#I abhor being in front of the camera

[bridgertonbabe]

I wanna see benophie in the Irwin AU please 🥰😍🧡

Sophie hadn't grown up with the easiest life. After losing both her mother and grandmother at an early age she had been placed in her father's care, though he cared very little for how she spent her time and never gave her the time of day though she craved parental love so dearly.

In spite of her father's neglect, the one source of happiness that kept her spirits going was watching TV shows fronted by Edmund Bridgerton, the famous zookeeper and conservationist. She loved learning about all the different animals in the world, how Edmund with his wife Violet and their team nursed sick animals back to health, and the way in which the gregarious Edmund Bridgerton inspired the masses into being more courteous of the creatures they shared the earth with. But the reason why Sophie watched the shows on repeat, how she had worn out VHS cassette tapes and DVDs by rewatching them again and again and again was all to do with the warmth she felt deep in her heart from the energy radiating through the screen. Edmund Bridgerton was such a loving person, not just to his wife and kids, not just to the animals, but to every single person he met. Sophie liked to pretend that when he spoke to camera that he was speaking directly to her, wishing she could have a dad like Edmund Bridgerton who loved her so very much.

Sophie's world only got worse when her father married her step-mother, Araminta, who detested the young girl from the moment she met her, though Sophie could never understand why she was incapable of being loved. She relied on Edmund Bridgerton's TV shows even more, being the bright spark in her solemn little life. It was only when she was watching one of the shows that she first properly studied Benedict, the second eldest son of the Bridgerton brood, and Sophie realised how cute he was. From then on her crush grew and grew as she kept her eyes peeled for any brief glimpse of him on screen, rewinding and replaying and pausing every time he appeared just so she could look at him. His favourite animal were the elephants and they were Sophie's too, making her believe they were meant to be together.

Every year for her birthday she begged her father to go to Aubrey Hall Zoo, wishing for the chance to meet any one of the Bridgertons, but her father always denied her request, telling her he was too busy. Sophie never gave up hope but then her father died and suddenly she was trapped in a house with a woman who abhorred her, so much so that Araminta kept her locked up and forced her to serve on hand and knee for the family. Sophie dreamed of escape but she was beaten into submission and eventually became too scared to do anything that would go against Araminta's wishes.

She felt trapped, wondering if this was all that her life was going to crack up to be; but then a bit of good fortune fell her way. Sophie had been expecting to spend her twenty-first birthday in as much a miserable state as she always had - but then Posy surprised her with a ticket to Aubrey Hall Zoo. Posy told her that her mother had planned on going out for the day with her and Rosamund, leaving Sophie by herself and with the prime opportunity to live out her dream. Sophie could enjoy a full day outside of the house at the zoo and be back by six, when the Reilings were due to return home.

Though apprehensive, Sophie was also incredibly excited to be taking a risk and knew she had to throw all caution to the wind for the sake of her own happiness. As soon as her stepmother and sisters were out for the day, Sophie snuck out and travelled to Aubrey Hall Zoo. The wildlife park was exactly how it appeared on TV and she froze up when she caught a glimpse of young Gregory Bridgerton giving a demonstration with several birds of prey. She hoped to see as many members of the family as possible - though she knew there was one she longed to see more than most.

When she reached the elephant enclosure and took her seat among the audience, she held her breath when Benedict Bridgerton appeared before the masses, somehow looking even more handsome in person, and introduced Henry the elephant to the crowd. She was in awe as Benedict explained in great enthusiastic detail about the beautiful creature, Sophie knowing all of this information off by heart herself from the amount of times she watched the TV shows.

So enthralled was she with Benedict's presentation, she didn't notice a few rangers setting up an easel and paints by the elephant or a stool placed nearby. Benedict then informed the crowd he would be needing a volunteer to sit for Henry so the elephant could paint their portrait.

His eyes scanned the eager crowd, though Sophie was probably the only person without her hand up, feeling breathless all of a sudden as a gut feeling overwhelmed her, sensing instinctively that by some miracle of fate, she was going to be the one picked out among the sea of faces.

Benedict's reached her section, looking over, and then his eyes landed on hers - which was where he stayed for several seconds. Sophie hitched her breath, feeling as though Benedict could somehow see right into her very soul, as if he knew who she was. She thought she was being ridiculous but then without a word Benedict moved forward, holding his hand out towards her. Sophie's own hand moved of it's own accord, reaching out to him in turn and then they were clasped together.

She could feel the sparks coursing through her veins as they touched and as his pale eyes remained interlocked with hers. His face then broke out into his trademark crooked grin and he guided her over to the stool to sit down. He made conversation with her, asking her name, how she was enjoying her time at the zoo today, how good an artist she reckoned Henry would be as the elephant gently brushed the canvas before him. Even though their dialogue was in front of a crowd, Sophie barely felt self-conscious, not when she was utterly captivated by the man she had loved for many, many years.

The painting was then presented to Sophie, with Benedict informing her that Henry was one of the more abstract artists of the group as she surveyed the splashes of gold and silver on the canvas. Sophie declared it was the best portrait anyone had ever done of her (not to mention the only portrait) and received a round of applause from the crowd.

As the audience left, Sophie thanked Benedict, and though she wanted to stay longer, she knew she had to get home before Araminta got back. As incredible as the day had been, Sophie knew nothing more would come of it, but as she turned to leave, Benedict suddenly blurted out an invitation to come help him bottle feed the tiger cubs. Sophie stilled, surprised by the offer, but when she turned to Benedict and saw the hope in his eyes, she didn't have it in her to turn him down; especially when she wanted nothing more than to spend more time with him.

Sophie couldn't believe her luck as she cradled a tiger cub in her arms and fed it a bottle of milk, and she couldn't believe she was sat right next to Benedict Bridgerton as she did so. Their conversation never ceased with Benedict finding her just as fascinating as the animals he cared after, and the more they talked, the deeper she fell, and the harder she knew it would be to walk away from him at the end of the day.

Eventually, she knew her time was up, and she once again thanked him for the best day of her life. She was halted once again from leaving, though this time it was because of Benedict's lips pressing against hers, his hands cupping her face like she was the most precious thing in the world. Sophie kissed him back, savouring the beautiful dream in all it's perfection, figuring it would have to last her a lifetime.

Finally she took her leave, though she left her heart behind with Benedict. She returned home at half six due to a transport delay and though it was expected, it didn't make the beating she endured any less painful, with Araminta leaving her black and blue and locked away for a whole fortnight as punishment for her disobedience. As awful as her situation was, Sophie would have endured it all over again if it meant she could spend that glorious day with Benedict once more.

Then one night her door was unlocked and Posy entered. She told Sophie that her mother was out and that this was the only opportunity she had to run, to free herself from this nightmare, and gave Sophie whatever money and clothes she had, telling her contact her when she could. When Sophie left that evening she truly had no idea where to go - though in the end, it was her heart that guided her to where she ended up.

She really had no idea why she thought trespassing into Aubrey Hall after closing was her best foot forward or why she thought Benedict would welcome her in with open arms and give her the home she always longed for. She figured she was being grossly naive but she at least had to try, at least to check and see if the happy family life she had always pictured was pure fabrication or not.

A zookeeper came across her but as soon as Sophie provided her name, she was asked if she was Ben's Sophie - and suddenly her hope was renewed.

She was taken straight to the family home on the grounds, where the Bridgertons were settling in for dinner. When she was brought into the room, Benedict stood up so fast he made his chair tip over and he rushed over to her. He stilled when he observed the black eye and bruising on her face, asking her what had happened to her as more of his family appeared around her, wanting to help and look after her. Sophie was so overwhelmed with all the love the family were giving to a perfect stranger that she became tearful and the truth came spilling out. She apologised for inconveniencing them, explaining how growing up watching their shows was the closest thing she had to a loving family and she was aware just because she felt that way didn't mean she had any right to impose on them at all - but then Edmund Bridgerton hugged her, telling her there was no way they were turning her away and vowing to get justice for her.

The next morning, after a good night's rest in a comfy bed, Sophie once again apologised for crashing, thanking them for their hospitality and telling them she'd be on their way; except the Bridgertons weren't having it. Hyacinth and Eloise grabbed her belongings out of her hands and Violet and Edmund informed her she would be staying with them regardless. Sophie offered to work for them to earn her keep, to pick up litter or clean toilets, but the Bridgertons wouldn't hear of it.

Benedict stayed by her side, refusing to do anything without her accompanying him, and stealing kisses from her when nobody was around. Sophie was stunned when after only a week since she had first arrived, Benedict told her he was in love with her and saw his future with her, professing how he had loved her the moment their eyes had met and how he was certain fate had drawn them together. She had no idea how to respond other than to pull him into her embrace, thanking her lucky stars that her wildest dreams had come true and that she would live the rest of her life filled with nothing but love and pure joy.

#asks #irwins au #benophie

[takethistoyourstardust]

Mage Ranks the JD2023E Map... CAN’T STOP THE FEELING!

With a lull in the Lover Coaster, we’re finally starting on the Enter the danceverses story mode/playlist!

MAP: CAN’T STOP THE FEELING! - Justin Timerlake DIFFICULTY: Easy EFFORT: Moderate JD+ NEEDED?: No SEASON: Base game/Enter the danceverses playlist

Get that sunshine from your pocket as I talk about the introductory map to this story mode!

--

Am I the only one who doesn’t feel strongly about this song? Like, I’m leaning towards positive with this song, but as someone who was way too old for the Trolls movie (which this song was first made for) when it came out, I just think of it as just another pop song. Nothing terrible, just doesn’t stand out.

The dance for this map is... fine! I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, it’s genuinely fine. It’s supposed to be the very first map in the story mode, and might even be the first map that someone plays after they boot up the game, so it’s going to be a bit simple and repetitive in it’s dance moves, especially if you know the dance moves the guest coaches are having Sarah and Wanderlust copy. But the dancing is fun and energetic (matching with the Moderate effort tag), and seeing the interactions between Sarah and Wanderlust is very cute.

Speaking of... Sarah and Wanderlust!

Starting with Sarah first, she’s SO adorable. I’m not sure why a girl who was uncomfortable dancing in front of her friends was suddenly comfortable dancing with Wanderlust, a complete stranger, but she gains the cutest outfit in the world so i don’t mind nor care. The space buns, the yellow fluffy jacket, the shiny neon green pleated skirts, the splashes of bright fucking pink... Literally an icon of our time. HER SHOES ARE CHUNKY TOO that’s a very important thing. The way she dances is cute, it’s like she’s dancing for the first time.

Wanderlust is cool as hell. First off I’ve always loved the word “wanderlust”, and I think it fits great with a guy who’s able to open portals to any danceverse he wants, and is the son of an alien goddess and Copyright Friendly Doctor Strange. His outfit is a bit confusing to me but it’s alright because he’s my friend. I abhor the crown though, and it’s the one thing he can’t remove according to the Just Dance twitter. But other than that, he’s just a super friendly coach who wants to help Sarah out of her shell, and show her the wonders of dancing. He’s a friendly guy! And no one can hate on that! And if you do hate on him for it I’m gonna fucking kill you!

Also fun fact, his actor, Jerky Jessy, is the one who choreographed both this version and the alt map version, so good for him.

Watching the routine, I feel like there’s a lot of moments where people who like Sarah/Wanderlust can point and be like “look at that, they’re being so cute”, and I support you guys. However, I do just genuinely see it as “Wanderlust shows his new friend around the danceverses”.

Four other coaches make cameos; TGIF’s coach, I Like It’s coach, Temperature’s coach, and Sweet Sensation’s coach. They don’t do much but have Sarah and Wanderlust copy their moves, which is fair and cute, especially if you’ve been keeping up with the series. Plus, two of these coaches (I Like It and Temperature) are from maps Jerky Jessy also choreographed.

Of course, a fifth coach shows up at the very end to kidnap the four guest coaches, causing Sarah and Wanderlust to fucking book it, but we’ll get to her map tomorrow...

As simple as the routine is in this map, what truly sells it is the spectacle of it all. Moving from place to place, constantly shifting camera angles, and just an overall sense of how HUGE this place is. This is the childlike sense of whimsy and wonder I’ve been missing for a while. To be completely transparent, I haven’t played a Just Dance game since... 2014, if memory serves. So a lot of these references are lost on me. But I can see how big the world of Just Dance has become since it landed in my peripheral vision, and it’s truly both fascinating and a bit fucking mind boggling. I remember when one of the biggest criticism lobbied at the game series was “where the hell is Lady Gaga’s song Just Dance”. I remember playing the first one in 2010. Fuck, I remember playing Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party back on the Wii, the minigame collection with the dancing minigame that inspired the creation of the Just Dance series in the first place. It’s so fucking wild that I’m still talking about a series I remember playing with my older sister when I was in middle school, a series that simply started off with Ubisoft going “hey the casual market liked the dancing minigame, let’s make that a full game with real dancers”.

Fuck, man. The more things change, I guess.

--

GENERAL RATING: THUMBS UP!

SPECIFIC RATING: 9/10

Man, this map is just fun. It’s a wonderful introduction to both the Enter the danceverses story line, and honestly to the game in general. It truly celebrates the game in a way that doesn’t feel too overly cheesy (unless you’re me who’s suddenly remembering how old you are lol), and the hook at the end where Night Swan appears and kidnaps the guest coaches is genuinely intimidating, and a great way to get players to look into the next map in the playlist. The only thing keeping it from being a perfect map is that I don’t care much about the song, the routine can be a little too easy for experienced players, and the almost ONE MINUTE LONG OPENING SCENE WHAT THE HELL. I get we needed to build a little character for Sarah and show how she got literally into the game, but could we not have done it in a slightly more truncated way? At least five seconds could’ve been cut off. But, overall, fun map, fun coaches, fun way to start the story mode! You can’t ask for much more than that!

--

Thank you for reading! These story mode posts are gonna be slightly longer than normal, if only because I have to discuss characters and cutscenes. Not asking for a follow, just reminding you I’m ranking every map for this game, and if you’re a villain liker, you might wanna stick around for tomorrow’s ranking ;). And I’d love to know your thoughts on the map! Was it really the first one you played? Let me know, and I’ll see you tomorrow!

~ Mage <3

#mage's rankings of just dance 2023 maps #i need a just dance tag #just dance #just dance 2023 #jd2023 #danceverses rankings #the Mage rambles

[spellucci]

Eclipse Day!

Saturday, October 14, 2023

The alarm goes off at 4:30 am. We decamp quickly, forgoing coffee in order to leave time to find a good place from which to watch the balloons. Google Maps reports a 45-minute delay getting to Albuquerque. Figures. Saturday morning of the Balloon Fiesta is Kids Day. Everybody wants to go.

We aim our GPS for a viewing spot well away from Balloon Fiesta Park and cross our fingers. We are in luck. We pass two miles of cars stopped on I-25 waiting to take the Balloon Fiesta Park exit. We take the next exit and head for an industrial park well away from the Fiesta, and with plenty of parking.

We see one balloon through the trees, then more, then a whole cloud.

The community service call starts and we kvell about the joys our lives hold. The call is well-attended and uplifting. Then breakfast and back up the road to find a good eclipse viewing spot.

We pass many hopeful-looking hills, but they are all Native American tribal lands. Then Jeanne finds a promising drive in the hills above the Santa Fe petroglyphs, so we head that way.

Highways turn to roads turn to narrow streets turns to dirt. We shift to 4WD and start to climb. After a while, we see a road to the top of the hill. The path is rocky and steep. We shift to low/low and start crawling up. We pass over one rock which makes it under our front axle but hits our back axle with a bang. We reach the top of the hill and find two other vehicles already there. One fellow has a really nice-looking setup, and everyone has eclipse glasses. We break out our gear, including the solar binoculars. We can see the moon is already starting to take a bite out of the sun.

Tim looks under our vehicle and sees a bent cover of the differential housing which is emitting a slow drip of fluid. Uh, oh. We poll the other 4WD drivers and one fellow advises us to get back down the hill and call a tow truck before we lose too much more fluid. Ugh! We so want to stay at this ideal place, but our home is leaking, and we don't want to jeopardize the rest of the trip, so we pack up and head back down to the main road where it is reasonable to get a tow.

We find a parking spot on the flats. It is 70° out so we open the sliding door wide and turn off the furnace. Then we break out the gear again. We have eclipse glasses, solar binoculars, and small solar filters to fit over the cell phone cameras. The moon has taken a much bigger bite out of the sun. Dora sits bored next to the camper as the adults fiddle with gear.

For repairs we try the Mercedes Benz dealer in Santa Fe. Their repair department is closed until Monday. We abhor the idea of being towed and having to wait days just to have our rig looked at. We turn off the inverter just in case we have to make the battery last for three days without a charge.

Dora is hunched over at the side of the vehicle, shivering. It is COLD. In the space of less than a half hour it has gone from 70° to 50°. That shows how much of the sun's light has been blocked. We put on her winter coat and then don ours. The ring of fire is close.

We search apprehensivly for a repair shop that might be open on a Saturday and whoa, we find Redline Repairs. We call them and they answer immediately. They are a mobile repair service that comes to us. Yes, they work on Sprinters like ours. They ask us to send our location and a pic of the damage to the differential housing. They are available to make the repair today. Yay!

The moon's crescent closes to a ring, first lopsided, then symmetrical. It's awesome. The eclipse glasses are our main tool, but the solar binoculars work great, too. The camera filters come with an app to help take pics, but we can't seem to get as good a.view as we get.with the other instruments. We manage to take one pic through the binoculars, tinted very green due to the binoculars' filters.

The ring distorts and a gap opens on the side opposite where the ring first closed. The gap points in the direction where the eclipse shadow is headed, streaming across Texas, Mexico, Belize, and on down into South America.

We had seen many vehicles climbing the hills earlier in the day. A few of them start to trickle back down. We text family and friends, and watch the sun slowly return to normal.

We call Redline Repairs to see if they have had a chance to look at the info we sent them. It turns out the repairman had just taken his kids to see the eclipse and would be at our rig soon. We crawl back inside, turn on the furnace, and have lunch.

Lalo, the repairman soon arrives and in less than 90 minutes has us all fixed and ready to travel again. What a relief. We reflect that getting up so early and packing so much into the early part of the day probably contributed to over exuberant driving and the subsequent accident.

We are not going to make it to our friend's place at the Lake Pueblo Marina tonight. We decide to treat ourselves to a campground with showers near the marina. We set off for a final long drive. We put our heads on our pillows with the pleasant thought of meeting friends tomorrow and no more long drives for a while.

[applebandito]

100% Kingdom Hearts 1 (Day 1)

Current Targets: Speedster Unchanging Armor Undefeated My nostalgia got slapped in the taint the moment the remix for Simple and Clean played. Watching that opening cinematic was a bit emotional admittedly. It reminded me of the halcyon days of my late teens. Sat in front of the warm glow of a CRT television, soda cans stacked high, and buttocks firmly planted in a comfortable green chair.

Now I’m sat in front of a much larger television bought with adult money, a bottle of water near by because sometimes my tummy gets upset, and my buttocks planted in a rather comfortable modestly priced couch. My first venture into reminding myself of the controls had me also remembering that this game had relatively decent combat. I don’t remember bouncing off of enemies as often as I did, but it was a pleasant surprise to feel how responsive the controls were overall.

The camera, however, is another matter. I feel like this is the strongest enemy in the game as it waffles around trying to get me the best view of Sora’s inseam. It certainly was quite the formidable foe when I got to Destiny Island and decided to 3v1 the first few Final Fantasy characters that were introduced. I was able to win first try, however, but most likely because I am playing on easy and took multiple steroids before the fight.

I beat Riku 2-0 all while very convinced of a friend’s theory that this is the worlds most circuitous love triangle. Soon the Island was under attack by heartless and I got the one and only keyblade I’d be handling for this run. I also skipped all of the cutscenes since I’m attempting to speedrun. Most of the dialogue can be diluted down into friendship, hearts, friendship, darkness, smiling, darkness, hearts, friendship however.

Coming into Traverse Town and hearing the theme was another breath of fresh air.Seeing Cid, Leon, Yuffie, and Aerith was like coming home to old mates you hadn’t been around in ages. Goofy and Donald were there too. I quickly set them to do as little as possible when it involved items, and stripped them of their item privileges just to be double sure.

The gummi ship sequences are just as boring as I remember. Given I’m speedrunning, I also don’t wish to spend time making a ship. I’m sure I could make the one that’s recommended in the guide, but the tedium would probably kill me. Instead I just cruise along in the low rent Star Fox game, barely touching the thumbsticks and opting instead to have my left hand set to more important tasks like water and scratching. Meanwhile my right is on fire button duty.

I lazily made my way to Wonderland, plowing through many of the enemies there and mostly running past several. I forgot that the keyhole is deep within the doors throat so it felt a bit dirty locking this place up. Nevertheless I cleared the keyhole and soon set off to Deep Jungle.

I forgot how much I utterly abhor this place. Confusing layout, the vines sometimes don’t function right, but we get Brian Blessed and that’s fine by me. The boss gave me no trouble, nor did most of the enemies, but the amount of backtracking to areas and confusion left me taking more time than necessary to get out of here. Most of this being my fault as I’m not watching the cutscenes and googling a guide or looking up what to do next is a large ask with all this scratching to be done.

I finally sprang loose the of the jungle’s traps and found myself once again Traverse Town bound. I wouldn’t be stopping at the colesseum. That’s an optional bit and I’m a busy boy. Speaking to Cid, I discover he’s got a lot to say about gummi ships and Leon has a lot to say about holes.

So far, I can’t say if we’re on a good track for the run, but we’re under three hours, so I suppose we can count this a win. My lack of knowledge is certainly a hindrance, but I am confident I’ll be able to make it to the end. And so, we spring forward to Agrabah. Tomorrow. I need a nap.

Completed 3 of 56: The Rabbit Hole Member of the Tribe| Test Pilot

#kingdom hearts #video games #kh1 #platinum #playstation #word vomit #blog

[wheredafandomat]

Fear & Desire❤️‍🔥P35❤️‍🔥The bargain

Previous chapter Next chapter

You watched in horror and abhor as Loki killed your dad on the screen in front of you. Your heart skipped a beat when he looked at the camera with piercing blue eyes, not the emerald you had become accustomed too. You closed your eyes as Loki began gathering up the files. You had seen too much.

“THAT IS ENOUGH!” Bucky shouted pushing the screen over and stopping the footage as you froze in a state of trauma. Not only did you just watch the footage of your dad being killed, but Loki, your Loki was the one that done it. After years of not knowing, yearning for the truth, it was out, it was here, and you couldn’t bare the weight of it. Had everything with Loki been a lie? Was this some sort of cruel joke? Loki had told you that he didn’t have much memory of the time he was being mind controlled but he couldn’t have possibly been so far gone that he didn’t remember doing this or perhaps he thought the man wasn’t important because he didn’t know it was your dad. Just another victim.

“Y/N, I am so sorry” Bucky said trying to wake you from your stupor but you didn’t want to be taken out of it. You wanted to stay in it forever. This was all too much.

“LET HER GO!” Bucky yelled turning to the man who was just observing the situation.

“For a price” he grinned.

“What do you want?” Bucky demanded.

“You” he replied simply.

Flaring his nostrils, Bucky answered “fine, take me, let her go.”

“It’s not that simple I’m afraid” the man chuckled walking towards Bucky “I don’t just want you, I want the winter soldier.”

Bucky narrowed his eyes at the man as he began grinding his teeth.

“No” he affirmed.

“That’s the bargain, take it or leave it, well her” the man chided.

“Bucky you can’t” you plead snapping out of your trance and hearing the bargain that was being struck between the two men.

“No y/n, what I can’t do is leave you here, like this” he reassured turning back towards you.

You knew it had taken Bucky a long time to leave his past behind him. He’d always say how he prayed the past would never catch up to him. Despite what he had done to you, Bucky didn’t deserve to go through the torture he did again all in the hopes that this man was true to his word and would release you.

“Bucky n—” you started before Bucky silenced you.

“Y/N, I am so sorry, I’m so sorry that I’ve caused you so much pain, I’m sorry that I have to go. I love you y/n” he announced kissing you on the cheek before turning back towards the man.

Those three simple words, you had longed to hear Bucky say them to you but now, they were tarnished. This wasn’t how you thought you’d ever hear them. In the middle of a hostage situation with your new ex.

“Now let her go” he ordered.

“You have my word” the man assured pulling a gas mask out earning confused looks from you and Bucky.

“What are y—”

The last thing you saw was Bucky falling to the floor as your eyes began slowly closing as you faded into the abyss inhaling the gas.

A/N: Still stan Loki tho 🤣

Tags:

@newtomofgods

@virtualstrawberrydinosaur

@lokiswildheartcantbebroken

@geeky-politics-46

@purplekitten30

@eyesbluelikethetitanic

@andrizzybvbyyyy

@frostay

#tom hiddelston loki #loki x reader #loki fanfic #loki x female reader #loki (marvel) #loki fanfiction #bucky x reader angst #bucky fanfic #oc fiction #bucky barnes #bucky x female reader

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 23, second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

Nature Abhors a (Power) Vacuum

Jin Guangshan, Nie Mingjue, and Lan Xichen have gathered to decide what to do about the remaining Wen people and also what to do about the Yin metal. They have not invited Jiang Cheng to this discussion, or blowhard Clan Leader Yao, despite those clans having been hit particularly hard by the Wens in the course of the war. 

The three of them have a conversation about what to do with the Wen captives, showing their different attitudes towards killing.

Jin Guangshan: Killing is awesome, particularly in project management. It's just so efficient. Nie Mingjue: Killing is necessary, and a little bit fun, too. Lan Xichen: Killing is necessary, sadly, but we can randomly spare some women or old people, as a token sign that we’re not monsters. Kind of like when you have a fancy dinner and include a tofu dish for the vegetarians. Nie Mingjue: Nobody likes tofu, Xichen.

Jin Guangshan says he's looking for the Yin Iron and that they can't let any Wens or "ambitious people" get a hold of it. By ambitious people he means Wei Wuxian, not himself and his murder kid. Lan Xichen realizes this right away but doesn't, you know, do anything to contradict him.  Jin Guangshan says he's asked "A-Yao" to look into it. Which is smart, because A-Yao is already in cahoots with Xue Yang, who actually has the piece of Yin Iron they're looking for.

Getting Jiggy With It

Then Jin Guangshan introduces Meng Yao, now renamed Jin Guangyao, in a weird twist on generation names. He has given him the name of a sibling or cousin of his own generation (starting with Guang), rather than a name of the next generation (starting with Zi). JGS says that JGY just recently learned about about being related to him, although we know perfectly well that's not true. 

And they both talk like he appreciates JGY's efficiency and helpfulness, but that's not why JGS has him at his side. He has taken him in because he is a steel-eyed murder bot, not in spite of it. 

(OP does not believe that Jin Guangyao could have been a good person if only his dad had let him hold Jin Ling that one time, as some have argued. Dude killed his own child because there was a chance he might be disabled in a way that could lead to gossip. Dude is a stone cold killer.)

(more after the cut)

In the language of CDrama costume (which is not, precisely, the language of actual historical clothing), Jin Guangyao has chosen to dress as a minister instead of as a chevalier. This is partly an artifact of his mother's ideas about a gentleman. It also suggests that he’s content with the sort of career that's available to a bastard of a noble house--not inheriting the noble title, but having enough favor to rise in power. 

It may also be a ruse to make him seem like he's not a strong cultivator and not a strong fighter, when in fact he is both, at least by the time he’s throwing death chords at Jiang Cheng, much later in the show. 

Mingjue makes all kinds of grumpy faces and snarky remarks to let everyone know that he fucking hates Jin Guangyao.  Xichen agrees to his “nice refugee camp with only a little death” plan, with no qualifications.

Now we get to see Jin Guangyao's manipulation of Lan Xichen. Lan Xichen says that Nie Mingjue wants a plan that’s more killy, because he believes in punishing evil. JGY deliberately misunderstands this, pretending that Lan Xichen said he, JGY, is evil, kind of forcing LXC to reassure him and take his side in an argument that isn’t actually happening. 

They have a little handholding while bowing, and then after Lan Xichen leaves, Jin Guangyao puts on his evil face and has all the prisoners killed behind the big closed door.  

This is done in such a violent fashion that the blood apparently flows up several stairs to the door, and over the tall raised threshold, before flowing downward toward the camera. Some evil is so extreme that even traditional Chinese doorway architecture can’t stop it.

Run To the Rock

Then we go outside to where Wei Wuxian is standing on a rocky outcropping, thinking it would be a good strategic spot to choose if he's ever in a battle where he wants to commit suicide right quick.

Lan Wangji comes to join him and admire the view, not knowing yet that this view, or one a whole lot like it, is going to be seared into his memory for most of his life.

Lan Wangji is becoming more and more committed to Wei Wuxian, more and more inexorably joined to him, but he still doesn't agree with him. So they each have this comfort in each others' presence at the same time as being massively in conflict.

Wei Wuxian asks him what he thinks of all the politicking and murdering. Who is good and who is evil? LWJ doesn't answer because WWX is leaking black smoke, so he grabs him and tells him to concentrate.  Lan Wangji is, incidentally, wearing Princess-Leia quantities of lip gloss.

Lan Wangji asks if Wei Wuxian would like to learn a new tune, "Absterge" according to Netflix. The fuck? [op looks it up in the dictionary]. "To cleanse, especially by wiping." Also known as aftercare. Netflix. Honey. This word is MIDDLE FRENCH. Will you knock it the fuck off?

So anyway, instead of answering his question about who is good and who is evil, LWJ asks if he wants to learn a song called "Cleansing." Wei Wuxian says “hey babe, are you fucking kidding me?” 

His actual words are "you doubt me too?" meaning "you think I also took the missing 4th chunk of Yin iron to make my ugly tiger amulet, rather than obviously having used that giant sword I pulled out of the turtle?"  

Lan Wangji mentally replays Wen Ruohan's questions in his head--the questions he barked at Wei Wuxian right before choking him unconscious--which Lan Wangji also feels entitled to know the answers to. Fuck you, Lan Wangji. He answers WWX with "when did you forge your amulet?" Which is his way of saying "yes, I doubt you."

Wei Wuxian kindly refrains from saying "while we were on a break, bitch" and instead tells him the exact truth--I found a yin iron sword in the turtle--but says it in his patented "make it sound like a lie" way. 

LWJ keeps grilling him, eventually coming out and saying dude, you knew the sword was Yin iron, why did you need to use it?

This is the crucial question--why WWX broke his first promise, to Lan Yi, which was to try to get rid of the Yin Iron. He won’t tell anyone the answer, which is that he needs to use it because he can't cultivate normally, because he lost his golden core. He made a lot of promises before that happened, and he probably expected to keep them. But without his core, everything changed; without his core, he’s a different person, so it’s maybe not fair to expect him to honor his previous promises. 

I’m reminded of my grandfather, who was the oldest son of an old southern US family, with lots of expectations as the firstborn. He went off to WWI as a soldier, expecting to die. He didn’t die, and so from that point on, he regarded his life as a gift. He felt could do whatever he wanted with it, and let go of expectations from before the war. He moved to Paris and took up with a glamorous divorcee 7 years older than him (my Grandma, eventually). 

The actual point of that story, other than OP having cool grandparents, is that when you think you’re going to die, and then you don’t die, your ideas about what you owe to people can change quite a bit. Wei Wuxian expected to die in the Burial Mounds; he expected to die at Nightless City; he expects it, over and over, and each time he doesn’t die, he gets further and further from being what everyone else wants him to be. And--a lot like soldiers returning from a war-- NOBODY in his life knows how to talk to him about it. 

Wei Wuxian tells Lan Wangji to back off, Lan Wangji says why aren't you letting me help you, and they are once again on the edge of the same fight they keep having. Lan Wangji does some impassioned arm holding while Wei Wuxian says he's not like Wen Ruohan. 

Romantic Duet #1

The argument is interrupted by screams and killing, so they go to check it out, and find the Jins hunting down some prisoners for sport. They arrive in time to save two people. Yay?

Jin ZIxun acts like a jerk, as always. The new element is that per Jin Guangshan, anyone concerned with Yin Iron shouldn't be alive.  He says that the Lan and Nie clans agreed, and challenges Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji stops him from responding, grabbing his wrist.

The Jins leave and Wei Wuxian refers back to their earlier conversation, saying there will be more resentful spirits now and that "Rest" is the music to play, not "Cleansing."

He gives Lan Wangji a long look and then pointedly removes Lan Wangji’s hand from his wrist, by holding his hand, which is some next-level mixed signaling. Lan Wangji totally deserves it at this point, though. He keeps pushing and pushing WWX about his cultivation method, but he refuses to discuss the underlying morality of it, or the morality of the killing going on right in front of them. 

WWX walks off, leaving LWJ to stew in his own juices surrounded by a bunch of fresh corpses. 

Lan Wangji fails his saving throw against the guilt trip, and sits his ass down to play Rest, just like Wei Ying told him to. So switchy!  Wei Wuxian, out of sight but not out of earshot, hears him and accompanies him on Chenqing.

This scene is slightly ridiculous and a whole lot sublime. Ridiculous because it's their first time playing music together, so it's a super slow, romantic, extended scene, but they're surrounded by corpses. And not the helpful, friendly, third-wheel-on-a-date type of corpses.

It's sublime because the occasion of their first beautiful, literally magical duet is an argument. And they are joining together to play beautiful romantic music - as a service for the dead. And they are doing it while they are on literally opposite sides of a literal killing field. And Lan Wangji is sitting literally in the middle of a wide open road; the sort of road that they will both reject, metaphorically, later in the show. There is so much about their conflict and their journey that is encapsulated in this one musical moment.

Lan Wangji, by playing the song Wei Wuxian said was needed, is telling WWX that he took his words to heart, that he is listening, even though they're at odds.

WWX, by stopping and playing with him, is acknowledging this. And by settling the dead souls together, they are both reinforcing their dedication to doing what's right even as they both struggle with knowing what that is.

When Other Friendships Have Been Forgot, Ours Will Still Be Hot

Now we have the sworn brothers thing. I understand, plot wise, why this has to happen, but why would Nie Mingjue ever agree to this? Lan Xichen's puppy eyes are just that persuasive?

If they ever crack your spine, drop a line If they ever cut your throat, write a note If you’re ever in a mill and get sawed in half, I won’t laugh (HA HA HA HA)

Tedious Party Time

Now there's a cultivation party, which is about as excruciating to watch as it would be to attend.

Everyone is lining up to praise Jin Guangshan. To be fair, he did provide shelter for most of the smaller clans while the war was going on. So being grateful is appropriate, but Clan Leader Yao practically breaks his own neck kissing Jin ass. Yao says JGY’s contribution was the greatest of the war, adding, "fuck Wei Wuxian; everything is his fault."

The Jiangs show up wearing mourning belts that show off their itty bitty waists, and Jin Guangshan makes shifty eyes like a cartoon landlord when he sees them arrive.

JGS praises Jiang Cheng, and asks when his fancy clan-leader ceremony is going to happen. Jiang Cheng says he's still in mourning so it's not appropriate. JGS is like “Oh...yeah," as if he totally forgot about all the Yunmeng slaughter, and talks up his friendship with Jiang Fengmian. He acts comforting while WWX manages not to barf.

Then the Lan clan shows up and there is nice encouraging chit chat between LXC and JC...

...and just, SO MUCH mournful staring between Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian.

Then the Nies arrive.  Jin Guangshan tells Nie Mingjue he's late, and that everyone's waiting for him. That might be true in the script but it’s clearly bullshit on the screen, where the Lans and the Jiangs are still milling around looking for the coat room.

Nie Mingjue--who, let's remember, JUST swore to be brothers with Jin Guangyao--looks at him like he's something that fell off a garbage truck.  Lan Xichen jumps in to maximize the discomfort by pointing out that Jin Guangyao should address Nie Mingjue as Big Daddy Da-ge from now on.

Then the Jins offer Nie Mingjue the giant fire throne because...he's the leader of the Sunshot campaign, I guess? Of course it's all a manipulation tactic, designed to make him say he won't sit there, so that JGS can elevate himself to head cultivator, or something? And sit in front of the throne but not on it? Cultivator succession seems kinda arbitrary. 

I swear to god, it wasn't until I was clipping this episode that I realized Wen Ruohan had two thrones and they're in different rooms from each other.

Finally everyone goes to sit down, but because there hasn't been enough fucking awkwardness, JGY stops WWX to ask him what's on his mind. WWX asks him why he's not carrying his sword, which made me laugh and laugh. Wei Wuxian must have been just waiting for a chance to ask someone else that question for a change. 

Jin Guangyao says he threw it away, because it was just a random sword, but he really means he had it made into a sneaky murder belt, that he will be using again in 13 to 16 years. They both fake-laugh and trade Mean Girls insults pretend to like each other. 

Everyone wanders around toasting each other. Lan Wangji goes to find Wei Wuxian, after first making sure that his hair looks good.  

Wei Wuxian is lying around on the steps, sprawling and drinking wine, and not, incidentally, looking for Lan Wangji. He continues to not seek him out and Lan Wangji continues to chase after him.

Wei Wuxian says "how about playing Cleansing?" but Lan Wangji says he's learning a new score. It looks like it's going to be another argument, but then Wei Wuxian smiles and kind of praises Lan Wangji for being stubborn. 

Awkward Marriage Proposal

Just then everyone inside starts cheering for Jin Guangshan to give a speech. Jin Guangshan is making a move to marry Jiang Yanli to his son, which is a big time power grab, given that the Jiang Clan is 1. vulnerable and depleted 2. has control of the Yin tiger amulet.

We get a very rare glimpse into Jiang Cheng’s inner mind, where he thinks that saying yes isn’t a great idea, but isn’t sure what to do. This marriage would make his sister happy, but could destroy the Jiang Clan's independence.

Fortunately, Wei Wuxian joins the party just in time to fuck up Jin Guanshan’s plans. Will this teach Jin Guangshan not to invite Wei Wuxian to parties? It will not.  

Soundtrack: Friendship, by Cole Porter (from “Anything Goes”)

Bonus:

#the untamed #the untamed gifs #wangxian #restless rewatch the untamed #canary3d-original #my gifs #words:2750

[zaffrenotes]

[TRR: WD106] Avoiding A Blunder

Summary: Prince Liam has to fill in for Crown Prince Leo, and Murphy’s Law is put into motion at the end of his trip. Chaos ensues, condensed Wacky Drabble style. Fic Rating/Warning: M; alcohol consumption, minor health/medical emergency, anxiety/angst Author’s Note: All main characters belong to Pixelberry/The Royal Romance, I’m just borrowing them * Fictional versions of IRL individuals are included with affection; any other characters mentioned in this piece are my creation * This is my submission for @wackydrabbles Prompt 106: You’re gonna get us busted! * You have @the-soot-sprite and @ao719 to thank for this ridiculousness, lol - Soot reblogged a photo, Betsy sent me this request

and...this is what my brain came up with (PS - thank you both for the movie discussion) * For the purposes of this story, Triydalia is a fictional country that shares a border with Thailand * Word Count: 1999 😅 (7 minutes reading time)

Taglist (if your name is crossed out, I'll tag you in the comments): @/ao719 @burnsoslow @gkittylove99 @neotericthemis @ofpixelsandscribbles @rainbowsinthestorm @superharriet @/the-soot-sprite @choiceskatie @jaqren @aestheticartsx @bbrandy2002 @dcbbw @gnatbrain @jared2612 @kingliam2019 @ladyangel70 @lovingchoices14 @nestledonthaveone @princessleac1 @queenjilian @sfb123 @texaskitten30 @theroyalheirshadowhunter @yourmajesty09

Liam was used to filling in for Leo at a moment’s notice; participating in conference calls with ambassadors for early morning updates when Leo overslept, and attending meetings with ministers when Leo went AWOL. He’d grown accustomed to his brother’s antics, but he wondered how Bastien managed to keep his position, when he’d lost track of Leo’s whereabouts countless times.

While Leo spent more time avoiding his duties as Crown Prince of Cordonia, Liam dutifully took on the extra responsibilities in stride. It often meant partitioning his already packed schedule to sit in on vital cabinet meetings or dining with visiting dignitaries, but sometimes Leo’s vanishing acts gave Liam the opportunity to travel.

Though their ambassadors handled the majority of day-to-day relations with other countries for trade, Constantine preferred to meet face-to-face when he could. One such time, a lingering cough turned to walking pneumonia, restricting Constantine to as much bed rest as possible. It also meant sending Leo to Japan for a meeting with the Prime Minister in his stead.

It would have been fine, if Leo hadn’t pulled another one of his disappearing acts.

--

A week later, Liam was seated on the royal jet on his way back from Tokyo, navy attache with espresso brown leather trim in the chair next to him. Across from him, Maxwell chatted with Anya over various Thai dishes. On the other side of the plane, Drake was in a heated discussion with leggy blonde Anitah while the ladies’ petite friend Donna observed in silence, fighting back a grin. “You’re an imbecile if that’s your opinion,” Anitah declared, raising her hands up in the air. “Are you sure that’s the hill you wanna die on?”

Drake smugly sipped from the crystal tumbler in his hand. “I’m right and you know it.”

“What are you two talking about?” Liam asked, relieved to think about anything other than what was in the bag and why it was so important he hand deliver it to his father.

“Fight Club being a better cinematic masterpiece than The Princess Bride,” Drake replied. “You guys agree, right? If you could only watch one movie for the rest of your life, you’d want to watch Tyler Durden fight the system instead of some…” he paused to sneer at Anitah, who crossed her arms and stuck out her tongue at him, “...story about a swashbuckler rescuing a princess? She’s not even a real princess!”

“Fight Club is such a guy movie though,” Anya argued, turning in her seat to face Drake. “Princess Bride appeals to men and women, with a much larger audience.”

“Okay, that’s two for Buttercup,” Drake sighed. “Maxwell? Li?” He looked at his friends expectantly.

“Fight Club, definitely,” Maxwell said, nodding his head. He’d spent the better part of the trip doing everything to get into Drake’s good graces after the octopus incident on the first night in Tokyo.

Before Liam could respond, a commotion from the front of the plane made everyone’s heads turn, where a pair of Kings Guards and two flight attendants were seated near the galley. One of the guards slipped into the cockpit, rushing out a moment later in Liam’s direction, as the jet slowly tilted to the right. “Apologies, Your Highness. Do you or any of your guests happen to speak Triydalian?”

Anya slowly raised her hand. “I knew a bit when I was a kid, but I haven’t used it in years.”

The guard motioned for her to join him. “Please come with us, miss. The pilots need a translator.”

“Is everything alright, Remy?” Liam peered past the guard, eyes widening at the sight of the other guard and one attendant hovering in front of the other attendant in a chair.

“We need to land the plane, Sir,” Remy answered, ushering Anya up from her seat. “Ramona passed out. She’s breathing but unresponsive.”

--

Twenty minutes later and after a jarring landing, they’d arrived at a small airport in the Republic of Triydalia, at the edge of one of the country’s many jungle forests. Calling it an airport was generous - it was more of a cleared dirt path in the middle of the jungle with a shack for an airport tower, and a man that looked like more of a hunter than an air traffic controller. After a choppy conversation that required pantomiming and hand signals, Anya left with Remy and the man from the tower to fetch a tribal doctor, while Anitah and Donna assisted the other member of the cabin crew to look after Ramona. They were warned to remain as quiet as possible and to stay inside the jet.

Minutes passed by in tense observation; Anitah and Drake continued their debate in low whispers, growing louder as they defended their choices. Liam could see the pilots discussing something pointedly as they checked readings on the instrument panel and worked on calculations. One of them stepped out, claiming that he needed to stretch his legs, and walked cautiously down the runway. When he returned, the other pilot joined him outside, despite the original warning to stay inside. Liam peered out the windows and checked his watch, worrying about Anya and Remy, along with his father’s instructions to avoid delaying their return.

While the remaining guard headed towards the back of the plane to pace back and forth for the eighth time, Liam took it upon himself to speak with the pilots. The air was thick and stifling the moment he stepped outside. Around them, there was nothing but green, green, and more green from the wilderness that surrounded them, abuzz with tropical birds and insects. At his side he carried the blue attache, remembering the promise to his father that the bag wouldn’t leave his sight. He spoke in a hushed tone when he approached the pilots. “You’re doing more than just stretching your legs, aren’t you, Captain?”

Both men grimaced slightly. “Yes, Your Highness. Even if we pulled back to one end of the runway, we’re still at least five hundred feet short of clearing takeoff.”

“What if we worked to try and clear the brush on either end?” Liam offered, looking off into the distance.

“There’s no way to clear out the trees, even the young ones,” the co-captain answered. “We might be able to take off if we could drop some weight, but the larger concern is the longer we wait, we increase the risk of encountering someone who doesn’t want us here.”

Liam nodded gravely; months of civil unrest in Triydalia meant rebel groups assembled faster than the government could contain them. There was no guarantee of anyone’s safety, stranded on a remote runway. There was no telling what was wrong with Ramona while she was unconscious, and therefore no way to treat her without the aid of a doctor. Ensuring the safety of the crew and his friends could have been avoided altogether if Leo didn’t constantly opt out of handling the duties of his station. In that moment, Liam abhorred the never-ending list of responsibilities thrust at him as a result of having to pick up the slack for his brother, knowing if their roles were reversed, Leo would manage to find a way to leave Liam to solve problems on his own.

“Could you excuse me for a moment?”

He’d barely finished asking the question before walking into the tall grass by the edge of the runway. Ignoring the pilots’ calls to return, Liam sprinted into the dense greenery, dodging between vines and scanning the ground for tripwires until he could no longer see the plane over his shoulder. When he finally stopped running, he bent over, hands on his knees as he gulped in air. Liam looked down at the blue bag in his hand, wondering what on earth was so precious to reduce him to a courier.

Shaking the bag did nothing; it felt practically empty, though he could tell something was inside. He couldn’t open the bag to check, since Prime Minister Abe and his father were the only ones with keys, and PM Abe handed him the sealed bag when they parted ways. Liam wanted to throw the infernal “murse” the ladies had good-naturedly teased him for into the bushes. Perspiration dotted his hairline, and he let out a primal scream, before taking slow, deep breaths to quiet the worrisome thoughts racing in his head and bring his heartbeat down to normal.

Cursed courier bag in his right hand, Liam braced his arm against his torso, pinning it in place with his elbow when he bent his other arm up towards his face. Curling his fingers into a relaxed fist, he pressed his lips against his thumb, thick brows furrowing in thought. All around him, wild birds called to one another amidst the chittering clamor of insects hidden in the foliage. He was so busy running through scenarios in his head that he didn’t hear the quiet click of a camera, turning to look up only when he heard a branch snap in the distance.

“Watch it! You’re gonna get us busted!” Donna hissed to Drake. She pocketed her phone, elbowing Drake in the ribs as they crouched behind large leaves. She ticked her head in Liam’s direction. “Go get your boy, none of us are safe out here.”

After some coaxing, Liam headed back to the plane with Donna and Drake, walking briskly through the jungle, eyes trained to look for anything out of the ordinary. Liam was alarmed when he heard and then saw the engines running, until Drake explained the pilots were burning off fuel to lighten the plane. They’d begun to walk up the steps, when Maxwell popped out above them. “Whoo!” Maxwell exclaimed, digging for another snack from the container he cradled in his arm. “Feels like a sauna out here!”

“Lower your voice, Maxwell! Please!” Liam seethed. His features pinched together in disbelief. “Are you...eating? Now?”

“You know I stress snack,” Maxwell replied, shrugging his shoulders. He shoved another cookie into his mouth.

Liam’s eyes lit up and he took the stairs two by two, knocking on the cockpit door before swinging it open. “What if we unloaded whatever’s not bolted down? The decor, dinnerware, the food and drink?”

“That...would certainly help,” the captain replied, looking back over his shoulder. He turned to his co-pilot. “It could be enough to get in the air after burning off the excess fuel.”

“You heard the man, Maxwell,” Liam said, offering his friend a nervous grin. “Get Drake to help you start unloading the plane. Has Ramona’s status changed?”

“Donna found the first aid kit just before she took off with Drake to go after you. Anitah found some smelling salts that gave her a rude wakeup call. Turns out her insulin pump shorted and she just needed some juice.”

Several more minutes passed as the group removed whatever they could from the plane, leaving piles of cookware, food, throw pillows, and even seat cushions to lighten the load. Drake whined when they gathered up the liquor, but he stuffed a bottle of whiskey in a cabinet by his seat. They’d nearly finished when Anya and Remy returned, running on foot. “That thing better be ready to take off!” Anya hollered, motioning for everyone to board. “Rebels on our tail! Time to go!”

Everyone scrambled back onto the plane; Liam relayed the urgency to depart to the pilots, who rapidly went through their flight checklist. Remy pulled Anya up onto the steps and they all clamored to buckle into their seats, the sound of gunfire in the air as the jet rolled forward and lurched up into the air, barely clearing the canopy.

Adrenaline pumping and breaths shallow, Liam looked around at his friends and the crew, thankful they were safely in the air again.

--

Liam thought he was having a stroke at twenty-four when he saw the contents of the bag. Constantine smiled with glee at the small gold cat, one paw raised.

#the royal romance fanfic #trr fanfic #the royal romance fanfiction #trr fanfiction #the royal romance one shot #trr one shot #ISSA ONE SHOT #i mean it! #wacky drabbles #wacky drabble prompt #choices fanfic #playchoices fanfic #choices fanfiction #trr prince liam #trr liam #the royal romance liam #zaffrenotes writes #scheduled post #cw: alcohol consumption #cw: medical ailment #cw: minor anxiety #i love my fraaands #procrastinating writing...by writing something else

[babbushka]

Beyond Reasonable Doubt (ch.2)

–      A Lawyer AU      –

You and Kylo Ren have hated one another for as long as you can remember. He, a criminal prosecutor, and you, a defense attorney should be natural-born enemies, and you are. But when Kylo comes to you seeking representation after being charged for a murder he didn’t commit, you both learn a thing or two about life, the law, and love…

[5.8k, cw: mentions of murder, NSFW: PIV, fingering, biting/marking, possessive hate-fucking]

Available on AO3

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

It feels as though the world has stopped. Time and space have come to a standstill, as you stare at him. Slightly, ever so gently, you pinch the back of your thigh because surely this must be a dream. You must have slept through your alarm – he’s not really there behind that pane of glass.

He can’t be.

Kylo smiles at you, an exhausted sort of smile, like he hasn’t slept in days. He shrugs his shoulders, too broad for the jumpsuit they’ve put him in. You pinch yourself again, but the sting of pain doesn’t jolt you awake in your bedroom, and so before you can do anything at all, you calmly hang the phone up on the wall and turn to the guard that has escorted you to this room, demanding with as much professional conviction as you can muster:

“Get me a private room with my client.”

There were perks to being this high up on the food chain, as it were. Not only did everyone know you, but they mostly trusted you. Trusted you enough to lead you down a hallway and around a corner, nothing but bleak grey and off-white walls passing you by, linoleum under your feet. You recognize these rooms from your previous dealings with Rikers, but never in a million years – a billion years – did you ever fucking think you’d be in one of these with Kylo.

He’s wearing orange, neon and bright. A number is splashed across the back in black paint, and you hate it. You hate him so fucking much, hate how he could have been so stupid to get himself in here. The second the guard closes the door, you’re crossing the small room to get close to him.

Kylo misinterprets your meaning, and as he closes his eyes and puckers his lips, anger flares up through you and you can’t help yourself from doing what your first instinct had been – smacking him across the face.

“Hey!” Kylo scowls, eyes snapping open as he brings his cupped hands up to his cheek to soothe the stinging skin.

Immediately you are on the prowl, stalking him around and around the room.

“What the fuck did you do?” Your breath comes in harsh pants as your mind reels with the implications of why he’s here, “I ignore you for two fucking days and you wind up in jail? Are you insane?”

“Sweetheart – ” Kylo puts his hands up in front of his face, trying to deflect another irritated smack, but you only swat at his hands instead, before clenching your jaw and practically backing him into the corner of the room.

“No, fuck you! You don’t get to call me sweetheart. I’m supposed to be in a meeting right now getting a goddamned promotion and instead I’m sitting here with some dipshit who couldn’t handle his liquor?” Exasperated, you run a hand through your hair.

“Would you just listen to me -- ?”

“Let’s see, what did you in? Was it that big mouth of yours? I saw the photos in the paper, you looked like you were yelling at them. Kylo you know better than to provoke already pissed off cops!”

“They’re charging me with murder.”

Kylo’s voice cuts through the tension in the room, and the air rushes out of your lungs. You remain frozen exactly where you’re standing, your noses nearly touching, your hands fisted in his orange jumpsuit like you’re some schoolyard bully about to lift him off his feet to demand his lunch money.

Your hands only clench tighter in the scratchy rough fabric, but for the first time in a long time, it isn’t anger that spikes through you, it’s fear.

“Excuse me?” Is all you can manage, your eyes searching his, knowing that if he’s joking, you’ll knee him so hard in the balls that the Skywalker bloodline will end with him.

He holds your gaze steady, and your throat closes because he’s telling the truth.

“In the first degree.” Kylo replies, and only then do you release him, your mind spiraling.

You move to sit down at the table in the center of the room, missing the way his hands reach for you. Head pounding, you point at the chair opposite the table. Kylo sits without a word, his face drawn in a frown, his teeth grinding. You’ve always reminded him not to do that, to unclench his jaw and unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth, but you find that you’d be a hypocrite to say that now.

“Who?”

“My grandfather.”

“Did you do it?”

Kylo reacts to that question like you’ve slapped him again – he recoils physically from it, nose scrunching up as he bares his teeth at you like some wild thing, so very unlike the Prosecutor you knew. This must have really rattled him, and you’re almost sorry for asking, but it’s a question you have to ask nonetheless.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Kylo hisses, “Did you seriously just ask me that question?”

“Yeah, I did.” You reply, repeating yourself with a level, “Did you?”

“No I didn’t fucking kill my own grandfather.” He scoffs, “I’m being framed, obviously.”

You can’t help but let a small smile begin to creep up at the corner of your mouth, only Kylo could say something with that much gravity so flippantly. You look at him, and he looks at you, really looks at you. In all the years that you’ve known Kylo, you don’t think you’ve ever really looked him in the eye for very long, one of you always pulling away after a moment.

But now, in the quiet of this private room, there is nothing stopping you from staring at him for as long as you’d like. His eyes are brown, but they’re a strange sort of brown, the kind that looks light from within under the fluorescents. Even in the ugly color of the room and the jumpsuit, he’s handsome, something you positively abhor him for. It shouldn’t be fair, for a prisoner to be so handsome, you think.

You’re reminded briefly of that morning, when he brought you croissants with the jam that you like, when the two of you chuckled softly in the light of morning and kissed the fruity flavor of raspberries and the sweet snap of chocolate off one another’s lips.

God, how you fucking hate him.

“Can you prove that you’re being framed?” You ask, your voice barely above a whisper.

“Yes.” He whispers back, looking too vulnerable for your liking as his eyes shine, as he clasps his hands in front of you and says something that you never thought would come out of his mouth, “Will you help me?”

Part of you wants to say no.

Part of you wants to pound your fist on the table and leave, because dammit you should be thrilled about this. Kylo is the man who has caused you more stress than anything in your life, more than the LSATs or the BAR, more than the first time you ever stepped foot in a courtroom, even more than that time you had been chosen to speak at your cousin’s wedding. He is the only person you have ever lost a case to, he is the only person who has ever broken your win streak and your resolve, and he gloats about it.

You should be gloating about this, you should shove this right in his face the way he shoves everything into yours. Instead, you sigh, try to calm your frazzled nerves, and in a halfway defeated voice ask, “When’s the preliminary hearing?”

“Already had it – plead not-guilty, it’s going to trial and bail is set at a million dollars.” Kylo shocks you by answering, and you frown at him.

“You already had the preliminary hearing?” You suddenly feel very small, almost offended by that. Having the hearing meant he technically already had representation, especially if he already got a trial motion and a bail, which means he asked someone before he asked you.

“Well someone wasn’t answering her fucking phone!” Kylo can sense your mood shift at once, and he rushes to say it before you can even get your mouth opened fully to scoff,

“If you already have a goddamned lawyer then why are you wasting my time – ”

“Do you think I want your help?” Kylo snaps, once again sucking all the air out of your lungs as his face gets red, as his teeth bare once again, the vein in his neck thick and pulsing. “You think I want you to see me like this? You think I want you to have enough to gloat about for the rest of your life? No, so I’d appreciate it if you’d not be such a bitch about everything for once.”

“Why am I here, Kylo?” You whisper, wondering who is representing him. It’s probably his cousin, Rey, or maybe his business associate, Hux.

You want to fight him on it, but at the end of the day he would be right. You didn’t answer his calls.

Kylo looks away, a deep crimson blush blooming angrily across his face. It splotches over his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, as he lets out a pent up breath in a deep sigh that has his shoulders sagging.

“Because you’re the only person I trust to do this right.” He says truthfully, even though he hates himself for it, “You’re the only person who can. This is the rest of my life that’s at stake, I need the best attorney I can get, and that’s you. Let’s not pretend otherwise.”

Kylo wasn’t one to give out declarations like this, compliments like that. You decide not to push the issue, not now anyway, when you’re both clearly in such a bad mood.

It’s hard seeing him like this, hard thinking of him as anything other than the pain in your ass that he was. He wasn’t just Kylo now, he was a client, a high profile client with a murder charge sitting heavy on his shoulders. And you’re the only one he trusts to help him.

“Did you post bail?” You ask, knowing he has that kind of money.

“I’m working on it, it should be in sometime today.” He replies with a nod, and you nod back.

Getting up from the chair in the table, you bite at your lip. Kylo does the gentlemanly thing and stands out of respect for you, before taking a few measured steps over to you. He looks around, makes sure there’s no cameras hidden in the space, makes sure there’s no one watching.

Very carefully, ever so slowly, he leans forward and closes his eyes, his nose gently rubbing against yours. You want to kiss him, but you know you can’t, not here, not while he’s in custody like this.

“When you’re out, and whenever you’re ready, give me a call.” You whisper, and he smiles one of those cheshire cat grins of his that show off all his crooked teeth.

“Will you answer this time?” His lips ghost over yours, just barely, just a hint.

“I’ll answer.” You pull away, leaving him huffing and puffing and frustrated.

Good, you think. Let him be frustrated, if there was one thing you were certain of, it was that this case was going to age you nearly a decade from the looks of it – and you didn’t even know anything yet. Just knowing it was Kylo that the world is up against is enough.

You gather your things and brush past him to the door, knowing you’ll be seeing him again very soon, possibly even that evening, depending on how quickly the process his bail. Maybe you’d put in a good word with the office for him, get him a little higher on the priority list.

Giving the door a gentle knock to let the guard know you’re finished, the two of you wait as the locks shift and turn.

“And for the record,” You say, when the door swings open and they begin to usher Kylo back to his holding cell, you look him dead in the eye and swallow your pride to tell him, “I would’ve taken your case no matter what.”

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

Neisha is waiting for you with a fresh cup of coffee in one of those disposable paper cups, and even though it tastes like shit, it’s still a calming balm on your nerves. You thank her for it and the two of you sign out through visitation, walking the way you had come to go back to the car.

“Who was it?” She can’t help but ask, curiosity in her voice.

“Who do you think?” You groan, downing another gulp of the watery caffeine, “Our favorite asshole.”

Neisha stops in her tracks at that, surprise written all over her face. Part of you wonders how she hadn’t recognized his voice over the phone, but then again, maybe you were the only one who cared enough about the deep baritone of his to notice it.

“No way!” Still, she’s shocked, and that shock turns to confusion almost at once, “He wound up in Rikers over a DUI?”

You sigh, and shake your head, chugging the rest of your coffee. You used to down two pots of the stuff a day in law school, and now nothing ever seemed strong enough. Even chain coffee didn’t hit right anymore, everywhere either burned their beans or under brewed, it was a mess. A million coffee shops in Manhattan and the only good cup of joe was the kind Kylo made for you. The bastard.

“If only it were that simple.” You chew on your lip, the two of you finally approaching the company car that’s been waiting for you the whole time. “Do you want to stop anywhere on the way back to work? Part of me is dreading facing Holdo.”

“She’s called you three times.” Neisha winces, holding out your phone for you to take. You had to leave it behind before going back to see your client, and so of course you left it with her.

“Voicemail?” You almost are too afraid to ask, but you bite the bullet anyway.

“One.” She confirms, and you groan.

“Great.”

“Are you going to listen to it?” Neisha raises a brow while she watches you slip the phone into your purse, decidedly choosing to ignore it in favor of finding a better cup of coffee somewhere.

“No.” You chuckle, explaining, “We’ll be back soon enough, if she’s going to bitch at me, I want it to be in person where I can bitch back.”

“Maybe we can pick up lunch for everyone.” She suggests cheerfully, “No one can be too mad when you’re bringing them food.”

At just that moment, your stomach growls, and you cast a glance up to the sky wondering how you ever got so lucky to have a mind-reader as an assistant. She only smiles at you, and you smile back, letting her know, “I love the way you think.”

In the end, you decide to skip out on the rest of the day of work entirely. By the time you and your assistant had ordered and picked up food for the office, it was almost three o’clock, and you knew that there was no point in trying to get anything done when you had already been scheduled to leave at five. Mondays were a waste of time as it were, you decided you’d just go in early and stay late tomorrow to make up for the time.

Giving your assistant the rest of the day off too, you retreated back to your apartment and tugged your clothing off. You had a strict rule about keeping outside clothes away from your bedroom, and it was a relief to change into something less professional and far more comfortable. Not quite pajamas, because it was early enough in the day still and you weren’t completely giving up on the evening just yet, but still comfortable.

You wondered what Kylo would change into when he got home, wondered if he’d take a long hot shower, or a deep soak in the tub to scrub prison off of him. He hadn’t been there long, but it didn’t take long to shake a man up, even a man as tough as Kylo. Guilt ate at you inside, if only you hadn’t been so stubborn, and adamant in your misery to ignore the world…maybe you could’ve sweet talked the judge into letting him stay on house arrest or something.

If you hadn’t been so stubborn, maybe Kylo never would have gotten himself drunk and angry, driving around town and getting himself arrested. Not that you could really blame yourself for that, you were perfectly in your rights to be pissed off with him for winning against you. And if he was framed like he says he was, then they would have had a warrant for him anyway.

But still, it eats at you.

You groan, smacking a hand to your forehead – the DUI isn’t going to look good to a jury, not at all. Especially if the police think the murder happened that day, that was going to cause him trouble, and by extension, you. He needed to have a rock solid alibi, and as much as you hated it, if he was so plastered as to get pulled over, he might not remember where he was or what he was doing. That was going to give him trouble too.

Speak of the Devil, you can’t help but think, as your phone rings. You pick it up right on the second buzz, recognizing the caller ID and smiling to yourself about it.

“Kylo?” You say stupidly, because you know who it is. You just like to make sure, want to know that it’s him.

“Hey sweetheart, go outside.” He answers, and you frown, your heart-rate spiking.

“You have a key, let yourself in.” You scoot over on the couch enough to peek out through the living room window, looking down the ten stories to see his shiny black car indeed parked on the curb, flashers on.

“No, it’s just my car, we’re going out to dinner.” Kylo chuckles, and you frown.

“Right now?” It was barely half past four o’clock, it wasn’t even time for the early bird dinner specials yet at most of the diners around the block.

“Right now, put on something nice.” He instructs, before hanging up.

You blink in surprise for a few seconds, before springing into action. Curse that insufferable man! If only he could think far enough in advance to warn a woman before sending the car, you bounce the thought around in your head. You quickly brush your teeth while you step out of your sweatpants, tug the t-shirt over your head.

Wondering what the world record is for getting dressed for a surprise dinner date, you throw on something elegant, really dressing to the nines. Not having much time to do anything with your hair, you put it up in a style that you hope looks purposefully messy as opposed to just sloppy, and you clasp on subtle yet expensive jewelry.

You almost wish you had timed yourself as you spray a few squirts of perfume, slip on some heels and dash out the door, grateful for the fact that you live in an upscale enough apartment that you don’t have to worry about getting your shoes caught in the grates of a stairwell, taking the shiny polished elevator for a ride.

Kylo’s driver is waiting for you next to the car, and when he sees you, he straightens up his posture, squares his slim shoulders. The kid wasn’t more than nineteen or twenty, but he was nice, and you knew he was family, and it was always a pleasure to see him.

“Hi Dopheld, it’s been a while.” You smile at him as he opens the back door for you, giving you a hand to balance yourself as you securely settle in.

“Hey (Y/N), how have you been?” Dopheld is soft spoken and kind, a very gentle soul. How he manages to deal with Kylo’s road rage, you’ll never know, but you’re glad that it’s him picking you up and not his boss.

“Better than you I bet.” You chuckle as he closes the door and rounds the car. When he’s back in his driver’s spot and pulls out onto the road, curiosity gets the better of you so you ask, “Where are we going?”

“Del Frisco’s, you know Kylo.” Dopheld’s eye meets yours in the rearview mirror, and you let out an exasperated sigh.

“That man and his steak, oy.” You mutter to yourself with a roll of your eyes, admiring your reflection in the glass of the window.

“Well you can’t blame him, he’s been eating prison food for the past four days.” Dopheld shudders at the mere thought of it, and you sigh.

“He really was in there all weekend, huh?” You feel that guilt again, it rises like acid up into your throat.

“I’m surprised you didn’t know, it was all over the news.” Dopheld’s eyebrows raise, and you sigh.

“I uh,” You clear your throat, trying to find some way to not tell this kid that you threw something of a temper tantrum over losing your case, “I didn’t really pay much attention to anything these past few days.”

Somehow, even though you didn’t say it, Dopheld seems to know anyway.

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

Del Frisco’s is a real swanky place just shy of Times Square, and undoubtedly one of Kylo’s favorite places to eat. He’s got a host of restaurants he likes, but there’s something about a well-cooked steak that can’t be beat, he’s told you this too many times. Just about every time he’s had a steak at Del Frisco’s, anyway. It’s a three story tall building, and a dress code, and if there was one thing Kylo loved more than steak, it was an excuse to put on his expensive suits, his nice shoes.

He hasn’t said so, but you have a sneaking suspicion he likes an excuse to see you all dolled up too, which is just what you are, as you step out of his car at five o’clock on that Monday in January, bundled up in a coat that you can’t wait to dramatically remove in front of him.

“I’m meeting a Mr. Ren.” You say quietly to the host, who recognizes both you and the name you give her at once.

“Right this way.” She invites you further into the restaurant, up a flight of stairs to a secluded corner of the floor that overlooks the main level.

Kylo stands when he sees you, looks utterly mesmerized by you. Good, you can’t help but feel pleased, you like the attention, like the way he gives it to you. He’s pulled out all the stops himself as it would seem; a custom tailored Gucci suit in rich brown, with deep green and burgundy stripes running down the length of it that makes him look impossibly taller than he is.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, you wonder if all your teasing about his solid black suits day in and day out finally got through to him. He wears a beige turtleneck underneath for warmth, and his hair is smartly styled. You want to run your fingers through it, want to muss him up for all the trouble he puts you through.

“I like you better like this.” You say teasingly, playfully, “Orange isn’t your color.”

“I like you better like this too,” Kylo chuckles back, carefully slipping your fur coat off your shoulders, revealing the dress that hugs your body and shows off all the assets you’re proud of, “When you aren’t smacking me.”

“Don’t tempt me.” You smile, taking a seat opposite him at the small circular table.

“Thank you for coming.” Kylo says, and you roll your eyes.

“You didn’t give me much choice, did you?” You point out, he gave you no notice at all, no option to opt out, not that you would have.

Sitting across from you, you can feel the way his shiny polished dress shoe nudges up against your heel, a purposeful invitation that you pretend to ignore just to rile him up. You like getting him annoyed, just as much as he likes annoying you.

“No, but you do always have one.” Kylo pours you a glass of something bubbly, and hands it to you with a soft, “You look lovely.”

“I already agreed to take your case, Kylo, you don’t have to lay it on thick.” You shake your head, accepting the glass. He was so charming, too charming for his own good. This was how he wound up in situations like being charged for murder, that charm of his.

“Maybe I want to.” Kylo shrugs, “Maybe I missed complimenting you.”

“Go ahead then.” You lean back against the chair for a moment, your arms crossing over your chest, an eyebrow raised.

“I love when you wear this dress, your body is dynamite in it.” He settles on, “Makes my mouth water.”

“Are you sure that’s not just the steak talking?” You take a sip of the drink, and he groans in the back of his throat, ripping a piece of fresh bread off the loaf and dipping it into a small plate of oil.

“Remind me never to go to jail again.” He mutters, “Imagine spending the rest of your life there.”

“No thanks to you, too many of my clients don’t have to imagine, now do they?” That strikes a nerve in you, and you’re suddenly reminded of the way the last case really went down, the implications for that poor man, probably in Rikers himself for a crime he didn’t commit.

“Hey – ” Like lightning, Kylo reaches out and grabs your wrist, preventing you from getting up and leaving, afraid of you bolting away, “I’m sorry.”

“What?” You blink, stunned.

“I’m sorry, I mean it.” He rushes to say, “I’m sorry. But you have to know that I’m only doing my job, when I do that. Same way that you do yours when you let guilty men walk free.”

It’s the first time he’s ever apologized to you…about anything. You’ve known him for years and years, and this is the first time he’s ever uttered those words. Jail must have really fucked with him, if he’s apologizing to you.

“I know, but it still sucks.” You eventually say, not moving your hand at all.

“Stay with me? Have dinner, I already ordered.” Kylo licks his lips, eyes dark, glittering.

“Most women don’t like you assuming their order.” You find it important to mention.

“You’re not most women.” He counters, and well, you can’t deny him that.

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

Hours later he’s stumbling with you through the hallway of his apartment, kicking his shoes off and unclasping your gown desperately, kissing you deeply, his nose bumping against yours as he hungrily sucks on your tongue, hands groping at you. You lead him to the bedroom, your eyes closed, going off intuition alone.

It’s dark in the apartment, the lux lavish thing, rent probably four times what you pay for your already expensive place. No, knowing Kylo he owns the fucking penthouse, that’s just like him, isn’t it. You smack into a wall accidentally, and he laughs, and you laugh too, before you’re both moaning, trying with all your might to get into his bed.

“I’m not doing any of the fucking work tonight.” You gasp and moan against his mouth as he shoves you down onto the mattress, wrenches your legs open with his warm broad palms.

There’s a fireplace in his bedroom that he turns on with the press of a button, filling the room with an ethereal quality that bathes you both in an orange glow.

“When do you ever do any of the work?” Kylo grunts against your throat as he kisses down down down the length of your body, his hands kneading in the flesh of your thighs. You’re too desperate to come to snap back at the remark, so you let it slide, especially as he begins to shove two fingers into your cunt, thick and hot, “Let me take care of you, just take it, I know you can take it sweetheart.”

You squirm under the intrusion, too tight. Trying to relax for him, you breathe deeply, your voice shaky shuddery on the exhale. Already your toes are curling as you let your head fall back against his pillow, your back arching as he stretches you open, determined and focused to bring you pleasure, to get you ready for him.

Kylo sucks on your hip, at the spot where your thigh joins it, that crease there that he loves to run his tongue over over over, his thumb rubbing rough circles on your swollen clit. He pulls back enough to spit on it, right on your pussy, not that you need any help, you’re practically dripping for him.

“Kylo, fuck, forget it just give me your cock.” You grow impatient, shifting your hips around, nudging the side of his jaw with your knee when he leans up to look at you.

“You sure?” He’s transfixed with the sight of his own fingers disappearing into your folds, but he’s already pulling out, his cock hard and heavy, aching and throbbing for the hot wet tightness of your cunt.

“Yes I’m sure, just fuck me, fuck me hard?” You pat at his shoulder, and he nods, scrambles up your body and covers you like a blanket, warm and wide and strong. If he weren’t such a fucking asshole, you think you might like him.

But that’s not what this was, this was something you both agreed on a long time ago – a no strings attached arrangement, fucking out frustration and pent up aggression that otherwise was exploding all over the courtroom. This wasn’t anything more than an excuse to relieve some tension, since you two were the only people in your caliber, the only two you could trust to do it right and not mess anything up.

“I fuckin’ missed this pussy, missed the way she stretches for me, god you look so good getting stuffed full.” Kylo moans as he presses the head of his cock through your folds, chasing the heat.

Your pussy sucks him in, swallows him down as it clenches around him, your body thrumming with pleasure as he bottoms out in one swift thrust. You egg him on, throw your arms around his neck and pull him down close close close, your mouth open for him to kiss.

“Oh!” You gasp when he starts to thrust in earnest, grabbing the headboard for leverage as he rails you hard, “Yes, right there! Come on give me more!”

His dick drags against your gspot perfectly, and your legs lift to wrap around his waist, holding on to him tightly, your hands scratching up his shoulders. He is relentless, dangerous, dark with his desire as he makes your mind white out, makes your vision go spotty as he shakes shakes shakes the bed, the frame creaking and groaning under your sweaty bodies.

“Greedy whore, that’s what you are isn’t it? My greedy girl. I bet you missed my cock, didn’t you?” Kylo grunts, grabs a hold of your jaw with one of his hands and sticks his fingers in your mouth, leans down to kiss your cheek. He bites at it, bites at your face like an animal and you lose yourself in the pleasure of being so consumed.

“No,” You lie, not wanting him to have the satisfaction of knowing you got yourself off angrily to the thought of him, not wanting his ego to get any fucking bigger than it already did.

Kylo doesn’t buy it for one second, he licks up your cheek, licks away the sweat that drips down your temple, suckles it off of the dip in your throat, the space between your tits. He bites and sucks at your breasts as he fucks you hard, as he pushes you up up up the mattress, until you have to throw your hands against the headboard and push back down so you don’t smack your head.

“Bet you thought about it every fucking day like I thought about your tight cunt, damn you’re wet.” Kylo groans, his voice muffled as he buries his face between your cleavage, his cock pulsing and throbbing inside your pussy, the pleasure making your shoulders pinch in, your knees and thighs shake, body starting to convulse.

“I did not!” You lie lie lie, “Believe it or not but you don’t consume my every waking fucking thought, you know.”

“Don’t I?” Kylo pushes, drops a hand back down to your clit and brings you to the edge, painfully hot white sparks dancing through your nerves.

“No!”

“No?” His voice is dangerously sweet, charming, handsome. You hate him, fuck he’s so handsome.

“Fuck you – yes, okay! Yes!” You glare at him with a deep frown, frowning while he grins with all of his teeth, until your eyes are rolling back into your head and your toes curl and your body snaps up with tension as you come and come and come, “Oh yes, Kylo, yes right there, right there…!”

You let out a strangled shout of his name as your orgasm hits full force, and Kylo grins like the cat that got the cream as he comes inside you, collapsing down onto your chest. He’s too heavy though, and he knows that, he knows because you tell him all the time, so he rolls over to a spot that isn’t sticky, pulls you with him so you’re both resting on your sides.

Kylo doesn’t dare pull out, and if he gets his way, he won’t until morning. You’re too tired, too well fucked to challenge him about it, even though you know you really should go to the bathroom, at the very least.

You’re both breathing hard, heartbeats pounding together, until eventually, somehow, inevitably, your lungs and hearts sync up in a slow even rhythm, breathing in and out together in the quiet of the night. The fireplace flickers gently across from the bed, making shadows dance across Kylo’s face as he leans in to rub his nose against yours.

“Let me kiss you?” He whispers, a strange sort of vulnerability you don’t want to deny.

In the morning, you’ll grill him about everything that happened over the weekend, exactly what the charges against him are from, as much as he knows. In the morning, you’ll yell at him and hate yourself for taking on what is going to be probably one of the toughest cases of your career.

But for now, you shuffle as close to him as you possibly can and crane your head up to make up for the height difference from where your bodies are still joined, and kiss him, and kiss him, and kiss him, until you both fall asleep.

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

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[heroprose]

aromatic;

a/n. forewarning for the usual vampiric shenanigans.

ship. hitoshi shinou x reader

summary. contemporary vampire au. (+ slight office au)

//

hitoshi shinsou despises you, you’re certain of this. 

what you’re not quite sure of is where all the animosity stemmed from, especially since he seemed to conduct himself well enough with everyone else. 

out of all your fellow colleagues, he treated you with the most transparent curtness, from promptly exiting whenever you entered the breakroom for a refreshment, to visibly retching the one time you tried to take an empty seat next to him during a conference (you’ll never forgive him for that slight).

it was really starting to grate on you. you were going to have to confront him about this yourself.

besides, you’ve no longer a choice in the matter: this unspoken tension had begun to affect the workplace, with people sometimes looking to and fro between you and him, confused to high hell why he always kept himself a good several meters away from you if he could-- not that you were complaining. social distancing can be quite mutually beneficial, after all.

and it wasn’t an issue you’d like to bring up with human resources either: that seemed a little too petty, even if he was literally gagging at your presence. 

you did try to ameliorate the work relationship-- really, you did. but there’s only so many times you can crack a joke and be left hanging in that awkward silence before you stop altogether. you once thought it’d been something you said in poor taste that made him abhor you so, but unless he had a seething hatred for mild puns, that didn’t seem right. 

and so what that you were a newer addition to the team-- you’d entertained the idea that maybe he had a thing against strangers, but hell, it’s been months and even interns get more conversation out of him than you.

although given his visceral reactions, you’re inclined to think it’s something about how you smell... but that’s just insane. you took your daily showers and used reasonable amounts of detergent in your laundry; and if you can take the pungency of axe body spray and the zestiness of dior’s sauvage on every man in the building, then he should be able to tolerate your own signature scent, which wasn’t even that bad... was it? 

no one else complained about it though. and you’ve even asked around too, so you know you’re not wearing absolute funk. it’s an unfathomable situation.

today, however, you forewent the perfume. if it really was the fragrance, then this should leave no opening. you’ve tucked the bottle in your workbag instead, in case you needed it like a piece of evidence for his rude behavior, ace attorney style.

you waited until lunch break, where most of the other colleagues would leave the building for nearby restaurants or go to the cafeteria, before approaching him. it was best this way, lest it got weird; at least only few people would witness it. 

hitoshi was currently invested in whatever it was on his computer, and if you were correct in his observations, he would pull out his own homemade meal shortly enough to eat at his desk. some days, he didn’t eat at all, which was surely unhealthy but you were hardly in the position to scold him considering your own bad habits. plus you didn’t want him to hate you even deeper. 

you got to observe this routine over a good number of weeks and it was truly no easy feat, with his desk set in the far corner of the workplace far from the wall-length windows and him being constantly out and about on his own assignments.

with your workbag in one hand, you walk up to him with as much nonchalance as you could muster. “hey! not going down to the cafe today?” it’s rhetorical: you knew he wasn’t.

he hardly responds, eyes flickering up at you briefly and giving a greeting nod before returning to his work. “mm.”

you round the corner of the desk so that you stand beside him. leaning down slightly to squint at the screen, you deliberately put yourself in his space. “oh wow, the deadline’s so far away but you’re already working on this part?”

he began to open his mouth, only to clap a hand over it with remarkable speed. and he coughs, goodness, with shoulders jumping.

“oh my god,” you can’t help but say as you withdraw. could he smell it even from your bag? you weren’t even sure if it was the perfume or just you anymore. “okay, i’ll cut to the chase. can we talk? alone?”

you’d think he would think it over, at the very least, to give a semblance of polite reflection. “no,” is his immediate reply, spoken forcefully, so forcefully that a lone passing colleague even gives you two a glance. 

“i was, uh, just leaving,” they say. “want anything?”

“i’m good, thanks,” you reply, bidding them farewell with a breezy smile before refocusing on hitoshi. he has already turned away from you, eyes blazing at the computer screen.

without another word, you reach over, placing a hand over his, and drag his mouse to click out of his report.

“what do you think you’re doing?” hitoshi demands, jerking away from your touch. and he’s angry now, genuinely irritated: you can see it in the way his jaw tightens. too bad you’ve been annoyed ever since you’ve been moved to this department.

“it was google docs, relax. your work is saved,” you soothe over. “now come with me. i just want to talk to you for five minutes, tops. please.”

he’s deeply conflicted for a heartbeat, but finally relents. “five minutes,” he echoes. you give him the space to stand up, clutching your workbag strap tightly in your fist. if he knew what this was about, he gave no mention as he walked openhanded behind you.

hastily, you lead him to the breakroom. with its doorless entrance, you assumed that the ventilation there would be moderately good, if it got too stuffy for him. then again, you wouldn’t of minded if he suffocated a bit either. admittedly, the entire floor was probably empty save for you two, so this dialogue could’ve been held out in the open but it didn’t hurt to have that extra layer of seclusion. 

“i already know,” you say into the quietude, leaning against the counter. behind you, the coffee machine beeped every so often. someone should get that fixed. you cross your arms and look at him carefully. the vents are tinny above you two, warm air rushing out noisily.

“you-- what?” his dark eyes widen ever so slightly, and for once, his expression isn’t quite so tense with you. “what do you know?” he must’ve not expected you to be so direct. he takes his hand out of his pocket.

“you know what i’m talking about. why you treat me like, i don’t know, the plague?”

“i don’t do that.”

“you nearly threw up when you saw me.”

hitoshi stays silent. ha, gotcha! “i only coughed,” he relents eventually.

“whatever. and i know it’s not me and that it’s really all you because guess what? no one else has this problem. and i’m thinking you don’t want me to air out your business to everyone else because that would be...” weird, for one, but you didn’t want to ruin your own case. “doesn’t matter; in any case, there’s no reason to be rude over this.”

“alright. so you know. i avoid you because of your scent.” his voice is dangerously calm. “what are you going to do about me, then?”

“about you?” you repeat with a scoff, “oh, so i should report you? what would i even say? HR would laugh at me.”

he smirks, chin jutting out. “right.”

“so now i only have one question. wait, make that two.”

“go on.”

“how should we fix this? because obviously i don’t want our little dance to start affecting our work ethic. you can’t wave me away forever. it’s how i smell, right? do you have a recommended detergent or deodorant, or something?” you ignore the fact that you’ve technically asked three questions.

“none of that covers it,” he mutters and your jaw drops. “masks don’t help either.”

“no way. i smell that b-- you know what... moving on. we’ve got to compromise somewhere though. but not my perfume.” your hands reflexively ball up. there’s no camera, so if you did something unsavory, there equally wouldn’t be any real witnesses...

“your perfume,” he repeats, seemingly dissatisfied. 

“yeah, no way. that’s my signature scent. go wear nose plugs or something, if it’s that bad. and i can’t believe you say scent and not body odor, like just call it what it is! damn.” 

the coffee machine lets out its intermittent beeps. hitoshi just stares at you, mystified. then, he breaks into a snort, like he’s the one who can’t believe he’s having this discussion. “i understand. in that case, i see no solution.” whilst bringing a hand to the back of his neck, he starts to move, intent on passing you to exit the room.

you let out a frustrated noise. “you leave me no choice, hitoshi.”

intending on presently the bottle to him proudly, perhaps even spritzing him once for good measure, you jam your hand into your workbag to fish your perfume out. you grab onto the rectangular shaped glass, and pull it out with great gusto.

and it goes terribly. 

to your horror, the bottle slips like butter between your fingers and sails, tumbling down to the floor right in front of you with a heartrending crash, glass splintering like ice. the beautiful blue lid goes spinning across the tiles, and like that, the whole room now blooms a gorgeous citrus, white floral scent. “oh nooooooo! shit!”

no longer minding him, you go to pick up the shards, bending down at the knees with a sigh. gingerly, you begin to clean up.

“hey, be careful. i’ll get a dustpan,” you hear him say and it’s one of the nicest things he’s ever said to you, but in your melancholy, you shake your head solemnly.

“no, no, i’ve got this. i’m just so-- OWW?” you wail without warning. you drop the wet shard you were grasping, still slick with liquid. “ugh, never mind. get the dustpan.” you bring yourself up on your feet again.

using your shoe, you kick the shards into a more cohesive, but wet pile. the clattering of the glass causes you some emotional pain. “terrific,” you mutter, watching blood bead up at across two of your fingertips. “well, at least i won’t be wearing that anymore. right, hitoshi?” you ask sarcastically. shaking your hand to rid it of perfume residue, you end up just flecking your blood droplets all over the floor. you glance up when you’re met with silence. “hitoshi?”

“nnngh...” a low, deep groan escapes his throat, and immediately he turns his cheek and takes several stumbling steps away. he grits his teeth, the vein in his neck growing more prominent like it’s physically paining him to pull apart from you. “you’ve got to be fucking kidding me...”

“you okay?” you close in on him. it felt almost backwards to ask such a query, seeing as you were the one bleeding. “maybe you should sit d--”

“get away from me,” he all but spits out, eyes squeezed shut. “you set this up, huh? figures.” stray hairs were falling into his face as he presses a hand against his temple and bit back another groan. “i was doing just fine before... so why... nngh.”

you purse your lips. “hey! what do you have against dolce & gabbana’s light blue eau de toilette? it’s a perfectly respectable, fresh, work-friendly fragrance! it was, at least!” you wanted to shout. but that didn’t happen, as your concern and confusion won over your sense of petulance. “set what up?” you ask, bewildered.

on closer inspection, he was not, in fact, okay at all. 

for a second, you thought he was having an allergic reaction. that would certainly explain his avoidance of your body, and perhaps why even a deep black had replaced the cool purple in his irises when his eyes snap open to glare. his pupils were blown out despite the bright tube lighting overhead, and his mouth parts wide.

yet an allergy did not explain everything. as opposed to weak, however, hitoshi suddenly looked frightening. 

because, instead, what came out of your mouth was a strangled, “uh, what the-- are those fangs?” 

and indeed they were, confirmed as they descended upon your skin before you  could even blink. at the very least, he had the decency to pant out a small but distinctively unapologetic “sorry” before his lips pressed around your bleeding fingers, tongue hot against the stinging cuts. 

you hope fervently your coworkers take their leisure at lunch.

#shinsou x reader #shinsou hitoshi x reader #hitoshi shinsou x reader #bnha imagines #bnha x reader #why do yall still follow me wtf anyway here u go #tbf maybe shinsou prefers chanel no 5 #i think i wanted this to be more twilight adjacent but i dont know what happened

[justkeeptrekkin]

Object Permanence prompt idea: literally anything involving Mingjue + the baby

this has been in my mind rent-free for months 

***

A photo sits framed on the mantelpiece. A little boy with a great, dimpling smile, blowing out the sparkling number four candle of his astronaut birthday cake.

“Was that the doorbell?”

“Yes-- I’ll get it.”

A photo sits framed on the mantelpiece. It’s smaller than the other, the size of a polaroid. A father looks down at the top of his seven month old son’s head, in the middle of telling him a quiet story. He hadn’t noticed the camera. They share the same dimples.

“Baba-- can I get it? Can I get it?”

“On this occasion, yes.”

A photo sits framed on the mantelpiece. The boy’s other father carries him on his shoulders at Disney world. Their smiles are different, but the affection for the person taking the photo is clear in both of their eyes.

“I’ll get it!”

“Can I get it with him, shufu?”

“Can I answer the door?” “Let’s answer it together!”

“This isn’t your house, dummy!”

“OK-- baby, don’t run down the stairs--”

“I’ve got it-- oh, hi shufu!”

Meng Yao is in the middle of an excruciating conversation with Wei Wuxian (most of them are) when the doorbell rings. He’s really rather relieved to move from the kitchen to the hall, cradling a glass of homemade lemonade and ignoring Wei Wuxian’s muted complaints.

“I don’t want to talk to Lan Zhan about it. What if he isn’t ready? I mean, one kid is tiring enough and...”

“Communication is the cornerstone of any relationship,” Meng Yao returns with a smile.

“Oh, as if you can lecture me on that-- hi, da-ge.”

Three little boys open the door to reveal Nie Mingjue. The first little boy clings onto him in an enormous hug. The second one whoops and starts dancing and striking rock-star poses. The third starts running circles around him.

A-Xing, A-Ling, and A-Yuan. They make quite a trio. Meng Yao supposes that being friends practically from birth will do quite a lot to solidify a friendship.

“Da-ge.”

“We’re done,” Nie Mingjue says gruffly.

“You knew the door was unlocked,” Meng Yao replies. “You could have come straight in.”

Nie Mingjue allows the boys to poke him and clamber over him. Jin Ling is trying to push him into the house, hands against his back and sneakers scuffing on the front doorstep uselessly. “Xichen is just finishing up. And I didn’t want to tread in sawdust and mud. You nearly lobotomized me for that last week.”

“Wait-- finishing up what? What’s shufu finishing up?”

“I told you! The dads are trying to organise a surprise party for A-Xing.”

“LingLing, you probably shouldn’t have…”

“It’s ok, A-Yuan, I’d figured it out already. Uncle Wei Wuxian was all awkward and weird about it today.”

Meng Yao observes this conversation. The three boys crane their necks to view the two parents. Meng Yao then turns his cool gaze to Wei Wuxian, who’s rubbing the back of his neck.

“Aha… what was I supposed to do? He’s inherited your puppy dog eyes and he was asking me all these questions and I-- didn’t know what to do. I didn’t tell him anything! Just, yeah. Was weird and awkward. Stop glaring, what was I meant to do?”

“Lie,” Meng Yao replies easily. “You lie to children.”

“Hey!”

“He doesn’t mean it.”

“No. He does. Baba says white-lies are the cornerstones of relationships.”

Looking at Meng Yao with mock horror. “Oh does he now?”

Meng Yao clears his throat and clicks his fingernails against his glass. “I believe you said Lan Xichen was ready for us?”

Nie Mingjue purses his lips and quirks his brows: yep.

“Uncle Mingjue! Shufu-- why are you so dusty?” Nie Mingjue is uncle to everyone despite bearing no family relation to any of the children. Jin Ling continues to push him by the back as they walk outside to the front lawn. “What’s this dusty stuff?”

“Sawdust.” Lan Yuan skips ahead. “Sawdust. From saws.”

“Is sawdust wood?” Cheng Xing asks contemplatively. “Can you have sawdust if it isn’t wood?”

A very good question, as most of A-Xing’s questions are. Meng Yao walks behind the boys, Wei Wuxian slinking sheepishly by his side. “Perhaps that’s something we can look up later when we go back inside.”

“Wait--”

A-Xing stops. He looks at Nie Mingjue with a gently baffled look that is absolutely inherited from Lan Xichen, regardless of the lack of Lan genetics. “Why are we going through the gate to the back garden?”

Nie Mingjue folds his arms and hums conspiratorially. (Jin Ling pokes his bicep with a furrowed brow.) “Well. Your dads have worked very hard to keep that a surprise.”

Meng Yao clears his throat politely-- a slight intended for Wei Wuxian, who covers his face in shame.

“I didn’t tell him, I promise,” he says behind his hands. “It’ll still be a surprise.”

At this moment, Meng Yao measures the confusion on his son’s face turning to amusement. A-Xing has inherited all the good traits from Lan Xichen. (Then again, does he have any bad ones?) He is handling this air of mystery without any concern or anxiety. Whilst Meng Yao abhors surprises, A-Xing adores them. He trusts his parents, Meng Yao realises.

Stepping over to his son, Meng Yao offers his hand. It’s getting a bit embarrassing for A-Xing to be holding his fathers’ hands, but neither of them care right now, in front of family. “Let’s go take a look together. Maybe Nie Mingjue’s just playing a particularly cruel prank on you.”

A-Xing beams up at him and laughs. “This is so weird. You’re so weird.”

“I am so weird,” Meng Yao agrees.

They step through the little private alleyway beside the house and into the back garden. So far, there is nothing new to see; the monkey puzzle tree that the boys like to climb, which A-Xing fell from last year and fractured his wrist in the process; the peony bed at the end of the lawn; the little, carved wooden sign for the pet hamster who passed away last year; the Frisbee that’s been collecting water for about two weeks now, and that Meng Yao hasn’t moved because it’s turned into a bird-bath and Lan Xichen likes has gone mushy over this.

“Where’s dad?” A-Xing asks, swinging their arms between them.

“Ah, well--” Wei Wuxian adds mystical hand gestures, “perhaps we should explore a little further and solve that particular mystery?”

A-Yuan beams. He runs over to his father and hugs him. Lan Yuan is a very affectionate child, far more than A-Xing of A-Ling. The other boys have known him long enough that they don’t find it unusual. Wei Wuxian, to this day, still appears a little tearful whenever he receives an impromptu hug.

“You’re weird, too,” A-Yuan mutters into Wei Wuxian’s stomach.

They venture to the end of the garden. Wei Wuxian makes a show of peering over the fence with a hand shielding his eyes.

Nie Mingjue climbs over the style. “Are you following or not?” he demands of Wei Wuxian.

“Ooooo! What could possibly be in there? Hmm? What could possibly be in the little patch of woods between A-Xing and A-Yuan’s houses?”

“The little patch of woods that A-Yao spent an awful lot of money and time blackmailing the estate agents into selling to me for half price,” Meng Yao mutters to himself.

“Oh look. Could I possibly see your dad in the near distance, A-Xing?”

A-Xing is already climbing over the style. A-Yuan is clambering over the fence, offering a hand to A-Ling who swats it away with a scowl. Meng Yao watches the three children gambol into the woods. Nie Mingjue follows at a slow saunter, brushing his hands on his jeans.

“This is going to blow their tiny minds,” Meng Yao says.

Wei Wuxian whistles. “It really is.”

Cheng Xing is a little shorter than both Jin Ling and Lan Yuan. Nonetheless, he sprints ahead, and his two friends flank him. And there-- Meng Yao spots his partner crouched in the leaves, packing away the toolbox and stretching his shoulders. He’s been working all afternoon with da-ge, tanned and limber in a white tshirt.

“WOAH!”

“Is that--?”

“TREEHOUSE! TREEHOUSE! IS IT OUR TREEHOUSE? IS IT MY TREEHOUSE? CAN WE GO IN?”

“DID YOU MAKE THIS?”

“HOW DO WE GET UP? LOOK, A LADDER!”

“THIS IS SO COOL--”

Jin Ling is clambering up the ladder. A-Yuan tugs him gently by the t-shirt and tells him to get down since it’s technically a birthday present for A-Xing, not him, and he should be the one to go up first. But A-Xing is hugging his dad with ferociously tight little arms, and Lan Xichen is laughing quietly to himself, stroking the top of his head. 

“You should thank shufu, too. He built most of it.” He gives Meng Yao a small smile, the smile that still melts him even now, eight years later. “I held up lots of heavy planks of wood.”

“So impressive,” Meng Yao grins. He kisses his boyfriend on the cheek. “Very impressive. Isn’t baba impressive?”

“Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank youthankyouthankyouthank--” A-Xing hugs Nie Mingjue, who smirks. “Thankyouthankyouthankyouthank--”

“Why don’t you go and try it out,” Lan Xichen says.

The boys scrabble up the ladder. A-Yuan is a little older than the other two, and whilst he never abuses this authority, A-Xing and A-Ling treat him with the respect of a wise elder. They therefore listen to A-Yuan’s words of caution climbing the tree, advice about watching their footing and not going too quickly.

The four men at the bottom of the tree peer up at the platform three metres above. It’s shrouded in leaves, branches, a lovingly carved roof (trademark Nie Designs) and fairylights. The boys are babbling in hushed, awed tones, interspersed with laughter and childish squeals.

“I think this was a good choice,” Lan Xichen remarks a little dreamily. Meng Yao lays his head on his shoulder and feels it rise and fall with his sigh. “This is going to make them happy for years.”

“You know when they’re teenagers they’re going to use it as their sordid den,” Wei Wuxian says. “Like, they’re going to go there to like, talk about girls or boys or both or neither and like, make low, grunting caveman noises about how much they hate us.”

“Well. They’ll need a safe place to do such a thing,” Meng Yao admits.

Nie Mingjue grumbles. “Without you running into A-Xing’s room, swatting him with a broom or your shoe at the slightest hint of hormones.”

Lan Xichen laughs.

Meng Yao stares at them all. They’re all laughing.

“I would never,” he argues. Peering up at Lan Xichen with wide, imploring eyes. “You know I would never.”

“Of course not, love.” Lan Xichen plants a consolatory kiss on his forehead. “We just know that you’re very protective of our son.”

“Of course I am. Of course I’m protective. Gege, why are you laughing? Do you think I’m such a bad father, gege?”

Nie Mingjue pinches his nose. Wei Wuxian is cackling.

“No, A-Yao. You’re the best father in the world, and A-Xing knows it.”

“He’s referring to the fact that you tried to get a child expelled for kicking over his mud-pie in nursery.”

“And if they’d let me on the board of governors, justice would have been served.” There’s also the fact that he admitted to Lan Xichen, face buried in his chest, that he doesn’t want A-Xing to be a smelly teenager. He’d wept. Proper, sobbing cries. Is it awful that Meng Yao wants him to be wide-eyed and adorable forever and ever, and if Meng Yao knows that no one will ever be good enough for their son and-- and how is he meant to let some snotty-nosed teenager take him to the cinema or a terrible fast-food restaurant on a first date?

Lan Xichen had said his distress was both understandable and endearing. Thing is, Meng Yao is only partially putting it on. He really is heartbroken by how fast A-Xing is growing.

The three boys erupt into laughter from the treehouse.

“I want another baby.”

Meng Yao says it before any coherent thoughts go through his head and have a chance to wrangle the sentence back into its box. Wei Wuxian gasps. Nie Mingjue looks genuinely shocked. 

Lan Xichen shifts beside Meng Yao and looks at him with parted lips.

“I’m sorry?” he croaks.

This time, he knows exactly what he’s saying. He looks Lan Xichen dead on and says in his most business-like, I’m-putting-my-foot-down voice: “I want another baby.”

The birds sing overhead. The boys laugh in the treehouse, out of sight. Meng Yao’s friends stare, open-mouthed. He looks at Lan Xichen and waits.

Lan Xichen smiles.

#my writing #xiyao #jgy #lxc #lan xichen #jin guangyao #meng yao #Object Permanence Prompts #mdzs #the untamed

[alderations]

you never changed, but i sure did

Nastya doesn’t know this, but she’s been floating in empty space for three years. (written for the @mechanismszine !)

Rating: T (for some swearing)

Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Temporary Character Death, Post-Out, Memory Loss, Dissociation, Depersonalization, Angst with a Happy Ending

Nastya doesn’t know this, but she’s been floating in empty space for three years.

Nastya doesn’t know much of anything out here. Stars pierce the blankness, pricking her eyes like the tears that would form when it was too cold back home. It’s far too cold here, but her circuits, both metal and flesh, stopped processing that years ago.

She doesn’t have much to take in, between cycles of fading away and shivering back to life every so often when her mechanism can’t keep up with the crushing vacuum. There’s no logic to the moments of clarity in between her deaths, and maybe if she were aware of the anniversary of her self-imposed exile, she would resent it. Instead, her limited consciousness brings her back around to the same thought that’s haunted her since she stepped through the airlock doors: if the Aurora is no longer the Aurora, then who is she?

She’s had plenty of time to form an argument. At first, she would stare at the last remaining piece of her Aurora, mouthing her meaningless silence into the void, as if the tiny scrap of metal would answer her in saccharine Cyberian like the paradox her love always was. Now that Aurora is gone, she has no one to talk to, but she’s so frozen and so lonely that she can only cling to the same series of points.

So one more time, she asks: who is Nastya Rasputina?

A princess. Not remotely. She hasn’t been a princess since she took Carmilla’s hand, regardless of what her creator would say to her when soothing her girlish fears. A princess would have stood with her people when they needed her, rather than dying abhorred and forgotten. A princess was Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova, and Nastya shed that name the moment she had the chance. A princess probably should’ve been a good person. She never was.

Cyberian. Nastya’s heart shattered when she realized that her love could no longer answer her in their native language, but it’s not as if those same words stuck with eternal precision in Nastya’s mind. No matter how stubbornly she clings to the accent, she couldn’t remember all the parts of speech and verb tenses that her tutors made her memorize in her frigid interludes of reality. Had she and Aurora ever spoken real Cyberian to one another? She can’t remember, and the fuzzy emptiness where that knowledge should be scares her more than any of the possible answers.

A Mechanism. She played their music, she told their stories, she jumped headfirst into their pointless violence before her cold hands could stop their trembling. She said I don’t want to die and she suffered on an operating table just like the rest of them. And she knows that all of these things make her who she is, that all of these moments in her immeasurable life were the ones that defined it, but if she tries to put herself in her own shoes at any given point, she can’t remember what it was like to be that Nastya. It feels like she’s read her own biography cover-to-cover hundreds of times, but nowhere has the Nastya of the past reached out to remind her how it felt to live through it. Besides, she’s not like the rest of them—her mechanism has never been something discrete, something to separate from herself and love or revere or despise. For Nastya, Every capillary, every cell, aches with the knowledge that she’s not what she’s supposed to be, and no one understands this but her.

Dead. That one’s easy. Nastya Rasputina is dead, but not for long; she shudders back to life with a scream clawing at her teeth before she can ever really end.

Beloved.

She has been loved. Lots of things about her are fuzzy, some forgotten and some uncertain to begin with, but she knows that she’s been loved. Aurora lived in her veins, and Nastya in hers, and she remembers a Nastya who knew what it felt like to be loved so wholly that it was written into the fabric of her flesh. The rest of the crew loved her in their own ways—Ashes steadying her with an arm around her shoulders in crowded cities; Ivy listening and cataloguing every detail as she rambled about Cyberian machinery lost to the rest of the universe; Marius failing to school the awe out of his expression when she outplayed him on his own violin. And, always, Jonny hiding his affection behind a veneer of murder. Jonny, throwing Carmilla out of the airlock so she couldn’t hurt Nastya again. Jonny, crawling through miles of ducts and vents to find her when she went days without eating, even as he scowled at her and Aurora for being too sappy.  Jonny, bringing her trinkets and mementos every time she was too overwhelmed to stay planetside after a show. But Jonny watched her leave and did nothing to stop her. Now, who’s here to love her in the endless dark between stars? More importantly, who is she if not beloved?

Given all the evidence, there’s only one conclusion to make: she is no longer Nastya Rasputina. She has not been Nastya for a long time, probably even longer than she’s been floating in space. So even if her Aurora was still out there, still launching the Mechanisms from one tragedy to the next, she doesn’t deserve to be a part of that cycle.

The thought fades away, as always, moments before her lungs stop trying to breathe in the nothingness and she dies once again.

---

Needles prick every inch of her skin, inside and out, icy and blazing and unrelenting until she can’t draw in enough air to scream. Then there’s pressure, something cold-hot weighing down on her back, and light so harsh that she sees the afterimage of the stars that she’s stared at for decades, and sound. She can’t remember if she’s supposed to understand what’s happening. There’s no sound in the vacuum, but now she can hear every chirp and whisper and hum of the metal around her, and above all of it, a voice.

It’s been so long since she even remembered a voice.

“Get the fuck out of my way,” the voice barks, and Nastya only understands it because she’s been thinking in the same language this whole time, after all. There’s no resistance left in her, so she tries to move, only to slump to the ground. Was she standing? Strange. “Ashes, move. I said get out!”

The warm pressure on her back shifts, but doesn’t leave, and then something softer touches her face. Her body is faster to remember these things than her, but when she opens her mouth to reply, running on instinct and loneliness so deep it defines her, she can’t make a sound.

Another voice comes from somewhere farther away. “Be gentle, Jonny.”

“I am!” The blur in front of her moves in synchrony with the words. Jonny. Jonny. She’s supposed to feel something about that name. It’s not the name that aches inside her, deeper than her every conscious thought, but she should feel something about it. That feeling swirls under her surface, pushing at the edge of the emptiness that she’s made herself into, but she fades back out of reality before it can give itself a name.

---

“I rewinded to a few minutes before we pulled you in,” says Brian, prodding the screen with a gentle frown. “Are you sure about this?”

Nastya nods. “I—hm. Sorry.” She clears her throat, which she’s been doing every few minutes since she woke up, because even immortality isn’t enough to keep vocal cords working well after nearly a hundred years in space. “It’ll be… closure. At least.”

“Can I stay here with you?”

“Please,” she murmurs. He probably wouldn’t have left regardless, because they’re all afraid to leave her alone right now, but it matters that he asks. It matters that he takes her hand and runs a smooth brass thumb across her palm when she reaches out for comfort. Brian presses play, and the camera feed outside the airlock begins again.

Two minutes of silence, and then a cacophony of boots on metal and shouting and doors hissing open and closed as the crew realizes what’s about to happen. She still doesn’t know who actually tracked her down, who opened the airlock for her in the first place. By the time Ashes pounds on the keypad to open the inner door, Nastya is crumpled on the ground inside the airlock, skin waxy-pale and clothes filigreed with frost, and in the present her breath catches in her throat because she could swear she’s never seen that face before.

On the screen, Ashes drops to their knees and whips the coat off their back to wrap around Nastya, pulling her into their lap and squeezing her tight to their chest. There’s sound on the feed—muffled, but not enough to lose Jonny’s voice as he storms around the corner and shouts at Brian and Ivy to “get the fuck out of my way.” The body in Ashes’ arms flails hard enough that they nearly drop her, and Nastya catches a glimpse of her own face, etched into a frozen frown that makes her stomach go tight and uneasy. “Ashes, move. I said get out!”

Ashes lowers her to the floor, leaving their coat wrapped around her, and the Nastya on screen goes limp moments before Jonny throws himself down next to her and starts slapping her face. After a few seconds without a response, he lets out a scream of frustration as the other crew members back up to give him space. But for once his rage is contained, and he picks Nastya up instead, leaning his cheek against her forehead. She’s so much taller than him. Especially after a hundred years of space-vacuum spine decompression. Still, he’s practically jogging by the time he gets out of the airlock, the others following, and the door closes behind him on its own. The last thing Nastya fixates on is her own hand, limp and gray, dangling down from her body. It can’t be hers. She stares down at her hand in real life, but this one doesn’t look any more familiar.

“I s-still don’t know,” she starts, then pauses to close her eyes and take a deep breath when Brian turns to her. He’s so earnest sometimes, it’s hard to look at him head-on. “Who found me? Who got me out of space?”

Brian fidgets with the recording again. “I’m honestly not sure. Here, I can rewind farther—there was this… noise…”

Twenty minutes before the airlock opened. They watch a blank feed for a bit, Nastya’s hand trembling in Brian’s, and after a few minutes he sits down on the arm of the pilot’s chair and starts to stroke her hair. Every touch feels like a tiny shock, but she can’t stand the thought of him stopping. Then the sound comes from the camera feed—not an alarm, at least not one she’s heard before, and she is intimately familiar with Aurora’s standard operating signals. This is a wail, echoing from deep within the ship until the walls reverberate and everything pitches slightly to the left. A sharp turn, maybe? It probably shouldn’t show up on an internal camera like that, but that’s the least of Nastya’s concerns. “Was anyone on the bridge?”

“We can check,” Brian answers, hesitant. He pauses the feed and flips through the cameras—seven pods, kitchen, common room, bridge. Everyone is standing, apparently staring around in bewilderment, but no one is actively steering the ship. When Brian switches the feed again, it’s black.

They both stare at it for a second. “Engine room,” he reads off the top of the screen. “There… should be lights in there, yes?”

Nastya’s throat is too tight to speak. She hasn’t been down there—she’s barely been awake for half an hour, she’s not ready to come face-to-face with Aurora again. But she nods, and Brian presses play, and the wailing starts again, earsplitting even through the cameras. The video is still dark, but it’s clear that this is the closest they can get to the sound.

Of course it was Aurora. She didn’t need to see this to know, but she deserves this shattering ache in her chest, so she keeps watching. Brian apparently has other ideas, because he flips back to the airlock door again, and then switches the cameras to follow Nastya—in Jonny’s arms, and then Marius’s, and then lying on the sofa in the common room while Raphaella feels her forehead and the Toy Soldier bounces on its heels behind her—until she coughs half a dozen times and starts to wake up.

Through every moment, Nastya studies the face on the screen, recording every contour, every feature, every shadow. She can see the details, but when she tries to put them together, something isn’t right. “It’s not me,” she finally murmurs, leaning her head into Brian’s side. “I don’t—I can’t recognize… that person. That’s not me.”

“I can follow you all the way here on the cameras if you want—”

“No, I know,” she cuts him off, growing more insistent. “I know I’m wrong. I know, logically, that Aurora found me and plucked me out of space and you all dragged me inside and I’m here now and I’m fine now, but I don’t know that face, I can’t even recognize my hands in front of myself right now! I’m—I—I had almost a hundred years, according to Ivy, out there in space to think about it, and you know what I found out?”

Brian’s face is taut with concern when he looks down at her. “Nastya,” he pleads.

“I’m not Nastya. That’s what. I haven’t been—maybe I’ve never been Nastya, but I’m not now, and whatever the fuck I am is something that none of you know. Not Aurora, not even me. And they’re going to realize that, and what will they think then? How long will I have to watch you all mourn a Nastya who never existed every time you look at me?”

He stares down at her, mouth open but unable to form words, while she pulls her hand back to herself and curls up in the pilot’s chair, choking on a sob. There’s nothing to do but cry, when even Brian doesn’t know what to say and the camera feed keeps on going, inundating her with snapshots of a Nastya she never was. Shaky hands flicking the hair out of her face, shoulders brushing mindlessly against the walls of the ship, gaze fixed on Jonny’s ear so she doesn’t have to look him in the eyes. All of these things should add up to her, and instead she is empty.

There are thoughts building in the corners of her head, and she knows they’ll be dangerous if they can coalesce into words, but she can’t stop them. Jonny couldn’t, Ashes couldn’t, Brian can’t, Aurora—

As if she can hear Nastya thinking, a row of soft blue lights flickers on overhead. Nastya’s head snaps up, tears streaming down her temples, as every light in the room comes on in a wave, pulsing brilliant blue-white-golden over her and Brian, almost drowning out the stars ahead of them for a moment before they dim to something tolerable. When she knows she has Nastya’s attention, Aurora sings to her—sound traveling through the air, pulses of light, lines of code transmitted from the thrum of the metal underneath her and into her blood, carrying a thousand rehearsals of the same message.

I don’t care whether you’re the same Nastya, or whether I’m the same Aurora. I will get to know you again every time you wake up. I will love the person I meet more with every day. I am the one who loves you, and you are the one who loves me, and we belong here.

Nastya is crying too hard to form words, but Aurora’s song reassures her that she has nothing to defend. “Do you… want me to leave you two alone?” Brian interrupts, gesturing at the door.

It takes another minute for Nastya to calm down enough to answer him, but in that time, her hands find the control panel and, trembling, tap stream-of-consciousness binary into the metal until she knows that Aurora has once again heard her heart. “No,” she manages at last. “No, I want my family.”

Brian sweeps her into a hug, and the rest of the crew aren’t far behind.

#the mechanisms #nastya rasputina #nastyaurora #mechanismszine #alder originals #writing #im v v proud of this and it means a lot to me and even going through to italicize stuff #because tumblr doesnt feel like formatting right ig #is making me very emotional #i need a nap now

[seojunws]

hey y’all, I’m here with min seojun — human paradox and your average bad boy pretending to be a sweet boy-next-door! he is currently a trainee under yuseong entertainment’s ys boys/blue.m, and is best known as etoile’s seoyul’s younger brother, or the trainee that went viral for his aegyo. I’ll leave some links down below, along with more information below the cut. I already have some plots up on my plots page, though it’s still a work in progress. if you’d like to plot, you can like this post and i’ll drop you an im, otherwise, we can also take it to discord! 

( STATS / BIO / CAREER / PLOTS )

BACKGROUND.

while the mins are believed to be wealthy and from good backgrounds, they’re actually really poor in reality, though they’d rather keep this truth hidden from the world.

their mother is an alcoholic swept up in a big debt and their father, who could no longer deal with their mother’s toxic habits, walked out on them many years ago.

most of the siblings’ growing years were spent working part-time after school to pay for their mother’s debt so you could say they had a pretty rough childhood.

however, things started to look up for them when seoyul debuted as a member of etoile.

yuseong entertainment scouted seojun after a picture of him and his sister surfaced online; garnering attention from the public who were in awe of their good looks. 

he was then called in to come down for an audition.

his audition was rather mediocre but he got in because of his looks, and the fact that he’s sister is a member of etoile, which he is frankly more than okay with.

and so, he started training from 2017 and was introduced as a part of ys boys in 2020.

a clip of seojun’s aegyo from a ys boys introductory video on their official youtube channel went viral and became an internet trend, with people recreating it on tiktok and instagram. some celebrities have also recreated it on variety shows and social media. 

and that brings us to where we are now!

PERSONALITY.

the min siblings are essentially pretty faces that put on a fake front, with seojun’s being a 180 degree difference in personality.

his onscreen persona is bright, bubbly and energetic and he’s put in a lot of pastels and patterns (which he absolutely abhors; he wears more black on a daily basis), while he’s usually more private, nonchalant, and temperamental.

unlike the wholesome and endearing image he presents on camera, he often partakes in taboo activities like smoking and drinking, largely due to his rough childhood and bad relationship with his family, aside from his older sister.

pretends to be an extrovert (which really tires him out at times) but is actually an introvert who would rather be left alone when he isn’t at work.

does not really believe in sappy things like friendships and love as he’s convinced people wouldn’t love him for who he really is; tends to see most relationships as a business relationship, each with a purpose or a benefit in some sense (though there are exceptions!) 

understandably not the most likeable person if you get to know the real him (I mean, he’s fake asf lol) and he usually doesn’t care, unless you’re someone that should like him.

incredibly good at using his charms to get what he wants; he knows what fans like to see and has no qualms about giving them what they want.

he’s lazy yet ambitious; doesn’t plan to work hard to get to the top, instead, he relies more on “shortcuts” like his looks, or creating moments that would go viral.

honestly kind of lonely and sad on the inside, not that he’d admit it. the more loved he is for his fake persona, the emptier he feels on the inside? he loves the attention for sure, but it only makes him question if he’d ever be loved like that if he was being himself, or if he can only be this loved when he is pretending to be someone he’s not.

as much as he appears to not care about most things (honestly wouldn’t even bat an eye if he got into a scandal the next day), his sister is incredibly important to him. after all, she was (and probably is) all that he has. this too, is one of the only things he’s honest about.

#( ooc. ) #ws:intro

[srbachchan]

DAY 4472

Jalsa, Mumbai                June 4,  2020               Thu 11:39 PM

Birthday - EF Mayur Sejpal ..  Mandakini Patel .. Friday, June 5 .. in prayers and wishes for the safety of the times and the wishes for happiness ever ... love form the Ef ❤️

... and our immense gratitude for the wishes and the blessings that have poured in from the Ef and about .. much of what could be responded to was responded to .. but here the replies have been vacant .. but they have all been read and loved .. thank you ..

.. the rains bring the relief of the summer heat .. but bring on the other aspects too .. life is never steady .. it wanders about .. filled with surprises and challenges .. and tests our nerves and resilience .. and springs us over .. every day is a struggle .. never is there occasion to sit back and allow time to take over its whim and show compassion .. even in the resting there are the idiosyncratic revelations of the unseen unknown unheard .. 

Life .. dear life .. so beautiful and filled with so much to spend on us .. we languor in its gifts .. and its willing nature of acceptance .. 

AND .. then in a sudden swift move it reminds us what and where we stand ..

Stumbling about , finding our feet , we take great effort in stabilising ourselves .. momentarily .. for the time for reckoning veracity is short and limited .. get on to the boat in time and sail or else , the winds shall carry you away into unknown oblivion ..

ALL right enough depressive punchings .. brighten up the tomorrow .. live .. live the happy life ..

The publicity for the coming days on GiBoSiBo  is and has its limitations but the marketing masters, never say die and bring in new and fresh ideas for the 12th of June Digital release of the film .. a first in India film History for a film of sizeable importance and worth .. not form my point of view - my point of view has become blurred and almost out of sight .. but yes for the others it is a novel experience and they hope as do we all that this fresh experiment brings in, true and honest fruits on the work that has been undertaken under some trying conditions .. 

.. overlooked and guided by the designer of the film .. it bears the stamp of doing works that are different and in undeclared territory ..

.. Shoojit Sarkar is no mean director .. he is many creative beings in one form of his body .. an alumni of the prestigious NSD - the National School of Drama, his acting qualities far outweigh his qualities as a Director .. his own personal briefings of the nature of his characters he brings up, are the results of the performances seen .. for me at least all that I do or seem to do, are Shoojit in prosthetic make up .. each little detail is brought out and suddenly there is an ease of the following that he wishes for .. we do what he enacts for us .. for me at least there is no individual output .. it is all his doing .. he tells , I follow .. 

in one of the pictures you see the dress I wear has openings form the back .. that is the directors input .. knowing we would we working in Lucknow at the peak of Summer .. the UP summer .. into at times 50 degrees Centigrade, he felt that I would be requiring frequent clothing changes due to the perspiration .. and changing the top with the prosthetics and hair would make if difficult for the actor if the buttons were in front   .. the dress or the kurta would have to go off the top of the head to be removed .. but with the opening at the back it could be conveniently slipped off without going over the head .. it could been slipped of if in front too .. but then the front would look awkward .. so .. 

.. the start of the shoot was always kept very early in order to not get into the sun in the late hours when at its maximum .. and give a break at noon with the overhead sun, also not convenient for filming camera light wise , to allow the evening to set in and cool down .. 

.. the prosthetic make up is always an issue during hot weather .. it tends to melt away the sticking glue and destroy the prosthetic .. adequate care on set was taken then to keep the face cool .. its a requirement from the make up department .. one that I abhor .. the cooling systems on set , yes provide the air conditioned air , but then with the frequency of shots the continuous in and out of the cool into the heat is a bad precedent for me .. either I remain cool or remain hot .. and if this can be called a metaphor, a figure of speech, it is completely unintended .. !! 🤣

SO .. the early start is a nightmare for the prosthetic made up guy .. shot to be taken at sun rise by 6.30 am , means in the make up van at 3.30 am !!

... and yes when the entire shoot day is with that awkward walk .. the lower back simply breaks down .. cant sit cant lie down .. cant do nothing .. pain killers not allowed .. pain relieving sprays , be just sprays with no effect .. !!

... so want to be an actor .. get on with it , and stop complaining .. !

Amitabh Bachchan

[tina-aumont]

Tina Marquand quiet woman with two films blocked by censorship (I/III)

(by Liliana Madeo)

Rome, November 1st.

A year ago she was at the barricade on the side of the students, during the demonstrations she hurled insults to the policemen. She only made arthouse films and disavowed commercial films she had played before. She preached "the universal love" and argued that young people are the purity of the world, and only from them could the regeneration of society begin.

Today Tina Aumont, has changed profoundly. On the subject of the protests she says: "They saw me mixed up in a demonstration only because I lived there and was coming back home while the police were charging".

In the abhorred commercial cinema she has entered quite well: she takes a large sum for each participation and works continuously, without having moral problems that complicate her life or that of the directors who direct her. She admits: "They make me undress all the time in front of the camera, but that's fine by me. Being beautiful is a great help in life", and can also boast the considerable distinction of having her two latest films blocked in censorship, the Satyricon of Polidoro and L'Urlo by Brass.

La Stampa, 2nd November 1969

www.archiviolastampa.it

#Tina Aumont #actress #1969 events candids #La Stampa #Archivio La Stampa #1969 La Stampa #Liliana Madeo #1969

[the-navistar-carol]

A Daminette songfic — ‘Invisible Thread’ by Matt Gould

From the marvelous Maribat AU of @ozmav, @maribat-archive where u at

Inspired by the Maribat Discord :))

Everyone had a soulmate. A black mark where they would first touch. Once the two did, the mark would blossom with color.

People would go for years with black marks on their knuckles, thinking it was from a punch, and then have their knuckles brush someone on the subway and voilá, their mark would change.

Some were more obvious, a handprint over their own (a high-five), a hand on their arm, or even one directly across their face.

~~~

Marinette Dupain-Cheng had no such obvious case. Her handprint was directly over her fingers of her right hand, as though someone had shook her hand (but only her fingers). Without a doubt, it confused her.

Once she became Ladybug, she met Chat Noir. Upon their first meeting, he took her hand directly over her soulmate mark and attempted to kiss her hand, but she had pushed him away. After the akuma attack, she had detransformed in a panic to check her hand, and in relief, found her hand was still uncolored.

The mark was still black.

It worried her, then, after her crush on Adrien started, that he did not turn her mark colors either.

So who was it?

Not like she’d ever meet who it was.

There is a long invisible thread

That wraps around my heart

And wraps around your head

Damian Wayne had an odd soulmate mark that was, thankfully, easy to hide via gloves. The black silhouettes of fingers in his right hand confused him, so he gave it little thought. Who even shakes hands like that?

During his training both with Ra’s al Ghul and the Robins, none of the ways anybody had touched his hand had made the mark change, thankfully. Soulmates were a nasty business, anyway. They were almost expected to drop everything upon meeting. Dumb.

Not that he cared who it was.

It tightens its grip

When things go unsaid

And I can't break free

Lila, upon her return to Ms. Bustier’s class, had successfully turned the class against Marinette. She made good on her promise, but allowed Marinette to keep her spot as class president — only useful when she was needed, of course, and expected to drop everything for them without looking for anything in return.

She was effectively that one tool in a closet that only was picked up when needed, and discarded as soon as she had lost her use.

She couldn’t reverse the way things had gone. If only.

Let go, let me

Little boy, break free

Leave him out on his own

Let him find his way home

When Damian had become the next Robin, he had fought many people under the mask. But his black marks underneath his gauntlets never changed, even when he met new people at charity galas and shook hands.

Clearly, his soulmate wasn’t anybody he was going to meet anytime soon.

Not that it bothered him anyway. It did.

Can't take all this pain on his shoulders

Only weighs you all down when you're older

Chat Noir had come up to her, demanding she stop pretending. Pretending that they weren’t soulmates, that they weren’t in love, that they didn’t make a good couple.

He deserved her, he had yelled. He had been nothing but loyal, hadn’t he? A good cat? So, as a reward, he deserved her love. Her lips, her hands, her body.

He didn’t. And she told him so, exploding at him atop a roof despite the paparazzi growing below.

They made sure to catch his outburst, too. It served him right.

He treated the fame of being a superhero like a game. It was only fair that he dealt with the consequences.

Let them take their pictures.

Let him run, let him fly

If you love him, then don't cry tonight

Let him learn all he can

The cameras at Wayne galas and other nonsense never bothered him. They would be pointed at him anyway, so what difference did it make if he paid attention?

Flashes of white lights were only peripheral at this point, the snaps of shutters something to be tuned out.

The tabloids would run rampant anyway. Whether it was Grayson or Todd or Drake making the headlines with their antics, he would be shoved in there anyway.

Let them take their pictures.

So when he comes home to you

He'll be a better man

When she had proposed a class outing, the class had suggested many things, but Lila had thought of karaoke, so that was that. Of course, it was all up to her to plan the outing, raise funds, and reserve places.

She had asked the class to help her out, but Lila had oh-so-innocently wondered that since her family ran a bakery, couldn’t they just maybe give a few away to help their daughter raise the money?

Never mind the fact that they would be losing money. Never mind the fact that it would stress her out more than necessary. Never mind the fact that no one person should have to run their entire outing by herself.

But Marinette was their everyday Ladybug. That should be enough to cover any problem.

But they were looking for a miraculous cure. Who in the world had one for these situations?

Certainly not her.

There is a long invisible thread

That wraps around my heart

And wraps around your head

When Damian heard that his brothers and Father were going to Paris, his original thought was one of disgust. Of course, he spoke French. But any Romance language or country made him want to vomit. Latin lovers? Please. But France, the country dubbed one of love? Absolutely not.

But it was for a League reason, something to do with a supervillain with magic butterflies. It probably wasn’t even real.

But Paris meant his brothers teasing him about love, which infuriated him to no end. Who cared if he met someone the universe deemed his match?

Certainly not him.

It tightens its grip

When things go unsaid

And I can't break free

She had the dates figured out, triple-checked with her classmates to make sure it all worked together. Thankfully, the class had agreed to help fundraise for once. A small relief in the grand scheme of things.

Patrols now were such a chore. Where she had once enjoyed swinging through Paris’s streets with only her yo-yo to hold her up and the wind teasing through her hair, there was now a demanding Chat Noir, proclaiming her as his soulmate and he should be treated as such.

Akuma fights took so much longer and so much out of her now. Chat would watch from the sidelines, taunting her with the fact that he would join in from now on if she only gave up the delusions that they weren’t meant to be.

The gauntleted fist in his stomach was so worth it.

Sadly, it hadn’t come from her.

Lord above, can you hear my prayers

If you know the answer, then make me aware

How to still love him and how to still care

And how to stay strong when I want to be over there

Upon his first investigation in Paris, he had come across an akuma victim. It wasn’t hard to find, actually, as it left a trail of destruction in its wake.

Apparently, Paris already had two superheroes clad in Spandex, Ladybug and Chat Noir. Any information he had found on the latter was increasingly negative, if videos on the Ladyblog (God, that was a dumb name) were to be believed.

The first encounter he had had with the duo was subpar. Far, far below the bar.

The increasingly negative press on Chat Noir was completely accurate. Which was why he’d immediately punched him in the gut and gone up against the akuma, giving Ladybug a chance to rest.

“The akuma?”

She started, surprised that he would know of those. “The locket! It’s on her bracelet—”

Smash.

“Bye-bye, little butterfly.”

He shook hands with Ladybug, introduced himself as Robin, and updated her that the Justice League was looking into the Hawkmoth problem.

It had felt good to punch that brat of a cat. He had a feeling Ladybug would have enjoyed it more.

Sadly, it hadn’t come from her.

Do I run, do I fly?

How can I love him and keep my eyes dry

Do I learn all I can

The next day left Marinette in shock as she prepared for the karaoke night with her class. In all honesty, she would probably be left alone. Again.

But when she showed up, they initially welcomed her, to her pleasant surprise. But it couldn’t last. As soon as she had gone to the bathroom, they had gone into the room and not told her the number.

So she was left in the main room, pathetically sitting at a table by the stage, twirling a microphone she’d nicked from the stands.

Not like she could sing with anyone.

So when he comes home

I'll be a better man

Grayson had had the marvelous idea to go to a karaoke place. Abhorable. Not like he would even sing. The entire idea was dumb. Incredibly dumb. Who, in their right mind, would go and sing in front of people completely sober? (Not like he could drink legally, anyway.)

But when he got there, it was a bit more welcoming. All the rooms were taken, they were told, so there was only a communal stage left. No matter, Grayson grinned, and led them toward the main room. There were already a number of people there, taking turns on the stage.

He sat back in his chair, and prepared to sit back and enjoy the view.

Not like he would sing with anyone.

There is a long invisible thread

That wraps around my heart

And wraps around your head

A number of people went by before she did, and when she got up there, she selected a song that would usually be considered a duet, shrugging that she would sing it herself.

What she hadn’t expected was for a trio of black-haired boys to practically drag a fourth over to the stage, hand him a microphone, and place him next to her with positively wicked grins.

He looked like he wanted to leave. Marinette offered him a sympathetic half-smile. “That’s okay, you don’t have to—”

“It’s fine.” His voice was tinged with visible reluctance, but he took the microphone from its stand. “Just sing.” He was cute, she admitted, but would probably forget her after the night.

So she did.

It tightens its grip

When things go unsaid

And I can't break free

Dumb karaoke. Dumb brothers. Dumb Father, for bringing him to Paris. And it didn’t help that the girl hid certain mortification. But he wasn’t going to back down and show weakness to his brothers. “Just sing.” And get this over with.

When she began to sing, it sent a jolt through his body. She didn’t even need to read the lyrics, voice something that could only be described as melodic. Hell, she sounded better than some professionals.

After the first verse or so, she nervously glanced at him, as if making sure he was still there and hadn’t taken off into the night. Damian shrugged in response, waiting for his turn.

It came up, and he gave his voice to the music. Grayson was definitely recording.

The girl at his side, a pretty black-haired girl who couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds, flinched as though she had been shocked. His singing wasn’t that bad, he groused, but kept at it anyway.

His brothers had pushed him up there as a challenge, taunting him to do it.

So he did.

There is a long invisible thread

That wraps around my heart

And wraps around your head

Wow, she mused. Cute and a good voice. When she added his voice to hers in the first true duet part, their singing harmonized into something truly remarkable. Is this even my voice?

In a sudden burst of courage, she spun, pleated skirt adding to the movement.

Her classmates started to trickle out of their room, as if wondering who was singing. She could see Rose, Juleka, Alya, and the courage vanished in a heartbeat.

Oh no.

It tightens its grip

When things go unsaid

And I can't break free

Suddenly, the girl next to him spun, a giddy smile beginning to form. Somehow, he was beginning to enjoy this, too. Curses. Maybe he had been drugged.

But her spin stopped, voice faltering, and he quickly followed her gaze. A group of teenagers had exited one of the rooms, looking up to the stage, no doubt causing her to waver.

So he took her hand and spun her, certainly not missing the way her face lit up in a dazzling smile.

As soon as he released her hand, she took it again and spun him. A laugh nearly bubbled up (yeah, he had to be drugged). She was half a foot shorter, and yet she did it anyway.

Those people who had made her hesitate wouldn’t ruin her night, at least.

Not if he had anything to say about it.

Oh, no.

There is a long invisible thread

That wraps around my heart

And wraps around your head

A burst of warmth blossomed in her right hand as she danced with the stranger, voice strengthening by the note. Marinette met his jade-green eyes with a smile, left hand clutching the microphone.

For tonight, at least, maybe she could forget about her classmates and Lila and Chat Noir.

Hopefully it would last.

It tightens its grip

When things go unsaid

Her enthusiasm had returned, Damian noted, and her excitement was definitely leeching into him, too. His right hand was warm, but he chalked it up to her hand. He didn’t sweat, at least not in a karaoke bar.

For this song, at least, maybe he could ignore his brothers’ antics and the seriousness of the League.

He knew it wouldn’t last.

And I can't break free

As the song died out, Marinette dropped his hand, the movement causing her to catch her breath. Oh God.

Her soulmate mark had changed. From the blackest black, it was colored in a beautiful blend of red, green, and gold.

It’s him.

And I can't break free

He didn’t miss her gasp, glancing back to catch her reaction as she stared at her right hand — now colored in reds, greens, and golds. His colors.

He didn’t miss a beat to check his own right hand, eyes only widening as he found the mark swirled in blues, pinks, and silvers.

It’s her.

And I can't break free

#maribat #daminette #marinette dupain-cheng #damian al ghul wayne #damian x marinette #marinette x damian #miraculous ladybug #tales of ladybug and chat noir #ladybug #chat noir #lila rossi #adrien agreste #dick grayson #robin #nightwing #jason todd #red hood #tim drake #red robin #batman #bruce wayne #alfred pennyworth #karaoke #soulmate au #touch soulmate #soulmate #handprint #singing #songfic #invisible thread

[i-am-adlocked]

ADLOCK SOULMATE AU

Post Season Three First Meeting

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO @enaroholmes

She looks at her older co-actor on stage as the latter delivers her final line, “Madame Rose… and her daughter, Gypsy!”

She walks towards the side of the stage, remembering the cue as the drummer hits the cymbal and making sure to wrap her arm around her co-actor as they walk off-stage.

The applause was deafening.

She smiles satisfactorily as she watches all of her co-actors get the applause they oh-so deserve.

When she appears on stage once more, she makes sure to take her time walking in front to savour the feeling of being applauded for your work—appreciated for your talents.

She bows before the main actress appears and receives a booming hug of applause from the audience.

They all hold hands and take a bow all together once, twice, thrice. They wave their hands on the audience as they leave the stage, preparing to go back to their own rooms to remove their costumes and make-up.

“Izzy,” someone says behind her—one of the stage managers of the set and her best friend, Kate.

“Yes?” she asks.

“Some man walked in a few minutes ago. He claims he’s a photographer. We have him in your dressing room right now. He was stubborn and wouldn’t let us stop him.” Kate rolls her eyes.

“Do you know who he is?” she asks.

“We both do. It’s Sherlock Holmes—the detective. I bet he was sent by you-know-who.”

She hums, masking her excitement. “How… ironic. A photographer in my dressing room. Sounds like my second-to-the-last scene earlier.”

Kate laughs. “Maybe he watched the show tonight.”

She hums once more. “Maybe so.”

And so, she heads towards her dressing room. She doesn’t immediately see him since her room is quite a mess—as it always is after every show—but sees a man’s foot from behind the screen in her room.

He probably heard the door open because he lets out a little, “Hello?”

She pauses with a start, hearing that word millions of times for the first time from different people but never fails to make her stop in surprise.

Soulmates. How… boring and ordinary.

She makes sure to put makeup on her tattoo at the back of her neck—especially since her character has short hair. No one needs to be distracted from her tattoo whenever she plays the most iconic woman named Gypsy Rose Lee.

She decides to move forward.

“Hello, sorry to make you wait for too long. I didn’t think Kate caught your name,” she says, walking over to her dressing table to start removing her wig, wig cap, and accessories.

Silence for a while. She doesn’t hear her move. She starts to wonder whether there was even some person behind the screen behind her, but she did hear his voice earlier.

“Mister Holmes?” she asks, not bothering to hide the fact that she knows of him.

That seems to do the trick.

He moves and walks out from behind the screen and to a spot behind her where they lock eyes through the mirror.

“I take it you have heard of me, then?” he asks.

She hums, “Mmm-hmm, Kate knows who you are. I’m beginning to wonder why the most well-known detective of Britain is under an alias.”

“I’m not well-known anymore.”

“You’re still a familiar face.”

“Am I?”

“Yes. Plus, you don’t seem to be familiar with how one holds a camera, do you?” she says, glancing at his hand which is clutching a camera with discomfort.

“I suppose so.”

She takes off her makeup, including the one masking her tattoo, and she sees him glance at the back of her neck.

It unsettles her a bit—to show one’s tattoo is an intimate act, but how can she hide hers when it’s in an area she can’t exactly hide it from people. She sighs, removing the many clips from her hair and lets it cascade down her shoulders. Hiding the curse written in a messy scrawl:

How it mocks her.

She has never been one to believe in the hold of soulmates and the like. She absolutely abhors the idea that a simple tattoo dictates how someone would interact with people for the rest of their lives.

Some even opted to say a practiced sentence whenever meeting new people—something unique as to know whether someone is or isn’t their soulmate.

She finds the notion ridiculous.

Despite her views, however, environmental factors had made her wary whenever someone would greet her with the accursed word. It is a learned reaction—to be on edge when one of you says something first and it matches with the other.

Perhaps it’s why she let him look over her tattoo. To let him know that he had said her soulmate mark. Ugh, soulmate, the sweet meaning behind the very word makes her sick just thinking about them.

Still, he hasn’t said or done anything unusual so, he might not be the one who would drastically change her life. She inwardly rolls her eyes.

“What do you want, Mister Holmes? Did my ex-husband ask you to spy on little ol’ me?” she asks, blinking flirtatiously at him.

He huffs. “In a way, yes. I’m here because you are a clear suspect on the disappearance of his mother’s old necklace.”

“You’re a detective who takes on interesting cases. Why on Earth would you take a case from my ex-husband because of a simple thievery?” she asks, honestly confused.

“I have my reasons.”

“I see.”

A pause. “I’ll wait for you to finish with your cleansing of character outside. I’ll need to talk to you about the missing necklace.”

“No need to rush, do I?”

“Not at all.”

With that, he leaves and she sighs, looking at herself in the mirror before continuing with her—what did he say?—cleansing of character.

—oOo—

Why now? How could he meet his accursened bonded partner right now when everything in his life is nothing but five feet of manure?

He was glad he had managed to keep his composure earlier. Though admittedly, she had caught him off-guard, and he can only scream in his head the entire time.

He tries not to panic outside the stagedoor. He raises his sleeve to look at the tattoo on his arm.

#adlock #ficlet #sherlock #irene adler #holmes #adler #bbc sherlock #sherlock bbc #iamadlocked fanfic