#I love writting as much as drawing but i dunno | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shadowdianne · 3 years

Text

Fic writer review [Or a fic writer tag game if you prefer]

I was tagged by @naralanis and I can already see her grin all the way from where I am xd Thank you, dear, for the tag, let’s see what are my answers, shall we.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

*bursts out laughing* Adding both pseuds I have… 535 according to the account info but by counting them all I’m reaching 541 so I’m guessing it’s counting some drafts I need to re-find.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

I seriously hated you for this one xd I was going to do it by hand by I decided one-third there that I value my mental stability a little bit more xd according to the stats page back at a03 that number would be 1257884. It may be wrong. I think there should be a few more numbers up there but the majority of my works are one-shots so *shrugs* There’s also the fact that counting my ao3 things only is shaving off like half of it Xd Anyway, can we laugh at the fact that I’m a pain in the ass and that I’ve written a lot? More than I should have, that’s for sure

3. How many fandoms have you written for?

Trick question because I haven’t crossposted everything I wrote back in ffnet and I actually erased some fics from my account back there so the numbers are a little blurry there.

When I had the entirety of my work posted both in ffnet and a03 I had written for: Twilight (Bella/Alice) Glee (Faberry and there were a couple Pezberry and I don’t fucking remember the pairing name for Santana and Quinn), Harry Potter (Hermione/Ginny, Hermione/Narcissa, Hermione/Bellatrix) OUAT (SwanQueen and several oneshots focusing on the mad hatter and the blue fairy solely back at ffnet that were written in Spanish and never translated), I actually had a veeeery old au prompt of Frozen (Elsanna in where I wrote them as non sibilings), Rizzoli and Isles (Rizzles), Dishonored 2 (Emily Kaldwin/Alexi Mayhew), Lara Croft and Wonder Woman, Supergirl (SuperCorp/Supercat) I had a 100 one -or maybe two??- (Clexa), The Shannara Chronicles (Amberle/Eretreia [Or Princess Rover], Rwby [Blake Belladona/Yang], The Worst Witch (Hecate Hardbroom and Pippa Pentangle), The Half of it, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Madam Satan/Zelda Spellman) and… I think that’s it(?) I may be forgetting some but probably nothing important if I’m not remembering it lol.

4. Top 5 fics by kudos?

Ah, we are going to go there, uh? Xd My works are not the kudos and comment getting type Xd So I was quite surprised when I went to check this.

1: Cracked it I wrote this one back in 2017, it was a prompt done by an anon: Lena is nerding with one of her projects at home, mumbling mostly to herself because she’s stuck and Kara casually mentions how to solve the problem like it’s nothing. I really had some fun with this. It was back when some us, SQeeners were fully doing the jump between OUAT and SuperGirl (I mean, there had already been some crossover as for fandom is related but this when the girls were actually getting their conjoined voice within the fandom)

2: Dateless I honestly needed to check what this one was about but I think I can see why this one shot has the amount of kudos it has. It’s a short and sweet idea and responds to the Teachers Au that went SO well with SQ. Everyone thinks they hate each other and try to set them up with other people whilst they, in truth, are dating. I don’t remember if I wrote them as married rather than dating but despite being from 2017 as well is one cheeky enough to be cool Xd I probably would edit some lines now *shudders*

3: After you I truly didn’t expect this one to be top 3. Makes me think of a lot of things, if I’m being honest Xd. After you was a one shot written almost feverishly as an answer to the fabulous drawings that Sejic did of both Lara Croft and Wonder Woman back at 2018 or something. It’s just Lara and Diana being himbos but not at all with each other.

4: How about… How about is one I remember perfectly, it was my answer to the ending of the Half of it film. I had SOME thoughts about it, let’s just stop there Xd I really liked the film itself but I think and I thought at the time that my response to wishing for a final scene at the very end of the credits responds to me being in a different personal moment than the characters. I really wanted to explore my feelings about it and so I wrote about them finding each other again after some time passes. It was also something I wrote after quite the hiatus so I took it as something I could write about without focusing too much on the why.

5: Come to me

Ahh, SuperCorp Xd I remember this one actually. A friend of mine and I were talking about descriptions, and she mentioned quite off-handedly how she wanted a fic in where Kara’s back was described. I complied… more or less.

Fun tidbit, despite the big volume of my work is obviously set in ouat there’s only 1 SQ fic there as you can see, the others are either SuperCorp or the random one shots I created for Wonderwoman/Lara Croft and The half of it. *sighs in deep thought* I’m also not going to look too much into how almost all of the fics were posted and written back in 2017. Nope, not at all.

*Small voice screaming you peaked in 2017 and everything else is garbage jumps back and forth*

5. Do you respond to comments? Why/why not?

I tend to always respond, yup. I truly value comments. I might have gone for spells of time in where I didn’t have the mental capacity to check in old fics because I truly didn’t know what to answer but I treasure every single comment and you all who comment know that I can start to ramble in the answers xd -sorry about that- I really really REALLY love interaction.

6. A fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending:

Ok, Nara, come on, this one is a catch for me. I’ve written angst in far too many fics to remember the angstiest one :P I have the most recent one, though, that is the easy one to think about: Goodbye.Written for @delirious-comfort. I’m just going to say “Kisses with their last dying breath” as an idea of what awaits inside but I’ve written about death and loss and angst quite a lot. There were some I wrote back to SQ with Regina needing to kill Emma during the Dark Swan arc that, to this day, I still love and some others in where Regina is the one that dies, again and again, trapped by magic while Emma watches. I have the loss in mental destruction form and… I REALLY like my angst y’know xd

7. Do you write crossovers?

Not counting Lara and Wonder Woman not really! I think it comes from the fact that I loooove worldbuilding as a whole and some pairings would require all my focus into making the world perfect which in turn would make me self conscious on the OOCness of it all.

8. Ever received hate on a fic?

*snorts* I’ve received hate due to the pairing I’ve written about, how I’ve written about it, the amount I’ve written, how slow or quick I can be, the usage of some tropes, the lack of usage of those same tropes… Let’s just go with: yuuuup.

9. Do you write smut?

I’ve written smut, yeah! But I can already see the pointed looks of some so let’s elaborate Xd I write smut when asked and sometimes when not asked but there’s a part of me I like to call a terrible tease that prefers writing the beginning of a scene, taunt it, focus on what happens before the sex scene per se as I find it more enjoyable to write. The process of escalation is always the best for me to see what can I do it by using both dialogue and descriptors tbh, so I tend to tease more than show.

9. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

A few weeks ago I’d have said: Maybe(?) But trying to follow the trail of some other fics that had been stolen from some friends -I think it was me trying to find more about the page that stole something from your Nara!- I found some pages in where my fics had been reposted. In some it was stated that the person posting the fic wasn’t the author but I had never been contacted in order to see if I’d say yes to such a thing and in some others the page was locked up but I could still see someone was pretending to be the author. I did the thing and got some of those down.

Pointed note: Ask me if you want to post or translate or anything. I will look into you and answer you if you seem honest about the thing. But despite every joke and self-deprecating comment those 500 and then some fics represent MY time so very kindly I say fuck off to those who wish to steal from me and if I catch you… you don’t really want to see me angry, trust me.

10. Ever had a fic translated?

I’ve given permission to some, yeah, but never heard it back from them so I’m guessing it didn’t stick.

12. Have you ever co-written a fic?

I’ve written series alongside other authors as @stregaomega for example. And some others that are unpublished -looking at you @carsonnieve - I’ve also done collabs… but fics co-written in the sense of two authors same chapters I don’t have anything posted I’m afraid :P

13. All-time favourite ship?

*snorts*, I guess the obvious answer is SQ uh? And I do think they were the ones that allowed me to read and write SO much. The one I feel more strongly about, however, is Bering and Wells from Warehouse 13.

14. WIP you want to finish, but don’t think you ever will?

All of them counts as a valid answer? But if I only could finish one that would be Arcadia. With A forgotten Promise second and the one I did as an Assassins Creed AU third. (I don’t remember the name so there’s no link, sorry xd)

15. Writing strengths?

Uhhhh, you REALLY want me to say that? I don’t fucking know!! To me everything I write is garbage. I always try to go for the feelings so I guess. Dunno xd I’ve been told I’m good at worldbuilding and to be honest is what I enjoy the most.

16. Writing weaknesses?

Everything Xd Pacing? What I hate the most sometimes is dialogue, I would count it as a weakness but I’m always far too focused on description rather than dialogue. I don’t think it’s a bad thing per se but it’s something that I don’t do as much.

17. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I’m conflicted. Always. Majorly because I think that having bilingual characters in fanfiction is portrayed and expected in a way that I don’t feel it’s honest with how bilingual people -us- talk. So if I go by what I know I do I think it’s not what readers hope to see when it comes to that and if I go for how canonically is hoped to be found I don’t think it’s logical. But that’s me and my overthinking Xd If I have the option I like to do it.

18. First fandom you ever wrote for?

Belice! Or Bella/Alice. Worst first fic ever but oh, well, I’m always saying that :P

19. What’s your fav fic you’ve written so far?

Uhh… Don’t make me do this XD Agh, I don’t know. I’ve always been very vocal about Metallic Ink because I let myself enjoy the process of creating a magic system almost out of zero and that was fun. Despite hating some of the writing process and that I’d do it differently now I think I’m going to stick with that answer. Or anything that had any steampunk-based undertone. To be honest I like more thinking of concepts, I had one in where Emma was a thief and it involved the robbery of a ring that was Regina’s one way ticket to freedom I then later repurposed that I adored thinking about so let’s go with…. Yeah, I love having the option of changing things up a little and focus on how characters would fit in different aesthetics for this one Xd

Annnd… these are four pages, gods. I’m just going to tag @waknatious @carsonnieve @stregaomega here and see what they do- Enjoy the questionnaire ladies :P

#taggie thingie #this was a monster

20 notes · View notes

lawssword · 3 years

Link

Day Eight: Treasure

Ahhhh this ones late what ever here it is I really liked writting this one for some reason

Law and Luffy run into each other at the bar.

Word count: 1.3k

There wasn't much Law cared for in this world. His friends, Shachi and Penguin, his cat, Bepo. And Luffy. Luffy was everything in the world to Law. Most days Luffy was the only thing that mattered at all.

"Law!" Penguin waved his hand in front of Law's face.

Law was tired from the long shift at the hospital and was only sitting at the bar because Penguin and Shachi pretty much kidnapped him.

"Hm?" Law muttered, he looked over at Penguin with a bored expression.

"Watchya thinking about?" Penguin nudged Law's side.

"Probably Luffy," Shachi cut in, he set drinks down in front of Law and Penguin. "When isn't he thinking about Luffy?"

"When he's thinking about Bepo," Penguin cut in.

"Man we have to compete with the cat and the boyfriend for attention!" Shachi feigned offense and Law took a sip from his drink and rolled his eyes.

"If that were the case, Luffy would win," Law pointed out.

"Luffy does win most days," Penguin sighed.

"I'd have to argue that work tends to beat all four of you," Law said.

"You got a point there," Shachi admitted in defeat.

"Saving lives is so demanding," Penguin had no choice but to agree too.

"You're telling me," Law took a long drink from his glass.

The door to the bar jingled Law paid it no mind until he saw a familiar mess of bright green hair and the sound of Luffy's voice.

"He's the best Zoro, I'm gunna marry him one day," Luffy spoke loudly, not caring about who was in the bar.

"Oh shit, is that Luffy!?" Penguin snickered, nudging Law. Law looked over his shoulder to the table the voice was coming from.

"Yep," Shachi confirmed with a smug grin.

"He's my treasure." Luffy didn't even blush at such a bold statement, Law couldn't say the same for himself.

Shachi and Penguin started cracking up, laughing under their breaths, trying not to draw attention to themselves. They had to make sure they could hear all Luffy had to say about Law.

"That's quite the turn around considering you said you'd never marry anyone a year ago," Zoro said. He wasn't speaking as loud as Luffy but now, Shachi, Law and Penguin were all zeroing in on Luffy and Zoro's conversation.

Law felt like he shouldn't be, not without Luffy know he was there.

"Oh-ho," Penguin snickered, leaning against Law's shoulder. "Sounds like you domesticated Luffy."

"Stop eavesdropping," Law snapped.

"Awe why not, you don't want to hear all the mushy stuff Luffy has to say about you?" Shachi made kissy noise and Law wanted to pour his drink on him. That would be a poor use of alcohol though.

"Because Luffy is talking to his friend and what they talk about is none of my business," Law stated.

"Oh, how honorable and mature of you," Penguin mocked.

"We're not honorable," Shachi recalled.

"Or mature," Penguin added.

"So we won't say anything to you about it!" Shachi clapped Law's shoulder and move to sit on the other side of Penguin to be closer to Zoro and Luffy.

"Both of you cut it out," Law ordered, cutting them a glare.

They ignored him. Law rolled his eyes and stood. He headed over to the table Luffy and Zoro were at. Zoro saw him coming but Luffy's back was to him. Law put his finger over his lips, motioning Zoro to not say anything.

Law slid into the booth next to Luffy, putting his arm over the back of the seat and scooting close to Luffy.

"You know, I couldn't help but notice the most gorgeous man from across the bar, come here often?" Law asked with his voice lowered.

"That's was the corniest shit I've heard in a while, Law," Zoro remarked.

"Torao, are you flirting with me?" Luffy asked.

"Well, that I thought, was obvious considering how corny it was," Law glanced at Zoro as he spoke.

"Pen and Shachi at the bar?" Zoro asked. Law just nodded.

"Hm," Luffy hummed before smirking at Law. "You should know I have a boyfriend."

"He doesn't have to know," Law leaned in a little closer to Luffy.

"He'd definitely kick your ass," Luffy pointed out.

"I think I'll take my chances," Law said leaning in a little closer.

"Hey man." A guy from the booth behind them pushed Law back from Luffy. "He said he's got a boyfriend, back off."

Law chuckled, "I admire you looking out for him, but I know he has a boyfriend, I'm his boyfriend."

"You expect me to believe that?" The guy said, pushing up his glasses.

"Love, please fix this," Law said, gesturing to the guy that still had his hand on Law's chest.

"He is my boyfriend," Luffy confirmed. "We were just messing around."

"Oh," The guy muttered. He glanced at Luffy.

"Really though," Law said. "Thanks for trying to look out for him, I appreciate it."

"No problem," the guy said.

"Traffy, let's get home," Luffy suggested, he pulled on Law's shirt and whispered, "I want you to pin me to the bed."

Law smirked. "I dunno, I drove Shachi and Penguin here."

"Zoro drove me here and he's with them, so they'll be fine," Luffy assured.

"Good enough for me," Law said. "I'll let them know and meet you outside."

"Shishi, okay!" Law and Luffy scooted out of the booth. Luffy all but skipped out of the bar.

Luffy stood under the sidewalk light with his hands in his pockets. It was starting to get kinda cold despite it only being early September.

"Hey!" Luffy looked over at the bar entrance. It was the guy that tried to keep Law from hitting on Luffy earlier.

Oh, he was looking directly at Luffy.

"That guy's not bothering you anymore," the guy said.

"What? He wasn't bothering, to begin with, I told you he's my boyfriend," Luffy said. The guy came closer to him.

"You don't gotta lie to me when he's not around." The guy put his arm around Luffy's shoulders. Luffy scrunched his nose and pushed the guy's arm off.

"He's gunna come out any second and if you don't leave me alone I'm gunna kick your ass."

"A twink like you? Yeah right," the guy scoffed. The guy stepped closer to Luffy and Luffy took a step back until his back hit the building. The guy pressed his hand to the wall next to Luffy, leaning over him.

That would be hot if it were Law.

"Hey, I said leave me alone!" Luffy shoved the guy off of him.

"Lu, you alright?" Law asked.

"Yeah, let's go," Luffy said. Law walked up to Luffy, hooking his arm around Luffy's shoulders.

"You sure you're alright, Love?" Law asked

"Yeah, I think that guy was just pretending to be nice earlier," Luffy glanced over his shoulder to the guy that was watching after them.

"Seems like it," Law agreed, twirling the car keys on his fingers. "Is pinning you to the bed still on the table or will I have to take a rain check?"

"Shishishi, I want you to do way more than that," Luffy grinned.

"Monkey D. Luffy you are playing a dangerous game," Law murmured. "Let's just hope I don't get pulled over trying to get you in that bed."

"You're hot, you can flirt you're way out of a ticket," Luffy said.

"Oh?" Law chuckled. "You know, most say flirting is cheating."

"Not when you don't mean it," Luffy said. "Or when it gets you out of a ticket."

"I'll keep that in mind. Law finally found the car and unlocked it. He opened the door for Luffy before getting in the car himself.

#LawLuWeek2020 #lawlu #ten days of lawlu #trafalgar law #monkey d. Luffy #one piece #fanfic

21 notes · View notes

ishgard · 4 years

Text

Title: Gifts & Curses Chapter 1: Nothing if Not Consistent Words: 2,545 Rating: T/PG-13 AO3 Link A/N: I opened one of those RP prompts ages ago that said something like 'Gaius gets cursed and Ahru can heal him', and then at like 4am falling asleep it burst wide open. One day I might go back, tweak it up, and fit it in to the grander story at large, but for now it’s just a stand-alone, for fun, deal.

________

Curses were tricky things, suffice it to say. They didn’t work in the ways one expected, or in ways that were obvious. Other times the cursemaker may not have been practiced in the art of it, bringing forth spite-driven but clumsy results.

As it stood, it was difficult to say one way or the other what Gaius Baelsar’s particular case was, but the effects had been wearing on him for days.

“I’m not sure, it’s not like anything I’ve ever seen before…” Yulania frowned, leaning back and folding her arms over her chest. She was still reluctant to help the ex-legatus, but she’d come at Ahru’s behest just the same.

Moving almost in unison with her, Arsh instead leaned forward, tilting his head this and that as he looked Gaius over, scratching his chin.

“That’s because it scarcely resembles anything it ought to. A mess is what it is. Someone slapping together whatever bits of knowledge they could assemble…” He restrained a chuckle -barely- and shrugged. “I’d be surprised if they themselves didn’t suffer for the casting of such a foolish attempt.”

In a small, dim-lit storage room in Ala Mhigo, Gaius sat in silence, gaze cast low to the ground before him, head sunk between his shoulders. He’d always thought himself a decently sensible man - arguable to some, he could reason, when he’d been blinded by grand ideals and the promise of power.

Such was neither here nor there though; whatever this curse, it weighed on him. Hushed whispers and babbling played at the back of his mind, barely audible - only to be crashed by a sudden scream, or angry shouts. Countless voices, all in unison, sometimes dulling to silence, as if to offer him some mild hope of reprieve only, of course, to come barreling over his senses again in a rush.

Sleep was impossible, his performance in battle suffered, and though he held himself together best he could, he could no longer deny the threads were growing thin.

“Can’t say I’m too surprised, there’s no small few who would love to see the Black Wolf hang - or worse.” Yulania sighed and shook her head. While she wasn’t so comfortable with their new ‘ally’, capital punishment didn’t sit right with her either.

“Think you could… I dunno, trace the aetherial patterns or some shit?” Ahru waved a hand at the air. "Track down who might have done it?" She may have been better at the aetherial arts than she’d ever been in her life, but hells if she knew how to deal with any of this. At best she could muddle her way through more basic healing, and instinct had often guided her well, but it had been clear from the moment Gaius had come to her this was well beyond anything she could pull off.

Yulania scrunched up her nose. “You really think the Elementals are going to give me a hand with this?”

“Pff, of course not. I just figured you might have some handy witch-y tricks up your billowing sleeves.” She didn’t give a piss about the Elementals, Yul was one of the most gifted healers she knew, and that wasn’t because of them. Catching her meaning, Yulania’s cheeks gave a faint pink glow, though she hid it with a frown and shake of her head.

“Unfortunately, it’s such a mess, I’d be afraid to apply any of my usual remedies. Fixing one thing could cause something else to worsen.”

Together they both looked to Arshadaya, who was now crouched down in front of Gaius, waving his hand not five ilms from his face. Gaius, however, didn’t seem to notice, his eyes wide and glazed over, mouth agape. The lines of his face were writ in horror, as if he were seeing some fearsome, terrible thing beyond Arsh’s palm and wiggling digits.

Ahru reached over and smacked Arsh’s hand back - even that did not draw the man out of his stupor, however.

“Gaius.” Bodily shoving Arsh out of the way she instead clapped her hands on either of his shoulders, trying to bring his gaze to hers. She’d seen him go like this once before already, and nothing had worked to bring him out of it then, yet still she could not help but try. There was little use in trying to wrap her mind around whatever their relationship was at this point, but she didn’t enjoy the idea of any she counted among her allies suffering.

“Another part of another stitched-together hex,” Arsh shrugged dismissively. “I don’t think wiggling him around will snap him out of it.”

“Your pointless commentary is not why I asked you here,” she grumbled back. He knew that, he knew everything, and she was oh so certain he knew how to fix this, but it was ever his wont to play so frustratingly coy.

“Yet it’s all I’m capable of offering.” Feigning a crestfallen pout, he dramatically shrugged his hands out to either side of him. Now that she knew better, these little gestures of his at times reminded her of Emet-Selch. But she quickly shoved that thought away, as she was becoming accustomed to doing every time the dead Ascian surfaced from the deep to haunt her.

“Oh, come now, that can’t be true.” Yulania was the first to speak up, as exasperated with the Ascians usual antics as Ahru herself was. No matter how accustomed to it they may have been. “According to Ahru, Emet-Selch could snap his fingers and pluck souls from the lifestream. You’ve practically done the same with her. Surely a tangled up little curse can’t pose such a problem.”

“Ah, but it can. And I’d like to remind you I very nearly died saving our darling Ahru. Emet-Selch was nothing short of prodigious in his abilities to see and understand the movements of the lifestream, and I but a paltry babe suckling at the teet by compare.”

“Imagery I could do without,” Ahru muttered. Her hands remained on Gaius’s shoulders, her eyes on his - still swimming in mute, abject fear. What nightmare of his own making must he have been seeing this time? Unable to scream, same as the dead bodies in his wake. Such was as much as he’d conveyed to her the last time this had occurred. That he’d found himself trapped in the corpses of those who had suffered for his ego, watching with lifeless eyes as even greater atrocities ensued. Their fears and horrors became his, but their anger and resentment wrapped gnarled fists around his throat and strangled him.

“Unfortunately, messy as this curse is, it’s effective. Patchwork bits of one hex and another strewn into his very soul, all twisted and knotted together with one great thread of hatred and murderous spite. Removing one could cause upheaval of another, but worse still is the very potential to unravel his very being.”

It was, at times, difficult to grasp just what Arshadaya really felt on a matter. One sentence or word weighed with amusement and curiosity, another with pity. Such was the case now, but Ahru knew the truth to be simple enough. He was fascinated, but not without sympathy.

“So… it’ll keep going like this…”

“Until it kills him, yes. Perhaps he will go mad and take his own life. Perhaps he will act rashly, or from exhaustion, and get himself killed. Or perhaps the shock will soon grow too much for his withered old heart.”

“Arshadaya, please…” Yulania’s voice was soft and small, the barest rustle of leaves on a spring breeze. “There’s no need to elaborate on what we already know just because you relish the chance to talk more.”

Again, Arshadaya shrugged, but his flippant demeanor slowly began to slip away, like a mask discarded. Instead he watched Ahru’s face in profile, the way it furrowed and stared deep into the Garlean’s gazeless eyes. Her fingers were sunk deep into the folds of his coat, making the subtlest of movements as if she hoped to massage away the tension even while knowing it would do no good.

“It’s not really a problem, is it?” The moment the words were out of his mouth she was snapped back to the present, face an amusing blend somewhere between a ‘glower’ and aghast. This did not dissuade or give him pause. “By the laws of mortals, this is a just fate, is it not? To suffer all he has made others suffer, to bear every fear and scar upon his soul. In fact, I daresay it’s better than what any judicial system might be able to fathom up. Beheadings are much too quick.”

With each word her face scrunched up more and more, but so too did her obvious annoyance. Alas, it would seem he’d become much to predictable to his favorite little mortal.

“Can we please skip the part where I have to justify my desire to help people?”

“Even old enemies who’ve done so very, very, many terrible things?” He spoke as if he were talking to a puppy, the sarcasm dripping. What fool mortal could possibly have had more blood on his hands than an Ascian, after all?

Ahru turned partway to him now, drawing her hands back from Gaius’s shoulders to fold them across her chest. She was good at nailing this particular expression, half pleading pout, half stubborn glare. But then, it did precisely encapsulate two of her most prevalent emotions; long-suffering exhaustion and willful defiance. She was not so gifted in the Echo that they could share thoughts, but he could hear her loud and clear. ’Do not make me work more than is necessary for information you could just as easily provide me freely.’

“Fine, deprive me of my fun,” Arsh pouted right back at her, though his he would argue was far more heartfelt. “I could, possibly, fix him up if you are truly so adamant about it, but it will require ample payment. Sacrifice, you might even say.”

Had the current situation not already been sobering enough, Ahru and Yulania both tensed, listening with rapt attention. ‘Sacrifice’ was no small word to them, who had buried the bodies of countless comrades, and something neither of them took lightly. Arshadaya, however, simply grinned at them both, shaking his head.

“Ahru, my darling, you’ll have to take him home with you. To Hyr’asra, and your mother.”

Immediately Ahru blanched, eyes wide and mouth agape, not looking all too different now from Gaius.

“You… have to be joking.” There was no emotion to her words, she wasn’t processing much in the way of thoughts let alone emotions, and the thoughts that did get by simply came out like some automated recording on old Allag tech.

Yulania arched a brow. While she was well aware Ahru’s relation with her mother and birthplace were not particularly great, she didn’t realize it was quite so bad as to warrant such a flabbergasted response.

“Mm, as I recall, the Hiraeth don’t take too kindly to outsiders…” Instead Yul grappled for the easy, obvious answer - or question, rather, which she posed to Arshadaya. “So, wouldn’t it be difficult taking a Garlean there?”

“Oh, that’s not the problem.” Arsh moved over to Gaius now running a finger over the crease in the mans brow as if he were naught more than a statue to bear his intrigue. “Ahru can, technically get away with almost whatever she wants-” at that, Ahru nearly choked on a sudden, bitter laugh. “…The problem is she’s been avoiding it so long she hasn’t the faintest clue how to face going back.”

“Yeah, and marching in for the sole purpose of healing an ex-legatus isn’t exactly going to sit well with the uma’taja.” Ahru piped in, her words betraying her reluctance. But even as unwilling as she was, the greater reluctance was saying no to the suggestion if it might really help.

“I mean… will they punish you at all?” Yulania muddled over what they were telling her, unable to pick apart what from what. Arshadaya, conveniently, was more than willing now to be silent and pin any answers on Ahru, his golden gaze locked on her. Ahru simply shook her head.

“It… really doesn’t matter one way or the other.”

“Well that doesn’t sound promising.”

“The worst punishment she’ll endure is her mothers disappointment and dissatisfaction,” Arsh offered.

“No, I’m sure they could do a lot worse.” Ahru rolled her eyes, but she was already coming to her decision. Arsh joked of payment and sacrifices, but as far as she could see it was only her own stubborn pride at stake. “Will you really be able to help him if I take him there?” She frowned, squinting at Gaius. “You said… mother could?”

“Maybe. First I’d try the ruins. We may be able to fix him there, where the aether is strong and pure. But if nothing else,” he grinned - vicious and cruel. “They could always sing it out of him.”

Ahru shivered. The phrase, however, was perhaps comically lost on Yulania - and for the better.

“Are they… bad at singing?” She hazarded, voice small and uncertain like a mouse. To that, Arshadaya laughed.

“The worst,” he answered, clapping her on the shoulder in a way that did nothing to alleviate her unease. “But if we’re going to do this, I should go on ahead and prepare.”

This time he did not wait for assurances or firm glares. A dark portal opened for him, and he was gone, leaving the women and nigh-catatonic legatus behind. Yulania sighed, looking to her friend for some sort of assurance that there was not some worser fate awaiting her. As did, unfortunately, seem to often be the case.

Frustratingly, Ahru simply smiled back at her. That same, tired smile she’d seen countless times before when, inevitably, she rallied herself off to some great battle despite however much she needed the rest. The same one she used to ‘jokingly’ breath the words ‘No rest for the weary.’

“Ahru… You really don’t have to do this.”

“Hah, I do too. I’d do the same for you, or Regi. Any of you.”

Face scrunched up, she fixed her friend with a most ungrateful and quizzical look. “I do hope Regi and I place a little higher than Gaius, Ahru.”

She laughed outright at that, genuine and hearty, and it seemed to liven her up. “Without a doubt, but the sentiment remains the same. So I have a painfully awkward family reunion waiting for me? Not much of a price to pay if it means saving someone.”

Sighing, Yul was near to agreeing, but stopped herself short seeing the apologetic grin now unfolding across Ahru’s features. “…What?”

“Besides~” she sang, “you’ll have the much more arduous task here, letting the others know what’s going on. Should probably start with Valdeaulin.”

“Oh, he'll be pissed, don’t you dare saddle me with-”

“You’re a gem, Yul. I couldn’t do this without you!” Before she could utter another word of protest, Ahru had seized her by the shoulders and given her a kiss on the nose. “Look after him a moment while I grab my things!”

And then she was darting out the storeroom door, leaving her blinking and grumbling to herself.

“You’re as bad as the Ascian…”

#ishgard writes #(let us find the answer together)#eventually #ahru hiraeth #gaius baelsar #yulania borael #arshadaya idaeus #-shrugs a lot-#i'm not 100% happy with it but I Made Progress and that's what matters... (???0 #cross-posted to ao3 solely cuz i know what a bitch my tumblr layout is #'yume why don't you change your tumblr layout'#listen.#[crickets chirp]#exactly.#i don't have a good reason #no betas we die like rabid hounds #anyway this was more me hammering out exposition and getting it out of the way in my head #which is a great sales pitch i know X'D

16 notes · View notes

artificialqueens · 4 years

Text

gold coloured prisms of light, chapter three (branjie) - holtzmanns

(read on ao3) | (tumblr: plastiquetiaras) | word count: 6462

AN: Third and final chapter. Thank you so much for all the sweet wonderful feedback on this fic. I enjoyed writing it so, so much, and it’s always going to hold a special place in my heart. Hope you enjoy this last instalment. Writ is the best beta <3

Brock is days away from his plane to LA to film season eleven of Drag Race and he’s never felt more harried in his life.

The past two weeks have been a haze of calls with designers, fittings, picking up garments, and trying not to think about the fact that he’s soon going to be filmed for national television.

It’s not that Brock’s a shy person, not really. He can work a crowd, he can entertain people and make them laugh especially if he has a drink in hand.

But he does it underneath his armour of drag, layers and layers of makeup and clothing and pads and tights and they make him feel indestructible when he has them on. Once all of it is stripped away, though?

He’s terrified of it.

How do you do it

Do what

Get people to like you so much

Make everyone fall in love with you

Pretty sure that’s just you falling in love with me, boo

No seriously

Why’re you asking

We’re gonna be on camera

Uh huh

Everyone’s gonna watch us

Uh huh

People we don’t even know

You bet

But you know what

You’re fucking weird but also the best

Anyone with a brain cell is going to love you

But what if they don’t

What if people think that he’s terrible, that he’s a failure, that he doesn’t deserve to be on this season? What if he fucks up and matches Jose by going home first this season?

So then fuck em

Who cares about the one percent that don’t

I don’t want your crazy ass to be listening to them

Focus on those who are louder and love you

‘Cause they the ones who are right

Not people with shitty opinions that match your inner sabotore

sabatoor

sabotour

Oh fuck it you know what I mean

Brock laughs despite himself, wishing that Jose was here with him instead of states away.

You did NOT just say inner saboteur

And what about it?

Brock pauses before his next question. Not because he doesn’t know how to ask it, but more so because he doesn’t know if he wants to find out what Jose’s answer is. But his planning, detail oriented side wins out the way that it always does.

Are we gonna tell everyone?

About what

Brock snorts but he gets it, really. Being able to talk to Jose feels so natural, so part of him that he can’t distinguish it from breathing or falling asleep, that he forgets that not everyone has it, that it’s not common knowledge. That soulmates aren’t universal for everyone.

That Jose is his.

I dunno

What do you think

I don’t know either

Do you think they would use it against us

Production would maybe

I dunno if the rest of the cast would care

What if they see it as an advantage

Call it cheating

Cheating how

I dunno

I just don’t want to lose the ability to talk to you y'know

Fuck

Me neither

I’d lose my damn mind not having you

Talking to my crazy self

I’d miss you too much

Brock’s heart tugs the way it always does when he has to leave Jose, when he doesn’t know when he’ll see him again. Even though soon they’ll be together in actual physical proximity, for an extended period of time.

At least, Brock hopes so because neither of them better go home first.

Brock’s just walked into the workroom for the first time and he’s scared shitless, but Jose is sitting there sparkling in glitter and beaming at him and the sight is enough to calm him down.

Nina’s bounding over to him, hugging him ever so tight. Brock is elated because he’s going to have Nina and Jose with him, and maybe the idea of being on national television is less scary when people closest to him are by his side.

Brock’s arms seek Jose out almost unconsciously, Jose fitting there like he’s always meant to, and Brock has to resist pressing a kiss to the top of his head what with three cameras filming them at one time.

A’keria’s looking between the two of them with a curious expression when Jose’s hand stays on his thigh as they sit around a table, and Brock can’t help but put his hand on top of his.

It feels weird as the day goes on, having to pretend like he doesn’t know every inch of Jose better than he knows himself. Pretending Jose is just a cute acquaintance when production asks Brock what he thinks of him as they’re filming confessionals. Part of him wants to scream it out to the world, have everyone know. But on the other hand it feels like they’re back in high school, sneaking around and kissing behind the bleachers. They are, in a way, based on how Jose tugs him into a bathroom stall and pulls him close, both of them breathless and wide eyed and giggling.

“This is already miles ahead of season ten.”

“Why, ‘cause you haven’t gone home first yet?”

“Bitch.” Jose smacks Brock’s arm and it makes him cackle. “It’s still day one.”

“We’re both gonna keep going way past the first episode.” Brock cups Jose’s face with his palm, his thumb running across his cheekbone, almost forgetting that they’re cooped up in a bathroom stall. “Till we lip-sync for that crown and I beat you for that 100k check. I’ll dance all around your pirouetting ass.” Jose grins and it’s so bright, so radiant, so perfectly him.

“You wish.” Brock ruffles his hair, grinning when it makes Jose grumble. “Though I’ll be sure to stay out of the way of your flailing limbs.”

What a sight it will be if the two of them make it to the end. Brock doesn’t ever, ever want to lip-sync against Jose in a competition setting unless the two of them are lip-syncing for the crown. He’s not sure if his heart would be able to take the damage.

Brock’s on the main stage and looking like a neon superhero and he fucking feels like one too, because he’s just won the first main challenge.

He’s won. He’s actually won.

The five year old inside of Brock wants to dance around while his pageant side reins him in and holds him back, keeps him looking composed on the main stage. Besides, Ru’s looking at him and Michelle’s looking at him and Miley Cyrus is looking at her cuticles but he needs to remain poised, or Farrah will absolutely ream him out for it later.

Not only that, Jose’s been called safe.

Brock’s still here. Jose’s still here. He’s going to get more days with him in this weird little filming bubble that is already making him lose his perception of reality, and it’s only been a couple of days.

Jose pulls Brock to the smoking area as soon as the cameras call cut and they get a break, while production goes to film Soju going home.

He’s the prettiest girl Brock’s ever seen, a red flower crown on his head and glittering like he’s a star on fire. Jose looks like the world’s been lifted from his shoulders and Brock gets it, years and years of being Jose’s soulmate makes him feel Jose’s relief, Jose’s elation that he’s still here, he’s on to episode two.

“Y’know, I’m still mad as hell they sent me home first last season but being here right now? Feels like the best type of revenge.” Jose rubs his hands together and Brock has to hold back a laugh.

“Revenge against who?”

Jose shrugs. “I dunno. Just feels fucking great.” He straightens up, taps Brock’s shoulder. “Also, you! Winning the first challenge and getting a first class ticket straight to Paris, bitch!”

Brock can’t help himself, he wiggles his hands around excitedly because he’s been holding it in, damn it, and Jose won’t judge him for it. “I still can’t believe it.”

“You better take me to Paris with you. I want some fresh croissants.”

Brock hasn’t even thought about yet about who he’ll bring with him, but seven days in Paris with Jose seems like a dream. He’s gonna draw it out for Jose, though. “I’ll bring you if you’re good.”

Jose pouts and Brock has to resist the urge to kiss him, ruin both of their lipsticks. “I’m real good.”

Brock grins, unable to resist the hand he lets drift above Jose’s hipbone, making him shiver. “Are you, now?”

He’s about to grip him more tightly, do something incredibly stupid, but then production’s yelling out ‘five minutes!’ and they jump backwards from each other, looking around to see if anyone’s caught them.

Not yet. Their secret remains safe, for now.

Brock is in a highlighter orange jumpsuit and he feels like a helicopter, hovering and tutting over Jose who’s spiralling down and down and down.

Brock doesn’t know what to do when there’s cameras watching their every move, and every part of him just wants to pull Jose in close and tight to his chest and whisper just how amazing he is into his ear.

Jose’s shoulders are slumped, his fake lashes cast to the ground and Brock can’t help but put his fingers under Jose’s chin, lift his face up towards him.

Brock waits until Tiffany Pollard comes backstage and the rest of the cast is squealing over her, his heart hurting over the fact that Jose would absolutely be joining them if he wasn’t so upset right now. He grabs Jose’s hand while the cameras are all trained on the Untucked couches, pulls him behind a set backdrop and turns off their mics.

Jose looks up at him, confused. “What are you-”

“Shhh.” Brock holds up a finger to his lips, replies in a whisper. “Don’t want them to catch us.”

“Right.” Jose’s trying to whisper, he really is, bless his heart, not that he’s being successful at all.

Not that Brock really minds too much.

“You were better than most of those girls up there, in my eyes.” He’s going to tell Jose over and over again, lift the veil of self hatred and disappointment that seems to be marring Jose’s being over his own performance in Trump: The Rusical. “And the judges gave you better critiques than Mercedes and Ra’jah. They’re going to call you as safe.”

“Wish I was as confident in that as you are.” Jose’s laugh is humourless. “I can’t go home yet. I fucking can’t be a disappointment again.”

“You were the biggest name on season ten. Hands down. How is that a disappointment?” Brock doesn’t get it, because Jose’s successful and winning at the game of being a famous drag queen and Brock could really pick up some tips from him.

“‘Cause I’m not good at this.” Jose gestures to himself, to his outfit. “I can be a headass and make people laugh but I’m bombing all these damn challenges.”

“You’re not bombing them.” Maybe Brock sounds a little indignant but Jose is wrong, he is. “Literally the challenge before this episode. The diva worship one. You killed it.”

“And yet, still safe. I dunno what it’s gonna take. Gonna have to pull a bunny out of a hat at this point.” Jose grumbles but the image makes Brock laugh.

“That’s one way to do a lip-sync reveal.” Brock nudges Jose’s side, sees the little smile peeking out on his face no matter how hard he tries to hide it.

“Speaking of romance, where’d they go, disappearin’ again? We know you two be hiding!” A’keria’s yelling and all of the other castmates are cackling along with her, and Brock can hear Tiffany Pollard’s voice letting out an ominous Miss Vaaaanjie.

Jose lets out a little huff. “So damn nosy-”

He doesn’t get to finish his sentiment because A’keria’s tugging on both of their hands, pulling them over to the couch. Brock kisses Jose in front of the rest of the girls because they’re all goading them on and the shrieks they let out makes Brock wonder how they’d react if they found out that him and Jose are soulmates.

Jose’s drawings show up in orange ink on Brock’s skin that night, matching the runway theme and the way Brock’s own heart feels like it’s bathed in warm sunlight.

Brock is trapped in a hotel room and he feels restless.

He wants to do something. Anything. Go for a walk, run some errands, but the door of his hotel room has been taped over and he’s not allowed to leave.

It’s 11:47 p.m., and Brock knows that he should probably sleep, considering that they’re all going to be up early to head to filming and he still needs to finish putting his final Farm to Runway look together.

Hell, he’d even rather work on his look than be pacing in the tiny room, like he is right now.

Psst

I’m bored

Brock feels like a child passing notes in grade school, bothering his best friend while he tries to pay attention to the teacher.

What do you want me to do about it

Give me something to do about it

I’m working on my squats

What? You are NOT

Really?

How else do you think I keep my booty looking so tight

Jesus Christ

Though Jose isn’t wrong. It is a great butt, and one that Brock misses, quite frankly. The fact that him and Jose are both in hotel rooms, but separate ones so that they can’t even do anything about it, is ridiculous.

I do know something that can keep you entertained though

What

Brock watches as the cartoon outline of a dick appears on his chest and he can practically hear Jose’s cackle in whatever hotel room he’s in.

A second one appears on his thigh, then a third on his bicep, and he can’t help but snort.

You having fun

Plenty fun thanks for asking

I’ll leave you to it then

Have fun washing these off

BITCH come back

Miss me already huh

I know you miss me too don’t be playing

I do

But you seem to be having fun with your doodles, I’ll let you do that

Boy if you don’t-

You just like being a tease

What you gonna do about it

Leave you to it

Don’t you dare

Why, do you want something else?

Sure, Brock is alone in his hotel room, but he can’t help the shit eating grin that grows on his face. He knows that Jose isn’t going to be able to resist something so blatant.

I want you

You’ll have to be more specific than that

Brock can almost imagine the way that Jose must be muttering bitch under his breath, getting antsier by the second. Hell, he knows that he is himself.

Fuck

I miss you fucking me

Filling me up

Pinning me down

Brock unbuttons his pants, pulls out his dick and he has to resist a groan, because fuck, now he’s thinking about it and it’s been too long, he needs it now. He drops all pretenses of teasing Jose, because his self control is all but gone.

I wanna bend you over the counter like last time

Remember how whiny you were

I had to punish you because you were misbehaving so much

Fuck

I know you liked it a little too much

Please

Next time

You want me to fuck you again like that, baby?

Yes daddy

Brock can already feel how close he is and he has to bite his lip, keep himself on the edge, because the nickname is about to send him over it. Jose brings it out from time to time and Brock likes it more than he wants to admit, a fact that Jose knows well.

I’ll keep your hips down against the counter, get you so close that you almost come

Pull back because you’re not begging enough

Get you so close

Please please please

I’ll wait till your voice is all raw from begging ‘cause you want it so bad

Then fuck you so hard that you won’t be able to walk for a week

Fuck daddy

All the neighbours will know what I’m doing to you ‘cause you can never stay quiet, can you

Good

Let them know

Brock’s grip on his pen is shaky as he comes all over his own stomach, letting out a breathless moan as he strokes himself through it with his other hand because he’s spent and fuck, they’ve never done it like this before.

Jose takes a full two minutes before he replies, and Brock knows it’s because he just came, too.

Fuck

Jesus christ

God I miss your ass

My ass, huh?

You know what I mean bitch

Brock’s just done one of the best lip-syncs in Drag Race herstory and his pink sequin outfit is too tight, way too tight. The layers and layers of tights and fabric and padding are restricting, stopping him from being able to breathe, from filling up his lungs the way he so desperately needs to.

It’s different from the way he’d been out of breath during the lip-sync, where the exertion as he put everything he had into his performance made his heart beat faster and faster and faster, his lungs working overtime. Now there’s no reason for them to continue like this, not when the cameras have stopped filming, not when they’re supposed to be getting out of drag so they can head back to the hotel.

But Brock cant focus on getting out of drag. It’s too much, too much of a task to apply his brain towards, especially when the most he’s able to do right now is lean against a wall, trying to focus his vision on the ground in front of him, looking at the patterns on the floor tiles.

He feels fingers intertwine with his, looking up and there’s Jose already in his boy clothes, his eyes soft and kind and worried. Brock doesn’t want to make him worry, because it doesn’t matter, not really, he’s survived the lip-sync and he’s fine, he should be.

“I’m fine.” Brock musters up a smile on his face, one to reassure Jose though Jose doesn’t seem to buy it, his thumb running in soft circles over Brock’s palm.

“It’s okay if you’re not, y’know.” Jose’s voice is soft and Brock doesn’t hear it like this often, though when he does it’s almost always directed towards him. A part of him likes it, that this small part of Jose is just for him to hear.

“It doesn’t matter. I survived that lip sync, I’ll live another episode.” It’s true, he did. He’s made it through and yes, he’s relieved, but he’s also exhausted all of his reserves. It feels like the day has been a battle, one that’s left him worse for wear.

But he doesn’t want Jose to worry.

Jose helps him get out of drag just like he did the first night that they’d met in person, while the rest of the girls are fooling around in other areas of the work room, barely paying attention to the two of them. He’s gentle, pulling off Brock’s wig cap and lashes and layers and layers of tights and padding on his body. He pushes Brock to sit down on a chair in front of the mirror, leaning against the counter as he wipes Brock’s face clean of foundation and contour and powder.

Jose presses a kiss to Brock’s lips when he’s done, and Brock feels lighter, less constricted, though his heart is aching for Jose in a way that’s going to bowl him over when he thinks about it too much.

For someone so outgoing and vocal and loud, Jose knows how to calm him down in the way he needs it the most. Without too many words, without overt reassurances or distraction tactics. Just being there, both in gentle touches and deep pressure and helping Brock get through actions that seem insurmountable, one step at a time without even asking.

Brock’s not sure if anyone else has ever done this for him before. Then again, there’s never been anyone else like Jose in his life, nor will there ever be. Brock knows that for certain.

Brock is lip-syncing against his soulmate and sure, the song’s at the bridge, but he hasn’t quite processed it yet. His brain is foggy but he’s going to focus, damn it, he’s going to perform the hell out of this song.

Even if looking over at Jose makes his heart skip a beat for just a second, makes him almost trip over his own heels.

The song ends and Brock’s breathing in gasps, because of course, of course they were meant to lip-sync against each other, of course they were. Brock had told Jose, he really did, backstage in Untucked because production would have never let go of the chance to have the star crossed lovers face off against each other in the final moments. Not with such a juicy storyline.

The best part is that the producers don’t even know the half of it. It gives Brock a strange sense of satisfaction, that not everything belongs to the producers to manipulate between him and Jose. They don’t deserve the chance to be able to do so.

Brock’s name is called to stay and it doesn’t give him the relief that he so desperately wants, because they both deserve to stay and Jose can’t leave and why, why was there already a double save earlier in the season?

He grabs Jose’s face and kisses him hard - who cares that they’re in drag, that they have lipstick on, that they’re being filmed, that this is the epic, thrilling conclusion to a love story that the producers want to craft to satisfy an adoring public? It doesn’t matter, because there’s so much that Brock wants to say (I’m sorry, please don’t hate me, please wait for me, please don’t leave) that he can’t. Not right now, not in front of everyone.

Jose’s never been in his hotel room for filming, but it still feels a little empty when Brock returns to it that evening. His bed a little too big, the four walls surrounding him a little too quiet.

Already home

Goddamn

Living in LA is convenint

Conveenent

Convenient as hell

Come back

I miss you

Brock’s not a clingy sort of person by any means, but he can’t stop his heart’s tug for Jose no matter how hard he tries.

Miss you so fucking much

Hurry and finish up filming so you can come here and hang out with me and Riley

Imma go grocery shopping and get snacks

What do you want

The words make Brock laugh despite himself, because the domesticity flows so naturally between them, as if they’re just two regular people coming home from work.

Get those salt and vinegar chips you had when I came to visit in February

You still remember snacks from February?

They were good!!

They don’t have them in Nashville

That makes you sound like a country bumpkin

Hey, I’m from Toronto

Yeah yeah, a country bumpkin in a parka

The rays of sunlight begin to light up the room as the hours go on, and ink fills up Brock’s skin that he’s going to have a hell of a time washing off. Brock’s barely gotten any sleep because why would he, when talking to Jose is so much more fun? He knows he’s going to be exhausted in the morning, but he can’t bring himself to care. Because Jose’s still here with him, Jose still cares and isn’t mad about the lip-sync and they’re still them, complete with all the nonsense and softness that always calms his heart without fail.

Jose yells at him through big capital letters along his side to GO TO SLEEP, BITCH, and Brock wishes that he had Jose in his arms to help him do so.

Brock’s still in his glittering mirrored jumpsuit from the final finale lip-sync, the cameras just having called cut, when his mom taps his shoulder.

“The one in the cheetah print. It’s him, right?” His mom’s eyes are all knowing, too knowing, and Brock should have expected it, really.

“Who?” Still, Brock’s voice is squeaky. Just the way it always is when his mother brings up things that he doesn’t want to talk about with her, because they make him feel like he’s twelve and vulnerable again.

“That one’s your soulmate. I’m your mother. I can tell.”

Jose is hugging his own mom and introducing her to Silky and A’keria and laughing his head off, causing a commotion that is making the others around them look over with a smile.

“Yeah, that’s him.”

Brock’s been trying, so desperately trying, to let his mother in more. Even when he could see the hesitation in her eyes when he first came out (despite the fact that she had already known), even when he’d told her that he’d started drag and she didn’t understand it in the least.

But the last couple of years, his mother has been trying. Brock can see it.

And so he will, too.

He grabs Jose’s arm when he passes by, pulling him into the conversation. Jose’s face is bright and happy and his eyes widen in understanding when he sees the woman in front of him.

“Mom, this is Jose.”

Then Jose’s making her light up and laugh with his natural charm and part of Brock almost can’t believe it, that this is his life. That his mother is meeting his soulmate, that his mother doesn’t hate him, that his mother has changed from the way that she used to be. The way she used to make twelve year old Brock want to shrink in on himself, hating himself, wanting to hide everything precious to him.

Brock wishes that he could go back in time to that version of himself, hold his hand, pull him into a hug. Tell him that everything will be alright, that he’ll find Jose in real life, that his mother will be okay with it and that he’s going to feel like he has a family again. It’ll look different from the one he has now, but it’ll be better. Full of more love.

Brock remembers himself at twelve, when the marker in his pocket felt like a secret he had to hide rather than one he could freely talk about. He’d had no idea what would be coming for him in the future.

Seeing Jose and his mother get along, laugh together as his mom squeezes Jose’s hand, is a sight that Brock is going to commit to memory.

Brock has an arm around Jose while they wait for production to finish up last-minute adjustments to the reunion set, and he’s antsy.

“Do you think we should?”

“You’ve asked me like fifty times in the last minute, and I still don’t know.”

Brock fidgets. “Sorry.”

Jose turns around in his grasp. “Don’t stress, okay? We’ll know what to say once we’re up there and they ask us. We can decide if we wanna say it in the moment.”

Him and Jose still haven’t decided whether they’re going to tell everyone about being soulmates. Nina knows, naturally, having seen drawings on Brock’s skin since before they filmed Drag Race. Silky and A’keria know, which made them approve of Brock a lot quicker.

But everyone else?

The rest of the cast doesn’t. Production doesn’t. Hell, Ru doesn’t.

They’d managed to get through the entire season by meticulously keeping their bodies ink free before having to wear revealing outfits, being careful about where they wrote and drew.

But at the same time, the game is over. The season is done. They’ve already filmed the finale, and Brock has an idea of where it’s going to go, anyway.

He has nothing to lose. They have nothing to lose. Besides, he wants to scream it from the rooftops, Jose is his soulmate, Jose is his soulmate.

Brock’s made up his mind as soon as the cameras start rolling, but Jose is the one who lets it slip.

“So, how did this all get started?” Ru is looking between the two of them, and A’keria and Silky are smirking, and Jose whips out a marker from who knows where, a grin on his face.

“Contrary to what y’all thinking, it didn’t start on season eleven. Watch this.” Jose pauses, looking at Brock like he’s almost asking permission, and Brock nods, because why not?

The gasps from Ru and the rest of the girls and the cameramen when Jose draws a star on his hand that shows up on Brock’s makes it worth it.

It’s the first time that Brock’s ever seen Ru speechless, the cue cards in his hands rendered useless, the questions that he’d been planning to ask no longer relevant.

“You’re-you’re soulmates?” Ru’s looking back to the producers behind the cameras, almost asking if they knew, if this was planned.

But the producers shrug back, and it’s more satisfying than Brock wants to admit.

They’ve done it on their own terms, the way it should be.

“We’ve known each other since we were kids.” It feels strange to Brock, being able to talk about it, but the rest of the cast is quiet, attentive. Listening. “We didn’t meet in person until we were in our twenties, but Vanjie was worth the wait.”

The cast awws and even Ru looks a little bit less shell shocked. Jose, for his part, is preening, his face lit up in happiness, and Brock’s never seen anyone more beautiful.

“Some could call that an unfair advantage, you know,” Ru points between the two of them, “being able to talk to each other whenever you wanted to.”

Jose shrugs. “Hey, we were never on the same teams, what would we be using spy tactics for? Ain’t no point to that.”

Ru’s opening and closing his mouth, trying to figure out something else to say, when Scarlet pipes up from behind them in a dreamy voice. “That’s so romantic. You’re both living a fairytale.”

Brock snorts. Regardless of what others say, he’s glad it’s out in the open.

Sure, Brock’s a private person. But if the public is hanging on to every last detail of their relationship, he’s happy he gets to share his favourite part about it.

Brock is in a random town in Arizona for a gig and he’s tired.

He knows that he has to capitalize on his first year after being on Drag Race, make all the coins he can before everything dries up. But being consistently on the road is wearing him down, the constant new faces and the same questions being asked over and over again before he performs the same numbers, because he’s too damn exhausted to learn anything else.

He makes small talk with the local queens, plasters a smile on his face because he remembers being in that position, and that it pays to be nice. But it’s draining, and he wishes he could be home instead, the cats and Jose by his side.

He doesn’t even know where home is anymore. Not Nashville, not really. Not Toronto, not anymore.

But the word home makes him think of Jose’s laugh and Jose snuggling into his side and Jose making him a cup of tea when he’s too antsy. It makes him think of Jose’s grip on him tightening when he’s about to come, swear words that leave Jose’s mouth echoing in his ears. Home is the way that he greets Jose at the airport, or when they step into each others apartments, no longer having to rely only on Sharpies to feel like they’re in the same place.

He’s in an Uber to the airport at 3 a.m. because he has another gig the next day when words appear on his forearm that make him pause.

Move in with me

Brock please

I miss you

The words tug on his heart, crush it into small pieces because Brock misses him too, and wants nothing more than to be with him all the time. He doesn’t know how they survived so long without meeting in person. He’s not sure if he’d ever be able to go that long again.

The idea comes to him before he’s even pulled his Sharpie out from his bag.

Sure, he’d been planning to do it properly, plan something nice because he knows Jose likes that sort of thing, but he needs to ask now. Needs to know.

Because really, would there ever be any other option for them?

I’ll do you one better

????

Marry me

Brock’s hand is shaking, because fuck, he’s just asked his soulmate to marry him and he hasn’t replied yet and what if Jose isn’t on the same page at all and-

You asshole

Of course I will yes

But you better get me a proper ring

Brock’s laugh comes out half like a sob, and his Uber driver is curiously looking at him in the rearview mirror but he doesn’t care.

You know I will

Had to make sure you wanted to first

Bitch

Duh

Can’t believe it took you so long to ask

You could have easily asked me, y’know

Nah

Knew your ass likes to be the kind to do that shit

More that your ass is the kind that likes being proposed to, let’s be real

And???

Brock laughs because he can fully picture Jose’s grin, his indignation as he writes back. His Uber stops at the departure gate at the small airport and he has to unload his bags, his heart feeling like it’s already flying, because Jose said yes, Jose said yes.

A doodle of a wedding band appears on his finger as he’s going through security, and Brock never wants Jose to ever wash it off of his own hand.

Brock remembers being seventeen, seeing one of his older sisters show up to Thanksgiving dinner with a ring on her finger and her fiance in tow. A part of him had felt his heart flip in his chest, wondering if it would happen for him, when it would happen for him.

If it would be Jose who would have a matching ring on his finger.

And now, more than ten years later? He’s going to have one.

Brock’s in a tux and it’s tugging on him in weird places but he’s never been happier in his life.

He looks around the tent in which their wedding reception is taking place. His mother and his sisters and his nieces and nephews are here, their close friends are here, as are countless queens that have become family to him over the past decade or so.

He swears that Farrah tears up while giving her speech, though she’ll never admit it when Brock asks her about it later.

Jose is glowing as he sits with his own mom, her arm around him and they both look so happy. He sees Jose’s family that’s he’s gotten to know by name, and he wishes that he’d gotten to meet Jose’s abuela, the one that he’d heard about when they were kids.

There’s people missing from the wedding, people that both him and Jose desperately wanted to have there, but Brock supposes that that’s life.

He has a real wedding band on his finger now, and he never wants to take it off. A piece of him that’s also a piece of Jose, a commitment.

When Brock was younger, he’d wondered how soulmates worked. How they’d be together forever. Then he’d seen his own parents fall apart, seen how his mom became so much happier without his father. The way she’d done better without hers.

Brock gets it now. Soulmates aren’t the be all, end all. Soulmates still require effort, solving problems together, weathering through storms that threaten to ruin everything only to come out the other side a lot more stronger.

They’re going to have to try to work on it. They’re still going to tour and be away from each other, the way they’ve been for the last couple years, but it’s okay, it is. Because it’s not forever.

They’re capitalizing on their careers and getting their fill now and experiencing everything now while still getting to share it with each other through stories written along their skin.

He gets to keep sharing things with Jose, forever, if he wants to. His husband.

They’re going to be the soulmates that the stories talk about, the ones that work out, in the end. Brock knows it.

Brock takes another sip of his wine when a niece and nephew run up to him, the tiny tux and flower girl dress making him melt.

His niece crosses her arms. “Liam said- ”

“-I didn’t say, Emma said it-”

“-that you and Uncle Jose can write to each other. I think they’re lying.” His niece raises an eyebrow, waiting for an answer, and Brock wonders whether he was ever that rambunctious at six years old.

Nonetheless, he pulls out a Sharpie from his pocket, turns his hand over. “Watch this.”

He draws a smiley face, their customary smiley face, and has to hold a laugh back at the sight of his niece and nephew whipping their head over to look at Jose, to peek at his hand. They leave him, running over to where Jose’s standing and interrupting his conversation with his cousins to turn his hand over.

“Emma was right!”

“No way!”

Jose’s holding back a laugh at their astonishment and he looks over at Brock, the raised eyebrow and the soft smile on his face enough to make Brock’s heart all warm.

His niece and nephew run back, grabbing Brock’s arm.

“Write more, write more.” His nephew is practically spinning around.

His niece’s brow is furrowed. “But how?”

“Soulmates.” Brock nudges her shoulder. “Hey, maybe you’ll have one, too.”

His niece wrinkles her nose. “I hope it’s not a boy like yours.”

When she comes to him and Jose a couple years later with writing on her arms and a million questions to go with it, they don’t have all of the answers to give to her. Hell, he and Jose still don’t even have all the answers for themselves, but there’s one piece of advice that Brock says to her.

“Start with your name,” Brock hands her a Sharpie from the kitchen table, like the many that are scattered around their shared apartment, and laughs as she uncaps the marker enthusiastically with her teeth. “And everything will fall into place.”

#rpdr fanfiction #branjie #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #canon compliant #soulmate au #holtzmanns #gold coloured prisms of light

24 notes · View notes

smolbeandrabbles · 5 years

Text

Somewhere on a Beach - Ned Kendall x Reader (Beautiful Kate)

Thank you to a certain someone and her side blog for kicking me into gear and actually get around to writing this... 😏

Author’s Note: Well as if this hasn’t been sitting in my drafts since I watched the movie (it has.) Fine-uh-lee I get to write about the Writ-er... Is this it? Is Ned the last one of my little collection? I think so... Damn, boi, I’m sorry!

Disclaimer: Beautiful Kate characters (& associated things!) not mine / lyrics not mine Premise: In a bid to help Ned escape his past, and get his writing back on track, you take him away... Words: 3180 Warnings: Sexual Connotations / Hinted Dom/Sub relationship / swearing

_________ Bet you think I'm sitting at home, no Bet you think that I'm all alone, no Bet you think I'm missing you and wishing you would call my phone Hell no! I'm somewhere on a beach Sipping something strong Got a new girl, she got it going on We drink all day, and party all night I'm way too gone to have you on my mind She got a body and she's naughty And she got me like you ain't never got me I'm getting sun, getting some, and I ain't slept in a week Yeah, I'm somewhere on a beach

I wish it could've worked out But I'm gettin' over you now On a beach towel with my shades on My drink's up And the sun's out Huh, I'm somewhere on a beach

---

Ned knew what he was going to do the second he left that house. He knew, looking at the little name tag emblazoned with Toni exactly what he was going to do. Find her, get her back, marry her, all’s well that ends well… Except before that had even had the chance to happen, he’d met you. Whether that meeting was coincidental, or just happened to be exactly what he needed, he didn’t know. But suddenly that big plan of his didn’t matter anymore. His mild obsession with you had him seeing you every chance he could – and every chance you would let him. You had that childish charm about you that he clearly still liked in women, but you were level too – and he liked that, because it finally kept him grounded. You were interested in his writing and what he did. And you liked him telling you what to do – like that… not like that. And he liked that too, because it put you on the same sexual wavelength, with similar libidos. So as Ned got to know you, and like you even more; days became weeks, became months. And Toni was buried at the back of his mind, and the back of one of his draws. He was quite happy to let her remain there too; until he happened to ask you to get him something from that particular draw. “Who is Toni?” You wandered back into the room he was sitting in, tapping his pen with annoyance on his notebook. You’d noticed this for a little while, something restless in the way he was writing. He couldn’t get anything out fast enough, but yet he seemed not to be able to get anything out at all. Maybe he was having writers block… You’d often wake up in the morning to find screwed up papers strewn all over the floor. You always tided them up, keeping them but never reading them. Just in case he ever wanted to pick up whatever plot threads he was cutting – but those words were his, until he decided to share them with you. But Ned valued your opinion, so every so often he’d give you a few pages to read and stand with a hopeful smile until you’d finished. He thrived on every drop of feedback you could give him. He’d seen your bookshelves and knew you were an avid reader… He looked up confused for a minute “Huh?” You held the name tag up; “Toni?” He noticed immediately that your tone was inquisitive, not accusational. “Oh. Sh*t. Do I still have that?!” Ned pushed his chair out and walked to you, holding his hand out for it. You placed it delicately in his palm and he sighed; “She’s my Ex-Fiancée.” Fiancée? He didn’t strike you as the marrying type. Maybe you were wrong. “Oh. I’m sorry.” His eyes flicked to your face; sorry? Why would you be sorry? He had you now… Without her being his Ex anything, he wouldn’t have you. “You don’t have to be sorry…” Ned’s fingers closed around the small piece of metal, “…We wouldn’t be here otherwise… And I certainly like you better…” You knew from the look on his face that he hadn’t meant it to come out the way it did, so you decided to ignore it, with a smile and stepped forward to offer him a kiss. Which he gratefully accepted. You nodded behind him to his writing; “How’s it going?” He hummed, trying to find the right words as he also looked back at his desk and multiple sheets of paper – you were at least happy to see that none had hit the floor yet. “Oh…” Ned’s arms snaked around you, “…It’s just 10,000 words of bullsh*t…” he shook his head “It doesn’t go anywhere it’s just… useless rambling…” He sighed; “I dunno what’s wrong…” Your hand found the one in which he still held the name tag; “Maybe you need a writing retreat… Maybe you should take her from your draw… and let her go.” His head swivelled slowly back to you, you thought maybe he wouldn’t like you saying that. You weren’t suggesting he still loved her, you weren’t even suggesting he ever thought of her. But taking him away for a little while, away from anything that could hold memories, might be exactly what he needed. And that look on his face told you that what you’d just said was exactly what he needed to hear… He let you lace your fingers with his behind your back; “Do you think that would help?” “I do…” Ned brushed his lips gently to yours and held you tighter; “Well, baby, where do you wanna go?” “Oh no…” You shook your head, “This one’s all yours.” ** So with the nametag buried at the bottom of his suitcase, you both packed up and headed out to some tropical island. And the first thing he did when you arrived was put his watch in the top draw. No time zone, no return flight, nothing. That’s what you wanted for him, to clear his head and get back to what he loved so much. For it to mean something again. It started slow, words here and there, two or three sentences before he had to get up and wander. Sometimes Ned told you to stay, and sometimes he wanted you to accompany him. But you noticed the walks became progressively shorter, and eventually there was a notebook involved, and he would wrap your hand around his arm, rather than interlock with your fingers, and produce this and a pen from his pocket and begin scribbling. And you liked that, it made you smile. But once again – you never asked to read it, he’d let you know when he was ready for that. When he was ready to disclose that vulnerability again. By the end of your second week he was writing for hours a day. And his breaks weren’t to live in his head or wander around – but were to pay attention to you. It hadn’t taken you long to become attuned to the way Ned was; so every so often you’d bring him coffee or water or what you knew he needed. And he was always grateful of that. You didn’t mind this distance, you were quite happy relaxing here yourself, sunbathing or exploring…. But now he was firmly back on the ground, and writing without yet tearing or screwing up one scrap of paper, he also seemed happier. So instead of just spending the occasional walk and meal times with him, now his breaks always started with him giving you that look – and ended with him pinning you up against some surface and having you whatever way he wanted. No no, hands here… that’s right darling… MMm hmmm… Like that… hush! Stop squirming!... Like this? Is that okay?... Good girl… but you enjoyed that too, it was like he was coming back, slowly. But even you knew that at the bottom of his bag that slip of metal still burned… One day you woke alone, and upon wandering out into the main room of the beach house you were renting discovered that Ned wasn’t there either. You only slightly panicked as you dressed, wiggling a shirt over your bikini and ran from the house. You stopped on the dunes as soon as you saw his silhouette in the distance, at the end of the short pier upon which were moored a series of small wooden boats. He was already dressed, shades on… And even from here you could see, as you wandered slowly over, the sunlight was glinting off something in his hands. You didn’t need to see it up close to know exactly what it was. You stood at the end of the pier with folded arms in silence and watched him. This was Ned’s to do, and his alone. His to think though, to sort, to end. If he wanted to end it… Maybe she was a writing muse and that’s why he couldn’t let go. Maybe it had just always been hard for Ned to let go of the past. He clasped his hand around the object and took a few steps back, shaking his head. And you tried not to get disappointed; the only way for him to gain any real freedom and breathing room from this was for him to let go. But then, perhaps he wasn’t ready. Then he paused again; and there were another few minutes of dead silence and hard thinking – if you listened you’d probably be able to hear the gears in his brain shifting… - he looked out to the sea and his stance was suddenly stronger. His decision was made; you knew that look. He took 3 or 4 running paces forward and threw it. That gold name tag with her name engraved in black was in the air barely seconds before it hit the water; and there was something poetic about it. It was a good throw too; and it hardly made a sound – then you knew it was done. She was gone, sinking to the bottom of the sea… He straightened again with a sigh, you knew of relief, and turned. You startled him and Ned stumbled a little; before acting like he meant to do it and using it to push into a jog down the pier to you instead; “…It’s done?” “Mmm… It’s over…” His hands snaked under your shirt as you pulled him to you; “You’re free now…” “Mmm… No… I’m just yours now.” And so he was. *** It was like a weight had lifted; he was jokey and playful and light hearted and he smiled more. He told you things he’d never told you before… even when it was clear to you he wasn’t all that comfortable talking about them. Like he was opening up a little more of his world to you – not all of it, you knew Ned Kendall would always be a lot to unpack; it was all there in the way he wrote. The words he was saying behind the words he was writing. But he’d tell you eventually, if he wanted to, or he’d keep his secrets – and you wouldn’t mind. Like that nametag was the last piece of a past he wished he didn’t have. The last piece he had to get rid of; not burry so he could revisit it. There was a certain maturity to the man sitting in front of you now that was appearing; dormant – you decided – simply invisible, not never there. It was like there was a new level of trust now, like he was willing to show you this, like he was ready to step up and be this person now, in this moment; and with you. No looking back, and no guessing the future…

It was also apparent in the way he wrote, how you’d see him smile for page upon pages. Sometimes he’d laugh at a private joke, or nod to himself if he wrote something he deemed pretty impressive. And you could watch him do that for hours – the TV was all but background noise; because he was truly fascinating. Watching a writer go through their process like this. How he’d stop and tap his pen, moving it through his fingers as he thought on a scene; or played dialogue through in his mind… then he’d jot down points elsewhere to remind him of something for later in the story. How sometimes his lips would part; and he’d say words without saying them. Or mutter things under his breath. You couldn’t always hear, but sometimes it was the same word repeated with different stresses. How were his characters saying these lines? What was the best word to use for the context of what was happening? Sometimes he’d call your name; “Y/N… Give me a word for…” or “Y/N… What’s that word that means…” even though he was the writer he valued what you had to say and every “No, no that… what else… No… No that one I used… AH! That’s it!” or “See, there, eloquence. Thank you!” made you smile. Because when you read back his work and you found that suggestion of yours, you knew you’d be beaming internally as well as externally. No one else reading it would know, but you would – there was a piece of you present in novels that would sell copies worldwide. That thought was exciting. Today Ned had started early, because the light that streamed into bedroom was pale when he left you. Not for want of trying to cling onto him and make him stay… “You know I don’t reward whining…” was an outright lie, but you let him go all the same; save for him maybe dragging you out of bed and across the floor as you wrapped around him. So, with one last kiss to your forehead he left you to fall back to sleep for a few hours. This behaviour wasn’t uncommon, sometimes you’d be woken up by a light in the middle of the night because he just had to write this scene in his head down. So again, you left him to it. And when you awoke you got ready for the day slowly, to give him as much time and silence as possible. As you padded from the bedroom to the kitchen, you caught his eye, and he followed you with a playful smirk; “Does it ever occur to you to, y’know, get dressed?” “…You like it better when I don’t…” you threw back over your shoulder, to a growl; “Besides… This is a bikini and we are literally living on a beach. So, this is dressed.” “My T-shirt is a nice addition.” You smiled, and set about making coffee; “…Thought you’d like that…” You turned back to him, biting his lower lip, and the array of coffee mugs over his desk; “I’d say you don’t need another one of these…” He gave a shrug “If you’re gonna look after me, I’ll defer to your good nature.” You took a sip of your own coffee and walked over to him, “Mmm, you better…” Ned’s eyes traced you for a moment and he put his pen down. “C’mere…” “Oh no, you’re busy…” “Don’t make me ask twice…” There was a glint in those eyes. You sat on the edge of his desk and took his hand, and his eyes fell to your coffee cup – “You’re going to eat too, right.” “Well I mean-” “That wasn’t a question – eat. You’re gonna need it.” You raised a questioning eyebrow; “Was that a promise..?” “Maybe.” But that little smile of his told you it was. “Okaaay.” “Good girl.” But before you could get up, he tugged you by the hand to pull you onto his lap; his hands caressed your bare skin as he kissed you; tasting like coffee and cigarette smoke. “See, now I don’t wanna leave…” You stole as many kisses as he let you, painfully aware that the way he was tracing you with his fingertips was meant to be teasing only. He was never going to give you what you wanted. “Well, how am I gonna work if you don’t leave…” “You pulled me here!” You kissed him again as you slid from his arms “Also, I hate you.” “I know…” he stretched and winked at you with an injection of confidence; “You won’t later though…” You laughed, gathering some of his empty coffee mugs with your own “Always later…” He laughed; “Worth the wait though…” You heard his pen begin to scratch at the surface of his notebook again; “…Thank you!” “…You’re welcome!” By the time you’d eaten, making a point of it so he knew, finished your coffee, washed and dried up and gathered your things for the beach it was very late morning. And Ned was once again back in the flow of writing. The heat was pretty scotching when you stood in it directly inside, and you knew it would only get worse. Also, you knew that Ned would possibly sit there for hours and hours and forget that he should really hydrate, so before you left you took him a few glasses of water; He slowed his writing speed down, but didn’t stop as his eyes flicked up to thank you. You simply shook your head with that same kind smile; there was no need to thank you. You shouldered your bag and again, rounded the desk to him – touching his arm delicately – he didn’t need words to know what that meant… and placed his hand over yours for a moment. He could write so much that he couldn’t say… and yet that unspoken language, of really knowing someone, still meant the most. You left him to walk to the double doors leading onto the beach and paused for a moment, sliding your shades from your hair to over your eyes and breathing in the sea air. He turned; with a smile of his own to watch you stand there in the light for a minute; yes, you might be his muse… but you were the right kind of muse. And more than anything he wanted you to be one that lasted. “No eating ice-cream without me.” You laughed; “Okay.” “I could just say no ice-cream.” “That’s unfair.” “Careful, babe.” Was that the second warning you’d had today? Third? “No ice-cream until I see you later. I know.” You repeated, Ned nodded to himself, “Have a good day…” “And you… Work hard!” He chuckled; “Yeah, I will…” With that you wandered off, back onto the golden sand and across to the resort that your little beach house was a part of. Ned placed his pen down again and pushed his chair out. He wanted to join you, of course he did. But something made him stop; that’s not what you wanted. You’d left him to get on with his novel, that was the exact purpose for you leaving with a bag too – so you wouldn’t have to come back to the villa and disturb him. She actually respects this is my work and I should keep going with this... He shook his head gently and pulled the chair back in; I should really thank her more for that… Glancing to the glasses of water in front of him, he picked one up; Hell, and this too… As he began to drink through the bottom of the glass he could see a blurry, but colourful shape. He paused and tipped the glass back straight, raising an eyebrow; “What?” running his fingertips underneath the glass he untacked the sticky note, and was once again laughing. It wasn’t much, but it meant a lot. You’d drawn a heart. Nothing more than that. Worth 1000 words… Ned stuck it to the inside of his notebook and leant on his hand just staring at it whilst time passed him by. Just a tiny gesture; but it made him smile. You made him smile… --- @dennismitchell @happyskywhale @wltz-bby #MendoTagSquad. @3134045126 - Without you Jax, this wouldn’t be written ❤

#When you clear the one at the bottom of the drafts #It feels SOOOO good #Ned Kendall #Ned kendall x Reader #Ned x Reader #Beautiful Kate #Like Tara... If I can get digs at Toni I freakin' will #I like her less than Tara so...#ARE YOU EVER FLOORED BY YOUR OWN WRITING!?#I WENT BACK TO READ THIS AND I JUST #HOLY SHIT #GURL #ben mendelsohn #with this my bois are all complete #74 #okay so this might be because I read a fic that BLEW ME AWAY and I realised I had to live up to that #BUT #I'm particularly proud of this one #Like a Sway level of proud with this one.#His writing process is mine. That's how I write.#I actually... really love... writing about a writer?#They do say write about what you know and I guess this is as close as we get in Mendo terms #I wanted to get some nod to his back in (cuz. this movie was a little gratuitous with it)#But it didn't fit the tone #so next time!#Jessika

25 notes · View notes

ladyravenclaws · 5 years

Text

Little Wolf

"Mama... why did dat dark place feel like I been there before?" The quiet voice of Asaan sounded as he lay curled against his mother's chest. His unruly head of violet curls lay boundless and wild after a day of Saber riding, and those familiar molten pools of silver stared tiredly at the fire stoked in his and his sister's room. The snowy haired girl lay curled against her mother's side, half laying on her hip and half on her brother's bed, having fallen asleep long before when her mother sang to them before they went to rest for the day.

Lea'vune continued to hum softly, one hand petting Dheana's head while the other wound around her son's back.

"Which dark place, da'lath?"(little love) Her canorous tone sounded mid-song, pressing a soft kiss atop matching violet curls. Asaan squirmed softly, staring at the shadow branding on his arms.

"Dat place.. Jasyl called it 'The Darkwood'.." he said softly, picking his head up to regard his mother. He watched her face twitch slightly, though any other reaction was hidden everywhere except her shadowy silvers.

"Before recently, you had been there before. Your father, your birth father, and I lived there just before you were born. We were sworn to protect people. People who meant a lot to us, but.. bad things happened, and we were forced to leave shortly after I found out you and your sister were dewdrops in my belly." Lea explained carefully, a slender ear slanting downwards as she watched the confusion write across her boy's face. "But that is not what you meant, is it?" She asked quietly after a moment, his face scrunching up and relaxing several times as he thought. He shook his head.

"Nuh-uh. I dunno what it feels like, but it kin'na feels like when Baela and Maela would make us those yummy cookies when we were good. Warm n' fuzzy, also like when you hug me and Dhea." (Grandpa and Grandma) He giggled, flashing a toothy little grin. Lea chuckled at the memory, though it was brief, for her own concern writ across her features as she ran her hand along her son's forehead to brush the curls from his eyes. Like home. Like he felt whole. She knew that feeling, those were her shadows ripped from her body and planted into her boy's, much before his time had come to begin mastering them himself. Lea'vune was silent for a long moment, idly brushing locks of unruly violet away from his face. Though he grew silent, that smile sobering into a look of contemplation, ears drooping at the sides of his head.

"Is it not supposed to feel like dat? Dat's where you swallowed me's and Dhea up and we grew up till we wanted to come out, right? Dat's why it feels like home?" He asked carefully. Her lips pursed; that's what she was afraid of.

"It is a fond place of memory, my love, surely. Draw whatever good feelings from that place you can, hm? I promise it will be over soon and you will feel well again." She purred softly, leaning forward and kissing his forehead. "It is making you sick, is it not?"

"It's not warm and fuzzy for long.. yah, it makes me feel woozy after a while... I falled over again today." He admitted softly, tiny ears flattening against his skull. "But I try an'... make it feel okay by remembering good t'ings. Finny tooked me home today." He explained, finding it hard to meet his mother's eyes now as she stared at him.

"Asaan... Da'fenlin, did you tell anyone else?" (Little wolfling) She asked worriedly, hugging his tiny body closer to her as her other ear pinned to her skull. He shook his head and sniffled.

"I.. wanna feel okay again... Mama, when will it go away?" He sniffled as his face scrunched up, tears welling up in those bright silvers. That confident facade played until only moments before was only just; the boy was hurting in ways he shouldn't be.

"Oh my sweet boy... soon. Soon, I promise, we will make it go away. Jasyl told me he would help do just that. Soon it will be all over. I promise, on my soul, I promise." She cooed softly to the boy whose little body shook with his quiet cries; even distressed he didn't want to wake his sister up, didn't want her to know he was hurting, too; he had to be a strong brother, a little warrior.

Lea tugged him closer, peppering kisses all over his face. His forehead, nose, over his eyes, and on his cheeks to take those tears away. She shushed him softly, tucking his head under her chin so he could cuddle up more fully against her chest.

"If you are in doubt, do you remember what he said, mm?" She asked softly, nuzzling the top of his head. He sniffled softly as he nuzzled her neck with his cheek.

"We dun break our word in dis house... but Min'da.. pinky promise you make it go away soon?" He recited the pledge as best he could, voice dropping to sloppily mimic his step-father's voice as he did but came back to his own whisper after. He peeked back up to Lea and held up his pinky finger. Another kiss to his forehead and slowly did her hand leave her daughter's slumbering head to hook her pinky around her son's and bring their entwined digits up to kiss them.

"Precisely. I promise, Da'fenlin. Get some rest. The days grow shorter and you will not get as much sleep as you would like soon. And you will need it if you want to begin your training, hm?" She promised with a wink, setting her chin atop his head. He replied with a little hum as he pressed his cheek against her chest, curls tickling the nape of her neck as his little body relaxed, shortly falling into slumber beside his sister as his sniffles quieted and those stuttered breaths slowed.

Shortly after he put his head down, she began her soft series of lullabies once more, staring into the fire and watching it flicker out as the sun rose higher into the sky and trickled through their curtains drawn over the windows. Once the Assassin was sure he was asleep did she jimmy jack her way out of the ironclad grip of sleeping toddlers with expert care; it clearly wasn't her first time. The twins were placed side by side and the covers were tucked up and around them, and Lea'vune merely watched them sleep for a moment longer as she lingered in the doorway.

Both of her children were hurting in the aftermath of the N'raqi attack and in wildly different ways, and it pained her to her core. Dark lips pursed, whispering a soft affection to the twins before closing the door behind her, pressing her back against it and letting her eyes slip closed a moment. Her head shook slightly, exhaling a deep breath as she padded quietly down the hall and disappeared behind the door to her chambers for the morning.

@house-of-the-fallen-sun (for brief mention)

#ic things #Lea might make a visiiiiit

3 notes · View notes

manyreblobs · 3 years

Text

Ranting about writting I guess

#sigh another story I write that just doesn’t I dunno come out good #I dunno what it is but everything that I write just doesn’t sound good #and I have a couple stuff written trust me #I love writting as much as drawing but i dunno #I guess like losing the people that used to hype my stuff also helped in me not feeling as motivated to write i supose #which sucks #I just want someone to read my stuff and just tell me their opinion #nothing more nothing less #I want to know peoples feeling while reading what I write #people used to tell me it was good and captivating but is it still??? like how do I know that kind of stuff???#I myself don’t enjoy much what I write #ahhhhhhhhh pain of a creative #manyrambles #too many thoughts #feel free to ignore this #I’m sure there won’t be anyone reading this anyway so #should I just make a post like #WHO WANTS TO READ X STORY and tag it with fandom stuff and wait???#cus I don’t think I have many followers who are interested in reading so I dunno #well gues that all for now I guess #I should go to sleep perhaps

1 note · View note

foxrun-fluffery · 5 years

Text

TGD Daily - Plus

Tag list: @sdavid09 @walking-potter-davinci-games

PLUS

Your character has a dream, something they want more than anything…what is it, and how do they react when they finally get it?

Markets were always a lot of work. Always. That hadn’t changed at all, but for the first time in a long time, Bofur felt he was on familiar grounds, bartering and selling. This was something he could manage. When he hadn’t been in the mines, he had been in the market selling in his family’s stall. He didn’t have his cousin there, nor the rowdy red headed dwarf from the stall beside theirs, who sold dyes, but it was familiar enough. And he nearly sold out at every market.

It seemed though he felt he had not made enough, he had begun to gain quite the following, and people were eagerly lining up to buy his wooden wares, sometimes rushing to get to his tables. It made him feel goo, knowing his work was appreciated. This trip in particular had been a grand one, every last item sold. He packed up the tables into the neighbors’ truck, got his ride home from them, for they also had a stall there selling fruit from their small orchard, and soon he was running up his front step.

“Piper!” He called excitedly. “Pipe—!” He slapped a thick hand over his loud mouth when he spotted his wife on the couch. She was leaned against the arm, sound asleep. Usually she came to sell with him, but she had complained of not feeling well and he insisted she stay home to rest. It seemed she had taken his order to heart. He stood utterly still, watching her as she breathed, slow and easy. Good, he hadn’t woken her, Mahal be blessed. Shutting the door quietly, he went upstairs on tiptoe to shower and change, wearing his soft clothes now. She hasn’t woken yet, by the time he crept back down, so he set to making dinner. He knew she had set out ingredients in the fridge for that stir-fry that she and Riordan loved so much, so he started making that. He was nothing like his brother, as far as culinary skill, but he could manage this much with ease.

Riordan came out of his room, dropping into a chair at the table. “Mom wanted to talk to you as soon as you got home.” He said, watching his father cook. “Do you have to put the mushrooms in?”

“Poor hobbit ye’d make.” Bofur chuckled, going light on the mushrooms as a compromise.

“I’d rather be a dwarf,” Riordan sniffed.

Bofur grinned at him, “A foine one ye’d be! But I’d love ye just de same if ye were as ye are now.” He left the skillet on low and went over to his son. “Get yer essay writ?”

“Yeah, but I dunno about it… history is boring.” Riordan huffed, crossing his arms. “I don’t care about the old presidents.”

Raising his brows, the bearded man shook his head. “Now now, I’m sure ‘tis no’ all that bad.”

The boy grimaced, “it’s boring. I bet you didn’t have to learn about your old kings in school.”

“No…” Bofur agreed slowly, shaking his head. “We didn’t have school. No’ loike ye know.” He could see Riordan perk up. “See, we learned our history through song, and tales of old, from our elders, our parents and families.”

“That is way cooler than history class!”

“Yeah, well, you have class and that’s that.” Piper said from the doorway, smiling at the two of them. “Bo, dear, can we talk?” She smiled as he nodded. “Rio, half-pint, could you—?”

“I’ll go,” Riordan got up and shook his head. “If it’s that serious I don’t want to be here!” Hands in the air he scampered off outside to practice with his soccer ball.

Piper smiled and walked over to Bofur, wrapping her arms around him. “How was market today?”

“Sold e’ery last woodshavin’,” He replies, drawing her into a hug, kissing her forehead. It was sweet, but he was also checking for any fever. Which she had none, so he felt relieved. “How was yer rest?”

“Restful!” Piper declared wittily, her smile cheeky. “But I have news!”

“Oh?”

Piper reaches into her sweatpants pocket and pulled out a pink and white stick. “Look!” She held it up, showing him the indicator on it.

“Plus? Plus.” His eyes widened and he jumped, feet apart and arms held out in shock, “Plus!”

“Plus!” She agreed, setting the pregnancy test down in time to be pulled into his arms and spun about the kitchen. “Oh, Bo!”

“Amrâlimê!” He cried, kissing her soundly, time and again. “Ah, me lass!” Tears welled in his eyes and talked down his cheeks, but he couldn’t care at all. He was so overjoyed. “Me darlin’ wife!”

Piper grinned as she was set down and she snuggled close to him as he held her tenderly. “We did it.”

“Aye, we did. But we’ve a long way t’ go yet.”

She lifted her head and smiled up into his dark eyes. “True. But that’s the best part.”

#thegreatestdistance #bofur #thehobbit #tale teller's daily writing challenge 2019 #fic

3 notes · View notes

doodlingadventures · 7 years

Text

Paperwork was boring

Ehhh, so this is a fic. Not the one I previewed, I got frustrated with that one and I completed this.... ( If you have been following me for a while you’ll have already noticed that I have serious problems of focus so.. no big surprise)

I just wanted them to be happy for 5 minutes. This is the result. It’s probably very weird. Dunno, the original tittle when I started writting it this summer was “Taran Zhu writes a torrid novel”

You can imagine.

(Unedited, Hookie read it a bit and encouraged me)

3045 words. NSFW. Tyrajin = Vol’jin/Tyrathan. Kind of AUish. Sorry if you find it OOC- ish, feel free to give your opinion.

Paperwork was boring, alright.

And tedious.

And... he was losing track again.

Vol’jin rubbed his eyes for a second and then sighed. Just a few more things and he would be finished for the aftern… Night. It was night already.

Another sigh, and the Troll let his eyes wander around the Pandaren room a bit. Sparse as the rest of the monastery, of course, but not unwelcoming. Vol’jin felt lucky that he could come here again; to see that it had been reconstructed, and to watch new and old recruits of the Shadopan practice on its grounds once more filled him with both relief and joy.

He was there with the excuse of mending the affronts of the previous Warchief against Pandaria, to speak to her leaders, mostly Taran Zhu, and debate other matters. Of course it also served as a much needed change of air after too much time spent inside Grommash hold, and as a way of seeing some friends, Chen, Yalia… Tyrathan.

The hunter was currently sitting on a simple bench across the room, concentrated on his own business, which was doing some maintenance on his weapons it seemed, but in the most silent manner. After… everything, this was one of the few ways they could still see each other, and Vol’jin had to be thankful to Taran Zhu for allowing them this little haven. Of course the elder Monk had no reason to oppose to it since Vol’jin DID work on the reasons which brought him there (and there was a strange hint of glee in his eyes when asked about the matter), but still.

The Shadowhunter sighed once more and resumed working on the files scattered across the table. Saurfang was perfectly capable of handling Orgrimmar while he wasn’t there, and so was Vanira with the Darkspears, but the goddamn paperwork… That was his responsibility, AND he would get them done. Thankfully his companion had been patient with…

At that moment Vol’jin felt a light touch on his knee, and it snapped him out of his train of thought. Tearing his eyes away from the papers, the shadowhunter saw Tyrathan Khort kneeling calmly between his legs, his hands placed on the interior of his thighs and the left side of his face resting against the bare blue skin.

The Troll looked at his human, taken aback for a few seconds. The man simply offered him a quiet smile, his right hand slowly caressing the way up from his knee, almost to his groin, then the way back while his eyes looked straight into Vol’jin’s . - Oh, don’t mind me, keep working - he said, looking perfectly comfortable where he was.

-... - The troll opened his mouth, but said nothing in the end, going back to his papers and trying to focus on them, even if the hand traveling the way up his thigh was the most distracting sensation, these had to be finished...

Not even a minute later, Vol’jin felt the touch of a pair of lips kissing the inside of his thigh. He tried to remain still, watching how the human kissed a slow trail up, each wet touch of his mouth against the blue skin accompanied by a warm breath that sent shivers right up to the Darkspear’s spine. The Troll unconsciously fisted his hands over the table, feeling the face of the hunter come closer to his groin with each kiss, to a point where his nose almost brushed his (tightening) underwear. But the man stopped right there, opening his mouth a bit more to bite into the thigh’s soft flesh.

It wasn’t a hard bite, with his teeth the human couldn’t have pierced his skin even if he had tried, but the sensation made Vol’jin’s leg twitch nonetheless, a shaky gasp escaping him.

-Tyrathan - he muttered while watching the man move from one thigh to the other. The hunter looked up at him, perfectly calm when he sucked on the flesh of the opposite leg and let go with a wet pop. Both knew that would become a very visible mark.

-Yes? - He may have separated his mouth from the other’s thigh, but he kept his fingers traveling back and forth through their flesh.

-What be ya doin’? - Vol’jin had tried to not sound like he was out of breath, but he was clearly failing.

Tyrathan raised and eyebrow - what does it look like?

-Ya know dat be not what I ...- The man chose that moment to dig his fingers in the blue skin while he was still trailing them up, efficiently interrupting his friend.

Learning how sensitive Vol’jin thighs were had truly been a joy.

-You couldn’t have noticed, you have been too busy, but at this hour everybody is either occupied with finishing their training, their chores, or getting ready to prepare dinner - he went back to the unattended thigh in that moment, planting a kiss right beside his first mark - even Taran Zhu is going to stay at one part of the monastery for a good while. - The man felt how Vol’jin’s legs had started to slightly tremble under his attentions, and he couldn't help but smile - also, you looked like you needed a break.

-Ya be keepin’ track of everytin’ huh? - the Troll managed to say. He was almost bending in half over Tyrathan, elbows supporting his weight on the border of the provisional desk as he tried to keep his cool, which was becoming harder each time the man kissed, caressed, scratched or bit the flesh of his thighs, always coming dangerously close to his crotch, but never actually going beyond the clothing.

By the time the hunter decided to undo and remove the garments that formed the Troll’s “belt” and half-of-a-skirt, minutes later, his thighs were covered in marks of bites and scratches, and shaking from the overstimulation. When the man ran his hands from his knees to almost his waist once more, Vol’jin inhaled sharply and his legs jumped, nails scratching the desk’s surface - T...Tyrathan, please.

-Hush - was the human’s response while he moved his hands the way back - you promised me I could take my time with this and you wouldn't touch, remember?

-I be promisin’ ya, but - his own shaky gasp interrupted him when the man bit, quite hard, a part of the skin that was still unmarked - but dis... be... torture. Ya be takin’ too...long.

-Even if I had all the night, I don’t think that would be enough time to enjoy these - he said, kissing the reddening mark.

Vol’jin pressed his forehead against the wood of the table, toes curling on the stone floor - Ya be havin’ the weirdest fixation with my thighs, huma...

Tyrathan actually smacked, although not very hard, the Troll’s thigh. It caught his friend by surprise - You walk around in this… poor excuse for an armor, even in this weather, and then you get surprised when they get my attention? It’s not fixation, it’s honest to the Light curiosity.

-There be nothin’ wron’ wit my clothing. - The man could perfectly perceive the upset tone in the Darkspear’s words, but he was not deterred by it.

-The only thing you have protected with this is your goddamn shoulder, Vol’jin - he retorted, hitting the same spot with his palm once more, and this time the Troll let out a strangled moan. He was panting heavily and shaking from head to toe, but he kept his word, hands balled into fists on the wood. Tyrathan sighed, and then softly kissed the reddened skin - sorry, I am being unfair with you - his hands carefully pushed at his friend’s knees, separating his legs some more - when you lend me the chance I just couldn’t help myself - another kiss, this one beside the first one, and another, next to it. -Look at me. Please?

It took him a moment, but the Troll complied and lifted himself from the table, returning the hunter’s gaze. His face paint, although smeared in some parts, hid the blushing of his face; however, the lovely purplish tone was perfectly visible on his ears.

The man placed his hand over Vol’jin’s cock and slowly caressed it over the tensed fabric, up and down, a couple times. He heard a small growl and the sound of nails scratching wood, and couldn’t help but smile, freeing the troll’s pulsating erection from his underwear and wrapping both hands around it. With his thumbs he used the precum gathered at the tip to slick down the shaft, stroking up and down, drawing a low and shaky moan from his companion’s throat. Tyrathan looked up to find Vol’jin’s intense gaze focused on him, eyes burning with barely restrained desire, but just as he had promised, he kept still, letting him do what he wanted.

The man shifted his weight on his knees a moment, leaning his head forward, then looked up when he was inches away from the Troll’s dick, locking eyes with him and giving it a long lick, almost from the base to the tip. Vol’jin shuddered and groaned, but his eyes never left Tyrathan’s, and this encouraged the hunter. The salty flavor didn’t disgust him, so the Man sucked on the tip and teased the slit, thumb pads massaging the pulsating veins up and down, then using his palms to slick and pump the whole shaft with the help of his own saliva.

-Tyrathan… - he looked up when he heard his name, seeing the way his friend was trembling and panting. The hunter had wondered how long would the Troll last after he had spent so much time teasing and stimulating his thighs and nothing else; by the look of it, he realized that probably it wouldn’t be that much more. Because of it, and although he still lacked some practice, Tyrathan decided to open his mouth and swallow the most he could of the other’s cock, just to see if that would tip him over. It wasn’t much that he could get since Vol’jin was still a Troll and… very well proportioned, but the way he moaned his name and thrusted his hips forward told the hunter he had gotten enough. He drew back slightly as to not gag on it and bobbed his head at the same rhythm as his hands, listening to his companion’s low moans and feeling how his body tensed up.

Right at that moment, for some reason, Tyrathan decided to use one of his hands to mark a trail with his nails on Vol’jin’s right thigh, and that was what tipped him over the edge.

The Troll’s warning was drowned in a loud groan, hands gripping the table’s border and seed spilling in the hunter’s mouth, whom, despite his lack of practice, managed to efficiently drive him through his orgasm. The sensation of something hot hitting the back of his throat was still a strange one, but he swallowed it all, not drawing back until Vol’jin’s climax simmered down.

Tyrathan coughed and cleaned his mouth on his forearm, looking at the stains for a few moments, silent; his jaw was a bit sore and the foreign taste remained in his tongue, but he realized it wasn’t something that would stop him from repeating this. However, any other thought he had got interrupted when he felt a three fingered hand gently lift his chin, and he found two amber eyes calmly looking at him.

The Troll traced the man’s bottom lip with his thumb pad, and Tyrathan couldn’t stop his mouth from curving upwards in a soft smile. - Was it good? - he asked, and then instantly regretted sounding so ridiculously insecure.

From his part, Vol’jin simply placed his hands beneath the human’s shoulders and lifted him as if he weighed nothing, sitting him on the table and kissing his forehead - very good.

Now the man felt ashamed for the sudden swell of pride blooming in his chest at that simple praise.

Luck would have it that the human, sitting on the provisional desk, was at the same height as his Troll on a chair. Because of this, the Darkspear could comfortably kiss his face, purring softly and brushing his tusks on his companion’s paler skin and greying hair. Sometimes Tyrathan didn’t know if he loved or hated the fact that Vol’jin was so much taller than him.

The man gasped suddenly, feeling one of the troll’s hands stroke slowly over his crotch. If he had said that giving all those attentions to Vol’jin and watching him react did not affect him, he would have been telling one big lie, however, he had not done it expecting retribution.

-Wait, th… you don’t have to - he murmured when noticing the Troll’s skillful hand undoing the front of his pants. His friend looked at him in the eyes and smiled.

-It be fair - he said, kissing him - and I be wantin’ to. - The man put his hands around the Darkspear’s shoulders and kissed him back, pressing their foreheads together for an instant. There was something he wanted to say, but the sensation of Vol’jin’s fingers stroking his erection made him bit his bottom lip and keep silent. The Troll easily reached his neck from his position, biting the paler skin playfully, and sometimes those sharp fangs were just shy of piercing the flesh, but the man wasn't afraid of this happening. He noticed then that, at some point, Vol’jin had sneaked his other hand to his chest, (civilian clothes were just so blissfully easy to undo) and was teasing a specific part of his anatomy. Tyrathan bit his lip harder when he felt his nipple perk under the touch of the Troll’s rough finger pads, hips thrusting forward into the Troll’s hand when those same fingers pinched the nub.

-Nnn, fa… faster, please - he muttered, holding tighter onto the other’s shoulders. Vol’jin complied, speeding up the rhythm at which he pumped the hunter’s erection and moving his hand to tease the other pec. The man shivered and gasped, feeling closer to release with each stroke, touch and bite, hands going up to tangle on locks of wild red hair.

The Troll left his neck and kissed his lips briefly, whispering something against them, looking into his eyes. - (Come) - the Zandali tones sent a shiver right through the man’s spine, making him look away, body burning up and tensing, close, so close, so … - (Come for me, Tyrathan)

The hunter bit down his lip and arched his back, spilling into the other’s hand with a muffled moan. Vol’jin held him all the while, kissing his forehead and his closed eyes, lowering him from the table so he was sitting sideways on his lap then, body resting against his chest.

Tyrathan opened his eyes after a few seconds, feeling contented and relaxed on the Darkspear's arms. He turned his head when he heard the Troll rummaging through something, and realized he was cleaning his hand on the cloth for drying the ink from the pen. Then he noticed that, despite everything, Vol’jin had managed to move away most of the documents to one side of the table, and the ink to the other, so they wouldn’t end up ruined.

Always with the job on your mind.

-Hey - whispered the hunter, efficiently catching the Troll’s attention.

His companion looked down and smiled at him - hey - he said, and then chuckled.

Tyrathan raised an eyebrow - What?

The Darkspear licked his thumb pad and rubbed under the man’s eye - ya be havin’ paint on ya face.

-Oh… - The hunter touched his forehead and then looked at his fingers, where he found traces of white and black - well, this goes away with water, doesn’t it?

The Troll nodded, and then brushed above the humans collarbone - here too… these other ones be not goin’ away soon tho - he added, offering Tyrathan an unapologetic smile.

The man didn’t even try to look down, knowing that his neck and shoulders were covered in love bites. - I think we’re even on that. - He answered, getting himself comfortable on the Troll’s chest once more. His scarf was next to his weaponry on the bench he had spent sitting on most of the afternoon, so the marks did not worry him.

-Hmm, I gonna be findin’ a way to hide those soon enough.

The man opened his eyes and looked up at him - Well, you could simply find some trainee trousers and wear them, you know.

Vol’jin remained silent for a moment - be dis just your ploy to be gettin’ me to wear pants, Tyrathan Khort?

-Of course not, - he said, hand extending to caress part of his friend’s messed up mohawk - I truly thought you needed that break… but I won’t deny it had a beneficial side effect.

The Troll’s chest vibrated with laughter, - ya be makin’ sure nobody gonna be interruptin’ us, ya be waitin’ for me to be lowerin’ my guard - his tusks brushed hoary hair when he lowered his face and kissed the top of the man’s head - ya be preparin’ a trap and I be fallin’ for it. I be surprised, ya clever human.

-Oh, shush - The man tried to not let it show how much he liked when he got praised by him, and focused his atention on something else - Does that mean you’ll let me take the lead more often? - he asked, fixing his clothes.

-Hmm…I be thinkin’ not.

Tyrathan drew back from the Troll’s chest and looked at him with a cocked eyebrow - Well, damn me if you don’t love always being the one in command, Warchief.

Vol’jin offered him a shameless smile and proudly kept his head high, not affected at all by his sarcasm - As it should be, little man.

The hunter pushed his shoulder and laughed - oh, you’re the worst - He then stood up, hands at both sides of the Troll’s face - come on, we should get at least presentable for dinner with the others … - his fingertips traced the blurred limits of the other’s facepaint. This, what they had, was still a secret afterall.

The Darkspear nuzzled his hands and sighed - you be right. - Vol’jin looked at his human for a long moment and then smiled - Will ya be waitin for me at midnight?

Tyrathan returned the smile and kissed his nose - Of course.

----

If you reached here, thanks for reading!

I have been thinking on making little stories like this with them, like, what if Legion never happened, so they kept meeting in secret from time to time in Pandaria.

Dunno, there are many headcanons I could share with this idea, I would thank feedback about this

#tyrajin #vigilserpens #why can't they be happy blizzAAAAARDDDDD #random tittle is random #writting #long post #vol'jin #Tyrathan #fanfic

28 notes · View notes

rgr-pop · 7 years

Text

READING, continued.

I recently showed somebody Kim Phillips-Fein’s [History of] Conservatism state-of-the-field essay. (I love and will read absolutely any state-of-the-field essay, but this one is actually relevant to my “field.”)

I think we were having a conversation about David Harvey’s Brief History of Neoliberalism. I don’t think there are very many people more right about neoliberalism in a broad sense than David Harvey, or more qualified to talk about it, and my general stance on him is that he is pretty much the best we got. But my (weak, developing) take on this work--that I really wanna test in a closer read, Later--is that some of its claims about the history of neoliberalism (or just, political economy very generally) in the U.S are not quite right. I don’t agree with his timeline, I want more from his specifics. And it’s fine: it’s disciplinary (Harvey is by no means a historian, but there are very, very few historians cited in this History) as well as national[ist] (it’s true that my complaints are that I want this transnational work by a British scholar to be more U.S-centric!)

So what I really want is for more historians to engage more closely with the specific historical arguments he makes. (Which isn’t necessarily, like, a fair thing to do, but I want it.) There are some historians who cite and engage with Harvey regularly, for whom Harvey structures a theoretical framework (among them Tracy Neumann, who you all should know by now I adore). But, to bring this around, historians of Conservatism (or even of Capitalism, to go there) are not necessarily interested in a larger project of advancing arguments about capital for its own sake. (Plz do not quote me on this because I know that I am oversimplifying.)

The clearest example of what I’m gesturing at is Phillips-Fein’s characterization--which I would say is the dominant framing--that the driving question of political history today (or 2011 I guess) is a question of when, how, and whether the New Deal state was dismantled. Most of the historians she is talking about ask these questions with great nuance, some of them transnationally. (Though it is a national question, unlike the question of neoliberalism.) I think what this body of literature can offer the theoretical takes on neoliberalism is a longer view of the mechanisms of capital and their relationship to the state--which should be where and how we ask questions of neoliberalism. I also think that some of these historians need to take geographers more seriously, which means taking Marxist thought more seriously. This is all Harvey gets in this essay:

Theorists of neoliberalism, such as David Harvey, emphasize the failure of Keynesian economic policy and the emergence of a newly aggressive class politics as the result of the economic crises of the decade.

And I don’t even think it’s right, exactly.

When I showed my friend this essay, I also told her that I think it shorts Matt Lassiter’s The Silent Majority in a dire way. I mean, I’m biased, I like this book and Lassiter so much. It gets a spot in the footnotes. (”Political developments in the South, in other words, affected the way conservative activists around the country approached the question of state power.”) From my own (extremely positioned, lol) theoretical perspective, classifying Lassiter’s book as a book about social movements rather than a book about property, about capital, is a mistake. And it’s a big one, I think. Since 2011 History of Capitalism has ascended (and so has Nathan Connolly!) (who did his PhD with Matt Lassiter!), so I don’t think a political historian would write a state-of-the-field essay today without the word “property” in the first paragraph. Or, I dunno, I’m hopeful.

But I had entirely forgotten that Matt Lassiter wrote a response to Phillips-Fein’s essay for the JAH. It is not about what I am pointing to, per se. It’s about the historiography:

Academic historians have spent the past several decades dismantling the myth of the liberal consensus in postwar American politics, exploring the contradictions and limits of New Deal and Great Society policy making, and chronicling the parallel rise of the New Right. In Alan Brinkley's influential formulation, “taking conservatism seriously” is now institutionalized as a guiding principle of U.S. political history—a once necessary though now reflexive corrective to the consensus scholarship that caricatured conservatives as paranoid extremists or ignored them altogether. But in the understandable mission to explain the apparent earthquake caused by Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, the new political history has inadvertently replicated some of the blind spots of the liberal consensus school that it supplanted, especially through a linear declension/ascension narrative that has conflated the fate of the New Deal with the political triumph of the New Right. [...]

The most problematic tendency in New Right historiography is the employment of a teleological approach in which the tropes of the triumph of conservatism or the rightward turn become the narrative climax of broader developments with more diverse causes and consequences, such as the growth of the suburbs and the sun belt, the forces of racial backlash and white privilege, public policies of economic deregulation, the wars on crime and drugs, and the political culture of antitax individualism.

Here is a good take:

It made sense for Lisa McGirr to structure her case study of the New Right in Orange County, California, as a rise-of-Reagan narrative, but it is a misinterpretation to view her Suburban Warriors as a story about suburban politics writ large rather than a focused account of conservative political mobilization. Books such as Robert O. Self's American Babylon and my own work in The Silent Majority look beyond electoral realignment and plotlines of right-left polarization to argue that the politics and policies of “suburban secession” illuminate national and bipartisan/nonpartisan defenses of racial privilege, class exclusion, and homeowner property rights.

I think one thing that I am thinking about is the over-reliance on a model of neoliberalism that is periodizing (ie, wherein neoliberalism is a phase) (we do this with “financialization” as well, but I think that’s workable). I mean, you can argue that it has to be this way--I would argue that you can delineate the period of neoliberalism but that a history of neoliberalism would take a longer look at its devices.

I mean, Lassiter’s essay also straight-up ends in a call for histories of neoliberalism:

In my view, untangling the dilemmas of our own time will require paying much less attention to the free-market mantras of the Tea Party movement or the conventional wisdom of a red-blue national schism, and spending more time exploring questions such as how the $700 billion bipartisan bailout of Wall Street in 2008 illuminates the socialization of risk for major corporations and the privatization of risk for ordinary households, an underlying feature of modern American politics.

One more thing: I opened Andrew Needham’s Power Lines to find to what extent he cites Harvey, and this is the endnote:

In emphasizing infrastructure as a form of capital set in place, I draw upon David Harvey’s broader ideas about urbanization in general as a form of capital accumulation that further facilitates the economic processes of urban life.

nice 😎

#landscapes of production #theory #undisciplining #I actually don't like EVERY incarnation of the city as capital accumulation #but when a historian uses it I melt

12 notes · View notes

artificialqueens · 5 years

Text

nobody knows where we might end up, chapter three (branjie) - holtzmanns

(read on ao3) | (tumblr)

“Great. It’s a date, then. Well, not a date. A study date. Studying time. You know what I mean.” Vanessa claps a hand over her mouth before she can say anything worse. “Ugh.”

Brooke giggles, reaching up to bring Vanessa’s hand down from her face, and Vanessa prays to the Lord that she doesn’t see the blush rising on her cheeks. “I got it. Don’t worry.”

AN: Thank you so much for the lovely response to this fic! I appreciate it so much. Writ is the best for being both a wonderful beta and roaster and this story would Not exist without them.

(then)

“Yes Mama, I’m eating well.” Vanessa rolls her eyes when her mom replies on the other end of the phone in rapid fire Spanish. “No, I’m not just eating pasta, I promise.”

“I don’t want you to waste away, mija. You need a vegetable every now and then.” Vanessa can almost picture her mom on the other end, phone on speaker as she drives to work.

“I eat vegetables! Sometimes.” She’s trying to, at least. Learning to cook in a small residence suite kitchen is hard. She should have gotten a meal plan, but past her had thought that making her own meals would be a more fun experience.

Past her hadn’t been the smartest.

“Fucking idiot, trying to cut into my lane - what did you say, Vanessa?” It makes Vanessa snort. Her mom had been the one to teach her to drive, which more than explains her own trash talking when she’s behind the wheel.

“I’ll leave you to drive, Mama, the lecture is starting soon anyway. Be safe.” She hangs up as her mom yells at her to come visit for Thanksgiving.

Vanessa looks around at the students trickling into the lecture hall, eyes peeled for a certain blonde in particular. Her bag rests on the seat beside her, saving it for Brooke.

The floor hangout had been fun. Real fun. She’s never seen Brooke loosen up, their times during lecture spent focusing on the course material. But making her smile, twirling her as she danced - Vanessa wants to make Brooke that happy again.

Brooke looks tired when she falls into the seat beside Vanessa, moving her bag. Vanessa reaches out to fix the collar of Brooke’s shirt, which is sticking up on one side, and doesn’t miss the way that her cheeks turn pink.

“What’s wrong, B?”

“Nothing, I just…” Brooke fiddles with her laptop case, biting her lip, “I still don’t fully understand the last lecture, and was trying to go over it again before class because we’re starting new things, and if I don’t get that then what if I don’t understand what he teaches today-”

“Okay, slow down.” Vanessa holds up a hand, making Brooke stop her rambling and take in a breath. “How about we go over it together? You have any free time after class today?”

Score. Vanessa wants to pat herself on the back. She’s been trying to figure out a way to get Brooke to hang out with her for weeks, but couldn’t think of how to ask without sounding desperate. This way? They can both get work done too.

She has no clue if Brooke is also gay, but who cares? It’s not like that. It’s not. Sure, dancing and goofing around with Brooke was nice, and sure she wants to do it again more than anything, but…she also wants to be her friend. Help her out a little.

Well. More than her friend, but still.

Brooke looks at her in surprise. “Yeah? You’d wanna do that?”

“Sure, why not? And you can teach me the mnemonic you used to memorize the cranial nerves so damn fast.”

Brooke smiles, a real smile, and it makes Vanessa grin in response. “I’d like that.”

“Great. It’s a date, then. Well, not a date. A study date. Studying time. You know what I mean.” Vanessa claps a hand over her mouth before she can say anything worse. “Ugh.”

Brooke giggles, reaching up to bring Vanessa’s hand down from her face, and Vanessa prays to the Lord that she doesn’t see the blush rising on her cheeks. “I got it. Don’t worry.”

The professor clears his throat then, draws their attention to the tricuspid valve on the PowerPoint slide, and Vanessa leans back in her seat with a sigh of relief. The adrenaline rush from asking Brooke to simply hang out was enough to power a small town, at least. She’s too weak for this girl.

The three hour lecture feels like it flies by with the promise of later. She likes cardio, she gets cardio, it makes sense in her head.

Brooke, however, radiates with nervous energy that becomes stronger and stronger as the lecture goes on. Vanessa turns to her at the break.

“Don’t be freaking yourself out.”

“I’m not.” Brooke’s protest is feeble.

“Imma distract you.” Vanessa racks her brain. She knows these spirals, she’s been in enough herself. “Wanna hear about my dog, Riley?”

Brooke turns out to be a real animal person, cooing at all of the pictures of Riley that Vanessa proudly shows her. In turn, Brooke tells her about her two cats back home, Henry and Apollo.

“Is that Henry in a sweater?” Vanessa nearly screeches at the picture that Brooke shows her.

Brooke can’t hold back a grin. “He’s so fluffy that his fur was sticking up every which way after I took it off of him. He strangely likes wearing it, though.”

Vanessa whistles. “Damn. One time I put Riley in boots to protect his feet from the salt and ice and he walked in a snowbank on purpose to lose ‘em.”

Brooke looks lighter when the lecture starts up again, and Vanessa has to resist the urge to reach out and squeeze her hand.

She racks her brain throughout the second half of the lecture of where she can take Brooke to study. Not the silent study zone, where they wouldn’t be able to talk, not the group study area which is always way too noisy, but-

“Psst.” She nudges Brooke, who looks surprised by Vanessa talking in class. “You ever been to the top floor of the library?”

Vanessa tugs her there after class, weaving between the shelves of old books and stacks on the floor to pull her to a window overlooking the rest of campus. The floor is empty save for the two of them, most students occupying the study areas on the first and second floors.

Brooke whistles. “How did you find this?”

“I like to walk around while memorizing things, sometimes. Helps my brain think. Somehow ended up here one day.” Vanessa shrugs. “I like it up here. It’s quiet. Peaceful.”

“Sure is.” Brooke’s voice is a whisper as she looks out the window, seeing the rest of the campus buildings from above. “I can see our residence building from here.”

“Pretty cool, huh?” Vanessa grins, setting her bag down on the table beside the window. “Now c’mon. I promised you a cardio review.”

Vanessa’s real glad that her evening lecture has been cancelled, her professor emailing in the morning that they were going to be out with the flu. When she looks at her watch, she nearly yelps when noticing the time.

“8:30 already? Damn, it’s been what, like, four hours?” She looks over at Brooke, who closes her physiology textbook with a thud.

“Jeez, you’re right. It hasn’t felt that long at all.” Brooke’s loosened up throughout their study session, pulling her feet up onto her chair and freeing her hair from the braid it was in so that her it cascades down over her shoulders in waves.

“Time flies in good company.” Vanessa winks at her, second-guessing the action as soon as she does it because is it too forward? But then she sees the way that Brooke blushes, smiles shyly back at her, and her heart settles down from the flips it had started to do.

“Thank you, by the way. You definitely didn’t have to spend so much time going over all of this with me.” Brooke’s facial expression is tentative as she peeks over at Vanessa while packing up her things.

Vanessa waves off Brooke’s words. “I got stuff out of it too, helped me review everything. Now we’re both set for the first two units.”

Of course, she wants to spend as much time as she can get with Brooke, but that’s neither here nor there. Nor does Brooke need to know.

Brooke looks at her phone and bites her lip. “Shoot. I was supposed to meet my roommate to grab dinner with her at that sushi place on campus. I gotta go.”

Brooke pauses, though, turning to Vanessa with an expression that she can’t decipher.

“Do you want to do this again next week? Make it a thing? I had fun.” Brooke’s looking at her like she’s absolutely terrified of what her answer may be. As if Vanessa would ever say no.

“Hell yeah. I had fun with you too, B.” Vanessa grins then, remembering the words she had said to Brooke the first time that they had met in lecture. “Same time next week?”

“Definitely.”

A standing study date with a cute girl. Well, not a date, but still. Vanessa’s happy with it.

“Silky. My sweet Silk with the good milk. I am in love.” Vanessa flops onto her bed in the most dramatic fashion that she can.

Her roommate doesn’t even look up from her book. “You said the same thing last week after trying the lasagna in the dining hall that you bought. It wasn’t even that good.”

Vanessa rolls over, supports herself on her elbows. “It was, ‘cause I didn’t have to cook it. But seriously.”

Silky turns a page of her book. “Who you in love with now?”

“Her name’s Brooke. She’s in Human Physiology One with me. Lives on the other end of the hall, actually. She’s so cute, Silk.” Vanessa thinks of how they basically spent the entire evening together, and from the way her heart starts to beat faster, she feels like a schoolgirl with a crush.

“Want me to hook you up with this one, too?” Silky’s been her best friend and wing-woman from high school, responsible for multiple of Vanessa’s girlfriends in the past.

“No, not this time.” Vanessa shakes her head. Divine Silky intervention just wouldn’t feel…right. “I don’t even know if she’s gay.”

“You lesbians are always a fucking mystery to me. How you gonna woo her, then?”

Vanessa shrugs. “I dunno. We just studied together for like four hours, though.” So what if her voice comes out a bit dreamier than intended?

“Oh so she a nerd too, huh? Match made in heaven.” Silky snorts. “Someone else at your batshit level.”

“Hey.” Vanessa pouts at her. “I like human biology. It’s fun. And so does she.”

Silky waves a hand at her. “Can’t relate. Thank God I didn’t have to take bio past grade eleven. Imma stick with my English major, thank you very much.”

Vanessa makes a face. “Beats me how you can write such long ass papers without getting bored.”

“You ramble so much about wack ass shit as it is. Put that down on paper and channel it into something constructive. Not too hard.”

“Boring.” Vanessa sticks her tongue out at her. “Anyways. I need to get her to like me.”

Silky snickers, looking up from her book. “You sound like you’re in middle school.”

Vanessa is unperturbed. “Laugh all you want now, but imma make it happen.”

Silky finally puts her book down, looking up at Vanessa. “Just be yourself, boo. If she’s any good at all, she’ll like you for you.You shouldn’t have to change yourself for anyone else.”

Vanessa raises an eyebrow. “Surprisingly profound, even for you.”

Silky opens her book again. “What can I say? Sometimes I have moments where I channel the spirit of fucking Mr. Rogers himself.”

“I’d have watched you on TV as a kid. Even though I would have gotten so scarred by what I saw.” Vanessa ducks from the pillow that Silky tosses in her direction. “See! Already under attack.”

“Talk shit, get hit. Now let me read.” Silky’s voice is good natured, and Vanessa can’t help but grin. She’s lucky that she’s gotten to room with Silky for their first year. Better her than a random stranger that she’d have to get to know.

(now)

Vanessa pulls her coat tighter around her, crossing her arms to try and keep herself from shivering. She had forgotten how fucking cold Toronto is, even in the early fall.

Los Angeles had spoiled her. The sun, the dry heat…she had thrived from her first day of medical school up to becoming a cardiothoracic fellow. But she had needed more. Wanted to go farther. Being back in Toronto will give her that - at least, she hopes so.

She’s closer in location to her mom now, at least, and has her if nothing else.

“Morning, Dr. Mateo!” Dr. O’Hara waves at her from the Starbucks line.

Vanessa waves back, weaving in between the crowd to get closer to her. “Ready for our joint consult today?”

“Very much so. I’m excited to work with you.” Dr. O’Hara’s grin is infectious, making Vanessa break out into a smile too despite the ridiculous early hour.

“Likewise. I’ve always wanted to try a transcatheter aortic valve replacement. Didn’t have access to the materials back in LA.”

“Really?” Dr. O’Hara looks surprised at that. “I thought that they’d have everything a surgeon would need in the US.”

Vanessa shrugs. “Nah. The hospital I worked at wasn’t a cardiac centre, so they stuck to the basics, referred out to other centres for more complex procedures. Had to fight to do the ones that I did.”

“Speaking of which, the pericardial closure that you were able to do successfully and wrote about? Amazing. I hope you have the chance to do one here.”

Vanessa grins. Her new colleagues, especially in the cardiac unit, have been incredibly supportive, hearing out her out of the box ideas and helping her find research evidence to back them up. More support than she had in LA.

Outside of cardiac, though? A different story.

Most people are fine. She’s grabbed lunch with the ortho attendings and had coffees with the peds team, as well as the neuro team.

Well. Most of the neuro team. Save for one.

Seeing Dr. Hytes around has been fucking unsettling. The woman broke her heart when they were so young and the sting of the break up is still there, no matter how many girlfriends she’s been through since then.

Dr. Hytes had been her first real love. And her last, no matter how much of a romantic at heart she remains to this day.

It seems like the woman has closed off her heart to the world, too, from the way everyone else seems to be intimidated by her.

“Dr. O’Hara,” Vanessa starts, the other woman nodding after taking a sip of her drink, “what’s the story on Dr. Hytes?”

“Dr. Hytes? What about her?”

“What’s she like?” Vanessa knew what Dr. Hytes - Brooke - had been like years and years ago, in undergrad. Soft and vulnerable and learning to believe in herself no matter what her brain was telling her. The Dr. Hytes she’s seen twice now, though, is different. Closed off.

Also kind of a bitch.

“Why, you into her too?” Dr. O’Hara’s smile is wry.

“Not especially.” Vanessa wishes that Dr. Hytes wasn’t here, at the hospital. Bringing up old feelings that she most definitely doesn’t want to deal with while starting a new job. “What do you mean, ‘into her too’?”

“Bit of a ladykiller, that one. I swear she’s turned half of the nurses gay on my floor alone.”

“Okay, first of all, you can’t turn people gay. Doesn’t work like that. Second of all,” Vanessa raises an eyebrow, “go on.”

“She’s a great lay, apparently. Makes all the women after her go back for more. Not my cup of tea, personally, but Dr. Michaels slept with her once and swore that she came like, four times.” Asia whistles. “Her power.”

Vanessa scoffs. “Clearly you don’t know enough lesbians in your life. Not an outstanding number.”

Asia shrugs. “Hey, just reporting what I’ve heard. That your cup of tea?”

Vanessa wrinkles her nose. “Her? Not exactly.”

She had been, years ago. Vanessa knows better now. She’s not going to get burned again.

Though she wonders how good Dr. Hytes must be now to have so many of the women in the hospital fawning over her. Not that she wants to find out for herself.

“In or out of the sack, she’s a fucking neurosurgery god. Respect.” Dr. O’Hara points to a picture of Dr. Hytes hanging in the atrium, receiving some sort of award.

Vanessa has to hold herself back from rolling her eyes. “She really has all of you wrapped around her little finger.”

Vanessa remembers the Brooke from undergrad, so enamoured by neuro and the way the brain worked. No surprise that she’s become a neurosurgeon - and gotten the overinflated ego that comes with the title.

She just wishes that Dr. Hytes could do it in a different hospital. Not around her.

Vanessa is pissed.

Extremely pissed.

Sure, she’s been apprehensive about the consult meeting planned with the neuro team for one of their joint patients. Planning an aneurysm clipping for a patient with existing tachycardic issues should be easy, right?

Wrong.

Not when the main neuro lead is Dr. Hytes, who seems to be determined to undermine everything that she says.

“We’ll need to address the bloodflow before the clipping, should the patient’s tachycardia become an issue-”

“With all due respect, Dr. Mateo, your method doesn’t seem like a viable option for this patient-”

“Dr. Hytes, I assure you that my experience with this method with multiple patients during my previous practice and various papers written on it is enough to show that it is a viable option-”

“Regardless, this patient is a neuro priority first and foremost, and experimentation with a technique that hasn’t been previously tested at this facility is a rash choice-”

The rest of the meeting is more or less of the same. Not much gets done, not when the two lead attendings on the case spend it verbally sparring. Not that it’s Vanessa’s fault in the least.

“Dr. Hytes.” Vanessa spits the words at her as soon as they wrap up, storming over to her seat. “May we please speak outside?”

“What the hell is your problem?” Vanessa hisses the words at Dr. Hytes as soon as they’re in the hallway, watching as her eyes turn stormy as she follows her out into the hallway after leaving the conference room.

“Your idea is reckless and it isn’t appropriate for this patient. It’s my job to let everyone else know too.” Dr. Hytes looks practically bored. Vanessa has never been more angry.

“It’s not your job to undermine me in front of colleagues and a patient and their family, so forgive me for not accepting that bullshit.” She’s seething. Absolutely seething. Of course the fucking bitch is trying to make her look unprepared in front of everyone. What else did she expect?

“‘Maybe come prepared with better options and I won’t have to.” Dr. Hytes looks smug, too smug, and Vanessa has to ball her hands into fists to keep herself from doing anything stupid.

“Look.” Vanessa’s voice is louder now, probably enough to be heard down the hallway, but she doesn’t care. “You don’t know shit about cardiology. Never have, never will. I’m the only reason you never failed the cardio units back in undergrad. So get the fuck off my dick by pretending you know better than I do. Because you don’t.”

Dr. Hytes’ face turns cold, similar to the way it had been when Dr. West had introduced them on Vanessa’s first day. “You don’t get to talk to me like that.”

“Oh yeah? Says who? Unlike the rest of this hospital, I can see you for who you truly are. And the resulting image? Ugly. Unprofessional. Not as good as you like to think, up there on your high horse.” She spits the words, feeling the anger rise in her chest by the second.

Dr. Hytes takes a step forward, then another, looking down at her. Vanessa stares right back up at her, refusing to take a step backwards. She’s not one to be intimidated, and not by Dr. Hytes of all people.

“At least I got into med school on the first try. Because I am as good as I think I am.” Dr. Hytes hisses it at her, low enough so that the small crowd that has gathered around them can’t hear.

Of course she’d stoop that low. Of course. “Oh, fuck you.”

Vanessa turns on her heel, storms through the crowd. She’s had it. Had it with cocky surgeons who think that their disciplines are more important and can’t handle the idea of not being the number one priority at all times.

She can’t help but slam the door when she reaches her office, though has to resist the urge to hit her fist on the wall. She blinks back the angry tears threatening to fall.

Coming to Toronto was supposed to be a good thing. Being back home. Of course one of her ex-girlfriends feels the need to ruin everything for her.

She’s going to show Dr. Hytes up if it’s the last thing she does.

#rpdr fanfiction #branjie #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #lesbian au #hospital au #greys anatomy au #holtzmanns #nobody knows where we might end up #submission

26 notes · View notes