#yesterday one of them crawled under a comforter by accident and the other three chased him around while he was trying to find a way out!

[leguin]

kittens are fascinating to watch bc they have no impulse control besides fear, and very little coordination or attention span, so they spend all day tumbling over their own tails and jumping on things. making big plans to investigate things and then getting scared and taking a nap instead

#yesterday one of them crawled under a comforter by accident and the other three chased him around while he was trying to find a way out! #catblogging

[smkkbert]

Mothers know best

Summary: Since they have been kids, they have been best friends. Since they have been friends, their mothers wanted them to be together. After coming back from the east coast, Felicity takes over a position at Queen Consolidated, the company her best friend will soon take over from his father. Their mothers still push for them to be together, and they seem closer to that goal than ever because wedding bells are ringing. The only problem is that they both plan to get married to someone else.

Rating: Explicit

Previous chapters: 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  10  11 12 13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20

Chapter 20 of 22: Ya’aburnee

= The desire to die before another person because of how unbearable it would be to learn of their death (Arabic)

“Are you coming, or what?”

With held breath and wildly beating heart, Oliver watched Felicity as she had almost reached the top of the ladder. Since she had run towards the ladder and started climbing it like they were still six years old and had no fear of falling or anything really, he had been holding his breath and just waited for her to reach the end of the ladder safely. He was sure that, once she had reached the small front porch of their tree house, he would relax a little more. Well, or at least he hoped so.

“I am just waiting here until you have gotten onto safe ground.”

Instead of continuing to climb up the ladder, Felicity stilled which really didn’t help Oliver to relay at all. She angled her head back over her shoulder and looked at him. Her smile was almost a little mocking, and she let one of her hands go of the ladder, leaning back instead. Oliver knew that she was just doing so to tease him, and he tried his best not to make her see how much it affected him. He doubted that he was successful though.

Really?” she asked, perking up a doubtful eyebrow. “There was a time that you couldn’t wait to chase after me to see who would make it up here first. I think you almost threw me down the ladder years ago.”

“Possibly.”

Oliver’s reply was elusive although he remembered the incident clearly. He had come quite close to throwing Felicity off the ladder by accident. He had wanted to get to their treehouse before her, so he had wanted to pass her in the middle of the ladder by just climbing through her. His movements had almost made her slip and fall don several feet onto the ground though, so he had never intended of trying it again.

“What, you are really just going to stand there and wait for me to arrive at the top?”

Oliver puckered his lips. He could hear that she was trying to challenge him as challenging had always been half of what their friendship had been about. They had challenged each other to do the stupidest things, just so they could tease each other with it. It had always been a lot of fun. He couldn’t deny that there were much more important things to him now that she was his wife and carrying their baby though,

“Hey, your pregnancy and our marriage turned you into a woman who wants to claw out other women’s eyes because of jealousy,” he reminded her of the conversation they had had five days ago at The Geek Squad, “so you can hardly blame me for turning into a person who wants to make sure their his wife and unborn baby are safe.”

Felicity’s lips twitched up into a smile. She looked at him with so much love in her gaze that it almost took his breath away in an entirely different way than her risky climb had managed him to do. He knew that she understood him, and he didn’t even have to tell her all the reasons why it was important to him that she was getting up to their treehouse safely.

“Just for the record,” Felicity said, “if I were to slip and threatened to fall down-“

“I would catch you,” Oliver replied immediately. “You can just fall down. I am here.”

Instead of falling down, Felicity hurried to climb up the rest of the ladder and crawl onto the floor of their treehouse’s front porch quickly though. Letting her shanks dangling from the edge of the wood panels, she cocked her head at Oliver.

“Are you coming now?”

“If you promise not to move,” Oliver asked, “so I don’t feel like I have to catch you because I  can guarantee that I will just let go and let myself fall back, so I can still catch you before you land down there.”

Felicity smiled, amused and enamored at the same measure Oliver guessed. She put a hand onto her heart and mouthed a silent vow then, actually making him agree on following her up the ladder. Still, he hurried up there to make sure that he was there to pull her off the edge of platform if necessary.

By the time he had reached the treehouse, Felicity was still standing at a safe distance to the edge of the platform. Hence, there was no reason for him to safe her. It didn’t stop him from putting his hands to Felicity’s hips and walk her backwards into their treehouse, brushing a kiss against the tip of her nose.

With a content sigh, Felicity wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and leaned back just enough to look at his face. She was smiling happily, infecting Oliver with it easily. If Felicity was happy, there was no reason for him not to be happy.

“So, why did you want to go to our treehouse on Christmas Eve Morning?”

“Christmas Eve Morning,” Felicity whispered, shaking her head. “As someone who was not raised in Christian Belief, I have to tell you that it sounds weird to call it Christmas Eve Morning when the only holiday is Christmas Eve. Like, I am not sure that Christmas Eve Morning is actually a thing.”

“It is for my family,” Oliver replied. “Christmas Eve Morning is always used to set up the tree and put all the gifts under it and build up the Natal Scene.”

Felicity nodded slowly. “Can this child please be raised as a part of the Jewish community because your traditions freak me out, and I am saying that as someone who has lived with you and your family for a while.”

Oliver chuckled and pecked her lips. “Whatever you want.”

“Really?” Felicity asked, perking up her eyebrows, and poked her forefinger against his chest. “Be careful what you promise me because I am going to nail you down on it.”

Knowing that she was most likely saying the truth, Oliver made up his mind quickly. Felicity would probably make him adopt a dozen of dogs, tattoo her name on his forehead and run around at their home all day every day for the rest of her life. Especially with the pregnancy, she did have some crazy ideas going through her head currently.

Clearing his throat, he quickly changed the topic. “You didn’t answer my question. What are we doing here?”

When he had woken up this morning, Felicity had already been awake. She had lay beside him, her head propped up onto her hand, while she had been watching him. As soon as he had opened his eyes, she had suggested getting to their treehouse, so they had done so. They had even skipped breakfast as Felicity’s morning sickness had increased through the last days, and she couldn’t get a bite down.

Taking his hand with a smile, Felicity led Oliver over to where they had carved their initials into the wooden panels. O & F.

Oliver smiled at the three little signs. Lifting his free hand, he brushed his fingertips against the carved letters and the sign between. O & F, Oliver and Felicity. Those two names had never seemed to belong more together than they did right now.

“I think it’s time to follow your granddad’s instruction,” Felicity said with quiet voice and held out a knife for him. “Now, those letters do need that heart around them.”

Oliver felt his heart warming at Felicity’s words. It had been years since they had built this treehouse with is grandfather. Just like he himself, Felicity hadn’t forgotten about any details about it though. She remembered that his grandfather had suggested carving a heart around the letters, but they had both turned that idea down. They had just been friends after all.

Now that they were married, Felicity was right though. That heart really should be there now. Hence, he took the knife from her and started carving that heart. Sappy as he was now that he was a married man, he even added an arrow to go through the heart.

Doing the whole thing barely took some seconds. As soon as it was done, he and Felicity stood back and watched the new carving. Felicity’s arms were wrapped around his waist tightly, while he had put an arm around her shoulders and had rested his chin on the crown of her head.

“All those years ago, who would have thought that we would end up here?” Oliver asked and kissed the crown of Felicity’s head. “Would you have thought, Mrs. Queen-Smoak?”

Felicity angled her head back and smiled at him at the mention of her new surname. It was the first time that he had been able to bring it up naturally since they had been to the Council Courts office yesterday. She looked utter content as being called Mrs. Queen-Smoak, so he guessed that it had been the right decision for her.

“I wouldn’t have,” she admitted. Her smile widened before she asked, “What about you, Mr. Queen-Smoak?”

Oliver chuckled. His arm tightened around Felicity’s shoulders, and he brushed a kiss against her forehead. He loved to hear his name as much as Felicity loved to hear it seemed. Both of them were utterly content with the decision they had made.

Asked about their surname in Las Vegas, they had delayed the decision. They hadn’t wanted to make the wrong choice just because they were in a hurry. Changing your name was a big thing after all.

On their flight back from Las Vegas to Starling City, they had eventually talked this decision out. Oliver had suggested that he would just take hers. After all the months of using the name Smoak at The Geek Squad, he was utterly used and comfortable with it. He wouldn’t mind using it officially in every aspect of his life. After all, he knew that he couldn’t be prouder than to sign any paper possible with Felicity’s family name.

Felicity, on the other hand, had pointed out that they were leading a company called Queen Consolidated after all. It was his father’s legacy, so it would be wrong to change that name. Besides, all the money that would cost would be lost for improving those bio-stimulants. They were already making good process on those, but they needed every penny they could offer to really give people hope that it would work out at the end.

Eventually, they had agreed that taking on each other’s name was the right thing to do. While Smoak-Queen had the better ring to it, with Queen Consolidated there for them to lead, they had eventually decided to take on the name Queen-Smoak.

Oliver Queen-Smoak and Felicity Queen-Smoak. Always and forever.

Still looking at their letters as well as the heart and arrow carved into the wood panels, Oliver tightened his arm around Felicity once more. She angled her head back in response, smiling at him with so much love in her eyes.

“I love you,” she whispered, “and I couldn’t be prouder to call you my husband.”

Oliver’s smile widened even more, and he tightened his arm around her shoulder just a little more. “I love you too.”

* * *

“Just close your eyes.”

With the way his lips brushed against the shell of her ear and his breath ghosted over the side of her face, Felicity couldn’t feel more content. She released a low sigh and let her head drop back against Oliver’s shoulder. Her eyes fluttered shut, and all tension seemed to leave her body. She turned into wax in his arms, and she felt completely at peace by it.

They were lying together on the bed. Felicity was sitting between Oliver’s spread legs. Her feet were hooked under his shanks. Her hands were rested on top of his thighs, massaging small circles into his muscles. She guessed that they were aching after the long run he had gone out for this afternoon. He had been so proud of himself, saying the thought of coming back to her was spurning him oven even more and had helped him to run his usual route even more quickly than he had ever had. It was why this lazy way of spending their first married Christmas Eve just right.

Staying like that, Felicity just enjoyed all the sensations Oliver made her feel. His chest was pressing to her back, warming her skin even through the thick hoodie she was wearing. His arms were wrapped around her, keeping her safe. His hands were moving up and down her stomach, one over and one under the fabric of her hoodie.

This morning, after they had returned from their short trip to the treehouse, it had been the first time that she believed to have seen some change in her body. If she had really focused on her reflection in the mirror, she had been sure that she could see the smallest of a baby bump showing there. Oliver had needed a lot of convincing before he had agreed to it, and Felicity actually believed that he had only given in because he hadn’t wanted to get into a fight with her. Anyway, he had agreed, so Felicity would just nail him down on that.

Lacing her fingers through Oliver’s on her existing or non-existing baby bump, she eventually opened her eyes. Her head turned, so she could look at his face, and she smiled at him softly.

“We have been married for a week,” Felicity whispered. “Can you believe it?”

“I believe that more easily than the fact that we haven’t gotten into a severe fight yet,” Oliver replied and nuzzled her nose with his. His lips brushed against hers briefly. “What does that say about me?”

Felicity smiled. “It says that you know us very well. We are bound to have a severe fight sooner or later. Well, rather sooner than later I guess.”

“We do. Right?”

Oliver’s question or rather the way he scrunched up his nose at the thought that they could be fighting made Felicity chuckle. Of course, with the way things were right now, it seemed impossible that they could get into a fight. Even during their friendship, they had been several moments that could have easily ended up in a terrible fight though. They might get into a fight in their future, but that wouldn’t change the fact that they were utterly in love with each other and that they wouldn’t let anything or anyone get between them.

“I am not worried though,” Felicity replied honestly, squeezing his fingers on her stomach. “We got through two engagements with the wrong people and still found our way to each other. I know that I will never give up on this easily.”

“Neither will I.” Oliver’s smile turned into a grin. “I will just take all the blame and apologize whether it’s my fault or not.”

“See?” Felicity replied and had to bite back a chuckle. “We are good at solving problems. Now you just have to continue taking all the blame for the rest of our lives.”

Oliver nodded. “Done.”

“Good.”

They both chuckled softly before they leaned in. Their lips touched in a gentle kiss, sealing the promise they had just made to each other. They wouldn’t give up easily. If their marriage should ever be at risk, they would fight as much as they could to make it stay away. That was how much they loved each other.

“I don’t regret it at all, you know?” Oliver whispered eventually, leaning his head more against hers. “I know this idea of getting married so quickly and so spontaneously has been crazy, but I am really happy that we decided to do it. I couldn’t be happier.”

“Neither could I be.”

Felicity watched their laced fingers on top of her lower stomach where their baby was growing. In a lot of ways, it still felt incredibly surreal to her. Being married to Oliver, the best friend she had and would ever have was just so weird. It was right in all ways possible, but she knew that she would need a lot more time to get used to it. Right now, she felt like she was floating on her cloud number nine.

It might even take all of her life, but she didn’t mind as she didn’t intend on getting rid of Oliver before that anyway.

“I determined my rental contract,” Oliver said after a moment of pause and placed a gentle kiss to the soft spot under her ear. “By the beginning of February, the loft is up to be rented by someone new. Once we got through the holidays, I will move all the stuff I really need here. The rest will be sold or given away for charity or whatever.”

Again, Felicity smiled and turned her head back too look at Oliver. His face was all relaxed. He looked content at the thought of leaving his loft behind to move into her penthouse. That had to mean a lot considering that a small townhouse like this was not something Oliver had ever seen himself living in. Felicity had to know given how long she knew him already.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “I know this wouldn’t have been your first choice, but I am really grateful that you agreed to move here. I really, really love it here.”

“I know.” Oliver kissed the tip of her nose. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have agreed to move in here with you after all.”

Felicity looked at Oliver with slightly narrowed eyes to make her doubt obvious. She really doubted that Oliver would have ever disagreed with living here. If there was one thing that she knew, it was that Oliver had trouble to deny her anything that she wanted. She guessed that she was his weak spot, and he should probably wish for them to have a baby boy. Otherwise, he would be completely lost for the rest of his life.

“I don’t mind where we live,” Oliver told her eventually, shrugging his shoulders slightly, “as long as we live together.”

Again, Felicity smiled. She snuggled back even further into Oliver’s arms and closed her eyes for a moment. She really had no idea how she had been able to get this lucky. Oliver, a man she loved so much that it almost took her breath away, just wanted to be with her. He put back all of his own wishes and dreams to live the life she wanted because she was all that he really wanted to have.

“Once the baby is born, we might need something bigger though,” Oliver whispered into her ear eventually. “There is no real room for a nursery, and this townhouse is a little too small for two people anyway.”

Perking up her eyebrows, Oliver looked at him. “Are you really scared that we will annoy each other to hell and back already?”

Oliver chuckled. “No, I don’t. If it was up to me, we could as well live in a closet. I do know that, if we stay here, we will probably just continue to screwing each other’s brains out though, and we will end up having a dozen of kids within ten years.”

Felicity screwed up her nose. “Ugh.”

“Exactly,” Oliver agreed. “Because how are we going to have sex when we have twelve kids to take care of?”

Whispering those words against her lips, Oliver let his hand move from her lower stomach to the juncture of her legs. His fingers were aiming for her clit and center, willing to make her feel all the pleasure he could make her feel. Quickly, Felicity grabbed his hand and pulled it away though.

“What-?“

“I got you a Christmas present,” Felicity told him and pecked his lips briefly before she rolled onto her side and reached into the topmost drawer of her nightstand. She pulled out the small gift she had wrapped for him and handed it to him. “Merry Christmas, Husband.”

Oliver smiled at her choice of words. He took the gift from her and turned it between his hands that were still resting on the height of her stomach.

“It’s not even Christmas yet.”

Felicity just released a low sound, a mixture of a hum and a sigh. She doubted that she would ever get these Christmas traditions, especially since they seemed to vary so much around the world. In some European countries, she knew that Christmas presents were exchanged during Christmas Eve already. In other countries, gifts weren’t exchanged until early January for whatever reason. It seemed weird that it was different in the US and some other countries too. Shouldn’t it be the same everywhere?

“It’s already Chanukah,” Felicity told him, “so just open it.”

Oliver shot her a brief smile before he started unwrapping the gift. The moment he had turned it, so he could really look what she had gotten from her, an almost teary glance formed in his eyes. Felicity watched the expression of his face changing from joy to an emotion that she didn’t know to name and couldn’t describe and back to utter joy.

When Felicity had thought about what present to get Oliver for this year’s Christmas and Chanukah, the first holiday they celebrated as husband and wife, she had been torn between what to do. In one way, she knew that Oliver appreciated small gestures very much. In the other way, their first holiday as husband and wife had screamed for something fancy and extraordinary.

Biting down on her bottom lip, Felicity looked at the three-piece photo collage she had gotten from him. On the left side, there was a photo of them in Las Vegas after their wedding. They had taken it with their phones, making sure that this moment was secured for eternity. On the right side, two photos were put one below the other. The upper one was an ultrasound picture of their baby. The other was a snippet of their baby’s heartrate, quick but steady.

“It’s beautiful,” he whispered, his fingertips brushing against the photo snippet of her face at first and then the ultrasound of their baby. “I love it.”

“Yeah?”

Oliver nodded, still unable to take his eyes off those photos. “Yes, absolutely. Everything I hold dear in just frame.”

Felicity smiled. She put her hand to the side of Oliver’s face and stroked them from her temple down his cheek towards his chin. Firming her grip on him there, she turned his face towards him and captured his lips in a kiss.

She already wanted to pull back when Oliver chased her lips and deepened the kiss. His tongue darted out to lick over her bottom lip. With a sigh, she opened her lips to his touch and stroked her tongue against his. Tasting the taste of his tongue on hers made her hips urge back against his. She rubbed her behind against his groin, enjoying the way his lips shifted in response.

“You can ravish me now,” Felicity whispered against his lips before she pressed her lips down on his once more. “That might be your second Christmas gift to unwrap.”

“And I will do so happily,” Oliver replied. His lips brushed against hers once more as his nose nuzzled his. “After you unwrapped your Chanukah gift.”

“My Chanukah gift?”

While Felicity was pulling her bottom lip between her front teeth, Oliver chuckled. He reached his hand into the pocket of his sweat pants and pulled out a small box.

“You didn’t think that I would let you get away without a gift, right?” he asked, dropping it into her lap. “Not on my watch.”

Felicity knew that she shouldn’t feel so touched by Oliver’s words. In all the years that they had been friends, he had always made sure that she got at least one gift for Chanukah, knowing that her father had sometimes pretended to forget about that Chanukah tradition and refusing to give Donna the money she would have needed to buy even a single gift for her daughter.

Since Felicity had been taken on by the Queens as part of the family, she had been spoilt by gifts though. She still remembered the mountains of wrapped up gifts she had received during her first Chanukah in Starling City. Shyly, she had taken one gift and unwrapped it. The roller blades inside had already made her incredibly happy. She couldn’t have wished for more, but Robert had led her back to the gifts, telling her that all of them were for her.

Thinking about it now, Felicity felt tears welling in her eyes. She doubted that anyone who hadn’t gone through something similar could understand what it felt like to be suddenly spoilt like that. She had never had a particularly poor life, but holidays with the Queens, gifts or not, had always felt incredibly special.

“Hey,” Oliver whispered with the lowest of a chuckle. He rested his cheek against hers and tightened his arms around her shoulders. “This was not supposed to make you cry, at least not before you unwrapped it.”

“I know.” Quickly, Felicity wiped her hands under her eyes to dry the tears. “Blame it on the hormones. They make me weak.”

“So weak that you watched all the seasons of Downton Abbey last week.”

“Shhh,” Felicity soothed him, putting her fingers on top of his lips. “I watched that new commercial with the puppy that looks so sad. Everything just went to hell after that. I didn’t even remember who I was.”

“You are Felicity Megan Queen-Smoak,” Oliver reminded her and kissed the tip of her nose. “That is who you are.”

Felicity sighed contently, snuggling back into Oliver’s chest even more. She couldn’t get enough of hearing him say her new name. She felt like every single time he said her name, it helped her to accept this new reality a little more.

“I love the sound of that.”

“So, do I,” Oliver assured her with another whisper into her ear, and he kissed her cheek. “Now let’s unwrap your gift.”

Felicity did as asked of her and started unwrapping her gift. She did so neatly, ripping off every stripe of tape he had used and unfolding the paper her gift was wrapped in slowly. She could feel Oliver’s impatience in the low sighs that fell from his lips. As much as he tried to hold them back, he just couldn’t hide them from her.

When she had unwrapped the small velvet box, she put the paper away and turned her head back to look at Oliver’s face. He was nervous about her reaction. She could see that much. His hands tightened on her hips, and he rubbed his thumbs against her skin in small circles.

“Just open it.”

He just mouthed the words without any sound falling from his lips. He was smiling, but she could still feel that he had to take in deep breaths to even manage that tense smile.

As much as Felicity loved to tease Oliver, she didn’t want to torture him too long. Hence, she quickly followed his suggestion. With a move of her thumbs, she opened the small velvet box. What she saw inside simply took her breath away.

Inside of the velvet box, surrounded by soft lining, a beautiful diamond ring was placed. The thin ring was made of platin. A detail of a collection of twelve small diamonds in various sizes and forms was attached to the top of it, framing the center piece that was built by a square-formed diamond. Felicity stroked her thumb over the precious jewelry. Although they were taking a lot of space on the ring, they weren’t too big. They were just slightly higher than the ring itself.

“I proposed to you so spontaneously that I didn’t have ring,” Oliver said eventually, his voice hoarse. “I couldn’t get you a special wedding band because we got married so quickly, so I thought that I should make good for the lack of an engagement ring by giving you this because I really wanted to give you a special ring like this. I chose this one because it really got character, and it is a little vintage. It even looks close to the one my grandpa gave to my grandma all those years ago. Besides, I figured that it fitted your needs. It’s impressive, I hope, as it sparkles in the right light and it should scare any guy off who thinks it’s okay to flirt with you, but it’s also not big enough to get in the way when you are working. I know that you usually don’t like to wear rings because they annoy you when you are working on your computers. This felt like a compromise between style and practice.”

Listening to Oliver’s words, she couldn’t help but smile even more. He had put so much thought into choosing that ring. He knew her so well that he just knew that she needed something that she could wear during work without getting in the way. As much as he wanted to give her a ring that he thought was worth having, he didn’t want her to feel hampered in her work when she was wearing it.

“You hate it,” Oliver whispered, mistaking her silence for something it wasn’t. “I knew I should have pulled a Sweet Home Alabama and ask you to pick your own wedding ring to make sure that you would really like it. I knew I should have done it, but I decided differently because of my ego or because of- whatever it was, I am so sorry, Felicity. I will just give this back and you will choose a ring that you truly love and-“

Putting her hand to the back of Oliver’s neck, Felicity turned her head once more. She captured Oliver’s lips in a searing kiss. She doubted that it could carry all the love she was feeling for him, but she hoped that it helped him to at least feel a little bit of it. There were no words to say how much she loved him, and there were no words to tell him how grateful he was that he was so considerate of her needs.

Oliver gave into the kiss with a sigh. His grip eased on her hips, and he wrapped his arms back around her waist to hold him as tightly as possible.

“I love it,” Felicity whispered, pulling away just enough to lock eyes with Oliver. “I really love this ring, and I couldn’t possibly wish for anything better.”

“Yeah?”

Relief and utter joy showed on Oliver’s face. She could feel his uneven heartbeat to going back to a rhythmic movement now that this burden was taken from him. His lips pressed against her temple for a moment, and Felicity was almost sure that he needed this moment to recover from the shock he had gone through, thinking she didn’t like the ring at all.

“Yeah,” Felicity just confirmed with a breath whisper. She lifted her left hand that already carried her wedding band and smiled. “Will you slide it on my finger?”

“Gladly.”

Oliver took the velvet box from her and took the ring from it. Slowly, his eyes locked onto Felicity’s, he slid the ring onto her finger until it was placed right in front of her wedding band.

Lifting her hand in front of her face, Felicity looked at the two rings together. They were both quite simple and yet unique. Together, they built an incredibly duo. She couldn’t wish for anything more beautiful, and she knew that they would make a good picture on her hands now that she was going to carry them for the rest of her life.

“I love them,” Felicity whispered and placed a quick kiss to the underside of Oliver’s jaw. “Thank you so much.”

“I am glad you like them,” Oliver just replied and brushed his thumb over the rings on her finger, leaning his cheek against the top of her head. “They do suit you very well.”

Felicity smiled. “It’s a shame that I have to take them off tomorrow morning when we meet our parents at the mansion. Our moms are going to faint if they see the rings.”

The closer the day had come, the more nervous Felicity had started feeling about it. She loved Oliver, and she was happy to share a life with him. As long as it had been a little bit of secret between them, Robert, John and Tatsu, it had been a lot easier though. Once they told their mothers about the relationship they had started and the marriage they had agreed to, it would be a lot more difficult though. Their mothers wouldn’t make it easy for them. Unlike everyone else, they would barge in and try to make decisions for them. It was just who they were.

“Hey,” Oliver whispered, prompting Felicity to turn her head back over her shoulder and look at him once more. “You and me, that is all that counts. We are going to make the decisions for us, our marriage and our baby.”

Felicity nodded, hoping Oliver was right. She knew that it wouldn’t be easy to fight off her mother though Oliver would probably disagree and say that his mom was much more a problem than hers. As long as each of them was keeping their own mom covered, she guessed that it should be alright at the end.

Their lips touched in another kiss. Felicity moved her hand towards the back of Oliver’s neck. She tried to deepen the kiss, but Oliver pulled back slightly.

“Do I get to ravish you now, Mrs. Queen-Smoak?”

“Feel free to do so, Mr. Queen-Smoak.”

Of course Oliver didn’t have to be told twice. Capturing her lips in another kiss, his hand moved between her legs. With slow movements, he stroked his fingers back and forth against her sex over the panties she was wearing. Felicity moaned into the kiss in response, arching her back and digging her fingernails into his skin slightly.

Soft waves of heat were already running through her body. Just the touch of his fingers where she longed for him made her crazy for more already. She couldn’t wait to feel his calloused fingertips thrusting inside of her wet core and his thumb rubbing against her clit. She wanted to fall apart in his arms and feel him catching her while she was falling, knowing that she was safe and sound with him.

“Oliver.”

His name fell from her lips in a desperate whisper, telling him that she just needed more. She knew that he needed more too. With every shift of her hips, moving her sex against his fingers, she could feel his cock hardening more and more. He wanted her as much as she wanted and needed him right now.

Oliver’s hands moved from her sex to her hips. He held onto them firmly and supported her rubbing movements. He thrust up against her ass slightly, and Felicity could feel even more heat forming in the pit of her stomach. Her almost desperate need for Oliver was almost ridiculous given that they were married and expecting a child. She guessed that it didn’t change the fact that they had been together for barely some weeks, so the passion was still running high.

Maybe (hopefully!) that would never change.

When Felicity pushed her hips down onto Oliver’s lap just a little bit more, applying more pressure to his cock, he seemed to remember why exactly what he had been supposed to do. His fingers hooked into the waistband of her panties, and he tugged them down her legs. Felicity helped him to get rid of them by shifting her hips and moving her legs until she was freed of the lace eventually. He dropped it to the floor carelessly.

Stroking his tongue against hers a little bit more firmly, his fingers started moving from her knee up her leg. His fingers brushed against the inside of her thigh. A trail of goosebumps followed his touch, and she felt even more turned on by his touch. She was impatient to feel his fingers where they had been before without any barrier between them this time.

It didn’t take too long for Oliver’s fingers to find the way to her center. They brushed between her folds and stroked from her entrance to her clit slowly. Although he was avoiding the most sensitive areas of her sex yet, Felicity moaned into the kiss already.

Felicity shifted her hips, continuing to rub her butt against Oliver’s lap and trying to make his fingers touch where she was aching for him already. Oliver made sure to avoid those spots, keeping his touch light. His fingers moved back and forth between her folds gently. Though the slow touch was intimate and loving, it was also so very teasing. As long as his fingers would move there instead of going a little deeper or a little higher, he would just keep her here where she was turned on and hungry for more without offering this more to her.

“Oliver.”

She whispered his name against his lips before she stroked her tongue into his mouth and moved it over the roof his mouth. Oliver groaned into the kiss, but Felicity already pulled back. He tried to chase her lips without success. Felicity was always staying right out of reach, letting Oliver close enough to feel her breath on his skin, but not close enough to touch her.

Their eyes were locked on each other, and Felicity could pinpoint the moment that he got what she was doing. He puckered his lips slightly, considering whether he should just give into the deal she had to offer – more kisses for his fingers inside of her core – or if he should play this game with her for a little while. The sparkle in his eyes told her that he decided on the latter.

As frustrating as this teasing was for her libido, it did so much good to her heart. She couldn’t put into words how much it meant to her that she and Oliver could be this silly even during sex. When they had talked during his rehearsal dinner and she had told him that what they had had was gone, she couldn’t have been more wrong. They were still the friends they had been all their lives. Now, they were just so much more than that too.

The thought made her smile, and Felicity couldn’t help but feel even more eager to play this little game of teasing with him. Making sure that Oliver’s eyes were still focused on hers, she let her tongue dart out and wetted the seam of her lips. Immediately, Oliver’s gaze flickered down to her lips, watching her tongue moving there. When his eyes found hers again, she saw that his pupils were widened.

Finally, his fingers moved lower and the tips of his forefinger dipped into her core. Felicity moaned, her back arching even more. Just the sensation of that one finger sliding inside of her slowly took her breath away.

Felicity could feel the slight shift of his finger as Oliver was about to pull it out before he had thrusted it in completely. Opening her eyes that had fluttered shut from her arousal before, she noticed that he was looking at her with slightly perked up eyebrow and quickly captured his lips in a passionate kiss. Fair as he was, Oliver stayed true to their deal. His finger continued moving into her hot core.

Once his finger was deep inside of her, he curled it, causing the tip of it to press against her slick walls. Felicity moaned into the kiss. She scraped her front teeth against Oliver’s bottom lip and enjoyed the rumble it elicited from deep in his chest. It was an almost primitive sound, one that was the result of a deep need to be with her.

Oliver moved his finger out of her, but he thrusted two fingers back inside the next moment. Felicity sucked in a deep breath. She had trouble resisting the urge to let her head fall back to catch her breath. She was sure that Oliver would pull out his fingers the very moment she broke the kiss though. Maybe she should have never started this little deal in the first place.

For a long time, Oliver thrusted his fingers in and out of her slick channel. She moved her hips in synch with his thrusts, allowing his fingers to go even deeper. When they brushed against the ruffled skin, she felt little sparks of fire building everywhere inside of her.

The movements of her hips sped up a little. Her butt thrusted down on Oliver’s groin all the more. She could feel his body tensing more and more in response. His muscular chest felt even harder against her back. His heart was beating erratically, and Felicity’s heart hurried to adapt to the rhythm of his. It wanted to be completely and utterly in synch with him, forgetting everything else there was around them.

As Oliver’s fingers thrusted in and out of her even faster and his thumb brushed against her clit, Felicity felt like he was fanning the sparks of fire that had been built inside of her before. With just a few more circles of his thumb on her clit, she felt those sparks of fires exploding. Lust and love spread inside of her, rushing through each one of her veins and spasms running through every single one of her muscles.

Once more she wondered if she had really just learned what an orgam was supposed to feel like when she had first slept with Oliver. Of course she knew that it was exaggerated. She had had orgasms before, good orgasms even. What she was experiencing with Oliver was so much more than that though. It was breathtaking, souldcrushing and mindblowing. It was probably a thousand other things too, but those three words summed it up perfectly. With Oliver, everything was just more intense.

While the last trembles of pleasure were running through her body, Felicity pulled back just enough to look at Oliver’s face. He was smiling at her softly, nuzzling her nose with his for a moment. Pulling his fingers out of her core, he lifted them to his mouth and licked her juices off of them. His eyes stayed firmly locked on hers.

A low moan or maybe the quietest of a whisper escaped her mouth. She felt even more turned on than she had been seconds ago. She felt like it should be impossible, but it was still so very true.

Felicity hurried to capture his lips in another searing kiss. She could taste herself on his lips. The thought of how much she knew that he enjoyed it made her moan into the kiss. She tried to turn around, so she could press her clit against his cock and thrust against him. Oliver’s arms tightened around her waist to keep her in place.

Another moan escaped Felicity at the thought of having him thrust into her from this position. He would be able to go so deep and reach ever single sensitive spot inside of her. Her ass would rub against his groin. If she spread her legs, he would certainly get the sign and stroke his hand against her sex slowly, increasing her pleasure even more.

Felicity’s walls were clenching down on emptiness hard as her fantasy was making her so very ready for him. Moving her arms behind her, she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of his sweatpants.  

“These need to go off.”

“Gladly.”

Although she was sitting in his lap, Oliver lifted his hips off the bed easily and tugged his sweatpants and boxer briefs down in one go. Felicity grinned.

“Eager, Mr. Queen-Smoak?”

“Only if you continue calling me that, Mrs. Queen-Smoak.”

“Gladly, Mr. Queen-Smoak.”

Oliver released that sexy growl that always made Felicity’s toes curl. She stroked her tongue into his mouth and grazed her teeth against his bottom lip. Her hips lowered down onto his. His cock, hot and hard as she loved it most, resting between her slick folds.

They moaned into the kiss in unison, moving together slowly. The head of Oliver’s cock bumped against her clit every time he angled his hips forward. Felicity pressed her back closer to his chest, trying to get as close to him as humanly possible. If she could, she would just melt with him.

When she wasn’t able to take the teasing anymore since every cell in her muscle felt like it was on fire and each muscle was stretched to a breaking point, she reached between them. Her fingertips brushed against his cock. His warm skin felt like velvet despite the hardness between. She took hold of him a little more firmly to position him at her entrance, causing Oliver to gasp for breath and let his head fall back against the cushioned headrest of the bed.

Motivated by his reaction, Felicity decided to delay her plans of making him thrust into her. Instead, she stroked her hand up and down his length slowly, almost torturously slowly to be exact. She enjoyed the way Oliver’s eyes fluttered shut. He bit down on his bottom lip firmly, restraining himself from releasing a long moan.

Smiling, Felicity leaned her ears close to Oliver’s ear. She scraped her front teeth against his lobe before she whispered, “Don’t hold back.”

At that, Oliver’s eyes snapped open. The deep blue of his iris seemed to dig right into her head and probably even into her soul. It clawed itself around her heart and tightened its grip around it to a point that Felicity was sure her heart couldn’t jump out even if it tried to.

Felicity didn’t know if it was her gaze or something else. Either way, Oliver did what she had told him. He didn’t hold back any longer. Instead, he started thrusting into her hand slightly and didn’t bite back his sounds of pleasure anymore. He moaned out and released those little hisses and growls, spurning her on even more.

With a soft smile on her lips, Felicity just watched him. She doubted that anyone more handsome had ever been born. If their baby was going to be born and it turned out to be a boy, he might be even more handsome though.

Wrapped up in her thoughts, Felicity hadn’t noticed how close to the edge she had driven Oliver already. She was tempted to just continue with his treatments. She wanted to see him fall apart, see how his eyes turned hazy and his lips opened in wild panting. She wanted to feel his body trembling beneath her and feel his muscles shiver against her back.

Before she could do so, Oliver pushed her hand away and position himself at her entrance. He thrust up slightly, allowing just the thick tip of his cock to move inside of her wet core. It was enough for Felicity to lower her hips onto him, burying him inside of her completely.

Felicity had fantasied about what this would feel like before. Her fantasy didn’t live up to the reality though. Settled deep inside of her, he touched all those spots inside of her that felt like they had never been touched before. He stretched her inner walls, making them flutter around his hardness ever so softly.

They settled for a slow rhythm. Felicity’s back was arched slightly, lifting from Oliver’s chest. It only made her shoulder blades press more into his chest. Her head was placed against his shoulder. She could hear his erratic breath. It was ghosted over her the side of her face.

In the quiet of their home, their bodies moved together. They were completely in synch. Every movement of their hips matched the one of the other’s. Oliver moved his hands over her hips and her stomach. Felicity’s followed his there. She laced her fingers with his. That way, she felt anchored to him in all ways possible.

The long time of pleasuring each other before didn’t allow them to prolong this for too long. Rather sooner than later, they found themselves pulled to the edge. Felicity was panting so wildly that it made her chest hurt. The rhythm of her hips was uncontrolled. It was the same for Oliver. Felicity might not be able to feel much around herself, but she knew it was true.

With one final thrust, they came together. Their hands held onto each other firmly as he spilled into her. Her chest pressed to his back so close that she could feel his heartbeat against her ribs. They were both utterly and completely lost in each other.

As this ring has no end, my love is also forever. No words had ever felt truer.

* * *

Once Felicity had loosened her seatbelt, she kissed all three rings – her engagement ring and wedding band as well as Oliver’s wedding band – that she was carrying on a long necklace around her neck. Releasing a long breath that she didn’t know she had been holding, she let the ring disappear under the neckline of her dress. She could feel the cool metal in the valley between her breasts until it eventually took on the warmth of her skin.

Smiling nervously, she turned her head to look at Oliver. He was sitting in the passenger seat, looking at her with a soft and slightly calmer smile than Felicity herself could offer. His hand reached out, and he put it on top of her thigh, rubbing it up and down there slowly.

“You were right,” Felicity whispered. “Feeling those rings against my heart does relax me a little.”

Oliver smiled and squeezed her thigh gently, not saying a word.  He had been the one who had suggested that she should take a long necklace with her and string all their rings onto it until they could carry them again once they had told their parents about their wedding. He had just known that she needed this little rescue rope.

“Now, do we want to go in?”

Felicity sighed, looking at the Queen Mansion. She had been there so many times, and the house had almost felt like home to her. It probably had felt like a home to her once in a while. Looking at it now, she couldn’t deny that she was slightly nervous going in there though. Telling their parents about their marriage was not a small thing after all.

“Let’s do this,” she said nonetheless. “We are together after all.”

Oliver smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “I will do all the talking. All you have to do is be there and look pretty which comes naturally to you, so it shouldn’t be a problem. It’s going to be fine. I promise.”

Felicity smiled. “My hero.”

Oliver winked at her before they got out of the car. They went over to the door of the mansion and stepped in. Oliver held the door open for her to go through first, and Felicity brushed her fingers against his forearm and the back of his hand. After all, she knew that this was the last opportunity she got to touch her husband until they had told everyone else about them.

The moment Felicity looked away from Oliver, who was winking at her encouragingly and looking ahead herself instead, Felicity snapped her fingers away quickly. She hadn’t known that Raisa was standing there and smiling at them before.

“Ms. Felicity. Mr. Oliver.”

Raisa’s voice didn’t sound surprised. She just smiled back and forth between the two of them. Her smile carried an almost knowing expression like she had all the information she needed to understand what was going on. It only made Felicity more nervous about all of this.

“Oliver just picked me up because my townhouse is basically on the way from his loft to here, and we figured that it would just be a good idea to drive together, so at least I could drink a little and- no, wait. I was the one who was driving, so he can drink and-“

Clearing his throat, Oliver stepped right behind Felicity, so his chest pressed into her back. He put his hands to her hips and lowered his lips to the shell of her ear.

“Felicity, we are going to tell everyone the truth now anyway,” he told her with whispered voice. “Stop making up senseless lies. You need your energy for when our mothers find out.”

Felicity put on a forced smile and walked past Raisa quickly. If she wasn’t completely wrong, she heard her chuckle before she turned to head down into the kitchen.

In the living room, Felicity and Oliver were greeted happily by their family. Donna had already arrived, so they were the last ones to join the party. They were hugged by Moira, Donna, Thea and finally Robert. The latter of them kissed Felicity’s temple and shared a meaningful look with her after looking down on her stomach.

Felicity couldn’t help but smile. At least one of the Queen Men did actually see what she was seeing there, no matter how small that belly might be yet.

Squeezing her hands, Robert eventually let go of Felicity’s hands and sat back down in the very same armchair where he had sat before. Felicity guessed that he wanted to enjoy the show of Moira, Donna and Thea finding out about the Queen-Smoak Baby that would soon enter this world. Little did he know that he was in for a surprise too, Felicity thought to herself.

“Now, let’s get you two a glass of champagne-“

“Not me,” Felicity interrupted Moira quickly before she could pour her a glass of it. “I’d be happy with some orange juice.”

“Of course.”

Moira didn’t even ask about it. She just poured a glass of champagne for Oliver and handed Felicity the glass of orange juice she had asked for. Felicity didn’t miss the quiet smile on Robert’s face as he sipped at his own champagne. After all, he was the only one except Oliver and Felicity in this room who knew the real reason why she wasn’t drinking any champagne today.

“Now let’s toast to this Christmas Morning,” Moira suggested, “and the fact that we still celebrate it together although it’s a much smaller round than we thought it would be earlier this year.”

Felicity bit down on her bottom lip and stared down on her feet, unable not to. As happy as she was that she and Oliver had finally found their way to each other, she really couldn’t deny that she felt guilty about the hearts that had to be broken for that to happen. It would have been a lot easier for everyone if they had just recognized their feelings for each other long before this.

Still, they all clinked their glasses before they took some sips. While everyone was busy with their drinks, Felicity shot a brief glance at Oliver. His eyes met hers briefly, and she could see him shrugging his shoulders. She knew that he had a plan how to tell their parents, but she couldn’t deny that she was a little worried that it would just take too long. She kind of just wanted to get it off her back.

“Oh, I haven’t gotten around to show you what Raisa found when she cleaned the attic,” Moira said. Putting her glass of champagne aside quickly, she grabbed Felicity’s hand and led her to the giant Christmas Tree that was decorated with baubles and other kind of decorations in red and golden colors. “Do you remember these?”

Moira pointed at three special baubles. They were painted in a golden tone, and a photo was placed on each. One was showing Oliver, one Felicity and the last one showed Thea.

“We made these with Raisa,” Felicity remembered and smiled softly. “Of course I remember.”

She turned her head back over her shoulder to look at Oliver, who was smiling back at her softly. She knew that he remembered as well as she did. Just like her, he had carried that memory close to his heart all those years.

“I know that you were kids back then, but I still thought that it was nice to use them again,” Moira said softly. “They remind me of the good old times. I know it might be a bit of a painful memory right now, but I do hope that you will get around doing something like this with your kids once the time has come.”

Again, Felicity shot a look back over her shoulder to look at Oliver. She was pretty sure that this would be the easier it would get to lead over to the baby they were having and the marriage they had decided to have with each other. Oliver just shook his head though, making her bite down on her tongue to bite back a sigh. She really didn’t know what else he was waiting for.

Moira clapped her hands together with a chuckle. “Now, that should be enough of the sentimental moments. I think it’s time to unwrap the presents.”

When Oliver winked at her, Felicity felt her heart skip a beat. She guessed that this was finally the moment that he would tell their families about everything that had happened in their lives lately. Although she had been impatiently waiting to get over with this, she couldn’t deny that she was growing even more nervous about it now that the moment was right ahead.

Technically, she knew that there shouldn’t be anything for her to be nervous about. Thea wouldn’t mind if she and Oliver got together. Moira and Donna would right out celebrate it after all these years that they had hoped for this to happen and they had been turned down. Even in their wildest dreams, she guessed that they hadn’t ever thought this day would come. Yet, here they were.

“So, I guess that we all have to search for our first gifts,” Oliver said with a long sigh, “and Felicity’s as well as mine just happen to be placed under the mistletoe together?”

Felicity bit down on her tongue, doing her best to hide her smile of amusement. After all, this had happened several times through the years. To the dislike of their mothers, they had always managed to get under the mistletoe and grab their gifts separately from each other though. They had grown up with their crazy obsession of hooking them up with each other long enough.

Donna and Moira shared a meaningful glance. While Donna was sitting down on the armrest of one of the chairs, resting one leg over the other, Moira stepped towards Oliver and Felicity. She set her glass of champagne aside once more. Reaching out her hand, she wrapped her fingers around one of their wrists and smiled at them.

“We all know that you have been through a lot these last couple of months,” Moira said, her voice as soft as Felicity had rarely ever heard it. “You two do know that Donna and I are just teasing you when we say that we think you would make beautiful babies or that we want you to be together or even when we place your Christmas gifts under a mistletoe.”

Felicity guessed she was right. If they hadn’t just been teasing, they would have never accepted Carter or McKenna to become parts of the family. Their teasing was quite aggressive though, at least at times.

“This year, we decided not to do anything like that out of respect of what you have been through.”

“Catch some rest, kids, before we start a new try,” Donna said with a smile and winked. “Just kidding.”

“Wo know that we don’t really stand a chance,” Moira added. “Just take it as a little inside joke of two old friends.”

In the back of the room, Robert was failing miserably to hide an amused smile. He was trying really hard to take some sips of his drink to distract him from his wife’s words. He had already caught his daughter’s attention though. Thea was looking back and forth between her father and the rest of the family with a deep frown, trying to understand what amused him so much.

Frowning deeply, Felicity turned her head and looked at Oliver once more. She guessed that his plans of pushing her under the mistletoe to find their gifts and kiss her there wouldn’t work as easily as he had planned it. For the first time, their mothers showed a little bit or remorse for all the pushing, shoving and teasing they had done through the last years, and it still turned out not to be exactly right.

Oliver hesitated, and she could almost see him playing their options through. She was sure that he knew as well as she did that just telling their mothers the truth wouldn’t be enough. They would think that this was an early April’s Fool’s joke or maybe a little revenge on all the teasing of the last years. They mothers would need visual proof that they were indeed together now.

Puckering his lips, Oliver turned towards Felicity. His gaze was meaningful, preparing her for whatever spontaneous solution he had just found, as he took the glass of orange juice from her. Together with his glass of champagne, he put it away on a close table. His eyes stayed locked with hers the entire time.

“Well, if they don’t push us down there this year…”

He quickly grabbed her hand and led her over to the place right in front of the fireplace where the mistletoe his parents always hid somewhere was placed. Looking at her intensely, he just waited until she gave him the most subtle nod of her head. With that, he wrapped his arms around her and bend her back until the only thing keeping her on her feet was the hold of his strong arms. The next moment, his lips pushed down on hers and everything around Felicity turned into a blur.

Felicity wasn’t sure if it was ever going to be different, and she knew with certainty that she never really wanted it to change. She loved the feeling of having everything and everyone around her disappear solely because Oliver’s lips were brushing against hers and his tongue was stroking against hers.

Felicity didn’t know how much time had passed when Oliver let go of her eventually. It could have been seconds, minutes or even hours. All she knew was that his eyes were looking at her intensely, and he was smiling from joy that, finally, the cat was out of the bag. From now on, they could kiss wherever they were and whatever they were doing because they were officially together.

Oliver brushed his lips against hers once more before he pulled her back into an upright position. His arms stayed wrapped around her tightly though, making sure that she wouldn’t move an inch away from him while they were looking at their families to see their reactions.

While Felicity felt her breath getting caught at the expressions in Donna’s, Moira’s and Thea’s faces, she could feel Oliver chuckling softly. The sounds weren’t audible, but she could feel the slight shaking of his chest. His lips brushed against her temple once more almost like he was telling her that just those facial expressions had been worth getting married.

As the silence continued, Felicity shot an insecure glance towards Robert. He winked at her and made a small gesture with his hand that seemed to ask them to talk about how this had happened. Maybe all the three women needed to stop staring at them like they were aliens was understanding how this had happened.

“Felicity and I discovered that we had feelings for each other a while ago,” Oliver said, rising to speak for them to Felicity’s relief. “Felicity and Carter had already broken up, but I was still with McKenna when it really hit us.”

With a low sigh, Felicity rested her head against Oliver’s chest and listened to the beat of his heart. She really wasn’t happy with how things had gone down with their engagements, but their cancelled engagements were more easily to accept than the thought of being married to the wrong people for the rest of their lives.

“Eventually, after some serious and much needed ass kicks, I finally realized that my feelings for Felicity were more than friendship and more than I had or could ever have with any other woman. McKenna, independent from myself, saw that too, and we agreed to cancel the wedding before it was too late.”

Felicity knew that Robert had pointed that out to Oliver before he had made his decision to cancel the wedding and that McKenna had come to the same conclusion around the same time Oliver had. It didn’t matter who had known it first though or how many times Oliver had needed to be told to cancel the wedding. At least to her, all that mattered was that he had eventually canceled the wedding.

“After my canceled wedding, we decided to give ourselves some times to find back to ourselves and let the situation cool down a little. We did go on a date very quickly though. It went great, and we eventually decided to be together because together is what makes us the happiest we could possibly be.”

Thea was smiling like a Cheshire Cat by now, looking back and forth between Oliver and Felicity. She was holding back on a squeal though it seemed to take a lot of her to do so. She was really excited about what she had just been told by her brother and the sister-in-law that she didn’t even know she had so far.

Donna and Moira on the other hand were still looking at them like they had just told them that they both thought they were adopted and were actually the children of some Mafia Bosses. Although, thinking about it, Felicity guessed that they would look less shocked about that.

“I knew about this by the way.”

Robert grinned happily and sipped at his champagne. Neither Donna nor Moira managed to even shoot him the briefest of glances though. They were looking like they were in deep shock about what they had just been told, or like they had just had a stroke. Maybe they needed to be resuscitated.

“Felicity and I are living together in her townhouse,” Oliver continued. He cleared his throat, showing the first sign of nervousness. “And we are having a baby.”

“Oh, this is a joke, right?” Donna asked, only partly convinced. “The pregnancy detail is just overdoing it a little and-“

“It’s no joke,” Oliver replied and shook his head. “Felicity and I are together, and we are expecting our first baby.”

Since Moira’s and Donna’s gazes both dropped down to Felicity’s lower stomach at that moment, Felicity quickly pulled the fabric of her dress closer over the small swell that had built there. Maybe seeing the baby bump, as barely visible as it was yet, was going to help them.

“Stop it,” Oliver whispered. “There is nothing to be seen there.”

“Of course it’s visible,” she told him in a whisper of her own. “Your dad can see it too.”

Robert nodded firmly. “It’s there, and, yes, I knew about this baby too.”

Donna and Moira exchanged a gaze of disbelief. They really couldn’t believe what their kids were telling them here. After all these years, it didn’t exactly surprise Felicity. The two old friends had probably long buried this dream of theirs.

Thea couldn’t hold back on her squeal now though. She released a loud chuckle, shaking her head. Her arms were wrapped around her stomach as the chuckles seemed to make her stomach ache slightly.

“This is like a cheesy Hallmark Christmas Movie,” she said. “Just a thousand times better.”

“And this isn’t even everything.”

All eyes were turned onto Felicity as she finally found her voice. She angled her head back to shoot Oliver a quick smile. The warm smile he flashed her in addition to the rhythmic rubbing of his hand over the small of her back gave her the strength she needed to continue.

“Oliver and I got married in Las Vegas last week.”

Now, even Robert’s face showed surprise. This little piece of information was new even to him as it had been a well-kept secret between her and Oliver.

“I didn’t know about that,” he said. “Really?”

Felicity nodded her head and lifted the necklace she was wearing, so the three rings that were strung to it were visible.

“Oliver and I are Mr. and Mrs. Queen-Smoak now.”

There was a very long beat of silence. Felicity wondered if she should call a handful of ambulances, so everyone could be provided with medical care and some oxygen. She doubted that her mother or her mother-in-law were still breathing.

“Maybe we should have delivered the truth in smaller doses,” Felicity whispered to Oliver. “They are probably having a stroke.”

Thea was the first to snap out of her shock at Felicity’s words. With another loud squeal, she put her glass of champagne to the couch table and came running towards them. Her arms wrapped around Oliver and Felicity tightly as she hugged both of them at the same time.

“Congratulations,” she said, her voice still close to a squeal. “I am so happy for you guys, and I am so excited to be your baby’s godmother which I will be. You cannot stop me from that, no matter what. If I have to kill someone to get the title, I will do so.”

“We wouldn’t even try to do so,” Felicity said.

Thea pulled back a little, just to push Oliver away with one hand. She wrapped both of her arms around Felicity then, rocking her back and forth from side to side.

“Now, you are officially my sister.”

Felicity chuckled. “I always wanted to have a little sister, so I guess that’s great for both of us.”

Thea wanted to say something more, but Robert had already gotten up. Putting his hands to his daughter’s shoulders, he pulled her away from Felicity and almost pushed her into Oliver’s arms.

“Go and hug your brother now, Thea,” he told her with soft voice. “I need a moment with my daughter-in-law.”

While Thea grumbled a little when Oliver pulled her into his arms and rubbed the knuckles of his fingers over her scalp, Robert pulled Felicity against his chest. His grip was even stronger than Thea’s was.

“You have been part of this family since the first time you put your foot over the doorstep,” he whispered into her ear, “but I am still happy to welcome you into this family legally.”

Felicity chuckled. “I am happy to be part of it legally too. Officially a Queen now, I guess.”

Robert placed a firm kiss on her cheek before he pushed her an armlength away from her. He was still smiling all over his face, looking her up and down with an expression of almost disbelief. After all these years and despite knowing about her and Oliver before everyone else had, he couldn’t believe that he could really call her his daughter now.

He pulled her back against his chest and into another tight hug once more before he eventually let go of her and nodded towards his wife and Felicity’s mother.

“I guess I will check on the both of them now.”

Felicity nodded, pulling her bottom lip between her front teeth. Oliver quickly let go of Thea and wrapped his arms around Felicity from behind. His chin came to rest on his shoulder as they both looked at their mothers. Robert had stepped behind them and wrapped his arms around both of their shoulders, looking past them and the newlyweds.

“Who would have thought that we were actually going to be a family after all?”

Donna grabbed Moira’s hand firmly, anchoring herself to her. Her eyes were still directed at Oliver and Felicity though. With wide eyes, afraid to miss even the blink of an eye, she stared at the two of them. Her head turned from side to side slightly as she observed first one and then the other closely.

“This is not a joke, right?” she asked, completely flustered. “This is happening.”

Felicity smiled at her mother softly. Leaning back into Oliver’s arms, she turned her head to look at his content face for a moment. Still smiling, she looked back at her mother.

“Yes,” she said, nodding her head. “This is the most real thing that has ever happened to me I guess.”

Oliver kissed the side of her neck in response to her words and tighten his arms around her. She could feel him smile against her pulse point before he eventually rested his chin on her shoulder again. Felicity guessed that he wanted to watch his mother-in-law’s reaction like Felicity was doing already.

“Oh my god!”

With a happy squeal that just seemed to sum up her mother the way she was perfectly, Donna flung her arms around her daughter’s neck. She swayed her from side to side with so much force that Felicity was almost sure some of her vortexes would dislocate.

Soon, much sooner than Felicity had thought, her mother let go of her and almost pushed her away. Putting her hand to her lower stomach instinctively, Felicity shook her head and watched her mother stepping towards Oliver. She should have known that she was written off, the moment her mother knew that Oliver was officially part of her family now.

“Son,” she said, stepping in front of him. Her hands framed his face and squished it together, making him look like a fish. “I am officially allowed to call you that now, right?”

“Absolutely,” Oliver agreed. He tried to nodded his head, but Donna’s grip seemed to be too firm for him to move easily. “Mom.”

Donna squealed once more. Just like with Felicity, she wrapped her arms around Oliver’s shoulders now. She had to push up onto the tip of her toes, lifting even the high heels od her shoes a little bit off the floor, to fit her body against his comfortably. She swayed him from side to side like she had done with Felicity before too. As soon as she pulled way, she squished his face against.

“Oh, I am so happy. I have no words for it,” she said. “I might be a little mad that you chose to elope, but I am sure that I will be able to forgive you once Moira and I planned a real wedding party for you. Of course you need a traditionally Jewish wedding. Don’t worry though. I will take care of it. I know exactly what I am doing. It will be fabulous.”

Felicity rolled her eyes. She had known this would come, but she would talk herself out of it for as long as possible. With a baby on the way and the task of raising a newborn at hand, she got that they had a little bit time. Her mother certainly wanted to see her dressed in a long wedding dress with lots of tulle. She would wear it for her sake (probably!), but she would wait for as long as possible to give into it.

“Oliver, I already know that you are the best thing that has ever happened to Felicity. It won’t always be easy with her. She is stubborn and very driven at times, but I have trust that you have the patience to take her as she is and still love her with all of your heart. Like I said, it won’t be easy, and-“

“Mom.”

“-there will be times that you will feel like you need to scream and let out all of your frustration and-“

“Mom.”

“-just breathe. If just happens, you can always come to me, and I will be there for you and lend you an ear to listen. After all, I know how difficult it can be to live with Felicity and-“

“Mom.”

Felicity stepped between Oliver and her mother decidedly now. Putting her hands to her mother’s shoulders, she took a few steps forwards. Her mother had to take a few steps back in response. Effectively distancing her mother from Oliver, she leaned her lips against her mother’s ear.

“Stop it. Don’t scare him away.”

Turning back around, Felicity hurried back to Oliver’s side. He looked at her amusedly, knowing how to take her mother. Still, she brushed a kiss to the underside of her jaw.

“She’s already your mother-in-law, so all second thoughts are too late already. And for the record, if we get divorced, you can have my mom, but I want your dad.”

Oliver chuckled, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her against his chest tightly. His lips brushed against her forehead, and she could almost feel him an I love you whispering against her skin.

“Moira!” Donna’s excited squeal directed their attention back to her. “Our kids are together now. Or babies are having a baby.”

Finally, Moira seemed to realize that this really wasn’t a dream. She stepped towards Oliver and Felicity, reaching out her hands for them. Oliver and Felicity both placed a hand in one of Moira’s and looked at her expectantly.

“I couldn’t be prouder.”

That was all she said before she wrapped her arms around Felicity. Unlike her own mother, Moira was only touching her carefully like she was afraid that she could break her. She stroked a hand over the back of Felicity’s head and down her back, the same way she had already done when Felicity had still been a child.

“Oliver couldn’t have chosen anyone better,” Moira told her, “and I couldn’t be happier to call you my daughter, even legally now. You are going to be a great mom.”

Moira pulled back just enough to look at Felicity’s face. She brushed her fingers through her hair, looking at her intensely. Felicity almost felt like time was passing right in front of Moira’s eyes. It was like she saw her when she had still been a kid and had just entered the Queen Mansion after being taken away from her home one moment. Then, the next moment, a thousand different images of Felicity as she had seen her through the years were showing in front of her eyes. Eventually, it seemed to have come back to the woman in front of her though, her daughter-in-law.

“Thank you,” Felicity said, not knowing what else to say.

Moira smiled at her, brushing her fingers against her cheek for a moment. She turned toward her son then, pulling him into a tight hug too.

“Congratulations, Oliver,” she whispered and kissed his cheeks. “I admit that I wasn’t always happy with the decisions you made, especially when it came to women, but this is something I don’t only approve to but support with all of my heart. I think it makes all the wrong decisions before irrelevant. After all, it led you to where you have always been supposed to be.”

“I made the big hit,” Oliver said, his eyes locked with Felicity’s as he said that. “She’s the jackpot.”

“Yes, she is,” Moira agreed.

As soon as his mother took a step back from Oliver, he grabbed her hand and pulled her back against him once more. His arms wrapped around her waist and he bend her back like he had done before when they had revealed their relationship to the others. Just like then, he captured her lips in a gentle kiss that made Felicity sigh out against his lips.

Now that the secret was finally out of the bag, Felicity felt like a giant weight had been taken from the top of her chest. She hadn’t even been able to understand how much she had needed everyone important to her to know about her and Oliver. Only now, they weren’t living a dream anymore. They were living the truest of lives. Together.

Under the joint squeals of their mothers – a sound that Felicity had never believed could fall from Moira Queen’s lips – their lips parted. Oliver bumped his nose against hers playfully before he brought her back into an upright position. His lips brushed against hers once more, and he held out the flat palm of his hand.

“What-?”

Before Felicity could end her question, Oliver cocked his head. The look he shot her was enough for her to understand. She grinned, taking off the necklace and letting the three rings fall into the palm of Oliver’s hand. He quickly pushed his own wedding band onto his ring finger before he grabbed her ringers with his thumb and forefinger and pushed it down onto her finger. It seemed to be one of his favorite things to do now.

Smiling, Felicity straightened up onto the tip of her toes. She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned in to kiss him once more. Before her lips could brush against Oliver’s, her mother’s words distracted her though.

“Finally, our fondest hope for them came true.”

“It seems like all our attempts of marrying them off to each other were successful after all.”

“We both just knew what is best for them. We are their mothers after all. Mother’s always know best.”

“I couldn’t agree more.” Moira nodded her head firmly. “I wished our kids were just a little less stubborn, so we could have planned their shared wedding these last months and not the weddings we did plan these last months.”

With a low grumble that only Oliver could hear, Felicity let her head drop against Oliver’s shoulder. He chuckled lowly in response and tightened his arms around her waist.

“We will never hear the end of it, will be?”

“No,” Felicity replied and sighed against his shoulder before she leaned her head back and looked at his face with a smile. “Wanna know the good thing about this, though?”

Oliver smiled back at her, and Felicity’s heart stumbled in response to how enamored he looked. She doubted that she would ever get used to the feeling it elicited from her when Oliver’s eyes were locked with hers. It made warmth and content spread in every cell of her body it seemed.

“What is it?” Oliver asked.

“We can roll our eyes about it together.”

At that, Oliver’s lips spread into an even wider smile. He lifted a hand and brushed the knuckles of his fingers against her cheek. Felicity leaned her face into the touch of his hand.

“Together,” he confirmed.

With that, he leaned in and brushed his lips against Felicity’s once more. Together was now the keyword to assure them happiness, just like it had always been. Only now they really knew how true it really was, and they would never forget it. Partly, because their mother probably wouldn’t allow them to forget it anyway. 

* * *

@fannaz @promiseyoullbepatientwithme @bytemegeekette @felicity-said-just-in-case @phanseptiic @orangeisorange @mspotatohead14 @whentheheavenfades @emmaamelia95 @smoakingskye @seaolicity @ourwritinginvein @1022bridgetp @felicityqueenforever @leagueofolicity17 @yryssss @myhauntedblacksoul @sherlock44 @sinceriouslybea @arrowsalways @olivyflavescentdeer @olicitys-castle @ofnothingcharming @vaelisamaza @smoakedandcharmed @alexisa1206 @mysaudadespt2 @florence-bubbles @addictiontelly @queens-of-arrows @memcjo @hysterical-for-joshifer-blog @oswinelevenforever @olicitylovemaking @bandanab310 @mymusiclove101 @lynslogic @scarletqueen23 @olicityshipper19 @alex-wesley @arrows-4ever @unabashedlynerdypatrol @louehmysoul @ligiapimenta @chattyyana @charlie-leau @coal000 @samcrowleys @ishippolivia @julianegomesqueen @malafle @miriam1779 @charlinert @melaux @ontheolicityship @myshipperlife @wrightainsley @lexi9515 @ladygreenwood @multi-fandom-crazy-fangirl @morinamel @mje-thomas @kebarry @canadianheartgirl @nannett2307 @almondblossomme @paarti12 @kathrynelizabeth89 @imdfabulous @cutearrowgirl @mrt2501 @mecha1330 @arsipaci14 @mzminx @salasvia @brandis91 @cainc3 @morganmiguess @pr0fessi0nal-fangurl @iamisalima @nessafrancis-blog @jonhdiggle @niki-is-amazing @universed-posts @hopeful-warrior @senoritaswiftie @bellemmie @green-arrows-of-karamel @iheartarrow @olicityovereverything @oliverfel4 @navyaarsha @fandoms-breathe-life @simone4mcswarek @olicity-in-the-heart @fullychippedcreation @geemarie @everything-but-normal-cat @myarroworld @tjmartinez @pleasantfanandstudent @itsmagnoliagirl @j69confessional2 @scentedcolorpirate @icanica74 @javinancupil @tjmartinez98 @certainmentalityface @tatianadamaceno @ryelew @wildwillowzepplin @missafairy @letsplaymurde-r @lipizette @positivepiper @nuttymilkshakehologram @laksagirl @turnupthemusicandscream @pumpernickle93 @onceuponanolicity @1106angel @jaspertown @fadinglands @morganashimi83 @mochababychristy @omglovechrissie @mariejr88-blog @thetaufactor @onceuponanolicity @speakandseethetruth @bri206 @aglasgo @thats0klaroline @geemarie @pineprincess @nerdgirljen @peterpanslostgirl666 @eternal-olicity14 @allyouhadtodowas-stay-stay-stay @lovelycssefan @tsseract @flowerandsunshine @dcnmarvelgamergeek @blondeeoneexox @monetsmark @soaring-cities @bb-olicity @mashamarty @rulerofsilence @erika-amber @felicity087 @i-claim-only-emily @pattid1 @westallenandolicityshipper @babyolicityandwestallen @nothingmorethanmyotps @kayleenyc @tonto16 @olicityfluv @olicitea1990 @olicity5ever @haahaaa2408 @pattid1 @faegal04 @24karatgem @wrldtravler @readerkas @valery6488 @lemmyeatspeaches @olicity-beliver @greencoffeecups

(If you want to be tagged or untagged, just let me know. :))

#arrow #olicity #olicity fanfic #olicity fic #Mothers know best

[komahinasecretexchange]

Title: Surprisingly, We Made It!

Author: @thatsrightdollface

For: @namsuuuuuuu

Rating/Warnings: This is probably somewhere between G and T, tbh.  I guess I might tag this for the idea that Chiaki is mentioned as dead?   She’s… A ghost.  This is a fantasy AU!

Prompt: komaeda and hinata both trying to break into the same place on the same night by accident, only to be chased by the police upon meeting and having to hide in a closet/cupboard/safe together until they leave

Author’s Notes: Hi!!!  I hope you enjoy this~ :D  It’s the first gift out of three that I have for you this time, so please be on the lookout for the others!!!  Rounded up, this is about 3,000 words.  

The museum became a different place at night — Nagito Komaeda had known it would, but it was something else to see those bustling halls transformed into a grey-tile tomb like this.  The display cases seemed to watch him pass, waiting and polished, decorated with dead things: mummified hands, chipped pottery, swords people had assured him were definitely haunted when he took the museum’s official tour earlier that day.  Komaeda was good at drifting through places most of the time.  He was sure no one from his tour group would remember him when the museum started looking into suspects the next morning.

Komaeda smiled at somebody’s death mask, sitting propped up on a green velvet display in one of those glass cases.  He wouldn’t be here long.  He’d just take what he needed and be on his way.  The security systems fizzled out as Komaeda wandered by, after all.  Bits of dust formed over the cameras, crawling like mold.  This wouldn’t be the first piece of the puzzle to Komaeda’s life he’d stolen out of a museum. If he unraveled the whole mystery of his good luck/horrible luck curse, the roller coaster balance of his existence, maybe Komaeda would even get to rest someday.  Maybe he’d finally know what any of the ridiculous things that happened to him meant.

Komaeda hummed to himself as he strode through the museum.  He patted a display of a saber tooth tiger on the head and murmured, “Hi, kitty,” in a sing-song voice — he was wearing torn clothes, and the edges of his hair were singed from a fire that’d started out of thin air in his hotel room yesterday morning.  Even the air was subject to Komaeda’s madcap luck, see?  His curse.  Even the air would have to explain itself when Komaeda found the crumbly ancient book he’d come here for.  And, you know, figured out how to read it.  He had an anthropologist contact lined up.  It would be alright.

Things always swung back around, for Komaeda.  The dice rolled into a winning order even if they were weighted to go the other way.  At a cost, of course.  Always at a cost.

Komaeda wouldn’t have to pick the display case lock to get the book he needed, he didn’t think.  The thing would just fall right into his open hands, somehow, and then he’d turn on his heal and head out.  The museum smelled like freshly mopped floors and old, rotting paper.  When Komaeda’d passed a security guard earlier, he had waved cheerfully and pretended to flash a badge.  It worked.  It so often worked, and then Komaeda got arrested for a murder he didn’t commit or something just going out to buy bread.  He was used to it.  As used to it as a person could be, he thought.

When the cop bellowed, “Get back here, you!” somewhere off in the distance, well…  Komaeda murmured, “Oh no,” to himself almost playfully, as if he were keeping up the game.  But then he heard some frantic pounding footsteps right behind him…  The skidding of sneakers  over freshly washed tile, the shattering of a display glass window, all that.  He started to walk a little faster, glancing over his shoulder.

A guy with spiky hair blew by Komaeda, breathing heavily, sneakers squeaking all over the floor in possibly the least-stealthy way possible.  “Get out of here!” the spiky haired guy called.  “Officer Nidai’s not messing around!”

Officer Nidai?  Wonderful.  Komaeda knew Officer Nekomaru Nidai all too well.  Just his luck that guy would be here, wasn’t it?  He’d been suspicious of Komaeda ever since he turned up in town.  Whenever somebody caught Nagito Komaeda in the act, of course he just slipped away again like water between cracks in the concrete.  Like clouds dissolving into the sky.  His luck, eventually, turned.  Always, always.  But that didn’t mean people couldn’t try their own luck at catching him, every now and again.  It was annoying, but Komaeda shrugged off fatal things as “annoying” so often nowadays he was beginning to forget the meaning of the word.

Komaeda sighed and ran a hand through his pale, flyaway hair.  It would’ve been no good to lose this chance — he was so desperately close to another piece of his puzzle.  He stared running, too, and by the time he found an open door to duck inside it sounded like Officer Nidai had been joined by a whole crew of cop-friends in the museum hallways.  They were calling encouragement to each other, or something.  Listening to them might’ve been pretty goofy, under different circumstances.  So tragically earnest. It was like they were living in a separate world than the one Komaeda knew.

“What rotten luck,” Komaeda told the cramped, empty room he’d found himself in.  Or, the room he thought was empty, anyway.

The spiky haired boy who’d been charging through the halls flicked on a desk lamp, peering up at Komaeda with a baffled, frustrated expression on.  He’d been hiding under a table, it looked like, and up close Komaeda could see a whole stash of video game stuff secured in a cutesy canvas shopping bag over his shoulder.  Was that what he snuck in here to steal?  That?  There were so many priceless jeweled glass eyes in this particular museum, so many spells written in actual molten gold ink.  Did this guy seriously just rob the Lost and Found?

“Rotten luck?  That’s, uh, one way of putting it.  I swear I locked that door,” the spiky-haired guy hissed.  Komaeda nodded.  Yes, he probably had.  Locked doors didn’t really have anything on a luck-curse, though, did they?

Komaeda locked the door behind him, again, nodding to the boy under the table with a careful smile.  Testing the door so he could see it didn’t just swing open this time, revealing them both to the hall.  The office they’d ended up in was one of those glorified broom closet spaces, books stacked haphazardly everywhere.  There were pinned butterflies hanging on the walls, and dusty photograph frames buried under paperwork on the desk.  There weren’t any windows or obvious trapdoors leading to secret museum catacombs around — yes, Komaeda had found himself stuck in museum-catacombs before, and he’d nearly starved to death before making his way back to the gift shop.  Not a good chance of that here, though, it didn’t look like.  For better or for worse.

Komaeda sized the spiky haired guy up for a second — he was cute, in a flustered, running-headlong-through-a-museum-at-two-AM kind of way.   His hands were broad and warm-looking; his eyes were challenging and proud, as if he were half-convinced Komaeda was a double agent for the museum or something.

“Looks like we’re stuck,” Komaeda said.  “Don’t worry.  I’m sure they’ll go away soon.”

They didn’t, of course.  Just his luck.

…

Hajime Hinata had only been messing around with supernatural nonsense for a handful of weeks, now, and even he could tell the guy he met on his poorly-planned-out museum heist was soaked in weird old curses.   They clung to this dizzy-eyed stranger same as his own skin, same as his shadow.  Hinata would’ve guessed the guy’d been born with those curses already latched on, honestly, and they were at least part of the reason he could slip locked doors open without even trying.  Part of why his smile looked wrong, too, somehow, like Hinata would always be looking at him through a funhouse mirror.

From the stolen-back bag of video game stuff slung over his shoulder, Hinata’s friend Chiaki Nanami said, “We should keep an eye on this guy, maybe, Hajime.  Everyone he loved died…  Messy.  They’re whispering about it right now.”

Chiaki had died so recently, it still didn’t feel real.  She had hung on to pieces of her life without really meaning to, so…  Of course Hinata was doing his best to gather her back up.  Chiaki had been his best friend since they were learning to count, after all.  They had played a few of the games in her old canvas bag together, but not all of them by a long shot.  It was better Chiaki speak through these clunky things — through her old hair ribbons and photographs and commemorative game art books — than disappear completely, if you asked Hinata.  The museum people hadn’t been willing to give him the bag during the day, so this was what had to happen next, right?

He’d tried this the easy way.  At least he had to give himself that. Hinata shifted Chiaki’s bag a little way out of the cursed guy’s view. If anything, the stranger looked softly amused by his efforts. He shook his head.

“I’m not interested in your prizes,” he told Hinata, voice swaying and almost, almost prim.  A former rich-kid’s voice.  “I’m sure you have your reasons for everything, just like I do.  Right?”  After a few moments of awkward, waiting silence, the guy drifted over to the far wall of that tiny office — maybe it was Hinata’s imagination, but it looked like he was feeling through the stacked book piles there with his eyes gently closed.  Trustingly closed.  Eventually, the stranger pulled back, holding a notebook full of dark green pen scribbles that seemed to squirm over the pages.  His rattling laugh was low and muffled in his chest — still a little too loud for Hinata’s comfort though.   Obviously.

“The beginnings of a translation…!” the dizzy-eyed boy murmured. He had to know Hinata had no idea what he was talking about, didn’t he?   “What are the odds, what are the —”

“Could you shut the hell up?  Seriously?” Hinata said.  “Don’t you hear Officer Nidai’s buddies down the hall?”

“Oh, yes,” said the stranger, turning to Hinata with wide eyes and a shaky smile.  “But they won’t hear me unless they’re supposed to.  I’m sorry — you don’t know that…”

“No, I don’t,” Hinata confirmed.

The stranger considered this.  He said, “It was good of you to tell me to run back there.  You’re probably a kind person, aren’t you, Mr. Pointy-Hair?”

“Hinata,” said Hinata, before immediately kicking himself. You’re really, really not supposed to tell people your actual name if you’re trying to rob a place!  …  Even if they’re trying to rob the same damn place, apparently?  Or at least they’re getting weirdly excited about the chance to snoop through somebody’s spooky notebook?

“His name is Komaeda,” Chiaki offered from the bag at Hinata’s side. “Nagito Komaeda. If he gives you a different name…”

But Nagito Komaeda didn’t throw around any fake names at all.  He grinned, amazed and warm and slightly mocking, like he couldn’t believe Hinata had actually handed him his name so earnestly.  He stepped over to sit in front of Hinata, moving gingerly, sitting cross-legged on the ground.  He said, “You’re new at this, aren’t you?”

“I’m not exactly making a career out of sneaking into museums, no,” Hinata said, glaring.  “I’m not some comic book supervillain, or anything like that.”

The dizzy-eyed stranger chewed on his lip, thoughtful.  Hinata wasn’t entirely sure he got the joke.  He said, “In that case…  Please, call me Komaeda.  It’s the least I can do.”  His voice was so wandering, hazy and formal both at once.  The notebook disappeared into a pocket inside his long, tattered coat; up close, Hinata realized this stranger — Komaeda — smelled like burning.  His skin was a crisscross of faded scars.

The office/closet doorknob rattled furiously, about then.  Somebody grunted, “Keys’s not working…!” and then, louder, “Wait — damn key snapped off in my hand!”  They stalked away, and Komaeda nodded, again. Serene as anything, as if stuff like this happened to him every day.

“They‘ll come back,” he said.  “Officer Nidai is a persistent one.”   He might’ve looked self-conscious for a second — realizing he sounded like a hardened crook, or something — because he added, “Or so I’ve heard.  But we have a little while yet, I think.  Are those games in your bag any good?”

“These are my friend’s —” Hinata protested…  But Chiaki shushed him.  Gently.

She said, “They’re your games, now, really,” and “This isn’t my body, Hajime.  Only a window…  You know that.  I can look away, sometimes.  I’ll look away for a little while now, if you want.”

Everyone Nagito Komaeda loved died messily, Chiaki had said.  She didn’t say it again now, but Hinata thought maybe she was reconsidering this dizzy-eyed stranger.  At the very least, he might know how to hurry out of a museum in the middle of the night without getting caught.  He might know what it was like to lose a friend, too, and to want to believe that couldn’t be true with all his heart.  Hinata might get something out of talking to a person like him.

“Be careful,” said Chiaki.  “And be nice, okay?  Unless he turns out to be a jerk.  A cursed jerk.”  Hinata could’ve sworn she was snickering.  “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Komaeda’s already giving you ‘I-like-you’ eyes.”

“He is not,” grumbled Hinata.

Komaeda tactfully ignored that last bit.  He said, “Ooh, your friend has ‘Void Escape 2.’ I like that one.”  Komaeda glanced at the door, and then back to Hinata.  “I’ve…  Never played two-player mode, actually.   We could kill a little time?”

This was absurd. This was a million-to-one chance meeting.  This was…

This was Hinata hiding in some musty middle-of-the-night museum office, offering a cursed, supervillain-y stranger snacks from his bag. Trying out a video game together.  What the hell?!

Hinata should’ve known better. On so many levels, he should have known.  But, apparently…  No.

When Officer Nidai finally got that particular office door open, Hinata and Komaeda huddled together under the tiny desk, close enough that the smell of burning felt everywhere for a little while.  Close enough that Komaeda’s wavy singed hair brushed Hinata’s cheek. They’d draped Komaeda’s coat over the both of them in some sort of effort to look like just another lumpy pile.  Maybe books, or crinkled papers, or whatever it was museum researchers wore out in the field.

The notebook Komaeda had been trying to smuggle away felt cold against Hinata’s skin, twitching like a living thing.

Officer Nidai didn’t find them.  Somehow.  Honestly, they made such a terrible pile of paper/field clothes/random crap that Hinata was fairly surprised.  Komaeda, though…  Komaeda shrugged it off and said, “Alright, then.  That’s our cue: time to go!”

They snuck out the museum’s dusky hallways together, then, with Komaeda holding Hinata’s sleeve and guiding him down what he claimed was “the luckiest” path to the parking lot.  The sky was huge and hollow-looking up above them, when they finally made it. Hinata had parked his car at the grocery store down the road — he gave Komaeda a ride back into the city, even though Komaeda’d assured him he would have found his way no matter what.

Just before dropping Komaeda off down some lonely backstreet — one of those tipped-over-garbage-can-alleys, without a proper street name anywhere — Hinata asked something he knew would haunt him whether he managed to choke it out or not.  He asked for Komaeda’s phone number, whatever his curses.  Whatever a weird night this had been.  He tried to ask casually, the way Chiaki might have.  Like he only wanted to be friends. Like he was just a little worried about him, even though…  Huh.

Something had felt right and warm, so familiar, about Komaeda’s hand on Hinata’s sleeve.  About Komaeda’s spinning, smothered laughter.  Whoever he was, whatever he’d done.  Whatever exactly had been translated in that notebook waiting tucked against his heart, just then.

Komaeda shook his head no, and Hinata muttered something embarrassed.  Said to forget he asked; glowered at the road.  Komaeda watched him, apparently baffled.  He folded his arms around himself, leaning the back of his head against Hinata’s car door window.  He would leave dark ash smeared on the glass, when he left.

“I…  Have no idea why you’d want to call someone like me,” Komaeda offered, after a moment of tension, the dark city passing by all around them.  After he’d apparently hunted around his mind for the right words and come back feeling empty-handed.  “I don’t even have a phone.  Never keep any number for long…”  He cleared his throat.  “If you want, though, you can give me your number. I’ll check in with you, until it gets…”  An awkward laugh, here.  “Until you tell me to stop, I guess.”

Maybe that should’ve been enough to scare Hinata off, but he scribbled his number down on a scrap of paper torn out of that cryptic, slithering-ink notebook Komaeda’d stolen anyway.  He couldn’t believe he was doing it, even as his pen slipped and Komaeda clarified, “Is that an eight or a four, Hinata?” in a soft, wondering voice.

Hinata told him, and Komaeda murmured the full number back, very solemn.  Like a promise.

Hinata took a long, roundabout way home, that night, and Komaeda waved after him until he’d disappeared off to kinder streets.  He turned around on the worn-slick heel of his shoe and started humming again, the way he had back in the museum.  It was a hopeful song, maybe.  It was almost morning.

#komahina #komahina secret exchange #fanfiction

[queenmorgawse]

i’m coming home now (right where i belong now)

a canon-divergent mdzs fic ft. jin ling + fierce corpses xuanli, partially inspired by the cursed discord crew. read on ao3 (+ end notes). 

Jin Ling is three when he puts a hand through his father’s chest. It’s an accident, really, but there is something morbidly comical about his little chubby fist sinking into the fabric of Baba’s shirt, first somewhere slightly off-center in his ribcage and then deeper. He has just enough time to frown and babble the beginning of a question before a chair scrapes against the ground and he is taken from Baba’s arms, gathered into Mama’s instead, and promptly shushed.

“Ling-er, don’t push too hard, we haven’t fixed Baba’s stuffing yet,” she chides, and his eyes immediately fill with unshed tears.

“It’s all right.” Something is being rearranged, fabric rustling, but he’s buried his face in the crook of his mother’s neck and stubbornly refuses to look, sniffling. Baba’s voice is hesitant when he speaks again. “A-Li, do you think we should…”

“Isn’t he too young?”

“We’ll stop if he doesn’t understand. I just feel like we ought to try.”

Jin Ling is three when he learns his parents aren’t like any other parents. (Not that he’s ever met other parents. Or other children, for the matter.) “I know,” he says, puffing his cheeks. “Better...better than other babas and mamas.”

Baba pats his head. “Not like that, A-Ling.”

They are, as they put it, dead, as opposed to jiujiu, who is alive. He, too, is alive, as Mama demonstrates by holding his little fingers against his neck and asking him to look for the thump-thump-thump. When he finds it, she brings his hands to her neck instead. No matter how often he changes spots, he cannot find the little drum under her skin. Her throat is as cold as the rest of her, and utterly silent.

She shows him how his chest rises and hers doesn’t. When she holds a mirror before their faces, the surface turns a milky white in front of his mouth and remains limpid in front of hers. There are a lot of differences like these, Mama explains, that make her and Baba different from living people like him.

It all seems simple enough for Jin Ling, but— “I thought you slept after me. And you...” His little face scrunches up with the effort of looking for the word need. “Wasn’t hungry.”

“For three years,” Baba snorts, right before Mama gives him a pointed look that reads don’t make fun of him, and it peters out into an awkward grunt. Jin Ling huffs and clings to her, glowering at his father so hard Jin Zixuan tries (and fails) to roll his eyes, muttering something about taking after his uncle too much.

-

Knowing doesn’t change much, if anything at all. Baba and Mama are still themselves, prompt to indulge him, to spend time in the garden with him to catch butterflies and lull him to sleep with stories at bedtime. He still listens to the rhythm of their dancing steps in the kitchen when sleep evades him, and the muffled rumble of their laughter.

( It is no coincidence the first sentence Jin Ling spoke was I love you. One cannot hear it as often as he does and not remember. )

When he grows older, he is given an explanation he can understand. He is told of a war, the Sunshot Campaign, of a now-extinct sect. Of the man called the Yiling Patriarch, who rose bright as a star only to crash and burn just as quickly. The story is vague after a certain point : Jin Ling only knows it ends with Baba and Mama as they are today, not living but not properly dead either.

He is not told of brothers and burning homes, of what was lost and never found again ⎯ not yet. That is a story for another time, Baba tells him as he tucks him into bed.

You should not have to know yet, is what he says. These words stay with Jin Ling long after the conversation ends.

-

In six years of life, Jin Ling has never seen his mother smile.

He has, however, felt her smile countless times as she rubbed her hands together in an attempt to warm them up before cupping his face between them and gently tugging the corners of his mouth up. “There,” she’d chirp every time. “I gave you a smile.”

Then he would reach up, she would bend to his height, and he would do the same, pressing his little fingers against her lips. “For you too,” he’d say, and Mama would make a hoarse sound like laughter and smother him in kisses until he was rolling on the floor giggling.

All in all, Jin Ling is far from an unhappy child. He is, however, a restless one.

There are three rules his parents will never let him bend, regardless of circumstances. The first, Mama says, is that he must always be as kind as he can be. Fortunately, the wording of this is vague enough that he can argue about whether what he did fits in that frame or not. Just do what your mother would do, is what Baba usually adds to this. It makes Mama shake her head and hide her face in her hands, which Baba seems to find entertaining and endearing in equal measures.

The second, Baba tells him, is that he must never mention his parents’ names to someone he hasn’t seen in the house before, or even imply the existence of this place and its inhabitants to people from the outside. In this situation, and this one only, they say, he is allowed to lie bold-facedly. There is no or else, but their somber looks were enough to frighten Jin Ling into obedience.

The third, they remind him, is that he is not to go beyond the limits of their house alone. It isn’t so big a deal when Jin Ling is still small, content with crawling around in the grass and chasing butterflies on stumbling legs. The world seems endless then, and he usually tires himself out before he reaches the limits of their domain.

But as all children, he grows older, and the last row of charmed trees planted at the edge of their garden, once a shield against the world and whatever danger might be lurking outside, becomes a source of frustration. He’s tired of waiting.

-

He tells his Nie-shushu as much the next time the man takes him out for an afternoon in town. It is the day after his seventh birthday, which was celebrated at home, with lotus-shaped lanterns in the garden (the nicest ones made by Mama’s deft hands, and the slightly lumpier ones by father and son’s best efforts) and the largest bowl of longevity noodles he’s seen in his life.

( “He acts like a rich auntie,” jiujiu said once, snorting. Jin Ling doesn’t see anything wrong with that, especially when he gets honey cakes and new toys out of the deal nine times out of ten. )

According to shushu, today is meant to make up for his absence yesterday. According to Jin Ling, shushu wants an occasion to bring him to a fancy tea parlor and tell him about Qinghe, about the people passing by, about the news of the cultivation world, about whatever crosses his mind right as he speaks. Jin Ling doesn’t blame him ; it’s always nice to know someone is listening to you with all the attention they can muster, and what shushu says is usually interesting besides.

He loves him for it. Nie Huaisang always treats him seriously, despite other cultivators’ claims that he never values anything besides his own comfort. The deal is the following : he gets one more uncle in his motley family, and Sect Leader Nie gets, as he puts it, someone to dote upon and instill some good taste into. When Jin Ling asks him what he means by good taste, he flutters his fan and tells him he’ll show him when he’s older. For some reason, it always seems to get a rise out of jiujiu whenever he’s present.

“I’m so bored!” he complains on one of their days out. The statement is accompanied by a rather dramatic sigh, especially for someone whose feet don’t even touch the ground when up on a chair yet.

“I thought you had lessons,” Nie Huaisang replies. The corners of his mouth quirk up a little. “Surely they take up a good share of your day.”

Jin Ling pouts. “There’s reading and calligraphy with Baba, and mathematics with Mama. She’s showing me how to make a kite, too.” She’s also been carving a new wooden sword for them to train with, but since he saw her look around before carefully stashing the unfinished toy into one of the chests in hers and Baba’s bedroom, he figured he’s not supposed to know yet. “But I want to go outside some more! Can’t you ask jiujiu for me? Please? He listens to you.”

Nie Huaisang chuckles. Jin Ling would have missed the slightly pinker tinge of his cheeks if he didn’t know any better. “A-Ch...Wanyin only listens to himself ⎯ and to your mother, obviously. What makes you think I could succeed where she didn’t?”

“I haven’t asked her yet,” Jin Ling admits. Now that it’s been brought up, though, why hasn’t he? It’s not as though Mama is the type to scold him without reason.

He understands, however, that his parents’ reluctance also has to do with the people they used to be. It has to do with Grandmother, who visits from time to time and dotes upon Jin Ling endlessly, pinching his cheeks and asking him ten times over if he wants for anything. She also always talks at length with Baba before she leaves, and though Mama usually chooses this moment to steer him away with the promise of a new game or a walk in town, he still manages to catch snippets of the conversation.

The words heir, bastard, Koi Tower, watchtowers are the most frequently heard, and they must mean something special to Baba. He always looks frustrated the rest of the day, and even after he’s gone to bed, Jin Ling can still hear him and Mama talking among themselves, when the very same words surface again (except bastard, which seems to be replaced with the name Jin Guangyao).

He could ask shushu what they mean now, Jin Ling ponders. But even as he entertains the thought, part of him realizes this may be one of the subjects Nie Huaisang is unwilling to bring up with him, at least for now.

Instead, he barrels forward. “But I will! I really want to train and be a cultivator like Baba and jiujiu, I’ll tell her!” he adds, with as much determination as he can muster. “And if you ask jiujiu too, he’ll definitely agree! He really likes you!”

And oh, that is definitely a blush on shushu’s face. It is promptly covered up by his fan (maybe he should ask his parents to get him one, given how many uses it has in shushu’s hands), but Jin Ling knows what he saw. Nie Huaisang takes a conspicuously long sip from his teacup before speaking again. “What a clever young master you are. Fine! I will give your uncle a little nudge about it, but don’t blame me if he disagrees.”

The little boy beams at him. “You will? Thank you, shushu!”

Shushu grins back and reaches out to give the top of his head a light smack with his now-closed fan. “Now, now, don’t get so excited when we’ve hardly done anything.” He glances at the sun outside and gives an exaggerated start. “And it’s getting late, too! I haven’t even given you your birthday gift yet. Not right now!” he hastily adds, seeing Jin Ling’s mouth open in excitement. “First you’ve got to help me surprise your father, and then I’ll give you your present. How’s that?”

Jin Ling shrinks back, his eyes wary. “What’s the surprise? Mama said not to trust you too much with surprises for Baba.”

Shushu snorts. “She’s not wrong. We really were a heap of young fools back then, eh…” For a moment, his gaze seems lost in time, before he snaps back to the present. ( You’re not that old, Jin Ling wants to say, but it is true that sometimes, all the adults around him feel that way – older and more tired than they should be. ) “If you still won’t trust me, let me tell you this…”

It must be the barking that alerts Baba and Mama. When shushu and Jin Ling arrive within sight of the house, both of them are standing at the door, Baba looking both excited and on his guard, and Mama sporting the long-suffering look of someone who’s resigned to see things happen regardless of her input.

The noise Baba makes when he sees what they’ve brought with them is worth it, though. “Beibei? Xiao Yue?” He crouches, holding his arms out. “Is that you? C’mere, c’mere!”

The two older dogs shushu has been leading along hesitate, dragging their feet. They shuffle toward Baba all the same, cautiously eyeing him and sniffing at his outstretched hands. Then something clicks into place, and they pounce on him, barking their lungs out. One mastiff and one shih tzu aren’t enough to knock down a fierce corpse, but Baba topples over all the same, until he’s lying in the grass with two dogs methodically licking at his face and nudging his hands for pets.

Mama howls with laughter, her hands clasped together. Baba looks as though he could cry, hugging the dogs to his chest, his face half-buried in their fur. “It’s me, it’s me,” he keeps repeating. “You’ve grown so big! Who are the most beautiful pups? You are, yes you are!”

Shushu hangs back, looking rather proud of himself. When he catches Jin Ling looking, he winks at him. “Come here, A-Ling. Now that you’ve helped me, here’s your gift.” He takes the little boy’s hand in his and slips the leash he’s holding into it. At the end of it is the fluffiest puppy Jin Ling’s ever seen, wiggling its tail, its little pink tongue hanging out of its mouth.

Jin Ling looks up at his shushu with wide, slightly watery eyes. “It’s really for me?”

Nie Huaisang pats his head. Jin Ling’s tempted to tell him he’s not the puppy. “She is. She doesn’t have a name yet, though, so you’ll have to pick one out yourself.”

Jin Ling kneels and holds out his hands toward the puppy like he’s seen Baba do. After an initial moment of hesitation, the pup toddles towards him and butts her head against his palm.

I would die for you, he decides immediately.

While he lets the dog climb into his lap, Baba has finally managed to stand up. Mama hands him a wet cloth to wipe the slobber from his face, but his hair’s still mussed up from rolling around on the ground. Somehow, his ever-pristine father doesn’t look like he minds. “Thank you, Sect Leader Nie,” he says hoarsely. “It...means a lot to me.”

Shushu inclines his head. “You’re welcome, Jin-xiong. I thought it would make a nice gift, is all. There were some transactions between our kernels recently, so I took the occasion.” He shrugs. “I remember that dog you brought to the Cloud Recesses, poor thing. Yapping outside the walls day and night. The pup I brought A-Ling is part of a litter, but it’d probably be best not to dump all of them onto you at once, so...”

“Your father raised these dogs himself back when we lived in our old house,” Mama explains to him in hushed tones, as Baba and shushu strike up a conversation about the virtues of Koi Tower’s hunting dogs versus the Unclean Realm’s. “Xiao Yue and Beibei were still quite small when we...left.” Her gaze grows fond. “I didn’t think I’d ever see them again, but I’m glad they’re here.”

She joins him in cooing at the pup. It seems to love Mama as well, if the way it tries to lick another stripe onto her cheek when she lifts it into her arms is any indication. “What are you going to name her?” Mama asks, scratching the small patch of fur between the dog’s ears.

Jin Ling hesitates, his face scrunching up in effort. “Princess?” he ventures after a while. “Or Fairy.”

Mama snorts, then immediately schools her expression into something more dignified when she notices her son’s pout. “I really like Fairy,” she reassures him. “It’s a lovely name.” Under her breath, she adds, “Wait until your jiujiu hears about this.”

She passes the dog back. Jin Ling cradles the newly-named Fairy in his arms until the pup grows restless and wriggles out of his grip, choosing to go explore his new surroundings instead. He follows her, occasionally throwing small sticks at her to see if she knows how to fetch them yet. ( She doesn’t. )

In the periphery of his senses, he hears Mama invite shushu to stay for dinner, which he graciously accepts. The evening is cool around them, peaceful silence broken by the occasional yipping from Xiao Yue and the low chatter of conversation. Jin Ling forgets his grand declarations in favor of one more quiet evening at home, surrounded, as always, by family.

-

As it turns out, convincing his parents to let him study cultivation isn’t quite as difficult as he thought it would be. It does necessitate some arrangements with jiujiu, but in the end, everyone agrees that it’s about time for him to study in a proper sect.

The first time Mama walks Jin Ling and Fairy up to the gates of the Lotus Pier herself, she fusses endlessly. “Come home whenever you need anything, you hear me? Be nice to your jiujiu, and to the other disciples too. Treat everyone with respect like I taught you, but don’t let them walk all over you. And⎯”

He lets her talk, not bothering to point out he’s only a short distance from home. He could walk back for lunch and dinner everyday if he wished, but Baba said something about how it’d be good for him not to cling to them forever and spend more time with other children his age instead.

( Really? Mama had commented then. A-Cheng told me you barely ever even talked to disciples who weren’t from your own sect when you were studying together in Gusu. She’d said it jokingly, but Baba had still spluttered. Jin Ling was sure that if he could blush, he would have turned bright red. )

It’s not like he’s never been here before. He knows the residence of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect third best out of every place he’s been in in his life, first being home, and the second the town of Yunmeng itself.

This time is different, though. There’s a world between visiting once in a while to spend the day with his uncle, and living here for real. Mama might be the one fretting over him right now, but Jin Ling himself feels a little pang of homesickness rearing its head inside his chest. It’s stupid, he knows, especially as he can still go home whenever he wants, but it’s the first time he’ll potentially be away from his parents for days at a time and maybe he’s a little scared, what of it⎯

In no time at all, they’re standing in front of the gates to the Pier. He can hear the sounds of training inside, and children’s laughter too. It really won’t be so bad, he tells himself. It’ll be great, even, and I’ll get to see jiujiu everyday. Besides, he asked for this first, and among all things Jin Ling’s inherited from his father, he’s definitely taken after a fair share of his pride. There’s no way he’ll be the first one to regret his decision.

He doesn’t ask for comfort, mind you. But he still slips his hand into his mother’s and gives it a gentle tug.

Mama bends down, lifts her veil and beckons him underneath it to press a kiss to his forehead. As always, her lips are cold, but Jin Ling leans into her touch all the same, burying his face in the crook of her neck. “I’m so proud of you already, Ling-er.” Her voice is shaking a little. “But I’m telling you this now, because you won’t hear it among cultivators. I wish I’d known when I was your age.”

She brushes a few stray strands away from his face. There is endless tenderness in her golden eyes. “It’s all right if you don’t turn out to be good at cultivation. It’s not all there is to life, and you know neither Baba nor I would ever love you any less for it.”

It doesn’t feel like that much then and there, but Jin Ling will remember these words when he’s older, and feel more than grateful for them. Right then, though, he obediently bows his head and says : “I’ll keep it in mind. I’m still going to be good, though!”

Mama puts her hands on his cheeks and tugs the corners of his lips up, the gesture familiar. “I know. You’re too stubborn not to. Now go, before you’re late to see jiujiu.”

“You’re not coming with me?”

“No. It’d make too many problems if someone inside recognized me.” Her lips move, not unlike a sigh - if she still had breath. Mama stares up at the purple banners embroidered with Yunmeng Jiang’s nine-petaled lotus, and wistfulness casts a shadow over her face.

It disappears almost as fast as it came, but it still makes Jin Ling reach up and give her hand one last squeeze. “I’ll say hi to everyone for you!”

She squeezes back before letting go of his hand and nudging him towards the tall wooden gates. “Good boy. You’ll tell me how your first day goes, won’t you?”

“I promise!” As if to emphasize the point, Fairy lets out a high-pitched yip and bounces along Jin Ling, all the while throwing glances back at Mama to see if she’s looking properly. She’s readjusted the veil of her weimao over her face, her expression out of sight, but she raises a hand and waves as her son disappears into the Lotus Pier.

-

Jin Ling finds his uncle on the training grounds, running a bunch of weary-looking disciples through a series of sword stances. “Is that how you’ll hold it faced with a walking corpse?” he hears jiujiu chide. “Forget a corpse, a strong enough breeze would knock it out of your hands!”

He clears his throat. Jiujiu looks behind him, and despite his gruff tone, something in his expression clears. “A-Ling, there you are! Took you long enough!” He turns towards his disciples, who mostly seem relieved to have someone else take up most of their Sect Leader’s attention. “Everyone, this is your new shidi. Treat him well.”

Jin Ling can see his uncle struggle not to add an or else. Here, they’re not supposed to be so closely related, and so he has nothing that should warrant special treatment. Zhao Ling, he mouths to himself. This is the name he should answer to, from now on. He still likes Jin Ling better, but he’s also old enough to understand how dangerous it might be.

The older disciples crowd around him with interest, asking him about his life before he came here, his parents. He replies with the practiced lie his parents explained to him : he’s the son of one of the Jiang family’s cousins and her husband, both of whom have now retired from the cultivation world. Sect Leader Jiang had the kindness to reach out to his relative even after she’d left Yunmeng Jiang Sect to ask her whether she wanted her son to become a disciple here, and she’d accepted the offer.

It’s simple, and apparently delivered convincingly enough that no one seems to bat an eye at it. Before long, jiujiu reminds everyone a new arrival doesn’t mean they’re exempt from wrapping up practice for the day, and they’re left alone for the time being.

His uncle looks him up and down, as if sizing him up for a new set of robes. ( Maybe he is ; Jin Ling’s excited for that, given how pretty the Jiang Sect’s purple clothes are. ) His gaze lingers on the boy’s head. “These are new,” he says in an oddly choked-up voice.

It takes Jin Ling a moment to figure out what he’s talking about. When he does, his hand comes up to touch the new symmetrical braids along the sides of his head, running into his ponytail. “I asked Mama to do them for me!” He beams at his uncle, fidgeting where he stands. “Do you like them?”  

Jiujiu’s expression goes through several complicated stages before it settles into a smile. He reaches for Jin Ling and draws him to his side, gently ruffling his hair. “I do like them. They’re...they’re neat.”

A little bit of his homesickness dissolves as he leans into his uncle’s side. He’s pushed away pretty fast (still, always gently) and shooed off to pick up a few sets of uniforms and settle into his new rooms.

-

Jin Ling adjusts the sash of his purple robes, ties Yunmeng Jiang sect’s silver bell to his belt and sticks his tongue out at his reflection in the mirror. In that moment, everything feels like it’s as right as it should be.

-

Father, Mother,

You were right, the Cloud Recesses really are very pretty. But did you know they added another thousand rules since you studied there? There’s four thousand and nineteen of them now. I had to copy them once and I thought my wrist would fall off. Before you scold me, it was because of that idiot Jin Chan! He’s so self-important, I couldn’t let him keep talking about how his sect is the best and the greatest and we’re all idiots for not licking Jin boots all day. ( Obviously, it doesn’t apply to Baba. But Jin Chan’s still the worst. )

Lan Qiren is still teaching here. The rules are quite boring, but it’s funny to see everyone try not to fall asleep. I made some new friends too! Their names are Lan Sizhui and Lan Jingyi. Sizhui’s very sweet, he reminds me of you a little, Mama. And Jingyi gets into a lot of trouble, but he’s also talented, so it evens things out.

I found Ouyang Zizhen here too! He said we could maybe go on night-hunts together when we’re both back home, since we’re old enough now. ( Do you think Uncle will let me? He’s friends with Sect Leader Ouyang, right? ) We went into Caiyi to buy sweets after training. I got a new tassel for Suihua and toys for the dogs, I’ll show you when I’m home.

I miss you both a lot, though. It’s not the same knowing I can just go home if it gets too much. Even if it’s interesting here, and I’m glad for the people I met, I look forward to going back to Yunmeng.

Please say hi to Uncle for me, and tell Beibei, Xiao Yue and Fairy I miss them.

With all my love,

A-Ling.

-

Jin Ling is fourteen on the night that pitches the world off-balance.

“A-Li,” Baba says. They’re in the middle of dinner — meaning all three of them sit at the table, but only Jin Ling is eating, shoveling spoonfuls of warm soup into his mouth as fast as his parents’ keen eyes over his manners will let him. “Do you...do you hear it?”

“Hear what?” Jin Ling asks between two sips. On any other day, he would have been scolded for it and reminded not to speak with his mouth full. Today, Baba and Mama only exchange a haunted look.

“The flute.”

There’s no flute, Jin Ling want to say, but the expressions on his parents’ face are enough to dissuade him. Their features barely change, still frozen in death, but Baba’s eyes harden in response to whatever he’s hearing, and Mama throws a worried look out the window.

Jin Ling feels somewhat out of place. To him, the night is what it’s always been, only disturbed by the occasional rustling of wild animals in the grass...

...No, that’s not right. He, too, can feel some kind of new tremor in the air, though it mustn’t be anywhere as acute as what Baba and Mama are experiencing. Something - or perhaps someone - is calling from the outside.

“It’s him,” Mama whispers. She clutches Baba’s arm, a mixture of dread and anticipation swirling in her eyes. “I’m sure of it, A-Xuan. I’d know him anywhere.”

“Wei Wuxian is dead! How could it be him?”

Mama retorts something (he catches the words don’t know and return and help), but Jin Ling’s mind has blanked out. Wei Wuxian is one of the names Mama has advised him to never bring up outside, and only with extreme care to the people they know. ( Shushu, for example, will usually barely flinch, while jiujiu is much more likely to clam up, Zidian crackling at his finger. )

After all, Wei Wuxian killed his parents. It is because of him Baba’s heart is missing, and Mama keeps her throat wrapped in silks regardless of the weather.

Jin Ling finds he doesn’t hate him as much as one should hate their beloved parents’ murderer. Perhaps it is because despite it all, Baba and Mama are still here to raise him, even through their unusual circumstances. Of course it matters that they’re dead, but Jin Ling’s had enough nightmares in which they were truly gone, vanishing from his life before he had the chance to know them at all, not to mind too much. The very thought makes a shiver run down his spine, even now.

In the time it takes him to ponder the matter, Baba rises from his seat. Mama accompanies him, her hand still clamped tight around his arm. It doesn’t look like they’re moving of their own free will at all, though. If anything, the jerk of their movements reminds him of puppets pulled along on a string.

Jin Ling asks the first question that successfully shoves his way through its dozens of adversaries. “How do I help you?”

His parents look at each other, then back to him. “There’s nothing for you to do, A-Ling,” Baba says.

“I think we’re just meant to follow the call,” Mama adds.

“Then I’m coming with you.” It’s simple as that. He fetches Suihua from where it’s hanging on the wall and hands Mama and Baba their respective weimao, which they quickly pull over their heads. The long veils obscure their features ; it will have to do, given the summon has already made them reach the door, and it’s visibly taken much of their self-control to stall this long.

Mama makes a helpless noise, as though she wants to tell him no but understands she cannot make him budge on this one. “Put on something warm, Ling-er!” is what she settles on instead. “You’ll catch a cold on a night flight.”

“Really?” Jin Ling still obeys her, clumsily throwing on a set of outer robes. He runs after his parents, whose steps have already led them out of the house, inexorably pulling them towards the enchanted borders of the garden. They’re heading East, whatever it means.

“Be careful!” Baba orders. “Keep close to us, you hear?”

“I know! It’s not like we’ve never done this before!” Not in these circumstances, he’ll admit. Still, his parents’ fussing provides him with a sense of familiarity, keeping his fear at bay.

Fairy gives a distressed yap as Jin Ling rushes past her, sword in hand. He pauses just long enough to rub her head. The gesture is soothing, even as his heart threatens to burst out of his chest.

“You can’t come this time, big girl,” he tells her, giving her one last pat for good measure. “Be a good pup and look after the house, okay? And don’t give jiujiu trouble when he comes back!” Not that he’ll be back anytime soon. Last thing he knew, Sect Leader Jiang was somewhere near Dafan Mountain, dealing with the threat of a soul-consuming monster.

He wastes another minute giving Beibei and Xiao Yue similar recommendations before they let him go, not without a last good-luck lick on his cheek. By the time Jin Ling straightens, Baba and Mama have disappeared from sight. Shit!

He wastes no time mounting Suihua and rising into the evening sky. Fierce corpses may run too fast for an average mortal to catch up, but a cultivator on a sword stands a fairly good chance. Before long, he’s found his parents again, following the blur of their progression from above.

He loses track of how far he’s flown, or how much spiritual energy he pours into his sword. The moon rises and falls behind the horizon again before Baba and Mama stop. He steers Suihua towards them and almost collapses when he touches the ground, caught just in time in Baba’s arms.

“He shouldn’t have come with us! He hasn’t slept a wink and he’s exerted himself all night, it’s a miracle he’s still standing.”

“Good luck stopping him from following along, he’s as stubborn as you are!” Jin Ling feels Mama’s soft hands patting his cheeks, checking him for other signs than simple fatigue. “Sleep if you want, Ling-er. We’ll carry you.”

“‘M fine,” he mutters, trying to extricate himself from his parents’ hold. He succeeds, but has to lean on Suihua for a moment to blink sleepiness out of his eyes.

“A-Ling?”

Oh, damn it. That’s jiujiu’s voice, and he doesn’t sound pleased.

The scene clears into something his brain can process. He and his parents are still standing away from the heart of the action, as is their habit, but for some lost forest at the foot of a nondescript mountain, the place is crawling with cultivators. Not only from Yunmeng Jiang Sect, but also - by the look of their robes - Lanling Jin Sect, a handful of other minor ones, and too many rogue cultivators to count. Most don’t pay attention to them, too busy clearing out the remnants of what looks to be a rough-hewn statue. A lot of the surrounding trees also look like they’ve taken their fair share of blows, sporting burned branches or deep scratches across their bark.

He’s got absolutely no idea what the hell happened here, but it must have been a lot.

Jiujiu catches up to them, his expression half-furious, half-concerned. “A-Jie! And you two!” he hisses, glaring towards Baba and Jin Ling. “What are you doing here? There’s some Jin cultivators here, do you want them to see you?”

Mama steps in front of Jin Ling, effectively hiding him behind her. “We didn’t know!” she protests. “I...We heard…” Her voice falters. “A-Cheng, is A-Xian here?”

Jiujiu’s face turns a very interesting shade of red. He looks, for a few moments, as though he wants to say no. “I don’t know,” is what he finally grits out.

Baba blinks at him. “Someone played the flute and summoned us here. It couldn’t have been any demonic cultivator.”

Jiujiu pinches the bridge of his nose. “I’d swear it was him, but⎯” In halting sentences, he tells them about the statue of a nameless goddess come to life, the cultivators it killed, right up until some stranger - not even a cultivator! - turned up, and soon in his wake, the Ghost General himself, who’d broken the goddess to pieces and disappeared before anyone at the scene could catch him.

Shuddering is too subtle a movement, but Baba’s grip on Jin Ling’s shoulder tightens. “Who was he, that man?”

Jiujiu shrugs. “Never saw him before. Some of the Jin Sect cultivators recognized him as one of Jin Guangshan’s bastards. Lost his marbles, they said.” Belatedly, he remembers who he’s talking to. “No offense meant.”

“None taken. What happened with him? Shouldn’t you have kept him here?”

“I would have, if I could! But no, Hanguang-jun had to show up and of course no one’s going to argue against him⎯”

“A-Cheng,” Mama interrupts before jiujiu can get started on a tirade about whatever grievance he has against Lan Wangji. “If A-Xian is back, I need to see it for myself. Where did they go?”

His uncle sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose against. You’re gonna rub it off someday, Jin Ling almost says (it is what Mama would do, after all), but perhaps this is not the right moment.

“Lan Wangji said Mo Xuanyu would be coming back with him to Gusu.”

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #jin ling #jiang yanli #jin zixuan #xuanli #mdzs fic #kim's fics