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yesimwriting · 3 years

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Hello! Your Nikolai fic tranquility is so beautiful! Can you write more for Nikolai? Maybe the opposite with reader having a nightmare? Or whatever you want just please give me more! If you have a tagging list I'd love to be included btw :)

A/n hii!! first off,, thank you! i was a little nervous about writing him for the first time,, but i love him so much (even though i love a good villain/morally grey character in love i think nikolai would probably make the least toxic bf in the grishaverse lol)

you gave me a little too much freedom here lol bc i have so many ideas for him!! lowkey might need to give him a longer fic/series soon when i catch up with requests!! WOW THIS FIC IS SO LONG AND FOR WHAT

Summary: Reader is a handmaid who has grown up assisting Nikolai. Through the years, the two have developed a special relationship that most definitely breaks royal protocol--they’re best friends and rivals on a good day, and dangerously close to being something more the second either of them is remotely upset or extremely happy. Learning about the fact that Nikolai was almost engaged to Alina (a good friend of yours) and being reminded of the fact that as royalty Nikolai has many prospects (both serious women worthy of his title and women only suitable for trysts meant to relieve tension) has you both realizing something you should have years ago.

Word count: 31210

Warnings: disclaimer--may not be the most cannon thing ever,, but i wanted the ‘child of the help competes and falls in love with the child of royalty’ energy okay?? Lol

I could do a whole blurb series with this dynamic nikolai x reader,, like just stories of them growing up together and randomly realizing they might like each other romantically?? I probably shouldn’t rn but i ADORE this trope.

The perfection of the room is disappointing. Idle hands, idle thoughts--so I work to smooth out a perfect duvet. Still, the thoughts come--aggressive and unavoidable. It’s silly, maybe even sad, to feel possessive over something that’s never been yours, something that could never be yours, but the harder I fight off the feeling the stronger it grows. Jealousy is a weed growing quickly in my chest, vile roots planted firmly in my heart.

Normally my favorite part of the day would be waiting for Nikolai to return to his room in the palace after dinner and his evening duties. He’s always a bit softer in the evenings, during my last check-in of the day. I’m normally thrilled to be done organizing his room early because that means the second he arrives there will be no distraction. Most evenings, he’ll find me perched in the seat by his bed, reading. He’ll mock-scold me for daring to defy his orders and reading ahead from the book we both take turns reading aloud from each night. He then warns me that I better react exactly the way I did when I first read it or else. That threat is always followed by a gentle laugh.

Tonight I’m in no mood for our nightly banter or even our nightly reading. My mother had warned me of the dangers of getting too comfortable with the royal family. I should have heeded that warning when she first gave it to me, the morning she found Nikolai and I fast asleep on a couch in the library as children. The palace likes to bring up the children of the staff by training them to attend to the next generation of royals. It makes the staff more efficient, a lifetime of knowing what someone wants makes you better for them. It also creates some level of connection, making betrayal a little less likely. Nikolai and I might have taken it farther than most. But now I want a reminder of the way we’re supposed to be--maybe if I detach now the bleeding of my heart won’t kill me. That has to remain secret, because if I explain it to Nikolai something in me will break. The one line between us will be crossed.

This will be the sixth secret I’ve kept from Nikolai in my entire life.

The secrets:

I don’t know why I was picked for Nikolai. I wasn’t particularly skilled, but still, the day came when my mother was told that I now worked directly for the Lantsov boy. It’s an honor, a true one, but my mother had been a little nervous. To whom much is given, much is expected--and I detested Nikolai. Not for being a prince, but for being a prince who thought girls couldn’t race or fight.

The day my mother came looking for me because I never showed up for dinner and she found Nikolai and I attempting to fight in the way only a ten-year-old girl and eleven-year-old boy would, she had looked truly mortified. Nikolai had only laughed, either oblivious to my mother’s embarrassment or uncaring about it. He had then hugged me--an expression of care that had left me reeling. I saw him more as a rival than someone to tend to, but in that moment I saw him as a friend. Even more so when he told me he didn’t want me to go yet and that he was upset that so much of the day had been wasted by studies that kept him with boring people and away from me. And then he invited me to his lessons--my mother was quick to attempt to decline politely, but the desires of a prince at any age outweigh that of a mother.

After that, everyone kind of just stopped trying to remind us of our propriety. The tutor at first was concerned about my presence, but Nikolai remained stubborn. I wasn’t a big enough deal to cause an argument, so I began to attend lessons with him almost every day, only staying away when my mother needed aid with laundry or cleaning. His parents must have been somewhat aware of our friendship, but they must have been oblivious to our closeness because it was never mentioned.

My mother’s worry began to ease, she’d even started to take some pride when I’d come to our room proudly proclaiming that I scored two marks higher than Nikolai. She did, however, warn that it might be more tactful to let him score higher.

The comment was casual, just a suggestion, but it left me feeling wrong. It was the first time since we met that I had thought about our different statuses. I didn’t tell him--and that was the first secret I ever kept from him.

As we grew, we traded physical competition for academic rivalry, trying to best each other in both lessons and games of strategy like chess and cards. But with growing comes responsibility. Nikolai started to have obligations that were meant to be private. I couldn’t follow him at all times. But he’d always come back from locked door meetings grinning like he carried schoolyard gossip instead of government secrets. He shared everything with me, even when I playfully warned against it.

He’d always step closer when I teased that perhaps he shouldn’t tell me everything. And then he’d say, “If I can’t trust you, then I can’t trust anyone--and I don’t want to live in a world like that.” Often, he’d give my hand a light squeeze before moving on like he had not said anything intimate.

On a day in which Nikolai was in one of those meetings, I became a woman. When I first saw the blood, I had been horrified--but my mother was quick to explain that it was natural. She said that I was now a woman, a wonderful thing, really--but a thing that came with obligations. She told me that I could no longer have the impromptu ‘sleepovers’ with Nikolai unless he ordered it. I told her he’s never ordered me to do anything for him.

She didn’t ease, something in her had started to become nervous again. My mother had recently started to act the way she did when Nikolai and I first became friends. I didn’t want to fall asleep in Nikolai’s bed while I was bleeding, but I didn’t want to never have another sleepover with him again. Especially not when she refused to explain why being a woman changed so much.

I had decided to avoid Nikolai as much as possible until the sting of my mother’s new rule faded. Unfortunately, that night Nikolai was extra talkative--excited as he insisted I stay for a little longer. Soon, I found his familiar good naturedness melting away my nerves and before I knew it I was laughing in the middle of the night. When my eyelids started to feel heavy, I had moved from the chair, ready to head back to my room.

Nikolai had looked at me oddly before he asked why would I leave so late when it would be easier for me to just sleepover? It was an innocent question, he did not know about my change and I had wanted to keep it that way.

I tried playing coy, but Nikolai has always had a talent for getting around my better judgement. I don’t recall exactly how it happened, but I remember him standing in front of me. It was the first time I noticed how much had actually changed over the years--he was now taller than me for the first time in his life. His hair had started to grow a little longer, golden and soft-looking--and his face seemed much more angular. But he had not lost his boyish charm.

“Y/n?” My name fell softly from his lips, and that was the first time I had ever noted the fullness of them. I didn’t understand why I considered that something worth noting. “Did I do something to make you mad at me?”

Perhaps I had been a little curt--nerves and hormones had left me not feeling like myself. I didn’t tell him about the bleeding, I couldn’t. That became the second secret I kept from him--but I did tell him that my mother had told me I was a woman now, and that women can’t have sleepovers. Not with those of the opposite gender. I made no effort to hide my confusion because I expected him to be as perplexed as I was. But he was not confused--in fact, he had the audacity to laugh. My face flushed, but I did not know why.

“Why is that funny?” Maybe he thought I was still too much of a child to be considered a woman. I assumed it a fair assumption, I had not grown the way he had--my shoulders had not become sturdier and I had not become particularly broader. Still, I would rather melt into the floor than tell him about the reason my mother now considered me a woman. “My mother did say that, and I don’t know what being a ‘woman’ has to do with staying in your room at night.” Something strange had crossed over his features then, something much more brooding than I was used to.

I had blinked at him as unexplained nerves pooled in my stomach. Perhaps that look would have been enough to keep me silent if he had managed to not grin. That self-assured grin that had always challenged me. “Well since you know everything about my mother now, maybe you can tell me why she’s been acting strange. She’s starting to act the way she did when we first became friends.” I expected him to at least pretend to be worried. Perhaps his parents had spoken to her and had mentioned wanting our friendship to end. But his grin had only grown. Pride left me angry. “She did say that I could stay if you ordered it--but I’m glad you’ve never ordered me to do anything, so I can leave right now because you’re acting as odd as her. I don’t understand what you could find funny about our friendship ending.”

He had stopped me from storming out of his room by placing one hand on the wall between me and the door. “Y/n, don’t be cross--I’ll explain it all, I promise.” Angry pride made me want to storm away from him, but curiosity and something unknown and warm kept me in place. “Do you remember when we read the play about the rival families, how the two main characters had kissed?”

I remembered that part of the play especially well. The concept of kissing so casually, outside of marriage, had been jarring to me. “Yes.”

“Now that we’re older, your mother must be worried that we might do that.” He paused before leaning against the arm he placed on the wall to keep me from leaving a little more. “Kiss.”

The clarification was not needed--in that brief pause, I had allowed myself to imagine no distance between our lips. Something in me burned with embarrassment when I realized that some part of me found the thought appealing. The only thing I wanted in that moment was assurance that Nikolai would never know I felt that. That was my third secret, and the weight of it was heavy against my chest.

Still, though, all of my confusion had not yet left. “Is there much harm in a kiss?”

The question had left an odd smile on his lips. “There’s potential harm in what it could lead to for the woman, but not so much for the man.” He exhaled slowly as my face tensed. He could always read me too well because he was quick to add, “What it could lead to isn’t a bad thing, it’s meant to be pleasurable, but it’s serious.” I did not understand, but a part of me was starting to grow okay with that. Nikolai’s voice had started to become lower than ever, and his gaze remained tense. Perhaps if I accepted the confusion for now, things could go back to normal. If the conversation ended, I could stop thinking of his lips and his hands and what it would mean for them to touch me. “It’s considered a vice, like drinking or gambling.” The additional comment helped more than it should have. A vice--not scary and not painful, but not something to indulge in. That’s enough explanation for now. “If you want to know, I won’t deny you.”

I appreciated the offer tremendously. The vice that comes after kissing is clearly something that’s been intentionally kept from me. It’s something he was privy to that I was not, and he offered it to me like so much else. But if knowledge that my mother feared us kissing made me think of his lips, then I doubted I could handle knowing what comes after kissing.

“I’ll let you know when I want to know, but I appreciate the offer.” It felt like a fair response. His snarky grin came back immediately. Irritation rooted itself in my stomach. I hated not knowing more than him for once, but I still had one question I could not relinquish. “But what does that vice have to do with orders?”

At that, his smugness faltered. “It’s not unheard of, for princes and handmaids--for a prince to obligate a handmaid in order to fulfill his vice. Though many handmaids fill the vice of their own will for benefits.

The explanation left him like a confession. I didn’t understand his hesitance--it’s not like he’d ever make me do anything I didn’t want to do. Even when I worked, he was hesitant to ask me to go out of my way to bring him a glass of water. And I couldn’t imagine gaining anything from offering Nikolai something I didn’t really understand. I wasn’t naive to the fact that my life had more privileges than many palace servants. “Oh.”

His eyes hardened. “You know I’d never--”

“I know.” It was finally easy to smile again. “I never thought otherwise.” Something in him seemed to ease at that, his eyes went from hard to warm in less than a second.

I had no more questions for him and I was also no longer a flight risk, but Nikolai did not move. He did not step back to create a more appropriate distance and he did not drop his arm. His gaze, however, did move--dropping downwards, and slightly away from my eyes. I did the same, my eyes falling to his lips.

The silence between us began to make me feel like something in me was in danger of overflowing. “Then I guess my mother is once again worrying for no reason.” Strangely, I did not feel the need to feel embarrassed about staring at his lips. “Because I would never particularly want to kiss you, Nikolai Lantsov.”

The comment was meant to be teasing, a joke to clear away unknown tension. I should have known better than to challenge his pride because he instinctually moved his hand off the wall and beneath my chin. I did not flinch when he tilted my head upwards slightly with his fingers. “I could get you to want to kiss me if I wanted to.”

Three secrets in one night. I did not think I could bear a fourth one. “Hm…” The ground we treaded on felt unstable, but something in me trusted Nikolai to not let me falter. “I should--I should go before I give my mother anymore cause to worry.”

His fingers had brushed down my chin easily as he dropped his hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”

And that he did. The days passed without mention of the last time he asked me to sleepover. It was as if nothing had changed except now I found myself noting things I most definitely did not want to note. These didn’t feel like individual secrets because it felt easy to group each admirational thought into one secret. Soon, that became my new normal--easy banter, easy touches of hands, and easy yet silent admirations of his beauty.

I never wandered too hard about what the vice that kissing can lead to entailed. I didn't particularly want to know, but knowing that I could ask Nikolai at any time brought a sense of security to me. But besides that, I never thought of that conversation until the day I was asked to look for Nikolai because he was late for dinner.

That in itself was odd, most of the time when Nikolai was late it was because he was with you. I checked his room, two other rooms he was known to frequent, and then finally the library. First, I noticed a handmaid two years older than me. I was finally at an age when one begins to compare their beauty to those around them, and I recognized the girl as gorgeous. She was better endowed than me, physically, and she always seemed fun. And then I noticed Nikolai, standing closer to her than I’ve ever seen him stand to anyone. His expression was serious as the girl giggled.

Nikolai’s expression shifted from tense to shocked when he saw me. “Y/n.”

It took me a moment longer than it should have to realize what I had interrupted. Guilt and jealousy were quick to twist in my stomach. “Dinner--your parents sent me to look for you.”

He was quick to walk around the girl, who was quick to glare at me. I attempted to disappear down the hall after mumbling a quick apology, but Nikolai was faster than me.

“Y/n,” he did not hesitate to grab my wrist.

It shouldn’t have irked me the way it did, after all, neither of us had ever really hesitated to touch each other. I had always reached for him when I wanted him, and he had done the same. But the thought of the same hands that touched the most beautiful girl I had ever seen on me left me bitter in a way I didn’t understand.

Still, I pushed through all of that. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt anything, your mother asked me to look for you because she assumed you’d be with me when you were late to dinner. I didn’t think that there’d be--”

“You didn’t interrupt anything.” The words came out flat as his eyes took on the same quality they did the night he explained my mother’s concern to me. “Valaria wishes there was something to interrupt, but there wasn’t.”

Oh. I refused to let the correction inflate me. “Would you like me to not come to your room tonight?”

The offer felt awkward to make. “No,” the answer came quickly, “In fact, go there now--I want to see you right after dinner. I’ve missed you today.” The instruction left my face feeling warm. “We could read an extra chapter of our book if you’d like.”

Despite myself, I grinned. “Yes.”

“Looking forward to it.”

True to his word, Nikolai was quick to return to his room. He had come back to me eagerly, going out of his way to squeeze my shoulder as he entered the room.

I opened the book to the chapter we had left off on, but before I could start reading, Nikolai stopped me. “Sit next to me?”

The question came softly. It had been some time since we sat next to each other on his bed. Still, I moved off of the chair and to his bed. Something in me longed for the familiar closeness of childhood. I allowed him to play with my fingers as I read.

“You know you could take one night off from me if you wanted to.” The admission left me softly, part of unsure if he was still paying attention to my words. “She was pretty, it wouldn’t have hurt my feelings if you told me you wanted me to not come tonight.”

Nikolai exhaled easily, squeezing my fingers once. “I said I wanted to see you and I meant it.”

It took all of my energy to push past the way his words made my stomach leap. “In general, if you ever--”

Nikolai cut me off by laying his head on my lap the way he used to. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” It was the first time in years that he spoke to me in a way that acknowledged his authority. “Keep reading please.”

And that was the last time we had ever mentioned other handmaids in that context. The fifth secret I ever kept from him was the way I worried that one day that would change.

The door creaks open while I’m in the middle of fluffing an already pristine pillow. Nikolai steps into the room, but I continue to work.

“Darling,” he breathes too easily, “Today has been painful.” I straighten, looking at him as casually as I can manage. “And now I have to deal with you being mad at me.”

Damn him and his ability to read me with one look. “I’m not mad.”

“You know you can’t lie to me,” he sighs, stepping forward, “We’ve known each other too long for that.”

I press my lips together, irrational anger pushing itself into me at an odd angle. “We’ve also known each other too long to keep secrets.”

His eyebrows draw together, a look so quizzical I’m reminded of our schooling days. “What secrets have I kept from you?”

Mentioning that had been a mistake. I exhale as flatly as possible. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it.” My dismissal only has Nikolai’s expression hardening. I drop my gaze. “Unless you need something, I’m retiring my services for the evening.”

I take a reluctant step towards the door, eyes attached to the floor. “Y/n,” his voice is gentle. “What is it?”

“It’s nothing, I’m just tired.” Please let that be at least somewhat believable. “I’m sure I’ll feel more like myself in the morning.” I take another step, a little more assured. Nikolai’s hand is on my shoulder before I can escape. “Nikolai--”

“Y/n,” his voice is that of velvet, “I can’t have you be mad at me. Not now.”

Sighing, I meet his gaze. The tiredness I see behind his eyes is almost enough to chase away my nerve. What I’d give to be able to melt into our familiar routine. “Then you should have told me you were almost engaged to a literal Saint--the same literal Saint who’s one of my closest friends.”

Nikolai’s expression shifts as his hand drops from my shoulder slowly, fingers brushing down my arm before he finally intertwines our fingers. I bite my tongue to avoid squeezing his hand, but I don’t move to separate us either. He studies me silently, eyebrows drawn together. The longer he stares, the more whatever turmoil he’s experiencing seems to dissipate. After a minute of silence, I can read his expression perfectly. His lips are pressed together in that coy way--the way he only looks when he’s suppressing a smile.

I loathe him for it. “Nikolai Lantsov, don’t you dare laugh--not after what you did. Do you have any idea what it felt like to have Alina casually mention the fact that you almost married her casually? Like that was common knowledge to everyone but me?”

My words break away the last of his self control. He grins, flashing his annoyingly perfect teeth. “Do you have any idea what it feels like for me to want nothing more than to see you and then you let me believe something may actually be wrong when the only issue is your jealousy?”

The amusement in his tone is like poison to me. I find the strength to jerk my hand away from him. “I am not jealous.” He laughs; I am further enraged. “I am not.” The genuineness of my anger must finally register on some level, because he tries to suppress his smile. “I have every right to be mad at my best friend for not telling me that he was almost married.”

“We didn’t exactly come close,” he manages, expression still much too light for my taste. “I’m glad for Alina’s sake, I’m not sure being a Saint would be enough to protect her.”

He is infuriating. “I’m not sure anything you have will be enough to protect you.”

Something in his gaze shifts, softening the tilt of his mouth. “I don’t doubt that.”

I don’t know what I expected from him--but not this. I thought he’d be at least somewhat apologetic. “You should have told me.”

“I would have if I felt it was significant.”

“I’m your best friend--your marriage is significant to me. And even though it’s not like you’re engaged to her right now, you should have told me. You know I talk to Alina all the time.”

He sighs once, a hint of apology threatening to ghost over his eyes. “If I knew not knowing would have upset you so much I would have told you. I was--I was just so excited to be around you again I didn’t see much relevance in anything that didn’t involve you.”

The intensity that Nikolai regards me with is enough to wither all of my fury. But without my anger, I am left spiraling in emotion that I’ve been pushing against for years. My mother’s warning about relationships with those above us rings in my ears--sharp and headache inducing. I am still when he reaches for my hand again, but I do no allow myself to return the gentle squeeze of his fingers.

“I’m not sure much outside of you has significance.” He’s giving me a look I am familiar with. A look he often uses to chase away my anger.

Without my anger, I have nothing to keep me from melting into him, indulging in his presence fully. It’s so easy with him and I blinded myself to the danger of that. He may not be marrying Alina, but one day he will marry someone. A person worthy of his status--and what would I be left doing? Washing their laundry? Tearing up when I dusted the library and came across a book we had read together? Enough damage has already been done--I need to cut myself with this blade now in hopes of making sure I can one day recover.

He will get married one day, and nothing will be the same. And that’s a good thing--he deserves the love of a princess or queen. I want his happiness, even if it’s not with me. But some vindictive part of me hopes that some part of him will miss me. That some part of him will be dulled without me.

I’m a fool--he will remember me as the handmaid from his youth. The girl who made him laugh once or twice before he grew up. I force my hand out of his grasp. “You can’t win me over with words every time.” I need to get out of here before he says something that makes me lose all resolve. “Tomorrow morning I’ll be here to prepare you for breakfast.”

“Y/n.”

I step forward, refusing to look at him. “Goodnight.”

He sighs, his hand quick to grab my arm. Before I can question him I feel myself pulled back. I expect him to pull me just close enough so that I have to meet his gaze. He continues, pulling me sharply before placing a quick hand on my shoulder, forcing me down. My back hits his bed.

I sit up as soon as the reality of what just happened seeps into my mind. “Nikolai, what in the Saints--”

“If you’re going to act like a child, I’m going to treat you like one.”

I scoff, thoughts of escaping him put on hold by the principle of pride. Fine. I’ll beat him one last time, and then I’ll let us separate. I shove him. He laughs--of course this is funny to him. He got to keep fighting past the age of about eleven. His laughter adds to my anger, I move to shove him again, but he catches my wrist easily. I struggle against his hold, shoving him a third time with my still free hand. He pushes me slightly. That’s all it takes to unleash familiar habits.

Our small fight is hardly fair. He has all the advantage--more training, and he’s standing above me. When I finally make a move that might give me some success, Nikolai leans forward. He practically tackles me, his weight forcing me flat against the bed.

I move an arm, ready to push him off of me. Nikolai snags my wrists, holding them above my head. “This means I win.” I roll my eyes, anger returning.

“Let me go.”

He sighs tiredly, but the smugness radiating off of him is suffocating. “Admit that you were jealous.”

There are a lot of things I am willing to do for him--but never that. I cannot give him the one separation I still have. “I wasn’t.”

“Then why are you mad?”

I press my lips together. “I told you--”

“Do you really think you could lie to me?”

“You don’t know me that well.”

Nikolai moves his freehand, touching my chin as a way to ask me to look at him. I meet his gaze hesitantly. “Yes, I do, and that’s never bothered you before but it does now.”

Maybe this is a conversation better had bluntly. “It bothers me now because you’re too old to hold onto the daughter of a palace handmaid and I’m too old to pretend that our different statuses don’t matter.”

“Y/n,” he breathes, “Nothing’s changed. Status didn’t matter to me when we were children, and it doesn’t matter to me now.”

“You can afford to say things like that.”

“What good is my title if it means I can’t,” he pauses, eyes hesitant, “If I can’t keep things the same between us?”

I smile, the sadness of the look weighs on me and I can’t even see it. “Nikolai, you always knew things would change.”

“No, I--”

“You can’t tell me you think your future wife would like you having such a close relationship with a handmaid.” I press my lips together. “One day you’ll fall in love and get married and you’ll want me to leave your bedchamber as soon as dinner is over because you’ll be eager to spend time with your wife.” His gaze hardens. “And that’s not a bad thing. It’s actually a really good thi--”

The last syllable of my sentence dies in my throat. Nikolai, who must be possessed by something, leans down and presses his lips against mine. I beg myself to resist, but his gentleness is everything I’ve ever wanted. He releases my hands in favor of holding my face. That’s all it takes--my hands move without my permission, into his hair--pulling him closer to me. What am I doing? I’m insane. Placing my hands on his chest cautiously, I push just slightly. He’s quick to obey, pulling away while allowing his teeth to brush against my bottom lip.

I gape at him--taking in his now slightly swollen lips. “Nikolai.” He can’t do this to me. We’re friends. Despite the fact that I’ve loved him more than I should--we’re friends. “You’re being extremely unfair.”

He draws his eyebrows together, sitting up quickly and moving off of me. “I’m being unfair? I have spent my entire life loving y--”

I sit up, furious in a new way. “You have not!” This is the dumbest I have ever been. I move to stand, still feeling the softness of his lips against mine.

“Your tooth fell out.” The sharpness of his words forces me to still.

“What?”

I can’t bring myself to turn and look at him, but I’ve always been able to feel any heaviness he bears. The weight of it leaves little room for air in my lungs. “You were ten. I told you ‘girls couldn’t fight’ so you punched me in the face. That was the first time we ever fought--I didn’t mean to hit you in the face, but you moved. You moved and I hit you in the mouth and your last baby tooth fell out. I expected you to cry or get angry, but you just blinked at me and laughed. You were happy to lose your last baby tooth because it meant you were grown up. And then you smiled and asked me if you looked older. If anything, the gap in your smile made you look younger but I told you that you looked like a grown-up because I wanted you to keep smiling. Because your smile made me feel like I won something.” I turn on my heels, but I cannot meet his gaze. “That was the moment I fell in love with you--so don’t tell me I haven’t spent my entire life loving you.”

The weight of his words is harder to survive against than the heaviness of his feelings. “Nikolai, you know we can’t ever be together--”

“Why not?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know,” I manage, voice low, “You almost married the Sun Summoner--”

“That was political--”

“Exactly, your marriage is meant to be political, and if it happens to be out of love--which is what I hope you get, because it is what you deserve--it will be to someone of status.”

Nikolai stands, the movement is that of a king, not the boy I know. “I do not want status or to love someone else--I want you.”

“I can’t take that from you--”

“You can’t take anything from me because I’ve already given it all to you.”

I press my lips together, heart tearing for him. “I love you too much to ruin you.”

My words seem to snap something in him because his eyes darken, the way he watches me adjusting accordingly. “You can’t ruin something that’s always been yours.”

I let myself smile. At him. At his words. At the foolish hope the child in me has clung to after all of these years. I reach for him thoughtlessly, because I have the right to. Because I’ve always had the right to. He’s quick to respond, kissing me with much more security than before.

This time, he pulls away of his own regard. “You still haven’t admitted that you were jealous.”

His teasing smugness isn’t as sour to me anymore. “I wasn’t.”

Nikolai pulls me towards him easily, lips threatening to brush against me, warm breath against my face. “Are you sure, darling? You were awfully quick to claim what’s yours.”

I roll my eyes, grinning so widely I’m surprised my face doesn’t yet hurt. “You’re the one that fell for a ten-year-old girl with a bloody mouth.”

When he smiles back at me, he places a hand on my hip, pulling me forward slightly. “That I did.” He pulls me forward slightly. "Does this mean you can sleep in here again?"

"If anything, this is more reason for me to sleep in another room." He rolls his eyes, pulling me even closer. "But I won't tell if you don't."

Nikolai leans forward, pressing his lips to my forehead. "Deal."

tags: @deardiarystuff @theincredibledeadlyviper, @grishaverse7 @benbarnes-supremacy @tranquilitymoon @kaitlyn2907 @lunamyangel @christinawxxx @deceivedeer @real-mbappe @tonks33

#nikolai lantsov #nikolai lantsov x reader #nikolai lantsov x you #shadow and bone #shadow and bone fic #shadow and bone fanfic #shadow and bone imagine #grisha #Grishaverse #grishaverse imagines #grishaverse imagine #grishaverse x reader #shadow and bone netflix

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spockandawe · 3 years

Text

Hmm. What if. An mdzs au (definitely the book, not the show) where timelines diverge when a small, angry street kid with a missing finger and a desire to watch the world burn makes his way over to the burial mounds, because fuck it, he’s going to learn from the yiling laozu or die trying.

I have put no consideration into this whatsoever, and I know coherent timelines are the hardest part of involving Xue Yang in anything, but I think that if Xue Yang is like, a preteen, the other parts of the timeline may still fit into place? Honestly, I don’t really care if they don’t, I’m just also too lazy to check this very long book for the specific empathy flashback with the details of Xue Yang’s jinlintai cameo. If he has to be a few years younger than canon allows, it’s all good, baybee, cql fucked the timeline so I wouldn’t have to!

But anyways, consider a young Xue Yang, who’s not really old enough to be making his way in the world as a rogue pseudo-semi-cultivator, but is old enough to survive the attempt and learn more cultivation as he goes. And he doesn’t have family or money to back him up (not that those would have made an impact on Wei Wuxian), but I think he’s aware that he has extremely grand ambitions for someone in his position, and is very cheerfully willing to take risks to achieve them, even knowing that his odds of success are low and his odds of dying are high.

I’m thinking that he reaches Yiling, however he gets there. He sees the knockoff Yiling Laozu apprentices (and is Full of scorn), he sees the wards Wei Wuxian has raised around the Burial Mounds, and he’s not all that trained and is mostly self-taught, but has just enough raw talent that he manages to bust in through the wards himself.

I don’t want to try sorting out the exact details of how he convinces Wei Wuxian to let him stay, because this idea popped into my head like, legitimately thirty seconds before I started writing the post. But I don’t think it would hurt the Wens to have another pair of helping hands, I think Wei Wuxian is weak against children in general (especially children who are trying to learn a thing), and I think he’s also weak against a street kid struggling on his own in the world (and Xue Yang is smart enough to lean into the look-pitiful-to-gain-sympathy-points angle)

Additional point one: Wen Qing can look at his hand and his health in general, and I think Xue Yang could benefit a LOT from having a big sister in his life

Additional point two: Xue Yang would think that Wen Ning is the coolest thing, and it would benefit me emotionally if he sees Wen Ning as his super cool older brother and not as a fascinating science project he wants to copy on Song Lan later ;u;

Exact events would vary based on when Xue Yang made his arrival (before or after Wen Ning wakes up? before or after Lan Wangji visits Yiling? etc), and I would have to consider that carefully because I do want canon to diverge, and Xue Yang dying with the Wens would be so fucking tragic (kind of in a fascinating way? we the readers know that it prevents future atrocities, but here, he’s a different person than the one who committed those atrocities, and it’s like giving him a family only to have it yanked away (so, canon), but this is a tangent because I have to emphasize I have not plotted out anything)

I don’t know how I would want canon to diverge is part of the trouble. But like... one of my first details on the book that really, really got me good is the way that Wei Wuxian is superficially cheerful but is also poised on the edge of having a really rough time early in the book. After he casually tells Jin Ling ‘lmao, what, you didn’t have parents to teach you manners?’ he goes off on his own to have Regrets. What really starts pulling him out of his funk is when the kids need protection and education. And he thrives! Even when he’s roleplaying Mo Xuanyu, he’s in his element as an experienced cultivator helping guide the juniors to a solution so that they learn for themselves, but also ready to be a safety net so they don’t die in the process!

A-Yuan plays a little bit of this role for him in the Burial Mounds, but like... he’s a toddler, and is both too young to be taught at the level and depth that Wei Wuxian adores, and is yes an adorable sweet kid, but also exhausting and demanding in the way that all small children are. You can’t just put away a toddler and lay face-down on the floor for a week, even if you want to. Yes there are other people around to help, but everyone is working really, really hard just to survive in the Burial Mounds.

So. Give Wei Wuxian a preteen! Give him a kid who is saying ‘take me as your apprentice, gege, i’m gonna keep studying demonic cultivation whether you help me or not uwu’ and let Wei Wuxian convince himself that okay, stupid adults are free to do stupid shit and he isn’t responsible for them, but maybe he ought to keep an eye on this kid to make sure he doesn’t accidentally die trying to learn Wei Wuxian’s methods. Xue Yang is smart, quick, and demanding, but also capable of independence. It’s ideal. Give Wei Wuxian a kid to teach, give me them passionately arguing about theory, give me Xue Yang reading all of Wei Wuxian’s manuscripts, and forcing Wei Wuxian to engage a little more with the world around him instead of sinking down into himself. Give me Xue Yang still young enough that he can be convinced to trust the idea of a family. Give me Lan Wangji accompanying Wei Wuxian back to the burial mounds and Xue Yang trying to be all ‘hey, you’d better step off if you know what’s good for you’ and being ‘!!! >:O’ when he finds out Wei Wuxian let this stranger hold A-Yuan and it being the cutest thing ever. It would be so good for my heart, but my god, am i unequipped to write it.

#mdzs #the untamed #xue yang #wei wuxian #xue yang's age is whatever makes my life most convenient at any given time #long post/#fic ideas #i tag it fic ideas like i would ever be capable of writing this lmao #tiny semi-feral demonic cultivator alarms lan wangji enough to sleep over #noooo i'm not going to write a fic outline in the tags okay i'm hitting post now

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justcourttee · 3 years

Note

Adrien asks mari out and she says i would of been so happy in the past but now its too little to late. She's engaged to Damian but they haven't announced it yet

Bittersweet

It had been a while since Adrien had found himself in Gotham City. Too many years to count on his hand. Yet when he received an invite from Marinette he didn’t hesitate to hop on the next flight to attend her gala.

He had no idea that she had created a partnership with Wayne Enterprises, in fact, he had no idea they were interested in the fashion world at all. Then again, why should he be surprised? When Marinette put her mind to something, nothing would get in her way.

Ever since he had taken over his father’s company, Adrien hadn’t had much time to keep up with his old school friends but it hadn’t stopped them from trying to keep him in the loop. From what he could gather, Alya and Nino would also be attending, Rose and Juleka too. It would be nice to see them all again, especially Marinette.

Stepping out from the warmth of his hotel room and into the cool streets, Adrien couldn’t help but let his mind drift to thoughts of her.

It took Marinette moving to the States for him to realize how much he was in love with her. It was something he never wanted to admit seeing how much he adored Ladybug, but as she disappeared from his grasps, he was left to face his true feelings.

Glancing at his phone, Adrien confirmed that he was mere minutes away from the address she had listed. The gala was still a few days away, but Marinette asked if he had wanted to meet up for a late-night coffee, a Gotham specialty. Even her scarf that she had gifted him ages ago couldn’t hide the red on his cheeks as he imagined the perfect date with the girl of his dreams.

He paused, reaching the door of Deja Brew, his heart beating a million miles a minute. Somewhere in this late-night shop was his best friend. How would she react to seeing him again? Would she be as excited as he was? Would she feel the same way as she did?

Taking a deep breath, he pushed through the door, his eyes glancing through the scattered exhausted customers until they landed on her. She still hadn’t noticed his presence, her nose buried into her sketchbook, her coffee still steaming beside her seemingly untouched.

She was early.

The thought almost drew a laugh as he approached the counter to place his order. Of course she would have finally picked up some time management skills by now. Marinette was 27 and slowly making a name for herself as the future of the fashion industry. That wasn’t something accomplished by constant tardiness.

He picked up his cup, placing a ten into the tip jar, the hostess’ raised eyebrows making him smile. He could already hear his father scolding him. After all, that wasn’t the way to becoming a billionaire. You only make money by holding onto it.

Honestly, Adrien didn’t understand why he had to be a billionaire. His father said it would raise the bar for their line, but it just wasn’t in Adrien’s heart to hoard all of the money unnecessarily. Maybe the Waynes offered Marinette the same advice. Maybe they had something they could relate to together.

“Excuse me ma’am, is this seat taken?”

His heart had finally slowed down but as her eyes slowly peeked up at him under her lashes, it immediately began somersaulting once more.

“Oh Gods, Adrien!” She was out of her seat before he even had the chance to set down his coffee, her arms flung around his neck. He hoped and prayed she couldn’t feel his chest threatening to explode. “You should have said something! I’ve gotten into the bad habit of zoning out in public places.”

Her smile was blinding as she unwound herself, slipping back into her seat, motioning for him to sit as well.

“How was the flight? Did you fly private or first class?”

Adrien gasped, his hand covering his chest as if she had shot him.

“I only flew business thank you very much.” Marinette’s look of mock disbelief earned a small chuckle.

“That must have been so hard for you. I really am sorry you went through so much trouble for my sake.”

“You know, I would go through so much more for you Marinette.”

Her smile faltered for a moment, so quick that if he hadn’t been staring so hard at her, he might have missed it. Did his statement make her uncomfortable? He had only meant it jokingly with the truth laced in, but he was sure his eyes gave him away. They always softened when it came to her.

Marinette cleared her voice, her true smile shining once more as if the falter never happened in the first place.

“You’ve missed so much, I don’t even know where to start.”

“How about from the beginning?” She nodded as she dove into her move to the States and how she began as an intern for the CEO, Tim Drake, years ago and slowly worked her way up to personal assistant.

She recounted how Tim found her sketchbook at work one day and showed it to his father. Together they agreed that she was their way into the fashion industry, an investment that could open the door to many more jobs for the Gotham citizens.

It took two years, but she finally had a full line that was presented at Bruce’s first fashion show.

“So many big names were there Adrien! I really thought I was gonna faint!”

His smile became softer and softer as she recounted meeting the rest of the Waynes and finally after six long years, she had made enough of a name for herself to be holding her own official Gala, the Wayne’s simply a sponsor.

“That’s amazing Marinette, you’re amazing.”

She beamed proudly, her smile pulling at his heart.

“I couldn’t have done it without them. They are genuine and kind people and they are pretty much family.” Something glistened in her eyes as she spoke of them. It could have been obvious to anyone, Marinette cared so deeply for these people.

It was Adrien’s turn to falter as an ugly thought passed.

She’s so comfortable here, she would never want to come back to Paris with me.

He was shocked with himself. This was no time for jealousy. His best friend, the love of his life, was excitedly telling him about a future she had built for herself and the only thing he could think was that it was an obstacle keeping her from him?

Adrien desperately wanted to smack his own forehead, but for Marinette’s sake he straightened out his smile instead.

“I’m so sorry. I’ve only been talking about myself! What’s new with you? How’s your dad’s business? Do you have anyone you’re seeing?”

His eyebrow raised at the last question. She asked the question he so desperately wanted to ask her. And she did it so casually, equating it to his work and social life. Did that mean she was also fishing for his response?

“Nothing much. Dad wants to move from a multi-million dollar business to a multi-billion dollar business so he’s been pretty aggressive about money lately. He didn’t even want me flying over here for the gala.”

Marinette snorted much to his amusement. She knew how his dad was and how petty he could be as well.

“And as for your last question,” he paused watching her face carefully. “No, I am not seeing anyone.”

He waited for the reaction, any reaction really. But none came. Instead, she simply nodded as if she expected as much. Maybe he had read into it too much. She really could’ve just been asking for the sake of catching up. Should he ask too? Was that what she was leading up to?

Adrien cleared his throat before taking a long draw from his cup. This was so nerve wracking. She looked so content, so grown. This was a Marinette who had grown leaps and bounds while he was still stuck in this high school romance that was quite possibly one-sided.

“Well, I hate to cut it short but it’s going to be a long day tomorrow and Damian will be here any moment to pick me up.”

She slid out of her seat so effortlessly, her sketch book snapping shut before it disappeared into a bag that he hadn’t even noticed. Her smile was just as warm as he remembered, but something was missing from the girl he loved.

“Your eyes.” The words slipped out of his mouth before he could stop himself. Marinette’s smile faltered as she tentatively reached up to touch her eyelid, confusion etching it’s way into her face.

“Is there something near my eyes Adrien?”

“No, no, I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I just-” Adrien bit his lip, trying to string his thoughts together before he sounded even more like an idiot. “You used to stare at me with such soft look. I’m sorry I never noticed, but once I did, it was all I could see. Yet now-”

He trailed off as her lips drew into an o, her hand moving slowly from her eye to her lips, trying to hide her shock.

“-now, I can still feel the love in them, love directed at me, but it’s not the same love is it?”

She looked like she wanted to say something, but she couldn't find the right words. He knew she was trying to explain that he was wrong, but couldn’t bring herself to lie. It was the only confirmation he needed.

He slid out of the booth, his hand grasping the scarf slipping from his neck.

“Marinette, I was so excited when you invited me out tonight. In fact, I thought of it as a date.” She tried to reach out, but Adrien took a step back, tears brimming in his eyes. “I don’t blame you at all, please don’t think I’m saying all this to make you feel guilty. I just had to get it off my chest.”

Adrien blinked hard, trying to spill the tears clouding his vision. This was harder to say than he thought. Her eyes were so distracting, the sympathy oozing toward him in waves.

“I love you, Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I know you’ve made your life here and I would never dream of taking that from you. Hell, if you asked me to, I would drop everything to be at your side in an instance. Is there any chance at all that after the gala ends, we could give this a shot? Just one real date. Not some deluded fantasy I created in my head, but something we both consent to.”

He flinched when her hand finally made contact with his upper arm.

“Adrien, I love you. I really do. But you were right when you said my eyes had changed. That soft look is meant for someone else now. He and I had tried to keep our relationship quiet, but tomorrow at the gala, I was going to announce my engagement to Damian.”

Adrien couldn’t help the small sob that left his mouth. He was painfully aware of the few scattered glances all directed toward him, but he couldn’t help it. He felt Marinette pulling his head down until it laid resting on her shoulder, her small arms wrapping around his figure. It was embarrassing how hard he cried, unable to hold back his sobs any longer.

“I’m so sorry Adrien, I had no idea your feelings had changed. You were always chasing after a dream when we were younger and when I left Paris, I had finally decided that there wasn’t a chance after all between us.”

He knew she meant her words as a comfort, a promise that at one point, she would have gladly accepted his offer. Why couldn’t he have seen it earlier? Why was he so blinded by a partner who never even revealed herself right to the end? He had someone who trusted and loved him with all of their being and he ignored their feelings for a what if.

Adrien slowly pulled himself from her grasp, his smile shaky. He took a moment to use the end of his scarf to dry his soaked face.

“I’m glad you told me that Marinette. I really am. And I hope you and Damian have a long and prosperous life together.”

Her eyes widened, her mouth forming the wait, but he was already out of the door, running. It was a cowards move, one he would mull over all night. But it was too painful to look into the eyes of one you love and only find pity reflecting in them.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“So you came?”

Adrien turned, his smile bittersweet as he embraced Alya, his fist connecting with Nino’s outstretched hand.

“How could I not support her? She’s worked so hard to make this a reality. My feelings can take a backburner for one night.”Their eyes all trailed to the center of the room where she stood, her arm threaded through with the man he assumed to be Damian Wayne. “Besides, you can tell. She loves that man beside her more than anything in this world.”

The glint of the ring on her finger caused an aching in his heart. Despite it all, he really did wish the Wayne boy no ill will. If he was who Marinette chose to spend the rest of her life with, then Adrien trusted her decision.

“I’ve never seen her smile so bright. And to think, I used to believe her smile was at its maximum blindlingness.” Nino’s chuckle earned a small chuckle from Adrien as well.

There was no denying it.

Marinette was where she belonged. The only thing left was for him to support her in any way that he could. And that was exactly what he planned to do.

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#daminette #maribat #miraculous ladybug

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waitimcomingtoo · 3 years

Text

The Proposal ~ T.H

chapter six: the end

Synopsis: fake marriage, real trouble

Series Masterlist

A week later, you sat in a hotel room in Canada with papers all around you. The process to becoming a citizen was a long one, so you wanted to get started right away. You were pulled away from your work momentarily when you heard a knock at your door.

“Who is it?” You called out.

“Room service.” A muffled voice called back. You furrowed your eyebrows before going to the door to inspect the random visitor.

“I didn’t order any-“

You opened the door to see Tom in his regular clothes with a Starbucks cup in hand. You didn’t have to drink from the cup to know it was a matcha latte.

“Good morning.” He smiled shyly and held the cup out. “This is for you.”

“Tom?” You asked in disbelief. “How did you get here?”

You took the cup from him to be polite and took a sip, smiling a little at the correct order.

“I followed the yellow brick road.” He said simply. You gave him an unamused look and took a long sip of your drink.

“Sorry. Was that a bad time for a witch joke? It feels like it was a bad time. Oh God.” He began to panic and looked down at the ground.

“It’s fine.” You assured him. “But what are you doing here?”

“I came to get you back.” He told you. “The office isn’t the same without you.”

You stared at him for a moment, unsure of what to say. Part of you couldn’t believe he had flown all the way to Canada just to try to get you back, but another part of you knew that was exactly the kind of thing Tom would do.

“And also, I really miss you.” He added quietly. “I really, really, miss you.”

“I’ve missed you too.” You admitted, bringing a smile out of him. He pulled out an unused barf bag out of his pocket suddenly and you noticed that he had written all over it.

“Sorry. I came up with this whole speech on the plane and I didn’t want to forget it.” He cleared his throat before beginning to read off the bag. “I know why you ran away. You ran because you were scared. You’re scared of being a part of a family again and allowing someone to love you. Am I right?”

“You might be a little right.” You mumbled as you adverted your eyes.

“You’re scared of having people who love you in spite of all your efforts to shut them out.” He continued. “You’re scared of that because you want it more than anything.”

He folded the bag suddenly and shoved it back into his pocket, deciding to speak from the heart instead. He took your hands in his, prompting you to look at him.

“It’s all here.” He said sincerely. “It’s waiting for you. You don’t have to be scared anymore.”

“And what about when it’s not there anymore?” You asked in a weak voice. “When it goes away, like every good thing does, then what? Who’s gonna love me then?”

“I know you think it’s been a long time since you’ve been a part of a family, but it hasn’t.” Tom told you. “You and me sharing that office the past two years, that was the start of our family. All the late nights we spent reading page after page. Every moment you took to teach me something so that I could be better at my job, so I could be like you. All of that was us, you and me, being a family.”

“No it wasn’t.” You pulled your hands out of his. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

“You told me you were falling in love with me.” He ignored your efforts to make him leave. “Did you mean that?”

“Yes.” You said after a minute of silence.

“I meant it too.” He smiled softly.

“You don’t love me.” You sighed. “You don’t even know me, Tom.”

“But I want to.” He insisted. “Despite every effort you’ve made to shut me out, I’ve spent the past two years trying to know you. And every time you let me in just a little, I’m reminded why I never stopped trying.”

“You’re not in love with me. You just have some school boy crush.”

“I started as that.” He agreed. “But it’s different now. It’s real now.”

“Don’t you get it? This doesn’t change anything.” You gestured between the two of you. “Even if we developed feelings for each other, our engagement is still fake. You could still go to jail. I care about you and your family too much to risk that.”

“Okay, here me out.” Tom began. “Could jail really be that bad?”

“Oh my God.” You groaned and tried to shut the door.

“And it’s not even guaranteed I’d go to jail.” He continued as he held your door open. “Chances are, the IRCC never finds out that the marriage started as a scam.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying it’s worth the risk to me. I would risk potentially going to jail to give us the time we deserve. Because I do love you.” He promised. “And I know you love me. As much as you don’t want those things to be true, they are. So suck it up, and let me love you. For Gods sake, woman.”

“I’m sorry, was that a proposal?”

“I’m sorry.” He rubbed his eyes. “There are like 500 hotels in Canada and I was up all night trying to find the one you were in.”

“It’s okay.” You chuckled a little.

“Let me try again.” He asked before getting down on one knee. “Y/n, will you marry me so that we can date?”

“What if we don’t work out?” You fear as you chewed your bottom lip.

“What if we do?” He shrugged.

“Well, I can’t argue with that.” You chuckled.

“Is that a yes?” He asked hopefully.

“Yes.” You rolled your eyes at him. “I’ll marry you.”

“Did she say yes?” Sams voice came from somewhere in the hallway.

“Shut up!” Harry answered him. “I can’t hear.”

“Both of you, knock it off.” Nikki snapped her fingers. “I can’t hear her answer.”

You looked at Tom with a raised eyebrow as he got off his knee.

“Okay, my family is in the hallway.” He admitted. “But it wasn’t my idea. They begged me to come along.”

“All of them?” You asked.

“They really missed you.” He shrugged, making your face light up.

“I said yes!” You yelled out, loud enough for the family to hear. They all came rushing into your room and enveloped you in a group hug, cheering and crying over the news.

“We’re getting married!” Tom yelled over his family’s cheers.

“Fuck the government!” You yelled back before pulling him into a long, reunion kiss.

One month later

“And now, the vows.” The priest said as he took a step back.

You were standing across from Tom on the alter in his aunts hotel on your highly anticipated wedding day. You’d been staying in the UK on “vacation” as you planned your wedding, adding in a few more details now that you had more time. You were still in Nikki’s wedding dress, but this time, you were wearing Toms old tennis shoes. Paddy had lent you a blue handkerchief of his, which you had tied into your hair. Your entire office had come out to see you, all of them insisting they’d never miss your big day. Best of all, Tom was fresh off getting lovely reviews from the media after his book was received by the public.

“Tom.” You began your vows. “You are the most patient person I have ever met. You have overcome everything I’ve thrown your way with grace and resilience. And I have thrown a lot. I even threw a pencil sharpener at his head once.”

You paused to let the crowd laugh at you joke, even though you weren’t joking.

“Over the past two years, you have been by my side every single day without fail. And after today, you’ll be be my side for the rest of my life.” You continued with a smile. “And I couldn’t be happier about that. I’m so lucky to have found someone who refuses to give up on me. To have found the first person to take the time to get to know me, despite every effort I made to never let such a thing happen. Tom looked past all the walls I put up and decided I was someone who was worth getting to know, and for that I’ll forever be grateful. I’ll forever be grateful for a lot of things he’s done.”

“I did not like Y/n for a long time.” Tom began, making the guests laugh. “I thought she was mean and cold and weird for drinking matcha. Like, who lives in England and doesn’t drink tea? I’ll never understand it. But I’ll never understand a lot of things about Y/n. Like how I can’t stay mad at her, even when she throws things at my head. Or how right when I think I have her figured out, she does something completely out of nowhere. Like publishing my book that I didn’t even know she read. Y/n may come off as mean and frigid, but she’s not. She’s actually really sweet when she wants to be. But only when she wants to be. And if you’re lucky enough to gain her trust, she’ll let you in. And that’s when you’ll meet the one the most intelligent, passionate, beautiful, bitchiest women in the world. And you’ll fall just as deeply in love with her as I have.”

You smiled brightly at Tom as a tear of joy slipped from your eye. He reached forward to wipe it with his thumb as the priest went on.

“Do you, Tom, take Y/n to be your lawfully wedded wife?” He asked. “To have and to hold, until death do you part?”

“I do.”

“And do you, Y/n, take Tom to be your lawfully wedded husband? In sickness and in health, for as long as you both shall live?”

“I do.”

“If anyone should have any objections, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

You held your breath and looked at the crowd, anticipating at least one person to object. To your surprise, there was not one dry eye in the house. Everyone, including your employees, was in tears. You looked back at Tom in disbelief and he gave you a wink.

“By the power invested in me, I now pronounce you husband and wife.” The priest said. “You may kiss your spouse.”

Tom was quick to put his hands on your face and pull you into a kiss, as he had been anticipated it from the moment you walked down the isle. You kissed him back as the crowd erupting into applause and cheers. Once the pictures were taken and the final words were said, you ran down the isle hand in hand.

The reception was held in a room right next store as Toms family and your employees gathered together. You changed into a casual white slip dress and kept your tennis shoes on so you could be more comfortable. After the reception and a few goodbyes to his family, you drove back to your apartment to spend the night.

“I can’t believe it.” Tom sighed happily as you walked through the front door. “We’re really married.”

“Not yet.” You reminded him as you rested your hands on his shoulders. “Our appointment is at 8 am tomorrow at city hall. Harry said he’d be our witness.”

“You made my family really happy today.” He smiled up at you while his fingers drummed your waistline. “They really like having you around.”

“I like them.” You replied. “I’m honored to be a Holland.”

“You don’t have to change your last name if you don’t want to.” He said softly. “I know it’s a sexist tradition and everything. I wouldn’t be offended if you kept yours.”

“Tom, I want to take your last name.” You chuckled. “It’s been a long time since I’ve had the last name of someone who loved me.”

A fond smile tugged at Toms lips before he stepped forward. He silently pulled you into kiss, letting his rough fingers spread across your face. You tugged him by the tie as you stumbled back into your bedroom, never letting your lips leave his. Tom pulled away for a moment to pull his tie over his head and place it around your neck, using it to pull you closer as he slipped his tongue into your mouth.

“You know.” You smiled against his lips. “We might just get away with this.”

“Oh, darling.” He sighed happily. “I think we already have.”

Three years later

“Hello. My name is Sandra.” Your IRCC agent sat in front of you and smiled tightly. “I’ll be handling your case today. You two must be Mr. and Mrs.-“

“Holland.” You finished her sentence with a smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“You as well.” She nodded and shook yours and Toms hand. “I see you’re applying for naturalisation.”

“Yes, sir.” You replied. “I would like an adjustment of status for my citizenship.”

“I see.” She said as she looked over your file. “How long have the two of you been married?”

“Three years.” Tom answered.

“Have you lived in the UK the whole time?” Sandra asked.

“Yes, we have.” You nodded as you slipped your fingers through Toms. He brought your enjoined hands to his lap and held them there while his leg anxiously bounced.

“And you both work?”

“Yes.” Tom said. “We’re the chief editors at the Bullock Publishing Company.”

“And Toms a published author.” You added. “A successful one, too.”

“Wow. Chief editors.” Sandra raised her eyebrows. “So, are you familiar with the process of naturalization?”

“Yes. I have all my forms right here.” You handed her a folder full of your processing forms.

“And you passed the life in the UK test?” She asked as she looked through the folder.

“On her first try.” Tom added. “She didn’t even have to study.”

“Have you ever broken a law?”

“Nope.” You shook your head. “Not even a speeding ticket.”

“Hm.” Sandra looked between the two of you skeptically. “How long were you together before you were married?”

“Two years.” Tom answered. That was the only part you had to lie about, but the rest of your story was truthful. You’d been living in the UK for the past three years as Toms wife, and now it was time to become a real citizen. Sandra looked between the two of you again, not liking how seemingly perfect your story was.

“We met at work.” Tom added when he sensed the doubt. “I used to be her assistant.”

“He stills gets my coffee for me, though.” You smiled at him. “Even after three years of working in the same position as me, he gets my coffee like he’s my assistant. Isn’t that sweet?”

“I don’t mind.” Tom insisted. “After we were married, she changed her coffee order to match mine. Cute, right?”

“We drink tea, actually.” You piped up. “Because who would live in the UK but not drink tea?”

You gulped loudly as Toms leg continued to bounce. You’d managed to get away with it for three years, and you could only hope this meeting wouldn’t jeopardize everything.

“Okay.” Sandra sighed and put your forms down. “We’ll review your case and get back to you in the next few months.”

“Okay.” You smiled nervously. “Thank you so much.”

You grabbed Toms hand and pulled him out of the office as fast as you could.

“She didn’t suspect anything.” Tom said once you were in the car. “I think we actually got away with this.”

“I know.” You laughed in disbelief. “Did we just successfully pull off a fake marriage?”

Tom quieted down all the sudden, looking down at his lap before staring out the window.

“Do you...do you still think it’s fake?” He asked quietly without looking at you.

“Tom, no.” You put your hand on his face and made him look at you. “The engagement was fake. Or, for fake reasons. But the marriage is real to me. It’s been real to me since your mom walked in on us kissing that one day.”

Tom smiled a little a nodded, feeling better now that you reassured him. He took your hand off his face and kissed it as he held eye contact with you.

“Okay. I’m sorry.” He smiled sheepishly. “I was just wondering because I always thought of it as real.”

“Okay, good.” You squeezed his hand. “Then we’re on the same page.”

6 months later, you found a letter from the government addressed to you in the mailbox. You opened it as you walked back inside the house, freezing in your tracks when you realized what it was.

“Whats that, darling?” Tom asked when he noticed your expression.

“The Home Office approved my citizenship.” You looked up at him with wide eyes. “I passed. I’m officially a UK citizen.”

“What?!” He rushed towards you and scooped you into a hug. “Thats incredible. Congratulations.”

“I can’t believe it.” You squeezed him tightly as tears of joy streamed down your face. “I’m a citizen. This is amazing.”

Tom pulled away to give you a congratulatory kiss. He pressed kisses all over your face as you giggled in his arms.

“Wait.” He let go of you with a sad look on his face. “What does this mean for us?”

“What do you mean?” You wondered.

“Well, you’re a citizen now. Technically, you don’t need to be married to me.” Tom said quietly. You gave him a sympathetic look and stroked his cheek with your thumb.

“I know.” You told him. “But I want to be.”

“You do?” He asked hopefully. “You still do, even though you don’t have to?”

“I do.” You promised. “I told you, this is real to me.”

“Okay.” He sighed in relief. “Good.”

“You don’t have to worry about me running anymore, Tom. You’re my family now.” You smiled softly and rested your hand on his face. “And I’m not anywhere.”

“Me either.” He said as he pulled you into a hug. “I’m not going anywhere either.”

THE END

tag list 🏷

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#tom holland x reader #Tom Holland x you #tom holland smut #Tom Holland fake dating #tom holland fluff #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland x you #spiderman

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strawbabysimp · 3 years

Text

Adult Trio Soulmate Strings AU HCs

Chrollo

No one had told him what the string meant, what was on the other side waiting for him. Children in Meteor City knew how to fight and how to live and how to kill. Not how to love. Or maybe they did and the world simply told them they shouldn't. That they weren't deserving of it. As he got older Chrollo eventually sought out the meaning of this mysterious red string, finding his answer in one of the books he managed to get his hands on in that wretched and beloved place. A soulmate.

There was a person out there just for him, but more importantly, there was a destiny. A plan for him. He knew he had to find them, to secure this irrefutable connection to another. The leader had planned to meet them when he got out of Meteor City, it was part of the reason he formed the Troupe. Though, as the years went on and life took its toll on him, as it did anyone, the desire to find this person faded. By the time The Spiders had managed to become a notorious group, it was a dream within a dream. A soulmate? How tragically philosophical.

That's not to say he wasn't curious, but he lost that drive, running on autopilot as he searched for a passion without the motivation to even want one. Sometimes he did find himself especially enraptured by the red string secured around his finger though, toying with it during meetings or tying small knots that soon came undone while laying in bed.

Guilt wasn't something he felt often, taking lives and valuables without a second thought was a regular occurrence, but with you? He felt utterly in the wrong. To deny you of something even he found beautiful simply because he "didn't care?" That's when he felt like a monster. He found comfort in the title though, embracing the fact of what he was. He was selfish and greedy and somehow still found a way to prevent himself from gaining the one thing that could save him.

One day he had been twisting the string between his fingers, a mannerism that even the others around him had picked up on when there was a tug back. It became a regular occurrence, the two of you pulling on the string lightly back and forth. You tried to beg him through the string to come to find you, pulling him in your direction, but he never did come. You knew it was impossible to tell, but it seemed he had gotten even farther away.

The only connection you'd ever have with him was through those small motions and you'd go on to love someone else. Maybe not in the way you would have loved him, but there's not much to do when you're destined to love someone who was forced to learn how not to.

Hisoka

"I don't have one" he'd respond calmly. This was his and his alone, so what if people thought he was a freak? He wouldn't allow someone to interfere with this in even the most minuscule way. A person who relied on him and only him to fulfill the grandest idea of love? Nothing could hold more power than the blood-soaked string tied around his ring finger.

Heaven's Arena was a well-known spot, a tourist attraction of sorts, so you simply had to stop by when you happened to be near. As you made your way to the stands and gazed on at the stage you found him already looking at you, giving you a quick smirk as your gaze fell to his hand with a shocked expression. At the end of his "performance" he typically met with fans but this time he naturally went straight to you, a single blood-stained rose held out in a tender gesture. You didn't question how he had managed to obtain the flower, too busy processing the fact that this bizarre man was your soulmate.

Every moment with you is too much for him to endure. It's an adrenalin rush that he's become addicted to but whenever he looks at you he gets this urge to tear everything you are apart and cover himself in the pieces he could never think to reach from the outside. Being close to you is never close enough and the only way to satisfy this feeling of need would be to destroy you. He can't bear to do that but it's so tempting.

At rare times something in him seemed to break, going off on tangents about the cruelty of his thoughts and how he longed to turn you into yet another victim of his murderous desires. He had planned to take over your life, wishing to bask in the high your undying love was sure to give him. A man becoming weak through the pursuit of power is a pitiful sight even for one not tied to them by fate. "My love will never complete you. I take and I take and I offer up only the worst parts of myself because that's all I have to offer. That's the tragedy of loving me, my dear. I will not apologize because I do not feel bad, however, I will not allow myself to hurt such a lovely thing."

You always come back to each other, the string acting as a sort of magnet between you two. Eventually, you both come to accept the situation for what it is; deadly but far too tempting to not risk everything for. He was the most beautiful thing you'd ever laid eyes on and if the image of him was the last thing you ever saw you'd consider it a privilege.

Surprisingly enough, the magician never does end up taking your life, finding the unfamiliar task of restraining himself a new sort of challenge to prove his strength. Holding you close to him, pressing your body against his as he watches your auras merge, was a common occurrence. When his bloodlust rose and your fear spiked just a fraction he would plant a gentle kiss on your cheek before pulling away with some excuse, you both knew he did this to protect you but he'd never admit that.

Illumi

Soulmates were a weakness in the eyes of the Zoldycks, hypocritical to say the least as Silva and Kikyo were tied by fate, but that was typical. Despite the harsh words his parents had told him, his curiosity would eventually get the better of him and he would seek you out. Traveling in the direction the string took him without fail. It was an easy task when you had money and power. Locating you was not the issue, deciding what to do with you once found was. Simply approaching you wouldn't do.

He watched you for a long time, disappearing into a crowd or dark corner whenever you felt eyes on you. One day you found yourself doing trivial tasks, walking the streets on your way to pick up a snack, or do some light shopping when an unfamiliar feeling hit you. It wasn't unpleasant so much as it was surprising. You even describe it as lovely.

Despite his best efforts to keep himself hidden from your view, Illumi had never been trained to hide love. Pain, fear, anger, sadness, all these were painstakingly buried deep within him to the point that even he didn't know how to release them. But what he felt when looking at you grew greater with each small action and he didn't notice it slipping through until it was too late.

The second your eyes met he was a goner. It was like a drug to the emotionally-deprived man and while he knew it wouldn't do any good to engage you, the selfishness that was ripped out of him from a young age came flooding back full force. Both of you remained shocked as you approached one another but the small smile you gave him was enough to make him think that maybe this was the one time surrendering himself to feelings was okay.

Marrying you was a plan he wants to put into action as soon as possible, using the piece of paper as a form of protection. "Never kill a family member" read the Zoldyck rules that were engraved into the assassin's mind. This would be one of many forms of rebellion you had influenced Illumi in making, and while it wasn't necessarily against the rules, it was certainly not something he thought his parents would approve of.

When you're hanging out he remains a bit stiff, not sure of how to act around someone casually. You begin to feel off-put by the awkward composure of your soulmate though he picks up on it easily, his ability to read people far more advanced than the average person. Illumi allows a small bit of his aura to shine through the veil to reassure you of his contentment, and while he won't acknowledge it, you're grateful for his efforts. It's during one of these dates, hidden away in a hotel relaxing beside one another, that the usually warm and comforting aura changes. His arm comes to hold you just a bit tighter and the love he allowed to encompass you shut off. This had happened times before but your attempts at reassurance through small touches did no help to soothe the Zoldyck.

Later that night his hand would rest gently against your cheek as the light in your eyes dies, your face is wet with tears but a forgiving smile still rests kindly on your face. You're already gone. He can feel it. Despite this he holds you against him late into the night, only letting go when he can no longer bear to see you in such a state. His eyes stay downcast as he refuses to look up at the state the sky is in, not wanting to face the fact that the wetness of his cheeks could be from anything other than the weather. He sends one message before putting his phone away with shaking hands. Yet another job is done.

#Dark Content #Adult Trio #Headcanons #Adult Trio Headcanons #Chrollo Headcanons #Hisoka Headcanons #Illumi Headcanons #Chrollo x Reader #Hisoka x Reader #Illumi x Reader #Hunter x Hunter #HxH #Anime #Chrollo Lucilfer #Hisoka Morow #Illumi Zoldyck

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mirai-studies-languages · 3 years

Text

A lazy student’s guide to doing well at school

Hi! Throughout my academic career, I’ve always been a pretty lazy student. I don’t revise loads, and I usually finish my homework at the last minute. Still, I pretty consistently get high grades (apart from those Cs in physics and chemistry), so I thought I would try to offer some help to students who want to bring their grades up without sacrificing all of their comforts (though you will probably have to give up some at least). Most of my tips are based around the principle of working smarter, not harder. This is also specific to GCSE/A-level/high school level academia, not college/university.

Try hard in your lessons! If you zone out, then ask your teacher or someone else for help. Don’t let yourself leave a lesson without understanding what you have been taught. You can talk to your friends, just make sure that doesn’t stop you from understanding the lesson. Understanding is key, because it means you will be able to recall all of your lessons much quicker when you need to revise.

Review your notes at the end of the day! Make sure you wrote good and detailed ones in class so you do not need to rewrite them. When I say review, I mean test yourself on what you learnt that day, and check your noted to see what you missed. Then keep doing that until you’ve got it. This will take about 30 minutes max, if you made sure you understood what you were being taught.

Study how you are going to be tested! Get that syllabus, and make sure you know exactly what you need to do. Look at the mark schemes and specifications, and organise your revision based on what was on there.

Flashcards are a godsend! Use them! You might be able to find pre-made Quizlet flashcards online for your subject if you look hard enough. You can quickly go through them when you have time, and it usually won’t take that long.

Use active recall when you revise! Test yourself before you look at your notes, and after. Do practice questions, use past papers, go through flashcards: make sure that the information is in your head. This is an intense method, but it gets results and does not take that long, so you will have more time to relax afterwards.

Watch youtube videos! This is a quick and easy way to get an outsiders explanations and perspectives. Make sure that you are actually listening to what is being said, or there is no point to it.

For languages, casually immerse in your free time! You can text people in your target language on apps like HelloTalk and Tandem, and watch films and TV shows, and read fanfiction, and find a native friend online to speak with sometimes.

Make essay plans! It will help you learn how to structure and develop your ideas in an essay. Makes dozens of these for your essay subjects, and maybe even try memorising a few. When it gets closer to exams, you might want to try planning and writing up a few essays, so you can get used to doing it all at once.

Read and write for fun! Try fanficition, poetry, wattpad stories - whatever you enjoy. You might want to try reading articles and books about things that interest you (withcindy has a fantastic channel where you could find loads of interesting book recs), and you might want to try your hand at writing some of your own. You could try what I’m doing, and start a blog about something you like (languages and studying in my case), and figure out how to use english in a more creative and engaging way. This just generally helps with essay subjects.

Realise that you won’t get the grades without putting some effort in! You don’t even have to study every day, but you will probably need to study for a while a few times a week. The knowledge and skills required to do well in school won’t come out of nowhere - you need to work on and develop them by yourself. If you need help figuring out a plan that works for you, come send me an ask!

Know how to cram the correct way! For me, that mostly involves testing myself the night before until I can remember everything, and watching youtube videos to get another perspective for essay subjects. Here @lifewithlala has made an amazing post about cramming. Also, @getstudyblr made an amazing 1 day and 3 day cramming plan. I’ve found both of these posts incredibely useful in the past.

Study with friends! As long as you all make a commitement to (mostly) study, then there is no harm in studying with your friends. You could help each other out, and try teaching each other the content. It’ll be more fun with other people, and will also give you a much-needed outsider’s perspective.

That’s all I can think of at the moment. I hope it was helpful! Thanks for reading my post!

#study tips #lazy student #studyspo #studyblr #study motivation

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koolkat9 · 3 years

Text

HWS Germany Ship Event 2021: Day 1

Prompt: Highschool

Paring: GerEng, side of Itapan

Promposal Gone Wrong? Or Right?

“You and Arthur are going to prom right?” Feliciano asked.

Ludwig almost choked on his food at the sudden question. He, Feliciano, and Kiku were having lunch and of course, as usual, Feliciano was complaining about the cafeteria food (why he didn’t just bring his own was the question Ludwig always had but never voiced), so when he suddenly asked about prom, Ludwig was thrown off slightly. Honestly, he wasn’t planning it. He and Arthur weren’t big on social events and were quite content just settling in at home with a movie. But now that Feliciano was bringing it up, he had never asked if Arthur was interested and maybe he should have. It was a tradition and if done right, very romantic, and Arthur tended to like both.

“I-I don’t know. W-We haven’t really talked about it?” Ludwig stuttered out, picking at the sausage he had prepared for himself that morning.

“You have to Luddy! It's tradition. Picture, you and Arthur, all dressed up in nice suits, low lights, music blaring. A slow dance comes on, you both look at each other hesitantly, but you end up taking his hand and guide him to the dance floor. Wrapping your arms around each other you begin swaying, you tell him how much you love him and-”

“Okay I get the picture,” Ludwig grumbled, his cheeks now bright red. That scenario did seem nice, but he still wasn’t sure.

“You should talk to Arthur about it first,” Kiku suggested, “if you do end up going, you can ride with Feliciano and me.”

Kiku was a breath of fresh air. As much as he loved Feliciano and his enthusiasm, he could be a bit much at times. Kiku balanced him out with his calm and level-headedness. They were the perfect match for each other and surprisingly worked out really well. He gave them an assuring smile and agreed to ask Arthur.

Not long after, said Brit entered the cafeteria, his eyes scanning over the room. When his eyes met Ludwig, his lips twitched into a small smile and he made his way over. With a quick kiss on Ludwig’s cheek, he took a seat beside him and took out his lunch. “Did I miss anything,” he asked, looking around at the three friends.”

Feliciano turned to Ludwig, nodding towards Arthur and encouraging him to ask his question.

“Just prom things,” Ludwig replied, trying to keep his nerves out of his voice. He let out an awkward cough before continuing, “S-Speaking of... I-I was wondering...how do you feel about it?”

Arthur quirked a brow. “Well, I haven’t thought about it. But it's one of the last events of our high school year so maybe...u-unless you don’t want to.”

“I don’t mind. I-If you’d like to go. Kiku and Feli are also going if that’s any incentive.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his two friends watching them with fond smiles and Feliciano was clearly suppressing a squeal. He never understood why his relationship seemed to bring so much joy to Kiku and Feliciano, but he never asked since it wasn’t hurting anyone so why bother?

Ignoring their antics Ludwig turned his attention back to his lover who seemed to be mulling the idea over. “Alfred has been bugging me about it,” Arthur finally stated, “And a night out with friends would be nice.”

“So it looks like we’re in agreement.” Arthur gave the German’s arm a squeeze before turning his attention to his meal.

Ludwig couldn’t help but feel elated even though he wasn’t one for parties, but anything with Arthur made him happy. This feeling did not last long however as he recalled the tradition of a ‘’prom-prosal.” Was Arthur expecting one? Did he want one? Or was Arthur going to take the lead in this? Did they even need one in the first place since they were dating? Should he ask? But they were usually a surprise, weren’t they?

“Love...is everything okay?” Arthur asked, pulling Ludwig out of his thoughts. “We don’t have to go to prom if you don’t want to.”

“N-Nien, it's nothing like that. I’m just…”

“Overthinking?”

“Ja…”

They had almost forgotten Feliciano and Kiku were there until they announced their departure. “I think we better get going, Feli. We got that big project coming up this week so let's get to class early to get the best supplies.”

Feliciano scrunched his nose up in confusion, but then it dawned on him what his boyfriend’s true motives were. “Oh, si. Bye Lud, bye Arthur!”

And so the other pair of lovers were left alone at the table. They fell into casual conversation, Arthur hoping to get Ludwig’s mind off whatever he was thinking about. It seemed to be working as he was engaged and there was a slight smile on his face much to Arthur’s relief. Soon enough, however, the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch, and Arthur and Ludwig parted ways for class.

---

It had been a couple of days since Ludwig had agreed to go to prom with Arthur and since then he had been stressing over it, specifically if a promposal was in order.

“I say go for it,” Gilbert, Ludwig’s older brother, suggested, “what’s the worst that could happen? Who could be mad at a grand romantic gesture?”

“I-I don’t know...he..we aren’t big on that kind of thing. And what could I even do?”

“Well...do something unique to you. And like you said, you guys don’t do grand so don’t worry about whatever everyone else is doing, Do something unique to you.”

With a ruffle of Ludwig’s hair, Gilbert got up and headed to the kitchen to start dinner.

“Something unique to us,” Ludwig muttered to himself. His phone buzzed and a message popped up on his screen. Of course, Feliciano was asking if he had any ideas yet. After typing a simple reply of ‘I’m still thinking’ he exited the messaging app to his home screen. He lingered on the background photo. Arthur, laughing, cheeks pink and face covered in batter and flour. Ludwig couldn’t help but smile at the picture and the memory it brought.

It was from one of their first dates. Both of them liked baking so Ludwig had invited Arthur over to teach him how to make Kuchen. Despite Ludwig’s nerves, things had been going well until he had to mix the batter. He had become distracted one way or another and ended up setting the mixer too high leading to himself and Arthur becoming covered in batter. He expected the Englishman to be angry since he was often quick to temper, but instead, he was met with the beautiful sound of Arthur’s laughter. For a moment his brain stopped working and just listened, mesmerized by it. He had snapped the picture shortly after to save the moment. Looking back, he was surprised Arthur had let him keep it, but then again, the man was full of surprises. He often let Ludwig get away with things no one else could, which he was grateful for.

As he admired the picture, an idea came to mind. Practically jumping from his spot he ran over to the bookshelf, skimming through for a particular one. He eventually came across an old, brown-covered book whose title read “Beilschmidt Rezepte.” He flipped through it eventually landing on a simple cake recipe. 'What's more us than baking?’ Ludwig thought to himself as he grabbed a piece of paper and began writing down the needed ingredients.

---

The next day, Ludwig got to school even earlier than usual to ensure everything was in order before Arthur arrived. He placed down the box, opening it to make sure the icing didn’t smear (he had brought some extra tubes of icing in case he had to fix anything) and luckily it was untouched. The words ‘Will you go to prom with me?’ were written in clear, loopy green letters.

“Ludwig?” A familiar voice called, causing the German to immediately shut the box. Arthur walked up behind him, guitar in hand and a quizzical look on his face. “What are you doing here so early?”

Ludwig felt his cheeks heat up, feeling as though he had been caught. “W-Well you...you see…I...here.” Without another word, Ludwig shoved the box towards Arthur.

“Ludwig…” Arthur broke out into a fit of laughter leading to Ludwig’s blush deepening. His chest became tight and something like humiliation began to sink in. Usually, Arthur's laugher was a beautiful sound for him, but he couldn't help but feel hurt, thinking Arthur was laughing at him and his promposal. At least no one was around to witness this awkwardness.

“What’s so funny?” Ludwig finally hissed out.

His laughter finally began to die down. “I’m...I’m… so sorry love. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad, it's just...I had been planning something too.”

Before Ludwig could reply, Arthur put the cake aside, pulled out his guitar, and began to strum a familiar tune.

“Wise men say

Only fools rush in

But I can’t help falling in love with you

Shall I stay?

Would it be a sin

If I can’t help falling in love with you.”

Ludwig was left speechless as his lover’s sweet voice filled the air, proclaiming his love loudly. The green eyes that Ludwig loved so much remained fixated on him as the song continued. It sent the German’s heart fluttering and made his throat tight.

“Take my hand

Take my whole life too

For I can’t help falling in love with you

For I can’t help falling in love with you”

And as the song came to an end and Arthur lowered his guitar, he gave Ludwig a loving smile before saying, “Ludwig...will you go to prom for me?”

“I don’t know Arthur,” Ludwig replied, a smirk growing on his face as he picked up the cake once more, “would you go to prom with me.”

Arthur let out another laugh, “Of course my darling.”

And so the two made their way inside to the cafeteria where they got some plastic utensils and shared some cake before everyone else arrived.

#germanyshipevent2021 #hetalia #hws #gereng #engger #geruk #human au #highschool au #promposal #i didn't get a prom so they get one #fluff #hws england #hws germany #fanfiction #hetalia fanfiction #itapan #though its on the side #hws italy #hws japan

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comfyswitcherblanketfort · 3 years

Text

A Good Deal

lets not talk about what day it was bogizens... 👀 this is part of the hallmark june weddings event we did in the bog!

it’s also on ao3 here!

Warnings: insecure eskel, stressed triss, honestly its pretty fluffy., could be classified as mild emotional whump.

_____________

Triss was frantic when Eskel trudged up the stairs to the back door in the kitchen. He paused for a moment, leaning against the railing where he could just see her through the window in the door, box braids falling out of her loose bun, some sort of sauce smudged on her forehead, her arm muscles standing out and furiously beating the ever-loving shit out of whatever was in her bowl. Fuck, he thought she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. A little scary too, but that was his type.

“Afternoon, Gorgeous,” he called through the screen door, waiting for her to unlock it.

Instead of her normal ‘Afternoon, Handsome,’ he got a snappy, “If any bit of your clothing has been at the fire station, take it off out there. I just got the floors clean, and I don’t have time to do them again before the wedding.”

“If you wanted a striptease you could have just asked,” he chuckled, pulling his shirt over his head and kicking his boots off. All of him had just come from the station.

“Eskel, please,” her voice was about an octave higher than when he liked to hear those words normally, and the tightness at the end of her words made him worried.

“I’m clean, ish, can I come in?”

When she let him in she only gave him a quick peck before it was back to what Eskel could now see were egg whites.

“What’s wrong?”

That was apparently the wrong question. Triss dropped the bowl back onto the counter and braced herself against it, hanging her head. Her shoulders looked so tense Eskel thought the muscles might snap, “Fucking everything. Yen’s parents are getting in tomorrow and I only have the middle floor flipped because Annalee called in sick and Taylor is nowhere to be found, and I have to get this breakfast prepped because I have to make sure there’s food for the girls to eat while they get ready. Then I still have to call Jaskier and see when he’s bringing the cake and décor over and I have to run into the store to get the food for the next three days while they’re here and one of Yen’s aunt’s is allergic to everything under the fucking sun! Oh! And I also need to tell Jask to do everything last minute as far as the cake goes because I don’t have the fridge space and-and there’s still a goddamned molehill in the backyard where they’re having the ceremony and-“

Eskel wrapped his arms around her from behind, placing one hand over her sternum and one over her stomach, and held her tight while he whispered, “It’s gonna be okay. We’ll figure it out. Just take a minute to breathe for me?”

She took a shuddering deep breath and let it out as she rested her head back against his chest, brushing a stray braid out of her eyes, “…and I have a headache…”

“That,” Eskel mumbled, pausing to press a kiss to her forehead, “we can fix quickly.” He pulled them over to her medicine cabinet and handed her some ibuprofen and a large glass of water, also insisting she sit and eat something.

After a minute or two of Triss picking at some leftover pasta salad she groaned and shoved it away, “ and my mother called.”

“How’re Sheila and the dogs?”

“Fucking unbearable,” she grumbled, pitching her voice up and scrunching her nose to imitate her mother’s nasally voice, “ When are you settling down? I was so excited when you said wedding! Haven’t you hired an inn manager yet? Why do you still clean rooms? Did you read that diet book I sent you?”

Pushing her pasta back towards her after the last question, Eskel did his best to remain casual and calm, “I thought she hated me?”

“She hates all of my partners on principle, but you’ve made the top spot for ‘least hated’,” Triss shot him a little smirk as she aggressively stabbed some more pasta, “I told her I’m quite settled and we’re happy for now and to get her nose out of other people’s business- yes I see the irony .”

Eskel forced a bit of a laugh and tried not to bite his lip. He’d been thinking about this since Yen and Renfri’s engagement party. The way Triss looked at him while the couple gushed about how they were so excited to spend the rest of their lives together (and torment some relatives with making it official) had settled in the back of his mind and refused to leave. Every day, he flip-flopped on whether there was a little hope there or if she just thought it was sweet. And every day he berated himself for not bringing it up, but he had never even entertained the idea of marriage. Hell, his main relationship had been a friends-with-benefits arrangement with Geralt, and the few before that had been rocky at best. He wasn’t cut out to be a husband. Certainly not to someone so kind and gentle and fiercely loyal and sharp as Triss. What did he have to offer? A dangerous job and nasty burn scars for their wedding photos?

She must have sensed his hesitation and pushed her pasta over to him, “Eat. I need to keep cooking… and clean the top floor.”

He hooked an arm around her waist as she walked around the little kitchen island they sat at, pulling her close and stealing the keys out of her pocket, “I’ll go get groceries after I clean the top floor. Is the laundry started?”

“You’re too good to me, Teddy Bear,” she sighed, placing a kiss on his forehead.

“Not good enough.”

She frowned, resting her palm over his jaw and searching his eyes, “We’ll come back to that when the inn is ready.”

As he stood, he stole a quick kiss and darted up the stairs, “You’re taking a nap when the inn is ready!”

It had all come together in the end. Triss even got some impressed looks and glowing reviews from Yennefer’s family when they arrived. The periwinkle went beautifully with the gardenia Triss had woven through the lattice around the backyard and Eskel had managed to make the moles disappear and patch the grass so even she couldn’t tell where they’d been.

Eskel watched Triss dart around the property, even after her job was done, making sure everyone was comfortable and everything ran smoothly for the girls and as much as he tried to push it down, he was just reminded of how she deserved so much more. More than a scarred, overweight firefighter with a killer therapy bill and a studio apartment that looked more like a hotel room than a home.

As he was watching the different couples swooping around the tiny courtyard dance floor, hands materialized on his shoulders, immediately digging in right where he held tension.

“Now it’s really over,” Triss whispered in his ear.

“Oh? Will you take that nap now?” Eskel shot her a grin over his shoulder as he covered one of her hands with his.

She smiled at him as if he’d said something adorably cute and inaccurate, “I’ll take a dance ?”

Standing up and spinning Triss once before pulling her close to his side, Eskel sighed, “I guess I’ll have to settle for that then.”

Giggling a tad bit deliriously, they made their way onto the dance floor and snuck into a space between the other couples. Eskel did his best to relax and stay in the moment. He took deep breaths and mentally listed little observations about his surroundings, most of which revolved around Triss, and he even tried to distract himself by making some rather suggestive advances, but no matter what he tried, he was still thinking about what she deserved and how it was everything he wasn’t.

Triss rested her hand on his cheek and gave him her trademarked wide-eyed worried look, “Are you alright? Is your knee acting up?”

“M’fine,” he lied, “Just the champagne.”

“Bullshit.”

He should have known she’d call him on it, even in the middle of a wedding she wouldn’t let him get away with anything. Just another reason he wasn’t good enough for her.

Glancing around nervously, Eskel whispered in her ear, “Can we do this later?”

“Absolutely not. You’ve been acting strange for weeks now and it’s making me crazy,” Triss tapped on the point of his chin firmly, calling his attention back to her as they swayed and stepped in a small circle like everyone else.

“Been making me crazy too…” he mumbled, only receiving a furious glare that urged him to continue, “You’re… Triss you’re perfect. I love you more than anything and anyone I’ve ever loved before…”

Tears welled in her eyes as Triss brought them to a standstill, gripping his arms for dear life, “But?”

Eskel couldn’t help tucking her long thin braids behind her ear and caressing her cheek, “But I don’t know why you’re with me. Every time this wedding gets brought up I think about how you deserve someone so much more… whole than I am. Someone who can give you what you want and who doesn’t have a horribly dangerous job and doesn’t look like the Pillsbury doughboy…”

“First off,” Triss started, almost growling as she dragged him off the dance floor and in through the back door to the kitchen, “I thought you were breaking up with me so please lead with what you’re nervous about next time,” Eskel followed, absolutely dumbfounded as he was sat down on a stool like he was in trouble with the principal, “Second, I find your extra weight sexy as hell- no arguments! That is my opinion and it is final . Third- and this one is important- you are the most thoughtful, caring, kind, and gentle person I have ever had the absolute pleasure to share a room with, let alone sleep with. I decided you’re what I wanted a long time ago. No one else has ever told me to take a nap before” she giggled, pausing to hold his face between her hands, “You don’t need to be anything other than you for me to be happy.”

She wiped a tear from his cheek with her knuckles, a fond smile playing on her lips as she drew him in, hugging him tightly so his head rested on her shoulder. His arms wrapped around her waist and squeezed like he was scared she might disappear if he didn’t hold her tight enough.

“Thank you,” He whispered.

“You’re welcome,” Triss whispered back, trailing her nails over his scalp and through his soft hair, “Anytime you need a reminder you tell me. Deal?”

Eskel sniffed and pulled himself back together, leaning back to give Triss a quick kiss, “Deal.”

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dinosaurtsukki · 3 years

Text

❀ facets | “i don’t want you to see me like this” feat. chuuya nakahara

⇢ day 4 of angstcember

⇢ synopsis: you and chuuya both have sides to yourselves that you don’t want the other to see and unfortunately, the mafia brings out the worst in everyone

⇢ a/n: so here’s the chuuya angst you guys have been waiting for !! i,,, really hope that it was worth the wait i guess cause i know some of you were excited but if it’s not apologies in advance ;-;

⇢ pairing: chuuya nakahara x gn!reader

⇢ word count: 2.7k words

ANGSTCEMBER MASTERLIST (feat. haikyuu!! and bungou stray dogs)

━━━━━━━━✿ ━━━━━━━━

it was difficult to be in the mafia without spilling blood. after all, it was what the job entailed. just like everyone who joined the port mafia, you had been accepted because of your skill in eliminating targets. you always did so quickly and oftentimes mercilessly. more than a few times, mori himself had gave you solo missions to specifically assassinate unneeded targets.

and yet, you hated having to kill. you hated that from a young age, it was the only way you ever knew when it came to surviving the world you lived in. after being orphaned, you were immediately taken in by a criminal syndicate and trained to be an assassin before eventually joining the port mafia. as much as you tried to outrun this, you gave in and grew apathetic to your job requirements. ‘just do it as quick as possible, forget, and then move on,’ you told yourself during every job.

that was until you had met chuuya nakahara.

well, it’s not like you had met him for the first time there at a local bar. everyone in the port mafia knew about the young, mafia executive with the powerful gravity manipulation ability. in fact, you had worked under him on a few assignments. despite the reputation about his temper, you found him to be quite level-headed when it came to leading your group and making difficult decisions on the spot. there was a side to chuuya that was a bit caring too and he always checked on everyone after a mission. sometimes, you’d even watch him remove his hat in respect when a fallen mafioso was reported.

“nakahara-san,” you were about to get up and bow when he waved a hand, signaling not to.

“you don’t need to do that. we’re not at work,” he scoffed, sitting on the bar stool next to you. “this is my first time here. recommend anything good?”

you were surprised at his casual-ness, especially since he was technically your boss too, but you answered his question nonetheless. “well, they always have really good whiskey.”

“can’t go wrong with that then,” chuuya said, requesting the drink from the bartender. “so, you’re l/n, right?”

“you... remember my name?” you blinked in surprise.

“i mean, you have worked for me. what kind of a boss would i be if i didn’t even know your name?” chuuya raised an eyebrow at you before sipping from his drink.

“makes sense,” you shrugged. “it’s just that you happen to be the first.”

“you’re also the one koyou ane-san spoke highly of,” chuuya added. “although, i heard you turned down her offer of a promotion.”

“i’m not really in great need of money,” you reasoned. “and besides, it’s pretty much the same job content anyway but i’d have to do more things.”

“well, the doing more things part you got right,” he chuckled, downing his glass before ordering a refill. “although, i get the feeling you have another reason for turning down that promotion.” chuuya looked at you expectantly and you felt as though you’ve underestimated his intuition just a bit. you looked down at your half-empty glass and sighed.

“i don’t really like being in the mafia. i’m good at my job but, i don’t care much for it, nor do i think i’m particularly good at anything else. in the end, i just feel like i’m being used?” you shook your head and laughed. “sorry, i know that sounds terribly pathetic.”

“if you don’t like something, can you really help it?” chuuya pointed out.

“i thought you didn’t like people who chickened out?” you dared to tease him.

“that’s not the same as chickening out,” chuuya wagged a finger. “because you still do what’s being asked of you.”

“fair enough.”

“i don’t know if this helps but, you’re pretty good at tying bandages too,” he said, puzzling you slightly. “one of the doctors at the infirmary told me that tomura-san wouldn’t have made it if you hadn’t stopped the bleeding quickly.” chuuya downed his second glass of whiskey before placing it on the counter and paying for his drinks. “just some food for thought,” he added, before getting off the bar stool and leaving you alone.

...

whether or not chuuya had intended it, his comment did get you thinking quite a bit. you did have good knowledge of the human body, thanks to your assassin training that taught you which were the best points of the human body to strike. the port mafia boss himself was also a doctor, so who’s to say that killing people and saving lives were separate forms of knowledge.

slowly, you began to pick up on chuuya’s way of reinforcing that idea he had initially planted. when you were put in missions with him, he’d often order you to help patch up the wounded, even encouraging you to take your ‘patients’ to the infirmary. there, you’d intently watch the nurses and paramedics do their valuable work. at times, you wondered if you were really of use because you were no longer in the front lines but chuuya reassured you that what you were doing was more than enough.

finally, you decided to file in a request to transfer to the medical department. it took quite a long time for it to be processed, since you knew that you were still valuable to the organization as an assassin, but you managed to convince the higher-ups of being able to work as an on-site paramedic who could also defend themselves in the front lines.

after being accepted, you went to your usual bar for a celebratory drink. it didn’t come as a surprise anymore to see chuuya already there, waiting for you.

...

aside from holding up his reputation of being a powerful member of the port mafia, chuuya also wanted it to be known that he was a leader his subordinates could trust. ‘what’s the point of mistreating them if you know they’re ready to lay down their lives to follow your orders?’ chuuya would always reason. he wasn’t one to dote, but when he knew someone wasn’t exactly working at their very best, chuuya took it quite seriously.

you had already caught his eye the first time you worked with him on a job. there was nothing to complain about when it came to your skill. in fact, chuuya was particularly impressed with how cleanly and efficiently you eliminated your targets. it’s just that the expression on your face, one of boredom, caught his attention just as much. it almost reminded him of his own. sure, chuuya loved fighting and the adrenaline rush he got from it was like nothing else. but at one point, he had grown tired with knowing that he would win anyway no matter what. it was why he decided to put on his gloves and refrain from using his fists.

at first, chuuya was mainly concerned with what was bothering you so he took a page out of dazai’s book -- which wasn’t something he wanted to particularly confess to -- and decided to coerce you a bit into doing something that would interest you. it wasn’t fully manipulative though, because chuuya genuinely knew you were quite good at the new skill you picked up and he could see you enjoyed that more.

then, he noticed that there was an inarguable gentleness to you. chuuya happened to read your file out of curiosity and learned about your past being trained as a young assassin. he felt a bit sorry that a different life was robbed from you and was therefore even more motivated to help steer you down the path you wanted more.

chuuya was genuinely happy that you had joined the medical department but he did find that he was seeing you less and less. you joined a few more missions as a frontline paramedic but spent most of your time in the infirmary. it was only after it hit him that he was missing you that chuuya began to realize maybe there was something else underlying his intentions.

he didn’t like chickening out of anything but that also meant he shouldn’t chicken out with facing his feelings. chuuya couldn’t come see you at the infirmary because he never got injuries. instead, he decided to meet you again at your favorite bar, the place where he first met you for real.

this time, he came with a confession. and so did you.

...

the first thing you noticed when you opened your eyes was the ringing in your ears and the dust that had seeped into your lungs. you blinked that same dust from your eyes before sitting up in a panic when you realized what had just happened. according to the higher-ups, the port mafia was going to be engaging with a very powerful enemy organization and you and your fellow paramedics and nurses in the infirmary were expected to be working all through the next few days. you were prepared as the bodies came flooding in and you just hoped and prayed that the fight would be over.

you had just finished stitching a particularly ugly gash when you heard an explosion from within the infirmary. and then, the screaming, and then, it occurred to you that the enemy had done the unthinkable.

there was rubble all around you and you struggled to get out but thankfully, you were still in one piece. but as you looked around what used to be an operating room, you realized the extent and gravity of the damage dealt. the enemy had just bombed a hospital. it wasn’t just port mafia members they were treating there but yokohama residents who had unfortunately been caught in the crossfire. sure, you were part of a mafia and used to be an assassin and you did kill people. but there was no dignity in bombing a hospital.

rage flooded you as you walked around the ruins, your eyes picking up the ugly sights of what was left of the survivors and those who were terribly unlucky. and above all else, there was a terrible sadness. if you were in the frontlines, would you have prevented this?

...

chuuya’s blood ran cold when he heard the news about the infirmary being bombed by the enemy, enough to bring him to use his fist to finish off an enemy before sprinting over to where he had heard the explosions. the enemy had dealt a low blow and chuuya wanted nothing more than to finish everyone off. along with that anger came a feeling of fear that almost blinded him as he sprinted off to where the explosions came from. you were working in that hospital. if anything had happened to you, there’s no telling what chuuya would do in his anger.

only, he quickly realized that you weren’t in danger. meters away from the hospital, still dressed in your lab coat, chuuya found you with a scalpel in each hand, killing enemy attackers. only, you weren’t just killing them. chuuya could only assume it was rage that consumed you as you straddled an enemy’s corpse, driving your scalpel repeatedly into his face.

“y/n!” he cried, grabbing onto your wrist before you could bring it down. slowly, you turned to look up at your lover. the rage in your eyes quickly turned into fear as you looked down and saw what you had done.

“i... i’m...”

“that’s enough, y/n,” you heard chuuya say softly behind you. you dropped the scalpel and looked down at your shaking hands.

“maybe i could have stopped it,” you said shakily. “i should have been on the frontlines. i just want to help people and even now, i couldn’t even do that.” chuuya watched as you covered your face in your hands.

“what am i even good for?”

he knelt down in front of you and pulled your hands away from your face. you turned away from him.

“i don’t want you to see me like this.”

“nothing can change what i think about you,” chuuya said seriously, turning your chin to look at him. with a deft hand, he removed his gloves and slipped them over yours. “all i know is, nobody is born with hands that are meant to kill.”

you looked down at your now-gloved hands and then up at your lover. he smiled and pressed a kiss to your forehead.

“i’ll be heading out now. do what you do best, okay y/n?”

you returned his smile and nodded with renewed determination. “alright.”

...

you’ve always known about chuuya’s powerful ability and prowess in martial arts, but it was only after you got together with him that you learned about your boyfriend being the arahabaki. at first, you thought it was pretty cool, until you saw the pained expression on chuuya’s face as he talked about how he never really knew why he ended up connected to the arahabaki in the first place. because of his memory loss at a young age and with his terribly powerful special ability, chuuya often felt that he was inhuman.

‘maybe... that’s why he chose to help me,’ you thought, as you watched the vulnerable expression on his face that he only showed around you.

that said, you’ve only heard about the sheer destructive ability of Corruption but because chuuya only used it in the most dire of times, you’ve never really see it for yourself. that is, until now.

you could tell that chuuya was no longer himself with the markings that covered what was visible on his skin and a grin that stretched across his face. he only activated Corruption when he knew dazai was there to stop him but it just so happened that right now, he was out of reach: floating in the sky while hurling gravity bullets around him.

“y/n,” dazai called out to you. he was heavily injured but somehow still standing. “you’ll get hurt if you stay here!”

“i need to help him!”

with a loud explosion, chuuya dropped back down to the ground, causing the earth to cave in a circle around him. he turned with his sights set on you.

“chuuya,” you backed away slowly, terrified by his empty gaze. “it’s me, y/n! you can snap out of this!” you pleaded.

“y/n!” you heard dazai yell again. he was running towards chuuya from the other side of the forest clearing. “get out of here, he--”

you couldn’t hear the rest of what he said because with a wave of his arm, chuuya sent you flying backwards until you hit a tree before crumpling down to the ground. you felt your eyes fall shut just as dazai sprinted the last few meters to touch the back of chuuya’s hand.

with his ability nullified, chuuya fell to his knees. his body was wracked with pain from having used Corruption longer than he knew he should have. he felt dazai fall to the ground behind him and turned to find that he had promptly passed out, most likely because of the blood loss from his injuries. ‘so that’s why he couldn’t stop me quicker,’ chuuya thought. it was only after he scanned the ruined area around him that he found your crumpled form lying under a tree.

it couldn’t be.

“y/n!” he cried, hauling himself to his feet despite the roaring pain in his body. he hobbled over as quickly as he could over to you before lifting you in his arms. “y/n?” chuuya called your name again. with a groan, you stirred back into consciousness.

“you’re... back,” you smiled up at him.

“fuck, i’m so sorry. i did this to you, didn’t i?” chuuya shook his head, feeling his hands tremble as he saw your injuries. “i’m so sorry.”

“you weren’t yourself.”

“i could have stopped myself, somehow!” he exclaimed. “i shouldn’t have let you come along on this mission. i shouldn’t have used Corruption.”

“chuuya--”

“i don’t want you to see me like this,” he hung his head. despite all his strength and connection to the arahabaki, chuuya was still human. and you didn’t care if you had to spend every day reminding him of that.

“you’re human, chuuya,” you said softly, lifting your hand to his face and turning it to look at you. no one else would be able to see the sheer emotional vulnerability on chuuya’s face as you said those words. only you could make him feel this way. “i wouldn’t be what i am now if it weren’t for you.”

“are you really sure you want this... that you want... me?” chuuya asked. you smiled, sitting up to brush your lips against his.

“i’m sure.”

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#bungou stray dogs #bsd #chuuya nakahara x reader #chuuya nakahara #chuuya #chuuya x reader #bsd x reader #bungou stray dogs x reader #angstcember #bungou stray dogs angstcember #bsd angstcember #bsd angst #bungou stray dogs angst #bungou stray dogs fanfic #bsd fanfic #bungou stray dogs one-shot #bsd one-shot #bungou stray dogs writing #bsd writing

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sunrise-and-death · 3 years

Note

*reads your tags* now I'm curious about how you picture Neil

Fully just had the realization that because Travelers is from Neil's POV (and most of my other stories are too), I hardly ever describe him! Whoops...

(Also, I apologize in advance for being unnecessarily long-winded. You sent me this ask and then I spent like... a good half hour really considering my Neil appearance thoughts, so I've got a lot to say. Putting it under the cut so I don't devour people's dash.)

I actually went back to False Equivalence to see if I put a good description of Neil in there, but the closest I got to describing him was this:

Neil met her by her car the next day. Katelyn couldn't help giving him a quick once-over; she wasn't attracted to him at all, but he was one of those people who naturally drew the eye, especially with his natural coloring restored and clothes that fit properly. Half the cheerleaders had been mildly in love with him last year, even when he'd looked homeless, although Marissa had been the only one bold enough to do anything about it.

Which is accurate to how I feel he comes off, but is not helpful at all in demonstrating what he actually looks like to me!

I'll start by saying that a big part of why I like this picture so much is that it is very much the body shape (lean, athletic, longer legs, shorter torso), skin color (tan), hair color (not a bright red, but a brassy brown-red), hairstyle, and eye color I imagine Neil with. The other big thing is his expression—very neutral, almost a little bit bored. I think the thing I mention most in FE is how engaged he appears; my interpretation of him is pretty disinterested and standoffish, for the most part. Like, Andrew is a stone wall, but Neil just looks kind of removed—until he is invested. Then he is very dynamic, intent, alive.

I think this plays into my mental image of him a lot. For me, he looks boyish, if you know what I mean. Like, I wouldn't describe him as handsome or pretty or cute—just kind of good-looking in an All-American, boyish kind of way. If I was rattle off actual features, I'd say he has a narrow jaw and a slightly larger forehead, creating a longish, thinish face (maybe triangle face shape? the images for the various face types vary so widely that I don't want to commit to one). Thin, but even lips. Straight nose—very nondescript, no upturn or down turn, no bumps, no (visible) breaks. Cheekbones on the higher end, but not so high that they're very noticeable. Upturned eyes, slightly larger than you'd expect, but not overly so.

In my mind, there's a genericness to his facial features that then gets kind of turned on its head when he's actually focused on something. I do think his smile is always a little bit mean or cruel looking—not in a bad way, it's just sharp. In general, my mental images of his actual expressions (when he moves beyond mild annoyance, frustration, boredom) tend to be very sharp—especially when I'm contrasting with Andrew, who is so much blockier and doesn't really emote facially.

I also very much see Neil as one of those people who just looks incredibly... not graceful, but natural in his body (again, I really like the pose in that picture). He's very athletic in a way that I think shows even in just how he holds himself, but especially in motion. There's a reason my Neil's most defining motion, at least in my mind, is his one-shouldered shrug. He doesn't talk with his hands (like Andrew tends to), which I think can be very disconnected from the rest of one's body. He's more likely to lean forward, reach out, shift his weight, adjust his stance—the one-shouldered shrug is more of casual, nonchalant roll. Like, his movements can be very fast and sharp, especially when playing Exy, but overall, I think he has this light, fluid, catlike (not big cat, house cat) way of moving. (This also plays into how he is on the court, and his innate understanding of other people's movement and ability to easily adjust his own.)

It's hard for me to describe Neil without contrasting him against Andrew, because I think my mind took the book descriptors and was like, "Ah, yes, they are opposites," and then ran with it. Like, Andrew is very blocky, solid, and distinct—I think his facial features are more interesting to look at, whereas Neil's are more cohesive. (Side note that I think Neil's kind of nondistinct white boy good-lookingness was very helpful on the run.) Andrew's got heavy, deliberate, specific movements (he points and flicks his fingers a lot in the book), whereas Neil just kind of... moves, lol.

In summation, I think Neil is really nice to look at less because he's got gorgeous features than because he just looks very right in his body.

#wow i had a lot of feelings apparently #i generally try not to go too heavy on character descriptions other than a few big things so people can fill in the rest themselves #so it was nice to just go off on my neil thoughts #curious to know how you picture him!#let me know #asks #neil josten #aftg #my neil

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thebluemartini · 3 years

Text

Battle Scars [Nessian Fic]

A/N: Well, A Court of a Silver Flames is just a little over a week away, so I might as well post one final little Nessian fic before its release! So back in November, @hereforthemoment wrote the following post:

Nesta and Cassian are sparring, right? And Cassian ends up on top of her with a dagger to her throat but at the last moment Nesta aims her dagger at his heart.

He says, “you’d be dead”

But she chuckles and says, “then I guess we’d go together”

Then they both become very serious and look into each other’s eyes until Nesta pushes him off of her and leaves the ring

I asked for permission to write a fic with this scene, and voila! I finally finished it! So here goes! (Thank you @hereforthemoment!!)

TITLE: Battle Scars

FANDOM: A Court of Thorns and Roses

SETTING: Post-ACOFAS.

CHARACTERS: Nesta and Cassian

RATING: SFW

GENRE: Angst/Romance/Drama

SYNOPSIS: Nesta and Cassian finally address the war and its aftermath.

*You can also read this on AO3 or FF

________________________________________________________________

“Train with me, Nesta.”

She did not need to peel her eyes away from her dagger to discover who was talking to her. The low timbre of his voice was familiar to her—and one she heard nearly everyday.

“That sounds like an order,” she answered coolly from where she sat on a log and continued to sharpen her dagger against the stone in her hand. “You are well aware that I’m not very fond of being told what to do,” she added in a casual tone.

“My sincerest apologies,” he replied. Nesta kept her eyes down, but she could tell he must’ve been smiling to himself. These days, he always grinned whenever she spoke civilly to him...a vast difference from how they conversed with each other the first few months of her living in the Illyrian Mountains. Those conversations were more like verbal sparring matches. But now, several months later, the two of them were more like...friends.

“What I meant to say was...would you do me the honor of dueling against me?”

Letting the stone in her hand plop onto the snowy ground, she sheathed her dagger and finally looked up to see Cassian standing beside her. His hair was pulled back, allowing her to look directly into his eyes.

The way he stared at her was...unnerving, and the way he treated her in recent weeks was equally unsettling. That fool actually had the audacity to make comments that would cause her lips to curve upwards into a smile. And he’d done things for her — like make her pancakes and retrieve new books for her — that made her feel like something was fluttering around in her stomach.

She had to shift her gaze. “You haven’t asked me to train with you before, General. Why now?” she asked, while suddenly finding the lacings along her sleeve to be quite fascinating.

“Well, before, I feared you might actually end up killing me in a duel.”

“What makes you so sure I won’t try to kill you now?”

“I have reason to believe you rather enjoy this pretty face of mine.”

Nesta’s eyebrow rose in confusion as she stood up to face him. “Whatever gave you such delusions?”

“I seem to recall you looking quite concerned when Merida scraped my cheek during training last week.”

“That’s because I wanted to have the pleasure of marking you myself,” she assured him as she crossed her arms against her chest. The scratch left by the Illyrian female who accidentally struck her dagger against his face was still there.

“I can think of a few more interesting ways you could do that without weapons, sweetheart,” he remarked with a smug grin as he allowed his gaze to drop to her lips.

Nesta glared at him. “Are you sure you want to spar with me right now? The urge to murder you is definitely present.”

Cassian smirked. “Well, I’m not the type to back down from a challenge I’ve already made. Let’s go to the ring.”

________________________________________________________________

In Nesta’s mind, every duel she engaged in was a story. Many of her fights with Illyrian females told tales of wild beasts that had been tied down for far too long that had now finally been able to roam free, progressing from rigid stances to more fluid movements within the span of the duel.

Her current fight with Cassian told its own story—one that seemed to echo her and Cassian’s relationship since she moved here to the Illyrian Mountains. At first, his movements were slow and hesitant as he began circling around her, trying to gauge exactly what kind of fighter he was facing, while her own slashing motions at him were rapid. But he was quick to defend himself against her, blocking her dagger with his own. For a moment, her persistence seemed to frustrate him, causing him to finally attempt to strike back at her. Then their arms tired, and they spent less time sparring and more time analyzing the other as they circled each other.

“You’ve grown stronger,” Cassian noted as he continued staring at her.

“Are you surprised?” she asked, staring right back and noticing how the snowflakes fell on his eyelashes.

“No,” he calmly replied. “I’m proud of you.”

At the sight of her raised, quizzical brow, he continued, “You’ve overcome so much. It’s inspiring.”

She would’ve raised her brow even higher if she was capable. To hear him say such a thing was...shocking. Alarming. Unsettling. Maybe even infuriating? But maybe she even felt a sense of pride, too...

“But you still have much to learn,” Cassian said with a strained breath and in a swift motion, he suddenly tackled her to the ground.

Laying atop her body, Cassian pressed the tip of his dagger against her throat, careful not to nick her skin.

“You’d be dead right now,” he muttered.

But at that moment, he felt the tip of Nesta’s dagger pressing against his chest, right over his heart. Nesta let out a low chuckle. “Then I guess we’d go together.”

Cassian’s eyes quickly met hers, and her laughter faded. Silence fell between them—only the sounds of their ragged breathing could be heard as they looked at each other.

Suddenly, with a shove, Nesta winced as she pushed Cassian off of her. Getting up, she sprinted out of the ring, leaving behind her dagger on the ground.

“Nesta!” Cassian called out. “Nesta, wait!” In a quick movement, he stood up and charged after her as his own dagger tumbled to the ground.

Determined, Nesta trudged her way through the snow with her arms folded across her body. The gusts of cold wind blowing against her face did not deter her. In fact, the biting cold helped distract her from thinking about the last time she almost died with Cassian.

“Nesta!” Cassian called from behind her. She wasn’t walking fast enough. “Nesta, please. We need to talk.”

“About what?” she shouted back, unable to resist the urge to yell at him and release her pent-up anger. Of course, she had an idea about what he possibly would want to talk to her about, but she’d been wrong about that before. Back after the King of Hybern was dead and the war was over, she thought he’d seek her out and address what he said to her on the battlefield. But that never happened.

“Us, the war...everything!” he replied. His voice was louder now.

Inside, Nesta was seething and couldn’t help herself from bursting now. She abruptly halted and whipped around to face Cassian as he approached, catching him by surprise.

“You’ve had months—years, actually—to talk!” she exclaimed. “Why even bother at this point?”

“Because...I’ve been such an idiot–”

“No argument there,” Nesta grumpily interjected as she crossed her arms against her chest.

Cassian paused and took a few heavy breaths as he looked at her. “And we need to talk about it in order to move forward. Because I love–”

“I need to go,” she interrupted him as she shook her head in disbelief at the words he was possibly about to utter. She turned around to resume her journey back to her cabin.

“Nesta, this is coming out all wrong. Can we please just talk?” he asked as followed her and reached out to grab her hand in an attempt to make her stop.

Instead, she furiously swatted his hand away, not noticing the patch of ice on the ground as she did so. She slipped, sending her sprawling to the ground, and let out a small yelp in the process as the sharp pain surged through her ankle.

“Nesta!” Cassian was instantly beside her, crouching down to help her sit up. “Nesta, I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”

“My ankle is twisted,” Nesta answered gruffly through clenched teeth, resisting the urge to bark her head off at him. “Leave it alone,” she ordered when Cassian placed his hand against her boot as if he were going to slide it off.

“We should wrap your ankle with some snow,” he explained.

“I will do it,” Nesta insisted with a frown, as she averted her eyes from Cassian. “Just leave me be and go on your way.”

Confusion covered Cassian’s face. “Nesta, I’m not leaving you out here to suffer alone.”

“Why not? It’s what you’re good at.” Nesta spat back as she remained focused on pulling off her boot.

Cassian froze as her words punctured his heart. Silence passed between them while Nesta inspected her ankle. Cassian then reached for the small pouch belted at his waist, pulling out a gray lace cloth that was adorned with various Illyrian symbols.

“I’d like to change my ways,” Cassian spoke faintly. “And become a man worthy of you…if you will let me.”

He grabbed a handful of snow and wrapped it within the cloth, then held out his makeshift ice pack, waiting for Nesta’s permission to place it around her ankle. She peered over at it, curious as to how and why he would have a cloth like that with him.

“This cloth belonged to my mother,” Cassian said upon noticing her staring. “I like to have it with me, especially in battle.”

Nesta’s frown disappeared and switched to a look of slight concern. “Why would you want to use that to wrap my ankle?” she asked in a softened voice.

“It’s all I have with me,” he replied. “And I am willing to give you all that I have,” he said with a meaningful look. “If you will allow me,” he added.

Feeling uncomfortable under his gaze, Nesta returned to inspecting her ankle. “Be gentle,” she instructed, granting him permission and not daring to say more out of fear of what Cassian was possibly implying.

Cassian proceeded to gingerly wrap the cloth and snow around her swelling ankle, tying it so it was secure. “In the weeks when I was laying in bed, recovering from my injuries after the war…” he began hesitantly. “Every time I awoke, I always hoped you would be there when I opened my eyes.”

Nesta’s breath hitched upon hearing Cassian speak of the war, but she did not stop him from speaking.

“But you never came,” he continued calmly, as he delicately slid her boot back onto her foot and began tying the laces. “And I was left feeling angry, bitter, and sad. I thought...after the way you shielded my body with my own, after our...after our kiss, that it would’ve meant something to you. That you would want to check on me and make sure I was all right and talk to me. But when you never showed, I assumed you wanted nothing to do with a low-born bastard like me. That everything between us meant nothing to you.”

Nesta absorbed every word he said as she watched his hands. But she allowed the sounds of the whistling wind to fill the silence instead of responding.

“I can carry you back to the cabin, if you want,” he suggested as he stood up off the ground.

Even when it came to the smallest things, Nesta hated not being the one in control. But with her ankle throbbing in pain and a long trek back to the cabin before her, it appeared she was left with no choice but to accept Cassian’s help.

Yet, there was something endearing about his offer. He didn’t ask her if he could fly her back, which would be much faster than carrying her by foot. But he knew how much she detested flying and how sick it made her feel.

It wasn’t the first time he’d recognized how she’d been feeling. As of late, he definitely had taken notice of certain things about her...like never starting a fire within the cabin because he realized its crackling sounds distressed her, always fully cooking the meat in her meals so it’s red juice wouldn’t remind her of bloodshed, and preparing a cup of tea for her each evening knowing it helped her sleep well each night. He even started remembering the little details about her, like how she prefers honey in her tea over sugar.

Nesta gave a stiff nod.

Cassian instantly knelt down to lift her up in both of his arms, careful not to jostle her ankle too much.

As he began the trek to the cabin, Nesta turned her face toward his. While he had been learning more about her these past few months, there were still some things he did not yet understand. And there were things about him that she’d been wanting to understand.

Feeling her gaze, he looked back at her.

She took a deep breath. “In the weeks after the war, I was drowning,” she recalled calmly. “I was struggling to deal with all that happened in the war, from fighting the king to dealing with my father’s death to coming to terms with my powers.” Her voice fell into a whisper. “Do you think I was ready to deal with...whatever I may have felt for you at the time on top of that? Do you think I would’ve wanted to visit you and see firsthand the after-effects of a war that I was already having nightmares about each night?”

With a somber look darkening his face — an expression that Nesta wasn’t sure she’d ever seen grace his face before — Cassian stopped.

Squeezing her more tightly in his arms, he raised her a little higher so he could bring his face closer to hers. “I’m so sorry, Nesta,” he said. “I’ve...failed you so many times. I chose to be bitter. I was hurt that you appeared to despise me while I was in love with you.”

While she could sense his apology was genuine, there was still more she needed to know and comprehend. And more that he needed to realize. “You promised more time with me out on the battlefield, then abandoned me. Then, you agreed to send me away to live here in the mountains against my will. Is that love to you?” she wondered sadly. “You told me that you didn’t understand how my sisters could love me. Would you call that love, too?”

A tear shone in Cassian’s eye as he shook his head vigorously. “No, absolutely not,” he insisted. “I realize how wrong I’ve been. I’m so sorry I gave into my pain and tried to hurt you the way I felt you had hurt me. I hope, in time, you can forgive me.”

Nesta found she couldn’t reply. Not just yet. She’d been wrestling with thoughts of how he treated her in the past, compared to the way he’d made her feel as of late.

Cassian soon resumed walking, striding through the snow with determined steps and an intense, serious facial expression.

The rest of the journey to the cabin was quiet, but once Cassian stepped upon the porch outside the front door, Nesta held up the palm of her hand and rested it upon his chest, catching his attention. “Cassian, I want to forgive you,” she confessed softly. “But I… I need to see that I can trust you.”

Cassian nodded, turning his head down. “I understand,” he said. “You don’t know how much I wish we could start over. That we could go back to the end of the war, so I could be there for you afterwards,” he stated wistfully.

Nesta moved her hand up to his cheek, capturing his gaze again. “Then, let’s start over.”

“What?” he asked, puzzled.

“Begin again by making me a promise, and prove to me that you can keep it this time,” she proposed.

Cassian took a deep breath before tilting his head down and staring deep into her steel eyes. “My only regrets in this life are the ways I’ve failed you and how I’ve wasted time that could’ve been spent better with you, Nesta. We will have that time now. I promise.”

He tightened his grasp on her, and to his astonishment, she lifted her head up and planted a sweet, brief kiss upon his lips.

When she pulled back, she rested her forehead against his. “It just felt like something was missing after such a promise,” she admitted with a slight grin playing at her lips. Cassian let out a low chuckle.

“Don’t screw up this time,” she added in a whisper.

“There’s no way I’m losing you this time, sweetheart.”

________________________________________________________________

A/N: In writing this, I realized that I wished there were more synonyms for “stare” because I am ALL ABOUT intense gazes between Nesta and Cassian! So apologies for the overuse of the word.

Anyway, I hope you liked it! I was pretty determined to include a Nessian kiss in here, but obviously those two still have a lot to heal through here...more than a oneshot allows :) so thank goodness ACOSF is almost here to do that for us! I had hoped to finish this fic weeks ago so there was a good chunk of time before the release but here we are. (While I am DYING for this book, I do feel a tinge of sadness over the fact that most of my Nessian fics will no longer be canon-compliant! XD)

Thank you for reading and thanks again @hereforthemoment for the fic inspiration!

#a court of silver flames #nesta archeron #nessian #nesta #cassian #nesta x cassian #acotar #acomaf #acowar #acofas #acosf #a court of thorns and roses #a court of mist and fury #a court of wings and ruin #a court of frost and starlight #post-acofas #nessian fanfiction #fanfiction

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minchanslut · 4 years

Text

At Your Service

Pairing: F!Reader x Escort!MinChan Word count: 2.4K

You sighed deeply, feeling the warm water cascade down your shoulders, taking some of the tension you had built up on your muscles along with it, but that alone wasn’t enough. The immense stress that your job put on you along with so many nights of sleeping alone had started to get to you. You wouldn’t say that you were one to feel incomplete while not in the company of a significant other, but as your needs grew, you found it harder to satiate them yourself, often leaving yourself feeling unsatisfied. You craved the touch of someone else.

Of course, you attempted to follow the trend of meeting people on dating apps and engaging in one night stands, but you were quick to realise that it simply wasn’t for you after having two separate experiences which left you deeply disappointed, and wondering whether men were even able to make women orgasm anymore. After telling your friend of your encounters and how you’ve given up hope on dating apps she suggested you hire an escort, if what you were looking for was just great sex. You dismissed her idea, saying that such a service would only be a waste of money and that you were bound to find someone who would be able to give you what you need, for free at that. But you had no such luck, not even after four months. It was almost as frustrating for your friend as it was for you, seeing as she had to put up with your constant whining and complaining. Even after months had passed she was still adamant about how you should at least try her suggestion, claiming that she heard of an extremely luxurious escort lounge through a coworker. It took some time, but eventually you gave in and decided to test the waters, though still quite skeptical, you had little hopes for what was to come. You had made an “appointment”, as they called it, about a week before, telling yourself you needed time to prepare, both physically and mentally. The website, which insured complete secrecy, offered a wide variety of escorts to choose from, which only made it harder for you to take your pick. After spending hours scrolling on your phone, reading the description provided of each escort and thoroughly analyzing their photos, you decided to go for a guy named Chris. His photo provided a glimpse of his toned muscles and charming smile, but not much else. You chose not to dwindle on your decision for too long, fearing that you would change your mind and end up back at square one.

A week later you found yourself walking through the doors of a lavish club which seemed more like a 5-star hotel. There were both men and women dressed in expensive attire throughout the room. You timidly searched for the front desk, hoping whoever was there wouldn’t poke fun at your anxious state. Thankfully you were greeted with an understanding smile by a woman named Mia, who gave you a brief explanation of how everything worked. She would tell you which room your escort would be waiting in, and would announce to them that you were on your way and all you had to do was make it there in one piece. Seemed simple enough. Before you left she assured you that you had nothing to be worried about and that you were in good hands.

“It’s not too late to turn back.” you told yourself, but if you did so you would lose both the experience and your deposit. Before you knew it you were already standing in front of Chris’ room, realizing then there really was no turning back. Chris was already standing at the door frame by the time you arrived. He greeted you with a smile, and allowed you to come inside, immediately offering you something to drink. You admitted to being too nervous to drink anything and he nodded in understanding.

“Is there anything I can do to help ease your nerves? You know, before we start?”

You could only shrug, scratching your head awkwardly.

“Okay how about, I eat your pussy? Would that calm you down a bit?”

You felt your cheeks heat up at his coarseness, but you went along with it nonetheless. That is why you were here after all.

Chris approached you slowly, sitting down on the bed beside you, helping you out of both your bottoms before ridding himself of his shirt. You couldn’t help but stare at his toned arms and defined abs, and you would’ve stared at them for much longer if his touch hadn’t pulled you away from your thoughts. He instructed you to straddle him as he laid down. He chuckled when you gave him a confused look.

“This way you can set your own pace, is that alright?”

You decided to go along with it,as you figured that he would know what he’s doing. He guided you towards his face, your aching pussy spread out in front of him.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

You took a deep breath and lowered yourself, providing Chris with direct access to your heat. He placed kitten licks on your clit, allowing you to get accustomed to the situation before wrapping his lips around the small bud and sucking harshly. You got the impression that Chris was enjoying himself just as much as you were, as he was moaning against your clit, the vibrations making your legs shake in pleasure. Chris’ hands found themselves holding onto your waist, helping you maintain balance as you grinded against his tongue, practically fucking his face. Your moans grew louder as your orgasm approached, your toes curled up as you pulled away, your pussy convulsing vigorously. You collapsed beside him as he sat up, wiping your juices from his chin with the back of his hand.

“Do you need a minute or do you wanna go again?”

You asked yourself if he was insane, how could you go again after cumming that intensely. And yet no more than 5 minutes after your first orgasm you found yourself on all fours in front of Chris, who was thrusting into you at an incredible speed. He had his chest pressed against your back and you could feel his chiseled abs on your skin. He had one hand supporting his weight and the other rubbing your clit. Every so often he would plant chaste kisses on your back and shoulders, followed by praise that made you melt.

“You feel so good, I won’t last much longer, shit.”

And he really didn’t, though neither did you. But mere moments later you were right back where you started, ready for another round.

From then on you found yourself seeing Chris once a month, twice if you were lucky.

You felt your muscles contort, an evident frown forming on your face as you refreshed the page once more only to receive the same notification. Due to your busy schedule the days you could make an appointment to see Chris were very limited, but luck had always been on your side and you were able to see him on the days you were free without any difficulties, until now that is. Your frustration grew as you continuously refreshed the website but were still met with the words “No slots available”

You could easily be considered a regular there, but you hadn’t been with anyone other than Chris. You were unsure whether to just give up and visit the following month, maybe even making an appointment several weeks in advance this time, or to simply go for someone else. You really didn’t feel like going through the trouble of searching for someone else, seeing as it was already difficult for you to pick the first time. You were close to giving up on your search until you discovered a rather convenient quiz the website provided, which claimed to help you find the perfect sexual partner for you. After hesitantly clicking on the link you were redirected to a page with various questions regarding your kinks, desires and fantasies. It was a rather quick quiz that certainly didn’t beat around the bush. After calculating your results you were met with the name Minho in bold letters, along with a short description of him right beside his photo. You opted to trust their recommendation and booked a session with Minho for later that week.

You walked into the building with less confidence than in the recent months, yet still not as apprehensive as the first time. You were nervous about what this new experience might be like, but you were excited nonetheless, wondering what Minho would do differently than Chris. Heading over to the front desk you greeted the receptionist whom you’ve grown fairly friendly with over the recent months. You made casual small talk as she typed away on her computer before stopping abruptly and looking up at you with a puzzled look on her face.

“Do you not have a session with Chris tonight?”

Your cheeks flushed as you avoided her gaze, announcing that you were, in fact, there to see Minho. She cocked her eyebrow at you, smirking slightly and continued without another word. You shrugged it off, bidding her a farewell as you began heading towards the room you had been assigned, rolling your eyes when she shouted “Have fun!” from behind you.

You knocked twice and Minho opened the door almost immediately, clearly expecting you.

He was dressed simply, button up and black dress pants. His hair was pushed back, slightly damp from what you assumed was gel. He invited you inside and was quick to comment about how he had seen you before but never expected you to go for anyone other than Chris.

“It’s quite an honor, actually, to have some fun with Chris’ plaything. Or is it the other way around, hm?”

There was only silence, which caused Minho to sigh. He made his way behind you, helping you slip off your coat as he whispered in your ear.

“No need to be so tense, I’m here to help you unwind after all.”

He ran his hands up and down your arms as he nipped and sucked on the exposed area of your neck. His hands then traveled to your sides, fingers gently tugging at the hem of your shirt before pulling it over your head. His fingers softly traced the skin of your abdomen while he walked forward, leading you towards the bed. He planted wet kisses down your spine, getting lower with each kiss and pulling down your pants in the process. Once you were left in nothing but your undergarments he gently pushed you down onto the bed. You were at a 90 degree angle, your upper body laying on the bed as your knees pressed onto the floor supporting your lower half. Minho ran his hand up and down your back, humming at your reaction.

“Eager, aren’t we? Maybe I should just give you what you want.”

He wasted no time waiting for an answer as he placed a small kiss on your pussy through your panties. He moved onto your inner thighs, leaving chaste kisses on the supple skin. He could feel your legs beginning to shake with anticipation and he was quick to return his attention to your aching pussy, licking a long stripe up your clothed folds. Minho pushed your panties aside as he pressed his finger against your entrance.

“Shit, you’re already getting wet, but you can do better than that, right?”

He slid his finger in deeper, curling it upwards as his lips found their way around your clit, sucking on the bundle of nerves. He pumped his finger in and out of you at a slow pace, taking care to give enough attention to your clit. He withdrew his finger, only to collect your juices with his index and middle finger before sliding them back in, groaning in satisfaction.

“You’re taking my fingers so well, can’t believe you’re so tight after being such a whore for Chris”

You felt yourself clench at his words, burying your face in the sheets to muffle your whine.

Your relationship with Chris was purely one of give and take. He provided you with a service which you paid for. You had no feelings for him and were sure he had none for you. Yet, choosing Minho over him this one time felt as if you were being unfaithful, but it also made your pussy ache with need for Minho’s touch. You wanted to feel him inside you, and you desperately wanted him to be the one to make you cum over and over again. He picked up his pace and had replaced his mouth with his thumb, which was now rubbing circles on your clit.

Minho caught on to your attempt at trying to keep yourself quiet and clicked his tongue. With his free hand he grabbed hold of your hair, raising your head slightly so that your face was no longer against the mattress. His new position meant that it was now harder for him to reach your clit, but his index and middle finger never once stopped pumping in and out of you.

“Now, now, if you don’t make any sound how am I supposed to know whether or not I’m doing a good job. Just for that I might not allow you to cum.”

“No, please, I’m so close.”

Your words caused him to smirk, seemingly strengthening his ego.

“Well, if that’s the case, I’d much rather have you cum on my cock, what do you say?” he said, removing his fingers from your heat. He helped you up, allowing you to sit on the bed properly. You eyed him closely as he removed his belt, his pants following soon after. He was left in only his white button up, of which half the buttons were now undone, and his boxers, the shape of his hard cock clearly visible. Minho unclasped your bra and helped you out of your panties, before slipping out of his boxers himself. He took the time to roll a condom onto his length, spreading your wetness onto the head of his dick. He pulled away for a moment, rubbing his thumb over your clit, followed but his palm slapping your pussy a few times. You felt your legs twitch as you ached to be filled up once more. He lined himself up at your entrance, but to your dismay stopping halfway to look over at the door which had previously been locked, swing open.

You glanced over Minho’s shoulder to see Chris, who still hadn’t finished his sentence, come through the door calling your name, clearly not knowing you would be preoccupied with Minho.

“Mia told me that you’d be in this room, my session got canceled so I figured we could have some fun. Oh, am I interrupting?”

#bang chan smut #lee know smut #skz smut #stray kids smut #chris bang smut #lee minho smut #stray kids lee minho smut #bang chan scenarios #skz chan smut #skz chris smut #stray kids chan smut #stray kids chris smut #skz lee minho smut #skz lee know smut #stray kids lee know smut #lee minho scenarios #lee know scenarios #skz scenarios

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havenoffandoms · 3 years

Text

Man’s Best Friend

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29786457/chapters/73307826#workskin

Summary: When Eskel can’t stomach any human interaction, Lambert brings in the big guns.

This is just an excuse to write some Lil Bleater and Eskel fluff. Check out the link on AO3 for the series @creativwit and I have created (titled the Eskel Fluff Dump, to go with our Eskel Whump Dump, because we’re creative like that).

Lambert knows that today is not a good day for Eskel when he sees his brother trudging into the kitchen, hair still tousled from where it rested on his pillow all night, and still in his cotton braies and shirt he always wears to bed. Eskel isn't in the habit of not cleaning up before breakfast. In fact, on most occasions when Lambert came down for breakfast Eskel will have been awake for hours already, either getting a headstart on his chores or reading in the library. Not today, it seems. Today Eskel looks like shit.

And Lambert tells him that in the nicest, most caring way possible.

"You, brother, look like you've been dragged by a zeugl through the shitty sewers of both Novigrad and Oxenfurt."

Lambert's easy banter, meant to lighten Eskel's sour mood, only earns him a raised middle finger in response. Which is strange in and of itself, because Eskel is not one for rude gestures. Eskel can destroy a man's reputations using only his words and wit. Lambert knows because he's witnessed it once in his lifetime and to this day the innkeep in Ard Carraigh will let anyone who mentions the name Eskel sleep and eat for free in his establishment.

"Okay, tough crowd," Lambert clicks his tongue once, wrecking his brain for a way to engage Eskel. The latter picks up an apple and a jug of water (at least Lambert hopes it's water and not ale… or vodka) before shuffling out of the kitchen again without sparing Lambert a glance or a word.

Strange. Lambert really should investigate.

__________

"Hey Geralt!"

"Lambert."

Lambert finds Geralt in the stables mucking out Roach's stall. Lambert makes sure to pat his own gelding on the nose in greeting before addressing his brother again.

"Seen Eskel this morning?" Lambert asks casually, as if he's not still internally freaking out at just how terrible their brother looked this morning. Geralt glances up at Lambert briefly, and if Lambert wasn't as well-versed in Geralt's body language he would have missed the concern flash in his yellowish eyes.

"Briefly as he was heading down for breakfast."

"Alright. So maybe you can tell me what crawled up his ass and died there?"

Geralt shrugs his shoulders and resumes his shovelling motion.

"He didn't speak much."

"Exactly. Usually he at least spares a good morning. Not even that! He flipped me off this morning," Lambert adds for emphasis, because if Geralt is unwilling to see the severity of the situation then Lambert will make him see it.

"You probably had it coming."

"Beside the point, as usual, pretty boy. Eskel doesn't do shit like that."

"He's only human. Every man has a breaking point."

Lambert throws his hands up in the air dramatically and rolls his eyes at Geralt in an exasperated manner. How does the bard do it, Lambert wonders! It's like Geralt is doing his best to be dense.

"Fine! If you're no help, maybe papa Vesemir will know."

With those words, Lambert leaves the stables and heads straight for the library where he's sure to find the old man.

__________

"No Lambert, I haven't seen Eskel this morning," Vesemir informs him without looking up from the book he's reading, "though I heard him toss and turn all night."

"Probably why he went back to bed this morning after I saw him," Lambert muses. Vesemir looks up then, one eyebrow raised in question.

"Eskel went back to bed?" the old witcher asks, worry barely noticeable in his tone but Lambert just knows . "That's not like him."

"Exactly what I thought."

"Did he say anything to you when you saw him?"

Lambert describes their encounter to Vesemir and watches the man's frown deepen when Lambert mentions that Eskel didn't even bother to get dressed. So Lambert isn't crazy. It is odd seeing Eskel this way.

"This is peculiar," Vesemir comments when Lambert is done, "very peculiar. Did you three drink last night?"

"Nope." Lambert probably takes too much pride in that single statement. So what? He's not drank a drop in two days, where's his medal? "Nope, we all had an early night. Unless Eskel hides a stash of secret alcohol and fisstech from us. If he does, then Vesemir can you please tell him that it's rude not to share with his brothers?"

Vesemir rolls his eyes at that statement, but the worried frown doesn't subside. Lambert is starting to feel agitated himself. If Eskel isn't willing to talk to any of them, if he's intent on avoiding all of them, then how is Lambert supposed to help? Suddenly, an idea hits him. He manages a quick "Be right back!" in Vesemir's general direction before he leaves the library. He takes the steps two by two and jumps down the last five before dashing to the stables once again. Geralt is long gone, but that doesn't matter. Lambert doesn't need pretty boy's help to carry out his plan.

__________

"Come on, you stupid son of a bitch," Lambert curses as he tries to tie a leash around Lil Bleater's neck, "your dad needs some goat loving!"

Lil Bleater bleats indignantly, then hisses and coughs at him. Lambert didn't even know goats could do that! Creatures from hell they are, he thinks to himself as he grabs Lil Bleater by the horns when she tries to headbutt him in the family jewels.

"You little shit! How are you so tame around Eskel? What does he do to earn your love, she-devil?"

Lil Bleater manages to dislodge her head from Lambert's grasp and once again aims straight for his nuts. Lambert is quick enough to dodge, the Goddess be blessed, and the goat catches him in the thigh instead. Behind him, Lambert hears Scorpion huff and nicker at his predicament. Lambert glares at the stallion over his shoulder.

"I swear to the Gods, you're no horse! Admit it! You're a person trapped in the body of a horse."

Scorpion whinnies in response, then turns his back on Lambert to eat his oats in peace. Lambert will maintain that Scorpion is no regular horse until the day he dies. That horse is far too clever for his own good! Lambert puts those thoughts to one side for the time being. He's got an angry goat to tame. Maybe he should get Geralt to help?

Lambert heaves a sigh. The things he'll do for his brother.

__________

Lambert resorts to using Axii to get the she-devil inside the keep, past Vesemir's attention and up the stairs to Eskel's room. Whatever it is that's troubling Eskel, Lambert is convinced that a cuddle from his faithful Lil Bleater will chase all the dark thoughts away. At least Lambert hopes it will. He's not sure how easily he can sneak a horse into the keep. Yes, Scorpion is his plan B. Your point?

When Lambert reaches Eskel's door, he lifts Axii and tightens his grip on the leash in case Lil Bleater attempts a flash escape. The goat takes several seconds to gather her wits and get her bearings, but to Lambert's surprise she doesn't bleat, or scream, or cough or hiss, when she sees him standing so close to her. Instead, she stares at Eskel's bedroom door and her little tail starts wagging furiously. Aha. So she's been here before, has she? Eskel, Eskel… what would papa Vesemir say?

Lambert knocks on the door, a small smile gracing his lips when he sees the goat bounce around him in excitement. Alright, even Lambert has to admit that the thing is cute when she's not trying to headbut him in the nuts.

"Eskel?"

"Go away," comes the muffled response.

"Alright I will, but first there's someone here who wants to see you."

Lil Bleater chooses this exact moment to let out a heartbroken bleat. Her human is right there, behind this very door, so why isn't she getting to see him yet? Lambert's grin grows when he opens the door and lets the goat run inside the room, heading straight for Eskel's bed. She leaps onto the mattress easily, like she's probably done countless times before. Eskel, who is currently buried under the covers, shifts when he feels Lil Bleater lick at his face. A large hand comes to pet her behind the ear, causing Lil Bleater's tail to wag even more energetically than before.

"Hey girl," Lambert hears Eskel greet her, the gravel in his voice completely gone, "hey, watcha doin' up here?"

"Let's just say uncle Lambert knew that her dad wasn't feeling up to human interaction today, so he thought he'd bring in the big guns."

Eskel peeks at Lambert over his shoulder and his expression softens. He still looks like shit - dark rings under his eyes, hair sticking out, and the funky smell in the room tells Lambert Eskel hasn't opened a window in, oh, probably decades. But despite all of this, there's a smile tugging at the edges of Eskel's lips when Lil Bleater insistently licks at his scars.

"Thank you," he whispers sincerely, "for understanding."

"Hey brother, what is family for? If you need us we'll be about the keep somewhere."

Eskel nods before curling up under the covers again. Lil Bleater finally settles as well and plops down next to Eskel, nestled in the warm spot created by Eskel pulling his legs halfway up to his chest in a foetal position. Lambert's smirk softens into a smile at the sight. Eskel and Lil Bleater, friends for life. Lambert gently closes the door behind him and gives the two some well-deserved privacy.

As Lambert heads downstairs again, whistling a happy tune on his way, he can't help but feel grateful that he doesn't have to resort to his plan B.

#eskel #eskel the witcher #the witcher eskel #lambert #lambert the witcher #the witcher lambert #geralt of rivia #witcher geralt #lil bleater #fluff #eskel & lambert #lambert & geralt #lambert & vesemir #eskel & lil bleater

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comrade-meow · 3 years

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For a long time, academic feminism in America has been closely allied to the practical struggle to achieve justice and equality for women. Feminist theory has been understood by theorists as not just fancy words on paper; theory is connected to proposals for social change. Thus feminist scholars have engaged in many concrete projects: the reform of rape law; winning attention and legal redress for the problems of domestic violence and sexual harassment; improving women’s economic opportunities, working conditions, and education; winning pregnancy benefits for female workers; campaigning against the trafficking of women and girls in prostitution; working for the social and political equality of lesbians and gay men.

Indeed, some theorists have left the academy altogether, feeling more comfortable in the world of practical politics, where they can address these urgent problems directly. Those who remain in the academy have frequently made it a point of honor to be academics of a committed practical sort, eyes always on the material conditions of real women, writing always in a way that acknowledges those real bodies and those real struggles. One cannot read a page of Catharine MacKinnon, for example, without being engaged with a real issue of legal and institutional change. If one disagrees with her proposals--and many feminists disagree with them--the challenge posed by her writing is to find some other way of solving the problem that has been vividly delineated.

Feminists have differed in some cases about what is bad, and about what is needed to make things better; but all have agreed that the circumstances of women are often unjust and that law and political action can make them more nearly just. MacKinnon, who portrays hierarchy and subordination as endemic to our entire culture, is also committed to, and cautiously optimistic about, change through law--the domestic law of rape and sexual harassment and international human rights law. Even Nancy Chodorow, who, in The Reproduction of Mothering, offered a depressing account of the replication of oppressive gender categories in child-rearing, argued that this situation could change. Men and women could decide, understanding the unhappy consequences of these habits, that they will henceforth do things differently; and changes in laws and institutions can assist in such decisions.

Feminist theory still looks like this in many parts of the world. In India, for example, academic feminists have thrown themselves into practical struggles, and feminist theorizing is closely tethered to practical commitments such as female literacy, the reform of unequal land laws, changes in rape law (which, in India today, has most of the flaws that the first generation of American feminists targeted), the effort to get social recognition for problems of sexual harassment and domestic violence. These feminists know that they live in the middle of a fiercely unjust reality; they cannot live with themselves without addressing it more or less daily, in their theoretical writing and in their activities outside the seminar room.

In the United States, however, things have been changing. One observes a new, disquieting trend. It is not only that feminist theory pays relatively little attention to the struggles of women outside the United States. (This was always a dispiriting feature even of much of the best work of the earlier period.) Something more insidious than provincialism has come to prominence in the American academy. It is the virtually complete turning from the material side of life, toward a type of verbal and symbolic politics that makes only the flimsiest of connections with the real situation of real women.

Feminist thinkers of the new symbolic type would appear to believe that the way to do feminist politics is to use words in a subversive way, in academic publications of lofty obscurity and disdainful abstractness. These symbolic gestures, it is believed, are themselves a form of political resistance; and so one need not engage with messy things such as legislatures and movements in order to act daringly. The new feminism, moreover, instructs its members that there is little room for large-scale social change, and maybe no room at all. We are all, more or less, prisoners of the structures of power that have defined our identity as women; we can never change those structures in a large-scale way, and we can never escape from them. All that we can hope to do is to find spaces within the structures of power in which to parody them, to poke fun at them, to transgress them in speech. And so symbolic verbal politics, in addition to being offered as a type of real politics, is held to be the only politics that is really possible.

These developments owe much to the recent prominence of French postmodernist thought. Many young feminists, whatever their concrete affiliations with this or that French thinker, have been influenced by the extremely French idea that the intellectual does politics by speaking seditiously, and that this is a significant type of political action. Many have also derived from the writings of Michel Foucault (rightly or wrongly) the fatalistic idea that we are prisoners of an all-enveloping structure of power, and that real-life reform movements usually end up serving power in new and insidious ways. Such feminists therefore find comfort in the idea that the subversive use of words is still available to feminist intellectuals. Deprived of the hope of larger or more lasting changes, we can still perform our resistance by the reworking of verbal categories, and thus, at the margins, of the selves who are constituted by them.

One American feminist has shaped these developments more than any other. Judith Butler seems to many young scholars to define what feminism is now. Trained as a philosopher, she is frequently seen (more by people in literature than by philosophers) as a major thinker about gender, power, and the body. As we wonder what has become of old-style feminist politics and the material realities to which it was committed, it seems necessary to reckon with Butler’s work and influence, and to scrutinize the arguments that have led so many to adopt a stance that looks very much like quietism and retreat.

II.

It is difficult to come to grips with Butler’s ideas, because it is difficult to figure out what they are. Butler is a very smart person. In public discussions, she proves that she can speak clearly and has a quick grasp of what is said to her. Her written style, however, is ponderous and obscure. It is dense with allusions to other theorists, drawn from a wide range of different theoretical traditions. In addition to Foucault, and to a more recent focus on Freud, Butler’s work relies heavily on the thought of Louis Althusser, the French lesbian theorist Monique Wittig, the American anthropologist Gayle Rubin, Jacques Lacan, J.L. Austin, and the American philosopher of language Saul Kripke. These figures do not all agree with one another, to say the least; so an initial problem in reading Butler is that one is bewildered to find her arguments buttressed by appeal to so many contradictory concepts and doctrines, usually without any account of how the apparent contradictions will be resolved.

A further problem lies in Butler’s casual mode of allusion. The ideas of these thinkers are never described in enough detail to include the uninitiated (if you are not familiar with the Althusserian concept of “interpellation,” you are lost for chapters) or to explain to the initiated how, precisely, the difficult ideas are being understood. Of course, much academic writing is allusive in some way: it presupposes prior knowledge of certain doctrines and positions. But in both the continental and the Anglo-American philosophical traditions, academic writers for a specialist audience standardly acknowledge that the figures they mention are complicated, and the object of many different interpretations. They therefore typically assume the responsibility of advancing a definite interpretation among the contested ones, and of showing by argument why they have interpreted the figure as they have, and why their own interpretation is better than others.

We find none of this in Butler. Divergent interpretations are simply not considered--even where, as in the cases of Foucault and Freud, she is advancing highly contestable interpretations that would not be accepted by many scholars. Thus one is led to the conclusion that the allusiveness of the writing cannot be explained in the usual way, by positing an audience of specialists eager to debate the details of an esoteric academic position. The writing is simply too thin to satisfy any such audience. It is also obvious that Butler’s work is not directed at a non-academic audience eager to grapple with actual injustices. Such an audience would simply be baffled by the thick soup of Butler’s prose, by its air of in-group knowingness, by its extremely high ratio of names to explanations.

To whom, then, is Butler speaking? It would seem that she is addressing a group of young feminist theorists in the academy who are neither students of philosophy, caring about what Althusser and Freud and Kripke really said, nor outsiders, needing to be informed about the nature of their projects and persuaded of their worth. This implied audience is imagined as remarkably docile. Subservient to the oracular voice of Butler’s text, and dazzled by its patina of high-concept abstractness, the imagined reader poses few questions, requests no arguments and no clear definitions of terms.

Still more strangely, the implied reader is expected not to care greatly about Butler’s own final view on many matters. For a large proportion of the sentences in any book by Butler--especially sentences near the end of chapters--are questions. Sometimes the answer that the question expects is evident. But often things are much more indeterminate. Among the non-interrogative sentences, many begin with “Consider…” or “One could suggest…”--in such a way that Butler never quite tells the reader whether she approves of the view described. Mystification as well as hierarchy are the tools of her practice, a mystification that eludes criticism because it makes few definite claims.

Take two representative examples:

What does it mean for the agency of a subject to presuppose its own subordination? Is the act of presupposing the same as the act of reinstating, or is there a discontinuity between the power presupposed and the power reinstated? Consider that in the very act by which the subject reproduces the conditions of its own subordination, the subject exemplifies a temporally based vulnerability that belongs to those conditions, specifically, to the exigencies of their renewal.

And:

Such questions cannot be answered here, but they indicate a direction for thinking that is perhaps prior to the question of conscience, namely, the question that preoccupied Spinoza, Nietzsche, and most recently, Giorgio Agamben: How are we to understand the desire to be as a constitutive desire? Resituating conscience and interpellation within such an account, we might then add to this question another: How is such a desire exploited not only by a law in the singular, but by laws of various kinds such that we yield to subordination in order to maintain some sense of social “being”?

Why does Butler prefer to write in this teasing, exasperating way? The style is certainly not unprecedented. Some precincts of the continental philosophical tradition, though surely not all of them, have an unfortunate tendency to regard the philosopher as a star who fascinates, and frequently by obscurity, rather than as an arguer among equals. When ideas are stated clearly, after all, they may be detached from their author: one can take them away and pursue them on one’s own. When they remain mysterious (indeed, when they are not quite asserted), one remains dependent on the originating authority. The thinker is heeded only for his or her turgid charisma. One hangs in suspense, eager for the next move. When Butler does follow that “direction for thinking,” what will she say? What does it mean, tell us please, for the agency of a subject to presuppose its own subordination? (No clear answer to this question, so far as I can see, is forthcoming.) One is given the impression of a mind so profoundly cogitative that it will not pronounce on anything lightly: so one waits, in awe of its depth, for it finally to do so.

In this way obscurity creates an aura of importance. It also serves another related purpose. It bullies the reader into granting that, since one cannot figure out what is going on, there must be something significant going on, some complexity of thought, where in reality there are often familiar or even shopworn notions, addressed too simply and too casually to add any new dimension of understanding. When the bullied readers of Butler’s books muster the daring to think thus, they will see that the ideas in these books are thin. When Butler’s notions are stated clearly and succinctly, one sees that, without a lot more distinctions and arguments, they don’t go far, and they are not especially new. Thus obscurity fills the void left by an absence of a real complexity of thought and argument.

Last year Butler won the first prize in the annual Bad Writing Contest sponsored by the journal Philosophy and Literature, for the following sentence:

The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the rearticulation of power.

Now, Butler might have written: “Marxist accounts, focusing on capital as the central force structuring social relations, depicted the operations of that force as everywhere uniform. By contrast, Althusserian accounts, focusing on power, see the operations of that force as variegated and as shifting over time.” Instead, she prefers a verbosity that causes the reader to expend so much effort in deciphering her prose that little energy is left for assessing the truth of the claims. Announcing the award, the journal’s editor remarked that “it’s possibly the anxiety-inducing obscurity of such writing that has led Professor Warren Hedges of Southern Oregon University to praise Judith Butler as `probably one of the ten smartest people on the planet.’” (Such bad writing, incidentally, is by no means ubiquitous in the “queer theory” group of theorists with which Butler is associated. David Halperin, for example, writes about the relationship between Foucault and Kant, and about Greek homosexuality, with philosophical clarity and historical precision.)

Butler gains prestige in the literary world by being a philosopher; many admirers associate her manner of writing with philosophical profundity. But one should ask whether it belongs to the philosophical tradition at all, rather than to the closely related but adversarial traditions of sophistry and rhetoric. Ever since Socrates distinguished philosophy from what the sophists and the rhetoricians were doing, it has been a discourse of equals who trade arguments and counter-arguments without any obscurantist sleight-of-hand. In that way, he claimed, philosophy showed respect for the soul, while the others’ manipulative methods showed only disrespect. One afternoon, fatigued by Butler on a long plane trip, I turned to a draft of a student’s dissertation on Hume’s views of personal identity. I quickly felt my spirits reviving. Doesn’t she write clearly, I thought with pleasure, and a tiny bit of pride. And Hume, what a fine, what a gracious spirit: how kindly he respects the reader’s intelligence, even at the cost of exposing his own uncertainty.

III.

Butler’s main idea, first introduced in Gender Trouble in 1989 and repeated throughout her books, is that gender is a social artifice. Our ideas of what women and men are reflect nothing that exists eternally in nature. Instead they derive from customs that embed social relations of power.

This notion, of course, is nothing new. The denaturalizing of gender was present already in Plato, and it received a great boost from John Stuart Mill, who claimed in The Subjection of Women that “what is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing.” Mill saw that claims about “women’s nature” derive from, and shore up, hierarchies of power: womanliness is made to be whatever would serve the cause of keeping women in subjection, or, as he put it, “enslav[ing] their minds.” With the family as with feudalism, the rhetoric of nature itself serves the cause of slavery. “The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural…. But was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?”

Mill was hardly the first social constructionist. Similar ideas about anger, greed, envy, and other prominent features of our lives had been commonplace in the history of philosophy since ancient Greece. And Mill’s application of familiar notions of social-construction to gender needed, and still needs, much fuller development; his suggestive remarks did not yet amount to a theory of gender. Long before Butler came on the scene, many feminists contributed to the articulation of such an account.

In work published in the 1970s and 1980s, Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin argued that the conventional understanding of gender roles is a way of ensuring continued male domination in sexual relations, as well as in the public sphere. They took the core of Mill’s insight into a sphere of life concerning which the Victorian philosopher had said little. (Not nothing, though: in 1869 Mill already understood that the failure to criminalize rape within marriage defined woman as a tool for male use and negated her human dignity.) Before Butler, MacKinnon and Dworkin addressed the feminist fantasy of an idyllic natural sexuality of women that only needed to be “liberated”; and argued that social forces go so deep that we should not suppose we have access to such a notion of “nature.” Before Butler, they stressed the ways in which male-dominated power structures marginalize and subordinate not only women, but also people who would like to choose a same-sex relationship. They understood that discrimination against gays and lesbians is a way of enforcing the familiar hierarchically ordered gender roles; and so they saw discrimination against gays and lesbians as a form of sex discrimination.

Before Butler, the psychologist Nancy Chodorow gave a detailed and compelling account of how gender differences replicate themselves across the generations: she argued that the ubiquity of these mechanisms of replication enables us to understand how what is artificial can nonetheless be nearly ubiquitous. Before Butler, the biologist Anne Fausto Sterling, through her painstaking criticism of experimental work allegedly supporting the naturalness of conventional gender distinctions, showed how deeply social power-relations had compromised the objectivity of scientists: Myths of Gender (1985) was an apt title for what she found in the biology of the time. (Other biologists and primatologists also contributed to this enterprise.) Before Butler, the political theorist Susan Moller Okin explored the role of law and political thought in constructing a gendered destiny for women in the family; and this project, too, was pursued further by a number of feminists in law and political philosophy. Before Butler, Gayle Rubin’s important anthropological account of subordination, The Traffic in Women (1975), provided a valuable analysis of the relationship between the social organization of gender and the asymmetries of power.

So what does Butler’s work add to this copious body of writing? Gender Trouble and Bodies that Matter contain no detailed argument against biological claims of “natural” difference, no account of mechanisms of gender replication, and no account of the legal shaping of the family; nor do they contain any detailed focus on possibilities for legal change. What, then, does Butler offer that we might not find more fully done in earlier feminist writings? One relatively original claim is that when we recognize the artificiality of gender distinctions, and refrain from thinking of them as expressing an independent natural reality, we will also understand that there is no compelling reason why the gender types should have been two (correlated with the two biological sexes), rather than three or five or indefinitely many. “When the constructed status of gender is theorized as radically independent of sex, gender itself becomes a free-floating artifice,” she writes.

From this claim it does not follow, for Butler, that we can freely reinvent the genders as we like: she holds, indeed, that there are severe limits to our freedom. She insists that we should not naively imagine that there is a pristine self that stands behind society, ready to emerge all pure and liberated: “There is no self that is prior to the convergence or who maintains `integrity’ prior to its entrance into this conflicted cultural field. There is only a taking up of the tools where they lie, where the very `taking up’ is enabled by the tool lying there.” Butler does claim, though, that we can create categories that are in some sense new ones, by means of the artful parody of the old ones. Thus her best known idea, her conception of politics as a parodic performance, is born out of the sense of a (strictly limited) freedom that comes from the recognition that one’s ideas of gender have been shaped by forces that are social rather than biological. We are doomed to repetition of the power structures into which we are born, but we can at least make fun of them; and some ways of making fun are subversive assaults on the original norms.

The idea of gender as performance is Butler’s most famous idea, and so it is worth pausing to scrutinize it more closely. She introduced the notion intuitively, in Gender Trouble, without invoking theoretical precedent. Later she denied that she was referring to quasi-theatrical performance, and associated her notion instead with Austin’s account of speech acts in How to Do Things with Words. Austin’s linguistic category of “performatives” is a category of linguistic utterances that function, in and of themselves, as actions rather than as assertions. When (in appropriate social circumstances) I say “I bet ten dollars,” or “I’m sorry,” or “I do” (in a marriage ceremony), or “I name this ship…,” I am not reporting on a bet or an apology or a marriage or a naming ceremony, I am conducting one.

Butler’s analogous claim about gender is not obvious, since the “performances” in question involve gesture, dress, movement, and action, as well as language. Austin’s thesis, which is restricted to a rather technical analysis of a certain class of sentences, is in fact not especially helpful to Butler in developing her ideas. Indeed, though she vehemently repudiates readings of her work that associate her view with theater, thinking about the Living Theater’s subversive work with gender seems to illuminate her ideas far more than thinking about Austin.

Nor is Butler’s treatment of Austin very plausible. She makes the bizarre claim that the fact that the marriage ceremony is one of dozens of examples of performatives in Austin’s text suggests “that the heterosexualization of the social bond is the paradigmatic form for those speech acts which bring about what they name.” Hardly. Marriage is no more paradigmatic for Austin than betting or ship-naming or promising or apologizing. He is interested in a formal feature of certain utterances, and we are given no reason to suppose that their content has any significance for his argument. It is usually a mistake to read earth-shaking significance into a philosopher’s pedestrian choice of examples. Should we say that Aristotle’s use of a low-fat diet to illustrate the practical syllogism suggests that chicken is at the heart of Aristotelian virtue? Or that Rawls’s use of travel plans to illustrate practical reasoning shows that A Theory of Justice aims at giving us all a vacation?

Leaving these oddities to one side, Butler’s point is presumably this: when we act and speak in a gendered way, we are not simply reporting on something that is already fixed in the world, we are actively constituting it, replicating it, and reinforcing it. By behaving as if there were male and female “natures,” we co-create the social fiction that these natures exist. They are never there apart from our deeds; we are always making them be there. At the same time, by carrying out these performances in a slightly different manner, a parodic manner, we can perhaps unmake them just a little.

Thus the one place for agency in a world constrained by hierarchy is in the small opportunities we have to oppose gender roles every time they take shape. When I find myself doing femaleness, I can turn it around, poke fun at it, do it a little bit differently. Such reactive and parodic performances, in Butler’s view, never destabilize the larger system. She doesn’t envisage mass movements of resistance or campaigns for political reform; only personal acts carried out by a small number of knowing actors. Just as actors with a bad script can subvert it by delivering the bad lines oddly, so too with gender: the script remains bad, but the actors have a tiny bit of freedom. Thus we have the basis for what, in Excitable Speech, Butler calls “an ironic hopefulness.”

Up to this point, Butler’s contentions, though relatively familiar, are plausible and even interesting, though one is already unsettled by her narrow vision of the possibilities for change. Yet Butler adds to these plausible claims about gender two other claims that are stronger and more contentious. The first is that there is no agent behind or prior to the social forces that produce the self. If this means only that babies are born into a gendered world that begins to replicate males and females almost immediately, the claim is plausible, but not surprising: experiments have for some time demonstrated that the way babies are held and talked to, the way their emotions are described, are profoundly shaped by the sex the adults in question believe the child to have. (The same baby will be bounced if the adults think it is a boy, cuddled if they think it is a girl; its crying will be labeled as fear if the adults think it is a girl, as anger if they think it is a boy.) Butler shows no interest in these empirical facts, but they do support her contention.

If she means, however, that babies enter the world completely inert, with no tendencies and no abilities that are in some sense prior to their experience in a gendered society, this is far less plausible, and difficult to support empirically. Butler offers no such support, preferring to remain on the high plane of metaphysical abstraction. (Indeed, her recent Freudian work may even repudiate this idea: it suggests, with Freud, that there are at least some presocial impulses and tendencies, although, typically, this line is not clearly developed.) Moreover, such an exaggerated denial of pre-cultural agency takes away some of the resources that Chodorow and others use when they try to account for cultural change in the direction of the better.

Butler does in the end want to say that we have a kind of agency, an ability to undertake change and resistance. But where does this ability come from, if there is no structure in the personality that is not thoroughly power’s creation? It is not impossible for Butler to answer this question, but she certainly has not answered it yet, in a way that would convince those who believe that human beings have at least some pre-cultural desires--for food, for comfort, for cognitive mastery, for survival--and that this structure in the personality is crucial in the explanation of our development as moral and political agents. One would like to see her engage with the strongest forms of such a view, and to say, clearly and without jargon, exactly why and where she rejects them. One would also like to hear her speak about real infants, who do appear to manifest a structure of striving that influences from the start their reception of cultural forms.

Butler’s second strong claim is that the body itself, and especially the distinction between the two sexes, is also a social construction. She means not only that the body is shaped in many ways by social norms of how men and women should be; she means also that the fact that a binary division of sexes is taken as fundamental, as a key to arranging society, is itself a social idea that is not given in bodily reality. What exactly does this claim mean, and how plausible is it?

Butler’s brief exploration of Foucault on hermaphrodites does show us society’s anxious insistence to classify every human being in one box or another, whether or not the individual fits a box; but of course it does not show that there are many such indeterminate cases. She is right to insist that we might have made many different classifications of body types, not necessarily focusing on the binary division as the most salient; and she is also right to insist that, to a large extent, claims of bodily sex difference allegedly based upon scientific research have been projections of cultural prejudice--though Butler offers nothing here that is nearly as compelling as Fausto Sterling’s painstaking biological analysis.

And yet it is much too simple to say that power is all that the body is. We might have had the bodies of birds or dinosaurs or lions, but we do not; and this reality shapes our choices. Culture can shape and reshape some aspects of our bodily existence, but it does not shape all the aspects of it. “In the man burdened by hunger and thirst,” as Sextus Empiricus observed long ago, “it is impossible to produce by argument the conviction that he is not so burdened.” This is an important fact also for feminism, since women’s nutritional needs (and their special needs when pregnant or lactating) are an important feminist topic. Even where sex difference is concerned, it is surely too simple to write it all off as culture; nor should feminists be eager to make such a sweeping gesture. Women who run or play basketball, for example, were right to welcome the demolition of myths about women’s athletic performance that were the product of male-dominated assumptions; but they were also right to demand the specialized research on women’s bodies that has fostered a better understanding of women’s training needs and women’s injuries. In short: what feminism needs, and sometimes gets, is a subtle study of the interplay of bodily difference and cultural construction. And Butler’s abstract pronouncements, floating high above all matter, give us none of what we need.

IV.

Suppose we grant Butler her most interesting claims up to this point: that the social structure of gender is ubiquitous, but we can resist it by subversive and parodic acts. Two significant questions remain. What should be resisted, and on what basis? What would the acts of resistance be like, and what would we expect them to accomplish?

Butler uses several words for what she takes to be bad and therefore worthy of resistance: the “repressive,” the “subordinating,” the “oppressive.” But she provides no empirical discussion of resistance of the sort that we find, say, in Barry Adam’s fascinating sociological study The Survival of Domination (1978), which studies the subordination of blacks, Jews, women, and gays and lesbians, and their ways of wrestling with the forms of social power that have oppressed them. Nor does Butler provide any account of the concepts of resistance and oppression that would help us, were we really in doubt about what we ought to be resisting.

Butler departs in this regard from earlier social-constructionist feminists, all of whom used ideas such as non-hierarchy, equality, dignity, autonomy, and treating as an end rather than a means, to indicate a direction for actual politics. Still less is she willing to elaborate any positive normative notion. Indeed, it is clear that Butler, like Foucault, is adamantly opposed to normative notions such as human dignity, or treating humanity as an end, on the grounds that they are inherently dictatorial. In her view, we ought to wait to see what the political struggle itself throws up, rather than prescribe in advance to its participants. Universal normative notions, she says, “colonize under the sign of the same.”

This idea of waiting to see what we get--in a word, this moral passivity--seems plausible in Butler because she tacitly assumes an audience of like-minded readers who agree (sort of) about what the bad things are--discrimination against gays and lesbians, the unequal and hierarchical treatment of women--and who even agree (sort of) about why they are bad (they subordinate some people to others, they deny people freedoms that they ought to have). But take that assumption away, and the absence of a normative dimension becomes a severe problem.

Try teaching Foucault at a contemporary law school, as I have, and you will quickly find that subversion takes many forms, not all of them congenial to Butler and her allies. As a perceptive libertarian student said to me, Why can’t I use these ideas to resist the tax structure, or the antidiscrimination laws, or perhaps even to join the militias? Others, less fond of liberty, might engage in the subversive performances of making fun of feminist remarks in class, or ripping down the posters of the lesbian and gay law students’ association. These things happen. They are parodic and subversive. Why, then, aren’t they daring and good?

Well, there are good answers to those questions, but you won’t find them in Foucault, or in Butler. Answering them requires discussing which liberties and opportunities human beings ought to have, and what it is for social institutions to treat human beings as ends rather than as means--in short, a normative theory of social justice and human dignity. It is one thing to say that we should be humble about our universal norms, and willing to learn from the experience of oppressed people. It is quite another thing to say that we don’t need any norms at all. Foucault, unlike Butler, at least showed signs in his late work of grappling with this problem; and all his writing is animated by a fierce sense of the texture of social oppression and the harm that it does.

Come to think of it, justice, understood as a personal virtue, has exactly the structure of gender in the Butlerian analysis: it is not innate or “natural,” it is produced by repeated performances (or as Aristotle said, we learn it by doing it), it shapes our inclinations and forces the repression of some of them. These ritual performances, and their associated repressions, are enforced by arrangements of social power, as children who won’t share on the playground quickly discover. Moreover, the parodic subversion of justice is ubiquitous in politics, as in personal life. But there is an important difference. Generally we dislike these subversive performances, and we think that young people should be strongly discouraged from seeing norms of justice in such a cynical light. Butler cannot explain in any purely structural or procedural way why the subversion of gender norms is a social good while the subversion of justice norms is a social bad. Foucault, we should remember, cheered for the Ayatollah, and why not? That, too, was resistance, and there was indeed nothing in the text to tell us that that struggle was less worthy than a struggle for civil rights and civil liberties.

There is a void, then, at the heart of Butler’s notion of politics. This void can look liberating, because the reader fills it implicitly with a normative theory of human equality or dignity. But let there be no mistake: for Butler, as for Foucault, subversion is subversion, and it can in principle go in any direction. Indeed, Butler’s naively empty politics is especially dangerous for the very causes she holds dear. For every friend of Butler, eager to engage in subversive performances that proclaim the repressiveness of heterosexual gender norms, there are dozens who would like to engage in subversive performances that flout the norms of tax compliance, of non-discrimination, of decent treatment of one’s fellow students. To such people we should say, you cannot simply resist as you please, for there are norms of fairness, decency, and dignity that entail that this is bad behavior. But then we have to articulate those norms--and this Butler refuses to do.

What precisely does Butler offer when she counsels subversion? She tells us to engage in parodic performances, but she warns us that the dream of escaping altogether from the oppressive structures is just a dream: it is within the oppressive structures that we must find little spaces for resistance, and this resistance cannot hope to change the overall situation. And here lies a dangerous quietism.

If Butler means only to warn us against the dangers of fantasizing an idyllic world in which sex raises no serious problems, she is wise to do so. Yet frequently she goes much further. She suggests that the institutional structures that ensure the marginalization of lesbians and gay men in our society, and the continued inequality of women, will never be changed in a deep way; and so our best hope is to thumb our noses at them, and to find pockets of personal freedom within them. “Called by an injurious name, I come into social being, and because I have a certain inevitable attachment to my existence, because a certain narcissism takes hold of any term that confers existence, I am led to embrace the terms that injure me because they constitute me socially.” In other words: I cannot escape the humiliating structures without ceasing to be, so the best I can do is mock, and use the language of subordination stingingly. In Butler, resistance is always imagined as personal, more or less private, involving no unironic, organized public action for legal or institutional change.

Isn’t this like saying to a slave that the institution of slavery will never change, but you can find ways of mocking it and subverting it, finding your personal freedom within those acts of carefully limited defiance? Yet it is a fact that the institution of slavery can be changed, and was changed--but not by people who took a Butler-like view of the possibilities. It was changed because people did not rest content with parodic performance: they demanded, and to some extent they got, social upheaval. It is also a fact that the institutional structures that shape women’s lives have changed. The law of rape, still defective, has at least improved; the law of sexual harassment exists, where it did not exist before; marriage is no longer regarded as giving men monarchical control over women’s bodies. These things were changed by feminists who would not take parodic performance as their answer, who thought that power, where bad, should, and would, yield before justice.

Butler not only eschews such a hope, she takes pleasure in its impossibility. She finds it exciting to contemplate the alleged immovability of power, and to envisage the ritual subversions of the slave who is convinced that she must remain such. She tells us--this is the central thesis of The Psychic Life of Power--that we all eroticize the power structures that oppress us, and can thus find sexual pleasure only within their confines. It seems to be for that reason that she prefers the sexy acts of parodic subversion to any lasting material or institutional change. Real change would so uproot our psyches that it would make sexual satisfaction impossible. Our libidos are the creation of the bad enslaving forces, and thus necessarily sadomasochistic in structure.

Well, parodic performance is not so bad when you are a powerful tenured academic in a liberal university. But here is where Butler’s focus on the symbolic, her proud neglect of the material side of life, becomes a fatal blindness. For women who are hungry, illiterate, disenfranchised, beaten, raped, it is not sexy or liberating to reenact, however parodically, the conditions of hunger, illiteracy, disenfranchisement, beating, and rape. Such women prefer food, schools, votes, and the integrity of their bodies. I see no reason to believe that they long sadomasochistically for a return to the bad state. If some individuals cannot live without the sexiness of domination, that seems sad, but it is not really our business. But when a major theorist tells women in desperate conditions that life offers them only bondage, she purveys a cruel lie, and a lie that flatters evil by giving it much more power than it actually has.

Excitable Speech, Butler’s most recent book, which provides her analysis of legal controversies involving pornography and hate speech, shows us exactly how far her quietism extends. For she is now willing to say that even where legal change is possible, even where it has already happened, we should wish it away, so as to preserve the space within which the oppressed may enact their sadomasochistic rituals of parody.

As a work on the law of free speech, Excitable Speech is an unconscionably bad book. Butler shows no awareness of the major theoretical accounts of the First Amendment, and no awareness of the wide range of cases such a theory will need to take into consideration. She makes absurd legal claims: for example, she says that the only type of speech that has been held to be unprotected is speech that has been previously defined as conduct rather than speech. (In fact, there are many types of speech, from false or misleading advertising to libelous statements to obscenity as currently defined, which have never been claimed to be action rather than speech, and which are nonetheless denied First Amendment protection.) Butler even claims, mistakenly, that obscenity has been judged to be the equivalent of “fighting words.” It is not that Butler has an argument to back up her novel readings of the wide range of cases of unprotected speech that an account of the First Amendment would need to cover. She just has not noticed that there is this wide range of cases, or that her view is not a widely accepted legal view. Nobody interested in law can take her argument seriously.

But let us extract from Butler’s thin discussion of hate speech and pornography the core of her position. It is this: legal prohibitions of hate speech and pornography are problematic (though in the end she does not clearly oppose them) because they close the space within which the parties injured by that speech can perform their resistance. By this Butler appears to mean that if the offense is dealt with through the legal system, there will be fewer occasions for informal protest; and also, perhaps, that if the offense becomes rarer because of its illegality we will have fewer opportunities to protest its presence.

Well, yes. Law does close those spaces. Hate speech and pornography are extremely complicated subjects on which feminists may reasonably differ. (Still, one should state the contending views precisely: Butler’s account of MacKinnon is less than careful, stating that MacKinnon supports “ordinances against pornography” and suggesting that, despite MacKinnon’s explicit denial, they involve a form of censorship. Nowhere does Butler mention that what MacKinnon actually supports is a civil damage action in which particular women harmed through pornography can sue its makers and its distributors.)

But Butler’s argument has implications well beyond the cases of hate speech and pornography. It would appear to support not just quietism in these areas, but a much more general legal quietism--or, indeed, a radical libertarianism. It goes like this: let us do away with everything from building codes to non-discrimination laws to rape laws, because they close the space within which the injured tenants, the victims of discrimination, the raped women, can perform their resistance. Now, this is not the same argument radical libertarians use to oppose building codes and anti-discrimination laws; even they draw the line at rape. But the conclusions converge.

If Butler should reply that her argument pertains only to speech (and there is no reason given in the text for such a limitation, given the assimilation of harmful speech to conduct), then we can reply in the domain of speech. Let us get rid of laws against false advertising and unlicensed medical advice, for they close the space within which poisoned consumers and mutilated patients can perform their resistance! Again, if Butler does not approve of these extensions, she needs to make an argument that divides her cases from these cases, and it is not clear that her position permits her to make such a distinction.

For Butler, the act of subversion is so riveting, so sexy, that it is a bad dream to think that the world will actually get better. What a bore equality is! No bondage, no delight. In this way, her pessimistic erotic anthropology offers support to an amoral anarchist politics.

VI.

When we consider the quietism inherent in Butler’s writing, we have some keys to understanding Butler’s influential fascination with drag and cross-dressing as paradigms of feminist resistance. Butler’s followers understand her account of drag to imply that such performances are ways for women to be daring and subversive. I am unaware of any attempt by Butler to repudiate such readings.

But what is going on here? The woman dressed mannishly is hardly a new figure. Indeed, even when she was relatively new, in the nineteenth century, she was in another way quite old, for she simply replicated in the lesbian world the existing stereotypes and hierarchies of male-female society. What, we may well ask, is parodic subversion in this area, and what a kind of prosperous middle-class acceptance? Isn’t hierarchy in drag still hierarchy? And is it really true (as The Psychic Life of Power would seem to conclude) that domination and subordination are the roles that women must play in every sphere, and if not subordination, then mannish domination?

In short, cross-dressing for women is a tired old script--as Butler herself informs us. Yet she would have us see the script as subverted, made new, by the cross-dresser’s knowing symbolic sartorial gestures; but again we must wonder about the newness, and even the subversiveness. Consider Andrea Dworkin’s parody (in her novel Mercy) of a Butlerish parodic feminist, who announces from her posture of secure academic comfort:

The notion that bad things happen is both propagandistic and inadequate…. To understand a woman’s life requires that we affirm the hidden or obscure dimensions of pleasure, often in pain, and choice, often under duress. One must develop an eye for secret signs--the clothes that are more than clothes or decoration in the contemporary dialogue, for instance, or the rebellion hidden behind apparent conformity. There is no victim. There is perhaps an insufficiency of signs, an obdurate appearance of conformity that simply masks the deeper level on which choice occurs.

In prose quite unlike Butler’s, this passage captures the ambivalence of the implied author of some of Butler’s writings, who delights in her violative practice while turning her theoretical eye resolutely away from the material suffering of women who are hungry, illiterate, violated, beaten. There is no victim. There is only an insufficiency of signs.

Butler suggests to her readers that this sly send-up of the status quo is the only script for resistance that life offers. Well, no. Besides offering many other ways to be human in one’s personal life, beyond traditional norms of domination and subservience, life also offers many scripts for resistance that do not focus narcissistically on personal self-presentation. Such scripts involve feminists (and others, of course) in building laws and institutions, without much concern for how a woman displays her own body and its gendered nature: in short, they involve working for others who are suffering.

The great tragedy in the new feminist theory in America is the loss of a sense of public commitment. In this sense, Butler’s self-involved feminism is extremely American, and it is not surprising that it has caught on here, where successful middle-class people prefer to focus on cultivating the self rather than thinking in a way that helps the material condition of others. Even in America, however, it is possible for theorists to be dedicated to the public good and to achieve something through that effort.

Many feminists in America are still theorizing in a way that supports material change and responds to the situation of the most oppressed. Increasingly, however, the academic and cultural trend is toward the pessimistic flirtatiousness represented by the theorizing of Butler and her followers. Butlerian feminism is in many ways easier than the old feminism. It tells scores of talented young women that they need not work on changing the law, or feeding the hungry, or assailing power through theory harnessed to material politics. They can do politics in safety of their campuses, remaining on the symbolic level, making subversive gestures at power through speech and gesture. This, the theory says, is pretty much all that is available to us anyway, by way of political action, and isn’t it exciting and sexy?

In its small way, of course, this is a hopeful politics. It instructs people that they can, right now, without compromising their security, do something bold. But the boldness is entirely gestural, and insofar as Butler’s ideal suggests that these symbolic gestures really are political change, it offers only a false hope. Hungry women are not fed by this, battered women are not sheltered by it, raped women do not find justice in it, gays and lesbians do not achieve legal protections through it.

Finally there is despair at the heart of the cheerful Butlerian enterprise. The big hope, the hope for a world of real justice, where laws and institutions protect the equality and the dignity of all citizens, has been banished, even perhaps mocked as sexually tedious. Judith Butler’s hip quietism is a comprehensible response to the difficulty of realizing justice in America. But it is a bad response. It collaborates with evil. Feminism demands more and women deserve better.

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