#( like hi as someone who's country was fucked by the ottomans. this is not how to portray it lmao. )
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bosnia hcs?
Bosnia hcs
I love Bosnians i swear
Anyway
1. Lightest bitch of the BiH family
2. His pre conversion name was Stefan, idk who needs to hear this
3. Absolutely hates it when Idriza and Ilija start speaking, not because they’re gonna say anything horrible its just that to him their accents are equivalent to nails on a chalkboard
4. Which is ironic cause his vocabulary is even worse
5. Went to look for artifacts from his Bosnian kingdom era to prove to serbia he was never serbian, and cried when they were in cyrillic
6. Illiterate probably
7. Writing was never his talent he probably sings well
8. chainsmoker
9. In fact he fucking reeks of smoke and stale coffee
10. Calls Ilija turklet while he has a fez on
11. Islamized and somehow still basically an atheist
12. Gives up a lot idk how to explain it, like if you give him a rubik’s cube he’ll give up on it 3 minutes later. He then gives it to Ilija so he can pour gasoline on it, light it on fire, and harass their neighbours with it
13. Said “we’re all Bosnians here” and almost met the same fate as Murat
14. During the ottoman period he was really quick to convert cause of his lack of connection to the church.
15. Technically was a Heretic for his time
16. Aromantic… but not in the “oh yeah i just don’t feel romantic attraction” he’s just too stupid to feel romantic attraction
17. Did a lot of weed at some point of his existence
18. Smokes, drinks alcohol, does absolutely none of the prayers, and still yelps in disgust if you put a piece of slanina in front of him
19. He was probably way better off during the ottoman empire, i mean that financially and status wise lol. Before he was actually someone, but that was just cause he gave his religion up so easily. It got worse for him after the empire fell
20. So bad that if you robbed him you’d end up giving him money instead out of guilt
21. Yk what i said about the familial bond? Yeah well Srpska and Bosnia have an enemy bond, Srpska was born viewing Bosnia as an enemy, and it’s reciprocated on Bosnia’s side. It’s funny seeing a grown ass man target a really angry toddler
22. Idk what job he’d have, i dont even know what bosniaks have done for this country ever either
23. Believes Yugoslavia was a gift from God (don’t ask why he split from it)
24. Thinks Srpska is a public threat that needs to be detained, probably put him in a mental hospital a few times
25. “I would cross myself, but it's Eid, so I can't”
26. As for his relationship with herze they probably snuggled up twice
27. Dreamt he set her on fire more times though
28. Has this jpeg of a kitten as his walpaper
29. Grows his own fruit in his garden, loves his trešnje especially
Thats about it
Nghah
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Hi hello so
This is the roman empire and its vassals (in pink)
And this
Is a map of all the countries that have claimed to be the "third rome" or the successors to rome
Notice how some are blatantly outside roman lands because why not
None of these countries claimed this for good reasons btw, just putting that out there, their reasons were very cringe and all were a stretch at best and a desperate claw for the title at worst
Anyway Turkey claimed this cause the ottoman empire conquered the byzantine empire, which was the legitimate successor to rome as it was the descendent of the eastern roman empire and the people very much still considered themselves roman, and claimed succession by right of conquest.
Russia based their claim on the fact that they're eastern orthadox and claimed themselves as the defenders of the eastern orthodox religion. And Ivan III was married to the neice of the last byzantine emperor so their son, Tsar Ivan IV was half byzantine and kinda had byzantine royal blood a little. That's it
Bulgaria made their claim out of the fact that a Bulgarian was crowned the byzantine emperor once. His status was revoked later but it still counts to the Bulgarians
Serbia just had this one king who conquered parts of greece and then said he was a roman emperor, it's weird.
Greece's claim was because they inherited land that had belonged to the romans and byzantines for over 1,000 years at that point. The byzantine empire was mainly a greek empire as its center of power was. I feel like Greece has an easier time connecting the dots to rome than most of the other countries, except of course, Italy.
Rome was in Italy sooo you can see where the dots connected there. The idea of a third Italian rome was born when Italy unified in 1871, and Benito "the soft underbelly of europe" Mussolini brought the idea back to legitimize his regime and put forward his goals of making a new roman empire (which btw in retrospect is hilarious, like benito, buddy, you had to ask the germans to bail your ass out a fuckton of times, it's not happening)
Austria and Germany have pretty much the same claim to the title and that was through the Holy Roman Empire. Ah yes, that loose collection of german states with shakey alliances that made the center of europe look like someone threw up on a map for a few hundred years and that's only if someone managed to draw them all. Anyway the HRE formed when the pope of the Roman Catholic Church crowned Charlemagne as the "Emperor of the Romans" in this big publicity stunt for Charlemagne. After the Carolingian Empire fell, the HRE retained its status as the "Roman Empire" despite the fact it had no claims past "this guy said so"
France's claim also loosely comes from Charlemagne. When Napoleon crowned himself emperor he technically inherited the Crown Of Charlemagne™ and through that he claimed he resurrected the roman empire, which technically he did have a lot of the lands that belonged to the western roman empire at the time, however it's still a matter of his claim being "I said so" cause it's napoleon and at that time nobody wanted to fuck with napoleon
So yeah
Thankfully this line of thinking seems to be mostly dead today, and even if some countries still uphold their claim, nobody really cares at this point
This idea of building a new roman empire was based off the ideas of imperialism and fascist thought processes because everyone wants a piece of the glory of rome that had been so often romanticized (but if you look into roman history it was really like one or two assassinations from collapsing A LOT)
Anyway thanks for reading if you got this far! Idk what this was, a vent abt this dumb idea? Whatever I had fun that's all that matters
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someone who based their entire view of world history on hetalia is better off than anyone who based their entire view of world history on paradox games
because if you've seen those guys...
ok apparently people are in actual-assed history classes after playing eu4 lol: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/03/history-video-games-europa-universalis/622892/
"Analyzing video games is particularly difficult for two reasons. First, their influence is hard to track: Teachers may not even notice that the student asking why the Ottomans didn’t colonize America or what happened to Burgundy may have a view of history that was molded by Paradox games."
OH MY fucking god is this real. imagine this was hetalia fan girls.
(ok if ur wondering i've watched hetalia and played paradox games before.)
“The student in your class that knows what Prussia is is the student that played Europa Universalis IV,” Devereaux said.
um yeah what about this guy:
the analysis of europa universialis in this article is pretty good & it's kind of scaring me how it is literally seeping into people's worldviews.
Want to play as a non-European and still succeed? You had better be willing to kill, conquer, and colonize—in other words, do what the Europeans did. Europa Universalis,like most Paradox games, rewards playing in a ruthless, expansionist way.
Europa Universalis encourages the player to act according to an extreme realist view of international relations, where the security of the state is valued above all and the ultimate way to ensure the state’s security is by maximizing its power in an anarchic world order. Few non-state actors exist in Europa Universalis, and the player’s actions have no real human consequences. It’s difficult to come away from a completed game without the sense that the rise of the centralized nation-state in Europe was due to the cold, hard logic of state security and power politics. This state-centric view of history is shared by most Paradox games, and leaves a definite historical impression that states, rather than people, ideas, or societies, are the sole drivers of history.
a really stupid ass worldview of state-driven history becoming really common among nerdboys on the internet who play europa universialis will have Some consequences down the line i think:
Jonas Srouji, a Europa Universalis player who works in the Danish embassy in Turkey, told me that he had to do a lot of “unlearning” after playing Paradox games. He found that the game’s state-centric and linear view of historical development wasn’t of much use in his professional life, which requires understanding the many nuances of Turkish history and culture. The games are a good starting point for learning about history, but given their current limitations, their history “needs to be supported by other sources,” he added.
honestly i've noticed online that this weird specific state-centric history model is really popular, especially among young guys who become Interest in History. not in like the social aspect like "Wow Damn Neoliberalism Changed Society!!" but like guys who are civil war buffs but only know about obscure battles and not "why tf did this thing happen and why do we care". a lot of it is a fascination with warfare.
a example is the youtube "mapping" subculture. they make timelapse videos of border changes of some alternate reality.
here's an example channel called AdizzPro & most of these are pretty much about war. turns out if you represent history as a map, everything boils down to war.
watch one of these videos and you'll see a pattern:
countries are given personalities and they literally talk to each other. lots of times they basically exclude any mention of a leader
lots of these videos use countryballs
i could say something deep about how this like, reflects on how we see countries on the world stage as these consciously acting actors instead of systems with zillions of people in them BUT no i'm gonna say THIS IS BASICALLY HETALIA!!!!!! countryballs is basically hetalia but for non-weebs
again war is the main focus especially since all we see is a map. sometimes cities are marked but nobody cares about anything that isn't a country or international alliance
we only see "invasions" happen once at a time, because of animation limitations but also because it's way more convenient.
views of wars in these videos are pretty outdated compared to the messy guerilla wars of today. you can interpret this as some sort of nostalgia for how war used to work. there's no such thing as "america playing with guns in afghanistan for 20 years and failing". countries borders move effortlessly and then IT IS FINISHED
a LOT of future scenarios, each a little tiny statement on how people view world politics.
and a lot of these are really inaccurate and idk if the creators know that. one example is BRICS being shown as a military alliance.
there's some crossover with map-based strategy game players (paradox games)
some channels make mapping videos of irl conflicts, like russia's war on ukraine.
a lot of alternate history fandom (idk what to call it) is like this too. people who are into alternate history are mostly interest in WOAAHH WHAT IF NAZIS.... had LASER GUNS!!!!
and my lame ass thinks it would be cooler to inspect history with something like "What If The Implications of the Floobert-Bloobert Economics and the Great Recession Were UnFloobertized, From The Perspective Of The Daily Life of First Generation Immigrants".
ok yeah it's kind of lame but alternate history would be a cool way to see how Shit Happens. like idk, analyzing how colonialism impacts culture and shit.
like if spain colonized japan i'm interested in weird little things like how "Just According to Keikaku" is now "Just According to Queicacu" in the same way how many languages in spanish-colonized regions adopted spanish spelling and some later getting rid of it all in a desire to decolonize their language
also the cuisine!!! the Indigenization of filipino tamales...
most alternate history though is focused on state actors. and obviously there's a lot of maps:
like here's one example. notice how the big phat red nation is basically filler lol. this is actually a pretty good map because most i've seen make africa 100% filler.
in conclusion i just wanted to make Observations about things that are on my mind. i kind of dont have a point and this grew out of a joke about hetalia but most of my main observations are:
state-centric views of history are like The Fuckin Plague. i kind of blame maps xd, but the emphasis on maps isn't the central issue, it's the state-centric view itself. it grows out of just honesty oversimplification but also views of history that are just plain kind of nationalistic (esp. if they're talking about europe).
i wish more people looked at history as more than "They SHOt people with Cool Guns that's so Cool" like ok i can deal with that but i think we have to deal with the uncomfortable uncool things. like ok you like the Nazi Aesthetic which is kind of questionable, hey did you know that the fucking holocaust happened. the holocaust isnt even in hearts of iron
idk i wanna make a alternate history but with less focus on war and more on social shit. also with linguistics because i like linguistics
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3 Hopes you promised me Dimitri and Edelgard being allies in that first trailer how DARE YOU
#( also like. I hope they dont make the almyrans into one dimensional villains. )#( i know the relationship between the alliance and almyra is basically that of byzantium & the ottoman empire but. still. )#( like hi as someone who's country was fucked by the ottomans. this is not how to portray it lmao. )#( however the synopsis for Scarlet Blaze says Edelgard flushes out hidden dark forces so im hoping that means she kicks TWSITD ass. )#( ....honestly i only care abt Azure Gleam but if there's no secret church route/if they do the cabbage fam dirty imma riot. )#( intsys. intsys listen. if you keep seteth from me i will never forgive you. give me my MANNNNN. )#( ooc tbt. )
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GIFT .
Genre : Brother-in-law Jungkook x OC!
Warnings : Yandere Jungkook! Non Consent. Manipulative behaviour. Explicit Sexual Content, Violence, Murder
Author's Note : I love reading Yandere fics so I just wanted to write one!! Its very different from what I usually write... So proceed with caution.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The first time I met Jungkook , it was five years into my relationship with Namjoon.
Namjoon had told me all about his baby brother, a final year student in SNU. Jungkook majored in Business , training to take over the company business . Namjoon often mentioned that it was Jungkook's offer to switch majors that had helped him pursue his own dream of being a music producer.
So when he told me that Jungkook was on a break from university and his parents were looking forward to having a proper family dinner with all of us, I was excited to meet the boy , I'd heard so much about. Namjoon was endlessly fond of his little brother and I wanted him to like me just as much.
Namjoon and I had met seven years earlier in the University Library and had become fast friends. We were both quiet, intellectually driven individuals, preferring to spend our time in the library as opposed to partying with our friends. And yet, in a twist , against our family’s wishes, we had chosen not to pursue an academically driven career either. I’d always felt out of place in my own friend group, most of my friend from Journalism being extroverted and fun loving. Namjoon for his part had only two very close friends, Yoongi and Hoseok and preferred spending time by himself as well.
So it was only natural that we fell in with each other with ease. His beautiful dimpled smile tugged on my gut, even as his gentle nature and gorgeous mind made my heart pound. I fell in love with him, between the late night laughter in the library and the soft secrets whispered against my skin, in the privacy of his bed.
“Nervous?” His voice drew me to the present, fingers inking with mine as he lightly knocked his shoulders against mine, staring down at me with a dimpled smile. I shook my head quickly, squeezing his hand gently.
“Of course not. I just want him to like me.” I whispered and Namjoon chuckled.
“Jungkookie isn’t very expressive so don’t worry if he isn’t very vocal in his affections. He’s very shy with new people but I’m sure, he’ll love you.” Namjoon reached out and lightly, brushed the hair off my face before leaning down and giving me a quick kiss.
I gripped his waist, pressing in closer, lips parting instinctively , eager to chase the taste of him. He groaned and gripped my elbow, pulling me around to press up against the tall , lean strength of his body and this was it, this endless need to touch him even after seven whole years of being together. I moaned when he bit down on my lips, my back arching a bit to press into him.
“Hyung?”
We parted, surprised and I felt my face flame, lips slicked wet and no doubt red from where Joon’s teeth had sunk in.
What a first impression.
“Ahh… Jungkook-ah… You came out?” Namjoon looked a little flustered, dimples peeking out in an abashed smile as he laughed embarrassedly I found myself smiling at Jungkook, who looked nothing like I’d imagined.
I’d been expecting someone cute and friendly.
Jungkook was dressed in all black, tall and intimidating. He was also almost surreally beautiful, gaze piercing and steady as he stared at me. I felt an instinctive urge to hide, not missing the way his gaze trailed up and down my body, lips parting gently to reveal a pair of bunny teeth that looked jarringly adorable on a face that was , quite simply put, arrestingly gorgeous.
He hummed, still standing in the doorway, eyes trained on me and I swallowed when he smiled , wide and open. His tongue darted out, lightly licking his lower lip .
“Hi, Hana.” He said softly and I startled.
“Hana? I’m sure you mean noona…..” I laughed nervously and even Namjoon looked surprised and Jungkook merely smiled, shrugging.
“You don’t feel like a noona.” He said casually.
I merely stared at him, not sure what he meant. Namjoon laughed a little as well, moving over to lightly hug his brother.
“Yah! You’ve just met her. Isn’t it too soon to start being a brat?” He ruffled his hair playfully before turning to me.
“Come on, Hana. Come say hi to my parents.” Namjoon walked in and I rushed to follow him, pausing when I reached the doorway. I smiled at Jungkook, holding a hand out slowly.
“I’ve heard so much about you Jungkook, I hope we can be friends…” I said sincerely and he stared at my hand, not taking it. Instead he gave me another soft smile. Before leaning down and pressing a kiss to the back of my hand, making me jump .
“You don’t feel like a friend either.” He said with a shrug , before moving away, leaving me stunned on the doorway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two years later :
“Seven months? Namjoon we’re getting married in seven months! How am I supposed to plan a whole wedding , with you away from the country?” I asked desperately, watching as Namjoon sat with his head in his hands. He looked stricken, regretful and pained and I felt terrible for being unreasonable but it was impossible not to feel hurt.
“I know.. I know hana, I’m so fucking sorry. But this is such a huge opportunity and its not just me : Hoseok and Yoongi depend on me. I can’t screw things up for them too.” He whispered and I exhaled.
Namjoon had been offered a chance to produce for a very high end recording label based out of the US and they wanted him to stay there for a minimum of seven months. The offer had been a complete surprise, out of the blue and the timing couldn’t have been worse. I’d been accepted into an internship at a popular magazine and it would be impossible for me to go with him. And I was so desperate to go.
We’d never been apart for more than a few days, in the entirety of our relationship and the thought of not seeing him for months made me want to throw up.
“I’ve spoken to Jungkook. He’ll help you with all the things that have to be done. And I swear that I’ll be back at least a month before the date, alright? No matter what happens.” Namjoon said firmly. I swallowed, nodding nervously.
It was true that I didn’t like the idea of being away from Namjoon. But the thought of keeping him away from a dream that he had worked so hard for, was almost unfathomable.
Besides, Jungkook was reliable and sweet. The perfect gentleman. Especially now that he’d taken over as his father’s Executive Assistant, Jungkook was incredibly good at organizing and planning things out.
With his help, I could plan out our wedding to perfection.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The next five months were spent in a haze of appointments and fittings and bookings. Jungkook had arranged for a shift in my internship hours, so he and I could spend a solid four hours every day, visiting different vendors, picking out the perfect floral arrangements, napkins, brocade and what not. And for once, I found myself completely enthralled by the idea of spending money of frivolously pretty things. Whether it was the florists or the patisserie, the dress fitting or the invitations, I felt my excitement bubbling over , amazed because marrying into Namjoon’s family meant an unlimited budget and for once, I didn’t mind being extravagant.
What was more, I didn’t miss Namjoon nearly as much as I thought I would. Because deep down , I knew that he wouldn’t have enjoyed this all that much. And I would have felt guilty , dragging him everywhere.
And Jungkook was the one to thank for all of it. He picked me up everyday for an early breakfast , followed by hours of combing the streets for ideas and appointments. He was funny and enthusiastic, eager to help me in every way and I was so grateful that I couldn’t thank him enough.
“I owe you so much, Kookie. You’ve been a life saver.” I groaned, collapsing on the couch and dropping my head back against the backrest. Jungkook chuckled, sitting down on one of the Turkish ottomans and lightly grabbing my ankle, pulling my foot onto his lap. I flushed a little, still not used to how touchy he was.
Jungkook liked wrapping his arms around my waist when we were out and about, fingers fluttering up my sides or brushing hair off my face with easy familiarity. I didn’t mind. He reminded me of my little brother back in Ilsan.
Most of the people we met assumed he was the groom and Jungkook told me it would be better to keep up the ruse because wedding planners were more comfortable when couples came together and I’d agreed, albeit a little reluctantly. I missed Namjoon and I wondered if he would mind. But when I mentioned it in passing to him during one of our daily video calls, he’d merely laughed it off.
“You’re so tense, Hana. You should relax. Everything is going to be okay.” Jungkook said softly, soft fingers digging into the curve of heel before brushing the arch of my foot. I smiled when he tugged my foot close, placing it down on the firmness of his thigh.
I gazed down at him, feeling uncomfortably nervous. This whole thing seemed oddly intimate somehow and I felt the first tendrils of guilt begin to curl around my gut. I swallowed, hating myself for tainting something that was no doubt innocent. I ought to be grateful that my future brother in law was this kind to me.
“I know. Thank you. I just miss him sometimes.” I said softly. The fingers stilled on my foot.
“Only sometimes?” He teased, eyes narrowed and tone just a little colder and I hesitated.
“I don’t miss him when you keep me company. You help me forget that I’m doing all of this by myself.�� I said honestly. Jungkook inhaled sharply, his gaze flicking to mine, holding mine with an intensity that made me balk a little.
“You mean, that?” He asked quietly and I laughed at how serious he looked.
“Of course I do. I was so sure this whole thing would be me being miserably lonely but you’ve kept me laughing and happy. I’m going to ask Namjoon to buy you something expensive and amazing when he comes back.”
“He already has something amazing. It’s the only thing I really want.” Jungkook said quietly, fingers stroking up, gently massaging my foot all the way up my calf. I groaned at how good it felt.
“Really what is it?” I asked curious.
Jungkook squeezed my knee before carefully placing my foot down , reaching for the other one.
“You’ll know soon, Hana.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
True to his word, Namjoon called me exactly a month before our wedding date.
“Guess who’s leaving the God forsaken place this weekend?”
I felt warmth flood my insides, heart racing with pure joy, tears brimming over because I’d honestly resigned myself to the fact that he wouldn’t be able to make it back on time.
“Monday i, I’ll be there. Can’t wait to kiss you, my love.” He whispered and I nodded, laughing.
Finally, Everything would be okay.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Namjoon’s flight was due to arrive late night ,somewhere between twelve and one in the morning. I’d taken a nap in the afternoon, so I could be up to welcome him back. Jungkook arrived at around seven with Takeout and flowers.
He didn’t ring the doorbell, letting himself in with the spare key I’d given him for emergencies. I found myself scrambling for my robe because I’d taken a nice long shower and slipped on a silk negligee, short and ending just over my knees . I could feel his eyes on me as I hastily tied the sash together, flustered. The robe wasn’t long either and I felt absolutely exposed, even worse than when he’d stepped into the dressing room during my fitting, offering to help me with the zipper.
“ Jungkook, what are you doing here?” I asked nervously and he shrugged, eyes still trailing over my legs, the skin bare. I felt his gaze like a caress and some instinct told me I was in danger. I shook my head to clear it. How ridiculous.
This was Jungkook. Sweet, wonderful Jungkookie. My best friend these past few months. There was no one else I could be safer with.
“I knew you’d be excited, what with hyung coming back and all. So, I thought I’d drop by and at least make sure you’re well fed.” He grinned, holding the tae out up. I smiled and nodded, moving to get plates and glasses from the kitchen.
I heard Jungkook moving around in the living room and when I went back in , I found that he had two glasses of wine ready on the table, an expensive bottle of merlot opened nearby. I smiled a bit, shaking my head.
“What are we celebrating?” I asked curiously and he shrugged.
“Namjoon hyung is coming back right? It means I’ll be getting my amazing gift tonight.” He said softly, picking his glass up and taking a sip and I rolled my eyes.
“You’re such a child. You can’t wait for a day to get your gift?”
Jungkook hummed. He looked ethereal in the dim golden light of the apartment. Like something out of a fairytale. All dark ebony hair and porcelain skin. I wondered, again….why he never dated. He was easily one of the most beautiful humans I’d ever seen in my life. And that voice.
The voice of an angel.
“I’ve been waiting for years, Hana. I’m sick and tired of waiting.” He said softly, voice low and eyes somehow dark and I tried to hold my smile.
“Well, I hope you enjoy it.” I grinned and he smiled, all teeth.
“Oh, I intend to. Thoroughly.”
I took my own glass and took a deep sip , before holding it against his.
“To no longer waiting and finally getting what we want.” I said cheerfully, thinking of the long months without Namjoon and the few hours till he would be back in my arms. Jungkook chuckled and clinked his glass against mine.
“To you, Hana.” He said simply and I blushed, surprised and flattered.
We ate the take out but just a few bites in, I felt my eyes getting heavy which was so unfair. It was barely eight. And I’d slept in the afternoon. What was wrong with me? I was supposed to be up till Namjoon came home.
“You alright, love?” Jungkook asked sweetly , getting out of his chair and making his way over when I almost knocked the glass of water over, fingers trembling. I pouted, even as his fingers curled over my shoulders, gripping lightly.
“Why am I so drowsy?” I whined in desperation and he leaned down, lightly resting his chin on my shoulder.
“You need to rest, hana. Come on, let’s get you to bed…. “
Eyes heavy and limbs turning to jelly, I could barely blink as he reached down and scooped me into his arms , carrying me into the bedroom. I felt his fingers tug on the sash of my robe, a protest building up at the action but he shushed me gently.
“I’m just helping you out of this, Hana. Rest now… Namjoon hyung will be here soon and we have a long night ahead of us, you and I.”
I could feel my mind churn at that, confusion warring with apprehension because why was Jungkook inserting himself in tonight? What did he have to do with Namjoon and I ?
Sleep beckoned and I found myself slipping into the darkness before I could fully ponder on his words.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I woke up sweaty and damp , body overheated and my head foggy. I made to move and felt my heart pound when I realized my hands were tied up to the headboard. I blinked, only to be met with darkness because there was something tied around my eye as well.
“Jungkook?!” I called out panicking and there was a low chuckle.
And then a very familiar scent.
Namjoon.
I sagged in relief.
“Joon…it’s you….” I breathed out . “ Come on, do we really have to do this right away? I wanna see you…” I whispered desperately.
Fingers brushed over my ankle and I jumped.
“Namjoon?” I whispered . The bed dipped next to me, and I felt the brush of his shirt against my bare arm. It was soft and silky , familiar because I’d bought it for him for his birthday and he’d sent me a pic of him wearing it, from the airport today.
“Okay… I’ll play.” I laughed softly. “ Just untie me… I wanna touch you..”
“Sshhh…..” A finger pressed against my lip and I startled. Throat dry, I gulped.
But I didn’t say anything, biting my lips nervously as I felt him climb over me, one knee on either side of mine, fingers curling on my thighs, lips pressing against my cheek. I sighed, relishing the soft press of his lips, up and down my neck, the damp wetness of his tongue as he licked the skin right after, teeth nipping gently and then with more force.
I trembled as soft fingers tugged on my negligee tugging the fabric up and away from my body, raising it up till it pooled near my chest. I felt the tug on my panties, yanking the fabric off and then the weight of him went away, a breathy exhale that sounded both calm and somehow desperate, his body moving down to lightly hold my knees, parting my legs.
I bent my knees, spreading my thighs the way he clearly wanted me to, hearing him groan in return. He used his thumbs to gently part the damp folds of my centre and I felt my entire body shudder at the press of his tongues against the most intimate parts of me.
Choking, I could only lay there and take it, his tongue licking the slick folds, over and over again with an almost curious insistence, like he was tasting me for the first time and I could feel his body trembling on the bed as he did. I felt his teeth tug on the hardened nub, bruising hard and yet somehow almost playful and cheeky and I found myself squirming in pleasure, wetness seeping out of me .
The tip of his finger found my slit, running up and done the length of it in a slow, gentle caress, gathering the moisture there and I trembled when he reached my clit, gently rubbing circles on the little bundle before moving back down to trace my entrance. I was so wet, getting wetter by the second and I’d never wanted to be fucked so bad.
“Please…..baby… I want you ….in me…” I choked out and he chuckled, a little mischievous and unlike him.
The finger dipped in, shallow and barely in and I whimpered in desperation.
“More.. Please…. I want more.. Want you… Its been so long…”
I felt him move back at that and then he was there, right between my legs. I felt the clink of metal as he unbuckled himself, the sound of his zipper and the rustle of fabric as he pushed his trousers off. I could feel the hard muscles of his thigh against the back of mine as he scooted closer, felt the brush of his hard length against my center, the head dipping in just lightly.
He pushed forward, driving in with so much force that my entire body shuddered in shock. And in just that second, I knew, with dawning horror…….
This was not Namjoon.
I screamed, so loud my own ears rang and a palm pressed down into my mouth, forceful and unrelenting. And terrifyingly unfamiliar.
“Hana…” Jungkook’s voice near my ear made me choke on my tears, my mind splintering in shock and betrayal, body going rigid in terror as he pulled out , only to slide back in.
“Knew it would be worth it, keeping myself pure for you….” He crooned against my skin and I whimpered, wetness spilling over my eyelashes as I tried to squirm away, my mind body and soul only screaming for the man I loved.
“Don’t worry about anything ….Hyung’s in a better place now. “ Jungkook chuckled deeply and I felt my skin go ice cold at the implication. He moved his hand away and I coughed, choking.
“Jungkook….”
The blind fold came off and he kept pumping into me, hips moving erratically, no rhythm or grace and it was obvious he’d never done this before, obvious in the way he looked : blissed out and feral, eyes unfocused as he stared down at me. I felt him tremble and shake, before going still . I felt warm wetness flood my insides and bile rose, nausea making breathing difficult. He stayed on me and inside me, his body so large and immovable, heavy and suffocating over my own.
“what are you doing Jungkookie?” I sobbed out in disbelief and he glared at me.
“What does it fucking look like I’m doing? I’m taking what I fucking deserve….” He snarled. “ Two fucking years…. He doesn’t deserve you. Spends all his days and nights holed up in that studio of his with his friends….leaves you to fend for yourself. You deserve to be waited on, hand and foot… you deserve the world, hana…and he wouldn’t let you experience any of it. Fucking bastard….
“No… No.. God …no..” I choked out. It was the shirt.
He was wearing Namjoon’s shirt. And his cologne. The shirt I knew my boyfriend had been wearing today. How did he get it??
Jungkook brushed his fingers on my cheeks .
“What’s wrong baby? Are you worried about him? Wondering where he is…” He chuckled. “ I told you..he’s in a better place right now..”
“No… you’re lying..you wouldn’t…”
“Wouldn’t I? You know me that well , hana?” He teased.
No. No I didn’t I didn’t know him at all.
“How about this? If you marry me…. If you let me have this dream wedding with my dream girl…. “ He smirked,” If you let me love you the way you deserve , maybe I’ll take you to visit him…someday. ”
I closed my eyes.
I couldn’t process what I’d just heard… I didn’t know… if he was bluffing. What if he had actually killed-
I couldn’t believe that. I couldn’t. It would break me.
“Okay… Just…please don’t hurt him…” I whispered.
Jungkook smiled.
“Just relax Hana. Everything’s going to be okay.”
AUTHORS NOTE : THIS IS LITERALLY MY FIRST TIME WRITING SOMETHING LIKE THIS PURELY OUT OF IDLE CURIOSITY
~~~~~~~~~~~
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Lovely Arrow, a random plot bunny appeared and I just know you could do it justice: what if Franny has some friends over at Mickey and Ian's place when she's older and one of them is new to the group and wants to learn a little more about her uncles? And Franny starts waxing poetic about how they're made for each other and complement each other so well and both Ian and Mickey overhear and it makes them tear up a little. Just a thought 😋🥰
Evie, thank you! I've decided that Franny's friends love her uncles almost as much as she does, so that's kind of where this went.
---
“Why are we here again?” Tiffany asks as they crowd onto the stoop of the little southside worker’s cottage. Franny doesn’t bother to answer as she knocks on the door, but one of the other girls takes pity.
“It’s her Uncle’s house,” Susan says. “Jesus, Tiff, pay attention.”
Well, not too much pity. There was a reason she’d never been invited before, after all.
“Yikes, Suze,” Tiffany mutters with a frown. “I just meant why weren’t we at her actual house.”
“Because my actual house is loud as shit,” Franny finally chimes in, not even looking back. “My mom gets lonely so we live with like three other families, it’s a nightmare for schoolwork.”
“You’d have known that if you paid any attention,” Susan adds, and they all ignore Tiffany’s pout.
It doesn’t last long anyway, because the door creaks open not a moment later.
“Hey Fran,” Ian says from the other side. His hair is longer than usual right now, and looks windswept—or like someone had been carding hands through it all morning. His shirt was tight-fitting and a little too short, like it didn’t belong to him, and the socks on his feet didn’t match.
“Hey Uncle Ian,” Franny greets, then gestures to her friends. “It still cool if we take over the living room for a bit? This group paper is a beast.”
“Of course,” Ian agrees with a wide smile. “Anything to help my favorite niece.” He opens the door wider to let them in.
“Nice to see you all again,” he says as they start to file inside. “John, Rachel,” he greets them individually. “Susan, that new haircut is fantastic, I told you it would be.”
“Thanks, Mr. Gallagher,” Susan says with a grin, tucking a loose curl behind her ear.
Ian grimaces at her, playfully.
"Ian, please," he begs. "I've never met a Mr. Gallagher I didn't want to punch."
Susan giggles, and moves inside.
“I don’t think I’ve met you,” Ian says with a thoughtful frown when it's Tiffany's turn, and Franny jumps in with an introduction.
“Uncle Ian, this is Tiff,” she says. “She got put with us for the project.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ian says, and holds out a hand.
Tiffany takes it, and when Ian lets go, her hand just hovers there.
“Make yourselves at home,” Ian says as he closes the door behind them. “I’ll be in the other room if you need anything, but—
“Try not to need anything,” they all chorus, with the exception of Tiffany.
“Good kids,” Ian laughs, and then he’s gone, disappearing through the archway that leads through to the rest of the house.
They settle quickly. John and Rachel take the love seat, as they’re always wont to do, sitting just a little too close. Rachel giggles as their knees brush, and Franny rolls her eyes at John’s blush.
She takes her own usual spot next to Susan on the floor, notebooks spread out across the ottoman, and startles when Tiffany suddenly appears on her other side.
“Dude,” Tiffany hisses, poking Franny in the shoulder. “Your uncle is so hot.”
Franny frowns, staring down at the wrinkle Tiffany left on her sleeve.
“Yeah,” she says idly as she smooths it. “So I’ve heard.”
“I mean I mean I always thought red hair looked weird--no offence," she tacks on hastily, "but it really works for him."
Franny focuses on arranging her things to avoid smacking Tiffany in the face.
"Does he have a girlfriend?” Tiffany asks, biting her lip. She toys with the ends of her over-crimped hair, bright nail polish flashing between blonde strands.
“No,” Franny answers, and doesn’t give Tiffany any time to think about that before adding, “he has a husband.”
Tiffany pouts, shimmery pink lips sticking out comically. Franny exchanges a look with Susan, who mimics the expression in a way that has Franny trying to swallow her laughter.
“So not fair,” Tiffany whines beside them, crossing her arms. “Why are all the cute ones taken?”
“Hey!” John protests from across the room, but they all ignore him except for Rachel, who hits him with her three-ring binder.
“Mickey would probably kill you for looking at him,” Susan chimes in, “so you should probably keep your eyes to yourself anyway.”
“Yeah,” Rachel agrees, even as she rubs John’s arm in apology. “He’s been to jail, you know.”
“Ew,” Tiffany says, wrinkling her nose. “There’s no way he deserves someone like Ian, then.”
Franny grips her pencil too tightly. Susan sends her a warning look, but she ignores it.
“Actually,” she says casually, hiding her irritation, “they’re perfect for each other.”
Tiffany‘s brow wrinkles.
“No way,” she disagrees. “You Uncle seems so sweet, he deserves someone nice at least.”
Franny’s pencil snaps.
“Shit, she’s done it now,” John mutters.
“Uncle Mickey is nice,” Franny grits out between clenched teeth. “He’s a hell of a lot nicer than you, actually.”
“Franny—” Rachel tries to interrupt, but Susan cuts in over her.
“She’s not wrong,” Susan says. “You’re in the man’s home, Tiff, have a little tact.”
“Besides,” John speaks up, “Mickey is great. He helped me with my math homework last week.”
“Come on!” Tiffany cries. “There’s no way some ex-con should be married to that hunk out there.”
“Ian’s an ex-con too, though,” Susan says. “Right, Fran?”
Franny smiles.
“That’s right,” she confirms gleefully. “They were in jail together, actually.”
Tiffany pales.
“No way,” she mumbles, but they aren’t done.
“Yeah, it’s the most romantic story!” Rachel all but squeals. “Mickey wasn’t even in the country, but he heard Ian needed him and he came right back!”
“They’d been together for like, years already,” John contributes. “High school sweethearts or something like that.”
Rachel latches onto him at that, and he flushes again.
“And they take such good care of each other,” Susan adds. “Last time I was here Ian wasn’t feeling too good, and Mickey made us all be quiet so he could sleep. Then I helped him make some soup, ‘cause he isn’t good at that stuff.”
Tiffany is biting her lip again, staring at them each in turn.
“But Ian seems so—”
“In love with his husband?” Franny cuts her off dryly. “Sounds right to me.”
The others all agree, but Franny isn’t done.
“My Uncles have the best relationship I’ve ever seen,” Franny continues, “and I was a little kid for most of it. So if you think they’re gonna care what some random kid their niece hangs out with thinks about their marriage…” she trails off.
Tiffany’s eyes are downcast.
“Didn’t mean anything by it,” she mutters, then looks up through her eyelashes. “Sorry.”
Silence, broken by Franny’s tired sigh.
“It’s okay, I guess,” she says. Then she hands Tiffany her notebook. “Here, you can write the introduction.”
——-
Behind a half-closed door down the hall, Mickey stands quietly, eyes wide. He startles when the door creaks open an extra inch, Ian slipping inside.
Ian’s eyes are soft when they fall on his face, and Mickey blinks hurriedly to hide the wetness in his own.
“You heard all that, I take it?” Ian whispers, and Mickey nods.
“Yeah,” he says hoarsely. “Kind of hard not to, those kids are fucking banshees.”
Ian laughs, soft and quiet.
“Banshees that love you,” he says, stepping closer. “As they should,” he adds when Mickey lets him wrap strong arms around him.
“Sounds like one of ‘em loves you more,” Mickey mumbles into Ian’s chest, and it shakes as Ian huffs.
“She’ll learn,” he says, holding Mickey tighter. “They all do eventually.”
“That I’m the better husband?” Mickey jokes, even as he rubs his face into the fabric of his own shirt over Ian’s broad chest.
“That we’re best together,” Ian corrects, and Mickey smiles.
“Yeah,” he breathes out, pressing a kiss to Ian’s sternum.
“Yeah, we really are.”
#hope this counts!#I couldn't let go of the idea that teenage girls everywhere would find their story ridiculously romantic#and defend it to the death lol#daily speedwrite#gallavich#ian gallagher#mickey milkovich#franny gallagher#fanfic
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Arcadia, Chapter 3
Thanks to everyone who followed along! Things are heating up with this chapter! Most of the referenced triggers from chapter 1 apply in this chapter specifically. Here's the link to chapter 2, if you're just seeing this now :)
Thanks again to @secretkeeper13, @accio-broom, @remedialpotions, @jamezbot, @jenoramaca, @not-steve42, @ginisbetterthanfirewhiskey... god, I'm forgetting people, and I'm sorry! But you're all amazing <3
___________________________
D A Y + T H R E E
As fate would have it, Ginny wakes before 0-700.
Not that she sleeps.
Nightmares, the likes of which she hasn’t experienced in years, torment her throughout the night. They leave her scared. Miserable. Guilty. Around 3 AM, she finally reaches for her Dreamless Sleep potion with shaking hands. For more reasons than one, she’s pleased that Harry’s slept on the couch.
She knows now just how stupid this entire mission truly was. The longer she analyzes it, the more she accepts that her bloody pride got her here in the first place. A chance for a promotion, however small, gave her false confidence in her ability to disregard a decade of sexual tension, all while trapped in close quarters with the person she wants the most.
She hopes Harry makes himself sparse today, though she knows that sounds cruel. But the longer they spend together, the clearer it becomes they’re on the cusp of something… and not something that would look good on a performance review. He’s been kind and understanding so far, even when she’s fucked things up. She just hopes she can ignore the most human parts of herself until they’ve dealt with this.
So at half-past 8, Ginny — Jenny — emerges from the house in a bright floral sundress and nude pumps. Were it not for the secret weapon clutched in her right fist, she might have fit in quite well... but Jenny has no intention of fitting in. Not anymore. In three confident strides, she marches across the front lawn, bends down, and spears the prongs of a lurid pink flamingo into the grass.
Yes.
She grins and takes in her work. How ghastly against the backdrop of earth tones! How repugnant!
Ginny steals quick glimpses over each shoulder, only to be met with the eerie, blanketed silence that’s defined Arcadia since their arrival. No activity at all. Which means she’ll have no issue with the next bit…
She strides to the mailbox at the end of their driveway and gives it a sharp kick. The post slides out of alignment, leaving it askew. Perfect. She returns to the house with a bounce in her step. Living with the twins taught her a thing or two about how to infuriate complete strangers.
She just hopes it’ll be enough.
___________________________
As luck would have it, it is enough. Her efforts receive reward more quickly than she thought— more quickly than she’s been conditioned to expect.
Scarcely an hour passes before she finds the warning she needs. And to be honest, it could’ve been there sooner; she just figured she’d give it that long before she checked.
Still, it’s not even 10 AM when she opens the door and sees it on their welcome mat: a folded paper with Pee-tri scrolled on the front. She can’t help but admire the sheer cheek as she unfolds it; this is the closest they’ll get to a public call-out for the way Harry insists on correcting everyone’s pronunciation. The message inside doesn’t surprise her, either.
Be like the others before dark. Or else.
Ginny glimpses out at the lawn, just to confirm— and yes. Sure enough. Just as she’d suspected, the flamingo's gone. The mailbox is straight. Everything’s back to normal.
She kicks the door closed with a smirk and wonders if they’re aware of how easily they’ve exposed themselves. How—
“What’ve you got there?” Harry calls from the sofa in the living room. He looks up from his laptop with bleary, dark-rimmed eyes. A wave of guilt washes through her; that sofa clearly didn’t get more comfortable overnight. Not that he would’ve accepted the alternative.
“Erm. A letter.” She waves in front of her and walks into the living room. “I’ve done a great job annoying them!”
He offers a gentle smile. “Any chance you’ll let me know who this ‘them’ is that you’re so worried about?”
Ginny rolls her eyes and settles on the other end of the couch. “You know I can’t—”
“Talk about your work,” Harry finishes, turning back to his computer. “Right.”
“Mm. Not exactly that I can’t… talk about my work,” she ventures, putting her feet up on the white ottoman. “More like I can’t give information until it’s essential knowledge for all parties involved. Based on criteria that I also can’t share.”
“Sounds like a fun job,” Harry deadpans, still looking at the computer. “But anyway, if I were to suggest something like… I don’t know…” He casually tilts the screen in her direction. “The fact that Oliver Skinner definitely has a criminal record, and maybe that’s worth looking into. You couldn’t confirm or deny that?”
Ginny just shrugs. “That’s correct. I can neither confirm nor deny.”
His theory is wrong, of course. Dead wrong.
They wouldn’t have sent an Unspeakable and an Auror into the country if this were a simple Muggle murderer. Harry would be able to suss this out, she reckons, if he had more sleep. Poor bloke.
He groans and cracks his back. “I’m starting to understand why King’s always so frustrated.”
“Probably because he has to deal with you all the time,” Ginny quips, reaching for a magazine on the floor. Ugh. Of course, it’s only the TV guide, Radio Times. They don’t even have a TV, but it came with the Daily Mail on Sunday.
Harry reaches for a glass of water on the coffee table. “Fine,” he relents, in between sips. “I’ll stay in my lane. But if I get bored, I’ll get tetchy.” He gestures to the computer. “And since they’ve given us this laptop, I’ve had time to do a bit of—”
“They’ve given me a laptop,” Ginny corrects, arching a brow. “As you’re well aware, Auror Potter, that is technically the property of the DoM.” She returns to the guide with a shrug. “I just don’t care if you use it, mostly because I don’t expect you’ll be looking up tits all day.”
He chokes on his water; Ginny just laughs and turns the page. Ooh, lovely! Eurovision looks particularly flamboyant this year…
“You’re absolutely right,” Harry says, once he recovers. “I’d never look up tits on government property!” He looks affronted as he hands over the laptop, but she knows he’s not done... not when he’s set that up so perfectly. Annnnd sure enough…
“You of all people should know I'm an arse-man, Ginny.”
Now it’s her turn for an unattractive snort as he winks over his shoulder and marches upstairs.
When he’s gone, Ginny rolls her eyes and opens her laptop. He’s an incredible liar on the arse-man front, but it was a good joke. A simple joke…. one that didn’t deserve looking into.
It’s just unfortunate that can’t stop these stupid fucking butterflies from erupting in her stomach like she’s ten years old again.
___________________________
He launches into the air again, the gardens of his neighbors spanning out in front of him. Each perfectly manicured. Each disturbing in its performative precision. None of this is real; none of this is life.
He pulled out the trampoline after dinner, when Ginny okayed it. He’s not used to that— checking before he does things. This whole exercise has been a great reminder that his teamwork skills are rusty, especially when he’s in a subordinate role. Ron left after their first year to work in the magic shop instead, which only made sense after… yeah. Harry draws a deep breath and jumps again. Ron and Hermione haven’t been problem-solving in his head for ages. There’s been no one to share the burden of choices or—
“OI!” Oliver’s voice thunders across the garden.
Harry smiles and takes another huge leap into the air. Just in time…
He rips open the fence door and stomps over, hands balled into fists. Harry’s never seen anyone look quite so furious while dressed in cashmere. And standing beside a trampoline.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Oliver hisses, eyes narrowed to slits. “Are you trying to make enemies, Henry? Is this entire estate a bloody joke to you?”
“Of course not!” Harry lands on his bum before he jumps up again. “This is very serious!”
“Oliver!” Sharon wails, hurrying over. “Oliver. Please! This really—”
“Keep your nose where it belongs, woman,” Oliver snarls, looking at her like she’s scum on his shoe. “No one wants your opinion!”
Sharon flinches… and this, more than anything else, gets Harry’s back up. “No need to take it out on her!” he snaps, climbing down from the trampoline. “Talk to me if you’ve got a problem, Ollie. Why not—”
But just as Harry’s feet touch the grass, something very weird happens: A dull buzzing fills his ears. Sharon and Oliver hear it too, but unlike Harry, they aren’t looking around in bewildered confusion. In a flash, the rage on Oliver’s face transforms into something much different: fear. And as the pressure grows, Harry can only watch as Oliver grabs Sharon’s hand, yanking her from the garden, when—
An unmistakable sound replaces the buzzing. A large piece of glass from somewhere in the front of the house shatters on the pavement. And with that, the buzzing stops.
Birds chirp again. Someone laughs in the distance. Harry jabs a finger in his ear, trying to clear it, but it seems Oliver’s returned to his furious state. He lunges towards Harry, a vein ticking in his neck, his hands outstretched as if to push him over— but Harry doesn’t have time for this. He’s already running around him, bolting towards the source of the sound, his hand inching for his pocket…
Because whatever they’ve got going on isn’t related to Oliver, is it? No… definitely not. That buzzing was too creepy to be muggle. Harry hadn’t really been convinced of the Oliver theory in the first place, even if the wanker has a criminal record for drunk driving. He mostly suggested it to Ginny to see if she’d give him any information.
Harry spots the broken glass the second he reaches the pavement. The lamppost right outside their house has shattered, light bulb and all. Bits of glass sparkle on the street, but the lamppost is at least 10 feet high. Harry scans around for signs of a ladder, or some form of a projectile… any method someone might’ve used to— oh! A baseball rolls around in one of the open garages across the street. He’s about to march over and collect it when his conscience stops him.
Because that’s the definition of circumstantial evidence, isn’t it? Harry sighs, rubbing his forehead. Snatching the baseball while working alone is one thing, but it’s not worth risking Ginny’s job. Especially because he reckons these thoroughly unmemorable homes are each equipped with monitoring systems. At absolute best, that would be… awkward to explain to the muggle police, especially without an obvious connection between the ball and the shattered lamppost...
Harry’s just about to turn back inside and write it off a freak occurrence when—
Shit.
His breath freezes in his throat.
What the...
He blinks a few times to make sure he’s not imagining it, but no...
There’s no weird buzzing this time… but something else is happening instead. The grass on the far side of their yard is bulging and curling, right in front of his eyes. The soil creaks as this… this mass — a huge sphere of some sort — passes through; bits of dirt fly into the air before settling back.
Harry’s veins turn to ice, his stomach churning. Work has introduced him to new, vile varieties of ghouls and nasties. He’s been bitten by a leprechaun. Stalked by a vampire. He’s encountered every disturbing otherworldly menace that one could imagine.
But he’s never seen anything like this.
His only solace is that it’s headed towards Mike’s empty house… this massive, rolling boulder that travels beneath the soil. ‘Boulder’ isn’t exactly the right term, though; he’s never seen a boulder move with a slinking, predatory grace. He’s never gotten gooseflesh from a rock, no matter how large.
And try as he might, he can only stand there, wide-eyed, his heart racing. Because now he knows for sure what Ginny only alluded to before: whatever they’re chasing isn’t human.
And it’s aware of them.
___________________________
The door creaks open less than five minutes after the glass shatters, but Ginny’s prepared.
She’s standing in the alcove just off the entryway, wand in one hand, fire poker in the other. It’s probably not the best strategy she’s ever had— but she reckons that if a Muggle were to catch sight of an altercation, it would be an easy memory supplantation. Wands and fire pokers don’t look that dissimilar, and—
“Ginny?” Harry calls. Directly into her ear.
Shit! She jumps into the air, the poker clattering to the ground.
“When did you learn to move like a cat?” she demands, turning to face him. “You nearly—”
“We need to talk,” he says brusquely. It’s only then that she takes in his wide, haunted eyes. His white pallor. The way he hasn’t even commented on the ridiculousness of her fire poker.
Oh.
He’s scared.
Scared in a way she hasn’t seen him in ages. Maybe ever. Which means he heard…? Shit. She’d might as well ask.
“What do you erm…” She toys with her wand handle. “Want to talk about?”
Harry heaves a tired sigh. “I’m only going to ask you this once,” he says flatly, rubbing his hand over his forehead. Then he blinks up at her, his eyes pulsing and stern. “What the fuck was that?”
“The… shattered lamppost?” she hedges. “I’ve no idea. I just—”
Apparently, that was the wrong response.
Harry groans. “You know damn well I don’t mean the bloody lamppost!” he snarls. “I mean that… that thing! First the weird buzzing, then whatever moved through the grass! It was like some creepy worm, or—”
“—not a worm,” she amends, staring at her cuticles.
This, too, was the wrong reply; she’s never seen him go from bewildered to enraged quite so fast.
Harry lets out a furious roar and kicks at an empty box. “This is why Unspeakables are so fucking annoying!” he shouts, tossing his hands in the air. “You never fucking say anything — even if it might help someone!”
Pfft! He can do better than that...
“Not sure what you expected,” she deadpans. “Would it help if I were a Speakable instead?”
Harry rolls his eyes and throws himself on the couch. Ginny just leans against the door… and waits. She can’t say she blames him for being angry. It’s probably made him feel vulnerable in ways he hasn’t in ages.
“The least you can bloody do,” Harry says, cutting into her thoughts, “is to let me know how to kill it.” He glimpses up at her, his chest still heaving. “Because if anything happened to you….” His hand curls around his wand, his voice dropping to a near-whisper. “We both know I’d never forgive myself.”
Fuck.
Her heart clenches; as embarrassing as it is, tears sting the backs of her eyes. She wasn’t expecting that… but it makes perfect sense. He’s not angry because he’s vulnerable; he’s angry because he doesn’t know how to protect her.
Because he’s Harry.
Her Harry.
And try as she might, she can’t deny that. He’s hers… even though now he’s broken and angry and scared and alone. Which is probably why she loves the fucking fuck out of him.
No.
She stops herself, squeezing her eyes shut. Mission. Mission. They’re on a mission.
Right. She clears her throat and steps forward, two papers clutched in her hand.
“What’s that?” Harry grumbles as she hands them over. He scans the pages, brow furrowing. “Sugar… engine oil. Red Dye 40. What am I supposed to do with—?”
Ginny smiles and tries to make this easy. “It’s the report from the necklace. The thing that was on Mike’s medallion… it’s rubbish. Not blood, not some ghost slime. It’s just a weird mixture of types of rubbish.”
She should’ve figured he wouldn’t find this significant.
“What a brilliant scientific discovery.” Harry tosses the paper to the side. “Hermione would be thrilled.”
Ginny gnaws at her cheek, choosing her words carefully… but if he’s already seen it, if he’s already heard it, surely there’s no harm...
Harry rises to his feet and takes a step closer until he’s towering over her, all warm and brooding. They aren’t touching… not exactly. He’s just hovering close enough to give her strength, whether he knows it or not. When she finally gets the nerve to look up at him, his green eyes are swirling with more pain than rage. Truth be told, she prefers the rage. “I deserve to know,” he says thickly, like he’s suppressing something in his throat, “what the fuck is going on.”
Ginny breaks their eye contact. Some of this she hasn’t even shared with Attica yet. She’s violating about a million protocols by telling Harry first, but if they’re together on a mission…
“It’s… not what we thought. Not what I thought,” she admits softly, after a moment. “We came out here under the assumption of chasing something from the Thought Chamber. Something that erm… may have escaped. During a routine experiment.”
He’s not impressed, though. “Yeah,” he says, arching a brow. “I gathered all of that from your intro with the camera, thanks. Do you ever plan on telling me anything new?” He jerks his chin towards the window. “Because you’ve sure as hell never mentioned Evil Grass Monster Experiment #6, and that may have been helpful to fucking know before I saw it.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake!
His attitude is more infuriating than his actual words, but she lacks the patience for dealing with either. The bloody nerve, to act all impatient with information that’s kept secret for a reason...
“I don’t have to tell you shit, actually,” she says, crossing her arms over her chest. “And in case you’re unaware, I can protect myself.”
Harry pulls back with a laugh, but this one is cruel. Dark. The sort she’s never heard from him before. “Makes sense,” he says with a fake grin. Then he taps her on the nose. “Because when that thing outside inevitably kills someone else, we all know how well you’ll manage the guilt.”
Ouch.
She reels back, stung. He’s got to know that’s a low blow. Younger Ginny would have Bat Bogeyed him into oblivion, but she’s better now. She’s changed.
At least that’s what she tells herself as she glares at him, her hands fisted so tightly they turn white. “Say what you mean,” she manages several moments later, when rage isn’t clawing at her chest. “If you’d like to rehash our breakup, Auror Potter, I’m all ears!” She gives her best impression of an icy smirk. “This isn’t exactly professional… but then again, when have you ever been?”
Harry looks like he’s going to respond, but a loud vibration starts in his back pocket. “Fuck!” Now it’s his turn to leap into the air before he realizes it’s just his wand. And really, she’s tempted to laugh— but the look on his face helps her put the pieces together.
Because if his wand’s vibrating, that means it’s an emergency; only department heads can summon their employees like that. They’re the only ones with access to that sort of technology, not that she’s really interested either way.
“It’s King,” he mutters. She’s about to get on him for stating the obvious, but when he peers at her again, his face is filled with such timid yearning that she can only see the 11-year-old boy on the train platform. “Can I…erm. Use your mobile?”
Fine. Ginny nods towards the bedroom, her head still spinning. She’s still a bit angry with him, but he’s so fucking broken. They both are. And besides, they’ve got bigger problems. What could possibly have King so worried that he’d call Harry from a mission? The man is unflappable.
Harry returns a minute later, his face stony, jaw set. In another life, she might’ve seen the bulge in his pocket and asked if that’s just her mobile, or if he’s happy to see her.
Instead, she tucks her hair behind her ears like the seasoned professional she is. “There’s no reception inside,” she points out. “I’ve had luck calling Attica from up the street, right at the corner. Just watch out for…”
Harry smirks. “Grass monsters?”
Ginny draws a breath to consider her options. She could keep him in the dark forever, but isn’t that the whole point of this assignment? To learn? It’s time for the truth, she reckons...
“It’s erm. It’s called a tulpa, actually.”
His eyes light up at this. “A tulpa?”
Ginny shifts her weight and searches for the right words. “It’s a… it’s sort of like an evil imaginary friend, created by a group of people to do their bidding,” she explains, reaching for the discarded papers. “They come from the material of whatever’s underground. I’ve only heard of creatures made from clay or water, but since this village was built on a rubbish tip”— she flicks the papers with her fingers— “that’s our guy!”
She can almost see the gears spinning in Harry’s head as he studies the far wall. “So…” he says slowly, still peering off, “it’s basically an evil dump monster, made of rubbish, that can murder people.”
A laugh slips past her lips. It sounds a bit dumb when he puts it that way. She clears her throat and continues. “I was wrong because it’s not something that’s escaped, more like something that’s—”
“Formed,” Harry finishes quickly. For the first time all week, he sounds intrigued. Like he’s happy to be here. “So… they’ve made it to keep order, then?”
“It would seem so.” She shrugs. “I… honestly don’t know. But between the weird buzzing and the rubbish, it’s the closest match we’ve got. According to the system database, anyway.”
There’s another pause as Harry mulls this over. “So, how do we get rid of it, then?”
How fucked up is it that her heart warms at the way he says ‘we’?
Ginny brushes that aside. “Considering the mask in Gogolak’s house and the way they’ve made a point to tell us he’s in charge, I’d say he’s the one we need to get rid of.”
Harry crosses his arms over his chest but doesn’t object.
“Or at least… knock him totally unconscious,” she adds, swallowing; Gogolak’s a wanker, but she’d rather not kill him, either. “Beyond just being asleep. Because he sleeps at night, but the tulpa’s still here, which means he needs to be down for the count. Comatose, even.”
Harry’s wand buzzes again. Ah, shit; in all the hubbub, she’d forgotten about that.
Concern floods Harry’s face. “Give me five minutes.” He blinks. “Ok?”
She waves towards the door. “Duty calls.”
He gives her a weak smile and turns away; she begins the trek upstairs to send Attica an email update.
“Ginny?”
She stops to look down at him. Harry’s paused, halfway out the door. “Thank you,” he says softly, meeting her eyes. “And… I’m sorry. For everything. Ok? I’ll always, erm…”
But she can’t right now. She actually fucking can’t.
“Later,” she whispers, nearly begging. “Please. Let’s do this later.”
Because of course she loves him.
She’s always fucking loved him, even though that’s changed forms. It’s shifted. It’s evolved. He feels the same way… she knows he’s bloody feels the same way. She just doesn’t have the resources to deal with whatever this fuck is reigniting, right in front of her eyes, as the tulpa dances in the back of her head.
Luckily, he understands. Harry just swallows again, nods at her, and heads out into the night.
___________________________
As it would turn out, he was wrong about the identity of the summoner.
“Great news!” Hermione announces on the other end of the mobile. “MLE found Yaxley. He was hiding in a cave in Romania, just like you said.”
Harry snorts; he wishes that gave him more pride. “Well, if you’d listened to me months ago, then—”
“The important part is that we have him,” Hermione says, cutting across. “We need you back ASAP to prep for witness questioning. You’ll take the stand, of course. The trial’s set to start next week!”
He can practically hear her bouncing with excitement. Very little brings her more joy than trials of former Death Eaters.
“Erm… about that.” Harry rubs the back of his neck. “We’re actually right on the cusp of something here. I’m gonna need a couple more days to wrap things up.”
“Really?” Hermione sounds surprised. “Kingsley and Robards said you’d be pleased. Said you found this mission as useless as they did.”
Fuck, he was such an arse.
“Well, things… changed,” he offers lamely. “It’s going really well. This mission is so important to her. I’d just hate to leave at the last minute.”
“Ohhh?” Hermione draws out the word in a way that suggests she finds herself quite clever. Even before she asks, he knows what she’s on about. “How’s it going with Ginny, then?”
Harry rolls his eyes. Her coy prodding is obvious, even over the phone.
“As I already said, it’s going well,” he replies flatly. “We’re a great team. Always have been.”
But she can’t let him have that one, can she?
“Well… not always,” Hermione allows. “After Percy—”
Harry groans. For fuck’s sake, what’s her obsession with stating the obvious? “Yeah, well,” he retorts, “I’d like to know who you think did well after that, especially since…”
He trails off with a sigh.
Especially since what, exactly?
He toys with the fraying ends of his hoodie string.
Especially since Ginny was the last to speak with Percy? That she still carries the weight of the guilt for what she said that night? That she’s never admitted it, but that he suspects her choice to become an Unspeakable was influenced by the things she wishes she could un-say?
Harry makes a face. That’s corny as fuck, isn’t it? What a thing to pull from his arse...
Hermione interrupts his thoughts for a bit of bragging. “Well, Ron and I have done just fine.”
He can almost imagine her staring at her engagement ring in dreamy affection. The mental image makes his reply sound more bitter than he intends.
“Well,” Harry snaps, “Ron wasn’t the last person to speak with Percy. So I’m not sure how you could compare the two, really.”
Shit.
The silence on the other end tells him he needs to apologize, even if it’s true. Fortunately, Hermione gives him an easy out. “Anyway.” She clears her throat. “I’ll give you until tomorrow night, but we really need you the following day. If you haven’t settled this, we’re swapping you out. Got it?”
Harry sighs. He’s exhausted, but this couldn’t possibly take much longer. Ginny’s more or less got the proof she needs now. They just need to confront Gogolak, knock him out, and—
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.
Harry cranes his neck towards the source of the noise. Huh… weird. Far up the street, flashing lights tip him off. That’s definitely Oliver’s Audi, the one parked in the driveway directly beside theirs. It’s in utopia blue with a metallic finish, a detail Oliver probably mentioned at least fifty times the other night. Then, while Sharon and Ginny were out walking the dog, Oliver began a mind-numbing lecture on the car’s exact miles per liter. Harry was a bit drunk, which is probably why he interrupted to ask a much more important maths question: How many blow jobs per week is too many, exactly?
Even from a distance, Harry can tell that Oliver’s nearly the same shade of murderous red now; he storms from the house and turns off the alarm with his key fob. But then he pauses, glancing around like something’s spooked him. He must decide it’s not that significant, though, because he huffs back inside soon enough. Fucking wanker...
“....Harry?”
“Sorry!” Harry shakes his head. “Yeah, sorry, that works. See you then, Hermione.”
“Can’t wait!” she trills. He doesn’t need to see her face to know she’s smug and grinning.
___________________________
Two minutes after Harry leaves, Ginny feels it again: that same sensation she experienced while walking Captain Bone.
She’s sitting at her laptop when it starts… this deeply unsettling shift. It stands the hair up on the back of her neck. She rushes to the window on instinct, but just like before, everything outside looks the same. There’s no “moving grass monster,” as Harry called it. Not yet, at least.
Still, she can’t deny it’s growing louder. Getting stronger. And now that she’s felt it for a bit longer, she can put more words to it. It’s like she’s plummeting through the absence of sound; like all the wind’s been sucked from the air. It’s a building pressure, a mounting unease, and before she knows it, her whole body starts to shake.
Then two things happen in quick succession: that weird feeling stops, and a car alarm begins to blare in the distance.
Weird.
She shudders. This whole thing is so fucking weird. Weird is her job, and this place is still Very Fucking Weird. Seriously, who enjoys living here? She’s reaching for her wand, just in case, when the front door slams open.
In retrospect, it’s a blessing she knows Harry as well as she does… because she can tell that those heavy, clobbering footsteps don’t belong to him. She knows he’s not the one drawing deep, ragged breaths as he marches up the stairs.
She hides around the corner of the bedroom, her heart racing, and goes through a mental list of spells she might use. Shield charms. Enchantments. The buzzing’s stopped, so this probably isn’t the tulpa… but who else would be here? Gogolak? It sounds more human than—
“Jenny?” a deep, soothing voice asks. “Are you in here?”
Her breath freezes in her throat. She’s only heard that voice once before… but it’s so similar to her former life that she identifies it at once.
“Mike?” A wave of relief washes through her. She shoves her wand into her dress as she comes around the corner. Sure enough, there he is, in the flesh. Mike Snodgrass. A man she presumed dead days ago.
“Hi!” Mike pants. He cracks a smile. “I’d offer to shake your hand, but.” He winces, wiping a palm on his ripped khakis. “Been hiding!” Fuck. His whole outfit (yellow Polo, khakis) is the same he wore days ago to unload their boxes, except now it’s filthy. Stained. Like he’s been living beneath cars and inside drains. He’s just missing his Saint Julian medallion, which she’s sent to the Ministry.
Ginny feels sick. She wrote him off as dead so carelessly...
“I’ve been trying to take it down,” he adds earnestly, peering at her. His cheeks are caked in something red and grimy, the same stuff she stuffed into her bra. He’s been tailing the tulpa, she realizes, her stomach plummeting…
Except he’s got no clue what he’s doing.
“I was about to leave the development, to just run away, but that’s when I figured out it was coming for you two!” He shudders, closing his eyes. It feels like he’s been waiting a long, long time to say this. “And I’ve been aimless without Jess in the first place. So what was the point in leaving, really, if I could save…?”
He trails off, clearing his throat; when he looks up at her again, there’s a flash of annoyance in his eyes. “I’ve been leaving clues, though! Why didn’t you listen?”
“Clues?” Ginny sounds like she’s a million miles away.
Mike’s nearly pleading now. “You had to go and kick the mailbox and stick the flamingo in the grass, didn’t you?” He raises his pointer finger. “And even though I left you a note, you had to make it even worse! It only attacks when the sun goes down, see.”
“You… you left the note?” she whispers. She was so certain that it was from Gogolak...
But Mike proceeds in such a rush it’s clear he hasn’t heard her. “It was about to get Henry by the trampoline, so I threw the baseball as a diversion. I broke the lamppost, too— which worked. For a second,” he adds hastily, glancing over his shoulder.
“How did you also set off the car alarm— oh.” Her head’s still spinning. “Buddy system. Right.”
Mike dangles a keyfob. “Covenant rules. Stole the spare off Jane.” He glances into the hall again before whipping back to face her. “It’ll need a sacrifice tonight, though,” he adds grimly. “And every night, until you all have perfect behavior. It was coming for you earlier, see. We aren’t meant to be outdoors after dark without a permit for dog-walking, so.” He shrugs. “If there’s an unapproved disruption like a car alarm, it knows just where to hunt.”
It’s then that the final pieces of this dreadful puzzle slide together in her brain. “Captain Bone,” Ginny breathes; she swears a feather could knock her over. “He was the first since we arrived. Punishment for us sticking out.”
“I couldn’t save him,” Mike laments. “It came up and snatched him. So I threw in my medallion, right after his collar, just to make them think I was already gone.”
“That’s… that was brilliant,” she admits, biting her lip. “Thank you. You didn’t have—”
“Nah,” he says firmly. “I did. For starters, you remind me so much of…” He stops mid-sentence, an odd expression on his face.
For a second, she thinks he’s being sentimental, but then she feels it too.
Shit.
The hairs on her arm stand up. It’s back… that weird way she felt before. Like the air’s sucked from the room. That creeping, clawing silence. This time, though, it only gets louder, louder, louder, until she’s throwing her hands over her ears, all hope of self-defense forgotten.
But Mike knows what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing. She doesn’t have the chance to object or get her wand before he’s ripping open the closet door and throwing her inside. Ginny opens her mouth in a startled cry, but it’s like she’s screaming underwater, the sound distant and distorted. Mike slams the door closed with her inside and stomps to the center of the room— but now the thundering, roaring wind is causing her physical pain… it’s so loud now that it reverberates in her chest, so loud that her hands shake as she reaches for her wand at long last, but fuck fuck fuck, it’s too late…
It’s too fucking late.
Because Mike’s made a choice. One he can’t take back. He just stands in the middle of the room, puffing out his chest, offering himself as the proud sacrifice, even as the noise grows so loud that Ginny screams her throat raw.
She feels it enter the bedroom, this looming, shifting mass— but by then, she’s certain her ears are bleeding, her eardrums bursting. Her whole body rattles and shakes as she peers through the slats in the closet door, but she’s frozen. Stuck. Miserable. She couldn’t cast a spell if she tried… even as the tulpa oozes into the room, lunges itself back, and swallows Mike with a sickening squelch.
Even though the slats of the door, Ginny’s sprayed with blood. Covered. And she’s dizzy now… so dizzy. A drop of blood trickles into her eye; she reaches up to wipe it from her face, and it’s only then that she hears her own screams again. They reverberate through the small space, anguished and pleading, so loud that she’s certain someone up the street could hear, but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t fucking care. She just screams over and over and over, her nails clawing at the walls, until the world slips away into darkness.
___________________________
Blood.
It’s the first thing he smells as he charges up the steps. His chest squeezes, his eyes water, his head pounds over and over again with one word: No.
No. No. No.
Not Ginny. It can’t be.
But almost as soon as he smells the blood, he hears her screaming, and yes! His heart soars. Screaming is good; screaming means she’s alive and breathing and—
Fuck.
His dinner rises in his throat as he steps into the bedroom. He smelled the blood from the steps, he hadn’t expected… this much. It always takes him aback, exactly how much blood is in one human body, and he’s certainly never seen it sprayed, all over the floor… covering the walls. Covering the closet, even, where Ginny’s still screaming.
He flings open the door, thinking he’s prepared for what he might see. Somehow, though, none of that measures up. Because he’s dealt with tears in his line of work… but he’s never, ever seen her so broken. His chest clenches when he takes her in. Her perfect suburban dress — the yellow floral one, the one he liked so much— is now red and grimy, caked in blood, as Ginny rocks back and forth on the floor, sobs wracking her body.
Blood’s covering her face, too, and her arms. Dried trails of it have crusted around her eyes, like she’s fallen asleep wiping them away… or perhaps lost consciousness. The thought is too terrible to bear. He kicks the door open completely and brings her into his arms in one fell swoop.
She melts against him, her voice raw and broken. “H-Harry!” she manages. “P-please! I need-I need!” She begins to shake, pressing her face to his chest.
“A shower,” he says firmly, stepping into the en-suite. “You… you just need a shower. Ok? And maybe some calming draught, I’ve got some in my luggage, and—”
“No!” she cries, shaking her head. Her eyes are wide and filled with horror. “Don’t… don’t leave. Don’t leave me, Harry, please!”
“I… ok,” he allows, carrying her to his luggage to retrieve the bottle. She clings to his neck as he reaches for it, but she weighs next to nothing. Fuck, she’s so thin… he’d just been too busy eyeing her up to realize exactly how thin. What a complete wanker.
It’s not difficult to unzip the suitcase with one hand and pass her the bottle. “Take this,” he urges, thrusting it into her hands. “Please, Ginny. You’ll feel—”
She’s already downed it before he gets to the end of the sentence. She tips her head back, drawing air into her lungs. “Thanks.” Her voice is still hoarse. Ragged.
“Shower, then,” he murmurs, walking her into the bathroom. He feels her start to relax against him, her body growing looser, as he opens the curtain and turns on the tap.
“Thanks,” she whispers again, her head tucked beneath his chin. His fingers itch with restraint; he’d do anything, he thinks, to hold her against him. To press a kiss to her temple. To tell her he loves her and that she’s beautiful and perfect and he’s sorry, so sorry, that any of this happened and—
She peers up at him, her eyes more focused now, less wide-eyed and horror-struck. “Would you stay here?” she asks, biting her lip. “While I shower? Just so I’m not—”
“‘Course.” Harry swallows, putting her on her feet. She lands with unintentional grace, one foot after the next.
“And can you… erm.” She turns her back to him, lifting her hair above her zipper. His hands shake as he reaches for the clasp. He knows the exact shape of her back as he slides it down, over the middle bump of her white bra strap. He nearly unstraps that for her, too, before he catches himself. It reeks of intimacy, doesn’t it? All of this…
His eyes linger on the soft swell of her bum before he turns around, self-disgust hammering in his throat.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” he adds feebly. He balls his hands into fists as her dress hits the floor… followed by her bra. And her knickers.
“Not your fault,” she croaks, stepping into the shower. He smiles, his glasses fogging up as he moves to sit on the closed toilet seat. Even covered in blood and traumatized, she can't bring herself to blame him.
She finishes several minutes later.
“Erm… towel?” She shuts the water off. “Could you?”
“Sure,” he soothes, thrusting one through the curtain. “D’you want me to leave, or…?”
Ginny manages a weak snort. “Nah. Nothing you haven’t seen before.”
He chuckles at the door as he turns around again. She’s right, of course; he knows every bloody inch of her… but it’s not quite the same now.
There’s a tap on his shoulder. He whips around to face her. Admittedly, she looks… better. The blood’s gone. Her eyes are still red-rimmed from sobbing, but she’s looking a bit less like a woman who witnessed a death. Which reminds him…
“Erm. Give me a second to get it all cleaned up?”
Ginny shudders and settles on the toilet seat; he immediately kicks himself for asking. “Yeah,” she says a moment later. “Just… come get me, ok? When you’re done?”
He nods.
___________________________
It can’t be later than 10 PM when he finally carries her to the bed, still wrapped in a towel.
He’s exhausted from the nights on the sofa, but he knows she’s worse off. He’s cleaned the bedroom fairly well, he thinks, considering. There’s a rust-colored stain above the closet that he reckons won’t go anywhere anytime soon. He just hopes she doesn’t see it.
He rests her on the duvet surface, fully prepared to head downstairs for the night— but the pleading look on her face informs him he’s got other plans, instead. So without sharing a single word, he spreads his palms, lies beside her, and waits.
It comes eventually, as he knew it would. One person can’t deal with all that, see all that, without eventually cracking. And as a fellow fucked-up individual, he would know.
It starts as simple tears, ones that he wipes away. It progresses into sobs… full-body sobs. The sort he heard coming up the stairs. He’s surprised she’s got any left, but Ginny’s always been the sort to keep him on his toes. And just as her water-dark hair starts to dry and sprout red tendrils, he faces the thing he expected least of all: a kiss.
She starts softly. Slowly. Her lips so tender and soft that he forgets everything. She moans against his mouth, her whole body leaning into it; he’s instantly reminded of how much he’s fucking missed her. How lonely he’s been. How could he have forgotten the tiny mewl she makes in the back of her throat as her tongue parts his lips? He must’ve blocked it out, he realizes, as she begins to slide her body against him, panting, as she tips her head back. His lips trail down her neck, nibbling and biting, as she grips his arms and hair and bum. Because if he’d remembered all of these little details, he’d have gone mad long ago.
He’s throbbing hard by the time he gets to the tail end of her towel, which brushes the tip of her thighs. He tries to adjust himself, to—
“You can take it out, you know.”
Oh. He blinks up at her, his breath freezing in his throat. She’s peering down at him, her lips red and swollen.
“I know you’re hard,” she adds, her voice still raw. “So if it’s uncomfortable… take it out.”
He arches a brow from his position at her thigh. He’s about to retort with something snappy. Something that might keep them bantering for ages. But Ginny has no patience.
“Please.” It’s nearly a command. She blinks down with glassy eyes, her lips swollen. “I want you, Harry.”
Fuck. He groans, rubbing his cock against his palm to relieve some of the pressure. It doesn’t help for long, not that it matters; he’d rather focus on her, anyway. So with a slip of his fingers, the towel opens. She releases a breathy moan, tipping her head back.
Naked.
She’s finally naked. In front of him. His breathing grows ragged, his eyes scanning the territory somehow both totally familiar and completely new. She is thinner; he was right. Her hip bones jut out now, her stomach more sunken. But most of her is the same. The smattering of freckles on her chest. The way her breasts have puckered and darkened, the way her chest is rising and falling so fast. The thatch of dark red hair at the apex of her thighs.
“Well,” she quips. He blinks up at her as she reclines on her elbow. “Are you going to fuck me, Harry, or just stare all day?”
With that, he removes his glasses and gives her a smirk— her only real warning— before he kisses her one more time, just as his fingers spread her thighs.
She opens beneath him with a breathy sigh. Fuck, she’s so wet… he groans into her mouth as he dips his fingers further and further down. She’s dripping by the time he finds her clit… by the time he begins to swirl in tight circles. Clockwise. The pattern that screams of such intimate familiarity that it’s as if the years never passed.
He’s scarcely done anything, but she’s already writhing against his fingers, arching her back. “Please,” she slurs after a minute, “put them in.”
He’s never been one to deny her, has he?
It’s like muscle memory how quickly he finds his face between her thighs instead. He spares a moment of self-indulgence as he closes his eyes, breathing her in. She smells like home. She always has. It’s comfort… but more than that, it’s proof. Proof she wants him as much as he wants her. It’s why he stuffed his face in her knickers whenever he got a spare moment on the Horcrux hunt: one hand on that black lace, the other pulling at his cock. It’s bloody erotic, seeing proof of how much she wants him… but it’s more than that.
It’s love.
And despite all the things he’s forgotten tonight, he’d never forget this. He presses two fingers inside her, his hands shaking, and lets his body do the rest. Fuck, he’s missed this. She cries out above him, her hands grasping at his hair, tugging him closer. He’s never forgotten this… the way she tastes. The way she smells. The right way to run his tongue against her clit. Exactly how many fingers she needs, pressed against her just there… crooked in a certain position… just as she begins to thrust herself up and down on them, her cries growing louder, more insistent… and yesssss, there it is, she’s right there, right fucking there—
“Harry!” Her hair rubs against the pillow with abandon. “I’m… I’m so close,” she pants, her body starting to shake.
“Come for me,” he commands, his cock fit to burst, his face slippery. “Come for me, Ginny.”
He returns to her clit for a split-second before she says the words that change everything.
Her whole body tenses, a blush spreading up her chest. “I love you!” she cries, her voice strangled… and with that, she’s coming, clenching around him, her body shaking as he rides her through it.
What he doesn’t tell her is that he comes, too. The second those words wash over him. Those fucking words that prove he’s fucked up, fucked up, fucked up… but he can’t exactly help that, can he?
He just shoves his face into the duvet, thrusting his hips once, twice, and with a grunt, he’s off. His cock tightens and bursts, filling his boxers. Soaking through his jeans. He pulls back, dizzy, when the clenching finally stops.
Luckily, she seems too distracted to notice. Ginny’s half-asleep as he rises from between her thighs, pulling the blanket over her. He presses a kiss to her temple and makes quick work of removing his soggy clothes. Fairly embarrassing, this. Like he’s 16 again and rutting on the lawn.
He mutters a quick cleaning charm and changes into basketball shorts before settling down beside her in bed… making sure he’s on top of the duvet.
But as he drifts off, there’s something far less sentimental that hammers through his chest: They need to get their shit sorted.
Before he ever, ever lets that happen again.
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Bright We Burn ending rant (SPOILERS)
Under the cut you will find my opinion with lots of spoilers, capitals and cursing about Bright We Burn (and the Conqueror’s saga in general) written by Kiersten White.
Quoting from https://booksandreaderssite.wordpress.com/2018/10/13/bright-we-burn/ “This book was ruined by the author falling in love with her own character: Perfect Beloved Radu“
I finished reading the book like an hour ago and I’ve been complaining, crying, and looking for reviews since then. I hate it, hate it so much, as much as I loved the first two books and the beginning of this one.
The impression I get from the ending is not one I expected to get from a book that had a strong female protagonist as its main selling point. Mainly because said protagonist gets the worst possible ending. I didn’t expect a happy go lucky ending, I didn’t even expect her not to die or the author to stray too far from historical facts. Just because of the title I expected her to be like a shooting star, briefly burning bright. But she didn’t burn bright, she just burn. What I didn’t expect was the ending feeling completely alien to the rest of the saga.
Lada is ruthless, strong, smart, a great tactician and has her sights focused on her goal, being the prince of Wallachia. And fuck Mehmed, Radu, her father, and whoever tries to prevent her from ruling her country. She gets the respect of her men and the people of her country, she’s a good and fair ruler even if she got there with rather bloody methods. But haven’t they all? The Ottoman Empire Mehmed and Radu are so fond of is built on the blood of the janissaries they have taken from vassal states and the blood of the Christians from Constantinople. Yet the moment Lada kills the boyars (who have been leeching off Wallachia for decades) and Mehmed’s envoys (who burnt a village first), she must be stopped. How dare a woman make life easier for the people of the country?
And for some reason, the author allows two men to ruin what Lada has built with blood, sweat and tears. And to add insult to injury, the men who should have helped her (Mehmed even claims “he gave her the throne” as the selfish and self-centered asshole he is).
And she loses everything and everyone who is important to her. Petru, Nicolae, Oana, Stefan, Daciana, and Bogdan. Oh, Bogdan. How I wished Radu lost an eye to compensate for his murder.
And in case that was not enough, the dragon that was so strong and fierce suddenly turns into a girl that is lonely and hurt and needs her brother to survive and give her back her country. The country that never recognised Radu as prince. The country that loved Lada.
HE FUCKING HAD TO GIVE HER WHAT WAS ALREADY HERS. A MAN. AGAIN. HE FUCKING TOOK THE THRONE FROM HER AND FUCKING GAVE IT BACK AS IF HE WAS A DAMN SAINT. ALL SHE DID AND IN THE END SHE WAS PRINCE BECAUSE A FUCKING MAN ALLOWED IT. HOW IS THAT FEMINIST??????????? WHAT IS THE USE IN HAVING SUCH A POWERFUL FEMALE CHARACTER IF THE FULFILLMENT OF HER DREAM DEPENDS ON THE WHIM OF A MALE EVEN AT THE VERY END?
AND HE EVEN GETS AN “I TOLD YOU” MOMENT!!! THE AUDACITY!!!
And her death... such a warrior, killed by a nameless assassin with a knife to the back. A nameless grave. So disrespectful to what Lada was. I don’t care if all the things I didn’t like were for historical accuracy’s sake. Lada was her character and deserved way better than that.
Moving on to the treacherous rat that Radu has become, I liked him so much and in this book I could only pray for someone to smack him as hard as possible. He goes from the poor and traumatised soul that is being manipulated by Mehmed and has lost his best friend and potential partner to enabling Mehmed’s actions while being fully conscious of how he’s being used, instantly healing himself from a trauma that is not relevant ever again, not giving a damn about killing people, sending Kumal to his death without sparing it too many thoughts, and having a cute little happy family while wanting to imprison his sister for the rest of her life and thinking he’s doing her a favor. He actually thought it was good and fair to plan a happy life for himself while destroying everything his sister had fought for. The sister he never ever chose.
Am I the only one who loved that the Danesti brothers started being problematic as soon as Radu gave them the throne?? Boyars will be boyars, and I don’t understand how he thought those two would be better rulers than Lada, they wouldn’t enter the castle and still wanted the money, the lands and the fancy stuff.
I honestly cannot believe how much this character has changed (for the worse), and how he acts like he’s so good and only looking for the best for those he loves when he’s a traitor, a liar, a killer and the reason why Constantinople fell. He cannot forgive Lada for protecting Wallachia, but apparently everyone and their mother have forgiven and forgotten all the blood staining his hands. Also I find it unbelievable how he sells the way the Ottoman Empire is run to Cyprian but then when Lada tried to use some of the things she had learnt there to run Wallachia it was suddenly the worse thing ever. Radu is definitely not the good Dracul sibling, he’s the toxic one.
Speaking about Cyprian, I honestly couldn’t feel happy for them. When he came back to Radu I was already too angry and wanting to send him packing back to Edirne. Amazing how Cyprian can give counsel about how to deal with Lada when all he knows about her is second-hand but he can forgive Radu for lying to him, making the siege worse for everyone, being the reason why his uncle is dead and his city was lost (and even if he doesn’t know about it, the reason why Giustiniani may have died).
And Fatima?? How she “took care” of Lada at the end? I can’t tell if she’s too broken or what, but it was creepy how she could take care of Lada when Nazira wouldn’t even stand being in the same room. Even if she was going to give them her baby, it makes me wonder how messed up she can be to be able to behave that way with the person who killed her brother-in-law and they were so adamant to condemn.
I won’t even talk about the baby thing because that was just so unnecessary for the plot and for Lada herself as a character.
Going back to Radu and before talking about Mehmed, I hate how he is 100% sure that Mehmed knows about his feelings and is using him and said feelings and he??? just??? allows??? it???? Still does whatever he wants, still appears at his doorstep no matter his trauma with Constantinople, still makes Nazira and Fatima leave their house though they had just been reunited and Mehmed didn’t care that much about finding Nazira and STILL at the end, 20 years later is in good terms with him. He didn’t confront Mehmed about using him, never called him out. Radu is the friend who will listen to you when you’re explaining how a common friend has abused you and then will keep being friends with the other person and abandoning you :D
I am not Mehmed’s biggest fan, but it’s like he isn’t even a character anymore in this book. Even if we never have his pov it always felt like this story was a triangle, but at the end it was like he wasn’t there anymore, he isn’t even the source of conflict because Radu isn’t in love with him anymore. Even for all their alleged worries about Theodora being Mehmed’s biological daughter, that issue was glossed over in a matter of three lines. I do wish he had stayed more relevant (and that he had never left Constantinople).
Surely I’m forgetting something but I think my point is clear XD Radu is a hypocrite who didn’t deserve his happy ending, Mehmed became so irrelevant that the plot was missing something, and Lada, our dragon, deserved way better. Oh, and don’t write a “feminist” YA book if the female character is the one who’s going to have the worst ending. It just feels like you’re telling women they will end up alone and dead if they are as strong and determined as Lada, and to suck it up because men will always be forgiven for the crimes.
#the conqueror's saga#and i darken#now i rise#bright we burn#lada dracul#radu dracul#mehmed#kiersten white#spoilers#book rant
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hi molly! if it's not too late for the prompts how about “I…I can’t do this without you.” for malum? xx
hi taylor! 💜 can you believe this is the only non-cake/muke prompt i got? (you probably can; given your brand as leader of the rights-for-malum squad and my brand as cake/muke trash.) in any case, i had fun doing something a little different; hope you like it!
words: 1880
tw: none
on ao3 here.
Michael has always loved bubble wrap. He likes the satisfying snap of popping one bubble at a time between his fingers, and the staccato crack of stomping on it full-force with his foot. He’s not sure he’ll be able to appreciate bubble wrap the same way ever again after today.
All of Calum’s things are covered in it. His coffee mugs, including the personalized Spider-Man mug Michael had given him all the way back in middle school. His picture frames, including the one with the photo of Calum and Michael with their arms slung over each other’s shoulders in front of the air hockey table at the arcade where they held their joint high school graduation party.
And now, his television, which isn’t inherently nostalgic, but as Michael winds another layer of bubble wrap around it, he can’t help but think about all the weekend afternoons they spent playing videogames or watching Netflix on this television, sharing snacks and laughter and sometimes just companionable silence.
No one will ever get Michael quite like Calum does, and now Calum is leaving.
“Two layers enough, you think, or should I do another?” he asks, looking across the room at Calum, who’s screwing the feet off his battered blue ottoman.
“One more,” Calum advises. “It’s got a long journey.”
As if Michael needs the reminder. Calum’s not just leaving. He’s going across the fucking country. It’s temporary, in theory. A couple of years for grad school, and then he could come back. But Michael knows deep down that he probably won’t.
He’ll go where life takes him, and chances are that life will be much bigger than anything Michael could ever be a part of. Calum is smart and driven, destined for greatness. Michael is content to settle for what life gives him, because he doesn’t know if he can handle the disappointment of trying for something more and failing. Which is exactly why he’s never told Calum he’s in love with him.
Looping another layer of bubble wrap around the television, Michael wonders if maybe Calum leaving will be good for him. It’s hard to get over someone when they’re always there, when Michael can’t help but compare every potential first date to Calum, and none of them have a chance to measure up.
Calum laughs quietly and Michael looks up from the television, temporarily entranced by the sight of Calum kneeling on the floor next to a box, picture frame in hand, smiling in that fond way that makes his cheeks look extra pinchable. He doesn’t know he’s being watched, and Michael is irrationally upset that someone can look so beautiful when they’re just existing. The goodness that’s inside Calum shows on his face, in the lines of his smile and the gleam in his eyes.
Overcome with curiosity about what’s making Calum smile like that, Michael asks, “What’s funny?”
Smiling widening conspiratorially, Calum holds up the picture, and Michael leans forward, squinting to see it from across the room. “Is that prom?”
“Yeah,” Calum says, shaking his head as he wipes a layer of dust off the frame. “I was just thinking how I don’t have any photos with my actual prom date, but somehow I have a professional photo of the two of us.” He laughs again, setting the frame off to the side in the pile of things for Michael to wrap. “Probably should’ve just asked you to prom instead.”
“You really should have,” Michael agrees, stretching out across the floor to grab the photo. “I would have been so much more fun than Rachel Ellis.”
“Technically you were much more fun than Rachel Ellis. The whole reason I have this photo is because she disappeared with her friends the second we got to the dance.”
“That’s right!” Michael says, the details of a night he hadn’t thought about in years rushing back to him all at once. “Your mom had already paid for the photo and you didn’t want to take one by yourself.”
He studies the photo, Calum in his showy emerald green tux, arm tentatively placed at Michael’s waist, and Michael sidled up next to Calum with his hand hovering a centimeter over Calum’s chest. They’d been aiming for a cliche awkward prom photo, and they’d really nailed it. Even their facial expressions are perfect, dead-eyed smiles that edge on uncanny.
“You saved me, like always,” Calum says, sliding another framed photo across the floor. It skitters and scratches against the laminate flooring and Calum cringes, probably envisioning his security deposit dwindling away in his mind.
Michael scoffs, taking extra care as he covers the prom photo in bubble wrap. “You never need saving. It was the other way around.” He secures the bubble wrap with a piece of tape and runs his thumbnail over the top. The moment is dangerously earnest, and Michael doesn’t like that. “I would’ve spent prom alone if your date hadn’t ditched you.” He smiles slyly at Calum, who rolls his eyes in response.
“Whatever,” Calum replies skeptically. “You were the life of the party. I was just lucky to be along for the ride.”
So strange, how two people can share the same experience and have an entirely different interpretation of it. Michael remembers prom as Calum’s night to shine, tearing up the dance floor to Pitbull and accepting hugs and high fives from dozens of their classmates, many of whom probably didn’t even know Michael’s name. Calum was the confident social butterfly. Michael was the sidekick.
Michael’s not surprised Calum doesn’t see it that way, though. He’s always been humble, unassuming. Too nice for his own good. He genuinely doesn’t realize what a special person he is, and it’s really fucking annoying, because it just makes Michael love him more.
“We had a good time,” Michael says, knowing better than to try to convince Calum he’s wrong. It’s a battle he’s fought many times before, and he never wins. “I’m glad Rachel Ellis ended up being a dud.”
Michael gently places the bubble-wrapped photo in a small moving box. He’s almost tempted to squirrel it away to keep for himself, but in the end he’d rather Calum have the reminder of their good times together. Michael knows there’s no possible way he’ll forget, with or without a photo.
“Me too,” Calum replies, smiling softly at Michael. “I wouldn’t have had as much fun with her.”
Times like these, Michael hates how pale he is, because he can feel the blush on his cheeks, and he knows Calum can probably see it. Friends should be able to say things like that to each other without one of them blushing like a fool. It’s been happening more and more lately; every time Calum says something nice or compliments him.
He used to be able to hide it, but these past few months it’s like he’s used up all his defenses and now he’s fully depleted. His mind and body are tired and worn down from years of pretending not to be in love with Calum, and they’ve just given up. Thoughts of Calum that he used to be able to push away now linger in the front of his mind, and the physical reactions he used to be able to carefully manage now happen before he even has a chance to fight them.
Michael reaches for the other photo to wrap, keeping his eyes cast down so he can avoid looking at Calum. It’s just easier that way.
It’s quiet for a while, both of them working in silence, only interrupted by the rustle of bubble wrap and the scrape of the tape dispenser.
“I—” Calum’s voice cuts through the silence, one abrupt syllable, and then silence again.
Michael looks at him curiously, and Calum’s inspecting another photo, running his thumbs along the edges of the frame. He slowly lifts his eyes, and they widen when he realizes Michael is staring back at him. He takes a deep breath through his nose, and Michael watches his chest expand and contract, nearly (but not quite) missing the way Calum closes his eyes when he says, “I can’t do this without you.”
Michael’s afraid to breathe, unsure what spell he might be breaking if he does. He doesn’t exactly know what Calum means, but it feels important. Something Michael shouldn’t brush off as a joke, which is what he wants to do, what he’s so used to doing every time either one of them gets too close to exposing him.
“What do you mean?” he asks, trying to keep his voice light. “Move?”
“Yes,” Calum says, then his face scrunches in frustration. “And no.” He crawls over toward Michael, closing the space in between them until he’s sitting cross-legged in front of him, one single slat of laminate flooring visible between their knees.
“I don’t think I can leave without you.”
Michael bites down on his tongue as hard as he can. What the fuck does that mean? “I don’t understand,” he says, eyes tracking the movement of Calum’s hands as they clench and unclench over his own knees.
“Everything is all packed up,” Calum says, gesturing around the room at the full boxes and empty walls, “but I still have this feeling like I’m missing something.”
“Oh,” Michael says dumbly. He’s beginning to feel foolishly hopeful, can already feel the dangerous drug prickling his skin and warming his blood. He can’t look Calum in the eye, so he watches his lips instead.
Bad idea. Michael will never be able to forget the shape of Calum’s lips saying, “It’s you.” There’s weight to those words that Michael can’t quite interpret, but he can feel it there, settling heavy in the air around them like a humid summer morning.
“You’re the one leaving.”
“You could come.”
If he’s being honest, those three words are what Michael has been waiting to hear for the past five months, ever since Calum got his acceptance letter and started making plans for his cross-country move. Michael doesn’t have anything tying him down, no reason to stay where he is. He’d happily drop everything and follow Calum anywhere. But he couldn’t do it if Calum didn’t ask; couldn’t do it if it meant he’d just be pining after Calum with no hope of anything ever happening.
But those three words, hanging alongside it’s you in the heavy, hopeful air do something to take the edge off the Calum craving Michael has been feeling nonstop for years. The gnawing feeling inside him is relieved, just slightly. A taste of potential, a sign that maybe he’s not wrong to hope.
He finally meets Calum’s eyes, and he grins. “Okay.”
“Okay?” Calum’s trying to hide it, but everything he feels shows on his face; it always has. Michael can see the hope reflected back at him in Calum’s eyes, and it makes his heart stutter in his chest.
“Yeah, why not?” he says, shrugging like this decision is as easy as choosing what pizza toppings to order, or what shirt he wants to wear. Because it is. Easier, even. They can figure out the details.
“Okay,” Calum says, nodding with barely-restrained enthusiasm. “You can use my leftover bubble wrap for your things.”
Maybe Michael can still love bubble wrap after all.
#ask#prompt#5sos fic#malum fic#taylor#michaelownsmyheart#i feel like i should also tag this#sucking chalk#this is a thing i did
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I’ve been backreading your blog and history posts about TOG for the past couple of days and loving it so much! You are so great at explaining the context around these fictional characters to understand them so much better.
I read your post about how sodomy was sort of a lesser sin that someone should fast with bread and water for, especially compared to like magic and stuff, and I was wondering if you knew anything about how medieval Muslims viewed it? Like at a similar magnitude, or not a problem or highly frowned upon? I’ve read fics all over the spectrum, so I’m wondering if you have any actual historical/research insight you could bring?
Thanks! 💜
Thanks so much!
I will say that I work on gender, social, and queer history in medieval Europe, so by nature I know more about medieval Christian views on sodomy, but I do know something about medieval Islamic views as well. I answered this ask, which has a fairly decent list of scholarly work on queer premodern (and some modern) Muslims. (It also has a list on Muslims in medieval Europe more generally.)
I will also reinforce that obviously the views of sodomy as a sin in medieval Europe changed over time, but at the time period that I most often get asked about in regard to TOG (i.e. the First Crusade/eleventh century) it was indeed a fairly venial sin that wasn’t singled out above others. This changed as the twelfth century went on, and it became more harshly stigmatized, at least in ecclesiastical and clerical opinions, but this doesn’t necessarily coincide with a broader social stigma. (See Peter the Chanter complaining bitterly about how much queer stuff is happening in Paris at the end of the twelth century; the continued valorization of homoromantic bonds, which got even MORE valorized as chivalry developed; etc). There was never a time where medieval people we would identify as LGBT were accepted uncritically at all levels of society, but there sure as hell aren’t any times now either (and modern homophobia is often a lot more stringent, explicit, and exclusionary than any medieval variants thereto).
Anyway, about Muslims. Khaled al-Rouahyeb has written a very interesting-looking book (which I note I have not personally read yet, but I want to) entitled Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800, which argues essentially that the category of “homosexuality,” i.e. specifically male/male sexual activity and identity/orientation, didn’t really exist in premodern Islamic sexual polemics and ethics, at least as we would define it. Instead, the narrative centered on whether the sexual partner was active (penetrating) or passive (penetrated), and like other cultural taboos around mlm sex, being the active/top partner in penetrative sex (since you were the phallic/manly partner) was generally okay, but being the penetrated person coded you as female and therefore inferior and suspect in your manhood. (Obviously, in mlm anal sex, someone has to be penetrated, so someone always ends up as the morally suspect half in that scenario.) This fits with medieval Islamic attitudes toward sex more broadly. The ghazals, or Arabic love poems, often contain intensely homoerotic images and themes as well as male/female ones. Probably the most notable in this regard was Abu Nuwas, an eighth/ninth-century Persian poet who has occasionally been viewed as a little TOO risque for general consumption. This doesn’t mean, again, that queer activity was a-okay across the board, but it existed in a complex and culturally and literarily negotiated sphere and there were certainly areas where it was practiced rather openly, just as it was in the medieval Western world. As I talked about in the long ask I answered, the twin cultural correlation of “Saracens” and “sodomites” (just like “Muslims” and “gays” in right-wing paranoia today) in medieval Europe also reflected a belief that the Islamic world was more accepting of non-heterosexual behavior, and that this was therefore, in the Catholic Christian institutional view, a Bad Thing. I take care to specify that since as we’ve seen, plenty of medieval Europeans themselves didn’t give a rat’s ass what the church said and carried on being queer anyway.
Also, Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Constantinople in 1453, was pretty openly bisexual; he slept with both men and women, and one of his lovers was allegedly Radu the Fair, the brother of Vlad Dracula. In other words, at least for a late medieval Ottoman sultan, he could do whatever he liked in the bedchamber, with whoever, and judgments on the gender of his partners didn’t really enter into it. This gave rise to a certain brand of hysteria in Western Europe. The propaganda surrounding the fall of Constantinople contained an element of painting Mehmed as even more of a threat because of his liberate sexuality. In short, to put it bluntly, it was “the scary Muslim sultan will rape your children, including the boys,” which is pretty recognizable from its almost exact use in right-wing fearmongering about the evil pederastic gays today. Mehmed’s identity as the Muslim conqueror of the most important Christian city in the world, and someone who was known for being flexible in his sexual preferences, made it very easy to construct him as a hysterical boogeyman.
Obviously, most Arab/Islamic countries today have strict legal and official policies on homosexuality, but that doesn’t mean gay Muslims don’t exist (quite the contrary) or that these attitudes are universally accepted just because they happen to be the law. (Just like Americans disagree, often vehemently, with their government’s official policy.) Nor does it reflect anything about the complexity of homosexuality or mlm acts in the premodern Islamic world. (Anyone who calls medieval Islam “barbaric” has absolutely NO fucking clue what they’re talking about, take it from me.) So basically, Joe, as a queer/gay Muslim, experienced the same broad spectrum of attitudes, texts, and views on his preferences that Nicky would and did as a western European, and there was plenty of room for tolerance, tacit acceptance, literary celebration, or clerical condemnation of such, depending on when and where we’re talking about, and this varied by culture, society, and geography.
Thanks for the question!
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You asked for a prompt... random thought for you. What would happen if the whole time travel thing was causing Steve's serum to fade out in a sense? Like endgame with skinny Steve and he gets all adorable and worried about things?
this is prob not wnat you want, but enjoy almost 3k of rambling.
--
This had happened before.
When he stood inside Peggy’s office, looking at an older Peggy with gray in her hair, he felt like his breath had been taken from his lungs. He felt like the walls were closing in on him, his chest felt considered smaller than what it had become.
At the time, Steve had other things to worry about than what he passed off as just an overwhelming sense of emotions, he had the fate of the world resting on his shoulders. Yet now that it was over and he stood with a bloodied shield in hand, he could feel his legs giving out on him, and his world was growing considerably smaller.
He never felt his body hit the ground.
“...don’t know, notes were gone.”
“What do you mean we don’t know? It’s been...fuck...years.”
“Exactly that, we don’t know much about the serum. We only know what the monitors tell us and that’s nothing good.”
“You do know I’m awake, right?” Steve grunted as he forced himself to sit up from the hospital bed.
Something wasn’t right. Hell - a lot of things weren’t right. For one, he couldn’t see color. No white or chrome or Shuri’s golden bracelets, Bucky’s silver and golden arm, or even Sam’s red goggles.
His left ear, it was tingling. He could barely hear Bucky’s low grunting whisper to Shuri’s ear. He could barely see her shrugging. Even as he sat there, staring at the trio, he could feel his vision worsening.
Without even taking a lungful of air, he knew how hard it would be to breathe. He’s had nightmares on this - even recently - about his ailments, about waking up small and powerless. His chest was aching with the desperate need of a full breath he was terrified to take, not wanting to have his fears to be concerned. Even without it, there was that low, dull ache in the base of his spine that followed into his stomach, like someone twisting a knife.
He’d lost the serum.
It had lasted him until the battle and -
Steve’s eyes fell to the bandages around his wrists, slowly peeling them back. He slapped away Bucky’s hand that reached out of habit to stop him from picking, a decades-old habit neither had grown out of. Underneath the bandage confirmed his fears to be true (as if everything else hadn’t), a jagged scar from where Thanos’ blade had cut into him. Healed by Shuri’s technology but still a scar, proving the serum couldn’t save him.
Question was, even as three sets of eyes stared at him, waiting for some sort of reaction, what now?
He still knew the answer, that hadn’t changed.
She’d love him anyway.
--
“Steven?”
The name was whispered as if anything louder would cause the veil to break, to break what only could be a dream between them.
Her hand reached out before sense seemed to catch up to her and it was jerked away. She stood in the doorway of a yellow house with a wrap-around porch, her newspaper still sitting at his feet. He could smell her, smell that familiar perfume she wore during the war. It still made his eyes water with how strong it was.
She took up the whole doorway, hand curled around the frame and jaw tense. He’d seen that look before, her jaw twitching ever so slightly. Even without being able to see it, he knew her hand around the frame was clenching it tightly.
“Well?” Peggy snapped, drawing Steve out of his thoughts.
He was still staring at her, mouth opened, just in unbelievable belief that he was standing in front of her. That he was here, with her, that he was home.
“I-” He swallowed, throat bobbing. “I’m sorry what?”
Her lips twitched, almost threatening to smile. “I asked who in the hell are you because you’re obviously not Steven Grant Rogers. Captain Rogers died a year ago. Either work has finally gotten to me or you’re an imposter. A failed imposter at that.”
It was Steve’s turn to smile and he could’ve sworn her eyes softened
“I can swear to you that I am, P-Peggy.” His breath hitched, trying to keep all these overwhelming emotions tamed. Last he needed was to have a panic attack on her doorstep. “I know it doesn’t look like it but I-I can’t...you won’t believe me.”
Reaching into his pocket, Steve pulled out the compass that never left his pocket. It had a few more dents than she last saw, a little more rusted. The hinges squeaked as Steve slowly opened it and passed it to her. Peggy’s fingers delicately brushed over his own as she took it, her face paling of all color as she looked up at Steve.
“But...how? We looked for you. And you’re...the serum…”
Peggy Carter was the last person ever to pity him. It wasn’t pity in her eyes, it was concern because she knew what the serum meant to him, but she also knew the health advocates that came with losing the serum.
She was worried for him and Christ if that just didn’t make him love her more.
“I can explain. There’s a lot you won’t understand but I...I can’t explain. Can I…?”
A shiver ran up his spine as he tilted his head into the room, a chill washing over him as the fall wind blew.
“Of course… Let me call Chester and tell him I won’t be at work. I won’t say anything about you,” she quickly explained at Steve’s panic look. Despite it, he knew she didn’t agree with that line of thought - not yet.
--
“Let me get this straight,” Peggy sighed, lowering the warmed mug of brandy. Steve remembered just how she liked her winter drinks. “You were in the future. Then…”
She waved her hand and sighed heavily. They’ve been at this for hours. For the most part, Steve had done all the talking but she’s commented a few questions that couldn’t wait, down to a few comments. At first, they started at opposite ends of the couch and now were sitting thigh-to-thigh.
Steve’s head tilted, his downy soft, blonde locks falling in his face. Her eyes tracked his hand as they brushed it back. “Go on. Yes, I was in the future.”
She shot him a look that he flushed out - Lord, she’s missed that flushing. “And now you’re small because...time travel?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that and unless we want to call Howard, tell him I’m alive through time travel, that time travel exists, then...I don’t think we can get into a full explanation. To be honest, I understand it but I don’t understand it. Something about the...the effects of time travel through this-”-Steve held up the watch-like device she’d seen earlier-“and the serum, reverting my cells to before the serum.”
“No, no, and no. We are absolutely not calling Howard to tell him time travel exists. We will eventually call him to tell him you’re alive. In the morning. He’s out of the country, I’m afraid, until tomorrow.” And to be honest, she’s selfish. The second she lets the important people know that Steve is alive like Howard, Phillips, and the Commandos, then all hell will break loose. She’s selfish and just wants this one night with him. “Second, that doesn’t explain how you’re...better.”
His plush, pink lips pursed together, in the same manner, they always did in thought. His eyes fell from her face, down to the steaming drink, and even further down to his hands. “I’m not, not exactly. I…” He tilted his head back and sighed. “It’s complicated, I think? Or maybe I think it’s complicated. You remember that girl I told you about? Shuri.”
“Yes? What about? You said you...”
“I woke up and was just smaller after-after the battle. After a long discussion on the possibilities, we worked on solutions for everything else. The asthma, the hearing, my sight, colorblindness, the...well everything. I’m small and for the most part 90% better thanks to her technology.”
His face pinched in a manner that told her yes he was grateful but this was a bitter pill for him to swallow. To accept he was smaller.
“She fixed everything the serum did but just not...the serum.”
“Shuri offered to replicate it, she was 90% sure she could and I had faith in her but…”
“But something told you not to.” Peggy’s eyes softened and she took his hand in her own. “That must’ve been hard for you to decide to do.”
“It was but I…” His mouth opened and closed and not for the first time, Peggy could truly see just how exhausted he was. It was deeper than just what a good night’s rest could fix, it was deeper than a soldier returning home. Steve had loved and lost. He’d been broken and repaired, his hope snatched from him, just to crack his facade even more. Her heart broke for him. “I wasn’t sure how it would be with...what little is in me and...well...everything.”
There was no true answer to why he denied Shuri’s help. Pride maybe, but it felt like more. Maybe betrayed Erksine. Maybe he just wanted to rest. Maybe he was just selfish.
Maybe he was terrified if it worked, it could be taken from him again.
“Question is,” Peggy mused after a long moment of silence that was only broken up by the sound of her fire crackling. “What are you going to do now?”
Steve smirked, suddenly aware of how close they were. He could see the shine of red on her lips, smell the brandy on her breath. It felt like home as their lips pressed together.
“Help you change the world.”
--
“Explain...explain this to me one more time.”
Howard was laid back on the chair, legs thrown up on the ottoman. He had at least pulled on a robe for them, even if it laid open and his chest hair was exposed. His hair was a devilish mess, having constantly run his hand through it. He still wasn’t looking at Peggy, his eyes firmly on the small guy in front of him that said he was Steve.
He wasn’t drunk. No, it was still 1 pm, even if he just woke up. These were sober hours. Peggy wouldn’t let him drink.
“How are you small?”
Steve couldn’t help but share the look with Peggy, then with Jarvis (who just looked so relieved he was here). Jarvis knew the full truth (thus, so did Ana because they never kept secrets from one another).
“I told you,” Steve sighed, hating lying to Howard but Howard didn’t need to know. Time travel and Howard was a dangerous mix. “I was found in the ice and-”
“Bullshit!”
He’d never seen Howard move so quickly. The man looked almost angry and Steve’s breath picked up as he took a stumbling step back. He was caught by Peggy before he fell.
“What sort of idiot do you take me, Rogers?” Howard bellowed, eyes moving from both parties. “The both of you! I looked! We both looked! We looked and looked and looked and-”
“Sir.” Jarvis was by his side, leading a distressed Howard back to his chair. “May I suggest that you calm down?”
“No,” Howard grumbled, closing his eyes, rubbing at his temples. “I looked. How are you suddenly here? A-a year later. How? How?! We looked, I-”
“Time travel,” Peggy suddenly spat, hating how distressed her friend look. She sighed and took Steve’s hand. “Time travel, and no, Howard, we won’t go into details. I certainly don’t understand it and you do not need to know the details of time travel. Or-or any of it. Not yet, Steven need to rest, we can discuss perhaps later if-”
“Steven is fine,” Steve grumbled, taking his hand from Peggy’s to stand up. He looked back at Howard’s shocked face. “Okay, the cat’s out of the bag. I used time travel to come back to Peggy. I’m sorry Howard, we just worried how you’d accept it - that time travel exists.”
For once, Howard Stark was too shocked to say a damn thing in his life.
--
“So, Howard knows,” Peggy sighed, rubbing at her temples, “about time travel. Not something I had hoped we’d discuss but here we are. We agree he’s to know very minimum amounts about the future.”
Steve’s head bobbed along from where he rested against her lap on their shared couch. It’s quickly become their favorite spot. “It wasn’t worth lying to him, to see his distress. It killed me. It reminded me so much about T-”
Peggy’s eyes fell to his and her hand scratched at his scalp. “Tony,” she finished. He nodded and she picked his head up to press a soft kiss to his lips. “I’m sorry we lied to him too, but now he knows the truth. I’m still not getting over him running over that table to hug you once he’s over the shock.”
“Never known him to be flexible.”
“Wave the right amount of alcohol in his face and you’ll learn new facts about Howard,” she snickered, making Steve roll his eyes.
“So I’m just the trophy husband?” he teased her, making Peggy laugh. “Howard provides the funds.”
“Howard provides the charisma. You are certainly the best trophy husband I could ask for.” She kissed him and he felt his body slack into hers. “I love you, Steven.”
“I love you too, Peggy.”
--
“When you said you had an urgent meeting with us, Pegs, this isn’t what I expected,” Dugan grumbled as he adjusted himself in the chair. “Back on stateside with Phillips coming in? What’s going on?”
Peggy, for her sake, sat on the edge of her desk that had come to the start of serving as the threshold of SHIELD. Phillips and Howard were behind her (Steven, of course too because they couldn’t get this far without his future references). She pulled on the suit she was wearing, a habit she couldn’t help. She did her best not to look where Steve waited in the side closet that often served as a nesting room when she was too tired to go home.
Before Steve had returned of course.
The Howling Commandos were patient as ever, meaning they weren’t one bit patient. Dugan was squirming like a kid in his chair, already knowing he was in trouble. Jones was bouncing his leg, Pinky was fiddling with her pen, Jim was folding a sheet of paper into an origami butterfly, and Montgomery and the others had walked off to find coffee.
“And what did you think the call was about, Dugan?” Peggy challenged, raising an eyebrow.
Dugan, for his sakes, shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing good, I supposed. Trouble follows you.”
“Only because you bait it,” Jones spoke up, making her laugh.
“We thought it was to tell us you’ve officially taken over the SSR as a one-woman show and needed our help,” Jim spoke up, blowing on the butterfly so it fluttered towards her.
Peggy caught it with ease and smiled. “That’s on the back burner - this is more important. I-”
The door slamming open cut them off. Phillips was a grump - he hated being woken up in the morning by a call that made no sense.
“Alright, Carter, tell me why I am here at 4 in the goddamn morning, with no coffee and why did you pull these guys from their project, if-”
“Steve is alive,” Peggy said firmly, cutting off Phillips’ I’m a grump rambling.
That surely shocked them into silence. She saw Phillips and Dugan’s shared look - no doubt a conversation that has had about her beforehand and her dedication to finding Steve shortly after his death.
“Peggy,” Phillips breathed, his eyes told her all. He wasn’t her boss, he was her friend, her gruff friend who was worried about her. “We-”
“Holy shit,” Montgomery breathed from the doorway, dropping the coffee he was holding. No one paid attention to it shattering on the floor. Their eyes were on Steve in the doorway.
A much skinnier Steve than they remembered.
“What the fu-”
“Language, Jones,” Steve said, out of instinct. He could see Peggy’s grin, a relieved look on her face. “There’s a lady present.”
“A lady that curses more than this sorry lot,” Peggy snorted, instantly taking Steve’s hand. She turned to look back at Phillips with a raised brow.
“I demand an explanation,” Phillips breathed, taking half a step in, glass crunching under his foot. “Kid, I knew you were too stubborn to die. Too stubborn to be told no. It’s so good you’re alive.”
“Small, but mighty,” Dugan chimed in with a tearful grin. “Christ, Stevie, come here.”
All Peggy and Phillips could do were look on as the 5’4 Captain was soon overtaken by the numerous hugs and shouts that echoed around her empty office at four in the morning.
--
“Are you ever going to tell me the truth?” Phillips huffed at her, making Peggy smile over the cup of coffee hours later.
The Howlies had finally left to catch a few hours of sleep, Steve had fallen asleep on her office couch. The poor guy was just tired. An exhaustion she feared he’d never rested. Sleep never seemed to be enough.
“I did,” Peggy mused, lowering the cup to her desk. She didn’t need to look up to see Phillip’s glowering look.
“He’s lucky to have survived at all,” Phillips sighed, looking over at Steve. “Frozen, the future, and returning back to you. The life we lead, it’s amazing.” He gave a small laugh as he raised his cup in cheers towards Steve. “You really got that second chance at being with him.”
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[the places i find you]
fandom - yugotalia / balkantalia
pairing -serbcro
warnings - purple prose
i own none of these characters
Living alone is something Dražen, Croatia really, is used to. He can accommodate loneliness very well, telling himself quite expressly that he doesn’t mind it at all. He doesn’t mind the quiet evening, the calm mornings and the mundane day to day. He’s able to decorate his home however he pleases, hang a flag without shame, and not have to retreat to the silence of his room if someone eventually loses their temper.
But he finds him in every crevice, stashed away behind curtain of clothes and left behind in bathroom cabinets. It’s the little things that build up, the ghost that lingers in laughter that sounds too close for comfort but so far away that Dražen swears he’s being haunted (even though he’s never believed in ghosts — but so much tells him that he’s wrong). Sure, he’s just a simple text, a phone call, an email away but he doesn’t want to.
No matter how much time has passed, he’s too stubborn to — he’s in the right to not talk to him, why should he? There’s a million other things he should do, could do, wants to do. Can’t do. Won’t do. None of it as fun without the stench of his favorite cigarettes, a cold cup of coffee and late enough in the night that dawn only peeks over the horizon. He doesn’t get that same timeless feeling — the lack of ache in his muscles and bones, that only ever become noticeable at the sound of humans, at the loneliness of couches and beds, kitchen tables that would be filled with food in the true Balkan fashion.
And ghosts do attach themselves to him — they echo old conversations, pull up memories of times where maybe, for a moment, he too could be human for just a few minutes and kiss other boys without shame. Perhaps, he thinks. In another life, there would be no ties to the whims of human whims. Because kisses at sunsets, in the rain, and stolen at Christmas markets when they believe nobody else is looking isn’t as fun when there’s no promise of a growing gray, growing old together — it’s only fun to sneak around when you’re young, away from the prying eyes of Austrian masters and loud Ottoman rulers, the whispers of we’ll be free can only hold so much weight when there’s always the uncertainty of what the humans want. They have no today, no tomorrow, and no yesterday.
And his winter jacket hangs in his closet, hidden away because Dražen forgot to give it back to him the last time he visited — 2015? — the last time he willingly entered the private premises of the man named Dražen Krleža and not the nation of The Republic of Croatia. He is a ghost that haunts, lingers with his stupid smile and loud voice that makes his ears ring, ruins the idea that he could emulate the young Austrian master who was strict and kind and would never really glance his way, never see him as an equal and only one of the problem ones. His stupid impulsivity and give no fucks about anyone else angers Dražen, and upsets the Republic of Croatia because it’s not fair — how hard he strives and how quickly he falls behind. And then there’s goddamn Serbia, Vuk Misic, who does what he wants, when he wants without even much of a care what the others think — the ability to fearlessly look Germany (and even America) in the eyes and plainly tell him to fuck off.
And his winter jacket is musty and needs to be washed, and it has a half used pack of cigarettes and a few dinar. He finds old, crumpled receipts of wine he bought that was Dražen’s favorite (“Shit’s fucking expensive, but you like it so here you go.”), and scraps and other things. He’ll wash it and he’ll give it back, after all, winter is going to set on the horizon (and he’s sure Vuk bought a new coat, assuming the asshole isn’t just wearing sweaters and pretending that the bite of winter doesn’t bother him. He’s due to go to Stockholm soon, anyways, and it gets cold.) very soon.
And Dražen finds his ghost unsent texts, emails in drafts that he couldn’t ever quite send, and in letters he forgot Vuk ever even wrote him (and they wrote daily back then, back before it all went wrong) but can’t stomach to read them now because all he can do is live right in this moment but they still whisper his name (his writing is crude, scrawls of a country boy learning to write and talking about how weird Romania is, how annoying Ottoman is — it’s a tune, a song Dražen didn’t realize he’d memorized), he finds Vuk, not Serbia, missing on the couch and at empty tables, lingering in his hallway and taking up the bathroom.
And he packs them all away, pushing them aside as he goes out to his balcony as the sun slowly goes to sleep and watches lovers, friends, go about their day and unaware of the ghosts around them. And yet, Dražen is unable to ignore the empty spot next to him because his ghost is there, in a non-space, echoing and he can’t enjoy his cigarette because this man has the audacity to haunt him this way.
And he debates and argues why he shouldn’t text him — they agreed that their entire relationship should be formal, business only.
But isn’t business to invite a colleague out for a drink?
Still, while Vuk’s ghost lingers and haunts, Dražen can’t quite convince himself — in all his loneliness — to text him because if he is here, physically, he may never quite get rid of his ghost after. And he may never let the man, Vuk Misic, go and dig in his claws while limbs entangled and force him to stay because the physical apparition is too much to handle when they all linger and haunt at different times.
And Dražen was never good at saying goodbye.
#balkantalia#yugotalia#aph croatia#aph serbia#hetalia world stars#hetalia#hws#hws serbia#hws croatia#serbcro
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Better Man. ( Taehyung x OC)
Chapter 1 Chapter 2
Rated 18 +
Post Divorce, Getting Back Together, Second chances, Angst.
Chapter 3 ~ The problem with marriage is this : it isn’t worth the pain of divorce.
Denial isn’t healthy.
But sometimes it helps you stay sane , at least long enough to get your act together. When you’re in denial, you kind of keep yourself together a bit. You process things a bit more slowly. Take your time examining the facts.
It helps you make a delayed but possibly more informed decision.
Impulsive decisions never end well.
So it’s good to stew in denial for a while ( a short while) and then slowly begin processing what happened, think about it, think how its gonna affect you and then make a choice.
Unfortunately for Taehyung and I... I wasn’t in denial.
Maybe I should have been.
The time between Taehyung turning up drunk and the me leaving the house was less than twelve hours. Taehyung showed up drunk and I just told him I was leaving. That we needed a break and I didn’t know when I’d be back.
Terrible choice.
In the first twelve hours, the hurt is so potent and strong , the wound so raw and fresh that you can’t think beyond the pain . Your instinct is to repay the pain, to retaliate and make the other party feel exactly what you’re feeling. So you think of the thing that would hurt them the most and you go ahead and do it.
Like move out of your shared home of eight years, take away the son he adored and possibly rip the ground right out from under his feet.
And then after the first twelve hours, reason begins to catch up.
I had wanted to go back.
I had wanted to go back to him but I was scared.
Scared that I was being weak.
That if I didn’t stick to the choice I made, Taehyung would forever see me as a pushover. That he would take it as some sick permission to do it all over again. That he’d just think I was too weak to walk out on him.
And i couldn’t have that. I couldn’t have him hurting me and not facing the consequences of it. I just couldn’t.
So I stayed away.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I worked on the seventh floor of a high rise in Gangnam, probably a twenty minute drive from Taehyung’s agency. It was an electronic/ tech company that dealt with everything from mobile phones to home fittings . As the assistant director of Marketing I dealt with branding and keeping up the image of the company. Annual budgets, endorsements, campaigns and what not.
I was good at it and i enjoyed it . everyone agreed that i did a good job because the numbers spoke for themselves. But I think the main reason I got the job was because I was married to the biggest brand ambassador in the country.
“ I need the reports on consumer trends for this month and I want to meet with Social media team before lunch. There’s a drop in our web traffic and that needs to be fixed.” I told my assistant, accepting the hot coffee and muffin that he held in his hand before moving to the corner office, my strides faltering just a bit when i noticed that someone was already inside. The figure had his back to me but I could vaguely recognize the broad shoulders and muscular arms.
“Mr. Jeon’s been waiting for about ten minutes now.” Mingyu said with a smile and I nodded.
“That’s fine , I’ll handle him.” I waved my assistant off and moved to the door, unlocking it and stepping in.
“Morning, Jang Mi.” He smiled, eyes flashing with ill concealed delight and I inhaled to calm myself down. .
I could already feel a headache coming on.
“Jungkook.” I said curtly. “ To what do I owe this very early visit?” I glanced at my table finally taking the bottle of champagne in the small ice bucket.
“Thought we’d celebrate you finally being free.” He grinned.
Jeon Jungkook was handsome, intelligent , and annoyingly good at everything he did.
At 34, He was one of the youngest CFO’s in the industry, and everything he touched turned to gold. I didn’t report to him and he had zero reasons to be in my office at any given time. But , unfortunately he had never gotten that particular memo.
“I’m not in the mood, Jungkook.” I sighed, moving to the back of my desk and dropping my bag on the small ottoman on the side and my keys in the desk. I plugged my phone into the cable on the side and then went to open the blinds.
“Come on... You know how sick I’ve been of two years of hearing ‘ I’m sorry, I’m married.’ .... you’re gonna have to come up with a better excuse the next time i ask you out.”
“No. No is a whole entire sentence that you should be able to accept.” I said evenly, fixing the cushions on the couch only to have him plop down on them immediately after.
“One date. Dinner anywhere you like. i can fly you to Paris if you want.... Macua? Jeju Do? Tell me what you want and I’ll get it done. ?”
i stared at him.
“I want you to fire Kang Yeseul from the Social Media team.” I said with a shrug.
He frowned.
“The new girl? Why?”
“She’s been posting nudes that she took in my office when I was on leave last week. My name plate is literally visible.”
“Jesus fuck...these bitches get dumber by the minute.”
I couldn’t even deny it.
“I’ll take care of it.” He said swiftly. “ Anything else?”
“Web traffics gone down and I’m gonna find out why. It’s probably time for us to work out the budget for the Christmas Carnival. I think we should go for something new this time. If you can set up a meeting with all the department heads we can brainstorm a few ideas...”
“I can’t forget about that night.”
I froze.
God.
i turned around to stare at him as he lounged on the couch. If Kim Taehyung was the most handsome man I’d ever seen, Jungkook was definitely the second.
He was disconcertingly good looking and where Taehyung’s image was always the clean cut gentleman with the perfect character, Jungkook had a reputation as a bit of a delinquent. Simply because he had a penchant for leather jackets and liked to ride around Seoul on his motorbike on days off.
Which was ironical because in truth, Taehyung was far from a saint and Jungkook was relatively more put together
He was also a divorcee and a single parent. His daughter Jennie was easily the cutest two year old on the planet.
His wife and him had fifty fifty custody but she had cheated on him with his best friend. Jungkook had no patience for her. They had a very volatile relationship but he was fighting for full custody and rumor was that he would most certainly be granted it, soon.
A marathon runner , he didn’t drink or smoke.
Jungkook liked to paint and volunteered at an animal shelter once or twice a month because he loved dogs but couldn’t keep one because of his busy schedule.
So all in all , a pretty solid candidate if I was looking for a guy.
Honestly, if it weren’t for the fact that I was completely and utterly done with relationships for the rest of my life, I would actually give the guy a chance.
But , it is what it is.
“That sounds like a you problem. “ I shrugged. “ It was supposed to be one night with no strings attached. And by string I meant awkward conversations three months later .”
Jungkook groaned and sat up straighter, legs spread and shirt sleeves riding up to show a very sparkly watch. Rich men and their vices. I smirked a little.
“Come on... its just dinner. I want to get to know you, that’s it.” he held his hands up.
“There’s nothing to know Jungkook. I’m actually more boring than i appear, which is saying something. I’m not going to be the girl in the leather jacket clinging to your waist when you’re joyriding that motorbike of yours through Seoul. That’s not me. I would hate something that”
He chuckled.
“Are you sure? You ever tried it?”
I stared at him in disbelief.
“That’s not the point.”
“I’ll buy you a jacket. Join me this weekend. We’ll go a ride. Then you can make a decision.”
I opened my mouth to argue when the phone rang. I grabbed it quickly.
“Hello?”
“This is Lee Taemin from the Advertising Department.”
“Yes?”
“We have a Mr. Jung from HYBE on the phone. They want to talk to us about a possible candidate for our Christmas Campaign.... “
I blinked, surprised.
“We haven’t even decided on a theme yet. “
Choosing the right actors to endorse stuff was usually the last step.
“I know but he’s saying they want to talk about Mr. Kim Taehyung as a possible candidate?”
I felt my entire jaw come unhinged.
I turned to Jungkook stunned. His eyes widened at the look on my face and he mouthed a ‘ What’
“Please tell him I’ll call him back in fifteen minutes.” I said quickly.
“What’s wrong?” Jungkook demanded.
“Taehyung’s manager...he... he wants to make him the face of the Christmas Campaign.” I said dully, mind ringing. I was utterly stupefied.
Taehyung was the face of Gucci and Versace . He was so far out of our company’s league it wasn’t even funny.
Jungkook stared at me in disbelief.
“No.” He said quickly.
I gaped at him.
“What?”
“No... we can’t have that. He’s.. he’s obviously doing this to get back with you...”
I shook my head.
“that can’t be it. He’s the one who gave me a divorce. He’s the one who wanted to end it. “
It was the shock of what I’d heard. There was no other explanation for why I said that to Jeon Jungkook.
Jungkook gave me a look.
“Really? But you wanted one too right?”
“Of course I did.” I lied easily, waving him off. “Anyway that doesn’t matter. We can’t say no to him, Jungkook. Our sales would skyrocket if we get him onboard.”
Jungkook swore.
“Fuck, you’re right. The Ceo will probably piss himself in excitement. You sure you’ll be okay with it?”
Jungkook looked worried.
“You forget that Taehyung and I are actually quite good friends.” I said gently.
He grimaced.
“That's just unnatural. If you can stay friends with an ex it clearly means that either you’re still in love with each other or....”He shrugged.
“Or what?”
“Or you never loved each other in the first place.”
I swallowed the remark hitting a little too close to home for comfort.
“Schedule that meeting Jungkook. We’ll come up with a campaign theme that would fit Taehyung’s image. I’ll take to Hoseok and Taehyung.”
“You’re going to call Taehyung?” Jungkook asked casually.
“Hoshi’s with him today. I’ll probably go over to his place after work and talk to him in person.”
“Lucky bastard. He gets to hurt you and yet still have you.” Jungkook said bitterly.
I rolled my eyes.
“He doesn’t have me.”
“Doesn’t he? Why else would you turn down dates with anyone who asks? its one date.. a dinner... If you’re not still hung up on your ex husband why wouldn’t you just go on one date with-”
I’d really had quite enough of it. I threw my hands up in sheer exasperation.
“Alright fine.” I yelled, “ I’ll go to dinner with you...can you just stop psycho analyzing my relationship with my husband?”
Jungkook’s smile told me that I’d been played like a fiddle.
“excellent. Go see your husband after work and I’ll come pick you up at eight.”
“What...no wait...”
“I know where he lives. Don’t worry about it. I’ll schedule that meeting and maybe after lunch we can go over the kind of budget you’ll want. Okay?”
I felt a little like I’d stepped into quagmire.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I didn’t go see Taehyung after work.
I didn’t have to.
An hour before I was due to finish my daily report, he turned up at the office with my son. My assistant let him in and I could only gape at him.
“What are you guys doing here?” I asked , completely thrown.
“Mama I had ice cream with strawberries and sprinkles in a hundred colors.” Hoshi looked excited, eyes shining the way they usually did when he was with Taehyung.
“That sound incredibly exciting....”
“We missed you mama....can we go again?” He said excitedly.
“I’m sorry honey, Mama’s a little caught up with work...”
“Why don’t we wait?” Taehyung said cheerfully, “ Mama likes blueberry scones so we can get those for her...”
I stared at him.
“Okay...” I sad carefully, staring him down. What was he doing really?
“Okay... Can I go see the fishies....” Hoshi waved at the large fish tank built into the wall in my office and Taehyung laughed, letting him down.
“Sure bud.. go see how many of the fish you can identify...” He said brightly.
“ Since when do you pick me up for blueberry scones after work?” I asked briskly and he shrugged.
“Let the kid be happy , Mia. I heard Hobi hyung already spoke to you.”
“What is that all about, Tae?” I said tiredly.
“All the other offers i got are out of Korea. I want to stay with Hoshi during the Holidays so i thought this way , we could spend some time together..”
“By we, I hope you mean you and Hoshi.” I said drily.
“Of course. I could’ve picked another mall or something but i thought it could be a good thing if we worked at the same place... we can keep Hoshi with us and there wont be all the commuting back and forth nonsense....”
I nodded.
“I suppose you’re right. “ I sighed. “But be warned, you’re probably not going to have a very exciting time.
“I’ll enjoy it nonetheless.”
I nodded.
“I won’t tell you how to live your life And I most certainly won’t look a gift horse in the mouth. My Ceo might just give me a huge pay raise for this. He’s been waiting for it since the time he hired me.”
Taehyung gave me a smile.
“I would have done it the minute you asked. You never asked.”
I shrugged.
“Like I said, I won’t tell you how to live your life.”
“Jang Mi?” The knock on the door made us both look up.
Jungkook stood framed in the doorway, jacket off and slung over his arms . He looked bigger than usual, muscles straining against his button down and hair mussed.
He stepped in casually, holding a hand out to Taehyung.
“The golden boy of Korea. in the flesh. A pleasure to meet you Mr. Kim. I’m Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook”
The pair of them shook hands and I felt that I would rather be anywhere in the world than there.
“ Nice to meet you Mr. Jeon.” Taehyung smiled politely.
“We still on for tonight?” Jungkook asked casually, turning to me with a bright smile.
This is why i hated men.
Taehyung’s eyes snapped to me so fast that i was sure he must’ve got whiplash.
“Sure. I’ll call you.” I said shortly.
“What’s tonight?” Taehyung smiled, face neutral and smile still in place but his eyes flashed and his voice carried a knife edge to it.
“Business dinner. We’re going over the budget for the Christmas campaign.”
“Oh... where?” Taehyung asked with the same smile and I frowned.
“We’ve not decid-”
“I thought I could cook for you. i make a mean steak dinner and I thought I could pick up a bottle of your favorite wine on the way. You have my address right? ” Jungkook smiled.
Taehyung went still next to me, his entire body taut .
“A little inappropriate for a business dinner, don’t you think?” he snapped.
Jungkook glared back at him, eyes narrowed.
“Well, you know what they say about all work and no play-” he began but I’d had enough.
“I think this conversation needs to end now.” I said loudly.
They both shut up but glared at each other.
“I’m gonna make a reservation at the Hyatt for tonight. I’ll meet you there at seven thirty. “ I said, glaring at Jungkook.
He nodded.
“Pleasure meeting you Kim Taehyung.” He nodded curtly at my ex husband before moving away.
The silence he left behind was pretty awkward.
“Bit too much of a douchebag than your usual type.” Taehyung said casually.
I groaned.
“Don’t start.”
“ I won’t if you don’t date him.”
I opened my mouth to argue but then stopped.
“Lets just get that ice cream ? “ I said tiredly. Hoshi reappeared from the inside room, looking excited and happy and I smiled despite my weariness.
I could use a little sweetness in my life after a bitterly exhausting day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Author’s note : Feedback is welcome . Probably going to be a long , terribly angsty fic with a lot of pain for everyone involved. I still haven’t decided who ocs going to end up with so we’ll see... what do you guys think?
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So what does Arthur think of Queen Elizabeth's statement of well being his...ya know, wife? This, crusty centuries old man got the surprise of his life right?
Haha, he wouldn’t have been that crusty in the 1500s, and to me it wouldn’t be surprising to Arthur since they would, indeed, have a Thing together. My rough idea of Arthur and Liz I is very much in line with the larger theme of “can nations fall in love?” To which my answer is yes, and at times it is only with a human—because you know, when it’s another nation—alliances don’t last forever. With a human, it’s those kinds of situations where it’s someone who has a huge impact on them. I do like incorporating these helltalia nations into what we know about historical figures; like how there’s significant evidence that Frederick the Great had relationships with other men, which fits well into how I see Gilbert’s relationship with him. And here, the metaphor employed by Liz I really is too good to pass up.
As I see it, Liz I is very much a kindred spirit to Arthur. Ambitious, shrewd, intelligent—and someone who wasn’t born to be the heir or supposed to be destined for power in the beginning. And the whole thing about being a bastard (since King Henry went all “this girl is illegitimate now” after he annulled his marriage with Anne Boleyn)? Oh, Arthur knows that well! He’s been labelled the Roman-German cuckoo amongst his siblings. And the way Liz I ruled? How she had all those alliances with states like the Ottoman Empire and Morocco, because hey, why let a little religious difference come in between the opportunity to fuck Antonio over? That’s just how I see Arthur’s personality—always pragmatic, always calculating. So, I think for Arthur—Liz I is that sort of relationship where he meet someone who thinks just like him and understands him in almost every way.
It’s also symbolic, I feel—to Arthur, Liz I is the one who gets him on the path of greatness. Now, of course reality is always multi-factorial—she had a great deal of luck too—but her long reign and her policies very much influence that perception. Especially her strategy of using privateers. There’s just such a combination of scheming, skulduggery and strategy that really fits in with how I see Arthur transforming himself into an empire—he’s that kind of person who will clean up if it’s necessary but well! There is nothing more boring and mind-numbing to 16th century Arthur than the way his aristocrats idle their days away on a large country estate, doing nothing except going on hunts, delicately eating teacakes in their drawing rooms or throwing parties. Where’s the challenge in that? He’s up for rolling up his sleeves, getting right in the shit and seeing the world for himself. The way Arthur sees it, Liz I enables him to do that. So married to England? Probably. It’s not necessarily a physical relationship, but it definitely was a partnership and for Arthur, meeting a perfect equal (as equal as one can get with a human).
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visitor
summary: Nira gets an unexpected visitor
if there are typos, u didn’t see them
A sharp, echoing rap filled the apartment as someone struck their knuckles against the door, interrupting Nira and Oleander’s peaceful Sunday afternoon. Nira, lying on one of the two enormous beanbags while she listened to Oleander make up a song as he cooked, jerked upright, and glanced first at Oleander, then at the door. Oleander was in the kitchen, pulling open a drawer to retrieve a whisk, and the knock on the door made him yelp. He looked to the door, then to Nira, who was pushing herself off the beanbag and heading toward the closet. On the off chance that the person at the door was someone or something that she needed to deal with, she knew Oleander would prefer if she was clothed.
“I wonder who that could be!” he chirped. Whisk in hand, he called out to the mystery visitor, “Coming!” and crossed the apartment to answer the door.
The moment Oleander saw who stood in the doorway, his blood ran cold, and his heartbeat quickened. The figure loomed, more than a foot taller than Oleander, and the light in the hall caused his shadow to fall over Oleander’s much smaller form. Startled, Oleander yelped and tossed his hands up. The whisk he was holding clattered to the floor.
“Nira,” he said, his voice high and strained. “I th-th-think it’s for you.”
Suddenly, another large figure appeared beside Oleander, and he yelped again. He blinked twice and his fingers twitched as he took a step back.
It was only Nira.
His startled yelp when he opened the door had spurred her to move with unusual speed, bordering on superhuman. Now that she stood next to him, his fear was practically tangible. Whatever was causing that reaction in their home, their safe place away from the stresses of the outside world, needed to be eradicated immediately.
At first, she didn’t recognize the man in the doorway. He was tall and muscular, no more than an inch or two shorter than she was, and his skin was tan and ruddy. The athletic shorts and tank top he wore showed off his muscles and dozens of scars, both faded and fresh. He bore a startling resemblance to how she looked when she took her human form, hairless, with the same coal black eyes and dark glower that made strangers feel ill-at-ease.
Then, she realized who he was. Kleon. Her brother. The last time she saw him they’d been in the Ottoman Empire, and he certainly didn’t have legs at the time. In the two hundred years, give or take, that had passed since their last encounter, he must have gotten the ability to take on a human form.
There were few people she wanted to see less.
“Deianira,” he said.
“No,” she said and shut the door.
Kleon’s hand flew out, and he wedged his foot between the door and the doorframe.
“You’re not even going to say hello?” he asked, his thin lips spreading over a toothy grin. His voice was deep and hoarse and grated on her nerves.
“What the fuck are you doing here?” she hissed.
She took a step forward and put her hands on either side of the doorframe, using her body to block Oleander from Kleon’s view. The movement put her uncomfortably close to her brother, leaving less than a foot of space between them, but as long as Kleon was within a visible distance, she was going to do everything in her power to keep him from so much as looking at Oleander.
“I heard you were living in Chicago,” he said. His dark eyes flicked briefly to the space behind her. She leaned to the side, blocking his view. “I was in the country and thought I’d drop by.”
“Why?” she demanded. Her tone was venomous, a biting accusation.
“To catch up,” he shrugged.
Behind her, she heard Oleander’s quiet voice, “I’ll j-j-j-j—” He cleared his throat and tried again, “I’ll just be in the kitchen.”
“Are you going to invite me in?” Kleon asked.
There was something about his voice that made her want to punch him in the throat. Nothing specific. His voice had just always had that effect on her.
“Fuck. No.”
“I came all the way out here to say ‘hi’ to you, and you’re going to shut me out?” he asked. The bastard was smiling, like this was some kind of game to him. It probably was. He’d always been infuriatingly amused by her and her decisions.
“I have never asked you to contact me,” she said flatly.
“Don’t be like this, Deianira,” he said. “I only want to catch up a bit. It’s been—what? Two hundred years?”
Two hundred years. He always seemed to show up every two hundred years. It wasn’t enough time between visits.
She knew if she tried to make him leave, he’d get more persistent and try to force his way into the apartment. Which would mean Kleon being in an enclosed space with Oleander. She couldn’t have that.
Through gritted teeth, she said, “Fine. Let’s go for a walk.” She grabbed the slip-on shoes that laid by the entrance and pulled them over her heels. Turning to face the apartment she told Oleander, “O, I’ll be back later.”
“Okay!” he squeaked from behind one of the pillars that separated the kitchen from the rest of the apartment.
Nira pushed Kleon back with her forearm and closed the door behind her. They said nothing as Nira led them out of the apartment and onto the street. The air outside was turning cold, but winter hadn’t quite set in yet.
“Who was that?” Kleon asked, matching her brisk pace.
He spoke in Ancient Greek. She hadn’t had anyone, besides The Hidden One, speak to her in Ancient Greek since the last time she’d seen Kleon, and The Hidden One’s accent had always been a little bit off. She took a moment to process what he said.
“Hmm?”
“The scared, chubby man,” he said. “Is he your butler?”
“My bu—why the fuck would I have a butler?” she asked in English, looking at him like he had suddenly started speaking gibberish.
“I don’t know,” Kleon said, still in Ancient Greek. “I heard you got your freedom. Thought maybe you wanted to turn things around and be the boss of someone. You did get your freedom, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she said.
Kleon grinned, showing off sharp fangs, and switched to English after realizing she was going to keep responding in English, “Well, didn’t take you very long did it? Only, oooh, let’s see, almost 2,200 years? But, really, who’s counting?”
Nira said nothing. She wasn’t going to respond to his mocking. It would only encourage him.
“Is he your cook?” he asked.
“Why would I have a fucking cook?” she asked. “We don’t need to cook our food.”
“He was holding a what-do-you-call-it,” he said, moving his hand in a stirring motion. “If he’s not your butler or your cook, what is he? Don’t tell me he’s your fucking roommate. Even you wouldn’t live with someone like that, right?”
“Someone like what?” she asked, lowering her voice threateningly. A warning to tread lightly.
Kleon did not tread lightly.
“Small. Weak. Pathetic. Afraid of his own shadow. Would probably lose a fight to a—what do you call those again? σκῐ́ουρος?” he asked, pointing at a squirrel that perched on the rim of a trash can.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snapped. She knew he was deliberately trying to provoke her, but she couldn’t prevent the anger bubbling up inside her.
“Damn, Deianira, calm down. I know you have a weird soft spot for humans, but even you have to admit, that man is a little bitch.”
“Watch your tongue or I’ll remove it,” she hissed, turning on him.
Kleon raised his non-existent brows, surprised by her malice. Then, his eyes widened, and a look of glee spread over his features.
“Oh my gods. Are you—? You’re not…are you dating him?”
“Yes,” she said, giving him a dark look.
She wasn’t ashamed of Oleander by any means. She would proudly announce to nearly anyone that he was her boyfriend. But she didn’t like Kleon knowing her business, and she didn’t like giving him another reason to mock her.
Kleon laughed sharply, tossing his head back. Nira had to stop walking and wait for him as he bent over, his hands on his knees. Her relationship with Oleander didn’t warrant this much laughter.
“Him? You’re dating him?” Kleon asked, incredulous. “How the fuck did you find someone worse than the last one? What was his name? Janus?”
“Judas,” Nira corrected thoughtlessly.
“Yeah, him,” he said. “Holy fuck, Deianira. I can’t believe you found someone worse. At least the last one could throw a punch. Seems like if you mentioned violence to this one, he might keel over. Where did you find him? What’s the appeal? He must be incredible at fucking. That’s the only explanation.”
“Ew,” she said. “Don’t talk to me about sex.”
“So, that’s not it? What else could he possibly have to offer?”
“Are you going to shut up, or do I have to force you to?” Nira growled, clenching her hands into fists.
She wasn’t going to get into the endless list of reasons she loved Oleander. It wouldn’t change Kleon’s opinion, and she really didn’t want Kleon knowing her business.
“Okay, okay, fine,” Kleon said, stifling his laughter.
They walked in silence, heading no where in particular. She wanted to put distance between them and the apartment, get Kleon as far away from Oleander as she could. And she didn’t want to talk to him. She’d been having a perfectly pleasant afternoon with Oleander, and Kleon showed up and ruined it.
Kleon snorted, unable to contain a burst of laughter. Nira glared at him.
“Keep your fucking mouth shut,” she warned. Whatever he had to say, she knew it would piss her off.
He didn’t heed her warning.
“You going to sign away your freedom for this one too?” he asked, shooting her a malicious grin.
That was the last straw.
His nose made a satisfying cra-ack as her hand collided with his face.
Fighting always gave her a thrill. There was nothing like the power of breaking another’s bones, the smell and heat of freshly spilt blood, the adrenaline of taking a blow. But fighting with her siblings added an additional level of excitement.
Kleon staggered back, his hand cupped over his bleeding nose. Nira had her hands up in loose fists, ready to block whatever swing he took at her. She ignored the people tittering around them. Fighting in the middle of the sidewalk was ill-advised, but she wasn’t worried about anyone interrupting them. Who would want to get in the middle of a fight between the likes of them?
His nose pouring streams of dark crimson, Kleon matched Nira’s stance, bringing his hands up. She blocked the first punch easily, and grabbed the second, using his momentum to knock him to the side. She was disappointed. The least he could do after mocking her was give her a fun fight.
He jabbed, a quick, rapid fake-out, then punched again, and this time his knuckles hit her jaw. She moved back fast enough that she didn’t feel the full force of the punch, but the contact was encouraging. Maybe this would be worth her time.
In an ideal world, Nira would be kicking Kleon’s ass with them both in their true gorgon forms. But the streets of Chicago were a poor fighting ground, and the SBI was liable to imprison or fine them for the amount of clean-up that exposing humans to the existence of gorgons would require, so she had to settle for this. A fight as humans. It almost seemed unfair for Kleon. Nira had over a millennium of practice and experience fighting as a human. Kleon had at most two centuries.
She would’ve won either way. She always did. He always got in a few good hits, making sure to leave her with bruises and wounds that would ache for at least a week, but she would always come out on top. She worked hard to be the best fighter among her siblings, and it showed whenever one of them provoked her.
When police sirens began to draw near, Nira put an abrupt end to the fight, throwing Kleon to the sidewalk and digging her knee into his back. She had no idea if the sirens were for them, but that wasn’t something she wanted to deal with. Police would take all the joy out of the impromptu brawl. Nira pulled Kleon’s arm back at an awkward angle until he tapped out, the blood from his nose staining the concrete.
She helped him to his feet and pleased to see that a look of unhappy acceptance had replaced his infuriating, provoking grin. He pulled his tank top off and held it to his bleeding nose as he followed Nira to the nearest convenience store. He waited outside while she bought him an ice pack.
“Here,” she said, tossing him a t-shirt as she exited the small store.
“What’s this?” he asked, catching it with ease.
“A shirt.”
“I have a shirt,” he said and pulled the bunched-up tank top away from his face.
“That shirt is covered in blood.”
“So?”
“Just put on the fucking shirt,” she said.
He handed her the blood-soaked tank top, then carefully pulled the t-shirt over his swollen face. A logo for a sports team she didn’t care about covered the chest. She handed his tank-top back to him, along with the ice pack.
“You eaten recently?” he asked, slipping into Ancient Greek out of habit.
“A couple days ago,” she said. The fight had cleared her mind, and she found it easier to respond in her native tongue.
“Want to go get something?”
“Sure.”
Nira led them to a small diner with dim yellow lights. The upholstery of the booth seats was faded and torn and smelled of cigarettes and old coffee. The waitress didn’t react to Kleon’s bruised face or the bloody shirt he held to his nose. With a deadened look in her eyes, she cheerfully took their orders.
“You heard from the family at all?” Kleon asked, again in Ancient Greek. He brought his cup of tea to his mouth and tried not to wince as the mug touched his swollen lip.
“No,” she said.
“Kleitos said you were back in Greece for a bit.”
“I was,” she said. “To give The Hidden One the Telmoros Tablet.”
“Yeah, about that,” he said. “Apparently a small plague has broken out in the area since you returned the tablet. Doesn’t seem like a coincidence.”
“That’s not my problem,” she said.
He shrugged, “Guess not. You didn’t visit anyone while you were in Greece?”
“Just Kleitos. I expected him to be dead.”
“He’s fucking old,” Kleon said. There was a beat of silence, then he said, “Mom had another clutch.”
“When?” Nira asked. She hadn’t thought much about her mother since she left Greece in BCE. She’d expected her to be dead, too.
“A couple centuries ago,” he said. “I traveled around with Admeta for a bit. She’s nearly as good at fighting as you.”
“Admeta? Admeta is dead. I would know,” she said, ignoring the compliment. She didn’t need anyone to tell her she was a good fighter. She knew that. She was more caught up on the traveling around with a gorgon she knew to be long dead. After all, she was the reason she was dead. Admeta had died with Nira crushing her windpipe.
“No, Admeta is from the most recent clutch,” Kleon explained.
“What? That’s fucking confusing. There are millions of names to choose from; why is Mom reusing names?” Nira asked.
“She’s always done this,” he rolled his eyes. “She’s waiting for you to die so she can reuse yours. Maybe the next Deianira won’t be such a disappointment.”
“Fuck off,” Nira said. She kicked him under the table, hitting a bruise she’d given him earlier. He winced.
For a few moments, they ate their eggs in silence.
“You think you’ll ever go back?” he asked.
“To Greece?”
“Yeah.”
Nira shrugged, “Maybe. I’m…fine in Chicago.”
She was fine in Chicago, because Oleander lived in Chicago, but if she was being honest with herself, she much preferred the weather of Greece. She didn’t miss the company she’d kept there, though.
“You’re not staying here for that human, are you?” he asked, narrowing his eyes.
“So, what if I am?” she hissed.
“Pathetic,” he said, shaking his head. He took a bite of his eggs, then said, “There aren’t many gorgons left there. Not like when we were young. Most have moved to Saventhia.”
“To where?” she asked.
“Saventhia.”
“The fuck is Saventhia?”
“You know, the other realm where all those centaur herds moved to when we were in our two-hundreds and three-hundreds,” he said.
Nira stared at him blankly for a moment, searching for a memory of centaurs leaving en masse. She didn’t think about her youth often, and many of her memories had been lost to time. She could vaguely recall the dwindling herds of centaur.
“Nicodemus moved there with his wife. He got married. Like a legitimate wedding. A fae wedding, but still a wedding,” Kleon said. “I think he wants to have children.”
Nira balked. She tried to imagine any of her siblings getting married. She supposed if anyone was going to get married, it made sense that it was Nicodemus. He’d always been drawn toward stability and family.
For longer than Nira wanted to stay in the small diner with its subpar food and old booths, Kleon rambled on, telling her about their various siblings, updating her on which siblings were definitely dead, and telling her about the lives of siblings she’d never met. She didn’t care. She tried to make note of the siblings that she’d grown up with, because she knew it was information Oleander would be interested in, but for the most part, Kleon’s gossip went in one ear and out the other.
Outside the diner, Kleon and Nira exchanged a curt handshake and a nod, a silent agreement that it would be a good two centuries before they’d willingly see each other again. Limping slightly, Nira headed back to her apartment, feeling light and clear-headed. She had missed fighting with people who could come close to her skill level. There weren’t many good things she could say about Kleon, but at least he was fun to fight. The endorphins from the brawl would keep her in high spirits for at least a week.
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Welcome back!
In the last chapter, I just included a bunch of original characters without commenting anything whatsoever. Talk about being modest :P
Oh well, great ready, because the sisters will arrive in this chapter and the next! And one of them is an OC!
As for the historic events, most are true, but some of them have been invented or moved around in in the European historic timeline to keep the dramatic states high, and to show how vast, small and dangerous this universe is all at the same time. I swear all the ‘world-building’ will make sense as we move forward :D.
All frozen characters belong to Disney, all I own is this head-cannon and the original characters.
On with the story :D
Chapter 4: The birth of someone magical, and the disappearance of another
In the first few months of their marriages, the lives of the royal couple of Arendelle and Corona were good and full of hope, despite whatever happened in the rest of Europe and the world. The British had had enough of their mentally ill monarch, who was on his way out. The loss of the thirteen colonies still cut deep to the British, and when the Confederacy had decided to further challenge the them in Canada, the British proceeded to burn Washington to the ground, even going so far as to provoke the Native Americans to fight on the side of the British. The Confederacy turned to Arendelle for help, which resulted in Arendelle with its considerable naval forces confronting the formidable navy of the British. The duke of Weselton had a vested interest in the transatlantic trade, and so joined on the side of Arendelle. The three naval superpowers fought and ground the war to a stalemate by taking the war to the sea away from the shores of North America. With peace ensured by the Confederacy agreeing to leave Canada be, the British bought influence in Africa filling up the duke’s coffers. And with peace made on good terms with the confederacy thanks to Arendellian diplomacy, Arendelle now found a powerful new ally in Great Britain, moving away from the French. Furthermore, the confederacy was grateful, and called for further imports from Arendelle.
All this happened while the Corsican madlad was subdued in Elba, which was a good thing as when he showed up again to be finally defeated in Waterloo, the Arendelle crown was well backed by Great Britain into a powerful negotiating position regarding the fate of the fallen dictator. As a result, king Agnarr and queen Iduna found ample time to bring long-lost prosperity back to Arendelle. The days of Agnarr being a ditherer desperate to please everyone were long gone; here he was, with the love of his life beside him, ready to take on the world.
However, there was a bout of tragedy in his friend’s life, as King Reginald and Queen Sophia’s first child due in the spring of 1815 turned out to be a stillborn, despite the painstaking efforts of some of the best doctors in Europe. The whole ordeal of a painful birth and the dead infant took a heavy toll on the Queen, who was emotionally broken from the experience. The palace servants found it increasingly common to hear the queen screaming into the night in self-pity and self-loathing, turning to alcohol to ease the pain, and having shouting matches with the king. It was one of those times, when things came to a head.
“It was unfortunate what happened, but we are young and healthy, we can try again.” The king reasoned, holding on to his own stoicism lest he crumble too.
“You don’t get it do you?! It came out of me, lifeless and stiff! HOW COULD I EVER EXPECT TO TRY AGAIN! Who’s to say it won’t happen again?!” Shrieked the queen, weeping tears full of rage.
“So, he’s already an ‘it’, isn’t he?” the king asked with a woebegone face.
“Listen to yourself Reggie, it’s been buried in the ground for almost a month, and you are the one who wants to move on from ‘him’?” the queen sobbed.
“I have been seeing you for that entire time, you think I haven’t tried to move on? I have tried to weave myself through all false sympathies, hoping that maybe I could have my wife for comfort by my side. But now, I can’t even talk to her anymore. All I can sense are the alcohol talking, and a woman who’s admitting defeat. I can’t recognize my wife at all in you right now, Sophie” The king said quietly, with the tears starting to flow from his eyes as well.
The queen fell silent at this. She observed her husband for a good long moment; the loss was acute for him as well. Reginald was always sensitive about those he loved and cared for, and overtly emotional. She may have lost an infant, but both their futures were in jeopardy in the moment, and ultimately, for now she had to think like a queen first, motherhood could come later.
“You’re right. We must think about our futures too, we can’t stay in this quagmire forever. I have been selfish in my sorrow and have left you alone out in the cold to fend for yourself, for that I’m truly sorry. You know what Reggie, let’s regain our strength, and try again after some time. I’m sure we’ll make it. And if I must give up drinking, so be it.” Sophia declared as things became clear to her.
“Yes, we will make it. Hang in there Sophie.” “You too Reggie.” The royal pair told each other as they held on to each other, their hearts placated.
Throughout this time, king Agnarr had provided all the help that he could to his dear friend, and the morbid incident was the talk of the Arendellian royal household.
“I hope they recover from this soon, they deserve a lot better.” Iduna mused during one such conversation.
“I hope so as well, I can’t bear watching Reginald like this, and poor Sophia too” Agnarr said.
“I think there’s a lesson here” “What?” “I think they were not ready for a child yet, they were not serious enough about it. I knew back then that was a mistake. I tried warning the both of them, but they were too excited to listen.” Iduna observed as her husband agreed.
“Who’s to say we are ready ourselves?” Agnarr inquired expectantly.
“Only time will tell; I think we should wait to be better prepared.” Iduna answered.
And so, the royal couple decided to wait. Just as well, as the British and the Russians were twisting Agnarr’s arm to intervene in the Balkans. That was the thing with the British, while the rest of Europe was looking at Africa and Asia, they had their eyes set on the whole world. Anyway, at Sophia’s request, Iduna convinced Agnarr to send a team of diplomats to the region, getting the local leaders to pledge fealty to central Europe, while the British proceeded to wrest control of Egypt from the Ottomans, rendering it a vassal state to the Ottomans to keep them from corpsing and leaving the region unpredictable. The Russians on their part, help instigate a popular uprising against the Sultan and his Janissaries in the fall of 1817. Nasty business, the Arendelle Monarch thought, but at least it would keep his staunchest allies secure. The king of Corona was saddled with enough worries as it was at the time, being nervous about his wife’s second pregnancy, and tried his hardest to keep all stress away from her. But even he couldn’t have guessed what could happen.
The Habsburgs of Austria-Hungary, the Russians and the Ottomans had always seen the Balkans as the buffer that kept everything in check. The day that powder keg blew up, all three would go down. While the Habsburgs had family in the Balkans, particularly in Serbia, which was unsurprising at this point, both the Ottomans and the Russians claimed to be the protector of all Christians in the region. In a surprising and morbid turn of events, the Ottoman Sultan, seething at such an open blow to his power, moved first, and sent in his special troops/assassins to storm the imperial palace of the king and queen of Serbia, shot them multiple times at point blank range, and destroyed their bodies by chopping them to pieces and throwing them into the palace moat. The sheer audacity of the event, not to mention the horrific assassination and the barefaced flexing of the Sultan’s powers, sent Europe by storm, but none more than the queen of Corona, who was the second cousin of the king of Serbia.
The shock made Sophia faint when she heard the news, which unfortunately led to a miscarriage.
The king was beside himself with grief, and the queen was inconsolable. The event affected them so much that they cancelled the thanksgiving service that year, and the queen sunk into depression as rumours started circulating about queen Sophia being victim to the Habsburg curse of madness and melancholy. But the queen asserted herself to the public by putting those rumours to rest. In an unprecedented move for the time, she made a speech to the public, addressing that while the loss of a potential heir and family was tragic, it was not doomsday for the country or Europe yet as they were still led by a courageous and wise monarchy and a common belief of maintaining peace after the fall of Napoleon, and they would weather these storms, as they had done before.
While the public’s beliefs may have been restored, only Iduna learnt the true sorrow that hounded Sophia about the whole affair when she visited:
“I swear I’m fucking cursed” cried Sophia. “That’s silly, Sophia” Said Iduna, as she tried to calm her down.
“Is it really? I lost a second cousin and a child in the span of 48 hours. I honestly believe the forces of nature are out to make me miserable. Various forces at play to ruin my life.” Sophia continued sadly.
“Look, those animals who caused this anguish to you will pay; that does not mean you stop living and give up-” Iduna began but was cut off by Sophia.
“First of all, I know I can handle it, nevertheless by accepting that bleak truth, I would stop being caught fucking unawares whenever such a thing happens.” Sophia claimed.
“That’s a bizarre argument, woman. By that rationale, I’m also cursed, as I lost my entire family in a battle my late father-in law waged. Agnarr should also be cursed, as he also lost his father in said battle. It’s a bone-headed way of thinking, and it leads us nowhere.” Iduna proceeded to coach the aggrieved queen, “What happened was life itself, and it is seldom under our control. Everyone’s surroundings affect them. No one could imagine those killers could stoop to this action, and no one could have known what would happen afterwards. All we can do is to do the next right thing when facing such darkness.” Iduna finished.
“The next right thing? What do you think that should be?” Sophia asked.
“For you, it should be to stand beside your husband in this time, he shouldn’t suffer separately and alone.” Iduna advised. “As married people, we find our strength in our better halves, you know.”
“You’re right. To take a step and step again indeed.” Sophia rose up to embrace the queen of Arendelle.
“Stay strong, Sophie.” “You too, Iduna.”
The British saw this event as an excuse to be the moral voice of the situation, in comparison to king Reginald and the aging monarch of Austria-Hungary, who also happened to be the maternal grandfather of Queen Sophia, who threatened invasion and war. The British struck first by trapping the Ottomans in an embargo that blocked them from the west Mediterranean Sea. The Russians, on the other hand forced them into a crippling treaty that made Greece independent; further reducing the European holdings of the Sultan.
Agnarr on his part, wanted nothing to do with the Balkans or the Ottomans, focusing instead on efforts to pacify king Reginald and observing The Southern Isles. King Christian’s latest wife, his fifth, a princess of Greek origin, had been blessed with triplets, so if there was anyone truly fertile in the continent, it was the king of The Southern Isles. Now a proud father of twelve, the king was well and truly ensured his succession and the crisis that would precede it. Not that it bothered the aging king; he was raised to get what he wanted, by god if he wanted a private army of his own kids, he would get it.
Agnarr mused, that man has clearly nothing else left in his life except an illusion of health and merry. Any romantic dreams that he had died with his second wife, every other lady he courted after became a brood mare. When it came out that his latest wife was involved in an affair, he proceeded to divorce her summarily within the next twenty-four hours, seized all her possessions, and left her destitute and ruined. Agnarr was generally put off by his careless hounding attitude towards everything but was truly disgusted to find out that he had married a sixth time, this time to a rumoured Polish noblewoman in the beginning of 1819.
A fine set of examples the royal couple of Arendelle had around them; the Tsar who was childless, and his younger brothers weren’t too keen to succeed him. Then there was Corona, where queen Sophia had gotten pregnant for a third time, against all odds. Finally, there was king Christian who had already consummated the marriage with his Polish wife, and a rumoured thirteenth kid was on the way. However, the king of The Southern Isles narrowly survived a heart attack during said consummation and decided that even by his standards, he was done.
Well, speaking of pregnancies, Iduna had broken the happy news to Agnarr in the April of 1819, and the kingdom was in celebration. 1819 was an important year in this respect; a lot of future monarchs were born in this year, not that anyone could say for sure at that time. As the summer solstice drew near, queen Sophia started experiencing complications in her pregnancy and panicked, sending king Reginald into a frenzy, calling up all the physicians, doctors and midwives available. As Sophia’s situation grew worse, king Agnarr sent his personal doctor, Dr. Klaus. If anyone had consummate knowledge in medicine and lifesaving, it was this guy.
Dr Klaus took one look at the queen and gave his verdict; if they were to save the queen and the baby, they needed an exotic herb made from a plant called the sun-mirror, a variety of lettuce whose luminous flowers had the rumoured quality of giving eternal life and healing all predicaments. However, it was extremely rare and was critically endangered as a plant, only growing naturally on the island of Cyprus, unfortunately controlled by the Ottomans. The Ottomans found the opportunity to weasel out a deal with Russia in exchange for safe passage to Cyprus for Reginald’s troops, and since king Reginald threatened to blockade the Baltic with Arendelle’s backing if Russia didn’t abide, the Tsar was forced to give up the southern ports of the Black Sea, exposing Crimea to the Ottomans.
However, no harm was done, as the plant was found, brought back to Corona, crushed into herbs and medicine and fed to the queen. The result could not have been better, as the queen had a surprisingly easy birth, becoming the mother to a lovely, adorable, healthy and lively baby girl on the eve of the Summer Solstice. King Reginald was overcome with joy and emotion as he hugged his baby girl and spread the happy news throughout Europe. The baby princess had a full head of blonde hair long enough to cover her whole body, like the golden stocks of the sun-mirror lettuce. She was officially christened as princess Eva Rapunzel, but the king and queen endearingly called her Rapunzel or Punzie. At that point Dr. Klaus took his leave, to care for queen Iduna’s pregnancy.
Arendelle waited with bated breath as Iduna faced a complication of her own by contracting hypothermia; her situation grew serious as her body fell colder and colder, and all the nutrition, medicine, hot coalbeds and blankets couldn’t keep her warm. Moreover, the queen’s eyes had begun to glow with a pale ice-blue glow, and the queen had begun to enter trances, where she would sing in kulning for hours on end. King Agnarr grew desperate; asking Dr. Klaus for any cure or treatment, maybe another sun-mirror herb. Dr Klaus declined; the flower bloomed once in 75 years, and the latest bloom had saved princess Eva Rapunzel. As the king dreaded the worst, Dr Klaus gave some hope:
“Send for Grand Pabbie.”
Said creature was a curious one; a being made of half rock, half human flesh, with leaves and wines for hair. This self-sustaining being used to meditate for six months of the year, and had a massive following of similar beings, living on the borders of the impenetrable mist separating Arendelle from the North, surviving various disasters throughout history by blending into mountainous rocks. It was a testament to Dr. Klaus’ knowhow and network that he knew of this mystical being and his tribe.
The king in his desperation personally went with Dr. Klaus and his royal guard to fetch the rock hermit from the wilderness. At first, Grand Pabbie refused; he had greater responsibilities to the nutrition and survival of the land than some as temporary as human beings, hence the meditation during winter. But when Dr. Klaus explained the whole situation, Grand Pabbie agreed to accompany them at once. Upon reaching the queen’s chambers, the hermit proceeded to put a rocky hand on the queen’s belly and declared “Your majesty, your child has been blessed by the fifth spirit.”
King Agnarr was stunned to hear that “It can’t be, the pass has been covered in mist for years, there’s no way the Northurldra, let alone the fifth spirit could have come to the south, much less affect my wife and child’s health.”
“Calm down, your majesty, for I am yet to finish. Your child and wife are in perfect health; despite the cold and other supernatural symptoms, the queen has no breathing problems or health issues. Her pulse is stable as well. This constellation of symptoms must have puzzled Dr. Klaus; thus, he may have recommended my services.” Grand Pabbie assured the tense king.
“What shall you do now?” asked the king.
“I will perform a simple gesture on the queen’s belly, that should bring her comfort and ease of birth. Now, why exactly did the fifth spirit bless your wife is a mystery, we can assume that either of you have committed a great deed that has placated the lost souls.” With that, the hermit made an eight-cornered crystal shape on the queen’s abdomen. This placated the queen and she drifted into a restful sleep. With that, the hermit turned to the king ”Worry not your majesty, the queen is perfectly safe. However, your child would have a resistance to, or maybe even mastery over a force of nature. Since your kingdom is on the coast, it would most likely be water. As the queen is due near the Winter Solstice, it may be a power over snow, and ice.”
The king was gobsmacked to hear this but was gestured by Dr. Klaus to remain calm. The king realized the prudence of not offending the hermit and thanked Grand Pabbie for his services.
On the eve of the Winter Solstice of 1819, king Agnarr couldn’t sleep; queen Iduna had gone into labour and the process went much smoother than expected. He had just become the proud father of a baby princess with hair a very light shade of blonde, taking after her grandmother, or so the people said. She was most certainly a bundle of joy, bursting into giggles as soon as seeing her parents for the first time and burying her face into her mother’s bosom, which was deemed adorable by the Monarch. The king bent in to pinch her nose and cheek, which prompted a sneeze from the baby princess, showering a whole layer of snow onto her father.
The queen was shocked “What the fuck?! Where did that come from?!”
The king wiped the snow off his face and said ”Iduna, there’s something you need to know.”
At the end of his story, the queen calmed down and kissed the baby princess on the forehead “She truly is a gift from the almighty. Let’s call her Elsa.”
“Very well, Elsa shall be her name.” Smiled the king.
“She seems to like the name” grinned the queen as the giggling baby princess had already started making snowflakes on her fingertips.
Just then, a guard rushed into their bedroom ”Your Majesty!”
“What is it? Are we under attack?” bellowed the king and queen in unison as the sudden noise made the princess cry.
“I don’t know for certain…. I’m sorry for frightening you at this hour of night. But a messenger from Corona brings worrying news.” The guard spoke after catching his breath.
The king and queen met the messenger at once, who gave them the news that made their blood run cold;
“Princess Eva Rapunzel has been abducted in the dead of night.”
Woohoo! That was an action-packed chapter, I think.
Some cute moments, some gruesome moments, some sad moments and some moments of joy.
Or as Murray, the Joker or Iduna would say, that’s life!
The OC family would definitely become bigger next chapter, and we may say goodbye to some characters already, just like life.
As always, constructive feedback is always welcome.
#frozen#frozen elsa#elsa#frozen fanfiction#frozen fandom#frozen fanfic#fanfiction#fanfic#frozen agnarr#frozen iduna
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