#also yes some of these are repeats but from a different angle/in better quality | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

youwontlikethisblog · 3 years

Text

Thank You For Dropping Me Off, Sir

Now I've talked a lot about Armando's denial and given the facts to prove it. What I don't want getting lost in translation though is that though Armando does care about Betty, you cannot deny that he is also concerned over the company, however it(his feelings towards Betty) is the the real reason he continues with the plan.

@el-moscorrofio-y-el-mercachifle (They're the poster about Aura Maria and Mario their post is Episode 64, go read it if you haven't had the chance!) mentioned something that I hadn't thought about all that well, that due to Armando's tendency of people pleasing he often does things out of a deep responsibility for their happiness and his guilt.

When Mario manipulates him this day(the day after he first kissed Betty) he really switches language as he tells him "I don't like this." "I'm worried." He's after our(my) money." which moves Armando to continue with the plan, for the sake of Mario and the company and everyone else in the company but now he has another reason, he somewhat wants to understand what he feels.

Now let's jump into the scene I'll be breaking down.

Betty is being dropped off by Armando. She is still keeping this very PG, trying to justify his actions to them being work related. Again this is very true of a person who has experienced real heartbreak of the romantic kind. Like I mentioned in the previous post I was in toxic friendship, when that friendship was over I spent years guarding myself around anyone and making no efforts to from friendships of any real substance and when I did I worked really hard to keep them at arm's length. This was my defense mechanism and I appreciate the fact that they show this with Betty.

In most instances they don't portray characters with emotional damage all too well or one could assume that Betty does this because she's insecure and though to some degree that's true, Betty also does this to protect herself from having to once again experience heartbreak and this time from someone who she actually cares about, not someone who in some way forced himself to be her interest.

Miguel wasn't just a guy who used her and got money out of it. That wasn't the only thing that broke Betty.

Miguel presented himself as a love interested to Betty, who didn't like him at first but was flattered by his attention, as she later tells Armando that she up to that point thought no man would ever pay attention to her as a woman. Betty was somewhat guarded but once she let her guard down she fell in love.

She says she gave all of herself and all her love to him. He was her first love but Miguel didn't care. To Betty what Miguel did translated to him finding her so repulsive, so heinous, and disgusting that even her love wasn't enough to change his heart and he shared her naked spirit to his friends all for money and to make fun of her. It wasn't a question of ego but rather of worth.

This with every right left Betty traumatized. So when she speaks over him, interrupts Armando and justify it as him being drunk, not knowing what he was doing, depressed, stressed, anguished for the company and exceeding himself with beautifiers, she is trying not to feed her hope. She is trying to remain grounded and safe because unlike with Miguel Betty on her own has discovered who Armando is and decided to fall in love with him. What she feels for his is true and genuine feelings that weren't "forced" or pushed onto her like with Miguel. If she allows herself to believe what he is saying she is allowing herself to fall victim to loves cruelty again.

Armando soberly repeats the same things he had drunkenly told Betty the previous night. That he can't live without her.

"But you haven't lived without me, Sir. I work by your side more than eighteen hours (Girl I would've done killted myself if I had to work beside a man as neurotic as Armando for 18+ hours a day!No matter how good the view is!) a day."

"Yes but now it's different, Beatriz, because I feel these desires[I can't really hear what he said] to caress you, to kiss you." He says leaning forward after touching the side of her face with the back of his fingers, but Betty pulls back and says "No".

As he pulls away Armando studies Betty's face and looks embarrassed as well as confused at Betty's rejection all the while trying to remain composed.

This is when Betty names the list of reasons not to believe Armando is interested in her and Armando gets mad at her.

He openly yells "No,no,no, I'm not confused Beatriz!" he says between clenched teeth and turns to look at her. "I am not. I feel perfectly sure that what I'm saying is the truth."

"Sir, the thing is that it's not possible for you to have taken notice of me."

Angirly now Armando screams at her "But why!"

Why does he react so angrily at Betty for this? For one because he doesn't like for Betty to invalidate his feelings(again this shows he feels comfortable being himself around her) and that she wouldn't believe that he likes her.

I mentioned already that Armando's tone gives us a true understanding of what he's saying and with what intention even when his body language is different. Here he is upset that Betty doesn't believe him and mostly that she doesn't see why he'd be interested in her.

"But why?" he asks more calmly at seeing Betty's reaction.

She nervously begins to explain "Because I know your type really well. You are of fine palate. You like women who are ninety, sixty, ninety, tall, pretty, with class, and-and I don't correlate with any of those characteristics, sir."

"Yes that's true." They both laugh nervously, "Betty, Betty, Betty." He is now trying to find the words to speak. "I love,love, your-your, strength hmm" He nods and here we see him slowly become more honest as he finds the qualities of Betty's that he loves/likes. "I love that energy that I feel when we're together, I love it. I love the way you do things like so sure of it." He smiles and turns to look at her and then tells her. "I also love your softness(tenderness/gentle nature)." he says looking away from her now being shy and then looks back at her and tells her "I love that gift you've got, of managing people. I really love that."(y'all this is why she works 18+ hours with him, I get it).

Again he starts to struggle to find the words but he finds them and unlike the first reason he listed (her strength) he is actually being honest even though he is doing the same gesture(from what I've read often times when you are reading body language you don't just focus on the gesture but overall the entire context; like tone of voice, subject of conversation, speech patterns, ect. We can conclude that Armando is being honest here as it shows a very natural pattern of behavior of his here instead of seeming tense, now he is actively wanting to find the words to speak) "I love your sensibility, man, you've got a very special sensibility." Betty now looks away from him with a slight smile and he seems Contentment with her reaction(Even in the past, before all of this, Armando has always had a face of contentment/joy when he sees Betty smile, especially when he is the one that makes her smile and because of that he kept trying to actively treat her better so that he could be the cause of it; it's a sense of reward really. He did something nice for her and she'd be happy and that would make him happy. A clear demonstration of this is when Armando talks to Betty about her new raise) and he tells her "Betty it's because you're like a little angle to me. Plus I love your personality, what a (the word he uses literally translates to hot or scorching but we'll use another one) welcoming personality and and I love you intelligence. The way you so efficiently do things. It's because I think that any man would find all of that attractive now, don't you think?"

Armando started struggling to consciously find what he likes about her but all of a sudden he can't stop naming them or talking about the things he finds attractive of Betty's. Like a vail has been dropped in his brain all of a sudden>

"Mmm, no." Betty shakes her head in response to his question. "Definitely not, Sir."

"No?" He chuckles nervously "then I don't know what's going on with me then so then I'm going crazy...crazy for you. See I want you to know that since I found out about Nicolas I felt a lot a lot of fear. I felt a lot of anguish and believe me, I felt a lot of anguish but also this desire to caress you and kiss you. " In this sentence we get a shift of tone of voice showing that he shifts from being honest to being manipulative.

"No, no, Sir. What I was only going to tell you is that I don't understand why you feel that about me. I can't find any motive why[you would]."

Armando's tone has now shifted to manipulation, no longer being light hearted and natural.

"This goes to prove that what one feels goes beyond physical appearance, the stereotypical, you understand me?" then again shifts to his natural voice "Betty I know that you've probably thought that the woman of my life has to be a ninety, sixty, ninety, with these marvelous curves, with generous breast, blue eyes, very tall," he says very clearly showing that he likes that and Betty seems down about it until he turns to look at her "like the models, right? But look none of those models have made me happy. I haven't felt for anyone, what I feel for you Beatriz Pinzon Solano." The final sentence he says with conviction. You can't overlook or ignore that as confusion, this shows us that Armando to some degree knows that what he feels for Betty goes beyond anything he's ever felt for anyone.

Now next he closes his eyes to go onto this monologue that beauty isn't what media feeds us but rather something that is deeper than skin. That is it based on the substance of a person, speaking Betty's love ideal here. Why does he have his eyes closed?

He can openly talk about Betty and the wonderful qualities that he finds attractive but he can't openly talk about Betty's physical appearance because up to this point he hasn't accepted or had to face that reality yet.

Betty the whole time is paying attention to what he's saying, his body language. This is why Betty lives sure and convinced of what he is telling her because she's learned to read him like her favorite book and that's the thing.

Betty is very aware of Armando's feelings, boundaries, and flaws. Just like Mario is and we see that in the office when they see each other for the first time after the kiss. Betty inspects his behavior and then decides to act like nothing happened, not only to protect herself but to not make him uncomfortable. The difference however is that while Mario uses his knowledge on Armando to manipulate and force him to do things, Betty doesn't. Betty uses this knowledge to help him and to encourage him in his growth by celebrating his victories and standing beside him when he fails. She doesn't demand for him to change or stop doing what he is, instead she allows him to behave how he does but she isn't shy to show how she feels about it. While Armando isn't so much intune or aware of Betty's feelings because he's so focused on what Betty does for him, however this doesn't dismiss that because of the way Betty loves him, it also inspires him to change and that's really the biggest lesson we get with these two and we're only getting started.

"Are you sure you haven't had anything to drink, sir?"

"I'm sober, Betty, but I'm hallucinating, and that's real." he looks away from her and then back "I'm hallucinating but for you. Of you, Betty." he leans forward. Now the music here gives us the understanding that it is meant to be intriguing(I love the soundtrack so I looked it up and that's legit the title track for this theme) .

Music is a huge part of cinema as it is proven to affect the audience and convey feelings otherwise dismissed. The music creates an air of mystery now because we don't know if what Armando is saying and doing is honest now while in the past we could pick up on it now it's a lot harder to do so.

However one can imagine that while he had his eyes closed he was pictureing Adriana Arboleda sitting in front of him(why else would they show us Mario giving him the picture and telling him to just picture her instead) instead of Betty.

Betty turns to look at the moon after he points it and she smiles.

"Yes the moon is very beautiful. How curious." she speaks as Armando now looks at a picture of AA. "It's the same moon that's inspired so many poets throughout a lot of human history." Here Armando takes in a deep breath is seems to be pumping himself up, he takes off his glasses. Betty is still looking up at the moon and says "There's nothing that inspires more than the moon." Armando sleeks his brows(he wanted to look presentable IG) and agrees with her, now his hand under her chin her turns her around towards him.

"And that's our moon, Beatriz and this is our night." He now leans closer.

Now I see many people point out that Armando's eyes are open when he kisses Betty but this is something he does with Marcela as well which indicates that it isn't based on disgust but mostly guilt.

As they kiss at first his eyes are wide open and then tightly shut(if I'm being honest, as a person who hates romance(ironic huh) I hate with a passion, kissing scenes so this is hard for me to watch lol like I've seen from the nose up, nothing below that so I know how Armando reacts as wella s Betty but the mouth part is the one that grosses me out the most) . Betty takes ina sharp breath and pulls away and now Armando opens his eyes surprised and does the same.

"No, Sir.." Betty is now the one struggling to find words.

"You didn't like it?" He asks but states at the same time.

Betty nods gently, however her eyes are wide. Betty is terrified here and it isn't because Armando is taking advantage here(he's not) it's because she is terrified of all the implications it means. For one she is allowing herself to have hope for a relationship with Armando, for her to show her love to him and for him to love her for it, despite the fact she's "ugly". It means that she is setting herself up for a potential heartbreak that could be the end of her.

"Lets move from here, it's cause my dad peeps out through the windows and he can come and see what's going on and I don't want that."

"Yeah me either."

They move from location and Betty proceeds to speak.

"Sir this isn't correct. I don't know what's going on with you. I'm starting to get worried, Sir. "

"What is it Betty? Is that you suddenly don't feel anything for me?" He tries to stay composed but his micro expression shows worry.

"Of course I do." He looks somewhat relieved while maintaining a poker face. "I admire you a lot. You're a man that's so-so interesting." he smirks and raises an eyebrow showing approval of what she said as well as confident in himself 'Of course you do'.

"I started to feel that you were special for me when you started to defend my work. To value me as a professional." He still seems pleased but not as much. As Betty relays all of this in the professional element(While Armando focused on the person). We know why it was so important to her that Armando did this and why he became special to her for it, however Armando doesn't. "and I realized how important I am for your life.(osea, how important of a role she plays in his life)" Armando now has eyebrows raised and is blinking rapidly. He is really paying attention to what she is saying. and trying to comprehend as well "All of these things attract me from you." she says timidly.

He now has to face this new reality, that though he confessed true attraction based on her person, Betty has only relaid professional or work related qualities that attract her, not him as an individual and why it bothers him.

"That-that's wonderful, Betty."

"But this is crazy, Sir. You have a girlfriend, you're going to get married." He turns from he and opens his mouth slightly in shock and then turns back to look at her. "You can't leave Marcela to start a relationship with me."

He now looks at her with a frustrated expression.

"It would be terrible, your family would not allow it... and what would happen with me? You have to really think this through."

"No, Betty, but of course. It can be crazy, of course. What's happening is that I already... I already experienced something. Yes and I already confirmed that I want to keep living it. Now you're right I can't breakup with Marcela, just like that. The situation with Eco Moda is too difficult to end things with her right this moment, plus my relationship with my family is in crises, I think they wouldn't take the sandal and neither would I but you better than anyone know I don't love Marcela. See if that's the case, what's the fear? Let's continue ahead, Betty. Besides it's about feelings. I have to feel for you, you have to feel for me. We'll see til where we go. Don't you think?" The music theme is titled "secrecy".

"I'm just so afraid, Sir."

"Or is it because you feel more for that sir, Nicolas?" he says with a tinge of jealousy.

"Ay, sir, lets take Nicolas out of this conversation, you want to?"

"Yes clearly, that's what I want. So what then? What's the fear? Huh? You've risked everything for me, see, together we've done a lot crazy things. We've been accomplices in a lot things and now you're going to tell me that you don't have the bravery to live this next to me? Or you don't want to live it, Betty?

"Of course I do, Sir."

"Yes?" He now shifts to kiss her.

After their kiss, after Armando does that disgusted face again, Betty agrees to be his other woman.

His phone starts to ring and Marcela is a very possessive manner tells Armando that she's waiting for him and just wanted to make sure he was going to go over, that she a very delicious dinner for him.

After he hangs up and he agrees to drop her off he tells Betty "You look very precious." And she scoffs in a lighthearted way, finding it funny that he'd say that.

Marcela legit made fun of her and said that she looked worse than she had the day before so it amuses her that Armando would say that.

"One last question, will Mr. Mario Calderon know of this?" she asks as they arrive at the front of her house. "It's just that you both are so trusting of each other, you tell each other everything. I wouldn't want for him nor anyone to know of this, Sir. In some way you have a relationship with Ms. Marcela and by accepting this affair I take on the role of you lover."

"No don't say that." Again this entire things highlights Armando's true nature of his obsessiveness with physical perfection and how it's the only way he can ever be attracted to a woman so he feels grossed out by the idea of having to do anything more than kissing, and lover implies that they do more than kissing. He'd know, he's an expert in the subject.

This is when Armando promises to Betty not to tell Mario about this.

This is his second mistake with Betty.

The first being that he starts his relationship in the bases of lies.

The drop off:

Now as the nights go on there's a change of pace to the drop offs in front of Betty's house.

This first time Betty waves good-bye to him and he repeats to himself he's a piece of ish over and over again, angirly. Duh, he feels guilty.

Betty's dad then opens the door and Armando urgently drives off. Later we see that he does this frequently but slowly he begins to take a while longer before driving off, which demonstrates his longing for Betty.

#analysis of ysblf #armando ysblf #don armando #armando mendoza #betty #beatriz pinzon solano #betty pinzón solano #betty ysblf #betty la fea #yo soy betty la fea

17 notes · View notes

sgstories123 · 4 years

Text

The Story of Alex Part 5

“Alex, bring the monthly financial statements to Chairman. Judy usually does this but she called in sick today. You worked with her on this, right? Make sure you are familiar with the numbers because Chairman sometimes like to go through the details.” Michelle advised before passing a thin file containing a few sheets of paper to Alex.

Alex has worked for a couple of weeks in the Business Strategy department. He enjoyed his work in the new department but more importantly, he enjoyed working with his new departmental colleagues. His department had mostly female staff. They were also younger and prettier than most of the female staff in the other departments. It was nice to be surrounded by them.

When Alex entered the Chairman’s office several minutes later, he found the Chairman first looking expectantly but quickly changed to a look of disappointment.

“Are you here with the statements? What happened to Judy?” The Chairman asked.

“Judy called in sick so I am replacing her to submit the report.” Alex replied.

The Chairman smiled. “How can you replace her?” Then he looked at Alex’s downcast face. “Oh. Don’t be mistaken. I don’t mean that you are not capable. I am sure work-wise, you are just as good as Judy.”

Alex looked confused.

The Chairman laughed. “You already know what I am like. As a man, I will be frank with you. Judy gives me a blow job when I go through the statements. If I spot a mistake, I will spank her ass. Now, I am sure you cannot replace Judy and give me a blowjob. Nor do I want to spank your ass.”

Alex smiled. He was relieved that it had nothing to do with his job performance. He was really enjoying his work here and wanted to stay as long as possible. Plus, the pay was good.

“Well, I still need to see the statements.” The Chairman held his hand up for the file. Alex handed it over and for a short instance, he was worried that his ass would be spanked. He shook his head. Nah. The Chairman is as straight as an iron rod.

The Chairman became another person when he was going through the statements. He looked serious and thoughtful. He asked a couple of questions and Alex was relieved that he was able to answer them confidently. Afterall, he had worked hard over the report with Judy.

“Did we get a new printer for the marketing collaterals?” The Chairman asked.

“Yes, The Marketing department changed the printing company last month. It is slightly cheaper and according to the Marketing department, the quality is comparable. As usual, we will be monitoring the new vendor for the next 3 months.”

“Crystal made the decision, right?”

Alex panicked. He did not know who made the decision. He only had the financial statements.

“I will need to check on that. But we were informed of the decision by the Marketing department. Crystal will likely know about the decision.”

The Chairman did not seem happy. He picked up his phone and commanded curtly “Get Crystal into my office now!”

Alex was breaking out in cold sweat. Did he fumble in his first presentation to the Chairman? He tried replaying the scenario in his head. Was there a better answer?

“Go seat at the sofa there while we wait for Crystal.” The Chairman pointed at a sofa at the corner of the office and he resumed typing on his computer.

Alex spent the next few moments in awkward silence, thinking about what he had done wrong. Judy would have simply turned up her ass to be spanked. But he is not Judy and the Chairman is clearly not interested in spanking him. He was more worried that the Chairman will be firing him.

Finally, Crystal walked into the Chairman’s room.

“Did you change the printer?” The Chairman demanded without any pleasantries when he saw Crystal.

“Yes. The new printer is cheaper and the quality is just as good. We have been discussing the contract for a while and finally decided last month.” Crystal replied.

“Did this has anything to do with Alan, the new sales manager?” The Chairman eyed Crystal suspiciously.

Crystal was obviously uncomfortable. She shifted her weight and tried to respond calmly. “Yes, he was very accommodating to our terms. It was a good deal. The company will be able to lower its cost with this new printer.”

“Accommodating. Anything else that he was accommodating to? Don’t lie to my Crystal. You know I hate liars.” There was menace in the Chairman’s voice.

“No. I don’t think so. It was just the terms. Lower prices.” Crystal seemed to have lost her cool.

“You slut! You signed the contract because you wanted him to fuck you!” The Chairman almost shouted.

“No! I am sorry, sir. I love you. You know I love you. But you seemed to be ignoring me and Alan was there. And I needed some attention.” Crystal gushed. “Yes, I slept with him. But it was only once. And I regretted it.”

“You are lying! You loved having a young cock shoved up your cunt. You are a bloody whore.” The Chairman spoke quietly but it was clear that he was angry.

“No! I did not enjoy the sex at all. You are the best. No one comes close. Not Alan. Not anyone in this world.” Crystal was sobbing.

“Then prove it.” The Chairman said softly, after a pause. “Alex here will fuck you. If you even make a moan of pleasure, then you are lying. You are a slut craving for young cock. But if you remain silent, then I will believe you that it was a moment of weakness.”

Crystal looked at Alex, seemingly only to notice him for the first time. Without saying another word, she removed all her clothes and lay down on the large conference table in the room, legs apart, exposing her vagina.

“Well, what are you waiting for?” The Chairman looked at Alex. “Make her moan in pleasure, as loudly as possible. You can do whatever you want with her but I want to hear her moan.”

The Chairman then went back to his work, typing on his computer.

Alex was dumbfounded and continued to sit in his chair.

A few keystrokes later, the Chairman turned and glared at Alex. “Do I need to repeat myself?”

Alex woke up from his stupor and quickly undressed himself. What a crazy day!

He walked over to the conference table and stared at the naked Crystal. Even though Crystal was in her thirties, she still had a good figure. She had large breasts and a small waistline.

Alex climbed onto the conference table and stroked her thighs. Her skin was smooth and without any blemish. He drew his fingers across her stomach, reaching her pubic hair. She must have trimmed it. He pushed his fingers into her slit but it was too dry for him to make any headway. He lowered his head and started licking her cunt, parting her inner folds with his fingers. Finding her clitoris, he pushed and licked it with his tongue. At the same time, his hands moved up to her breasts, massaging them. His fingers found her nipples and alternated between squeezing them lightly and running circles around them.

Crystal bit her lips. She knew that she needed to remain silent to gain the Chairman’s trust again. But Alex was doing such a good job eating her out. In a different situation, she would be screaming in lust, but now, she must control herself.

Alex, on the other hand, was getting frustrated. There did not seem to be any reaction from Crystal at all. She was getting wet and he could push his fingers all the way into her love canal, but there was no sound nor movement from Crystal. Now he understands why his friends had said that fucking a woman who is not interested in sex is like fucking a dead fish. It is all slimy and wet, but there is no reaction at all.

Alex decided to change his tactics. He continued to finger her but moved upwards to suck on her breasts, licking her nipples and tugging them gently with his teeth. He caressed her nape and licked her ears, hoping that those were her erotic zones. But he will never know because Crystal continued to close her eyes and kept quiet.

“A word of advice, young man. She is a slut. These foreplay are wasted on her. Just fuck her. The rougher you are, the more she likes it.” The Chairman seemed to have shifted his attention from his work to the live show in front of him. Did something similar happened in the past? If not, why did Crystal behaved as if she knew what was expected of her? She had removed her clothes and climbed onto the conference table without any instruction from the Chairman. Alex could not help wondering.

But Alex did not dare to wonder too long. He positioned his already hard cock at the entrance of Crystal’s cunt. He looked at Crystal for a final time to check if she was okay for him to put his cock in but her eyes were still closed. He looked at the Chairman but he seemed to be impatient and about to admonish him again. He did not dare to linger any further and pushed his cock into Crystal’s already wet cunt. He was not expecting Crystal to be tight like a young girl but it was still difficult to push his whole length in. He lifted her legs onto his shoulders and pulled her ass up so that it rests partly on his thighs. This gave him a better angle and allowed him to push deeper into her. When he was finally all the way in, he saw Crystal’s mouth opened momentarily. She seemed to be gasping but it was too inaudible.

Alex was encouraged. Crystal can be broken. He smiled to himself. He pushed her legs and ass up higher, freeing his legs. Using his cock like a piston, he started hammering her cunt relentlessly. Crystal’s body was almost curled up like a ball as her knees reached her head. Alex was not only fucking her deeply but also quickly. With each stroke, Alex pulled his cock almost out of her cunt, only to dive deep again as far as the length of his cock allowed. Several times, his cock popped out of the cunt entirely but this is almost immediately rectified with his cock shoved back deep.

Alex was now grunting with his efforts and beads of perspiration were falling down onto Crystal’s body. But besides that, there was hardly any other noise in the room. The conference table was made of solid oak and despite the fervent activity on it, there was no creaking noises from it like some old bed. When Alex glanced at the Chairman, his mood seemed to have lifted. He was nodding in an approving way and smiled at Alex.

Well, my job seems safe now, Alex thought. He looked at Crystal and could see that she was trying hard not to moan. Her face was clenched up and she was biting her lips so hard that he could see blood. Her eyes were shut so tight that lines were starting to form at the edges. Sorry Crystal, but it is either your job or my job. I will need to fuck you even harder just to make you moan.

Alex increased his pace. At the same time, he started attacking Crystal’s breast and nipples with both his mouth and hands. It was getting more frenzied and he was biting her nipples harder. Crystal could not control much longer. She was starting to whimper, hoping that it was not loud enough for the Chairman to hear.

At that moment, the phone rang. Alex stopped his pounding and looked at the Chairman. Crystal heaved a sigh of relief and tried to calm herself down.

“What? Why the sudden change in plans?” The Chairman sounded upset. “Okay. Tell Lawrence to join me at the meeting. Meet me at the lobby in 15 minutes with the documents.”

The Chairman put down the phone and looked lost in thought for a moment. Then he smiled and walked over to Alex and Crystal. Alex was still in the same position as when the phone rang, hard cock postponed just outside Crystal’s cunt.

“Alright Crystal, a deal is a deal. You did not moan when Alex was fucking you so I will forgive you. But you know, you are also lucky that I had to attend an urgent meeting. Looking at you, I don’t think you can last for another 5 minutes. You will most probably be screaming with lust.”

Turning to Alex, the Chairman continued. “Good job, young man. I am starting to like you even more. You did not make her moan in pleasure but you fuck her real good. I want you to join me this weekend at a gathering. Talk to Lawrence, the Director of the Legal Department and he will give you more details. I need to go off now.”

The Chairman then walked over to his desk, put on his coat and pulled a file from his cabinet. He walked to the door and before he left the room, he turned around and smiled.“Alex, you can continue enjoying yourself with Crystal. Get her to go on her knees to give you a blowjob. That’s her best trick. And you should fuck her from the back, against the wall. That will definitely make her moan.”

The door closed softly after the Chairman.

Crystal opened her eyes and looked at Alex. “Now fuck me properly and make me cum.”

#Story of Alex

68 notes · View notes

farfromparker · 4 years

Text

Dirty little joy | t.h.

Pairing: Tom Holland x Reader

Request: Ok. So! What if you and Tom were watching porn together (cuz some couples do that) and you come across a video with him in it and Tom is super embarrassed but the reader insist on watching it and gets super turned on cuz holy shit there’s a video of her boyfriend jerking himself off for all to see so she gets rlly dominant and possessive and “reminds him who he belongs to”. In short she ties him up and fucks him till he can’t remember his own name. A fucking POWER MOVE

Warnings: just good ole smut

A/N: Shout out to @xximaweirdoxx for the request and honestly just being the best!!

Word Count: 2.3k

You hear the front door open and you bite your lip as you look at the screen, the pornhub homepage staring back at you. Tom and you had talked about this, but the idea still made you nervous, you wanted to do this but you wanted to make he was going to enjoy this too.

You ready yourself, hoping up off the bed and heading towards the front of the house.

“Hey darling,” Tom says, emptying his pockets of the random assortment of things he’s gathered throughout the day; keys, a business card, and a mint.

“Hi Tommy,” you say, leaning in to kiss his cheek.

He gives you a look, knowing you only use that nickname when you’re turned on. He places his hands on your hips and cocks an eyebrow. “What have you been thinking about?”

You can feel the heat settle on your cheeks, pressing your lips into a thin line. “Okay, so we’ve talked about it before and I just was hoping you’d want to do it tonight...?”

He’s thinking, the cogs in his head turning, “You’re going to have to help me out here love, we’ve talked about a few things in the bedroom.” He says with a wink.

And okay, he’s totally right. “Um… watching porn together?”

There’s a flash of something across his face but it disappears almost as quickly as it came. “Yeah,” he breaths, “yeah, we can definitely do that.”

“Yeah?” You’re smiling, arousal pooling in the pit of your stomach. He nods, smiling back and he easily lets you pull him back to the bedroom.

He laughs when he sees your laptop on the bed, website already open, “So you knew I’d say yes, huh?”

You pull your shorts off before settling onto the bed. He strips down to his boxers and joins you. “I was pretty confident that you couldn’t say no to me.”

He pushes your hair off your shoulder and leans in, kissing along your neck. “Yeah, you’re right about that.”

He pulls the neck of you shirt to the side, wanting to reach more of your skin but you shrug him off. “Tom,” you whine, “focus. What do you wanna watch?”

He leans in again though, smiling against your skin, “Whatever you want to watch, love.”

You purse your lips, thinking. You’d always been partial to solo guy videos but you’re pretty sure Tom would rather watch something else. Biting your lip, his words repeat in your mind whatever you want to watch...

Fuck it.

You type in male solo and a plethora of videos span out before you. Tom’s sucking on your neck now, and there are tiny noises slipping past your lips.

Focus, focus.

You scroll through the videos, trying to find one that peaks your interest from the screen cap alone. When you click onto page two, your mouse hovers over the third video from the top. The man is lean, body reminding you of Tom so you’re already intrigued. The caption is simple, hot guy jacks off. There’s nothing extraordinary about the whole thing and yet you can’t bring yourself to scroll past it.

You give in, clicking on the video and bringing your hands up to Tom’s body. He feels your attention finally turn to him and so he moves and finds your lips. You open up to him, tongue finding his as he presses into you harder.

Love watching me, don’t ya darling?

You pull back quickly, stunned. That was definitely Tom’s voice, but his lips were definitely on yours when you heard it. He’s staring back at you, eyes wide and you glance towards the computer screen.

Your mouth drops open as you register what you’re looking at. Your boyfriend, the one who’s definitely in bed with your right now, is also on your computer screen. He’s laid out, stroking his cock absentmindedly, staring into the camera and straight into your eyes.

Quickly you register things about the video. He didn’t do this at home, the video quality is top notch, there's a logo in the corner; cock-y boys in terrible font, and the room he’s in is staged so obviously you know no one actually lives there.

“Tom? You - you did porn?”

Somehow, your question snaps him out of his daze and he reaches over to snap the laptop shut. There’s a lag though and for a moment, his electronic moans reverberate around the room.

He looks absolutely petrified, you’ve never seen him so red, eyes wide. He moves away from you and stands up, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“I should have just told you on our first date. But I liked you so much and I was worried it would scare you off. And I haven’t done it - that was so long ago!” He’s pointing at the computer like it was his associate in all of this. “And I never had sex with someone on film. That was part of my deal, only solo videos and -”

“Videos?” You cut him off, brain reeling from the massive amount of new information.

His jaw clenches, he’s trying to read your expression but you’re still processing. He sighs, “Five total.”

“And you thought this would scare me off?”

Tentatively, he sits back onto the bed, you’re not screaming at him so he assumes this is a good sign. “Yeah, I told a girl I went out with before I met you and she lost it, called me a pervert and I didn’t even really like her. Then when I met you… I just didn’t want to screw it up. But I - I should have been honest with you from the beginning.”

And well yes, he definitely should have just told you to begin with, you can understand why he didn’t, why he might have been worried about this particular skeleton in his closet. But you’re curious now, more than curious, because there are five videos of your boyfriend jerking off on the internet. What does he do differently in each video? What are the views? What do the comments say?

You reach back over for your laptop and open it up. He sputters next to you, watching as you type in your password. “What are you doing?”

“There are five videos of you out there, think I deserve to see them, don’t you?”

Somehow, he turns an even darker shade of red, “You want to watch them?”

You simply hit play on the video as an answer, his small moans and gasps filling the room again. He was young when he filmed this one, you’re guessing 20. Curls unruly, body leaner than he is now, less muscle. He’s cocky - though you suppose with that logo name it came with the territory - he’s talking to the camera like it’s his girl, telling her how much she must enjoy this, how good his cock would feel inside her, how he wants to know how wet she is.

You’re staring intently, and in turn, you can feel his gaze heavy on you. You glance down and notice there’s a 96% up vote and you think about how the other 4% must be blind to not enjoy this.

You scroll down and click on the comments.

God, your cock is fucking perfect, just want you inside me.

I’d do anything you wanted daddy.

Just want you to cum all over my face.

And on and on and on. Your clit has started to throb as you keep reading. They’re talking about Tom, about your Tom, and doing things to him that you get to do whenever you want. About him doing things to them that he only does to you. It’s a fucking power trip.

“Tommy, fuck.”

“You - you like it?”

You smirk at him, “I really like having sex with you, is that much of a surprise I like seeing videos of you touching yourself?”

He deadpans, “You know what I mean, it’s - it’s out there.”

“Yeah and you’re here.” You move, pushing against his chest so that you can get into his lap. You kiss him, tongue and teeth, and he groans into you, pulling you against his hips. He’s hard. You pull away for a moment, bringing your hands up to cup his face, thumbs rubbing along his cheeks, “And that cock is mine.”

You can see it across his face, his disposition changing, eyes hooded and he nods, “Yeah, it’s yours.”

You push him down onto his back and he smacks his head into the laptop.

He laughs, rubbing the spot on his head and you laugh too, reaching over to push the laptop out of the way. You’re still smiling when you kiss him, but then he opens his mouth to yours, hands running down your body to cup your ass and nothing is funny anymore.

You sit up, peeling your shirt and bra off, before leaning back over him, pressing yourself against him. “You’re so cocky in that video, have men and women drooling over you. Think you need to be reminded of who you belong to.”

You grind against his cock to further push home your point and he groans, “Yes, fuck. I’m yours.”

You shimmy out of your panties, and he follows your lead, discarding his boxers. You grind along his dick, pulling whimpers from his lips.

“You’re so fucking wet.”

“I might have a bit of a possessive kink.” You place your hands on his chest for leverage, sliding up so that the tip of his cock knocks against your clit. His pupils are blown, mesmerized by your every moment.

Sliding your hands up, you gather his wrists and pin them above his head. He rocks up against you and he could push inside you now, the angle working better for the both of you.

“Wanna fuck me Tommy?”

He moans, “God, yes, always.”

The tip of his cock catches at your cunt and you sink down on him slowly. He flexes up into you, sighing as you settle onto his hips. You clench around him purposefully.

“Ah, fuck y/n.”

“Keep you hands above your head.” You instruct as your pull your hands away, and he does as you told him. You can lean back now, helping his cock find that spot inside you. You move slowly when you feel it, biting down on your lip as you rock forward.

He fists his hands into the comforter, wanting so much for you to stop teasing. You rise up, taking your time, before sliding back down. He’s trying to be quiet, lips in a thin line as you work yourself slowly on his cock, using him.

That just won’t do though, you reach forward and grip his chin. You slide your thumb along his lips and he opens his mouth easily. You dip your thumb into his mouth and he sucks, eyes locked with yours.

“Don’t try to be quiet Tom, I always wanna hear how I’m making you feel.”

You pull your thumb out of his mouth with a pop. He groans then, and you watch as his biceps flex. You smirk, continuing to ride him agonizingly slow. His cock on your gspot is good, but it’s not enough. You reach a finger down and slide against your clit, gasping and moaning at the contact.

Tom is tense under you, trembling as he feels you clench and shake above him. He wants so much more, the pit in his groin growing heavier, but the dynamic is there tonight. He’s completely at your mercy and he won’t do anything until you tell him he can.

You can’t stop his name from slipping from your lips now, and you know he wants to hear you just as badly. It’s building quickly like this, feeling him inside you, putting on a show for him, using him.

It’s hard to keep your eyes open, and you dig your fingernails into his skin, feeling like you’re going to snap.

Tom hisses, and his demeanor changes, knowing you’re close now, “Fuck darling, so fucking beautiful. Pussy feels so good on my cock, want you to cum, wanna feel you. God, no one can fuck me like you do.”

It explodes from deep inside, stars bursting from behind your eyelids. You arch back, shaking from the intensity of it, clenching like a vice around his cock. One long drawn out moan filling the room as you ride it out.

You start to twitch against your own touch, clit hypersensitive and you curl forward, pressing your forehead into Tom’s chest to try and catch your breath. He’s absolutely whimpering underneath you, body shaking along with your own.

He’s pleading, voice cracking as your name soon turns into the only word he knows. You slide your hands up his body, thumbing at his nipples as you begin to ride him like he’s begging you too.

“Wanna touch you, please.” He begs.

“Yeah darling, put your hands on me.”

He’s on you immediately, hands on your breasts and ass. He sits up, pulling into his chest and kissing you like he’ll never get the proper chance to again. He wraps a hand around your waist and places the other on the bed behind him. He can get leverage now and he starts fucking up into you. You gasp, still sensitive from your orgasm, and pull away from his kiss to breathe.

He buries his head in the crook of your neck, breath fanning across your skin. He’s not quiet now, a string of curses leaving his lips as he chases his high.

He moans, “Fuck, god y/n, gonna make me cum.”

“Yeah, no one can make you cum like I can.”

His grip on you tightens, keeping you close. He cums loudly, groaning in your ear, the words only you on his lips.

His breathing echoes in your ears. You trail your fingers along his shoulders and up into his hair, he shivers under your touch and presses his lips against your neck.

“Wow,”

You both laugh. “Yeah.”

He pulls back to look in your eyes, “I think I like it when you get possessive.”

You smirk back, kissing him softly, “So, about those other videos…”

Taglist (let me know if you want to be added or removed) :

@xximaweirdoxx @selfcarecapmain @billythebully09 @cyrusandhiscollaredahirts @honeymarvel @billieishottttttttt @lovinnholland @oh-annaa @little-miss-naill @holland-in-disguise @wordless08 @multifandomgirl-us @tiktok-spideyy @fangirlfree @theolwebshooter

#i... don't know how i feel about this one #meh #tom holland #tom holland fic #tom holland x reader #tom holland smut #tom holland fanfic #my writing

943 notes · View notes

the-reaper-of-maidens · 3 years

Text

Shadow Walk

Coming in FAST with that quality Lady Di x OC ONCE AGAIN~ The Reaper’s dark magic abilities are slowly starting to take shape, and it’s up to Alcina to teach her the ropes. I hope I explained how this ability works well enough... And yes, more soft Alcina ksksksk TW: abuse mention

Some headcanons: the daughters have different abilities, but that might change when the game comes out and we find out more. c: I’m also gonna assume dark magic is a thing in this game, since Daniela can do spooky dark magic stuff in the demo.

Viorica is the oldest daughter, and Aurelia is the youngest. Pointless, since they’re only mentioned in this story, but... still!

“Now, with any new ability, you have to practice it and hone it, my dear Reaper,” Alcina swirled a wine glass, finishing off the last of it. “Once you get this down, shadow walking is a powerful skill.”

“Makes sense, I wasn’t an all star tennis player after one day,” the Reaper finished off her own drink, a HarSha black tea with honey and blood. She rolled her shoulders back and tossed her leather jacket to the side to make things easier.

“How did it feel, the first time you walked into the shadows?” the castle’s mistress asked as she set her wine glass down, trying to pinpoint the issues to help her hound dog improve.

“Crushing, like I turned flat as paper and it was hard to breathe, so I panicked and clawed my way out,” the Reaper explained, shuddering at the memory.

“Not surprised, the first time in the shadow realm is always… terrifying. It’s exactly why I cleared out my entire day: to teach you how to better utilize shadow walking. The very first step is to relax. Loosen up. Take a breath before you step into the shadows and breathe in and out… in and out slowly and evenly,” Alcina advised. “The second step is do not be afraid. Don’t let the dark and fear get to you, my pet, because that’s a fast ticket to stay stuck in the shadow realm.”

“So… just relax and don’t get scared. Sounds easy enough.”

“But do not underestimate its difficulty. It’s far easier said than done, O Reaper Mine,” the lady of the castle strongly warned. “It’s far more dangerous shadow walking unprepared than it is to astral project prepared.”

“Typical dark magic stuff, everything has a risk when it comes to that,” and with that, the Reaper took a few breaths to psych herself up, slowly stepping into a nice little corner rife with darkness by the throne. She normally hid away in this spot, anyways, in case Alcina wanted her at the ready to dispose of someone who was being a bother.

“Just focus on entering and exiting for now, Reaper. Don’t let the branching paths within the shadow realm distract you,” the mutant vampiress nodded, watching her little hunter ease into things. “Hmm,” she poured herself another glass of wine as she watched. For now, she didn’t feel the need to take a stroll in the shadow realm with her, as the Reaper needed to get used to being alone in the shadow realm first.

“Okay, don’t get distracted…” the Reaper repeated to herself as she went in. The shadow realm was, as Alcina said, terrifying the first time. The shadow realm was full of a person’s darkest fears and most painful memories, which was why the gargantuan woman stressed the importance of keeping calm. “...Don’t…” she swallowed nervously as she saw the eerie specters of her birth family in the voidscape, all eyes on her as if casting judgment on her, “get distracted…” She remembered her mistress’s words and decided to dip out before the shadows would try to drag her in. She stepped back out into the mortal world, slashing her way out as she panted heavily, shaking off the dark tendrils that still clung onto her arms.

“Breathe, Reaper,” the vampiress reminded her hound dog, watching her take a breather as she sat down against a wall. Alcina stood up to give the Reaper some encouraging words. “Don’t be surprised if you fail many times. I have experienced it many times myself when I was learning,” she knelt down to her hunter’s level.

“...You? Failure?” the Reaper was surprised, to say the least. To her, Alcina Dimitrescu, the lady of the castle, was the epitome of grace and perfection. How could she have possibly failed at anything?

“Mother Miranda taught me all I needed to know when my own abilities started manifesting. If it makes you feel any better… I saw slayers in the void, doing unspeakable acts on the servants of the castle. My fears actually became even worse when my daughters went under my protection,” Alcina admitted. “It’s horrific, is it not, to see your constant fears being personified in the shadows? That paralyzing grip… you can’t let your fears win, Reaper. If you do, they’ll drag you away, never to be seen again. It’s a fate worse than death, my dear.”

“Wow… I didn’t think you feared anything,” the Reaper admitted. “...Makes my own feel stupid. I saw my birth family, judging me. I was scared because I saw Pop again… I was scared he’d try to hit me. I was scared Ma would try to manipulate me to go back home. And my little bro? Tch. Less said, the better.”

“Shhh, your pain isn’t lesser than mine just because you think it is. Slayers are a rare occurrence. You went through torture every day. Those are not the same, Reaper. Even my own childhood pains can’t be compared to yours.”

The Reaper reached out for Alcina’s hand and gently squeezed it, nodding a bit. “I know… it’s just hard for me to realize that. Just… gimme a minute and I’ll be ready to face my trauma and fears again, Lady Alcina.” She liked it when Alcina was soft, it was a rather rare side of the mistress only she, besides the sisters, got to see.

“Of course. It’s never easy the first few times. I don’t expect you to suddenly get over years of abuse the second time you enter the shadow realm,” the lady of the castle was understanding, or more lenient than she would usually be, at least.

The Reaper took a few breaths, trying to compose herself in a few minutes. “I’m kinda curious… do your daughters have similar abilities?”

“Not quite. Past their strength and speed, it seems like they have different powers. Aurelia, for example, doesn’t swarm into moths like Daniela can. She can shapeshift, though. Viorica is excellent at using magic compared to the other two, so she much prefers hands-off fighting,” Alcina explained.

Soon enough, the Reaper was ready for another round. “I got this. Those specters won’t get to me…” she relaxed as she went into the shadows again. Naturally, she was still a bit tense seeing those laughing phantoms, but she stood tall (well, as tall as could be for 4’9”). She turned tail only once the one depicting her father stepped forward, fist raised. “Sorry… it’s Pop. He’s the big hangup, it seems,” the Reaper sighed.

“You did say he gave you some of your scars… I’m not surprised. We’ll take it one day at a time, Reaper,” Alcina nodded. “Once you get past your little hurdle and get used to being alone in there, I will join you in the shadow realm to show you how to navigate. It can be… difficult, due to how fluid shadows can be.”

“I think I get what you mean, it all depends on the angle of light, and that can drastically change the shadow it casts.”

“...Exactly, my dear. It’s another reason traversing the shadow realm is more dangerous than the astral plane. Unless you have furniture that you never move, your starting point might not even be there when you get back, so you can’t rely on that. Just be ready to end up in a different spot in the castle when we do that,” Alcina gave her hunter a heads up.

For now, though, the Reaper needn’t worry. She just focused on getting used to the horrors of the voidscape, bit by bit every day. “Okay, I think I’m mostly okay now, Lady Alcina. Realizing that they’re only phantoms helped me out a lot… they can’t hurt me,” she confided after months of simple practice, just shifting between mortal plane and shadow realm.

“Good,” Alcina nodded in approval. “That will be your armor, my Reaper.”

“We just need a big enough shadow for you to walk into, but luckily… we got one right here, if you don’t mind bending down a bit,” the Reaper smacked the wall nearest to her. It was evening, so the sun cast some decent shadows on some of the objects. The petite hunter learned during her training that she needed a shadow big enough to enter (if she couldn’t get into it crawling, it was too small, she found), that she couldn’t go into shadows with many holes, and that she obviously couldn’t go into her own shadow.

“I wonder where we’ll end up tonight,” Alcina giggled charmingly as she took off her hat and set it down somewhere, which sent shivers down the Reaper’s spine.

Oooh, maybe it’ll be our room, the Reaper was flushed behind her bandana as she followed the countess into the shadow realm. Of course, with Alcina by her side, she wasn’t scared of these shadowy wisps tormenting her for who she loved, and with her at Alcina’s… the countess was reassured that slayers wouldn’t dare enter Castle Dimitrescu.

“Eyes up, my pet, the branching paths have subtle cues to clue you in where they lead you to. Blink and you’ll miss it,” Alcina patted her hunter’s head. She squinted, noting a vague blob resembling a table. “I believe… this one leads to the dining hall,” she led the Reaper through the twists and turns, and out they came, stepping out from next to a cabinet. “It can be dreadfully difficult to ascertain where the path will lead,” the mutant sighed. “I’m glad we didn’t pop up from underneath the table this time.”

“...It’s happened before?”

“...I don’t want to talk about it,” Alcina pursed her lips in embarrassment at that memory. Hell, even to this day, it still happened on occasion. “Now, let’s keep going in your training, my darling hunter. Just follow my lead, and you might get rewarded nicely~”

#lady dimitrescu #lady dimitrescu x oc #abuse ment //

11 notes · View notes

mcrmadness · 3 years

Text

Madness draws: Behind the Scenes of the latest Farin&Bela pencil drawing.

Aka the one that’s also my icon, even when that was a big risk to take because normally I start hating the photos I have once drawn, especially if I have failed miserably. This is how the drawing itself turned out:

ATTENTION: The original post about that drawing, with better image, behind this link.

This post is solely about the process itself with lots of pictures and also plenty of gifs, because I promised to do one if people would like to see that and I got some comments saying that they’re looking forward for that. So, here’s now that post!

For starters I have to apologize for the terrible quality that is the photos. I used my phone camera only and never thought about posting them, I just took them as a reference for myself and to show the progress to a friend and only after finishing the drawing I noticed that the angle of the camera causes a huge impact on the perspective of the drawing, so I sometimes might have done useless work when I thought some perspective was wrong when it was actually the photo that was wrong and not my work! I mean, take a look at these photos of the finished piece:

You see that? I realized this when I took maybe the second photo of the Farin sheet and looked at it and couldn’t believe my eyes because I didn’t remember drawing his torsto THAT small! And then I looked at the drawing and was like “wtf???” because it looked nothing like in the photo and then it hit me...

Also, another thing that I learn was that I might need to pay more attention to the perspective of the whole thing also because when I draw, I sit at the table so I am constantly seeing the drawing from my perspective instead of looking at it from above so that’s probably also going to affect the way I draw. I try to keep that in mind in the future so I can avoid redrawing things again and again just because my perspective is different than the reference photo’s.

Also the giant forehead of Farin’s in the photo on the right might have caused me to laugh a bit too much but anyway, let’s continue~ Or more like: let’s start for real this time.

Here’s the reference photo to y’all:

What I did in photoshop was to draw a line between them to see how I can divide the photo on two A4 papers. I had been thinking about this photo for some time already because it’s one of my favorites (but now I just feel cringy looking at it after I have drawn it... goddamnit!), and I got this idea that I could try drawing it on two papers in case I fuck up so I can start over or try again without having to do twice the work! Which was actually a good decision because this was the first version of Farin:

And it was awful. I also realized I had never drawn Farin’s face from he front. I have drawn him before from the side a few times but maybe once it came out actually good so that was why I decided to do the 2 paper method - because I knew it was not going to be an easy job! Bela is relatively easy to draw so I knew already that I would not have too many problems with that one.

I struggled with Farin’s eyes the most, at first.

It took me a while to figure out how to do that white line in his lower lid. Keep in mind that this was my first face portrait in over 10 years so I was very, very rusty and I just didn’t remember how to draw like anything anymore. (The photo is tilted because Bela’s face is a bit tilted and my hand can’t draw anything that is not straight [lol] so I have to rotate the photo in order to even draw the sketch of Bela’s eyes.)

So I took my sketchbook and tried to do some eyes...

I was still struggling so much here until I remembered about blending. And I didn’t have my hopes high but grabbed the eyeshadow applicators (my fave tool for blending) anyway, and switched to my other sketchbook in case the paper was the issue and:

Blending. It was all about blending! So with that in mind, I realized I can continue and I don’t need to do these in my old way, everything doesn’t have to have a lineart done but some of the job is done not with the pencils but with the eraser.

Anyhow, the previous Farin looked really bad and was too big as well so I just discarded that and started a new sheet because the old lines were not coming off properly anymore. I don’t remember if this is the old face or new but I think this might still be the old one:

Yes it definitely is the old because look at those lines! This is the new sheet:

And in the photo you can see one of my pencils - I use Derwent Graphic pencils, it’s a 12 pencil set with very soft pencils, starting with H, F and HB and ending to 9B. With this one I used F, HB, B, 2B, 5B, 7B and 9B. The white pencil is actually my new love aka the eraser pencil Koh-I-Noor Hardmuth. It’s amazing, I recommend! I just didn’t order 10 new ones this other day. I actually used about 1,5 full eraser pencils on this drawing alone so that’s why 10.

Here’s a “little” gif of the process on Farin:

I felt crazy when I went for the shirt, and I felt like I was going crazy MEANWHILE drawing it but in the end I did it and I’m super proud of it!

Below is the reference photo, it was pain in the ass to follow all those lines with my eyes and try to find what was I drawing and where was I but I think I did good. That was a fun challenge.

Okay so, when I was done with the new lineart, I decided to go for the shading and blending because that’s what really makes the drawings to pop. I started with the left (his right, my left) side of Farin’s face because I’m right-handed, and in the first photo I had done just the left (right) eye and mouth and nose, but in the second there’s also the other eye done already:

Keep in mind this was not the last time I drew the eyes. Not even close.

Something was off with the right (left) eye so I had to do that one again and I noticed that when you blend but haven’t erased and cleaned it yet, it looks like a black eye :DDD So here’s the before and after images of that cleaning. (Cleaning = I draw, blend, erase, draw and blend more when needed and then erase again, and repeat this as many times as I need until it starts to look ready to my eye.)

So here Farin was “finished” but if you still remember the final piece or compare it to it, you might notice it looks quite different. And you’re right. But more about that later, because at this point I started to work on Bela.

It actually started really well - I also had to do the whole lineart again because it did not match the size of “finished” Farin. I don’t remember if this is the first or second eye but when I had drawn his eye for the first time, I noticed it was not in line with Farin so I had to redraw it. A gif of the progress:

What’s that brown paper I’m using, you may ask? Well I noticed that people have some sort of paper on top of their art to keep it from smudging and I have no clue what that is so here’s my poor artist recommendation: baking paper! I tested it and it works (if you just remember to keep it under your hand, that is...) so that is, in fact, baking paper! :DD

I have drawn Bela’s face a few times before and he’s just so much easier to draw. In fact I used 4-5 days on Farin but I managed to start and finish (this version of) Bela just in one day. And that means that out of 12 hours (because I literally used the whole day for drawing) I used maybe like... 5h or something on Bela. That’s how much easier he really is to draw.

I don’t know wtf is wrong with Farin’s face but he’s extremely difficult to draw and I’m not the only one who has been saying this. I guess he just looks so regular but still unique enough to be difficult to draw. Bela then again has features that are very unique and very... caricature-like? I mean that just by drawing his nose or chin you can make a comic book Bela look exactly like himself, and with more realistic style his eyes already do a lot, but Farin’s really the opposite. My comic book version of Farin is literally the most basic version I can draw, it’s how I draw those characters and the only thing that makes him look himself is the hair, and his nose in a side profile. So I think that’s why it’s so difficult to draw him because he doesn’t look too regular but still regular enough to make is a very challenging task to do properly.

So yeah, the same day as I started working on Bela, I was also “finished” with the drawing:

Also look at how different it looks like from this perspective:

With the reference photo open in photoshop and I don’t understand how Bela looks more like himself in my drawing than in the photo. Also when I showed the WIP to my brother, he said that I somehow had succeeded at making Farin look more like Farin than what he does in the photo even. It’s weird.

But we were still far from finished. I was going to use the fixative on this soon but it just kept snowing the whole week so I couldn’t so every time I walked past the drawings, I stopped to fix this and that. For days I kept telling myself “I’m done, I can’t do more than this, I can’t do better than this.” and considered the drawing finished but still kept fixing things. Every time I was “done” with the other drawing, I saw something to fix in the other one and once that was done, I felt like the first one wasn’t as good and had to fix something from it too. And that led to a cycle where the other drawing was always better than the other and the worse one needed to be fixed. In the end I was hating the whole process and myself and my skills and I was already ready to abandon this whole thing and call it a day and never ever show it to anyone “because I cannot draw”. The photo above, here’s a list of things I redrew after that:

Bela’s eyes, the right (left) one at least twice.

Bela’s nose.

Bela’s mouth a couple of times.

Farin’s eyes x588045028520

And a list of things I kept fixing and fixing:

Bela’s chin.

Bela’s neck shadows.

Bela’s hairline.

Farin’s whole face was tilted so I tried to fix that.

Farin’s face was too wide, which meant also partially redrawing the ear.

Farin’s hair was too long and wide too.

Farin’s nose.

Farin’s mouth might be the only thing I drew only once and I’m actually still extremely proud of how it came to be. I did the lips solely with blending so that was super exciting to notice how I can use it for drawing and don’t need the pencils for everything!

During Bela’s eyes and nose and mouth especially I was hating myself so much and I felt like I was taking the risk of ruining the whole thing and a few times I was certain that was what I had just done too, until I somehow was able to save it again. But because of that, I wasn’t able to make Bela’s mouth any lighter anymore, the color wasn’t just coming off the paper so had to use what was there and make it look like it’s how it’s supposed to be, too.

Here’s a gif about those changes on Bela - the first one has the old eyes and nose, the others have minor changed on the nose and mouth:

(The blacks probably don’t get any blacker in reality, I did add more color to it all the time but mainly it’s just the lighting and my phone camera changing the brightness.)

I did the final details on his nose without even using the reference photo anymore. The photo didn’t seem to make any sense anymore at all so I was just using my mechanical pencil and the blending tool and eraser to make is look better. To my eye it looked more like a very flat nose with a big tip of the nose and he doesn’t have a flat nose and I tried to get rid of that illusion. I still feel like it makes him look bit weird but I’m not entirely sure how. Maybe it was because of my improvisation, idk...

So, Bela was then finally finished for the last time. In the Farin piece his left (right) eye had been bugging me the whole time and I didn’t want to touch it but still I felt like I have to do something about it because it was bugging me way too much. I then figured I could draw the eye line by line and take a photo of it each time to see if it looks right already or not, maybe I could then avoid doing all the phases before I was sure what to think about it. I mean, now the only way to see if it was correct was to draw e.g. an eye from start to finish, I couldn’t see from just the lineart or unblended eye if it was in the right spot etc. And here’s that progress on a gif:

The gif about only the eye would look so nice if Tumblr didn’t make the gifs so HUGE - this one is actually only 300px or 400px or something:

Apparently I also wasn’t happy with the other eye because:

But good thing is: I really enjoy drawing eyes. I love seeing them to “come alive”, my favorite part was to eraser a bit of the color on the iris to make them look like they are actually shiny! It feels like something so small to do and yet it makes a huge impact on the drawing!

And here’s yet another gif of the whole Farin sheet with all of the changes, including the last changes that made his head narrower, and less tilted and more in line. Look at the left side of his head especially to see that:

I can also see his nose changing between the first few photos. I keep forgetting about that but yeah, I also fixed that a little at some point.

And last but not least, the whole drawing in some sort of a timelapse gif:

Last two are the same but just a photo and the scan of the finished drawing. I still keep seeing things I would do differently but no can do, I already used fixative on it, also to keep myself from obsessing with it any more :D And to use it as a study of some sort. I have never been able to draw a perfect pencil drawing and this isn’t one either. I probably never can draw perfect drawings from references.

I do enjoy the whole shading and blending process, so much so that when I was editing these photos, I just wanted to start drawing something so bad but I also figured that I start to lose motivation when I get to the point where everything should be finished but I just can’t make it perfect. Like the current WIP I have, all I should do is to get the proportions and perspective and the lines of their faces correctly and I would be ready but it feels more like a superpower some people possess and I’m not one of those. I don’t know what is it but I just feel that I cannot see. I don’t know how to explain it, but I can’t see what I try to do and somehow keep drawing everything the wrong way. Just like in this post’s drawing too. There’s still things that are wrong and I know what it is but I don’t know how to solve it. My hands just don’t listen to me and they can’t do what I think they should. I also think the reason I cannot draw perfect copies of photos is because you can always see my “handprint” in them. If I copy a photo, it will look like a photo and not like a drawing made by me. So I believe that in my drawing there’s always a part of me visible and I’m not entirely sure if it’s a good thing or not. On bad days it’s not a good thing, obviously. On good days? Well I guess it’s good then because it just means I have my own style which I really should appreciate. But I wish I had my style only when I want it to be visible, but I can’t control it. Just like I cannot write text by hand that would look like it was written with a computer, so I guess I should just try to get used to it, no matter how much it’d bug me sometimes.

#mcrmadness draws #mcrmadness draws: behind the scenes #dä fanart #die ärzte

13 notes · View notes

ric0cheted · 4 years

Text

distraction tactics (fic)

In which Geralt needs to sleep, Jaskier has no chill, and Yennefer is perfectly happy to take one for the team.

(aka time for messy, shoddily-written witcher porn(ish)! all hedonism, zero redeeming qualities. all sorts of permutations of geraskefer. they’re all fucking in my world, lads.)

Upon returning to the manor house, Geralt managed exactly three things: getting undressed, bathing, and crawling into bed.

He wouldn't call the residence at which Yennefer had--temporarily--allowed himself and Jaskier to stay home, exactly. But it certainly beat out the ratty, shit-smelling inns that the nearest town boasted.

Especially since Geralt's most recent hunt had lasted two days longer than it should've, the monsters had numbered threefold more than they should've, and the coin he'd been paid hadn't reflected either of those developments. Thank the gods he'd managed to, for once, convince Jaskier to stay back.

All told, Geralt was looking forward to nothing more than sinking into the mattress and letting sleep take hold.

Which meant, of course, that barely three minutes of blessed silence passed before Geralt heard someone kneel beside the bed. He cracked an eye open, right in time to see Jaskier swoop in for a kiss. Geralt rolled his eyes and indulged it, winding his hand in Jaskier’s hair and moaning despite himself when Jaskier's tongue curled around his.

Jaskier pulled away, grinning. "Bring us back anything good?" Jaskier was feeling particularly agreeable, then, if he was referring to himself and Yennefer together like that. "Absolutely fine if the answer happens to simply be your lovely Witcher self. Because we missed you quite a bit." Without further ado, Jaskier slipped under the covers and plastered himself to Geralt, the distinct aroma of arousal wafting from him.

Geralt had a tendency of forgetting how solid Jaskier was under his clothing, tailored as they were to lend a deceptive waifishness to his frame. Geralt was still taller, still broader, but Jaskier could drape himself across Geralt and cover a good stretch of his body. Much like he currently was. Geralt usually appreciated it, but this time his muscles ached in protest.

Geralt snorted. "Jaskier, I'm fucking tired. I don't even know if I could."

"I'll be good for you," Jaskier promised, kissing Geralt's throat. "Or be good to you. Whichever you'd like." His voice broke into a purr towards the end of his sentence.

"Jaskier," Geralt groaned. He wrapped his fingers around Jaskier's waist, the slimmest part of him, regretfully. He was a hair's breadth away from dislodging the bard himself when Jaskier yelped and jerked out of his grasp, nearly tumbling off the bed.

"You're insufferable," Yennefer told the bard from where she stood in the doorway. Jaskier sat up and rubbed the side of his head, which Geralt could only assume she'd magically slapped. "Now, come with me. I require assistance, and it seems as though yours will have to do.”

Jaskier sighed, deeply put-upon. "You never need my help, so I'm going to assume that you've finally decided to murder me." Jaskier gazed at Geralt with woeful eyes. "Geralt. Geralt. I expect at least a full year of mourning out of you. Also, I'd like my lute donated to a museum, possibly one devoted to the paraphernalia and personal effects of the continent's greatest artists."

Geralt didn't even stay awake long enough to roll his eyes, much less wryly ask why Jaskier would go with her if he was so convinced of his imminent demise.

***

Geralt awoke an hour later. He would've desperately liked more, but it seemed as though sleep would elude him for the moment.

It was all Yennefer and Jaskier’s fault, Geralt thought, grouchily, dragging himself out of bed to bitch at them. He hadn't seen where they'd vanished to earlier, but he didn’t need to guess at their whereabouts, given the overwhelming scent of lust and sex drifting from the library. He'd smelled it in his fucking sleep. It had woken him up.

In retrospect, Geralt really, truly wished there was something that could've prepared him for what he was walking into.

Dressed in a soft, lace-trimmed robe that ended at her thighs, Yennefer lounged in an armchair, using one hand to page through a thick tome and the other to feed blackberries to Jaskier, handsome and unclothed at her feet. Jaskier was reclining against the chair, one knee pulled to his chest, tilting his head back to take the fruit from her with shocking obedience. His mouth closed around it and Geralt could see his tongue licking at her fingers. Jaskier's soft lips were berry-dark, but his chin and cheeks glistened with something else. His cock was hard, leaking, and untouched.

Geralt choked on his own saliva. Jaskier's eyes, half-closed with bliss, flew open. Their gazes met. Geralt blushed, and then, to his utter bewilderment, Jaskier blushed, scrambling to arrange his limbs in some semblance of modesty and opening his mouth to blurt something out.

"Geralt." Yennefer said, calmly, twisting her fingers in Jaskier's hair to cut him off. "How was your rest?" Her hold was tight and kept Jaskier from looking away from Geralt. Geralt had no such excuse for failing to tear his own gaze away.

"Fine," Geralt wheezed. It was a terrible lie, but the blood that should've been making its way to his head was traveling decidedly southwards.

"Good," Yennefer hummed, as though nothing were out of the ordinary. She relaxed her grip and petted Jaskier's hair instead. "Now, it took quite a while to get him like this, and I'd hate to see all of that time and effort undone. Do you intend to stay?"

Jaskier tilted his head into her touch. There was a still touch of embarrassment about him, burning hotly in his eyes and cheeks, but a dizzy lust was starting to bleed into it. He relaxed his legs, just slightly, letting Geralt catch a glimpse of his cock. It was still very, very hard.

Geralt's mouth watered, his own cock making a valiant effort. But he'd been telling Jaskier the truth, about the degree to which he felt as though he was about to unravel at the seams and fall apart.

Besides, there were things that Geralt hadn't quite worked out about Yennefer and Jaskier, together, certain intricacies to their relationship that Geralt didn't feel equipped to navigate when exhaustion was making him feel the weight of each individual bone in his body. This seemed like one of those occasions.

"I'm going back to sleep." Geralt forced out, voice strangled. "Don't fuck each other to death before I wake up." Taking the coward's route, he turned and fled, Yennefer's peal of laughter following him out.

Geralt made it back to the bedroom and immediately started rifling through the chest of drawers. After a moment of searching, he found a vial of the sleep potion Yennefer had once specially brewed for him. He paused in consideration. It did work, but it was difficult to make, expensive, and usually only granted him a few extra hours, given how quickly his Witcher metabolism burned through it.

Distantly, he could just barely make out Yennefer's purred oh, good boy, followed by Jaskier's low moan. Without hesitation, Geralt downed the entire bottle and welcomed the sweet embrace of sleep.

***

Geralt slept for three or four more hours before the potion wore off. It took the edge off, at least, bringing him firmly into tired from his previous death walking.

He was stretching, trying to ease the tightness in his muscles, when Jaskier slipped into the bedroom, freshly-bathed and smelling of Yennefer's various soaps and oils. He met Geralt's eyes and blushed.

"Ah! So. About that." Jaskier rubbed the back of his head and flashed Geralt a charming, sheepish grin. The bruised look to his mouth spoke more of thorough use than of berries. "I--"

Rolling his eyes, Geralt looped his arm around Jaskier’s waist and pulled him down into the sheets, savoring his surprised yelp. After all, his cock was now very, very capable of participating.

***

Geralt left Jaskier passed out and drooling on the bed to seek Yennefer out. It took a little longer without the ludicrous trail of arousal to follow, but he eventually found her in the alchemical workshop.

She'd traded the shimmering cream of her robe for one of her traditional black dresses. Jaskier probably could've waxed poetic about the finer points of this particular garment compared to the others. Geralt couldn't tell the difference between them like that; he just knew that she looked beautiful in all of them.

Geralt made his way to her and nuzzled at the hollow of her throat before tugging her in for a kiss. Yennefer wound her hands through his hair and deepened it, tilting his head for a better angle.

After a moment, Geralt pulled away. He'd come here to see her, but he figured he might as well ask. "So, about that."

"Oh, that," Yennefer replied. There was a vaguely smug twist to her lips. "I've found that he occasionally benefits from a firm hand and something to keep him...occupied. For everyone's good, really."

"For everyone's good," Geralt repeated, dryly, as though her comment didn't have his cock perking up.

"Yes, for everyone's good. It isn't my fault that you both woke up and turned us down." Her lavender eyes glinted. "Consider joining us next time. It'll likely be impossible to keep him behaved with you around, but there's fun to be had, regardless."

"Next time," Geralt growled, sliding his hands down her body. He couldn't stop picturing it. "How about you wait until I'm awake."

"No promises," Yennefer purred, allowing Geralt to lift her up onto the nearest unoccupied table. "But maybe. If you're lucky."

#yennskier #geraskier #geraskefer #yenneralt #fic #my fic #smut #not that literally any of my work is cleaned up #but this is too sloppy even for my ao3 lmao

109 notes · View notes

romewritingshop · 4 years

Text

Say you won’t let go

Fandom: Choices, Perfect Match

Relationship: Damien Nazario X F!MC (Name: Peach Park)

Warnings: Slight talk of smut, fluff, vomit, graphic death, alcohol drinking

Word Count Total: 2797

A/N: I’ve been in an emotional mood and so I was listening to Markiplier’s cover of ‘Say you won’t let go’. The song makes me so emotional and I thought Damien and Peach needed it. So I wrote this fic and posted it. I’d recommend listening to the instrumental or the lyrical version while reading. Instead of posting a sneak peek, I thought I could post the whole fic so here it is.

Markiplier Cover - Say you won’t let go

Instrumental Say you won’t let go

CHOICES MASTERLIST

Tagged: @ravenpuff02 @ephemeralsunsets

A low jazz voice hummed in the air of his office as Damien examined the evidence for his current case. This stalker was impressive in covering their tracks and Damien was struggling to connect the strings of graphic art and threatening love letters. His office was strewn with red tape and papers, almost as if his evidence board had come to life. Nadia Park’s case was proving to be his biggest challenge yet. He ran his hand through his hair and stood away from his desk, trying to see the case from a different angle.

A knock rang on the door as Damien grunted and opened the door, only to see the familiar dark hair that faded into light curls. The person turned to Damien and he held his breath in his neck. It was his client’s cousin, Peach Park, dressed in a fitted light pink button shirt that seemed to make her stature taller than she actually was. Accompanied with a bright orange pleated skirt that made her legs glow. She certainly looked amazing and different, she was usually dressed down in a t-shirt and jeans or a denim dress.

It was a welcome change and Damien gave a brisk nod to let Peach in. He assumed she wanted to see the progress of his case and he had no qualms about it. The client has a right after all, he glanced back through the door and noticed Nadia Park wasn’t there. He furrowed his eyebrows and turned between Peach and the empty hallway. Damien closed the door and took in Peach and realised that her face had more of a shine as usual. He felt a little hot under the collar but the window was closed. He had never been alone with Peach and no matter how many times he thought about it, he hadn’t believed it would happen. Until now that is.

“Hello Miss Park, what brings you to my office tonight?”

Deep down he hoped she came for him but a man can only dream. Remaining professional with her helped dampen his desire and need to know her more.

“How many times have I told you to call me Peach? If you don’t call me Peach, then I’ll start calling you, Mr. Nazario.”

As much as Damien would love to be called that, it also reminded him of how much older he was as he rubbed the back of his neck. He could never get over saying her name, he’d often repeat it to himself in the dead of night. He could never understand the power she had over him as he gave her a small smile.

“Sorry, Peach.”

“That’s better.”

“So do you want the run-down for what I’ve got so far?”

Damien went around her to grab a list of potential suspects when he felt her hand on his wrist. Damien almost audibly gasped at her sudden contact as he took in her slim fingers around his wrist.

“Actually Damien, I’m here for something else.”

Damien felt his heart rate increase steadily as his brain ran through different scenarios, some good but mostly bad. She probably doesn’t want Damien on the case anymore; she found out about Beitan; she doesn’t need him anymore. He must have gotten lost in his head as he felt a shake against his wrist. Damien escaped his mental hell to see Peach in front of him, a soft comforting smile. Her eyes were a cave full of life and wonders and Damien could feel himself getting lost in them.

“I wanted to ask if you were free to have a drink with me?”

Damien blinked as he slowly took in her words. A drink? With him? Was he dreaming? He hoped not as he repeated the words.

“A drink?”

A soft laugh came out as Peach smiled.

“Yes, a drink.”

He wasn’t meant to say that aloud as he felt his cheeks and ears heat up at her words. She had the softest sweetest laugh that reminded Damien of wind chimes blowing in the wind. He never felt like this with Alana and it really riled him up in the core of his soul. She took her wrist away to straighten her skirt and Damien was close to begging her to bring her touch back but he held back. It wouldn’t seem professional as she went on.

“You’ve been working so hard for my cousin, I thought I’d offer you a drink as a way to say thanks. And to probably give you a break from looking at photos all day.” His heart warmed at the fact that she was concerned for him. It was a redeeming quality of hers as she gave him one of her sweet smiles. “It’s on me the drink.”

Damien would’ve gladly given her his soul, even before she asked. Damien smiled and took Peach up on her offer, grabbing his jacket and keys and locking his office door.

Several hours later, Damien and Peach swayed from side to side, trudging up the steps to her apartment. The both of them giggling about the moving wallpaper and the rainbow cats. Damien could not remember anything as Peach reached into her clutch, pulling out her apartment key. She missed the keyhole three times and only managed to get it in with Damien’s help, They pushed the door open and stumbled in, Peach blindly tapped the walls for the switch. With pure luck she found them as she turned to Damien with a finger to her lips.

“Sh! You’re going to wake up Nadia!”

“Nadia doesn’t live with you!”

“I know! You’re going to wake her up!”

“Okay.”

The both of them wobbled against each other and just about reached the living room, Damien plopped himself on the sofa and Peach followed, falling face first onto Damien’s lap.

“Ah! My cojones!”

“What’s that?”

“My drawers!”

They giggled at the word and took a moment to breath. There was a comfortable silence as Damien ran his hands through her hair. It was coarse but she purred at the slow contact, he smiled in his drunken haze. It has been a while since he was in such a happy state as he glanced down at her but Peach had a slight grimace on her face. Her stomach grumbled as she pushed herself up to face him.

“I’m gonna vomit.”

Damien registered the word vomit and slowly got up, helping her stand and taking her to the bathroom. He could feel the alcohol muddling his brain as he just about opened the bathroom door. She dropped away from him and brought her face close to the toilet seat. Sounds of bile splashed against the water as Damien dropped to his knees beside her and grabbed her hair into a pony, with one hand. The other rubbed her back in an upwards motion to help her get the vomit out and Damien watched her hair.

He had seen worse things in his life but he’d take the sight of her vomiting over anything else. He cooed at her softly and once the groans of pain lowered, he grabbed some toilet roll for Peach to clean her mouth. After emptying her stomach, Peach took the tissue to clean her face and lifted her head to look back at Damien. He felt all the alcohol in his system flush as she threw him a loving smile that he felt she only gave to intimate lovers. She murmured a soft thank you that had Damien heart pump harder, she was sitting back and she brought her head close to his sternum. Damien placed a tentative hand on her arm as he hummed at the close contact. He shouldn’t take advantage of her like this but he wanted to indulge in his deep fantasy. He felt her lips brush against his button shirt as she spoke.

“Do you want to stay over tonight?”

Damien felt his heart melt at her sweet request. Many times a night he had dreamed about staying in Peach’s house, in her bed but he looked down at her drunken state. She wasn’t in the right state of mind and she was only a client. She was a client’s relative and Damien knew it would be overstepping boundaries. As much as he deeply wanted to, he knew he couldn’t so he shook his head softly.

“I think that you should get some rest.”

~~~~~~

Damien heard the train whistle of his kettle go off as he put away his newspaper and grabbed two coffee mugs, placing the filter paper on top and the beans. He poured the green coloured kettle into the mugs and got rid of the filter papers, letting the mugs sit and stew with the rich caffeine. He glanced at his bedroom door, hoping Peach wouldn’t get up and ruin his surprise but the door hadn’t moved. He grabbed the two mugs and walked out of the kitchen and straight into his bedroom, a warm smile grew on his face.

Peach was still asleep soundly as her curves heaved up and down slowly. The comforter was off her body and her body was spread into a misshapen starfish. Damien shook his head as Peach often loved spreading her body out and popping her behind into the air. He could never understand how she was able to sleep in that position but she looked adorable. Her mint green shorts had ridden up to show the zebra stripes of stretch marks on her back thigh and the bumpy surface. He went around the bed to his side, placing the coffee mugs on his bedside drawer and leaning on his arm to take a better look at Peach.

He brought his hand to the edge of her shorts and pulled it down slightly so Peach wouldn’t complain about her shorts riding up. She loved the way they felt but they often caused more harm than good as Damien smiled to himself about the complaints she’s made. Her navy blue camisole brought more prominence in her love handles and sleeping on her front, pushed her breasts together. She looked utterly stunning in the morning, it is because it was the first raw thing that Damien would see. He was so glad she was his.

As if sensing something, Peach forced her eyes open to see her love, Damien leaning beside her. A full chest of dark curls on display and dark horn rimmed glasses sitting on the bridge of his nose. There was a slight softness near his stomach yet he still looked built and lean in the many years before they were together. His grey sweatpants hung low on his waist and that sweet trail of hair disappeared into the waistband of the pants. The both of them took in the other with unashamed, unjudging eyes as they gave a soft greeting to one another.

“Hi.”

Damien brought his lips to press a short kiss to the brow of her hair and reach behind him to present her with her mug of coffee. It had a picture of Damien on it and she was able to wake up even more. She pushed herself up slightly snuggled into Damien’s side, kissing his collarbone and wrapping her hands around the mug.

“Just what I need.”

“I know.”

She took a deep sip and exhaled blissfully, letting the warm coffee seep into her blood and liven her soul. Damien too took a sip of his coffee and purred with content at the sweet warmth.

“This is amazing.”

“Isn’t it?”

Damien curved his eyebrow up as if suggesting he was amazing. Peach rolled her eyes and took another sip.

“I meant the coffee.”

“What about the company?”

“Could be better.” Damien pinched the side of her waist as she yelped excitedly, before she nestled further. “It’s perfect. you’re perfect.”

“That I am.”

A few minutes later, they both had finished their coffee as Damien took his and her cup to place on the bedside table. He had a cheshire smile on his face as he brought his hand to her shoulder for her to lay down, he held himself over her as a few strands of hair drooped down. Peach smiled and brought her hands to his cheek, taking in the slightly overgrown beard.

“Now we’ve got a few minutes before the morning really starts.”

“What are you going to do about it, Nazario?”

“I’m going to have my way with you.”

“Think you can be quick about it, old man?”

Damien smirked as he slotted himself in between Peach’s legs as the hair on her legs tickled Damien’s waist. Damien loved Peach’s body hair, the way it would brush against the back of his thighs when she’d wrap her legs around his waist, it would send chills through his body. Peach is really his. Before he could lean in to kiss her, the door opened and small footsteps thumped in the room. Followed by high pitched squeals, tiny bodies jumped on the bed, latching onto Damien and Peach.

Small round faces and bright eyes as a boy and girl jumped with unbelievable hyperness. Damien and Peach’s kids: Sofía and Gael. Both were seven and six years of age, they had Damien’s looks but Peach’s excitable personality. Damien rolled off of Peach and sat up on the bed, taking his daughter into his arms and Peach took Gael into hers. Damien turned to Peach and raised an eyebrow at her, as if blaming her for their kids interrupting their moment.

She rolled her eyes and brought Gael close, kissing his forehead and cheeks. He repeated many ‘I love yous’ and ‘Mummys’ while Sofía watched her dad with curiosity. She had her excitable moments but at this current moment, she was just like her dad. Perceptive and clever as she spoke up in spanish.

“Papa, qué hacías?” Dad, what were you doing?

Damien glanced nervously from his daughter to Peach, who watched the both of them with amusement.

“Nada, Princesa.” Nothing, Princess.

Peach stood up from the bed and arched her back, stretching the knots made in her sleep. She got both her kids to go out the room and told them to get dressed so that they could go to school. Damien watched his love care so deeply and once the kids went to the other room, Peach stood in the doorway of their bedroom. Their kids are the best thing that has ever happened to him and he could never dream about anyone else. Damien got up to Peach and wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her close to his chest.

“I wanna dance with you right now.” Peach laughed her sweet laugh as she swayed along with Damien. “I love you and I wanna stay with you until we’re grey and old.”

“I think that’s already starting to happen. I can see a little grey in your beard.”

At that she rubbed her palm over his cheek, fingers brushing against his lip. Damien opened his mouth and took a bite at her finger before placing a soft kiss and nuzzling his head into her shoulder. She was the one for him, her soft smile and bright eyes gave light to Damien’s life. He was so glad to bare his soul to her.

~~~~~~

“NO!”

It was too late as Damien pushed against the restraining hold of Hayden. Harley had Peach in his grasp and he pressed his fingers deep in her neck, a loud crunch of bones echoed in the room. They were back at EROS and just as they were about to break free and blow the facility up, Cecile had activated the hive mind control which took over the minds of all the matches. Hayden included. Damien felt his heart smash to pieces and time moved slowly, as Peach’s round body fell to the ground. There were no emotions for Damien to express the scene in front of him as he stared at Peach. Her bright hue was gone and replaced by a grey sickening colour and death claimed her bright lively soul. The love of his life was gone right before him, he closed his eyes to purge the uncomfortable thoughts of Peach.

~~~~~~

Damien opened his eyes to see himself in a clear tiled room, not the EROS facility or at home with Peach. Soon he heard the loud taps of heels and found the devil in front him. A smartly dressed woman with piercing green eyes and angry red hair: Cecile Contreras. She looked down at Damien with a sickening smile and turned her face forward to the screen behind Damien.

“Response is good. Up the dosage and add twenty milligrams of delysid. You’re doing very good, Damien. We’re close to creating the perfect match.”

#Damien #damien nazario #damien nazario x mc #damien x mc #Damien Elvis Nazario #perfect match #choices fanfiction #choices perfect match #choices fic #choices #damien nazario x fmc

29 notes · View notes

aroworlds · 4 years

Text

What Makes Us Human, Part Two

Moll of Sirenne needs prompts in their girdle book to navigate casual conversations, struggles to master facial expressions and feels safest weeding the monastery's vegetable gardens. Following their call to service, however, means offering wanderers in need a priest's support and guidance. A life free of social expectation to court, wed and befriend does outweigh their fear of causing harm—until forgetting the date of a holiday provokes a guest's ire and three cutting words: lifeless and loveless.

A priest must expand a guest's sense of human worth, but what do they do when their own comes under question? Can an autistic, aromantic priest ever expect to serve outside the garden? And what day is it...?

Contains: A middle-aged, agender priest set on defying social norms around love; an alloromantic guest with a journey to undergo in conquering her amatonormativity and ableism; and an elderly aromantic priest providing irascible reassurance.

Content Advisory: Depictions and discussions of ableism, amatonormativity and dehumanisation, particularly with regards to autism and aromanticism. Please expect additional background references to partner abuse and dysfunctional relationships, along with a side mention of magic causing harm to animals. This piece also includes reflections on non-romantic love's being pushed as a second-best "humanising" quality on non-partnerning, aplatonic and neurodiverse aros.

Length: 4, 946 words (part one of two).

Note: This is the newest entry in my tradition of Not Valentine’s Day Aro Stories posted on Valentine’s Day. No familiarity with my other Marchverse stories is needed, although it does obliquely nod at events referenced in Love is the Reckoning.

Will you ignore their need of someone their own to reassure them that they are so wonderfully and deservedly human?

Moll checks that she follows and, wordlessly, heads towards the guest common room. Their heart thrums in their chest; they fight to slow their heaving ribs. What will they do if Gennifer isn’t finished with what caused her to miss breakfast? What if … shades, can’t they send an acolyte to find her or Oki? Waiting with James won’t lack unpleasantness, but Moll needn’t engage her in conversation. They can keep their silence while a brown-robe hunts down a senior priest.

Breathe.

For good or ill, they are both decided to follow a new path.

Gennifer, fortunately, sits in one of several armchairs, frowning down at the ledger in her lap. Two acolytes tidying feel more like shadows than occupants in a vast room of redwood tables and bookshelves, all crammed with books, games, paper, pencils and paints. Pots filled with trailing ferns hang from the high rafters, lending the room a touch of Sirenne’s soil-and-leaflitter scent; the large slate tiles, polished smooth and set close together, feel cool under Moll’s bare feet. Large windows reveal the gardens between wings, permitting light enough that demarcations of “outside” and “inside” lose relevance.

She closes the book and looks up, her thick brows raised. Moll has long learnt better than to voice these observations, but Gennifer resembles her pet chicken—a round, fat woman with nut-brown skin and hair, the latter trimmed to a fine fuzz covering her scalp and neck. The red robes, belted with an advising priest’s green sash, pick up the reddish tinge in the hen’s feathers; the neat way she tucks her arms at her sides, her hands drawn up by her chest, resembles the hen’s wings. No quality will so provoke this comparison if not for Gennifer’s mothering of anyone, guest or priest, she judges in need.

“May we converse in private?” Moll asks, turning their head to ensure that James follows them into the room. “Thank you.”

She stands a few paces off, tucking her hand—the tip of one finger smeared with her lip paint—behind her back.

The acolytes down their books and retreat to the hallway.

“What is it?” Gennifer waves at the chair opposite her table. “Sit down. Can I get you a cup of tea? A biscuit?”

“No. James has the opinion … that I can’t relate to their experiences. She wishes the guidance of another priest.” Only a lifetime of practice allows Moll to keep their voice flat and calm. “I don’t wish to cause her any further distress, so I ask that you assign her to someone of a more … suitable nature.”

Only the slightest shift of brow mars Gennifer’s quiet smile. “I see. Is this the case, James?”

How can Gennifer, as careful and controlled as most of Sirenne’s priests, so evade accusations of lifelessness? What difference exists between her expression and theirs? Why can’t Moll see, recognise and imitate it?

James hesitates for long enough that Moll wonders if she’s beset by a change of heart, but at length she nods and takes the offered chair. “Yes. Please. They don’t even know what day it is! They just ask pointless question after question, all stiff and wooden. How am I supposed to get anywhere with a priest that remembers nothing normal?”

She doesn’t mention, Moll thinks with a nauseating bitterness, that she accused all priests of such ignorance. They may not know what the date means, how better to have approached James’s guiding or why only Gennifer’s questions are worth answering, but they know one thing: their control teeters on collapse’s edge.

They bow, turn and stride to the doorway.

“It’s difficult,” Gennifer says with a non-committal softness, “to feel as though—”

Moll quickens their step, their red robes flapping about their calves. Another pair of acolytes enter the hallway, stop and abruptly reverse direction as though afraid to tangle with a priest in a temper. They fist their hands until their fingers ache, but their shoulders shake and their chest heaves. Why did they entertain the delusion that their thick, autistic body, with its oversized hands and stern face, can ever be anything but threatening?

How much more damage need they cause before accepting the truth?

The feel of grass beneath their soles and the strengthening of the rich damp-earth smell tells Moll that they’ve left the building for one of the gardens. Rows of mulched corn, peas and beans grow in a sunny section of the monastery, angled away from the greenhouse. The gardens weren’t their intention, at least insofar that they possessed any, but a riot of unwanted seedlings sprout from the pea straw’s seeds, diverting water and nutrients from the vegetables. The acolytes are a few days behind in their weeding. Good enough.

Moll—ignored by the priest and guests tending the greenhouse’s tomatoes—grabs a bucket and a trowel, kneels by the first pea-festooned trellis and starts pulling up weeds.

There’s no glamour in weeding, no proud presentation of the literal fruits of one’s labour. New weeds poke through the soil and mulch almost as soon as one finishes, and, as in laundry and dishwashing, Moll never finds the satisfaction of conclusion. A garden always provides distraction, however, and nobody stopped to marvel at a quartermaster’s labour. Why expect it now?

Peace, instead, lies in the feel of damp earth clinging to bare feet, the patter of water falling on green leaves, the smell of sun warming soil and straw, the pop as a root pulls free from its earthen cradle. Moll’s trembling fingers fight to gently prise weeds from the bed and shake soil from their roots, but they put their rage into their shoulder as they hurl each into the bucket left at the end of the row.

Pull, shake, throw.

Pop, patter, thwack.

Isn’t this suitable work? If their labour allows Gennifer to guide James by providing the food eaten by priests, acolytes and guests, how aren’t they following their calling?

Pop, patter, smack.

“Do all of those require pulling?”

They jerk, straighten and turn, started to find the Guide sitting in her wheelchair only an arm’s length distant, her attendant idling with a book at the other end of the row. She’s a small woman with white hair gone yellow, sunken cheeks and bony limbs; “elderly” suggests more youth than she shows. Her green robe, belted with red, catches the light through some trickery of weave; a darker green blanket, knit from witched wool, sits over her lap, although the summer warmth permits her to bare both marked shoulders. A ball of yarn, two knitting needles and a toe and heel in progress rests in the valley between her knees. Based on Moll’s infrequent glimpses of her work about the monastery, she too prefers her hands busy, perhaps despite her swollen knuckles.

She looks like a stiff breeze will blow her out of her chair, but she reminds Moll of a century-dead tree, its roots grown so deep that its trunk and limbs survive drought and cyclone.

They drop their plant and, suddenly aware of their aching shoulders and back, bow to Sirenne’s most senior priest.

“Oh, stop. Sit up and stay sit up. Sat up? Whatever.” The Guide sighs and peers down at Moll. “Aren’t your back and knees breaking? I’m hurting just looking at you.”

Moll realises then that they’ve worked down the row and halfway across the bed. Small bits of seed and gravel dig into their knees through the thin linen of their summer robe; their legs, beset with an unnatural stiffness, fight their attempts to sit. “I’m sorry, sir, for my unsupp—”

The Guide raises both hands and claps her fingers to her thumb in the gesture meant to indicate a bird’s opening beak—usually made to mock a person prone to gossip. If she owns something as ordinary as a shroudname, Moll has never heard it mentioned. She’s just the Guide, the leader of her flock on their journey to … well, the Sojourner isn’t the sort of god that provides clarity. No bright heaven or dark hell; just the bewildering grey of somewhere.

Moll dislikes those vague, unspecific words.

“I’m sorry for abandon—”

She repeats the gesture several times, fingertip smacking against thumb.

“I’m … sorry?”

Moll has heard the monastery’s gossip about the Guide, but they didn’t expect … well, this.

“Stop it with the drivel.” The Guide sighs and shakes her head. “If you apologise again, I’ll send you to shadow with the calling-year acolytes. Don’t think I won’t!”

Just the thought of taking lessons with Ro and Alicia has Moll closing their mouth with a teeth-clacking snap. Moll’s calling-year included a grandparent twice their age, but Ro’s year leans young, and they can’t say that they’ll enjoy being so subjected to the acolytes’ discussions, explosions, giggles, jibes and pranks. Moll endured enough of that in the army, irritated even when they were of the customary age to partake!

Is this the Guide’s way of saying that Moll needs those lessons?

Are their missteps with James so serious that Gennifer went to the Guide?

“Moll?”

They sit up, rolling their shoulders back in a vain attempt to ease their stiffness. “I don’t think I need those lessons refreshed,” they say, hoping that their tone doesn’t convey their stomach’s nervous roiling. A priest shouldn’t be afraid to admit fault. How can one help guide another in open-hearted curiosity while bound to an unfailing sense of correctness? “I think I’ll do better in the gardens or the stables. Wherever you believe my work most needed.”

Not that Moll has done an exemplary job with the garden, given the halo of uprooted-and-thrown plants surrounding the bucket.

“Really?” The Guide sighs, looking down at Moll with raised eyebrows. “Because I came here to tell a guiding priest to pick the gravel from their knees, wash up and hop to the infirmary to be briefed on a guest’s needs from his new priest.”

Moll frowns. The infirmary? A guest’s new priest? “Another guest—”

“No! You want to specialise in the arts of weed pulling and shit shovelling! Far be it from me to stop a priest from following their road—even if that road takes them five clicks backwards.” The Guide shrugs and nestles her hands in her lap. “I’m sure there’s another priest with curiosity, patience and directness to help guide a guest as much harmed by Sirenne as the world—another priest that finds equal confusion in tedious definitions of normality. Gennifer’s unexpectedly busy—what about Oki?”

They stiffen, their eyes resting on the thick, bobbled stockings covering the Guide’s unshod feet. “I don’t understand,” Moll murmurs, beset with too many curiosities to untangle but certain that few priests have referenced Sirenne’s harming a guest. “If I knew what you’re referencing, perhaps I could say…? But … I don’t want to distress another guest, and someone must muck the stables.”

After all, she may as well be referencing Moll’s treatment of James.

The Guide stares at Moll, her brow furrowed, her expression well beyond their conjecture. “I think,” she says at length, “you should explain the source of your newfound enthusiasm for regression.”

By now, narrating a discussion with a guest to a senior priest feels habitual. Moll exhales, hissing their breath over their teeth, before beginning with the dining hall, backtracking to explain their anxiety and James’s prior behaviours, and continuing with the courtyard conversations.

Their voice, steady during all manner of absurd, eldritch and horrifying goings-on in their fifteen years with Seventh, wobbles on the words “loveless” and “lifeless”.

“…so I did the inappropriate thing of leaving without allowing for proper explanation or facilitation of—”

“Nep, nep, nep.” The Guide beaks her fingers thrice; Moll, startled, falls silent. “Drivel. You cluck worse than Gennifer’s chicken. That you can work on—tell Gennifer or your calling-year priests that you want them to help you learn to stop clucking.” She sighs and shakes her head. “You assumed yourself the cause of her mood. James felt distressed by spending Lovers’ Day separated from her partner and took offense to your thinking you’d caused offense. She wanted you to simply offer sympathy, believing her situation abundantly self-evident and unneedful of explanation.”

How many times, over the course of a life, have allistics and alloromantics driven them to aghast speechlessness at their absence of rationality? Lovers’ Day is but a petty holiday borrowed from Astreuch tradition, something about which the Sojourner says nothing. Moll doesn’t care enough to recollect its existence, but neither will they disparage or dismiss her pain—if only she mentioned the holiday when asked!

Sirenne should offer sanctuary, but they’re still caught up in the mess caused by love’s assumption, expectation and conformity.

Even here, they’re still rendered less than human.

“I … asked why…” Moll shakes their head, turns and pulls up another weed. “I don’t understand that. None of it. So I belong out here.”

“I didn’t say it was reasonable. It isn’t any more reasonable than your current occupational decision.” The Guide barks a laugh. “But since when do we expect guests to bring reason with them? They don’t. We help them find it.”

They don’t know what word names the mood that has Moll wrench, twist and fling a seeding somewhere towards the bucket before looking up at the Guide. “How could I have—”

“You should have,” the Guide says, her words soft, “taken her to Gennifer as soon as her judgement turned personal. You didn’t need to tolerate that half as long as you did. Take her to someone who gives her fewer excuses and isn’t bearing bruises the world never lets heal. No garden so needs weeding that you should be breaking your body, afterwards, to survive the punches you thought you had to let her throw.”

They sit up, bunching their robes over their legs. Her words ring of bewildering improbability, an unexpected response—like the giving of their girdle book, the leather cover now speckled with dirt and mulch—wildly contradictory to the world’s usual rules and processes. Ideal, certainly, but not in practice true.

“I’m meant,” Moll says slowly, “to be able to do my work. I can’t give every allistic or alloromantic guest to Gennifer because they don’t make se—”

“We both know you won’t ask that another priest take on a guest’s care because you don’t understand their reasoning, but you should if they don’t respect your humanity!” The Guide waves her hand towards the great hall. “How, if you break yourself dealing with every guest assigned to you, are you going to give your best service to the next agender, aromantic or autistic guest walking up our driveway? What if there’s someone there in need of you? Can you, right now, serve as they need?”

They freeze, open-mouthed.

Never did Moll think to look at their work from that angle.

“There wouldn’t be that many—”

“Drivel. Most of the priests not us can handle James. Gennifer, though, isn’t aromantic. She’s kind, sweet and open-minded, certainly—and that’s better than nothing. But she doesn’t speak from a place of knowing. We do. And now, you can give someone something neither of us had—a guiding priest who knows in the heart. Can’t you imagine what that must feel like?” She sighs, her crow’s voice cracking. “Some guests won’t be suited to your strengths, but they’ll respect your humanity. Some won’t suit you, and you’ll make sure they’re cared for by someone they’re less likely to harm. And others, yet unknowing, need you. Will you, Moll, ignore their need of someone their own to reassure them that they are so wonderfully and deservedly human—no matter what the world says?”

Moll draws a breath, the hairs on their forearms raised, their body alert and quivering. Despite the near-cloudless sky, they look up, searching for lightning; the air crackles with that wild, dangerous energy. They hoped, five years ago, to return this gift Gennifer offered to a discharged quartermaster stripped of home and place. The gift of reframing the world, tossing about all long-held expectations so one can put aside the misunderstandings and follow a new turning. The gift, a chance to see everything anew, they couldn’t offer James.

A gift, perhaps, they can still offer someone else—because she’s right, something Moll didn’t realise until she said the word “us”.

They didn’t know that they’d waited forty-four years to receive that gift from their own—to be affirmed human by their kin’s reckoning.

The garden shouldn’t be the entirety of their service.

“That’s better.” The Guide gives a small, satisfied nod. “You’ve forgotten, I think, that in your first year, we learn how best you work with guests. Knowing that better, now, I need you in the infirmary to work with a guest who also didn’t pair well with his first priest—a guest who needs you, not Oki. Or will you mumble about weeds and manure?”

Moll shakes their head. No, not on their life or name!

“Good. Get up, have a long bath, scrub your fingernails, eat a late lunch and then present yourself to Thanh. Tell hir that I sent you to be Esher’s new guiding priest and ze must explain to you the magic. I doubt he’ll be any kind of conscious today, so you have time to dawdle.”

What happened last night? “Magic? Conscious?”

“Thanh will tell you. Go. I’ve got too many priests yet to talk to.”

Far too curious to surrender to bewilderment, Moll bows their head, grabs their trowel and scrambles upright just as the Guide waves her hand to her attendant. “Thank you. Sir. Thank you.” They turn for their bucket, freeze and spin back to face the Guide. “Sir, can I ask something?”

“Yes, quickly, but it had better not be clucking.”

They don’t know what she means by “clucking”, but they’ll ask Gennifer and Oki. “If you weren’t guiding guests when I came, why…?”

“Why didn’t I guide you, you mean?” The Guide shrugs. “I don’t guide guests or teach the acolytes. I’m perceptive and intelligent, they told me, but disastrously blunt. Now, after years in the kitchens, I guide the priests—once you’re educated enough in yourself that I needn’t dance around my words.” She hesitates. “I think, perhaps, there’s some acolytes I should have taught. But I do know the worth and the necessity in ensuring my own number in the priests that follow me.”

“I think you guide well,” Moll says quietly. “For me, if nobody else.”

Their own expressions aren’t given to smiling, but the Guide’s broadening lips, perhaps, speak for them both.

41 notes · View notes

wrathofthewind · 3 years

Text

ix. Key

First, there were very few people who knew how to cast a mirage maze. Gala was especially known for her realistic fabrics and how well set each mirage was. She’d often play around and leave boxes with hints and clues about the next step. When done in jest, it could even be said to have a semblance of fun, or nostalgia, not all mirages were unwelcome. She probably had plenty of fun with Ithana in a mirage all the time. But some… some were brought up from the recesses of your memory, often a memory you had surpassed or couldn’t live down. No one knew what Tyssen had seen to make him break down that day. One of the strongest people Arnalt had ever known, but even Pallax was protective after that. Which, of course, Tyssen punched him for, at least as soon as he had his wits back.

Then again could it count as a day if Tyssen hadn’t punched or shoved or been aggressive in some way towards Pallax? Arnalt unconsciously shook his head. They clearly cared for each other, what was the point of such grief?

Of course Arnalt had never been in a situation where any relationship was ambiguous or complicated. He placed everyone into a neat little folder, filed them into their designated box, that was that. Tyssen and Pallax, his loyal guards. Ithana, his sister with a temper and a reputation to back it up. He admired her. They had a bit of a rivalry, he didn’t know why he just felt like they understood each other. So what if she could break his bones? Ithana was simple and to the point, her language was something he could understand; same as Bael, good food, good wine, good laughs. It was a whole different story with Ronan.

As if his thoughts had conjured the person, Arnalt the illusion melting into a familiar scene: he was walking through the corridors in Ronan’s palace, but this was an area slightly different to the one from his memories. There were several doors and because this wasn’t Arnalt’s first mirage, he randomly picked one and opened.

It was the oddest thing. The first door he opened clearly showed the kitchen back at his own palace. He closed it and tried the door next to it. The next sight was a courtyard in Ithana’s palace. Alright, alright… the person who created this illusion, and he already had his suspicions, was familiar with all these households. They were a servant, because while the residences were different, giving the illusion that this person traveled frequently, it was only the most humble areas. A private courtyard here, another kitchen there, the laundry rooms, a nondescript hallway in the lower floors… only one door led into a place he hadn’t expected: a luxurious and ample bedroom, fit for a King. Arnalt felt a chill.

He… he wasn’t ready for this one, but that was precisely why he went in first.

There wasn’t anything remarkable in the room, it’s just that Arnalt knew these tastes. For some reason, after that first encounter, he’d expected the illusion to show him Ronan’s chambers… but Ronan was of a marshal mind, his chambers decked to the nines with trophies from his wild hunts, animal pelts, or wooden shelves he’d carved himself. Ronan believed in a discipline of the body and the mind.

These chambers, with delicate fabrics, gilded doors, freshly cut flowers, and the juxtaposition of battle armor and axes… this room belonged to the 3rd Prince, Luka.

But how… why would this person know Luka?

A few paintings of Luka were hanging next to the mirror, positioned there as if to aid him when getting dressed, to remind him of his own visage when captured by the masters. Luka was truly… not someone Arnalt spoke with often.

He finally noticed a painting that was slightly askew. It depicted a glittering mountain of jewels, dripping from a heavenly ledge towards a mortal pagoda like a waterfall of riches. The strokes were vivid, delicate, and quite gentle, giving the painting an appearance of vaporous water, with muted tones that lit up as a single golden stroke lifted the yellow here, or a sudden deep vivid crimson touched the edge of the canvas here… as if jewels upon jewels could not all shine at the same time, but rather only a few stood out when chosen by the painter. It was exquisite, and slightly dull. There was nothing else to the painting but the technique and the subject. A waterfall of gems, wouldn’t that hurt? Who wants that? Rivers of yellow flowed around the pagoda, enshrining it with what was probably meant to be a river of gold, but all Arnalt saw was a syrupy bowl encircling a pagoda pancake. Or, if he was more honest and vulgar… a river of pee. He let slip a quiet “Pft!”, and a low chuckle rumbled in his throat when he noticed the signature on the piece. “Azuria, Luka”.

Wait.

He glanced at all the paintings by the mirror. No. He painted himself all these times? He really wanted to just break out in laughter. Luka was quite good looking but— never mind never mind, that’s not what he was here for. He subconsciously straightened the painting before him to correct its angle and a small “clack” noise drew his attention. The painting unhooked itself from the wall and moved to the side of its own accord. A door was revealed, covered in bright gems. It was such a magnificent door, why would it be hidden behind a painting? Was this Luka’s treasure chamber? Curious about the inside he jiggled the door but couldn’t get it to budge. It had a keyhole with a strange design.

Ah. There it was. The puzzle in the dream. The maze in the mirage.

Alright, well, he could end up spending weeks traveling up and down the hall of this illusion, opening random doors and peering through random memories to look for clues, or he could apply what he’d already learned from dealing with Gala so often.

The person who crafted the mirage might make a very intricate maze to keep you inside, the longer you were in, the more they could absorb your life force after all… but their subconscious wouldn’t be able to control itself and sometimes a mirage would be repeated, certain things would show up in the various chambers. A single spoon, always on a table, or a mirror with an eagle carved on top showing up in both a bedroom and a dining hall… those were the clues, and one could avoid a great deal of grief by finding those mimicked objects.

Arnalt went back into the hall and opened a few door, not bothering to step inside, knowing it would be a waste of his time, and he already needed all his energy properly circulating to heal his shoulder… he didn’t stop until he noticed exactly three things:

A ceramic bowl.

A horse-shaped kite.

Needles and thread.

The first one was the easiest, a ceramic bowl of that shape and size either belonged to a kitchen or a dining room. Out of all the rooms he’d opened, only one had been a kitchen, so he doubled back there and went in. This time the door shut and clicked, locking. Aha. Well done Arnalt!

Once again he found himself in his own palace, and this would be the second time an illusion occurred there, but he knew everyone on his staff, down to their celestial sign and birth town. He had never met that woman from the first illusion before. Had never seen the face of that figure that burst like paper.

As if on cue he heard Ronan’s voice once more: “Shut the gates then and don’t let them cross anymore.”

“Sire that might cause a revolt.”

“Good, let that idiot Luka sweat a little for once.”

The voices came from Ronan, and next to him, a monk of Aegeria, one of the caretakers of the Ancient Library.

“It’s not advisable to… to have something break out near the Old Libraries. Those records haven’t been properly copied yet, and we still have all that recovery work from the recent incidents—“

Ronan was never patient, hardly allowing him to finish before bellowing “Alright already! Open the gates but ensure every single one of them has a sealed pass, and Luka better get those in order that little shit!”

Arnalt could vaguely tell what this was about, it was fairly recent… the townspeople of Luka’s region were fleeing from a sudden Craigh, a crack in the Earth that became a sinkhole. No one knew when they showed up or why, and just as they came they would disappear. A sudden gap in the Earth and monsters would crawl out, devouring everything. A Craigh could last a few days, or a few months, properly annihilating an entire region before closing up and disappearing, as if it never happened. Not even its teeth marks on the ground remained. Of course, a few Craighs were seasonal, and because they were larger, and possible thicker with dark energy, they would always show up in the same place. One of these was the Craigh of the Crescent, located in the Glaes Winterlands. It was precisely near that time of the year too…

Arnalt ignored the rapid beating of his own heart, anxiety gnawing at him. The faster he got out of this damn mirage, the quicker he could deal with everything else and find a way to reach Marius before it was too late.

He lifted his gaze, the sounds of Ronan and the monk had long since been swallowed up by all the activity in the kitchen. He saw his own figure emerge from the door, a stoic expression on his face as he put away his bow, and behind him, the ever-obedient pup, Marius, his growing frame panting as he wiped sweat from his forehead and tugged at his collar slightly. This was barely a year ago.

“Marius again…” Why was Marius in every illusion?

There wasn’t much he could do but sit in a stool nearby and watch.

“Run laps tomorrow, it can’t be that you’re this young and still can’t keep up with the hunting foxes.”

“Y-yes, My Lord…” the quality of Marius’s voice was a lot lighter back then. To think it had only been a year. He was also so much taller already, sometimes he felt like Marius was a Nigella flower, seemingly blooming overnight. Was that how he’d been in his early adolescence too? He felt a bit fatherly. Look at his boy!

“Eat well tonight, we’re doing it all over again tomorrow, and this time I expect you to surpass your own record.” Arnalt in the illusion had come into the kitchen out of impetuousness, he couldn’t wait to be served and just reached straight into one of the trays the servants were preparing and grabbed a puff pastry. Of course, he wouldn’t actually eat it in front of anyone, that was not proper, so he had no patience, hunger clawing his insides, and simply packed a napkin with several of the confections and quickly left the room with a passing, “bright and early Marius! Tomorrow!”.

Arnalt half expected Marius to follow suit and just reach his paws into the tray as well, grabbing some of those flaky, buttery, delicious pastries, but of course, Marius wouldn’t do that, much less a Marius that had been properly educated by Arnalt this whole time.

He straightened his back and felt his chest puff with a bit of pride at the sight, as Marius merely put all the weapons away, neatly tidied up the kitchen island where Arnalt dropped everything, then cleaned the arrows one by one and placed everything where it should go. He grabbed a dirty rag that was near the washing area, meticulously washed it himself, and then, soaking it with some cold water, rubbed the damp fabric over his arms to cool his own skin. He was young, but those arms were already corded with barely contained power. In the present they were about the same height already, and Marius’s build wasn’t quite as fair as Arnalt’s, so he seemed like a puffed up rooster next to a graceful swan when they stood next to each other.

He paused. Yes, he’d just compared Marius to a fat cock. Why was this so funny to him. What the hell. His shoulders were shaking with laughter because he knew this was a side of his own sense of humor that he couldn't share with anyone, often laughing at his own vulgar and stupid jokes. Arnalt would never! He berated himself and even softly smacked his own hand. Bad Arnalt. Do not call the Kurian a fat cock.

He burst out laughing. It’s not like anyone would hear him anyway. But it’s just, he’d been a tiny chick when he found it and fed it corn diligently and look at how big he’d gotten!

He waited to see what else they’d fed this baby chick that had helped him grow so big and strong in the last year. He waited and waited, and found himself yawning as the night slipped.

Marius was ever so polite. He simply sat and let the kitchen staff do its work. Let them serve a meal for the Lords, let them serve a meal for the guards, for the monks, for the servants, for themselves. Waited and waited until the last counter was wiped clean, and not a speck of the glorious meal remained, and everyone had left the kitchen. They even blew out the last candle without bothering to address him. They closed the door.

The scene was enfolded in gloom and Arnalt felt his heart itch. Was he not hungry?

Only now Marius stood up and re-lit that candle. He went to the pantry but it was locked, then searched through the drawers and apparently found nothing. There was a single discarded onion, the bits of it that were still edible had already been carved away. He took that sad leftover piece of onion and pierced it with a stick, then held it over the candle fire.

What the fuck was this?

Arnalt stood up and walked near him. Was Marius insane? Was this some sort of strange habit he’d picked up in the jungles? Could he not let this uncivilized behavior go? Why didn’t he grab a bowl of rice or one of the many braised pork plates and stuffed potatoes that’d been prepared earlier. Was this little dummy so polite he forgot he had a right to eat?

Arnalt thought back and realized he’d always assumed Marius ate well, and of course he had to, hello! He’d just compared him to a fat rooster, how did he grow up so healthy if he wasn’t eating properly? It’s not like Arnalt was tasked with checking even that minutiae? Wasn’t it enough already that he sometimes requested a special menu to fatten him up when he’d found him? Did he also have to supervise his daily diet?

Marius was about to bite into the roasted onion when a shadow appeared and he quickly turned towards the door.

One of the cooks had come in, apparently forgotten something or other. They leveled Marius with a glare. “What are you doing?”

“None of your concern.” Marius leveled them back.

Arnalt had assumed he would answer back politely, maybe meekly, something like “not much? Eating an onion? Hungry?” Something stupid like that, because obviously this mutt had to be stupid to be eating an half-roasted bad onion, but he certainly hadn’t expected him to narrow his eyes with such violence at the cook.

“Well, I certainly won’t stop you from poisoning yourself.” The cook sneered.

“How kind.” Marius.

“Guards!” The cook called.

Marius immediately dropped the onion into the wastebasket. He hadn’t given it a single bite.

“On second thought…” the cook said, “we can’t have you stealing from the royal family and just let it slide right? That would be the same as being complicit?”

Wha—

A guard came over and grinned, locking eyes with Marius. “Again little dog? Which will it be? Rope or wood?”

Rope or wood? The hell was he talking about?

“I’d request wood but… you barely have anything to work with so.” Marius had glanced below the guard’s belt.

Arnalt’s face turned purple.

The guard came up and soundly slapped Marius across the face. He was a 15-year old boy, this was a 29-year old guard, a mountain against a tree. The slap should’ve broken his jaw.

“Two crimes and counting.”

But this was not possible. Nobody should dare to punish Marius in his own estate? Everyone knew he was under Arnalt’s protection? Why hadn’t Marius said anything? He remembered the next day, remembered Marius being more quiet, more attentive, and also more vicious as he hunted. He remembered Marius suggesting they roast them, asking Arnalt to teach him how it’s done. Arnalt had no idea how to roast anything. Marius had said “let’s try anyway.” He’d botched a few birds and finally cooked up a half-decent pheasant. Marius had eaten his half with such intensity and bad manners Arnalt had forced him to copy the entire book of rules and etiquette 50 times.

Now, in this gloomy kitchen, Marius shuddered and breathed a few words. “I won’t ask for mercy. I hope you kill me.”

“Good.” The guard cracked his knuckles. “But I won’t kill you. That would be a violation of the decree. I’m just following my own liege’s mandates, it’s just our lot in life. Yours to be a cursed creature, mine to obey my Prince.”

Before he slammed his fists on Marius’s back, a familiar female voice interrupted.

“Malak, His Highness requests your presence.” The woman bowed slightly, but Arnalt already knew the shape of her hair, the size of her frame.

She bowed to the cook as well. “A tray of cheeses and figs for the Lord.”

“Right away!” The cook was suddenly all meek and smiles.

Marius still remained on the ground breathing.

Once the chef had the tray ready, the young woman took it, she also asked to heat up a quick bowl of soup, and toast some bread. As the cook went about producing ingredients, he took out a small key from his pocket and opened the locked pantries. Meanwhile, she kept her back to Marius and let some pieces of cheese and errant figs slip to the floor.

Marius took them and ate them right away. Like a small beast, uncaring that they’d already touched the floor.

Arnalt wasn’t sure he could continue to watch. He forced himself to stay, eyes wide open. The guard had mentioned a prince, so, someone with a higher ranking issued an edict. Arnalt’s mercy extended to Marius’s life, but when it came to corporeal punishments or policies… he was outranked by nearly everyone in his family. He hadn’t really given it much thought, Marius always looked glowing, healthy, occasionally with a few scraps and bruises he attributed to being a young, wild thing.

And now, as he watched that hunched proud figure lap at a soup bowl from the ground, “quickly quickly!”, the young woman said, having sent the cook on some other foolish errand—she hid bread in his pockets—and Arnalt felt like he couldn’t breathe.

He kneeled next to Marius. “I’ve wronged you.” He whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me?” He really couldn’t fathom a reason, and if he felt an urgency to head to the Glaes Winterlands before, now he tacked on a furious desire to ask him all about this, this and any other things that might’ve happened when he wasn’t looking.

Feeding corn to a chick, and then releasing it into a snake pit. Arnalt’s lashes trembled. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, that he was actually so weak, that his palace wasn’t his own, that Ronan came and went because he had the right, just how the council used his chambers, or the 2nd Prince, Finneas, came and went with his affairs, rumpling sheets in whatever chamber he felt like. Because this palace, as long as he was an Azurian, would forever be only an estate of the King, to house and protect a 19th prince… but not to be owned by said prince.

No, he didn’t want to go down that road. He wiped his mind. Took a breath. One thing at a time. Not his family, not those politics, not the memories of his mother… closed, shut off, done. He was water, he was a lake. And once he found Marius again, he wouldn’t let the boy go thirsty. He might not be as powerful as his brothers and sisters, but he could still provide. Maybe he should consider a chamber near him, and having him join him for dinner, maybe the Kurian should be his actual friend! A guest! Ha! What the fuck would they be able to do to him then? Not in Arnalt’s face! Would he have to keep him next to him 24/7? Well so be it!

…though, that was probably easier said than done.

His hand had unconsciously reached out to stroke Marius’s hair, the boy still hunched over and scarfing down whatever the young woman threw at him in between bouts, she, meanwhile, guarded the door, hastily retreated when someone else came, and Marius just kept his position on the floor, appearing for all matters and purposes as if he’d been leveled by the one slap and just couldn’t get up, which seemed to please everyone. Arnalt’s hand went through the strands, it was just an illusion. Just as well, he really didn’t know why he’d reached out to pet him just then.

Finally Arnalt remembered what he was here for, eyes sharply looking around for extra clues… Marius was key to this illusion, and key to this woman’s encounters and memories, but why? Why was she going out of her way to help him? Did they know each other? Was she someone from Marius’s past?

Just then the cook came back and placed the pantry key on the table as they busied themselves reaching for some ingredient or other.

The key was fine and ornate. It did not look like the key to a pantry.

Was that it?

The carvings and the shape matched the orange keyhole of that door in Luka’s room.

But it couldn’t possibly be that easy, could it?

A new figure entered the room, and Arnalt had half expected it to be Ronan once more. Instead, he found himself staring into a pool of jade eyes that were as muted as the paintings on his wall. His voice was soft and melodious, his outfit ornate and brilliant, which seemed ill-fitting against the paleness of his skin and the icy blankness of his face.

Luka.

And the words that came out of his mouth were just as icy, directed towards the young woman who Arnalt now noticed had gone completely pale and was unconsciously holding herself against a wall, trembling.

“As if I wouldn’t recognize you, Iris.”

1 note · View note

imagine-loki · 4 years

Text

Pride and Prejudice

TITLE: Pride and Prejudice CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 30 AUTHOR: wolfpawn

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Loki was raised on Jotunheim as Laufey’s son after the war, but an agreement was then made that he would wed Odin’s daughter so Odin could secure the alliance of Jotunheim through the marriage. Loki, in turn, was raised to be king of Jotunheim, but how he views Asgard is far different from how Odin’s daughter is raised leading to a clash of cultures as well as uncertainty between the pair of betrothed youths. RATING: Mature NOTES/WARNINGS: Forced Marriage, not all fun and games. My first real step back into the Loki scene in over a year.

Tags - @skulliebythesea @asimovethroughthisworld @blackcherry26-blog @we-shadowhunter2901

When Loki was finished dealing with different matters for the evening and went to his rooms, he winced slightly to see Ella looking at him almost expectantly. He then recalled that he had suggested they have dinner again that evening, and by forgetting about it, was now forty-five minutes late for it. “I am sorry.”

“I assumed you were busy. I was about to leave actually.” She rose slightly.

“Please, no. I will have something else brought.” He went to take the food.

“I have a spell on it, it is still warm. If you wish to eat, then fine, if not, then that is fine too.” Ella smiled.

“No, please, stay seated. But please, forgive my forgetting. I had a lot to deal with this evening.”

“It has indeed been a busy day. I assume the King is pleased with everything from Vanaheim?” Ella began with such talk, not sure if Loki wished to speak of other matters.

Loli sat across from her, taking some food to his plate. “You should have begun to eat without me.” He commented first. “Yes, he is elated. These will, of course, have to be solidified in the near future to be upheld but it is a great step forward for us.”

“You deserve great praise for it.”

“I think you mean you do.”

Ella scoffed slightly. “I am not of a position for such things. You have seen clearly already, women do not hold many positions of power. But that does not mean I am without use. People’s dismissal of a woman is often where she becomes her most valuable. The same can be said of servants. Always remember, as invisible as they seem, servants and maids, hold information no other does of those that employ them.”

Loki eyed her carefully for a moment. “You are more astute than is normal.”

“I just think about things from as many angles as I can.” She shrugged. “So, was there anything else of interest after we all left?”

“No, Father spoke for a few minutes, then I spoke with a very unwell Helbindi.”

“Is he alright?”

Loki scoffed slightly. “Perfectly fine, he was my drinking partner last night, so…”

“Ah, fair enough.”

“He was envious of your trick.”

“Well, I am bound by wifely duty to assist my mate, he needs to get himself a seidr wielder of his own if he wants to get such assistance. I am not enduring the effects of alcohol I did not consume for just anyone.”

“Well, I am grateful you did so for me.” Loki smiled as he ate, noting the genuine smile on her face also. He contemplated what he wished to speak about regarding more intimate matters but felt it had no place at the dinner table. Looking up again, he noted that Ella was looking at him with interest. “Sorry? I was in my own head, did you say something?”

“No, I did not, though I can see in your eyes there is something you wish to speak about.” Loki frowned at her. “You’re somewhat easy to read.”

“Am I?” Loki prided himself on being like his father, keeping his thoughts to himself and not revealing them, her statement startled him. “How?”

“You leave that facade you use in the throne room and the halls as soon as you come in here, or whatever room you are calling your sleeping quarters, it is one of the greatest things about you.”

“It is a weakness.” Loki scowled.

Ella shook her head. “Nothing of the sort. It is wonderful. I think it to be one of your greatest qualities. In these rooms, you are not the future of the monarchy, you are a man, a son, brother, friend and mate, you should be who you wish to be.”

“I wish to be strong.”

“Strength is not measured by stoicness. Norns, look at my father if you look at no other. I call him ‘Papa’, he treated me in a manner of which would have opened him to ridicule by some and an all-out weakness and proof of his not being fit to rule by others, yet he did so because he is my Papa and he loves his family. You will be even better, I think.” Her smile was honest.

Loki said nothing for a moment as he analysed her words. “Do you think love to be a strength or a weakness?”

“Strength.” Her answer was immediate. “Have you ever seen those who fight for love, it is far more brutal, they feel they need to prove themselves for those they love, they have a reason. Those who view love as a weakness don’t know actual love. A mother will die to protect her child, she will endure unspeakable pain and torture for her child, as would many fathers. A man who is protecting his family is a terrifying creature.”

“But it can also bring the strongest of men to his knees,” Loki retorted. Ella looked at him analytically. “No, I am not referencing her, you were entirely right on that matter, she is not worth my time. She...I do not wish to reference her. She is not worth it.”

There was clear vitriol in Loki’s voice. He was still angry, that was clear, but the determination in his eyes told her that he believed the words himself. Putting down her fork, she gently put her hand on his, giving him an encouraging smile. “You need to mourn the loss of what you had but not at the cost of what you have. You have your place as heir to put first and foremost, do not allow any to deter you from that position. You consider Jotunheim above yourself, you are a truly selfless man and you should not be punished for that. I know I have a considerable part in this, forcing you to adhere to a system you do not wish to be part of.”

“No, your words were true, it would not be fair to allow myself personal happiness with another and deny you the same. To risk a child with another but not allow you the same liberties would be wrong. The agreement stands, any of my blood, you carry and any you carry must be of my blood. I could never allow a situation where my mate could put a non-Jotnar on the throne of Jotunheim, it would cause uproar.”

Ella nodded with pursed lips. “But I still feel some guilt for your pain. You can say what you like, it does not take that from my thoughts.” Loki nodded slightly in acceptance of her statement. “I never got to know the love you felt, I cannot imagine the hurt it caused you.”

“You loved that guard.”

“I never gave myself to loving anyone, not as you did. Your personal experience of it does blur your opinion on love and its strength and weakness, but it is a strength, you know it. For your father or your brothers, you would be unstoppable to save them.”

“Brother,” Loki corrected.

“Brothers,” Ella repeated. “You do not like one of them right now but you love them both.”

Loki looked at her and noted there was a sadness in her face. “Do you think your brother loves you?”

“I think my brother has a sense of duty to me, in that, a slight on me is a slight on my father’s house, position and name.” She explained. “I suspect it to be similar with you.” Loki cocked his head slightly at such a statement. “You do not love me but were someone to do something that would risk me, you would feel a sense of duty to me as a result of our tie through marriage.”

Loki looked down, it was an accurate statement. He did not love her, that was something he knew but he did like her and would not wish for harm to befall her. There was also incredible truth in the statement that a slight on her was a slight on him and his family and that was unacceptable also. “Knowing you as I do now, even without you being my mate, I would feel a slight tie to you. As I suspect you would for me.”

Ella smiled at his comment. “I would. I mean, I would not take a dagger to the heart for you, perhaps to an extremity, like the upper arm muscle or something. Not a stab, more of a slash, maybe.”

Loki, seeing her playful smirk, laughed at the comment. “Well, it is more than most would do, I would imagine. In a political marriage, from what I saw in our time on Vanaheim, that is practically a declaration of undying love.”

Ella laughed. “Not all political marriages end up like Fren Eriksson’s.”

“Some do.”

“Yes,” She conceded, thinking of the horrible man and his equally horrid wife they had been forced to endure on Vanaheim whose contempt for one another was unrivalled in Ella’s opinion. “Yes, some do. And for the rough that came at the beginning of this, I think us to be doing reasonably well now.”

Loki thought to that morning again, while both of them were in bed together, him accidentally sleeping on her, her kindness and compassion for him. He even recalled the momentary glimpse in her seidr induced memory show where he curled in against her shoulder and she willingly accepted his being there. He also recalled how she gripped his body, her heels against his ass as they mated, the manner in which she held onto him. It was nothing like before when she simply lay there waiting for it to be over. He knew he was the only one she had ever mated with, yet that morning, it was as though she had been doing so for many decades with him. “I guess it to be reasonable enough.” He shrugged as he spoke back, causing her to laugh as Loki attempted and failed to remain stoic. He did not wish to admit it, but he enjoyed being able to joke with her. Ella was always honest, she never lied to him. He wondered how to broach the subject with her with regards to her silence in bed.

When the meal was done and after some more talking on matters of the realm, Ella rose to leave, startling Loki slightly. “I best let you get some rest, I dare say you wish for your own bed tonight, being stuck with me for a night longer than expected was not your plan for last night.” She stated as she made for the door.

As she passed him, he gently took her wrist, causing her to look at him curiously. “Please, stay.”

“I…Are you not sick of me yet?”

“No.” Loki rose from his chair and gently guided her to the bedroom, allowing her to feel that should she wish to decline, then she need only pull her hand from his grasp, yet she went willingly.

#Loki #others #submission #Submitted fic #Pride and Prejudice #chapter 30 #wolfpawn

72 notes · View notes

wolfpawn · 4 years

Text

Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 30

Story Summary - Based on an idea I had that I submitted to Imagine Loki. Imagine Loki was raised on Jotunheim as Laufey’s son after the war, but an agreement was then made that he would wed Odin’s daughter so Odin could secure the alliance of Jotunheim through the marriage. Loki, in turn, was raised to be king of Jotunheim, but how he views Asgard is far different from how Odin’s daughter is raised leading to a clash of cultures as well as uncertainty between the pair of betrothed youths.

Chapter Summary - Loki returns to his rooms for the evening, having forgotten he had made plans with his mate for dinner.

Previous Chapter

Tags - @peppermint-j @damalseer @perpetual-fangirl @tinchentitri @inspired-snowflace @raphaelaisabella @alexakeyloveloki @caffiend-queen @devilbat @nonsensicalobsessions @skulliebythesea @majoringinlife @salempoe @lotus-eyedindiangoddess @rookienumber98 @emily-s1263 @ivytoh @agarwaeneth

Request if you wish to be tagged

“I assumed you were busy. I was about to leave actually.” She rose slightly.

“Please, no. I will have something else brought.” He went to take the food.

“I have a spell on it, it is still warm. If you wish to eat, then fine, if not, then that is fine too.” Ella smiled.

“No, please, stay seated. But please, forgive my forgetting. I had a lot to deal with this evening.”

“It has indeed been a busy day. I assume the King is pleased with everything from Vanaheim?” Ella began with such talk, not sure if Loki wished to speak of other matters.

“You deserve great praise for it.”

“I think you mean you do.”

Loki eyed her carefully for a moment. “You are more astute than is normal.”

“I just think about things from as many angles as I can.” She shrugged. “So, was there anything else of interest after we all left?”

“No, Father spoke for a few minutes, then I spoke with a very unwell Helbindi.”

“Is he alright?”

Loki scoffed slightly. “Perfectly fine, he was my drinking partner last night, so…”

“Ah, fair enough.”

“He was envious of your trick.”

“No, I did not, though I can see in your eyes there is something you wish to speak about.” Loki frowned at her. “You’re somewhat easy to read.”

“Am I?” Loki prided himself on being like his father, keeping his thoughts to himself and not revealing them, her statement startled him. “How?”

“You leave that facade you use in the throne room and the halls as soon as you come in here, or whatever room you are calling your sleeping quarters, it is one of the greatest things about you.”

“It is a weakness.” Loki scowled.

“I wish to be strong.”

Loki said nothing for a moment as he analysed her words. “Do you think love to be a strength or a weakness?”

“You loved that guard.”

“Brother,” Loki corrected.

“Brothers,” Ella repeated. “You do not like one of them right now but you love them both.”

Loki looked at her and noted there was a sadness in her face. “Do you think your brother loves you?”

Ella smiled at his comment. “I would. I mean, I would not take a dagger to the heart for you, perhaps to an extremity, like the upper arm muscle or something. Not a stab, more of a slash, maybe.”

Ella laughed. “Not all political marriages end up like Fren Eriksson’s.”

“Some do.”

As she passed him, he gently took her wrist, causing her to look at him curiously. “Please, stay.”

“I…Are you not sick of me yet?”

“No.” Loki rose from his chair and gently guided her to the bedroom, allowing her to feel that should she wish to decline, then she need only pull her hand from his grasp, yet she went willingly.

#Pride and Prejudice #Chapter 30 #loki fic #wolfpawn

41 notes · View notes

lingthusiasm · 4 years

Text

Transcript Episode 38: Many ways to talk about many things - Plurals, duals and more

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 38: Many ways to talk about many things - Plurals, duals and more. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 38 show notes page.

[Music]

Lauren: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Lauren Gawne.

Gretchen: And I’m Gretchen McCulloch. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about plurals. But first, it’s our anniversary!

Lauren: Every year in November we celebrate another year of enthusiastic linguistics podcasting. This year, we are celebrating by asking you to share your favourite fact about linguistics that you’ve learnt from Lingthusiasm.

Gretchen: If there’s a story, or a fact, or an anecdote that you find yourself re-telling people, saying, “Hey, I learned it from this podcast,” tell that to people on social media. We’ve been having so much fun seeing your responses already! Keep doing it until the end of November and help us celebrate our third anniversary. We will reshare them! And you can find other people’s as well to share yourself.

Lauren: Most people still find podcasts from recommendations from trusted friends and acquaintances, so sharing your enthusiasm for linguistics with people is the best way for the show to find new ears. This month’s bonus episode is all about reading fiction like a linguist. A bit like podcasts, I get a lot of my fiction reading suggestions from you, Gretchen. We talk about what it’s like to read fiction through the eyes of a linguist.

Gretchen: All of the linguistically interesting angles and facts and aspects of the fiction we’ve been reading recently in this episode. We also have over 30 bonus episodes. That’s almost half the show! If you’ve been looking for more quality linguistics content in your life, and you’ve listened to all the back episodes of Lingthusiasm, there is more. We have a solution! You don’t have to stop listening. You can get access to these instead.

Lauren: Just go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

Gretchen: And thanks for people who are already supporting us for helping keep the show going and ad-free!

Lauren: Not only can you read linguistics-y fiction, but you can also wear your lingthusiasm with our new merch.

Gretchen: You can wear Lingthusiasm patterns including the International Phonetic Alphabet, the esoteric symbols, and the tree diagrams on your feet with the new Lingthusiasm socks.

Lauren: I mean, you could’ve worn them on your feet with the scarf but that would’ve been strange. The socks fit much better.

Gretchen: Wear the socks on your feet. Don’t wear scarves and ties and mugs on your feet.

Lauren: We also have greeting cards with IPA “Thanks” and “Congratulations” on them but definitely don’t wear them at all.

Gretchen: Yes. Plus, we have t-shirts, baby outfits, and various other kinds of Lingthusiasm merch. If you go to lingthusiasm.com/merch, you can check out photos of all of those and get them for yourself or for a linguist or linguistics enthusiast in your life.

[Music]

Lauren: Okay, Gretchen, it’s grammar time.

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: What is the difference between these two words? You ready?

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: The first one is “book.” And the second one is “books.”

Gretchen: Oh, I know this one! I know this one. We’re good. Okay. The first one is when you just have one book and the second one, “books,” is when you have more than one book. How did I do?

Lauren: You did great! Congratulations.

Gretchen: Okay, good. Thank you. I am a speaker of English.

Lauren: Your English-speaker intuitions are working as expected.

Gretchen: That’s good to know, seeing as we’re speaking English right now. This is plurals. Sometimes, you have just one of something. You have a singular. Sometimes, you have a plural of something. In English, the kind of classic way that you form a plural is by adding an S or this /s/ sound to the end of a word.

Lauren: We’ve talked about morphology in a previous episode, which is where you add bits to a word to create more meaning. Plurals are just a really nice bit of morphology in English. I’m very fond of them. I like being able to distinguish between whether I have one book or many books.

Gretchen: Hopefully all the books.

Lauren: Yes, ideally more than one book. I think that’s the appeal of plurals.

Gretchen: More than one book. More than one cake. It just makes everything better. But there are also other ways of making plurals – not just by adding an S or a /s/, /z/ sound if you have /dagz/. In English, sometimes you make the plural by – for example, if I have the word “foot” and I have the word “feet,” Lauren, what’s the difference between these?

Lauren: Hmm. I’m just gonna observe that there is no S there. The second word definitely means more than one foot.

Gretchen: It does because English also forms the plural by changing the vowels sometimes, particularly for words that go back to Old English and have this – what’s called the “Germanic Ablaut Pattern” – but of changing the vowels to indicate a different sort of grammatical thing. The fact that some plurals in English form by changing their vowels was actually really helpful to me back when I was studying Arabic in undergrad because in Arabic, sometimes you add an ending to make something plural. But in a lot of cases what you actually do instead is you change all of the vowels, and sometimes even the associations of how many vowels there are or which consonants come together. For example, if you have the Arabic word /kita:b/, which means “book,” there’s also the word /kutub/, which means “books.” So, in this case you’ve changed the /i/-/a:/ vowel pattern – that’s a short /i/ and a long /a:/ – to just two short /u/’s – /kutub/. /kita:b/. /kutub/.

Lauren: Hmm. It’s a little bit like English “foot” and “feet.”

Gretchen: A little bit except that it’s changing two vowels for the price of one. In this case, it’s a bit more complex as a whole system. This is definitely an oversimplification to say that it works the same way as “foot/feet,” but the fact that the vowels change is something that’s kind of neat. One thing that I found particularly interesting about this system is that it can also apply to words that get borrowed into Arabic. Arabic has the word /fals/, which means “money,” and the plural of it is /fulu:s/. You take this F-L-S set of consonants and, instead of just having the single A there, you have /u/ and then a long /u:/, okay?

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: That’s fine. Then, Arabic borrowed the word “bank” from English, which is pronounced /bɑnk/.

Lauren: As in a money bank?

Gretchen: Like a money bank, not a riverbank. The plural of /bɑnk/, because it looks kind of like /fals/ – it’s got a consonant and then an A and then two more consonants – so the plural of “bank” in Arabic is /bunu:k/, like /fulu:s/. You put /u/ and then long /u:/ in between the three consonants.

Lauren: How clever.

Gretchen: I always enjoy it so much when languages take a word from another language and then adapt it to the morphology of their language and say, “Okay, we figured out how to plural it. We know how to pluralise words like this. We’re gonna do this the way that our language does it.”

Lauren: In fact, Nepali borrowed the word /kitab/ from Arabic and, instead of using the Arabic form of the plural – in Nepali you have “one /kitab/” but you have “two /kitabhæɾu/.” They also have a suffix at the end of the word, like English does, but they don’t use the Arabic form of the word. If you’re listening to people speak Nepali every day, you can often hear “two /kitab/” and it’s just as grammatical as “two /kitabhæɾu/.”

Gretchen: So, it’s not like in English where the S is obligatory if something is plural. You can just put the /hæɾu/ if you want it or if it’s necessary, but you can also omit it?

Lauren: Yes. Whereas, Hindi, which also borrowed /kita:b/, Hindu has obligatory plurals. So, “one /kita:b/” and “two /kita:bɛ̃/” – closely related languages, you can’t trust them to always have the same obligatoriness or not.

Gretchen: What’s interesting, Arabic was very influential in a lot of different areas because another language that borrowed the word for “book” from Arabic was Kinyarwanda, which is spoken in Rwanda. It slightly adapted the form of the word. Instead of being /kitab/, it borrowed as “igitabo” because Kinyarwanda really likes words to begin and end with vowels. In Kinyarwanda, there’s also a prefix “igi-” which means that something is singular and belongs to a particular class. If you wanna make something that begins with “igi-” plural, you change “igi-” to “ibi-”. So, “igitabo” is “book” and “ibitabo, with the B, is “books” because you always change “igi-” to “ibi-” to make something plural. They just took the same pattern that they had in their language and said, “Yeah, we can do this with this word from this other language.”

Lauren: What an exciting life the word /kita:b/ has had.

Gretchen: It feels very poetic that the word for “book” travelled around a lot. It was a technology the way that a lot of languages have borrowed the English word for computer. A lot of languages borrowed the Arabic word for “book” because they were some early people to have books.

Lauren: So far, we’ve had you can put a suffix on the end of a word. Kinyarwanda has some prefixing at the start of the word, so where the morphology is. Arabic and sometimes English involve some internal changes. You’re not necessarily just adding or removing something from the start or the end. These are some of the strategies for pluralising, but they’re not the only ones.

Gretchen: What else can we do?

Lauren: One thing that I find very satisfying as a plural strategy is where you repeat the word and the repetition is what makes it indicate that it’s a plural.

Gretchen: That’s very economical. It makes a lot of sense. It’s like saying, “book” and “book book” to mean “several books.”

Lauren: Yeah. Indonesian is one of the widely spoken languages that does this. The word for student is /muɾid/ but the word for “students” – plural – is /muɾidmuɾid/ as one option for how to pluralise it.

Gretchen: Huh. Very nice.

Lauren: There’s something very visual about that form of plural that I find very satisfying.

Gretchen: Speaking of languages that form their plural with a prefix, there’s actually an analysis of French. Traditionally speaking, if you learn French in school, you learn French forms a plural by changing the ending the same way that English does. But in actual fact in French, often those S’s at the end are silent pretty much always.

Lauren: Right.

Gretchen: So, there’s another analysis of French whereby it’s actually that the plural is a prefix. This especially shows up in French words that begin with vowels. Children who are learning French before they learn to read and write, they often assume that many words in French that begin with a vowel actually have plural prefixes. If you take, for example, the word “ami,” which means “friend,” in French and the plural of it is also “amis” but with an S at the end, but you can’t hear the S.

Lauren: No, I could not hear that.

Gretchen: It is completely silent. There is nothing to hear. Most of the time when you say a word in French, you put another word in front of it. Especially for a noun, you’re often gonna put an article like “the” or “my” or something in front of it. You would say, “l’ami” – “the friend” – “les amis” – “the friends.” That’s “les,” which is the plural form of “the,” but it has this S that’s silent. Because that silent S is before words that begin with a vowel, you pronounce that S like a /z/.

Lauren: Huh. Yeah.

Gretchen: The same thing with “my friend.” You have “mon ami,” “mes amis.” Again, that A makes the S in “mes,” which is also the plural form of “my,” be pronounced as if it’s actually there.

Lauren: I can totally see how, as a child...

Gretchen: You can see where this is going, right, because you don’t actually speak French and you’re like, “Uh-oh! It really sounds like the singular is ‘ami’ and the plural is...”

Lauren: “Zami.”

Gretchen: Exactly. “Zami.” You get little kids – it’s really cute when they’re learning to write. It’ll be like “Me zami” and they’ll write, like, Z-A- M-I for “friends.”

Lauren: Okay. That is too cute.

Gretchen: I have friends who post this is what their young children are doing on Facebook, like little notes that they’re writing for class, they’re talking about “le zami.” It’s so cute.

Lauren: Kids are just great little paradigm analysers, aren’t they?

Gretchen: Well, this is the way that language change could happen because you could imagine if French wasn’t a written language or if, you know, some sort of catastrophe happened and French people just weren’t writing anymore – you had an area of French where they had stopped writing for a while and they started writing again – you could imagine that people would’ve reanalysed it at this point. This is actually what’s marking plural in the spoken version of French even though the writing is preserving this other thing. If you were to start writing it differently in the modern era – not looking at what it did historically – then it would be very sensible to say that the plural is actually “zami.”

Lauren: I think it’s also worth mentioning that there are plenty of languages that get by just fine without any plural morphology adding onto words at all.

Gretchen: Yeah, absolutely. But I think all languages have some way of expressing whether there’re different amounts of stuff. The question is just do you do this as an intrinsic part of particular words, or do you do this with extra words. You could say in English, “One book. Two book. Many book. A few book.” These words would convey, also, that there’s more than one book as well.

Lauren: This is what a lot of Austronesian and Pacific Island languages do. They get by, obviously, completely fine. For example, Tetun, which is the language of Timor, if they need to mark something as plural, they’ll just use a separate word which is “sira” or “they.” So, again, they’re using the determiners a bit like French children use when they can’t hear the difference between the plural and the single form.

Gretchen: Yeah. I mean, spoken French just completely uses the determiners to indicate what’s plural. It’s just in the writing.

Lauren: We’ve talked about determiners and how they have a lot of work to do for tiny words. This is just another thing they get to do. Overachieving.

Gretchen: Sometimes, your “the” word can take on that function instead. Or you can use overt number words. Or you can do things like, you know, for English words like “rice” or “bread” you end up using things like “loaves of bread” or “grains of rice,” “cups of rice,” “glasses of water" because saying “rices” or “waters” or “breads” is a different thing and refers to kinds of rices and breads rather than specific bread items.

Lauren: We’ve talked about different strategies different languages use to make plurals. When we look at this across a lot of languages and see what languages do, what we’re doing is typology, Gretchen. I don’t know if you knew that’s what you were doing right now.

Gretchen: We are doing typology, yes. There is a very cool website if you’re interested in linguistic typology which is the World Atlas of Language Structures or WALS. They have all these interesting maps pulling information from all these different grammars of all these different languages and putting it on a map so you can see how many languages have prefixes for their plurals versus suffixes for their plurals versus something else.

Lauren: Because plurals are one of those things that every grammar describes, if a language has plurals, even if it doesn’t, it’s such a common feature across the world’s language, it’s often relatively easy to describe. It means that WALS has – it’s one of the biggest parts of the survey. It has over a thousand languages, which means that one in seven of the world’s languages are included in the survey, which is pretty impressive.

Gretchen: It is pretty good. Not all languages even have grammars written of them or have been converted into WALS, but that’s a pretty high ratio for WALS.

Lauren: What do you think is the most common strategy in the survey of making plurals?

Gretchen: Well, as a very Anglocentric person, I’m gonna say suffixes?

Lauren: You are correct. I don’t know how distributed the survey is. It could just be if you look at the map and where the plural suffixes are, it is really obviously an Indo-European/Europe kind of area phenomenon.

Gretchen: Yeah. So, it’s not quite clear if that’s just Indo-European languages are more likely to be in WALS in the first place, which is definitely true. If we actually just had grammars for the thousand languages of Papua New Guinea, probably this ratio would shift.

Lauren: But plural suffixes are very common. The next two most common are plural words – so not using any kind of morphology – and plural prefixes – so putting something on the start of the word rather than the end. Of course, that’s not the only options that you have.

Gretchen: What are some of these other options?

Lauren: We talked about reduplication already. You can have a change in the tone of a word. There are some African languages that have systems where the tone or the pitch of the word changes depending on whether it’s plural or not, which is obviously very different to something like Mandarin tone, which more people are familiar with, where the tone can change whether it means a particular thing at all. This is used grammatically.

Gretchen: That’s really interesting. I didn’t know people used tone for that. Another one of my favourite less-common types of plurals is when you just have a completely different word that means “the plural thing.”

Lauren: Ah, yeah. That is super great.

Gretchen: It’s a huge pain if you’re trying to learn the language because you’re like, “Okay, great. So, instead of memorising this one list of nouns and then saying, ‘I add this thing to them. Now, they’re plural.’” You’re like, “Now, I have to memorise two lists of nouns and all of their associations with each other.” It’s a bit of a pain. But once you know it, it’s very satisfying to be like, “Oh, yeah. Actually these are what were once historically completely different words and now just one of them is the plural of the other.”

Lauren: It would be a very interesting language to have this feature, Gretchen.

Gretchen: I don’t know if there are any languages that do this for all of their plurals, but I think there’re quite a few languages that do this in a few edge cases. One of them is English. English singular is “person” and the plural is “people.” Those are historically completely different words.

Lauren: This thing happens across languages so often and across different parts of grammar that linguists call it “suppletion” because one form just completely takes over and suppletes the part of the paradigm where the other one would be.

Gretchen: It’s the same thing that happens in things like the English verb “to be,” which is “be, am, is, are, was.” Why do some of them have B's in them and some of them have W's and some of them have neither? It’s because they were once three different verbs.

Lauren: Just crashing into each other.

Gretchen: Yeah. But that’s verbs. We’re not in verbs right now. We’re in nouns.

Lauren: I think “people” and “person” is a really good reminder as well that even though English would just fall into the WALS category of a language that has plural suffixes with the S suffix, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t occasionally use these other things like “foot/feet,” which is just a modification internal to the word, or “person” and “people,” which is the suppletion, or “sheep” and “sheep” where there’s no change at all.

Gretchen: There are some words like that in English: sheep/sheep, moose/moose.

Lauren: Emoji/emoji.

Gretchen: “Emoji” is a really interesting one because some people say, “emoji/emoji,” and some people say, “emoji/emojis,” which kind of brings us to the English side of do you adapt the plural for the way that you do it internally in a language? In which case, it would be “emojis.” Or do you make it more similar to what the source language does? In which case, it would be “emoji” because Japanese does not have the English plural strategy of just add an S to it. One of the strategies that it does have, among others, is just keep the word the same. I think the best-known example of do you do the source language versus the target language in terms of plural in English is a certain little creature with eight legs.

Lauren: The octopus.

Gretchen: The octopus.

Lauren: Which I just avoid talking about in the plural at all to save myself a grammatical crisis.

Gretchen: I admit that I have also done this. If you were gonna pluralise “octopus” as if it’s English, it would just be “octopuses.” It’s very easy. But there’s a fairly long-standing tradition in English of when a word is borrowed from Latin to make the plural the actual Latin thing. Because, historically, many English speakers did learn Latin, and so you want to show off your education by using the Latin form even though it’s in English. So, if you’re going to pretend that “octopus” is Latin, then you wanna say, “octopi.” However, there is yet a third complication, which is that “octopus,” in fact, is actually Greek – “octo” meaning “eight” and “pus” meaning “feet." So, Greek does not make these plural by adding i to it. In that case, there has recently become popular a yet even more obscure and yet even more pretentious, to be honest, plural.

Lauren: Is there where you say, “octopodes”? (/akta’ˈpodiz/)

Gretchen: Well, this is where I used to say, “octopodes.” But I have recently learned that, apparently, it is, for maximum pretentiousness, /ak’taˈpodiz/.

Lauren: You’ve out-pretentioused my out-pretentiousness.

Gretchen: I know, right? Which just sounds like, I dunno, like “Sophocles” and “Euripides” and like another Greek playwright because, I guess, they are all Greek, to be fair. But “octopodes” really, really sounds like he should be writing some plays.

Lauren: I’m looking forward to your Greek tragedy about octopuses... About those octopus-things.

Gretchen: Sea creatures of all kinds.

Lauren: We’ve been starting to explore the different options that you have for plurals across languages, which is part of why linguists do typological surveys to see other potential things that languages can do. But I find this kind of typology work is not just useful and interesting as a linguist doing linguistic analysis, it’s also a really handy way to think about language if you’re learning a language.

Gretchen: When you’re learning a new language, it’s interesting to be more aware of sort of the space, or what are some things that some languages do, so that things are less of a surprise to you if a language that you’re learning does something slightly differently. One of my favourite things in languages doing things differently is also that some languages don’t have this singular/plural distinction. They make other kinds of distinctions in how many of something there is.

Lauren: Yeah. So, so far, we’ve been looking a lot at the form and where it goes or how it changes the word and if it’s compulsory or not. But there is just more than single and plural. Between one and many, we have some languages that create specific forms as well. We have some languages that mark there’re two of something, which is known as the “dual,” as in the “duo”-type dual rather than the fighting-type duel or, depending on your accent, the glittering one.

Gretchen: I mean, duels are also done with two people, I guess. You fight a duel between two people.

Lauren: Yep. Fair call.

Gretchen: The dual tense is fascinating to me because Old English had a dual.

Lauren: Really? We squandered it?

Gretchen: Yeah, we squandered it. Except, there are still a few words that are relics of the Old English dual that we use all the time in modern English.

Lauren: Really? Is this gonna be one of those, like, now-my-eyes-are-open-I-can’t-un-see-this moments?

Gretchen: Yeah. They’re not even obscure.

Lauren: Okay.

Gretchen: Lauren, what’s the different between “both” and “all”?

Lauren: “Both” and “all”? “Both” means “two” and “all” means “everything”?

Gretchen: Yeah! So, if I say, “Both of us went to buy some books” versus “All of us went to buy some books,” “all” means “three or more.” You can’t use it for “two.” “All of us,” you and me, Lauren, “went to buy some books.”

Lauren: No.

Gretchen: No.

Lauren: Ahh…

Gretchen: Another one is “either” versus “any.”

Lauren: Hmm... “either” is a choice between two.

Gretchen: “Either of you can come.”

Lauren: And “any” is a choice between more than two. I can’t force a definition of “any” that includes only two.

Gretchen: Yeah. Yeah. “Any of you two can come.” You just can’t say that.

Lauren: No. Ah, wow! I have this tiny space in my brain that works as a dual and I never even thought about it.

Gretchen: The third one is gonna be really obvious. You also have “neither” versus “none.”

Lauren: Right, yeah.

Gretchen: So, if “either” does it, “neither” also does it. Some people insist on a plural/dual distinction between “between” and “among.” Whereas, other people don’t have this distinction.

Lauren: That’s what that distinction that they’re trying to get at is.

Gretchen: Yeah. But English doesn’t really have a dual anymore, so do we still need it in these particular words? There is still one in “former” versus “first” and “latter” versus “last.” “I read this book and that book, and the former was really good, but the latter wasn’t very good.” You can’t do that with a list of three.

Lauren: Hmm, yeah.

Gretchen: Again, those are more obscure. “Both” and “all” and “either” and “any” just really blew my mind.

Lauren: Yeah. Because my intuitions are so strong there.

Gretchen: Right! Imagine if we did this everywhere in the grammar. We used to have pronouns – more of the pronouns used to have singular and dual and plural forms in English. “I” and “we two” and “we all.”

Lauren: We sneakily haven’t talked about pronouns at all because, obviously, pronouns don’t just whack an S on the end of things the way that most normal nouns do. English doesn’t even have a grammaticalized distinction anymore between plural and singular in second person – “you” and “you” – which is why people innovate things like “yous” or “ya’ll.” Formal English doesn’t have a distinction.

Gretchen: Yeah, formal English doesn’t. “You guys,” “you folks” – yeah. The pronoun system is different, and we did a whole episode with pronouns earlier. But, yeah, English used to have a dual, like, everywhere.

Lauren: Amazing.

Gretchen: In fact, Proto-Indo-European, the ancestor language of English and most of the other languages spoken in Europe – with the exception of a few, and some of the languages spoken on the Indian subcontinent – it had a dual. There are a few other Indo-European languages that still have it or still have relics of it. One of them was Latin, which had some fossilised forms like “ambo,” which means “both.” If you’re “ambidextrous,” you have both hands are the right hand. Also, had relic forms in Old Irish, Homeric Greek, Old Indo-Iranian, and Old Church Slavonic. There are still a few dual forms in Slovene and Sorbian.

Lauren: If dual forms encode “two,” you’ll never guess what they call it in languages where it encodes “three.”

Gretchen: Some languages have a trial.

Lauren: These include Austronesian languages and Austronesian-influenced creole languages including Bislama and Tok Pisin.

Gretchen: That’s great. They also have a dual, right? You have a singular, a dual, a trial, and then a plural after that?

Lauren: In the pronoun systems, yes.

Gretchen: Just in the pronouns, okay.

Lauren: Pronouns – obviously because they’re counting people. People tend to make a lot more distinctions and keep them in pronouns.

Gretchen: I should say there are other languages besides Indo-European that do have duals. Inuktitut and Yupik have dual forms. Greenlandic doesn’t even though it’s related but it used to. In an entirely different part of the world, Khoekhoegowab and other Khoi languages have duals in some forms. There are duals around the world.

Lauren: There are some trials, but that is the most. No one has ever come across, in natural languages, something like a quadrial, which would be marking for...

Gretchen: Quadrial, quintial, sextial, septial...

Lauren: This is why typology is interesting. When you find there are lots of languages with single and plural. There are some languages with dual. There are even fewer with trial. And we’ve not got languages that mark a specific number of anything more. We do have languages that mark something that means “a few,” so something that’s more than two but less than lots.

Gretchen: I really like this because English kind of does this in our measure words. You can say, “one” of something or a “single” amount of something. You can say a “couple” or a “pair,” which is two – sometimes, occasionally extended to mean more than two. Like “I’ll be there in a couple minutes.” If you’re there in three minutes, meh, I think that’s still in the thing. People will really argue about this one. Then we have things like “a few” or a “handful” or “a bit.” Then we have things like “many” and “several” and “a lot,” which approximate the system as well. Some languages do this in the grammar.

Lauren: Yeah. Some do it in the form of grammar from all over the world. It’s definitely not one of those it crops up a lot in this language family or that language family. It shows up in Hopi in North America, Walpiri in Australia, languages of the Oceanic area, apparently in Arabic for some nouns, and it’s so common that it actually has its own term, which is “paucal.” P-A-U-C-A-L. It’s a very satisfying word to say, “paucal.”

Gretchen: I really like the word “paucal.” You can look at number by a strict sort of counting. You can look at number by “a few” and “a lot” and “many.” Are there any other ways of looking at how many of something there are?

Lauren: I may not have been completely upfront with you when I gave you the Nepali example about books.

Gretchen: Okay.

Lauren: I can point at three books and say /kitabhæɾu/, but I could also point at three books, a couple of notebooks, and some pens and say /kitabhæɾu/, and it would still be technically correct.

Gretchen: So, /kitabhæɾu/ doesn’t just mean “books” – because I can’t use “books” to mean the plural of “pens” also.

Lauren: “Books and associated materials.”

Gretchen: Ah, like “books and stuff.”

Lauren: Yeah. The Nepali plural is not only optional, as I said at the start, but it also has a slightly broader meaning in a lot of contexts. I could say, “Gretchen-/hæɾu/” and it would be like “Gretchen and her family and associated peoples.”

Gretchen: Is this like when you say, “Wishing you and yours a Happy New Year” or something like that?

Lauren: Yes.

Gretchen: “You and yours” is like “you and your family” or kinfolks or people that are associated with you?

Lauren: Yeah. Whatever that semantic meaning you have, that’s kind of what /hæɾu/ is doing in these sentences.

Gretchen: Huh, that’s really interesting.

Lauren: It’s a very elegant way of representing. We know you kind of mean “this generally related content.” One of the really nice things about plurality is that it’s often something that is very easy to see in how it’s marked and how it’s used, so you can use things like Google Translate to play around. You can look at examples in things like children’s books. And you can begin to analyse plurals a bit like a linguist does as you’re learning them and going about understanding a new language. Having a little bit of terminology around what the typological possibilities are with plurals can make it a bit easier to approach them in a new language.

Gretchen: I watched a demonstration of a monolingual fieldwork scenario where you have no language in common with someone – and this was set up as a demo because the people did have a language in common but they set it up as a demo for the audience – and they pretended they had no language in common and tried to figure out some things about the language from the volunteer. It was really interesting because it’s fairly easy to ask somebody, you know, here’s a stick. Here’s two sticks. Here’s three sticks. You can kind of point at them, and people can generally figure out what you’re asking, and they can answer that. It’s one of the easiest areas of a grammar to start approaching, rather than getting into more complicated stuff about hypothetical scenarios and this kind of thing. It’s an easy thing to learn at the beginning when you’re starting out learning a language.

[Music]

Gretchen: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, SoundCloud, or wherever else you get your podcasts. You can follow @Lingthusiasm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. You can get IPA scarves, IPA ties, other Lingthusiasm merch and gifts at lingthusiasm.com/merch. I can be found as @GretchenAMcC on Twitter. My blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com. My book about internet language is called Because Internet.

Lauren: I tweet and blog as Superlinguo. To listen to bonus episodes and help keep the show ad-free, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm or follow the links from our website. Recent bonus topics include surnames, linguistics fiction, and a Q&A with Gretchen about her book Because Internet. If you can’t afford to pledge, that’s okay too. We really appreciate if you can recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone who needs a little more linguistics in their life. You can share your favourite Lingthusiasm fact with them or you can share it on social media and tag us in.

Gretchen: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our audio producer is Claire Gawne, our editorial producer is Sarah Dopierala, our editorial manager is Emily Gref, and our music is “Ancient Cities” by The Triangles.

Lauren: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

40 notes · View notes

gb-fics · 4 years

Text

Peshimizumu

Fanfiction:

Kiryuuin Shou x Kyan Yutaka (Golden Bomber)

Note: Not surprisingly, this fic is for the song “Peshimizumu” XD I wrote a lot of gloomy, brooding Shou lately, so now you get a happy, fluffy one.

„Then …“, Shou said and raised his index finger into the air as if asking for attention. He had long, slender fingers that did not match with the rest of his short, stocky body. The contrast made his hands look even sexier somehow.

“I leaned out of the window and waved back”, Shou added and paused, seemingly for dramatic effect.

He stared at Yutaka in an obviously tipsy fashion. Yutaka did not mind. He was tipsy himself.

Shou spread his arms widely in a grant gesture.

Luckily, they were sitting in a separated section, where he couldn’t hit anyone by accident. Large gatherings were still prohibited, but this bar close to Yutaka’s apartment had come up with a nice solution. Yutaka found himself enjoying the privacy of their own booth more than sharing a large room with strangers.

“And that”, Shou concluded. “Was the most social interaction I had for an entire week.”

Yutaka burst out laughing.

Shou broke into a wide smile that looked happy and proud, as if he was glad that his story had made Yutaka laugh. His mouth looked big and wide when he smiled like that. The gaps between his teeth were such a natural part of his smile after all those years, that Yutaka hardly noticed them. He just noticed that Shou looked adorable when he smiled like this.

“So, you are telling me, the most social interaction you had for an entire week”, Yutaka repeated, still trying to catch his breath. “Was waving at a … dog?!”

Shou burst into a full laugh now as well. He was very pale, but red dots were showing on his cheeks. He wasn’t blushing where most people blushed, but rather close to his nose. It looked very cute. Yutaka thought that it was cute, that Shou laughed at his own story, if you told it back at him, too.

“I waved back!”, he clarified. “The dog raised its pawn and it was really fucking adorable.”

Still grinning Shou shook his head and took up his glass again. He drank in large gulps.

Yutaka had always noticed that Shou had a very manly way of drinking. He couldn’t explain it any better. Shou took large, soundly gulps, holding on to the glass as if it was a stone, he wanted to use to bash someone’s head in. Usually, his way of drinking would not have sparked Yutaka’s interest at all. But it did not match up with Shou’s hunched over way of sitting and the awkward way he moved as if not knowing where to leave his arms and his way of touching things, which was normally quite gentle. Shou drank like a man much more confident than himself.

Shou sat his glass back down soundly.

“Those were some dark weeks”, he said.

Shou could be pretty closed off and quiet and at those times, it was impossible to figure out what he was thinking at all. Alcohol did not change that. If Shou was in a bad mood, he was unable to hide it. The alcohol only caused him to turn more obviously sulky.

But if Shou was happy, it was nearly impossible to shut him up. He would babble on for hours and he would be all smiles and embarrassed laughter and his cheeks would flush and there wasn’t a thing Yutaka wouldn’t do to protect him when he was like that.

Tonight, Shou was clearly a happy drunk.

“I was so fed up with the inside of my own apartment, I’m happy to go out again”, Shou said. “Into the sun! I usually hate the sun! It’s so hot in the sun and I always get sunburned. But dude, I missed the sun. I also missed people!”

Shou paused again and leaned in, holding Yutaka’s gaze conspiratorial for a moment. Without colour contacts, Shou’s eyes were small and incredible dark. Yutaka could not make out his pupil from where he was sitting. Shou’s eyes looked black, but not in a menacing way. The black always looked warm, even on the days when he was sulking.

“And you know how I usually feel about people”, Shou added.

Yutaka burst out laughing again. That was another thing he liked about happy Shou – he was good humoured and very charming.

“I would have thought the lockdown was just the right thing for you. You don’t like going out to spend money or to socialize with people anyway”, Yutaka observed.

Shou leaned back again and snorted quietly.

“Right?”, he asked. “I’m such a negative person. I don’t like anything on the outside. But if I have to stay inside, I don’t like that either. I guess it’s just my personality.”

Yutaka chuckled, but brushed it off with a movement of his arm.

“Not at all”, he protested. “You are the most positive person I know. Look at you. Even if you hate those things, you manage to get all excited about them. Like sunlight. Only a very positive person would get excited about finally getting a sunburn again.”

Shou laughed quietly. His laughter was beautiful, when he didn’t hide his smile. It made his lips look gorgeous. Yutaka was happy that Shou had agreed to go out with him tonight.

“It’s not like that at all”, Shou said and pulled a plate of grilled pork towards himself. They had ordered a variety of snacks with their drinks, but most of them were gone by now. Shou eyed the meat curiously, but did not pick up his chopsticks.

“I’m all gloomy. Did you even listen to one of my songs before?”

Yutaka snorted.

“Yes, and that’s what I mean”, he insisted. He wondered, if Shou could really not see it. To Yutaka, Shou was nothing but a ball of joy and positive energy. “You write about all those painful emotions of yours. But you do it in a funny way. You allow people to laugh at you and to relate to you. So many people find solace in your songs. Because when you feel sad, you don’t just give in to it. You are productive and funny and kind. Also, stop staring at that meat already and just eat it.”

Shou turned his head and looked at Yutaka quietly. For a moment, Yutaka wondered, if he had given himself away. If he had spoken a little too enthusiastically about Shou’s good qualities and let on how strongly he cared for him.

But then Shou threw back his head and burst out laughing, as if the last words had just needed a moment longer to get through to him. He didn’t seem to laugh, because Yutaka had said something especially funny, but just because he was drunk and happy. Yutaka found himself smiling widely for no specific reason, either. He just smiled, because Shou was drunk and happy, too.

“I shouldn’t be eating more”, Shou said. “I will grow fat and no one will love me. See, that’s the kind of person I am. Always with those negative thoughts.”

“You seem happy alright tonight”, Yutaka observed.

Shou grinned. He did look a little embarrassed now.

“That proves how desperate I am”, he said. “Craving human interaction so much, I’m even happy to spend time with an idiot like you.”

Shou picked up his chopsticks.

Yutaka watched him for a moment, as he picked up a piece of grilled pork. He did it in an unnecessarily complicated way, as if he needed to inspect the meat throughout from different angles before eating it.

He wondered if Shou was right and the lack of human interaction during the last weeks showed. Yutaka felt Shou’s presence too strongly tonight. He seemed overly aware of his body next to himself. The air all around seemed to grow hotter when Shou leaned in and Yutaka had to follow the movement of his hands while he spoke and he had to stare at Shou’s lips when they formed a smile. Yutaka wanted to get closer to him in a very vague, undefined way. He just thought it would be nice to hold Shou’s body and sense him close. He had missed him a lot.

Only after staring at him for a good while, did Yutaka realize what Shou was doing.

“Oi, what happened to growing fat and lonely?!”, he inquired sternly.

Shou shrugged awkwardly, staring at his chopsticks in great concentration.

“I’ll just work out tomorrow. It won’t show for sure.”

Shou shoved the meat into his mouth. It was a pretty big piece and he opened his eyes widely while chewing. He looked overjoyed while eating.

Amused Yutaka shook his head.

“See”, he said. “You will be hungover tomorrow for sure. It’s very optimistic of you to think you are going to work out. But still, you are willing to stay hopeful. You have a very optimistic personality.”

Shou swallowed soundly.

“No, I don’t!”, he protested as if Yutaka had offended him. “I’m very pessi … pessi …”

He paused and then stared at Yutaka with an empty expression. Yutaka tried not to laugh, because he looked too adorable, trying to drunkenly recall a word that had more than three syllables.

“What’s the word again? Pessimi … pessimizumu? Is that what you call it?”

He made a confused face, that created wrinkles at the root of his nose.

Yutaka thought that he would really love to kiss Shou right now. Not seeing him for so long had made him forget how soft and full Shou’s lips were. They looked very kissable.

Yutaka licked his own lips, trying to buy time to remember what their conversation had been about.

“No, that’s not the term”, he said. “But that makes sense, since you are not pessimistic at all. You try again and again, because you are so full of hope.”

“No”, Shou said and put on an adorable pout. “It’s not optimistic to do something again and again, although you know you will fail. It’s stupid and pathetic.”

“It’s strength”, Yutaka said.

In his opinion, Shou was the strongest man, he had ever met. Yutaka himself was often too scared to try. Or he gave up easily. He had given up on bass and he had more or less given up on guitar. He didn’t have Shou’s optimism that one day he would get better. One throwback and Yutaka gave up. Shou probably did not like men and Yutaka would never kiss him, because he wasn’t brave enough to hope that maybe he did.

“No, it’s sad. Let me tell you about how I fall into the trap of hope again and again … with women.” Shou paused again and raised his hands. He surely turned dramatic when he drank. “Or should I call them … demons?!”

Yutaka tried to wince, but had to laugh anyway.

“Please, not the ex-girlfriend stories!”, he inquired. It was pretty much Shou’s favourite topic when he drank.

“Let me tell you about my ex-girlfriends”, Shou carried on, as if Yutaka hadn’t said anything at all.

Yutaka looked at him affectionately. Although the hairdressers were open again, Shou hadn’t went out to have his hair fixed yet. Dark roots were showing visibly and at the tips, his blonde hair looked dry and frayed. With the light blonde hair and his pale skin, Shou resembled a ghost. Without contouring his face looked slimmer.

“Here are some facts. My average relationship so far has lasted for about one month. All of my exes have dumped me. Since my thirty’s birthday, I have been dumped eight times, out of which three women just ghosted me.”

Shou shook his head slowly.

“My heart has been torn out of my chest, stomped upon and eaten while it was still beating.”

Yutaka burst into snorting laughter.

“You are exaggerating, Shou”, he pointed out.

“Every single woman has made it very clear, that they did not want to be with an ugly and brooding person such as myself.” Shou sighed heavily. “I’ve been hurt so often, that I started to believe that I deserved it, because no one could possibly want to date me.”

The last sentence he had spoken more quietly, staring at his glass thoughtfully. Yutaka could tell that the alcohol was about to make him drift off into melancholy. It often happened to Shou, once he brought up his exes.

Yutaka watched him from the side for a moment. Shou’s nose was very cute, looking small in his large face.

Sometimes, Yutaka wished he had realized how he felt about Shou, before all of this had happened to him. Tonight, Shou had seemed so happy, but Yutaka knew, that there was another side to him, too. A side that was sad and always too hard on himself and never pleased with his looks and his personality. Yutaka thought, that if he had been the first one to love Shou, he would have gotten it right. He wouldn’t have hurt him like those women had, and maybe Shou would be happy a little more often nowadays and sad a little less. Yutaka wished he could erase those past experiences from Shou’s memory. Not because he was jealous of those women, but because he felt like he would have done better than them.

But it was too late and the Shou sitting next to him now was already damaged and he already wore his scars. But then, Yutaka liked the brooding parts of Shou’s personality as well. He liked how they never got the better of Shou, but made it into songs instead and how his experiences had made him warm and gentle with others. He loved Shou for the person he was today and there was nothing to be done about any of it.

“It’s not like all of those relationships ended soon”, Yutaka scolded Shou, to get him out of his self-pity. “You make it sound like no one stayed with you longer than a month! That’s not true.”

Shou sucked on his lower lip for a moment. Yutaka wondered if he was even aware of doing so.

“True. But my personal record is about five months. Five months is as close as I ever got to my happily ever after.” Shou sighed again.

Yutaka furrowed his brow sternly.

“I guess I’m hard to be around for too long”, Shou added quietly.

“Oi!”, Yutaka interrupted him. “I’ve been hanging out with you for twenty years now. If I put up with you for so long, it should prove it’s possible.”

Shou chuckled.

“It’s doesn’t count”, he said.

Yutaka wanted to ask, why it didn’t count, but then he was scared that Shou would point out that Yutaka was nothing but a friend. Hearing that would hurt. It was better to not risk it.

“The problem seems to be with the women”, Yutaka observed and then decided, that it was worth a try. The alcohol made him braver than usual and it was nothing but a joke anyway. “Maybe you should try men instead.”

Shou turned his head slightly and cast Yutaka a sly look out of the corner of his eyes. The red dots on his cheeks were clearly visible again, but Yutaka couldn’t tell if it was because of his words, or if it was just caused by the alcohol.

“Actually”, Shou said and grinned without directly looking at Yutaka. His smile was a weird mixture of cheeky, proud and embarrassed. “I dated a guy once.”

Yutaka’s stomach jolted.

He told himself to stay calm. Surely, Shou just meant like in a high school phase kind of way. Yutaka shouldn’t get his hopes up.

“When?”, Yutaka asked, angry at himself because his voice sounded so flat with anticipation. “In middle school or what?”

Shou made an awkward hand movement and laughed. He was clearly blushing now.

“No, not that long ago. About three years ago, I think.”

Yutaka stared at him in confusion. He wondered why Shou had never mentioned it before, but then Yutaka had never told him about his own preferences either.

And probably, it had just been one or two dates for a try-out anyway. Shou had probably been curious. He was a curious, open-minded person, even if he claimed otherwise.

“What happened?”, Yutaka asked.

Shou turned more serious and shrugged, now looking at Yutaka again. He did no longer seem embarrassed. Yutaka was surprised about how much he seemed to be at terms with himself about this.

“Six weeks and he figured that the problem was me, not him”, Shou stated dryly.

Yutaka couldn’t help laughing. Shou had a way of mocking himself that made it nearly impossible not to laugh at him and almost impossible not to relate to him, too.

“Sounds like he was a douchebag”, Yutaka concluded. “So, the problem is not women. You just have shit taste.”

Shou laughed out loud. He looked so beautiful, that Yutaka wanted to kiss him again. For a brief second, he wondered if he was allowed to do so. Six weeks was a surprisingly long time. Shou had surely kissed that guy as well.

“Honestly”, Shou said and lowered his voice, leaning forward. Yutaka grew hot again, because he got so close. “The sex was amazing, though.”

Yutaka stared at him wide-eyed. Somehow, he had not expected that.

“Really?”, he assured incredulous.

Shou nodded hectically. He was still leaning in, with that hunched over posture of his.

“Yeah, I was a little hesitant about it, because you know. I thought it would feel uncomfortable or something. But then I thought – what if it feels really good instead and I’m missing out on that? So, I tried. And boy, did it feel good.”

Yutaka stared right into Shou’s dark eyes.

“So, you let him fuck you?”, he assured bluntly.

Shou laughed. He had the habit of not always tilting back his head when he laughed, but rather bending forward and pulling up his shoulders. It made him look giddy, when he laughed.

“Yeah, and that’s the only thing I do not regret about that relationship.”

Yutaka chuckled. He couldn’t quite believe that Shou had just went out there and had had sex with another man.

“See”, he said. “Always optimistic. Even with gay sex, you were more hopeful than you were scared.”

Shou smirked and turned his head.

He looked lost in thought now, but not directly unhappy.

“But it’s not a very positive attitude, is it? To date someone with the constant feeling that it will fail anyway, I mean. I’ve always felt like I was just waiting for the relationship to end. Everyone could sense that. That’s why my partners never stay long. Dating me always feels like an interim situation, I guess.”

“You are giving too much credit to yourself”, Yutaka said. “I’m sure the girls who ghosted you after the first date, just didn’t like you.”

Shou burst out laughing and turned his head towards Yutaka again. His lips looked so wide and full and his smile was so beautiful and his eyes seemed even warmer when he laughed.

Yutaka leaned in and kissed him.

He hadn’t thought it through at all and wasn’t sure which reaction he had expected from Shou. But Shou did not flinch and did not pull back. He just held very still and his lips felt soft.

Yutaka pulled back again, eyeing Shou closely.

Shou broke into a smile again, that looked nervous and happy. He looked very flushed now, too. His reaction was precious somehow.

Still smiling, as if he just couldn’t help it, Shou turned away again and took up his glass.

“I really miss our fans, you know”, he said, completely out of context and emptied his glass with a few, loud gulps.

Yutaka stared at Shou’s lips, that he had kissed only now. He couldn’t help smiling, either.

“We can still stay in touch”, Yutaka pointed out. “Through social media and all. They’ve been very encouraging.”

Shou exhaled soundly.

“I miss seeing their faces, though. I miss seeing that they are having a good time at our shows. How am I supposed to tell how they feel, if it’s just a text message?”

Yutaka shook his head. He wondered, if he should put his hand onto Shou’s back to comfort him. He wondered, if he was allowed to kiss Shou again.

Somehow, the interruption did not feel weird, though. It made the kiss feel casual in the best kind of way. Like Yutaka hadn’t done something big and scandalizing and like it wouldn’t change the way they talked to each other in the future and like maybe he might kiss Shou again without ruining their friendship forever.

“Their wellbeing is not your duty alone”, Yutaka reminded him. “You need to take care of yourself first of all.”

“Aah”, Shou said and turned his head, making a face where he squinted only one of his eyes shut. It caused his face to wrinkle up weirdly. “Sounds like something an irresponsible douchebag would say.”

“Douchebags, what was it about douchebags again?”, Yutaka asked and tilted his head. “Oh, right. Aren’t those your type?”

Shou snorted and pulled up his shoulders a little. He looked like he was trying to curl up in himself and Yutaka wondered, if he was acting defensive.

“I thought of doing a conference call”, Shou said. “Doesn’t the screen split into little honeycombs or something, if there are a lot of people on the call? I think I read something like that.”

He looked at Yutaka as if he was really expecting an answer.

“How would I know?!”, Yutaka huffed.

He wondered why Shou was talking about honeycombs instead of flirting with him. He didn’t seem desperate to change the topic, though. He just seemed nervous.

“Well, but then I thought many fans would not feel comfortable showing their face, right?”, Shou carried on. “They would just use pictures probably. And they would be too small anyway, I guess. It wouldn’t work with so many people.”

“Why wouldn’t they show their faces?”, Yutaka asked confused.

Shou shrugged.

“Embarrassment? Privacy?”

“They wouldn’t have to feel embarrassed in front of you. Just do it without makeup and you’ll be the weirdest looking guy on the call automatically!”

“Oi!”, Shou huffed, then he turned his head. He was hunching over so much, he had to look up to Yutaka. “That kiss just now …”, he started.

Yutaka’s mouth went dry all of a sudden. Shou had changed the topic again quite abruptly.

“Yeah?”, he asked warily.

“Would you care to do that again?”, Shou asked shyly.

He was smiling kind of helplessly again. When Shou smiled like that, Yutaka cared for nothing else but kissing him.

He looked around to assure no one was able to watch them in their private booth. A waiter might walk in on them, but chances for that weren’t really high.

Yutaka nodded shortly, then he leaned in and kissed Shou once more. This time, Shou reached up with one hand and placed it against Yutaka’s neck. He was kissing him back now. Shou’s kiss felt hesitant rather than demanding, but he was parting his lips and his mouth was warm and soft. Their kiss lasted longer this time.

Finally, Shou pulled back his hand and Yutaka took the hint and broke the kiss, leaning back.

Shou was beaming and his cheeks looked very red. Yutaka hadn’t believed Shou could get any cuter than when he was happy. But when he was happy and embarrassed, he was completely adorable.

For a moment, Yutaka had to fight the urge to just wrestle him down on the padded bench they were sitting on. The ironic part was that he did not want to do anything sexual to Shou right now. He just wanted to climb on top of him and wrap his arms around him and he wanted to kiss him. He wanted to kiss him on the lips and on the nose and on his forehead and on his neck and his arms and hands and shoulders and he wanted Shou to giggle and always look this happy and adorable. He wanted to hold Shou and make him forget about all the people who had hurt him before and feel him close and let him know just what Yutaka saw when he looked at him. He wanted to make Shou feel like he was the most precious man in the world.

Shou turned towards the table and pushed his forefinger against his empty glass. Yutaka noticed again how beautiful Shou’s hands looked.

“You want to order another round?”, Yutaka suggested.

Shou shook his head.

“You can have my drink, if you are thirsty”, Yutaka offered.

Shou looked over at Yutaka’s glass hesitantly for a second, then he made a face.

“No thanks”, he said, but it was pretty obvious that what he really meant was that in his opinion Yutaka’s choice of drink tasted disgusting.

Yutaka smirked.

“You are my type”, Shou suddenly said. “But I’m done with dating.”

“Really?”, Yutaka asked mockingly.

He took hold of Shou’s hand resting on the table plate. Shou did not pull back. His skin felt dry and a little cold. His hands were slim and strong and bony.

“Really”, Shou confirmed and looked right at Yutaka. His expression was serious. His dark eyes looked sad. “I’m done with love. No more relationships, no more hook-ups, no more anything for me. I’m tired of getting disappointed. I’m pessimistic. I know it won’t work out this time, either.”

Yutaka used his thumb to stroke the back of Shou’s hand. He knew, why Shou was not pulling back from the touch. Because no matter what he said – deep down, Shou was the most hopeful person Yutaka had ever met.

“Okay”, Yutaka said quietly and gave Shou’s hand a little squeeze. “Now, want to go back to my place and have sex?”

Shou’s whole face lit up. His eyes became even smaller, his mouth turned wide and big and his gorgeous teeth were showing.

Because no matter how many times he got disappointed and hurt, he never gave up. Shou was dumb and brave enough to always take the risk again, hoping that maybe – this time – it might work.

“Yes”, Shou said.

And Yutaka thought, that he really sounded quite optimistic about it.

#Golden Bomber #Kiryuuin Shou #Kyan Yutaka #kirikyan #fanfiction #fanfic #absolutely inspired by his look on Monday #how adorable can anyone be?!

7 notes · View notes