#welcome to the seventh generation. the things i do for you all. i just had to learn the structure of the code of collada files | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

literaila · 1 year

Text

this is alarming

tasm!peter x fem!reader

summary: you consider yourself a generally unlucky person, but when you meet peter parker it becomes even more apparent that the universe hates you.

warnings: mean peter, mean reader, coworkers, angst (?), working, jameson

a/n: this is part one because i wrote 10k and decided that tumblr wasn’t going to put up with me any more. next part will be out later tonight, or tomorrow.

you always set seven alarms in the morning.

it's often that your alarm clock falls behind the nightstand, often that you shut it off without a moments notice--eyes closed, dreaming dreams you can never remember. it's often that you don't hear anything at all.

only the sound of a groan escaping your mouth when you pick up your phone and see that you're two hours late for work.

the first alarm is to be snoozed; almost an hour and a half before you need to wake up.

the second alarm is for the dreams to muffle, to hear the sound but pretend that it's only a figment of your imagination.

the third is for stirring.

the fourth is to open your eyes and feel some haze snap them immediately shut. if you can't open your eyes, why should you even bother to wake up?

the fifth is for shivering into the covers. your temperature hasn't regulated, and if your bed wasn't so welcoming, you probably wouldn't still be in it.

it's usually by then that you've pushed the alarm clock off of your nightstand, and that it rests under the bed, collecting dust.

you've tried moving it to the other side of the room, but even seven alarms weren't enough to get you up.

so there it remains, ready to be picked up whenever you are graced with the opportunity to really notice it.

the sixth alarm is to think. wonder to yourself what you're supposed to be doing right now, if you need to shower, smell your own sweat from restless sleeping, and consider the possibility of never waking up at all.

you usually get caught in these thoughts, and your eyes still don't want to open.

the seventh alarm is the one you get up to if you're lucky. it's the one that pushes you out of the bed, onto the floor and laughs when it sees the bruises you have from falling.

and it doesn't really matter when you wake up, or when you get to work.

there's a bitter taste in your mouth, and it's not just morning breath.

it usually rains on the days you walk to work, and conveniently you've never really learned how to open an umbrella properly--proven by the stack of broken ones you keep hidden somewhere in a closet--so there's no hiding from the drizzle of the sky.

sometimes you wonder if the earth is mad at you. if whatever deity controls all of this thinks that you're making a mistake.

a mistake every time you wake up in the morning, and suddenly feel the courage to move your limbs.

it doesn't matter though. you have an extra pair of clothes in the ridiculously large bag you always carry around.

there might be a first aid kit in there, a water bottle, a lighter, and many other things that you only realize you need when you don't have them.

your relationship with this bag is the longest one you've ever had. and it's beginning to fray at the edges, not unnoticed by you.

still, as soon as you get to work--only fifteen minutes late--you hide in one of the bathroom stalls, cursing when you accidentally drop your clean clothes onto the floor.

you try not to think about bacteria, or who's walked in this bathroom before you.

and if you weren't already late--and if you cared a little bit more--you might try and deal with your hair, but today, you settle for dripping it out over the sink and ignoring the woman who walks by behind you, giving you a look you can't miss in the mirror.

you ignore all of it, at this point.

when you got this job as an editor at the bugle--known for crazy conspiracy theories and adamant headlines, or pictures of spider-man--there was only one desk available.

it's hidden in a little alcove of the space. a corner you have just to yourself--and it would be nice, you're sure, if there was any actual lighting or an outlet that worked anywhere within the eight-foot vicinity. and also if the ceiling would quit leaking almost right above your desk.

you didn't complain when betty showed you it on your first day. you figured that after ten job interviews and six very strange first days, you didn't have any room left to complain. and you wouldn't be surprised if this only lasted three days.

but it was supposed to be safer than stocking shelves at target--which, coincidentally, had no more shelves--or passing out flyers for local offices in the middle of the street. or even working at annie's flowers where everything was supposed to be beautiful and nurturing, but you were pretty sure you still needed stitches from all the thorn pricks you'd endured.

this was an office job. this was reading and writing and hoping to avoid the available eyes of everyone else--or a helicopter crash into the side of the building.

what could go wrong, you'd thought, smiling at betty and thanking her for showing you around.

and then you grabbed the nearest file on the desk, stained with something that looked like tears. you never said a word about your desk or the discomforting smell that came from the exposed pipes on the wall.

you'd managed to last seven months at bugle, so far. seven months of laughing at grammatical errors and wincing at headlines with puns that even you couldn't have come up with.

you fixed things and stayed out of everyone's way.

and then you went home, running to avoid the rain, or trying to catch the subway before it left.

you sat on the couch and watched the news, eating a sandwich or whatever you could find in the fridge that hadnt already rotted.

you hadn't put the pictures up, and you didn't think you were going to. even though you'd been living in this apartment for more than a year, and it had been three since any of that mattered.

you were lucky to have this life, you reminded yourself. and you sat at your tiny desk, reading about fates that were far worse than yours.

there were at least twenty pairs of eyes on you when you opened the door. the hinges squeaked as you closed it, and you almost squeaked when you realized that everyone else--everyone--was already in there.

all sitting down, all giving you confused looks.

and you swore that the email about this mandatory "morale" meeting--an excuse for jameson to talk about failures for the month--said eight-thirty.

you were absolutely sure of it.

but as you lean against the wall because there aren't any chairs left, after whispering a soft apology, it was clear that you were very wrong.

or maybe you'd been sent a typo that no one else received. or they forgot to put you on the forward list again, and there was no way for you to know that the time had changed to eight.

or maybe you just couldn't read.

it didn't matter, because after about fifteen seconds, the lecture resumed and the eyes left your sullen and guilty face.

you couldn't listen to anything else you were supposed to be paying attention to for the next thirty minutes.

your feet ached, and your head hurt, and every two minutes your stomach grumbled. and then you were thinking about breakfast. you were thinking about quitting this job so you didn't have to see any of these people ever again.

and whatever jameson was ranting about, it probably didn't apply to you.

still, it got worse when you began to doze off--who knew drywall could be so comfortable--only to wake up to people passing you, pushing you with glares in their eyes.

"hey, cathy," you nodded, giving her a reckless smile and waving. you’d never shared a proper conversation with the older woman. you definitely did not hear her scoff as she walked by.

and as soon as the crowd of your coworkers had cleared the room, you were sighing, hand to your head, and then promptly tripping over a leg of a chair someone didn't push in.

a hand wrapped around your shoulder, awkward and warm, as someone pulled you toward them, keeping you from falling.

"are you sick?" a rough, low voice whispered, not quite in your ear but not quite far enough away for you to feel comfortable.

with the grace of a drunk elephant, you attempted to stand on your own two feet, trying to find your balance without flailing your arms.

"what?" you croak out, trying to laugh this furious heat off of you.

"you came in late, and now you're falling over. also, you feel a little warm."

"i thought the meeting started at eight-thirty, and there was a chair," you say to this man, pushing the damn chair back in. "plus--" and then you look up.

peter parker, with his signature furrowed brows and lip bite, stands there, looking at you.

well, that explains the heat.

"oh, um--" you scratch at the back of your neck, going for a pleasant smile. "hey, peter. thanks for... not letting me split my head open."

"do you want me to call you a cab?"

"why?"

"you don't have a car right?" peter says, eyes clearly saying are you serious?

"i-- no?"

"you probably shouldn't walk home then. you're already having trouble standing.”

you blink. "i'm really not sick," you tell him, trying to sound stern or serious or anything but flustered. "it was an accident."

he holds intense eye contact with you, barely blinking. "you sure?"

you nod. it doesn't feel necessary to tell him that this happens a lot.

"okay. well, jameson wanted me to talk to you about the jenson project. which he wants us to do together."

"oh. how come?"

"apparently 'partner work' is a strong selling point. i'd just send you some pictures to fit into an article. you'd have to--" he purses his lips.

"mess with them?" you ask, trying to be helpful.

"sure. jameson said he wants it to be nice and shiny for next weeks release. i thought maybe we could work on adding the pictures together, just so i know if i need to change anything."

"like photoshop?"

peter nods. "or if there's anything you have questions about. i was there taking the photos so i got a lot of the interview too."

"yeah, okay. i'm just working on a couple of footnotes for this week right now, so i'm not sure when i can--"

"how's thursday?"

you try not to flinch at his tone. certain but soft. his eyes, you think, might be the most terrifying thing you've ever seen up close.

clearly, peter is not very interested in any of this. or maybe he's a strict rule follower and is holding a grudge against your lack of punctuality.

"thursday works," you tell him, dropping your somewhat regular smile.

"great. we can work at your desk or mine, it doesn't matter to me. or we can go get coffee to escape the office for a couple hours. just let me know."

and then he's walking away, pushing in a chair as he goes with a look back to you, and you've barely even comprehended what he just said.

or the fact that he didn't let you answer him.

"okay," you say, in a whisper, but you're just talking to the wall.

last to come, you think, and last to leave.

here's the thing about peter parker. he's not known for being the friendliest of coworkers.

he's pleasant enough, gets all his work done, doesn't snap at people when they make mistakes and doesn't finish the coffee in the breakroom without brewing another pot.

and since you've been there, you've learned--mostly from eavesdropping--that he's been working here for three years. that he's taken lead photographer out of many qualified candidate's hands and only responded with a smirk. that he's supposed to be a genius, comes into work with bruised knuckles sometimes--which your coworkers gossip endlessly about--and jameson is either constantly praising the man, or degrading him.

he doesn't go to office parties, he doesn't respond to emails. peter practices something you like to call "every man for himself."

and he doesn't ever smile.

trust that you should know. because, you'll admit, when you first got there, it was hard not to notice peter.

first of all, he's very tall, strong, and kind of brooding. he takes up fifty percent of the office space alone.

but he's also insanely attractive. blessed with thick hair and glorious eyebrows and cheekbones that put knives to shame. his eyes are soft and his lips are plump and he is a certified asshole.

or at least something like it, everyone knows. including you.

but for at least the first two weeks you couldn't avoid staring at his pursed lips or snorts when someone said something particularly obnoxious--usually jameson--or the way he tapped his wrist incessantly, like he was counting down time.

peter parker makes for a very suitable work distraction.

but as soon as you talked to him for the first time, you realized that he was a pretty, intelligent man.

you'd stumbled into the breakroom and dropped whatever semblance of a lunch you were going to pretend to eat that day, and peter was sitting at one of the tables watching.

he didn't have anything to eat, just a cup of coffee and a bitter look on his face.

you'd smiled sheepishly, picking up your now tarnished food, and swallowing. "i wasn't that hungry anyway," you'd said aloud, mostly because you weren't thinking clearly at the time.

peter didn't say anything back, not acknowledging the sarcasm or your lost lunch, he just stared.

and then you held a hand out to him. "hi, i don't think i've introduced myself. i'm y/n, a new editor."

peter blinked, looking at your hand, then back to your face. "peter," he said, giving you a small wave.

and then he turned his attention back to the mug in front of him, leaving your hand in the air, radiating embarrassment.

you cleared your throat and left the room, deciding to get more work done instead of worrying about it.

you'd sort of assumed--recklessly--that he would be charming. that he might smile at you, welcome you to the team, tell you that if you needed anything he was there. maybe it was his face, you'd thought. soft and knowing.

but peter wasn't there for anything but the money, and gradually, he became just another grim coworker, watching the clock until five every day.

and that was probably good for you anyway, because as angry or numb as peter already was, you didn't want to inflict anything bad on him, as you might've if he'd just smiled at you.

and if you overheard the clique of middle age ladies talking about him during lunch, you didn't say anything. didn't smile or laugh, or try to pretend like you weren't listening.

you kept your conversations with him short and tried to stay out of his way.

but apparently, he was going to get in yours.

you really don't even notice him when he walks up to your desk.

it's not your fault that you didn't get much sleep last night, being that your neighbors--right next to your bedroom--were fighting all night long. slamming doors and throwing things that shattered when they hit the floor.

and then they'd start screaming again.

you'd attempted to drown them out, only just barely dozing off when some other loud noise would wake you right back up.

you'd considered putting your headphones in and playing white noise, but with your luck, that would last all night into the next day, and your seven alarms would be pointless.

so you laid there, trying not to eavesdrop on the fight they were having, or think about your own voice yelling, screaming, and then going completely silent.

and now, you were nursing a cup of coffee, blinking at the computer screen like it was a puzzle.

and peter had come up to your desk--made the effort to venture almost across the office to your little cave--and you didn't see him there.

you didn't see anything until he cleared his throat, tapping his foot against the floor like an angry mother, and you finally looked up.

looked up to threatening eyes and a frown.

and peter parker, because of course he was there, at this very moment.

"hi, peter. what-- what's up?"

he blinks at you. you blink back, though significantly slower.

in the past two days, you had avoided any and all eye contact with him and accidentally forgot to look at the email he had sent you with some files attached. you also conveniently learned that jameson was disappointed with his last set of pictures, and that was probably why he'd forced the two of you to work together.

it didn't really matter.

"it's thursday," peter answers, dryly, after several moments of uncomfortable silence.

you look away, searching for any other person that could talk to him instead of you. "was that a question?"

"we have a date," he says, a bit harsher.

you couldn’t avoid leaning back at his voice, nor noticing the wince that fell upon his face as soon as he said it.

"er," peter clears his throat. "we're supposed to work on the jenson article today. are--do you have amnesia?"

"huh?"

"or some other medical condition," peter continues, "that would cause you to forget about the one article you have to edit this week?"

briefly, you want to ask how he knew that it was your only article, and why he was allowed to judge your work ethic when his was "consume coffee like blood and scare away any person who tries to speak."

you try not to laugh at the idea of vampire peter.

instead, you mumble "just a severe mental deficiency," under your breath and pinch the skin of your thigh, just to wake you up some more.

"what?" peter says, still frowning at you.

you sigh. "look, peter, i'm sorry. i haven't even looked at the article yet, or any of your pictures. i've been busy. but if you just want me to finish it myself i can--"

peter holds a hand up, telling you to stop without asking nicely.

you almost scowl at the very idea of it.

"no," he says, like it physically pained him to do so. "i need this--jameson wanted us to work through it together. as an actual collaboration."

you're very grateful that he's explaining this to you.

"i'm not going to tell him," you say, voice rough.

"you can read it and figure out where you want the pictures and the description for them while i edit some of them. i was rushing when i did it last week."

"um... okay. are you sure?"

"we can't work here," peter responds, instead of answering the question. "there's barely enough room for just you."

"...yeah."

"my desk is a mess," peter says, more to himself. "we can go to the coffee shop a block away."

you squint at him. "are you sure? 'cause we could always go to the starbucks on fifteenth, or we could just skip it and head to tipsy's."

you're just briefly aware that your sarcasm is not coming across well, and that you probably shouldn't have said that, nonetheless to peter parker, who already hates you enough.

to be fair, he hasn't asked you about any of these decisions.

"i'm going to go get my bag," peter grinds out. "i'll meet you by the elevator."

the only thing keeping you sane while you sit across from peter is the latte that you've been chugging for the past three minutes.

as soon as you got there, peter had ordered some tea that you didn't know the name of, picking the table for the both of you, and before you could even sit down he was frowning at his computer.

he hasn't bothered to say anything to you, so you don't bother to say anything to him.

still, you look up every couple of minutes, wondering what he could possibly be so worried about.

luckily--ha--this article is reasonably proofread. you only have to fix a couple of jumbled sentences and reread a couple of paragraphs because you can't really focus.

it's about half an hour after you've both been working that you get tired of it.

collaborating with peter by staring at your computer and hoping that the pleasantries, or nice relationship you've been craving for the past six months will manifest itself into existence.

he's right there, you think to yourself, and he's an ass sometimes but so are you.

and it's not like you get the opportunity to talk to a lot of people at work.

you clear your throat. "the pictures are good," you tell him as if this is new information.

you've known about peter's affiliation with photography since your second day.

the man just grumbles out a thanks, not even bothering to look up and acknowledge you.

you have a tight smile on your face. "are you still editing them, or can i start asking you where you think they should go?"

"you finished already?"

there's some emotion in his voice that you don't recognize, but there is still the obvious disdain that you're becoming very comfortable with.

"i'm a fast reader," you tell him. "was that a no?"

peter finally looks up, face blank. "i'll send you the updated ones. do you want me to add them in where i think they'd work, or just tell you where to do it?"

you'd really like to never have to have a one-on-one conversation with him again, but that doesn't really seem like an option right now.

"how about i put them in and you blink twice if you think it's stupid."

peter does not crack a smile. he doesn't even blink.

you try to hide another sigh. "go ahead and put them in."

and so you wait five minutes for the internet to catch up to him and silently curse jameson for subjecting you to this.

your latte is almost gone.

"okay, you can go through it," peter tells you eventually, returning to something else on his computer.

you scroll through it, beginning to write descriptions for each of the photos--which really are beautiful. and bright, almost too good for the bugle.

but you're a bit bored, and a bit delirious.

"can i ask you something?"

peter looks up at you, classic furrowed brows, and then back to his computer, grunting.

you're assuming that it means yes, but if he's not going to use his words like a big boy, then he'll have to deal with the consequences himself.

"how do you get the pictures of spider-man?"

"with my camera."

you can't tell if he's kidding or not.

"no, i mean, how do you get such good quality? he's always moving around, and quickly, so i'd assume it would be pretty difficult..."

he frowns. "it's just some angles and flash," peter answers. "honestly, it's less complicated than you think. they're not all good, i go back and edit them."

"yeah, but still."

peter shrugs, and looks down again.

"have you ever actually spoken to him?" you continue, still sizing pictures, still writing descriptions.

but you'll be damned if peter sits there in silence for another minute.

he sighs. "yeah, couple times."

"really?"

peter nods.

"is he nice?"

peter frowns. "'is he nice?'"

"yeah. i mean, i've heard lots of stories and read the articles--obviously--but i've never met him. is he... a good guy?"

"he keeps people from dying on the daily, and you're asking if he's got a good moral compass?"

you almost scowl, looking up to find brown eyes studying you. and then you shake your head. "i just find it hard to believe, i guess. i can't imagine--" you pause, shrugging. look away from peter's intimidating eyes.

"you can't imagine what?"

"just... doing that every day and being okay. i mean, he sees people get hurt all of the time, and he's supposed to be okay with that? that's a lot of mental energy. what if he's helping someone that he knows? or what if he can't help? not to mention the physical aspect..."

peter closes his computer, taking a breath. "are you good with the photos?" he asks.

"what?"

"i need to get back to the office and talk to jameson about some stuff. do you need anything else from me?"

peter is stiff and scowling. you shouldn't be surprised, but he also just shut down the first actual conversation you've ever had with him.

"oh, no. no, i'm okay. thanks."

"okay. i'll see you later."

peter packs up his stuff, and doesn't bother to look back at you while he walks out the door. you're not sure what you did this time--besides just generally existing--but you groan, hands rubbing at your eyes.

you're too tired for this. you're too exhausted to be talking to peter parker, who doesn't talk to anyone.

you sigh and look back to the article.

and then you spill what's left of your coffee, watching as it drips to the floor.

you're trying not to move.

even breathing, you think, is moving. so you hold your breath for as long as you can bare it, counting by tens, thinking about all the reasons you shouldn't need air.

but eventually, your body gasps for you.

your body moves because it can't think the same as you can, it can't hold that same guilt.

you know that if you don't move--not even a millimeter--nothing bad can happen. the dominos won't fall if there's nobody to push them over.

you're laying in bed completely still.

you're thinking about all of the mistakes you made, all of the unfortunate things you've caused to happen, and it causes enough fear to turn you to stone.

you'd be a statue. you know if you could choose that, you would.

what do you want to be when you grow up?

clay.

you'd choose being cemented in concrete than ever having to look your own luck in the eyes again.

you count by tens until you fall asleep.

and you dream of things that have already happened.

when you show up to work on monday, soaking wet, there's already a cup of coffee on your desk.

you try and think back to friday--which was lifetimes ago, really--and remember if you left it there. but you stayed in the office on friday, contemplating putting in your two weeks or throwing your computer across the room. you didn't go out for coffee.

and when you pick up this disposable cup to smell it, you can feel the steam on your face.

it's warm.

you look around the room, searching for someone who might've left this on your desk--even though you're literally hidden from every common eye--but can't find anyone who looks particularly tired this morning.

and there are only four people in the office as of now.

so you wait ten minutes, and then fifteen, ready for someone to come up to your desk at any moment and accuse you of stealing their coffee.

this would not be a surprising occurrence.

but even after twenty minutes, no one does.

you're back in your corner, alone, as per usual.

and when you realize that the coffee is going to go cold--claimed or not--you decide to take a sip.

and for the first time in a while, you've started the day off alright.

on tuesday, jameson calls you and peter into his office.

and, out of nothing less than familiarity, you're ready to be yelled at. you've prepared a list of snarky remarks to keep you from crying.

and you're completely, one hundred percent ready to ignore peter.

if he doesn't like working with you, fine. that's up to him--even though you definitely did a good job with his pictures. and if he doesn't even like you, fine.

you can deal with that.

what you can't deal with, of course, is standing a foot away from him in this office, feeling towered over by both of these men, who are much bigger than you.

but you keep eye contact with jameson anyway. what else can go wrong?

"i heard we were having some issues with the article last week," the boss starts, his voice typically unserious.

you furrow your brows and try not to look at peter.

he tattled on you?

"yes," you say, instead of admitting defeat. "i was behind on editing the article, so it took a little longer than expected. but i emailed you the finished copy on thursday night."

you don't mention that it was exactly one in the morning, and you'd been having twenty-minute naps since you got home.

or that peter had completely unnerved you.

"parker?"

peter sighs, shrugging. "it gave me more time to go over the pictures. we got it in."

at that, jameson smiles.

you wonder if he finds peter's grumpiness as amusing as you do. or if he's just enjoying the two of you struggle to completely ignore the other.

"good. well, seeing as it worked out--and it's some of the best work i've seen from both of you--i'd like to make it a regular arrangement."

finally, you glance over at peter, noticing his jaw clench.

you're not sure if it's at jameson's suggestion or his praise.

"it's a brilliant idea, having the photographer and editor working together. parker, you've got some fine pictures, but you're no writer. and obviously, she is."

you don't tell him that you feel anything but.

jameson chuckles, holding his hands up in defense. "i know, i know, it's more work for both of you. and more interaction. but it's only one article a week. everything else will remain the same."

"for how long?" peter asks, for the both of you.

"until one of you quits, i guess. or dies."

it's at this point that you see that there are no other options. no choices for you to consider. if peter wants to quit, he certainly can. he could get a job anywhere he wanted, any newspaper.

but you've struggled to keep this job. you've struggled to be anywhere for more than a month.

and despite how much you might dread the place, it's also an escape from everything else.

so you can't leave. and you have no current plans to die.

"alright, you can both go. shut the door on the way out. and one of you ask betty to get me a cup of coffee."

you follow peter out, looking at the muscles in his back tense.

and when you shut the door, he turns toward you.

he looks even angrier, even worse than he had last week. he's not even trying to remain professional.

"thursday?" he asks, but you know it's not a question.

"fine."

you go back to your desk, watching the ceiling leak onto your computer.

peter decides to go back to the coffee shop.

he orders the same tea, sits at the same table.

and he doesn't say a thing to you. he didn't even blink when you went to his desk at nine, gesturing towards the elevator.

but honestly, that's fine. you don't have anything to say to him either.

except to ask what made him hate the world so much. but you don't think he'd appreciate that.

eventually, you swallow. "so, you can put the pictures where you'd like, and then i'll write the descriptions. it'll be faster that way, and you've got a good eye."

peter nods but he doesn't answer.

"is there anything i need to know? anything important you want to add?"

"about the pictures?" peter confirms, waiting for your acknowledgment. "no. about social courtesy? definitely."

the last part is said completely under his breath, but you catch it anyway.

catch it like a rope you're hanging onto, hoping that it doesn't slip from your fingers.

"what?" you say, looking right at him. your hands are off of your computer. your hands might be around his throat in a couple of seconds.

peter furrows his brows. "what?" he repeats as if he doesn't know what he's said.

"what's your problem?"

"my problem?"

"yeah, with everyone. but especially me. peter, you don't have to like me, but i'd appreciate it if you could at least try and be professional. or talk to me about the work that we need to do."

"i don't have a problem--"

"save it. i'm sorry that jameson is making us work together, but unless you kill me, there's nothing i can do about it."

peter sighs, running a hand through his hair. "well there's something you can do about the way you get everything done," he says, quick and sharp.

"excuse me?"

"is it physically impossible for you to sit still? or show up on time, or do the work that you need to do? if i have a problem with you, it's that you're not doing anything to help me, and i don't need you."

"that's not what jameson thinks."

the words slip from your mouth, but honestly, peter deserves the wind knocked out of his chest, just like he did to you.

if karma is a thing, it's coming through.

it's just your luck that you'd get partnered with the one person that couldn't hate working any more.

"jameson doesn't even read the articles," peter scoffs, "he just sits in his office and smokes cigars and bosses everyone around--"

"then why does he want me to write your descriptions? you can't do it yourself?"

"maybe he pities you."

peter's eyes are sharp. his words are perfect.

"why would he pity me?" you ask him, "because i'm an editor?"

"because there's not a single person in the office that likes you. because disaster is attracted to you. because you can't follow directions to save your life, and you clearly have some issue with speaking up for yourself. he's probably pairing us together in some last-ditch effort to save you."

save you.

you take a breath in, tell your lungs that there's no air that they need.

there's no reason to be breathing, if you think about it.

and when you look at your hands, they're shaking. and you can't keep your eyes in one place. and you're ready to run out of there, to anywhere where peter can't follow.

you can't admit to yourself that he's right. you can't sit still, and you can't be there for much longer.

"you think you're better?" you ask him. "everyone in the office is scared of you. you don't have friends or anyone that likes you either."

peter shakes his head. "i chose that."

there's an implication there that you can't think about. there's something about his calm demeanor.

you can almost see the ghost of a smile on his face, just like everyone had said.

you don't have a choice about most things. but you know when to quit.

"peter, you can talk to jameson. you can quit, or do all of it yourself. if you want to just send me the pictures and have me edit all of it, that's fine." you stand up, shoving your computer in your bag, and trying to keep your hands steady as you pick up your latte. "but if you can't treat me like a person, or a coworker," you tell him, "then i'll talk to jameson myself.”

and then, without waiting for a response, you walk out the door.

you try not to let it hit you on the way out.

peter avoids you the next day.

or maybe you're avoiding him.

luckily, he's gone most of the time, taking pictures and sulking in corners where you don't have to watch.

jameson hasn't said anything about the article you submitted, and you're trying to assume that it's a good thing.

but honestly, none of it feels good anymore.

you know that you shouldn't let someone like peter parker get under your skin, but he has some iron grip on your brain. some cave built in your head, echoing the things he said to you yesterday.

nobody likes you.

disaster is attracted to you.

it's in your nature to prove him wrong, somehow. to start gossiping with the other ladies in the office, maybe even ask one of the men out on the date--though none of them are as tall, or as pretty as peter parker, so it probably wouldn't matter to him anyway.

you think about talking to jameson, tell him that you and peter can't work together, or that peter is an asshole, or that you would like a raise.

you think about blackmailing peter, but you have nothing on him. (besides his obvious attitude problem).

you want to do anything to prove to yourself that what he said isn't true.

people can like you, and you can like yourself.

but you know, that even if peter is just an asshole, bitter, and lots of other things you don't care to think about, he's also right.

at least about one thing.

disaster is attracted to you. and to the people you care about.

cared.

you wish you could tell peter that all of those things he thinks about you aren't by choice. that you don't want to live in your cave of a desk, and you don't want to show up late to anything, or trip on chairs, or walk in the rain.

but he'd probably just laugh.

and anyway, he isn't there on friday. so you can't tell him any of it.

on monday, it only takes two alarms to wake you up.

and typically, you'd be proud of that. grateful for it.

but it's cold outside, and you have to go to work.

you'd rather be sleeping.

rather be laying in bed than thinking about peter, or anyone else pitying you. rather do anything than think about peter and still recognize that he's smart and talented and better than you.

so you leave your alarm clock under the bed.

what are sick days for, if not days like this?

on tuesday, you get to work early. it's not by choice, but you were running in the rain.

you were trying to beat everyone there so that you might not have to speak to a single person all day.

that would be nice.

but someone is already there when you walk through the elevator doors, jacket still dripping.

and that someone doesn't even look up, or bother to wonder where the water is coming from.

of course, peter beat you there.

you've never loved your desk, but it's a welcome refuge now, despite how bad it smells. you can't see him, and he can't see you.

and you can take your jacket off over there.

but when you sit down, there's something on your desk that you don't recognize.

a blue hairbrush, and a candy bar next to it, wrapper somewhat wrinkled.

on tuesday, you decide that you're officially going crazy.

you try to avoid wednesday as a whole. thinking of it more as another object in your way, and something that can be ignored until it's over.

and it works, for the most part. you eat lunch at your desk, bring coffee from home, and sneak handfuls of chocolate whenever you feel like it.

you go through a thousand articles and decide that all of your coworkers are illiterate.

which you don't really mean, but prefer to think anyway.

it's about an hour before you can get home that you see the notification show up in your mail.

a new message, most likely some coupon for h&m.

but you see peter's name at the top, and a file attached to it. you stare at it for at least a minute.

it could be a hate note, a notification about submitting an hr claim, a picture of a house burning with a description of "this will be you." or even a list of people that peter hates, with your name in bold.

there are a thousand possibilities, and you don't care about a single one.

but when you click on the link, you just open a pdf with new pictures, labeled with the title of the article for the week.

and you're not sure what any of that is supposed to mean.

on thursday, peter is at your desk again.

in fact, he's at your desk before you are. and when you see the back of his head peering over your pens and pencils, and files that you haven't wanted to put away, your breath stops.

he might be there to murder you.

still, you continue to walk forward, tennis shoes squeaking, and pray that you don't accidentally trip before he's even noticed you're there. if peter is going to kill you, you might as well accept your fate.

and then you step past him, frowning. "peter?"

"oh, hey," he says, softly, standing up. his hands are awkwardly clasped in front of him. "you're early."

"what're you doing here?"

"at work?"

"at my desk."

peter bites the inside of his cheek. he gestures to the ceiling. "it's leaking," is all he says.

"yeah. it rained last night. why are you here?"

"did you tell jameson about it?"

you don't know how to feel anything but shocked. is he waiting for the perfect moment? does he want you to get comfortable just so he can ruin it?

"i--no, it's fine. i don't..." you shake your head, setting your bed down. "did you need something, peter?"

he clears his throat, nodding. "are we going to work on the article today?"

you might be gawking at him.

"what?"

"i just--there are some details i want to add, if you don't mind, and i think--" he stops, taking a deep breath in. "you're better at it than me, so i'd like your advice."

there is only one thought running through your head as you stare at him.

when did peter parker get a nicer, shyer twin?

"what?" you say again, just because you don't know how to answer any other way.

in fact, some part of you thinks that this might be fake. peter parker would kill you, and then you would hallucinate a different version of him that's actually talking to you.

no trick the world might be playing on you is more surprising than the smile peter is trying to put on his face, stiff and wrong.

he blows out a breath. "i'm sorry about last week. i shouldn't--i didn't, well. i shouldn't have snapped at you. or said any of those things. and you were right about me being unprofessional and mean, and just--" peter shakes his head.

and then he meets your eyes. "i'm really sorry. i'd like to continue working with you, because jameson is right, and... but i understand if you don't want to. if you don't feel comfortable. i can talk to jameson, so you don't have to, or--"

"peter?"

he stops talking, nodding. "yeah?"

"am i hallucinating?"

you must be. you must be dying or something. you can't believe that you didn't notice until now, that you didn't pay attention to any of the signs, or worried over something stupid like what you should be eating for breakfast when--

but peter parker laughs.

it's small and almost inaudible, but he's laughing.

and it's not that laugh that first drew you to him all those months ago, that judgemental snort or the laughing-at-you-not-with-you chuckle you'd thought was adorable.

this is a genuine laugh.

you blink, because this is just another sign that you're dead.

peter sighs. "no, i mean all of it. i'm... just sorry."

"you are?"

he nods, and he's still looking at you.

"um, okay," you say, nodding your head. "yeah, we can--we'll go get coffee. but there's, um, i just have some stuff i need to finish from yesterday, so--"

"how's nine?" peter asks, softly.

and this time, it almost isn't an interruption. it's more of a saving grace.

"yes, sure. nine."

"okay," peter gives you that same fake smile, and then he turns around, leaving the cave and going back to his desk.

you can't decide if this is a good or bad thing.

"you didn't have to do that," you're saying to peter as the two of you walk to the only empty table in the shop.

conviently it's much smaller than your usual table.

"i owe you," is all peter says.

"not coffee."

"it's six dollars."

you're having a hard time deciphering his face. and his attitude.

you're wondering if this more pleasant, sweet version of peter is going to last long.

you're wondering how far you can push him.

"i don't want to be indebted to you. it sets a bad precedent."

peter sighs, and he's shaking his head, and possibly rolling his eyes, but he says: "fine. next time we come you can pay."

you're satisfied with this, at least for now, so you take a sip of your latte and open your computer.

"which descriptions do you want to add?" you ask peter, "i already looked through all the pictures."

"just the ones of the church, and the bank."

"you want to add descriptions to the burned-down buildings?"

peter doesn't seem to recognize the sarcasm, because all he does is wince and nod.

you're frowning at his face, but you agree, letting him handle your computer so that you don't have to wait for it to update.

peter takes a couple of minutes, writing details that you'd have no idea about, scowling all the while.

"when'd you take these pictures?" you ask him, in the middle of it.

"saturday before last."

"you work on the weekends?" you raise an eyebrow at him, but he's not looking.

"i carry my camera around. sometimes jameson asks for pictures that i can't get six days after."

he pushes your computer back to you, nodding. immediately you start reading what he's written, trying very hard not to laugh at some of the word choices.

most readers aren't going to respond to an acrid smell.

but you don't tell peter this, you just change it, adding and deleting words where you see fit.

"did you work at another journal before this?" peter asks, after a couple of minutes of silence.

you look up at him and realize that he might've been staring at you the whole time, and you'd have no idea. he might be texting someone about how horrible you are.

"no."

"you started writing when you got the job?"

"mm-hmm," you continue typing, trying to avoid peter's eyes.

"how'd you get so good at it, then?"

"oh, well. it's just editing, you know, not that complicated," you repeat his words back to him but feel uncomfortable at his praise, even if it is a lie, but especially if it's true.

"you're writing all of these descriptions. jameson says i make them too complicated, or unreachable for readers."

"jameson says that to betty when she puts cream in his coffee."

peter almost chuckles. "that's true."

there's a moment when you aren't sure what to say. if this is friendship, or peter pretending to be kind just so that you won't tell jameson. just so you'll keep helping him.

but he doesn't need you.

"well, you're a brilliant photographer, so you don't have a lot to make up for."

"tell jameson that."

and that third week, everything goes smoothly.

after the fourth week, you and peter don't need to plan when you're going to work together. four days of the week you are completely independent, editing articles and spinning around in your chair, and listening to jameson yell at people from across the room.

but on thursdays, you and peter are partners.

it's a regular meeting now, so you show up at the elevator at eight-fifteen and peter is already waiting there. and then you walk to the coffee shop, making small talk that isn't completely uncomfortable.

peter asks you about your plans for the weekend--though you doubt that he actually listens to the answer. and you ask him about working at the bugle for three years, about wanting to quit every day.

it's only when you mention something of the sort that you can get peter to smile, even a little.

but today, as soon as you sit down, sipping on your coffee and moving hair out of your face, peter is frowning.

but it's not his typical resting frown.

"what did you do?" he asks, staring at your forehead.

"hmm?"

"to your head. what happened?"

you touch the edge of your head, feeling the cut run up your skin, and sign. "oh. that. i fell."

peter is blinking at you like you've removed your head from your body.

you move your hair back, feeling self-conscious.

"what'd you fall on? a knife?"

it's almost a joke but peter's face is concerned, his eyes are running over yours. so you're not sure that it counts.

"i bumped my head on the corner of a table."

"and got a five-inch cut?"

you roll your eyes, realizing that neither of you has taken out your computers, or actually sat down properly. "by 'bumped' i meant tripped and fell into the table and woke up a couple minutes later feeling a bit dizzy."

peter's frown deepens. "do you have a concussion?"

you raise a brow. "no?"

he tilts his head, pursing his lips at you like you're a reckless child. "you didn't go to the doctor?"

"i washed my face and put some glue on the cut."

"it probably needs stitches."

you just shrug.

"does your head still hurt?" peter asks you. "are you having a hard time focusing? did you feel nauseous when you woke up?"

you blink, laughing just a little bit, mostly because you're confused. "whoa, dr. parker, i'm fine. it happens. i'm clumsy."

"you're reckless, you mean."

"says the man who wears converse and a t-shirt when it rains."

at that, peter has nothing left to say.

it's maybe three weeks later that the two of you have moved on.

way, way on.

bypassing the small talk stage, you now make fun of peter for being knowledgable about every single thing--to avoid showing him how impressed you are--and he teases you about your abnormaly large bag, all the while trying to give you life advice, telling you that he has more experience than you do.

he's about a year older.

and it's comfortable now. peter doesn't joke much, but when he does, you react with nothing short of a cackle. and you've finally chided a real smile out of him, even if it's just a twitch of his lip or a wrinkle of his nose.

peter doesn't complain about your tardiness or the strange way you like to get your work done, and you don't complain about his sour attitudes, and glares.

well, not much, at least.

and you're not friends--you don't think you can say that, if only because it terrifies you--but that's okay. you don't think either of you needs that, some label on a relationship that could fluctuate into something else at any minute.

but peter is there, and you don't feel like every move you make is a mistake anymore.

when jameson calls the two of you into his office to praise you about an article that did well or ridicule the two of you for slacking on an article that no one cares about--even though he chose the topic--well. you smile at peter, and he smiles at you.

and if you laugh, he laughs.

still, you notice some layer of bitterness behind peter's eyes. like he knows that he's not supposed to be here, not supposed to be laughing or smiling or working with someone that he doesn't need.

you can see it, hear it in the way he talks sometimes.

so you tread lightly, not talking much on those days, and only offering him suggestions that he can't turn down.

he never snaps at you, and you don't think he's going to.

but there's still a bit of hesitation.

and on this particular wednesday, you're crossing out some section of an article, sighing into the paper, and trying not to listen to the creaks of your chair, when peter walks up to your desk.

in his eyes is something curious, something you don't see very often.

"hello, peter. is there something i can do for you?" you exaggerate the words, sort of like a warning.

"just stopping by. wanted to make sure that our fresh meat isn't being worked too hard."

you frown. "i've worked here almost a year."

peter tilts his head, shaking it. his eyes display some fake show of shame. "ah. to be so naive."

and then, without giving you another glance, he steals a pen from your desk and walks away.

you don't know if you're supposed to call out to him.

"what is that, peter?"

he looks up from his phone, still chewing. "what?" he asks, through a mouthful of food.

"that's your lunch?"

"wanna bite?" he offers the protein bar to you.

"you're surviving on that?"

peter rolls his eyes, looking away from you. "i have a big breakfast."

something about the way he says it makes you feel like he's lying, or hiding something, but if peter wants to lie about his eating habits--you had a bagel with butter on it this morning--who are you to judge?

it's comforting to be sitting here, in this lonely breakroom, next to an actual person.

it's also a bit strange because peter had said one word to you in this very room, the day you'd met.

"do you also eat wheat and very occasionally half an egg?"

peter bites his lip. "how do you half an egg?"

"c'mon, you can have some of my lunch."

you pull out a bag of chips, a sandwich, and some assortment of fruit that had been sitting in the fridge for far too long.

peter furrows his brows. "what is that?"

"this is a lunch, peter. say it with me. lunch."

"i think your sandwich is rotting."

you snort. "i don't want to hear any criticism from you, mr. ant, when you're literally eating eight grams of protein and four chocolate chips."

"there's at least seven," he argues, and frowns. "ant?"

"cause of your appetite."

and then, peter almost smiles.

and there's a part of you that feels the guilt seep into your skin with every breath, every almost laugh you get out of peter.

there's that voice in your head, laughing at your stupidity, wanting to whisper threats in your ear.

when you're home alone, you can't ignore it.

you can't feel anything.

you worry that sometimes, seven alarms won't be enough to wake you up. not from this foolish dream of having a friend, or just someone to talk to.

you'll never stop being reckless, that voice says.

you'll never stop hurting people.

you know that you need to let peter go, right now, before you get used to his laughter and a smile with teeth. before he wonders where you've gone on days that you miss work, and can call you when he's bored.

the last time this happened, the last time you let this happen--

every night you promise yourself that tomorrow. tomorrow you'll start distancing yourself.

you'll be too busy for peter. too busy for anyone else.

you've kept this job for longer than any other one, and you don't want to lose the familiarity. you don't want to have to leave.

you'll be a ghost, starting tomorrow.

"what do you mean?" peter says, arms crossed, glaring at you from the other side of the table.

you're typing as you say "what do you mean what do i mean?"

the two of you have eliminated peter's computer completely. you type descriptions, and he places them where he wants, making sure not to mess up the rest of the article. and then you read what you've written to him, and try to ignore his snide comments.

it's a well-thought-out routine.

thursdays might be your favorite day of the week.

"you don't cook?" peter asks, sounding dubious. "not even pasta? or a pre-cooked meal in the oven?"

"i save those for special occasions."

"you just eat things you find at the store?"

"i'm a big fan of those pre-made salads, and cans of fruit."

peter sighs, leaning his head into his hands.

"what?" you say, "the lack of protein bars in my diet is upsetting you?"

"you don't cook?" peter repeats. "at all?"

"no, peter. now will you help me--"

"why not?" he interrupts, closing the computer.

you sigh at him and he sighs back.

you think that his foot might be kicking yours under the table.

"i'm kind of a hazard in the kitchen. i don't feel like making a hospital visit every time im craving some mac and cheese."

"you can't be that bad."

you laugh and roll up your sleeve, showing peter the side of your arm. "see that scar? it's from when i tried to make thanksgiving dinner and burned myself trying to put something in the oven."

peter frowns, running the tip of his finger over it while you laugh.

you roll your sleeve back down, looking at his far too concerned eyes. "last time i tried to use a knife i almost lost the tip of my pinky."

peter waves a hand. "that happens to everyone."

"and i was also wearing a cutting glove."

he closes his mouth. stares at you very intently.

"peter, can we get back to actually finishing this article before jameson fires us both? and by fire, i mean literally burning us both alive."

peter is still staring, apparently thinking very hard. "i'm going to cook for you," he states, shrugging finally.

"what do you mean?"

"my aunt taught me enough to feed you for one night."

"peter, i meant, why would you do that?"

"because apparently you only eat boxed food--"

"--there's cans too--"

"and you're already crazy. you need some actual dinner. a meal."

"peter, you always criticize me for eating so much at lunch when you're munching on your apple or whatever--"

"yeah, because i didn't realize that those bagged foods were the only sustenance you were getting."

you laugh at him. "i think that's a little dramatic."

"i don't. are you free tomorrow night?"

something inside you screams no, violently and furious. it tells you to get up right now and leave. tells you that you shouldn't even be here, that they should.

but the other part of you is laughing.

"peter, i'm not letting you cook for me."

"you think i'm a bad cook?" he challenges, just barely smiling.

"i think you're insane."

he mock laughs, and then holds his hand out. "give me your phone."

"why?"

"just do it."

and you do, only because peter's eyes are right on yours and he's not going to let you look away.

he takes your phone and types something in, smiling a little while he does so. and then he hands it back to you.

"type your address in."

"peter, i'm serious. you're not coming to my apartment to cook for me. i eat."

"so am i," peter responds, "put it in."

you raise a brow, refusing to lose this battle. in all honestly, you're not sure who's going to break first, because peter hates eye contact, but you hate his eyes.

"do you want me to just ask jameson for the address listed on your file?"

and there's something about the way he says it that makes you giggle, finally looking away. you shake your head, a bit annoyed that he's gotten this far.

but you type your address and send it to him anyway.

and there's only a small piece of you that regrets it.

there's a knock on your door while you're pacing around.

it's seven o'clock, and you've only had the last two hours to think about how to get out of this. you've contemplated playing sick, pretending not to be home, telling peter that there was an emergency, accidentally forgetting about this whole in the first place.

and the only real answer you've come to is that you can't answer the door.

work is one thing, you think, but as soon as someone is allowed to invade other areas of your life, you've got no choice.

you need to keep peter away, and you need to start doing it tonight.

but he's knocking at your door, and there's something about him standing there that makes you feel restless.

insane.

and you're not even thinking as you walk through the hallway, swearing to yourself that you're only going to make sure that it's really him.

you're not thinking when you bump into the side table by the door, and knock over a vase that you could've sworn you moved weeks ago. a vase you shouldn't even own.

"shit!" you're saying, as you try to catch it.

it shatters against the floor, covering the entire walkway, and effectively trapping you from moving forward.

maybe it's fate.

maybe this is just another warning not to answer that door.

but then a muffled voice says "y/n? you alright?"

and you rap your hand against your head, feeling so stupid and unlucky. still, you call back to peter. "i'm okay. just broke a vase. let me clean this up really quick and i'll--"

peter is frowning when he opens the door.

and you are frowning when you realize that you left it unlocked for the last two hours.

"don't move," peter says, quickly. "you're not wearing any shoes."

"it's fine, peter, i'll be careful."

"where's your broom?" he asks, meeting your eyes.

it's only then that you realize he's wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. he's standing in front of you in completely normal clothes and carrying a bag of groceries.

"no, you're my guest and i'm not letting you pick up my mess."

"where is it?" he repeats, softer now.

and you want to walk over the shards just to prove a point to him--whether it's that you're fine, or that you can handle a little pain--but peter is looking at you and walking inside, trying to kick away the shards closest to your feet.

you sigh. "there's a closet just around the corner."

peter gives you a small smile, hand grazing over your shoulder, and then he goes to get it, unconcerned about the cracking underneath his feet.

when he comes back and begins to sweep it up, he's almost laughing. "were you running to the door?"

"i think i lack control over all of my limbs. i might be a robot."

peter scoffs. "you wouldn't get hurt all of the time if you were a robot."

"i'm realistic."

"you're human and ridiculously uncoordinated."

you frown at him, and peter smiles at you. he brushes the broom over your bare feet, laughing when you squirm away. and then he clears a path so you can walk forward without cutting yourself.

"thanks," you say to him, watching shamefully as he continues to clean. "sorry, i don't mean to make you my butler."

"i'm already cooking for you, might as well clean."

and then peter lets you lead him inside, asking where he can dump all of the glass, and moving the grocery bag he put by the closet onto the counter.

after a moment, he looks around, his eyes scanning the walls and the floors.

he licks his bottom lip. "it's... nice."

you look at him, pouting. "you don't think i'm a good interior designer?"

"it's just a lot more empty than i thought. i figured you'd have art and sculptures, and... more."

you don't tell him that you'd love to, that you'd love to fill this apartment with things close to your heart. you don't tell him that if anything gets that close, it's sure to be broken.

but you smile anyway. "sorry to disappoint you, mr. parker."

"it's just unexpected. show me where i can get a pan."

you show him where all the necessities are, scoffing at some of the ingredients he has in the bag, and listening to him explain that it isn't his recipe, but that you still aren't allowed to criticize.

you just nod errantly, sitting on a bar stool so you can watch him.

and peter makes it look like a little dance, finding the things he needs in seconds, handing multiple things at once, and catching anything before it falls.

you sigh, and peter looks over to you, questioning. "i think you stole all of the coordination i was supposed to have."

and then peter laughs--with teeth and everything--and turns back around. "i don't think it matters much."

and you're about to argue with him, when some timer he set beeps.

"almost there," he says, "do you want to get some plates and forks so i can just move it onto there?"

you nod even though he can't see it, and walk around the counter to move past him.

but peter has ridiculously long legs, and without even noticing, you're stumbling into one of them and almost falling into peter's back. just as always though, he's quick to turn around and keep you from hitting your head on anything, including his bones.

peter sighs and you look at him, sheepishly smiling.

"see what i mean?" he says and then helps you stand back up.

even when he lets go you can feel the imprint of his hands around your biceps, the taste of his laughter in the air.

peter is in your apartment, laughing and cooking for you, taking care of you, and doing it all with a smile.

and, god, you don't think you'll ever be able to wake up from this.

part two.

my masterlist here.

tags:@moonlarking-blog @v1ci0us @preciousbabypeter @alexxavicry @directioner5life @inthegetawaycarwithtaylah @localrockstargf @thestudiouswanderer @take-my-hand-time-boy @thoughtsofagodlovingsunflower @nyomjoon @moo-b1tch @raindropstearsandtea @rqmanoff @hollandweather @wetcoldnoodle @urlocalavenderhazestan @valvlry @imthatcoolmom @spideysimpossiblegirl invisibletrolleyson-jeremy @sharkswaters

#tasm #tasm!peter fluff #tasm!peter x you #tasm!peter smut #tasm!fluff #tasm!peter x reader #tasm peter parker #tasm peter x reader #tasm!spiderman x reader #peter parker #peter parker x reader #Andrew!Spiderman #andrew peter parker #andrew garfield #andrew garfield!peter parker x reader #andrew!spiderman imagine

708 notes · View notes

psychelis-new · 6 months

Text

pick a pile: "Your true colors - (7/7) Violet"

take a breath and choose the photo or number that calls you the most to read a message for you from the color violet, the seventh and last of the 7 rainbow's colors. in this serie of readings about the rainbow's colors, I will try to channel about your true colors, so to help you look inside and see your most beautiful self, appreciate yourself more and hopefully provide some type of guidance if necessary. as cindy lauper would say: "your true colors are beautiful like a rainbow", so let's look at them and hear what they have to say to you and how they (you) can help you look at things in a more positive way.

violet is the color of luxury, mystery, elegance, ambition, royalty, awareness, intelligence, wisdom, miracles, passion, enlightment, knowledge (crown chakra)... in this reading, I'll try to analyze this side of your character.

you can find the other colors' readings in the pacs list in my pinned post

don’t take the reading too seriously. only take what resonates with you and leave the rest. if you're not called by any pile, let this reading slid as it may not hold messages for you. if you're called by more than one pile, there may be messages in each of those piles. remember that is a general reading and some things may not resonate with you. energies can change and readings are based on present ones (as you read); you're always in charge of your life.

(photos found on unsplash)

- ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ -

1 2 3 - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ -

pile 1

Let's start off noticing that you have a triangle shape in your pic: this is a sign of the Divine, and a very strong-based shape, often connected with the masculine and feminine too. I do think you're spiritually protected and have a good connection with the 5d, no matter if you're aware of it or not. Despite this though, at times you may doubt and spiral a bit: your wounded ego/mind may get in between your downloads and make you doubt of yourself and your ability to receive messages/your knowledge. I think you are called to shed a light onto this habit of yours so to be more in control of your abilities and self power/grounded and trust them and yourself more: this would totally help you get further in your life and more easily towards your goals (or at least give yourself the permission to try, which is something you may have learned to avoid doing for different reasons: fear of judgement, lack of self control, downplay yourself to leave space to others... you're as deserving, dear). You're ambitious and powerful, so just give it a try and you may even receive.

I feel like at times you may lose trust in the 5d too? It's like... you may stop believing. You feel like you need to focus more on your material life and get away from the spiritual one, as you need to get more practical (probably again in order to feel included and appreciated by other people around you or cause you feel like you're not being listened to as you're not receiving anything and it brings you to feel disappointment as it's probably what you've often had to experience in your life -but honestly, this could be just a test). Such feelings are normal, especially if you come from a specific background/environment: things may get confusing for your mind, you may lose hope or come back to your old self victimization pattern ("I'm not deserving/not enough"), and your doubt and self trust issues as well, may make it all more complicated, but... You have a lot inside of you, also as per your spiritual abilities, so do not let them slid away cause you fear no one would get them (if that's the case). You're the only one in need to welcome and understand them and believe in them and use them the way you feel they may resonate with your life (meaning you don't have to become a spiritual figure, you can become a doctor, for example, and still also trust your intuition when it comes to healing someone or any other kind of download).

You can manifest miracles in your life if you want to. And, especially if you're someone already into spiritual practices/divinations (but not necessarily), you can also bring enlightment to those who want to listen to you (but you need to be the first one believing in what you download and how). At times it's only a matter of finding the right people for us instead of insisting with those who are just not for us. It's okay to be different. Take your time to dig within, to bring enlightenment within yourself first and to really know yourself, your triggers, your fears, to welcome and nurture them and to realize what you really want to do and who you want to be. It's all for you, and it's up to you. Remember you're free to do what makes you feel better, but if you started trusting and being more confident in yourself at least, you could become unstoppable. Take a time out to realize all I mentioned above, follow your guts and the signs you may get (number 3, 6 and 9 may be around you or you may be born on those days/months or your astrological chart may have a focus on those houses. Whatever it is, these numbers may also hint to the Divine, self balance/enegetical balance and spiritual awakening/soul mission). Insects may sign change and transformation (you may see/hear them around you): be kind with yourself as changes are hard to deal with, so doubts and insecurities and triggers may arise more often and harshly (take it slow when it happens, give yourself time). Take care of you and stay hydrated (water may also cleanse you/help you relax).

songs: blue moon | the marcels; miss perfect | abs, nodesha

- ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ -

pile 2

Pile 2, it's okay if things are unclear and confusing. The veil may not be removed for you yet, or not entirely, and you're probably called to trust and believe at this time. Even believe that your personal changes that you may be experiencing now (and may indeed add confusion to your life), are just for you and your good. Similarly to pile 1 but not exactly in the same way (you're more an evolution of that pile): I feel like you already know about this. You're already trusting, at least 99% of times. It feels as you have decided to trust yourself and fate or the Universe, despite you may not understand it entirely or be sure about it. You know that things can change at any time, that transformations require time and that you cannot control it all but can only let it flow. I feel like, deep inside, you have the belief that things are gonna be okay and you are even kinda hyped about it (despite you tend to keep yourself grounded still and not let this thought sweep you away: I think that's an okay approach, just keep being hopeful though). You can feel there's something in store but you cannot grasp it and even if at times you try to get more about it and end up hitting a wall, you know that things will still be clear at the right time. And you don't mind a little surprise here and there: like it's good to know, but it's also good to not know everything.

You seem passionate, smart and someone who likes to learn more and more. At least on your best days (which is what you're trying to move forward to, leaving pile 1's energy, almost). Your learning happens in different fields (and fields that are "different" from the usual) and maybe also your career or something about you is different or unusual; you have many interests, you like different cultures and stuff, but you also feel an attraction towards the occult and unknown and ofc you want to know more about spirituality too. If this is speaking to you, please do not block yourself and ask questions or search for resources (on youtube, books, websites...) or even through travels if you can or will get the chance (it's still a travel even to move in a different side of your town). You're someone transforming, shedding old skin like a snake, and a change of environment and mental pattern is what can make you feel renewed (also from a creative point of view, if this resonates with you: you may try to start a creative career but feel blocked. I think your crown chakra may get more downloads and guide you better the moment you find a new balance under different circumstances or in different places, seeing/experiencing something new. The more you grow comfortable in your whole new self).

Indeed try something new, do something for you. Gift yourself something. I do think you are already doing this or are on the way to, so take this as a confirmation for you being on the right track. You're slowly moving towards holding more control over your emotions (at times you may still get overwhelmed so please do also find ways to recharge/sleep/nap and set clear boundaries that won't make you downplay your needs in order to make others feel better), keep believing that you will be able to even if now you have no idea of how you'll get there. You're being guided from above even if you'r enot noticing it, so trust that you're going to be where you are supposed to be (and very likely where you want to be too). Stay open to receive and follow yourself and your guidance in the weirdest places, even where you think there's nothing for you: you never know what are Universe's plans and what can pop up for you even from a slightly negative situation (or what you perceive as such). The moment you'll find ways to be even more in control of your thoughts and fears, you're gonna reach your peak of abundance. You'll get miracles falling in your lap without you having to move a finger exactly cause you're trusting Universe's guidance. Keep going, keep trusting, keep working on you and be hopeful as you can. You're being cleansed to start a new amazing trip. And also, if you're trying to close with the past, you'll make/you're making it. Universe has your back and you kinda already know it.

song: touch | shura (canvas remix); never change | jeremy passion, melissa polinar

- ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ - ’ -

pile 3

Hello pile 3, it's an honor to be around you. You know your worth, your energy is very refined, almost high mantenance. You almost feel otherwordly. Woah... You have lot of wisdom in whatever is your field, you're also gaining more and probably will get some recognition too like you may be posting online lot of stuff and have many people recognize your effort and resonate with your words. I am getting astrologers but also people good with words/communication in general. Ofc you may just be writing about some particular studies you're doing or scientific researches or anything else (maybe a thesis?). Maybe even a book. I do feel a lot of writing-communication related energy but ofc it could also relate to other fields like therapy. At times though, or for some of you, this refined energy may be more of a mask you wear to feel better about yourself or to feel like you're deserving, especially if you resonate with the online world or public world versus private world. It feels like in real life (or in private) you may look or act or be different from how your energy feels online/publicy, and you're kinda avoiding it or neglecting that. I think you may still fear being judged for your looks(?) or for what you believe, while online it got easier for you to find your audience and even more your place. Do not block your light: let it shine. It's okay to be different (I said it in another pile too, so if you were called by it as well.. well, confirmation x2) and it's so very okay to be you.

Let yourself shine the way you're supposed to. Others will judge you anyway, let them be triggered and don't mind. They're just projecting their insecurities and fears onto you, it's not you the problem anyway. You have a way with words and you can bring so much clarity to others for the way you connect all the infos and dots, and maybe you also have clairs' abilities that support you in this, so do not stop yourself when you feel like you can use your words to help: cause you can really help and heal those around you, even simply through your presence and true energy (the one you show shamelessly online). Stand strong, be true to yourself and follow your heart guidance. And heal your heart too (I suggest you to take the Green and Blue pac too, if you want/feel called to).

I think you have many dreams, you are ambitious and a huge desire within you, and honestly the moment you learn how to take control over your mind and balance it so that your insecurities and past throat chakra blockages (you may have been downplayed or shut up/talked over often, or not listened to, so you kinda lowered your voice out of habit, feeling unworthy and not good enough.. but it was others not being able to listen to your wisdom and inner knowledge -you may download directly from the Source, how amazing!), you'll find your place, your happiness and your stage and public. You'll shine so much and be a very important figure in the life of many. Be it online or in your area/where you're gonna be (Erin Brockovich-style). Keep working on your emotional side, ground yourself, and see your worth most of all. Don't shut down please, we need you and your abilities. I think you may be called by a specific field/volunteering/association maybe even human rights-related ones, so just follow your own guidance and take your own time to let your voice be heard also irl. You're here to help us but also to make yourself happy the way it resonates the most with your soul, so do not close off to that to let others have control and power over you. You're a special being, please shine bright and let yourself be found, seen and heard with no fear.

song: nowhere fast | ateller; one of a kind | the gaia corporation

#pac #pick a card reading #pick a photo #pick a pile #pick a picture #pick a card tarot #pick a card #pac tarot #tarot #divination #clairs readings #psychich readings #free tarot reading #tarot readings #tarot reading #tarotblr #tarotcommunity #colors readings

251 notes · View notes

thosehallowedhalls · 25 days

Text

three princes walk into a bar

Books: Crimes of Passion, The Royal Romance, Rules of Engagement

Pairing: M!Trystan Thorne, Liam Rys, Leo Rys

Rating: Teen

Word count: 1200+

Summary: Liam has been roped into fixing Trystan's public image. Leo? Leo is just along for the ride.

A/N: This is the seventh chapter of the Round Robin 2024 saga, hosted by @choicesprompts.

Over the rim of his martini glass, Trystan examined the two men watching him.

"You two trying to get into comedy or something? Three princes walk into a bar?"

"I'm a king," Liam corrected.

"I've had to deal with a lot of bullshit this week, Drakovia," Leo shot back, hunched over his own glass. "Don't test me."

"I'm just trying to understand why the two of you sought me out here, Cordonia One and Two. Aren't you," he pointed at Leo, "one of us degenerates in need of a PR miracle? And you," turning to Liam, "a little busy ruling a country?"

Leo downed his whiskey like a shot of tequila. Appalled, Trystan shook his head. "It ought to be a crime to treat a fine blend like that."

"Believe me, if you'd had the week I had," he glared at Liam, "you'd want to gulp down a good whiskey too."

"Which brings us to why I'm here," Liam added. "I've been assigned as your partner."

"You're fucking with me. How the hell does a king get roped into playing PR consultant in a reality show?"

"Hypothetically, a king gets a desperate call from an old friend after your original partner quit."

"I see Bertrand is not above a guilt trip. Good for him. But what makes you think I want your help?"

Liam leaned closer. "Let's be honest here, Trystan. Your public image is a mess. At this point, short of solving a murder, I'm your only option."

"I'll take the murder. Got any dead bodies handy?"

"Afraid not. And no offense, but I really don't see you as a detective. You're too scatterbrained for that."

"Ouch." Trystan sipped from his martini. "Enlighten me, then, Coach. How do you plan to make an honest man out of me?"

Liam took Trystan's wrist and pushed it down. "First of all, you put that drink down. According to a cursory Google search, there are barely any pictures of you from the past three years, minimum, where you're not holding a drink."

"You're calling me an alcoholic?"

"Considering I haven't seen you in almost eight years, I have no idea. But you certainly look like one, and that’s what matters."

"Ohh, appearance makes reality. Is that a royal saying? I always thought it was a Queen Viktoria saying."

"It's a rational person saying. The next step is making you look like you have other thoughts besides who you're going to screw next." He made a face. "Maybe Leo could take some pointers there."

"Hey, you're not my partner, I'm just along for the ride. Besides, may I remind you, I'm happily married."

"I'm aware, and I also know you're faithful to Katie. But if you keep acting like you did before you were married, the public will think it's not a big leap from getting wasted and puking on bushes to cheating on your wife."

Trystan exchanged a commiserating look with Leo. "Was he always like this?"

"Unfortunately."

"Pity."

"Back to you," Liam continued unaffected. “You were exiled almost eight years ago, and it doesn't look like you'll be welcomed back into the fold any time soon. We both know you didn't have anything to do with Countess Juliana's death..."

Trystan drank again. "Do we?" He asked softly.

"Right. I know you didn't have anything to do with Countess Juliana's death." He jerked a thumb in Leo's direction. "So does he."

"You're a lot of things, Drakovia," Leo agreed. "But a murderer isn't one of them."

"Too bad everyone else disagrees."

"Indeed. But you're still a prince, your actions still reflect on your country, and it's only a matter of time before King Maksim and Queen Viktoria tighten the leash."

Trystan sighed and ran a hand over his jaw. His stubble contributed to the general air of dissipation that enveloped him like a mist.

"If you want to keep your comfortable life," Liam continued. "You'll make sure to go from 'drunken waste of space'..."

"Christ, Rys. Why don't you tell me how you really feel."

"... to 'proper gentleman.'"

"Proper gentleman? Seriously?"

"He can't help it," Leo put in. "Put a man on a throne long enough, he'll start to sound like an etiquette manual. Then again," he turned to his brother. "I'm not sure you weren't born this way."

"Carry on like this, brother dearest, and I'll make sure your partner swaps places with Olivia. She finished with Carrera early anyway, I'm sure she could fit you in."

Leo grimaced. "As I was saying, Liam makes excellent points."

"Coward." Trystan gestured to the waitress. "Bring me another one, will you, darling?"

Liam pinched the bridge of his nose. "Did anything I said in the past twenty minutes get through?"

"Maybe? I vaguely recall something about proper." He laughed when Liam dropped his head into his hands. "Relax, Your Majesty. I'll be on my best behavior all week."

"By whose standards?"

"There goes my loophole." Trystan sighed. "Look, I couldn't care less about my public image, but I'm not in any rush to face my mother's wrath. Besides, you're quite frankly pitiful right now. Saying no would make me feel like I was kicking a puppy. A sweet, annoying puppy."

Leo slapped a hand on the table. “Thank you! That's what he reminds me of! A thirty plus year old mystery, solved in a single night. Maybe you really should be a detective.”

Liam looked heavenward when Trystan and Leo laughed and clinked glasses. Praying for patience, no doubt. "Not quite what I was going for, but I'll take it."

"So what's the plan, oh wise one? We've already covered my drinking.”

“We’re going over the basics.”

“How to Be a Productive Member of Society 101?”

“Exactly. And as your partner…”

Trystan sighed. “Can we come up with a different word? I don't really do partners.”

“As your mentor…”

“Partner it is.”

“... It's my responsibility to make you look squeaky clean for the cameras.”

Leo groaned. “Liam, no. I'll grant you that he needs to improve his reputation, but squeaky clean won't do. People will start theorizing that he died and was replaced with a clone. Or a very elaborate AI video.”

“You might be right. What do you propose instead?”

“He leans into the role of loveable rogue. He works hard, he plays hard. He's aware of his privilege and doesn't take it for granted.”

Liam turned to face his brother. “That's rather good. Why the hell haven’t you been doing that?”

A shadow passed over Leo’s face, but he grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know? But you’re not my partner, thank God. So let’s focus on our exiled prince here.”

Trystan blew out a breath. “Look, I’d like to get out of this island sooner rather than later. Can we get this over with?”

“Surprisingly, Leo makes a good point. Too big a change wouldn’t feel authentic. You still need to come across as you, just…”

“An upgraded version?”

“Exactly. So.” He pulled out a leather-bound notebook and a fountain pen. “We begin.”

Three hours later, Trystan had a headache, Liam was inching ever closer to a migraine, and Leo… Well, Leo had his face buried in another drink. But the sense of satisfaction permeated the air.

“There’s hope for you yet, Thorne,” Liam said delightedly. “Two more days or so and you’ll be ready for the cameras.”

“Oh joy.”

“But.” He planted his hands on the table and leaned forward. “If you screw this up, I’ll personally make sure that your next partner isn’t as nice as me.”

Trystan laughed. “Fear not, young Jedi. No offense, but I’m done with partners. Never again.”

#round robin 2024 #trystan thorne #liam rys #leo rys #crimes of passion #the royal romance #rules of engagement #playchoices #30 drabbles in 30 days

50 notes · View notes

fuckyeahfraxus · 6 months

Text

Finally, this is the official post for the seventh

F R A X U S D A Y!

Like previous years, Fraxus Day will be celebrated on November 5th!

We had thrown out a small notification post before but we are still sorry that this official post is released with such a delay! We still hope that everyone is looking forward to the day and wants to participate with different sorts of content <3

As usual there will not be a particular prompt for this day, as opposed to the ship week. You can use whatever theme or idea that comes to mind.

However, we do again invite you to pre-celebrate Fraxus Day with us on Halloween, October 31th! Feel free to tag us in any Halloween Fraxus content you create, and we will make sure to reblog it!

Of course, feel free to share Halloween Fraxus and Fraxus Day Fraxus on separate days. Or post a Halloween themed Fraxus Day entry. Or only post a Halloween edition! Everything is possible, we just wanna dedicate the day to this wonderful ship and celebrate.

Either way, you may use the #fraxusday tag for any entries you post on October 31st and/or November 5th, Halloween themed or not!

As usual we, the admins of fuckyeahfraxus, will be hosting this day Although there are no specific prompts, we do ask you to read the rules if you’re not familiar with them or need a reminder.

Everyone is allowed to participate and basically every sort of entry is allowed! Art, fanfic, edits, headcanons, playlists, aesthetics, … everything! Just make sure that it has to do with Fraxus and does not imply something else, something negative, other rivalled ships or trigger topics like non-consensual stuff. There’s also basic things we usually do not reblog on this blog due to certain reasons; basically anything that has to do with harmful stereotyping.

Please make sure to put either fraxusday or fraxus day in the first five tags of your entry! fraxus will suffice, too, if you forget to tag it otherwise but using the first two named tags will make it easier for us to find the entries for this day. Submitting your work to this blog will be perfectly alright as well if that’s how you’d rather want to participate.

Almost each kind of entry is allowed, just please make sure to avoid explicit nsfw content. If you want to submit something suggestive or bordering on nsfw, that’s fine.

Don’t worry about being late! Late entries are always welcome, no matter how late they may be.

Do not steal other people’s art or writing or whatever it may be! That won’t be accepted and that applies not only to this day but in general. This type of behavior won't be tolerated. The same goes for edited artwork, unless you have the explicit permission of the original author to do so.

That's it! Please do boost the hell out of this official post so all the people who may not have heard of this day or were not aware of the date and want to participate get the note! Thank you all so much for your continuous support, despite real life struggles we will try our best not to let this blog die. Love y'all and our dms are always open.

Stay safe and much love, your fuckyeahfraxus team! <3

credit for the art goes to the absolutely amazing @ccrispy who I commissioned for Fraxus Week in Summer for the prompt 'Blood and Wine'. please go support her if you can! 🥰

#fraxus #fairy tail #freed justine #laxus dreyar #freed x laxus #fraxus day #fraxusday #fraxus day 2023 #admin post #ft100yq #ft

91 notes · View notes

radioactive-reactions · 1 year

Note

good evening :)

would it be ok to ask the fallout 4 companions reacting to a sole who manages to get a tank working and takes it for a little cruise?

please and thank you!

Good afternoon! What a polite ask! You’re very welcome. To be honest, I’ve been expecting them to add (or, well, re-add) vehicles into Fallout ever since they made the move to 3D. I suppose there’s always Fallout 5...

Cait is all for it, going so far as to straddle the main guns and point out targets for the tank’s wrath as the Sole Survivor pilots it. Every shot threatens to buck her right off with its force- and only makes her manic grin all the wider. “Yeah! Get that radstag next- wait, fuck do you mean we’re out of shells?!”

Codsworth, more than anything, is just worried that the Sole Survivor is going to run themselves over- or worse, blow themselves up. He constantly hovers behind the tank, chiming in with advice that he surely thinks is helpful. “I beg you to think about this for a moment! The family Chryslus is one thing, but... oh dear.”

Curie is right beside Codsworth in fretting, nervously watching the tank trundle along while half-expecting it to spontaneously explode. “You... need a license to drive such a thing, non? Ah, it is very dangerous- it is not, what is the saying, legal for the street?”

Danse gives it a routine inspection, viewing it as yet another piece of useful pre-War technology to be catalogued, preserved, and never thought about again. “Dual 140-millimeter cannons, smoothbore. Depleted uranium penetrators. Four tread arrays, in good condition. This is a big find for the Brotherhood, soldier. Proctor Ingram’s going to have a field day with this one... you are donating it, correct?”

Deacon wastes little time clambering into the cabin, running his fingers over all the little switches and dials. He looks so at home in the tank that it’s hard to remember that he has absolutely no idea how to use it. “Who, me? Uh, yeah, I’ve seen one of these before. Seventh... Republic of Dave... Mechanized Division, man. It’s a real thing.”

Hancock insists on hotboxing the tank, reminding the Sole Survivor that he’s never had the chance to try it with an actual functional vehicle. What little smoke escapes it as it rolls along only convinces poor Curie further that a catastrophic engine failure has occurred. “It’s a symbol, you dig? We take this Army shit, we smoke up inside it? It’s like giving the Man a big, rolling ‘fuck you’. Trust me on this.”

MacCready takes every opportunity to ham it up alongside Deacon, recalling his time in the Gunners to more accurately imitate a military hardass... which lasts for about fifteen seconds once the lurching tank gives him motion sickness. “Is that insubordination on my crew, private? Drop and give me twenty... oh, God, once we stop. Can we stop?”

Valentine would whistle if he could. He’s not shy about getting up close and personal, nudging the treads with one of his well-worn shoes. “...Well, would you look at that? You fixed the only machine in this place more broken-down than I am. Kinda gives me hope.”

Piper joins the peanut gallery with X6 and Curie, already scribbling the rough draft of an article in her omnipresent notepad. “I dunno, Blue. Tell you what: you can ride around in the big metal coffin all you want, and I’ll tell you when you’re about to crash into a tree. Deal?”

Preston is more than a little nervous... but just as impressed, too. Still, he won’t go near the thing, preferring to have Sturges check it out on his behalf. “...Wow. Uh- wow. General, are you sure this sends the right message? We’re here to help the Commonwealth, not... you know, level it.”

Strong feels a bit threatened by the presence of something potentially more destructive than he is, and immediately tries to lift the tank to prove that he’s still on top. He manages to get its front end maybe half an inch off the ground before collapsing, shamed and indignant. “STRONG NEVER LIKE MACHINES ANYWAY. DON’T FIGHT FAIR!”

X6-88 just watches from a distance, thoroughly unimpressed with it all. “No. I don’t think it’s likely to be of any value. A competent asset retrieval team could take it apart in minutes.” Behind those dark sunglasses, though, his eyes are as wide as dinner plates... and is he flinching every time another explosion rocks his surroundings? A trick of the light, surely.

Dogmeat loves it. Of course he does. It stirs primal memories of chasing cars in his little brain- and this one is actually slow enough to catch!

#fallout #fallout 4 #fo4 #fo4 companions #fo4 cait #fo4 curie #codsworth #paladin danse #fo4 deacon #john hancock #Robert MacCready #nick valentine #piper wright #preston garvey #fo4 strong #x6-88 #dogmeat

165 notes · View notes

possessingtheproperspirit · 7 months

Note

⭐ ⭐

give us the bts on an excerpt of your choice

Thanks for sending this! Sorry it's taken me a while to answer, I don't have a good excuse apart from general malaise lol.

I've chosen a scene from chapter 8 of The Price We Pay, because it's the first proper sixth year one-on-one James and Lily scene since their tentative truce/his apology in chapter...2 or 3, and I'd forgotten what a fun dynamic it is!

James is waiting for Lily in the library, thinking about how convenient it would be to have a girlfriend that he could use as an excuse to be late, not at all because he is a bit jealous that Lily is late because of her new beau.

It was just complicated. He’d only ever wanted all of that with one person. That one person was now a tenuous friend, and enjoying sinking into the strong arms of some brainy seventh year who Mary insisted on describing as “really, unreasonably good looking”. Plus James had moved on. Was moving on. An ongoing action that required regular reminders to keep on the right path.

Oh, James. Such sweet, endearing denial.

But the main fun of this scene, in my opinion, is when Lily finally opens up to him about her insecurities around Rafe and his friends (insecurities, it turns out, which are well founded, but they don't know that yet). Having her pour her heart out like this covered a few things for me: it reminded them both how much they missed Remus, who went home without saying goodbye at the end of the previous chapter - they both know he'd be better at this sort of thing than James is (or, to be fair, can be at this stage in their friendship); it brought up the theme of blood purity and it causing perceived problems, even if it's not outright, 'm'-word-flinging, hex-and-curse-flying hatred; and it forced James to have to find a way to compliment her without seeming like a creep, as he's aware he may have done in the past.

She paused, glancing around them before she leaned a bit closer, dropping the volume of her voice. “The girls he hangs out with…do you know Aoife Walsh?” James nodded slowly. “Yeah, the fit blonde,” he nodded. “I think she used to play on the Quidditch team.” That descriptor didn’t seem to have helped. “Well, that ‘fit blonde’ is one of his closest friends,” Lily said. “And I don’t think she likes me. In fact, all the girls he’s mates with are just…gorgeous.” James shifted uncomfortably. “Are you angling for a compliment here, Evans?” he asked. “Because I’ve not had good feedback from you about that in the past…” “I’m not,” she assured him quickly, looking equally embarrassed. “I’m not saying I’m a troll or anything. Just…” She sighed again. “I hate this side of me. It’s so stupid, isn’t it? I always feel like an outsider, I have done my whole life – an outsider as a Muggle, an outsider as a witch...and this all just came roaring back to the surface when I was sat with his friends.” James paused. “I suppose wizarding society hasn’t exactly been the most welcoming,” he agreed. “It’s no wonder you feel the way you do. But…” He decided to just say it. “You don’t need any stuck-up pureblood’s approval, Evans. You’re clever, you’re funny, you’re—you know, you have a nice face.” He hoped his cheeks weren’t as red as hers were turning. “You’re a bloody good witch and everyone knows it. They should be wanting your approval.”

'A nice face'. Sure, James. That's all you could say about Lily.

Then the scene finishes with her promising him a pep talk of his choosing in return, since fair is fair, and I really enjoy the idea of that.

He cheers her up, assuages some of her worries, and a few months ago that would've been an unthinkable possibility. These cuties, honestly.

Not sure this was a very in-depth bts, but in my defence, this chapter was written like six hundred years ago, so I don't remember all of the thought process.

Thanks for sending this ask, anon! <333

#tpwp #the price we pay #tee pee wee pee #jily #jple #writing #fic #asks #writers asks #james potter #lily evans

8 notes · View notes

freuleinanna · 1 year

Text

trials (and errors)

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 AO3

Chapter 4: Liars

A perfect lie does not exist. Untether it from truth, and it's a mere fantasy. Weave truth into it, and it becomes a commemoration, for concealment is just an act of protection, and protection, well, is just an act of love.

Can you imagine? The chapter I started the whole thing for? Ugh. Welcome to the circus, aka the courtroom angst, aka Sturrock hardly dealing with those two and those two hardly dealing with each other

The hearing itself is a blur.

If they were to compare memories, both Marisa and Asriel would probably agree that what they remember most is endless bureaucratic gibberish and a whole lot of pretentious words flying about. Illicit affair this, conspiracy to murder that. Asriel powers through the whole thing silently agreeing to at least consider respecting the Authority should he miraculously manifest himself and strike down the bunch of dim-witted black-robed idiots blabbering about marriage institutions and the worth of a human life. Beside him, Stelmaria is unmoving, her eyes glide from one speaker to another, thoughts impenetrable behind the icy facade. Both of them exude the feeling of having much better and more important things to do with their time, which isn’t wrong. Both of them are fully focused on not looking at the opposite side of the hall where Marisa and her daemon are.

They climb their respective stands. They aren’t allowed to be seated. After all, it is a trial, and they are supposed to be defending themselves. Asriel has a feeling that neither him nor Marisa are interested in defense, simply wanting things to be over.

Stabbing each other in the process is just an extra perk.

‘State your name, please,’ Cardinal Sturrock is slumping in his direction. Asriel opens his mouth and doesn’t shut up out of spite listing his name, status, estates, and full heritage up to the seventh generation even when he’s interrupted – twice. His voice thunders through the room. People wince.

‘You did ask, Your Eminence,’ he shrugs coldly.

‘Thank you, Lord Belacqua,’ comes the most thankless tone possible.

Marisa’s answer, against his, is short and dry.

‘Marisa Coulter, née Delamare.’

With the precision of French vowels on née. Whether it’s pride or emotions that make her resort to the accent, or a simple habit of pronouncing it right, Asriel doesn’t really know. I love you, sea creature. He doesn’t look, but his teeth hurt from clenching.

And then it becomes very hard not to look because questions come one after another, and it’s their shared history that gets spilled on the floor.

‘Could you remind the honorable judges of the circumstances of your meeting?’

He stifles a groan. The only thing stopping him from suggesting the honorable judges to shove their honorable questions up their honorable asses is Stelmaria’s tail around his legs. She could have crushed the pathetic daemon-insects between her paws if she wanted, but she is playing impassive for his sake. Asriel burrows his fists deeper into his pockets and clears his throat.

‘It was a social event, I don’t remember which. Both Mrs. Coulter and I were present.’

Well, he made the whole board frown. Again. What, did they expect him to pour out every detail? Who cares, let’s cut right to the chase. They met, they slept together, they had a child, he killed her husband – that’s what everyone wants to discuss anyway. Dancing around the subject just takes the meaning out of it.

‘And how old were you?’

‘Twenty.’

‘And Mrs. Coulter?’

‘Why don’t you ask Mrs. Coulter herself?’ he snaps, patience is leaking out of him despite the decision to stick to his best behavior. Damn his non-existent tolerance for stupidity.

‘It is your account of the events, Lord Belacqua. We will address Mrs. Coulter when needed.’

Speaking of her like she isn’t in the room. The spot of blue color is very still in the corner of his vision as Asriel makes an effort to look straight in the Cardinal’s bloated face. He can’t lick Marisa’s taste off his lips. It’s distracting. Stelmaria moves her head in a warning: focus.

‘I believe, Mrs. Coulter was nineteen at a time.’

‘And is it correct that your affair started a year after that?’

To be fair, Asriel said so himself during one of the previous hearings because it was easier then, one on one with Sturrock and his henchmen. He said a lot of things. Now, however, with Marisa standing witness, the lies become palpable like rough stitches in the air. Seeing them, knowing them, how could anyone believe they lasted a whole year?

The truth is, the affair had started immediately. It’s just that the sex came well after, but she cheated on her husband the moment their hands met.

They would meet at the library. She would pretend to not notice Asriel’s presence until the last minute, but always made sure to wear the most flattering dresses. He would pretend he visited the dusty archives for any serious, adult reason except spending a day with Marisa.

She would smile politely as she saw him and say, ‘Lord Asriel. Here again?’ – in a voice that fit a genderless servant, not a woman of flesh and blood, but her eyes would spark with delight. Sometimes, he would approach to read over her shoulder, hardly seeing the lines from being struck on the head with the scent of perfume mixed into that of her skin.

She would turn her face half-round to ask, ‘I wonder, what do you make of the Bermundsen’s last paper on potential use of natural events, Aurora lights in particular, as a source of renewable anbaric energy?’

He would breathe ‘I think Bermundsen is flying pitifully low’ down her neck.

They would sit across from each other, shamelessly making love with their words and ideas, innocent to anyone who could see.

At times, she would make for the stepladder to take another book. He would take it for her, reaching over her head, almost pressing her into the shelf in the process. Their eyes would meet, and there would be that look in hers, all at once calculating and genuinely content, impossible to decipher all the way through. Not daring to allow their fingers touch over a book, they would pause. In the air, an instant collapse waiting to be released. They would both stand, undoubtedly imprinting one another in memory to imagine late at night for their own raw, secret pleasure. Adding a throbbing sensuality to that image on purpose.

At the end of the day, they both knew exactly what they were doing.

It’s a force Asriel, with his scientific mind, cannot comprehend or break down into a handful of co-applying laws physics has to offer. Something possesses him to take a look, something not entirely lost, that’s still trying to live and breathe despite his best efforts.

Marisa appears withdrawn. Empty, like she isn’t there at all. The harmony of deep blue with the gold of her daemon would be fitting to a saint, except that wearing a color besides black only paints her more of a sinner. Deep within, Asriel is admiring the defiance. His admiration is of dark, self-torturing quality.

Under a delicate hand, the golden monkey seems to have lost all life. Therein lies the Marisa effect.

‘Lord Belacqua?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Is it correct that your affair started a year after you and Mrs. Coulter had met?’

‘Yes. Yes, that is correct.’

***

Mrs. Coulter, he keeps saying.

I briefly collaborated with Mrs. Coulter on one of my branching research, she was providing theological base to…

When Mrs. Coulter and I had become involved…

… there was no paper correspondence, Mrs. Coulter insisted…

…Mrs. Coulter…

Some other woman she must be, that Mrs. Coulter, because Marisa doesn’t recognize herself in what Asriel is saying. The person he talks at such lengths about sounds rational and cold, plotting her way through the affair down to every breath she takes, and not at all in love. She remembers being in love. How does one pick memories clean off the carcass of that giant dead thing?

Bones are there, alright, but Asriel is lying. Tiny details get cloaked sometimes, and sometimes grand ones. Marisa isn’t fool enough to think it a protection, instead pulling herself together against what it really is. An erasure, utter and complete: of her, of what they were. Matter-of-factness, with which Asriel answers the questions, ultimately retelling the story in a way a dust-dry librarian would retell the plot of an exciting novel, is an act of killing. She is reduced to an outline, a character – someone unimportant, and only vaguely familiar.

A stranger, in a word. A stranger whose name he pretends to have never tasted on his tongue in moments of disarmed tenderness.

He said he wouldn’t spare her. Who knew it was to be like this.

Despite the indignation it pokes alive, his flow of immaculate half-truths has another effect, an unexpected one. They carve Mrs. Coulter into existence out of thin air, and the more Asriel speaks, the more real she becomes, allowing Marisa to dissolve in the image. Soothing her until she enters a state of tranquil trance, her tyranny buried into the golden fur. How easy it is to pretend uninvolved. It allows her some control – maimed, disfigured, but control still.

So she listens, and doesn’t object. Her hatred, now cool and steady as opposed to the fiery eruption before, listens too. Grasped by curiosity almost unhealthy, it wonders how much less emotional Asriel can make the whole thing sound.

And then, suddenly, it’s her turn.

And then, suddenly, it’s a full-blown interrogation.

Air grows thicker, as if molecules knit themselves closer together with every pair of disapproving eyes landing on Marisa. She tenses.

‘Mrs. Coulter, do you agree with Lord Belacqua’s account?’

Down to the detail, except where he left out that we actually had hearts, she says, yet the words transform in her mouth and leave it as a plain, ‘Yes.’

‘Very well,’ Sturrock locks his ring-laden fingers, leaning over them and resembling at that moment a fat hawk on the search for a prey. ‘Could you say for how long you had been married to Edward Coulter prior to meeting Lord Belacqua?’

‘Six or seven months.’

‘Are you not sure?’ the hawk frowns.

‘Seven,’ Marisa corrects, even though it’s not true, because the whispers start swishing and she needs some merit. Yes, she was still very freshly a wife when she broke all her vows, but at least she can track her own marriage. That must count for something, must it not?

It was, in fact, six months and eighteen days. She spent endless nights wishing she’d just waited for six months and eighteen days longer before allowing Edward to put a wedding band on her finger. Or that Asriel had come along that exact amount of time earlier. Either way, a fruitless endeavor, but it kept her up for hours.

‘And would you say you had amicable relationships with your husband?’

‘Quite.’

‘Mrs. Coulter, I’m afraid I need you to elaborate.’

They say, when vultures come, it’s already too late. Marisa stands surrounded by vultures, painting and repainting her cracking mask of humbleness to not let fury taint it. Even in death, Edward traps her. Say a few good words about him, and her sins become appalling in comparison. Say a few bad ones, and she’s obviously besmearing his memory with lies to save herself, a malign creature whose only hope is to pray for forgiveness. In a convent.

Very carefully, her voice treads across rows.

‘My husband was a man of politics, as you know. Often away. Amicable is the exact right word, Your Eminence, for we didn’t have much in common, nor did we spend much time together. There were always…other duties.’

‘Is that why you chose to betray your sacred union by infidelity?’

Damn you.

Is there any winning this at all? The Cardinal himself is pushing her onto the thinnest ice Marisa’s ever walked on. Everyone is waiting, everyone is angry. A bunch of men who’ve never known a woman’s touch behave like she’s been unfaithful to them personally, and that is a mighty dangerous sea to navigate. That collective ego can crush her like a wave.

Giving herself some time, Marisa strokes the gold. Her hand is hard despite the gesture, the monkey shivers under it. It might pass for embarrassment, his fear. Good. She tugs at the fur a little and greets the pain where, connected to her deamon, a part of her soul resides, stuck among arteries and veins in rivers of blood – the one thing she’s yet failed to dissect to understand the nature. Her insides yelp; it helps her think. She needs to think fast.

Truth, she decides, is the simplest thing to say. And the quickest way to try and thaw a few hearts that are so hung up on innocence.

She only makes one mistake. She looks at Asriel.

‘I was…’ in love, is what Marisa tries for, ready to play the cards, but that incomprehensible soul of hers… She would throw it to the wolves if she could. It makes the words cluster in her throat. It fights against every sound, clawing them down with a fierce proprietary desire to omit, to withhold, to never share a single meaningful piece.

‘Yes, Mrs. Coulter?’

Because it was theirs.

A young man bumps into her, rushing away from her husband like all dogs are on his tail, which is a bit funny since he’s being followed by a giant cat. A leopard, alright. For the sake of precision, a snow leopard. The man’s face still carries echoes of an argument he’s very obviously continuing in his head even as he turns.

‘My apologies,’ he mutters, a hand on Marisa’s shoulder making sure she’s okay.

‘No need,’ she chuckles at how aggravated he looks, then nods to his suit. ‘You’ve spilled your drink.’

‘What? Oh–’

Something very inappropriate is about to leave his lips, but the stranger contains himself, albeit hardly. He does give an impression of someone who’s not used to doing it. A gentleman, then; sparing Marisa’s ears the horrors of hearing him curse. She smiles. It is a very expensive suit he’s wearing, of fine materials, clearly tailored. With a big wet whiskey spot on the left sleeve.

She lends him a handkerchief. Simple as that.

‘Seemed like you were having a hard time with Edward Coulter there.’

‘Politicians,’ the man scoffs, patting his sleeve dry. ‘A fine specimen too, pigheaded as they come.’

‘Hard to disagree.’

The man snorts.

‘Thank you.’ He looks up to return the handkerchief. For the first time, their eyes meet. Marisa feels blizzard skies touch her face.

Fathomless, untamed, impossibly blue.

Now she’s dizzy.

She has to blink and breathe before reinforcing a polite smile.

‘You’re welcome.’ There’s a little crack in her voice, through which something new seeds in, spilling gold all around. Everything is brighter. Warmer. And the stranger doesn’t help, the stranger is watching her with intensity so profound, as though taking his snowstorm eyes away would be death.

‘I don’t think we’ve been introduced.’

‘We haven’t,’ meaning to take the pitiful piece of cloth, she reaches forward, sly cruelty curling the corner of her mouth in anticipation. ‘Marisa Coulter.’

Now their hands meet. Now she shudders.

It’s against the rules, the anbaric charge running from her fingers and all the way down her spine.

The young man raises his eyebrows, glances over at Edward, then turns to Marisa again. She nods, enjoying the trick. Now he’ll say, ‘Forgive me’. He’ll say, ‘I didn’t mean to be rude’. They’ll laugh about it for as long as another minute will be merciful to last and by tomorrow, they’ll have already forgotten. Simple as that.

He sends her a grin with not a hint of apology in it and whispers, ‘My condolences.’

Their hands are still touching.

Now, Marisa falls.

How does one share… that?

‘I was weak,’ she says instead, hiding the truth so deep in the hardened soil that is her core now, it doesn’t have any chance of pushing back to the surface, ‘and easily seduced. A young woman, the high society. Getting plentiful attention from a handsome young man. It doesn’t excuse me, but the result is, I think, understandable.’

That should do it. That should be enough.

In years to come, she’ll bare her teeth at anyone suggesting that she was, indeed, seduced, for every time, this exact moment will come before her eyes. When she set the rumors free to cover her refusal, her actual inability to kill whatever love there was by laying it down before the judging eyes. When she stood lying her heart out to protect it. What a wild, unreasonable thing to do, lacking any logical backbone.

‘In your own words, Mrs. Coulter, could you describe the nature of your affair with Lord Belacqua?’

And she keeps doing it again, and then again. Before the board of the Consistorial Court, before the Authority himself. Before Asriel, to whom she has no means of explaining what she’s doing and why, and it’s too late for explanations anyway.

‘It was just that, an affair.’ The monkey’s frozen under the palm of her hand, but his heart is racing. He’s looking at Asriel, making her want to look. She can’t bring herself to, not with all the atrocities falling out of her mouth. ‘I never made any advances.’ A lie. ‘Our relationship was merely physical.’ A lie. ‘There were no high feelings involved on either of our ends,’ a preposterous lie, ‘and I certainly never planned for a child.’

‘Now, the child…’

And so it continues: a hook after hook, round after round of scrupulous investigation, escaping traps, spinning a detail or two into webs by myriads and morphing them to the point of striking unrecognizability, concealing what couldn’t be shared.

Marisa goes through humiliation of describing her pregnancy to a board of priests, each of whom, at some point, winces at the realness of their beloved sacred concept. She answers increasingly stupid questions, and grooms her voice to sound respectful and calm. She acknowledges her sins without ever raising eyes. She, for all means and purposes, survives.

There’s one moment where it almost goes downhill.

‘What were the circumstances of your conceiving of a child?’ Sturrock asks, cruelly overdoing the air of grave solemnity. Perhaps, Marisa is just too exhausted to be impressed anymore.

Are you stupid? she might have as well said it, with the way she turns to the man raising a brow, face completely unreadable otherwise. The fat hawk dives out of his papers. Without as much as a word, he gestures for her to talk, and Marisa, the perfect statue, feels the last crumbs of patience being incinerated within.

‘Physical intercourse,’ from her tongue, venom all but drips. ‘Am I supposed to explain to the honorable judges what that is?’

Well, now she’s done it. Caused a storm. Rows of black attires buzz in a unanimous disapproval. Marisa imagines Asriel chuckling. She doesn’t see him, doesn’t hear him behind the noise, but she’d like to imagine a smile. A half-hidden, proud smile he used to have as he looks at her stirring trouble.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! A gavel brings order by slamming the living demons out of the wood. The monkey’s tail curls around Marisa’s forearm. He scowls, and takes a step back. Closer to her. She doesn’t have shelter to offer, only her nails driven deep in the fur.

‘Let me rephrase the question, Mrs. Coulter, and from now on, please refrain from any irrelevant comments,’ the Cardinal grimaces. ‘Were the circumstances clear enough to presume Lord Belacqua to be the father?’

‘I am the father!’

Immediately – a roar, as if that man can’t speak in lower volumes. Always the roars with him.

Across the room, the whole magnitude that is Asriel comes alive, and suddenly Marisa knows – not even understands, it’s not a eureka, she just knows. Stelmaria paces, abandoning her sphinx-like grace; her hissing grows into snarls and back. Asriel is arguing with Sturrock who, without a doubt, is telling him to shut up, which Asriel, without a doubt, ignores. The voices echo. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that for all the lies they both told – the lies, she realizes, absolutely identical in their meaning and reasoning – this one he won’t allow. That single grain of truth must remain unmutilated, untouched by their game of erasure.

For Asriel loves that child. He loved it enough to name it, loved it enough to steal it away. He loves it enough now, to fight for it. And Marisa, while having the power to invent any obnoxious story and take his fatherhood away, won’t do it.

Because it’s theirs.

Because it’s the only thing they haven’t buried yet.

Because, as her love-stricken body never ceases to remind her, she didn’t want a child, but she also wanted his just a little.

So she bites her cool, steady hatred down and doesn’t ruin it all the way. For an act of killing, an act of mercy. Screaming: Here. Don’t you fucking dare say I didn’t have a heart.

‘My husband was frequently absent, sometimes for weeks on end.’ A sterile voice, devoid of anything but a drop of sarcasm. ‘As a scholar, I pride myself in knowing the basic mathematics to do the count.’

It’s hard to say if the Cardinal’s forehead is glistening with sweat of responsibility or mere frustration. He waves his hand, and doesn’t ask Marisa any more questions.

From the distance, Asriel is scrutinizing her. She can imagine gears turning in his head as he contemplates her actions. Imagining is the only thing she can do; to salvage something, something else must be sacrificed. Marisa fakes a cold smile. He frowns. Threads of Aurora colors are still hanging between them, uncut, piercing the space to weave the two together, but the ability to read them is lost.

***

Mercury. Lead. Cadmium. Aluminium. Any type of hazardous metals, Asriel is used to handling in his laboratory with according tools and protection, but when a tiny bundle nestles on the crook of his arm, he suddenly feels stupefied. What to do. How to hold it. How, for heaven’s sake, to not harm it?

Afraid of breathing the wrong way, he walks to the stairs. Thinks. Properly, carefully. Then sits on the lower steps, all the way making sure not to press the baby too hard, not to bump the head, not to… a billion other not-tos.

The tiniest face he’s ever seen wrinkles in sleep, and Asriel understands why it’s called ‘falling in love’. It is a fall. His heart plunges down toward something so entirely new, it’s torturing, yet rewarding at the same time. He felt it with Marisa but this, this is different. He stares at his daughter’s face with awe written all over his.

‘Won’t you introduce us?’ He’s oblivious to his own daemon approaching. Stelmaria rubs at his shoulder, her impressive might turned delicate, affectionate. Amber eyes find the baby. She gives the blanket a couple of sniffs and grumbles with content, tail slowly passing from side to side. Asriel feels holy.

‘Stelmaria, this is Lyra,’ he whispers proudly, stunned at the sheer strangeness of the words he never thought he’d use in a combination until he does. ‘My child.’

And then again, ‘My child.’ Like he’s perpetually amused by it. His chest shakes with a stifled laughter of joy.

The baby’s eyes aren’t fully closed, so he thinks he might need to ask Ma Costa if that’s alright. She’ll know. Still, the child appears happy in her slumber. His child, sleeping in his arms. Under her eyelids, a shard of blue. Gyptians say, everybody’s born with blue eyes, sky eyes, and only when spirits finish weaving the threads of one’s life here on earth, do they acquire their true color. What a bunch of nonsense. His child, Asriel knows, will have the bluest eyes forever, even when she’s all grown up. Because she’s theirs, Marisa’s and his.

A little mousy thing climbs from under the fold, yawning and squealing. Perhaps, it’s too hot there. The tiny daemon doesn’t even fully wake, slumping right back on his daughter’s chest and dreaming their little dreams.

‘Won’t you introduce us?’ Asriel turns to Stelmaria, echoing the question. The leopard comes to lick the mouse, her tongue as long as his whole body. A kiss of love, though she’s careful enough not to touch the baby. Small paws catch at the fur on her chin. She licks the daemon again, unmistakably pleased.

‘Feisty,’ she says with quiet fondness before resting a head on her human’s shoulder. ‘Asriel, this is Pantalaimon.’

‘Pantalaimon,’ the name settles over the little thing. Both little things. ‘Lyra and Pantalaimon.’

He sighs, content, amused. In love.

‘My child. My child.’

‘He was going there to murder my child, and I wasn’t supposed to intervene?’

‘Lord Belacqua, we’re not questioning…’

‘Where in your holy books does it say that a father should sit and let it happen?’

‘Your motifs are…’

‘Because I’ve read them, and there’s no such thing there! You know what else they don’t say? That a husband can kill the bastard his wife bore. And don’t give me the ‘violation’ speech, if he was going to avenge his wife, he’d have come straight to me. Edward Coulter chose to go and murder the child.’

‘Silence!’ Sturrock roars, banging the gavel in a deafening, psychotic rhythm for so long, the thing must have gone flat. The Cardinal drops it on the table before wiping his forehead for the umpteenth time. Another ink smudge appears. The man sighs. When he speaks again, his breath comes out heavy with wheezing. ‘As I was saying, Lord Belacqua, we are not questioning your motifs. But if the murder of Edward Coulter was indeed, as you claim, undesigned, the question remains: how did you know of his whereabouts?’

Asriel’s hands are itching to break something. The damn gavel, preferably. Preferably, against the Cardinal’s head. Conversations have been going in circles forever now, following the same patterns like figurines in a music box.

‘Once again, the gyptians sent for me,’ he grips at the sides of his stand until his knuckles show white. ‘I know you’ve spoken to Ma Costa and John Faa. I’m sure they told you the same.’

‘Did any of them know what Edward Coulter looked like?’

‘Why would they?’

‘So, a stranger shows up, and they immediately call for you? Certainly, you understand why I’m finding this peculiar.’

‘The man was ravaging their settlement, screaming my name and demanding to see the child. I doubt the dots were hard to connect.’

‘And you, luckily, showed up just in time?’

‘Luck, chance, divine intervention, I don’t care what you call it. Ma Costa sent a boy for me. As soon as I heard what was happening, I took his horse and rode. And yes, I killed a man, but need I remind you, I did so protecting my child.’

‘Yes, yes, you’ve made that abundantly clear, Lord Belacqua,’ Sturrock mutters, clearly irked, dropping back in his chair.

A short silence follows. A short time to regroup for another attack. What ticks His wheezing Eminence the most, Asriel thinks as he’s watching the man shuffle papers on the table, is that he does not exhibit guilt. Every fool knows it’s the surest way to win the judging party over, yet he disregards even the most basic of rules. Deep within, he can’t miss the appeal: a man of science facing a board of clerics and winning, slowly but surely. He allows himself a smirk. Right away, comes a cautionary glow of golden eyes. Stelmaria bares her teeth, just slightly. Nothing is over yet.

They are all tired, agitated, and way, way less patient. Sturrock finally stops pretending to be the all-knowing bringer of justice and sulks in his high seat, clueless as to what comes next. That makes him pesky, stubborn. From here on in, dangerous paths wind ahead.

‘Where is the child now?’ the Cardinal finally asks.

Ah. So they know.

Asriel draws air to reply when he notices a tiny movement. It only makes him pause for a fraction of a second, but his mouth grows suddenly dry as he realizes what it was. Marisa turns her head. Marisa, who, for hours, stood as indifferent as a statue and seemed to be oozing nothing but quintessential, undiluted boredom with the fate of their daughter, turns her head, and listens.

‘Lord…’

‘Yes, I heard.’

He can feel Sturrock frown.

‘And?’

It doesn’t matter. Her listening doesn’t matter. The woman is a labyrinth, each turn a dead-end. A sea creature that learned to mimic humanity. It’s just his heart he needs to persuade, because, well… She told the truth. Threw away the best weapons she had and told the truth where it mattered.

‘Lord Belacqua, I have to insist…’

‘The Jordan College,’ Asriel barks, pushing through the pounding in his chest. ‘She’s in the Jordan College, in care of its Master.’

Come what may, he’ll fight.

‘So,’ the sweaty, round face of the Cardinal proves to be a surprisingly good distraction. Who could’ve thought. ‘How does a child, placed in a nunnery, end up in the Jordan College?’

‘I took her there myself.’

‘On what grounds?’

‘On the grounds of my doing whatever the hell I want, because this is my child!’

He shouts. Stelmaria’s roaring, carried by the echo, rambles through the hall, and a whole lot of bugs, spiders, and mice daemons hurry to hide in their humans’ sleeves. They don’t have anything against him, Asriel realizes with grim satisfaction. Better yet, they are quite afraid. He stands prouder, arms folded. The taste of victory grazes his tongue already, nearing in anticipation to that first sip of tokay as the liquid gold pours into a glass.

‘And did you not think to consult with Mrs. Coulter?’ Sturrock gestures innocently to the side. ‘Its mother?’

He looks a cheap magician demonstrating a trick, although why, Asriel can’t seem to grasp. Marisa has been standing there this whole time. It’s not like he made her appear out of nowhere. A thought stumbles on its own irrelevance, at once fading.

There’s something in Marisa’s eyes.

Something, he could swear.

She stands wearing her guilt, and shame, and sin like she would one of her ravishing dresses, and he could swear she gives him the smallest, sharpest nod.

‘Mrs. Coulter…’ Asriel begins hoarsely, then stops. Honey-spiked wine turns into a nauseating unctuous slush in his throat. With an effort, he swallows it all the way down. He’d swallow his own pride to keep talking. ‘Mrs. Coulter does not have a grain of interest in being a mother, Cardinal. As soon as the child was born, she wished for it to be sent away. She even went as far as telling her husband that it died at birth. That child never knew a crumb of mother’s care, so I don’t think Mrs. Coulter has a say in the matter.’

He never takes his eyes off Marisa. Treading onto the ice, waiting for creatures to come from the depths and devour him.

Take her away, Asriel. I can’t… I’ll hurt her, or do something, or… She will ruin everything, she will. I hate that. I hate… Just hide her, Asriel, please. Hide her from me. I’d rather hate her from the beginning than love her, and hurt her still.

Creatures never come.

The lie settles.

Hanging over the room, an uneasy silence: the entire board of the honorable judges grows quiet, shifting their gazes from one stand to another. There’s not a cough, not a chirp from their daemons. No minds able to unriddle that enormous magnetic charge pulsating in the air, created and sustained, it seems, in half-accidental, neither scientific nor theological, conditions of two people looking at one another. Each a defendant, each a prosecutor. Making their own gravity.

Which can only exist for as long as it’s allowed.

‘Be it as it may, Lord Belacqua…’ the Cardinal sounds a tad less sure now, yet there are no more grounds to surrender. ‘She is still the child’s mother, and in terms of the rightful…’

‘Your Eminence, if I may?’

A clear voice, so perfect in its tone against the angry, tired grumbles that have been bouncing off the walls for hours, it’s like a breath of air.

All Asriel can do is watch. It all depends on her now.

Sturrock pinches the bridge of his nose – needless to say, dripping with sweat – before addressing Marisa. Whether he’s contemplating his career, or wondering if the two of them decided to team up specifically to wear him down, Asriel would understand.

‘Yes, Mrs. Coulter?’

‘Let him do with the child as he pleases.’

What are you doing.

‘Again, Mrs. Coulter, any elaborations?’

‘None,’ she shakes her head. ‘Except that I have no intention of being a mother to, as Lord Belacqua so eloquently put it before, a bastard born of sin.’

What are you doing, goddamn you.

She stands there. Just stands there, with whispers and looks touching her face, her clothes, getting under it and branding her a monster. An adultress, twice sinner, a mother who left her child. They would be more merciful if she just played her cards. Everyone loves a sad story with a mother and a child somewhere in it, and none more that the church folk. She doesn’t leave them a chance to be merciful.

In her eyes, shards of sea-blue, so familiar it sends a violent thrust through his heart. The ones forever mixed into the blue of their daughter’s. And suddenly, Asriel finds himself nodding to her in the same hidden gesture she did.

That’s right. Hit harder. I know you can.

The golden monkey stirs. Behind her stand, Marisa is a mask of cold elegance. Right next to her, her soul withers in a white-knuckled grip. Then she blinks, and her sea-blue goes completely blank, and she looks away.

‘Is that your official request, Mrs. Coulter?’

‘If need be, yes.’

The Cardinal gives out an exasperated sigh. Then bangs a gavel.

‘So be it.’

***

The very last thing they do is sign the orders.

Marisa sways when she takes the first step, but simply because she spent hours on her feet, hardly moving. Not because she’s afraid of walking toward the inevitable end.

She doesn’t look at Asriel. He doesn’t look at her.

They’ve said all they wanted, agreed on all they needed, and lied the living souls out of themselves in the process, painting each other all colors of monstrous. The tainted mess left on the courtroom floor has nothing to do with what they really were. And that, perhaps, is the most victory they can share. With nobody knowing the truth, they might forget it too. Forget there was ever love at all.

Ugly, grotesque versions of them that will leave the room shouldn’t make it too hard.

Asriel is the one to leave first. Stelmaria follows him quietly, a ghost of a man and ghost of a daemon.

His signature is right there on the paper. Marisa hardly even reads what is above. She’s not to approach Lyra or visit the Jordan College, that much she heard from Sturrock’s lengthy speech. The rest, she couldn’t be bothered with.

She signs a confident ‘M’.

A less confident name, not yet understanding why.

Then shivers.

For whatever reason, her hand is aching to write ‘Delamare’. I love you, sea creature. Taking a deep breath, Marisa has to spend a good minute closing her mind, sealing it up for good. Resorting, ironically, to the very thing she and Asriel created together.

Marisa Delamare drowns at sea. From its depths, a creature emerges, as enigmatic and obscure as the black waters that have turned its blood cold all the way through to the heart, and its beautiful embrace is deadly.

The creature’s name is Mrs. Coulter.

14 notes · View notes

kerra-and-company · 1 year

Text

Kerra's Playlist: Analysis

Hello folks! Welcome to something I put probably way too much thought into—aka me talking about the playlist I made for Kerra 😊

(also, tagging @i-mybrunettelady and @king-there0f, since you guys said you were specifically interested in seeing this <3)

Warnings for content below: assorted spoilers for the entire GW2 storyline, suicidal thoughts, grief

So, some things about Kerra's playlist that give me Emotions when I listen to it:

The first song on Kerra’s playlist is instrumental, and it’s called Valiant—Kerra’s first-ever title, and one that she has claim to as soon as she awakens.

Broken Heart of Gold is the seventh song. It’s early in this playlist and early in Kerra’s life; she’s about a month and a half old here at most. And the chorus is this:

Sometimes I just wanna quit Tell my life I'm done with it When it feels too painful Sometimes I just wanna say I love myself but not today When it feels too painful I smash my broken heart of gold

Kerra is grieving and she is angry. She had to kill Tiachren. It was her fault and it wasn’t; she could have made another choice but she wouldn’t have; it’s a death that teaches her that guided destinies don’t come casualty-free. This song is mostly about the grief and self-hatred that comes out of this incident, but she’s angry at others as well, and a big part of that anger is directed at the Nightmare Court. When Faolain visits Briarthorn, Kerra (there undercover at the time, working with Alarin) seriously considers killing her, both out of a generalized anger towards the Court and a very personal anger towards Faolain with her (at this point still limited) knowledge of what Faolain did to Caithe.

What I’m Here For (number 10) is meant to be a sweet song but has always been kinda bittersweet for me, and that translates to the role it has in Kerra’s playlist. She, sincerely and truly at this point, thinks her value is in what she can do for other people. (Also, based on where it’s located on the playlist, it’s technically a little before she joins the Order of Whispers, but the line “I’ll be the brightest shadow you’ve ever had” is very tied to her and the Order.)

Angel With A Shotgun is...just a very Kerra song. The whole thing fits her, to be honest, but especially this:

They say before you start a war You better know what you're fighting for Well baby, you are all that I adore If love is what you need, a soldier I will be

For Kerra, this isn't meant to be interpreted in an explicitly romantic sense. You could read it as platonic love/romantic love/just how much she cares about the world in general, and she could be talking about/to many different people. There's also something to be said about this bit:

If love's a fight, then I shall die With my heart on a trigger

Considering that she does, in fact, during PoF.

No One Stands Alone is Kerra's becoming-the-Commander song (think end of level 60 PS and retaking Claw Island):

No one's falling No one will be forgotten No one's going on their own

We find light Through the smoke No one stands alone

Through the fire We find hope No one stands alone

It's good and also very painful--"no one else is dying if I can help it, I will never forget those we lost, I'll stand beside you even if no one else will"--but it's also very much her acknowledging that she's a leader. Where she goes, people will follow, and that's important even if it's hard. And there's the bridge, which is also worth noting:

I won’t let you leave we just started My heart’s on my sleeve, it’s unguarded They might come for me a new target They need a new target My heart is unguarded

Both another instance of her being self-sacrificing and one of her saying that she's going to keep loving anyways, regardless of whether it hurts her or not.

Also, to add one more point--it's an echo of something Tybalt says during the level 40 PS: "When you stand with the Order of Whispers, you never stand alone."

May I is (in this playlist) meant to be Kerra talking to the fledgling Dragon's Watch during LWS1:

May I hold you As you fall to sleep When the world is closing in And you can't breathe May I love you May I be your shield When no one can be found May I lay you down

"Can I protect you, can I love you, are you happy to have me here and as your friend? Because I'm really happy to be yours, and I want to keep this thing we've built, if I can."

Ready or Not is Kerra and Scarlet going back and forth during Clockwork Chaos:

You thought nothing could surprise you You thought you'd seen everything But you never saw me coming All eyes on me Ready or not

Some of the lines are more Kerra, and some of them are more Scarlet, but you could take the song as coming from either one of them alone and it'd be equally valid.

Breathe is Kerra's Tower of Nightmares song--hallucinations, doubt, just have to get through this:

I know right now you're not strong enough But breathe

Strange Sight is technically from one of the Tinkerbell movies, I think? But I first heard it entirely divorced from that context, so it's not particularly relevant xD As far as the new context I'm giving it, this is Kerra's catching-romantic-feelings song:

You're reckless and distant But I'll be persistent I will understand you Strange How I'm drawn to the danger I'll reach out my hand to you

You are a strange sight Some new kind of wonder

There's a light that you shine There's a love, I see it in your eyes

It's not a perfect match in all respects, but those few segments really hit home. Kerra's friendship (and eventual romantic relationship) with Nisha and Canach is based on a) seeing things she understands in both of them, and notably somewhat darker things (Nisha's grief, Canach's anger), and b) being willing to reach out and connect because she thought they were worth connecting to. And they reached back to her, too.

Echo is Kerra right after the Shadow of the Dragon attacks the Summit--she knows her Wyld Hunt now, but so many other things have been thrown into question, and she feels incredibly off-kilter and afraid in a way she's really never been before:

I can't get a grip, but I can't let go There wasn't anything to hold onto, though

The trembling fear Is more than I can take When I'm up against The echo in the mirror

Brittle, on the other hand, is Kerra after she learns the truth about the origin of sylvari, thanks to both the memory seeds and Nisha. It's anger at her mother and Caithe, anger at her situation, anger at herself for not being stronger, and anger at Mordremoth (and those distrustful of sylvari) as we bleed over from the end of LWS2 into HoT and the Pact fleet's destruction. I think the segment of this song that best fits Kerra here is this:

If I get defensive Don't say I'm oversensitive Maybe I have a tendency to snap on people telling me "You fit inside this box we built, we know you better than yourself" They're lying, they're lying, they're lying

Dear Shadow comes at the end of HoT, but it's reflective of Kerra and her Wyld Hunt and her emotions surrounding it since she awakened. She's talking to her Hunt, the voice in the back of her mind telling her to kill the dragon, like it's an entity all its own:

The first day that we met I saw you out of the corner Of my eye, I was 5 You're still the thumb that I'm under

Oh, I hid you away Pushing you down You left me caught between a light and a dark place

On the wall I was 10, you were more than a feeling By my side, unwanted The sun would see you come creeping Made of fear I was strong There's no shame to have you here Where you belong

I've been lonely Keeping you back there behind me Got this swollen feeling We could make amends I see it's only me needing You back there behind me In my soul I feel like Maybe we'll be friends But you're holding me back Yeah, you're holding me back And I just want to run

In order of segment, it's referencing: sapling times, post-Zhaitan, LWS2, the final battle with Mordremoth (where the Hunt is finally completed). This is maybe one of my favorite songs on this whole playlist.

Brother gives me emotions about Kerra and Trahearne, and them supporting each other as they build the Pact, and the huge risk that she takes to save him at the end of HoT--she's the one to bring him home:

Ramblers in the wilderness We can't find what we need We get a little restless from the searching Get a little worn down in between Like a bull chasing the matador Is the man left to his own schemes Everybody needs someone beside 'em Shining like a lighthouse from the sea

Brother, let me be your shelter Never leave you all alone I can be the one you call When you're low Brother, let me be your fortress When the night winds are driving on Be the one to light the way Bring you home

Now You Believe In You is instrumental, but the title alone says why it's important. Kerra post!HoT is free from her Wyld Hunt. She still carries losses on her shoulders and always will, but she truly believes in her capability going forward and in herself, now, in a way that was thrown a little off course for a while during LWS2. It's also that feeling that gives her the last push she needs to confess to Canach and Nisha.

And Rather Be is her confession song:

If you gave me a chance, I would take it It's a shot in the dark, but I'll make it Know with all of your heart, you can't shame me When I am with you, there's no place I'd rather be

"I want to be with you, if you want that too. I choose this, I choose you. Both of you are so absolutely worth the love I have for you."

Also worth noting a couple more lines:

It's easy being with you Sacred simplicity

In a lot of ways, this isn't actually that true. Kerra's the Commander, Nisha takes on the Marshal position a few months after this point, Canach's billet is still held by Anise, and they have literally no idea what form the world is going to take going forward. So it's not so much the situation that's simple, but the being-with-them, and the choice itself. Of course she'd choose them.

We're different and the same

Always been important, always will, even if it's a statement that'd be true about any set of strangers you met on the street.

As long as I am with you My heart continues to beat

And last but not least, I continue to be mean about seeing foreshadowing here--they're not with her when she fights Balthazar.

Never Look Away is one of my favorite songs for the three of them (Nisha/Kerra/Canach), in part because of its tendency to list things out in threes. (Also because there's literally the line "We're gonna photosynthesize and drink up the sunrise" in it, which is excellent.) I bolded a couple bits to highlight the triplets, but I wanted to show you all of these lyrics because they fit really really well:

So do they ever shut up because you said so or Do you overthink 'em all Somebody ought to corrupt you on the dance floor And take you home Show you all your daemons and desires and dark sides All of your colonies and continental divides

Let me uncover the silver in your dark hair The weight of your bones I want to witness the beauty of your repair The shape you've grown For you are made of nebulas and novas and night sky You're made of memories you bury or live by

So if you're out there in the cold I'll cover you in moonlight If you're a stranger to your soul I'll bring you to your birthright I want the storm inside you awoken now I want your warm bright eyes To never look away

Sunlight (yes, the Hozier one) is a song that could really go in a lot of places on this playlist--it's very Kerra, but not a specific time of Kerra doing things. For the purposes of the playlist timeline, though, it's during LWS3. All the lyrics fit in some way, but to avoid quoting all of them, I'll just give you this:

All the tales the same Told before and told again A soul that's born in cold and rain Knows sunlight, sunlight, sunlight And at last can grant a name To a buried and a burning flame As love and its decisive pain Oh, my sunlight, sunlight, sunlight

Dirt Around The Tree is a song that's so Kerra (in terms of both her entire timeline and specifically right after she comes back from being dead in PoF) that my brain visualized an entire animatic for it that I'm not able to draw--I won't write about it here, but I am absolutely going to reblog that post so you can see. It's also in my fics tag if anyone's reading this and decides they want to go find it :)

Paper Dragon gives me Kerra vibes post-PoF specifically, but it's also just a good song for Kerra looking into the faces of Elder Dragons and a god and saying, "Still standing." For a few segments:

Well, you try to stamp me out But I'll come to life You try to burn me up But I'll never die

Sticky tape me, re-arrange me, throw me out, start again Re-use me, confuse me, shred me up-up into little pieces You say I make no sense

Oh, you don't own me I don't think you're fair Try to destroy me I don't care

All I Know So Far is one of my favorite songs for Kerra and her kids (Aurene, Rhi, Tev and Ia). It's also specifically a parenting song for Kerra and her partners, if you choose to listen to it for the three of them rather than just for her:

I wish someone would have told me that this life is ours to choose No one's handing you the keys or a book with all the rules The little that I know I'll tell to you When they dress you up in lies and you're left naked with the truth

This verse in particular (above) is very Kerra, but the chorus that it segues into (below) has elements of her and Nisha and Canach:

You throw your head back, and you spit in the wind Let the walls crack, 'cause it lets the light in Let 'em drag you through hell They can't tell you to change who you are That's all I know so far And when the storm's out, you run in the rain Put your sword down, dive right into the pain Stay unfiltered and loud, you'll be proud of that skin full of scars That's all I know so far

And the rest of the song is like that, too; I'm just not going to put all of it here for the sake of both space and my brain xD :)

Run is another one I wrote an animatic "script" for--will reblog that shortly, but please check out my fics tag and you'll find it there!

And last but not least for individual songs, I have to mention Hell or High Water because it's a very Kerra-during-EoD song, struggling against both the Void and Ankka (as well as all the other complications going on). It's also related to water, which, considering Soo-Won, is very fitting:

We are running out of time Meet me at the water line No one here is safe We are running out of time Don't forget your promises It's only fear inside your head We won't be replaced No one here is safe

When the river's running red And we begin to falter We'll hang on to the edge Come hell or high water

There's a few song parallels in here also--three of note are:

1) Weight of the World (during the Zhaitan campaign/level 80 PS) and Featherweight (when Kerra steps down as Commander after EoD), and

2) Go for Gold (the first instance where a song has "champion" in the lyrics, which for Kerra is both being a champion for herself and her new friends during LWS1) and Champions ("champions aren't born, they're built"--after returning from the Domain of the Lost).

3) Angel With a Shotgun comes back later, in a sped-up version, during the early part of EoD--Kerra is willing to sacrifice herself to save Rhi and Gorrik when they're all crashing into the shores of Cantha, and it's why she's as injured as she is (and why she needs almost a month to recover).

And...I shall stop there! But if you actually read this far, thanks so much for being interested, and I hope you had a good time. My brain has so many Kerra thoughts in it at all times and a bunch of those manifest in her playlist, so it was really nice to write this down.

:) <3

#my fics #gw2 #kerralind #there's a Lot here guys asjdkl;fsaf i did warn you lol #hope someone other than me has fun reading through this!! :)

19 notes · View notes

merryfortune · 7 months

Text

Welcome to the family, little one

Written for Year of the OTP 2023

Title: Welcome to the family, little one

Ship 1: Respectfulshipping | Ryoken/Spectre

Ship 2: Infectshipping | Aso/Kyoko

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Vrains

Rating: T

Word Count: 2,281

Tags: Fluff, Light Angst, Flirting, Pregnancy, Parenthood, Kidfic, Knights of Hanoi as Found Family

“Welcome to the world, little one.” Aso murmured as he kissed Kyoko’s temple. His voice was rich and fond.

Kyoko held said little one - their baby - and looked suitably exhausted. Her eyes were droopy and her smile was lopsided but the moment of calm after all the chaos of giving birth was welcome.

Speaking of welcome, so were their guests.

“They’re ready to see us now.” Genome said to both Ryoken and Spectre.

He was standing on the threshold of the door. He hovered in and out between the hallway and the infirmary. He was acting as the mediary between himself as a general practitioner when it came to all things related to the human body, and a family friend. The home birth had been as safe and successful as it could be on a cruise liner lived in by five people, three of whom were doctors, even if one of said doctors was the patient.

Ryoken and Spectre exchanged a look. Excitement did not begin to describe the emotion on Spectre’s face, it was oddly giddy whereas Ryoken was smiling but not over the moon. But, upon invitation, they both came inside the infirmary.

The infirmary had bit of a smell to it. Some of it was tolerable - like the heady, new baby smell - but some of it not so much. Ryoken hid the way his nose wrinkled but Genome was very vocal about his disdain for unsanitary smells.

“Are you guys ready to meet the new addition to our family?” Kyoko asked.

Aso proudly stood by Kyoko’s bedside, he warmly placed his hand on her shoulder and she practically glowed. She looked the perfect picture of the Nativity scene: husband by her side, three wise stooges involved, and of course the most perfect infant child to have ever been born swaddled in her arms.

“We’ve decided on Noriaki as his name.” Aso said.

Ryoken snickered, “Noriaki? Really?”

“We knew you’d say that.” Kyoko sighed. “No, not like “law light” but rather “roasted seaweed autumn” regarding the kanji.”

“That’s even worse.” Ryoken said as he amusedly folded his arms.

“I think it's a nice name. Regardless of reading.” Spectre piped up.

“Thank you, Spectre.” Kyoko said and Aso nodded in agreement.

“We also considered ‘Shinichiro’ but I’m sure you would have had even more problem with that.” Aso said.

Ryoken took a moment to puzzle out the potential obvious Kanji for such a name and sure enough, Aso was right. Seventh son. That was a worse idea than autumnal roasted seaweed- er, law light. Spectre reserved judgement, however, as he had no complaints about being one of the preceding six but could understand the perspective of the others.

“Do you two want to hold Noriaki?” Kyoko asked, breaking the mounting tension over her and Aso’s choice of name for their son.

It had been hard to come up with a good name. There were plenty of things to omit but not a lot to include which made it difficult.

They didn’t want to use names which had either “Ryo” or “Ken” in them for obvious reasons. They couldn’t pick anything with “Ki” in it nor anything with “Yoshi” either. “Aki” was already a risk considering who their SOL Tech benefactor was. Then there was the issue of using anything containing either Spectre and Genome’s real names which were dead to them. Nor did they want to use anything too short since Noriaki was going to use his father’s family name (but even if he wasn’t, Taki wasn’t that long of a name either) for mouth-feel related balance reasons.

It was really hard but Noriaki just felt right at the end of the day for a baby born in the season of fall and at sea no less.

And, maybe, one day, he would even grow up and develop a fondness for Aqua or Fish type decks. Wouldn’t that be amusing? If he followed in the footsteps of his family when it came to Duel Monsters. Seaweed would be a good name for such a duellist.

Until then. Ryoken did have a point. He was probably going to be correcting tons of people regarding the kanji of his name. Good thing, or maybe a bad thing, he was going to be homeschooled for most of his life…

“I’d love to.” Ryoken said. “What about you?” He turned his head to look at Spectre.

Spectre was… not so discreetly excited by the idea of holding Noriaki.

The topic of Spectre and babies was a thorny one to say the least. His past made it hard, he was a good example of what happened when babies were abandoned and what negative outcomes could develop thereof.

However, he had experience. Far more than Ryoken as there had been instances when he was at the orphanage where his caregivers tried to funnel his clear familial cravings into the younger kids that had also come into their care. It hadn’t worked. He hadn’t much interest in human babies but clearly, his feelings had appeared to have changed, and become more complicated, since then as his smile was surprisingly kind. If hidden.

“I’m not opposed to it.” Spectre said, his teeth were chattering through the nervousness that he was trying to suppress.

Ryoken, meanwhile, was much more gungho. He was eager, willing to learn.

Of course, Ryoken (and by extension, Spectre and Genome, too) had been forced to read parenting books and books on foetal development, and baby development, too. But that was all theory. The practice involved less books which were notably very still and stable creatures and more babies which were not known to be very still nor all that stable.

Still, Aso was confident as he entrusted his son into Ryoken’s arms. The exchange was difficult, Ryoken only sort of knew was he was doing and as soon as Noriaki left Aso’s arms, already so known and precious to him, he began to scream. And screech.

Ryoken made a face, awkward, as he held Noriaki with not quite enough support. He did his best, even if Noriaki was being troublesome and Spectre, hovered by Ryoken’s side, wanting to correct both their postures.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, Daddy’s right there.” Ryoken tried to goad Noriaki.

Ryoken tried to pull faces for Noriaki but Noriaki’s eyes were tightly closed. Aso leaned over him and tried to do the same. That half helped. They both cooed at Noriaki and Noriaki still screamed. Ryoken’s nervousness began to increase as he tried to keep Noriaki calm and Noriaki was having absolutely none of it.

“M-May I?” Spectre asked. His voice practically drowned out by Noriaki’s screaming, however.

“Yes Spectre, you may.” Aso said, cringing through the absolute ordinance that Noriaki was concocting. It was though he didn’t need to breathe.

“Good luck.” Ryoken whispered.

He shuffled in closer next to Spectre, trying to rock Noriaki calm but that didn’t seem to be helping. Though, he hadn’t noticed any additional weight in Noriaki’s bundle which might be the culprit for his sudden shift in demeanour. He had been much more better behaved in mama’s arms.

And, also, Spectre’s. Apparently.

Ryoken helped to deposit Noriaki into Spectre’s awaiting arms and he had a much better posture for both himself and Noriaki. Noriaki blinked a couple times once he realised that he had been moved around like a football but now. He had stopped moving and he paused to consider what that meant and so. He went quiet.

Quiet for one second, then two, and then a minute. He seemed content and as did Spectre. Ryoken smiled, fondly, as Spectre got more confident with holding Noriaki. His nerves had settled and so, his face lit up as he held little baby Noriaki. Spectre was gentle and just over the moon. His smile, though wobbly, was getting wider and wider the longer he held Noriaki and the longer Norki was quiet.

Spectre was so much more confident holding Noriaki, too, especially compared to Ryoken. He looked so uncharacteristically soft and vulnerable as he held Noriaki close and better still.

Noriaki had no complaints for being held by Spectre. He quietened down in Spectre’s arms, too. Again, especially compared to Ryoken. In fact, Noriaki had appeared to have fallen asleep in Spectre’s care, which made sense. He was rocking him ever so slightly so as to not disturb the adults around him but at the same time, he couldn’t help himself.

Noriaki was so tiny and warm. His existence was so blissful at present, wrought in screaming having just been born mere hours ago, but the legacies he would come to inherit would grow so complicated. Perhaps he should never have been born, perhaps he would wish one day that he had never been born. For now, he wished for dreamland and for mother’s milk.

For now, he was a welcomed addition to the family that they were making in the wake of what had brought them all together. Noriaki’s existence was fraught but he was going to be cherished nonetheless. There was no doubt.

“Do you guys want a picture?” Genome asked and he had his Polaroid at the ready.

“I’m not really the pictures type, you know that.” Spectre said.

“Nonsense, I want a souvenir of you two meeting Noriaki for the first time.” Kyoko pouted.

“I’d like one too.” Ryoken added.

“Alright.” Spectre said.

Ryoken smiled and he snaked his arm around Spectre’s lower back. He leaned into him and embraced him, kissing him on the side of his face, making Spectre go even more camera shy. Genome rolled his eyes but managed to take a photo regardless.

“I know you probably don’t want to hear this,” Ryoken whispered into Spectre’s ear, “but I think in another life, you would’ve been a good parent.” He held his pose beside Spectre as they listened to the polaroid click and whirr at Genome’s use of it.

“What was that?” Genome asked, his voice grumbly as he shook out the photo that had been printed. “Why not share it with everyone?”

Spectre’s face began to go red.

“I was just saying that we appear to have found Noriaki’s favourite.” Ryoken lied, matter-of-fact.

“Hm… Probably true.” Genome agreed but he knew that he was being lied to.

Aso laughed and he came around to Spectre to collect Noriaki.

Sure enough, Noriaki stirred and began to cry again. All the typical infant newborn stuff but it was oddly endearing despite the lungs that he had on him. He could scream and he could scream loud. Aso sighed as he tried to calm Noriaki, all whilst Spectre fussed, embarrassed. The whole changeover was kind of clumsy but Noriaki’s crying complicated it.

“I think you might be right, Ryoken, I think Noriaki might have a second favourite already.” Kyoko said, with some correction. She knew that once Noriaki made it back to her, she would undoubtedly be his absolute favourite as mama. Favourite uncle or male relative, perhaps. “Also, Genome, I wanna see the picture of Ryoken and Spectre, did it turn out good?”

Genome hummed thoughtfully as he actually checked the photo. He smiled a small smile. He was chuffed enough by the results but when he went over to the side of the bed where Kyoko laid to show it to her, she squealed in delight.

The photo had turned out excellent. The polaroid picture was shiny and glossy, perfectly capturing the moment of Ryoken kissing Spectre and Spectre holding Noriaki who was a tiny bundle of blue blankets in his arms with his tomato red face peeking through. It would make a wonderful souvenir in years to come, Kyoko was sure as she beamed, gazing at it.

“Oh, it's adorable.” Kyoko gushed. “You both look like the perfect picture of fatherhood. Out of context, anyway.” She laughed.

Spectre continued to go red. Right to the tips of his ears. He sputtered wanting to say something - anything - but was floundering. Ryoken, meanwhile, was taking the joke much better. He couldn’t be more amused at hearing Kyoko saying his quiet part out loud and Genome was still grumpy. He was demoting very quickly as favourite uncle. At least he could still be Spectre’s favourite.

She showed the photo to Aso as he stood next to her, holding Noriaki.

“Mm, it's a good photo.” Aso agreed.

“Yes, well, I have many talents now, don’t I?” Genome piped up, disgruntled.

“You do.” Kyoko giggled.

She leaned in and brushed kisses into Noriaki’s hairline. He had sparse hair, the colour of which couldn’t be fully determined just yet as it was thin and slicked down over his skull but it might have been a very, very dark blue (like dad) or perhaps an auburn (like mum, just influenced by dad).

“I love you so much, Nori…” Kyoko murmured. She noisily kissed him some more.

It was hard not to watch with swelling hearts, the utter adoration mother had onto son. They would all have a part to play, of course. To help out. To justify the peril of bring new life into the world in the long wake - fifteen years, to be exact - after their crimes.

But it was healing. That’s what they told themselves. They were going to raise and protect Noriaki, he would one day grow up into a capable young man and citizen of the world. That was their promise. Ryoken reached out to Spectre and took his hand to wordlessly hold it. Spectre squeezed it back, holding back tears in his eyes. They were going to do their best - all of them, Kyoko, Aso, Genome, Ryoken and Spectre: all of them - and it was going to be healing.

#writing tag #yugioh vrains #vrains #yugioh #ryoken kogami #kogami ryoken #spectre (vrains)#respectfulshipping #infectshipping #aso (vrains)#kyoko taki #taki kyoko #year of the otp 2023 #welcome to the family little one #knights of hanoi as found family my beloved <3

2 notes · View notes