#people litterally coining slurs

[butch-bakugo]

Not to be an ass but yeah...

This lesbian was assaulted.... This trans woman was found dead.... Bi women get beat up on trains and are more likely to be hurt by their male partners than straight women..... This trans man died defending lesbians in germany.... These gay men are in camps in russia... This nonbinary person was killed.....

Amazing how you hear about violence aginest gay and trans people but i litterally cant find a single vetted article that shows violence aginest aro/ace pple for "aphobia". Like its always these excuses;

Aroaces face corrective rape! the "corrective rape" was not corrective and happend because the aroace person said no to sex and it was just mysogny because the aro/ace person was afab n would you look at that, the rapist was a cis man. Thats mysogny. Not to mention 80% of aro/ace people are cis women, trans men and afab nonbinary people aka the people raised litterally taught from birth that sex is not something for them to enjoy and they exist to please.

Doctors consider lack of sexual/romantic attraction to be a symptom instead of an orientation! Because lacking the desire for sex and relationships is a hallmark sign of trauma, abuse and mental illness. Its litterally symptom #1 to struggle with sex and commitment when your traumatized and ive litterally never met a not-traumatized aro/ace. I know this because im a traumatized aro/ace and no, "aphobia" isnt traumatic. Honestly, even if your aro/ace as a result of trauma, thats valid, just make sure your healing and that your honest about it.

Well, when i wore my ace pin, someone called me a queer! Thats a sign that me, being cisgender and heteroromantic asexual, am really queer! Experiencing misplaced oppression at the hands of homophobic and transphobic people dosent suddenly make you gay or trans. Also, they dont know what any of the flags mean so why tf would they care that you dont fuck unless its Tuesday? They just assume all little pins with a bunch of colored stripes mean child groomer gay pedo tranny, not demiaroace or wtf ever. They litterally only hate you because they assume you fuck the same gender or dont identify as ur brith sex. Thats it. It also dosent help that you go running around saying "im SOOO gay" and "im such a dirty little queer." When you are neither. When you say ur gay, they are gonna think ur gay. If they know ur cis and het and dont have sex, they dont give a fuck.

Well, your theory falls apart that aro/aceness is mostly brought on by trauma and mysogny when trans women, amab enbies and cis man aro/aces exist! Ok, you still havent disproven my point because 1. transfems and amab enbies usually have gender dysphoria which, speaking from my own experiences, complicates sex and makes it harder. Gender dysphoria is a mental illness and unless you bring to me 5 examples of cis het men who identify as aroace, you dont get to use them as a gotcha. Ive been gay for almost 10 years and ive still never met one, online or irl.

I also never stated that aro/aceness was purely brought on by trauma/mental illness and mysogny, its something that can just naturally happen. Ive just never seen it genuinely happen. Usually the person has trauma/mental illness or is afab or is trans or all three. All of these things, according to proven psychology, can affect the sex drive, attraction and desire for committed relationships.

Thats why every aro/ace you see is either really young and in pain, still healing from trauma or is older and admits to holding on out of spite or admit that its trauma related. There are always gonna be exceptions but unless those excepts make up more than 25% of a thing, im not considering it something totally stand alone. Its also why every ex-aro/ace carries the same story: they identified with it when they were younger and healing from some traumatic shit, they got older and got help, they healed and magically they werent adverse to sex and relationships. That dosent happen with gay pple or trans pple usually. Like 70% of today's aro/ace people are allo 5 years later. If not 5, then 90% by 10 yrs. If not 10, then 99% by 20 yrs.

Its not a coincidence. Adversity towards sex and relationships usually has a foot in the graves of social oppression, trauma/abuse and mental illness. Usually once someone feels empowered by their minority status, heals from their trauma and copes with their mental illnesses, they arnt aro/ace anymore. I speak from experience watching pple i knew when i was 13 go from traumatized and a "romance and sex repulsed" aroace transmasc nonbinary kid who hates allos and gags at sex scenes to being 20 and seeing them all just be ur average bisexual transmasc nonbinary person who kisses and fucks like everybody else. They might throw an arospec or acespec label in their like demi- or -flux but its usally just labels that mean that they are normal person who dosent fuck on sight or isnt always thinking about sex.

Im not saying that every incident of aro/aceness is a result of trauma/abuse, mental illness and bigotry but i am saying that coming to terms with that shit usually makes someone less aro/ace. Im also mentioning how many times ive seen aro/ace people throw out excuse after excuse and label after label that all boil down to telling someone to stop getting therapy and just identify as this because "all labels are vaild and inate to you. You'll always be this." Then they mob you when you get help and openly say your not aroace anymore and ur labled a "traitor" who "wasnt an actual aroace and is just a troll" cause you dare to talk about rhw toxicity and fandomization the aroace communities suffer from. I know this cause im aroace and i dont touch those communities with a 10ft pole. Aint happening. I see a person with a demigreyromantic pin and i turn the other way hopeing to got they didnt see my aro one cause i refuse to talk to pple like that.

The definitions of romance and sex are fluid for a reason and just because you think you dont fit the societal definition of a "average amount of sexual and romantic attraction" dosent mean ur right about society and dosent make you akiocupioangleddemiaroacefluxspike, i promise. All these bajillion labels fall apart the moment you mention that its completely natural for a human's desire for sex and romantic partnership is supposed to fluxuate over the course of your life and multiple things influence it. Im not opposed to microlabels and sexuality modifiers and other things people do in an attempt to find community with others who have the same experiences as them and i never have but what i am saying is that little shit like that dosent oppress you on a societal scale and never has and to think critically about yourself and others to understand that what your feeling isnt always the truth and emotions can betray you.

You arent always a trustworthy person and its always best to make long term decisions on a full stomache, a mid mood, in clean clothes and plenty of energy with enough time to be sure. Quick decisions can fuck you up and the amount of spite and toxicity coming from the aroace communities when you even so much as glance critically at them is worth a few months of deliberation before you go in full speed. Just dont come crying to the normal aroaces when you hit a brick wall 5 ft in and get bombarded with cishet sob stories of people who lost their partner cause they didnt disclose their aroace status, cupcakes and dragons, the gay dads kicked me out copypasta and a bajillion people claiming that their oppressed with their only sources being "trust me bro" and " how dare you question my experiences". If you arnt 100% informed, ur on a hundred blocklists just for mentioning that you dont like the ace flag or some meaningless shit like that.

Trust me, dont bother.

#levi speaks #listen i know the nb community can be irritating and cringey sometimes #i know the trans man community can suck sometimes #but exactly nothing compares to the vitrol and cringe that seeps from the aro ace and aroace communties here #like i dont support cringe culture #but hearing a person whose only oppression is being demiromantic tell me they have it worse than gay people #and the amount of homophobia serophobia and racism youll be smacked with #is re-dick-you-lous #its a crab bucket #you see fully 30 year old disney adults audibly gagging cause of a kiss in a kids movie #and people sayong valentines day is as bigoted as like columbus day #people coming us with apocolypse movies where the virus is sexually transmitted and the herione is aroace #without any sympathy or care for ya know THE AIDS EPIDEMIC #people litterally coining slurs #cause theres no slurs for aroace people #whole blogs dedicated to screaming about lgbt merch that didnt include them #you think im joking #but im litterally not #its insane and i will never associate #i dont even tell pple im aro because of that shit #jesus christ #im more embaressed of being aro than proud #Please let it all just burn down already

[just-a-queer-fanboy]

For my cis allies:

My chosen name IS my real name, whether I've changed it legally or not.

My genitals and sex life are none of your business. Don't ask about them.

I don't "identify as transgender". I am transgender. I identify as a problem.

Attack helicopter jokes are unoriginal and unfunny. At least come up with something original.

Tr***y is a slur. Don't use it.

I'm not transsexual. I don't identify as my sex. I identify as my gender.

Gender neutral language isn't hard. Just say person and use the word they. You don't have to say "guy or girl". Say person. Less syllables, less trouble.

It's okay to mess up on someone's pronouns. It's not okay to refuse to use the right ones.

Its okay to mess up on our chosen names. It's not okay to tell people "this is my friend, she used to be Alexis, but now she is Michael.".

DO NOT introduce us to random people as "my transgender friend". If you don't know if that person is trans inclusive, you are putting us in danger.

Nobody is putting litter boxes in schools. Nobody identifies as a cat (and to my knowledge, therianthropy is a spiritual belief, not an "I identify as this" type thing so either way, shut up).

Yes, we know what our biological sex is. It's that our gender and sex don't match up.

Neopronouns and xenogenders aren't that big a deal. They're a little goofy, but that's it. Cool your tits.

You support all of us, or you support none of us. Pick one.

Nobody is pretending to be trans to assault women, because you don't have to pretend to be trans to do that, because nobody gets justice. Instead of blaming all trans women, let's, I don't know, blame abusers. (Yes, trans women can be abusers, the problem arises when you pin it on them being trans)

It's okay to get your information wrong. What's not okay is to be a dick about it when someone points out that it's incorrect.

"Biological women" don't exist. Woman is a gendered term. Female typically refers to a biological sex.

On that note, some of us are made dysphoric by being referred to as "biological fe/males". If you want to be more inclusive than that, use AFAB or AMAB, or something like "person with a uterus" or "people with penises".

HUMAN AND MANKIND ARE NOT GENDERED TERMS. At the time human and mankind were coined, "man" simply meant a person. Although gender neutral language never hurt anyone, most people will find it pretty weird if you use the word "peoplekind" in conversation.

Nobody is giving surgeries or HRT to minors. The most minors can do to transition is wear new clothes, change names and pronouns, and maybe get a haircut.

I'm gonna do other versions for Allistic and straight allies, so stay tuned I guess.

#s/a mention #tw s/a #tw transphobes #transgender #transgender information #trans allies #lgbtq community #lgbt pride #trans positivity #for allies

[wiisagi-maiingan]

Dont forget the "woke" white libfems who claim that 2s is racist for* spins a wheel, throws a dart and draws a slip of paper* forcing all 2s people under one term cause each tribe describes it differently.

Legit had some white trans person( not mixed with native. Just white) tell me that the fact that 2s covers so many kinds of transgenderism and gender nonconformity as well as is only claimable by all native american and first nations people of Canada that it encourages people to think we all have the same culture, skin tone and we are all one tribe instead of multi-tribal... Like bruh.... We are about to be one tribe about to come after your ass.

We coined that term, who are u lol??

They litterally tried to say the 2s is racist towards native american and first nations canadian people..... But conveintly left out the fact that we made that term cause it plays to common religious beliefs and the colonists would only call us a slur that meant prostitute.

HELLO??? WHAT????????

Two Spirit was literally created to be an umbrella term. That's its whole purpose, to help unite our community members who fit under that kind of role and to give new language to the tribes who have lost their own words to colonization. Claiming that it's RACIST to the people WHO COINED IT for fulfilling its purpose is just. So absolutely ridiculous.

I'm blown away. What the fuck.

[blahblahwritings]

Contracts and Captains. - IV

A/N: Remember how I posted something before one of my other fics saying that I had been consistently updating for weeks? Neither do I lmao who was she? Don’t know her anyway heres the fourth chapter of this black sails fic.

Words: 1823. Honestly I’ve been writing this since about 12pm I don’t know how its so short and its probably shit bc I haven’t written anything in months.

Warnings: Mentions of vomit as per the last chapter. Think thats it lmao. See you in three months.

As your eyes opened, there were a blissful couple of seconds where the previous night’s encounter didn’t exist in your memory. But, just like the sun flooding the room, unwanted flashes of vomit and slurred words rose like a tidal wave in your minds eye. You rolled over, burying your face and groaning into the pillow out of sheer embarrassment as a dull throbbing started in the depths of your skull. 

Why did you keep drinking? You could’ve simply had one or two before retiring for the night and you wouldn’t have met that boatswain or thrown up on your own boots. What was his name again? Ben? Boyd? No, they weren’t quite right. Either way you made a mental note to apologise again whenever you next saw him. 

Slowly, you tugged your still clothed limbs from the thin sheets, trying not to jostle your stomach too much for fear of whatever was left in there making an unwelcome appearance. Your pants were scuffed from where you took a tumble outside the tavern, your shirt was half undone, probably from a failed attempt to undress before not-so-gracefully falling into bed. A single boot was thrown on the floor alongside your coat, the other still stuck on your foot. What a mess. 

A hot bath, that's what you needed, and a hearty breakfast if your insides don’t bring it back up. Pulling on the other boot, you made your way to one of the girls working downstairs, trading her coin to fill the tub in your room. You must’ve looked rough as you passed her to get to the man at the bar because when he turned to look at you, his brows shot up, disappearing behind his hair. 

“You look like you could use a little hair of the dog, love.” He chuckled, eyes scanning your disheveled form. A grimace was your immediate response. “Some food then.” He offered, filling a bowl with something that you didn’t stop to look at as you practically inhaled it. The man watched you with a knowing smirk and had you not felt so terrible you’d have spat out a snarky comment. You chose to gulp down your water instead.

“Thank you.” You huffed with a small nod, tossing some money on the counter before you headed back upstairs. The state you were in just added to this morning's growing list of regrets but you weren’t quite sure if you cared how you looked to anyone else right now. All that was on your mind was a piercing headache and a good soak.

Stripping off, you stepped into the water, sinking down slowly as your body got used to the heat. Finally, with a heavy sigh, you rested your head on the back of the tub, your aching muscles beginning to relax. Scented oils and soaps were left on a stand by the bath. Working a generous amount between your palms, you massaged your limbs and torso getting rid of any tension and purging the memories of last night’s… festivities. In the quiet of your room, you took a moment to trace the small scars that littered your form, fingers landing at last on the freshly healed knife wound from only a few weeks ago. The soft pink flesh was still tender, and if you moved the wrong way it would ache. It was dangerous to be alone on this island, in this line of work. You needed friends, not just contacts. A crew, perhaps. 

Letting your mind wander, you thought about your new found place among Flint’s men. You had to keep bringing in leads to be of any value to him, lest you risk being tossed aside and left in the dirt. He and his crew were among the most revered on the island, therefore cementing your part in that would bring security. It would ensure that other crews would leave you alone, as you were important to someone they feared and the consequences of harming you could be severe. 

Then again, there was a little more than security on your list of perks as you thought more about the taller man from last night. He was kind to you, not that the others weren’t having bought your drinks and all, but, he made sure you were safe and fed. Billy Bones. You recalled. Replaying the meeting in your head, you winced at the slurred introduction and the puking soon after. Why did you care about how he saw you? Was it because he was the crew’s boatswain or because he was handsome and softer than most pirates you’d met. 

Catching that last thought, you shook it from your head, refusing to let it take root in your brain. Attachments like that are a weakness here and you cannot afford to have those. You’d only met the guy once and he probably didn’t want anything to do with you anyway, especially after that drunken show you gave him. Cupping a handful of water, you splashed your face, scrubbing any further thoughts of the man from your head, instead, choosing to focus on finding a new lead for Flint. 

They would be leaving to chase down the details you gave him yesterday in a couple of days, if not sooner, which meant you probably had around two weeks to find something of substance upon their return. You’d struggled last time but after sending out letters to old friends in neighbouring ports, you were hopeful something would turn up. 

Padding your way to the dresser, you pulled out some fresh clothes and got ready, feeling much better than you did even an hour before. The food had settled your stomach and the water you guzzled seemed to bring some life back into your face as when you left to go hunt down some work, the barman from earlier spouted something along the lines of ‘A whole other woman’ when you walked by.

---

An uneventful morning led to an uneventful afternoon. There were no new letters or leads and the streets were pleasantly calm compared to usual. You certainly weren’t complaining, you had been feeling better since this morning but your body was still recovering. The easy day was probably just what you needed. You were sat on the beach, sipping some water and watching passersby as you sketched in the journal you kept.

It was something you’d taken to keeping since arriving in Nassau just over two years ago. A small leather book to help keep track of potential jobs and record anything interesting that happened. Really, though, you just loved to draw. You’d already filled a couple just like it with sketches of people, ships and landscapes that caught your eye, often accompanied by your messy scrawl. You were just about satisfied with your latest addition when Mr Gates clapped you on the shoulder making you jump and slam the journal closed. You’d never shown anyone the contents before. 

“Sorry, Miss Devereux, didn’t mean to startle you.” He began, chuckling lightly at your reaction. “I heard you and the lads had quite the night..” He moved to stand by you as you got to your feet, dusting the sand from your pants. Tucking away the book, an amused smirk finds its way to your face as you look at him. 

“Depends on who you ask.” You replied. “How were they this morning? Feeling sorry for themselves?” Your brows raised in question as you both started aimlessly wandering along the shore. A snort met your ears as his head fell forwards, looking at the ground then back at you. “I didn’t see the majority of them until at least noon and they were still in a sorry state, although I wonder how you must’ve been. I heard that you hurled your guts up right after meeting our boatswain.” Gates mused, eyes crinkling as he watched your entire face turn a lovely shade of red. You tried to keep your cool but your expression faltered into one of sheer embarrassment. Apparently, this was hilarious as Mr Gates exploded into a fit of hearty laughter, and as much as you told him to stop you couldn’t help but have a good chuckle yourself as you covered your face with a half-sandy palm at the thought.

When you both regain your composure, he gives you a reassuring pat on the back.

“Don’t worry, the only people who know are Billy and myself, the men still think you can hold your drink.” He winked. You made a move to argue that you could in fact hold your drink but he began talking about the plan to set sail the day after tomorrow. You listened intently and explained that you were awaiting correspondence from friends in other ports to supply more promising leads upon their return. 

---

It had been four days since the crew left in search of another haul using your most recent information. Nothing out of the ordinary had happened, you’d made some money here and there through smaller jobs and pickpocketing but overall, there was nothing of real interest. You spent the days reading anything you could get your hands on or drawing and you’d even had your eye on some paints in one of the markets, but all you could do was wait. Checking for mail at the front desk of the inn you were staying at every morning had become a routine, desperate for any work or ships that you could relay to Flint. It was on the fifth day that you had gotten a response from someone in Port Royal.

As you read over the letter for the third time, you could feel your eyes widen in disbelief, your heart hammered in your chest and you released a breath you didn’t know you were holding. This was far too good to be true. Surely this was a myth. A prize of this magnitude was simply unheard of. Your eyes scanned over the paper again, barely able to focus on the words because your hands were trembling so violently. Calm down. You told yourself. It can’t be the truth. You thought as you stared at the other envelope that had arrived alongside it. At the bottom of the letter it read:

“P.S

Should you doubt my information, I sent you the correspondence shared between the dead man and the merchant with evidence pertaining to this gold. Best not ask how it came into my possession.

Your dear friend,

Josiah.”

You ran to shut the windows to your room and close the drapes. If anyone found out you had this information and the evidence to go with it, you would surely be killed for it. Tearing open the paper, you unfolded its contents. It was all here. The initials of the merchant, R.P., details alluding to the existence of this gold and the name of the dead man involved in plotting the course it would be on. 

Vasquez.

#Black Sails #black sails imagine #Billy Bones #billy bones x reader #multi chapter #Captain Flint #mr gates

[scullysexual]

A Jewel Beneath The Moonlight [Reposted. Anniversary]

Jewel is one year old! In order to celebrate what is probably my greatest achievement in fic I’ve decided to re-release all the chapters. Not much has changed in terms of story but I’ve gone through and edited/fixed any typos and weird sentences that have popped up now and then. Me and my blog have both grown so much since writing this that I’m sure there’s many of you who have yet to have read or seen this before. So here you have it…my lil baby. 

- - - 

Chapter One

A cloud of heavy smoke rises from the four vapers, covering the clear sky above and littering it with stuffy grey puffs. People scramble about up and down the dock, trying to keep family members together as they rush to get through the gates. Others stand there gawking at the ship. For those not boarding it’s simply a day out; The greatest ship ever built, they call it and those who live nearby wasn’t about to miss out on such a historic day as this.

Mulder stares at it, surprised at just how wonderstruck he is with it. He never put much stock in the rumours when it was being built believing that she was just going to turn out as all those before her had. That the rumours were just that.

But he was wrong. Never in his life had he seen a ship as large as the one that towers over him.

He turns to Phoebe, reaching out for her hand as she climbs out of the cab.

“What do you think, dear?” Mulder asks as he helps his fiancé down. “Are you impressed?”

To no one’s surprise, Phoebe only scoffs at the ship, its presence not changing her mood in the slightest.

“It’s not as grand as the Mauretania.”

Bill Mulder chuckles behind them, handing their luggage to his man-servant, Krycek as the boy passes them onto a baggage handler.

“It’s much bigger than the Mauretania,” he says, ready to quote every fact he had memorised from the London Herald about the ship. “And much more luxurious,” he adds.

Phoebe only huffs, clearly becoming uninterested in their current conversation.

“Careful Fox,” his father warns him. “Hard one to please, that one.” Mulder only manages an uncomfortable laugh already well aware at the difficulties that come attached to Phoebe Green.

With time running out, they begin to make their way towards the ship, weaving their way through the crowds, Phoebe turning her nose up at every person not dressed to the nines, going as far as to dramatically balk and cover her nose as a lower-class foreigner runs across their path.

“Filthy immigrant,” Phoebe scorns at the innocent man. Mulder tries not to let his disgust show at Phoebe’s words, they’re excused after all and Mulder rolls his eyes at the clear disrespect his people show towards those less fortunate.

“He’s just trying to get to the ship, Phoebe.”

“Yes, well, maybe he should hurry to a bath instead.”

Mulder ignores her words, instead guiding her through the swarming crowds.

“Honestly Bill,” Mulder’s mother pipes up. “We couldn’t have gotten here earlier rather than scurrying around the docks like rats?”

“I was all packed and ready to go,” Bill says and indicates to the pair in front of him. “It was those two who weren’t.”

Mulder sighs. If anything, it was Phoebe who they had been waiting for.

“We did try to hurry, Mother. Phoebe couldn’t decide what to wear.”

Phoebe scoffs once more. “It’s not my fault that you told me to change.”

“I just thought you would get too warm wearing black all day.”

“I’m in mourning Fox,” Phoebe cries. “The weather doesn’t change that.”

Mulder resists sighing again. Phoebe had been mourning for weeks now. The loss of their baby had brought on this spontaneous trip. Phoebe, done with London and “wanting to get away from all the bad memories” all but demanded that they leave for America as soon as possible. A chance for a new start, she told him afterwards. They could get married here and start again. Next thing Mulder knew, he was packing his bag and going back to a country he hadn’t seen since childhood.

He felt trapped somehow, and it had nothing to do with the swarms of crowds. This was inside him. A cage or a hole he’d put himself in. One he wasn’t going to get out of any time soon.

.:.:.:.:.:.:.:.

She’s been sitting on this bench for what feels like hours now. The stuffy bar overcrowded with sight-seers only now they’ve done the sight-seeing and want to do some drink-beering.

She was told ten minutes. Ten minutes and they’d be looking for a ferry to take them back to Ireland. Dana was done with the place. Southampton was the same as everywhere else in England they’d been- the same people, the same scorning looks they’d get no matter where they go, the same rejections. It’s only a number of times a person can hear ‘no’ before they never want to hear the word again.

Her brother, however, had other ideas. They only came into the bar to ask if there were any ferries available to take them home and somehow Charlie had managed to be roped into a game of poker by a bunch of Norwegians who barely spoke any English between them.

The game had currently been going on for a lot longer than the ‘few minutes’ she was promised.

Dana sighs, shifting in her seat to get comfortable. She’d order a drink if Charlie wasn’t currently gambling away their last penny.

“You lonely, luv?” Dana turns towards the speaker. His cockney accent thickened by the slurring of his words. “Ye want sum comp’ny?”

He stumbles towards her, catching himself on the rickety table and smiles at his clumsiness. Dana attempts to shuffle further back into the bench, failing.

“I’m fine,” she says turning away and hoping the man would take the hint.

But he presses on.

“Are ye sure?”

“Aye. I’m sure.” She gets up before the man can say anything else, and heads over to Charlie’s table.

The boy is in full concentration mode. Lip caught between his teeth, eyes scanning his cards and the card laying down on the table. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Countless of times Dana has watched him play, never learning from the mistakes he’s made in previous games. This gambling addiction he’s seemed to have developed has cost them a lot in the finance department, a cost that Dana is not too happy about.

She taps him on the shoulder.

“Charlie, I want to go.”

“Hold on a second…”

His tongue replacing his lip, Charlie gives one nervous glance around at his fellow players.

“Charlie, we need to go.” She tries not to sound like she’s whining, he’s her younger brother for God’s sake, a child, she shouldn’t have to whine.

Charlie ignores her, a smile breaking out across his face.

“I’m sorry, lads.” He places his cards on the table, his smile turning cocky as he reaches over to take his earnings. Dana doesn’t miss the two pieces of paper lying on top of the money.

A large hand grasps Charlie’s. His grin falls as he stares in fear at the man.

“He cheat!” The man yells. With his hand still firmly wrapped around Charlie’s arm, he yanks him forward across the table, his other hand a fist that falls down and smashes straight into his face.

“Charlie!” Dana screams as his body falls slump against the oak. The man backs off as the bar grows quiet, ignoring the winnings that fall onto the floor.

With all concern for her brother, Dana rushes to his side, her hand falling on the boy’s face, wiping away the blood that drips down from his wound. You feckin’ idiot…she thinks.

Charlie’s eyes open slowly, despite the pain with smile it back.

“I won, Dana,” he tells her. “We’re going to America.”

Dana frowns, bewildered for the moment at what Charlie could possibly be talking about until her eyes fall to the two pieces of paper that lay on the ground. Realisation sets in and she reaches down to pick them up, turning them over to read.

The words White Star Line stare back at her. She looks from the paper in her hand to the ship outside and back to Charlie.

“You’re…you’re not serious?” she asks, full astonishment.

“Yep. Fecker put his ticket down as payment,” Charlie all but shouts.

Dana stares back at the ticket. She was really about to go to America and board the Titanic to get there.

“You’re gonna wanna be quick,” a fella beside them tells them. He points to his clock on the wall. “Boat leaves in ten minutes.”

At that, Charlie hauls himself off the table as the two siblings begin pushing what money remains on the table into their only bag, not caring for the coins that had fallen onto the floor.

“Hurry up!” Charlie urges her as Dana ties up the bag. “Come on, come on.” He takes the bag throwing it over his shoulder and grabs his sister’s hand, all but dragging her out of the bar.

They weave their way through the people, Charlie up front and Dana falling slightly behind. She fists her skirt in her palms, pulling it up so as not to trip over it, keeping her eye on Charlie ahead of her and praying she doesn’t lose him.

They almost collide with everything; people, a cart selling vegetables, a horse and carriage until finally they make it, out of breath and clutching at their tickets.

“Right, give me your tickets,” the crewman orders, his fingers making a grabby motion. They hand them over and the man all but snatches it out of their hands. His nose turns up when he reads the names.

“Leif and Ingrid Brevik?” he asks, sceptically.

Dana looks nervously at Charlie, worried that they had just ran all this way, got excited for a new future, just to be turned away at the doors once more.

“Aye, we’re Americans.” Charlie tells him doing nothing to mask his thick Irish accent.

The crewman gives once last glance at the ticket and them. Sighing and probably done dealing with steerage who’s English is minimal he accepts the tickets.

“Get in before I change my mind.”

Relieved, the pair rush in just as the crewman shuts the door.

They make their way down the crowded corridor. People stand looking at the various signs that point in directions of rooms, bathrooms, and general communal areas. They argue, an overload of different words muddled together to make one distorted language.

Dana isn’t paying attention, however. Her eyes switch from the number written down on the ticket to the numbers written on the doors either side of them. Charlie had gotten distracted, eyeing up every pretty lass that they walked past and Dana had ripped the paper out of his hands. If he wasn’t going to find their room, she will.

She finds it eventually. 23, near the end of the corridor. Charlie eyes up Room 24.

“Reckon a lass lives in there?” he asks.

Dana focuses on unlocking the door, a sly grin appearing on her face.

“I hope it’s a fat old man with a foot infection.” She looks up only to see the look of disgust appear across her brother’s face.

The door opens to their room. A single bunkbed, a desk and chair with a lamp set upon it, and a chest of drawers are the only furniture that occupy the room.

Charlie shares her sentiments exactly.

“Beats the cargo hold on a ferry.” He throws the bag onto the chair and proceeds to climb to the top bunk.

She stops him before he can claim it.

“Piss off, I get top bunk.” She grips the back of his shirt, yanking him off the ladder.

“Careful!” Charlie cries. “I’m already injured.”

“So move out the way before I injured you even more.”

He does as he’s told, not without pulling a face beforehand, and throws himself on the bottom bunk.

Dana lies down, thankful to be in a bed that actually feels like a bed and not a brick.

“Hey, Dee?” Charlie calls after a moment of silence.

“Yeah?”

“Are you worried?”

Dana thinks for a second, curious as to what Charlie thinks she should be worried about.

“About what?” she asks.

Silence passes and she waits for an answer.

“Nothing,” the boys says. “It’s nothing. We got nothing to be worried about.”

Frowning and profoundly confused, Dana decides to leave it.

Another bout of silence passes and perhaps Charlie’s fallen asleep, at least she thinks that until she hears his voice again.

“Hey, Dee?”

“What?”

“Do you still have that first-aid kit in the bag? My face is throbbing.”

#a jewel beneath the moonlight #chapter 1 #updated #anniversary repost #i write

[threephasebird]

New thing I can’t stop thinking about: What if Geralt, unlikely as it might seem, gets talkative when drunk? And of course he meticulously avoids drinking too much in company and no one (besides Eskel and Lambert, maybe) knows his secret, but it’s bound to happen eventually, isn’t it? And of course, one day Jaskier saunters into a tavern somewhere in the middle of nowhere, spots Geralt at a table in a corner and walks up to him with a smile on his lips and a hand on his hips, saying, as he stops to look at him, “Geralt! What brings you to this remarkably unremarkable place?”, and without pausing for him to answer, he slides into his booth. “Ohh, that’s fun”, he says, “Let me guess –”

– maybe, he muses, his imagination running wild already, maybe Geralt was cursed and has been running with a pack of wolves ever since their last meeting, only having been released by his true love’s kiss this very night – although, he’d have to be tragically naked and without coin, and the table littered with empty tankards definitely tells the tale of a full purse. Well, not his best idea, then. Still, the prospect of riling Geralt up with increasingly absurd, yet artfully embellished explanations of how he ended up here fills Jaskier with gleeful anticipation. Maybe a thrilling love affair with the mysterious duke living in the castle on the mountain that ended years ago, only for Geralt’s aching heart prompting him now to return to –

“I’m on my way back to Kaer Morhen”, Geralt grunts.

That’s new, and a little bit rude, seeing how Jaskier didn’t get to propose a single one of the tales he’s spun.

What’s worse, he also doesn’t even get to finish giving him a deeply suspicious once over before Geralt – and Jaskier feels the sudden need to grab the tabletop for support, or maybe dab his forehead with a delicate lace handkerchief – continues to speak. “I had to fulfill a few contracts in order to stack up on coin again”, he says, staring moodily into the tankard that’s currently occupying his hands. Then he has the audacity to raise his gaze and fix his (stunning, beautiful, breathtaking) eyes on Jaskier as he mumbles, “I miss Ciri, though. If I leave first thing in the morning, I might make it back there in two weeks time.”

Jaskier is dimly aware that his mouth is hanging open and makes a conscious effort to close it. He’ll have to tell himself that this is fine, only that it’ll have to wait a bit because he really, really needs to gather himself and –

“I’ve been on the road for over a month”, Geralt continues musing, though, not taking notice of Jaskier’s desperate silent plea to hold on for a minute and clarify what the hell has gotten into Geralt. “Haven’t spoken to anyone but Roach. She, uh –”, and now, on top of everything else, the corners of Geralt’s mouth are twitching, “said she misses your music and your endless chattering. I’ve been hoping to run into you, but then, what are the chances of it actually happening?”

Jaskier – well, it feels a bit weird, because it’s Geralt, but then again, Geralt has told him time and time again to be more careful and less trusting, so he tries his best to inconspiciously get hold of the grip of the silver knife that’s been strapped to his belt ever since Geralt unceremoniously dropped it in his lap with a grunt after an unfortunate run-in with a Mourntart. “Geralt?”, he says, and he’s very proud that his voice comes out so firm that it seems to snap his friend out of his musings, “What’s wrong with you?”

Geralt stares at him for a few long seconds without blinking, which, uh, doesn’t do much for Jaskier’s focus on the matters at hand.(Stunning, beautiful, breathtaking indeed – he’d vow to write a song about Geralt’s eyes one day if it weren’t for the fact that he already did. Multiple times. It’s been a while, alright.) Finally, Geralt releases him and drops his gaze, which then lands on Jaskier’s hand and the knife, and something that could count as a grin is starting to spread on his face. “Nothing”, he says. “I’m fine. Don’t hurt yourself with that.”

Jaskier sputters. “I’ll have you known that I am perfectly capable of – but that’s not the point, isn’t it? The point is that something is very much not alright with you, Geralt!” He points his knife-free hand at him accusingly, for emphasis. “And you’ll tell me what it is right now! Are you cursed? Did someone slip a potion in your drink?” He gazes wildly around the tavern, trying to locate any possible culprits. “Or”, and at that his eyes narrow and he pulls out the knife from under the table after all, stopping with the finger-pointing and pointing the blade instead, “are you not Geralt at all?”

“Jaskier”, Geralt says with annoying and suspicious gentleness, “We’re in a tavern. People are staring at us again. I’m fine, please remove your knife.”

“Not unless”, Jaskier says slowly, “– not unless you tell me something that only the real Geralt could know!” He smiles, mildly impressed by his own cleverness, and Geralt sighs. “I just told you that I’m on my way to see Ciri, does that not count? Fine”, he says with another smile as Jaskier shakes his head, “only the real Geralt would know that –”

“By which you mean yourself?”

“By which I very much mean myself, Jaskier”, Geralt says, and his smile deepens, but he also rolls his eyes a little bit, which makes him appear more like himself alright. “Only I know that –”, Geralt gazes into his tankard contemplatively, “– you snore when you sleep on your back”, he says after a moment, and before Jaskier can open his mouth to protest in indignation, he presses on. “Only the real me knows that you can’t even shut up when you’re sleeping. That you sometimes wake up with your arms wrapped around me and wait for a few moments with your heart hammering before you remove yourself and pretend it never happened – although I don’t know why”, he adds, and whatever kind of information Geralt has on his heart rate, Jaskier is sure he’s just doubled the record. “Can you tell me why?”, Geralt repeats thoughtfully, and, yes, this is it, this is the moment Jaskier finally succumbs to his stupid crush and just dies –

– and then their eyes meet and Jaskier notices – oh shit, now that he notices how Geralt’s gaze is slightly unfocused, other pieces of information finally start falling into place: The table littered with empty glasses, the ever-so-slight slur of Geralt’s voice, how uncharacteristically unguarded he is…

“Shit, Geralt”, Jaskier says and lowers his knife. "Are you drunk?”

Geralt nods and smiles uncertainly at him.

“Wait”, Jaskier says, because his brain is still struggling to catch up with the situation, "How come I’ve never seen you like this? You’ve been drunk plenty of times while I was there, why are you suddenly so –”, he gesticulates helplessly at Geralt.

"I don’t get drunk”, Geralt mumbles, “Not when I’m with other people. Just tipsy. I only ever get drunk alone. I tend to –”, he grimaces and lowers his voice, "Speak a lot when I drink too much.”

“I noticed”, Jaskier says faintly.

"Now you know”, Geralt says matter-of-factly and glances into his tankard again. Jaskier dimly wonders if he should snatch it away from him to prevent him from drinking even more. "Fitting, isn’t it? Yet another thing that only you managed to uncover.” Geralt smiles again and fuck, that smile is doing things to Jaskier’’s heart. Suddenly, he’s overcome by the impulse to reach out for Geralt’s hands and press a kiss to his knuckles, or to climb over the table and sweep him in a hug and never let go, but Geralt looks like he’s zoning out staring at Jaskier, and fuck once more, how drunk exactly is he?

“I was lying earlier”, Geralt mumbles. "It’s not just Roach who missed you.”

With a swift motion, Jaskier is on his feet. "That’s it”, he says, because there’s no way he can deal with this any longer, "we’re getting you sobered up now.”

~ fin & dedicated to @eventual-consistency​ whose ear I talk off when tipsy, which inspired this AU ✧˖° ✧˖°

#geraskier #geralt x jaskier #my post

[shownuslaugh]

Through the Years

Series: Bigbang 6th Member AU

Pairing: SJ/GD

2007

           Taeyang nudges SJ forward but the younger girl’s slight frame takes it more as a shove. She lurches forward, mumbling under her breath and staring directly at the ground. She can’t look up. Can’t look him in the eyes. And why should she? He’s been nothing but a pain in her ass since day one, pushing her around and harassing her to her wits end.

           “Say it,” Seunghyun tells her.

           SJ crosses her arms and squares her shoulders before looking at Jiyong dead in the eye. “Happy birthday. Jerk.”

           Daesung gasps and pulls SJ back, scolding her so quietly someone stumbling on the scene would think he’s saying nothing at all. SJ shakes away his hold on her with an annoyed huff.

           “Thank you.” Jiyong’s smile is razor sharp, making SJ gulp audibly. That smile means something is coming. And it won’t be good for her.

2008

           “I don’t wanna!” SJ whines the entire time Daesung drags her behind him. “Dae, he hates me! Why should I even show up?”

           “Because we’re a group. Now come on.”

           “Do you still have the gift I got for you to give him?” Taeyang peers at her curiously, searching for a square box hidden in her bag.

           “No,” SJ answers with a bite to her tone. “I tossed it.”

           “What?!”

           “Don’t worry! I’ll give you your twenty bucks back.” She fishes around in her pocket. “Here.”

           Taeyang groans. “SJ, you can’t keep doing this.”

           “Watch me.”

           “I don’t think any of us really want to,” Seungri mutters.

           SJ’s brow arches. “What was that?”

           “Just go be a bitch to him so we can get this over with and have fun. We’re all sick of it.” Seunghyun is the one to answer SJ, practically daring her to argue with the intensity of his gaze.

           SJ’s eyes wander from Top to the bar where she notices Jiyong propped up on the counter. He’s chatting with some girl in a dress two sizes too small and makeup that looks like it was done in the dark. SJ’s stomach falls to the soles of her feet.

           “See!” She gestures wildly. “He doesn’t even want to spend his birthday with us anyway! Just…” SJ pulls some change out of her pocket and shoves it towards one of the guys. She honestly doesn’t care who. “Give him this and tell him to get a condom out of that machine in the bathroom. It’s on me. Can’t have our precious leader catching an STD, can we?”

           SJ storms out of the club.

           Daesung looks between her and Jiyong. “She knows that’s Dara… right?”

           Taeyang sighs. “I don’t think she cares.”

           Seungri toys with the coins SJ gave him. “Who wants to give this to hyung?”

           All of them groan.

2009

           SJ sneaks quietly weaves through the other party goers, searching the dense crowd for Jiyong. He shouldn’t be this difficult to spot at his own birthday party but he’s sending her on one hell of a search.

           “Oh, hyung!” SJ grabs Seunghyun’s arm, pulling him down to her height. “Have you seen GD around?”

           Seunghyun points toward their kitchen. It seems like it takes far more effort than necessary, so SJ appreciates his drunken attempt. She pats him on the cheek, giggling at the way his eyes sparkle at the affection.

           When SJ enters the kitchen GD is alone, nursing a can of beer. He grins at her crookedly when she approaches.

           “Ah, there she is! My favorite girl in the world.” His words slur together and SJ’s suddenly struck by a feeling of discomfort. “You actually came this year.”

           SJ grimaces. “Yeah.”

           “Do I get a present this year?” Jiyong bats his eyelashes, giggling playfully.

           She considers the gift card to one of his favorite music stores safely tucked away in her back pocket. A sense of outrage fills her suddenly. “My presence is your present, you jerk!”

           She’ll just spend it on herself.

2010

           SJ is… surprisingly pleased with herself. The entire day has passed, schedules are done, Jiyong’s birthday dinner wrapped up, and he still has no idea. No idea that the second he opens the door to his bedroom-

           “PARK SOOJIN!”

           SJ runs to his room, almost tripping over her own feet in excitement. She trows out her arms and yells “Happy birthday, hyung!”

           Jiyong doesn’t know whether to be impressed or exasperated as balloon after balloon falls out of his bedroom and litters the hallway. “SJ, what the fuck?”

           She deflates a little. “Don’t… don’t you like it?” Did she overthink how close they were getting? Was she misreading signs whenever he’d chuckle at one of her pranks on the other members? Did she just ruin everything good they had going between them?

           When he sees the panic in her eyes he’s quick to reassure her. “No, no, no, it’s great! I was just shocked at first!”

           Still not completely convinced, she points to his bed. “There’s more.”

           He creeps in slowly, careful not to pop any of the balloons. His bed is absolutely covered in silly string and streamers, the colors alternating between red, black, gold, and white. Beneath all of that is a picture frame. It’s clearly hand painted, the designs intricate yet sloppy all at once. Jiyong smiles, brushes away the celebratory debris, and picks the frame up as if it’s the most precious thing he owns.

           “Thank you, SJ.” And he means it.

           “It’s from the day we found out we’d debut together.” SJ’s voice is soft, lost in memory. “Youngbae’s mom helped me track it down.”

           Jiyong ruffles her hair before letting his hand slide down the side of her face and cup her cheek. “You’re the best.”

2011

           “Jiyong!” SJ tugs on his leg in an attempt to drag him out of bed. “Come on! Let’s go!”

           “I don’t want a party this year!” He kicks her away impatiently, not in the mood to go out. “I just want to stay in and spend it with the people I actually care about.”

           “So, fuck us then, huh?”

           He sits up at the sound of Dami’s voice. “I thought you were working!”

           Dami shrugs. “When SJ calls I answer.”

           “But when I call-” Jiyong doesn’t finish that sentence. “Never mind.”

           “That’s what I thought.”

           SJ perches on the edge of his bed, threading her fingers through his. “I know how long it’s been since you’ve seen your family… so I might’ve made a few phone calls and bought a few plane tickets. Don’t worry, you still don’t have to go out somewhere. Everyone is here.”

           “And you’ll stay?”

           She nods. “Whatever you want. It’s your day, Jiyong.”

2012

           “SJ, seriously. It’s his birthday!” Daesung watches as SJ gets ready for her date with Siwon.

           “You think I don’t know that?” She shoots him a glare that’s equal parts amusing and terrifying. “It’s not like I can just ring up Unicef and be like ‘hey can you reschedule this whole charity gala thing? It’s my best fri-”

           Daesung’s entire demeanor perks up. “It’s your what? Go ahead, SJ. Finish your sentence.”

           SJ rolls her eyes. “I’ll be back before midnight. I’ll just see him then.”

           “Alright, Cinderella.”

           She’s not back by midnight.

           Jiyong waits up expectantly, heart growing heavier and heavier with each minute that passes by. She’s never missed his birthday before. Never. Maybe that’s the exact moment his hatred for Siwon started, burning so bright and so intense it colors his every action around SJ’s boyfriend. Fuck, the word hurts to even think.

           So he just goes to bed.

           The clock glows 2:32 am when Jiyong feels his bed dip and slender arms wrap around his waist. He shifts around so he and SJ are face to face.

           “I’m-”

           Jiyong shakes his head. “Don’t say you’re sorry.”

           SJ’s cheeks puff up. “I wasn’t going to.”

           “Oh?”

           “I was going to say: I’m all yours for the next twenty four hours. I know I’m a shitty friend for choosing the gala over you, but I’m not leaving your side again until this time tomorrow. You’ll be absolutely sick of me.”

           Jiyong hides his grin by pulling her into a tight hug. “God, you’re such a little punk. What the hell am I gonna do with you?”

           He can practically hear the smile in her voice. “Love me anyway?”

2013

           “What the fuck is this?” Jiyong pulls the blindfold down and looks around the bright white studio. His eyes immediately find SJ’s who simply smiles and gestures around her.

           “Ta da! It’s yours!”

           “What’s mine?”

           “This.” SJ skips around. “This whole place! You can use it as an art studio. I know you’re really into that lately and your apartment doesn’t really have enough room so… do you like it?”

           “Do I like it?” Jiyong looks around in awe. “I fucking love it.” He picks her up and spins her around, planting a kiss on her cheek as he lowers her back on the ground. “SJ, you’ve got a beautiful fucking soul, babe.”

           “I expect your first work to be for me.”

           “Oh, fuck yeah.”

2014

           SJ looks mildly upset. Okay, so, maybe Jiyong’s downplaying it a little. She looks absolutely devasted.

           “SooJin?” He gets no response. “Kitten?”

           SJ huffs. “Don’t call me that. I don’t deserve it.”

           “Why?”

           “I didn’t know what to get you this year,” she wails pathetically. “And when I finally found something Kiko mentioned you might think it’s dumb…”

           Jiyong can’t help but laugh. “SJ, I think you know me a little better than Kiko. What was it?”

           SJ bites her lips nervously. “Well…”

           “SJ. Show me. It’s my birthday present anyway.”

           She huffs in annoyance. “Fine.” She fishes through her bag and pulls out a little keychain. “I know it’s not much but I thought it was cute and reminded me of you. It’s a g dragon.”

           He runs his thumb over the tiny dragon, curving and twisting its body in a way that makes it look like a capital G. The laughter bubbles up in his chest, spilling out of him before he can repress it.

           “SJ, this is adorable. I love it.”

           SJ blushes, quietly saying, “I mean… I thought you would.”

2015

           “Sooo…” SJ threads her fingers between Jiyong’s and swings their arms as they walk through Times Square. “You know how I’m, like, the best gift giver ever?”

           “Yeah?”

           “Well, you might actually hate me this year.”

           “What? Why?”

           Instead of saying anything, SJ points up to one of the many, many screens above their heads. There, in all its neon glory, is single handedly the most embarrassing photograph Jiyong has ever seen of himself. He’s asleep, mouth wide open, stubble across his chin, and his eyes are half open. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE PRINCE accompanies the picture in bold while lettering.

           “You have five seconds,” Jiyong mutters.

           “Oh shit!” SJ doesn’t hesitate before taking off through the crowd. “Remember how much you love me!”

           “I’m going to kill you!”

2016

           Jiyong eyes the kitchen table with rapt interest. Every single Dragon Ball related movie or tv series sits in front of him, teasing him, begging him to just dive in. But he can’t. SJ made sure of that.

           “SJ, come on,” he whines. “This is my birthday! Why do I have to wait?”

           “Calm down you big baby. I’m almost done.��� She hurries out of the bathroom and shoves a bunch of fabric in his arms. “Go change.”

           “Are these… matching pajamas?”

           “Yep! Now go!” SJ pushes him towards the bathroom so she can pop in the first dvd. He emerges from the bathroom not even a minute later, looking cute and cuddly and every bit the dork she knows he is.

           “Aww,” she coos. “Look at you.”

           Jiyong rolls his eyes and plops down on the couch. “I feel like I’m in one of your weird wet dreams.”

           “You wish. Now, are you ready to start from the very beginning?”

           Jiyong considers her words and feels vaguely sentimental. This really is starting from the beginning. The beginning of them. Or, uh, their friendship. Yeah, friendship.

           “I can feel you getting sappy on me, Kwon,” SJ teases.

           He clears his throat, picking his cat up off the floor and settling the tiny creature in his lap. “Play the damn dvd.”

           “Yes, sir.”

2017

           “Okay, so,” SJ sets a book down in front of Jiyong. It creates a heavy thud against the wooden table as she does so. “I can’t take full credit for this one. You’re mom helped me out with it and I’ve sort of had the idea for a couple years now. I figured with Kwon Jiyong being out now it’s an appropriate time to give it to you.”

           “Babe, you’re rambling.” Jiyong chuckles.

           SJ nods. “Right. Sorry.”

           “It’s cute.”

           “I’m not cute!” She shakes her head as if trying to keep herself on track. “Anyway, you’re mom had all of the pre-2009 photos. The rest of them are ones I had.”

           Jiyong starts flipping through the book. It’s red leather, his name embossed in gold lettering on the front. The whole thing is cool and smooth to the touch, each page painstakingly put together with effort and love. Most of the photos he’s seen before. Some of the more recent ones… well, those are new.

           “You took these?” He asks in pure awe.

           SJ nods. “I like candids. The ones where you aren’t looking. That’s my favorite.” She points to a photo of him onstage. The angle makes it seem like he’s larger than he is, more important than he is. He’s standing on his own but laughing at something going on off camera, smile stretching from ear to ear. In one of his hands is his mic. In the other is SJ’s own outstretched hand.

           Jiyong makes a promise to himself that night as SJ heads back to her own place that she’s never getting away from him. Ever.

2018

           “Hyung!” SJ pops out from behind Jiyong’s father with a gorgeous, blinding smile. “Happy birthday.”

           “Oh, SJ, really. Again with the hyung?” Jiyong’s mother scolds her half-heartedly.

           Dami laughs. “Careful, Mom. You’re scolding your future daughter-in-law.”

           “I’m aware.”

           SJ rolls her eyes before sitting herself firmly by Jiyong’s side. He almost can’t believe it. She looks so good. So healthy. Her skin is practically glowing and even without makeup she’s completely flawless. She’s gained some weight from touring, softening her curves and face. Her femininity is undeniable and Jiyong finds himself more attracted to her than ever. If this is the difference a few months can make he wonders what a whole year will bring.

           “I’ve got your present.” SJ pulls out a little box from her bag and pushes it across the table, the wrapping already partially coming off, but it’s fine and all the more endearing because it just means SJ did it herself.

Jiyong has to hide the grin on his face when he pulls out a silver bracelet, a bejeweled blue jay handing from the delicate chain. His heart melts when she fastens it around his wrist, her fingers lingering a second longer than necessary.

“So you won’t forget me,” she says with a shy smile.

Jiyong scoffs because what the fuck. How could he ever? “You’re full of it,” he answers with a smile that says everything he can’t quite yet

2019

           Life… doesn’t get better than this, Jiyong decides as he watches his father toss an arm around SJ and give her a quick side hug after she laughs particularly hard at one of his dumb jokes. His mother also watches them with a fondness in her eyes while Dami… well, Dami’s got her eyes on Jiyong.

           “When’s the wedding,” she leans over and whispers in his ear.

           It’s unbecoming of a soldier to blush but Jiyong can’t help how the tips of his ears burn bright pink. “Shut up.”

           “Has she given you your present yet?”

           “N-no.” Jiyong doesn’t like her tone or the teasing sparkle in her eye.

           Dami makes a shock sound. “Really? Allow me to wrap this up then.”

           “Dami, what are you-”

           “It’s been real, lil bro, but I think we should all be heading out. Right, Mom?”

           Jiyong’s mother (already aware SJ’s present is a little on the private side) responds in the affirmative after a moment of shock. “Oh, yes, I’m exhausted. How about you, dear?”

           Jiyong’s father shakes his head. “I’m fine.” His wife elbows him in the ribs. “I mean, yes, let’s go. I’m tired.”

           “We’ll see you tomorrow, love.” Jiyong’s mother gives him a quick peck on the cheek. “SooJin, sweetheart, why don’t you stay a while longer? We’ll meet you back at the hotel tonight.”

           “Not if it goes well,” Jiyong’s dad rumbles. He gives a hearty laugh when Dami shushes him dramatically.

           “Well that was…” Jiyong blinks in confusion. “Actually, I don’t know what that was.”

           “Cringe?” SJ offers the word up with an awkward laugh.

           He nods and silence settles. It’s strange. Usually things aren’t this tense and weird between them. Usually their silences are comfortable. Easy. Hardly noticeable. This one hangs heavy on Jiyong’s heart, convincing him he’s done something horribly, terribly, utterly wrong.

           “SJ-”

           He’s shocked when she moves from her spot across the restaurant table to sit right beside him. He’s even more shocked that she moves in closer, pressing her hands to his firm chest, openly admiring the hard muscles beneath her fingertips. This is out of character. SJ would never… would she? Is this why his parents were in such a rush to leave? To give them alone time?

           “What are you doing?” His voice is thick, barely audible, drowning in lust and confusion. “SJ… what’s going on?”

           Her eyes flicker up to his, deep pools of the most delicious chocolate. “I have a present for you.”

           She moves slowly like she’s scared of running him off. It’s slightly ridiculous in Jiyong’s opinion. The only place he has any intention of running to is straight towards her. Fully, openly, happily. When their lips meet he can’t hear anything but the sound of blood rushing in his ears, flooding a little further down south. Her lips fit against his perfectly. Like they were made for each other. He grips her hips and pulls her closer, throwing his everything into the kiss. This may be the only time he ever gets this, so why not make the most of it?

           “Jiyong,” SJ moans as she breaks the kiss. “I… just… look, listen to this later, okay?” She pats his front pocket where she slipped in a tiny USB drive during the kiss. “And happy birthday.”

           Later that night as he’s alone- blessedly, strangely, alone- he plugs the USB into his laptop. There’s only one music file available and he clicks on it instantly. The opening chords are soothing yet dramatic. He recognizes it as SJ’s work before her voice even starts up. He closes his eyes and for four minutes loses himself in the music. It’s not until the very end that he realizes.

           The song was his birthday present.

           The song was for him.

           Park “I can’t write love songs without outside help” SooJin composed and produced a whole love song for him.

           Jiyong’s head starts spinning. What does this mean? Where does it leave them? Instead of overthinking things he chooses to replay the song again and again until he blinks and the sun is peaking hazy over the horizon.

#bigbang au #bigbang 6th member au #sj au

[matildainmotion]

A Quiet Blog on Paradox in the time of Covid

While the streets are quiet the volume of online noise is terrific. News, articles, tweets, blogs, zoom meetings, online offerings of classes, shows, concerts and more. I am attracted and repelled by them. I want to take part and I also feel silent amidst the din. Thousands of people with thousands of thoughts. I dive in and out, make quick raids into the online crowds. I am humbled, moved, alarmed, angered, frightened by what I read. I am not sure I have anything to add. I don’t feel qualified and I do not want to contribute to the noise. But I have committed to writing a blog a month and it is a new month. My son would not let us forget April Fool’s Day – he superglued a five pence piece to the bathroom floor. Despite the fact that time is slowing, slurring in strange ways now, I know that April has begun – I am reminded whenever I see, and nearly stoop to pick up, the silver coin lying near the loo. So here I am writing a new blog, wondering if it is possible to whisper online. I want to write something quiet.

           Many people are writing lists. It is what we do when we feel overwhelmed. When we do not know what to do, we write ‘to do’ lists. Along with these and the shopping list of hard-to-get-items, I have started a new list recently, not a ‘to do’ list but a list of things that undo me, an undoing list. It is a list of opposites, contrasts and contradictions. I am going to share this list with you in an attempt to write something quiet, because ultimately it is a list of things that leave me silent. Here it is:

Health/ Death:

It starts with the big and frightening contrast that the virus plays out: some people have it and never know, while others die from it. Covid-19 is harmless. Covid-19 is fatal. Both of these are true. And whatever turns out to be true for you (no symptoms, mild ones, odd ones, severe ones) everyone has to hold and navigate these two truths. In our household we have all been ill. We are not yet better. I have no idea what illness we have had. It has been scary and it keeps dragging on so I feel in the fantastic murky middle between the two truths of it all being fine and it all being fatal.

One other contradiction within the virus itself: one of the ways in which Covid-19 can get serious, so I have read, is when the immune system overreacts in a ‘cytokine storm’ – it is an overaction that causes more damage. Sometimes our attempts to make things better, make them worse.

No Work/ More Work:

Whilst some people are stopping, their diaries emptying, their work cancelled, others are working superhumanly hard - key workers, those providing healthcare or food. My husband and I are not key workers. We are both at home. We try to order a delivery of food because we live with my mother and she is in the extra-vulnerable-Covid category and so we must self-isolate. No sites work- all the food delivery websites have notices explaining that they are working round the clock to meet the extra demand. Some will remember this as a time when they sat at home. Others as a time when they could barely make it home. Work has stopped, like never before. Work is speeding up, like never before. These are both true.

Action/ Inaction:

There is a contradiction within the very language used to underscore the importance of the lockdown. ‘Save Lives,’ we are told, an imperative that implies heroism, courageous actions and brave adventures. And what heroic action must we take? To stay home. Those of us who are not key workers must be brave enough to do nothing. We must actively work at having no adventures, if possible not even to the shops and back. We must be courageous. We must do nothing. These are both true too.

Isolation/ Connection:

When I go out for our daily walk, if we see anyone else, we carefully keep away from them, yet say hello. Before the pandemic we would have walked nearer but ignored them. Now we are social distancing yet socialising. Isolating yet connecting. This is also happening online. We are staying separate, together.

Ordinary/ Extraordinary:

Littered amidst those thousands of online articles are the words ‘unprecedented,’ ‘challenging’, ‘crisis,’ ‘extraordinary.’ I am therefore struck when I go out to empty the recycling, by how ordinary the world still looks. Of course this links to my not being one of those key workers – I am sure the inside of a hospital does not look ordinary right now, but our lane does. It is quieter but no different to normal. The silver birches and the oaks opposite, the dustbins to the left, the last of the logs from the winter’s store, the gravel on the driveway – nothing looks unprecedented. I try to imagine going out and knowing nothing of what is going on in the world, and I wonder how long it would take me to notice that everything has changed, forever. Everything is different. Everything looks just the same.

Panic/ Calm.

Linked to the above, there is a strange mix of anxiety and stillness present. Less planes, less cars, less people rushing about the streets - peace and quiet. And panic. Panic buying. Panic phone calls. Panic internet searches. Last week the backs of my hands turned red and my skin began to crack. After a session of anxious googling I realised I had developed hand dermatitis from so much hand-washing. My skin was panicking. The world is calmer. The world is deeply worried.

Empty/ Full

The days are empty. Empty of school, meetings, rehearsals, visits, cafes, outings. And yet full. Full of each other, of the simple getting through-ness which is all-consuming. Full of helping the children to sleep and to wake, finding clean clothes, making meals. Full of putting the cushions back on the sofa, retrieving the toys from under the table, of watching My Little Pony, of writing when I can, of walking when we can, of working out how to order in supplies. It is after midnight by the time I get to bed. The days pass. I have nothing in my diary, but when someone asked me when they could call me, I was not sure when to suggest because I am busy. There is nothing to do. There is everything to do.

Heaven/ Hell

Some people with whom I have connected online (again the not-key-workers amongst us) have said that they are having a wonderful time. Even that it is somewhat idyllic. I see it too - and feel slightly threatened by - the images of other families that go out online, the lovely creative lockdown projects in which others are engaged. I understand it. For once our family is altogether - my husband is not away. The craziness of the world as it was before has suddenly stopped. We have our heavenly moments- when the children make Pharaoh headdresses out of cardboard boxes with my husband, when we all go out for our daily walk and play jumping-on-each-others’-shadows on the grass. 

And then my son has one of his meltdowns, or my daughter. Then someone is furious, someone else in tears. The trauma underway within the world unlocks, in lockdown, all the trauma present within our family’s history. I read of how domestic abuse is on the rise - of course it is. There is nothing idyllic about a pandemic.  

There are heavenly moments, there are hellish moments, every day. 

Grief/ Hope

There is huge grief. So much loss – of lives and livelihoods. Loss of mothers, fathers, of sisters, brothers, lovers, wives, husbands. Loss of grandparents. Loss of children. Loss of work. Loss of projects in the pipeline. My husband works in theatre – all the shows are cancelled. I have been working on a novel for the last 8 years - I have been wondering whether the story I am telling will still make sense in the world now. There is the loss of the spring and summer we were going to have. The holiday. The grand plan. The loss of the world we knew.

There is great hope. People are uniting, supporting one another, showing extraordinary kindness, bravery and dedication. The skies are clearer, the carbon emissions lower, the unsustainability of our lives and the potential to stop the world and make huge changes fast has been unexpectedly, dramatically demonstrated.

Even the weather is part of this contrast: there is a worldwide pandemic in motion and the days are glorious. Sunshine, blue skies, buds, birdsong and death. Every day more death. Every day more sun.

As this pandemic is affecting everyone, it makes me think of everyone and of their different stories. It is a game I used to play even before this happened, to make myself imagine how in this moment someone is dying, and someone else is being born. But at present it seems more potent, more real, the certainty that there are people in deep grief, whilst for others the sudden change to their routines will have enabled a reunion, a love affair. People are dying because of Covid-19. People will be born because of Covid-19. There is so much to grieve the loss of. There is so much to hope for.

That is my list of opposites to date. Opposites are not new. They are not a sudden startling appearance as a result of this pandemic. Opposites are as old as us. We organise our thoughts around them, our language, our culture. The difference right now is not even in their extremity – we have long lived in a world of painfully extreme polarities, of rich and poor, right wing, left wing, and most recently, Brexiteers versus Remainers. The difference now is that more of us are being forced to hold the other, the opposite within ourselves – to embrace the contradictions. Usually our impulse is to take one side, make someone else into the opposition. But now our main opponent, front and centre of the news, is a tiny invisible thing that lives inside us. And it could be in any of us, no matter our gender, economic status, sexuality, religion, race. The opposition is not over there, on the other side. It is literally within us. On our hands. In our lungs. It is taking our breath away. All the wonder, all the horror, of this phrase is true.

These contradictions are paradoxical. Paradox is not paracetamol. It does not lower fevers. It is not a disinfectant, but I do think it is cleansing on some level. Paradoxes are powerful. They disturb, disrupt and ultimately leave me quiet, with nothing to add, because it has already all been said. Both sides have spoken. Both sides are true. What more is there to say? And after this dumbfounded silence, what comes next? I do not know. But I think not-knowing is the best thing we can do right now – those of us that are not nurses or doctors, the not-at-all-key workers like me. I think the best thing I can do is to sit in lockdown, being unlocked, undone by contradictions. Not deciding what the world will be like next but letting the world work on me, after all the devastating work that I, and all the rest of us, have done upon the world.

Usually my blogs end in ‘a question for the month,’ specifically for those who are part of the Mothers Who Make network. This month I am not sure what to ask because I do not want to move too quickly onto answers. Solutions. To-do lists. I do not yet want to fix everything, make it right, because the wrongs need honouring. I also notice I have written less about my mothering this month, less about my making. Usually I relate everything back to these themes, but I suppose it is part of the undoing of opposites that I am not singling myself out as a mother right now, or as a maker. My husband is at home – usually he is not. Usually we are fixed in our opposing roles. But right now he is caring for the children in our tiny garden, while I write this, quietly, in the living room. So, this month, I think all I want to ask everyone, anyone, whoever you are, is simply this: How are you? How are you doing?

If you wish to answer this then one way might be to join us via Mothers Who Make’s new weekly international peer support meetings, every Tuesday, via Zoom. Every kind of mother is welcome to join, with their children in the background, or the foreground, or running in between. At the end of the month we are going to host one for parents and carers too, regardless of gender, in recognition of the ways in which the current crisis is challenging many of our usual roles and divisions. And I don’t know anyone who is not a carer at this moment - someone who cares. Come and join us. On a Zoom call there is a button in the corner of the screen that you can press to mute yourself, so you can be quiet online, as silent as you like, and then, if you wish, you can unmute yourself and tell us how you are.

[scarletxmoon]

Can You Trust A Fox? - Chapter 1

For 8 years Neil had been running for his life trying to escape a fate that had been laid out for him since his birth. He might be a powerful wizard that bad people want to use for their own greed. He might just be a boy who wants to run and disappear. But when he meets a group of adventurers who happened to be part of the Foxhole Court a well know guild full of misfits and possible criminals. He forms connections with them and he's not sure if he wants to run anymore. He might just stand with the Foxes and fight for his freedom.

Dungeons and Dragons inspired fic

AO3

Running. Thump thump. Running that's all Neil had known. Running from his father; running from Lola; running from death. Thump thump. The sound of his feet hitting the ground as he pulled his spell components into his hands. The guttural sound of a monster broke the silence of the forest. Harsh breaths and the quiet patter of his feet against the ground.

He broke into a clear then stopped panting heavily—he pivoted on the balls of his feet turning to face the lumber monestrous mass breaking through the treeline. It ran at him with colossal speed swiping at him.

Neil speed allowed for him to effortlessly dodged it. He ready a fire bolt and aimed it hoping for the kill. It hit the monster square on the chest sending it back a few steps; it swayed as Neil held his breath.

The head snapped up emitting a low threatening growl towards him—it ran at extending it's claws. This time Neil was unlucky and did not move fast enough as it's claws slashed across his stomach. He gritted through the pain as he pulled out more spell components focusing on the spell he released sphere of an acidic substance; the creature dropped to the ground hollering out in pain—the smell of melting flesh filled Neil's nostrils.

Once the screams died down Neil allowed himself a moment to breathe as he stared down at the melt body before him. He went to move but pain spiked up his body quickly looking down at the wound the creature gave him. A parch of blood formed through his tunic; deep red mixed with a black substance.

Neil pushed it from his mind as he rummaged through his satchel fishing out a vial of a red liquid. He removed the stopper place the bottle to his lips—knocking the liquid back. He gave himself a moment longer to breathe; allowing the potion to do it's job.

He stared up towards the treeline looking for something specific—a blur of movement caught his sight as a small creature bolted from the trees towards him. He slipped down to his knees as a the creature stopped in front of him; a cat stared up at him mewing and purring as he rub himself against Neil's hand. He stood turning towards the direction he had just come from; looking down he smile at the cat nodding it to follow. They started their way back to village that he had been staying at the past two months.

It was a tiny village near the border of the Empire. He noticed the presence of a few Empire soldiers; pulling his hood up he tried his best to avoid them as he made his way towards the guardsman outpost.

The guards outpost was a shabby little shack with a board out front—parchment pieces attached to it listing the various jobs that need to be handled. He stopped at the door giving it a gentle tapped and a stern and broad guardsman answered the door looking him up and down.

"The job is done the monster has been eliminated." The guard looked at him suspiciously. Neil knew what he was thinking; how could this scrawny short wood elf take on an abnormally large monster that no one else had been able to defeat. Neil sighed but still look at him expectantly.

"You managed to defeat it?" Shaking his head he turned back inside to grab something. "Well colour me impressed I would not have though someone like you would have been able to that. Well as promised here's 100 gold." He handed a satchel of coins to him; Neil accepted it slipping into one of the pouches on his belt. He gave a quick thanks as he turned to leave.

He headed back towards the inn that he had been holed up in to collect his traveling pack. He didn't know where to head to next but he knew he had to get away. He could sense that something was coming he felt sure it was likely his father or someone who worked for him.

He had been running for the past 8 years of his life; since he was 10 when his mother pulled him from his bed and ushered him out the door towards a horse that was packed with few bags of food and clothing. At the time Neil hadn't understood why they were leaving but as the years went by his mother had filled him in with some facts but it only left him with more questions.

He knew his father was a bad man vicious and violent—Neil bore the scars of that violence. His father had become darkened; his thirst for more power drove him to insanity. And naturally he knew his son was adept with magic and he sought to control his powers and him.

After few years of running his father people caught up to them. They dragged his mother back to his father where it gave the strike that would serve as the killing blow. Before death could take her; she grabbed Neil using the last of her strength she used dimension door to get the them away from his father.

She made him promise with her dying breath to keep running and keep fighting. And he did; he ran—he fought—he tried to make his life the best he could despite the circumstances. But as the longer he was alone the more he wanted to just give in. He was tired but the will to run was much stronger so he ran.

The sun began to drop behind the tall pines; he settled for the night; setting a fire up. The slight chill from the autumn air went through to his bones—pulling his dark green cloak closer to his body trying to keep the warmth from fire within. He ran his finger through his dark hair as he stared at the fire. Sir was curled up at his side purring, his hand dropped down to Sir's head as he scratched behind his ears—pulling quiet mew from him. He settled in closing his eyes to attempt sleep hoping no nightmares would find him.

But as his eyes began to close he sensed something amiss—his eyes snapped open, he attempted to move but he was not fast enough to react as he felt cool metal against the skin of his throat.

"I wouldn't move if I were you." a low voice growled. Fear crept across Neil's features as his eyes widened and he froze. He knew it would only be a matter of time before his father people caught him. How had he been so stupid to let his guard down? He could hear the hissing of Sir beside him as he stood ready to attack the person behind him.

"Andrew!" another voice yelled from in front of him this time; a dark skinned halfling came into view. The dagger dropped and Neil used the chance to bolt. He ran or at least he tried to run but dizziness over took him as he clambered to ground shaking and shivering.

"Shit did you nick him with your knife." a third voice called out as he felt someone hovering over him. He could feel someone touching him; feeling around for wounds. He caught flashes of blond hair and hazel eyes as he slowly slipped into darkness.

"No please." Neil tried to speak but his words slurred.

"He's poisoned." Was the last thing he heard before the darkness finally took him.

Neil opened his eyes as the world came back to him—above him wooden ceiling instead of tree branched and stars. He shot up and noticed he was in a bed in what seemed like an inn. He could not remember getting to a town; last thing he could remember was a knife against his throat, a halfling and then darkness.

His eyes scanned the room—empty potion bottles and bandages littered the table nearby; a fire place emitting warmth from the low fire burning. His eyes shifted to a blond halfling boy wearing light gray robes with a orange fox crest on the front. His eyes were closed his breath was even—sleeping.

Neil looked down; his cloak had been removed same with his tunic. He panicked knowing who ever this person was had seen his scars. He was very self conscious of his scars; they were questions he didn't want to answer—a reminder of his father.

His hands grasped the fabric of the bandages that were wrapped around his torso. Confusion took over; who were these people? If they worked for his father they would have left him bloody and close to death—not save his life.

'He's poisoned' he recalled a voice saying before he blackout; that would explain why he was unable to get away and how he was unable to sense them sooner.

Neil tried to move but pain seeped up his body causing him hiss. Which was enough to startle the halfling boy from his sleep he looked up he pressed his lips tight; shaking his head slowly as if tell Neil not to move.

"You are awake finally" His voice was quiet as he sighed; standing up walking towards him. Neil gripped the sheets his eyes darting from the boy to the door not far behind him. "You must really have a death wish." The boy cracked a slight smile.

"What do you mean?" Finally Neil found his voice even if it was slightly cracking. The boy stood at the foot of the bed staring at him.

"Well that monster you fought it poisoned you. You are very lucky we found you or you probably would have died in your sleep."

Neil looked down at the bandages once more. The reality of the words struck him. He almost died and they saved him. He looked back up to the boy eyes taking in the every detail; blond with hazel eyes. He recalled back to what he saw before he blacked out.

"Who are you?" He finally got his voice under control.

"I am Aaron the healer of my group. I'm a cleric of the Foxhole Court. And you are lucky I'm very proficient in curing poisons." He grinned. "So who are you?" He asked, Neil just stared at him words dying on his tongue.

Neil didn't know if he should tell him; after all he was a stranger—a danger if he said the wrong thing. As he worked to carefully choose his words the door burst open; the dark skinned halfling from before barged in.

"Nicky!" Aaron snapped at him. Nicky just shrugged in response.

"What? We heard talking so we figured he must have woken." Neil tensed at the 'we' part as his eyes snapped back to the door. A mirror in dark clothing the same blond halfling that was in front him—a twin. But the person behind him cause him to freeze.

Tall tanned skinned human male with striking green eyes; dressed in fighter attire—a Fox crest replacing what should have been a Raven. This was someone from his past whom he hoped would never see again. Kevin Day adoptive brother to Riko Moriyama—a family with close ties to his father; his father's boss.

Kevin pushed his way past Nicky and the other twin; he recalled the name Andrew being called before he lost consciousness. Kevin stopped right beside him; eyes searching his—looking at his face then his hair. Neil's eyes widened when he realized that his disguise had fallen when he blackout.

"Nathaniel?"

-----

Author’s Note:

Neil is a Wood Elf Wizard Andrew is a Halfling Rogue Aaron is a Halfling Cleric Nicky is a Halfling Bard Kevin is a Human Fighter The rest will be listed when the chapter they are in is posted. I do have this plotted to the end so this will be a complete fic unlike some of my previous fics.

#all for the game #the foxhole court #dnd au #tfc #au #ship tags will be added in future chapters #my fic #inprogress #fanfiction #multi chapter

[brightlilies-a]

   headcanons i’ve written before but get to repost/rewrite 1/??:    1.0 gridanian politics and your local keeper boy’s childhood.

   this deals a lot with racism and xenophobia, because both are very prevalent in 1.0 gridania. if that bothers you, please don’t read this! it’s not something i slap into my interactions, but it is something i find necessary to address with regarding albi’s character because it is in his upbringing.

   i’m gonna start with a mini-history lesson that really is a massive watering down of the actual subject. there’s entire chunks of the history missing, 1.0 didn’t do the greatest job of explaining it as it was & 2.0 only barely scratches at it since the game started moving away from conflicts between the playable races.

   specifically before the calamity happened, keepers of the moon were essentially persona non grata to the gridanians. some lived within the city for some number of various reasons, including finances, inability to hunt, lack of a tribe, need of medicines, etc., but many chose to live within the twelveswood proper according to their cultural lifestyle. those of whom lived in gridania proper, though, alongside the duskwight elezen, were often subject to a considerable amount of racist commentary and beliefs that did not extend to their seeker or wildwood counterparts.

   of course, their conflict with keepers really stems from hunting laws. under the elementals’ watch, hunting was only allowed within select regions of the twelveswood, and this was formally recognized through laws that restricted hunts to those lands. hunting outside of these selected regions was considered poaching, and seen as an act that would upset the elementals’ will. which seems reasonable when you’re a group of hyurs and elezen that actually deal with the elementals on a regular basis and have similar views of society, but the keepers migrated in much later by following the hunt, and their lifestyle is wildly different. as a result, gridanians tried to force their laws and way of life on the keepers, the keepers refused because it infringed on their freedoms and culture. therefore, gridanians and keepers do not, for the most part, get along.

   some tribes, like albi’s, would acquiesce and accept the gridanian hunting laws in a show of good will and in the interest of maintaining harmony/avoiding conflict, but for the most part, gridanians would see keepers in general as poachers and threats to the elementals’ will. it didn’t help, either, that a keeper-based gang known as the coeurlclaws rose on the back of the gridanians’ mistreatment of the keepers who lived in the city proper/keepers who had nowhere else to go, and began attacking twin adder/wood wailer sentries and poaching with the intent of making quick coin that was more often than not used to help their own families.

  among the many, many ways the gridanians made their dislike of keepers very evident, though, is in referring to them as savages, and otherwise treating them like they’re uneducated or disloyal to gridania itself. best example really comes from the archer quests with silvairre and leih’s interactions, such as

   and albi had to deal with that a lot once he moved into hyrstmill after the calamity. hyrstmill is a hamlet mostly populated by wood wailers and their families. after all, as it is a supply outpost for the god’s quiver. which means a forestborn, tribal keeper moving into their home was generally not seen as a good thing, and due to the distance from the main city, the calls from the seedseer made to accept the keepers who had been displaced by the destruction done to the twelveswood were more often than not simply ignored since few were of the interest of calling the behavior out.

   he never quite got used to the insults slung at him, much less to the number of times that, if he found himself cornered by the other children in the hamlet, the very real fear that he might actually die would settle in if he couldn’t find other ways to immediately escape. far be it from him to tell an adult such was occurring, though, since they’d likely not believe him or insinuate worse of him for saying their children were capable of it——not to mention their ability to live in hyrstmill as it was relied on them not being problematic, so very often, for his mother and sister’s sakes, he’d take the blows in silence.

   as such, he takes considerable, real offense to being called a savage. (consider it a slur for him and his people, basically, because it is used a lot like one.)

   which is, coincidentally, the empire’s favorite word to call the eorzeans in general. so most dealings with the less open-minded of their rank involve a lot of albi biting his tongue. however, the treatment he endured also fits into why albi doesn’t consider himself gridanian, and how he, if asked, will say he’s a forestborn from the black shroud.

--- bonus, because this headcanon is on a related subject so i can smash it in easily even if its a weird transition.

   however, for much of his childhood (well, up until the age of 14), these are things he had the blessing to never really come into contact with. his tribe, prior to the calamity, was from the peacegarden, which is a region of forest located in the north shroud near the hamlet of hyrstmill as of 2.0, but in 1.0, it existed in a slightly different area (pictured below). currently, it’s not accessible as the land changed considerably after the calamity, burying certain regions while exposing others (cough,palaceofthedead,cough).

   still near hyrstmill, but a sizable distance compared to the stone’s throw it becomes after the calamity happens. which means albi lived outside of society’s reach, actually within the twelveswood and a part of a small tribe of fellow keepers. and being that far out came with its own benefits—many of which were that he rarely encountered other people and therefore didn’t have to deal with the prejudice outside of the twin adder units and wood wailers dispatched to survey the area—but also with its own problems. as of 1.0, the peacegarden was located in an area riddled with strong monsters, but it also featured one other problem: its proximity to the ixali beast tribe. in fact, the ixali were close enough that there was an unused dungeon designed and intended to be placed within the peacegarden littered with their banners. in later patches, these ixali would even be poised to invade hyrstmill from time to time (much like one of the existing FATEs today, but on a far larger scale), and so the threat they posed to a small keeper tribe was great, indeed.

   so, to recap, albi grew up in a small, isolated tribe that consisted of three families: his own (the mahzu), his cousins’ (the fhorga), and another family (the rutkhu). and important to keep in mind is keepers are traditionally raised without fathers present, so the only males in the tribe (who would be exiled upon their reaching adulthood) were actually albi’to, his older brother albi’a, and the rutkhu son, kahli’a, which means the keeper philosophy regarding males was instilled into him pretty early on.

   in other words, to dream of anything grand as an adult was literally only going to be just that: a dream. but as long as he remained young enough to still be considered a child, he could make himself useful to the tribe and learn the skills he’d need for later on when he was forced to wander by his lonesome. the idea of expecting gratitude or respect was squashed altogether – and he heard it plenty growing up as the youngest of the tribe, often in the form that he didn’t know anything because he was a boy or because he was a child.

   despite this, he never really had a strained family life. he was attached at the hip with his brother, but his relationships with his sister and his mother were rather close as well. he was friendly and on good terms with his twin cousins, sehye and tohsah, as well as the tribe chieftain’s youngest daughter, ahte. the chieftain, kahli, and her eldest daughter, pahje, were less friendly, but in the end, it was only on matters that required counsel that he was shunned out, to which albi never really took to heart.

   returning to the point i made earlier, the threat of ixali attacks was relatively high, but being from a tribe meant that inquiring assistance from the wood wailers or the twin adder simply wasn’t feasible. they had to manage to be self-sufficient, even in the matters of their own defenses, which led to a focus on matters of stealth and, among other things, a proficiency for climbing trees to get out of the flightless ones’ reach. it didn’t keep them wholly away from conflict with the birdmen, as one such instance would claim the lives of both albi’s father and his aunt when he was only two moons, but ultimately, their ability to hide, as well as living a somewhat nomadic lifestyle managed to keep the number of casualties to a bare minimum.

  remaining on the topic of those not in his tribe, when it came to the hyurs and elezens that ventured far enough into the wood to find the keepers, there weren’t many. occasionally, their tribe would venture out with the specific interest of trading with merchants to get materials they otherwise couldn’t, but talking was done by those older than he was. his job was always to carry things back, to not speak, to not prolong their time among strangers. the cost of this, though, is that he never got enough practice to learn how to speak well among people outside the tribe, hence his use of contractions and lack of enunciation… only strengthening some individuals’ opinion that he was just another savage wildling of the wood.

   but he did occasionally, out of curiosity, wander near hyrstmill with his brother to observe things — try to understand the people that were so quick to talk down to him. hyrstmill at the time was busy and full of adventurers. it still lacked a proper aetheryte, yet people would still appear, oftentimes offering to help the hamlet against the threat of the ixal, which was… a strange concept to the miqo’te. gridanians accepting help from outsiders? it seemed unlikely, yet it was happening.

   for every adventurer that would make it to hyrstmill, however, was another that would find themselves utterly lost within the labyrinthine structure of the shroud. and those who find themselves lost tend to find themselves marked with woodsin and a target for the elementals, which only makes things harder for the denizens of the wood as the beasts get enraged and lash out. so, very often, and without telling anybody, and without talking to these stranded peoples, he’d take a page from his brother’s book and go out of his way to guide them back to the gates of civilization —— back to where they could be cared for without endangering themselves or others.

   so, y’know, he’s a strange boy. he wholly understands they don’t like him, but he feels compelled to help since they’re, well, helpless.

#🏶: bloom in the dark. ( headcanon. ) #[ oof im sorry mobile users this readmore is long #i forget how long ago this was originally posted on the first blog. its gotta be closer to 10 months at this point #but yeah. it's a rough subject matter i know and if im at all being insensitive like.......... educate me on how to do better !! #bc id love to talk about this better but theres no guides on how to talk about fictional oppression very well so i gotta wing it ]

[badluckcllub]

verse | desolation sound ch | sam wright, stevie brewin, charlie mcgrath, adam tourney, marisol bowers summary | sam wright plans to spend one night in desolation sound, but desolation sound wants more than one night out of him. 

chapter one of who knows how many. ps. this is long so if you actually read it i love you with all my heart. 

Things have been unchanged in this sleepy little town for decades. People are born, people die, but only within the confines of the city limits. Those who stumble across this place tend to leave as quickly as they arrived as if some unseen force compels them to put as much distance as possible between them and it.

It stays this way for year and years and years, and then one day it doesn’t.

Samuel Wright is the catalyst for all the events that follow. He is the one who stays. Later on he’ll say that it was difficult to tell the difference between the paranoia of coming down from drugs and the unsettling feeling that something was always lingering just beyond his field of vision. He’ll say his biggest mistake was pulling off the road and staying for the night.

There doesn’t seem to be any other cars in the motel’s parking lot when he pulls in. The sound of the car door slamming shut echoes strangely around him. Sam peers into the office to find it empty, too. He’s starting to wonder if maybe this place has been very recently abandoned when a voice rings out from somewhere behind him.

“H-Hi there. Hi. Can I help you?”

She looks startled to see somebody here, but he doesn’t take much note of it. He looks her up and down from behind his sunglasses. The chick looks like she just got finished running a marathon in the forest. Weird.  “Uh. Yeah. You work here? I need a room.”

She continues to stare at him slack-jawed. It’s really not that big of a deal that someone’s here for a room, is it? The dishevelled woman finally clears her throat and nods her head.

“Sure. Yeah. Lemme grab you a key.”

Sam follows her inside the motel’s blessed air-conditioned office, finally pushing his cheap sunglasses up onto his forehead, brushing the hair away from his face in the process. He looks exhausted, red-rimmed eyes, cheekbones that cut too sharp, a weariness hanging off his bones like a second skin. He leans against the counter as he fishes his wallet out from his back pocket and asks, “How much for a night?”

“Seventy bucks. Here. Fill this out for me and then I’ll grab you your key.” She slides a clipboard with a relatively short form for him to fill out. Sam scribbles his information out in a relatively legible style before sliding it and the cash back over to her. When he straightens up, Sam finds her staring at him again, something churning behind her eyes.

“Is there something on my face or what?” He’s too fucking tired to be deal with strange people’s shit. He’s been on the road for something like ten hellish hours; all he wants to do is lock himself up in a room and pass out.

Her eyes widen and her cheeks flush pink with embarrassment. “Oh. Uh. No. Sorry.” She turns quickly and grabs a key from off a hook behind the desk. “Here. Room number six is all yours.” There’s a brief pause, a subtle shift of something in her eyes, and then with a smile a bit too wide, a bit too forced, and with a bit too much cheeriness, she says, “Enjoy your stay!”

It makes him flinch.

Sam stumbles out of the less-than-adequate room number six mid-afternoon, the same cheap sunglasses haphazardly on his face, and shoves his way into the office to get a coke from the vending machine. The coins clink in and the can hits the bottom with a heavy thud.

The girl from the other night is still behind the desk, the same overly-cheery smile fixed on her lips. She looks significantly more cleaned up than she did the night before. She says, “Enjoying your stay?”

He answers her with an uneasy look before leaving as abruptly as he arrived. There are still no other guests here but him, but he takes no more notice of that than the way the motel girl longingly watches him step off the property.

Sam heads down the road of this dreary town to the main square in search of a cheap diner. The sunlight is bright enough to have him squinting a bit even with his sunglasses on, the sound of cicadas humming in the air.

God, how the fuck did he get here?

It started with the drugs. He reaches into his pocket to reassure himself that the small baggie of pills is still there. And then he had to run away. It’s the cliche story of a junkie: guy gets into drugs, drugs get into him, yadda yadda yadda. The rest of it goes about the same way you’re probably thinking about right now. Guy’s life blows up in his face. He loses his girl, he loses his job, he loses his apartment. He almost loses his life.

So he leaves. He runs and runs some more, hoping to leave all his bullshit in the dust behind his wheels. This isn’t the first town he’s stopped in and it likely won’t be his last, but it seems like no matter how far he goes the guilt, the loathing, and the regret continue to wrap around him like an anaconda suffocating its prey.

He pops two of the pills from his pocket, washes it down with the coke, and then crushes up the can, chucking it into the front yard of an abandoned looking house. His past can’t keep running to catch up with him forever, can it? It’s got to get tired eventually. Right?

Right.

All thoughts of his past are forcefully shoved in the back of his mind. There’s no time to dwell on that bullshit right now when he’s hungry for something cheap and greasy to satiate his cravings.

The town itself - whatever it’s called; he can’t even remember the name of the place - feels hollow. The streets are lined with a few cars, mostly worn-down trucks, a smattering of open businesses lining the main strip. The rest are closed and boarded up; those that aren’t have windows that are smashed in, glass littering the sidewalk. Sam saw only three people from his ten minute walk from the motel to the diner and he can’t help but wonder if people actually live here or not.

The question is answered when he finds a diner - Twin Moons Diner - and pushes the door open.

A little bell, like something from out of a slice-of-life film, rings above the door as he pushes it open into diner. It looks like every person in town is here for brunch. They all turn to look at him and look they do. It’s unnerving enough that Sam remains standing in the doorway with one hand still on the edge of the door, wondering if he walked in on something he shouldn’t have. He makes eye contact with a guy that looks to be about his age and surprised to see a stranger here.

It’s a highway town. What do these people expect?

Sam and the strange guy become locked in a staring contest and then it happens: for a brief second the guy seems to flicker. It looks like something from an old VHS tape that’s seen too many plays in its years, like the TV stuck on static, and then it’s gone. Sam blinks, rubs at his eyes, and lets the door shut behind him with another tinkle from the bell.

The guy looks away sharply and stares down hard at his half-eaten breakfast. The guy sitting with him looks sympathetic, but doesn’t say anything.

Sam stares for another moment before something seems to shift, and the air in the restaurant loses its tension. Everyone turns back to their meals and their conversations, chatter filling the air, but the tension doesn’t leave Sam. He hesitantly slides into a booth by the wide windows and steals a glance at the Flickering Guy. It was just a trick of the light, right? He’s too tired, too strung out, too many things. All he needs is coffee, another pill (which he promptly, and not-so-surreptitiously, swallows back) and some greasy food.

Yeah. That’s all.   

A waitress is hovering above him before he can even blink and she’s already pouring steaming coffee into a bland ceramic mug. “Afternoon, darlin’, or is it still mornin’ for you?” Wavy, muddy-red hair pours down the waitress’ shoulders, some of it pulled back with a clip, one hand resting on her hip, the other holding the coffee pot. Her nametag reads Marisol, and underneath that is the word ‘manager.’ She smiles brightly with the edge of something sharp. Like the rest of this place it catches Sam off-guard and he stumbles over his words.

“Yeah. Something like that.” The ghost of a sardonic grin flashes across his features as he slides the mug of coffee closer, words a little slurred as the warm haze of the pills begins to wrap around him.

The waitress - Marisol, manager - drawls out a laugh, accented with something Sam can’t quite place. “Well, what can I get you, darlin’?” she asks.

“Surprise me. I don’t really give a shit.” he says, gesturing vaguely with his hand before taking a sip of the coffee. The high has him too lost in the beginnings of a comfortable daze to bother reading over the menu with much more than glazed eyes. “Just make sure it’s greasy.”

“Sure thing. The greasiest meal comin’ right up just for you.” She gives Sam a wink, and leaves him to his high and his coffee. Sam exhales, allowing his body to slump into the diner’s surprisingly comfortable booth.

Yesterday’s drive was long as fuck and equally as uncomfortable. There was no reason for him to have driven so long; he must have passed through a good six towns he could have stopped in for the night, but something compelled him to keep going until his eyes threatened to shut behind the wheel. As much as he carries a death wish around with him he doesn’t want to act on it in a grisly car crash on some highway that rarely anyone ever drives down, so into that shitty old motel he pulled into. He presses the palm-heels of his hand into his eyes, takes a deep breath, then runs a hand through his unkempt hair.

Snapping him out of his thoughts is the scent of something mouth-wateringly delicious being placed in front of him. Marisol smiles her polite little smile and places a hand on his shoulder. Something flickers in her expression similar to the chick at the motel earlier before saying, “Enjoy your meal!”

It makes him flinch.

As he forks a pile of hashbrowns into his mouth, he finds Flickering Guy staring his way again. Sam has never been afraid to meet someone’s gaze, but it doesn’t feel like he’s looking at that guy’s eyes so much as he’s looking at something else’s. A wave of uneasiness spreads from head-to-toe and he loses the battle he’d normally win, turning his attention to his food.

The food’s okay, but just as greasy and bad for him as he wanted it to be. The sounds of the diner fade into the background as he tunes everything out, including the stare,  and doodles on a piece of napkin as he eats. It’s been nearly a month since he left Tucson, and even though there’s hundreds of miles between him and that shit city he feels like he hasn’t gone far enough. Is there really any running away from the shitshow he let his life devolve into? He can still hear the nurse’s voice echoing in his head after he woke up from the overdose: You need to see somebody or you’re going to die.

At the time he brushed off the comment with an arrogant roll of his eyes and some slurred words, but when his head cleared and he was left alone to discharge himself from the hospital it hit him like a ton of bricks. You’re doing to die. Sure, that might not be such a bad thing, he thought, but standing in the rubble of his life in the aftermath suddenly made it terrifying.

Sam breaks through the napkin he was doodling on from pressing down too hard, tearing the thin paper in a jagged line. The once intact, scribbled in dark heavy lines, eye stares back at him from the torn napkin. He stares back at it, the diner around him seeming to fade for good until it’s just him and this booth until someone puts a hand on his shoulder.

He nearly jumps, reaching up to smack away the offending hand, eyes darting to the figure standing above him.

“Y’should leave,” the Flickering Guy says. His features are drawn tight, dark circles rimming his eyes. He’s tall, but he’s hunched forward as if he’s trying to make himself smaller. There’s a borderline crazed look in his expression.

“Uh, what?”

“You should leave,” he repeats, enunciating each word carefully, as the static retakes his form in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment. Sam doesn’t miss it. “This whole town. Leave now. You shouldn’t be here.”

The stranger the Flicking Guy was eating with puts a gentle hand on his shoulder and pulls him a little bit away from the booth. “Sorry,” he says, a pitying expression on his face - not directed at Sam, but at his friend. “Ignore him. Enjoy your meal.” Sam’s brows furrow.

The friend, though he comes off as more of some kind of caretaker,  tries to pull Flickering Guy away from the table all together, but his feet are planted too firmly to move him. He raises a hand slowly, pointing at the doodle on the torn napkin. “That’s why y’should leave.” Sam stares down between the doodle and the two crazy guys invading his personal space.

He almost laughs, but a shiver runs up his spine instead and he says, “You guys mind fucking off and taking your weird shit somewhere else? I’m trying to fucking eat.” Flickering Guy - and he does flicker again and Sam does attribute it to the drug bender he’s been on - finally unglues his feet from the checkered floor and stumbles off outside with his caretaker-buddy in tow. He watches them have some kind of half-hearted argument outside before getting into the only car in the parking lot. There’s no real point in driving a car in a town where you can walk everywhere, and that makes the sleek Mercedes-Benz stand out like a sore thumb - especially when the town seems to be crumbling down around everyone.

Marisol returns to refill his mug to the brim with fresh coffee. “Anythin’ else I can get for you?”

“Nah, but... those guys who just left. Who are they?”

She pauses, watching the car make a left out the parking lot before saying, “The taller one is Charlie, the mayor’s son. The other one is his friend, Adam. He works for the mayor. Joined at the hip those two are. You rarely see one without the other.”

They’re long gone, but Sam looks over at the table they were seated at.

“They’re good boys, but mostly keep to themselves these days--” Marisol cuts herself off, looking like she’s revealed a little too much about them. “Anyway, sweetheart. If you need anythin’ else give me a holler.” She’s off to another table before Sam can even say anything else.

Small towns are always so fucking weird.

Letting the strangeness go, he slaps some cash down on the table and makes the short walk back to the diner, leaving the coffee unfinished and the doodled-on napkin behind. It’s midday, but he could probably get a decent amount of driving done today. To where? He has no fucking clue, but he’s never have an end goal in mind. His only plan was to drive until he found a place he felt good about and God knows he feels the opposite of good about this place.

He didn’t bother taking all his belongings out from his car the night before so sweeping through the motel room is a quick event. All that’s left is dropping off the key at the front desk.

The girl is still there, no longer cheerily smiling. “So, like, do you ever get off work?” he asks, dropping the room key on the counter. Her smile is as hollow as the town.

“I live on the property,” she explains. “I own the place, so no. I don’t really. Getting back on the road?”

“Yeah. No rest for the wicked.” Sam laughs, and the girl’s expression brightens up a little bit.

“Well, thanks for staying. Enjoy yourself out there.”

Sam pulls out of the motel, his life haphazardly packed into the backseat of the car, and makes a left down the road. He passes the abandoned looking house he saw earlier, he passes the diner, he passes a lot of closed businesses. As he reaches the outskirts of town he sees a sign for some sort of environmental research facility, and then it and the town is gone.

Tension he hadn’t realized he was holding in his shoulders releases as the town disappears in his rearview mirror.

Now that’s a place he hopes he never has to see again.

But someone out there loves to play cosmic jokes on the unfortunate.

He drives for an hour. Another town sign comes into view and before long he can read what’s written on it:

Welcome to Desolation Sound!

Something makes his stomach lurch and when he drives past the dilapidated sign he feels like he’s about to throw up.

It’s the motel he left but an hour ago, standing wearily off to the left like it’s about to crumble to its foundation. Sam slams on the brakes, the car skidding to a halt and leaving a trail of tire marks on the highway behind it. He blinks, rubs his eyes, then looks again. This time his eyes focus on a figure standing in the parking lot smoking. It’s the motel girl and she’s waving at him with a sad smile on her face.

With his head spinning, he pulls back into the parking lot he left in the opposite fucking direction and gets out of the car on wobbly feat.  He doesn’t understand. This doesn’t make sense. He drove down a straight desert road. He didn’t take a single turn, so how did he end up back here?

“What the fuck--”

“I’m sorry, Sam,” Motel Girl says. She flicks the joint to the ground and crushes it out underneath her boot as she looks up at the sky. “I was hoping this wouldn’t happen.”

“What? Hoping what wouldn’t happen? How did I… I drove straight. I left this place.”

“Stop trying to rationalize it,” she says wearily. Motel Girl tosses the key to the room he stayed at the night before to him. “You’ll need somewhere to stay so here. It’s on the house. Not like this shit place is making money anyway.”

Sam catches the key, then promptly throws up on the concrete, his head spinning with the absurdity of it all.

“Come on, Sam.” She gently reaches out to grab his arm and guide him towards the motel office. “Let’s get some liquor in you and I’ll explain it all. It’ll be fine.”

It’ll be fine. Those words will only come to haunt him.

#writing* #verse | desolation sound #oc | sam wright #oc | stevie brewin #oc | charlie mcgrath #oc | adam tourney #oc | marisol bowers #does a little excited jig

[gogogoats]

Request Fic 8

For @keylimecliche, who knows what she did. For the rest of you, enjoy this ~~mystery ship~~ and don’t blame me!

ooooo

Four years is a considerable age gap when one party is eight and the other twelve. It is somewhat less insurmountable when one is eighteen and the other twenty-two. It is nothing at all when one is twenty-four and the other twenty-eight.

 No, the difference in age was not what kept them apart. Other things did, certainly. His station in life, and hers. His duty, and hers. The importance of him marrying well, and the inconsequence of her marrying at all.

 His lack of feelings for her.

 Jane could not place the moment when it all began. When her straight-forward plans in life wobbled off their course, slowly at first, until suddenly they were careening wildly downhill with no means of correction, no method of arresting the momentum.

 No, Jane was volunteering for royal guard duty and throne room service long before she realised, and by then the damage was done. No matter how many nights she spent laying awake, examining the workings of her own mind, the conclusion drawn was always the same.

 She loved Prince Cuthbert.

 It was a painful realisation, one that filled her with disbelief.

 How could this be? How had he worked his way into her affections, so duplicitously, so effortlessly, so . . . unintentionally.

 He was not a handsome man. Jane could not say that she had been swayed by his looks, caught off-guard by a miraculous post-pubescent blossoming. He was still too red, too pimply, too awkward.

 He was not generous. A life spent watching his father haemorrhaging resources like a wounded beast at the end of a hunt had made him tight-fisted, over-correcting for the king’s generosity by reacting with scorn towards anyone asking for help.

 He was not fair. He still envied his younger sister whenever their parents showed her any kindness or affection, still deflected the blame for his mistakes onto others.

 He was not brave. Many a time Jane had shielded him from imagined danger while he cowered on the floor. The fateful day she had rescued him from Dragon had simply been the first of many that she would come to his aid, and he resented her for all of them.

 Oh yes, he resented her. Jane was under no illusion that he felt any kindness towards her. If he saw her as a woman at all it was not as one worthy of his notice, only his contempt.

 Which made the erratic beating of her heart whenever he drew near an even greater mystery.

 There was no sense in making any effort with her appearance, no point at all in patting down her hair or tugging at her tunic before entering his presence. And yet she found herself doing so each time, as though she would somehow catch his notice that day when she never had before.

 Cuthbert would have his choice of beautiful, accomplished, delicate women, and had in fact already rejected two princesses as not being ‘good enough’ for him.

 If her fellow knights noticed her preoccupation with her looks around the Prince they remained silent, although Jane suspected that they would never imagine her harbouring such feelings.

 Not for the prince who snorted when he laughed and sneered at Jane for doing the same. Not for the prince who insisted on addressing everyone by occupation rather than name. Not for the prince who had, in his late teens, gone through a phase of calling her it.

 Yet there she was, helplessly, hopelessly in love. With that prince.

 It was humiliating, to say the least. She could do well enough, if she had the inclination. Several young men had approached her over the years, and some did not even object to her choice of profession.

 But no. Jane had eyes only for the prince, as much as admitting it made her want to pluck said eyes from her own head.

 It was not that he was entirely without redeeming qualities. In her defence he could be a decent person when he chose to be.

 The castle was filled with cats now. There was often one settled upon his lap whenever he sat down. They twined around his feet wherever he walked, meowing loudly over his conversations to demand the food from his plate or a scratch behind the ears. He knew them all by name and never, ever lost his patience with them.

 In fact, Jane had never seen him show anything but kindness to any animal since the long ago incident with Smithy’s Pig.

 He was protective of Lavinia, in his own way. When their parents first raised the subject of marrying her off to a neighbouring prince, Cuthbert had protested as loudly as his sister, insisting that she was too young, and not at all ready.

 He was not entirely unsympathetic towards the plights of others. Although he curled his lip whenever a farmer or businessman came seeking financial aid, Jane had spied him on more than one occasion slipping a coin into the hand of a hungry child or destitute mother. It had surprised her, the first time, until she remembered how much he hated to see suffering. It seemed he felt even the commonest of people deserved better.

 He was desperately insecure, far more aware of his own shortcomings than Jane would ever have given him credit for. He had been well in his cups one night when he had let it slip. They had been alone at the time and he had confided in her, slurring so drunkenly that it had taken Jane several moments to process his words.

 He knew he was not handsome, or brave; that he was jealous and selfish. That no princess would find happiness with him, nor could he ever deserve one. He was desperately afraid of failing as king, convinced his people would hate him, if they didn’t already.

 It was a knife in Jane’s heart, hearing him speak so badly of himself. If there was one thing Jane had always had on her side it was confidence, the belief in her own abilities.

 She had done her best to restore Cuthbert’s confidence, lowering her guard at the risk of revealing her own feelings as she told him all that she admired in him.

 There was no way of telling how much, if anything, he remembered the next day. By the time she had escorted him to his chambers and handed him over to the care of his servant he had scarcely been concious. But it seemed to Jane in the days and weeks following that he was just a little kinder, a little more polite, and perhaps even a little more patient with her.

 She did her best to quash the fragile hope that bloomed in her chest, reminding herself that she was the opposite of everything he desired, and that he was so far from her reach that he might as well have been the moon.

 But she never quite got past the stabbing pain in her heart when he smiled in her direction, never stopped delighting in the sound of his laugh, never ceased to enjoy his excitement when he found a new litter of kittens.

 Because Jane loved Prince Cuthbert, she was his most loyal knight, and she could never quite convince herself that it was an entirely bad thing.

 ooooo

That’s right, she requested one-sided Jane/Cuthbert!! What can I say? Some people are just twisted. >___>

#jane and the dragon #jatd #request fics #my writing #fanfiction #fanfic

[riviia]

Title: Coalescence Pairing: Yennefer x Geralt Rating: Slight M Summary: A Geralt and Yennefer reunion after years of separation.  

Geralt sat in the darkness of the tavern. His hand wrapped itself around a mug of ale, his ears twitching with the slightest sound, only to ease back down when the sounds were revealed to be drunken slurs or late-night moans from the upstairs quarters.

His seat was in the corner of the room and despite the long strands of hair practically glowing beneath the shadows, he was all but invisible. Like the decapitated animal heads hanging on the wooden walls. A decoration. No doubt just as dead inside.

He swallowed greedily as he took a sip from the liquid in his cup. It took a lot for him to get drunk, but by gods this desecration of an ale was practically melting his insides. Perhaps he wasn’t intoxicated, but he was surely feeling the remnants.

“A-Are you the Witcher?” A small voice said, pitchy and adolescent. Geralt lifted his face to meet the blue gaze of a small framed farmer, whose arms were shaking with a worry that often came with meeting Geralt.

“Do I look like a Witcher?” Geralt asked, taking a large bite of the chicken thigh that rested on a small plate. It was cold and very unpleasant.

“I-I dunno know sir. I ain’t ever seen a Witcher before.”

Geralt dropped the piece of chicken, wiping his hands on a white napkin before turning to look at the red-headed boy. “Let’s skip whatever pleasantries often follow this greeting. You in need of me?”

“A-Aye. Yes. I need yer help sir. I work for Barron Aleksandr. I’m the Gardner at his estate. See my famil-”

Geralt sighed. “Keep the story short and sweet. Specifically, to the part of the monsters I need to kill.”

“R-Right. Well…I think my master may be making a deal with some devilish creature, sir.”

Geralt took a swig of ale. “What makes you say that?”

“He’s been acting strange for the last week. He started getting scars on his arms, bruises and scratches. It ain’t normal sir.”

“Ever think your master may be into a good tumble in a brothel?” Geralt said, pinching the bridge of his nose with his fingers. This was clearly a waste of time. The boy hadn’t even bear witness to an inhumane creature. He should have taken the job in Novigrad.

“I don’t think so. He ain’t the type to mess around, sir. Unless it’s with black magic o’course. And I…I saw the creature with me own eyes.”

Geralt leaned back, crossing his armored hands in front of his body. He looked up at the kid. “You saw it?”

“Aye. Well, I saw…something. It was hard to tell. I was outside, mending the garden when the Barron opened the front door. I was tending to the tulips, but out of the corner of me eye, I saw him open the door for something.” Geralt raised an eyebrow, prompting the boy to continue. “It was hard to concentrate, and me head felt all fuzzy, but I saw a black creature leaving the manor, while the Barron watched it go. It disappeared into the streets.”

“You saw its face?”

“No. Only it’s figure. Hooded. Black fog surrounding her as she walked.”

“Her?” Geralt asked, about to remind the boy of his previous brothel comment.

“Aye. The creature was in a woman’s form. I..I think I remember black hair, raven colored, down to her waist. I only caught it as she turned away. Her eyes…perhaps violet…or maybe…”

Geralt’s mind drowned out the rest of the boy’s words, his stomach flipping on the previous comment. Raven hair. Violet eyes. There was no way. It was more than impossible. The boy had to be lying.

Geralt stood without thinking, grasping the boy’s collar and roughly shoving him to the back wall. He could feel the gaze of the other patrons, but he knew none would challenge him, regardless of the boy’s safety.

“What else do you remember?”

The boy looked stricken, pale in the face and shaken beneath Geralt’s strong limbs. But Geralt held him up with ease, looking straight into his eyes. Geralt ground his teeth together and asked again, a little louder now.

“N-Nothing! I swear. It..it was like a dream! I barely saw her but I could tell there was something supernatural about her.”

Geralt tried again. “You didn’t see her face? Her clothing? Anything at all?”

The boy shudder and delved into thought again, shaking as he said, “I saw one thing as she turned away for me. She had a necklace. A…A star of some sort, tight on her neck. But that’s all I saw sir! I swear it!”

The boy was dropped to the floor, feet heavy with the lack of support. Geralt turned around, grabbing the last bit of ale and chugging it down his throat.

“Tell me the exact location,” He said, cracking his neck and pulling his snow-white hair into a low ponytail. The boy nodded and straightened his attire, reaching into the front of his pocket and pulling out crowns. Geralt shook his head, waving off the payment.

“Keep it. If you're tongue speaks the truth, I’ll end up paying you.”

--------

A Barron’s manor was a Barron’s manor.

This one was not different from the rest. A gate to keep the villagers intimidated. Uncontrollable flower beds, littered beneath the stone walls. Steep stairs that traveled over different parts of the grounds. The front entrance was a large wooden door, that was led by stone steps, some uneven and wobbly.

The boy had led him to the manor, then scurried off towards his small, on ground, house. Not nearly as nice as the one his master lived in, of course.

Geralt stepped up to the entrance, and closed his eyes, sensing any movement from inside. The silence hit his ears. Not a heartbeat or footstep inside the interior. Odd as it was, not uncommon. It was late at night, but perhaps the Barron continued to drink the night away. Despite his dealings with a said ‘devilish woman,’ it seemed the man could still enjoy his nights.

Geralt’s Witcher senses, however, tingled precisely as his fingers touched the golden knob. Not his medallion, but his other nerves were sent into a prickly rush. There was something, someone, who had been here previously. They had set their hands on the door, the feet implanted in the stones. Not long before he had been here.

And there was something in the air. A scent.

Geralt’s hand fell limp on the door handle and he turned away. There wasn’t a problem here. Not with the house and not with the Barron. It was the occasional guest who had made an interest in the residents here.

No, it was not in the house.

Geralt turned away, and his eyes focused on the ground below him. It took him but a moment, before there were deep footprints imbedded in the ground below. He cocked his head as he saw the direction the person went, the shoe size small and poise. Someone who walked with a confidence that could not be falsified.  

He stepped forward, towards the prints in the ground, and started to follow his way forward. Away from the manor. Towards something else. Something far more heart racing then any ghoul Geralt could ever face.

If this was right, if he was following something he had known before…his head couldn’t figure what it would mean. Freya…If it was her…

He shoved the thoughts out of his head and continued on the path. It had lead outside the manor completely now, into the depths of the village ahead. There were few people, so late in the night. Giggles and drunken spews in every direction, though Geralt kept his on the path.

The footsteps were easy to follow, as if already imprinted in his brain. He followed mindlessly, ignoring folks who would set to seduce him for a small amount of coin. He was focused, his dead heart beating in a way that hadn’t in years.

The footprints continued on, past the shops, past the armories and brothels, and eventually spread out to a small tavern. Different from the one he was at before, he pushed open the door so it swung and hit the back wall, causing a dozen pair of eyes to turn to look at him. None of them were who he was looking for.

Luckily, his eyes focused in on the floor, where the exact prints he needed lay, going up the wooden, creaky, stairs. Into the rooms above.

“Can I help you sir?” The barmaid asked, giving him a strange look. He just grunted and said nothing, making it clearly apparent he was not to be disturbed. She didn’t stop him as he set up towards the rooms, his footsteps heavy the further he went up.

It wasn’t the second floor, nor the third floor, where the prints stopped. But as he ventured up another level, he was hit by a various number of sensory surpluses. The prints faded off, right behind a room to the left of him. The smell in the air, hinted with a nostalgic twinge, made him pause his movements.

There was no way. No way. A coincidence, surely.

He rumbled with a forgotten sense of hope. Something he had not had for a long time. He grabbed the back of his hood and placed it onto his head, concealing himself in case it wasn’t her. Or maybe in case it was her. He wasn’t too sure.

With his hands on the door, he roughly pushed open the wood, which went flying back, and he stepped inside, moving out of the way as the door shut roughly behind him.

The room was dim, lit only by two candles near the window. The smell wasn’t hidden beneath the smell of the village anymore, but clear as it hit his nose. His mind warmed to the scent, a scent he had missed for so long, and he tried his hardest to focus as he looked around the small space.

There was a bed in the middle of the room. Made, like a body had never slept in it. There were papers scattered on the small desk to the right of the bed, as if someone had just been sitting there, rummaging through the pages.

His boots clinked as he walked around, fingering little gadgets that he found, trying to discover something that could trigger a memory. A feeling. Before the sense of hope could fall away.

But the more he searched, the more he found nothing. Not a person around, not a figure or paper or ointment that helped. Nothing, the room was nothing but a dead end.

There was a sigh that escaped his lips, desperate and frustrated and he squeezed his eyes shut. Perhaps he had been a fool. Perhaps this was a joke someone played on him. Some cruel joke to lure Great into a false sense of security, within the smell of lilacs and gooseberries.

He looked at the desk one last time before sharply turning and heading towards the door, when he saw it was open. He froze. He was a Witcher. He had implausible hearing for miles on end. The door creaked open, and he heard nothing? He was truly too deep in his thoughts to get so distracted by his imagination. He was losing his grip.

He shook his head and walked towards the door, ready to leave, when he heard slight movement from behind him. And felt, before he saw, a small knife pressing into his neck and he once again scolded himself for his lack of awareness.

“I’m sure you were aware that these chambers were occupied,” came a sweet voice, one which knocked the wind out of Geralt. He knew it. He had heard the voice in his head for years. “Though, I am not particularly sure that matters to you, does it?”

Geralt said nothing. Perhaps the shock of the situation had abnormally pulled his tongue from his body. He shivered yet the steel stayed perfectly still under her hand. Her knuckles were white, but her breathing was even, her heartbeat was calm. She was not afraid, certainly not of a hooded man breaking into her room.

“Now, I have no use for fighting tonight. I’m tired and wish to do nothing retire for the evening. I, unkindly, ask you to leave.”

Geralt’s stomach was still turning, but he couldn’t keep the slight smile off his face at her words. His shoulders making a small heave as he tried to cover up his bizarre laughter. He was disarray, and completely blown away by this. He couldn’t help it. He could never help his continued sense of humanity when she was around.

“Are you laughing at me?” She asked, tightening her grip on her knife. Her voice an octave higher due to curiosity. “I simply have no use for strangers who find humor in violating a harmless women’s privacy.”

Geralt finally found his voice, low and crisp as it was. “Harmless, Yen? I have certainly never known that to be true.”’

Geralt listened carefully, to her heartbeat. The slow, steady rhythm picked itself up, beating irregularly, with the breath in her body and the racing thoughts in her mind.

“What…What did you just call me?” was her response, though he had no doubt she had heard him perfectly clear.

“Yen. Yennefer Of Vengerberg. Yenna. Take your pick.”

The knife was immediately dropped from her hand and she grabbed the back of his hood, ripping it down roughly as she stared, a wide-eyed gaze, at the wisps of white releasing themselves from the containment. Geralt heard her small gasp and the stumble of her feet as she stepped back. The knife fell to the floor with a clang, but neither paid attention to it.

Geralt finally, as slow as ever, as if they had all the time in the world, turned towards her.

Seeing her was like the first time, all over again. Her eyes were the first thing he observed, bright, violet, and so unlike the rest of her. They were wide, a mixture of confusion and bewilderment turning through. Her hair was the same black length, though tucked behind her ears as it hung below her breasts. She wore black robes that covered up everything below her chest, where the pendent hung tightly to her. She was the same breathtaking sorceresses that possessed him from the moment they met.

“This cannot be,” she whispered, her eyes tracing over his scarred face, meeting his yellow eyes. Her nostrils flared, her lips parted.  

“Yen,” he said again, barely above a whisper. They were drinking each other in. “Gods above, it really is you.”

“Geralt,” she said, as if trying out his name on her lips. “You…You…”

He took a step towards her, figuring she was at a loss for words and that meant it was a good thing. She was in shock, but she needed reassurance that he was there.

How wrong he was.

“Touch me and I will have little problem cutting off your cock in a matter of seconds.”

That certainly stopped him in his tracks.

“Of all the arrogant…” she started, her feet beginning to pace along the room, glaring daggers at him. Her words slipped away as her anger grew.

“I seem to be missing something,” he said, scratching his beard.

“You seem to be missing something...” she said with a laugh, loosening the draw strings on her cape and letting it fall down to drape around her feet. “My, Geralt, how can that be? A Witcher like you is always so quick to pick up on things.”

“Never with you,” he muttered, crossing his arms across his chest. “Clearly.”

“Clearly,” she snarled, shaking her head at him. “You…for years…. Years Geralt! It’s been years.” She said, trying to form a proper sentence. She had never been this thrown of balance. Her words couldn’t even come out straight. “And then you decide to show up to this tavern?”

“I thought you were dead, Yen!” He said, spreading her arms out to point in her direction.

“Ha! Was that before or after you left me, with naught a note, on the shores of Caignorn?”

Geralt paused, completely and utterly losing any battle he may have been winning. He had no chance now.

“I-”

“No. No, you do not get to give me an explanation, Geralt. You do not get to pretend that it was anything other than selfish.” She was strong, she was a rock, but when faced with Geralt, he could sometimes make her crack. There were feelings she suppressed for the longest time, threatening to bubble back up and in the face of the man she shared a part of her with.

“Yen…” he stared, trailing a hand over his face.

“What?” She said, holding her chin up high. She bit her lip, violet eyes watching his every move like a hawk. She didn’t protest when he took a few steps towards her

“I missed you,” he said, so quietly it was almost to himself. “Truly. I did. I should have never left you there.”

“But you did, and I shall never forgive you.”

“Never?”

She shook her head, her curls bouncing as she did. She turned away from him, gathering her papers on her desk in an organized fashion, pretending he didn’t exist.

“What are you doing here, Yen?”

“My business is my own,” she said, “I did not come with the intention of finding you.”

“I did not think you had.”

“Good,” she replied, pausing for a moment and looking down at the ground. “Though I did look for you. For a time.”

He swallowed. “You did?”

“Oh yes. I couldn’t wait to find you so I could set fire to your limbs, slowly melting your brain out from your ears.”

He winced, knowing she was fully capable of that exact threat. “I looked for you too.”

“Did you now? How long after you left me? Months? Years?”

“Three days,” he grumbled. “Three days after I left you on that godforsaken dock, I went back for you. You had already packed up and left, so there was little chance I’d find you, even when I looked.”

She laughed, without humor. “Do not try to shift blame, Geralt. I woke up, you had disappeared. Three days is a long enough time to comprehend you vanishing. I am not one to wait around for someone who has little interest in residing with me.”

“It was a mistake. A mistake that has haunted me for years. And then, I had heard you died and I…” his voice trailed off. Yen looked at him, her eyes grazing his face, seeing nothing but the truth in his words.

“You what Geralt? You mourned? You cried?” she gave another laugh, though desperation hidden beneath the noise. “Do not try to fool me, Witcher. You would have to have some semblance of a heart to feel anything.”

Geralt took another step towards her, his gaze never leaving her face. As if looking away would only erase her once again. “You were my heart.”

“Do not. Do not spew words of romantic nature. Not when you broke mine. Not when you left me, vulnerable, on the docks of a foreign kingdom.”

He was close enough to her to reach out and tangle his hand in her mane, to touch her smooth pale flesh and feel it once more below his fingertips. But he didn’t. He waited. She would see it in his eyes, the regret and the longing and the sorrow. But not in his touch. Not yet.

“I have hated you. For so long,” she whispered, staring up into his cat eyes.

“You loathed what I did to you. You could never loathe me entirely.” He responded, a slight twinkle in his eye. “I am sorry, Yen. More than you will ever understand.”

“I believe you,” she whispered, not breaking eye contact. “I believe you and that frustrates me.”

“Why?”

“Because I have vowed to despise you for all eternity. You have stumbled in here, turned your eyes to me and now I cannot think straight.”

He gave her a boyish grin and she shook her head. “I think it’s best you take your leave, Geralt. I have important matters to attend to. We have reunited, I have accepted your apology, and now we must go our separate ways.”

Geralt froze. “Our separate ways?”

“Yes,” she blinked. “Did you think I would fall back into your arms? I am not here as a guest, Geralt. I have more important things to do than revive any previous dealings with you.”

Geralt grunted with frustration, a headache forming in the back of his skull. “You know what Yennefer,” he started, turning his back towards her, walking to the chamber door. “You are truly the most frustrating creature.”

“I am so glad to have spent this time with you Geralt. Bid greetings to the next brothel you attend.”

He got to the door and opened viciously, slamming it shut behind him. He had forgotten how much they fought, how passionate they were about proving the other wrong. He had forgotten the feeling, surely, of a fire set in his belly. She was the only one to gain such strong reactions from his otherwise emotionless state. And he stood with his hand still on the knob, his breathing hitched and heart thumping madly.

There was absolutely no way he was leaving.

He had already made that mistake once.

Without another thought, he pushed open the door to her room and made his way to her with a vicious speed, not letting his thoughts get the better of him. She did not look surprised as his arms circled her waist and he pulled her tightly against his body. His hand went to the back of her neck and he held her in the crook of his own.

Her hands were immediately around his body, crushing them together in a violent hug that would never separate them, not if she had any say. She sighed into his neck, because she would not allow herself to weep, and pulled him as close as she could. She had missed his smell, his scarred skin, his uneven breathing whenever she had been around him.

They stood there, two cold people wrapped in each other’s warmth, until she felt his lips moving across her hairline, whispering tender words that she had longed to hear for all the days they were separated.

“I missed you. So much,” he muttered and his thoughts spoke only the truth.

“Show me,” she replied, “Show me how much.”

He wasted no time and his hands wrapped around her waist lifting her up so he could place her on the desk behind, counting every second down until he had the bravery to press his lips to hers.

She responded without question, melting against him, feeling the familiar taste of him. A taste that never faded from her memory. She kissed him with vigor, opening herself, letting her tongue touch his, letting her hands roam over his back.

It was a rush. Her hands wasted no time pushing off his cloak, getting her hands into his armor and pulling it off, piece by piece, metal by metal, until it all clanked to the floor and he was shirtless before her.

She traced her fingers along the bottom of his stomach, finding new and fresh scars that had not been present previously. He shuddered underneath her fingertips, grasping the desk behind her for support as she continued smoothing her hand across his canvas. She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his neck, gently sucking at the skin until he pulled her back, condemning her mouth to his once again.

Her hands reached up, never breaking the kiss, to undo the strings of her top. His hands stopped her and he pulled away, shaking his head. “Let me,” he whispered against her lips, putting his hands where hers were previous.

“I have thought about this,” he said, kissing down her neck, right to the top of her breasts, “every day.”

Her smooth skin was milky white, turning a blushing red when he imprinted his fingers on it. Slowly, he undid the lace, opening the front of her black corset to reveal her breasts. He leaned down and took one into his mouth, sucking gently as she threw her head back against the wall, taking Geralt with her. He didn’t slow his movements, and her hands wrapped themselves into his hair, getting twisted in the grey.

When he pulled back, she all but whimpered, before letting it turn into a growl as he moved away from her.

“What are you doing?” She asked, her voice full of clear desire.

“I am shutting the door,” he said with a chuckle. Yen admired the shirtless body before hoping off the desk, walking towards him. As he spun back around, she pushed him back against the door, wrapping her arms around his neck and once again, placing her mouth on his.

He growled against her mouth, and lifted her up again, letting her thighs squeeze around his waist. She was wearing black pants, tight fitted around her form and he felt her thighs, squeezing in reassurance as he laid her down on the bed.

He hovered over top of her, giving her little kisses on her face, neck and chest. She was responding vibrantly, and Geralt would’ve given anything to hear her moan.

“You’ll have to do a lot more than that, Geralt.” She said, playfully poking around in his head.

“I plan on it,” he responded, giving her a gentle nip. “But I wanted to take my time.”

“Whatever for?”

He pushed up and gave her a look. “You really have to ask?”

Yen blinked, taking a slight breath in. “Do not mistake this for something greater than a good fuck, Geralt. I am not interested in receiving another broken heart once you decide to leave again.”

Geralt rolled off of her completely, sitting at the end of the bed while his face was in his hands, a deep sigh out of his previously kissed lips. “Do you want me to apologize again? Do you want me to turn back time? If I could find a way to do it, I would. Tell me what you want, Yen.”

“Right now, I want you to finish what you started.” He looked back at her, hair sprawled in every direction, her cheeks flushed and her breasts hard. She sat up and got on her knees, crawling over to his seated position. She sprawled her hands on his chest, nipping at his neck veins, licking slightly with the tongue. He sighed and leaned his head back, exposing the pulse in his neck, where she could suck him dry and he would not care.

With a snap of her finger, he watched over his shoulder as her pants dissolve into nothing, leaving her bared only in a black laced underwear. She said nothing as she climbed onto his clothed lap.

Their eyes met and he said nothing as he simply pressed their lips together once more. His arm wrapped around her waist and he moved her to go underneath him, resuming their previous positions.

As he made his way down, kissing the lightness of her belly, all the way down to the top of her underwear, he felt her tremble. His teeth grasped hold of the black lace and he ripped it in one swipe, clean off her body. She made a noise of complaint, but it was quickly drowned out when Geralt’s head fell right between her thighs.

He kissed her and she bit her lip to keep from making any noise. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction just yet. He continued to lick and suck, creating a desperate ball of fire in her belly and her hands found his hair, pulling roughly to elevate some of the tension. To Geralt’s satisfaction, he remained perfectly and willingly able to perform, despite being pulled in every direction by Yen.

Years away, and he still knew how to make her tick. Her thighs were getting stronger around his head, and he moved his hands to grasp the underside of her body.

He moved away just before she caved, though he knew the furious snarl that escaped her only meant she was that more passionate about it.

She grabbed his shoulders and pulled him upwards, undoing the cords of pants. She freed him just enough to grab him through his pants, then positioned him directly to line up with her.

He watched her face, carefully, as she guided him inside. It took a few moments before the feelings of nostalgia, a fervent homecoming, to hit him. And once he was fully inside of her, he laid his forehead on her shoulder, not yet moving.

Her breath was manic, her thighs squeezing him, all the more. She was full, and there was no use pretending this was nothing. It was everything to her. But she kept her emotions as stoic as she could, because she could not bear Geralt to feel differently.

“Gods above, Yen. I was an idiot.”

She said nothing, just lay there, two souls connected through one body. She squeezed his bicep, letting him pull himself up to stare into her eyes.

Over the years, they had been exposed to different ideas of love making. Sometimes fucking, sometimes sensual, sometimes to pass the time. But this was something different. This was a reunion between two lovers.

Geralt started to move, a long thrust against Yen, who threw her head back, desperate to keep her eyes open and on Geralt. For fear he might disappear completely. He grunted as he picked his pace up, touching, kissing, loving Yen wherever he could. He still could not believe she was here, alive and well, squirming underneath him as they made love.

They called each other’s names as they succumbed to the final pleasure, and they held on as tight as they could, reveling in the signs that they were both truly alive. Afterwards, he collapsed onto her body, his head lying on her bare chest.

“I am sorry,” he whispered, his eyes shutting softly. His breath tickled her skin and she wove her hands through his hair, gently stroking her Witcher.

“I shall need time Geralt. It has taken me long to remove you from my thoughts.”

“I will not leave you again. I cannot leave you again. Leaving you would be like ripping out my own heart.”

She smiled. “Lessons from Dandelion again?”

“This is no jest, Yen. Not now. I have made grave mistakes, but none larger than leaving you.”

She sighed, continuing to stroke his hair. She leaned down and whispered, so softly, he barely heard.

“Rest now, little Witcher. I shall be by your side in the morning.”

#My fic #my fics #THIS ISN'T ANYTHING GRAND IT'S JUST A LITTLE REUNION THING OF ONE OF THE TIMES THEY PROBABLY SEPERATED #A BITTER YEN #AND A SORRY GERALT #AHHH #ok i hope someone likes this let me know what u think i love u ok bye #witcher

[shipaholic]

Omens Universe, Chapter 3 Part 2

wow, I finished this ages ago and then dragged my feet posting it for no reason. Going to aim for Sunday updates for a few weeks, see if it encourages me to write faster.

Anyway! Rome.

He/him pronouns for Crowley again.

Link to the next part at the end.

---

(last part)

(chrono)

Chapter 3, cont.

AD 41

Aziraphale spotted a familiar figure at the bar.

He was one cup down, the taverna’s house brown having been miracled into something far more palatable. That must be why he called out without thinking.

“Crawly - Crowley?”

Crowley’s back stiffened. Aziraphale cringed and kicked himself.

Crowley didn’t look around. Aziraphale considered forgetting the whole thing and pretending he’d never seen him. Crowley would go along with it, he was sure.

With a surge of feeling, he changed his mind. He crossed the room and sat down beside Crowley at the bar.

“Fancy seeing you here,” he said, determinedly.

Crowley’s face was stony. He was wearing funny little eyeglasses, opaque and dark, which hid his eyes and made it hard to tell which way his expression would break. Then he softened fractionally and turned toward the angel.

Something in Aziraphale’s chest cracked open. He had to hold it in before it beamed right out of him.

The conversation wasn’t friendly, exactly, but Aziraphale was willing to overlook it. The night was balmy, and the air smelled… honestly pretty ripe, which was normal in this part of town, but in a way Aziraphale had grown fond of. He wanted nothing but to sit and talk with Crowley and share the same atmosphere. The demon had obviously had a bad day. Which was probably a good thing, the wiles of the evil one going unfulfilled and all that. Nonetheless, Aziraphale found himself wanting to cheer him up.

Then Crowley spoke the magic words.

“I’ve never eaten an oyster.”

Well, that tore it. Arrangement be damned, they could be friends for one meal.

~*~

One meal, plus many, many rounds of drinks. The good stuff, this time. Aziraphale barely had to miracle it.

“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” he said, mostly un-slurred.

“Satan’s truth.”

“You’ve never eaten human food?”

“Don’t want to mess around with all that digestion malarkey.”

“Well...” Aziraphale gave a pointed look to the six glistening half-shell oysters arranged in a circle on Crowley’s plate. “I’m afraid your number’s up, my dear.”

Crowley groaned, picked up an oyster and slurped out the contents in one go.

Aziraphale beamed and gave a polite little clap. Crowley downed his wine, refilled his goblet miraculously, and downed it again.

“Oh, that’s weird,” he moaned.

Aziraphale was sure he was just being dramatic. “You clearly have no problem with alcohol.”

“Please. I invented it.”

Aziraphale’s skepticism vanished. He stared at Crowley, eyes enormous. “Gosh, really?”

Crowley coughed. “Well. I was… nearby, shall we say. I was present. I inspired.”

“Well, then.” Aziraphale tipped his glass to Crowley. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.” The demon grinned and reached for another oyster. As it went down, his expression changed from smugness to deep regret.

“Maybe I should have started you out on something simpler,” Aziraphale mused. Some nice bread, perhaps. Or an apple. An apple would be nostalgic.

“You saying I’m too simple to eat a ball of fish goo?”

Based on the evidence, yes. Aziraphale cast around for a change of subject. “You know, of the two of us, I think I might be the bigger hedonist.”

Crowley spluttered. “Excuse you? You haven’t even tried sleep yet, what’s that about?”

Aziraphale waved an arm and miracled away the bits of oyster spackling the table. “Oh, sleep. That’s basically just fainting, and not even in a dramatic way. I mean, you’re already lying down when it happens. Nothing daring about it, my dear boy.”

“It’s plenty daring when you’re used to the office politics in Hell! Demons don’t pass out down there recreationally, I can tell you that much. Backstabbing doesn’t cover it - s’no part of your corporation they won’t stab. Best part of being on Earth, if you ask me, letting my guard down for once.” [1]

“So the most novel experience this world can offer you is… boredom?”

“Yeah. Well - not boredom like Heaven-boredom -”

Aziraphale did a good impression of someone who didn’t know what he meant by that.

“- more like… peace. Taking a load off. Even demons need a break occasionally.”

“Hardly sounds like hedonism to me.” Aziraphale took a demure sip of wine.

Crowley jabbed his empty oyster shell over the table. “I can live it up with the best of them. And then I can lie down somewhere very soft and sleep it off.”

Aziraphale, hampered by alcohol, considered this. He knew about dreams now. Sleep didn’t merely involve closing one’s eyes and skipping ahead several hours. Perhaps there was something to be said for turning his corporation off and going to a fantastical plane where Gabriel couldn’t bother him.

The memory of being discorporated came back to him. That endless queue, the brain-numbing white light. Being suspended in the void, like a body quietly washed out to sea. The lack of urgency he had felt. Was that a property of the place, soaking into him, making him docile? Or was it just him?

He shivered. No, maybe dreaming wasn’t for him.

Was it the same for Crowley? He had to imagine Hell’s waiting room was a little... spicier. Maybe it was exactly the same, but demons stood by and pelted you with flaming rocks. Crowley probably had quite a hard time of it, really. It was his own fault, working for The Adversary, but still. Aziraphale had to admit he’d be a nervous wreck if their positions were reversed.

And yet, when he wasn’t trying too hard to be aloof, there was a peculiar jovial optimism to Crowley. A determination to make the most of things. It was as though, faced with a fickle and vindictive Lower Management, he chose to embrace all experiences going, because who knew when they would be taken away? Even experiences that weren’t, objectively, fun. Like eating a slimy fish ball. Or boredom. Or reaching out in friendship to an angel, knowing all he’d get for his pains was his hand slapped away.

Silence descended on the table. Crowley shifted closer, looking awkward.

“Something wrong?”

Aziraphale rubbed his left thumb over his gem, leaving a smudge.

Without meaning to, he said, “I’ve still got your coin.”

The pause returned, with reinforcements.

Crowley took a careful sip of wine. “Yeah?”

“I never called it, of course.” Aziraphale tried to smile. “You probably knew that.”

“I… hoped. Didn’t know for sure.” Crowley’s little black glasses didn’t really hide his eyes. They shifted, flicking from the tabletop to Aziraphale, and fell short of his face every time.

“I’m surprised you gave such open-ended instructions.” Aziraphale gave a brittle laugh. “You know, I could have lied to you. Pretended I’d called it and you lost.”

“You could’ve, yeah. Not very angelic of you, mind.”

“Wouldn’t it bother you? If I showed up one day and told you... that’s it? Time’s up, get off this planet, I’ve got a very commanding coin?”

“You’re asking me how I’d feel if an angel arrived on my doorstep and booted me downstairs? Honestly? Nostalgic.”

Aziraphale blushed.

“Sorry,” said Crowley, making Aziraphale feel worse, because he didn’t know why Crowley was apologising to him. “Look - it wouldn’t be the end of the world, to tell you the truth. That’s a demon’s lot, right? Lone wolf, etcetera. Sometimes you’ve got to read the room, know when you’ve outstayed your welcome. That’s what makes the difference between ‘sauntered vaguely downwards’ and ‘pitched, shrieking, out of the nearest window’. One of them’s much calmer and you get to keep your dignity.”

Aziraphale didn’t know what to say. He felt far too sober, an experience that had not so far defined this meal.

Crowley reached across the table. Aziraphale thought, delirious, that the demon was about to take his hand. Crowley’s arm faltered at the halfway mark. Instead, he made a jabby motion over the detritus of food and drink littering the table.

“Look. I like this place, but it’s not all that. Smells funny, I can’t understand what the taxi drivers are saying, and I’m sorry, but I’m not getting on at all with this oyster. You’re the one who loves the Earth, angel. Properly loves it. So. Maybe you should get it.”

Aziraphale stared at Crowley.

“Poppycock,” he said.

Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Pardon?”

Aziraphale jutted out his chin. “You know what I think? I think you’re afraid of Hell.”

Crowley cracked up.

“Of course I’m afraid of Hell! Bloody - well, Hell! That doesn’t even qualify as an insight.”

“Humans fear the possibility of Hell, you fear the certainty of it. That’s why you won’t admit that you love the Earth just as much as I do. You couldn’t bear it being taken away from you on the whim of some Lord of the Pit. Better it be taken away on my whim. At least then you get time to prepare.”

Crowley looked taken-aback. Aziraphale felt a flare of triumph that instantly nosedived towards guilt.

“I’m sorry, dear boy, that was unkind of me -”

Crowley held up a hand for silence. He took off his dark glasses and rubbed his eyes. It was startling to get a full glimpse of them again. The gold had long ago shrunk down to the size of human irises, with slits for pupils. They wandered over the restaurant, taking in the lounging humans, laughing or squabbling or digging into Petronius’s excellent food. So much invention had gone into this silly little world, where people could lie in comfort and drink wine and bicker and be fond of each other.

The gazes of angel and demon wandered slowly, like amiable drunks, back to their own table, and then to each other. Aziraphale felt as if he’d been briefly hypnotized, but was not unhappy about it. He smiled at Crowley, and saw the demon was wiping his eye.

“They’re funny, aren’t they?” he said, happily. He nodded to the world outside their little pool of candlelight. “So foolish and clever.”

“S’alright.” Crowley returned his dark glasses to his face. He cleared his throat and sunk lower on his seat. “I see ‘em at their worst more than you, mind.”

“I see a lot more venality in my line of work than you might think. But they can be extraordinarily kind, too.”

Crowley nodded. “I know. Still. Be different if I could see through your eyes.”

Aziraphale wished then that they were holding hands. Ridiculous thought. He smiled at Crowley with all the warmth in his heart.

“Your eyes are fine, my dear.”

---

[1] Crowley exaggerated. The armies of Hell hadn’t yet perfected surveillance - that would come when humanity invented electronic devices - but they still popped up in random mirrors and pools, distorted voices booming out when Crowley was just trying to go about his day. It bred an air of paranoia that followed him into sleep. The side-effects were some weird dreams, and the ability to spring from full unconsciousness to fully-dressed and upright, with a winning smile, in less than a quarter of a second. He wasn’t about to let Aziraphale know this, though. It showed weakness and, more importantly, might cost him the argument.

---

(Next part)

#omens universe fic #omens universe #good omens #good omens fic #ineffable husbands #steven universe #aziraphale #crowley #blimey this scene was just them sitting down and having a conversation and let me tell you it was hard #suspect I can only write strings of action sequences

[scullysexual]

titanic au | multichapter-au | au | multiple parts | historical au | msr | mature | ao3 | wc: 2,060 | 1/13 |

For Mulder, a wealthy English-bred socialite who's had everything given to him since birth, the Titanic is shipping him off to a prison, a life he no longer wishes for or wants. For Scully, an Irish stranger from the lower class, it offers a new life, a future she can truly envision in America. What if the universe put them on the same path to achieve those dreams at the cost of life?

@today-in-fic​

- - -

Chapter One.

A cloud of heavy smoke rises from the four vapers, covering the clear sky above and littering it with stuffy grey puffs. People scramble about down the dock, trying to keep family members together as they rush to get through the gates. Others stand there gawking at the ship. For those not boarding it’s simply a day out; The greatest ship ever built, they call it and those who live nearby wasn’t about to miss out on such a historic day as this.

Mulder stares at it, surprised at just how taken away with it he is. He never put much stock in the rumours when it was being built believing that she was just going to turn out as all those before her had.

But he was wrong. Never in his life had he seen a ship as large as the one that towers over him.

He turns to Phoebe, reaching out for her hand as she climbs out of the cab.

“What do you think, dear?” Mulder asks as he helps his fiancé down. “Are you impressed?”

To no one’s surprise, Phoebe only scoffs at the ship, it’s presence not changing her mood in the slightest.

“It’s not as grand as the Mauretania.”

Bill Mulder chuckles behind them, handing their luggage to his man-servant, Krychek as the boy passes them onto baggage handler.

“It’s much bigger than the Mauretania,” he says, ready to quote every fact he had memorised from the London Herald about the ship. “And much more luxurious,” he adds.

Phoebe only huffs, clearly becoming uninterested in their current conversation.

“Careful Fox,” his father warns him. “Hard one to please, that one.” Mulder only manages an uncomfortable laugh already well aware at the difficulties that come attached to Phoebe Green.

With time running out, they begin to make their way towards the ship, weaving their way through the crowds, Phoebe turning her nose up at every person not dressed to the nines, going as far as to dramatically balk and cover her nose as a lower-class foreigner runs across their path.

“Filthy immigrant,” Phoebe scorns at the innocent man. Mulder tries not to let his disgust show at Phoebe’s words, they’re excused after all and Mulder rolls his eyes at the clear disrespect his people show towards those less fortunate.

“He’s just trying to get to the ship, Phoebe.”

“Yes, well, maybe he should hurry to a bath instead.”

Mulder ignores her words, instead guiding her through the swarming crowds.

“Honestly Bill,” Mulder’s mother pipes up. “We couldn’t have gotten here earlier rather than scurrying around the docks like rats?”

“I was all packed and ready to go,” Bill says and indicates to the pair in front of him. “It was those two who weren’t.”

Mulder sighs. If anything, it was Phoebe who they had been waiting for.

“We did try to hurry, Mother. Phoebe couldn’t decide what to wear.”

Phoebe scoffs once more. “It’s not my fault that you told me to change.”

“I just thought you would get to warm wearing black all day.”

“I’m in mourning Fox,” Phoebe cries. “The weather doesn’t change that.”

Mulder resists sighing again. Phoebe had been mourning for weeks now. The loss of their baby had brought on this spontaneous trip. Phoebe, done with London and “wanting to get away from all the bad memories” all but demanded that they leave for America as soon as possible. A change for a new start, she told him afterwards. They could get married here and start again. Next thing Mulder knew, he was packing his bag and going back to a country he hadn’t seen since childhood.

He felt trapped somehow, and it had nothing to do with the swarms of crowds. This was inside him. A cage or a hole he’d put himself in. One he wasn’t going to get out of any time soon.

  She’s been sitting on this bench for what feels like hours now. The stuffy bar overcrowded with sight-seers only now they’ve done the sight-seeing and want to do some drink-beering.

She was told ten minutes. Ten minutes and they’d be looking for a ferry to take them back to Ireland. Dana was done with the place. Southampton was the same as everywhere else in England they’d been- the same people, the same scorning looks they’d get no matter where they go, the same rejections. It’s only a number of times a person can hear ‘no’ before they never want to hear the word again.

Her brother, however, had other ideas. They only came into the bar to ask if there were any ferries available to take them home and somehow Charlie had managed to be roped into a game of poker by a bunch of Norwegians who barely spoke any English between them.

The game had currently been going on for a lot longer than the ‘few minutes’ she was promised.

Dana sighs, shifting in her seat to get comfortable. She’d order a drink if Charlie wasn’t currently gambling away their last penny.

“You lonely, luv?” Dana turns towards the speaker. His cockney accent thickened by the slurring of his words. “Ye want sum comp’ny?”

He stumbles towards her, catching himself on the rickety table and smiles at his clumsiness. Dana attempts to shuffle further back into the bench, failing.

“I’m fine,” she says turning away and hoping the man would take the hint.

But he presses on.

“Are ye sure?”

“Aye. I’m sure.” She gets up before the man can say anything else, and heads over to Charlie’s table.

The boy is in full concentration mode. Lip caught between his teeth, eyes scanning his cards and the hard laying down on the table. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Countless of times Dana has watched him play, never learning from the mistakes he’s made in previous games. This gambling addiction he’s seemed to have developed has cost them a lot in the finance department, a cost that Dana is not too happy about.

She taps him on the shoulder.

“Charlie, I want to go.”

“Hold on a second…”

His tongue replacing his lip, Charlie gives one nervous glance around at his fellow players.

“Charlie, we need to go.” She tries not to sound like she’s whining, he’s her younger brother for God’s sake, a child, she shouldn’t have to whine.

Charlie ignores her, a smile breaking out across his face.

“I’m sorry, lads.” He places his cards on the table, his smile turning cocky as he reaches over to take his earnings. Dana doesn’t miss the two pieces of paper lying on top of the money.

A large hand grasps Charlie’s. His grin falls as he stares in fear at the man.

“He cheat!” The man yells. With his hand still firmly wrapped around Charlie’s arm, he yanks him forward across the table, his other hand a fist that falls down and smashes straight into his face.

“Charlie!” Dana screams as his body falls slump against the oak. The man backs off as the bar grows quiet, ignoring the winnings that fall onto the floor.

With all concern for her brother, Dana rushes to his side, her hand falling on the boy’s face, wiping away the blood that drips down from his wound. You feckin’ idiot…she thinks.

Charlie’s eyes open slowly, despite the pain with smile it back.

“I won, Dana,” he tells her. “We’re going to America.”

Dana frowns, bewildered for the moment at what Charlie could possibly be talking about until her eyes fall to the two pieces of paper that lay on the ground. Realisation sets in and she reaches down to pick them up, turning them over to read.

The words White Star Line stare back at her. She looks from the paper in her hand to the ship outside and back to Charlie.

“You’re…you’re not serious?” she asks, full astonishment.

“Yep. Fecker put his ticket down as payment,” Charlie all but shouts.

Dana stares back at the ticket. She was really about to go to America and board the Titanic to get there.

“You’re gonna wanna be quick,” a fella beside them tells them. He points to his clock on the wall. “Boat leaves in ten minutes.”

At that, Charlie hauls himself off the table as the two siblings begin pushing what money remained on the table into their only bag, not caring for the coins that had fallen onto the floor.

“Hurry up!” Charlie urges her as Dana ties up the bag. “Come on, come on.” He takes the bag throwing it over his shoulder and grabs his sister’s hand, all but dragging her out of the bar.

They weave their way through the people, Charlie up front and Dana falling slightly behind. She fists her skirt in her palms, pulling it up so as not to trip over it, keeping her eye on Charlie ahead of her and praying she doesn’t lose him.

They almost collide with everything; people, a cart selling vegetables, a horse and carriage until finally they make it, out of breath and clutching at their tickets.

“Right, give me your tickets,” the crewman orders, his fingers making a grabby motion. They hand them over and the man all but snatches it out of their hands. His nose turns up when he reads the names.

“Leif and Ingrid Brevik?” he asks, sceptically.

Dana looks nervously at Charlie, worried that they had just ran all this way, got excited for a new future, just to be turned away at the doors once more.

“Aye, we’re Americans.” Charlie tells him doing nothing to mask the already thick Irish accent.

The crewman gives once last glance at the ticket and them. Sighing and probably done dealing with steerage who’s English is minimal he accepts the tickets.

“Get in before I change my mind.”

Relieved, the pair rush in just as the crewman shuts the door.

They make their way down the crowded corridor. People stand looking at the various signs that point in directions of rooms, bathrooms, and general gathering areas. They argue, an overload of different words muddled together to make one distorted language.

Dana isn’t paying attention, however. Her eyes switch from the number written down on the ticket to the numbers written on the doors either side of them. Charlie had gotten distracted, eyeing up every pretty lass that they walked past and Dana had ripped the paper out of his hands. If he wasn’t going to find their room, she will.

She finds it eventually. 23, near the end of the corridor. Charlie eyes up Room 24.

“Reckon a lass lives in there?” he asks.

Dana focuses on unlocking the door, a sly grin appearing on her face.

“I hope it’s a fat old man with a foot infection.” She looks up only to see the look of disgust appear across her brother’s face.

The door opens to their room. A single bunkbed, a desk and chair with a lamp seated upon it, and a chest of drawers are the only furniture that occupy the room.

Charlie shares her sentiments exactly.

“Beats the cargo hold on a ferry.” He throws the bag onto the chair and proceeds to climb to the top bunk.

She stops him before he can claim it.

“Piss off, I get top bunk.” She grips the back of his shirt, yanking him off the ladder.

“Careful!” Charlie cries. “I’m already injured.”

“So move out the way before I injured you even more.”

He does as he’s told, not without pulling a face beforehand, and throws himself on the bottom bunk.

Dana lies down, thankful to be in a bed that actually feels like a bed and not a brick.

“Hey, Dee?” Charlie calls after a moment of silence.

“Yeah?”

“Are you worried?”

Dana thinks for a second, curious as to what Charlie thinks she should be worried about.

“About what?” she asks.

Silence passes and she waits for an answer.

“Nothing,” the boys says. “It’s nothing. We got nothing to be worried about.”

Frowning and profoundly confused, Dana decides to leave it.

Another bout of silence passes and perhaps Charlie’s fallen asleep, at least she thinks that until she hears his voice again.

“Hey, Dee?”

“What?”

“Do you still have that first-aid kit in the bag? My face is throbbing.”

#txf #titanic au #heh heh #i am actually scared #um...pls read cause i need validation #and this needs to get out of my head #and im really liking writing it #and i cant write for myself #so pls like it #pls #goodbye

[hawke-tethras-2020]

Just Stay With Me

Fenris/f!Hawke

pre-any-sort-of-relationship and sfw

Inspired by this post

Read on AO3 here

Hawke made her way across Lowtown, careful not to make eye contact with anyone she passed. Night had settled over the city, and the full moon illuminated the cobbled street in front of her. She tugged the hood of her cloak over her eyes as she passed a small crowd of people. She didn't have her face adorned with her typical swipe of red. She was anonymous. A night like this, calm and bright, usually meant that the thieves and blood mages stayed in whatever holes they usually crawled from. Instead, the streets were littered with beggars, children in rags, their mothers and fathers past the point of desperation. Hawke stopped here and there and pressed silver coins into the kids' outstretched hands. It never felt like she could do enough for all of the people in this town. She liked to help people -- even if she didn't always do it in the best way -- but her heart tugged even more than usual when she saw a child with a dirty face and a distended belly. Hawke shook her head and tried to put it out of her mind. She couldn't do anything to help all the children of Kirkwall tonight; it would have to wait. She pulled her hood off, fixed a grin on to her face, and slammed open the door to her destination for the evening -- the one and only Hanged Man. Her friends were there already, gathered around a large table. Hawke watched for a few moments as they passed drinks around and joked with one another. A genuine smile reached her eyes as she took them in, the merry band of misfits she had brought together. They looked like a family. Nowadays, they even felt like a family. "Always have to make an entrance, Hawke!" Varric shouted at her from across the room. "Oh, you know me," she called back. "Drama. Suspense. Mystery." She made her way to the table. On her way to her seat, she clapped Anders on the back and ruffled Merrill's hair. It was only when she moved to sit down did she recognize that the one empty chair left for her was right next to Fenris. "Hello, Hawke," he said, his voice calm and smooth as ever. In the cacophony of clinking bottles and shouting voices in The Hanged Man, Fenris' voice was a refuge. "Ready to lose? Again?" Fenris chuckled at his own joke, a quirk that Hawke found so endearing she thought her heart might give out. "Me? Lose at Wicked Grace? You must be joking." Hawke rolled her eyes and tossed her coin purse onto the table. She leaned back in her chair, hands behind her head, and winked at Fenris. "Deal me in, Anders." Hawke was, in fact, horrible at Wicked Grace. Two hands in and she'd lost three sovereigns, owed Aveline two bottles of wine, and somehow lost a bet to Isabela that involved switching living quarters for a week. By the end of the night, a flush brightened her cheeks and her grin was easy, not forced. Despite everything that happened since she arrived in Kirkwall, at least she had these people around her. "Alright, fearless leader," Isabela slurred to Hawke as the group packed up. "Go enjoy your last night in that comfy mansion of yours. I'll be there to take over at noon sharp." Hawke laughed and rolled her eyes at her friend. "Aye, Captain," she teased. She waved at the group and made her way to the door, more unsteady on her feet than usual. Maybe she'd had more to drink that she thought. She shook her head and fixed her eyes on the door, determined to make it outside without stumbling. "Want company on your way back to Hightown?" asked Fenris. "We are neighbors, after all. As you so often remind me." She arched an eyebrow at him. "Sure," she responded, "I wouldn't want you to get lost." They walked out together, and cold air bit at Hawke's ears. She furrowed her eyebrows at the feel of it and drew her cloak closer to her. 

"Not a fan of the cold?" Fenris asked. They fell in step together towards Hightown. Hawke shook her head. "There's a reason I'm always shooting fireballs out of my hands," she joked. She was well past the point of feeling awkward about being a mage around Fenris. Since she had moved to Hightown, and especially since the day she started to help him learn to read, they had formed an easy, even comfortable, friendship. Not to say that Hawke's other feelings towards him had gone away -- in fact, they had swelled so much that she got a lump in her throat every time she spoke to him -- but she respected him too much to say anything about it. He didn't need a woman throwing herself at him. He needed trust and stability. If he felt the same way, he would say something. She hoped. They wandered through the streets of Kirkwall and discussed the state of the Carta and the increasingly tense situation with the Arishok. She was never more at ease than when she was with him. Even as they spoke about the issues they were facing, the very issues that put their lives on the line day in and day out, she felt calm. In what seemed like minutes, they approached the entrance of her home. Everyone would be asleep by now; Leandra, Bodhan and Sandal weren't people Hawke would describe as exciting. She looked up at Fenris and an overwhelming sense of longing washed over her. She didn't want this evening to end. Before she could even think of a clever way to spend more time with him, he spoke up. "Well, we didn't have to kill anyone on our way back." "An improvement from most nights," she replied. "Should we celebrate with a nightcap? I have to wash the taste of the Hanged Man swill out of my mouth before I can sleep." Fenris' face broke into a crooked smile. "Lead the way." Hawke and Fenris climbed the stairs to her sitting room. She poured them each a glass of whiskey and handed Fenris' to him before she plopped down on the sofa. She patted the cushion next to her, inviting him to sit down. He settled in closer to her than she thought he would. Her breath caught in her throat, and she prayed that he couldn't see the sweat start to bead at her brow. "Hawke," he said, abruptly, and sat his drink on the side table. "Can I --" he cleared his throat. "Can I try something?" He had lowered his voice, and the syllables of each of his words were rhythmic, almost musical. Hawke caught his forest-green eyes with hers. She searched there for something, though she didn't know what, and fought the urge to make a joke. (italics)Not the time, he's serious,(italics) she berated herself. Instead, she nodded. "Let me see your hand," he said, his voice closer to a whisper now. She was mesmerized. They were facing each other, both of them cross-legged. She tugged her one leather glove off and balanced her hand on her knee, palm up. She wondered if he could tell she was shaking. His eyes darted from her bright blue ones, to her hand, to her eyes again. With precision and assurance, he stretched his long, slender fingers out towards hers. She watched them, watched his tendons strain underneath taught skin. Before she knew it, the tips of his fingers met hers, and he brought them down to stroke her palm. He slowly, delicately, laced his hand with hers. The touch of her skin on his made the lyrium glow, faint but pulsing. Hawke's breath grew shallow, the desire she felt for him crawling through her belly and setting fire to her chest. She fought the urge to kiss him right then and there. Instead, she let his hands explore hers. First he was tracing her palms, then the backside of her hands, both of them. He kept one of his hands locked with one of hers, but let the other run up to her shoulder, up her neck, tangled in her hair for a split second, then back to her face to cup her chin. Hawke held his gaze, then, as his hand so tenderly, cautiously, held her chin. "Does it hurt?" she breathed. She didn't want to break the careful balance they had struck this evening. Hawke knew, now, that he at least somewhat felt the same was as she did, but she didn't want to push it. Fenris shook his head. "No. Only a little." Hawke looked down at his lips, full and parted, and then back into his eyes. "Can I try something?" she asked. "You can say no. I don't want to...to make you uncomfortable." Hawke was sure she never felt so vulnerable in her life. He nodded. His eyes never left hers. Her hand fell to his knee. She felt her eyes shut. She leaned in and kissed him. It was fleeting, but it was everything she hoped it would be. She felt her face flush, and she gripped his knee tighter than she meant to. His hand clutched at hers, and the hand that had cupped her chin now ran to the nape of her neck and tugged at her short black hair. The kiss lasted only a moment, but Hawke never felt so blissful in her life. When it was over, they sat there, on Hawke's sofa, and Hawke took in Fenris' expression. "Was that okay?" she asked. "I'm sorry if I --" she was interrupted by his voice, now truly a whisper. "Do not ever apologize for that, Hawke." He said it to her as if it were a secret. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth. "Good. I'm not sorry at all." He smiled, too, but he began to pull back from her. His hand left her neck, and he inched away so that their knees were no longer touching, but he kept his other hand intertwined with hers. "Don't go, Fenris," she breathed. Her heart skipped a beat at the thought of his absence. "Just stay with me." They sat there, on Hawke's sofa, as Hawke traced tiny circles on Fenris' soft brown skin, a spot where no lyrium marks scarred his flesh. They fell asleep like that, and did not stir until dawn broke the horizon.

#fanfiction #f!hawke x fenris #da2: fenris #f!mage!hawke #hawke #fenris #fenhawke #f!hawke #fenris x hawke #femhawke #dragon age #dragon age 2 #varric tethras #isabela #anders #fenris fluff #fenris x hawke fluff #slow burn #hawke x fenris