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#anyway. it is entirely my fault i didn’t revise at all until the night before
moved-19871997 · 3 years
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butchlilith · 3 years
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try again (and again and again); a niles/daphne fic
summary: niles has chance after chance to tell daphne how he feels, and he doesn’t keep his mouth shut. at least, not in every sense. three confessions that didn’t happen and probably shouldn’t have.
words: 7.5k
rating + warnings: pg-13. one of these is the obligatory “daphne hates sherry” alternate ending, so some discussion of sex is present.
notes: old draft of some experimentation with voice, c.a. early-mid 2019, cleaned up a little bit for publishing. possibly my first and only str*ight frasier fic? by which i mean "i don't actually know how straight people do anything, but niles is ostensibly a man in this one." also available (with better page breaks) on ao3.
part one. how it ends.
scenario 117. She leaves the next morning more shamefully than any fling’s apartment, leaves after breakfast and a real apology. Dr. Crane’s brother is a bit too eager to act as reference, and Daphne never does find out what he says that gets her placed as fast as she is. It’s not a live-in position, but the pay’s a bit better, and the patient’s wife gives Daphne a discount when she visits her shop, so she doesn’t mind. She finds an apartment on the Hill with a lenient policy on pets and swears off men for just over three years.
scenario 406. Niles doesn’t ask again, even after the divorce. He spends more time with Daphne than he’d ever hoped—he even joins her on a trip to some kind of outlet mall one day—and gets further from telling her with each hour. When he notices what they are now, Dad will give him too much sympathy, and Niles will insist that he prefers it this way, and Frasier will analyze all of it to death. There’s never a proper ending, not one that either of them can point to, but they know that something is over. They only half know what it is.
scenario 421. They’re horrible secret-keepers, and the secrecy was much of the appeal of their arrangement, whatever that arrangement was. Without it, they are Frasier’s pet project and the butt of their friends’—that is, Niles’s friends (few) and Daphne’s friends (many), separate entities, for they have no real friends in common—jokes. They last longer than the heat does, but they break just as suddenly. Eventually, they will confess to feeling the same relief, too.
part two. the “it” in question.
scenario 117. For the longest time, everything is comfortably quiet. Just the drum of the rain, the occasional crack of the fire. Dr. Crane running his fingertips along her arm. Dr. Crane kissing her. Dr. Crane kissing her more gently than she’s ever been kissed. And it’s strange, if not entirely unexpected, but it’s nice, too, in its way. Nice in the way he’s always been nice, sometimes maybe a bit too eager, and other times maybe a bit too reserved, but so impossibly aware that she can’t help but think there’s a kindness to it. But it’s really that—the awareness—before anything else. Daphne’s sure of it: She knows because he’s mirroring her. And he’s able to mirror her because she’s kissing him. And she’s kissing him because she likes it and probably because she’s a bit on the rebound at the moment but mostly that first one because Eric certainly didn’t ever do what he’s doing now, and it’s hard to call something a rebound when it’s that much better than the real thing. Hard to call something a rebound when you can hardly picture yourself wanting to stop getting closer to him. When your hands are doing everything they can to keep that from happening.
And that’s how she realizes: “This isn’t right.”
“Oh,” he says, and Daphne comes close to forgetting her morals because he’s moving his hand back to hers, as if she hadn’t appreciated (more than appreciated) what he’d chosen to do with his just before. “I can— I suppose I’m so used to—” He stops himself. He’s realized it, too. “Oh, that’s what you mean, isn’t it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Of course,” he says.“It was foolish of me to think…”
Daphne assumes, at least at first, that he plans on finishing this thought, but he stays quiet, well after the time it could take anyone to supply the right word. So, he’s staying quiet, and Daphne has just learned what becomes of the quiet between them. She knows that it can’t happen again. “Me too,” she says.
“You?” he asks. They’re not touching at all anymore. His choice this time, not Daphne’s. She wishes she weren’t keeping track.
“Yes,” she says, and her voice is certain even as he goes on over it, because if she doesn’t admit it, there’s really no way she can go on respecting herself.
“How were you—?”
“Well, thought you might’ve noticed in the moment, but I wasn’t exactly stopping you, was I?”
“Of course not,” he says, and it’s like she’s made it worse. “How could you have? You were in my home, in my— In her— And distraught and shocked and I—”
“You were, too,” she says because he was. Those last two, that is. More than she was, even. “Didn’t stop either of us.”
“But I—”
Daphne isn’t listening. She says, “Look at me.”
He doesn’t, but he tells her, “I have been.” And then, like it’s not the fault Daphne’s third-worst decision about an outfit to date, he adds, “If I hadn’t, we would never have had this problem.”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” she says. “I come into your house, and you’re a perfect gentleman to me, and when your wife’s clothes are too small for me, I find this. What else could you have thought?”
“Well, Maris has a very delicate build,” he says. This is a bit on the generous side to all three of them. Daphne can picture them laughing about it, if all of this were different.
“I could have borrowed something of yours if it were such a problem,” she says, already resenting the fact that she’s making excuses like this. “Nothing sexy about that, swimming in a man’s trousers, but I decided to try this on and—”
“No, no, I should have known—” He nearly touches her again when he says this, and Daphne nearly indulges herself in letting him, but he seems to remember what brought them to this point because he draws his hand away at the last possible moment.
“But you couldn’t have,” Daphne says. It’s too quiet. She’s supposed to be angry. At someone. Preferably Dr. Crane. “I didn’t even know until it happened, and it felt… I thought—”  She sighs, and the anger’s here at last. “Well, I didn’t think, did I? I just put my—”
Daphne’s put a few too many things a few too many places, but Dr. Crane isn’t listening, so it hardly matters if she says hands or tongue or dignity because he just says, “I’m a psychiatrist,” before she can even decide which the worst of them is.
“Did you know, then?” Daphne asks.
And then he says, “I should have.”
“No, I mean…” It’s embarrassing now, knowing that he’s convinced that she’s the vulnerable one in all this, but she does need that answer. For some reason. A reason that is definitely rational. “Did you know that we…?”
“Oh, I…” He hums like he’s searching for a diplomatic answer to the question. “Only when you… and I…”
“So it was my fault.”
“Not at all. I was—”
“Didn’t think you were the type of man to… Then, suppose I did think, or I wouldn’t’ve…” She tilts her head back, resting it on the seat of the chair behind her, partly from exhaustion and partly from a fear of what would happen if she looked him in the eye.
“And now?” he asks.
“I’m not sure.”
“Of course.” He’s being too kind, maybe because he’s a gentleman or maybe (most likely, Daphne decides on the basis recent events) because he thinks she’s not as smart as he is, but he’s being kind, and Daphne wishes more than anything that he’d stop.
She says, “We really didn’t do anything.” Vaguely, Daphne recognizes his interruption (“Daphne, I—”), then goes on anyway. “You know, a kiss between friends. Bit more involved than I’m used to, but what else? Hands may’ve gotten a bit off track, but whose haven’t?”
“Mine haven’t.”
“Don’t know if you’d still want to say that, Dr. Crane.”
“Of course,” he says again. “They hadn’t. Past tense. And now they have, and my marriage is in shambles, and I certainly can’t tell Frasier or Dad or— I won’t be able to come to his apartment. How do I explain that? You spend one night in my home and suddenly— They’ll know in an instant.”
Daphne can’t help but look up. “This a pattern for you?” she asks, and she’s almost hoping the answer is yes. No, scratch almost. She’s really hoping the answer is yes. Because she can’t be interested in a man with a wandering eye. Not a wandering eye with a passport filled up faster than Mrs. Crane’s, anyhow. And she doesn’t want to be interested in Dr. Crane, no matter how much she liked kissing him.
“No, no, oh, God, no,” he says, because tonight clearly isn’t Daphne’s night. He seems ready to say more, which Daphne hopes will be something unforgivable. But tonight, again, is not Daphne’s night. He looks outside and takes off his jacket. “Would you wear this?” he asks, bringing up a number of unfortunate realities.
“And didn’t I say—”
“No, no, I didn’t—” Dr. Crane seems to regret this choice of words. “It’s cold here,” he revises, “in the house, um, particularly when it rains, and with you in so little...”
“Seems a bit like you’re implying something.”
“Oh. No, I— That was—”
“Just having some fun,” Daphne says, not entirely sure that she is. “Too fresh?”
“No, ah—Hm.” He pauses, and Daphne is forced to spend the intervening seconds guessing whether he’ll actually keep talking this time. He does: “No, I think we’ve passed the point of forwardness.”
“Soon, I mean.”
“Even better. Ten minutes?” A weak laugh. Hideously weak. “Lifetimes away.”
“All right, then,” she says. He hesitates. Daphne nods. And just like this, they are near each other again. He could lay the jacket over her shoulders. Could even hold it out for her, the way he’s done before, so that she could slip her arms inside. He doesn’t. Not this time. Daphne takes it by the collar and puts it on herself. Dr. Crane folds his hands.
It’s quiet, the way it was before, and Daphne refuses to be surprised again. She says, “I don’t have to keep working for your father.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
“Well, you may remember where you—”
“I remember. I mean—“ He frowns. “No, that is what I mean. You know, you really should—”
And there’s plenty that Daphne knows she should do, but she doesn’t care to be reminded, so she says, “I suppose you’re right. But that’s just the point, isn’t it? I’m going to be walking around your brother’s place, and you’ll stop by, and we’ll say hello and all that, but then what? I—” She considers redirecting the thought, then decides against it. “I don’t mean to imply anything by this, Dr. Crane, but I was getting to appreciate your company.”
“Were you?”
“Wouldn’t have come here tonight if I wasn’t,” she says. Whispers, really, if she’s honest with herself, but she’d really rather not be because, being honest, she has to admit that it’s hard to take something like that platonically.
“Ah,” he says, and Daphne swears he heard it too, because he’s nearly smiling now. “I suppose that makes sense.”
“I just don’t think it would be wise to hang about where you’re likely to drop in, after something so…” There isn't a word she can use here that doesn't mean admitting that she knew what she was doing. She doesn't use any.
“Yes?” he asks, which feels a bit hypocritical given his history. She hadn’t asked him what he’d meant after all, and not for lack of wanting.
“It doesn’t matter. I just— You know I would never mean any offense, but you can be a bit sensitive sometimes.”
For a moment, he sounds like himself again, which means that he sounds like his brother, and Daphne thinks it's over. “I’d hardly—” he says, but he doesn't continue. “No, no, you’re right, of course. I can. But to think of you... giving up your life over one indiscretion…”
“I’d say it was more than one.”
“Of course, yes, I…” He hums again, and Daphne’s back to waiting for him to say something, even if it’s not honest. Maybe especially. He doesn’t.
She says, “You think I should keep working with your father, then?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“It sounded like you were trying to convince me—”
“Daphne?”
“What?”
“Do you plan on staying?”
“Tonight?” she asks, not sure if this is the question she’d like it to be. “I haven’t got much of a choice, have I?”
“No, no, I mean…”
“Forever,” Daphne suggests.
Dr. Crane presses his lips together. He looks painfully like himself like this. Then, he’s been himself the whole night, and Daphne knows that, she really knows that, but it’s harder like this. No way to maintain the illusion now. “That’s one way of putting it, I suppose.”
“I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t see how I could.”
“It would be difficult, wouldn’t it?”
“It’s not that I… I just think— With you…”
“With me, yes. Could I—?” He adjusts his posture so that it almost looks relaxed, except for the way it happens—almost spasmodically. “There’s been something on my mind recently.”
“Yes?”
“When I— When you came here, tonight, and you…” He frowns, like he doesn’t quite know what to say. “Daphne,” he decides. “You have a lovely name. Do you hear that often? Daphne. A naiad, wasn’t she? Daphne. Then, maybe I’ve been a bit on the Dionysian side tonight.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.”
“I’m sorry.” It’s the first time either of them have said it since. Daphne doesn’t know what it means. Doesn’t know if he’s apologizing for more than a misunderstanding. “I’m avoiding the point,” he says and runs a hand through his hair. The gesture lends a sort of exhaustion to his appearance, so that his exhale feels heavier than it is.”You really don’t suppose we’ll be able to forget this?” he asks.
“It’d be easier if we didn’t see each other as much, but…”
“You said, before I… Before we… This… You said that you wanted—” And, God, she finally knows where this is going, and she hates every bit of it, because she still feels so terribly close to him. Still wants someone to love her the way she thought he loved Mrs. Crane but can’t possibly love Mrs. Crane because if he did he wouldn’t have done what they’ve done, wouldn’t be saying what he’s saying. And the part of her that’s still crashing from the breakup believes him. Believes that it could be him. Wants it to be, even.
But Daphne isn’t stupid and certainly not as stupid as he must think she is, so she says, “You shouldn’t.”
“I know that, but I—” and she can feel him saying it now, and she can feel herself believing him even though she shouldn’t. And it’s not just the part of her that’s been broken up with, or the part of her that hasn’t had decent sex in six months, or the part of her that’s stuck in some childish romantic daydream. It’s just Daphne. Wanting him to tell her what he can’t possibly mean. He stops himself. He looks at her for too long, with the eyes she never noticed until tonight. He sighs. “You know,” he says, and Daphne knows the moment has passed, “you’re right. I shouldn’t. It’s late, and I’ve embarrassed myself quite enough, so… Our rooms aren’t the most comfortably furnished, I’m afraid, and, under present circumstance, I can hardly imagine… Where would you like to sleep?”
Daphne doesn’t let herself answer foolishly.
scenario 406. Here is everything that goes better than Niles predicted: Daphne is not horrified. She does not immediately flee the scene, does not reach for the phone to book the next flight back to Manchester, does not so much as flinch when he asks her. She just looks at him with the eyes about which Niles has sworn to himself he will no longer wax poetic, presses together the lips about which Niles has sworn to himself he will no longer fantasize, and nods. It could almost pass for assent.
And then she says, “You’re married.”
And this is technically true, but he says, “Separated,” because there isn’t much else he can say with the potential to right this minor detail.
“Still married,” she says, and, really, she’s right, but, really, there is very little Niles can do about this at the moment, and he doubts Daphne will still be available the next.
So he says,“I suppose I am, aren’t I?” and waits for what is probably not entirely enough time before continuing. “You haven’t answered my question.”
“You are.” She exhales in a way that almost sounds like a laugh.
“I know. I meant the other question.”
“I thought I did,” she says. There’s no way for Niles to convince himself that she’s laughing this time.
But he’s committed to his optimistic streak, even as he watches her settle onto the arm of the couch, back toward him, so he says, “Oh?”
“It doesn’t matter,” she says. Her voice is clear even though he can’t see her face. Insistent. “You’re married.”
“Separated,” he corrects.
“And married.”
“And married, yes But, if, hypothetically, I were no longer married—“
Daphne turns back to face him. “You’re going to divorce your wife?”
“It’s a possibility. That’s why we’re speaking hypothetically.”
“Right,” she says. She’s facing the kitchen again, meaning Dad’s chair is the logical place to sit if he hopes to conduct anything resembling a normal human conversation. He sits instead on the cushion nearest her, functionally eliminating the possibility, and Daphne says, “Well, you’d be divorced.”
“Yes, that’s typically how it works.”
“You think I’d date a man right after his divorce?”
“Well, perhaps if he—”
“He needs time,” she says, and this really is better than Niles predicted—not because it’s not a no, and not because it suggests that there is maybe, someday the possibility of a yes, but because she means that she loves him.
But Niles cannot say, “I love you, too,” because she hasn’t actually said that she loves him, and, even if she had, that may be moving at something of a brisk pace given circumstance. So he says, “Yes, I suppose he does,” because this is the nearest he can get. Daphne, evidently, appreciates the gesture, because she shifts properly this time, a full ninety degrees, so that neither of them has to contort to see the other.
“So,” Niles says, “and this is still hypothetical, of course—if we suppose that I—that he—were divorced, and he’d been divorced for some time, and he’s completely over Maris—his wife, I mean… Would you…?”
Daphne grins and it is, for a moment, as if nothing has changed between them. As if they’re still dancing, or talking about her brothers, or watching the last half The Shop Around the Corner. “You’re asking if I’d ever date a man who’s been married before?”
“Yes.”
“Any man?” she asks. In another, better world, the first half of their conversation has not happened at all, and Daphne is asking this hopefully, longing for Niles to at last say how he feels. But in this world, which naturally is worse, Niles has already said it, and Daphne has already declined. No, not declined. Something softer, enough to make Niles go on.
“Well,” he says, “hypothetically, say it were me.”
Daphne smiles again. “In this hypothetical,” she says, “did this man—did you—did you ask me, while you were married? Say, three hours after I’ve been dumped?”
“Yes,” Niles says, finally as ashamed as expected to be the moment he spoke. “He’s exactly the same person. Purely for the purposes of the hypothetical, of course.”
“Right.” There are roughly forty-three ways the old Niles could describe Daphne’s eyes in this moment before devolving to the shameful-if-accurate “sparkle” and its kind, but he remains set on avoiding this pattern. In any case, it doesn’t keep him from noticing.
“You can say no,” he says, pretending it does.
“I know.”
“It won’t be the first time I’ve been rejected,” he adds.
“I know.”
“I suppose I was asking for that, wasn’t I?”
“A bit,” Daphne says. Then, just as quickly, “You’re in my spot, you know.”
“Your…?”
“I always sit where you’re at now,” she says. “Then you’re the one over. Every time you’re here. Even half an hour ago. Right where you are.”
“You sat down first.”
“Well, I thought you’d be heading out soon. Getting late and all. Wasn’t going to settle back in just for you to leave, was I?”
“Oh, um…” Niles feels suddenly aware of how this all seems, suddenly aware of how out of practice he is. He’s in her home, after all. Looking at it most simply, he has her trapped here. The realization is less than romantic. “Should I?” he asks.
“Depends on whether you’ll be staying where you’re at,” she says, apparently unaware of the gravity of the question.
“You’re kidding.”
Daphne takes on a mock-serious expression. When she speaks, there seems to be a trace of Niles’s own voice in it: “You’re not telling me you’re unschooled in the high-stakes art of couch politics.”
“Couch politics?”
“Come on. You have a brother. You’re telling me you spent all those years in the same house and you didn’t have a spot on the couch?”
Niles considers this. He didn’t. “I had a nook,” he offers.
“A nook?”
“A nook,” he says. “I was never much of a couch child.”
“Oh. Suppose that adds up, really.” She waits—for what Niles is unclear—then seems to hit upon something. “Well, you’ve got a side of the bed, at least.”
“Have I?”
“Had one, then,” Daphne corrects—an insufficient amendment given the nature of Niles’s marriage. “Scoot.”
Niles complies, shifting so that he sits exactly at the center of the cushion. Daphne sits beside him, closer to him than strictly necessary. Niles attempts to dismiss this fact. He says, “We slept apart.”
“Come on,” she says. Her right shoulder bumps up against his left. The action itself is entirely dismissible. Becoming swept up in it is entirely inevitable. “I’m not married, but I’ve got a side.”
“Have you ever considered that you’re simply a particularly territorial person?” he asks.
Daphne laughs. “Coming from the man who’s got a whole separate bedroom from his wife,” she says, and Niles resolves to take the opportunity he’s been given to redirect. “That’s rich.”
“So, ah, if I didn’t have a wife,” he says, “and I hadn’t for some time, and I happened to ask you on a date…”
“Oh.” Her voice sounds as if she has genuinely forgotten. Niles isn’t sure what to make of this, whether there is perhaps some distant possibility of normalcy between them after all. “Right.”
“You could say no,” Niles says, casually if not for the slowness of it, as if it’s the first time he’s saying it.
“Right.”
“So,” he says, decidedly less casually.
“I could say no.”
It isn’t a question, but Niles answers it like one: “Easily.”
“Long time to wait for a rejection, though, isn’t it?”
“I’m sure he’s waited longer.” And then, because the possibility is so strangely beguiling, to think that this could be over—to think that perhaps everything could return to the way it was—he says, “But it would be a no?”
“It could be,” she says, which is consuming in another way.
“But not necessarily?”
Niles watches Daphne study him, withdraws into that world of imagining himself in her place. By the time she answers, she’s directed her gaze toward the television, the pair of them reflected in its black screen, where Margaret Sullavan and James Stewart had stood just before them. “I’d have to think.”
Niles says, “Of course.”
“I’ve known him for years,” she says. Her eyes are still on the television, unfocused now. “What would it be by then? Five?”
“Something like that, yes.”
Daphne hums. The sound of it is excruciatingly mellifluous. “You know,” she says, and this is all it takes to know that what follows will be worse still, “hypothetically, don’t think it’d be a bad idea for him to get divorced.”
“Oh?”
“You know,” she says again, and this time he knows nothing at all. “Deserves someone who cares about him.”
“Ah. And that’s why you wouldn’t…?”
“I might,” she says.
“Of course,” he says.
“If it felt right.”
“That is everything, isn’t it? Feeling right,” he says and, for the first time in recent memory, keeps himself from revising the thought. “The strangest thing. For years, I thought that meant feeling comfortable.”
Daphne finally looks back to him. “You’re still comfortable with her?”
“I would be,” he says, “if this all ended, and we were still married.”
“But you don’t want that.” Her tone is indecipherable, or else Niles is resisting his need to decipher it. He resists his need to decipher the disjunctive.
“Maris doesn’t.”
“Then you do,” she says.
“Maris doesn’t.”
“Well, then it’s like I said,” Daphne tells him. “You deserve someone who cares about you.”
“I suppose I should say, ‘Maris doesn’t,’” he says.
Daphne shrugs. “Be a nice symmetry.”
“It would. I’m afraid I can’t.”
“Dr. Crane”—this is a blow all its own, but Niles supposes he can hardly expect better—“I don’t mean to be rude, but, when you say all this, you have to understand why I said what I did.”
“Of course,” he says, and he does, though he’d easily prefer the alternative. “It would be foolish of us, wouldn’t it?”
“A bit. Doesn’t mean you can’t date other women, though.” And then, with a wink, “Or something other than date, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
“Oh, well, I suppose so,” he says before realizing that this, perhaps, is not the best of times to ignore a gesture’s possible implications. “Of course, not— That wasn’t why I was asking—“
“You asked me on a date because you didn’t want to have sex with me?” This is fair if unanticipated, and Niles wonders just how visibly warm he’s become. Too visibly, surely.
“Ah, I, well, not— I don’t mean to—“
“Oh, I understand,” Daphne says. “Just having fun. And, speaking of, there’s this bar Roz told me about, just off Pike. She said she’d go with me, but…”
“I wouldn’t want you to cancel your plans.”
Daphne waves away the thought. “Oh, no.” She takes up an exaggerated new expression. ”’Strangest thing,’” she says, now miming the presence of a phone in her hand, as if the point couldn’t have been made without it, “‘but before I even got the chance, someone’s already gone and asked me on a date. Oh, yes, he’s gorgeous.’” (Niles makes the gallant effort to take this for the joke that it is.) “‘Anyway, I told him I was free tomorrow night…’”
scenario 421. Like this, Niles finally has sex with Daphne. And it isn’t particularly good. It isn’t bad, because it couldn’t be bad, but it isn’t good because... Well, it’s Daphne, of course, but it’s also Daphne, and the Daphne that occupies Niles’s fantasies is not quite the Daphne that he knows, and he knew this already, because he willed it to be so, but this means that, for all the years of dreaming of a woman who was nearly her, Niles is entirely unprepared for the real thing.
Of course, the Daphne-who-was-not-Daphne never was quite the same even as herself. One evening, nervous and softer than anything. The next, certain and stopping for nothing. Most recently, for the third time in eight months, speaking to him. Telling him everything he was too afraid to tell her. Everything. So that when they finally did have sex (because that was, admittedly, always the reason for this not-quite-Daphne’s appearance), it was nearly an afterthought. A pleasant afterthought—an exceedingly pleasant afterthought—but an afterthought nonetheless.
Even in all of this, it was never quite so awkward. They were never unused to each other in the fantasies, never hesitated after each first touch (before, perhaps, but never after), never seemed to be three seconds out of sync. And Daphne never kissed him like the real Daphne does. It isn’t bad, necessarily, not first-kiss bad, or even two-too-many-drinks bad (though it is nearly as messy), or, really, bad at all, except that it is, just a bit, if Niles is completely honest with himself. But mostly, and this is really about ninety-five percent of it, it’s surprising. New.
“Daphne?” he asks, and saying her name is enough to convince him that the sex was not bad or mediocre or even merely good. It was, Niles is now certain, easily the best sex two people have ever had. Not two. Any number. The best sex ever had, period.
But Daphne isn’t looking at him. She isn’t touching him. (How strange for that to be noteworthy!) She seems entirely set on forgetting everything they’ve done—already back in that borrowed dressing gown, half-sitting in his bed since returning to it, head tilted toward the ceiling. She replies anyhow: “Yes?”
“How are you?” This is not necessarily the question Niles had intended to ask, is not necessarily suave or charming—is not necessarily much of anything but strangely melodic, which is not quite the impression Niles had had in mind. But he says it, in the spirit of the day, because he can’t help but to say it with Daphne there, in his bed, looking as she does. More directly, which is to say more honestly, he says it on an impulse.
“All right,” she says. Polite. Noncommittal. “And you?”
“Similarly,” he says. “But I’d really—“
“We’ve really made a choice with this one, haven’t we?” She laughs at this, just barely, and he does, too, allowing them both the diversion.
“Yes, it seems we have.”
“Have to admit I never really thought…” Daphne sighs, and this calls to mind several events Niles expects to sustain him for at least the next decade. “You know. Us.”
“And now that we have…”
“Bit funny, isn’t it?” she says.
Niles considers this. Of all the words he has prepared for this occasion, funny was never among them. Still, it’s preferable to many of the alternatives, particularly given how readily mistake springs to mind. “Yes.”
“Never thought you’d be—” Daphne wrinkles her nose, conveying an emotion Niles can’t quite interpret. “Well, I suppose that means I must’ve thought about how you’d actually be, but… What about you?”
“You’re asking me if I ever thought about—?”
At this, Daphne relaxes slightly and turns to her side, resting her head in her right hand. Relief at her apparent lack of repulsion aside, Niles wishes Daphne would have waited, this being quite easily the moment at which he would least like to face her. Nearly smiling now, she says, “Sex. With me.”
“I don’t—”
“Oh, come on,” she says, still painfully buoyant. (Niles thinks she will touch him again, but her arm stops short of his.) “No reason to be embarrassed now, if you have.”
“Isn’t there?” he asks, for he has come up with fifteen in the time since her asking.
“So you have?”
“Well,” Niles starts, but it’s obviously futile. “Oh, I suppose you’re right. Yes. I have.”
“You always have been a flatterer,” she says. “So, did I measure up?”
And he says, “Oh.”
Daphne echoes him, dropping her voice: “‘Oh.’” She laughs. “Suppose I spoke a bit soon there.”
The answer, most honestly, the thrill of saying her name aside, is no because four years of trying to substitute fantasies of someone for an actual sex life makes for somewhat unrealistic expectations. The answer, somewhat honestly, is that, yes, in terms of his actual sex life with actual women who existed for longer than thirty minutes at a time, Daphne was... Daphne was... “Oh, well, I—”
“It’s all right if I didn’t,” she says before he has the chance to further embarrass them both. “I mean, wouldn’t be the kindest thing for you to say to me after… Do you have any more of that pineapple?”
“Oh, um, let me— Did we finish it?”
“I’m not sure. Got a bit swept up in the moment, I suppose.”
“Right,” he says, but any grasp he had once had on his composure has vanished. “I’ll— Actually, I don’t know that it would still be particularly— You know, sitting out. I could make you something?”
Daphne laughs until it fades into a sigh. “With all due respect,” she says, “I’ve seen the kind of dinner you serve your dates.”
Because now seems an inappropriate time to confess that, in fact, he had never had any intention of inviting anyone else for dinner that night, Niles says nothing, and Daphne accepts the invitation to continue.
“It’s for the best, really. Can’t imagine sitting in this heat with an oven going as well.”
“It doesn’t have to be—“
Daphne stands. “I’m going to take a look,” she says.
“For what?”
“See whether we’ve left any pineapple. Is it all right if I bring it back here?”
Since his separation, Niles has adopted a stricter policy with regard to eating in the bedroom, figuring that, when living alone, such an allowance could only lead to his regression into the worst sort of bachelor. Also, he no longer pays someone to wash his sheets. Both of these points, however, feel increasingly trivial in the context of recent events. “Certainly.”
And with this, Daphne is past the doorway, and Niles is alone, and he supposes he’ll have to get used to that feeling again, once the awkwardness of their own situation outweighs the abrasiveness of the other. And just as quickly, she’s back, and Niles makes an effort to indulge in this more pleasant reality while it lasts.
“Anyway,” she says, settling into the bed with the platter a bit more precariously than Niles had hoped, “back to what I was saying. I wouldn’t be asking if I didn’t…”
“Oh.” This is an unfortunate redevelopment, as Niles had hoped that her own diversion had been sufficient in turning the topic of conversation elsewhere. “Are you still—?” he asks.
“Well, when you’re working that hard to keep from answering, can’t help wondering—“
Niles attempts a redirection of his own. “Drawing comparisons is…”
Daphne takes a bite of pineapple, and the silence between this moment and her reply does nothing to conceal the flaccidity of this attempt. “You did, anyway. More than.”
“Oh,” Niles says, deciding to overlook the less-than-complimentary implications of this formulation. This afternoon’s developments aside, he is not a man terribly accustomed to such good fortune; no other reactions are in his repertoire.
“It is all right if I say that, isn’t it?”
“Of course. I— Does that mean you—?” he asks. He means, Does that mean you intend to do this again? but saying it aloud seems to be crossing one too many a boundary, so he refrains.
“Do you?” she asks, presumably meaning the same.
“Well, we’d have to be more—” Careful, he thinks, but they were careful. Particularly him. Particularly in a way he would really rather he hadn’t been. “Today, we were—” Reckless, he thinks, but they weren’t reckless. They progressed in the smallest of steps, and they both knew it, well before it happened, and the real risk of recklessness is whatever he’s about to say knowing that he wants it to happen again. “We shouldn’t—” He reaches for a strawberry.
“But you’d like to,” Daphne says.
Thinking this is dangerous and saying it worse, but Niles does think it. He does want it, and more desperately than before, but more desperately still, he does not want to lose whatever they had that made her want to stay with him. “Only if you would.”
“You can say you’d like to without qualifying it, you know. If you would, that is.”
“I wouldn’t want to overstep,” Niles says, as if he could have reached this point by any other stride. (The strawberry in his hand is still uneaten. There are several versions of Niles that would choose to weave this into a less-than-artful metaphor.)
“All right,” Daphne says. Niles, at this moment, finally takes a bite from the strawberry, and he feels her eyes on her as he does. He hears the way her voice drops when she says, “I think I would.”
“You would?”
She laughs. “What, just being polite?”
“God, no.” This is too much. Niles knows it before he’s finished saying it, but the afternoon has already rewarded his imprudence; he has a streak going. “I— No. I— So… Hm. What would you like? From… this, I mean.”
“Oh, I’m an adult, I can handle—“
“I wouldn’t ask you to handle—”
“All right,” Daphne says. “Usually go on a few dates before sleeping with someone, but I suppose we’re past that, so the next best—“
Niles has imagined a few hundred too many ways of formulating the question to be beaten to asking it. He says, “Would you like to go on a date?”
“I wasn’t asking for that.“
“What were you asking?”
“I wasn’t asking anything.”
“What would you like?”
“Well, I’ve already told you, haven’t I?”
“Would you remind me?”
“I’d like you to stop asking me what I’d like,” she says, and Niles remembers suddenly that it was an argument that brought her here. “I’d like you to tell me what you’d like.”
“Well, if it isn’t overstepping…”
Daphne sounds almost annoyed, replying too soon and too briefly: “It isn’t.”
“I’m afraid my motivations today haven’t been entirely pure.”
“I noticed that when—”
“No, no, after that. I— This isn’t entirely how I planned to tell you…”
Daphne’s face softens. She speaks more slowly than she has in months: “You’ve been wanting to tell me something?”
“Yes. For some time. I just can’t seem to say it.”
“Yes?”
“You’ve been a wonderful friend to me lately.”
“If I was really that bad, you could just tell me.”
“No,” Niles says, the inappropriateness of his long-practiced admission only now occurring to him. “No. It’s— It isn’t that. I couldn’t say it, before, because you had been such a good friend, but we…”
“You can say that we’ve ruined it,” she says.
“We’ve taken a risk.”
“We don’t have to keep doing this.”
“I— Of course not, no. I was— I’d like to go on a date. With you.”
“You really don’t have to do that.”
“I’m not—“
“You know, you’ve always been such a gentleman to me.” Daphne licks the pineapple juice from her fingers, and Niles can imagine nothing further from the truth. Then, his imagination is otherwise occupied. “Even today. Especially, really. But it’s not the same, something like this. Don’t have to ask me just because we’ve had sex.”
“I’m not.”
“Dr. Crane—“
“Please, call me—“
Daphne doesn’t acknowledge his interruption. “I’ve seen the kind of women you date.”
“Who are you—?” Niles tries without success to work through the steps that led her here. “There’s Maris, Adelle…”
“That’s just what I mean, though.” She offers a wry smile and another strawberry. Niles accepts. “No one like me there, is there?”
“That’s certainly true.”
“So, you’re expecting me to believe that, after all that, you’re going to start dating me?”
“Not dating, necessarily,” Niles says, reasoning that it would be in bad taste to detail just why such a departure might be welcome. “We could start with one. You— I seem to remember you having a fondness for first dates.”
“I do,” she says. “You don’t.”
“I don’t. I was hoping that this one might be different.”
“And if it is?”
“A second, maybe.” With an intention that embarrasses him the moment he does it, Niles takes another strawberry as he continues. “A third. Fourth. Fifth…”
“Sounds like we’d be dating.”
“We could,” he says. “Eventually.”
“And until then, what?”
Cautiously (and probably too optimistically), Niles says, “We could keep…”
“We could.”
“Is that—?”
“Yes.”
“Are you—?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” At Daphne’s grin, Niles rushes to amend this. “I don’t usually say— Not that I’m frequently— Being recently separated— But you… I— I’m sorry.”
“I like that,” Daphne says. “’Thank you.’ It’s sweet.”
“Oh. Well. Thank you.”
“Second one’s not quite the same.”
“Ah. I don’t suppose it ever is.”
“Could always get it out of the way now.”
“Oh.” Niles knows he must say more than this, knows that Daphne is already rounding the corners of her mouth to imitate him if he doesn’t. He says the only thing he can both think and bear to say: “You called me Dr. Crane earlier.”
“I’m not doing that while we’re having sex,” Daphne says. “Last time I— Oh, well, never mind that, but—”
“I don’t want you to do that.”
“Too ethical for a bit of roleplay?” This feels like something of a turn, but Niles is still too dazed by Daphne’s earlier suggestion to voice it.
“As it happens,” Niles says instead, then considers this, too. Realistically, he concludes, this is a far more generous interpretation of the request than he deserves and certainly less pathetic than the reality. “Something like that, yes.”
“Well, don’t worry. It’s nothing I’m after.” When Daphne speaks again, her voice has lost its firmness: “Why’d you bring it up, anyway?”
“I— We’re— This isn’t just sex?”
“I think ‘just’ is a bit unfair.”
“No, I mean… No, it doesn’t… Would you call me Niles?”
“I don’t think I can.”
“I’m sorry?” Niles says.
“I mean, when we’re alone, that’s one thing, but if I start doing it then, I’m liable to start slipping it in other places, and, before you know it, it’ll be in front of your father. And how’d I explain that? I know we’ve been a bit friendlier as of late—”
“I think we may have passed by friendly sometime this afternoon.”
“Well, that’s just my point, isn’t it?” she says. “I spend a few evenings alone with you in four years, and all of a sudden I’m calling you by your first name.”
“And you don’t want to tell them?” Niles asks.
“Tell my boss I’ve been sleeping with his brother?”
“Ah,” Niles says, the general configuration of their relationship at last settling in. “I suppose not. Then, I believe your use of the present perfect continuous would imply something of a more extended arrangement, at which point it may be appropriate to use the word ‘dating.’”
“You know, I really don’t know that I’m sure about that.”
“Oh. Of course.” (And it really is what he had expected all along.) “I certainly wouldn’t want to rush— Of course, to some extent we already have, but—”
“It’s just—“ Daphne pauses. Niles watches the movement of her eyes until they meet his. She continues: “It all seems a bit strange, doesn’t it? The two of us. Dating, I mean. Not that I’d planned on this happening either, but I can’t even imagine where we’d go.”
“Where would you like to go?”
part three. how it starts.
scenario 117. Daphne puts on Mrs. Crane’s negligee because it fits and she’s never touched anything so soft and possibly also because she really needs the reminder that she’s worth something. Beside Dr. Crane, she feels it. Every time he speaks, she feels it more and she likes him more and she comes closer and closer to doing something reckless. He does it first.
scenario 406. It’s just them in the living room again, in spite of Frasier’s best efforts. Daphne had surprised them all, earlier in the evening, and asked if, so long as it’s not too much trouble, Niles might want to stay and chat a bit, and Niles had said no, of course not, it couldn’t possibly be any trouble at all. By the time Niles gets the courage, they are dancing again, the way they haven’t since last winter, not-quite-there but not-quite-drunk on Frasier’s most mediocre wine. Before he speaks, before Daphne can feel his hands shaking, Niles pulls them apart.
scenario 421. The heat wraps them up, and Niles is trying to remember that old letter about summer and lethargy and something else, trying to forget each look that Daphne gives him, but he can’t do either. It’s too much, with the two of them so close, her smelling of his soap, wearing his dressing gown. It’s inevitable. She’s the one who acts first, in the end, the one who finally says it. She says it like it’s something rational, like she’s the one who has to worry about being rejected: “You know, Dr. Crane, if we’re both feeling the same way, and there really is just the one solution…” He finishes the sentence for her.
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snivellussnoop · 3 years
Text
He Wished a Lot of Things
A trans Snape/Snupin one-shot (which you can also find here on my AO3 and here on my Wattpad!)
On a side note, why do we only do trans Snape stuff for a single week? Let’s make this bitch year-round.
Word count: 2804
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He saw them first in his second year as the boy stepped out of the showers, a towel wrapped around his waist and his chest entirely exposed. Beneath the long black hair, whose water-dripping tendrils had been strategically placed over his chest, Remus Lupin could have sworn he had just laid his eyes upon two long, red scars.
The image kept him awake at times. He never asked; he knew Severus Snape was touchy to talk to in the first place, and scars — which he knew from personal experience — were even touchier. So he kept himself quiet, feeling different about the boy from then on, wondering about the newfound mystery of him every time their eyes met from across a classroom. But the question remained, and so did the scars.
‘How did you get them?’ he scrawled eventually on a piece of parchment after weeks of grappling with the thought, passing the letter casually across the long table in the Charms room and slipping it under his thin fingers. It took what felt like years to get a simple reply; one in such elegant cursive that his own handwriting looked like aimless ink above it.
‘Get what?’
Such a fruitless answer. But Remus wasn’t expecting much else. He tagged along almost every day as his friends taunted the boy; of course his responses would be slow and guarded.
‘The scars,’ he wrote back, and then, because he knew that Severus was more often injured by others than by accidents, he revised his question. ‘Who did it to you?’
He watched in anticipation as Snape contemplated the words, scribbling something below them but not giving the square of parchment back. The wait was endless. The class was the longest Remus had ever attended.
But he was answered when they left the classroom as the hour marked the end of the lecture, Severus catching him by the door and shoving the piece of paper back into his grip.
“Biology did this to me, Remus,” he said plainly. “Now get out of my way.”
Snape pushed past Lupin, his green-accented robes flowing behind as he hurried down the hall. Remus watched in puzzlement, slowly unfolding the parchment and wondering what the boy’s answer was even supposed to mean. Biology gave him scars? He couldn’t have been born with them; they looked far too fresh.
Looking down at the parchment, Remus gave a small laugh. Severus had taken the past thirty minutes to draw a werewolf in the bottom lefthand corner, tongue lolled out, heart-eyed as it reached up at the moon. The moon, which Remus noted with another charmed giggle, wore a subtle frown in its center.
He didn’t ask about the scars again for years.
He saw them again in the courtyard, but really only because he was looking for them. They had faded a lot since Year Two, and he wouldn’t have noticed had he not previously known.
James Potter had picked another brawl with him, and, in embarrassment after realising that he was losing, had hexed the boy’s shirt off. His hair, shoulder-length now, wasn’t long enough to conceal the traces that were left, and Remus found himself staring. Studying. Almost forgetting where he was. He tried to piece together the puzzle of the two faint red lines across Snape’s ribs, following them from left to right, over and over, looped like a scratched record.
And this didn’t go unnoticed. Severus Snape, trying his best not to squirm under the humiliating attention, stared back.
Remus looked away.
“Why do you have scars?”
He had found him in the library, sitting in the farthest aisle from the entry, completely empty aside from the two of them and the slight traces of a mild mouse problem.
Severus narrowed his eyes, slipping a ribbon in to mark his current progress in his book and turning around to face Lupin with a look of blank scorn.
“Since when did the lore behind my physical attributes become your affair?” he hissed. “It isn’t difficult to avoid inquiry about a potentially sensitive subject.”
“Mm,” Remus replied, less morally driven than his usual as he remained phlegmatic against the very fair point. “Luckily, the nerves on one’s chest are often not very sensitive at all, causing related issues to not hurt much in the least aside from inward intrusion.”
“Insightful,” Severus replied snarkily, closing his book and tucking it under his arm. “Charming that my skin is so important to you. If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect you were interested.”
He stood up, and Remus, although towering over him in terms of height, felt suddenly very small.
“But I am interested,” he choked out, clearly missing the meaning behind the term. Snape closed his eyes and sighed with a deep and tired sense of resignation.
“My scars were put there by none other than myself,” he replied. “Don’t be concerned by this; I’m not actively suicidal and the process was beneficial, if anything. Incredibly safe.”
And he left. Remus said nothing. Somehow, although given more information, the situation became even more cryptic, and he understood less and less as he went.
But that was what Snape was. To him, anyway, the boy was an enigma first and an interest second. There was nothing else to it, and nothing else to him. Ambiguity and nothing else. Ambiguity and scars.
Remus saw Severus again at the Yule Ball, not like he was difficult to spot, being the only person there in all black, a sleek tunic covering his scarred frame.
“You really went for a new look, didn’t you?” he found himself asking snidely, smirking at the lack of change in his clothing. “That shade of black is just a touch lighter than usual. That’s a big step for you.”
“That shade of unwelcome involvement still hasn’t left your repertoire, however,” Severus was quick to reply. “I’ve been here for three minutes and you’ve shown up already. I should have stayed back and studied like I wanted to.”
A reply left Lupin’s lips before he could filter it out. It was disjointed, random, almost desperate, hitting them both head-on and leaving Severus more shocked than he’d ever inherently been.
“Dance with me.”
There was a silence, the soft motion of a punch glass being set down on tablecloth, and a shocked verbal receipt.
“What?”
Remus knew he couldn’t back out of his own words. He was too timid; too stubborn to admit to anything as a fault.
Giving a slight bow, he held out his hand as the music picked up. An offering, for once, that wasn’t ill-intended.
Tentatively, like a lamb accepting slaughter, the boy’s hand slipped into his.
“Potter can’t know.”
Snape whispered it through feverish kisses, leaning back against a pillar in the corridor as Remus lost sight of his own reserve, grasping at his shoulders, his hair, anything he could possibly bring closer to himself.
“James,” he corrected, pulling them both around the corner in the hall as he noticed the faint sound of a stray student’s footsteps, “won’t suspect a thing.”
“Good riddance to this bloody school,” Remus heard Sirius scoff as they packed their suitcases for the last time, all carrying diplomas and wearing flashy hats. Remus always found the hats silly, but he saw now why people were so fond of them when they left.
“Is James already back home? I know Peter left last night and I haven’t seen either of them since,” Lupin said, opening the dorm dresser drawers and forcing the last of his sweaters inside his case.
“Yeah. I think they took the last available train together yesterday,” Black replied. “Shame. We could have all left together like the years before. Like old times. This is the last time we’ll be leaving as students, you know.”
A small crunch came from under one of Lupin’s sweaters as he nodded in response. “Yeah,” he said. “Shame indeed. I’ll miss these memories. This school. It’s become my home, you know. And these last few hours…”
Pulling out a crumpled piece of parchment from under his sweater, Remus paused as he saw a faded pair of handwriting styles and a silly illustration of a werewolf. His heart jumping in his chest, he put the drawing back under the sweater and closed his suitcase, picking it up and preparing to leave.
“…this is it.”
Sirius took their things to be loaded onto the train. Remus himself spent a good hour wandering the halls, so empty, so familiar, wishing them all a sincere goodbye. He scanned the small groups of people that were still left, hoping somewhere in the back of his head that the artist of the drawing under his shirt would still be in the building somewhere.
He wanted to speak to him. To ask him about what he would be doing in the war. To offer his address; to offer connection. But he didn’t find the boy anywhere, nor did he find a trace of him. No vandalised books, no cursive notes, and nobody in a sleek black tunic.
He was told by Horace Slughorn to check the library. He thanked him, but insincerely; he’d already looked there, and it was empty.
If he knew where Snape resided, he would have shown up. Written, at least. But all he had was the drawing. That was all he had for years. For a long time, he wasn’t even sure the man still existed.
November of 1981 left him connectionless and alone. He felt himself slipping into nothing, the sand of eternity slowly rising over his head until he couldn’t breathe. Every day was a nightmare.
He relied on the Prophet for his entertainment, for his distraction. Anything to make him forget, even for a moment. Anything at all.
And then something did make him forget that he was alone. An announcement that one couldn’t look past. That he couldn’t, anyway.
It wasn’t a major headline, but it was on the bottom left of the front page, announced in capital bold letters with a small, grainy picture too blurry to decipher.
HOGWARTS POTIONS PROFESSOR HORACE SLUGHORN REPLACED IN POSITION BY SEVERUS SNAPE
Immediately, without even thinking, Remus threw the paper on the floor, stood up, and grabbed his coat.
“I’d like to see Professor Snape.”
He was directed down to the dungeons, which he approached slowly, stopping for minutes on end to stare at the architecture he’d almost forgotten; the arcs and pillars that he grew up between. He didn’t need a map of this place. His feet knew the way down the spiral staircase. His very skeleton understood the path necessary for the destination of Slughorn’s old office.
He knocked on the door three times. It opened just before he could knock a fourth.
They were both still for a long time.
The response was quiet.
“Lupin.”
Remus wasn’t sure whether to stay or leave. He felt uncomfortable to be once again under the confusing gaze of Severus Snape.
“I saw your name in the Prophet,” he said plainly. “I’m… sorry to intrude. If you want me to go, I—”
“How very timidly-mannered to leave upon an inkling of silence,” Snape said, attempting to sound scornful, but his tone was weak; almost relieved. As he stepped aside to let Lupin into the room, Remus understood with a sudden sort of mental blow that Snape had just recently lost all of his connections, too.
He walked softly inside, taking one step to the left as Severus closed the door behind him. And then, jokingly:
“Potter can’t know.”
Sadly, they laughed.
Lupin didn’t even ask to see him anymore. He just walked right in.
Snape provided him with an extra key, one he used often for their weekly rendezvous, once leaving a toothbrush there on accident and never bothering to take it home again. Little by little, the visits became normal, essential, even. They became fueled by connection, by touch, by everything they had lost since graduation.
Little by little, they’d see more of one another. Day by day, Snape would unbutton his sleeves just a little more, finally comfortable enough to show the grotesque mark on his wrist, and Lupin would wear his shirts a little looser, exposing the scars on his neck as they led up to the ones on his jaw and nose. Closeness was their comfort, and they’d revel in it like Shakespearean kings, like Duncan of Scotland, doomed as he was, surrounded by the small joys of his imperfect world and his tarnished reign. Though their environment was muddled by blades of wilted and bloodied grass, the small fireflies within, the light that, although rare, warmed the hands and entranced the eyes like none other, were what they noticed the most.
They one day found themselves undoing the clasps of one another’s shirts, their kisses slow and even, their breaths soft. Lupin’s hands found themselves running across the bare skin of Snape’s chest, smooth, oddly hairless, comfortingly warm. His fingers found themselves on his ribcage. They lived there. And then they stopped.
Although they were almost completely invisible, his hands had found the scars. Scars that, over time, he had forgotten about. 
Running his fingers over the rough lines, he looked down at them, and then back up at Severus, who had a sudden expression of what seemed almost like terror.
Remus gave them another examination. He noticed their placement, their edges, how each one stretched in a long like under his pectorals, as if something had been above them that was removed.
And then he understood.
His breath catching in his throat, Remus realised that there was so much about this man he didn’t know. There were struggles that he and his friends had only added to. Parts of him and his life that he never got to see.
He understood then why Snape was built the way he was, why his waist was thin around the center and wider around the hips, why his neck was sleek and his collarbones strong, why his skin was smooth and had a significant lack of hair. He understood why he never saw him shaving and never noticed forgotten stubble on the curves of his jaw. He understood why he would hide his chest with his long hair after a shower; why he said that biology was what gave him these marks in the first place. He understood why he hid himself with tight, concealing clothes and why he would shy away from the connected questions.
All at once, Remus understood the scars.
Quietly, softly, he placed a hand on Snape’s back, pulling him as close as he possibly could. He watched the scared, vulnerable eyes below him and, in an instant, wished he could undo everything he and his friends had ever done to him. He wished he could have supported him; kept himself from prying. He wished a lot of things.
“They don’t define you, you know,” he said eventually, his thumb tracing Snape’s bottom lip as he stroked his hair. “It took me years to understand that about myself, but it’s true. It’s true for me, and it’s true for you.”
Severus looked like the most fragile thing on Earth.
“Do you find them distasteful?” he whispered out, leaning his face into Remus’ bare shoulders, self-directed venom behind his every syllable. “Do they drive you away, knowing about them? About why they’re here?”
“Hey,” Lupin replied, soft as he hugged him close and leaned his chin on the top of his head. “Don’t worry.”
He held him as if it was the last time he ever would. He didn’t let go. He wouldn’t let himself. Fighting back a newfound wave of emotion, he closed his eyes and wished he could articulate how little this knowledge would change anything. How Severus was just as beautiful to him as he had always been. How he didn’t care about the body he used to have or what he used to be, because, to Remus, he was still Severus Snape. He was always Severus Snape, and he always had been, and he always would be, no matter what. 
Always.
Still, words were never his strong suit. Emotions never left his lips in prose. So what he said was barely as elegant, not even close to what he wanted to communicate.
But what he said communicated it well enough, because, once he spoke them, they both turned into a crumbling mess of tears and sniffles, holding one another as tightly as they both could manage. His heart thudding in his chest, his breath hitched with a feeling he couldn’t describe, he chose a very decent thing to say. A thing that left them in a very peaceful silence for a very long time.
It was a whisper. And it was safe.
“I have scars, too.”
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thorne93 · 3 years
Text
The Stars Made Us (Part 12)
Prompt: In this world, you’re one of the “lucky” ones who got a soulmate, but what if the universe gives you more than you bargained for?
(Prompt challenge – You live in a world where your soulmate can write on their skin and you will get the writing on your own and vice versa. Where they can wash away the ink on their own skin, however, the writing is forever scarred onto your skin until you meet face to face)
Word Count: 2671
Warnings: angst and language throughout
Notes: This was supposed to be for @sorryimacrapwriter​​​​  and their challenge like a year ago, I think? I still loved the prompt though and have been working on this story for quite some time. This aesthetic was made by @dontshootmespence​​​​, thank you so much! Beta’d by @like-a-bag-of-potatoes​​​​, couldn’t have done it without you, as well as @carryonmyswansong​​​​ and @arrow-guy​​​​ and @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo​​​​
Also, I’ve never really liked the whole soulmate AU thing idea, but this felt so right and it was amazing to write. I hope y’all love it too!!
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“Y/N,” Charles started but you just glared at him before holding a finger up to silence him. Once you got it ordered you stuffed your phone back in your purse. 
“Y/N, please, I didn’t mean to slip up about the move,” he tried again. 
“We’ll talk about this when we aren’t on my parents front yard,” you responded with a calmed anger. 
Pretty soon, an uber was there to pick you up and take you to your home. You didn’t look at Charles once and you wondered if he was reading your mind. He promised he never would, but you two hadn’t argued like this before. 
Your luggage was set down and you were well prepared to just start boxing up what you could when Charles spoke again. 
“Please talk to me. You said we would talk about it later,” he begged. 
You slammed the books that you’d pulled off your shelf on the table. “I asked you to do one thing! One thing! They were already upset. We could’ve salvaged it. But you had to open your big mouth.” 
“It wasn’t on purpose! Besides, maybe if you had told your parents where you were and that we were coming it wouldn’t have been such a bomb to drop on them,” he countered.
“This is somehow my fault now?”
“No it’s not your fa--”
“It’s somehow my fault that you decided to throw the world’s biggest pity party and completely eradicate me from your life.” 
“I didn’t eradicate you, I thought about you every day,” he argued through clenched teeth.
“What a nice sentiment,” you hissed. “Did me a lot of good while I worried day and night if you were dead or alive!” 
Charles put his fingertips on his head before taking a deep breath. “Fine. You’re right. This isn’t your fault. Not alone anyway. I should’ve never cut you out the way I did, and you should’ve told your parents where you were and that we’d sorted our troubles out. Otherwise I look like the bad guy who fooled their daughter into loving him.” 
You wanted to argue. You were so mad. At Charles for what he did, for what he said, and at your parents for not just listening to you. Why didn’t they just trust you? You sighed internally. Because they didn’t know him like you did. Sure, you could explain all of his powers, all of the troubles he faced, all of the loss he’s had but couldn’t they just trust you? Charles didn’t need to be exposed and exploited like that just so your parents would understand he’d never do anything like that again. 
But you knew that he was right. Maybe if you’d called a month ago and explained everything, or at least told them he had a really rough year, they’d be more supportive of this. But as it stood, they only saw a man that hurt you deeply, and that you were perhaps too young or too love struck to see that he was really a charlatan, someone not to be trusted. Someone who would hurt you again. 
Like your dad said, this wasn’t some silly high school break up. You’d put all romance on hold, saving everything for Charles, the day you’d finally meet. He was your boyfriend, your longstanding love. So when he stopped responding, it was almost as bad as a divorce. A once integral part of your day had disappeared without a trace and no way for you to know why or how it had happened. 
But now he had no way to close you out. It would all be different now. If only you could make them understand. 
With that, hot tears streamed down your face and Charles rushed to envelope you in his arms. “There, there. It’ll all be alright,” he assured. 
You started to pull away. “I have packing to do,” you said through the lump in your throat. 
He tugged you back against him. “No, you don’t. You have to meet with your landlord and the realtor tomorrow. I’ll get this all boxed up for you while you’re gone. But right now you’re upset. I am sorry for what I said, truly. It was a stupid mistake. As far as your parents, we’ll get them to come around. You’re they’re only daughter. They love you and they’ll understand in time that things happen in relationships.” 
“You sure?” you asked, pressing your face into his shoulder.
“I’m positive,” he insisted, rubbing your back. “Why don’t you give me a grand tour to take your mind off things?” 
You nodded, stepping away to wipe your nose and face. “Well, this is the kitchen,” you said, walking into the open area behind the counter. “Not much to see except a mixer. I’ve got a truck load of pots, pans, molds, and baking supplies though,” you said as you walked to the pantry. When you opened the doors you heard Charles gasp. 
“That is a hell of a lot of kitchen utensils. I’m not sure we’ve got the room.” 
You smiled. “I’ll make room.” 
“This is your...office, I suppose?” he asked, gesturing to the dining area. The dining area was actually just a small breakfast table next to a large built in book case. The table was littered with books and notebooks. “I took you to be a lot more organized than this,” he tsked. 
“Oh, well excuse me for not having maids,” you retorted, making a sour face. 
He laughed. “Touchy, touchy. And the bedroom?” 
“Are you trying to be clever?” you asked with a cocked brow.
“No, but if it’s working, I’m certainly happy to be of service.” 
You rolled your eyes. “It’s not. Let me show you the bathroom. I redid it myself,” you boasted, taking his hand and leading him all around. You showed him every room, and he often asked about unique items you had. You showed up your patio and yard, sharing times you’d sat out there for hours sending him text messages. Every room, every foot was a memory soaked in Charles’s presence, whether he knew it or not. 
By the end of the evening, you two had fallen asleep in each other’s arms on top of the blankets in your room -- soon to be your old room.  
----------------------
You stirred when the sun hit your eyes. You forgot to draw the shades closed last night. When you began to move, it woke Charles who groaned in the most adorable way. 
“Good morning,” you greeted in a warm voice. 
“Mmm, morning.” He rolled and kissed your head. “You ready for your day?” 
“I will be after six more hours of sleep,” you moaned, rolling into him. How magically blissful it was to wake up next to him.
He chuckled. “I guess we should start the day,” he suggested, reluctance in his voice. 
“You’re right.” And so the two of you got up, you grabbed a shower and Charles got dressed. While you were getting ready, you went over the plan for the day. “Okay, so I’m going to meet with the realtor, then I have to go meet my landlord -- shoot that reminds me I need to grab some boxes to box up my office. I’ll have to run and do that too.”
“And while you’re gone, I’ll box up the house,” he noted. 
“Thanks.”
“Any preference? Would you like all fragile things in one box, or how do you like it?” 
“However you think is best. I think I'd prefer to keep all the stuff organized by room.” 
“I’ll try my best,” he offered and you smiled at him in the mirror as you curled your hair and he began to brush his teeth. 
Once you two were all ready, you began your day. Charles started in the room you had the least amount of stuff in - the dining room. It was a dining table and a small chest filled with recipe books. You met with your landlord first for the office. You gave him the date you’d be gone and you two revised the lease agreement. Your lease wasn’t up for another few months but because you’d been a great tenant, he decided to let you close the agreement for the end of the month. 
After that, your stop was the realtor’s and she said she needed to come see your home. 
When you got home, Charles had only gotten one room completely packed and had started on the living room. 
“Ugh,” you groaned. “I really need to go through all this stuff. I’d hate to pack it, just to find out I need to throw it away when it gets there.” 
“We can always go through everything together,” he suggested.
“Actually, we need to clean. The realtor is coming over to give me a loose appraisal,” you sighed. “Guess we should order pizza and get started. I’ll start throwing stuff out tomorrow,” you conceded.
Charles nodded and you two began cleaning the kitchen like crazy. 
The night drug on, and around 11 pm, you finally called it quits. You’d scrubbed, brushed, dusted, mopped two rooms. The rest would have to wait until the morning. 
So it did. 
The next morning, you spent all day cleaning until the realtor arrived at 5, did a thorough walkthrough, showed you comparable homes in the area, then discussed how she worked. Once you agreed on a list price and her commission, she said she’d get the papers to you tomorrow. At that point, you began to go through old files in your office and books. You were surprised at how much you actually threw away. 
The next day, the realtor and your landlord had their paperwork ready to be signed. You headed into the city to sign the documents and box up your office. 
Shortly after you left though, Charles had a thought. He ordered an uber and took it all the way to your parents house.
When he arrived, he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d say. He had planned part of it, he’d been thinking about what to say ever since your parents had shown their disapproval. He’d practiced several speeches, gone over many mock conversations in his head, but now that he stood on the doorstep, he wasn’t sure anything he said would be right, or if he should even be here. 
He wondered that too -- if he was overstepping a boundary, talking to your parents when you hadn’t asked him to, but he knew how close you were to them and he didn’t want to see that end just because the two of you were in love. He felt he had a duty to try and mend things, make them understand if he could.
He took a deep breath and knocked on the door. When they answered, they weren’t overly hateful or cruel, but they weren’t exactly thrilled either. 
“Charles?” your mother, Tracy, greeted. “Where’s Y/N?” she asked, poking her head out a bit to peer around. 
“She’s not here, Mrs. Y/L/N, it’s just me. I was wondering if we could talk?” he inquired. He desperately wanted to use his powers but invading your parents privacy like that to gain an edge in this dispute felt wrong on many levels. No, he needed to fight this battle fair and square. 
Tracy eyed him up and down curiously before glancing to her husband, Frank. He bobbed his head side to side, falling into submission. She nodded and opened the door wider and stepped back to let Charles in. 
“So where is Y/N?” Frank asked, crossing his arms. 
“She’s signing papers. Putting the house up for sale and releasing her office.” 
“Ah,” Frank said, nodding his head in disbelief. “So why are you here?”
“If I may,” he offered, gesturing to the living room. The two of them nodded before leading him to the sitting area. He sat on the chair and they sat adjacent to him on the couch. “I...love your daughter. I know what I did was...awful. To be honest, I haven’t forgiven myself for how I treated her. She didn’t deserve that, at all.”
“No, she didn’t,” Frank agreed quickly and harshly. 
“I lost a dear friend. A girl I grew up with. She’s really like a sister to me, she was raised with me, my parents took her in when she had nowhere to go. She and I had an argument, a rather nasty fight, and she left with another man I called friend. I haven’t heard from them in over a year. On top of that, I started a school for special children, at my home. I completely renovated it to function as a school and boarding home. Only, after a semester I was met with so many threats and opposition, I had to close down the school, for the safe and sake of the children.”
Your parents shifted uncomfortably as they listened.
“On top of this, I was paralyzed. The friend that took my sister away… he accidentally shot me in the back, and left me paralyzed. I was only able to cope with the pain through a strong drug a very dear friend of mine created -- he’s a scientist, you see. He’s an engineer, a biochemist, he can do anything. He created a serum that helped me to walk and not feel pain, but my other… motor functions weren’t as good, my mind would be a bit foggy. So I could either be in pain, but have mental clarity, or numb it, as best I could. I chose to numb it, to numb out everything I’d lost. I have other friends who were lost to tragic accidents. I’m not asking you to give me an excuse. I don’t deserve one. Y/N deserved the truth. I should’ve told her that I was in a dark place and that it would be best if we didn’t talk. Honestly, sometimes I think if I’d just reached out to her, she would have saved me from myself, but I didn’t. I reclused into myself. I was a very, very depressed person and didn’t want to bring her down with me. I supposed that when I got better, I’d contact her and tell her everything… but I never got better. As time went on and I didn’t hear from my sister or my friend, I just got worse. I sunk into a hole that was...very hard to get out of.” 
“That’s all very sad,” Tracy offered, “but you hurt our daughter very deeply.”
“I know,” he agreed softly. “I just want you to know it wasn’t intentional.” 
“Intentional or not,” Frank began, “she reached out several times. She showed us she did, and you couldn’t even send her a message back.” 
All he could do was shrug. “As I said, I was in a dark place. However, I was also in a place to do it. She didn’t know my name, who I was, or how to contact me other than by text or email. It was easy to keep her away, to keep her at bay. But now, she knows me, I know her, and I can’t imagine life without her. I will do everything I can to make her as happy as she can possibly be,” he vowed. 
Tracy and Frank glanced at each other. 
“I don’t want Y/N to get hurt, but as long as she’ll have me, I’ll be there for her, by her side. It’s where I belong. The universe put us together for a reason,” he pleaded. 
However, they remained silent. Steadfast in their opposition of the relationship. 
“Just… something to think about. I’ll leave you to it. I’m sorry to interrupt your day,” he softly apologized as he stood. Tracy nodded and stood to show him to the door while Frank seemed to stare into nothingness. 
Charles had no idea if his words had any affect on them. He could have probed their mind but he felt that violated too much of their privacy. He wanted to do this the honorable way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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cryptidvoidwritings · 3 years
Text
10. July | hurt/comfort
*nudges part one (1) into the void because ho boi did this one get away from me*
“... ase stay in the yard, just for one more night. I promise you can leave tomorrow if- ”
Alonzo’s ears perked and swiveled from his sentry post on the tire. He lifted his head in the direction of Munkustrap’s voice, but the silver tabby was still out of sight behind one pile of junk or other.
“Straps, stop.”
The Rum Tum Tugger. Alonzo cocked his head and licked a paw absently as he listened in. The conversation wasn’t necessarily meant for him, but he doubted they thought they were speaking privately. Any cat who’d been in the junkyard a week ago had been bunking down after a swarm of screeching rats- stinking of Macavity’s acrid flame-scented magic- attempted to overrun it and there weren’t many places one could go to be completely unheard.
“I’ve stayed put like a good kitten,” Tugger’s voice continued, “but the last time I was away from the family this long they’d printed out fliers. They’ll make an awful fuss if they think I’ve gone missing again and it’s not like I can explain to them.”
“I know, I know. But... please, Tugs, one more night. I’ll go with you first thing in the morning.”
Tugger and Munkustrap came into Alonzo’s view and paused by the old bed frame. Munkustrap’s body was a line of tension; Tugger seemed oblivious to it. Neither cat seemed aware of him, but Munkustrap knew Alonzo had the watch and Tugger could surely smell him. Alonzo watched curiously. Neither he nor his siblings were new to the tribe anymore, having been taken in almost two years ago, but the Rum Tum Tugger occupied a weird space that Alonzo had yet to understand.
“What, you can’t send someone to babysit me now?” Tugger asked.
He sounded almost amused, though not mocking. Alonzo re-examined and revised his observation: Tugger was purposefully lounging on the bed frame with both paws hooked into his belt and his face held an open, relaxed half-smile. Everything about him was an invitation for Munkustrap to unwind- not that Munkustrap was taking him up on it.
“It’s just... It’s last minute and I added- ” Munkustrap paused, letting his words hang in the air as though putting off inevitable ridicule.
The silence lasted too long. Tugger’s body language changed. His chest heaved visibly with a sigh and the smile melted from his lips. He pushed off from the bed frame and bumped his forehead gently against the Guardian’s. Alonzo felt envy burn at the bottom of his spine. The Maine Coon didn’t show anybody that kind of familiarity- not even Quaxo.
“Straps, just tell me,” Tugger murmured.
Munkustrap gave a tiny, almost pained, smile. “I added a third party to all patrols and I have them going out every two hours. It gives everyone time to have a nap in between watch and patrol.”
The Rum Tum Tugger’s mane ruffled in surprise. “That’s... that’s a lot of extra, Straps.”
“You’re not wrong,” Munkustrap agreed grudgingly. “I can’t help it. I just- I’m so sure that something is going to happen. The swarm wasn’t random but I can’t fathom the intent behind it. It’s driving me batty.”
“Letting some rats have my job?” Tugger asked glibly. “Rude.”
“Tugs,” Munkustrap said flatly.
“Look, Straps, it’s unlikely that anything is going to happen in broad daylight. Macavity likes to work with his tricks and they’ve always worked better for him at night. Anyway, you think he’s really going to be looking for me? He knows I’m the show cat of the yard. What good would it do him? Coming for you or Quax on the other hand...”
Munkustrap knocked a paw lightly into Tugger’s side, snorting. “It took ‘Lonz to get him good enough that the rest of the tribe could drive him off. He had me hypnotized and threw me across the clearing. Twice.”
“And you got back up.”
Alonzo’s ears perked again. He wouldn’t have believed Tugger capable of soft but steely respect. Then again he hadn’t believed that the large cat did ‘supportive’ or ‘admiring’, but Tugger had certainly been that for Quaxo. (Alonzo was still a bit galled that Tugger had known the extent of Quaxo’s magic but he’d had to learn about it with the rest of the tribe. He was even more annoyed that he was impressed with Tugger for how he’d handled the whole night.)
“Rum-”
“Cats who fight Macavity don’t tend to get up. He’s going to take it as an affront to his reputation. He’d want revenge on the tribe for thwarting whatever his great plan was regardless, but if he’s going to target anyone specifically it’s going to be Sparkles and you.”
The intensity in Tugger’s voice was very much at odds with the cat that Alonzo knew. He frowned thoughtfully. Munkustrap having insight into Macavity made sense; it wasn’t a secret that the Mystery cat was his brother. But Tugger was rarely among the patrols, and if he took a watch at the yard he was more likely to be found napping under a pile of kittens than anything else. When had he learned so much?
“I’d still feel better if you’d wait until I could walk with you-”
“I’m a big boy, Straps,” Tugger said, smiling crookedly.
“Pretty sure I’ve still got an inch on you.”
“Pretty sure you’re delusional.”
Munkustrap held out a paw and let it hover in a silent question. Tugger was notorious for shaking off just about any touch that he didn’t initiate but this time he nodded and the silver tabby burrowed his paw gently into his mane. The gesture was thick with meaning that Alonzo couldn’t work out. He couldn’t tell if Tugger was purring (he rarely did; there was some speculation that the Maine Coon couldn’t) but the contented expression on his face suggested he was.
“Alright,” Munkustrap said at last. He sounded... resigned. “Go. Please, just, go straight home. Don’t dawdle or get sidetracked. Okay?”
Tugger knocked his nose into Munkustrap’s cheek. “Yes, dad.”
“Cheeky,” Munkustrap protested halfheartedly.
Tugger laughed softly and left. Alonzo watched Munkustrap claw anxiously at the ground for about five seconds before he couldn’t stand it any longer. He jumped from the tire and slinked up to Munkustrap as Tugger’s fluffy gold and black tail disappeared from sight. It was a testament to the silver tabby’s state of mind that Alonzo was actually able to sneak up on him; he’d barely brushed against Munkustrap and the older cat jumped an inch to the side.
The patch tom sat back, head cocked. “You okay?”
“Oh, Alonzo,” Munkustrap breathed, blue eyes warming as he relaxed, “Sorry. I’m just... wool-gathering.”
“I saw you talking to Tugger.”
“Ah, right. You were on watch.”
“Mmhm. Plato should be along soon. Once Skimble relieves him, I’m on patrol with George and Tumble.”
Munkustrap gave him a soft, distracted smile. He turned to look at the main gate even though Tugger was gone. Alonzo followed his gaze. He wondered why Munkustrap let Tugger leave when he wouldn’t have done so for any other cat.
“You don’t have to let him get away with everything,” he said hesitantly.
He couldn’t quite stop it from coming out as a question. Munkustrap broke out into startled laughter. Alonzo flattened his ears, unprepared for the sudden sound given the quiet worry of just a moment ago.
“Sorry, sorry. I’m not laughing at you.”
Alonzo shrugged sheepishly. “I’m poking my nose into your business.”
“Conversations in the middle of the yard are the business of anyone who can hear them,” Munkustrap said kindly. “Anyway, I wasn’t going to win. Tugger, loathe though I am to admit it, is an adult and can take care of himself. The silver-tongued git can charm a pollicle when he tries.”
“He’s not taking the rats very seriously.”
“He’s thinking of his humans. He’s right that he’s only been away from them for so long once before, and they didn’t take it well. He isn’t entirely irresponsible or fickle. He just wants everyone to think he is.”
“Why would anyone want that?”
“Seems to suit him,” Munkustrap said, shrugging.
His burst of good cheer left him and his face grew serious, clawing the ground again. Alonzo felt his face screw up dubiously- Munkustrap wasn’t usually the sort of cat to dance around explanations. The silver tabby didn’t continue, though; his gaze went back to the main gate.
“I’ll go after him,” Alonzo blurted. His brain caught up with his mouth. He bit his tongue.
Munkustrap blinked at him, bemused. Alonzo couldn’t fault the reaction. He hadn’t meant to offer that. Going after Tugger might mean a conversation. He wasn’t very good at those, and in his experience with Tugger, the Maine Coon was often flippant. Alonzo knew he could be too earnest so he stumbled when cats were irreverent.
Far easier to admire the tom’s beautiful form dancing at the ball, moonlight glimmering over his thighs and trim waist. Or to watch him nap on the old car with his mane like burnished gold in the sun. Or to listen in on the outrageous stories he told to his court of admirers (nobody really believed them, but almost every cat stopped to listen). All of which could be done safely from afar.
“You don’t have to,” Munkustrap said, “You haven’t had a chance to sleep. I’m sure he’ll be fine.”
It was exactly the excuse Alonzo needed to back out. Just say: No, you’re right, I shouldn’t. So naturally what came out of his mouth was: “No, it’s alright. I’m not sleepy. I don’t mind. He’s probably not gotten very far, I’ll be able to catch up in no time.”
The silver tabby looked uncertain. “If you’re sure... I don’t like you being on your own, either. Macavity knows your scent. I’ll take your patrol. Stay until he’s ready to come back.”
Alonzo blinked. “You think he’ll let me?”
“I think he’ll be more interested than you imagine,” Munkustrap smiled crookedly. For just that instant he looked almost exactly like the Rum Tum Tugger. ”Thank you, ‘Lonz.”
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a9saga · 3 years
Text
I wanna make one thing clear. Nobody killed Jenny Schecter. Nobody. Not even herself.
The L Word was the most sloppily written, most lazily dramatic show, and it never cleaned up any of its undeveloped sub plots that they began once and then suddenly dropped entirely and pretended never happened. I swear to God the writers must have never revised a damn script. And this wasn't the type of thing that you only noticed if you're really hypercritical of shows you watch. Very little in the show happens subtextually. It's not a subtle show. Its on fricking Showtime.
Jenny herself over the course of seasons is an example of how the show would just create drama without reason. In season one she and her boyfriend just moved into west Hollywood next door to a couple of lesbians and through one experience with Marina at a party hosted by some of the neighborhood lesbians, she begins to understand she is really intensely drawn to this woman and her boyfriend is at this point still seemingly necessary to her new life, but he doesn't hold up to her interest in this woman no matter how guilty she feels. This makes sense as a plot point. This is how you begin a show about a bunch of lesbians in proximity to one another. The new girl in the neighborhood wants to ditch her fiance for a woman she just met. And after all this Marina stuff subsides eventually, Jenny is a decently developed character. She has flaws and good traits alike. She's messy but she's passionate. She's a drama queen but she cares about people. For instance, Max? Jenny is the main support system for Max in his transition at first, she's really like the only one enthusiastic for him about the whole thing besides that Scottish guy who does drugs in Kit's restaurant and has a couple of otherwise completely unacknowledged sex scenes with Max that dont develop into anything else and don't matter in the future to the show at all. Again. It's a Showtime show. You get the quality you should expect.
And Max is another great example of a sub plot the writers lose interest in! He's a priority to the show for basically just that one season. Honestly they treat Max like shit and lose all interest in him until they get him pregnant in the last season and even then he's only in like every other episode for a few minutes. That was mean. And so was Jenny. Jenny has like, anti-character development throughout the show which is not normal for writers to do to a protagonist. She goes from Jenny Schecter, aspiring writer and newly out lesbian in a new neighborhood to Jenny Schecter, two faced bitch with princess syndrome. They just start writing her in being obviously mean and wrong. And when Max gets pregnant suddenly she's misgendering him on purpose left and right and to my memory maybe the shittiest person to him about his pregnancy? Except of course for Tom, Jodi's interpreter and the guy who got him pregnant who was all on board for parenting the baby until for no reason he gets up in the middle of the night and leaves Max's room and never comes back. Oh and immediately changes his phone numbers apparently, and I guess cuts off contact with everyone on the show or something. That was also just a sudden, uselessly dramatic thing the show threw in that you didn't want it to, that was not justified other than to fuck over a character in a vulnerable situation, and which isn't even in character of the guy who did the thing.
But anyway. This is all to say that no member of the main cast killed Jenny Schecter. You know why? Because the writers are too fucking lazy and careless to make you want to point the finger at anyone, again, including Jenny herself. They don't give you one particularly good reason why anybody might've done it or how they were possibly tied to it. They don't give you reason to think anybody is more likely to have killed her than someone else. They give you nothing to work with in your mind's eye besides your ability to understand who in the main cast hated Jenny the most already. Jenny up and died for no reason because you aren't properly made to raise an eyebrow at her death. Jenny's death is another undeveloped subplot that the show isn't interested in seriously developing, except it is meant as the dramatic series finale to leave you at the edge of your seat so they want you to think it's *mysterious* except that's actually just a recurring fault of the show. Half assed undeveloped melodramatic subplots that get dropped and written out well before your mind forgets them. Don't let them trick you into thinking this was clever of the writers. It's not. It's so consistent with the headache inducing and lazy writing of the show it's absurd. Nobody killed Jenny Schecter. Mark never recorded Shane and Jenny in their own home. Papi was never falling in love with Kit. Etc etc. Ultimately none of this shit happened because they were unfinished and dropped entirely, and the whole murder mystery of Jenny's death ended up being less important than everyone being interrogated by police and explaining their personal history in the show like it's fascinating when weighed against this sudden death. Alice sighing and explaining "the only person I ever loved as much as Tasha... was Dana 😔" is just the investigation being a substitute for therapy. The murder mystery is an afterthought to the cast's final reflection on their relationships to each other just to stick in your mind after the show ends the way the writers want them to. And then they're like. Oh no but who killed Jenny? Nobody. God killed Jenny. Big Bird killed Jenny. The old rescue dog Jenny adopted to put down and then seduce the vet she took him to came back to life and killed Jenny. I killed Jenny. Your mom killed Jenny. The Joker killed Jenny. No one in the main cast killed Jenny. The writers just want you to think they did enough to make you think one of them did. They didn't.
Now that we've established the absurdity of the l word, why did I watch the entire show? Because I was a senior in high and a newly realized lesbian of course. That was more than 4 years ago now. I finished just before Showtime announced they would be bringing it back. I haven't watched generation q so I can't tell you anything about that. But my confliction for the original show as well as my really weird and intense love for Shane are both documented on this blog. I can't believe watching the l word in senior year and falling way too deeply and all-encompassingly in love with Shane is not a universal or even common experience. What were you guys doing senior year? Haven't you watched the l word?
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sagemoderocklee · 3 years
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Writer ask meme - everything divisible by 3
Sorry this took so long to reply to! I was writing out my responses today, but while watching Rosewell New Mexico with my roommate and that show is SO good. anyways this is really, really long so I will put part of it under a read more however if you are reading TAoL and want a sneak peak at an upcoming chapter, my answer to 36 is the entire first scene for that chapter
3. What is your favorite/least favorite part about writing? Other than the obvious writer's block, I think that my least favorite part is feeling insecure/wanting validation via comments and such. Writing is something I really enjoy doing and take great pride in trying to grow as a writer, but it's impossible to completely shake off that feeling of insecurity and sadness over something that doesn't get comments. There's this common thing in fandom where like you can pour a lot of heart and energy into something, be really skilled, only for it to get overlooked. There's obviously a lot of reasons for that, but some of those reasons are kind of annoying—like god forbid something not have sex in it, ya know?
6. Favorite character you’ve written?
So, that's hard.... If we're talking the canon Naruto characters, it can really vary from story to story. I obviously enjoy writing Gaara and Lee, but I was surprised to find that I really enjoy writing Shikamaru, Kankurou, Temari, Neji, and Tenten as well. I think all of them are really interested, have a lot of potential, and are fun in very different ways. Kankurou is definitely just flat out fun to write, and I think Tenten is very similar in the way she's fun to write. I think this like handful of characters are all faves for very different reasons so it's hard to say who my absolute fave is, but I really enjoy writing all of them. Definitely my fave thing is being able to write all of them interacting together, however.
9. Favorite/least favorite tropes?
Least: Soulmates. I hate that shit with a passion—it's boring, it's artificial, it's easy. There was a post I just saw recently that said “soulmates are stupid. I love you on purpose” and that just sums up so much of my issue with soulmates. If something is predetermined by some fucking cosmic power, do you really ever love that person? Do you really ever know that person? Soulmate AUs will always be something that bore me and also insight anger. It's just not for me, and I wish that fandom spaces would just get over it, in all honesty. Fave: uh. I don’t really know about like trope-wise. I just really like anything with good world building and politics.
12. Which story of yours do you like best? Why? Oh gosh.... um. That's really hard to answer because every story I write has a special place in my heart for different reasons. Alliance is my baby; TAoL is a huge emotional investment and has allowed me to grow even more as a writer; Absolution is something I've always wanted to explore; Flyweight Love is super fun and cute; IEYH is a new experiment in writing for me; GoD was also an experiment... and on and on. It's hard to pick like a favorite story because like they're all my faves in different ways. There are certainly things I like more or prefer, like I'm not that into modern Aus as much so it's easier for me to say that like Find Me isn't a one of my best—it isn't, there's a lot of things I want to fix on it, and while it is a decent fic, it's not like groundbreaking imo. But like for all of the things that need fixing with Alliance, that fic is my baby and really grounded me as a writer in a way no other writing project had before it. So like I could never not love it. Anyways, I'm babbling at this point, but basically I love all my fics so I can't choose.
15. How do you deal with self-doubt when writing? Rereading my writing tends to help and hoarding some of my favorite comments I've been left by readers. I know I'm a good writer, self-doubt and insecurities aside, so re-reading stuff is really a good confidence booster—but when that's not enough, it is really helpful to look back at old comments.
18. Tell us about that one book you’ll never let anyone read
Of mine??? Well, obviously by 'book' we're going with fanfiction because none of my original content is at a point where I'd really even consider it for this question. Um. Honestly, I don't think there's much if anything. Maybe some HP fics but not because I'm not like... proud of the writing or premise. Like I'd say my ideas are really good, it's just a matter of like my own time management and shit.
21. What aspect of your writing are you most proud of?
My world building. I'm also generally proud of the premises I come up with, and the themes I explore with my writing. Like I think I'm a good writer in terms of the like technical writing aspect—pros and such—and also characters, but I think I excel at world building and overall plot.
24. Do you remember the moment you decided to become a writer/author? The first time I ever wrote anything I was seven years old. I was at a party for my mom's boss? I think it was a birthday party? Anyway, I was the only kid there—which was fine because I was used to being the only kid in gatherings—but I was sitting alone by like a window and I just like started writing a poem about the night. That was like the first time that writing really became a part of me. When I was thirteen, when my mom got sick, I started writing poetry more. And when I was fourteen, I started writing fanficiton and that's kinda just... never stopped. I've been writing stories ever since.
27. Every writer’s least favorite question - where does your inspiration come from? Do you do certain things to make yourself more inspired? Is it easy for you to come up with story ideas?
My inspiration comes from everywhere, not to like be cliched. But inspiration really is in everything and everyone. I tend to find inspiration really easily in music, but it's also in just like the day-to-day; it's in other writers; it's in washing dishes; it's in a day trip to the ocean; it's in a quote or a touch or a word. Like genuinely, it's in big things and little things and things that shouldn't even be things. I don't feel like I really struggle with inspiration so much as motivation, really. And that is... a much harder thing to find sometimes (especially when you're mentally ill)
30. Do you like to read books similar to your project while you’re drafting or do you stick to non-fiction/un-similar works?
Um. I like to read fantasy mostly, but I don't look for something similar or different from my projects intentionally. I just.... look for things that I like? But I don't really know how to explain that lol
33. What’s your revision/rewriting process like? Since I'm writing mostly fanfiction and the culture of having a beta reader has dwindled significantly, making it hard to find one, I do a lot of self-editing. I'm usually re-reading a lot as I'm writing. So until a chapter is done, I'm always going back and reading/editing before moving on to the next scene. And then once I'm done writing a chapter I'll usually edit it about two or three times in full in the document, then I put it in draft on Ao3 for another edit before posting.
36. Post a snippet All right a snippet..... Let's go with something from: The Art of Love, Chapter 13 (not the next chapter, but the one after). Since I left everyone hanging for so long with that last scene of Gaara and Lee, this is the entire first scene to ch13: It was all his fault. If he hadn't let himself get so carried away in the dream of Gyokukakushin, in the dream of Gaara, in the dream of safety they didn't have this wouldn't be happening. Their belongings had been stuffed haphazardly into their various bags. Despite how many times he'd checked and double checked, Lee felt sure that he'd overlooked something—some wayward item that had rolled beneath the bed or fallen behind the desk that would give them away. Gaara had watched him silently, his thoughts kept to himself as Lee dashed about their room like a mad man.
“I think that is everything,” Lee managed over the mantra of 'My fault, my fault' cycling through his mind. His voice trembled as he spoke. Every inch of him trembled. Every breath he took rattled in his chest. Every beat of his heart was a stutter against his rib cage. Every ounce of blood pumping through his veins burned with the need to run.
“This is useless,” Gaara said, the first words he'd spoken since the beach.
Lee snapped his head up, meeting Gaara's enigmatic gaze. “But—”
“They don't set sail until the end of the month,” he reminded Lee. “What use is being packed? Besides, it will look suspicious if we leave now.”
Tears burned at the corners of Lee's eyes. “But if they are coming—”
“They're coming,” Gaara murmured. “But even if they arrive before we've departed, we have our disguises. You have to trust that we'll be fine.”
Lee's head spun. How could Gaara be so calm? How could he sit there, quiet and unshakable, when Lee felt as though the world were falling apart around them? How could he be so sure that eleven days from now, they'd set sail, free and undiscovered? How was he not furious with Lee for his complacency?
Gaara was at Lee's side before Lee could shake the spinning in his head, a gentle hand at Lee's elbow and a surety in his eyes.
“I know you won't let anything happen to me,” he told Lee, as soft and insistent as the thumb he'd once pressed against the corner of Lee's mouth.
“No. Never.” Lee's stomach twisted, guilt rising like the tide. He'd let his feelings jeopardize everything.
“Then what do you have to fear?”
A trembling laugh escaped Lee, soft and unsteady. He had everything to fear, yet Gaara's gaze implored him to forget those fears. He managed to speak, his tongue heavy with the lie, “I do not know.”
“Then do not know fear. It will make this harder for us, especially if the Daimyo's soldiers arrive before we've left.”
“If they do—”
“If they do, we will be as unknown to them as any other traveler. And if not, I trust your speed to carry us to safety.”
“We would miss our ship.”
“If it comes to that, so be it. We can find other ways of traveling to Tea Country.”
Lee allowed himself to believe all would be well because he couldn't believe anything else when looking into the depths of Gaara's eyes, but there was no escaping his gnawing guilt or the knowledge that his heart had led them to ruin.
39. Do you spend a lot of time analyzing and studying the work of authors you admire? I wouldn't say a lot of time per say, certainly not as much as I should, but I definitely do like to analyze other works and learn new skills, etc.
42. How many drafts do you usually write before you feel satisfied? I don't really write “drafts” per say. Since I'm just writing fanfiction, I'm usually just writing and then heavily editing. Sometimes editing does mean taking out and entirely rewriting entire scenes. And sometimes in writing fics, I do jump ahead—though very rarely—and write a rough draft of a future scene so I don't lose the idea/beats/etc, and then that will be re-written fully when I do get to it. But on average, I'm just doing a lot of editing.
45. First or third person? Third, definitely. I'll never be able to write first person cause it just doesn't really suit me and, overall, I think that it's a very hard point of view to write from. For me, it takes a special
48. Do you prefer to write skimpy drafts and flesh them out later, or write too much and cut it back? So before I write something, depending on what it is I will write an outline that can vary from a few sentences to like pages.
51. Are you a secretive writer or do you talk with your friends about your books? A bit of both really. I love talking about the things I'm working on, but I also love to keep things a surprise so I can see what people's genuine reactions are to like plot twists or whatever. Of course, my problem is that I have to like—talk about my projects to stay motivated. It's a hard balance. I usually end up talking with my roommate since they also write fanfic for Naruto but not GaaLee. We can bounce ideas off each other, when we're stuck, etc.
54. Favorite first line/opening you’ve written? Ugh this is another hard one...  I think im gonna go with the opening from IEYH right now as one of my fave becuase I think I did a decent job of setting the tone of my very first horror project: Too often, ghost stories begin with dark nights or horrible, gruesome death. Real ghosts don't follow the patterns of a novel; there are no beginnings, middles, and ends; no rising action and falling action; no denouement. Ghosts do not achieve resolution; ghost do not experience the climax of their own tale. There are no happy—or even sad—endings. There are no endings at all.
Ghost stories go on and on and on, rambling endlessly towards nothing and no where, only stopping for the finite amount of words one can speak or write in one's lifetime.
That is the true horror of death: ceaseless, unending nothingness.
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krreader · 4 years
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the jeon twins | kookie ending version.
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pairing: jeon jeongguk (kookie) x reader fandom: bts warnings: twins!au ; non idol!au ; language genre: fluff ; hints of angst previous: x word count: 1.4k+
summary: you owed it to yourself to get to know the real kookie.
a/n: I know that kookie’s version is a lot shorter than JK’s, but I felt like this was the fluffy ending anyways and angst always takes me ten pages whereas fluff only takes half of it lol. hope you enjoy it!
ask box | masterlists | faq | twitter | ko-fi | REQUESTS ARE CLOSED.
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Burying himself in his studies has always been the best way to distract him.
Only that this time not even that worked.
Kookie really tried to forget everything that had happened in the last week, the fight between him and his brother, but most importantly, he tried to forget the images of you and him together.. the one he had loved for so, so long.. with his brother.. god.
He wondered.. had you known? Have you had a feeling that it wasn't actually Kookie, but JK? And if you did.. did you just not care? Because why would you?
JK had always been the ‘superior’ twin, no matter in what situation. Maybe you just figured that out for yourself and thought you’d let it continue..
Kookie shook his head and tried to force himself to read whatever was written in this book in front of him, only that he had been re-reading the same page for the fiftieth time today because he simply couldn't concentrate.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t focus when all he could think about was you and him together..
Eventually he gave up with a heavy sigh and closed the book, putting it away and leaving the library to get some fresh air, hoping that that might clear his mind.
He hadn't seen JK since the incident, had been staying with friends ever since that fight because he just couldn't look at his brother right now.
He texted his mother every day to tell her he was okay and that she didn't have to worry about him, he'd get over this like he always got over everything..
..but his heart was more broken than ever before.
He lost a brother and a love in one day and he felt.. alone.
Very alone.
He blamed himself, told himself that if he had the courage to talk to you before, none of this would have happened, but deep down he knew that this wasn’t his fault at all.. and it wasn’t yours either.
But that was the tragic thing wasn’t it? This was about you two all along and it got fucked up without either of you being at fault..
He ended up sitting at the Han river, the cool breeze making him shiver and realize that the jacket he wore today was definitely not the right one for this kind of weather, but the cold made him feel something other than hurt, so he didn't move an inch and just let it wash over him.
He  stared out into the night sky, thoughts of you and JK consuming him once again and making him want to vomit.. until his phone buzzed.
He thought it might have been his mother, asking him whether or not he was finally coming back home today, but instead it was a number he didn't recognize.
“Hey, it’s super dark, so I can’t see properly but.. you're at the Han river right now, right?”
He was immediately alerted, kept looking around for whoever it was that was messing with him.
When he couldn't see anyone, he quickly typed a reply: “Who are you?!”
It wouldn't be the first time that a bully did something like this, that’s why he was always cautious, but this time it wasn't a bully.
“Please don't freak out,” you smiled a little, even more when he got up with wide eyes as he saw you, “I.. was passing by and saw you here on your own.”
“(Y/N)? How.. how did you get my number?”
“Uh.. JK gave it to me.. I asked him for it, actually,” you licked your lips, clearly nervous, then took a step closer, “May I sit with you for a little?”
Why would JK give you his number? He was selfish before, why would he do this now? 
“Okay,” he nodded a little, suddenly very shy again.
He wasn't angry with you, if anything, he was sorry that you had gotten roped into this mess. You weren't at fault here.. it was all JK's fault.
“I do this a lot too, you know? Just being here on my own when I need to think. It helps me relax,” you didn't look at him, that made it a little easier for him.
“Yeah.. it's calming.”
You didn't even know how to start a conversation like this.. what were you even supposed to say? Were you supposed to apologize for having hurt him, even if you weren't at fault? Were you supposed to try and comfort him, when you yourself were hurt as well? Because ultimately, you barely knew Kookie.. so this, being one of your first conversations ever, was awkward in itself.
“How are you?” you settled for in the end.
“I'm good,” he nodded, but one look at you made him revise that statement, “I'm.. okay.”
“I wish I knew what to say.. this is all.. very weird. I don't know what to do or say.. I don't know what to feel and towards whom.”
Your honesty was refreshing.. he appreciated that.
“I'm sorry you got dragged into this.. you don't deserve this.”
“Don't be, it's not your fault,” you smiled a little at him, “I just wish you would have had the courage to talk to me, you know? The real you, I mean..”
“Me too.. then none of this would have happened.”
You had spent the last couple of days thinking about what had happened, but more importantly, what was next.
You didn’t know who you had spent the last couple of weeks with, so you couldn’t trust JK anymore. You didn’t think he had been lying when he said he had genuinely started to develop feelings for you at one point, but being lied to so much.. it was as if you didn’t know the person you had been with one bit.
And then you started thinking about Kookie, what he must have been feeling like during all this.
So maybe you were here because he was kind of in the same boat as you.. but also because you started to have feelings for someone that you apparently had never even talked to before.
If JK was doing a good job, then you wanted to get to know the real Kookie, you wanted to spend time with him.. even if it was just the two of you talking about what had happened, even if talking would just help you two move on.
You leaned back against the bench, looking up at the stars, “I want to get the real you, Kookie.. I owe this to you.”
“No, no, no,” Kookie's upper body whipped around as fast as lighting to face you, “You don't owe me a thing, (Y/N), don't think like that.”
“Then I owe it to myself.. to my happiness. Because the person that JK portrayed.. you.. I liked.. you.”
“But.. JK.. I mean, it was still him.”
“Which is why I want to get to know you,” you looked directly into his eyes, “Maybe we could have coffee sometime? Just.. talk some more?”
The images were still there, the images of you and JK, but that wasn't your fault and he had to remember that. You were here out of your own free will, not to get to know JK, but to get to know him.. Kookie.. and maybe this would help. Maybe really getting to know you would heal something inside of him that was now broken due to this entire situation.
And even if nothing would develop between you two, he felt as if talking to you would just generally make him feel a little better.
“Okay..”
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You ended up texting each other for about four weeks before you finally had that coffee date.
At that point, Kookie was back home and better than before. He and his brother still didn't talk and he doubted that would change anytime soon, but at least you were feeling better.
You were still wary though when you met up with Kookie.
“You just look so alike,” you sighed.
“I know,” Kookie wasn't happy about that either, especially not after everything that had happened, “But I have a mole right here.. so if you see that mole, you'll know it's me,” he pointed at the mole with a smile.
“Alright, I'll be looking out for that mole then!”
You spent a wonderful evening with each other that day, talking, laughing, properly getting to know each other.
And you could immediately tell the difference between him and JK.
JK was a lot more physical, there had been a lot more kissing involved, whereas Kookie was someone you could have an intellectual conversation with.
And you didn't mind that at all, you actually quite enjoyed having someone in front of you like that.
JK had tried his hardest to imitate his brother, but now that you were actually getting to know the real Kookie, you could see that he had done a pretty bad job at it.
And you had to admit..
..you liked Kookie a lot more.
“Is.. there something on my face?” he laughed nervously after you had been staring at him for a while.
“No, it’s just..-” you felt your face heat up, “I’m just really happy I’m here with you. I’m glad I’m getting to know the real Kookie, because I.. really like him.”
“I know what you mean.. it’s like that for me too. Talking to you know makes me realize that everything I felt for you before is true..”
“And what’s that?”
That I love you.
Kookie smiled shyly, “I’ll tell you when you go out with me again.”
“Well then.. how can I refuse?” you grinned.
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ddaenghoney · 4 years
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chapter six
masterlist link in blog description.
As a successful songwriter, you want nothing more than the acknowledgment that the chart-topping musical pieces are your own creations. But contracts, relationships, and the difficulty of facing the stakes involved head on, keep your mouth shut until pressure builds too much.
Pairing(s): Park Jimin x Y/N, Min Yoongi x Y/N
disclaimer: any characters depicted do not represent the actual personality of the respected idol in real life.
Series warning(s)/genre(s): Chapter-based written fic, Slow-burn relationship(s), Fake-dating, Unrequited love, Songwriter/producer!oc, idol!Jimin, idol/songwriter/producer!Yoongi, friends with benefits, drama, romance, smut, angst, fluff (updated as needed)
Chapter warning(s): none, just finally able to introduce Hoseok in this chapter lol
Word count: 5299
if you enjoy please, please let me know!
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Yoongi’s eyes scan the weekly announcement email, not truly interested, yet still giving himself time to be thoroughly knowledgeable of upcoming events for his newfound colleagues and the company as a whole. Mentions of renovation in the lobby, a new coffee machine to be installed on the production floor along with a request to be more mindful of how this one is used, and the schedule for the practice rooms for the month remains unchanged for the last few weeks of January. Highlighted at the top of the email is the name of a mini album set to be released the first week in February along with parentheses beside it stating who would be releasing it: Park Jimin.
Reclining back in his seat, Yoongi regards the blue font notice in silence, wondering for a passing time of his involvement in the corruption between Jimin and you. He knows it’s not his fault, and knows you do too. Yet, there’s still guilt seeing Jimin’s name or hearing it anywhere. Still guilt felt in grazing his thumb against his index finger as a fidget when on the four dates so far where you’re forced in one way or another to recall Jimin’s existence. Yoongi has not apologized about it since the first date, but it doesn’t change that he feels like he should if only to assure you that the hurt you try and hide each time doesn’t need to be hidden for the atmosphere’s sake.
The foot on the floor pushes his desk seat into a small back and forth sway. He doesn’t think of your mutual problems often, just reminded every time an email requests the two of you go on a date, like the one to come that evening. By this point you’re both amicable at least, even going on the limb of saying something like friends. Maybe. It’s hard not to when you’re both forced into two or more hours of conversation. It’s something like friendship. Maybe closer to friendly coworkers. He doesn’t know. Yoongi sighs, spinning an entire slow revolution in his chair, then stopping promptly with the sound of his phone’s text notification.
Two unread.
Y/N, 4:38pm: Just got asked to go to a last second meeting. Probably will be out closer to 6:30 instead of 6:00, sorry.
Yoongi, 4:39pm: That’s fine no worries.
He exits the message thread to check on the other notification. He stares at Hoseok’s name for a second and the few words he’s able to see before opening the chat. Yoongi inhales, rubbing his jaw, while clicking it open with his free hand.
Hoseok, 3:57pm: I think enough time has passed... I’m going to start going for a new comeback now! You’re required to pre-order whenever the album is done!
Yoongi, 4:42pm: Ah, is that a fact?
Yoongi’s hand falls from his jaw to type quicker,
Yoongi, 4:43pm: I’ll help you make it however you need.
Hoseok, 4:45pm: Thanks, man.
Hoseok, 4:48pm: I’m nervous still haha
The phone rests on the desk, Yoongi’s hand resting beside it while he looks at the screen. He tilts his neck as a stretch, thoughtfully. Uncertain of how this would turn out for Hoseok. Wishing for the best. Trying to be hopeful. The dissention of early last year comes back into Yoongi’s mind. The unfair treatment, and watching his best friend go through the invasive camera lights daily, and the pouring stream of interrogative comments throughout social media. The blame that had no place linking to Hoseok when their old company decided to sell out to SoundWave as Hoseok’s contract was torn to pieces.
Yoongi, 4:56pm: You deserve the new beginning if anyone does. It’ll work out.
Hoseok, 5:00pm: Bro…
Yoongi, 5:00pm: You ruined it.
Hoseok, 5:01pm: Haha, I know……… Thanks Yoongi.
The final two words feel somber in Yoongi’s mouth. Drying. He doesn’t deserve to be thanked for anything, when he was quiet watching what happened. He could’ve done something to stop it all. Maybe Hoseok would have a studio next door to Yoongi’s still if more had been done to help. To disprove the wrong perspectives in the public. But it’s not in his persona to care like that.
He sighs, pressing the lock on his device. Index finger taps on the space below his keyboard, the desktop monitor powering off onto the screensaver. Yoongi feels like he should scoff at himself in judgement. How was he ever appalled by your lie when he’s no different.
---
You contemplate sending Namjoon a text, but acknowledge the busy time of the day for him and refrain. Instead you wallow in the quiet, staring at your notes while listening to the arranger and producers beside you editing your song by means of scribbling pencils. You hope they ask you something greater than questioning an affirmative of their ideas for changing the words on the track. Apparently the theme is appropriate, but the verbiage itself doesn’t fit the fast beat pace the producer intends to make this track into.
Jimin is across from you, equally to himself. He scrolls through his phone, appearing collected. He said hello to you sweetly, politely when he walked in with the producer. You didn’t realize he would be joining the impromptu meeting. It was just the producer that had texted you about it, mentioning the arranger also tagging along. Not Jimin. You knew he was using this song, but you didn’t think he needs to be here.
“Jimin, your choreographer is going to thank me for this one. I already know it.” The producer is happy, and granted you’re not entirely angry at the changes he makes on the paper. They’re minor, the meaning is still there. Your touch deteriorates only slightly, and it’s something that’s involved commonly throughout song conception processes. You don’t care about that, you really don’t. Maybe you’re even spitefully happy about the changes too, because it means less you, less for you to be bothered by in the credential section. Less you in lyrics Jimin sings.
“You’re only doing the touch-ups though.” Jimin voice is light-hearted, his playing smile small, yet meaningful. You keep your eyes towards the producer’s writing hand. Bite your lip when the message is properly conveyed to him by notice of his reply,
“You’re right, Y/N’s work is great, like usual.” He agrees sincerely, giving you a thumbs-up with his left hand. You smile softly, just managing a head nod. “Sorry about the random meeting too, by the way. I would’ve waited until tomorrow if we didn’t have to redo the recording for the album he’s going to be releasing.”
“It’s not a big deal. I was here anyways.” You tell him calmly, catching sight of Jimin when you adjust in your chair. He’s gentle in appearance like usual, watching you only because you were speaking. When the sentence ends you see the twitch of an upward smile that he smothers and instead goes back to his phone.
“You’re here more now that the whole fake dating thing is happening, huh?” The arranger’s comment is absent of ill-intent, you realize as he rubs his neck in a stupor as he goes on, “I can’t imagine how weird that has to be. SUGA’s new to the company too; must feel random to be matched up with him, right?”
“Yeah,” You say vaguely, hands in your lap messing around with one another as you hope for a new topic. “Yoongi’s been nice about it all though.” You blab softly, unable to see Jimin’s thumbs unmoving as he no longer pays attention to his phone screen despite his eyes pointing to it.
“He’s cool, I’ve done a couple of things to help him with his production lately.” The man beside you nods as he speaks, settling the pen beside the papers. “Really particular about his stuff, but because he does practically all of it himself, it makes sense.”
“Can I see the revised version?” You interject calmly, receiving the notes from him as he immediately nods, handing it off. You scan through the tiny adjustments, thinking on your own of what potential ideas they had to change the pace of the song.
“None of it’s too crazy, I don’t think, but if anything’s too much let me know.”
“No, it’s all okay with me.” You don’t mind the scribbles, but have even less desire to combat things lately since the meeting with Yerin.
“Can I take a look?” Jimin’s voice calls out to you, and you face him. Small nod as you reach the small distance to slide the papers towards him, then startle as the producer stands up beside you,
“Crap, I need to get to a session downstairs right now. Just get that to my studio when you’re done, Jimin.” He says and you watch using every muscle to refrain wonder at why the arranger also stood too. You instead mentally curse at him saying he’d tag along since he was done for the day as well. You curse again at the sound of the door, glaring at the sight at that point.
“I’ll give it to him like he asked.” Jimin breaks the silence, eyes trailing still at the page of lyrics. You look towards him, erect in your seat but unwilling to stand yet. You recall leaving before he woke up the last night you were with him, and the incredible drought of communication since then. But is it really this easy for him to be casual. Your eyes wait to meet his when he finally lifts them up from the sheet.
“I liked the pink hair.” You murmur as a comment, trying to fill the void of quiet, give yourself a reason to linger there a little longer and see the state of his thoughts towards you. “Well, the brown is nice too though.” You correct with a tiny shrug, feeling a larger pang in your chest when Jimin doesn’t stop his smile this time.
“I liked it too.” He lays the paper flat, but his fingers remain on its edge. You think of other ways to continue the conversation, and shove the thought of asking him simply how he is to the corner of your mind. You’re already staying back with him for no reason, you don’t want to seem completely tangled with missing him. “You and Yoongi...” Jimin begins, and the mere mention of you two makes you want to groan, hoping against this turning into a conversation about your precarious fake relationship when you wanted to focus on Jimin and you. “You don’t have to do anything too much, right?”
You narrow your eyes in confusion. Jimin reaches for his hair, fiddling as he goes on, concern twinging, “Like, nothing you don’t want to do, lo-”
He stops, nearly biting his tongue to do so. You notice. Your hands grip on your jeans, trying to discern if the slip was just because the term of endearment is something he’s so used to calling you, or if there is something more. You watch his index finger barely scratch at the paper on the table. Nervous.
“The whole relationship is something I don’t want to do.” Your sentence is dry, matched with your dismissive shrug. You know that isn’t what Jimin meant, but you don’t expect his head shaking and body becoming more straightened in posture,
“That’s not what I meant.” Jimin says directly, biting the inside of his cheek as he considers explaining himself further. You free him of doing that, nodding.
“I know.” He noticeably pauses, nearing a flustered expression and you almost want to smile in endearment, but you still feel more sad than anything. Confused. “Sorry,” You finally avert your gaze to the table, collecting your few items. “We’re not being forced into anything else though.” You explain while Jimin watches you move around.
Words clutter in his mouth, wondering what to say to keep you in the room, but knowing he shouldn’t. Can’t. He’s the one who ended it. He didn’t want to, but he did.
“Do you miss us?”
Jimin’s heartbeat increases, while yours secretly does as well. The question blurted from your lips in a moment of impulse that built from the second you saw him that day. Dumb, stupid; you want to take the question back, you don’t need his answer. You want it, but you shouldn’t have it in your thoughts whether it’s a yes or a no.
What difference would it make if he said yes and you returned back to how you were. He was right-- Namjoon was right, you’re own screaming logic is right: a secret untrue relationship wouldn’t last and it would only serve to hurt you in the long run. This situation that you both stand in is exactly because you made up the stupid idea in the first place. You should’ve let the first kiss be the last one. Just because you ended up falling in love, doesn’t mean Jimin did.
Jimin’s made it clear that the answer is no. Why do you want to hear him vocalize the no. Maybe a sick part of your mind wanted the words to be engraved so you can take it as a bridge burned to char. If he said no you could move on. That’s how it could work. Maybe it would actually be enough, in that off-chance-
“Of course.” Jimin’s voice whispers the words like they were heavy to push out of his lips. But you could ignore that, wrapped in the potential- “But I don’t want to get back together like we were.” He’s no longer making eye contact with you, busying his fingers further into his locks. “It hurts us both being hidden like that,” You open your mouth to interject that you could live with it, that it’s not necessarily a long-term state of being, but he speaks on, crushing you, “And I don’t want to be your actual boyfriend.”
The counterargument abandons your psyche entirely. The truth of the situation is apparent. Jimin’s made it apparent. The extent of what you were to him was just lust. His casual demeanor makes sense. Your lingering feelings are the minority, not mutually felt.
“Ah,” Your head nods even though Jimin’s not looking up at you. His statement burns more as you stand in the same room as him. “When you put it like that,” Jimin lifts his head, and you don’t know whether to register his expression as sad or not, because why would he be sad. Conflicted, likely. “It makes sense we’d stop then.” You continue to nod, stepping once towards the door, “Sorry. I got the wrong idea.”
You continue in your exit, ignoring anything he may try and do in response, because you didn’t want to be pitied on top of everything else. You let the sound of chairs clattering behind you drift into the background, and slipped out of the room without another word heard.
Yoongi’s studio is on the same floor, and easy to find in a matter of moments. You usually meet him at the lobby, but you don’t think of that as your phone’s clock reads twenty past six and you knock on the frosted glass door. After three soft pounds do you take note of the tiny doorbell that is likely more effective. The small device’s appearance makes you sigh, thinking of how idiotic you were about not seeing it, how idiotic in general.
“Y/N?” You don’t realize he’s opened the door until Yoongi’s voice disrupts your misguided thoughts. You look up towards him. Yoongi can see the straining expression to appear indifferent, but it fails completely this time just in appearance alone. “Are you okay?”
“Not really, but we have a dumb date to go on.” You huff, reaching both of your hands to rub your face. Yoongi remains quiet, already not fond of the dates when you were both in at least average moods, but seeing you like this makes him hate the idea even more.
“There’s no time schedule.” He says simply, you narrow your eyes towards him in a lack of understanding, then your shoulders relax as he steps back opening the door wider. “Want to hear some of the stuff I’ve been working on and we can go out later when we’re both starving instead?”
You think of his consideration for your temperament and feel a little bad that Yoongi feels the need to accommodate, but you step inside anyways. It isn’t like he enjoys the dating, and putting it off for a while sounds like the best option. Not to mention, dismissing his attempts at kindness wouldn’t be best either.
Besides, you can’t say you weren’t curious at the prospect of listening to what Yoongi’s been working on.
You glance around the studio, noting the organized arrangements overall, yet homely in some aspects as well. The decor is limited to a few wall posters and mostly bare shelving, but his couch area looks like it isn’t new at all. The couch in particular looks a bit worn, and cluttered with a couple of blankets and a pillow. His small coffee table has only a single empty plastic cup on it, but you figure he keeps the place tidy or else there would definitely be more evidence of his caffeine vice than currently appearing.
“If you want to use the couch you can. I have some wireless headphones,” Yoongi tells you as he goes to the highlight of the room: a desk space covering the entirety of the wall. Bright with various electronic equipment and brand names that also inhabit space in your own apartment. But here the space appears validated by its placement in the company walls.
You sit on the edge of the couch, hands resting on his lap as you continue looking around the studio. It’s definitely one of the larger ones. Yoongi hands you the pair of headphones, and you situated them over your ears while he goes on in speech. “Whoa, wait what?” You cut in quickly, causing him to look back at you while he sits in his desk chair. “These things are really noise cancelling, sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Yoongi chuckles, rubbing his hair back from his face. “I was just saying I need to decorate more, but haven’t got around to it.” He slips a pair of headphones on too, leaving one ear free. “This is going to sound really rough, and there’s a gap where I’m waiting on someone to fill with vocals.”
You nod, smiling in anticipation without realizing so. The sight makes Yoongi glance away, biting his lip in sudden worry the track won’t sound as great as you may anticipate. He clicks to start anyways, listening in his own ears and simply keeping his eyes on the screen watching the point on the timeline move along.
Behind him you sit back into the cushion, trying to take in everything in one listen, despite the different levels of the song meshing together perfectly. Yoongi’s voice sounds completed in the song already, like he’s already reached a point of contentment in the sound in your opinion. “Your lyrics are really good.” You say, head swaying with the beat, staring at the empty cup instead of seeing if he’d turn to respond to you.
Yoongi catches the comment, tapping his finger on the desk, lips tightening and forming more pliable peaks on his cheeks from holding back a proud smile. He waits until the fade out, before finally facing you once more. Angles his chair slightly towards you, not all the way, trying to appear more calm than anything despite nerves still simmering quietly in his stomach because you are the first to hear this particular demo.
“Did you hear me about your lyrics?” You ask right away, sliding the headphones to rest atop your shoulders. Yoongi nods softly, mumbling about not wanting to interrupt when you were listening to say thanks. “They really, really are good.” You say again anyways, smile growing wider as Yoongi reaches to fiddle with his hair,
“Thanks again.” His voice is still quiet, something bashful about it as well. Satisfied, you think, but you continue on anyways,
“And your voice is controlled, like usual.” You sigh, leaning back, “I can’t get over it; you’re so great at singing and rapping.” Yoongi just shrugs, but you miss it while you adjust your sleeves off of your hands. “For it being incomplete, I’d still listen to it, even without the other person you’re waiting on.” Yoongi chuckles, shaking his head,
“That’s too high of praise, you’re messing with me now.”
“I’m not.” You interject firmly, sitting upright. Yoongi looks at you silently, but breaks it by rubbing his neck and speaking sincerely,
“Well, thank you. I was kind of nervous about this one actually. It’s pretty different than other songs I’ve made.”
“Yeah, it’s really on the edge of your usual stuff, I think.” You nod in agreement, settling your hand on your chin while you ponder. “But I’m sure it’ll do well. Besides what’s a better time to try new things than now, right?”
“I wanted to make it last year, actually.” Yoongi shifts on his chair, clicking open an email notification. The title reads a clothing brand, and he shuts it as he goes on and for a moment scrolls through other emails in case he’s missed anything important. “It was busy with the merger going on though. But the beat is inspired by a friend of mine’s style.”
You let the information fall into space, interested by the mention of a musical inspiration. You scan any ideas, but ultimately feel like you don’t know enough about Yoongi at all to make any verbal assumptions so you just joke, “Jin?”
“Oh,” You watch Yoongi pause, and turn on his seat, looking at you with widened eyes, “How’d you know?”
“Wait really?” Your eyes grow wide as well as the image of Seokjin passes through your mind as a music producer-
“No.”
“Hey,” Your eyes immediately narrow, paired ironically with reddening embarrassment in your face. Yoongi just scoffs, then all together laughs as you defiantly cross your arms. “Rude,” You mutter as his lips continue releasing his entirely humored melody. “He could’ve; you don’t know.”
“I don’t?” He counters, slumping back into his chair and looking at you with a raised eyebrow.
“He’s performed an entire masterpiece with chopsticks and shot glasses before, so, yeah, you don’t.” You try to refrain from releasing any of your own smiling, maintaining a serious gaze towards Yoongi as he believes none of it and nods once.
“I live to be proven wrong, I guess.” He turns to face his computer once more, rearranging the opened windows as though he intends to continue working like he had before you stopped by. At this realization your arms relax, and you think about what you should do so not to bother him, maybe grab coffee to bide the time, or mindlessly watch YouTube videos on your phone.
Yoongi interrupts the thoughts, “It might not be my place to offer, but if you ever wanted to talk--or vent about,” His head tilts as he decides against specific topics, “Anything… I’d listen.” His hand sits still on the mouse, hoping he doesn’t sound like he’s trying to overstep. Though with all the trouble you seem to have, Yoongi tries to ignore that worry, allowing the innocent concern to lead the offer along.
“I probably look like I’m always down about something, right?” Your voice trickles embarrassment and spite, sighing as you rub your hair and angle your neck towards his coffee table. Frankly, it’s tiring to continue each day dismayed by the amount of circumstances left out of your control. Quietly having to accept so much that no one else seems to have to bother with, especially where songwriting is concerned.
“Not always, no.” Yoongi responds, eyes on the monitor though he’s looking at nothing. Contemplative of phrasing. “But a lot has happened the past month, and not much of it is good for you. I may not be your closest friend, but I think anyone seeing you pretend to be okay this often would wonder if you want to talk.”
You stare at the glossy wood, thinking of the interaction between you and Jimin not long ago. Being the first time you had spoken to him, you hoped it would’ve been better, maybe even telling for what the future could hold, but that was all wishful thinking in the end. He still left. Still keeps an arm’s distance. “I just,” You pause feeling the air in your throat that you hadn’t expected to cloud your sentence. You swallow it down and bite your lip, noticing Yoongi’s movement in your peripherals as he faces you slightly. Likely checking. Your voice probably sounded ridiculous.
“It’s okay to not speak too. Whenever you’re ready.”
The sentiment feels as comforting as the way Yoongi’s voice says the words. Absent of condescension, wholly gentle and patient. Putting his ideas of what he thought of you when you met and he found out about your job aside, to simply focus on your troubles. Understanding when he really didn’t have to be. Even if you both were amicable, and freshly titled friends like he said; it’s not like Yoongi needed to offer a metaphorical shoulder, or a penny for your thoughts without an expiration date. The action gives you a tug forward.
“Jimin was at the meeting and I didn’t think he’d be there.” You finally murmur, trying to avoid eye contact as though the words itching to leave your mouth would hide if you did. “I didn’t want to break up with him--or,” You sigh, rubbing your hair as your head shakes, “We weren’t a couple, I can’t really call it a break up, huh?” You rhetorically question feelings silly for being wrapped up in this relationship when it wasn’t a proper one to begin with. “I just didn’t want it to end.” The words fade, spacing even more as you ponder sadly, “And seeing him doing well-- even though he said he misses us, it just makes me feel like I’m the only one unable to push forward.”
In the very least, Jimin’s more in control of himself than you’re showing to be. Strongly believing this is the best way to handle the problems that existed in the relationship and unmoving about it. If you think about it like that, then maybe it would be better to try and adhere to this idea, even with your feelings for him. If they aren’t reciprocated feelings, there really is no worth in you continuously falling deeper and deeper. It was always bound to hurt, you just wish it could have happened later; like you would whenever the separation inevitably happened.
“Whether it takes you longer than him or not to work through this isn’t a problem. I think you should let yourself take as long as you need.” Yoongi gazes without focus at an empty shelf he plans to display albums of artists he’s collaborated with. Considering the closeness you and Jimin evidently had, it’s completely acceptable that you would be saddened by it all, and for all Yoongi knows the relationship could’ve had knots and twists that he’d never guessed that would garner the need for you to take months to heal. “Also,” He starts, though he considers not saying anything at all in case it may be a statement he doesn’t have the right to speak to, but recalling all of the instances thus far that he’s been unable to help you at all, he lets himself finish, “I don’t think you should shove all of it down either… I bet that feels suffocating.”
You bite your lip, almost embarrassed that he’s noticed how upset you’ve been despite having known you only a couple of months. You thought you have done well so far to at least appear normal, but with Yoongi spending hours of random days solely with you, it’s plausible he has simply caught on. Somehow the fact alone didn’t feel bad. In the same way that you had Namjoon to turn to because he knows everything that’s going on, it feels comforting that Yoongi is there as well. At least in his accepting way, whether it’s deeper than that, you don’t know and lean towards doubt if only because you’re both not on close terms.
“So I should just cry in the middle of our dates?” You try at a joke, but the smile you give him is appreciative of his advice. Yoongi glances to you, chair still angled to the wall. He hears the slightly joking tone and shrugs to it,
“If you do it gives us an excuse to go home.” You giggle at the fact and don’t mention that Yerin would likely end up irritated by you both appearing like a mess in public.
“I’ll cry one week, and you cry the next then.” You tease, scooting further into his couch and realizing that its incredible plushness is why it’s worn and Yoongi’s likely kept it since his last company. He laughs at the idea, nodding his head, relaxing himself now that you seem a little better, or at least, he hopes, less inclined to force yourself to act happy. “Thanks, for letting me talk a little, by the way.” A quieter, sincere tone. Before he’s able to respond you continue, “It means a lot to me that you wanted to help. I know I’m kind of, I guess, distant with my feelings, but it’s nice to feel like I don’t have to hide it all with someone around the company. I won’t bother you with myself though, don’t worry.”
“I’m not worried about that.” Yoongi discerns the idea you may feel annoying and softly diverts the thought away. “Besides sometimes it’s okay to be selfish and rant anyways. You’re just trying to help yourself.” He glances to his computer as you only respond with a nod, perhaps not entirely believing his words, but that could be a building process. “Hey, actually, while we’re here, and since you’re a producer,” You lift your head up, immediately curious as he mentions the title. “You want to help me play around with this song idea I’ve been messing with for the past week?”
“Wait, really?” You practically beam the words like sunlight, refraining from a flustered smile at the idea, but Yoongi can tell by how you sit up that you’re more than willing.
“Yeah, I’m not really getting anywhere with it, and since I know you’re the one who wrote practically all of the songs I liked from this company, of course I’d want to work with you.” The growing smile on your face almost makes Yoongi feel embarrassed as well that you found the request so appealing. He briefly chuckles as you start to nod, and he smiles brightly asking in bewilderment,
“Is it that exciting? It’s just me who’s offering, anyways.”
“Says the guy who’s made so much music that I love.” Yoongi bites his lip, smile not hiding at the joy. Emulating your sudden upbeat demeanor, simply because it felt infectious, Yoongi gestures to his computer,
“Well then since we both love each other’s stuff, let’s make it the collaboration of the year.” A light-hearted joke, but you and Yoongi mutually think it’s suddenly an exciting idea to work with one another on a song. So you’re up to your feet in seconds, taking the few steps towards his work area as he clicks around the screen,
“Wait, you don’t expect me to stand and help do you?”
“Oh, right, I’ll get a chair.”
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(h: someone’s greatest fear) (also on ao3!) (buy me a coffee?)
Marinette is not sure how they ended up in this position.  
She definitely doesn’t like it, though.
It’s not enough, apparently, that she really needed to be studying right now. It’s not enough that this akuma had interrupted her in the process of finally, finally getting up the courage to ask Adrien if he wanted to study together. It’s not enough that she thinks he’d been starting to say yes when today’s villain had come bursting through the wall shouting that he was to be addressed as Alpha.
Ladybug will not be doing that.
If she’s lucky, and she’s always lucky, no one will be doing that. The man definitely doesn’t need anyone feeding into his delusions. She’s surprisingly irritated that even Hawkmoth would stoop to a self-proclaimed pickup artist akuma.  Hawkmoth may be evil, but there are limits, and Ladybug is already well beyond hers.
And her partner’s luck must be cancelling hers out today, because at no point had either of them planned to end up trapped in the sarcophagus together.
“I hate this stupid exhibit,” Marinette mutters, straining to shove the lid off the sarcophagus.  Normally, that’s no problem when she’s transformed, but this particular villain must have them under something heavy or have dropped them underwater or something because it doesn’t budge.
Face pressed into her stomach, having been tumbled in after her in a particularly undignified position that Marinette is doing her best to ignore, Chat Noir whimpers.
She pauses.
He hasn’t actually said anything in a while now.
“Chat Noir?” Marinette says hesitantly.  "Hey, are you okay?“
Chat Noir doesn’t answer her.
His ring beeps, and not for the first time, but she isn’t worried about that.  She’s not going to look, and he won’t show her when he knows she doesn’t want him to, and it’s dark in here for her anyway.
She is worried about him.
"Chat Noir,” she repeats, when he shivers instead of responding.  "Are you okay?“ There’s something dark stirring in her gut, something more than her irritation at Hawkmoth and his akuma for throwing yet another wrench into her day.  Chat Noir going quiet has never been a good sign.
And they’re sharing a confined space, and his ring is still counting down, and Marinette is trying hard not to listen to the worry stirring in the back of her mind about just how much air this sarcophagus holds.  She doesn’t think that can be much of a problem, not with its age and not with the number of people that have been trapped in it at one point or another (no, seriously, why is this exhibit even still open, this is becoming a serious hazard), but she doesn’t know.
Neither one of them really has much space to move, but Marinette can squirm around enough to get her hands on Chat Noir’s shoulders and squeeze.   She’s not completely sure what’s going on with him but she has a suspicion, and making sure he has something else to focus on certainly can’t hurt.  "Minou, I really need you to answer me.” She takes a deep breath, and then another. Softly, before she can think too much about the way he’d let himself be pushed in here with her, because the akuma had been swiping at her and not at him, she asks, “Chat Noir, are you claustrophobic?”
He starts, which is hard not to notice with the way he’s huddled up against her.  She knows he wouldn’t lie to her anyway but she’s not surprised when he says, shakily, “I think you mean claws-trophobic.”
“Chat,” she says.
He shudders, ducking his head as much as he can and pressing into her hands.
She grips his shoulders tighter.  "Oh, minou.  I should have been more careful.“
"It’s not your fault,” Char Noir whispers.  He’s leaning harder on her now.   If she listens closely, she can hear his tail thumping restlessly- lashing through the small space with nowhere to go. “He was getting too close to you.”
Ladybug doesn’t roll her eyes at that, but it’s a near thing.  "I didn’t say it was my fault, Chat Noir, I said I should have been more careful.  It wasn’t your fault either, but you don’t have to leap in front of me every time.“  When she thinks about it later, she’ll realise it’s this specific akuma that drives her to add, "I can take care of myself.”
He takes a deep enough breath that she thinks it’s at least partly to calm down.  His breath is very warm against her stomach when he says, softly, “I know that.  But I want to help.”
Marinette doesn’t mean to growl.  Not now, not here, not when he’s down to his last faint green glow and she’s had the stress of the day building up behind her eyes for too long.  
She growls anyway, and Chat Noir flinches back hard enough to thump against the lid of the sarcophagus.
Cold trickles down her spine.  He’s not supposed to be afraid of me.  I don’t ever want him to be afraid of me!
But he is, she remembers now, shutting her eyes as the green light of his transformation flashes and then fades. Sandboy had taken her powers, but he’d shown Chat Noir a version of her.  He’s afraid of-
Of what, exactly? She strives to remember exactly what that version of herself had said to him, but the memory is hazy with adrenaline and fear.  She’d been focused on winning their fight, not on facing their fears.
She should have paid more attention to what had scared her partner.
She hadn’t really been all that afraid herself, even then, because he’d been with her and she can face anything as long as she has him, but suddenly Ladybug has a very, very bad feeling about Chat Noir’s nightmares.
They don’t have time to talk about it now.  They’re still in the middle of a battle right now, she has to prioritise what she can help with immediately and what will have to wait for later.  
Even if she doesn’t want to let any of it lie until later.  
“Chat Noir?”  Marinette grips his shoulders tighter again.  She doesn’t open her eyes just in case she can see him.  "Do you have food for Plagg?“
"No.”  It’s Plagg’s gruff voice that answer her, not Chat Noir’s.  "He couldn’t sneak any food out with him today.“
She’s frowning.  She knows she’s frowning, because she’s frowning hard enough to feel like it’s going to crack her face.  "Sneak out?”
Chat Noir hisses something at his kwami.
“Kitty.” She can’t get a better grip on him than she already has, but her hands twitch as if she can still pull him closer. “What does he mean?”
Chat Noir doesn’t answer her and she immediately realises the problem.   Wincing, she hastily revises her question. “Are you having trouble keeping food for Plagg on you?”
His shoulders shift under her hands, lifting and falling in half a shrug, but then she feels the air change directions as he nods minutely.  
“Oh, minou, you should have told me.”  Her hands tighten on his shoulders.  "Even if you can’t always get cheese for him, I could carry it, too.“
Plagg sniffs, loudly, and she feels him settle on her shoulder.  Ladybug twitches, trying to hint that he should go back to Chat Noir, and the kwami flutters off again but not before saying, "You and what pockets?”
Ladybug doesn’t dignify that with a response.  Instead, she says, “Spots off,” and wraps her arms tighter around Chat Noir at his shaky inhalation.  
It’s hardly the first time they’ve detransformed in front of each other.   They’ve had to do it a number of times now, but it’s never stopped being just as strange as that first time with Dark Owl. She trusts him not to look but she still feels like- well, like she should feel vulnerable, and yet she doesn’t.  She trusts him too much to even feel uncomfortable.
Marinette’s eyes are still closed but she knows when Tikki scrambles into her purse and back out.  She knows that Tikki will have grabbed an extra cookie for Plagg, but it isn’t until Chat Noir makes a soft, startled sound that it occurs to Marinette that her kwami would want to make sure that Chat has food, too.
Because he didn’t use to have trouble keeping Plagg’s cheese on him.  Something’s changed.  
Marinette shifts enough to wrap her arms around his shoulders entirely and draw him closer.  If he asks, then it’s only because she knows he’s claustrophobic.  If he asks.
But it’s really because now that she’s actually paying attention, he’s lost weight. He’s always been slim but he hasn’t always felt as though he’s made up entirely of sharp angles.
If he’s having trouble keeping Plagg fed, when she knows how seriously he takes that, what about himself?
“Spots on,” Marinette says, the second Tikki taps her shoulder, because she needs to talk to her partner right now and it’s better not to talk too much out of their suits.  They still don’t know for sure why they don’t recognise each other’s voices- for all that Marinette has tried to convince Chat Noir that it’s because they probably don’t know each other outside of their hero work, she doesn’t really believe it herself. They’re too closely attuned not to have been drawn to each other at some point.
Tikki won’t confirm that for her, but she won’t outright deny it, either.   Tikki’s not exactly shy about telling her when she’s wrong, which means that’s far too close to confirmation for Marinette to risk it.  
Chat Noir’s quiet ‘Claws out’ is too muffled to make out clearly, but he lets out a relieved sigh once he’s armoured back up that sets Marinette to wondering about his night vision.  She wonders if darkness contributes to his claustrophobia.
But the only other person she knows for certain has claustrophobia is Adrien, and Marinette is hardly going to go up to him and ask him about it.  Besides, it’s Ladybug that knows about that.  
(Tikki might have been alarmed about Marinette’s diary but frankly, Marinette had desperately needed it to keep track of what Ladybug knows versus what Marinette knows).
“If you’re having trouble getting food, Chat, all you had to do was tell me.”  Marinette strains to keep any hint of scolding out of her voice- she doesn’t think that’s going to help right now, and it could very well hurt.  It had taken her far too long to pick up on, but Chat Noir doesn’t take even light-hearted reprimands well.  He’ll smile and crack a joke and try to shrug it off, but he holds himself like he’s going to shatter the whole time, and he won’t look at her after.  
Marinette’s still straining to recall what Sandboy had revealed but she has a sinking feeling that she has a pretty good idea.  
“It’s a temporary thing,” Chat says, but quietly.  He still doesn’t sound much like himself- he sounds unsteady and uncertain, which aren’t things she’s used to associating with him.  They aren’t things she wants to associate with him.  "It’ll be easier again soon.“  
Marinette hopes they have the same definition of soon.  
She isn’t sure what could be temporarily restricting her partner’s access to food, and for the first time she wants to ask.  She wants to pry, in fact, she wants to urge the truth from him so that she knows how to fix this, because he’s all shudders and sharp angles under her hands, but she can’t.  
He’d tell her, if she asked.  He’d tell her anything she asked.  The amount of trust he puts in her is more than a little terrifying.  Marinette’s not always comfortable with the trust civilians give them, but it’s still different, when it’s Chat Noir.  He’s never hesitated to call her out when he thinks she’s in the wrong, but he’s never been anything but confident that her mistakes can be fixed.  She hopes he knows she’d always support him just as much in turn, but she suspects he doesn’t, and she doesn’t know what else she can do to convince him.  
She could hurt him so easily, without ever meaning to, and that scares her.  
So she doesn’t push him to tell her any more than he already has.  She doesn’t say any of the things crowding up behind her teeth, trying to spill out before she can think better of it.  She wants to know.  She doesn’t want to know.  
She wants to help, more than anything, and she doesn’t have to know specifics to be able to help.  
Marinette silently promises herself to start overstocking her purse for Tikki, and to try and get her hands on Camembert for Plagg if she can.  She knows Chat’s kwami will share cookies with Tikki, but she also knows how much Plagg loves his cheese, and even in the handful of times she’s met Plagg she’s already fond enough of him to want him to have what he prefers.
And he might be able to tell her what Chat prefers.
She almost does let go of Chat Noir when it finally occurs to her that might make his phobia worse, but from the way he’s leaning into her hands she thinks she’d better not.  Instead she suggests,  "Now might be a good time to use Cataclysm? I don’t think either one of us wants to be in here any longer.”  
He nods once, breathless against her, and her heart wrenches again because he could have used Cataclysm the moment he was transformed. It’s not like him to wait for her permission, but she has the terrible feeling that he’d done just that.
The fight itself goes quickly, once they’re out of the sarcophagus- and out of the surrounding debris, which turns out to be most of the Louvre, and Marinette is wildly grateful for her own superpowers when she figures that out- helped along by the number of annoyed citizens who are actually throwing things at the villain.  
Evidently Marinette’s not the only one who thought this 'Alpha’ was a step too far.  She doesn’t see Hawkmoth’s mask glow into being, either, and with a combination of glee and irritation she whispers to Chat Noir, “I think Hawkmoth abandoned him.”
The grin he gives her back is a pale imitation of his usual one, and he doesn’t crack a joke back at all.  
Marinette had every intention of resuming her study plans after the fight, and she picks up her phone and sees that Adrien did say yes but that he’d have to get back to her about a schedule, and while normally that would be enough to have her on cloud nine for the rest of the day she can hardly concentrate on it.  She doesn’t know, in the end, exactly what she says back.  She types something quickly in response, closes her eyes and hits send, and hopes very hard that whatever she replied made sense.  She can’t bring herself to check, and she’ll find out at some point anyway.
At least Adrien’s never seemed to mind much if her first reply doesn’t make sense. Marinette still minds, though, so she sets her phone face-down and then moves it away from her desk altogether before turning to the computer and navigating to the Ladyblog.  And then to the recorded akuma fights.  
And then to Sandboy. It’s not the whole fight, it’s whatever Alya had cobbled together out of various people’s phone videos later, but it’s enough of it.
Marinette can’t watch it all in one go.  
The part where she loses her powers doesn’t bother her so much.  She knows she’ll have them back, and she knows that Chat Noir will protect her as long as she’s without them.  She’s not even sure her fear would be the same a second time around, after how much Chat Noir had guarded her during the fight.  
But his fear, his false Ladybug-
His fear makes her throat go dry and starts a terrible pressure building behind her eyes.
At least he knows it’s not her.  At least he never seems to lose track of that.  He does spend the whole fight protecting her instead, and-
And at the time, she hadn’t thought too much of it.  He always does protect her, even when he shouldn’t.  She knows that.  It hadn’t been out of character.  
But now she sees something else in his desperate drive to protect her.
Chat Noir does have a very bad habit of throwing himself between her and danger, but not- not like this. This feels different, feels wrong, feels like her partner’s trying to fight a fear she hadn’t taken half as seriously as she should have.  
Marinette rewinds, forces herself to watch it again, and finds herself wincing as Chat Noir throws himself in front of her again- and again- and again-
And this time around, she can’t help but see it as Chat Noir trying as hard as he can to prove himself.
His nightmare threatens to get rid of him, and he steps in front of her.  
His nightmare taunts him, and he steps in front of her.
His nightmare outright attacks him, and he still steps in front of her.  
His too-solid fear, this too-detailed nightmare-
Any of the times she has told him he’s not replaceable- has Chat ever believed her?
(His nightmare attacks him).
Marinette can’t keep watching, after that.  
She has told Chat Noir he’s irreplaceable.  She’s sure she has.
How often has she actually told him that?  Has it only been that handful of times? She sees him almost every day, at all hours of the day and night now that Hawkmoth’s wreaked havoc on all of Paris’ schedule, and she knows in a way that’s as solid and unshakeable as the earth that they’re not just partners, he’s part of her.  She doesn’t know if that was true before they’d been gifted their Miraculous, but it’s true now.  It’s not something she thinks could ever be undone even if she wanted to.  
She can’t imagine wanting to.
“Tikki?”
Her kwami flits to her shoulder, uncharacteristically silent.
Marinette takes a deep breath in sync with Tikki, who slows her breathing to match. She breathes in and out with her kwami for a count of ten, steadying herself more with every breath, and her voice barely shakes when she says, “Tikki, spots on.”
She’s glad, now, that Adrien hadn’t been able to set a time for that study session yet.  She doesn’t have to come up with an excuse this way.
Patrol’s not for hours yet, but Marinette’s not that surprised when she runs into Chat Noir after only a brief run.  He’s out at strange times a lot more often than she is; he always has been.  
He doesn’t call out to her.  He does land alongside her and run along the roofs with her, leaping and climbing in sync with her swings, laughing under his breath when she starts rounding corners tighter to try and pick up speed.  Marinette didn’t originally intend to race, but he keeps speeding up, so she keeps speeding up, and eventually they’re racing and weaving along the Seine whether they meant to or not.  
She lets him lead her on a merry chase through the city, or he chases her, or they take turns chasing each other- by the time they fall against each other, laughing, deep in Saint-Cloud Park, she’s no longer sure which is true.  All of them, maybe. Probably.
“What was that about?” Chat Noir asks her, when he has his laughter under control.  He’s close enough that when he ducks his head to speak his breath ruffles her hair. “Not that I object, but-”
Impulsively, Marinette wraps both arms around him and hugs him tight, leaning her head against his chest.  She lets out a sigh at the reassuring thrum of his heartbeat; he leaps into danger for her often enough that the steady beating has become a comforting sound. “Chat Noir, you know you’re the best partner I could ever have, right?”  
She realises too late how that might be misinterpreted, how alarmingly final it might sound, when Chat Noir goes still beneath her hands.  His tail stops flicking, belt buckle clattering where it strikes off a root instead.
Marinette pulls back only enough to look up at him, suddenly afraid he’ll bolt if she lets go, and sees his ears have gone flat.  He’s avoiding her gaze, even if he’s not pulling away.  He almost never pulls away from her, not even when she thinks he must be uncomfortable.  
Marinette leans in and hugs him tighter, huffing an indignant breath against his suit.  "Kitty, I didn’t mean-  I meant I’d never want anyone else.  Never, Chat.“  
His heart rate picks up, and it’s not entirely steady anymore.  His voice ruffles through her hair again as he murmurs, "Is that a promise, my Lady?”  
“That’s a promise, Chat.”  Marinette doesn’t actually want to let go of him now, but he’s starting to shift a little restlessly in her hold so she steps back.  Chat Noir clearly likes hugs, he initiates them frequently, but he never seems to know what to do with them.   Marinette’s begun to wonder if she should tell him he doesn’t have to wait like that to hug her back, but she’s not sure he knows he’s doing it.  If it’s not conscious she doesn’t want to call attention to it.  
He still hasn’t relaxed.  
“Kitty, I promise you, if I could choose anyone in the world for my partner it would still be you, every time.”  Marinette’s promise comes out much softer than she intends, but her words are steady with surety.  "You are the best partner I could ever ask for, and that means I wouldn’t ever ask for anyone else.“
Chat Noir’s ears are beginning to flick upright again, and his eyes seem a little brighter, and he definitely stands a little straighter for the praise.  (She wonders about that sometimes, too- about how Chat Noir has never stopped reacting to praise like it surprises him, every time.  As though he’s still not used to it.  As though it’s something he’s learned he never to expect).  
Chat starts to say something and has to stop and clear his throat.  "Not- not even Carapace?”  
Marinette has a moment to wonder why Carapace, but she doesn’t have to know Chat’s reasons to know that his fear is genuine, even if he hides it well.  Why his first thought is Carapace doesn’t matter.  
Though she suspects it has to do with Carapace’s power, and Chat Noir’s terrible self-sacrificial drive to protect.  
“Not even Carapace, kitty,” Marinette answers him, her voice still soft in the silent park.  Chat Noir’s slow, indrawn breath is the loudest thing here, cutting through the cold clear air, and Marinette shivers at it without meaning to.  
“Chat Noir, I wouldn’t trade you for the world,” she tells him, and she sees something kindle in his eyes, a belief that’s different from but related to his belief in her, and Marinette will tell him how important he is to her every day for the rest of their lives if that’s what it takes to keep that fire in him glowing like that.  
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gargaj · 4 years
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A breakdown of the Revision 2020 Threeway Battle shader
Those of you who have been following this year's edition of Revision probably remember the unexpected twist in Sunday's timeline, where I was pitted in a coding "battle" against two of the best shader-coders in the world to fend for myself. Admittedly the buzz it caused caught me by surprise, but not as much as the feedback on the final shader I produced, so I hope to shed some light on how the shader works, in a way that's hopefully understandable to beginners and at least entertaining to experts, as well as providing some glimpses into my thought process along the way.
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Recorded video of the event
But before we dive into the math and code, however, I think it's important to get some context by recounting the story of how we got here.
A brief history of demoscene live-coding
Visual coding has been massively opened up when graphics APIs began to introduce programmable fragment rendering, perhaps best known to most people as "pixel shaders"; this allowed programmers to run entire programmable functions on each pixel of a triangle, and none was more adamant to do that than a fellow named Iñigo Quilez (IQ), an understated genius who early on recognized the opportunity in covering the entire screen with a single polygon, and just doing the heavy lifting of creating geometry in the shader itself. His vision eventually spiraled into not only the modern 4k scene, but also the website ShaderToy, which almost every graphics programmer uses to test prototypes or just play around with algorithms. IQ, an old friend of mine since the mid-00s, eventually moved to the US, worked at Pixar and Oculus, and became something of a world-revered guru of computer graphics, but that (and life) has unfortunately caused him to shift away from the scene.
His vision of single-shader-single-quad-single-pass shader coding, in the meantime, created a very spectacular kind of live coding competition in the scene where two coders get only 25 minutes and the attention of an entire party hall, and they have to improvise their way out of the duel - this has been wildly successful at parties for the sheer showmanship and spectacle akin to rap battles, and none emerged from this little sport more remarkably than Flopine, a bubbly French girl who routinely shuffled up on stage wearing round spectacles and cat ears (actually they might be pony ears on second thought), and mopped the floor up with the competition. Her and a handful of other live-coders regularly stream on Twitch as practice, and have honed their live-coding craft for a few years at this point, garnering a considerable following.
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Just a sample of insanity these people can do.
My contribution to this little sub-scene was coming up with a fancy name for it ("Shader Showdown"), as well as providing a little tool I called Bonzomatic (named after Bonzaj / Plastic, a mutual friend of IQ and myself, and the first person to create a live coding environment for demoparties) that I still maintain, but even though I feel a degree of involvement through the architectural side, I myself haven't been interested in participating: I know I can do okay under time pressure, but I don't really enjoy it, and while there's a certain overlap in what they do and what I do, I was always more interested in things like visual detail and representative geometry aided by editing and direction rather than looping abstract, fractal-like things. It just wasn't my thing.
Mistakes were made
But if I'm not attracted to this type of competition, how did I end up in the crossfire anyway? What I can't say is that it wasn't, to a considerable degree, my fault: as Revision 2020 was entirely online, most of the scene took it to themselves to sit in the demoscene Discord to get an experience closest to on-site socializing, given the somber circumstances of physical distancing. This also allowed a number of people who hasn't been around for a while to pop in to chat - like IQ, who, given his past, was mostly interested in the showdowns (during which Flopine crushed the competition) and the 4k compo.
As I haven't seen him around for a while, and as my mind is always looking for an angle, I somehow put two and two together, and asked him if he would consider taking part in a showdown at some point; he replied that he was up for it - this was around Saturday 10PM. I quickly pinged the rest of the showdown participants and organizers, as I spotted that Bullet was doing a DJ set the next day (which would've been in a relatively convenient timezone for IQ in California as well), and assumed that he didn't really have visuals for it - as there was already a "coding jam" over Ronny's set the day before, I figured there's a chance for squeezing an "extra round" of coding. Flopine was, of course, beyond excited by just the prospect of going against IQ, and by midnight we essentially got everything planned out (Bullet's consent notwithstanding, as he was completely out of the loop on this), and I was excited to watch...
...that is, until Havoc, the head honcho for the showdowns, off-handedly asked me about an at that point entirely hypothetical scenario: what would happen if IQ would, for some reason, challenge me instead of Flopine? Now, as said, I wasn't really into this, but being one to not let a good plan go to waste (especially if it was mine), I told Havoc I'd take one for the team and do it, although it probably wouldn't be very fun to watch. I then proceeded to quickly brief IQ in private and run him through the technicalities of the setup, the tool, the traditions and so on, and all is swell...
...that is, until IQ (this is at around 2AM) offhandedly mentions that "Havoc suggested we do a three-way with me, Flopine... and you." I quickly try to backpedal, but IQ seems to be into the idea, and worst of all, I've already essentially agreed to it, and to me, the only thing worse than being whipped in front of a few thousand people would be going back on your word. The only way out was through.
Weeks of coding can spare you hours of thinking
So now that I've got myself into this jar of pickles, I needed some ideas, and quick. (I didn't sleep much that night.) First off, I didn't want to do anything obviously 3D - both IQ and Flopine are masters of this, and I find it exhausting and frustrating, and it would've failed on every level possible. Fractals I'm awful at and while they do provide a decent amount of visual detail, they need a lot of practice and routine to get right. I also didn't want something very basic 2D, like a byte-beat, because those have a very limited degree of variation available, and the end result always looks a bit crude.
Luckily a few months ago an article I saw do rounds was a write-up by Sasha Martinsen on how to do "FUI"-s, or Fictional User Interfaces; overly complicated and abstract user interfaces that are prominent in sci-fi, with Gmunk being the Michael Jordan of the genre.
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Image courtesy of Sasha Martinsen.
Sasha's idea is simple: make a few basic decent looking elements, and then just pile them on top of each other until it looks nice, maybe choose some careful colors, move them around a bit, place them around tastefully in 3D, et voilà, you're hacking the Gibson. It's something I attempted before, if somewhat unsuccessfully, in "Reboot", but I came back to it a few more times in my little private motion graphics experiments with much better results, and my prediction was that it would be doable in the given timeframe - or at least I hoped that my hazy 3AM brain was on the right track.
A bit of math
How to make this whole thing work? First, let's think about our rendering: We have a single rectangle and a single-pass shader that runs on it: this means no meshes, no geometry, no custom textures, no postprocessing, no particle systems and no fonts, which isn't a good place to start from. However, looking at some of Sasha's 3D GIFs, some of them look like they're variations of the same render put on planes one after the other - and as long as we can do one, we can do multiple of that.
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Rough sketch of what we want to do; the planes would obviously be infinite in size but this representation is good enough for now.
Can we render multiple planes via a single shader? Sure, but we want them to look nice, and that requires a bit of thinking: The most common technique to render a "2D" shader and get a "3D" look is raymarching, specifically with signed distance fields - starting on a ray, and continually testing distances until a hit is found. This is a good method for "solid-ish" looking objects and scenes, but the idea for us is to have many infinite planes that also have some sort of alpha channel, so we'd have a big problem with 1) inaccuracy, as we'd never find a hit, just something "reasonably close", and even that would take us a few dozen steps, which is costly even for a single plane and 2) the handling of an alpha map can be really annoying, since we'd only find out our alpha value after our initial march, after which if our alpha is transparent we'd need to march again.
But wait - it's just infinite planes and a ray, right? So why don't we just assume that our ray is always hitting the plane (which it is, since we're looking at it), and just calculate an intersection the analytical way?
Note: I would normally refer to this method as "raytracing", but after some consultation with people smarter than I am, we concluded that the terms are used somewhat ambiguously, so let's just stick to "analytical ray solving" or something equally pedantic.
We know the mathematical equation for a ray is position = origin + direction * t (where t is a scalar that represents the distance/progress from the ray origin), and we know that the formula for a plane is A * x + B * y + C * z + D = 0, where (A, B, C) is the normal vector of the plane, and D is the distance from the origin. First, since the intersection will be the point in space that satisfies both equations, we substitute the ray (the above o + d * t for each axis) into the plane:
A * (ox + dx * t) + B * (oy + dy * t) + C * (oz + dz * t) + D = 0
To find out where this point is in space, we need to solve this for t, but it's currently mighty complicated. Luckily, since we assume that our planes are parallel to the X-Y plane, we know our (A, B, C) normal is (0, 0, 1), so we can simplify it down to:
oz + dz * t + D = 0
Which we can easily solve to t:
t = (D - oz) / dz
That's right: analytically finding a ray hit of a plane is literally a single subtraction and a division! Our frame rate (on this part) should be safe, and we're always guaranteed a hit as long as we're not looking completely perpendicular to the planes; we should have everything to start setting up our code.
Full disclosure: Given my (and in a way IQ's) lack of "live coding" experience, we agreed that there would be no voting for the round, and it'd be for glory only, but also that I'd be allowed to use a small cheat sheet of math like the equations for 2D rotation or e.g. the above final equation since I don't do this often enough to remember these things by heart, and I only had a few hours notice before the whole thing.
Setting up the rendering
Time to start coding then. First, let's calculate our texture coordinates in the 0..1 domain using the screen coordinates and the known backbuffer resolution (which is provided to us in Bonzomatic):
vec2 uv = vec2(gl_FragCoord.x / v2Resolution.x, gl_FragCoord.y / v2Resolution.y);
Then, let's create a ray from that:
vec3 rayDir = vec3( uv * 2 - 1, -1.0 ); rayDir.x *= v2Resolution.x / v2Resolution.y; // adjust for aspect ratio vec3 rayOrigin = vec3( 0, 0, 0 );
This creates a 3D vector for our direction that is -1,-1,-1 in the top left corner and 1,1,-1 in the bottom right (i.e. we're looking so that Z is decreasing into the screen), then we adjust the X coordinate since our screen isn't square, but our coordinates currently are - no need to even bother with normalizing, it'll be fine. Our origin is currently just sitting in the center.
Then, let's define (loosely) our plane, which is parallel to the XY plane:
float planeDist = 1.0f; // distance between each plane float planeZ = -5.0f; // Z position of the first plane
And solve our equation to t, as math'd out above:
float t = (planeZ - rayOrigin.z) / rayDir.z;
Then, calculate WHERE the hit is by taking that t by inserting it back to the original ray equation using our current direction and origin:
vec3 hitPos = rayOrigin + t * rayDir;
And now we have our intersection; since we already know the Z value, we can texture our plane by using the X and Y components to get a color value:
vec4 color = fui( hitPos.xy ); // XY plane our_color = color;
Of course we're gonna need the actual FUI function, which will be our procedural animated FUI texture, but let's just put something dummy there now, like a simple circle:
vec4 fui ( vec2 uv ) { return length(uv - 0.5) < 0.5 ? vec4(1) : vec(0); }
And here we go:
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Very good, we have a single circle and if we animate the camera we can indeed tell that it is on a plane.
So first, let's tile it by using a modulo function; the modulo (or modulus) function simply wraps a number around another number (kinda like the remainder after a division, but for floating point numbers) and thus becomes extremely useful for tiling or repeating things:
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We'll be using the modulo function rather extensively in this little exercise, so strap in. (Illustration via the Desmos calculator.)
vec4 layer = fui( mod( hitPos.xy, 1.0 ) );
This will wrap the texture coordinates of -inf..inf between 0..1:
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We also need multiple planes, but how do we combine them? We could just blend them additively, but with the amount of content we have, we'd just burn them in to white and it'd look like a mess (and not the good kind of mess). We could instead just use normal "crossfade" / "lerp" blending based on the alpha value; the only trick here is to make sure we're rendering them from back to front since the front renders will blend over the back renders:
int steps = 10; float planeDist = 1.0f; for (int i=steps; i>=0; i--) { float planeZ = -1.0f * i * planeDist; float t = (planeZ - rayOrigin.z) / rayDir.z; if (t > 0.0f) // check if "t" is in front of us { vec3 hitPos = rayOrigin + t * rayDir; vec4 layer = fui( hitPos.xy, 2.0 ); // blend layers based on alpha output colour = mix( colour, layer, layer.a ); } }
And here we go:
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We decreased the circles a bit in size to see the effect more.
Not bad! First thing we can do is just fade off the back layers, as if they were in a fog:
layer *= (steps - i) / float(steps);
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We have a problem though: we should probably increase the sci-fi effect by moving the camera continually forward, but if we do, we're gonna run into a problem: Currently, since our planeZ is fixed to the 0.0 origin, they won't move with the camera. We could just add our camera Z to them, but then they would be fixed with the camera and wouldn't appear moving. What we instead want is to just render them AS IF they would be the closest 10 planes in front of the camera; the way we could do that is that if e.g. our planes' distance from each other is 5, then round the camera Z down to the nearest multiple of 5 (e.g. if the Z is at 13, we round down to 10), and start drawing from there; rounding up would be more accurate, but rounding down is easier, since we can just subtract the division remainder from Z like so:
float planeZ = (rayOrigin.z - mod(rayOrigin.z, planeDist)) - i * planeDist;
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And now we have movement! Our basic rendering path is done.
Our little fictional UI
So now that we have the basic pipeline in place, let's see which elements can we adapt from Sasha's design pieces.
The first one I decided to go with wasn't strictly speaking in the set, but it was something that I saw used as design elements over the last two decades, and that's a thick hatch pattern element; I think it's often used because it has a nice industrial feel with it. Doing it in 2D is easy: We just add X and Y together, which will result in a diagonal gradient, and then we just turn that into an alternating pattern using, again, the modulo. All we need to do is limit it between two strips, and we have a perfectly functional "Police Line Do Not Cross" simulation.
return mod( uv.x + uv.y, 1 ) < 0.5 ? vec4(1) : vec4(0);
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So let's stop here for a few moments; this isn't bad, but we're gonna need a few things. First, the repetition doesn't give us the nice symmetric look that Sasha recommends us to do, and secondly, we want them to look alive, to animate a bit.
Solving symmetry can be done just by modifying our repetition code a bit: instead of a straight up modulo with 1.0 that gives us a 0..1 range, let's use 2.0 to get a 0..2 range, then subtract 1.0 to get a -1..1 range, and then take the absolute value.
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vec4 layer = fui( abs( mod( hitPos.xy, 2.0 ) - 1 ) );
This will give us a triangle-wave-like function, that goes from 0 to 1, then back to 0, then back to 1; in terms of texture coordinates, it will go back and forth between mirroring the texture in both directions, which, let's face it, looks Totally Sweet.
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For animation, first I needed some sort of random value, but one that stayed deterministic based on a seed - in other words, I needed a function that took in a value, and returned a mangled version of it, but in a way that if I sent that value in twice, it would return the same mangled value twice. The most common way of doing it is taking the incoming "seed" value, and then driving it into some sort of function with a very large value that causes the function to alias, and then just returning the fraction portion of the number:
float rand(float x) { return fract(sin(x) * 430147.8193); }
Does it make any sense? No. Is it secure? No. Will it serve our purpose perfectly? Oh yes.
So how do we animate our layers? The obvious choice is animating both the hatch "gradient" value to make it crawl, and the start and end of our hatch pattern which causes the hatched strip to move up and down: simply take a random - seeded by our time value - of somewhere sensible (like between 0.2 and 0.8 so that it doesn't touch the edges) and add another random to it, seasoned to taste - we can even take a binary random to pick between horizontal and vertical strips:
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The problems here are, of course, that currently they're moving 1) way too fast and 2) in unison. The fast motion obviously happens because the time value changes every frame, so it seeds our random differently every frame - this is easy to solve by just rounding our time value down to the nearest integer: this will result in some lovely jittery "digital" motion. The unison is also easy to solve: simply take the number of the layer, and add it to our time, thus shifting the time value for each layer; I also chose to multiply the layer ID with a random-ish number so that the layers actually animate independently, and the stutter doesn't happen in unison either:
vec4 fui( vec2 uv, float t ) { t = int(t); float start = rand(t) * 0.8 + 0.1; float end = start + 0.1; [...] } vec4 layer = fui( abs(mod(hitPos.xy, 2.0)-1), fGlobalTime + i * 4.7 );
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Lovely!
Note: In hindsight using the Z coordinate of the plane would've given a more consistent result, but the way it animates, it doesn't really matter.
So let's think of more elements: the best looking one that seems to get the best mileage out in Sasha's blog is what I can best describe as the "slant" or "hockey stick" - a simple line, with a 45-degree turn in it. What I love about it is that the symmetry allows it to create little tunnels, gates, corridors, which will work great for our motion.
Creating it is easy: We just take a thin horizontal rectangle, and attach another rectangle to the end, but shift the coordinate of the second rectangle vertically, so that it gives us the 45-degree angle:
float p1 = 0.2; float p2 = 0.5; float p3 = 0.7; float y = 0.5; float thicc = 0.0025; if (p1 < uv.x && uv.x < p2 && y - thicc < uv.y && uv.y < y + thicc ) { return vec4(1); } if (p2 < uv.x && uv.x < p3 && y - thicc < uv.y - (uv.x - p2) && uv.y - (uv.x - p2) < y + thicc ) { return vec4(1); }
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Note: In the final code, I had a rect() call which I originally intended to use as baking glow around my rectangle using a little routine I prototyped out earlier that morning, but I was ultimately too stressed to properly pull that off. Also, it's amazing how juvenile your variable names turn when people are watching.
Looks nice, but since this is such a thin sparse element, let's just... add more of it!
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So what more can we add? Well, no sci-fi FUI is complete without random text and numbers, but we don't really have a font at hand. Or do we? For years, Bonzomatic has been "shipping" with this really gross checkerboard texture ostensibly for UV map testing:
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What if we just desaturate and invert it?
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We can then "slice" it up and render little sprites all over our texture: we already know how to draw a rectangle, so all we need is just 1) calculate which sprite we want to show 2) calculate the texture coordinate WITHIN that sprite and 3) sample the texture:
float sx = 0.3; float sy = 0.3; float size = 0.1; if (sx < uv.x && uv.x < sx + size && sy < uv.y &&uv.y < sy + size) { float spx = 2.0 / 8.0; // we have 8 tiles in the texture float spy = 3.0 / 8.0; vec2 spriteUV = (uv - vec2(sx,sy)) / size; vec4 sam = texture( texChecker, vec2(spx,spy) + spriteUV / 8.0 ); return dot( sam.rgb, vec3(0.33) ); }
Note: In the final code, I was only using the red component instead of desaturation because I forgot the texture doesn't always have red content - I stared at it for waaaay too long during the round trying to figure out why some sprites weren't working.
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And again, let's just have more of it:
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Getting there!
At this point the last thing I added was just circles and dots, because I was running out of ideas; but I also felt my visual content amount was getting to where I wanted them to be; it was also time to make it look a bit prettier.
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Post-production / compositing
So we have our layers, they move, they might even have colors, but I'm still not happy with the visual result, since they are too single-colored, there's not enough tone in the picture.
The first thing I try nowadays when I'm on a black background is to just add either a single color, or a gradient:
vec4 colour = renderPlanes(uv); vec4 gradient = mix( vec4(0,0,0.2,1), vec4(0,0,0,1), uv.y); vec4 finalRender = mix( gradient, vec4(colour.xyz,1), colour.a);
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This added a good chunk of depth considerably to the image, but I was still not happy with the too much separation between colors.
A very common method used in compositing in digital graphics is to just add bloom / glow; when used right, this helps us add us more luminance content to areas that would otherwise be solid color, and it helps the colors to blend a bit by providing some middle ground; unfortunately if we only have a single pass, the only way to get blur (and by extension, bloom) is repeatedly rendering the picture, and that'd tank our frame rate quickly.
Instead, I went back to one of the classics: the Variform "pixelize" overlay:
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This is almost the same as a bloom effect, except instead of blurring the image, all you do is turn it into a lower resolution nearest point sampled version of itself, and blend that over the original image - since this doesn't need more than one sample per pixel (as we can reproduce pixelation by just messing with the texture coordinates), we can get away by rendering the scene only twice:
vec4 colour = renderPlanes(uv); colour += renderPlanes(uv - mod( uv, 0.1 ) ) * 0.4;
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Much better tonal content!
So what else can we do? Well, most of the colors I chose are in the blue/orange/red range, and we don't get a lot of the green content; one of the things that I learned that it can look quite pretty if one takes a two-tone picture, and uses color-grading to push the midrange of a third tone - that way, the dominant colors will stay in the highlights, and the third tone will cover the mid-tones. (Naturally you have to be careful with this.)
"Boosting" a color in the mids is easy: lucky for us, if we consider the 0..1 range, exponential functions suit our purpose perfectly, because they start at 0, end at 1, but we can change how they get here:
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So let's just push the green channel a tiny bit:
finalRender.g = pow(finalRender.g, 0.7);
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Now all we need is to roll our camera for maximum cyberspace effect and we're done!
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Best laid plans of OBS
As you can see from the code I posted the above, I wrote the final shader in GLSL; those who know me know that I'm a lot more comfortable with DirectX / HLSL, and may wonder why I switched, but of course there's another story here:
Given the remote nature of the event, all of the shader coding competition was performed online as well: since transmitting video from the coder's computer to a mixer, and then to another mixer, and then to a streaming provider, and then to the end user would've probably turned the image to mush, Alkama and Nusan came up with the idea of skipping a step and rigging up a version of Bonzo that ran on the coder's computer, but instead of streaming video, it sent the shader down to another instance of Bonzo, running on Diffty's computer, who then captured that instance and streamed it to the main Revision streaming hub. This, of course, meant that in a three-way, Diffty had to run three separate instances of Bonzo - but it worked fine with GLSL earlier, so why worry?
What we didn't necessarily realize at the time, is that the DirectX 11 shader compiler takes no hostages, and as soon as the shader reached un-unrollable level of complexity, it thoroughly locked down Diffty's machine, to the point that even the video of the DJ set he was playing started to drop out. I, on the other hand, didn't notice any of this, since my single local instance was doing fine, so I spent the first 15 minutes casually nuking Diffty's PC to shreds remotely, until I noticed Diffty and Havoc pleading on Discord to switch to GLSL because I'm setting things on fire unknowingly.
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This is fine.
I was reluctant to do so, simply because of the muscle memory, but I was also aware that I should keep the show going if I can because if I bow out without a result, that would be a colossal embarrassment to everyone involved, and I only can take one of those once every week, and I was already above my quota - so, I quickly closed the DX11 version of Bonzo, loaded the shader up in a text editor, replaced "floatX" with "vecX" (fun drinking game: take a shot every time I messed it up during the live event), commented the whole thing out, loaded it into a GLSL bonzo, and quickly fixed all the other syntax differences (of which there were luckily not many, stuff like "mix" instead of "lerp", constructors, etc.), and within a few minutes I was back up and running.
This, weirdly, helped my morale a bit, because it was the kind of clutch move that for some reason appealed to me, and made me quite happy - although at that point I locked in so bad that not only did I pay absolutely not attention to the stream to see what the other two are doing, but that the drinks and snacks I prepared for the hour of battling went completely untouched.
In the end, when the hour clocked off, the shader itself turned out more or less how I wanted it, it worked really well with Bullet's techno-/psy-/hardtrance mix (not necessarily my jam, as everyone knows I'm more a broken beat guy, but pounding monotony can go well with coding focus), and I came away satisfied, although the perhaps saddest point of the adventure was yet to come: the lack of cathartic real-life ending that was taken from us due to the physical distance, when after all the excitement, all the cheers and hugs were merely lines of text on a screen - but you gotta deal with what you gotta deal with.
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A small sampling of the Twitch reaction.
Conclusion
In the end, what was my takeaway from the experience?
First off, scoping is everything: Always aim to get an idea where you can maximize the outcome of the time invested with the highest amount of confidence of pulling it off. In this case, even though I was on short notice and in an environment I was unfamiliar with, I relied on something I knew, something I've done before, but no one else really has.
Secondly, broaden your influence: You never know when you can take something that seems initially unrelated, and bend it into something that you're doing with good results.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, step out of your comfort zone every so often; you'll never know what you'll find.
(And don't agree to everything willy-nilly, you absolute moron.)
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“actually... I just miss you” with Draco pls ?? 💕💕💕
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A/N: Hey guys! I’ve been reblogging prompt lists the past couple of days in the hopes someone would request something for Harry Potter and guess it paid off. Was very excited to see this prompt in my inbox this morning and I’ve been planning it out all day. I’m trying to get out of my HP funk and write all the other million requests in my inbox but until then, here’s this. As usual, your House isn’t stated, so just whatever is your actual House. 
Prompt (from this prompt list): “Actually… I just miss you.”
Word Count: 1,541
We’re Ok
Your POV
Your 5th year at Hogwarts had been a whirlwind. From the arrival of Dolores Umbridge to the formation of the DA to studying for your O.W.L.s to Dumbledore leaving Hogwarts, you felt like you couldn’t catch a break. Time never seemed to stop or slowed down and you found yourself realizing you hadn’t eaten a meal in days or spoken to your boyfriend, Draco Malfoy, in a week. Which is the situation you currently found yourself in. You had spent the last two weeks living in the library as you had a huge Charms revision exam coming up, one that was meant to prepare you for your O.W.L. test. You and Hermione studied day and night, determined to do well. However, it wasn’t as if your boyfriend had been doing much better. Although he wasn’t studying as nearly as much as you had, he was still studying and in between that, he was running around attending to Umbridge’s every wicked need. Merlin, you hated that wretched woman. Part of the reason you joined the DA was to fight back against her. You had sworn your secrecy to the trio and they were happy to have you. For months you had hidden it from Draco, causing arguments and your boyfriend to doubt your faithfulness to the relationship, which was absolute ludicrous. When the DA got busted, things reached a boiling point and you had a screaming match that left your throats raw and your relationship on the brink of no return. The two of you had spent the last month or so barely spending enough time together to still be considered dating. Sure, you were still upset that you were going to take a side, the right side, in the war that was quickly coming and you were upset that he accused you of cheating but above all, you missed him. Walking away from your fight hurt like hell and the thought of losing him was even worse. Which is how you found yourself staring at the contents of one of your books, but not absorbing any of the information on the page in front of you. Your mind was too busy whirling with the recent escapees from Azkaban and the dynamic change in your relationship with Malfoy. Next to you, Ginny, Fred, George, Harry, Neville, Ron, and Hermione sat around laughing at some snarky comment Ginny had made. It was lunchtime on a Saturday and instead of actually eating and enjoying time with your newfound friends, your mind was wandering. Seamus and Dean sat across from you, trying to coax you out of your daze. Eventually, you handed them the book and reached for some food. A break wouldn’t hurt, especially since you weren’t achieving any actual studying. As you begin to eat, someone sat down across from you, causing you to look up. Draco. He looked mildly uncomfortable and the entire group shifted away from him. “What?” You mumbled, a mouth full of food. 
“Charming.” One of the twins stated, smirking. You lobbed a carrot at his head and he ducked, just barely missing. 
“What do you want?” turning your attention back to your boyfriend. Your words came out harsher then you had intended them to and you couldn’t miss the way he flinched. 
“Nothing, I just… just wanted to ask you if you wanted to come with me to Hogsmeade next weekend. It’s been a long time since we’ve really spent time together.” He asked, offering you a small smile. As tempting as the offer was, you shook your head. There was studying to be done. All fun could wait until after your O.W.L.s. At least that’s what you told yourself as you saw the way Draco deflated. “Are you sure you’re really studying? Because I mean-”
“Yes, I’m really studying. Unlike you, I actually have to work for my success. It’s not all just handed to me on a silver platter from Mummy and Daddy remember?” You snarked and the twins raised their eyebrows at your response. “Anyways, me and Hermione are studying next weekend, right Mione?” You asked. She nodded and opened her mouth, probably to give confirmation but instead noticed the way Ron was still shoveling food into his mouth and gave him a disgusted look.
“Ron, do you ever stop eating like some sort of… pig?!” You sighed as the entire table erupted into laughter. 
“Whatever.” Draco muttered as he stormed off. You sighed and put your fork down, rubbing your eyes. Hermione offered you a sympathetic smile. You shook your head and grabbed your book. 
“Where are you going?” Harry asked as you stood up from the table. 
“‘M not hungry anymore.” 
-
A few days later, you sat in the library, yawning. Classes were over for the day but you were stuck revising for Ancient Runes when all you really wanted was a nap. Hermione had ditched you for the day, instead choosing to hang out with her friends in their Common Room. You were moments away from calling it quits and crashing right there on the table when you spotted your boyfriend looking for you. You closed your book as he sat down next to you. He immediately leaned in next to you and you wrapped your arms around him. You ran your fingers through his hair as you closed your eyes. Despite all your anger, you truly had missed this, missed him. “Everything alright love?” You asked. He shrugged, not responding. You sat there for a few more minutes before you decided that you really needed to get up and take a nap, otherwise, you’d fall asleep with your boyfriend cuddling you right there in the library. Then Madam Pince would have your head and you did not want that. You pulled away and begin to pack up your things. “Alright, as much as I’d like to continue this, I need a nap.” You said as you yet again yawned, further proof you really needed some sleep. Draco seemed to deflate a little more and he nodded solemnly. You stood there in silence for a few moments and then sighed. “You can come with me if you want.” You offered, and he looked up at you. For a moment you thought he was going to tell you no and you waited with bated breath. But then he nodded and he took your outstretched hand. You didn’t talk much on the way back to your dorm but it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. As soon as you got to your dorm, you crashed on to the bed, dropping the books right next to you on the floor. Draco was more hesitant to follow but eventually crawled into the bed next to you. You curled right into him and he carded his fingers through your hair. You began to doze at the feeling and soon you were asleep. 
-
You blinked your eyes as you came back into consciousness. You realized it was somewhat darker in your room than when you had fallen asleep and meant to roll over, but couldn’t due to Draco’s arms still wrapped around you. He seemed to be lost in his train of thought and he looked mildly upset. You shook your head, telling yourself it was just because you were still tired. “What time is it?” You asked, successfully shaking Draco from his thoughts. He looked down at you. 
“You’re awake.” He smiled softly. You yawned yet again and nodded. 
“Yeah, I haven’t been sleeping much lately.” To be completely honest, when you weren’t staying up until the wee hours of the morning studying, your mind was plagued by this situation with Draco. It was at that moment you realized that this was the closest you and Draco had been in months. “Studying and all.” He nodded, his gazing moving to stare off into space again. His fingers continued to run through your hair and with his other hand, he drew small circles on your knuckles with his thumb. “So, uh, hey, I have a question for you.” You asked hesitantly, pulling his attention back to towards you. He nodded, signaling you to continue. “Is everything ok? You just seemed upset earlier in the library today.” And you haven’t sought me out for support in months. He shrugged and cleared his throat. 
“Actually… I just miss you.” He said softly.
“I’ve missed you too.” You stated, looking up at him. 
“I’m sorry. So sorry for the stupid fight. I’m sorry I accused you of cheating on me, which I know, is absolutely ridiculous, and I am sorry for not understanding where you were coming from but I just got so scared and I didn’t want to lose you. I know that’s no excuse but-” 
“Hey, hey, I was at fault too ok? I put in you in a comprising position and I know we’re both just terrified of this war that’s coming, no matter what side we choose. I am sorry too. But we’re ok, and that’s all that matters.” 
“We’re ok?” He asked, his eyes searching yours for the confirmation that you were indeed ok, that you weren’t going anywhere, that he wasn’t going to lose you. You nodded. 
“We’re ok.”
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justlikebroth · 4 years
Text
@soapoperaprompts Secret Santa gift to @sweetotismilburn
Richie Tozier x Reader
You weren't sure why Kelly hadn't told you Richie was her cousin until he'd already been on campus for most of the semester.
"I just sorta...forgot."
You didn't know how she could ever forget Richie, with the Hawaiian print T-shirts in every color that entered the room before he did, with his fidgeting, with his always saying the wrong thing at the wrong time, or the right thing after everyone had moved on.
You could understand why she didn't notice the way his shirts rode up just enough to see his belly, or the biceps he tried to hide under layers of baggy clothes, or his shaggy brown curls you were pretty sure he trimmed himself, or how sometimes he'd take off his glasses and rub his eyes like he was making sure they were still there, or the way he loved to dance at the few parties you'd run into him at, but was too scared to let anyone see.
You knew no one else saw him the way you did, and you hoped no one ever would.
"Oh God, you don't like him, do you? He's so weird, y/n. He used to be...I remember when he..."
Kelly went back to her burger, train of thought back in the station. You noticed Kelly never seemed to remember anything about him, even though she said they'd known each other all their lives.
No wonder Richie seemed so lonely.
You didn't realize just how lonely until the day you take a shortcut to the library and see him curled up on one of the old, rotting benches, the ones people only bothered with if they wanted to make out (or light up). You could hear his loud sniffles, see his thick glasses on the concrete, near his well-worn sneakers.
When he jumps at the sight of you, you can't help saying sorry, or feeling like you were the one who'd made him cry.
"Don't - it's not your fault, y/n."
You try not to smile at him knowing your name.
"I'm just so fucking pissed off the pink Power Ranger left. No, really - she kicks ass. Won't be the same without her."
You laugh, but you know it sounds forced and you know he knows too. Fortunately that makes him let down his guard a little, and he stands up, taking the tissue you offer from your purse.
"I know I'm not funny, but thanks anyway."
You both lean over at the same time to get his glasses, and just narrowly avoid crashing heads.
He laughs like somebody pushed a button in him, sudden and sharp and shaking. The movements make you laugh too, the most you've laughed in a long time.
You realize then that his glasses are in your hand, and you're holding them like some type of relic. You try not to react when Richie brushes his fingers against yours to gently take them back.
"Can't see shit without these," he mutters, before he looks at you.
"Wow," is all he manages, but it's all you need to hear. You can't remember anyone looking at you the way he does, with so much wonder, with his eyes bright for the first time you can remember.
You can feel the blush creep down your body, just as Richie's awe turns to some fear or shame.
"Thanks," is all he manages before he runs off, leaving you feeling even more confused, and a little humiliated, than you already were.
0
"Toldja he's a weirdo," Kelly manages in-between her attempts at revising.
You haven't spoken to her in a few days (she's always too busy to notice, even though she's your roommate), because you don't want to hear how much Richie sucks. It's not like he did anything wrong. It's not like he owes you anything. It's not like you ever had a cha -
You stop your self-defeating monologue long enough to go get a candy bar - your guilty pleasure - from the vending machine. After the ritual of coins, hoping the sweet life-giving chocolate doesn't get stuck somewhere in the gears, and the satisfying thudding sound of Snickers against metal hatch, you reach inside.
You pull out not just the bar, but also a note, with messy handwriting, starting and stopping in different sizes and pen colors.
"I hope I didn't scare you off, y/n. I'll be at Crappa Crappa Crappa's booze bash tonight - want to talk. If you don't, I'll leave you alone, promise. Thanks for giving me back my glasses. If you aren't y/n and you're reading this...give this to her or I'll slash your tires. Bye."
You stare at the note for a moment, almost not believing it's real, Only the slight paper cut sting in your palm reminds you that it is.
0
When you get to the party that night, you see all the frat guys and hanger-ons you usually avoid, managing to avoid wandering hands and failed pick-up lines in your search for the only reason you'd ever go to one of these things.
No Richie to be found.
He probably chickened out. You can't be surprised. You can't be upset. OK, you can be upset, but you mostly just want to zone out in front of the TV all night and then hide out in your room for the next 3 years.
Before you go, you see Kelly, talking with the two football team brothers you can never tell apart. She gestures toward one of the bedrooms.
You feel something inside you click off. Is that why Richie wanted to see you? A hookup? You can't think that's true - you barely know him, but something tells you he wouldn't just want you for a few hours and then never see you again.
You almost make an excuse to leave, but then you realize you don't have anyone to make an excuse to, and you don't have a reason to need an excuse. If Richie just wants a roll in the hay, then he'll have to say it to you himself.
You pause for an agonizing moment at the half-closed door, not wanting to let your fantasy go - the relationship and the man you only just started to see being in your life.
When you finally do go inside, the only light is from the hallway. You can make out Richie's battered right sneaker dangling over the edge of the bed, his head buried between two pillows.
With panic of him smothering, you rush forward...tripping over your feet and falling beside him on the bed with an embarrassingly loud thump.
He groans and starts to sit up, hair flying in a million directions. bleary eyes blinking furiously behind his sweat-fogged glasses. He does a double take when he sees you.
"I'm not that easy, y/n."
You've never been so glad for dim lighting, hiding the humilitation. You just laugh, and lightly hit his arm. He puts his hand over yours, gently, giving you the chance to pull away if you want. You don't.
You can hear the nervousness in his voice, even if you can't see it on his face.
"I didn't...the fucking meatheads and their beer pong and looking like they were five minutes away from shoving my head in the toilet - I wanted to hide out 'til you got here. Then I fell asleep."
As he pauses, you feel your bodies move closer, can hear the heartbeat of his chest.
"Usually I dream about...bad things...things I don't remember, but they still sit on my chest all day, waiting for me..."
You run your hand, tentatively, through his sweaty curls, feeling his breath against your neck.
"Tonight, I dreamed about...about kissing you. And I woke up feeling good. Damn good. For the first time I can remember."
You just stare at each other then, breathing, seeing each other fully in a way beyond basic sight. You lick your lips, waiting, hoping, not wanting to push.
When he kisses you, the softness of his lips and the tenderness in his hesitation make you swoon like one of the heroines in the paperback romance your mother keeps hidden in her nightstand. You let the gentleness linger for a precious moment before you open your mouth, deepening the kiss. It's new, and just the start, but it's already better than you ever expected.
If he tried to take it further, you aren't entirely sure how you'd react, but you're glad when he pulls back, pressing his lips against your forehead and letting his heavy eyes shut.
"Don't....don't forget me, y/n," he says, voice choked with tears, before he goes back to sleep.
You lay your head on his chest, drifting into your own sleep, knowing that there's no way you ever could.
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bigskydreaming · 4 years
Text
@princeescaluswords tagged me in a fanfic ask meme, and I’m loling at how few of the questions I can actually answer, because I swear I’ve literally forgotten more fandoms than most people will ever have. And I’ve probably written a good couple million words of fanfic all in total....
I know with just my first fandom alone, Roswell, I was in that one writing regularly for about three years and wrote and published probably a million words between the six or so ‘big fics’ I wrote......21 Down topped out at just over 200K, my Paradise Lost trilogy was probably a little longer as I think Genesis and Exodus were both around 80K and Revelations was probably closer to 100K. Riders of the Storm was around 120K.....Passage to Dawn I never actually finished because I scrapped it halfway through and started over.....and my revised version left off at around 50K I think, but the previous version before that had gotten up to 100K......and then I honestly can’t remember the names of my other two big fics at the moment, lmfao, I just know I had one more that was an amnesia trope fic and one that was....oh! Never mind, just remembered. The Long Dark Night of the Soul was one of my shorter ones, probably somewhere between 60-80K.
But yeah, that was just my first fandom alone......but fandom was a little different then, like in the sense that nobody was really writing posts about meta or episode or character analysis......Roswell fandom existed almost entirely on various messageboards and linked sites created by the community. It was years before Ao3 of course, and while ff.net was around, Roswell was one of those fandoms that just never congregated around it......people posting Roswell fics on ff.net were the outliers, the majority of fandom was centered around sites like roswellfanatics.net, crashdown.com and my personal site/board of choice to hang out and post at, polarattraction.com. I’m pretty sure all of those sites have been defunct for years, and I wish I’d done a better job of saving some of my own fics at least, lol. But point is, the fandom was geared just towards the writing and consumption of fanfic more than anything else......so if you were writing something, it was either a fic itself, or a comment on somebody else’s fic, lol. 
Anyway, was just reviewing my various past fandoms, the ones I could remember, and thought of Dark Angel fandom, which I haven’t thought of in forever. Which is kinda funny to me, actually, considering my focus in DA fandom was pretty much exactly my focus in Batfandom - the found family feels.
LOL. Like, I was never one of the better known writers in DA fandom given that my focus was not really the same as most of fandom’s. DA fandom was largely split into two camps locked in eternal ship war - Logan/Max and Alec/Max. I had by this time ‘evolved’ to the point of looking at this and just snobbishly intoning “I do not care for the Straightness of this all and thus I choose to Abstain from the conflict” so there was that at least.....but yeah, thing was, personally, I was in Dark Angel fandom for the found family feels. Max’s eternal search for her siblings she’d been raised with but lost track of when they escaped from Manticore as children.....like that was the good stuff, that was what drew me in and kept me under lock and key until I’d banged out a good couple years’ worth of constant fic writing about her and her siblings before I moved on.
But while Max’s search for her siblings was the catalyst and central plot of the first season of Dark Angel, fandom pretty much only ever took off with the introduction of Alec in the second season, when it became an either/or choice between Alec and Logan. And with most of the second season moving away from Max’s search for her family to focus more on the larger big-picture plots, combined with the fact that most of Max’s siblings never actually made an appearance onscreen.....understandably, they didn’t end up occupying too much of a role in most of fandoms’ fics or interests.
Anyway, like I said, I churned out a shit ton of DA fanfic in a pretty short period of time....my single most popular fic was probably one about transgenics racing to find a cure when they realize they’d been genetically engineered to all ‘expire’ by a certain age, since their creators had no use for genetically engineered super-soldiers past the prime of their lives.
But my personal fave bits of writing, and the series I reeeeeeally regret not saving and wish I could find again, like, there was this one series of one-shots (ranging from a couple thousand words long to some that were about 20-30K long) written about each of Max’s siblings.....all fifteen of them, lol. Jondy’s was the first one I wrote, and one of the first things I wrote in that fandom, and then I just added new stories to that particular series up until Jack’s, the very last one a couple years later....which I THINK was the last thing I ever wrote/posted in that fandom.
And since we only ever met about half of these characters on the show, and most of them only for an episode each, for the most part they were blank slates and the equivalent of writing OCs......and so I’ll always have a soft spot for my time in DA fandom solely because of how many people told me my version of Max’s various siblings was like, the definitive version for them and what they based their own fics or takes on her siblings on. Swoon. Like, that’s my favorite kind of compliment, especially in fanfic writing.
So that series was my Big Thing even if it wasn’t my most popular or well-known fic, and the various stories in it were weird and whimsical and largely experimental. Because part of the point of fic writing for me instead of writing original fic is its like....fanfic is often the place where I just get weird with my writing and try new things even just stylistically. See what works and what doesn’t, etc.
Anyway, kinda curious if there’s anyone out there who was in Dark Angel fandom at all to any degree, or if any of these sound familiar or if anyone remembers reading them.
Like, so Jondy was Max’s sister who we never met in canon but Max talked about often as being her favorite sibling, and her story in this series was called “Little Lightning Girl.” In it she was a stripper slash vigilante, who used her job to take note of predatory guys who then she preemptively scared away from her coworkers or ran totally out of town. I forget how it went exactly, but that one was written as though it was all her stream of consciousness, and she had to my mind a kind of chaotic, whimsical sort of nature, so there was something in there like: 
“Call me little lightning girl, for I’ve lightning in my veins. My hair is always frizzy, my steps all flicker-shimmy-shake. But when I strike, boom, clap, I’m thunder in reverse - by the time you hear the rumble, its already too late. That was you hitting the ground. Don’t hurry getting up. I can wait.”
And then Zane’s story was called “Zen and the Art of Not Breaking Your Customer’s Fucking Face (remember, its bad for business).”
Brin’s was “I Wasn’t Born Yesterday (but yesterday, I remember being very small).”
Zack’s was “Rules For When The Sky Is Falling (and this time it isn’t your fault).”
Syl’s was “The Kind of Girl You Bring Home to Meet Your Parents (when you’ve got the kind of parents that need killing).”
Ben’s was “They keep telling me I’m crazy (I say its the world that’s gone mad).”
Tinga’s was “A Storybook Kind of Princess (with a Grimm kind of happily ever after)” and Krit’s was “The Good Die Young, So Boy, You Better Be Bad.”
Kavi’s was “I Never Learned How To Play Ball (striking out comes naturally).”
Vada’s was “Chase Me To The Desert and Watch Me Live, I Bet I’ll Thrive (you better believe I was born to survive).”
And then Seth’s was “All Her Brothers’ Keeper (you keep your secrets and I’ll keep the watch).”
And though technically not escapees with the rest of them, I am anal and a completionist, so of course I had to write ones for Eva, Jack and Jace too. 
Eva’s was “Big Sisters Know Best (so when I say I’ll die for you, just say thank you and live).” 
Jace’s was “Leopards Never Change Their Spots (but why worry about my 5% leopard when I’m 10% shark). 
And Jack’s was “Shelter The Innocent (but don’t look at the boy without shelter and say that boy, he’s no good).”
Anyway, been randomly thinking about those today now. Well, not randomly since I can follow the train of thought that led me to thinking about them, but you know what I mean. Its just kinda funny to me that I do remember those particular stories so well when there’s entire other fandoms I can barely remember writing in at all. And DA fandom wasn’t even one I was in all that long, ever knew too many other people in, or like....idk. I definitely, definitely have written much more well read and frequently commented upon stories than that fairly random little series of almost-OCs, but for some reason it stuck around in my head a lot longer and a lot more clearly than a ton of other stuff.
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ticklikeabomb · 5 years
Text
Birth in Reverse  - Part 5
Pairing : Avengers x Plus Size Reader 
Warnings : Language
Word Count : 2.7k
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It’s been three weeks. Three long weeks trying to find more information about your true self. Three weeks trying to balance your thoughts with Nadia’s. Her constant teasing wasn’t helpful. For the most part you’ve been staying in your now official room, revising for your finals who got rescheduled for later due to the explosion. 'Why are you still torturing yourself with these stupid exams?', would Nadia ask. "Because I didn't spend three years busting my ass off for nothing", you would reply out load. 'You're in denial and wasting our time.' You sighed heavily, "Just back off will ya. I'm not giving up on this. This is me, this is my life." 'The sooner you'll realize that it's not the better it will be.' You shook your head and focused back on your syllabus. You stayed days plunged on them, only making occasionally food breaks.
Today was your first exam. You took a shower, put on some jeans and t-shirt before heading out. "Where are you going?", asked Steve when seeing you marching to the elevators. "College", you simply stated and waited for the elevator to arrive. "I don't think it's a good idea. Hydra is after you." You turned around and faced him, not expecting him to be so near in front of you. You took a step back and let out a small breath. "Look I'm done hiding and I'm done being told what I should or shouldn't do. Apparently I've been told how to live and act my entire life, that shit is over." You saw his jaw clench before exclaiming more quietly, "I'm not telling you this to bother you, I just want to protect you Y/N." You stepped closer and without thinking took his hand in yours. "And I appreciate it, I really do but I gotta do this." He eventually nodded and let you go.
You arrived at the compound's garage and saw Bucky, Sam, Thor and Clint working on a bike. "Look who finally came out of her castle", joked Clint. "To what do we owe you this surprise visit, Lady Y/N?", asked Thor with a bright smile. You chuckled and replied, "I'm not staying, have somewhere to be." Bucky frowned and asked where to. "First exam", you simply stated. "I'm coming with you", he exclaimed and proceeded cleaning his hands. "No it's ok." He chuckled and grabbed his jacket, "It's cute that you think you have a saying in this", he replied with a small smile but his firm gaze told you'd have no choice. "Can I join?", added Thor. "It's gonna be a long wait if you come", you tried to dissuade them. They weren't having it and pretexted they would surveil the area. "Fine", you sighed not in the mood to start a fight.
You soon arrived at the gym center, where the exam would take place. Everyone eyeing you up and down while gossiping. "That's the freak who saw it explode", you heard someone mumble to their friend when you passed by. With your hands clenched in fists, you continued your way trying to let the comment slide, more urgent matters to think of. Some were eyeing Thor and Bucky, occasionally asking them for a picture, which they complied. Thor, mostly, with his signature smile while Bucky was more reticent. "Look who's back", commented David, one of your classmates. "Wouldn't think you would still come", he finished, his gaze fixed on you and the two men next to you. "You thought wrong", you replied. "If I had two guard dogs escorting me, I wouldn't even consider in passing the exams, the good life right at the corner. Right?", he counterattacked. Your blood turned cold by his words and stepped closer. "I would choose your next words very carefully. If I hear you talk about them like that ever again, you'll regret it." He chuckled and said, "What are you gonna do, hein?" With a deep voice, feeling Nadia's influence, you threatened, "You have no idea what I'm capable of." You saw his Adam's Appel bop up and down before stepping back. "Wise choice", you commented and saw him walk away. You turned behind and saw the two Avengers smirking. "What?", you asked. "Oh nothing much but I have to say that seeing you threatening that poor Midgardian was really entertaining ", stated Thor. "And hot", added Bucky. You shook your head with a small smile crossing your features before making your way inside the gym.
You registered for the exam and saw your Mr Anderson, your history teacher. You wanted to ask him if he was feeling better since the explosion but when his eyes locked with yours, he turned his head seeking for something better to focus on. "Wow, I see", you thought. You grabbed your things and sat down, waiting for the copies to be distributed. Bucky and Thor took place next the teachers and surveillants. "Great, how am I suppose to focus now", the girl seated next to you mumbled under her breath, her gaze focused on the two Avengers. You bit the inside of your cheek to prevent you from laughing. You saw Bucky smile and his eyes travelling from the girl to you before winking at you. You turned your head again towards her and saw her judgmental eyes travelling you up and down. "Take a picture it will last forever", you snarked at her. The exam sheets were distributed and you dug right into it.
In the meantime, Bucky and Thor surveyed the room carefully. Bucky felt the God of Thunder lean on his side and whispered in his ear, "The guy from outside keeps looking at you." Bucky searched the room until his eyes locked with David's intense gaze. Bucky's eyes kept digging holes into him but the student didn't seem phased. At the contrary, he was enjoying the staring battle. Bucky took his shiny knife and dropped it rather violently on the table making everyone in the room jump. "Sorry", he exclaimed. The teachers and the Dean looked at him with wide eyes but decided to not interfere with the soldier. David chuckled at his gesture rather loudly and everyone turned towards him, annoyed for his disturbance. One of the surveillants stood up in order to see what was so funny in David's direction, to see if he was cheating. Bucky quickly stood up as well and slowly exchanged some words with the surveillant in question to which they nodded. You saw Bucky march towards David's desk, a dark gaze plastered on his face and reached the student. "What's so funny?", he asked him with a low voice. "Some things are a true joke in life and one of them happens to be you", replied David with a cocky grin. Unfortunately for David, you heard what he said to Bucky. You quickly wrote your final answer on the paper and stood up, dropping the paper in front of Mr Anderson rather harshly. "A small thank you would had been enough", you whispered at him. He immediately knew you were talking about how you saved him and how his response was turning his back on you as soon as you entered the place.
You then looked at Thor and he stood up. You saw Bucky still standing in front of David's desk but his attitude changed: tensed shoulders, heavy panting and his even darker look. Your felt him tense even more when he felt your hand on his shoulder and you frowned. "Oh Y/N, I was just telling your little friend here what a crazy night we spend together 2 years ago." Your jaw clenched and you saw red. You leaned further and whispered, "You're a dead man", to which he laughed out loud. "We'll see Soldat." His word triggered something in you and Bucky. At that moment you both knew he was part of Hydra. You grabbed the pencil on his desk and in a swift movement planted it in his hand, making him let out a pained scream. His eyes filled with hatred. "I will end you both", he mumbled before teleporting himself elsewhere.
The way back to the compound was filled with silence and tension. Every single time you tried to make eye contact with Bucky, he would look elsewhere, his features hard. As soon as we arrived, he walked away not even sparing you a look or word and made his way to his room. "I just got a call from the Dean of your faculty. Now two things : either they are fast and already corrected your paper and you're a genius OR shit happened. What is it gonna be?", asked Tony as soon you entered the common room. You rolled your eyes while Thor mimed the number two to the rest of the team. "The latter I guess", noted Tony rather annoyed. "It wasn't my fault ok. He was Hydra", you defended yourself. You were expecting a sneaky remark from Steve like 'I told you so' but were surprised that he just looked at you with a disappointed look. To be honest you would rather him telling you than receiving that look from him. "Why did Bucky storm out like that to his room?", asked Natasha. "You know what, why don't you ask him? As it seems he's not really in the mood to talk to me anyway", you replied and made your way to your own room. You plunged on the bed and let out a frustrated scream through your pillow. "Miss Y/N, I found some things regarding your past", commented F.R.I.D.A.Y.  "Great", you mumbled under your breath while rubbing your temple. "Do you want me to call everyone to the conference room?" "No, just tell me."
"Y/N Y/L/N and Nadia Y/L/N, daughters of Bryan Y/L/N and Laura P. Y/L/N.", she said before taking a pause. "Ok F.R.I.D.A.Y but I already knew that." "It's not all Miss. The P in your mother's name stands for Potts. As it seems, she was born from an affair between her mother and Richard Potts, who was at the time married to Helena Potts and father of Virginia Potts, more known as Pepper", the voice finished. "This is a joke right?", you commented. "I'm afraid not Miss." You stood up from the bed and began pacing around your room, your hands in your hair. "You're telling me, that I'm - we're Pepper Potts's nieces?", you exclaimed at the verge of loosing your shit. "Since your mother Laura and Pepper had the same father, yes Miss."
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 "Well fuck me", you commented. "It is not part of my functions Miss but I can summon Sergeant Barnes or Thor Odinson since your sexual pheromones increase at their presence", noted F.R.I.D.A.Y. "WHAT?? NO!!", you exclaimed shocked at the AI. Internally you heard Nadia laugh her ass off while you shock your head frantically. "Like shit wasn't complicated enough and now we're Pepper's nieces", you said out loud. 'It could be worse', commented Nadia in your head. "How so?", you asked intrigued and annoyed. 'Well we could be related to Mister Righteous', she said. You nodded at that. "Yeah but he seamed to have calmed down", you commented. "And by the way I'm not attracted to Thor", you added. 'Hey hands off of my man Bitch', mumbled Nadia. "Really Nadia? Thor? I would have never guessed you would fall for him, you're so-" , 'So what?', she counterattacked. "So wild next to him."  'Well fuck you. Maybe some sweetness is what I need in my fucked up wildness', she said and realized at her comment her deeper feelings. There was a long silence before you replied, "I'm sorry." 'For what?', she asked. "For everything. Not being there when you needed me the most, for not protecting you as I should have, for forgetting everything that happened." She didn't responded for a while before she finally mumbled in the dark 'It won't be easy but eventually we will get there Sis'.
______
The Dean and the Department decided that it was best that you didn't show up at the exams. They still let you pass them at the compound but under a severe surveillance. Who better to surveil you and make sure you would not cheat : The one and only Steve Rogers. The first time you saw him sitting at the conference room, you exclaimed "Well I'm not surprised." He told you the instructions with a firm voice, since the tension was still there between you and Bucky, for some reason. Since your first exam, Bucky refused to talk to you, see you or even be in the same room as you. It has been a week and it was getting to everyone. You would spent most of your time with Thor who took every opportunity to be with you, which would leave Nadia ecstatic. You finished the test and exited the room after Steve checked if the paper was correctly sealed in the enveloppe along a copy of the room's footage in which they had the prouve no fraud was committed. You joined the others in the living room and were surprised when Bucky was there but didn't leave. It was your turn to avoid his now intense and permanent gaze on you the way he avoided you for the past week.
The team was chatting when the elevators announced someone's arrival. It was Tony with Pepper and when you saw her, your whole body tensed. You couldn't stop looking at her and she noticed, feeling slightly uncomfortable. Wanda gasped and looked at you, making you detach your eyes from Potts. You stood up and left, Wanda hot on your tracks. "Is it true?", she asked when you arrived at the entrance of your room. You stopped dead in your tracks and bowed your head before turning around, your eyes glossy and nodded at her. She closed the gap and hugged you; the action making you tense even more, not used to affection. You eventually hugged her back and broke down crying, from everything that happened since you crossed path with the Avengers and especially since Bucky turned his back on you. "He's conflicted, it's all", said Wanda and finished "What about a Ladies Night? Me, you, Nadia and Nat?" "Yeah that could work", you whispered while cleaning your tears off. "Alright, let me get everything and we'll be right there", she said with a smile.
She left and the moment you opened your room's door, the voice you missed was heard. "Are you ok?", asked Bucky. "Now you care?", you replied slowly not able to look at him in the face and were about to enter the room. He cupped your arm and turned you towards him. "I always did. I care more than you think", he replied and leaned in, his eyes closing and head resting on yours. He slowly and tentatively closed the gap between both of you until his soft lips brushed against yours in a slow kiss, making your heart stop beating. When you parted from each other, his eyes were reflecting adoration, a small smile on his face. Your eyes and face also illuminated but felt your hand itching. The next thing you know is that you slapped Bucky square in the face and gasped. He looked shocked as well and you cursed. "Shit I'm so sorry, I don't know what happened." 'Bitch really? Letting him kiss you after a whole week of avoiding you. He will not get it that easy', you suddenly heard Nadia. You closed your eyes and whispered her name and Bucky got it. It was also that moment where Wanda and Nat appeared on your floor with treats. "Everything alright?", asked Wanda suspiciously glancing between both of you. "Yes", answered Bucky. You let the girls enter your room before joining them. "We need to talk about this past week Bucky", you told him. "I know and I'm really sorry. I need to explain why I was so distant", he replied. You nodded and said that he had indeed but not tonight. He nodded once again before telling you good night and going to his room.
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blondecarfucker · 5 years
Text
Bed of Roses (Last Chapter - 21)
Roger Taylor x Reader
BoRhap!Roger Taylor x Reader
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Fic Summary: It's 1971. You just moved to London to study, and you find a band on a local pub after a bad date. The encounter doesn’t go the way you expect it, and neither does what follows this evening as you try to deal with loving Roger Taylor.
Fic Note: So I’ve had this story in my head for the last three weeks and finally decided to write it down. It’s completely planned. It will have 21 chapters and it’s divided in three acts: Dusk, Night and Dawn. It’s will be a bit angsty in the future, and it will most likely have some smut as well. I hope you guys enjoy it! Tell me what you think about it in the asks/comments/messages. If this is your first time stumbling upon Bed of Roses, thank you for stopping by! The rest of the story is in my masterlist, the link is in my bio - can't put the link here or else the post will disappear from the tags.
Chapter's notes: THE LAST CHAPTER. I CANT FUCKING BELIEVE. i feel like before i start my thank yous i could give you some weird trivia on the story. i wrote the entire outline for the fic at a weekend shift at work, where i always have free time. i had some smaller ideas - them meeting at a bar and not seeing again, the whole kensingon-taxi-class thing from the beginning - but there was a sudden burst of inspiration and in like twenty minutes the outline was done, and very little has changed, i mostly just added some more details. also, i imagine the reader as alicia silverstone in the 90s?? idk. i just do. also, the reader thing with new york comes from the fact that i lived there for a while and i miss it so much, so thats why theres so much detail about places and stuff - its my form of revisiting my favourite spots there. also, will (REMEMBER WHEN) was written with sebastian stan in mind, and liv tyler (in her lord of the rings days) was poppy. i did too much research for this fic on queen history, and everytime i had to change something (especially in the first act) so the dates made more sense, it KILLED ME.
anyway, now the thank yous: SHIT THIS FIC IS SUCH AN IMPORTANT CHAPTER ON MY LIFE. its my first time writing such a long story without abandoning it, and my first time writing fiction in english, so i learned so much!! i was doing some research the other day, and the great gatsby is like 47k words long, and the first harry potter is around 70k words long - bed of roses is around 60k words long. this is crazy.
it's also my first story to get this many readers interacting with me, and i'm so grateful for you all!! i thought about thanking you all by name, but i dont want anyone to feel left out so i just want every and each one of you reading these words to know: if you read my story, thank you. thank you for giving me your time of the day, thank you for connecting with what i wrote, thank you for telling me in any way possible that you've enjoyed it. thank you. a writer must write, but theres not a lot of joy in talking to an empty room. you filled my small room with warmth and love and there's not enough words to express my gratitude for you all. thank you.
about my writing: i plan on FINALLY DOING THE MANY REQUESTS I HAVE IGNORED OVER THIS FINAL ACT OF BED OF ROSES - requests are still open, too! i'm also outlining a smaller roger x reader fic where she's one of the videographers on the news of the world documentary, so keep an eye out for that! i'm gonna open a permanent taglist for the requests (and eventual new fic), so if you want to be added, hit me up in the ask box/comments/inbox!
anyway i'll finally wrap up this chapter's note cause you have the final chapter to read. enjoy my loves
Words: nearly 4k
Warnings: none??? part of their dialogue is inspired by some of my favourite movies and books like her and the wife and almost famous and before sunrise and the fault in our stars and eternal sunshine of the spotless mind and maybe more I DONT KNOW ITS BEEN AN EMOTIONAL RIDE OK I CANT EVEN REMEMBER WHERE DID I PULL THIS FROM EXACTLY. some errors too cause i didnt revise it completely my bad im crying ok
 ACT 3 - DAWN
"It's the moment night time seems weaker and everything seems easier to figure out"
 Chapter 21
Roger lit a cigarette in the train cabin, and tried to open the top window, the one you can usually pull open.
"Rog, it's not gonna open, you know", you told him as you watched him fiddling with the glass.
"I guess you're right. Hope you won't be bothered by the smoke", he said, taking a puff.
"I won't if you share it with me", you answered, and with a half smile on his lips, Roger lifted the cigarette to your lips, and you breathed in the smoke while looking at him through your lashes.
"Don't look at me like that. Especially if the cigarette smoke is going to leave the cabin sultry and hot", he told you, and you laughed.
"Yeah, and we won't do anything about it", you said, trying to make yourself more comfortable in your seat.
"And why is that?", he asked, batting his lashes innocently at you, you you lightly elbowed his ribs.
"We need to do something else, something we've been ignoring the whole trip", you said, and he raised his brow. "We need to talk about us", you told him, and he breathed out, smoke coming out of his nose.
"I guess you're right again", he said, then slid a bit down on his seat.
You didn't think much about talking about your future with Roger while in Paris, so now has to be the time, on a train that will take you to London and to a whole month of Roger being away, promoting News Of The World.
While in Paris, you never talked to Roger about the future, and talks of the past where subtle - you talked about how you felt with the development Doctor Who took over the years, but didn't think much about the fact that you were separate during years of the show.
You enjoyed the city, but most of all, you enjoyed each other's presence, not only going to museums, churches and castles around you, following them up with fancy dinners and walks along the Seine, but you also spent time inside the room, in your pajamas, ordering take out from restaurants you found on the phone book, having a hard time trying to speak french as Roger tickled the sole of your feet and kept trying to distract you.
You would always remember the peace you felt as you ate cheap chinese food on Roger's shirt on the balcony at night, the Eiffel Tower shining over your meal and Roger's electric blue eyes as he hummed early David Bowie's songs under his breath, or how at home you felt sitting on the couch, Roger on the floor with his head on your lap, his soft strands on your fingers as you tried to braid them while watching re-runs of I Dream of Jenie, Roger focused, trying to understand the french dubbing until he noticed what you were doing.
"Babe, are you trying to braid my hair? Think I'd look better if I'd look more girly?", he said, moving his head back so he can look at you.
"Yeah. Always thought so, but I'll have to keep imagining, since your hair is too short to braid", you pouted, and he laughed.
"Don't you like my new hair, then?", he asked, pouting back, and you moved your head to his level so you could press a quick kiss to his lips.
"I love it, Rog. Especially cause since it's shorter, it looks even messier after I pull it", you said, and he smirked. "My favourite look of yours is when you're all dishevelled after sex", you winked, teasing him.
"That's my favourite, too", he said, turning completely around and pulling you in for a kiss, his hand on the back of your neck.
But now, while in the smoke filled train cabin, you needed to make a few things clear.
"I've been avoiding this for a reason", he said, looking out the window, and you raised your brow, waiting for him to explain. "I have this weird, innate fear of you telling me it's all good but you don't want to see me again, or something", he said, and you gave him a half smile.
"I don't want to do this, Rog. And I won't do it", you told him, and he sighed in relief.
"Even though loving you is a bit complicated, I'll admit. Especially if you're me", you shrugged, and he turned to you, confused.
"Let me explain. I loved your idea for a bed of roses, a few days ago, cause it can exemplify our relationship so well. The roses feel so good against the skin, the smell is so intoxicating, it looks so beautiful - maybe too beautiful, ethereal, even. But then there's always a few thorns here and there, and they hurt so much when they lodge themselves on my skin, but I'm so intoxicated by the whole experience that I don't mind - I convince myself that it's nothing, and even that it's already part of me already, cause the thorns fit so perfectly on me, on my little stabs made by myself, by my own insecurities", you say, and he stares at you.
"What I'm trying to say is that every minute that I'm with you always distract me from the issues that come with being with you - the fact that there's a few expectations that come with being your serious girlfriend, be them always travelling with you while we're young, or eventually staying home once we have kids, knowing that you'll eventually cheat on me with a younger version of myself, while I'm too tired of taking care of the babies to even think about my sexual needs", you said, and you watched him frown.
"I'm not sure where you're going with this-", he started saying, but you cut him off.
"Let me finish, I promise it will get better", you said, fixing your posture as you start again. "But the thing is, I love you. I always have, ever since I started talking to you, you always trying to outflirt me, always seeing me as your equal. You desire me, but you also listen and see me as another human being, you never back down or ignore me if I challenge one of your beliefs, and you never treat me as a trophy-wife-to-be", you say, and you can feel your eyes fill with tears, but you're smiling. That's what you always loved about Roger. He smiled back at you.
"And because I love you, I don't want to deny myself the pleasure of being with you. I'd rather be in a bed of roses than in an empty bed - or worse, a blank bed, someone being there just so it's less cold at night. I want to be with you, Rog", you say, and he pulls you in for a hug, and you hold him back for a few moments before pulling away and looking at him in the eye.
"But also because I love you and I want to be with you, Rog, I don't want us to try to fit into this type of relationship I just mentioned. I don't want you to make me the other woman, either, when you eventually find someone so you can settle down, if it's not me" you said, rubbing your nose. "I guess I want to settle down with you, eventually, as we planned before, but this whole thing - living together and cheating if we're away for too long - it kills me, and I think it kills you, too. I respect you too much to want to cheat on you again, cause if I ever do and you never find out, I'll lose respect for you, and the same thing will happen if you cheat on me and I don't find out. And these are ugly truths, but this isn't our first time together; we know each other, we need to think about this", you told him, and he nodded.
"And I need to make it clear that I'll never be a simple rockstar housewife - I'll never be able to quit my job and look out for the kids while you travel the world and I make them lunch. I'll never be able to sit down on a dinner table on some award show with you and when someone asks me what I'll do, I'll smile as I say I'm a king-maker. I'm not", you said, firmly.
"And I'll never be satisfied with dumb spa and shopping trips as you do the actual work when we travel. If I have to live this life, I'll resent you, and I don't want that. I like being domestic with you, but this type of forced domesticity will poison us again - we're both too wild, too career-focused, for this. We've always been similar", you said, and he gave you a smile as you sighed. "I guess that's all I have to say", you shrugged, and he laughed. "Not much, right?", he said, running his fingers on his hair, pulling the strands back.
"Guess it's my turn now", he said, and you nodded, encouraging him. "When I saw you again, at the pub, there was so much that I wanted to say. I mostly wanted to apologize - it got lost as I got infatuated with you again, and tried to get you in bed - you know, usual stuff", he winked, and you laughed.
"But yeah, I kept looking at you while you updated me on your life, your skin glooming under the stars and the moonlight, and I couldn't stop thinking about all the things I wanted to apologize to you for. All the pain we caused each other. Everything I put on you. Everything I needed you to be or needed you to say. Cause no matter what - even if you had decided on never seeing me again after all this - I'll always love you, because we grew up together. And you helped make me who I am", he said, moving strands of your hair behind your ear.
"I just want you to know that there will always be a piece of you in me, always. Whatever someone you become, wherever you are in the world, however this" he said, pointing his finger to the two of us "works out, in whatever form it might take", he said, sighing "I'll always send you love. Before being anything else to me - and I hope to God you're always something more - you'll always be my friend, to the end", he told you, and the tears were already streaming down your cheeks. His cheeks soon mirrored yours.
"And now, after you so eloquently told me all your fears about our future, I need you to know something else, too", he said, as you wiped the tears under your eyes. "I always loved you for being the way you are. You always challenge me, you always make me work harder, try harder, to be better. And it's not even something you force me to do; I just follow your lead. The way you look was what first got into me, I won't lie, but the way you are is what made me stay. It's what will always make me stay", he said, a genuine smile on his lips. He made you feel warm, like the sun.
"You're the smartest person I know, you're funny, you enjoy sex, you're unapologetic, you're proud of who you are, even proud of your insecurities. And you have such a huge importance in my life: you made me who I am. Whatever way you want to make us work, I trust you. I just want to be with you, in whatever form it takes", he said, smiling, and then getting up and opening his bag.
"I forgot to give you something", he said, pulling a string out of the front pocket. You recognized the red glimmer. It was the heart necklace. "It's still yours to keep. Even though it's not in its original glory, it will always be yours. The necklace and my heart", he said, and you couldn't help but smile at him.
"Always so cheesy, Taylor", you said, joking as you moved your hair to the side so he could put the necklace on.
"You always loved it", he winked, and you laughed. "I do", you said, smiling.
"So, what does it all mean? Where are we?", you asked, and he shrugged. "Wherever you want us to be. I just hope that you keep me around", he told you sincerely.
"I will. So, we're not going back to our old ways, right? We're not back at sharing a flat and stuff", you said, and he nodded. "Sure".
"And you're going to spend a month away, all around the world. I don't want you to feel pressured not to cheat", you said, and he nodded again.
"Yeah, and you're back in London, starting a new job. I don't want you to be worried, too", he said.
"So, maybe no exclusivity, this time? At least not now. This is still debatable, in the future", you said, and he agreed.
"Makes sense. But I'll have a hard time desiring anyone but you", Roger said in a low voice, and you laughed to break any mood that might have settled. You needed to get things clear before making out in the train cabin.
"Me too, Rog. But I don't want to create any expectations of loyalty because we know each other too well, and I don't want a stupid fight to break this thing we're building together", you said.
"It's a good idea. So, no titles, too? I can't call you my girlfriend?", he said, and you laughed.
"You can, if you want to", you told him, and he pulled you closer to him.
"Good, cause I want to call you that on the News of the World launch party, that I'm hoping you'll go as my date", he said, pressing a kiss on top of your head, breathing in your fruity smell.
"Of course I'll go. I need to see the boys again", you told him, and he laughed.
"So you're not going for me, then?", he pouted, and you laughed again.
"No, I'm just going so I can meet Deacy's kid", you told him, and it was his turn to laugh.
-
Once you got to London, Roger offered to go to the airport alone - he had to get on his flight, and he was late. He knew you had to go home and get ready for work tomorrow, but you wanted to spend as much time with him as possible.
He looked relieved when you got on a cab with him to Heathrow.
"Big day tomorrow, huh", he said, rubbing your arm.
"Yeah, I still can't believe I'm finally going to work at the British Museum. It's so surreal, it feels like a dream. Like I'm living someone else's life", you said, looking out at the window, the early sunday morning reminding you of fresh starts - you were in the middle of one.
"Well, it's your life, and it's your job, cause you deserve it, babe. I never met someone who worked so hard to get where they want", Roger said, smiling, proud.
"I did. You and the boys", you said, and he huffed. "Guess you're right. Me and that pack of idiots, we turned out okay", he joked.
Once you got to the airport, you followed him to his gate.
You were feeling nervous - you had him for a week, and now it's time to say goodbye again.
You're both aware that the rest of the band is already waiting impatiently in the jet, but you can't help it - you hug him, dropping your luggage on the floor, and he does the same, the hug soon turning into a kiss as you rub your hands on each other's body, as if you're trying to remember how every inch of the other feels like, as if you're both about to disappear.
But the airport worker clears her throat, and you break the kiss, looking at each other longingly.
"Don't say goodbye", you beg Roger, putting your hand on his lips as he opens his mouth.
"See you soon", he says between your fingers. You smile at him, grateful he found a way with words so you're not repeating the same old goodbyes.
"See you soon, Roger", you say, hugging him again for a few seconds, just trying to capture every detail - his smell, the feeling of his arms around you, his body against yours.
And once he has to go into the jet, you go to the glass wall, and you can swear you see some familiar faces from the windows of the jet.
But before you can focus, soon Roger's well known face takes over the window you're watching, and he puts a hand on the glass.
You can't help but think about the last time you did that with him, him being on your place as you were inside the plane, moving to another country, your heart weighing down on you, filled with doubts.
But now your heart warmed you up, filled with joy and love, and you could feel Roger's crystal heart on top of your chest. He was right. There would be always a piece of him on you, too.
-
Epilogue: News of the World Launch Party
"Y/N! You're back!" Brian's voice welcomed you to the ballroom.
You squeezed Roger's hand - it was the first time you saw the band in years, and you couldn't help but feel a bit nervous about it.
"Darling, you're really back! We thought Roger was getting high too often and hallucinated a week in Paris with you. But I guess you did come back to him", Freddie said, hugging you by the side as he held a glass of champagne on his other hand.
"I'm back with him only so I can see you all again, of course", you said, winking at Roger as he pretended to be offended.
But then you heard Deacy and Veronica scream your name in unison, and you turned to see them.
"So you're really back!!" Deacy said, but your eyes were on the baby boy on his lap.
"This is the cutest thing I've ever seen in my life.", you said, trying to get his attention. Roger looked at you, adoringly, as you moved your eyes to Veronica.
"Ronnie!! You're so big!" you said, trying to hug her through her belly. "It's coming out in a few months! It's a boy, Michael. Someone our young Rob can play with", she said, and Roger frowned.
"I could swear it was a girl", he said, and John smiled. "Maybe next time", he said.
"Hey, Bob. Do you want to play with me? C'mon", you said, and he motioned to go to your arms. You picked him up as he started playing with your hair.
"You'd be a good mom, Y/N", Veronica said, and you got tense. "God, Ronnie, don't even joke about this", you said, and Roger chuckled. "It's a sensitive topic at the moment", he explained.
"The moment will take quite some time, you know", you told him, the youngest Deacon pulling your earring before playing with the crystal heart on your neck.
You talked to the boys and Veronica for a while, updating each other, but no one brought up how you and Roger got back together. It just felt natural - no need to question.
You stayed with Roger for the whole night - behind the cameras as he did press, by his side during dinner - where he was back at his old ways, teasing you lightly with his hand under the table. You felt good in his arms, getting back into his life.
He was interested in getting back into your life, too. He came back to London last night, and went straight to dinner with you. You were trying different food, and now was time to try Indian food.
As he ate his Chicken Tikka Masala, dipping the naan in the sauce, you invited him for a party your bosses would be throwing next month to celebrate a new exhibit.
He gave you a bright smile. "I'd love to be your date, my love", he said.
And after the Deacons went home - Robert was asleep on his father's lap - the party got louder, the dance floor more full. You could swear you saw an angular face that could only belong to Bowie pick someone to dance - was this Princess Leia? - but before you could process the whole situation, Roger pulled you to dance.
"Thought you didn't dance, Mr Taylor", you told him, wrapping your arms around his neck as you tried to slow dance to All The Young Dudes, by Mott The Hoople.
"I don't dance very well, indeed. But it's just an excuse to be so close to you in public, and God, I'm dying to call you Ms Taylor", he said, and you chuckled.
"Take it slower, Rog", you told him, and he leaned in to rest his head on the curve of your neck. "And why do you want to be close to me in public? Is it still one of your weird fetishes?", you joked, and you felt him laugh against your skin.
"No, it's just that you've been killing me with this dress of yours, and you've been killing a lot of the guys here, too. Could swear I saw Bowie checking you out", he told you, and you gasped.
"Taylor, don't even joke about this. I'd have a heart attack", you said, and he laughed. "You'd leave me here for Bowie, is that it?", he asked, and you laughed.
"Of course not. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that he might acknowledge my existence", you said, and it was his turn to laugh. "The only eyes I really like to feel on me when I look away are yours, Rog", you said, and he gave you a quick kiss.
"Okay, had enough of trying to dance. Let's get some fresh air", he told you, and you followed him to the balcony.
As the cold, fresh air brushed against your exposed skin, you heard the first notes to Tiny Dancer, by Elton John. You walked to the balcony, leaning in and taking in the view of London at night.
Roger soon took you into his arms, hugging you from behind, and you felt safe, his body heart making you warm in the cold evening as he jokingly whispered "Pretty eyed, pirate smile, you'll marry a music man" into your ear, and you scoffed. "Slower, Taylor", you told him, and he laughed.
"However you want it, babe", he said, now paying attention to the view, focusing on the feeling on you in his arms again. Finally.
 But oh how it feels so real
Lying here with no one near
Only you and you can hear me
When I say softly, slowly
 "I could die right now, Y/N. I'm just... happy. I've never felt this type of happiness before. I'm just exactly where I want to be", Roger said in his husky voice, and you nodded lightly in agreement.
Because in Roger's arms, you feel home. You feel what you hoped to feel for years - what got you to move to London in the first place. You feel like you belong.
---
1988 Special
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