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levi-lover · 3 years

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New Light Part: 2

College Levi x Reader(Modern AU)

W/C: 5.2k

T/W: None

A/N: Levi is a moody English major who spends his free time reading at the local cafe. I’m having a lot of fun writing this ! (pic from pinterest)

I’ve put all the parts in one list here: New Light Masterlist

Levi’s POV

Levi and Erwin sat in silence on their drive home. The blinker would occasionally fill the car with a strong click. Levi counted the lit up rooms in the passing apartments. Five, Six, Seven… He wanted to keep his mind off of you, the way your hair framed your face, your hand caressing the mug, the way you pressed your lips together when you listened someone speak.

“So, how long have you known (Y/N)?” Erwin asked as if he knew Levi was thinking about you.

“A couple of months,” he responded.

“Do you like her?” Erwin prodded.

“She’s nice,” Levi said.

Erwin nodded, he knew better than to ask further.

This was how their conversions normally went, Erwin would begin with a blunt statement and Levi would respond in a short manner. From an outsider’s perspective, it might have seemed like the two men weren’t friends but this dynamic worked for them. Erwin was straightforward with what he wanted and Levi didn’t like talking about personal subjects, even with one of his closest friends.

When they arrived to their shared apartment, they said their goodnights and went into their rooms. Erwin had to be up early tomorrow for a debate meeting and Levi wanted to be alone. After they moved out of the dorms they decided to keep living together because it was the most cost effective option and plus Levi liked that Erwin was as neat as him, almost as neat. They lived in an old, walk-up apartment ten minutes away from Wall Rose University in a quiet neighborhood. They’ve been living there for three years now and had no plans to move out anytime soon.

Levi opened the window slightly to let the cool air in, raindrops fell from the gutter and filled the dark bedroom with gentle taps.. He laid down on the bed and breathed in the smell of the city and old books in his room. He closed his eyes and let his body melt into the bedsheets, he used the same lavender fabric softener his mom loved. Mmm, I should give her a call tomorrow, he thought. He felt his thoughts bounce around in his head but he was too tired to unravel them. Levi focused on his breathing and eventually his thoughts subdued into lenient bystanders.

There was silence around him when suddenly, you popped up in his thoughts. Levi let out a small sigh. Fuck, what are the odds of her knowing Hange. Hange of all people,the one person who doesn’t know how to shut up, Levi thought. Frustration began to fill his chest. He wanted you to meet his friends and he wanted to know more about you but he didn’t want it to happen like this. Levi wanted to do it right with you. He knew wasn’t the most charismatic or hospitable person and romance wasn’t his forte. Romance, Levi thought and chuckled. He remembered Erwin’s earlier question. Do I like her?

He sat up and pinched the bridge of his nose with his index and forefinger. He didn’t have a ton of experience with romance. His only relationship with Petra ended in a disaster, she broke up with him after feeling neglected for months. That was never Levi’s intent, he loved her but he didn’t know how to express it. Whenever he saw her on campus she would always give him a smile and wave which Levi would reciprocate. He regretted the way everything ended but he was thankful she didn’t hold a vengeance against him. He was 18 and foolish but he was older now and slightly less foolish.

Levi looked out the window and started to form a plan in his head. It was evident he had some sort of feelings for you, you were funny, pretty, easy to talk to and you cared about what he had to say. He smiled as he remembered how earnestly you looked at him while he explained the latest book he was reading, he started reading books he thought you might like. Shitballs, maybe I do like her. There was nothing he could do now, he didn’t want to do anything until he had a better understanding about what you were thinking. He nodded his head, proud of his plan.

The hardwood floor creaked as Erwin walked over to the bathroom. Outside of the window, the sky was beginning to glow with a soft orange hue. Levi closed the curtain, pulled off his clothes and tucked himself into bed. He curled his body around a pillow and slowly began to drift off, eager to wake up to begin his plan.

The crisp autumn hit your face as you opened the doors to the lecture hall. You felt light and airy after finishing your genetics midterm. It was one of the hardest tests you’ve taken but you felt okay about it. Hange had helped you study for the past week and their enthusiasm and studying techniques helped you out immensely. I owe them big time, you thought. Your phone buzzed in your pocket, it was Hange.

Hange: U FREAKING DID IT!!! IM SO PROUD XD

You: thank uuu, i feel good about it!

Hange: YAY! We’re out in the park blocks! Join us!

You: ok !

You stared at the screen and re-read the conversation. Join us...they must mean Levi and Erwin. You scoffed the tip of your boot into the pavement, the familiar feeling of nerves began to dance in your stomach. Slowly, you made your way to the park blocks, the on-campus park where students would have picnics and study sessions. Students began to pour out of lecture halls and other buildings, eager to celebrate the end of midterms week. There was an undeniable feeling of excitement as they cheered and laughed.

You stood at the edge of the park looking for the trio. Levi waved his hand from a picnic bench and smiled at you. Your heart momentarily stopped and you realized you’ve never seen him outside of the cafe. He was wearing a hunter green sweater and his black overcoat. The wind feebly moved through his hair but even from farway you could see the deep circles around his eyes. You made your way to the trio and gave out a half-hearted hello.

“(Y/N)! How do you feel?!” Hange shouted.

“Fucking relieved,” You said. Levi smiled.

“I’m proud of you, (Y/N). Hange told us about all the hours you studied for the exam.” Erwin gave you a thumbs up.

“Thanks, dude. How were your midterms?” You asked as you sat down next to Erwin.

“They went well! I think I got an A on my Political Theory exam but we’ll find out soon enough.”

“Erwin, you clown, you know you aced that test.” Hange rolled their eyes. “But thanks to the lovely Levi, I know I got an A on my essay.”

Levi frowned. “Tsk, I was surprised you even knew how to spell.”

Hange hit Levi’s shoulders and he swiped back.

“Hey, stop it you two,” Erwin scolded. “I swear, they’re like children.”

You laughed and nodded. The Levi you knew was always stoic and calm but Hange brought out a different side of him. He looked happier even when he was annoyed. You grabbed a dead leaf from the table and started to pull it apart, rubbing the dead plant bits between your fingers.

“Are you good?” Levi’s voice broke your concentration. You looked up and met his gray-blue eyes.

“Yep, all good here.” You smiled at him and he returned one back.

“That’s fantastic! So tonight. Ymir’s Bar at eight. Got it?” Hange ordered.

Erwin and Levi nodded in response and looked at you. Your eyes darted between the three of them.

“Uh, I would love but I’m hanging out with a few people tonight.”

“Please, join us! Your friends are more than welcome to come, the more the merrier,” Hange begged.

“I beg to differ…” Levi mumbled.

“Shut up, grumps.” Hange elbowed Levi and returned their gaze back to you. “It’ll be fun, I’ll buy you a shot.”

You rolled your eyes, “fine, but I’m buying you a shot. I owe you, Hange.”

Hange squealed and clapped their hands. “Yay! My friend, Moblit will tag along too. You haven’t met him yet but he’s great and such a talented artist. You’ll love him.”

“Sweet, I’m excited, can you send me the address?” You responded. Hange nodded.

“Who are you hanging out with?” Erwin asked.

“Oh, uh. My boyfriend and some of our friends,” You muttered.

“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend. (Y/N) why didn’t you tell me?” Hange asked, heartbroken.

Erwin glanced at Levi. He was looking at the grains in the table, his heart sank but he knew better than to let his friends know.

“I don’t know. It didn’t seem like the most important thing to talk about during our study sessions.” You were unsure why but you felt defensive over Hange’s comment.

Hange looked hurt at your response, you felt a pang of regret. You didn’t mean to keep your relationship a secret but your life didn’t revolve around your relationship so it felt pointless to bring him up. The air around the table was tense and cold. The sun was setting and the four of you were on the brink of being enveloped by the shadow of a large lecture hall.

“Regardless, I’m eager to meet your boyfriend and friends,” Erwin said in a strained voice.

“Yeah, I’m excited for all of you to meet. I think I’m going to go home and get ready.”

“Of course, we’ll see you soon,” Erwin said in a quiet tone.

You waved goodbye to all of them, the trio waved back and you made your way to the bus station. As you waited for the bus, you sent your boyfriend a message to meet your new friends at Ymir’s. He sent back a simple thumbs up emoji as a response. You pulled out a pair of headphones and blasted music to drown out your thoughts. Yet Levi’s face kept on appearing in your head, the way the sunlight caressed the hard lines of his face, his honest smile when he was with his friends, the way his eyes lost their glow when you announced you had a boyfriend. We never did anything. Hell, I didn’t even know his name until last week so why should I care what he thinks. We’re just coffee shop friends, that’s it. The bus pulled to the stop, you waited for everyone to exit before entering and made your way to the back window seat. The glass was cold on your forehead but it felt nice. You sighed, preparing yourself for a night out with your new friends and your boyfriend.

Levi’s POV

After you left, Hange and Erwin looked at Levi with concern in their eyes. Levi noticed their stares and glanced up at them.

“The fuck you looking at,” he growled.

“Levi, I’m sorry,” Hange whispered.

“About what?” He scoffed.

Erwin was about to speak but Levi abruptly got up and buttoned his coat. “I’m going home. I’ll see you both at Ymir’s.”

Erwin and Hange exchanged a look and nodded. When Levi made up his mind there was no stopping him. They watched him walk away, his head was slightly lower than usual. Levi walked over to the bike rack and unhooked his black low handle bicycle. In one smooth motion, he drapped his leg over the seat and began to peddle home. The wind hurt his face and burned his lungs but he pushed harder and harder on the pedals. Crouching down on the seat as he biked up the hills, hoping to ride away from the bench to run away from his disillusion that you could love him.

A few hours later, Erwin, Hange and Moblit entered the apartment. Hange called out to Levi.

“Hey, Mr. Grumps! We have something for yoooou!!” They called out.

Levi moaned and rolled out of bed, his bare feet hit the cold ground as he dragged himself to the living.

“What is it, Four Eyes? Hey, take off your disgusting shoes,” he scolded. “Oh, hey, Moblit.”

Moblit raised his head slightly as a hello. He wasn’t a man of many words. Hange held up a bottle of whiskey and grinned. “So we could pre-game. Take this as a thank you present for helping me write my essay.”

Levi rolled his eyes and smiled. He was touched by Hange’s generosity but he would never dare show it to them.

“I’ll grab us some mugs,” Erwin said and began to walk towards the kitchen.

“No, Erwin! Tonight’s a shot type of night,” Hange said deviously.

The three men looked at them and hesitantly nodded. They wanted to relax and unwind but a night out led by Hange always ended up with someone’s head in the toilet. Still, they each filled a shot glass, cheered and downed the alcohol. They drank for a while, everyone’s faces were glowing. Hange was blasting music and dancing. Moblit watched them with admiration. Erwin and Levi were giggling over something stupid Erwin said.

Erwin looked at the clock, it was closing in on 8. “Shit, we should get going.”

“Hey, man watch your mouth. And maybe we should stay in. It’s cheaper,” Levi said.

“Levi, noooo. We can’t do that. We told (Y/N) that we would meet her at Ymir’s!” The alcohol was already getting to Hange.

“Who’s (Y/N)?” Mobit asked.

“My friend from genetics! And Levi’s too,” Hange proclaimed.

Levi rolled his eyes. “Tsk, she’s not my friend. I hardly know her.”

“Mmm, if you say so.”

“Whatever, let’s go,” Levi said curtly.

The four of them grabbed their coats and headed to Ymir’s. It was only a ten minute walk from their place. Hange let everyone know that you had already arrived and saved a table on the back patio. As they walked, they talked about their finals and plans for the upcoming break. When they arrived at Ymir’s, they pushed open the door and entered the humid room. The bar was full of people celebrating the weekend, a couple was making out in one of the booths and people were lined around the bar. They ordered their drinks and walked through the back doors.

Levi’s hands began to sweat and he felt a lump in his throat when he saw you. You looked beautiful under the glow of the patio lights, you were smiling and had a beer glass on your lips and you were laughing. Erwin stood in place and Hange stopped their chatter.

“Oh, so that’s what they’re doing now,” Hange spouted.

They were referring to Zeke who had their arm around you and to Porco and Pieck who were sitting across from you and your boyfriend.

You saw the group at the back entrance and waved. Your nerves from earlier were completely forgotten after your second beer. Zeke rubbed his thumb against your shoulder and you smiled out of habit. You made eye contact with Levi and gave him a toothy grin, his eyes darted away. Your friends looked at the party headed towards them and stopped talking but you didn’t notice.

“Hey, I was wondering if y’all forgot where the bar is,” you joked but no one laughed.

“Erwin. Levi. It’s been a while,” Zeke stated.

You looked at him confused. “What? You know them?”

Zeke chuckled, “yeah, I guess I do.”

“Zeke, it’s nice to see you again. Same to you Porco and Pieck,” Erwin stated.

Porco and Pieck looked at each other and smiled. “It’s nice to see you too, Erwin,” Pieck said in a sweet voice.

Levi glared at the way Zeke’s arm was draped across your shoulder. He gritted his teeth. Hange noticed how tense he was getting and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“What a small world! I’m glad everyone knows each other. Guys, sit down!” You motioned at the empty seats at the table, completely misreading the space.

Hange was the first to sit and the rest followed. The table was quiet for a few minutes, everyone sipped on their drinks.

“Levi, I like your scarf,” You pointed to the black scarf draped across his body.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, it’s such a nice scarf,” Zeke repeated.

Levi gave Zeke a dirty look. Hange looked at him nervously and Moblit put a hand on their knee to calm them. You took another sip of your beer.

“Yeah, Zeke, it is a nice scarf. That’s why I complimented it. Anyways, how do you all know each other?” Confidence surged through your veins thanks to the alcohol.

“We were floormates freshman year,” Levi’s dry voice said.

“Wait-oh, I see,” You said.

Erwin began to make casual conversation with everyone while Levi stared at the bottom of his glass. Hange and Moblit joined Erwin and conversed with the other two at the table. Wait, is Zeke the one that called Erwin’s kickback lame? That’s the only possibility, right? Your head was dizzy from the alcohol but the puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place.

“Hey, (Y/N),” Porco called out.

“Huh?”

“You good? It looks like we lost you there for a second.”

“Yeah, Porco. I’m fine,” You said sarcastically.

“Zeke, you and (Y/N) make a good couple,” Erwin said.

Zeke chuckled and squeezed you closer to his toned body, “I know but thank you.”

You kept your head down unsure about what to do. It was evident that Zeke had an issue with Erwin and Levi but you didn’t fully understand why. From what you heard, Zeke was the one who was mean to the other two but Zeke was your boyfriend so you should be on his side, right? You took another swig of your beer.

“Levi, are you still with Petra?” Pieck asked.

Petra? Who the fuck is that, you thought, anger coursed through your veins.

“No,” Levi said.

“Oh, that’s too bad. She was such a lovely girl,” Pieck sighed.

“Who’s Petra?” You asked.

No one answered your question. You looked at Pieck but she kept her eyes down. What the fuck is up?

“She’s a girl I dated freshman year,” Levi explained.

“Oh.”

Hange broke the tension by shouting, “(Y/N), I promised you a shot! Who else wants one?”

Pieck, Moblit and Erwin raised their hands. Hange called over a server and asked for a round of shots for everyone. A few minutes later, they brought tequila shots for the table. Everyone grabbed their lime and raised their glass.

“To finishing finals!” Hange exclaimed.

The table repeated what Hange said and took their shot. You and Porco laughed at Pieck’s face and she stuck her tongue out at you. Zeke kissed your cheek and you leaned into his warm body. For a second, it felt like it did at the beginning of your relationship. You felt safe and hopeful but those feelings disappeared when you caught Levi looking at you and Zeke. Immediately, you pulled away and Zeke frowned. You weren’t one for PDA but after a few drinks you didn’t mind showing your man some love but under Levi’s eye it felt wrong.

“Let’s do another shot!” Hange shouted.

“Hange!! Let me buy you a shot!!” You shouted back.

“(Y/N), you’re the best!!” Hange exclaimed, their cheeks glowing under the lights.

Everyone took another shot and the mood around the table began to lighten as everyone got drunker. Porco made a few jokes that made Erwin laugh. Zeke talked to Hange about their senior thesis. Everything seemed to be falling into place except for Levi. He didn’t make an effort to hold a conversation with anyone. He stared at the empty shot glasses and occasionally smiled at whatever Erwin said.

The patio lights shadows made Levi look heavenly, the soft glow bounced off his pale skin and you tried not to stare but you couldn’t, he looked so pretty.

Zeke could sense that your thoughts were taking you elsewhere so he gave you a kiss on the check. You gave him a smile in return.

The bar was packed and everyone at the table was talking after a new round of drinks. It should be a perfect night, all of your friends seemed to be getting alone but something didn’t feel right. In that moment, you wished it could have been Levi holding your body. Stop, Levi is just a friend, that’s it. I love Zeke. You repeated in your head over and over.

As the night dragged on, you slowly began to lose touch with reality, everything became a happy, surreal blur. Throughout the night, Zeke kept his hands on your body. Before that would have kept you grounded but now it felt off, you weren’t sure if it was the alcohol but you didn’t want him to touch you. You kept on smiling and talking to everyone until the bartender called for final orders.

“This was nice but I think we should get going now,” Erwin declared.

“Yeah, I think you’re right,” Pieck said.

Everyone gathered their belongings and started to walk towards the front door. Zeke walked ahead with Porco and Pieck but you stayed behind with the others. Erwin, Hange and Moblit left you and Levi together alone. Hange’s arm was wrapped around Moblit’s shoulder. They leaned against their body and continued talking.

“Hey, I had a good time tonight,” You said to Levi who barely acknowledged your existence.

“It was okay,” He stated.

The two of you followed the others.

“But what are the odds of us forming a friendship in this way, right?” You said.

“Tsk, a friendship? We hardly know each other, I wouldn't push it,” Levi responded.

“I guess you’re right,” You muttered.

Levi felt bad about his harsh tone but he didn’t know what to do. He still had the same warm feeling in his chest from before but watching Zeke touch you hurt him. All of you had exited the bar and you walked over to Zeke and he placed his jacket over your shoulders.

“Well, it was, uh, nice to catch up with all of you. Hange thank you for helping my girl study. Get home safe,” Zeke said. You smiled and everyone and waved.

“Zeke, the same to you too. Glad to know you’re doing well. (Y/N) congrats on finishing midterms. See you later,” Erwin said.

“I love yoouuu! I love all of you!” Hange shouted. Moblit still had his arm around Hange to stabilize them.

“Love you too, Hange!” You blew them a kiss.

They all turned and began to walk home. Porco and Pieck had already left in their Uber. You looked at Zeke and he gave you a smile and you smiled back out of habit.

Zeke made conversation on your way back to his place. You wrapped your arms around your body and counted the steps in between each street light. The air around you was dry and your breath fell to the ground in a transparent cloud. Eventually, you made it to Zeke’s apartment, it was highrise close to downtown. When you entered the apartment your attention immediately went to the large windows. They faced the city skyline and the lights poured into the living room and gently outlined the minimal furniture in the room. Zeke led you to the bedroom and began to kiss the back of your neck. His beard tickled your neck and left goosebumps on your skin. You rolled your shoulders and stepped away.

“Come on,” Zeke groaned.

“No, not tonight. I’m really tired,” You said.

You made your way to the bathroom and turned on the harsh lights. The lights bounced off the white tiles and highlighted the bags under your eyes. You stared at yourself for a while, the longer you stared, the faster your thoughts swirled in your head. Is Levi made at me? You splashed cold water on your face and tried to wash off the awkwardness from tonight but no matter how hard you scrubbed, you couldn’t get the image of Levi staring at the empty glasses out of your head.

When you walked back into the bedroom you saw Zeke passed on the bed. You smiled at him and placed a blanket over his body and brushed his hair away from his forehead. You curled up on the opposite side of the bed and wrapped a blanket around yourself. Zeke’s soft snores filled the room, normally that was enough to lull you to sleep but lately it was becoming more of a nuisance. Why am I feeling like this? I love Zeke and he loves me back, that should be enough. So why do I feel so unsure? Zeke wasn’t your first partner but he was your first proper love. Everything beforehand had felt like practice for this.

The two of you had met in the spring term of sophomore year. The sun was shining and you we’re sitting on a blanket with Rico bouncing off ideas for research projects. You kept an eye on the baseball team who were practicing near the two of you. Rico was in the middle of explaining her ideas when a baseball flew in your direction.

“Heads up!” shouted a deep voice.

Both of you covered your heads as the ball flew over your blanket. The footsteps of one of the players was nearing your spot.

“Hey, I’m sorry about that.”

You tried to look up but the sun was blinding your eyes. You were able to make out the outline of a tall, man with broad shoulders and wavy blonde hair. He flashed a charismatic smile and said,“the name’s Jaeger. Zeke Jaeger.”

You introduced yourself and Zeke knelt down so his head was at your level.

“Nice to meet you. I feel about almost hitting you. Not sure what happened, normally I have perfect aim.” He winked at you. “Let me make it up by taking you out for a drink, your friend is more than welcomed to come.”

You blushed and thanked him and began to decline your offer when Rico interrupted you.

“She, I mean, we would love that. Here’s her number and mine, too.”

“Thanks, I’ll shoot y’all a text.”

Zeke stood up, grabbed the ball and gave you a wave before running back to his team. From that point on, the two of you had been inseparable.

You drifted off thinking about those first memories, the sweetness of his touch, the excitement of loving Zeke, the hopefulness you had. If you kept on thinking about those moments then maybe they would manifest back into your life. You wanted back that stability in your love so much it hurt your chest.

The next day you rolled over to an empty bed. Your hand traced the cold sheets and you kept your hands in the sunlight, the warmth felt good compared to the draft in Zeke’s bedroom. He preferred a colder bedroom, he said it was better for the body. The front door opened and you pretended to be asleep. Zeke’s footsteps got closer to the bed and you felt him press a kiss to your cheek, he smelled of sweat and musk. Who goes on a run after a night out? You thought. The showerhead turned on and you heard Zeke sing.

You got up and rummaged through Zeke’s drawer and pulled out a navy cardigan. You wrapped the fabric over your body and padded your way to the kitchen. The kitchen was colder than the bedroom.

“Fuck, who lives like this?”

You poured yourself water and stared at the tiles on the walls. Re-playing Levi’s comment in your head. Tsk, a friendship? We hardly know each other, I wouldn't push it. You didn’t blame Levi for his harshness but his comment hurt. There was no denying that you two shared a kinship that was a bit deeper than friendship. Romance wasn’t the word for it either. The relationship you had formed with him felt safe, you felt understood and respected in a way you haven’t really before. Your concentration was broken when you heard Zeke enter the kitchen.

“Hey, babe. Good morning.” He pressed a kiss to your temple. “I bought you a smoothie.”

“Thanks, Zeke,” you responded.

He grabbed the smoothie from the fridge and smiled at you. You sat on the counter and began to sip on the drink. Zeke hummed to himself and began to pull out a pan from the cupboard.

“Whatcha thinking about?” you asked.

“Life.”

“Like, the gameboard?” You joked.

He rolled his eyes. “Honestly, I’m thinking about last night. I never thought I was going to see those guys ever again.”

“Mmm, why did something happen?” You said nonchalantly.

Zeke chuckled, “stupid freshman things. We were all young and dumb.”

He stayed silent afterwards as he went on to fry some eggs. The eggs sizzled in the pan and he whistled quietly. You knew him well enough to know he wanted to say something else.

“I mean, I did dumb stuff when I was freshman so how bad can it actually be?” You prodded.

Zeke stared at you with a series expression. “Look (Y/N), I don’t really want to hash out what happened but-” he hesitated as he looked for the right words to say, “-be careful around Levi. There’s something off about that guy.”

“Oh,” you muttered.

You continued drinking the smoothie, the smell of the egg was making you nauseous and you started to feel the hanging over. You went back into the bedroom and laid down. Your phone buzzed and saw a text from Hange.

Hange: OMG i’m so hungover, i don’t remember getting home

You: Hange, WTF that’s not good lol but I know you were in good hands ;)

Hange: wut does that mean??

You: Moblit lol he was so nice and caring

Hange: … no comment but what are you doing

You: nothing really, why?

Hange: do you want to get brunch?

Hange: it’ll just be the two of us :)

You: yeah, i would love that, send me the address !

The smell of egg had entered the bedroom and you gagged. You hated the smell but Zeke insisted that it was the best way to get protein in the morning. You grabbed your belongings and walked to the kitchen again. Zeke was sitting at the counter eating the eggs and drinking his smoothie while reading the paper.

“Hey, I think I’m gonna head out!”

“Really? I thought we could spend the day together before I leave,” Zeke responded.

“You’re leaving?” You paused while putting on your shoes.

“I thought I told you. My internship is taking me on a trip for the next three days and then I’m heading home for the break,” Zeke said in between bites of food.

“Shit. You didn’t tell me. How about we hang out later today?”

“Yeah, I guess that sounds good to me. I’ll see you later,” he said.

“See ya.”

You went back to your apartment to freshen up and hurried to the diner Hange was it. You stepped through the doors and immediately saw Hange’s smiling face. They were waving you to their table. You greeted them with equal excitement and walked to them. For the past few weeks, some of your favorite moments have been hanging out with them. They always brightened your mood with their cheerful banter and love for life. You were excited to eat brunch with them and question them more about the history between the trio and your boyfriend.

#levi ackerman #levi aot #levi fic #aot x reader #snk x reader #levi ackerman x reader #levi fluff #college levi ackerman #modern levi ackerman #aot fic #attack on titan x reader #levi snk #levi x reader #levi lover fic #new light #aot fluff

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mail-me-a-snail · 4 years

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Sobriety

Chase Brody has been doing everything to combat his alcoholism; going to AA, therapy, being social, exercising...and yet it still isn’t enough. One afternoon, a year after his divorce, Jackie drives him home. tw: alcoholism, panic attacks, car accident ment, suicide ment.

"So, how was it?"

Chase shrugs, both to slide his backpack off and to answer. He puts the bag in the backseat, then twists back around to buckle himself in. Jackie, mask off and in a plain red hoodie and worn jeans, as opposed to his jumpsuit, sits in the driver's seat, fingers drumming against the wheel in sync with whatever metal is playing on the stereo, Chase doesn't know—he's too tired to go through the challenge of deciphering the lyrics. The chaotic banging of drums and rippling guitar riffs about sum up the state his head's at.

"It was fine," he says coolly, "I guess. Todd brought his guitar this time." Todd—Todd Danvers—being the head of the group. Great guy, might've made it as a part of the church ensemble, if he hadn't drunken so much wine like every meal was communion. Washed his face in the tub of holy water they have at the door, that's what Todd had told them all, that first day, when Chase was still having the shakes.

"What'd he sing?" Jackie glances over at him as he twists the key in the ignition. The car hums to life, and they pull out of the center's parking lot with a low rumble.

"Pretty cover of What Have They Done To You Know. Daniel Knox? Funny, you wouldn't think a guy like him would be into that kind of indie music."

Jackie laughs, though it's not as bubbly as Chase thought it would be. It's more like an exhale Jackie leans into.

There's no conversation that follows, so the clicking turn signal, honking cars passing by, and radio fill the silence. He's gotten better at his anxiety with cars. Chase picks at the neon bandages on his fingers—the story is that he tried rather unsuccessfully to build a shelf—nails, all that, you know—but that's not what happened.

Promise a man, a very wasted, high off his rocker man, a few hundred bucks and he just might cut his whole hand off for you. He'll play the knife game like a roulette wheel, spinning and spinning, until he hits the jackpot, or until he has no fingers.

Nicks for nickels, that's what his buddies down at the bar say. Nicks for nickels. Money isn't easy to come by lately and he doesn't want to have to depend on Jackie's or his brothers' help for the rest of his life. It isn't fair.

So, he works, doing odds and ends and stupid dares, because the companies in the city aren't hot on having a recovering alcoholic under their brand. We'll call you back. Your resume looks great, Mr. Brody, you'll be at the top of our list. You'll be a fine employee.

Ha. Right. Three weeks later? Not a single call, nor email. Nicks for nickels again those nights that followed.

"Where's your mind at, Chase?" Jackie says amiably, once they're on the long stretch of road heading towards the house. "What're you thinking about?"

"My shelf," Chase answers, trying his best to sound mournful, stretching his bandaged fingers out in front of him, "Hurt like a son of a bitch to put it together."

Jackie's mouth presses down into a flat line. He says nothing for a few moments. He changes the station. Something light and electric plays.

“You know, you could've called me," Jackie says eventually, when they've hit the chorus. "I'm a champ at furniture building. You should see Henrik's desk now; beautiful, if I do say so myself."

He may sound proud, but he's still frowning.

Chase picks at the hem of his ratty grey hoodie; he doesn't even remember where he got it.

"I handled Patricia myself," he shrugs.

"Patricia—the shelf has a name now?" That gets a laugh out of the hero, and Chase smiles a bit. Jackie's laugh had always been infectious. "Well, you did a fine job, in any case."

"You're right, though: I'm not as good as you and JJ at that furniture stuff," Chase admits, and cuts Jackie off before he can protest. "No, no, it's true. I've always been the tech guy."

"'suppose so," Jackie amends. He pauses, turns the radio down, then asks hesitantly, "Chase, how'd you hurt your hands?"

The lie comes instantly. "I told you, Jackie—Patricia fought me tooth and nails!"

"No, Chase, that's not what happened." Jackie's voice is firm, if not stern. It's a scolding tone of voice that only Henrik uses with Chase, so it makes him look away in guilt. "Please. Tell me what's really going on. If—If someone's hurting you, or something, I'll—"

"—No, Jackie, it's not like that! I..." Chase rises on the defense.

"Then, what is it, Chase?"

"It's none of your damn business!" He can't stop his voice from raising. He's quick to anger these days—an after affect of the drinking.

"I'm your brother!" He's still looking at the road. His grip is tight on the steering wheel. "Of course it's my damn fucking business! I'm worried about you Chase, and—"

"I don't need you to look after me!"

"Then, who will, Chase? Henrik? Marvin? Jamie? Fucking Robbie? If I don't look after you, you'll...you'll hurt yourself again and I can't let that happen!"

"I can handle myself."

"Clearly, you can't."

"Oh, because I'm a screw-up, is that it? I'm a nobody who isn't good at anything, who almost killed himself—"

"Stop it."

"—is that it, Jackie? Is it because I'm a suicidal disaster?"

"You know what?" Jackie punctuates, "Maybe that is it." Maybe you are a fucking screw-up."

The anger and disappointment in his voice is so raw it silences. He knows that this is just a row, but it still terrifies him, the way Jackie sounds so much like...Anti.

Blood rushes through his eardrums and it feels like he's about to burst. His heart runs a hundred miles a second and it hurts. He can feel his pulse behind his eyes, in his fingertips, in his mouth. Jackie disappears from his view as the edges of his version grow black.

He can't breathe.

Is this what a heart attack is?

The world shifting in and out of focus, like a bad camera, and the road disappearing, like the headlights were never there, like he isn't in a car again, barrelling down a street he can barely see, with the kids in the back, and God, Stacy, I know, okay? I know! Please, don't yell—please don't yell at me! I'm trying not to drink anymore—N-No, I'm not drunk— in the front seat, and his hands are gripping the steering wheel tight, and he is, in fact, drunk, so the world is swimming around him and, CHASE—!

The windshield shatters into a million pieces.

It happens so slowly Chase can touch the glass as it flies past him. He's in the driver's seat now. He looks to his right, and Stacy is there, beautiful Stacy, her face smacking into the dashboard. He looks down at himself. He's uninjured. He's wearing a ratty grey hoodie, red Converse, blue jeans. In his reflection in the rear view mirror, his brown hair has green strokes; he had done a poor dyeing job.

Chase closes his eyes.

"What is real?" His therapist's voice comes back to him, clinical and calm. In this moment, in this panic—ask yourself, "What is real and what isn't?"

He opens his eyes.

Real: He is uninjured.

Not real: Stacy and the kids are here at this moment.

“R-Real," he whispers, "I am in a car. Not real: it's S-Stacy's car." He looks around to the backseat, but can't bear to look at the kids. He keeps his gaze on the floor. "Real: m-my backpack is on the seat. Not r-real: the kids are here."

He dares to look up. His backpack is there, black and canvas, with multiple patches. It's half open. Inside are comic books and his laptop. He twists back around, staring head-on at the blank, empty road, like someone forgot to continue building the rest of the world. Either that or there is no world outside of this one car crash.

A car crash that happened all of two years ago. He's surprised that his other regular nightmare isn't here.

One night in March (it was now September), he had gotten a visit from their eldest brother. Chase had been drunk at the time, swearing and bawling, so when Anti showed up...Chase did the stupid thing: he took a swing at the demon, thinking he was going to take something else away from him. Of course, he didn't like that.

A scar, eight or nine inches deep, on his abdomen twitches. He puts a hand to it. That had been the night he swore off drinking, for good.

"Lots of good it did you."

Chase jumps, and screams when he catches two empty black pits staring at him intently from the rear view mirror. That voice. Speak of the damn devil and he shall appear.

"Y-You're not real," he says, voice cracking out of pure terror, "You a-aren't real!"

:Oh, I'm very real, Chase," Anti appears beside him in the passenger seat, clipping through Stacy, who's blood drips in slow motion. He is just as demonic as Chase remembers him; black, empty eyes that dripped like ink down his pale cheeks, all black attire, his Converse up on the dashboard, and the grossly shiny red gash across his neck. He almost looks like Jack, in a way.

"N-Not real, not real—"

"Say it all you want, Brody, but I am real. I've come to finish the job."

"W-What?"

"Hold still."

A hand closed around his neck, pushing him back, his head smacking into the car door. He cries out, arms lashing wildly and legs thrashing, but Anti isn't deterred. The knife glints above his head. The shards of glass reflect upon it, making it shimmer in all sorts of colors. The radio goes wild; static, static static, filling the world, making Chase's ears ring with its volume.

"D-Don't do this, please, God, fuck, don't—What do you want from me?!"

Anti smiles. His eyes turn grey-blue, white scleroses. His gash disappears.

He's a perfect reflection of Jack.

"Sobriety," he says, in Jack's achingly calm, innocent voice, "Is that too much to ask, Chase?"

"Fuck, no, no, please—!"

The knife comes down into his heart.

"Chase?"

Anti's...Jack's voice echoes in his ears. It sounds so far away.

Not real: Jack talking to him.

"Chase?"

Real: he's about to die.

"—CHASE!"

He jolts awake, panting for air like he had been drowning. His face, neck, and shirt are certainly wet; he's sweating bullets. His hands are shaking something awful. Chase swings his gaze around, trying to take in everything at once.

"No, Chase, please—l-look, look at me!" Hands touch his cheeks gently and he flinches. They return, directing his eyes forward. Jack...no, not Jack—the hair is a neon green...Jackie. Jackie looks at him in worry, blue-grey eyes looking over him. His touch is warm. His hands are shaking. He's got tears in his eyes, but his breaths are controlled. That's the Jackie he knows—never truly removing the mask.

"J...Jackie?" His heartbeat is still thumping wildly, but it's slowing down, as he can feel it in his jaw. His brain feels like molasses. "I don't...what..."

"I pulled over," Jackie drops his hands, but holds Chase's in both. "I didn't mean to call you that, I'm sorry!"

Chase blinks slowly. He looks out the windshield, unbroken, rain dropping in fat splats, the window wipers working overtime—when the hell had it started raining?—and they are pulled over. They're in front of a house he recognizes as being part of the neighborhood. They're not too far from home. The sun is setting, but the sky is too grey to tell where. The clouds are dark and stormy. People rush by the car and into their homes, some with umbrellas, others caught without.

"N-No, Jackie, it's...it's my fault. I shouldn't have yelled at you." His words come back to him and they fill him with shame.

"I shouldn't have gone off on you like that, either. I didn't...you're not a screw-up."

"I am." He shakes his head, tears blotting his eyes, drops falling onto his pants. He hiccups. "I'm s-such a fucking m-mess, Jackie."

The seatbelt unclips beside him and warm arms envelope him. He lets Jackie hug him, unclipping his own seatbelt. They stay there for a moment. Two.

Chase comes clean.

Nicks for nickels. The bar. His "friends."

Most importantly of all, the drinks. You don't go to a bar and not have a drink. He doesn't drink until he's blackout drunk anymore, but he drinks enough to be numb. He's relapsed. He was only able to slip in AA the following day after a strong shot of vodka and some breath mints. The whole session, he had been hammered by a hangover.

Jackie listens silently, but the weight of his disappointment bears down on Chase's shoulders like an anvil.

"Chase..." He starts, but the other shakes his head frantically.

“I know."

"You're not supposed to drink anymore."

"I know."

"I'll... I'll talk to Todd tomorrow, your therapist, too. They have to know about this."

"N-No, Jackie, I have to tell them myself." Having their disappointment on his mind would destroy him, but he needs just a little bit of control of what's happening. "But promise me one thing?"

"Anything."

Chase bites his lip.

"Don't t-tell the others." Jackie opens his mouth to protest. "No, Jackie, y-you have to promise me this. Not Henrik, Marvin, or any of the others...I don't want them to know about this. I don't w-want them to think I'm weaker than they already think I am. And I know they do. I know all of you do. And y-you're all right."

"You are not weak."

"I relapsed." Chase rubs his face with his palms. "It hasn't even been six months."

"Chase," Jackie says firmly, "Look at me."

When he does, hesitantly, the hero takes a breath.

"Chase Brody Mcloughlin, you are the strongest person I know," he starts, "because despite all you've been through, you are still here. You are still living and breathing and I know it hurts, but you are so incredibly brave for surviving. I am proud of you, even if you've relapsed. This road you're driving down, it's not an easy path. I don't have to tell you that for you to know. There'll be bumps and detours but...I'll always be here for you. We'll always be here. Anytime you need us. I'll help you get back on the road. I promise."

That is why Jackie is Chase's hero. Despite everything, anger and pain and injustice...he still manages to be kind.

Chase nearly starts bawling. He bites down on his knuckles and just nods. He can't say much, so Jackie turns the engine on.

"Let's go home."

They park near the sidewalk. The rain has lightened to a drizzle. The clouds are clearing. The stars are coming out. The lawn is wet with dew. The lights in the living room are on.

Chase feels sick looking at the house. His eyes and nose are stuffy and red and he has a headache coming on. He can't hide the fact that he's been crying. Years of dealing with Anti has trained his brothers to notice the smallest of details.

"Chase," Jackie murmurs, "if...if you are serious about being able to handle yourself, I...well, it was supposed to be a surprise, but there's this apartment in the city that I've saved. I haven't spent anything on it, but...if you want, I can help you get it. Contribute a little. The rest can be up to you. I'll help you get a job, even."

Chase looks at him, unsure. "Really?"

“Yeah. I know you've spent most of your life away from us and it's a bit of a shock to be caged in with us again, so..."

He loves them, but the house is stuffy. He misses his old apartment, but he had missed his brothers, too.

"Thanks, Jackie," he says, "I'll...I'll have to think about it."

"Okay. Take your time."

At dinner, no one suspects a thing.

Jamie fills him in on Robbie's garden—it's going smoothly, with beautiful, flowering succulents. For a zombie, it's no surprise he has a green thumb, he jokes, and Chase laughs.

Marvin teaches him a card trick, much to Henrik's disdain; no magic at the dinner table, he scolds them like a mother hen.

Jackie watches him from across the table. He can feel his gaze boring into his skull.

The dining room is warm and full of life. Chase isn't completely involved mentally, but he's enjoying the sounds of dinnerware and conversation. He's not sure what they're having for dinner, either, but it's good. He just feels so out of it because of the emotional roller-coaster that was today.

The prospect of having a new apartment and a stable job...it terrified him, because what would happen if he relapsed again?

He tries to still his hands when he drinks water.

"Goodnight, Chase," Jackie kisses the top of his head, then goes to the doorway of his room.

“Goodnight. Thanks, Jackie. For today."

Jackie smiles and says nothing. He shuts his door.

Chase goes into his room and closes the door behind him. The bed is messy, but he doesn't care. He slides right into it, tossing his phone onto the desk, and closing his eyes.

He feels the small grooves of scars along his fingers—he had finally taken off the bandages. More scars, more tallies. One on his abdomen, a few on his wrists...a bullet scar on his scalp. He doesn’t even have the gun anymore. Jackie had surrendered it to the police. He still feels the ghost sensation of cool metal on his palm.

He sits up and crosses the hall, knocking softly on Jackie's door.

"Come in," the hero's voice floats from behind it. He opens the door.

Jackie is lying on his bed in his somehow neat room, with a shelf full of comic books arranged by series and brand. His hoodie is slung over the back of his desk chair. He looks up from his phone when Chase stands in the doorway.

"What's up, Chase?" He asks, eyebrows raised.

Chase shuffles his feet.

"Can I...can I bunk with you tonight? It's just that I, I can't stop thinking about it all, and I'm...I'm scared."

"It's no problem, buddy," Jackie's expression softens, and he moves over, patting the space beside him. "Come 'ere."

Chase settles in, hesitantly, putting his head on Jackie's chest. He can hear the hero's heartbeat and breath. It's a comforting sound.

"Thank you," Chase whispers.

"Anything for my little brother," Jackie smiles. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

He's terrified of building a new life for himself because if he relapses it will all come crashing down again. He doesn't know if he can handle that.

But he has to try.

As much as it hurts, he has to. If not for himself, for Henrik, Marvin, Jamie, Robbie...and Jackie.

For Jack.

It's what he would've wanted.

And that’s what makes his relapse so crushing.

#writersofjack #jacksepticeye #antisepticeye #chase brody #jackieboy man #jbm #fanfiction #fanfic #suicide ment #alcoholism tw #mine #my writing #this one was a DOOOOZIE

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captainillogical · 5 years

Text

Devil’s Ballroom ch.2

A year after the events from the earth’s final attack, Little Homeworld is finally complete, and there’s a new jazz bar where gems and humans mingle and drink. - As you’re typing back a reply, someone pulls the stool out next to you and takes a seat. You see a sliver of pink out of the corner of your eye as you try not to actually Look. Oh god. It’s her. God can’t help us now.

Spinel/Reader

collab with wife @firstofficertightpants

The place actually happened to be like, right on the edge of Little Homeworld. Outside had full glass windows, tall, that reached the ceiling. Inside the lighting was dim, and a bit smokey. You figured it looked alright enough to head in, and gave the bouncer your ID. He nodded and you walked in. It smelt of cigars, and of cinnamon, and it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. A pretty woman in a low-cut red dress was playing the piano on the stage, and it was some contemporary jazz piece. The low murmur of people talking filled the air in between the swells of music, and the place actually seemed busy with people and even gems enjoying themselves. You liked the vibe. It was.. comfortable. At ease. You looked over at the bar, rather than any of the tables, and saw a spot near the end. Perfect. Right by the bathroom. You headed over and plopped down on the stool. There were three empty at the end, so you took the one in the middle, which had the best view of the stage from back here.

While waiting for the bartender to come back down this side, you took the chance to look at the people around you. A couple familiar faces.. small town you know? And some new ones. New gems too. You can see Mr. Fryman sitting at a table with Kofi and Nanefua, and they look like they’re playing poker. You try not to snicker since Kofi looks absolutely blasted, and Mr. Fryman is cursing up a storm because Nanefua is clearly winning. You see her wink at Mr. Fryman. You suspect a rigged game.

Your phone chimes a couple times. You pull it out of your bag, and check to see who’s bothering you. Ah. The group chat.

Alex: ughhh you guys my gmas killing me

Alex: no seriously mexico fucking blows rn

Alex: i cant step outside without feeling like my balls are melting off my body

Alex: and my brother won’t stop listening to the book of mormon soundtrack

Alex: im going insane

Your friends are so melodramatic. You type out a couple of replies.

Y/N: You should be used to mexican summers by now, you go every year.

Y/N: And for the record, your brother is valid. Book of Mormon slaps.

Alex: what the fuck youre supposed to be on my side u ass

Alex: i thought our special thing was wicked. OUR SPECIAL THING, Y/N

Y/N: I’m allowed to like multiple things. Including musicals.

Alex: never. fuck you. also what are you even doing rn come play minecraft with me

Y/N: Yeah as much as I’d like to, I can’t.

“Y/N! So you finally came to see what this place is all about! What can I get ya?” you hear a familiar voice ask. Turning around to face the voice, you see Bismuth wearing her usual overalls and a rather nice looking bow tie.

“Hey Bis, how’s it going? I like what you’ve done with the place. It’s nice. And uh, I’ll just take a hard cider for now.” You smile at her and set your phone down for a minute.

“Thank you! After we finished Little Homeworld, I had to find something else to focus on in my down time.” She explains while grabbing your drink from the fridge under her side of the bar, and opens it. “So tell me,” She sits the drink in front of you and leans on the counter. “What brings you out here today?”

You take a rather long sip from your drink before meeting the large gems eyes. On the stage, a tall, beardy man replaces the woman that just finished her piece. He immediately starts this jaunty, irish tune. He’s singing loudly, and it’s not bad. A couple of people are clapping to the tune.

“I just really needed to get out.” You replied, taking another sip from your drink. “I was kinda hoping I’d meet someone new, maybe get another friend to hang out with, since my friends wanted to ditch me this summer.” As you’re saying this, more people join the clapping. It’s getting a bit rowdy. “Or maybe at least get drunk enough to forget how lonely I feel.” You add, shrugging.

“Well, I can supply the drinks, and at least a bit of company.” Bismuth winks, and turns to the patron 6 seats up waving her over.

You check your phone again, and there’s more from Alex. AND Harper? She must still have phone service wherever she’s at. Alex: what are u fuckin doin that so important that u cant play minecraft with ur best friend

Harper: yeah, Y/N. the heck. Also alex, get lost, she’s MY best friend bitch

Alex: u had ur chances but u left us so we’re a duo now. u can go

Harper: excuse me!? I WILL end you.

Y/N: Oh my god, chill. I’m just out right now, so I can’t okay?

Y/N: And nice of you to join us, Harper.

Harper: fuck you I miss you okay. And I miss constant wifi :(

Alex: OUT!? What do you mean OUT. its night. u play games with ME during this time

Alex: for real what the fuck are you doing

Harper: yeah, you don’t go out without us. Wtf are you doing?

Y/N: I’m at a bar!! Alex: WHAT

Alex: dont tell me its the one place that just opened

Alex: Y/N do NOT betray me you TOLD ME you were gonna go with me!!

Y/N: I was. But I was also bored and you’re both gone, soooo.

Alex: wow

Alex: i cant believe youve done this to me

Harper: hmmm. ;)

Harper: hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ;)

Y/N: What.

Harper: you tryin to find girls again?

Harper: like that one time you went to empire city just to peruse the mall?

Alex: LMAOOOOO

Y/N: No.

Alex: LMAOOOO Y/N GOOD LUCK TRYING TO FIND A GF LOLL

Y/N: I’m not trying to find a girlfriend you fucks. Christ.

Y/N: Also Alex, you’re one to talk. You can’t KEEP a girlfriend.

Alex: ur just mad i have a passionate and intimate relationship w/ my hand

Y/N: And it will probably stay that way.

Y/N: Besides, so far, no one cute here. So it’s a bust.

Harper: a bust. Lmfao u just outed yourself :)

Y/N: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

You put your phone down before seeing whatever Alex attempts to reply back with. It sounds like the current boisterous song is coming to a close, and really, most of the people here are clapping along with this guy. It’s fun. And despite the playful ribbing from your shit-talking friends, you’re starting to have a nice time. You finish your drink, and nod over to Bismuth who catches your eye and nods back. You look over onto the stage, the man having cleared the piano, and see Lapis wiping down the piano and seat. Guess he spilled his drink while playing. Lapis, unlike Bismuth, actually dressed up a bit for the job. Her hair was pulled in a cute, small bun, and she was wearing what looks like a tailored tux with no jacket. The vest fit her quite well. She seemed.. happy. Good for her.

No one had taken up the stage again yet, but the place was still lively with chatter. You see someone out of the corner of your eye move towards the stage, but Bismuth comes over again so you tear your gaze away.

“Another cider? Or do you want something else this time, Y/N? She asks, cleaning a glass with a rag, and moves on to the next one.

“Ehh, yeah, give me another cider.” You say as you pull out your phone again. Bismuth sets down the drink in front of you.

Harper: what a goddamn disaster. she got that from me i think

Alex: no, youre both disasters separately

Y/N: Fuck you guys. Give me a break.

You hear the piano start to play again, and someone pulling the mic forward. You look up to see pink hair.. And someone kind of familiar. She’s wearing black slacks, a white collared shirt, and suspenders. The shirt is partially open, and you see part of a pink gem showing through on her chest. It looks like she’s got mascara running down her face.

And then.. she starts to sing.

It’s lovely. It’s slow and a bit sad, but she seems to be enjoying herself. She’s definitely done this before. Quite a few of the people around quiet down some, so you can hear her pretty clearly. You drink some, and text your friends.

Y/N: Guys, I lied. There’s a cute gem here who can sing.

Alex: holy fuk

Alex: what

Y/N: She looks kind of familiar though? I can’t quite place it though.

Harper: dude theres like near 100 gems now in little homeworld lol

Harper: you’ve probs seen most in passing? :P

Alex: are you serious Y/N? cant flirt with human women so u turn to aliens? lmfao

Y/N: Ohhhhh my god. Die.

The gem on stage sings the chorus with gusto - man she’s really getting into this. You’re kind of taken a bit with her performance. It just pulls you. But also.. She really seems familiar now and it’s bothering you.

Y/N: No I’m serious she seems really familiar and not in that In Passing kind of way.

Harper: what does she look like?

Alex: yeah a description would be nice

Harper: TAKE A PIC

Alex: holy shit YES

Y/N: I can’t take a pic. She’s too far away, it’ll be blurry.

Alex: literally just zoom in lord almighty

Y/N: Okay. Hold on a sec.

You turn on your camera app, and face the stage. Looks like the gem is actually finishing up her song. Perfect, you’ll snap a pic once she stands up. She finishes, and most of the people are clapping for her. You zoom in, and it’s grainy, but decent enough to make out most of her. You snap the pic.

The flash was on.

A couple people turn to look at you, and you try turning away quickly, horrified, and see the gem looking in your direction before walking off into the crowd of people. You cannot imagine a worse scenario.

Y/N: FUCK FUCCCCKKKKKK.

Y/N: (image sent)

Y/N: I GOT YOUR FUCKING PIC BUT THE FLASH IS ON.

Y/N: I’M PRETTY SURE SHE SAW THAT IT WAS ME THAT TOOK THE PIC.

With shaking hands, you take another sip of your drink and wait for a reply. Why is life like this.

Harper: uh.

Harper: ummm.

Alex: wait

Alex: one fucking second

Y/N: WHY ARE NONE OF YOU CARING ABOUT MY PLIGHT.

Y/N: I’M TRYING NOT TO COMBUST ON THE SPOT HERE.

Alex: shut up for one second

Alex: harper isnt that

Harper: uhh. yeah i think so.

Y/N: WHAT!? WHO IS IT. WHY DOES THAT MATTER AT THIS POINT.

Alex: lmao i cant believe i have to tell u this

Alex: bitch do u remember that shit that happened last summer

Alex: where half the town almost died from that gem shit

Alex: that’s her Alex: that’s the bitch who almost killed like, the entire planet

Harper: you know that night your dad almost died??

As you’re typing back a reply, someone pulls the stool out next to you and takes a seat. You see a sliver of pink out of the corner of your eye as you try not to actually Look. Oh god. It’s her. God can’t help us now.

#spinel #spinel x reader #spinel su #steven universe #spinel self insert #my fic #devils ballroom

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elcrivain · 5 years

Note

Hi Ellis! I'm a literature student and I've been working on a school paper. I'm going to talk about Jane Austen on my paper. Sooo I wanna ask if what is a common factor that you’ve noticed in all six novels of Jane Austen? I will be waiting for your response!! Thank you so much

There are a few common factors across Austen’s novels:

1.) Bad parents - this one is in fact so common as to leave few good parents to write about.

Perhaps most famous is the silly Mrs. Bennet, who flusters and fidgets over her five girls, obsessing over marrying them and lending Pride and Prejudice its marvellous opening.

She is not alone. Whether it is:

Mr. Dashwood, failing to provide for Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret in Sense and Sensibility (or alternatively failing to foresee his son, John, will be so selfish)

Sir Thomas and Lady Bertram neglecting all of their children until it is too late for some in Mansfield Park

Mr. Woodhouse leaning too hard on Emma, fussy hypochondriac that he is, and expecting far too much from his daughters in Emma

General Tilney the warhorse and monstrously bad host in Northanger Abbey

Sir Walter spoiling Elizabeth, ignoring Mary, and sneering at Anne, in Persuasion; or

Mr. Bennet forgetting that having a silly wife is no excuse for not providing for and protecting his children in Pride and Prejudice

Austen stuffs her novels with bad parents.

2.) Hypocritical snobs - Austen loves to write about snobs, and loves far more to write about those with precarious positions in the social sphere.

Caroline Bingley is a great example of this, snubbing Jane’s relatives who are actually of higher social standing than her own grandparents’, but without the wealth of her father.

Mrs. Norris, the mere wife of a country parson, flouts her superiority over little Fanny. She is a distasteful fool.

Emma, ferociously proud of her own position, simultaneously raises Harriet Smith, a no one and likely illegitimate, and complains that the Coles do not invite her to their party when she would not be able to accept. Augusta Elton is worse still, not even realising that she is on rocky ground when she complains about the people who would set themselves above the Sucklings.

Willoughby is a hypocritical snob, not seeing that his own character is far lower than the “foolish” and “silly” people he mocks. Marianne gets the snob label, which she absolutely is, but not a hypocrite one.

3.) Scoundrels and bad boys - Every novel needs a villain and Austen’s rogues gallery is fairly complete:

P&P’s Wickham sets a high standard. He seduces, elopes, flirts, charms, and “makes love to us all.” Was there ever such a charming rotter?

Well of course, there’s Willoughby in S&S, seducing all of us before abandoning us pregnant with hope but, luckily, nothing else. He even shares the same W-initialed surname. While Wickham marries the girl he seduces. Willoughby leaves his teenage victim alone and pregnant, while he marries a young woman who is in for a bad time of it with him. Though her vicious nature possibly makes it a fair match.

Mr. Elliot in Persuasion is less obviously charming, and also less devastating. Poor Mrs Smith suffers through his inaction, but there are no pregnant teenagers in his wake. We also have him to thank for making Anne and Captain Wentworth aware of the other’s feelings, when he interrupts their tete a tete at the Assembly Rooms concert.

A more understandable villain lurks in Mansfield Park. Henry Crawford is a selfish child in a man’s body. He takes what he wants, and he pays for it in the end. Pretty, shy Fanny would have made him a better man. Instead, she gets to prig-happily-ever after with Edmund. Sigh.

Northanger Abbey has more than one scoundrel, but it’s John Thorpe who does the most damage, in his limited way. Though Captain Frederick Tilney wreaks havoc as well.

Emma is restricted to the least bad men, Mr. Elton doesn’t really get the title as he’s just a bit mean. Frank Churchill is a bad boy however, as he spends the whole novel deceiving everyone and treating his love badly. I would argue that there is a hidden scoundrel in Mr. Woodhouse though, who is so selfish that it’s a miracle he doesn’t cause more damage.

4.) Wise young women - Austen is littered with young women who are usually wiser than their elders, though it doesn’t always do them much good.

P&P’s Charlotte Collins nee Lucas, for all that she may not ever love her husband, has far more foresight than Lizzie, eight years her junior.

MP’s Fanny Price sees what none of her cousins can, that while play acting is dangerous, Lovers’ Vows can only end in disaster and that Mariah and Henry are playing a very dangerous game. She is a Cassandra. No one listens to her, but she still sees.

S&S’s Elinor Dashwood is smart enough to see through Lucy, but that can’t save her from her machinations. She is trapped by her own goodness, but she also has all the wisdom her kindly but foolish mother lacks.

NA’s Eleanor Tilney manages to glide above the craziness occurring around her without falling for the novels bad boys, getting caught up in the nuttiness of her best friend’s imagination, or marrying beneath her. Quite a feat.

Emma’s Jane Fairfax is perhaps the least wise of the women in this list, but she has the maturity that Emma and Harriet both lack. She knows she’s facing a harsh future as a governess, but retains her dignity no matter what, even when her lover is flirting with another woman in front of her.

Persuasion’s Anne Elliot has hard-won wisdom and is the oldest of our young women. She is wise now because she has had time to reflect and reason to regret. She sees through her father and sisters, never falls in love with the scoundrel of her novel, and wins herself an excellent marriage and social position by staying true to herself.

Note, as much as I like her, Lizzie Bennet does not have a great deal of wisdom, though she’s getting there by the end.

I can think of more, but they don’t hold true across all six books.

Lizzie, Anne, Catherine, Fanny and Elinor are all book lovers, but Emma can barely finish one, despite good intentions.

Many heroines have bitchy friends or mean girl relatives, but their position and power are inconsistent.

The heroes vary in attractiveness, affluence, and affability.

The fates of the heroines vary as well - we all envy Lizzie marrying Darcy, but few of us feel like Fanny won a similarly sized prize in Edmund.

So a few other things, more about the society than anything else, bind the books:

5.) Humour - They are all funny. How funny varies by how much you know what Austen is satirising for Northanger Abbey, playing with Lovers’ Vows in Mansfield Park, or realise about the characters in Pride and Prejudice, which is really much funnier if you think of Mr Collins as only twenty-four, rather than his usual casting in his thirties.

Austen is consistently one of the funniest writers of any novels ever. Her books are full of crackers.

6.) Social satire - We don’t always realise what she’s satirising now as we lack some of the context her readers had, but Austen is always out with her embroidery needle to prick social pretensions and foolishness.

7.) Happy endings - All of our heroines get happy endings with desirable men, most of whom are at least tolerably handsome and kind. We believe that all of them will live happily ever after.

8.) Genius - All of Austen’s novels showcase her genius to varying levels. Whether it is in the perfect retelling of Cinderella for the Regency era for Pride and Prejudice, the quiet and very gentle subversion of the classic passive heroine’s arc in Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey’s clever gothic satire, a meditation on expectation vs reality in Sense and Sensibility, the depiction of a more mature, Sleeping Beauty love in Persuasion, or creating one of the most complex and difficult heroines in Emma, Austen lays down a gauntlet that no one has yet managed to pick up.

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changji · 5 years

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Wow you really went off the other day but at least it was worth it 😪 I normally look at the scenery when I’m on a road trip, but then I get bored of it and decide to sleep bc there’s nothing else to do. Motion sickness must suck :(( do you take gravol or something to help with it? Coffee literally drains the life out of my funds it hurts me

Yes omg pls make me cookies I love them. Maybe you can even open a bakery with pastries and sell some good /cheap/ coffee. Ilyt my dear baker 🥺 ye I’m not the biggest fan of my bday either but gotta celebrate anyway!! One year closer to death woohoo 🎉🎉 your birthday is the most important day of the year!!! You can’t fight me on this I’m right

Pearls are so good. Like most places I go to don’t add anything to the pearls so it’s just bland squishy balls but the place I frequent adds I think honey to sweeten them. It gives the pearls life istg. It tastes so good 🤤 hollering is a funny word. For some reason I always associate it with yodelling which makes me laugh

Ksks you must be op if you can make a joke in the wall with a door slam. I can’t relate my arms are literally sticks and I have no strength in me. Chrome books are terrible in general. Add my schools terrible wifi and you get one big recipe for disaster. I’d never fight u either (unless it’s for your bday) ily too much for that 🥺🥺🥺

Hahah I think it’s me. I haven’t heard anyone say “go ham” except for the people who go to my school. I find it really funny tho so I try to incorporate it whenever I can LOL easily burnt? Can’t relate but apparently I easily tan. There’s this one diagonal stripe on my shoulder that separates pale me and tan me which ??? How did that happen and what was I wearing for that to happen??

It’s all fun and games until you go outside and see a mountain of snow waiting for you to be shovelled. But there are some good aspects to winter, like skating and skiing and all that fun stuff. Snow is so heavy?? Or maybe I’m just weak but after I finish shovelling I’m beat. Gardening is not my thing. There’s too many bugs involved flying around 🥴

Kind of? I always thought it was short for cappuccino but I could be wrong. They don’t taste like fraps tho, they’re sm better. I was always a frap hoe until I discovered lattes. My old elementary school was close to a Starbucks so whenever frappy hour was happening, my friends and I would go almost every day LOL

I heard that dunkin coffee is really good. Oof there’s so many things that the us have that Canada doesn’t. But apparently you guys don’t have ketchup chips?? How can one live without them? You know that’s what soulmates are, we’re stuck together forever and I don’t mind that. I’d never leave you 😌😌

YES OMG LATTES ARE SO EXPENSIVE. I pay around the same amount and my wallet cries every time. If you ever yeet yourself off a bridge I’d come visit u in hell and bring u iced coffee 💖 we really are soulmates wtf I get almond milk in my lattes as well!! I used to get normal milk and was like “I’m a bad bitch milk can’t hurt me” but that didn’t really work out. Sigh what we do for coffee 😔

Washing dishes is disgusting. I hate doing them but yk someone’s gotta do it and that someone is me 😤 I’m acc lazy when it comes to smoothies, I usually ask my mom to make them LMAO. Pancakes are pretty much made of flour if you think about it so technically when u eat one plain ur eating cooked flour,, how barbaric. Waffles are Built. Like. They have a 20 pack 😪😪

I love angst personally so pls go ham but not too ham I’d like to keep my heart. Honestly at this point my last brain cell has given up on me. But yes I love angst and I love torturing myself with heart wrenching angst that leaves me crying into my pillow at 3am (I’m talking about this one haikyuu fic that I forgot the name of. I was literally dying inside jalsjwo)

Pls do send me peet’s I’ll send you an iced capp in a cooler so it’ll be somewhat melted and probably spilt everywhere 🤪 tumblrs probably gonna block me again, I’m looking at how much I’ve typed rn and it’s a lot lmaoo. Yes I managed to save myself. I redid the whole last with less detail bc I was not Having It but it turned out better?? How is ur drawing now?

I start after labour day in September. But starting in 3 weeks?????? On a Thursday?? I could never wtf. When do you end? I’m so confused with these ap and honours thing, like there’s none offered in my school nor majority of the school district. Are they just advanced classes or something? It is 7 classes a semester or the whole year?

Stan talent i think you meant yourself??? Jsjsksk I am not only ur coffee soulmate I’m not #1 fan as well and I support u bc ily 🥺🥺 the read more tag had me laughing for a hot minute. Like we really could make an essay out of all of our replies. I don’t have any pets (besides fish does that count?) unfortunately bc my moms allergic to fur 🥺 hbu?? (I can’t believe tumblr blocked me again they can fight me)

i didn’t even pay LOL i freeloaded off my cousin 🤧 i like to look @ scenery sometimes but like i can’t bc my head hurts LOL and the scenery is always the same for me, mountains and fields with cows. i try to take dramamine but it makes me so drowsy that i’m just basically dead,,, i live off of my cousins money so i’m okay 🤪

tbh i use nestle toll house pre made cookie dough, like that shit actually slaps. it’s the best it’s so good omg, perfect for lazy hoes 🤧 death here we go ! the order is ur bday, then skz debut date, and then christmas i don’t make the rules sorry sis 😤

pearls are Dangerous, i once drank a smoothie and there were pearls in it and i couldn’t see them bc there were like. only 3 and they were Buried under the smoothie but i choked and almost died but i chewed one of them and it’s like. so weird. HOLLERING AND YODELING IM- i once went to some public yodeling class and left in 2 seconds bc it was a bunch of white boys dressed like the kid from walmart 😪

it’s not even strength i’m actually rly weak,, i always think the doors are closed but they’re not and so i like slam them open and the walls are thin so it’s just. a sad hole. terrible wifi,, my school has pretty good wifi tbh but we have like three connections, one for the chrome books only, one for the teachers & staff, and one for students and guests. like it works rly good but everyone has a VPN bc of stupid social media restrictions 😤 & ilyt 🥺 u would probably win in a fight tho LOL

go ham is so interesting. the first time i heard it i thought it meant go pig and i was so confused but ig,,, i live lathered in sun screen whenever i go somewhere with the sun. ppl are like “i smell sun screen” and im just there like 🙃 it’s me u got a problem u burnt chicken nugget ??? i wish i tanned easily, i have a tan friend and when i showed her when my legs got tan she was so confused. i thought i was tan tho? bc during marching band season my sock tan becomes So Bad i’m basically white. she said she was blinded when she saw me pull my sock down and i laughed so hard LOL & i hate those dumb random tan lines like. where u @ bro? where u come from??

snow is fun for like a day and then i get tired LOL i csn only handle wet socks and a red nose for so long 😔 i tried skiing one time and i did so bad that the instructor had to hold me down and walk with me down the slope. i fell so many times i think he hated me 😳 i’m also rly bad at skating? i went w my friends once and i held both of their hands and still managed to bring both of them down when i fell. a cute guy once helped me when i was struggling to walk so 🥴 not my brightest moment tbh,, trying to walk in skates while on ice. do u enjoy skiing/skating? also gardening is. gross. worms and dirt and the sun i’m not here for it.

u: cappuccinos! me: ...ice bergs,,, now that i think about it fraps kinda suck,,, i used to think i was So Cool for drinking starbucks but now i’m like. wow. i used to think there was coffee in a frap but it’s just. sugar and ice LOL also speaking of tmrw is bogo fraps here,, idk if it’s all over the world but myb u should check it out 😪

dunkins okay it depends on what you get, i once got an iced latte and it was good but my dad got an iced coffee and he like. hated it so we had to switch and it was so bad like. it was coffee crime. it was horrible and not strong it was basically milk 😤 also,, ketchup chip? i just googled what that was and. that’s literally so weird. fun fact i hate ketchup and all other condiments i can only eat bbq sauce and i tolerate steak sauce

UR LITERALLY SO CUTE OKAY UR MINE NOW HHHH

i mentioned this in the other ask but. we going broke bitches club 😪 when u come visit me it’ll be old town road the one w mason ramsey on a loop. nothing will top the og remix but no, i’ll be stuck listening to some 5 year old rap for all of eternity

I USED TO BE SUCH A GOOD KID AND DRINK MILK EVERY MORNING ever since i got to middle school i preferred sleep over waffles and milk and i hardly drink milk but when i do. my stomach does not have it.

my mom made me wash dishes today and she just stared at me when i put ziploc bags on my hands bc we didn’t have gloves but i just painted my nails and i’m not abt to put myself thru chipped nails. not yet 😤 waffles are so good like i love waffles and lattes only 🤧

well i’ll go very ham (am i doing it right LOL) 😤 the angst ending is a lot better than the open ended or happy ones LOL i’m so excited for it 🥺 i’m rly tryna get it out before the end of this month bc the edit says july and it’ll make me Mad if i don’t get it out before the end of this month

i wanna start in september 🤧 and i usually end in the first week of june. also on a wednesday LOL it’s gross. stupid. ap means advanced placement so it’s just. a college level class. lowkey mad bc i’m taking ap euro (as a sophomore 😒) and other schools take it in their senior years? apparently this is normal? and honors are just faster paced classes with more weighting so,, idrk oops 😬 some people take 7 classes in a semester but i took it for the whole year! this year i’m dropping orchestra i’m Not for that spit in the carpet life

the only talent in this house goes by ada and jisung. i don’t make the rules. i’m ur #1 fan 🥺 as soon as u post anything i automatically smash that rb button LOL also put a read more here bc like. we’re really out here writing a whole ass essay. i’ll look @ all our convos bet it’ll be like. a lot. i don’t wanna say smth and be off so i’ll just not. i have a dog! he’s the cutest in the world and i love him sm 🥺 tumblr can fight me first like. what’s this ask limit bull hhhhh

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peacevine · 6 years

Text

Birth of an Emperor

While Fable is busy entertaining the hatchlings, his journal sits unattended on a desk. Some of the ink is still fresh; even then, it’s placed in a corner just so that the shadows fall onto it, obscuring both the book and the writing inside.

WAV 12

Today, the hatchlings behaved well - thankfully. I feel more comfortable leaving my post behind, then, even if it’s just for a couple of minutes. Sprout came back from her morning trip out foraging - she told me it was further north than usual - and stood at my tent, asking me to come with her.

I think now is a good time to take her up on that offer. Most of the kids are asleep, and it won’t be long for the rest.

WAV 13

I forgot to finish yesterday’s entry. It wasn’t too long ago that our Order’s leader suggested we keep track of our daily activities to better coordinate the Clan, and I’m still trying to get into the habit. Pinch me if I mess up again.

Where was I? Yesterday, Sprout took me out north, around where she went that morning. We went to a little clearing among the pine trees, where she led me to a grave. When I asked her who was buried there, she said that she didn’t know - it just stood out to her, was all. To be fair, I think she had a point. It looked pretty new.

I couldn’t read the dates very well - the stone was new, and particularly ornate at that - but the writing was done poorly. But if I read it right, it was a child’s grave.

WAV 14

Sprout urged me to go there again. The grave looked new, but there were no flowers on it yesterday. Neither were there any today. She’s busy making her first preparations for next week’s meals, so I should go. I’ll go ask Greenskeeper if she has anything for me.

WAV 15

I can’t stop thinking about that grave. Are we the only ones who know about it? Where did the child’s parents go? Why haven’t we encountered the mother yet?

I should probably focus on my work first. I’ll come back tomorrow.

WAV 16

I have a lot to write.

When I went back on my own this morning, the grave appeared to have been reopened. It didn’t surprise me much at first; it did look as if whoever made it had no shortage of wealth. But it wasn’t long until I found out the cause.

In the bushes, I spotted movement. I thought I’d found the thief, but…

How do I even say this? I’ll have to pray no one else reads this. From now on, I’m hiding this thing.

In the bushes was a hatchling. Well, I believed it to be - but it was so much more than that. Looking back at the gravestone now, I realize that not one, but three names (Bai Shi - Bai Ru - Bai Die, if my memory serves correctly) were engraved on it - that must’ve been what threw me off.

I’d always believed tales of Emperors to be nothing but myths. Most of us did, really. We simply didn’t want the opposite to be true. But here I am, writing my daily now-private report while one is nibbling on my tail.

I have to go, so I’ll end this here. More tomorrow.

WAV 17

Right. More on the Emperor.

I didn’t even know Emperors could be made of hatchlings. It doesn’t seem to be quite as malevolent as its adult counterpart, thankfully, just somewhat stronger than the average hatchling (don’t worry, I haven’t introduced them to each other) and destructive only in a playful, curious way.

It looks surprisingly well, too. It seems the children were triplets: their markings and coloration hardly differ, and there were no separate birth dates listed for them. They also died only recently; their eyes are sunken and the wings are somewhat torn up, but it doesn’t seem like they’ve been too afflicted by the inevitable decay.

I wish I could call them by their names, but I don’t know which name belongs to which head. When I call one of them, all three look up. Therefore, I’ve decided to call the collective Emperor Bai.

WAV 19

I don’t know what I want to say. I’ve been observing Bai’s behavior for the past few days, while hiding it from the rest of the Clan. It’s not that I don’t trust them, but I want to minimize any risk of possible harm befalling Bai. It would be disrespectful to their mother if anything happened to them.

I realize now what happened to the mother. Surely, she must’ve realized what she had done by burying her three children together? Her grief was so great that the thought never crossed her mind at first, but once she realized what could happen, she saw no choice but to flee, flee as far as she could: not out of fear of consequences, but so she could forever live with the thought her sons were merely at rest.

I hope she’s alright. I certainly can’t blame her.

WAV 23

The thought of Bai and its family plagues my mind, haunts me in nightmares. Do I really want to know how this came to be?

I asked our Order’s leader, Shiroe, whether any great disasters had happened recently. I cannot seem to make out on my own what the cause of death was: it could be anything. I also told him that I had family up in the northern Sunbeam Ruins, who went there first before I, too, left the Windswept Plateau. I pray he believed me.

He told me there were no natural disasters that he heard of, but that a brief plague struck that area. Though it took only shortly for the sickness to vanish, just as quickly as it came, several fatalities were reported nonetheless.

That explains a lot, then.

WAV 25

So far, all my observations point towards the Emperor not posing any threat. Most of us are larger and stronger, anyways. Either way, it seems the heads really are just curious and playful - they sometimes bite and knock things over, but none of it is more than a slight nuisance. But the smell of rot is growing stronger, and I’ll have to figure out some way to move Bai further from the Clangrounds if I want to keep its existence a secret.

It also appears it is yet too young to use magic, or at least use it with any significance. It has definitely made attempts, though - but none of them resulted in anything more than a bright light emitting from its mouths for a few seconds before fading away. Could it make for a good nightlight?

Anyways, my next plan is to figure out how to move Bai away from here. That, and attempt to communicate - I’m not sure whether the triplets could speak or not, but their responses to me have been nothing but growls. If I can teach the Emperor to speak again, what would it say?

GRE 02

I told Sprout about Bai. She didn’t seem to mind too much, surprisingly - but I can definitely tell she isn’t done thinking about it yet. She said she’s mostly relieved the grave wasn’t desecrated by some outsider (after I told her this, she stopped visiting it).

She agreed to help me find a way to continue taking care of it, as well as promising she’d prepare extra portions of food so I no longer have to sacrifice mine. A hatchling may not eat much, but three incredibly active hatchlings?

I’m glad she wants to help me. It’ll make this far easier.

It’s late and the hatchlings aren’t in bed yet, so I’ll finish this here. Goodnight.

#flight rising #flight rising lore #fr #fr lore #my lore #d: fable #d: bai #OKAY IT'S HERE!!!! AAAAA

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dfroza · 3 years

Text

A new covenant of grace written upon the heart

to be known.

Today’s reading of the Scriptures from the New Testament is the 8th chapter of the book of Hebrews:

So let me sum up what we’ve covered so far, for there is much we have said: we have a High Priest, a perfect Priest who sits in the place of honor in the highest heavens, at the right hand of the throne of the Majestic One, a Minister within the heavenly sanctuary set up by the Lord, not by human hands.

As I have said, it is the role of every high priest to offer gifts and sacrifices to God, so clearly this Priest of ours must have something to offer as well. If He were on earth, then He would not be a priest at all because there are already priests who can offer gifts according to the law of Moses in a sanctuary that is only a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary. We know this because God admonished Moses as he set up the tent for the Lord’s sanctuary: “Be sure that you make everything according to the pattern I showed you on the mountain.” But now Jesus has taken on a new and improved priestly ministry; and in that respect, He has been made the Mediator of a better covenant established on better promises. Remember, if the first covenant had been able to reconcile everyone to God, there would be no reason for a second covenant. God found fault with the priests when He said through the prophet Jeremiah,

“Look! The time is coming,” the Eternal Lord says,

“when I will bring about a new covenant with the people of Israel and Judah.

It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors

when I took them by the hand

and led them out of slavery in the land of Egypt.

They did not remain faithful to that covenant,

so,” the Eternal One says, “I turned away from them.

But when those days are over,” the Eternal One says, “I will make

this kind of covenant with the people of Israel:

I will put My laws on their minds

and write them upon their hearts.

I will be their God,

and they will be My people.

In those days, they won’t need to teach each other My ways

or to say to each other, ‘Know the Eternal.’

In those days, all will know Me,

from the least to the greatest.

I will be merciful when they fail,

and I will erase their sins and wicked acts out of My memory

as though they had never existed.”

With the words “a new covenant,” God made the first covenant old, and what is old and no longer effective will soon fade away completely.

The Book of Hebrews, Chapter 8 (The Voice)

Today’s paired chapter of the Testaments is the 48th chapter of the book of Jeremiah with words against the pride of Moab:

This is what the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies and God of Israel, has to say about Moab:

Eternal One: Woe to the city of Nebo, for she is in ruins.

So, too, will Kiriathaim be put to shame when she is captured.

The proud fortress of Moab will be humbled and shattered into pieces.

No one will praise you, Moab—that time has gone.

Instead, in places like Heshbon, men are planning your destruction.

“Come,” they will say, “and let us finish off that nation.”

Indeed, the town of Madmen will be silenced,

for war will surely find you.

Do you hear the voice from Horonaim—

the cries rising up from the ruins and desolation?

Moab is broken,

and her little ones cry in desperation.

The defeated make their way up Luhith, crying bitterly as they go;

as they descend to Horonaim, they hear the anguished cries of destruction.

Run for your lives! Save yourselves!

Live in the desert like a juniper bush, alone and forsaken.

You depended on your own works and your own wealth,

and now you will be humbled and taken captive.

Your so-called god, Chemosh, will go with you into exile

along with his priests and officials.

The destroyer is coming to each of your towns; none of them will escape.

The valley will be ruined;

The plateau will be destroyed

because I, the Eternal One, have spoken.

Give Moab wings so she can fly away.

Her cities will be a wasteland with no one living in them.

A curse on any who do not finish the work I, the Eternal One, have given you! A curse on anyone who holds back his sword and refuses to shed blood.

Moab has been at rest since his early days—

like wine that is carefully left to age,

Not poured from jar to jar,

not going from nation to nation in exile.

And so his flavor has remained; his aroma has not faded.

But all of that will change. Look, in the coming days, I, the Eternal One, declare that I will send those who will upend him, stirring him up and pouring him out until his jars have nothing left. They will empty his jars and smash the empty jugs.

Then Moab will be ashamed of his powerless god, Chemosh, just as the people of Israel were ashamed of Bethel when they trusted in their false gods.

Eternal One: How can you still boast,

“We are mighty warriors, brave in battle?”

Because Moab is destroyed;

invaders have laid waste his towns.

His best young men have gone down to slaughter.

So say I, the King whose name is the Eternal, Commander of heavenly armies.

The fall of Moab is at hand;

his disaster is coming quickly.

Grieve for him, you neighbors of Moab,

all who know his name.

Say, “Look how his mighty scepter is broken,

how the splendor of his staff is gone!”

You people of Dibon, come down from your glory on the hills

and sit on the dry, dusty ground and wait,

For the same one who destroyed Moab

is coming against you and will tear down your strongholds as well.

Stand by the road and watch closely,

you people of Aroer.

Call out to the refugees running from Moab.

Ask them what happened!

And they will answer: “Moab has been humiliated and crushed.

Weep for him, and cry out.

Go down to the Arnon River and

proclaim that Moab has been destroyed.”

Judgment has come to the cities of the plain: to Holon, Jahzah and Mephaath; to Dibon, Nebo, and Beth-diblathaim; to Kiriathaim, Beth-gamul, and Beth-meon; to Kerioth and Bozrah. To all the cities of Moab, far and near, judgment has come.

Eternal One: The symbols of his strength are gone; the horn of Moab has been cut off, and his arm broken.

Make Moab drink deeply from this cup until he is drunk, for he has exalted himself above the Eternal. Make him drink until he wallows in his own vomit; then he will be ridiculed by all who see him. Did you not ridicule Israel? Was he guilty of a crime? Was he caught among thieves? Is that why you, Moab, shake your head in contempt every time you speak of him?

Eternal One: Run from your towns and live in the wilderness,

you citizens of Moab;

Hide among the rocks

like doves who nest among the cliffs.

We have all heard about the pride of Moab—

so vain and so smug.

We have all heard about her pride and arrogance

and her overconfident heart.

I, too, know of the arrogant outbursts, but they are pointless;

empty boasts accomplish nothing.

This is why I will mourn for Moab; for all her people, I will cry aloud;

for the men of Kir-heres, I will moan.

You who tend the prolific vineyards in Sibmah,

I will cry for you more than I did for Jazer.

Your vines once spread as far as the sea, as far as the sea of Jazer.

But now the destroyer has spoiled your summer harvest and sweet grapes.

The joy of the harvest is gone from Moab’s orchards and vineyards.

For I have stopped the flow of wine; no one treads the grapes.

The land is full of shouting, but they are not shouts of joy.

The anguish of their cries rises from Heshbon to Elealeh and Jahaz, from Zoar all the way to Horonaim and Eglath-shelishiyah; for even the waters of Nimrim will dry up.

Eternal One: I will put an end to idol worship in Moab, to those who make offerings on shrines in high places and burn incense to so-called gods.

Like the somber sound of a flute, my heart mourns for Moab. My heart mourns for the men of Kir-heres, for everything they had is gone.

For every head is shaved, and every beard is cut short;

every hand is cut, and every waist is wrapped in sackcloth.

Eternal One: On every rooftop in Moab and on every street corner,

there is nothing but mourning

Because I have smashed Moab like a jar that no one wants.

How broken he is! How the people wail!

How the once-proud Moab turns away in shame!

See how Moab has become a laughingstock

and a horror to all his neighbors.

Eternal One: Look in the distance: an eagle will swoop down

and spread his wings over Moab, his prey.

The cities will be captured and the strongholds seized.

On that day the heart of Moab’s warriors

Will be like the heart of a woman in labor—helpless and vulnerable.

The nation of Moab will be no more

because he dares to defy the Eternal.

Terror and traps and snares lie ahead, O citizens of Moab.

Eternal One: If you run from the terror, you will fall into a pit.

If you climb out of the pit, you will be caught in a trap.

There is no escape, for I will bring these disasters against Moab;

the year of their judgment has come at last.

Run if you will, but in Heshbon’s shadow the refugees are helpless.

Look! A fire rages from Heshbon; destroying flames leap from Sihon;

They consume the northern regions of Moab

and destroy his clamoring rebels.

Woe to you, O Moab! Worshipers of Chemosh are destroyed;

your sons are sent away, your daughters taken captive.

But even so, in latter times the day will come

when I will restore the fortunes of Moab.

This is the end of Jeremiah’s oracle of judgment against Moab.

The Book of Jeremiah, Chapter 48 (The Voice)

A link to my personal reading of the Scriptures for Thursday, September 30 of 2021 with a paired chapter from each Testament of the Bible along with Today’s Proverbs and Psalms

A post by John Parsons that looks at Light and fear:

For reasons not explained in Scripture, God chose to begin creating the world in chaos: תהוּ וָבהוּ וְחשֶׁךְ / tohu vavohu ve’choshekh: “confusion and emptiness and darkness” (Gen. 1:2). From chaos and darkness God would shine forth light - indeed, the divine light was the first of all God’s creations (a counterpart of the “Light of the World” Himself): יְהִי אוֹר וַיְהִי־אוֹר / yehi or, vayhi-or: "Let there be light, and there was light" (Gen. 1:3). God’s handiwork in creation, then, first involves His mastery over chaos...

God speaks from the midst of a whirlwind (סְעָרָה, “tempest”), demonstrating that He is LORD over the seemingly chaotic world around us (Job 40:6). “Greek-minded” theology is more inclined to seek after “Apollo” (the pagan ideal of harmony and order) than the seemingly chaotic ways of the LORD God of Israel. We often want some sort of “systematic theology” and for God to be explained to us in an orderly, logical way. There is danger here that we forget that the LORD is called Esh Okhlah (אֵשׁ אכְלָה), a “consuming Fire” (Deut. 4:24, Heb. 12:29). God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, neither are His ways our ways (Isa. 55:8-9). As the prophet Isaiah also said: יוֹצֵר אוֹר וּבוֹרֵא חשֶׁךְ עשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם וּבוֹרֵא רָע אֲנִי יְהוָה עשֶׂה כָל־אֵלֶּה / “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create woe; I the LORD do all these things” (Isa. 45:7).

We live in fearful times, chaverim. People are afraid of losing their money, their health, their freedom, and so on. But we must be careful here. The fear of “losing control” can move us to anger, yet the sages liken anger to idolatry since it denies the providence of God in our lives (i.e., hashgacha partit: השגחה פרטית). Anger over the apparent chaos of life implies that we don’t really believe that God is in control -- that He is speaking “from the midst of the whirlwind” -- and therefore we feel aggrieved and perhaps embittered by what might happen to us. We must look to God as the Master of the storms of life and draw closer to Him in trust. The Scriptures affirm that for those who love God “all things work together for good” even if the present hour seems incomprehensible and even dangerous (Rom. 8:28-39).

Yeshua warned us not to live in fear of man, but rather to live in fear of God (Matt. 10:28). The worst that man can do is “kill the body” but he has no real power over the soul... Tribulation - the “squeezing of grapes” - is part of the life of faith, but we are invited to come “boldly” before the Throne of Grace (παρρησίας τῷ θρόνῳ τῆς χάριτος) to find help for our lives (Heb. 4:16). Note that the word translated “boldly” in this verse (παρρησίας) means that we can speak freely to God from the center of the chaos of our hearts -- without fear or shame. We don’t need to conceal ourselves from the Divine Light, since this is the very Light that overmasters the "tohu va'vohu" chaos of creation! Those who accept that God is in complete control of their lives are set free from the terrible burdens of fear and outrage. Abiding in ahavah shlemah (אַהֲבָה שְׁלֵמָה, God’s “perfect love”) means that you can let go.

May God help us all remember: חֶרְדַּת אָדָם יִתֵּן מוֹקֵשׁ וּבוֹטֵחַ בַּיהוה יְשֻׂגָּב / “The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the LORD will be made safe” (Prov. 29:25). Note that this “fear of man” is not just the fear of external dangers but more deeply is the fear we embrace within our hearts - our own insecurity that undermines our faith.... May the LORD help us abide in His perfect love, free from the ravages of fear, anger, and anxiety. Amen. [Hebrew for Christians]

9.29.21 • Facebook

Today’s message (Days of Praise) from the Institute for Creation Research

September 30, 2021

The Prophet's Chamber

“And she said unto her husband, Behold now, I perceive that this is an holy man of God, which passeth by us continually. Let us make a little chamber, I pray thee, on the wall; and let us set for him there a bed, and a table, and a stool, and a candlestick: and it shall be, when he cometh to us, that he shall turn in thither.” (2 Kings 4:9-10)

This sparsely furnished little room, built by a kindly woman and her elderly husband, was the prototype of all the so-called “prophet’s chambers” that have been built for traveling teachers and evangelists ever since.

Little did this simple couple anticipate what fruit their kindness would bear one day. “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers,” the Bible says, “for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2). In the first place, to show his appreciation, Elisha prayed that the Lord would give them a son, and God miraculously answered (2 Kings 4:16-17).

Then, tragically, the boy died quite suddenly several years later while Elisha was at Mount Carmel, some 15 miles away. The Shunammite woman laid her son on Elisha’s bed in the prophet’s chamber, then rode hastily to find Elisha and bring him to the boy. The round trip must have taken her two days or more, and the boy’s dead body lay on the prophet’s bed in the little room all that time.

But then Elisha prayed once again, and the most amazing event took place there (2 Kings 4:33-35). For only the second time in history, a dead person was restored to life.

The Shunammite mother and her son are never heard from again. But for 3,000 years the testimony of a little chamber and the love and faith of the godly woman who prepared it as a simple service for her Lord and His prophet, and the godly mother who sacrificially loved her son, has been an inspiration and example to multitudes. HMM

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The Flower & The Serpent (Arthur Morgan x OFC)

Chapter 3 - Full of Sound and Fury

Summary: In the early 1890s, the Van der Linde Gang were truly at their finest. Experts at stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, they’ve made a name for themselves across the West. Two of their newest recruits, a pair of rebellious Irish siblings with an unknown past, slowly find their footing and settle into their new lives as outlaws. And yet, as they grow older, threats from all sides begin to appear. A strained relationship with Colm O'Driscoll spells disaster for the gang, and no matter how far they roam across America, the world continues to change around them. If they want to survive, difficult choices must be made. No one is as they seem and the impending arrival of law and order threatens to tear the siblings, and everything they hold dear, apart. Is it too late for anyone to find a happy ending?

Originally found here

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Pairing: Arthur Morgan x OFC

Warnings: Language, violence, civilisation, jokes at John’s expense.

Word Count: 5,747

Previous Chapter Next Chapter

Playlist: “Too Old to Die Young” — Brother Dege, “We” — Bon Iver, “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” — Dropkick Murphys, “Inverness” — Jed Kurzel

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A/N: Also available on AO3. Chapter three comin’ at y’all. And yes I like to imagine that William somewhat resembles Luke Mitchell because he’s a beautiful boah.

23rd August, 1893, outside Winterset, Iowa

Another city, another bank to hit. Dutch is happy with our plan to take the bank in Winterset and chose a good team to work with. As well as the boss himself, he wants all experienced hands on deck, so John, Maebh, William, Hosea, and I will be attending. He asked that Karen come too so she can act as a distraction before we make our entrance. She proved she can handle herself in the last town, so we’re happy to have her along. Considering the Callander brothers are newer to how things work around here, he wants them to guard the camp.

With the plan to plant some of us in the bank beforehand, things seem good to go. As long as we get in and out with the money and keep casualties to a minimum — or preferably none at all — then we can call it a job well done.

* * *

“Marston, I’ve a question for ye.”

“What is it, Hennigan?”

Maebh looked up from reading her book beside the campfire. She raised a brow at William and John who sat beside her, the latter whittling away at a piece of wood while the former stared at him curiously.

“What happened to your voice to make it permanently raspy?” William enquired, scratching his beard thoughtfully. “Did Arthur punch you mad hard in the throat or somethin’ and you’ve sounded like this ever since?”

John frowned, his hands halting their movements. “I’ll have you know it’s hereditary.”

“Yeah? Who was your da? A furnace?”

Maebh casually added. “A Scottish furnace, actually.”

“My voice ain’t that raspy.”

William let out a snort. “Ah, c’mon now! You’re only twenty and you sound like you’re pushin’ on fifty.”

“No, I don’t.” Maebh tried to keep her mouth shut, but the look of amusement on her face caught the older man’s attention. “What the hell you smirkin’ at?”

She scoffed “Nothin’! Don’t bring me into your little tiff.”

John threw his hands up in the air and let out a huff. “Then maybe get your brother to stop botherin’ me.”

With a shake of her head, she shut her book and got to her feet. “He’s his own man and I’m not gonna tell him what to do.”

She left them to it, just about managing to hide her laughter as William continued to do Marston’s head in.

It had been three years since she and her brother found themselves in a spot while robbing a stagecoach, and thankfully being saved by Dutch van der Linde and his gang. Though they had both been skeptical of the group at first, seeing Dutch and Hosea focusing on helping those forgotten and in need across the country had helped to ease their worries. Now, they were well settled into their rolls and formed bonds with their fellow outlaws. Dutch had been the supportive leader they pegged him for — encouraging them to keep reading and ‘broadening their minds’, thus ensuring that they were made aware of what was happening in the country as governments, cities, and civilisation took over. While it was a nomadic life, it was better than what they had before. Together, they robbed multiple banks across the country, and gave vast amounts of wealth to the forgotten people who needed it.

The gang itself had acquired new tag-alongs and members since they first joined. Another pair of siblings, Mac and Davey Callander, had recently been recruited by Dutch after he encountered them partaking in a massive street brawl. They were a proper vicious pair of bastards by the sounds of the stories they told, but they bothered Maebh very little. Though they were particularly violent, they seemed to be able to control these tendencies towards their fellow gang members. Another newer member was a woman named Karen Jones. Bursting with confidence and personality, Arthur and Maebh were the ones to encounter the proficient scam artist in a local saloon. She did an impressive job of drinking the pair of them under the table that day and stealing their money when they blacked out. When they later tracked her down, they came with an offer rather than a loaded firearm. Last but not least, the ever flamboyant and mischievous Josiah Trewlany appeared randomly at camp a few weeks after Maebh and William originally joined. Apparently, he had been a member of the gang for a while, but rarely stayed at camp. He was constantly going to and fro, but always seemed to have a lead; the very reason Dutch still welcomed him upon each return.

Returning to her tent, Maebh set herself down on her bedding and continued reading. It was one of William’s plays — Othello — he finished it himself a few days ago and asked if she would read it so that he could hear what she thought. He was always one for long discussions about stories whenever they were travelling long distances for work, or while sitting in their tent at night. Having been familiar with Shakespeare’s work already because of his mild obsession with the bard, she was happy enough to read another of his tales. Frankly, she read any book that William hopefully plopped into her lap.

“Whatcha readin’?”

Engrossed in the story, she hadn’t noticed someone approaching. Tearing her eyes away from Iago’s monologue, she was met with Arthur standing in front of her. “More Shakespeare.”

“You really like his work, huh?” he asked, taking the book as she offered it to him.

“He’s more William’s favourite than mine, but I gotta give him credit where it’s due, it’s a good read.”

He flicked through the pages carefully. “Sure. Hope I ain’t disturbin’ your good readin’?”

She waved him off. “Nah. I’ve been at it for most of the mornin’ anyway so I should probably call it a day.”

He nodded and handed her back the play, resting his hands on his belt buckle. “If you ain’t up to much, I was gonna go do some huntin’ if you wanna join? You can ask your brother too if he ain’t busy.”

“Yeah.” She offered him a small smile. “That sounds fun actually. I could do with gettin’ outta camp for a bit.”

“Good, good. Grab your bow and I’ll fetch William before he makes Marston’s head explode.”

“Might want’a move quick, then.”

With a smile, Arthur left to do just that and Maebh gathered her hunting supplies in a bag. She hurried over to the hitching post where William’s mount, Dant��s, was currently stationed and waited for the others. She offered him a sugar cube from her pocket and stroked his mane, admiring the animal with genuine fondness. She was surprised to see not only Arthur and William approaching, but also John following closely behind them.

“Marston wanted to join us,” Arthur explained as he readied Boadicea. “So don’t be surprised if him and your brother decide to turn a huntin’ trip into a competition.”

“No thanks,” William countered, patting his horse’s neck. “I’m just here to help get supplies. I’d rather beat him at a good aul fist fight anyway.”

“We can make that happen!” John assured him as he got on top of his own horse.

William shook his head and hoisted himself atop Dantès before he offered his sister a hand on to the back of the Dutch Warmblood. “You ever goin’ t’get yourself a new horse?”

“I will eventually,” she replied and hung on to his slim waist. “It’s not an easy thing to do, y’know, gettin’ over a horse.”

“You’ll know when the time is right,” Arthur added, taking his hat from his saddlebag and putting it on his head. “We ready to go, fellers?”

Soon, the four of them were heading out. They galloped through the rolling hills of Madison County, basking in the heat of the early afternoon sun. They reached a spot not far from camp that was known for having a decent amount of activity amongst the local wildlife. One of the many smaller ponds in the area, deer and other herbivores were common enough around those parts, especially on a hot day like this. They left their horses hitched to some trees and went about planning how to take down a few deer if they could. Splitting into two teams, the Hennigans went to one end while Morgan and Marston went to the other. Not far from where Dantès was hitched, Maebh spotted a rabbit slowly scurrying amongst the brush. Crouched low behind a tree, she notched an arrow and steadied herself when William encouraged her to kill it. It was released with a thwack, and flew through the air before successfully piercing the animal, killing it instantly. Its carcass was swiftly clipped to his saddle before the pair slowly crept to a spot near the lake. From here, hidden within some bushes and the shade of an overhanging tree, they could get a good view of the surrounding area and the deer that currently stood drinking water on its bank. Arthur and John could be seen on the other side, thankfully far enough away that their hunting wouldn’t disturb the Hennigans’ targets.

“Right,” William began in a whisper. “We’ve got three horses, which means three deer max. D’you want to get this one?”

She shook her head. “Nah. I got the rabbit — you can hardly go through a huntin’ trip without catchin’ somethin’.”

“If you insist, sis. You’ll grab its attention?”

Maebh watched as her brother carefully notched an arrow and steadied his aim with an unbreakable focus. They had hunted together on too many occasions to count throughout their lives together, so the process was familiar at this stage. When he gave her the signal, she whistled and caused a nearby buck to raise his head in response. Lacking any hesitation, he let the arrow fly and struck it in its neck. With a mewl, the buck fell to the ground and died as the other deer scattered in fright.

“Nice shot,” she commented, glad that the animal didn’t suffer needlessly. “Need a hand carryin’ it back?”

William grinned widely and stood up straight once more. “Ah, thanks, but I’m grand. I don’t want to give Marston an excuse to claim I wasn’t the one who caught it.”

“Don’t mind him,” she insisted, though her tone was moderately amused with the jesting. “He’ll probably pass comment regardless of who carries it back to the horses.”

“Probably,” he replied, and hoisted the carcass over his shoulder. “But no need to give him a bit of ammo.”

She shook her head as they strolled back to the horses, taking in the sight of the peaceful little lake, now practically devoid of animals thanks to their intrusion. On the other side, she could just about see Arthur and John carrying their own kills in the same direction. “I swear, you’s two would make a competition out of breathin’ if you could.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea… We’ll see who can hold their breath underwater the longest!”

“You know he can’t swim…”

“… Who can hold their breath the longest in general then! First to pass out loses.”

“Jaysus Christ.”

Dantés waited patiently as the pair of them return to his side. While Maeve petted his mane, William loaded the buck on to his rear and secured it with some rope. Not long after that, their companions appeared through the brush, each carrying their own deer.

Maebh offered them a friendly ‘Howdy, gentlemen’, though Dantés still held most of her attention.

“Only one buck?” Marston observed, voice slightly out of breath as he carried the hefty animal. “You two are losin’ your edge.”

“Excuse me,” she interjected. “I’ll have you know, Mr Marston, that I caught that succulent lookin’ rabbit too.”

“And a fine rabbit it is,” Arthur chuckled good-naturedly. “He’ll taste good in a stew, although probably not if Pearson’s makin’ it.”

“Marston,” William announced and approached said man as he placed his catch on his horse. “Got a challenge for ya.”

John smirked. “You lookin’ to get beat, boy?”

“I’m only two years younger than ya, pal, calm down.”

“Alright, what you have in mind?”

“We both get thrown into the lake and the first to drown loses.”

Arthur burst out into a hefty laugh while Maebh found herself guffawing at the bitter look of displeasure on Marston’s face. She interjected before a full on fight could break out. “C’mon, let’s get these back to camp before you two have another one of your marital spats.”

Thankfully, everyone agreed to mount up and head back. The success of the trip had the group in good spirits and they took their time heading home, choosing to let the horses roam on an easy trot. As they made their way along the trail, William spotted a small band of wild horses grazing on a rolling hillside. A particularly beautiful chestnut stallion had the young man whipping out his binoculars to get a better look.

William let out a whistle before passing the device to his sister. “That’s some horse.”

“This might be a good opportunity for you to get a new mount,” John suggested. “Considerin’ it’s ’bout time you got one.”

“I’m not the best at breakin’ in horses,” Maebh admitted as she studied the animal from a safe distance atop Dantés. “I’ve much more experience with breakin’ in fellas.”

John spluttered at the retort while Arthur hid an amused grin. “We’ve got your back if’n you wanna try. Gotta try breakin’ in wild horses sometime.”

Knowing that her companions were right, and with a reassuring promise from William to step in if needed, Maebh hopped on to the ground and slowly approached the grazing horse. She planted her feet carefully as she waded through the grass, trying to keep herself — and the animal — calm. Upon noticing her approach, the stallion raised its head and whinnied. The rest of the herd, alerted to the disturbance, began to scatter in the opposite directing, their hooves thundering into the distance.

“Hey there, big fella,” Maebh called out to the stallion, feeling a little stupid for doing so while her friends were nearby.

The horse stomped a hoof in reply, heavy breaths being snuffed from his nostrils. Despite his visible discomfort, he didn’t run as she continued to slowly make her way to him.

“My brother said you were some horse,” she continued. “And now that I’m up close to ya, I can see he wasn’t full of it.”

The animal began to make small jumps on to his back hooves, neighing as she closed the gap.

“Easy boy, easy… You’re alright. Look at you.”

Eventually she reached the stallion’s side with sure and careful strides. The animal, though somewhat calmer than before, was still visibly uncertain with her presence. She reassured him by carefully patting his neck, though always on edge in case he lashed out — the last thing she wanted was a horse shoe to the face. The thoughts had her heart thumping rapidly.

Thinking that the interaction was progressing well, she saw an opportunity and quickly hoisted herself on to the horse’s back.

It didn’t end well for Maebh.

She managed to hang on to the now panicking horse’s golden mane for some time, trying to desperately balance herself as it leapt around the pasture and tried to buck her off. The rapid spinning of the world around her and the deafening neighing quickly became too much. Suddenly, her balance was lost and she was falling through the air. The landing stung but she didn’t have much time to think about it; the stallion’s legs were kicking wildly and she could only assume she was in its path. Despite the wind being knocked out of her, she rolled her body in a direction she hoped was away from the angered animal. She rolled and rolled and, as she sensed a distance being put between them, raised her head.

William stood beside the horse, lasso already wrapped around its neck and ensuring that the animal calmed down. Hands grasped her shoulders, and she looked up to see the worried expression on Arthur’s face. “You okay?”

“I’ve been better,” she admitted and winced as he helped her sit up. “I think I made a balls of that.”

“You nearly had it,” he replied and gave her a once over. “But I think it's in better hands now.”

Now that the horse had calmed down, William thrust the lasso into the stunned John’s hands before flying over to his sister’s side. “Are you alright? He didn’t kick you, did he?”

Seeing the panic in his green eyes, she tried to reassure him. “Nah, I’m grand.”

“You got bucked off a fuckin’ horse and you expect me to think you’re grand.”

“I am grand.”

“We’ll have Miss Grimshaw take a look at her back at camp,” Arthur added, presumably trying to calm the situation. “The main thing is she didn’t get kicked. Looks like she got away with only some bruises.”

She pouted at her sibling while he gently brushed some dirt off her tinted cheeks. “I’m sorry I gave you a fright, William.”

“You can repay me by lettin’ me help you back to camp.”

William and Arthur carefully hauled her to her feet, and she was relieved that she could stand without their assistance.

“She okay?” John called while he remained with the wild stallion a few feet away.

“She’ll be fine,” Arthur answered as he fetched their horses. “Doesn’t look like she got any broken bones.”

She allowed William to help ease her atop Dantés and carefully wrapped her arms around his waist as he sat in front of her. “Well, that was embarrassin’…”

“At least you got a new horse outta it,” he offered, taking the lasso as John passed it to him. “And you didn’t die either.”

“I think that horse is yours. You calmed him after all, and I don’t think he likes me much.”

William didn’t even glance at the animal as it followed them back to camp. “We’ll discuss that after we make sure you’re okay.”

Knowing that there was no arguing with him, Maebh simply let her cheek rest against his back and enjoyed the smooth ride home, nursing the ache in her hip and her somewhat fractured ego.

* * *

Arthur had thankfully been right — Maebh managed to escape the incident with no broken bones and only received a bit of hefty bruising on her hip and shoulder from the fall. It was nothing too serious, bar some cuts and grazes. She was mostly just relieved that none of her injuries kept her from the bank robbery that they had scheduled to do a few days afterwards. William didn’t leave her side for days, despite the fact she could walk and talk with no issue. She was however prevented from doing other jobs and leaving camp; Dutch said he wanted her in tip top shape for the robbery, so aggravating her injuries wasn’t an option. She did manage to convince her brother to keep the damn horse though, and now the stallion — formally named Banquo — stood grazing with the others at camp. Arthur checked up on her too, bringing hot food and coffee with him. His presence was appreciated, especially when she started getting anxious about being stuck in camp. At night time, Karen came to her with some beers and the two usually ended up drinking themselves to sleep after a sing-song with Uncle and Miss Grimshaw.

Maebh was relieved when the days passed by and the morning of the robbery arrived. She felt fit and ready for the occasion thanks to her few days of rest. Soon, she and William were riding into Winterset with Dantés and one of the spare mounts from camp.

The plan was simple enough. In order to avoid suspicions with a large group riding into town, she and William would go into the bank alone with concealed guns and inquire about making an account as a newlywed couple. Hosea would also go to the bank on his own, and the three of them would wait on opposite ends of the room for the others’ arrival. Karen was the signal that things would begin — she would come in, cause a distraction to grab everyones attention, and Dutch, Arthur, and John would storm the bank through the front door. Once they arrived, it was masks on and all hands on deck. Arthur was to intimidate the manager into opening the lock boxes as quietly and as quickly as possible. The others would keep the tellers quiet. The plan was that there would be no casualties.

They rode into town, dressed to impress in a suit and frock respectively. Having hitched their horses on the edge of town and entering the bank, Maebh and William played their part well, and the latter got into a casual conversation with one of the tellers under his alias.

“I think I should discuss it with my new wife before making a decision; she’d murder me if I did it without her. Y’know how women can be, huh, pal?”

They retired to a pair of seats on the right and pretended to be in deep conversation about their finances. Across the room, Hosea sat and made as though he was perusing through some bank statements.

“We’re lucky it’s not very busy today,” Maebh said to her brother in a hushed whisper. “Less people in the crossfire.”

He glanced around the room quickly before meeting her gaze. “Hopefully that’ll play in our favour. In and out in no time.”

It wasn’t long before wails could be heard outside and a figure came crashing through the front door. Karen stood there, dressed in her fanciest outfit with tears streaming down her plump cheeks. She heaved out complaints about an apparent man who had wronged her as one of the bank’s staff came to her side. Whatever attempts he had at hushing her were drowned out by her howling. She expertly drew him in, only to suddenly unveil a gun and push it into his gut.

Her voice shed its previous woes, now laced with stinging vinegar. “Get your goddamn hands up! This is a goddamn robbery!”

At her signal, Dutch, Arthur, and John burst through the doors, bandanas covering half their faces and guns raised.

“Nobody move!”

“Hands up!”

“Anyone moves and we shoot!”

John was on the teller with the keys in an instant, and William and Maebh moved into position. They tugged their bandanas on and William and Hosea quickly shut the front doors while Maebh waited by the teller’s door.

“Unlock the door,” John ordered and swiftly tossed her the keys. “Quick!”

Maebh did as asked, trying to ignore some of the pleads from the bank’s workers.

“This is a robbery, gentlemen,” Dutch announced, addressing the whole room. “And we don’t want to shoot any of you kind folk. So do as we say and no one gets hurt, is that clear?”

As soon as she unlocked the door, she called out to Arthur. “We’re in! Come help sort the vault out.”

While the others attended to those in the main room, Maebh, William, and Arthur stormed through the door to the vault. Arthur grabbed the manager by his collar and switched his demeanour like the flip of a coin.

“Open the goddamn vault!” he screamed, revolver pointed to his head. “Open it!”

“Okay, okay,” the manager said, voice quivering in terror considering he had three guns pointed at his head. “Just don’t hurt me, p-please. I’ve got a family—”

“Open the fuckin’ vault if you want’a see them again!” William growled, getting the man to move. “C’mon the fuck!”

He got to opening the vault, moving too slowly for their liking. With a swift whack of Arthur’s cattleman, he worked faster. “Sonofabitch, c’mon! Hurry up!”

The door opened with a heavy creak, and William pushed the suit into the vault with them. Inside were four lock boxes that were sure to hold ample amounts of money they could use. Though things were going well, Maebh could feel sweat building on the back of her neck.

“We’re in!” she called out to the others. “How you’s holdin’ up out there?”

“We’re fine,” Dutch called back. “Just make sure he opens those lock boxes up without causin’ any trouble!”

Arthur grasped the manager once more and threw him towards the lock boxes. “You best get them open before I put a goddamn hole in your head, boy!”

There was no arguing to be had, and the manager did as he was asked. They quickly shoved the contents of the lock boxes into four bags Arthur had brought along.

Once they were in the clear, William gave the manager a box and knocked him out cold. “That should give us a bit more time to get away.”

Before either of them could make a comment about how smoothly things had gone, a commotion stirred up in the other room. A single shot rang out. Glass smashed and screams erupted. Hosea’s voice could be heard amongst the rabble. “What the hell are you doin’?”

The trio emerged from the teller’s door to see Dutch stood by the front door, one of the window panes smashed through and glass littered on the ground. Maebh glanced out one of the other windows and saw a dead lawman on the street, blood pouring from a bullet hole in his chest. The weight of the money bag on her back felt all the more heavier now.

“What in the hell happened?” Arthur demanded.

“Lawman was investigatin’,” Dutch explained hastily. “He saw what was goin’ on — I had to shoot him.”

“We don’t kill people on these jobs!” Hosea argued, disgusted by the turn of events.

Dutch refused to back down. “We do when our lives are at stake!”

“Well now you’ve put all of us at risk! We could’ve done somethin’ else!”

Karen quickly joined Maebh at the window just as more lawmen appeared outside. “Awh, shit… We got more law outside, boys!”

“They sure as shit know we’re here now,” Maebh added and turned to face her friends. “What do we do?”

“We fight our way out,” Dutch answered, drawing his pistols in each hand. “And get back to camp alive and with the money. We’ve been plannin’ this for too long to give up now. We gotta leave this town as quick as we can. Arthur and I will open fire and force them to stay in cover while the rest of you get to the horses. Head down the alley and loop around; Hosea will lead the way. Shoot anyone in your way, you hear me?”

“Lead the way, Dutch,” John said and took the spare money bag from Arthur. “We’re right behind you.”

A swift glance amongst the group to ensure that everyone was ready, and Dutch was kicking the door open. He was the first to open fire on the waiting lawmen, who ducked behind shop fronts and buildings to steer clear of the bullets. Arthur followed, wielding a repeater and forcing their adversaries to hide if they wanted to avoid being shot. One by one they emerged from the bank, cash in hand and guns ready to take out anyone who threatened their escape. As always, Maebh planted herself ahead of William, staying low as they hurriedly turned and snuck down the side alley and through the back gardens of several shops and a hotel. The thundering clamour of guns firing and bullets flying through wood and clashing with brick could be heard as Hosea, Karen, Maebh, William, and John skirted around corners and hopped over short fences.

As the horses appeared up ahead, visibly skittering at the sound of shots firing, Maebh threw a glance over her shoulder to see if Dutch and Arthur were nearby. She let John and William pass her as she peered around one of the alleys.

“What are you at?” William asked, hesitating to continue.

“We can’t leave without them,” she insisted, wiping her brow and getting her breath back. “Two men against a whole load of law won’t end well.”

“It’s Morgan and Dutch; they’ll be grand. We need to stay with the others.”

Though the commotion continued to rage, she was relieved to see Arthur come barrelling around one of the corners, skidding on the dirt ground as he went.

Upon seeing the siblings, he sprinted to their side. “Y’all okay?”

Maebh shook her head. “I feel like we should be askin’ you that. Where’s Dutch?”

“Comin’ ’round now. He told me to go ahead, so let’s move.”

With his confirmation that their leader was alright, the pair followed the older man as they continued in their escape. As they reached the horses — the others already mounted up and ready to leave — Maebh saw Dutch appear from the corner where Arthur had come running. He was unscathed and thankfully outrunning and law that was following him. She would have grinned at the sight, had he been alone.

Before she could cry out in warning, an armed lawman leapt from around a fence behind Dutch. With a whack, he clocked him in the jaw with the butt of his carbine. Dutch was sent sprawling to the dirt.

Maebh grabbed Arthur’s arm in a knee jerk reaction and her breath caught in her throat.

As the lawman stood over their floundering companion and aimed his gun at Dutch’s head, she heard Arthur desperately calling out his name.

A single gunshot cracked through the air.

With a clatter, the carbine felt limply out of the lawman’s hands. His body went next, landing in a lump on the ground, and blood spurting from the wound in the back of his head. Dutch was stunned, as they all were.

“Who the fuck is that guy?” William asked.

Behind the lawman stood a reverend, decked out in a classic black coat and white neckerchief. Underneath his large brimmed hat was thick, wild ginger hair and a weary but anxious expression. In his hand he held a revolver, smoke steaming from its barrel — the weapon that had saved Dutch’s life.

“Thank you, Reverend,” Dutch said, voice cracking beneath his bandana as he let out a sigh of relief. “I think you just saved my life.”

“I think you were in trouble and I helped you,” the stranger replied, frowning beneath his moustache. “Doing nothin’ would’ve been wrong.”

Arthur quickly turned to the others atop their horses. “You three get outta here! We’ll make sure he’s alright.”

Needing no further encouragement, Hosea quickly guided John and Karen out of town at breakneck speeds. Maebh and Arthur sprinted to Dutch and his new friend while William quickly gathered the horses and prepared them for departure.

“Well, I doubt the law will see it that way,” Dutch said as she and Arthur quickly helped him to his feet. “If you wanna live, I recommend comin’ with us.”

“I don’t even know your name,” he replied, but followed uncertainly as they approached their horses. “And by the sounds of things, you just robbed the bank.”

Dutch was quick to mount up and offered the man his hand. “I ain’t gonna lie to you — we did just rob that bank. There will be time for introductions later though. You saved my life, and I owe you a debt, Reverend.”

Though he hesitated for the briefest of seconds, the reverend took the offered hand and hopped on to the Count. Each of them mounted up, just as more law arrived in town, this time riding on horseback. Maebh grabbed her reigns and quickly pushed her horse to follow her companions’ tail. Last to leave, she tried to stay close behind her friends as they galloped out past the town’s limits.

Up ahead, Arthur called out. “More comin’ in!”

She looked up and, atop a small hill, three more riders appeared, coming towards them with guns drawn. Dutch was on them first, taking one man down while Arthur got another in a flurry of bullets. One remained, but she steered her heavily breathing horse in an attempt to dodge the oncoming attack. Her companions sped off up ahead, the continued strain of jerky movement causing her horse to tire and slow.

They were far off when her horse cried out in pain and several bullets struck the animal. For the second time in a few days, Maebh was flung from a stallion and sent crashing into the dusty road below with some force. Her head spun and her shoulder throbbed. She breathed deep, lungs working overtime to get whatever air she could down her burning throat. Quite suddenly, her scalp stung as a vicious hand grabbed her hair and pulled her head up.

She cried out as tears built in the corners of her eyes. Through blurred vision she saw the lawman who shot her mount. Now he stood before her, his gun stuck in her face. “I got you now, you little—”

A deafening blast cracked through the ringing in her ears, and the man’s chest quite literally exploded. Blood and bits of flesh and bone struck her face, and suddenly, the pressure on her skull relaxed. With a wobble, he crashed to the ground, revealing a fuming William behind him. He sat atop his horse, shotgun in hand with a look that could kill. His piercing eyes fell on her — his only visible feature thanks to his bandana — brow furrowed so deep into his brow that it cast a shadow over his youthful face and emphasised the scar marred into his skin. He barely even flinched as he holstered his weapon once more.

“Get on his horse!” he ordered through gritted teeth by the sounds of it. “We need’ta leave now!”

Though dizzy and trying to get her breath back, Maebh listened to her brother, and quickly hauled herself on to the abandoned animal. There was simply no time to think about what had occurred — if she thought about her close encounter at that very moment, it would surely cost her her life this time around. With a glance at the dead horse and body in the middle of the road, she lurched and kicked the animal into a gallop, following her brother over a hill and out of sight as cries from the evaded lawmen disappeared on the wind.

#red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan #arthur morgan x oc #john marston #red dead redemption fandom #rdr #rdr2 #fanfiction #fanfic #arthur morgan fanfic #the flower and the serpent #dutch van der linde #hosea mathews #rdr fanfiction #rdr2 fanfic #arthur morgan x ofc

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everlarkficexchange · 7 years

Text

Tripple Dog Date Him!

Written by: @alliswell21

Prompt #57: Katniss is dared to ask nerdy!Peeta out on a date, she ends up actually enjoying her time with him. By: Anonymous.

Rated: T for some language.

Triggers: None

Word Count: Around 7500

Summary: Katniss has known of Peeta Mellark since they were little, but not until her roommate Johanna decides Katniss has had a too long hiatus from the dating scene, she dares speak to the boy.

This piece has not been betaed. All mistakes are mine.

I make my way to Greasy Sae’s, the diner I work at five days a week; I get a discount on my bill if I eat here… the life of a college student doesn’t support luxuries, like passing up ‘discounted prices’ on hearty meals and if Old Sae, the owner of the diner, is here without her watchful granddaughter, my meals become free, which is an even better value for my wallet.

My friend and roommate, Johanna, is already seated at our usual booth, so I make my way towards her and slide in on my side of the bench. We don’t speak, merely grunting our greetings to each other and burying our noses on the sticky menu we already know by heart. Jo introduced me to Sae, that’s how I got the job of waitress at her fine establishment, which means, Jo gets free meals too, making Sae’s diner our favorite place to eat.

The old woman comes herself to our table and sits a mug of mint tea in front of me and a cherry Coke in front of Jo.

“You girls need a second to peruse the menu, or should I just go ahead and bring out your usual?”

We both look at old Sea’s smirking face, and say “Usual” at the same time, which causes the old lady to guffaw all the way back to the kitchen.

Having nothing better to do, we go back at staring at the menu.

Johanna and I had a little impasse this morning, and we are giving the cold shoulder to each other. Or at least I thought we were.

“Was the night you went out with Gale, the last time you went out on a date?” She asks breaking the icy standoff.

I scrunch up my face, “Nah. I went to that frat party with Darius. A big, fat waste of my time.” I sigh remembering the disaster that date was.

“Mhmm.” She’s frowning at the chili section of the menu, then she clears her throat, “Fine, then it’s high time you went out on a date. That debacle with Darius was almost four months ago.”

“I don’t wanna go on a date!” I protest slapping the menu onto the table.

“Why not? You go on a date, I get the dorm to myself for a few hours where I can invite some willing guy, to get me off this dry spell… both figuratively and literally!” she places her own menu down delicately, staring me down.

“No!” I cross my arms over my chest like a brat.

“Why?”

“There aren’t any guys I’d like to go out with!” I say harshly.

“Then try a girl. I’ve always say, there’s fun in diversity,”

“I’m not attracted to girls, Johanna,”

“Then I’ll choose a dude for you, Brainless. What do you say?” She grins deviously.

“I said no!” I stomp my foot under the table, but she’s on a mission.

Johanna scoots upwards in her bench, and her eyes make a wide scan of the place. Is a Sunday evening, and the diner offers student specials when the cafeteria at campus is close on the weekends. The place is packed with kids from every year.

“Aha!” Johanna shouts delighted, “Him!”

I turn, only because of morbid curiosity forces my head, but once I locate the guy she’s pointing at, I snort derisively.

“Big fat no!” I tell her.

“What’s wrong with Jack Marvel?” She asks arching an eyebrow.

“Ugh! No. He was in my literature class freshmen year, he’s got two cockroaches playing ping-pong in his head instead of brains. Pass!”

“O-kaaaay…” she looks around the room. “Ooh! I got it!”

I look again, and this time it takes me a second longer to shut down her candidate.

“I’m not going out with Alexander Cato. He’s a misogynistic pig! He got offended because I got top marks on our last math test. He called me a cheat, even though he was the one asking every soul in the room, what they had answered on number four. Parasite!”

“But you looked at him. That means we are on the right track,” Jo says shrugging one shoulder.

“He’s okay looking, if you ignore what a big jerk he actually is.”

“So, you like blondes now?”

I scowl at her teasing tone and roll my eyes. “I don’t really have a type per say… I actually thought it was someone else until I realized his shoulders weren’t the right breadth,”

“What does that even mean?” She asks arching a brow, and I know I’ve said too much.

“Nothing. It means nothing.”

“Fine, how about…” she pauses for a moment.

I don’t like how easily she’s dropped the subject. She’s never this easy. Then, I see a broad smile form on her lips before she looks back at me.

“I found the perfect guy,” she mock whispers.

I’m scrambling up, trying to twist all the way around to see who she’s talking about, then I cackle at her choice.

“Puh-lease!” I chant, “Odair? Are you serious? Get real, Johanna! What makes you think I’ll even try it?”

“Okay, now what’s wrong with Finnick?” She actually looks indignant. “I’ll have you know, Finn and I go way back, and he’s an alright dude!”

I roll my eyes, “If you must know, Finnick Odair is too pretty. He knows he’s pretty and takes advantage of it. I wouldn’t touch his narcissistic ass with a ten foot pole, even if he was the last guy left in school. He’s too easy to get, or maybe too easy to lose… I haven’t decided which is worse yet.”

“You’re wrong about Finn,” Johanna says annoyedly, “He’s engaged to his high school sweetheart. He might be a big flirt, but he’s no cheater.”

“Then why did you pointed him out as an option?” I ask aggravated.

“I didn’t.” She hisses, “I was pointed at the guy sitting with him.” And like that, the smirk is back on her face.

I turn in my seat, straining my neck to see who’s she talking about.

I freeze.

Then just as fast as I turned to look, I drop into my bench and try to shrink myself as small as I can.

I can’t believe Johanna!

She starts chuckling quietly, no doubt laughing at my discomfort.

“So? What do you think of my pick, Kitty Kat?” She asks.

I glare at her. “No.” I grit between my teeth.

She whines, “Awww. Why? He’s got everything you kind of like,” she says smirking, “actual brains in his head, sparkling baby blue eyes, muscles that go on forever, a boyish smile, and that wavy ashy mop of blonde hair covering his nerdy brain!” She laughs full on, “He’s perfect!”

I turn back to spy on him and make sure he’s not aware we’re talking about him. Lousy Johanna is right. He is pretty perfect, and completely out of the question, don’t get me started on how out my league he is.

“That is an absolute ‘hell no!’” I say through gritted teeth.

To my horror, Johanna waves.

“What are you doing?” I screech trying and failing to lunge myself across the table to stop her.

“What? Stop!” She snaps. “I’m just trying to get Sae’s attention you maniac!”

I cover my face with my hands in embarrassment, and plop sideways into the bench.

“Jeez! If I knew little baker boy had your panties in such a tight knot I would’ve made you talk to him sooner.” She bites, not one bit amused.

“I- he- is not that. He’s out of bounds.” I say lamely.

“Out of bounds?” She repeats staring at me as if I’ve sprouted a second head, “what are you talking about?”

I take a deep breath to calm myself. “My friend Delly, she’s always had her eye on him. They were next door neighbors growing up, their parents still live next to each other. They were very good friends. She always got invited to his place to play with his action figures. They used to exchange comic books, even though Delly couldn’t care less about them, her brother used to tell her all she needed to know to get by.”

Johanna is still staring at me as if I just said the stupidest thing ever. Which she promptly voices after I’ve finally gone mute.

“That’s ridiculous, Brainless. You won’t ask a guy out because a girl you knew in elementary school had a crush on him?” Her tone is disbelieving. “Isn’t Delly the one girl with the humongous boobs?” She asks.

“Yeah, so?”

“Last time we went to your house, she was talking non stop about this Thom guy she met at work. She sounded pretty serious about him, Katniss.” She says in a patronizing tone I hate.

“Jo, you don’t understand. Peeta Mellark and I have nothing in common, other than we come from the same town. But I grew up on the wrong side of the tracks so to speak, while he was the rare, golden boy, who could be both a brainiac- debate club president- and a jock- wrestling champ- at the same time, and everyone loved. Me– I wasn’t popular. Hell, I would’ve believed I was unlikable, if it hadn’t been for Gale, Delly and Madge insisting on sitting with me at lunch all through high school. I have no business messing with that boy.” I deflate.

Sae places our food in front of us, and I smile at her gratefully, because Johanna is nothing but a one mind track sort of being, she’ll drop the whole thing once she starts eating, and then she’ll concentrate in the next thing that happens, except, she doesn’t.

Johanna finishes her greasy double steakburger with cheese, sucking a stranded piece of finely sliced onion into her mouth as if it was a single spaghetti noodle with a pop at the end.

I try not watch her disgusting eating habits while I try to finish up with my bowl of lamb stew over rice, poking around for a plum. I believe I may be the only patron under sixty to ever order the stew, but it just reminds me of home in rainy days, but my peace is disturbed when my dinner mate starts slurping obnoxiously the last dregs of her soda through her chewed up straw.

I glare at her, she knows I hate it when she does that, but she smirks, letting me know every nasty sound she’s made in the last five minutes were all for my benefit. Sometimes is easy to for me to see Johanna as the annoying older sister I’m grateful I never had.

“So,” she says smacking her lips loudly, “I’ve been thinking.”

I groan, sliding my food away from me. It’s never a good thing when Johanna’s sentences start with ‘I’ve been thinking’, so I brace myself for whatever crazy idea has been floating around her idle mind.

“I believe is time for you to go on a date, so I can go forth and get laid.”

“Oh please, Johanna, don’t be crass–”

“No, no! Hear me out.” She toots haughtily rising her hand. “I know you don’t believe in casual sex- hell, I know you didn’t give it up to Gale, and he’s been after that shit since he could jerk off–”

“JOHANNA! Good grief.” I hiss, “I don’t think the people in the table across the diner heard you! Could you, please, mind your words?” I shake my head, because she looks too gleeful when she shrugs.

“Fine, have it your way Mother Teresa. As I was saying, it is my expert opinion, that is in both our best interests if you went out on a date. I seriously don’t care who you go out with, as long as you let me have the dorm to myself for a couple of hours.” And then, she pulls her big guns against me: her huge, brown puppy dog eyes! “Pretty please with a cherry on top?” she sounds pitiful.

I rub my face with both my hands, and finally acquiesce to her pleads. I hate the smug, pleased smile she throws at me right after, but I figure she’s right. I haven’t been out on a date since forever, not that I date much, but nothing can go as wrong as Darius puking on me- twice- in less than thirty minutes, which was how long it took me to drop him off at the Campus infirmary after confirming his food poisoning. I shudder at the memory.

We leave our booth, and shuffle behind a group of giggling sorority girls trying to skip on their meal check, but Sae fixes them with her deadly accurate impersonation of a neapolitan mastiff- the breed is truly harmless, but so intimidating. When she sees us standing there, she waves us off smiling and saying we our dinner was on the house, causing the sorority sister to glare daggers at us and a male full laugh to bubble up behind us.

I turn around to see who’s the idiot that actually dares to piggyback a laugh on our moment, and I’m surprised to find myself face to face with the most stunning ocean green eyes I’ve ever seen in my life, accompanied by the whitest, sparkliest perfect row of teeth, in the history of the world. Damn that Finnick Odair is unreal.

“Great! Good going Finn! You broke my roommate!” says Jo next to me, except her voice is too full of mirth to be a tell off.

“Hey Jo! How’s it going sweetums?” He asks allowing his lips to fall into an easy smile, framed by dimpled cheeks.

He reaches an arm past me, and I freeze, his eyes honed on mine, which may be the size of flying saucers judging by how dry they feel right now.

“Hi there, roommate. Although I rather call you by your real name, Katniss?”

Okay. Now I’m officially in shock, the most gorgeous man on earth knows my name somehow, but we’ve never been introduced before. Who cares if he just dragged the ss at the end of my name in the most obnoxious manner ever!

He finally pulls his arm back to himself, and I see he’s got a small pile of sugar cubes on his hand. He pops a cube into his mouth and asks me in the smoothest voice I’ve ever heard directed at me, “Want a sugar cube, Katniss?”

The crunching sound he makes while chewing, finally brings me back to earth. I frown at the noise and take a step back.

“Leave her alone, would you?�� says another voice, male, deep, not truly harsh, but still rings like a command.

Finnick’s megawatt smile dims immediately, his eyes do a quick take of who spoke and then turns back to me, with a friendly grin. He step back, popping another sugar cube into his mouth he most likely stole from the counter behind me.

But I’m back to catatonic state, staring at my knight in shining armour, giving his friend a stern look before facing me, but as usual, Jo has to be the one to open her loud mouth.

“Hey there, handsome,” She says in a sugary tone. When Peeta ‘freaking’ Mellark doesn’t answer, she turns to his companion, “Hey Finn, does your friend have a name?” she asks coyly.

Finnick laughs, “Of course, Jo!” He obliges before I can turn to give Jo a searing glare of death.

She knows full well who Finnick’s friend is.

“This is Peeta Mellark. Outstanding dude, my best friend, second only to Annie herself, and my roommate.” He turns to Peeta, who’s eyes keep flicking back and forth between me and Finnick. “Peet, this Johanna Mason a long time friend of mine, and you know this lovely lady standing next to Jo is–”

“Katniss Everdeen.” Peeta finishes the sentence apparently out of breath, while Finnick’s lips lift on a devilish grin he can’t quite hide fast enough. But Peeta keeps talking, bringing my spasmic attention back to him. “Very nice to finally meet you. I’ve heard many great things about you from Dells.”

My response is to nod followed by a very pitiful “Likewise,” that comes out as strained and congested. It’s not my fault, really. He’s taken my hand in his to shake, and I’m overwhelmed by how warm and big it feels around my own. As soon as he lets go of it, I wipe it on my pant leg because suddenly my palms are sweating uncontrollably immediately regret my action, because I don’t want to wipe away the feeling of his touch just yet.

“So, tonight is Peet’s turn to pick up the check, and I figured I’d ask if we could take yours as well, lovely ladies… but I see Old Sae beat me to the punch,” Finnick says sending a smile to Sae still sitting behind the register.

The old woman, cackles mirthfully, “You can still do the gentlemanly thing and pay for the girls’ grub, you know.” But since she’s still laughing when Peeta passes her his credit card, we all know she wont charge him for our food.

Jo thanks Finnick and Peeta anyway for their offer, which I would’ve refused anyway if it came down to it. I like free meals and all, but a girl has to have some dignity.

Jo and Finn truly are friends, and for some crazy reason decide on staying in the middle of the diner lobby catching up. I catch Peeta’s eyes several time, but he averts his eyes so fast is a wonder he hasn’t lost one those baby-blues so far. My face starts to feel warm with his confusing attention, and I start to squirm as sweat starts to bead on my forehead and around the collar of my shirt. I need to get out of this place quickly, before I do something stupid, like tell Peeta Mellark I used to have a crush on him almost my whole childhood.

I’m grateful when we finally part ways after an awkward goodbye exchange between me and everyone else. I practically run in the direction of campus, listening how Johanna turns down Finnick’s offer to drive us back to our dorm. Apparently Finnick Odair and Peeta Mellark are living in a rented house with two more guys somewhere close by, I just don’t sit there long enough to learn any details.

Johanna finally catches up with me, and while I try to ignore her pointed stares, I know that sooner or later she’s gonna open her mouth to say whatever crazy thing she thinks she just saw, so I don’t give her a chance.

“I’m not gonna ask him out on a date, if that’s what you are thinking about.” I say firmly.

“Oh come on! The guy couldn’t keep his eyes off you, as if you were Gal Gadot in your skimpy Wonder Woman costume straight out of the big screen. Plus I didn’t say anything.” she counters nonchalantly. “Not yet at least.”

“Well, you’re wasting your time, Jo. I won’t ask him out. If he was staring at me, was probably wondering why I was staring at him like an idiot”

“You are an idiot, brainless! But fine!” she snaps grabbing my arm and forcing me to stop mid step. “Lets fix old school.” She says flatly.

“What do you mean ‘old school’?” I ask dubiously.

“You’ll see as soon as we are back in our room. And since it’s old school, there’s no ‘givesis backsis’ and no double crossing the deal. You can’t back out!” she says.

For some reason this whole conversation is so childish and immature, I chuckle, and like a chump, I agree to her ludicrous terms. Because that’s what I am: a chump.

We finally arrive home, and that’s when everything goes downhill for me.

“Sit!” Johanna commands.

I make to sit on my desk chair, while she goes shifting stuff behind her bed, where I know she keep her hidden booze- we aren’t allowed alcohol in the dorms, but that doesn’t mean people don’t have a secret stash somewhere.

“On the floor, Brainless!” she growls at me as soon as my ass touches the chair, making me jump startled.

Once again, I do as she says, and slide on my butt on to the gross carpet, we try to avoid by placing our own area rugs everywhere we think we will be barefooted.

Soon, Johanna is joining me on the floor with a bottle of something amber that’s only a third full. “Pass your laptop here.” She demands unscrewing the bottle open.

“What do you want my laptop for?” I ask. “I thought you were solving this old school. A computer is not very old school, in case you didn’t know.” I snort a little, thinking up something clever, “I thought we were gonna play spin the bottle or something,”

“Shut up, Brainless. We can’t play spin the bottle just the two of us, that’ll be stupid!” She chugs a generous pull of whatever liquor she’s got and passes the bottle to me, taking the computer in turn.

I’m not much of a drinker, so I just hold the bottle for her, while I see her signing in on my facebook account.

“Hey! That’s personal! I could report you for that you know?” I scream at her and try to grab my laptop from her, but in one of her Johanna moves, she holds me away by placing her foot on my chest while stretching away from my reach.

“Stop, Katniss, I’m looking for your friend Delly, so quit being a whiny brat and let a woman work in peace.”

“I don’t know what you want with Delly, but whatever it is, you’re going too far!”

“Aha!” she crows jubilantly, jumping up and keeping the computer away from me still. “Okay, Brainless, time of truth! You said the reason for refusing to talk to Bread Boy, is because Delly used to like him when they were kids.”

“Yes. So?” I grumble and sit back down crossing every limb of my body until I’m a human knot.

“So, this is a modified game of Truth or Dare.”

I shrug. Truth or Dare doesn’t scare me. “Do your worse then,” I taunt.

She sits down across from me sporting a mirror image of my facial expression. I see her eyes go up and down as she scrolls the page currently on display on the screen, and then I see her smug smirk make an appearance.

Jo knows almost everything about me, we managed to stay roommates since my freshman year, she had been in school for a while before I came in, with classes scattered about every semester since she had become an orphan just a month after starting her first year and had to drop off until she got her life back on track. We became reluctant friends after a while, and then I invited her to come home with me during Thanksgiving break, since I thought it sucked she had nobody else to go home to. My family practically adopted her on the spot, despite her potty mouth and boisterous personality. In no time she had met everyone in town, and thanks to my sweet, big mouthed little sister, Prim, that included everything there was to know about one Peeta Mellark, youngest son of the best known baker in my home county.

She deduced pretty quickly I had a schoolgirl crush on the guy growing up, and has never let it down since. I didn’t use to mind her harassing jokes until tonight though.

“What?” I ask loosing patience.

“Truth: Delly Cartwright is madly in love with a Thomas Miner. Both their profiles say they are ‘in a relationship’ with each other, which means is pretty serious. Serious enough to take a nice, long cruise together to the Coast of Mexico as an engagement gift!”

“No way!” I exclaim, climbing on all fours and crawling to her to take a peek at the page she’s looking at. “Holy shit! You’re right!”

It’s true. Delly is somewhere sipping margaritas with Thom in some beach in Mexico, sporting a rock the size of Texas on her ring finger. She looks good!

“She looks very happy,” I say absently.

“She does. Power to her.” says Jo. “Now that we’ve got the truth out of the way, let’s bring in the dare!”

“Hey, I never said this was my truth. If anything it’s Delly’s truth.” I protest.

“No takesis backsis, Brainless. A deal is a deal!” She glares at me. “I never said I was going to ask you any truths. So, listen up, buttercup, here’s your dare:”

“Ugh, please… don’t call me Buttercup. That beast of a cat hates me!”

“That’s because you antagonize him. Prim’s cat is perfectly sweet to me and everyone else.”

I roll my eyes at her, but I’m unable to do anything else, because she goes off stating her Dare:

“I dare you to say hello to Peeta Mellark next time you see him,”

I take a second to think this over, and come to the conclusion than saying hello to Peeta is a perfectly innocent dare, It shouldn’t be that hard now that we got officially introduced to each other. I nod reluctantly, “Fine, dare accepted. I’ll say hi to Peeta next time I see him around.”

“Cool. I’m glad we could come to an understanding, Brainless. Now let’s get ready for bed. I gotta be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow.”

I lift myself off the floor feeling Johanna was oddly easy to appease just now. Usually she’s like a hound with a prey scent in her nose. I don’t know why was she so agreeable and her dare so easy, but I’m not gonna argue about it, specially since she dropped the subject, finally!

————————————————

Two days go by before I see Peeta again, and to my utter horror, he’s chatting with Johanna when I spot him at the library. I try to duck out of sight before they notice me, but as is my luck, his bright blue eyes shift up right into mine at the precise moment I think of my escape route at the other side of the room. Unfortunately for me, Johanna follows his sight and smirks as soon as she sees me, then she squeezes his arm saying something to him, and slinks in my direction like a kitten spying a bowl of cream.

“Hi, Katniss,” she drags the ss like Finnick did the night we met, and I already hate the sound of it.

“Jo,” I deadpan.

“Come on, Brainless. It’s pay-up time!” she links her arm with mine and I swear she skips gleefully the whole way back to Peeta, who’s just watching us interact as if it was the most interesting thing he’s seen all day.

We finally stop in front of him, and I feel my cheeks flame for a second. I hope my tongue decided to cooperate so I can say hello and get Johanna off my back for good, but she starts blabbing about something I can’t quite follow, giving me a chance to find my nerve.

“So, Katniss, Peeta here was telling me about his amazing gaming system collection. He says he’s got one console of every system released–”

“Um, more like I have one of each consoles I could afford with my allowance money starting on seventh grade.” He corrects Jo with an embarrassed chuckle, his cheeks tint a slight pink color that actually suits him pretty nicely.

“Yeah, but didn’t you say some of them are now considered classics?” She prods smiling, twisting my arm in hers painfully.

He chuckles again, averting his eyes to the floor. The pink in his cheeks intensify, and it finally clicks with me, that what Jo is saying is embarrassing him for some reason.

“Hi!” I say too loud and seemingly out of the blue, but I finally get him to look at me and erase a bit of his embarrassment to boot. “H-how are you? I love your buns, I mean, the cheese buns your dad sells, you know? The ones with the gooey cheese on them, those are like my favorite treat ever. My sister is more partial to the cakes, because they’re so pretty and all, but I rather eat something less sugary… not because I’m watching my diet or anything, I hate diets, is more the fact that I enjoy cheese… um… okay, so, I know nothing about video games, but I’m sure you were very popular in school for having all those consoles–”

The only reason my freaky word vomit stops is because Johanna’s nails dig into my forearm viciously. I’ll have a huge, ugly scar there when she finally lets go of it, but right now I’m glad she’s put an end to my running mouth.

My eyes are watering slightly, and I can see the puzzlement in his face clear as day. Poor guy looks like he’s been hit on the face with a rubber chicken: a mix of disbelief and the same curiosity that forces you to watch a train wreck from beginning to end.

“Excuse us a sec, Blondie?” Johanna pulls me away, but my eyes remain unblinking staring at him in utter horror.

“Shit,” I groan just loud enough for Johanna to hear.

“Shit is right! The hell was that? Is that what nervous-Katniss sounds like? Because it’s absolutely horrible.” She wrinkles her nose, and I finally manage to tear my eyes away from Peeta’s face.

“Thank you, Jo! I hope you’re happy now! I told you I was no good at saying something to people, especially him!”

“Hush, is a good thing he’s got a thing for you, otherwise you would have blown it just now, miss awkward.”

“What are you talking about, Johanna? He doesn’t have a thing for me.”

She rolls her eyes and tells me in her most aggravated voice, “You truly are brainless.” she softens her tone a little after taking a generous breath, “Alright, everything’s not lost. If the way he looks at you is any indication, he doesn’t care one bit how tongue tied you are, so all you have to do now, is go up there and ask him out on a date!” She sounds like she’s been planning this for quite some time now.

“Not gonna happen, Johanna. I can’t ask him out!”

“Why? And please don’t tell me it’s because of Delly, since we’ve already ruled Delly out of the equation.” She glares at me.

“Well, as you clearly see, I scared the daylights out of him. I will not make an even bigger idiot out of myself. We both saw how it was when I tried to say hello. It was supposed to be a simple greeting and it went totally wrong. So it’s not about Delly anymore, but about my inability to act like a normal person when he’s around.”

“Brainless, if you don’t go out there and ask him out this instant… I swear to Jebus I’m gonna make it my life mission to remind you of your yellow belly for the rest of your life.”

“I, dare you!” I retort brattily.

“No! I dare YOU to ask him out. In fact, I call in the yard law, and triple dog dare you!”

I gasp astonished, like the immature idiot I’ve become in the last few days once the challenge has been issued.

“You wouldn’t!” I say lowly.

“Is done!”

“Fine!”

I march back to Peeta, he’s been watching us curiously the whole time. I stand in front of him, crack my neck, square my shoulders and open my mouth. Only a squeak makes it pass my lips, so I clear my throat and lick my lips stealing myself.

“Date. Saturday. Greasy Sae’s. Seven o’clock. You and me. Bye now.” I don’t wait for his response, as my throat kept getting dryer with each word I said, and my voice was coming out as raspy and unattractive as a trucker dude with an allergy. I didn’t want the size of his eyes, that kept getting wider the more he heard me, be an indication of what his answer would be, so I hightailed out of there as fast as could before I started crying and perspiring. No reason to freak him out more than I’ve already have.

My next move is to go send Delly an apologetic message through facebook, for going after the boy she liked back home, but Johanna catches up to me, gasping and holding her sides.

“Can you please stop? I haven’t run this fast since my softball league days!”

“I didn’t know you played softball,”

“Every kid needs some bullcrap sport they can play before they can drive themselves.” She takes a few extra precious gulps of air, before getting on to me. “So, Peeta will be glad to go out with you to Sae’s Saturday, not that you’ll know since you didn’t wait around for him to say anything after that… whatever it was. Very smooth by the way.” now she’s laughing, but when her side starts clamping, I only scowl and start walking faster, leaving behind to hold her aching sides.

Serves her right!

————————————————

When I get to Sae’s on Saturday, I’m surprised to spy Peeta’s mop of blonde hair carefully combed back, already sitting in my regular booth, on Jo’s regular bench. My hands start sweating immediately. I take a step back, and when the panic takes over I turn on my heel ready to make a beeline for the door, but my path is blocked by a very intimidating looking Jo, wearing my server uniform, since I was scheduled to work today, and somehow forgot about it. Jo of course was not gonna let that conveniently forgotten detail derail my date with Peeta, so she cajoled Sae into letting her take my shift at the diner for the night. Of course when Sae heard why Jo was so invested in this, she simply gave us a toothy smile and told her to be there a half hour earlier so she could feed her something before her shift.

Traitors!

“Go to your table, Brainless!” Jo hisses at me.

Without a word, I turn towards the booth, and walk quickly. I practically plop into my seat without much decorum, flinging the purse Prim demanded I used instead of my usual messenger bag, paired with a vintage blue dress that used to be my mother’s when she was single, but still holds its charm and is probably the only girly piece I own in my entire wardrobe.

Peeta tries to stand when I arrive, but he finds himself impeded by the table between us. He plops back down again and gives me a smile, shy and sweet and full of hope I can feel my heart flutter.

“Hi,” he says quietly, “I brought this!” he hands me a small box, and like a little eager child I open it, in the most impolite manner ever.

I gasp when I see four perfectly cheesy cheese buns sitting over a blanket of tissue paper. “Peeta! You shouldn’t have,” I let my voice linger, staring at my favorite treat sitting there in front of me.

“I figured, it was better than bringing you chocolates. I mean, I brought flowers…” he produces a pretty bouquet from next to him and hands them to me. “But you said you didn’t like sweets that much. And I don’t care if you are watching your diet at all. I think you are the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

“Oh… um, thank you.” I say feeling the heat return to my cheeks with a vengeance. I look at him and notice he’s turning lobster red as well, and that’s no good at all, so when I see him try to form words with his mouth, I jump in ahead, “You didn’t have to call home for this, you know.”

“I didn’t,” He says cocking his head curiously.

“Is there a bakery here that serves them? I’ve ever only had them at your dad’s.”

He smiles shyly again, and brings his hand to his hair, pulling it away as suddenly as he remembers he styled it today. “Actually… I baked them.”

“You did?” I sound like an awestruck little girl even to my ears. “Wow. thank you so much for saving me some. That’s awfully nice of you,” I say sincerely.

His deep blue eyes fix on mine, so intensely, I can’t look away. “I made them specially for you, actually. You said they were your favorite, and those, next to the cake decorating your sister loves so much, are my area of expertise at the bakery,”

Johanna comes to take our order, winking at me and giving the thumbs up when Peeta’s eyes are occupied with the menu and I’m glad for the interruption, because this is all too much.

Our date goes on inmensibly better after our drinks arrive, he orders a cup of hot tea, no sugar, and I order my regular mint tea with honey. Sometime after our meal sits in front of us, I notice Johanna is talking to Finnick and a pretty redhead two tables away. They’re all looking at us, smiling smugly.

“So, your friend does have a girl?” I ask Peeta, prompting him to look in the direction my eyes are glaring at Jo.

He makes a noise, half growl, half sigh, one hundred percent annoyance. He then gives me an apologetic look, his bright blue eyes full of embarrassment and regret. “I guess, I should inform you that apparently our roommates are a pair of con artists, who think themselves clever and entitled to rule our romantic lives.” He takes a deep breath, and elaborates before my brain can jump to any sort of conclusion, which given the circumstances, I consider a good move for him.

“Johanna and Finnick have been plotting to have either of us ask the other out for weeks.” He says shaking his head, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry they dragged you into this. I should’ve known better, is just… you asking me out was probably the highlight of my life. I like to think that, at some point, I would’ve gathered the courage to ask you out myself without anyoe’s intervention, but now I’ll never know. I’ll go talk to Finn, tell him to leave you alone–”

“So, you did WANT to go out with me?” I cut him off before he can stand up. My mind is swimming, but usually when I let my impulsive nature take over, I achieve better results than when I don’t.

He looks at me with curiosity in his eyes, I can tell he won’t lie to me about this, “I’ve had a crush on you since kindergarten,” he says in a deep voice that cuts through me, “I kept asking Delly to come play with me, in the hopes that she’ll invite you over one day. I had amazing plans of what I would’ve done, if you ever showed up to the playdates. I would’ve given you my Red Power Ranger figurine plus his vehicle. It was my most prized possession at the time. Then I graduated to Pokemon cards, and I had my mint condition Pikachu, all safe for you. Then I realized, that girls didn’t necessarily cared for things I did, and started observing you. You joined the Archery team, then the track team, so I decided I’d join wrestling, I figured we should have something in common to talk about for whenever I stopped being a chicken and said hi to you.” He stops, his eyes finding a home on his fidgeting fingers on the table.

I scowl, “How would joining the wrestling team give us something in common to talk about?” I ask with more curiosity than I would imagine I would have, if a boy practically confessed to semi stalking me all throughout our school careers.

His face snaps up to find mine. His forehead wrinkles for a moment. “Well, you were an athlete. We would’ve had stories about hardass coaches, or rigorous practices. We could’ve trained together after school,” He shrugs, “Wrestling was the no brainer option for me. My brothers had done it and I knew all of their moves since the practiced them on me. I don’t think I could’ve ever master a bow and I’m not physically built for races,” he gives a self deprecating smile that melts my insides.

“I see,” I say finding the grain of the wood under my hands very interesting suddenly. I can feel my cheeks flame, “You seem to have thought of things a lot,” I say quietly.

He releases a choked chuckle, “This must be so creepy for you. I’m sorry. I– I’m gonna just go. Thank you for–”

“I asked Delly to take me with her to your playdates more than once. She had her own crush on you, so she said she couldn’t really woed you, if there were other people around during your play times, so I was never invited.” I chance a glance at him, I can’t read his face at the moment, but I think there’s a slight raise to one of his eyebrows. “My favorite Power Ranger was the green one buy the way.”

“It’s your favorite color.” Is not a statement, but more like he’s fishing for an answer, so I nod.

“Yup. Your’s?”

“Orange,” He says smiling easily, “muted, like the sunset.” He adds when my nose wrinkles.

“I wouldn’t have taken your Pikachu. I would’ve traded you for it. I don’t believe in getting stuff for free. I would have make you a good deal for it.” I say trying to relax with all my might. “I wouldn’t have known anything about comic books though, just like I have no clue about video games or systems.”

He smiles crookedly, “That’s no problem at all. I can teach you everything you need to know… if you teach me how to shoot an arrow.” His eyes are so hopeful.

I pretend to think about it, “I don’t know… maybe we have to talk this a little more, preferably over hot chocolate and more cheese buns,”

He smiles brightly now, nodding happily. “Sounds promising,”

We continue talking about pretty much any and every topic there is to talk about for two people just meeting each other; our banter is easy and comfortable, and when Sae clears her throat, three feet away from our table, we realize is closing time and the place is completely empty.

Peeta walks me back to my dorm, his car is still at the diner’s lot, but he insisted we walked because he figured it made me feel more at ease. By the time we reach my building, we have entered into more personal territory in our conversation. I’ve told Peeta Mellark more things about my late father in fifteen minutes, than what I’ve said to Jo in all the years we’ve known each other, which is quite a lot.

We stop at the front entrance, and stand there awkwardly for a moment.

“Thank you so much for not running away after my creepy story?” he says sighing.

“Have you really had a crush on me all this time?” I ask.

“Yup,” he says nudging a pebble with the toe of his Chucks while staring at his feet, “ever since you sang the valley song for the entire auditorium on our first day of school. You were everything I wasn’t: fearless, pretty, talented and you sounded like an angel.”

He won’t look at me but I can’t stop staring at him. “Hmm… well, you were always everything I wasn’t,” I say. “Smart, well liked, physically strong, and with an endless supply of freshly baked cookies,”

He smiles at that, and lifts his face to look at me. “My mother would only let us eat cookies that had gone too stale to sell, but I know a few recipes I can whip up for you, if you allow me another date,”

Is my turn to smile, I let myself be impulsive again, and surge up on the tip of my toes, plating an awkward kiss square on his unsuspecting lips. As fast as I attacked him, I retreat a foot away from him and virtually jump inside the building, but before the door can close behind me, separating us for the night, I throw him a wink and cheerfully call back, “I’ll allow it! Tomorrow at seven o’clock, pick me up here!”

I get a small glimpse of his face as it goes from shocked, to pleased, to confused, to surprised, back to happy and smiley. Something tells me, this is just the first of many more dates, kisses and fun times with Peeta Mellark.

#Everlark Fic Exchange #Springtime Edition 2017 #submission #alliswell21 #prompt 57

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behind-the-screen-of-bangtan · 7 years

Text

Who appears the most in the concept photos ?

(tl;dr: art is not an exact science. But a bit more of RM wouldn’t hurt. I put in bold other important things.)

It’s often discussed among fans how much a member appears in the MVs, the concept photos, how big his part is in a song... and it often results in complains, people always wanting more of their bias or an absolute equality between everyone.

So first let’s ask their opinion to the main interested party. Rap Mon?

“[...] we share our parts with one another, let’s not get jealous or fight over who has more parts and all that. That being said I actually have the biggest contribution to ‘Blood, Sweat & Tears’. My part comes in right after the start. Also, Suga hyung really works hard on his ‘whiskey’ part so I’m really thankful too. To be honest, as compared to me and Suga hyung, Hobie has lesser rap parts but he’s center stage for the performance. And J-Hope has the most parts from the song on a whole! So we do think that it should always rotate like this between members.” (source)

Good.

Also, let’s be honest for a second here. During a photo-shoot the boys move around, it’s a fact, just watch the Episodes of the concept photos if you doubt it. So sometimes they’re a bit out of frame or behind someone and then, don’t appear on the shot. Now think about it, you have a wonderful picture, stunning even, yet someone doesn’t appear clearly, would you use it or renounce? The artistic team decided to use it because it’s not a disaster and they don’t have eternity to do the shots - and the boys have better to do than adjusting their position to the millimetre... like playing Overwatch. For those same reasons it may happen that someone has less good pictures than the others and then ends up with fewer pages in an album book.

Now we’ll check album after album how much everyone is shown and rather than just lament on the results, I’ll also try to explain a bit how it happened (as for the why of the question, kindly go harass Big Hit ❤).

What’s important to understand is the structure of the books. Basically, it’s solo shots, group shots and varying combinations of duos/trios/quartet. Everything is arranged in a different order depending on the album.

As the details are long and boring (and as I already lost half of the courageous people who started reading that post) I’ll put the details of each album under the read-more and leave my conclusion here.

Here are the finals results.

I arranged the dimensions of the graph a bit to emphasise the differences between everyone, for visibility. The big idea is that Jin, Suga, J-hope, V and Jungkook have a close number of pictures, Jimin has clearly more and there’s a scandalous lack of Kim NamNam.

For all the reasons above I understand the number of shots can vary - hence the little differences between the five first members. Yet it doesn’t explain Jimin and RM. Out of the six albums where the numbers of shots are different, four times Jimin had the biggest amount of shots and RM the smallest (and despite that, they still love each other deeply so let’s stay calm please~).

The fact it’s often the same one that has fewer pages of solo shots or less participation in the subunits is disappointing. Especially considering one of RapMon’s nicknames is Model Mon.

However, in regard to those results, I want to add one last thing. They are different from each other and it shows clearly on those occasions. All I’m about to write is pure speculation so take it with a gigantic grain of salt.

Maybe RM doesn’t appear that much because he prefers to keep working on music rather than take a pose or act.

Maybe Jimin has more apparitions in the album book because he’s a perfectionist and as such maybe he stays in front of the camera until all the shots please him - just remember how the make-up staff designated him as the pickiest about his appearance.

Maybe Jin has fewer lyrics because he needs his brain to study at university.

Maybe J-Hope participated less in You Never Walk Alone because he wanted to rest a bit after his important part in WINGS, or because he’s working on his mixtape, like Suga with his during WINGS.

Maybe it’s just a matter of good or bad luck, as Jungkook during the shooting of the VCRs for BTS Begins where he had to stay to be filmed alone while the others could go back to the dorm, after losing at rock paper scissors.

Maybe it’s a staff decision like in “Boy In Luv”, where it went from only Jungkook declaring his love, to Jin, Jimin and Jungkook having a confession scene.

Maybe it’s all part of the theories.

Maybe fans shouldn’t give that much importance to screen time, line distribution or the number of apparition for the simple reason we have no idea of what’s happening behind the scenes.

Now here are the details for each album. Don’t mind too much the number of pages I wrote in the rankings, I counted differently each time, just use it to see the differences between each member in one album.

2 Cool 4 Skool, O!ORUL8,2?, Dark & Wild, Love Yourself 承 HER and Love Yourself 轉 Tear

Concerning these ones, it’s easy: all the members appear the exact same amount of times. It’s sets of solo shots surrounded by group shots. And sometimes some subunits.

Equality at its finest.

WINGS

WINGS is also very structured yet quite unbalanced. Each book is mainly dedicated to two members.

Concerning the solo shots: in each book, one boy has 8 pages (it happens to be the rap line) while the other has 9. And they have 3 pages together. They also appear together in the other books - the bathroom photos - on 6 pages. Except for the couple RM/JK that only appears on 4 pages. They have one last apparition on 2 pages but with their companion from HYYH (for example Philosophy Monster and V).

But none of that applies to Jin. He has 10 pages of solo shots. And he appears with all the WINGS couples in the bathroom set, making him, for once, the one that appears the most, all books combined.

Here’s the ranking to give you an idea: 1. Jin (26pages) 2. Jimin and V (20p) 3. Suga and J-Hope (19p) 4. Jungkook (18p) 5. RM (17p)

What justifies the fact that the rap line has one less shot than the maknae line? How come Cookie Monster is less present in the W book than the other WINGS couples??? Big Hit? Explain?

The Most Beautiful Moment in Life pt.1

It’s getting a bit more complicated, I’ll try to stay as simple as possible (even though I’m pretty sure no one will ever read until that point =P).

Both versions have the same beginning and ending. As the ending is only group shots there’s no problem.

Concerning the cherry blossom set from the beginning, however, it’s a bit messy. Everyone has 2 solo pages except Jimin and Jin who have 1. But that part has also subunit shots with a very unequal distribution: J-Hope, Jimin and Jungkook are in two groups, Jin, Suga and V in one and Brain Monster in none.

It gets better in the following part (the seashore for the white version and the hotel room for the pink version). Everyone has two pages in each book. Except for Jin who has 3 in the pink ver and one in the white ver. But as 2+2=4 and 1+3=4 too (no really?) there’s no inequality in the end.

Just don’t get your hopes up, we’re not finished. There’s a last part, of the other setting, with couples. Suga and Jimin as well as V and Jungkook in the white version, on 2 pages each. RM and V in the pink ver, on 1 page. (Was it so hard to find a decent picture of Jin and J-Hope on the seashore set? Seriously...)

Ranking: 1. Jungkook (11p) 2. Jimin and V (10p) 3. Suga (9p) 4. J-Hope (8p) 5. RM (7p) 6. Jin (6p)

The Most Beautiful Moment in Life pt.2

I would like to qualify that one with chaos but when you know what'll happen with the other albums, it suddenly gets quite cute.

In both versions, we have solo shots of each boy, 3 pages each time except in the blue version where Jin, Noodle Mon and Jungkook have 2 pages.

In the blue ver, there’s 1 to 3 pages of duos, while in the peach ver it’s trios (except Dance Monster and V). In the end, each boy appear six times in total... okay, okay, Jin has only 5 pages...

Despite the little subtleties of the distribution in that one, it’s actually the one with the smallest difference between the first and last: 1. Suga, J-Hope and Jimin (12p) 2. V and Jungkook (11p) 3. Jin and RM (10p)

Skool Luv Affair

The last cool one.

In the first two parts - the school and the barber shop Nothing & Nothing - everyone has 2 pages of solo shots except Suga who only got 1. In the graffiti tunnel, everyone has 1 page except Jin who has 2.

Then combining the quartets, trios and duos we have: 5 pages for Jimin, 4 pages for Jin, Suga, V and Jungkook and 2 pages for J-Hope and Mon Leader.

Which result in the following ranking: 1. Jimin (9p) 2. Jin (8p) 3. V and Jungkook (7p) 4. Suga (6p) 5. J-Hope and RM (5p)

Young Forever

So...

Let’s talk about that adorable album with aaadorable outfits and aaaaaaaaaadorable organisation ^^

There are series of solo shots. And guess what? They don’t have the same number of pages!

In the Day version, for the second series of solo, everyone has 3 pages except Jin and Jimin who have 2 and... Suga... who has... none (like, guys, did you really forget to add the Min Genius Suga in that part? ‘Cause I refuse to believe he didn’t have a single decent shot).

And no, I’m not detailing the subunits, there’s too much, each page has a different combination, it’s a mess !!!!!! Apart from the curious fact that the couple formed by J-Hope and Jimin has like thrice as many pictures than the other combinations (is Big Hit JiHope biased?).

Final ranking: 1. J-Hope (18p) 2. V (16p) 3. Jin and Jimin (14p) 4. RM and Jungkook (13p) 5. Suga (10p)

You Never Walk Alone

I... admit defeat, I’m no treating that one in details, I’ll just put the ranking:

1. Suga and Jimin (45p) 2. J-Hope and V (41p) 3. Jungkook (40p) 4. Jin (39p) 5. RM (37p)

Just know that the number of pages between the solo shots varies greatly and same with the subunits parts, which composition also changes a lot.

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the-record-columns · 6 years

Text

Jan 10, 2018: Columns

A story of unmeasured kindness

By KEN WELBORN

Record Publisher

Elsewhere in this edition of The Record is some information on a trip Mike Staley and me took to Durham last weekend on behalf of the Rotary Club by attending the annual convention of the NC Association of Agricultural Fairs.

It truly is an interesting event which I look forward to each year, and the trade show aspect of the convention is one of my favorite parts. Every kind of entertainment imaginable is available, up to and including a three-ring circus.

Well, as most of you know by now from the column my wife, Laura, wrote in early December, our beautiful Pit Bull/Boxer dog was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer and is a very sick puppy. Mercifully, Powder has made an amazing comeback thanks to the treatments he has received and good ole' Jenkins Livermush.

Yes, livermush.

In late November and early December, we were worried sick about Powder. He hadn't eaten anything he could keep down for what seemed like forever, when one night, I cut up a few slices of livermush and fed him little pieces by hand. Not only did he eat it and keep it down, it somehow revived his appetite and he has eaten uncounted blocks of what I am now calling a new miracle food, Jenkins Country Livermush. I even sent word by my friend Allen Langley in Shelby to pass on to the Mauney family, who produce the Jenkins food line, that they needed to add "Can Raise the Dead," to the labels on their livermush. During Christmas, at least 5 people sent a package of gift wrapped Jenkins Livermush to Powder, which he duly ate, and for which he was clearly thankful.

While our dog is still deep in the woods, as the saying goes, we have been truly thankful for the past 7 weeks with Powder, whether the time is borrowed or not.

How in the world does this tie in with the Fair Convention? "Well, I'll just tell ya," as my old buddy Leonard Cooke used to say. Among my favorite regulars at the trade show is a young woman named Michelle Harrell who operates Skybound Canine Entertainment, featuring The Magical Poodles who always put on an amazing show that is truly magical.

When I stopped by the "WOOF" booth to speak to Michelle, she introduced me to a young lady who now works with her, and told her that, a few years ago, I had shared with her one of her all time favorite dog stories and wanted me to tell it again.

Of course, she did not have to twist my arm, so I told her co-worker the story of helping move my daughter Jordan when she left Wilkes for Lunchburg, Virginia. Suffice it to say it was a blue day, and, while her boy friend Jason Hammer seemed like a good guy, I really didn't know him. I tried to fall back on the fact that Jordan has more common sense than most, but it still was a long, sad day.

Then, when we pulled into the driveway to Jason's house, Jordan said something didn't seem right. I was ready to back out of the driveway and go back to WIlkes, but she laughed at me and asked for a moment to check things out. Jordan has a dog, Jason has two dogs, and there was a fourth dog barking--that is what she noticed.

It turns out that during the time Jordan was in Wilkes finishing her move, one of Jason's tenants had moved out of a rental house in the dark of night and left a 10 year old Pit Bull female tied to a tree, Jason knew that if he took that dog to the pound it would be a dead dog in 14 days. Instead, he took the dog to the vet, had her checked out and her shots all updated, and brought her home.

Jade the Pit Bull became a part of their family and I never worried about Jordan again. He could have taken that dog to the pound and no one would have ever known the difference--but he didn't--he simply had too kind a heart to do so.

Fast forward to two years later when Laura and I were visiting Jordan and Jason in Lynchburg. I noticed a cut-out place on their deck with a narrow w ramp attached. Upon inquiry, I found that Jade had arthritis and it hurt her to climb the steps up to the deck, so Jason built her a "handicap ramp," so she could come back inside without crying.

Jade lived with Jason and Jordan the rest of her life.

I love to tell this story of unmeasured kindness, and I thank Michelle Harrell for remembering it.

Epiphany

By Laura Welborn

Epiphany service at the Lutheran Church - An Appalachian Christmas was a wonderful end to the Christmas season.

the Christmas season.

The music by local musicians was so inspiring and true to the spirit of our Appalachian heritage with bagpipes by Eric Sparklin and harp by Benjamin Barker and many more.

The Wilkes Acoustic Society were perfect hosts to this event. When you think of Epiphany I think of the saying, “It's about the journey, not the destination,” but in this case it did seem about the destination.

Then when the angels sent a message to the magi to go a different way home I thought, "I wish I had warnings when something bad was going to happen and how to circumvent it."

So often it seems I make a mess of something that started out with the greatest of intentions and I think just what I could do if I had warnings of upcoming disasters. I sometimes wonder if I don't listen closely enough to hear the warnings or if I am just not paying attention to the signs.

"A tiny part of your life is decided by completely uncontrollable circumstances, while the vast majority of your life is decided by how you respond to them. Sometimes changing your situation isn’t possible—or simply not possible soon enough. But you can always choose a mindset that moves you forward. And doing so will help you change things from the inside out, and ultimately allow you to grow beyond the struggles you can’t control at any given moment.

Here’s a powerful question that will support you with an attitude adjustment when you need it most: “Who would you be, and what else would you see, if you removed the thought that’s worrying you?”

The disappointments and failure are two of the surest stepping-stones to the places you want to go. When things go wrong, learn what you can and then push the heartbreak aside by refocusing your energy on the present step. Remember that life’s best lessons are often learned at the worst times and from the worst mistakes. We must fail in order to know, and hurt in order to grow. Good things often fall apart so better things can fall together in their place. And what’s better already is the more informed step you’re able to take right now."

The Magi was the perfect example of learning to trust the journey, even when you do not understand it. It also strikes me that they paid attention to the signs and warnings.

As we enter into this year of 2018, I know I am starting with the joy and blessing of the Appalachian Christmas service and I feel blessed to see the kind of young talent in Wilkes with Elizabeth Carter, Benjamin Barker and Eric Sparklin.

As we all start our journeys, let us trust the path and be open to the warning signs but mostly to keep moving forward.

Let’s Set the Record Straight

By EARL COX

In his Christmas message, PA President Mahmoud Abbas blasted U.S. President Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital as “an insult” to Bethlehem.

Like Arafat before him, Abbas exploits Christmas as a stumping opportunity to draw Christian support—in this case, for his dump-Trump rants; to blame Israel for the exodus of Palestinian Christians following the PA’s takeover of Bethlehem; and to compete with Israel’s superior reputation for religious liberty.

Having angrily pulled the plug on Bethlehem’s Christmas tree lights, his speech now emphasized Bethlehem’s significance to Christians: “Over 2,000 years ago, the message of Jesus was delivered from a humble manger in Bethlehem.” Abbas called on world Christians to “listen to the true voices of the indigenous Christians from the Holy Land” as he named Jesus "a Palestinian messenger who would become a guiding light for millions around the world."

Abbas, a Jordanian, and Arafat, an Egyptian, not only ignored the fact that “Palestinians” did not exist in Jesus’s day—they were invented after 1948—they also demonstrated ignorance of Christianity. If Abbas had any inkling of “the message of Jesus” and the “true voices” of Christians in the Middle East and “millions around the world,” he might have chosen his words more carefully.

Let’s set the record straight. While Abbas correctly referred to the Bethlehem manger as Jesus’s “humble” birthplace, he may not know that Joseph and his very pregnant wife were in Bethlehem because of a mandatory census requiring everyone to register in his own town. Joseph had to travel to the crowded city of David where every inn was booked, because he descended from the royal house and line of David.

As the paymaster of virulent anti-Israel terror attacks, Abbas is doubtless unaware that 700 years before Jesus’s birth, the Hebrew prophet Micah declared: Though Bethlehem was “little” in Judah, yet out of that city “shall come forth to Me the One to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from old, from everlasting.”

Christians believe this passage foretells Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem. Abbas may not realize the political and governmental significance of Jesus being born in the city of David. Nor does he seem to know that when Roman governor Pilate asked Jesus, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Jesus replied, “It is as you say.”

The prophet Micah added that when “the one to be ruler in Israel” delivers Israel from her enemies, “the remnant of Jacob shall be … like a lion among the beasts of the forests …who treads down and tears in pieces, and none can deliver.”

Evangelicals understand these scriptures as fulfilling G-d’s promise to King David that one of his descendants would sit on Israel’s throne “forever.” Some Bible scholars note two separate gospel accounts that trace Jesus’s lineage from King David to Joseph, Jesus’s legal father, and to his mother Mary.

Assuming that Jesus is who he says he is, Abbas is throwing rocks in the wrong neighborhood. Considering his Islamist upbringing, that’s understandable.

Palestinian and EU leaders make strange bedfellows—a terror-sponsoring Islamist regime and a confederation of Western democracies severely threatened by radical Islam due to their own lax immigration policies. But sadly, there’s a glue that binds them—anti-Semitism and a visceral hatred of Israel.

For the EU, skating in the same rink as the Palestinians is on precipitously thinner ice—because Europe should know better. They’ve witnessed the horrors of the Holocaust. They’ve opened their doors to Muslim refugees and are beginning to confront terrorism within their borders.

As countries where Christianity flourished for centuries, Europeans should realize that their anti-Israel views are contrary to their own Bible and spiritual legacy.

In Europe (and elsewhere), Christian denominations that don’t teach biblical truth are more likely to embrace false replacement theology, and to practice BDS and other hostile initiatives. In contrast, evangelicals—who tend to read and study the Scriptures—are Israel’s greatest Christian supporters.

G-d’s election of and love for Israel and Jerusalem are foundational themes in both the Jewish and Christian Scriptures.

Israel has been a faithful guardian of these truths, defending religious liberty, and making Jerusalem and its holy places accessible to all peoples and faiths—despite Abbas’s Christmas propaganda to the contrary

oving forwa��=~u

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