continue it? If so, it’ll on ao3, but here’s what I’ve written so far. Sort of the start of the fic/a prologue. A five + 1 type premise, beginning with Tifa XD

-UPDATE! The fic is now finished - PART 2 - PART 3 - ALL PARTS ON AO3

-If you want to send in a prompt, the guidelines are HERE and HERE!

------

His daughter makes him a crown of dead flowers.

Barricaded inside of some long abandoned home, the only pieces of nature still visible are the wilted remains of a bouquet once gathered neatly in a vase. They’re faded, of course. Neglected and passed over for more urgent necessities; victims to the cruel fate of the merciless virus. Just as humans had been.

Just like every other living thing on the planet.

Yet Marlene doesn’t seem to mind. As soon as they’re both settled in for the night she takes the flowers up, small fingers clutching ever so delicately at the crumbling stems, and weaves him a crown. Kicking her feet on an old dusty couch and humming away, she even appears almost happy and content, though he knows she’s not.

He knows she’s afraid. Sees it every day in her frightened tears and hears it every night in the tiny, terrified whimpers of her nightmares.

These things - these small, innocuous pieces of joy she seems to find at the strangest of moments, are the only pieces of innocence she has left. Her only protection from the monsters inside of her head.

Barret can’t rob her of that; he never could. Even if the flowers she plays with are dead and the couch she sits on once belonged to someone else. So when she looks up at him with wide brown eyes and that big, loving smile, presenting his crown like the glittering tiara she imagines it is, he can’t do anything else but kneel to accept it.

Can’t do anything else but return the smile and play pretend, heart aching with the loss of something he knows she’ll never get back.

Sometimes, he thinks of what his life would be like without her. Thinks of the kids out on the streets and the parents he’s met along the roads. Shell shocked, blank faced victims, waiting for the infected to end it all, and he knows he’s lucky. Lucky to have her at all in this destructive world, and the loss of her innocence isn’t so horrifying in the face of her simply being here with him. Safe and cared for and alive.

Because Marlene is the only thing he has left in the world - she’s the only one who matters - and he knows he’d do just about anything to keep her safe.

More importantly, though. More than anything else. He’d do anything to keep her happy.

So he plays pretend.

He wears the crown made from dead people’s things and cooks in their kitchen. Ignores the plundered and violated remains of their home to search through his own bag for some food, and hopes that his little girl doesn’t go looking upstairs to see the empty baby’s nursery.

Dinner is small again. It’s been beans and carrots for the past week, and it’ll be beans and carrots again today. Considering their circumstances, it isn’t exactly surprising. Watching over Marlene means making certain sacrifices, and raiding the bigger places for better supplies is simply too difficult with a child in tow.

Impossibly difficult.

But it may soon be necessary, if things keep going the way they are. The thought that he might have to expose Marlene to the atrocities of their new world doesn’t sit well with him, but he might have to start doing so if he wants to keep them both alive and fed. Especially if he wants any tools of a high enough quality to maintain his arm.

Right now it works, but the thing is too slow to be useful for anything except shooting, and he relegates it to hanging limp and useless beside him on most days. Though even when his arm had been working at it’s finest, it was never useful for cooking.

Mechanized gun arms tend to be like that.

“Daddy?”

He hums, pots and pans banging, relieved when the stove starts without problem. “Yes, honey?”

“Where do you think the people who lived here moved away to?”

That warrants a glance backwards, and Barret turns to see Marlene still on the couch. She’s got a large photo album opened up on her lap now, flipping through it with a childlike curiosity. Her feet are still kicking off the edge of her seat, and after a beat of silence she looks up at him questioningly.

He pushes back the urge to snatch the book away from her - to protect her from the darkness only he can see hiding between the pages.

Alive or dead, those are happy photos. Moments of a better life and a better time, and Marlene’s touch can only make them brighter. So he leaves her to it and returns to his cooking.

“They could be anywhere,” he still tells her, hoping to give her whatever small shred of hope he can, “maybe they’re hiding somewhere safer.”

“Like a Camp?”

“Maybe.” The nearest Camp isn’t for miles, but he knows the army and fast formed neighborhood watches had been evacuating people to safe sites. A lot of those had been transformed into Camps or eventually transferred to other Camps. For anybody living near the city, it isn’t exactly a stretch to imagine.

More of a stretch than Barret can muster, though.

“What if they Clustered?” Marlene asks after a moment of thought.

Barret isn’t at all expecting the words, and he barely manages to bite back an unsavory comment upon hearing them. What Marlene refers to as Clusters, most call Mobs, and he’d rather jump off a damn cliff than ever even look at one again. He doesn’t want to scare her, though. So instead he clears his throat and focuses on making their plates to distract himself, lips tightening.

“Then at least they’d be safe,” he offers mildly.

“Well then why aren’t we in one? If it’s safe, I mean.”

“Because it’s only safe for certain people, baby.” When she opens her mouth he cuts her off, raising the plates in an apology. “You just have to trust me, okay? Let’s talk about something else.”

At her huff of reluctant acceptance he moves back to the couch, sitting close and pulling away the photo album.

He closes it and tosses it aside immediately, but in the half second his gaze finds the photos, he notices they’re all of a happy old couple. Thin and frail and paler than porcelain from a distinct lack of sun.

Dead, he realizes.

There’s no way they would have made it.

“Daddy? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, baby, I’m fine. Let’s eat, huh? We gotta finish up soon if we want you in bed on time.”

Marlene pouts at that, suitably distracted, and they both dig into their food with gusto.

Speculating about strangers will get in him nowhere, he knows. Especially when it comes to the dead ones.

There’ll be time for mourning later.

Much, much later.

So he sits and he eats and talks about ponies and princesses, the crown still adorning his head, and he doesn’t think about anything except his daughter.

Doesn’t think about a thing except how he’s going to keep her alive.

They finish their meal in record time. Soon enough, Barret is tucking a fussy Marlene into bed. She’s curled up in her cot near the living room heater, bundled beneath some extra blankets he found in the linen closet, and she’s out like a light as soon as her head hits the pillow.

Barret sits and keeps watch while she sleeps. Through the slivers of space between boards, he watches dusk pass peacefully by. The infected begin to meander away once his and Marlene’s disturbance becomes old news to them, and a silence befalls their cozy sanctuary as the sky gradually darkens.

Then shit goes horribly, explosively sideways.

It happens in the middle of the night: a deafening boom that rocks the world and instantly has Barret on high alert. The air around them erupts in a blaze of fire and screams, upper level catching like dry tinder before he can so much as blink.

Barret jumps to his feet with a yell, turning to grab Marlene as the ceiling crumbles around them. She’s glossy eyed and confused, but he doesn’t have the time to explain it to her. Doesn’t have the time to do a thing as beams pop around them, tires screeching in the near distance. Then the sound of shattering windows rends the silence of the night, a sadistic chorus of hoots and hollers following right at its heels.

The approaching thunder of footsteps is what pushes Barret into motion. Quickly, with the rise of voices goading him to move faster than he ever has before, Barret pulls their bags onto one shoulder, hefting his little girl over the other, and races to the crooked backdoor. He kicks it down amidst a cascade of red hot cinders, ducking underneath the doorway without hesitation, and looks up to see dewy grass stretching out cold and exposed before them.

Another explosion sounds out from the house, the footsteps beginning to get closer as the war cries rise, and he has no time to waste anymore - no time for second thoughts.

Barret takes Marlene and he runs.

------

After that night, their situation only gets worse. The Mob isn’t tracking Barret down, but it’s clear they’ve set up shop in the surrounding buildings and aren’t planning to move anytime soon.

As a result, Barret gives the city a wide berth. Skirting past the outermost houses and heading into the open fields, he eventually leads them into the surrounding forests. He’s hoping for some modicum of safety within the boughs, but greenery is scarce and the leaves are falling. Winter’s chill becomes more prominent with every passing night to exacerbate the issue, and it drives home their need for four walls and a roof like nothing else ever could.

Yet for now, it’s better than nothing. Better than being left so vulnerable again, defenseless in another family’s home.

The added protection of the trees brings other problems, however. They’re isolated from civilization and traders out here, with no friendly faces to be seen for miles, and the subsequent dip in their supplies is severe.

By the end of their first week camping out in the forests, Barret finds himself staring at his and Marlene’s very last can of beans, and knows without a doubt that they’ve finally hit the breaking point.

They’re going to have to go looting again if they want some food.

And it is that thought that finds Barret and Marlene outside the remains of an empty, half hidden store just a few too many paces off the main road. With not a single infected in sight, it looks like the perfect mark.

Marlene huffs into the chill beside him, breath fogging. “What if there are monsters inside?”

“Daddy will take care of them! Don’t you worry a bit about that.”

Marlene shuffles her feet and ducks her head. She has a death grip on his fingers, body closed off and fearful, and he already regrets making the decision to come out here. All around them, the silence of the abandoned store echoes with a warning.

“I’m scared,” she whispers at the ground, and Barret squeezes her hand lightly in reassurance.

“It’ll be real quick, baby, I promise,” he says, voice strong even as he eyes the flickering store lights with trepidation, “we’ve just gotta run in and out. Grab all the food we can carry and haul ass, huh?”

“But I can’t carry lots,” Marlene replies mournfully.

“That’s no problem! I’ll do most of the carrying. Your job is just to stay on my shoulder and make me feel better.”

“Like a cheerleader?”

“Exactly like a cheerleader. You’re my hype crew!”

Her giggle lights up the dark parking lot, and he kneels to give her a gentle hug. When her small hands come up to wrap around his neck he gets an arm under her, lifting her up with exaggerated force until she’s clutching at his fingers and giggling wildy.

Shifting her to his shoulder is almost easy after that. She’s distracted and pleased, beginning to hum her little happy song again as she kicks her legs in the air, and Barret hates himself for having to make it go away.

“Now you gotta hold on real tight, remember? Cause I need both hands free for this.” He looks up to see her nod and frown seriously, heart aching at the maturity in her expression.

“Okay,” she whispers, “I’ll be quiet, too.”

“Good. Just like we practiced.”

“Mhm!”

Then it’s go time.

They move towards the store slowly and enter with care. Barret’s desperate but he’s not going to act the fool. There could be any number of threats inside, and he isn’t going to risk his daughter because he acted rashly - made too much noise or stepped too loudly. Isn’t going to give the infected the satisfaction of seeing him fall.

Marlene is careful, too. She’s got a death grip on his shoulder and his hair the entire time he walks. Yet the pain is nothing compared to knowing she’s safe, so he stays silent as they creep past the threshold.

As soon as he steps foot in the building he sees the checkout. It’s right beside the door, as he’d known it would be, but it’s holding way more registers and lanes than he’d planned on seeing. Immediately, Barret takes a longer look at the aisles spreading out a fair distance in front of them, and realizes with dread that this store is a lot bigger than he’d given it credit for.

The CVS sign in the far corner blares accusingly from its place above another, smaller checkout.

Medicine is his first thought - his only thought - for a long time after seeing it. And of course it is. Medicine is indescribably valuable during catastrophes such as this. It’s priceless.

And he’s staring at a whole roomful of it.

This store hasn’t been looted, he realizes blankly, and that’s when the second thought hits. Harsh and brutal as if he’s been hit by a truck.

Threat, his mind blares, and he’s instantly tensing as he readies for a battle or a confrontation - anything.

This is no longer a simple search for remaining loot. Any Mob or Camp worth a damn would be on this shit in seconds if they knew it was here, and they wouldn’t shy away from using any means necessary to obtain the supplies.

Hell, if a Syndicate finds this place they might as well give up on life right now.

His heart skips a beat, hand coming up for just a brief moment to squeeze tightly at his little girl’s leg, and she hugs him from above. She doesn’t say anything, though. Merely patting the top of his head in an attempt at comfort.

Smart girl, he thinks, moving to grab one of the shopping carts lying about. It’s completely intact, and even the mere presence of a fully functioning shopping cart at the entrance of the store lets him know nobody has set foot in this place since shit hit the fan.

They’re loud but they’re handy, and Barret plans on filling the entire thing to brimming. With this whole basket full they’ll be able to eat well for weeks.

An insistent hand tugs at his hair. “Daddy?”

“Yeah, honey.” He begins to wheel the cart around, but Marlene’s next words stop him dead.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” He demands, but he’s already tensing, gun charged up and free hand coming to steady his little girl.

He whirls around to face the back rooms just as she yells out a “that!”, and as if on cue a crash rings out, several voices rising in the sounds of a fight. Barret barely has the time to raise his gun and take a step back before the doors are bursting open, a long haired woman flying through to skid painfully across the white tiles.

Marlene gasps. “Daddy, it’s a girl!”

“Marlene baby, don’t-”

Then the doors burst open a second time with a reverberating thud. It’s loud enough to wake any infected in the nearby vicinity, and though Barret doesn’t hear any cries rise up from the surrounding forest, he knows it’s only a matter of time before some creature comes looking.

“Hey!” He snaps at the people coming through the doors. They’re all white men, though two are big and burly while the other is slighter, only coming up to their shoulders.

All three look pissed as hell.

“Who the hell is that?” One of them hisses, gesturing with a bloodied wooden bat in Barret’s direction, and Barret wastes no time in directing his gun straight at the man’s ugly mug.

“I’m your worst damn nightmare unless you back the fuck down, boy!” He growls menacingly, and though his chest tightens at Marlene’s fearful whimper, he doesn’t let the stony facade fade.

The smaller man scoffs. “You and what army? The seven year old on your shoulder? I hate to break it to you big guy, but that we could take you both down within seconds.” The cocky shit brandishes a pistol as he speaks, finger pressed so tightly to the trigger Barret’s half afraid he’ll fire wide without meaning to.

Subtly, he tightens his hold of Marlene, about to speak again when the woman on the ground coughs and rises to her hands and knees.

“No!” She protests loudly, to both Barret and the smaller man’s surprise. Her voice is scratchy yet strong with heated conviction, eyes burning a brilliant red as they come up to glare accusingly at the other. “She’s only a little girl, don’t-”

“Any fool stupid enough to carry around a brat during the apocalypse deserves to have her ripped from his fingers.” It’s one of the larger man that speaks this time around, and Barret has to grit his teeth through the rush of anger that sears through his veins, seconds away from putting thirty fucking bullets through the man’s worthless smirking face.

“What the hell did you just say?!” He demands.

“I said we’re going to kill you and your little brat, and then after that we’re going to kill this stupid whore for thinking she could steal from us!”

“No!” Barret’s heart almost stops at Marlene’s shout. The way every eye in the room is drawn to her. The way the gun points straight at her head - “You can’t hurt her! She’s ours, now. Tell them, Daddy!”

Barret turns to break the gunman’s line of sight, but surprisingly it’s the woman who speaks again, shaking her head wildly as she struggles to get to her feet. “Please! Please don’t get involved. I don’t want anybody else to get hurt.”

Stunned, all Barret can do for a moment is stand frozen, staring down at her. Her face is bruised and swollen, lip split and bleeding where she’s biting it aggressively to fight back the pain, and her arm curls around her ribs in a way that indicates they’re at least bruised, if not broken. Yet still she tries to rise up in their defense - in his daughter’s defense - despite her injured and unarmed state.

“Daddy-”

“I know, honey.” He can’t risk Marlene but he can’t just stand idly by as someone else gets hurt.

Before he knows it and before anybody can do a thing to react, he’s stepping forward and placing himself firmly between the woman and the three twitchy men. They all buck back like frightened horses at his rapid approach, making harsh, surprised noises that instantly tell Barret what he needs to know.

So he grins and bars his teeth, massive gun swinging around to aim at each of them for a second. Lingering until every last one is skittering uncomfortably, shifty eyed and sweating.

“I ain’t gon’ let you touch this girl and I am sure as hell not gonna let you so much as look or think about my daughter again! Now scram!” Bullets ring through the air, battering the concrete by the group’s heads and making them scream with terror, scattering like ants. Even the gunman forgets his own weapon and fragile bravado to turn tail and flee right behind his friends.

Then, as quickly as they’d appeared, the men are gone; glass doors sliding closed behind them as they stumble and stagger their way through the entire length of the parking lot and disappear into the trees.

Barret doubts they’ll last long with the infected in their current states, so he doesn’t bother chasing them. Instead, heart racing and mouth dry, he falls to his knees beside the woman. Though he pays her no heed as he sweeps his daughter from his shoulders and tucks her close to his chest.

“Are you alright?” He gasps into her hair. “Are you okay? Did they-did they-”

Marlene giggles, squirming against his hold until he’s forced to let her go. She twists her dirty pink shoes against the floor and holds her hands behind her back, smiling up at him so widely her eyes crease with the force of it. “I’m fine, Daddy!”

He sighs and checks her over with his eyes. Nobody had attacked them, of course, but he just can’t shake the fear that she could have died. One stray bullet or unfortunate ricochet. If the men had been any braver or the woman any more willing to use her proximity against them. If…

“You promise?”

“I promise!”

He gives her another quick hug, because she’s his daughter and she’s alive and he can, and then pulls away again to take a look at the woman behind them.

She’s dead to the world, eyes closed and completely limp. So still that if it wasn’t for her breathing, Barret would be hard pressed to think she was dead.

“Is she our friend now?” Marlene asks, going to her tip-toes to peer around his large bulk curiously.

Barret snorts. “What did I tell you about strangers?”

“To never talk to them or trust them and to always stay away from them!” Marlene recites proudly.

“That’s right! That’s very good, Marlene. If you meet a stranger you come straight to me, okay?”

He pats her on the head, but that doesn’t stop her from huffing with agitation and clenching her hands into fists, glaring up at him stubbornly. “But you are here. And she helped us!”

“I know-” Barret begins, but Marlene cuts him off.

“We can’t leave her behind, Daddy. She’s hurt and it’s our duty to help people. You always say that.”

“No, it’s my duty to always help people. It’s your duty to stay out of danger so Daddy doesn’t worry about you.”

She doesn’t respond this time around, bringing out the full force of her puppy dog eyes as she pouts, and Barret shakes his head, circling the woman’s battered form. Her breathing is heavy and steady, so at least she doesn’t seem to have a lung problem, and when he runs his fingers along her ribs he’s relieved to note that they’re only bruised and not broken. Painful but manageable. She should be up and about soon.

If they take her back.

Barret sighs, glancing over to Marlene’s wide, pleading eyes. “Who the hell am I kidding?” he grumbles to himself, moving the woman to a more secure position.

“So we’re keeping her?” Marlene asks, solemnity instantly turning to excitement at whatever she’s gleaned from his actions.

“Only until she’s better.”

“Okay!” Marlene squeals. She holds her arms up expectantly until Barret leans down and scoops her onto his shoulder. “We can bring her back with us!”

“After we get the food, sweetheart. You know we need the supplies.”

“‘Kay. Supplies first, then her, then home!”

“Yeah...home.”

And that’s how it begins. With one person - one chance encounter - and in a second their family has grown.

Tifa Lockhart, she later tells them her name is, while still laid up in the cot they’d prepared for her beneath the swaying boughs of the tallest tree.

She won’t stay for long, is all Barret can think in response, watching his chipper daughter chatter happily into her ear. She’ll leave before the night is out, and we’ll never see her again.

And only later - five more people and two years later - will he realize that he was gloriously, beautifully wrong.

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onstarsandiron · 4 years

Text

Might As Well Face It, You’re Addicted To Love: Chapter 5

Ooooooh we’re almost there!! First, though, meet the gang.

AO3 link here

Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 [here] / ?

Jax

Jax sighed in satisfaction as he finally finished drying his hair. The upkeep was obnoxious, but you couldn’t argue with the results; few others could lay claim to a meter of silver hair. It felt nice to be showered, dried, and in fresh clothes. He could finally find some peace.

“Jax! Hurry up!” Ana called, banging on his door. Jax sighed again. Oh well, peace was overrated anyway.

“I’m coming!” He yelled back. Easy for her to rush him with a puppy following her around and helping her get ready. Jax tied his hair into a quick ponytail and grabbed the duffel of show-prep stuff he’d pre-packed.

He opened his door to find Di hurrying down the hallway saying, “Ana, you did not let me finish!” Maybe calling Di a puppy was harsh, but he wouldn’t if he didn’t look at Ana with those big old eyes of his.

Jax followed them down the hall and a set of stairs into the kitchen. Ana stood still for once in her life – as still as she could, anyway, a toe tapping away to some unheard song – as Di finished her braid. Ana wore her black hair in a long braid down the middle of her head, the rest of it shaved. She said it was because it was punk, but Jax knew it was for convenience’s sake. She had golden-brown eyes set into a heart-shaped face and warm bronze skin. Her eyes sparkled with excitement, which was typically a sign of either a show or trouble. Sometimes both.

Di stood behind her being the physical embodiment of all the patience Ana lacked as he carefully finished off her braid. He was pale and tall, recently grown from being gangly to actually fitting his height. His blood-red hair was currently tied in a knot, but it typically had a mind of its own, falling down around his sharp face. Paired with his dark brows and dark eyes he had a very serious look to him, but Jax had seen him cry over a video of a small robot being, “too cute,” so his reputation in that area was ruined already.

Riggs and Wick were playing a game of cards at the kitchen table. They were on the older side and rarely came to gigs – Wick’s hearing was bad enough anyway, and if Wick wasn’t going neither was Riggs – but they both always saw them off and welcomed them home. Riggs was gruff and permanently skinny with scratchy gray stubble decorating his chin. He had lost his family and his leg in a bad accident a long time ago. Once or twice he’d shown Jax a picture of his family he kept on a locket, two happy looking kids, a beautiful wife, and him. Jax didn’t know nearly as much history about Wick, dark brown skin saggy in that way old men got with gray dreadlocks pulled into a ponytail behind him, but he had all sorts of tall tales to tell and was the one to teach him guitar, so really what other history could matter?

Talle, short with black, pixie cut hair, was cleaning up some pots and pans at the sink. She wasn’t as old as Riggs and Wick, but she did have the start of crows’ feet and smile lines etched into her face. “Hey, Jax!” she called, then pointed to a stack of plastic Tupperware in bags that held their dinners for the evening, “Can you take these out to the van?”

“Sure thing,” Jax answered, securing his duffel on his shoulder so he could hold the bags in his hands.

He was about to consider how to juggle the bags and the approaching door when the door opened itself, or rather Lenda opened it from the other side. She was a couple years older than him and squarely built with old scars from time spent in fighting rings adorning her arms like trophies well-won. Her brownish-blonde hair hung around shoulder length and framed her narrow brown eyes, and her skin was tawny with rose undertones.

“Oh, hey, let me take one of those for you,” she offered, and Jax handed her one of the bags in his hands. Before heading back out she called into the kitchen, “Hey, Ana! Siege says that if you want your drum kit, you better come and put it in the van yourself!”

“Coming!” Ana said, and the three of them walked through to the open garage and the van parked outside it currently being loaded up.

“There you are, Sparkles!” Elara greeted. She was short and curvy with short-cropped silver hair in a style that on anyone else Jax would refer to as “soccer mom” but on her simply made her black-eyeliner-and-lipstick look more dramatic. Her wide eyes were violet, and her skin was apricot compared to Jax’s too-often-mistaken-as-a-ghost white. She was helping Xu, her partner, pack up some of the equipment. Xu was tall with high cheekbones, dark eyes, and tanned skin. They kept their black hair long and didn’t typically style it except when Elara would take it upon herself to braid it this way and that. They were a quiet person for the most part, which was good since Elara talked enough for the two of them.

“’Bout time you two beauty queens got yourselves down here,” Siege said. Siege wasn’t particularly tall, but she stood in a way that made you think she was. She filled a room and commanded respect wherever she went. Her eyes were a sharp stone-green and she wore her black curly hair large and filled with pieces wrapped in golden thread.

Siege’s job was not a topic to be discussed, but if it were to be discussed it may err a bit on the, as some might put it, illegitimate side of odd jobs. The house was largely a boarding house for her crew, a group that waxed and waned as needed. Riggs and Wick had been with her and Talle for forever, Lenda and Barger were newer additions, and there were plenty of people who had stayed for as little as a night and as long as years before moving on.

It was an interesting place to grow up, especially compared to Jax’s previous living arrangements, but he thought he, Ana, and Di came out no worse for it. After all, they’re all well fed, educated – Di was studying to be a doctor for goddess’ sake – and Siege and Talle have always been there when they needed them. Like when Ana decided she wanted to start a band; Siege may have sighed about it and certainly set some ground rules, but she never missed a show, let Ana use the van, and was the one to even get her the drum set in the first place.

“Sorry, Captain,” Jax said, getting his duffel and the food into the van and then going to help the others, “But you know my good looks are he only thing keeping the fans coming.”

“Ah, yes,” Di said dryly, having followed Ana out (definitely a puppy), “The throngs of fans shouting your name. Plus, all 13 of our Instagram followers.”

“53,” Xu corrected, being the one that actually did most of the managing of the account.

“Wow, is it actually that many?” Ana asked.

“Yes,” Xu answered, “With an average of 16.3 likes and 1.8 comments per post.”

That wasn’t very much. The band they were opening for had something like 20,000 followers and, you know, enough to fans to be able to justify holding their own concert with an opener. Ana didn’t believe in small milestones, though. Anything that was forward movement counted as victory in her book. That kind of aggressively positive outlook was a big part of what made this all work. If Jax was honest, had anyone else asked him to join a band he would have simply said no. When Ana asked, though, he couldn’t imagine letting someone else play guitar in his best friend’s band. He was certainly glad for it now; it was one of the only things he looks forward to anymore.

As he helped pack, Jax went through a mental checklist of everything. Once this was all done, Siege, Talle, Di, and Ana would take the van and he would drive Lenda, Elara, Xu, and Barger in a separate vehicle – turns out a drum set and audio equipment take up passenger space, go figure.

“Has anyone figured out where the fuck Barger is?” Jax asked. He’d almost forgotten about the irritable and irritating man.

“When’s the last time you saw the old fart?” Elara asked.

“I have not seen him in three days and 20-some hours, since practice on Monday,” Di answered, always so precise.

“Me neither,” Ana chipped in.

“I think I saw him like 2 AM Tuesday?” Lenda said, “I was just up for a glass of water, don’t remember it much.” Barger technically lived with them, but he kept odd hours and went out often, so it wasn’t unusual to not see him for a few days.

“Hasn’t been responsive to Talle or I,” Siege said, the look on her face serious, “I’ve called around. With any hope he’ll show up at the venue.”

Not answering when the captain called? Jax would not like to be in Barger’s shoes. The man better be dead, else he’ll be wishing he were soon.

At this point, it was a bit late to worry about Barger showing. They were lucky to get booked as an opener and would be stupid to give up this opportunity, even if their songs would sound off without a bass. Maybe Di could save their asses with his synths or something.

Whatever happened, though, Jax was determined to have a good time. He was going to go on stage, play with his friends, get some applause – even if it was simply polite applause – and this awful day and that awful boy and his awful boss would be behind him, completely forgotten.

Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 [here] / ?

#hoi #heart of iron #soul of stars #sos #mywriting #fanfiction #might as well face it youre addicted to love #mawfiyatl #robbert valerio #jaxander taizu #robb/jax #robbert valerio/jaxander taizu #rock band au #chapter 5

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cloudynames · 5 years

Text

The Demon Knows Best

hey guys!! how is everyone? i hope youll all excuse me for this late fic ;; school has been killing me but during my winter break ill make sure to post more! please study hard if you take exams this december but make sure to take care of yourself!! hopefully this will power you through exams <3

Word Count: 2,914

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Underage drinking, underage usage of drugs, driving under the influence, and swearing

lets get it!

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“Thank you so much for coming!” You yell out, waving at your friends for coming to your birthday celebration. You turn around and grin at all the presents left for you before jumping into the pile and starting to rip off the wrapping paper from the gifts.

Tearing the envelopes and boxes open, you’ve received countless cards to all your favorite stores and some clothing. You laid back once you’ve opened everything and smile. Your friends were so sweet to be giving you all these wonderful gifts. Making a mental note in your head, you were sure to thank them later on that day.

Just as you were about to stand up and grab a snack, a sharp edge stung the side of your thigh.

“Ow! What the hell!” You fume, about to throw the object that suddenly attacked you when you realized it was a wrapped present. Confused, you try to recall if you had missed any present but couldn’t come to any conclusion. Unwrapping the gift, you were left more confused than ever.

The present was a black box with gold engravings on the edges and forming a floral pattern in the middle of the square. Analyzing it from all six sides, the best bet as to what the mystery object could be was a decoration. You sigh, setting the object down and taking out your phone.

Typing in the group chat, you ask if any of your friends gave you a ‘sharp tiny box.’ The responses varied from, ‘hell no’ to ‘I bet it was from Jisung.’

You huff and throw your phone next to you. Did Jisung really buy you a decoration for your birthday? You sincerely appreciated the thought, but he knows that you two don’t share the same aesthetic.

That day, you didn’t look at the box again.

Nor the next day.

However, you messed with it the following week.

That night you were taking a break from studying and YouTube was getting boring so the next best option was to clean your room. Upon dusting your dresser, your eyes landed on the mysterious black box that had been secretly haunting your thoughts. Grabbing the box, you sat on your bed and stared at the markings.

Noticing the tiny scratches and small indents leads you to suspect that the gift had been previously owned. A loud groan fills your room. Why the hell did Jisung give you a box? More importantly, a box that has already been used! You seriously needed to teach him some proper gift-giving etiquette.

However, the box had scratches and small indents. Someone must’ve played with it or dropped it previously before. But if they had dropped it, why were they even looking at it in the first place? The box might’ve been the size of your hand, but it was quite heavy for its size.

Your finger glided across one of the golden strokes and the piece suddenly shifted to a new position. Your mouth hung open in shock and suddenly you yelled, “OH!”

It was a puzzle!

You carefully worked on the puzzle for twenty minutes and smiled in satisfaction once the final piece set in place. The markings weren’t supposed to be a floral piece, but a cat. But after that last piece set in place, the box began to glow. Throwing the box on your bed and jumping up from your seat, you wondered if the box was simply a decoration. Checking the time comforted you as it was late at night. The clock read 2:37 so it was about time you get some rest.

As the box began to glow more and more, soon becoming blinding to even look at, it was definitely not an illusion. Fearful to make a sound, you slapped a hand over your mouth and closed your eyes tightly, hoping it would all end soon.

Suddenly, the glowing stopped and you opened your eyes.

There was no longer a box in front of you, but a black-haired boy with just as black horns and a tail.

“Finally! I’ve been yelling at you the entire time to solve me.” He exclaims, sitting down as your desk chair while you stared at him with wide eyes.

He took a few chips from your chip bag before jumping up and holding his hand out. “I forgot, humans introduce themselves to each other. My name is Jeno.”

Due to you not responding, he took your hand and slid it into the grip of his, shaking firmly.

“W-What the hell are you?”

“Well, I’m not Hell. But I do come from it! I’m a demon. I’m friends with The Devil if you guys want to go out sometime.”

“I swear I can see stars right now…”

“No, no, no! That’s not good at all. Oh please don’t die on me! This has happened before.” He rushes you put a pillow behind you in case you collapse.

“W-WHAT?”

After taking a few moments to breathe and collect your thoughts, you iterate to Jeno the new information about his appearance.

“So, you’re a demon that’s supposed to make me do bad choices in order to live? Somewhat similar to a leech?”

He makes a pained face and grabs his heart. “Leech is low. Parasite is much more educated and proper.”

You stare at him in shock. The fact that demons existed in your oh so black and white world confused you more than ever.

“S-So, can you like go? I’m a very busy person and I don’t worship The Devil.”

“Nope.” He plopped on your bed and snuggled into the covers.

“Why not?”

“Okay. So here’s the thing: I’m supposed to take your soul so I can leave and I need to make you as vulnerable as I can to make extraction easy. I need to make you do bad decisions though, almost like to destroy your sense of morality and slowly kill you from the inside to out.” Jeno monotones.

“I’m stuck with you until I die?”

“Or until I take your soul.” He winks and a strange pulling at your heart occurs.

However, being with Jeno wasn’t as bad as you thought. He threatened to eat your soul a couple of times but he honestly was a good dude.

“Ugh, I hate eating all this fast food.” You muttered, shoving a fry in your mouth, “but it tastes so good!”

Jeno sips on his milkshake loudly and nods. “I agree—Ooh! Brainfreeze!” He yells and holds his head, shaking from side to side. You grab the milkshake out of his hand and finish it, throwing away the garbage.

“Okay, what should we do next?” You questioned Jeno.

He was in deep contemplation, playing with the end of his shirt until he randomly stood up. “Video games!”

“With what system?” Your room had no consoles and no extra PC for him to play on.

Holding out a hand, a black mist covered his arm and a Nintendo Switch made an appearance.

You open your mouth to question him but he quickly cuts you off.

“What? You don’t think we have video games in Hell?”

You smirk and quickly rush to your TV, only to play Smash until the next day. The next day, however, happened to be a school day.

Falling asleep just twenty minutes ago and hearing your blaring alarm startled you from your slumber. You jolted up in surprise and groaned at the clock. “No way it’s already seven! I’m so tired.” Yawning and lying back down, you curled up close to Jeno. “You’re so warm.” The words came mumbled and gargled, but Jeno understood you perfectly.

Blushing, he opened up more towards you and whistled out, “Well, you can just skip.”

“Yeah… I might just do that.”

Jeno could feel your moral compass failing already, but he didn’t want to take your soul just yet.

That night your parents couldn’t stop yelling at you for skipping, but spending the day with Jeno made you feel better. They made you swear on your life to study that night to make up for skipping and you promised.

Having Jeno in the kitchen was a terrible idea. While trying to study names of scientists for chemistry, he kept opening and closing cabinets, banging pots and pans together, and trying every condiment available to him. He almost smashed a bottle of spicy mustard after it disgusted his tastebuds.

“Ohohoho! What do we have here?”

Turning over to the devil boy holding a bottle of fruity rum, you jump out of your seat and reach for the bottle, only to have your face pushed away.

“Jeno! No! You’re not drinking that!”

“Why? The drinking age in Hell is whatever you want it to be!”

You growled, “Good thing you’re on earth at the moment!” Jumping and stretching for the bottle only frustrated you more when all he did was raise his arm higher.

“Come on, don’t you want to try it? It’s going to be sooo long until you can try it.”

He tempted you and he was doing one good job at doing it. Pursuing your lips, you grab the bottle and two shot glasses, filling them halfway. You tentivany bring the alcohol to your lips and down it. The drink leaves a slight burn and leaves a pit of despair in your stomach afterwards if your parents ever find out what you were doing.

But it was damn good.

Jeno and you spent that night drinking and dancing in your room. Even though it left you with a hell of a hangover, you powered through the day and went to school that following morning.

All was going well (other than you almost tripping with every step) until lunch arrived.

Renjun was rambling off about his newest obsession which happened to be an anime while Chenle was picking at his food half-heartedly, more interested at his phone. Your group was only disrupted when Jaemin, Haechan, and Jisung sat at your table, almost clinging to each other.

“What happened?” Renjun stops his rant to question them.

“Well, you see, uh—“

“Haechan accidentally bought edibles!” Jisung yelled and Jaemin almost sent him out of his seat, a fist flying very close to his head.

“How the fuck do you accidentally buy edibles?” Mark asks, taking a seat at the far end of the table.

“I didn’t know what edibles meant! I thought it was one of those pretty arrangements of fruit!” He complained, slamming the bag of what appeared to be chocolate chip cookies.

Chenle let out a laugh before snatching the bag and letting out a even louder laugh. “Yep. These are for sure edibles.”

The whole table bursted out in laughter and amusement while Haechan’s face became a pretty pink color. He shoved his head in his hands and breathed, “I don’t know what I’m gonna do! I don’t even do drugs! I’m part of student council! They can’t catch me doing this shit!”

“I’ll take it.” You speak up, holding out a hand and Chenle places the bag hurriedly in your grasp.

“Ooooo, honor role student taking a bag of edibles? Who hurt you?” Jaemin giggles.

“Shut up. I know someone who’ll take it.” You grumbled.

Deep in the back of your mind, you knew it was a lie. You were the one who was going to take it, along with Jeno.

“Are you sure you wanna try this?” He asks, fidgeting with his fingers.

“Jeno, if I didn’t know you any better, I would say you’re scared!”

He was. He was incredibly terrified. Every time he looked at you, you were doing something bad. Whether it was telling a lie or drinking, your moral compass was decreasing at an impeccable pace. Jeno would admit he had developed a tiny crush on you. You were so innocent, but you slowly turned into someone he didn’t recognize.

You had already taken a bite out of the cookie and with crumbs falling out of your mouth, you speak out, “I don’t feel anything.”

An hour later, you laid on your bed and giggled. “Hey Jeno, how would a dog wear pants? On all four legs or only the back ones?”

Jeno wondered if someone high even acts like this.

“I can’t honestly tell you {y/n}, but I bet it’s based on preference.”

You chuckle and roll around in your bed. “Jeno—“ You call out sweetly.

A heat rushes to Jeno’s face and he replies, “Yes?”

“You know I like you a lot. Like, a lot a lot. More than a normal person should.”

Jeno feels his heart stop momentarily and he swallows the lump in his throat. “What do you mean?”

“Like, I think sometimes I’m in love with you.”

Oh, how ironic that now he feels as if he is going to faint.

He passes it off as you exemplifying your feelings and he states, “Maybe you should get some sleep.”

He looks back at you for your response and only breathes out a sigh of relief when he notices you’re in a deep sleep.

Slowly, Jeno started noticing your moral compass failing more and more. Although it was his job, he never wanted to take your soul. You were too pure to him, something untouchable. Fate hated you clearly, due to the black box within your room.

The last straw for Jeno was a late night at a party. Since it was Halloween, nobody would question his horns and tail. You decided you wanted to bring him along. Perhaps he pressured you to a few shots, but nothing more! He saw how much you could take with the fruity rum.

However, you stepped up to play a game of beer pong once Jeno used the bathroom. A few beers later and secret shots, you were officially wasted. Jeno, even as a demon, knew better than to let you wander around the disco-like party. He begrudgingly grabbed you and dragged you into your car.

Whilst he kept you from falling all over, he quietly waited for you to start the car, only to realize that you’re drunk and he doesn’t know how to drive on earth.

Panic sets in, but what’s the worst that could happen?

The worst nearly happened.

He didn’t think much of it when you were drifting off into different lanes, but when you almost crashed into a tree, he started to worried.

“Oh my Devil, I have a serious case of whiplash. Hey, are you alright?” Jeno shook your shoulder and you held a hand to your mouth.

“Dude, I’m seriously going to puke if you mess with me like that.” The words came out slurred and Jeno frowned. He knew something had to be done.

He made sure to get on your ass for the next week. Jeno made sure all your homework was completed and you studied at least one hour a day. You resented him for it and it caused that every day stress to creep back into your life once again. Feeling an itch to find some quick relief, raiding the liquor cabinet didn’t seem to do any harm in the short-term.

Sneaking quietly to the cabinet and grabbing one of your mother’s favorite champagne bottles, you turned around only to smack your face in the chest of a demon.

“And what do we have here?” Jeno questioned, snatching the bottle from you.

“Jeno, give it back.” You complained, reaching with little effort.

“What did I tell you about drinking?”

By this point, you were fuming. Who gave Jeno the authority to boss you around? It’s not like he cared anyway. He wants you to do these terrible things!

“Why do you even give a damn anyway? It’s not like you care.”

Jeno remained quiet and you felt your heartbeat pounding harder than ever.

“I don’t care? I am risking my job to keep you safe. I have disobeyed every law in Hell for you just to spend time with you. I even have a crush on you, my fucking host. If Satan ever finds out my feelings towards you, he would keep me as a pet, which is not fun at all!” He almost slammed the bottle on the counter before taking one final look at you. “But go ahead. I don’t give a damn apparently.”

Jeno left you and the bottle remained unopened.

You weren’t sure how to exactly apologize to a demon. They might not even accept apologizes! Yet you needed to set things straight with Jeno.

About an hour or two after your argument, you crept up to your room and tapped lightly on the door. Peering in, you saw the somewhat small lump on your bed, covered in your personal blankets. Resisting the urge to grin, you tiptoed to your bed and laid down next to lump.

After a few moments of shuffling, Jeno poked his head out from the blankets and pouted, “What do you want?”

You breathed out, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I fought with you and got mad. I know you’re looking out for me.”

Jeno contemplated your response before responding, “Forget about what I said earlier.”

Your mind flashes back to his confession and you feel suddenly light-headed, being in the same bed as the boy who just confessed to you.

“What about if I don’t want to?”

Suddenly, Jeno moves closer to your body and wraps both of you in the warm sheets.

“I would say don’t. After all, the demon knows best.”

#nct jeno #nct 2018 #nct imagine #nct scenarios #nct headcanon #jeno #nct dream #writing #kpop #kpop imagines #kpop headcanons

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mycatshuman · 6 years

Text

Die Schere Hand (An Edward Scissorhands Sanders Sides AU)

Chapter 2

Pairings: Prinxiety, Logicality

Word count: 2,733

(I would like to thank @civilsounds17 for beta reading this chapter! Without your help I would not have likes this chapter!)

Chapter 1 here https://mycatshuman.tumblr.com/post/178664306472/die-schere-hand

Virgil tried to stop himself from staring. He really did! He just couldn't help it. He had never left the hill before. He had only ever seen these things from far away. Now he was seeing them up close. It was a whole different experience. It was new, yet familiar. Almost like the Eiffel Tower. You saw it in pictures yet seeing it up close was a whole new thing entirely.

Patton hummed happily as he watched the man beside him. The look of absolute awe and wonder in those deep blue eyes was mesmerizing.

Patton cheerily tapped his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove through the streets of the pastel colored neighborhood. He noticed, with a small frown, that many of the neighbors were staring and running off, most likely to spread the news of the strange looking man in Patton’s car.

Patton forced a smile onto his face. He wasn’t going to let some little thing like gossip get to him. He slowly turned onto his road and pulled into the driveway of a pastel blue house. Virgil stared at the neatly cut hedges surrounding the backyard.

They were so boring! They had no character. They had no originality. It was so plain! Virgil found himself already picturing himself creating something….unique out of the plants. He jumped slightly as he heard Patton open the door to get out of the car. Patton froze.

“Everything okay, Kiddo?” Patton asked as he looked at Virgil. Behind his glasses, Virgil could see the man's eyes cloud with worry.

Virgil crushed the thoughts of trimming hedges out of his head. This was Patton’s home. Not his. He couldn’t just go and try to change it. Patton might get upset. “Ye-” Virgil cleared his throat. He refused to look at Patton, lest the joyous man see the guilt on his face. “Yes,” he replied finally.

Patton wasn’t convinced but he put a smile on his face anyway and quickly exited the car.

Virgil watched as Patton hurriedly rushed to his door and opened it for him. “Come on,” Patton exclaimed with a bright smile on his face. Virgil frowned slightly as he shifted around and carefully climbed out the car, holding his dangerous hands as close to himself as possible.

“Thank you,” he whispered as Patton closed the car door behind him. Patton grinned at him.

“You’re welcome! Now, come on! Let’s show you the house!”

Virgil followed the excited man as he bounced to the front door and quickly unlocked it. Patton watched as Virgil shuffled up next to him. Patton opened the door with a flourish. “Go ahead,” he gestured to the doorway.

Virgil hesitated before taking a small step closer. “Go on! I don’t want to block your view,” Patton giggled as Virgil slowly inched his way into the house. Patton closed the door as he followed Virgil inside. He felt a giddy smile spread across his face as he watched the young man stare in wonder at the dwelling.

Virgil looked on in wonder. The room he was in was painted a pale blue and the furniture was a darker blue. A t.v. sat against the wall opposite the window behind the couch.

On the wall across from the front door stood a shelf filled top to bottom with movies. As Virgil shuffled closer he noticed a considerable chunk of them were Disney. It almost seemed like every Disney movie was present. Although there were some other movies as well. Virgil felt a small smile tug at his lips as he noticed Harry Potter and Sherlock.

Patton hung back by the door as Virgil checked out the living room. A fond smile snuck onto his face as he watched the man’s eyes light up with wonder. It was almost like the man momentarily forgot about his hands. Patton felt determination settle in his gut. He would have to talk to Logan about that.

“Do you like it?” Patton asked as Virgil turned back to him.

“Yeah,” Virgil whispered softly. A grin broke out across Patton’s face.

“I’m so glad!” He exclaimed. Then his eyes lit up as he noticed something behind Virgil. He squealed. “Oo! Let me show you my friends!” Patton rushed past him as Virgil felt his heart kick into overdrive. Friends?!?! Virgil was not prepared for this. Reluctantly, he turned around to see Patton standing in front of some pictures.

Virgil frowned slightly but joined Patton, making sure to keep his hands away from the bubbly man with the grey cardigan.

Patton’s face glowed with joy as he pointed to a photo in a small rectangular black frame. The style was sleek and composed. Virgil thought it matched the man in the picture quite well. “This is Logan!” Patton gushed as he pointed to the man.

Virgil held back a laugh. The man in the picture wore a black polo with slacks and a blue striped tie. On his nose sat a pair of glasses similar to Patton’s and not a hair was out of place. “He is really smart and don’t let him know I told you this, but he really loves Sherlock. He even cosplayed as him!” Patton squealed. “If Roman knew, he would never let Logan live it down.” Patton chuckled and Virgil caught the fond look in his eyes as he stared at the photo.

Something was definitely going on there. And judging by the look on Patton’s face, Virgil could tell the man felt a little more for the tie wearing man then just friendship.

Patton turned to the other frame. This one was….extra. It looked ridiculous hanging beside the other one. The frame was painted a royal shimmering gold and looked like it belonged in a castle somewhere surrounded by tapestries and paintings of old nobles. “This is Roman,” Patton informed Virgil as he pointed at the man in the ridiculous frame.

Virgil felt a light blush warm his cheeks. The man was….handsome. He had tan skin and blonde hair. His teeth were a blinding white as he beamed at the camera and he was wearing a prince costume. Guess that explains the frame. Virgil thought as he took in the white uniform with gold accents and a blood red sash. Everything about the picture and the frame radiated a “LOOK AT ME!” energy.

“Roman loves acting and anything Disney so don’t get scared if you hear a voice belting Disney songs or the Phantom of the Opera in the middle of the night.” Patton giggled. “He gets stuck in his own little world sometimes.”

Virgil nodded absentmindedly as he examined the man gracing the frame.

Patton glanced at him and felt a small smile on his face. “Roman won’t be home for maybe a week. He’s in the mountains with his friends. But Logan and I will be here!” Patton exclaimed as he looked down at his watch. “Oh! Goodness! Logan will be home in two hours!” Patton hurried to a doorway leading to a small hall with doors on either side. He turned back to Virgil. “Come on!” He exclaimed as he waved Virgil forward. Virgil slowly shuffled forward as he followed Patton to a small bedroom with a lot of Disney posters and musical memorabilia. The bed was covered in a rich red fabric and golden curtains hung from the bedposts and surrounded the bed like it was some kind of bed from the Victorian era.

“This is Roman’s room. You can sleep here until we get a bed for the guest room,” Patton said as he looked at Virgil.

Virgil’s eyes widened. “No!” He shouted. Patton took a step back in surprise as the quiet man shouted. Virgil’s face grew pale as he realized what he did. “I-I mean…” Virgil cleared his throat. “I don’t mind sleeping on the floor or couch.” Virgil looked down guiltily, waiting for the man to yell at him. When nothing came Virgil peeked up through his bangs to see a warm smile on Patton’s face.

“No, you're our guest and we can’t force you to sleep on the floor!” Patton cried as if the very idea was appalling. “It’s no trouble. I want to make sure you feel welcome. Alright kiddo?”

Virgil stared at Patton as if the man had offered him a kitten. He opened his mouth only to find that he couldn’t think of a way to properly thank the kind-hearted person in front of him.

Patton smiled warmly at him with understanding. “It’s okay kiddo. I get it. You’re welcome.”

Virgil swallowed the lump in his throat. He let out a sigh of relief at not having to try and explain just how grateful he felt. He nodded to confirm that he was indeed trying to say thank you.

“Come on,” Patton said softly as he turned to leave the room. “Let’s go make some dinner. Do you like pasta?” He asked as he walked down the hall, Virgil following at a small distance.

Pasta. Virgil hadn’t had pasta for a long time. The last time he had pasta was...Virgil felt something wet slid down he face. A tear. He carefully moved his hand so he could wipe away the evidence before Patton could see. He hadn’t had pasta since his father died. It would be nice to have pasta again. Even if it was for a little bit. After all, why would these people want him to stay more than a week?

“Pasta would be good,” he replied quietly.

“Good!” Patton exclaimed happily as they entered the kitchen. “How's chicken alfredo sound?” He asked as he pulled out pots and pans.

“Good,” Virgil replied. He cringed slightly. Did he know any other word besides “good”?!?! Of course Virgil knew other words than “good”, but apparently his brain wasn’t working correctly.

“Yay!” Patton cheered as he clapped his hands together. Virgil felt a small smile pull at his lips as Patton’s joy seeped into the air, infecting him. “Alrighty, then,” Patton pulled the chicken out of the fridge, grabbing a knife from the drawer and cut open the package preparing to cut the meat.

Virgil watched as Patton froze just before he sliced through the first chicken breast. He looked down at the knife in his hands, almost as if he was surprised at what he was doing. Confusion spread across Virgil’s face as he watched the man turn to look at him.

“Hey, Virgil?” Patton started as he eyed the man in questions hands. Virgil immediately felt too big. He hunched in on himself as he tried to hide his hands behind him.

“Yeah?” Virgil mumbled.

Patton’s eyes widened as he realized he had just made the man uncomfortable. “Oh! I’m sorry kiddo! I was just wondering if you could, um….” Patton looked away in shame. How dare he try to use this man!

Virgil seemed to have a sixth sense when it came to people and any self deprecating thoughts. Before he could stop himself, he quickly shouted. “No! Go ahead and ask! What do you want me to do? I-I’d love to help!” Virgil was vaguely aware that he hardly made any sense but it was worth it to see the shimmer of hope in Patton’s eyes.

Patton shyly looked at Virgil as he thought of how to word his question in a way that wouldn’t hurt Virgil’s feelings or anything. “Well……..” Patton looked anywhere but Virgil, his eyes purposely skipping over the darker male. “I was wondering if you would like to cut up the chicken for me,” Patton finally whispered as he looked down at the chicken nonchalantly.

Virgil stared in awe at this overly excitable man. Here he was, asking Virgil! Of all things! If he would be okay with cutting the chicken. In all reality, it was the only thing Virgil could really do. Patton suddenly looked deflated.Virgil realized he had been quiet for too long and Patton probably thought he had upset him. “I just need to clean them first,” he replied as he shrugged nonchalantly.

Patton visibly brightened. “Okay!” He exclaimed cheerfully. He regarded Virgil’s hands for a moment, his eyebrows low over his eyes. “Is water okay?” He asked.

Virgil nodded. “Yeah, just don’t get it up in the joints,” Virgil explained as he pointed to the very top of his hand, his “knuckles”.

Patton smiled at him. “Alright, can I?” Patton asked softly as he motioned to the blades.

Virgil nodded slowly, swallowing the lump in his throat before he spoke. “Just, be careful,” his voice wavered slightly.

Patton nodded seriously. “I will. I promise.” Patton carefully took ahold of Virgil’s elbow and guided him to the sink and turned the water on. “What kind of temperature do you want?” He asked.

Virgil shrugged. “It doesn't matter. I can’t feel it anyway.”

Patton frowned slightly. This poor child...okay maybe he wasn’t exactly a child but Patton didn’t care. His poor son was alone for so long and he didn’t even get to have hands. Patton stayed silent as he washed the steel blades. A determined light settled in his eyes. Yes, he would most certainly be talking to Logan when he got home.

An awkward silence hung in the air as Patton, Logan, and Virgil sat at the dinner table eating the meal that Patton and Virgil had cooked. It had been quite a surprise when Logan came home from the lab and saw Patton in the kitchen with a man with scissors for hands. Logan was torn between protecting Patton and studying the man, so much so that he froze in the doorway.

Patton had smiled brightly and introduced them while Virgil hunched in on himself and shuffled his feet awkwardly. Patton explained everything to Logan before going back to preparing the meal. Once, when Virgil wasn’t paying attention, Patton had whispered to Logan: “No experiments.” To which Logan physically deflated but understood Patton’s reasoning.

Now they all sat at the dinner table while eating their meal. Logan watched in awe as Virgil used his “thumb” and “forefinger” to pick up the pasta. Patton elbowed Logan and gave him a pointed look. Logan scooped up a forkful of pasta while secretly watching as Virgil carefully moved the food into his mouth, somehow not cutting himself.

“Fascinating,” Logan whispered. Virgil jumped at the sudden noise.

“Logan!” Patton gasped as he shot the logical man a glare. “Put that scientist’s mind away! This is our guest! You will not be ‘studying’ Virgil!” Patton told Logan.

“But science!”

Patton glared. Virgil looked back and forth between the two men and felt like he was causing this argument. If Patton knew what he was thinking he would tell him otherwise.

Virgil looked down at his lap. “I wouldn’t mind answering any questions,” he whispered, his voice low.

Both Logan and Patton’s head turned towards the darkly clothed man in surprise. “Are you sure kiddo,” Patton asked slowly. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“Patton is right, Virgil. It really is your decision. No matter how much I would-” Logan hissed in pain as he felt an elbow stab him the ribs. “It is your choice. We are not forcing you to do anything,” He rephrased.

“I wouldn’t mind,” Virgil spoke softly as he took an interest in the table cloth. “It’s the least I can do.”

“Kiddo,” Patton started before he caught Logan’s look.

He might feel the need to prove that he is truly grateful for what we are doing. Plus, it would be an opportunity to figure out how exactly to do what you wanted, Logan’s look seemed to say.

Patton stopped short. Logan was right. There was no way they could actually help Virgil if they didn’t know how his body worked and everything. Patton sighed.

“If that’s what you want kiddo.”

Virgil nodded to himself. “Yeah,” he could do it. He could prove himself useful. “It is.”

Logan tried to keep the small smile off his face. Research. This would be fascinating. He snuck a glance at Patton, and Logan could make Patton happy in the process. Logan inwardly groaned.

They were still going to have to deal with Virgil meeting Roman. Who knows what ridiculous dramatics Roman would throw about when he met Virgil.

He just hoped that they would be able to help Virgil.

(Thank you for reading! I hope you all have a magnificent day and calm night followed by an amazing week! As always feedback is always appreciated good or bad and you can tell me anonymously in my askbox if you want to.) 💜💜💜💜💜💜🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻🎃👻💜💜💜💜💜💜

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four-swords-dub · 6 years

Audio

Next up we have our Green bean blooper machine! Riley! (Karen: Riley couldn’t record his answers so I’ve included one of my fav lines of his) Name: rockriled Character(s) you voice: Green Link, Deku Scrub #2, Sound Director/Editor of the FS Dub Project Are you in any way like those characters? I think we’re similar in terms of wanting to help/protect the people we love. As for Green’s personality…probably not? Green is confident, independent, and hardworking while I’m a bag of nerves and anxiety. I could fit into the hardworking area, though. As for the Deku Scrub…we’re both short, squeaky, and flammable? (I’m probably not gonna refer to the Deku Scrub for the rest of this since they only got…four lines, I think?)

Favourite/least favourite thing about voicing your character? My favorite thing about voicing Green is that I can just let loose. I don’t talk much outside of the project due to shyness and how most of my friends live a long ways away, but when I play Green, I can feel powerful and confident even if it’s just for a few minutes.Least favorite thing about voicing Green is that depending on the chapter, he has the most lines. I blame this on my lack of voice-acting experience, but both actor-me and sound-editor-me look through the script and think “dangit, Green, stop hogging the spotlight and let someone else speak!” Which characters did you audition for? I auditioned for Vio first, but I got nervous that auditioning for only one role was rude. I figured I wasn’t cute enough for Red or tough enough for Blue, so I went with Green. How did you react when you got the part(s)? Hoo boy, um…settle in, this is a bit of a story.My self-esteem has always been in the pits—and combining that with my perfectionist needs didn’t help, either. Whenever something cool came up, my brain would go “why bother, you’re gonna fail” and I’d do just that: give up without trying.So when posts about the Four Swords Dub Project started floating around, the same thing happened all over again. Best way I can describe it… Brain: “Don’t even try it. You know you’re not gonna get a part.” Me: “But it’s Four Swords, my favorite part of the Zelda manga series.” Brain: “And? Your voice sucks. Your acting sucks. You won’t even get a minor role. Do you really want to add another failure to your life?” Me: “…look. I’m really interested in this. I don’t know if I’ll actually get a part, but I still want to send in an audition so I can say that I tried.” Brain: “…two main characters? Really? Don’t get your hopes up.”(some time later) FS Dub Email: “Congratulations, you’re going to be our Green Link!” Me & Brain: “WAIT, WHAT?!” It was a total shock. I was so convinced I wasn’t going to get in that it never occurred to me that I could get in. Heck, it’s been a little over two years and I still can’t believe I got a leading role. As for the part of Sound Director/Editor…I can’t remember how, but I somehow got a hold of all the voice lines for all the characters in Chapter 1-1. Even though I have zero experience in editing, I suddenly got curious and started mixing the files with background music and sound effects. I sent a copy of what I put together to Karen (our voice and project director) for fun. Next thing I knew, I was the BGM/SFX guy for the rest of the project! Long story short: this dub’s been full of surprises. ^_^ Who do you wish you could voice? Oof, that’s a tough one. @_@ It’s so hard to pick because everyone’s already perfect as their current roles... Had you read the manga before taking part in the dub? Yep! :D It was around the time the internet became a big thing and when YouTube was first made. Middle-school me spent HOURS scouring Google for Yu-Gi-Oh! content (fell in love with the show in sixth grade) when I stumbled across a website with Legend of Zelda comics It had the manga versions of Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, the Oracle games, and—my top favorite—Four Swords.

FS holds a special place in my heart for not only giving the Links such diverse eyes/expressions, but destroying typical color-personality associations. I’d seen fan-comics of Four Swords with Red as the angry one, Blue as the smart one, and Purple as the newbie or the…um…stereotypically-gay one. Akira Himekawa’s version of the Links blew my freaking mind and I LOVED IT. <3 Any past voice acting experience? At best, the only voice-acting experience I had prior to the FS dub was watching tons of anime and re-enacting scenes via talking to myself. I still do this with anime, TV shows, movies, books, and video games. @_@ I’m not sure if this counts, but I…kinda got voice training in other areas? I yelled my lungs out in Tae Kwon Do for two years, sang alto in a chorus for three years, was moved to soprano for one year, yelled my lungs out again in Judo for one year, and learned classical/opera singing techniques for a few months (a friend’s friend was studying to be a music teacher and they needed a volunteer to practice their teaching skills). They might not count for this question, though… Who is your favourite FS character (if any)? Oh boy...I know younger-me’s favorite was Vio (I blame the eyes and ability to side with both Shadow and the other Links), but these days? It’s hard to pick, thanks to the dub. @_@ How do you warm up/get in character before recording? Big thing for me is how I’m feeling. Currently, I work six days a week (it sucks but I need the money/insurance DX) and I use the commute from work to where I live to figure out my mood. If I’m down in the dumps to the point that music can’t help, I won’t be able to deliver as Green. If I have some energy or so much energy that I can belt/rap to my music, I’m all set. It means I’m all loose and confident to record. As for days when I don’t have work like days-off or holidays, I try to relax and get myself in a Green-y mindset.

Little something I picked up from YouTube is gargling a mouthful of water. I’m not too sure how it works, but I do this right before a recording session and it helps a lot. Favourite chapter to voice so far? Favourite scene? Um…it’s kinda hard to pick a favorite chapter or scene I liked voicing since I had fun with all of them. Can I make this into favorite scene/chapter to do sound stuff for instead? And can I pick multiples instead? >_>;; Favorite Chapter for Sound Editing: Chapter 4. I had to compile different sounds that reflected Green’s desert, Blue’s snowstorm, Red’s forest fire, and Vio’s night in the woods. It was both challenging and fun. :D Favorite Scene for Sound Editing: Every comedic scene, scenes where the background music slowed to a halt, and scenes where I had to improvise sound effects.

The slowed-down songs are in the scenes where Blue and Green fight on the boat, and when Red admits he lost his weapons to Blue in the Ice Cave. Those were tough to do in Audacity (had to slow down the music piece by piece), but it was SO worth it.

As for scenes where I had to use nearby stuff for sounds…there’s a bunch of ‘em.

The door slamming while Erune talks about the missing children = me slamming my bedroom door.

The Gerudo Masseuse’ movements and the Gerudo Elder’s staff = me shaking my wrist while wearing my old belly-dance bracelets.

Deku Scrubs popping out of the ground = me smacking my lips mixed with the deku sound effect from Ocarina of Time.

Green’s sword hitting the labyrinth wall = me hitting a pot lid with a wooden spoon.

Green falling and sliding down the labyrinth wall = me falling and sliding down a bedroom wall.

Eerie shadow raising their sword to attack Green as the moon rises = me sliding a knife sharpener over a kitchen knife.

Shadow walking on clouds = me blowing into the mic mixed with footstep sounds from Ocarina of Time.

Big Poe screaming at Red and Blue = me banging pots, pans, and piano keys mixed with chaotic sound effects I found online.

Big Poe taking Blue’s soul = me breathing into the mic along with heavy editing.

Red clapping at Big Poe = me clapping my hands.

The Four Swords pulsing = me playing a four-note harmony (one for each Link) on the piano mixed with heavy editing and a wind chime effect.

(Karen: This guy is a genius when it comes to sound effects and the dub wouldn’t be half as good without him!)

Lines you dread voicing the most (screaming, crying, etc): As much as I love battle cries, my microphone and its inconvenient ability to make stuff clip bothers me.

And even though the chapter’s long gone, the part where Green remembers when he playing with Zelda as a toddler. I’M NEVER VOICING SMALL CHILDREN AGAIN. DX

What are your biggest worries when it comes to voicing your character? *pulls in with a giant dump truck* um…

#1 – Is my voice too high or too low? Green’s age would be around early teens or so, and with my weird vocal range, I can’t tell if I make him sound younger or older than he is. #2 – Am I getting the personality right? Because of my shy-as-hell nature, it’s hard for me to pick up if my confident-Green-persona sounds genuine or fake. #3 – Is it bad that I can only voice Green with my natural voice? Many voice actors have a HUGE variety of voices they can do (ex. Tara Strong). It’s likely because I’m still new to this, but part of me gets nervous that me voicing Green with my normal speaking voice is a sign that I lack voice acting talent. #4 – (Personal worry but it still bothers me sometimes) How will I sound as Green in the future? I’m a pre-HRT transmale who hates how high his voice is. This year, I’ll be moving out and if I play my cards right, I can start the process to either get testosterone, top surgery, or both. I love this dub to death, but after voicing Green in my non-HRT voice for so long, I get nervous that I could accidentally lower the quality of the dub if my voice changes if/when I start HRT (assuming the editing process for videos will be the same as it’s been). (Karen: i figure I should add this since people might be wondering how we’re going to handle it. As Green is right now I feel his voice wouldn’t hurt if it went a little deeper. However, if Riley’s voice becomes too deep, I’m going to edit the pitch of his lines. Don’t worry Riley, you aren’t going anywhere!) #5 – Do I make too many bloopers? During recording, I either screw up or my mind wanders a lot, and I save ‘em for the blooper reel. When the reel comes out, however, I’ll sometimes see my segment is a little longer than everyone else’s and I get nervous. ESPECIALLY if Green only had two lines and I had nearly an extra 30 seconds worth of bloopers. Would you date your character (if they were of age)?I’m gonna sound horrible, but…I don’t think Green’s personality would stand out enough to me as a possible date. If anything, I think we’d just end up being a weird duo of friends: the strong, confident soldier and the socially-awkward weirdo. *laughs*

Do you have a favourite voice actor on the dub?I don’t have a favorite voice actor, but I do have favorite lines/sounds from some of the cast (this is likely to change as more chapters are released). The way the VAs say these lines, I LOVE ‘EM. For now, I’m only going to list a few of them so this Q&A doesn’t go too long.

Favorite Carrottheluvmachine/Red line: “Oh! And it [footprint] looks like mine!” Favorite Ashe/Blue line: “so that’s how you want to do this, huh?!” Favorite Swiss/Vio line: “Losing confidence? …it’s because I’m you too, remember?” Favorite Kaenith/Shadow line: “Shadow saying “you’re a creature of darkness now, don’t forget that.”

Asked by Anon: Riley, how do you come up with so many awesome bloopers? Aww, thank you. ^///^ Most of them are accidental, like me not saying a word correctly. Others happen when I try and fail to memorize the script: if I’m struggling with a line, I’ll have a physical copy of the manga and match Green’s facial expression. This helps me get into the mindset, but it does draw my attention away from the script and I’ll end up flubbing a line because I tried to say it off the top of my head.

The mistakes where I either notice something weird either pop up on the fly or something I noticed a while back, and then suddenly remember during recording. The part where I noticed the Four Sword “thrumming” happened when I couldn’t get Green’s “the four sword is pulsing!” line right and I had to keep looking at the manga for the proper face. It was at that point I noticed the weird sound effect drawn in. Also, the blooper where I sang a song from The Heathers as Green flees the Eerie Shadow? That was in my head long before the script for Chapter 5 was out and when the time came to record, I remembered that bit.

Asked by Anon What was the funniest/most humorous line you guys have had to say? Not sure if this counts, but Kaenith had a blooper where they screwed up as Shadow, saying “you’re pretty—UM PRETTY SMART!” They shared it with the staff and it was so funny, Swiss made a joke response as Vio going “I prefer handsome.” I was given the two lines to put together and as a joke, I added some audio of a guy screaming “MAKE OUT!”

The staff liked it so much, they asked me to add Green shouting “NOW KISS!” It took a while to get perfectly, but I had SO much fun with it. ^_^

#legend of zelda #four swords #green link #manga #zelda #askthecast

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kurtbastian-land · 6 years

Text

Decorations

Pairing(s): Kurt Hummel + Burt Hummel

Summary: It was in the middle of the night and there were crashes and banging and clanking and all sorts of noises that shouldn’t even be heard in Burt Hummel’s kitchen at 11 o’clock into the night. But there were (noises) so Burt has to pick himself off bed to check things out

Warning(s): N/A

Author’s note: Okay okay, I know this prompt is later than expected but currently it’s assignment due date week. Being a procrastinator that I am, I currently rushing through them. I’m currently mind blank for upcoming prompts so I’ll see how future post goes :x BUT thank you for the people who have been reading my previous prompts, especially for those which aren’t Kurtbastian related <3

Bang! Bam! Crash! Clank!

Burt immediately jolted from his deep slumber at the loud crashes of what it seems to be pots and pans from the kitchen. Letting out a groan, Burt turned to look at his digital clock on his bedside table.

11:27pm

Seeing that there was no one else living in his house, besides himself and his 9-year-old son, Burt concluded that the ruckus was made by the latter. Feeling slightly placated by the thoughts that there wasn't a break in of any sorts, Burt slowly allowed himself to fall asleep.

Wait a minute...

Burt immediately sat back up, realizing that his 9-year-old son shouldn't even be awake at this hour much less be creating such a ruckus in the kitchen. The kid has school tomorrow!

Grumbling to himself, Burt got out of bed and putting on his house slippers. Mumbling a few incoherent words, Burt decided to check in his son's room just in case that there was a burglary and the burglar decided to himself to the kitchen. As Burt slowly approached the room door, he noticed the slightly ajar door and peeked in. Everything was silent in the room, pitch dark other than a dim light shining through the window from the streetlights outside. The bed was empty, blankets were left on the floor, no sign of any kid.

Burt let out a sigh and began shuffling his way towards the kitchen, walking down the stairs rather unwillingly. Seeing how the lights in the kitchen were on, it further proves that his missing son was in it, creating a mess of some sort. Not wanting to scare the latter, Burt quietly approached the entrance to the kitchen, hiding at the side with only his head peeking out slightly.

And there he was, his son, in his power ranger pajamas. His face covered with icing powder as he diligently mixed up some kind of concoction in a mixing bowl, soft murmurings coming from the smaller, could be heard.

"Aren't I doing a good job? I remembered. 3 cups of icing sugar and then slowly add half a cup of milk."

As the child stopped mixing, he moved further down the counter, pointing to the different bowls filled with colored icing. "I made pink icing, green icing, red icing and white icing. It's all the colors you used on your gingerbread men."

"If you think the colors are pretty," he continued as he reached out for the plate filled with decorated gingerbread men, "look at the gingerbread men I decorated with it. Mrs. Susan from down the street gave some to me without decorating it."

Burt smiled sadly as he continued listening to his son talk, eyes welling slightly as understood who exactly he was talking to. Glancing up at the ceiling briefly, Burt entered the kitchen with a knock on the wall.

"Hey there bud. What are you doing up so late?"

Kurt watched with sudden nervousness as Burt continued walking closer, “Nothing?”

“Am I in trouble?" Kurt asked as he slowly stepped away from the counter.

"Maybe on other days, yes," Burt admitted as he watched how dejected Kurt got at that response, "but not today pal. I know why you're up Kurt."

Both father and son turned to look at the pile of messes created by the latter, along with the plate of gingerbread men that was haphazardly drawn on. "You miss your mum don't you?"

Nodding his head miserably, Kurt whispered, "a lot."

It's been barely a couple of months since the passing of Elizabeth Hummel and the Hummel men were taking it day by day to grieve and slowly fill up the hurts in their hearts over the loss of a wife and mother.

Ruffling his son's hair, Burt stared at the bowls filled with various colored icing and plates after plates of undecorated gingerbread men, "well, these gingerbread men aren't going to decorate themselves. So why don't you tell me what to do and we can decorate these together?"

Kurt blinked his eyes hopefully to which Burt bend down slightly to look at Kurt in his eyes. "I know I'm not your mum Kurt, but I'm going to be here in ways your mum has all your life. Is that okay bud?"

Smiling at his dad, Kurt pointed to the piping bag that was sticking out of the red icing bowl, "well dad, you're gonna need that."

Without a falter, Burt grabbed the piping bag before saluting at his son. And soon, the two Hummel men started a new tradition, well, more of continuing an old tradition in a new year. It wasn't in the most ideal circumstance but, Kurt couldn't help but be any more thankful for his dad.

#hummelholidays #prompt #dec 5: decorations #kurt hummel #burt hummel

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tysonrunningfox · 6 years

Text

Relationship Challenged

I just...can’t wait, guys. The Arvelia arc is gonna happen and I’ll post it and maybe it’ll even be better when shit is going down (because it’s gonna go down)

But. The baby boy still does not know how to girl. And he should probably try soon.

Tumblr | AO3

“Why’d you let the dragon go?” Aurelia asks, leaning against Bang’s side and wiggling her stocking feet in front of the fire.

“What dragon?” I pick my head up off of Bang’s back to look at her.

“The scauldron, the one that destroyed the dock. Why did you let it go?” She turns towards me, tucking her feet under her and leaning a still cautious elbow along Bang’s back. “Maybe if my dad had seen it he would have finally believed us about the dragons.”

“It’s not that he doesn’t believe us,” I scoff, staring at my hands, “it’s that he thinks it doesn’t mean anything. It’s like he doesn’t notice that it’s a week after Snoggletog and that’s the first wild dragon I’ve seen.”

“But if you’d kept the dragon around, maybe we could figure out what’s wrong with them or—”

“Have you seen a full grown Scauldron?” I snap and I feel bad about it but not enough to slow down. “They’re not small. And if they’re panicking and don’t want to do what you want them to do, they spray boiling water at your face.”

“Yeah, but we train dragons all the time—”

“We?” It comes out too harsh and I sigh. “Sorry.”

“What’s got your too short pants in a bunch?” She looks at the inch of my ankle that’s exposed above my socks with that Aurelia brand judgement that makes me forget she’s harmless and I tug my pantlegs down.

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been a jerk ever since you got home—”

“The chief was late and made me deal with all this shit on my own—”

“Wait, are you actually upset that he was late or are you upset about why he was late?” She leans in slightly like she’s interested in something between the points I’m actually making and I shrug.

“Both—”

“You know?” She scoots closer, distracted enough that she doesn’t flinch when Bang’s scales ripple next to her. That or she’s getting used to Wingspark and it’s carrying over, but I’d rather her be so enchanted with what I’m saying than think about her and Arvid right now. My face is just feeling firm in all the right places again.

“I know what?”

“Wait, what?” She shakes her head, “why are you mad at why the chief was late? What is that why?”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I laugh, scooting away from her because this suddenly feels a little too much like an interrogation for my taste. “But he stopped to invite Fuse without talking to me first—”

“Oh my Gods, that’s still a problem?” She scoffs, “you haven’t talked to her yet?”

“No!” I throw my arms up and my head falls back against Bang, who groans with the impact, whiny ever since I made him work this morning. “Smitelout is taking forever with the baffle and at this point it’s been so long I don’t know how I can just…go talk to her empty handed.”

“So what did you do?”

“I just…flew off.” I shrug, face hot with embarrassment, because it sounds cowardly even though it’s not, not really. “I—I just want to actually make it right, I don’t want to give her any other reason to be mad at me.”

“Right. A reason aside from a stupid metal thing you forgot to forge. Because that’s why she’s mad but you won’t ask her and it’s been more than a week.”

“Is that sarcasm?”

“What do you think?” She rolls her eyes and drums her fingers against Bang’s side before seemingly realizing what she’s doing and very daintily curling her arm back into her chest. “You should just talk to Fuse. And you should also open your eyes, in general—”

“If I’m missing so much, why don’t you tell me what it is?”

“Because I don’t have proof.” She huffs, “and I don’t want Arvid’s head to get any bigger about it.”

“I…” I sigh and cradle my head in my hands, “I’m just going to safely say I don’t want to know what you’re talking about—”

“I—Mom’s happy, right?” She rocks back onto her heels and stands up slowly, like she’s not sure she wants to have the conversation and I wishes she’d be a little more decisive about it. Preferably before she tells me anything else about Arvid’s big head and I throw up. “Or happier than she was. Happier than I’ve known her.”

“She’s seemed happy since Snoggletog,” I shrug a shoulder and look back at the fire, ear trained on her room in case she’s listening in. “I think planning the feast was good for her, I—I don’t know.” Calling her happy hurts, it makes me compare what I’ve seen of her recently to how she used to be and I don’t want to draw that parallel. It makes this feel even more permanent than it already is.

“Yeah,” Aurelia sighs, “I’m going to go to bed. See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, sure. Goodnight.” I listen to her climb the stairs and I hear her door shut. She doesn’t open her window, like maybe she actually has plans to stay here tonight and that, at least, makes me feel temporarily like less of a loser.

00000

“Good morning,” Mom emerges from her bedroom long after I’ve already eaten everything in the house that was in a vaguely edible state for breakfast. She sees the empty pots and baskets on the counter and shakes her head. “I see you were hungry.”

“Yeah,” I shrug, “sorry.”

“It’s fine,” she laughs like she never used to when Arvid and I tore through all passable ingredients in the middle of the night. Maybe there is something to being rich in that special chiefly way, maybe that’s why she’s not contesting it. “Did Aurelia at least get some of it?”

“She asked for bread but lost her appetite when I started cleaning out last night’s pan with mine, to be honest.”

“So you are a late grower,” she scoffs, pulling the bag of flour out and getting started on another batch of bread. I think about offering to help but that feels weirder than it used to, like now I’m almost part of a chief and if he came down to me covered in flour that would go away. “I kind of wondered about that, honestly.”

“Because of the chief?” I try to sound angry but it doesn’t quite happen, because in my head he’s not just the guy who wasn’t there when a scauldron took a dock down, he’s also the guy who tried to teach his dad to train a Thunderdrum. His dad, who was my grandpa, whose statue I’ve seen every day that I lived without knowing Eret the Original.

“Because you never bit Arvid’s hand when he took food off your plate.” She’s diverting, and I don’t mind, I like that she’s faking something, that there’s some plain I can interact with her on that’s not driven by abject, painful truth.

“Not that you saw.”

She laughs. It doesn’t quite make me happy like it used to, because I’ve realized she might have been thinking of someone else making her laugh, and I try to act like I don’t notice.

“Any reason you’re up so early?”

“It’s not that early,” I look out the window at the sun creeping upwards, “it’s like mid-morning. The chief hasn’t even been down yet.”

“It’s early for you,” she points a clean spatula at me.

“Maybe I’m growing up,” I get the feeling that I should just leave, that being here isn’t being helpful and I hate it. I hate that helpful is the pivot that I’ve started to gauge myself around.

“Not that fast.”

“Maybe it’s my late growth spurt,” I stand up, the rare and foreign reality of being irritated with my mom overwhelming as I stretch, looking at the door like there’s anything more entertaining outside. My mom always said I’d someday regret not having any hobbies except running around with Arvid and I guess that day is finally here. “Should I go wake the chief up? There’s got to be something I should go do.”

“Eh, probably let him sleep.” Mom goes back to rooting through the cabinets, “did you literally eat all the food?”

“It’s not like there was all that much.” I cross my arms and lean back against the table, “I could go to the market, if you wanted. I don’t know what all to buy but—”

“Where’s your sister?”

“Out.” I shrug, I’m pretty sure she said something about meeting Arvid and I’m making that eternally hard choice to not think about it.

“She didn’t take Stoick anywhere?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t see her leave, I was giving Bang breakfast.”

“Well he’s not hanging off of Bang so I’m assuming he’s not here.” She says it like a joke and I don’t know why she’s not more concerned. It’s seemed like that a lot lately, honestly, ever since Snoggletog she’s been…almost serene. It puts me on edge more than I could ever have imagined, honestly, because she’s always been the one on top of things, ready to appropriately freak out at a moments’ notice.

But now? Stoick is apparently mysteriously absent and she’s raising an eyebrow at me like she’s only mildly worried and it’s mostly about my dead expression.

“Should I go look for him?”

“If you feel strongly about it,” she walks over to where her axe is hanging on the wall, and I hadn’t even noticed it there. That makes less sense than anything else, the fact that she’s not sleeping with it under the edge of the bed where she always used to keep it. I remember Rolf stubbing his toe on the handle once and moping around for weeks that it could have cut his foot off, and now it’s just…twenty feet away from her, all night, like suddenly everything is safe in a way that she’s always told me Berk isn’t.

Maybe it’s because we’re basically in the center of the village now, instead of on the quiet dark edge where an attack would most likely start, but I don’t want to ask about it. I don’t want her telling me that things are safer and happier than ever when I don’t even have anyone to complain to.

“I mean, I kind of feel strongly about my little brother being missing—”

“Oh my gods, it’s like you woke up angling for a fight,” she rolls her eyes like she wasn’t born angling for a fight and hands me a bag filled with more silver than I used to see in a year, “go to the market while you’re out freaking out about nothing. Try and get at least everything you ate this morning.”

“You’re sending me to the market?” I weigh the silver in my hand and it reminds me of Fuse for some reason, probably because she’s the only other person to ever have overpaid me by this much.

If I go to the market, the chances of seeing Fuse are higher than I’d really like to think about and yeah, I could nag Smitelout about the baffle but that doesn’t feel like it’d be enough.

“I’m sure you can handle it.”

“Well, what are you going to do?” I look around, “the house is clean, all the trees outside are chopped down. What if I don’t know what to get or I get so much I can’t carry it—”

Fuse can’t kill me if my mom is there. Neither can Arvid.

“You have a giant helpful lizard who will carry whatever you buy,” she starts physically ushering me towards the door and I shrug her hand off my shoulder.

“What if we haven’t spent any time together lately—”

“That must be why I’m so well rested.” She opens the door and half shoves me out, “go, I’ll braid your hair and we can talk about boys when you come back.”

“We could do that now.” I try to step back inside and she shakes her head at me and closes the door in my face.

Stormfly squawks, pecking at my pocket like I didn’t feed her breakfast an hour ago and I scratch her chin.

“At least you still like me.” I pull my hand away before she can nip at my sleeve again. “I’m not getting any quality time with her either. I’m assuming she’ll be out in a bit.”

She chirps and I pat her beak, “you could come to the market with me—or that!” I call after her as she suddenly takes off, flying to land on the chief’s roof and curling her wings under her to sit like the giant chicken I feel like, nervous to go into the village like it’s a year ago and my parents will get pissed at me for it.

I start walking that way even though Bang tugs on my hand and tries to get me to fly. That feels more public though, because the skies are slowly starting to fill again. Most of the owned dragons are back from their Snoggletog adventures and a few wild dragons have trickled in over the horizon. It’s not enough and I know it’s not enough but I haven’t mentioned it and no one has mentioned it to me. I guess I’d tell Aurelia if she was ever around, but part of me wonders if she’d just start finding a way to prove that I’m wrong about it too.

I haven’t been right much lately. And maybe that’s normal, but it feels like it’s getting pointed out a lot more than normal.

The main square is full of more people than I want to deal with right now and I cut across to the forge as quickly as I can, half hoping to see Gobber because at least he’ll have time to yell at me or something, but it’s just Smitelout. She’s working on a war hammer and humming to herself and when I say her name she glares at me and at least that feels normal.

“Not quite ready to kick your ass, Twerp.”

“What?”

“When I finish your little gift for Thorston, or whatever,” she gestures under the counter where I’m assuming she’s storing it, “or not so little. That thing is fucking huge.”

“I’m aware.”

“What’d you do?” She snorts, “and you know, the size of the gift doesn’t make up for how big of an idiot you are.”

“I didn’t do anything,” I scoff, because Smitelout is the last person I’m ever going to admit a mistake to. Her ego would swell so big that the roof of the forge would pop off and the chief would probably make me fix it. “But are you going to be done anytime soon? It’s kind of important.”

“Yeah, and so is the rest of the shit I’ve got to do.”

“I’m just asking when you think it’ll be done.” I remember I’m not with the chief right now and I’m not doing anything he asked me to and that there’s really nothing stopping me from telling her exactly what I think of this situation. But I also don’t see how that would help anything and again, I’m campaigning for the heavy, irritating title of Eret the Helpful.

“I’ll let you know, alright?” She gestures around the forge, “I’ve got orders out the ass for new kid saddles for when wild dragons come back and the little shits can all choose their lifelong companion, or whatever.”

“Any idea when that’ll be?” I snort.

“I keep hearing any day now but—wait, why are you asking it like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you know something I don’t.”

“I can’t imagine you’re used to any other tone—”

“That’s a real reasonable thing to say to the person making your girlfriend’s presents for you.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” I huff. I’m not sure she’s even my friend after I forgot about her and I keep wondering if I made the right choice flying away from her at the dock.

“I literally could not care less.” She raises her hand like she had an idea I care about, “oh wait, if I were dead. Being physically dead is the only way I could care less.” She shrugs, “and you don’t have to tell me your probably lame reason for talking about the dragons coming back in that ‘I’m the chief’s son so I’m so smart’ tone—”

“That’s not a thing.”

“Uh yeah it is,” she snorts, “ask any Jorgenson for the last like, three hundred years about the chief’s kids’ tone.”

“Not going to dig up your family crypt to get lamely insulted, but thanks for the offer.”

“I’m just saying though,” she sets down her hammer and looks at me almost pensively, or maybe she has gas and isn’t quite sure what to do about it. Either way, at least it’s quiet enough I can half believe she wants me to respond to whatever she’s about to say. “Usually there are a bunch more dragons back by now. Looking at Gobber’s books, you were swamped with saddles a week earlier last year.”

“Yeah, it was earlier.” I look around and the dragons I see are all wearing saddles or harnesses or following people around.

“That’s what I get expecting brilliance from a Hofferson,” she spits the name and it takes me a second to remember she’s talking to me. About me.

“Thought I was just the chief’s kid to you, wouldn’t that make me a Haddock?”

“You’re nothing to me,” she goes back to swinging that forge hammer and it sounds like a memory of a simpler time when I was inside and Gobber was telling me what to do. At least when I was doing what Gobber said, I always knew it was the easiest way through. “But once a Hofferson, always a Hofferson.”

“It’s been…well, it’s been like you’re a pain in the ass, or something.” I pat my hands on the counter once more then turn to leave, “and I’ll consider paying you more if you finish that soon.”

“I’ll take two punches for a late in project rush job.” She waves me away, “I’ll let you know when it’s done. Just leave me alone until then. Seriously. I mean it.”

“Cool, I’ll check in every day.” I laugh at her red angry face and wave one as I take a few backwards steps before turning and pausing again at the crowd.

I don’t see Fuse. I hate that I don’t see her, because that means this isn’t over. I don’t see Arvid either, which is good because the bakery happens to be on his side of the island and I don’t know if I can expect him to honor that or not. I didn’t start anything on Snoggletog, but that could easily be considered an exemption given the fact he was attached to my sister’s face and that would have made it hard to only hit one of them.

I buy bread. I have no idea how much enough is, I only know that I put more silver down on the counter than I think I’ve ever spent in my life. I guess I’ve traded labor in the forge worth more, but I don’t think I’ve ever just…set that much money down. I’m not quite sure I’d call it a perk of being the chief’s son, it makes things feel fake, tilted. Because I didn’t work for any of this and I hate how easy it would be to get used to not working for anything. I hate how the most of myself I’ve put into anything in a while is arguing with Smitelout.

On my way out of the bakery, Mrs. Jorgenson sees me and rushes over and I wonder, for a second, if Smitelout is really enough of a brat to tell her mom that I was bothering her or something, but she doesn’t say anything about Smitelout and instead dives into the middle of some issue I haven’t heard anything about.

“It’s weeks after Snoggletog and the roof is still leaking, it’s right over the cooking pit in the back of the hall and I can’t get anyone down to patch it, the chief said he’d send Gustav over but it hasn’t happened and today I started to notice the floor warping and we can’t make a fire in there without more snow melting—”

“Whoa,” I step back and shake my head, “I don’t know anything about this, Mrs. Jorgenson—”

“But surely you could do something—”

“I…actually don’t know if I can—”

“You could talk to Gustav for me,” she purses her lips like she’s tasting something sour, “he won’t hear it from me, says I don’t have the authority.”

“I don’t uh…I don’t see why he’d think I did.” I pause for a minute and she stares at me like I’m stupid, the resemblance to her daughter becoming apparent in a second. Smitelout might look like Snotlout with less of a beard but that derisive look is all her mother. “Because I walk around with the chief while he orders people around?” I laugh. She doesn’t.

“Could you give it a try? At least?” She’s polite in a way I’m not used to, asking instead of telling, and I sigh.

“Ok. Sure. I’ll go talk to him when I’m done shopping, my mom sent me—”

“There was supposed to be a feast tonight and I can’t get the fire going.” She edges in front of me like I’ll feel physically blocked enough to do what she wants.

“Fine. I’ll go now. I can’t promise anything but—”

“Thank you!” She’s way too excited for someone trying to patch a roof and I get that same feeling from it as I do from Aurelia when Mom gives her a task and she buckles down with that whole-hearted commitment. It’s the commitment of someone who doesn’t get tasked with many things and I have half a mind to offer Mrs. Jorgenson some of mine.

“Sure.” I take one of the pieces of bread out of the basket and start eating it like it’ll magically make me feel more capable.

I should go find the chief, probably, but that would just make this take longer. And I’d have to ask the chief for help, which isn’t my favorite activity even if I know he’d probably give it to me. He’s been happy too. Happy enough to make me feel defective for feeling miserable and weird and out of place in the first house I’ve ever lived in where everyone is related to me.

Gustav opens the door on my first knock and stares at me for a second like if he pretends he doesn’t recognize me I can’t ask him to do anything.

“Good morning, Mr. Larson,” I start and it sounds as fake as it always sounds to pretend I don’t know all of these people in the name of some messed up professionalism. Somehow, when the chief gives people formal titles, it’s always like a reminder that he’s chief and they’re not, but when I say it, I sound like a child. It makes me wish I hadn’t shaved, honestly, but by the time my bruises faded to yellow, the beard was long enough to be itchy.

“You fling some other thing into my roof?”

That was the day I promised to make Fuse the baffle. The reminder stings in a way it shouldn’t and I want to go throttle Smitelout for taking so long or better yet, kick her out of the forge and do it myself. Gobber said that he wouldn’t let me abandon projects, but I’m realizing he probably just said that to yell at me about forge stuff one last time.

“No, not today,” I laugh because the chief laughs when he’s trying to make someone do something they don’t want to do, “it is about a roof though. Mrs. Jorgenson was telling me about the leak at the great hall—”

“It’s not a priority.”

“Says who?”

“Says me.”

“Well,” I swallow, “I say it is a priority. The floor is starting to warp and that repair is a lot bigger pain in the ass.” I remember a second too late that I’m not supposed to swear while I’m trying to look official. “Shit. Or budget. Both. Whatever.”

“Mrs. Jorgenson tell you that?” He raises an eyebrow, “I don’t know why we gave her this feast, it’s all going to her head—”

“Yeah, well, at least she’s using hers.” It’s harsher than I want it to be but maybe my own ounce of half power is going to my head. Maybe my ego won’t fit in the forge anymore either and maybe it feels like the only thing I can lean on. It’s less of an ego and more of a crash landing pad that I’m intentionally keeping fully inflated. “Of course we don’t have the wood to patch the floor of the biggest building on the whole island while we’re expanding our storage.”

“We’re expanding our storage? I thought your mom shot that down.”

“She just shot down the giant ‘S’ part of it, which, you know, fair.”

He looks at me for a second before rolling his eyes and pushing past me on his way outside. He whistles and Fanghook drops down off of his roof, sniffing at Bang and growling a low, intimidating growl under his breath. Bang doesn’t care, which is one of the most admirable things about him, and I wish I felt like battles were choices the same way he does.

“Fine. I’ll go do it now. Tell Mrs. Jorgenson you had to give me more Hel than this though, honestly.” He grins as he gets onto Fanghook, “and tell your mom I’ll do whatever she says if the chief sends her next time.”

My fist clenches. That whole not swearing rule is ridiculous.

“The chief didn’t send me and I’ll tell my Mom to widen her perimeter of avoidance around you.”

“Funny,” Gustav shakes his head, “the kid is funny.”

I want to tell him I’m not a kid. And that I’m not funny, I mean it. None of that makes it out of my mouth before he takes off and at least flies in the right direction.

I’m just getting onto Bang to go home and tell the chief that he might want to go do his own job before people start expecting me to do all of it when Aurelia walks out from between the houses behind me, arms crossed and frowning. I know that look. It used to mean she was gearing herself up for a fight with the chief but lately it’s meant that she thinks I’m wrong and she wants to make sure that I know it.

“You can’t let Gustav talk to you that way,” she scoffs, “now he’s going to fight you on everything.”

“What do you know about Gustav?”

“I know he has to listen to you. Hel, he has to listen to me, I’m still the chief’s daughter even if it’s less legitimate than it used to be.”

“I think it’s plenty legitimate,” I look at her, red braid over her shoulder, sarcasm wielded like a knife. The singular embodiment of everything I had that never fit in with my family.

“Well, yeah, but you still can’t let people talk to you that way if you’re going to be chief. I know my dad doesn’t.”

“I thought you’d be glad for a slight change in regime.” I want to tell her about Smitelout and the dragons and I almost think she’d let me but she cocks her other hip and crosses her arms more tightly, like she’s resolving herself against talking to me.

I bet she talked to Fuse. I bet they’re both mad at me about whatever they wouldn’t tell me before Snoggletog.

“I’m just saying, if you’re going to act like the chief, you can’t let people talk to you like that.”

“I don’t think you’re qualified to give advice on being chief.”

“Fuse saw you, by the way.” She shrugs one shoulder like she’s sorry she has to say it, “in the market. And she saw you fly away from the docks.”

“Why are you telling me that?”

“You should talk to her.”

“The baffle is almost done,” I sigh, “I nagged Smitelout about it today—”

“It’s like you’re this stupid on purpose.” She shakes her head like I’m beyond help and maybe she’s right, maybe Eret The Helpful is a thing because I need it the most.

“I try.” I look at the basket of bread on Bang’s back, “Mom sent me to the market with what looks like all the money. Do you want anything?”

“Nothing you won’t eat before I get to it.” She shakes her head and at least there’s a shade of a smile there, like she doesn’t hate me entirely.

#eret iii #festerverse #the baby boy #he's growing up #cue son a man from tarzan on loop

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godofmichif · 7 years

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Title: Cleansed by Fire

Rating: M (gets a little gory in a few places, nothing too bad)

Word Count: ~5k

Summary: Gold moves into his new home despite everyone’s warnings. He practically owns the town and so the biggest house should be his. He doesn’t listen to any stupid rumours that it’s haunted. Gold never believed in ghosts anyways. But every night when the clock strikes three something is there in the dark to wake him up.

Prompt used: Haunted, blackout, knocking

Notes: okay wow, I was supposed to post this last week and instead I saved it to drafts and forgot about it. I AM SO SORRY GIFTEE. I feel awful, it’s my first time working overnight shifts and I got extra scatter brained. I hope you like it, I had a lot of fun writing it. I hope it isn’t too gory, it’s Halloween so I went a little darker than I usually do. Happy Halloween Friend c:

People had warned him about the mansion but Gold needed the biggest house in town. The first night he slept in his new home nothing strange happened so he dismissed the rumours completely. Just the gossip of a small town. Gold focused on getting the pawn shop up and running, so many Knick knacks to put in order. He ended up spending barely any time in the house the first few weeks as he was more than content sleeping in the back room of his shop so he could get a head start in the morning.

It is only now that he realizes he hasn’t slept in his own bed for the past week and a half. Gold sits in his living room and tries to relax. The pawn shop opens on Monday and everything is perfectly set up, all he needs to do now is enjoy the weekend.

Gold swirls the scotch in his tumbler, a few drops spill over and land on his wrist. He knows he should go upstairs to his room but the chair he’s in is so soft and the fire beside him so warm. Gold tells himself that he’ll just finish is glass before he moves. He’s asleep before he can take the last sip.

When he next wakes up, he jumps to his feet but doesn’t know what startled him so. The fire has died down to embers and the last bit of watered down chilled scotch has puddled at his feet. His heart races but there isn’t anything different in the room. Gold has almost convinced himself it was only a nightmare when a loud bang sounds from the kitchen.

Gold rushes into the other room to see what caused the sound and finds everything in place except the faucet is on full blast. Gold limps over to the sink, cursing himself for putting so much strain on his knee, and twists the handle until the water stops. He looks around searching for something that could have caused that. When he sees nothing, he rubs his tired eyes and chastises himself for working too hard.

“So dirty.”

Gold spins around at the sound and finds a young girl on her knees in the middle of his kitchen. Water spills around her legs as she lifts a heavy brush from a bucket of soapy water and drops it onto the ground. “What the hell are you doing?”

“This place is a mess,” the girl mumbles as she scrubs the floor. Her fingers are wet and raw from the effort.

Gold is taken back by her answer and he just stares at her for a moment. “If you don’t leave right now I’m calling the police.”

“I just cleaned these floors.” Her voice is so soft it is nearly inaudible. She scrubs harder, her whole body shakes with the effort.

“Listen,” Gold grabs her arm and tries to yank her to her feet. “You can’t-”

She twists around and Gold jumps back, nearly crashing into Kitchen island behind him. The front of her dress is slick with crimson and it pools around her knees. It’s her own blood she is trying to scrub off the floor. Gold runs over to the phone and dials 911 but when he turns around she’s gone. There is no blood nor soapy water, any evidence she was there has completely vanished.

“Sir?” calls a voice on the phone. “Sir? Are you in trouble?”

“I…” Gold trails off, staring at the empty space. “My apologies, I thought someone was outside. It was just an animal, though.”

“You don’t need us to send a car over?”

“No. I’m fine.” He slams the phone back onto the receiver. Gold rubs his eyes and goes to stand where the girl once was. He taps his foot on the hard wood floor but it is solid and there are no hidden doors. Had be been dreaming? Perhaps the stress had caused him to start sleepwalking. Or he was hallucinating. Gold shakes his head and climbs up the stairs to his bedroom. A good night’s sleep will make things better.

***

Gold doesn’t see the strange girl the next day and there are no signs that she was ever there come morning. He brushes off the experience as a strange incidence of sleep walking and nothing more. He returns to his shop and arranges the various items into display cases and stands, pricing them as he goes. It’s late by the time he returns to his new home, everyone else in town is warm in their bed when he drives down the cold road.

Gold turns on the heating and it comes to life with a loud rattle. It fills the house with a burning smell that makes Gold’s nose wrinkle. He showers and pulls a pair of silk pajamas on. He’s brushing his teeth when he first hears the sound but confuses it for the heating system making more noise. It grows louder as he approaches his room, a constant tap, tap, tap that grows more persistent as he walks down the hall. Gold reaches his door but keeps walking.

He follows the knocking. It leads around the corner to the last door at the end of the hall. When Gold takes the first step and reaches for the knob it suddenly stops and when he yanks the door open there isn’t anything behind the door. He hasn’t put anything but a few boxes piled into towers. Gold examines the door on both sides, touching the hinges and the tapping on the wood in search of any imperfections. But it is just a normal door.

With no explanation on what caused the disturbance, Gold had little else to do but close the door and go back to bed. Instead of the restful sleep he was expecting Gold lays awake, staring at the ceiling while he ponders the strange happenings in his new home. It’s hours before his eyelids finally grow heavy and he passes out more than falls asleep.

That girl is in his dreams. She’s scrubbing the floors again but this time it is just clean, soapy water in her bucket. She smiles up at him, a tiny grin that tugs at her lips even though she tries to hide it. She makes him feel strange, weak in a way, and he fumbles out a reply. He hadn’t expected her to look so happy to see him.

But it changes, everything is fuzzy for a moment and then he hears the wailing. The girl is crumpled at his feet, sobbing while she tries to pick up the shattered remnants of a tea set. The jagged porcelain slices open her finger tips each time she scoops up a piece to collect in her apron. Both the ground and her dress is stained with red fingerprints. Gold drops to the floor, his bad knee causing him no pain even when it lands on the broken cups. He tries to stop her, grabs her cut up hands and tells her she’s only hurting herself. Her eyes jump up to look at him, her mouth falls open but she doesn’t get a word out before her face contorts in pain. Her skin grows so hot that Gold drops her hands and when he stares down there are flames licking at her dress. She screams as it consumers her like kindle.

Gold jolts awake. A thin layer of sweat covers him and he has to put a hand to his chest to try and steady his breathing. He looks around the room, expecting to see some ghostly apparition but everything is in place. Just a bad dream, he tells himself. It seems like he’s having to assure himself a lot recently.

The strange noises continue for the rest of the month. He doesn’t see the girl that entire time. Once or twice he thinks he see something out of the corner of his eye but there is never anything or anyone there. He tries to casually ask a few customers why everyone thinks his new home is haunted but he doesn’t get many answers.

“It’s just always been that way, as long as I can remember,” Granny says when she comes to pawn her dead husband’s old watch.

The sounds had become so frequent that Gold was starting to get used to them. They were seldom keeping him up by the second month. He had come to truly believe that it was just the typical noise made by old houses. The house apparently didn’t like that.

Gold is startled awake by the sounds of metal hitting metal. He grabs his night coat and runs down the stairs to find all his pots and pans scattered about the floor. Behind him he hears glass shatter and he turns to see the class door of one of his cabinets smashed. That’s when the screaming starts.

Running the first time had hurt his leg and when he tries returning he can only manage to limp up the stairs. The initial adrenaline rush had worn off and left a shooting pain down his leg. Someone is screaming bloody murder. Gold can only just make out some words, please, don’t, stop, that are ripped and torn apart by the rough screams. The sound leads him to the same place; down the hall from his room, take a left, walk up the tiny stairway. Only four steps lead up to the room, the highest room in the house. Gold puts his foot on the first and the screaming stops as if someone switched off a recording. He takes another step and there’s a sniffling behind the door that turns into gentle crying.

“Papa,” the girl sobs from behind the door. The handle jiggles and the wood swells with each knock. “I’m sorry, papa. I’ll be good. Please, let me out.”

Her voice goes from soft begging to frantic desperation. The door shakes with the effort to escape and all Gold can do is stare. When it seems like the door might shatter Gold finally reaches foreword and swings it open. He charges into the room and nearly trips over one of the boxes. He steadies himself and looks around but it’s still empty just as is was last time. Gold turns back to the door and finds it in pristine condition as if he hadn’t just watched it splinter.

“Rumple.” Gold spins around at the tiny voice. She’s standing there behind him, arms reaching out to touch him but Gold reels back. Her mangled flesh oozes blood, staining her torn dress and puddling around her feet. Her hair smolders and the skin on the left side of her face is charred black. Gold screams and falls back against a pile of boxes. She follows after with shaky steps. The girl is close to touching him, bloody, broken fingers inches from his cheek, when the flames spark to life. She’s enveloped just as she had been in his dream. This time though she doesn’t scream, she just meekly covers her distorted face with her raw hands like she’s ashamed to be seen. Then she is simply gone.

Gold calls his realtor the next day and demands he finds him a new house. The man stutters that there are no more houses in Storybrooke and even if there were no one wants his house, he wouldn’t be able to sell it. Gold yells at him for being useless and incompetent.

No one in the town is friends with him, in fact most of them seemed afraid of him, so he has nowhere else to go beside his shop. Gold tries sleeping there but the tiny bed in the back room is murder on his old bones. He manages three weeks before the pain reluctantly sends him back to his house.

The ghost, Gold cringes at the word, has never hurt him but she is certainly terrifying. He tries talking to her when he walks into the cold house for the first time since he ran out in the middle of the night. “Miss… whoever you are. I’m sure you’re un a terrible amount of agony but I don’t know you. I’ve caused you no pain. I just want to live in peace.”

It feels foolish to try speaking to her but Gold has run out of options. Maybe they could reach an understanding. She can’t haunt whatever room she wants as long as she doesn’t bother him. Gold climbs back up the stairs to his room, looking nervously over his shoulder every few steps. He takes a long-needed shower, having had weeks of only sink baths, and dresses for bed. “I just need a few hours of sleep and then you can do whatever you want while I work.”

Gold waits for an answer and then switches off the lights. He settles beneath the blankets and closes his eyes. It’s been so long since he’s been in an actual bed that Gold falls asleep quickly despite his fear. It is a short sleep. The clock strikes three and the whispering starts. Gold is slowly woken up by the soft sound. He opens his eyes confused at what roused him and turns onto his side to try and go back to sleep. Then he hears the sound of metal clashing as his curtains are wrenched open. Gold sits up and looks to his window.

She’s there again, in her blue dress, scrubbing at the windows. He doesn’t see any blood this time and her skin is pink and intact instead of the gory mess it had been last time. Gold briefly thinks that she looks pretty like this, the moon illuminating her face and her brow furrowed in concentration as she focuses on cleaning the window pane.

“You do know me,” she mutters.

“What?”

“You know me,” she repeats, scrubbing harder. “You’ve forgetting me but I remember you.”

“I’ve never seen you before in my life.” Gold pulls the blankets off of him and twists till he can put his feet on the floor.

“No. I’m suffering and you’ve forgotten all about me.”

Gold stands and takes a few cautious steps towards her. “I’ve only just moved in. I think… I think you’re dead.”

“I am dead,” she laments. She stretches to clean another pane of glass. “And you-“ he voice catches and Gold sees the sheen of tears on her face. “You killed me.”

“I’ve never killed anyone,” he says defensively. “Certainly not any young women like you.”

“You were so angry. You yelled at me. Threw me in that room.” Her voice is tense but she doesn’t look at him. She takes her anger out on his windows, scrubbing till they shine. “Tossed me out like trash.”

Gold frowns. He knows he never did anything like that but her words make him feel strange. “Please, I’m telling you I have no idea who you are.”

“And then… all that pain,” she whimpers. “So cruel.”

The sadness in her voice make Gold feel oddly tender towards her. He steps a little closer and reaches out to her but his hand passes through her body like it’s made of air. She twitches and looks at him, her eyes wide and wet with tears. Gold tries to wipe them away but still he can’t touch her. “I wouldn’t hurt you,” he says softly.

“But you did!” she Insists. She drops the clothe and rises to her feet. “And you should have to live with that. You should have to suffer like I do.”

“Belle,” he whispers sadly. Her mouth twists and her brow creases in confusion, she looks startled at the name.

“See, you do know!” she says eagerly. “Then you can make it stop, can’t you?”

Gold isn’t sure what compelled him to call her that but she looks so desperate now. “Stop what?”

“This,” she throws her hands up. “All this. I keep… loosing myself. I’m trapped in this loop. It hurts.”

“I’m sorry,” Gold shakes his head. “There isn’t anything to do.”

She steps back, her hands clasps in front of her and a sob shakes her shoulders. The ghost suddenly looks so broken and Gold really wishes there was something to do. But what could be done? He tries to speak but she vigorously shakes her had and disappears.

Like every night that the ghost shows up Gold can’t sleep but this time something other than fear keeps him up. She seemed so certain that he should know her and perhaps she seemed a little familiar but not enough for Gold to think that they had ever known each other well. Gold would certainly remember killing someone. He racks his brain trying to find some trace of her in his memory but by dawn he is only left with a splitting headache.

The days flutter by with the same routine. Gold works, he goes home, at three in the morning the girl shows up. Sometimes she’s torn up, sometimes she’s on fire and sometimes she just cries and begs him to help her. Those are always the worst nights. He really does want to do something for her. If he had all the power in the world he would do whatever he could. With a wave of his hand he would set everything right. But there’s no such thing as magic.

Of course, a few months ago he thought there was no such thing as ghosts too.

Gold goes around collecting everyone’s rent. He walks slow and takes the scenic route to each building. He doesn’t want to go home. It’s too hard to return to the old house knowing what awaits him there. Yet, he also feels guilty when he doesn’t go to bed each night. It feels like he’s leaving her to suffer all alone.

The rent from Granny’s inn is past due, they didn’t pay last month and Gold had generously allowed them to pay it when they payed the next month. He’s been letting people get away with things like that lately, too sleep deprived to put up much of a fight.

There’s a blonde woman there when he arrives. Gold ignores her to speak with Ruby about the rent. She tells Granny her name and Gold stumbles. Everything hits him all at once. The curse, the enchanted forest, Belle. He remembers it all in the span of a few seconds but the world around him stays frozen in the curse. He grabs the money and makes a hasty exist.

He does know Belle. He had loved her in the Enchanted Forest but he thought her long dead by the time the curse moved them all to Storybrooke. Regina had told him the many awful things that had happened to Belle. The way her father tried to burn and cut the darkness out of her. That it became such unimaginable torture that she jumped out of a tower just to make it stop.

Gold had believed all of that. The images had haunted him. Any time he was alone in the castle he could feel her absence. Whenever he closed his eyes he saw her begging him to save her. Gold had made the Dark Curse to a be a living nightmare for the people it touched, to take away any semblance of a happy ending. For Gold it had certainly done its job. It had trapped Belle in an endless cycle, forced to experience the worse pains Rumpelstiltskin’s dark, twisted mind could think of. In a way Belle was right, he was the cause of her pain. The curse was punishing him by torturing her. The curse he created. The pain he imagined. He had put her through all this.

But none of it was real. Belle had never killed herself and she had never suffered so. Gold isn’t even sure if she had felt any pain as she played a ghost in this new world. It was probably a terrifying thing to see, her body charred and mangled, but she probably didn’t actually feel any of it. There was a tiny trace of magic here, a piece that had managed to hide from the curse, but it wasn’t strong enough to create anything so wicked. All it could do was create a few illusions.

Gold arrives back at his home and walks as fast as his cane could carry him. He calls out to Belle but gets no answer. He keeps calling her as he marches up the stairs. Gold makes his way back to that room, the highest room in his home. He remembers all the times he imagined her crawling up to the highest room in the tallest tower and letting herself fall out the window.

“Belle,” he says softly to the empty room. He gives her a second to reply before he steps inside and tries again. “Belle, can you hear me?”

“I can hear you.” Gold turns to his left and sees her standing in the corner. He’s not afraid of her now but she looks uneasy to be in his presence.

“Belle,” he says gently, holding a hand out to her. “Come here.”

“You’re different,” she mumbles uneasily.

“Yes,” he takes a step towards her and when she doesn’t vanish he takes another one. “I remember you now.”

“Remember me?” Belle perks up. “So, are you…did you kill me?”

“No, sweetheart,” Gold shakes his head. He’s so close to touching her now, just a few more steps. “I didn’t kill you. No one did, you’re not dead.”

Her brow furrows. “I must be dead.”

“I thought you were once.” Gold frowns at the memory, the pain he felt when Regina said those awful things. “But you can’t be. Ghosts aren’t real.”

“Of course, ghosts are real.” Belle’s hand darts out and pushes through Gold’s chest, her fingers appearing on the other side. The flesh around her translucent skin is stiff and chilly and Gold steps back to avoid the feeling. “See?”

“You think you’re a ghost.” Gold holds up both his hands up in front of him and spreads his fingers out wide. “Life your hands up.”

“Like this?” Bells lifts her hands to mimic Gold’s stance.

“Close your eyes,” Gold whispers. He moves closer so they’re only an inch of space between them. “Concentrate. Picture yourself being solid. Imagine us touching.”

Belle’s eyes close, gently at first but then they scrunch up when he says to concentrate. Gold presses their hands together but his fingers slip through hers. “Is it working?” She asks nervously.

“Not quite. Concentrate harder,” he urges her. He waits a breath before he tries again and this time their hands press together. Belle’s eyes snap open with surprise and Gold smiles down at her. With a twist of his wrist their fingers entwined and he held his Belle for the first time in decades. Excitedly Gold yanks her foreword and envelops her in his arms. “Oh, Belle. I really thought I lost you.”

Belle is tense against him at first. Her hands rise up to push him away but never quite find the will to do it and her fingers curl into the fabric of his jacket. “What am I then?”

“Just an ordinary girl,” he whispers into her hair. Then he thinks the words don’t do her justice so he pulls back and cups her jaw. “Well, not ordinary. Quite the opposite in fact. But you are a living, breathing human being.”

Belle leans into his touch but her brow wrinkles in confusion. “But then, how…”

“It’s a very long story.” Gold leads her over to an old, dusty wooden chest and sits them both down on it. He tells her of their time in his castle, leaving out a few key parts so as to not upset her. He’ll tell her eventually but it is a lot of information to take in, especially since an hour ago Belle thought she was dead. Gold explains the curse; why he created it, where it brought them, how it will end. Belle listens quietly and nods at important parts to show she understands.

“But, if there is no magic here, how am I able to….” Belle pushes her hand through the wall behind them. When she pulls it back out there is a thin layer of dust on her skin.

“There’s a piece of magic still in you.” Gold’s hand goes to her waist and then travels down to rest on her lower belly. “Somewhere the curse couldn’t touch.”

Belle eyebrows shoot up behind her bangs. “Pardon?”

Gold smiles warmly down at where his hand is on Belle. “The curse is built around being broken by the product of true love. The baby was shielded enough to not be affected by it. The curse erased your memories but it couldn’t touch the soul inside you and the baby’s magic warped the affect of the curse. It-”

“Wait,” Belle suddenly pushes Gold away. “Are you saying I’m pregnant?”

“Yes.” Gold reaches for her but she inches back out of his reach. “Belle, I… The last time I saw you, I didn’t believe that you loved me. I sent you away.” Gold hesitates before he says the next part. “But before I did, I went to visit you in the dungeon.”

Belle’s nose wrinkles. “You put me in a dungeon?”

Gold ducks his head in shame and picks up Belle’s hand. “I did. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I was a monster back then.”

Belle looks at him cautiously. “And now?”

“What?”

“Are you still a monster?”

Gold thinks he sees a little hope in her eyes. He knows it’s foolish but he wants her to remember him, he wants Belle to want him the way she did before he cast her out. That tender, new love that he so cruelly rejected out of fear. The Dark Curse had put Belle so close to him, right at his fingertips but she was still so far away. “I’m not sure. For you, for Bae, for…” Gold’s hand goes back to her belly and this time Belle allows his touch. “For all of you, I’d try to be a better man.”

Belle nods slowly. Gold watches her eyes cloud as she tries to process everything she’s learn. “I’m sorry, it all sounds so strange. Though I suppose thinking I was a ghost was also strange.” She places her hand on top of Gold’s. “Our baby did this?”

“Yes. I don’t think he meant to cause any trouble. He was just struggling with the curse, trying to keep you safe?”

“He?” The corner of Belle’s lip tugs up ever so slightly. “It’s a boy?”

“Oh.” Gold realizes what he just said. “I suppose I don’t know, I just thought…”

Her blue eyes light up at the thought. “I’ve always wanted a little boy.”

Gold relaxes at her words, only then believing she fully understands everything he said. “The Saviour will break the curse with true loves kiss. Until you’ll stay as you are and the baby will not grow. We’ve… we’ve been this way for quite some time. Nearly three decades.”

Belle startles at how long it’s been. “Then what?”

“Then I can bring magic to this land and I find my son.” He rubs his hand in slow circle. “And the four of us, we can be a family.”

And he’ll finally give her the happy ending she deserves.

#rumbelle revelry #rumbelle fic #rumbelle #rumbelle au #rumbelle baby #my stuff

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blacknovelist · 7 years

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The First Step (Pyre fic)

So I had this thought, for a whole bunch of fics for Pyre, and god I’m so in love with it, I want to do it. But the blackwagon is very, very important to this series and so, naturally, I needed a fic for the finding of the blackwagon. So it’s more or less better if I post this as-is and turn it into a series rather than a multi-chap as I first thought (which is a relief, because I’m still not ready after going through A Place to Be tbh)

Shoutout to @littlestmedic, who wrote this super cute Pyre fic that gave me the idea to call Jodariel “Mama Jodi”. And who might’ve given me a little bit of inspiration to include some “i don’t want this to end” feelings, maybe (the rest of it is my own personal feelings anyway because i’m still in pain and want to keep enjoying my days with all of my friends happy and free don’t look at me) Also shoutout to the SGG discord, who helped me make the decision to add that one part with Tariq. You know what I’m talking about.

Attempting to study Hedwyn’s vague-ass story about how he found the blackwagon for this fic was an experience and a half. My first draft of the first part is something that deserves to burn, but that’s what happens when you write on an airplane, I guess. *shrug*

[AO3]

Strange things can be heard among rumors in the Downside - the strangest are the ones that are true.

(before it learns how to be a home again, it must be found; and in the end, it is.)

It starts months before you are plunged down the river - not in the pearly streets of the Commonwealth, where the seeds of a plan are still being planted, but deep among the dung-boulder homes and pearly-white bone forests of Jomuer Valley. Beneath the light of the moon and stars, among the five exiles drinking and eating beside the sputtering fire, a trader swings their arms as they regale their audience with theatrical exaggeration.

“…and these folks, they’re rushing about fighting each other, wearing these bright eyesore dresses and freaky white masks for all the stars to see. Like the Commonwealth’ll see and take ‘em back somehow.” They gesture upwards as the group devolves into another round of laughter and snorting. “Tossing a glittering ball and lighting up the place with bonfires like they want the howlers ten leagues off to know what’s going on. Lunatics, they are!”

“There’ll always be idiots out there in the world,” a demon rumbles, tearing into their plate of roasted lizard.

“Aye, you said it, El,” One cur chortles, “and that’s somethin’ I’ll toast to!” She starts gulping down her drink by the mouthful, and the others cheer her on.

A brunet leans over to slug the arm of the man next to him, laughing. “Good thing we ain’t out there to catch whatever those guys’ve got. The things that happen in the Downside, eh?”

Hedwyn chuckles. “Indeed, my friend.” He glances at his temporary companions, but his eyes soon drift back to the smoldering logs. “The things that happen.”

The first rule to surviving the Downside is to never stop moving.

Even the bog-crones, who often stake their claims in the Flagging Hands as soon as they arrive, do what they can to keep busy and ensure they never have a chance to realize how desolate and cruel the Commonwealth’s merciful sentences really are. It’s important to keep moving forward and leave the world above behind (both physically and mentally) so the burdens of the Downside (also physical and mental in equal measure) don’t have the chance to catch up and kill you.

Unfortunately, that means making connections and finding people down here is a near miracle if you don’t know what you’re doing, and a difficult endeavor nonetheless even if you do. Hedwyn’s only saving grace, in the end, is the fact that there aren’t that many demons around. It isn’t hard to keep his ear to the ground and ask the right people the right questions until he’s pushing and stumbling his way past the crags splitting Jomuer Valley from the Prairie, coming across the campsite of Captain Jodariel herself.

Her low grunt as he steps (trips, really) into the light would’ve been intimidating, if the sound were any less familiar to his ears.

“Ah, hello, Jodi.” Hedwyn beams. “I’ve been looking for you.”

“Hello, Hedwyn,” Jodariel says. “Should I be worried about the reason you’ve come trekking across the Downside without help to find me, or is this another one of your passing whims?”

“I’d like to think it’s neither-” His pack clangs to the ground as the pots and pans inside bang together- “but I have a feeling you would disagree with me. Besides, explanations can wait. We haven’t seen each other in some time. Have you eaten yet? I managed to pick up some things from the traders by the Spring that I think you’ll enjoy.”

“Did you now?” She pauses and sighs, before standing up. “Very well. I think I may have enough provisions left for both of us.”

Having lived in exile for so long, Jodariel knows exactly how things best work here in the Downside. The problem instead lies in the fact that she is a demon and doesn’t usually associate with any settlements in either of the most populous regions (Flagging Hands and its crones aside, as Jodi refused to discuss the place), and as a result cannot really help Hedwyn hunt down the info he’s looking for. She does, however, know someone who can.

Rukey Greentail is someone he’s only met briefly in the past, when the cur wrangled him good deals at the Slugmarket, shared a night and drinks, and extended his services to the nomad not long after his exile. “You ever need somethin’ done,” Rukey had said, “you just come right on over, chum! I’d be happy to help you out, and nobody’s got connections down here like I do.”

It doesn’t take long to find him either - the message runner down at Hollowroot costs them a dinner and some of Jodi’s scavenged herbs, but nothing they can’t easily replace, and within a week the trio is sitting together, lunch hanging from the sticks at the makeshift fire pit’s edge.

“So,” Rukey says, switching between looking at the duo and eyeing the spits, “what brings you two to good ol’ Greentail? Not that I ain’t happy to see you chums, but Jodariel isn’t usually one for making house calls so we can drink together.”

“That’s correct, Greentail,” Jodariel says. “We have our reasons for contacting you, but the nature of those reasons are less business-like in nature and somewhat more… personal.”

“Oh?” One ear shoots up.

“It’s a crazy plan. You’re the one who knows people, out of the three of us, and you have the best chances of finding what we need to make it work. It’s a shot in the dark, I’ll admit.” Hedwyn prods the fire, turns the logs. “But our reward, I think, is worth the trouble, at least. If it happens to be true.”

“And what, pray tell, is the reward to your so-called crazy plan?”

“Freedom.”

The crackle of wood fills the air for just a moment.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You heard him, Greentail,” Jodariel rumbles. “Outlandish as it sounds, I believe he’s onto something.”

“Well of course you do, isn’t there some rule about mums and their sons that has to do with always believing them?” Rukey falters for just a moment. “Did you guys forget that part where exile is a life sentence?! If there was some kind of secret path to leave this dump, don’t you think everyone’d be jumping all over it already?”

“Not unless the secret to freedom is so unbelievable that no one thinks it’s true,” Hedwyn says. “Look, Rukey. I know it’s a tall order, asking you to trust us and hunt something down without a guarantee to you, or to any of us. But if we don’t at least look into it, or try to figure it out, then there’s definitely no way out of here. We’d be giving up before we’ve even begun, and I don’t think I could forgive myself for something like that. If this whole thing turns out to be fake, I’ll repay you. Every piece of it by pocket, I promise. If it turns out to be true, though…. This just might be our ticket home.”

Rukey eyes him, expression unreadable.

“…alright, you got me, chum. I’ll bite.” He settles down, and reaches for his share of lunch. “Tell me more about what we’re doing, then.”

It’s small, but enough tension drains from his shoulders to fill a lake. Hedwyn smiles.

“We don’t have many leads, but it starts somewhere up north….”

“This better work,” Rukey grumbles for the umpteenth time as the messenger vanishes into the shrubbery. “You guys are lucky I already have a good idea of who to ask ‘bout this. It costs a lot to guarantee zipped lips, and even more to get a run to and from the middle of nowhere like this.”

“Discretion is necessary,” Jodariel says. “If word got out as to what we are searching for and for what reasons…”

“People calling us crazy would be the least of our problems,” Hedwyn says.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Rukey sighs. “I guess we’re camping out here for a while longer.”

The sun rests well above the horizon without a cloud to obscure it, leaving the Downside bright and warm in the surprisingly picturesque afternoon. Jodariel stalks the length of the clearing with a deliberate slowness, scanning the trees and skies for any less-than-friendly company. Rukey sits by the ashes of the fire, taking stock of what few materials and possessions he has on hand, calculating which ones can be sold or used or traded should he need to. There’s a rustle in the underbrush and they both pause, alert, until it fades back into silence.

“Hey, Jodi, uh…” Rukey fidgets with a glass bauble. “How long’d that messenger say they’d be talking to Hedwyn, again?”

“They didn’t.”

“….right.” He turns back to his belongings, sighs, and starts counting again.

It isn’t until shadows start stretching long and they’ve started preparing for the evening that Hedwyn finally returns, alone. He smiles in greeting.

“I’m back.”

“Took you guys a while!” Rukey grins, bounding over. Jodariel doesn’t stop tending the flames, but she dips her head towards him and there’s a quirk in her lips.

“How did your meeting go?” She asks.

“Just fine, I think. The messenger left to go inform their employer.” Hedwyn turns to his supplies and effortlessly heaves his cooking pot up - Rukey turns to finish clearing space. “They asked a few questions, answered some of mine, and left me with quite a bit to think about in the meantime. Said word would be back before the next moon passes, at the latest.”

“So….. it’s true, then?” Rukey asks. “This whole fighting under the stars thing, it’s real?”

“They kind of twisted out of a straight answer, but… I think it is. The fact that someone came at all says quite a lot.” Hedwyn pauses. “They also left me the name of the one your contact reached out to. Said he’d probably get in touch with me directly, after this.”

Jodariel looks up. “Who is it?”

“Someone by the name of Sandalwood.”

After the second messenger arrives to deliver word from Sandalwood, the three relocate their semi-permanent camp to the edge of the pass leading to Jomuer Valley. Partly because, as Jodariel tells them, the local fauna is often too wary of the monstrous form of the Ridge of Gol to come within sight of it, but also because the messenger informs them that they will come from the north, and this makes communications easier for both sides anyway.

For weeks, Hedwyn’s days consist of their small clearing and sputtering fires, of Rukey slipping off for days at a time to chat it up with his associates and Jodariel wandering off to patrol or in search for useful flora, of familiar strangers appearing like they’ve been there the whole time to ask more questions and deliver more news and bits of conversation from Sandalwood. It isn’t even until halfway through the second month of their communications, while Jodi and Rukey are away from camp, that the dozenth messenger comes with something new, in the form of a sheet of paper.

“In the Sandfolds,” She says to him, holding the paper up for him to see, “to the west and south, where the River Sclorian delivered us into the Downside.” The messenger traces a crude map in the corner, then taps at the next image, a black and white ink sketch of a wagon with a massive horn through its top section to serve as what seemed to be a lantern holder. “Find the blackwagon of the Nightwings, and take it with you. Bring your friends, the two of them.” Then she points to the third image - a circle with an intricate pattern traced in black, all curved lines connected and overlapping each other. “This will be set in its floor, and will be how you know you’ve found what you seek. You’ll find almost everything you need inside the cabin.”

“For the Rites, you mean?”

“Yes.” The messenger doesn’t so much as blink. “Nothing within will be unnecessary to your journey.. Once you’ve found the wagon, there’s one more thing you need to do. I trust you know what this symbol is.” Her finger moves to the fourth picture; one that sends an unconscious thrill through his heart, even if it means nothing in exile. “Find a Reader, take them with you. How doesn’t matter, as long as they are willing to read for you until you no longer require their services - you could buy their loyalty, for all the Scribes may care. The Book of Rites is the key to unlocking the Rites themselves, and there’s more than enough copies for you all - you’ll need to wear the robes, as well. There will be a set for each of you, and then some. Sandalwood has requested you try and find someone for each mask and set you have.” The paper is flipped to reveal a series of diagrams - instructions of some kind, Hedwyn realizes. “These are directions he gave me, for you. Follow them as best you can.”

She meets his gaze, sheet held between them, and smiles. It’s the first time he’s seen any of Sandalwood’s people show emotion. “'I will eagerly await the day we may meet, face to face. May the Scribes watch over you and see you find the true freedom you seek, young man.’”

The messenger disappears back into the Downside from whence she appeared, leaving him there, the guide clutched in his hand the only sign she’d been here at all.

“You are certain this is the right place?”

“As much as I can be, Jodi.”

Hedwyn examines the map on the corner one last time, before folding the sheet and tucking it into the bag on his belt. In front of them the wreckage of exile cages twist out of the sands around the mouth of the River like the silver bones of some long-dead titan, ripped apart and in various states of rust and decay. A few are more intact than others and some are still trapped in the rocks and currents, but all of them are devoid of the lives they once held.

“And I thought I’d never have to see these things again,” Rukey sighs, knocking a bar of metal back into the river. “So you’re absolutely sure that wagon’s supposed to be somewhere near here, right?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Then we’d best start looking,” Jodariel says. “Before night falls and the howlers come.”

Rukey looks heavenwards. “Yeah, yeah…”

It’s only thanks to a flash of green and red among the browns and grays of the Sandfolds - from a potted plant sitting on the back step and a torn scrap from the hanging flags, no less - that they find the wagon, in the end. The greater half of the day is spent scooping the mounds of dirt and sand off the transport until they realize it’s trapped in a rut, and the other half of the day is spent attempting to lever and push it free until Jodariel gets impatient and heaves it out in one huge burst.

“Thanks, Jodi.” Hedwyn leans on his knees for a moment, heaving, before holding the canteen in her direction, She nods, and takes it.

Figuring out how to ready the blackwagon for the night after that is a trial and a half. Silently, they all give thanks to the Scribes that Sandalwood had the foresight to send them a *manual*.

“Hedwyn. I believe we have a problem.”

“What is it, Jodi?”

“There’s a man in here. Sitting in the corner. He doesn’t appear to be moving.”

“Huh. Whaddya know, there is.”

“…I don’t think I recall the messenger or Sandalwood saying anything about someone being in the wagon.”

“Maybe he’s a minstrel? He’s got an instrument and everything.”

“Greentail……”

“Is he alright?”

“Well, uh. I just tried waking him up and, he didn’t so much as twitch. Did get some really weird vibes from the guy, though. I don’t think he’s dead, at least. That’s something, right?“

“To you, perhaps, but it still leaves the matter of what to do about him. He is not dead, but he has not stirred, and there is no telling how long he has been here or if he is a threat.”

“Why don’t we just leave him here? Not like he’s hurting anything, or in the way. He’s even sitting in the corner.”

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Rukey might be right. We can’t just leave him in the Sandfolds when he’s unconscious, and if we can’t wake him, there isn’t much else we can do until he comes to on his own.”

“…….”

“If you want to try, be my guest, Jodi. But we aren’t thinking about kicking him out until he’s awake.”

“…Very well.”

“Great! Now that that debate is over, maybe we should figure out how we’re gonna look after the horde of drive-imps in the rafters?”

“The what.”

As it turns out, finding a Reader is something far easier said than done. While the blackwagon makes it much easier to get around so Rukey can send word out to his various contacts and associates through Hollowroot, given how long literacy has been banned in the Commonwealth, well. There just aren’t many Readers in the Downside to be found.

Or rather, as they learn from what they occasionally stumble upon among the torn cages by the river, there aren’t often Readers (or other exiles, for that matter) to be found alive.

“I’ll keep my ears open,” Rukey promises, sending another messenger out to yet another vague associate he knows. “But, maybe, we’ll have better odds if we just camp it out by the river and try to find some folks that actually make it down? At least that way we can ask ‘em straight off the bat instead of chasing a bunch of Downside cryptids that may or may not exist at all, let alone know how to read.”

“Incredible, Greentail,” Jodariel says. “That’s actually a fairly reasonable plan, aside from the abysmal rate of survival the River Sclorian tends to provide.”

“Thank you, Jodi,” Rukey drawls. “My plans are always impeccable, after all.” He would be angrier if it weren’t for the faint smile on her face and the fact that this is probably the first joke he’s ever heard her crack - as it is… he lets it slide, this once. “Besides, I’m sure we’ll find someone alive someday!”

“Perhaps.”

(It wasn’t funny. Really, he swears.)

The three of them settle into a new routine as they familiarize themselves with both the Nightwings’ blackwagon and living together in their surprisingly roomy new home. Some days are spent venturing the Downside Prairie, picking up rumors and word from Rukey’s people, selling what plants and trinkets they salvage from the land when they have the chance; others are spent wearing the raiments and masks they’d gotten along with the wagon, sweeping the Sandfolds and checking the River Sclorian for traces of new cages, new exiles, potential survivors of the treacherous trip downriver.

It’s difficult, sometimes. Hedwyn, having grown used to living alone, tends to leave his belongings in unusual and obscure places that make avoiding or finding them difficult for anyone that isn’t Hedwyn; Jodi tends to pace when she’s worried or in deep thought, which wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for the fact that her footsteps shake the wagon when she’s not careful and Rukey can only stand the squeak of the floorboards for so long; Rukey’s personality in general tends to get on Jodariel’s nerves, and vice versa. Occasionally, the hopelessness of finding nothing but scraps and remains starts to get at all of them, and they need to step back from watching the rushing waters and shifting sands for a while.

But some days, they make it work. Rukey finds ways to seem busy or occupied and helps Jodariel forage for supplies, and she works at not nagging him; Hedwyn starts restricting “his space” for his heavier possessions, so Rukey can stop running into them; Jodariel tries to restrict her contemplation for when they’re stopped or she’s off the blackwagon, and to avoid the noisiest of floorboards when she can’t. Some days it’s easy to gather around the fire and melt together into the comfortable aura, to become something that looks just a little bit more like a family with every hour that passes.

'I wouldn’t have had this in the Commonwealth,’ Hedwyn marvels some nights, when the stars glimmering above them seem just a bit brighter than they usually do. 'It would be close, maybe, but I’d still be on the Bloodborder, fighting the Harps. Fighting Fikani’s people.’

Once, the thought of fighting the age-old war had filled him with excitement (with awe, with a hope that maybe, someday, he could be like Mama Jodi, who always lifted him in her strong battle-scarred arms). Now, the idea leaves his head spinning.

If finding a Reader doesn’t work out for them, he knows, they will likely return to their lives before this. They will go back to wandering the Downside, surviving in the only ways they know how.

But is that all you want to do? Survive?

Silently, privately, he prays to the Scribes that their plan works. That he doesn’t have to watch his friends leave until nothing has changed and he doesn’t know when (or if) they might see each other again. He prays, for only a moment, that he can hold onto this just a little bit longer.

“So, what I’m thinking is, given how long we’ve gone without seeing anyone come out of that river, we’re long overdue to finding at least one person alive, y'know?” Rukey grins. “I’ve got a feeling. Today’s gonna be the day, I just know it!”

“That would be far more believable if you hadn’t said that last week as well,” Jodariel says. “What’s so different about today, Greentail?”

“Just a hunch.”

“If acting on a hunch means we might find something more than sand, I think I’ll take it,” Hedwyn jokes. Their cursory scan of the riverbank hadn’t provided any new leads, but as always, Rukey stays optimistic.

He turns back to the controls, veering around another splintered steel cage (it’s fresh, if the lack of rust and wear are any indication). Directing the drive-imps is surprisingly easy once one understand the basics of it, and as long as you keep the critters well-fed they seem content to follow orders.

Even if those orders consist of slamming on the brakes so hard you nearly fling yourself and everyone in the blackwagon right out the window.

“Ugh, not that I’m insulting your driving skills, chum, but WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!?”

“For once, I’m with Greentail. What’s going on, Hedwyn?”

The tips of his ears turn pink. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to slam on them like that. But outside, in front of the wagon - I think there’s someone there.”

The impostor members of the Nightwings pause. Then, Jodariel and Rukey are stepping towards the front window, towards the unfortunate and sad lump sitting in the distance.

“…So there is.”

Rukey beams. “Well, what are we waiting for? How’s about we go and say hello?”

“I couldn’t have put it better myself.”

Out on the barren wastes, you sink low to the sands, your ragged cloak doing little to shield you from the blistering winds. The fear your arrival brought you has started to fade, replaced by the numbness exhaustion and starvation brings you. Your vision is starting to swim. You won’t last much longer, like this.

Off in the distance, you hear the rumble of a wagon.

#pyre #pyre fic #jodariel #hedwyn #rukey greentail #blacknovelist writes #the nightwings #a brief appearance from the reader at the v end #pre canon #hi 2am how are u today #skipped the ffnet crosspost bc there isn't even a pyre archive. what's the point #maybe i'll do it later but fuck im tired man #also.its spoiler free!

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