#both of them understand duty and protection in a very particular way

[fluorynn]

What if…

Neteyam survived the bullet he received, yet it was Jake who lost his life in the conflict between Quaritch and the Sullys?

What if…

Neteyam gains a much more powerful and overprotective instinct to protect his family. Much more controlling, much more on the look out, much more like how Jake was with him.

“A father protects his own,” was what Jake, his father, the former leader of their fortress, always used to say. And it is set in the eldest son’s mind now to be the protector, to be the best example for his siblings. To help his mother guide them, to carry the duties of not only the eldest son but as a warrior, as son of Toruk Makto, and as now gaining a spot amongst the Metkayina as one of the best young warriors they’ve seen.

What if…

Metkayina’s Olo’eyktan, Tonowari, had a mate far before the current Tsahik, Ronal? That Tonowari once fell in love with another Metkayina female, Le’anu? Le’anu, who was not necessarily experienced in medicine or healing, not right for the role as Tsahik and yet he loved her anyway?

What if…

The eldest was not Ao’nung, but a girl, daughter of Le’anu? The little girl named Y/N, the future of the Metkayina clan. The little girl who was supposed to grow up with the immense love of both her parents, and bound to make them both proud.

What if…

The RDA conflict shown in ATWOW and brought to Awa’atlu isn’t the first Sky People conflict they’ve been involved in yet no other clan knew of it?

What if…

Because of this first conflict, Tonowari and 4 year Y/N end up losing the most important woman in their life, Le’anu in battle? Losing many good warriors and families in his clan because of these Sky demons and in return they lost as much, and keeps this conflict in secret for he made an agreement with the Sky demons, with one in particular who understood their language, a female; to not ever cross paths within their waters again, or this will repeat itself much more violently.

What if…

With a heavy, most devastating heart — one that had never experienced grief before — Tonowari re-mated just for little Y/N to grow up with the grown necessity of a mother’s love? She was little when it occurred, she needed a mother figure in her life because he clearly could not provide that, and he needed a life partner to help him take care of his daughter, to help him provide and bring hope to his clan.

What if…

This leads him to choose the next best healer, and most intriguing Metkayina female, Ronal? She was a good choice; she was a friend to Y/N’s mother, she was good to him, and most wonderful with Y/N as well. Firm but patient, attentive and caring. Yes. She would be good mate, good Tsahik, and most importantly, a good mother.

What if…

He does wound up falling in love with Ronal; the respectful and caring friendship becoming one of a very strong love, understanding, and admiration, and communication. And this love leads them into having their firstborn son, Ao’nung, and while Y/N is daughter to Ronal by heart, she has her first daughter by blood, little Tsireya.

What if…

Because Y/N’s mother was not Tsahik, she did not receive any training to become future one, and instead it was Tsireya who was chosen to become Tsahik both because her mother was one and because she was chosen by Eywa. Though Y/N did have experience, she learned from Ronal, she studied, but because she wanted her little sister to become this clan’s better future, she chose to guide her behind closed doors along with Ronal.

What if…

Tonowari grows fearful when Jakesully brings his family to Awa’atlu, seeking sanctuary from the Sky People’s war. While he was hesitant, he was not a cruel person. But Ronal, she showed her fear, showed her anger. She did not want her mate to suffer the pain he once did in losing Le’anu, she did not want neither of her children, including the one brewing in her womb, to suffer the way her eldest, her Y/N, did when losing her birth mother.

What if…

Because Neteyam is the oldest and was to be future Olo’eyktan back in the forest and held a promising future, the Metkayina’s Tsahik, Ronal has had a vision that he was to be promised to one of their People, and they assumed that he was to be mated to their youngest daughter, their future Tsahik, Tsireya.

What if…

This is why she chooses to provide sanctuary for this family — for the will of Eywa.

What if…

When this revelation comes to the surface the moment Neteyam hits the age of 18, Neytiri is willing for this to happen — to not disappoint their Great Mother, to let her son have this promising future he should have had back in the Forest, for him to ease his dense demeanor and find a happiness for himself?

What if…

Y/N was against this union, because she wants best for her sister, and she has seen the way Neteyam is towards other Metkayina women, the way he believes to only please the will of Eywa and nothing, not even love? And Neteyam is driven to try and court Tsireya to keep his high status, trying hard not to see the way his little brother may feel something for the Reef girl — because this is how Eywa wishes for it to be?

What if…

Y/N and Neteyam both find a way to torment one another within this union, irritating each other constantly, and yet it is clear to see that they clearly have a thing or more for one another?

————————————————

An idea is building up….

Neteyam x Eldest!Metkayina!Daughter!Reader

Friends to enemies to lovers maybe?

The concept to flesh out Neteyam into the eldest son who thinks he needs to constantly please everyone around him while he doesn’t exactly worry of himself being deserving of being pleased — and HEAR ME OUT, Jake, in my train of thought, may have to be deceased in this possible fic series—

And reader who sorta surrounds the idea of being undeserving of love if that makes sense? Of course, there’s still ideas to be thought out, more details, more world building but —

If this turns out well, if I continue debating and building it up….who would like to be tagged?

#avatar the way of water #jake sully #avatar james cameron #neytiri avatar #avatar jake #neteyam x reader #neteyam avatar #neteyam sully #what if…avatar #neteyam te suli tsyeyk'itan #lo’ak sully #lo’ak avatar #kiri avatar #Kiri sully #tuktirey #tuk sully #metkayina!reader #metkayina #atwow

[strawhbrrries]

Delicate, ii

pairing: dbf!southern!frank castle x innocent!afab!reader

summary: a sweet older gentleman moves into the house next door, or rather a few acres away. he spends a few evenings with your dad and consequently earns the attention of a much younger girl, you.

warnings: age gap (reader is 22, frank is 46), protective dad???, no use of y/n, not proofread

word count: 808 words

author’s note: here is the very first part of delicate and i really hope you guys love it! not too much action, entirely just set up for frank and peach's future endeavors and relationship. please enjoy! mwah!

tag list: @ramblers-lets-get-ramblin @shantellorraine

find the masterlist here!

read the previous part here!

The sun peaked its way into your room, warming up all the spaces it touched as it slithered its way through your curtains. The sun rising earlier in the summer was always your biggest complaint, it woke you up so early but if you got blackout curtains you would sleep too late in the evening. It truly was a lose-lose situation. This particular morning, bright and early at seven am, there were two voices talking loudly in the driveway. That just so happened to be almost directly outside your bedroom window.

You sat up, rubbed your eyes and tried to decipher what they were saying. You knew it was your father and Frank speaking but you couldn’t make out any words, they were just too far out of range for that. No matter how close you got to the window you just couldn’t do it, maybe it was because you’d just woken up or maybe you were just losing your hearing. It would be a worry for another day. The clock now read seven fifteen, you spent fifteen minutes trying to eavesdrop on two grown men. It was almost pathetic.

The sun was now further into your room, if you hadn’t already gotten out of bed it would’ve been blaring into your eyes. You picked out a pink pair of shorts and matched it to a cute strawberry patterned tank top. Once you were satisfied with what you were wearing you brushed your hair and did your general morning routine. By the time you made it to the kitchen both your dad and Frank were sitting at the kitchen table, sipping on some coffee that had been made earlier in the morning.

“‘Mornin’ Peach.” Your dad grumbled, taking a sip of his coffee and slurping it when it reached his lips.

“Good morning.” You chirped, way too cheery for the two men at the table. Despite being awake longer than you, neither of them were glad to be up bright and early. “Good morning, Mr. Castle.”

“Just Frank, Peach.” Frank responded, watching you traverse through the kitchen, trying his best to keep his eyes to himself.

“Yes, sir.” You smiled at him, pouring some more coffee into both cups on the table before putting it back to brew more coffee.

Frank choked on the fresh coffee he was trying to drink, even though it was said so innocently it was doing a number on him. Thankfully, for him, the table was in the way of anyone seeing the tent currently pitching in his pants. He covered it up with a cough and a clearing of his throat, continuing the conversation he was having with your dad.

The sausage and eggs your dad had made this morning had gone cold, he must’ve been up earlier than normal. You would ask him later if everything was okay on the ranch later, make sure you didn’t need to pick up any extra duties to help. You warmed up the food on the stove, listening to their conversation while you waited. Nothing interesting, besides the fact you learned Frank was single. That, you didn’t understand.

Just because you’d never had sex or anything close to it didn’t mean you didn’t imagine what it was like. For the first time. Last night. With Frank. He wasn’t wearing his cowboy hat this morning, it made you want to frown just a bit. Not that he wasn’t as attractive without it, there was just something about the hat that enhanced it. you wanted to run your fingers through his hair, twist the hair around your nails and curl it more than it already was.

“What are your plans for today, Peach?” Your dad asked, as he did every morning. Only really asking to see if you would be home long enough to do some morning chores around the house.

“I gotta stop by the general store, get some food and then probably get some stuff for the horses.” You responded, placing the now warm breakfast on a plate and sitting at the table.

“I can take ‘er.” Frank offered, taking a sip of his coffee, eyes boring into your soul. “I gotta do the same shit.”

“Perfect! Thanks, Frank!” Your dad responded happily, taking his wallet out to hand you a few bills for the stuff you needed.

Your neck burned, blush creeping up from the depths of your chest. Frank stared, discreetly, as your skin turned a tinge pink. You tuned out the rest of the conversation, playing around with your food, thinking about being alone with an older man. It was almost taboo, you hadn’t been alone with a boy much less a man. If you could see into Frank’s mind the blush would engulf your whole body, burning you like a sinner in church. You hadn’t known things so dirty and taboo.

#maddies fics #frank castle #jon bernthal #frank castle x reader #frank castle x you #the punisher #dbf frank castle #frank castle smut #frank castle fluff #frank castle headcanons #daredevil smut #daredevil #daredevil imagine #the punisher smut #the punisher fanfiction #the punisher fic #jon bernthal imagine #jon bernthal fluff #jon bernthal smut #jon bernthal x reader #jon bernthal fanfiction #jon bernthal x you

[myfandomprompts]

𝐀𝐞𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐝 𝐱 𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐫 | 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐖𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐀𝐥𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬 𝐖𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐌𝐞

Summary : You are a lady from high birth, daughter to an important man of the court. You were raised in King’s Landing along with the Targaryen princes. You always felt close to Aemond, as you had much in common. But he always seems so inaccessible to you, particularly as he grew up. Now you make the decision to leave, and Aemond is not really happy about it. AO3 - Masterlist

Warning : Angst, fluff, eventual smut, possessive behaviour

You were in your chambers, having that time of the month. You hated it, y ou could spend hours walking around in your chambers waiting for the pain to go away, to finally disappear. The heat over the capital today was suffocating, and you could hear the Red Keep buzzing with activity beyond your door while you struggled to breathe.

You had sent away all of your maids with the desire to be alone, but the knock on the door that resonated slightly after came to trouble your moment of peace.

You painfully walked to the door to open it, only to discover Aemond standing behind it, arms crossed behind his back, like he always was. You were astonished by how composed and mature he had become since Driftmark, how respectable and dutiful he had become, with you at least. Despite his not very talkative nature, he had an appeal about him that you were not indifferent to. He and his brother were very different, like the sun and the moon. And you liked the moon, its soft light, its calm appearance…

You like how he smelled, how protective he was of his family, how proud he was of his dragon Vhagar, and the way he smiled when you made public remarks about people of the court without them noticing. He had always listened to you, whenever you two were alone or among your family or friends. You always felt like the most important person in the room, and this since you had arrived in King’s Landing with your father as a child.

“My Prince,” you bowed, breathing heavily, trying to still yourself as you winced from the pain. You were failing at the task, but at least you were still able to make conversation.

“My Lady, is this a bad time?” he looked at you concerned, your hand grasping your stomach, not harbouring the elegant demeanour you usually wore.

“To be honest, I had better days, but this is a burden I will have to carry each month unfortunately, and from which I will be relieved of only if I am with child or old enough,” you sighed with a smile. 

Your words did not reassure him, making him uncomfortable even, but he stayed there regardless, itching to take your arm to hold you steady. But he restrained himself, not wishing to push his luck.

The book he wanted to take from you laid on the table, opened. You both studied under the same instructor at times, and he liked listening to you about your latest reading. But today was apparently not a good time to be in your company. Part of him wanted to relieve you of the evident pain on your features, be there for you. Those were thoughts that had been plaguing his mind since he was of age to understand his true feelings for you, feelings he had to hide. For now.

“Is there anything I can do to help you?” he said after you handed him the book.

“Nothing more than the maesters are already capable of, but I thank you my Prince,” you smiled at him through a quiet whine. Not wishing to bother you more, he reluctantly left your apartments.

“Fetch some tea for Lady Y/N, some cinnamon cake with cream and bring it as soon as possible,” he ordered a maid that was passing, and although she said you were on a strict regime as instructed by your father, Aemond’s menacing look was enough to make the maid run to the kitchen. He knew you liked cinnamon cake, he had noticed during feasts, you always went for this particular flavour. This was one of the many things he knew about you.

It was a great day. The Princess gave birth to two healthy twins, silver-haired and purple-eyed. As the bells rang and days were spent in feasts, you finally managed to visit the new mother’s chambers to see the twins by yourself, their father, Aegon, nowhere to be seen. Helaena was seated next to her children, watching them tenderly as they were already opening and closing their eyes, curious of their surroundings.

Aemond was standing near the fireplace, not missing your entrance. He said nothing ,as always when you greeted Helaena and went to pick up the boy from his cradle gently, praising both of the twins for their good health and beauty. You liked children, and you adored Helaena, she was sweet and always mindful of her friends, that you were happy to be part of. 

“He is such a beautiful boy Princess, and I can already see how Jaehaera will make knights fall at her knees,” you smiled.

“Do you not think he resembles my father the King?” said Helaena happily as you put Jaehaerys on closer to your chest.

You watched him closely, taking in his sweet eyes, tiny hands and silver hair. He was a true Targaryen, he already has common features with his mother, but also with another. Features you would recognise anywhere, a face that you had affection for.

You looked confused for a moment, then your gaze went to Aemond already looking at you very intensely. You tried to appear as composed as possible, your heartbeat quickening.

“He sure does, I am certain that he will be as wise as his grandsire,” you replied. However you felt your head spinning, descending into chaos.

Helaena, who was content that you agreed with her, watched you put back Jaehaerys into her arms before going to the newborn girl and softly caressing her cheek in an admirative manner.

“I will leave you in peace, I will try to come to see them this evening if you allow me,” you stated, your voice shaking a bit.

You needed some air. Now.

Helaena nodded with a smile and you made your way out with a reverence. As soon as you were in the corridor, you sighed in relief, gathering your thoughts.

The boy certainly had Targaryen traits, but was not sharing the features of his father. In fact, what struck you the most was that he did remind you of a certain one-eyed Prince. Your heart sank in your chest, not able to put words over what you felt.

You heard footsteps behind you, Aemond’s walking so recognisable to you.

“I believe you are feeling better, my Lady.”

You turned, putting a calm smile on your face. “Yes, I do, I thank you for your concern. I did not have the opportunity to express my gratitude for the food you sent me. It was... very sweet of you.” You smiled weakly, not having to explain how you knew it was him.

As you answered him, however, he felt your uneasiness, looking everywhere but at him, eyes frantic, your breath heavier than usual. He was right. You had realised something back in his sister’s chamber, something he did not wish you to even fathom. So he chose to directly ask about the subject that had him chase after you in the first place.

“Y/N, you are the smartest person I know, and I know you well. I saw your eyes when you looked at the children. I don’t want you to believe what is not there-”

“Please,” you interrupted, closing your eyes as you inhaled in order to settle yourself. “You don’t have to do this Aemond, lie to me... I will never betray you if it is what you fear. This is...”

You could not find the words. You had always seen him very close to his sister, and you had chosen not to see it. Maybe it was because of your feelings for the Prince, but now that you were standing in front of the facts, obvious to your eyes, it had suddenly become real. Maybe what you had turned a blind eye to all these years were true, their closeness, and you felt like you were on the edge of fainting. You didn’t want to discuss it, it saddened your heart too greatly.

“I am not lying to you Y/N,” he said as he took a step closer to you. “I swear this to you, whatever you may believe, the last thing I want is you to be mad at me for something that I did not do. It is simple.” His tone was almost imploring, and you felt his eye glance quickly at your lips before rising up again. You shivered, but refused to let his actions unsettle you.

“You could at least have the courtesy of being honest with me, Aemond. For the sake of our friendship,” you said, seeking the comfort of his closeness, but restraining yourself to give into it, “This is dishonesty that is the most likely to make me walk away from you.”

Aemond kept staring at you silently, then he suddenly grabbed your hands into his. “I cannot lie to you Y/N, believe me when I say that these children are not mine.”

You watched him intensely, the words finally uttered. You knew him since you were children, and even now, you didn’t know if you believed him. He had never lied to you, this was true, and maybe that you truly wanted to believe in his words, more for your own sake, but you knew that you could never be sure. You will always feel this uncertainty, clouding your mind.

However you nodded, willing to indulge him for the time being, not able to stare at his imploring gaze any longer. It made him tighten his hands over yours and sighed in relief. 

Months later, you were preparing for your departure for Dragonstone.

Your father had allowed you to go there for a time in order to learn from the maester there, knowing how eager you were to add more to your knowledge, as you had always taken interest in medicine. You were also excited to see the heir’s children, Jacaerys and Lucerys, close friends of yours that you have not seen since they went to live on Dragonstone, along with a close relative to your mother, Ser Lorent Marbrand of Ashmark. He was her direct cousin, and a member of the Kingsguard since as long as you could remember. But in truth, you had hastened your trip because of only one reason: to escape the feeling you would get when you were in the presence of Aemond since the twin’s birth.

Sometimes you would watch him train, as you always did, because you loved to, it was enticing. Other times you would dine with his family, conversing with him on interesting matters. But on other occasions, when you were watching him from afar, your heart ached, because you didn’t know how you felt about him. You loved Helaena and the children, but you couldn't help yourself but think that maybe, maybe it was a possibility, that all that the Prince had said to you was all a lie. So when you realised that those feelings for him wouldn’t go away, you decided to force it, and go away yourself. Only for a time, you thought, it might work.

“Are you abandoning me my Lady?” asked Aemond as he watched you get into the carriage, among several other court members who would join your journey.

His tone was detached, but you know him enough not to be fooled by his calm behaviour. “It is only for a time, I will return soon enough.”

You didn’t know if he seemed more sad or angry, but you couldn’t turn back now. The people around you were busy saying goodbye to each other, not paying attention to you both, and Aemond took this opportunity to speak to you more freely.

“Do you remember, the night after I claimed Vhagar, what you told me as I was still recovering from what that b-,” he stopped himself, biting his inner cheek. “From what that boy did to me?”

You watched him with sorry eyes, knowing his resentment for his nephew. “I told you that I’ll always be there to heal your wounds, and that our friendship shall never end,” you whispered, lost in the memory.

“And now you are going away,” he was forced to look up at you because of your higher position on the stairs, but his eye was still full of emotion. You rarely saw him express any emotional state, but in the end, you could still read him so well.

You reminded yourself of the personal reasons for your departure, the concern you hid from him during these last months, and you had to battle tears from filling your eyes. “We were only children, Aemond, many things changed...” you said as you saw him lower his head, hiding his face from you. “I will send you ravens, I promise.”

Aemond flinched at your words, but he finally took a step on a railing, took your hand, kissed it graciously, and then turned away, taking his place near your father to watch your party leave.

You felt your cheeks become pink, and you clumsily turned away and entered the carriage. You didn’t miss the smirk that Aemond wore on his face as he saw you this flushed. Yes, many things had changed, but not his childish dreams about you. He swore to himself that next time he sees you, he will tell you everything, everything you meant to him.

-0-   Part 2

#aemond x reader #aemond x oc #house of the dragon #hotd #headcanon #fanfiction #targaryen #aemond targaryen #angst #aemond one eye #aemond targaryen x reader #original character #aemond #aegon #aemond kinslayer #prince aemond #house targaryen #romance #slowburn #aemond x you #aemond x y/n #aemond targaryen x original character #aemond x original character #smut #ywawm #usermyfandomprompts

[radioactivesweet]

hi, hope you’re having a womdering day!

is it ok to have jack the ripper, beelzebub and hermes with a tsundere reader (i hate everyone but you kinda thing) that is also very motherly towards them? if that’s ok?

thank you for your hard work. 🖤

I hope you have a good day too!! I hope you like it^^

off topic but I was listening to Last Night in Soho soundtrack while writing this, which is completely unrelated hahahah, 10/10 would recommend that movie tho, I liked it a lot

Jack is good at recognising people's true natue trough the colours they emanate, so when he once saw you answering rudely to an acquaintance of yours, he was quite confused. There was a clear dissonance between your colour and the way you were acting which intrigued him. Despite how hard it was, he managed, trough his gentleman-like ways, to get you act friendly - even though he was the only one you changed your attitude towards. It was a huge step forward anyway. But the way you behaved when you were with him... it was something never believed he could experience himself. He had heard tales about love, which he stopped believing in after his own mother had betrayed him, but you made him reconsider his beliefs. You were protective of him, showing in your own way your affection. It had some motherly traits too, a reminescence of his childhood, of that apparent love he received from his mother. Yours was genuine though, there was something so innocent in the way you'd caress his head that he would never believe it could be false. The same colour you would towards him only was of the purest shade he had ever seen.

Beelzebub is used to everyone hate nobody but him - so it's quite surprising when you do the exact opposite. He doesn't know how to react at first, are you perhaps trying to use him for some obscure reason? He can't quite grasp it. Yet, somehow, it really looks like you took a liking to him. You don't reply annoyed when he is the one to speak - and actually listen to what he has to say - you ask him how he is and other chit chat, which was unusual of you, and would often seek him out. At first he doesn't really know how to behave: should he act like he does towards anybody else or try to be more friendly too? In the end, despite his first attempt to keep you at a distance, he realised that, after all, he missed someone looking after him. At first, things weren't always easy and sometimes you both would end up snapping at each other - but going back to being on good terms immediately after. Most of the time though, everything went smooth, with you complaining about everything but him. It kinda pleased him. You couldn't tell, since Beelzebub would always mantain the same apathetic expression, but he really was glad to have someone so attached to him. In particular, there were those moments when you would just sit beside him, maybe your head leaning on his shoulder, mostly in silent, sometimes speaking some gentle words, which he loved the most. It made him feel so nostalgic, but loved it anyway.

Hermes is used to act politely towards others, given his status as the messenger of the gods, it kind of is his duty. Even though he often has to deal with tons of unsufferable and rude deities - which, at first, he thought you were too, seeing the way you'd treat those you spoke with. He was ready to ignore any of you remarks if he had to... but you didn't give him the chance, acting unexpectedly nice towards him only. After that surprisingly nice first meeting, you kept being quite friendly during your exchanges with Hermes, which occured more and more often. He didn't really understand why you'd act so differently just to him but didn't ponder about it too much - he just considered himself to be lucky for once, instead of having to deal with another goddess mad at his father because of one of his many affairs. You weren't mad at him, which greatly relieved him. Actually, you were one of the few decent deities he could deal with. Not prone to anger (towards him, at least), amicable and pleasing when you wanted to, ready to comfort him and listen to his complains after a long day of wandering trough the realms and dealing with absurd requests and demands. His life was tiring, but fortunately for him, you were making it much more bearable. Ares is also scared of you, like many other deities, which comes in his favour when he is sick of dealing with them.

#record of ragnarok #shuumatsu no valkyrie #ror #snv #record of ragnarok x reader #snv x reader #ror x reader #shuumatsu no valkyrie x reader #shuumatsu no walkure #jack the ripper #jack the ripper x reader #beelzebub #beelzebub x reader #hermes #hermes x reader #jack the ripper record of ragnarok #beelzebub record of ragnarok #hermes record of ragnarok #jack the ripper shuumatsu no valkyrie #beelzebub shuumatsu no valkyrie #hermes shuumatsu no valkyrie

[kimkhimhant]

what do you think is the reason why kim and kinn are so distant? do you think it was because of a major event(s) or a gradual build up?

oh this is such a good question thank you!

so like. honestly, i think there are a ton of possibilities, and my headcanons for this change in every fic i write.

the version i'm most inclined toward though is that it was a gradual build-up, and that Korn was in a large part responsible. like, Korn's father pitted his sons against each other, it seems, and now Korn and Gun are enemies, so it would be reasonable to assume that Korn is perpetuating the continuation of that cycle – pitting Kinn and Kim against each other in subtle ways as they grow up.

One of my favorite headcanons is that, in reality, Kinn and Kim are being very specifically groomed for certain positions = Kinn as leader, Kim as enforcer (similar to how Korn and Gun are) but that, to create competition, Korn would subtly imply that if either of them didn't excel at their duties, they would be dismissed – and that could mean very bad things, in the mafia. (one idea that i like, is that Khun's kidnapping was orchestrated, because he was not fulfilling his duties to Korn's standards. [this would even work if it wasn't orchestrated, and just implied to have been] so Kinn and Kim both...suspect, very vaguely, and understand what may be in store for them if they fail). So, in my fic "this tender violence" i went with the headcanon that when the whole Tawan fiasco happened, Korn planted the seed in their minds that Kinn could be replaced by Kim, and the fallout for Kinn if that happened would be... not good.

Obviously, this would never actually happen, because Kim's role in the family has already been established, and Korn is not actually going to put someone like Kim in a leadership role, but it makes the boys more distrustful of each other because it pits them against each other in a very dangerous way. we can look at it as competition, but i think resentment is more apt. Kim doesn't want to become the leader, and he resents Kinn for putting him in that position. Kinn thinks Kim is preparing to replace him, and he's scared of what that would mean for him. It situates Kim as an enemy to him, to a certain extent.

This particular headcanon would give Kim a really strong incentive to leave the family – he's protecting Kinn, in a way, by removing himself from the equation, but he's also screwing over Korn and protecting his own feelings by avoiding Kinn. If they don't communicate to clear the air, all of that resentment and fear isn't going to go anywhere. And it seems from canon like Kim is particularly responsible for the distance between them, which would make a lot of sense with this headcanon. Kim would not want to reach out to someone he thinks views him as an adversary/enemy, and he'd also not want Kinn to know he's trying to protect him. His martyr-complex is too big for that.

this is the headcanon i'm inclined to go with these days, but i'm definitely interested in hearing other takes on it!

thank you again for the ask <3

#benji talks #asks #anon #kim theerapanyakul #kinn theerapanyakul #kpts #kinnporshe the series #kinnporsche #main family brothers #kinnporsche meta

[running-with-the-feels]

Headcanons for Hanzo & Kuai adopting a daughter? I get girldad vibes from both of then

honestly you are so right tho

I think it could go a few ways, bc I don't think they'd set out to adopt a kid, I think it's something that would sort of happen to them.

So if Hanzo is the one suddenly caring for a girl:

He found her in the wreckage of her home, just barely older than a toddler and crying her eyes out.

Shirai Ryu take in sole survivors, so he brings her back to the compound and she just clings to him, refusing to let anyone else near her.

Then Kuai Liang shows up to an alliance meeting and is stunned to find Hazno carrying a small child and suddenly wonders if he's been in a coma for a few years bc how else can you explain this.

As soon as he finds out the truth, he is immediately on board, making her ice sculptures as toys, teaching her to ice skate, showing her how to throw a punch (bc every little girl should know how to defend herself, Hanzo, why are you looking at me like that it's not like I gave her a knife yet)

Kuai Liang becomes her new favorite person and Hanzo pretends he's not bothered by it (He also just thinks Kuai Liang looks good with a kid and doesn't know how to process that)

Takeda and Frost both latch onto her as well, taking her under their wing and being the bad influence every older sibling should be. Within a week of knowing them, baby girl has pulled three pranks (one of which dyed Hanzo's hair bright pink) and shows no signs of slowing down. Takeda and Frost are very proud.

Generally, I think she'd have a decently normal childhood except for all the kombat training and superpowers.

But if Kuai Liang is the one suddenly caring for a girl, depends on where in the timeline it happens, I'm gonna go with it happening after he and Hanzo have made peace (but I have so many headcanons for how it works at other points in the timeline someone pls ask me about them, give me an excuse to ramble I BEG):

He's on a mission when he finds a baby crying on the doorstep of the safehouse he's using, with a note explaining that she is a cryomancer and needs to be protected. Understandably, he's a little suspicious at how anyone knew he was here, but resolves to figure it out another day.

Literally the moment she looks at him, he's gone, that baby girl is his new reason for living and he would do anything for her, 0-60 in no time flat just absolutely ride or die.

He names her after his mother

Kuai Liang brings her back with him to the Lin Kuei and she becomes the clan's best kept secret, not a Word of her existence gets out bc Kuai Liang is understandably worried that someone will try to take her (that note was pretty suspicious after all), and everyone in the clan is just instantly smitten. Frost in particular declares herself baby Ru's protector. If Kuai Liang isn't holding her, Frost is.

Hanzo comes to the temple for an impromptu alliance meeting, kinda worried bc they weren't scheduled to meet for a week and then just sees Kuai Liang with a baby in his arms and short circuits (is also hit with some Horrendous baby fever because jesus Kuai Liang looks good with a baby, fucking hell)

Hanzo is the only person Kuai Liang trusts that has had a kid before (look, we love Johnny, but man cannot keep a secret to save his life) so naturally Kuai Liang called him for help.

Hanzo is also enchanted by baby Ru from the moment he holds her and helps Kuai Liang set up a proper nursery, get everything he needs, and volunteers himself for babysitting duty whenever needed. He and Frost end up making peace solely because of baby Ru.

Hanzo also ends up moving into the Lin Kuei temple for a couple months (he still does go check on his own clan, he's basically just taking a leave of absence) and helps Kuai Liang learn how to parent. They take turns going to settle her when she wakes up in the middle of the night, that way at least one of them gets some sleep.

That's how they end up getting together, Hanzo has to go back to the Shirai Ryu for a week and when he comes back Kuai Liang is exhausted and running on fumes as he hands baby Ru over, kissing Hanzo with a mumbled thank you, and then shuffling off to bed.

If they both end up suddenly looking after a little girl:

They're on a mission post-Kronika being defeated (in an AU where the timeline didn't get reset bc fuck that), and they find one of Shang Tsung's labs that he rebuilt after escaping Kronika's void.

It's a new version of the flesh pits pretty much and in it he's made clones of all the various defenders, but not clones of just one at a time, like he mixes the DNA of two or more defenders together to make a kid. (Think laura from the xmen)

Every defender basically gets a new kid (Kitana, Liu Kang, and Kung Lao have an understandably Wild set of reactions to that which I will Happily ramble about given the opportunity) and that includes Hanzo and Kuai Liang who's DNA was mixed to create a little girl who is about ten when they find her (that's as far as Shang Tsung could speed up the aging process, all these kids look about ten but none actually are)

She's got Hanzo's temper and Kuai Liang's stubbornness so it's a bit of a rocky start, especially since she is so confused about the situation, but once she gets settled, she warms up to them pretty quickly.

They take her to the Shirai Ryu bc Kuai Liang understandably has some negative associations with a child that age being within the walls of the Lin Kuei temple.

She's absolutely unhinged and wild, just no sense of decorum. When she's bored, she will just Leave and go hide in the woods so at least one person must have eyes on her at all times (Hanzo briefly considers a backpack leash but Kuai Liang immediately shoots him down.

She's also shockingly talented at Kombat, which Kuai Liang is very concerned by and he tries to give her some constructive hobbies to balance her out, like painting. She takes to it quite well, but also really enjoys drawing quite spooky things so its a mixed bag.

She and Frost are always either the best of friends or at each other's throats there is no in between. Hanzo is worried by how often they throw knives at each other but Kuai Liang and Bi-Han did the same so he's not very concerned by that.

Takeda finds her unsettling at first (partly because he wasn't introduced to her before he stumbled across her in the woods, cooking and eating a rat she had killed bc she got bored.

They end up getting along fine once the situation is explained, but that was quite a shock.

When she's fifteen she joins the Lin Kuei officially, bc that is the youngest Kuai Liang will allow her to be when she joins and trains with them full time.

Eventually, Frost takes over as grandmaster and baby girl becomes the next Sub-Zero, the two becoming a deadly team as Takeda becomes grandmaster of the Shirai Ryu

Lemme know if you want more, bc I can do more

#kuai liang #hanzo hasashi #subscorp #mortal kombat #mortal kombat x #mortal kombat 11

[lazywriter-artist]

What's the deal with two commissars being so close to Magos Dominus? Are they friends or have to tolerate each other for some task? Why there's visitors from Imperium in the first place? Did someone do a lil heresy? :D And why those three guardsmen in particular are so easy (and fun) to steal? :D

Ooo very fun one 😈

So a bit of both, Storvis wants nothing and had never wanted anything to do with the machine cult as a whole, his old mentor instilled distrust into him when it came to the tech-priests which only continued to fester and grow as he got older and interacted more with them in the lines of duty

But, for most of when he was training and mentoring Galileo he was going through a period of grief and frustration as he had just lost his arm and had been horribly scarred on his face so his normal control over Galileo was half assed and very lax. On one day Galileo gets shooed away for storvis to sulk and while wandering about our favorite Magos Dominus finds him! As pre established, Our beloved centipede has a big soft spot for creatures smaller then him and this pretty young commissar in training wandering about all alone is one thing definitely out of order, but storvis’s hard headed nature and tendencies to yap about people he dislikes is ah a pretty easy way to get your ass in some deep shit (among some other stuff he’d like to keep unmentioned) especially since Storvis’s own mentor was discovered guilty of heresy.

So, since Magos Dominus’s skitarii took a liking to the young commissar, he kind of blackmails Storvis into allowing Galileo come for visits (shared custody B>) for teaching moments for his skitarii and just because he wants to ensure Gali is okay and not being tempted to chaos or something by Storvis (whom is not high on the magos’s favorite persons list)

So in a sense yes UwU someone did a little heresy but not the guy you’d think!

Meanwhile Galileo being the sentimental and goofy fella he is has a connection with the magos so he comes for visits periodically to catch up and be mauled by skits- that and sometimes to confide in the magos with some of his struggles, which Centipede doesn’t always understand but he tries his best to help out ^w^

As for the guardsman! Eerrrrmmmm yes :)

I have no particular reasoning they’re so easy to scoop up and scurry off with other then the fact they’re guardsman, all those guys are practically identical smh— that and I mean if you were one of the most expendable people in the imperium wouldn’t you want a giant scary murder robot who’s literally titled after how good he is at killing things to protect you?

As for why it’s so fun, magos Dominus just thinks the little guys are neat and they get along with his skits so they get to stay UwU

#again this might not be the MOST lore accurate #stuff but I like my whimsy #also fun little tidbit is the brain thought I’ve had a lot about Gali getting his augments. I feel Dominus got all cheesy and philosophical #about it like the silly techWorshiper he is smh smh #Hims little bby growing up #warhammer 40k #wh40k #wh40k oc #admech #log & explr #adeptus mechanicus #commissar ocs #commissar storvis #commissar galileo #lazy answers #lazy’s ocs

[cannotgiveafuck]

Alright here's my semi thought out rambling on the contenders of who could adopt Billy Batson.

Keep in mind, this is not based on the Shazamily Billy, but the homeless kid Billy who spent years running away from his abusive uncle, and then multiple foster homes, and squats in apartments.

BatFam: IMO, they would immulate a foster home too much for Billy's comfort. A large home with multiple bodies, all of them having their own issues and lives that Billy would either feel excluded from or strive to help too much. Likewise, to have all those eyes - especially as the Batfam - watching him and being aware of his every move would be incredibly invasive for him. Billy is an independent kid, but hes not a crime fighter like the batkids, so the others would try to help him in any and every way possible, that would inevitably push Billys boundaries. The family stability is questionable, but the loyalty is definitely something Billy needs. So i think theyd be best as like, the friends home Billy stays at sometimes. Not to mention its Gotham. That city is not for Captain Marvel.

Constantine: lmao. Listen. I love this disaster in a trenchcoat disguised as a wreck of a man, but he should not be in any parental role. Him and Billy work out bc they are around each other in doses. They're complete opposites in methods and morals, and continued exposure would do them both harm. Likewise, when John truly cares for someone he pushes them away bc everyone around him gets hurt. He actively chooses to hurt them sometimes, if theyre not used against him. It doesn't matter that Billy is Captain Marvel and can withstand more than John can throw. John will self destruct and keep Billy away. And that is what would hurt Billy most. Bc he would feel abandoned and unwanted, and that kid has too many issues surrounding that in particular. He needs a stable environment and Constantine can not provide that in the long run - especially in a domestic sense. They're wayyy better off as friends, or magical mentor/mentee.

Superman: The biggest obstacle here is Clark's insistence that Billy remain a child and live a normal life instead of being Captain Marvel. Even if Clark relents to having Billy be Marvel and stay on JL, it would be a continuous struggle for both of them. Not only bc Clark does not know how to be a parent, but also Billy would have a very hard time adjusting. Compared to the other two, I'd say Clark is the most stable, but perhaps not stable enough. Journalism and Superman take up a lot of Clark's time, and he'd really struggle with balancing having Billy too - especially if this is pre-Jon. What's more, unlike Jon, Billy's duties and abilities are different. Despite Superman understanding personal wants vs greater duties, he could not help with Marvel's duties, as much as he'd want to. And I think that would really stress Clark out. Not to mention gaining Billy's trust once its lost is an uphill battle. Cap can work just fine with Superman, but Billy would be a feral kitten - another differing aspect Clark would struggle to grasp. I think there's potential here, esp with help from Lois and Mama Kent, but they're both on such different wave lengths beneath the shallow surface, that they'd struggle with cohabitation and being a 'family' more than one would think.

Wonder Woman: Gonna be honest, I think she's the best candidate for taking Billy in. Not only does she understand Cap's duties from a divine perspective, but she's taken on such monumental tasks. She gave up living on her home island to do her divine warrior duty, but then she found balance in remaking her home life as Diana Prince. She had a loving mother and community that raised her, which she'd draw inspiration from for Billy. There'd be a balance of knowing he's a child that needs protection and he's a chosen champion that needs to learn how to protect others (and himself) - honestly, the same balance Diana's mother had to find for her, which she'd realize with Billy. Itd be a familial connection she has greatly missed since Amazon. And tbh I think Cap and Billy are on the same page with WW - respect and admiration and trust, and that divine tie of being gifted by the Gods (Zeus specifically). Plus being handled without kiddie gloves and respected as a hero would be something Billy greatly appreciates.

#billy batson #captain marvel #shazam #listen. im a sucker for batfam and grumpy Constantine mentor too #but i just think billy has some issues thatd get triggered by either situation #and neither would be good for his development as a human child or magical hero #superman has potential but thered be a lot more problems than folks realize. on both ends #which would be so interesting to read them working thru #please i just want Big Sister WW #theyd be so good together #hes never going to be a normal kid. but he still needs a stable loving home #and i think Diana is a perf balance all around #She'd take him on museum tours and world travel and teach him about history and culture #And teach him so much about the Gods and their stories #Idk it's 1am and I'm having feels about Billy and family #And all the shit he's been thru. And despite being so caring and friendly as Cap #He's so wary and guarded as Billy. #He doesn't think he needs a family. Or deserves to be normal. But he does!! He does deserve love and support. #He's just a kid that needs very specific care and attention

[silvertonedwords]

Together, Chapter 4: Sunday

It's heeeeeeeere. Seriously though, this is long. Comment if you can. It's like being taken out for dinner after a difficult exam. My favorite thing to know is which gesture or moment or line of dialogue touched you the most.

__

Dear Tina,

As I start to write this letter, it is Monday evening. It was grey and damp in London today, as it often is this time of year. Teddy becomes unaccountably cross in this sort of weather. Years ago, I attempted to convince him to move back to the wild. He always came clamoring back and chattered as if to scold me, and I had to accept that we are companions for good now. It worried me at first for his sake, you understand, although he seems to lead a happy existence. Not that you would know it from how he’s looking at me right now. I’ve dropped a sketch into the back of this letter. I hope it does his peevish expression justice, and that you can imagine him sitting, as he is now, on the corner of my desk while I write to you.

Theseus stopped by this evening for his usual visit. He drank three cups of tea, and even came down into the menagerie for a few minutes without grousing about whether I have the proper permits for the building and expansion charms. (Is this something we’ll need to discuss with regards to my case when I next come to New York? Are there such rules in America? I imagine it would be frowned upon for you to have a guest who might be in violation of those rules? You know I don’t set much store by these things in general, but I will do whatever you think is reasonable, or at the very least, learn which creatures in particular to keep quiet for a few days. I’ve been involved in quite enough risks to your career as it is.)

Theseus seemed alright today. That time I wrote you of a few weeks ago was the last when he arrived at my flat too inebriated to have a sensible conversation. He speaks of Leta more often than he used to. He also seems to enjoy when I tell stories about her from school, many of which he hasn’t heard before. You’ve mentioned that you enjoy when your colleagues who knew your father speak of him. I think perhaps Theseus feels the same. It makes them closer for a moment, doesn’t it, to know that they were real for other people, too? 

Theseus mentioned to me, as you have, that you saw each other last week. I suppose I should’ve thought that you would both attend that conference in New York—you had mentioned that it was an international affair—but somehow I hadn’t. He brought you up first thing. He said that you had the chance to speak several times. Not that his opinion need carry much weight, but he said that he liked you very much, and that you are “both clever and reasonable, a rare combination in an auror”, which I would’ve thought was obvious. You described speaking about your encounter at the French Ministry, but I must say that he did not bring up that part of your conversation with me. He was gracious about it, you say. Perhaps I sell him short. 

I do believe that will remain my favorite spell that you have ever cast, although I am open to something else taking its place. I remember your face as you cast it—so determined, so calm, and so delighted after.

Auror affairs aside, Theseus seems to think it his duty to investigate everyone with whom I spend any time. I have always found it tiresome. He has always been that way, as an elder brother, you know. He seems to think that it is his job both to warn me how the world will be, and to protect me from it. Perhaps this is something you understand more than I. I am hardly similar to Queenie, of course, and Theseus did not have to become a father or mother to me, but he is so much older, and our parents were so often busy with other concerns, that he took on something of that role. Perhaps elder siblings are often like this.

I remember one incident very clearly. I must’ve been about ten years old, so Theseus would’ve been eighteen or so, having just left school and started auror training. He took me aside one day to assure himself, in quite a serious manner, that I would of course be giving up “all of that creature nonsense” when I went to school. I now believe that he was worried that he wouldn’t be there to keep an eye on me, and that I would be lonely. He had seen, I think, that I did sometimes wish for friends, even though I rarely seemed to be able to make them. As a model student, he probably also found the prospect of my being around his former teachers and fellow students rather daunting. I say I believe this now. At the time, I was so enraged that I refused to speak to him for several weeks.

You and I are similar, I believe, in that we will not change ourselves simply to please someone else. I was like that from a very young age. I imagine you were too. I imagine you sometimes, all of eight or nine, telling older children off for being cruel. 

I do not mean to suggest, by the way, that you have ever done anything like this story I told to your sister. You and Theseus are similar in some ways—you both carry heavy responsibilities, and you are both stubborn—but you are more flexible, more creative, and more curious than he is. 

My mother apparently asked Theseus who I’ve been writing. She’s noticed me with your letters, you see, and told Theseus that I “looked far too enchanted for them to be letters of business”. I think I must look pleased when I receive letters from any of the few people to whom I write with any regularity—Lally, for instance, and Jacob—but she is perhaps right that it is not quite in the same way. Theseus told her some part of the story of how we met—he does not know it all—and I must say that she is rather taken with you. I had mentioned you before, but it seems she had never been certain of our still writing to each other. 

I turned around in the menagerie last night to say something to you, before I recalled that you were, of course, an ocean away. Sometimes, when I’m carrying out the more mindless chores, I compose my letters to you in my mind. Not word for word, exactly, but I store up the things I’ve meant to tell you, and the questions I want to ask. I like how it almost makes you my companion in the work. I can almost see you curled up in a camp chair with a book or a report for work, reading away and keeping me company. I have just the chair—it’s very comfortable, and right now it’s set up next to the shed because it’s one of Dougal’s favorites.

You mentioned before that your apartment feels lonely, and I said that I am glad for the creatures, as my home never feels empty. I don’t know if that was right. It’s different when there’s a particular gap, a place that isn’t filled, isn’t it? Like your sister.

In reading over these last lines, I wonder if you will see disappointment—ridicule even—that you have not planned a visit, as I have offered. I don’t mean to suggest so. I only wish to be honest with you. I think perhaps, in our letters before Paris, I did not say enough.

All this to say, if you see an article proclaiming whatever exploits the papers have invented for the imagined figure of Newton Scamander, best-selling author, this week, I do hope you will ignore them entirely. Unless they say that he checks his mail every morning for letters from a certain American auror, devours them in minutes, and then reads them through carefully at least twice more, they are mistaken.

I must go for now. I can hear the young nifflers growing restless, and I cannot risk leaving them for too long. If you see Theseus again, promise me that you will not let him take himself too seriously. It is good for him.

You didn’t say last time how your research into Grindelwald’s associates is progressing. I would like to hear. And someday, you must tell me how you and Lally became friends.

Write me something, even if short, by Friday, if you can? I have a signing event on Saturday, and it will be much more tolerable if I have a letter to look forward to when I get home.

Be safe, and look after yourself. 

Yours,

Newt

-&-

Newt drifts awake slowly. He laughs softly when he opens his eyes. Tina still sleeps facing him, with her dark hair fanned across the pillow, and her hand curled up beside her face. His smile is one of fondness, and of such relief. How often, these past months, has he wished that they were beside each other?

He reaches out and carefully brushes her hair from her forehead. It has grown so much longer than it was when they were last together.

She’d been different then—his one day in New York a few months ago—jumping at the slightest touch, and looking away whenever he accidentally caught her eyes on him. It hadn’t felt like rejection, hadn’t stung him at all in that way, but it had made him ache to be of more comfort. Sometimes, especially when she’d written about Queenie, her mood in her letters had felt dark. While reading them, he’d often wanted to board a ship back to New York. He’d ached to at least write more plainly, I love you. But he’d known from the tender but sometimes cautious tone of her letters, from her trembling smile and tearful eyes and tight grasp on his hand as they said goodbye, that she wasn’t ready to hear it. 

Last night, he’d woken at a similar time with the cool almost-panic that he might’ve imagined everything. To have gone through such a day as that with her, and then to have fallen asleep alone in the same cot as always…

Tonight, he wakes only with relief that they are together. 

Full of seeming contradictions as she is—gentle and stubborn, cautious and bold, strong and tender, perhaps it should not surprise him that this week has been the same. She wasn’t ready, until, one day, she was.

He closes his eyes to think back over the past few days. Yesterday morning, when he’d walked into her room, and she’d held him until he calmed. Her boldness as she’d led him away from the party. That cautiously hopeful look in her eyes after she’d first closed the apartment door, as though he could possibly want anything more than to kiss her back. Her fingers in his hair. Asking him to hold her and melting into him. The way she looks at him, always, Merlin—it’s familiar of course, the tenderness and laughter and slight hint of a challenge in her eyes—but there are also parts that he hadn’t known she’d been holding back. A sort of lightness. She looks almost giddy when she looks at him, and it makes him giddy, too.

She’s remarkable. He’s often thought apathy to be the worst of human traits—towards each other, towards creatures. Tina is a wonder to watch because she cares so deeply. And he is, somehow, one of the things she cares about. 

She begins to stir. He opens his eyes to see hers.

She smiles, and his lips tug into a smile as well, before he has even noticed. “Hi,” she says.

She skims a few fingers along his jaw. “Hello.”

She sighs, closes her eyes, turns a little bit closer. Her knees bump into his thighs.

He wants…he wants…

He shifts closer, closer, until he can slide one arm beneath her ribs, the other around her waist, and push his face into her neck. Her breath stumbles for a moment, but then her arms come up around his neck and she weaves her fingers into his hair. 

She strokes his hair slowly, from his temples around and down to the base of his skull. Pleasant shivers chase each other down his spine. “Are you alright?” she asks.

“Mm.” He draws his hand down to the center of her back. “I am,” he murmurs, relaxing against her. He feels her lips at his temple. “’s a lot. And good. Feels…”

“Yeah.” 

So good. He lets out a shuddering breath. His voice grows quiet, pleading. “Don’t stop?”

“I won’t.” Her hand is still tangled in his hair, stroking slowly. She draws it down his neck, his shoulder. Her movements are slow and easy. She finds a gentle pattern: her hand combing thought his hair, then skating down his neck, across his shoulder. He whimpers and burrows closer, his hands settled on her back, feeling the warmth of her skin through her cotton pajamas.

Somewhere, someone must’ve come up with a word for this feeling, though nothing adequate comes to mind. To want and be wanted. To value and be valued. To love and be loved in return, and to feel it. He is in a state of restfulness just shy of sleep, where everything is calm and yet somehow acute. 

He hears her sniff once—tears? He fumbles blindly for her hand. “I’m fine,” she murmurs, tucking her chin over his head.

He hums questioningly.

“You’re so relaxed.”

He tries to follow what she means through his sleepy haze. “Should I not be?”

“No. I mean yes I just…” He hopes these are the not-bad sort of tears, like the kind during the wedding when Queenie and Jacob stomped on a glass and he caught her eye. “Nobody wants me around this much.”

“Rubbish,” he says, his voice muffled by her skin. 

She laughs and sounds a little tearful. Her hand moves through his hair now, from his temple back to the base of his skull. Merlin, it feels nice. 

“You’re remarkable.”

“So are you,” she returns. She continues to card her fingers through the back of his hair. Her breathing calms, and whatever it is, it does not seem urgent or painful, for she is also deeply relaxed against him. “Sleep,” she whispers. 

He hums again, this time in assent, and she laughs softly, her voice warm against his ear. Within a few moments, he has drifted back to sleep. 

-&-

When Tina wakes, Newt sits at a small table just past the foot of the bed, writing a letter. He must’ve been quiet when he got up, for she is a light sleeper by force of professional habit. She had not considered that they might be well-matched in this way. Of course, working with creatures, he must be skilled at moving quietly. 

She observes him for a moment. His messier-than usual hair, and the way the light bounces off of it. The soft smile pulling at his lips. The cotton shirt and trousers he sleeps in. His fingers spread across the surface of the page. His sun-warmed and faintly scarred chest just visible through the deep v of his shirt, and his muscular forearms where he has rolled up his shirtsleeves. He is beautiful. She knows what his skin feels like, now, but still she wants to touch.

“Morning,” she says.

He looks up. She thinks she will never tire of his expression when he sees her: the wonder and tenderness that soften his eyes. “Good morning,” he says. 

Tina sits up in bed, bending her knees, the blankets pooling at her feet.  She wraps an arm around her legs. “You’re awake early.”

“Time change, I’m afraid. Besides, once I woke I--” he looks down, smiling, “Now that I’ve gotten a bit of rest, I’m too exhilarated to sleep.”

She understands that all too well. Now that he’s here, she’s been sleeping soundly, but last week, she’d sometimes tossed and turned for an hour or more, thinking about what the next few days might bring. 

She’d thought all these changes might feel unsteady for a while. That it would feel strange to enter into parts of each others’ lives that they hadn’t known before; sharing meals, early mornings, late nights. Sharing a bed. But for her at least, this kind of intimacy feels oddly natural. “This doesn’t feel strange,” she says, looking down and stretching her feet against the soft, worn linens. “Is that strange?”

He looks at her again, and this time, his gaze lingers. “No. It’s not.” He begins to smile. “At least, since I haven’t startled you like yesterday.”

Tina bites her lip against a grin. “I raised my wand at you, didn’t I?”

“Instantly. Very good reflexes. Slightly startling.”

She shakes her head, delighted, as she will almost always admit, by his teasing. 

He leaves the letter and makes his way to the bed, sinking onto the mattress beside her. 

She slides her hand onto his wrist and up his forearm. Her fingers pass over a few thin scars. 

”I should’ve expected you to be awake by the time I reached your room. The aurors I knew during the war were light sleepers. So’s Theseus. I thought you would be.”

She melts a little at the thought of Newt trying to place such knowledge of her. “I am,” she agrees. “You’re not, are you?”

He shakes his head. “No. Except when something’s wrong with one of the creatures. Then I seem to wake easily.”

She smiles. “Like a parent.”

“I suppose so,” he agrees. He fingers the collar of her pajama shirt. 

“What?” she asks. 

“Looking, so I remember. You weren’t in bed anymore when I woke yesterday.”

She looks down with an almost shy smile, warmed by his attention. 

They both watch as he takes her hand and brings it to his lap. “Tina, may I ask you something?”

“Mm?”

“What upset you last night?”

“Last night?” He draws circles into the back of her hand with his thumb. 

“When we woke, I mean. You seemed—you were crying.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t look worried or judgmental; just curious. 

She searches for the right words to explain what it feels like that he actually wants to be around her—and not only through touch, for that is but one sometimes-manifestation of it—but around her as a being.

Perhaps it shouldn’t take her breath away. He actually wants what she has to give. He looks at her—at things that other people have told her are too much, that she should dampen; her intensity and determination, stubbornness and curiosity, her love for him—and he enjoys them. He seeks her out. He wants more. She’s known that for many months, but to experience it in so many new ways feels both wonderful and unfamiliar. 

She imagines he must know the feeling, at least a little, although perhaps he’s better than she is at ignoring what blinkered people think. She’s heard the snide comments that get made about him. She’s even heard some misplaced ones by people, like Theseus, who care about him. Mostly, she wants to turn around and snap at those people that whatever they’re describing is exactly what makes him extraordinary. What do they mean to say? That he’s too kind, too dedicated to his work, too uninterested in the opinions of those who have no imagination, too committed to bringing about change even when it is hard? The more she knows him, the more of himself he shares, the more drawn to him she feels, and it’s just a wonder, sometimes, to notice him feeling the same about her. 

“I wasn’t upset, I was—“ he squeezes her hand, and her lips turn up briefly in gratitude. She looks at him. “You were so content. With me. Because of me?”

“Yes.” He looks slightly bewildered. 

She laughs at her own muddled words. “I felt…” 

“…loved?” he offers at last. 

She nods toward their joined hands. 

Carefully, he tucks her hair behind her ear. His fingertips graze her shoulder as he combs his fingers through the strands. He presses his thumb along her hairline, and her eyes slip shut. 

A deep rumble makes them both turn to the shed door. “That’ll be Dorian. Bark much worse than his bite. Probably wants his breakfast.”

“I should go get changed and things.”

“And work down here?” he asks hopefully.

She laughs. “Sure.”

Newt stands and heads out the door. 

Tina lingers, looking around the shed. Her surroundings are not quite familiar yet, but she knows that they will be. 

Will she wake here, many years from now, and remember this morning, this Tina? By then, one of her favorite pens and a few letters that she needs to answer will rest on that table. She’ll leave a pair of boots in the case, and when they aren’t traveling, they will have a shared home outside of it, with a kitchen table where they talk over tea, and a shared bed, and—. Their little habits will be familiar and largely unspoken. She’s in no rush to get through these wonderful days, but what a pleasant future to dream. 

She has just stood when Newt re-enters the shed, walks over to her, and drops a gentle kiss to her cheek. She feels his hand skim over her hair. “Forgot to do that,” he says. 

She giggles, and almost doesn’t recognize her own carefree delight. Newt grabs the shawl she’d worn down to the case last night. He drapes it across her shoulders, adjusting its weight until she takes over, her hands brushing his. His earnestness makes her stomach jolt pleasantly, but it also chokes her throat with something else. “I won’t be long,” she whispers. 

He nods, then backs away as quickly as he’d come. 

Her cheeks hurt from smiling, and stay that way as she climbs the ladder into her apartment. 

-&-

Tina takes a sip of her coffee and folds one leg beneath her on Newt’s camp chair, attempting to gather the patience to read the next case report before her. It is the last of the week by Auror Preston, and is almost certain to be dense and difficult to follow. Its heft, at least, attests to the fact that it will be longer than it has any need to be.

Newt had offered her his desk, but when she’s catching up on case reports over the weekend, she prefers something more casual. Besides, this seat makes it much easier to glance up and watch Newt as he works. She has not accomplished as much work this morning as she usually might, and she does not care. 

Newt’s been in this section of the case for the past quarter of an hour building a new splint for Harriet’s growing wing. He has glanced at her every so often, as she has glanced at him. Sometimes, their eyes meet, and a thrill goes through her at the intimacy of it. Their own little world in the case, and all the things they’ve finally managed to say. 

At one point, she catches him smiling at her.

“What?” she asks.

“I wrote about this. You sitting there.”

“You did,” she agrees, warmth filling her chest.

She looks to his writing desk beside her, trailing her fingers along its edge. He often wrote to her from this desk. She imagines him sitting here with his tattered newspaper clipping—later her professional portrait from work—his head bent over fresh parchment; his strong, gentle hands grasping a pen. 

She can just imagine him looking to Teddy or Pick or Dougal for a moment, speaking to them briefly, and then turning back to the page to add their greetings. She can picture the paper filling up with his handwriting, which, contrary to her first suppositions when they’d met, is neat and graceful and somehow suits him exactly.

Above the desk is a series of shelves where Newt keeps a variety of haphazardly stacked papers. One pile seems to contain letters, while several others consist of field notes and sketches. On a couple of the shelves, she sees her own letters, with their familiar blue seals. 

“My favorites are on the left,” Newt says.

Tina spins to his voice. 

He continues looping twine around a piece of wood. “You keep your favorite letters on the writing desk in your bedroom.”

Tina blushes faintly to have been found out. “I do,” she admits.

She finds he’s looking at her, and shakes her head at his teasing smile. She looks back to the letters and gestures to the shelf in question. “May I look at them?”

“Yes.”

She stands and retrieves the letters from the left-most shelf, sliding them out with care, then drops back into her chair. She begins to look through them. Even though she wrote every word on these pages, it feels oddly like stepping into Newt’s space. 

The topmost letters are recent and familiar. First is her letter written immediately after Queenie’s return: scattered, happy, and grateful; and second, the letter she’d sent right after, when Queenie and Jacob had told her that they were going to marry, and that Newt had promised to attend. She skims her own words with a laugh for her excitement. Newt is still working on the frame, but she can see out of the corner of her eye that he’s glancing up every so often to watch her. 

The next letters are older. First, the very first letter she’d ever sent to him, which is familiar because she’d thought so much about what to write. And next, a letter congratulating him on finishing his manuscript. She would blush at her own exuberance, but she meant every word.

Next is her first letter after Paris. Kind, tentative, sad, exhilarated, tender; and, she’d hoped, healing to some of the wounds she’d seen in him on that trip. Looking back, she’d seen more clearly his fumbling confusion and hope and the slightly subdued way he’d looked at her, and she’d realized that in her own pain, she had unknowingly caused his. She touches the page gently, grateful that this is among his favorites. Its creases are worn, and the edges slightly frayed as though it has been carried around and read many times. She likes the thought of her words as a steadying reminder that things between them were well again—indeed, that things between them had never truly been broken. 

She, too, has kept several of his first letters after Paris among her favorites, along with his unsent letters from the time when they’d stopped writing.

Tina had arranged a portkey home a few days after Paris. Newt had gone with her to see her off, and as they’d waited, he’d handed her a bundle of letters. At her confused look, he’d explained how he’d kept writing, and how they were rightfully hers of course, and would she like to have them? She remembers gathering them up and trying not to cry, lest he worry he’d done something wrong, when in fact she did not have words for her relief and joy and gratitude. 

She’d brought those letters with her to bed many hours later, and had stayed up late reading every one. It had made her feel less alone, even as she shook with everything she’d lost. The thought of Newt continuing to write to her, telling her about his life and his work, wondering how her cases were going, writing cautious questions about why she’d stopped writing. Even when he must’ve been hurting, he’d respected her, valued her, cared for her so much. She’d felt so abandoned after fighting with Queenie and seeing that stupid article.  By Queenie and by him. It had been such a comfort to have those letters to remind her that at least one of those things had never been true. 

Shaking her head at her wandering thoughts, she carefully folds her letter and slips it back into the pile, taking up the next. It is from about six months ago; an everyday sort of letter with little stories from her day. And then, a long letter in which she remembers writing mostly about her parents. She has a few similar favorites upstairs; the letters about ordinary days that bring life and immediacy to ink and paper, and others with stories about his childhood or family that filled in the foundations of who he is. 

There is another letter responding to his request that she comment on a few new passages meant for the second edition of his book. She grins, remembering how pleased she’d been that he wanted her opinion. 

And then there is a letter she’d sent just after his visit to New York in July, describing how much she cared for him, and how much she missed him. She touches the words with light fingers. 

“Is that from July?” He asks. 

She looks up. “It is.”

“When I read that, I wanted to turn around and came back.”

“You didn’t,” she says gently. It’s such a relief to be able to talk about these things together so openly.

He rubs one index finger over a knot he’d just made.“That wasn’t what you needed from me. It was hard, but I knew…I knew that.”

She feels a rush of gratitude, and yet a touch of sadness. He doesn’t blame her for keeping him away, she knows that, but still it was hard for them both. 

 “It’s the same with creatures, you know. Especially the ones who’ve been hurt, or—what they need most is the space to feel safe again.”

“Yes,” she whispers, blinking back tears. She is…she is so in love with him, his kindness and intelligence and honesty and care. 

She’s kept so much bottled up lately, letting things out in her letters to Newt, or in quiet moments alone or with her few true friends, and then carefully putting everything away again so that she could face the next day. It feels good to feel. 

“Newt, could I…could I come hug you please?”

She looks up to find him nodding towards his work table. She sets aside the letters and walks to him. At first, she loops her arms around his neck and leans close and it is a gentle, soft hug. Then, he wraps his arms tightly around her waist and shoves his face into her shoulder, his hands pressing into her sides. She melts against him and holds him tighter. Perhaps he’s needed this too—perhaps he’s also been hiding things away. Knowing how hard this year has been on her, and on him as well, it couldn’t have been easy for him to be so far away. She’s begun to suspect that one of the ways that Newt looks after people is to be completely fine, even to himself, until it turns out that he is not. She rakes her hand through his hair—he likes that, she can tell from the way his shoulders relax—and feels as much as hears him let out a heavy breath. At last, he pulls back enough to look at her, and smoothes her hair back behind her shoulder. 

She laughs with how light she feels, hiding her face in his neck. He wraps his arms around her, turning them gently from side to side. 

“Will you come with me to check on Harriet?” Newt finally asks. “She’s taken a liking to you.”

Tina lifts her head. “Of course I will.”

He smiles. 

“What?” She asks with a smile in her voice. 

“Do you remember what we were like on my first visit, when we drank tea here?”

She chuckles warmly, resettling his shirt collar. “I, for one, was entirely innocent of staring at you whenever you turned your back.” She’d meant to sound teasing, but her voice is thick with emotion, remembering how those first days had been, feeling him see her and value her and watching him experience the same from her.

“Completely,” he agrees. He watches his thumb trace the line of her neck, as she presses gently into the touch.

And then, almost to herself, she adds. “I would catch you lookin’ at me…and you’re wonderful you know, runnin’ around lookin’ after the creatures. You’d grab my hand to drag me along like it was nothin’ and…” 

He kisses her jaw softly. “I hoped that someday we would—perhaps not exactly—well, I didn’t not hope that we would be…here. It’s very, very nice.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“I’ve been hoping for it for rather a long time.”

“For how long, then, Mr. Scamander?” she asks teasingly.

But his answer is in earnest. “Since about two days after I met you.”

She smiles more tenderly at his words. “Me, too,” she admits, her voice soft and warm.

“How much do you have left to read?”

She looks back. “There are only two more reports that I have to read today. Let’s check on Harriet first, and then I’ll come back and finish. After that we should go for a walk or somethin’. Get out for a bit.”

“Tired of case reports?”

“It’s not the most excitin’ part of my job.”

“Aurors.”

“Hey,” she nudges him. 

His eyes are full of laughter. “Come on then.” He tugs her with him toward the forest. 

-&-

“The next month or so shouldn’t be too busy, if nothing changes with Grindelwald, of course. January’ll be a headache though.” They’re walking along a heavily wooded path about forty miles outside the city. Both of them bundled up against the cold before they apparated out here. The tree coverage is thinner because of winter, and the exposed branches and bits of ground are blanketed by a light dusting of snow. 

“What’s in January?” 

“We hire out of the trainee class. I’ve seen it, obviously, but it hasn’t been my problem before. There’s all kinds of politics between the departments. Angry parents or family friends who think someone we passed over last year or the year before should get another chance. People from departments who have nothing to do with investigations always seem to think they know best. And the head auror pretty much gets none of the credit and all of the blame, no matter what happens. It’s a nightmare, honestly.”

“I could come stay with you for a week or two? Keep you company? I’ll promise Queenie not to let you eat hotdogs for every meal.”

Tina stops walking and looks at him. “I’d love that,” she says earnestly. “I’ll be at work most of the time. And I’ll definitely be in a temper.”

“I like your temper. Well, generally. When it’s not because of me. Well, sometimes then, too. As long as you’re not really angry.”

She narrows her eyes, but she is not really cross with him. A moment later, a smile spreads across her face. “Okay.”

She ducks under a tree branch and leads them down the path to their left. 

“You’re goin’ to Spain next month aren’t you? For research?”

“Yes, I am,” Newt agrees. 

“For how long?”

“For a few weeks, depending on what I find.” He tries not to be nervous as he offers, “I’d like to stop in New York on my way back.”

“It’s not exactly on the way.”

“No,” he admits. 

Her smile is exhilarating. “I’d love that.”

He looks down, pleased. 

“I do want to come to England, whenever I can get away.”

“That would be wonderful. You’ll like it, I think. You were only there for a few hours, before, and that was…”

“A terrible trip?” After Paris, they’d spent a few stressful hours being questioned by the Ministry, and only a few stolen minutes together over the next two days before her portkey back to America. “Mostly, anyway. I wasn’t angry with you anymore, and that was…” 

He reaches for her hand and squeezes it, their leather gloves catching briefly. “Mum might be a bit…much, when you meet her.”

“That’s alright.”

“I’ve never brought anyone home, you see. I think she’d given up on the idea. She’s been asking when she’d meet you for months.”

“As Theseus said.”

Newt nods, hearing the smile in her voice. 

“I’m excited to meet her, too.” 

They walk in silence for a few minutes. Newt watches a fluttering wisp of hair that’s escaped from the pins she’s used to keep her hair out of her face. Her cheeks are bright from the chill. She has wrapped a deep blue scarf around her neck, and wears a wool coat the color of charcoal. Merlin, it’s lovely to see her, and not only imagine her and her voice in her letters. “I wish I could’ve met your parents. I would’ve liked them, I think.”

“I think they woulda liked you. Queenie’n I were talkin’ after you left New York—right after you left, only two or three days—I said somethin’ about how much Poppa woulda loved talkin’ to Jacob—he baked, you know. And she said—she said that Momma’n Poppa woulda loved you the minute they saw how you looked at me.”

Newt brushes her arm with the back of his hand, and she turns to smile at him, although it is a sad sort of smile.

She gathers herself a moment later. He thinks that it is not because she is avoiding the pain of it, but rather because it is a familiar wound. “What will your father think?” she asks. 

“He’s…difficult.”

“You don’t mention him very often in your letters.”

“We hardly see each other. He wishes I lived a more…conventional life. He has since I was a boy.”

“I’m sorry.”

He shrugs. “I’m used to it, I think.” Her hand grazes his arm. There’s something about her presence that keeps him from shoving away the uncomfortable memories.

“I suppose he also wishes you’d choose a more conventional girl?”

“If he’s going to be so proud of Theseus for his job, he’s hardly entitled to say anything about yours.”

He can hear the smile in her voice. “I doubt he sees it that way.”

“Perhaps you should tie him to an office chair. That worked brilliantly with my brother.”

She laughs. He’s good at making Tina laugh, he thinks, and proud of it. 

“My father always thinks he knows what’s best. Perhaps he’ll see that I’m happy, and be glad. Perhaps he’ll only be disappointed that you have no intention of forcing me to take a dull office job at the Ministry. He’s always said that everything that disappoints him about me is…that it would disappoint any potential wife as well, if I ever found someone who would take a magizoologist with no ‘real employment’.”

“Then he’ll have the disappointment of being entirely wrong.” Her voice is firm. Newt catches her hand to briefly slow their walk, and closes the small distance between them. He kisses her hand as she turns to face him. Her eyes are bright and tender and just a touch indignant. For a moment, she looks at him, and he wonders if he understands a bit what Queenie had said about her sister. You need a giver. How it feels to have Tina’s strength and kindness with him. 

He’d thought touch might be an adjustment once they finally…and it is, to a degree, but he feels free of judgement, and that makes such a difference. He could pull away or ask for more or less, and she is never anything but curious, gentle, understanding. He hopes he is never anything less to her, either. Figuring out this part of themselves together feels good in ways he hadn’t quite imagined before. He is able to simply be present with her.

They begin to walk again. 

“Your potential wife, then?” she asks, repeating his words of a moment ago.

He hadn’t even thought—of course she is. In fact, potential seems terribly unnecessary. “Oh, I—”

But she is smiling and leaning towards him, and her lips touch the corner of his mouth. He stops her before she can pull away, opening his lips over hers and sighing when she responds in kind, their hands tangling between them. They manage to pull away only after several entirely pleasant minutes. She tugs his hand to bring him with her down the path, and after some trying, he convinces his feet to work again, feeling happy and dazed and rather thoroughly kissed.

“My aunt, before she died—she used to say similar things to me. She wanted me to be more…”

“Boring—” Newt says.

As Tina finishes “—ordinary.” She laughs and agrees. “Yes. Less myself.”

Newt has never been fond of this aunt who took the sisters in after their parents died. He doesn’t like the way she treated them, even if he’ll never meet her. “Utter rubbish,” he declares, still holding her hand. He isn’t ready to let go of it yet.

Tina’s voice goes soft. “Why can’t parents love the children they have?”

Her question hangs between them for a moment.“Yours did.”

“They did.” 

He looks down. They haven’t spoken about having children, at least not explicitly. But that has not kept him from thinking of it. Tina would be such a wonderful mother. He almost says it aloud, but the last thing she’d written when they’d circled around the subject was that the thought of having children in such uncertain times terrified her. “We would,” he finally says. 

She spins to look at him, but she does not seem surprised, and he wonders if her thoughts had taken a similar direction. Her expression is soft as she answers, “Yes, I hope we would.” She gently stops him at the edge of the path, leans forward, and kisses him. He closes his eyes as she pulls away, too lost in sensation to start walking again. Eventually, she tugs at his hand with a beautiful laugh, and they resume their walk. 

“Was Theseus a little like your father with you? Before you and I met. Is that where he got…”

“Yes, he was.”

“He wanted you to be less…Newt.”

He laughs. “Yes.”

“He’s learning.”

“I suppose he is.”

“Older siblings. We worry in the wrong way, sometimes. I’m not excusing him, mind you. But I get it, a little, I think.”

“You are just a bit alike. Not too much.”

She laughs. The expression lights her eyes in a way that he thinks will always take his breath away.

“He thinks well of you.”

“And I think well of him. His respect is worth having, you know. He’s a good man.”

“I suppose he is.”

“He’s told me a few stories from when you were little. Did you really keep an entire litter of kittens in your wardrobe for a month without your parents finding out?”

“I did. They were sick and needed a lot of care.”

She grins. “I’m just picturin’ the moment when Theseus found them. How old were you?”

“Eight, perhaps?”

She looks at him fondly. It is impossible to be anything but happy, when she looks at him like that. 

“Do you make a habit of asking him for stories about me as a child?”

“Hey, Queenie’s here now. I’m sure she’ll reciprocate.”

He finds he’s delighted at the prospect. “You were stubborn as a child, I’m guessing.”

“A little,” she admits.

“And you were showing signs of magic before you walked.”

“Mmhm.” She tilts her head as though not quite agreeing with that one, but he can guess from her half-smile and faint blush that he’s just about right.

Newt grins. “I never thought I’d be with someone who—with anyone for starters—but with someone who shared anything in common with my brother.”

“Next you’ll tell me you were resolved against Americans.”

“No, that suits me very well. You tend to communicate more bluntly, which I very much prefer. Not that I’d ever thought of it before…”

“I arrested you?”

“Tried to arrest me.”

“Newt Scamander.” He looks at her. “Alright. Tried to arrest you.”

He squeezes her hand, and enjoys how she drifts just a little closer. 

“I forgot—I’m supposed to ask you for an autograph.”

“Certainly, love,” he agrees, perplexed but amused. His fans tend to make him uncomfortable, but Tina is a wholehearted exception. “What for?”

“One of my deputies has a sister who’s a fan. The funny thing is, I don’t think he knew that I knew you. What happened two years ago—the details haven’t exactly gotten around. He figured I’d be able to contact you because of Theseus.”

Newt laughs. “Why do I feel as though Theseus would enjoy having that credit?”

“He certainly would.”

“He did offer to, erm, create a meeting, as it were.”

“What do you mean?”

“He wrote yesterday that I wouldn’t—”

“—shut up about me?” she quotes, teasing.

“Yes. He determined who you were rather quickly, you see—I think it was months before Mum put together the auror who’d been in the papers with me and the woman I’d been writing—and he tried to convince me that it would be an easy thing to send me on some errand to New York for his department. Never mind that they denied six travel permit requests before Paris. When I pointed that out, he said that he could just as easily invite you to some meeting in London. I think he was imagining he’d call me into his office and surprise us both.”

“He’s as bad as Queenie,” Tina says, laughing.

“He is,” Newt agrees. 

“At least he asked first?” She offers.

“Queenie does have the upper hand in guessing when her meddling might be welcome.”

“You spoke to her when you brought her back, didn’t you? About—about everythin’.”

“Yes. There was time, occasionally, as we travelled.”

“And you spoke about me?”

“Of course.” He looks at her, wondering what brought on the question. “She wanted to know how you were. Whether I thought that you would forgive her. And I wanted to know…”

“Yes?”

“I wanted to know how I could help you be happy.”

She stares at him. He wonders for a moment if he shouldn’t have said it. Then, he sees tears begin to slip down her cheeks, and draws her into his arms. She holds him tightly, shoving her face into his neck. And she begins to cry in earnest.

“Tina.” He rubs her back, and she clings impossibly tighter.

“I—I wasn’t—” she manages. “I wasn’t—for so long.”

“I know.”

“I was so lonely.”

“I know.” He drops a kiss into her hair. For several minutes, they hold each other, and he thinks as he had on Friday that Tina has not had enough of this in her life, particularly in Queenie’s absence. Perhaps he hasn’t either. The relief of someone whose presence and grasp reassures her that it’s alright to let go sometimes. 

She laughs through her tears. “You must think I’m crazy, cryin’ so much when I’m so, so happy.”

He begins to stroke her hair. “No. I don’t.” He’s honored that she feels so safe with him. 

At last, she lifts her face and swipes away her tears. He patiently thumbs away the ones she’d missed.

“Shall we go home?”

She looks around them. “Let’s walk a little longer?”

“Of course.”

-&-

Tina shushes Newt, laughing under her breath as they tiptoe up the stairs and he slips his hand into hers. They’ve both tugged off their gloves, and his skin is cool and rough and familiar. 

“Tina!” a voice calls from below them. They freeze. “How’s your sister?”

“Very happy!” Tina calls back. They’d told the landlady a somewhat-abbreviated version of the somewhat-truth, that Queenie had been away on a trip with her fiance (chaperoned, of course), and that they’d returned to be married.

“You got yourself a fella yet?” she calls.

Newt and Tina look at each other; he, with barely suppressed mirth glistening in his eyes; she, trying to decide whether to be offended at the assumption that she needs a fella, or to give in to the butterflies filling her stomach at the idea of Newt as her fella.

Mrs. Esposito clearly finds an answer in her silence. “Uh huh, I thought so! All those letters I’ve seen you carrying about. I hope it’s not that British friend that Queenie was telling me about? He sounds so odd.”

Newt, pushed beyond his limits of self-control, drops his forehead onto her shoulder from behind her, laughing under his breath. 

“Shh,” Tina admonishes, blushing and grinning and nearly laughing despite herself.

Newt uses their joined hands to guide her around to face him, and presses a kiss to her forehead. He is a step below her, and has to lift his head to reach. 

She stares, wide-eyed, as he tenderly strokes her cheekbone with his thumb. Covering his hand with hers and leaning into his touch, she tries very hard to keep her voice from wobbling as she calls back, “of course not, Mrs. Esposito.”

Whatever response the landlady gives is lost to her as she grabs Newt’s hand and tugs him the rest of the way up the stairs. 

The moment the door has closed behind them, she backs into it, pulling him with her. Their mouths crash together, frantic and a little clumsy, and he slides his hand around her neck to steady them, his fingers shockingly cool beneath her scarf. She cannot get enough. With their bodies pressed together like this, he surrounds her, and there is nothing but Newt’s lips teasing hers apart, and his cold hands and warm body against hers, and his answering whimper when she moans into his mouth. 

He slides his hands beneath her coat at her shoulders, shoving until she opens her arms and the coat falls to the ground. She tugs at his until his coat falls, too. 

“Tina,” he murmurs, kissing along her jaw. 

She hums, holding onto his suit collar lest she float away. He brings his hands back to her neck, and then he stops kissing her for a moment, guiding her to stand more fully so that he can unwind her scarf. Their eyes catch, and her stomach leaps at the sight of his, even though she’s known, for months and months, that he loved her. 

She smiles at him, gently taking the scarf from his hands and tossing it onto a small table near the entryway. 

He weaves his fingers into the ends of her hair, leaning forward to kiss her again. This kiss is slower, and she basks in the feeling of it, the way that time has stretched out this weekend, the hours and hours of precious time in which to learn each other, to settle into being together. 

Newt’s other hand skims down her back, nails just barely making contact over her blouse. Every touch is so much, it’s almost overwhelming. She wraps her arms around his neck, and feels that it is overwhelming in a good way, like laughter or tears that have been held back for far too long. Then, his lips catch on hers, and it is very hard to think of anything at all.

She brings one hand around to tug at his bow tie until the knot slips loose. She pulls at the ends of the tie until it unravels completely, feeling his throat move against the back of her fingers. 

His hands are so gentle, roaming across her back, moving through her hair. 

She breaks away to kiss his neck, shivering and smiling at the way he hums and melts into the touch. His hand joins hers and yanks his tie out from his collar, then drops it to the floor. 

She gets her hands under his jacket, helping him shrug out of that as well. They both laugh when his arms get stuck halfway down the sleeves. He steps back a little to shed his suit jacket properly. 

When he returns to her, he cups her face, and seems to be studying her. 

“Newt?”

He watches strands of her hair slip through his fingers. 

She weaves her hand into his hair. 

“I didn’t know what to make of you when we met. Why I—But then we came here and you said you were always alone and I thought maybe, we’re not so different. Not that I wanted you to be. I wasn’t glad that you were…”

She shakes her head. 

“But. I think that was the first time I really saw you.”

He looks up into her eyes. His fingertips skim the sensitive skin just beneath her eye. 

“Have I said something?”

She smiles tenderly. 

“No, no. Of course not. I only—that early?”

“Yes. That early.”

She bites her lip, her gaze bright and happy.

They stumble back into the apartment, kissing with abandon. She starts on the buttons of his vest, her knees weak as he begins to kiss her neck. He gasps against her skin each time her fingers brush his chest. 

“Is this alright?” she asks, working her fingers beneath his vest and braces.

“Merlin, yes, Tina.” She feels his tongue brush her neck and whimpers, squeezing her eyes shut as the touch sears through her.

His hands are on her hips, bringing her with him. They fall onto the sofa in a tangle of eager limbs.

For a moment, they simply look at each other. His hands are on her hips, his thumb gently soothing her skin over her blouse. Hers settle on his neck.

“Hi,” she says, fixing a lock of his hair which is sticking out at an odd angle, and feeling not the slightest bit bad for having been the one to make a mess of his hair in the first place. 

 They are not sitting properly on the sofa at all, but rather turned into each other, with her legs bent and half draped over his. 

He surges forward to kiss her once more. His hands leave her, but only to tug off his vest and throw it aside. He skims his lips over her pulse point, and she whispers his name and slides her hands down his chest, searching for more—more of him, more of being so marvelously close. 

“Are you alright?” he asks, his lips skimming along her jaw. She tugs his shirt free from his trousers, sliding her hands beneath to map his bare skin and the scars that mark it. 

“Yes. Yes.” He combs his fingers through her hair, and then his hands move down her back, and delve beneath her blouse, onto her bare skin.

“Merlin’s beard, that feels wonderful.” He presses his forehead to her temple. She doesn’t know if he means her hands on his back, or his on her back. Wordlessly, she claims his mouth with hers. She feels his fingers tracing every ridge of her spine.

Eventually, their kisses slow, stretching out until they are catching their breath between each one, and then stopping completely. She threads her fingers between his, and he kisses her shoulder through her blouse, and they both laugh, in pleasure and at how they’ve been carried away.

She lifts his hands between them, drawing circles across his knuckles. “I kept noticin’ your hands.”

“My hands?”

“Mm. When we met. I think that’s what I saw first.” She kisses his knuckles, then the back of his fingers. His hand shifts reflexively in hers, and he sighs. “When we were in that cell, and you explained everythin’ to Jacob? You were twistin’ your hands together. Everything cruel and unjust in the world makes you so angry and so kind. And I wanted—I wanted to hold your hands. So much. Even though we were in such a mess, some of which I’d caused.”

Newt strokes her cheekbone with his thumb.

Tina resettles the collar of his shirt, and realizes that the top few buttons are undone. She laughs, hardly remembering when she did that. He leans back, his eyes falling closed. 

She sees a mark peeking out from beneath his shirt collar, and reaches beneath the fabric to touch it. He shivers. “Sorry,” she whispers.

“Don’t be. ’s nice.” 

“This is from when you rescued Teddy.” She recognizes the placement and shape of the scar from the story he’d told her in one of his letters.

He nods, his eyes still peacefully closed. Carefully, she traces the scar, all the way across his chest to the tip of his shoulder. 

Newt sighs, his body utterly relaxed under her touch. When she has satisfied herself in learning this particular mark, she turns and tucks herself into his side, resting her head on his shoulder. He holds her to him.

She stretches, and her shirt rides up, leaving his hand in contact with bare skin. “From auror training?” he observes, tracing a ridged mark on her hip. 

“Yeah.” She yawns. “Shoulda let a healer fix it instead’a Queenie.”

“I like learning these things.”

“So do I.”

“Supper?”

She turns her face into his neck, her lips skimming across the top of his collarbone. “In a few minutes?”

-&-

“What’re you drawin’ then?” Tina asks, looking up from her book. Their dishes from supper click faintly behind them as the spell she cast washes them and puts them away.

Newt sits up a bit from the arm of the sofa opposite her. He offers her his leather-bound sketchbook, which is open to a page nearly full of pencil drawings. She reaches to take the book from him. Their calves and ankles brush as they shift closer. 

The drawings look like texture studies of some sort of pattern, perhaps of feathers. Newt has written in notes among the drawings, noting which patterns belong to each part of the creature’s body.

The tips of his ears redden slightly as he reaches over and turns the page. She is met with a drawing of herself, as she looked on Friday, with her hair curled. 

“When did you draw this?” 

“That night. I couldn’t sleep until I’d…”

He trails off, and she looks up, smiling, almost teasing. Then she returns to the drawing, tracing her own features to feel the reverence with which they were drawn—the mix of serious study and joyful exuberance. 

“You could look through it. If you want to.”

“Oh. Yes. I’d love to.” She glances up at him for a breath, then back down, and carefully opens the worn leather spine more fully, turning back to the beginning. She knows he draws—he’s often mentioned it, even in the first days of their acquaintance, when she asked after sketches she’d found lying about in the case. He’s also sent her a few little drawings as part of his letters. But being invited to peruse a whole sketchbook feels different, somehow. 

Teddy looks up at her from that first page, mischief in his eyes, making her smile. She rests the book atop her bent knees and settles in to look, turning the pages slowly. She feels Newt’s gaze on her, and his presence is warm and intimate, with their quiet breaths, and the occasional rustling of clothes. 

There are little sketches of landscapes—large and small—plains, trees, rivers, then close-up drawings of creatures, only some of which she recognizes from his book. Sometimes a touch of color has been added in, but most of the pages are pencil or charcoal and ink. A drawing of a sunset or sunrise. Pickett perched on the arm of a chair. The details of various leaves. 

He has a keen eye for nature and for creatures in particular, of course, but he is almost equally skilled at noticing the details of the man made, even if those drawings are less frequent. A cobblestone street. The arch of a window. A bustling train station.  

She laughs when she turns the page to find a portrait of Theseus, trying to look stern but really almost laughing, and thinks that Newt has captured his brother exactly right. 

Newt slides his hand beneath the cuff of her casual trousers and onto her ankle. His skin is rough and warm. 

She turns the page to a sketch of Jacob, who looks worn and tired as he sits on a stone wall, his shoulders hunched. Opposite that is a portrait of Queenie, smiling cautiously through tears in her eyes. Tina’s breath catches. She is completely taken with the honesty of his drawing. “This is from when you were with them? A few months ago?” She holds up the page, and Newt nods. 

He begins to circle the knob of her ankle with his thumb. She sighs faintly at the pleasure of it, stretching out her toes and rolling her shoulders. Her head goes sort of fuzzy in a nice way as she turns to the next page. 

Several pages follow with drawings of various creatures. The niffler sleeping sprawled on Newt’s desk. Harriet, much younger and smaller, nosing at something on the ground. There is precise detail in the creature’s posture—her bent legs and tilted head. Mixed among them she finds texture drawings of fur or feathers—Newt working out how to capture a texture or light. 

And among all of that, more portraits of people—some she does not recognize, and some she does. Another sketch of Jacob, and of Theseus. The creature assistant she’d once seen in a magazine, who she now knows as Bunty. Lally. 

“That’s Mum,” Newt says of a sketch of an older woman. Tina traces the resemblances between her and her sons, studying the kind, determined expression on her face. 

Newt runs a finger up the tendon at the back of her ankle, then down again. He circles his fingers and the very tips of his nails at the base of her calf. 

The drawings go briefly out of focus. She could turn her face into the sofa cushions and float for hours as he touches her. A shiver runs up her back and neck, and she would almost feel silly for enjoying such a simple thing so much, yet it feels so good. Her mind is pleasantly clouded and distant, and even as she goes back to the sketchbook and turns the page, she feels as though the whole world has gone soft and still. 

She hadn’t had much physical contact with anyone for months and months, not until Queenie returned, and of course these past few days. Perhaps for others it’s easy, natural, ordinary, but to have his hand brushing her skin…It feels…she hadn’t known how much she’d been missing this. 

She thinks for a moment to consider how Newt’s reacting, whether anything’s too much. As she does, she sees that his breathing is slow and even and calm, and his shoulders are as slumped with relaxation as hers. Until she’d grasped his hand on the way to the apartment Friday, he had seemed to be holding himself back at the wedding, as though he had to keep his hands at his side or tangled together lest he forget himself and reach for her. Perhaps it is a relief for him as well. 

“I have others for work. For the book and such. This one is just for me.”

He switches his hand to her other leg. She’s never known her skin to be quite so sensitive.

“Oh, I also—one moment.” Resting one hand on her knee, he bends suddenly away towards a couple of loose note pages he’d brought up, which now rest on the floor beside the sofa. He brushes them aside and picks up a slim leather-bound book beneath them, bending back to offer it to her.

 This book contains older drawings. Tina at the dinner table, her face turned shyly away. Jacob with his ill-fated case of pastries. Queenie laughing, surely at something Jacob had said. Tina and Queenie embracing in the subway. Jacob stepping into the rain. And again, and again, Tina finds her own figure on these pages. In the glittering dress at the speakeasy, and in her pajama shirt and coat at the Ministry, and on the city rooftops, her hair windswept. Sleeping fitfully in a chair at Flamel’s. Pointing her wand with a look of pure determination. Looking back at him as she reached for a portkey back to America.

A dashed together portrait of her on the docks.

“I drew that on the ship, that night,” Newt says.

She traces her own figure. It is drawn with such love. She begins to tear up. “Good tears,” she promises. “They’re beautiful.”

“Are they?”

“Of course.” She finds his hand and squeezes it. A yawn forces its way past her lips.

“Tired?” Newt asks.

“Mm.” She closes the sketchbook gently and smoothes her hand over the soft cover. “And I have work in the morning.”

“We should sleep. I’ll go settle everyone and change.”

She hesitates for a breath. They do this now, don’t they? Share a bed? “Where would you prefer to sleep?”

“Your bed’s more comfortable,” he confesses. She lets out a breath, relieved that he expects to share a bed with her as well, no matter where they are. “I’m used to the menagerie, but Dougal will come get me if there’s trouble.”

She squeezes his hand. “Alright.” 

While Newt is changing, she packs her work bag with reports and letters. Friday had been a bit of a whirlwind, with the wedding and all, but she doesn’t intend to work extraordinary hours this week. Not while Newt’s here.

She has only just finished readying herself for bed when Newt reappears. 

He climbs into bed first on the side against the wall, and Tina follows, lying on her side facing out towards the room. Even with a little expansion charm, the bed is small, and only a few inches separate them. Newt rests his hand on her hip. 

She brushes her hand over his and laughs softly. 

“What?” He asks, sounding amused. She feels the pillows shift as he resettles his head. 

“I was thinkin’ about you, in this bed two years ago, pretendin’ that you weren’t still wearin’ your vest and bowtie, and that you were gonna go to sleep.”

“I thought you hadn’t noticed.”

She rolls her eyes, grinning. “Of course I noticed.”

“You brought me cocoa.”

“I was checkin’ up on you.”

“Is that why.”

Newt’s hand hovers above her shoulder, and then he begins to trace the seams of her pajama shirt and the lines of her shoulder blade with gentle fingers. Her hum of agreement turns to one of pleasure. 

Newt adds, his hand never stilling across her back, “That’s what you wanted to think.”

She shifts a little, and his fingers brush her neck. “Mm. What’s that s’posed’t mean, Mr. Scamander?” She enjoys teasing him with his surname, a little reminder of how they started, and hopes the fact that their bodies are mere inches apart conveys that she means to put no bite into it. 

She hears his smile in his voice, and relaxes. “You didn’t have to be kind to me. You wanted to keep an eye on me, but you offered me dinner, and a bed. Your bed.”

“Yes?” she concedes, trying to guess his line of thought. 

“In fact, you practically dragged me here. You seem to be making a habit of that.” 

“You didn’t seem to mind. And anyway, I did not drag you,” she protests, fighting a smile. 

“Mm, true, I was very willing, at least on Friday. That first time I was simply intrigued.”

“You were bein’ very suspicious.”

“So, naturally, you brought me here.”

“To keep an eye on you.” 

“But you were…kind.”

“Are you tryin’ to suggest I brought you cocoa because I liked you?”

“I am.”

He runs a single finger down the column of her neck, as light almost as a gust of wind. Then, he threads his hand into her hair and lifts it out of his way, smoothing the strands carefully against the pillow. He returns to tracing light lines out from her neck to her shoulder and back. “Feels nice,” she murmurs eventually, sinking contentedly into the pillows. She can feel him smile, perhaps at the sleepy tenor of her voice.

He skims his knuckles down her spine, and up again, then lightly circles the back of his hand against her back. 

They stay like that for several minutes, the only sounds in the room the rustling of fabric and their even breaths. Tina lets her mind drift unhurriedly between the present moment and memories that pull her in. Newt tucking her hair back at the docks. Queenie laughing at dinner the night she returned. Newt’s sad smile as her portkey took her away from London. The excited-anxious feeling in the pit of her stomach as she bought a copy of his book a few days after it came out, so proud of him, so confused and hurt, and wondering what their future held. 

“Hey, Newt?”

“Yes?” His fingertips are following the shape of her shoulder blade. 

“Why did you think I’d stopped writing?”

“Hm?”

“Last night you asked me how I’d explained the magazine article about you. I mean, what I assumed you were thinkin’.”

“Yes.”

“But I didn’t ask you what you thought. About me.” His hand stills. “Would you tell me?”

The slow touch resumes. “I can try. If you like.”

“You don’t have to if you—”

“—no, I’d—I want to.” She holds her hand out to him, resting it on her hip. He slides his hand into hers a moment later. 

“You said in one of your letters that after you saw the magazine article, you put my letters away.” His voice is warm and close.

“I did,” she agrees. He runs his thumb back and forth at the base of her neck. “I couldn’t look at them anymore when I thought…”

“I was the opposite, after you stopped writing. I must’ve read each of your letters a dozen times during those few weeks, trying to understand…” Newt lets out a heavy breath. “At first, I thought you might be upset about what I’d said about aurors.”

“You mentioned in Paris.”

“Mm.” He skims his knuckles across her shoulder, and doesn’t speak for a few moments. 

“But you changed your mind?” She asks. 

“It was all I could grasp from our letters. But I thought you’d practically agree with me. And you’d known what I’d meant, I hoped.” 

“I had.” He runs one finger along her hairline to ease errant strands of her hair behind her shoulder. Then, she feels a few fingertips along her shoulder.

His fingers still once more. “I liked you.”

She smiles.

“And you liked me. I thought.”

“Newt,” she whispers. He briefly presses his forehead into her hair, and kisses her neck. She reaches over her shoulder to touch his hair, then settles her hand back beside her.

One finger taps against her shoulder. “I know you did, obviously. But, then, I wondered.”

“I understand.”

“You seemed to like me. When we sat in the case together. And at the docks when I left. And in your letters I thought…But people don’t like me, you see. Or they—they act like they do, and then…It’s terribly confusing. And you’d felt so different.”

She’s seen the way he seems to curl in on himself around new people. Newt isn’t shy, not really, and he isn’t fearful, but he can be wary, and from the casual way he’s written her stories about school and childhood that made her breath catch in her throat, she can guess where this wariness was learned. She couldn’t bear this story if he wasn’t close, she thinks. At least she can feel in his ease with her that all is well, now.

“Sometimes, I would think perhaps you hadn’t really liked me in the way I…But that couldn’t be right. You hadn’t seemed—you were— The way you were in Paris. I didn’t understand it. You were hurt and angry. But you cared.” He presses his forehead into her neck again, and she reaches her hand back into his hair. His voice is muffled against her hair. “Did I seem very different when you first saw me in Paris? I tried not to be. I wanted to be myself. I wanted you to remember why you’d liked me, before.”

“If I’d needed to be reminded, it would have worked in about two seconds. But I didn’t. I’ve always thought you were extraordinary.”

He resettles on the pillows just enough to speak clearly again, but it seems, cannot help bringing her hand to his lips to kiss. “It took you a few minutes. To develop that opinion of me."

“That’s true.”

“Not too many.” 

“Fewer minutes than I admitted to myself, that’s for sure.” 

“The thing is, I never thought I’d—I was content with my life before. Then, I met Jacob. And you, and Queenie. And there were these…gaps, where there never had been before. But if you didn’t want—me, there was nothing I could do to—but I hoped. I would say something to you and you would smile, or stare at me. And when we finally spoke, and you looked at me, and took a step closer, I thought…perhaps I’d been right to hope.”

Tina rolls over to face him.  Cradling his head between her hands, she studies his damp eyes and trembling smile. And even though his tears have almost begun to fall, he looks relieved and happy. She drags his mouth onto hers. He hums in surprise, but catches on quickly, sliding his hands down to the small of her back to press her closer. She curls one hand into his hair. The kiss becomes deeper, open-mouthed, breathless. She kisses his jaw, his ear, his neck. His hands go slack, and she tugs at his hair, and he whimpers, making her smile. For several minutes she feels only his warm hands and body and their mingling breaths and the spine-tingling good of kissing him. 

When they part, he lets out a wordless, rough sort of noise, and chases after her for one last kiss. He threads one hand into her hair and cradles her head, and she wraps an arm around his neck, arching into his touch. He rests his forehead on hers to catch his breath. 

“When I read those letters you’d never sent, I wanted so much to look after the man who’d written them. You seemed bewildered, and hurt, and sad.” 

He sniffs. “But I’m not, now.”

“No.” Tina is smiling, tearful. “You’re not.” She tucks her face into his chest. That time doesn’t sting anymore, not nearly in the way it used to. It seems that’s true for him, too. It’s becoming simply a part of their story. 

“What are you thinking?” he asks. His hands have returned to stroking through her hair.

She curls her fingers into his shirt. “It might sound odd.”

“Mm?”

���I’m not—I don’t always show what I’m feeling. I’m not open like that. Like Queenie or...I’m sorry that meant that you wondered, but, I’m glad you saw eventually.”

“I haven’t wondered since.”

She kisses his chest through his shirt. “People never seem to see how much I care about things. They seem to think that because I’m…I appear strong, so I must not feel…”

He tucks his chin over her head. “I don’t understand how.”

“I know.” She brings her hand down his neck and under the edge of his shirt, and fingering the line of a long-faded scar.

“Tina, do you remember when we met—?”

“Completely forgotten,” she teases.

He nudges her shoulder. “At MACUSA, when we were being interrogated. Do you remember when they found the obscurial that I’d preserved in my case?”

“Yes.”

He plays with one of her hands. “I still remember the look of betrayal on your face. Like everything you’d perhaps begun to think of me had been wrong.” He kisses her wrist. “I wanted you to see me. So badly. I needed you to understand—it didn’t matter so much if you agreed with what I’d done, but I needed you to believe me when I explained why I’d done it.”

“I remember.”

“And you did.”

“I did.”

“You see me, I think. When other people don’t. Or wouldn’t.”

“Yes,” she breathes. She tightens her hand in his shirt and tucks one leg over his, wishing they could stay here forever. 

“It was agonizing. That interrogation room and the cell. You were scared and crying and…Merlin it was horrible to watch. I felt…”

“You hate to see anyone in pain. But seeing me in pain hurt even more.”

She feels him nod above her head.

It is scary, she thinks. Making yourself vulnerable to this. And it is good. 

He draws light patterns across her back. She sighs happily. His fingers skim up her neck. 

“Keep goin’?” she requests.

And so he does. He rubs her back, at first above her shirt, and then beneath it. Sometimes he switches to combing her hair with his fingers. 

“I sleep well next to you,” she murmurs, half asleep.

“So do I.”

“I wasn’t sure I would. I’ve shared a room with Queenie or the girls at school for most of my life, but…”

“I wasn’t sure how it would be either. I sleep next to creatures often. But not people. Only during the war, really, and that was—”

“—very different,” she agrees. 

“Are you comfortable?”

“Very.” He laughs softly. “I’ve got you.”

She smiles, wondering, as she drifts into sleep, if he, too, is remembering the first time he promised that.

#newtina #newtina fanfiction #my writing #together updates #together #chapter 4 #together chapter 4 #sunday

[acacia-may]

From the excerpt ask game, could you answer 15, 16, and 17? 💖

Aww thank you so much, Erika! I'd love to answer your questions and share some excerpts as part of the ask game! 🥰

15. An excerpt from an old piece that I like

After reading your awesome Fairy Tail thoughts (thank you again for sharing those by the way!), I wanted to choose an excerpt from one of my Fairy Tail fics for you. I don't have any Jerza, but I do have some Mystwalker (Edo Jerza) and hope that'll do 😅 This excerpt is from "More Than My Life" which was my very first Fairy Tail fanfiction and is over a year old (so I'd consider it an old piece, especially since I never really talk about it) ^^

"I’ve failed in my duty to protect you, Your Majesty.”  Erza Knightwalker hung her head but could hear King Jellal hum thoughtfully. “I suppose that is one way of looking at it.”  “With all due respect, Your Majesty, what other way is there?” she questioned, glancing up at him again with a slight tilt of her head.  The corners of his mouth twitched just barely with that thoughtful, almost imperceptible smile she had come to recognize after years as his most trusted bodyguard. In many ways it seemed saved only for her and those moments when she was far more frank with him than a servant should be with their king. “That I succeeded in my duty to protect you.”  “Your Majesty, if you are the one protecting me, I have no right to call myself your bodyguard. It is almost nonsensical. When your subjects learn I have allowed you to be injured in my place, they will insist I be stripped of my rank of Captain in your Royal Army and perhaps even imprisoned or banished for treason.”  As something almost affectionate passed over his eyes, King Jellal tilted his head. “I think they will understand.”   “Your Majesty, your people are not as forgiving as you.” Erza sighed. “Though they are good people, they are also reasonable ones. They will never understand why their king would risk his life to protect his bodyguard.”  “Perhaps,” King Jellal admitted quietly; however, his expression softened. “But I can only hope they will understand why their king would risk his life to protect the woman he loves.”  

16. An excerpt from a recent piece i want to brag about

You are too kind to me, Erika! I feel bad I don't have any recent pieces from our shared fandoms, but if you will indulge me, I would love to ramble about "Under The Weather," to you specifically because this relationship is my "finding love again when it didn't seem possible" oc x cc pairing (ala your Nacsele, and you know how I passionately I feel about that kind of love story). Again, I apologize for choosing an excerpt from a fandom you're not in, but I just wrote this story for my birthday back in February and am so proud of it and this scene in particular because I think it means my romance writing is getting better...maybe? (I mean it's still one of those, "wow I can't believe I wrote this" things and they'd both swear they're just friends here...so it's ambiguously romantic(?) (I guess?) but it's an extremely slow burn so I feel like it's appropriate to be subtle). Anyways, I hope you'd have an appreciation for the vibes at least, and I chose from a portion of the story with no specific spoilers for OMORI or anything. ^^

“Lorraine has nothing but nice things to say about you,” he admitted with a slight smile. “She’s always telling me how smart, driven, and beautiful you are. How you’re strong and honest but so kind, so much softer than you want people to know. She says you’d make a great girlfriend.” Hero blushed. That last part had just slipped out—he probably wouldn’t have said it, if he wasn’t so feverish, but Zoey just laughed. “My sister said that to you?” She sighed, rolling her eyes somewhat affectionately but the look in them was genuinely guilty. “Sorry. I’ll talk to her.” As he coughed, Hero shook his head. “No, it’s…it’s okay. She’s right…” His voice trailed, distant and breathy, but he couldn’t stop the words that tumbled out of his mouth, “You are all of those things, and if you did ever want to date someone, that person would be very lucky…” “Not nearly as lucky as the person who gets your heart, Mr. Prince.” Even though Hero was sure she was only teasing him, his face flushed anyway—burning to the tips of his ears. He pursed his lips together, then stared down at his hands on the duvet. “It’s pretty broken…I’m not sure it’s much of a prize anymore,” he mumbled, trying his best to play along despite the sadness that crept into his words. He bit his lip, but he felt her warm, gentle hand reach out to take his. He couldn’t look at her face, but he felt her squeeze his hand, heard her voice—quiet but sincere. “I don’t think that’s true.” As he took a long, shallow breath, Hero shivered, but he wasn’t sure it was from the fever.

17. An excerpt from an unpublished WIP

This is an excerpt from "Something...Happened..." which is a Black Clover WIP I never finished. Noelle is the POV character, and the story takes place when the Black Bulls are combing through Gordon's observation diaries trying to find any information that might help Asta when he is put on trial after the Elf Arc only for silly shenanigans to ensue. It was fun to write, but I think I got distracted by other projects before I finished it...😅 Here's a snippet though ^^

Noelle began to skim looking for anything interesting but it was just the same old, same old. Shopping. Visiting with the vendors. Nothing new or exciting and certainly nothing that is remotely relevant to Asta. After about 4 more pages at the market, Gordon finally returned back to the Hideout. When I returned from the market with our groceries, Vanessa was busy setting the table. Captain Yami decided that we were going to have a special dinner to celebrate our very first mission where we caused no accidental casualties and didn’t earn a negative star. Noelle paused. So they were earning negative stars even back then, huh? No wonder the squad was in such bad shape when she had joined. Captain Yami bought some nice bottles of wine for the occasion, and he is even going to let Finral have some. Captain Yami said that since Finral recently turned eighteen, he should be responsible enough to drink in moderation. Vanessa is particularly curious since she wasn’t allowed to drink in the Forest of Witches, even though she says Her Majesty the Queen of Witches is very fond of red wine. She says she is very excited to finally get to have some. Noelle snorted. She bet she was—considering how fond she was of drinking these days. It was almost comforting somehow to see that her squad mates hadn’t changed much over the years. She had almost expected them to be a little bit different since she was given such an old observation diary. But no, Gordon was still awkward. Vanessa was still friendly. Finral was still a flirt, and Captain Yami still didn’t put up with anyone’s nonsense. It didn’t make for as interesting reading as one would think though. We all sat down for dinner—was the last sentence on this page, but when Noelle turned to the next her brow furrowed. This couldn’t be right… I managed to trap the goat in the bathroom. Then, I gently tied a rope around its collar and led it down to the basement where Captain Yami keeps his magical beasts. The goat seemed scared but there was another cage down there that would keep her safe. Noelle blinked. What? She flipped back to the previous page. Boring dinner. She flipped forward. Goat drama. It didn’t make sense—at least until she noticed the remnants of some pages that appeared to be ripped out.

#fairy tail fic snippets #black clover fic snippets #omori-fic snippets #erika 💙 #mystwalker my lovelies

[hriobzagelthewanderer]

[Hriob's Abilities: Embodiment of Vitality]

Hriob Zagel is many things... Fae, Forest Guardian, Mountain Spirit, Trickster Entity, 'Woodwose', Spirit Guide, Technical Royalty, Agent of the Worldspirit Gaia, but of all the titles, Jobs, and Concepts that latch onto him, most all of them seem to carry some primordial aspect of 'strength', 'resilience', 'fortitude', or 'endurance'... 'Life' at its purest and most primal, and the effects have over many years proven to be cumulative, if not exponentially synergistic.

It is no secret that he is strong, that he has the might of dozens if not hundreds of men combined in a manner that defies even his prodigious size and figure, but it is not only muscular might that is a part of this. In truth, many aspects of his physical parameters are affected by this, from his effective immunity to all but a handful of diseases, to his inability to become poisoned or intoxicated by all but the most toxins or drugs, to the endurance to go weeks without sleep or days without reprieve from intense physical effort, even to simply the durability and resistance to damage - physical or otherwise - that rivals most dedicated wards or suits of armor. A very select few may even claim that he seems more vibrant and 'lively' in other ways, but that is a more private matter he hardly feels comfortable discussing in public.

There is a trick to this, or perhaps more accurately a dependency: Hriob is a part of the world around him by nature, specifically with nature as well as the supernatural. He has other reserves and sources of power and agency, but at his core and still yet as his most reliable resource, he is as much a caretaker for life and magic as he is dependent on both in his surroundings to remain healthy and vibrant. Keep him in a magically or biologically dense and flourishing environments - especially his home in the Halls of the Mountain King, which is both of these things as well as the actual seat of his power - and he will be at his most indefatigable and powerful, most invigorated... surround him with death, empty space, and a complete void - or denial - of magic, and his body will begin to weaken, if not fail him.

Do not mistake this as him being blindly dependent on his surroundings. There are times that he is willing to enter more urban or blighted environments, be they out of duty, necessity, both, or neither... and Hriob is not afraid to voluntarily weaken his own position if it means weakening an adversary, rival, or threat even further in the process. However, some may find it reassuring to find that even the 'Great and Mighty Erlking' has weaknesses and limits...

...then again, those who have assumed they understand his failings often fail to understand his own self-awareness on such issues, or his willingness to trick and misdirect others with them as much as with anything else, in order to gain the advantage... and to be fair, the fact that the Will of Gaia is a sentient thing - at least to some extent - often is ignored by most, where they discount the fact that as its Agent, Hriob is sometimes more, manually bolstered by its full power, in times when he must act to protect and safeguard Life as a whole to some degree or measure.

All the same, with this fae in particular, Strenght and Weakness are both two sides of the same coin... and far less straight-forward than one is first inclined to believe.

#ooc #about hriob

[mermaidsirennikita]

ARC Review: One Season with the Duke by Addy Du Lac

Out now (and available on Kindle Unlimited)! 4.25/5.

For when you're vibing with... fast physical burns and slow emotional burns, culture clashes, and friends to lovers done right.

With a secret hanging over her head, Hettie has been blackmailed into getting engaged to an asshole. Fortunately, her childhood friend (now Hot and Sizable Duke) Finn, offers a helping a hand... in marriage.

Friends to lovers is a tough sell for me--however, once I realized how much of the friendship in this book was rooted in childhood, I was readier to bite. And I'm glad I did! This is a fun, sweet, surprisingly hot Scottish romance that really focuses hard on the relationship development.

Quick Takes:

--Here's what I dislike about friends to lovers so often: either the hero longs for the heroine but doesn't have the balls to make a move, or the heroine longs for the hero and somehow he Doesn't Notice Her (doesn't get turned on by her) and the heroine is left looking pathetic. In this case, Finn is the one who's very aware of Hettie from the jump. However, she pretty quickly identifies that he's All Grown Up, and he actually makes his move very early in the novel. That, right away, solves a lot of problems for me.

What I expected from there was a marriage in name only, wherein they would, for some reason, wait on fucking for like five billion pages, and I would get increasingly annoyed. But nope! These two are getting down less than a third of the way into the novel, because it makes sense. They're married; the marriage being valid is super important for their general scheme and Hettie's safety; they're not in love (she definitely isn't) but they're physically attracted to each other. Why not?

So it's like, this mixture of duty and genuine interest that brings them together, and I found that compelling. It felt real and pretty authentic to the time period (albeit with the added benefit of them being just five years apart in age and hot). I really appreciated that there wasn't all this handwringing about it from Hettie--no "oh no, I must marry my hot duke friend to escape my evil cousin". She knows she's got a good thing going, and they both are aware that it may never be this dreamy romance (until it is) but they're gonna try and make it work. And a lot of making it work involves the thing they are 100% on the same page about from the get-go: boning the fuck down.

--A lot of the conflict in this book, and I mean this in a good way, felt very old school. There's an evildoer setting out to blackmail Hettie (I personally enjoy a blackmail plot, especially when the heroine is an heiress; there's something about a "MUAHAHAHA" that I just like), obviously. Then there's this stretch in which she's really adjusting to not only being a duchess, but being a Scottish duchess, and I liked the distinction made here. While Finn may be very Englishified in some ways (although he does do a bit of a brogue at the right moments, as all Scottish heroes Must and Should), he is Scottish. His people are Scottish. There is an expectation that his wife will acclimate this, and it's like--not fuckin' easy. I liked that it wasn't easy. In some ways, it felt kind of cinematic while also subverting some of the old school-isms where the heroine goes to Scotland and everyone is all och and aye and just welcomes her with open arms.

In particular, Hettie's mother-in-law does not welcome her with open arms. In many historical romances today, I don't feel like supporting characters who are a) not villains and b) not getting set up for the next book receive much fleshing out. At least, not in the way they used to. But here, we see a woman who is understandably protective of her late husband's legacy, a bit possessive of her son, and......... kind of a bitch to Hettie. However, not a bitch without dimension. She's not flat. There is meat to her character, and there's meat to her relationship development with Hettie. I'm extremely soft for historicals in particular that place an emphasis on female relationships, so that was nice to see.

--You're going to either be frustrated or relieved by the fact that we the readers know Hettie's secret from the start. For some, I suspect this will lead to some "but telll hiiiim", and at points I did feel that way. However, from her emotional perspective, I get why she didn't; and I also personally appreciated knowing her secret from the start. It's not an inconsiderable issue, and I personally find that when a hero or heroine dithers over something we don't even know the truth about... That's where the frustration really comes in.

--We do get a grovel in this one, and it's quite sweet. I can't say much about the grovel because spoilers, but I liked it a lot. There are insane grovels, and there are emotionally sense-making but still deeply felt grovels, and I think this one falls into the latter.

--This book got me to care about two people who are ultimately Good and Solid, in a relationship that is like... not toxic. Which is hard for me! That said, I really like Addy's writing style, and I wouldn't mind seeing her try her hand at a batshit pairing down the road.

--As a random aside, if you like a bit of "she is too young for me and I am a hideous pervert for noticing her ankles" (which I do), there's a dash of that behind why Finn didn't pursue Hettie earlier. She really isn't too young for him by the standards of the time (they're about 5-6 years apart) but he felt very bad for finding her hot when she was eighteen, and I enjoyed that discomfort immensely.

The Sex Stuff:

Like I said, they starting fucking early and they really don't let up. I literally let out a sigh of relief when it began sooner rather than later; I fucking hate the "oh we're married but let's wait until 80% into the book to fuck even though the marriage can literally be invalidated if people find out you're still untouched" dance. Wow, two people thinking with their brains and their libidos!

The sex is well-written and explicit, and like... earthy without being over the top, if that makes sense. I posted that excerpt of Finn commenting on Hettie's scent while he was...................... he's Scottish so down under isn't a joke that makes sense, but he was going down on her. It's the simple intimacies of sex that I found the book did really well. Also, I really liked how they talked about sex with each other--you can feel that there's a friendship there (and he's such a pleaser). And like, there's no shame around Hettie having and enjoying sex without being in love quite yet? That's one thing I appreciated throughout; she cares for him from the start but she knows she's not in love yet... and she's still comfortable with expressing affection for him in a sexual way, and he makes her comfortable with it. There isn't this expectation that being aware of being in love is important for good sex, which I often sense with the writing of heroines. Something that I can't give away happens and Finn is like "maybe no sex for a while" and Hettie's reaction is basically "exfuckingcuse???"

A romantic and emotionally authentic debut, which I think will appeal to many readers--especially those who like historicals that are well-researched and real, without trading in on some of the more problematic aspects of the subgenre. In fact, in general, if you find that historical romances "scare you" a little, I'd say this is a good one to ease your way into the genre with.

Thanks to Addy Du Lac (@thataddylady on here) for a copy of this book! All thoughts and opinions are my own.

#romance novel blogging #arc reviews #book recs #books #book reviews

[stars-and-darkness]

WIP WEDNESDAY!!!

week #10

(wow, i can't believe it's already ten ...)

anyway, here's some faerie au-flavoured john gilbert slander. that's all the context i'll give you, because, you see, i think it's funny.

“It is kind of beautiful, isn’t it?” Elena asks softly, eyes on the snow-capped mountains far away—on the other side, the Autumn Court sprawls in all its glory. “Not in the same way as home, but …”

It kind of is, but even if it wasn’t, Caroline would find a way to twist her words so that it seems she agrees with Elena.

“Very,” she says, while Elena pulls her hat down over the lightly furred tips of her ears to protect them from the cold.

“I really like your cloak,” she says then to Bonnie. “Of course, it’s a wonder anyone could find any fur at all to buy, considering half the animal population of Fairfold must be in my trunks. Jenna hired a seamstress from the Winter Court to make my trousseau. She’s very worried I’ll freeze to death in Walakh Kor.”

“I’m sure Katherine was very thrilled you got so many new gowns, while she got nothing,” says Caroline cheekily.

“I don’t know, actually.” Elena taps her chin thoughtfully. “She kept parading in front of me in all her lightest dresses, and it was probably her way of taunting me. Which—it’s not like she’s expected to survive the wedding with nothing but tatters on, you know? She got a new wardrobe of her own.”

“That’s … likely,” Bonnie says. “And your brother?”

“Bonnie, no.” Caroline slaps her shoulder lightly, as Bon had requested she do whenever she starts moping about Jeremy again.

His and Bonnie’s fling was as ill-advised as it was unhappy, and in retrospect, they all should have known that it would end in tears. By the time Jeremy was caught in the arms of that river nymph of his, everyone was just waiting for it all to fall apart.

So it’s Caroline and Elena’s sacred duty to slap some sense into Bonnie every time it seems like she’s about to regret ending it between them, just like they do every time Caroline starts daydreaming about her time with Prince Tyler, or Goddess forbid, Elena about her family’s gardener, Matt.

It’s the girl code.

“Bonnie, no,” Elena echoes, brow furrowed.

“I …” Bonnie starts, but then her mouth clicks shut. “I didn’t mean to—”

“Certainly, you didn’t,” Elena mutters. “That’s why you can’t even say it.”

Bonnie’s lips twist, and Caroline gives a too-saccharine smile.

“Hey,” she says with insufferable smile, “do you think Prince Tyler—”

“Hey!” Bonnie warns, but Caroline just bats her eyelashes innocently.

“There you have it.”

“Jeremy,” Elena interrupts them both, “is over in the tent, listening to Uncle John talk, for some reason.” Her lips twist together in disdain.

If there’s one thing Elena and Katherine have in common other than their looks, it’s their hatred of their uncle. And fair enough—nobody actually likes the man. In their family, the title is passed down exclusively through the male line, and with Jeremy still too young to take it, John stepped in as the head of the House after their parents perished at sea.

Katherine, as the eldest sibling, has been known to bemoan that particular tradition quite a bit lately.

“I don’t like it,” Elena goes on, hands crossing over her chest. “I don’t like it at all. I don’t like that man, and Jeremy—”

Bonnie nods, and Caroline does, too. They understand.

She shakes her head. “I hate that I’ll be away, and he’ll go back to Summer.”

“Katherine can protect him,” Caroline tries to assure her. “And your aunt.”

But Elena shakes her head. “Katherine and Jeremy were never close; he’ll cling closer to John, just to spite her. And last I heard, John’s been looking into a match for Jenna, too, which I wouldn’t find so suspicious normally, except he’s obviously removing everyone he can from Jeremy’s life. I hate it.”

Bonnie snorts, then quickly covers her face. “Sorry, sorry, I know this is not the moment, but—I just pictured John trying to coerce some poor lordling into having Katherine, and—”

To that, even Elena cracks a laugh. “I mean, considering what happened the last time …”

Caroline slaps her forehead. “Oh, Goddess. I forgot about that. Did they manage to reattach his fingers?”

Elena cringes. “Katherine used Father’s enchanted dagger, but the family magic answers to John now, he was able to nullify it. She said he should be glad she only took the fingers, though. And they’re still tender when it rains.”

A part of Caroline wishes there’d been someone there to cut John’s throat when he announced Elena’s betrothal, but Elena would never do that. She loves her friend for that sort of kindness, and also desperately wishes she were more like her sister.

“Good,” Bonnie snorts.

Yeah. Nobody likes John.

#tvd #klaroline wip wed #ella originals #ella writes

[has-gilgamesh-doneanythingwrong]

An Anniversary like No Other (Sigurd/Master)

Request: Soft sfw Sigurd headcanons/ messing up the celebration for Sigurd's Summoning Anniversary Celebration/ Master has strong feelings for Sigurd + his reaction-- from an anonymous user

This is a long overdue gift for a special Sigurd appreciator who has been a great person to talk to. Thank you for waiting for so long. As this is the very first time writing Sigurd, I apologise for any inconsistencies in advance.

Note: No warnings, but this includes a master who has feelings for Sigurd.

❃ The day you summoned Sigurd was an auspicious day. As Chaldea's leylines glimmered with a sparkling rainbow hue, you were taken aback by the solemn yet also quite friendly demeanor of this particular hero.

❃ "Are you my master? Please give me your orders. I promise you they will be carried out swiftly." His initial greeting towards you is rather formal and polite, indicating he could possibly make for a great ally both on and off the battlefield.

❃ Your eyes sparkle with wonder at this hero, wishing to grow closer to him; delighted by how easily conversation bounces between the two of you. 'I hope we can talk more in the future...'

❃ It is the hallmark of the development of a rather wonderful new bond...

Daily Life (Soft Headcanons)

❃ At first he may seem a bit cold, focusing moreso on fulfilling his duties to you as a servant instead of as a friend. However, as time gradually trickles on; he can't help but grow to like you. A master that values him and doesn't betray him? It's a complete win-win in his eyes!

❃ Sigurd makes for a wonderful accomplice. Need any help with battle strategy? Farming? Assistance with any other duties? Sigurd's your guy. Not only is he very intelligent, but he is very grateful for you placing his trust in him as a Servant, wishing for you to use him to his absolute limits (he may offer to lay his life down for you).

❃ Showing interest in both him as a person and his background fills Sigurd with great joy and pride. Though he may deem talking about personal details as mere 'idle chatter' at first, it isn't long before the two of you can speak freely about many things! Whenever you visit him to talk, he is extremely happy; willing to talk about his culture, his language and the things he enjoys. In addition to that, he is really interested to learn about you as well!

❃ However, he may go into extremely precise detail at times, as he gets very passionate when talking about what is dear to him (and packs a great memory to boost); talking about very significant moments and hyperfocusing onto his favorite parts. He also gets inwardly joyful whenever he remembers little factoids about you, his glasses sparkling.

❃ Sigurd is very protective of you in battle, shielding you from any threats. He just wants his master to feel as supported as he possibly can. He doesn't want to see you suffer alone, especially not when you are going through such difficult times.

❃ However, the way in which he tries to alleviate the pain may be a bit surprising at times, with him flashing an occasional MEGANE KIRAN! (just to cough lightly from slight embarrassment after) or making surreal movements and maneuvers with the intent of cheering you up a little bit. He may be a bit awkward at times, but he has got the right spirit and heart.

❃ He also possesses a great sense of faith in you as well, describing you as the 'light'. Therefore, he will do his utmost to support you and cheer you on with your own desires and dreams as well. However, he also understands that you may have limits as a human, and tries to check up on your wellbeing and ensure that you get a good rest as well!!

❃ Brynhildr is extremely dear to him, so he is grateful to you for supporting their love so much, and for assisting with their reunion in Chaldea. Despite this, he notices the little droop in your smile, and the twinge in your expression at times when you are around them both; and can't help but wonder if there is something deeper going on beneath the surface.

❃ But as he is a very polite guy, he doesn't want to make you uncomfortable, and is willing to wait as long as need be for you to finally voice the feelings that you have kept deeply buried within. Sigurd is a deeply loyal person, so he doesn't judge you for how you feel; instead wishing to lend an ear if you ever come to need him in the future.

THE ANNIVERSARY (dun dun dun!!!)

❃ A year has passed, and now the two of you have become rather close contemporaries; Sigurd is an incredibly special fellow in your heart (though the way it races slightly around him indicates that your love for him is not solely platonic, but mayhap romantic as well).

❃ Wanting to commemorate the event, you decide to make a surprise cake for him; enlisting one of the chefs that can actually keep a secret (probably Boudicca and/or Emiya) to help you a bit with the recipe. Your plan is to make the ultimate Sigurd memorabilia cake- with a replica of his weapon made with icing, as well as decorating it with a color scheme that suits him. You even scour ancient cookery manuals within the library to guess what flavors would be to his liking, settling for a Yule Cake!

❃ Pouring your entire heart into the confection, you are horrified to see the lopsided decorations and burnt raisins, as well as the very strange end result that the cake ends up in. Tears in your eyes, you are about to give up right there and then, until-

❃ Sigurd appears, worried that you had set the kitchen on fire! Taken aback by this, you begin to sniffle back tears, distraught that not only had your surprise fallen apart, but that your gift to Sigurd had come out as a messy slop!! As the words tumble out of your mouth about how much of a mess this is, of how much you wanted to show him your gratitude, and about how deeply you care for him, he patiently listens, making an occasional sound- to emphasise that he is readily hanging onto your every word.

❃ "Thank you, master. I am honored that you would make such a thoughtful gift in my name. Can I have a bite?" As you reluctantly agree, warning him of the burnt raisins and bitter taste of the cake, he cuts a slice anyway; smiling through the whole thing.

❃ To Sigurd, it doesn't matter that your gift turned out a bit lopsided. What truly matters to him is the sheer devotion you poured into his gift. Expressing said thoughts directly, your heart hammers in your chest, as a blush spreads across your face...and accidentally let slip how you feel about him.

❃ Stricken by terror, you try to flee the room at once after your confession; scared by how he would react. He had a wife. A partner. There was no way that he would take kindly to this, you thought- but that is not the case at all. Softly latching a hand onto your shoulder, Sigurd thanks you for your affections towards him.

❃ "I knew something was going on... however, I never anticipated that you possessed romantic inclinations towards me. Thank you ever so much for viewing me with such affection, master. I am forever your grateful servant."

❃ As for what this means for the future of your relationship, it is unclear. However, it is certain that you are dear to him as well- as for in what way.. well, that still remains a mystery.

#fgo #fgo fanfic #sigurd #fate series #gilgawriting #fgo x reader #fgo headcanons #i havent written these in MONTHS

[sunsp0tarchive]

Anna and Gabbi

I was going to write something more specific relating to the recent drawing, but i think giving general context to these twins in the actual story , might make the piece make a bit more sense to people.

Anna and Gabriel were born as twins, with Gabriel being the slightly older twin by a short margin. Gabriel was at first assigned female at birth, even when it was somewhat debatable even then. But he always told Anna about how it frustrated him and so she tried to cut his hair to look like a "boy haircut" (Both of them previously had long hair, with Gabbis usually in braids. so it was easy to chop off too...) . It ended up looking horrible, and he ran crying to his mother. They were 7 or so at this time. Anna was always the first to listen to Gabriel, even if she often didnt quite relate to, or understand a lot of the emotional turmoil going on in his head. These two were always smart prodigies, and under a lot of unspoken pressure to do well, but they always helped each other with their tasks and were truly very bonded siblings. Gabriel also tried to help Anna out a lot, since she has certain difficulties, since shes autistic. Trying to handle her particular preferences and discomforts and explaining them to others and such. Anna loves Gemstones and came up with the idea of having matching amethyst studs as well. She expresses a lot of love for others by thinking about which parts of her collection might appeal to them or fit them. For her, the studs are a sign of being family, and while Gabriel also loved that at first, it started to feel more like a constant reminder of his trapped situation. Over time, they simply started growing apart, as their preferences and priorities shifted into adulthood. Gabriel feeling trapped in this life he was forced into, of bureaucracy and public appearances, while Anna thrived at her administrative duties, being happy to be in charge and being very good at it as well. Anna just does not understand why Gabriel is having a harder time and doesnt really know how to help him through it at all. He also tries to hide a lot of his worries and pain from her and everyone else. When Anna finds a disheveled looking pretty guy out on the street, with severe injuries on top of it all, Gabriel at first thinks she is being scammed and is very protective of her, suspicious of the stranger (This stranger being Ellis btw.) Over time, trying to learn more about this weird person, he learns that he is actually quite fun to be around. But Anna also has this experience. And to Anna, it feels almost like a destined love that she has been waiting for, finally someone who seems to be on her wavelength. The conflict that comes out of this destabilizes the relationship of the twins even further. I like to think they will end up finding their way back together as family, under a new understanding and such. But that is still a whole story on its own. Thanks for reading about them!!

#Anna #Gabriel #Ellis

[raytm]

anemone :   how does your muse view the world ;   as a cruel   &   unforgiving place ,   a land full of wonders ,   or something in - between ?  where does that world view come from   (   what experiences ,   life lessons ,   etc .   ) ?  marigold :   is your muse prone to jealousy ?  how might they handle envious feelings

sunflower :   what brings your muse the most joy in life ?  / @dupliciti

daffodil :   is your muse one to be loyal in relationships ,   or are they likely to quickly move from one bond to another ? / @resolutepathbegonia : how cautious is your muse ? are they prone to noticing red flags , or paranoid to the point of untrusting most everyone ? why or why not ? ( for gepard! ) / @starspurnzinnia : how has the loss of fallen comrades and/or loved ones affected your muse ? has it taught them anything or given them any new perspectives ? / @miraiq

gepard views the world, not through a lens of naivete, however, recognises both its tendency to be cruel but also, it’s potential to be infinite in a multitude of ways. he has witnessed the adversity of war but has also seen the tenacity in others who had endured it, has weathered an eternal winter but sees the sprouting prospects of a belobog where all can be united. he is a bit of a realist, this stems inevitably from both his upbringing and his position as a silvermane guard, however, this does not mean he is disregarding the idea that the world can become a better place for not just him, but others too. I believe he could do with a good dose of romanticism considering he can be a rather serious sort of guy. In the end I would say his position and his broadening perspective ( through meeting and interacting with others and coming to understand their experiences ) holds both the world in this precarious balance of both being somewhere often inhospitable and somewhere that hope has the tendency to take root. 

Jealousy is a feeling gepard is learning to navigate. growing up, he was often jealous of his sister, he did not openly express this but she was impressive, talented, things that sometimes were hard for him to grasp came to her effortlessly, for her he was both in awe of and jealous of. There hasn’t really been a place in gepard’s life where he was encouraged to express his feelings openly, negative or otherwise, so growing up he definitely stifled these particular notions of envy while trying to also ?? do as much as he could to catch up with his elder sister. there’s always a gap between knowledge and capacity when one is elder than the other and he spent arduous times trying to breach that threshold. now, when it comes to romance ? he is someone who i believe would place trust in his partner, if he had decided to give himself to someone entirely, he would also be bestowing his trust in them, thus, even if he were jealous, you would likely get him more conflicted about his own feelings than directing that potential envy back at you. It’s complicated for him. His work, His family, seeing the way the world around them is changing and having a place amongst the ranks of those who are actively seeking to change it. gepard was conditioned and prepared to be in the position he is now and thus, he allocates a great deal of his time and energy to it. It’s important to him, duty is important to him, is this truly joy ? the people who make up the silvermane guard, learning about them ? getting to know them on a personal level ? that brings him joy. getting to be involved with others outside in the community and seeing that which they are working to protect brings him joy. spending time in his sister’s shop after hours talking about nothing and everything over a cup of tea brings him joy. he’s very oriented around others and to a degree, his capacity and success as a leader, his joy is innately linked to these things. personally ? there are also smaller, more personal joys in his life, like when he was able to keep his first plant alive for longer than a week, when he can dedicate a moment to respite and sit down and read. It’s just ???  gepard is the sort of person who, after establishing an intimate bond with someone, would have that person become an impactful part of his life. whilst he doesn’t have a great deal of experience with romance ( rip gep pls hold his hand ) he would be giving himself fully to someone else and that is not something that wouldn’t hold an immense weight with him. to him, it was expected that marriage ( and relationships in general ) would hold weight within the family and the other nobility so despite veering quite away from that ideology it is still part of the way he navigates relationships. so, in short no, in long i could write an actual essay on this topic. he’s a bit of a golden retriever boyfriend but if a golden retriever boyfriend could also punch and wall and thus fracture it into a million tiny pieces. 

he is a cautious person, it comes with the territory, he has to remain acutely vigilant at any given time due to the peril that is part of his work. He is not an inherently paranoid person but he also has a decent gauge of how trustworthy someone is, he’s had to navigate alot of noble circles in his adolescence leading up to adulthood and thus has been exposed to both charitable and rapacious people. after spending some time with someone, getting to know them a little he finds his discernments to be, usually, rather precise. he regards people with the appropriate amount of suspicion or caution and goes from there truly. 

it impacts him everyday, not a solitary day passes where he does not hold the burden in his heart of those who have fallen on the battlefield. he was, in his youth, more ignorant to the weight that held but when he saw his first comrade take a last, shuddering breath and die alongside him it came rushing in like an arctic flood.  it has made him someone who takes precautions, who has a proclivity for shielding others instead of himself from harm. gepard is aware of the strength he possesses and he has every intention of utilizing it to prevent any others from dying needlessly. It has made him truly cherish the bonds he has, made him aware of each interaction and how important they are, even if they are just in passing. from the meals he shares with his fellow guards, to the time he spends with his sisters or others from belobog he truly values these precious moments.

#god i knew this one was gonna be ALOT. but here you go some more gepard thoughts. #i am really solidified in how i talk about him bc he lives in my fucking brain all day forever. #if i was ever to solo blog it would be for him. #ooc. #long post / #gepard hc