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veeples · 3 months

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ockiss24 - valinter

Well hi there. I'm really just doing OC shipping these days, so <3. Happy ockiss24 to everyone! For @ockissweek! No theme used. title: bright, aching longing pairing: faustus valentine/winter collins (@narrativefoiltrope) rating: gen word count: ~1.2k ao3 link!

When Faustus opens his eyes, his bedroom is that surreal shade of blue before the sun can gild it gold. It must be very early. Winter’s alarm hasn’t even gone off yet. Her back is facing him, half bare with her summer pajamas. If he focuses he can make out the freckles on her shoulders, freshly vibrant from the weekend gardening.

Looking at her fills him with a bright, aching longing. They haven’t had a morning to themselves in weeks . Months, maybe. Between the kids and both their jobs, they can only manage to find their privacy at night. Faustus recognizes that familiar longing as loneliness.

He misses her.

The distance between them becomes suddenly, acutely intolerable. He wants her in his arms, like, right fucking now.

“Winter,” he says, voice low and rough with sleepiness.

After a moment, she hums so low he almost misses it. She’s probably tired. The weekend had been as hectically busy as they tend to be now with kid’s birthday parties and local events. He almost hesitates. It would be kinder to let her sleep, but he’s always been a selfish bastard.

Reaching out to stroke her spine with his knuckles, he says, more insistent, “Mm, no, don’t go back to sleep. We have to enjoy this while it lasts.”

Sleepily, Winter mumbles, “Enjoy what?”

“The joy of the kids not being up.” She shifts a bit in interest, head turning towards him. Faustus smirks, scenting blood in the water, and continues. “Nice, isn’t it? We could have a little morning snuggle.”

“Hm…”

“Come on ,” Faustus whines impatiently. “Honeybee, I’m cold. I’m freezing. Come warm me up.”

“Freezing in summer?” Winter laughs quietly. Faustus grins, smug with victory. He can tell she’s ready to give in. “Alright.”

Then, with a little sigh of effort, Winter rolls around until they’re face to face. Their eyes meet across the sheets and Faustus is too shameless to regret bothering her.

Gripped with excitement, Faustus does a stupid little shuffle towards her. Winter giggles, but she’s shuffling too, sheets rustling noisily in their otherwise silent room. Then: Faustus sighs happily as soon as he gets an arm draped across Winter’s waist and she’s got hers curled around his back. She smiles at him, drowsy and imperfect. Her hair is an ugly flattened mess on one side. Creases line her cheek on the side she slept on.

I love her, Faustus thinks, overwhelmed with the force of it.

“Hey,” he says in a whisper, like any louder and he’ll break the moment.

“Hi,” Winter whispers back.

Settling into the cuddle is as natural as breathing for Faustus. That bruised, aching thing in his chest quiets with Winter’s solid warmth in his arms. He has always been so hungry for affection. It’s insane to him that even now that he’s married, that hunger still hasn’t left him.

Maybe he would always be like this. Maybe it was a simple consequence of their constraints: his touring, her job, the kids now. Even holding her, he finds himself wanting for more. Wishing they had endless time to indulge.

“I miss this.” Faustus says, stroking his thumb along the curve of her hip. “Mornings like this.”

Winter’s mouth goes soft and sweet with understanding, sad with a little longing. “I do too.”

Her hand draws a line up the worn cotton of his shirt to the overgrown fringe of hair at his nape. Faustus closes his eyes as she scratches there lightly. He could sink into this shared warmth for hours and hours. He really, really would like to. He’d love for everything – her job, his music, even the kids – to fall away for a while so they could enjoy each other without worry.

Not for the first time, Faustus feels that nasty twinge of guilt. He loves his kids. He loves that parenthood fills him with a huge love, bigger than he knows how to really hold, and he even loves that it scares him shitless. But there’s also that nagging desire to monopolize Winter’s time. Bad habit of his, really. He’s an insatiable beast.

Ah, whatever. This really isn’t the time for that conversation. Later, he thinks, he’ll have to admit they need to figure out how they can get more time together or he might, like, keel over from wanting. It’s kinda funny that, even married, he finds himself wanting for her.

Kinda funny. Mostly unfair.

For now, all he wants to do is fully enjoy the luxury of having his wife in his arms, her fingers in his hair, before the day pulls them apart again.

Soon – too fucking soon – Winter’s alarm interrupts their happy cuddle time. The look she gives him is one of strained regret. Faustus groans, lifts his arm, and watches her roll over to silence her phone on the nightstand with a pout. He waits until Winter’s out of bed, feet stuck into her pink plaid slippers and standing at their closet, to decide to poke her a bit.

Faustus sighs loudly, dramatic and jilted. “Is it worth it to convince you to come back to bed?”

“You can always try,” Winter says lightly as she examines her wardrobe. There’s a note of teasing in her voice, the bully she is.

“Five minutes, Winter.”

Winter pulls out two sweaters, one blue, one tan, both equally grandma like in style. She considers them both before putting away the blue one. “Skylar will need to get ready soon though.”

“Three minutes?”

“Oh Faustus, what could we do in three minutes?”

“Cuddle some more?” Only now does Winter turn to him, eyebrows slightly raised in the mild astonishment of someone who knows Faustus hardly ever stops at cuddling. Faustus raises his hand in mock salute. “Scouts honor! Just a cuddle.”

Unmoved, Winter smiles at him like she really wants to give in, but knows she can’t. Instead she crosses back to the bed and cups his face between her palms and kisses him in way of an apology. It’s very tender, very loving, and again he wants more . Faustus tries to chase after it when she pulls away, but she stills him with a gentle squeeze to his jaw.

Faustus looks at her, helpless. For the second time that morning, he aches to have her in his arms.

“I’m sorry,” Winter whispers against his skin. “How about we get a babysitter for the end of the week for a little date night?”

That stirs some definite interest in him. Almost enough to make him drop his primadonna act, but not quite. “You’ll make me wait all week?”

“I’ll give you extra cuddles tonight.”

“And the rest of the week.”

“You’ll get spoiled like that.” Winter grins wide enough he can see her little tooth gap, all sweetness and affection. “Alright, all week.”

The rest of the morning goes exactly as all of them have since they added Clover to their little family. Check the baby, wrangle Skylar into his clothes, get breakfast on the table. Put on the kettle for Winter’s tea, start his coffee. Winter kisses him goodbye and he steals two more before he lets her go.

Faustus spends the rest of the day, after the kids are dropped off at daycare and he’s plopped his tired ass in the recording studio, looking forward to their nightly cuddle.

#veep writing #oc: faustus valentine #ship: valinter #ockiss24 #touching upon faustus's feelings about being a dad </3

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fumiku · 1 year

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Chlonath wips

I have so many Chlonath art and fic wips… I am such a slow writer and I’ve had most of these written down for like 2 years, so I wanna share most of their premises now in case I never get around to them! For joy and prosperity and whatnot, if someone wants to write one of these just ask me first! Someone needs to feed the chlonath masses. My next fic is going to be the camping one I think~

My fave picks:

Your majesty: Despite his bright fiery hair, he was all too easy to erase, to fade into the background. Garish, but unmemorable. Talented, but lame. Chloe decides to change that, takes him on as a pet project as fashion coordinator. "Come on, look at yourself! That hair, those eyes. You were *made* to pop! Everyone’s eyes would turn to you when you’re in the room!" He flushes, was that how she saw him? "But I don’t *want* to be the center of attention..." She smirks confidently/slyly. "Well too bad! Chloe Bourgeois will make a peacock out of this ugly little duckling!". Much later there’s a much quieter, sweeter scene of him voicing not wanting to be that different or flashy and she takes out some accessories that suit and enhance his style, comfy and like him. Eventually oop! She rlly needs a date and it’d go with her pet project, "besides you could use this for networking". "Hm? Oh yeah, a half up half down ponytail would look cute on you, in a street kind of way. But bangs in your face can go for cool and mysterious too. It can give you some personality that goes with or contrasts with your outfit, I guess. But this *is* still a fancy event, so a simple well-groomed swept aside style would keep it prim and formal, and it *is* your first entry into high society... But I *suppose* if you do your big debut with the aesthetic you’ll keep with, it’ll probably help your brand long term, attract the right kind of contract for you right away-" "Wow, where was all this perspective when you were doing the analysis on the blue curtains?" She smirks, "I have more experience in keeping up appearances —and everything it entails— than you think, apparently"

Everything else under spoiler bc I have tons of prompts haha

Chloe becomes designer & coordinator, director, for marc & Nath’s comics! She loves outfit coordinating, set designing, composition etc. Marc handles the writing and Nath the drawing, Chloe helps with the visual design. It starts with Chloe suggesting lil things to Nath when she sees his drawings, like add a common accessory to all the team. And since she was queen bee she can fact check some things. He loses his sketchbook while walking and she picks it up, not in her usual mood, n she sees his sketches and starts rattling off about details and fashion. Nath: "oh I- I’m not very knowledgeable in fashion designing..." she looks him up and down, taking his garish outfit in. "That I could have guessed." He huffs, sarcastic "Well, *thank you*, Chloe. That’s not a half bad idea, I could ask Marinette for some designing help, actually!" He lights up at that idea. She grits her teeth, angry and snatches his sketchbook back. She starts drawing on another page and her drawing isn’t really good but the ideas? Wow, they work. Chloe knows her aesthetics. "Stupid Marinette would *not* know how to arrange queen wasp’s hair, thank you very much. Ugh, this is outrageous! Utterly outrageous! You can keep the changes, and keep your god awful awfully thought out designs out of my sight, next time!" With his open sketchbook shoved back into his hands, he stares down at it n truly appreciate it. Wow, this is some serious good job. He thinks about it, kinda smug, oh I can *definitely* play her. He starts leaving his sketchbook behind on purpose n she starts giving him more and more notes when sabrina isn’t around. At some point she comes to the art room and everyone is silent but she’s shy and makes an effort not to be mean. The art dude takes her a bit under his wing and she starts channeling her time n energy into art, peeps of the art room start tolerating her. She takes Marc under her wing confidence wise, and sabrina tags along and rediscovers a love for scrapbooking. Omll marc & sabrina besties qpr cuties?

Pas de deux: they have a random ballet class in PE and they get paired up for the project and chloe 1) wants a good grade for her dad’s rep 2) is goal-oriented 3) has much less barb when teaching. Also prob a sad side note about impressing her mother with ballet classes as a kid.

But Are the Curtains Blue or Just Your Tear-stained Veil: Nathaniel tended to notice things, notice people. To dissect them, as if they were a comicbook character. What was surprising about Chloe is that while her attitude was bolsterous and always seemed so heated, her eyes were like ice, distant. A deep blue, and curtained off, like she could not let anyone else see what they hid. But Chloe was mean and cruel, and sometimes, Nathaniel dug too deep at wasn’t there. Maybe, they were just blue. He always came back at the mystery of her, though, and was pushed and pulled in a one-sided dance with her like the come and go of waves. //Maybe they just weren’t any curtains, whatever that meant. Maybe he was making everything up. Tags: kinda like The Girl Of the Train tbh

Name ideas:

Buzz off

Sweet as honey: What chloe turns out to love in a man is how sweet he can be

Renaitre

Esquisse

Preen my feathers (peacock holder Nath + motif with Chloe & appearances)

Quick ideas:

"I’ve spent so long hoping to be saved, that it feels weird to save people."

Chloe realizes her mother will never love her, or even respect her. Everything changes. //She lets herself be and experience pain and failure

By fake dating chlonath can make adrienette jealous! A scene: chloe tightens her grip on his arm with a crestfallen gaze at adrienette, nath is like ...? and realize Chloe hated Marinette bc abandonment issues

Sabrina chews chloe out and is done with her when they were on an outing, chloe runs into the nearest building, a museum, to hide and cry her eyes out. She bumps into Nath, and a friendship goes from there.

Ever since nath learned chloe is queen bee, he calls her stuff like yes your stinginess.

Nath brings chloe to a emo concert to throw her off, all hell breaks loose. (She likes it)

Two works linked together, one from chloe pov about nath n the other vice versa. "It’s wicked how sweet you are" and "it’s sweet how wicked you are"

Impression, soleil levant: they have a run in in the museum. Chloe genuinely likes fine art. Nath likes popping color, lineart, contrast and stylistic appeal, more contemporary stuff. Chloe really like impressionism, it calms her down, she could spend a lot of time just watching a painting. When she was a kid her dad would bring her when talking business at the louvre so she ran off with Jean and she knows the museum very well.

Chloe’s dad keeps bothering her about rules and standards and finding a partner, so Chloe resolves to find the lamest lousiest boyfriend. To make a statement, of course, she tells herself so when her eyes keep flicking to the redhead sitting at the back of the class.

What better way to learn to be vulnerable with each other than ice skating, when you’re both awful at it? A date <3

She points out a panel with queen bee when he’s doodling it, she has no context she just chilling "why is her hair down?" Nath answers without missing a beat "It’s a metaphor for vulnerability".

Nath starts disappearing quietly to places more and more, now that he has a miraculous. Chloe susses him out. W-what?? How did you notice it? Nobody ever pays attention to me- Ugh, you’re *impossible* to miss with that fluorescent hair of yours. Well you’re the only person who pays attention to it, apparently. Hah, blame my superior eyes if you must. Well if *I’m* what your superior eyes choose to watch then- U-um, we’re getting sidetracked! W-what are you doing here! Reverse universe where she’s still denied being queen bee so she’s Nath’s sidekick? He doesn’t really have any friends besides Marc which not in this universe bc it comes before, so he wouldn’t have anyone else so lowkey he’s grateful. He notices her really truly changing for the better as they hang out more.

I dig my hole, you build a wall: As Chloe Bourgeois doubles down on being an irredeemable bully, Queen Bee continues to rise on a pedestral of adoration. It doesn’t help, nothing ever does, and it’s getting harder to make herself ignore how miserable she is. Chloe drowns herself in her superhero job, squeezes every drop of appreciation from her fans she can. Nath happens to be one of them, hardcore. She just needs someone to lean on.

26/11/‘22 Chloe gets akumatized into a dollhouse lover like with her teddybear mr cuddles, and she wants to kidnap some ppl and keep them like dolls to play with her and listen to her every want and choice of activities. Sabrina is mad at her so elle la boude. She picks Nath and they have a tea party isolated at Le grand paris etc etc. Maybe after Adrien cuts it off with Chloe so she freaks out amd wants friends, even if toxic controlling, but she’s not shooting for Adrien bc she’s upset at him and ignores him.

Outlined:

He forgets some comic pages behind, vs queen wasp, and goes back to get them and finds chloe reading them intensely, seeming genuinely invested. She’s lowkey having a panic attack n shoos off an akuma?? He’s shocked, but that requires introspection so in the moment he’s doubtful and bitter. She’s panicced and embarrassed about having been found out. He’s like, wtf was so upsetting about my comic?? Jealous of my art? Mad that something isn’t about you? Angry that I have talent and dreams, unlike you? she flinches. She upsetti "you wouldn’t understand." "Oh, try me. I have experience in being put down, after all." He bites coldly. She explains half-heartedly "Oh, here comes the self-pity." Her lips quiver, she looks down. "You’re right. It is self-pity. I’m miserable." The "and I have no one else to pity me but me" is muttered so quietly. Her fists clench, chin tucked in her torso. Then her gaze hardens and she snaps her head up. "Whatever." He blocks her way out. She grits dangerously "*Out*. Of. The way." Her eyes prickle with tears. He doesn’t even flinch "That won’t work today." She’s so close to snapping violently but instead just cries. Blabla "Yeah well, when you’ve dug a hole as deeply as I have, you can’t get out. Not without a miracle, anyways." She says, you could do one about queen bee next, please. N leaves quietly and he’s never seen her so... non-agressive.

Entracte/solo act: Picking on Nathaniel Kurtzberg when alone with him, Chloe found, was a much different experience than humiliating him in public. It turns out, he only unleashes his fury on the most deserving of private audiences. Notes: I headcanon Nath, bc of the reflekto ep, would stand up for himself more if he wasn’t being bullied in public. I feel like having all the eyes on him motivates him to shut up and try to make the ordeal as brief as possible & leave the situation, so when he’s alone and getting sass he has less qualms about snapping and ripping into ppl lol. Chloe goes to the art room and Nath is alone in it. He asks where Sabrina is, she rolls her eyes "She had *something important* to attend to." She goes to see what he’s working on and makes her snide remarks as usual but unlike usual he snaps and rips into her, she loses her haughty attitude real quick. The next time they make eye contact in class, she grimaces and looks away. He wins. But then she gets a fire and glares at him head on. Let the war truly begin.

To Nathaniel’s and Choe’s horror, the class goes on a mandatory camping trip. It does not go well for either of them. "Um, I’m sorry mme Bustier but I won’t be able to come. I’m sick, yes, cough cough, how unfortunate." Bustier is not amused. She groans when it’s announced they’ll have a camping trip. Nath keeps his in, but for once they agree on something. Ugh. Nath just wants to draw in his tent, that’s too much to ask??!

Royalties: nath finds out chloe is queen bee and threatens to tell it to everyone so that ladybug will take her miraculous away. In exchange for his secret, Chloe must praise him and his art on her social media, throw his name in at fancy soirées, become his "fan". To Nath’s surprise and Chloe’s horror, it backfires. Royally. Her "Nath is so cool" post was half advertizing half for public humiliation. Being the daughter of the mayor of one of the most famous cities in the world meant she has a lot of followers, quite a few in the elite sphere of Paris. The post’s a bit rebellious on her end because he doesn’t like her calling him Nath. Since Chloe *never* praises anyone and the tone was overeager/affectious, people start theorizing they’re actually dating. He takes the logical leap to be invited by her at an event, but as a plus one because it’s not her party to invite people at. Normally he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with a fancy party, but he begrudgingly has to admit networking is very important as an artist, plus he’d do it to piss off Chloe alone.

Vampire au!! Summary: Beyond her humanity, which Chloe had never truly cared about anyway, becoming a vampire hadn’t really, concretely, taken away anything from her. She was still rich, loved by all of Paris, and beautiful. And yet, she realized then that she had lost herself without knowing when. //Chloe has been a vampire for a lil while, very upset. Mr cuddly is also a reminder of her past life. She longs to see herself again, she has had to keep out of the spotlight because she has no reflection and can’t be taken a picture of, she asks Nath to draw her like in Mirror, Mirror the awesome fic which I recommend! Nath finds out her new identity so he becomes tied up in it all, he’s the only one who knows so he becomes who she feeds on. "I can pay you. What do you want? A thousand euros per night? The latest drawing tablets? A gallery showing? Publishing deal? Just help me." Right from the start she feeds off from his neck despite his hesitance. She goes "a wrist? Are you kidding me? I settle for nothing but the best." But the reality is she just wants to feel close to someone, one time the bite turns into a hug crying session. -"... Does that mean my blood is the tastiest?" She’s shaken at that, "That- was *not* what I was implying. It’s not like I would know, anyways." She huffs n looks away. "Your blood is... satisfactory." He smirks, from her, that’s a huge compliment. He can just hear it in his mind "My taste buds are only the most refined!! I can tolerate only but the best!!" She does tell him he’s sweaty n stinks the first time tho. He has to hide his neck bite, ppl tease him about hickeys. At some point a classmate figures out it’s chloe that gives him his hickeys and Nath has to damage control and people start sussing they’re a couple.

No lullaby: No one liked her, but she could dream, couldn’t she? The delusions she lulled herself to had never really been dreams, but maybe to reborn anew she could find a lullaby in someone new, too. // based on the song No Lullaby by Siamés. Also La la la by Jason Chen Akuma that calls itself Lullaby, it was made because they have to move away from their parents or smth like that, so it lashes out and makes all kinds of kiddy & wholesome parenthood stuff. It turns people into happy kids/babies by tapping into childhood memories of parents(something like that), but doesn’t affect Chloe. Because Chloe never had her parents be around much, or them being much like parents at all. Chloe is fighting as Queen Bee, of course, in an AU where people know who she is but Ladybug still trusts her to want not to smear her family name by being a bad superhero. "I could be a superhero and my mother still wouldn’t blink my way... Oh, sorry, that actually happened, not much for an hypothetical." Everyone stares at her in shock. "What? I can have a smart vocabulary!" People look at her with pity and sympathy. "T-that’s not it..." Chat says. Anyways they’re fighting it and a lot of other miraculous holders get hit and she does too but is immune bc it taps into their happy parents childhood memories, meanwhile it’s only able to conjure up her plushie for her. Anyways so she gets swinged up to a rooftop where Nathaniel is sitting and drawing Queen Bee, he jolts and goes "Q-quee-Chloe?" but they don’t have much time since the akuma comes swinging in too and gets Nath under its spell. She carries around baby!Nath around because for some reason she feels a sort of duty to people she knows irl. She goes to the building the other holders are in or something but still ends up alone with Nath since everyone got affected, she panics as her miraculous beeps and she’s alone to fix everything, but Nathaniel draws with his fine art colored pencils like kids use crayons and does tons of kiddy imaginative drawings, and starts humming, bringing her out of her torpor. As the tune calms her, she does a “what would Ladybug do?”, "Ugh, I could have used Evillustrator right about now." She strategizes on how to break the spell over Ladybug for purification, and goes in to break the akuma item holder. When Nathaniel comes to, he’s mad to have ruined his pencils, now with blunt deformed tips, but then he looks at his sketchbook in utter confusion he sees pages and pages of kid’s drawings, recognizing his own infantile style, but the most curious are that some drawings include Queen Bee. His feelings are conflicted and he wants to know what happened, but dreads asking her, but he laughs at a drawing of him pulling her ponytail, and stills at the one of her hugging him. End notes: Next time Queen Bee gets swung onto his rooftops by an akuma, Nath jolts but responds to that adrenaline by crossing his leg over his other knee and raising an eyebrow over half-lidded eyes: "Somehow, I’m not surprised." You know, like sometimes when people flirt as fight or flight response lmao.

22/2/‘23 Chloe was trying really hard to be kind like a true superhero now, and with the birthday of her classmate Nathaniel coming up she would have to, painstakingly, do everything in her power to give him the best gift ever. One problem is, she doesn’t really know him, like, at all. She asks him what he likes. She thinks of supherhero stuff and art stuff. She doesn’t know about drawing tablets so she’s like, what about this professional drawing desk I’ll have my bodyguard carry? As if everyone has the privilege to have the space for a new furniture on a whim. She asks Sabrina for help like this close to a meltdown, maybe even Marinette: "The fool was in love with you, don’t you know anything about him that could help??" And then at the end shes like "omg. I can get him an interview with Queen Bee!" Ooh does she get akumatized with some gifter gimmick? Would be neat but naaah. Maybe two parts, idk what the end should be! Copic markers maybe

#chlonath #fanfic WIP #chloe bourgeois #nathaniel kurtzberg #Angst & fluff and the whole shabang

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notasapleasure · 3 months

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Oh I realized I forgot to ask about Jerott/Marthe plans (I think I’ve seen what you’ve written but I’d love to hear abt the other ideas too!) and “AU of an AU” bc I wanna know how the townhouse stay goes!

I'll answer Au of an au separately :')

Ik I must have mentioned this a million times, but it always bears repeating :') the whole ethos of band AU Jerott/Marthe is summarised by the song Precious Things by Tori Amos:

So I ran faster But it caught me here Yes, my loyalties turned Like my ankle In the seventh grade Running after Billy Running after the rain

These precious things Let them bleed Let them wash away These precious things Let them break Their hold on me

He said "you're really an ugly girl But I like the way you play" And I died, but I thanked him Can you believe that? Sick, sick, holding on to his picture Dressing up every day I wanna smash the faces Of those beautiful boys Those Christian boys So, you can make me cum That doesn't make you Jesus

These precious things Let them bleed Let them wash away These precious things Let them break Their hold on me

I remember, yes In my peach party dress No one dared No one cared to tell me Where the pretty girls are Those demigods With their nine-inch nails And little fascist panties Tucked inside the heart Of every nice girl

These precious things Let them bleed Let them wash away These precious things Let them break Let them wash away These, these precious things Let them bleed, now Let them wash away These, these precious things Let them break Their hold on me

I also actually made a band AU playlist for them ages and ages ago, but some of those songs have since been repurposed to other characters' playlists and I think I'd rework it quite heavily now. Still, gives an idea of the vibes.

More answer and fic below the cut

Marthe gets saddled with minding Jerott while he finishes up his stint in rehab (Anemone on Ao3). She doesn't let on what she knows of where Francis has gone - nor who he's gone with - and Jerott's probably surprisingly tolerable while he's sober and chastened after all the drama of the road trip etc. They get to jamming together and do a few shows for pocket money, and probably bond over some obscure artists and songs they didn't think anyone else knew about/thought were cool in that day and age (mutual love of Nature Boy ftw haha yes I am aware of what I did there: 'the greatest thing you'll ever learn / is just to love / and be loved / in return').

Marthe, cynical about her chances of a solo career in the wake of Kiaya's departure, sees in Jerott a competant musician who she might bend to play her kind of music, to allow her to kind of ride on-his-coattails into the charts/European market (grudgingly admitting the need for a Man in the music industry, thanks for the 'lesson', Kiaya), from where she might find her own niche. They do have chemistry on stage at this point, playing covers together and challenging each other to play better than the other. I think that leads her to a moment of vulnerability where she makes a last gasp effort to convince herself she's bi, when it's really just that competence is a draw no matter who they are. But Jerott's still sober and he's so excited she's willing to tolerate him (oh thank god!! I was attracted to her and not Francis after all!!) that he's well behaved and keeps his mouth shut when told to (see excerpt below). He is also, as we have discussed, A Good Sex Haver, or at least is very much the kind of guy who gets off on giving good head (it's MY au and I'll do what I want to make elements of their marriage less grim ok??), so even if Marthe's not keen on piv she can live with the situation.

The marriage is something they both claim to go into with eyes wide open - knowing it suits her to have access to European residency (I am not looking up citizenship law for this ask, but Jerott probably has dual French/British if that's possible at the time) and knowing that he's obsessed with her(/Francis) while she's kind of indifferent/tolerating him. But of course he believes she'll come to love him anyway, and he believes he doesn't love Francis, and she believes he'll stay sober and meek and won't mind being teased about Francis when it's obvious that's who he'd rather be with.

They do some touring and it starts well - Fleetwood Mac energy, bouncing from love to hate depending on the kind of day they've had. They get a pretty good record contract, but they absolutely blow the recording of it. They have to *live* together for the first time, not on tour, but in a place near the studio, confined and at each other's throats. He starts drinking again. She won't compromise musically. It's a total flop - the lyrics are called outdated and garbled, the music is overproduced, stifled and jars from one track to the next. They play a few live shows where some of the tracks come into their own a bit, but the reviews put such a strain on them they pull their tour and fuck off to Europe, like living together in Jerott's ancestral homelands and sorting through Marthe's grandma's junk is somehow going to improve things.

So that's when things start to come apart, even though they're ostensibly working on a second record together they're not touring and they're working from a home studio, so their world is quite limited and Marthe branches out and finds French friends while Jerott obsessively follows the music news and write great long epistles to Francis.

In terms of the fic I mentioned, the idea was trying to write the highs (well, moderate peaks) and lows of their relationship through sex. I never got very far with the first one (below) but the idea was that 1) leaves Marthe mildly impressed, 2) a bit uncertain of how this might evolve, but still happy enough, 3) he says 'Francis' when he comes, but he's sober and just very tired so she elects to ignore it for now, 4) starting to get bored with this, the tour is tiiiring, 5) studio life doesn't suit them, he's not sober, and when he says 'Francis' this time she's absolutely calling him on it.

I did still intend to write a version of this fic set between the Baron Morgan/Aga Morat stuff and Checkmate, but I only wrote one scene between them, which you've read :)

Others haven't though! So I'll post it beneath the excerpt from the unfinished bit. It makes reference to her suspicion that it's only a matter of time before he calls her 'Francis' and alludes to a less-than-happy occasion on which GRM pulled his hair, not like he's ready to talk about that with Marthe...uh...ever? I imagined it set sometime during their tour, before they get bogged down trying to record their album. It's more them, I think - Marthe eternally shadowed by a kind of self-loathing and resentment of Jerott that's never going to go away.

Draft 1

She's pleasantly surprised pre-wedding

No, that won't work, but keep doing it if you have to

He says 'Francis' when he shouldn't

So you can make me come it doesn't make you Jesus

She calls him out on saying Francis, he clearly had no idea he'd said it

By the end of the encore, laughing and waving into what seemed a physical wall of noise, Jerott knew he had never been happier in his life. The crowd wasn't the biggest he had played to, the set had been rough and ready, but there was a spark on that stage that even Marthe could no longer deny. She stepped up to stand by his side and raise her own arms, and she smiled across at Jerott: a small, wry little thing, but a smile that contained genuine pride.

In the motel corridor, Jerott stopped at her shoulder, each of them facing opposite directions. She looked at him from the corner of her eye, her long, white neck held tall and straight, her smile something that even now she fought, but that made her cornflower blue eyes sparkle.

"That was pretty good, right?" He offered his most bashful, winning grin in return, lowering his chin and gaze.

Marthe snorted. "Yeah," she admitted though. "Yeah it was. You can play, I'll give you that."

He raised his brows and tried not to laugh or blush - he knew he could play, he'd never needed to hear it from her. But she was looking at him still, in a strange and calculating manner that made him feel weighted to the spot. Her eyes narrowed, sweat-smudged kohl hemming in their vibrant colour, and she bit her lip.

He didn't notice her hand move until it began to slide around his, neat and warm, her fingers following the sensitive contours of his palm.

Jerott sucked in a breath and his hand tightened reflexively on hers. At the pressure, Marthe's expression flickered, the corners of her mouth moving with something tight and resigned and her nostrils flaring. But she didn't try to withdraw.

She said nothing, and he saw blooms of colour, like peonies, cover the pale skin of her chest and throat. Her pulse flickered in the pronounced v of tendons between her collarbones and Jerott ached to press his mouth to it and feel her life, separate and strange beneath his lips.

Marthe tugged his hand until he took a step sideways, and the lengths of their arms were aligned: his bare brown skin against her rumpled shirt and white skin, long black hairs mingling with the fine blonde ones covering her forearm. Her face was only inches from his. It was smooth as polished marble, distinguished here and there by traces of the complexities of her existence: fine echoes of all her frowns and smiles in the lines that could not be seen when he stood back. And he had never known her eyes so wide, her mouth part with such softness.

Jerott felt his heart jolt at the expression on her face. He had imagined it so many times, in so many places, and it could never have compared to the way she looked now: sultry and confident, gently, wryly amused, and - finally - interested in what she saw in return?

"You think I can play?" He murmured, leaning into her gravity, his smile smooth and his eyes steady.

She grinned, but it made the hairs on his arms stand on end: a sense of danger gathering. "Don't," Marthe said, her voice crisp and firm.

He raised his eyebrows and broadened his sweetest smile. With an unsteady breath he lowered his face still closer to hers.

Marthe snorted, blue fire dancing in her eyes, the dimples in her cheeks sinking deeper. "I said don't!" She repeated, but her grin crept into her voice. "Don't pull that smooth shit with me, you got your compliment."

Jerott laughed silently and looked down, his eyes hovering on her lips as he contemplated saying another foolish thing.

She must have seen the idiocy on the tip of his tongue and pre-empted it: "Shut up. Shut up, shut up, shut up," she raked the last syllable over her vocal chords, drawling , chuckling, edging nearer herself until her nose brushed against his. Her mascara-coated lashes lowered until the last moment.

Jerott met her eyes as their lips touched: blue like an open sky, blue like denim and fresh water. Her mouth was soft and hot, closed over his own parched mouth as she tested the feel of him, her open eyes seeking out the response she elicited.

He tried to hold her stare, but her lips moved against his, her teeth met his lower lip with gentle, teasing pressure, and he gasped and his eyes fell shut. His free hand came up to her shoulder, which was warm beneath the shirt she had shrugged on over her sweat-dark tank top, the perfect fit against his palm.

Draft 2

He'd proven himself, to Marthe's great surprise, an enthusiastic and generous lover. No inheritor to Gaultier's bored, unimaginative humping was Jerott Blyth; he'd go down on her at the drop of a hat, and he'd do it well; backstage, back alleys, motel rooms - wherever he could get his hands on her while they were both still buzzing with the adrenaline of the set they'd played.

Marthe wasn't sure if it made it easier or harder when he was above her in a motel bed then, taking what he assumed would be given freely in exchange for his own efforts. She did try, for the first few times, to work out if she might like it when it was a handsome young man between her legs instead of her dry, detached professor. But though she entertained the idea of being someone, something else, it wasn't long before she knew it just wasn't for her - neither in the sense of something given, nor in the sense of appealing to her tastes.

But he wasn't Gaultier, she wasn't his pet, and he could play. Their sets were electric, furious, wild in a way Marthe had never had the freedom to be publicly before. And afterwards he wanted to - and could - make her cum like no one she'd met since the girlfriend she'd had back in halls, and after that she was able to simply lie there and wait for him to finish without even feeling much of anything.

Gaultier had developed a habit of working on his compositions while he fucked her - eyes closed, mentally picturing the stave as he hummed and muttered notes to himself. Jerott, on the other hand, was gentleman enough to admire her with his eyes, his hands, his tongue. To never forget a condom the way Gaulter had from time to time – because he could, too. Above all, he was very eager to tell her she was beautiful.

Marthe didn't need to be told that. But it was better than being used as a dissociative tool for someone's artistic process.

It seemed kinder, then, to maintain an air of curiosity, of interest. In order to do so, she made a bet with herself - with the money she was earning from this tour, she'd buy herself a new guitar if he slipped and called her Francis while deep in the throes. If he didn't, she'd do something sensible with the money. Put it in savings or something.

Maybe she was thinking of the guitar when, one night in Seattle, she sat up to take the foil packet from his hands and open it herself. He looked at her searchingly, dark eyes she found difficult to read scanning her expression for ulterior motives.

Marthe tossed the loose tendrils of her tied-back hair over her shoulder and tore the packet open with her teeth, aware of the weight of his stare, aware of his breath coming more heavily.

She rolled the condom on, thinking abstractedly of community sex ed workshops on the college lawn. For good measure, she gave his cock a couple of firm strokes, and he gasped, his brows raising.

Ok, that's plenty, Marthe sat back with an expression she imagined was closer to being a seductive smile than a grimace. She didn't want him to think she was going to do...that, every time.

Perhaps she was overthinking things, overestimating what he'd notice and what he'd expect. Jerott wasn't that complicated, after all - he reached for her and kissed her like there was only one thought on his mind, and Marthe let herself be brought close, kissed him back with the same sloppy urgency.

Then, impulsively, she moved closer still, lifting one leg and shifting to straddle him where he sat on the edge of the bed - he made a sound in the kiss that Marthe took to be surprise and pleasure, and she ground her hips against him, her body still wet from his tongue, from her own orgasm, slick against the rubber he wore.

Jerott moaned and Marthe gritted her teeth. She pushed him back to the mattress and lowered herself onto him, her eyes closed, her mind on the wares for sale at Eve's Garden. She had him half on the bed and half off, his lower legs dangling over the side, unable to brace himself easily against the floor - it gave her near total control of the rhythm, and she batted him back down again if he tried to sit up.

He didn't take much convincing, though he remained propped on his elbows for a time, gawping up at her. She could sense him watching, and cracked open her eyes to wince at his expression of ragged, lascivious desire - mouth loose and open, eyelids heavy, gaze blank. Marthe screwed her eyes shut again and sank herself as low as she could, upping the pace of her rolling hips.

Jerott at last admitted defeat, lay back and made a strangled sound of ecstasy, holding onto her thighs just above each knee with bruising strength in his hands.

She'd never done this with Gaultier - he didn't believe in a woman being on top, and besides, if she'd broken his hip or something, he wouldn't have hesitated to claim the medical bills on her insurance.

But there was, she found, far more pleasure to be had this way. There were no hot, grasping fingers or lips on her breasts, there was no sandpapery, rough cheek rubbing on the skin of her neck. She could keep her eyes closed and imagine herself wherever she needed to be to get off.

She began to believe that she might do so here, as well. She wielded her body with less deliberation, working herself to a sweat as she bucked her hips, her hands resting on the tops of her thighs, feeling her breasts swing heavily, the small, natural garland of fat on her belly and her flanks jogging with her movements. The bed and mattress shrieked and rattled beneath her, the sound like a crowd going wild for an encore.

Jerott let out a cry and Marthe was almost embarrassed to hear herself answer it, feeling fire crawl its way up inside her, flickering and crackling like a broken bulb at the edge of her vision.

Fearful he wouldn't last as long as she needed, she let herself lean forwards, one hand a fist, bracing herself against his chest, the other taking hold of a bunch of his black hair for good measure, fingers tangling against his sweaty scalp. She adjusted the angle of her hips accordingly and bit her lower lip, trying to keep her momentum going.

Beneath her, Jerott's body flinched.

"Fuck...!" he groaned. He gripped the wrist of the hand that was knotted in his hair but found that tugging it only tightened Marthe's hold. His other hand flailed for the bed clothes, grabbing at the sheets and relieving the pressure on Marthe's thigh so she could really move how she wanted to.

He didn't complain about her grip. On the contrary, his eyes were closed and his brow was furrowed with concentration. "Oh, god..." he said hoarsely as his head rolled on the covers.

It was never quite enough though - she didn't get further than eternally close before his body bucked beneath hers with a grunt. The way he craned his neck and turned his head against the mattress pulled her forward, jerked by the hand tangled in his hair, and her own concentration was lost as he came.

"Shit," Marthe barked breathlessly.

She tugged her hand free, noting that Jerott's hold was now on her hips, his thumbs softly caressing her skin, encouraging her own gentle rocking motion to continue as he finished, wringing every last drop of satisfaction out.

Marthe swept his hands away, rolled off him without preamble and sat beside his prone form with a sour taste rising to her tongue. Disappointment - she knew the flavour well. Stupid, to let herself get involved like that, to try and take something for herself. That wasn't what this was about.

It was about her career. Wasn't it always?

Marthe sighed and massaged her brow. Her grandmother would want to know when she was moving to Europe, when she was going to find a market she could really sell to. When she was going to make something of herself - or, failing that, make Francis Crawford make something of her. Whatever they really were to each other.

Her grandmother would have a great many questions when the tour finally came to an end in New York, but one thing Marthe's grandmother would be certain of was that the man currently lying next to her was second-best - and Marthe's grandmother would therefore judge him perfectly adequate to his task.

Jerott lay still for a moment beside her and then raised a hand and rubbed at the top of his sternum, at his throat like he had a pain there. He let out a cough and frowned at the ceiling, then sat up and slipped away to the ensuite.

Usually, when they were in the motel room, he couldn't wait to wrap his arms around her afterwards, to pin her close in his hold - where Marthe felt like a small bird gripped in a fist. He'd fall asleep and she'd lie there, smelling his tobacco, his whiskey, waiting until he was heavy and snoring and she could squirm free to lie comfortably on the other side of the bed.

Tonight though, he lingered in the bathroom, and Marthe felt chilled and exposed as she realised that, for once, she would quite like to have been held in his warm arms. It might have made her feel a little less silly about the whole relationship, just to follow through with the act a bit longer today. But he didn't seem in any hurry to come back to her. She lay naked on the rumpled bedsheets while he ran faucets and clattered about with mouthwash and water glasses.

Her head propped on one hand, the remote lying in front of her, Marthe glared at the tiny TV screen in the corner of the room and stabbed buttons on the remote with one-fingered vindictiveness. That was it, she'd decided. Penetrative sex had to be the worst joke ever told to womankind. She wouldn't bother getting her hopes up again about it.

Click.

Porcupines fucking on a nature documentary. Marthe accepted the funny side of it, and snorted.

Click.

Some lowest common denominator sitcom where the overworked woman was chewing out her lazy husband.

Click.

Teleshopping.

Click.

Pizza ad. Her stomach growled. Maybe she was being unfair. Maybe she was just hungry - she hadn't eaten since before soundcheck.

Click.

A familiar shade of rose pink caught her eye as the channels flickered, and she stopped her assault on the remote to frown at the screen.

"With revelations emerging about Rajneeshpuram daily, it's looking more and more like Graham Reid Malett's activities were standard across all the cult's sites."

It was a report into illegal activities at the main ashram in Oregon, but showed footage of the man who had styled himself Geetesh in custody and on trial for crimes committed at his own Nevada ashram. Marthe watched with a kind of fascinated disgust as the portentous voiceover barely scraped the surface of Reid Malett's wrong-doings.

"Fraud, invasion of privacy, coercion, and he presided over violent and sexual workshops in which willing participants..."

As she watched, Jerott emerged from the ensuite. He handed her one of the two water glasses he'd filled and paused by the bed, staring at the TV with an appalled expression.

"What the fuck are you watching?" he asked.

Marthe shrugged the shoulder that was uppermost and nodded at the bedside table, indicating that Jerott could leave the water there.

"You don't wanna know how Swami Graham is doing?"

He'd moved round to his side of the bed and she saw his face the way it was lit up by the screen: repulsed, furious, maybe even a bit scared?

"No."

Marthe thought she noticed his fingers tremble a little as he put his own glass down. He ran them through his hair and then his eyes fell on the remote.

"Switch it off."

She saw him reach for it and - because he wanted it, because he spoke commandingly and she'd let him have enough already, and more, that night - she snatched it away. "I'm watching!"

"Well don't! What do you even want to know that you haven't already seen with your own two eyes?" He gestured furiously, pointing two fingers at his own fierce features, and grabbed again for the remote.

"Hey!" Marthe wasn't above hollering when he laid a hand on her to stop her from protecting the device. "Don't touch me!"

Jerott had already retreated to stand by the bed again, maintaining a distance, his palms open at his sides, his expression one of vexed fury. "Please switch it off," he said carefully, but Marthe knew suppressed anger when she heard it.

She narrowed her eyes. "Why? You're not gonna...let it all out, get all cathartic on me?"

His jaw clenched visibly.

"Personally, I think it's reassuring to see him cuffed and guarded," Marthe added, eyeing up the picture on the screen.

"...swapped his disciple's robes of pink for fetching penitentiary facility orange..."

Jerott said nothing, but took three long strides to the far wall and yanked the TV plug from the socket.

Marthe rolled her eyes and swept the remote off the bed so it clattered to the floor. "Oh, Mr Rock and Roll. Gonna throw it out the window, too?"

Jerott got into bed and yanked the sheet over his body without turning to face her. "Good night, Marthe," he snarled.

She stared at his back for a moment and then made a sound of exasperation and got up to brush her own teeth.

It wasn't like she'd wanted to watch the programme anyway, it was just that any talk of the Rajneeshees wound him up so much, even now. Marthe, of all people, could well understand another's bitterness about the wasted years of their life - but Jerott's bitterness was always special. He couldn't accept that anyone else might have regrets about any number of things, oh no - nothing compared to the victimhood of the boy who had run off to join a cult instead of going to med school, who had run off to med school instead of joining a band with a man he was clearly deeply, obliviously in love with. He was evidently the first guy on earth to find out he was attracted to a man and feel conflicted about it, the first person in the history of mankind to have his illusions shattered about someone he'd trusted.

Marthe brushed her teeth and hair angrily in the dark bathroom and got back into bed with a heavy landing on the mattress, with deliberately exaggerated kicking of the sheet, plumping of the pillow, and fidgeting until she was comfortable.

"Good night, Jerott. Good gig today. Sleep well."

#the band au #wip ask meme #lymond chronicles #jerott/marthe #oh man this should probably have warnings idek - hmu if you need anything specific warning/tagging for and i'll sort it #my wips #my fics

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dollarbin · 6 months

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Dollar Bin #21:

Paul Simon's There Goes Rhymin' Simon

When I was little my mother loved to brag about how ugly I'd been as a baby.

"He looked just like a frog," she'd tell her friends while I stood about, often with my finger deep in a nostril. There was always love in her eyes when she said it, but looking back on the photos, I'd say she was putting a positive spin on things. Frogs are, after all, fairly cute.

And so, when my own children were about to be launched into existence I felt fairly excited. Would they look like aged dwarves/me or cosmic goddesses/my wife? Sadly, they all were angelic and beatific, and wound up smart and kind as well, which makes them fairly boring to write about.

So, forget about them. Let's talk instead about one of the ugliest record covers in my entire collection. There's plenty of grossness to report on...

If you want sheer trashiness, cast a terrified eye upon Neil Young's American Stars and Bars. It's ugly on a number of fronts: first, we've got a directly vertical, up from a glass floor, vantage point of Young's plastered and pressed face; work in the barmaid's ridiculous unmentionables and take note that my own 99 cent version is ripped to shreds, and you've got a contender for the ugliest record of all time.

But the vinyl inside is pristine and the album features two of the best songs of all time back to back (Like a Hurricane and Will to Love, of course), so who cares: ugly is awesome in the Dollar Bin.

And then there's Fairport Convention's Live at L.A. Troubadour which is famously horrifying to gaze upon. The art department at Island Records either hated the band, or themselves, or the whole planet. As dedicated Dollar Binners can tell you, my own coveted copy is also slightly melted so its ugliness knows no bounds.

And no ugly cover contest is complete without mentioning Dylan, the infamous Screw You Bob! record of outtakes Columbia put out when Bob jumped ship in 73 for Asylum Records. The only thing uglier than the portrait on the cover is Dylan's cover of Big Yellow Taxi.

(But don't buy the hype that Dylan is terrible; in spite of Columbia's best efforts to end the Bobster's career, the album contains a few great tracks; but that discussion will have to wait for Dollar Bin #642, or maybe #643. That's right: I've got the next 64 years of this nonsense already planned out...).

I could go on and on (we haven't even touched on the giant weird stylus phallus on the cover of The Bunch...). My personal Dollar Bin is chock full of unsightly greatness.

But, without further adieu, let me submit for your very personal consideration what is arguably the greatest ugly record of all time: Paul Simon's There Goes Rhymin' Simon.

Behold the horrifying cover art concept: every track on the album gets its own infantile piece of pop art horror somewhere on the gatefold. Mingled in are an archival photo of teenybopper Simon with a full head of hair and another photo of daddy Simon with a full head of combed over hair.

The Dollar Bin teems with copies of this record; everyone, and their weird uncle, bought a copy of Rhymin' Simon in 73 because the music within it is awesome, but they, or their grandkids who inherited the collection, just couldn't bear to look at the insidious cover and therefore eventually pawned it off on dollar bins the world over. If you don't own a copy, get a life and go get it. Put it on your turntable but don't look at the cover; like Medusa's visage, it may turn you to stone. And I like you just the way you are: unstoney.

Indeed, I'd argue that There Goes Rhymin Simon is proof positive that most people in these troubled times are more focused on how their record collection looks on the shelf than how it sounds. You know 'em: they've got Steely Dan albums enshrined in plastic and they can't wait to show you their minty copy of The Wall. Yuck. Lend me a ruler and I'll draw you some bricks, if you really want to see some, but I won't force you to listen to Roger Waters drone on and on about his own hideous meaning of life.

I was deep in a dollar bin recently, knees aching on the floor, when two college kids came in, asking for directions to the Yes records. They very clearly did not own a record player; rather they wanted Yes to grace their dorm room walls. Indeed, that's probably the sole reason anyone on earth has ever had for owning a Yes record. I've never owned one, and I never will. I declare Hell No to Yes.

Only a masochist would mount Rhymin' Simon on their wall. Who, you ask, do we have to blame for undercutting the fourth masterpiece of Simon's career (The first three are Bookends, Bridge Over Troubled Water and Paul Simon) with such shoddy pop art? The answer is none other than Milton Glaser, the guy who foisted the following on us all:

Imagine the greatest, most recognized thing in your entire life taking you six seconds to create and being something a fourth grader could come up with. I heart NY to, but I mean Neil Young when I say so; why isn't anyone offering me a solo show at the Pompidou Center?

Glaser could have designed a plain brown paper bag to hold Simon's record, then slipped a fresh cow pie in alongside it and thereby have done Simon an immeasurably better turn in the art department.

Before you accuse me of just being ignorant about modern art let me offer the defense that I actually took a course in modern art at Cambridge for a term which led to religious experiences in front of Rothkos and Chagalls. Furthermore, Glaser has made some wonderful art in his career. Consider Dylan's psychedelic hairdo:

I'm guessing that Simon finished Rhymin' and then ordered Glaser to give him the Dylan treatment on his cover. But Glaser took one look at Simon's hair and said, "Paul we're going with ugly rather than comb over with this one," then turned out Rhymin's abomination. Simon learned his lesson: every one of his album covers since then has either featured tasteful art or a photo of Paul with a hat or hairpiece carefully in place.

It's tempting to think of Rhymin' as Simon's own version of Chrome Dreams, Neil Young's abandoned (but recently released) 70's album of masterful individual songs. Almost every track on Chrome Dreams comes from a separate recording session and every song stands on its own, seemingly unrelated to its neighboring tracks. Like the eclectic stops on Odysseus's journey home, both Rhymin' and Chrome Dreams can be experienced as a series of only vaguely related adventures. There's plenty of terror from Polyphemus cave to be witnessed on each record, just like there's a lot of lust to be had in Circe's bed.

Glaser's juvenile and segregated artistic approach on Rhymin' only strengthens this sense. What does a cheap, jaundiced Mardi Gras mask possibly have in common with equally cheap, inverted dollhouse chairs? And what's with the terrifying heart-pupiled eye? Can't we ask Odysseus to ram a spike into it or something?

But on close listen, Rhymin' finds cohesion, its greatness unfolding around us as we sail narrow straights between the Scylla of 70's pop schmaltz the Charybdis of cultural appropriation.

Let's start on the Scylla side, shall we? Simon can sound saccharine on occasion. Songs like Why Don't You Write Me and The Big Bright Green Pleasure Machine sound like byproducts of a men's retreat with Stephen Stills and Paul Anka. Everyone ate whipped cream out of tubs, compared biceps and combed their chest hair with care.

The album opens in these Scylla infested waters with Kodachrome, an almost too perfect pop number which, if taken a step further, would sound like a Chicago song. But Simon adds kick to the mix, enunciates the word "crap" with aplomb, and chides his ego whilst among the ladies. And so the whole thing rolls nicely: when this number comes up on FM radio, you'll hum along.

Other moments when he dodges the six heads of schmaltz include Quincy Jones' feathered pillow arrangement on Something So Right and the overall daddyrific vibes of Saint Judy's Comet. But both of these songs are masterpieces lyrically and melodically; we lean into the schmaltz because everything about the songs is indeed so very right.

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I'm pretty convinced Dylan listened to Something So Right with great care before wrestling, over and over again, with You're a Big Girl Now a year later. Simon famously told Dylan in the mid sixties that he liked the rough sketch of a song Dylan had just cut in the studio. Paul encouraged Bob to take his time and build the track up into something great. Dylan responded by saying that the single rough take would be the only take; he had bigger fish to fry. The story is cute, but not altogether accurate; after all there's about 4000 studio takes of Like a Rolling Stone. And by 74 Bob gave Simon's perfectionist approach an even more earnest try. Thank god he did.

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Listen for the organ to come soaring in, landing on the fence of Dylan's soundscape like a precious bird of flight. Am I wrong to think that this glorious track is a fitting cousin to Something So Right?

Okay, that covers the schmaltz. But the awkward whirlpool of cultural appropriation has also been a hazard in Simon's career and he narrowly dodges a few Charybdis sized abysses on Rhymin'. Three years after going full karaoke on El Condor Pasa he swims his way through two slightly cringy, I Wanna Be Black, soul numbers on Rhymin': Tenderness and Loves Me Like a Rock. Both come with the full support of The Dixie Hummingbirds. I'm even whiter than Simon so I can't comment with any authority on the ethics of Simon taking the lead while these great Black artists support him.

But I can tell you that I love both songs, especially Tenderness, and that Simon did a lot more than any other white artists of his generation to promote and give credit to the artists of color he worshiped and leaned on. He took the Peruvian band responsible for El Condor Pasa, Urubamba, as well as the Jessy Dixon Singers, on tour with him after this record, and both groups are featured with prominent respect on his subsequent live album (Live Rhymin' is another Dollar Bin classic and another significant entry in the ugly cover contest).

And we all know how Simon earnestly introduced American audiences to Brazilian and African artists in the 80's. Simon's career may be built on a good deal of appropriation, but it seems to me that he always tries to do it with respect. After all, he treats Aretha Franklin's version of Bridge over Troubled Water as the song's authoritative take.

But I'm not sure that even all those qualifiers can rectify the soft reggae vibes of the Rhymin' track Was A Sunny Day. If it's okay with you, let's give Simon a pass there, as the song does feature the vinyl debut of The Roches.

Alongside these skillful schmaltz and appropriation dodges Rhymin' also features a few straight up Paul Simon classics. Take Me to the Mardi Gras, One Man's Ceiling, Learn How to Fall and America Tune: these are beautiful songs from start to finish, each of them simple and incredibly complex all at once. Simon has the uncanny ability to turn easy listening into high art and there's a dark turn to be found in each song if you lean in. Listen to the Reverend Claude Jeter sing the glowing, devout bridge on Mardi Gras; worry about who's doing what behind Simon's building in Ceiling; count the impossible number of balanced harmonizing parts in Fall; and, most of all, take a moment to appreciate the towering greatness of American Tune.

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As a teenager I saw Simon twice on the Rhythm of the Saints tour. Everything was dense, earnest and slick. But when Simon came out alone, in midst of the First Gulf War, and sang American Tune I got my first real taste of true patriotism: Simon loves his country enough to criticize it through earnest, complex and open-ended metaphor. I'd say he did the same thing on the tenth anniversary of 9/11 as well:

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I don't care how little hair he has, and I don't care what his albums look like. Paul Simon is a Dollar Bin genius, an old friend who's still standing with us as we watch the Statue of Liberty sail away to sea. I sure hope we can come together and reel it back in.

Happy November everyone.

#milton glaser #paul simon #neil young #bob dylan #stephen stills still sucks #Youtube #fairport convention

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theartofdreaming1 · 3 years

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Katniss acting petty as heck towards the Peacekeepers is hilarious ^^

As usual, my thoughts on chapters 10-12 are below the cut (I’ll post my stuff for the corresponding prompts separately this time - I had a couple of other things going on this week and I didn’t want to delay this post any further)

Chapter 10

I examine the girl’s face, which is bright red from the cold. Her teeth are crooked and there’s a strawberry birthmark over one of her chocolate brown eyes. This is no Peacekeeper. No citizen of the Capitol, either. - Kinda cool how Bonnie’s imperfections let Katniss know that she’s not talking to a Capitolite here, but someone from the districts, which makes Katniss lower her guard a little.

“Making tea?” I ask. “We’re not sure, really. I remember seeing someone do this with pine needles on the Hunger Games a few years back. At least, I think it was pine needles,” says Twill with a frown. I remember District 8, an ugly urban place striking of industrial fumes, the people housed in run-down tenements. Barely a blade of grass in sight. No opportunity, ever, to learn the ways of nature. It’s a miracle these two have made it this far. - The girl who unwisely made a fire during Katniss’s first night in the Games was from D8, too; knowing about their complete ignorance about nature in D8 makes it more understandable why that girl had been so clueless - just making a fire out in the wilderness must have been an enormous accomplishment for her already

“[Food]’s been gone for a while.” The quaver in her [Bonnie’s] voice melts my remaining defenses. She’s just a malnourished, injured girl fleeing the Capitol. - Katniss is always a softie for the underdog; she’s so protective and nurturing

“Well, then this is your lucky day,” I say, dropping my game bag on the floor. People are starving all over the district and we still have more than enough. So I’ve been spreading things around a little. I have my own priorities: Gale’s family, Greasy Sae, some of the other Hob traders who ere shut down. My mother has other people, patients mostly, who she wants to help. - The Everdeens are kind, compassionate people; I love that, while their priorities of who is to receive the food is different for Katniss and her mom, their motive is ultimately the same: helping others who are less well-off than them

From the bag I pull two fresh buns with a layer of cheese baked into the top. We always seem to have a supply of these since Peeta found out they were my favorite. I toss one to Twill but cross over and place the other on Bonnie’s lap since her hand-eye coordination seems a little questionable at the moment - Okay, so A) aww, Peeta making sure Katniss is always well-stocked with her favorite foods 🥰🥰🥰 He pays so much attention to seemingly mundane details and then puts in the effort to do something good with that info (especially if it’s for Katniss) - it’s such an inherent part of who he is, it will be one of the first things to break through his hijacking (think of the can of lamb stew he hands her in MJ), B) it’s kinda nice how, in a way, Peeta is still a part of this moment with Bonnie and Twill - he might not be here physically, but in spirit (or, rather, bread ;), literally nourishing part of the rebellion (i.e. the refugees), and C) lol, how does Katniss gauge that Bonnie’s hand-eye coordination might be not so great? Because of her foot? Believe me, I don’t need a banged up foot to have awful hand-eye coordination - I’m just naturally butterfingered like that ;)

“Oh,” says Bonnie. “Oh is this all for me?” Something inside me twists as I remember another voice. Rue. In the arena. When I gave her the leg of groosling. “Oh, I’ve never had a whole leg to myself before.” The disbelief of the chronically hungry. - Katniss is already doing the work here for me, drawing the parallel to Rue, but this passage also reminded me of this: - “So do we hunt on empty stomachs to give us an edge?” “Not us,” I say. “We stuff ourselves to give us staying power.” “Count me in in,” Peeta says. But I can see he’s surprised when I divide the rest of the stew and rice and hand a heaping plate to him. “All this?” (THG, Ch. 23) - as someone from the merchant class, Peeta clearly didn’t have to starve, but even he didn’t get to eat as much as he liked growing up and I’m sure that can be applied to the other districts as well - even those who would be considered well-off in the districts are living under severe restrictions while the sheer abundance in the Capitol has people puke up food so they can stuff themselves with even more 😒

Twill taught at school, Bonnie was one of her pupils, and when the final bell had rung, both of them spent a four-hour shift at the factory that specialized in Peacekeeper uniforms. - So, we already know from Rue that child labor is not uncommon in Panem - how come that there is none of that in D12? (children working in mines is something we know about from history) Also, how does someone become a teacher in Panem? Is there a training center for educators? I’m curious...

The night of my engagement, the night Peeta fell to his knees and proclaimed his undying love for me in front of the cameras in the Capitol, was the night the uprising began. It was an ideal cover. Our Victory Tour interview with Caesar Flickerman was mandatory viewing. It gave the people of District 8 a reason to be out on the streets after dark, gathering either in the square or in various community centers around the city to watch. Ordinarily such activity would have been too suspicious. Instead everyone was in place by the appointed hour, eight o’clock, when the masks went on and all hell broke loose. - Interesting how Katniss and Peeta’s relationship, instead of placating the districts, actually helped the rebels with staging their uprising (and I’m sure that was not the Capitol’s design, Katniss... just something for you to mull over ;)

Then, for a week, there was a lockdown. No food, no coal, everyone forbidden to leave their homes. - I would love to know how and when the different lockdowns in various districts took place; for example was there a parallel uprising in the food supplying district that would explain the ‘no food’ rule we can observe in D8 and D12 (aside from being a punishment, maybe also a result of general food shortage), does the ‘no coal’ in D8 coincide with the mines in D12 being shut down?

A street made impassable by the bombs caused them [Twill and Bonnie] to be late for their factory shift, so they were still a hundred yards away when it exploded, killing everyone inside - including Twill’s husband and Bonnie’s entire family - It is so wild how seemingly minor decisions/circumstances (like being late because you have to take a different route than usual) can have such wide-reaching consequences

Concealed by woods, but using the tracks for guidance, they made it to the outskirts of District 12 - I don’t know, this description just really reminds me of the end of Fahrenheit 451

“... They’ve been using the same footage for as long as anyone in District Eight can remember,” says Twill. [...] “See what?” I ask. Twill holds out her cracker with the bird again. “A mockingjay. Just a glimpse of it as it flies by. The same one every time.” [...] I give a grunt of disbelief. “You’re going to District Thirteen based on that? A shot of a bird?” - Very convenient that said bird is a mockingjay; it would have been awfully unstylish/unfitting if it had been a blackbird or something like that ^^ But it also seems very fitting that it would be the sight of a bird that inspires hope - isn’t that a common theme, especially in poetry? Makes me think of Emily Dickinson’s poem “hope is the thing with feathers”

“And we think the Capitol leaves them alone because, before the Dark Days, District Thirteen’s principal industry was nuclear development.” “They were graphite miners,” I say. But then I hesitate, because that’s information I got from the Capitol. - Katniss stopping herself, realizing that she has to question everything she has learned from the Capitol

If a community exists in District 13, would it be better to go there, where I might be able to accomplish something, instead of waiting here for my death? But then... if there are people in District 13, with powerful weapons... “Why haven’t they helped us?” I say angrily. “If it’s true, why do they leave us to live like this? With the hunger and the killings and the Games?” And suddenly I hate this imaginary underground city of District 13 and those who sit by, watching us die. They’re no better than the Capitol. - Whelp, it’s not that inaccurate to what we’re going to see in MJ, is it? Katniss’s disdain for a D13 that has been watching the sufferings of the other districts all along also makes perfect sense considering her own inability to observe others suffering

“We don’t know,” Bonnie whispers. “Right now, we’re just holding on to the hope that they exist.” That snaps me to my senses. These are delusions. District 12 doesn’t exist because the Capitol would never let it exist. [...] Bonnie has no home. Her family is dead. Returning to District 8 or assimilating into another district would be impossible. Of course the idea of an independent, thriving District 13 draws her. I can’t bring myself to tell her she’s chasing a dream as insubstantial as a wisp of smoke. - Katniss might be overselling the power the Capitol has over everything (although it makes sense for her to feel that way, after D12 being on the receiving end of a particularly harsh and cruel lockdown). It’s interesting how, even though she deems the idea of D13 a ‘delusion’, Katniss recognizes that this thought gives Bonnie hope and she can’t bring herself to squash that hope, because Katniss knows its value (y’know, from experience with her own personal dandelion ;) - [...] they’re so pitiful I have to try to help - despite her doubts, Katniss still ends up helping Bonnie and Twill anyway, because she’s such a good person 😊

They beg me for details of the situation in District 12 and I tell them about life under Thread. I can see they think this is important information that they’ll be bringing to those who run District 13, and I play along so as not to destroy their hopes. - Again, Katniss is humoring Bonnie and Twill, keeping their hope alive

“I have to go now,” I say. They pour out thanks and embrace me. Tears spill from Bonnie’s eyes. “I can’t believe we actually got to meet you. You’re practically all anyone’s talked about since-” “I know. I know. Since I pulled out those berries,” I say tiredly. - Honestly, Katniss might be presuming here; Bonnie could have mentioned volunteering for Prim, caring for Rue, etc... She really isn’t aware of all the good deeds she has done - it’s as Peeta’s said, she doesn’t know the effect she can have ;)

I’m nearing the fence when a mockingjay lights on a branch and trills at me. At the sight of it I realize I never got a full explanation of the bird on the cracker and what it signifies. “It means we’re on your side.” That’s what Bonnie said. I have people on my side? What side? Am I unwittingly the face of the hoped-for rebellion? Has the mockingjay on my pin become a symbol of resistance? - Ding, ding, ding, we have a winner! Katniss is right on the money here. (Also, I love how this mockingjay is warning her about the electrified fence, even if it takes the sudden screech of an owl for Katniss to actually pay attention! Disney Princess behavior right there ;)

Chapter 11

My mother and Prim can’t know I was in the woods. I need to work up some sort of alibi, no matter how thin. Some of the shops in the square are still open, so I go in one and purchase white cloths for bandages. We’re running low, anyway. In another, I buy a bag of sweets for Prim. - It’s a good thing Katniss went into the shops for an alibi to fool/placate her family; she’ll end up needing it for the Peacekeepers waiting in her house. (Although it’s weird that Katniss felt like having to come up with an alibi for her mom and Prim - in this case it’s going to pay off, but otherwise it’d be way unneccessary; Katniss is clearly over-doing the whole ‘protector’-bit here - she even recognizes that her alibi is going to be thin in the eyes of her mom and Prim) It’s sweet how she’s buying things for her mom and Prim, specifically (bandages + sweets)

I stick one of the candies in my mouth, feeling the peppermint melt on my tongue, and realize it’s the first thing I’ve eaten all day. I meant to make a meal at the lake, but once I saw Twill and Bonnie’s condition, it seemed wrong to take a single mouthful from them. - Katniss is so good and selfless; and she’s still wondering how people could perceive her as inspiring 🤦‍♀️

“Hello,” I say in a neutral voice. My mother appears behind them [the Peacekeepers], but keeps her distance. “Here she is, just in time for dinner,” she says a little too brightly. I’m very late for dinner. - Mrs. Everdeen covering for Katniss again! She’s really coming through this book, I like it! (I also can’t help but wonder whether Katniss gets her -relatively - bad acting from her mom ^^ Or maybe this is just a case of noticing someone clearly fibbing simply because you know them very well - I doubt that the Peacekeepers would know that Mrs. E is being too effusive at the moment)

“Head Peacekeeper Thread sent us with a message for you,” says the woman. “They’ve been waiting for hours,” my mother adds. - Mrs. E sprinkling in the fact that the Peacekeepers have been staying at the house for a considerable amount of time, so Katniss can spin a more convincing lie - not in the slickest way, but a good and important move on her part nevertheless!

I cross into the kitchen, forcing myself to use my foot normally even though every step is excruciating. I pass between then Peacekeepers and make it to the tablea llright. I fling my bag down and turn to Prim, who’s standing stiffly by the hearth. - being bad at lying/pretending seems to be an Everdeen family trait, it seems ;) - Haymitch and Peeta are there as well, sitting in a pair of matching rockers, playing a game of chess. - very fitting that the ‘strategists’ of the team are sitting there, playing chess - Were they here by chance or “invited” by the Peacekeepers? Either way, I’m glad to see them. - Hmmh, how did they end up in the Everdeen kitchen? I can see Peeta occasionally dropping by, unrelated to the presence of the Peacekeepers (even if it’s just to deliver more baked goods), but Haymitch? Although I wouldn’t be surprised if Haymitch actually talked more to Mrs. Everdeen than Katniss would ever suspect (they are about the same age, and with the harsh punishment forced onto D12 and the injured being brought to Mrs. E and Haymitch seeking info to pass onto the Victors/rebels and maybe also seeking some help for dealing with his alcohol withdrawal, it wouldn’t be that surprising)

“Well, I haven’t been talking to the Goat Man about getting Prim’s goat pregnant, because someone gave me completely inaccurate information as to where he lives,” I say to Prim emphatically. “No I didn’t,” says Prim. “I told you exactly.” [...] “You distinctly said the west, because then I said, “’Next to the slag heap?’ and you said, ‘Yeah,’“ I say. “The slag heap next ot the east entrance,” says Prim patiently. “No. When did you say that?” I demand. “Last night,” Haymitch chimes in. “It was definitely the east,” adds Peeta. He looks at Haymitch and they laugh. I glare at Peeta and he tries to look contrite. “I’m sorry, but it’s what I’ve been saying. You don’t listen when people talk to you.” “Bet people told you he didn’t live there today and you didn’t listen again,” says Haymitch. “Shut up, Haymitch,” I say, clearly indicating he’s right. Haymitch and Peeta crack up and Prim allows herself a smile. “Fine. Somebody else can arrange to get the stupid goat knocked up,” I say, whic makes them laugh more. And I think, This is why they’ve made it this far, Haymitch and Peeta. Nothing throws them. - God, this exchange is just so flipping brilliant! The easy back-and-forth between Haymitch, Peeta and Katniss just illustrates how well they work together as a team, even putting Prim at ease to join in - we were robbed, not getting this scene in the movie (give us a Hunger Games tv series!!! these small moments are so important in enriching the story)

Peeta comes to the table and opens the candy bag. “Ooh, peppermints,” he says, popping one in his mouth. “They’re mine.” I take a swipe for the bag. He tosses it to Haymitch, who stuffs a fistful of sweets in his mouth before passing the bag to a giggling Prim. “None of you deserves candy!” I say. - This scene is so sweet and adorable, I love it! 😊

“What, because we’re right?” Peeta wraps his arms around me. I give a small yelp of pain as my tailbone objects. I try to turn it into a sound of indignation, but I can see in his eyes that he knows i’m hurt. - of course he knows, because you guys know each other so well 🥺 - “Okay, Prim said west. I distinctly heard west. And we’re all idiots. How’s that?” “Better,” I say, and accept his kiss. Then I look at the Peacekeepers as if I’m suddenly remembering they’re there. “You have a message for me?” - Lol, Katniss acting petty as heck towards the Peacekeepers 😂 ‘Oh, right, I totally forgot you guys are here - I was too busy joking around with the people I like and snogging my fiancé to notice you’💁‍♀️

“From Head Peacekeeper Thread,” says the woman. “He wanted you to know that the fence surrounding District Twelce will now have electricity twenty-four hours a day.” Didn’t it already?” I ask, a little too innocently. “He thought you might be interested in passing this information on to your cousin,” says the woman. “Thank you. I’ll tell him. I’m sure we’ll all sleep a little more soundly now that security has addressed that lapse.” I’m pushing things, I know it, but the comment gives me a sense of satisfaction. - Kat-ty Everdeen strikes again 😂

When my mother has locked the door behind them [Peacekeepers], I slump against the table. “What is it?” says Peeta, holding me steadily. - Again, Peeta is mentioned in junction with ‘steadiness’

Prim comes and sits on the floor next to me, leaning her head against my knee. We suck on peppermints as I brush her soft blond hair back behind her ear. “How was school?” I ask. - Such a sweet moment between the Everdeen sisters 💕

My mother gives me a cup of chamomile tea with a dose of sleep syrup, and my eyelids begin to droop immediately. She wraps my bad foot, and Peeta volunteers to get me to bed. I start out by leaning on his shoulder, but I’m so wobbly he just scoops me up and carries me upstairs. - I don’t know what it is about this moment, but it has not just Katniss swept off her feet, y’know? 😉 I’m swooning just reading it - He tucks me in and says good night but I catch his hand and hold him there. A side effect of the sleep syrup is that it makes people less inhibited, like white liquor, and I know I have to control my tongue. But I don’t want him to go. In fact, I want him to climb in with me, to be there when the nightmares hit tonight. For some reason that I can’t quite form, I know I’m not allowed to ask that. - It’s so telling how much usually oh-so-guarded Katniss wants Peeta to stay with her, to comfort her when the nightmares terrify her awake; she’s really started to fall for him by now, but everything is still so confusing, there is so much terrible going on, she still hasn’t really figured out what she’s feeling and she doesn’t want to give Peeta false hope, afraid that her feelings might not match his (romantic-wise); for now, just being (platonically) together has to be enough - “Don’t go yet. Not until I fall asleep,” I say. Peeta sits on the side of the bed, warming my hand in both of his. “Almost thought you’d changed your mind today. When you were late for dinner.” I’m foggy but I can guess what he means. With the fence going on and me showing up late and the Peacekeepers waiting, he thought I’d made a run for it, maybe with Gale. - Peeta taking care of Katniss, warming her hands😩 reminds of when he rubbed warmth into her feet in their cave in THG (he’s always providing her with warmth, sometimes literally, sometimes metaphorically); kinda sad how he worried she might have made a run for it - he feels like he knows her (and generally he’s really good at reading the moods of the elusive Katniss Everdeen), but it seems like he’s still doubting sometimes whether he truly gets her and where exactly they stand in their relationship; Katniss provides a little reassurance here - “No, I’d have told you,” I say. I pull his hand up and lean my cheek against the back of it, taking in the faint scent of cinnamon and dill from the breads he must have baked today. - such a vulnerable, affectionate gesture on Katniss’s part 😊🥰 - I want to tell him about Twill and Bonnie and the uprising and the fantasy of District 13, but it’s not safe to and I can feel myself slipping away, so I just get out one more sentence. - She wants to tell him everything and only refrains from doing so because it’s not safe (the presence of mind on this girl! despite feeling all fogged up from the sleep syrup) and because she’s sleepy; she wants to share her thoughts and experiences with him, wants to know his thoughts/perspective on things - that’s a big thing for Katniss-I-barely-talk-about-the-deep-stuff-even-with-my-best-friend-Everdeen! And then, of course, the final blow:- “Stay with me.” As the tendrils of sleep syrup pull me down, I hear him whisper a word back, but I don’t quite catch it. - Dead. I’m dead, y’all 😍😭

Peeta comes by every day to bring me cheese buns - get you a guy who keeps you well-stocked with your favorite food 😉 - and begins to help me work on the family book. It’s an old thing, made of parchment and leather. Some herbalist on my mother’s side of the family started it ages ago. The book’s composed of page after page of ink drawings of plants with descriptions of their medical uses. My father added a section on edible plants [...] For a long time, I’ve wanted to record my own knowledge in it. [...] I didn’t because I’m no artist and it’s so crucial that the pictures are drawn in exact detail. That’s where Peeta comes in. [...] He makes sketches on scrap paper until I’m satisfied they’re right, then I let him draw them in the book. After that, I carefully print all I know about the plant. - Peeta and Katniss are working together as a team once again; also, this plant book is a literal manifestation of how Peeta’s become an integral part of Katniss’s family, he’s crucial for her to continue this family (tradition) 😭

It’s quiet, absorbing work that helps take my mind off my troubles. I like to watch his hands as he works, - Katniss has a thing for hands (especially about skilled hands); girl’s got good taste ;) - making a blank page bloom with strokes of ink, adding touches of color to our previously black and yellowish book. - Peeta’s adding his own personal touches to the family book (and adding color/vibrancy to the whole thing!) and Katniss is very appreciative of this, as we can tell by the way she talks about his skill (’making a blank page bloom’) - His face takes on a special look when he concentrates. His usual easy expression is replaced by something more intense and removed that suggests an entire world locked away inside him. I’ve seen flashes of this before: in the arena, or when he speaks to a crowd, or that time he shoved the Peacekeepers’ guns away from me in District 11. I don’t know quite what to make of it. - It means you’re into intense!Peeta, Katniss 😏 She’s so intrigued by this world locked inside of him - it’s cute how fascinated she is by him, his thoughts/feelings and how he views the world and she wants to learn more about that; also quite noteworthy how she’s been keeping track of these moments when she could see flashes of this...- I also become a little fixated on his eyelashes, which ordinarily you don’t notice because they’re so blond. But up close, in the sunlight slanting in from the window, they’re a light golden color and so long I don’t see how they keep from getting all tangled up when he blinks. - Heehee, it’s fun to see usually so stoic Katniss Everdeen wax poetic about Peeta’s eyelashes (girl’s got it bad)

One afternoon Peeta stops shading a blossom and looks up so suddenly that I start, as though I were caught spying on him, which in a strange way maybe I was. - 😏 - But he only says, “You know, I think this is the first time we’ve ever done anything normal together.” “Yeah,” I agree. Our whole relationship has been tainted by the Games. Normal was never a part of it. “Nice for a change.” - They were thrown together under the most extreme of circumstances, and, despite some miscommunication and trials and tribulations, they’ve managed to become a good team - but it’s important to see how compatible they are under normal circumstances as well; even when you take away the immediate pressure of a life-and-death situation, these two just genuinely enjoy spending time with each other and that’s beautiful 🥰 Katniss talking about how their relationship was ‘tainted’ by the Games kinda makes me think of her ‘It would have happened anyway’-line; that, if they hadn’t been tributes, they still would have ended up with each other, one way or another

I unnerve everyone by turning on the television. Usually we only watch when it’s mandatory [...] But now I’m looking for something special. The mockingjay that Bonnie and Twill are basing all their hopes on. I know it’s probably foolishness, but if it is, I want to rule it out. - Hope is infectious; despite having put down Bonnie and Twill’s ideas of D13 as ‘foolishness’ of desperate people, Katniss can’t help but wonder... and hope herself, too

Chapter 12

Winter has begun to withdraw by the time my foot is deemed usable. My mother gives me exercises to do and lets me walk on my own a bit. - Do you think that Peeta consulted Mrs. Everdeen to devise his Career-Training plan and what exercises would be good/bad for Katniss with her still healing foot?

“Why couldn’t you get shrimp?” Is it out of season?” I ask. “Oh, Katniss, we haven’t been able to get any seafood for weeks!” says Octavia. “You know, because the weather’s been so bad in District Four.” My mind starts buzzing. No seafood. For weeks. From District 4. The barely concealed rage in the crowd during the Victory Tour. And suddenly I am absolutely sure that District 4 has revolted. - Not the most intricate puzzle here, but still a good example of Katniss being smart and putting two and two together, when others might not be as quick to pick up on hints like these; also, because the Capitolites are so sheltered from everything they are easily satisfied with the lies the Capitol is dishing out (i.e. weather issues) and honestly - how are they supposed to know that this is untrue? Their only access to information is tightly regulated by the government...

I begin to question them [the prep team] casually about what other hardships this winter has brought them. [...] By the time I’m ready to be dressed, their complaints about the difficutly of getting different products - from crabmeat to music chips to ribbons - has given me a sense of which districts might actually be rebelling. - Katniss, the sleuth 🕵️‍♀️

I feel like dough, being kneaded and reshaped again and again. My mother manages to feed me bits of food and sips of tea while they work on me, but by the time the shoot is over, I’m starving and exhausted. - Mrs. Everdeen trying to put some food into Katniss during the shoot is such a mom thing to do; it’s sweet 😊

I really have to get out and talk to someone. Gale will be unreachable in the mines. But I need Haymitch or Peeta or somebody to share the burden of all that has happened to me since I went to the lake. - With Gale unavailable, Katniss immediately thinks of opening up to Haymitch and/or Peeta; this is really telling of how close these three have grown over the past few months. Also, it’s good that Katniss is starting to realize on her own that she needs to talk to someone and is actively seeking out support!

I eat breakfast with my mother and Prim and head out in search of a confidant. The air’s warm with hopeful hints of spring in it. Spring would be a good time for an uprising, I think. Everyone feels less vulnerable once winter passes. Peeta’s not home. I guess he’s already gone into town. - You ain’t slick, Katniss: ‘in search of a confidant’ she says and immediately goes over to Peeta’s, I see how it is ;) ‘Spring (= Peeta) would be good for an uprising’ of course fits perfectly with her previous thoughts on how Peeta would make a good leader for the rebellion... ‘Everyone’ feels less vulnerable once winter passes’ - well, I know at least of one person who feels safe when “Spring” is around 😏

Haymitch and I can speak in a kind of shorthand now. In a few minutes I’ve updated him and he’s told me about rumors of uprisings in District 7 and 11 as well. If my hunches are right, this would mean almost half the districts have at least attempted to rebel. - Huh, Haymitch having different/more intel on districts that are rebelling can actually be read as a hint that he’s in contact with the bigger rebel effort by now; I’ve never properly picked up on that before; Katniss and Haymitch being able to communicate in shorthand is another example of them being good at communicating with each other so subtly because they are so similar

“But maybe at some point?” I insist. “Maybe. But we’re small, we’re weak, and we don’t develop nuclear weapoons,” says Haymitch with a touch of sarcasm. He didn’t get too excited over my District 13 story. [...] “The idea that Thirteen has somehow rebounded and the Capitol is ignoring it? That sounds like the kind of rumor desperate people cling to.” “I know. I was just hoping,” I say. “Exactly. Because you’re desperate,” says Haymitch. I don’t argue because, of course, he’s right. - So. Is Haymitch in the know regarding the existence of D13 as of yet? If no, then him doubting the existence of D13 vs. Katniss’s wonderings/hope is just an example of him being more cynical than Katniss. If yes, he must be sowing these doubts to protect Katniss/keep her in the dark (he seems to know exactly what to say to make her question her own hopeful thoughts)

When the laws for the Games were laid out, they dictated that every twenty-five years the anniversary would be marked by a Quarter Quell. It would call for a glorified version of the Games to make fresh the memory of those killed by the districts’ rebellion. - Kinda effed up how it was decided there needed to be more glofied versions of the Games this early on - a disturbing sign of awareness of how desensitized people are going to become to flipping children being forced to murder each other😧

President Snow goes on to tell us what happened in the previous Quarter Quells. “On the twenty-fifth anniversary, as a reminder of the rebels that their children were dying because of their choice to initiate violence, every district was made to hold an election and vote on the tributes who would represent it.” I wonder how that would have felt. Picking the kids who had to go. - Oof, I don’t even want to imagine what that must have been like - how could you possible vote to condemn any child to something barbaric as this?!

That was the year Haymitch won... “I had a friend who went that year,” says my mother quietly. “Maysilee Donner. Her parents owned the sweetshop. They gave me her songbird after. A canary.” Prim and I exchange a look. It’s the first we’ve ever heard of Maysilee Donner. Maybe because my mother knew we would want to know how she died. - Must be horrible to lose a friend to the Games, to have to watch their death live on television😢; Mrs. E must have been close to Maysilee, for the parents to give her Maysilee’s songbird - and then her daughter got reaped, too (and her other daughter volunteered); Mrs. E hasn’t had an easy life (not that any people in the districts have easy lives... but it’s a lot of tragedy, either firsthand or by proxy); Another thing: who is running the sweetshop now? Are Maysilee’s parents still running the store? (We know that Maysilee’s twin sister is the mayor’s wife and we never hear of any other siblings) Has some other merchant, a second- or third-born child in a family, taken over the shop? I’m curious

#thgagain #thg #thg meta #hunger games #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #haymitch abernathy #primrose everdeen #catching fire

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jjkpls · 3 years

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the wishlist (m) - 4

“What does it mean if a guy talks about your nipples?”

> genre : smut, fluff

> pairing : jeon jungkook x reader (f)

> total words : 4.7k

> content/warnings : back at it again w/ the bff2l; one sided love, lot of pining; sextoys talk; explicit language; ambiguous infidelity ; awkwardness

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The issue is that Jungkook -and you're not a bitch for thinking that- is a little bit of an idiot.

He can be very smart. He can be wise and present unsuspecting resources and knowledge. He can teach you things you don't know anything about, figure out others you struggle to -but not during stressful times like for say an escape game because during those, he turns absolutely, utterly useless.

But he is an idiot too. An idiot that sometimes shapes situations and conclusions and ideas in a very peculiar way that is very singular to him.

That’s precisely what happens then. He plays his role right, to its full extent, with great dedication and commitment. Except he missed a memo, misread the script and ends up playing a role that's not the one you planned for him. He believes that he’s your new adult toy provider (as if there is such a thing).

When you think he’s coming over to share a meal or play some game or binge-watch a series you promised to wait for him to experience together, he has a box hidden in his pocket or carried under his arm.

He has the decency to not comment on it the first time around. He just set it down on the coffee table, between the bowl of chips and the one filled with guacamole. You see the logo on top of it. You recognize the design, reffined, minimalist with the pretty pastel matte colour.

He probably identifies the shame and the annoyance on your face, painting your cheeks and reshaping your eyebrows, and doesn’t say anything. Simply smiles to himself and starts talking about the series’ new episode that’s about to start.

It takes a lot of efforts, coming from you, to ignore the conspicuous object sitting just in front and in between you. But eventually, probably because more than a decade of friendship with this guy have grown impressive mind muscles on you, you manage to make abstraction of it.

It just stops existing for a while until he leaves and you’re curious to see what’s inside. And again you have the same old intentions as before. The same ones.

You won’t use it.

It’s curiosity. And it's fine for you to be curious because he’s the one buying it and gifting it to you. Why should you be blamed?

Freshly hopped in bed, just done reading the notice hanging over your face, you’re yawning and sending your eyebrows high in interest. Again you won’t use it but it sounds very interesting. That’s when you get a text from him.

Guk

So about the toy!

As if you were waiting for his explanation. As if the conversation got cut short and you were expecting him to pick it back up whenever possible.

You won’t entertain him.

You

I said not to buy me this.

Guk

You never said that! You said something about me being crazy but never about buying one again

Because you're mostly made of petty bitch material, you scroll higher quickly, wishing to find something, any text that would corroborate what you’re saying.

You don’t find anything though. Because you never actually told him to not buy you other toys by text, and now that you come to think of it, you probably never did out loud either because you didn’t fucking know that he would even consider doing so.

It’s not even Christmas anymore. It’s not your birthday. There’s even less of a valid reason for him to get you this therefore, of course, you did not explicitly warn him not to, you didn’t think it would be necessary.

You

It’s not even my fucking bday why???

Guk

I told you the lady at the shop

But who the hell is that lady?

Guk

She talked about a lot of products and they all seemed cool and because you liked the other one I thought I’d get you this one too

You

Jungkook

This simple response says a lot, you hope he can read between the pixels of his screen the desperation, the irritation, the frustration, the silent insults.

Guk

Listen it’s super cool it's supposed to mimic the touch of a finger

Jungkook then proceeds to explain to you how it works. The original idea being a system with a tiny ball rolling under a silicon skin, to place on your clitoris to have the illusion of a finger's touch. And it’s interesting and innovative surely and sounds intriguing as in, you wonder if it’s accurate, but you’re tired and it seems like you’re wading in some sort of swamp you can’t escape from. There’s a fire burning your skin from your cheeks to your chest. You’re both hating this conversation and unwilling to just draw a final period to it. This asshole.

You

I can read

Guk

So you opened it already??

There’s a bunch of excited emojis that follows his last message and fill up the empty space your lack of response leaves.

Why and how can he be so eager?

Here comes the delusional part of your brain. It’s a very wide, very deep hallway covered in bookshelves filled to the brim with stupid interpretations and beliefs and sometimes even memories you’ve shared with him. Often next to the laters are pinned an article from a teenage magazine or the jacket of a romance movie, specifically there to validate that yes, indeed, it must have meant something.

The door of that corridor just creaked opened. You can discern the sound, you can feel the particular atmosphere without even having to take a step through.

Is it really that normal to be so excited about that? For him? As a friend?

It’s the most frustrating part: you are friends. Friends who supposedly can tell each other everything. Friends who can ask each other anything.

You should be able to talk about it. Just ask him. If there’s anything behind this whole mess, if he means to tell you something, if it’s wholly mindless, if there’s no hidden agenda.

It should be fine. There’s only trust and affection in this friendship.

You are still too scared, you are terrified that he’d start linking dots, ask himself some new questions, potentially answer them himself, and have you all found out.

You'd have your barely well-worn cover thrown completely away.

You send the blank emoji. The one with even the eyes closed. It summarizes your actual state pretty well, speechless, relatively annoyed.

Guk

She said you could try it on other parts of your body too

Guk

At first

Guk

Like on your lips or your nipples

You want to die.

Now.

No, better, you wish to have never been born.

Why is he talking about your nipples? Why?

And through all that, you still feel like something is wrong with you, along with your feelings.

Turns out you are so overwhelmed by his clueless inadequacy, you need a good half an hour and a random shot of tequila to get through it. When it’s gone and exhaustion of a long day and alcohol have knocked nervousness and panic out, you fall asleep, forgetting about answering his outrageous last texts.

“What does it mean if a guy talks about your nipples?”

Min's finger stops midair, above the cash register she's been working on. She needs a good minute to get back to her senses and while you wait, anxiety invades you. Maybe you should never have brought it up.

But this question, the torturous thing is slowly killing you.

Min finally turns her head to you, eyes squinted and eyebrows drawn low. She sucks in her pretty red lips before opening them to start formulating, with it seems a certain struggle, an answer.

“I don’t think I quite understand.”

It’s a pretty straightforward, relatively easy question. That’s what you'd want to say but you’ve reached the state of bashful regret and decide not to press it. Some things are better just left alone.

“Who talked about your nipples?” She ends up asking the one thing you wished she wouldn’t because there is no way you’re giving his name.

“Doesn’t matter.” You mumble, turning around slightly, getting back to the task you were here, paid, to do -wipe the shelves clean and not talk about your “““love””” life.

“I think it does. You wanna know if it means something? Like the guy's into you?”

“Something like that.” Your cheeks are aflame now. No doubt about it. You silently curse at your manager who refuses that you don’t wear the ugly hat that holds your hair back because having a curtain of hair to hold behind, as a help to keep some of your remained, sparse dignity would have been peachy.

“What did he say exactly?”

Silence. You’re not elaborating. She sighs, defeated.

“Well, I suppose... he’s considered the fact that you have boobs. If it’s a straight guy, that’s a good sign, I guess?” She shrugs.

You don’t like the answer. It’s exactly what the wrong, defective part of your brain, the one directly wired to your heart, wanted to hear.

She doesn’t even have the context, anyway. It doesn’t mean much, doesn’t hold much power in your court of sensibility.

She stares at the side of your face, clearly attempting to drill holes in your head to try and find some answers. You’re awfully silent, have said too much yet not enough and she’s dying to know the whole story. You won’t give in and she can tell. There’s no way you’re sharing the whole thing. The most, probably, probative point of the whole story: the sex toys. It’d turn her into a devastating tsunami of nonsense and misinterpretation and drown you in its wake and you can’t, when you’re already struggling to stay afloat, allow that.

Tag list: @fangirls94 @realswimshaddy @safi4x @pnkd @somewhereinthestarss @kpopfandomftw @kai-kai-bookshelf @pasteljoonie @ggukkieland

A/N: Don’t forget to click on the next button on top, two parts are being posted simultaneously :)

#btswriterscollective #networkbangtan #ggukienet #bts smut #bts fluff #bts angst #bts fanfic #jungkook smut #jungkook fanfic #jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #my writing

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hopeamarsu · 3 years

Text

Of potions and myths - Chapter 8

William “Ironhead” Miller x f!reader

Word count 2,8k

Warnings: Some angst, but it’s mostly sappy and fluffy.

A/N: This is it, the final chapter. I’m getting a little emotional over this, this is my baby and I can’t believe it’s finished. It’s done, complete, and OMG. I can’t believe I did it! Wow.

Thank you so much for sticking with me on this ride, I can’t thank you enough ❤️ I hope you enjoy this morning with our bonded couple.

Chapter 7 - Story masterlist

The morning light sweeps across Will’s bedroom and you stir from your slumber as the rays tickle your eyes and nose. It takes a moment to orient yourself, but as you wake up a little more, you feel Will’s strong arm around your middle, keeping you tight against him, the other hand under your pillow and last night comes back in a rush. You burrow into his arms a little more with a smile, feeling his hot breath on your neck and relishing in his warm embrace around you. You feel well-rested and the thought alone makes you giddy.

When the call with his uncle was finished, he’d swept you up from the couch, kissed you soundly and told you about the pull he felt, how it had changed in between you. There hadn’t really been a discussion on what it meant as you’d taken the celebration back to the bedroom and he’d made you cum hard twice until he’d rendered you boneless once again. After a short cleanup, you had settled under the blankets and into his arms, falling asleep tangled up together.

Now, as you lay in his arms, you turn the words from last night in your mind. The pull was still there? But how come you didn’t feel it, only he did? It’s a little concerning, though it might only be because he is a wolf and you are not, but you don’t like it. Worry gnaws in your stomach as you keep wondering how and why it’s different for you now when it wasn’t before. Were you not enough? Was your mundane status not what the bond wanted after all?

“Mmmm, y’think too hard, I can hear you from here,” Will mumbles, kissing your neck. “I thought I’d worn you out last night.” He trails a series of kisses to where he reaches, basking in the combined scents of you both and the heavy aroma of sex still lingering in the air. One of his hand trails down to your naked thigh and he squeezes the flesh gently. He nips gently at your shoulder, a low purr in his chest as his wolf rejoices in the connection you now share.

“You did, I don’t think I’ve slept this good in a long while,” you reply, trying to keep your voice light and airy, but failing miserably. He props himself up quickly, all alert now, and holds your shoulder to push you under him. His eyes flash somewhere between red and blue, almost purple as they sweep your face and his nostrils flare as Will takes in the shift in your posture.

“Hey. Talk to me sweetheart. What’s on your mind?”

You turn your head sideways, not wanting to look at him and his inquisitive eyes. You don’t want to tell him, to ruin the mood, but also at the same time you want to share, want to hear him tell you again that all is going to be fine.

The emotional turmoil of the past week and now takes its toll and you can feel hot tears gathering in your eyes and you close them in effort to make them not drop. This is a happy moment, don’t ruin it, you remind yourself over and over again. It’s not a big deal, the elders surely have an explanation for this. And you do feel him, the touch is there! It’s nothing big, just tell him all is well.

“Baby, please. Look at me,” Will pleads with you, watching as you shake your head minutely, mouth in a thin line and eyes scrunched shut. He’s getting more worried by the second and gathers you as close as he can, burrowing his face into the crook of your neck.

“Please sweetheart, don’t push this away. Whatever it is, we’ll deal with it together.” Please don’t push us away, he thinks as he kisses your scar, hoping it will soothe you but it only makes your head shake harder.

“Are you in pain? You’re worrying me right now.” He takes an alarmed look at you, shuffling back a little with eyes running across your body to see if something has happened during the night. A worrisome thought comes to his mind that maybe he hurt you last night, not enough prep or care taken in the frenzy. He itches to run his hands all over your body to make sure nothing is there.

“No, no… I’m okay, just. I think a lot is catching up with me now.” Your voice is raspy as you finally speak. You don’t look at him, opting to keep your eyes closed, a point that is not missed by the man in bed with you. Will lowers his voice a little, something hesitant creeping into his tone as he speaks.

“Do you - ummmm - do you regret... what happened last night?”

He doesn’t want to ask it, he doesn’t want to hear the words if this is what has you upset. But he’s trying, he wants to make this work and this bond flourish and if asking things that make him uncomfortable to voice is it, it’s a price he’s willing to pay. You shoot him a look with wide, panicked eyes and you place your hand on his cheek, stroking the stubble gently.

“Will, no, of course not! Last night was amazing, beyond anything I’d ever hoped for. I’m just… I guess I took the loss of the connection harder than I thought I would.”

He breathes deep from his nose, his shoulders sagging in relief. For a moment he thought the worst, the old wounds and fears rearing their ugly heads and Will gathers you back into his arms, squeezing tight.

Taking a moment to ground himself on you, he closes his eyes and draws in your scent, blissfully mixed with his. The scent of home. He reminds himself that he’ll need to open up about his own scars eventually too, but this is far too important to dismiss. He wants to help you in any way he can and if he can help it, he’ll take all of your worry and pain away.

“Do you want to go back to the elders? Or maybe Frankie’s abuela could help, she’s not in the council but she used to be. She knows a lot and has a good sense of the spirit world. I could invite her over and you could talk. Or perhaps you would like to consult your colleagues?”

He’s spouting off ideas, feeling somewhat helpless. He keeps the more ludicrous ideas to himself now, his agitated mind sprouting off ideas that range from turning you into a wolf (something Will has never done in his life) to running away to live in Norway, far away from any of this but if you want them, he’ll give them to you.

“Will, I’m not…”

“Just say the word sweetheart, whatever you want to do.”

You are about to answer him, when a loud knock on the front door interrupts and Will lets out a low growl. The knock is soon followed by another and another and then Benny’s voice booms from the door.

“Come open the door, brother! And you better be decent, I’m not watching your bare ass this early in the morning William!” He growls again, this time louder. You cover your mouth with your hand, trying not to make a sound.

“I can hear you growling in there! Come open the door. The boys and I, we brought breakfast and we need to brainstorm how you are going to ask your lovely mate to MOVE IN WITH YOU AFTER THE BONDING!” That little shit. Will leaps out of bed, huffing and forgoing his shirt as he stomps towards the front door.

He wretches it open, eyes flashing in anger as he glares at the three men on his doorstep, shit-eating grins on their faces. Benny winks and shoulders his way in, followed by Frankie and Santi, the latter clapping Will in the back as he squeezes past. The blond drags a hand across his face before closing the door with a sigh and follows his brothers to the kitchen, where Benny has commandeered the space.

He moves around the space like he owns it, picking up items to use for breakfast while Frankie sweeps up the glass shards and Santi gets the coffee running. It’s a well-oiled machine, each of them anticipating the others move but this time Will opts to stay out of it, flicking his eyes between the closed bedroom door and his brothers. He longs to join you back in bed, ease up your worries over the connection and he needs to figure out something fast so he can get the boys out of the house.

But all his plans go out the window as you open the bedroom door and step out, bare feet padding on his floor and his flannel tucked around your body. You’ve dug out some college pants and a tank top to fit under the flannel and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen you look more beautiful. All three heads pop up as they register the footsteps and Will smirks a little as he thinks of what goes on in their heads as you reach him and lean up for a kiss.

He tastes his toothpaste on your mouth and a little possessive but happy sound leaves his lips as he accepts the offered lips on his own.

“So, no planning needed then, huh?” Santi quips, picking up a fifth cup from the cupboard. He doesn’t sound surprised, more like that he was expecting this. “I saw you last night as you hurried past, not exactly subtle behavior,” He winks at Benny, who has stopped peeling the avocados.

“And you didn’t tell us?” Benny gestures at himself and Frankie with the peeling knife. The older man snorts. “He didn’t tell you, but I got a text full of emoji peaches and eggplants with the words Will and mate sprinkled in.” The dry tone of Frankie’s voice makes Will snort and he watches amused at his little brother pointing an accusing finger at the third man.

“The fuck Pope?!”

“Hey, you would’ve run your mouth and brought the whole council here had I told you. These two needed a night alone, without anyone hovering over them with research or myths or potions or pressure.” He looks at Benny, who has to shrug, agreeing with the statement.

“But you could’ve told me this morning…”

“Where’s the fun in that? And besides, this had the added bonus of embarrassing Ironhead when you yelled that comment, so I’m going to take my win!” Santi cackles and tries to hide behind Frankie as Benny suddenly gets the urge to throw something in his direction.

Will grips your side softly, steering you to the side, out of view.

“Please excuse those assholes…” He murmurs, turning you so you are face to face and tips your face up from your chin so he can look into your eyes.” Are you okay?” He wants to ask more, but mindful of the men currently wreaking havoc in his kitchen, he keeps his words brief. “Do you want to talk in private?”

“I’m fine Will, really. It just hit me hard, but we’ll figure it out. I’m alright, I promise. We’ll consult the elders later, okay?” Your words feel like a balm on his heart.

“As long as you’re sure, sweetheart.” He rubs your arm before honing in on your bare shoulder peeking from under his flannel and this time he follows his instincts and wraps his arms around you and noses the flesh. It works well for him to hide his face as he speaks the next words, feeling both calm and timid at the same time. This was definitely not the way he thought about doing this but his brothers forced his hand.

“I know you heard them yelling, so I guess there’s no point in hiding this.”

“Yes.” You answer him before he can even get the question out. He’s right, you did hear Benny yelling earlier (the whole street heard) and while it still feels crazy and too soon and out of this world, you know it’s what you want. What you desire. “I’ll move in with you, if that was your question.”

Elated, Will sweeps down to claim your lips into a longer, heavier, more passionate kiss. He grips your hips as he draws you in and slips his tongue into your eager mouth. “Let me, umhmm, get rid of, mmmmm, these idiots and, uhnmmh…” He tries to whisper between kisses, but not a lot comes out. You finally regain your senses and end the kiss, small pants leaving your lips.

You go to speak but Will shakes his head and kisses you hard again. “Just a moment, I want a second to kiss my mate good morning. My beautiful, gorgeous mate who is all mine,” He grins against your lips, relishing in the idea that you are his, he is yours and the bond is strong between you. All mine and I’m all yours, he thinks as he forgets the world and loses himself within your warm lips.

Before he can turn it into a full-blown make-out session, you distance your lips from his, echoing your movements from before. You press your foreheads together briefly before straightening your spine. “Behave, mate,” you tease him and watch surprised at his unconsciously preening form over the word, tucking the information for later use.

Will nearly whines at the loss of you, but your finger on his lips stops any of that and he nibbles on the digit, hoping you’ll entertain his idea of breakfast in bed, for two only, but you have other plans. “They are your brothers and considering our newly-bonded status, I would love to get to know your pack, your family, a little better.”

“Our pack, our family.”

Your eyes might be a little misty and your smile is splitting your face at his words, but sappy as they might be, it feels so right to hear the words from his mouth. You reach up to cup his face between your hands and you press a hard kiss into his plush lips.

“Then let's go and tell them the good news.”

You take his hand into yours and you return to the kitchen, snorting as something green hangs from Santi’s cheek. Frankie is washing his ballcap under the spray and his curls wild around his head as he glares at Benny, who looks mighty proud of his ability to swing guacamole ammo around the room.

Will shakes his head in that exparated love in his eyes one can only have for family and you know that despite what the elders might have to say about the missing connection, or your bond or whatever, this is now your home. Even if the pull never comes back for you, this feels right and that’s all that matters. Despite the worries you had in the morning, they seem to evaporate as you work it out in your mind. You love this man and he loves you, he accepts you into his family. That’s all there really is to it, your mind whispers to you as calmness settles on your heart.

You all sit down around the table and only slightly burnt toast is passed around. Once the plates are full and overflowing, Will tells them the good news. He wraps his arm around your shoulders and kisses your forehead and whoops of joy fill the air.

“So it really worked, huh? You are bonded now?” Santi asks, taking a sip of his coffee.

“Yeah, we are. We’re mates now.” Will nods and steals another small kiss from you, Benny groaning that it looks gross when it’s his big brother. This makes Frankie smack the younger man and grin in your direction. The tiny nod of approval from him goes unnoticed by all but you and you wink back at him.

The boys gently rib at their brother while congratulating you and asking all the questions you don’t know all the answers to but it’s okay. Easy conversation fills the air as the men begin to plan moving all your things into this house later that afternoon and you lean into your mate’s embrace and smile.

Whatever might come next, potion or myth, you know you have this and it makes your heart soar.

It might be the first time a love potion actually led to love.

Of potions and myths taglist: @mylifeisactuallyamess @luxmundee @innerpaperexpertcloud

Everything taglist (I fully understand if you want to skip this one, please let me know and I’ll remove you!) @clydesducktape @wayward-rose @themuseic @miraclesabound @clydesfavoritegirl @a-true-janian-reply @10blurredsmoke10 @caillea @mariesackler @princessxkenobi

#of potions an myths #will miller #william miller #will ironhead miller #william ironhead miller #will miller x f!reader #cw: mythical creatures #cw: werewolves #fluff #will miller fanfiction #triple frontier fanfiction #my writing

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cheelduh · 3 years

Text

The Shackles of Duty

Pairing: Diluc x gn!reader

Synopsis: As a weapon of the Abyss, your obligation towards your Princess should be eternal.

Warnings: Unedited angst. Pls ignore any mistakes besties <3

Word count: 2k

You've never really given the weather any thought. It's not as if it matters to you. Stormy day or not, your responsibilities—no, your duty towards the Abyss will remain the same.

It's still raining. The mud thick underneath your boots, slippery against your heel, the putrid smell of grassy dew lingering miserably against the air.

"You know what you have to do." The Abyss Princess commands you, her loyal servant, hers to dispose if she so desires.

"The dragon...Stormterror." You explain, goosebumps forming on your skin as a result of the damp clothes that adorn your wet body. "Your brother, the honorary night, along with others, thwarted our plans by eliminating the fragments."

"Why?"

"You know why, your grace." Is all that you can give to her. "I shall follow him. Keep him away, from inciting another encounter—"

"No," Lumine declares, no room for argument. "Infiltrating their ranks is no easy task. You mustn't be relieved of your post, not yet at least. We need to extract as much information as possible to further avoid outcomes like these."

Exactly the answer you don't want to hear in the middle of this archon forsaken storm, all bruised and bumped up from Stormterror's confrontation.

Don't make me do this again. I don't know how much more I'll be able to take.

You bite your tongue, knowing full well the finality of her words. "As you wish, my princess."

The familiar redhead suddenly plagues your mind, stoic, and with years worth of anger at the world. The hero in the shadows, the man with an agonizing past, a sense of retribution albeit his severed connections with the knights of favonious.

Despite the obstacles of life and the intellect honed from his journey, he's reckless. Reckless enough to still believe that he can make a difference. That anyone can make a difference.

Diluc is reckless enough to love someone, reckless to think that his sworn brother would be the only one capable of betraying him.

—

"There's no point." Diluc whispers loud enough for you to hear him underneath the stars, adding onto the lull of night. "They all keep walking—no, running, aimlessly because of duty. They follow orders without knowing where they come from. It's utter chaos."

"But in all the chaos, there is calculation." You lean against the stone of the walls, and as always, you know how to speak to Diluc. How to open him up and read him like a book.

You're sure he can do the same with you, but he just isn't looking where he should be. You need him to look; to realize he's tangled up in your web of deceit and that there's no way out.

"How do you do that?" He says, aware all at once. "How do you give me so much yet so little?"

I want to give you everything, the pretty and the ugly things alike. I want to give you my secrets, fold them up in a dirty, black, envelope, and have you turn it to ash with the violent flames of your heart.

It's a lot of work hiding under false pretences.

"It's a beautiful night, my love." You say instead.

Diluc's never gotten used to the term of endearment, still new to receiving affection. It warms him up differently to his vision, pleasant yet unfamiliar. It takes a moment for him to come back to himself.

You briefly jolt at the pleasant warmth of his hand atop yours, a silent reassurance, one that worsens your guilt, weaves it into something that pierces your rotten core.

—

You don't know what you're thinking when you stand in front of Jean's office, fist hovering.

Is forgiveness why you're here? No, because you would've went to Diluc first. You would've confessed to him right then and there about what a vengeful weapon you are, a mindless soldier that will do anything for their queen.

You don't even get a chance to think of the various ways he'd kill you when the door is open, and you're met with the view of the acting Grandmaster herself. Another dear friend that will come to despise you.

"Y/N! I'm glad you're here—"

"I'm a servant of the Abyss." You cut her off, and don't stop yourself, letting the words run freely against the fast pace of your heart. "I've infiltrated Mondstadt under the orders of the abyss princess and used what I've learned to conspire against the archons."

Everything's spinning, so fast you can barely breathe.

Jean doesn't move, doesn't even blink as the confusion dawns on her face. You aren't looking for confusion.

"Don't pretend you're blindsided completely," You give her a humourless chuckle, and by the hush of your tone it's as if you're telling her a secret to any spectators. "You've known for a while now that there's been a traitor within your ranks. Every single attack from the Abyss—too clean, too unpredictable, one could say with coincidence."

"But the universe is rarely so lazy." Your voice is smooth, calm, the complete opposite to the flurries of emotions that bloom your being. "Varka knew that. And so do you."

"No," Jean finally speaks up, denying your claim incandescently. "We've fought together for years. You're one of our best, our most dependable. Everything we've done—everything you've done has been for Mondstadt. As always."

If only that were the truth.

You wave a hand over your right eye, releasing the magical bind to reveal the intricate marker. Jean's eyes widen, and she's far from her usual composed self.

"Still don't believe me?" You ask, knowing full well she's still in denial. It's not everyday your best mate, the one that fights alongside you, admits to being a traitorous scum of the abyss drenched in years worth of lies.

Ah the trials and tribulations of friendship.

"Fine then," With the flick of your wrist, it doesn't take much effort for the main doors to open up with a bang.

The acting grand master draws back at the shrill sound, teeth gritting.

She isn't the only one that's provoked. Wood and Wyratt, the only two guards on duty at this time let out shouts of surprise, reaching for their swords on instinct.

You summon your abysmal magic, which shapes into deep blue, if not black, appendages. They glitter, hiding the entire galaxy in them, with stars that burst into life. Breathtaking if not used on the battlefield.

In mere seconds, one latches on to Wyratt's leg, while the other takes Wood by his arm. All it takes is a jerk of your index finger, and they're sent flying outside the doors, which unceremoniously slam shut behind them. The lock clicks into place, cherry on top.

Jean materializes her sword, taking on a defensive position. You don't think you've ever seen the woman irritated, let alone as livid as she is right now.

That's more like it.

"Go on. Arrest me." You bring your wrists up, casual as ever. "We'd better hurry. They'll come after me soon enough, it's in your best interest to listen to everything I have to say if I'm willing to die over it." There's a tightness in your chest that you can't explain.

Jean hardens her gaze, not allowing herself to relax. You know what she's going to say. You've been her friend, her advisor, long enough to understand where most of her actions and decision stem from.

She says—well she says nothing, because she doesn't get a chance to when an abrupt screech erupts from her office, causing your ears to perk up and your blood to run cold. A series of heavy footsteps, footsteps you're all too familiar with follow.

Although you're fairly certain you know who it is, you glance over her shoulder anyways to meet the fiery red eyes that have reserved a place in your heart. The sole reason you're blowing the whistle.

You feel a sharp pang in your heart.

The pure, authentic, hurt in Diluc's hardened features are enough to have you gutted completely. Mouth dry with a rock in your throat, you don't so much as allow yourself to exhale.

You finally understand why you didn't go to him first. You were sure he'd be able to survive the betrayal, but you weren't sure you'd be able to survive it yourself.

Diluc. You want to tell him, tell him how sorry you are. Tell him how much of a piece of shit you are. Tell him that he doesn't deserve this, that he deserves so much better. Tell him that you love him, devastatingly so.

It isn't supposed to end this way. Things never go as planned.

You avert your gaze, clench your jaw shut, and wait.

"Jean." Diluc says, and there's grim finality in his voice. "We need a moment." His words send small pricks throughout your spine.

Jean regains her composure, mulling over his request, but any resistance is placated by a simple look from the redhead.

When she reluctantly leaves, the quiet is near unendurable.

"Why?" If the way Diluc's fixed gaze could set anything on fire, you would've been burned to the stake by now.

You'd calculated this moment countless of times, predicted exactly how this would go, lived through every outturn in the dead of the night as you struggled to find sleep in his arms.

Living through it is far more dreadful than you could've ever imagined it to be.

His body closes in at your lack of reply, hands gripping your forearm to pull you in and kick the door shut. "Why?" This time it's more firm.

You open your mouth to speak, like a fish out of water, and out comes nothing.

"I trusted you," Diluc says weakly, in a way that has your heart shattering a million times a second. Tightening his hold on your arm, he continues "You were the only one I...I should've known. I was foolish to think I could believe in you." a sharp exhale, and he pushes you back against the door, but it's not harsh at all. He's gentle, and somehow that makes everything so much more worse.

Your inability to reply sparks a different kind of rage in his heart.

"It must have been quite the show, watching everyone run in circles." He seethes, furious, wounded. "Was it all just a lie? Were my feelings ever returned? Or was I just another one of your fair games?"

You wrench away from his hold as if it's burning you. The words are like needles, pinning into you with so much force it has you lurching in place, and then they twist deep within your blackened veins.

"Stop it." You should've just left. Should've just pushed back the nagging in your brain and jumped off a cliff or a something. Surely the unexpected death of a royal guard—no, the death of a fundamental piece in their plan would surely be enough to cripple them for at least a few days, if not weeks.

Anything but this.

You meet his gaze. "I do love you Diluc, that I am sure of. You don't have to believe me. I know I wouldn't."

"Is that all you have to say?" He all but hisses, gloved fingers closing in to form a fist. "You've betrayed everyone. Your friends, your family...me."

"You think I don't know that?" Your voice breaks when you look away. "I don't know what's right anymore, what's wrong. I don't even know what I've been fighting for this entire time." A sharp, mirthless laugh escapes your lips, "To allow myself to carry out orders I do not believe in is too much to bear. How long do I delude myself into thinking that this is all for Khaenri'ah? That this is all for a reason that is beyond me?"

There's a sliver of softness that shows in his features, but you're too busy calming the waves crashing in your head.

"Whatever it is, it doesn't matter anymore." You say, the sinking of your chest only expanding. "I've already contravened against the abyss, and for that they will come for me. The only thing I regret is that they couldn't get to me before you did."

A stricken look passes across his face, brows furrowed and desperation as clear as day when he reaches for you.

This time, you let his arms curl around your shaking figure, welcoming the comfort that you're undeserving of. "I won't let them."

"I'm sorry." You whisper shakily, fisting the fronts of his coat. "I'm so sorry Diluc."

Diluc hums as he strokes your hair soothingly, with the utmost of care. Although his trust in you has shattered, like irreplaceable fragments of glass, his love for you will remain constant.

Even with the storm that is fated to come.

#genshin impact #genshin impact oneshot #jean gunnhildr #diluc ragnvindr #master diluc #diluc x reader #diluc x y/n #genshin fanfic #diluc angst #genshin diluc #lumine #lumine genshin impact

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corpsentry · 3 years

Text

january: an art retrospective

i did some stuff last month (but it’s a lot of stuff and there’s a photodump + some Serious Fucking Reflection, so it’s all below the cut)

so ok, let’s start with this. here are some heads. each head has a red arrow. that red arrow is what i call the red line of the devil. it’s the slope of the face from the side of the eye to the cheekbone and then down towards the chin. up until like 2 weeks ago, i couldn’t draw it. i couldn’t fucking draw it. i would edit over that part of the face over and over again until i was frustrated and tired and i had a raging homosexual headache and it still never looked right. notice that each head is different. notice that each head looks wrong.

at the start of 2021 i finally admitted to myself, as per the image above, that i was deeply, deeply unhappy with my art. what was the problem? i dunno. but i decided i was going to fix it and i was going to do so via another one scribble a day event wherein for every day of january i would find a photo of a human head, and i would draw it.

january 1st, 2021. i was embarrassed to tweet this even on my private account where like 5 friends and a rock would see it. in retrospect, you can also see all of my bad habits emerging like dicks from a hole in the ground. it’s disproportionate. the brows look flat. the eyes are slanting upwards. the entire drawing looks flat, like this isn’t a 3d person but a caricature of one.

january 2nd, 3rd, 4th:

on the 2nd i decided to start a separate thread for doodles and applied learning. here’s the first set of tests

the rest of the week is kind of uneventful so we’re going to skip those. fast forward to january 11th

this one is especially bad. i am acutely aware, suddenly, that i am not changing anything at all. i’m stressed and miserable about it because i’m still trying to see people as people and trying to draw people that look attractive and proportionate and hot. my friend, leny, reminds me that i need to think about faces in terms of planes. i have a moment. my other friend masha sends me some links to anatomy tutorials. i have another moment.

january 11th. applied sketch

january 13th is when i start the troubleshooting process. the link above drives me mad because i’m pretty happy with the face but then i realize that there’s something very fucking wrong with the shape of the head LOL and then i realize that i’ve never had any idea what the proportion of the face to the rest of the skull is so i grit my teeth and i open a new canvas and i

bald studies. it seemed like the right thing to do. can’t draw heads? ok draw some heads. look at some photographs. i traced each photo but tried to stick to straight lines so that i could replicate the shapes more easily. i broke each face down into shapes. i thought about airplanes

i got really excited. i started doing studies, then applied studies, then stylized studies.

sketches. i’m not sure what’s going on (as always) and it’s very rough, but they look different from the sketches i did on january 2nd. that’s a start

january 16th’s daily study. looks more like a person now. juuuuuust a bit

more applied studies

on the 18th i take a break and go stare at some lips because i don’t understand how the fuck they work. again, i focus on shapes, on volume, on the fact that these things exist in 3d. holy fuck lips exist in 3d. holy fuck we are real

january 19th. i’m working on it.

january 22nd. some sketches + a daily study. it has finally occurred to me that heads can tilt up and down and that things look different accordingly. yes i was not aware of this before. yes i have been drawing for over a decade.

january 23rd. by this point after doing my daily sketch i almost always go back and do an applied study which is basically to say i drew a lot of fucking links. this one looks kind of okay. i’m kind of proud

january 25th. links. trying to make sense of everything i’ve learned

26th, 27th, 28th. daily studies

january 1st. january 31st

The End Of The Photo Dump (dab)

ok NOW i get to talk about what i discovered while studying the shit out of human beings

FIRST OF ALL, there is something precious and magical about drawing shit without the explicit knowledge that you’re going to tweet that shit out to 45 people later. it takes the burden of perception off your shoulders and that does something to you, or at least that’s my theory. i told myself i wouldn’t post any of this stuff until the end of the month (if i wanted to post it at all) and kept everything off my public social media accounts and that meant i could draw ugly as hell without worrying about who would point and laugh, which i absolutely fucking did. a lot of these are fucking trainwrecks. most of these are fucking trainwrecks. why do they look like that?? why??? this doesn’t look like the work of someone who’s allegedly been drawing since they were in kindergarten, does it?????

here’s why: because that person took a huge motherfucking swing at everything they’d ever known about art and spent a month building something new in its place. the abstract explanation is that i grew up on shoujo and weird old anime and my understanding of anatomy was unironically kamichama karin and while i love kamichama karin, when kamichama karin is your rule even if you try to break it, you’re going to end up going nowhere. “you have to know the rules to break them”, yeah? well i didn’t know shit. the abstract explanation is i’ve been miserable about my art for a few years now because i saw other people doing things effortlessly which i couldn’t and instead of going back to the basics, i tried to do what they did (not plagiarism, mind you, i mean i literally tried to copy the red line of the devil i mentioned above because i couldn’t even make that happen) and then i fucking failed.

the simple explanation is this. i had to unlearn everything, and relearn it again (like some kind of new renaissance clown, what the fuck is this?)

take this for example. all my life i’ve drawn faces in the order: eyes, nose, mouth, face shape, head. this works for some people, im aware, but it was something central to how i had always drawn, so i decentralized it. i said fuck you to the old me and changed the order up. now i start with the nose, then the eyes, mouth, the chin line, and the sides of the face. now i force myself to think about the human head as a series of parts interacting with each other instead of a bunch of disparate features which i want to look pretty.

or let’s use this zelda from last year. something about this looked wrong last october, the way something about all of my drawings looked wrong, but i couldn’t pinpoint it for hell the way i couldn’t articulate Any of my feelings about the visual arts. now, looking back, here’s what i see. that nose is sticking out far too much given how she’s not really facing very far away from the camera. that ear at the back shouldn’t be there. her forehead is too big. she doesn’t have a forehead. what the fuck is up with the shape of her head?

so apparently reject modernity embrace tradition has its roots in alt-right terminology and i’m not very horny for the alt-right (you understand), but the spirit survives here. you know sometimes you have to admit that you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing and draw people for 31 days. i’ve spent my whole life drawing stylized people and while again there are artists who have no issue with this, i veered off the track of the Good and the Holy and couldn’t get back on. i had no point of reference because i’d never thought about what an actual human being looks like, so i had no way to fix what i knew in my gut looked wrong but wouldn’t come out better.

this was hard. this was like oikawa tooru swallowing his worthless pride and admitting that ushijima wakatoshi had gotten the best of him for the last time in his high school career, but in haikyuu!! by furudate haruichi oikawa tooru fucks off to argentina and then joins the argentinean national team, and you know what, i think i’ve made it to argentina (not the team just the country). as per the golden rule of dont fucking move until you’re at least two thirds of the way through the month, i only started trying to draw Shit shit on like the 22nd or something, but i was happy with that i created. i am happy with what i’ve done. i’ve posted like 2 things this month that involve people with what i now call ~applied Knowledge~~ and they’re, like, not perfect obviously (perfection is an unattainable ideal), but i’m fucking proud of them. i didn’t spend 5 hours hunched over my laptop adjusting the red line of the devil because it’s not a devil’s line anymore. because i finally sorta get how people work. because i sat down and i said ‘we are not going to fuck with this misery shit anymore’ and then i did that. it’s just a line now.

here are 2 collages tracking my painstakingly carved out progress from january 2nd to february 2nd because i’m a slut for collages

and here’s what i’ve done to my art! the same person drew these but also Not Really! you know! for the first time in a year i don’t immediately hate what i’ve drawn. you know what guys? art is fucking fun. zelda’s forehead doesn’t scare me anymore because i know how foreheads fucking work now, and i don’t know everything, and i’m going to keep troubleshooting stuff as i go (i want to draw a skeleton. like a. i want to draw a goddamn skeleton guys) but i’m honestly and genuinely proud of what i’ve done in the span of a month, and i’m also in disbelief. i started this month-long challenge out as a last ditch effort to make peace with my art because i’ve been tired for a long time and i was ready to kick the bucket on drawing people altogether. i didn’t think anything would happen. nothing’s happened for years. i’ve been miserable for years.

this was the caption for january 1st, 2021. i was super, super fucking embarrassed and it looks like super fucking shit, but you know what, i think i did in fact triumph over the bullshit. surprisingly enough, when you put in consistent effort into something, You Will See Results. didn’t see that coming, did you? i know i didn’t.

this isn’t a success story. it’s a happiness story. i never gave a shit damn about the institute of art or whatever, i was just mad at myself because what i saw in my head didn’t match up with what was on the canvas. and now it’s getting better. now i’m calibrating the compass. now drawing not just backgrounds but also people is exciting to me, and i can stick my links in your face and tell you ‘they hot’. i’m going to keep doing that. i’m going to keep going until i drop off the side of the earth and then spiral towards mars like some kind of fairy, and then i’m going to create something beautiful.

thanks for reading. here’s a pr department link for sticking around until the end

#my stuff

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megsironthrone · 3 years

Text

You Don’t Have to Do This

Based on this request: okay umm👉👈🥺 if requests are open, I would really like one with sandor clegane x reader (female if it’s okay) set in the one to last episode of the series, yeah that ugly episode for us sandor stans…….😭 like can the reader arrive in the red keep while sandor is fighting his brother and helps him out? managing to not get him brutally tumbling to the ground with him? and then he confesses his love for her? ❤ 🙏 thanks

Here you are, lovely! *Familiar Characters are NEVER mine!* Also, as I refuse to rewatch this episode in particular, some things from the scene have been altered(though I will say the scene portrayed in the gif is one of my favorite Sandor & Arya scenes)

Warnings: Angst w/happy ending, violence, fire, The Mountain, death

Pairings/Characters: Sandor Clegane x fem!reader, The Mountain.

(^^Also Could someone please help me learn to make gifs?? I really would like to find/make more Sandor gifs that are NOT SanSan related XD)

You pushed passed the crowds of people trying to get out of the city and trying to avoid the flames raining down. Nothing mattered in that moment but finding Sandor. You knew he was headed for the Keep and you were determined to stop him and get him out of King's Landing before you both died in one way or another.

You ran as quickly as your legs would carry you toward the Keep and the man you'd come to love. Your legs threatened to give out and your lungs burned, but pure perseverance and love pushed you forward. Finally, after what seemed like hours, you made it inside. Luckily, your entrance had made enough noise to attract Sandor's attention because you couldn't speak in that moment even if you wanted to.

His brows furrowed for moment before deciding to let you take a moment to catch your breath. He turned to Arya, who you just now noticed was in the room, and said something along the lines of, "You want to be like me?" You watched as a look of understanding came over the young lady. She began to walk out of the Keep, thanking Sandor then leaving the two of you alone.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, his deep brown eyes meeting your (e/c) ones. "Please, Sandor. I know why you're here. You don't have to do this. Come with me. We can find a way out of the city. We can escape. Please…" you trailed off. You weren't sure what else to say without admitting your feelings for the man. Feelings you were certain he would reject and you couldn't bear that.

"I can't let him keep living." You ran forward and gently grabbed his arm. "Please, Sandor. He isn't worth your life. The best revenge you could have is leaving and living the rest of your life peacefully, out of his shadow. Sandor, look at me. I am begging you don't do this." Sandor shook his head, removed your hand from his arm, and turned away.

You felt your heart clench once more at the thought of Sandor dying at the hands of his resurrected brother. You couldn't let him go alone. To that end, you followed after him. "What are you doing?" he snapped. You rolled your eyes. "I'm coming with you. I can't stop you, but I sure as all Hells am not going to let you go alone." His brows drew together as he tried to contemplate the meaning behind your words.

"Fine," he said after a moment, "Just stay out of trouble." You chuckled, but there was no humor in it. "This entire situation is nothing but trouble. But I will stay out of your way unless I think you need help. I just…I need to be there and know that you're okay." Once more, Sandor didn't say anything, but you could almost see the gears turning in his head. However there would be no more time for conversation.

You heard him before you saw him. The Mountain. Gargantuan and imposing. Lethal. You felt a shiver rip through you when he rounded the corner. He seemed to ignore you in favor of staring down his brother. You didn't hear anything Sandor said to him. You just wanted it to be over. Sandor needed to win this time. The sound of a blade swinging through the air had you moving out of the way as quickly as possible.

The scene before you unfolded as you watched in horror. The brothers were somewhat evenly matched. Well, except for the Mountain being dead-but-not-dead. It seemed his strength was left intact when he was brought back. When the Mountain had Sandor pressed up against the crumbling walls of the Keep, you knew you couldn't wait any longer.

You rushed forward, drawing the Mountain's attention to you long enough for Sandor to straighten himself up. Your relief was short-lived as the giant man grabbed you by the throat and threatened to throw you into the roaring flames below. Your eyes met Sandor's for a brief moment and a look of understanding passed between you. With one hand, you tried clawing at the Mountain's gauntlet-covered hand while your other hand reached for the nearby torch.

Sandor yelled at his brother, causing him to remove his helmet to vehemently glare. You took the opportunity to reach next to you. You grabbed the torch and swung it against the Mountain's head with all your might. He let out a blood-curdling scream, dropping you to the stone steps. No pain registered in your mind as you focused on the task of helping Sandor.

The Mountain was precariously close to the walls, giving you an idea. You only hoped Sandor would catch on quickly or the Mountain's sword was coming for your neck next. From your position on the ground, you could easily reach the Mountain's legs. Sandor had him bent backward over the wall. If you were quick enough, you could end this right then and there.

Without waiting another minute, you took aim. If you hit him in the just the right spot, you could throw him off balance long enough for Sandor to finish the job. Since the Mountain wasn't paying any attention to you anymore, you had your chance. His knees bent just enough. With a smile, you carefully reached over and rammed your elbow into the back of one knee and then the other. Then, you stayed on all fours behind his legs, basically creating a table from your body.

In his surprise, the Mountain released his hold on Sandor. Sandor took one glance at you and got the idea. With all his might, he shoved. The Mountain lost his balance, flipping over you and off the walls, down into the flames below. Sandor helped you to your feet and the two of you watched his brother fall. When you could no longer see him, Sandor pulled you back and gazed into your eyes.

"What in Seven Hells were you thinking, woman?!" he snapped, "You could have gotten yourself killed!" You huffed a little and crossed your arms. "A 'thank you' would be nice. I told you I would stay out of the way unless you needed help. And you did! I-I couldn't let you die, you idiot! I saved-" you were cut off, letting out a squeak of surprise when you felt Sandor's arms wrap around you.

"Don't do anything like again," he muttered. You pulled back slightly to look at him. "Sandor, I…why are you so worried? I'm fine." Sandor let his brown eyes meet your (e/c) ones. "I," he started, but couldn't seem to find the words, "I-Dammit, woman! Just accept that I can't lose you!" You felt your lips stretch into a smile. "Sandor, do you love me?"

"Aye," he answered without hesitation. You guessed he thought he'd hesitated long enough. With everything going on, there were no guarantees after all. You moved to stand a couple steps above him so you could meet his gaze. "I love you too." You placed your hands on his shoulders and slowly leaned closer to him. Sandor froze for a moment, but began leaning in as well. "Are you sure about this?" he asked when your lips were a mere breath away from one another. You laughed lightly. "Absolutely. Will you kiss me, Sandor?" You question was answered when he smashed his lips against yours, practically pulling you off your step in an effort to bring you closer to him.

(a/n: I hope this is what you wanted! I miss my Sandor!)

Forever Tags: @fizzyxcustard @brewsthespirit-blog @etherealpotter @line-viper @frozenhuntress67 @cd1242 @gruffle1 @smalltownbigheart @igotmadskills

Sandor Clegane Tags: @songoficecreamandfireworks @silversprings98 @nkjktk

#george r.r. martin #game of thrones #sandor clegane #sandor clegane x reader #sandor x reader

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draconic-ichor · 3 years

Text

In the Steel Steeds Heart

Chapter 23: Desperate Passions

Warnings: strong language, sexual themes, oral sex, penetrative sex, nipple play, nipple piercings, scars/stitches, fingering

Summary: Juniper is fully healed and ready to get back to one of their favorite hobbies!

Feedback appreciated. 18+. This is a smut heavy chapter

“What are we having tonight, love?” Heisenberg asked, sitting back in the wooden chair. He had returned from working to find her over the stove, a simmering pot filling the apartment with a delicate fragrance.

“Pilaf.” She answered sweetly.

“Ah…alright.” Heisenberg nodded, her answer not making anything more clear to him.

He cut open a cigar, lighting it and bringing it to his lips as he watched her.

She pulled two deep plates out of the cabinet, looking towards him, “Get anything exciting made today?”

He made a prideful rumble, speaking through the cigar, “Mhm. The Soldat Zwei is almost finished. Give the bastard one, maybe two, good days of work and he should be up.”

“They are the ones with two drills right?”

“Correct. Moved the reactor core to the back as well.”

“When are you starting the….the Pan..pan?” She couldn’t find the words, placing a glass of water and silverware on the table.

“The Panzer?”

“Yea that one! They looked big.”

“Oh, sweetheart, it will be.” He gave a devilish smile, “Gotta wait till I get a bastard built like a shit brick house for that one.”

“Like Sturm?” She scooped food into the deep plates.

“Unfortunately…yes.” He frowned, that creature still brought him nothing but grief.

Juniper placed a plate before him, before taking a seat with her own.

Fuck me…what is this?

Heisenberg gulped looking at the meal. It was a pile of rice with chicken, carrots, mushrooms and herbs mixed in. It smelled normal and appetizing but left much to be desired to the eyes.

Juniper took a bite, looking at him through narrow eyes.

“Love, did you make bread as well?” He asked hopefully.

“No, there’s rice in here.” She pointed her fork at him, “And vegetables. Eat it.”

He made a little grumble, tucking into his food. It tasted good, the rice made with the broth from the chicken and the herbs giving it a homely taste.

…Thank god.

Heisenberg thought, mercifully, as he started eating with more gusto. Juniper loved to cook, and loved seeing him eat what she made even more. But her passion for the craft was almost matched with her desire to strive to make each meal healthy. Even if it meant throwing in things that tasted like death to pack more nutrients into every meal.

Heisenberg didn’t know if it was her trying to curb his lack of anything healthy or some Devine force punishing him for his terrible daily diet for decades. In any case, it was a small price to pay for her happiness.

He finished his plate, even going back for a second. On the way back to his seat he paused, giving Juniper a soft pat on top of her head with his free hand. She beamed up at him.

They spoke more of his upcoming Soldat plans over dinner. Heisenberg explained how the Panzers should be immune to most types of damage, save for heavier explosions. They would be risky to produce and time consuming but a good last line of defense.

“Will all the armor put stress on the core?” Juniper asked.

He nodded, “I’ll have to use the bigger exhaust port like on Sturm but take in the energy production per energy draw to the multiple drills.”

“So they don’t overheat?”

“Precisely. I don’t want them spitting fire like the big boy.” Heisenberg pointed out.

After Juniper cleaned up the mess from dinner, Heisenberg ushered her into the bathroom. She followed him, used to this routine, she pulled her dress off and sat on the sink. Heisenberg leaned on his palms against the counter on either side of her, dipping in to give her a kiss. She deepened the contact, hands finding the sleeves of his button up shirt.

He gave a happy little rumble, pulling away enough to inspect her incision. She sat still, waiting as he looked her over with a critical eye. The infection was completely gone, the tissue a healthy healing pink.

“I can probably remove the stitches, if you’d like.” He concluded.

“Please.” She almost begged, “They itch.”

He stood, chuckling, “Itching is good, means it’s healing.”

He retrieved a sharp pair of scissors, pouring a bit of peroxide over the blades before kneeling before her once more. With careful cuts he snipped through the stitches, pulling them free with deft fingers.

He tossed them away one by one into the trash can. Juniper watched him with big eyes.

“Will it scar?” Juniper asked quietly.

“Afraid so, Darling.” Heisenberg frowned.

Her eyes looked glassy, glancing over the pinkish new tissue.

Heisenberg took her face in his hands, lifting her chin up to meet his gaze. She wilted a bit.

"What's up?" He asked, concern in his gaze.

"Hmm…" She almost didn't answer, looking away, "I don’t want you to think I’m ugly…I have really bad scars…”

“Are you fucking serious.” Heisenberg’s lips were a fine line, “Look at me.”

She met his eyes, him correcting her, “No look at all of me. Look at all the shit my body has been through.”

Her eyes wavered, scanning him over. He was covered in scars, his skin was a patchwork of pearlescent lattice, even his face sporting a few.

“I am a scarred, fucked up old man.” He said plainly, “You are so fucking beautiful. A few scars can’t change that.”

Her eyes watered, cheeks growing rosey.

His face split with a grin, “Have I ever hesitated to bend your ass over every flat surface in this factory?”

“…no.” She mumbled.

“Don’t you even start to think I don’t find you sexy as all hell, ok love?”

“Mmmm.”

“What?”

“You haven’t bent me over anything in months.” Juniper pouted in his hands.

Heisenberg looked at her a moment before throwing back his head and barking out with laughter.

“You were healing!” He bared his teeth playfully, “But you’re all fixed up now, how about I show you how much you drive me fucking wild?”

Juniper smiled, nuzzling into his cupped hands, “Please, master?”

“Oh Honey.” He almost purred, “Keep that up and you’ll be bedridden again.”

They made their way back to the bedroom, Heisenberg catching her up in a messy kiss. While she was distracted he removed the rest of her clothing, backing her up until her calves touched the bed.

He lightly pushed her back, Juniper making a little ‘oof’ as she hit the bed. She propped herself up on her elbows, smiling as Heisenberg fell to his knees before her.

He didn’t dive straight into her heat like she expected, instead pulling her by the ankles closer to the edge.

His eyes were dark and hungry as he dipped his head in to drop rough kisses up the length of her leg. Juniper shivered at the heat of his mouth as he trailed ever closer to the place she wanted him desperately.

His lips lingered on the softness of her inner thigh, sucking a dark blotch there. He pulled free with a wet pop, meeting her gaze. She was already flushed.

“I’m going to have to re-mark my claim on you.” He almost purred the words.

“Make me yours in every way.” She spoke sweetly.

“I plan to.” He promised, kissing upwards.

He dropped a kiss just above her clit, smiling when her breath hitched. She made a little sound of want when he pulled away, thrusting her hips up in an effort to urge him back. Heisenberg growled as his large hands found her legs, pushing her down against the bed.

Juniper whimpered, watching him move higher.

He kissed along her scar, eyes flicking up to meet hers. The new tissue was sensitive under his lips, his beard making her skin prickle.

“Fucking perfect.” He concluded when he covered its length, his hands forcing her thighs more apart, “Every part.”

“…stop.” Juniper’s cheeks reddened further.

“Oh no.” He gave a devilish smile, “No mercy for you my little wifey.”

She gave a little mewl at his tone, her core clenching air.

“I was looking forward to dessert all night.” His face split with a mirthful grin.

“Then come get it!” She bared her teeth a bit playfully

Heisenberg dove into her sex, eating her like a starving man. He was messy and forceful, causing her to melt in seconds. He growled into her flesh, already feeling her tighten under him. He pulled away, scoring his thumb over her clit as he licked slick from his lips, “Already such a damn mess for me.”

“It’s…it’s been a w-while.” She spoke between pants.

“Too long.” He agreed, going back in.

He made sure to pull multiple orgasms from her with only his mouth and hands, stopping every so often to trail kisses up her abdomen. She was breathy and blissed out, completely forgetting her earlier self-consciousness.

He stood, giving her a moment of mercy. Juniper watched him, breasts quaking as she regained her breath. Her skin was already glistening with a light sheen of sweat, stray onyx curls stuck to her forehead. Heisenberg slowly removed each layer of clothing, almost making a show of it under her hungry gaze.

Finally kicking off his boxers he crawled onto the bed. The bed creaked under their combined weight as he loomed over her.

Juniper eager hands found him quickly, squeezing the thick ropes of muscle that made his arms.

“Pretty impressive eh?” He smirked cockily.

Her fingers slid upwards, fanning over his chest. She gave him a little devilish look as she found his only nipple piercing.

His breath hitched a bit as she toyed with it; coming almost unglued entirely when her head quickly dipped in to take the metal into her mouth.

The movement was almost too fast for him to react before the sensation rippled through his body. Juniper was spurred on when she saw how his body shivered in response, deepening the contact.

Heisenberg pushed her away, holding her down against the bed with strong hands. He swallowed, “That’s enough of that.”

Juniper licked her lips, the taste of metal and skin on her tongue, “Seemed to like it.”

He ground his teeth a bit, aware of his hard cock. He caught her lips up with his own before she could continue.

He kept her occupied, grouping down her body as he lined himself up. She gasped into his mouth when she felt the weeping tip bump her folds. He pulled away to brace himself over her.

“Fuck, I missed you.” His voice was low and almost wavering as he pushed into her. Juniper’s back arched, moaning as his cock stretched her out deliciously.

Her core was tight from the months without him.

He started pumping into her almost desperately, lifting her legs to hook around his waist. With the better angle he was able to reach deeper, rubbing against her g-spot with every thrust.

She clawed down his back, crying out every time their hips sloppily met together.

The sex was messy and raw, both needing to feel the release of pent up passions. Heisenberg groaned out breathily, hands finding purchase in the mattress to buck into her harder.

He felt her tense under him. “F-Fuck! Come for me Doll. Come on my cock!” He grunted out, moving a hand to her clit. His thumb scored quick circles into the sensitive bundle of nerves.

Juniper buckled under him, sobbing out her release. A surge of slick coated his cock as her cunt clamped down on him.

She felt divine, like liquid velvet around him. Heisenberg became a mess of sounds himself, balls slapping into her ass roughly as he chased his own release.

His hips jolted, bottoming out in her. She felt him pulse as her insides were flooded with hot ropes of come.

She felt extremely full, bits of his release oozing out around his cock.

He settled over her, wanting to stay slotted within her walls. Catching her breath she pulled his face closer, peppering his jaw with kisses.

He gave a little rumble of amusement, letting her fawn over him.

They tangled into one another, the darkness filled with the sounds of their heavy breathes and soft moans. A hunger of the flesh deep in their minds. Words weren’t needed. Their touches, tinged with desperation for an act both had feared would be lost to them, was everything in that moment.

Skin to skin, a heartbeat felt under fingertips. The world outside the bed didn’t exist, the nightmares couldn’t reach them.

Heisenberg pressed his body against Juniper’s, his cock never leaving her. In the soft lulls between rounds of sex he held her close, wanting to feel over every inch of her. She thankfully held onto him, losing track of the hours. He nipped into the soft flesh of her throat, huffing out hotly when he heard her mewl.

He felt her tense under him as he rocked into her afresh. Juniper didn’t know how many rounds or orgasms they shared, the night becoming a blur of pleasure and overstimulation.

Eventually exhaustion overtook her and Juniper fell asleep against his chest. Heisenberg stayed fully inserted inside of her, softly tracing her spinal scar. Their bodies were stuck together with sweat, he could feel every breath and heartbeat of hers.

He let his mind wander to work. With the spring thaw here it would make collecting bodies from the grave easier, but also he would have to be much more on top of watching the village for casualties.

Juniper was his favorite distraction but she was a distraction nonetheless. He wouldn’t force her away, no, she gave him more purpose to strive to escape. She made his hunger to explore the world deeper, he wanted to give her a better life than the factory.

And he would give it to her.

#resident evil village #karl heisenberg #heisenberg x oc #re8 oc #heisenberg #in the steel steeds heart #resident evil #heisenberg smut

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lazywonderlvnd · 3 years

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*hesitantly steps in the box* Umm.. soo.. I was listening to Cruel Summer by Taylor Swift again and that song (is awesome btw if you haven't listened to it already) just gives me such MAJOR drarry vibes .. like -

" And I screamed, 'for whatever it's worth I love you, ain't that the worst thing you ever heard?' He looks up grinning like a devil. "

Like if that's not drarry I'd chomp my pillows. So .. *twiddling thumbs* could you pls write something with that line as a prompt?? Pretty please 🥺🥺🥺❤️❤️❤️ maybe use the song as inspiration.. idk? Whatever you like. ALSO, don't forget I STILL LOVE YOU that ain't changing yet and you haven't seen the last of me! Imma tail after you for eternity and you better take that as the threat it is! *throws love at you* BYE!! ❤️❤️ *vaults outside the box*

my sweetest most loved angel!! thank u so much for this prompt based on a BOP i was obsessed w when the album first came out. it got sm longer than it was meant to be, so it can be found on ao3 as well!! i hope u like it ilysm ❤️❤️❤️❤️

warnings for minor drug use (weed) and implied suicide of a minor character (lucius, extremely vague reference but pls be aware!)

rating: e word count: ~5k

When Pansy asked him how it started, Draco discovered that he didn’t know what to tell her.

Technically, though, it had started at Ernie Macmillan’s party in the beginning of summer, with the cloying scent of Freesias and Freedom Roses (“Imported from the States,” Ernie told Draco pompously, when he asked) and all those string-lights dangling from the cedar pergola, perennial balls of fire inside their clear bubbles like tiny trapped suns. Cheap beer in plastic cups, Marlboro cigarettes, and some stupid Muggle game ... darts.

Technically.

* * *

“Get off me, Potter,” Draco says in a failed whisper. He’s laughing and drunk and fuzzy warm under a sprawling summer’s night sky that looks like black paint. Potter tastes like Guinness every time he kisses him, and his hands are surprisingly soft. In direct opposition to his own command he pulls Potter in by the face and glues their mouths back together ravenously. The alcohol makes him sloppy (he likes it, though — the sloppiness of it) and Potter’s skin is warm where Draco slides his hand under an ugly Muggle band T-shirt to touch.

Around the corner, he can hear music coming from the patio where nearly every single one of their former classmates are gathered, drinking and laughing and getting along famously with a much-needed buffer of five years between them and their Hogwarts days.

Much-needed for himself and Potter as well. Apparently.

He sees him sometimes, at get-togethers like this or around the Ministry, once or twice at a dinner party thrown by a mutual friend. They’re always cordial. He hasn’t insulted Potter to his face in five years.

Except for tonight, when he couldn’t help himself loudly drawing attention to the similarities between Potter’s hair and one of the shrubs in the garden. But they’re kissing now round the side of the house and because of that he’s quite glad for his slip. And it’s their five-year reunion, so. What would it be without some bickering between the two of them?

Potter presses him into the bricks and snogs him breathless, only he keeps grinning and laughing and ruining everything just when Draco starts losing himself in it.

“Quit laughing,” he scolds him. “You’re the worst, Potter. No etiquette at all.”

“That’s rude,” Potter says. His breath wafts across Draco’s mouth. His eyes are excessively green behind their round frames, which have not changed since their school days. The scar is mostly hidden beneath his wild fringe, save for the very bottom where it slashes neatly through a dark eyebrow and touches his eyelid. “I can’t help it, I’m pissed good and proper.”

His hand moves to Draco’s hip and even through the thickness of the alcohol coating his brain like a muffler he feels that touch clear and ripe as daybreak.

“So that’s why you’ve decided to snog me rather than …” He waves a hand vaguely, in lieu of the proper witticism with which he might normally have trounced Potter. “You know. Beat me to a pulp.”

“I only did that one time,” Potter says, grinning. Grinning and moving his thumb in circles on Draco’s hip. “And it was because you were being a twat. And I didn’t beat you to a pulp. You’re so dramatic.”

“Semantics,” Draco says. “I had a bloody nose.”

“And you deserved it.”

“Now who’s being rude?”

Potter kisses him again.

Guinness and Freesias.

* * *

“Macmillan’s party,” he told Pansy. “He kissed me.”

“So that’s where you disappeared to.” She looked smug. Her inch-long nails were sharpened to a point and painted a glossy black, and she drummed them against her cheek, the way a cat flicks its tail. “I’m surprised you kept it from me this whole time.”

“Well,” said Draco, lowering his gaze to his glass of wine and watching it flirt dangerously with the lip as he swirled it. His cheeks felt warm, but he wasn’t embarrassed. “We snuck around.”

Right, maybe a little embarrassed. Mostly conflicted.

“Oh?” For a single syllable the laughter underneath was remarkably transparent.

He looked up, eyebrows lifted. “Yes,” he said a little defensively. “For obvious reasons. At first it was just sex. A lot of it, so he usually came here. Apparently Granger and the Weasel are notorious for popping round his place unexpectedly.”

* * *

He feels opened up all over again every time Potter fucks into him, unhurried and so careful. His hand is hot on Draco’s thigh, both of them sticky with sweat and come. This has to be their third round at least, and Draco’s sluggish brain insists it might actually be four.

An open window lets in the late afternoon air, humid and drowsy and perfumed heavily with flowers (a la Macmillan, Draco planted Freesias and Freedom Roses outside his bedroom window and helped them along to full bloom with some careful magic). Potter’s hair is damp with sweat — from exertion and the relentless heat of July — and Draco slides his fingers into it, tangles them and pulls the way he’s learned Potter likes. If he’s honest, he’s harboured a very secret and very desperate yearning to touch Potter’s hair since he was quite young. He doesn’t know why.

Well, maybe he knows why.

Potter makes a quiet, whimpered noise that curls Draco’s toes. He speeds up his hips, closing in on his orgasm and putting his face in Draco’s neck even though it’s too fucking hot for it.

“Fuck,” Draco whines. He tries to lift his leg higher, wrap it around Potter’s waist to get that perfect angle, but they’re too slick with sweat and he lets out a frustrated noise when it falls back to the bed. “Potter,” he says helplessly, arching into each thrust and shaking with the effort. This third (fourth?) orgasm is building too slowly, sitting there hard and stubborn and heavy in his gut and refusing to be coaxed to completion. He’s dripping with the effort, muscles quivering. “Please — I need —”

But he seems to have figured it out for himself. He scoots forward, lifting Draco’s arse higher off the bed and bending him nearly in half. The angle helps him go deeper and he’s suddenly nudging Draco’s oversensitive prostate every time he fucks back in.

“Right there,” Draco gasps, tensing as this new angle lights a fire under his elusive orgasm. His cock is leaking but he doesn’t have the strength or energy to get a hand around it. Potter’s grunting with the effort of fucking him, sweat dripping down his temples and making his neck and torso gleam. “Right there, god, right there, please, I’m so close —”

Potter braces himself and redoubles his efforts, and it’s like he’s reached inside Draco and sunk his claws into that building storm in his belly because suddenly it’s ripped right out of him in a colossal wave of euphoria that approaches too much, cock spurting untouched between them . Potter keeps moving inside him while he rides it out, and at some point he feels the warm, wet explosion of Potter emptying in him, mumbling incoherent things that include Draco’s name.

They come down together too. Draco is clutching Potter’s arms and trying to catch his breath and Potter is trembling and clutching him back like an anchor in a veritable ocean of sensation.

It’s like this every time.

When Potter drops down onto the bed beside him Draco rolls over and kisses him, long and deep and satisfying, and Potter reciprocates with the kind of intensity that is completely unique to him as a person.

“That one was particularly good,” says Potter, and Draco laughs.

When he feels like moving, he knows that Potter will get up and go to Draco’s kitchen and make tea for both of them, and he won’t need to ask what Draco likes, because he remembered after the first time. They’ll drink it naked in bed as the sun sets on another endless summer day and transforms before their eyes into a humid and pungent summer night, in the midst of which they will fuck at least three more times, and Potter will keep smelling like sweat and bergamot and boy, and Draco will keep feeling starved for him.

And they won’t talk about it.

* * *

“And?” Pansy said.

“And what?”

“You said ‘at first,’” she pointed out, and arched a groomed eyebrow. “When did it turn into more than just sex?”

Draco tamped down on a smile, because that would have been more emotion than he cared to show at the moment. To Pansy or to himself.

He swirled his wine again and took a long sip, stalling. He wanted — needed, really — to talk this out with her, but he was becoming aware of an uncomfortable heaviness in his chest which was suggesting to him that he didn’t want to share everything. Not because he was embarrassed, but, well … it was private. It was between him and Harry.

“There was this one night he came over later than he was supposed to because of work,” Draco said. The memory stirred some emotion. He hadn’t thought of it in a while. “He had this bloody huge takeout bag of Thai food.”

* * *

He sets it down on Draco’s desk, takes out a container, and after toeing off his shoes drops sideways onto Draco’s bed with it and uses chopsticks to shovel in a mouthful of noodles. Draco watches this in awe.

“Want some?” Harry asks once he’s swallowed (small blessings). There’s grease around his mouth. “There’s a million other things in the bag but you have to get it yourself. I’m dead tired.”

Draco thinks of asking what the hell is going on, because they’re supposed to be fucking by now, but something stops him. Harry really does look exhausted but quite content eating his Thai food on Draco’s bed, and he doesn’t have the heart to berate him for it or remind him that they’re fuck buddies, not friends, and that if he’d wanted to eat and lounge about perhaps he should’ve stayed at home.

And the food really does smell good.

He gets up and fishes another container out of the bag that turns out to be some sort of heavenly-smelling marinated beef, which he brings back to the bed. Harry’s rolled onto his back and has the container of noodles balanced on his stomach.

“They thought they found a Horcrux on a raid,” he says. His voice is perfectly casual, but Draco thinks he can see something troubled in his eyes. He has one foot crossed over the other and it’s bouncing anxiously; he doesn’t think Harry’s aware of doing it. “Wasn’t. Obviously.”

“But they needed your expert advice to be sure.”

“Yeah.” Harry looks at him, then his food. “Is that the beef?”

“Yes it is.”

“Good?”

“Haven’t tried it yet.”

He opens the container and chooses a piece, but instead of lifting it to his mouth he follows some crazy impulse and hovers it over Harry’s instead.

“Open, Scarhead,” he says. Harry blinks but does it, and Draco drops it in. He smiles, then chews.

“Brilliant.”

* * *

“We ate it instead of fucking. It was the first time I realised something had shifted.”

“And you let it shift?”

The question gave him pause. He didn’t answer right away, mulling it over. It made it sound as if he’d had a choice, and that wasn’t quite right.

“It already had,” he said finally. “It wasn’t a matter of letting it; by the time I noticed, it had already happened. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come over with the food.”

“But you did let it continue,” said Pansy. She wasn’t antagonising him, nor accusing him of anything. She looked amused, but not in a way that was at his expense. Pansy was both a twat and a fiercely good friend, the combination of which meant she would do nothing more or less than hold up a mirror and force you to look at yourself, gruesome as the experience inevitably wound up being. “Even after you realised he had feelings for you.”

Draco swallowed. He’d not heard it said aloud before now.

“Yes,” he said. “It felt good. Knowing he fancied me.”

* * *

Harry’s shameless in his staring.

He stands in the doorway of the ensuite bathroom and watches Draco like he’s been invited to do so. Draco pretends not to notice, stretched out in a tub full of bubbles facing the opposite way. There’s incense burning, and candles. Harry is completely silent, but Draco could feel those eyes on him from across a crowded hall.

They fucked a few hours ago and fell asleep afterwards. Draco pretended not to think about it, but had actually made the conscious decision to let Harry continue sleeping when he woke up and decided he wanted a bath.

When he can’t take it anymore he opens his eyes and tilts his head back and a little to the side, just enough that he gets Potter in his peripherals.

“Well?” he says.

“Well what?”

“Join me, won’t you?”

Harry snorts. Then there’s a quiver of magic in the air, and a small, utilitarian chair appears out of thin air beside the tub. Harry sits down in it. He’s holding the joint they’d only gotten halfway through earlier.

He’s in his jeans and nothing else, all limbs and sparse chest hair, and when he crosses a leg over the other one, elbow resting on his knee as he hits the joint, Draco feels a bone-deep attraction to him that’s beyond physical.

“May I?” Draco asks. Harry hands it over and Draco inhales deeply before returning it. The humidity of the room mixes with the smoke and the smell of marijuana, pungent and cloying like the flowers.

After a length of silence, Draco says, “Will you read me something?”

“Will I what?”

He takes his wand from the floor and Summons a book from the shelf in his room — one of his poetry collections comes sweeping in through the cracked door and into Harry’s lap. Harry sticks the joint between his lips and starts rifling through it with his glasses all fogged up.

When he starts reading Byron (“I had a dream, which was not all a dream”) Draco smiles and sinks deeper into the hot water and bubbles, letting Harry’s voice lull him into a pleasant stupor.

* * *

“So you led him on,” said Pansy. “Because you liked his attention.”

He stared at her, then let his gaze drop to his wine again. Had he?

“It sounds bad when you say it like that.”

“Well,” she said, smiling wryly, “I’m only saying it as you’ve told it to me. Maybe if it sounds bad, it is bad. Some things are that simple, darling. Unless there’s more to it.”

“Like what?” he said, not looking at her. There was a touch of pouty defiance in his voice he knew Pansy would detect instantly. He heard her sigh.

“What exactly happened yesterday, Draco? You didn’t give me any context.”

“What context do you need?” he muttered. “He told me he loved me.”

* * *

They’ve finished an entire bottle of wine between them. He’s not drunk, but he’s pleasantly buzzed. Harry’s sprawled on his back, T-shirt rucked up just below his navel so Draco can see the dark trail of hair leading below his jeans. There’s something implicitly erotic about the movement of his chest when he breathes, his hands folded behind his head, one leg stretched the length of the bed and the other bent at the knee.

He opens his eyes suddenly and grins when he sees Draco looking at him.

“That wine just made me tired,” he says.

“So go to sleep,” says Draco. He takes a last swig, emptying it, and sets the bottle aside on his night table. He stretches his arms over his head and arches his back, yawning widely, thinking perhaps he’ll give into the tempting allure of sleep as well when Harry says, “I told Hermione about us.”

So he’s not sleeping, then. His stomach clenches hard and a completely irrational sense of panic rises in his throat.

“Us?” he says slowly, sitting up straighter. “What ‘us’?”

Harry looks at him upside-down, then rolls over and rises to his knees. He stares at Draco blankly.

“‘What us?’” he repeats.

“Yes,” says Draco. “What ‘us’?”

“Us,” Harry says. His voice is lower than usual. The word is starting to sound weird and lose meaning. “You and me, Draco.”

“‘You and me?’ Harry, there’s no you and me. We’re just fucking. What do you … what do you mean, you told Granger? Told her what?”

Harry looks … well, he looks fucking crushed. And angry. Draco forces himself not to look away.

“I told her I’d been seeing you,” he says quietly. There’s something … not threatening, but close to it, in his voice.

“Sure,” says Draco. “I see you three times a week, sometimes four. I s’pose if you feel the need to fill Granger in on everything you do with every second of your day —”

“Shut up, Draco,” Harry says. “You know what I meant.”

Draco glares at him. He gets off the bed, slightly lightheaded from the wine, horrified by the emotions welling up inside him right behind the panic, and he points at his bedroom door.

“Get out,” he says.

“Are you serious?”

“Go!” he says loudly, voice rising. “If you’re gonna start turning this into something it definitely is not then get out of my flat, Potter.” As usual the window is open, but it’s the third of September and getting chilly finally and Draco’s Freesias and Freedom Roses started wilting last week. There’s a chilly breeze coming into that room that is utterly barren of the sweet smells of summer he associates with Harry these days. “It’s time we ended this anyway,” he says. “Summer’s over.”

“So?” From his position kneeling on Draco’s bed Harry shouldn’t feel imposing at all, but he does. There’s no sparkle of humour in his eyes, none of the softness Draco’s gotten used to seeing there. He looks like someone who’s realised they’ve been betrayed.

Worse than that. Someone who’s been betrayed and realises they should have seen it coming.

“What the fuck does summer have to do with anything?”

“Ever heard of a summer fling, Potter? We’re not ‘seeing each other’.”

Harry finally gets off the bed. Draco’s stomach clenches again, more painfully this time. He doesn’t feel bad, he tells himself — this is Harry’s fault. His fault for making a big deal out of something easy and fun and, most of all, temporary. For ruining this with feelings.

“That’s not what this was,” Harry says. It’s not an argumentative tone; rather, he sounds disappointed. Devastated, and disappointed. And that look of betrayal, like he’s surprised but not … that surprised.

That hurts.

“This was as real as it gets, Draco,” he says matter-of-factly. “You and I don’t have the capability of doing anything as shallow as a fling.”

“Well, Potter,” says Draco, straining to maintain his level voice, “congratulations, because that is the most disgusting, romanticised, Gryffindorian piece of shit I’ve ever heard.”

“Yeah?” He grabs up his wand from the bedside table and stuffs it into his jeans pocket. “Well here’s another: I love you. You complete fucking prick.”

Draco stares after him as he leaves the room, cowed for the moment. He hears Harry take the Floo powder off his mantle, hears the fire start, and then the sound of Potter disappearing.

And he feels hollow suddenly.

* * *

“And he said it completely out of the blue?”

Draco set his wine aside. He was suddenly feeling too sick to put anything else in his body.

“Sort of,” he said quietly, avoiding her eyes. “He was trying to make something out of nothing. He was just making a point, trying to guilt me, I don’t even think he meant it.”

Pansy said nothing for so long that Draco finally looked up. She had an eyebrow raised.

“Do you really believe that?” she said.

Draco didn’t answer right away. He glanced at the bottle of wine on the table and thought about the way it always tasted a little sweeter on Harry’s lips.

“I don’t know,” he said. “No. But it doesn’t change anything. It was a summer thing, not a … a relationship, for crying out loud. Like I’d date Potter.”

“Why not?”

Draco scoffed. “Why not? Pansy, please. He’s a …”

“A …?”

“He’s an idiot! He’s Potter! He’s …” He couldn’t think of the right word, something bad enough to express the audacity, the gall , for Potter to think even for a second that they could …

“Draco Malfoy,” said Pansy. She was smirking. “You love him too.”

Had he felt sick before? Now he was going to be sick.

“I never would’ve imagined it,” she went on, seeming to take pleasure from his outrage and humiliation. The bint. “Look at you, you’re blushing! Oh my god,” she laughed. And then she stopped laughing, and instead the weight of her own words appeared to descend on her. “Oh my god. You do, don’t you? You are arse over tits for Harry Potter —”

He was up and out of his chair before she’d finished the last word, absurdly, embarrassingly on the verge of tears all of a sudden.

“Draco —”

“I’m glad this can serve as your entertainment for the week, Pansy,” he said. A tear rolled down his cheek — could he be any more histrionic? — and he brushed it away furiously.

“Draco, no —”

“Call Blaise, tell him!” he shouted. “You two can have a good laugh over it —”

“Draco —”

“Poor Draco’s fucked himself over again, what a stupid wanker!”

Pansy got up. He slapped her hand away when she reached for him, but she only came at him again and grabbed it this time when he swatted at her, enfolding it in both of hers. He closed his eyes and hiccoughed and two more tears came.

“Darling, will you please listen to me?” she said softly. It sounded eerily like his mother, which only made him feel young and childish. He tugged his arm away and she let him go, but he didn’t move any farther away. “I am not laughing at you,” she told him. “Blaise might, but that’s because Blaise has a black hole for a heart, Draco, the only emotion he’s ever felt is disdain.” Against his will, Draco chuckled wetly. Pansy smiled and took his hand again, tentatively. He allowed it. “ I think it’s lovely that you have feelings for him. I don’t understand what’s got you so upset, I mean … I know it’s Potter, but we’re not teenagers anymore, right? Who cares?”

Draco exhaled a long sigh.

“He let my father go to Azkaban,” he said softly, looking into her eyes. He saw comprehension dawning. “How can I be with someone who could’ve saved my father’s life and chose not to, Pansy?”

“No one could have saved your father, Draco,” said Pansy gravely. His throat was tight, swollen. He hated that he was hanging on her words, looking for truth in them, wanting to hear something that would make this okay. “He would have done the same thing if they’d let him go back to the manor. It’s not your fault or your mum’s or Potter’s.”

“But —”

“But what?” she cut him off sharply. “Draco, please don’t let your father keep controlling your life from the grave! My god, you deserve happiness, don’t you see that? Even if it’s Potter! In fact, I … I think that could be really good.”

“What, being with Potter?”

“Yes, being with Potter,” she said. “Darling, I say this because I love you: you need to grow a pair of bollocks and start taking control of your own life. I’m not finished!” she added when he opened his mouth to retort. “I understand that it feels like a betrayal of your father, I do, and I’m not saying you can’t have your cherished memories of him, but Draco … you cannot live your life in his shadow, doing things because it’s what he’d want or wouldn’t want. I think that choosing to explore these feelings you have for Potter is the bravest and healthiest thing you could possibly do for yourself.”

He stared at her for a long moment, eyes wet though the tears had stopped falling.

“What if it doesn’t last?” he said finally. “What if next week he realises it was a huge mistake?”

“First of all, I doubt that,” said Pansy with a roll of her eyes that was clearly meant to be teasing. “You said you’ve been seeing him all summer, that’s plenty of time to have gotten sick of you. And, even if that did happen, I still think it would be entirely worth that week of being disgustingly in love.”

“Do you?” he drawled.

“Yes! I do!” She picked up his discarded wine glass from before and held it up. “Does the effect of alcohol last forever?”

“No …”

“Of course not! And we don’t expect it to. We expect to have fun while we’re drunk and it’ll last as long as it lasts.”

“Dating someone isn’t like being drunk, Pansy,” Draco said sourly.

“Oh, that’s not the point ,” she huffed. “We don’t do things because we know they’ll last forever, we do them because we want to. In the moment.”

“Sounds irresponsible.”

“Well, of course it is,” she scoffed. “Love is completely irresponsible, that’s the fun of it, Draco. Now take this,” she shoved the glass of wine into his hand, almost spilling it. “Drink up, and then get your arse over to his flat and fix this.”

* * *

Granger opened the door. Draco sighed.

“Hello, Granger,” he said lamely. Her raised eyebrows said she was surprised and thoroughly unimpressed by his appearance.

“Malfoy,” she said.

“Is Potter in?”

“I guess that depends.”

“On?”

She looked at him, dark brown eyes impenetrable. Then she closed the front door behind her.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“To talk to him,” he said tightly. As if this whole thing wasn’t bad enough, now he had to pass a test to get past Granger the bridge troll. “I thought he told you —”

“He did,” she said flatly. “And about yesterday.”

“Well I’m here to apologise,” said Draco. Granger’s eyebrows lifted again. Still unimpressed. “And to tell him …” He sighed again and broke eye contact, willing himself not to give up, not to take this as a sign he should just go home and ream into Pansy for giving him such bad advice.

“Malfoy.” He looked up. Her voice was softer now, and her eyes seemed a little less hard. “What are you doing? You really hurt him, you know.”

“I know,” he said stiffly. “I said I’m here to apologise.”

“Well he doesn’t need an apology,” she said. “If you’re only going to let him down again —”

“I’m not.” He rubbed his forehead and looked at her again, exasperated, defeated. “I’ve … had some sense talked into me.”

She looked like it was the last thing she’d been expecting.

“Have you?”

“Yes,” he said. “So would you please get him for me before I lose my nerve?”

It was the right thing to say. Her expression melted into something much softer and he fancied he even saw the beginnings of a smile.

“Can I ask who affected this change of heart?”

“Pansy,” he said. And, when Granger seemed taken aback, “She’s very wise when she feels like it.”

“I see. Well …” She still looked a bit conflicted, eyeing him and then putting her hand on the doorknob. “All right. I’ll tell him you’re here, anyway, but he was really hurt, Malfoy. I don’t know if he’ll want to hear it.”

“I’ll take my chances,” he said.

Granger eyed him another moment and then went back inside, shutting the door behind her. Draco only had to wait a minute before it was opening again, and this time Harry came out. The sight of him made Draco’s heart feel tender and sore.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi, Potter.”

He waited to see if Harry would say anything else but he didn’t. He only stared at Draco expectantly, arms folded, in all ways closed off.

“I came to apologise,” said Draco.

“Well you can keep it,” said Harry. “I don’t need an apology because you told me the truth.”

“It wasn’t the truth, Potter,” Draco said quietly. “Opposite, really.”

Harry was silent. Then, “You made me feel like shit, Draco.”

“I know. I’m sorry. You freaked me out, springing it on me like that.”

A beat, then two, and then suddenly Harry was dropping his arms and sighing and he looked at Draco with so much vulnerability he nearly had to turn away from it.

“I didn’t mean to tell you …” He licked his lips, scratched his arm. It reminded Draco that beneath everything, Harry was still the same awkward dorky leader-of-the-losers he’d always been, just with a bit more confidence now and the title of Official Saviour of the Wizarding World. “I wouldn’t have said that if … I was just angry.”

He didn’t need to ask what Harry was referring to.

“I know.”

“Not that I didn’t … I mean, I … I do —”

“Please don’t say it again,” Draco said. Harry laughed.

“Right. I just meant … I really do have feelings for you, Draco. Like … mad, crazy feelings, y’know? I don’t want it to be a fling.”

“It wasn’t a fling,” he said. He moved a little closer and Harry watched him carefully, eyes flickering once down to Draco’s mouth. “I didn’t even sleep with anyone else the whole time.”

“Well that’s good to know,” said Harry sardonically. But he was smiling, so Draco found himself smiling tentatively as well.

“I wanna be with you, Potter. Properly. I thought …” But he shakes his head, deciding that now isn’t the time to explain about his father. “I thought it was a stupid idea. Now I realise that it probably is, but that I don’t really care much. I’ve decided to ignore my better judgment this one time.”

“That’s quite Gryffindor of you,” Harry commented drily.

“Yes, well.”

“So I go against your better judgment, then?”

“Potter,” Draco sighed. “Please, I don’t mean it like —”

“I’m taking the piss, Draco,” Harry cut him off. He reached for Draco’s waist and pulled him close, and before Draco could get his breath back from a short, surprised intake of breath Harry’s mouth was on his, warm and familiar and soothing. He brought his hands to Harry’s face and kissed back without bothering to hide his overwhelming relief.

Harry chased his mouth when he pulled away and Draco breathed out a laugh, holding him at bay with a hand on his chest.

“We have plenty of time,” he said. “D’you wanna come over later tonight, after your friends leave?”

“What? No, come in.” He took Draco’s hand and gestured with his head towards the door. “Please. It’s just Ron and Hermione. They know everything.”

“Really?” Draco drawled. “And you think Weasley won’t try to kill me?”

“I promise not to let him,” Harry grinned. “Please, Draco. You said you wanted to do this properly, right?”

He thought of what Pansy said about being irresponsible, and decided it was worth a try at least.

“Okay,” he said. Harry beamed and tugged him inside.

Towards his ultimate downfall or towards the beginning of the rest of his life, he didn’t know. That, as Pansy would have said, was the fun of it.

#anna writes #answered #drarry fic #god i had sm fun writing this tysm for the prompt 😩

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sweetpeasgirl · 3 years

Text

Treat You Better | Sweet Pea

Description: Based on the song “Treat You Better” by Shawn Mendes, Jughead and Y/n’s relationship is at it’s bittersweet end and Sweet Pea, her best friend, is there to defend her

Word Count: 2.3k

Pairing: Sweet Pea x Female!Reader

Warnings: Kinda angsty but not really

Tags: Angst, FLUFF

The White Wrym is not where you thought you would spend your Saturday night but Jughead had said that he needed to take care of a few things and you didn't want to be blown off again. You understand that he's busy, you really do. He's the son of the former Serpent leader; of course he's going to have a lot more on his plate. You just didn't think he'd push you off of it- the plate.

Sweet Pea had warned you about that. It was the latest topic of argument between you. For best friends, the two of you fight a lot. You know he's just trying to look out for you, that's been his role since the two of you were kids. He's in the grade above you, and was originally your older brother's friend, but they fell out a couple years ago. He never left you though.

He's always been the one watching your back. At first he just kept you out of harm's way, whether that be from grade school bullies or the men who lurk in alleyways when you're trying to walk home. Now, though, he has to watch out for boys who say they care about you but don't. He has to watch out for heartbreak.

That's where Jughead comes in. Sweet Pea is just being his overprotective self, like usual. Sure, you've had your fair share of walking out into the busy street with your head down, and he's had to pull you back quite a few times, but this is different. He can't save a heart that's supposed to break. Jughead does care about you, or at least he did when you first got together last year. Some things, however, just aren't meant to last forever.

Forever is a long time and time has a funny way of changing things.

"Juggie, it's your turn," your voice is quiet as you hand him the wooden pool cue, trying not to draw attention to yourself.

It's cold in the bar and you had been alerted so suddenly that date night was getting moved here that you didn't have time to grab a sweater. You can feel the stares burning into uncovered shoulders. It puts you on edge as Jughead accepts the cue from your shaky hands and takes his shot absentmindedly. Something's going on in his head, you can tell by the way he furrows his eyebrows and watches the people around him.

You, meanwhile, are trying hard not to look anywhere but the green felt of the pool table. There's commotion all around you. Shouts can be heard from the bar and the sound of smashing bottles that accompanies them. There's laughter coming from somewhere else but it doesn't sound friendly. Whatever it's about is cruel; it’s something that should not be made a joke of.

You're definitely way out of your comfort zone. Hell, you're way out of your un-comfort zone. You're just plain scared and, with the lack of conversation that Jughead is providing, the regret is bubbling quick in your chest. You almost wish he would just break up with you so you can cry and move on already.

"Jughead," a loud voice breaks the awkward silence around the crowded pool table, "there you are boy. We can finally discuss what you wanted to talk about now."

A tall, middle aged man with light brown hair and a weeks worth of beard growth pats your boyfriend on the back. Jughead shoots you an apologetic look as he passes the pool cue back to you once more. Your blood runs cold as he starts to walk in the opposite direction with the newcomer. He's seriously leaving you alone, in a room full of people who honestly aren't the safest characters, on what was supposed to be your night. Something happened to the boy you first knew and this just settled what you already thought. It’s over.

Your eyes blur with unshed tears at the hurt and fear circulating through your veins. He disappears from sight and the dark atmosphere gets hazier as you grip the side of the table to keep yourself steady. You can once again feel the stares burning into your back. It's like they were waiting for you to be left unattended. When you're with Jughead, the heir of the Serpent crown, you can't be touched. When you're with Sweet Pea, their deadly warrior, you can't be touched. When it's just you, though, anything goes.

You don't know what to do. It's only a matter of time before someone approaches you and when that happens you'll be in a situation that you probably won't be able to get yourself out of. That's the one thing your mother always told not to do; never put yourself into a situation that you can't get out of. Sweet Pea would not be happy.

"Y/n, what the hell are you doing here?"

Case in point. You jump at the sound of his voice but spin around instantly and bury yourself into his chest nonetheless. The tears fall down your face before you can stop them but you really couldn't care less. The smell of leather and pine surrounds you and warmth finally fills your body. Apparently you're colder than you had originally thought.

The relief that fills you is unmeasurable and you cling to Sweet Pea tightly, "It was supposed to be our night but-” you hiccup, tugging on his jacket- “I didn't want to miss another date night-” another hiccup- “I didn't want to-” you rub your forehead against his chest, your voice now just a whisper- “he left."

Your thoughts come out scrambled and between ugly sobs but it's enough for Sweet Pea to gather the overall picture of what happened. After all, he has been doing this for a while. He tightens his arms around you, the anger radiating off his uncovered skin in heated waves.

"He left you? Here?" Sweet Pea is seething when he pulls back.

He lifts you to sit on the edge of the pool table, the game laying discarded behind you. The visual reminder only makes the tears come faster and the warmth leave your bones again. You start shivering but this time you can't steel yourself enough to stop, the realization dawning before you can lie to yourself again. You and Jughead are done. You have been for a long time now and everyone else saw it before you did.

"Pea, we're over," you can't raise your voice above a harsh whisper, covering your raw face with your hands to suffocate the onslaught of cries you can feel bubbling to the surface, "we're over now. You were right."

You close your eyes to avoid staring into Sweet Pea's murderous chocolate ones. All you feel now is the ice circling your veins.

"Baby, hey," a large jacket that smells too much like Sweet Pea to not belong to him is draped over your shoulders, "it's okay. We'll go home."

The anger seeps out of his voice and you peer up to see the concerned face of your best friend once more. He's looking at you in the same way he was the time fell out of Jughead's tree house. You had blacked out from the fall and woke up in the hospital with a broken leg. He was so scared that he didn't leave your side for a minute. But it's different now, you're not physically hurt, so he shouldn't look worried.

You let out a sorrowful breath and just nod your head, a deep weariness settling over your being. At least you're getting what you had wanted. A clean break.

"Y/n, can we talk?"

You hadn't noticed Jughead come back but now he stands a little behind Sweet Pea who is still in front of you. Sweet Pea instantly turns at the sound of his voice, the rage back and in full swing. You just lower your head, too tired to keep it up.

"Jones you're so lucky I'm not beating the crap out of you right now. I didn't think you were stupid enough to leave her here but I guess I was wrong! You're just lucky I happened to be here. And that she doesn't hate you." Sweet Pea spits his words at Jughead

"Look, man, can I just talk to my girlfriend?" Jughead's voice is monotone, both of you knowing he's just calling you his so that he can officially end it once and for all.

It's for the best and you both know it. His phrasing, however, doesn't go over well with Sweet Pea.

"Are you serious right now? Or is this a sick joke? You forfeit that title when you left her as free game for anyone in this place,” Sweet Pea steps towards him and you hold your breath, knowing quite well who would win the fight if one were to ensue. “You're dating the most beautiful girl in this shitty town and you treat her like she doesn't even matter! If it was me she wouldn't be crying on a damn table, she would know damn well just how much I love her!"

Your head snaps up at his words, your breath hitching in your throat. The commotion of the bar is drowned out around you and all you can see is Sweet Pea's back. He can't really love you, can he? He's just making a point, being the best friend he always has been. The logic makes sense to you but you can feel your heart breaking for the second time tonight because of it.

You place a hand on Sweet Pea's shoulder, drawing his attention back to you, "it's okay Pea, I should talk to him at least."

He doesn't look happy but he nods, helping you off the table and moving to the side to let you pass. You look at Jughead and toss him a melancholy smile. It's wrapped with bittersweet memories from all your late night's at Pop's and early mornings coming back from the drive-in. Jughead and you had some pretty good times despite your inevitable end. Maybe, just maybe, though, you can make it a peaceful end.

"Y/n I do love you," Jughead takes his beanie off and runs his hand through his already messy, raven locks, "but not like I did before. Somewhere between moving here and, well, taking on the role of my dad I let us fall apart. I'm sorry."

"It's okay Juggie. I probably wasn't putting as much effort in as I could have," he scoffs at that, a guilty smirk on his face.

You both know that you gave this relationship your all. But, standing here now with Sweet Pea's eyes searing into your back, it's pretty clear that your heart was forming attachments with another person. Which means that sooner or later you and Jughead would have fallen apart anyway. Sometimes these kinds of things are no one's fault. It's a mutual heartbreak and when it needs to happen, it needs to happen.

"You know, y/n, I don't feel too bad about losing you to him."

You furrow your brows at his comment, your voice cracking slightly when you speak, "what do you mean? He was just saying all that stuff. Pea doesn't love me."

Jughead rolls his eyes and glances quickly at Sweet Pea before walking closer to you. You can tell he doesn't want him to hear what he's about to say.

"Y/n that boy is in over his head. It's a feeling I can relate very much to but listen to me," his eyes capture yours in a serious stare, "he's going to treat you better than I ever could. He's not going to leave you in dangerous situations or bail on plans. Can't you see he'd take a bullet for you?"

Your heart races at his words and you spare a glance at Sweet Pea. He's already looking at you, the worry back in his mesmerizing eyes. He raises an eyebrow at you, pulling a smile to your lips. Maybe Jughead is right. Maybe you love Sweet Pea as more than a best friend.

Looking at him now, his tanned skin glowing under the dim lights and his dark brown hair pushed behind his ears, there's no doubt in your mind that you're attracted to him. Sweet Pea has always looked handsome in your eyes, even after a fight with purple bruises staining his face. You think back to all the times he's been there when you needed him most. That boy drops whatever he's doing when you call; no matter if you're just bored or looking for someone to nap next to he’s there next to you. You've always felt at home when you're with him. Hell, you have a drawer in his room devoted to your clothes.

Sweet Pea loves you and you're pretty damn sure that you love him too.

Turning back to Jughead, you nod your head, "I'd take one for him too."

"Good. I think I'll leave now. Thanks for everything, y/n," Jughead pulls you into one last hug before heading out the door.

You pull Sweet Pea's jacket tighter around you as you walk back towards him. He gathers you once more into his chest and you let the last of your tears fall. There will never be a time when parting isn't such sweet sorrow. It's the beginning of something new but also the end of something that you once thrived on. However, wrapped completely in Sweet Pea's scent, you've never felt like you belonged somewhere so much.

"Ready to go home baby?"

"Yeah Pea. Let's go home."

#Sweet Pea #sweet pea riverdale #sweet pea x reader #sweet pea x you #sweet pea x y/n #sweet pea imagine #riverdale #riverdale imagine #jughead jones #riverdale series #reader insert

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razorblade180 · 3 years

Text

Interdimensional Moms: part 1

Intro <-

Yang:So how we doin this? Drawing straws or... well we actually don’t have straws here so-

Weiss:It’s obvious that you wanna go first.

Blake:Extremely obvious.

Ruby:All over your face.

Yang:Hey now, don’t call me out like that! We all have so much to sort out here. I don’t even know where to begin. Differences could start and stop anywhere for all we really know.

Blake:From what it seems, Beacon itself would have one or two minor changes, but the real changes start after the fall. At least, for you three that is.

Weiss:You saying you’re different?

Blake:Unless you three started going on dates with Jaune at Beacon, then yes, I’m different.

RWY:(They’ve been together that long!?)

Yang:Okay, starting from Beacon...nothing really stands out too much. Jaune and I were just friends. *cringes* Back then, a certain faunus caught my eye.

Blake:Ah...right. I guess that tracks in practically every universe.

RW:Oh yeah it does. You two are joined at the hip.

Yang:Haha, really? Glad to hear it. My Blake and I are best buds! Remnant has never seen such a dynamic duo! Can’t say it didn’t take a lot of time effort after a rough patch. We actually dated in my world.

Blake:Same.

Yang:What!? How long?

Blake:I don’t know, it was pretty on again off again.

Yang:Well for me it was after Haven. Both of us had gotten pretty serious. All the growing we’ve done together and apart had brought us closer. However, Adam unintentionally put a wedge between us. His attempt to change and the problems that came with it were-

Yang stopped midway and saw the confused faces of her otherworldly teammates. They were shocked, confused even. Especially Blake, who looked the most shocked of all.

Yang:Umm did I say something odd?

Blake:Adam, he...isn’t dead?

Yang:Oh, well I guess that’s the start of the major changes then. Blake and I fought Adam at Argus. Stabbed him through the chest and watched him fall down rocks into a river.

Ruby:That lines you with my world. Dude died that day. Like any normal person should.

Yang:Well Adam is anything but fucking normal. Man has the craziest luck. A young women, the winter maiden in fact, she saved his life. She’s not exactly normal either. The maiden, Jacquelyn, ended up sticking by him to see if she could change his ways. This naturally meant we’d run into them again. And that’s how things fell apart.

Blake:What do you mean?

Yang:You were fully committed to seeing if Adam could actually change. I wasn’t, so we constantly butted heads in any situation involving him. Then we would fight about things that had nothing to do with at all. Eventually, we broke it off. We remained on decent terms but I was pretty heartbroken about the disconnect. Enter our lovable blonde idiot. Jaune did everything in his power to cheer me up.

Weiss:Sounds like him. Always such a bleeding heart. That boy just can’t help himself. Let me guess, his kindness and concern made you feel all warm and fuzzy?

Yang:Hehe, guilty. It was more of his willingness to laugh at my puns. Jaune’s always been interesting to talk to. He tries to act cool and calm even though he’s terrible at it, then comes clean right after. Before I knew it I was telling him things I hadn’t talked about with people before. I could tell he looked at me like most guys do, but also genuinely wanted to listen to me. Talk about playing unfair; he got defenseless. Suddenly I was smiling again. Anytime with him was time well spent. Then one day, I kissed him.

Ruby:Happily ever after?

Yang:Not even close! Hahaha!

Weiss:Why do you sound proud?

Yang:It’s funny looking back at it to a certain degree. Gods, I was such a brat. More than a few fights are on me. Between Blake, Raven, and other experiences, my insecurities flared up in ugly ways over nothing. It even got us to break up too. I was officially done with dating. My Ruby was out in an uncomfortable position.

Ruby:I bet! I’d never want you two fighting. Especially in my world. Picking between the person I love and my sister!? I don’t know what will happen.

Yang:I kinda do. *sets up* You’d start dating Jaune because you’ve looked at him since Beacon. The two of you would confide in each other and share a special kind of love, but it would be bittersweet. All because your sister still pines for him and never met to make him leave, and Jaune never says it, but he hates how things fell apart. He’s faithful to you and would never do you wrong, a guy to truly cherish. So... you let him go. Watch him walk back to your sister like you asked, because my happiness was worth that much to you.

Ruby:....

Yang: In my world at least. Honestly it’s still the most amazing thing I’ve seen you do. We must’ve cried over that conversation for hours. I felt so guilty and you only smiled, hugging me tight. Jaune and I had a few more stumbles. Nothing serious though. Eventually we moved in together when the world was saved. You and Oscar got together officially which made me happy. Even made our weddings a competition of who’d make dad bawl his eyes out the most. You won by the way; Raven came back into our family and into dad’s arms. Last but not least I had a baby. Yujin Xiao Long, my fucking pride and joy from above.

Weiss:Wow, that’s a lot.

Blake:What am I doing? Did I marry Sun?

Yang:Yep. You and blondes Blake, I tell ya.

Weiss:Hold the phone! Who am I with!?

Yang:Pretty sure you’re technically single. Buuuut, Neo and your have gotten pretty friendly from what I managed to interrogate out of you.

Weiss:That’s, highly unexpected. For a number of reasons.

Yang:Better believe it. Besides Cinder, a few crazies, and Salem, a few people made something of themselves. Dying sucks after all.

Ruby:You have a dead Cinder?

WBY: You don’t?

Ruby:*crosses arms* Hmph, I’ll wait my turn. Yang, you said you’re the only mother from our team. If Blake and I have been married for quite some time then what, we don’t want kids?

The joyful sunshine from Yang slipped into grayer skies. Her smile faded and it increasingly got harder to look at this Ruby without thinking of her own.

Yang:Are you sure that’s something you wanna know? I’ll tell you, but I didn’t want to bring down the mood with the problems where I from.

Blake:Problems? How big of a problem.

Yang:The biggest we’ve faced. It’s...a lot.

Ruby:Well we’ve listened this far. *takes hand* Lay it on us.

Yang:Pfft, oh boy. So...umm...another secret war came up. One that caused us to leave our friends and family for over a decade.

Weiss:A decade!?

Blake:What gets worse after Salem!? Who tries anything after a grimm queen!?

Yang:So a majority of Remnant was still unaware of her, but a fight like that can only be kept under wraps so tightly. Plenty of people still learned fractions of the truth. A few of those people weren’t exactly nice guys. They idolized her efforts and became her followers that wanted to keep her will alive, starting with taking revenge on the people who defeated her. We were so unaware. So caught up in normalcy. They ambushed us, and I mean everyone. We...we didn’t come out unscathed. Ren was crippled badly. Weiss, you almost your brother. Jaune’s family got hit but thankfully lived. The real casualties were aimed to hurt Ruby.

Ruby:Oh, of course. S-So, either you’re about to say I had no time to start a family, or...

Yang:...

Yang:When I tell you the look you made when you learned what happened to Oscar, to Qrow... that’s the moment it felt like my little sister left forever. Till this day you don’t smile like you used to. Very recently, now that it’s finally over, you’ve started looking better, but those ten years were hell. We choose to go out and fight again, avoiding contact with family. I haven’t had a real opportunity to be in my daughters life.

Ruby:How old is she?

Yang:Sixteen soon. Left her when she was four so you know. *tearing up* I missed everything. Just about anyways. Ironically it was Raven and Adam that helped her through the years with Jaune and Dad. Eventually we came back and ooohh boy was Yujin not thrilled in the slightest. Hehehe. Her right hook is really strong. I only had about a week with her before things got complicated again. *wipes eyes* But it’s okay. We left on good term. Something I definitely don’t feel like I deserve.

Blake:I can’t believe a thing like that would be possible.

Yang:Cults are a huge problem in Remnant now. You’re definitely aware of that. You actually oversee a little group from the shadows to deal with them in secret. An idea you got from experience. Adam works for you and everything. Hate to admit, but he’s become the guy you wanted him to be. Even has a family. I’m grateful to him. He personally kept my girl safe.

Blake:To think I’d hear you say that. Now I know this isn’t my world.

Yang:Don’t get me wrong, I still will hit him if given the chance. My life hasn’t been charmed and sacrifices too great were happening way too many times but it finally has gotten to a point where everyone feels like we’re taking steps towards a better future.

Weiss:Moving forward?

Yang:Yes, I was trying to avoid the phrase but yes Weiss, we’re moving forward. Still... *looks at Ruby*....

Ruby:W-What?

Yang:It’s unreal seeing you like this. My Ruby has become so strong and endured but hasn’t really picked herself up completely. All her tragedy stemmed from the loss of Oscar and Qrow; her last talk with Oscar was fight about kids too. That’s the entire reason she went off alone in the first place. Looking at you I can’t help but question my own choices. If...I just let her stay with Jaune, then maybe-

Ruby:Nope.

Yang:Huh?

Ruby:Look, if I know anything about your world, then it’s gonna be me and I can tell you without a doubt your Ruby doesn’t blame or would consider her own happiness without you. She loved you enough to take the chance to find love again. You really think there’s anything you could’ve done differently at that point. That girl is as stubborn as they come! *smiles* So buck up cowgirl. You deserve it.

A sense of warmth came over Yang as she heard those words. This other Ruby smiled at her with the same love as her own; completely caring about Yang’s feeling before her own. Yang felt so...unburdened. She couldn’t help but cry a little, laughing softly as she did. Who would’ve thought love could transcend worlds? It was so vindicating, therapeutic even.

Yang:Ruby, you’re something else entirely, you know that?

Ruby:It’s my curse. All I ever wanted was normal knees but the world said “no, special eyes!”

Yang:Well I guess I should thank the world then?

Weiss:You said your Ruby is getting better? That’s good. Still, it must be pretty weird looking at Jaune. Can’t imagine how lonely it must feel losing a love twice.

Blake:It never numbs.

Yang:Geez you two, lighten up. We can’t all be depressed. Ruby also didn’t lose Jaune. Actually....there may or may not have been an interesting...arrangement for a brief period of time.

Ruby:Ehhh what?

Yang:Hehehe well, hahaha, ummmm a decade is a very long time without feeling any kind of pleasure in a bleak situation. And you know me, I have to share things with you all my life.

Ruby:OH MY GOD!!!

Blake:*grinning* Yooooo! You loaned out Jaune!?

Weiss:That’s....accurate; in a lot of ways.

Ruby:That’s so scandalous! How could you!?

Yang:I didn’t force it! I gave the option, you said no, then you changed your mind because things got real stressful. Like come on, a decade of death and loneliness.

Ruby:Sigh...yeah. I can see it. Still, it’s so filthy. He’s a married man. What, so I’d just look at you and say “Yang I’m gonna sleep with Jaune, don’t come in the room.”

Yang:....

Ruby:What?

Yang:....Nothing.

Ruby:Bullshit! What is it!?

Yang:*scratches head* Well, I was lonely too, and a week is only so long-

Weiss:Oh so it was a group thing!!?

Ruby:WHAT!?

Yang:Only sometimes!

Ruby:SOMETIMES!?

Blake:HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! THAT IS AMAZING!

Ruby:Why are you laughing!?

Blake:Because that’s just so extreme, and not, all at the same time. I could totally see that happening.

Weiss:Same. Dang, Jaune slept with sisters. That’s dangerously close to being like your dad.

Ruby:That’s different!

Blake:Is it though?

Yang:Eh, I don’t see the problem. We’re all grown and make choices. Plus I’m the one who guided you through awkward teenage changes. It not like we didn’t share a room for years.

Ruby:That doesn’t make it okay.

Yang:Eh debatable.

Ruby:*red* It isn’t though! How could I do something so bold!? So taboo!?

Weiss:It isn’t like you’re the one who did it. Just a version of you.

Ruby:Not better!

Yang:Awwww it’s okay Ruby. Let’s hug it out. Hehehe *opens arms*

Ruby:Don’t touch me!

Weiss and Blake laugh until their sides hurt as Ruby tries escaping the bear hug that terrorized her. Yang’s world found interesting for sure. Weiss finally decides to help Ruby out.

Weiss:Got a picture of Yujin?

Yang’s eyes lit up and pulled out her scroll. Her team huddled around her and collectively cooed like that parents they are at the sight of a blonde young girl with gorgeous blue eyes with a black combat school graduation cap and gown and a certificate proudly raised up high. If it wasn’t for those eyes and shoulders length hair, they might’ve mistaken her for Yang.

Yang:She’s going to Beacon early because she’s fucking awesome like her mom.

Ruby:I think you mean her aunt?

Yang:I know what I said.

Weiss:I bet she’s just as hardheaded.

Blake:What do you think your kid is up to right now?

Yang: Well...*smiles*

xxxx

The girl in question sat at a work bench with oil on her face and her hands busy tinkering with gauntlets. She looked over at blueprints in a journal. If they were right, then she was definitely doing something wrong. How her mother made something so complex was crazy!

Yujin:Come on Yujin. You can fix a car, making gauntlets into a sword that don’t break should be easy!

Footsteps came up from behind her and a plate stacked with sandwiches. She looked up and smiled at her dad that gave her a wink, then kissed her forehead.

Jaune:Haveing fun, you grease monkey.

Yujin:Jokes on you, I like monkeys. Just a few more attempts and I’ll have the coolest weapon in Remnant. That entrance exam is as good as aced.

Jaune:Not if you don’t have a landing strategy. Tomorrow we’re going on a trip.

Yujin:Does it happen to be near a cliff?

Jaune:Who can say? Rule one of being a huntsman, be prepared for everything.

He ruffled her hair and left, laughing evilly. Yujin could tell he’s been waiting for this day. She pulled out her scroll and searched through a collection of videos labeled “mom” and found a super early one. She hit play and watched her mother give a peace sign to the camera as trees increasingly got closer from below.

Yang:Beacon rules!!!! Wooohooo!

The camera flipped and focused on a familiar blonde flailing through the air like a doll in the distance.

Yang:Oof, hate to be that guy! Wait, that’s vomit boy! Hahah, hope he survives. He owes me shoes. Poor dude. I guess he needs more training in flirting and landing. Wait, eugh I think he barfed again! Hahaha!

Jaune:Stop watching that one!!!!

Yujin:Hahaha but it’s the best one. The ending is priceless.

Jaune: *walks back down*

Yang:Well if he survives this I guess I can off him at least I can offer him mints and company. Fake it to ya make Jaune. Between me and Ruby, at least you’ll look like a player. Heh, nah, I don’t think I can support a bunny onesie.

Yujin and Jaune:*grinning* And then she did! *high-fives* Arc charm, baby!

#rwby #rwby au #jaune arc #ruby rose #weiss schnee #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #rwby dragonslayer #yujin xiao long #rwby lasting embers

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comradekatara · 3 years

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here's your excuse to tell about arnook and pakku if you still want to, you're welcome. there isn't much discussion about these two for some reason. i will devour everything and anything you have to say, your blog is a blessing

lol this message is 7 months old (and i received multiple others like it) in response to something i offhandedly mentioned in a tag on a post i can no longer find, but yeah the gist of it is i think about the northern water tribe a lot. we only spend 3 episodes there (the first season is more about getting there than it is about exploring the nwt itself; it’s the journey not the destination or whatever), but those 3 episodes are some of the most compelling in the entire show, at least to me. of course, i’m biased, because katara & sokka are my favorite characters (shhh don’t tell aang & toph), not to mention yue is my favorite minor character (shhh don’t tell mai & ty lee), and these episodes allow them to shine in really special ways. so i often find myself contemplating what would happen after the war ends, in terms of katara & sokka’s relationship to arnook, pakku, yue, and the tribe as a whole.

as you probably know, i am a big proponent of #fuck them comics (to be clear, because the themes presented are antithetical to what draws me to the show in the first place, not because the art style is ugly. i repeat, it is not because the art style is hideous and makes sokka look like a buffonish cheshire cat. obviously), and book 2 of lok is just.... a whole mess, so i choose not to consider these instances of – ahem – paratext canon. i am well aware that colonialism and industrialization are forces that cannot simply be stopped by the efforts of a couple of angry [indigenous] kids, only wait. katara literally did that already. time and time again. i find it hard to believe that she would allow colonialism in her southern water tribe. so excuse me if i’m not buying it!

i think that instead, if katara and sokka are going to be in conflict with the northern water tribe, it would be at the source. as de facto world leaders (katara as (future) chief of the swt, sokka as .... holistic problem-solver), they would have to visit the northern water tribe eventually, as much as they would be reluctant to return to this site of injustice and trauma. not to mention that aang and zuko both experienced great traumas here as well (aang becoming the ocean spirit and causing mass destruction against his own volition, zuko nearly dying and watching zhao die) so upon their visit they too would be provoked to confront their demons. since sokka would naturally have reservations about the man, i think they would first approach arnook wrt striking an alliance between nations, since it would (ostensibly) no longer be in their best interest to remain isolationist (i doubt they’d be changing their minds on that without the avatar’s influence, since they didn’t even send aid to the south during the entirety of the war. no shade tho lol).

realistically, i don’t think that katara being allowed to train with pakku would herald some overnight feminist shift. certain women being granted exceptions is not productive feminism, and it’s certainly not equality. upon returning to the north pole for the first time since the war’s end, katara would witness this and be outraged. unlike her first visit, she would no longer have any compunctions about “causing a scene” (not that she had many to begin with), and i like to think know to be true that she would incite feminist revolution. because, that’s what she does. i really don’t buy that pakku read his bell hooks and finally won his way into kanna’s heart, because, while most of the time i laud the nuanced representation of gender in atla, that shit was written by men! (by “that shit” i specifically mean the scene in “sozin’s comet: the old masters” when katara congratulates him for marrying her gran gran. bc uhhhhh.....fuck no.) even if pakku had traveled all the way to the south pole, found kanna, proposed to her, and she accepted out of some resigned loneliness (an extremely bleak thought), the second her babies (katara, sokka, hakoda) return home she is dumping his raggedy ass, and he is returning to the north pole in shame (when asked, he says he helped with the rebuilding effort, but his home is here. no one questions it). so pakku proves kind of a roadblock for katara, as well as pretty much all the other men in the tribe, who make it their mission to passive-aggressively demean and belittle her. but the women of the nwt band together, and many of them become katara’s first waterbending pupils, returning to the south pole with her after katara is thoroughly satisfied with the progressive legislative change she enacted.

as for sokka, his unfinished business with the north is more internal. i think arnook would really respect sokka, constantly showering him in paternal affection and placing in him unconditional (and (what sokka considers to be) unearned) trust. which really, really bothers sokka, because in his eyes, arnook gave him one (1) job, and he failed spectacularly. no matter that there was nothing sokka could have done differently, that it was zhao’s action, and yue’s choice (not that she really had a choice, but still); in “the swamp” we see that sokka carries that guilt of not having protected yue, and arnook, a father figure much like hakoda in many ways, tasked sokka with protecting her, similar to how hakoda told sokka it was his mission to protect katara. we know that is not a request sokka takes lightly. yue sacrificed herself because sokka could not save her, period, end of story. at least in his eyes. sokka has a debilitating fear of disappointing father figures, despite father figures historically adoring sokka, so his relationship with arnook would be.....extremely fraught, to say the least. especially if, on the offchance hahn survived (doubtful. he probably drowned in frozen water immediately), yue’s bitter ex-fiance is in the picture, and steamed as hell that he was forced to give up his opportunity to become the future chief (which begs the question, who does become chief? does arnook have another viable heir?). and of course, there’s sokka’s relationship with yue herself, which, as i have mentioned before (on many an occasion) is not (necessarily) the relationship one has to a dead loved one. we see aang talk to yue in the show, and we have no reason to believe that sokka wouldn’t find a way to communicate with her again. but you know what? that’s for another time...

as for aang and zuko (respectively), their relationship to the northern water tribe has less to with the people and culture there, and more about the traumatic events that transpired. i think setting foot in the north pole (which is ultimately unavoidable, unfortunately) would be pretty triggering for both of them. aang becoming a vessel for mass violence, and literally everything that happens to zuko in the “siege of the north” episodes, are extremely traumatic events that would resurface in their psyches once they returned there. (i think sokka would also apologize to zuko for voting to leave him for dead, even though zuko would be like “don’t be stupid there’s no need to apologize for that.”) ultimately, i think the northern water tribe—its politics, cultural & spiritual worldbuilding, characters, and all the nuances in between—is really compelling and ripe for further exploration. but no i don’t think abt this a lot why do u ask

#finally answered this! woo! time to delete the 5 other asks in my inbox that all say the same exact thing lmao #arnook #pakku #katara #sokka #katara&sokka #aang #zuko #arnook&sokka #hahn #kanna #yue #ok idk who else to tag lmao #asks #mariehuanna

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