#its funny how i started out hating his guts i just called him an ugly bitch when he showed up and now i am becoming so soft for him | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pascalpanic · 3 years

Note

hey babe you’re the best ily very much, not to be wild but ah ha ha... may i make i request please? 🥺🥺 i’m feeling extra self indulgent so maybe just a bit of fluff? (with whatever pedro boy you’re feelin) where like, fem! rc is rlly insecure about her laugh (like i snort and laugh so loud it’s not even funny i get so nervous laughing around people skdjdjjd) so because of that he’s never really seen her let go so he’s like “no i really wanna make you laugh” and yes. stay hydrated and you’re wonderful :D

Mesh’la Kaab (Din Djarin x f!Reader)

Summary: You confide to your Mandalorian that you hate your laugh. That sets Din on a mission to hear your real, true laugh.

W/C: 2.8k

Warnings: mentions of food, but that’s all. let me know if I missed any or you’d like me to tag anything in here. Reader is called “mama” in reference to Grogu, din is called “daddy” but in reference to being Grogu’s dad.

A/N: you guys, this is the cutest fluff ever. I love Din with my entire soul. Sunny and I worked together a little to add a few things unique to her but it should be relevant to anyone! I hope u guys like it :))

mesh’la kaab- beautiful sound

A giggle rings out throughout the Razor Crest, pinging off the walls and making its way into the cockpit.

There was a lot of other noise going on down there, Mando could tell, but it’s your laugh that makes his face warm under his helmet. He listens more carefully, trying to tell exactly what’s going on.

What was going on, exactly, was chaos. Mando’s little green son had gotten hold of your ukulele and was deciding to mimic his mama, you. You often sang and played the ukulele around the ship, bringing music and light into the cold, metallic space. It was part of what Mando loved most about you, what brought him comfort when you thought he couldn’t hear you.

Mando had brought you on board a few months ago, and your soft and warming nature caused him to let his guard down almost immediately. He’d never been a touchy man, never one to cuddle or give keldabe kisses, but you stole his heart the moment he saw your smile.

Over time, your relationship with Mando had warmed. He’d press his hand to the small of your back as he walked past, let his ungloved fingertips brush over your hands. You were soft and kind and all he wanted.

He gave in a few weeks into your stay. He told you he cared for you, that he liked you, and a relationship had blossomed. He’d wrap his arms around you when he returned from a job, pressing his forehead to yours. He’d turn off all of the lights in the ship and press soft kisses to your lips and forehead and the tip of your nose. He’d sleep in your bunk with you and the child, pulling you to his chest and murmuring how much you meant to him. Helmetless, shirtless. Human again.

You’d learned his name late one night, his lips next to your ear- Din. It was one simple syllable, soft yet strong, a beautiful sound when his raspy voice was unmodulated. The child cooed, waking from his slumber, crawling between the two of you and nestling in. “That’s right, baby boy. Your daddy’s name is Din,” you’d hummed, pressing a soft kiss to the baby’s head and stroking his large green ears. The three of you were family now.

Din was a romantic at heart, bringing you gifts from missions and holding you gently as he traces his fingertips across your collarbones and neck while you slept. One thing he didn’t have, you had come to realize, was a sense of humor- at least, not one you understood. It was there, you supposed, but dry. Sarcastic quips. Words with double-meanings. A joke that had to be explained after he said it. You were happy, he knew that, but you rarely laughed.

That’s part of what transfixes him as he hears your giggle for the first time. It’s not a hard, tear-wrenching, gut-bursting laugh, but it’s a beautiful sound. Just as melodic as your beautiful voice when you sing along with your ukulele.

Din climbs down from the cockpit. You can’t see his face but his body is relaxed- he’s happy. You look up at him with a grin. “Your son thinks he wants to be a musician,” you tease, holding the ukulele above your head, sitting cross-legged on an old cape of his.

The baby is trying to climb up on you, little green hands grabbing at your shirt in an attempt to reach the ukulele again. It makes Din’s heart warm, the way the son he had come to love is playing with the woman who makes his heart soar. “Really?” He asks, sitting down across from you and tilting his head.

“Really. And I must say, he’s not a very good one,” you tease the child, setting the ukulele down next to you and scooping your baby up in your arms. You press a soft kiss to his head and squeeze him against your chest. “You’re lucky you’re cute.”

“Maybe the two of you would perform for me. I’ve been told I’m a good judge of talent,” he offers in that tone where you can tell he’s teasing, but it’s with all of the love in his heart.

You look down at the baby and raise an eyebrow. “Well, baby boy? Should we show your daddy how wonderful you are?” you ask with excitement in your tone. The baby coos excitedly and nods. He’s starting to pick up on the human mannerisms that you and his father display. “Okay, let’s show him.” You set the ukulele in your lap, one hand on the fretboard. You set the child in front of you. “I’ll do the part up here, you play with the strings and sing for him, okay?” You instruct the baby, who giggles excitedly.

You look up at Din with a smile, and you can tell he’s smiling back. “Go for it, ad’ika,” Din tells the child.

His son agrees. He randomly plucks at the strings and squeals loudly. It’s utter cacophony, the farthest thing from music, but the little green baby seems to think it’s a masterpiece. He coos and shouts, little hands grabbing at the strings with no particular rhyme or reason.

You giggle but play around with the frets, letting the child choose his strings. He ends his song with a final shriek and you bite your lip to hold back from bursting into honest-to-god laughter. “Good job, bean!” You coo happily, clapping your hands.

Din claps too, leather-covered hands muffling the noise. “You’re a fantastic musician, kid,” he tells the little green child, who runs and jumps into his father’s lap, cuddling against his chest. “You have a beautiful laugh,” he tells you honestly, looking up at you and stroking the kid’s head.

You shake your head and look down at the ukulele, playing a few chords that come to mind. “That’s not my real laugh,” you admit, staring down at the instrument. “My laugh is really ugly. It sounds like a blurrg in labor.”

Din shakes his head, chuckling softly at the comparison. “I can’t possibly think you’d have an ugly laugh, ner mesh’la,” he tells you, resting a hand on your knee.

“Oh, it is. And you don’t wanna hear it,” you inform him, looking up at him.

“There’s not a thing about you that could be ugly,” he tells you, his voice sincere and solid. “I want to hear your laugh.”

“Then you’ll have to be funny for once, Din,” you tease, a small smile growing on your face. You stand, pressing a kiss to the top of his helmet and moving away to put your ukulele back in its case.

That’s the moment Din decides he’s going to make you laugh, in a way that you can’t possibly hold back. It’s a mission.

Later that night, you cook dinner for your little family. It’s makeshift at best, a tiny portable flame that you had found in a junk shop on Nevarro, but you have to admit it’s charming. You sauté some vegetables, native from your current planet, that you picked up today. The smell wafts to the cockpit, where Din is fiddling with an electrical wiring problem. He can’t smell it, not with the helmet, but the child can.

The baby coos at his father and tugs on his pant leg, gesturing towards the ladder. He wants to get down. “What is it, ad’ika?” He asks gruffly, nodding once he sees where the child points.

Din climbs down the ladder with the baby in tow, smiling as he sees you lost in your own little world.

You’re surprisingly good with electronics, Din discovered after he took you on board, and you’d found that the Razor Crest has a stereo system. It had become your pet project, and now some music was drifting through the hull of the ship. He stands there for a second and smiles at the way you dance around and cook the food, the pan sizzling. It’s a beautiful sight.

This is the perfect moment, Din thinks. Someone as caring and unguarded as you must be ticklish. Setting down the child and making a gesture for him to be quiet, Din quietly creeps behind you. He has no armor on except his helmet now, allowing him to be stealthy.

He creeps up behind you, fingers wiggling along your sides. Nothing happens except you squealing in surprise and whipping around in his arms. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” You exclaim as you look up at him with wide eyes.

“Just, uh… wanted to see if you were ticklish,” he admits, wrapping his arms around you fully now.

“Well, I’m not,” you roll your eyes, tossing your arms around his neck and looking up at him.

“You’re trying to hear my witch’s cackle, aren’t you?” You ask teasingly, smiling contently at the man holding you.

He shrugs lightly. “Maybe.”

“Din,” you coo and press a kiss to his cold beskar cheek. “Well, I’m almost done cooking. You might as well stay down here,” you tell him and start swaying him along to the music playing. It’s nice; he dances along with you. “You can come out, green bean,” you call to the child.

The child squeals as he jumps out from around a corner, and you mock surprise, jumping. “Oh my Maker, you almost gave me a heart attack,” you cry out to the child, who giggles excitedly. “C’mere, baby,” you laugh and pick him up, holding him between you and Din as you sway along to the music. “You and your daddy are a handful,” you coo to him and press a kiss to the baby’s head.

“I’m going to get it out of you,” Din declares.

“Sure you are, Djarin,” you roll your eyes and smile softly, pressing your forehead to his in a keldabe kiss. “You know I’m happy here, right? I really couldn’t be any happier. I have you and the kid and I get to travel the galaxy with my two favorite boys.”

He nods. “Of course I do. It’s just… happy people laugh more.”

“I laugh plenty. When you tell me a bad joke, when the kid does something stupid.”

“You giggle or you chuckle. You never laugh.

“Neither do you.”

Din thinks on it for a second. “I suppose that’s true,” he nods in acknowledgment.

“Then you don’t need to make it such a mission, ner verd,” you tease, a loving smile on your face. You break away, keeping the child in your arms as you walk back to the vegetables. “Looks like the food is ready.”

It doesn’t come the way he wants it to, but Din finally makes you laugh.

Two days later, you’re dancing around with the baby in the hull of the ship, singing to the child’s favorite song. He squeals along, waving his little hands in the air and spinning in circles. “Din, come down here,” you call out happily.

“Little busy,” a gruff voice shouts back from the cockpit.

“Din Djarin, you get your tin-can head down here!”

“Later, ner kar’ta.”

You pout and pick up the baby, heading off to the refresher with the child. You suppose it’s time for a bath for the green bean anyway. You change the song and hum along, undressing the child from his tiny brown robes and filling the sink with warm water. You drizzle some of your shampoo into the water, making the top fill with bubbles.

The child giggles excitedly as you place a rubber ewok in the water. “I know! Isn’t it exciting?” You coo to him, nuzzling your face into his fuzzy little green head. “Oh, you’re going to smell so nice for your buir. Even if he can’t smell you with that tin can on his head. When we cuddle tonight, he’ll just want to eat you up,” you tease, your nose scrunching with a smile.

When the sink is properly filled, you place the child in it. It’s deep enough to reach just below his armpits, and he splashes around tranquilly. “I know, isn’t it fun?” you laugh softly, scrubbing him down with a bright green sponge in the shape of a frog.

Getting the baby’s head wet is a challenge. He doesn’t like the feeling, so you know you have to get creative. You grab the little rubber ewok and hold it up. “You want it?” You ask, and he nods. You drag it around beneath the water and he tries to grab it, dunking his head under. Perfect. He takes it from your hand and pops back up giggling. “Good job, squirt!” you coo and rub his head with the sponge.

You dry him with a fluffy towel when you’re done and redress him in a new set of clothing, smiling. “You’re such a cutie,” you murmur and press a kiss to his head. “I love you, you know that?”

And somehow, you know he knows. He can tell, and you can tell he loves you too.

My mama, my protector, she plays with me and feeds me and snuggles with me. Love. Love love love my mama and my buir. Buir is shiny and quiet but he loves me and sneaks me snacks after bedtime when mama’s sleeping and boops me on the nose and wraps me up in his cape when it’s cold.

You’re taken aback by the sensation before Din descends down the ladder from the cockpit. He walks over to the two of you, giving you a keldabe kiss before heading to the ‘fresher. Clearing your throat, you clear the thought from your mind. You must’ve imagined it. “Well, let’s get ready for bed,” you tell the child. The water runs in the ‘fresher- Din must be showering. You change into a pair of comfortable clothes then turn off the lights and get into the bunk with the child.

“Are the lights off?” He calls.

“Yes, love,” you shout back. Din emerges from the refresher and snuggles into bed with you and your son. His hair is damp and his face is clean-shaven, you can feel both when you reach for him as the bed dips with his weight. “Hi there,” you smile and press a soft kiss to his lips.

“Hi,” he chuckles and kisses you a little deeper for a moment. Your hand drifts to his side- he’s shirtless, leaving him only in pants- and his finds your chest, pressing a hand over your heart. The moment is disrupted as one three-fingered hand finds each of your faces and pushes you apart. “Hello, ad’ika,” Din laughs, grabbing the child and snuggling him between the two of you. He presses a soft kiss to the baby’s head, you can hear it, and breathes in deeply. “Mm, your mama gave you a bath.”

“Sure did,” you chuckle. You know Din loves the smell of your shampoo; it reminds him of when you first showered in the Crest, and his helmet was off when he went to the ‘fresher next and it smelled clean and soft and feminine and beautiful.

“Maybe your mama will have to give me a bath sometime,” he murmurs as he kisses your face.

It’s the single most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard the man say. Before you can help yourself, a genuine laugh bursts forth from your throat. It’s loud and obnoxious, making you wiggle and wheeze and even snort. It’s a cackle, almost, but it’s the most beautiful noise Din Djarin has ever heard. He starts laughing along too, burying his face in your chest, chest heaving. Even the child joins in on the giggles, even though he doesn’t know why.

The three of you lie like that for a minute, wheezing hard and breathing heavily. The laughter ends and you find yourself catching your breath, Din’s face still buried in your chest. His nose nudges between your breasts and you stroke the back of his head, giving a soft giggle. You feel yourself flood with the warmth of embarrassment as you realize you just let loose such an ugly sound. “Din-”

“Don’t even try to apologize, ner mesh’la,” he chuckles, pressing a kiss over your breast, where your heart lies. “That was the most beautiful noise I’ve ever heard.”

“No it’s not.”

“Yes it is,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to your collarbone. “It’s you being happy, the sound of me making you smile. What could be better than that?” He asks before capturing your lips in a slow kiss. “I’m never going a day without making you laugh again.”

Mando’a translations:

ner kar’ta- my heart

ner verd- my warrior

buir- parent (gender neutral word)

ner mesh’la- beautiful

ad’ika- little one

taglist:

@remmysbounty @mishasminion360 @softly-sad @blo0dangel @luxurybeskar @binarydanvvers

#din djarin #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian fic #the mandalorian fanfiction #the mandalorian x reader #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fanfiction #pedro pascal x reader #jose pedro balmaceda pascal #din and grogu #grogu #baby yoda

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ihatebnha · 3 years

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With the beauty stuff going on here- think Bakugo and Shoto (maybe Shinso?) would comfort their s/o in regards to not entering certain clothing stores? I can't go into a lot of them because all/the majority of their clothes are for skinny/petite women and I can't fit into it. Plus, with all the good looking girls who work in those stores I can't help but compare myself and see the trash I am. Sometimes I get physically sick if I walk into the stores because its so overwhelming. Sigh. Wish those boys would be a comfort, but they'd probably just be awkward or break up wif me. Especially explody boy.

Legend... the only thing that’s trash here is your garbage attitude! I wanna let you know that I’m on the tubbier side, too... so when you say you’re trash, you’re calling me trash, too... and I honestly don’t like that nor do I agree... (and trust me, I hate fitting rooms too... why do you think i only wear pajamas all the time?)

because the truth is...YOU’RE NOT! You just live in a world that favors conventionally attractive and skinny people over everyone else. Obviously it isn’t bad to be either of those things, but we all have a duty to work hard at rewiring our brains to reevaluate society’s sense of beauty (esp since its very eurocentric, too).

it’s also funny you sent me this because I honestly believe that all the boys in bnha like chubby girls (but ofc they don’t discriminate)! im very genuine when i say that EVERYONE is their ideal type, and i could honestly talk for hours about how they’re too busy being heroes to give a crap about petty things such as looks and weight.

the truth is, “real men” (and real partners, for that matter) don’t care if you’re heavy, have beauty marks, anything, so therefore... the bnha boys dont mind those things, either.

plus lmfao... todo, bakugo, and shinso are all actually in my top list of chubby chasers soooo (although im biased and think every character is on that list tbh)...

none of them would break up with you for your insecurities! They of all people understand what it’s like to be ashamed of things (as Bakugo faces feelings of inferiority, Shinso has his quirk, and Todo’s family is bananas), so they would only want to comfort you if you ever expressed your concerns.

Not to mention, they all seem like the type to be in a relationship for the long haul... So if they’re already dating you, it means they’re in it FOR LIFE🤞🏻

Which is why, none of what you do could ever bother them... and as for comforting...

I don’t think either Bakugo, Todo, or Shinso are really going to notice if you don’t want to or can’t go into certain clothing stores. They’re heroes (and boys for that matter💀) with a lot on their mind, so if you mention you don’t like shopping somewhere, they’re just going to assume that you either don’t feel like it or it’s not your style.

Their heads don’t really connect your insecurities with your shopping preferences, simply because they assume you already know what you like to wear and where you like to shop.

In Shinso’s case, while I can see him picking up on some of your subtleties, such as avoiding certain stores and/or sections, he’s probably not really going to think it’s a serious issue or bring up the topic unless you initiate the conversation yourself, mostly because he (doesn’t want to be at the mall) assumes you already know that he likes your body and really doesn’t care what you wear.

That being said, when you are in fitting rooms together, he gets pretty handsy even before you start getting frustrated by things. Definitely distracts you from doing anything by whistling at you or grabbing at your thighs and pulling you between his legs from where he sits on the tiny stool they’ve provided... Also probably puts in some effort beforehand too, helping you pick out things that he likes and are more likely to fit in the first place.

Bakugo is pretty similar to this, as well. With his parents working in the design industry, he definitely has a good eye for sizing and can help you pick out the most accurate things for your body type. He’s actually really useful because you can hold up anything, and he’ll generally have a pretty good idea on whether the style will suit you or not, and if it’s in the right size. This makes trying things on a bit more bearable, as you honestly end up fitting everything you bring into the changing room.

He’s also good to shop with because he’s probably not gonna let you go to any shitty clothing stores either... So wherever you end up going is probably gonna have better stuff that’s in every size, anyway (it’s literally like 2200 and people have quirks... you can’t tell me stores would have things for literally every shape). The nice thing about this too is that everything you end up getting is super comfortable for that exact reason.

Definitely can stay pretty serious in the dressing rooms... but you have to be careful because the moment you guys get home he’s gonna be horn-nee.

Todoroki, on the other side of all of this, is literally motherfucking useless. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be comforting, it’s just he really just doesn’t put the puzzle pieces of your insecurity together AND thinks you look good in everything, regardless... so even if you tried to explain why you hate shopping, he’s just like “but everyone has things they don’t fit?”

HOWEVER..... the redeeming quality about him is.... HE IS RICH!!! And probably grew up with a tailor, and/or at least a family stylist, so once you’re in with him, he just adds you onto the bill for that, too. Say goodbye shopping, hello to having clothing that fits you shipped right to your door... (and Todo just loves staring at you while you get measured for outfits).

SO.... sorry for my earlier harshness... it’s just because I love and care about you sooooo much!! as well as understand what it’s like to feel like a freak in forever 21...

ANYWAY... here’s just some little things I wanted to include, too!

I used to think that Bakugo wouldn’t have a preference for thick girls, but then I saw this tik tok that was like, “my attractive friends always ask me where all the hot and fit boys are.... in these guts bitch” and my perspective changed entirely... I just know a beefy boy like him who has a mean mommy LOVES curves... like you can’t tell me he doesn’t see your belly and absolutely melts... like that shit is straight FAXXXXXXXXXXX no printer... (i also saw a tik tok today that was like, “would you fuck me if i was skinny? and the person said “i would fuck you right now.” and tbh that’s big baku energy LOL)

Todoroki also definitely gives me vibes where if you’re like, “but i look ugly in ____,” he’s just like, “doesn’t matter, it’s you.” AND YES TBH i cried

AND shinso... god tbh shinso is the guy that all your friends are jealous of bc he’s the one who’s like, “I like my women with meat on them” because he doesn’t believe in skinny culture or diets... he wants you chubby bc chubby just kinda looks more correct.... tbh king shit

#bakugo x reader #shinso x reader #shinsou x reader #todoroki x reader #todoroki #bakugo #shinso #shinso thoughts #bakugo thoughts #todoroki thoughts #sorry this took so long its hard to type with my nails #ask #anon #Anonymous #i went off sorry yall #and dont worry to my skinny queens bc they love u too

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kalinawtokilig · 3 years

Text

A Silly S/O that shares one braincell with his best friend

Who doesn’t love a silly, goofy, S/O?

Pair(s) : Akaashi x Reader, Kenma x Reader, Suna x Reader, Kunimi x Reader

(((Ahhhhhahhh bruhhh I literally put the dying inside parted hair dark beauties here,,, ✨ blessing it ✨)))

{This is my first time doing headcanons,, i apologize as it is very early morning and i dont sleep so i may be passing out as soon as i post this ahahahhahahaahha)))))

{Akaashi Keiji x Reader}

(Ohh shi- Aight, we startin off with setters huh)

------

To be fair, Akaashi met you through Bokuto, you chaotic duo, whilst Bokuto being a particularly sunny, bubbly guy, its fair he’s friends with someone as goofy as him

It’s like,,, one of those kinds of friendships you have with Akaashi, whenever you guys are seated next to each other for a group project or simply having a one-on-one convo, you seem to have enraptured him with how funny you are

for example, you being a silly person, you seem to have gotten into a argument with Bokuto, seeing as there was only one braincell, thus being you as the only braincell between the two of you, a juicebox and two of you being dumbasses,,, You proposed to Bokuto to poke a straw through the box so you both can drink from either ends of the straw,,,while bokuto,,, proposed of cutting,,,the juice box,, in half,,, to share,,,

(No cap, i saw my brother and friend argue and do this,,, it was a waste of a caprisun and i had to drink wine to forget that this is what I put up wit,,,yet i recorded it

Akaashi may have facepalmed when you told him this, but the genuine look of truth and kindness made him soft for you when you continued about your small mishaps

This mans smiles faintly, so when you talk about a joke or something stupidly funny, he can’t help but have a full on smile, cause you speak so passionately about your small and oblivious situations you keep getting yourself into and the endearing solutions you have

when you get together, it’s no boring life at all

Akaashi is always there to rope you in when things get too hectic, especially around Bokuto, but when its you, he can’t help but grin at how bright you can be when you think of funny ideas for today and the next day

Kozume Kenma x Reader

(OHH SHI- another pretty setter, lucky day :3c)

---------

Ohhh boi this is gonna be so many jokes

You and Kuroo share a braincell, that being annoying Kenma ((That’s what Kuroo thinks at least))

Kenma never can get a break,, you being the manager of Nekoma and being good friends with Kuroo, even Yaku is getting a headache

Kenma looks forward to you talking to him ((He finds you genuinely interesting when you pointed out a creative way - more like a newfounded loophole - to one of his video games,, he got kinda hooked on you when you kept telling him possible ways to beat the boss using a weak weapon,, he thought you were buggin,,, nah,, he won and trusted your somewhat foolish advice,,, beating up a miniboss with a stick that had been leveled up from being used worked,,, he doesn’t know what goes on your mind,,, but he wants to know more)))

You tell Kenma funny jokes about the newest character in the game he’s playing, not to mention your own headcanons about them

Kuroo joins in, much to Kenma’s dismay, but with a small smile he likes seeing you enjoy yourself as you talk odd with his best friend

You call him alot of nicknames due to his hair and attitude

“Aye,, wassup puddinghead?” - “Lil’Calico, how’s it hangin?” - “Tiramisu cup, ya lookin sweet today!”

Its,, really cute how you think of him, make up nicknames and have this real attitude when you see him

Kuroo kinda ruins them tho, adding an annoying comment about the nickname and Kenma S C O W L S

OHHHH When you ask him on a date, you use the most creative one liner

“Instead of me being support how bout I join your party and be your player 2? We’ll use Kuroo as a support, Rooster-Attack!”

*cue adorable pose*

-Kuroo in the back : “ROOSTER, WHO YOU CALLING ROOSTER YOU-”

You start attacking him with chemistry insult and he dodges it with another chem attack

Kenma has never been so flustered nor entertained before

Overall, Kenma believes that you being a cute, silly, s/o is literally the best thing that has ever happened to him,, (Besides meeting Shoyo of course,, but then again,, that’s always the best thing that can happen to anyone, have you seen that boy’s harem?)

Suna Rintaro x Reader

((ooooo,,,, man,,,, this mans,,,, he got me,,,, everywhere,,, lmao i pimp him and he isn’t the only one)))

-------

Suna ,, I pimp you

OH GAWD, the MIYA TWINS

It’s like,,, an extra Miya,,, but more like,, cousin instead of sibling Miya but still family Miya,, ya get me????

You transferred in during your second year and man,,, having Atsumu and Osamu pushing you to be their manager,,, its been trouble ever since,, even Aran cannot handle the amount of boondoggle that happens in practice

Okay, listen, you, YOU, are the type to be silly, yes, but in a way that makes Atsumu and Osamu start arguing over something silly you said and the twins start fighting because they started to drift somewhere else.

Basically you drench the kerosene, light it, and leave it for the twins to fan the flames,, they are rolling and causing chaos

You and Suna always record it to blackmail them

Not to mention, you being the wacky person you are, you rope the twins into your shit,,,

Since your last name is NOT Miya, but your other parent’s name, many of Atsumu’s fangirls don’t,, appreciate you

You can’t help but dangle funny insults towards your ego-filled cousin, having the fangirls wreak havoc and chase you around

you would and can stop,, buts its too funny seeing them get mad over silly things like how you perceive Atsumu to be an ugly sleeper that farts and wakes up from it (( You lived it as kids when you and your family slept over the twins’ place, Osamu and you have many videos of it))

Suna is usually the one hiding you away from the rabid fans who seem to want to defend Atsumu’s perfect image honor.

This man cannot fathom the amount of trouble you get into sometimes, esp. with the twins

When you two get together, you think of the most diabolical and hysterical plans, Suna there to record and by your side when things start to get out of hand

Suna doesn’t express many emotions, but when you finally get him to show a reaction cause of something you did, whether it be a joke or starting a Miya Twins brawl, he can’t help but have the small ghost of a smile when you’re not looking

Kunimi Akira x Reader

(((ooo another parted hair dark male,, Me likeyy)))

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You and Kindaichi are like,, a mesh of puns and anger

Puns on your side and Anger on Kindaichi’s side

For Kunimi, he finds it entertaining, the dynamic you two have

Though Kunimi doesn’t express emotions as much, ((like the other parted hair babes)) he likes to fan the flames to see his best friend angry

Kindaichi doesn’t get ‘Mad’, he knows its for jokes,,, it’s just,,, your way of thinking can be so mind blowing that he doesn’t know how some of the things go your way it makes him want to know but he gets annoyed when you tease him about it

Kunimi likes to see the way your accomplished smile shines, despite having silly pranks or stupid puns, you seem to get his type of humor

you like to play jokes on Kindaichi, usually poking him when he’s not looking that he jumps out of his skin and he pokes you back and you poke him back, then it becomes a poking war and Kunimi steps to side to see you laugh and when you accidentally poke Kindachi too hard in the gut, he topples over and gives you the finger

You say something among the lines, “Me? If anything, I won and you’re just salty, like that blond beanpole from Karasuno. Right, Kunimi?”

Kunimi, I feel, isn’t the type to full out laugh, but snort or hide his laugh with a scoff behind his hand,, you know,,, like all these other men seem to do,, i get that vibe from them

Dating, nothing changes but the teasing from your side is not overwhelming, yet its not underwhelming,, its actually a good wavelength to match with his own retorts

Kunimi doesn’t hate that you rope him into your schemes, no matter how ridiculous, if it means he gets to see you smile and look at him with those crinkled eyes that seem to glow with joy,,, he doesn’t mind the effort (But he won’t tell you that)

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((Ngl, this is kinda hard,, yet I tried lmao)

#akaashi keji x reader #akaashi x reader #akaashi imagine #akaashi x you #kenma x you #kenma x reader #kenma imagine #suna x you #suna rintaro x reader #suna rintaro x y/n #kunimi imagines #kunimi x reader #kunimi akira x you #kunimi akira x reader

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red-hood-vigilante · 3 years

Text

more hbo spn rambles, thoughts, drabbles etc. long long post.

part 1 here

there’s some things i’ve omitted here bc others have already posted about those things, certain headcanons and characterizations and stuff. those posts are in my likes somewhere (and i’ll reblog them someday), and there’s some posts i’ve read but not liked, which i now can only vaguely remember, which is why some ideas/thoughts are similar

ALSO most of these follow the model i talked about in part one: how s1-5 will stay more or less how they are but s6-10 is changed (some things are cut out entirely, some things are tweaked and some characters + arcs are more fleshed out. more focus on sam’s trauma and post-cage adaptation to the real world as well as dean letting his rage and control issues consume him and how he’d recover and redeem himself)

as i typed these paragraphs, i realized i really have 10 seasons mapped out and ready to go. hbo hire me!!

alright go:

sam and dean get wearier as the show progresses (second half), and eventually they stop putting so much care and thought in the people they save. like...hm how do i say this, like as long as a victim/victims are saved, they don’t care about how that happens or how those people suffer potential consequences, like if the victims lose a limb or have their homes burned down because of the monster, then sam and dean don’t really care. they saved your life, now they’ll leave you with your life in potential shambles and not care because all that matters is that they saved your life, not how it is afterwards. they still care about saving that one person, but eventually it pales a little in comparison to a war between heaven and hell, being the vessels etc. ---> saving people becomes less about making sure they’re actually alright and healing from horrific events and more about just making sure they have a pulse before they move on

when angels lose their wings they are either burned off in the actual fall or ripped off of them in their vessels, which leaves pretty nasty scars on the vessel

ed and harry are so young and bright eyed about the whole hunting thing; sam and dean as kids, idolizing it, finding it exciting and intriguing when they shouldn’t. sam and dean try to get them out of the business before they too are too traumatized and desensitized to do anything but hunt. neither sam or dean will say it but they are jealous of ed and harry and their freedom to leave, and hate them for choosing this voluntarily instead of being dragged into it by tragedy

hbo spn is a slow burn. there’s a lot more shots of sam and dean in silence just sitting together after a hunt, exhausted and too tired to move yet. they’re covered in blood and guts on the side of the road after killing or covered with dirt in a graveyard after burning bones, sitting next to the fire, just watching it. the times they park the car and watch the stars? we get to see it.

dean wears rings and the amulet all the time in the beginning, for the first five seasons. the rings vary; first they’re some of john’s old ones and stuff he finds in thrift stores. then later on he begins wearing rings from people they’ve saved/haven’t saved as a keepsakes etc. when he begins his descent to the holy murderer in s6-10 he wears less and less rings. they don’t matter anymore -> symbolically shedding who he was and what mattered to him

the only accessories sam has is a rosary/cross around his neck. he has jess’ engagement ring in his pocket/wallet. after the cage he vaguely remembers why the ring was there and who jessica was (more on this further down)

the four horsemen are manifestations of different aspects of human nature at its most grotesque and strongest, can’t be killed as long as humans live. war is conflict, famine is desire, pestilence is physical and mental illnesses.

(the seven sins are like the horsemen, tulpas of human nature instead of demons)

death isn’t a concentration of an existing aspect of humans as much as it is the end of life, the antithesis of life. death the oldest of the horsemen and has existed since the beginning of any life, organism, cell and atom. the opposite of life and light, the other half of god (as i’m typing this i’m confused as to why amara was the opposite of god instead of death). death isn’t evil or good, remains 100% objective. doesn’t care for sam or dean at all, but has a begrudging respect for their stubbornness and entertainment they provide due to their flat out refusal to do as they’re told by celestial bodies when anyone else would crumble

by including death i feel like it very naturally begs questions of who decides when someone dies, when someone lives, why would death follow these guides instead of reaping whomever whenever, what happens if a life isn’t reaped at the right time etc. the reader in me adore the idea of death having a library with books and records of everyone who has ever lived and died and how they died - but then, who writes these books and why? do they decide, and if in that case, how? these questions are above my paygrade but you know what i mean? like there has to be some sort of system right, god created everything, death executes to maintain order, some third party deity writes the laws and the books. the three branches of government. ok but it’s hbo so again, i think we shouldn’t dive this deep into things, like as much as these topics intrigue me i don’t want to stray too much from the dirt road trip aesthetic

shapeshifters are extremely rare because they don’t require any kind of human blood or organs/sacrifice to live

i want more exploration of how magic is like science, like it just needs the right ingredients and right conditions. sam thinks of magic as an obscure branch of science; it just requires research and knowledge and clear intentions because science can be controlled and do a lot of good when used responsibly. dean doesn’t like it. he doesn’t trust the unpredictable elements and he’s seen enough to know it never goes well. magic is a force that can’t be controlled by anyone.

sam and dean have full on fist fights regularly. to practice and keeping each other sharp, but also because they’re siblings. they’re feral, insane and unhinged with each other and they get on each other’s nerves A LOT. it’s petty and childish and sometimes it can get a lil ugly but it becomes their way of family therapy. after a fight the next scene cuts to sam and dean with ruffled clothes, nosebleeds and swollen lips at a diner eating silently after beating each other up. either they sit in silence because they’re tired or both are harping on the other’s openings and weaknesses

sometimes they’ll fight a little dirty but they do so in different ways; dean will pull the old ‘look!’ and point to something and then tackle sam when he turns to look while sam will just cry out in fake pain which makes dean stop dead in his tracks before sam headbutts him or kicks him in the groin

we, the audience get used to these fights, they’re sometimes funny and for comic relief, sometimes for narrative purposes (like tricking a monster they’re fighting each other when they’re really not) BUT. then comes the times when sam and dean are actually fighting without holding back and we see how much they are capable of hurting each other or how heartbreaking and difficult it can be to watch when of them are incapable of fighting back/doesn’t defend himself -> swan song when dean doesn’t fight back against possessed sam, or when dean beats soulless sam unconscious

sam and dean also just verbally bully each other constantly but they do have their odd ways of expressing affection and care. they get the other person their fave snack whenever they go grocery shopping without being asked to and are the only other one they truly trust to have their back in hunts. have a cup of coffee ready before the other asks for one. brothers and each other’s best friend. nightmare duo but in a sweet way. the cooperation of ‘the usual suspects’ when they’re in different interrogation rooms but still has the cover story down to a t. code words and code names and cover stories, they know it all

when sam and dean fight together against a common enemy they’re a damn nightmare - because they know each others weaknesses and habits, they cover each other perfectly and in complete silence. they’ve been at it together since they were kids and read each other’s nonverbal cues like a picture book

to build off of what i said in part 1; the winchesters are pretty hated in the hunter’s community. even the people sam and dean frequently work with (bobby, ellen, jo, ash, rufus, bela, kevin, charlie, castiel etc) roasts them all the time and don’t hesitate with calling them out on their self-pitying crap when it get’s too much (spn was just objectively better when characters weren’t afraid of dragging sam and dean through the mud for being selfish and stupid) and this WILL persist in hbo spn. the only reason people continue working with sam and dean is because they know deep down a lot of the things that happens aren’t sam and dean’s fault - but they still blame them for it. doesn’t make it easier how sam or dean sometimes start crap on purpose to save the other

the winchesters are terrifying and people for sure tell stories about them, but not like ‘they’re heroes’, more like ‘they’re insane and dangerous. stay the fuck away from them’. some stories are true, like how they’ve worked with demons, but some are just game of telephone. (dean has apparently a ghost he is frequently possessed by while sam is actually a mutant vampire). hunters hate and are scared of the winchesters. sam and dean are never invited to hunter stuff (burials, memorials etc) but crash them nonetheless even though the hunters do NOT want them there.

you know what drives me insane when i think about it? how some characters in spn already are their hbo spn counterparts; john. mary. adam. maybe kevin?

other things that already are their hbo spn counterparts: dean throwing away the amulet right in front of sam. eyes burning when angels are seen. how ghosts are just tragedies, stuck in a loop they can’t leave. how a lot of the monsters they meet are just victims or their circumstances or the first victim of a curse. the impala being sam and dean’s home. dean not knowing how to comfort sam when he’s upset other than trying to do things for sam that usually brings dean comfort (driving the impala, listening to rock music etc). the roadhouse. heaven being an eternal version of the memories that made you the happiest even though it’s not real. sam wanting independence and freedom but never fully having it. dean fearing being alone more than anything else and that’s where he always ends up. sam has an eating disorder after the demon blood and dean has an alcohol problem he refuses to see as a problem. dean saying “i’d do it again” without an ounce of regret and pouring himself a drink when sam tells him it was fucked up to lie to him about gadreel

the demon/angel hybrid: THIS could be sooo interesting to explore. an angel and demon hybrid are you kidding me?? not to toot my own horn too much but i’m so clever. i should write this story myself. SO. does this creature have parents who fucked in their vessels or was this an experiment by god (yes i love the ‘mad scientist’ idea, that really should’ve been played up way more) or did a pre-existing creature (human or otherwise) drink demon blood and angel grace at the same time so that it created itself? so much potential for some really intriguing storytelling and character exploration - not only the creature itself and what they would be like, but also for the people around; sam, dean, castiel, jack etc. how would they react to this thing that is the very definition of defying heaven and hell and all the natural laws? does it exist before the show starts or will we see its birth?

the powers of the demon/angel hybrid would be tricky; a mix of holy and defiant, grotesque and beautiful. unconsciously forces people to tell the truth when talking to them. poisons whatever they touch. eyes of a demon, wings of an angel. can smite but skin will burn when touching iron. can do deals but will require a sacrifice in return, not a soul, usually a body part taken then and there (the hybrid eats it. it favours eyeballs and the liver - angels like raw meat). lights always flicker. makes things explode when angry (esp people and cars). can manipulate feelings, thoughts and memories. can travel to both heaven and hell, not welcome in either places. + standard stuff like telekinesis, teleportation, mind reading, super strength etc.

sam and dean’s wardrobe are pretty much the same; whatever’s cheap and not covered in blood. however, they do have stylistic differences. sam thinks graphic tees are funny, dean uses whatever’s black combined with john’s leather jacket. their wardrobe melds as they stop thinking of themselves as individuals and more of “me and my brother,”. their clothes are tattered and torn to shreds all the time. hand me downs, hand me ups. when they stray off their “path” and do things that are the crux of a storyline/character arc, this would reflect in their clothes. when sam is with ruby and becomes more and more “evil” he wears more and more red, a colour he has stated in the past he doesn’t really like. when dean is dead, sam starts to wear his rings and john’s and dean’s leather jacket. when dean decides he’s going to say yes to michael he dresses in white, when sam is dead dean takes off every piece of jewelry except the amulet. he holds it clenched in his fists when he’s whispering what comes close to a prayer

logically the amulet should have a backstory but you know what? i love that it’s hinted to be just a piece of cheap jewelry sam found in a thrift store he decided to give to dean. but narratively it should be explained so... idk. what could be logical solution as to why it would react to GOD himself? maybe god wore it once cuz he thought it was neat but he sold it for three dollars because he wanted coffee and then sam found it a week later

i would prefer it if god didn’t show up at all (absent father number one) but if he DID he’s not all powerful just a true neutral (like death, 100% objective) who created a thing that just took a life of its own, much like a parent and a child - the parent helps the child but can’t control it. the times he did intervene or tried to do something it didn’t really have any real long lasting effect so he gave up on trying a while ago.

@spneveryseason talked about this, how the storyline of sam being possessed by gadreel would be horrifying if we saw everything from sam’s perspective instead of dean’s (her fic is wonderful). in the ‘dean slowly descends into a righteous murderer to become holy’ idea i have this tracks so damn well because again, if dean believes something is right, it is right, no questions about it. everyone around him is like “that’s really fucked up and you should make amends” but dean doesn’t see any reasons for why - sam is alive isn’t he? and seeing it from sam’s pov would really underline how horrifying, dehumanizing and belittling that experience was

john and mary are adam and eve. sam and dean are cain and abel are michael and lucifer. time is a flat circle. history never stops repeating itself.

sam is the villain of s4. he is manipulated and key information is withheld from him but in the end... would it made a difference? it crossed his mind, that he could be tricked because ruby is a demon after all, but maybe he likes the power, the feeling of freedom, that he wasn’t just the baby, the one who always needs permission to do things. if he has to drain possessed people to get that power... so be it. and it’s for a good purpose, until it isn’t. he’s hungry for more, to be feared and respected. he’s enticed by lucifer’s sweet words, the potential of all that power and the idea of ruling two out of three realms. dean manages to pull him back from the brink because sam decides he doesn’t want to be what john thought he was and fail dean and himself like that.

dean is the villain in s9. he is controlling, the mark of cain without the mark. what he says goes - it’s not a democracy, it’s a dictatorship. he doesn’t see how much pain, doubt and fear he causes the people around him. if some victims or civilians die on his watch that doesn’t matter - just some collateral damage. sam can’t make dean listen to him because dean is the older one, the one who’s always called the shots. dean is the angelic one, heaven’s chosen warrior, he is untouchable and unkillable. he’s is an excellent killer, filling the void with blood and rage which is better than the crippling fear of loneliness carved into his bones. 'i butcher for love, to protect,’ he tells himself. ‘why shouldn’t i exterminate, regardless of the cost? i’ve followed the rules, i’ve always sacrificed. now i call the shots. it’s my right.’

sam’s hell trauma is never magically removed. he’s stuck with the memories and the nightmares and the occasional hallucinations. castiel can’t do anything but offers to wipe his memory completely, but sam says no, he is still doing penance.

after dean comes back from hell he starts calling himself old man and jokes a lot about he’s 40 years older now (after he’s more comfortable about speaking about hell)

when sam comes back he feels ancient (he’s over 900 years old at least but he lost count), weary, tired and so so so out of place in this world. he’s forgotten how to put gas in a car, how to drive, how to use a credit card, all the song lyrics he and dean used to yell together, the faces of people he knew before he fell, the softness of a bed, the schools he went to, most of the hunts he and dean, how john died, who mary is, the initials carved into the impala, the taste of food that isn’t raw meat. it’s so much he’s forgotten that he has to relearn. he prefers figuring things out with castiel instead of dean because castiel doesn’t silently resent him for everything he’s forgotten

sam doesn’t laugh anymore. despite dean’s many and castiel’s few awkward attempts, it’s more like quick smile and a quiet “hmm”. on some days he recoils when he sees blood and guts, on other days he’s so apathetic it’s unnerving

sam sympathizes with the brought back mary and castiel more than ever. dean tries to get sam to remember things he’s forgotten from his childhood but sam can’t connect with it anymore. he stopped being that sam a long time ago. dean doesn’t know what else to do than try to force this connection to be revitalized and he fails. sam isn’t that person anymore and this wedge in their relationship becomes a central factor in dean’s s6-10 desperation and isolation. sam is here and safe but it’s not really sam, not the sam dean grew up with

while sam has forgotten how to make coffee, he now knows everything about angels, effective torture tricks, a bunch of lore + biblical history, how to navigate hell, the most powerful and influential demons, rare and powerful spells as well as perfect enochian (he will speak enochian without realizing and it feels more natural than english). lucifer and michael were surprisingly talkative (raging about the unfairness) when taking their anger and hatred out on sam and adam and each other. sam had access to all of lucifer’s memories and knowledge for the time he was the one in control. walking library and encyclopedia of biblical lore.

he still has some muscle memory from hunting and sparring, but sam is ghostly thin and very rusty. even though he’s an expert on lore, he’s not fit to go on hunts anymore and he knows it.

sam remembers adam and swears he’ll try to get him out, but he can’t. just thinking about the cage makes him vomit. he can’t talk about it, much less go near it. after a while sam thinks it might be better to let adam stay down there than let him come back up and feel this crushing emptiness and loss of direction

sam’s trials take place in s9 instead of 8; coinciding with dean’s villain arc. for sam the trials are a chance to redeem himself again, this time for good by closing hellgates forever. they’re scrubbing him clean of the demon blood and his sins and they give him a sense of purpose again now that he can’t join hunts anymore. it doesn’t matter if he dies because of it. it would be nice with a permanent and peaceful death that did something good. dean is taken aback by sam’s devotion to repent for something that happened years ago and for something sam has already paid for a thousand times over. dean realizes how messed up he himself has become and how he’s helped put sam here, on the cusp of self sacrifice again because of sickening guilt and self hatred. dean begs sam to not complete the trials at the cost of his own life and swears he’ll better himself, be a friend and a brother, not a jailer, dictator or a murderer. ‘if you won’t give yourself or life another chance, please give me one.’ ---> s10 pacifist dean learning to let go of the control, the violent tendencies and the rage

oh wait what if gadreel still possessed sam after the trials to heal him but sam is the one who invites the angel in? he’ll keep his promise to dean about staying alive, as well as heal from the inside and have breaks from the world when he doesn’t want to be present, like he and gadreel will alternate being the one in control. he keeps it a secret from dean and helps gadreel imitate him so dean won’t notice. it’s not so bad, being possessed by this angel - sam can say no anytime and gadreel is a nice guy. since they alternate on who’s present they can access each other’s memories, which is terrifying and embarrassing at first, but since gadreel and sam have been tricked and used by lucifer and been punished for it for far too long, they understand each other. now another creature knows their trauma and terrors without the need for verbal explanation. also having an angel residing in his body makes sam feel like he can hunt properly again because gadreel can heal him and take over in situations sam’s overpowered. this could show how messed up sam has come to view himself and his body.

dean is conflicted when he finds out; sam lied but gadreel does help sam heal, sam’s traumatized and his self-worth is fucked up and dean has contributed to that. dean convinces sam to push gadreel out, that sam is still valuable, loved and a good person who shouldn’t be in a place where he views his body and mind like a property to be occupied. sam’s faith begins to come back bit by bit, not in god, but in himself, his brother, in the good things in life. they build their little family; sam, dean, castiel, the hybrids, whomever of their allies that are alive at this point.

castiel can heal sam and dean’s wounds but they are never completely gone; they leave scars and phantom pains. the brothers have SO many scars over the years. dean flaunts them to impress people because he likes the questions and the fearful admiration, the attention and the nods of approval. sam hides them.

when dean is in a bad mood or needs to get his mind off of things, sam just drops something like ‘i don’t get the deal with led zeppelin. one of the most overrated bands of all time’ and dean will go OFF every single time about the entire led zeppelin history, their discography and how they’ve shaped rock music. this will go on for hours and sam will zone out after 1 minute. but dean rants nonsensically the entire drive and it does get him to think about something else for a little bit. they stop at a motel and dean is STILL ranting while brushing his teeth. stops when going to sleep but without fail picks up where he left off the morning after and is so into it he doesn’t notice sam not paying attention at all. we could see this once in s1 when they’re searching for john, another in s3 when dean is anxious about his deal coming to an end and then again in a later season, when sam doesn’t remember to ask/doesn’t have the patience or mental capability, so they’ll sit there in tense silence, showing how much they’ve changed.

---> i can see this SO clearly in my head, how they’ll get in the car and we, the audience, will recognize the camera angle, the same lines and dean’s grumpy mood, and we’ll anticipate what comes next. but sam isn’t that kid anymore and he’s not peeking at dean to gauge what his mood is and how much of a shit eating grin he should wear when being an annoying little brother to cheer dean up. now he’s looking out the window, leaned back, they’re not looking at each other. this shot is a minute or two long, uninterrupted. dean turns on music but neither are singing along or doing anything to lighten the mood.

s1-5: sam gets hooked on demon blood, dean has an alcohol problem. when sam goes through withdrawals, dean decides to quit drinking and joins him because he wants to be supportive, and he realizes that when he drinks two beers for breakfast there’s a problem

s6-10: sam takes painkillers, anti depressants and anti psyhosis meds to numb himself from the phantom pains and reduce post-cage effects. dean started drinking again after sam jumped and still does, but started smoking in addition because he still drives a lot and doesn’t want to die in something as pathetic as a car crash.

there a scene in an episode in the first half of s8, when sam has decided to stay with dean instead of amelia, and dean has rejected benny in favor of sam, and then the brothers sit in a couch watching tv while drinking beer and neither of them look particularly happy about it - that’s how their relationship is a lot of the time. they know they’re fucked up and neither of them will ever be truly happy when the other’s around, but they owe each other so much and they don’t have to explain themselves to each other the way they do to others. they know each other so well, each other’s traumas and the things they’ve done, it feels fake and exhausting to try to be something other than the veteran hunters they are. misery loves company; they are miserable together but would be far more miserable apart and living a normal life. they do love each other, but neither of them are particularly happy as the show progresses. family is hell and so is the lack of it.

OK OK i mentioned it in part one, how i had my own very specific idea about how jack should come to be and here it is. long winded but (might just write a damn fic):

after lucifer was cast back into the cage, he is stronger than he has been in a long time (being in his true vessel helped him stretched muscles he forgot he had. and fresh air.) sam is pulled out of the cage and it leaves a rift in the magic and chains - the binding is weaker and lucifer must act fast to get out before it heals. the cage is still strong enough to hold two archangels, so lucifer has to become weaker somehow to slip out through the cracks. he can’t get out of the cage, but souls can come in. demons bring themselves and human souls as tools for lucifer to use. there’s not much he can do here - consuming them, eating them, touching them, dissecting them doesn’t give him what he wants

eventually lucifer realizes he must do like azazel and create something new of two halves, like when he created demons. he begins melding his archangel grace with a human soul. he tries with demons, but his archangel grace automatically purifies them and leaves them too weak. he must try with a human soul who is good. he finds the soul of kelly kline, who sold her soul to save a loved one. with her, the merging, works.

he has another self, a twin, a son, who’s half human and half archangel. half lucifer. the old lucifer will die but that’s ok, his desires, presence and self will live on in his new creation. the new lucifer barely makes it out of the cage, only able to due to its human side. on earth it creates a body for itself and takes shape, no longer a form of pure power and energy akin to the sun itself but now a person, reminiscent of kelly kline on earth and lucifer in heaven. they name themselves jack. jack searches for familiarity and finds it in sam, their old self’s perfect tool and another hybrid. jack finds a mentor in castiel, a younger brother and fellow angel with human elements. they do not find anything in dean, the key to his former self’s doom.

jack’s powers: their powers are like and unlike the angels because he is half archangel. jack has wings but sometimes they don’t work, or they’ll end up somewhere else entirely. their body is their own, not a vessel, so jack can’t possess people. doesn’t talk but people “know” what they’re saying or want because jack emits their emotions and thoughts to people they’re talking to like a radio tower. jack can also have this empathic connection and communication with animals. his mood affects the weather. immortal. reads minds. can remove a soul from a body and send it to heaven/hell by touching it, with practice they don’t need to touch a body.

other stuff about jack: the human/archangel nature means jack only need sleep and food once a week or so. eats only nougat and raw meat. because jack is a kid they nap a lot. levitates when sleeping. never blinks, stares intensely at everything. their eye colour changes based on their mood. eyes glow in the dark. normal humans who look at jack for too long experience memory loss, fainting spells or migraines and eye contact for more than 10 seconds give vivid hallucinations of their worst nightmares. always barefoot, often floats like 10 cm off the ground because they find it more enjoyable than walking. wears the wildest clothes they can find, nothing matches and nothing is weather appropriate

i have a very specific image of jack in my mind; they look like delirium from the sandman comics with the hair that looks like it’s underwater and the fishes floating around their head, here and here are examples. in live action this would look not good or maybe even ridiculous for sure but in animation... endless potential for angels and monsters to have super interesting designs sigh

castiel’s arc should end with him going from blind soldier, to the unwilling ruler of heaven, finding a place on earth with sam and dean, becoming closer with humanity and eventually a father of three (the hybrids).

#hbo spn #sam winchester #dean winchester #supernatural #iben spoke #ok i'm tired of looking at this now #i just needed to get these thoughts out of my head to get some peace and quiet #more character centric than part 1 #and it turned into such a long post.... jesus #i should make a separate post for post cage sam headcanons #ana if you see this i'm so sorry to drag you into this mess but i wanted to give credit where credit is due

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ssa-pretty-boy · 4 years

Text

Movie Nights: Steel Magnolias

Summary: Part 4/10 of a series of ficlets where Spencer’s girlfriend introduces him to some of her favorite movies.

Series Master List

Link to the scene referred to (its a real tear jerker okay be prepared if you watch it)

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

Directed By: Herbert Ross (1989)

Word Count: 776

A./N.: Alright this one is definitely self indulgent… I ugly cry every time i see this movie and Ouiser 100% reminds me of my grandmother when she’s feeling a little spicy ha. It really is such a good movie y’all. i highly recommend it

——

It had been a long, long day. A day full of seemingly endless paper work and meetings and Spencer felt like he could just collapse into a heap on the floor. He didn’t even have the energy to call out his usual cheery ‘Honey! I’m home!’ as he trudged his way into his apartment. Dumping his coat and satchel right at the front door, he made a beeline for Y/N’s blanket clad form on the sofa. He dove into her, his head instantly going to the crook of her neck as she laughed lightly, the sound instantly easing some of the weight off of his shoulders.

“Long day, bubs?” she questioned softly, her hands going to cup his cheeks and pull his face up towards hers. His eyes were tired, the purple smudges beneath them darker than usual.

She hated to say the pout he gave her was adorable but it was. Bottom lip still jutted out, he nodded his head before dropping it back down to her chest. He sighed deeply before toeing his shoes off and rolling over in order to wiggle between her body and the back of the sofa.

Their legs tangled as she gladly made room for him, welcoming his embrace as he threw one arm over her middle and slipped the other under her. “What are we watching?”

“Steel Magnolias,” she mumbled as she got comfortable in their new position, her head resting comfortably on the arm he had tucked under it. “Have you seen it?”

He hummed out a soft ‘no’ and she told him to get comfortable because it had just started. He didn’t have to be told twice.

“Its so good. Ouiser, she’ll be on in just a minute, reminds me of my grandmother. Well, just the mean part. My grandmother isn’t nearly as funny.” She admitted casually and Spencer was glad he was behind her so she couldn’t see him grimace at the mention of her maternal grandmother. He’d never met her but he did have the unfortunate experience of talking to her on the phone once. And he would very much like to not do that again for a long time.

Surprisingly he found himself really enjoying the film. The plot was easy to follow despite how exhausted he was and the dialogue and banter between all the women was incredibly amusing.

Until it wasn’t.

He felt Y/N stiffen in his arms when Shelby was rushed into the hospital for what he suspected to be kidney failure. He had never seen it before but based Y/N’s sudden shift in demeanor and the grim tone the dialogue had taken, he knew it wasn’t going to be a happy ending.

Soft sniffles could just barely be heard over the audio of the film and he pulled back just enough to be able to see her face, blueish hue cast over her from the light of the television. Sure enough, Y/N had fat tears clinging to her lashes and a few tear tracks down her cheeks.

Spencer cooed at her and sat up before reaching for her. She instantly went to him, her head going right into the crook of his neck as his hands gently started rubbing slow circles on her back. Her sniffles turned to a choked sob as M’Lynn had her gut wrenching breakdown in the cemetery.

Shoulders shaking with the force of her tears, she managed to choke out, “I’ve seen this 500 times and I still cry my eyes out every damn time.” He chuckled softly, pressing a soft kiss to her temple as she started to chastise him, “Don’t you laugh at me, Spencer Reid. This movie just breaks my heart.”

“Oh, sweet girl,” he cooed, a laugh dancing in his eyes as he pulled pack from her so he could look in her eyes. “I could never laugh at you for having such a tender heart. It matches mine.”

He took her face in his hands, thumbs brushing away the stray tears just under her eyes. It was her turn to pout and he couldn’t resist leaning in to kiss her. It was slow and gentle, tasting vaguely of the brine due to her tears. He pulled away and placed a quick peck on her nose before she settled back into him.

She huffed out a breath as she turned her attention back to the screen, “We’re gonna have to watch something happy after this is over or I’ll be thinking about it all night.”

His fingers were absently running up and down her arm as he hummed. “We’ll stay up as long as you want, bubs.”

——

Tag List: @babykillbill @ellegreenawayapologist @badwolf00593 @missdowntonabbey @samayoshito

*If you would like to be tagged in future parts of this series (or any of my other works) please send me an ask or a message!

#spencer reid fluff #spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x y/n #spencer reid x you #spencer reid fanfiction #spencer reid fanfic #spencer reid imagine #criminal minds imagine #criminal minds self insert #criminal minds fanfic

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waywardfacegarden · 4 years

Text

burning embers

Modern Au: Zuko centric + The Gaang + Zukka + Friendship/Family feels + Angst and Fluff.

Summary: Zuko learns the meaning of love.

Read on Ao3 here.

There’s something so tragically painful about falling in love, they say.

But Zuko wouldn’t know. He doesn’t know what falling in love with someone is, he doesn’t know what it feels like. Love is a concept so alien to him; he can’t even grasp the root of it. He just knows a broken home, the remaining ashes of a devastating, blazing fire that was supposed to be his father’s love.

He doesn’t know what love is. And yet, he understands: the underlying and heart-wrenching agony that comes with loving. The sorrow that comes with it; it is just there, intrinsically linked. It’s something that the small kid—full of unknown love and golden warmth, but also deep, bitter pain—comprehends at the tender age of 11.

It’s just common knowledge for him, the same way he knows the sky is blue and the sun hides at night.

Family. Love. Father.

Those words don’t have meaning, Zuko thinks, lying on his bed one night, still hearing the disappointment in his father’s voice echoing in his ears in the quiet darkness of his room. They’re there, of course. And he knows them. He can say them. But they feel far away, slipping through the space between his fingers, becoming dust that blows away with the chilly wind of an autumn midnight, escaping him before he can place what was there in the first place.

They don’t hold weight. They don’t mean anything. They’re shallow; they just exist, like a couple of letters strewn together, like when you say your name so many times in a row it doesn’t even feel right anymore; but, he supposes only a few people are blessed with their significance, with tasting them in their mouth with something not akin to hate or bitterness or emptiness.

Loneliness. Despair. Dishonor.

Those have meaning. Those have weight, despite being such empty words.

(But they very much taste like something akin to hate, too—and that’s the thing.

Maybe Zuko just doesn’t know anything aside from [self-]hate.)

Family, love, father. They are concepts that come alive to him the same way a phoenix is born.

They rise, awakening from the ashes that the fire within themselves has burned to death; so beautiful, so mystical, so mesmeric and so incredibly fragile and precious and wondrous, like a mythological creature coming back to life after having known its own death.

He learns the words and their meaning the same way his brain starts learning new things and concepts by reading a book; but he doesn’t learn with his mind—even though a part of him knows that this is where knowledge is stored—Zuko learns with his heart (he has always learned things best with his heart; after all, Zuko wears it on his sleeve; he’s emotional, visceral, volatile—his feelings are way too intense, too much that they burn his chest open; he’s always aflame), with his eyes, with his hands. He learns it in every little gesture that’s given to him, in every little crack (that keeps filling and filling and filling) of the time that goes on, in every little drop of ink that is spilled on the parchment where his life is being written.

He learns the words in the way he begins learning his uncle's tea recipes, in the satisfaction and pride he feels when his uncle congratulates him for a job well-done on a warm, quiet Saturday afternoon as he finishes helping cleaning and serving the tables around the teashop, in the way his favorite cup sits next to his uncle's on the kitchen counter in the mornings, full of Zuko’s favorite bubble tea; he learns them in the ugly, endearing, oversized sweater hanging at the back of his closet, the one his uncle gave him in his last birthday; he learns about love in the gentle smiles of weekends, in the singing of the birds outside his room’s window, in the blanket that rests around his shoulders when he is sitting on the comfy couch on a calm Thursday night, dozing off while trying to study for an English test, in the way the nightmares that used to haunt him are tormenting him less and less every time; he learns the meaning of father in his uncle's ridiculous pajamas, full of tiny drawings of cherry blossoms and tea leaves, in his uncle’s obsession with Pai Sho, and in the wise phrases he keeps throwing at Zuko even when he cannot fully understand them.

He learns, little by little, step by step, like a slow fire burning inside his guts.

And it's a weird, strange thing. Zuko learned that fire hurts you, the same way he learned that love does, but somehow, after years of building his new life, it doesn't feel that way anymore.

His uncle is patient with him. Patient as someone who would teach someone else origami or as someone who’s slowly writing a book. He teaches him, sees him fall, stumble and trip over his feet (both, metaphorically and literally speaking) and he’s there when Zuko gets up again.

It’s a nice feeling. Knowing that someone is going to be there, even if you fall. Even when you fail.

His uncle teaches him, the same way he creates a new tea receipt for the menu; carefully, gently, ever so softly. He takes Zuko, the broken child who looks at him through his pain and hatred, and makes him open his eyes. He points out, over and over and over again, that failing is not a bad thing, that love exists and that it doesn't have to hurt, and that if it does, you can heal from it; he teaches him that Zuko is full of it, full of love, he says that he’s always been.

Somehow, it feels a bit like healing. Of course, Zuko is still broken. Probably, a part of him always will be; but, somehow, he doesn't think that being a bit broken is so wrong now.

Friendship was a foreign concept to him, too. Or maybe not, but Zuko never wanted to get involved with it.

Too much trouble.

(Or maybe fear—fear of what it carries, what it holds in its nature; fear of failing, of not being enough, of being left out, of getting too attached.)

But just as Zuko was wrong about so many things in his life, this is not the exception.

He comes to learn that, too.

It’s a different process than with his uncle. Maybe because it’s slower, or maybe because it’s, rather, faster. Maybe because he wasn’t aware he was learning at all.

Zuko doesn’t know exactly when it starts. Can’t pinpoint the exact moment he started getting involved. Not that he cares much about that at this point, but he would like to know.

They kind of adopt him in their group (or, er, gang, as they call it), without Zuko noticing. But to be fair, Zuko doesn’t notice a lot of things.

Toph is a friend of his Uncle, and she lives near the teashop, so she’s around more time than she’s not; she’s loud and kinda rude, and always calls Zuko a dork or a nerd or an idiot, but Zuko realizes he likes when she’s there. Aang comes along sometimes, with his scarily bright smile. There’s also Katara and her big brother, Sokka.

He likes all of them, to his extreme surprise. They’re all good people. Aang is way too kind, Katara may be scary but she’s pretty cool, and Sokka is just a combination of a very, weirdly endearing, smart dumbass, which is, uh, new.

He honestly doesn’t know how it happened, or when it happened, but suddenly he’s tucked under a soft fuzzy blanket in winter, sandwiched in the middle of the three-spot sofa, with Aang almost laying over his lap. He’s almost sitting on Sokka’s right leg, pressing him against the arm sofa, his side overlapping with Sokka’s. He doesn’t seem to mind, though. He’s sitting there, cross-legged, with his right arm fully extended on the back of the sofa, almost like he’s hugging Zuko’s shoulders; he’s practically leaning on Zuko.

His arm and his side are really warm, though. Not as much as Zuko generally is, but it’s… kind of nice.

“Katara, Titanic is a classic, dude. What the hell.”

Zuko takes a sip from his hot chocolate, blowing off the clouds of steam gathering over the cup—the warmth of it is pretty welcomed in his throat, to be honest, while Katara rolls her eyes at her brother.

“I’m not watching that for the fifth time in a month and seeing you and Aang both cry for an hour later after the already three long hours of the movie.”

Sokka looks pretty indignant about Katara’s attitude towards his (probably) favorite movie, which is pretty amusing.

“You’re just a monster,” Sokka says, dramatically, “that’s why you don’t cry.”

Katara rolls her eyes again.

“I don’t know,” Toph says, from the couch closer to the TV, sprawled all comfortably over it. “It’s actually a really funny movie,” she points out, and then draws out her voice. “‘Jack, draw me like one of your French girls’.”

Aang laughs pretty loud, and Zuko smiles at the bad impersonation despite himself.

“Well, My Heart Will Go On is my anthem.” Sokka says, puffing out his chest.

Zuko actually snorts into his cup and Sokka shoots him a look. He remembers the time Aang and Sokka recreated that iconic scene, with Toph singing at the top of her lungs in a ridiculously obnoxious voice. He actually laughed at that.

Sokka seems to read his mind, because after a few moments of staring at Zuko’s face, his entire expression lights up. He grins, eyes sparkling, and starts singing really loud and purposely out of tune. Aang starts laughing and Toph doesn’t waste time on joining Sokka in singing. Even Katara smiles.

A few minutes later of terrible singing, they’re all laughing. Toph is cackling so hard she’s on the floor, and Sokka keeps leaning over him, laughing in his ear. He believes it should be annoying, but instead of that, it’s actually infectious and Zuko laughs a bit harder.

After they calm down, Toph is clutching at her sides and Sokka is wiping tears out of his eyes.

Aang smiles, then, softly and content, and raises a hand in the air, like asking for permission to talk.

“I have an idea.” He says, and turns around to look at him. “Why don’t we just let Zuko decide? He hasn’t chosen anything yet for our Friday movie nights.”

All eyes turn to look at him at that. He stops his movements, mouth hanging open, hot cup halfway to his lips.

“Uh,” he frowns. “Thank you, but, um. Why would I choose? It’s your thing.”

Everyone stares at him like he has two heads, which, okay fair but why.

“What?”

Aang gives him a soft smile, all kind eyes and gentle features, like he’s about to talk to a baby, but before he can say anything, Sokka is putting an arm around his shoulders and leaning all his weight on him, as if they weren’t already close enough.

“This is your thing as much as it is ours, dude.” He says, grinning, “You’re one of us.” He vaunts, proudly, and ruffles Zuko’s hair.

Katara nods, at the same time Toph goes:

“Yup, you’re already in, loser.”

Aang chuckles. “Yes, you’re our friend, Zuko.”

Zuko blinks, stunned.

That’s…

There’s…

That’s… the F-word.

Friend.

Huh? What? How? When did that happen? Huh? Did he miss something in the past few months?

Sokka, completely oblivious to his emotional turmoil, insistently points to the TV while squeezing him. "So, buddy? Don't you think we should watch Titanic to cry and share a couple of very male tears?"

"You only want to watch it because you have a crush on both Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio." Katara accuses.

"Nuh-uh!"

"Yes, you do! You even still keep that poster of them behind your…"

"Katara!!!!"

Friend.

It’s a nice word.

It tastes like hot chocolate in his mouth on a cold night, it sounds like Sokka’s laugh and Toph’s jokes, and it looks like Aang’s kind eyes and Katara’s nice smile.

It feels like something. It holds meaning. It’s not an empty word. At all.

Sokka’s hand ruffling his hair or over his shoulders, Toph’s nicknames for him, Aang’s offer of help in times he feels like Zuko needs it, Katara’s help with homework and advice on his recipes doesn’t let him forget that. ‘Friend’ is never going to be an empty word.

Friend tastes like hope, like warm food and bear-hugs.

Friend is such a nice word.

The thing with Zuko being generally—and strangely—warm all the time is that summer is a complete nightmare for him.

He's sitting directly in front of the fan at full power, barefoot in just jeans and a light T-shirt, and yet he still feels like he's going to explode. The weather forecast in the morning heralded a heat wave in midsummer, and it's exactly the worst thing in the world that could happen to Zuko's already overheated body. Toph groans beside him, lying with her arms and legs spread like a starfish on the cold ground. It is no comfort to her, however, and Zuko can understand that well.

Katara is looking at something on her phone, fanning herself with a magazine, and Aang remains practically unaffected, just as energetic as ever as he eats the remaining watermelon slices from the bowl they recently filled.

Zuko is wondering if he should go, or if he should fall asleep on the freezing ground that doesn't seem to be freezing at all, when Sokka walks into the living room in his baseball uniform. He has just returned from his morning summer practice; sweat is running down the side of his face, and his shirt is partly sticking to his body from the moisture. He smiles at everyone in greeting before gulping down all that's left of the water on the bottle of his hand. Zuko stares at his Adam's apple bob while he's drinking, and then his eyes trail the trickle of water that slides down his jaw over his desperation to drink all the water so fast. The drop goes down, down, down, dripping over his collarbone and sinking into his neck until it eventually gets lost somewhere inside his shirt. Sokka throws the bottle over the trash can and uses his shirt collar to wipe the water and some of his sweat off his face. Zuko's eyes unconsciously move downward; he can see a line of skin on Sokka's abdomen and stomach.

He swallows. Uh. His mouth is suddenly very dry. He's probably dehydrated. Is he dehydrated? He's starting to feel a little dizzy.

"So? Beloved friends, beloved little sister? Did you miss me? Obviously, you did."

Katara rolls her eyes, but still asks, "How was practice, dumbass?"

"It was cool! I hit twelve curve-balls in a row and sixteen of that weird fastball Suki pitches. Oh! And I'm finally getting the thing about that forkball. Also... woah, Zuko, are you okay?!"

Zuko blinks from where he was staring at Sokka's hair. It's kind of wet. Is that sweat? Shouldn't that be gross? Why is Zuko staring? Does he find it gross? He doesn't think so, but he also can't quite explain why...

"Woah, bud," Sokka says, kneeling in front of him and getting dangerously close to his face. "You're so red, are you having heatstroke or something? Do you feel dizzy?" He leans on his knees and presses a hand to his forehead, pulling up the bangs hanging over it. It feels nice, actually. Sokka's soft hand on his boiling skin feels like fresh water. He kind of wants to lean into it.

He probably does, because Sokka frowns. "Maybe you have a fever..." His mouth presses into a thin line. "Don't you want to take a shower to cool off? I can lend you some clothes, we're about the same height, they'll fit."

Zuko blinks. Huh?

"Here, let me help you." Sokka says, helping him up.

Around an hour later, Zuko feels a lot better, laying with his back on the floor in Sokka's baggy shorts and blue T-shirt with a cartoonish drawing of The Pink Panther. Zuko smiles involuntarily when he looks at it. It smells a bit like Sokka, or at least the detergent he uses. That makes his stomach do weird flips. He's not feeling that hot anymore, but maybe he is getting sick...

"Hey," Sokka tells him, looking at him from above, standing just behind Zuko's head. His toes are barely avoiding touching Zuko's sprawled hair on the floor.

"Hey," Zuko answers back, looking up at Sokka's soft face. His hair is down and still wet from the shower, and a few drops fall on the bridge of Zuko's nose when Sokka hovers over him. Zuko's face scrunches up, more out of involuntary reaction than out of bother, but Sokka chuckles.

"Sorry," he says, not sounding sorry at all. He uses the towel around his neck to messily dry his hair. "You look a lot better, now."

"Yes," Zuko muses, still a bit mesmerized by Sokka's wet hair. And Sokka's face. "Thanks."

Sokka grins brightly at him. "Sure."

He looks like he's about to say something else, but before he can say anything, Toph groans just a few feet away, sitting now on the couch. "Stop flirting and get a room already; it’s gross. We're here, too."

"What? We weren’t—"

Katara agrees, quietly.

"Hey! I was just worried!" Sokka excuses himself. "Weren't you all? His face was as red as a tomato."

Katara looks up from her magazine and gives him a pointed look, with one elegantly arched brow. Apparently, she doesn't even need to say anything else, because it's enough to make Sokka blush.

Oh.

He's cute, Zuko thinks. And then, oh, I think Sokka is cute. And then Sokka stomps over the kitchen muttering unintelligible things, still a faint blush over his cheeks.

Zuko smiles to himself watching his childish behavior. He is, though. He is cute.

It's raining heavily outside, drops pouring loudly against the asphalt of the sidewalk.

Zuko side-glances at Sokka. Maybe it's because after the course of a year, Zuko has learned to recognize many of Sokka's little gestures, or maybe it's the fact that the boy has been so much into his own mind lately, but Zuko recognizes that way he scrunches up his nose, that wrinkle between his eyebrows, that way his eyes twitch.

“Are you okay?”

He’s asking mostly just to be polite, to be honest; he already knows he’s not. He knows something’s up.

Sokka turns to look at him, and then stares at the rain hitting the glass window of the lonely teashop.

“I’m…” He says, and looks at his hand. Then he presses his mouth into a thin line.

“You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want to,” Zuko says, awkwardly, because as much as he cares, he’s still a mess when it comes to social cues. He’s never going to stop being a mess. And terrible at comforting people.

Sokka sees right through him, though, like he always does, and smiles softly at him. His whole face mellows. It kind of makes Zuko’s heart flutter in his chest, like a butterfly flapping its wings.

“I’m…” Sokka tries again, looking at Zuko’s face. At his eyes, at his scar, at his neck. He feels weirdly exposed, but at the same time… He doesn’t. It’s just Sokka. Which means it’s okay. “Scared, I guess.”

Zuko blinks and tilts his head to the side. He’s not sure if he should ask, but…

“Of?”

Sokka gives him a wry smile.

“Of failing? Of disappointing my dad? Of not being enough? I don’t know, I can’t quite pick a single one.”

Sokka’s voice is not quite bitter, but it feels like that, in the air around them. Zuko knows the feeling pretty well.

“You are enough.” Zuko affirms, without a single trace of hesitation in his voice. Because Sokka is enough, in every single aspect, and he shouldn’t feel like any less than that. Zuko’s also aware of what he’s worrying about, and for Zuko, it’s just absurd—Sokka is one the very few people that shouldn’t worry about passing the entrance exam of college at all, he’s crazy smart. He should know that. But, to be fair, Zuko can’t judge him nor scold him for self-doubt when it used to be all that he was, along with his self-hate. So he says it out loud, looking into Sokka’s wide, surprised eyes. “You’re also really smart, Sokka, I’m sure you’re going to ace the entrance exam. You shouldn’t worry.”

Sokka rolls his eyes, but he also adopts that playful-kinda-flirty side of him. It’s painful because Zuko can see the sadness underlying in his voice and body language so clearly. Can see the lack of confidence in every single motion.

“You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

“I am,” he agrees, “but it doesn’t mean it isn’t true. I really believe so. You’re the smartest person I know. You’re very capable of doing whatever you want, so have faith in yourself just like I have faith in you.”

Once he says it, and Sokka blinks once, twice, thrice at him, Zuko feels painfully aware (and painfully embarrassed) of what he just said.

Oh Lord, what did he actually…

“Ah,” Sokka says, and makes a face that Zuko can’t name. “You’re blushing.”

Zuko covers his cheeks with both hands. Sokka is probably right, they’re so warm, but still.

“I’m not.” Still.

Sokka laughs, and raises both eyebrows. “You sure?” He asks, staring pointedly at his face, which only makes him blush harder.

Stupid Sokka.

He must know the effect he’s having on him, because he laughs again, lightheartedly. Well, at least he’s not upset anymore…

“I’m not,” he uselessly and pathetically insists, even when it’s tragically obvious he is. But he has some pride, okay.

Sokka grins, but it’s all devilish. It makes Zuko’s hair stand on end. A chill runs down his spine.

“It’s just hot.”

Sokka smirks. “Sure, you’re always hot.”

“Shut up,” Zuko complains and groans, facing away from him so that he can’t see his blatant embarrassment. Sokka’s natural flirty personality wasn’t that much of a problem back then, but it’s only gotten worse, and Zuko just can’t handle it sometimes. It feels like way too much.

“Ah, but you blush when you’re embarrassed. That’s cute.” Sokka points out, a wide grin on his face. “Imagine being both cute and hot, what a crime.”

He sighs theatrically, and Zuko is very tempted to answer, “shut up, look who’s talking,” but he knows he will just get more embarrassed after saying that. He needs to calm down. So he just grumbles while Sokka laughs.

Then, when Sokka has already calmed down and Zuko can feel his face like normal again, they look quietly at the rain, steadily keeping its pace.

“Zuko,” Sokka says, after some time, and Zuko quirks an eyebrow in reply.

Sokka smiles. “Thank you. For believing me. It means a lot.”

Zuko smiles back. “Of course.”

Zuko notices it one night. (Though, looking back, it’s weird he didn’t notice it before.)

Well, more like, Aang notices and points it out, and then Zuko realizes that what he said is pathetically true, lying in bed at night because he still mulls things over sometimes before going to sleep.

“You know,” Aang had casually said, holding a can of orange juice, sitting next to Zuko on the bleachers at one of Sokka’s practice games. “You stare at Sokka a lot.”

Zuko frowned. “It’s his game, after all. We’re here to watch him,” he had retorted, like it was obvious.

“Well, yes, but I don’t mean only now. You stare at him all the time.”

Zuko didn’t feel like he liked where this conversation was going. Something about his expression must had given him away, or maybe Aang was just too good at reading him now, because he said:

“Wait.” He actually had sounded surprised. “You mean you’re not aware you have a crush on him?”

Zuko’s eyes went wide. “What? I don’t have a crush on him.”

Aang quirked up an eyebrow. Sure, he didn’t need to say.

“I don’t,” he had pressed on.

Aang hadn’t looked any more convinced of what he had said. If anything, he looked more convinced on what he himself had said. Aang had looked at him for a very long period of 1 minute before lightly chuckling and nudging him in the arm with his elbow, smiling brightly at him.

It was weird, but Zuko has gotten better at reading them, maybe just as much as Aang has with him. Maybe that’s why he knows what Aang means with all of that. Admit it when you’re ready.

It’s not like he was trying to deny or hide it. It’s not like he was trying to lie. He just didn’t think Aang was actually right.

But he is. Zuko can’t stop looking at Sokka, all the time. Thinking about him. About the way he smiles, with his hair up, with his hair down, with that denim jacket that fits him in all the right angles, with his baseball cap, ecstatic after he scored a run in the 8th inning.

Sokka, practicing on the field. Grinning widely and openly and hugging him tightly when he aced the entrance exam. Leaning in to taste Zuko’s ice-cream into his own mouth. Ruffling his own messy hair. Wearing those silly cartoon t-shirts. Serenading Zuko with Electric Love and the most ridiculous voice ever on his birthday as a joke. Messy eating. Scrunching up his nose while drinking green tea. Reciting 80% of the Star Wars dialogues by heart. Being obsessed with boomerangs and swords (though not as much as Zuko is with that last one). Biting into the end of his pencil when he’s focused on writing an English essay.

Ahhhhh.

Oh, holy honor.

He has a crush. A crush. Feelings.

When did that happen? Why did that happen? He doesn’t know. Was it because of his warm eyes? His pretty smile? His pretty lips? Was it because he opened up to Zuko, let himself be vulnerable around him, bled his heart out so Zuko could piece it back together? Was it because he’s funny? Charming? Cool? Smart? Astonishingly cute? Was it because he made Zuko feel made out of thin air, sometimes, so raw and exposed but yet so safe, so comfortable in his own skin? ...That is, the others don’t necessarily make him feel unsafe, or uncomfortable. He just feels like he can be all open and vulnerable with Sokka better. Maybe because he opened up to him first, about something so personal like his mom (and Zuko knew about losing a mom, too).

Well, whatever the reason, it doesn’t exactly matter, does it? He’s already in deep.

Zuko rolls over his stomach and sighs, groaning loud into his pillow. Why, why, why, why. It’s not like he even has a chance, so why did he have to…

Ugh.

Feelings are stupid. His heart is stupid.

And the way he falls asleep thinking about Sokka’s laugh is even stupider.

The thing is, because Zuko notices all the little details in Sokka’s gestures and behavior, he also notices the way he acts differently towards… Certain people.

“Me and Yue?” Sokka laughs, and Zuko blinks. He didn’t even mean to ask it out loud. Now, he would just hear the confirmation of what he already knew from Sokka’s lips. How is that any better? Good job, Zuko.

“Nah, man, Suki would kill me if she sees me wooing her girlfriend. Or at least kick me pretty damn hard.” Huh? Zuko blinks again. Huh? So they’re… Sokka and Yue… They’re not…

“And believe me, she’s super strong. She kicked me once and I’ve always regretted eating that last cupcake on the fridge.” Sokka makes a face and shudders, like the mere flashback is enough to make him fear. But then he smiles, in that soft way of his that makes Zuko’s knees go really weak. “And I’m pretty sure Yue is immensely happy with her, too.”

Zuko doesn’t know what to say, so he just oh-so-eloquently utters:

“Ah.”

Sokka seems amused.

“Didn’t you know they were a thing? The PDA is so strong when they’re together, you have to have seen it.”

Well, that was… Zuko just thought they were touchy with each other? Sokka is pretty much touchy with him all the time, but that doesn’t mean they’re a thing.

Well.

“That’s rough, buddy.”

Sokka blinks. “Why?”

Zuko frowns. He tilts his head in confusion. “Because you are… Romantically attracted to her? It must be rough.”

Sokka blinks once, twice, three times. Stares. Then, he throws his head back and cackles, clutching his stomach.

“Dude, what the hell.” He wheezes. “Just say the word crush like normal people.”

“Hmm.”

Then, when he calms down, Sokka eyes Zuko.

“Wait, what?” He says, serious all of a sudden. Or at least, surprised. “Do you really think that?” At Zuko’s lack of response, Sokka looks at him, then at his hands, then at the TV, where the video game they were playing is still on pause. Then, back at Zuko’s face. “No, I don’t have a crush on her. Or on Suki, for that matter.”

Zuko frowns. Sokka must know he doesn’t believe him, because he continues.

“I mean, I did.” He admits. “Back when I met her, when I was, like, 14. But I’m over it, now—Not that she’s not great; she’s awesome and I love her, just… Not in that way. It was just a silly teen-crush, anyway. And Suki is my best friend. We had a thing for a few months like two years ago, but we hit it off so much better as friends. She’s my bi icon, though. And bestest friend.”

“Oh.”

“Besides,” Sokka adds, and eyes him pointedly, “I’m interested in someone else right now.”

Zuko stares. Blinks.

What.

So he does have someone he’s interested in anyway. God, Zuko really doesn’t stand a chance. Why even bothering trying? And it’s not like he knows how to try something, anyway…

From the other corner of the room, Aang shoots him a very cryptic look. Zuko can’t describe what he’s thinking, but he guesses he’s taking pity on him. After all, he knows.

Ah. He really doesn’t like having feelings.

His mind is a cruel thing. It’s what keeps him up at night, what reminds him of all his insecurities, what makes him feel undeserving of love, what keeps throwing image after image into his head of his broken childhood on bad days. It’s what, as much as his heart, knows about his deepest desires, his longing, his yearning and thinks it’s amusing to play with Zuko for a bit.

“Zuko,” Sokka says, with a fragile smile on his face, his voice going ridiculously soft, his eyes warming up, and Zuko’s heart pounds on his chest like big waves crashing on the shore of a lonely beach. “Zuko, I love you.”

It’s kind of—very—criminal the way Sokka makes him feel. The way he makes Zuko’s heart seem like it’s going to burst out of his chest with how fast it beats after hearing just those three words, the way he makes Zuko’s entire soul ache and want, the way he makes him feel so grounded, so him, yet so tiny and delicate, like he’s made out of thin sheets of ice.

Is this how love feels?

Is this how it should feel like?

He wouldn’t know. He doesn’t know what falling in love is. He just knows a broken home, the destructive, neon-like, toxic obsession with power his dad had, instead of any tender form of anything else that can be called love that his dad should have had for his mom, but never did.

Falling in love is made to hurt. Falling in love is destined to make you feel sad, and alone, and unsafe.

Falling in love is a cruel thing. It’s not cut out for weak people, and Zuko is weak. He’s destined to break. He has always been made out of fragile, easy-to-destroy things.

That’s why his mind plays with him all the time.

He wakes up in his bed, opens his eyes to the dark quiet of his room, feels the way his heart beats so hard that he can almost feel it on his throat. And he feels lost. And sad.

He doesn’t even scream. He just lies there, feeling the world becoming smaller, feeling himself becoming smaller.

Lord, he’s royally fucked. Screwed. He knows. He’s destined to break.

There’s something so tragically painful about falling in love, they say.

He’s sitting with Toph leaning back on his right side, on the fluffy couch in Katara and Sokka’s living room, cutting up squares out of colorful paper.

They are both terrible in the kitchen. Something coming from being rich kids, Sokka playfully teased earlier. And he guesses it’s true. Either way, they are terrible—Zuko even burned his own kitchen once while making scrambled eggs (and that was. Not a very good day). Sure, he has tried to help Uncle Iroh a couple of times, and he knows a bit of the basics, but besides preparing tea, he’s lost. He can’t cook to save his life. So when Zuko almost lights a fire to bake cookies and mixes up the recipe for the second time, Katara kicks them out and bans them from the kitchen for the next 4 hours. Toph protests just to be annoying—she doesn’t like cooking at all, she has told him, but she loves annoying Katara, it’s her favorite idle activity. Zuko would be offended, but it’s the smartest choice if they want to finish baking Aang’s birthday cake without setting the kitchen on fire, so it’s fine.

Besides, this way he can steal a few glances at Sokka, as he hangs up the decorations he and Toph are making. The muscles under his shirt flex when he raises his arms above his head, his messy hair down from its ponytail, falling over his face when he moves a bit to the left, a line of the smooth skin of his back making its way to Zuko's curious, avid eyes.

Zuko swallows.

Toph sighs heavily and throws her head back. “So, are you planning to make a move any time this century or are you a loser?”

Zuko eyes her, coming out of his stupor, confused. “What?”

Toph smirks. “Right, you’re always a loser, my bad.”

Zuko blinks. Not because of Toph calling him a loser, but because, for a second, he really doesn’t get what she means.

Then, when he does, he buries his face into his hands and groans.

“Even you know?”

Toph laughs. "Yes, idiot, it's stupidly obvious.” She pats his arm. “I can see it and I'm blind, you know."

Zuko groans again. He’s in physical pain right now. "How?"

She shrugs. "I don’t know. Maybe the way you say his name. Or talk about him."

Zuko feels a bit of panic.

What? Is he that obvious? How does he say Sokka’s name?

"His name?"

"Yeah,” Toph confirms, nodding exaggeratedly, “stupidly sappy. It's gross."

"Oh my god."

She laughs again, loudly, because his suffering is apparently amusing. "You also talk about him a lot," she chuckles, "and sigh every time you see him. At least that’s what I assume, given that he’s in the room and you keep sighing like a 12-year-old girl in love. Pinning all the way.”

Zuko wants to die. He seriously wants to die. Maybe he should just tell Sokka he likes him, so when he rejects him, Zuko can just die a quick, albeit painful, death.

Toph nudges at his arm, with her typical abnormal strength for someone her age, but she doesn’t mean any harm. “So?” She asks, again. “Are you planning to make a move or not?"

Zuko sighs, "I can't do anything, he likes someone else."

Toph kind of stops where she’s fumbling with a couple of paper sheets. She then turns around and makes this face, where she’s scrunching up her nose and frowning like she just smelled something sour, or like when she’s deeply confused. "Did he say that?"

"Yes."

"Did Sokka seriously tell you that?"

Zuko’s confused at Toph’s relentless insistence. "...Yes?"

Toph’s face goes back to normal, but there’s something about the way she continues to hum that makes it seem like she still thinks Zuko is an alien, or something.

"You must have misunderstood him—which wouldn’t be a surprise, to be honest." She says the last part in a whisper, but he still hears her. That’s probably what she wanted anyway, but it’s not like he gets it. What does that mean? Zuko gets Sokka. That’s one of the few things he’s really proud of. Did he just think that he got Sokka while, all this time, he actually didn’t?

No. He understands Sokka. Sokka himself has told him that.

"No, I didn't. And I don't have a chance if he likes someone else, so I might as well not even try."

Toph looks mad. "You're super pessimistic, dumbass."

"Hmm."

She sighs, looking deeply tired and frustrated, like Zuko has completely worn her out. Then, she raises her fist and punches him. Hard.

Ouch.

Zuko yelps, and rubs at his sore arm. “What was that for?” he grumbles.

She frowns. “To punch some sense into you, big oblivious idiot!" Toph hums a low, guttural sound in the back of her throat, like she’s a feral dog trying to threaten a pedestrian. “Just try, at least. Everyone is kind of getting tired of your pinning, too."

"Ah." Everyone?

"Full offence."

"Ah."

“Even Katara. The only reason she hasn’t intervened yet is because she says it’s not her business to push you, but I don’t think her reasoning is gonna last long.”

Katara too!? Oh, no.

Zuko seriously wants to die.

Eventually, things go on.

Zuko’s “crush” doesn’t go away. If anything, it just grows and grows and grows until it becomes almost unbearable. But he still can’t say anything.

“Zuko.”

“Hmm?”

“You know,” Sokka says, looking at him with feign innocence, sitting with his hands upwards behind him in Zuko’s room, “that looks heavy, want me to hold it for you?”

Zuko frowns. He looks up from his work to give Sokka a confused look. “What is, my pen?”

Sokka gives him that little, playful smile—the one that is so incredibly hot for some reason Zuko can’t understand. His eyes gleam, even more than they do all the time.

“Nope,” he says, and his smile grows an inch, “your hand.”

Zuko blinks. Sokka flirting with him is nothing new, that’s why he manages to hold back his blush a bit and remain calm, even when he’s a bit dying inside.

He is just trapped between telling him, “god, I wish you were flirting with me for real,” and, “please stop doing it, it’s not good for my heart,” and, “If only you knew how much I really want to hold your hand”, but neither of those options are actually. Something viable.

“Are you flirting with me?” He asks instead, knowing the answer already.

Sokka would laugh, brush it off, and say something like, “ah, but you didn’t blush this time,” and let it go.

He doesn’t, though.

What he does, instead, is shrug and look at Zuko’s textbook, like he’s completely uninterested in the conversation.

Huh.

But then he speaks up again.

“Have been for the past year and a half or so, but thanks for noticing.” He answers.

Zuko blinks. He’s tempted to answer, “yeah, I know, which is a cruel, cruel thing to do, by the way, given how my heart just wants to escape out of my chest and go with you every time you do it,” or something equally playful to play it down like they always tend to do, but… for some reason, this time it feels… Real.

Maybe he should just laugh.

He doesn’t, though, and, “What?” is what comes out of his mouth.

Sokka looks up. “I said that I’ve been doing it for a year and a half or so, thank you for finally noticing.”

Zuko doesn’t understand. He’s not following the conversation at all. “Wait.”

“Ahh,” Sokka sighs, “honestly, if you didn’t notice by the end of the month, I would have felt deeply embarrassed. I was starting to think I lost my charm and I didn’t know how to flirt.”

“Well, that was a terrible pick-up line,” Zuko can’t help but retort, and like he wasn’t mildly-insulted, Sokka grins at him.

“But it worked for you, didn’t it?” He teases, leaning on Zuko’s personal space, “it made you feel something.”

Zuko frowns. “How would you know?”

Sokka stares. “Your face.”

“My face?”

“I can see it. In your face.”

Zuko covers his mouth, frowning. He can feel his own heart race.

Sokka is still way too close.

“You can…?”

“Yup.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Zuko says, blinking. “That means—are you—are you flirting with me? For real?”

Sokka quirks both eyebrows. “Yes...?”

“But you—you…”

“Zuko, I don’t know where you got the idea, but I don’t flirt with anyone aside from you—at least, I haven’t done it in a long time. So yes, I am actually flirting with you.”

Zuko feels like he just got hit in the head. “Why?”

Sokka blinks. “Because I want to?”

“But why do you want to?”

Sokka shoots him a look. “Zuko,” he says, slowly, “I like you. I thought that was obvious already.”

Zuko blinks. “You have… romantic feelings for me?”

Sokka laughs, amused. “Yeah, Zuko, I have ‘romantic feelings’ for you.”

Zuko blinks again. He’s blinking too much. “So all this time… it was real… when you said… and that time you also said… and… oh.”

Sokka smiles, softly, and ruffles Zuko’s hair. It makes him blush. His heart might also not even work at this point, if it wasn’t for the fact that he can clearly hear it thundering in his ears.

Why is Sokka so calm? Zuko’s about to pass out.

“Katara is right, I’m dumb.”

Sokka grins. “Toph thinks so, too.”

“Toph thinks everyone is dumb.”

“Fair,” Sokka answers; he’s still grinning so wide. God, Sokka is so pretty. “Though I think she only calls us dumb, not that she means it.”

“Mmm.”

He’s so unfairly distracting, too. Zuko can’t stop looking at him.

“Wait,” He says, suddenly realizing something, “so you knew that I—that I—had feelings for you, too?”

Sokka looks at his lips when he talks, and Zuko has to concentrate hard to not straight up pass out from shock and his heart racing so fast it might give him an attack. Has he done that before? He would have noticed, right? Sure, Zuko looks at Sokka’s lips a lot instead than at his eyes, but he would have noticed if Sokka did it, too.

… Right?

He’s starting to feel dizzy. Is he dreaming? Is any of this real at all?

“Noticed it a while ago, yeah. That’s why I’m not freaking out that you noticed my flirting 100 years later.”

For a moment, Zuko is able to set aside his internal emotional turmoil and state of panic, if only to complain.

“Hey!” He frowns. “Wait—”

“You have said that a lot.”

“Wait,” Zuko repeats, just to be annoying, “if you… liked me, and knew that I liked you back, why didn’t you… make a move?”

“Like asking you out? I tried to, but you’re too oblivious.”

“Huh?” Zuko utters. What does that even mean? He’s not—well, he is, maybe, just a bit, but. “Well, if you knew that, you could have been more straightforward, you know!”

Sokka smiles, then shrugs.

“I guess we’re both dumb.”

Zuko feels his lips curling up, not able to contain all his happiness anymore, his brain catching up with the last 20 minutes of his life.

Holy shit, Sokka likes him. Sokka likes him. Him. Zuko. As in, romantically speaking.

Oh.

“I like you, Zuko.” Sokka says, as if Zuko’s brain didn’t shut down already. He reaches out and slides his hand on the table Zuko was previously working, the tip of his fingers touching Zuko’s. “So can I finally, please hold your hand?”

Zuko might pass out for real, but before that, he finally, finally, finally takes Sokka’s hand into his own.

It feels even better than in his dreams.

He feels like burning up, like all of his body is setting itself on fire.

Sokka’s hand is warm, so warm, and soft, so soft, and makes Zuko’s heart flutter like delicate flower’s petals in the wind.

Sokka’s thumb brushes over his knuckles; Sokka’s lips turn into a bright smile, like he’s been wanting to do that since forever.

It feels like home.

When they tell their friends they’re dating, Yue is the first one to say something.

“You mean you weren’t dating before?”

“Shocking, right,” Katara deadpans, but then she smiles, genuine. “I’m happy for both of you.”

(Although remembering that minutes later doesn’t make her any less scary, when she decides to corner him out of the bathroom and put a steady hand on his shoulder, feign-sweet smile on her face, and say with a weirdly off-calm voice that, if he ever dared to hurt Sokka on purpose, she was going to break all the 206 bones on his body.)

Toph grins brightly and kicks him enthusiastically on the side with a loud “Well-done, loser!” while Aang jumps on Zuko’s back and clings to him like a koala.

“That’s awesome, guys! Be happy!”

Zuko smiles.

“Finally, I won’t have to hear Sokka’s pinning all the time,” Suki quips, like she’s tired and utterly uninterested, but even the happiness is evident in her voice.

Sokka still complains. “Hey! I had to hear you be head-over-heels for Yue for months, too.”

“It wasn’t months for you, though.” Suki deadpans, but then her face goes all soft, “I’m kidding, So, I’m really happy for you two.”

Sokka smiles, and she gets up from where she’s cuddling Yue on the sofa to hug Sokka tightly, grinning wide, and then look at Zuko (stumbling with a happily laughing Aang on his back and Toph annoyingly ruffling his hair like a proud little sister) and whispers something in Sokka’s ear.

Zuko is glad that he’s still looking at Sokka from the corner of his eye, because he catches him blushing after that.

He’s cute.

Suki laughs. Sokka frowns, still blushing, and when he catches Zuko watching, he blushes harder.

He’s really cute.

Zuko smiles softly, and Sokka blinks, once, twice, before smiling back.

The cutest.

“Zuko.”

Zuko hums, but doesn’t look up from his work.

“Zukoooo, darling, love of my life.”

Zuko is used to it by now. To Sokka calling him pet-names like those. Of hearing Sokka say he’s cute, or hot, or smart, or witty, or pretty. It still makes his heart flutter, though. Just as Sokka’s laugh does. It still makes him blush sometimes.

(It’s funny because Sokka is the same way—or mostly the same. Zuko said he looked really hot after a baseball game once and Sokka almost died on the spot. He blushed like mad, but after he calmed down, he couldn’t stop bragging about Zuko calling him ‘hot’.

“Look at you, flirting shamelessly with me! You’re all grown up!” and, “I shouldn’t be near Zuko if I’m wearing my baseball uniform, he’ll get a boner,” and a lot of more phrases.)

“Hm?”

“You are—” Sokka sing-songs, and crosses his arms over Zuko’s textbook. He puts his chin over his forearms and looks up at Zuko’s face, grinning, and Zuko would probably be a bit annoyed that he’s not letting him finish his essay if it weren’t for the fact that he’s Sokka. His, ahem, boyfriend.

“I am…?”

“You are,” he repeats, and his smile grows bigger. Zuko thinks about kissing him; Zuko thinks about kissing him all the time. But, to be fair, he used to dream about that, just as much as he used to dream about them holding hands. And just as if he read Zuko’s mind, Sokka reaches out and holds his right hand; gently, like all of Sokka’s touches. It feels so nice, Zuko never wants to let go. “You are pulchritudinous.”

Eh?

Zuko tries to smile, but Sokka looks at him like he’s looking at a cute baby and throws his head back, still close and still holding his hand.

“You’re adorable.”

“What…?” Zuko is sure he looks as puzzled as he feels; he once caught his reflection in the mirror while playing Scrabble with Sokka and therefore knows how he must look. For some reason, Sokka finds it extremely cute. “What does that mean?”

Sokka laughs again.

Zuko narrows his eyes into slits. Or, maybe Sokka’s just making fun of him. (Not in a bad way, of course, Zuko knows. Sokka never means any harm, but he sure as hell loves teasing Zuko all the time.)

“Are you insulting me?”

Sokka wipes tears from his eyes and looks at Zuko with such a sweet face that it kinda makes Zuko stumble, even when he’s sitting.

His heart flutters alive, his face grows warm. He wants to kiss Sokka.

Sokka does, though, pulling gently at his hand and softly pressing his lips into Zuko’s wrist. He grins up at him.

“You’re adorable.”

(Later, when he’s waiting for a toast on Uncle Iroh’s kitchen, still barefoot, decked out in his pajamas and half-asleep, he finally finds what he thinks is the correct word using the search function of his phone—after 20 lame attempts of trying and failing at remembering—and pronouncing correctly—the right word.

He clicks on the dictionary tab, reads over the meaning, stumbles over, slips and falls flat on his ass.

He almost sets his kitchen on fire for the second time.)

Zuko is bad at flirting. He knows. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t try, hard, and sometimes, sometimes, he succeeds (conscious and unconsciously).

Or maybe Sokka is just too easy to fluster (even when Sokka says it’s the other way around; even when that’s actually, probably, just a bit, true.)

Either way, Zuko basks happily in seeing Sokka get all flustered. It makes him even cuter than he already is.

(Whipped, Toph would draw out, mockingly sing-song.

And, well, maybe he is.)

Kissing Sokka is like setting himself on fire. Like burning up alive, but not in the bad sense. Not in the way he was burned as a little kid.

Kissing Sokka is like sitting near a campfire when you’re feeling cold; like standing on the edge of a cliff, feeling your chest contract; like tucking yourself in a warm blanket, with fuzzy socks and drinking your favorite drink, while hearing your favorite song. It’s like waking up on a good day, like basking in the sun at twilight, like taking a warm shower after a long day.

He feels too much, way too overwhelmed, even with just a brush of lips.

Kissing Sokka is a blessed thing.

There’s something that comes alive in his chest at the same time their lips touch. It blossoms under his ribcage, spreads over his chest, warms up all the way up to his throat. Beating, growing, marveling in every fiber of his being. Maybe that’s what love is—maybe that’s what Zuko has been searching for all this time; this connection, this overwhelming feeling, this deep, raw, unfiltered emotion, coming off him through waves of desperation for more.

He can’t be sure. But even if it wasn’t something he has looked out for, the discovery of it still feels like a sacred thing.

It’s like watching cherry blossoms falling on the street for the first time, like falling asleep on the comfortable side of your bed after a tiring day, it’s coming back home—or to what home should feel like.

It’s something delicate, at first. Zuko doesn’t have any experience, so he just lets himself feel as Sokka presses his lips softly into his own, carding his long fingers into Zuko’s hair.

Zuko feels an electric chill run down his spine, where Sokka’s fingertips—from the hand that’s not on his hair—make a slow path down. He can feel them burning, even through his clothes, even when Sokka’s hand is not that warm.

But it feels like that.

Zuko breathes shakily, moves his lips experimentally, feeling Sokka’s smile against his mouth.

He wants to do something, so he leans in, feeling Sokka’s eyelashes tickling his cheekbones, feeling Sokka’s thumb under his jaw, angling his head in a better position, feeling himself become aflame. He wants to touch Sokka. He really wants to touch Sokka.

So he does.

He uses one hand to gently touch Sokka’s wrist—the one Sokka’s using to keep Zuko’s head up—and, carefully, tentatively, he wraps his fingers around it, caresses the skin like he wants to print a topographic map of it into his mind.

Sokka makes a low, appreciative sound, and Zuko feels so happy it should be embarrassing.

Sokka has his hair down, and Zuko wants to touch it so much because he loves Sokka’s hair. Sokka’s hair is so pretty—Sokka is so pretty—so he goes for it. He brushes his fingers on Sokka’s shoulder, touches the strands of brown hair that lie there, moves his fingers to the nape of his neck. Zuko does this slowly, he wants to feel everything and he’s not going to rush, not after how long he’s wanted this.

He cradles his head with his hand, touches and touches and touches. He pulls at his hair, lightly, and his hand goes down just a bit; the skin of Sokka’s neck under his fingertips is warm, and so soft. He can feel the gentle echo of his heartbeat thundering in the tender curve of his jaw.

Just then, Sokka’s thumb brushes on his bare clavicle, and Zuko hisses, feeling like he’s on fire. Feeling like he’s become burning embers.

It’s just—too much, and at the same time, not enough—he wants more.

He has always been sensitive, but it’s different now. It’s like all his senses are turned on—he’s hyper-aware of everything around him—of Sokka’s hands, of Sokka’s steady, fast heartbeat under his open palm, of Sokka’s smell, of Sokka’s warm mouth, of Sokka’s soft skin, of the way Sokka keeps mumbling his name, softly against his lips or when he breaks apart to breath. He touches Sokka’s face, Sokka’s arms, Sokka’s neck; breathes his name into his own mouth, makes sure Sokka knows how much he wants this, how much he’s dreamed of this: of kissing him, of him kissing him back.

It feels too good to be even real—just as Sokka always makes him feel, even when they’re not kissing.

He might as well die there.

It wouldn’t be a bad way to go, though.

Linked, bare soul to bare soul, with the prettiest, smartest, kindest boy he’s ever met.

There’s something so tragically painful about falling in love, they say. But as he sees Sokka laughing in front of him because of some ridiculous joke Toph made, holding Zuko’s hand like it’s the most precious thing in the world, he can’t help but think that falling in love is anything but painful.

Sokka turns around, catches him staring and grins, playfully wiggling his eyebrows.

Zuko smiles, thinking just how much he loves Sokka, how much he loves his life, how much he loves his uncle, how much he loves his friends, how much he loves being alive, being there, curled up with Sokka on his couch, watching a stupid rom-com movie on Sokka’s cell-phone screen, sharing earphones with his boyfriend. Being there, in the house that he shares with his uncle—his real dad—in the house that he has come to call home. Being there, feeling safe in Sokka’s arms, with Toph hearing music on the TV, while Aang and Katara and Suki and Yue sleep, sprawled there and there all over his living-room.

“I love you,” Zuko tells Sokka, like he just revealed the biggest secret of the universe.

Love.

He feels the word on his tongue, and it tastes sweet. It tastes like the color of Sokka’s eyes, like the tone of Sokka’s laugh, like all of Sokka’s smiles—the gentle one, the soft one, the playful and flirty one, the wide one—all of them. Love tastes like Sokka holding his hand while they go for a walk, like Sokka’s voice when he talks about what he likes, like Sokka’s proud eyes after scoring a run, after Zuko shows him his grades. It tastes like a lot of things he can’t name, like the way Sokka says his name, like the way Sokka makes him feel, like that little mole under Sokka’s jaw, like the way his eyes crinkle when he smiles with the setting sun of the beach, like the way his fingertips feel against Zuko’s neck. Like the way he looks at Zuko like he’s not broken, like he’s the best thing that ever existed, like his scar is beautiful and all of Zuko’s failures don’t matter to him because he’s him, and that is enough. Like Zuko is more than enough, and how he loves that he’s more than enough to Zuko, too.

“I love you,” Zuko says again, in a low voice, and it feels real. It has meaning. It’s not an empty word at all.

For some reason, he feels like tearing up a bit.

Sokka’s face mellows, softens; he brushes his thumb under Zuko’s left eye, just at the edge of his scar, and his eyes become impossibly warm. Zuko wants to kiss all of his face; he wants to taste all of Sokka’s softness on his own lips.

There, in the quiet of Zuko’s living-room, Sokka smiles, and Zuko thinks he’s the most bewitching, stunning, ineffably beautiful being.

It feels like something ethereal. Sokka smiles and Zuko feels blessed to exist.

“I love you, too,” Sokka answers, like he’s sharing one of the secrets of the universe, too, like he’s never told anyone anything more true, and ever so gentle.

Zuko smiles and kisses him.

Falling in love is a blessed thing.

#zukka #zukka fic #atla #avatar the last airbender #my writing #... this is my contribution to the atla/zukka fandom #please let me know what do you think in the comments/tags/ao3!!!!!!!!#have a lovely day and thanks for reading :')

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alilbihh · 4 years

Text

heliophile

masterlist

pairing: hoseok x reader

summary: helio·phile, noun (plural heliophiles)

A lover of the sun.

(or: You turn to look at him and find him already looking. He's stealing cherry-like fruits from behind the counter top and slipping them into the most bafflingly ugly pouch you've ever seen.

You engage in a silent staring contest that lasts approximately four long seconds before you speak. "Yo.")

genre: alien!hoseok, space!au (?), fluff

words: 2.3k

When you step out the space craft, you'd expected the air to be cold and frigid but it's not. It's warm, like if you were to look up, you'd see the blues and pinks of the horizon, the sun peeking just slightly behind the clouds.

You're on an odd planet whose name you can't pronounce, with too many consonants and not enough vowels and maybe, like, three F's. Too many F's. Too much everything.

The pilot is a prickly old man with grey hairs and crooked teeth, but you think he looks happy when you smile in his direction. The void between planets doesn't leave much room for anything but years of self-reflection, pinpricks of destinations, no place to call home. It must be lonely for him, you think.

Someone bumps into you and it's then you realize you're standing still and the people behind you are stepping off, and you breathe breathe breathe before doing the same.

You think it feels like an airport before you stop to think that it kinda is. The walls are a stark white and everyone is carrying around their luggage and it's-- weird. It's weird.

You'd done mild research on the place before leaving Earth, but it all still feels odd. Out of place. Like the whole three days on the space craft had been a fever dream. Like you'd woken up in your bed back at home and suddenly the sky was a light purple and there were two moons.

There are patches of green on the ground that look like grass but not quite. You step over them and continue your trek.

You pass by people with antennas and lurid pink skin and black filled eyes before you reach the outside and realize you're the only human. Or maybe you're an alien to them, too.

(You wonder if they also feel like outsiders.)

It's your seventy third day on the planet and you're milling through the market, trading ores for valuables like water and groceries. You haven't quite gotten over home yet. Still wake up hoping the sky will be blue when it never is.

Someone taps on your shoulder, and when you turn they're vaguely human-like, except when he speaks it's in the planet's mother tongue. It's an ugly language, with a slick, hissing enunciation that sounds like a secret. You hate everything about it, no matter the being that speaks it.

"You look like you're looking for something," He says, and you pick up on enough words to understand what was said. Tourist guides on the language can't help you forever.

The sky isn't blue and the language is ugly and you haven't heard your mother tongue be spoken for a bit too long, but this is meant to be your home. Even if you feel almost too untethered to yourself in it.

So you say, “I'm not. Thank you.” And that's that.

As a kid you dreamed of becoming an explorer, whose name was scrawled on storefronts and whose discoveries were put in museums back at home.

You still dream, sometimes, of places you've never been. Of tossing pebbles over streams that bleed pink, dipping your toes in the shoreline, of trying to decipher the poetry etched onto moss covered rocks, of running through the greenhouses on Mars, biting into the red-speckled fruits. Of trying to find a place to belong.

Your sleeps are dreamless these days.

(There are approximately fifty seven Earth-sized planets in the Milky Way alone.

Before, it made you feel full to bursting like an overripe cherry for the galaxy and its endless mysteries.

Now, it makes you feel small.)

It’s day one hundred and something when you're watching the condensation pool around your drink, making small talk with the holographic bartender and failing miserably when a man sidles onto the stool beside you.

"Do you want a tip?" You're saying, then realize holograms won't have a use for money, but slide a crumpled bill over the wooden counter anyway. It's Earth currency, just something you had in your pocket when you left, climbed into the nearest space craft and didn't look back. You're light-years away from where it could serve any sort of purpose, but maybe the hologram will want it anyway.

"Lifeform detected," it says, flickering blue like static. Not even acknowledging your money, the bastard. "Status: Earthling. What is your language of preference?" It starts cycling through all of Earth's languages when you don't respond and you just let it, try to guess which language it's speaking before it moves on to another.

The man is still sneaking interested glances at you, which you know because he's wearing gloves and a scarf and, like, three sweaters while cramped inside a bar made entirely of heat and sweat, even if you're sure it was warm outside. It's weird and bizarre.

You turn to look at him and find him already looking. He's stealing cherry-like fruits from behind the counter top and slipping them into the most bafflingly ugly pouch you've ever seen.

You engage in a silent staring contest that lasts approximately four long seconds before you speak. "Yo."

There are billions upon billions of languages this man could know, billions upon billions of different planets or stars he could be from, but he still smiles and says--

"Hey."

You swallow. "You were looking at me just now."

The man only hums. Tosses a cherry into his mouth, stem and all. "That I was."

He's wearing this awful yellow wool sweater over what could only be several other sweaters underneath it, and he's smiling something big when his mouth makes this heart shape that you hadn't noticed before because you weren't really looking but now you are looking and it's. Devastating.

"Well." You cough, then clear your throat. Take a sip of the drink you'd just remembered was still there. "Cool."

"Yes." The man says, skin tinted honey and gold. You've seen many skin colors, all from different colors of the rainbow, seen horns and pointed ears and too many eyes. And maybe his is the closest thing to human, but at the same time it's-- not. It's different. Too pretty to be human, like he's lived on the sun his whole life.

He's still smiling, something careful and charming, because apparently his mouth is incapable of resting in any other expression.

"What's your name?" You say because he's been staring for what could only be beyond what's socially acceptable, and then his grin gets impossibly wider, cheeks crinkling at the edges.

His name is Jung Hoseok and he was born on the sun. Visited Earth, once. Visited the whole Solar System, stayed in a humble cottage on Pluto for two years before moving because something was twisting in his gut, apparently. Something that screamed go, move, leave.

He left and left and left, found solace in the nothing of space. (Or maybe he didn't. If he's anything like you, you don't think he did.)

His name is Jung Hoseok and he's had the same froggy green underwear for the last four years and he has a small tattoo on his hip, a little sun, and when he presses you to the mattress he's warm warm warm, tastes like the honey gold of his skin. Like the sun.

His name is Jung Hoseok, and you haven't felt this warm in a long time.

You feel kind of like you're walking on the deck of the Titanic as it sinks, the room tilting slowly on its axis, all off-kilter.

Next to you, Hoseok sits in bulky winter wear and it's kind of funny. It must be hard to be constantly cold, but you think he manages.

You don't know what you're doing here, still doing here. But then an old steam train whizzes by and you feel-- strangely nostalgic. Like someone from the eighteenth century, plucked straight out of a Ghibli movie. You hadn't even known this was on the planet. (Maybe you never cared enough to look.)

Hoseok gets up, offers an elbow. "Well?"

So you follow him inside the train, sit on a plush red seat by the window, watch as the scenery paints itself blue then green then pink. You pass by a sunny forest one second then a snowy one the next. Hear laughing children and spot a mother with kind eyes and laughter lines.

Then suddenly everything fades and you're running on water and the sky is a light light purple that fades into a not-blue. An almost-blue. Blue.

You look away from the window and find Hoseok staring at you. Wonder if he ever looked away. Simply say, "Blue."

He smiles something tender and soft. Fond. "Blue." He agrees.

"S'blue, where I'm from." You look at the window again. The sky is starting to become more purple, but you think you like it. You hadn't before, wonder what changed. "The sky, I mean."

"I know." He nod nod nods, doesn't say anything else.

You both get off on a stop where you don't know where you are, and you lead Hoseok to a nearby farmhouse where the horizon line is burning against the tips of the wheat, setting the world on fire.

You blast through the blazing gold and when you collapse on the ground, no closer to the sun than when you started, Hoseok runs to lie beside you on the soil, brush a finger over the tips of the wheat leaning over him.

Your heart is beating so hard against your ribcage you think it might burst.

"How long are you staying?" You say, tilt your head to watch him.

"Hm," he hums, "Not long. I just crashed here for, like, supplies."

"Oh." Something claws at your chest, squeezes your lungs, takes over when you then say, "Are you looking for a co-pilot?"

Hoseok startles, turns quick, smiles something slow slow slow and then he's grinning. His eyes are wide and pretty and honest.

"We'll travel a lot."

"I know."

"We'll have to leave this place. Won't settle down any time soon."

"Yeah. I know." You breathe.

"Do you even know how to fly a space craft?"

"Uh," you stammer, "no."

You hear more than see the grin when he says, "You're in."

"What does this button do?" You ask, finger hovering over a red button that looks incriminatingly dangerous.

Hoseok hums, not taking his eyes off the monitor, and simply says, "Self-destruct."

You pull back immediately. "Are you being serious right now?"

"No." When you turn to look at him, he's grinning. You punch his shoulder lightly as he tumbles over in laughter, takes a hold of your hand softly. Doesn't let go even though you're sure it's faster to type with two hands.

Hoseok is a constant, you learn quickly.

You and Hoseok travel long stretches of nothing and get off on stops where neither of you know where you are. Sunken cities and civilizations built through secret, languages of clicking and hissing and too many rolled out R's, the setting of a blue sun on an unnamed planet.

Hoseok is always there, there to look out for you and guide you and sometimes, when he looks at you, you catch him smiling something soft and relieved. Almost as if to say ah, there you are.

The in-betweens are a big part of it, you think. Sitting back between destinations just to this, this constant. To Hoseok dancing in the living room to no music at all and to him clicking away at the monitor and sometimes, when you're lucky, to the stars filtering through the blinds and a hand around your waist when everything is warm, warm, warm.

"This is nice," Hoseok says on a day where everything feels slow, like the world is hanging on a drop of honey. An arm is looped over your back, the monitor clicking behind you in a comforting white noise, and there's a steady line of a heartbeat mirroring your own.

Hands are tugging at your face, pulling you in, sun-warmed lips meeting yours halfway.

"What's nice?" You murmur as you trail a hand down his face. You trace the crease between his brows, the slope of his nose, the apple of his cheeks. The dip between his lips.

Hoseok kisses the pads of your fingers. "Just-- sometimes, I used to go months without saying anything out loud, saying anything at all, so this is just. A nice change. Really nice." He trails off, sighs into your shoulder. Presses a kiss there, just because he can.

"Oh." You breathe. When you lean back to cup his cheeks, his eyes are half-lidded and honest and so impossibly fond, and you look and then really look, find traces of the sun.

You press your lips to the crown of his head and just breathe. The mood has softened and you're okay with that, okay with him lifting you up and bringing you to bed, pinning you in place, murmuring something soft that you don't catch.

You stay like that for the rest of the afternoon, soft and still. Hoseok must fall asleep at some point and maybe you do too, but when you look through the glass the outside is still the long black-blue stretch of dusk that it always is. You turn and your nose brushes over Hoseok's, and he looks so beautiful your heart stutters for a terrifying moment.

It's day three hundred and.. something. You're not sure anymore, stopped counting a while ago. Find that maybe you don't need to, not anymore.

(Once you'd run away from your planet, snuck onto a space craft and didn't look back until you realized how lonely it was out there.

And now-- now... Now you've realized that maybe it's not as lonely as you thought. That maybe home was never a place at all.)

a/n: y/n, sitting on the pilot seat of hoseok’s space craft: kowalski, analysis. hoseok: what

#btsghostie #hoseok x reader #bts x reader #bts fanfiction #bts hoseok #alien bts #alien hoseok #alien au #bts fluff #bts #bangtan #bts imagines #bts scenarios #bts angst #lmao no #hoseok fluff #hoseok drabble #hoseok scenario

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1-800-fiction · 3 years

Text

Do You Love Me?

Fandom: Marvel Request: Hey, Could you do steve/reader one where they have a major fight (steve thinks reader cheated on him) and some ugly words were said by steve, she leaves their apartment and gets drunk in the rain. SHe comes back home and drunk talks to steve thinking he is someone else saying how much she loves steve and all. The next day they patch up with tons of fluff! Smut if possible!!! Thanks in advance! Word Count: 2466 Warnings: Smuttyness ahead

Collab with: @not-moose-one-shots

————————————————————————————————-

You gave a thumbs up to Natasha as she walked to the dance floor with an unknown man. “Good for her” Wanda said jealousy.

You smiled right at her “Awe don’t worry Wandie. Some piece of meat will be all over you in no time.”

She snorted. “One, its Wanda. Second, I think the one who’s getting any meat is you” She said in her thick Russian accent.

It was your turn to snort. “Please, Steve has been quite distant lately.” You started to realize exactly how distance and a small pain in your heart appeared.

Had you done something to piss him off?

“Drink up” Wanda said, handing you a glass of whatever it was she ordered. What the hell, you thought and drank all of it. The smooth liquid setting your throat on fire.

You scrunch up your face in disgust. “What the hell what that” You said, trying not to choke.

“Tequila” She replied. Oh crap, you thought. Tequila was the one drink you stayed away from. You could take two shots of it and be drunk. You didn’t want to be in a drunk mindset right now.

She handed another over. “No thanks” You decline, pushing it away.

“More for me” She announced before downing it down. “Wow” She gasped. “That’s strong” She laughed.

“Okay you are officially cut off” You yelled, over the pumping music.

“No way! This party is just getting started” Nat came from behind us.

“Where’s your boy toy?” You mock.

“Oh ha ha” She said not so amused. “You guys need to live! We spend our whole time fighting, so let loose for a while” Nat announced.

“There is always an enemy planning to strike” you said seriously.

“Not tonight” She said before grabbing Wanda and you away from the bar and into the crowded sweaty bodies. Your brain slightly buzzed from the alcohol, you don’t hesitate when someone starts to dance with you. Wanda and Nat cheer when they see you. Although you were in a relationship, Wanda and Nat would always have your back no matter what if you got too drunk and touchy feely on another man.

You knew you were in control, just dancing with a random dude from a club.

After a few songs you had danced with more than 5 guys. They were going too far. You were only there to dance. You finally found a guy to dance with who barely touched you and you were fine. Nat and Wanda somehow floated away into the abyss of the crowd. After a while you began to get tired. You walked away, slithering in between bodies to find your two best friends.

Instead of spotting Natasha grinding against any piece of flesh, your eyes locked onto another familiar face. Your loving boyfriend, the very Captain America himself. You both stood still, eyes locked. Pain and betrayal filled his eyes with hints of anger and sorrow. You realize that he saw you dancing with another man and was probably jealous so you go to run after him to explain but he is quicker than you realize.

Suddenly someone grabs your arm and pulls you away from your path. “Hey!” You yell. Your eyes focus on Nat’s wide grin. You scrunch your nose up and she pouts. “Steve is here. I need to go find him” You yell over the music. She nods and loosens her grip. You go back on your mission to find him. Your hands reach for the door and push it open, the cool, crisp coldness of the night hit you like a train. Your hands quickly reach around your body.

“Steve!” You yell into the darkness. You scoff, knowing he left you here and didn’t bother giving you a ride. Maybe it’s part of the reason he’s been distant. You are too buzzed to think much of it so you just call a cab and go home to your shared apartment with him.

——

The taxi door slams as you finish getting out. Your feet take you to the apartment complex and your hands push the door open. Home was on the fifth floor and the elevator was going through maintenance checks. That only frustrates you more. Your feet ached in the 5 inch blood red heels. You started to climb the stairs to find your boyfriend. Once you reached the first floor you leaned against the wall and took the pretty but painful shoes.

5B comes into view and you sigh once reaching it. Hands reach for the doorknob, knowing you didn’t have any keys and Steve would always leave it unlocked when he was home. When it started to twist all the way you were relieved and pushed the door open to see a glance of Steve. “Steve?” You call out. The shoes drop to the floor by the front door as you close it behind you.

“What’s wrong baby” You question, referring to the look he gave you back at the club. He turns around wearing a blank expression. You can’t read him, he’s full of emotions.

“Why are you the way that you are? I hate so much about the things you chose to be.” He says with no emotion and it hit you to the core.

“Excuse me, what the hell is that supposed to mean?” You say with anger, your buzz slipping away.

“You go out with other guys while here I am at home or work and you, just-” He says before slamming his fist down on the bench.

“Are you calling me a whore?” You practically screech.

“I thought you loved me, Y/N, and then I hear rumors of you with other guys and I caught you red-handed tonight. I don’t know if this can work” He says, not making eye contact at you.

“So you think I’m sleeping around while in a relationship with you? I love you Steve! Why would I do that? You love me, I thought we trusted each other!” Tears well up in your eyes.

“I don’t trust you anymore Y/N! How can I?” It hurt when he said that. He thought you were cheating. All you would do is hang out and catch up with male friends and sometimes dance with some at clubs to please Nat but you never meant to hurt him.

“Do you love me?” You ask knowing the answer could kill you.

He turned away from you with his head hanging low. “I don’t know” He whispers into the deadly silent room. It all happened so fast, you ran out and he didn’t follow. Your feet ached when you ran down the stairs but you didn’t care, you just had to get out. Once you were outside you ran. Nowhere in mind, you just went wherever you felt like. It started to rain slightly before it got heavier the more you ran.

—–

You didn’t know what time it was. You didn’t have your phone or anything, just a nearly empty bottle. You took a swig of the sour drink. You gasped but swallowed the burning sensation of the pure vodka. You were wasted, in the rain, barefoot, at god knows what hour.

“Oh crap” you hear mumbled from behind you.

“Just because I’m drunk doesn’t mean I can’t fight you” You slur at the handsome stranger who now sat himself beside you. “Well okay then” You say before taking another sip. But before the smooth liquid could travel to your lips it was snatched off you.

“I think you’ve had too much” He says.

“Hey! That’s mine!” You lean over his body to grasp at it. “You asshole” You grumble. “First my boyfriend now you” You grumble.

He looked at you confused. “You don’t know me?” He says.

“Duh” you say, look up to the sky, face greeted by the rain. Tears fell out from the sides of your eyes, mixing with the rain.

“He thinks I cheated on him and he said he doesn’t know if he still loves me” You say really fast.

“Did you?” He questions followed by a scoff from you.

“No” You answer, pain evident in your voice.

“Let’s get you home” The kind stranger orders. He helps you up and you began to walk home.

—–

The sun seeps through the thin curtains of your room, almost blinding you. You lift your head up to see Steve absent. Your head was pounding like a drum and so did your heart.

You groaned as you tried to sit up. You knew this was going to be a hell of a day. A hangover and trying to figure out your relationship? If Steve even came home to talk about that relationship. Was there still a relationship?

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” Steve’s voice was far too loud for the pounding going on in your head.

You groaned and curled back up on the bed, burrowing under the covers, “Too bright. Too loud,” you complained.

“Remember anything about last night?” he asked.

You sighed, “You accused me of cheating. I went out and drank. Some guy brought me home. You probably think I slept with him too.”

“You do,” he said, “On a regular basis.”

You flipped yourself over and stared at him, “Seriously, Steve? You really think I’m cheating on you?”

Steve smiled and you couldn’t figure out what was so funny, “Sweetheart, I brought you home.”

“What?”

He chuckled, “I was the one who found you drunk. I was the one you spilled your guts to. I was the one who brought you home.”

You were trying to piece together the previous night. You remembered a brief conversation with a handsome stranger. Could that really have been Steve? And spilling your guts? You didn’t remember talking much.

“What did I say?” you asked softly.

“You said you didn’t cheat and that you hated that I thought that. You said you felt like we had drifted and it upset you to think that I didn’t want you anymore,” he said, looking down, “And I felt terrible for thinking that you were cheating. I’m so sorry.”

You sighed and moved so your head was on his knee, “I just want you to love me, Steve,” you said.

He ran his fingers through your hair, “I do love you. We need to work on this. Together,” he said, “Just you and me.”

You nodded, “Together.”

~~~

Steve helped you with your hangover before anything really deep could happen. And when you woke up from your second round of sleeping, he was right there with his arms around you, “I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?” you asked.

“Not listening to you or believing you. I should have talked to you. I should have had a conversation instead of just jumping to conclusions.”

“I’m sorry too, Steve,” you said, “For being spiteful and not talking to you either. I should have come to you. I should have talked to you instead of going out like I did. We’re both in this.”

He nodded and kissed you, “I’ve missed this. I’ve missed us.”

“Then let’s find us again,” you said.

Steve put his hand behind your head and brought his lips to your passionately, “I think that sounds perfect.”

“Steve?” you whispered his name against his lips.

“Yeah, Baby?”

“Need you.”

“What do you need, Sweetheart?” he asked.

“Need you to make love to me,” you said, “Please, Steve.”

“Oh, Y/N, you never have to beg me for that,” he said.

You kissed him again, moving your hands down his chest to pull on the t-shirt he was wearing.

Steve sat up and finished pulling his shirt over his head, tossing it to the side before pulling you to a sitting position as well. He gently pulled your shirt up and over your head too, “I love you,” he said, kissing down to your neck, unclasping your bra.

“I love you too, Steve,” you sighed at the feeling of his lips on your skin.

Steve moved so that his back was against the headboard, “Come here, Sweetheart,” he said gently.

You moved to sit on his lap, facing him. His hands were everywhere, touching, feeling, leaving hot sparks in their path.

Somehow the two of you managed to get both of your pants and underwear off without falling over or off the bed. Feeling your completely bare bodies against each other was enough to bring back the feelings of love.

You could feel how hard Steve already was between your legs and it just made you wetter to think about it.

“I’m sorry, Steve,” you said, putting your forehead against his, “I don’t want you to ever think I would sleep with someone else.”

“I know you love me,” he said, “I’m sorry I haven’t been there.”

You moved slightly, feeling him slide between your slick folds, “We have to get back to where we were.”

“We will, Sweetheart,” he said, barely lifting his hips, but it was enough for you to feel him and make you moan.

“Please, Steve,” you rubbed yourself against him.

“I’ve got you, Baby,” he said, gently lifting you to line himself up at your entrance, “You ready?”

You nodded, “So ready.”

Steve lowered you onto him slowly, both of you moaning as he stretched you, “You feel so good, Baby.”

You moaned, feeling so full of him, “Steve,” you breathed.

“That’s my girl,” he said, not moving so you could get used to his side.

You experimentally started to raise and lower yourself on him, using his shoulders for leverage.

Steve hissed, “There you go.”

You started moving faster, feeling him slide in and almost out of you, “Steve,” you moaned his name again.

Steve put his hands on your hips, “There you go, Baby. Just like that,” he helped you raise and lower, “Perfect. You’re perfect.”

“I only want you,” you said, starting to go even faster.

“And I only want you,” he said, thrusting to meet you, “You’re my girl. I love you,” he said.

“I love you,” you panted.

Steve looked at you, as the two of you moved together, “Wanna feel you,” he said, “I know you’re close.”

You nodded furiously, “So close.”

Steve started thrusting up faster, “Come on, Baby.”

You felt that familiar feeling inside. You knew your orgasm was fast approaching. You could barely move yourself, Steve was doing all the work at this point, “Steve!” you cried out, feeling your orgasm take over your body.

“That’s it, Baby,” Steve encouraged. It only took a few more thrusts for him to find his release as well, moaning out your name.

You were both panting as you came down from your highs, “You’re the only one I want, Steve.”

He nodded, “I know, Baby. And you’re the only one I want.”

#marvel #mcu #steve rogers #steve x reader #smut #fluff #angst

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

Note

remember when devin grayson wrote about green arrow flirting with teenager dick grayson and then bruce and dick have an incestuous relationship............................

Listen, I have no idea what this ask says, I just see a string of random letters followed by dot dot dot.

In completely unrelated matters, the only dynamic between Dick and Ollie I abide by is one where the nicest thing Dick’s ever said to Ollie is something like “hey why does your face look like you killed a squirrel and glued it to your chin, is that what you were going for or do people just not like you and so nobody ever told you til now that that’s what it looks like.”

And even there, that’s still just the best Dick could manage (or was willing to even aim for) after Bruce gave Dick a totally and one hundred percent genuine and sincere Talking To about how he needed to be more polite to Ollie. Cuz the way I envision it, all that’s after Dick initially opened with something like, idk, “hey wanna hear a funny joke, it goes “what do you call a known Errol Flynn fanboy who thinks putting on a domino mask when he fights crime with a bow and arrow like, magically makes his goatee invisible? A dumbass who doesn’t get how secret identities work, that’s what. Get it, its you, you’re the joke.”

LOL for the record, I don’t actually hate Ollie and have no really strong opinions on him one way or another, it usually just depends on how he’s being written in whatever story or issue I’m reading with him. Its just canon that Ollie is like, one of the few people that Dick just openly can not stand, pretty much, with this stretching back far enough that personally, I like to headcanon it goes all the way back to even before Ollie took Roy in and has absolutely nothing to do with Roy whatsoever.

Idk, its just really fucking funny to me to picture that like, for whatever reason, ten year old Dick Grayson decided upon meeting the Justice League that they were all awesome except for Oliver Queen. Dick doesn’t know why, he doesn’t care why, he just knows that like, “I do not care for that Oliver Queen guy, not one bit, and no, I am not open to constructive criticism on this matter, UGH BRUCE STOP TELLING ME I SHOULD AT LEAST TRY AND BE NICER TO HIM, I SAID HE WAS A BUTTFACE AND I MEANT IT, WHERE’S THE CONFUSION.”

Because see, while Ollie is not Actually The Worst, he IS one of the League heroes who is prideful and petty enough to like, absolutely take offense to someone hating his guts for no discernible reason, while considering this more than reason enough to hate their guts right back. Even if that particular someone happens to have both miles and years left to go before they hit either puberty or the top side of five feet tall, and thus in the meanwhile, Ollie must literally lower himself in every sense of the word in order to return fire at his pint-sized and prepubescent critic.

Like, if Dick for whatever reason decided he just doesn’t like Superman or the Flash and he’s not gonna and you can’t make him, then I mean, Clark or Barry or someone else along those lines would just be like, oh, okay, that’s fair I guess. No, its totally fine Bruce, the adorable little human incarnation of glitter, cotton candy and all things Cute and Precious and Wee that you just took in is allowed to hate me if he wants to, its absolutely *wheezing sob* not a big deal. I’m a big boy, I don’t need you to intercede on my behalf with him. Now if anyone needs me, I’ll be wallowing in my room for the next 84 years, trying to figure out if I was some kind of monstrous puppy-kicker in a previous lifetime and that’s why my fate here in this one is to be despised by a ten year old with the superpower of Absolute Preciousness. Its my punishment, clearly, for being just the worst kind of monster to ever exist, the only kind that could actually be hated by someone like your adorable little Fun-Sized sidekick of joy and sunshine and l-l-laughter......no, don’t look at me, I’m hideous! *bursts into tears and scurries away to hide from the light*

But see now, Ollie, on the other hand, like.....he’s not a monster but he’s not about to let even some paragon of preciousness go around painting him as one. Why the fuck does he spend so much money on publicists if he’s just gonna roll over belly-side up the first time one of the people bad-mouthing him just happens to be like, a toddler instead of the usual TMZ?

So Ollie’s not about to admit that he’s actually miffed and even a little bit wounded that this cherub who seems to like even most supervillains more than he likes Ollie, just like, can not seem to be in his presence longer than sixty seconds before drawing his weapons and stabbing Ollie with words that hurt, dammit, because he has feelings too, y’know, he spent a lot of money on pricey therapists figuring out that yes, those are feelings he’s feeling and he can even name some of them.....

Like, he’s not quite on board with actually ACKNOWLEDGING that hey this stings, and that he really just wants to know what the hell this kid’s deal is and why don’t you like me, tiny human, what did I ever even do to you??? But all of that is like......Advanced Level Therapy stuff that he hasn’t quite gotten around to finishing yet at this point in time. Like yeah he’s already dropped a mint on the A-list of the head-shrinking world by now, but apparently he was supposed to keep coming back or something like that, they all keep making a really big deal about that for some reason, and look, he’s been busy. So he really just hasn’t had the time to finish up the course on How To Make Peace With the Fact That Sometimes Tiny Humans Don’t Like Me Even Though I’m A Fucking Delight, Dammit.

But even if the why of this kid getting under his skin so much eludes him for the nonce, Ollie is perfectly clear on one thing: he doesn’t typically go around making enemies of the twelve and under set, but if you prick him, he doth in fact bleed, you little prick. So if this knee-high nightmare is gonna keep coming at me and trying to start shit, then I am more than willing to throw down, is basically Ollie’s take here.

“He wants to dance? Then c’mon, let’s do this thing. We can dance if he wants to. I’ve got the time,” Ollie says to himself and any other nearby Justice Leaguer who might be looking at him with that swiftly-becoming-familiar expression of mingled judgment, pity, exasperation and something a bit more ambiguous but which probably lands somewhere in the ballpark of “We honestly don’t know what to make of all of this but we’re all a little concerned This Is Not A Good Look, Bro. And also, we would like to formally request by way of this petition with all 200+ signatures of Leaguers and auxiliary members and support staff: please don’t escalate this into something where Batman might actually kill you, because that’s definitely not gonna make any of this less awkward for the rest of us, and uh....not to be indelicate here, but all those times we’ve all said things like no Ollie, we don’t think Bruce is a better fighter than you and we absolutely agree with you, you could totally maybe take him in a fair fight if you had your bow and arrows on you and he had the flu probably.....like. Umm. How to put this....Okay, soooooo....here’s the thing. There may, perhaps, ever so slightly be a possibility slash definite hardcore certainty that there were fib-like qualities to those conversations. A little bit. Oh hey, look at the time, we gotta run, there’s a fire somewhere, hopefully. Lol wait whoops did we say hopefully, that’s so weird like where did that even come from. We definitely meant to say probably. There’s a fire somewhere, probably."

But look, at the end of the day, the thing is, Headcanon Ollie is not like, proud of any of this, but he’s not unproud of it either. He is hashtag justified and he wouold appreciate some validation of that Ugly Truth, even if it might go against the grain and not ever exactly be a POPULAR opinion with the “please don’t tell the ten year old that nuh uh, his face looks like a hairy butthole, nobody wins there, that is not the victory you are looking for” crowd.

Honestly though, at this point Ollie’s list of Big Asks is quite small. Miniscule, even. All he wants, all he really really wants, is for someone, anyone, to join him in grasping the one essential corn kernel at the heart of this whole clusterfuck. The thing that nobody but Ollie seems to get and that Ollie’s pretty sure would be enough to allow him to die happily, if he could just manage to find one other person to sign on to the one single extremely obvious observation he keeps trying to point out to everyone, with a whole lot of nada to show for it:

Because see, the one thing about all of this that drives Ollie just absolutely up a wall, is that for some reason he can’t seem to get anyone to understand that like.....this whoooooole ridiculous mess, just like, even in terms of its very existence in the first place?

None of it is Ollie’s fault.

Dick started it!

Mere moments after frustratedly trying to convey this to Dinah for the umpteenth million bajillionth time:

“Okay, could you at least say something?” Ollie asked exasperatedly. “Anything? Seriously, I would take you counting to ten in Cantonese as an acceptable response at this point.”

“I’m just trying to decide which concerns me more,” Dinah said at last. Several epochs and the equivalent of the entire Jurassic Period later. But whatever, its not like Ollie was holding his breath at this point or anything. “The fact that you are genuinely trying to find and occupy the moral high ground in your feud with....a ten year old. Or that you actually think you’ve found it. That this is it, this is what that looks like. ‘The ten year old started it.’”

That was apparently all Dinah had to say. She fell silent again, and said silence lingered through a recreation of now the entire Cretaceous Period, before continuing into a revival of the whole Paleozoic Era from start to torturous finish.

“Well?” Ollie said with a patience that belied the urgency of the many pressing matters he had to attend to. Like the vanquishing of a ten year old archnemesis most foul.

Dinah just continued to frown pensively.

“Hang on, I’m still deciding.”

68 notes · View notes

lundiivith · 4 years

Text

(i can say i) did it all with love

more reposting stuff i posted months ago to ao3 on tumblr because... unfortunate situations. anyways

here’s a 7.5k words miraak oneshot backstory fic ft vahlok the jailor. read it on ao3 or under the cut!

warning for, uhm... mild/not-very-explicit gore, couple deaths (esp. of family members), eye trauma, fire, a cult, the works. one implication of boarding school-style child ab/use. yeah. not a happy fic

mid-aar; “loyal servant”.

The man held his midsection as tightly as humanly possible. Forced onto his knees by all-too-mortal injury, proud Miraak looked up, defiant in the face of destiny. In that momentf, Midaar was struck by familiarity; but to what, exactly, he didn’t know.

The wind howled as the sun rose. Or fell. Midaar wasn’t sure.

The snow under Miraak was red, as were his clothes. Liquids leaked from his wounds, not all of them blood -- like an ugly, pale acid that left burn-marks on his fingers. The man himself was shaking in agony, and yet, he still raised his shoulders and tried to move. He made a noise and persevered. He’d see this to the bitter end, Midaar knew. It was what his friend always did.

...He was a traitor. He was his friend no more.

(When had he stopped being the man Midaar had known all his life? When had Miraak stopped being the person Midaar had befriended; when had he instead been captured by greed, by an otherworldly spirit’s smoky promises? Had Midaar taken his eyes off him for too long, for just a moment--?)

“You know I expected better of you, Miraak.” Midaar’s voice was icy.

Miraak laughed, a gross wet chortle. “Of course you did.” He tried to laugh as he started coughing, and then he kept coughing. Miraak crawled further, maybe an inch. His free hand held onto the ground, carving the snow as he went; droplets of hot acid smoked as they hit snow. He raised his mask just a little bit and uncovered his mouth; Miraak then stared defiantly upwards, into the slits of Midaar’s mask, and retched blood onto his feet.

Midaar waited for him to finish. Once he did, he knelt and with almost no resistance grabbed the back of Miraak’s head, and he smashed it into the ground once, twice, three times, careful not to let his body shake. Midaar then kept Miraak’s face pressed against the ground, teeth against the cold, and spoke.

“Looking back, it’s obvious. You were always too independent. Too bright, too clever for your own good. You were naïve, Miraak, to think you could best the dragons.”

Miraak grunted something against the snow. He was shivering, burning. Crashing.

“What was that?”

The traitor twisted his head, freeing his lips. “I bested twenty.”

Midaar froze for a moment, horrified, iracund, disgusted, and then replied, “And look where you are now. Dead by the hands of a man.” His chest felt empty. “A man who used to be your friend, Miraak,” he whispered (was he pleading?). “Why did you do this?”

Miraak’s breaths were more and more shallow. He didn’t look at Midaar. “Does it matter?”

“Not to our lords, no.” But you can tell me anyways.

“Then I’ll take it to the grave.” Miraak smiled, wicked and bitter and angry and small. Bloody vomit trailed from his mouth, tears (of pain?) stained by ice and mud. “But I can tell you one name,” he then added. “Kᴀʜᴠᴏᴢᴇɪɴ.”

“...Who?” Midaar blinked, taken aback.

Miraak grinned wider. “Ask the dragons.”

And then Miraak Shouted,

F̬U͍̞̬̰͉̞͖S̜̻ ͙̩̣̱͉̱RO͍ D̪̗̩A͔̙̳̗͍̭̠Ḫ̬̹͈ͅ!̠̺̭͍

The world, for lack of a better world, shook.

A void of ink appeared around Miraak; Midaar only realized he’d fallen once the ringing in his ears began. He could feel a trail of -- blood? -- from his ear. He watched as the ink swallowed Miraak. He thrashed, surprised, and Midaar saw it all, saw him disappear, ( “MIRAAK!” ), saw him gone. He threw out his hand, and Miraak struggled to catch it and failed, his eyes suddenly huge and dark and dark and dark and Midaar’s ears kept ringing --

-- and as Midaar watched, the continent broke.

The wave, the huge dark wave of sea-salt and foam was the last thing the dragon priest saw that day.

The boy waiting on the stairs was pretty excited about joining the ranks of the Dragon Priests, all things considered.

He glanced back at the big door and then decided to wait for the Priest who’d welcomed him to come back. The boy didn’t know how old the ma was, but he was a grown-up and he was a Priest and he’d said his name was Vo-something maybe and that he should wait outside until he came back and the boy’s new name was called and then the door had closed and dawn was coming and he’d been waiting for hours, now, and his legs were getting kind of tired.

He watched the people around Labyrinthian. There were also a few dragons, but the boy didn’t find himself caring about them too much. Oh, sure, they were huge and good and stuff, and they sure seemed to be watching over the people wisely and stuff, but the novelty had worn out hours ago and the boy liked people, anyways. Simple dumb people. He found them funny, and fascinating, going around places doing everyday stuff. There was a Dragon Priest talking to a few workers. One of them was a nervous woman who kept shuffling from one foot to the other. The Dragon priest then said something to the nervous worker, and she jumped in place and stared wide-eyed at the maybe Dragon Priest and then began glowing, like straight-up glowing and smiled real wide and gave the priest a short bow and left really fast. The boy smiled. The priest then talked to the other two a bit more, and the boy looked away.

He kept watching as the sun rose, light bouncing off the snow, and he was definitely not scared when a big dragon walked close enough to the entrance to make the entire stone platform shake with his weight. He remembered something his father had told him once, about big things and dragons maybe, and then he remembered that he wouldn’t see his father for a really long time and he felt a little sad. He didn’t know why, though, because being a Dragon Priest was the best thing you could aspire to be, and you got to talk directly to the dragons and change things about Skyrim if they listened to you, and it was much better than the farm and he wouldn’t have to share everything with five siblings.

His thought process was interrupted when he saw a small child by themself.

“Hi,” he told the younger kid. They were maybe four, so definitely younger than the boy, who was eight and three months and five days. “What’s your name? I’m, uh,” and then he stopped because he realized he’d abandoned his old name and he didn’t have a new one yet.

The kid turned around. Their eyes widened for a second when they found him, but they shook their head and stood up straighter. “Hel-lo,” they said, very serious. Little kids usually were annoying, the boy thought, but maybe this one wouldn’t be as bad.

“What’s your name?” he asked, curious.

“...don’t have one.” They seemed… embarrassed. “Had an old one. It was dumb.”

“Are you here to be a priest?”

“...yeah.”

“Me too.” The boy thought for a moment. “Maybe we’ll get matching names. Since we were in-duc-ted on the same day.”

The kid’s eyes filled with tears, suddenly. “No!” they yelled. The boy leaned backwards, a little surprised. They stomped and then started flailing their arms, angry. They yelled for a bit, before shouting out, “I don’t wanna share my name!!”

“Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up!!” The boy covered his ears as the kid started wailing. He groaned. Nevermind on them not being annoying! He hated little kids sometimes.

He remembered his baby brother Eluf’s screaming when he wasn’t allowed to pet the chickens. Then the boy remembered he wouldn’t see Eluf for a while and felt… sad. He froze for a moment and didn’t realize he’d dropped his hands until the kid had tugged on one of them.

“Why are you sad?” the kid asked, blunt.

“...it’s nothing.” He raised his shoulders, defensive, but the kid just tugged on his arm again. And then again. The boy huffed. “...I miss my little brother.”

“Oh.” The kid thought for a moment. “Was he nice?”

“He was. He liked to hug everyone. Even the chickens, but he scared them, because he hugged them too tight, and he didn’t know he was scaring them.” There was a ton of other stuff to say about Eluf, but the boy right now could only remember his little brother skinning his knee on the dirt path to the coops while chasing a very shy hen, crying like little waterfalls from his eyes.

The kid stared at him for a moment. “How did he not know?”

“He was a little kid. He didn’t know better.”

The kid then started thinking. And they thought loudly, humming out-loud. “Can grown-ups don’t know, too?”

“I don’t know. I guess?”

“Oh.” They paused. “Thank-you.”

“...It’s no problem.”

A little bit afterwards, the doors opened -- and their new lives began.

Midaar awoke slowly, unsure.

The first thing he saw was a high stone ceiling. The second thing Midaar saw after Miraak’s death was a healer.

(Miraak’s death. Miraak’s death. Miraak was gone.)

He blinked slowly, trying to make sense of the blurry shape by his side.

“Sleep, my lord,” they whispered. They touched his forehead for a moment (was he running a fever? He didn’t feel hot) and then, seemingly content, tucked Midaar further into bed.

“What day is it?”

“It’s been three days since your duel with… him,” the healer looked behind themself, alert, then slowly returned their gaze to him. “You were lost for a day. A wave dragged you onto the beach on the second day, my lord Jailor. You were unconscious and had a fever, in addition to multiple bruises and graver wounds.”

“Solstheim. The land…”

“It broke,” the healer interrupted him. “Solstheim is… an island, now. It drifted northeast from the mainland, my lord.”

“...I see.” A blurry thought made its way through Midaar’s mind. “...Why are you calling me your lord?”

“You’ve been made governor of the island for the time being, my lord.” The phrase had been blunt, simple. A punch to the gut. Midaar’s chest went hollow.

“Oh.”

He turned around and fell back asleep.

Years earlier, one late afternoon, Midaar found him staring off into the distance.

His friend looked thoughtful. He hadn’t even noticed him; Midaar had an opening. Nice. He looked at him for a moment, hesitated perhaps? -- and then punched his shoulder hard enough to bruise.

“FUCK!,” was his victim’s first last words, followed by “OW! What is WRONG with you, Mɪᴅᴀᴀʀ?!”

“Payback, you twerp.” Midaar ruffled his hair and grinned at his scowl. “What are you thinking about, Miraak?”

Miraak huffed, rubbing his wounded shoulder. “...Many things,” he said.

“You can tell me.” Midaar sat down on the cold ground and patted the snow right beside him. He raised a quizzical eyebrow towards Miraak from behind his brand-new mask. Miraak sighed and sat down. He stared away from Midaar, silent, head tilted like the few birds that came to Solstheim in the summer.

“Come on, Miraak. I’m not gonna become a snitch just because I’m a priest now.”

“...it’s not like I think you’ll tell on me,” Miraak began, doubtful. “And it’s not like it’s a bad thing.”

Miraak was silent for a moment.

“One day, I will rule this land.”

“Huh?”

“When I finish my training, I will be part of the High Council of Dragon Priests.”

Miraak always had replaced his want-to’s with will’s. “You’re confident in this, then.” At Miraak’s unimpressed glance, Midaar rolled his eyes. “That’s good, Miraak. You’d be a great councilor.”

“You say that because I’m your friend,” Miraak noted dryly. “But it’s no problem. You will be a councilor, too.”

“What?”

“You’re a great leader, Mɪᴅᴀᴀʀ, and you excel at worshipping our ᴊᴜɴ. You might even be heard by them, one day.” Was it just him, or were there hints of bitterness in his voice? Of anger? Did he think he wasn’t worthy of being heard by the dragons one day, when he’d already surpassed Midaar in all his studies of the thu’um? No.

“Miraak. Listen to me.” Midaar grabbed him by the shoulders and physically turned Miraak around, and Miraak yelped. Midaar pointed at Miraak’s chest. “You,” he told him, “will be heard by the dragons more Loudly than I ever will, and this is a promise.”

Miraak’s eyes widened as he heard Midaar’s words, but then his face fell. He looked away from Midaar, clearly angry. He glanced once more towards Midaar and then his face softened, maybe in acceptance. Midaar let go of him.

“Thank you,” Miraak said. His voice was empty, his words a mere courtesy. Had he said something wrong?

“You’re welcome,” Midaar replied, and he looked back towards the sunset.

They both stayed like that for a moment, watching the sun go down at the end of a day that had started fast and lasted long, and Midaar thought not of ink-black or mold-green but of red, red, red, like the blood that ran along his veins, if not Miraak’s too.

The dusk was cloudless. No storm came that night, nor the next, nor storm for years to come. But one day it would come, and it would water some interesting seeds.

The next morning after he woke up, when Midaar was well enough to stand, the dragons came.

The Priest was called outside early. He was still recovering from the fight, sleeping far too much and being only woken up for things of extreme importance -- such as this. He’d gone outside in the snow barefoot but masked, wearing the pants and loose shirt he’d slept in and a fur cloak, jaw dropped to the floor at the dov that perched on the roof and ground before him.

Midaar recognised most of them. There were many dragons he’d either seen around or had spoken to a few times; Sahrotaar, Krosulhah, Relonikiv, Kruziikrel. Most surprisingly of all, however, was that they were led by the dragon Paarthurnax, the Dovah-jun Alduin’s lieutenant, who Midaar had only seen once in brief passing. He started… he didn’t know if he was shivering from cold or shaking from awe, but it was likely both. The sky was a light blue, and Paarthurnax, perched on top of the temple, was staring at him.

“Mɪʀᴀᴀᴋ Dɪʟᴏɴ,” the gray dragon began. Miraak is dead. It wasn’t a question.

“He has… disappeared. It is likely he is dead,” Midaar explained.

“That is enough. As long as you are ready to kill him again, if he comes back.” Paarthurnax stood perfectly still, his head tilted just slightly to the side, and Midaar realised.

He nodded slowly, thoughtful. “Yes, my lord.”

“But Solstheim is an island, now,” Paarthurnax continued. “And it is too small for ᴅᴏᴠ to reside comfortably in. Nᴜ ᴍᴜ ꜰᴇɴ sᴘᴀᴀɴ ɴɪɪ.” Yet we have to protect it. “So we have decided that that shall be your reward for slaying Mɪʀᴀᴀᴋ.”

Midaar went still under the morning sunlight and broke eye contact, just for a second, to nervously glance away. He looked back at Alduin’s lieutenant. “What shall?”

“You will ʀᴇʟ over Solstheim,” Paarthurnax told him. Reign. “You will ward ꜰɪɴ Lᴇɪɴ from his influence.” The world. “And you will also wield a new name, a new title; one befitting your new position.”

“I am profoundly honored, my lord.” He was. (He wasn’t).

“From now on,” Paarthurnax continued, perched above the Solstheim temple, his face tired and cold and hard, “you will be known as Vᴀʜʟᴏᴋ, and you will guard the island of Solstheim.”

Midaar… Vahlok fell to one knee. “I am so profoundly honored,” he begun, and then he started coughing.

Saltwater and blood fell from his mouth as the dragons watched, impassively, and he felt somehow so incredibly desperate to escape this coughing fit he started worrying this was the proverbial straw and the world’s back was about to be broken. He closed his eyes, hoping against everything the dragons would not see this as weakness.

When he was finally able to open his eyes, he saw the consequences of his actions; disgusted, definitely, all of the dov gathered had flown away, their wings like thunder on the too-far blue horizon. All of the dov but one.

Paarthurnax stood, an undeniable shape the color of envy, before Vahlok.

Vahlok looked up, worshipful but hesitant. “My lord Paarthurnax,” he began. He paused for a moment, to think. Should he heed his last words? He was a traitor, of course, but he was Midaar’s friend. He was clever, and inquisitive, and hungry for knowledge in a way Vahlok had never seen anywhere besides him -- and was yet strangely familiar. He was… He’d been. His friend was dead, he reminded himself, whether or not his heart kept beating. And that helped rationalize his actions, at the moment and perhaps later, because he was honoring his dead friend’s memory, and that was something no one could take away from the mortal.

“...Yes,” Paarthurnax said, clearly confused about the long pause after Vahlok’s words.

“My lord Paarthurnax, I… I wish to ask for something.”

“Have we not given you enough?” Paarthurnax huffed through his nose, clearly annoyed, but his sentence had no bite. Vahlok decided not to question his luck.

“Of course you have, my lord. I just wished to know of a dragon. To… congratulate him, or at least speak to him.” Before Paarthurnax’s watchful eyes, Vahlok shrunk a bit. “Miraak mentioned him with hatred,” Vahlok added, and Paarthurnax snapped to attention.

“Vᴏᴛʜ ɴɪ…?” Paarthurnax stopped there. Midaar waited, to see if he’d continue, and then spoke.

“Yes, my lord. And -- and I just wished to perhaps see him. To see what role he might have played, perhaps… to warn other priests not to fall into the same traps as Miraak did.” He was only half lying; as he spoke, those became his intentions, his ambitions, and while he didn’t forget Miraak’s words, he wanted with all his heart to believe he didn’t care about them.

“...Wᴏ?”

“The dragon Kahvozein, my lord.”

The frills and spikes that dotted Paarthurnax’s face and ran along his spine bristled for a moment. “...Kᴀʜᴠᴏᴢᴇɪɴ,” he stated, thoughtful. “I… have not seen him in a long time.” He shook his head, and the shaking went as a shiver down his back and to the tip of his tail. Paarthurnax then lowered his head, staring right into Vahlok’s eye. “You cannot see him.”

Vahlok took a step back, then another. “My lord,” he said, simply.

“If he has…” Paarthurnax began, and then sighed. “Rᴏ ʟᴀᴀɴ Aʟᴅᴜɪɴ ᴡᴀʜ ᴏ��ᴀɴ ʜɪ ᴀᴀᴢ, ᴀʜʀᴋ ʜɪ ʀᴏ ɴɪ ʟᴀᴀɴ ᴅᴀᴀʀ. Jᴏᴏʀ sᴀʜʟᴏ -- ꜰᴏᴅ-ᴅʀᴇʜ ɴɪ ʟᴀᴀɴ ᴍᴜ...*"

Vahlok looked at the dragon. Slowly, the realization sunk in that he would not be allowed to find answers, that his request would be forever denied. That he would not be able to prevent his greatest failure. That he would not be able to mourn his brother. His face felt foreign all of a sudden, his bones distancing themselves from his nerves. A perfect poker face crept onto his features. Midaar looked away for a moment, then looked back into the dragon’s eyes, hardened by resolve.

“Of course, my lord,” he found his lips saying, independant. “Forget I ever asked.”

Paarthurnax paused for a moment, then looked at Midaar, his face tired and cold and hard, and nodded once before leaving -- with the beat of his wings like a punch to the gut.

Midaar turned around, and remembered, offhandedly, that the healer had told him the next ship towards the mainland would be lifting its anchors tonight. He wondered… he’d been masked for so long. Had the metal blinded his mind, or had it only changed his face?

“On three,” Miraak told him, dead serious. Midaar stared at him in sheer disbelief, but breathed in deeply and prepared for Miraak’s ridiculous request. “One, two…”

“You two, stop immediately.”

Midaar froze.

He slowly, slowly turned his head around, never letting go of Miraak’s shirt’s collar. He lowered his fist, and missed Miraak stealing a glance at how it shook.

At the door’s frame stood the priest Geinmaar, his mask a cruel caricature of a grimace. His shoulders were tense, and his hands were balled up into tight-knuckled fists. Midaar flinched.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing, sir,” he said, at the same time as Miraak replied, “Training, sir.”

“Training?” Geinmaar asked, dryly. He didn’t wait for an answer before oh-so-slowly walking over to the two. Midaar’s hands shook. “What kind of training begins half past midnight?”

“Urgent training, sir,” and Midaar looked at Miraak, eyes wide. What a bold-faced lie.

“I don’t believe you, Miraak.” Geinmaar crossed his arms behind his back and leaned over him. Midaar tried to hold his breath, but it went by far too fast.

“See, sir, Mɪᴅᴀᴀʀ had slacked earlier today.” Midaar gaped openly at Miraak. The little-- “And I graciously offered to help him. However, he didn’t relate the information until just recently, and we’ll be tested on our hand-to-hand combat abilities soon, so it was urgent.”

“I see.” A wicked gleam shone through the older man’s eye. “But,” he added, “if that is the case -- then why are you offering no resistance?”

“Uh,” Miraak stuttered, his brain visibly trailing off. Midaar glared at him.

“Sir, if I may,” Midaar told Geinmaar, voice trembling as he went, “Miraak had told me he was afraid of being unable to stay conscious after being punched. To the extent of nightmares, sir.”

“...Really,” Geinmaar said. His voice was distorted by his mask’s metallic shape, echoing oddly into something far more threatening than a mere human voice. Midaar hated it.

“Really, sir,” Miraak answered, smoothly continuing his performance.

“...Well. If that is all.” The priest tilted his chin up, disdainful. “But if another noise complaint comes my way, you’ll both be in very serious trouble.”

The dragon priest then turned around and left the room.

Midaar sighed with relief. “By the Lord Alduin,” he whispered, “that was close.” And he shook his head. “Why are you even asking me to punch you?”

“To prove a point to you, obviously, since you don’t trust any pain I may inflict on myself anymore.” Miraak sighed. “Just do it.”

The resounding punch echoed on the stone walls. Midaar made a noise, head flooding with possibilities -- would Geinmaar come back? Would he hit them? Shit.

“Mɪᴅᴀᴀʀ,” he heard, and then a single hard shake of the shoulders. He focused. Before him was Miraak, still held by the neck of his shirt, nose bleeding from the hit -- and before Midaar’s very eyes, the blood stopped flowing barely seconds after beginning to gush.

“...Oh,” Midaar said.

Miraak wiped his face. “As I was telling you,” he continued, and then he paused to pull away from Midaar’s grasp. “As I was telling you,” he repeated, “I’m stronger, and heal faster…”

Vahlok’s footsteps on the echoing chamber were nearly silent. The high stone ceilings, fit for a dragon, held for him the same meaning as a night devoid of stars. He hurried up. The cold air felt strange on his face; it had been far too long since he’d been maskless outside of his own chambers.

When he finally finished crossing the grandiose hallway, the last one in a series of tunnels best left unremarked upon, he found himself before an arch. A curtain was draped over said archway, a thick piece of purple cloth Vahlok quickly pushed away. On the other side -- and he remained on this side of the archway, only looking -- on the other side was a room Vahlok had never seen before. Decorated with more of these thick purple curtains -- all hanging from the ceiling, tall as the mountains -- and entirely lit by candlefire -- including a few dangerously close to the cloth --, a stage stood in the middle of a room, and on it a slab of rock like a table. One side of the room had another platform, higher than the one in the middle, and he couldn’t help but note it seemed the right size for a dragon to lay upon.

He was wondering whether to continue or to stay where he was when, suddenly, a few of the curtains were pulled aside. Chatter filled his ears. Dozens of men and women, all in robes and hoods, made their way around the stage. Their footsteps echoed against the stone floor. Vahlok stood still, as silent as he could, and closed the curtain nearly all the way. Only a sliver of an opening remained, mostly so he could see. He held his breath.

A thunderous noise. Vahlok froze in place, unable to move even if he’d wanted to, before the very sight: a gigantic purple dragon, with wings spotted white, had appeared from behind one of the curtains. The dragon settled on top of the taller platform and languidly raised his head. Soon, a hooded mortal scurried across the multitude, holding in their wobbly arms a shaky bronze tray full of what looked like enormous chops of raw meat. They climbed onto the smaller, central platform and placed it upon the larger platform, then bowed deeply and stood in place, shaking. The dragon inspected the tray with one compound eye. The mortal shivered. The dragon then, simple as the act of breathing, stretched forwards just enough to bite onto the mortal, grabbing their body tightly with his teeth, before launching them upwards -- and as gravity forced the body onto a downwards momentum, the dragon opened his maw to rip the body messily in half. Blood rained across the people around them. Vahlok watched, silent, as they cheered the dragon on, screaming in joy as their robes were covered by blood.

After the screaming lulled to an end, one of the curtains was pulled. A dragon priest appeared from behind it, followed by three people. Vahlok didn’t recognize her, at least not at a distance. Out of three people behind her, two were wearing armor and hoods, and were dragging the third across the floor in chains. The multitude parted like an impossible sea as the woman walked up the steps to the central stage, followed by the two ...guards? and their prisoner, the only one not wearing a hood. His head bumped on the steps. Vahlok could gleam from his position that he was a man with longish auburn hair, his face streaked with warpaint, but not much else. The man was led to the stage and then thrown on the table in the middle. He fell unconscious. The Dragon Priest dismissed the guards with a gesture, and they hurried down into the multitude as she began circling the chained prisoner.

There was a gleam of metal. Vahlok watched as the Priest produced a sharp, curved bronze knife, somewhat resembling a dragon’s tooth, from the folds of her clothes. She stopped before the dragon and gave a deep bow, placing the hand that held the dagger behind her back.

“Kahvozein, my lord,” she said. “I bring to you this sacrifice, only just captured -- a rebel against the glorious regime.”

The dragon chuckled, a deep laugh that seemed to shake the very foundations of the chamber. “A traitor, you say?” he said, his teeth bared in an approximation of a smile. “Do you all ʜᴏɴ these words?”

The audience broke into a hellish sort of noise, fueled by pure hatred. Mere inches behind one, Vahlok stifled his breathing, trying his damndest to not be caught. His mind had crawled to a stop at about a thousand miles an hour in mid-flight. The multitude screamed vile words towards the rebel, spit out their darkest curses and cursed him down to his earliest ancestor as the man regained bleary consciousness. The rebel realized what his situation was all of a sudden and began struggling against his bindings. Vahlok watched, mesmerized, as the Dragon Priest walked up to his face and gave him a resounding slap that echoed through the room; the man visibly gave up on freedom as soon as his cheek hit the table. He whimpered.

The Priest placed her hand on the man’s chest. “Well, well, well,” she said, “weren’t you a hunter before you fell? I wonder if you were good with the bow.” She chuckled and lifted the knife, placing it under one of the man’s eyes. He screamed, muffled by a cloth gag, and she just shook her head. “Now, now,” she added.

Before he saw something he wouldn’t be able to unsee, Vahlok violently averted his gaze from the spectacle, instead focusing on the candle closest to a nearby huge curtain. He heard muffled screaming. The candle seemed dangerously close to the curtain. The audience held its breath. He looked into its flame, burning a white smear into his gaze. He didn’t think about the wet, ugly noises he could hear coming from the room, until --

“And now,” the Priest said, “perhaps the other one.”

Perhaps not, Vahlok thought, and he kicked the candle onto the cloth.

The fire spread in huge, sudden bursts, consuming the curtains hungrily. The mortals gathered started screaming. The dragon stood up, glared from side to side as smoke began filling the room, then roared; useless, because Vahlok had hidden behind the archway’s side once again. He heard hundreds of footsteps storming out of the room, hid in the darkness behind the archway as people poured out of the chamber through his very own archway, and then suddenly, on impulse, slipped inside the chamber and ran towards the stage.

Vahlok hurried through the crowd, being bumped around and almost ran over, before he reached the stage. It’d been deserted by the Priest, but the rebel remained bound on the table, sobbing hysterically. Vahlok hurried up and produced a lockpick, thanked Miraak for teaching him how to break locks. Thanked Miraak… oh, he’d have time to thank Miraak for everything when he was back on Solstheim. He clumsily opened the chains’ padlock. The rebel fell into his arms, already coughing up smoke, and Vahlok coughed with him, too. He glanced at the rebel’s empty eye-socket. Fuck. Vahlok managed to get the rebel to stand up, holding onto his shoulder, and began half-carrying him towards the exit, until he heard a voice like thunder.

“ YOU! ”

Vahlok turned around. Face bared to the world, he made eye contact with the dragon Kahvozein, Proud-Reversing-Beyond. His eyes widened, and he turned away as soon as he could, but the damage was done; the dragon, coughing up smoke, was after them.

Vahlok dove to the ground, bringing the rebel down with him, just barely avoiding the dragon’s maw. He coughed and crawled forward, bringing the rebel with him, and pushed himself and the man both off the platform. They fell onto the quickly-emptying chamber’s floor. Vahlok stood up and held the rebel as he ran, as fast as he could, away from the great wyrm’s snapping jaws; finally, he was able to get both of them past the archway, too small for the dragon. He heard Kahvozein Shout furiously, uselessly filling the chamber up with even more fire before leaving in a hurry, and slid to the floor, still holding onto the rebel.

The rebel looked at Vahlok, wide-eyed. He coughed and seemed to notice something, touched his empty… orbit… ah. Yes. The man blinked and then gave up on reality, falling unconscious on Vahlok’s chest.

“...I was wrong,” Vahlok whispered. “I was so, so wrong. All this time.” His shoulders shook, and he began sobbing from shock into the stranger’s auburn hair.

Someone knocked at his door, that fateful day. (A year ago; remorse bit at Vahlok. An eternity).

At the sound, Midaar blearily blinked the last bits of sleep away from his eyes. He slapped his nightstand until he found his mask and stood up, sliding it in place; then he yawned.

“Who is it?” Midaar asked.

“It’s me, Mɪᴅᴀᴀʀ,” Miraak’s voice replied. There was a tone in his voice, an edge of urgency, that Midaar had rarely seen from him before. It finished waking him up. Midaar grabbed the nearest clothes he could find -- yesterday’s -- and went to the door, which opened with a soft click.

Miraak wasn’t wearing his mask.

Midaar hurried to slide the mask halfway off his face. “Miraak? Is everything alright?” he questioned, suspicious. He had barely seen Miraak’s face in years, since his friend had been made a Priest.

Miraak shushed him, urgent. “I need to talk to you now.”

“What’s wrong?”

Miraak stared at him for a moment. “I… Fuck’s sake, Mɪᴅᴀᴀʀ.” He let his head drop on Midaar’s chest; Midaar took a step back, surprised at Miraak’s arms around his ribcage. He hugged him back. Miraak breathed in deeply, then continued. “There’s things I need to tell you. Things I didn’t trust you enough to tell you.”

“How important?"

“Very.”

“I thought you knew you could trust me.”

“Not with this, though.” Miraak’s voice was muffled. “But I’m here to right those wrongs.”

Midaar pulled Miraak away from him. “Alright. Tell me then.” His brow furrowed in worry.

Miraak looked away. “Where to begin,” he mused. “Where to even begin.” He shook his head, then looked back at Midaar. “I saw a dragon die, six months ago from today.”

“You -- what?” The dragons were immortal. If one of them was somehow slain, Alduin would claim his soul and resurrect him. No dragon could die, and this was known.

“I saw a dragon die, Mɪᴅᴀᴀʀ. I had -- sneaked,” Miraak admitted, just a smidge shameful, “sneaked somewhere I never should’ve gone to. Two dragons fought, enraged by clashing… it doesn’t matter. One died. And I… Its soul. I saw it.”

“You -- Lord, Miraak, where did you go?!”

“It doesn’t matter. Not far from here. Mɪᴅᴀᴀʀ, I… I need to tell you something I discovered about myself that day, and I need you to know I was scared.”

“What are you talking about? Are you still scared?” Priorities, snarked a voice in Midaar’s head.

“I’ll explain, and no -- I assure you, I’m not scared anymore. I will not be scared anymore, and this is a promise.”

“Then tell me.” Midaar’s grip on Miraak’s shoulder tightened.

“When the dragon died,” Miraak said, slowly, “it glowed. I saw its soul, an orange flame -- an impossible flame, forged through eons of living. And it… went, inside of me.”

Midaar’s mouth opened. It stuttered silently, then closed.

“I know,” Miraak replied. “This was the answer, Mɪᴅᴀᴀʀ. When we were children -- I was stronger, more powerful. Healed faster. I’ve always had the ᴛʜᴜ'ᴜᴍ on the tip of my tongue. And I found my answer. I absorbed the soul, do you understand what it means? Mɪᴅᴀᴀʀ, my soul is that of a dragon’s.”

“I…” Midaar just stared at his friend.

(That was the pivotal moment. Vahlok, in but a few months, would rewind the entire conversation a thousand times in his head, thinking over and over what he could’ve done better, how he could’ve helped his brother. And it always, to him, revolved around that moment -- the moment Miraak’s face fell for the first time in ten years, since that talk under the sunset. The last in a string of times Midaar wilfully had let himself be left behind).

Midaar’s first words after the pivotal second had been, “This cannot be.”

Miraak’s eyes widened, and his face hardened. “It can. I’ve ached for power just like one of them from day one, Mɪᴅᴀᴀʀ, and you know this.”

“You -- dragons don’t own the spirit of conquest. I can’t… Lord Alduin, is this why you…?” He trailed off, shaking his head. This was a nightmare, a bad dream. It would soon pass.

“There is a spirit, a god of wisdom, Mɪᴅᴀᴀʀ. He knows everything. He could grant me the wisdom to rule -- grant us the wisdom to rule, my brother. I did what I had to do for the best of this land, and I beg of you to join us.”

“Us.”

“Yes. You think I am alone in this rebellion? No. Others have seen the truth too, Mɪᴅᴀᴀʀ. Please, listen to me. He could be so much more to us than a dragon who does naught but allow his fellows to toy with our kind.”

Midaar stared, wide-eyed, at his brother. There was a look in his brown eyes that made him hesitate for a moment, but then blinked and looked away.

“A spirit,” Midaar said. Empty. “Miraak, you cannot trust him.” He looked back at Miraak, put a hand on his shoulder. “Please. It’s not too soon, Miraak, I beg of you to desist. This is not--” Not how we were raised. Not how we lived. (Unlike anything we ever knew).

“No, you don’t understand -- they were wrong!”

“I can’t! This is how it’s been our entire lives, Miraak. You-- This isn’t right! The dragons will kill you, and the spirit -- what says he’s trustworthy?! And you’d make a shit ruler!”

“What was that?!”

“You don’t care about people! You just care about power! And you’re so fucking rebellious, you refuse to listen to anybody! You’d end up a tyrant!”

The fire in Miraak’s eyes flickered and died. “...Fine,” he said. He smacked Midaar’s hand away from his shoulder, stepped back. Rage built up in his shoulders, built up his shoulders. He made as if to turn around, only to abort the movement.

“Go fucking die, then, with your precious tyrannical regime,” Miraak told him, disdainful, cold -- and he punched Midaar’s face.

It caught his mouth, the side of his cheek. Midaar’s head was slung backwards and he bent over, spitting out blood. More than blood; one of his canines appeared on his hand, and his tongue immediately went to poke in its place -- empty. Shit. Shit!

“Miraak,” he muttered, just slightly sibilant. “Miraak! What the fuck?!” His head whipped upwards -- but Miraak was already gone.

A year and a day after Miraak’s defeat, Vahlok watched silently as the dragons landed upon the island of Solstheim, and Paarthurnax watched him back, equally silent. Blood dripped from the arrow wound over one of his eyes, but Paarthurnax ignored the warmth on his temple as the last of the other dragons settled.

Vahlok stared from behind his mask, hands clasped behind his back, regal.

“...And so, the dragons have come to Solstheim,” he began, simply.

“And so we have,” Paarthurnax echoed. “To one of the last bastions of our rule, we come, so that the revolution might not have spread here.”

Vahlok did not move. That should’ve been the first clue, in retrospect; Vahlok did not bow, did not take a knee, did not seem particularly worshipful at all of the dragons. He simply stared, his head swiveling left and right, and behind his mask his eyes jumping from dragon to dragon. Counting them.

“I am afraid,” he said, “I cannot afford you safety.”

Paarthurnax tilted his head. “...How so?”

Vahlok’s eyes snapped to him, and he took a moment to reply. “This island is too small, its harvest too poor,” he blatantly lied. “We do not have enough room to afford even thinking about it.”

“These sound like excuses, Vᴀʜʟᴏᴋ,” Paarthurnax replied. “We can clearly fit, seeing as we already do so.”

“Oh, but there are no buildings designed for dragons on this island anymore,” Vahlok replied. “No grand stone arches, no purple curtains.”

“...Purple curtains. A strange choice of words.” Paarthurnax didn’t notice Vahlok’s shoulders stiffening. “I admit I have seen them. Nonetheless -- a ᴅᴏᴠᴀʜ does not need ᴊᴏᴏʀ’s buildings.”

“No, you don’t.”

“And you can feed us. Even if you couldn't, we do not strictly need food. This we know, and so do you. So why lie, then?”

Vahlok stood for a moment, arms straightened, quiet. He slowly bowed his head. Paarthurnax did not expect the next thing he heard from the mortal’s lips to be a chortle -- a small, choked-down laugh, escalating into a giggle and from there onto an open laugh.

Vahlok bent down the middle, consumed by laughter. The dragons’ wings rustled. His laughs echoed in the empty morning, bouncing off the gently-falling snow like sunlight would’ve done otherwise.

“Ah, hah hah!”, he wheezed, holding a hand to his stomach. “Oh, you’ve caught me, my lord.” He sighed. “I’ll miss this land.”

The dragons looked at each other, uncomfortable. “What are you talking about?”, one spoke up.

Vahlok huffed, the last of his laughter left behind, and straightened up, chest puffed forwards. “I reject the charge of governor of Solstheim,” he said, his words muffled from behind his mask. “I reject the charge of the guardian of Solstheim. I reject the charge of jailor of Miraak.”

As he spoke, he dug his hands into his hood, untying something; he pulled down his hood and his mask fell onto the ground. Big, dark eyes on a pale face, copper wisps of hair flicking against his face in the wind.

“And... I reject the charge of sonaak,” he finished.

“You-- you cannot do that!”, shouted another dragon.

“Oh, I can,” Vahlok replied. “I quit. I desert. I am finished with your horrible little charade of a religion.”

Angry roars and affronted whispers sprouted in the crowd of dragons. Paarthurnax silenced his entourage with a look, then looked back into Vahlok’s eyes; the mortal did not flinch.

“You are bound to us until death,�� Paarthurnax said.

“I am bound no longer,” Vahlok replied. “As are the innocents and guilty alike you’ve captured, careless, to be sacrificed as entertainment. As are the multitudes dead in mismanaged famines. As was my brother, Miraak -- the priest named, as I once was, for loyalty.”

The dragons seemed about ready to jump on Vahlok, but Paarthurnax taking a step forward embarrassed them, cowed them into watching what would be a fun spectacle.

Paarthurnax looked down at Vahlok, just a tiny speck of grey and brown some distance below his field of view. Vahlok stared up at him, his hair whipping in the wind -- definitely longer than a sᴏɴᴀᴀᴋ’s should be.

“And this is where you truly wish to stand, then? Nᴀᴜʀ ᴅᴀᴀʀ ᴋᴏʟ, ʜɪɴᴅ-ᴅɪʀ?”

“Yes,” was Vahlok’s succinct response. “Miraak was right.”

“...You have planned this,” Paarthurnax realized. “For some distance.”

Vahlok frowned, confused. “You could say that, yes.”

Paarthurnax huffed a passable sigh. “If you will not give us your servitude unto death,” he said, slowly, “we will take it.”

Vahlok blinked back tears and smiled. “Take it,” he said. He faced the sky. “I have loved Skyrim for thirty-one years,” he said. “If you loved her as much as I did, as much as men did, as much as Miraak did… things would be different.” He closed his eyes.

Yᴏʟ Tᴏᴏʀ Sʜᴜʟ!

Paarthurnax’s voice was the last thing the dragon priest heard.

mir-aak; "allegiance guide".

* (non-literally) “[I] fairly requested of Alduin to give you mercy, and you unfairly/harshly ask of me this. Mortals [are] weak, should not request [of] us…”

if you liked the fic, feel free to give it kudos on ao3! and stay safe!!

#words #skyrim #the elder scrolls #the elder scrolls skyrim #miraak #vahlok the jailor #skyrim fanfic #vahlok

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inspirationdivine · 4 years

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The Masque of the Red Death || Lydia and Winn

Timing: 27 June Parties: @inspirationdivine @packsbeforesnacks Summary: Winn is invited to a fancy dress auction, but doesn’t realise just how exclusive that invitation is

Boy, rich people sure moved fuckin’ quick. The ink hadn’t even dried on all the documents Nate had had Winn sign before the werewolf was gettin’ letters slipped under his front door. Despite the house’s age, and Winn’s plans to gut the place, he’d decided to move in, not really needin’ more than a mattress and a kitchen to keep him happy-ish. And he really, really needed to get the fuck out of the same house as his dad. He’d left him Denny, for now, and it had been nice, bonding or whatever, but Winn was a goddamn adult, and maybe had, like, an almost-boyfriend now. He refused to bring Noah into the same house that Daniel ‘let me tell you all about my original Chaucer’ Woods lived in. But thinkin’ about Noah did bring a smile to his masked face.

The carved wooden mask of a wolf was a bit on-the-snout, but funny as hell, to Winn. ‘Sides, no one would guess. They’d all be wearin’ masks from all over the animal kingdom, if the invitation was anything to go by. Why you needed to wear a mask to a silent auction was beyond Winn — and, God did he hate these things, but makin’ a good impression was important, with rich folks especially, he knew from years tailing his mother at charity dinners. But the vibe felt… off, as he made his way through the crowd. Like he’d broken one of those stupid unspoken rules, somehow. It wasn’t his suit — there were people wearin’ far more outrageous (he assumed?) colors than purple here — so what could it have been? He stopped at a painting, pretending to understand the abstract shapes and what he (again, totally just guessin’) he took as a bold color choice. It looked messy, and a bit ugly, given his color-blindness. Maybe he really wouldn’t ever get art.

Lydia had never lived in so small a town that had such a thriving elite supernatural community. She’d never lived in so small a town, either. It wasn’t too surprising that so many of the rich and wealthy were supernatural beings, with their longer lives, lack of needs for conventional expenses, extensive networking skills, and all the other ways that put them above the average human. It was even more lovely to be surrounded by people who felt the same, in one way or another. These events, for all their glamour and fun, had oh so many rules. A costumed silent auction with no allowances for pheromones, compulsion, or other unsavory reality distortions. Then again, in a hall where the only humans were the waitstaff, was it really a necessary rule?

Lydia wandered around, holding her champagne in a white gloved hand as she mingled and chit chatted with the crowd, especially anyone that made her chest hum. Oh dear. Lydia paused, eyeing the young man by a Wassily Kandinsky piece, with a wolf mask. She winced, and hoped that he was either a fool or altogether much too new to these things, and not some human trying to sneak in. Surely the outside guards had already checked him, but still… the mask was incredibly tacky. “Making quite the statement there, aren’t you?”

Hearing a woman’s voice from behind him, Winn turned, regarding her own mask with interest. It was a bit hard to tell through Winn’s colorblindness, but he could tell the shape of a hummingbird. Long, elegant, and very, very fancy. Winn wondered if those were real feathers. He didn’t know anything about the woman, but the mask… suited her, Winn decided. He looked down at his outfit, then back up at the woman. “I’m not quite sure I know what you mean? No one has ever told me I don’t clean up well, though, so I hope it’s not the suit.” He winked through the mask, grabbing a flute of champagne for himself from a passing waiter. “I’m— Ah, I only just moved to the East End, so you’ll have to excuse me if I’ve made some sort of mistake. Never been one for following the rules.” He grinned, wolfish and self-sure. “I’d ask your name, but that probably defeats the purpose of these,” he tapped the mask on one of its carved ears, “and what’s in a name, really?”

“Oh, not at all, the suit fits you like a glove. You look positively dashing,” Lydia replied with a grin, looking him up and down. Maybe not necessarily new money, but certainly young money, in both his appearance and attitude. Although, some species ended up rather frozen at a certain age both physically and mentally, did they not? “Oh, I’m not so sure the masks are for secrecy. I’m Lydia, just so that you have something to call me by. I was only commenting on your mask. Wearing another species as costume is rather passe, don’t you think?”

“Uh,” Winn said, intelligently, “I thought that was the whole… point? I mean, unless you’re secretly a hummingbird, right? No one’s wearing a human mask, so we’re all breaking that, right? It was on the invitation. Wear an animal.” He scanned the crowd, trying to figure out if there was anyone without a mask, but the only exceptions were the waitstaff. “I’m Winn. Call me Winn. So…” He grinned. “This is the part where you tell me you are a hummingbird, I take it?”

“Winn,” Lydia repeated with a smile, offering him a faux curtsy. Although, her smile was entirely quizzical as she looked around the room, at the shining floor and glittering diamond chandeliers, and all the kinds of people around them, wondering if somehow they hadn’t come to the same event. “Darling, do you not… realise that no one in this room is human, spare a couple of spellcasters and the waitstaff?”

Well, fuck a duck. “Oh,” Winn said, a soft syllable in the air. He gestured to his wolf mask, dumbly. “So, does everyone know I’m a…” The question hung in the space between them. “Or do they just think I’m an asshole?” He started laughing, ‘cause, really? It was funny as hell. First non-wolf supernatural shindig he’d been to, and he’d already managed to fall face first into a stupid rule. “I— Wow, okay. Alright. So, guess I should’ve thought this one through a little more. Y’know, I was wonderin’ how they got my address. I’d literally just signed the papers.”

“Well, now I do, which is ever so slightly less tasteless than dressing up as someone else’s species. Not all that original, either,” Lydia said, but it was with such a soft smile that it was obvious she was teasing. “No, not that, but you do rather stand out like a sore thumb. If you’re new to all this, though, I’m sure all will be forgiven quickly. Besides, I’m talking to you now, we’ll have a crowd in a hurry.” Lydia smiled, offering her arm for him. “Let me get you a drink. Are you planning on bidding on anything tonight?”

“Oh boy.” Winn huffed out a sigh of relief. “That would have been awkward, huh?” He took Lydia’s proffered arm, setting his downed glass of champagne — ugh, he really hated that shit — and letting her lead him to… assumedly the bar? Lydia wasn’t wrong, though, a crowd did seem to flit about them, seemingly drawn into Lydia’s sheer force of personality. “Um,” Winn said, thinking through much of what he’d seen, “if I’m bein’ totally honest, I’m a little worried now that anything I buy would end up cursed?” He raised his free hand to the back of his head, running it through. “How, uh, about you?”

Lydia smiled, ordering a drink from the bar and gesturing for him to do the same, ‘on her tab’. “Well, some of the items in here are cursed. Some bewitched, some haunted, some just have attitude.” She smiled, gesturing around the room. “That one, there, the painting of the lady at a cliffside, can you see the markings on the ceiling above it? Warding signs.”

Sipping his new (and extremely fruity) drink, Winn followed Lydia’s gaze. “Attitude?” Winn questioned openly, taking in the painting that Lydia had pointed out. Glyphs, sure enough, were dotted on the ceiling in, what appeared to Winn to be, nonsense shapes. “And warding from what? Are there, like, ghosts in the paintings?” He got the sense that question was dumb, maybe, but Lydia had to know he was, somewhat, new at this.

With their drinks in hand, Lydia led him along the gallery, speaking lowly even though she knew there were plenty around that could overhear, no matter how quietly she spoke. “Yes, that one is haunted. This sculpture of a face in pain contains vampire ash, and has a bit of an attitude. Then these coins, believed to be from Roman Aos Sí, are entirely fake. So, tell me, what do you want to know?”

“Oh, Lydia,” Winn said with a lopsided grin. “I want to know everything.”

#wickedswriting #para #chatzy #winn

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kkintle · 3 years

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Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham; Quotes

For at Cumae I saw with my own eyes the Sibyl hanging in a bottle. And when the boys asked her, “What do you want, Sibyl?” she answered, “I want to die.” —The Satyricon

It was like a kaleidoscope—the design always changing, the particles always the same.

Stan watched them with a strange, sweet, faraway smile on his face. It was the smile of a prisoner who has found a file in a pie.

That was what everybody said and people who made love but weren’t really in love were called tramps. Molly knew several ladies who were tramps and she asked Dad one time why they were tramps and that’s what he said: that they’d let anybody hug and kiss them either for presents or money. You shouldn’t do that unless the guy was a swell guy and not likely to cross you up or take a powder on you if you were going to have a baby. Dad said you should never let anybody make love to you if you couldn’t use his toothbrush, too. He said that was a safe rule and if you followed that you couldn’t go wrong.

Questions? They’ve all got questions, Stan thought, passing out cards and envelopes. Who hasn’t? Answer their questions and you can have them, body and soul. Or just about.

Magic is all right, but if only I knew human nature like Zeena. She has the kind of magic that ought to take anybody right to the top. It’s a convincer—that act of hers. Yet nobody can do it, cold. It takes years to get that kind of smooth talk, and she’s never stumped.

She had never turned a hair, lying to Pete about him being in the bathtub. It comes natural in women, he thought. That’s the way they all do when they have guts enough. That’s the way they would all like to do. He found himself trembling.

Zeena taught him many things, some of them about magic. “Misdirection is the whole works, honey. You don’t need no fancy production boxes and trap doors and trick tables. I’ve always let on that a man that will spend his time learning misdirection can just reach in his pocket and put something in a hat and then go ahead and take it out again and everybody will sit back and gasp, wondering where it came from.”

There’s very few girls goes in for magic. And that’s the reason. A gal spends all her time learning how to attract attention to herself. Then in magic she has to unlearn all that and learn how to get the audience to look at something else. Strain’s too great. The dolls can never make it. I couldn’t. I’ve always stuck to the mental business. It don’t hurt anybody—makes plenty of friends for you wherever you go. Folks are always crazy to have their fortunes told, and what the hell— You cheer ’em up, give ’em something to wish and hope for. That’s all the preacher does every Sunday. Not much different, being a fortuneteller and a preacher, way I look at it. Everybody hopes for the best and fears the worst and the worst is generally what happens but that don’t stop us from hoping. When you stop hoping you’re in a bad way.”

And when he was up there in front of them he really believed he was doing it. And then all of a sudden he began to see that there wasn’t no magic anywhere to lean on and he had nobody to lean on in the end but himself—not me, not his friends, not Lady Luck—just himself. And he was scared he would let himself down.” “So he did?” “Yeah. He did.”

“Because here’s one thing you must never forget: a man drinks because he’s unhappy. Isn’t anything about liquor that makes a man bad. A man that’s happy can take a drink with the boys on Saturday night and come home with his pay safe in his pocket. But when a man’s miserable about something he takes a drink to forget it and one isn’t enough and he takes another snort and pretty soon the week’s pay is all gone and he gets home and sobers up and then his wife starts in on him and he’s more miserable than he was before and then his first thought is to go get drunk again and it runs around and around in a circle.”

How helpless they all looked in the ugliness of sleep. A third of life spent unconscious and corpselike. And some, the great majority, stumbled through their waking hours scarcely more awake, helpless in the face of destiny. They stumbled down a dark alley toward their deaths. They sent exploring feelers into the light and met fire and writhed back again into the darkness of their blind groping.

“The chumps,” Stan whispered. “Either too bashful to ask or too dumb to suspect.” But they were anxious to find out, all of them. As if jazzing wasn’t what they all want, the goddamned hypocrites. They all want it. Only nobody else must have it.

For every unusual question there will be fifty that you have had before. Human nature is the same everywhere. All have the same troubles. They are worried. Can control anybody by finding out what he’s afraid of. Works with question-answering act. Think out things most people are afraid of and hit them right where they live. Health, Wealth, Love. And Travel and Success. They’re all afraid of ill health, of poverty, of boredom, of failure. Fear is the key to human nature. They’re afraid….”

Find out what they are afraid of and sell it back to them.

It’s somewhere to the north of here; I’m positive of that.” It was sure-fire. All of ’em want North, Stan thought. It was the dark alley, all over again. With a light at the end of it.

They have it too—a nightmare alley. The North isn’t the end. The light will only move further on. And the fear close behind them. White and black, it made no difference.

It’s funny how you can see a girl every day for months and yet not see her, Stan thought. Then something will happen—like the way Molly’s mouth presses together when she holds the arc points and the fire starts to fly. Then you see her all different.

The geek has his whisky. The rest of them drink something else: they drink promises. They drink hope.

There is no weapon you can use against malicious envy except the confidence in your way of life as the moral and righteous one, no matter what the envious say.

But then lots of good-looking people had when they were young and that really didn’t mean a thing. It was managing to stay in show business and stay at the top that counted. Never getting to be a has-been and washed-up. That was the worst thing, to be washed-up. Only you had to save a pile of money while you were in the chips. And what with staying at the best places and buying dinners and drinks for managers and newspapermen and people they never seemed to get much ahead at the end of a season on the road. That is, the more the act was worth, the more it seemed to take to sell it.

The next day Mother got breakfast for him. He said nothing and neither did she. But she wasn’t a grownup any more. Or he wasn’t a kid any more. There were no more grownups. They lied when they got scared, just like anybody. Everybody was alike only some were bigger.

Isn’t it better to give them something to hope for? What does a regular preacher do every Sunday? Only all he does is promise. We’ll do more than promise. We’ll give ’em proof!”

The earth doesn’t age as fast as the things man makes.

“My dear friend, have you ever thought that these persons whom you have mourned as dead will never die?”

In a patch of silver the Rev. Carlisle stopped and raised his face to the full moon, where it hung desolately, agonizingly bright—a dead thing, watching the dying earth.

(...) no one he could trust. Loneliness came over him, like an avalanche of snow. He was alone. Where he had always wanted to be. You can only trust yourself. There’s a rat buried deep in everybody and they’ll rat on you if they get pushed far enough.

North south east west—cold spring heat fall—love lust tire leave—wed fight leave hate—sleep wake eat sleep—child boy man corpse—touch kiss tongue breast—strip grip press jet—wash dress pay leave—north south east west …

Then he drew away from her and turned to look at her face. As the wind quickened he saw her perfectly molded nostrils quiver, scenting spring as an animal tastes the wind. Was she an animal? Was all the mystery nothing more than that? Was she merely a sleek, golden kitten that unsheathed its claws when it had played enough and wanted solitude? But the brain that was always at work, always clicking away behind the eyes—no animal had such an organ; or was it the mark of a superanimal, a new species, something to be seen on earth in a few more centuries? Had nature sent out a feeling tentacle from the past, groping blindly into the present with a single specimen of what mankind was to be a thousand years hence?

Kids always play alike. Rough-house around until one gets hurt and then the fight starts. A couple of socks and they quit and the next minute are friends again. Oh, Christ, why do you have to grow up into a life like this one? Why do you ever have to want women, want power, make money, make love, keep up a front, sell the act, suck around some booking agent, get gypped on the check—?

(...) or whatever they wanted to do that they had become so afraid of doing that they would pay her twenty-five dollars an hour to tell them either why it was all right to do it or go on doing it or think about doing it or how they could stop doing it or stop wanting to do it or stop thinking about doing it or do something else that was almost as good or something which was bad but would make you feel better or just something to do to be able to do something.

(...) didn’t want anything of him except the knowledge that when she wanted him in the night and wanted his mouth on her and wanted him kneeling beside her, kissing her, she would have him doing all those things to her as she wanted them done and just when she wanted them done and just how she wanted them done to her because she had only what she wanted from anybody and she had let him do those things to her because she had wanted them done to her not because he could do them better than anyone else although he didn’t know if there was anybody else and didn’t want to know and it didn’t matter and she could have him any time she wanted those things done to her because that was the way she was and she was to be obeyed in all things because she held in her hand the golden thread which carried the current of life into him and she held behind her eyes the rheostat that fixed the current and she could starve him and dry him up and kill him by freezing if she wanted to and this was where he had gotten himself only it didn’t matter because as long as one end of the golden wire was embedded in his brain he could breathe and live and move and become as great as she wanted since she sent the current along the wire for him to become great with and live with and even make love to Molly

It’s a nut house. And the biggest loonies are at the top.”

“God’s sake, man, labor don’t need agitation. You can’t agitate people when they’s treated right. Labor don’t need stirring up. It need squeezing together.”

#nightmare alley #William Lindsay Gresham #fiction #quotes #books

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alysmarylin · 5 years

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The fic you've been waiting for

Crowley avenging his beloved angel - Sandalphon got what he deserved (don't thank me, reblog instead)!!!!!!!!

Crowley and Aziraphale were unpacking the stuff they bought on a big shopping Sunday, and to this very day Crowley can't remember why and how they ended up talking about Aziraphale's, well... Ex-kin.

"I kinda enjoyed Michael", Crowley laughed. "Rather good-looking. Uriel, on the other hand..."

"Don't get me started on Uriel and Sandalphon", Aziraphale rolled his eyes. "I hate their guts"

"Sandalphon was a tough prick, I remember. And uglier than Belzebub", Crowley sneered.

"You don't say. He works in my place now, homophobic son of a... They couldn't have picked a worse candidate", Aziraphale said in a somewhat hurt voice.

"Don't worry, angel. Soon enough, he will receive some beating from locals, I tell you"

"Yeah, I should've definitely punched that bastard back", Aziraphale muttered under his nose quietly, angrily.

" Yeah, you bet...", Crowley laughed and then stopped abruptly. "W-w-wait, wait-wait-wait. Back? What do you mean, back?". Crowley stood up from the floor and stepped up to Aziraphale.

" Nothing, really"

"No, not nothing". Crowley's eyes were widened in shock. " Do you mean, that, that piece of shit HIT you?!"

Aziraphale lowered his eyes. It looked like the memory wasn't pleasant. Crowley was gasping.

"When? When did it happen? How come I didn't know?", Crowley was not yet angry but more frightened. " Angel, look at me. Talk to me. Someone battered you and I know nothing of it?!"

"No one battered me. I was walking back to my bookshop and Michael, Uriel and... And he approached me, I was questioned..."

"Where the Hell was I?" - Crowley asked, astonished.

"You drove home", Aziraphale said quietly and sadly.

Crowley tilted his head backward and sighed with despair. "I should've known... ". He lowered his head and looked at Aziraphale with sadness and pain. Aziraphale looked confused and lost.

" What did he do? Tell me, angel", Crowley stepped closer, putting his hand on Aziraphale's arm, leaning closer. "Tell me. He's dead"

"Don't you dare, Crowley, we got away and I won't..."

"What did he do to you? What? Why didn't you tell me? I was up there, I saw him, I could've..."

"Because I didn't want you to", Aziraphale answered bitterly. " I needed you to be concentrated and cool-headed. You freed me from them, same as I did for you. That's all that matters"

"No, it's not. You look sad, you look hurt", Crowley said, cupping Aziraphale's cheek. " Otherwise you would've forgotten".

"He punched me in the stomach, alright?", Aziraphale said with a lump in his throat. His lower lip trmbled a bit. "It wasn't as painful physically as it was humiliating".

Crowley looked down on his angel's belly - soft, beautiful, beloved and precious - and everything before his eyes suddenly became red as blood.

"I told you because I trust you, but if you dare approach him or pull out something stupid like that, I will leave you, Crowley", he heard Aziraphale's voice from some distance.

"Do you hear me? Answer me, Crowley"

Crowley felt his head filling with lead from within.

"I will not approach him. I swear it"

"Good", he hears Aziraphale say. " I'll finish unpacking"

Crowley stopped Aziraphale, holding him by the arm. He embraced him from behind, wrapping one of his arms around his chest and putting his hand gently on the angel's belly. He buried his nose in his soft blonde curls and muttered: "I love you".

"I love you too", Aziraphale answered softly, "Now let me finish".

Crowley looked at him, picking up paper bags and arranging the stuff around the room, looking small and soft and lovely. Somehow it made his silent rage all the more burning and red became crimson in his eyes. He swore he wouldn't approach that sick fuck who laid his dirty hands - no, he couldn't bear to think of it - on Aziraphale

... But he said nothing of his friends.

***

Crowley pulled his hood further on his forehead

"Pleasure to see you, Jay. You look like a heroin addict in that hoody", said Phil.

"I have to hide my hair somehow. Rare color"

Crowley was nervous and feeling restless.

"Yep. You're drop-dead gorgeous lad, we get it. To what I owe the pleasure?"

"I need to track someone down. Name's Saldanphon but he changes his IDs every now and then. You'll have to check for anything similar. Don't have a picture, but I draw him", Crowley laid a piece of paper on a table. The drawing looked fairly accurate. " Looks middle-aged, a bit fat, bald, ugly, has a golden tooth. A homophobe might be hanging around gay bars and the likes to preach or intimidate or whatever he does. That's all I have as of now".

"Well", Phil sighed " It's doable. But it will take a while. Any family?"

"No, none at all"

"I see. The golden tooth is indeed something". Phil looked at Crowley's hand. "You got married?"

"Ugh, yeah", Crowley answered looking around. " You know how to, ehm, tell me of the progress?"

"I've been around longer than you", Phil said wearily, and Crowley had to keep his mouth shut on that remark, " You'll know when I find something. Just one more thing. This, ehm, funny-named morality apostle. What exactly are you planning? He's gonna go?"

"No, not go", Crowley said with sheer disappointment "Plainly be taught a lesson. He put his shitty hands where he shouldn't have".

"Are you gonna call our mutual friend?", Phil raised his eyebrows. " If you want to make it clean, it's the best way. They'll never track his men down. Just food for thought, Jay. A piece of advice from the old man"

"That sounds reasonable", Crowley nodded, as if he had had any idea what to do next when he came to Phil, " I'll think about it. Thank you. Wanna count?". He put a book - a fake book, of course - on a table.

"Here? Oh, please. Trust me, if I don't find what I intend to find here, you'll know", Phil put a book in his bag and stood up. " Have a nice day, kid. Next time, wear something else"

Crowley waited for ten more minutes before leaving the diner. It was only when he was in a crowdy underground station when he put the hood off. He had to be cautious. For everyone's sake.

***

"Do you really think it's a good place, Jay?", said a tall and broad bald man in a leather jacket, trying to sit comfortably on a bench by a pond.

"The best one, in terms of privacy", said Crowley, looking grimly from his hood. " So. You said you owe me a favor all the way back from 1999. I didn't need anything for a long time, but now..."

"How do you manage to look so young, you sick bastard?", the man asked, chuckling, trying to look at Crowley's face. " You look just like my son, and that sad excuse of an heir is 27 now, not something you could tell by the way he speaks, though, I'd give him 10 in that department, still... How old are you, anyway?"

"I use a strong sunscreen. And I have good genes. Good, hardworking Irish people, my entire family. Will you listen or not, Patsy?"

A bald man stopped laughing and sighed.

"Of course. What seems to be the problem?"

"Our mutual buddy, Phil, tracked down a guy I need you to deal with. Here's what I've got on him", Crowley took a piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to a man without so much as looking at his side. " I want your people to teach him a lesson. He's gotta stay alive. I can't be seen. But I need to watch it from a distance. I know you're ready to do this, but still" - Crowley took out something that looked like a book and put it on Patsy's lap still without looking at him - "this is some additional motivation for you, or a token of a good will, if you wish to call it that way".

Patsy put down an apparently-book-thing in his suitcase and opened a piece of paper. He looked at Crowley, frowning.

" What kind of a lesson do you want him to be taught, exactly?"

"If your boys will do it properly, he'll need new teeth", Crowley said, finally turning his head to his counterpart, looking him in the eyes from beneath his shaded. "The whole damn package. And the old ones, I want to have them. Every single one. Especially the golden one. No internal bleeding, no injuries to any organs. You can break a couple of ribs, but carefully. As you wish. But I need his teeth"

"Jesus fucking Christ, Jay", the Patsy man said, looking flabbergasted. " What did this son of a bitch did to you so you became such a butcher"

"He laid his shitty hands where he shouldn't have", Crowley hissed, grinding his teeth. His hands clenched in fists.

" You didn't tell me you were married. Was this your wife?", Patsy asked warily.

"I have no wife, but I am indeed married", Crowley answered. " I know you're one of the few people of your occupation who don't look down on things like that. I love him. But I swore I won't touch this bastard myself. I don't have much choice, Pat"

"I'm sorry it happened to your, well, spouse", Patsy said carefully. " But the guys that I have in my crew are not as open-minded as I wish they were. You know it yourself. Ours is not the most prestigious job. I'll do this favor, but when you're sitting in a car with them, better keep the personal personal".

They shook hands.

"I'll be waiting for your call. You know which number to call, and which not to", Crowley said, standing up. "I'm looking forward to seeing your team at work".

***

Crowley was staring into the field glasses, trying looking at two tall men in leather jackets dragging a bald man resembling Sandalphon, gagged and tied up, to a torch on the abandoned parking lot. The jeep where Crowley and his associates were sitting was right in its darkest corner.

It was Christmas Eve, the 24th of December. The snow was falling gloriously, but the place was too grim and damp for the fairy-tale-like spirit.

“You see them, Cap?”, a young driver, sitting by Crowley’s side asked.

“It looks like him, but I need insurance. I remember his voice. Call them”

One of the guys on the backseat dialed a number and one of the bouncers took the phone.

“Our cap wants so be sure it’s the guy. Let him speak”

He turned on the speakerphone. Soon enough Crowley heard Sandalphon screaming something like:

“I’ll give you anything you want, please, untie me, I need my hands, I…”, before Crowley nodded and Sandalphon became silent again. The phone was turned off and Sandalphon was dragged to a small staircase, and Crowley had to pay very close attention, looking into field glasses again, to recognize what was going on.

“Are you sure your people can do ALL the teeth in one go?”, he asked a bit unsurely.

“You insult us, Mr. Jay. It is our signature. One strike, all teeth. Leaves a strong message”, murmured a young man behind him.

“Well, then…”, Crowley started, but then he saw something rather outstanding, that made him make a certain sound: “Oi, woah… That was surprising… Alright, gentlemen, pardon me for my previous skepticism. I take that back. On second thought, I even refuse to take, the, ehm, the evidence”

He then heard his phone ring. It had to be Aziraphale. He had to answer. He quickly took the phone and blurted:

“Angel, honey, I can’t talk, I’m very busy, buying you a surprise, I’ll call you back in ten, love you”, without letting him even say a word. He figured out it would be more secure.

“Wife?”, asked a second young man, with a smile.

“Yeah. Sort of. Listen, I think I’d rather be going, are they done with the teeth? At the end of the day, I’ll think I’m more than happy without them. I don’t wanna take ‘em. I saw what you did, it was amazing. Drop me at the underground station, please… Else my, ehm, spouse, will be suspecting something, which I don’t fancy, like, at all”.

Crowley was very relieved when they drove away.

***

Crowley thought he had never had such a lovely Christmas morning. Angel was by his side, in his lovely tartan pajamas, they were tucked under the blanket, sipping tea and lazily switching the channels on telly.

“I thought I hated Christmas”, Crowley said quietly, as he lowered his head to Aziraphale’s, planting a soft kiss on his temple. “Now you made me love it. What next, angel?”

“You’ll stop wearing all black?”, Aziraphale answered, with a sarcastic smile.

“Naah, not in this life and not in the next”, Crowley said leisurely, switching the channels. Then he saw the news.

“… The victim of this horrific Christmas assault is alive, but severely traumatized – his teeth were…”

That was something Crowley didn’t account for – the bloody news.

“Ugh, what is it with these people”, he said with a trembling voice, trying desperately to sound casual, turning the telly off. “It’s only violence on this television, I’ll better put on some music. And make you some tea”, Crowley said, standing up.

“Dear boy”, Aziraphale said softly. “I’d like some tangerines. Would you be so kind as to bring your husband a plateful of those?”, he smiled. Crowley looked like he was melting from the inside.

“Every time you say the h-word I can’t say no to anything, angel. I’ll be in 15, a’right”

Crowley sighed with relief as he stepped into the kitchen. He was off the hook now, but some time from now, the angel might still learn about what happened. Will he be able to understand?

“All I did, I did for you”, Crowley thought in pain. “I love you so much I couldn’t stop it. He had to pay, my love, he had to”. Crowley felt tears fill his eyes, as he was putting tangerines in a bowl, but he was able to will them away. “I’d kill for you, I’d die for you, Aziraphale”, he thought with anguish. “I hope you know that whatever comes. I hope you will forgive me for what I had to do”.

***

With Crowley gone, Aziraphale was finally able to read the newspaper.

“Broken teeth, that’s a good take”, he thought smugly, as he read the weekly crime report. “See, Sandalphon. What goes around, comes around, next time you want to apply brutal force to your… arguments, better remember this, no? Though I doubt there will be the next time”

Aziraphale smirked. What his husband lacked in logic and cautiousness, he made up in loyalty and protectiveness. Blind loyalty and fierce protectiveness.

“You’re such an idiot, Crowley”, Aziraphale thought tenderly. “Really, A-J? To think I wouldn’t know? Me, famous Mr. Fell of Soho?”

That very evening, when he received a phone call from Phil and heard of some “heroin junkie looking” guy calling himself “Tony Jay” or “A J”, or, God have mercy, “Jay”, of all things, he knew it has to be Crowley.

“Wearing a black hoodie on top of his shades, really. It’s a miracle he didn’t get busted for drug possession”. Maybe it was indeed a miracle.

Truth be told, he wasn’t angry. He couldn’t approve openly, but there was a certain warmness in knowing that a homophobic golden-toothed prick who assaulted him now got what was coming for him.

“But I can’t encourage this sort of behavior in Crowley”, he thought, hiding his smile. “Now, dear boy, you need to control your impulses. At least, most of the time”.

Still, Aziraphale knew that he was one of the luckiest men – well, not really men, but… - alive, for his partner would stop at nothing to protect him.

“If only he would’ve acted a bit cleverer… Well, I suppose you can’t have it all. He’s beautiful, caring, kind, sweet, fiercely loyal and sexy as Hell, in the most literal sense of this word. It’s only natural he has to be a complete idiot to not let me forget myself. Oh, he brought me the cannoli the other day… This boy watched The Godfather too many times”.

“Angel!”, Crowley said, entering the room with a bowl full of tangerines. “What are you smiling at?”

“I’m thinking about how lucky I am to have you, dear boy”, Aziraphale answered with a loving smile.

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kpopkeeks · 4 years

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Dark

Choi Youngjae Oneshot/Drabble

Genre: Angst

*******

They knew it was ending long before they parted ways in a storm of tears. They knew it was ending before either of them had the guts to admit it. It was also likely that everyone around them knew as well.

That’s the funny thing about love, however. You know it’s a bad idea, you know it won’t work, and yet you throw yourself headfirst hoping you’ll tame the beast before it tames you.

The bottle pressed to Y/N’s lips at midnight in a smoky bar says that she, much to her disbelief, could not tame the beast. The irony of comparing the man she loved to a beast almost made her chuckle; almost. To anyone who knew Youngjae, he was the farthest thing from a monster. She still felt that way, regardless of the current situation. People literally called him their sunshine. So why did everything feel so dark?

She huffed and put the bottle on the bar. The bartender eyed her cautiously; probably wondering when to offer to call her a cab. He couldn’t quite wrap his head around why someone so beautiful had found their way into his dive bar. It happened a lot, girls came here, drank too much, talked to any guy they could. She was different however, by her guarded body language and extreme avoidance of eye contact said she really was here to drink her pain away.

“Hey,” the bartender started, “do you need anything?”

“Another one.” She sighed, “thanks.”

He nodded curtly and grabbed another bottle of beer from under the bar. Popping it open, he rested it in front of her.

“What brings you here on a Tuesday so late?” He asked.

She looked up at him, where he finally could see how emotionless here eyes looked.

“Uh, this?” She pointed to the beer. She immediately felt guilty for the tone she used, but she really didn’t have it in her to carry on a conversation.

He got the hint however, and nodded before heading to the other end of the bar.

She was left alone with her thoughts for too long, which was annoying because her thoughts were always the same. Just echoes of his words, bouncing against her skull so hard she felt nauseous.

*******

“You know exactly why I haven’t told anyone about us.” Youngjae pleaded with Y/N for what seemed like the hundredth time.

“I know, I know, but do you know how hard it is to feel like you’re embarrassed of me every. Day.” She admitted, crossing her arms, staring him down. They stood about 6 feet apart, both defensive and exhausted. This conversation came up multiple times. Youngjae didn’t want to be public with their relationship; Y/N wasn’t pleased. She showed affection and love in a very public way, and Youngjae just didn’t speak that love language.

“I’ve told you, I’m not embarrassed.” He said bluntly, an uncharacteristic frown on his face.

“Youngjae, just admit it.” Y/N started, feeling her blood pressure rise and the thought of the man she absolutely loved everything about not reciprocating her same passion. “I don’t always say appropriate things, I’m loud, I dress in a way you don’t approve of, just stop hiding behind your excuses and just admit that you don’t think I would handle the spotlight well. I’d bring you all sorts of bad press, right? Negative media, people saying you deserve better, calling me all these terrible things. You love me, but you hate, hate my dirty mouth, my big opinions, my-“

“Yes, fine, I’m embarrassed! You’re a beautiful, vibrant person and you say whatever comes to mind but I’m constantly under a microscope and you don’t seem to care that your actions would reflect on me! You’re just-…you’re just…” He trailed off as he saw her face contort like she had been smacked.

“Just what? Go ahead,” She spat.

“You’re just a lot sometimes. Not for everyone, but…for me.” He whispered, looking down at his feet.

And there it was. She knew it, he knew it, everyone knew it, and who knew it would be Youngjae to finally say it. They had always been polar opposites; Y/N sarcastic, loud, fun loving, center of attention. Youngjae quiet, reserved, sweet, soft-spoken.

She didn’t respond. She looked at him as he avoided her gaze. Her eyes threatened to cry but she’d be damned if he saw it.

“I’m happy you took your time figuring it out.” She whispered bitterly.

“W-what?” He stammered.

“I’m happy you pursued me, asked me to be with you, made me fall in love with you and robbed me of nine months of my life to decided that now, now I’m too much.” She took an involuntary step back, mostly because she felt like she might pass out. Was this really happening? How could it be possible that the only man she had ever let herself love was now pointing out all the things to her that he couldn’t deal with. So where did that leave them? Did she tone herself down for the sake of Youngjae? Maybe she could fit in his mold, maybe she could find a place in his lifestyle. At what cost? This wasn’t an annoying habit, this was her whole being.

“You’re not too much, but I…I-“

“Just stop. I’ve heard enough. I get it. So what now? How much of myself do I rip away so I can be what you want?” She asked, tilting her head. Youngjae pulled his eyebrows together. Was she serious, or being sarcastic again? It was hard to tell.

“Don’t patronize me. I’m not trying to hurt you. I don’t want to fight with you; I love you.” He tried, reaching an arm out to her. She quickly backed up a few more steps.

“Don’t say that. Don’t you dare.”

“What, Y/N, I do. I do love you. You know that. Everyone knows that.” He defended, stepping towards her. She didn’t move, so he took it as a sign to take another step. And one more. Soon he was right in front of her.

“I don’t think your members count as everyone,” She sighed, looking up at him. He gazed down at her, looking for a sign of her next move. She was unpredictable and wild; he really never knew what to expect. Which, in any other world, would be exactly what he wanted. Someone to challenge him, to make him uncomfortable and help him grow. He brought his hand up to her cheek, slowly brushing her skin with his thumb. Her body reacted for her, leaning into his hand. He considered this a victory, maybe she would reason with him…

His warmth had always drawn her in. She knew she was rough around the edges, kind of cold and bitter. But he brightened her right up. He exuded this light about him that she felt addicted to; like a moth to a flame. She brought her hand up and rested it on top of his. He smiled softly, before wrapping his other arm around her waist and pulling her in. He tipped her face upwards towards his and leaned down slowly, brushing her lips softly with his.

As soon as she felt the soft touch, she stepped back abruptly.

“Please, don’t, please don’t pull me in just to break my heart. If this is really not going to work, stop being selfish. Stop hoping I’ll change. Just go.” She snapped, the tears in her eyes overflowing beyond her control.

His tears mimicked hers; this was never what he wanted. He wanted to think that they could overcome it but life taught an ugly lesson; sometimes love isn’t enough.

“Y/N, don’t-“

“I said go!” She shouted, turning away from him and furiously wiping her eyes.

He felt his chest get tight. The breath caught in his throat. His stomach twisted. He really did it this time, huh? Every other fight like this he broke down her walls, held her until she was calm, and kept her close. But this; this wasn’t like the other times. She’s never raised her voice at him. Ever. Sure, she said harsh things, she had a sharp tongue. But nothing like this.

Everything in his heart told him to fix what was broken, tell her he loved her. But her voice ringing in his head stopped him; “stop being selfish.”

He quietly turned to walk out of the apartment, taking one slow agonizing stare back at the woman he had fallen for. He wanted to remember every detail of her sharp features, soft lips, long hair, captivating eyes. Something in the knot in his stomach told him he better enjoy the sight; it might be the last time. Once he finished torturing himself, he saw his way out.

Leaving Y/N to grieve on her own. The worst part about being someone’s secret? Going through a heartbreak no one knows about.

*******

“Ma’am? Its bar close.” The bartender’s kind voice snapped her out of reliving her personal nightmare.

“Oh, okay…thanks.” She tossed a twenty on the bar. “Keep the change.”

He nodded, “Do you need me to call you a cab?”

“I’ll walk, thanks though. Say, is it always this empty?” She inquired, looking around the bar.

“I mean, like I said, it’s a Tuesday. But, on average, we’re a pretty lowkey place.” He explained, wiping down the bar in front of him.

She smirked, nodding her head towards him. She gave a small wave before heading out into the cold night air.

The dark sky was the most comforting thing she’d experienced since their fight. Everything about Youngjae was bright, light, sunny and fun. However, when that is taken away, everything is dark.

“Alright, you can do this. Whatever makes you think of him, you avoid. The night time is your best friend now.” She thought to herself. She couldn’t even find it in herself to be upset, or angry with him. She can’t blame him without blaming herself as well. They were both guilty.

Because, after all, they knew it was going to end.

#choi youngjae #youngjae #got7 #got7imagine #imagine #oneshot #drabble #angst #kpop bands #kpop #fiction #dark

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itgetsbetter-ff · 5 years

Text

Chapter 4- Deja Vu (Part 2)

Dominique

Sighing, looking at my hair, I was disappointed because it was already fading. I knew Momma was gonna be pissed cause she just got it done, but i didn’t think it was gonna fade this fast. But I didn’t want to ask to get it done again, cause I’m treading on thin ice.

Katie has called me a million times, since my last visit, and because I hadn’t answered the phone, she’s called my dad a million times to try to talk to me. But let’s be real, I’m not going back to that hell hole.

Things around the house, still are strange. Dad hasn’t really said anything to me. Dad and mom started talking again, and everyone still talks to me, except my lovely older sister. The doctor’s told me that I’m stressing too much, which could be bad for my baby. But again, let’s be real. How could I not stress. I’m 16, pregnant, and I don’t know who the father is. I’m praying it’s my ex-boyfriend’s baby. But if it isn’t it’s Angel’s boyfriend. She’d literally kill me if that was the case.

“Hello, Earth to Dominique.” Kaliea said laughing before hitting me with a pillow, in my face.

I frowned and threw it back at her. “That’s not funny!”

She sighed, “Well, bitch, listen to what I’m saying and i won’t have to throw it at you.

We were in my room at my house, hanging out. But I honestly forgot she was here. Listening to your own thoughts can be deadly sometimes.

“Okay, what were you saying?” I asked

She shrugged, “Nothing important. What were you thinking about?”

“My hair. It’s fading, and I know my mom is going to be pissed if I asked to get it done again.”

She rolled her eyes, “You act like your sister and cousin don’t own a hair salon.”

“You act like my sister likes me. Plus, I don’t get my hair done over there, and she’s pissed that my hair is pink, just like hers.”

“Everyone in the family gets their hair and nails done there. Angel’s salon is literally the best in LA.”

I sighed, “Trust me, I know.”

I’ve actually been wanting to go over there, but Angel is just- i don’t even know how to explain her. Sage does hair sometimes over there, but I’ve been to scared to ask anyone to even get a service done. YES, the owner is my sister, but I know she’d rather have me far away from her place of business.

I looked up when I saw Lea on the phone.

“What are you doing” I whispered.

“Getting you an appointment in Angel’s salon.” she whispered back

I hopped off my bed, trying to reach her but it was already too late.

“Hey Tay! Can you do me a favor and do one of my friends heads for me please?” She said into the phone

“20 mins? Great see you there.” Then she hung up the phone

“Zoey Kaliea Hernandez-Boudreaux!!”

“What, I got you your appointment.”

~~~~

Sitting in this man’s chair, had me nervous. Apparently, he does Lea’s hair all the time and they’re really cool. But I was a nervous wreck that my sister would walk in her at any minute. He tried to make conversation with me, but Lea told him I was shy, so he didn’t press it too much.

We were almost done, when I saw Sage walk through the front door. Lea was sitting at her station, next to Tay’s and I knew I was officially dead.

“Lea?” Sage questioned, and Lea just smiled back.

“I forgot, you would be Sage’s cousin too, if you were Angel’s” Tay spoke to her

Sage chuckled, “Then let me introduce to you, Angel’s sister, in your chair, Dominique. Hello Domi.”

“Hi Sage.” I whispered.

“Aw, Hell. Zoey Kahliea, I oughta whoop your ass! You’re trying to get her to kill us all.” Tay threatened Lea.

She just shrugged, “Look, am I afraid of her. Hell yeah, but Domi needed her hair done by the best. This salon is the best in the city! She shouldn’t be afraid to not come to her own sister’s salon because Angel doesn’t like her.”

I knew she was right, but I stayed silent.

Once Sage went in the back, and Lea followed her, Tay turned me around and looked directly at me.

“Is this going to be an issue?” He asked,

I shook my head, “Is it for you?”

He just rolled his eyes, “She my best friend, but she ain God. A customer is a customer.”

I nodded not really knowing what he meant, but okay.

“Look, I know that girl like the back of my hand. You just got to give her time.”

I was confused, “Time? Time for what?”

“To warm up to you, yeah, she’s been a bitch to you, your whole life. But she’s a teddy bear. She told me that she took you to the clinic, she was the first person that found out. Held you when you cried. That’s the Angelique Marie Boudreaux Cartier that I know. She’s an asshole, but she wouldn’t do anything to harm you and she wouldn’t let anyone else harm you”

I sat there and thought about what he said. I know she can be nice, but I never really imagined that she’d be nice to me. We literally fought all the time. I remember the ass-whoopin she gave me, when I wrecked her car once. Technically, I was driving Dad’s car, and crashed his car into hers. But still.

“Do I owe you anything for my hair?”

“Nope, all family members that we know, are allowed to get free services, that includes you. Ms. Dominique.”

I smiled at him, but that smile turned into a frown as soon as I heard her behind me.

“Why are you here?” She said walking past me and sat into Tay’s chair.

I didn’t really say anything, but Tay interrupted me.

“I touched up her hair, Why you got your sister going to these ugly ass people’s salons. Ruining her hair.” He accused her.

“I dont care. Im here to get this pink off me, cause of her anyways. Andrea did you pay?” She said with venom

“She did. Stop being nosey bitch,” He spoke up for me

She rolled her eyes, “Well, daddy outside anyways to get you and Kahliea. So you can leave.”

I nodded, “Bye Tay, thank you.”

“No Problem honey.”

“Andrea, why are you still here.” Angel said dismissively

“Bitch you too damn rude. That’s your sister.”

“Shut the hell up Deontay. Before I whoop your ass.” She laughed

I didn’t hear the rest of her conversation, because I had left to go to the car. I texted Lea to come outside.

I got in the backseat of the car. “Hi Daddy.”

“Hi Dominique.” He said super dry.

~~~

He barely spoke to me in the car to drive Lea home, and he didn’t speak to me on the way home. I finally spoke up when we got to the house.

“Are you going to forgive me?”

He turned around confused, “What?”

“Are you going to forgive me? You don’t call me princess anymore, you barely look at me. or even talk to me daddy. Are you going to forgive me?”

“Angelique it’s not-“

“I’M DOMINIQUE!” I screamed.

He sighed and rubbed his face. “I know exactly who you are, I’m tired Dominique. It’s not that I’m not forgiving you, I’m just really disappointed. I wanted more for your life than teenage pregnancy.”

“I know daddy, but you forgave mom.”

“I wasn’t mad at your mother because you got pregnant. I was mad that she constantly treats you like you’re fragile. You’re not fragile. You can not be coddled by Giselle. You can’t be coddled by anyone anymore.”

“I just- I know i messed up, but Daddy, I want you to talk to me. I already have Angel hating my guts, i cant have you hating me.”

“I don’t hate you. I love you to much. You and all of your brothers and sisters.”

I shrugged, “It doesn’t feel like that sometimes daddy.”

“I apologize for that Princess, I’ll try to do better.”

I smiled, “You called me Princess.”

He rolled his eyes, as he started to get out of the car, “Yeah whatever, get out of the car, so you can get dinner.”

I got out of the car and stood next to him “Daddy, my next doctor appointment is next week, will you come, with mom and I?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” He said hugging me and kissing my forehead.

I haven’t hugged my Dad since he found out I was pregnant, I missed him.

Rose

“ANDRE ISADORE KARTER JUNIOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

I can’t belief this little boy. He has all of his shit just spawled around my damn house and I was sick of it.

“Yes Ma’am?” He called out

“Come downstairs please?”

I heard him stop his video game and come down the stairs. He looked exactly like his father and it was kind of sickening sometimes.

I started to point to his entire mess. “AJ, We’ve talked about this. The living room is not your room, there is no reason why all of your sporting gear should be all over the living room. I’m not cleaning it up.” I said trying not to strangle my child.

“But dad said-“ He started

“I DONT CARE WHAT YOUR FATHER SAID! CLEAN IT UP NOW!”

I wanted to pull my own hair out sometimes. Raising a 12 year old boy is exhausting, like I’m going to have to ask Olivia and Giselle how they did it, because I can’t.

“Yes ma’am.” He muttered and started to clean up the mess.

I went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of white wine, its been more common now. I knew that I should get started on dinner but I honestly didn’t even want to cook.

“Hey what are you doing?” I heard Rack say.

“Mom said to clean the living room.” AJ mumbled.

“Go ahead upstairs, I’ll talk to your mom.”

I rolled my eyes and started to walk out the kitchen,

“No, you stay your ass right there and clean Andre.” I gave him an evil eye, which made him continue to clean.

“Rakim, can I see you in the kitchen please?”

Once he followed me in the kitchen, “Baby cmon. He’s a teenage boy, they do shit like that.” He shrugged dismissively

I scoffed, “Rakim, he needs to learn to pick up after himself. You’re not doing it and I for damn sure will not do that shit.”

“Rose, I think you’re overreacting.”

“STOP UNDERMINING ME WITH HIM!” I screamed, I honestly was tired of me being the bad guy and discipling AJ, and Rack coming in and being super fun dad. No, that is not how this shit works.

I guess he realized I was serious, once he saw my face.

He sighed, “I didn’t realize that it bothered you so much”

“Yeah, well it does. Constantly.”

He came over to me and put his arms around me, usually, I would melt at his touch, but lately he’s been feeling like a stranger.

“Gi and Liv invited us out to eat. You know just couples i guess.” He said.

“That’s fine. I guess, I’ll go get dressed.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Having dinner with my family, usually always puts me in a fantastic ass mood. But today, it just wasn’t right.

First, the argument with Rack and AJ, then we get to the restaurant not only is my brother there, he’s there with his on/off side piece Callie, whom we all dislike. Then LOL Here comes Lizzie with Kamryn. I just couldn’t. Dinner was a disaster and then i asked Gi and Liv how to basically deal with Andre Jr and Rack gets a whole attitude with me.

Which leads us to right now, Arguing.

We’ve been arguing since we got in the car on the way home and that was 3 hours ago.

“Rosalie, see this is exactly what I’m talking about! You don’t listen to me, and you treat AJ and I like shit. What’s the matter!” He yelled

I didn’t answer. He looked at me like I was stupid.

“Hello!!”

“Andre, leave me alone.”

“No Rosalie!! Why are you like this to us! What did we do to you?!”

“BECAUSE I’M SICK OF HIM RACK AND I’M SICK OF YOU!!”

As soon as I said it, I regretted it. But I couldn’t take it back.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean Rosalie?” He said, very coldly.

“I - I dont know, I shouldn’t have said it.”

“No, you know exactly what the fuck you meant! Go ahead say it! I forced you to have a kid after our first baby died, and you didn’t want any more.!” He yelled in my face.

I didn’t say anything at first, but I needed him to say her name.

“Say her name Rakim.” I gritted.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” He sighed.

“Say it!!! Nicole Azaiah Karter! Stop pretending she doesn’t exist!”

“She doesn’t Rosalie!! YOU HAVE ANDRE TO WORRY ABOUT NOT NICOLE! Nicole is dead! LET IT GO! Andre is LITERALLY UPSTAIRS! Stop pretending I forced you into fucking motherhood! YOU WANTED THIS JUST AS MUCH AS I DID!” He yelled back at me

“YOU DID! I didn’t want anymore children after Nicole died! I WAS DYING RAKIM, I had no choice BUT TO TERMINATE HER! We broke up, i realized I was being stupid because i loved you. We said nothing could tear us apart and that it was okay and we talked about it adopting and surrogacy but after awhile, I just accepted that a baby wasn’t for us. YOU forced me to look into surrogate after i told you no for YEARS! You forced me to be a mother! I DIDN’T WANT HIM ANDRE, I WANTED NICOLE! I WANT MY DAUGHTER BACK NOT YOUR SON!”

Again, as soon as I said it, I instantly regretted it.

“Get out.” He mumbled.

“What?” I was shocked

“I said, Get out.” He said clear as day, looking at me. If looks could kill, I would be 1,000 ft under.

I looked at the clock in the kitchen and it said 2:33 am.

“Rack, it’s almost 3 am!!”

“I DONT GIVE A FLYING FUCK! GET THE FUCK OUT! You resent me for having our son! You don’t love him, you don’t love me! so GET THE FUCK OUT!” He screamed at me.

I started crying, “THAT’S NOT TRUE I LOVE THE BOTH OF YOU!”

“Rosalie, I’m not gonna tell you again. GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!!” His voice boomed, that it literally scared me. He’s never talked to me this way before. Ever.

“Mom? Dad?” AJ called from upstairs

“Everything’s alright sweetie. Go back to bed.” I called out to him, trying to make sure that my voice didn’t shake.

“Dad?” He called out again.

“Listen to your mother AJ.” He called out never taking his eyes off me.

“Yes sir.” and he went back to his room, and we heard the door close.

“Rack, please. I need you to understand” I begged. He cut his eyes at me.

“By the time I wake up to take him to school, I want your ass gone. I’m not playing.”

He started to go up the stairs into our bedroom but I grabbed his arm.

“Rack!! Please!”

He snatched away from me and continued to walk upstairs

“Go to Hell Rosalie.”

I watched in awe, Andre has never spoken to me like this before,I saw him turn left and go into the guest room next to AJ’s room, and slammed the door.

I jumped and the tears immediately came, I covered my mouth and sobbed. Not to disturb my son, or even Andre. I collapsed to the floor crying, because I probably just single- handedly just broke up my family.

What the fuck did I just do?

Avery

Here I am, 44 years old, still doing the same shit I was when I was in my twenties. Partying, drinking, spending, and living my best life. But also getting my ass beat almost every other night by my long-time boyfriend, King, the most powerful drug dealer on the west coast.

I’ve done a lot of shit in my life, including, being a mistress and getting pregnant, leaving my son, being with an abusive man who is also married, getting pregnant 5 more times by him, and having those babies. King doesn’t claim the kids because then his wife would find out and then our whole lives would be taken away from us. I’ve had 2 still born babies due to my cocaine habits, one daughter Ameila, who is 12 taken away from me by the state, I currently have my 9 year old son August and my 2 year old daughter, Aria.

King takes care of me, and I take care of the kids, when I’m sober. But I take care of King most of the time. I don’t live in the best of areas, but it’ll do for now.

“Baby?” He calls out

“Bathroom,” I was covering up my black eye with makeup, and then I had plans on getting high as a fuckin kite

He came in and stood behind me, putting his hands on my hips and kissing my neck.

“How was your day, daddy?” I said provocatively

“Same bullshit. Wife problems.”

I rolled my eyes, but I made sure not to let him see that. I don’t need anymore pain.

“You gonna relieve my wife problems baby?” He spoke against my neck, giving me love bites.

I started to moan, because damn, that felt good.

“I’m trying to finish this daddy.” I moaned out.

“I said now” He growled, and one of his hands travelled down to rub my soaking wet pussy, I only had on a t-shirt so it gave him easy access.

“You’re always so wet for me. Who pussy is this?” He whispered in my ear

I threw my head back onto his shoulder moaning, opening my legs wider as he started to finger me. “Fuck, yours daddy!”

I was upset when he removed his hand and walked into the bedroom.

“Come ride this dick.” He ordered and took down his pants sitting on the edge of the bed.

I quickly followed because he doesn’t like to wait and threw my shirt off, exposing my naked body. Seeing his dick made me even hornier than before, I couldn’t wait to cum all over it.

I straddled him, and he entered me, we both moaned out. His taking my hips and guiding me, i used his shoulders for balance, as I bounced up and down.

“Fuck me, daddy, please!” I called out throwing my head back in pleasure. He put my tit in his mouth and started to suck on it, which sent me even higher.

“Ugh, your pussy feels so fuckin good. You dripping all over me!”

I was just about to cum, when someone started banging on my damn door.

“IGNORE IT!” He growled, and I was going to, King’s sex was better than cocaine and alcohol combined. When we were drunk, high and fucking, it’s out of this world.

I could tell he was getting frustrated, but I was trying to cum. So fuck the door. I kissed his lips and started down his neck.

“Cmon daddy, ignore the door, make me cum. I’m about to daddy. All over you” I moaned.

He groaned out loud, louder than before and I knew he was focused again. But then the somebody started pounding on the door. He got mad as fuck and threw me off and my ass hit the floor.

“Go answer the fuckin door.” He mumbled.

I nodded and picked up my shirt putting it on, running to the door, I was mad as fuck at whoever was at the door interrupting me having sex. August and Aria came out of their room.

“Go back in your room! You don’t want your father mad at you!” I scolded and pushed them in the room and closing the door.

“AVERY HURRY THE FUCK UP!!!” He screamed from the bedroom

I came to the door, just as the person was about to knock again,

“WHAT!” I screamed

But I immediately stopped. I saw the expensive clothes, the expensive shoes and purse. Long black hair.

This bitch hasn’t aged a fucking day.

“Olivia?” I choked out.

She looked at me up and down, and grimaced.

“We need to talk.”

Sage

I was on the phone with Marie and she was telling me what happened to Aiden with Dad. I was in shock. I mean I know that Aye’s mom was a touchy subject, but for my dad to make Aiden cry, I would have never guessed that.

“I’m gonna call him, to see how he is.” I said into the phone while ironing my clothes.

“Yeah I think that’s a good idea, he’s been staying in the penthouse in Malibu, and I take him food and bring him clothes.” Ree said

“Isn’t that a far commute from school to the house to the penthouse?” I questioned

“I mean, I guess but he’s my little brother. I’m always gonna look out for him. You know daddy pretty pissed at you too.”

I wasn’t surprised, but he hasn’t called an told me that, so I was indifferent.

“What the fuck did he expect me to do? Lie? Shit if I didn’t know mommy, I would’ve wanted to know her, even if she was crazy.”

“Yeah, I don’t know. You know he don’t like talking about it. I guess he thinks its gonna upset mommy. But you know she don’t give a damn.”

I laughed, “Right.But Ree how’s school?”

“Eh, Its okay.” She said dismissively

“Marie.” I warned, She completely ignored me and asked

“Have you talked to Angel?”

“No. Not since I saw her at the shop earlier this week. Why?”

She started laughing, “Nothing, she mad at Dominique again, like usual and she just being her crazy self. I went to get my hair pressed out yesterday and she vented to me about a lot honestly.”

“You know that heffa is crazy. She gets on my nerves though.” I laughed

“Sage, when you coming home?”

I laughed “Marie, I just left.”

“I know, but I miss you. Between Aiden and Maurice, plus daddy being mad at Aiden. It’s all driving me insane! I need my sister” She whined.

I sighed, think about why i wasn’t at home. “ I should be home soon, I have to handle and tie up a few things in NYC and I should be home in a few weeks.”

“Spa day when you come back?”

“Of course.”

~~~~~~~~~

Entering the courthouse, I got weird flashbacks and it honestly scared me. I hated talking about this and I hated being in New York. New York was supposed to be my solace after the hell I went through in LA, but NY made LA look like a piece of cake.

“Calling to the stands Ms. Sage Lavigne.” The prosecutor said.

I took the stand and promised under the oath. Blah blah blah. I was wiping my hands on my pants because they were sweating really bad under the pressure.

“Ms. Lavigne, why are you here today?”

I cleared my throat, “I am here to give my testimony, about what occurred when I was 17- 21.”

“How old are you now?” He asked.

“I am 25, about to turn 26 in a few months.”

“Okay, let the record show that Ms. Lavigne is the states witness and will be telling the situation from her perspective.” Then he nodded for me to go ahead and speak.

I cleared my throat, and took a shaky breath.

“When I was 14, I was in a relationship with my first love Aaron Cole. Everything was good at first, he was about 2 years older than me, and that’s what I found attractive about him. He was older, He had money and he was always nice to me. His little sister was my cousin’s best friend so I saw him all the time. Picking her up and dropping her off.”

I pushed my hair behind my ear, it was never easy for me to talk about Aaron. He caused me so much pain that I could never imagine.

“So, when I turned 15, everything changed. He became mean and argumentative. My 15th birthday was the day that he first hit me. I should’ve left that day, but he promised he would never do it again. But that was a lie, because he beat me almost every day after that for about 2 years. I hid it from my family and friends, because I loved him. I wanted to protect him”

I knew the tears started to fall, and I knew I was done for.

“So, on my 17th birthday, I told him that I got into college and that made him so mad. He thought that I had another year of high school left. He thought that I was going to leave him behind and that because I got into college and he didn’t go that I was better than him and so he constantly would demean me and he beat me so bad, that I almost died. My mom found me in my bathroom crying, bloody, bruised up and she rushed me to the hospital. This was when I found out that I was pregnant, as soon as I got better I ran away to New York. My parents didn’t know about the baby, no one did. I was too far along to get it aborted but I wasn’t showing either. My freshman year, I really didn’t go home, to hide my pregnancy and I gave birth by myself in the hospital.”

“That was the second hardest thing I had to do, because the first was putting her in the care of family members.”

The lawyer interrupted asking me a question: “ I thought you said your family don’t know about your daughter.”

I nodded, “My immediate family. My daughter is in the care of my step-grandfather’s side of the family. My intention was to always come back for her, but once her father was either in jail or dead. I couldn’t have him looking for her. But by the time I was 20, I fell in love again. I was dating this guy who I went to school with, his name was Chandler Burke, he was also a few years older than me”

“He had gone to jail before but he was getting his life together, and he was everything I was looking for in a man. We had been dating for a year, and everything was fine, until I told him about my daughter. Next thing you know, Aaron shows up at my apartment with Chandler and they beat me until, again I almost died. My neighbor found me on my doorsteps passed out and called 911. In the hospital, I suffered broken ribs, i had to get my jaw wired shut, and internal injuries. I also was notified, that I had suffered a miscarriage and that because the bleeding was so bad, it would be hard for me to have children without medical help or surrogacy. I was carrying Chandler’s child and him and Aaron beat me near to death again”

“They never knew my daughter’s name or where she lived, but they knew she was alive. But what I didn’t know was that Aaron sent Chandler to watch over me. Chandler’s real name was Antonio Cole. Aaron’s older Cousin. I didn’t know they were related.”

By this time, I was full on sobbing in court. Telling this story to anyone, hurts me every single time because they stole everything from me and it took a long time for me to even get the courage to tell anyone, let alone a room full of people and a judge.

“Ms. Lavigne, can you answer on more question?”

I nodded and he asked, “Why specifically are you here?”

I blew my nose and gathered my words, “I’m petitioning the court, to allow me to gain full rights of my daughter again.Her father is dead and his cousin is in jail. They cant harm her or be harmful to her anymore. I want her to come home with me, and my relatives aren’t willingly giving her back to me.”

“Could you explain?”

“I guess, since they’ve had her from the day she was born, they have grown attached to her. She calls me mommy and she knows exactly who I am. My relatives feel that I can’t provide for an 8 year old when I can. I have multiple successful businesses, I send my family child support because they were doing me a favor, a trust fund in her name, a house and a room that she can call her own. I just want my baby back. I want what I lost when I was 17.”

“What is your daughter’s name?”

“On her birth certificate it’s Dahlia Angelique Elise Boudreaux-Lavigne. But the court has her under Dahlia Angelique Elise Karter. But I call her either Dolly or Dahlia”

“That’s a long name for a child.” He joked.

I laughed, “My name is Sage Elise Boudreaux Lavigne. My first name is Sage Elise and Middle Boudreaux, and Last Lavigne. Sage is my father’s grandmother’s name and Elise is my mother’s mother’s name. Boudreaux is my mother’s maiden name and Lavigne is my father’s last name”

“My daughter’s name means everything. So Dahlia is a flower, one of my favorites actually. But in Arabic it means Olive branch. I took that as a play for my mother’s name Olivia, which means the same. Angelique is the name of the person I want to be her God mother, my best friend and Cousin. So her first name is Dahlia Angelique. Elise is her middle name and I made her last name hyphenated because all of my cousins carry the last name Boudreaux and then their father’s last name. I couldn’t name my daughter Cole because he is a monster that doesn’t deserve to know about her.”

“Anything else the court should know?”

I shook my head, “I just want my daughter back,”

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