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starlightxsvt · 4 years

Text

weight of a crown

Pairing: king!seokmin x female reader

Genre: angst, romance, royal themed

Warnings: nothing if I remember correctly

Word count: 2k

Like it's a daily matter to him, Seokmin easily jumps over your window and into your room- not that it was a big hassle in the first place.You gasp softly before helping him into your room, "Were you a theif in your past life?" You hiss, sitting beside him in your bed. He puffs up his dark brown locks, chuckling, "Maybe. I promised you I'd visit at night, didn't I?"

You smile fondly at him, squeezing his hand, "That you did." You rest your head on his shoulder, "Did you snuck past the guards again?"

"Yes."

"You do know that His Majesty will be furious if he finds out, don't you?" You murmur, drawing soft circles on his knuckles.

"Only if he finds out, darling. And I've no intention of being caught." Seokmin whispers before softly titling your head up to a kiss.

Having an affair with the prince was something you never thought of, yet, somehow it begun after you started accompanying your father to tend his duties in the royal palace as the garderner. The prince, Lee Seokmin, weirdly took interest in you and since then it has been a common occurrence for him to sneak out of the palace and visit you in the middle of the night. You both couldn't make much noise since your parents slept in the other room and by God, if they ever found out, they were gonna offer you up to the Gods.

"I wish I could visit more often," Seokmin's voice wavers as he strokes your arm through the worn out night dress on you. "It's enough that we can meet, Min. We shouldn't wish for more." You remind to which a sigh escapes from his lips. He hugs you closer as you both look into the night sky from your window, hoping the strings of your fates will be entangled somehow.

The King's untimely death stirs a wave of agitation throughout the whole kingdom, including you but for some slightly other reason. It not only meant a dysfunction in the royal family but also that in the near future Seokmin is to be crowned king. Which would mean that your secret meetings would have to stop eventually. The thought pains you to an extreme extent but you prepare yourself for it.

Couple days later when Seokmin visits you, it's mid-day. He wordlessly guides you to the small stream present in the middle of the forest- a place you two often visit. You both take a seat by the rocks and you focus your gaze on Seokmin. He features are exhausted, bags under his eyes, far from his usual cheerful demeanor. "I'm sorry," you croak, trying to offer some sort of solace. Seokmin exhales deeply before turning to you, "You know what this means, ___." You swallow and nod softly.

"I'm sorry but I can't visit you so often now. In fact I don't know when I will visit you again. Everyone is looking up to me now and there's so much to do, so much to prepare that I can barely sleep at night." He whispers tightly holding your hands.

"It's okay, Min. You don't have to be sorry. It's your duty now and it comes before anything else. The whole kingdom looks up to you."

"I know darling, I know. But I want you to know that my love for you will never change. No matter where I am, who I am. Please have some faith on me." His eyes desperately search yours.

"Oh Min," you cup his cheeks. "I believe in you. Everything is going to be okay. And I'll wait for you, as long as it takes."

Seokmin smiles, his eyes shining. From his pocket he produces a brass necklace. "This is for you. I'm leaving a part of me that'll always stay with you." Seokmin gently puts it on you, a simple chain containing two hearts entangled. Your heart constricts. You knew he loved crafting. This is the result of his fine handiwork.

"Thank you. It's beautiful."

He pulls you into a hug, stroking your hair before pulling your lips in for a kiss. A kiss so deep, so passionate it lit a fire throughout you. A kiss that tasted like goodbye. Your gaze matches his- pained, scared. He kisses your knuckles one last time before standing up. You whisper, "You're going to be one great king, Min." He smiles at you, "I love you, my darling ___."

"I love you too, Lee Seokmin."

As he disappears into the forest, leaving you alone by the stream, you squeeze the ornament in your neck. You'd probably never see him again but you held onto the last bit of hope.

Maybe you shouldn't have.

5 years later

Being invited to the royal palace by the queen is something you never even dreamt about. You still don't clearly know why you have been called- only being told that the queen wanted to see your designs. You wonder how the queen came to know about your small clothing shop and why someone like her would be interested in your work. You hands get more sweaty as the palace nears not only because you're gonna meet the queen but also you might, just might come across him.

Your first impression of the queen is that she looks far younger than her age. She carries a bright, youthful aura around her, the complete opposite of grumpy and reserved you expected her to be. She doesn't immediately get into business, rather asks you about yourself over tea.

"So your mother owned this shop?"

"Yes, your Highness, she used to make dresses. I learned from her and I wanted to continue what she started."

"I see. I have heard your name a lot and I could not resist calling you over to see myself. All the ladies in the palace say that you design their dresses and my God, are they beautiful." She speaks.

"It's really nothing, Your Highness."

"May I see your catalogue?"

"Of course."

You're in the middle of discussing a neckline with the queen when you're interrupted. The doors open to reveal none other than the king, Lee Seokmin.

Your heart jumps to your throat as your eyes meet his, your heart beat so loud that you're afraid it can be heard. Seokmin's eyes go large as they land on you, shock evident on his face.

He has changed, a lot. He isn't the cheerful 18 year old boy, no. He's grown taller, broader and the aura around him has completely changed. His face has structured beautifully, sharp nose and a defined jawline, a scar on his left cheek bone, black curls spread across his forehead. His crown glints amid his black locks, shiny and proud.

You swallow.

"Hello, son. What brings you to me?"

"Hello mother," he steps into the room after thoroughly eyeing you and embraces his mother. "I wanted to let you know that I'm going for hunting."

"At this hour? It's going to be dark soon."

"It's alright. I will be back before dinner."

"Okay," the queen smiles at him before gesturing to you, "Oh this is the designer I was talking about."

You abruptly stand stand up and bow, "It's a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness." Seokmin's eyes go hard on you before he nods and murmurs, "Likewise."

He bids goodbye to his mother before leaving as all the air returns to your lungs. You breathe a sigh of relief. The queen claps her hands, eyes twinkling, "So where were we?"

You can't deny when the queen asks to you spend the night at the palace, insisting that it's already too late to leave. Her servants show you out of her chambers and into your own room, providing you with towels and dresses to change into. The gigantic room leaves you breathless as you plop into the huge bed, collecting your thoughts. This night did not turn out the way you imagined. You've met Seokmin and now you can only pray that you won't meet him again.

Your prayers remain unanswered as the queen asks you join her for dinner and of course, Seokmin joins too. His hair is still damp from his bath as he takes a sit opposite to you in the large dining table, answering his mother's question about the hunting. You try to remain invisible the whole time, quickly finishing probably the best food you ever had in your life. You quickly excuse yourself from the dinning hall- staying at such a close proximity to Seokmin becoming unbearable for you and you rush into your room. However, you are not blessed.

"___,"A voice calls you before you can enter your room. A voice you know too well. You jump slightly and gulp before turning, "Y-your Highness." Seokmin stands in front of you, frowning, "That's not what you used to call me."

Oh my god. This could not be happening.

You stand quietly unsure what to say. Seokmin brusquely pulls you into your room and locks it before pressing you against the door. "Why are you avoiding me? Pretending like you do not know me?" He questions, titling your head up.

"I- I do not, Your Highness. We should not be doing this."

"What? Talking? You're joking right? Stop doing this, stop ignoring me, ___." He pleads.

You bite your lip, "What do you want me to do?"

"Talk to me. Where have you been? I've looked for you after my coronation. Where did you go? Why did you move?" His desperate eyes meet yours.

"Please, it doesn't matter anymore, Your Highness. It's in the past."

"Stop calling me that!" He snaps before sighing, taking off his crown and raking a hand through his hair. "Please, do not act like a stranger. It pains me."

Oh it pains you too. Unbearably.

"...We had to move, after the flood. Our house was destroyed and my father was sick. We went to live on the other side of the village." You whisper.

"How is he now? How's your parents?" Seokmin asks gently.

"My father passed away after the flood, he was sick. My mother died a couple years back." You reply.

"Oh darling," Seokmin whispers before engulfing you in his strong arms. He holds you tighter as you try to break free, "Don't resist me, darling. Please, let me hold you. I've looked for you myself for so long. I didn't even had a picture of you so I eventually had to stop the search. If only I found you earlier."

"It's okay...Seokmin." You whisper. "You are a king, you've a lot on your hands."

"Still, I gave up on you. I broke my promise."

"No, you didn't. A commoner such as myself should not be your concern."

"What?" Seokmin pulls back, hurt flashing in his eyes. "You are not a commoner, ___."

"It's okay. We're not teenagers anymore. You should not worry about an affair of five years ago." You push yourself away from him.

"An affair?" He whispers, "Is that what it really was? An affair? Do you really think so?"

"Yes!" You sigh, frustrated.

"No," Seokmin states before holding you by your arms. "No because you are still wearing my necklace. You still carry a piece of me with you. It was more than an affair and you know it, darling."

"But it doesn't change anything now, does it?" You question.

"I told you my love for you will never change, no matter who I am." He replies, cupping your cheek. You look away, all the emotions swirling inside you and you have no idea how to repress them. "Give me chance," Seokmin speaks, making you look at him. "Now that I have found you, I'm not going to let you go. Or...is it that- Are you betrothed to someone?"

"What? No!" You deny, blushing, "That's not it."

"Then there is nothing that can set us apart." He whispers. "Let me kiss you. Let me kiss away all the pain. Let me make everything okay."

You don't really get to reply before his lips encase yours, matching perfectly, like it did years ago. His tongue tangle with yours, moving in perfect sync as he tilts your head and controls the kiss. He kisses you like there's no tomorrow, like you're the most precious thing to him, until you both are out of breaths.

He spends the night with you, talking about nothing and everything, wrapped in each others arms. You cling to him dearly, like he's a lifesaver and for one night you let go of all your worries.

When he visits you next morning after tending to his royal duties, he has a blinding smile in his face, a contrast to what you were experiencing. "Why do you look so happy?" You ask tentatively.

"Why do you look so troubled?"

"I asked you first."

"Mother knows about us," Seokmin announces like it's the most natural thing. You gasp audibly, covering your mouth, "Oh my god!" "Easy! Why are you so worried?" Seokmin laughs.

"What do you mean Seokmin!" You howl. "Her Majesty knows about us! What are we going to do!"

"We're going to start planning our future, my darling," Seokmin smiles, pulling you close by the waist. "I'd say, it's a step easier for us."

"Wha-... I..."

"My mother may look naive but she's very sharp. She noticed how stressed I was during the dinner last night and the necklace on you. She recognized my work." Then he adds sheepishly, "Also, she knew I used to snuck away."

"Oh my God," You put your head in your hands. "So that's why she said that."

"Said what?" He frowns.

"I met her earlier this morning and she said that I'm welcome to stay here as long as I want." You murmur, blushing. Seokmin laughs, his eyes crinkling in happiness, "I guess there is nothing to hide now?"

You bite your lip, "Are you sure..Min? You're a king now and I'm just-"

"Hush" he plants a soft kiss on your lips. "You're the woman I've been looking for all these years, the love of my life. And now that I have you, I'm never, ever going to let you get away, darling."

You sigh, your eyes welling up, unable to process so much. Your simply rest your head on his shoulder, wrapping your arms around him. He smiles.

"Now we have a wedding to prepare for."

A/N: Hellooo~ and I'm back! So, I've always wanted to make a royal au and Seokmin seems like the perfect person, you know what I mean? I kinda wanted to make this more action themed but I couldn't put together an ending so I went with good ol' romance :'). Pls like and reblog if you enjoyed. And if you've made it this far, here's a cookie for you 🍪 . 💖

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starr-fall-knight-rise · 4 years

Text

Humans are Space Orcs, “Sailor.”

Decided to take a break from the main story-line. I want to go back to working with krill for a while, allowing him to experience different kinds of people and situations, so if you have any ideas, I am open, though weather or not I will get to them is another matter entirely.

Te chopper blades whirled overhead so deafeningly loud that Krill couldn’t hear himself think. Leave it up to the humans to create a piece of technology that got them into the air by attaching a giant fan to the top of it, or giant spinning blades of death. It actually offended him that they didn’t use some kind of hover-craft, which he was sure they had. However, Commander Vir had said that the Navy didn’t have a whole lot of “funding” anymore so their technology tended to be older than dirt.

Krill didn’t think anything would be older than dirt, but stopped short of correcting the human when he realized it was probably just some sort of saying. But now, here he was trapped inside this loud, metal container, feeling the wind buffet them back and forth as Commander Vir adjusted the pedals.

Krill had no idea that the Commander could even fly a helicopter, be here it was.

The guy could probably fly a cardboard box if it had a big enough engine.

Beside him sat the Navy pilot surprisingly eager to learn from the more experienced man, and the two kept a light string of conversation over the headsets. The second guy was on lend from the Naval office as an assistant of sorts. The commander seemed confused, but apparently it was common for higher ranking officers to have subordinates to lick their boots and hand them things.

Commander vir hadn’t gotten that memo.

The original pilot pointed out the front and the helicopter tilted just slightly.

Krill lifted up a bit to look out the front window, but was mostly blinded by sunlight as it reflected off water.

Commander Vir flew the helicopter in low aiming for the helicopter pad on the back end of the ship.

He managed to maintain a hover just above the circle surprised when, “It’s moving!”

“Yes sir, we are on water.”

“Its not supposed to be moving.” he said to himself trying to determine the best way to let down.

“Just get her in close commander than drop her when she comes back up.” The pilot instructed, pleased that they could teach something to a superior officer, though the way the man talked it was hard to remember all those fancy ribbons on his dress grey.

He was a pretty good listener too, and didn’t back down from a fight, lowering himself towards the deck and then timing it just so it placed when the ship swung back up.

It was a minute movement, but still could have thrown anyone off.

As soon as they touched down and the commander cut the engines, Krill could feel the light rocking.

He, and the others stepped out onto deck.

Krill stopped in his tracks eyes staring out at a scene he had only seen through the small windows of the ship. A vast and unending horizon of water on all sides. Tiny white capped waves rolled up and down as the massive steel ship bobbed below him. He turned in a wide circle, staring off at the vast horizons and stretches of water so wide.

They were the only ones here, nothing else in sight.

He grew a bit dizzy.

“Good morning Commander.”

Krill turned to watch as the ships XO (executive officer walked forward to greet the man with a firm handshake. He was surprised at the youth of the commander, he was older than a good portion of his men, but younger than a lot fo them too. The Captain was in his early forties, this man almost young enough to be his son.

“A pleasure captain.” At his back the Lieutenant stood stiffly waiting to be used for some reason or another.

“I heard you were coming, to what do we owe the pleasure.”

Commander Vir glanced out at the sloshing waves with some unease, “I wanted to come down to observe the operation of your ship, Captain. I am afraid to say that current UNSC protocols are still being made, and I thought Navy and UNSC vessels are similar enough I might due to take some lessons from the way things are run.”

The man smiled, “Well, sir generally the brass doesn’t sail. In the Navy you would have a cushy job somewhere on land behind a desk.”

“String me up when that day comes.”

“You and I feel the same way then. The sea is my life, Been sailing since I was a kid, and I couldn’t imagine what I’d do without her.

Commander Vir nodded, “its flying for me.”

Krill glanced around the ship, watching as men and women worked on objects that he did not know, wearing uniforms he did not recognize. They were led down onto the deck, and Commander Vir stumbled a few times, unsteady on the moving platform.

The captain grinned, easily riding the gentle rocking motion as if they weren’t moving, “Someone has yet to get their sea legs.”

Commander Vir gripped the railing, “Fun fact. I’ve never actually been on a boat, at least not larger than a canoe.

Behind him, Krill simply tried floating to avoid having to move, but found the boat deck moving below him, and a gentle sea breeze pushing him back. In panic he set down on the deck again.

“Seems strange, someone who pilots a ship,”

“No such thing as space legs.” The commander commented gingerly letting go of the railing. We have gravity mats that make it just like earth, and there is no wind or water to make us move. Steadier than riding in a car, and once the acceleration is done there is no way to know you are even moving.

The man shook his head, “Can’t imagine wanting to fly in space, being trapped inside a tin can that, if it malfunctions my eyeballs would be sucked out of their sockets.”

“Actually that doesn’t happen. You would freeze first, while your blood boiled off anyway.”

The man gave him a look, “You’re insane.”

“I’m insane! At least its better than drowning, or being eaten by sharks.”

The captain waved a hand, “I can’t remember the last time someone in the navy actually drowned.”

Commander vir eyed the edge of the ship nervously.

“Anyway, Commander, I am glad we could be of service, truth be told us sailors arent needed all that much anymore now that wars tend to take place in space and off world. Most of the stuff we do includes tracking down pirates and saving dumbass civilians who don’t know what a red sky at morning means.”

Commander Vir stared at hi blankly.

The man frowned, “You don’t know do you.”

“Can’t say I do.”

“Red sky at morning sailors take warning. Meaning there’s going to be bad weather?”

He shrugged, “Why not just use radar for that.”

“The man looked almost offended, “Thousands of years of accumulated knowledge, and you just want to use radar?”

Krill watched in silence keeping notes in one of his cortical hemispheres as he listened. It was strange, by all rights these two men should have been similar in a lot of ways. When it came right down to it a UNSC vessel and a Navy one were pretty much the same and included a lot of the same sort of things on board. Even the two men were similar in their almost rabid love of the place they worked. One and knew more about the ocean than krill thought there was no know, while the Commander had a handle on space that no other man in the history of humanity ever had.

To krill’s surprise it turned out there was some actual sill to floating on a large body of water. The man talked about the currents, and the weather patterns, and the way the ship liked to ride them.

Space vs ocean, and neither man seemed to understand why the other would want to go anywhere near the other’s domain.

The Navy captain also seemed to be having a right old time watching commander vir stumble into things as he adjusted to his “sea legs.”

Krill had no idea what that meant, but he kind of doubted it was what it sounded like. The saying made hi think the human was going to spontaneously grow new legs for walking on the ship, but the more likely explanation seemed that the human body would get used to the constant moving, so the person would no longer have trouble when walking.

Krill didn’t really need sea legs, though he marveled at how the humans could seem to work so normally on a rolling surface when their balance was already unbelievable.

Around the ship, the regular Navy men were more than a bit tickled to see a member of the brass (UNSC or otherwise) wobble about like a ‘drunken’ sailor. Mostly it was funny and partially it made them feel superior to someone who would usually have that edge over them.

Eventually the Commander go the hang of it and accompanied the Captain to the bridge and around the ship to see how things worked taking occasional notes, but eventually ordering the Lt. to do it for him as, “Your fidgeting is making me nervous, so have something to do.”

Krill got stared at, a lot, but that was pretty normal for him, and, on one occasion, a call went out from one of the men on deck, and an entire group of them rushed over to one side, pointing at the water. The captain led them over just in time to watch in awe as a massive creature breached the surface of the water. Krill stepped back as the massive shape slowly tilted backwards and water erupted around it.

The captain turned to look at the commander with a smug expression, “Guess you didn't get to see that in space.”

He was a little less pleased to see the commander smirking at him, “Perhaps not…” he let it trail off there, though his grin was rather telling.

“What! You’re not telling e there are space wales.”

“I am not at liberty to discuss that, captain.”

Krill wasn’t entirely sure if their teasing was friendly or if their rivalry was something more than that.

Either way the captain did get the last laugh, as sitting inside the ship the commander didn’t touch his food head resting back against the wall, eyes closed. As a doctor, krill couldn’t help but notice the parlor that had fallen over his face. He was about to ask the commander if he was feeling ok when the captain strolled up, his turn to look smug and took a seat, “Don’t worry, a lot of people get seasick their first time. But I’m sure that’s not a problem in space.”

“Cosmic hysteria is worse.” The commander muttered.

“A bit green about the gills there. Do you want e to get you a bag.”

The commander frowned, but didn’t open his eyes.

“I thought you were a fighter pilot, shouldn’t you be immune to motion sickness.”

The human was teasing him, but commander Vir felt to sick to respond. He was very much determined to keep his lunch down, but knew that was going to be a losing battle.

He could hear the sailors laughing as he bolted upright and sprinted to the edge of the deck mouth salivating so badly he was sure he was going to drip on his uniform.

Nothing was funnier to the crew than a member of the brass who couldn’t hold in his lunch on a ship.

Krill personally found a couple of things interesting, number one being the ardent glee that the other humans experienced upon watching the suffering of another. It seemed to be a common theme in humans, enjoying watching someone in power over you get what they deserve It seemed to make underlings feel superior in some way where they normally wouldn't. Through their ribbing was generally light-hearted and nothing worse beyond that.

Second being the human’s strange ability to become sick because of unpredictable rocking motions. He had never seen an alien with that issue, though, upon looking into it with the crew physician, he learned that humans, while having the best sense of kinesthetic awareness out of most of the species, that had to do with the placement of liquid inside the ear canal that moved with the movement of the head.

Constant movement that was in contradiction to the movement of the eyes, or caused the sloshing to become confused inside the ears could cause a reaction in the brain that simulated poisoning.

You see one of the first signs of neurotoxin is dizziness and the body responds with nausea. When movement causes the fluid in the ears to become jumbled and confused, the rain interprets this in the same way and responds with nausea.

Quite fascinating, and Krill couldn’t help feel his own sense of satisfaction knowing he couldnt get seasick.

Although he was ore than happy to get off this moving metal tube of death.

Leave it to humans to figure out a way to make metal float and then decide to spend days at a time on it.

Humans who loved large bodies of water were insane.

Though most humans were insane he supposed

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ravenbrenna09 · 4 years

Text

hold me close - comfort

Title: hold me close

Square Filled: comfort

Ship: Sander Driesen and Robbe IJzermans

Trigger Warnings (if applicable):

Created for @skamevents

...

This is my work for the comfort square of the BINGO card. I know it’s been a while since I’ve managed to complete one of these (the Friends with Benefit prompt in my drafts is screaming), but my recent battle with my own stress in terms of my math test(s) managed to manifest itself into Robbe being stressed about a math test so *shrugs*. But, I hope you guys enjoy!

(don’t worry, it’s only 2k words)

AO3

...

Robbe had been eerily quiet all day. He hadn’t even responded to Sander’s message about how his test had gone today.

Sander knew that his boyfriend was studying for his upcoming finals. When he focused on schoolwork and especially on studying, he always tended to be silent anyway. But, Sander had a feeling that crawled beneath his skin and made his stomach sink. With every short text back, his stomach only continued to sink further in the pit of his stomach and his brain was focused on Robbe, not on the piece in front of him. By the time that lunch had hit and Robbe had only responded to him briefly, Sander was worried. Robbe always threw himself too far into his studying tactics and Sander knew the toll that it took on him.

Pulling out his phone, sitting across from Noor in the café, he saw that Robbe hadn’t responded and his fingers moved to his chat with Jens, the one that he rarely used, and he sent him a text.

Sander: Is Robbe okay?

It didn’t take long to respond.

Jens: He’s definitely stressed. He went home after today’s test to study some more.

Jens: He’s got his math test tomorrow, I think.

Sander: Okay, I just haven’t heard from him.

Sander: How did your tests go?

Jens: Mine went okay. And, don’t worry. I’m sure he’s just studying.

But, he was worried.

Especially since his math test was tomorrow.

In their late-night calls, in which Sander would spend the majority of the time either drawing Robbe or trying to convince him to sleep, Robbe had mentioned that this math exam was on Thursday and how nervous he was for it. Even between all of his other studying, he would stop working on whatever subject and switch to math. When the problem wasn’t behaving like he wanted to, he would get frustrated and upset and all Sander could do was watch from another side of the screen, try to calm him down and remind him that he needed to take a step back.

Sander: Are we still meeting for a little bit after class?

When Sander had checked his phone, before the start of his final class for the day, he saw that his message hadn’t been read. As soon as his final class had dismissed them, Sander was already half-packed up, portfolio under his arm, and out of the room without hesitation. Normally, he hung around and talked to his professor or the model, sometimes until Robbe would come in and pull him out. But, Robbe wasn’t standing out in the hallway and his bike wasn’t locked up in their place.

Without thinking, just worried about him, his feet took him in the direction of Robbe’s apartment. It wasn’t far from his school, maybe a little out of his way to his house, and he was halfway up the stairs to the building when he nearly ran over Robbe’s mom, who was headed out of the building and ruffling through her purse, in his haste to make sure Robbe wasn’t pushing himself. The woman was dressed for work, or maybe she had just gotten home from work, her long brown curls pulled up in a ponytail, and she beamed up with him in a smile that Robbe had inherited.

“Sander!” the woman spoke cheerily. “Robbe’s up in his room. He’s studying for his test. Are you staying long? I’m going to the store and then I’ll make us all dinner!”

“I don’t know,” Sander admitted, feeling anxious and restless to get to Robbe. “But, dinner sounds wonderful.”

“Okay, well, you know where the spare key is. I’ll be back soon.”

Then, the woman was gone, turning the bend to the store, and Sander was racing across the lobby to the stairs, taking them two-at-a-time. The IJzermans apartment was on the second floor, right by the stairs. As soon as Sander reached the door, the brass 26 shining on the front, he fished out the spare key from the garden pot outside the door, where he had put it the last time he was over, and opened the front door with ease.

His eyes lingered on the familiar surroundings of Robbe’s brown jacket on the hook, his tennis shoes on the floor beneath it, and his keys on the table. Sander toed off his black converse, his eyes darting down the hallway to Robbe’s open room, and placed his portfolio on the floor beside it. As he shrugged off the lightweight jacket that he had worn in place of his leather jacket, moving to hang it beside Robbe’s, he heard the floorboards creak beneath his weight and Robbe say, “Mama? Did you forget something?”

Robbe stepped out into the hallway, running a hand through his messy hair, and Sander felt his heart break a little.

His boyfriend’s eyes were tired and worn. Even beneath the green hoodie that hung on his shoulders and the sweats that he was wearing, he could see that Robbe’s shoulders were slumped and stiff. His entire body seemed on edge and his eyes darted across Sander’s entire face and form as he questioned, his voice displaying the tiredness that he felt, “Sander? What are you doing here?” Before Sander could say anything or move to wrap his arms around him, he saw the realization in Robbe’s brown eyes and he let out a string of curses, running his hands over his face, “We were supposed to meet up.”

“Robbe,” Sander spoke, stepping forward.

“I’m sorry,” Robbe continued hurriedly, his words partially slurring together as he made a beeline into his bedroom. Like a moth drawn to a flame, Sander followed him, trying to reach out to touch him but Robbe was a step ahead, moving in the direction of his desk where his phone was. “I’ve been studying and I didn’t check the time and-”

“Robbe, you don’t have to apologize,” Sander cut off, stepping forward to hold him in his arms. He wrapped his arms around Robbe’s shoulders, pulling him back against his chest. Robbe let out a sigh, leaning back into his embrace as his head tilted down to look at his phone. From his spot over his shoulder, Sander could see the names of the texts that he had missed and he could feel Robbe get tense beneath his arms. “Baby,” Sander spoke, leaning his cheek against Robbe’s shoulder.

“Hmm?”

“You need to take a break.”

“I can’t,” Robbe spoke, dropping his phone down on the desk. It landed on a binder, sliding down until it hit the floor (and thankfully didn’t shatter), but neither one of them moved to pick it up. Robbe moved to his desk, his right hand moving through his notes at a frantic pace, but his other hand moved to overlap with Sander’s hand on his shoulder, gripping onto Sander’s long fingers tightly. “I still have so many notes to look through. Plus, I still need to do the practice problems from three sections and that’s not even counting the review problems I should look back over.”

“Robbe.”

“And, I have to at least look over the midterms at some point,” Robbe continued, his eyes darting all over the desk in front of him. Sander stepped forward, so their bodies were flushed together, and he could feel Robbe’s body momentarily relax. “He tends to repeat problems so looking over the midterms will help me when he pulls a problem similar to that on the final.”

“Robbe,” Sander whispered. “How long have you been studying?”

“Since I got home.”

“Which was?”

“Uh, around 11, I think,” Robbe admitted.

“Baby, it’s past 16:00,” Sander spoke. “You need to take a break or you’re going to overwork that beautiful brain of yours.”

“But, I can’t stop, Sander!” Robbe spoke, his voice louder. He flinched out of Sander’s arms, his shoulders shaking as he leaned over the desk. His hands gripped tightly onto the edge of the desk, his knuckles turning bone white. Trying to give Robbe the space that he needed, he took a step back but he ran a hand across Robbe’s back, trying to soothe him, trying to offer him some method of comfort. “I can’t stop. I feel like I haven’t learned anything and I can’t remember what to do so I need to study.”

“No,” Sander whispered, running a hand across his back. “You need to take a break.”

“Sander,” Robbe spoke, turning towards him. There were tears prickling the corners of his eyes, tears of frustration, and Sander nearly started weeping at the sight. Robbe was one of the smartest people that Sander had ever known, but to see him doubting himself so drastically, to see him pushing himself so hard that his brain was shutting down, hurt his heart. Robbe continued, his words streaming together, broken and wet, “I can’t stop studying because I don’t understand what’s going on. Every time I look at the page, I feel like I’m finding something else that I don’t understand. It’s like I haven’t seen it before! And, I have a test tomorrow morning and I need to do good or I’m not going to pass. At the very least, I need to memorize the formulas so I can use them-”

Robbe cut himself off, a sob ripping through his body. The tears slipped past the rim of his eyes, slipping across his cheekbones and down his jaw. Robbe squeezed his eyes shut, trying to hold the rest of them back, to stop himself from crying completely, but Sander stepped forward again, cupping the back of his head and pulling the smaller boy flush against him.

As soon as Sander’s arms were wrapped tightly around him, another sob was ripped from Robbe’s mouth, his tears starting fresh again, soaking the fabric of his t-shirt. Robbe buried his face into Sander’s shoulder, trying to muffle the sound of his own cries and sputters as Sander tried to soothe him, clinging to the back of Robbe’s head. Robbe’s hands moved to the back of Sander’s t-shirt, gripping it tightly in his hands. He rubbed patterns against the fabric of Robbe’s hoodie, pressed soothing kisses against his jaw and neck, wiped away the tear streaks he could reach, and held him tighter.

“Get it all out,” Sander whispered, pressing a kiss against his ear.

“I feel like an idiot,” Robbe cried.

“You’re not an idiot, Robbe,” Sander spoke, his voice a little too firm. He leaned back, taking Robbe’s face in his hands, wiping his thumbs across his cheeks to catch the remaining tears that fell from his cheeks. His boyfriend stared up at him with eyes that were half-closed in tears, his bottom lip trembling. “Your brain is just screaming at you that it’s tired and that you need to give it a break. You’re the most beautiful and smartest man that I’ve ever seen.”

“I bet not like this,” Robbe mumbled, reaching up to rub his eyes.

“Always,” Sander whispered. “You’re so smart, Robbe. And you know the material. But, if you overload your brain while you’re so tired, you are going to forget important stuff tomorrow. Your body is screaming at you that it needs a break and you need to listen to it.”

“You’re right,” the smaller boy whispered, leaning forward to press their foreheads together and his brown eyes shutting automatically. Sander wrapped his arms tighter around Robbe, running his hands down his back before tilting them in the direction of the bed. Robbe followed his directions willingly, his arms reaching up to wrap around Sander’s shoulders. Then, the back of his knees hit the bed and they both went tumbling onto the mattress, a light laugh knocked out of Robbe. “What’s your plan?” the brunet whispered, his lips turning up in a grin.

Sander grinned down at him, rolling off of him. Robbe shifted to him, scooting closer to him and grabbing onto his waist to pull Sander’s form closer. Sander chuckled at him, leaning back against one of Robbe’s pillows before turning to him. “We’re going to take a break,” he answered, reaching up to run a hand through Robbe’s hair, freshly cut and short again. Robbe tilted his head back before leaning into Sander’s touch. “For the next hour, until your mom comes back from the grocery store, we’re just going to lie here and not think about homework, okay?”

“Okay,” Robbe mumbled, his eyelids already closing. “And if I go to sleep?”

“Then, you go to sleep,” Sander whispered. “You’ve got this, Robbe. I know you do.” Robbe’s eyes opened again to stare up at him. “You’ve done so much studying over the past few weeks and your body is screaming at you for a break. If you go to sleep, it’s because your brain needs to recharge. When you wake up, you’ll be refreshed and have a little more energy and if you think that you need to study some more, you can study some more.”

“Can you stay the night?” Robbe whispered.

“Yes,” Sander replied, smiling down at him. “If you want me to, I’ll always stay the night.”

Robbe smiled up at him before tilting his chin up, a silent message that Sander knew by heart. The blond ducked his head down, pressing their lips together in a slow kiss. Robbe tilted his head to the side so their lips flushed together more smoothly, pulling him closer by his waist. Sander pushed his mouth open with his lips, slipping his tongue into his mouth, cupping the back of his head. Robbe let out a content sigh, pulling back and burying his face in the crook of Sander’s neck.

“Get some sleep,” Sander whispered, running a hand through his hair. Robbe let out a content sigh against his next. “You can always study more when you wake up, but you need to stop overloading yourself, baby.”

“Alright,” Robbe whispered, his lips ghosting across Sander’s skin. His boyfriend snaked his arms around his torso, bringing them closer together, their bodies and legs intertwined. Sander pulled him closer, one arm wrapped around his shoulders, his hand dropping to Robbe’s thigh to hold him there.

By the time that Marine IJzermans had returned home, peering around the corner with two bags around her wrist, Robbe had snuggled further into Sander’s chest, still holding onto the black-fabric of his t-shirt. There was a small smile that appeared on his mother’s face as she placed the bag outside of Robbe’s door and stepped inside to check. She smiled down at Sander, who was absentmindedly running a hand through Robbe’s tangled curls, and whispered to him, “Dinner will be ready in about an hour if you want to sleep as well.”

“Thank you,” Sander replied.

“I assume that you’ll be spending the night as well.”

“Yeah,” Sander spoke, “but only if that’s alright with you.”

“Of course,” Marine spoke, reaching down to rub Robbe’s shoulder. “He always seems to be more relaxed with you around. But, the door remains open, okay?” Sander grinned, nodding his head, feeling the blush begin to move to his cheeks. The woman bent down, placing a kiss against Robbe’s head before moving out of the room, collecting the bag and headed into the kitchen, leaving the two of them alone.

#wtfock #wtfam #wtfock fanfic #skamevents #skamevents bingo #square: comfort #sander comforts robbe #sander driesen #robbe ijzermans #stressed af robbe #sobbe #rosander #sobbe fic #rosander fic #one shot #2k words

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a-mellowtea · 3 years

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Sarah’s Soundtrack Corner | RWBY Volume 8

Today: Episode 1 // Divide 22/11/2020: Episode 2 // Refuge

Hello everyone!

This year, I’ve decided to do something new. Rather than waiting for the Volume to end or the soundtrack to drop to talk about RWBY’s music, I’m starting this little side project: cataloguing and somewhat analyzing the show’s score and songs as they’re released.

This is also a way for me to keep myself engaged in something other than academics (’cause quarantine be gettin’ to me), as well as pointing out some details folks might overlook: there’s always a lot to talk about with the music, and it plays a pivotal role in the series.

A mini-disclaimer beforehand: I am in no way well-versed in music theory. I can’t really tell you how things are composed so much as how they more generally sound, and what the intentions behind certain choices might have been.

So, without further ado, let’s begin!

The first cue of the Volume, coming in gently against the slow fade-in from black of a young Cinder scrubbing the floor, is on piano and sparse strings. I’m hesitant to label this as anything in particular with any degree of confidence, but the progression of notes makes me believe it could be an abstract variation on Cinder’s core “theme” - specifically, the haunting choir we tend to hear around her. It would make sense: bridging the visuals with something just familiar enough to catch the ear, but also distinct.

There’s a brief pause as Cinder and Neo approach the storm, with only a small bit of ambient, tense strings; then it’s into a development of the new melody we got accompanying Salem’s arrival in Volume 7 under the usual first-episode credits. This section has a wonderful female choral element added: I’m actually half-convinced that it’s a specific “theme” for Monstra (the whale Grimm; apparently that’s her official name), rather than Salem herself. The bass percussion makes the cue feel almost literally alive, giving it a slow, steady heartbeat.

The piece crescendos as Neo catches sight of Salem, then fades away into more tense strings when Cinder kneels. A small quote of what I believe is “One Thing” kicks in when Cinder takes Neo’s credit for stealing the Relic of Knowledge.

The next quote is equally small, coming and going in the span of about 5 seconds between the 03:25 and 03:30 timestamps, and references the strings from “Party Crashers”/the Volume 7 Mantle massacre.

I can’t quite peg the following string melody - under Cinder’s declaration that she’ll return to Atlas and take the Maiden’s power from Penny - as anything specific, though it sounds similar to the opening piano.

What I’ll tentatively label as Monstra’s “theme” takes over again as Salem communicates with her, and the cue ends on a tense crescendo along with the scene.

On our heroes’ end, this is quite the episode for abstract little melodies, because I can’t seem to nail down what plays under Oscar’s respite in the slums either. What I do recognize, however, is a small section of Mantle’s melody at around 05:42, continuing until 05:52 where it’s briefly interrupted by a vague handful of notes from the Grimm “theme”.

Everything in Mantle is quite bleak, including the instrumentation: it’s soft and somber, even the gentler moments. Oscar’s melody kicks in at 07:06 on slow strings after Weiss asks how he ended up in the crater, which transitions into a despairing little quote of Penny’s established “theme” from Volume 7. This “theme” is of particular note this time around - Alex Abraham (composer) switched up the sound of her melody to a more subdued, lost quality, and it’s quite something whenever it pops up.

“Bad Luck Charm” makes a brief appearance at 07:30, and it’s interesting to me just how darkly the quote drifts off - the final note sounds almost distorted, lending it not only an air of uncertainty, but also danger (totally not hinting at things to come - no way).

Mantle’s theme makes a reappearance at 09:03, following a lead-in on strings as Yang argues that they need to help the people. The “theme” for Amity follows at 9:18 when Pietro begins talking about the titular colisseum, then drifts into Ironwood’s once he’s brought up, and then into one of the “Atlas tension” motifs from Volume 7. The orchestration of this entire section is notably quiet; almost not there, and all with a sense of unease. As the idea for the plan begins to come together, the Atlas Military “theme” (introduced at the end of Volume 6) plays, but fades out largely unresolved with Pietro’s uncertainty about it.

Once the small argument begins in earnest and the group divides, what sounds like a gentle quote of the as-yet untitled opening plays, easing into simple strings once Jaune interjects.

A sneeze-and-you’ll-miss-it soft interruption of Penny’s melody plays again, almost lost in the strings, then a third time when she volunteers to go with Ruby’s group.

And now for the fun part.

I’m not horrendously biased, I swear.

The tense silence of this scene once Penny’s Scroll begins to ring is perfect; as are the dark, sparse, ambient strings and the fourth instance of Penny’s “theme” - played on piano, with an almost music-box-like quality. The juxtaposition is horribly fitting for the moment - James is playing on Penny’s role as a guardian, her desire to protect people, her uncertainty about a situation in which she has had very little control, and that’s all beautifully reinforced in the music.

Speaking of juxtaposition.

Upstairs, we get a gorgeous rendition of “Hero” on brass; played slow, full and in earnest, with a small bit of Winter’s melody thrown in the middle once the camera briefly shifts focus to her. The way this section is orchestrated piques my interest as well - it’s not dark, it’s not particularly somber. It’s gentle. It still has that, for lack of a better term, heroic quality to it.

And that becomes such a twisted thing by the end of the scene.

Before that, however, there’s an instance of the Grimm “theme” clearly at 14:56, and it continues to be a personal favorite.

Another intriguing little reference hits at about 15:12, when the Council members show up - if you have an ear for it, you might pick up on it as coming from the scene in the office from Volume 7 Chapter 11 “Gravity”, complete with Ironwood’s “theme” at 15:33 (this cue might actually be directly taken from “Are You With Me?”) and to say it’s appropriate for a moment where James slips even further would be putting it mildly.

Closing out the episode proper is a freaky new melody for the Grimm hound that I can honestly say I cannot wait to hear more of.

Overall, the score for the premiere isn’t quite as bombastic as the last two years, but that’s fitting - it’s largely understated, with lots of tension and somber takes on the leitmotifs that crop up. This is actually one of the things about the episode that left me feeling like it was more of a firm and simple continuation from last year than the start of a brand new chapter, and that’s certainly not bad.

And now you stand alone, opening!

I don’t think it needs saying that every RWBY OP will split the fandom to some degree, and this one has a very different style. It doesn’t have a name yet - I personally labelled it as “The End” on YouTube, unfortunately confusing a few people - which is odd, but Jeff professed that he just couldn’t settle on one yet.

The standard guitar and heavy percussion are present, kicking off in the usual instrument-focused intro, and are mixed with layers of different instruments, synth and backing vocals throughout the song once Casey’s vocals start. Speaking of, our leading lady delivers with her usual grace, and her matured voice lends a lot to the tone of the song (the growl on “Some roses will never bloom” is amazing). Almost every line on the verse and pre-chorus has an echo behind it - either as an effect or as part of the backing - giving it a forlorn yet powerful quality.

In the lyrics department, it reminds me quite a bit of the second opening - “Time To Say Goodbye” - save with a darker undertone. I’d be hardpressed to believe that the line “We said goodbye / To all the things we loved” isn’t, in fact, a direct reference to “Now it’s time to say goodbye / To the things we loved and the innocence of youth”. In a Volume where a lot of people were clamboring for a “When It Falls 2.0″ - yours truly included - this was a surprise, but a welcome one.

Second opening is the best opening. That is a hill I will die on.

Come to think of it, this might become a trend. If I remember correctly, several lyrics in “Trust Love” harkened back to “This Will Be The Day”; what springs to mind immediately is the contrast of “When the day you waited for won’t come” with “This will be the day we waited for”, and “Always hoping that a lightning bolt / Is going to save you from this gravity” with “We are lightning / Straying from the thunder”.

If this is the case and Volume 8 goes as I believe it will - setting up for another Volume in Atlas where the huge fight happens as everyone struggles to hold the line until help arrives - then we could be due for some “When It Falls” references then.

I’ve heard some say that this opening sounds a little too crowded, that it doesn’t hit quite as hard as they expected/compared to “When It Falls”, that the darker tone relies on the lyrics rather than anything in the instrumentation, and those are valid critiques. Personally, this one’s an ear-worm - I love the sound of it; Jeff made a lot of interesting choices - but the melody itself isn’t as discernable as previous years and is going to take a while to grow on me.

I’m not going to rank these or anything because that feels a little arbitrary, but I really enjoyed what we got this first Chapter. Knowing the team, they find ways to step it up every year, so I’m seriously looking forward to what’s in store.

Until next week!

#rwby #rwby volume 8 #rwby music #alex abraham #jeff williams #casey lee williams #and yes #predictably that 'hero' quote is stuck in my head too #gimme an ironqrow fight and a back and forth between 'hero' and 'blc' and i will die a happy woman

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nikkalia · 5 years

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Pops in the Park

TITLE: Pops in the Park

AUTHOR: Nikkalia

PAIRING: Tom/OFC

RATING: M

SUMMARY: This is the result of a conversation on Discord about Loki!Tom crashing a concert. It went downhill from there... Dedicated to my darling @igotloki

NOTES/WARNINGS: (kinks, triggers, general warnings.) Smut, which is really difficult to write in first person for some reason...

TAGS: @igotloki @fandom-and-feminism @mrshiddleston-uk @fadingcoast @mischievousbellerina

NOTES: Someone remind me to fix the hashtags later?

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming... No,” I whispered to no one. Speeches make me nervous and you could definitely hear it in my voice. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for joining us tonight...this evening. Ugh, why do they make me do this?”

“Because Anthony Daniels canceled when it wasn’t all about Star Wars,” Mike answered, grinning. “Relax, you’ve got this.”

“No respect from my concertmaster,” I smirked as he clapped my shoulder.

“So, is the magic man making an appearance tonight?”

“Nope. He’s otherwise occupied.”

Mike laughed. “What does that even mean?”

I shrugged. “It means...he won’t be here.”

“Oh, come on. He can’t pull away from whatever he’s filming for one night to celebrate your 5 year anniversary with us? Loser.”

“Whatever.” I blew out a sigh and looked back over my notes. “Really hate speeches.”

“See, magic man should’ve been here. He likes to talk and the ladies love to listen.” Mike winked and got a smack on the arm for his trouble before wandering off.

He wasn’t wrong. Tom loved to talk and everyone loved his voice, not just the ladies. In the two plus years we've been together, I’d never known him to refuse an opportunity to tell a story - except to hear me tell one. He was the only man I’d ever met that could listen as intently as he does, to make you feel like the entire universe centered around you. Management had actually approached his agent about serving as emcee when Daniels backed out, and they declined, citing a previous commitment. Which was, at the time, a bald-faced lie.

We argued about the timing of this show only a few days prior to the request because the concert was so close to our own anniversary. He had, in typical Tom fashion, made some grand plans involving travel and luxuries and all the things that drove my simplistic heart manic with worry, and hadn’t bothered to check the concert calendar. So, when I told him I couldn’t blow off the fund-raising event of the season, he went ballistic.

And I fired back. How dare he get upset when he’d canceled God knows how many times in favor of an audition? Where did he get off saying that one night wasn’t as important as ‘us’ when he’d confused night after night for his career? It turned really ugly and I ended up flying back to New York earlier than planned because of it. We didn’t speak for a week, and all of our communication after that was strained. Six weeks later, I stopped hearing from him altogether, despite assurances from his mother and sisters that we were still very much a couple. He was deep in some remote area with no wireless signal, they said. I sighed, pushing back tears.

“Two minutes to curtain. Oh, and I’m supposed to tell you that an emcee has been located. You’re off the hook.” a stagehand told me.

“Thank you, God!”

I found Mike walking toward me, making sure everyone was ready to go.

“Conductor,” he nodded, a glint of mischief in his eye.

“Concertmaster,” I nodded back, grinning. Our pre-show ritual complete, he returned to his place in the lineup and the procession began with the welcoming announcement. I watched from the wings as the line of bodies filed into their seats to thunderous applause. The house looked to be full. “Must be doing something right,” I said to the stagehand.

A hush fell over the crowd, followed by the sound of a solid A from Mike. The strings followed, then woodwinds, brass. Mike nodded again. I nodded back, then to the stagehand, who gave his own cue to the booth. I took a deep breath, prayed a little prayer, and strode out on the stage as the house announcer introduced me. I bowed, gesturing to the musicians who were doing all of the real work tonight, and smiled.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage our master of ceremonies for the evening, mister Robert Downey, Jr.”

Bob strode out to the center of the stage, grinning from ear to ear.

I shot the dirtiest look to Mike, mouthing, “You knew.”

He shrugged, then smiled. Jackass.

“Maestra, you look stunning,” I heard beside me. He leaned in for a cheek-to-cheek kiss, lingering a little longer than maybe he should have. “He misses you,” he finally whispered, pulling away.

“Then he should be here.” I croaked. Poor Bob, reduced to a mere messenger boy. “Shall we?”

Being the gentleman that he is, Robert led me to the platform, holding my hand as I made the tiny step up, then returned to the podium on the other side of the stage.

I reviewed the first few measures of the music in front of me while Robert began his speech. He told the audience of his love for the music we would begin the performance with, the “John Williams Suite”. It was an orchestration I’d been working on for months, often to Tom’s frustration. Sheet music tended to consume the kitchen table in my loft apartment, something that was not at all conducive to his attempts to cook for me. I smiled as we began with ‘Indiana Jones’ themes, recalling a particular incident where he walked into the apartment completely unannounced, arms overloaded with grocery bags to find the table had been covered with scores from half a dozen films. He just sighed and went into the kitchen to begin cooking. Another meal on the sofa, he lamented. I simply kept on writing, struggling to get the transition between ‘E.T.’ and ‘Jurassic Park’ just right.

The music followed into the Star Wars medley. Lost in memory, I had to pull myself together enough to get through the rest of the piece. ‘Duel of the Fates’ was no joke to perform, much less conduct. Some of the choir members referred to it as the marathon. The horn players laughed at them until I reminded them that this was the reason why I stretched my arms before every rehearsal. Tom knew when rehearsals were intense by the way I held my shoulders afterward. He’d always massage the muscles, wondering if I was perhaps a bit too animated in my conducting. I’d always ask if he was perhaps a bit too animated when he read the Saint Crispin’s speech. That’s usually when the tickling started.

After a few moments pause for the audience to show their appreciation, and for the orchestra to move sheet music around, we moved into a mix of old and new Star Trek themes, ending with the suite from Into Darkness. There has been a great deal of debate within the group as to which series - old or new - was better, followed by discussions of films, actors, approaches, and which made my little geeky heart happy. Tom had no comment on the matter, despite the fact that his eyes lit up a little more when we opted to watch Ben’s version of Khan instead of the original.

The piece finished and Robert began rambling on about music and film and... I stopped paying attention after a few seconds, focusing again on the upcoming music. One of the stagehands appeared on my right and placed a wireless mic on the music stand. I put it on, thinking I would be expected to say a few words about my time with the orchestra, what an honor it was, blah blah blah.

Celebrate yourself, Tom would say. If anyone deserves accolades, it’s you. My response was almost always, “yeah, whatever,” which would send him into a 20-minute monologue extolling my virtues as a musician and human. I’ve always preferred to let the music speak for itself.

I heard Robert say “This is gonna be fun,” and knew we were up. I’d arranged a medley of Queen songs - Somebody to Love, I’m Going Slightly Mad, Days of Our Lives, and Bohemian Rhapsody. When Mike saw the score for the first time, he asked if I was okay. I just wasn’t ready to discuss the argument, so I brushed the question off with a shrug. “Feeling nostalgic,” I told him. “Besides, I want to show the altos some love.”

The altos later told me that was not the kind of love they were looking for. The sopranos, however, were ecstatic. Divas, the whole lot of them.

Music from the MCU finished out the evening. Black Panther, Thor, Captain Marvel, and all the Avengers films wrapped into 10 minutes. It was supposed to be for Tom. I’d seriously contemplated scrapping the whole section after the fight but the entire orchestra vetoed the idea, citing it as the “entertaining” piece of the evening. I knew that if the musicians weren’t happy, no one was happy, so it stayed but they just wanted to play Immigrant Song.

We’d moved through to ‘Portals’ from the Endgame soundtrack and I could feel the energy of the audience change. They started shouting and clapping behind me. Maybe they’re loving the music with the latest movie having been released. We reached the scripted pause, and I kept going, but the orchestra doesn’t. They just sat there staring at me, and I was suddenly aware of “Loki” being chanted behind me. I glared at Mike, who’s grinning like the Cheshire Cat. That’s when the glint of gold caught my eye. I turned, finally dropping my arms when my mouth follows suit.

Loki, or Tom, in full Loki regalia, strode toward me like a demi-god possessed. The horns sat above smoldering eyes, cape flowing behind him as he approached me like an animal stalking his prey. It took every ounce of self-control I had not to pounce on him in front of God and the globe. I never could resist that costume, and he knew it. Instead, I simply crossed my arms.

“Please,” he growled, the swagger growing, “don’t stop on my account. Summon your Avengers.”

“Bad enough you destroy half of Manhattan with some half-baked scheme to take over the world. Now, you have the audacity to crash my gig and interrupt their music?”

He stopped short, head cocking to one side. I don’t think he was entirely sure if I was serious or just playing along. The infamous smile returned.

“Forgive me. The interruption of the arts is indeed a sin, but the purpose behind my visit warrants such sacrilege.” When I didn’t answer, he removed his helmet, eliciting a new wave of cheers from the crowd. His hair was its natural ginger, long and wildly out of control. He turned to them and held a finger to his goateed lips, a la 2013’s Comic-Con visit before placing the helmet on the stage.

“I have found myself lamenting the loss of something very dear to me of late. Something that I believe you alone can help me recover.” He paused, his voice echoing through the speakers while his hands fell to his sides. “It pains me to admit such shortcomings, but I find that I am weaker without you, that I am lost without your presence in my life. I am heartbroken at each day that passes without the sound of your voice. So,” his cloak flew behind him with a flourish and he fell to one knee. A collective gasp came from the audience and the stage. “My lady, would you consider restoring to me the grace of your life and your love on a permanent basis?”

What the hell is happening? I glanced over at Mike. He and the rest of the orchestra are literally sitting on the edge of their seats. When I turn back to Tom, his arm is extended towards me, a small box with a ring sitting in the palm of his hand. Tom, channeling Loki, channeling King Hal. I was doomed.

“Will you consent to be my queen and my love? Will you marry me?”

His head dropped and my heart leaped into my throat. Time seemed to slow to a crawl while I recalled every fight, every laugh, every moment of passion and joy and sorrow. How could I possibly say yes? How could I not?

The soft sound of a camera lens focusing on me snapped me out of my time stop. He was still on bended knee, his arm shaking a bit. I stepped off of the platform and lifted his chin. For all his eloquence, I could only come up with a single word response.

“Yes.”

Tom jumped to his feet and kissed me as everyone within earshot roared with approval. ‘All I Ask of You’ began to play and I made a mental note to fire then promote Mike later, as I was sure he’d been part of this plot all along. A moment passed in his arms before he finally stepped back, scooping up the golden horns.

“I shall be waiting with white horses, my queen.”

“And here I thought you’d want me to play you out.”

“As long as it’s not ‘Performance Issues’.”

“No promises.” I winked then stepped back onto the platform. “Ladies and gentlemen, shall we skip to the end?” Mike nodded and everyone found their page. I raised my hands and music from the Avengers theme rang out in the park.

Tom bowed to me before he slid the helmet back over his head, turned and walked to the side of the stage where Robert stood, raising his hands in victory when applause followed. I caught them embracing out of the corner of my eye and knew I’d have to give both of them grief later for the first glimpse of ‘FrostIron.’

We made it to the loft long after the final note sounded. There had been a sea of people congratulating me on the concert, the engagement, and everything in between. Tom vanished long enough to de-Loki, much to my disappointment, but stayed right next to me for the rest of the night. When we were finally able to leave, he ushered me out to a white Jag. White horses, indeed.

He zipped through the streets of Manhattan with ease, taking as many backroads as possible to avoid traffic. I took the time to get a good look at the ring, and oh God was it stunning. A large oval stone set on its side with two smaller stones at either end set in a band of polished silver knotwork. Definitely handcrafted and a perfect fit.

“The band’s tungsten. I know how hard you are on jewelry,” Tom said with a wink.”The stones are moldavite, amethyst, and garnet.” he glanced over, a smile on his face. “Us.”

“It’s perfect,” I blushed a little, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “And you’re a dork of the highest caliber.”

That little laugh that drives all the ladies crazy slipped out as he nodded and pulled into the parking garage. Our elevator ride was silent as the family that snuck in just as the doors were closing bombarded Tom with more questions about Loki than I’d ever come up with. It made me think we’d have to take the service elevator from now on.

All thoughts of anything beyond the man wrapped around me vanished as soon as the apartment door closed. Tom spun me around, planting a kiss that went from chaste to passion in point zero six seconds. I heard my keys hit the floor after I missed the end table. He growled when I tried to pick them up, nipping a little harder at my neck, pushing me toward the bedroom.

We were all hands trying to shed clothes on the way. You’d think that as much coordination we had individually, we’d be able to make it look as graceful as it did in the movies. The poor boy got so frustrated that he picked me up, carried me down the hallway, and dropped me on the bed. Shoes and socks off, he stepped closer to unzip my dress while I worked on his pants. The ‘conda sprang free as soon as the zipper fell. Another growl came from above when I wrapped my hand around it, morphing into a moan as when lips added.

The bed dipped to one side a little with the weight of his leg. His hands rested on my shoulders as he tried to steady himself while I rolled my tongue around his cock. I couldn’t see his eyes with his head leaned back, but knew he was lost in the sensations, his hips rocking back and forth. He pulled out suddenly, tugged my hands away and upward to my feet.

Another kiss, slower and more passionate while he finally figured out the zipper of my gown. His hands moved the fabric down, and the frustrated moan came when he remembered just how much effort went into making slinky black dresses look good. He nuzzled and nipped his way across my face and down my neck while he fumbled with the clasps of my bra. I returned the favor, dragging teeth along his neck until I was able to get his shirt open.

What was left of my clothing dropped to the floor in one swift motion when Tom dropped to his knees, pushing me back onto the bed. I slid up the mattress and he followed, kissing and licking his way up my legs. He stopped at my hips, licking upward along the inside of my thigh but never quite made it to the center.

“If all you’re gonna do is tease,” I panted, “then get up here.”

“You would deny me the pleasure of devouring your already dripping quim?” Loki’s voice followed the dark, lust filled eyes that looked up at me. Before I could wrap my brain around my impending demise by god-lust, a finger slid inside me, followed by another. The smirk became a grin and he lowered his mouth to my clit, his eyes never leaving mine.

He growled again as he began to suck, slowly pumping his ridiculously long fingers in and out of my pussy. I tried to squirm away when he picked up the pace and he wrapped his free arm around my leg, locking me in place. I lost count of how many times he brought me to the edge only to back off and begin again. My fingers found their way into his hair, tugging him upward, only to be rewarded with his teeth dragging across my swollen bud.

“Not until you cum,” he purred, still latched on to me. He began thrusting the fingers inside me, curling them around to brush against that little bundle of nerves while he clamped down with lips and teeth. It didn’t take long for my body to shatter beneath him, my orgasm tearing its way out of me with a scream. He anchored me down with both arms, sucking out every last drop I could offer.

When I came back to reality, he was making a slow path up my body, his breath hot on my skin. His lips finally reached mine and I took rough possession of them, wanting to taste him. The tip of his cock brushed against my pussy and I shivered. Tom pulled away a bit.

“Need a bit longer to recover?” he whispered, nuzzling against my cheek.

“Absolutely not.” I pulled him closer to me and shifted a bit, sliding a hand down his stomach. “Only thing I need is you.” My fingers wrapped around his length and guided him inside.

“Oh. My. Go...” The last syllable was lost in the moan that rumbled in his chest. He was completely still above me except the slow thrust to push himself deeper, nearly purring as he went. I moved my hands along his sides and he sighed. “Been too long. Won’t last.”

“Ditto,” I breathed into his ear, “on both counts. Just move.”

Tom obliged, rocking his hips back and forth, moving a little faster with each thrust. I tried to lift my hips to his, but he built a pace I just couldn’t maintain. All I could do was hold onto him, losing myself in the feeling his body in mine and the sounds we made. His moans took on a higher pitch and his thrusts became erratic until every muscle in his body tensed, his seed spilling in waves. Feeling him cum sent me back over the edge, and I could’ve sworn I heard him chuckle as I clamped down around him.

We lay tangled in each other for a while, basking in the afterglow. He finally moved to the side, eliciting a groan from both of us when he did. Ever the gentleman, he let me duck into the loo first while he turned down the bed. Both settled back in bed, I curled up next to him, my head resting on his chest.

“Love?” he whispered, toying with a lock of my hair. “Are you sure?”

“Sure of what?”

“This,” he spoke as he ran his fingers along my left hand to the ring. “I know you wouldn’t have refused me in front of the entire world and half of Manhattan, even if you wanted to.” I lifted my head from his chest to look at him. There was a genuine concern on his face as he sighed. “So, are you sure?”

“You’re serious?” His face turned sheepish. “Then let me answer a question with a question.”

“What? You hate it when I do that!” He sat up a bit and I pressed a finger to his lips.

“Thomas William Loki Adam Hank Henry Robert Freddie Jonathan Oakley Hiddleston the fifth, Lord Nooth, rightful king of the Jotunheim, England, Ireland, Scotland...”

“Okay, okay, enough,” he chuckled. I grinned at him.

“Will you marry me?” His eyes went wide and teared up a bit. He began nodding furiously until I kissed him.

Neither of us slept that night.

#fanfic #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fluff #tom hiddleston rpf #tom hiddleston smut

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zombriekid · 5 years

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Attention [Alucard/Gender Neutral Reader]

Series: Hellsing

Summary: while infiltrating a banquet, maintaining the illusion quickly becomes a herculean task when your partner doesn’t want to play by the rules

General 98: “Not sure if you could tell, but I’m not exactly a people person.”

“You didn’t have to be such an ass, ya know...”

“The fact that he even bothered to approach warranted my reaction.”

The man in question is a young twenty-something who obviously comes from a background of wealth, what with his form-fitting refinery being cut from a crushed velvet, the shade a soft yet rich black, and the lapels and other trimmings as glossy as his oxfords. He’s handsome enough in your opinion. There’s a roundness to his jaw left over from adolescence yet there’s a sort of college age maturity around his brown eyes; he’s cradling a coupe of bubbling, golden champagne so he’s gotta at least be of legal drinking age- though you’re willing to bet that laws and other legalities are often bent to accommodate this crowd of greed and privilege.

“He only wanted a dance, though.” You mumble around a sigh.

Your companion’s red eyes slide your way before She merely scoffs in response.

Your vision follows the retreating silhouette of the young man, his head hanging low while his feet drag along the polished tile. The way his eyes tended to wander, or rather appraise as if he were inspecting trade goods and not talking to a person, isn’t lost on you but even still a fraction of your conscience goes out to him. He’s not predatory per say, just... very privileged.

“It’s not like he was being a creep about it.”

The vampire draws in a lungful of breath. “In case you couldn’t tell, revenant, I’m not exactly a people person, and there is no way that that boy ‘only wanted a dance’.”

Now that you can’t necessarily disagree with, however you can’t blame the young man either. See no matter the occasion or situation Alucard always tends to stick out from the crowd, whether it’s the imposing profile He cuts due to His monumental height or the sheer miasmic capacity of His ancient power, either way He never fails to snatch everybody’s eye. Even now, in a form that maintains a traditionally feminine shape, He- or rather She, gotta keep up the illusion after all- is an attention gatherer.

The cashmere of Her dress is such a luxurious burgundy that not only does it look incredibly soft to the touch (not to mention expensive) it also makes the pallor of Her skin milk white; the plunging neckline draws the eye to Her modest bust, and it elongates the length of Her throat, while the skirt smooths out the roundness of Her hips. With long black curls tumbling down the small of Her back and Her lips painted a deep, dark rouge, it’s no wonder if that young man’s intentions were a tad more... intimate than one mere dance.

Heaven knows that your thoughts aren’t exactly chaste right now either.

“Regardless, we shouldn’t draw attention to ourselves,” you glance at Alucard through your peripheral, “and no doubt some of these boujee idiots heard the verbal abuse you just gave to that kid.”

The corner of Her lips curl a fraction, a subtle gesture that you would’ve otherwise missed were it not for the fact that you’ve begun to notice Her body’s involuntary reactions.

“Save your worrying for someone else, revenant. I have no need nor any desire for it.” She growls lowly.

You roll your eyes and hiss under your breath: “I’m not worried about you, asshole! I’m worried about blowing our cover!”

It occurs to you a second too late that maybe your statement wasn’t as quiet as you think when you notice some banquet attenders are staring at the two of you, and not even remotely trying to be discreet about it. The wind is immediately sucked out of your sails, clearing the dryness from your throat with a cough into your fist, and you hope that perhaps it’s the odd, mismatched paring you and Alucard make that’s catching their attention.

It’s just as likely an excuse, after all.

Probably.

A single exhale of air rushes through Her nose and in that moment your passive aggressive ass decides to put all of the blame of the staring entirely on Her and Her way too tight dress.

Then, in the ballroom where a crowd has gathered into a mass of lustrous silk and glittering jewels, the orchestra begins plucking their nylon strings and you become possessed in a moment of brave insanity.

You take a step towards the glistering cacophony and offer Her the crook of your elbow with a polite smirk. She in turn regards you with the slightest of sneers curling Her upper lip, yet another instinctual reaction that you’ve noticed as your partnership marches (more like shambles) on. “May I have this dance, Countess De Ville?”

...yeah, Alucard really should’ve chosen a better alias. It’s a little too on the nose for your comfort.

“We gotta blend in anyways,” you continue with a one-shoulder shrug, “and I promise I won’t try to get fresh.”

She scoffs under Her breath. “Do you know how to dance? Are you even classically trained?”

Nope.

“Mr. Holmward taught me a thing or two.”

Not even a little- well, unless you can include watching the old man waltz with his sweetheart, Mr. Morris, after a glass or two of amber whiskey and imported cigars. Which, to be frank, you actually don’t think that that counts but your pettiness knows no bounds, and you’re more than willing to potentially embarrass yourself just to prove to Alucard that She’s the attention whore here!

In the background you hear the brass section gradually slide in to the crescendo and you level your companion with an arched brow.

“I swear on my granddaddy’s grave that I won’t try anything.”

Perhaps you’ve just uttered the magic word(s) for the shape-shifting vampire straightens Her spine until She towers over you with Her impressive height, thus causing Her shoulders to lay back and Her bust to arch forward, and the grin that slips across Her lips stretches a little too far beyond human limitations.

It’s as She loops Her arm around yours that you realize something, a little factor that you didn’t take into consideration when formulating this revenge-fueled cockamamie plan. Alucard might know how to dance, even classically.

“Very well then.” The “countess” purrs, “your lead, revenant.”

Your mouth suddenly feels dry.

a/u: so i’m not quite ready to jump back into the series just yet i don’t think, but i’m gonna try to fill out other requests until i am. also this ain’t gonna be the last time we see lady alucard cause my useless queer ass will take whatever form he comes in- except for girlycard or any other minor passing form. i picture lady alucard as something of a cross between anjelica huston’s morticia addams and vampira- sultry, dark, alluring, and likes to wear tight dresses; and yer goddamn right she’s a 6′4″ gorgeous forty something year old! like, reblog, and/or comment if you enjoyed this and i’ll catch you cool cats next time!

#hellsing #hellsing alucard #hellsing alucard x reader #hellsing alucard x you #alucard x reader #alucard x you #alucard #hellsing ultimate #hellsing fanfic #hellsing fanfiction #writing #hunter murray

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niksfiks · 5 years

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Pops in the Park

Originally posted 6/10/19

TITLE: Pops in the Park

AUTHOR: Nikkalia (niksfiks)

PAIRING: Tom/OFC

RATING: M

SUMMARY: This is the result of a conversation on Discord about Loki!Tom crashing a concert. It went downhill from there... Dedicated to my darling @igotloki

NOTES/WARNINGS: (kinks, triggers, general warnings.) Smut, which is really difficult to write in first person for some reason...

“Because Anthony Daniels canceled when it wasn’t all about Star Wars.” Mike answered, grinning. “Relax, you’ve got this.”

“No respect from my concertmaster,” I smirked as he clapped my shoulder.

“So, is the magic man making an appearance tonight?”

“Nope. He’s otherwise occupied.”

Mike laughed. “What does that even mean?”

I shrugged. “It means...he won’t be here.”

“Oh, come on. He can’t pull away from whatever he’s filming for one night to celebrate your 5 year anniversary with us? Loser.”

“Whatever.” I blew out a sigh and looked back over my notes. “Really hate speeches.”

“See, magic man should’ve been here. He likes to talk and the ladies love to listen.” Mike winked and got a smack on the arm for his trouble before wandering off.

“Two minutes to curtain. Oh, and I’m supposed to tell you that an emcee has been located. You’re off the hook.” a stagehand told me.

“Thank you, God!”

I found Mike walking toward me, making sure everyone was ready to go.

“Conductor,” he nodded, a glint of mischief in his eye.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage our master of ceremonies for the evening, mister Robert Downey, Jr.”

Bob strode out to the center of the stage, grinning from ear to ear.

I shot the dirtiest look to Mike, mouthing, “You knew.”

He shrugged, then smiled. Jackass.

“Maestra,you look stunning,” I heard beside me. He leaned in for a cheek-to-cheek kiss, lingering a little longer than maybe he should have. “He misses you,” he finally whispered, pulling away.

“Then he should be here.” I croaked. Poor Bob, reduced to a mere messenger boy. “Shall we?”

Being the gentleman that he is, Robert led me to the platform, holding my hand as I made the tiny step up, then returned to the podium on the other side of the stage.

The piece finished and Robert began rambling on about music and film and... I stopped paying attention after a few seconds, focusing again on the upcoming music. One of the stage hands appeared on my right and placed a wireless mic on the music stand. I put it on, thinking I would be expected to say a few words about my time with the orchestra, what an honor it was, blah blah blah.

Celebrate yourself, Tom would say. If anyone deserves accolades, it’s you. My response was almost always, “yeah, whatever,” which would send him into a 20 minute monologue extolling my virtues as a musician and human. I’ve always preferred to let the music speak for itself.

The altos later told me that was not the kind of love they were looking for. The sopranos, however, were ecstatic. Divas, the whole lot of them.

Loki, or Tom, in full Loki regalia, strode toward me like a demi-god possessed. The horns sat above smouldering eyes, cape flowing behind him as he approached me like an animal stalking his prey. It took every ounce of self control I had not to pounce on him in front of God and the globe. I never could resist that costume, and he knew it. Instead, I simply crossed my arms.

“Please,” he growled, the swagger growing, “don’t stop on my account. Summon your Avengers.”

“Bad enough you destroy half of Manhattan with some half-baked scheme to take over the world. Now, you have the audacity to crash my gig and interrupt their music?”

He stopped short, head cocking to one side. I don’t think he was entirely sure if I was serious or just playing along. The infamous smile returned.

“I have found myself lamenting the loss of something very dear to me of late. Something that I believe you alone can help me recover.” He paused, his voice echoing through the speakers while his hands fells to his sides. “It pains me to admit such shortcomings, but I find that I am weaker without you, that I am lost without your presence in my life. I am heartbroken at each day that passes without the sound of your voice. So,” his cloak flew behind him with a flourish and he fell to one knee. A collective gasp came from the audience and the stage. “My lady, would you consider restoring to me the grace of your life and your love on a permanent basis?”

What the hell is happening? I glanced over at Mike. He, and the rest of the orchestra, are literally sitting on the edge of their seats. When I turn back to Tom, his arm is extended towards me, a small box with a ring sitting in the palm of his hand. Tom, channeling Loki, channeling King Hal. I was doomed.

“Will you consent to be my queen and my love? Will you marry me?”

His head dropped and my heart leapt into my throat. Time seemed to slow to a crawl while I recalled every fight, every laugh, every moment of passion and joy and sorrow. How could I possibly say yes? How could I not?

“Yes.”

“I shall be waiting with white horses, my queen.”

“And here I thought you’d want me to play you out.”

“As long as it’s not ‘Performance Issues’.”

“The band’s tungsten. I know how hard you are on jewelry,” Tom said with a wink.”The stones are moldavite, amethyst and garnet.” he glanced over, a smile on his face. “Us.”

“It’s perfect,” I blushed a little, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “And you’re a dork of the highest caliber.”

We were all hands trying to shed clothes on the way. You’d think that as much coordination we had individually, we’d be able to make it look as graceful as it did in the movies. The poor boy got so frustrated that he picked me up, carried me down the hallway, and dropped me on the bed. Shoes and socks off, he stepped closer to unzip my dress while I worked on his pants. The conda sprang free as soon as the zipper fell. Another growl came from above when I wrapped my hand around it, morphing into a moan as when lips added.

“If all you’re gonna do is tease,” I panted, “then get up here.”

“Not until you cum,” he purred, still latched on to me. He began thrusting the fingers inside me, curling them around to brush against that little bundle of nerve while he clamped down with lips and teeth. It didn’t take long for my body to shatter beneath him, my orgasm tearing its way out of me with a scream. He anchored me down with both arms, sucking out every last drop I could offer.

“Need a bit longer to recover?” he whispered, nuzzling against my cheek.

“Absolutely not.” I pulled him closer to me and shifted a bit, sliding a hand down his stomach. “Only thing I need is you.” My fingers wrapped around his length and guided him inside.

“Ditto,” I breathed into his ear, “on both counts. Just move.”

“Love?” he whispered, toying with a lock of my hair. “Are you sure?”

“Sure of what?”

“This,” he spoke as he ran his fingers along my left hand to the ring. “I know you wouldn’t have refused me in front of the entire world and half of Manhattan, even if you wanted to.” I lifted my head from his chest to look at him. There was genuine concern on his face as he sighed. “So, are you sure?”

“You’re serious?” His face turned sheepish. “Then let me answer a question with a question.”

“What? You hate it when I do that!” He sat up a bit and I pressed a finger to his lips.

“Thomas William Loki Adam Hank Henry Robert Freddie Jonathan Oakley Hiddleston the fifth, Lord Nooth, rightful king of the Jotunheim, England, Ireland, Scotland...”

“Okay, okay, enough,” he chuckled. I grinned at him.

“Will you marry me?” His eyes went wide and teared up a bit. He began nodding furiously until I kissed him.

Neither of us slept that night.

#fluff #tom hiddleston rpf #niksfiks

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sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 5 years

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Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Denmark to Eurovision with a cute multilingual jingle

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Dansk Melodi Grand Prix is... a NF I don’t really have anything to say about. Like, you expect me to rile up 3 big paragraphs about the pre-NF dramas and what-not, but honestly... what’s the point.

Well, aside from the fact people did not really get excited over the lineup this year. Me neither from the names alone, actually. Even last year was more interesting to look at despite with another lineup of songs you can’t give a fuck about and then move on - I noticed they had Sannie who used to be known as Whigfield (”Saturday Night” <3333 the duck quacks <333), Ditte Marie (anyone remembers “Overflow” from 2012?) and Albin Fredy (which seems to be the same Albin that brought me my one of the two DMGP 2013 favourite songs, “Beautiful to Me”???). This year was a big “WHO IS SHE?? WHERE DID YOU FIND HER???”, so I just left DMGP in the corner where it picked cobwebs until not too long ago when someone got chosen.

Well, this NF keeps being a NF where I don’t personally feel too emotionally fucked about any of them entries, so that’s a big plus in my book, which will mean that I won’t throw a “THIS WAS ROBBED!!!1″ post on Denmark NF-wise... at least this year and the last year because I really loved “Venter” in 2012 and the said “Beautiful to Me” and “Invincible” in 2013 (I also liked “Only Teardrops” but I was mad its victory was so obvious xD). As for why I like it when the NFs don’t toy with my feelings, A Dal 2019 is an obvious demonstration, but more on that on my Hungarian writeup, which is significantly longer than this one - that’s how much of a demonstration it is.

Anyway, let’s talk about the chosen song, shall we? Performed by a smol skater girlie Leonora (Jepsen), here comes “Love Is Forever”, which was co-penned by the ever-so-notorious Lise Cabble - the champ-mastress of writing Eurovision songs for the Danes (by that I mean she wrote their 1995 entry... and then none of her entries got chosen for ESC until 2011 lol). And this is a significally softer turn of hers compared to “Only Teardrops” - ever since Anna Ritsmar in 2018′s DMGP, she tends to write cute, acoustic tunes sung by young ladies with their lil cute and lil crispy voices. “Love Is Forever” is just that, tbh.

Well THAT and also it sounds like a lovely acoustic background song for those funny photos/student quotes/test answers/etc. compilation videos on Youtube (I actually am talking about the channel Scoop, because other kinds of compilation videos use Youtube Audio Library-like pop songs or something straight off NoCopyrightSounds). Or the theme song for a TV programme for animals. Or the theme song for a children's programme they show at hospitals. There's so many places you can insert it into, I guess. At the same time it feels like a cupcake with pink frosting that tastes nice. And a cup of warm cocoa with whipped cream and sprinkles. It's a delightful bite. Yum.

Realistically though, the song itself has an easy noddable-along-to rhythm, cute violin string plucks, the capability to melodically progress to sound even more joyful (I mean, the chorus just adds more and more layers of brass as it keeps repreating, just giving it a bit more of a typical Scoop channel background music material), the D flat major key of this song’s uplifts the spirits of this whole shebang and it also somehow includes lines in some more languages than expected in a Danish song ever, how odd it seems like??? And it’s especially given that we haven’t really heard Danish in a song since like what, 1997?? We only got “shout insh’allah” and “taka stökk til hærri jörð, taka” ever since then, and these aren’t remotely Danish lines. But this year we’re getting some Danish, and French, and even German. Feeling the love in multilingual. L’amour est pour toujours, y’all! Liebe IST für alle da!

There are also people that aren’t buying into the song all that much because Leonora looks way too creepy to sell a song about love love peace peace, like someone emerging out of a demented cabaret. I suppose that other people think that this song was forced onto Leonora when she didn’t really want it, and now has to pretend that we have to spread love to the world, make friendships with others, don’t get too political, and then act all supercool about it. The saddest bit that she does sound like that person that would sing a song like that... young, with a passion for skating, looks like a person that could probably hug you when you least expect it, the one that posts light purple sweater pictures with a glitter effect applied to them on Tumblr, the one who would wear white mittens with a giant red snowflake painted on/knitted into them... I don’t know if that’s all Leonora wanted to compete with in DMGP to make a breakthrough with her singing career after skating so darn much, and if she even believes in what is she singing (this is my rare reminder of the war situation in Israel that’s going on, and I’ll probably never have to speak of this again in any writeup, hopefully. Yeah sure, love is for ever...), but I somehow buy it, sue me. Those acoustics and that touch of brass instruments won me over.

So my final thoughts on this song is that it’s a joyball with that kind of song message so overused I cannot be angry on it because it’s not slapped on a dreary Russian peace ballad - it’s a singer-songwriter-esque small showtune, which makes it all seem a lot different because love is cute and this song is cute. So I guess I have no issues with it, whereas I can’t stand the aforementioned Russian peace ballads all that much because if you remove the good singers singing it, they’re cliché af; “Wars for Nothing” (Hungary 2015) sounded too innocent while having a full gun tree serving as a backdrop for them and if you looked too much into Boggie’s eyes, you could very well feel her penetrating your soul with war imagery; and Iceland last year was a knock-off Russian peace ballad that sounded too good to be unbearably dreary and the vocalist wasn’t even a belting girl. So yeah, I like it. More adorable songs about spreading love, less overdone ballads about world peace.

Thing is though, why did she really dress like a barista from a late-night-open cocktail club? I get that looking like a princess à la Maria Olafs won't cut it anymore as it would look way more saccharine, but Leonora is up like she's there to serve you your damn drink as soon as possible so she could go outside for a small smoke break, not to advertise love. Watch me make "when you have Eurovision at 9 and job at a cocktail bar at 11" memes on the night of the 16th. Seriously, her image barely even fucking suits the song!

Approval factor: Well, one of my faves won DMGP again, for the 2nd time in a row, so why wouldn’t I approve? ^_^ Love from me is forever!

Follow-up factor: For Denmark it kind of seems like a decent follow-up? For all those out here that remember Denmark as the nation that plagiarises every other entry, it would just seem logical for them to finally send a generic royalty free ukulele song for Youtube videos. Which is spectacular! No one knows which song did this one exactly plagiarize - the entire concept was ripped off! Jokes aside, it’s an interesting one after Rasmussen. After a song that urges you to lay your weapons down in a war and go find higher ground more peacefully, we’re now getting a morale on the fact that love is for ever and everyone. Isn’t it sweet. I’d rather these than a bland love song about laying down armours and guns. ^_^

Qualification factor: depends. For now I feel like writing it off because to the 1% of the people who’ve already heard this song beforehand and hate this song, the whole thing feels like “love :) is :) forever :) please love everyone you little shit :) :) :)”. To some others however, like Luke Malam from ESCXtra, it’s a song that definitely makes them feel the love being forever, just like “yaaaay we love each other and the world yaaaay!!! ^o^”, so it’s perhaps a bit of a mixed bag. I wanna see it through though, just as much as I want to see Lithuania, about which I will be talking next in these write-ups. But I see it very much so as a borderline because... idk, just a gut feeling. Sometimes songs that ooze loveliness just don’t quite get themselves across the other hand side of the viewer thus they don’t really qualify, for example, Finland 2012, another song sung by a lady better known as a sportswoman rather than a singer (but maybe that’s just because there was too much intimacy of hers with her and her celloist’s mom, and she looked too awkward to pass the intimacy to the viewers so they too could feel the loving bond and the life metaphors coming from a Finnish entrant singing in Swedish). For now from me it’s a positive borderline. Yes, I think that it probably will make it and we’ll see that large Ikea chair prop with many people swaying to the rhythm on it next to Leonora on Saturday as well.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

Even with me not having much to say about DMGP, I will go ahead and cherrypick the favourite songs from the event:

• The big favourite of mine this year was brought by Julie & Nina, who served a bilingual schlager-like midtempo track, “League of Light”. Hats off to sounding properly Eurovision-y but without using a “rent-a-NF-songwriter” songwriter for to write this! It’s soaring, majestic, somewhat memorable and inclused Greenlandic. Yeah. Do you believe that this would have been a year where we could’ve gotten more exotic Language spins? Now we have lost both Aboriginal and Greenlandic out of Eurovision, hopefully just for this year so the languages can return again sometime. I’m proud of these women being so courageous and delighting some that really wanted schlager pop that still can click with some that are bored of Eurovision NF schlager cliches. Oh and this song is in A flat minor, probably one of my favourite keys in music. Not too bad, everything this was, although the aggression they transmitted through the song during their live DMGP performance kiiiiinda made them looked like pissed-off housewives imo?

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• Them both and this guy below, Sigmund, were picked to the superfinal to compete against Leonora. What was Sigmund’s contribution and why did he deserve to be there so much? Well, I really love his colourful flamboyant electropop track that has piano influences, “Say My Name”, which lyrically reflects on the song’s protagonists big power that he will probably have if only the invisible force Sigmund’s singing to would just “say [his] name”. And I definitely think he deserved his spot over some really nice pop entries that the fandom definitely overrated. Oh and the song is in A flat minor too. Maybe I’m biased, maybe I’m not. You judge. >:)

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• See, I don't feel like talking about the DMGP songs this year. It's a cool bunch of songs that some of them I like but nothing quite outstanding to talk about beyond those I already have paragraphs for. Well maybe you'd like to look up the entries by Humorekspressen (for to get a pub singalong song) and Jasmine Gabay (for to get yet another Latino-influenced Havana club track). But that's it. Here from me the last one you'll be getting is Simone Emilie with her teen-flavoured light radiofriendly dance-ish song "Anywhere". Why didn't it do better despite having the power to click with the Eurofans quite much? Well, maybe it's because her backdrop and the fairytale-esque dress went for another kind of atmosphere than it was required to have on the song.

• I don't know, I just find this particular winning reaction shot funny. Not sure if she's yawning or being like "yaaaazs bitchesss ;) 😄 ✨" in here. I gotta say - her lipstick was definitely on fleek that night.

That guy below her takes the cake at making this shot memorable too. Do you want the invisible meal Leonora is about to take a bite of too?

And besides that moment I don’t really have any on-show moments besides songs that were somewhat memorable. Why do Danes always have to be this vanilla in the Nordic country barrage, I will never get. That’s it. That’s their crime. Of being average. And being sued for plagiarism a lot in the past.

For now I’d just wish Leonora good luck in Tel Aviv and show ‘em that love can and will prevail before hatred does, if only people remember to love... ah wait, wrong kind of philosophy.

#eurovision 2019 #tel aviv 2019 reviews #denmark 2019 #leonora #love is forever #denmark

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harrieatthemet · 6 years

Text

so he cheated... he thinks (Pt II)

WE’RE CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF BOYS!!!!! LONG AWAITED, PLS ENJOY. (pt I)

It’s like he’s lost control over his motor senses.

He’s got his fingers rummaging aimlessly atop the granite of the kitchen counter, off key and in an annoying kind of way. Every so often he’d stop, abruptly, laying his hand flat and letting the metal of his rings clank up against the surface. The only noise, aside from the sound his boot heel was making in collision with the kitchen tile as he jumped his knee, was the bulkiness of his breaths. Heavy, exasperated, very dramatic as he began to lose himself in thought.

Nick had knowledge, even prior to arriving, that something was off. It was the very abrupt string of texts, short worded and demanding, that had tipped him off. And the inkling that he had before his knuckles were raking across the front door, were only further confirmed once he was invited in. Because Harry didn’t even so much as greet him. No hello’s or friendly hugs were exchanged. Instead, Harry merely opened the door for him, ear pressed to his phone, as he huffed and puffed in frustration. And when the dial tone would end, he’d simply end the call before voicemail, just to dial again. Nick, at first, wasn’t sure who he was so desperate to get a hold of, why he was so frustrated each time he was sent to voicemail. It was then, not even a few minutes after arriving, that it was probably you on the other end of the phone. Because he’d already been standing in the foyer of the house for 15 minutes and you hadn’t come skipping in to bid your friendly kiss hello.

And Nick could tell Harry was already prisoner within his own head, just by looking at him from the opposing side of the counter. With his eyebrows knitted together in thought, in concentration, and his teeth absentmindedly kneading at his bottom lip, it was obvious. But after a few minutes of eerie silence, he drew himself back to the conversation, throwing a hand up to his scalp to tousle with his hair before he dragged it over his face in frustration.

“Ok,” he breathes, “need yeh t’tell me again.”

“Bloody fucking..” Nick groans, his head going back in agony before he rolls his eyes, “already told yeh 3 fucking times!”

And Harry doesn’t care if it’s been 3. He doesn’t care if it’s been 6 or 12, or 100. He’s had it on a loop, on repeat in the forefront of his brain, for the past hour. Every word has been absorbed, processed thoroughly and with great care, before he’s etching them into his thoughts. The words ‘didn’t cheat’ are going off in his ears, ringing like the aftermath of an alarm. And he should be happy, should be positively thrilled, even. But he’s not, nowhere near it.

Though he’s relieved that his fidelity is still in tact, his faithfulness still strong and honest, he’s not taking comfort in the fact that at some point he’s going to have to face you. He’s going to have to face you to explain how the night transpired, how this woman ended up with his shirt. You’re hardheaded, stubborn too, especially when you’re temper arises. And Nick’s word will only hold so much water with you, Harry’s sure of that. The idea of you not being able to take his word quite literally makes him sick, his stomach knotting and his throat getting dry.

“Just tell ‘er,” Nick sighs, rubbing at his eyes, “s’wha’ happened, s’the truth.”

“Dunno if she’ll listen t’wha’ I say after she saw-”

He hears it. It’s faint, quiet, so soft that if he hadn’t had an ear turned towards the front of the house, hell, he probably would’ve missed it. But he didn’t, and fuck, he’s glad he didn’t Because his hands fly off the edge of the counter, excelling his body as he takes greedy strides to go the front door. And his pace picks up when he hears your shoes on the staircase, because surely you hear his boots causes a ruckus against the wood of the floor. You do, which is your b lining it up the stairs to seek refuge in your bedroom.

“(Y/N),” he calls, “s’good you’re home. Jus’ wait, n’ we can-”

“Don’t wanna talk,” you sigh, “and I’m not staying, just need a few things.”

“Well wha’ d’yeh mean y’aren’t staying?” His tone is little more brass, annoyed, but nervous.

“Exactly what I said,” you bark at him, and his face falls expressionless, “no reason to stay here.”

He’s starting to get impatient, agitated because you won’t even allow him the time to provide some sort of explanation. A little part of him perks up, after his persistent whining for you to ‘just wait one minute’. You’re still stood on the steps, halfway between the second level and the first, your lips pursed tightly and your stare fixated on the tip of your shoes. Because you’re positive that if you look up, look back at him, you’ll start to cry. But your gaze does pick up when you hear another set of shoes, coming down the hall and towards the door.

“Oh, sorry,” Nick mumbles, “figured, y’know, s’best if I head on out.”

“No!” Harry yelps, before he hushes his voice again, “can y’tell her. Please.”

Nick’s eyes are wide, completely blown out. It’s blatantly obvious that he is being asked to execute a task way out of his comfort zone, as he’s blatantly uncomfortable. And just looking at you, he’s fearful. The sweet, upbeat aura you typically tend to have to you is long gone. It’s evident in the way you’re knuckles have strained white, how your hand has a death grip on the railing of the stairs, lips pursed and eyes lacking emotion.

He doesn’t want to, not at first. The tension in the room is overbearing, like a looming cloud, except it’s practically suffocating him. And he’s put off, feeling awkward and out of place, especially since he’s been stood just a foot away from you and you have yet to acknowledge him yet. But he glances over at Harry, who, if it’s even possible, is far past the point of desperate. He can’t quite articulate the words you need to hear, because he’s nervous and jittery and impatient. So, Nick caves, and he nods in agreement.

“Can y’come down from there?” Harry’s voice is that of a wounded animal, in attempt to tread lightly with you.

“No.”

“(Y/N),” he sighs, “love, please.”

“No.”

“Oh for fucks sake,” Nick huffs, “just get off th’bloody stairs!”

You scowl at him, muttering something out of spite beneath your breath. But you’re a fool to think he wouldn’t reciprocate your energy, silly to think he wouldn’t return the narrowed eye glare. And after a few minutes of staring each other down, glancing over at Harry as he desperately wait for you to come off the steps, he finally lets out a breath of air. Because you’re turning on your heel now, hand still on the railing, but you’re coming down the staircase instead of going up.

You assume a seat in the living room, on the furthest end of the sofa. Harry goes to sit beside you, but is encouraged to sit elsewhere, courtesy of the icy glare you shoot him. And Nick is sitting just across the way, the only object standing between the three of you is the coffee table, littered with magazines and an assortment of flowers. He’s tapping his foot, belligerently, because he’s trying to refrain from killing Harry right now, for putting him in the middle of this very personal mess. So he’s not going to drag this out, he has absolutely no interest in making this any longer than necessary.

“Alright,” Nick exhales, slapping his hands against his thighs, “think I’ll get t’the point, he didn’t cheat!”

The room is silent, still and quiet in an awkward and weird kind of way. Nick is nodding his head, so is Harry as he agrees with his friend, eyes studying your face for some kind of reaction. But he knows you, better than he may know himself, so he’s not surprised when you barely even blink. All you do is cock an eyebrow at him, stealing a glimpse of Harry, before you go back to staring at Nick with a puzzled look.

“Know it looked real bad,” Harry chimes in, his body pivoting to face you, “with th’shirt.”

“It didn’t look good.” You quip, and Harry grits his teeth before resuming.

The scene has been playing over and over again in your mind, on an endless loop. It had been unraveling itself back to back on your drive around, the drive around that was intended to clear your head. It’s been a while, most of the day has passed, hours having gone by since brunch. Yet, somehow, the image of this woman handing Harry one of your favorite shirts of his has seemingly tattooed itself into your head.

“Stole it,” Harry grunts out, “took it right off th’kitchen floor, at Nick’s.”

“Dared him t’skinny dip, s’why his clothes were off,” Nick chirps, butting in, “but, continue.”

“Stole it?” You reiterate, and he nods his head vigorously.

“S’wha’ I said,” he nods, “s’a friend of a friend, of Nicks, ‘nd she came back to his place after with a few others.”

“Mhm,” you laugh coldly, and he can physically feel himself being set back about 10 steps, “and you’re sure you didn’t just invite her?”

“Kinda invited herself, actually.” Nick shrugs, and the side eye you send him makes him shift uncomfortably in his seat.

And, though it’s all true, you still have a hard time biting the bait. It seems a little too fabricated, and how were you to know Harry didn’t just summon Nick here to come up with some sort of culpable story. It felt a little too much like two against one, and it was making you nervous. You were a victim to your own doubt, trying to figure out what was true and what was a lie, if anything was true or if Harry just pulled all out of it out of his ass. You’re throat is welling up, as tears are kneading at the backs of your eyes, because it’s a little overwhelming, It’s too much going on at once, too many thoughts.

“Was just looking for a little attention,” Nick adds, “ ‘nd I think she saw Harry as an opportunity.”

And that makes you feel a little guilty, so a frown settles itself on your lips. Which makes Harry feel a little better, because it’s truly the first expression he’s seen on your face since this morning. But there’s still a little turmoil, the dust has not all settled yet.

“Didn’t cheat, you said?” You’re tone is softer, asking the question with caution.

“No!” Harry squeaked it out, practically a yelp, “No, no. Took th’shirt on purpose, so she could have a reason t- you get it. But no, swear it. Swear I didn’t. No.”

There’s a long stand still of silence, as Harry looks at you, and you stare down at your fingers fumbling with the frill of your skirt, all while Nick stares uncomfortably at the ceiling. Harry’s eyes narrow while he looks at you, watches you while you make that face he finds so adorable. You’re lost in thought, trying to figure out where the next best place to go from here is.

“Okay.” You sigh.

“Okay?” Harry repeats back, and you nod.

“Okay,” you let out a breathy laugh, “so you didn’t cheat.”

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thefinishpiece · 5 years

Text

A Noir Scene

Jude needed some air. The kind that brings you a certain kind of relief. Like a kiss from the night—but maybe not this night. Maybe not any night. Jude thought sore of the subject, returning her attention to the storm. And what a storm it was.

The rain seemed to clear everything up. It made crystals of the various fractals in the world—brick, glass, garbage, flies, smoke, flashes, people—spring in the city was always so pleasant. Jude couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in such a big city—probably never.

Hopefully we won’t have to say goodbye too soon, Jude thought. I’ve always been so sore on goodbyes.

It was classic noir—or some such imitation—reflecting in the window glass. Jude had been peering outside, in hopes of capturing that strange, cosmic dream. The rain always did seem to clear her out. Too bad, too. She really could’ve used some clarity.

“I-Isn’t this how most of your clients behave?” She whispered, her tongue slipping from nervousness.

He heard her, responding softly, “They’re usually all nervous wrecks. But you seem cool as a cucumber.”

Jude had an urge to grin, but she kept it away. Instead, she kept puffing on her cigarette.

The Man dressed himself for the weather outside, then put his hat on. “But then again, most of my clients don’t exactly have the problem you’re having. A very curious thing—a missing soul? I don’t know how we’ll find it. But you bet I’ll try my damndest.”

Jude turned, gazing at the floor, while speaking to him.

“What sort of problem do I have, sir—” Jude looked up, her eyes shimmering in the light of some phantom lamp. “But a problem of finding something I already have?”

The Man stepped nearer, leaning on his desk, casual.

“You see, ma’am, it’s not a matter of what you have, but a matter of what you won’t give up. There’s something you’re not telling me. I never could work with dames like you!”

Jude gasped, exasperated. “Dames like me? And what exactly does that mean?”

The Man edged closer to Jude, so close that she could feel his warm, whiskey-soaked breath on her lips. His arm croached around her. “It means you’re beautiful, darling.”

She pushed him away, unable to grasp herself. She was letting herself get too deep—she couldn’t have happen what happened last time. She promised herself she’d fix it.

The Man grabbed her shoulder and spun her around, planting a kiss directly on her lips, tending to the garden of her mouth. She gripped his arms, plenty in her hands. She thought to herself, I guess I never did fix it.

She never did.

Outside, they walked along an icy-black street.

The rain had glazed the pavement, making it look like pure glass. A road of obsidian scales. The rain was still pouring, basking the world in its cool glow. Neon images passed by above, obscured by the mist.

The silence that was previously there was being subdued by some rising noise. The subtle tones of brass horns blowing against the leather-hide of a drum snare. Some smoky song, being sung by some soothing siren. The crowd grew larger and larger. Jude caught herself panting, getting caught up in the whirl. I’m a nervous wreck, she thought. Just keep going, Jude.

She breathed in the night. Everything was okay, it seemed. After all, Jude said she needed some air.

“You ever been to The Electric Serpent? It’s a night club.” The Man asked, casually.

“I can’t say I’ve ever even heard of it, let alone have been there. Is it nice?” Jude replied, nibbling on her lips.

The Man coiled her in his arms as they strolled. “Baby, it’s more than nice—it’s a dream.”

A noir dream—blinding rays, shadowy deep, façade, disguise. A puff of light, gone in slashy smoke. But Jude’s dream was changing. Something in her was deeply afraid—deeply concerned. Lost in thoughts that weren’t her own.

The static ladies were all laughing, glowing. Everything was electricity.

“This is a night club?” Jude asked, her voice drowning in the circus. “It seems to have too many lights to be night.”

A long, dark night.

The Man motioned her to a booth, where two empty martini glasses were waiting. Some spooky jazz was playing. A waiter in a waiter’s outfit approached the table, pouring a martini shaker into the glasses.

“Here are your drinks, monsieur,” the waiter reached into a small, refrigerated bucket, filled with ice. He pulled out two olives and skewed them with toothpicks, then placed them delicately on the edge of each drink. “And now, anything else for the Man?”

The Man rubbed his chin, pretending to think. As he did this, his other arm slithered around Jude, as close as he could get. He tickled her ribs as he talked. “A Rueben for me. Another drink for the lady.”

“What kind?”

Jude exhaled. What? She thought to herself. Did someone ask me a question?

The waiter stared. “Madam, what will you drink?”

“Oh, sorry. I’ll have a Manhattan on the rocks, please.”

She stumbled. On the rocks? Who’s ever heard of a Manhattan on the rocks? Oh, you dolt!

“Of course.”

The waiter departed.

Jude relaxed. There was no animus in this place—only congeniality. Only comfort. Or so it seemed. But Jude had learned never to be too trustworthy. Her farmhouse growing up was none too comforting and her father would always—wait, why did she remember that? Jude had thought she’d forgotten all memories of her father. But she supposed, I guess one of them just clung on.

The Man leaned into Jude’s neck, then floundered to her ear. “My goodness, doll, you look so appetizing in that get-up. Like a real woman. I could almost eat you, you’re so real—argh!”

He seized a bite out of Jude’s nape. She flinched. He nibbled on her lope. She shoved him off.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing there?”

“Oh, darling, I’m just kidding, come on. It’s a dream, remember? It’s all a dream—I just can’t believe you’re real. Someone as beautiful as you.”

The waiter struck a glass. “Here’s your drink, madam.”

“Thank you.”

“No,” the waiter snickered. “Thank you.”

The waiter disappeared again.

Jude sipped her drink. It tasted weird. Not like any Manhattan on the rocks she had ever had.

In the center of this abyss, a curtain opened. An electric sun shone through. Everybody in the room suddenly became quiet. Rainbow-tinged vines pulsated back and forth. A drum roll began.

The Man gulped his martini, then casually said, “It’s time for the show, doll.”

On stage, several costumed dancers gathered. Behind them were a band. They played sweetly. A Magician walked out on stage. He clapped his hands together while the audience applauded. Then he bowed. And bowed again.

The Magician finally gestured for one of his assistants. She was wearing some cheap cocktail dress—poor thing probably doesn’t enjoy being up on that stage, Jude thought. But she clung to a smile anyway.

The assistant brought him a cartoonish top-hat, upside down, which he lifted for everybody to see. Then he shooed his assistant to the side.

The Magician twinkled his fingers, the audience moaning. Then he proceeded to push his whole fist into the hole of the hat, thrashing about in there for some object. The audience gasped.

From the darkness of the hat, miraculously, The Magician pulled out the tip of the tail of a snake.

Then he dropped the whole backside to the stage floor, revealing a thick trunk of scaly meat. The snake must have been some kind of glorious python—some dazzling spectacle of killing and death like only the devil’s earth could conjure.

As it sunk to the ground, more and more of its glorious body slunk out. It seemed endless.

The Magician let gravity work as he tipped over the hat, stream after stream of giant snake pouring forth. It began to pile up on the floor. His assistants hurried a ladder to him, then The Magician climbed the wooden steps to follow this behemoth beast to its very end. However, the snake was still coming out when the Magician reached the final step.

“Not to fear,” he announced, flicking his finger. “I’ve done this before!”

Somehow, the Magician stepped onto air. Jude sprung forward. The Magician’s foot appeared to be hanging flat on the space in front of the ladder. Then he bent his other knee and did what many might think impossible—he took another step.

The Magician was now floating in the middle of the air, standing on some kind of invisible platform. And it was on these empty steps that The Magician followed an entire unseen staircase to the very height of the stage. And the leviathan serpent was still ceaselessly folding its flesh all about the stage, threatening to consume everything. And it did.

The snake flooded over the edges of the stage, its massive body swelling on the floor beneath. Tables, chairs, glasses, drinks—all flung in every direction. People stood up aghast, but unable to move; they were each, one by one, sucked into the foils of the snake’s entangling body. The reptile crept onto the entire wall across from Jude, swallowing the entire scene within its canvas.

Jude wanted to run, but she was stuck. She couldn’t move. Her bottom was melted into the seat. Jude panicked. She turned to The Man, angling for advice. But his entire frame had been transformed in to ribbons of smoke—though still clinging to the shape of a person.

The Vaporous Man puffed an imaginary cigarette and told Jude not to worry.

“It won’t hurt, doll, it’ll just pinch. And then you’ll be gone. No more trouble from this world. No more mortal string to pluck at.”

Jude exhaled.

It won’t hurt, doll, Jude thought. It’s just a pinch. And then I’ll be gone.

And so she was.

#anoirscene #dilonzeres #thefinishpiece #prose #prose poetry #verse #irrealism

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canaryatlaw · 5 years

Text

Okay so I’m currently in a car on a potentially periled freeway somewhere in Wisconsin driving home from the P!ATD concert with Jess in the snow, so that’s fun. Today’s been pretty good though. I was glad I was actually able to get my ass out of bed when my alarm went off at 8 this morning because I was tempted to sleep in but I knew that was stupid when I get to sleep in all damn week because I’m not doing anything with my life right now. But I got up and got ready, took the 8:41 bus off to church. The temperature when I woke up and looked at my phone was precisely 1 degree, so I went ahead and retrieved my single digit weather monster coat that I save for these circumstances when it’s really really bad because it’s fucking huge and a pain to deal with (but actually rather successful at staying warm, so that’s good). Made good time despite the weather and got to church like ten minutes before the service started (which is like optimal). The service was very good, as always, but our female pastor was preaching and I always love her messages, lol. She was preaching about being redirected in life and used the time when Moses was stuck in the wilderness for 40 years with the Israelites and particularly the use of his staff (because God would be like “hit this rock with your staff and water will come out” when the people needed water) as a way of leading and just like trusting God and listening when things do not go according to our plans for them. So that was good and the music was really good too. After the service I went to the kids volunteer lounge (where I was late for our little powwow since I didn’t sneak out of the service early because I was sitting more in the front than usual) where we chatted quickly to hear what the game plan was and go from there. Once we had that figured out I went to the babies room and we started getting babies. We only had a few when the service started but then it picked up and we ended up with like 15 lol but we had five people helping so our ratio was still okay. Overall things were actually really calm, only really had like one kid crying at any given point so that was pretty good, I bounced around between a few kids, had a very cute little boy that I was handed when his parents dropped him off who seemed snuggle-inclined at first so I thought he might be clingy but he steadily worked his way off of me and into playing. He was like 8 months old so he was doing a lot of crawling and like turning himself over and such. One little girl had a diaper blow out that looked real bad but thankfully I didn’t have to deal with that. Then I had a little girl for a while that wanted me to sit on the chair in the corner with her on my lap so we did that for a while. But yeah, overall it was pretty good, no real complaints. It was slightly warmer when I was getting ready to leave but I didn’t have enough patience to do public transit an hour home once again so I opted for an Uber pool that was not badly priced. Got home at like 1:50, at which point I retrieved my almost completed Italian rainbow cookies which I had to cover in chocolate still. So I got them out and melted the chocolate candy coating I’d bought for this purpose because it melts really smoothly and is easy to deal with, which it was, and spread it over the top then put it in the fridge to harden for half an hour while I changed and grabbed stuff to get ready. Depending on how snow turned out we wanted to be prepared about the possibility of getting stranded in Milwaukee overnight if it were snowing because Jess’ windshield wipers have been frozen to her car for a few weeks so if that wasn’t remedied and it snowed we could’ve been fucked, so I grabbed a bag and packed pajamas/meds in case we needed to drive back early tomorrow morning. Half an hour later I took the cookies out of the fridge and cut them into actual cookie pieces because it was just one giant cake like thing that had been assembled in layers and now has to be cut. The chocolate cracked a lot on top while I was cutting it despite my efforts to warm up the knife some so that wouldn’t happen, which I was semi-frustrated about but I also knew it was inevitable up to some point because these cookies just tend to be very messy and difficult to keep assembled, but overall I wasn’t that mad. I put them in two Tupperware containers, one for my fridge and one to take with me so Jess can take them to work with her tomorrow (her coworkers are definitely under the impression that we’re lesbians and this will not help that at all but it’s funny). Shortly afterwards Jess came and picked me up and we were off on our way to Milwaukee. So we made most of the drive ok, we were seeing if we could unfreeze her wipers by keeping the heat and the defroster on for the like hour we were driving up to the first Culver’s when we cross over the Wisconsin border (because cheese curds) but they were still frozen in place. So we got food/ice cream (I got ice cream and cheese curds, Jess just got cheese curds and a coke) which we ate there and talked to a few teenage employees who noticed our P!ATD shirts (that we bought yesterday) and asked if we were going to the concert. When we were ready to head out we looked up where there was like an auto shop store of some sort in the general direction we were going and headed there to see if the windshield wiper issue could be fixed. Jess’ little brother had said to get some de-icer fluid to pour over them that should help and we found that but then we talked to an employee who brought us this can of spray (which was much cheaper than a like, gallon of wiper fluid) that was for that specific purpose and had like a scraper at the end of it to assist in removing ice. So we checked out and returned to the parking lot to do this thing. We turned the car on (because heat) and started spraying it everywhere and trying to remove ice where we could. They were pretty solidly frozen so at first them were just like not moving at all but we kept spraying and trying to get them to move and idk if it was something in the spray or just like prolonged exposure to ice but both of us had like, the most painfully frozen fingers while trying to do this, like ohmygoodness it was SO BAD like my fingers have gone numb before but this was just like raw pain and SO COLD so this was truly torture but we kept spraying (and like we were wearing gloves but neither of them were waterproof because we got the same ones from forever 21 in like October when we were freezing in NYC so they were just getting wet and not helping) but we kept fucking spraying and slowly, painfully, we got the wipers free and felt very victorious and then returned to the car to drive the rest of the way and try to unfreeze our very frozen fingers which took like 20 minutes to regain full feeling in our fingers. So we drove the rest of the way to Milwaukee and to the concert venue which when then parked a bit down the street from for the venue that was $15 because the attached parking garage was $40 and we ain’t about that 😂 so we parked and walked and got on a relatively short outdoor line to go through the metal detectors and get our tickets scanned. When I got the tickets from stubhub they were like “must print! Don’t just have it on your phone!!” so I printed them and then we got there and the lady was like “do you have them on your phone? We don’t actually do printed tickets at the venue at all” and I was on top of my shit and had them pulled up on my phone (and because Jess was pestering me to have them ready to go) so we got through without issue. We were up in the nosebleed seats way at the top that had a very steep incline with concrete steps which I am so not about after watching a woman fall down such steps at my cousin’s graduation like two years ago and it was absolutely horrifying so ever since that I’ve been very paranoid about such steps so I was not happy about those but I managed to get to our seats which I was mostly okay with as long as I wasn’t looking directly down and at the stage area instead, lol. So when we got in there there was a girl with a not-excellent blonde wig on singing with two male dancers, so they did that for a while, apparently her name was Betty Who and she was Australian, to her credit she was definitely u Sent from my iPhone

so that was me getting home and emailing my draft from my notes on my phone to my laptop where I will continue typing it now. I just bought like 6 songs off iTunes that I knew but didn’t own lol because the same one is stuck in my head, but now I write. but singer lady to her credit was definitely singing live so that is good. they had a second opener then, two feet, who was fine, they were just...not P!ATD.....and that went on till like 8 so we’d been there for an hour and we’re like....can they just come out now please? but then they’re offstage for a bit and then a ten minute timer appears and that counts down to when they actually get onstage. The musicians were like on three slightly elevated squares in the back of the stage, three brass instrumentalists, a drum set, a set of stringed instruments (two violins and a cello, I believe) who were only onstage for some songs, and then there were there two guitar players (one female, which was cool) at the corners and then there was a front triangular stage area coming out from that (because it was like the symbol of their new album or some shit like that) and then finally as the timer hit zero Brendon Urie popped up to the stage from a little circular area and he like came up relatively fast and jumped as he did so it was just like he was shot out onto the stage, lol. I know they're a band and not just a singer, but he was definitely doing at least 75% of the work. There were some backup vocals from the guitarists but most of it was just him. He had really intense stamina, I know doing a tour like they’re doing takes a ton of energy and he was on top of it the whole time, and his voice was very strong, he used his falsetto a lot and there was never like, a sour note or anything (I know he was in Kinky Boots for a bit and you could tell he had a Broadway-caliber voice). But they started with the newer stuff of course some of which I knew and then brought a piano up and did Nine in the Afternoon which was fun. Then he made his way through the crowd which took like an enter song because he was stopping to hug like every person on the way and it was really cute, at one point there was apparently a nun in the audience and he was like “sister, I’m so glad you’re here!” and he found a kid at one point and talked to him for a few moments which was cute. But he eventually made his way to the back area where there was like vocal equipment and such and there was a piano, not sure if it was the same one or not, that’d been lowered down on a circular stand onto which he got and then he proceeded to play a song while they lifted the piano on the stand up into the air and flew it over the crowd all the way back to the stage and like. I was having so much secondhand anxiety watching him lol which is literally ALL PHANTOM OF THE OPERA’S FAULT because this never used to be a thing but now I’m always like “what if that falls????” and I’m not great with heights sometimes too so I was cringing a bit at that lol but it was overall very impressive. All of the music was very good, prior to when they came onstage they had passed down the row these little pink paper hearts which said on them to put over your phone light during the song “Girls/Girls/Boys” so when that came on we did it and like, whoever organized this whole thing (apparently her name is Leah, so thanks Leah) did a really fucking good job because each like second had the same color hearts but all differed from each other and then the floor seats had a bunch of random colored ones that created a very rainbow effect whereas the other seating areas were more of the blocks of color on the other LGBT flags (or that’s what I thought of it, at least). I’m pretty sure he ended up with like, three pride flags by the end of the song from the audience, he was holding one, had one on as a cape, and then had another one somewhere and like, it was honestly really touching and I was basically on the verge of tears lol it was just so sweet and well done, it was a really good moment. I was happy to see that I did recognize at least a majority of their stuff, I didn't like, follow them super closely over the years but I knew their major stuff and some of their new stuff, so I was satisfied with that, and a lot of the new stuff I’d heard around enough to have a general idea of what it was (the whole thing that started this was the song “High Hopes” because back when we were trying to win Jingle Ball tickets by calling into radio stations every single time the song they’d play to signal the time to call in was High Hopes so it kinda became our joke and then we ended up at the concert, lol). Then when the concert “ended” they of course came back for an encore, during which they sang the classic “I Write Sins Not Tragedies” which he described as “the song that started it all” for them and they had like shots from the music video on the screens at the back of the stage which was definitely a blast from the past lol but it was very fulfilling to see in concert all these years later. He was saying that he’s pretty much been doing this for 15 years now since he was 17 and just like how thankful he is for all his fans that come out and make all this possible and I was feeling very soft about all of it, lol. But yeah, I think that’s the highlights, the whole thing was really very good and I enjoyed it a lot. Once it ended for real we headed out, we were both thirsty but of course all the food vendors had closed up by then and we opted to skip the very long bathroom line on the thought that we’d hit up a gas station or mcdonalds once we get on the freeway. We managed to find the back staircase which was much less crowded than the escalators/main stairs so we managed to make it down relatively quickly. Walked back to the parking garage and made it to the car, only to be stuck in a very long line to check out because the people running the parking garage decided to have people pay going out instead of coming in, and then we discovered they were only accepting card and not cash, so this all resulted in a very, very long and slow moving line that spanned several floors of the parking garage and we had to have spent a solid 25 minutes waiting to get out of the damn place, and Jess was getting nauseous at this point so we just really wanted to get out of there. We finally made it to the front and had to scramble to get a card instead of the exact change we had ready for them in cash 🙄 but then at least we were free and got to the freeway relatively quickly. It had started to snow at this point so visibility in general and especially seeing the lane dividers on the road were getting very difficult to see and like I’ve dealt with that before driving and it’s really fucking scary so Jess was definitely starting to panic, at one point we tried to pull off and run to a gas station but the road was like that we couldn't get to the damn thing from where we were and she was just so anxious at this point we said fuck it and just powered the way through the rest of the way home. Once we got off the freeway the visibility was a lot better since there are like, streetlights and shit, so we could relax a bit after that. But yeah, made it the rest of the way home, Jess dropped me off and I got inside my apartment, changed into my pajamas and then continued writing this and now I am here. It’s just past 2 am but I didn’t take my meds until like 30-ish minutes ago so they’re just really starting to kick in now. I should probably at least try to go to sleep though, not that I have anything in particular I have to do tomorrow but staying up too late is never really a good idea, so I’m going to attempt to go to sleep now, we’ll see how that goes. Goodnight loves. Hope your Monday doesn’t suck.

#daily journal #January 2019 #Jess tag

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jimlingss · 6 years

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Brass & Strings [9]

Episode 8 - Episode 9 - Episode 9.5 OR Episode 10 Words: 5.2k Genre: Fluff, Humour (?), Slice of Life, Music!Au, College!Au Summary: Have you ever wondered what happens to the mean girl after high school? Where do they go, where do they end up? More importantly, what happens when they get mixed up with the classic nerd that's always too nervous to answer 'no'? Things become a lot more complicated when Kim Namjoon encounters you. They dub you as 'bat-shit insane' and you're not ashamed. Notes: This part is inspired by this which actually inspired the entire series.

Cr.

[3 Years Ago]

The cold nips at your skin and you shiver in your thin clothes, shaking in your bones while the dim light of the lamp post is the sole luminescence. For a mere moment, a sickening dread washes over you, causing you to become nauseous to your very core. Did he leave you behind?

There’s no way.

But you can’t help looking down the road, teeth sunk into the bottom of your lip, rocking back and forth in your dirty shoes. No. You believe in him. It’s impossible that he’ll go against his word. He won’t abandon you…..

He’s the only one you have left.

“Fucking finally!” You shout aloud, stomping up to the dingy car as it pulls up on the curb.

It sounds like it’s running on rocks, making chugging noises and barely holding on. The vehicle is a stark contrast to the luxurious neighborhood. The boy inside winces when you get in and slam the door harsher than necessary. “Hey! You’re going to break it, brat!”

“Where the fuck have you been?! I’ve been waiting for twenty goddamn minutes!”

“There was traffic, you ungrateful piece of shit! I nearly got ticketed for speeding here. Do I get no thank you’s?!”

“No,” you huff out while crossing your arms, turning your head to look out the window. Your house stands behind the gate and in the middle of your noisy argument, the lights inside flicker on. It’ll be any moment now that your parents will look out the window and realize where you’re going or more specifically, who you’re with. “Just drive!”

The nineteen year old grumbles and shifts the gear into place, leaving the street behind you.

Yoongi doesn’t speak a single word. You don’t either, leaning your forehead on the cool window, staring out at the passing nighttime sceneries and the other cars who are most likely making their way home. No one at midnight would go anywhere anyways, except for the two of you.

“Why have you been so catty?” Your cousin finally pipes up, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

You’d turn on his radio but it’s broken. “As if you care.”

“Just tell me if you’re PMS-ing so I can avoid you for the rest of the night,” he chides in a sassy tone that has you scoffing with a smile.

“Bitch...fine…” Your arms are still crossed but you sit up straight, peeling the bright paint off of your fingernails. “I’m going to run away.”

His eyebrow perks and he steals a glimpse of you before focusing back on the road. “Oh?”

“My parents want me to go to their university or whatever after high school. But I’d rather die than work an office job for the rest of my life or teach damn science to a bunch of dimwits.”

Yoongi chuckles, “yeah...you don’t really fit the whole professor narrative.” As a seventeen year old, you’re already surprised that you made it this far through high school without dropping out or getting expelled. “What are you planning?”

You shrug. “I’m probably going to pack up a suitcase, withdraw like a good few thousand dollars.”

“Where are you gonna stay?”

“I dunno.” You’d never admit it to him but you haven’t thought up all the details yet. “Maybe I’ll take a plane out of this shit ass place and I’ll stay at a hotel for awhile. You know, I hear a lot of wealthy folks like to pay young people to go on dates with them.”

“You’re not pretty enough for that.”

You fake a gasp. “Wow, fuck you, I’m gorgeous.”

Your cousin exits the highway, making a left turn and you know you’re getting closer to where the underground concert is. Sometimes it’s a rock show, other times it’s a rap or dance battle. Nonetheless, you enjoy watching the different types of performances. It’s not exactly your kind of scene but it’s different from the usual classy and high-end places that you frequently visit.

“You know, Y/N…..I actually think you should do music.”

There’s a long silence.

You burst out into laughter, slapping your knee, wiping away the water that wells up in your eyes as your stomach squeezes. “And here I thought we were actually having a semi-serious talk. Thanks, asshole.”

“No, I am being serious.”

For once, you know he’s telling the truth. There isn’t a hint of humour or mirth in his voice and Yoongi’s expression is stern, despite you only being able to see his profile. “I think you should do music.”

You scoff, laughs dying down and he continues, “believe it or not, kid, I’ve heard you play and you’re not half bad. You’ve got a really good ear for this sort of stuff. Running away...it won’t do you any good after a while. Take it from someone who’s tried. You’re better off pursuing something decent and actually building a future for yourself.”

You roll your eyes. “You sound like my dumb teacher.”

But you’re secretly hanging onto every single word of your close cousin. He’s in his first year of university after all, having fought with his family to major in composition. If you attended the same place as him, you’d at least have someone with you. “...do you really think I could do it?”

The side of his lip tugs. “I really do.”

“How would I pull it off? My parents would never let me major in music.”

Yoongi’s smile becomes a smirk and his grip on the steering wheel tightens, completely aware of your manipulation skills that’s only getting better as you age. “Oh, I know you’ll figure something out.”

[Present Day]

It’s not surprising that Yoongi doesn’t pick up. He tends to ignore your phone calls and texts, unfazed when you blow up his mobile device. What is shocking, however, is that he actually seems busy.

Aside from grumbling about how early he has to wake up to head to the radio station, his shitty shifts at the music store, having no direction in composing, then he’s complaining about having less than ten hours of sleep. In other words, usually Yoongi isn’t that fucking busy.

But he always has time to talk to you. He’s always there.

You don’t think much of it until you drop by the music store after a particularly nice date with a well-off, rebellious gentleman. Maybe you’re lucky your cousin wasn’t there. He’d certainly ask questions about who the person in the red sports car was.

His co-worker raises her eyebrows, “There’s been a pretty girl dropping by lately.”

One foot is out the door but you’re paralyzed, turning around. “A girl?”

“They come and leave together a lot. I think they might be dating. Did you not know?”

Okay. Whatever.

Yoongi isn't involved with your business. You’re not involved in his. It doesn’t matter to you.

You shouldn’t poke your nose where it doesn’t belong anyways. It’s a mutual relationship of respect and trust. That’s what you remind yourself except-

“What the fuck?”

“Wh-what’s wrong?” Namjoon is immediately on alert, darting his head around to where your eyes are. Your arm slowly lifts and you point straight at the girl sitting in her seat next to the window. “Jennie?”

The concertmistress is innocently writing notes down into her notebook. She colour codes, draws diagrams and has a pencil case full of chubby highlighters. She studies on her rose gold laptop, no less than a real-life doll in a television commercial. But what has shaken you to the very core, caused Namjoon to become worried and concerned is that-

“That’s Yoongi’s sweater.”

It’s unmistakable. The white sweatshirt of the band he followed in high school, the black marker signature at the back that your cousin literally dived on stage for. He had taken you that day, snuck you out of your house when you were fifteen for a breath of freedom and during the last performance, Yoongi threw himself to the keyboard player, some Richard guy that you can’t recall completely.

“Y/N.” Namjoon tugs on your arm, forcing you to halt. “What are you going to do?”

You ignore the harpist, shaking off his grip. The suspicions that had slammed itself inside your skull, that made you follow the concertmistress for the past half hour, it’s all confirmed when your eyes pin to the two people across the street. They’re laughing and giggling to each other in broad daylight. Yoongi almost looks...happy.

But you can’t let it happen. “Y/N!”

Your feet cross and they’re still talking to each other until the violinist turns her head. Then, her mouth drops and her eyes enlarge, soaking in your angered expression. “Y/N-”

You rip them apart, shoving her and she stumbles back. Your arm lifts to send a ricocheting slap across her face, one that’ll knock some sense into the bitch but Yoongi instantly covers Jennie with his body.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” He shouts, trying to push you back when you try to tackle her again. “Y/N! FUCKING SHIT! You’re psychotic!”

“Let go of me!” You scream at the top of your lungs when your cousin restrains your limbs but you manage to dig your nails into the girl’s scalp, dragging her hair with you. “You bitch! Stay away from him!”

“The fuck?! It’s none of your business!”

“Like hell it is!”

Jennie sobs out and as she reaches up to your hands, she accidentally scrapes her own nails along your skin. The sensation burns and you give a tug on her scalp. Yoongi’s strength is immense, pushing you away but you kick his shin as hard as you can. He falls down and you roughly grab Jennie by her arm, shaking her and pulling on her hair. “Leave him alone! Go find someone else, you bitch!”

There’s a crowd that’s drawing in, murmurs and phones being pulled out. But before mayhem can truly break loose or the police can be called, strong arms curl around your waist.

You’re elevated meters high, feet no longer touching the ground. “Let go of me!”

Namjoon throws you over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and he bows, calm and collected despite your fists pounding on his broad backside. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The harpist begins to jog away from the confused horde of people and your bruised up cousin is left with his date. “Kim! Namjoon! Put me the fuck down or I swear to god-”

“You’ll what?!” He retorts with a huff. “What will you do?”

“I-”

“Don’t you know it’s not nice to curse out loud in public? There are children around. It’s not nice to beat up other people either. You can get arrested for that. Didn’t your parents teach you some common courtesy?”

“Namjoon!”

He finally sets you down at some random park where there aren’t many wandering eyes, two full blocks away from where you originally were. “Are you still mad?”

“Yes.” You spit out, flickerings of red appearing in your vision. Your chest heaves and the bruise at your lip, the scratches on your arm don’t faze you. If Namjoon wasn’t Namjoon, you probably would’ve smacked him already for manhandling you like that and for sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.

“Use your words.” The dimpled boy commands, putting his hands on your shoulders to stop you from marching back there. “You’re an adult, not a toddler throwing a tantrum. Tell me what’s wrong using your words and not through violence.”

If only it were that simple. You don’t know what to say. There is nothing your tongue can spit out that would make the pain any easier.

“He’s my only family.” You inhale, eyes red and stinging. “Families protect each other. And-and….”

Yoongi is the only one you have.

“I hate her.”

He’s your only family. He was once your best friend as well, the brother and ally that you never had. But you’ve been lied to. You were betrayed by him before. While you looked up to him your entire life, aspired to be just like him...he never once solicited your advice, never once talked to you about his own suffering.

Out of the blue, he dropped out of school and abandoned the one thing that you two shared and loved together, music.

You don’t know him. Not the way you thought you did. Your admiration and the bond you thought you shared was one sided. Now, he was dating your enemy. As childish as it seemed to be upset, every single bone in your body screams out in agony.

“I hate her...I hate her…”

“You don’t.” Namjoon somehow manages to soothe you, dissipating your anger away. The red spots in your perception begin to disappear. “She’s a good person. You and I both know that.”

“No!” You push away the boy in front of you, trying to breathe. His presence suffocates you. You want to feel angry, you want to feel rage. Those emotions are less painful than sadness.

“You don’t get to fucking pretend to be my counsellor and try to make things better! You-...you don’t get to stand here and tell me what’s right and wrong. You don’t understand shit about me, Namjoon! Stop….stop trying to act like you care.”

You’re shaking. Namjoon takes a step forward. Your head downcasts to the ground. The kind boy reaches out to hold your hand in his. Teardrops fall like rain from your eyes, wetting the cement by your feet.

“You don’t know what it’s like to have no one.” Your teeth sink into your bottom lip, sobs crashing through your mouth and you hate how weak you are, how vulnerable you’re making yourself. “Y-You don’t know w...what it’s like to….to be left behind.”

You’ve been left behind.

The people around are scared of you. They’re frightened. You can’t even get anyone to stay without threatening them, without being forced in a setting or in a room. Your suitors only care about your exterior, the smile that you plaster on your lips. They don’t know what your major is or your birthday, your last name - the meaningless things that add up to make you who you are.

They don’t care. No one does.

You have no friends, no family, nobody.

You thought you had Yoongi - you’re wrong.

“I...don’t have anyone, Namjoon.”

Your shivering frame is cloaked by his warm body. His arms hesitantly wrap around you before they settle, tapping your back gently. You’re thankful that he’s holding onto you, allowing your tears to drip from your eyes onto his shoulder. It would be humiliating for you if he watched you break down.

“You have me.”

You sniffle, looking up at the sky to stop your sobs. “That’s not true. I made you stay.”

“No.” He smiles, wondering why it was that you felt so fragile in his hold. “I could’ve left a long time ago but I didn’t. I chose to stay.”

There must be three minutes of silence. Maybe more or maybe less.

Once you’ve calmed down and realized the amount of stares you were getting, children who were snickering behind their hands and shielded their eyes, bitter single folks mistaking you two as a couple, you speak up. “Namjoon.” Your voice is hoarse. “You can let me go now.”

“Oh.”

He releases his arms and you quickly dig in your bag for your sunglasses. Namjoon still manages to catch the redness under your eyes and the swollenness before you shield them away. “Are you feeling better?” He smiles to himself as you clear your throat awkwardly.

“Much.” You cross your arms, beginning to walk again. “Let’s never speak of this again.”

The harpist isn’t sure if he can keep that promise but he appeases you anyways. “Okay.”

If you aren’t dynamite, then you’re a ticking time bomb. The mere thought of Jennie standing next to your dear cousin still makes you nauseous. You wonder if this is what it feels like in those stories and movies with the older brother protecting his little sister against his own friends.

But in your circumstances, Jennie is someone you already detest.

“We’re just going to run through a few scales and exercises together as warm up before the conductor arrives. Is everyone ready?” The concertmistress lifts her arms and everyone raises their instruments with her motion. The violins are propped on the shoulder, the percussionist holds their mallets and the bassoonists wrap their lips around their reeds.

A little giggle interrupts the session and a few people turn around. “Y/N?”

You’re on your phone, scrolling through some messages and answering some texts. Your instrument is nowhere in sight. The trombonists beside you lean away from your menacing aura. “Hmm?”

“Are you going to participate?”

“Whose authority are you doing this on?” Your pupils flicker upwards, smile void on your lips.

Everyone puts their instruments down. Jennie drops her arms. “I’m the concertmistress.”

“Huh.”

The tension in the room could be cut with a knife. Your classmates swallow hard, averting their gazes and they can sense the fire that is about it ignite. “Will you participate with us?”

“I will but I’m curious as to why you’re the concertmistress.” You look at your nails, flicking off a speck of dirt under them. Your legs and arms are crossed, sitting back in the seat.

“I-”

“Rebecca?” You take a glimpse of the girl in the second seat. “Aren’t you a better player than she is? You’ve been playing for longer and you’ve had more workshop experiences as well. I see you in the practice room a lot. Do you not feel like you are more deserving of Jennie’s position?”

The girl that was dragged into the conversation opens her mouth and closes it. “I-”

Jennie takes a step forward. “Y/N.”

You interrupt all of them. Rose is gaping at you, having no opportunities to interfere and Namjoon is utterly baffled at your disobedience and rudeness. It reminds him of when the both of you first met each other. You were intimidating, unnerving and sharp, a tongue of venom and words that stung of poison. He wonders where the sweet girl he knew went, if she’s hiding underneath the mask.

“Has no one ever questioned the concertmistress before?” There’s silence as your mirthless laugh echoes across the room. You scan the surroundings and the pale faces of all your classmates. “Like, I haven’t ever seen her practicing. If she doesn’t put in the hours, then is she deserving of her seat? It’s kind of odd now that I think about it. How did Jennie get her position? And why do so many professors favour her? Maybe it has to do with her legs being spread-”

“That’s enough, Y/N.”

You look directly into Jennie’s eyes, locking your gaze onto hers. “You pretend to be all innocent and naive, as if you’re a helpless little girl. But you’re really running behind people’s back, fucking their relatives.”

There’s a roaring gasp. People cover their mouths with their hands to stifle the sound. They look around at each other with widening eyes, a simmer of murmurs filling the background. Jennie nibbles on the bottom of her lip, looking like she’s about to weep. Rose stands up but the violinist stops her. “Y/N. Can I talk to you outside?”

“Are you my mother?”

“Y/N.” Her voice does not quiver, does not shake. You’re slightly startled by the stern tone, unable to believe that she had it in her. “As the concertmistress appointed by the conductor for the past year, I require you to step outside the room immediately.”

A flow of curses leaves your mouth in mutters but you follow her. The door is shut and the pair of you face each other.

“You’ve disrespected me in front of our peers. You disrupted the session, insulted me and disregarded my authority.” Jennie inhales, “I know we have private issues but those are private. You are in a professional setting so act like it. If you want to talk to me, curse at me, hit me then do it. I don’t care. But it has to be after practice. In that room, I am your concertmistress. You must respect the position I am in and if you don’t want to, then you can leave.”

She continues to stare at you and you don’t waver. After a second, you notice her pupils shaking. You decide to be merciful. “Fine.”

When the two of you enter the room, it is dead silent.

He pushes his glasses up, staring out the lense to the bustling dining hall. “You look miserable. Is there trouble in love town?”

Namjoon raises a brow towards his friend, Taehyung. “What do you mean?”

The saxophonist grins mischievously in response. “Nothing.”

They both sit down together at a table and the harpist asks the other how he’s been doing. Things have been busy lately and they haven’t been able to keep up to date with each other much. “There are some euphoniums who are thinking about dropping out and there’s a competition soon.” Taehyung groans and moans, hitting his hand on the surface of the table. “I’m the section leader and I have no idea what to do! The stress is eating at me, Namjoon!”

The boy gobbles up his sandwich, faking a sob and Namjoon tries his best to encourage the man. There’s a bit of peace as they both chew and the other conversation next to them reverberates down.

“Have you heard?”

“Oh my god. I was there! Y/N totally flipped out. There’s a bunch of rumours and talk going around now.”

“Jennie’s dating Y/N’s relative, right? What a small world. Y/N’s insane though. She totally went bat shit crazy and Jennie had to pull her out of the room. If I were Jennie, I think I would’ve pissed myself. Y/N’s such a bitch. I hope she gets thrown out.”

“Well I heard that it’s not just any relative.” The girl sips on her juice box. “It’s Y/N’s cousin, Min Yoongi.”

“What?!” They dramatically gasp, huddling closer together in murmurs that are all too loud.

“The Min Yoongi?”

“Oh my god.” The third girl appears confused with a frown, hence the other nudges her. “You don’t know who he is? He’s older than us by two years and he dropped out last year. The genius composer.”

“Didn’t he tell off a conductor and then he was put on academic probation because of it?”

The fourth male student who has joined their group nods. “But it turned out the conductor was actually wrong. The school was embarrassed and they didn’t do anything about it, so he dropped out.”

“That’s cool of him,” one whispers out. “Sticking to his guns like that. I wish I had that much courage.”

“You idiot.” The girl hushes her friend. “It was a dumb move. Now he’s out there wasting his talent. I heard he’s homeless and eating garbage. He should’ve just sucked it up. His pride ruined him.”

“I can’t believe Jennie is dating someone like him.”

There’s a ringing screech. They all turn around, ready to berate the person who scooted back their chair so loudly but then their mouths drop yet again. “Are you done?” More people whirl at the sound of your voice and the gossiping group avoids your piercing eyes, gathering together and shutting their lids tight.

You take a step forward but your arm is held back. Namjoon pulls you away and out of the dining hall, abandoning his lunch and poor Taehyung who is completely bewildered.

“Will you stop? It hurts!” Your lie on his gentle grip causes him to drop his hand curled around your wrist. “You’re so fucking annoying! Stop interfering! Dragging me away from places isn’t cute, Namjoon. Can’t you mind your own goddamn business?!”

The students from different majors and faculties glance over from the shouting but they quickly scatter away.

“No. I won’t.”

“What?”

The wind blows through your hair and the blue sky blinds the back of your eyelids. You wish it was dark out or filled with grey clouds, raining perhaps. The nice weather feels like it’s mocking your existence.

“I won’t mind my own business.” He goes on a frenzy, the most serious expression you’ve ever seen on him. “I care about you too much to not, not stick my nose in your business.”

“Who asked you to care about me?!”

“I don’t know, okay?!” The timid boy’s voice is booming and it occurs to you how much taller he is, shadow overtaking your body. “Don’t ask me that. I’m here asking the questions. What were you going to do back there? Were you going to beat them up?”

“I-”

He retorts in a single statement, “you’re childish!”

You stomp your feet, shocked at what he’s yelled out. “Am not!”

“You are! You’re immature. Are you in high school? Do you know it’s assault?! You’ll be put onto academic probation, thrown out! Maybe even arrested! Everything you’ve worked so hard for will be all for nothing. It’s no wonder your parents had such a tight leash on you. You’re a wild animal!”

It’s difficult to refute him when you’ve never witnessed Namjoon lose it. Your entire mouth fills with cotton and you’re aware there’s some truth to what he’s sprouting. You only manage to scream, “that’s rude!”

“What did you tell me about my hand? You said to me that we become nothing without our hands and here you are, swinging it around recklessly! Fighting people and throwing temper tantrums is not cute, Y/N.” It’s unbelievable how he’s used your own words against you. “You’re an adult.”

You feel like you’re being lectured by your parents. But Namjoon doesn’t waver. His pupils don’t shake. You hate it even more because he’s right.

“Fine. I get it.”

“What are you doing here?” Their faces dim and Yoongi immediately covers her. “Go away.”

It hurts to be treated like a monster, like the evil dragon. Your once dear cousin is now treating you like a beast, protecting his princess which in reality is some chick he’s met for about a month now. It’s insulting how he threw family out the window for ‘love’. It boils your blood but perhaps you’re being a bit more dramatic than necessary.

“Are you serious?”

“Well if you’re going to start throwing around punches, then yeah.” There’s a slight tug on his lips as he presses his palm to his cheek. “You scratched up my pretty face, brat. It fucking hurt.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re both experiencing all kinds of pains, aren’t we? But I’m not here to talk to you, dumbass.” You point your finger at the shy girl behind him. “I’m here for her. We’re going to deal with our private matters once and for all.”

He looks back at her for any sign of reluctance and she slightly pushes him away. “It’s fine.”

The two of you walk off together and Yoongi’s left beside Namjoon.

“I’m sorry.”

You spit it out without looking at her, though it’s still genuine. “I-I don’t know what to say aside from that. I’m childish, I know. You’re the concertmistress after all. I was rude and you were right about leaving private matters outside the classroom. I should have been more professional.”

“Okay.” Jennie smiles. “Apology accepted.”

You’re shocked at how easy it was. A frown mars your face. “That doesn’t mean I like you or I’m approving of…” You make a gesture wildly, “whatever you and Yoongi are doing. I still hate you very much.”

“That’s fine too.”

“Why are you smiling?”

“I’m just happy.” She merely says, looking over to the children climbing on the playground apparatuses. “I never thought you would apologize to me. So...thank you, Y/N. I appreciate it.”

You two sit down at the park bench, silence filling the spaces.

You break it with a question. “When did it start?”

The violinist reminisces. “A few days after the charity event. I called him...and yeah…”

“You’ve only been seeing him for a few weeks?”

“Yeah.” There’s suddenly an onslaught of guilt that heaves upon your shoulders. When the relationship was already delicate and new to begin with, you had tried to tear and break them apart. If Yoongi had true feelings for her, you were ruining his happiness.

“Do you like him?”

It’s a foolish inquiry but one you ask nonetheless. “Yoongi?” She hums, “I do. I don’t know if I love him….I guess time will tell. But I enjoy his company and I think he’s brilliant. I’ve listened to his recordings, Y/N. I’ve seen his composition work and it’s amazing. He makes me feel warm and I feel inspired just sitting beside him.”

“Yeah. I know the feeling.” You nod. “Are you...serious about him?”

“I am.”

You lean back, exhaling a long breath. “This is gonna be pretty cliche of me but Yoongi’s my only family. If you hurt him, I’ll probably set out my path to destroy you.”

Jennie laughs lightheartedly to your threat. “Okay. I’ll take you up on that offer.” You match her smile and as you get up, she tugs on your limb. “Friends?”

You scoff. “You wish.”

The both of you still laugh together, having made amends properly. It isn’t like high school where you’ll hold it against her, spread rumours, go out and attack her. You’re an adult now and everyone can make their own choices, bear the consequences themselves. It’s no use brooding about something out of your control.

It feels better this way. Namjoon isn’t wrong. The bright sky isn’t as unbearable anymore.

It’s extremely awkward between the two males. They’re standing in front of the music shop, watching people enter and listening to the ringing bell chime when the door opens. As Namjoon coughs, he apologizes and Yoongi waves him off.

“Sooo…” He draws out the syllable. “Are you Y/N’s boyfriend?”

“No!” Namjoon protests with a yelp, waving his hands. “I’m not. We’re only friends.”

“I kind of find that hard to believe.” Yoongi smirks. “Are you really just Y/N’s friend?”

“Y-Yes. There’s nothing going on between us.”

“Then….how did you do it?”

The harpist tips his head to the side, confused on what your cousin means. “Pardon?”

“I find you interesting...Kim Namjoon, is it?” The other man nods and Yoongi continues, “if I’m not mistaken then Y/N’s currently resolving her issues by her own initiative. Of all the years I’ve known her, since we were in bassinets together, I have never seen her take the first step before. So let me repeat my question-”

Yoongi’s irises twinkle in curiosity. “How did you manage to control that barbarian?”

“I..” He stutters, “I don’t really know if you can call it controlling…”

“Treat her well. She’s a lot more sensitive than she leads people to believe.” Yoongi pats Namjoon’s shoulder, looking up at him with a proud expression. His impassiveness is spoiled. “I’m glad she has someone around for her. I don’t think I’ve ever been the best influence or mentor for the kid. She’s gone through a lot as well. Try to understand.”

Namjoon quickly pushes up his glasses up the bridge of his nose and nods, making a verbal promise to.

Yoongi muses that the timid college boy who is naive and innocent is quite clever himself. The master manipulator has finally found her match and neither have realized it.

#bts scenario #namjoon fluff #bts fanfic #namjoon fanfic #namjoon scenario #oh man oh man oh man #that drama

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kpopfanfictrash · 7 years

Text

The 7th Prince (II)

Author: kpopfanfictrash

Pairing: You / GOT7

Rating: PG

Word Count: 4,017

Summary: A land under a curse. Seven mysterious princes. A decision that will make or break the Kingdom. (idea from this post here, by @cyjsgirl)

[Master List]

Groaning, you slide your face into your hands. “But what will I wear?”

Your mother practically beams. “Oh, I have a few ideas.”

Peeking through the gaps in your fingers, you look at her. “As long as Yugyeom and I aren’t matching… do your worst.”

After all. How much worse could things possibly get?

You were wrong. It gets worse.

Staring in the mirror, you barely recognize the girl staring back at you. You look beautiful – ethereally so. The real you must be buried in there somewhere, trapped beneath yards of silk and powder. There goes your last hope that the Princes will take one look at you and run for the hills. Cecil has seen to it that this won’t happen, making you up within an inch of your life.

A long, silver gown hangs from your body. Winds to the ground where it trails behind you. Seed pearls are sewn into the bodice, matching the circlet of jewels in your hair. You look like a star, Cecil tells you. A bright, shining star.

You stick your tongue out.

“And then… you do things like that.” Grumbling darkly, Cecil sweeps her things away.

You laugh, risking mussing your dress as you hug Cecil from behind. Though you antagonize one another, Cecil is your stabilizing influence. While your parents are loving and want the best for you – they’re also the King and Queen of Senary. Ultimately they have to think of the Kingdom before anything else.

It made for a rather lonely childhood. Except for Yugyeom, of course. Without your brother, you don’t really know what you would have done. Yugyeom is that one person who understands you. Who knows your worst fears, greatest joys and loves you anyways.

It’s as you’re thinking this there comes a knock at your door. Yugyeom peeks his head inside. “Y/N?” His eyes widen. “Wow. You look amazing.”

Noting his own formal wear, you nod. “You don’t look so bad yourself, Gyeommie.”

Yugyeom smiles before clearing his throat importantly. “I’ve arrived to accompany the fair Princess to the main ballroom.” Speaking in his most pretentious voice, Yugyeom gestures grandly.

You giggle. “How gallant of you.” Stepping forward, you exaggeratedly lay your hand atop his arm. “I must warn you though – my father will behead you if I’m offended.”

“Will not. Dad likes me better.”

“Does not.”

“Does so.”

Looking out your window, you sigh. “Gyeommie?”

He looks sideways. “Yeah?”

“Don’t leave me alone tonight. Okay?” Your hand tightens on his arm.

Your brother’s expression is unreadable. “How about this?” he asks, voice lowering. The two of you leave, exiting your room to walk the main hallway. It’s mostly empty but for the occasional guard. Everyone else is already inside. “We make up a signal. If you’re uncomfortable, you say the word and I’ll come save you.”

You smile up at him. This is why you love your brother. “Okay.”

“Okay.” Yugyeom nods. “If you say cantaloupe – I’ll come running.”

A small laugh breaks from your chest. “Cantaloupe? How am I supposed to work that naturally into a conversation?”

“You’re not supposed to.” At the main doors Yugyeom stops, bending to adjust your tiara. “That’s why it’s a signal.”

“Fine. Cantaloupe it is.”

The royal announcer catches your eye, nodding towards the doors. “Lady.” His expression is slightly apologetic. “It’s time.”

You adjust your grip on Yugyeom’s arm. “We’re ready.”

The doors open.

It’s hard to remember what you’re feeling as you enter. The lights are tremendous. Gigantic chandeliers of glass orbs, their light both dazzling and overwhelming. Your mother directed the staff to decorate with your Royal colors. Emerald green and silver, intertwined with pearly white. The place looks like an enchanted forest, set with twinkling lights and gauze.

You stand at the top, very aware of Yugyeom’s fabric beneath your fingertips and the buzzing of lights. Everything else is silent. Or maybe it’s not, but the beating of your own heart drowns all other sounds out. It could be either option, really.

Trumpets blare to announce your presence and slowly every head turns your way.

“Tonight on the eve of her Twenty First birthday – Y/N, Princess of Senary!”

“That’s our cue,” Yugyeom mutters, tugging you towards the stairs.

As you start to descend, panic rushes through your veins. The King and Queen mandated you dance with everyone tonight. Each eligible Prince as part of your obligation as Princess. Of course, this brings a multitude of panic-induced scenarios to mind. They might not like you. They might step on your feet. Worse, you might step on theirs.

“I can’t do this,” you suddenly hiss.

Yugyeom makes a noise in the back of his throat, continuing to face forward. “Y/N. Listen to me.”

“Mhm.” You also look straight ahead, eyes wide and terrified.

“You can do anything,” Yugyeom whispers. “You just have to get through tonight first.”

“Just tonight?”

“Just take it one night at a time.”

Slowly, you nod. A shred of your former confidence returns and somehow you manage to hold your head high. Looking out over the audience – though not at them. You get the feeling that the second you make eye contact, all sense of nerve will be eradicated.

The last step down is the longest. So far from the ground that you wonder if you’ll fall before reaching it. Then you’re on the floor. Standing frozen and unsure of what to do with your hands. You hope no one notices the way your body tenses. Nor the way your hand tightens on Yugyeom’s arm, solid and terrified.

Before you realize what’s happening, someone else’s hand has slipped into yours. Someone who is not your brother tugs you from the spotlight. When you look up, you realize you don’t recognize him.

He’s gorgeous, admittedly. With inky black hair and eyes just as dark. He pulls you forward, one hand on your waist as the other meets your hand.

Somewhere in the background, music begins. Strings and brass melting to melody as chatter fills the space between them. Footsteps fall into place as more couples start to dance. Slowly, the pace of your heart starts to recede.

You finally look into your dancing partner’s eyes.

“Hello.” The man inclines his head. “My name is Im Jaebum, heir to Unum.”

Of course – you should have guessed by his clothes. Black military garb, accented in gold and crimson. A sword hangs at his waist, one you know is for more than decorative purposes. Im Jaebum, the warrior Prince.

You see what people mean about him being intimidating. Just dancing with him makes your heart climb in your throat. Blocking any words from coming out. Which you suppose is a good thing, since he doesn’t seem to be fond of small talk.

“Y/N of Senary,” you respond, offering a smile. “Although you probably already knew that.”

Jaebum chuckles, eyes light. “I’ve heard rumors.” You continue to move across the dance floor, at least a minute passing before Jaebum clears his throat. “You look beautiful, if you don’t mind me saying.”

“Thank you.” His candor is surprising. “That’s very kind of you to say.”

A smile plays on Jaebum’s lips. “Is it kind if it’s a fact? I’m merely saying what every other man is thinking.”

Blushing, you glance at the crowd. Indeed, there are a fair amount of eyes on you - although by now you expect it. It’s not always a good thing. You’re a notoriety, a thing to be gawked and stared at. The last Princess of Morsus. The last, born before a doomed era of sons.

Your gaze returns to Jaebum. “There’s a difference between thinking and saying, I’ve often found.”

The Prince of Unum laughs. “True.” He twirls you, pulling you closer. “I mean what I say, though. I’ll admit I wasn’t sure what to expect tonight.”

“You mean to say stories of my beauty haven’t spread through the Kingdoms?”

Jaebum adjusts his hand in yours. “I tend not to believe in fairy tales.”

“Despite us living one?”

A corner of his mouth rises. “Witty, as well as beautiful. I suppose I don’t stand a chance, do I?”

You blush as your heart flutters. You didn’t think you would feel this way tonight - and so soon.

“Such flattering words, Prince Im,” you chide. “Is this how you killed the dragon? Sent flowers?”

“A very bad bouquet, yes.”

You notice that his eyes crinkle when he smiles. Two dangerously adorable eye moles dotting his left eye. Your gaze keeps going to them, as though that’s safer than looking at his gaze. Everything about the moment feels surreal. The dresses, the party-goers, the conversation. It’s hard to get a grip on anything when Im Jaebum looks at you like that.

“Isn’t this odd?” you whisper, unable to stop yourself.

Jaebum raises an eyebrow. “What is? Being led around the dance floor by five men and eventually handing yourself over to one for marriage? Not odd at all.”

Your mouth drops. “So you agree.”

Jaebum’s expression turns hesitant. “Actually, I –"

`“May I cut in?”

The two of you look up as a younger man with strawberry blonde hair steps forward.

“Youngjae,” Jaebum smiles. With a bow, he steps backwards faces you. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Princess.”

You curtsy. “It was a pleasure as well, Prince.” When you rise, Jaebum has already disappeared. Only Youngjae remains, eyes wide and nervous.

You hold out a hand. “Care to dance?”

He laughs lightly. “You stole my line.”

As Youngjae leads you away, you realize he’s actually quite handsome. In a different way than Jaebum, though. Jaebum is all edges and planes – sharp, distinct lines. Youngjae has a softer, gentler beauty.

Despite his initial hesitancy, his hand is strong in yours. “My name is Youngjae,” he says - as though that weren’t obvious.

You smile at his introduction – so simple, without title or agenda. “I’m Y/N.”

Youngjae falls silent, swept away by the music and moment. Halfway through the song, he looks down. “I’m sorry,” he confesses. “I’m so nervous.”

A giggle escapes. “Can I be honest?” When Youngjae nods, you admit, “So am I.”

“Well as long as we’re both feeling awkward. Not that you are,” Youngjae amends, wincing. “I am. Awkward.”

You’re actually laughing now, glad the song is a slow one because otherwise you’d be missing your steps. “You’re cute,” you say and Youngjae blushes. “You’re friends with Jaebum?”

“Yes,” Youngjae nods, scanning the crowd. “I don’t know where he is, though. Usually he disappears from these things after the first hour or so. He hates anything where large groups of people gather.”

“Ironic, for the leader of an army.”

Youngjae’s laugh is loud and bright. “That’s good, I’ll have to use that sometime.”

As you turn on the dance floor you notice Youngjae is wearing the colors of his house, too – navy and gold with touches of brown. His gloves are the same brown, chocolate silk over his hands. Gloves are a tad bit unfashionable in Senary, but not every city-state. Quattor must be one of the ones where it’s in style.

You nod at the ball around you. “So. Do you want to marry me, Choi Youngjae?”

His eyes widen, surprised by your question. “It’s a bit early to say for certain.” He winces again. “Ah, that’s the wrong answer, isn’t it? I’m supposed to say of course.”

“You can say whatever you want,” you answer honestly.

It’s then that Youngjae notices your smile. “Aish. You’re joking, aren’t you?” He groans. “At least you can laugh about all this.”

“Only sometimes.”

His smile turns sad. “This must be hard,” Youngjae remarks. “I can’t imagine.”

The song starts to come to a close, and you don’t get a chance to respond before a familiar voice cuts in.

“May I have this dance?”

“Jinyoung-ah!”

You whirl, ending up facing the Prince of Tribus.

A Prince, who frowns severely back at you.

“Whoops,” you grin, dropping into a curtsy. “I mean, Prince Jinyoung of Tribus. Most graced by your presence.”

Jinyoung smiles despite himself. “Princess Y/N of Senary.” He turns, bowing to your dance partner. “Prince Youngjae of Quattor.”

Youngjae’s eyebrows shoot up at Jinyoung’s formality. That’s just how Jinyoung is, though. Always well-mannered, always put together. It took you two years to get him to stop calling you Princess. He looks remarkable tonight, dark hair brushed back from his face. Dressed in gold, green and peach, the colors of Tribus.

His crown is more ornamental than yours – befitting of his city-state. Tribus is known for knowledge, for learning. Everything they do is grand and ornate. It’s also home to the famous universities of Morsus.

“Prince Jinyoung.” Youngjae bows. “She’s all yours.” With one last smile he disappears into the crowd, leaving you alone with Jinyoung.

Quietly, Jinyoung takes your hand. Leading you further out onto the dance floor. As he turns to face you, he settles one hand around your waist. “So what’s the status?” he asks, eyebrows raised. “Am I still in first place?”

“Ugh. Don’t remind me.”

Jinyoung pulls you closer, hand slipping through yours. “You’ve danced with Youngjae and Jaebum,” he comments, scanning the ballroom. “And me. So that leaves just Bambam and Jackson.”

“Ah, his casual name? I didn’t realize you knew Wang Jia Er.”

Jinyoung shrugs. “I do, some. Duo is next to Tribus – we played together when we were little.”

“Of course.” Relaxing into the dance, you allow Jinyoung to guide you. Everything about this feels familiar. How many balls, how many dances have the two of you danced? Too many to count.

Jinyoung watches, dark gaze roaming. “What are you thinking?”

Sometimes it’s annoying how well he knows you. “I was thinking…” You stop, then sigh. “That I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Jinyoung leans in, lowering his voice. “You’ll do what we’ve always said you would. You’ll meet everyone. If you fall in love, you marry him. If you don’t, you marry me.”

Jinyoung, ever the strategist.

Your heart aches at his words - Jinyoung is so kind. So good, you wish you felt more than friendship. Or that he felt more than friendship for you. But Jinyoung just wants the best for those he loves. He’s grown up by your side, watched the weight of this decision for years. Jinyoung wants to protect you from any further hurt – an admirable quality.

But marrying him would mean Jinyoung could never marry for love, either. You don’t know if you could do that – resign your best friend to the same fate you face.

Sighing deeply, you return your gaze to his. “Here’s hoping I fall in love tonight.”

“No luck with Jaebum or Youngjae?” Jinyoung grins, tone teasing. “I mean, I like girls but even I might marry Jaebum if he asked.”

“Park Jinyoung!” you scold, starting to laugh.

“Really.” Jinyoung’s eyebrows rise. “What’s wrong with either one?”

“Nothing.” Your gaze moves across the room. “Youngjae is just young. He reminds me of Yugyeom. And Jaebum…” Here, you hesitate. “Maybe. But then he’s so perfect, I don’t think he could ever like me.”

Jinyoung shrugs. “If he didn’t, why would he stick around?”

Your gaze follows to where Jinyoung points – to Jaebum leaning casually against the wall. Every now and then he looks your way. You remember what Youngjae said about Jaebum usually leaving quickly and something in your heart beats faster.

“See?” Jinyoung’s grip tightens. “Told you.”

Your gaze returns to his. “Maybe.”

The song comes to an end and slowly, Jinyoung takes a step backwards. “You should give the other two Princes a chance.”

“So proper,” you tease, letting him go. “What an excellent sport you are, Prince Jinyoung.”

“Jinyoung has always been that.” It’s Bambam’s voice that speaks now. “When I was younger, he used to let me win every other round of ball. An equal share.”

You and Jinyoung find Bambam smiling, holding out his hand. “I asked the orchestra to make it a polka.”

You snort, taking his arm. “I expected nothing less.”

Bambam shoos Jinyoung, who rolls his eyes but leaves. A consequence of Jinyoung being your best friend and Bambam being Yugyeom’s was that growing up, you four spent a lot of time together. Jinyoung is as much an older sibling to them as you are.

“So what did the band say when you asked for a polka?” As the music starts up again - another slow waltz - you start to laugh.

Bambam moves over the dance floor. “He said no. Then the conductor pretended he couldn’t hear me until I left.”

“Better than the time he threw a cymbal at you.”

“Hey! That hurt,” Bambam grumbles. “Anyways. What’re the prospects looking like tonight?”

“Aish,” you sigh, looking at him sideways. “You’re as bad as Jinyoung.”

“Look, Y/N.” Bambam is suddenly serious. “This is super weird but I want you to know I’m here. If you decide to be Queen of Quinque – we can figure out a way to make it work. Hey! Then Yugyeom would be my actual brother!”

You’re blushing. “Bambam, I –"

“You wouldn’t even have to live with me! I mean, whatever you want, I guess. It’s just that –”

“Bambam.”

He stops talking. “Yes?”

“It takes two people to get married. I’m not going to force you to do anything.”

“Well, duh.” Bambam looks sheepish. “I’m just saying … if none of these other Princes measure up.”

“Thank you,” you say. You mean it.

“It’s hard to deny though, all these other Princes pale in comparison.” Bambam heaves a great sigh. “It must be such a burden to compare to me.”

“Bambam.”

“I mean. Look at me.”

“Don’t make me step on you.”

“Noted.” Bambam moves a bit quicker.

You laugh when he starts to spin, tightening his grip and dipping you low. Everything is fun with Bambam around; the life of the party wherever he goes. Which right now is through the crowd of people, spinning wide as you crack up. That is, until your hand slips from his and you stumble – smacking straight into someone else’s chest.

Startled and confused, you look up.

The man is attractive and for just a moment, you forget that you’re a princess. Forget that he’s supposed to bow, forget he should apologize. You’re the one who apologizes first, very aware of the way his arms hold you. Slightly improper, but for some reason you can’t bring yourself to remove them.

The man smiles, coffee colored hair spilled across warm, brown eyes. His smile widens the longer he looks at you and slowly, he bows. It’s from this position you recognize the thin, circlet of gold atop his head.

“Hello,” the man looks up. “I’m Wang Jia Er of Duo. Please call me Jackson.”

A long moment passes before you realize you haven’t responded. “Princess Y/N of Senary,” you say automatically.

“I know.” Jackson holds out his hand. “I believe I’m the last to ask you to dance. You have my apologies.”

“Don’t apologize.” You smile, taking his hand. “Better late than never.”

As the music starts up again – song light and airy – Jackson whisks you away on the dance floor. His feet are smooth, even as you cross the ballroom. Every now and then Jackson looks down, glancing away when he sees you looking. The little smile he gives each time makes your heart flutter.

Then, out of nowhere he says, “Pick me.”

You look up, startled. “What?”

“Pick me.” Jackson grins at you. “I thought that’s what this was – a pitch for your hand in marriage? I assume we get just the three minutes of this song, so I don’t want to waste time. I said,” he leans until you’re nearly nose to nose, “pick me.”

Without quite meaning to, you giggle. “This is all just so sudden. You still haven’t passed the interview portion.”

“Try me.”

You nod solemnly. “Tell me, are you a cat person or a dog person?”

“Dog.” Jackson makes a face remarkably similar to one. “Next question.”

Laughing, you continue. “What’s something you regret?”

Jackson’s eyebrows rise but he doesn’t balk. “I once talked my little brother into eating a cockroach. He threw it up, told my mom and I was grounded for a month. I severely regret that.”

“How noble of you to admit your faults.”

“Ah, yes.” Jackson sighs. “The list is long and many.”

“Excellent. I hate a faultless man, tell me another.”

“Well.” He leans close enough for you to catch his scent. Oranges and something more exotic. “I’ve heard said that I’m too kind. I laugh too much. People are altogether too enamored with me.” Jackson sighs again. “It’s a tough lot in life, but I make do.”

You laugh openly now, turning away. “Quite the pitch, Wang Jia Er.”

“Jackson.”

You look back. “You don’t like your birth name?”

“No, it’s not that.” As the music slows, Jackson catches your hand. You still, watching him bring it to his lips. “It’s just that those I’m closest to call me Jackson. I’d like to be close to you, Y/N.”

You stare for a long second, fighting the sudden beating in your chest. “Cantaloupe,” you breathe.

Jackson looks confused. “I’m sorry?”

“Cantaloupe,” you repeat, catching Yugyeom’s eye. “Cantaloupe would be very good right now. Could you excuse me for a moment?”

Extracting yourself from his grip, you practically run to the doors of the ballroom. Throwing them open into the cool, dark night. Overhead the stars sparkle. Tiny pinpoints in otherwise darkness. You move forward, hearing the doors fall shut behind you. Only your skirts rustle against the quiet of the night. At least until the doors bang open to reveal your brother, wide eyed.

Yugyeom scans the balcony. “What’s wrong?” he asks when he spots you, hurrying over. “It seemed like you were getting along with Jackson. I don’t understand.”

Breathing deeply, your hand moves to your waist, holding yourself together. “Everything is not okay.” Staring out at the gardens, your blood pounds in your ears. Your gaze moves to Yugyeom. “Do you want to know why everything is not okay?”

Your brother nods, concerned by your mania.

“It’s because those men inside are all wonderful. All fighting for my attention and why? I’m nobody. I’m not worth their stress and panic.” You close your eyes. “I don’t know how to do this. Don’t know how to pick. What about the ones I don’t? If I don’t choose Jinyoung or Jaebum or Jackson or Bambam or Youngjae, what then? Does their line just wither because they have to marry someone royal?”

At last your words dry up, spent and bitter. You look sideways to your brother, who seems to be at a loss for words.

“Wow.” He clears his throat. “What did Jackson say to you?”

A small, tight laugh escapes. “It’s not him, Gyeommie. This whole thing is just awful. How do I tell if someone likes me? Really likes me. There are so many factors at stake.”

Your brother moves to stand beside you. “I know.” He falls silent and, after a long moment he says, “Why don’t you leave?”

“What?” You hardly breathe.

“Leave.” Yugyeom turns to face you. “You’ve met all the Princes, you danced with every one. Go to your room, go to the gardens, go do something to clear your head. I’ll take care of mom and dad.”

A flicker of warmth moves through your chest. “You’d do that for me?”

Yugyeom smiles. “Of course. Now go,” he shoos you with one hand.

You don’t need to be told twice. Before you can even respond you’re down the steps. Disappearing into the gardens, as Yugyeom suggested. It’s dark and quiet out here, the only sounds the scrape of your feet against grass and pebbles. Light spills from the ballroom, broken here and there by the shadows of the people inside.

People you don’t want to think about right now.

You want to not think. You want to not be here at all.

It’s as you’re thinking this your eyes land upon the gate. The sturdy wood barring your home from the world and suddenly you know where you want to go.

[Master List]

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