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iwannawritelots · 2 years

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Jewel of the Heavens

Originally written May 2022

Masterlist

Genre: um. I don’t really… know…? I wanted to say “coming of age” lmao but that’s not really it

Ship(s): none active here

Trigger/content warnings: physical familial aggression, very brief sexual harassment towards the end (not performed by or directed at main characters), talk of sex but nothing NSFW, violence, murder

Headcanons/notes from the author: Asmodeus is done dirty in-game and I will die on this hill. This is written to be almost directly after the Great Celestial War. Satan is only briefly mentioned a few times but he’s a toddler here.

Brief Blurb: Asmodeus is having trouble adjusting to life and his new title in the Devildom.

The table had gone silent, and all eyes were on Asmodeus. None of them really knew what triggered the tears rolling down his face. Sometimes he could be unpredictable, but this time they were at a complete loss. Why was he crying? Sure, they were having a heated conversation previously, but it wasn’t nearly as rough as it could have been. “Asmodeus…?” Lucifer furrowed his eyebrows, watching his brother’s face. “Asmodeus, why are you upset?”

Instead of answering, Asmo stood up and left the dining room. Since when did he ignore Lucifer? “Jeez, why’s he bein’ such a baby?” Mammon muttered, resuming his attention on his food. “He’ll probably ignore us the rest of the night, too…”

Unease settled in Lucifer’s chest, but he pretended it wasn’t there as he continued to eat. It couldn’t be as bad as his body was telling him it was. Every fiber of his being wanted him to get up and follow Asmodeus, ask him to talk, comfort him, anything… but he didn’t even know where to start. What had transpired in the squabbling that set him off? He only half understood what was being said in his exhausted state.

The next morning, Asmodeus didn’t speak a word to any of them. He didn’t even acknowledge their existence and skipped breakfast altogether, instead going straight to R.A.D. early. There was no way he could contain his frustrations towards them, especially since he didn’t get any sleep the night before. His entire brain felt like it was sloshing from anger and sadness, but he had no way to release it. There was nothing he could do except force himself to be quiet.

When he sat down for his first class, he couldn’t help but be irritated by the noise around him. Was it always this loud? His head felt fuzzy as he bore holes into the desk. His desk partner sat with him, and he startled at the noise. “Asmodeus, you seem different.” He avoided eye contact, mumbling something unintelligible. “I apologize, I can’t understand you.”

Wincing and huffing, Asmodeus spoke a bit louder. “I am fine, Lord Barbatos.”

The butler made a small chuckle. “Just Barbatos is alright.” They very softly laid a hand on Asmo’s back, watching his body language. “I understand you may still feel overwhelmed by the changes in your life, but there’s no need to address me so formally. I am merely a butler.”

The Infernal was slowly turning into mush in Asmodeus’ head. Why couldn’t they speak celestial tongue in the Devildom? Stupid demons… “I… I don’t understand.” After glancing around themself, Barbatos leaned close to Asmodeus’ ear and repeated their words again in celestial tongue. “O-Oh…”

Going back to their original position, Barbatos gave Asmodeus a gentle smile. Before either of them could say anything, the teacher began that day’s lecture. While Asmodeus was having trouble understanding, Barbatos was taking notes in celestial writing and Infernal. At the end of class, Barbatos gave him their notes. “It’s in celestial writing and Infernal for you. I already know everything anyway.”

“A-Ah… thank you.” Asmodeus dipped his head as he took the paper.

“Not a problem, Asmodeus.”

Barbatos left, and Asmo noticed his body was much less on edge than when he had arrived in class. After putting the notes in his bag, he hurried to his next class. Unfortunately, none of his classes had anyone willing to help him with Infernal, so he had to make do for the rest of the day.

Despite Barbatos’ kindness that morning, Asmodeus was on the verge of a breakdown after the school day was over. What was he supposed to do with himself like this? Everyone was giving him attention, but it wasn’t genuine. It was purely because they thought he was beautiful, and his status as the new avatar of lust only made him more interesting for demons wanting no-strings-attached release. Somehow, it felt no different compared to the celestial realm. He was beautiful, and that was all that mattered. They called him the jewel of the heavens…

Asmodeus went straight to his bedroom once he arrived home, ignoring the small, blond toddler yelling at him for attention. He felt a bit guilty, but he lacked the patience that was required to properly take care of Satan for the moment. He threw off his uniform jacket with a huff, then kicked off his shoes and made his way into his personal bathroom. After locking the door, he leaned against it and sunk to the floor.

A tear rolled down his cheek, then another, and soon enough he was sobbing. He buried his face in his hands in attempt to muffle the noise, despite no one being around to hear his cries. Nothing felt right. Everything was messed up, his heart ached and his head throbbed with pain. Just thinking about the cause of his situation made him wish Lilith never went to the human world in the first place.

It wasn’t only Lilith, though. He and Belphegor would go down there, too. Perhaps even the others…

A loud wail left him as he recalled every time Michael punished him for being vain… but wasn’t his beauty the only value he had? Nobody liked hearing him talk about his interests. Nobody liked to see his art or hear him sing. They would listen, but all they wanted was to stare at him and take in his beauty.

Did he even have value?

The spiraling in his mind was interrupted by someone knocking on the door. He startled and crawled away from it while forcing himself to stop crying. “Asmo?”

“Wh-What do you want, Mammon?” he attempted to snap, but sounded more like a kicked puppy.

“Well… you’ve avoided everyone all day. If somethin’s wrong, ya can’t expect us to just guess, y’know?”

Sniffling, Asmodeus wiped his face and responded, “I don’t care.”

A sigh from the other side of the door. “Azzy…”

“Go away. I’m not very pretty right now.” His voice faltered a bit, but the plea seemed to work; Mammon’s footfalls indicated he had left the door. Sighing and pushing his tears away, Asmodeus stood up and went to go look in his cabinets.

;

That night, Asmodeus had gussied himself up for an outing. He was double checking that he was presentable in the mirror when Lucifer barged in without knocking. Sighing and rolling his eyes, Asmodeus locked his gaze with Lucifer’s. “What is it, big brother?”

“You should be practicing your Infernal,” Lucifer stated plainly, just barely masking his own struggle with he language. He watched Asmo shake his head and resume looking at himself in the mirror. “Asmodeus.”

“What?” It came out harsher than Asmodeus intended, but it may have just been the nature of Infernal’s sound.

“It’s late. Why are you all prettied up?”

Only half understanding, Asmodeus told Lucifer in celestial tongue, “I can’t understand Infernal very well yet. If you want to have a conversation with me, then wait until I do.”

Growling, Lucifer came to Asmodeus’ side and grabbed him by the bicep, then forced him to face him. “What is wrong with you?” he spat in celestial tongue. “If I didn’t know better, I would have thought you were Mammon with the way you are speaking to me.”

“You are so ridiculously full of pride, now. I thought it was bad before, but this? I can’t even be a little upset with you before you fly off the handle.” Lucifer’s eyes widened, and he subconsciously tightened his grip on Asmodeus. A small, pained squeak escaped him, and he averted his gaze from Lucifer. “Y-You’re hurting me…”

“Apologize.”

“L-Lucifer—” Asmodeus wailed in agony when his brother’s fingers dug into him. “I-I’m sorry…”

“Good.” Lucifer released him, then crossed his arms. “Now, what has gotten into you? If this is because of dinner last night, then you need to knock it off.”

Asmodeus didn’t dare look at Lucifer, resting a hand over where he was hurt. “I’m not doing anything wrong.”

“I beg to disagree,” Lucifer stated bitterly. “You have an awful attitude. You ignored everyone today, including Satan. You won’t study. You are neglecting your duties as the avatar of lust.”

“What duties do I have besides fucking random strangers?” Asmodeus demanded a bit less harshly than he wanted. “You’re the one who told me not to go out too much.”

Lucifer scowled and bared his teeth. “If you bothered to meet with Lord Diavolo or Lord Barbatos, then you would know.”

“They said it should come naturally, but the only thing I’ve naturally wanted to do is beat people’s faces in or fuck them senseless. What do you think I should do, Lucifer?” Asmodeus asked, now looking into Lucifer’s eyes. “Should I beat them up or have sex with them until they lose the ability to think? I don’t want to do either.” He pushed past Lucifer, only to be grabbed and pulled back. “Let go of me.”

“I told you to knock this off. You will not cause any trouble for us, do you hear me?” Lucifer gripped both of Asmodeus’ shoulders, not allowing him the freedom to move away. “If you cannot keep up your duties, then Lord Diavolo will punish you.”

His pride disallowed him to say how much he feared that.

“Let him, then.” Asmodeus felt tears welling up in his eyes. He didn’t like how forceful Lucifer had become in the months they had been in the Devildom. It scared him. “What does it matter, anyway? All you care about anymore is your image.”

“Asmodeus—!”

“Lucifer, what’re ya doin’!?”

The two turned their heads to stare at Mammon, who was hurrying over to them. He pulled Lucifer off of Asmodeus, who was visibly shaking. “Mammon—”

“Jus’ leave Asmo alone,” Mammon snapped, getting between Lucifer and his little brother. “He’s not adjustin’ to things very well, none of us are. Don’t take it out on him.”

There was a moment of silence, only broken by their breaths. After glancing between Mammon and the bruise Lucifer could see blooming on Asmodeus’ arm, he began to feel guilt building in his chest. Before he could argue despite the feeling, a loud, upset wail came from Satan down the hallway. “This isn’t over. I will speak with both of you later.”

The two watched Lucifer leave the room, then faced each other. “What are you, an idiot?” Asmo asked, eyebrows knitted. “If Lucifer isn’t lashing out at you, don’t involve yourself.”

“He’s bein’ an asshole,” Mammon stated. He paused, realizing the bruise on Asmo’s bicep. “Did he hurt you?”

“I don’t think it was on purpose,” Asmo mumbled, lifting his elbow to inspect it. “I was… provoking him.”

Sighing, Mammon shook his head. “He’s affected by his status enough to hurt ya? I don’t think the rest of us are…”

“That’s because we’re actively fighting against it,” Asmo muttered.

“Maybe…”

The two stood in silence for a while. It was comfortable, but the air was heavy with disappointment. “Soon enough… we’ll all be… completely sin.”

“That ain’t how it works,” Mammon insisted, crossing his arms. “We’ll still be us.”

“I don’t think so…” Asmodeus shook his head and sighed. “Whatever… I’m going to go out, so good luck with Lucifer.” He walked around Mammon, only for him to grab his shoulder.

“Asmo.” Before Asmodeus could say anything, Mammon pulled him into a tight hug. “Be safe.”

Sighing, Asmodeus shuffled around and hugged back. “Thanks… you too.”

;

The bar was filled with lively chatter and dancing couples, which Asmodeus felt slight jealously over. He had been talked at multiple times, but he didn’t give much more than a grunt. The urge to lash out at or make out with the people around him was infuriatingly difficult to handle. What was his duty? Why wouldn’t it show itself?

He swished his drink around in his hand, then stared at it. Pink, foamy, sparkling slush in his cup only made him frown. It wasn’t demonus, which was the only drink he knew by name. If it weren’t for Lucifer taking a liking to demonus, he probably wouldn’t know that by name either.

A frightened shriek came from a few tables away, and he instantly snapped his attention towards it. Three demons were attempting to force themselves on a much smaller, weaker one. For a moment, the stirring in his body made him feel sick. Why was he just watching?

When one of them ripped the smaller demon’s jacket off, Asmodeus’ body moved before he could think. He had appeared behind the three, demon form showing itself as he snarled and growled with disgust. Someone would really hurt another over lust? Demons really were evil.

The three who had been intending an atrocious act all stared at him with terror, mouths agape and tears building in their eyes. He didn’t know how to handle the pure wrath coursing through his veins. Growling, he grabbed one of the three by the throat, but he didn’t know Infernal well enough to threaten them with words. Instead, he dug his fingernails into their throat. Their agonized scream sent the corners of his lips upwards, and he could feel his heart brimming with joy.

The other two screeched and fled the bar, tripping over chairs on their way out. When the demon in front of him stopped squirming, he felt his body relax. He dropped them and licked the blood from his fingertips, not realizing the horrific smile on his face. The demon he had saved was shaking with fear, watching him as his breathing slowed into something normal.

When he finally calmed, he gently sat down with the trembling demon, then asked, “Are you okay?”

The demon nearly fainted hearing celestial tongue. Why was this demon speaking the language of angels? Was this an angel in disguise? What was going on? What happened? Did they die?

“Ah… you don’t understand.” Asmodeus hummed and rested his chin on the palm of his hand as he stared at them. “That’s okay. You don’t need to understand me.”

Was this the duty that Barbatos and Lord Diavolo meant would come naturally?

Asmodeus didn’t even feel the whole bar staring at him. He continued speaking in celestial tongue despite the terror being struck into the demons around him from the sound. “Lord Diavolo said that we all had duties that would come naturally. Do you think this was what he meant? To punish those who torture others with our sin?” He sighed and stood, realizing the situation when multiple demons around him flinched from his actions.

It seemed like something out of a fairytale, because everyone kept their eyes on him despite the fear. They all seemed so entranced by his actions, but it felt no different than before. He scoffed at the thought of them staring at him for his beauty. What else would they be staring for? Being a fallen angel was more of a curse than he expected.

Asmodeus left the bar, unaware that his title of Jewel of the Heavens held a new meaning.

#🌱#darlingqueue #asmodeus #lucifer #mammon #barbatos #obey me! one master to rule them all #obey me! shall we date?#obey me!#obey me #omomtrta #omswd #om #fanfiction #fanfic #darlingficsbycinna #iwannawritelots

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wingingitonwheels · 2 years

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Life part 2…and inspiration

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” – Bernard M. Baruch

Where to start? Given how much time I have spent inside my own head over the past 4 months, if only there were some device that could record your thoughts and churn them into meaningful text. I’ve sat down to start this blog update 3 times over the last week, and it’s a common pattern. I start, and then am somehow distracted. Add into this the super long days that seem to have developed in the USA, and the daily battles with the weather, and finally, the overall accumulative fatigue of 4 months of cycling, typing on an iPhone becomes a challenge.

I’ve had so many amazing thoughts as I’ve pedalled highways and byways, but ask me to recall them, now that I am just one day and one ride away from the end of this journey, and you’ll be lucky if I recount even 2%. Instead you’ll get what’s most present in my head. Sorry about that!

When I’ve read books of adventurers, particularly those that I mentioned right at the beginning of this journey, the majority I recall talk less about emotion and more about logistics or achievement, and less about what happened on the way, who they met, how they felt. I went to see Rannulph Fiennes before I came out, and was struck how much he talked factually and without reference to emotion. Mark Beaumont too. Ben Fogle is much more emotional, and to some extent, Anna McNuff. I have never really understood this. My dad wrote about his incredible stories too, but again, no emotion. So, having now done my own relative adventure and being able to reflect, I can see that for me, as I have become more focussed and also more tired as the days have turned into months, far from being more emotional, I have almost become a machine, where emotion could be seen as disruptive. Don’t think too deeply about things as you risk becoming mentally weaker and therefore less focussed or able to complete what you set out to achieve, either because you made a mistake or the emotions are so great you lose sight of the goal. It’s like my body has taken over and my mind has switched off. It’s been at least a month since I’ve been able to do a Wordle 😆

Apart from being focused and completely zombiefied at the end of each day, it’s perhaps then easy to see why I’ve not been able to sit down and write and share with you so much of the latter stages of my journey. And today, suddenly, a shorter day, an epiphany that tomorrow, it’s all over, and the emotional floodgates have opened up.

A few days ago, when it was agreed with my dad that he wasn’t going to make it to Vancouver, I felt sad, that the direction and end had no point, and that had I known this from the outset, before I got on the plane to Argentina, I would have planned things very differently. I would have only ridden in South America for a start, and the USA, although my original dream of cross continent, hatched back in 2006/7 when I first got into cycling, would have remained just that: a dream. I also didn’t plan to ride at all from coast to coast on this trip, rather, had planned to ride just the Rockies. But fate intervened and a tummy bug, cold and three cancelled flights accompanied by the added hassle of multiple Covid tests meant I instead opted to abandon my flight to San Diego and ride an additional 1700 miles (as it eventually turned out to be) from Fort Lauderdale. It only occurred to me today that I had accidentally achieved my coast to coast dream, USA end to end.

It seems crazy to me now writing that I left you all in Moab, after a hideous day’s riding, ready to ride Arches National Park. I stayed at a hostel there and met some fascinating people, who seemed happy with life and not at all materialistic. Sunny Jam, a rock climber, funded his passion through a long time ago computer program he had written for Microsoft, and off the back of that was still contracted by them to do pieces of work. Then Brian: he is basically an explorer in his 60s, trying to make his way back to Asia but also looking to establish a permanent home away from New York. His hobby? Cartography! Then there were the women from Alaska with purple hair, who whilst they fulfilled a dream of coming to Utah, decided it was way too dusty and hot ans just wanted to get home. And a young couple of serious trekkers, who’d previously hiked the Pacific Crest Trail and now the Arizona Trail. Kit from Rutland and her boyfriend Once from New Zealand.

Whilst I also fulfilled a dream of cycling through Arches (other than Colorado Springs the only other fixed place on my original plan when the USA became real), I found the ride into Moab more breathtaking. I feel now that I’m glad that I didn’t at this time see all the other national parks I’d planned to see. And the reason? It’s all laid out for you and full of people: look here, drive there, come and see and do what everyone else is doing and see what you’ve seen in books and magazines such as National Geographic. Nothing wrong with that, but for me, day after day, the wonders that came my way were the ones I didn’t know were coming. To name a few, whilst riding into Moab was one, riding out of Moab and into the desert was another. The route 93 after passing through the gates of hell, and being blown clean off my bike near Atomic City, between Mackay and to North Forks was a cyclist’s dream: no cars and a stunningly beautiful valley lined with snow-capped mountains. The road that hugged Lake Couer D’Alene and the 50 mile cycle trail I found myself on that crossed a huge never ending watery landscape, and the pub at the far end “One Shot” with its lovely bar maid who was just the sweetest in her dungarees and two little knotted buns. I ended up like for South America, in towns that no one, not even Americans, knew existed and came across some real gems and horrors for beds for the night, in total, 38 paid for and 3 where I was hosted.

I am so lucky to have had friends and acquaintances that have become friends to meet up in the second half of the USA. Larry and his wife Judy are two such people, and through them, I got to meet 3 more: Celeste, Dixie and Jeff. Larry should be an inspiration to every ageing person from 21 and above. At 78, he is a local hero, and has not lost a time trial he’s entered since picking up a road bike in 2006. Celeste is equally inspiring. At 62, she kicks probably everyone’s backside from aged 30 and up, male or female. Jeff, cycling now for four years, looks 20 years younger than his 65 years. Dixie surprised the hell out of me when she told me having just completed the Ironman world champs, was a grandmother and 57. Judy, just the kindest soul you could meet, supports Larry wholeheartedly, and dropped him off and picked him up an hour away from home, two days running so he could ride with me as I passed through. She also sewed up my failing cycling top, gave me a bed and dinner, and would have given me some of her amazing pottery had it been practical to carry it. Of all the dogs I met from southern Argentina to this point, I also fell in love with their son’s dog, Indy. Although I was a bit naughty in doing so, I let Indy sleep on the bed with me, and gave him cuddles all night. He was apparently heard whimpering the next night when I didn’t reappear…

I had a couple of run ins. The first mentioned already was the wind. Even with all the training I had in Patagonia with cross winds like nothing I’ve ever experienced, and the wind the whole way across the USA, one almighty gust took me clean off my bike. It wasn’t much fun, but what probably wound me up more than the bruises and pain I felt over the next few days was that at the time I fell, two motorists travelling in both directions saw me fall. I was 50 miles west or east from anything, and neither slowed down or stopped to see if I was ok. Day after day, most of the 41 stages of the USA, the wind was against me in a big way. I learnt that April and May are typically the windiest months in the USA, and this April and May are of course, the windiest on record.

The second run in I had was with a road construction boss which nearly led to an encounter with the county sheriff. Misinformed traffic controller sent me up the road, not knowing what to do with me, where I was blocked a mile later by boss woman in her pick up truck. She told me I had no choice but to put my bike in her pickup truck and she would have to take me 8 miles up the road where the roadworks ended and I could ride again. I tried reasoning with her could I walk on the grass, ride on the hard shoulder, walk on the hard shoulder, ride when the traffic wasn’t coming. She gave way to nothing. I did actually say: “what are you going to do, arrest me?” To that she picked up her phone and called the sheriff and said that might just happen. Whilst waiting for the sheriff to arrive, I did some map research and found an old highway, no longer maintained, running parallel to the new highway. If someone had just said this in the first instance, I’d have taken that route. I legged it, swearing at boss woman inaudibly, and went speedily on my merry way down the secret old Sunrise Highway. I was soooo tempted to just see what happened when the sheriff arrived. It was a very close call.

What I also learnt from my North American adventure is that just as sure as day follows night, a good day would follow a crappy day. The rewards typically came in the form of breathtaking scenery but ever so occasionally, the weather would come out to play. Most of the time from Colorado onwards I rode in full winter gear. But just as the closing days arrived, I was back in heaven in the shape of the North Cascades of Washington. Having been here before, I knew it had the potential of being great, but I got lucky, and the sun shone as I took a gamble and rode 141 miles from Brewster to Marblemount in a day, over Washington Pass, taking full advantage of a sunny warmish day. Although I’d been through the route in 2018, I feel like I must have had my eyes shut as I saw so much more this time. The beauty this time was probably accentuated by the snow accumulation on the peaks and at the sides of the road, over 6ft high, glistening in the sunshine, but still not melting. The pass had only been open a week so my timing was perfect. Descending to the west, as the road darted left and right, I’d hit sudden pockets of freezing air, which reminded me that although making it my 4th longest day distance wise and 2nd time wise, it was the right decision to go long, as the following day, today had been colder and wetter.

Reflections:

I purposely split south and North America as if they were different adventures, as getting my head round an ever increasing number of “stages” (days riding north) felt a little overwhelming. But mentally, I have to remind myself other than the small break moving from South to North America (6 days of no cycling, getting over a tummy bug and a cold, and waiting 5 days at airports), it is one adventure, for which I’ve covered around 8,500 miles, and ascended a total of around 110,000 metres. That is more elevation and distance than I’ve covered in any given 12 months of cycling.

Although the cortisone has finally worn off on my right knee, I am truly amazed at how effective it has been and that my knee and back and whole body held out. Mentally, there’s never been a point where I’ve thought “I just can’t do this” or even “I don’t want to do this”. There’s been plenty of times I’ve cursed at the weather, mainly the wind. I’ve got some war wounds. My thumbs are so cracked I’ve had to wear plasters when I’ve had them and they hurt at night. If it’s frost nip or a chillblain, my smallest right toe is soooo sore, I didn’t know what was going on with it. It still is, hurts to walk and hurts when I sleep. My bottom lip seems to have a life of its own, despite copious lip salve, I think exposure all day every day to all elements means I now have “adventurers lip” as I’m calling it…it’s tough and difficult to smile properly 😆. Although my back is stiff, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, although overall I need a bloody good massage. Even the tendons on my elbows are a little sore from being in a constant position of holding my bars and wearing my backpack. I may have had covid, which I think I picked up at a hostel, but given I spend pretty much all of my time in isolation, I don’t think I passed it on and what I had was mild, but enough to take me down energy wise for a few days. Getting tested when you’re a traveller on the move isn’t easy, and I did try. My pace has slowed, or it feels as if it has, but whilst I’m sure some of that is fatigue, I have got very lazy in inflating my tyres, and I think whilst I thought the clip on bars would be great, I didn’t use them as much as I hoped. The final bit that really will be grateful for a few days off the bike is my backside! Probably not in the areas you might think but I’ll leave that to your furtive imaginations.

In terms of kit, I’m on my 5th set of tyres, 4th set of cycle shorts, I’ve used the same cycling top since February 8th, I’ve worn the same trousers EVERY day since I left the UK on 21st January, I’m on my 3rd T-shirt (would have been second but left one in a hotel and sent one home with Mark). I’m on my 3rd and 4th pairs of knickers, second pair of socks and treated myself to a new pair of socks as my extra pair in Colorado Springs. I’ve thrown away a pair of thin cycling gloves, borrowed Gary’s amazing Rapha Merino hoodie and lobster gloves, on to my second pair of leg warmers (I lost one late in Peru), bought some overshoes and another pair of gloves. I also bought a new sports crop top just for a change. I’ve replaced one set of brake pads, one chain, damaged one brake lever and hood when I came off in the wind. I’m looking forward to binning the handlebar bag! Oh yes, I’m on my fourth pair of cycling shoes and second pair of trainers. I had 19 punctures, 13 in South America and the rest in USA (so far but the way I’m riding, I’m expecting at least one more tomorrow). Most puncture-ridden state: Utah. Windiest state: Kansas. Wettest state: Alabama. Warmest state: Florida.

People have asked me what have been my most memorable experiences. It’s so hard to answer this question, but I’ll try and put the words or places all into one long sentence:

Dogs, Gary, Linda, Thomas, Jeff, Elaine, Bill, Larry, Judy, Suzi, Lucia, Monica and Gustav, Edu, Gerardo, Penny, Joe, , Purmamarca, soaring condors, Patagonia, kindness of strangers, North Cascades, Moab, Route 93, Ruta 40, super rare tailwinds, The Ozarks, Peru. Being joined in my chorus of Movin on up as I sung and rode through Alabama.

All of the friends that weren’t here on the journey with me, but followed and encouraged me from beginning to end, I don’t know if you know how positively that helped me along, and kept me focused. I loved catching up with your comments and messages, and it is as much a lasting memory as the journey itself. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I genuinely hope that you did also get something from it, as well as being kind and thoughtful and supportive.

Finally, it’s time to get a bit cheesy. Throughout every second of every day, whenever I messaged or called, day or night, Mark has been there, waiting up until the small hours to make sure my tracker is still running and that I’m safe at the end of my day. He’s put me first every single time, and made Peru happen when I didn’t think it possible. How lucky am I? Hopefully when I get home, he will have a life again! Thank you Mark. What did I do to deserve you? What did you do wrong to get me? 🤣.

When I left for Argentina, life was quite challenging as far as it can be in our own various walks of life. I had big dental issues, my hair was falling out, I’d resigned from my job and finished on the same day I took my flight. On this journey, I was also trying to explore what I’d do next. I still don’t know! But I have people knocking on my door about positions that match my profile, so in that sense I’m very lucky! It’s fair to say that over 4 months, having stayed in around 110 different places of hospitality (hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, homes and fire trucks), I’ve seen many examples of good and not so good hospitality, acts of kindness and how people live. This is all great as a long time ago I said I wanted to open a sporty bed and breakfast, doing sports and remedial massage, it needs a coffee shop that also sells food and importantly, ice cream and jelly beans, and it might also have a bike mechanic attached and a big friendly dog. There’s that and then what next in the way of challenges? Who knows?

Thank you for being part of my biggest adventure ever. It’s all there for the taking. 🥰

Just the finish line in Vancouver to go…fingers crossed! 🙏

Oh and music:

Track that always got me singing: Movin on up: Primal Scream

Track that always made me feel emotional: Transformation by Cinematic Orchestra.

(And Deacon Blue because they were the soundtrack to my first adventure aged 18/19)

My Winging it on Wheels playlist (on Spotify)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1zLSJK85E9irLCIIEzmtrb?si=lKaPuQeXShSGQqdmfZNRsA

#Spotify

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ghastlyprose · 3 years

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Early Morning Reminiscing

Written for Iruka Week 2021 hosted by @iruka-week !

Day 1 Prompt: Scars

Rating: General

Characters: Umino Iruka, Hatake Kakashi

Pairing: Iruka/Kakashi

Tags: Light angst, scars, established relationship (but its not the focal point), Iruka-centric

Summary: Some scars are easier to heal than others.

Read Over On AO3!

A/N: First fanfic written in years! It’s a challenge to write for characters and worlds that are already established to some degree, but i still wanted to try my hand at it. Practice makes perfect and all that jazz. Unbetad, all mistakes are my own, sorry! Enjoy~

Scars were the result of many things. Of fun and love, of hardships and of loss.

Of surviving, always of surviving.

The day before had passed in a blur, almost imagined. Blurry eyes barely pierced the surface of reality, his mind suspended in a state of dissociation and the only thing keeping him relatively grounded was the touch of raised flesh that spanned against his nose and cheeks. He wasn’t the only one, this time being a somber time for most, but he wasn’t sure if he was happy or not to not be alone in his feelings.

He’d been sure to request the next day off months in advance. No matter how much older he’d gotten, October 10th was never easier to handle than the year before.

He awoke at his normal time, 6am, always too early, but he allowed himself the small comfort of staying in bed. Fingers curled around the edge of the blanket pulled up to his nose, absentmindedly skimming across the scar he’d been gifted when he was younger. Flashes of bright orange and blue danced behind eyelids held shut too tight, memories of scorching heat almost tangible enough to burn him some 15 years later. Blood curdling screams still rang deep in his ear and he bit his lip to hold back a sob, the small part of him in the present trying to convince himself he was shaking from the mid autumn chill sweeping gently passed half drawn curtains.

He wrenched his eyes open in an attempt to draw him back to the here and now, rapidly blinking his eyes to rid them of the tears that threatened to spill. He took comfort in the dark, knowing that when the sun began to rise, its fiery light would remind him all too much of what he tried desperately to forget.

He thought it rather pathetic that almost two decades later he was still on the verge of tears when thinking about that day. Fighting, death and destruction were all too commonplace in a world such as their own. He had his own fair share of scars besides the one. Small nicks and scrapes on his hands, a constant reminder of the fact that he woke up everyday to teach preteens how to be anything but, how to fight, how to kill. Even some keloids from tricky missions of his own or one scar long and gnarled whose phantom pain reminded him that trust in others can unfortunately be a fickle thing.

Be it from shuriken or kunai, fire or lightning, having scars was as natural as breathing to all shinobi and while it wasn't uncommon to remember the stories attached to them, you weren’t supposed to dwell. You weren’t supposed to shed tears until there were no more to shed years after events had passed. You were supposed to move on.

He could deal with the physical scars, he thinks. Once the pain of receiving them wears off, they’re easy to forget about until he caught a glimpse of them in a mirror or his fingers grazed over them just so while he washed. And even still, there was no shortage of scars marring the skin of those walking around the village so it was almost easy to become disillusioned to the importance of them. Instead of focusing on the addition of another notch made on skin, most people focused on the fact that they were fortunate enough to return to the village with those marks in the first place, another scar used to commemorate the fact that they had fought hard enough to live at least one more day.

It was the emotional scars that he hated most. The existence of the scar that spans the length of tan cheeks served more as a reminder of the things held inside his head, inside his heart. Loss is another thing all too common but losing loved ones leaves an ache that seems to never fade.

Scars formed from almost losing loved ones do the same, he thinks, as a mop of golden hair and a smile too bright for this world flashes in his eyes.

An arm slides around his waist, pulling him back into a warm embrace, fingers curling around the fabric of his shirt. He startles just so, having forgotten that he wasn’t alone, the warmth of the others' presence masked by thoughts too heavy for so early in the morning.

“You’re thinking too loud.” Kakashi whispers, chapped lips dragging lazily against Iruka's neck before giving warm skin a quick peck.

“Sorry.” he murmurs, releasing a breath he didn't realize he was holding. It's only then that he takes notice of the tension in his muscles and releases them as best he can with a small sigh.

Kakashi's voice is groggy with sleep when he asks, "Do you want to talk about what’s on your mind?" Iruka slides his fingers between the ones resting on his stomach and squeezes hard, allows the touch of smooth skin to ground him.

"Not much, really." He knows Kakashi would see the evasion for what it is but wouldn't push too much. "Just… scars."

Kakashi breathes a heavy, knowing sigh, tickling the hairs at the nape of Iruka's neck. “Yeah… I get what you mean.” he says and leaves it at that.

Iruka knew Kakashi would see underneath the underneath, knew he didn’t need to elaborate any further. Kakashi carried more scars than anyone else he knew. Iruka hated it, hated knowing that the man he loved most in the world understood how he felt and then some, but right now he tried to take a small bit of comfort in at least remembering he wasn’t alone.

#my writing #iruka umino #irukaweek2021 #kakairu #was originally going in a COMPLETELY different direction when i sat down to write for this prompt lol. but this works!

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musings-of-a-college-dork · 2 years

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Nightmares and Soft Words

Dabi x fem!Reader

I realized I write a lot and I never publish any of it, a lot of original work but a lot of fanfic as well so I figured why not put it on the internet. This is part of a longer piece so it feels more like a scene than a completed work but here you go!

Background: Y/n’s quirk is Reactive Adaptation and she is a civilian taken captive by the LOV. She has a bit of a mysterious past...but all of this can be read as a stand alone.

“Hey we’ve gotta go. Boss just called and said the pros are pretty much at our doorstep.”

“Shit. Did they get the things moved over to the other lab?”

“Some but not all. Boss said to dispose of the evidence that we can’t move.”

“What about her?”

Silence.

“Boss said to dispose of all the evidence-”

“But we can’t!”

“Do you really want to go against the boss’ orders?”

“...No...but I can’t do it either.”

“Fine. Then I will.”

The second y/n sat up from her spot on the floor of the blonde’s room, she clasped her hand over her mouth as she had done so many night’s before, trying to force the scream back but it was far too late for that.

If anyone hears you-

“The hell do you think you're doing screaming at three in the morning, doll,”

Came a snarl from the doorway of the room. She cursed herself as her eyes flickered in the voice’s direction.

There Dabi stood in a black t-shirt and sweatpants, wiping the sleep from his eyes, a pissed off look present on his face at being so rudely woken up. He leaned up against the doorway, lit up by the light that streamed in from the hallway. Y/n swallowed, hard.

Damnit.

She removed her hands from her mouth and instead covered her eyes as she pulled her knees to her chest, bracing for something...anything.

“I’m sorry,” She apologized without a second thought, “I didn’t mean...I’m...” She couldn’t even get the words out from how badly she was shaking.

“Doesn’t matter if you meant it or not,” Dabi grumbled as he pushed off of the doorway and made his way over to her. She kept her hands over her eyes as he approached making him scowl. If she’s going to make such a commotion in the middle of the night then she should damn well have the audacity to look me in the eyes after-

Dabi’s thoughts were cut short as the light hit her still trembling form. Her usually pale skin had gone a metallic silver in color causing the light from the hallway to reflect off of her. Despite this, he could see the sweat that had managed to soak through her thin excuse for a nightgown and coated her skin. He ceased to move for a moment, hesitating before kneeling down.

He reached for her to remove her hands from her eyes and she instantly flinched away from his grasp, a little shock of electricity radiating off of her when he grabbed her hands. Unlike her, he didn’t flinch at all as he pulled her hands from her face, grabbing her wrists with one of his hands to keep her from bringing them back up.

Her face was stained with tears, eyes puffy, and chest heaving as she refused to meet his eyes. The girl instead opted to tilt her head down and look at the floor, trying her best to not hyperventilate. This was absolutely unacceptable in the man’s eyes.

Dabi reached his free hand up and grabbed the girl’s chin, roughly turning her face up to meet his.

“Look at me, doll,” He commanded and surprisingly, she complied with his request. As her teary eyes met his piercing blue ones, he felt his heart stop a bit.

Nightmare. He knew the signs all too well.

He continued to scan her, examining every inch of her trembling form but mainly keeping his focus on her face. Us? No, he thought as his brows furrowed, her being metal wouldn’t protect her from anyone except Toga and this is...this is different. This is what I look like when I dream of-

The sheer shock of the thought made Dabi draw his hands back as if she had burned him, the girl looking away from him as soon as possible.

She didn’t want him to see her like this...so...broken. As much as she wished the burnt man would evaporate into thin air so he wouldn’t be able to see how she shook like a leaf, a part of her didn’t want to be left alone in the dark again.

She waited, waited for him to do anything, to yell at her, to make a snarky comment, something. Instead, she was met with silence as he sat down in front of her, his gaze still locked on her. In response to his lack of...well anything, she turned her focus to her heart rate finally decreasing enough for her skin to fade back at least part way into its natural state.

Dabi watched her for a moment longer before standing and disappearing from the room. Y/n felt her heart sink for a moment before shaking her head to try and pull her from her thoughts. Stop it, she scolded herself as she pulled her knees to her body, you should be glad he’s gone. Besides...he left the door open. Y/n’s head shot up at this realization, her eyes instantly darting towards the door and the light that seemed to beckon her into the hallway.

The girl considered her options for a moment more before her body began to move on it’s own, rising from where she had been curled up on the cold stone floor. She didn’t even feel her feet hit the ground as she padded over to the door, only to have a shadow cast over her small form.

“You really don’t learn, do ya?” Dabi sighed as he stood between her and the hallway, a plastic cup in his hand. She held his eye contact, still looking like a deer in headlights. He chuckled as he stepped into the room and shut the door behind him. Y/n instantly backed up as if she couldn’t even be in his aura’s radius which made the man shake his head as he held the cup out to her.

“Drink.”

The girl looked up at him, a mix of fear and confusion written in her eyes as she glanced at the cup. She didn’t step forward to take it from him, merely staring it down.

“Problem?”

“How do I know it isn’t drugged?” She asked in a timid voice as her eyes met his. The man shrugged indifferently.

“You don’t. Gonna have to hedge your bets, doll.” Y/n considered it for a moment but despite her better judgment, she took the cup from his hands. She examined it for a moment, swirling the liquid this way and that before finally sighing. She took a sip, knowing that even if it was drugged it would wash the taste of metal and leather from her mouth and maybe it would help her sleep through the night. The first sip of water circulated through her body but the cold liquid didn’t do much to stop the shivering.

“Thank you,” She said after a moment. She wanted to bite her tongue or take it back, not wanting to thank one of her captors despite him not having done anything to harm her. He was only helping out his friend after all by keeping her here.

Dabi nodded as he stayed where he was, his arms crossed as he opted to lean against the door he had closed only moments before.

Y/n eyed him over the rim of the plastic cup, not sure what to do in this situation. Why is he still here? Maybe it actually is drugged and he’s just waiting…

“Do you want me to leave?” The villain asked, as if he had read her mind. Y/n opened her mouth to say yes but the word didn’t form. There was no reason for him to be here but...

She shook her head.

Dabi nodded. He just stood there, his gaze examining Toga’s room. It had been a while since he’d been inside the girl’s room and she had shifted it a bit to accommodate her...guest. She had moved the bed just enough to place a blanket down on the floor for the girl and, well other than that, it looked the same as usual.

“Did I wake you up?” His gaze snapped to the girl. Her focus was on the cup of water despite having just asked him a question.

“Surprised you didn’t wake the whole building with your screaming.” He bit back, trying to get a response from her. The girl merely shrugged, her focus still on the cup as she swirled the liquid in it. Realizing that trying to get a rise from her was useless he sighed with a little shake of his head.

“No, just couldn’t sleep,” He said with another shrug.

“Are you having nightmares too?” For once the burnt man didn’t have anything to say, prompting y/n to actually steal a glance at her captor. Maybe he was- A dark, low, chuckle cut her off, the hairs on the back of her neck standing up as she looked at the villain.

“Not so timid anymore are you, doll?” He asked after a moment. He looked up and as his flaming blue eyes met hers, she felt her stomach flip. The fact that he lit a finger up with his flames and proceeded to move it through the air in intricate patterns didn’t help her nausea. “You better be careful what you say around here,” He said as he turned his focus to the flame, “You might just set one of us over the edge and you don’t want to know what would happen to you then.” He pointed it at her as he finished, his face stoic as he looked for a response.

“Maybe that’s what I want,” Y/n spoke before she could stop the words, “Maybe the goal is to piss you off until you snap and kill me.” The silence was deafening. Shit, Y/n swore wishing she could take it back. Instead she sipped her water.

If I keep drinking this I can’t say anything else stupid.

“You’re still shivering.” Y/n looked up to find Dabi looking at her, the flame in his hand extinguished. His eyes didn’t hold any rage or anger as she feared they would. Instead they were...soft? No...that wasn’t right. That couldn’t be right.

“Yeah, I guess so,” She said almost subconsciously with a little sigh. She continued to clutch the cup, running her fingers over the little ridges on the sides. Anything to distract herself.

“You cold?”

“Yeah.” Dabi let out a little hum and noticed that y/n’s cup was empty. Without another word he took it from her hands and set it down beside her on the floor. He then began to move putting y/n on high alert. He reached for her and instantly her skin went metallic once more as she tensed up, her arms going out in front of her defensively.

“Relax,” Dabi commanded her upon noticing the silver sheen returning to her pale skin. He held his hands up in a surrender of sorts, “I’m not going to hurt you.” Y/n’s skin still stayed metallic but was able to slow her breathing a little bit as she realized that the man truly hadn’t hurt her yet. Sure, he had lit his flames in threat before but he’d never actually laid a finger on her.

“What do you want me to do?” She asked as she pulled her hands into her chest defensively. He nodded and stood up before walking over to the bed.

“The floor is cold and you’re still shivering,” He said as he opened up the covers for her, “Get into the bed.”

Y/n stayed frozen in place, her eyes nervously darting from him to where he was gesturing for her to be. “I’m not allowed, I don’t think-”

“I don’t care,” Dabi said simply holding her gaze, “She’s not here and she’ll be more pissed if you’re too tired when she’s in a mood to play.” Y/n still stayed frozen, weighing his words over.

“Now, doll. I don’t have all night,” He said as he rolled his eyes. At last, y/n made her way across the room towards the man. She looked down at where he held the covers open before slowly crawling under them. She laid down initially stiff as a rod but upon feeling how surprisingly soft the bed was she couldn’t help but relax, letting out a soft sigh of relief as she sunk into the sea of pillows. Dabi fought back a smile as he closed the blanket. He then shrugged off his shirt, quietly as to not disturb the moment of peace she was having. Y/n then felt the bed dip and shot straight up. She turned to look behind her to find the now shirtless man laying next to her on the bed, his eyes closed originally but opening in a sleepy annoyed way. She scanned him quickly, a blush coming to her cheeks and she just hoped that her current metallic state would cover it up.

“What are yo-” Dabi didn’t let her get another word in before he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pushing her so that she was laying down once more.

“Be quiet,” he growled in a low tone that made her tense up once more before she let out a sigh, his grip on her loosening a bit. “Go to sleep.”

“But-“ y/n let out a little yelp as Dabi flipped her body so he was on top of her, the covers still separating them much to y/n’s thanks. He leaned in far too close for comfort, making her breath hitch as the heat radiated off of him in waves.

“If you need something to tire you out, doll, I am more than happy to oblige,” he whispered into the crook of her neck. Her body had absolutely frozen underneath him and not a single sound came from her leading him to smirk. That did the trick. He moved back to his original position and pulled her covered body tighter to his through the layer of blankets.

“Then go to sleep.” He commanded as he felt her body go a bit more slack. This wasn’t due to the fact that she felt calm at the thought of this literally super villain sharing a bed with her, no. Despite knowing what he had done, what he continued to do...she couldn’t help but want more of the warmth he gave off.

The villain couldn’t help but smile as the girl scooted closer to him, the silver sheen disappearing as her breathing evened out. He then realized what he was doing with a grimace, pulling away which elicited a pouty little huff from the now sleeping girl. He continued to keep his arms close to his chest before letting out a sigh and holding her once more, earning a contented hum from y/n as she slept.

What the hell are you doing to me? He thought as he drifted off...

#dabi x reader #dabi my hero academia #mha dabi #dabi todoroki #dabi x female reader #mha fluff #dabi fluff #dabi angst #lov x reader #dabi x yn

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justathoughtfulangel · 2 years

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The Night Changes ~ Colors, Chapter 4 (Kai Parker Fanfiction)

Hi again! Welcome to Chapter 4 of Colors, my Kai Parker Soulmate AU Fanfiction. This is NOT meant to be read as a standalone piece. Events of the story and even the universe it is set in vary greatly from the original show. If you haven't yet, please read the Details post and previous chapters linked on this masterlist.

*not my gif

Word Count: 3,094

Pairings: CovenLeader!Kai X witch!Reader (soulmates), vampire!Damon x vampire!Elena (soulmates), witch!Liv X werewolf!Tyler (soulmates)

(Yes, I know in that Tyler is a human again in Season 6. That doesn't work for the purpose of Tyler and Liv being soulmates, so for the sake of this story, he is still a werewolf but can control when he shifts.)

I don’t like writing with Y/N in the place of character names, but this IS a reader insert fanfiction. I use Rosalie Wilson as a placeholder. Use Rose/Rosalie as a substitution for Y/N.

Warnings: Minor swearing, depictions of violence/murder, and unhealthy alcohol use.

There is no smut, but for all intents and purposes, this chapter is best suited to mature audiences. You have been warned.

Alright, I'll stop blabbing now. Read a short recap of the last chapter + a new one after the break :) I hope you enjoy reading this chapter as much as I loved writing it.

Chapter 3 Recap:

Gritting his teeth, Kai wrenched Luke’s hand off of his face, clutching it and moving closer. What did it matter if he won or died? If he won, he’d never be at someone’s mercy again. Never be weaker than others or depend on siphoning someone else’s magic. If he died, he’d get his second greatest wish. He’d no longer live in a world where no one wanted him.

“Fine. It’s your funeral.”

A few miles away, Rosalie made herself a comforting mug of hot cocoa. Seven tabs were open on her laptop, and she needed the sugar boost to get through the mountain of post-Thanksgiving assignments. With her chocolate by her side, she sat down to complete them. Rose had just taken one scalding sip and was cursing her impatience when the mug fell from her hands. It splashed onto her cream carpet, streaking it with brown.

Or at least, it should’ve been brown. She couldn’t see the color anymore.

~~~

Her heart leaped into her throat, stealing her air. For weeks, Rosalie hoped her world would become colorless. She had prayed she’d go back to a time before she’d never known Kai. The cost of going back to that time was one she never comprehended. Rose had lost too many people already; she couldn’t bear to lose her soulmate too.

She squeezed her eyes shut, pleading with the universe to let this just be a cruel trick. When her eyes opened, the color had returned. Her pity party didn’t last long. Now, she was just confused. What could have possibly caused the color to leave her vision for mere minutes?

The merge.

The merge must have happened, and Kai had won.

He woke on the cold ground. A few feet away, Josette cradled their dead brother’s head, sobbing over his loss. It was strange. Kai expected to feel different somehow. Everything was the same… until it wasn’t. It hit him without warning. Unimaginable power coursed through him, now his to command and control. Kai would never have to siphon magic from another again. He was now Coven Leader, and because of his abilities as a siphon, he’d be the most indestructible of them all.

“He saved me, and he’s gone!” Josette’s choked cry rang out into the night, and Damon’s lips pressed together in helplessness. “You win some, you lose some, right?” Kai was flying far too high to feel any remorse. “Except for me. I always win.” Damon’s eyes narrowed and he took a step in his direction. Before he could take a second step, Kai had vanished.

It wasn’t like he had a destination in mind. Actually, he was lost. This was what he’d craved for eighteen years. Kai chased after it single-mindedly, living for no other purpose. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

~~~

Another week had gone by, and Kai was in hiding. Being Coven Leader was nothing like he had envisioned. Slowly but surely, he was recognizing this wasn’t what he truly wanted. Not by a long shot. That was only the lie he told himself. Kai lied to himself so often, he didn’t know when it had become the only digestible truth. Wanting to be Coven Leader was simply a façade, a cloak over his real desire.

What Kai really wanted was acceptance: acceptance from his family, acceptance for who he was, and… acceptance from his soulmate. Rosalie was closer than ever in physical distance, but she couldn’t have been farther in every other possible way. Kai hadn’t laid eyes on her in weeks, not since he killed that taxi driver.

The memory made him freeze. Why did he kill him? Because he didn’t find change in the jeans he stole? That was all it took for him to take someone’s life.

Kai found himself clawing at his own neck as if the wire was choking him and not his last helpless victim. The mirage pressed against his windpipe, and though Kai knew it was all in his head, he felt like he deserved it. What right did he have to live when he’d killed so many?

The home of the Parkers was eerily silent. The eldest son, Malachai, strolled the halls. Two of his siblings were hanging from the stairwell railing, their bodies jerking like puppets on a string. There was some fight left in them, and in a truly twisted way, it was satisfying. No one knew his struggle as a siphon. They were just getting a taste of it. They’d die and be free from it soon enough.

The bloody knife Malachai used to tear out Josette’s spleen clattered onto the floor harshly, splattering the oak wood with maroon droplets. Just one annoying little brother and the twins remained. Jo could be left alive for now. After all, he did need his twin for the merge.

Malachai’s hands closed around his youngest brother’s throat as he siphoned power away from him. It wasn’t like he’d need it. Silencing his screams with one palm, he carried him to the pool. Forcefully holding him beneath the water warmed by the May sun, Malachai growled at how much his victim struggled. “I saved you for last, you ungrateful little…” One last, sharp inhale rang out, mixed with the garbled sound of water filling the youngest Parker’s lungs. He, too, was dead.

Humming in soft satisfaction, Malachai watched his body float there. He then made his way back to the house, tearing behind the twins’ favorite hiding spots in the living room. “Josette! Where are they?” His voice sang out cheerfully in stark contrast to the blood on his hands and shirt. There was a high he was riding. Pure glee was rushing through him, a kind he’d never known before – glee that comes from the prospect of murder.

“Oliviaaaa? Lucas?” He trampled up the stairs, taking his sweet time and letting the sound echo throughout the house. “Come on out, Jo. You must be hiding them somewhere.” From beneath the bed, Jo and the twins saw his pink sneakers – white originally but soaked in red. Malachai could sense they were under the bed, but he decided to toy with them a bit. His other kills had been far too quick. He pretended to look in the closet, unsurprised to find it empty.

When Malachai’s hands gripped the base of the bed, Jo hid the twins with her magic, protecting them the only way she could. He found only his twin sister, and he snapped. No longer playing games, he kicked her wounded stomach in. “WHERE ARE THEY?!”

Kai jolted awake, not realizing he’d fallen asleep. A thin layer of sweat painted his skin, making his clothes sticky and cold. His exhausted, sunken eyes – courtesy of the same nightmare every night since the merge – seemed lifeless. The digital clock on the bedside table of the motel read 2:34 AM. The night changes, but how many nights does it take to dissolve guilt?

Dragging his feet, Kai made his way to the small bathroom. The face staring back from the mirror was pale, sallow. No more sleep was going to come to him. Stripping off his sweaty clothing, Kai grabbed the phone (yet another stolen item) and Googled how to process emotional pain. Maybe this would get him somewhere.

~~~

In the morning, Kai drove to the Salvatore House. Last night had been an experience, to say the least, and he needed to ask a favor of Damon. “Hello?” He heard mumbling from the kitchen and Damon’s voice slowly increasing in volume. “…merged and packed and on his way to Portland!”

“Ooh, I forgot how massive this house is.” His eyes fell on the decorative tray of treats. “Yum, cupcakes! Sorry, am I interrupting something?” Completely ignoring the answer, Kai snuck past the lovers, reached for a cupcake, and hopped onto the kitchen table Damon and Bonnie ate pancakes on in the Prison World. “What are you doing here, Kai?”

“Funniest thing. I need your help. I need you to give a letter to Josette for me.” Elena was completely indignant. “Why would we do that?” He munched on his cupcake, speaking with his mouth half-full. “I haven’t been able to find her with a locator spell, which is probably intentional on her part since – under normal circumstances – I’d be super jazzed to gouge out her belly button.” Scraping up the last bit of frosting, Kai licked it off her finger.

“Why would we help you, Kai?” He just came in here and proclaimed nothing had changed since the merge, yet he expected them to contact Jo for him? “Well, in case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a sociopath. I know, shocker. I like being a sociopath, you know? I’m not burdened by things like guilt or love.

“So then, this merge happened with my brother Luke, and I won, which was great because I absorbed his ability to do magic. But now I can’t stop thinking about how Luke died. How Liv’s life is ruined. For some horrible reason I can’t shake… oddly, I feel bad.” Kai forced out a laugh because he could feel his throat closing up again.

“You feel bad?” Elena didn’t bother to cover up her disbelief, and Kai continued his rant. “Yeah, so when I absorbed Luke’s magic, I must’ve gotten some of his qualities or something, like… empathy? So I Googled how to process emotional pain, and they said if you write everything down in a letter and burn it, you’ll be healed.” He waved the envelope in the air; encased within it was a letter addressed to Josette. “I started writing, and this water literally started pooling in my eyes. Has that ever happened to you? Like… like… water just oozing out of my eyeballs like I’m some alien creature excreting fluids.”

“You mean you cried?”

“Yes! And after that was done, I burned the letter, and the feeling is still there. So, I really feel strongly that Jo needs to know how sorry I am for destroying our family… as does Liv. But let’s face it guys, alright? I mean Elena, you of all people should be willing to look past all the questionable things I’ve done to see that there’s good somewhere in me. You did it with Damon.”

“Okayyyy, I think we’re done here.” Damon moved to take Elena’s arm and began guiding her out of the kitchen when she stopped him. “No, Damon. He has a point.”

Kai raised an eyebrow, surprised she gave in so quickly. “Don’t get me wrong. I don’t just believe you’ve become someone else overnight. You should get to prove it, though. Just once. You won’t get another chance, so don’t screw it up.”

“Well, you’ve shown more faith in me right there than anyone else has before, so thank you.” It was a weird feeling. Warm, somehow. It was the support he’d never known. “Yes, well, I’m not doing it for you.” Damon suppressed a sigh, his lips pressing together. Kai was confused. Who else would she do it for, if not him? “Damon, you need to call her. I know you miss her.” Ah. Her.

A quick flash of anger burst through Kai once more. Elena – a complete stranger to him – was willing to give him a chance to show he had a sliver of good inside him. Why couldn’t his soulmate do the same? “Yeah, alright. I’ll try again.”

“And you keep trying until she talks to you. Rosalie has every right to be mad at you, but you need to make more of an effort to be there for her. Kai, we can give the letter to Jo for you.”

Kai shook his head slightly, snapping back to his senses. “Yeah, um, thanks. One more thing. I wrote them all letters and burned them last night… even one to Luke – which was probably unnecessary considering we’ve literally merged – but only rewrote the one to Josette. I feel like I should apologize to Liv in person. Where do you think I could find her?”

“Um, Whitmore, I guess?”

Rosalie and Liv were both at the Scull Bar. Rose had offered to take all her shifts, but Liv was stubborn and would come to work anyways. She tried to pretend everything was fine and went about her life as if nothing happened. Tyler and Rosalie were very concerned, never drifting far from her. Liv was a ticking time-bomb; it was only a matter of time before she snapped and her grief exploded. Denial didn’t last forever.

Their shift would be ending soon, and Tyler started packing up his things, glancing around more. It seemed like they were the only ones there. Rose was organizing a new shipment of mixers when Kai slipped in. He hid in the shadows. Despite all his talk and external bravado, Kai was terrified of confronting Liv. But he had to. He owed it to her. He owed it to Luke.

Before he could make himself known, Liv accidentally shattered a bottle of bourbon. The brown liquid spilled across the floor, spilling any ounce of Liv's composure along with it. “God fucking damn it!” She thrashed the rag in her hand across the counter, her knuckles turning white.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay. It’s just a bottle.” Rosalie rushed over to her, and Tyler moved closer to them both. He pulled Liv away from behind the counter, making her take a seat. Rose poured her a glass of water before clearing up the alcohol and glass with magic – no one was in here, and Liv needed all of their attention.

The cool water sloshed along the sides of the cup. Liv’s eyes tracked the movement, and when they met Rosalie’s, she could barely stop herself from lashing out. “Stop looking at me like that. Both of you.”

“We’re just worried about you, Liv.”

“Yeah? Well, don’t be. What’s worrying going to do? Is it going to bring Luke back? No.” Liv harshly carded her hand through her hair, pulling at strands and shaking them from her trembling fingers. Tyler took hold of her quivering hand, squeezing it softly. Not even her soulmate could calm her down now. “You should talk to someone about this, babe. We’re just doing our best to be here for you.”

Rosalie held her other hand, and Liv shook it off. She wrapped her arms around Tyler, hiding her eyes in his shoulder. She wasn’t crying, but her shoulders wobbled under the weight of unbearable emotions. The rejection stung some, but Rose wasn’t about to make this about herself. “We can understand what you’re feeling, Liv. We’ve lost family, too.”

Liv’s body froze, separating from Tyler slowly. The hatred in her eyes seared through the icy demeanor she was fronting. It burned Rosalie exactly where it hurt most. “What would you know about losing family? You killed your own mother, brother, and father.” Her words were a knife to Rosalie’s heart. Apparently, Liv wasn’t done.

“You and Kai really deserve each other.” Tyler’s face fell. He knew about Rosalie’s past, and he would’ve never believed Liv could go there. Speechlessly, he guided her away. An apology on his soulmate’s behalf shone in his eyes, and Rose only gave half a nod in response. She let them leave and locked the door with magic, not knowing that Kai was locked inside with her.

He had come to apologize to Liv, but he wasn’t about to leave Rose alone. The empathy that was far too new struck again, and Rosalie’s hatred for Kai suddenly made perfect sense. He could see how the memory tormented her. It had begun tormenting him in the same way, but it had only been a week for him. She must have been dealing with it for months, maybe even years. How could she accept someone who went around flaunting murders like they were trophies on a bookshelf?

Meanwhile, Rosalie’s feet had remained frozen to the same spot. She didn’t cry. Her tear ducts were far too barren to shed droplets. Her expression was mostly unreadable, but it flickered with some emotion or other every so often. Grief, anger, shock… relentless hurt above all. Swallowing it all, she dropped the wooden shutters around the bar and lit some scattered candles. When the flames rose higher than normal, fueled by the tornado of emotions within her, she forced herself to sit down.

“Let’s not burn down this building, too, Rosalie. Let’s not do that.” Scoffing and shaking her head, Rosalie grabbed a glass. She found herself mixing the same cocktail she made for Kai weeks ago. “Great, I’m talking to myself now. That’s just… super sane behavior.”

“Hey, I talk to myself, too.” Despite the situation, Kai couldn’t help but smirk at the astonishment on her face. “God!” She nearly dropped the shaker but narrowly avoided another drink catastrophe. “H-how long have you been in here?” He took a seat at the bar exactly where he had a few weeks ago. “Long enough.” Sighing, Rosalie went back to mixing the drink but poured it for him before making another that was even stronger for herself. “Figures.”

Rosalie didn’t want to kick him out, and Kai wasn’t keen on leaving. He’d only had one drink, but Rose had downed at least seven within two hours. She was still speaking– which was actually insanely impressive – but he worried about leaving her alone. Every time he tried to get her to stop drinking, she reached for another. He could tell she was hoping to mute whatever she was feeling. Kai had done the same in the prison world numerous times. He couldn’t judge.

“I’m gonna say something that I’m either gonna regret or just not remember… but your eyes are sooooo pretty. Did you know that? They’re like so blueeee and sparklyyyy.” Kai hopped behind the counter this time, making her next ‘drink’ with only water and no alcohol but keeping the flavors the same. “Sparkly, huh? What makes them sparkly?” Kai was trying to keep her awake. If she fell asleep in such a state, her hangover would make her very remorseful tomorrow.

Her very last drink was settling into her system, and Rosalie started growing quieter. Kai silently placed her new beverage in front of her, confident that she was too intoxicated to notice it wasn’t alcoholic. “I didn’t mean to do it, you know? I just got upset. It was after I heard about the death of Elena’s parents. They were our family, too. All the… feelings didn’t have anywhere to go. I couldn’t control my magic and it… destroyed everything.”

Kai didn’t speak. He didn’t want to interrupt. He wanted to know more about her, and if she felt comfortable sharing the deepest parts of her agony, he wanted to bear it with her. It took all his self-control to keep from touching her, from taking her hand, or from hugging her. Hugging her? Since when did he do hugs? He’d barely been hugged a day in his life, but that seemed like the appropriate response when someone was in duress.

“That’s why I hate you, you know? Because you were so gleeful about murdering your family. Bonnie was telling me how you bragged about your methods, and it made me hate you. You were happy about the same thing that eats me alive. But you know the funny thing?

“I don’t hate you. Not even a little bit. Maybe not at all.”

~~~

That concludes Chapter 4 of Colors! Please feel free to send any thoughts/comments/constructive criticisms my way. I always welcome them :)

Chapter 5 is now completed! Read it here.

If you’d like to be added to the taglist for this story and/or for my other Kai Parker pieces, please send me a message or leave a comment on this post!

Until next time, JustAThoughtfulAngel <3

Taglist: @socio-kai-path1972, @bluelicious, @genevivetaylor, @prettybitchfatwitch

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felassan · 3 years

Text

Dragon Age development insights and highlights from Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

Some really tasty factoids here.

Cut for length.

Dragon Age: Origins

The continent of Thedas was at one point going to be named Pelledia, a name initially floated by James Ohlen

“Qunari” was a temporary name that ended up unintentionally sticking, much like “Thedas”

Mary Kirby wrote the Landsmeet. To this day, nobody understands how it works, except possibly her. If she’s “really really drunk” she can explain how it works. There’s as many words in it as Sten’s entire conversations put together

Concept art for Thedosian art - as in in-world art - draws heavily on Renaissance-era portraiture, the Art Nouveau movement, religious styles and media like stained glass, and favorite pieces from the golden age of illustrations in the early 20th century

Andrastianism in-world (art-wise) is depicted in wildly different methods depending on who in-world made the art in question. “One religion, 3 different lenses”. There’s the Chantry take, the Orlesian take and the Fereldan take; each with its own different interpretations, different mediums and different stories

The stained glass images were drawn by Nick Thornborrow for DAI, to decorate religious spaces in that game “and beyond”

irl Viking art influenced Ferelden

Greek and Italian art influenced Orlais

The book also had other insights into and anecdotes from the development of DAO, but I’ve transcribed them recently as they’re essentially the stories DG has recently been relating on the awesome Summerfall Studios DAO playthrough Twitch streams. (On those streams he provides dev commentary while Liam Esler plays through DA. The ones with DG are currently once every two weeks. Check them out! Here’s a calendar where you can check when the next one is) Instead of repeating myself I’ll just provide the link to the first transcript. From there you can navigate to the subsequent parts. Note these streams are ongoing. At this point I will also point you to a related post which is cliff notes of the Dragon Age chapter in Jason Schreier’s book Blood Sweat and Pixels.

Dragon Age II

DAO had the longest development period in BioWare history. In contrast DA2 had the shortest

Initially DA2 was going to be an expansion to DAO. A few months in EA said “Yeah, expansions like these don’t sell very well, so let’s make it a sequel.” So it suddenly became DA2 and they had to make it even bigger, although they still only had 1.5 years of time in which to do this

Production of DA2 officially lasted only 9 months, and at the time the team was still supporting live content for DAO! They finished development that January after the design team crunched all the way through the holiday period that year. Then it went to cert 9 times

The limited time they had is why the story takes place mostly in and around 1 city, and over 7 years (so it was temporal, rather than over physical distance, because a more expansive world would have taken more irl time to make)

They had no time to review even the main plot. Mike Laidlaw pitched the idea of 3 stories taking place at different points in the PC’s life, tied together by Varric’s recollections of events. DG rolled with this and made 1 presentation on the idea. This presentation was then approved and off they went

As they were writing DG realized that there was going to be no oversight and that everything was going to be a ‘first draft’. “Because nobody had time.” He sat down with the writers and said “Look, here’s the conditions we’re working under. A lot of what we’re putting out is gonna be raw. We’re not going to get the editing we need. We’re not going to get the kind of iteration we need. So I’m going to trust you all to do your best work.”

Looking back, DG has mixed feelings on DA2. “A lot of corners were cut. The public perception was that it was smaller than DAO. That’s a sin on its own.”

Despite this he thinks DA2 has some of the best writing in the series, especially character-wise. The DA2 chars are his favorite

The pace with which production progressed may in some ways have helped. “When we do a lot of revision, we often file away [as in buff off] some of the good writing as well. Somehow DA2′s whirlwind process resulted in some really good writing”

The pace meant chars landed on the writers in various stages of completion. For example Isabela was fairly defined due to appearing in DAO. In contrast Varric at the start was just that single piece of widely-shown concept art

Varric was conceived as a storyteller not a fighter. His skills are talking and bullshitting. Hence the question became, so what does this guy do in combat? The direction was to make him as different as possible to Oghren, so not a warrior. He couldn’t be a dual-wielding rogue in order to differentiate him from Bela. But you can’t really picture this guy with a bow. “For a dwarf, it would probably be a crossbow. We didn’t have crossbows, or we only had crossbows for the darkspawn. And they were part of the models. We didn’t have a separate crossbow that was equip-able by the chars. They had to like, crop one off a darkspawn and remodel it. And that became Bianca” (quote: Mary Kirby)

“Dwarven mages are exceedingly rare.” [???]

If DAO was a classic fantasy painting, DA2 was a screenshot from a Kurosawa film or a northern Renaissance painting. (Here Matt Rhodes was commenting on art style)

John Epler: “In any one of our games, there’s a 95% chance that if you turn the camera away from what it’s looking at, you’ll see all kinds of janky stuff. The moment we know the camera is no longer facing someone, we no longer care what happens to them. We will teleport people around. We will jump people around. We will literally have someone walk off screen and then we will shift them 1000 meters down, because we’re fixing some bug.” John also talked about this camera stuff in a recent charity Twitch stream for Gamers For Groceries. There’s a writeup of that stream here

Designing Kirkwall pushed concept artists to the limits of visual storytelling, because it has a long history that they wanted to be present. It was once the hub of Tevinter’s slave empire, so it needed to look brutal and harsh, but it also then needed to feel reclaimed, evolved, and with elements of contemporary Free Marches culture

The initial plan was for DA titles to be distinguished by subtitles not numbers, so that each experience could stand on its own rather than feel like a sequel or continuation. (My note: New PCs in each entry make sense then when you consider this and other factoids we know like how DA is the story of the world not of any one PC). Later, DA2′s name was made DA2 in a bid to more clearly connect the game to its predecessor. For DAI they returned to the original naming convention. (My note: so I’d reckon they’d be continuing the subtitle naming convention for DA4)

DA2 was initially code-named “Nug Storm”, strictly internally

The Cancelled DA2 Expansion - Exalted March

This was a precursor to DAI

It was meant to bridge the gap between DA2 and DAI

It focused on the fallout from Kirkwall’s explosion, with Cory serving as the villain

Meredith’s red lyrium statue was basically going to infest Kirkwall and it would end up [with what would end up] the red templars taking over Kirkwall and essentially being Cory’s army

To stop him Hawke would have recruited various factions, including Bela’s Felicisima Armada and the Qunari at Estwatch, forcing Hawke to split loyalties and risk relationships in the process

It was meant to bring DA2′s story to an end and end in Varric’s death. DG was very happy with this because all of DA2 is Varric’s tale. The expansion was supposed to start at the moment Cassandra’s interrogation of him ended in the present. “And we finished off the story with Varric having this heroic death.” It tied things up and would have broken many fan hearts, something BioWare writers notoriously enjoy. But between a transition to the new Frostbite engine and the scope of DAI, the decision was made to cancel EM, work any hard-to-lose concepts into DAI, and in the process save Varric’s life. DG has talked about the Varric dying thing before

Concept art for EM explored new areas previously not depicted in the DA universe, with costumes that reflected next steps for familiar chars. Varric was going to war, what would he have worn? With Anders, if he survived DA2, the plan was to present a redeemed Warden

A char that vaguely resembled Sera in DAI was first concepted for EM. This fact was mentioned near this concept art (see the female elf) and this concept art of Bethany with the blond bob

The writers sketched out plans to end it with Hawke having the option to marry their LI. This included alternate ceremonies for party members like Bethany and Sebastian if the player opted not to wed. There was even a wedding dress made for Hawke. This asset made it into DAI (Sera and Cullen’s weddings in Trespasser). The dress can also be seen in DAI during an ambient NPC wedding after completing a chain of war table missions

The destruction of a Chantry was explored in concept art as it might have happened in EM. This idea ended up carrying over to the beginning of DAI. (My note: Lol, the idea that DA2 could have had 2 Chantries being destroyed in it 😆)

World of Thedas

Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby started with “a disgusting little dish called fluffy mackerel pudding”. In the middle of DAO’s busy dev period one of them (they can’t remember who) found a recipe online for this, scanned in from a 70s cookbook. “I don’t understand why it was fluffy. Why would you want fluffy mackerel pudding?” MK says. “We loved it so much we included it in a DAO codex.”

This led them to create more food for Thedas, full recipes included, like a Fereldan turnip and barley stew from MK and SC’s Starkhaven fish and egg pie. The fish pie became Sebastian’s favorite. “To me it made sense for it to be fish pie because a lot of the Free Marches are on the coast”, SC says, “It was something that was popular in medieval times, so I thought, let’s make a fish pie! I looked at medieval recipes and I concocted a fish pie which I fed to my partner, and he was like ‘This is not terrible’”

For WoT the whole studio was asked to contribute family recipes which might have a place in Thedas. SC adapted these to fit in one Thedosian culture or another, including a beloved banana bread that localization producer Melanie Fleming would regularly bake to keep the DA team motivated. “Melanie’s banana bread got us through Inquisition”

DAI

It says part of DAI takes place in or near the border with Nevarra [???]

This game was aimed to be bigger than DA2 and even DAO in every conceivable way

The first hour had to do a lot of heavy lifting, tying together the events of DAO and DA2 while introducing a new PC, new followers etc in the aftermath of the big attack. DG rewrote it 7 times then Lukas Kristjanson did 2 more passes

DG: “Our problem is always that our endings are so important, but we leave them to last, when we have no time. I kept pushing on DAI: ‘Can we work on the ending now? Can we work on the ending now? Can we do it early on?’ Because I knew exactly what it was going to be. But despite the fact that it kept getting scheduled, whenever the schedule started falling behind, it kept getting pushed back... so, of course, it got left til last again.”

“The reveal of the story’s real antagonist, Solas, a follower until the end, when he betrayed the player”. “Solas’ story remains a main thread in Inquisition’s long-awaited follow-up” [these aren’t DG quotes, just bits of general text]

Over the course of development they had 8 full-time writers and 4 editors working on it. Other writers joined later to help wrangle what ended up being close to 1 million words of dialogue and unspoken text. While many teams moved to a more open concept style of work for DAI, the writers remained tucked away in their own room, a choice DG says was necessary, given how much they talked. All the talking had a purpose ofc as if someone hit a bump or wall in their writing they would open the problem up to the room

As writing on a project like DAI progresses, the writers grow punchier and weirder things make it into the game. This is especially the case towards the end of a project (they get tired, burned out)

Banter and codexes require less ‘buy-in’ (DG has talked about this concept a few times on the Twitch streams) from other designers. DG liked to leave banter for last as a reward because it was fun. Banter begins as lists of topics for 2 followers to discuss. These may progress over time or be one off exchanges. One banter script can balloon to well over 10k words. “The banter was always huge because we were always like, laughing, and really at that point, our fields of fucks were rather barren, so we would just do whatever”

The bog unicorn happened pretty much by accident. It was designed by Matt Rhodes and was one of his fav things to design. They needed horse variations and he had already designed an undead variant which was a bog mummy [bog body]. irl these are preserved in a much different way to traditional mummies. When someone dies in a bog their skin turns black and raisin-like. The examples we know of tend to have bright red hair for whatever reason. It’s a very striking look and MR wanted to do a horse version of this as he thought it’d be neat. 5 mins before the review meeting for it he had a big ‘Aha!’ moment, quickly looked up a rusty old Viking sword, and photoshopped it through its skull like that was how it died. “And I was like, ‘I just made a unicorn. Alright, in it goes!’” It got approved. “So we built the thing. It fit. It told a little story”

With the irl Inquisition longsword, one of the objects they tested its cleaving ability on was a plush version of Leliana’s nug Schmooples

The concept art team explored a wide variety of visuals for the Inquisitor’s signature mark. It needed to look powerful and raw but couldn’t look like a horrific wound. In some cases, as cool as the idea looked on paper, they just weren’t technically feasible, especially as they had to be able to fit on any number of different bodies

Bug report: “Endlessly spawning mounts! At one point during development, Inquisitors could summon a new horse every time they whistled, allowing them to amass a near infinite number of eager steeds that faithfully followed them across Thedas. “You could go charging across levels and they’d all gallop behind you,” Jen Cheverie says, “It was beautiful.” Trotting into town became an epic horse siege as a tidal wave of mounts enveloped the streets. Jen called it her Army of Ponies”

The giants came from DA Week, an internal period when devs can pursue different individual creative projects that in some way benefit DA. They also had a board game from one of these that they were going to put in but they didn’t have time. It’s referenced though. It was dwarven chess

Josie’s outfit is made of gold silk and patterned velvet, with leather at her waist. She carries “an ornate ledger” and she has “an ornamented collar sitting around her neck, finished by a brilliant red ruby, like a drop of Antivan wine in a sunbeam”

Iron Bull’s armor is leather. His loose pantaloons and leather boots give him agility to charge

On DAI in particular, concept artists took special care to make sure costumes would be realistic, at least in a practical ‘this obeys the laws of physics and textiles’ sense. “While on Inquisition, we thought about cosplay from a concept art perspective. Given how incredible a lot of [cosplays] are, I now am not worried about them. In fact in some cases in the future I want to throw them curveballs like, ‘All right, you clever bastards. Let’s see if you can do this!’”

2 geese that nested on the office building and had chicks were named Ganders and Arishonk (it wasn’t known who was the mom or the dad). Other possible names were Carver Honke, Bethany Honke, Urdnot Pecks, Quackwall, Cassandra Pentagoose, the Iron Bill, Shepbird, Garroose, Admiral Quackett, Scout Honking, HChick-47 and Darth Malgoose

Bug report: “The surprising adventures of Ser Noodles!” DAI was the first time the series had a mount feature, meaning this had a lot of bugs. A lot of the teams’ favorite bugs were to do with the mounts. There was a period of time where the Inquisitor’s horse seemed to lose all bone and muscle in its legs. They had a week or so where all quadruped legs were broken. It was a bit noticeable in things like nugs and other small beasties but the horse was insanely obvious. “The first time we summoned the horse [for this] and started running around, the entire QA exploration room just exploded with laughter.” Its legs flapped around like cooked fettucine, leading testers to lovingly nickname it Ser Noodles. At galloping speeds the legs almost looked like helicopter blades, especially when footage was set to classic pieces such as Wagner’s Flight of the Valkyries

For DAI the artists were asked questions like “What would Morrigan wear to a formal ball? Can Cassandra pull off a jaunty hat?”

On DAI storyboarding became the norm. John Epler: “Cinematic design for the longest time was the Wild West. It was ‘here’s a bunch of content, now do it however you want’, which resulted in some successes and some failures.” Storyboarding gave designers a consistent visual blueprint based on ideas from designers, writers and concept artists

Quote from a storyboard by Nick Thornborrow (the Inquisitor going into the party at the end of basegame sequence): “Until Corypheus revealed himself they could not see the single hand behind the chaos. A magister and a darkspawn combined. The ultimate evil. So evil. Eviler than puppy-killers and egg farts combined.”

A general note on concept art:

In the early stages of any project, before the concept artists are aware of any writing, they like to just draw what they think cool story moments could be. It’s not unusual for the team to then be inspired by these and fold them into the game as the project progresses

– From Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development

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pies-writes-and-more · 3 years

Text

allergic to you

Word Count: 3, 713

Pairing: Tsukishima Kei x High School Age!Fem!Reader

Warnings: some swear words I guess, but as per usual, it’s just fluff from me.

A/N: Guess who’s finally joined another fandom lol hello Haikyuu fandom! Pls be kind, it’s my first time writing for this fandom but I am in love with Karasuno boys, it’s problematic. Anyways, please let me know if you liked it! Sorry if I didn’t quite capture him the way other writers do haha. Also, Y/N = Your (Last) Name, just cause typing Y/L/N is exhausting lol my b

(Not my gif, credits to the original creator!)

Yamaguchi was trying his very hardest not to laugh, his hands clasped together in front of his lips to stifle his giggles as the tall blond boy he had known for years just looked at him desperately.

“It’s not funny,” Tsukishima’s lips formed into a frown (almost a pout), looking away from his friend nervously. His fingers played with some chopsticks, poking at his uneaten lunch.

Yamaguchi had never see Tsukishima Kei nervous. Volleyball games? Totally calm. Math class? Easy. Exam season? Piece of cake.

But put Tsukishima near a girl? No, scratch that. Not just any girl. Put Tsukishima near Y/N? It was all over for him. Suddenly, this 190cm tall boy wanted to shrink small enough to run away and not be noticed.

“It’s a little funny, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi insisted, finally letting out just a tiny chuckle that he just couldn’t hold back. “I think you’re overreacting. Just a bit.”

Tsukishima’s eyes turned back to the other boy, staring at him as if analyzing him, “How could I be overreacting? I’m telling you, I’m allergic!”

Yamaguchi was really trying his best to be supportive, knowing that talking about things was already hard for Tsukishima, especially when involving a particularly cute girl. “You think... you’re allergic... to Y/N,” Yamaguchi retorted slowly, repeating how Tsukishima started this convo with.

“Don’t be an idiot,” Tsukishima scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Obviously it’s some product she uses or something,” his nose scrunched up slightly as he tried to think of what it could possibly be. “Like that hand lotion she uses. The one that smells like vanilla and brown sugar,” Tsukishima proclaimed, nodding to himself like he had solved the mystery.

The green haired boy was still trying his best to be supportive. He nodded slowly, giving a forced smile to his best friend as he slowly spiralled into insanity. He had never seen Tsukishima this desperate for answers before. “Hasn’t she let you use some of that hand lotion?” He wondered aloud, remembering very specifically how red Tsukishima’s ears got when she rubbed a bit into a rash he had gotten on his hand.

“Gotta take good care of your hands if you play volleyball, Tsukishima-san!” Y/N had beamed, her fingers massaging the cream in.

Tsukishima had practically fainted that day, though he’d never admit it.

The blond’s frown tightened, holding his hand to his chin in thought, “Right. So not the hand lotion then.”

“Maybe she got a new perfume?” Yamaguchi offered, nibbling on some of his lunch while Tsukishima thought it out.

“No, she’s still using the same one,” He mumbled, and Yamaguchi smirked to himself, knowing that Tsukishima would’ve never admitted before that he knew little details like this about her.

“Well. what kinds of symptoms do you have? Maybe that’ll narrow it down,” Yamaguchi suggested, leaning his head back on the wall behind them. It wasn’t unusual for Tsukishima to want to eat some place quiet, but today had been the first day that he had practically dragged Yamaguchi to this small secluded spot behind the school. The two of them sat against a wall to eat, though Tsukishima’s lunch had been completely forgotten.

“I just-” Tsukishima hesitated, eyebrows furrowing in annoyance as he tried to word how his body felt every time she was around. “I always feel so lightheaded. And my heartbeat’s always irregular too. Sometimes it feels like I can’t breathe properly.” His hand slid into his jacket pocket, pulling out his phone and tilting the screen towards Yamaguchi to show him a medical diagnostic page on the web. “Some people say these are symptoms of allergies. Or an anxiety attack. But I’m leaning more towards allergies.”

Yamaguchi squinted at the text, “You... Googled it?” He asked, a playful smile on his lips, glancing up at Tsukishima, amused.

“Well, what else am I supposed to do?” Tsukishima scoffed, scrolling through the page. “I don’t know what else it could be. It’s not with anyone else. It can’t be the classroom either, cause when she’s not around, I don’t feel anything.”

“Hm. So what’re you going to do about it?” Yamaguchi asked, going along with this ‘allergic’ idea as much as he could. He knew Tsukishima was very rational and even if he suggested what he figured was happening, Tsukishima would never listen.

“D-Do?” Tsukishima blinked. He hadn’t thought about what the next step was.

“Well I assume you don’t want to keep feeling that like right? You could always ask the teacher to move you, I suppose. Then ask her not to attend any of our games. Avoiding her for the rest of your life seems like the best choice doesn’t it?” Yamaguchi asked innocently, closing up his lunch box and taking a sip from his juice.

Tsukishima stayed quiet, eyebrows still furrowed and the frown on his face tightening. He knew that made sense - one of the girls in their class was allergic to nuts and she always had to be careful what she ate, and he had even heard of some people not eating or drinking milk products because of allergies. The logical part of his brain agreed with Yamaguchi, perhaps staying away from Y/N was the only answer.

“Then... maybe it’s not an allergy,” Tsukishima mumbled quietly. He hated going back on his word but he couldn’t deny that he loathed the idea of not seeing Y/N’s smile ever again. Or seeing her sit with someone else. “Maybe it’s just something I have to get used to.”

“You know, Tsukishima,” Yamaguchi started again, looking off to the scenery that was in front of them. His voice was light and airy as he tried to coax his friend to the idea, “What you’re going through sounds a lot like-”

Tsukishima could hear it in his voice, he knew the next word forming from Yamaguchi’s lips before it even entered the air. He slammed his lunch box closed and stood up abruptly, turning away from the other boy’s eyes. “Lunch is over,” he grumbled, as if that was the reason he stood up so dramatically.

Yamaguchi smirked and packed up his things, shaking his head slowly when Tsukishima wasn’t looking. He wasn’t at all surprised that Tsukishima was having a hard time accepting his feelings.

The word hung in the very serious boy’s mind for the rest of the day. He tried not to focus so much on Y/N as he sat next to her for the rest of their classes, tried to not inhale too much or look in her general direction, in fear that his “allergy” would act up again.

He was almost positive it wasn’t... that. He would know for sure if it was, wouldn’t he? His nose scrunched slightly as he thought about the music he had listened to before, ones that had just a good melody and beat and he definitely didn’t listen to because of the lyrics since they were about... that thing.

Didn’t some people talk about their heart feeling like it was going to fall out of their chest? That they found it hard to breathe? That it was like all life stopped when they saw that person? And that despite all this, they never wanted to be without them?

Tsukishima had to get to the bottom of this. He was either experiencing some sort of allergic reaction to her or he was experiencing feelings. He thought about ignoring them, pretending like they didn’t exist so that maybe everything would go back to normal one day. But how long would that take? Wouldn’t it just be easier to rip off the bandaid and find out now?

At the end of class, Tsukishima zoomed his way out of class, not waiting for Yamaguchi like usual.

“Is he alright, Yamaguchi-san?” Y/N asked, surprised that the two best friends weren’t walking out together like they had every other day. Some days, they would even walk out with Y/N on their way to practice. But apparently, not today.

“He’s got a lot on his mind,” Yamaguchi explained, waving it away with a smile. Perhaps today he would be walking home by himself. And that was fine by him.

Y/N packed up her things and waved goodbye to her other classmates, heading out the door and slipping in her headphones. Her mind drifted to all the things she had to do when she got home, whether or not there were leftovers to heat up today or if she should cook something up.

“You take so long,” a drawl voice interrupted the very beginning of her first song. She blinked in surprise, looking to her right where Tsukishima was leaning against a tree.

Y/N pulled out one earbud, tilting her head as she watched him. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen him do this casual, I-don’t-care-about-anything lean, with his headphones around his neck and his hands shoved in his pockets. But there was something different about him this time. Why was he avoiding her eyes? Why was he not giving her an annoyingly carefree smile? Why were his ears turning pink?

“Were you... waiting for me, Tsukishima-san?” Y/N asked slowly. He didn’t move for a moment, as if still calculating something in that big brain of his. He pushed off of the tree after sighing, walking over to her slowly.

“Obviously,” was all he said, glaring down at her as if she should’ve known this.

“You rushed out of class so quick, I thought you were already going home,” Y/N responded, still a bit confused. “Don’t you and Yamaguchi normally walk home together?”

Why did she have to question so much? Why couldn’t she just realize what he was trying to do? Tsukishima huffed and grabbed her hand, dropping a nice cool juice box in it. His eyes darted away from her next inquisitive look, but glanced back almost immediately because he wanted to see her eyes widen just a little at her favourite juice box.

“W-What is this?” Y/N asked, holding it in her hands. Part of her wanted to examine it to make sure he hadn’t somehow tricked her into holding something that wasn’t actually juice. She looked up at him suspiciously - Tsukishima knew her favourite juice?

“You didn’t have one with you today. I figured you forgot your wallet again today,” Tsukishima mumbled, shoving his hands in his jacket again.

“O-Oh. I did, thank you. Um,” Y/N hesitated. Was Tsukishima trying... to be nice? “Why... why did you buy it for me?”

“I just said why,” Tsukishima scoffed, flicking her head gently. He scolded himself internally, feeling guilty as soon as she showed the surprise on her face. She’s asking why you thought to be nice, Kei, stop being snarky, he told himself harshly. “Sorry,” he muttered quickly, feeling almost immediately bad for flicking her.

Y/N just laughed though, giggles spilling from her lips as she looked up at him, “Are you feeling okay, Tsukishima-san? You’re turning red,” she teased gently and he looked away from her quickly, hating how quickly his face heated up.

He took a breath, trying to mimic how calm he was on the court. He turned back to look at her with a cocky smile and confidence gaze, though he was sure she could tell he was nervous, “I’m fine, Y/N-san. But I need to tell you something. And I’m only going to say it once so listen up.”

Y/N watched him intently, noting the fake confidence he was trying to put on. She nodded as he looked at her for any sign to keep going.

His lips opened for a moment and Y/N could’ve sworn there was a moment of panic in his eyes when nothing came out. “I’m going to walk you home today,” Tsukishima stated finally, each word thudding into the air. He felt his confidence falter as the wrong words left his mouth, shifting his bag on his shoulder and starting to walk ahead.

Y/N’s eyebrows furrowed, feeling her confusion only rise. Did he really build up that whole thing... just to walk her home?

“Hurry up or I’ll leave you here,” Tsukishima called behind his shoulder, still walking ahead. He was internally punching himself, groaning and uttering insults at his own stupid self. Couldn’t even say it. Couldn’t just say Y/N I like you and I think I’m either allergic to you or I’m utterly in love with you but I’ve been told I suck at explaining how I feel and that I never say the right things at the right time so please just reject me so I can move away from these exhausting feelings.

“Want some?” Y/N’s gentle voice was suddenly beside him, and Tsukishima felt his stomach doing that flipping motion again. He glanced down at her and saw her holding up the juice box at him. “Seems only fair, since you bought it,” she explained, the glimmer in her eyes making him feel way too warm inside.

“Sure,” he mumbled after a moment. She smiled just a little bit wider, holding up the juice to him, expecting him to just snatch it away and drink. But no, Tsukishima being a little bitch and deciding that if he couldn’t admit anything with words, he could try with actions, leaned down slightly, and latched his lips onto the straw. His hand wrapped around hers over the juice box, holding it still as he took a sip.

Y/N felt like she was suddenly bright red, her heart possibly having exploded right then and there. His eyes looked up to meet hers as he sipped, smirking a bit as he noticed the panicked and flushed look in her eyes.

Maybe the feeling is... mutual?

“Mm,” he hummed, pulling away after keeping her gaze for a second. “I guess I can see why you like it.”

Y/N had shivers running up and down her spine, feeling like Tsukishima had looked into her very soul and knew about her year-long crush on him.

The two of them started walking a bit slower after that, and to the external eye, you’d probably just see two classmates walking home together. But look a little closer, and you’d see both of them having internal conflicts. They managed to walk through the small roads filled with shops and make it about halfway to Y/N’s house in complete silence.

“Y/N-san,” Tsukishima finally ended it, the agonizing silence, in which he had been racking his brain trying to think of how to start a conversation. He stopped in his tracks as he spoke the one word, the two of them now on a quieter dirt path. There was no one to interrupt them, no one to save Tsukishima from embarrassment, no Yamaguchi to fill the awkward silence.

“Hm?” Y/N looked back at him, noticing him just standing there. “Are you alright, Tsukishima-san?”

“There’s something I need to say,” he started, his hands in his pockets clenched into fists.

“O-Oh okay.”

“I’ve been... feeling sick around you.” Baka, he scolded himself for what felt like the millionth time. That definitely wasn’t the way he had wanted to say it. “I-I mean, not like sick sick but like allergy sick,” he tried to recover, but scoffed at himself since that wasn’t all that much better.

Y/N’s eyebrows furrowed in response, trying to think about his reactions lately. He had definitely been more flushed lately, but she always thought that was annoyance. He’d been quieter and more distant, but it was Tsukishima after all. He looked over to her desperately, hoping to see that she was understanding what he was trying to say. She wasn’t.

Tsukishima was starting to get frustrated. He knew he wasn’t the greatest at communicating but how hard was it to see how much he liked her? Yamaguchi saw it, hell, even his upperclassmen teased him about it when they first saw Tsukishima and Y/N walking out of class together one day. So why did other people who didn’t need to know it, why did they understand but she didn’t? Why was she so dense?

You’re not saying anything, his mind reminded him as he scowled to himself.

“It has to be that,” Tsukishima finally continued quietly, his eyes now staring at his feet. He was practically trying to convince himself now. It had to be that there was a health related issue with him being around her. It had to be that, because if it wasn’t, it meant that Tsukishima had to tell her how he felt. And that meant that he was probably going to end up hurt. Why a girl like Y/N hung around a guy like him anyways was beyond him.

“Why?” Y/N frowned, still terribly lost in the cosmos of this odd confession. “Why would it have to be that?”

“Because if it isn’t that, then it means that I’ve fallen completely head over heels for you.”

Tsukishima wasn’t sure how he had managed to say the words. But there it was. His fists tightened even more, his fingernails digging into his palm so hard it was starting to hurt.

His eyes closed tightly, turning his head away from her. He didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to see laughter or disgust in her eyes. Maybe he could take it back now. Maybe he could-

Tsukishima jumped at the feeling of a poke on his chest, his eyes opening in surprise when he found Y/N standing much closer than she was earlier. “Are you teasing me?” She asked defensively, squinting her eyes up at him.

“T-Teasing?” Tsukishima stammered. He watched her eyes, noting how visibly upset she looked and he could feel his frustration rising. He had finally said what he had wanted to say this whole time... and she wasn’t even reacting the way she was supposed to. How stupid did she have to be? And why did she have to look so damn cute while doing it?

“Yamaguchi-san told you, didn’t he? I knew that poophead couldn’t keep his mouth shut,” she grumbled, crossing her arms against her chest. “He swore he wouldn’t tell you, but I should’ve known. You guys are best friends and all.”

“Told me... told me what?”

“That I’ve liked you practically since we met,” Y/N huffed, putting her hands on her hips. “Listen, Tsukishima-san, if you don’t like me back, you don’t have to tease me like this. I’m perfectly fine being rejected,” she told him with a pout on her lips (she was definitely not fine being rejected, and was planning on crying at home after this). “Don’t act like you didn’t know.”

Tsukishima‘s eyes widened, staring at her like she had grown a second head. “You... You like me?” He gulped. His allergies must be getting worse, his heart was thumping so hard against his chest, he couldn’t think straight.

Y/N and him shared a confused look for a moment, neither one of them sure who was teasing whom at this point. “Didn’t... didn’t you know? That’s why you’re being nice to me?” She asked him, poking his chest again. “Why else would you be walking me home and buying me juice?”

“Why would...” Tsukishima’s lips curled into a smile and suddenly he burst out into laughter, tilting his head back in amusement.

“Why are you laughing?” Y/N whined, punching his arm lightly with a huff. “This isn’t a time to be laughing at me!”

Tsukishima straightened up with his signature cocky smile, shaking his head as he fixed his glasses on his face. Then, his hand moved to hit the top of her head.

“OW! Tsukishima-san!”

“You idiot. Why would I be standing here confessing to you if I was just going to make fun of you?” Tsukishima scoffed, smirking at her. “If I didn’t like you back and I found out you liked me, don’t you think I would’ve made it clear by now that you never stood a chance?”

Y/N thought about this for a moment, remembering that one time a girl in a different class had confessed to him after attending one of his matches.

“I think you’re incredible, Tsukishima-san! A-And I just.... well I just...”

“Are you trying to confess to me?” Tsukishima didn’t even bother looking up from his study book, finishing an equation before even glancing at her. “You should just give up now. I’m not interested.”

The girl had teared up so much, even Y/N had felt bad (even though she was secretly happy that Tsukishima hadn’t accepted the confession). Yamaguchi had yelled at Tsukishima about being gentle that day.

“Why would I be nice to someone stupid enough to think I’d like them? I didn’t give her any hints that I did, I don’t even know her,” Tsukishima grumbled.

Y/N had internalized those words, deciding she wouldn’t confess her feelings to Tsukishima ever. If she did, and Tsukishima rejected her, he probably wouldn’t want to be around her as friends ever again.

“So...” Y/N thought to herself for a moment, trying to reexamine what had happened today. “What was with the juice box then?” She asked him.

“I thought...” Tsukishima frowned a little, looking up at the sky in thought. “I thought when you confess you were supposed to... give a gift or something.”

Y/N couldn’t help but giggle at his thought process and Tsukishima glared at her slightly. “You’re laughing at me now?”

She shook her head quickly, trying to stifle her giggles, “I just... I think it’s sweet,” she beamed, holding onto her little juice box even though it was empty now.

Tsukishima watched her carefully before smiling a little, patting her head gently, “Alright then, let’s get you home. I’ll bring another juice box for you for our date.”

“D-Date?” Y/N repeated shyly, following him as he started to walk again.

“You thought I’d just confess to you and not ask you out? Idiot,” Tsukishima smirked, feeling such an intense relief on his shoulders. His heart was still beating furiously and his stomach felt like it was going to come up his throat, but... it wasn’t as frustrating of a feeling now.

After he dropped her off at her house with the promise of walking her to school tomorrow morning, Tsukishima couldn’t help but allow himself to smile widely the whole way home.

If this is what an allergy felt like, he never wanted it to stop.

** ** ** ** ** ** ** **

Okay like I mentioned up there in the Author’s Notes, this is my first time writing for Haikyuu so lmk what you thought :) I’ve written some stuff for OHSHC and I think it’s pretty obviously that tall jerks with glasses are my type lol

Anyways! Enjoy!

1K notes · View notes

ichiiyos · 3 years

Note

Hello since I noticed that your accepting requests may I please have a headcannon for Draken,Mikey,Baji, Chifuyu of when they are jealous (like how they act when they are jealous)? Thank you and have a great day 💖

jealousy, jealousy !

summary: refer to the ask above

warnings: men being creepy, cursing, unedited

a/n: hiii thanks for requesting!! but I'm sorry I have to remove draken, as I have written in my rules I will not be writing for him. also I originally wrote chifuyu in this but I had to remove him because it got too long, maybe I'll put in a separate post. sorry this took so long aaaaaa I was super swamped with assignments

manjiro "mikey" sano

the pouty kind of jealous

he brought you along with him to one of tomans meeting, letting you walk around since you were fairly close with most of the toman members

as he was barking orders at the top of the stairs beside draken you stayed at the back, laughing with baji

his eyes narrowed at the both of you, especially at the arm that baji has wrapped around your shoulder but he didn't stop from his duties

(bc draken might scold him again later on)

as soon as he finished he quickly walked down the stairs and headed to your direction

I kid you not, this mf, THREW himself to you

just completely threw his whole body weight to you and wrapped both arms around your waist

"y/n I missed you so much"

would give you puupy eyes, doesn't care if people see him

give him attention rn!

"mikey we literally went here together?"

"yeah but you've been talking with baji for so long, talk to me too!"

he whined

he would (playfully) give baji a glare and tell him to go away

baji would laugh and go his way while waving to you, not wanting to deal with what mikey might do to him

overall, he's kinda cute if he's jealous though annoying

keisuke baji

the feral jealous

man would bark and growl and all that shit bro 😞

for someone who likes cats he acts like a dog when provoked

but like a dog who throws punches??

you were both enjoying your date in shibuya, walking around, visiting different stores, and buying gifts for each other

despite the sunny day and the overly crowded place, you and baji didn't mind

now baji, being the observing boyfriend he is, noticed how you were sweating

and if course him being him lead you to a park bench and told you to wait for him before sprinting off, not caring for your objections

as you waited a group of guys entered the park, trying to look "cool" while walking

they just looked like a bunch of zombies tbh 😞

so as you sat your pretty self there, patiently waiting for your boyfriend to return, one of the guys saw you

"may chix boss"

and with their creepy ass self, they approached you

as you noticed them coming your way you tried to subtly take your leave

fuck baji, you can just call him once you get to a safe place

but as you were about to finally leave the park one of the guys harshly grabbed your forearm

"hi miss, you look a little lost, wnat us to help you?"

you tried to move away from his grasp while laughing nervously

"no thank you, I'm actually about to meet my boyfriend"

"aw it's okay, we can wait for him with you here"

they were snickering amongst themselves when they saw the look of fear you had

when all of a sudden the hold on your arm was suddenly loosened, and the guy who held you was soaked from head to toe with a soda

bajis ass stood at the entrance of the park, despite the smile on his face you saw the look of pure rage on his eyes

better start praying for their asses bestie bc they gon die

"what the fuck do you think you're doing?"

before they could let out a single sound baji was already straddling them by the hip while throwing multiple punches to their face

wait I don't think this counts as being jealous anymore

but overall baji is protective, he doesn't care if the man you were with is your friend as soon as he senses the man has other intentions he would try to get you away from them

#mikey x reader #tokyo revengers headcanons #tokyo revengers x reader #tokyorev x reader #chifuyu x reader #baji x reader #mikey fluff #chifuyu fluff #baji fluff #mikey headcanon #chifuyu headcanons #baji headcanons

326 notes · View notes

heyyyharry · 3 years

Text

Happier

(inspired by happier by Olivia Rodrigo)

Word count: 2.4k

I'm selfish, I know, I can't let you go So find someone great, but don't find no one better I hope you're happy, but don't be happier

Part 1: Drivers License

Part 2: Deja Vu

A/N: I edited the original lyrics to match the POV :)

Harry had come up with a thousand scenarios of how this day would play out. Actually, he’d been thinking of this day since the moment he’d received the news. He didn’t dare to hope that she’d say yes to coming back for a sequel. He’d been sure that they would write her character off, give a lame excuse for how his love interest could not make a return and make his character forget about her completely to move on with a new girl in town. It would have been great if it was that easy in real life. Once someone was written off the script, they were gone for good. Real-life relationships were not that simple. Goodbye didn’t mean ‘never see you again’. You would still share the same friend circle and social bubbles, and it was worse when you two worked in the same industry. Harry didn’t know how he’d lasted a year without running into her, not since the Grammys.

“Didn’t you two date?”

“No.” Harry shook his head, but his eyes stayed glued on Y/N from across the room. She wasn’t looking his way, too busy saying hello to everyone else. “No,” he repeated, more to himself than to his co-star. “We didn’t.”

“But she wrote an entire album about you,” said the other twin. What was her name again? Lulu?

“Luna!” cried her sister, Lex. “You can’t ask him that!”

“No, it’s okay,” Harry said with a tight smile, slightly annoyed by the blonde twins, but he didn’t want to seem like an ass on the first day of filming. “And I don’t know if it was for me. You should ask Y/N.”

“Ask me what?”

Harry flinched when he looked up and saw Y/N padding towards them. She hugged the twins, who seemed way too excited. Harry guessed they were Y/N’s fans. They gave off crazy fangirl vibes, probably just pretending not to know the drama to interrogate him. He couldn’t blame them for assuming he was the villain and definitely could not blame Y/N for portraying him as one. It was more important that he knew who he was and how much he had changed since his last relationship. Maybe they could finally be friends.

“Were they bothering you?” Y/N asked him once the twins had left.

Harry nodded. “They’re your friends?”

“Oh, I met them last year on tour. I’m surprised you don’t know them. They were on Disney.”

“I don’t watch Disney,” Harry admitted with a smile. “Well, not today’s Disney.”

“Understandable.” Y/N nodded and bit her lip. She seemed guarded with her straight back and hands hidden behind her. She eyed him up and down, quite subtle yet noticeable. “How have you been?”

“Pretty good,” he said, nodding slowly. “You?”

“Yeah, but mostly tired because of tour.”

“You’re done?”

“Yup, last night was the last show.”

“Nice.”

Y/N raised an eyebrow. “Nice?”

Harry blinked. “Did I say something wrong?”

“No.” Y/N giggled. “You still sound very...you.”

“Well, shouldn’t I?”

“Yeah, you should. But it’s been a year so…I mean, you haven’t changed much.”

“Right,” he said lowly, his eyes falling to his feet. Harry supposed he should say something else, perhaps bringing up another random topic to discuss, but all he could think about was what had happened between them. Things had been messy, hadn’t they? How could they go back to before that? Before her first song about him. Before he’d chosen someone else over her.

Or he could talk about her new relationship. She’d been in a happy relationship for almost six months, right? No wait, hadn’t they broke up two weeks ago? He wasn’t sure because he hadn’t been catching up. If they’d broken up, he’d sound like an ass to even mention her ex’s name. He should just stay quiet.

“I’ll see you later?” she said, gesturing at her stylist who was waiting by the door.

Harry could ask her right now -- the reason she’d agreed to film the sequel to their first movie together. He’d heard from a very reliable source that she’d specifically asked her agent to decline any project that he was in. So did this mean they were good? That she didn’t hate him anymore? He could have gathered his courage and got the answer right then…

“Yeah, see you.”

...but he didn’t.

And so she gave him a smile and a little wave, then happily returned to her stylist.

“See you tomorrow, Y/N!”

“See you, Annie!” Y/N said as she put the rest of her things into her tote bag. Her new driver had got her schedule mixed up, and so she had to wait here for another half an hour. She was in no rush. It had been a light first day, and she’d had a fun time getting to know the new cast members and catching up with old friends.

She sat on the sofa in the lobby, legs crossed, texting her best friend about her day. She’d purposely left out the short off-screen conversation with Harry, and her best friend didn’t even bother to ask. In their world, he didn’t exist, and his name was censored in every conversation like a curse word that was even worse than ‘cunt’. Nevertheless, she didn’t hate him anymore. She was doing just fine on her own, being busy with her career, and she’d been in a happy relationship after her fall out with him.

She and the guy, a model, had broken up two weeks ago due to long distance and some differences that they could not change. They had ended on good terms and decided to stay friends. They said you could only stay friends with your ex when you still had feelings for each other, or you had never loved each other that much in the first place. For her, it was probably the latter. Her previous relationship had been more platonic than romantic, apparently. So she had nothing but the best to say about him.

As she was going through her camera roll, just reminiscing about the past, she heard footsteps approaching and looked up to find Harry. He offered a smile and gestured to the spot beside her on the sofa. “May I sit here? My ride is late.”

“Yeah, sure.” She hurriedly scooted over.

“Good job today,” he said. “You were great.”

“Thanks, so were you.” She smiled, and they both looked away at the same time. This was so awkward. She hated small talk. She’d never had to have small talk with Harry. Conversations with him used to be so easy and natural and silly. Whatever this was, it wasn’t them.

“Can we just be normal?”

At first, Y/N thought she’d been the one who’d said it, so when she realised it’d been Harry, she was speechless.

He swallowed and sat a bit straighter, still not looking at her. “I don’t want us to be weird and awkward.”

“Okay,” she said.

He cleared his throat. “Wanna try again?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Okay, not to sound like an ass but when Joey kept forgetting his lines, I was so pissed off, I could throw a chair at the wall.”

“Right?!” exclaimed Y/N, feeling free to have finally broken out of her shell. “Like, he doesn’t even have many lines. I know he’s new but damn...you can’t get far if you don’t learn your goddamn lines.”

Harry shook with laughter. “Oh God, we sound like dicks, don’t we?”

“Maybe.” Y/N laughed, covering her mouth. “But you know what? We can’t be nice in this industry. It’s impossible.”

“Shhh, if someone heard this, we would be into big trouble.”

“Oh please, I’ve had worse articles written about me than ‘Y/N speaks facts about her lazy co-star’.”

Harry tossed his head back and cackled. “The worst one I’ve got this week was ‘Harry Styles hates therapists.’”

“What?!” Y/N gasped. “No way! That’s so stupid!”

“Right?” Harry rolled his eyes. “I could get all my therapists to speak up for me but I’m kinda immune to bullshit now.”

“Therapists? Like plural?”

“Yeah, one in every city.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

Y/N rubbed her hands onto her legs. “Rough year?”

Harry’s eyes rolled to the back of his head as he leaned back. “You have no idea.” Then he swept his hair out of his eyes, sucked in a breath, and finally looked at her. “I wish I could have talked to you, though.”

She bit her tongue, knowing what she was about to say next would disappoint her best friend so much, but she had to. “So do I.”

Harry looked taken aback before his lips curled into a smile. “It’s silly, isn’t it? I haven’t talked to you in a year, and I feel like I know everything that’s happened to you except that I don’t.”

What he’d just said might make no sense for most people, but Y/N knew exactly what he meant. She nodded and wetted her lip. “You only know as much as everyone else does.”

“Yeah, I got updates on you from the news and our friends.”

“Same.” Y/N smiled back. “I hate how they write articles about your new haircut but not mine.”

“I like your new hair colour.”

“Thanks. I like your new car.”

Then they both burst out laughing. It was fun and also a little bit strange that Y/N didn’t feel the same anxiety talking to him as she used to. It must be because they had grown and were now meeting again as better people.

“Damn, my ride's here,” Y/N said as she read the text from her driver. “I gotta go now.”

“Oh, okay.” Harry stood up and followed Y/N to the entrance. “Hey, just wondering--”

“Yeah?”

“Am I...am I still blocked?” He looked a bit flustered as she tilted her head and squinted her eyes. “On your phone. Because I remember you having my number blocked--”

“I unblocked you on your birthday.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah.” Y/N shrugged. “I should’ve sent you a happy birthday text but...I didn’t want your girlfriend to get the wrong ideas.”

“My ex.”

“Yeah, I know.”

They smiled at each other one last time before saying goodbye. Y/N knew it was silly, but she was hoping he would go after her.

Ding.

A notification popped up when she was in the car. She was almost home, and it was from Harry’s number. He’d sent her a link with a message that said, “Hope you like it :)”.

Curious, she tapped on it and was directed to an audio file titled ‘Track 5’. The upload date was last year. About two weeks after their short conversation at the Grammys.

Hurriedly, she fumbled inside her bag for her iPods and put it on before she pressed play.

“Hey, Jeff, I couldn’t sleep so I wrote this song. Listen and let me know if it should go on the album.”

Then came the piano intro. It sounded good, so Y/N wondered how it hadn’t ended up on his last album.

But when he started to sing...

We ended a while ago Your friends are mine, you know, I know You've moved on, found someone new One more guy who brings out the better in you

And I thought my heart was detached From all the sunlight of our past But he’s so nice, he’s so funny Does he mean you forgot about me?

Oh, I hope you're happy But not like how you were with me I'm selfish, I know, I can't let you go So find someone great, but don't find no one better I hope you're happy, but don't be happier

And does he tell you you’re the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen? An eternal love bullshit he might not even mean Remember when you were with me I meant it when you heard it first from me

And now I'm pickin' him apart Like cuttin' him down will make you miss my wretched heart But he’s charming, he looks kind He probably gives you butterflies

I hope you're happy But not like how you were with me I'm selfish, I know, I can't let you go So find someone great, but don't find no one better

I hope you're happy I wish you all the best, really Say you love him, baby Just not like you loved me And think of me fondly when your hands are on him I hope you're happy, but don't be happier

The song was for her. He’d written it when her new relationship had gone public. Y/N sat there, staring blankly ahead until the honking of a car tore open her inner peace, and reality came crashing back in. The driver dropped her off at her house. Instead of going inside, she stood on her front steps and replayed the song one more time. When it ended, she decided to text him: Why didn’t this make it to the album?

She didn’t know where he was now, but it showed ‘typing’ in less than a second, as if he’d been waiting in their chat since he’d sent that link.

You would’ve hated me, Y/N.

True, she replied. Still, I would’ve loved the song lowkey. And added, I love it btw.

He took so long to type that it was driving her crazy. She flopped down on the concrete stair with her phone clutched in her hands, her heart thundering against her ribcage. Anxiety popped like a balloon when his message appeared: Were you happier?

She reread it again and again.

No.

I wasn’t either, he responded. I kept getting deja vu.

Ha, nice reference.

That song is my guilty pleasure. Love listening to you roasting me on loop.

That last message made Y/N bury her face into her palm and giggle like a fool. She thought for a second and wrote: I could come roast you in person now if that’s what you prefer. I think we’ve never had a proper roasting.

Can we meet, Y/N? Or are you busy now?

No, not busy.

Great, I’ll pick you up.

Just tell me where, she responded with a smile on her face. I got my drivers license now :)

#harry styles #harry styles fanfic #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles writing #harry styles fluff #harry styles imagine #harry styles imagines #harry styles angst #harry styles one shot #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #harry styles fic

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ponyam · 3 years

Note

Heyyyyyy! I can’t express how much I love your writing honestly and I really want to request something if your still taking them. Could you do a Zhongli x reader? Zhongli takes reader on a date to propose to them and could you include the wedding too if that’s too much to ask? I would really appreciate it :)❤️❤️

thank you so much! and sorry this took so long omg

devout

zhongli x reader [gender neutral]

synopsis: zhongli takes you on a proposal-date and sweeps you of ur mfkn feet <3

cw: slightly suggestive towards the end, mentions of a [food] coma, i'm a sap

The light of the morning sun shone brightly, yet the air was brisk as it nipped at your cheeks. The crisp smell of sea air wafted in from the docks, while the rhythmic chime of ship’s bells echoed off the walls of buildings, indicating that sailors had risen to greet the day and the unruly tide that awaited them.

Your hand was pocketed with his, keeping your grip warm and secure as you walked closely together through the awakening streets of Liyue. At the brink of dawn, your lover began persistently nudging you awake, peppering your face in sweet kisses while promising you with an even sweeter meal as a form of bargain. How lucky he was that it appeared to have worked.

Mornings like this weren’t totally uncommon with Zhongli, however this seemingly newfound fervor for planning a whole day trip like this was a little out of the ordinary. When you asked him what the occasion was— out of slight concern that you might’ve forgotten it— he denied that there ever was one; he simply wanted to express his “love and adoration through a little quality time together.”

Before you could press any further, something had caught your lover’s attention, as you were suddenly being ushered in another direction. He escorted you to sit at one of the tables at the Wanmin Restaurant and, once you were settled, excused himself to order food, planting a quick peck to your cheek in the process. Looking around you noticed that the area wasn’t too crowded at this time of day; there was a certain peacefulness that had settled over the atmosphere that contrasted heavily with the normally bustling streets of the harbor. Perhaps that was what he intended by waking you up so damn early.

Breakfast was delicious, as promised. It also served to ease some of the bitterness you felt towards being jostled awake at the crack of dawn. Zhongli didn’t hold back, either. Anything and everything that you might like was placed on the table in front of you, and you weren’t sure how he was able to afford it, nor if you’d manage to finish it all without going into a coma.

On top of all that, your lover seemed to have brought his own food from home, though it was neatly wrapped and sat underneath the small table. Again, when you asked him about it— not having ever recalled him making it— his reply was as vague as ever; “oh it’s just a little something for later.”

After boxing all the leftovers from the meal that Chef Mao so kindly put together despite the large request, Zhongli offered to take you to visit Dihua Marsh to show you a few of his favorite sights, and maybe even enlighten you with some of the history as well.

There was something so enchanting about the way he spoke; his deep, honeyed voice coating over his words as he recounted tales of his many years of living. He exuded the calm and sophisticated aura of a scholar, which he practically was whether or not he chose to admit it, yet his occasional naivety and silliness were equally charming qualities of his.

You failed to realize how quickly you were drowning in his presence until he directed a question at you, which you had to embarrassingly ask him to repeat. Fortunately, Zhongli wasn’t irritated that you hadn’t been paying attention, in fact he found the dumbfounded expression you wore to be quite endearing.

“I said,” he began as he reached out, gently lifting your chin with his thumb and forefinger while tucking a few stray hairs and a glaze lily that he must’ve picked earlier, gently behind your ear.

He then leaned in, arms snaking around and pulling you towards him by the waist as his breath danced along the side of your neck, lips ghosting over your skin.

“...would you allow me to take you to see a few ruins with me? There is still so much that I wish to show you…”

A sudden tingle shot down your spine as Zhongli’s lips moved to decorate your neck in soft, delicate kisses that seemed to leave a burning imprint in their wake, leaving you slightly flushed. It was truly astonishing how easily he could leave you breathless, even with such little strenuous activity. His affectionate demeanor was slightly peculiar, too, but you were hardly in the position to complain about it.

“Then show me,” you replied, managing to tame the swarm of butterflies that had almost completely consumed you.

Letting out a deep chuckle, Zhongli withdrew his kisses while his hand moved to cup your cheek. He hummed in satisfaction, admiring you with his glowing amber gaze for a moment before speaking.

“Gladly.”

That afternoon was spent with Zhongli as your tour guide as you traversed the various decaying stone structures throughout the Guili Plains, Luhua Pool, and finally, Jueyun Karst, where Zhongli recalled some of his early memories of the adepti with a fond smile adorning his face. You quickly discovered him to be quite the archaeological expert, not that you ever doubted it of course, but he seemed to have quite the knack for uncovering intricate little mechanisms that had been hidden away and preserved in stone over the course of the last few millennia.

He was also very adamant about showing you many of Liyue’s great sights, and was not afraid to express this by taking you to every available vantage point, regardless of how far or out-of-reach it seemed. Even if you claimed to be exhausted, Zhongli would simply carry you the rest of the way because you were going to see this view. And what a view it was. From up high it was easy to take in almost the entirety of Liyue in all of its golden splendor, which was the original intention in bringing you here. This was something that he spent years constructing and cultivating, something he took great pride in and fought hard to protect. It was his world, and you were his crowned jewel.

As the sun was beginning to set, Zhongli escorted you back to the harbor before excusing himself to quickly go and “check something,” sending you off once again with a sweet kiss, and asking you to meet him at the peak of Mt. Tianheng in about twenty or so minutes. You smiled to yourself as you waved goodbye, curious as to what he had in mind and slightly amused by his frantic behavior. You thought back to your earlier denied inquiries regarding what was so special about today.

Perhaps now you would get some answers.

When you arrived at the rendezvous point, well, least to say you were taken aback. Laid out before you was a spread of a variety of your favorite foods, including desserts and a tea set, accompanied by an array of flickering candles that illuminated the small picnic blanket as well as the single glaze lily that grew nearby. Just past it stood the man that you had fallen in love with, his back turned as he watched the sun sink beneath the clouds.

“What’s all this?”

Immediately you caught his attention.

“Ah, there you are, my dear,” he said, turning slightly to face you. “Come here. I have something I’ve been meaning to show you.”

He extended his hand out towards you, a gesture for you to stand beside him. You approached him hesitantly in an attempt to not disturb the lovely display he had assembled for you, while letting his arm gently drape itself across your shoulders.

Your breath caught in your throat. By the Archons, the view was stunning. Sure, you had been sight-seeing all day and this could hardly be any different from the last dozen places you trekked to watch the skyline, but there was something about the way in which the glowing aura of the evening sky reflected off of Liyue and the twinkling sea of its harbor that left you in completely awestruck.

Had you not been quite as transfixed as you were in that moment, perhaps you would’ve caught sight of the distant, far-away look in your lover's eyes. Maybe you would have noticed the way he was fidgeting slightly, or the way his eyes were no longer trained on the view, but on something far more radiant.

“It’s beautiful,” you said, snapping him out of his trance.

Zhongli smiled, enjoying watching the awe and wonder twinkle in your irises.

“Indeed it is.”

You felt his arm lift away from your shoulders.

“But I think I have found something far more precious.”

You felt his hand slip into yours.

“Oh really? And what’s tha—”

When you turned, Zhongli, Rex Lapis, the former Geo Archon, was kneeling before you, regarding you with such an adoring gaze as if you were the deity to be revered, answering your question without needing to utter a single syllable: ‘You’

“(Y/N),” he began, giving your hands a light squeeze. “There is much I’ve been meaning to say to you, but I fear that I have such little time,” he sighed. “When I first gave up my gnosis, I found myself wandering aimlessly, unsure of my place in this world now that I was no longer Rex Lapis. I am now just a mortal man, with no duty to my people. It was a… foreign concept to me, at first. I wasn’t sure how to lead a carefree life, with a clear and resolute heart, until I met you.

“I never anticipated to meet someone quite like yourself, nor did I intend to fall in love as deeply as I have, but I hold no regrets. You have shown me true happiness, and for that I must thank you.”

Zhongli pressed a kiss to your knuckles as you felt your eyes begin to well up with tears.

“Each day spent with you is as valuable as gold to me. Our time together is boundless. I knew not my place in this world before, but I now realize that it has always been right here with you.”

He let out a shaky breath.

“(Y/N), my love, I cannot imagine a world without you in it, and I wish to form a new contract with you from here on out, so please…”

Reaching into his pocket, Zhongli produced a small, black box. Inside was a beautiful jade ring, crested and adorned with gold.

“...will you marry me?”

—

It was a warm summer’s night, and the moon rose full, its light ricocheting off of crystalline streams of water as they cascaded down the high cliffs which surrounded you. The air was humid, but somehow the combination of mist and the gentle night’s breeze made each inhale feel more rejuvenating than the last.

Fireflies were out tonight. They were dancing about you and your fiancé as you stood together side by side adorned in matching hanfu, rapidly beating hearts synchronizing to the same rhythm. It was a relatively quiet ceremony. There weren’t too many guests, and the venue was fairly secluded, making the process feel much more intimate.

After lighting the altar candles and paying respects, a tea ceremony was held, followed by the exchanging of vows. A few adepti were present, as well as some close friends and family members. Seldom did you release each other’s hand, regardless of what you were doing or who was looking. It provided a sense of security for the both of you, a silent reminder to one another that ‘yes, I’m still here, and yes, this is real.’

Although Zhongli is known for being a very composed gentleman, he still found it difficult to restrain himself from sweeping you off your feet and twirling you around while kissing you all over; he was overjoyed, though he was not the easiest person to read.

Instead of performing such an extravagant display of affection, Zhongli opted for a single, chaste kiss once you completed in saying your vows. It was extremely tempting to turn that one kiss into many, much more passionate kisses, but Zhongli was still quite aware of his audience, giving him reason to hold back.

After the wedding reception was held and you had just sent off the very last guest, your husband pulled you aside, albeit a little harsher than intended. You let out a small yelp as you collided with him, surprised by his sudden brazenness.

“You look divine,” he spoke softly, admiring you as you were bathed in moonlight.

A hand then moved to brush some of the hair away from your face, while his other remained gently clasped with yours. Soft lips moved to caress your forehead, and then your temples.

“I have been waiting for this moment for a long time,” he continued.

His lips then moved to your cheek, then jaw, lingering there for a moment while his hand cradled your face.

“Longer than you can imagine,” his voice was deep, sultry, and right in your ear.

He moved to repeat the same process on the other side of your face.

“So forgive me if I’m a little selfish tonight.”

He kissed the tip of your nose before moving his lips to hover over yours, warm breath mingling with your own.

“I must make up for the lost time, after all.”

Zhongli sealed his promise with a kiss that was deep and devouring, conveying all the emotions he had ever felt for you as well as one last, simple message:

'I am utterly and wholly devoted to you.'

#i have summoned the zhongli simps #genshin impact x reader #zhongli x reader #zhongli fluff #rex lapis x reader #reader insert #gender neutral reader #genshin #zhongli x you

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drspencerweed · 3 years

Text

Dreams Do Come True

Summary/Request: from anon: CONGRATS ON HITTING 500 ILYSM!!! random request,, having a wet dream about spencer while sharing a room on a case (i know, super original) and him getting all hot and bothered hearing you moan 🙈😁

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader

W/C: 3484

Content: smut, fluff, friends to lovers, oral sex (both receiving), premature ejaculation, wet dream, sub!spencer

A/N: Hi! So this probably isn’t exactly what you asked for, but I started writing it and it kind of took on a mind of it’s own. I banged this out in two days, it practically wrote itself. I hope you enjoy!

Masterlist

read on ao3

Sharing a hotel room with her was normal. It was. Sure, they had never done it before, but that was just because Hotch had never randomly assigned the two of them before. So okay, it wasn’t normal by definition. But he wasn’t going to make it weird. Just because he had a small crush on her did not mean that he would let it be weird. They were colleagues, and they even spent time together outside of work too! She would come to his apartment to watch old movies, and he would go to hers so she could cook for him. So he knew he could spend time with her alone, that wasn’t the problem.

It was the sleeping that was potentially the issue.

His little crush had been invading his subconscious almost constantly nowadays, and he was known to talk in his sleep. He was so scared he would say something wrong in his sleep. If she overheard something like that, he knew their friendship would never recover. How can you act normal around someone who said your name in their sleep?

He had been avoiding going to sleep before her, so he had taken Derek up on his offer for a drink in his room to talk about anything but the case they were working.

“So when are you going to tell [Y/N] that you’re into her?” Derek asked out of nowhere.

Spencer stuttered around the sip of his drink. “W-Who says I’m interested in her?”

Derek just laughed and clapped Spencer on the shoulder. His cheeks were burning, a sure sign of his embarrassment at being called out. “Pretty boy, you give her heart eyes every time she walks in a room.”

His blush deepened. “Even if I was interested, there’s a very low probability that she is also interested. So the answer to your question would be never, obviously.” Derek stopped his giggling and gave Spencer an incredulous look.

“All that genius and you don’t see how she looks at you?” Derek asked.

“How she looks at me?”

“She looks at you like you hung the stars, man.”

Spencer scoffed, brushing off the comment. “No she doesn’t.”

Derek started laughing again, “Yes she does! Oh my god, the genius can’t read basic body language?”

“Even if, occasionally, her body language reflected an attraction to me, it was probably because she was thinking of someone she actually was attracted to. Statistically, most women find me awkward and-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, none of this negative self talk. You’re a catch!”

Spencer just waved his hand at the comment, taking a long sip of his whiskey and coughing a bit as he swallowed. Derek eyed him curiously.

“I’m telling you, you’re never gonna get anywhere if you never shoot your shot. The worst thing that could happen is she says no.” Derek advised. He shook his head and finished his drink .

“The worst that could happen is she thinks I’m an absolute weirdo and never wants to talk to me again.” Spencer explained.

“That’s not going to happen.” Spencer rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“I can’t risk losing her.” He insisted. Derek sighed and accepted that he was a lost cause, leaning back in his seat and changing the subject.

~~~~

Spencer made his way back to the room a few hours later, saying a silent prayer to a God he didn’t believe in that she was already asleep. The light was off, so he clicked on the bathroom light so he could see but hopefully not wake her.

“[Y/N]?” He called quietly into the dark. All he got in response was a small whimper. He thanked his lucky stars and made his way to the bathroom to get ready for bed.

Once he was all cleaned up and in a pair of sweatpants and a tshirt, he made his way to climb into bed. Just as he swung the sheets off, he heard a low moan from the bed next to him. It stopped him in his tracks. He turned towards her bed, looking at her face for any signs of distress. Nightmares could be debilitating; he knew from experience. But her face was peaceful, beautifully restful. He stopped again for a different reason, taking in the way her face looked as she slept.

Then it scrunched up as she let out another moan. His eyebrows furrowed, wanting to wake her in case she was having a bad dream, but not wanting to disturb her. He swallowed thickly.

Another moan. This one was followed quickly by a quick, “Spencer!” He reeled, unsure where his name had come up. Was she dreaming about him? Was she having a nightmare about him? Or was she calling out for his help?

She let a long, drawn out, “Oh,” and rolled from her side onto her back. He took a step forward, planning to shake her awake from what was clearly a nightmare at this point. But suddenly, “Go on, lick me.”

Spencer stopped with his hands out above her shoulders, inches from waking her. Lick me? He mouthed to himself. What could she possibly be dreaming about?

“Fuck, Spencer, I’m gonna cum!” She exclaimed, rolling back on her side. And-oh my gosh. Spencer took three quick steps back, realizing far too late exactly what was happening. He was entirely unsure how to react. [Y/N]? Having a sex dream about him? It was unbelievable. On his third step back, he ran right into his bed, and lost his balance.

He fell to the floor with a crash.

Her eyes blinked open, and he didn’t have any time to get up or move at all, so her eyes met his immediately upon waking. “Spencer? What happened?” Her voice was tired from sleep.

Spencer blinked, and immediately panicked. He was never good at lying under pressure. “I-uh. You were having a, uhm, dream. And I thought, thought it was a nightmare so-” As he spoke, [Y/N]’s face got redder and redder, and she sat up in bed and placed her face in her hands.

“Oh no, you didn’t hear anything, did you?” She asked cautiously, barely chancing a glance up at him. He swallowed tightly and nodded. “Fuck me!” She said, throwing her head back on the pillow. Her voice sent something through him, and all he wanted was to say Okay and kiss her. But Spencer knew one didn’t control their own subconscious. Just because she had a dream about him didn’t means she actually wanted it to happen. He scrambled to his feet and cleared his throat.

Before he could say something, anything really, she was sitting up again with a groan, rubbing her hand over her face. “Well I guess now you know about my stupid crush.”

“Your crush?” He asked. She looked at him incredulously.

“You heard me moan your name in my sleep. Yes, obviously, my crush. On you.” She explained matter of factly. He stuttered, trying to allow his brain to process the amount of information he had just been given. It didn’t make sense to him. [Y/N] was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, not to mention one of the most confident. She carried herself with such authority he never thought she’d look twice in his direction. Clearly, she’d want some confident alpha male who could match her energy, not his insecure nervous self. But here she was, telling him point blank that she had a crush on him.

He didn’t know what to do. While he was standing there, stuttering, trying to gather his thoughts, [Y/N] made her way out of her bed to stand in front of him. She was only wearing a tank top and a pair of small shorts, and he could barely keep himself from staring at her body. “I had no idea.” He finally settled on saying, and she let out a loud laugh.

“Really? Profiler extraordinaire? No idea? Why do you think I cooked for you so many times?” She smiled at him while she said it, like she couldn’t quite believe he didn’t see it.

“I thought you just wanted to be friends!” He exclaimed, running a hand through his hair. She seemed to deflate at this, her face falling and wringing her hands together.

“I did! I do! But I was always open to...more. I just wanted to spend time with you.” She explained, sitting back on the edge of her bed and staring down at her hands. “But you clearly have no interest in that-”

“No! No.” He corrected quickly, and then realized with a sudden clarity that since her confession he’d done nothing to imply he felt the same. She stared up at him at his exclamation, unsure what he meant.

“No?”

“No, you’re wrong, I do have interest in that. In more.” He explained, sitting next to her. He awkwardly reached for her hand, which she offered with a small smile. Lacing their fingers together, he looked her in the eye with purpose. “I also have a crush on you. I stayed out of the room tonight because I was trying to avoid, uhm. What happened to you. I thought that might happen to me.”

She stared at their entwined hands, and then looked back at him. “Really?”

“Yes, really.” He smiled at her, and her face brightened immediately. She turned completely towards him and pulled him in by the neck, pressing their foreheads together. Spencer let their noses rub together, both of them still beaming.

“I’m going to kiss you now.” She whispered, her breath fanning over his lips as she said it. Before he could even nod, her lips pressed to his. It was magic. Her lips were soft and urgent, catching his bottom lip between them. Her hands pulled him closer to her by the neck, and he let his hands find her waist, urging her closer. She climbed into his lap with his guidance, and he let his tongue slip into her mouth as she did it. Her hands roamed into his hair, pushing it off his head and carding her fingers through it, causing him to moan. She giggled into his mouth.

“You like having your hair played with, baby?” She asked, pulling away to watch his reaction as she tugged on his roots. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he let his hands drop to her ass. He squeezed and pulled her down onto him, letting his lips find her neck. She let out a loud groan as he sucked a mark into her pulse point, but she pushed him away with both hands on his cheeks.

“Not above the collar,” She reminded. He smirked at the idea of everyone on the team knowing what they were doing. At everyone on the team knowing that she wanted to do this with him.

“But what if I want people to know you’re mine.” He asked, pressing a quick kiss to her lips as he said it. She smiled at him.

“I think you’ve got this whole thing wrong then.”

He furrowed his brow at her, unsure what he could have possibly misunderstood.

“You, Dr. Reid, are mine.” She said, and then pushed him down onto the bed. He stared up at her perched on his lap, and let his hands roam her body. Now that he had free reign to touch, he never wanted to stop. She sighed and ran her hands down his chest, going to the bottom of his shirt and pulling it off of him. Her hands lit fires under his skin, as he gripped her by the hips and rolled his hardness into her. She chuckled at him.

“Hard already, baby?” She teased. He moaned and threw his head back as she rotated her hips on him. “Use your words.” She ordered, gripping his face to make him look at her.

“Yes, miss.” He answered on instinct. He immediately froze up, trying to take back the honorific when they had never discussed anything like that. It just slipped out, his little experience with being a submissive taking over because of [Y/N]’s naturally dominant role. But her eyes lit up, and she simply smirked at him.

“Good boy.” She whispered, and pressed down hard with her hips.

He came in his pants.

With a loud groan and a thrust upward, he shot into his sweatpants. She chuckled as he shuddered through his orgasm, and leaned down to kiss him. As soon as he came down from the high, embarrassment overtook him. He had a chance with his dream girl, and he literally blew it not five minutes in. Because she called him a Good boy. He brought his hands up to cover his face, but she caught his wrists before he could reach. He closed his eyes and turned his face away, not ready for the ridicule that was sure to follow.

“Awh, did I make you cum?” She rolled her hips a few times, and he hissed at the oversensitivity. “That’s so hot.”

“W-What?” He asked, turning back towards her slowly. She was beaming at him.

“You were so overwhelmed with me that you came so quick, what’s not hot about that?” She said, stroking his cheek. “The cutest boy, all worked up, just for me.”

He blushed again, and swallowed as he smiled back at her. “But what about you?”

“What about me?” She asked. His hands danced along her sides, cupping her breasts and teasing her nipples through her shirt.

“Wanna make you feel good.” He said while she gasped.

“What’s stopping you?” She asked with a smirk. He surged upwards and began kissing her again, only stopping to finally rip her shirt off of her and get his hands on her bare breasts. Her hands found his hair again and tugged on the strands, causing their mouths to break apart as he panted.

“Wanna taste you.” He requested. She moaned and pulled him into another kiss, guiding his hands to touch her under her shorts. His fingers trailed through her wetness, and she moaned against his lips. Then he brought his fingers to his mouth and sucked on them, while her eyes watched through hooded lids. He moaned around his fingers, the taste of her so intoxicating he wanted more of it.

“You’re so fucking hot. Such a good, good boy.” She whispered, stroking his hair. Then she crawled off his lap and laid out on the bed next to him. He turned to watch her as she shimmied off her shorts. Her eyes fell to where he was still sucking on his fingers. She gestured him over to her, and he quickly crawled between her legs. She nodded towards him. “Go on then, taste me.”

He dove in tongue first, with broad licks up and down her pussy. Her hands immediately laced through his hair, pulling him closer to her. His tongue traced from her hole to her clit. He wrapped his arms around her thighs and pulled her in, letting his lips latch onto her clit and sucking. Flicking the tip of it with his tongue, she moaned and threw her head back on the pillows.

“Oh!” She cried, and it sounded just like when she was having the dream earlier. Spencer had a quick thought about making her dreams come true, but brushed it to the side as idealized thinking. Then she lifted his head off of her and looked straight into his eyes. “Go on, lick me.”

Whether she remembered her dream or not, she was clearly living out her fantasy. He lolled his tongue out of his mouth and leisurely licked over her pussy, his tongue flat and wide. She canted her hips up towards him, and he let his tongue form rapid circles around her clit. Her moans fueled his motions, and he moved one of his hands down to pressed two fingers into her.

She whined as he entered her, and let out a quick “Spencer!” He curled his fingers while sucking on her clit again, and her thighs began to clench around his head. He found the right spot inside her by listening to her moans, and then focused all his attention there while flicking his tongue against her clit.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum!” She cried, tugging on his hair. He kept doing everything exactly the same, pushing her over the edge with a loud shout. He kept up his ministrations until she pushed him off from the oversensitivity. She let out a loud sigh as he pulled off, and her hands went up to clutch at her own hair for a change. Staring up at the ceiling, she let a grin cross her face as a few aftershocks rolled through her. He admired her as she came down from her high, and then moved to the bathroom to wash his hands and get a rag to clean her up.

When he came back he went to wipe her down, but she took the rag from him. “Sit. I get to take care of you, now.” She wiped herself down and then kneeled in front of him. She pulled down his sweatpants, which stuck a little to his cock which was hard again. Smirking up at him, she began wiping him down while he hissed, the gentle touches not enough for him. Suddenly her hot mouth wrapped around his head, and he groaned out. She made quick work of him, throwing her all into the blowjob from the start, taking him as deep as possible over and over. His hands clenched in the sheets as he came for a second time, this time down her throat.

She swallowed as he watched in awe, and then wiped down his softening cock and stood up. Silently, she made her way to the bathroom and got rid of the dirty towel.

When she came back Spencer was still sitting on the edge of the bed. He smiled up at her and reached out a hand, which she took gladly letting him pull her in for a hug, with her standing between his knees.

“I really like you, you know.” He said, his chin resting between her breasts as he stared up at her.

“I know. I really like you too.”

“Would you like to get dinner with me, when the case is over?”

“As long as we can keep doing what we just did before then, absolutely.” She said with raised eyebrows. He let out a laugh which made her smile, and he pressed a kiss to her chest.

“Of course.”

“You can make my other dreams come true.” She smirked.

“I’d love to.”

~~~~

When they walked into the precinct the next morning, [Y/N] was wearing a scarf, despite the hot Texas heat. She hadn’t quite caught Spencer in time, and he had in fact left a mark. Of course the whole team noticed.

“Oi, Pretty Boy, was [Y/N] in your room last night?” Derek asked at the coffee station. Luckily Spencer was facing away from him, so Derek didn’t see how his immediate reaction was to blanche at the memories from the night before. He gathered himself quickly.

“Yes, of course, why?” He asked as he turned around, stirring his coffee. Derek’s attention was on [Y/N], who was talking to an officer on the other side of the precinct.

“That scarf is only there to hide something, I think our lovely lady might’ve got some last night.” Derek said with a smirk. “Don’t let it break your heart, you still have a chance!” He turned to Spencer and clapped him on the shoulder, who was blushing intensely at the tease. [Y/N] had, in fact, ‘got some’, and he was the some she got with. Derek noticed he was off.

“C’mon, I’m just teasing. She probably didn’t get a chance to-” While he was talking, Spencer caught [Y/N]’s eye from across the room. She smirked at him and waved, and he smiled and waved back. Derek cut himself off when he saw Spencer’s wave, turning to see just as [Y/N]’s face turned back to the officer she was talking to. “Oh my god. You crazy man, you actually did it!” Derek exclaimed, shaking Spencer.

Spencer spluttered, shaking his head. “N-No, it’s not like that, I-”

“I don’t need all the details, I just need to know it happened. Because it did happen, didn’t it?” He asked, trying to look Spencer in the eye, but the latter was aggressively avoiding eye contact. Spencer pursed his lips to try and contain his smile as he nodded. “My man!” Derek exclaimed, pulling him into a hug.

Spencer caught [Y/N]’s eye again over Derek’s shoulder, and the smile she gave him made him smile right back.

They had dreams to realize tonight.

Final A/N: thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

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bitsandbobsofwriting · 3 years

Text

Magic is legal, Arthur knows The Truth and Merlin is... shit at explaining things:

Arthur demands a trip to visit the Druids, who are far more qualified than Merlin, so they can explain this whole... destiny thing.

I’ve written a lot of angst and Hurt!Merlin recently, so I just wanted to write something short and sweet and fluffy :)

SO.

Magic has been legalised, Merlin is Court Sorcerer, all the knights are alive and happy, Morgana is good, and the only thing Arthur has to worry about right now is what the hell to do about the rapidly growing crush he has on his BestFriend™.

After the dust had settled, Merlin had tried to sit Arthur down and tell him the whole story; all about Emrys, and the prophecies, and destiny. The King already knew about Merlin’s magic, and roughly how powerful he is, but that’s it.

But Merlin went so long barely mentioning it at all, not even to Gaius or Morgana or Lancelot, that he’s still not entirely sure what to say. Years of hiding and lying and trying desperately not to think about it, mean his brain now blanks when he tries to explain it.

After far too long of Arthur looking on confusedly whilst Merlin rambled on about dragons and coins and mental links and names, The Court Sorcerer gave up, and decided to just not bother.

Arthur, of course, decided that giving up was stupid, and made the executive decision that they would just go to the Druids, and someone who actual knew what they were talking about could explain it thoroughly. Maybe even allow Arthur to read the original prophecies.

Plus, it turned out that Initiating a Golden Age took quite a lot of work, so neither of them had had a chance to leave the city for weeks. They could do with the fresh air. And if Arthur saw it as a good chance to be properly alone with Merlin for more than half a candle mark? No one else needed to know, least of all Merlin.

It was a pleasant journey through the woods. The silences comfortable, and the conversations easy and filled with smiles.

Magic had only been legalised for about a fortnight, and after over twenty years of fear, magic users were still understandably cautious, meaning the closest Druid camp was still a two days ride away.

But that wasn’t a problem. With Merlin now able to use his magic openly, and therefor more able to defend his King, he found he was far less anxious about the trip outside the city than he would’ve been before. And if his good mood bled into the environment around them? Well... it was spring... surely no one would notice the extra flowers and abundance of butterflies?

(Arthur definitely noticed. But Merlin was still... wary, of performing sorcery openly, in fear of scaring the people who had been sucked in by two decades of propaganda and fear-mongering. Meaning Arthur sure as shit wasn’t going to point it out, in case Merlin stopped.)

It was around noon, and the sun was shining down on them when Merlin pulled his horse to a stop. He dismounts effortlessly, and hands a confused Arthur his reins. At Arthur’s raised eyebrow, Merlin sighs and speaks quietly:

“The camp is about two minutes further on but... the change in the law was only recent, and...-”

He bites his lip and looks away, worrying Arthur slightly, before continuing:

“-well, chainmail and red capes still make them a little nervous. I’ve already warned their leader that we’re coming-”

He taps his temple briefly:

“-but I should go ahead and explain properly.”

Arthur nods in understanding, and gives Merlin a comforting smile:

“I completely understand, Merlin. How long do you want me to wait, or will you come back to get me?”

Merlin returns his smile, before saying:

“Just wait ten minutes then follow me, straight down the path. Bring the horses, there’ll be somewhere to tie them there. You shouldn’t run into any trouble this close to a camp, but you do have a track-record so-”

Merlin laughs at Arthur’s indignant expression, but continues before he can interrupt him:

“-if you do, just yell. We won’t be too far away, we’ll hear you.”

Arthur rolls his eyes fondly and shoos Merlin away. The Warlock laughs as he turns and continues down the path on foot. Just before he disappears behind a large bush, he turns around again, a slightly concerned expression on his face:

“I might look a bit... different? But don’t mention it, they’re quite fond of me... uh... dressing the part.”

Arthur huffs out a laugh before saying:

“I’m sure I won’t forget what you look like in ten minutes, Merlin. Go.”

Merlin hums thoughtfully, and turns back around, disappearing into the trees and leaving Arthur to his thoughts.

After a few moments, he removes his cloak, tucking it into a saddlebag. He also, after only a little hesitation, removes his sword, strapping it to his saddle. It was still visible and easily within reach, but not so threateningly on display at his hip.

He was entering these people’s home, after personally wielding the sharp edge of their persecution for almost a decade; the least he could do was make them as comfortable as possible.

He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, not even Merlin, but he had a feeling that this meet was going to end up being about more than the prophecies. Peace had been harboured, magic had been legalised, but like Merlin had pointed out, things were still a little tense. This meeting was a way to show the Druids that Arthur meant it, that his whole heart was behind this change. The he was not his father.

Arthur was a little nervous (not that he’d ever admit that), this was important. Not just to him and the kingdom, but to Merlin personally. He had to get this right. One of the only things that Arthur had managed to get out of Merlin, to do with the whole destiny thing, was that it was finished. It was done.

If Arthur messes this up, not only will it ruin the peace they had been working so hard for... then Merlin might leave. He has no reason to stay after-all, he’s done his job. So Arthur has to get this right, has to impress everyone, now more than ever, because if he fails and the Druids all leave Camelot, then Merlin would leave with them.

And that thought was... unbearable.

He counts down the minutes, getting more and more tense. He tried to distract himself by thinking about what Merlin had said, “dressing the part” what does that even mean?

But it doesn’t work. Soon enough his brain is throwing thought after paranoid thought at him, about all the possible ways Merlin could tell Arthur he hated him, and leave forever and ever.

Arthur rubbed his eyes harshly, muttering to himself about how he really should’ve accepted the “relaxing tea” Gaius had offered him before they left. Other than Merlin, the old physician is the only one who ever seems to know what he needs in the moment, Arthur should definitely learn to listen to him more.

He finally reaches zero in his mental countdown, and sighs before standing from where he’d sat on a fallen log. He’d allowed the horses to wander a bit but they were trained to stay close by, so he has no problem gathering their reins again and leading them slowly down the path Merlin had followed.

All Druid camps were different. Some moved around constantly, some stayed fairly still. Some were huge, acres large with hundreds of people, others were small, only ten people or so. Some were occupied by mostly the sick and elderly, others were full of the young and adventurous, and others were family orientated.

And of course it was rare, according to Gaius, that someone would stay in the same camp their whole life. The Druids were a nomadic people, always shifting, drifting, wandering. Following a constantly tugging thread in their hearts, going where nature beckoned them.

According to Merlin, this specific camp was pretty small (around twenty adults) but it was also a fairly familial group, meaning lots of children. And if that didn’t make Arthur nervous (it definitely did) then nothing would.

Arthur didn’t have much experience with children, and definitely had no concept of how to act around them, especially Druid children.

After about a minute of walking, Arthur could hear loud laughter and quiet conversations floating through the trees. He slowed his pace; trying to appear unthreatening and friendly, or to delay the inevitable, he’s not quite sure.

He finally breaks through the treeline to see that... no one is even looking in his direction.

It was the middle of the day, so the camp was busy, people milling about everywhere, most of the tents open, various jobs getting done throughout the clearing.

But what immediately drew Arthur’s eye, was the source of the laughter.

The King looked across the clearing to see Merlin, in a whole new wardrobe, and a whole new light.

The man had changed from his simple travellers clothes (basically the clothes he’d worn as a manservant, just a bit newer and cleaner.) into a loose, white, lace up shirt (sleeves rolled up, which Arthur absolutely did NOT find himself staring at, thank you very much.) paired with slim black trousers.

But what was most striking, was the deep blue cloak billowing behind him, and the silver crown on his head. It was delicate, as if forged with vines and leaves and feathers, but it was oh so Merlin.

Arthur stayed at the edge of the clearing, glad that no one had noticed him; allowing him to stare in reverence at his best friend.

He was surrounded by young children, all laughing joyously as his eyes glowed golden and he waved his hands around. He needn’t mutter spells as he smiled widely, willing butterflies and bees to manifest in the air around him.

One of the younger children held his arms in the air and made grabbing motions with his hands. Merlin bent over and pulled him up into the air without a moment of hesitation, spinning him around on the spot (much to the kid’s enjoyment, who giggled outrageously), before settling him on his hip.

He used one hand to support the kid’s weight (when did Merlin get so strong??), and used the other to summon flowers around the feet of the rest of the children.

A fond smile spread across Arthur’s face as he saw them run around exuberantly, gathering the flowers in chubby hands to present to parents and siblings and friends.

Arthur laughed softly as he saw Merlin reply enthusiastically to something that the boy on his hip had said, and a second later, the child had a butterfly perched on the end of his nose.

Arthur is broken from his concentration, jumping a foot in the air when a soft hand lands on his shoulder from behind.

He whips his head around, just about managing to stop himself from yelping and reaching for where his sword usually is at his hip.

He calms his breathing as his eyes find the friendly face of a Druid, an amused smile on his face. Arthur returns his smile, a tad shakily, suddenly feeling the nerves again, and nods his head respectfully.

The man keeps his hand on Arthur’s shoulder, but looks towards Merlin in the clearing, before softly saying:

“He’s quite something, your Emrys, isn’t he?”

Arthur gulps, also looking back at Merlin as he replies with a chuckle that was only slightly forced:

“He’s more yours than mine, especially like this, but yes, he is something special.”

The Druid laughs disbelievingly, and Arthur turns to look, a confused expression on his face as he listens to his reply:

“Definitely not. He’s always belonged to you more than he’s belonged to us-”

He stops laughing to look at Arthur, eyes sparkling with friendly mirth as he continues:

“-prophecy or no, he had a... well... a pre-carved place among the Druids, but he still chose to carve his own space by your side. I think that speaks volumes about where he truly belongs, or at least where he wants to belong, don’t you?”

Arthur doesn’t really have a response to that as he stares at the man with barely concealed bafflement, but luckily, before the silence stretches too long, the Druid gestures to the clearing:

“Come. Everyone is excited to meet you, though I warn you, the children in this camp can be rather energetic, as you’ve already seen.”

Arthur gulps and nods, following him into the centre of the camp.

Everyone’s attention is quickly caught by The King’s presence, and someone comes over to wordlessly take the horse’s reins from him.

The adults bow their heads slightly in respect, giving him soft smiles, and the children fidget on the spot, wide grins on their faces as they whisper conspiratorially to each other.

The boy in Merlin’s arms wiggles, and he gets put down. He rushes over to Arthur, grabbing his hand with a toothy grin and dragging him over to Merlin and the other children.

Merlin hides a laugh behind his hand as Arthur’s eyes widen, and his face goes pale. He thought this was going to be meetings and serious discussions and apologies, not playing with children!! What do children even like?! Swords?? Can he talk to them about swords??! Druids are pacifists right? So probably not??

He gets pulled down to crouch, and the children crowd him, all babbling at once, wildly showing him flowers and butterflies.

Merlin laughs at his bewildered fear for a few moments, before he crouches next to Arthur and holds his hands up, saying loudly:

“Alright, alright, you lot. Remember what I said?”

The children still, and a chorus of “Yes Lord Emrys” resounds from the group. With that, they stay silent, but still grin widely and bounce on the spot in excitement.

Arthur gives Merlin a stressed, but grateful smile, before looking back to the children. He takes a deep breath, before smiling at them, and saying:

“My name’s Arthur. Thank you for having me, I appreciate your hospitality.”

Merlin snorts at his overly formal tone, and has to stop himself laughing at the shock and fear on Arthur’s face when one of the younger ones loudly asks:

“What’s hosp-ee-tal-it-ee?”

Arthur furrows his brows, but luckily one of the teenagers steps in, quietly saying:

“It’s when someone comes into your home, and you’re nice to them.”

Arthur smiles and nods, and Merlin chuckles in amusement.

Thankfully (for Arthur) Merlin then stands and announces to the children that it’s lunch time, and to get washed up. They all rush off, and Arthur lets out a breath as he stands.

Merlin holds in yet another laugh, but tilts his head in confusion as Arthur’s gaze is once again drawn to the crown that rests on Merlin’s unruly hair.

Merlin flushes slightly when he realises what Arthur is looking at, looking to the floor and mumbling:

“You have no idea how long I’ve been trying to get them to just call me Merlin, but then they presented me with this a few months ago and I could hardly say no, could I?”

Arthur nods as Merlin looks up again, meeting his gaze. There’s a soft smile on his face, one that Merlin isn’t quite sure what to make of as he quietly replies:

“Hmm. Looks good on you.”

Merlin makes a surprised noise and his eyes go wide, the flush on his cheeks deepening as Arthur laughs gently at him.

Arthur puts his hand on Merlin’s shoulder, his thumb brushing against the skin of his neck in a way that was slightly more than friendly, but Merlin doesn’t pull away, so Arthur leaves his hand there as he looks around the bustling camp.

His smile falls into something more sad, and Merlin frowns at him curiously:

“Arthur? What is it?”

Arthur shakes his head slightly, not looking back at Merlin as he replies, almost whispering:

“Nothing. It’s just, last time I was this far into a Druid camp... I did terrible things. Look at this place, how could I ever have believed that magic was evil? It’s beautiful here.”

Merlin’s frown deepens, but before he can reply, a small hand tugs at Arthur’s sleeve, and the two of them look down suddenly to see one of the boys from before. He wore a confused expression, and whispered, as if he knew this was meant to be a secret conversation:

“What terrible things did you do, Mr King Sir?”

Merlin takes in a quiet gasp and widens his eyes, but before he can tell him off or lie, Arthur squeezes his shoulder, and crouches down in front of the child.

Arthur gives the boy a smile, and takes his hands, quietly saying:

“Well. When I was young, I was taught some things that are wrong, I didn’t question them, and because of that I did some really bad things. I thought I was being a good person, but actually I was being a bad person because I didn’t do my own research, and I didn’t know any better. But then I started learning how to be better, and now I do everything in my power to be an actual good person.-”

Arthur looks up at Merlin with a small smile on his face, before looking back down to the boy, who is hanging on to his every word:

“-Your Emrys is helping me with that. You see, he’s the best person I’ve ever met, and he’s helping me be more like him.”

Arthur resists the urge to look back at Merlin as he feels a firm, but shaky hand on his back, and instead looks at the child as he thinks over Arthur’s words. His face breaks into a grin, and Arthur returns the smile as the boy says:

“He’s the best isn’t he? I wanna be like him when I grow up!”

Arthur ruffles his hair, and replies quietly:

“Yeah kid, me too.”

The boy gives him a toothy grin, before running off once again, and Arthur lets out yet another breath he had been holding before standing up.

Merlin’s hand remains on his shoulder, and Arthur regrets meeting his gaze the moment he turns his head. But he also can’t rip his eyes away from the teary expression of awe and bewildered happiness on his face.

Merlin lets out a gentle laugh at Arthur’s apprehensive face before shaking his head, and looking back at him once again, this time amusement on his face:

“The best person you’ve ever met, huh?”

Arthur rolls his eyes and blushes deeply, pushing Merlin’s hand off his shoulder as he mumbles a flustered:

“Shut up, Merlin. I could hardly tell him the truth, could I?”

Merlin hums thoughtfully and replies with laughter in his voice:

“Hmm. That makes more sense, of course.”

Without waiting for Arthur’s reply, he grabs the King’s wrist and drags him towards a large tent in the corner of the clearing. Inside were two tables, one large, and one smaller and lower, both surrounded by benches.

Merlin directed them to bowls in the corner so they could wash their hands, before they sit at the larger of the two tables. Everyone over the ages of about fourteen joins them, the younger ones going to the smaller table.

Food appears, covering the surface, summoned from the cooking pots outside and the various food stores around the camp. Arthur tries to keep the wonderment off his face, but knows he failed miserably when he hears Merlin chuckle beside him. He punches Merlin’s leg under the table playfully, but that only makes him laugh harder.

He quietens when the man sat opposite Arthur stands:

“Today we have two honoured guests, our Lord Emrys, and the Once and Future King Arthur. We share our home, our food, and our welcome, for as long as they wish to stay. We raise our goblets to you, My Lords.”

At that, he raises his cup in the air, everyone else in the tent following him. Merlin smiles and nods at him, raising his own cup, and Arthur nervously copies his movements, comforted by Merlin’s reassuring hand on his knee.

With that, the Druid sits down, and conversation breaks out around the tent as everyone begins to eat.

Merlin handles most of the discussions, talking to everyone as if they were life long friends. Arthur is grateful for that, he answers any questions sent his way, asking a few polite ones in return, but Druid culture is so different to life in the city and Arthur doesn’t really know what he should be talking about.

Thankfully, the meal passes quickly, and after another announcement from the man Arthur now presumed was the leader here, the crowd dispersed, everything being cleared away with magic.

Not every Druid practiced sorcery, but they were clearly in a magic-heavy camp; Arthur could see it plain as day, everywhere he looked.

Merlin once again took Arthur’s wrist, leading him out into the sun. Usually, Arthur hated being led places, especially by the hand, but he found he didn’t quite mind it today. Whether it was because they were in Merlin’s domain, and Merlin was King here, or because of how nervous he was, or because of some other reason entirely, Arthur wasn’t sure, and frankly, he didn’t want to think too deeply about it.

This time, Merlin led them to another, smaller tent.

It had several comfortable looking chairs around a smallish circular table, which was covered in scrolls and parchments and old-looking books.

A few seconds later, they were joined by the Druid leader; he smiled softly at them and gestured for them to sit at the table. Merlin and Arthur sat next to each other, and the Druid kindly pretended not to notice them shuffling the chairs closer together.

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur, Arthur having lost his nerves fairly early in the conversation. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that official meetings were his specialty, or maybe it was because Merlin’s hand once again found his knee, but stayed there this time. Who knows.

The Druid had introduced himself, and once more welcomed Arthur to the camp, before launching into explanations of the prophecies and destinies, and everyone’s roles in them.

Merlin knew most if it, and looked especially proud of himself when the Druid described in wonder how Merlin had changed the very fates of the Lady Morgana, Sir Mordred, and Arthur himself.

Arthur was definitely taken aback at that. Whilst Merlin had prattled on, making no sense, about his and Arthur’s destinies, he had never mentioned anyone else, and Arthur becomes increasingly glad he came here to sort it all out.

There were some bits that not even Merlin knew though. He wasn’t aware that the other knights, Guinevere, and Gaius featured in a few of the newer prophecies, and the Druid had an amused smile on his face when he admitted that he’d thought Merlin would have figured that out.

Arthur did laugh at him at that, and Merlin flushed before telling him:

“Shut up, or I’ll tell the others you said I was the best person you’ve ever met, and they’ll never let you live it down.”

Arthur narrows his eyes, and the Druid continues look at them in amusement as they bicker.

The meeting comes to an end just before dark, and Arthur thanks the Druid profusely, for welcoming him, and taking the time to go through everything thoroughly.

Another meal is had in the large tent, but when they leave this time, the clearing has been completely emptied. A large bonfire roars in the middle, and logs surround it, providing seating for everyone.

The evening is full of stories and music and magic, and Arthur once again finds himself wondering just how he thought any of this could be evil.

Even Merlin stands to lead a song. He moves around the clearing with yet another child sat sat on his hip, giggling as Merlin spins her around.

Arthur is surprised to learn that Merlin has a good voice, and stares in wonderment as he leads the melody as if it was what he was born to do. The rest of the Druids clap along, joining in loudly and harmonising and playing instruments in time with the tune.

When the song comes to a close, the crowd burst into cheers as Merlin looks back to Arthur, breathing deeply and cheeks flushed. The Warlock smiles widely as he settles the child back in her mother’s lap before walking back over to his seat, next to Arthur.

Arthur returns his wide grin with a soft smile of his own, and as the music continues around them, Merlin tilts his face in happy confusion:

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Arthur just shakes his head slightly, smiling slightly wider as he responds without missing a beat:

“You’re beautiful like this. And you have an exceptional voice.”

Merlin flushes in surprise and looks to his lap, quietly muttering:

“I wouldn’t know about that...”

Arthur doesn’t look away, huffing out a laugh before replying:

“I mean it, Merlin. You just look... happy. Like you belong here.-”

He does look away here, staring into the fire with a thoughtful, but slightly mournful look on his face as Merlin peers up at him, curious. Arthur continues, even quieter, before Merlin can question him:

“-You know, I wouldn’t be angry if you wanted to stay. Here, I mean. I know magic is legal in Camelot now, but you belong somewhere like this. I would never begrudge you a home like this Merlin.”

Merlin laughs quietly, and takes Arthur’s hand, holding it in his lap like it’s something precious (it is, at least it is to Merlin). Arthur looks back at him in surprise, but doesn’t pull away as Merlin replies, still smiling:

“Home isn’t a place, Arthur, and the Druids know that better than anyone. Home is... home is wherever the people you love are. You are my people, Arthur, you and the knights and Gwen and Morgana and Gaius. My home is wherever you are. No matter my magic or title or destiny; my home will always be where you are.”

Arthur doesn’t let the tears in his eyes fall, but he does squeeze Merlin’s hand, giving him a tender smile that's returned without hesitation.

With the exchanging of smiles that any onlooker would describe as loving, the conversation comes to an easy close, and they spend the rest of the evening hand in hand, smiling fondly at the antics around them.

It’s late when the festivities come to an end, and Arthur and Merlin are exhausted, struggling to hold back yawns as they’re shown to a tent that had been set up for them.

Their bags had been removed from the horses and left in there, and the floor was covered in various blankets and pillows. There was a small trunk, for them to store anything they wished to unpack, and a few candles were lit, filling the room with a soft golden light and pleasant smells.

Merlin charms the tent to be soundproof so they don’t have to worry about noise (he may be openly able to use magic, but the idiot was still rather clumsy, and prone to accidental bangs and crashes), before removing his crown carefully. His cloak and boots follow shortly, and they all go neatly into the trunk, before he starts organising a spot to sleep.

After a few minutes, he realises that Arthur hasn’t moved from his space by the entrance, and Merlin turns around to look at him questioningly. Arthur’s eyebrows are furrowed, and he looks deep in thought as he stares at the floor, fiddling with the hem of his tunic.

Merlin walks over, concerned, and takes one of Arthur’s hands into his own. Arthur looks up at him suddenly, broken free of his thoughts, and Merlin raises an eyebrow at him as he strokes his thumb across The King’s knuckles:

“What’s wrong, Arthur?”

Arthur looks into Merlin’s eyes searchingly, but seems to find what he’s looking for after only a moment, and smiles. Merlin tilts his head to prompt him, and Arthur takes his other hand, before softly speaking:

“You know, I used to find the idea of falling in love frightening.-”

Merlin takes in a subtle deep breath, but Arthur doesn’t notice as he shakes his head, huffing out a gentle laugh before continuing, looking somewhere over Merlin’s shoulder:

“-The possibility that someone could have that much control over me; that I would willingly give another person dominion over my heart, my soul, my... everything, was terrifying to me. But I find I’m not scared anymore.-”

He looks back at Merlin’s shocked face. Arthur looks an odd mix of disbelieving, and happy beyond words as he continues, confident that what he’s saying is right, for the first time in a long time:

“-Because it’s you, Merlin. It’s always been you. And how could I possibly find falling in love with you anything other than beautiful?”

Merlin gulps, seemingly searching Arthur’s face for any hint of a lie. When he finds nothing but sincerity, he launches himself forward, almost knocking Arthur to the floor.

He wraps his arms around the blonde’s shoulders tightly, burying a hand in his hair, and his face in the crook of his neck. Arthur huffs out a laugh as he wraps his arms around Merlin’s waist, running a soft hand up and down his back.

At Merlin’s muttered:

“I love you, Arthur, more than anything is this world. My magic, my everything, belongs to you.”

Arthur pulls back, smiling. He leans forward pressing his forehead against Merlin’s, and cups his cheek softly with his hand. They stare into the blue of each other’s eyes for a moment, not in any hurry to move the moment along, Arthur running his thumb over Merlin’s cheekbone, and Merlin carding his fingers through Arthur’s hair.

Arthur takes a deep breath, before whispering, so quietly it’s a miracle Merlin hears him:

“Can I kiss you?”

Merlin nods infinitesimally, and the two of them lean forward, meeting in the middle in a soft kiss that could only be described as tender, and full of love.

If the stars shine brighter, and the wind blows warmer, and the animals of the dark seem happier that night... well... it was spring... surely no one would notice (Arthur definitely noticed, but he sure as shit wasn’t going to point it out, in case Merlin stopped).

THE END!!

This is the first one I’ve written in aaaaages that didn’t involve a dizzy/exhausted/sick Merlin so... yay me?

I just really wanted to write something fluffy, where there were no high stakes. No huge battles, or angsty confessions or anything like that, just a soft love story.

I genuinely got no clue what I’ll write next. I do have a few drafts and ideas floating around, but let me know if you’re after anything specific, I live to please :)

Like always, you wanna write this up properly with paragraphs and fleshed out stuff, go for it, credit and tag me :)

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supernovafics · 3 years

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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐇𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐀 𝐁𝐄𝐀𝐂𝐇

pairing: dylan o’brien x best friend fem!reader

summary: in which dylan has been your best friend for as long as you could remember. your busy lives and schedules may have pushed both of your lives in vastly different directions as you’d gotten older, but somehow you two would always be led back to your hometown, and each other, during the holidays. however, one moment causes all of that to change.

warnings: angst (what else is new), some fluffiness, mentions of past trauma (the maze runner incident), existential crises, explicit language

word count: 3.6k words

author’s note: idk why i decided to write something christmas related in the summer but it happened lmao (also i feel like it’s slightly important to mention that this takes place in 2016)

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

The rocks being thrown at your window were not what woke you up. Instead, you had been lying awake for hours; getting little to no sleep was something that you had become used to at this point.

However, on this specific night— or morning, depending on how one looked at it— you were glad that your sleep had been restless once again because it made it easy for you to get out of bed and walk to your window when the rocks began hitting it.

There was really no need for you to push open the curtains and check who was doing the throwing because, of course, it was Dylan. Ever since he moved onto your street in Hermosa Beach in middle school and the two of you easily became friends, he was the only person that would ever wake you up in the middle of the night with the soft pings of rocks, especially on this specific day at this specific time.

You waved at him and gestured that you would be down in a moment. You slipped on a random pair of sweatpants along with a hoodie and then placed the Christmas gift that you bought for him in the pocket. The item was small enough to fit in the not too big pocket of your hoodie; however, it did awkwardly protrude a bit.

All of this was a sort of unspoken tradition that the pair of you had developed over the many years you’d known each other. Meeting at five in the morning on Christmas day, walking to the beach that was only a few blocks away from your respective childhood homes, and exchanging Christmas gifts with each other as you both watched the sunrise. It started when you were in ninth grade, and you hadn't missed a year since, not even when the ending of high school pushed your lives in vastly different directions, especially since Dylan graduated a year before you and was almost immediately thrust into his acting career.

But, it didn't matter that Dylan's career took off, and you eventually decided to go to college in Santa Barbara, because, no matter what, you both would always come back for the holidays.

When you opened your front door and saw Dylan lingering by the sidewalk no more than ten feet away, you were quick to go toward him and pull him in for a tight embrace. It actually hadn't been too long since you’d last seen him, maybe only five or six months, but for some reason, it still felt as if the last time he was in front of you was last December.

"Hey," Dylan breathed out in a short greeting, his arms wounding around your waist.

“Hey to you too," You responded, a small smile gracing your features when you both pulled away, and you looked up at him. "How have you been?"

It was quiet for a few moments as you waited for him to answer the question, but eventually, you were met with no verbal response, and instead, Dylan simply shrugged. The short action made your heart constrict in the most painful way, and it was then that you noticed the light remnants of a scar peeking out from behind his dark hair that covered the majority of his forehead. You were quick to peel your eyes away from the scar and instead cast them down at your Converse-covered feet, but that didn't stop the memories from quickly coming back.

The Maze Runner accident had happened back in March, but to you, and you knew to Dylan as well, it felt as if it was just yesterday, especially considering the fact that he was still dealing with the unavoidable repercussions from it.

"Wanna walk?" You asked, finally looking up at him once again.

Dylan nodded. "Yeah."

A silence that could only be deemed as comfortable lingered between them as the two of you took the five-minute walk to the beach and sat down side by side on one of the random empty benches.

"Merry Christmas, Y/N," Dylan said as he handed a present over to you. The present was messily wrapped, something that was not at all uncommon when receiving gifts from Dylan, and the sight of it made you smile.

Before you unwrapped the gift, you pulled out the one you had for him and handed it over. "Merry Christmas, Dyl."

The nostalgic sound of wrapping paper ripping could be heard as you tore into your gift. A simultaneous shocked and happy yelp emitted from your lips when you held up a Harry Potter t-shirt. But, it wasn't just any Harry Potter t-shirt; it was one with a version of the Goblet of Fire movie poster on it, which was your all-time favorite movie in the series.

"Holy shit."

"It's the original merch that was sold when the movie came out," Dylan told you. He hadn't opened his gift yet, and instead, he was playing with the green bow placed on top of it; he always liked to see your reaction first.

You looked at Dylan and then back down at the shirt as you processed his words. "Wow, double holy shit. I would put it on if it wasn't freezing right now."

Dylan laughed a bit. "Very understandable."

“Why haven't you opened yours yet? I'm dying to see what you think of it," You said. You were now holding the t-shirt to your chest, genuinely feeling like a little kid on Christmas morning again.

Dylan finally began unwrapping your gift to him, and when all of the paper was peeled off, there was a square box. "Aw, a plain white box. Thank you so much. This is what I've always wanted."

You rolled your eyes and playfully bumped him with your shoulder. "Ha ha. Please save all of these bad jokes for your stand-up act; I can't wait to boo you off the stage along with everyone else."

"So, what I'm hearing is you don't think that becoming a comedian is going to be the next best career move for me?" Dylan asked. He attempted to make the question sound as serious as possible, but there was a joking undertone to his words.

You bit back your laughter. "Please just open the box already so I don't have to hurt your feelings by truthfully answering that question."

"Okay, we'll circle back to that topic later," Dylan smiled and then finally opened the white box to reveal a slightly faded baseball. When he picked it up, he ran his thumb over the black signature written on it. "Now it's my turn to say holy shit."

You could feel yourself smiling at his awestruck reaction, and you wondered if that was what you looked like when you saw the Harry Potter shirt. The baseball was signed by one of the players of the New York Mets that had been Dylan's favorite player when he was younger, and he'd even caught a ball hit by him when he went to a game before he moved to California.

"I've had this idea for years, but I could never find a baseball signed by him," You began explaining, the excitement clear in your voice. "But, last month, someone named Paul Todd posted this on eBay and I immediately bought it. God bless that old man. It's completely authentic and everything."

Dylan was quiet for a few moments as he simply looked at the baseball in his hands, a small joyful smile on his face, and it made you happy to see him so genuinely elated with the present.

"This just made my gift look like shit," He finally said, a light laugh falling from his lips.

"I have always been the superior gift giver. I think that's my hidden talent," You responded with a playful smirk.

Dylan placed the baseball back in its box and then looked at you. "Next year you will receive the best gift ever from me. It will completely top everything that you have ever given me."

"You're saying that as if I should feel upset about receiving a trip to Italy as a Christmas gift."

"A trip to Italy?"

"In my strong opinion, that would be the best gift ever," You said with a smile and then looked down at the t-shirt, which was now in your lap. "But, anyway, I don't think this gift is shit. I'm in love with this shirt already."

Dylan let out a joking, overexaggerated sigh in relief. "Phew, okay, since you think this gift is great, that means I don't have to do the trip to Italy next year."

"What? Did I say I like this t-shirt? I hate it! Harry Potter actually su— Fuck, I can't say this with a straight face," You laughed, and Dylan was quick to join in with you.

The joking statements leading up to the laughter hadn't even been the funniest things ever, but it didn't matter because this was probably the hardest you had laughed in a while, and you were both glad and unsurprised that it was with one of your favorite people in the entire world.

You missed joking around and laughing with him. You missed simply being with him.

Eventually, the laughter died off, but there was still a smile planted firmly on your face. You looked ahead at the darkness in front of you and the ocean that looked completely black; it was still kind of early, so the sun hadn't begun to rise just yet. Your back pressed against the wooden bench, and you let out a small sigh, your head finding Dylan's shoulder as you leaned against him.

"How have you been?" You asked him, your words coming out both soft and slightly quiet, and before the mood became too serious with your question that was nothing but serious, you attempted to lighten it. "And please no shrugs as a response this time. I don't wanna get a headache due to my head bouncing off your shoulder."

Dylan let out a breath of a laugh at your final statements but refrained from answering the question for a few moments.

After what felt like forever, he sighed and ran a hand through his dark hair. "I honestly don't know. My mind has felt so fucked lately, thinking about everything. I swear I've been feeling every feeling known to man these past months."

"What are you feeling right now? In this moment?"

"I'm really happy with you. This is probably the only normal and familiar thing I've experienced in a while. But, of course, there's still that confused feeling in the back of my mind revolving around everything else." He paused for a brief moment before continuing, his next words came out quieter. "I don't even know if I want to go back to acting."

You lifted your head off his shoulder and looked at him as you pulled his hand into yours and gave it a light, reassuring squeeze.

"No matter what you decide. I'll be right there to support you," You told him and then added a "bro" at the end of her sentence along with a small smile. Whenever things became too deep in a conversation you two were having, one of you would always throw a "bro" or "dude" in there to bring some playfulness to the mood.

The corners of Dylan's perked up a bit. "So, you'll support me when I decide to become a comedian?"

You were unable to stifle your light laughter. "Yes, fine, fuck it. I'll be the loudest one laughing at all of your shows."

Dylan squeezed your hand back because he knew exactly how reluctantly true your words were. "Don't worry, I promise not to put you through that."

"Thank you."

"So, how have you been?"

"No."

"Oh, come on," Dylan said as he playfully poked your side. "I'm not gonna be the only one exposing my feelings."

You sighed and then hesitantly nodded. "Okay, okay."

The truth was you had been far from good lately. Your life was moving, but for some reason, you felt like you weren’t moving with it.

You felt stuck.

Stuck in a confusing mindset where you had absolutely no idea what you wanted to do with your life. You thought that identity crises usually happened in high school, but apparently, yours had come five years late. But, you knew that this delayed identity crisis had been your own doing because you had convinced herself that you would figure everything out once you were in college; and you were both lucky and smart enough to receive a full ride to UCSB.

And although you were finishing up your Master's degree in Creative Writing and had a TA job at the university with the department, which was the reason behind why you could even pay for the Master's program, something in your "should be great" life simply did not feel right.

However, you felt absolutely terrified to say any of that out loud because admitting it would only finally make that statement a wholehearted truth, instead of just a spiraling thought in your mind. And even though Dylan was your best friend and you knew you could tell him anything and not receive any sort of judgment, it still felt hard to let the words leave your lips.

You thought about the way to perfectly word everything, but nothing felt right. You pulled your hand away from Dylan's and covered your face as you let out an exasperated breath. "I can't figure how to say it all."

Dylan placed an arm around you and then mimicked the same question you had asked him not too long ago. "What are you feeling right now? In this moment?"

You would have both laughed and smiled at the fact that he was using your exact words if the current circumstances were different.

"Scared," You finally said, your voice barely above a whisper. "I don't know what the fuck I wanna do anymore, and actually, I don't think I really ever did. I only went to college because of the scholarship, and I convinced myself that I would figure my life out when I got there. And for a while, things felt right because I found creative writing and genuinely enjoyed it, but something doesn't feel right anymore. And I actually do like school. Because it's stable, and I am doing things, even if it's taking a dumbass test. But, it's about to be over soon, and I have no idea what I'm gonna do."

Your words were coming out like vomit, and nothing could stop it because finally, everything you had been feeling for so long was out of your head and put into the open.

"And don't get me wrong, I do love to write, but I don't know, I just can't see myself doing it for the rest of my life," You admitted and then let your next words come out quietly. "Honestly, I can't see myself doing anything. I'm so unhappy here."

You did not say it aloud, but you didn't think you were ever fully content there. Aside from Dylan and your parents, you never truly liked California. You had grown up there all your life, and although there were millions of people that adored the state, you felt the exact way someone from a state like Wyoming probably felt.

Dylan did not verbally respond to your long confession at first; instead, he simply pulled your confused and stressed self in for a hug, and you let out the simultaneous sigh and breath that you had been metaphorically holding in for years at this point.

"Maybe you should take a break," Dylan finally said; his arms were still around you, an action that made you feel completely comforted. "Right after high school, you went straight to college, and I don't think you've ever really taken a break to really think about what you actually want. Like, maybe, it's becoming a zookeeper."

Your laugh was slightly muffled by the fact that your face was pressed into the warmth of Dylan's chest. "Zookeeper?"

"I don't know," He laughed too. "You said you would support me in whatever the fuck I decide to do, and I'll do the exact same for you."

Somehow a smile found its way on your face. "A zookeeper and a comedian. What a fucking dream team."

Another laugh fell from Dylan's lips. "The best fucking dream team."

"But, honestly, I wish I could've known sooner that this is how you've been feeling. I would've been telling you to slow down so long ago, but you seemed content with everything," Dylan told you and gave you another light squeeze. "Please take a break and don't stress yourself out over the future when your next semester is over. Just relax for the first time. You can even come stay with me in LA for a little bit if that's where you wanna take your break. I'll be here for you, Y/N. Always."

Something about his words hit you hard. The wholehearted honesty and sincerity behind his statement shouldn't have surprised you, but it did. And the worry he had for you resembled the same concern you had for him when the accident happened. You two were best friends, so it should not have been a shock that you would worry about each other, but still, in that moment and for you, it was shocking because it felt like so much more than just that.

"Me too," You whispered, finally responding to his previous statement.

The long embrace came to an end with you being the one to pull away; however, you did not pull away far enough for you both to become completely detached from one another. Dylan's arms were still around your waist, and yours were still around the nape of his neck, and your faces were dangerously close. Your hand somehow took on a mind of its own as it reached around and cupped Dylan's cheek. The miniscule confusion and tickle of panic that began to prick at the back of your mind because of the action were not enough to make you pull away.

The slight way that Dylan leaned into your soft touch was the catalyst for you to take the leap and lean in the tiniest bit to close the small distance between the two of you, your lips almost too easily finding his. The inward sigh of contentment you emitted when Dylan almost immediately kissed you back made you realize that kissing him was the one thing currently happening in your life that actually felt right.

Later, when thinking back to that specific moment, you would wonder if that "rightness" had always been there between you both.

However, that right feeling, which was both comfortable and familiar, was quickly replaced with dread and angst, at least on your part. Your mind was beginning to fully catch up with your actions, and it immediately told you that the current action was both bad and stupid, and there were many, many reasons that proved that.

Maybe there were moments where a younger, and even present-day, you did want more to happen between you and Dylan, but you would always push that thought away because you knew that your and Dylan's friendship was so much more valuable.

And then it was the fact that your lives were nothing alike. Even though you were immensely confused about where your life was going, you could say for certain that it wasn't going in the same direction as Dylan's; an acting career that he genuinely loved and enjoyed too much to truly give up. Something deep down told you that, and you could feel the truthfulness behind the thought. The holidays were the only time your lives would truly intersect.

You abruptly pulled away, not just from the kiss but from Dylan's body entirely, moving to the edge of the bench you were on. Your hands covered your face in nothing but pure embarrassment and regret, and you wished that you could take back the last minute and a half of your life. And you also absolutely hated that you couldn't help but notice how much colder your body felt now that it was away from Dylan's.

"Oh my God. I'm sorry. Fuck. That kiss— it was a mistake. I'm really sorry." Your words came out rushed and fumbled, and it probably did not make much sense, but you just hoped that there was at least a little bit of coherency with them.

As much as you wanted to look at Dylan, you refused to do so because you knew that you would only see the regret you were feeling written clear across his face.

"Hey, it's okay, Y/N. Everything's fine. Don't worry," You heard him say but could hear the uncertainty in his voice as if he really didn't know if everything truly was fine. And you knew that it wasn’t. It really wasn’t.

The holidays were the only time your lives would truly intersect, and you had just completely ruined that.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

let me know your thoughts <3

((((already potentially thinking about doing a part 2 to this….. but idk…))))

#dylan o’brien #dylan o’brien x reader #dylan o'brien imagine #dylan o'brien fanfic #dylan o'brien x y/n #dylan o'brien x fem!reader #dylan o'brien gifs

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bi-bard · 3 years

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You Should’ve Known Better - Castiel Imagine (Supernatural)

Title: You Should Know Better

Pairing: Castiel X Reader

Requested: By @zizzlekwum

Word Count: 922 words

Warning(s): kidnapping, torture

Summary: (Season 13) It was meant to save Dean. However, Castiel doesn't take (Y/n)'s attempted sacrifice very well.

Author's Note: How do I explain that The Blacklist requests were a break from Supernatural, not the other way around, haha! (I love both of these shows but I have been writing about them both so much)

Hey! I did a rewrite of the ending of Supernatural. It took a really long time to complete, so it would mean a lot to me if you check it out. Here’s a link! (it’s on my personal account)

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I stopped in the middle of Dean and me running for our lives.

"What are you doing," he asked.

"Go," I shouted. "I'll distract the angels, give you time to get home."

"(Y/n)-"

"Dean, it wasn't a suggestion," I snapped. He stared at me for a few moments. "Please... go!"

Dean finally turned around and ran from me. I took off in the other direction. I heard the pounding of feet behind me, meaning that my plan had worked.

I didn't even get the chance to be proud of myself before I grabbed and promptly knocked out. All I could do was hope that Dean had gotten out.

--time skip--

I came to while tied to a chair. I shook my head, trying to stop the headache that was already forming. Someone called out the door.

It slammed open and a man walked in.

"Cas," I asked, immediately recognizing him.

"You know me then," I cringed when I heard a heavy German accent roll off of his tongue. "Maybe that will make you more inclined to answer my questions."

I don't know how long I spent tied to that chair. The alternate Cas would punch me, ask me the same question, and then repeat the process when I didn't answer.

I just sat there and bit my tongue, knowing better than to give one of Michael's soldiers any information.

I was curled in my seat, my entire body aching from the constant violence, when the door was slammed open. I turned my head, watching alternate Cas's soldiers fall one by one.

By the time my eyes adjusted, my Cas was standing there with alternate Cas slammed against the wall.

"Two of us," the alternate Cas said. "Interesting."

"Not for long," my Cas sneered in response before stabbing the other Cas with his angel blade.

I watched alternate Cas's body fall to the ground.

My Cas walked over, kneeling by the chair and helping me out of the restraints.

"Cas," I asked softly.

"I'm here," he promised.

"Why did you do that," I asked. "I did this to save Dean. Why would you come back?"

"Did you think I was going to let you throw yourself into the pit," he furrowed his eyebrows at me.

"To save you and the boys... I thought you'd respect my wishes," I mumbled.

Cas grinned at me, "You should know better."

I furrowed my eyebrows at him for a moment as he looked back down at what he was doing.

He undid the final restraint before helping me up. I almost collapsed in pain. I was going to mumble an apology but he stopped me. He placed two fingers on my forehead. I smiled as I felt myself heal.

"Thanks," I muttered. He just smiled.

We ran back to the door to the bunker, happily leaving the alternate world for now.

The door shut behind us. We had made it just in time. Dean and Sam stared at us.

"I shouldn't have left-"

"Shut up," I interrupted Dean, hugging him tightly. "I asked you to leave."

Sam stood behind his brother, waiting for me to step back and hug him. Our hug was shorter but it still made me smile.

"Will you guys give us a minute," I asked them. I looked over at Cas for a moment.

They both nodded with knowing smiles on their face. I furrowed my eyebrows at them for a moment as they walked out of the library.

I moved to sit on top of the table in the library. Cas stood opposite me.

"Thank you," I said. "I don't remember if I said that earlier."

Cas grinned. It was really nice to see him smile. It almost always made me smile back at him.

"Can I ask you something," I asked. He nodded. "When you were untying me, you said I should've known better than for you to respect my sacrifice. Why? You've let Dean and Sam do it. You've sacrificed yourself... you literally just got back from the Empty."

"Because I care about you," Cas replied.

"And you care about Sam and Dean," I argued, pushing for a real answer. "As far as you should've been concerned, I was already dead. Why risk it?"

"(Y/n)...," he trailed off.

"Please," I begged. "Just answer me."

Cas walked over and touched the table on either side of me. I just watched him. Each step and each movement. My breath felt like it was going to stop when his hands touched the table.

"Cas," I said softly. He took a deep breath, finally meeting my eyes. I offered a small, slightly awkward grin.

"You're different," he explained quietly. I was studying his face as he spoke. "I... I love you."

I let out a shocked chuckle, smiling at him.

He was about to move back but I grabbed the edges of his trenchcoat and pulled him into a kiss. He adjusted quickly, his hands moving to my waist as I moved my arms to wrap around his waist.

The kiss had a hard hit due to how I pulled Cas in but after that it was soft. Careful. It made my heart flutter and my stomach do flips. I pulled back just barely, pecking his lips once more before resting my forehead on his.

"Wow," I whispered after a moment. Cas chuckled. I punched his shoulder lightly as I chuckled with him. "Shut up."

"No, no, I agree with you," he promised. "Definitely a 'wow'."

It was better than "wow", it was perfect.

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