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eatommo · 6 months

Text

Like Real People Do [d.d]

Summary: You and Mando have a history of broken hearts and are both looking for a place to land in the galaxy you live in, but you'll always have each other.

A/n: Not beta'd! mistakes are my own! and look a Hozier song to a Pedro fic what's new! I love this. I hope you do too! 6.2k

Cw: Canon typical violence, mentions of human trafficking, use of weapons, mutual pining, discussions of loss, discussions of war, brief mentions of grief, Reader is from Alderaan (trauma that comes from that), the reader has some of my tattoos because we love a self-insert, broken glass, pubic hair?, unprotected p in v, mentions of marking, hickeys, mentions of oral sex m/f receiving, fingering, the helmet stays on, breeding kink if you squint, as always touched starved Din, themes involving depression and loss, takes place post season 3 but has a flash back to season 1, I probably missed something but let me know!

It had been ages since you’d seen him. You’re not sure how many rotations, but not a day has passed that you didn’t think about him. But there, just passing the entrance to the trading post, his shiny beskar helmet flashes over the crowd.

You put your head down, looking at the spare parts you were hoping to auction off for some measly credits at a holiday festival for some caf and to help you hopefully buy some piece of junk craft to get you off this dusty and dry planet.

Maybe you’ll be lucky and you can slink away, and evade an awkward reunion all altogether. You found an outcropping and a small table covered in different smoked meats and small roasted animals.

You try to sell the fact that you look busy while you think about the last time you spoke to him. Your conversation about the rebel symbol marred into your skin with black ink, Cara had done it herself, and you’d helped her put the very same symbol on her cheek. The pain felt good, it mirrored the grief that felt immeasurable and it almost felt like a release of all of the terrible thoughts of your family’s final moments. Had your family suffered? Did they even know what was coming for them?

You were young and had just gotten off the planet in search of something greater, a higher purpose. Something to believe in, and the empire stole everything you’d ever known in one simple explosion.

It had handed you a purpose, for a time. Working with the rebellion, standing with your Princess, and fighting and punishing the Empire for the loss of Alderaan. Cara and you were hiding out on Sorgan after leaving your post as shock troopers. You were in the fresher when they started to tousle outside, you expected some gruff Klatoonian who she sharked in a bet, as it often was. Instead, she lies on her belly, a blaster pointed at a chrome-covered Mandalorian, who is lying on his back with a weapon drawn.

The only thing that holds your attention is a little green baby holding a cup of soup, mirroring your amusement waddling up next to you.

He coos, looking between you and his companion like he expects you to save him. “Sorry bud, I’m with her.”

An aggravated harsh pant cuts you off, “Stay away from him.” The blaster shifts to you, but you raise your hands and keep an even temper. He looks between the two of you, who clearly have no intention or idea what he is in possession of, and offers to buy the two of your dinner.

He didn’t speak much at first, but as you and Cara drank away a flagon of spotchka and you shared your interest in his ship, having to grow up around the rebel's fleet and wanting to see such an old military craft, he offered to show you.

“It’s a short walk, the kid is falling asleep in your lap anyway.” You look down at the little wrinkled green monster, blinking slowly with his massive eyes as you stroke his ears, you can’t help but fawn over him.

“I can’t believe they’re hunting a baby.” Whispering, as you feel the warmth of his tiny body, heartbroken at the idea of an imperial remnant looking for children.

“He is older than I am.” His surprisingly playful voice almost startled you, he’d been quietly walking by your side as you carried the little guy nestled into your chest.

“He’s” you struggle to find words, but you can feel an energy emanating from the little creature in your arms “magnificent.”

The Mandalorian hums lowly, agreeing with you. There’s a pause for a few moments while you look over at him, “Did you find a lot of purpose? With the rebellion?”

It's your turn to be broody, “For a time.” Suddenly feeling subconscious you speak a little bit more quietly, “Just waiting for the next thing to believe in I guess.” You sigh, gazing down into the dark black ink just above your rebel stripes, “It feels like I could keep fighting forever, but hearing all this, seeing such a small child threatened by the same evil as I was, it feels like I already have.” You’re not sure if he understands you, or even what side of the war he stood on.

“You feel like there’s reasons to fight.” He looks down into the baby drifting to sleep in your clutches. “But afraid that you have no fight left.” You half expect him to be criticizing you. Mandalorians have lost almost as much as you have, but are warriors by nature and have fought and continue to be feared across the galaxy as mercenaries and bounty hunters. His voice is soft, and understanding, as if processing his words himself.

You spot the ship ahead, falling silent in your admiration you trudge through the leaves and sticks that have fallen from the ship clearing its landing. The ramp hisses as it falls open to welcome its pilot, but you stop outside to admire the twin engines and their decades-long wear and tear.

Walking around the ship to admire her heavy laser cannons and her yellow markings. He watches you with a quiet but proud silence, as you eventually shuffle up the ramp to set the little one into a floating pram. Your eye catches a glimpse of a carbonite freezing chamber, and a little anxious butterfly seems to stir in your belly, how much do you trust him?

“I always thought I’d die looking for a bounty when I got too old, too slow, or just in plain luck.” You turn heel to face him, heartbeat clipping unsteadily in your chest, but you raise an eyebrow, encouraging him to continue. He hesitates and sets himself on top of one of the shipping containers. “But protecting this child has made me dream of a life I never thought I could fight for.”

You can feel your body soften at his confession, cursing yourself for thinking lowly of a man whose been nothing but kind and trusting of you. “I’m sure it's lonely.” You take a small but calculated breath, “He is lucky to have you.” The smile is soft, and you try to reassure him despite yourself.

He looks at you standing but a few steps away from him, and nods, “I’m just as lucky.”

The bustle of the holiday market slows to accommodate him, traversing through the stalls as all shapes and sizes scurry out of his way. You swear to yourself, turning away and buying some meat you can’t afford. When you hear your modulated name fall out of his mouth like a prayer, soft and delicate. He steers around the crowd, veering right into your path as a child walks in front of you blowing bubbles from the straw of a festive drink.

The Mandalorian approaches you with purpose, his walk deliberate and commanding as if everyone in the vicinity answers to him. “Mando.” you smile briefly, warmth heating your cheeks, and the never-fading crush you have on this man skipping around your belly. “Hi.”

His gaze stays fixed as he reaches for your arm, touching a patch of ink that not only is new to him but you completely forgot about. His glove runs over it and when it doesn’t smear it might’ve made his knees buckle. “The Crest.”

You peer into the helmet, glad to have him near you again, and realizing how much you missed hearing his voice, a rush of blood washes over your cheeks again. “Yeah,” you fumble around doubting your reasons for getting that tattoo in the first place, “I’ve been adding a couple of ships that are important to me.”

You hear a small noise but are unable to determine the emotion behind it, “I was hoping to see you on Nevarro,” your heart rate picks up in your chest, and of course, his helmet picks it up, “the last few times.”

“I’ve been moving around, looking for something new.” There’s a sleepy squeal coming from his satchel, “is that?” He swings it around to the front and opens the top of the bag to reveal your favorite green forehead. “Handsome man! I’ve missed you little mudscuffer.”

Mando chuckles under his breath as you pull the baby from his confines and offer him a piece of the meat you just bought. He swallows it down greedily. “I swear he eats. He just woke up.”

You smile and give him a playful look, “Is daddy feeding you enough munchkin?” You hand the baby another strip, Mando is glad you don’t see him adjusting his pants as the word daddy slips between your lips innocently, “Don't worry I’ll get you something sweet too.”

Mando rests his hands on his hips, and shakes his head in mock defeat, “He’s not gonna want to leave.” He follows at your back as you carry the child through the marketplace, sometimes letting his palm rest on your back to keep close to you.

He would not be one to admit but seeing you carry the child around reminds him of the times on Sorgan, of the weeks you spent together and his floundering inability to court you. Even now the way you look at him has him hiding behind his beskar helm like a foolish schoolgirl.

“He doesn’t have to, are you here for business?” You cast a look over your shoulder, “He can stay with me while you take care of whatever you need.” You find a stall selling some fruity overpriced drink for the planetary holiday.

You look into your bag, coming up just a few credits short, and cursing at yourself. Starting to walk away, “I’ve got it.” He cuts in front of you while gripping your shoulder and standing over the top of you, handing more than enough credits to the man in exchange for two drinks.

Yet another blush creeps into your cheeks, “No need to spoil me.” You offer the child his drink and he snatches it away from you eagerly with a screech.

“I want to.” That causes your brows to knit together and a deep ache below your belt to settle and warm.

You sip away at the luxuriously sweet drink, wishing you could at least share it with him. “I have a room at an inn,” you offer, “or we could go back to the Crest, and catch up.”

You lean against one of the walls so that you don’t accidentally traverse even further from his bounty. “I don’t have the crest.”

Your drink turns to ash in your mouth, “What? Is she in disrepair? I’m sure Karga-“

“It’s rubble on the planet Tython.” He’s sad, of course he is, but his hand finds the mark on your skin again, and you can’t help but mull over the memories, the connection you shared on that ship eviscerated.

“I’m so sorry.” You let your head hang low, remembering how many conversations you shared hoping he’d invite you aboard as crew. “I loved that ship. I mean not as much as you I’m sure.”

He chuckles, thumb brushing over the silhouette as he speaks, “You don’t happen to know how to rewire an N-1 starfighter engine?”

“I’m sure I could look at it, but I don’t think I’d be much help. Where the hell did you find one?” You’re a bumbling mess, wanting so eagerly for him to scoop you off this planet like he had before, but also knowing your heart couldn’t bear to watch him leave a third time.

“I didn’t think so but I have no idea what you’ve been up to and-“ he pauses, stopping himself to watch you take a sip of the drink after licking some whipped cream off of the straw.

“And?” You prompt him to continue, but he stares between you and the child who have matching bright red tongues and are both sporting some whipped cream out of the corners of your mouths.

You catch a hint of strain in his voice, “We can rest at your place for a while. He’s due for a nap.” You squint at him a little, easily reading his stiff body language and the change of subject.

At the word nap, the baby babbles away while chewing on the straw of his drink, “There’s a lot of sugar in this, so we might have to wait it out.”

Mando lets out an exasperated sigh, “What have you gotten us into.” You’re both sitting on the floor of a modest single room with the little one taking turns climbing up and over the two of you.

“You bought it,” raising your hands in defense, smile splitting ear to ear, “I was going to split one with him.” You reach out to try to grab his surprisingly quick body but he darts away with a giggle.

“He’ll crash, eventually.” You could hear him talk about the baby for hours, to sit with him and watch the two of them play together always felt like a treat on its own. “Get down from there.”

“He’s fine, this place is a dump anyway.” You smirk over your shoulder as he climbs up onto your bed, rolling around and giggling half to himself while chewing on the mythosaur skull pendant around his neck.

“How did you end up here?” Your face falls a little, but he’s kind, and soft, and you can tell he doesn’t want to pry but his curiosity is getting the best of him.

“I was tracking a bunch of smugglers, the republic got word that they were hauling children to Canto Bight, and exporting them maker knows where.” You continue, trying to keep your breath even, “Cara had asked me as a favor, but I had a run-in with a group of pirates who saw my stripes and stole my ship.”

“Does she know?” He shuffles closer to you, folding his knees in so that he can run a hand soothingly across the skin of your leg.

“I don’t know,” You clear the tightness in your throat, “At least I don’t think so.” You find the words pouring out of you as if he is comforting you into realizing something you’ve been fighting for a long time. “I don’t think I can fight like this anymore, and I don’t know how to tell her that.”

He is quiet, giving a simple solemn nod, before pulling the rising phoenix from his back, and laying it on the floor. He scoots closer to you, settling next to you as you both lean against the foot of your bed. His beskar shoulder plate is cold on your cheek, as you lean against him, seeking reassurance you haven’t felt in so long.

Silently a tear falls down your face, and as if prompted by his little superpowers the baby, climbs into your lap nuzzling your cheek and touching your face gently with a warm hand. There are a lot of things this child is capable of, things you can’t begin to understand, over a lifetime that is marred with more violence and confusion than you will likely ever know existed. When he touches you, you can feel his pain and loss, but he also shares with you a joy and unfathomable curiosity over the smallest things he remembers.

“I can’t take you on the N-1,” his voice startles you out of your stupor with the baby, “but if you’ll give me a few days, I’ll be back to pick you up, and you can stay with us on Nevarro until you find somewhere else, something else to do.”

Your breath is shaking, and you’re not even sure the last time you felt safe enough to cry. A small piece of you wants to run because that's what you've been doing for these last 10 or so years of your life. Running from the Empire, running after them, and then running from yourself. “I don’t think I could.”

“Why not?” he reaches for your shaking hand, setting his gloved hand on top of yours, driving the energy in the room with the ease of piloting a speeder bike.

“You’re a family, he has a routine, you’ve settled into this beautiful life that you’ve worked tirelessly for. I couldn’t impose.” You try your best to sound strong like you’ve got a plan ahead of you, and the idea of not being around the two of them doesn't make your heart ache.

He hums, and for a moment your cry is less of confusion and more out of pain. His hand is gone from yours, and the lack of his warmth feels like a slap into reality, as you pinch your eyes shut to stop yourself from being embarrassed even further.

You jump. There's a much larger warm hand caressing your cheek, and turning your head into the dark stare of his visor. You can see the tanned skin of his wrist as he turns your face slightly, wiping away a stray tear with his thumb. “It is the greatest mistake of my life leaving you on Sorgan.”

You sniffle, the words sorting through the emotional fog of your brain, searching the blank emotionless canvas of metal for a hint of human connection, a flutter of an eyelash, anything. You can’t find anything, until you hear the faint sound of his breath from beneath his mask, stuttering and insecure, his chest rising and falling like he’s fighting a battle with his own emotions.

You feel it again, a swell in your chest of love and admiration and then you feel the tiny claws digging into the skin of your bicep. You look down at the tiny man as he steps between where your chests are separated by mere inches, “Could I have her come and get us?” You’re quiet as a loth cat, voice heady and rough. “I don’t think I could watch you go.”

He lets the little one settle into his lap after a moment, this time you can hear relief and a half-broken smile in his tone, “Let’s just wait until he falls asleep, I’ll go to the ship and send a transmission. I’ll come back with his pram, and then where we go. You go.”

You clear your throat again, wanting so desperately for this to be real and aching to touch him. “Okay.” your voice barely makes a squeak, he pressed the cold beskar helm to your temple.

Wondering if he feels as raw as you, you place your hand on top of his suppressing the need to comment on how large it is, and tangle your fingers with his. You stare at his hand, tanned and massive and warm. Human. You fold your legs in on themselves and shift your body so that you may properly look at him.

The glove sits in his lap, and he looks so imposing in this tiny half-furnished room, polished and chrome in the dingy and ill-lit space you've called ‘home’ for these last few cycles. You take his other hand, and look up to see if he’s going to stop you, but he is still and silent, so you slip the glove off his hand. You trace from the tip of his middle finger, down his palm and up towards the pulse point of his wrist.

He shudders beneath your touch, thankful for the mask to hide the crimson flush of his cheeks. He’s never had the opportunity to enjoy a tenderness like this, to feel his pulse quicken and the nervous butterflies he’s heard described during love stories on a holodrama. It’s terrifying, he feels like he could vomit, but the way your delicate fingers trace circles over the palm of his hand makes him want to run his hands over every last inch of your body until he knows it inside and out like his blaster.

The child settles into his lap, leaning his head against your arm as his head and eyes grow heavier with sleep. “Why don’t we walk to your ship together?”

Your eyes are bright, and he can tell by your posture that you feel better, but he can’t stop the audible grumble, not ready to let you or even your hand slip from his. He nods and swallows harshly to clear his throat, “Alright.”

You walk across the market again, and the crowd parts before the two of you except this time you are holding onto his hand, and rather than trying to avoid his gaze like every other soul walking the market, you cling to his him trying to suppress the smirk curling the corners of your mouth.

Nevarro has changed so much, you spend the first few days just getting accustomed to the new layout of the town. Dropping the child, ‘Grogu’ (it took a while but it grew on you) at school, and then going to spend time in the market picking up some rations and some of the seasonal veg you’ve been coaxing into the little one’s belly.

The domestic bliss that comes with living with Mando is both welcome and intoxicating. You’re awake at odd hours of the night, talking and sharing stories about Jawas and your run-ins with Ewoks, and sharing your dreams and hopes for the galaxy.

He shares stories about Mandalore, about visiting there for the first time and bathing in the healing waters, about Bo Katan seeing a Mythasaur alive. All things you heard about as a young child, and symbols that brought hope and purpose to the entire creed were real and were aiding to heal the planet and its inhabitants.

Then there were times when you both laid on the floor, watching the little one interact with a metal sphere, using his magic to hover it just out of your grasp and giggling himself to a peaceful sleep. You’d lay together, wrapped in the comfort and protection of his house, and stare at the little man as he sleeps occasionally peaking into the reflection of yourself in his helmet, and blushing when you catch your own heart racing.

You want to tell him how you crave to be with him, how addicting his presence and his mind are to you, but you’re afraid. Afraid to move too fast, to step over his barriers, but also knowing that each second without knowing the softness of his mouth is torture.

The first time you see him in his sleep clothes, a plain dark green shirt with three buttons on the top and loose-fitting black canvas pants, no metal aside from his helmet, you choke on your cup of Jawa juice. He’s large even without the metal beefing up his silhouette, his back broad and the fabric thin enough for you to see his muscles move as he opens a drawer for silverware. Even treating yourself to a glimpse of his waist and the way it tapers to his ass and hips.

It’s become more common, in fact when he gets home, he almost immediately strips out of the armor in favor of something more casual and comfortable.

Tonight the energy is different. The kid passes out early and you’re soaking a pot you used for dinner in the sink when he emerges out of his room. You hear his footsteps, but they’re muted and soft, he’s barefoot. As you glance over your shoulder as he offers you a glass from his bedroom you see he’s in briefs, (the house is admittedly warmer as the seasons change) but the shock is plain as day as you turn so quickly away the glass slips from your hand and shatters on the floor. But the image of his chest spattered with hair that trailed down his soft belly and into the top of his black undergarments.

You both are silent for a moment, hoping the noise isn’t loud enough to wake the baby, in his silence you swear, “Kriff, don’t move I’ll get a broom.” You shy away, looking to the ground for a safe path.

He cuts you off arm darting in front of you to halt your movement, “I’ll get it.” His hand comes to rest on your hip stalling your movements with his warm palm.

His other hand reaches out and before you can grumble in discontent he's lifting you onto the counter. You sit there, flustered with your hands tucked between your thighs as he fiddles with the control of his helmet flicking through to see which would help him find the scattered pieces of glass the best.

It's moments, but it feels like an eternity as he searches for a broom, sweeping the glass into a neat pile before discarding it into the bin silently. He settles between your legs, silent as a mouse.

“I'm sorry.” You smile sheepishly, struggling to maintain eye contact as he hovers in front of you, inches separating your face, and if it were any cooler you would’ve fogged the front of his mask with your breath.

He chuckles dryly, “Don’t be, I’ll take it as a compliment.” His posture is full of confidence, but also comfortable and relaxed. You long to touch him, to run your hand over his chest and abdomen, to feel the muscles shift in his back as he- “Mesh’la?”

You blink yourself out of a daze, “You should, you’re so handsome.” He braces his hands on the counter next to your hips and leans ever closer.

“Yeah?” His voice is hot like a pant, stroking a fire in the room that neither of you are able to ignore any longer.

“Yeah.” You smirk at him, emboldened and smoothing your hands up the strong plains of his arms, squeezing lightly around the muscles of his biceps. You let your foot run across his calf, urging him closer to your body, his hands find your waist, firm but careful as his thumbs stroke the skin just below your breasts. You curse yourself for even bothering with a bra band.

“I like having you here.” His head tilts, you can almost see the gears turning in his brain as he continues, “Do you know how many times I’ve thought about this?” He uses his strength to pull you a little closer to him, so with each breath your chests touch and your core is flush to his abdomen. “Having you in my kitchen, sitting on my counter looking so pretty, so-” He swipes the hair off your shoulder exposing your neck and throat, “edible.”

Any chance you had of playing it cool is gone, you want nothing more than to bend to his will. His hand disappears from your side, and he tangles it in your hair, using it to fix your eyes to his through the helm, as he strokes your cheek with his thumb. You feel completely safe, but there’s something about him thats dangerous, hungry even, and it makes your skin damp with sweat.

He sounds like he’s in agony, like each passing moment without consuming you is torture, and you ache for him in a way that astonishes you, embarrasses you, not even sure that you could stand on your own two feet.

“I need you.” He whispers, breath uneven almost a growl, “Tonight. Now.” He reaches between your legs, letting his fingers ghost over you ever so gently, as if asking, no begging, for permission.

You swallow hard, his helmet tilts, admiring you, and you hardly manage to stutter a yes. Part of you expects him to be quick, tearing at your clothes and taking you right here in the kitchen.

He doesn’t.

He goes slow, letting the crest of his helmet fall to rest on your forehead, taking his time to caress your hips, tracing up your sides and taking your shirt with it. His hands are warm, but bring goosebumps to your skin as he touches you, hands squeezing your breasts and rubbing your nipple. You keen, pressing desperately against his hands. You lean in, placing a kiss to his collarbone, gentle and moving slow so he may stop you if he wants, but he drops his shoulder and tilts his head to expose his neck.

You kiss his collarbone again, letting your tongue dart out to taste his skin, he’s vibrating beneath you. Trembling as you kiss the hollow of his throat and nibble at the skin of his neck. You run your hands down his chest, basking in the intimacy and living for the scent of his skin.

He lifts you in a fluid motion, whisking you out of the kitchen and into his modest bedroom. Laying you on the bed, he runs his hands down your legs and removes your pants. You blush, unable to hide your arousal but noticing the prominent tent in his briefs, your mouth waters and you get to consider getting on your knees for him briefly.

He’s faster than you, and not thinking about himself. Ripping your underwear from your body and running the tip of his index fingers through your folds. “All this for me?” He circles your entrance, gathering your slick before brushing across your clit with leg-shaking precision.

You chase his touch, the pleasure coating your tongue and fogging your brain even more than you can put into words. You beg for him to get closer, to press your bodies together until you weren't sure you'd ever part.

You're expecting to feel shorted by the absence of his mouth on yours. No taste of him, and not getting to hear his words directly from his mouth, but his touch is consuming. Like he's worshiping and waking each cell with caresses and adoration that's as palpable in the air as his sheets were soft on your back.

There are noises, words you think, that he is muttering between each supple squeeze and tease, words you've heard him say before but their meaning is only now defined by his actions.

Love. He loves you. You can feel it in the heat of his hands as he spreads your legs apart and admires the way you part for him, and he sinks two fingers into your fluttering pussy, pushing up and stroking something dangerous.

His erection is nestled against your leg, and he shifts his hips with every twist of his fingers for a few moments, pressed between your bodies he feels a glimmer of relief with a groan, as much as he wants to bathe you in attention, he thinks that if he waits any longer his heart might give out before the best part. “Mesh’la,” he twists his fingers as if to be sure you're listening, “Please.”

“Yes,” you nod, swallowing harshly as he slips free of his underwear, cock springing free of its confines. You gawk, unabashedly, as he did to you just moments ago. He's large, intact, leaning slightly to his left, and the skin is tanned brown, slightly darker than the rest of his body, thick and weeping out of the brilliantly flushed pink tip, the base adorned with sparse but dark hair that trails up to his navel deliciously. When he steps between your legs and lets it rest on your abdomen to press your forehead together again, you feel its heady weight against you and stoop so low as to beg, “Please.”

You're echoing each other's moans as he grinds against your folds, coating himself in your slick before sinking into you in a single brutally slow thrust. When he bottoms out, you do your best not to squeak as the girth of his member breaks you open, it doesn't hurt, rather it feels like you've both waited an eternity to come to this very moment, euphoric and fulfilling the needs of your body and soul.

He grinds his pelvis against yours letting his hand shift to cup your cheek, staring at you, he hopes somehow you can sense it. How he is barely able to stop passing between the pout of your lips and the deep pleading look in your eyes, begging him for the same thing his heart is calling for. He could weep, having finally shorn the armor to dedicate himself to you, because the truth is, all you needed was to ask. He would've dropped his creed, everything he had achieved, and the meek life he'd planned for himself to grovel at your feet for the rest of his human life.

Devotion, that's what it was called. He had felt at many moments of his life that he was in the right place, blessing along his journeys that started out as miracles, friends, familial bonds he didn't think he deserved. It felt misplaced, the little blessings that had entered his life so quickly that he swore they had to have been accidents. It had taken losing the child and abandoning you on that god-forsaken planet, for him to reflect, and to realize that the life he deserved was not determined by some blasters and an army, nor his home planet. He had the life he wanted in his palms once, and watched it slip through his fingers with the charred remains of his ship. His grip tightened instinctively, twisting the sheet in his fist.

It was you. You were the representation of all of the things he wanted but never thought he deserved. A family, a place to call home, and you even had committed something as passing as his ship to your skin with a permanence that scared him.

Here your skin was warm, surrounding him, nurturing him, squeezing him, and his mind was trying so hard to be a person, not a machine, loving someone else for the first time.

He found the words, he said it to you, over and over with his pelvis angled just right as he ground his hips into you.

He was throbbing inside of you, you could feel the slick slide and pulse of him with each thrust. The pleasure was so intense you were whimpering and mewling beneath him, wetness smearing onto your thighs and running on the sheets below.

You've had sex before of course, and now you seriously doubt you've been doing it right. You kiss at the hollow of his throat, and in response he hunches over you, arms on either side of your head, animalistic yet praising affirmations go straight to the building heat in your core.

You let your hands, come up to his back digging your nails into his skin. He moans in shock as his thrusts grow more frenzied, spurred on by the bite of pain at his back. He reaches between you and circles your clit with his thumb, pulling you headfirst into your orgasm. You're body goes taught and relaxes all at once, the pleasure blinding you as your vision goes white and each tilt of his hips makes you stutter out an overstimulated moan.

The fluttering of your sex around him would be enough to send over the edge but as you catch your breath you begin to beg for him to finish inside you. He does, still feeling you shivering through the after waves of your own, as he groans and revels through the most intense orgasm he’s ever had, complete with curled toes and a knuckle-popping grip on the sheets. He’s still looking at you, the rise of fall of your chests bumping into each other and your breath fogging the front of his helmet so much that when you kissed right over his eye, he could see the imprint of your lips for just a passing moment.

“I can’t believe we waited so long.” You chuckle, all smiles but looking as dazed and spent as he felt. A shiver coming over him as the small sounds cause you to tighten slightly around him as he softens, his body incredible sensitive.

“I’ll spend the rest of our life making up for it.” You note the sound of him speaking through the grit of his teeth, and do your best to lie still, not wishing to be parted just yet.

Months later, you’re married in a private ceremony in front of friends and his brothers and sisters of the clan. It's quick, and everything you had expected of a warrior’s wedding. You get the mudhorn symbol tattooed into the skin nestled behind your ear, wearing it proudly and with your vows you are made a family, a clan of three in front of all the important people you care about.

You’d be remiss if what had you most excited isn’t the filthy promises he’s made to you about that night, taking his helmet off and kissing you everywhere he can for as long as he wishes. Promising to leave a mark over your new clan sigil as he marks the rest of your body for him, as you’ve done to him many times over. You get to admire his face and the most handsome man in the galaxy who kneels before you with reverence and vows to take care of you with more than just his words.

#pedro pascal #din djarin x reader #the mandalorian #din djarin smut #din djarin #eatommos 🗞️#the mandalorian spoilers #the mandalorian smut #din djarin x reader smut #din x reader #pedro pascal fanfic

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haravath0t · 3 years

Text

parol (with filipina!reader)

Warnings: angst (if you squint), immense fluff, and a big word count (sorry)

Summary: The holidays are approaching and reader shares some of her favorite Christmas traditions with Bucky as they decorate, but a little incident happens. To lighten up her spirits, James surprises her on Christmas Eve.

A/N: Hi everyone! I hope you had a great Christmas and New Year! Now with time in my hands I was able to complete this work! I rarely see any Filipina!Readers so I wrote this, as Christmas and my heritage is something I hold close to my heart. It is my first one shot, so bear with me! I hope you all enjoy!

*italics indicate flashbacks!

Today was not your day. You wanted to go home after doing reports and paperwork, surprise Bucky with a nice dinner and pumpkin pie, video call your family that lived in the Philippines to open the gifts you shipped over to them, and call it a day. However, luck was not on your side. Oversleeping, last minute additional reports, agents that were slacking off during training, misplacement of papers, everything you could never dream of happening all in one day happened. You walked over to Bucky, who was leaning against the black car waiting for you as he toyed with the car keys. “Hey, sweetheart, come on why don’t we- you okay?” He asks, concern apparent in his voice as he watches you angrily open the door. “Swell.” Bucky knew better than to push you into talking based on the way you slammed the door and did the better option as he drove you two out of the headquarters to your shared apartment: wait till you talk. “It’s been a bad day,” you sigh in frustration as you look out the window, relaxing when Bucky nods in understanding. “It’ll be alright, sweetheart, talk to me.” And so you did, which led to you both agreeing on having take out for dinner to save yourself from more stress. The two of you were carrying bags filled with take out and lovely desserts as you went into the apartment, leaving you to close the door behind you with your feet. Unfortunately harder than you had intended to. The laughter had died when you heard the sound of something breaking not too far from you both, causing your whole face to drop. The once brightly lit parol, had shattered into pieces, leaving the lights inside to flicker. That did it for you. The tears that have been threatening to fall from your eyes all day have started to drop. “Y/N…” Bucky starts softly, cutting himself off when he sees you quietly and carefully approach the now broken parol, trying to pick the broken pieces up. “Y/N, careful,” Bucky says worriedly, putting his set of bags down to stop you from hurting yourself. “It’s… it’s broken Buck…” you say in disbelief and disappointment, sniffing as you wipe your tears. “Hey. It’s going to be alright, sweetheart. We can work something out-” “It’s my only parol.”

“It’s okay, hey we still can video call-” “My family had opened their presents by now.” Bucky was stumped for you to say the least. He couldn’t even figure out what to say to you over the quiet dinner table when you barely picked up your food and when you immediately retreated to the bedroom, quiet sniffles echoing. He knew that feeling all too well, having something so connected to your identity be taken away in a moment’s notice. He knew one thing though. He wanted to make you feel at home, and he was going to do something about it.

---

“What do you have there, baby doll?” Bucky questions as he watched you open a square shaped box. He smiled when you didn’t respond, a little habit of yours that he has loved knowing that you could not contain your excitement. “A parol!” you squealed, revealing a carefully crafted ring with a star shaped piece in the middle. It was made of red, white, green, and yellow dyed capiz shells. He had never seen anything like it before.

He continues to look at the parol, blush forming on his cheeks in embarrassment when you laughed at his curious gaze. “Parols are pretty much Christmas lanterns back in the Philippines. They normally are shaped as stars and they light up at night! It definitely shows the Filipino Christmas spirit,” you explain to him as your excited eyes meet his. Bucky loved hearing you explain your culture, especially since you have been quite homesick since joining the team and having a place of your own. You did not want your family to know too much of what your job entailed. With that being said, whenever you got a chance to immerse yourself in the culture you grew up with, you always took the chance.

“Want to help me hang it?” You ask, already finding the right spot for it. “Of course doll, let’s go” he replies with a smile, following you to the window to help. Bucky had to admit, the parol looked wonderful. He watched the lantern in satisfaction as it lit up in wonderful patterns, a sight he can’t wait to become accustomed to. “Must really take long to make these,” he remarks as his eyes admire the lantern. “It does… especially these, but they’re all beautiful.” You sigh happily hugging your boyfriend as you watch the parol, twinkling bright as the snow slowly fell gently outside the apartment’s window.

“God I missed this. You wanna know something?” Bucky’s eyes turned away from the lantern and looked at you intently.

“Yeah?”

“This has been around since I was a kid.”

“Really, now?”

“Mhm! I always grew up being surrounded by the culture and my family and I always loved showing it off during the Christmas season. Of course not like in the Philippines though, but we always tried to remember home here. I hope you don’t mind. I asked my parents to bring it over, so I can have a piece of them with me.” The way your face fell in melancholy and embarrassment did not come unnoticed by Bucky. “I don’t mind at all, sweetheart. This is our place, right? Besides, it adds a little flare to our little place doesn’t it?” he questions with that charming smile, making you reciprocate it back in relief before you kiss his cheek.

“It does… thank you.”

---

A knock sounds through the now quiet apartment, making Bucky immediately make his way to the door. “Oh, Mrs. Y/L/N. Thank you for coming.” He says, gently taking your mother’s hand and bringing it up to his forehead just like you taught him. “Ahhh, bless you, bless you,” your mother responds while giggling, making her way into your apartment and sitting down on a couch. Bucky watched in surprise as she took out several simple materials from one of her plastic bags: string, small string lights, bamboo sticks, colored cellophane sheets, rubber bands, and colored tissue paper.

“That looks different from the one she hung up a few days ago.” Bucky commented in surprise, only for your mother to look up at him with raised eyebrows. “You don’t expect me to make one that expensive looking, do you? No! I’ll buy one for you two later. But for now, let me teach you how to do it the traditional way. Come here.” Your mother beckoned, making Bucky smile as he took his seat next to you, excited for what’s next.

“Yan! (There we go) What do you think? Pretty good right?” Your mother smiled, clapping quietly as Bucky smiled proudly at the simple parol he had just finished making. It was a simple one for sure unlike the incredibly detailed one you both hung, but he desperately hoped you would enjoy at least a substitute for the meantime. “Wow..it’s nice… thank you…” he started, only to have your mother wave her hand nonchalantly. “Ayyy… it’s no problem. I’m glad you made the effort to do this for her. Thank you.” She laughed when Bucky’s cheeks started to turn red and pinched them before standing up and taking the rest of her bags to the kitchen. Bucky was then confused, from the additional bags in the kitchen, the urgent sounding phone call in what seemed to be Tagalog, and your mother’s quick paced actions. “Is there a way I can help?” He asks, shyly. Your mother couldn’t help but laugh once again, dragging him into the kitchen with her. “I called her father so we can do this.”

“What are we going to do, exactly?”

“Bring home to her!”

You sighed in relief as the door of your apartment was getting closer and closer. It was luckily a better day, just training and meetings before you were able to go home. You were very much ready to be greeted by your lover’s arms and wind down. However, that wasn’t the case, for when you closed the door, a familiar scent filled the air. “Wait a minute,” you whispered in disbelief, hurrying to the kitchen and saw several foods that you have terribly missed: pork barbecue, chicken afritada, bibingka, and rice cakes. You squealed with joy when your mom and dad yelled surprise, not hesitating to hug the both of them excitedly as joyful tears ran down your cheeks. “I’ve missed you guys! How did you come here?! What?!” you question in awe and denial, which made your parents smile. “You have to thank your boyfriend for that one, anak (child)” your dad replies to a smile. “I called them over. To hopefully cheer you up.” A shy voice says. You turned around in surprise to see Bucky walking shyly to you with his arms behind his back. “That’s not the only surprise he has for you anak! Bucky, show her! Show her!” Your mother beckoned, resulting in yet another confused look from you. Bucky smiled shyly and revealed to you the parol that he had made earlier, causing another gasp to leave your lips and more tears to fall.

“Buck… you made this?” Bucky smiled shyly “I did… I remembered you mentioning that people were able to make them, so I asked your mom to teach me, so we can have this for the meantime. I know it’s not much but-” His words were then cut off as you tightly embraced him, then went up on your tippy toes to shower your boyfriend with thankful kisses. “Oh, it’s more than enough, Buck… thank you. Thank you, so much.” You truly were grateful. You were aware that it may have not been easy for Bucky to call them up, let alone build a parol, and you were amazed beyond belief. The two of you hung the small and simple parol that lit up softly in the dark night, admiring the cute sight as your parents took pictures of the two of you with smiles beaming on their faces. “Come on then, you two, let’s eat!” your dad exclaims, laughter filling the walls of the apartment.

“I can’t believe you,” You whispered to Bucky, holding his hand as you both walked to the table. “Couldn’t let my girl go through her favorite holiday being sad, can’t I? What kind of boyfriend would I be? I figured you could have a piece of home with you for the holidays, so I wanted to give my girl a surprise..” You giggled and nodded and kissed his knuckles, your eyes meeting his wonderful blue ones.

“I love you so much, Buck. Thank you. But my home wouldn’t be complete without you in the picture, couldn’t it?”

“Neither would mine, baby doll.”

You took a final look at the parol and back at Bucky, smiling in content as he led you to the dinner table. You held that parol close to your heart, as it showed the efforts and the simple actions that you two took into making each other happy. The fact that Bucky would do this for you was remarkable to you, and that alone proved to you that it didn’t matter where you were, for James Buchanan Barnes was now always there to proudly remind you of home.

Tags: @world-of-aus @whew-oh-em-gee @lordyitsjordy @tomholland-96 @letstalkaboutsebbaby

If you’d like to be part of my tag list let me know! 😊

Main Masterlist

#Bucky Barnes #bucky #buckybarnesxreader #bucky x filipino!reader #filipino!reader #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes scenario #james buchanan barnes #mcu #mcu scenario #mcu imagine #bucky barnes imagine #Filipina!reader #bucky barnes x reader #filipino reader insert #filipino marvel

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alolowrites · 3 years

Text

The Helpful Elf

Summary: The Hippity Hop Cat toy is the toy on every kid’s wish list this year, including Eri’s. With the toy flying off the shelves, you desperately ask Mirio, the Helper Elf at Hazuki’s ToyLand, for help. And Mirio doesn’t give up, especially when it comes to you.

Author’s Note: Hello everyone!!! Real life is being a pain right now, but I’m so glad I managed to finish this story right on time! It’s pretty long (for me lol) and it’s my first with Mirio so yay!! I also wrote it for the BNHASanctuary discord server’s winter collab (first time I ever participated in any collab), so I’m very excited about this. I’ll link and share the masterlist once it’s up. I can’t wait to read everyone else’s stories :D

Please enjoy!

Word Count: 2.5K+

With October long gone and December in full swing, it meant one thing—the official start of the jubilant holiday season. Every year, Japan’s most iconic department store in Tokyo, Hazuki’s, transformed its ten floors into a magical winter wonderland. Around the country and around the globe, customers ushered through the doors to catch a glimpse of the glamorous store glittering with festive decor.

Dazzling lights twinkled around the window displays that stretched around the block. Vibrant ornaments hung high above the ceilings like luxurious bubbles. And pine garlands peppered with red berries wrapped themselves along any rails that ran off forever.

Hazuki’s was the place to kick start the holiday season and the one place to find everything and anything on one’s holiday shopping list. Especially the highly coveted toy of the year—the Hippity Hop Cat.

Or so you thought.

“Mirio!”

“Huh?” Said man’s elf hat jingled when he looked away from his display. His blue eyes beamed at the sight of you. Mirio chirped out your name as you rushed forward, nearly knocking him over. “Whoa, you alright?”

“I need your help,” you blurted out, catching your breath at the same time; those pesky escalators were no use at all. Mirio offered to get water, but you waved him off. “No, no…no time for water. I need your help. It’s urgent!”

“Uh, sure, what can I do?”

“I need a toy, but not just any toy.” Mirio blinked when you suddenly inched closer to him. You scanned the area as though someone was lurking around to eavesdrop on your top-secret conversation. “It’s the Hippity Hop Cat, you know—”

“The cat whose hops are out of this world?”

“Yes, that one!” You clung to his shoulders like a desperate parent trying to find some shred of sanity in this chaotic store. Shaking the blonde man, you begged, “Please tell me you have one in stock?”

“Oh man,” Mirio scratched his forehead as he recalled the inventory from this morning. He glanced at your hopeless eyes and tight fists curling on his work uniform. There was no way Mirio could leave you hanging like this; it didn’t feel right. So he flashed you his famous smile that outshone the star twirling above you both. “Come with me. I’ll check in our system.”

“Gosh, you’re a lifesaver.”

Mirio humbly rubbed his neck as he led the way to the backroom. You eyed the uproarious floor covered with thousands of toys that rivaled Santa’s Workshop in the North Pole. It was like walking through a child’s dream. Every toy imaginable—dolls, electric cars, robots, board games, you name it—was here. Hopefully, that stayed true with the Hippity Hop Cat.

The door closed, muffling the sounds of frantic parents buzzing through the aisle. Mirio typed away on the keyboard as you paced behind him. You cursed yourself for procrastinating this long to buy the prized toy. Christmas was in less than two weeks!

“So who’s the gift for?”

“Oh!” His deep voice pulled you back to the present. You walked forward with folded arms, anxiously hugging yourself. “It’s for Eri, a sweet little girl my next-door neighbor, Shouta, adopted earlier this year. She had a rough upbringing, but fortunately, she’s living with someone who cares for her deeply.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“Yeah,” you smiled softly at Mirio, making his fingers freeze above the keyboard. That smile of yours took his breath away; he nodded but secretly tried controlling his heart that beat like a bass drum. It was difficult since you were so close to him. “This will be Eri’s first Christmas, and she wants the Hippity Hop Cat; I told Shouta I would buy it for her, helping ease some pressure off his shoulders.”

“That’s really thoughtful of you.” Mirio admired everything about you. He was absolutely smitten with you ever since you started working in the perfume department. Mirio sometimes strolled through the floor during his breaks just to catch a glimpse of you. After scrolling through the computer, the blonde man frowned. “Hmm…looks like we’re out of stock. And the next shipment won’t come until the twenty-first.”

You groaned. “Man, that’s cutting it close; you think you can hold one for me? I can buy it during my break or after work.”

“I’ll try my best.”

“Thanks, Mirio.” You squeezed his shoulder, and he shuddered at the touch. Glancing at your watch, you said, “I gotta go before Nemuri wonders where I am. But thanks for helping out!”

“Sure!” He saw you slip out the door in a hurry; you throw an apologetic smile for good measure. Pushing the elf hat further up, Mirio chuckled, “No problem.”

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

Okay, so maybe there was a slight problem.

Santa Claus was still around town, and Mirio was placed on “elf duty” to help out with the pictures. Don’t get him wrong, the sunshine man adored children as much as the jolly old man who lived in the North Pole. However, Mirio realized he couldn’t guard the Hippity Hop Cat for you. All he could do was pray that one miraculously stayed on the shelf until you bought it.

A flash went off, snapping Mirio back to his job. He smiled brightly, guiding the kid off Santa’s lap and ushering the next one to the chair. Nearly every parent in Japan was here today, the line looping around the store. Other customers, not visiting Santa, shopped as well, making the place extra crowded today. Yet, none of them were you, and that worried Mirio.

“Ho, ho, ho, it was nice meeting you, sweetie!”

Oh right! Mirio needed to focus, but it was hard knowing you weren’t here yet. All Mirio wanted to do was make people happy, especially you. After the sweet story you shared with him, he was more determined than ever to get you that toy. His blue eyes glanced at the bearded man in the red coat—could he help? Who knows.

As Mirio waved goodbye to each kid, you stumbled off the escalator, face flushed as though you ran fifty flights of stairs. You glanced around the packed floor, dodging an airplane that whizzed by and brushing against the sea of customers to find Mirio. The blonde elf locked eyes with you and flashed a relieved grin; the grueling wait was over.

And so was his duty with Santa Claus, what luck! Mirio marched over to you, placing a gentle hand on your back and guiding you to the aisle. “I was worried you wouldn’t come.”

“I’m sorry,” you blurted out, narrowly avoiding getting hit by a robot’s arm. “The perfume department was swamped with tourists and other people. I practically had to beg Nemuri to let me slip away for a few minutes so I could buy—” Turning the corner, you gasped in disbelief at the empty shelves before choking out, “—the toy.”

Mirio blew a low whistle; people were snatching these toys off the shelves like no tomorrow. Still, he wouldn’t give up just yet. “C’mon, maybe there’s some left in stock.”

“You sure?”

“Can’t hurt to try, right?” Mirio flashed you a boyish smile, blue eyes brimming with determination. You nodded and followed him through the elaborate maze of this chaotic toy store.

However, just as you both passed by the cash register, someone bellowed out: “That’s the last Hippity Hop Cat, sir. Thank you for shopping at Toyland; have a nice day!”

No! You screeched to a halt. Your eyes watched as the man grabbed his bag and left the store with an exhausted but relieved face. Without thinking, you slammed against the counter, scaring the young green-haired employee who clutched his uniform. Leaning forward, you desperately half-whispered, “Please tell me what you said wasn’t true!”

“I-I’m sorry?”

“The toy!” You frantically gestured to the exit, the man now long gone. “Please tell me you have another Hippity Hop Cat for sale!”

“U-Um, I, uhh, well,” Midoriya stammered until his eyes spotted a familiar face behind you. The nervous man sighed in relief, knowing he was saved. “Mirio!”

“Hey, Izuku, sorry about that,” Mirio bashfully chuckled and clasped your shoulder to calm you down. The blonde man quickly introduced you to his co-worker, adding, “They’re trying to buy the Hippity Hop Cat, but are you sure that was the last one in stock?”

“Yeah, it was. I’m sorry.”

“Oh…oh, okay…” Your shoulders drooped like a sad puppy; you were too late. After saying a quick apology, you numbly dragged your feet toward the exit as a gray cloud formed over your head. A warm hand stopped you from going any further, and you blinked up. “Huh, Mirio, what’s wrong?”

“You alright?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” you dismissed his concerns, but he wasn’t convinced; your eyes told a different story. Still, you mustered a brave face with a faint smile. “Listen, I appreciate everything you did. I knew it was a longshot getting the toy, so don’t sweat it, really.”

“I know, I just,” he sucked in a breath, “I just wished I could have helped you out more. Especially since you wanted to make Eri happy.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get her something else.” You squeezed his bicep when Mirio opened his mouth to interject; he faltered slightly at the brief touch. “It’s fine, really. I’m sure Eri will love any toy for her gift; I promise.”

Mirio nodded, watching you leave the store and disappearing within the crowd. You said everything was fine, but he knew that wasn’t true. That fake smile of yours spoke volumes. There has to be a way to get that toy, Mirio pondered, rubbing his chin and staring at the floor with furrowed eyes.

Suddenly, an idea popped inside his head just as a jingle bell chimed behind him. A white smile stretched across Mirio’s face. The idea was crazy, maybe a longshot, too, but it wouldn’t hurt to try. Mirio whipped out his phone and searched through his contacts until he landed on a specific name.

The line started ringing...and ringing...and ringing when—

“H-Hi, Mirio.”

“Hey, Tamaki!” The blonde man beamed like the sun. He lowered his voice, cupping the phone for secrecy while walking away. “Listen, buddy. I know you’re busy and all, but I got a huge favor to ask…”

༛༛ ༛ ༛༺༻༛ ༛ ༛༛

“…you think you can do it?” A small puff of breath floated out of your lips as you stepped away from the revolving doors. You stood beside a colorful window display of tiny elves grinning from ear to ear, their eager hands holding toys for the good boys and girls. One elf balanced himself at the tippy top of Santa’s mountainous red bag, his green gloves clutching the pointy hat for dear life.

You smiled, appreciating the creative design before saying, “I can close the following week...yeah...okay, awesome, thanks again!”

Crisis one averted. Crisis two was up for debate, mainly because you held a shopping bag with Eri’s gift. It wasn’t the Hippity Hop Cat, but a nice small plushy cat toy instead. You bought it just a few minutes ago after wandering through the aisles at Toyland. The plushy cat toy wasn’t a bad second choice; it was adorable and incredibly soft to the touch. But it wasn’t the toy you wanted to give for Eri’s first Christmas.

Oh, well, you sadly thought, biting the inside of your cheek. You stared at the elves again, realizing that their costumes matched Mirio’s work uniform in Toyland, down to the funny little hat. Mirio somehow pulled it off well thanks to his bubbly personality and warm heart that could melt the North Pole's snow.

At one point, you wondered if Mirio was even there since you didn’t see him at the store today. You assumed he was doing inventory, but Midoriya said Mirio took the day off after a last-minute “personal obligation” came up, and it was too important to ignore. Must have been serious, you sighed as the shopping bag rustled against the wind.

You braced your coat, hissing as the cold air sliced across your cheeks. Yup, it was time to go unless you wanted to freeze out here. Shuffling away from the window display, you stopped when someone screamed your name. Glancing over, you saw Mirio running toward you with one arm waving high in the air.

“Hey!” Mirio finally caught up to you, his face flushed and nose redder than Rudolph’s, yet he kept on smiling. “So glad I found you!”

“Whoa, you alright?” Now it was your turn to be concerned, just like he was when you rushed into the store to ask about the Hippity Hop Cat toy. Mirio nodded enthusiastically, squashing your worries away. “Midoriya said you were busy with a ‘personal obligation’ today. Is everything okay?”

“Oh yeah, everything is great!”

“Well, that’s, um, great.”

“So, listen, about the Hippity Hop Cat toy—”

“Mirio, I told you not to worry about it,” you butted in, shaking your shopping bag with the plushy cat. “I went ahead and bought something else for Eri and—”

“Ta-da!”

You went radio silent, staring in disbelief at the surprise. Sitting in Mirio’s hands was the one and only Hippity Hop Cat toy. The number one toy that was on every kid’s wish list, yet rarer to get than Willy Wonka’s Golden ticket. That toy was now only a few inches away from you.

“B-But how?!” The words finally fumbled through your lips, flickering your gaze between the toy and Mirio while stumbling forward a bit. “It’s sold out everywhere!”

“Let’s just say I pulled some strings with Santa’s workshop,” Mirio cheekily grinned like one of the elves from the window display. You choked out a laugh, dropping the shopping bag so you could hold the boxed toy; it felt wonderful in your hands.

You looked up with eyes softer than freshly fallen snow. Mirio continued talking up a storm, his arms flailing wildly like an excited kid who discovered something new. The delicate holiday lights flickered around you both, casting a lovely glow that was as bright as the joy twinkling inside Mirio’s eyes.

They were always so welcoming that, without thinking, you gave him a crushing hug. Mirio froze, his arms hanging mid-air as he slowly processed what was happening. After a few seconds, his shoulders relaxed, and his strong arms eagerly wrapped around you, holding you in place. Even with that thick coat of yours, you felt very soft that his heart soared to new heights.

“Thank you, Mirio,” you whispered near his ear, giving him another squeeze. But you didn’t stop there. A sudden urge came over you, and in a bold move, you planted a sweet kiss on his cheek. Pulling away, you bit back a laugh at his flustered face. “You really are the best Helpful Elf I know.”

“Well, you know me,” he shot you a grin, “I’m always here to help.”

“Is that so?” You tapped your cheek with your gloved finger. “Think you can help me gift wrap this toy, say tonight at my place?”

“Luckily for you, I’m a whiz with wrapping paper.”

Mirio’s hand wormed its way into yours, giving you a loving squeeze before joining you on your long walk home. The Hippity Hop Cat toy was the toy on every kid’s wish list this year, including Eri’s, whose first Christmas was officially saved. And it was all thanks to Mirio, the one and only Helpful Elf at Hazuki’s Toyland.

Thank you for reading!!

FicMas Fest 2020 Masterlist

#mirio togata x reader #mirio x reader #bnha x reader #bnha imagines #mirio togata #bnha server collab #winter collab

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jalapeno-princess · 3 years

Text

Make it to Christmas

Mark Tuan X Reader

Word Count: 4.9K

Genre: Angst with a happy ending

Summary: Winter was your favorite season and Christmas had to be one of your favorite holidays. However, as the weather got colder, so did your relationship with your boyfriend Mark. When he brings up how your relationship is no longer what it used to be and that he feels that the two of you should take a break, that’s when you realize how much you have been neglecting him and that you are the reason that your relationship is failing.

A/N: Hey guys! So I wrote this last December but I didn’t finish it until earlier this year. This has been in my notes for the longest time and every now and then I look at my many stories that I’ve written and never finished (There are at least seven Christmas imagines that I never took the time or had the motivation to get around to finishing any of the stories). This story is based on the song “Make it to Christmas by Alessia Cara and I would definitely recommend for you all to check it out it is soooooo good and one of my favorite Christmas songs (Even if it is so sad). I’m like 35% done with the last chapter of my “Crazy little thing called love” series and I just want to thank you guys for being so patient (For some reason I’ve been having writer’s block with the last chapter I don’t know why but hopefully I’ll be getting around towards finishing it within the next two weeks). With that being said, happy reading! (BTW, this story might not be as good as my other ones because this one is older and I didn’t feel like editing it all that much but hoenestly who gives a shit not me hahahahaha)

We were warm and wonderful once upon a time But now we're frozen, hanging by a thread Can we wait a minute? Or can we just try to try? 'Cause my favorite day is coming up ahead

Darling, I know that our love is going cold It's just something 'bout the snow This time of year that makes us lose our way Just say we'll make up And hold on a little longer Don't have me spending it alone This time of year is precious Please, can we make it to Christmas? Can we make it to Christmas?

No matter how much you loved the holiday season, you couldn’t say you were all too excited for it this year. Your four year relationship with your boyfriend Mark has been on the rocks lately and neither of you understood where everything went wrong.

Back in the beginning of the year, you had accepted a job that you have been dreaming about ever since you were a little girl. However, this job took up most of your time, leaving you no time to spend with Mark. This left your poor boyfriend feeling neglected and the two of you would always argue about it to the point where you would leave your shared apartment before things could take a turn for the worst. Then came the cheating allegations.

At first, Mark was very excited for you to finally get your dream job. He knew how hard you worked in order to do so and how many times you cried during college because of how hard it was. But he couldn’t brush off the green monster on his shoulder telling him that you were having an affair behind his back. He understood how certain jobs would take up the entirety of someone’s day, but it seemed as if you never went home.

By the time you arrived back to your apartment, he was fast asleep and when he woke up in the morning, you were already gone. This led him to thinking there was someone else. Your relationship no longer felt like a relationship anymore and you could feel it slowly falling apart. You didn’t know what to do in order to save it. As much as you knew you wanted to spend the rest of your life with Mark, you didn’t know if your relationship would last until Christmas.

Mark thought long and hard about what he should do. The thought of losing you killed him. He loved you with every fiber of his being and you were the sole reason for his existence. However, he felt as if you no longer felt the same and he didn’t want to force you in to staying in your relationship if you no longer wanted to. One night after you came home late again, you were shocked to see your boyfriend sitting on the couch. Normally he was knocked out around this time, but he was just sitting there in the peace and quiet; staring blankly at the tv screen.

You took a look around the living room and only noticed in that moment how bare it was. Every year since moving in together, you and Mark would decorate it with lights, fake snow and even a train set. This year, you haven’t even set up the tree and the thought hurt your heart. People say change was good, but you couldn’t help but feel that this change was a sign of the end of your relationship.

“Hey.” He looked up at you and released a long sigh.

“Hi.” You put down your bags as you slowly made your way to your room. It didn’t take you long to notice him trailing behind you. A part of you hated how awkward things got between the two of you in the last few months, but if Mark seemed unbothered by the distance, you didn’t mind either. However, you were upset that such a thing was happening during your favorite season.

You didn’t feel like getting in to the holiday spirit nor did you want anything to do with Christmas--there was no point when everything in your life seemed to be falling apart. You noticed your boyfriend took a seat on the bed and you took this time to change and settle down. But before you could walk in the bathroom, he asked for you to sit down. You took a seat next to him and the two of you sat in silence for what felt like hours.

In the four years of your relationship, there were many times the two of you spent in silence, but it was always a calm and serene type of quiet. However, this was an awkward and tense silence and you were hoping he would speak up soon because you didn’t know what to say.

“What are we doing y/n?”

You looked up at your boyfriend in curiosity and only then did you notice how tired he looked. His dark circles were very prominent, his cheekbones were more defined and his eyes no longer held the sparkle in them that they used to have when the two of you first began dating. You couldn’t help but feel that it was your relationship that was causing this and you never hated yourself more than you did in that moment after coming to the realization.

“What do you mean?”

He gave you a knowing look and stared at you for a while. It was as if he was looking at a stranger. His heart rate didn’t increase at the sight of you like it used to months ago. It wasn’t because he no longer loved you; Mark knew he was still so in love with you--but sometimes love just wasn’t enough.

“Y/n, I know you feel it too. We’re not what we used to be. We don’t act like a couple anymore. Hell, I can’t even remember the last time we had a decent conversation. We hardly see each other nowadays, I get one kiss every other day if I’m lucky and even when we sleep together, you’re so far away. I feel as if I’m a burden to you. Ever since you got your job, I feel as if you never make time for me—for us and it sucks. I miss you so much, but it doesn’t seem to bother you. I’ve tried so hard to make it work between us. I can feel you slipping away and I wanted to work on us. I want us to last so badly. But I can’t keep being the only one putting effort in to our relationship y/n. I can’t keep trying to set fire to an already burnt out flame. I’m tired. There’s so much going on in my life right now and I want nothing more to run to you with my problems like I used to. I always feel so safe with you, but now I feel like I can’t talk to you because we’re the problem. Our relationship is killing me y/n. That’s why I think we need to take a break.”

You didn’t even realize you were crying until he brought his fingers up to wipe away your tears. Here he was trying to console you all the while breaking your heart. However, you couldn’t blame him for doing so. He was right. You made it seem like your relationship was a chore and you hated that it took Mark to tell you how he felt in order for you to realize something was wrong.

“Mark--baby I’m so sorry--please--please don’t leave. I’ll fix this. I promise I’ll change--“ He pulled you on top of his lap and placed a soft kiss on your forehead.

“I don’t want you changing anything about yourself. Okay? You’re perfect just the way you are. Couples grow apart and it’s normal. In order to grow together again, we need some time apart. We’ll be okay one day. We need to find ourselves first before finding each other again. I love you with my entire being y/n, but our love just isn’t enough anymore. I sat and thought about this for a while. Never in a million years did I ever think I would ever break up with you. I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with you and I still plan on doing so. But like I said, maybe we need time apart to realize how much we really need each other. Until then, please take care of yourself. Make sure to eat all your meals and get your rest. I’m sorry things aren’t working out between us but I hope you know that I love you.”

You held him as tightly as you possibly could, not wanting to let him go because you knew once he left, nothing would ever be the same. Mark was in your life for many years even before the two of you started dating. You hardly ever lived without him. Sure you had your fair share of arguments and disagreements, but break ups weren’t an option. However, you couldn’t help but feel like it was really bad this time. If he wanted a break up, you knew this meant he no longer wanted a relationship with you.

The thought of losing him upset you, but you didn’t want to continue hurting him. His words cut like a knife. You didn’t mean to put him through all of that and you tried your best to understand why he was giving up on your relationship so easily. But then you thought about what he said earlier. He was putting so much effort in to your relationship but you failed to do so. He slowly got up and you just laid there while watching him get his things.

There were so many words that were on the tip of your tongue, but you didn’t feel like you had the right to say them. You didn’t feel like you should hold him back from wanting to leave. You treated him like shit, you didn’t deserve him. But you couldn’t picture life without him. Seeing him grab his bags made you want to run up to him and take them out of his hands--however, hearing him ask for a break drained all the energy out of you and you wanted nothing more than to go to bed. There was nothing you could do, his mind was made up--he was leaving you and there was nothing you could do about it. Once he was done, he gave you a sad smile and placed one more kiss on your forehead.

“Please don’t go. I’m nothing without you.”

That’s when you saw a tear fall from his handsome face. You looked so small, so fragile and he knew the “break” would take a toll on you, but not as much as it would on him. “Y/n--please--I already hate the thought of no longer being yours. But I lost myself loving you. I need to find myself again in order to be happy. Take care of yourself okay?”

With one last kiss, he was out the door. You don’t remember how long you cried for, but your pillow was soaked with tears. It still had yet to really hit you that the love of your life was gone. He never allowed you to explain yourself and you were well aware that it was because his heart was tired of fighting for a relationship you were no longer putting effort in to anymore.

After what felt like hours, you finally fell asleep. It’s been over two weeks since Mark left and for the first week, you didn’t do anything. You called out sick from work, giving all sorts of lame excuses. At this point you didn’t even care if you got fired. There were many jobs out there, but there was only one Mark.

As much as you wanted to give him his space, you couldn’t help but ask his friends about how he was doing. He was the only thing on your mind. The second week was even worse. You turned to alcohol to try your best to forget about his absence, but it only made things more difficult for you. Your dreams were filled with some of your favorite memories you shared with Mark. He left a lot of his things at your apartment and they were taunting you--reminding you that he was no longer there and that it was all your fault.

You found yourself putting on his clothes and sleeping on his side of the bed. The apartment was so cold and empty without him there. Some days you would stay out as late as possible to prevent yourself from having to be all alone. No matter how much wine you would consume, nothing would take away the pain. When Mark left, he took your heart with him. You hated yourself and couldn’t stop blaming yourself for not treating him the way he deserved. He took such good care of you, why couldn’t you do the same for him? Why did you let work get in the way of your only source of happiness?

Your mom had invited you and Mark to her annual Christmas party and as soon as you received the invitation, you were quick to decline. Nobody but Mark’s friends knew that the two of you broke up. You didn’t want to be around friends and family while you were so heartbroken. Nor did you want to burden anyone with the upsetting news of your break up. Christmas was supposed to be such a happy time, but you couldn’t wait for it to be over with.

You hated the idea of being asked about Mark and you did not want to receive pity from your family over something that was your fault. However, your mom never took no as an answer. On the night of the party, you tried your best to get ready no matter how tired and drained you were from the lack of sleep. You didn’t want anyone knowing something was wrong even if you were seconds away from a mental breakdown.

Once you finished getting ready, you took in a deep breath and made your way to your parent’s house. This was the first time you drove by yourself since the break up. You didn’t have enough energy to do anything and you sure weren’t ready to be operating such a dangerous vehicle, but you had to suck it up and be a big girl so nobody could see through your facade.

Lights occupied the entire front of the house and as much as you wanted to laugh at how obsessed your mom was with decorating, you were too busy wallowing in self pity to even care about anything else other than the pain you were going through. After you parked, you sat in your car for fifteen minutes until you built the courage to walk up to the door.

“Y/n! You’re finally here! Why did I know you were going to be late? I told Mark to force you to get ready an hour earlier because I know how you can get. Where is he by the way? Is he still parking the car?”

She peered outside while you snuck in to the house to prevent her from asking more questions. All your family came up to greet you and just like your mom, everyone seemed to want to know where Mark was. You couldn’t blame them. He came for every single party and gathering your mom would host over the course of your relationship and they all grew attached to him. Mark was the perfect guy.

He was the type of guy you’d want to bring home to your family. You couldn’t believe you mistreated him to the point where he felt as if he had to leave. You were on the verge of tears every time someone brought him up and it seemed as if Mark was the talk of the party, even if he wasn’t there. While your mom was preparing the food, your dad called you over and asked you when Mark would be coming.

“I know you probably want to sit next to your boyfriend during dinner, but I want to talk to him about the football game.”

When you and Mark first started dating, he was quick to make his way in to both of your parent’s hearts. With your mom, all he had to do was charm her with compliments and help her around the house. With your dad, they bonded over sports and video games. Your parents were head over heels for him and sometimes you felt as though they preferred him over you, but you couldn’t blame them. Mark was an extremely likable person.

“He’s spending Christmas with his family this year.” Your dad frowned in disappointment and you wondered how he would feel if he knew the real reason behind Mark’s absence.

“Shucks. Well, make sure he comes for New Years. I bought him a gift. Tell him we’re going to miss him tonight.”

You gave him a fake smile and headed towards the living room to join your family in the festivities. Everything seemed to be going well—there was a Christmas movie going on in the background as your nieces and nephews ran around chasing each other. Maybe you did need a break from your thoughts and what a better way to stop your suffering than to spend time with some of your favorite people.

Unfortunately, your grandma brought up how she was waiting patiently for you and Mark to finally get married and that’s when you decided it was all too much to handle. You ran in to the guest room and allowed the many tears to fall. It’s as if the universe wanted to constantly remind you of the mistakes you made in your relationship.

After getting text messages from some of your cousins asking where you ran off to, you looked in the mirror and began to make yourself presentable enough—as if you weren’t just crying. Immediately after you walked outside, your niece ran in to you and told you she had a surprise for you. You didn’t think anything of it; kids always had little tricks up their sleeves and honestly you were going to take any kind of distraction you could get.

“Last week in class, we talked about mistletoe and how you’re supposed to kiss the person you love underneath it.” She reached for your hand and dragged you over to the dining area.

“Stand here.” You gave her a confused look but complied with the little girl whilst taking a glimpse at the mistletoe. Memories of the first Christmas you spent together with Mark came rushing back.

The two of you had just started dating around that time and since he was your first boyfriend, he wanted to take things slow with you. Even after a month of dating, he had yet to kiss you and you were starting to think it was because he didn’t want to kiss you. You never wanted to voice how you felt over something like that, but you wanted nothing more than to finally feel his lips on yours. On that night of the Christmas party, he sneakily got you underneath the mistletoe and the two of you shared your first of many kisses together.

Seeing the mistletoe made you want nothing more and to take it down and throw it away. Just a few seconds later, your eyes were being covered and before your mind could process what was happening, a pair of lips were on yours. It didn’t take you long to realize it was your favorite pair of lips and you quickly responded in to the kiss. His arms wrapped around your waist as yours found their place around his neck. You didn’t care that you were surrounded by your family. His warmth and his lips were the only things you cared about in that moment.

“Hi.” You pulled away and started gently tracing your fingers along his handsome features. The two of you stood like that for a while, with him giggling at your ministrations.

“You’re here. You’re real. I’m not dreaming right?” He chuckled while shaking his head in disagreement. He placed two soft kisses on both your eyelids while caressing your cheeks.

“You’ve been crying. And I see you haven’t been eating your meals y/n. You promised me--” You were about to respond when your mom walked over to the two of you.

“Mark! You’re here! Good, everyone’s been asking for you. How have you been dear? You’ve lost so much weight! Are you on that diet again?”

He shook his head all the while shooting you a knowing look. You had to remind yourself to inform him that no one in your family knew of your break up. Your mom stole him for a few moments, giving you the excuse that she wanted to “show him off” to the rest of your family—but it was fine, you needed time to breathe. He was here, he kissed you and held you as if nothing was wrong. You weren’t complaining, but you wanted to know why he was here and why he was acting like the two of you weren’t on a break.

“Ah Mark! I was upset when y/n said you weren’t coming tonight. Did you watch the game last week? The patriots are doing really well this season.”

Your heart warmed at the sight of your two favorite men interacting like they normally did, but you couldn’t help but feel as if it was too good to be true. Your cousins brought you over to the couch and wouldn’t stop raving about how handsome and sweet your boyfriend was and how lucky you were to have him. As you looked over to Mark, heat rose to your cheeks when you caught him already staring back at you.

“I can tell that man really loves you y/n. I see the way he looks at you. Even when he was talking to my mom, he wouldn’t stop bring you up in conversation. And look at how well he gets along with our family. You better not lose him. Men like that are hard to find.”

When you decided that you had enough time being reminded of the fact that Mark was such a perfect human being that you obviously did not deserve, you snuck away back to the guest room hoping Mark would notice your absence and take the hint to come find you. While waiting for him, you decided to lie down and stare up at the ceiling; wanting to give yourself time to recuperate your thoughts and to think about what you should say to him once he were to come in to the room.

Ten minutes later, you heard a soft knock on the door and you told whoever it was to come in. Seeing him again after three weeks of being without him made you realize how much you missed him, how much you loved him, how much you needed him in your life and how you were nothing without him. He slowly made his way towards you and sat down on the bed.

“What are you doing here?” He reached for your fingers and started playing with them, a habit you noticed would help with calming him down.

“Your mom, she um—she texted me and told me to get you here earlier since we are always the last ones to arrive because you never know what to wear. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t coming nor did I know if you told her about us. I was going to make up an excuse, I’m pretty sure you did too. My parents, they were shocked to see me tonight because they know I’m always with you on Christmas Eve. They kept asking about you, saying how much they miss you and how they can’t wait for us to start having kids so they can spoil them like they do with my nieces. So I ultimately decided to come here. I also wanted to talk to you, if that’s okay.” You hesitantly nodded and motioned for him to continue.

“I’m sorry. I was stupid for letting you go. I don’t understand why I thought taking a break would make things better. I can’t believe I listened to that “distance makes the heart grow fonder” bullshit. I missed you so fucking much baby. These last few weeks have been a living hell without you. I found myself outside of our apartment on multiple occasions, wanting to come in and hold you for as long as possible. To ask for you back and to pretend that this whole break up never happened. But I didn’t have the guts to do so. Every time BamBam or Yugyeom would bring you up, I’d always have to leave the conversation because it hurt hearing your name and it hurt even more when they would tell me how the break up was ruining you. It was ruining me too. I can’t deny it though, our relationship was tearing me apart. I hated the person I was turning in to. I kept blaming myself for everything bad that was happening to us, I was lashing out on random strangers because of everything that was going on and I even made Youngjae cry by saying something I didn’t mean all because our relationship wasn’t what it used to be. I thought being away from you would help me mentally—I needed time to think. Time to breathe—but if anything, our breakup made things so much worse. I’ve been staying with Jinyoung for the last few weeks and everything reminded me of you. He made me blueberry pancakes, just the way you like them. He uses that same laundry detergent you use on our clothes and he even has that same vanilla candle I bought for you from bath and body and I was so close to throwing it away because of how much it reminded me of you.” He placed a soft kiss on the corner of your mouth when he noticed your dazed facial expression.

“I thought going on a break would help us focus on ourselves and live our lives the way we want to without worrying about each other. It only made me realize how much I’m madly in love with you and how I can’t do anything without you. You’re my soulmate y/n. My person. I was made for you and you were made for me. I knew we were going to get back together sooner or later. Or I at least hoped we would. But I can’t blame you if you no longer want to be with me. I should’ve waited and thought about this longer, but I think the breakup made me come to terms with the fact that I don’t want anyone else but you for the rest of my life. Like, I already know we’re going to get married one day, and like you said, couples fight. It’s only normal. I just didn’t think fighting the way we were was healthy and I saw how much it was hurting you. I hate seeing you unhappy y/n and I couldn’t help but feel as if it was my fault that you were so miserable, so I left. But I’m here tonight, not only to please your family, but to ask for you to come back to me. You don’t have to make the decision now, but just know that I love you, I miss you and I’d do anything to make you mine again.”

You gently brought your hands up to his cheek and connected your lips to his. He immediately pulled you on his lap and laid down so that you were hovering over him. The two of you made out for a while until you pulled away to catch your breath.

“Do me a favor?” You looked at him in curiosity but hummed in agreement.

“Tell me you love me. I’ve been dying to hear you say it again. I’ve been wanting to hear those words fall from your pretty lips for months now. Fuck baby, you don’t understand how much I’ve missed you. I couldn’t listen to jingle bells without crying, I’m actually such a loser. I couldn’t stop thinking about all of our Christmases together and I refused to spend one without you. We’ve celebrated five Christmases together so far and I plan on spending every single Christmas and all of the other holidays with you for the rest of my life. Matter a fact—“ Before you could actually process what was going on, Mark motioned for you to get off of him in order for him to stand up. When you saw him get down on one knee, you were a sobbing mess.

“I’ve had this ring since the beginning of our relationship. I actually purchased it just a couple of months after we started dating. I knew you were the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Our breakup, it only made me realize how much I can’t live without you. I felt like I was slowly dying as the days went by. I really didn’t want to leave. When I walked out the door, it took every bone in my body not to walk back inside and pull you in my embrace. I thought our breakup was for the best, and I thought that with time we would be fine. But then I thought about it. I would rather argue with you, get drunk over you, cry over you and have you be mad at me than to be happy with anyone else. I don’t think—actually, I know I could never be happy with anyone else. It’s you. It’s always been you and it’s always going to be you for the rest of my life and however long time let’s us be together for. Forever I hope. I want to settle down with you, have a big family with you, buy us a nice big house with a pool and a yard. I want to grow old with you. I want to be yours forever baby. You don’t have to say yes right now. I know it’s a lot to take in. Just know you’d make me the happiest and luckiest man on earth if you do so. Just to let you know, you mean everything to me and I love you with my entire being. Will you marry me?” The tears were quickly falling down your eyes and Mark snickered at the sight.

“How are you still so beautiful when you cry—Ow babe stop. That was a compliment.”

You sank down to where he was and roughly smashed your lips against his. Words couldn’t describe how much you’ve missed this. Being in his arms felt comforting—safe. It felt like home. When he felt you smile against his lips, he bit on your bottom lip and pulled away to catch his breath.

“Yes. Of course I’ll marry you. God Mark, I love you so, so much. Thank you for coming back to me. Merry Christmas my love.”

#got7 imagines #got7 #mark tuan #mark tuan imagines #got7 mark

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glacecakes · 4 years

Text

Alchemy Lullaby (7/?)

Of all the changes that came with living in the castle, becoming a father was not one he anticipated. When Eugene encounters a small child suffering like he did, he gives them the opportunity to grow up the way he never did... helping them both heal. (AU where Varian is 4 and gets adopted by Eugene)

Part 7: Varian spends his first Christmas with his family. There is no actual plot it's just fluff

Read the rest on AO3

Part of an art trade for the lovely @finnoky once again! Finn is my partner in crime on this au so major shout out to him <3 Yes we are aware it is Halloween season but a) the timeline dictates Christmas and b) JUST LET ME HAVE MY CHRISTMAS SEROTONIN

Also a massive shoutout to the Scar Varian discord, who's support has cured my depression. And all of you! Seriously, the love for this fic is insane I don't know how to handle it lol. If you want more baby Varian content dm me! The Scar Varian server is where we brainstorm baby ideas like, daily. And it's a riot. If you have any ideas you wanna see for this AU send me an ask! Also the next chapter is gonna be a world of pain enjoy this while it lasts

The castle was abuzz with joy. The maids flitted around the halls, some even humming as they strung up lights and garlands. The frosted windows shone light through their wreaths, basking everything in a wintery-white glow. Even Old Lady Crowley seemed less angry than normal, barking out orders at only half volume.

Spinning around, Rapunzel hums an old Christmas song. She’s always loved this time of year! Christmas was watching snow, and cuddling up by the fire with chocolate, and cooking gingerbread…! There was so much to be excited about! Even if she never had an official Christmas with her family yet, her steps were light as a feather, confident in this year’s success. Her previous Christmases had been quiet, just her and sometimes Gothel. Now, she had a mother, a father, a boyfriend, and his son! To think, exactly one year ago she never would have thought this could be possible.

The princess twirled to a stop in the throne room. The place was decked to the nines, ribbons and garland and all sorts of red decorated every inch. And in the corner sat a perfect pine, already decorated head to toe. The candles shone down on a confused, pudgy face.

Varian tugged at one of the ornaments. Not hard enough for it to fall, but enough for it to jingle.

Oh, that’s right! She’s not the only one celebrating a first Christmas with family!

The little boy fiddled with the pine needles, marvelling at the bristles and poking soft fingers into needles. He stuck his tongue out and stood on his tiptoes, reaching for a candy cane tied to a higher branch. If only he was a little taller…!

Strong, warm hands wrapped around his stomach and lifted him skyward.

“Need a hand?”

Varian looked up at the princess and beamed. “Hi Punzel!”

“Hello, Varian. Did you want the candy cane?”

Varian blinked, confused. “No, I wanted the red hook.” He grabbed the candy cane off the tree and held up his prize. “See?”

“That’s a candy cane, but it’s just for decoration. If you want actual candy canes, you can head down to the kitchens.” the princess gently took the decor from his hands.

He frowned, trying to commit the term to memory. “What’s it for?”

“The candy canes?”

“No, the tree!” He yelled right into her ear.

“Woah, inside voice.” Varian zipped his lip. “It’s for Christmas.”

“Ooooh. What’s that?” he asked.

Rapunzel’s smile fell off her face near instantly. How do you explain a holiday to a toddler…?

“Well, um,” she started. “It’s a day where we all get together and celebrate being a family. We exchange gifts under the tree, and eat snacks, and sing songs… there’s a lot of stuff to do! It’s very fun, you’ll like it a lot, I promise.”

Thankfully, that seemed to satisfy him. “Celebrate family… like momma?”

“More like you, and me, and Eugene,” Well, and Cass and Lance and her parents, but no overwhelming the baby. Little at a time.

Baby blue eyes glanced down at the floor. “But… momma is family.”

There was no denying the wasps in her heart, stinging at the mention of Varian’s mother. How they burrowed deep, whispering how the boy saw Eugene as his father, but not Rapunzel as his mother. It was selfish, she knew it. Varian was much closer to Eugene, he was practically the man’s shadow. But as Eugene’s girlfriend (and hopefully future wife), there was no denying the wish for Varian to see her in a similar light.

Varian still saw that woman as family? That’s ok, he still needed time. Or maybe he’d always see her as family. That was ok too. But hopefully, they could assure Varian that his real family, his loving family, was there for him this Christmas.

“Varian,” she whispered, gently lifting his chin to face him. “Family loves you, protects you. It’s ok if you still love your momma, but you weren’t safe with her. That’s why you have us now! We’re your family too, and we’ll celebrate Christmas with you, ok?”

Varian nodded weakly, wrapping short arms around her waist. Outstretched arms squeezed him tight. Then, he broke off, skittering out of the throne room and likely towards the kitchen for those treats.

Rapunzel sighed as she watched him go. He was a smart little thing, learning faster than anyone could teach. On more than one occasion she spotted the precocious kid trying to heave a too heavy book around the library. One thing he was particularly fond of were the sciences. From Astronomy to Zoology, Varian ate it all up, greedily grabbing any book that even looked like it was informational. He was also a big fan of the Flynn Rider series, but that may be more because Eugene was so eager to share it with him. Ever since Lance told him Eugene used to be Flynn Rider, Varian assumed he’d meant the book Flynn, and his love for his dad became near fervent in nature.

But while Varian adored learning about the world around him, there were certain things he struggled to pick up. Social cues were a big one. He was dreadfully shy around strangers, and a little hellion to those he knew. On one memorable occasion, Varian had insisted on dressing himself, resulting in a day of backwards shirts and missing pants. Anytime Eugene tried to fix it, he’d screamed like the man was stabbing him.

Poor Eugene had needed a drink after that.

The point is, Varian loved to learn, but he still struggled with sociability, not unlike Rapunzel when she first came home. It sounded like he grew up in the same way, isolated from other people, relying only on a controlling mother. Thankfully, Varian was saved at a much younger age. Rapunzel could only pray that meant he’d flourish now.

Varian struggled to understand the world around him sometimes.

There were some things he understood perfectly well, like how Ruddiger was his friend. There were some things he knew were true but didn’t really get why, like how his family hated his momma. And there were some things he was completely lost on, which in this case, was Christmas.

Everyone around him was so cheery, so lively, even more so than usual. Whenever he asked why, he got the same answer: It’s almost Christmas! Christmas is tomorrow! But when he asked what Christmas was, what Rapunzel meant by singing and eating and gifts, everyone had a different answer! How was he supposed to figure it out if everyone had a different idea of what Christmas was?

Everyone was busy preparing for… something. Varian wasn’t sure what. A party, maybe? So soon after the last one? That party sucked, but at least he got to introduce Ruddiger to everyone.

After that debacle, Eugene hadn’t been so keen on letting Varian keep the baby raccoon. The boy wasn’t even 5 yet, how was he supposed to care for his own pet? Rapunzel mentioned she’d been about his age when she met Pascal, but apparently a chameleon and raccoon are two very different things. Bummer.

Eventually, they settled on a compromise: Ruddiger was an outdoor animal who belonged outdoors, but during the winter and night he was allowed to be inside. And once Varian got older, he might be allowed to keep Ruddiger full time!

Since it was snowing today, Ruddiger got to happily trail the child, keeping close to his feet as they traversed the castle. He said hi to the maids and guards as he walked by, but right now, Varian was trying to find his family. He technically wasn’t allowed to wander the castle alone, but King Frederick was really the only stickler about that rule. Varian had survived 6 months on the street, he could survive the short walk to and fro.

Just as he passed the kitchens, a sweet smell tickled his nose, followed by a deep, familiar voice singing. His pet noticed it too, already waddling into the kitchen. Varian followed, and sure, enough, Eugene’s best friend was there.

“Hi Lance!” Varian squeaked. He latched onto the burly man’s legs.

Lance leaned down from his place by the stove. He’d just finished taking the gingerbread out of the oven, the golden brown sizzling on the sheet. Carefully, so as not to drop the sheet on the child, Lance set the cookies down with one hand and ruffled black hair with another.

“Hey there, kiddo! I thought I told you to call me Uncle Lance,” he grinned at how Varian squirmed under his palm.

Varian giggled. “Eugene said you’re not really my uncle.” Those giggles doubled at Lance’s mock offended face.

“After everything we’ve been through, after all I’ve done for him, and he won’t call me a brother!” He gripped his chest, and his knees sunk to the floor. “It hurts… my heart…” with an overdramatic wail, Lance fell back and squished Varian to the floor. His weight wasn’t entirely on this child, he didn’t want to crush him, but it was enough to send Varian sprawling.

Honestly, Varian didn’t get why Eugene was so against him calling Lance his uncle. He didn’t even know what an Uncle was! Shrieking laughter emanated from the toddler. “Lance!! Get off!” He said.

“Sorry, can’t, Lance is dead.”

“Nooooo!”

“Yesssss, the only cure,” the thief sighed, “Is for a brave, smart kid to call him… uncle…”

“Uncle Lance!” Varian shrieked. “Uncle Lance get off!” Almost instantly he sat upright, freeing his prisoner.

“I live!” He cried, scooping Varian up and standing. “Thank you, sweet child!” He smushed their cheeks together in joy, only letting go when he had to bat Ruddiger away from his creation.

“No bud! Gingerbread is bad for raccoons… probably,”

Varian hadn’t heard that word before. “Gingerbread?” It smelled so good, surely Lance wouldn’t mind if he stole one, right? The guy adored him.

“Ah-ah!” Lance spun away from the stove, cookies now out of reach. He ignored the whines. “Gingerbread cookies can only be eaten if they’re decorated.” Setting Varian on a nearby counter, the man grabbed a few icing pipettes and candy pieces. “Gingerbread men need gingerbread clothes!”

The next hour was filled with messy cookies and sprawling icing. White sugar covered nearly every surface, as Varian couldn’t figure out the right pressure to use a pipette. Eventually he gave up, letting Lance do the drawing while he added buttons and eyes in the form of candies. Every so often, Varian would hand a small treat to Ruddiger, enjoying fuzzy whiskers that tickled his hand. It was a comfortable silence, both of them invested in their individual activity. By the time Lance finally spoke again, the sun had tracked across the room and shone through the window.

“So,” he said, tongue sticking out as he drew a face onto his cookie. “Why Eugene?” His companion stuck his head up, confused. He licked the sugar off his fingers. “What about him made you want to stay with him?”

Varian glanced down, deep in thought. “He’s nice,” he started. “He gives me lots of hugs, and makes me laugh.”

“Yea? What else?”

“Eugene is… super cool! He’s pretty, and he let me keep Ruddiger, and he loves me…” his small voice trailed off. The heat from sunlight warmed his bones, layering him in laziness. A yawn escaped him.

He was just about to doze off, mind still trying to think of compliments, when soft knocking shook him awake. Cassandra nodded at him, bundled up in her winter coat.

“It’s high time someone got fresh air,” She said in her monotone voice, so Varian slid off the counter to join her. He waved to Lance on the way out, and off they went.

No sooner than they left, Rapunzel peeked her head in. “Hey Lance! I have an idea…”

Ruddiger zoomed ahead, happily digging up snow and dirt to catch a meal. The winter sun was bright yet also weak, sparkling off snow mounds. Varian’s small boots kicked up powder as he walked, each step more exaggerated than need be. He gripped Cassandra’s hand tightly. Out of everyone Varian frequently interacted with, she scared him the most… except maybe for the King. But he trusted her not to let him get hurt, not after saving him from the Stabbingtons.

Sure enough, she whispered “Careful, it’s slippery.” And lifted him up and over the patch of ice with just her hands.

“Wow, you’re really strong,” She raised her eyebrow at him.

“I have to be, it’s my job to keep Rapunzel safe.”

Just Rapunzel? Not him, not Eugene? What about the king? Didn’t they need protecting? Thankfully, Cassandra saw his confused face and smiled faintly. “And you, someone’s gotta clean up after you.”

“Eugene said it’s rude to leave things for the maids to clean up.”

A look akin to shock overtook her face. She stopped walking, temporarily startled, forcing Varian to stop with her. “He said that?” A nod. “Huh. Guess he’s not a terrible father after all.”

That caught the child’s attention. Rage simmered in his gut, bubbling and twisting his insides around. He glared up at her with a look he hoped was intimidating, but judging by her veiled laughter, he’d failed. A booted foot stomped the snow, and by his side small black spikes sprouted. It wasn’t noticeable, only as tall as his shoelaces, but it was there regardless. Just as fast as it appeared, the rage fell down his body and leaked out into the earth.

“Don’t call Eugene bad,” Varian pouted, cheeks puffing up and lip jutting out. “He’s the best!”

“Oh yea? Why’s that?” Cassandra teased, resuming their walk.

“He’s a reallllllly good reader. Like, really good. And he’s smart,” That got a laugh. “And he saved me!”

“So did I,” she reminded him, but that just got her frustrated boot shuffles. At last the handmaiden took pity on him. “Ok, ok. I’m sorry I called Eugene a bad dad. He loves you very much, and you love him.” He preened.

He went to speak, but soft crunches interrupted his train of thought. From around the bend, two familiar and burly men step into view.

“...no word from either of them, but Hector never answers my letters anyway-” Quirin was speaking, with Frederick hanging onto his every word. Their faces were both solemn, stoic and businesslike. Whatever they were talking about, it was likely serious. But the seriousness evaporates when Quirin catches sight of the young child. “Hello there!” Frederick’s face remains impassive, but he seems to let the subject drop. At least for now.

Something about Quirin just screams welcoming to Varian. It’s strange. His time on the streets as well as his encounter with the Stabbingtons should have made Varian terrified of men like him, but Quirin’s autumn scent and warm smile relaxed Varian. He grinned his toothy smile and waved.

“Your majesty,” Cassandra bowed. The King nodded, and she stood back up. He gave Varian a nod as well, but he had no idea to react. Bow? Smile? Hide? All of those options sounded like a bad idea, so he just stood still for now.

“Hello, Cassandra, Varian.” The latter name was said with a hint of apprehension. “Enjoying the weather?”

“Yes sir,” The lady-in-waiting responded, and she gently nudged Varian. He nodded frantically, so fast his head might as well have flown off. Quirin seemed amused, at least.

“Don’t stay out too long, we don’t want this young man to catch a cold,” Quirin ruffled Varian’s hair, and the child blushed.

“We won’t, sir.” Cassandra bowed to him as well. Satisfied, they moved on, leaving Varian and Cassandra to finish their walk around the castle ground. “Cassie? Who is Quirin?”

She seemed surprised by the question. “Who is he? I think he’s an advisor, or something.”

“A what?”

“He helps the king.”

Varian’s mouth dropped open in an “o” shape. Who knew Kings needed help? Not him, that’s for sure!

“Come on, let’s go inside, it’s getting cold.” She led him away, until Varian couldn’t see either man when he turned around.

“As I was saying, Adira is hard to track down, but-” Quirin’s words halted as he stumbled over something. “What the…” A small cluster of black rocks, innocent and unflinching. The men shared a nervous glance.

When Cassandra dropped Varian off inside, she watched as Varian toddled off to find Eugene, turned around, and came face to face with a Rapunzel grinning like a maniac.

The princess covered her friend’s mouth before she could scream. “Come on! I need your help. We only have a few more hours!” Without any explanation, Cass found herself being dragged off to god knows where.

Waking up on the early side was not new to Varian. Ever since he’d come to the castle, Eugene would drag him out of bed no later than 9:30 am. And he’d learned to adapt, even if Varian preferred to get up when the sun’s rays were directly overhead. But 7 was really pushing it.

“Noooo!” He whined, clutching his sheets like a lifeline. “I don’t wanna get up!”

Eugene grunted from where he was holding his legs. For a 4 year old Varian had a hell of a grip. “Come on, kid, you can go back to sleep when we’re done if you want! Don’t have to change out of your pjs either. But you gotta get up now or you’re gonna miss your surprise.”

“Nooooo!” Varian wailed, burying his head into the duvet.

“Yesssss.”

With one final tug, Eugene managed to dislodge his child from his bed, sending them both sprawling on the floor. They laid there for a moment. Eugene questioned his life choices as Ruddiger rounded the bed and licked his face.

He carried Varian down the corridor to the throne room. At this early hour, the only people about were night shift guards preparing to turn in. A strange quiet filled the castle, a sense of peace lingered. It would be a nice experience if Varian wasn’t bone-tired. Honestly who decided that 7 am was a normal time to get up? It was understandable during the summer, but not at Christmas!

Grand doors swung upon, revealing the same setup as yesterday, only several people sat under the tree. Familiar blonde hair swung around to reveal Rapunzel’s exuberant face. By her side stood her family plus Lance and Cass, all looking tired but content. Presents sat scattered, surrounded by pine needles that had fallen.

“Merry Christmas!” She cried as she stood up and ran over. Both boys found themselves in a trademark bear hug. “It’s our first Christmas as a family, how exciting!”

“Sunshine, you’re squishing meeee!” Eugene wheezed, face turning red. The princess paid him no heed, leading him (and by extension, Varian) over to the pile. Several gifts with multiple names in fun colors and patterns awaited them. It was at this time Varian realized he knew how to read most things, but his name was not one of them. Thankfully, Rapunzel was eager to hand out everyone’s gifts. Slowly Varian’s pile grew larger and larger.

Cassandra winced. “I think you went a little overboard, Raps,”

“Nonsense! What makes you say that?” Cassandra pointed to where Varian sat by a pile larger than himself. He leaned against Eugene, eyes drooping.

The man rustled his shoulder. “Wake up, kiddo, open your presents.”

“My what?”

“All those boxes, they’re for you! They have fun stuff inside them.”

“Like what?”

The gathering broke into chuckles. “Why don’t you find out?” asked Arianna.

Curious eyes grabbed the largest box and fingers ran across its paper. Happy snowmen decorated the outside, and he was loathe to destroy it. But Rapunzel gave him a thumbs up, and that was all the invitation needed. With a war cry, Varian ripped off smiling snowmen with claw and fang. Even Ruddiger joined in on the mayhem, happily shaking his head as he held a piece of wrapping paper. The box gave way to…. Another box? But this one was on wheels.

A cart! A painted cart! It was light blue, just like his hair, and painted on the side was a name. Varian ran his fingers over it in confusion.

“Ruddiger,” Eugene whispered. “It says Ruddiger. So he can stay with you.” Varian’s eyes lit up in understanding. Without any pomp, he scooped up the raccoon and plopped him straight into the cart, much to Ruddiger’s confusion. Then, like a shot out of a canon, they were off. Varian screeched with delight as he zoomed around the throne room, wheels clacking against the marble floor as Ruddiger chittered in similar joy.

“So, I think he likes it!” Rapunzel chimed.

“He better,” Cassandra muttered. She was not a fan of staying up till midnight to help Rapunzel wrap her last-minute Christmas gifts. Lance got to do the easy part, too. All he had to do was sign! Meanwhile Cassandra nearly broke her nail for that one gift.

“Varian, you can play with that some more after the rest of your gifts! Come say thank you!” Eugene called. The child skidded to a stop, happily launching himself at Rapunzel for a hug.

“Thank you Punzel! Love you!” He pressed a wet kiss to her cheek. It should’ve been gross, but to her, it was perfect.

Eugene smiled from his seat on the floor. It was pretty damn perfect to him too.

#tangled #tts #tangled the series #varian #tts varian #team awesome #tangled eugene #eugene fitzherbert

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stoolcattle51 · 3 years

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A Summer Without Coming Home For Many Spaniards Abroad

Jaime (4 years old) does not lose hope of getting on the plane and visiting his grandparents in La Coruña and Cádiz, as he does every summer. "Tomorrow, maybe the coronavirus is gone," he says hopefully to his father, Chiqui Esteban, as he paints with his brothers, aged seven and nine, a huge cardboard box as if it were a shipping package. Then he gets inside, closes the box and announces: "Now you can send me to Spain." "The annual trip to our land is always very good for us because we see our family and children take the opportunity to speak Spanish," explains Chiqui, who is Spanish, arrived in the United States in 2016 and now works as Director of Graphics at The Washington Post. From behind you can hear Álvaro, the oldest, asking his father to mention how badly he is doing for not seeing his grandparents, in a tone between joke and conviction. Chiqui laughs when listening to her son and assures that "they have understood the situation quite well, as far as possible." The family had planned to fly in mid-July and spend the holidays in Spain until mid-August but, when in April they saw that the situation got complicated and the deadline for a possible cancellation of the tickets ended, they decided to postpone it, as commented on the Chiqui Esteban himself on his Twitter account: "We have canceled our annual summer trip to Spain. We assume that in these conditions no one from there will come to see us. The enormous drama is that we have just opened the last bottle of Cola-Cao that we had left "read that message. "Both my wife and my parents are risk groups, so we decided not to risk because they are very long flights and it is too much exposure," he explains more seriously. The health crisis caused by the coronavirus has completely disrupted the summer of many of the 2,618. 592 Spaniards who, according to the latest data from the National Statistics Institute (INE), live outside our borders in 2020. Before the pandemic, the summer season meant much more to them than a break: it was going back to the roots, hugging yours, go back to where you started. However, fear of infection, economic uncertainty and doubts about border measures are leading many Spaniards living abroad to postpone summer in their land. A proof of the uncertainties that surround travel currently is that the Executive of Pedro Sánchez changed this June 14 the scheduled date for the opening of borders with the countries of the Schengen area and without quarantine, which has become June 21, except for Portugal. For the rest of the countries it will continue to be July 1. However, for the latter cases, Spain is waiting for Brussels to draw up a list that includes countries that meet three requirements: their epidemiological situation is analogous or better to that of the European Union, that assume certain health conditions at origin, route and destination, and that they act reciprocally (that is, that they accept the entry of travelers from the European Union). In addition, the Government is preparing automated processes, such as electronic forms and thermal cameras, which it will apply to travelers coming from abroad, which implies the risk of being isolated in case something goes wrong. And as if this were not enough, some neighbors in the rural environment, where the population is particularly aged, already asked their relatives last Easter not to travel to the towns for fear of contagion. Thus, returning home generates more uncertainty than emotion. Rosana Rovira (30) works as a Spanish teacher in Baton Rouge (United States) and has decided not to travel with her three daughters this summer due to the financial risk posed by the 'new normal'. "Each trip with my girls to my land, Tarragona, costs me 10,000 euros," she calculates. On previous occasions, her mother has helped her cover this figure and now she doesn't want to risk losing her "because I'm isolated or because they won't let me enter the United States later." Of course: "The girls have become quite sad because we have not been going for two years and they love spending time with my mother, eating paella and bathing on the beach." Of the nearly two and a half million Spaniards who reside abroad, more than half (63%) do so outside of Europe. One of them is Francisco Abolafio (40), who had to spend the pandemic in Brazil, especially far from his loved ones. In 2014, as soon as she moved to Sao Paulo, she lost her great-grandmother and couldn't say goodbye. "After that, you are much more afraid that something will happen to someone and you will not be able to be," confesses this Malaga draftsman to whom the airlines have already been canceling his flight since the end of April. "There are days when I dream that I am there with my family and my friends, eating paella... and then I wake up."

Coming home, an emotional need

Return has always been a fundamental ingredient in the emotional well-being of emigrants. As Natacha Lillo, a professor at the University of Paris, explains in the analysis A century of Spanish immigration in France, the generation that emigrated to France in the 20th century "already saved to buy a car and be able to make annual trips to the town ". Mothers first traveled with their children in early July by train and then fathers met them in August by car. The objective: "not to lose contact with the family." Natalia Flores (24), a native of Mallorca, lives in Homburg, in the southwest of Germany, and has decided not to travel to her land in June for fear that her two little ones will catch the infection. Their daughter, who was born in Germany in January, spent several weeks intubated in hospital due to a respiratory virus. "My son also caught bronchitis at the same time and my husband and I went on a chain," she explains. They are left wondering if their respiratory problems were related to the coronavirus, although they have not been able to know for sure. "It hurts my mother because she saw her newborn and has not seen her again. The whole family wants to meet the girl and I am sorry that these moments are lost, but after going through that experience in the hospital we do not want to risk more ", assures Natalia. "Even an employee of the Embassy advised us against traveling this summer when we told him that we wanted to give the girl a passport to buy tickets to Mallorca." Celia Arroyo, an expert psychologist in migratory grief, describes the return to the place of origin as "an oxygen balloon" for the emigrants. However, that oxygen balloon has now exploded. "It is not the same to live the coronavirus in Spain as it was. Until now, being outside of Spain was a reversible situation at any time," explains the expert. "However, to some extent now they can have the feeling of being trapped, which has increased the psychological distance with the family." People who emigrate to a country without knowing the language or without access to the health system traditionally experience a sense of fear for their health, according to Arroyo. This emotion, known as "mourning for physical risks", has spread during the health crisis to anyone abroad, regardless of their knowledge of the language or their access to the health system. "The pandemic has shown that there is an emotional part to the idea of getting sick outside the home that is intrinsic to anyone who has left their country of origin," he says. "In addition, we have also detected another common denominator in a large part of the emigrants: they come to feel guilty if they fall ill and infect a relative during their summer visit," Arroyo points out. The process of the pandemic has been marked by a cocktail of negative emotions. This new fear of ending up infecting loved ones has been added to other feelings already present in these months. Some emigrants, for example, have commented in the Arroyo sessions that they are afraid to argue with family or friends when expressing their opinion about the health situation in Spain "due to the social tension that the coronavirus crisis has produced." The feeling of ambivalence regarding their Spanish identity has also grown in them, as the expert explains, due to having been exposed to certain comments in their host country. "They have heard questions like 'What's wrong, that in Spain you don't wash your hands?' or 'After this you will not continue thinking about having surgery in Spain?' "says Arroyo. "In a situation of so much suffering far from yours in which it is implied that our health system is third world, when in addition the Spanish know that it is not true, a lot of impotence is generated and that affects self-esteem." Virginia Manzanares (39), who has lived through the pandemic from Israel, where she has been installed for half a decade, will not go to Spain either. Her mother had planned to visit her in May and she was going to travel to Toledo and Santander in August but, after two canceled flights to Istanbul and Prague, Virginia has decided to cut her losses. "In addition, in Israel at the moment there is a mandatory 15-day quarantine for anyone who arrives, and we still do not know to which countries borders will be opened," he adds. "It hurts a lot because I love spending time with my mother, my grandmother and my cousins, but I just have no other choice."

If you are not going to travel to Spain

CS If you are not going to be able to travel to see your family this summer either, you can follow the advice of psychologist Celia Arroyo: - Schedule regular videoconferences with your loved ones in Spain, you will feel that you are more united in the face of adversity. - Maintain a fluid communication with yours, expressing your concerns without being alarmist. - Ask your family to keep you informed of the good and bad news. - Provide emotional support to your family: do not think that you are not useful because you are far away, your encouragement is essential now. - Share your concerns with your network of Spaniards abroad. - Encourage your loved ones to follow the recommendations and to stay busy and active. - Don't let intrusive thoughts of guilt flood your day: remember that you are not to blame for the pandemic. - Check the sources from which you receive news about covid-19 and avoid rumors. - Get involved in solidarity activities to fight the virus: symbolic actions protect our mental health and give us back the feeling of unity. Sure you can contribute your grain of sand.

* You can also follow us on Instagram and Flipboard. Don't miss out on the best of Verne!

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kamalahansa-blog · 3 years

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Video Games Everyone Needs To Play At Least Once

Video games sure have come a long way from the big, bulky machines you used to slip a quarter into เกมมัน for a few minutes of play. They now help educate the world, not just keep it entertained. To learn more about video games and how to get the most out of yours, read on. Switch subtitles on. Is it the cast that the dialogue of the game is hard to understand because of all the gunfire and music? There should be a subtitle selection in the menu of the game. It's typically included in the audio section. Here, you will be prompted to turn the subtitles on or off upon playing.

Did you know that some video games are educational tools? These titles are perfect for children, contain little or no violence and can help them advance in their cognitive skills. Browse online reviews of games by other parents เกมมัน to see what recommendations they may have. You might want to read the fine print before playing a game. You will sometimes have to pay monthly fees in order to gain access. If your child asks to join an online gaming community, make sure you understand how much this may cost. Evaluate the advantages of the games you find against the monthly fees that are charged.

Before you get a used game that's been out for a while, search Youtube or another video sharing site for a review. People review older games all the time, and you can see what it looks like before spending any money. Don't get stuck paying เกมมัน for a game that you won't enjoy. Video games are a great way to spend time with your kids. Today kids really enjoy playing video games. If you feel like you aren't getting enough quality time with your children, play video games with them. Show interest in what they are interested in and you can grow your relationship.

If you're a parent and you want to know more about what your kids are playing on their game systems, simply find out the titles. When you go online, you can find out the rating, some reviews, and some walkthroughs. These things will help you to know what your kids are getting into at every level. The best times เกมมัน to buy video games are during seasonal holidays. Retail stores and online platforms will generally hold sales around the winter holidays or during the middle of summer where new and used games will be sold at reduced prices. If you take advantage of these sales, you can get multiple games for the price of one new game that isn't on sale.

Try to avoid buying new games for consoles and personal computers. The typical starting price is sixty dollars, but often drops to fifty dollars within a few weeks or months. The longer you wait to buy a title, the cheaper it is going to be for you เกมมัน to get the same game. Stretching is essential. Just like with any repetitive action, prolonged gaming can lead to sore hands and, in extreme cases, carpel tunnel syndrome. To maximize your gaming stamina, stretch your hands frequently. Start with a few basic stretches before you sit down to game, and remember to take breaks to stretch out your fingers during your game.

Try not to buy new video games on the day of their release. Video games are expensive nowadays and waiting a month or two from the release date can help you เกมมัน to save a lot of money on new video games. New video games always cost more for the first few weeks after their release. Use video games to knit a tighter family. Even with all the video games out today, it is unusual for adults to play video games with their children even though this can be fun for all. Games that focus on education and family activity are good choices for everyone to wind down together in the evening.

Try to find rich, entertaining games that have some educational value for your children. These games will not only provide fun for your child, but can also teach them something as well. This will help to broaden your children's horizons and set a strong foundation for their morals as they will be getting something out เกมมัน of it. Make sure that all your daily chores are done before you start playing a video game. Video games can be very additive and many people end up playing for a lot longer than what they intended. Therefore, it is a good idea to make sure that all of your daily chores are completed before you start playing your favourite video game.

Use more than just the ESRB ratings systems when getting your kid a new game. You can look at demos of many games online and you can watch game trailers online. These are much more helpful than looking at ratings because you can actually see which games are really appropriate for your kid. To help keep your child safe while playing video games, find out about the multiplayer options เกมมัน of the games they are playing. Set age appropriate limits to gaming interactions with others online. Some games have parental control options that you can use to determine the kind of interaction your child will have with strangers.

From learning a new language to improving your mathematical prowess, there are no limits to what video games can do for you. Not to mention the sheer fun of them! Hopefully this article has provided you with some helpful information you can use to make your gaming experience even more valuable.

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dailyaudiobible · 3 years

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11/07/2020 DAB Transcript

Ezekiel 16:42-17:24, Hebrew 8:1-13, Psalms 106:13-31, Proverbs 27:7-9

Today is the 7th day of November welcome to the Daily Audio Bible I am Brian and I guess this…well…it’s the 7th day of November, so I guess it’s our first full week that we’re about to complete in this 11th month of the year. So, let's dive in. We’re reading from the Evangelical Heritage Version this week, which is today. Ezekiel chapter 16 verse 42 through 17 verse 24.

Prayer:

Father, we thank You for Your word, we thank You for this first week of this new month that we’re in as we continue our journey with You. And what a journey it has been. We began a journey thinking that we were going to go through the Bible and then we found each other, and we were going to the Bible in community. And then we…we learned things that You were speaking to us as a community and as individuals, only to find out You have been with us the whole time. You have been guiding and directing and protecting us the whole time. Even when we were Your enemies You still loved us. And, so, it's been a year of discovery and this year, this disruptive year has forced to us to reconsider the old ways, and to reconsider where we’re going. And we can consider all we want but what we deeply want to consider is where You’re going because that's where we want to go. That's where we want to be. We want to be a part of what You are doing. And we thank You for Your word because it leads us on that path, it teaches us, it makes us aware of Your presence in our lives. And, so, we continue to be aware. Come Holy Spirit, well up from within as we become aware that You are within us, leading and directing and guiding us. May we see it clearly. We ask this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen.

Announcements:

dailyaudiobible.com is home base, it’s the website, indeed where you find out what's happening around here. So, stay connected.

And as we say often, the Community section is a place to go to get connected. It’s is where the Prayer Wall is and lives. You can also check out the Shop. The Daily Audio Bible Shop is full of resources that…yeah…they are made to accompany our journey here. So, check that out as well.

If you want to partner with the Daily Audio Bible, you can do that dailyaudiobible.com also. There is a link on the homepage. If you're using the Daily Audio Bible app you can press the Give button in the upper right-hand corner, or the mailing address is PO Box 1996 Spring Hill Tennessee 37174. And I thank you humbly and with all of the gratitude that I can use out of my vocabulary. Thank you for your partnership. We wouldn't be here if we weren't in this together. Thank you.

And, of course, as always, if you have a prayer request or encouragement, you can hit the Hotline button in the app, which is the little red button at the top, that looks remarkably or at least hopefully like a Hotline button. So, you can hit that no matter where you are the world, or you can dial 877-942-4253.

And that's it for today. I’m Brian I love you and I'll be waiting for you here tomorrow.

Community Prayer and Praise:

Hey DAB it’s __ J calling from Cleveland Ohio just saying hello to everybody wishing everybody well today. I know it’s been so many things going on. __ I’m praying for you all. It’s been a minute since I’ve called in. Been a heavy, heavy year. I shared with you guys some time ago that I had lost my mom __earlier this year in April. So, it’s been a tough, tough year but at the same time it’s been a wonderful year filled with joy. So, I’m reaching out to just pray for everybody today. A lot of polarization going on across our country our faith is polarized our passions are polarized the politics are polarizing the pandemic is polarizing but I…I…I chose today to turn that polarization into praise. Praise God for life for health for strength that Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins. Thank God we don’t have to die on the cross when we have a cross to bear. God bless you all and stay safe and keep Jesus lifted up for He said he would draw all men unto him. Bye.

Hi Daily Audio Bible family this is Kimberly calling. We…guys I’ve been listening to this podcast since I began teaching…well…since…I’ve been teaching for a long time…but since I’ve been…started teaching first grade back in 2012. It has just been the mainstay of my morning. It has been the meat of my morning to help guide my day and my week successfully through my teaching career and being able to prioritize the Lord. It’s just been a great…it’s just been a godsend. I listen to it while I…when I get up in the morning and when I’m getting ready and then on my way to work. So, anyway, I guess I’ll get to the point. The point is it’s that I’m very, very grateful for this program and we are supposed to be going back to a hybrid plan…we’re going to a hybrid plan on Monday. So, I just really covet your prayers. Of course, I teach little first-graders so it’s gonna be really interesting to see how we do with our masks and how we do with just being safe and respectful and being able to create a classroom community when we can’t be really close. And how in the world am I going to teach first-graders from a distance? So, please pray for me. I’m sure there’s just a lot of creative teachers out there who have that handled but doing first grade from a distance is not the most effective teaching strategy and it’s not best practices. I love, love, love, my job. I love teaching. I feel like that’s what the Lord put me on this earth to do. So, I pray that that shines through and I pray that we can come together as families and teachers to be able to best meet all of the needs of the whole child during this upcoming season. I covet your prayers over our…

Hi, this message is for Danny from Southern Oregon. It is November 3rd and I just heard your call about your grandson playing hooky from school with his friends and his best friend killed the boy. Oh…it just really broke me down and I was just so compelled call in. I wanted to let you know that I’m gonna be praying for you. Danny I’m praying for your grandson Christopher. I’m praying for the young man who was murdered and his family. I’m praying for Tony who was next to the young man who got shot. I’m praying for Dustin who’s also the accused murderer. Oh my, Danny…I’m…I’m thankful that you’re a woman of God and I know that your prayers have helped to keep your grandson covered. I’m praying for all the family members and all the friends. I couldn’t imagine being a parent to any of the kids involved. It’s so heavy and I’m just praying that our Lord Jesus Christ bless these kids and bless the families. In Jesus name. If you all pray with me. So, Danny I wish you the best in your family. Keep your son…keep your grandson Christopher…keep him in prayer, keep him covered. And again, I’m just praying for all the kids involved. DAB family thank you so much for praying for everybody. I don’t call in. I’ve been a listener for year but this call…just hearing this call today just really got to me and I was just compelled to call him. So, I wanted to let you know Danny that I’ll be praying for you and everyone involved. Take care and God bless.

Hi this is Dorothy out in California October was pastor clergy appreciation month. I just wanted to thank Pastor Brian and his team for all their sacrifices they have made for them to make this possible for the world community. You are saving lives and I know you saved mine when I was…felt alone, I was lonely. When I felt like I couldn’t go another day I would turn on DAB and I felt I had community. So, I just want to thank you and…and this family. Okay. May God bless you and make His face shine upon you and be gracious unto you and give you peace. I __ that up but anyway. Thank you. Bye.

Good morning Daily Audio Bible this is Denise. I’m calling for my friend Amy. I heard you on November 4th about your heartbreak and your pain that you’re having in your marriage. I called a few weeks ago about the loneliness that I was experiencing in mine and I know the heartbreak and the pain and the suffering of being in a relationship that’s just not seemed to be panning out and the loneliness that you feel. And again, Covid doesn’t help at all now that it’s the holidays. So, Amy I’m letting you know that I know how you feel, and I relate to you and just as I called in and asked for prayer many people at Daily Audio Bible prayed for me. I want to do the same for you. So, God is greater than this situation and He’s gonna renew, restore and even multiply the blessings. Dear heavenly Father I pray for my sister Amy Lord where she is right now. Comfort her heart like you comfort mine. Give her peace like you gave mine. Wrap your arms around her like you wrap your arms around me and let us both know that we were not alone. Lord I pray for her marriage and I pray for restoration. I pray for complete and total peace in that relationship God. I rebuke turmoil and I rebuke loneliness and heartache and I speak life on that relationship. I speak life at Amy. Lord let her fall totally and completely in love you with You as I’m trying to do God and watch over us both as we go forward in Your name. Amen. You’re gonna be all right sister. And I’m gonna be alright too. God bless.

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bonkaisecretsanta · 4 years

Text

Blood in the Water

Happy Holidays @leianaberrie from @edomeilair! Notes: I was instantly intimidated writing for you as you’re such an amazing author for this pairing, and this is oddly my first time writing Bonkai. I hope you like this story. Set in a semi-AU ‘verse in which things play out pretty much the same in Mystic Falls except for season 6. The history of the Gemini Coven has also been altered, their merging ritual is a thing of the past and they have figured out a different way to arrange succession, so Kai was never in a prison world and may have slight personality disorder markers but did not become a sociopath in the way he did on the show. I’ve also aged him down, so he’s around 33 and Bonnie’s about 28-30. It’s all clear in the story, hopefully. I thought this was going to be 3k smut and then this happened. Might continue it one day, I’ve no idea. Mistakes are my own, and not beta’d. Anyway, enough rambling. Please have a wonderful 2020 and may all your wishes come through in the New Year! Summary: In which Bonnie’s going through a dry spell, and Kai buys her a drink. Or, Bonnie’s gotten pretty good at running but she hasn’t had someone like Kai trying to pursue her. Word count: 9k | Rating: NC17 (smut)

“Heard the new guy’s some kind of hotshot high warlock—from the Germanic Coven or something like that?”

Bonnie grunted in response to Emma as she hefted one of the heavier grimoires from her latest treasure trawl, peering at the first page which was written in Ge’ez script, a mix of Amharic and maybe some Arabic as well. She’d found that one during her sabbatical. A few months off teaching at the Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted to visit a little town in the Ogaden region, right along the border between Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia. She’d traced at least one thin branch of her family’s tree there, and the part of her that still yearned for roots and connection to a bloodline that was all but lost had inspired her to take the trip. There weren’t any people called Bennett there, of course. There wouldn’t have been a thousand years ago before Amaya, one of the few ancestors she did know, was born. But there had been a fleeting, intangible sense of belonging.

Even then, it still wasn’t home.

So, she’d come back, just as she always did, to the only place that she could claim much as part of her didn’t want to. Mystic Falls. The town she’d grown up in, lived in and died in (three times).

She despised this town with every fibre of her being, but she could never let it go for long. And she’d damn well tried, too.

After the mess with Silas and then the Travellers, and then the Heretics and the sirens, and every other supernatural disaster that plagued this hellhole, she’d taken Enzo’s final request to heart. She’d packed up her bags and left Mystic Falls to live her own damn life.

More like ran so fast not even a vampire could catch her.

Lucy let her stay with her down in Reno for close to a year. Her cousin had landed up there after running from Katherine all those years ago (and she was very relieved to hear that the rumours of the vampire’s demise were true, and she was free of whatever bonded obligations she’d once held), and settled in to run a swanky little cocktail bar, The Witches’ Brew, with a couple of friends.

Being with her cousin had been a true gift after all the years of feeling alone, like she was constantly under siege and at war. And that’s what it had been in Mystic Falls—it was only after she left that she started to realise it and understand. She’d been fighting for her life, or, more honestly everyone else’s lives for so long that a part of her couldn’t recall what it meant to just be. To live. To exist in a way that didn’t mean losing everything and everyone she loved over and over again. And always losing herself.

Maybe Enzo should’ve given her tips with that request. But she’d tried. She’d had to learn how. She was still learning.

That journey of learning had taken her to California to finish up her undergrad in San Francisco, then across the Atlantic to pursue a masters’ and a doctorate in Occult History & Linguistics. Her area of study had come with adventures and travel, studying mystical objects from occultic traditions and covens all the way from Scotland to South Africa, China to Brazil. She’d expanded her magical practise all the while—never joining a coven or anything but meeting practitioners who made even her, who’d faced down Originals, ancestral spirits and sirens as old as time, and mostly survived, tremble in awe.

Eventually, though, she’d found her way back to Virginia. A call from Caroline begging her to consider taking up a teaching position at the school she’d inexplicably founded with Alaric of all people.

Apparently, Damon had bequeathed his half of the Salvatore estate to him on his death—which came with a considerable and surprising amount of money. Nobody thought Damon was the saving money type. Bonnie smiled wryly at the thought. He’d always been full of surprises.

But he and Stefan had died together under the Armory, along with Katherine, which was poetic or pathetic depending on how one looked at it. Stefan had left his share to Caroline and so she and their former history teacher had partnered in a special school for supernatural kids. As far as Bonnie knew, there wasn’t anything like it—most supernatural species tended to stick to themselves for self-preservation or reasons of ancient enmities no one could remember the cause of. To start a school in which different species could not only co-exist but thrive was unheard of. To do it in Mystic Falls of all places was potentially stupid.

But they’d done it anyway.

Bonnie’d resisted the plea for a few years, reluctant to come back to a place that held so much… that held too much. Because when she had been in Mystic Falls before, it had felt like the worst kind of prison. Like being right on the ass-crack of hell. And the thing was, she hadn’t liked the Bonnie she’d become in this place. And the thought of returning made her afraid that she’d devolve into that Bonnie again. Sacrificing, dying, losing. Lather, rinse, repeat.

The tipping point came unexpectedly in the form of one adorable, chubby-cheeked toddler who happened to be her god-daughter courtesy of Matt. He’d settled down, a wife and three kids, the whole suburban dream along with a shiny star badge as the town sheriff. When he’d sent a message to let her know his second daughter, Lily Catherine Donovan, had come into the world and that he’d named her godmother, Bonnie hadn’t been able to deny the invitation to the christening.

Five years later, she still hadn’t skipped town except for her short trips around the world. On most days, she didn’t even regret that choice.

“What’s a High Warlock gonna be doing teaching at a high school? Last I checked that’s a full-time job.”

“No idea.” Emma shrugged as she munched on a packet of Lays and sipped on sweet ginger tea (a bizarre combination) while she watched Bonnie unpack her findings onto the oak desk in her little office. “Apparently the way his coven’s run, he and his sister co-rule or something weird like that. I’ve heard rumours about patricide, a sadistic secretive ritual involving bloody duels and body possession—which is why he’s coming in to lead on Defence against the Dark Arts.”

“After Vardemus, I would think Alaric and Caroline would pick someone ‘safe’, right? An instructor who won’t incite the students to use dark magick and set up a mini-Hunger Games in the middle of Mystic Falls.”

Emma snorted in amusement. “Well, I bloody well hope so.” She sipped on her tea and continued, “This guy’s supposedly legit even if he may or may not have slaughtered his family to become the head of his coven or whatever the real story is. They’re apparently ancient and super-secretive, I’m shocked you haven’t heard of them either.”

“Hm,” Bonnie hummed. There were a handful of covens like that, ones she’d learned about in her studies. The kind that had gone millennia in secret and only allowed outsiders to learn the truth of their practises, and even their true name, on rare occasions. Having never been a part of a coven, she couldn’t quite relate to the fuss.

She bent down to unlock one of her storage cabinets so she could start packing things. The rich sandalwood shone in the afternoon light, and she could smell the mix of that and the musk of old books. She suddenly felt very appreciative to be back here.

Her office was situated in one of the newer extensions to the school’s grounds, the space was great. High dark-oak walls and arched windows that let the day’s light in and opened onto a small terrace, which led to her own private teacher’s apartment.

She’d created something of a little green haven that spilled out onto the pathway. Pot plants and flowers growing in profusion (with a little magical boost), bright pink and purple petunias mixed in with warm yellow daisies and sunflowers, cool white orchids under the shade of a tall birch, a little pepper tree with shiny red peppers hanging in the air like commas and a flourishing herb plot for her cooking and spell-work, a jasmine bush that scented the night air with sweetness. And then other plants that had more… practical uses. Sage bushes, fragrant lithops that she’d received as a gift from witch-doctor based in a small town in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, yarrow to help staunch blood-flow and ease aches and pains, ginger root, belladonna and vervain, and so much more.

Tending to her plants was perhaps one thing that she truly missed when she was away on a trip. It reminded her of a simpler time when Grams was still alive, and she was newly-discovering the world of magick for herself, feeling the gravitational pull of the Earth and the power it held, infinite energy waiting for her to tug on it gently like tendrils and shape it to her purpose. Back when magick was about discovering a part of herself that had always been there, unknown and undetected. When it could make her smile from the simple joy of using it.

Times like that, she felt like she really did love Mystic Falls.

“So,” she said, picking up on what Emma had mentioned. “A murder-coven leader is coming to Mystic Falls, check. Sounds creepy and lowkey evil.”

“Yeah, well, with a first name like ‘Malachai’, I definitely agree.”

“Malachai?” That did sound kind of menacing. “You’ve met him?”

“Nope, Alaric, Caroline, Dorian and Cary and a few trustees did the interview, I just offered a thumbs up.”

“Hm,” Bonnie hummed noncommittally, placing the sceptre on the table along with a small pile of dusty books. She’d check them for any curses and hexes, and other latent magick and catalogue them in the archives over the next few days. “I think we’re about done.”

She’d come back to the school a few days before the end of Summer vacation to find out that Alaric had hired another witch on staff, which would make three of them. Emma’s work focused far more on guidance counselling and wellbeing of the student body in her role as Head of the Honour Council while Bonnie was the Head of Occult History & Arcane Studies. She also taught a senior seminar on Healing Magick for witches and Botany for all students—you never knew when you’d need to identify a random root or tree in the woods, one that could save your life.

In the light of the challenges they’d had with the Malivore the last few months, and the dark magick abuse disaster with Rupert Vardemus, Alaric and the Honour Council had deemed it urgent that the students get a better grasp on how to not only defend themselves against dark forces but how to harness offensive strategies, particularly with the student witches.

Bonnie probably had more experience than any witch this side of the country with fighting—or rather surviving the kinds of monsters the kids were facing every other week. But she’d declined when Alaric offered her the role.

She didn’t want any part of teaching young children, innocents, to go to war. Not in that way at least.

The New Guy could deal with it.

“So,” Emma said, stretching her arms over her head with a jaw-cracking yawn. “You and I, totally need to have a date at our favourite dive bar sometime soon, yeah? Give you a proper welcome back and catch up on all the good gossip.”

Bonnie smirked at how Emma’s British accent curled around the words, mischievous and with the hint of a chuckle. “Ooh, any updates with Dorian?”

“Oh, so many updates,” Emma replied with an expression that teetered somewhere between a grimace and a salacious grin. “But I’ll save that for your welcome drink because we’re going to bloody well need it.”

Dorian and Emma had been dancing around each other for what felt like years. But then there’d been the weird drama with hallucinogens and a kiss with Alaric, and they’d stalled.

“That sounds ominous. I, on the other hand, have no fun updates—I feel like I haven’t had sex since before Rihanna put out an album. And that was last decade.” Bonnie wasn’t a sex fiend by any means, but she was in a rut. A dry spell that was going onto a year now.

Her last serious long-term relationship had been Enzo, which was almost ten years ago. That sex had been great but always tinged with the tragedy of their circumstances. After he died, a string of random hook-ups throughout her time in Reno, then school and work. Two years ago, she’d been in a casual-something relationship with a witch two towns over, but that had ended when Nandi wanted to make things more official and suggested moving in together. Bonnie had high-tailed her way from that relationship so fast, she left tire-marks. A few months after, she found herself in Scotland on an excavation trip with one of her old doctoral programme friends, Domhnall, a warlock based outside of Glasgow. They’d tumbled into bed after some awkward flirting over the hallowed grave-site of one of his ancestors, which had been good fun for the three months she was there.

But after that, nada. No one. Zilch, zippo, zero on the sexual activities front.

Sure, a good conjuring spell and one of her vibrators did an okay job but there was nothing like having a warm, solid body on top of you or underneath. Nothing like tasting the salty-sweet of someone’s skin on your tongue, the sensation of tumbling over a cliff and having someone to catch you in that high. She clenched her thighs together as she tried to remember the last time someone even ate her out. That might as well have been in the last century it felt so long ago.

Bottomline was: she missed sex. Relationships, not so much. But the side-benefits? Hell, yeah.

Clearly, picking up on some of her internal suffering, Emma snickered and said, “You poor thing…. Well, you never know, maybe evil murder-coven leader Malachai will be hot, and you can hook up with him.”

Hell, no. Bonnie didn’t mix work with pleasure, especially while teaching at a school full of kids. She didn’t want any part of that kind of mess.

“Shut up, I know you’re laughing at me. You owe me an extra drink just for that.”

And she’d get one. Emma’s idea of a ‘proper welcome’ would involve the two of them, a bottle of tequila, bitching about their crappy exes and questionable dancing on whatever table-tops that could carry them.

“It’s definitely a date—maybe we can do next Friday? Tonight, I’m heading into town to see my god-daughter and catch a drink with Matty if I can tear him away from sheriffing, fathering and husbanding. Then I’ll turn in early and try get over this jetlag before the craziness of school starting up next week.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Kai hadn’t been in Mystic Falls more than ten minutes before he felt like he’d rather be anywhere else on the planet. Literally. Hell, he’d take one of his family’s awful prison worlds or a random hell dimension.

How had he gotten himself into this fix? He was the High Warlock of the Gemini Coven, one of them at least. Yet somehow, he still managed to lose a round of poker to his sister and with his defeat, came an absolute stinker of a punishment. He was the one who would have to accept the request to come to Saltzman’s backwater school for the gifted (seriously, did the guy think he was Professor X teaching a bunch of mutants or something) to fill in a teaching position for a couple months.

Normally, this sort of thing would be of no interest to the Gemini. But a mundane, running a school for supernaturals—an integrated school with witches, vampires, werewolves, apparently there was even a tri-brid and a phoenix, and the gods knew what else—in a town that was the closest thing to a real-life Buffy-esque Sunnydale hellmouth was cause for more than just interest. It was a blaring clarion call that required some sort of intervention. At the very least, a review of the operation.

As one of the oldest and most secretive covens in existence, the Gemini had always played a more… active role in maintaining Nature’s balance. All behind the scenes and under the table, of course. In the last century or so, that had diminished somewhat as other covens rose to the fore and the Gemini resolved all their messy internal power politics. But with the rise in supernatural fuck-ups over the last decade—a magically-created virus break-out in Atlanta, a tribe of vengeful succubi that had wreaked havoc all across California and down into New Mexico, the summoning of some really evil demons by a bunch of dumb mundanes with satanic aspirations, the Seelie up in Michigan attempting to cross over into this realm to establish a petty kingdom with humans as their slaves, necromancers in San Francisco, and so much more—it had become apparent that the coven needed to step up.

From the little he’d read of the file his sister prepped for him, shit was just as bad, if not worse here in Mystic Falls.

So, he and Jo had played poker to see who’d get sent to play teacher to a bunch of sniveling adolescents. And, he’d lost.

Disgusting. Josette would never let him live it down.

“Sir, can I get you something to drink?” a chirpy waitress offered, sliding the menu onto his table.

Kai gave her a wide smile, which had the woman blushing faintly and fingering the wavy locks of her bottle blonde hair, the way women tended to do in the face of his patented Parker charm. “You know, I’d like a beer and a burger. Make that two burgers. Are the fries any good? I hate a soggy French fry.”

“Everyone says we’ve got the best ones in town,” the waitress offered. The hair twirling was getting a little out of control. It was endearing if ineffective.

“I’m gonna choose to believe you. Hope you don’t disappoint me.”

One could only hope that even a spot as kitschy as this so-called Mystic Grill wouldn’t mess fries up.

“That’ll be coming right up, sir,” she said, simpering. “I’m Diedre, by the way.”

“Nice to meet you, Diedre,” Kai said, but didn’t offer his own name. Best not to encourage anything. He wasn’t here to hook up or get his dick wet with the first available woman. He would do his job, and in a few months once his assessment of the school and its teachings was done, he would get the hell out of Dodge.

Diedre didn’t seem insulted by his reticence. Instead, she bit her lower lip and sent him a flirty wave over her shoulder as she went to ring in his order, an extra sashay to her shapely hips in the tacky green staff uniform.

All of it left him cold. It wasn’t that Kai didn’t have a functioning libido. He’d had lovers, and some of them had even been girlfriends. But none of them stuck. And, to be honest, he didn’t want them to. Why tie himself down to one woman like that? He had a coven to run and a world to safeguard, he didn’t have time for relationships and all the drama that came with them.

He’d done some exploring earlier in the day to get acclimated, dropping his bags off at the town’s best-rated guesthouse. He would stay there for a couple of days before checking in directly at the Salvatore School where Saltzman had staff apartments on the premises.

From his investigative walk around town, he already spotted at least twelve psychic ruptures, scars left behind on the land or in buildings that told a story of powerful, and incredibly dark magick here. Like, the kind of magick that tore entire dimensions apart. There had supposedly been some kind of ‘council’ that worked to combat the supernatural forces that plagued the town but that was now defunct. Unsurprising. A bunch of humans banding together to fight vampires and wolves and other things that went bump in the night was a recipe for disaster. Kai was almost baffled at how this place managed to stay standing this long.

This wasn’t even the first time he’d visited Mystic Falls. A long time ago when he was about eight, he’d come here with his mom to visit an old coven ally by the name of Sheila Bennett. He’d planned to renew the acquaintance, which wouldn’t be too weird after twenty-five years. Or at least say ‘hi’ to her but apparently, she’d passed on some years ago.

He couldn’t remember much about Sheila Bennett except that she’d had a warm smile, and her hands had held a warm current of magic that felt like the colour orange. And she hadn’t treated him like a weird baby demon just because he had siphoning abilities. Even then, at age eight, his family and the witches in the coven had acted like he was evil. Anathema. Abomination.

The only thing that probably saved him from being drowned in a tub like some runty feral cat was that he’d also been born with some innate magick of his own. It wasn’t as strong as Josette’s at the time, nor when they were growing up—their merging ritual as high warlocks had helped with that, strengthening both of their magical signatures—but he’d had some at least. It meant people only called him ‘freak’ in quiet whispers behind his back rather than right to his face.

On the plus side, a few decades ago, he wouldn’t even have been allowed to become high warlock. Before the 1920s, the Gemini leadership succession process had been nothing short of medieval—a brutal merging of twins when they came of age that killed one and left the other with the soul of their sibling rattling in their heads. It had driven more than a few high warlocks crazy.

Even worse, back then the life of the head of the coven was linked to every single member. So, if they went kaput, so would thousands of other people. Truly insane. Add a siphoner to the mix, and the coven would’ve gone extinct in no time.

Thankfully, the Gemini decided to join the rest of the world in the twentieth century and abolish the practice. His great aunt Esme and her brother, Edward, had established a co-leadership tenure where the twin heirs would only merge magick with each other, garnering more potency from the rest of the coven. Each leader would also receive a range of sigils, tattooed with ink made from a mix of white oak, unicorn blood and all sorts of yummy things, and special talismans to augment their strength and skills and enable them to lead with power and might. In other words, it enabled them to lay down the law with a hard fist whenever the coven-folk got too unruly.

So really, the way he’d grown up was lucky. In the olden days, he’d have been killed or tossed in a prison world without a second thought.

Sighing, Kai slurped on his ice water, and played with the grey watermark his glass had made on the table. It was hard to think of himself as lucky but if he thought any other way, he’d be a lot sadder. Probably.

Growing up, he had been separated from the rest, never allowed to touch or simply hug most of his siblings for fear that he’d steal their magick. His father had never really understood that Kai had figured out how to control his siphoning skills by the time he reached ten years of age. If it wasn’t for Jo, the one person he was truly close to, he might’ve broken completely. Gone certifiably insane by age twenty-two. Likely would’ve tried to off the lesser twins, Liz and Luke, who were a full twelve years younger than him and total brats.

“Here you go, sir,” Diedre said, her bright voice cutting through Kai’s dark memories. A welcome interruption. He thanked her and tucked in immediately.

The burger was okay, the beer passable, the chips pretty damn decent. But it was the dessert, a chocolate mousse and a strawberry jelly pot (he’d asked for the latter specifically, he’d always loved a good pot of jam) that really hit the spot. He was in the middle of dipping his finger into the jelly pot to clean out the last few bits of sweet, gooey goodness when the woman walked in.

Now Kai was no poet. Nor was he the kind of person who considered himself a romantic. It just wasn’t his thing. So, when she walked in, his first thought was that she was the prettiest woman he’d ever seen. All shoulder length curls, tawny skin and her wide lips open mid-laugh as she scanned the restaurant for a place to sit with her date. His second thought, as his eyes traced the way her jeans clung to her hips, the heeled boots and the plump curve of her breasts under the simple scoop-neck sweater that bared one of her dusky-gold shoulders was that he wanted her.

From zero to one hundred, just like that.

He studied her and her companion closely. He didn’t make a habit of horning in on taken women—too much drama. But he might be inspired to make an exception for her. They were giggling at some picture they were looking at as they settled in at the bar, and the guy, a blond beefcake who moved like a cop slapped her shoulder in a way that was decidedly platonic.

At least Kai hoped so.

They didn’t do any of the usual couple things like kiss or place hands on thighs for a quick grope, so he was probably right. Signalling Diedre, Kai made the snap decision to buy the beauty a drink.

Maybe Mystic Falls wouldn’t be such a miserable shithole after all.

“Deacon, could we get some drinks to go with our dessert?”

“Sure, sweet thing—the usual?”

Bonnie smiled at the wizened bartender with a nod. Deacon had been serving drinks at the Grill for as long as she could remember. She could recall seeing him with his lank shoulder-length steel grey hair, balding at the front, and his arms covered in fading wrinkled tattoos, a pair of spectacles perched on his nose all the way from her high school days. When Matt had come on staff as a waiter before he went off to police training, the old man had been tending the bar then, too.

As Deacon slid her tumbler of whiskey towards her, he waved off the card she was reaching for in her purse. “Your drink’s courtesy of the man by the jukebox over there.”

Surprised, Bonnie could only mumble a thanks as she shoved her credit card into her wallet.

Matt swivelled to see who he was referring to before turning back to hunch over the one nightcap beer he would allow himself before heading home to his family. “Looks like someone’s got an admirer,” he mumbled out of the corner of his mouth.

Bonnie glanced over at her new drink sponsor, and her breath caught in her throat. Even from this distance, she could tell he was gorgeous. The kind of man Caroline would describe as a tall drink of please rearrange my insides with your dick. And Caro was a vampire, it would take a lot to rearrange her innards. So, if she was begging for that kind of thing, you knew it was serious.

He wore a simple t-shirt, the arms of which bunched around almost absurdly muscular arms that bore a few inky-black tattoos. A heavy smattering of stubble covered his lower jaw and he was in the middle of finishing off what looked like… a pot of strawberry jelly? Which was, honestly, kind of odd but if the way he was licking his red-stained forefinger while he stared at her was anything to go by—it was something she could maybe get behind….

She gulped, her mouth suddenly dry.

“Oh god, please don’t do this right in front of me, Bon. I just ate dinner, and I’d like to keep it in my belly.”

Matt’s disgruntled voice pulled her away from the contemplation of the generous stranger. “What? I did nothing!”

“I’ve known you since we were kids, I think I can tell when you’re… hitting on some guy,” he said with a disgusted grimace. “It’s like watching my little sister trying to get some.”

“Go away, I was just observing my… benefactor.”

“I don’t know, the two of you kind of looked like you were both trying to take each other’s clothes off with your minds. Which, you could probably do, since you’re a witch. Again, a visual that I don’t need. Ever.”

Rolling her eyes at one of best friend’s dramatics, Bonnie turned away from eye-fucking the man across the room. “Why do I feel like you’ve gotten so much more dramatic as a father? You were never this melodramatic in high school, Matt.”

He chuckled. “Trust me, when you have three kids under the age of ten and another on the way, it’s almost impossible to not be dramatic.”

She couldn’t argue with that.

An hour later, in the wake of Matt’s departure, Bonnie decided to linger. She had nowhere to rush to, after all. And she liked the relative peace of enjoying her Bourbon alone. The tingling sensation of a heavy gaze from somewhere behind her had absolutely nothing to do with it. She straightened her back, stretching out the kinks, and crossed her legs, tossing her hair over her shoulder.

Just as she signalled the bartender for another refill, a tall body slid onto the stool beside her. Bonnie kept her gaze trained ahead but felt her lips curl in a half-smile. Still got it, apparently.

“I’ll still cover whatever the lady’s having. And another beer for me, thanks.” His voice was deep with a hint of gravel that slithered up her spine with just those few words.

“Well, thank you—,” she turned to face him with an expectant lift of her brow.

“Kai,” he said with a charming smirk. This close, Bonnie could see his eyes shimmer almost indigo blue and the strong cut of his jaw beneath the thick stubble. It’s like he was hand-crafted to appeal to so many of her personal tastes. “Does the lady have a name?”

“Bonnie,” she responded, reaching out to shake his hand in greeting. She noted absently that it was a good hand, firm with a few calluses, long fingers that made her have a few fleeting sinful thoughts. “Nice to meet you.”

“Likewise,” he said, tilting his head at her, his fingers tightening around hers as they held on, a shade too long.

Mid-shake, Bonnie froze as a psychic flash—just a glimpse—flickered in her mind. Two bodies intertwined against an oak-panelled wall, lights winking, naked and damp with sweat, her face thrown back mid-scream while the man in front of her thrust hard, his arms holding her up with ease and evidently doing the thing Caroline would definitely approve of.

Gasping, she blinked. She didn’t get premonitions often, and when they did come, they were mere flashes, often warnings of something shady on the horizon. But that one? If her magick was warning her about anything, then she’d like to thank it. Very much.

She shook her head, clearing her throat and tried to cover the awkward pause in conversation while Kai watched her with an intensity that made her feel oddly exposed. “You don’t sound like you’re from around here, Kai.”

He shook his head. “Recent transplant from Oregon, just for the next few months. Been on the grind with my work—it’s a family business. And figured I’d come and try something different from the other side of the country for a while.”

“You willingly opted to come to Mystic Falls to try ‘something different’?” Bonnie asked, a hint of incredulity in her voice. Despite being a magnet for every random supernatural with delusions of grandeur, Mystic Falls was just as bland and boring a small town as it had been in her youth. Steeped in dubious traditions, to boot. Not the kind of place for a hot mundane to find anything ‘new’, really.

He chuckled at that. “What can I say? It’s one of those unavoidable family obligations. Besides, these small towns can be surprising with the hidden treasures they have to offer. After all, before I came here, I had no idea I’d find someone as beautiful as you in this dinky little town. This was definitely a surprise.” He sent her a salute over the rim of his beer bottle, his lips slick and pink with the alcohol. He had nice lips, firm and just the right amount of pout. She’d always been a sucker for a man with a good mouth.

“Wonder what other delights Mystic Falls has for me to… try out.”

His gaze slid down to her feet and back up in a heated elevator sweep that made Bonnie shiver. Just a bit.

The line wasn’t great. It was plain terrible. But it made her smile anyway because she appreciated frank flirtation, and the even franker invitation in those midnight blue depths.

Taking a sip of her whiskey, Bonnie met his gaze from under her lashes, nibbling on her lower lip. She noted the way his eyes followed that movement, his pupils dilating, black crowding out the blue.

“Maybe I’ll have to help you find out.”

She was like lightning, struck him stupid-dumb with just one kiss. The honeyed tang from the whiskey she’d drank and a hint of dark chocolate, a sweetness that was addictive already. Had been from the second he’d licked into her mouth as their Uber drove off a few minutes before, kissing her as if his life depended on it.

Kai couldn’t get enough as he pushed her back into the nondescript-white door of his hotel room, one of her slender legs wrapped around the back of his, her boot-heel digging into his calf while he notched his hardening length between her thighs.

“Fuck,” he grunted as he kissed his way along her sharp jaw. His dick wanted in to the tell-tale heat he could feel even through her jeans. Wanted to bury itself so deep, he wouldn’t be able to find his way out for at least a decade. He grinded his groin against hers in a rhythm that made them both groan. He was an impatient man on the best of days. If he could spell their clothes away without rousing some questions, and fuck into her now, he totally would.

But that wouldn’t be enough with Bonnie. He’d just met her, and he wanted more than a quick fuck. No, he wanted to savour her. Take the time to do a little prospecting on this landscape of treasure standing in front of him. He wanted her screaming his name, and begging for it, for him. Only then would he fuck her.

For now, they needed to lose the clothes. Stat.

Bonnie tilted her head to the side to grant him access, whimpering when he clamped his teeth on her, rough just the way she loved. It would leave a mark. It had been far too long since anyone had marked her, and her pussy clenched in anticipation for the other bruises this man would give her by morning.

She skated her hands down his back, the bunched muscles there deserved to be explored without the leather jacket and t-shirt as barriers. She did just that, sneaking under his clothes to get at the warm, smooth skin underneath, scraping her fingernails along his spine.

He liked that, she could tell, a rumbling sound emanating from deep in his chest that she felt right down to the tips of her toes.

Every nerve-ending set ablaze as Kai did his best to nose his way through her sweater. Shoving him backwards, she reached down to shuck the thing off—tugging his head back so he could carry on. She was grateful she’d foregone a bra tonight because faster than she could blink, Kai’s tongue was swirling around her puckering nipples, suckling.

Arching into his hungry mouth, Bonnie moaned and then cried out as he let go. Before she could complain, he was moving lower, his lips fluttering along her belly, tongue dipping into her navel, an act that was vaguely ticklish and prompted a breathy snicker.

Within a minute, he was nudging her jeans down to her ankles, helping her kick off her boots and leaving her leaning against the door in nothing but a silky ivory thong. She parted her thighs instinctively, already dripping for him. She watched with hooded eyes as he threw his jacket aside and took off his shirt. His shoulders were broad and the tattoos she’d glimpsed earlier marked the left one with an ink that seemed to almost glow in the dark. Hot.

Kai paused then to look at her, and the glint in his eye had her pussy clenching. He looked the way he had earlier when she’d seen him sucking his fingers clean of that strawberry jelly. He’d been thorough then.

As he lifted her left leg to rest it on his shoulder, baring her to his gaze, and peeled her thong to the side so he could then lean up to nuzzle her, she had no doubts he’d be just as thorough now.

Bonnie hissed at the first touch of his mouth on her clit, a petal-soft kiss on the stiffening nub. Kai flattened his tongue against it and then swiped further down to her lower lips, moaning as he did it like he’d just discovered his favourite ice cream. Then he went in, spearing into her opening, licking inside her and stealing every drop of her arousal.

Bonnie yanked at his hair, uncaring whether she was hurting him or not, she just wanted him closer. Practically smothering him with her pussy, she could feel an orgasm rushing towards her already.

Fuck. She really had missed this.

When he entered her with one of those thick, elegant fingers and then another, curling them upwards as if to draw that orgasm out of her, she straight up quivered.

“Oh god,” she purred, head bumping back against the door, delirious. “Right there.”

“It’s Kai, actually,” he murmured right up against her clit.

Any other time, she would have said something snarky to meet that cockiness halfway.

But this time, she came with a shocked gasp, her wetness seeping out and making a mess out of Kai’s face. He drank it all down, not letting a single drop go to waste, his tongue curling at her nub as she rode his face through the high. When she grew too sensitive, she had to shove him away, her legs trembling so hard she thought she might collapse on the floor.

Kai reluctantly tumbled onto his ass when Bonnie pushed him away. Even now, he wanted to burrow his face in her cunt and keep eating her out, to drown himself in her essence like a glutton.

His dick had other ideas though, clamouring against the zipper of his jeans for relief. He cupped himself through the material, trying to calm himself down. But then Bonnie slapped his hands away and did it for him, massaging him before her fingers made quick work of freeing him.

When she started stroking him, from root to tip, learning the size and weight of him, Kai thought he’d come right there. Shoot like a fourteen-year-old boy watching porn for the first time. He dug his hands into the carpeted floor underneath him, canting his hips into her hands. Then she ducked down to swirl her tongue over the leaking crown of his cock, and he knocked his head back on the floor. He almost lost it when she took him into her mouth, doing her best to swallow all of him and falling just a couple inches short. What she couldn’t fit in her sweltering-hot mouth, she fisted with her hand.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Kai couldn’t help but mutter. The woman was driving him crazy.

She drew off then with a mischievous giggle, her hand still stroking him. “It’s Bonnie, remember?”

Before he could retort, she was crawling up his legs with a condom in hand—where she’d gotten that, Kai didn’t even know or care. He just wanted her to get the thing on and sit on his cock.

She didn’t need him to beg for it, although he would’ve been willing. Soon she had him covered up, and then she was rubbing his cock-head against the furrow of her entrance. When she started to lower herself, they both yelled.

She was tight. So tight, it almost felt like she was strangling his dick on her way down.

He watched her face, the concentrated way she bit on her lower lip as she took him in, inch by agonising inch. The slight wince as her pussy-lips flowered to accept his girth, the way her eyes rolled to the back of her head when he bottomed out—her tits, still dewy from his kisses, shimmered in the room’s dim lamp-light. He looked down at where they were joined, at the way his cock split her open, and how slick she was, her thighs and even his, shiny with it.

He committed the sight to memory.

She started riding him then, rocking in sinuous circles with a dancer’s grace and power. Kai gripped her hips, his fingers dug into her plump ass, fucking her with as much fervour as she did him.

Neither of them would last long this time, he knew. He didn’t give a shit.

Slipping one hand down between them to strum at her clit, he bent his knees so he could jackhammer upward.

“Oh god, oh god, oh yes—shit—Kai…. Mhm, yes, please…. More.”

Her voice rose in pitch with each word. And Kai spurred her on, his free hand drifting up her sternum to wrap loosely around her neck as she fucked herself on his dick like she’d been born for it.

“You feel so good, Bon. So tight. Fuck, baby—. You wanna come for me?” He was babbling, now. “Come on, for me, I want to see you come for me—”

She pressed one of her hands over his, making his fingers squeeze a little tighter against her jugular, the thrum of her pulse hitched under his palm as she sped up, her hips stuttering as they both hurtled to the edge.

He pinched her clit and that did it.

She wailed, so loud that the sound echoed around the room. Her inner muscles convulsed around his cock and he could feel the wet gush of her pleasure against his loins. That sensation set him off, his balls tightening up and then releasing come in heated spurts.

Kai growled with it, his hips jolting her on his lap as he kept coming until he wondered if the condom would hold it all.

She collapsed into him, and they both lay there on the floor, panting and spent and unable to move.

So maybe Bonnie did have the best sex of her life with a virtual stranger two nights ago. Just kind of sucked that she wouldn’t be having any of that again.

She’d snuck out of Kai’s hotel room at some point in the early hours of the morning. Not before they’d managed to fuck two more times—eventually making it to the bed. Kai’d also woken her at around 3AM with his face buried between her thighs, eating her out like she was his Last Supper. She’d nearly blacked out from that orgasm, only just managing to give him a sloppy hand-job until he came in a splooshy mess against her hip.

Clenching her thighs in remembered pleasure, she couldn’t help but wonder wistfully if she should’ve waited a couple of hours for a repeat. Maybe even hung around and exchanged numbers. After all, he was supposed to be in Mystic Falls on his family business for a few months, maybe they could’ve set up a regular thing.

But old instincts died hard. A part of her didn’t want to face the awkwardness those kinds of encounters tended to bring in the cold light of day.

And, truth was, she hadn’t been so… uncontrolled with anyone in a long time. Kai’d had her so feral with lust that she’d summoned a condom from a drugstore down the street, too desperate to hop on his dick to pause and ask him if he had one in his wallet. That sort of thing, flashing her powers in front of mundanes, was something she would never ordinarily risk. Clearly Kai and his magical penis were dangerous.

So, she’d cut and run. One of her best life skills apparently.

Sighing, she couldn’t help smirking to herself. That night would be one for the record books, for sure. At least she’d have plenty of inspiration when she rang the proverbial devil’s doorbell. She had a feeling she’d be bringing herself off to Kai’s memory for a long while.

And, she’d have something fun to update Emma with when they went out for drinks in a few days.

For now, she needed to pull herself together. “Stop thinking with your vagina, Bonnie Sheila Bennett,” she mumbled to her empty office.

It was nearly nine in the morning, and she was running late for the very first school assembly of the year. While it wasn’t compulsory for all staff to attend, she wanted to be there to greet the returning kids as well as the new ones. And of course, there was the new teacher coming in. It would be a bad look to miss it.

Her heels clacked on the old Salvatore teak-wood floors. For school days, unless she was on a field trip with the kids, she liked to keep her outfits semi-professional. At least for the first few weeks. By mid-terms, she’d be down to bare-minimum-effort jeans and boots. Today, she’d paired a high-necked, sleeveless black jersey dress that had a flouncy bow at the throat and tapered down to her knees with a wide brown belt that made her waist look tiny and ankle boots. Some of her favourite beaded bracelets and cold cuffs around her wrists added some colour.

The hallways were mostly deserted as she made her way to the hall, breaking into a light jog.

In her rush, she didn’t see the body stepping out in front of her from one of the staff offices until it was too late, smacking into a rather broad muscular back and nearly stumbling to the ground. The body—a man—grunted in pain. “What the he—?”

She would’ve fallen if it wasn’t for a pair of arms catching her just in time, holding her in place in a dip as though they were dancing.

Mortified, Bonnie started to apologise, slightly dizzy from having her centre of gravity knocked, she kept her eyes closed. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry—.”

“Bonnie?”

She froze. She knew that voice. Intimately. Had heard that voice call her name out, a little less incredulously and with a bit more lust and awe. And that scent, something that reminded her of long walks in the forest—she knew that one anywhere. No, no, no—this could not be happening—

She opened her eyes. Yeah, this was happening.

“Kai?” she said, her voice a high-pitched yelp.

“What are you doing here?” they both demanded at the same time.

All the while, Kai still held her in his arms like neither of them had anywhere to be. Bonnie tried to convince herself that she didn’t like the sensation of being held like this. But her eyes drifted down to his mouth, which was so close to her own in this position and lingered. She’d not forgotten how good that mouth felt on hers, on her throat, and everywhere else. The things this man could do with—

Giving herself a shake, Bonnie punched him in the shoulder. “Let me up, will you?”

He did as asked, and then looked at her, his indigo eyes wide and amazed as though he couldn’t quite decide if he was dreaming or not.

“Hi there,” he said, his gaze sliding over her form appreciatively.

Bonnie found herself getting caught up in it for a few seconds, a helpless fish snared in his trap, she smiled up at him. He looked good in a simple pale grey Henley and dark-wash jeans—good enough to eat, in fact.

The sound of a microphone squeaking brought her, abruptly, to her senses and she slapped his arm.

“Ow,” Kai complained. “You know if you told me you were into a little rough discipline and punishment play, I would’ve been happy to oblige you a couple nights ago.”

“Shut up,” Bonnie said, gritting her teeth as she dragged him through the nearest open door, shutting it behind her so she could confront him good and proper away from prying eyes. “Seriously, why the hell are you here? How did you even get on the grounds?”

“What do you mean ‘why the hell am I here’? Why are you here? Look, stalking is against the law and while I’m as big a fan of Fatal Attraction as the next guy, and I wouldn’t mind you following me around, I really don’t want to end up dead in a bathtub.”

The longer he yammered, the deeper Bonnie’s frown grew. What was he even going on about? She asked him as much.

“You know, Glenn Close, Michael Douglas, iconic movie, featuring a case of infidelity and then homicidal obsession in which a strong career woman is driven to—.”

“Not about Fatal Attraction, you idiot,” Bonnie snapped. “I meant—humph!”

Whatever she was about to say was swallowed by Kai’s mouth. The kiss started off hard, and a little cruel. Too much teeth and an obvious attempt to shut her up. She struggled for a few seconds before the gentle flick of his tongue against her lower lip made her gasp. He softened the contact to a slow, drugging melding of mouths. When he lapped at her, she did it back, suckling on his plump lower lip. She ran her hands up along his arms, testing the strength of his biceps before settling on his chest.

Kissing him was a bit like drowning, except she didn’t mind at all. They both had to draw back eventually, if only to breathe. They didn’t pull back too far, breath mingling as they stared at each other, equal parts confused by the other’s presence and captivated.

“What are you doing here, Kai?” she asked again, in a whisper.

“You’re a witch,” he said, this time his jaw slackened in wonder. “How did I not notice that you’re a witch?”

“I cloak myself when I’m out and about—safer that way.”

“Of course, I do the same.”

“You’re a witch? Wait.” Bonnie stepped back, the cold realisation sinking in the depths of her gut. And then took a couple more steps away from him so she wouldn’t be distracted by his biceps or his mouth. “You’re the murder-coven’s high warlock who’s coming to teach here? You’re Malachai?”

“Okay, first, we don’t do the murder thing anymore. The Gemini have evolved. Second, I prefer to go by Kai, thank you very much.” He moved towards her because he was finding that he liked it much better when he had her close by.

But Bonnie lurched back, holding out a hand to keep him at bay.

“Don’t. Please, don’t. We can’t do any of what we did here, okay? Or ever again.”

Any other time, Kai might have pressed the issue, but he heard the unsteady note in her voice. The panicky look in her eyes, and he made himself pause.

When he’d woken up in that hotel room a couple days ago, bereft of his bed partner and cuddling a cold, unsatisfying pillow, he’d been a little angry. Somewhere, the women to whom he’d done the exact same thing were crowing with laughter. The one time he wanted to wake up to a woman, specifically one with a pair of pretty jade-cut eyes, and she’d run off under cover of darkness without even saying goodbye or hanging around for a morning quickie. Or, at least another quickie—they’d gone for a fourth knockout round at around 3AM.

He’d resolved that he would never see her again, tamping down the urge to do something cheesy and disturbing like a locator spell to find her. He’d accepted it. Consigned himself to only seeing her again in his dreams and jerking off in (thirsty) memory of that one perfect night for the rest of his days.

And now, that wasn’t true anymore….

He grinned. From the way she side-eyed him, he knew it probably came off as a bit wolfish and predatory.

“Fine, Bon,” he said, keeping his voice calm and placating. He wondered what her last name was. He really needed to finish reading that file Jo prepped for him. “I’ll stop. For now. We should get going anyway, might catch the last few minutes of assembly.”

He could tell she wanted to argue about the ‘for now’, could see it in the stiff set of her shoulders and the way her stubborn jaw clenched. Before she could start, he swept the door open, gesturing for her to lead the way out. “Shall we?”

She didn’t thank him as she stomped passed. Kai shut his eyes as that heady scent of hers washed over him, vanilla and something floral with a hint of jasmine. He could get drunk just from the smell of her. He wanted to bury himself inside her until her scent steeped itself all over his body, became a part of him. Which was, admittedly, the kind of weird thing a stalker would say. He should probably keep that to himself.

He watched the sway of her hips as she stalked towards the assembly hall and remembered how good they felt in his hands. His palms itched.

“Oh, Bonnie—and Kai,” a surprised voice called out to them from the opposite end of the passage-way. Dorian, the deputy head of the school and its librarian ambled towards them, cup of coffee in-hand. “You guys have met, huh?”

Bonnie shot him a quelling glance, which was seriously unnecessary. Did she think he was going to give Dorian the filthy details of just how many times he’d made her come a couple nights ago? He had some boundaries.

“Yeah!” she said, her voice overly loud. “I—um, I noticed Kai wandering around, looking lost so I offered to show him to the hall, ha-ha. Great.”

As excuses go it was flimsy at best. The assembly hall was literally right in front of them. But she darted away as though someone had lit her panties on fire and disappeared into the hall before anyone could call her on it, leaving a bemused Kai and Dorian behind.

“Should we head in?” Dorian asked, his brow quirked in curiosity.

Kai simply nodded and followed him in, just in time for Alaric’s speech.

He settled in a row of seats at the back with Dorian and the werewolf elder on-staff, a stolid blond named Cary. Bonnie was all the way on the other side of the room, refusing to look in his direction.

Kai smirked, settling back in his chair to take a nap with his eyes open while all the boring speechifying was going on. And to do a little plotting.

It was cute that she thought she could run from him, from this thing between them. She didn’t know it yet, but that sort of action was like waving a red flag in front of a bull, like blood-soaked water to a shark. He’d wanted her before. Now that he’d had a taste, now that he knew her taste, he wouldn’t let anything prevent him from having her again.

She glanced at him over her shoulder, her gaze skittering away to look at some of the kids once she knew he’d caught her doing it.

Let the games begin

#bkss2019 #bonkai #bonkaishippersclub #leianaberrie #edomeilair #submission

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jennifersylvesters · 5 years

Text

not so subtle - part five

Pairing: Harrison Osterfield x reader Word Count: 7.2k~ oof Warning: swearing, angst at the end A/N: happy chrimas. it’s criman. merry crisis. merry chrysler. damn i wanted this to come out earlier, but i guess that’s life. i am what people would call, er, swamped. i kept having to push this back because i’ve been busy, but i definitely wanted to get it out before christmas. plz say a prayer for me this holiday season as i work two jobs. just kidding. kinda. hopefully you enjoy! like always, feedback is appreciated/loved aka i want it. please.

Things were different between you and Harrison now. You were convinced that all these minuscule moments added up and now actually meant something. What happened on Thanksgiving couldn’t have been a fluke. It was a moment.

Naturally you expected Harrison to text or call you. Any form of communication really. But after Thanksgiving nothing came. Despite your eagerness for something to occur, he seemed to be on a completely different wavelength. You told yourself that he wasn’t used to being in relationships, that this was a serious decision he wanted to take slow. Still, you wanted some sort of sign. Send an owl with a note, for fucks sake.

Except a week later, you begun having doubts. While tapping through Instagram stories, your jaw dropped as Harrison featured some random brunette. He was in a club, clearly drunk as he planted a kiss on her cheek. The girl giggled with absolutely no self control as Harrison boisterously cheered about Arsenal winning a game.

He was just having drunk fun. That’s alright. That’s totally fine.

Yet a couple days passed and you still received nothing but radio silence. Your hope was dwindling when you saw Harrison posted a new snap story one night. You quickly clicked on the circle, ignoring the homework scattered on your desk.

The phone screen changed to a video of Harrison lightly snoring with no shirt on. Oof. The screen then panned to a redhead who filmed herself kissing the top of his sleeping head before bursting into a smile. Your gritted your teeth as the next snap was a photo of Harrison sound asleep with heart emojis around his head. It was captioned “look how cute he is” with a heart eyed emoji.

So this was your sign. Reality sunk back in that Harrison was nothing more than a player and that you and Noah definitely misread the signs.

Santa, for this year I’d like a nice, faithful boyfriend. I’d also like to knock out Harrison Osterfield.

With Christmas approaching, you decided to hell with Osterfield. You couldn’t be concerned about a boy who wasn’t even trying to message you. Not that you were checking anymore. No, you needed to follow your original plan of just committing to your studies. And that’s what you did.

Most nights were spent wrapped up in the library or in your room studying, trying to make sure you knew all the material for your upcoming exams. Boys? Unnecessary distractions. Love? It didn’t matter. Did you really need it? No. But did you still want it? Unfortunately. God you felt pathetic.

It was inevitable that you would need to go out eventually, but you avoided it by all means. Why be miserable outside when you could wallow in self pity in the warmth of your apartment? The only time you bothered going out was to buy Christmas presents. While you knew you could order gifts online, you worried about whether the present would arrive before Christmas. No, you needed to brave the stores for this one.

You headed to a nearby shopping complex on the weekend, trying your best to pick nice yet affordable presents for your family and friends. It wasn’t like you could just ball hard with the measly amount in your bank account. As much as you loved Kimberly, there was no way you could buy her a new KitchenAid mixer like she talked about. You choked when you saw the discounted cost, shaking your head as you briskly walked away. She would just have to settle for a lovely apron instead.

Shuffling around the Target, you knew you neared needing a shopping cart as you attempted to balance multiple items in your arms. Even though you knew better, you still chose to browse the store pretending like your arms weren’t getting sore with the weight of the gifts.

Unable to see in front of you, you collided into someone causing all of your items to spill from your arms. Of course.

As you scrambled to pick up all your items, the other person quickly apologized and began helping you collect them. Picking up a pack of socks, you looked up to see a familiar face.

It was a boy in your lit course named Steven. Despite being a rather big class, he crossed your mind from time to time. Steven was one of those students who occasionally spoke and surprisingly had something intelligent to add to the conversation. While you didn’t know him well, what you did know was that he was incredibly handsome. It made sense why girls and some guys eyed him; his messy brown hair and crooked grin would make most people swoon.

Steven grabbed a shopping basket nearby, placing the items he grabbed into the basket. You politely thanked him as he handed the shopping bag to you.

“Oh, hey! You’re in my lit class” he noticed before you could walk away. “It’s...It’s Y/N, right?” You nodded, surprised that he remembered you. While you contributed in class from time to time, you only answered when you knew the answer in fear of looking like an idiot. “I’m Steven, by the way.” You nodded your head once more, not wanting to add that you already knew who he was. No way you planned on giving stalker vibes.

“Yeah, I’m just doing Christmas shopping for my family. Kinda struggling with the presents for some of the girls” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. You bit down on your lip as he stretched slightly, causing his shirt to raise and exposing a bit of skin. Lord, please control the thirst.

“Did you want any help?” you offered.

“Oh...Yeah! I mean, if you have time. I don’t wanna bother you or anything” he blushed, shrugging his shoulders in a nonchalant manner.

“No, it’s totally fine. I was just shopping for friends but I’m actually struggling with a couple of gifts for my guy friends.” You omitted how you weren’t sure what to get for a celebrity who had more money in his bank account than you’d probably ever see.

“I can definitely help with that if you want” he suggested. You accepted his offer, and the two of you begun wandering around the store to find the perfect gifts.

The next couple hours was spent scouring the store, helping one another decide what gifts would be best. You laughed at some of his suggestions, especially when he proposed trying on an Elsa dress to see if it was the right size for your cousin. He made you feel relaxed and it felt so easy to joke around with him. Things felt smooth and almost effortless around him. The longer time you spent with him, the more you understood his appeal.

By the time the both of you finished and paid, relief washed over you knowing that all of your Christmas shopping was complete. All you needed to do now was wrap them. Easy enough.

The two of you made your way towards the parking lot, slowing down once he pointed out he would be heading in a different direction than you.

“Hey, listen. This was really solid of you.” He lifted up the bags of goodies and smiled that crooked grin that had people swooning. Ooh. For a second, it got you too. “I probably would’ve messed this whole thing up.”

“It’s really no big deal” you waved off the comment.

“Well, it was to me.” The two of you shared a smile as you rocked back and forth on your heels. The look lingered a little longer than you expected, and you turned away. You didn’t want to be pulled back into another thirst trap. Not today. It wasn’t till he cleared his throat that you turned right back around. Perhaps a little too quickly. Damn it.

“So listen...There’s this white elephant party next Friday that a couple of my friends are throwing. Did you maybe wanna go with me? It’s always really fun, and my friend Toby always does a drunken karaoke performance of Cher - voice and all.” His invitation took you by surprise. You weren’t expecting to get invited to a party, especially seeing the two of you never hung out before now. But how could you say no?

“Yeah, I’d be down for that” you nodded. He smiled that ever popular smile and you felt your heart race. You hadn’t noticed before, but he had the cutest dimples.

“Great. Lemme just give you my number so I can text you the address.”

The two of you exchanged phone numbers, handing each other one another’s phones to speed up the process. As you finished saving your contact information, you heard someone call out your name.

A scowl instantly appeared on your face upon seeing Harrison approaching. Steven noticed as he glanced from you to the Brit.

Harrison raised an eyebrow as he came over, eying the pair of you. “Hey. I thought that was you. Haven’t heard from you in a while” he commented, placing a hand on your arm. Immediately you yanked away. Harrison blinked, pushing his now free hand into his pocket.

“Been busy.” It wasn’t much but it was enough for Harrison to realize that the two of you weren’t on good terms. He sighed, rolling his eyes.

“Ah, yes. So busy. Forgot how you just happen to live life in the fast lane” he sarcastically quipped before shaking his head.

You scowled once more, remembering the videos you saw of him. He had the nerve to act like those weren’t big deals? Not in your house. All you wanted to do was go back to mutually disliking one another. Couldn’t he extend the courtesy and do the same?

“Hi. I’m Steven” your classmate introduced himself to Harrison, extending out a hand.

“Harrison” he responded shaking hands. When they dropped, Steven placed his bags down and threw his arm around your shoulder while Harrison shoved his into his pocket once more.

You weren't really expecting Steven to do that, but the gesture wasn’t unwelcome. So you did your best to relax your shoulders, pretending like your relationship with Steven was more than just acquaintances.

“So how do you and Y/N know one another?” Steven asked leaning closer into you.

“We’re friends.” It was a curt response, causing you to scoff. When had the two of you become friends? If anything, your relationship was one of enemies. Friends? Please.

“Just ‘cause Tom and Emma are dating doesn't mean that we're friends.” The comment visibly irritated Harrison who ran a hand through his hair.

“Is that what you told Noah? Cause even he didn't seem to buy that” he snapped back.

“What does Noah know? He also thought we were d-” you stopped in your tracks, not wanting Harrison to know what Noah thought. The idea would've just make him laugh, suggesting that Noah was totally crazy. Yup, totally crazy.

“Noah thought what?” Harrison asked, clearly vexed about this scenario.

“It's nothing” you dismissed, but he wasn't giving up that easily.

“Noah thought what, Y/N?” he repeated himself.

“It was nothing. Just Noah jumping to conclusions.”

“You and I both know that kid wouldn't say anything without having a strong gut feeling.”

“You don’t know that!”

“Yes, I do! Noah isn’t that type of guy to start any drama” he argued, yanking at his hair once again. He was right, but you didn’t want him to have that satisfaction.

“We don’t know Noah that well.”

“Oh? Who’s th-”

“You know what? Fine. Think that about Noah if you want” Harrison cut Steven off, obviously having no interest in what the other boy planned on asking. Why was he acting like this, ramping up his douchebag attitude with every word? Why did he even bother approaching you in the first place? God, he made you furious. “Are you going to the Christmas party, Y/N?”

“I’ll see you if I see you” you responded coldly, not wanting to deal with Harrison any longer.

“So you’re going” he affirmed. When you didn't respond, he nodded his head. “Good. Should’ve expected it since your best friend’s one of the hosts. Well, I’ll see you there.” Before you could stop him, Harrison pushed Steven off of you. Your classmate stumbled back a bit, and Harrison took this time to quickly peck your cheek before turning on his heels and heading off.

You wiped at your face like a child, wishing he hadn’t done that. Still you couldn’t hide the tinge of pink that lit up on your face.

“What was that dude’s deal?” Steven asked, voice on edge.

“I’m so sorry. I dunno. He’s just my best friend’s boyfriend’s best friend. He just likes giving me a hard time” you explained. Was that all?

“He’s kinda an asshole.” He turned and looked at you before he continued. “No offense.” You didn’t realize your fists clenched upon hearing his insult. Were you getting mad about someone talking shit about Harrison? No, that didn’t seem like you. Of course you and Harrison were enemies. Steven wasn’t wrong. Right?

“Yeah...I guess” you responded, relaxing your hands.

“Hey. Thanks again.” And just like Harrison, he leaned in and kissed you on the cheek causing your face to flush. Oh okay. He grabbed the bags he set down before heading to his car. “See you in lit class” he called over his shoulder.

“See ya” you mumbled to yourself, unsure of what happened.

Harrison seemed to flood your social media feed after that incident. If you looked at Tom’s Instagram story, Harrison was always beside him. When you checked out Emma’s snaps, there was always a glimpse of the dirty blond in the background. He was everywhere. The worst was when he posted photos with different girls, all beautiful and all infatuated with Harrison. Did you expect anything less? In normal circumstances you’d be fuming at how Harrison acted. What kind of narcissistic asshole did that?

But things had changed. Even though he dominated your feed, it didn’t bother you much. By now Steven managed to creep up and occupy your thoughts and time, pushing Harrison to the side. After your holiday help, he constantly invited you to hang out.

From studying to group hangouts with his friends, you slowly joined Steven’s world. It was as if he brought you to a place you’d never been before. He was kind with you, always asking and praising your opinions. There was an ease to everything about him.

You loved talking with him and felt you could ramble without feeling embarrassed. In turn he trusted you with details about himself. You learned how he was fiercely protective of his younger sister, always intimidating boys who even looked her direction. He told you how he couldn’t stand the taste of kiwis and tomatoes, claiming they were disgusting. Whenever you studied and joked around, he laughed loudly and insisted you were one of the funniest people he ever met.

The more you learned about Steven, the more you wanted to stay a part of his life. It wasn’t just him. Even his friends welcomed you in with open arms. Of course it made sense that a great guy would surround himself with positive and warm friends.

You enjoyed this normalcy of having a regular crush. No worrying about embarrassing him at premieres. No panic about not fitting in due to your status. Simply put, there were no complications. Something about liking a hot guy who had a regular status felt so right.

During the night of the white elephant party, you rushed around the apartment while your roommate and her girlfriend relaxed on the couch.

“Where are you heading off to dressed like that?” Kimberly asked as you snatched up a discarded necklace from the coffee table and put it on.

“I’m dressed normal.” No, you weren’t. You chose your best outfit, something you felt complimented your body well. Content with the necklace choice, you searched for the perfect pair of earrings to complete your overall look.

“You’re dressed very cute. Like overly cute” Kimberly replied, now turning to sit up and watch you. “So where are you going again?”

“I’m going to a white elephant party. Um, Steven invited me.” You hastily scurried to your room to find your favorite hoops, hoping she wouldn’t pry. Of course you knew better.

“Steven, huh?” Sarah popped her head up from above the couch as well. “Who’s Steven?”

“Just this kid in my lit class” you brushed it off, doing your best to ignore the butterflies in your stomach. You found one hoop and begun searching for its missing pair.

“Just some kid, huh?”

“I mean, he’s cute” you admitted, finding the missing hoop and putting on your earrings.

Sarah and Kimberly said nothing, just sharing smiles with themselves before eying you as you exited your room.

“Stop looking at me like that.” You grabbed the gift you chose for the exchange off the kitchen counter. Hopefully someone would want a half-off hair straightener.

As you entered the living room, Kimberly and Sarah still focused on you.

“So what’s the deal with Steven? You’ve never talked about him before” Kimberly pointed out.

“To be fair, we just recently” - you paused, trying to figure out the right words - “became friends.”

“Ah, okay. Is he a nice kid?”

“Yes, mom. He’s a nice guy” you joked.

“And Harrison?” Sarah questioned.

“What about Osterfield?” you snapped, hands resting on your hips. Just the mention of his name brought you into a foul mood.

“Didn't you guys have that-”

“If Lil Shit wants to play around, I don't care.” The way your voice rose up an octave indicated otherwise. “I'm not gonna be one of his little flings who jumps on his dick whenever he calls.” The two of them exchanged glances. “Not that I would ever be” you added hastily.

“So who cares about his stupid Instagram stories and those really pretty girls? I don't care.” The couple raised their eyebrows in unison.

“I don't!” you insisted. “I'm gonna have a great time without that asshole. In fact, I’m gonna enjoy this party and not even think about Lil Shit. I'm allowed to suck whatever dick I wanna. And you know what? Maybe I will!”

“How very heterosexual of you” Kimberly dryly commented.

“I mean, if that's what your apparently horny heart desires,Y/N, go for it” Sarah shrugged.

“It is” you claimed, convinced that you didn't need Harrison in your life.

Jitters consumed you as your Uber dropped you off at the party. Even though you hung out with his friends, this felt different. It felt like an initiation to prove your worth even though you knew it wasn’t a serious occasion.

Ringing the doorbell, you fidgeted in your clothes. You found yourself second guessing your choices, but there was no turning back now. You could hear music playing throughout the house and it grew louder as someone opened the door.

“Hi. I’m Y/N. Um, Steven invited me?” you nervously introduced yourself to the stranger at the door.

You heard your name being shouted before Steven rushed over to the entrance. “Hey! You made it!” he exclaimed, pulling you in.

He began showing you around the place, introducing you to the friends you hadn’t met along the way. All of them were just as friendly as those you previously met, pulling you in for hugs and acting as if you were an old companion they hadn’t seen in a while.

Slowly you eased into the spirit of the party, finding it almost effortless to have a good time.

It didn’t go unnoticed how Steven kept his arm around your waist the entire night as the two of you stood around. When you were ushered to the couch by one of his friends, he pulled you close by his side.

This familiarity felt so warm and inviting, and you wondered if this was all in your mind or if he felt the same connection. You knew you couldn’t ask at that moment, at least not with the gathering going on. So instead you enjoyed yourself, laughing at the promised yet horrendous Cher performance by the infamous Toby.

After Toby took an elaborate bow, Steven lifted you out of the couch to perform a duet with him. You jokingly groaned, shaking your head. But with everyone cheering you on, you followed his lead to the front where he chose a mystery song claiming it was a classic. As “The Start of Something New” from High School Musical began playing, you burst into laughter. It was a good thing you knew it, playing up the part of an ever so shy Gabriella. Even so, you weren’t prepared for him to take your hand and twirl you around when the two of you sang in unison.

And you realized how fun this was with Steven. There was something about the way he kept holding your hand even after the two of you finished bowing and the way you could feel him watching you. It was simple yet held such significant meaning. At least you hoped it wasn’t just you.

When the party ended, Steven walked you outside where you waited on your ride. The two of you spoke about how finals were going and you laughed as he recalled an amusing event that happened in class a couple days prior.

Your fingers kept bumping into one another and you found yourself wanting him to grab your hand again. But in your mind you wondered: “Am I allowed to want more?” You knew that once you cared too much and it wasn’t reciprocated, you were playing yourself. “Please give me a sign” you prayed as his knuckles gently touched yours.

Steven slowly took your hand in his, intertwining fingers. You looked up at him and the two of you locked eyes. He slowly leaned in towards you, and your eyes fluttered shut at what you knew was coming.

It was a simple kiss, but it was enough to get your heart racing. An attractive boy was actually into you? And actually made a move? It felt like a dream, yet when your eyes opened there was Steven’s green eyes twinkling back at yours.

“I think you’re amazing” he whispered. You heard a car pull up to the curb, but you didn’t want the moment to end. He kissed you once more before finally letting go, allowing you to get in to your Uber.

He wished you a good night, closing the door for you. Once you were a couple blocks away, you realized you had been smiling so wide that your face was sore. So this was happiness? This was what it was like for someone to like you back? Oh, you could get used to that.

This was it. This was what you were waiting for. It wasn’t complicated. There weren’t any heartbreaks involved. It was nothing but pure bliss.

Even with exams around the corner, you obsessed over Steven. The two of you constantly texted one another, allowing you initial plan of being studious to fly out the window. Most days were spent being around him or thinking about him.

You felt bad not inviting him to Tom and Emma’s Christmas party, but he didn’t know about Tom. While you knew Tom wouldn’t mind another friendly face, you weren’t sure how Steven would react. Would he freak out and lose his mind? Or would he spit at Tom and tell him that his Spider-Man sucked? Obviously they were opposite ends of the spectrum reactions, but you didn’t want to deal with the potential chaos. Plus you wanted to keep Steven to yourself for just a bit longer. It was a bit selfish, but you were allowed to be. Right?

Plus one person you knew wouldn’t enjoy seeing Steven’s face.

You hadn’t seen him for a while, which honestly was fine by you. In fact, you hadn’t wanted to see him. After the white elephant party, your totally minor crush from before was long gone. Goodbye old terrible feelings. Hello horny new ones.

That was until the night of Emma and Tom’s party.

You flipped through channels on TV, waiting for Emma to arrive. The plan was for her to pick up and drive you, Kimberly, and Sarah to the party. The doorbell rang prompting you to click off the television before greeting Emma. Your face dropped when you opened the door revealing Harrison on the other side. God fucking damnit.

“Where’s Emma” you questioned, skipping the formalities of greeting him politely. He lost that privilege, especially after the last time you saw him.

“Helping Tom. She asked me to pick you guys up” he explained.

“Are you serious?”

“Yup.” He nodded his head, clearly enjoying the irritated confusion crossing your face. “Looks like I’m your ride. Or your knight in shining armor.”

“More like an idiot who happens to own a car.”

“Eh. Not your best insult.”

“That’s cause I’ve been too busy to perfect my lines.”

“Oh, so that was a line?” his eyebrow quirked up.

“Yeah, a line to have you fuck right off” you instantly responded, afraid he might’ve taken your last quip seriously.

“Aw, you can do better than that, Lil Skunk” he tutted, pretending to be disappointed.

“You don’t deserve my best, Lil Shit.”

“Oh, Harrison’s here” Kimberly piped up from behind you. Glancing back at her room, she called out “Sarah! Harrison’s finally here! Let’s go, babe!”

Why did Kimberly sound so nonchalant about Harrison’s arrival? She should’ve been shocked and outraged by his arrival. Perhaps not outraged but at least a little surprised. “You knew Osterfield was coming to pick us up instead of Ems?”

“‘Course we knew” Sarah revealed as she tugged on her jacket, pulling Kimberly’s door shut.

“And you didn’t tell me?” Your hands snapped to your waist, glaring at the group.

Kimberly shrugged while Sarah just let out a laugh. The trickery of them all.

The group shuffled out of the apartment and into Harrison’s car. As Sarah and Kimberly piled into the back, Sarah pulled the door close before you could follow. Yanking on the car door handle, you shouted for them to let you in, but they deviously shook their heads and pointed for you to sit in the front. Grumbling under your breath, you slid into the passenger seat.

On the car ride to the party, Harrison chatted with you despite your snippy tone and one-word retorts.

“Surprised you didn’t invite one of your ‘special’ friends” you grunted as you avoided his question about how exam were going.

“What’re you talking about?” Shit. You hadn’t expected Harrison to catch that bit. Guess he had better hearing than you thought.

“Those girls. From your stories” you elaborated just barely.

As he slowed down to a red light, he turned and fully looked at you. “Are you jealous?”

“Pfft! No! Why would I?” you sputtered. It was enough for Harrison to know better, know what you actually meant.

“Whatever you say, Lil Skunk.” He turned back to focus on driving, watching you fidget out of the corner of his eye.

When you finally arrived at the party, you hopped out only to get immediately greeted and hugged by Emma. She walked you around the house Tom rented for the night and you gawked at the glamorous sight. Tom spared no expense in decorating every inch of the place with Christmas trees adorned with ornaments and lights twinkling in every room.

The best part of the entire party had to be the open bar. Seeing as you hadn’t enjoyed Halloween’s drinking festivities, you planned on making it up during this party. Initially you ordered a spritzer, unsure if you really wanted to get drunk. Was that doing the most? Spotting all the couples in attendance, all concerns about going overboard went out the window. How in the world did everyone find someone to love them for the holiday season? You regretted not inviting Steven, wishing someone would wrap their arms around you by the fireside.

Strangely enough you found yourself spending most of your time with Harrison. He approached you after your third drink, this time a gin and tonic rather than a spritzer and with a heavy emphasis on the gin. Shoutout to Kenneth the bartender for the major hookup on that.

“What’s that - your fifth drink?” he asked with a cheeky grin.

“It’s my fourth, I’ll have you know” you corrected him, pointing his direction letting the drink slosh out of your cup.

“Ah, yes. Of course. How dumb of me. Sorry I couldn’t figure out how drunk you were.”

“M’not drunk!” you retorted indignantly.

“‘Course you’re not” he sarcastically agreed, sliding down to take a seat next to you.

The two of you proceeded to argue with one another from which drink was best for this party to the greatest video game of all time. Some things he would have agreed with you on, but he found it much more entertaining seeing you get riled up about your passions.

As you later waved your arm out to insist that Tom Hardy was the best Tom in the Marvel universe - Tom Holland included - you accidentally smacked Emma who rushed by.

“Sorry!” you slurred as Harrison took your cup from you so you could hug your best friend without spilling your drink all over her. “Didn’t mean to do that!”

“It’s alright, Y/N. Should’ve been paying attention, but I was kinda looking for someone to grab a couple more candy canes and cider for the party” she explained.

“I can do that!” you volunteered, raising your hand as if you were in class.

“You haven’t got a car” Harrison stifled a laugh.

“Even if you did, you’re not sober” Emma added.

You shook your head and slapped your cheeks. Quick fix. “I’m sober!” you insisted as Harrison laughed and Emma shook her head.

Standing up from the bar, Harrison pulled his keys from out of his pocket. “We can grab those things for you, Em.”

Oh, no. There was no way you were going with him. Shaking your head once more, you stomped your foot in irritation. “No, you go by yourself then. I’m not coming with you.”

“You’d leave me all alone and defenseless?” You bobbed your head up and down in response causing him to laugh again. “I’ll buy you those chocolate candy canes you love so much” he coaxed you. Had you told him your preference in candy canes or did he just remember? You weren’t sure. Still, you liked the idea of having those.

You paused, pretending to mull over the decision. “Fine, but I get shotgun” you announced. Harrison rolled his eyes and nodded. Of course you would get shotgun. Where else would you sit? The back? But in your drunken state you weren’t properly thinking things through.

Emma thanked the pair of you before hurrying off to help with hostess duties. Letting the alcohol consume your actions, you found yourself skipping to his car before jumping in.

“You’re like an Uber driver” you commented to Harrison, giggling at how funny you thought you were.

“Am I now?” he asked as he entertained your idea. He started the car and as he pulled out of the driveway, you nodded your head. “Would you give me a five star rating for driving you around?”

“No, you’d get a one. Get better playlists, Osterfield.” You laughed uncontrollably at the ridiculousness of it all while he laughed at your silliness, obviously enjoying every second of your drunk commentary.

When he parked in the grocery store lot, he helped open your door and watched you carefully as you fumbled out. As he placed a hand behind the small of your back, you found yourself leaning in towards him. Of course it was to steady yourself and nothing more. Of course.

The two of you shuffled around, him pointing out how you would get lost in the store without him as you argued that you could make your way around easily.

Somewhere down the line the bickering felt natural, no malice underneath either of you words. You weren’t sure when or how but now you found fighting with him oddly...Nice. What the fuck?

No, you weren’t going down that road again. You knew better. You reminded yourself that you had someone who cared about you that wasn’t going to toy with your feelings. Not getting played like Boo Boo the Fool this time.

The two of you split up as you insisted that you could find your favorite flavor without his guidance. When you finally found them, you grabbed a couple boxes letting them pile up in your arms. You turned around to find Harrison but instead spotted Steven a couple aisles down.

God, Steven looked so good. With a dark hoodie and a maroon beanie, he looked like a model that it took your breath away. Balancing the boxes in one hand, you were about to raise your free hand when a girl approached him. She wrapped her arms around his waist and he turned her direction. Steven wrapped his arms around her, pulling her in close before kissing her deeply.

Oh.

You sobered up quickly as you watched the scene unfold. As she pulled her head back and smiled up at Steven, he crinkled his nose before kissing her once more.

Oh.

The candy cane boxes tumbled out of your arms and crashed to the ground, yet the couple didn’t notice. The two were too preoccupied with one another’s presence, Steven cupping her face before she said something that made him pepper kisses along her jaw.

Oh.

“Lil Skunk, I found-” Harrison begun but saw you frozen in place and cut his sentence short. His eyes followed your stare to see what you saw. His eyes shut and he took a deep breath. When he opened them, he winced knowing that there was nothing he could really say to you in that moment.

Your heart pounded loudly and you struggled to breath. Your bottom lip trembled, still focused on the sight that was breaking you with every second.

Harrison quickly grabbed your hand, guiding you away from the scene. Still you couldn’t tear your eyes away from Steven and the beautiful girl he now laughed with. Was it the same things you laughed about at the White Elephant party? Or was she funnier than you? Were your jokes lame in comparison to hers? But the biggest question that haunted you the most kept repeating over and over: had that night and that kiss meant nothing to Steven?

It wasn’t until Harrison stepped to your other side, blocking your view of the couple, that you finally stopped staring.

As Harrison went to pay he held your hand in his, glancing at you every so often. Your eyes stared off into space, not focusing on anything in particular as you kept thinking about Steven and the mystery girl. You went through the motions as Harrison opened the car door for you, telling you to get in. He found himself repeating his words, instructing you to buckle your seatbelt until he finally watched you click it in.

The street lights washed over your face yet all you could do was thinking about the scene. As it replayed over in your mind, you felt almost numb. Your eyes glossed over, remembering how he tucked a strand of hair behind your ear before leaning in to kiss you. Had Steven meant it? Or were you the practice round for the real deal?

By the time Harrison parked outside the party, you still weren’t all there. It was as if your mind was preoccupied by the numbness to think of anything else. You could hear him calling your name, a clear concern when he repeated himself a third time. “We’re here. You can unbuckle your seatbelt.” When you didn’t move, he decided to release it for you. It slid off your chest and back into the holder, not phasing you in the slightest.

“I think you’re amazing” Steven’s words echoed in your mind. But do you?

You heard your name called and by the fifth time, you finally turned and looked towards Harrison. “Y/N-” he started, leaning towards you. Why was he looking at you like that? His pained expression only added to your confusion. You turned away, facing towards the window.

“I think you’re amazing.” Then why did you kiss her? Why did you look at her like that? Why were you holding her?

Without any prompt, you begun telling Harrison about the night of the white elephant party. As you spoke, you heard your voice getting heavier with each word. It felt like you were choking out every syllable until finally you couldn’t take anymore, and you finally broke. You burst into tears, sobbing heavily. Why couldn’t he have liked you? Why were you never the one?

So many questions filled your mind and it poured out in tears in response. You weren’t sure when it happened, but Harrison gently wrapped you in his arms, stroking your hair. You sobbed with only the sound of the boy next to you whispering to let it all out. And you did as you were instructed, crying harder and louder until you couldn’t cry anything else.

“I’m so sorry” Harrison murmured as he held you close. “I’m so so sorry.”

Once you exhausted yourself from crying, you felt your eyes growing heavy. You didn’t want to fall asleep, but there was something comforting about Harrison’s arms that you couldn’t help but doze off. All thoughts about the party, the mystery girl, and Steven vanished as your eyes shut.

When you finally opened your eyes, you realized you were no longer in Harrison’s car. Slowly turning your head, you blinked trying your best to wake up from your tired state. You looked up to see Harrison carrying you.

Noticing you stirring in his arms, he looked down and softly smiled at you. “I’m just bringing you back to your apartment, love” he explained. Oh, God. He hadn’t called you by that in a while. There was something about that nickname that always made your heart flutter.

You sighed deeply, resting your head against his chest.

It was strange having him carry you into your apartment with such ease. And yet this kindness was more than welcome.

Lightly kicking open your door, he placed you down on your bed. Before you could say anything, he begun tucking you in. He murmured that you needed to get rest. The idea was tempting, yet you found yourself trying to get up.

“C’mon, love. Just rest, alright?” he persuaded you to lay back under the covers.

“What about the party? I have to explain things to Emma” you insisted though you didn’t move.

“I already let her know that you weren’t feeling well and that I was taking you home” he explained. How kind of him to cover like that. You wondered how that conversation transpired but knew he would brush it off as no big deal and refuse to explain.

“Just get some rest” his voice encouraged, eyes finally softening as you relaxed into your bed. Right as he was about to leave, you grabbed his hand. He turned and looked at you.

“Am I-” you stopped, nervous to continue your thoughts out loud. But something in Harrison’s warm glance asked you to continue. “Am I just not capable of being loved or something? Like am I just never gonna be someone’s special person?” you choked out, tears starting to form again.

He quickly took a seat next to you. “You are. And you will be” he attempted to reassure you. “That guy-” Harrison paused, brushing his free hand through his hair. “That guy’s a fuckin’ prick. He’s an idiot, Y/N. He has no idea what he’s missing out on.”

“That other girl was so pretty, though. So much prettier than me-”

“Stop it. Don’t do that. Don��t…” he seemed lost for the right words to comfort you.

“I’m probably gonna die alone, and they’re only gonna find me because dogs will be eating my body” you sniffled.

He smiled at that one, grazing a hand on your face to wipe away the tears. “I promise you that won’t happen.” Don’t promise what you can’t keep.

Right as he was about to stand up and leave, you squeezed his hand. You didn’t want him to go. At least not yet. Something about his presence felt comforting and you wished you could just intertwine your fingers with his. Was it okay to want more with Harrison?

“Will you stay? Please?”

Harrison looked startled by your request. After all, no swearing or calling him by his usual nickname? You even added please with no sarcastic tone. Obviously this wasn’t the relationship he was used to. He looked at your door before turning back and nodding his head.

He kicked off his shoes and took off his jacket; the only time he let go of your hand was to take off his coat, but quickly grabbed hold of your hand once more as the jacket hit the ground. You scooted towards the other side of the bed, allowing him space to join you.

“I mean it, Y/N.” You could feel your eyes getting heavy. “I meant everything I said.” It was hard keeping your eyes open even though you wanted nothing more than to keep taking in his features.

His voice murmured for you to sleep, lulling you to rest. You closed your eyes as he told you how strong you were and how you deserved so much better. But who was better?

You felt him gently caress your cheek and kiss your forehead before you finally dozed off.

Soft chirps woke you the next day. Your eyes fluttered open and looked towards the window to see light seeping in. Last night felt like an out of body experience, as if it wasn’t particularly real. Yet you knew there was no denying all the events that occurred.

You turned to see the other side of your bed empty. No Harrison at all. Sitting up you looked at your side desk, hoping to see something. No note. Nothing. You rummaged through your purse to find your phone at ten percent. There were a couple texts from Emma and Tom, but no message from Harrison. You charged your phone before sighing and falling back onto your mattress.

And there was the truth of it all. He could give you false hope, make you think something might’ve been happening, but he never stayed. After all, you weren’t his. To him you were just Lil Skunk, a friend of a friend’s. He could say otherwise, but you both knew better. You were just a pastime, someone to tease until he moved onto better things. He could find prettier girls to occupy his time so why waste it on you? The empty space said it all: Harrison didn’t and wouldn’t ever like you in that sort of way.

Even if Harrison was right about what he said yesterday, not even he stayed for you. Not really.

tags list: @sleepybesson, @tomhaz | @butithasntkilledyouyet, @chims-kookies, @choke-me-sweet-pea, @highladyjel, @sadnoelle, @sleepwalkingdragon, @soccerstud004, @spider-mendes, @thefallenbibliophilequote

part six | part six [clean-ish]

#harrison osterfield #harrison osterfield x reader #harrison osterfield x you #harrison osterfield x y/n #haz osterfield #haz osterfield x reader #haz osterfield x you #haz osterfield x y/n #haz osterfield imagine #harrison osterfield imagine #harrison osterfield fic #harrison osterfield fanfiction #haz osterfield fic #haz osterfield fanfiction #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland fic #my writing #fic: not so subtle

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hippychick006 · 5 years

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14.18 - Absence Recap

I’m putting this recap under a cut. I’ve tried to cut it down, but nope, I have a lot to say about this episode. It’s highly critical so if you are a fan of Dabbernatural, you most definitely want to keep moving down your dash. Nothing to see here, the show is absolutely wonderful, carry on with your day...

Note, if I talk about Dabb’s writing, I mean him being in overall charge of the quality of writing as show runner, even though another writer might have written the episode I’m criticising. I’m not fully blaming the writers because they have no clear direction with Dabb as showrunner.

Positives are the brother moments, though I definitely felt that Jared and Jensen were struggling a little to find the emotion in this episode – which contrasts with the emotion of episodes like Lebanon where it came more naturally. Rowena is always a positive addition to an episode, and even though I talk about Jack being over utilised in my post, I still love my nougat eating Nephilim. Can we keep him and just send him off to Stanford and have him back for the holidays?

I’m struggling with the show right now. My mind is “helpfully” supplying that we have 22 episodes and counting until there’s no more new Sam and Dean content, and episodes like this, that are so far beneath the - admittedly high - bar set by Kripke are just depressing to watch. I’ve made no secret that Dabb is the worst showrunner to ever happen to Supernatural (I would have said any show, but I mistakenly started to watch Quantico a few weeks ago, so he’s been elevated recently). Even by Dabb’s standards though, this episode is epically bad. And it’s bad for so many reasons.

I had a quick look back at Dabb’s writing to see if he’s perhaps a better writer than a showrunner. IMO, he’s had more misses than hits since joining the show in Season 4. Hits include: Yellow Fever, Dark side of the Moon, Red Meat and Lebanon (though I wouldn’t put Lebanon in the league of the other 3 personally, it was a great Season 14 episode, but stacked up against others, it falls down the list). Misses include 2 failed pilots: Bloodlines and Wayward sisters, plus many others. He’s capable of good writing obviously, I just believe he’s lazy and tries to please the online fandom too much, completely forgetting that fandom is an incredibly small part of the overall viewing audience. He should write for the story first and foremost, only giving the odd nod to fandom, not allowing it to completely overtake – and in my opinion - completely ruin the story being told.

As showrunner, he’s started and dropped many plot lines (several of them running at the same time so you experience whip lash while viewing). He kills characters for shock value and brought long dead characters back for the same reasons. He’s then proceeded to butcher those characters (or ruin their earlier arc) until they are unrecognisable from the characters you loved. He steals plot lines and ruins them, his dialogue includes ridiculous levels of pandering. The show has too much drama, people constantly dying and there’s no fun anymore. When they try to do funny, it just falls flat, because they can’t write comedy in the same way as someone like Ben Edlund.

His biggest missteps though have been the forced pushing of “found family” onto a general audience that was watching the show for the unique bond between the siblings. Making Supernatural about “family” is just making Supernatural the same as every other show out there. The bond between the brothers is actually what made the show unique and special. Now it isn’t any more and the magic it had has been, not lost entirely, but heavily watered down under Dabb’s incompetence.

His other misstep has been too much focus on other characters that are not Sam or Dean. Seriously, I’m one of the people that likes Jack, but he’s had far too much focus this season (almost like they’re making a lame, last ditch attempt to try to get a character worth a spin off for this show). No longer whispers into the void but screams until I’m hoarse: PEOPLE ARE WATCHING FOR SAM AND DEAN YOU DUMBASS HACK, FUCKING WRITE WITH THEM AS THE CENTRE OF YOUR FOCUS AND NOT REDUCE THEM TO PRETTY FURNITURE!

For those of you that might come back with “But J2 want time off…” I acknowledge this, but I’ll come right back and point out that J2 are in the episodes, it’s just not about them and that is the problem, not the time off. As mentioned, I loved Jack in Season 13, now I don’t really care about him because he’s had too much of the story be about him, as if he’s the protagonist of the show and not Sam and Dean.

Anyway, on to the episode.

We recap on Mary badgering Jack and watching it again annoyed me just as much as the episode last week. Definitely slapped in the face with the stupid stick. When someone is out of control, you humour them and give them space. You don’t constantly badger them, making things worse – particularly if you witnessed said being lose control and charbroil to death another human (a very bad, murdery human, but still a human). And I don’t actually blame Mary, it’s simply bad writing, because if you want something to happen to get to the position you want to be in, write it better. Don’t make a character suddenly stupid in order to achieve it. Unfortunately, as I mentioned on another post, Dabb is a very lazy writer. He wants to get to point B and doesn’t care how stupid he makes his characters in order to get there.

Sam and Dean arrive home, immediately calling for ‘mom’ and ‘Jack’. Sam looks longer than Dean who is already sitting down with a beer when Sam returns from searching the bunker. They share a toast to “another miraculous Sam Winchester survival.” Dean: “Gotta say man, if Jack hadn’t have healed you…” Dean trails off and I try not to think of the consequences, particularly with how devastated Dean was during the few seconds he lost Sammy yet again. Dean reflects they’d be “up the creek without that kid.”

Jack’s all right as long as he’s saving Sammy and killing bad guys. Got it.

Dean brings his phone out to try mom’s cell. Sam brings his own phone out, presumably to try Jack. When Dean connects to Mary’s cell, they hear a buzzing and see Mary’s bag with her cell phone and keys on the other end of the map table. Both start to get a little worried.

Sam says he’ll try Jack. We switch to Jack and hear the phone ringing, but he doesn’t answer. He seems to be in shock.

Fast forward an indeterminate time and our boys have tried everyone; Jody, Donna, Charlie, Bobby, Rowena. Nada from most of them, but Rowena is a little more helpful and might have a spell that can track Jack and Mary down. Just as I’m wondering if Castiel was on their list, Dean’s phone rings, Sam looks hopefully at Dean (that it’s either Jack or Mary) but Dean shakes his head. He answers the phone without putting it on speaker and it is indeed Castiel, who got Dean’s message that Nick was trying to raise Lucifer. Dean updates Castiel that “the kid” says he took care of him, and they are just trying to find him and Mary at the moment. Castiel: “Are they together?” Dean: “Yeah.” Castiel: “Alone?” Dean’s got no idea what Castiel is on about, he answers that yes, they are together, alone. Sam is only hearing one side of the conversation and wants to know what Cass is saying. I have no idea why Dean doesn’t put the phone on speaker (I am however 100% certain it has nothing to do with non-existent Destiel), it just seems weird not to put it on speaker as they normally would, and there’s no obvious reason not to do so. Dean knows Castiel is holding something back and says, “If you’ve got something to tell us, now is the time.” Castiel explains about Jack using his powers to kill Felix the snake. “I was gonna tell you but…”

Urgh, how many times must we suffer through this? This is Castiel’s role on the show: try to fix a problem without telling Sam and Dean, because he doesn’t want to worry them. It leads to something bad happening. They find out, Dean is angry and wants no more to do with him, while Sam defends Castiel. Rinse and repeat. It’s manufactured drama and it’s bad writing, because if you are a decent writer, you can get drama within an episode without this. And the thing is, Dabb wrote Red Meat, loads of drama in that episode, none of it manufactured, so he can do it. Baby, Regarding Dean are other examples from recent years. Not a single one of these had manufactured drama, all absolutely fantastic episodes.

Castiel tells Dean he doesn’t think Jack is well. Dean puts the phone down on him. And thousands of anti Cass fans rejoice, and we will enjoy our few seconds of rejoicing even knowing that Sammy will at some point (probably this episode) vouch for Castiel as he has done many times in the past (undeservingly so imo – how many times is Sam going to say ‘it’s Cass’ before he stops getting a free pass and changes his behaviour?)

Dean brings Sam up to speed about Jack, and Sam has an idea for finding him. He uses the “find phone” app to discover Jack is in Nepal. As they watch, Jack suddenly jumps to Lima, Peru. Sam makes the genius (not really) observation that Jack must be flying. They watch as Jack jumps again to Paris, France, and then Madagascar. Dean: “What the hell is he doing?”

It’s night and we hear a flap of wings and Jack slumps onto the ground. He stumbles to get up, then checks his phone, he has 10 missed calls, 7 voicemails, and several missed texts, all from Sam, Dean and Castiel. Interestingly, the most communication is from Dean, but I headcanon that a large part of that is Dean leaving messages: “Where the hell are you, Sammy’s worried sick!”

We see a flashback between Jack and Mary where Mary says what he did was amazing (in dealing with one of the AU angels – can’t remember which one – Zachariah I think, but he was wearing a different meat suit than normal). The flashback ends and we see something appear in the dark behind Jack. It’s Nick, though it’s not Nick. His eyes flash red and I worry for a second that Lucifer is actually back, but no, he’s Jack’s sub-conscious. Taps chin in puzzlement. Where have we seen a similar storyline before, with this exact same character, hmmm?

Nick tells Jack that he can’t come back from killing Mary. Jack: “It was an accident!” Nick: “Okay, tell Sam and Dean that, I’m sure they’ll understand, it’s not like family isn’t everything to them.” Jack zaps Nick, telling him to shut up.

Oh, if only it were that easy, kiddo.

Sam and Dean are driving to somewhere – presumably still tracking Jack’s cell phone signal. Sam tells Dean that Cass is going to meet them there. Dean doesn’t answer. Sam tries to defend Jack, saying that maybe he wasn’t able to stop Nick from raising Lucifer and Lucifer took them both… “and Jack, he must have thought he was helping, you know, being kind.”

Dean (and me, puzzled): What?

Sam: With Felix.

Dean (annoyed): “Really, with the snake?”

Sam: I’m just saying, Dean, I’m trying to understand Jack without a soul

Dean (very annoyed now): We don’t know that he doesn’t have a soul! Okay, I don’t wanna… let’s… let’s not talk about it, all right... let’s just find mom, find Jack and we’ll figure it all out.”

Sam’s tablet indicates they’ve lost Jack’s signal, but they still head to where Jack was last, which is the cabin where Nick was killed. Very dramatic music as they head in there. The music is another thing that has annoyed me this season, it overpowers scenes rather than compliments them, it’s very distracting. Please stop it, because I’m not three years old and can understand perfectly well when I’m supposed to find something dramatic and when I’m not.

Sam looks inside the cabin, while Dean looks outside. Sam therefore is the one to come across Nick’s body. He shouts for Dean who doesn’t hear him (though last week heard him perfectly well from quite a distance). Dean comes across a spot outdoors which is covered in ash. He’s either just lucky he came across it, or he was tracking Jack and Mary’s path. Dean’s an outstanding hunter, let’s go with tracking. Sam soon joins him (also an outstanding hunter) and it’s clear they both seem to believe something bad happened at that spot.

Cass is in the car and he’s arrived at the cabin. He doesn’t go in. We see a flashback to where he was hunting with Mary. Jack having a flashback I understand, but Castiel has no reason to suspect that Mary is dead, only missing at this stage, so why is he having a flashback? Also, as other people have pointed out, this flashback of him hunting with her couldn’t have happened within the timeline. Lazy idiots that can’t keep track of the story! Upshot of their completely fake scene is that Castiel says he’s glad she’s back and that Sam and Dean are happy, “Finally they don’t have to be so alone.” Mary answers: “Castiel, they were never alone.” No, they weren’t Mary, because they always had each other and that’s all either of them needs. Other people are nice to have, but not necessary to eithers continued existence. Whispers: platonic soulmates.

Now, if Dabb meant that line to mean that they were never alone because they had Castiel, I look up the facts. Dean was 30 before Castiel dropped into their lives, he was 37 before Dabb started forcing him into the narrative as “family/brother” when in actual fact between the years of 30-37, he was rarely around, and they only called him when they wanted something. Over the last three years, he hasn’t exactly been a constant in their lives, no matter how much Dabb has tried to shoehorn him in to please the 1%ers at the expense of the general viewing audience and a decent storyline.

Moving on, Castiel finally gets out the car to go inside the cabin.

Sam covers Nick with a blanket. He’s worried. Dean tries to reassure Sam that they don’t know what happened, they don’t know what Nick did, he probably deserved it. Sam somewhat agrees Nick deserved it, but not in that way.

Sam updates Castiel on Nick and a “blast spot” behind the house that looks angelic, only bigger. Dean is turned away during this, giving Castiel the cold shoulder. He does chip in at one point though;

Dean: It might have been Lucifer, Nick was trying to bring him back

Sam: Yeah, but Jack said…

Dean: I don’t care what Jack said! We don’t know what happened, but I swear, if he did something to her, if she is…

Sam sighs and Dean turns to Castiel, “then you’re dead to me.”

Hold on, I need a moment.

“Then you’re dead to me.”

Sam: Dean…

Hold on another moment, while I speak to Sam in private about defending Castiel yet again. This is what I was afraid of, he always defends Castiel and Castiel is not learning anything. He makes the same mistakes over and over because he doesn’t deal with the consequences of his actions. Slaps Sam in the face with a parenting book that helped me enormously during the teenage years.

Dean: “No, he knew, he knew something was wrong with the kid, he knew it and he didn’t tell us. He didn’t even tell us!”

Sam says nothing (good, our little chat worked then).

Castiel: I was scared, I believed in Jack for so long, I... believed that he was good, I knew that he would be good for the world, he was good for us, my faith in him, it never wavered, and then I saw what he did. It wasn’t malice, it wasn’t evil, it was like Jack saw a problem and in his mind he just solved it with that snake…

Dean (angry): the snake? [he’s seriously getting annoyed that everyone keeps bringing up the snake]

Castiel (talking to Dean’s back): What he did wasn’t bad, it was the absence of good and I saw that in him, but we were a family (family mention alert for those of you playing dabbernatural bingo!) and I didn’t want to lose that, so I thought I could... fix it on my own, felt like it was my responsibility, so I left, and I didn’t tell you. If I could go back and just… just talk to him right then and there, I would, but I can’t Dean. I failed you and I failed Jack. And I failed…

Dean (turns around): No, no, Don’t even say it, don’t even say her name!

Dean steps towards Castiel, but Sam steps forward and puts his hand out with a quiet “Dean.”

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to feel during this scene. Sad, I presume? I just feel pissed that we are having to suffer through incredibly bad writing that has Castiel screwing up yet again, by going off on his own, yet again, and I’m going to have to suffer through some more puke inducing dialogue at some stage in the very near future that will have Dean apologising and all will be right with the world. Totally fed up with Castiel being used as nothing more than a plot point, I don’t even like the character, but no one deserves that. Bad, lazy writing that shows he has no purpose to the show and that he no longer fits and hasn’t for a long time.

Sam’s phone rings, it’s Rowena and at least Sam knows how his speakerphone works. Sam’s really upset as he answers. Rowena updates that she’s tried to find Jack, but his energy is too unstable. Sam: “And mom?” We see Rowena close her eyes and not answer. Dean orders: “Say it” and Rowena says, “I don’t know what happened, or where she is, but I can tell you with certainty, Mary Winchester is no longer on this earth”

Dean closes his eyes, we switch to Sam and then Castiel (rolls eyes because getting his reaction is pandering, because sure, let’s not waste footage by focusing on the two that are actually her sons). We get a minute of watching Sam and Dean, and can I just say how brilliant these two are. I mean I have no feelings at all towards Mary, Dabb completely screwed over her character and did nothing to make me care about her in any way, so I don’t feel anything towards her. But I do feel for Sam and Dean here, but only because of Jared and Jensen’s acting in this scene.

Dean’s quiet for a few seconds, then he breaks a chair. Sam flinches as he does with loud noises and someone needs to get my poor baby some help for that PTSD he’s been carrying around for the last few years.

Sam (to Dean): So, what do we do?

This isn’t Sam Winchester, the hunter, this is Sam Winchester, the little brother, looking to his big brother to have some answers, because he’s completely lost.

Dean: What we always do when we lose one of our own, we fight, we fight to bring them back.

Wait, what? Seriously? Are we retconning that narrative now too? I’m starting to suspect that Dabb hates the special bond and his personal mission has been to break it. Kripke we need you back, stat!!!! An untalented petty little man is ruining your legacy!

Sam asks “How… Billie? Dean says Rowena, she’s got the book of the damned and can resurrect Mary. Cass says they don’t even know where your mother is.

Dean (angry): Then go to heaven and find her!

In direct contrast to Mary last week, Sam knows how to deal with someone on edge. He knows when to keep quiet and he does as Dean walks out, telling Sam to tell Rowena that they are on their way.

Rowena is working on something when the boys arrive. But it’s not the boys, its Jack. He admits he killed Mary, but it was an accident. He asks for her help, but Rowena says the magic she uses on herself, only works if it’s prepared in advance (i.e. before death). Jack asks about the book. Rowena says there is a spell, and starts to talk about it, but when Sam and Dean arrive, Jack realises that Rowena has been stalling. Jack disappears with Rowena, just as Sam kicks down the door – which was hot by the way.

Castiel is at the children’s sandpit that leads to heaven. No one is guarding it, he calls for Naomi.

Jack and Rowena appear in the bunker, Jack passes an area on the wood floor which has marks on it. He has a flashback which shows a knife being thrown into the floor. Mary is teaching him knife skills. He keeps dropping the knife, Mary tells him he’s doing well though. Jack says when they get Dean back, Dean is going to kill him (for the holes in the bunker floor). Mary pulls the table over to cover the marks and says, “For what?”

This is a cute moment, and this is another thing I hate about Dabb. The writers are capable of writing characters, they just choose not to do it until they need to go for a cheap moment like Mary dying. It’s just bad writing. If they had done their job properly, all of these would have been real flash backs to real moments and we would all be genuinely sad (or kind of sad, given that Dabb has also ruined the meaning of death).

We see Sam arrive and he hangs back until Jack leaves, which concerns me that he’s avoiding Jack. Also, Bearded!Sam alert – when was this filmed?! He asks Mary how Jack’s training is going. He tells her he feels bad as he doesn’t feel he’s been there for Jack since he’s been so busy looking for Dean. Sam apologises for laying his problems on her. Mary: “No, are you kidding, it’s nice knowing I’m not the only one. [Sam frowns] with parental guilt.” She tells him that parenting is always a struggle, you always feel like you are failing, then you look at them and somehow, they’re amazing, somehow they’re literally… [Mary grabs Sam’s chin because he looked away]… the bravest, kindest, most heroic men on the planet.

Right, as I mentioned a few minutes ago, if this had been a real flashback, and death hadn’t been cheapened by Dabb, I’d have been very upset right about now if this had been the version that Mary had been allowed to develop into. Where tf was this when we were getting the crap we’ve been getting? As it is, I feel nothing – actually not true, I feel very angry at how crap Dabb is and what he’s done to my show.

Actually, the one bit I liked about this, which I mentioned in a separate post, was the flashback that Jack was having led into the flashback that Sam is having, and I like that transition between them.

Anyway, back at Rowena’s and Dean’s still angry. Jack’s got Rowena and the Book of the Damned and they’ve got no way of keeping up with Jack when he’s got wings. Sam’s a good brother and stays quiet, just letting Dean get it off his chest.

Dean is still pissed at Cass and says he should have told them as soon as he saw Jack go all… (no idea what he says here) … on a stupid freaking snake.

Sam is a good brother and stays quiet, just letting Dean get it off his chest.

Sadly no, that’s not what happened. Sam once again defends Castiel, saying it wasn’t just him. That they also knew that Jack was dangerous, they always knew. “You more than anyone, I mean from the very beginning you knew…”

Oh, so we’re going down that route now? The route that has to end with Dean always being right and everyone else being wrong. I thought we’d moved on from that, but okay, no.

Hammering my keyboard, we move on as Sam continues, “But you know we fell for him because he had a good heart, and a good soul… then he didn’t… And that’s on me too, by the way. I mean I’m the one who made the call to bring him back. He didn’t ask for that, I decided for him. And you warned me.”

Dean: You didn’t know, okay… we didn’t know.

Sam: Exactly, we didn’t know, but… he’d become our family (I’m losing count, is this the second or third mention of family in a single episode?)

Sam: You know, after Maggie and the other hunters…died, I just left, just… dumped Jack on Cass and left. I knew, I mean I knew something… was gonna… I just didn’t know it would be this.

I think Sam looks at Dean here, expecting him to explode at him, the same way he did Castiel earlier, but Dean doesn’t. He admits that he did too and it’s a nice moment between them.

Back to Rowena and Jack. Jack’s impatient for the spell. Rowena says the ingredients are simple but need to be compounded precisely. She tells Jack she could have fought him back at her flat. Jack doesn’t ask the obvious question “flat?” which disappoints me. I think she’s starting to get through to Jack, but Nick hallucination appears and he’s as annoying as Lucifer with the constant badgering. He tells Jack that trying to bring Mary back isn’t going to work. Rowena notices there’s something wrong with Jack (looking and talking to something imaginary), but she finishes the spell ingredients. Jack tells Nick to shut up, then asks Rowena if the spell is finished. Rowena tells him it is, but they need the last thing, which is Mary’s body.

Back to Castiel – I’d forgotten about him – he’s still at the sandpit, calling for Naomi. He refuses to go anywhere until he speaks to her. Duma appears and she’s one of my favourite angels after Zachariah, because like him, she tells it how it is, and I appreciate the honesty. Duma tells him that Mary Winchester is happy, she’s in heaven, a “special” heaven. (me: oh fuck, here we go, Dabb will retcon Sam and Dean’s soulmate heaven as a final fuck you to the brother fans). “Mary Winchester is complete. You and the Winchesters may not be, but she is.” (hmmm, not sure about this line).

Jack takes Rowena to Mary’s “body”, which is a pile of ash. She tells him she can’t make it work. Because Rowena can’t help him, Jack shoves her back to her “flat.” I think that’s a little progress over the previous episode since he didn’t flame grill her.

Rowena is pissed, she calls Sam and Dean to tell them they need to stop Jack as she fears he’ll bring something terrible back instead of Mary.

Jack gathers some ash to perform the ritual. He’s part way through when he sees the Impala approach. He uses his powers to stall the car. Unfortunately for him, Sam and Dean are within running distance of the cabin. The spell finishes and Mary’s body is returned, just as Sam and Dean arrive.

Jack looks devastated as he tells them it didn’t work. We hear the flap of wings and he’s disappeared. Dean runs to Mary as Sam approaches more slowly. Dramatic music as Sam kneels down beside Dean. We see Dean’s flashback in the car with Mary and at first I thought it was a poxy flashback compared with everyone else, but then I remember this is Dean’s flashback, this is what made Dean happy, this is what Dean has always wanted, his family (Sam, Mary and John) around him. That’s what his one wish with the pearl was. This is why it annoys me when I read meta that Dean’s arc is to realise he’s sacrificed his life and he’s going to stop doing that (i.e. let Sam die) and go live his happy life with the angel. No, that isn’t who Dean is, Sam has never been an obligation or a job to Dean, Dean’s face shines when he’s taking care of his family, that’s what brings him enjoyment and we see that in this scene with Mary, just having her in his life brings him joy.

I like how Sam is comforting Dean in this scene. This is what siblings do, in that moment Dean needed Sam more than Sam needed Dean and Sam steps up and provides it, even though he too is grieving.

Jack’s on his own, but not for long. Hallucination Nick is by his side, telling him that there’s no going back. Castiel, Sam and Dean will never trust him again. He tells Jack: “You can never trust them.” Which given the dramatic music, is an anvil for an upcoming episode.

Sam’s looking through family pictures when Castiel arrives. He tells Sam that Mary is in heaven and that she’s at peace. Dean arrived at the tail end of the conversation but stays off to the side. Castiel tells them that he saw Mary’s heaven and she’s happy. (I like the 2 dates on the door, someone has already made a joke about Dean and Sam’s doors. Like what on earth was Dean’s door like during Mystery Spot?)

Question for Castiel, if Mary is with John, then why is his name not on the door or does he have his own door that interconnects with Mary’s room?

He tells them Mary is with John, that there’s no sorrow or guilt, just joy.

Sam tells Castiel and Dean that Rowena thinks Jack just brought back a shell, a replica, incapable of holding life. Sam asks once again, what are they supposed to do now.

Dean: What we always do.

Sam closes his eyes, he knows what Dean’s talking about.

Now, if I was a shipper, desperate for proving my ship, I’d point out the clear separation between Dean and that of Castiel and Sam in this scene. Sastiel for the win, and once again, you guys totally deserve it.

What they always do turns out to be a lot more accurate this time. They’ve built a funeral pyre to burn the fake body. I don’t understand why Castiel is there, I personally think it was just a moment for Sam and Dean, but Dabb is intent on ruining the show entirely, pushing Castiel into everything, even though he can’t feel a fraction for Mary that Sam and Dean do. He’s just awkwardly standing there.

Sam steps up to put a picture on the pyre. We get some more flashbacks of Mary again and I’m feeling… well I’m still feeling absolutely nothing but anger at Dabb to be honest.

Castiel looks at Dean and makes a move to go to him, but Sam puts his arm out, very clearly “You go near my brother and I’ll kill you.” Not really, but he does stop Castiel and tries to smile in reassurance, kind of “give him time.”

Dean is once again kind of standing on his own in this scene, with Castiel and Sam slightly off to the side.

That’s it. That’s the end of this episode!

I wish!

Because we go back to the bunker and the camera glides over the table and MW initials have been added to that of Sam and Dean, and seriously fuck you Dabb. Fuck you for taking everything that was amazing and special about the unique bond between the brothers and what those initials mean, and crapping all over it. Others disagree, but that’s fine.

Onwards to the next episode where I think Sam will have to choose between Dean and Jack. Kind of like Season 4, where he was forced to choose between Dean and Ruby, even though he wanted both. Maybe he’ll get both this time around and Jack won’t be evil?

I’ll finish with this line from Dean to Sam in next weeks promo: “We need to stop Jack... but here’s the deal, we’ve both got to sign off on it.”

#spn spoilers #14.18 #absence #episode recap #and rant #anti dabb #spn critical

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worryinglyinnocent · 5 years

Text

Fic: Old Traditions and New

A @rumbellesecretsanta gift for @nerdrumple

Santa: worryinglyinnocent

Prompt: I thought I was alone

Word Count: 6,215

Summary: When his son announces his intentions to spend the holidays with his girlfriend instead of coming home, Lennox Gold thinks that he is destined to spend this Christmas alone. Belle French soon puts paid to that idea.

Rated: G

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Old Traditions and New

Belle always knew that the holiday season had properly started by two things. The first was the frost on the tower clock-face in the morning still being there in the evening, showing that the weather had well and truly turned. The second was the appearance of Mr Gold in the library.

That was not to say that Mr Gold was not a regular visitor to the library in his own right. Belle often saw him looking things up in obscure reference books, no doubt seeking out details of the value of or repair methods for some strange new item that had come into his possession at the pawn shop. Nevertheless, at the beginning of December, Mr Gold always came in to borrow one specific book. The Complete Guide to Christmas Baking and Decorating had been checked out by Mr Gold more times than the rest of the library patrons combined, and his borrowing of it was as traditional as Santa Claus and Christmas trees.

When Mr Gold walked into the library on the first Monday of December, Belle knew that the holidays had begun.

“Good morning, Mr Gold! I bet I can guess what you’ve come in for.”

She had surreptitiously sneaked the book off the shelves before she opened the library in anticipation of this very moment. Truth be told, she’d been doing that for the past couple of years now. It seemed sacrilegious to break with such a long-standing tradition and she would have been mortified if Mr Gold had come into the library only for someone to have beaten him to his favourite book. It was unlikely, she’d admit – it was rather an old-fashioned work – but she wasn’t about to take that chance, not when she seemed at times to be the only person in the town with whom Mr Gold actually got along.

He gave a sad smile when he saw her bring the book out from under the issue desk where she had been hiding it, and he shook his head.

“No, not this year, Miss French, although I do thank you for your conscientiousness. We’re having something of a break with tradition this year.”

“Oh.” Belle was slightly taken aback by this. Obviously she knew that some traditions couldn’t last forever, and she knew that Mr Gold’s son was growing up and moving on and was no longer the same little boy that he had been when these traditions had no doubt started.

The thing that perplexed Belle the most, though, was that Mr Gold did not seem to be at all happy about this break with tradition, and she wondered what could have brought on his melancholy mood.

“So, what’s brought about this change?” she asked, hastily stowing the book back under the desk and coming around to speak to him properly. “If you’re looking to try something new, then we have plenty of other books with festive craft ideas.”

Mr Gold shook his head. “No, thank you, Miss French. I don’t think that will be necessary today. You see, Neal’s not coming home for the holidays this year; he’s spending Christmas with his girlfriend and her parents.”

Suddenly, everything fell into place. Christmas had always been a family time for the Golds. Although Belle had not moved to town until after Neal’s mother had left the picture, she knew from gossip that Mrs Gold had left during the holidays, and that was one of the reasons why Mr Gold tended to go overboard when it came to decorations and celebrating, wanting to make up for his mother’s absence.

Now, Neal would not be here for all of their usual traditions.

“No, I was just coming in for the reference section, like usual, Miss French,” Mr Gold said. He shook away the moment of sadness, standing a little straighter and trying to hide his dismay. “I’ve recently come into an exquisite grandfather clock and I really need to find out a little more about the manufacturer.”

Belle just nodded and let him move away into the depths of the library, standing alone in the foyer for a moment before returning to the issue desk and looking at the book she had hidden away for him. She hated to see Mr Gold sad at any time, but especially during the holidays, and she wondered what she could do to help.

Sitting in the back room of the pawn shop, Gold sighed as he looked around at the shelves and tables. Despite the room being stuffed to the rafters with things in need of appraising and restoring – some junk, some actually worth hundreds of dollars to the discerning buyer – the place looked spartan in his eyes.

Ever since Neal had been very small, but big enough to understand the concept of Christmas, decorating the house and the shop for the festive season had been one of the highlights of Gold’s year. It was always interesting to see the town’s reactions when they walked into the pawn shop to find it so brightly decorated in honour of the season. His reputation among the residents had always been that of a miserly scrooge, and newcomers were always very confused when, having heard about Mr Gold the Grinch, they saw that he was incredibly enthusiastic about celebrating Christmas.

It wasn’t so much that Gold himself was incredibly enthusiastic about celebrating Christmas. It was more that he enjoyed celebrating with Neal, and he had always gone out of his way to make sure that Neal had the best Christmases that his father could provide. It came back to Neal’s second Christmas, when Milah had walked out. Even though he was still far too young to fully understand what was going on, Neal knew that his mother was no longer there, and Gold had been frantically determined that no matter what, Neal would never grow up associating Christmas, a time for joy and family and togetherness, with the break-up of their family.

Without Neal being there to take part in the traditions, there didn’t seem to be any point to keeping them alive.

Shaking himself out of his melancholy, Gold went over to the corner where the grandfather clock was sitting. His research at the library had told him that it would fetch a good price once he had got its innards cleaned out and working again, and so he sat down to get to work, taking apart the mechanism and polishing up the pendulum in the vain hope that the work would stop him moping about and missing Neal.

He’d always been very close to his son; after all, it had been just the two of them for the majority of Neal’s life, so a deep bond was bound to form. Gold knew that he was going to be lonely when Neal went off to college, but for the first couple of years, at least he’d always known that no matter what else might happen, Neal would be home for Christmas. During his freshman year, Gold had spent hours making the house and shop look extra bright and special, and even Neal, who was used to Gold getting somewhat out of hand when it came to Christmas, had been impressed.

Now though, it was Neal’s last year at college and it was clear that he was moving on with his life. He and Emma had been going steady for over a year now and it made sense that he wanted to spend more time with her. Gold knew that he couldn’t expect Neal to keep coming home for Christmas forever; this was a separation that would come sooner or later, but that didn’t stop him feeling any less bereft at the implications. Their family traditions would soon dwindle away. Whilst it warmed his heart to think that Neal would hopefully soon being making new traditions with a family of his own, Christmas had always been a holiday whereby people felt rather martyred when their own traditions changed, and Gold was no exception.

Still, he supposed that he had better get used to the idea of spending Christmas alone. It wasn’t as if this was going to be a one-off event, more the start of a trend. There was always the hope that once Neal and Emma were established as a couple and had their own family, they might come to him to share Christmas, or he might be invited to spend it with them. He knew that he couldn’t keep Neal to himself forever, and now was as good a time to come to terms with it as any.

Morosely, Gold thought of the unopened bottle of whisky that was waiting for him at home. He’d been saving it for Christmas, but since Christmas wasn’t really going to be happening this year, he might as well break it out now. It would give him something to do whilst he wasn’t decorating the house and the shop. He knew that he shouldn’t be wallowing in self-pity and he knew that Neal would be mad at him if he had known that this was what he intended to do until Twelfth Night, but Neal wasn’t here and wouldn’t be here to judge, so Gold felt justified.

He dragged himself out of his melancholy train of thought when he heard the bell over the shop door jangle. It was late in the afternoon, coming up for closing time. No – he checked the clock – it was already past closing time and he’d been sitting brooding in the back for so long that he had lost track of the hour.

“Mr Gold?”

He was startled back into sharp reality when he heard Miss French’s voice ringing clearly through from the front of the shop, and he stood up so quickly that the chair legs scraped across the floor with an unearthly scream. He had got halfway around the workbench when she peered around the curtain that kept the two rooms separate.

“Oh, hello, Mr Gold. I was locking up the library for the night and I saw that the lights were still on in the shop. You’re not usually here this late and I wanted to make sure that you were all right.”

Gold nodded. “Yes. Yes. I’m all right. Just lost track of the time, that’s all.”

“Oh. Well. That’s all right then.”

There was an awkward silence for a minute, and Miss French shuffled her feet. “I, erm, I guess I had better be going then.”

Gold didn’t reply, because he hadn’t got the first clue what to say. He liked Miss French and very much enjoyed the little conversations they had whenever he went into the library, and he would have been perfectly happy for her to stay in the shop for as long as she liked, but since she had only come on a good Samaritan’s errand, it made no sense to detain her when she had her own life to be attending to.

“I’m sure I’ll see you soon, Miss French,” he said.

She nodded, her manner entirely abstracted, and Gold chanced to look out of the window. A soft dusting of snow was beginning to fall outside. The holiday season had truly begun. With a regretful smile, he remembered just how excited Neal had always been whenever the first snow of the winter had started to come down. Even now that he was grown, Neal still loved the snow. He wondered if it was snowing in Boston.

“The weather’s turning,” he commented as he followed Miss French through to the main shop, intending to leave after her and lock up.

“Yes. Christmas is definitely coming now.” She glanced at him and gave a guilty smile. “Sorry.”

“It’s quite all right. Just because Neal isn’t coming home for Christmas, it doesn’t mean that everyone else has to postpone their own excitement.”

They left the shop, and Gold paused by his car. “Would you allow me to give you a lift home, Miss French?”

“Oh no, that’s really not necessary.”

“Please, I insist. This really isn’t the weather to be walking.”

“It’s all right, Mr Gold. I don’t have to go far.” She indicated the darkened library across the street. “I live in the apartment above the library.”

Of course he knew that. She rented it from him. He’d got so caught up in the spur of the moment that it hadn’t registered. His embarrassment must have shown on his face, for Miss French gave a little giggle and hastily turned away with a cough before she could look at him again.

“Actually, Mr Gold, there is another reason why I came by your shop this evening.” She took a step closer to him, lifting her chin boldly as if she was presenting him with some kind of a challenge, although Gold did not know for the life of him what it could be. “I was wondering, since Neal’s not coming for Christmas this year, would you like to spend the day with me instead?”

“I… Pardon?”

“It’s never nice to spend Christmas on your own,” she continued. “And since you’re not doing anything else, I’d be very happy for you to come and spend Christmas with me.”

Gold wasn’t quite sure why he was panicking. It wasn’t unheard of for people to spend Christmas with each other after all, but for Miss French to be asking him to spend it with her was something unprecedented, and he was beginning to think that he’d actually fallen asleep at the workbench and any minute now, he’d wake up with a crick in his neck to find that this was all a very pleasant dream.

“It’s very kind of you to offer, Miss French, but I would hate to impose. Don’t you have your own plans for the season?”

Belle shook her head with a shrug. “Not really. I usually go over to Granny’s for Christmas dinner with her and Ruby, but they won’t mind if I make other plans. That’s more something that I do because I’ve always done it. I think it’s time for me to make some new Christmas traditions.”

Well, Gold was certainly going to have to start making some new Christmas traditions of his own now that Neal was moving on. In his head, he was mulling over all the possible things that could go wrong with accepting the invitation, all of them boiling down to the fact that Miss French was a very attractive young woman whom he had been very fond of for a long time now, and with Christmas spirits in plentiful flow, he might not be trusted to keep those facts to himself.

All the same, she was looking at him with such earnest expectation, and perhaps a little nervousness and excitement. There was something in her expression that was more than just pity for the lonely old man who had no-one to spend Christmas with because his son had flown the nest and no-one else in the town liked him enough to invite him anywhere.

“Would you truly like me to come?” he asked. He could hardly go when she was just extending the invitation out of sympathy, it would be the cruellest of blows.

Belle nodded emphatically. “Yes. I would love for you to come.”

“In that case, Miss French, I would love to come.”

“Belle.” She smiled, and in that moment it looked she could have illuminated a thousand Christmas trees. “I think that if we’re spending Christmas Day together, we can go onto first name terms.”

“Belle.” He knew her name, of course, but he’d never yet called her by it. Names were powerful, they were indicators of intimacy, and they had to be earned.

Well, Belle had certainly earned his.

“Lennox,” he said softly. “My name is Lennox.”

He didn’t think that it was possible for Belle’s smile to have become any more radiant, but it did.

“Thank you, Lennox.”

There was a pause then, not screamingly awkward but not exactly comfortable either. Their little acquaintance had turned a corner into a proper friendship now, and it was clear that neither of them knew what they ought to say now to mark the occasion.

Eventually Gold gave a little cough.

“Good night, Belle. I’ll see you around.”

“And I’ll certainly see you for Christmas, Lennox. Good night.”

She went up on tiptoe to press a chaste little peck to his cheek before crossing the road to the library again, and for a long time after she had disappeared inside, Gold stayed standing by his car in the gently falling snow, still not quite able to believe what had just happened.

It was only once Christmas morning had dawned that Belle began to realise that perhaps inviting Mr Gold – Lennox, his name was Lennox and she couldn’t stop thinking about that name – over for the day was perhaps not quite such a good idea as she had first thought.

It was the first time that Belle had ever hosted Christmas. Granny always made cooking Christmas dinner look so effortless, but that was probably because Belle and Ruby were always a bit worse for wear with mulled wine by the time Granny was cooking, and so they were never paying as much attention as they perhaps should have done and still subconsciously worked on the principle that the food was conjured up by magic somehow.

How Belle wished that she had paid more attention now. She was not the world’s greatest cook at the best of times, but her mother had always assured her that Christmas dinner was one of the easiest meals to prepare. All you had to do was put things in the oven, she had said. There weren’t a lot of complicated recipes and ingredients involved.

Although she had always idolised her mother, Belle was beginning to think that she had lied about Christmas dinner being an easy meal to prepare. She had a turkey in the oven and now she was peeling potatoes, but she had no idea how long she was supposed to cook them for, and the idea of serving Lennox something inedible didn’t really go with what she had said about really wanting him to come over and spend the day with her. People didn’t usually poison guests whom they felt strongly about.

She really did feel strongly about Lennox. In a good way. Saying that she had ulterior motives in inviting him over was probably stretching it a bit, but she did enjoy his company, and she didn’t want to see him sad. It had taken a lot of denial for her to finally admit that her feelings stretched further than simple neighbourly concern and that whilst she really didn’t want him to be lonely, she was also inviting him over because she had a bit of a crush on him.

Looking down at the potatoes, she wondered if life would have been slightly easier if she didn’t have those kinds of feelings towards him. If she wasn’t looking to try and impress him, then things would be different. It wouldn’t matter if the potatoes were underdone or the turkey was overdone, or indeed the other way round, as it was looking like at the moment. She peered into the oven and looked at the turkey critically. If anything, it appeared to be looking even more raw than when it went in, to the point where she checked that she had actually switched the oven on.

Belle threw her hands up in despair, looking at the oven and the mound of still-unpeeled potatoes and then at the door. Lennox was going to be arriving any minute, and he was going to be coming into an unmitigated disaster.

On cue, there was a knock at the door and Belle gave a little groan, resting her head against the fridge. The moment of reckoning was upon her. She checked her reflection in the hall mirror as she went to let in her guest and grimaced on seeing her hair mussed and flyaway where she had been running her hands through it in despair. Her cheeks were also flushed from the heat of the kitchen, and the slightly less than pure thoughts about Lennox that had been running through her mind all morning. She could have looked better, but she definitely could have looked worse as well.

She finger-combed through her hair and gave the apartment a final onceover before opening the door. She hoped she hadn’t gone overboard on the mistletoe. It seemed like the obvious thing to do, and there was a large sprig of it hanging from the light fitting in the middle of the room. Putting some in the doorway would have been a little bit too on the nose, she thought, but you definitely couldn’t miss that large bough. Still, it gave him plenty of space around it to avoid it if he wanted. Belle had to keep reminding herself that there was nothing to be gained from assuming that her feelings were reciprocated. He had seemed very happy to be invited over, but that might just be because he was grateful for any company that he could get in Neal’s absence, not necessarily because she was the specific person who was going to be keeping him company.

“Merry Christmas, Lennox.”

She opened the door wide to let him in and he stamped the snow off his shoes before he came inside, holding out bottle bag and a small, delicately wrapped gift.

“I thought that if I was getting a free meal then the least that I could do would be to provide the wine,” he said. “And this is for you. Merry Christmas, Belle.”

She felt her face redden even further as she took the parcel. “Thank you, but I didn’t get you anything.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

And it didn’t matter; she could tell that from his voice. He just wanted to give her the gift. Belle smiled to herself as she set the bottle on the dining table and began to unfasten the ribbon around the box. The town might say that Lennox Gold was heartless, but Belle thought that she knew better.

Inside the box was a fine gold bracelet chain with a charm in the shape of a rose.

“Oh my… this is truly beautiful, Lennox. You shouldn’t have.”

“It was just something that I found in the shop.” He sounded sheepish, like a bashful schoolboy almost. “I saw it and I thought of you.”

He came over, taking the chain out of the box and unfastening the clasp. “May I?”

Belle nodded mutely, holding out her hand so that he could fasten the bracelet around her wrist. He held her hand up to the light so that she could admire it, and stayed holding on for perhaps a split second too long for natural propriety. They were both looking at each other rather than the jewellery, and Belle wondered if saying something right now would break the spell. Something was hanging in the air between them, and although Belle liked to think that she knew what it was and where it would lead, she didn’t want to presume.

Lennox let go of her hand suddenly, as if sensing the passage of time, and Belle wished that he had kept holding on.

The beeping of the kitchen timer pulled them out of that tense, quiet moment, and she tore herself away from him, rushing into the kitchen to silence the annoying alarm. Unfortunately, now that she was in here, she couldn’t remember what the alarm was supposed to signify. Was it time to baste the turkey, or time to put the potatoes in the oven? She could hardly do that whilst they weren’t peeled, and she gave an exclamation of frustration, wishing that she’d set out a better plan for herself.

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

Lennox had peered around the kitchen doorway and Belle spun on her heel to face him, plastering a bright and false smile on her face. Just a minute ago, she had been incredibly happy, buoyed up on good will and the unexpected gift; now her plans were in danger of falling down around her ears.

“No, no, it’s all right, everything’s under control. You’re a guest, just make yourself at home, nothing I can’t handle.”

He didn’t move, obviously not believing a word of what she was saying, and Belle sighed. Lennox came into the kitchen fully.

“What do you need?” he asked simply.

Belle gave a huff of bitter laughter. “Someone to tell me how to make a proper Christmas dinner,” she muttered, before looking up at him again. “I’m sorry. I invited you over intending for us to have a nice day, and a nice meal, but I think I might have bitten off more than I can chew. Granny always made cooking Christmas dinner look so easy.”

Lennox left the room without another word, and Belle felt her shoulders sag. Admitting that she couldn’t cook probably wasn’t the best of ideas.

A moment later though, he was back, having discarded his jacket somewhere, rolling up his sleeves.

“I’m happy to help,” he said, before repeating: “What do you need?”

Belle gestured at the potatoes. “Potatoes. The turkey’s already in. Oh no, I forgot the chipolatas!” She rushed to the fridge and got out the sausages, and then a light touch on her arm stopped her in her tracks.

“It’ll be all right.” Lennox was smiling, and if he had been anyone else and they had been in any other situation, Belle might have thought that he was making fun of her, but she knew that he wasn’t. He was offering to help her, and she knew that she needed to accept that help.

She nodded. “What do we do next?”

“Heat some oil in a roasting tin for the potatoes.” He went over to the cutting board and picked up the knife, paring the skins off the potatoes with the ease of a master chef who’d been peeling potatoes all his life. “Whilst you’re putting the potato tin in the oven to preheat, baste the turkey to stop it drying out.”

Belle nodded and obeyed his instructions, then set about helping him to prepare the rest of the vegetables.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “When I invited you to come over, I bet you didn’t think that you’d be cooking your own Christmas dinner. It was supposed to be a nice break from tradition for you.”

“It’s still a new tradition,” Lennox said. “I don’t normally cook Christmas dinner above the library. Besides, I like cooking, especially at Christmas time. It’s hardly a chore.” He paused. “Perhaps next year…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, looking away with an embarrassed cough and focussing an inordinate amount of attention onto the potatoes. Belle supplied the rest of the thought in her mind.

Perhaps next year you could cook for me in your salmon pink house…

She gave a secret little smile at the thought, but she kept it to herself, and they continued to work next to each other in companionable silence for the next few minutes until everything was prepared. Even though what they had been doing was comparatively simple cookery, it was still much less nerve-wracking not having to do everything by herself. Lennox poured them both some wine whilst they were waiting for the meal to finish cooking, and she held up her glass.

“A festive toast,” she said. “What shall we toast to?”

Lennox smiled, chinking his glass to hers. “To having company for the holidays.”

“Hear hear.”

This time, when the timer bleeped, Belle knew what it was for, and she looked at Lennox with a giddy grin. The fact that they’d cooked it together made it seem more special somehow. She had been worried that the day would be awkward, that perhaps they did not know each other well enough for her to have made this overture. Now, she knew that she had done the right thing, and without any conscious effort on either of their parts, they were truly comfortable around each other.

Even if nothing else came of the day, she knew that she could be assured of friendship, and she hoped that Lennox was feeling the same way.

The food had been excellent; the fact that he had helped to prepare it did not diminish the fact that it was a meal that he had been invited to, that someone had wanted to share with him. It was infinitely better than whatever he would have cooked for himself at home would have been. In fact, helping with the cooking had been good, giving him something to occupy his mind and hands with that was not just thinking about Belle and her possible reasons for inviting him today.

He had not anticipated having a Christmas dinner at all until Belle had extended her offer; it was far too much hassle just for one person. Truth be told, ever since Neal had left for college, Gold had not been the best at cooking for himself. He had not lied to Belle when he said that he enjoyed cooking; but it was more that he enjoyed cooking for other people. There never seemed to be much point in just cooking for himself.

“Thank you for a wonderful dinner,” he said, once they had cleared the dessert plates and were sitting on Belle’s overstuffed sofa, finishing the bottle of wine.

“Thank you for cooking it.” Belle giggled and chinked her glass against his.

“And, erm, thank you for inviting me today. I thought I was alone this Christmas.”

Belle shook her head. “You’ll never have to be alone at Christmas if you don’t want to be. You never have to be alone at any time of year, really.”

The tension that had been there before, when he had given her the bracelet earlier, had returned. It had been nicely absent whilst they had been cooking and eating, as there had been something else to focus on, but now there was only each other. The rest of the world seemed to fall away in that moment, reducing everything to just the two of them sitting on the sofa.

Gold glanced up, looking at the mistletoe hanging above him. He had noticed it when he had first entered the apartment, and he had been thinking about it ever since, wondering at its significance and hoping that he might have the chance to catch Belle under it and steal a peck on her cheek. They were sitting right under it, and Belle must have known that when she’d put it up there in the first place.

He looked over at her to see her pink tongue dart out and run over her lips. She was watching him carefully, her eyes never leaving his, and he chanced to lean in a little closer.

“It is tradition, after all,” he murmured. Belle nodded vigorously, and before Gold could do anything to protest, their mouths had met in a passionate kiss, hands carding into hair and eyes closing. Not that he would have wanted to protest even if he could. It was all happening very quickly, but he would have been lying if he had said he had not been entertaining thoughts of kissing Belle under the mistletoe for a long time.

After what seemed like a lifetime but could only have been a minute, he broke away, and Belle looked up at him through her lashes, bottom lip worrying between her teeth.

“Well, this is one new tradition that I certainly wouldn’t mind having a little more of,” she whispered. Gold nodded his agreement.

“Neither would I.”

Their second kiss was not as frantic as their first. The first time had been sudden, both of them biting the bullet and going for it, not entirely sure that either of their feelings were reciprocated but saying screw it, it’s Christmas, and taking that chance on the festive season. This time, both assured that they were on the same page, they could take their time and truly enjoy the moment. Belle scrambled closer on the sofa, linking her arms around Gold’s neck, and he wrapped his own around her middle, pulling her in against his chest. He had never been gladder to have taken a chance on an invitation.

Before he could kiss her again, however, the moment was interrupted with absolutely impeccable timing by Skype’s annoying ringtone blasting out of his phone, making both of them jump and Gold scrabble around in his pocket to find the offending item.

It was Neal calling.

“Do you mind?” he asked Belle. She shook her head.

“No, you should take it.”

He answered the call and Neal and Emma’s faces filled the screen, squashed in together and waving.

“Hi Dad!”

“Hi Mr G!”

“Hello you two. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas to you too, Dad.” Neal paused, his brow furrowing. “Where are you? It doesn’t look like you’re at home.”

“Ah, no. I’m actually in Belle’s – Miss French’s – apartment.” He turned the phone so that Neal could see Belle on the sofa beside him, and she waved cheerfully before hiding her face in her hands in embarrassment as he turned the camera away from her. “She invited me over for Christmas dinner.”

He decided not to mention the mistletoe and kissing just yet. Neal was obviously incredibly surprised to find that his father was in company on Christmas day and it wouldn’t do to give the poor boy a heart attack.

“Ok. Well, good for you. We were just calling to see how you were, you know.”

Gold felt a little pang of guilt for not informing Neal of his plans; he had rung expecting to find his father alone, but as it was, he was out on the town having a very good time. He wondered if Neal was put out to find him so seemingly unaffected by his absence.

“Well, we also wanted to get away from my parents trying to rope us into playing Christmas Trivial Pursuit,” Emma added. “I mean, I love them, don’t get me wrong, but they do tend to go a bit overboard at Christmas. It’s their favourite holiday.”

Gold laughed; he had never met Emma’s parents personally but he had heard enough about them to know that she wasn’t exaggerating.

“I guess we should leave you in peace, Dad,” Neal said.

“It’s all right. I should have told you that I had made plans; I hate to think that you were worried about me.”

“Well, I was a little. It’s our first Christmas apart, after all, and I know how much you love your traditions. But I’m very happy that you’ve found someone new to spend Christmas with, just like I have. Who knows? Maybe this time next year all four of us will be at home in Storybrooke.”

“Neal!” Gold exclaimed. Neal gave him a knowing look; if he hadn’t already figured out that his father was embarking on something more than friendship with Belle, then Gold knew that his reaction would have been a dead giveaway.

He glanced over at Belle. Whilst he had been enjoying their kisses so far, they had only been romantically involved to ten minutes, and planning future Christmases was getting very ahead of time.

Belle just shrugged, and the smile she gave him was almost smouldering.

“I wouldn’t be averse to that,” she admitted.

Gold felt his stomach tie itself in knots. He wouldn’t be averse to it either, but it was still far too soon to be admitting such things.

On the other end of the phone in Boston, Neal was just killing himself laughing, and Gold scowled.

“Don’t think that I can’t be mad at you just because you’re in a different state,” he muttered.

“Oh, come on, Dad, I was just teasing. By the time that I get back there, you’ll have forgotten all about this conversation.” He paused. “Honestly though, I’m really happy for you. I think it’s time that we all started with some new traditions.”

Gold nodded. “Yes. Perhaps it is time to move on and ring in the new.”

They continued to talk for another minute, just exchanging pleasantries, and then they said their goodbyes. Gold hastily stuffed his phone back in his pocket.

“I do apologise for that interruption.”

Belle just shuffled closer to him on the sofa, burrowing herself in against his side and draping his arm around her. “That’s all right. I think it’s nice that he was thinking about you even though he wasn’t here, and that he wanted to make sure that you were all right. It shows that your traditions mean a lot to him too, even though you are both going through a process of change. You’re both right, though. Bringing in new traditions isn’t a bad thing.”

Gold leaned in to press a kiss to her glossy brown curls, piled up on top her head to keep them out of the way whilst she had been cooking.

“I think that this tradition is one that we can continue next year,” he said.

Belle smiled. “I’m very glad to hear it.”

#Rumbelle Secret Santa #nerdrumple #rumbelle fic #rumbelle #Belle French #Mr Gold #festive fic #fluff #Fic: Old Traditions and New

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toumakibangs · 5 years

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°*TouMaki - Advent Calendar 2018*° DAY 06 - “LIGHTS” by @grimelius

Mod’s Note: …remember what I said about ActualChristmasTree!Makishima being universally accepted as canon? Good. Please enjoy this winter trip to Toudou-an - the season really becomes the place and its inhabitants! Thanks, @grimelius, for sharing!**

Author’s Note: Merry Christmas everyone! I hope your year ends well!

Makishima stepped off the train platform at the Hakone station and took a deep breath as he tried to force himself to relax. There was nothing strange about spending time with a friend over the winter break and since he was going to spend New Years with his family, that meant that the most convenient time to go visit just so happened to be Christmas. One of the more romantic holidays, spent with Toudou Jinpachi and the rest of his family.

Makishima figured it would either be a complete wreck or extremely entertaining and he was hoping for the latter. The real issue that worried Makishima was between him and Toudou. After all they were… what exactly? Makishima sighed and hitched his bag up and headed towards the exit, following the stream of busy people.

Neither he nor Toudou had actually talked about what was happening between them. They were now far beyond friends but neither had said that word and it was looming over both of them, creeping into the silent spaces whenever Toudou or Makishima couldn’t find something to say.

It had almost been enough to make Makishima decline the invitation when Toudou had called him up a few weeks earlier and told him that winter break was a perfect time to come down and spend time relaxing at an onsen and no one in their right mind would pass up a free stay at a spectacular historical inn and wasn’t Maki-chan lucky that he could go for free and so on and so on.

But he did want to go, nerves aside and well, if he was being practical, the two of them really should talk. And he wanted to do it in person, not over the phone and-

“Maki-chan!”

Makishima almost jumped out of his shoes. He looked around surprised since he’d expected to be tackled but where was Toudou? The exit was full of people rushing in every direction and Makishima didn’t see Toudou anywhere.

“Over here! Quick!”

Makishima swiveled to follow the voice and finally saw it, a small white pickup truck and looking out from the drivers’ side; two nearly identical people were waving at him enthusiastically. Jinpachi and his older sister Nana. It was unnerving how similar they looked even though they were siblings, though Nana didn’t share her brother’s obsession for headbands.

“Toss your stuff in the back and hop in” Nana called out and Makishima obeyed before cramming himself in next to them and they took off down the road.

“How was the train down?” Toudou asked.

“Quiet. Nothing really happened,” Makishima replied. “Which is how I like it.”

“Well prepare yourself for chaos because we’ve got a Christmas on a weekend this year so the inn is extra busy. Not that you need to worry about that, but I have to work a little,” Toudou admitted.

“Heh, I don’t mind helping out if you need me too. As long as it’s not guest relations,” Makishima offered.

Both Jinpachi and Nana laughed at the suggestion. “Don’t worry, Makishima-san. We’ll save that for the fifth time you come to visit,” Nana teased him and Makishima grinned a little. Next to him, Toudou slipped his hand into his and squeezed.

Between the two over-talkative siblings, it was almost impossible for Makishima to get much of a word in but he didn’t really mind. Hakone was as beautiful as ever and Jinpachi and Nana took the opportunity to point out every interesting or historical thing they drove through town. It didn’t take long for them to reach the inn and as soon as they got up to Toudou’s room, he pulled Makishima’s bag away and slipped into his arms, and kissed him. Makishima wrapped his arms around his waist and pulled him closer until they broke apart and Toudou nestled in closer, resting his head against his shoulder.

“Finally some privacy. I missed you! I don’t get to see you enough now that the season is over,” Toudou complained.

“Mmmm. The season hasn’t been over that long,” Makishima replied but he would be lying if he said that he didn’t miss seeing Toudou constantly at races. Finding the time and energy to get to Hakone or Chiba was always easier said than done.

“Long enough, plus you were supposed to come down sooner than this,” Toudou replied as he stepped back. “Let’s get you settled in for now” and he grabbed Makishima’s bag and set it out of the way by his bed. “I’ll grab a futon and bedding for you later.

“Thanks.” Makishima looked around at Toudou’s room. It looked like Toudou had put a little tree on his desk but otherwise it was as Makishima remembered, a small bed against the wall, a mirror next to his closet, dresser drawers, a desk and a ridiculous amount of biking and mountain posters. It was small and cozy, so different from Makishima’s own large and fancy house.

“Maki-chan, are you listening?”

“Hmm?” Makishima turned his attention back to Toudou who looked a little annoyed.

“I was saying texts and phone calls aren’t the same and that we need to work harder if we want to see each other during the off season,” Toudou pointed out.

“Oh, yeah. Okay,” Makishima agreed.

“Well, make yourself at home,” Toudou offered. “Are you hungry? Do you want a drink or anything?”

Makishima shook his head and sat down on the bed and Toudou regarded him carefully before sitting next to him on the bed.

“Are you okay with spending Christmas with us?”

Makishima thought about it. “It’s fine. We usually just have cake and junk food and stuff. My sister likes to decorate a little but that’s about it. Sometimes our parents get us presents. It’s not a big thing for us,” Makishima explained. “I just don’t want to get in the way.”

“Don’t worry,” Toudou reassured him, “You’re a guest. And my parents only put their own children to work so you’re safe.”

“You don’t want me scaring away your guests?” Makishima teased him.

“There is proper way to treat guests at Toudou-Ann and if you want to work with them, you’ll have to go through training, Toudou said primly. “We have a high reputation to maintain. Now it’s my turn. Did you get me a Christmas present?”

Makishima was surprised by the sudden topic change but he nodded yes.

Toudou looked absolutely delighted and Makishima said quickly, “It’s nothing too fancy or anything. Just so you know.”

“I’ll love anything you give me Maki-chan,” Toudou promised him. “I got you one too.”

“I hope you like neon,” and he smiled a little when Toudou rolled his eyes and elbowed him in the ribs.

“You ju-st got here, don’t make me kick you out so soon.”

Makishima laughed and let his head fall onto Toudou’s shoulder and he felt his chest swell when Toudou leaned his head against his and wrapped an arm around his waist.

———-

Makishima spent the remainder of the day visiting with Toudou’s family, getting introduced to some of the staff, helping out around the inn and hoping they would get to into the baths that evening. Toudou insisted that Makishima could sit and relax while he finished up his chores but Makishima liked having something to do and after all he was there to spend time with Toudou even if that meant folding his own weight in pillowcases.

“Usually we’re not this busy at Christmas time but as soon as it’s a weekend, everyone decides to turn it into a trip,” Toudou complained, glaring at the vast piles of folded sheets and bedding all over the huge laundry room. Makishima kept folding what felt like endless piles of pillowcases, the static in the air making his hair frizz up.

“It should be quiet for New Year’s right? You guys aren’t as busy then?” Makishima asked, pushing his hair behind his ears for what felt like the thousandth time.

“Well we technically shut down for the 1st through the 3rd so we’re not busy, we’re just closed. Some places stay open but for us, it’s one of the only times we close during the year. Maybe we’ll get snow this New Year? he wondered.

“Do you get snow for Christmas?” Makishima asked.

“I think it’s happened once or twice in my life before but not usually,” Toudou replied thoughtfully. “We usually get snow further into winter.”

“What’s the plan for tomorrow?”

“Hmmm, well you can sleep in if you want; I have to help with breakfast prep. Then we can go into town and or do whatever we want, Toudou suggested. “We can hang out here if you want. Maybe go hiking? I’m sure we’ll need to go to the store for some reason. We’re doing presents for sure though!”

The next day, Christmas day turned out almost exactly as Toudou had predicted. Makishima woke up to busy inn, staff members busy at work and members of the Toudou family scattered all over the premises. Makishima took the time to eat, read and then soak in the baths, enjoying himself but also trying not to add more work to the already busy family.

Finally in the late afternoon, Toudou and Makishima managed to sneak off to Toudou’s room to exchange gifts.

“Me first! I want to open mine first, the suspense is killing me. After what you said, I need to know the color!” Toudou demanded impatiently.

Makishima laughed but went and pulled a vividly wrapped present from his bag and tossed it to Toudou. “Merry Christmas Jinpachi. I uh, I hope it fits?” he said hopefully. “We’re the same height so…”

Toudou didn’t bother with finesse; he tore into the present scattering paper everywhere and yanked the box open as quickly as he could.

“Oh my god, look at this!” Toudou gushed and held up the shirt so he could see it better.

Makishima had bought Toudou a long sleeved shirt with different traditional Japanese patterns crisscrossing each other. The fabric was light grey and the patterns were printed in dark red, orange and black.

“I love it! I would never have bought this myself but I love it! It’s a weird mix of traditional and crazy.”

“That’s what I was going for, said Makishima, happy that Toudou liked his gift. “It’s traditional but also not.”

Toudou’s gift on the other hand was very practical; a book about long distance cyclying, with a special section focusing on the Tour de France. Makishima had never read this one so he was very happy with his gift.

“I got you one more thing to celebrate Christmas with but you have to wear it today okay? Otherwise it doesn’t make sense,” Toudou added, dragging Makishima’s attention away from his new book.

“Okay?” Makishima said hesitantly. He acknowledged that Toudou’s typical fashion sense was all right, but not his holiday one which could be a little more ahem exuberant than usual. And Makishima knew exuberant for crying out loud.

“Close your eyes,” Toudou ordered and Makishima sighed but obeyed.

“Aaaand open! Tadah!” Toudou crowed. “Christmas lights for your hair!”

Makishima grimaced as he looked at the headband in Toudou’s hands. It was white with a little present on it but dangling from the side was what looked like 30 white lights on a copper wire. Apparently the present was a battery pack that let you turn on the lights. At least they weren’t shaped like Christmas tree lights. Makishima shuddered, that would be even worse.

“You do know that you’re like the 10th person who’s told me to decorate my hair like a Christmas tree right? And that I’ve said no to every person who suggested it?” said Makishima, a little annoyed.

“Let me French braid your hair! Please?” Toudou pleaded. “It’ll be awesome. And not like a tree at all.”

“Why do you know how to braid anyways?” Makishima asked.

“My sister.”

And that was the only explanation that Makishima needed, but he kept protesting.

“I’m going to look ridiculous. My hair is barely long enough to braid anyways.”

“Excuse you! This summer your hair was just a little further than your shoulders and now it’s way past that. It’s going to be by your waist by the summer interhigh if you don’t cut it soon. You’re the hairiest guy I know!”

Makishima glared at Toudou who shrugged and added sheepishly, “You know what I mean. It’ll be beautiful.”

“Nothing can make me beautiful, let alone a weird braid,” Makishima thought dryly but it was Christmas and only Toudou would see him and he’d already taken it out of the packaging so…

“Fine,” he agreed. “You can braid my hair but don’t even think of hanging ornaments off me. Or anything like that.”

“I hadn’t even thought of that; that’s a wonderful idea Maki-chan,” Toudou said cheerfully.

Makishima groaned but sat down on the floor in front of the bed so Toudou could scoot behind him and still reach his hair. It didn’t take long for him to relax under the feeling of Toudou’s hands as he brushed his hair out and then began to braid, carefully weaving the lights into the long strands until Makishima’s hair was tied into an elegant braid, with the copper wire making his hair look even more iridescent than usual. Toudou tied the braid off with a hair tie and sat back so he could admire his work. Makishima reached up and tried to feel his hair but Toudou swatted his hands away.

“Hold still! Let me turn on the lights then you can look, okay?”

“Hurry up then,” Makishima complained and he twisted and turned around trying to see his back.

Toudou clicked the switch on the headband and Makishima tried to crane his neck to see but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t see but he heard Toudou gasp and he reached out to grab his shoulders to pull him around.

“You look amazing. It’s gorgeous! Here, go look in the mirror.”

Makishima went over to the full-length mirror that hung next to the door and tried to get a better look as Toudou hounded his steps.

Well it was certainly… something. His braided hair did look attractive and the lights scattered throughout it made him think of a Christmas tree but it also made him look almost ethereal, like a forest creature. Well, as ethereal as one could look wearing grey plaid lounge pants and a white t-shirt that said ‘Climb High!’ in neon blue letters. It wasn’t the worse thing that he’d done with his hair, Makishima decided.

“Pictures! Come back over here so I can get some shots.” Toudou waved him back over to the bed with his phone in his hand. Makishima knew better than to protest and he went where Toudou directed him and obeyed as Toudou pushed him into different poses and took pictures from every angle possible.

“I’m tempted to put you in some of my clothes but I don’t think that would really capture you. Besides, you look beautiful like this.”

“What?” Makishima said incredulously. “I’m in lounge pants and an oversized t-shirt. There’s nothing beautiful about me.”

“I disagree,” Toudou said. “I think you look beautiful. And I know plenty about beauty since I’m at the top of the scale. Why? You don’t believe me?”

Makishima shrugged him off. “I believe what you say, not what you see. That’s all.”

Toudou sighed and set his phone down. “Fine, let me show you then.”

“What are you talking about?” Makishima mumbled, avoiding his gaze.

“Let me show you,” he repeated and he went over to the door to turn off the lights, plunging the room into darkness except for Makshima’s hair. The tiny lights illuminated everything and yet nothing. Toudou came back to sit next to him and he reached out to cup Makishima’s face with his hand. Makishima had barely a moment see his face and all the tiny lights reflecting in his eyes when Toudou kissed him, gently at first but putting some pressure behind it until Makishima began to kiss him back. Then Toudou reached out and wrapped his arm around Makishima’s waist but unlike every other time, he slipped it under his t-shirt and across the small of Makishima’s back, running his hand down his side.

Makishima felt his brain short circuit as he suddenly realized what Toudou meant by ‘show you’ and his stomach clenched from nerves. He froze up, not sure if he wanted Toudou to keep going or if he wanted to push him away. Fortunately, Toudou noticed his reaction immediately and pulled back.

“Don’t worry. We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. I promise. You set the pace,” Toudou reassured him gently.

“I want- I’m not sure what- do whatever you like I guess…” Makishima mumbled, his tongue thick in his mouth, making it even harder to speak than usual. Ever since they’d started getting closer, he’d thought about them doing things, very specific things but it had always been hypothetical, not really something that he ever expected to happen and now he was sittin in the dark, on Jinpachi’s bed with his hands under his clothes and his hair providing otherworldly light it as moved and unraveled around them both.

This was not how he expected to be spending his Christmas but he was not complaining either.

“Do you know what you’re doing at all?” Makishima asked, half shy, half embarrassed by his own lack of experience.

“Not really,” Toudou admitted cheerfully. “I just like touching you. It’s nice.”

Makishima blushed so hard it felt like his entire chest on up was on fire. He didn’t know how to react. A small part of him wanted to curl up and pull away but a far larger part of him desperately wanted Jinpachi to touch him more, to cover his entire body with his hands and mouth and the heat of his body.

It was terrifying. And wonderful.

So Makishima decided to be bold. He scooted backwards until he had a enough space so that he could lie down on his side and Toudou moved with him, lying next to him so they were pressed together or as closely as they could be as they awkwardly jostled each other trying to figure out how they could fit their bodies together but not accidentally elbow one of them in the face or gut. They almost cracked heads at one point and Toudou had to get off Makishima’s hair so it wasn’t crushed underneath them.

But then they were together, face to face, chest to chest, their legs intertwining and hands carefully reaching out to touch, trace and creep under clothing. Toudou kept kissing Makishima on his lips, his face, his neck, his hair and it made it hard for him to him to focus on anything. He was certain that he had a hand wrapped around Toudou’s back, clutching at his shirt but where was his other one? Maybe he could pull Toudou even closer? The sudden need to get even closer consumed Makishima. He ground his hips against Toudou and he heard the groan slip from his mouth and there had to be some other position that would let them get closer and-

All the warning they had was a loud bam against the closed door but it was enough. Toudou flung himself so far away from Makishima that he fell over the side of the bed with a loud crash. Makishima managed to push himself into a sitting position and pull his shirt back down as Hana swung the door open, stopped in apparent confusion then flicked the lights back on.

“Come on you two! It’s snowing and it’s is starting to stick. We need you two to help sweep it up before it gets really bad. Also salt. Everyone else is already outside! ”

Then she noticed her brother laying on the floor, clutching his head and swearing loudly.

“What are you two doing up here?” she demanded, looking suspiciously between them.

“We were exchanging gifts before you decided to interrupt!” Toudou snapped at his sister. Makishima tried to avoid Hana’s gaze, certain that his bright red face would give both of them away. What if she figured it out? This was not how Makishima wanted anyone to find out about their relationship.

“Well, wrap it up! And stop spreading your ridiculous headbands around. The poor guy looks like a walking Christmas tree. ”

“My headbands are not ridiculous. You’ve told us what’s up now go away!” Toudou yelled.

“Both of you get downstairs then!” she snapped back. “You look very cute Makishima, but don’t let my brother corrupt you too much” and she winked.

“I’ll try not to,” Makishima muttered under his breath.

“Let’s get shoveling then its dinnertime and cake,” and she headed back out the door leaving them both to fully recover from the shock.

Toudou sighed and hauled himself to his feet. “I know what I want for Christmas this year, a lock for my door,” he grumbled and slammed his door shut.

“I’m surprised you don’t have one already,” Makishima said weakly flopping back onto the bed and trying to calm his racing heart. He was so relieved that they hadn’t been caught that he didn’t care in the slightest that the mood had been completely ruined.

“Our house is really old and I’m at the dorms most of the time now. But I think it’s time to ask for one.” Toudou turned and offered a hand to Makishima. “Shall we? Before the rest of my family comes in?”

Makishima reached out and Toudou pulled him to his feet but kept holding his hand.

“You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you move that fast outside of a race,” Makishima teased him lightly.

Toudou snorted. “Careful. I’ve got ornaments somewhere. We can still deck you out for Christmas.”

“How about we switch?” Makishima suggested instead.

“Hmmm?”

“Later tonight, you can wear this ridiculous hairband and I’ll kiss you.”

Toudou’s entire face lit up and he pulled Makishima in for a hug. “Well I do tend to look better in headbands than you, so I guess that’s fine with me. You have to take some picture though. Oh! And I can try on my new shirt for a few and…”

Makishima grabbed Toudou and yanked him in for a kiss to shut him up. “We can figure it out later,” Makishima promised. Okay? Before you sister drags us out?”

“Okay,” Toudou agreed happily. “Let’s go. Merry Christmas Maki-chan.”

“Merry Christmas, Jinpachi.”

#toumaki advent calendar 2018 #submission #toumaki #grimelius

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yuniesan · 5 years

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Girl Meets Season 6 - Episode Fourteen – Girl Meets Spring Semester

Girl Meets Season 6

Synopsis: The Journey from High School and into College will test everything Riley knew about her life, her friendships and her love. What life lessons will she learn in her first year of college?

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

A/N: the reason this took so long to post (outside of my real life problems) after my one-shot (which was probably a precursor to another one-shot) was because I heard a song, now hear me out, so the new Backstreet Boys song Chances, inspired me to go back and look at a one-shot I wrote last year, and from that I actually started writing another long fic, because obviously I had to write it after hearing the song. Although that story is going to be RUCAS centric, the other couple will exist yes, but the one shot in question is Love among the stars from Rucas fanfic week, and it has them going to different schools from everyone and all of that. I added a couple of twists, including a secret relationship storyline, because no one can stop me when I want to write something. I'm deciding on a posting schedule for this story, that story, and my Holiday Bingo stories, because I finished my writing sample for my MFA applications (they're being proofed as we speak), so I'm going to trying and write more, which means I want to write everything at once. Once I'm done with one of these things, I'm going back to the superhero AU, and possibly start plotting out season 7 for next year. Hopefully if I get into the MFA program I want to go to, I'll have time to keep writing what I want to write. This next chapter after this one is connected to this chapter, I'm still writing it right now, because I had started writing the first chapter of the other story first... sue me I really wanted to write this secret relationship AU.

Episode Fourteen – Girl Meets Spring Semester

There was a mad dash to get coffee before they left to go back to Maya’s school, Josh just wanted the morning with the two of them alone, since he knew that with his school year ramping up, he wouldn’t have the chance to visit as often as possible. They needed to schedule their lives around one another again and he wasn’t really excited at the prospect. He liked their weekends together, their dates, their lives, but he knew that Maya needed more time with Riley since they had a weird start to college so he wanted to give them that.

“I don’t wanna go,” Maya said slumping next to him on the couch at Topanga’s, “Too tired, want to go to sleep.”

He couldn’t help but laugh at the way she was acting because it was adorable to him, nearly two years together and he kept finding things he would think were dumb but were actually adorable. “I know Maya but you have to go, you’re a good student and you don’t want to fall behind,” he said before pulling her closer and letting her slump over on him to the point where he was sure that she would fall asleep if he didn’t give her coffee.

“I wish we could be like Riley and Lucas,” she mumbled to him before burrowing her face into his scarf. “They get all of this time together, and we have to commute for our dates, it’s not fair.”

“I don’t think it’s that bad, plus soon I’ll be up there with you and you’ll get sick of having me around all of the time,” he pulled off his scarf and put it around her neck, she would at least be warm.

Maya’s mother walked over to them smiling, “She giving you any trouble there?” the older woman said.

Josh shook his head and smiled, “Not a bit, she just needs some coffee and she’ll be alright.”

“That’s why I’m here,” she said as she placed their cups in front of them. “Take care of her on the way up to the school, I would love to go but Shawn is taking me somewhere so I can’t.”

“Don’t worry mom,” Maya mumbled through the scarf. “I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah I know, just be good baby girl,” Maya’s mother walked over giving Maya a kiss, then squeezing Josh’s shoulder before going back to the counter and working on stocking the display.

Josh handed Maya her coffee, getting a smile from her before she pulled down his scarf and taking a sip. She sighed once she finished, and smiled at the cup like it was the elixir of life.

“Feeling better,” he said once she put the cup back down.

“Yeah, would feel way better if you were with me at school though,” she sighed before leaning back into him. “I was serious, about wishing for what Riley and Lucas have, they sleepover in each other’s rooms, they have lunch dates, and all of that, and I want it.”

“Riley and Lucas get to have sleepovers because they go to the same school, while we don’t, we do have things that they don’t,” he said trying to bring forward the Brightside of their relationship.

“Yeah but I never get to see you like that, it’s just I guess it’s something I want.”

“Maya do you want to live with me? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Maybe, I guess it’s just that I’m a little jealous that they get all of that and we don’t.”

“Maya, my sweet, sweet girlfriend, just because Riley and Lucas have sleepovers doesn’t mean that we can’t...”

Josh was going to say more but a cup shattered behind them causing the two of them to jump, before seeing his brother standing behind them. His eyes wide as he looked between Maya and Josh, which means he heard some of their conversation, and Josh knew that they were in for it soon. Before he could stop Cory, his older brother moved so fast he hadn’t had the chance to grab him. He knew that Riley and Lucas were going to be in the middle of a storm the moment her father reached them, and Josh felt a little guilty, and from the look Maya had on her face so did she. The two of them sighed and got up, moving towards the exit, Josh texting his sister in law, who was probably asleep, on the way to his car.

Riley wondered why there was such a long time between semesters in college, it was five weeks of being at home, five weeks of going out with her friends, hanging out with her family, and of course getting sick. Now that the new semester was starting, she felt as if she had done nothing notable during the break even though she had gone out constantly. The break wasn’t as important as getting internships during the summer months, but it still felt weird not doing anything that would benefit her future. Now the spring semester was going to start and she wasn’t sure how she would be able to pay for things with the little money she did have saved up.

“You know sugar,” Zay said as he helped her with her bags. “You could have packed a little less, I mean you didn’t even take this much with you when you left.”

“Not my fault,” she said with a smile while carrying her laundry bag which was filled with extra pillows and blankets. “I didn’t know I needed all of this until I didn’t have it with me,” which was true, especially since people were always in her room hanging out, more so now that Maya, Josh, Farkle, and Smackle were feeling more comfortable with coming over and not living in their own little lovey dovey world. Which Riley thought it was cute, that they were all so in love, but she had missed her friends.

Zay sighed, before Charlie walked up and grabbed the other end of Riley’s suitcase and helping Zay up the stairs with it. She really hadn’t thought about bringing so much with her, but with Lucas always hanging out in her room, and now that her and Maya were going to figure out how to hang out more. There was a need to have things around, clothes to share, or more pillows so that Lucas wouldn’t sacrifice his arm to her. Even though she liked the feeling of his arms around her when they were watching movies, it only became a problem when they fell asleep and she ended up with his arm as a pillow.

“Oh, Riley,” Maya said as she rushed up towards her, “Josh said to tell you that he’s sorry.”

“Sorry about what?” Riley asked wondering what her Uncle could feel sorry about, they hadn’t seen much of each other since he had gone with Maya to Philly the week before the semester started. She knew that he was nearby too, because he had been helping Maya with her bags not too long ago, so now he was hiding from her too.

“Um well,” she said not looking her in the eye, “He may or may not have accidentally told your dad about Lucas staying over in your room a lot.”

“What?” Riley yelled out dropping the bag she had been holding, watching it as it rolled down the stairs. “What do you mean he accidentally told my dad, Maya my dad shouldn’t know things like that.”

“Well it was an accident, we were talking at the café, before we came back up here, and I was telling Josh about how I wish he could sleep over at my dorm with me like you and Lucas do and Josh was saying that maybe on a few weekends, that way we could all hang out more, and your dad had been standing behind us the entire time... so... yeah that happened,” she said and Riley knew it was an accident but what she was afraid of was her father showing up and ruining one of the good things that had kept her grounded during the first semester away from home.

“Maya, I need my Lucas time, we’re all so busy and it’s going to get busier and oh god my father is going to be in my room the minute I get up there isn’t he,” she said as the realization dawned on her. There’s only so much her mother could do to stop him, but if she didn’t know that he was coming up here with the pretext of knowing something then she wouldn’t stop him.

“Hey Riley,” Sam said as she was walking towards them, “your dad is in our room, and he’s doing something weird.”

Riley left the laundry bag and ran to her room just as Zay and Charlie were dropping off her stuff, watching as her father tapped up her window with a sheet, she noticed that some of her drawers had been opened as if he had been looking for something.

“Dad,” she yelled out looking at her room in horror. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Boys, I’m trying to keep boys away,” he said a nervous hitch in his voice. “No boys, boys bad, boys will take away my little girl’s innocence.”

Without even thinking she walked in and pulled him away from her window, forcing him to look her in the eye, “This is going too far,” she said to him her voice hard with anger. “I’m eighteen years old, I’m allowed to grow up, nothing is happening between me and Lucas that you don’t already know about.”

“But sex,” he started but before he could say anything, she put her hand up to stop him.

“No,” she said to him. “This is an invasion of privacy, I’m not living at home, you had no right to do this,” she could feel anger rolling through her, when she was growing up, she thought it was nice to have him worry, but now it was going too far. “Lucas and I only sleep in the same bed, and mostly it’s because we’re watching movies, his clothes which you have thrown all over this room are only here because I tend to steal them from his room, it’s a thing, girl’s steal their boyfriend’s sweaters all of the time.”

“That’s true Matthews,” Maya said from the door, she was actually wearing Josh’s NYU hoodie which long enough to be a dress on her, especially with how tall Josh was compared to the blonde.

“Now take all of that off the window, and get out before I call mom and tell her what you did,” she said knowing that her father’s Achilles heel was her mother, even after all of these years he was still afraid of making her angry.

Her father mumbled a fine, before undoing all of his work, Riley got to work on picking up what he had taken out of her drawers, looking for who knows what, while Zay brought in her laundry bag which had been left at the bottom of the stairs. Hiding behind him was Lucas, who didn’t dare go into the room, or let it be known that he was standing there. Rushing off she went to greet him, pulling him away from the door.

“Do I want to know what happened?” he asked once they were in the student kitchen on the other end of the hallway.

“Maya and Josh were talking about us,” she said looking up at him. “About how we tend to sleep on top of one another when we watch movies, and how she wished she could have that with Josh and well...”

“Your dad heard,” he said finishing what she was saying, before running his hand through his hair. “Will this change anything about how we are? Is he going to get crazy about me seeing you again, because I can’t afford to lose my shoes right now.”

Riley sighed, they were both in need of jobs, or at least work study, they didn’t have money most of the time, and the money they did have they saved up for when they wanted take out. Most of their dates since starting college had been to school events or just sitting in their rooms and eating what they had. They didn’t want to ask for help, it was oddly freeing for the both of them to try and make it on what they could, it was an experience for them all. But for the two of them, it was about finding ways to be together and not having to spend so money, they were trying to see how to live without relying on their families for help.

“I know,” she said to him as she put her arms around his waist and pulled him close. “I’m sorry that my dad is crazy.”

“We’ve known this for years,” he said as he kissed her hair. “Should I go to your room, or should I run.”

“I’m thinking we both could run, but that would only cause more problems, since it would leave my dad with Maya, Zay, Charlie, and Sam, and we don’t want to leave them with that level of crazy. But you can run if you want, I won’t hold it against you.”

Lucas shook his head, he wouldn’t leave her to deal with this, if anything, he would want to show her dad how much it didn’t affect them or their relationship. “If you have to deal with it so do I,” he said smiling at her before pulling away. “It’s what I signed up for when we started dating.”

“Okay but I’m going to protect you and your shoes from him today.”

“It would be an honor to have you protect me,” he smiled at her, and it still made her giddy just seeing him smile, it was strange feeling as if she could have someone just giving her butterflies for this long.

The two held hands walking back to Riley’s room, she held onto him comforting him, she didn’t want her dad to find a way to separate them. They wanted to be united in the fact that they wanted to have their little dates, and their sleepovers, where nothing happened.

Much to her surprise, her mother was standing in her room quietly yelling at her father, which only made Riley giggle, because if her mother was quiet when she was angry at you then that meant that she was really angry. Her mom smiled at her before dragging her father out into the hallway, “Seriously Cory,” she said.

Riley heard her mother telling her father about how when they were in college, they did the same things, and how there was the time where he was asking for more and she flashed him her butt, which only made Riley snort. “Honestly, those two sleeping in the same bed is still vanilla compared to how you and Shawn acted when you were in college. And yes, I know she’s your little girl Cory, but she’s technically an adult now and you had no right to come here and do that to her room.”

“But his clothes are all over the place,” he father practically squealed, which made Riley laugh harder.

“Cory, I’ve seen them, and honestly she wears Lucas’s sweaters all of the time, why is it a problem now? She probably steals them which is normal for a girl her age, it reminds me of when we were that young, but now you’re so preoccupied with making sure she doesn’t grow up I feel like you’re neglecting our relationship,” she said before turning around and winking at Riley. Her mother was up to something, and it was nice that she was using this as a teaching moment against her father.

She watched as her mother walked away, smiling, but acting like her husband wasn’t paying attention to her, Riley watched the woman who had raised her convince her husband that he didn’t care about her. Riley knew her father loved her mother, he was just overprotective, but it was interesting to watch. Instead of following her mother, her father watched her, before saying a quick goodbye to Riley and walking off. She knew that they would make up by the end of the day, her mother was just trying to make him feel guilty for ruining the beginning of the semester for Riley.

When she walked into her room, she was greeted by her friends all sitting around, Charlie and Zay on the floor with the extra pillows Riley brought with her, Maya and Josh sitting on one side of her bed, while Sam, Farkle and Smackle were on Sam’s bed.

“Well that was exciting,” Sam said making everyone laugh, it was the first time that Sam had truly been exposed to her father’s meddling, “But I think we should just relax for the rest of the day, because classes start tomorrow, and that was too much drama for the first day back.”

“Here, here,” Farkle said smiling at Smackle.

“I still don’t understand why your father is like that,” Smackle said, but there was no real answer for it. Farkle just took her hand and kissed it before turning back to the room.

“Let's just hope that he’s not going to do it again for a while,” she said before sitting on her bed with Lucas at her back. “Nope no more drama, so how about we get some food and watch a movie and we can talk about tomorrow.”

“Already ordered,” Farkle said with a smile. “We did it while your parents were fighting, or at least it looked like fighting.”

“More like her mother was plotting,” Maya said smiling at the group.

“I’m sure that Topanga is going to read him the riot act when they get back to the city, and then they’re going to do exactly what we’re all doing,” Josh said looking over at Riley. “Your mom is scary,” he added.

“That she is,” Riley said snuggling into Lucas before yawning, it really was her favorite place to be, he was always so warm.

Riley ended up falling asleep ten minutes into the movie, the fell of Lucas at her back, and the smell of his soap in her nose lulled her to sleep. No one had really noticed until the food arrived and Maya jumped off the bed so that Josh could help the guys bring up the pizza boxes, and everything else they had ordered. The bed moving made Riley wake up, but Lucas had held onto her so that she wouldn’t fall to the floor. It was a strange feel, being so comfortable around so many people that she could fall asleep without worrying about something happening.

“Have a nice nap?” he said kissing her temple. She relaxed into his arms, nodding before yawning.

“I don’t know why I’m so tired,” she said to him, the rest of the group had left them alone in the room.

“Too much excitement, I mean you and Maya have a class together this semester, we’ve scheduled our lives around each other, it’s our own little family, and you want to make sure that everyone is involved and happy.”

“It’s a good feeling,” she said to him. “Plus, it’s a little less stressful than my dad constantly being... well you know.”

“Trust me we all know, but hopefully he’s going to calm down a little after today, Josh was right about your mom being scary, and I wouldn’t want to cross her on any level.”

When the group came back into the group Maya leapt on top of Riley and Lucas, landing right on Riley’s legs, before turning and making herself comfortable on Riley’s legs, while putting her own on Josh’s. The food was spread out in front of them, everyone smiling at one another, it was weird, even with all of the time they had spent together over the break, this was more normal than anything else. She liked this more than going out and doing a million things because at least this way they would have the chance to sit and talk about things. It felt like having their little family together, which would only make her father sad, but she wanted to grow up and if it meant that the only version of family, she had around was her friends it was okay with her.

She didn’t love her own family any less, it was just a way for her to extend her family, make it grow into something bigger. This was the long game, this was life, you bring people in and make them a part of your world, and you hold on tight to those who matter to you. Her parents had embraced her friends before, and she knew that they would embrace them now as they are, because they were an extension of her. The only difference now was that her father had to learn to accept that she was growing up, she wasn’t going to stay a little girl, and while it scared him, she knew that her mother would show him that it wasn’t all that bad.

#rucas #rucas fanfic #riley matthews #lucas friar #liley #liley fanfic #yuniesan #gmw #gmw fanfic #rucas fanfiction #rileyxlucas #joshaya #smarkle #liley fanfiction #girl meets season 6

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onceuponaprincessworld · 6 years

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CaptainSwan Neighbors Au

Hello CS fandom! I made a new list and it’s a long one because there are so many great stories with that trope. It includes stories where our favorite couple are neighbors. Hope you enjoy!

If you are intrested you can find my other lists here.

Multichapter Complete

With Affection, @phiralovesloki

Emma Swan isn't a middle schooler. So why is she receiving notes from a secret admirer? She's also definitely not a romantic person. So why is she writing back? Modern!AU Captain Swan, with side orders of Snowing and Frankenwolf. Updated with second epilogue.

Knock, Knock, @charmingturkeysandwich

Emma Swan has made the best of her crappy apartment ever since she became best friends with her neighbor, Ruby. But when Ruby moves out and a loud Brit takes her place, the thin walls and lack of space are suddenly not so endearing. After a particularly stressful day, Emma decides to confront the nightmare next door, and entirely against her better judgment, she might just be making a friend.

The Pirate Next Door , @the-captains-ayebrows

A handsome stranger moves into the apartment right next to Emma Swan's. Emma isn't ready for romance, but what harm could come of making friends with the charming self-proclaimed "pirate" whose bedroom shares a wall with hers?

Unbreakable, @xemmaloveskillianx

What if Hook was able to go with Emma and Henry when they left to escape Pan’s curse? With no memory of each other or Storybrooke, Emma and Killian meet in New York as complete strangers, both with broken pasts, and both with clean slates for their future.

Sign of Attraction, @hooklineandswan

Some day she was going to find a way to kill him without leaving a trace. Hopefully it would happen before he drove her insane.

In the Name of the Brother, @tnlph

Killian Jones not only finds out about his father's death, but about the brother he never knew he had. Rather than let another Jones boy grow up without a father, Killian takes the boy into his life. He'll do all he can to be the man for his younger brother that his older brother had been for him.

Lend me some sugar, I am your neighbor, @kittennharington

Killian and Emma knew each other in middle school before she was taken away to a new foster home. They meet each other again years later as neighbors in an apartment complex. Contains smut.

Can You Feel it Right Now?, @cutieodonoghue

When Emma Swan agrees to let her annoying neighbor Killian Jones join her to go to the grocery store, the last thing she could have ever anticipated is becoming his wife over the course of a conversation with some people from his past.

Some Sort of Neighborly, @shipping-goggles

They're not neighbors, not exactly, and they're not friends either. It's pretty hard to find reasons to bump into the woman who lives next door to your best friend, especially after your only interaction with her has been waking up on her couch one Saturday morning. Sequel to Rude Awakening.

Look What the Cat Dragged In, @athenascarlet

There are only a couple things Killian Jones knows about his neighbor, Emma Swan. She's a bail bonds person and she's attractive. Also, she apparently has a cat. And he apparently is now her cat sitter.

The Reason, @xemmaloveskillianx

he three of them share a laugh before they all look to Emma. She has yet to comment on the new addition because she isn’t sure what to say. She usually doesn’t like change, they have a good thing going there, just the four of them. Plus, they all know him and she doesn’t, but she trusts their judgement, and she’s sure any brother of Liam can’t be all that bad.

So, with a shrug and a smile she says, “Welcome to Storybrooke, Killian Jones.”

Make Some Noise, @fyeahcaptn

Emma doesn't hate her neighbour per say, she barely knows him. Killian Jones an irritating, insufferable ass who's far too cocky and confident for his own good but seriously, would it hurt him to keep the shower to a normal time like an actual human being? Before she kills him. Modern!AU.

Pay It Forward, @acrobat-elle

Breaking your ankle is one thing. Breaking your ankle three days after you moved into a fifth-floor walkup is something else entirely.

Wip

A Helping Hand, @hookedonapirate

My girlfriend just dumped me and I've gotten piss drunk and somehow managed to get into your apartment instead of my own. I'm trying to masturbate my feelings away and boy were you surprised.

Breaking the Hinges, @piratesails

When Killian Jones decides to spend his night off relaxing in his apartment, the last thing he expects is a beautiful blonde woman bursting through his front door.

Neighborly Affection, @hookslovelyswan

Emma Swan's new neighbor, Killian Jones, is the talk of the neighborhood, and living next door to him is almost more than she can stand, especially since the man doesn't seem to own a shirt! But the tug she feels toward him is inexorable, and the genuine feelings that develop between them...quite unexpected.

One-shot

Transatlanticism, @mahstatins

Emma Swan went to Britain looking for family. It should have been a Hallmark movie, a Christmas miracle waiting to happen. Instead she’s stuck in a grimy London ‘flat’, with the worst next door neighbor in the world.

Well, maybe not the worst.

What a Year (for a New Year), @high-seas-swan

Killian Jones, Boston Bruins right winger, needs a break from the questions and concerns over his career-threatening injury. He thought Storybrooke would be the perfect place to escape to. What he didn't expect was Emma Swan, her kid and a holiday season he never knew he needed.

Subtle and Nuanced, @phiralovesloki

Killian Jones has an unusual relationship with a neighbor in which they exchange notes via cat. He’s also slowly falling for his flower shop’s newest customer. Surely these two things are unrelated.

Tim Finnegan's Wake, @icecubelotr44

"You live in the apartment next to mine and you're always blasting music while I'm trying to sleep but you've been silent for the last two days, are you all right?"

Emma Swan never minded the music. Not until she broke her ankle and her shift moved to days. Now she just wants to sleep. But Killian Jones doesn't seem to notice. So when the condo next door goes silent, she's understandably concerned. When she finds Killian after he got the phone call about his brother he never expected, they'll have to figure out if everything is as it seems.

Smoke and Mirrors, @lifeinahole27

I was burning scented candles and fell asleep. You’re my neighbour who bashed the door down when my smoke alarm went off.

The Perils of Firemen and the Food Network, @shireness-says

Emma Swan is not a cook. But maybe, with the help of her upstairs neighbor, she could be - if her feelings don't get in the way.

Keep On Fallin' , @resident-of-storybrooke

Emma Swan may be a successful bail bondsperson, but when it comes to her love life not so much. After several failed blind dates Emma is ready to give up, but Mary Margaret convinces her to give it one more shot. Is Mr. One Shot going to be the one? Or is she willing to risk taking a chance with her blue eyed gorgeous neighbor?

For the Story, nothandlingit

If there's one thing Killian Jones is ruthlessly stubborn on, it's not letting Emma Swan know how many coffee/hot chocolate/bear claw combinations he's had to gift on to unsuspecting strangers when she doesn't show up at the little bakery near their apartment building. Turns out accidentally running into each other costs some money. A CS AU week submission - beloved tropes.

The Worst/Best Christmas Ever, @captainhookcaptainfreedom

When their flight home is cancelled, Emma is convinced that she and Henry are going to have the worst Christmas ever. However, their next door neighbor, Killian Jones, has different ideas.

That Guy Next Door, @a-fictional-life

M-rated AU one shot just cos it’s Saturday…

You Make Me Better, @ilovemesomekillianjones

CS Neighbors AU where Emma is a nurse and Killian is her definitely-faking-it hypochondriac neighbor who uses illnesses and injuries as an excuse to talk to her.

walking the high line, @losttalongthewayy

Captain Swan NYC neighbors AU – It’s Emma Swan’s 28th birthday and she finds herself stuck helping her upstairs neighbor —the very one she’s sure she hates.

seven for all mankind, @arexnna

“we’re neighbours and we do everything together and spend all our time together and that’s normal, but someone pointed out how we’re essentially dating, but we aren’t, are we?”

Postcards and Shower Songs, @nightships

Emma often finds herself wondering whether it's possible to hate a stranger. Despite never having met or seen him before in her life, she knows exactly two things about Mr. K. Jones — he gets a ton of mail from all over the world and he plays extremely loud music when he wakes up in the morning.

Too Hot (Hot Damn), @this-too-too-sullied-flesh

Emma just doesn’t know what’s hotter--the weather and the fact that the air conditioning is out in her building, or her neighbor.

The Savior's Spatula, @imhookedonaswan

Killian Jones hears his neighbor Emma screaming from her apartment, being the gentleman he is he grabs the first thing he can find to go try to save her.

how not to meet your neighbor…, @startswithhope

Here’s a bit of modern AU nonsense, starring Killian and Emma…

The Sabbatical (or how Emma Swan brought Valentine’s Day back), @lenfaz

Killian Jones abhors his neighbors. He really does.

Two-Shots

The Favor, @madjm

AU. Emma Swan doesn't do relationships, but her annoyingly attractive neighbor, Killian Jones, might change her views. Captain Swan. Previously on ffnet.

The Not So Neighborly Noise, @optomisticgirl

After an exhausting day, one which started with her annoying neighbor waking her up with his singing, all Emma Swan wanted to do was sleep. Little did she know when she crawled into bed that night that everything she thought she knew was going to shift dramatically. Can a closed off woman give a man a chance to prove her wrong?

Ten Minutes, @hookedonapirate

“The game's simple, really. In fact you, my love, don’t have to do a thing,” he ends with a click of his tongue, his silky accent sending shivers down her spine.

“Don’t call me that,” Emma warns him, but honestly her heart is thumping and her interest is highly piqued, “but please do go on.”

“It’s called Ten Minutes. You give me ten minutes to do anything I want to you—touching, teasing, kissing, biting, whatever I want. You so much as moan or make any sound of pleasure, you lose.”

Emma bites her lip at the idea of him doing all those things to her and feels heat creeping into her cheeks. “And if I win? What do I get out of this?”

“If you win, I will never bother you again.”

A grin spreads across her lips. “Okay, you totally made this game up, but sure, I’ll play along,” she decides confidently. She has no doubt she’ll win, so why not? Emma sits up and places the bottle on the floor, glancing over at him again. “You’re on, Jones.”

We Can Feel So Far (From So Close), @once-uponacaptain

Waiting until your best friend left for a cross country tour was a fine time to realize you're in love with him. Captain Swan.

Stray Hearts, @piratesails

He’s insufferable, and nothing, not even the fact that he’s laughing with childlike glee as he cuddles a litter of stray kittens, will change Emma’s mind about Killian Jones. Or, that’s what she thought, anyway.

Three-Shots

Please, Please, Say You Feel it Too, @cutieodonoghue

modern au; Emma pawns her son off to her neighbor Killian. Romance ensues. (Daddy!Killian feels abound!)

Spider Slayer, @startswithhope

"This is totally awkward considering before this the only interactions we've ever had have been casual nods to each other in the hallway but there's a huge fucking spider in my bath tub and you seem like the friendly neighbor type please help me."

#cs ff #cs rec fic #cs rec ff #cs recs #cs fanfiction #cs fics #cs rec list #my rec list #fic rec #rec list #cs recs ff #cs ff rec #captain swan

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