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sebbybooks · 3 years

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Wreck My Daydream

Part Two

Sebastian Stan x Fanfiction

18+

Tagged🎄

@wayward-mikaelson

Cataglottism

(n.) kissing with tongue

I’m already wet and Sebastian barely even touched me.

I hardly gave myself a moment to be ashamed or even stir in the crass words I was using even if I had only thought them. Like a diary I suppose there was no need to lie to myself considering it was one hundred percent true. I, Nellie Lennox, was unabashedly met with unending desires that washed away my trepidations that led up to this moment.

In its place I felt this newfound sense of possibilities that I wasn’t actually making an ass out of myself with my sudden confession of feelings for Sebastian. In my defense I didn’t just wake up one morning after having some epiphany as to why I wanted to be with him. The thought of us together made itself at home in the back of my mind.

Almost like a what if. . .

However, I couldn’t help but be terrified of all the ways it could go wrong. What if I had made things weird between us forcing us apart? Life would be a bitter existence if Sebastian wasn’t around in some capacity. For the longest time I tried to find him in different relationships. It is a messed up philosophy, but it almost worked. Whenever things would get too serious it nearly terrified me. I was their someday and they were my maybe. I owed this last relationship that is still so freshly cut more than that.

I owed myself that.

On the unique and rare chance I somehow got lost in a very realistic maladaptive daydream, I’m pretty certain Sebastian wants this too. Just thinking about what he had told me seconds ago made my heartbeat drum to a dizzy rhythm. Imagining myself getting fucked to the beat of it was a completely different type of sensation.

Retraining my focus on the now I could see it in Sebastian’s face all the wheels going around in his head. Confusion? Uncertainty? Regret?

“You don’t get to do that.” I tell him. I felt like I was going to climb out of my own skin if he left me suspended in the silence for a second longer. Sebastian tipped his face closer to mine, our lips gingerly brushing against each other. Perhaps he was feeling ambivalent in regards of his feelings for me? After all this was sprung on him in the middle of the night.

Sebastian shook his head as if he was at war with himself. “I want to.” His voice was strained and dangerously low, like something was causing him utter misery being this close, yet not knowing exactly when to pull away.

“Then why don’t you.” I dared him.

I was growing impatient with this slow burn we had somehow started. I wanted to play with this fire. If I got burned in the end by his touch then so be it. At least I would forever be marked with a reminder of knowing that I at least went after something I wanted with no apology. I wanted to see how far he was willingly to go.

Sebastian removed his hand from the security of being wrapped around me. I feigned a disappointed sigh at the lack of contact. My entire body must have been on autopilot , because I didn’t recognize the position I was in. I practically sat in his lap with one leg wrapped around him and the other one mindlessly dangling over the bed. Of course the mind reader that Sebastian was naturally grabbed ahold of the side of my thigh and wrapped it around his back.

It wasn’t like I was naive to sex or never had my fair share of romantic conquest. Regardless of my experiences I still felt like a gigantic ball of nerves. The way he stared down at me with a heated look in his eyes as if he wanted to posses every inch of me. Hell, I felt like I could come undone from that alone.

The hand that was planted on my back slowly drifted downward trailing the curve of my backside gripping my ass through my thinly silk hunter green shorts that matched the top. Earlier I had berated myself for wearing scantly clad pajamas to bed. Now I am thanking my lucky stars I opted out of the option of wearing a red Christmas onesie that had polar bears wearing scarfs around their necks. They were ones my mother insisted the whole family wear.

If I had I probably would not have been able to feel his erection that was restrained in his sweatpants. Trying to situate myself closer I rocked into him slightly, massaging myself on him. My ears didn’t miss the subtle groan Sebastian let out from the feel of my weight pressing further into him.

His silence wasn’t lost on me and he still hadn’t answered my question so I did it again. I wanted him to say something. My nervousness abated at this point. I twined my arms around his neck, grinding myself against him again and again. All the while Sebastian watched my every movement with a hint of a star struck look in his eyes. The feeling was certainly mutual I was even shocking myself at my behavior.

“Nellie,” Sebastian finally says, voice husky. He usually only ever calls me by my nickname so I was more than sure that he was not fully himself.

“I’m a big girl Sebastian I can handle whatever you need to say.” I tell him, holding in my breath.

“Alright,” he said with uncertainty. “You and me, this, it’s not a good idea.” His tone was barely audible and even more so he sounded hurt. Everything in me froze.

“And why is that?” I asked him more confused than ever. Suddenly feeling absolutely self conscious as I over analyzed every intimate word I just shared with him. I was even more horrified by the fact that I was dry humping my best friend.

He let out a darkly laugh. “It’s pretty damn obvious Nells.” Sebastian says rather ominously.

“...It’s not actually.” For someone that wants nothing out of this, Sebastian was holding on to me like an anchor and I on the other hand just wanted to get away and sink.

Admittedly, I was losing this game of tug a war. There was only so much I was willing to endure even I had my limits. “You’re giving me whiplash Sebastian .” I tell him honestly, “ I’m not like those other girls you go for that are satisfied with you just dangling yourself in front of them like a piece of cake that I can’t have. I meant what I said when I told you I didn’t say it just to hear you say the same.” My voice could only rise so high in pitch.

I definitely didn’t want to wake up the upstairs guest that would love nothing more than to recap this conversation over breakfast. Then like an unexpected bolt of lighting startling you from a distance, Sebastian kissed me.

Sebastian

I am a selfish bastard.

My mind fell quiet when I looked at her. I wanted to swim in the serenity and peacefulness that was this smart, vibrant, sexy, and uniqueness this woman possessed. I only wondered even in the darkness could Nellie see my eyes as plainly as I can see hers. If so could she see the shame reflecting in them? I could feel the nagging weight of my conscience siting on both of my shoulders, arguing back and forth over what I should and shouldn’t do. It was kind of ironic that the devil in my ear insisted that I give in to the angel in my lap.

God knows I waited for her and that I would keep waiting if I had to in this lifetime or the next. It was always going to be Nellie for me. I wanted to tell her all of this, but the longer I held on to this slice of heaven I was given during this random hour. I also knew that this moment was fleeting. I basked in the way she looked at me, the way she held on to me like I was an object of virtue. I also got a sample of what it would be like to lose her the second she began to slip away on her own accord. So, I did what any poor fool would do in my position. I kissed her.

It wasn’t exactly suave or how I imagined it would go. My mouth sort of crushed against her unmoving lips in a rushed and unskilled manner. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what I was doing, I certainly could do a hell of a lot better than this. An yet, it was still like I predicted it would be, filled with pure unadulterated pleasure. Nellie’s lips were sweet and warm, exactly how I imagined forbidden fruit to taste like.

A perfect mixture of firm and softness that drove me wild. She flattened her hands on my bare chest as if to brace herself. Nellie pushed herself away, but her face was still so close to me. She didn’t speak and neither could I. I forced myself to look up at her and hoped that she could see I would do everything in my power to earn her forgiveness. That it was a mistake I will make right somehow.

“Nell,” I let out an exasperated breath. “ I have a need for you that goes deeper than just lust and I know that it will never truly be sated. The killer thing is I’m already at risk of losing you before I even had you.”

Nellie stared hazily up at me.“You already have me.” She whispered, our lips still grazing. Those four simple words set off a firework in me. This time when I kissed her our mouths came together like we needed to feed off of each other’s oxygen in order to survive. I’d suffer if I didn’t have it.

My mouth was greedy for hers, and I could imagine she felt the same. The moment I felt her lips slightly part open to let me in, less than a second our tongues slid together in a torrid and sensually slow pace. We kissed like a couple of eager teenagers. My heart threatened to leap from my chest when the tip of Nell’s tongue moved across my bottom lip. She tastes like gingerbread , mixed with some other divine flavor that I can only assume is Nellie. She arched herself closer into my chest and I could feel the points of her hardened nipples through her top. I seized the opportunity to press her body close because I needed more.

I wanted to feel the heat of her soft skin on mine. She returned her arms back around my neck tightly holding me in place as she angled her head kissing me back with the same ferocity. Deeply, and oh so thoroughly by the way she sucked on my tongue. I had a rough grip on her ass keeping Nellie steady as she straddled me. I was so damn hard for her. If my dick could get even harder it was bound to. Nellie did that thing again where she grinds down on my erection and I cursed at myself to not combust. I grabbed ahold of her hips guiding her to move faster, harder.

I kept telling myself to savor her, fucking take my time with this moment. I couldn’t just rip those tiny little shorts off and sink myself into her over and over until we’ve both had enough. But even then I would always need more of her. I wasn't a sentimental man, with Nellie I at least wanted to try. I wanted my first night with Nell to be a little less spontaneous than this. It wasn’t like I came prepared for festivities filled with endless fucks. Plus the added fact I couldn’t let things get too carried away especially since she still didn’t know what I have done.

Yeah, I am a very selfish bastard.

I didn’t want this to end. I wanted my mouth to explore every single part of Nellie. I wanted the taste of her to live on my tongue. I wanted to go as far as she and my consciousness would allow me.

“I need to touch you.” I panted, between every nip and kiss I left on the delicate area of skin under her jaw.

“You’re already touching me.” She says with a soft laugh, which was a melody to my ears. I was but at the same time I wasn’t. I needed to rid Nellie of any barrier that prevented me from branding her skin with my touch.

“This…off.” I tug gently on the bottom of her tank top before returning my hands to rest on her thighs, caressing them as I sucked on her neck for dear life. Going back and forth between grazing her neck with my teeth then licking over the area to soothe any imprint I’ve left.

Nellie crisscrossed her arms reaching for the hem of her top gracefully pulling it over her head. She purposely fell backwards onto the mattress aiming her shirt at my face. For as long as I’ve known Nell she was never one to be shy in her own skin.

“Imagine how unsexy that would have been if I hit my head on the headboard.”

“As long as you didn’t hurt yourself I would have just pretended that I didn’t see a thing.” I teased.

“Ah, to think they wonder where all of the good men have gone.” Nell scrunched up her nose pretending to be lost in critical thought.

I cock my head to the side. “Mm-hmm. Are you mocking me?”

“What if I am?”Her plump wet lips spread into a smile.

It was miracle I caught a word of what she said to me. I swallowed a groan as my eyes drift over the area of her body that was naked from the waist up. Nellie was clearly a stolen painting from the Louvre that I had no intention of returning. All I could do was stare.

With her legs still draped around me, my hands slide up the curve of her torso passing her ribs. I sensed that she was watching me, but I didn’t dare take my eyes off of her just yet. The pads of my fingers traced over to her breast and my mouth practically watered at the sight of them. She was ethereal.

“Don’t suddenly go mute on me Sebastian.” She let out a shaky breath.

I’ve heard her say my name a thousand times. Hearing her say it in this state created a feeling of warmth that filled my chest. I could only begin to imagine the different ways I wanted to hear her call out my name. My gift, my best friend, my Nellie. Those last words had a sting to them even as I thought them. Deep down I knew that was never going to be true.

I eased all the way down my tongue traveling around the dip of her navel. Creating a path up the center of her abdomen. I knew that Nell was extremely ticklish. The slightest form of contact would automatically turn her into a ninja. From the way she was pressing herself back into the mattress I knew she was trying her hardest not to flee. Of course I found it rather enticing so I made sure to spend extra time over the areas of her exposed skin I knew to be the most sensitive. Brushing the tip of my nose between her breast my mouth finally latched on to what I’ve been waiting for.

“So fucking beautiful.” I say as I graze my mouth over the stiff peak of her nipple. I was in awe over the ability that they simultaneously could feel hard yet felt extremely soft. I dragged the tip of my tongue around the bud of it in a languid movement before sucking it in deep. I loved listening to the sounds she made while I sucked and devoured as much as I could fit into my mouth. I wanted to hear a symphony of the noises that escaped from Nellie.

Going for one after the other not wanting to miss out on either. Nellie kept a limp hand pressed into my hair keeping me close as if I dared to stop.

Writhing underneath me Nellie gasped,“Touch me.”

Now she understood what I meant. My own body felt betrayed by my decision. I literally ached from pain and pleasure. Truthfully I wouldn’t opt for a better scenario than this. I would be more than gratified with giving Nellie an orgasm or two.

Still leaving featherlight kisses across her chest. With one hand I reach down and brushed along the dip of Nellie’s hip, then began to tug away at her shorts. To my surprise she was bare underneath. This was a new and uncharted territory we were crossing.

Tell me to stop, say that this is just the wrong time, tell me we would never work. Those words never escaped me, the sound of the goddamn doorbell intervened for her. My movements hesitated then shortly I picked up on inaudible chattering out in the hall. Nellie turned her head in the direction towards the door which I hoped like hell was locked. “Maybe we should go see what’s going on.” Her eyes widened.

“Or we could stay here and not shame the fact that I was two seconds away from wrapping your legs around my face while I tasted the slickness between your thighs. ” Nellie released a ragged breath and I meant every word.

To my dissatisfaction we were composed in under three minutes. I felt a strange sense of comfort and pride seeing that ever so often I’d catch Nellie looking in my direction smiling like she had some big secret she was bursting to tell. Which only made me feel like an even bigger asshole. The walk downstairs was surprisingly noisy. Someone had plugged the Christmas tree back up and there was a chilly wind breaking in as the front door came to an immediate shut.

Nellie’s parents were both moving around in a fast pace trying to find new spots to put a couple of suitcases. I had to swallow down a chuckle at the sight of their bold choice of pajamas. Nellie had already beaten me to the bottom of the staircase just as I rounded the corner of the spiral stairs.

“Cousin!” Vanessa squealed rushing over towards Nellie, who excitedly embraced her the same. They exchanged a few excitable words to each other that I tuned out. I was busy focusing on the six foot son of a bitch with a puppy dog expression on his face standing awkwardly behind them.

“Now you know Nells Bells you can’t have Christmas without good ole St. Nicholas can you?” She winked at a stone faced Nellie who just looked straight ahead at her ex boyfriend Nick. “I hope it’s okay I brought him over with me. I saw him at the airport dozed off in a chair.” Vanessa whispered as she leaned into Nell, like she just earned a gold star. Soon as Vanessa’s wild dark brown eyes caught ahold me I knew my bubble was about to pop.

“Something told me I was off the naughty list this year.” Vanessa bit at her glossed up lips and made a beeline towards me, wrapping her arms around my waist. She smelled like an overtly sweet perfume that tortured my sinuses. “Did you forget how to work a phone or what? I’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days. I miss you.” She cooed.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Nellie watching the two of us. This was my punishment.

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gigiree · 3 years

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With enough strength to be gentle

AO3 First chapter. Previous chapter here. Sasuhina month day 20: thunderous as a storm, gentle as a dew drop

“A-are you ready?”

He barely hears her soft tones over the thundering rain rattling his new screen door so hard, it clatters against the wood frame with a staccato groan that’s a bit eerie.

The lighting in his living room is dim and flickering, dozens of candles placed haphazardly on any flat surface because no one ever thought to update electrical grid in the old Uchiha district. That can be credited to the village Utilities’ Department lack of desire to brave the rumored ghosts, the actually decrepit utilities, and the surly last Uchiha who haunts the grounds. They’re alone in that sentiment, but it’s an annoyance that tugs at long buried hurts Sasuke would never admit to.

So he finds himself looking into her earnest eyes, her round face made even softer by the wavering warmth, hesitation clinging firmly to the corner of her pretty mouth and nervousness settled on her scrunched nose.

(And perhaps if he’d known better, he would’ve known that the flush in her cheeks was the fault of a fluttering attraction, but he should be forgiven for missing it, considering the circumstances.)

He smiles, a gentle, crooked quirk of his mouth that’s easy to miss in the dark, but Hinata sees more than most. He knows this small thing to be enough for her to get the message.

He closes his heavy lids and tilts his head forward.

Her chilled fingers brush back his bangs ever so carefully, he might’ve imagined her touch for all the contact she makes. He bites back the anxiety that raises the hairs on the back of his neck. The absolute contradiction to every instinct that’s ever kept him alive in his time as a shinobi, baring his vulnerable parts to someone who could easily stop his heart with a touch.

(Though he’s already admitted as much that she does with just a look, anyway.)

The cold in her touch makes its way to his temples, soothing the lingering headache that stays despite the herbal concoctions he’s choked down.

“I’m going to start now.”

“Hn.” There’s a heavy silence on her end, her tension threading to her hands so obviously, he opens his eyes suddenly, only to realize her face is mere inches from his own. It takes everything in him not to want to grasp her worried, little face and pull her into his orbit. His lips on hers, her hair tickling the edges of his jaw-

“S-Sasuke-san.”

“Don’t apologize. I did this to myself remember. Now get it off me.” He closes his eyes again.

Hinata makes a small sound of embarrassment or resolve, he’s not quite sure.

He wants to make a joke at her expense, but the words are caught on his throat as a sudden lance of pain bores into the space behind his eyes, and it feels like he’s being unraveled.

----

Pain. Exquisitely thin and sharp. It laces through every part of him, every thought, as the dull headache he’d been having is seemingly taken apart, bit by bit until he can distinguish each sensation in it as a singular experience.

The roiling of his guts, chills wracking his strong frame, the tang of blood in his mouth, the muscles of his eyes straining in extremis, sight torn between his two doujutsu, the Rinnegan pushing the source of pain and the Sharingan flaring to see past all of it. He's in danger of losing it, but he remembers her to keep hold on why he'd done this. Prior to this, he would've thought the memories to tether himself to consciousness would've been those involving Naruto, Sakura, Itachi and his family.

Fighting for the end of the world. Fighting for a dream inherited, fighting, endless fighting but...That had all ended hadn't it? He'd been lost in a peace everyone else had seemed to fall naturally into. He'd thought he'd been alone in that. But she was just as lost, if not more so. And she'd crashed into him, pulled forward by her own powerful gravity that she never seem to quite accept. And he'd fallen right into her orbit, hadn't he?

What a blind, hopeless fool he'd been. But he's changed. No longer a lodestone sinking into the earth. She'd forced him to move. He doesn't know if he'll ever be done thanking her for that.

So he does this for her.

He remembers stolen moments between the meandering she's done, little crossings where they'd gotten to know one another. He remembers her shining eyes, glinting with mischief when stealing from him, narrowing with suspicion whenever he'd pop by just to see her surprise so deliciously obvious, scrunching with happiness when he'd sit across from her during a Yakiniku gathering.

Shared glances through a crowd.

A strand of long, dark hair curling on his couch throw pillow. A bracelet with moonlight hanging off a silver chain, echoing the paleness of her gaze. Fireworks. Thin wires barely keeping an emaciated form tied to this life.

Distance to zero and his lips on hers, the cloying smell of red bean on her breath.

Stolen moments and kept secrets, just the both of them spinning lost and lonely underneath an old umbrella. Silly, lost, stupidly good, stubborn, misguided, scared, brave, pretty, sweet, strong, gentle, ever growing...Hinata.

His fingers claw at his hair, at his skin, begging for reprieve and then-

A singular touch to his forehead clears it all, like the first drop of rain in a drought riddled desert. The relief ripples across from the dull pressure centered on his botched seal, numbing, washing away the hurt and the loose ends of unraveled thoughts.

For a moment, it feels like Itachi’s poking his forehead again and there’s thunder and rain outside sounding almost too loud and resonant in his sensitive ears.

But when he opens his eyes, confusion and anger and irritation all sweep through him so incredibly visceral, he can’t help but fall to instinct and react.

It’s all too easy to slap the Hyuuga’s pathetically tiny hand away from his face, push her soft body to the wooden floor and hold a kunai to her slim, pale neck, his heavy form over hers as his Sharingan flares red, sending harsh shadows lancing across her terrified face. “You. Hyuuga. What did you to me? Did Naruto put you up to this?”

The venom coils deep in his words, dangerous and ready to strike. But as far as snakes go, he’s a generous one. Giving chances isn’t something people like him do often. He wracks his brain, but his thoughts are sluggish, dreadful. The last thing he remembers is a tearful Sakura, a pathetic attempt on his life with a poison kunai, Kakashi’s smug remarks, and Naruto’s livid expression reflected in the grimy water below them.

He supposes they managed to catch him after all. But it makes no sense. He’s interrupted by the sound of sniffling.

If there’s one thing Sasuke Uchiha has never been able to deal with, it’s the crying of those weaker than him. They always irritated him. Too loud. To messy. It made him want to run and fight someone worthy the instant they started. She doesn’t make a sound really. Just quiet, trembling breaths.

Her dark brows knit together so tightly, he thinks they’ll never come apart. She was always too weak. A ghost trailing at the back of their class, watching Naruto with flushed cheeks and her cowardice bending her spine in half.

He’s never had pity for people like her. People who can’t help themselves.

Yet when her tears spill over her thick, dark lashes and roll down those ridiculously round cheeks, disappearing into the thick carpet of her hair trailing on the wooden floor, there’s an ache somewhere in him that frustrates him more than anything.

And it sharpens into something excruciating that he can’t quite place when she silently mouths-

“I’m sorry.”

#SasuHina #sasuhina month #an object in motion #sasuke #Hinata Hyuga

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deus-ex-mona · 2 years

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Sekai wa Koi ni Ochiteiru: chord 5

Hi, this is Chapter 5 of the Sekai wa Koi ni Ochiteiru novel!

Kaname denseness index for this part: ♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎

Previous part (chord 4)

Next part (chord 6)

~Kaname’s Feelings~

“Misaki’s going.”

The message that Tsubomi sent him had ended abruptly like that.

Kaname, who had come to watch the fireworks with the boys in his class, looked around after confirming that he had not received any new messages. The narrow path to the shrine was lined with booths, and it had just started to become crowded with other spectators.

As the Sun set in the sky, lanterns were lit up to brighten the streets.

(Should I contact her after all?)

Kaname felt like it would be difficult to find just a single person amidst the sea of people.

“Sakura…”

Recalling the image of Misaki’s tearful face, Kaname’s hand paused in the middle of drafting his message.

When Misaki had stopped him in the school corridor, she seemed to have something to say. Even so, he had just left her, brushing her off with a cold attitude.

Misaki did not want for there to be a misunderstanding between them, just because she had been teased by the boys. Thinking about the incident calmly, Kaname was able to understand that much

“Just what am I doing…”

Frustrated with himself, Kaname impulsively dialled Misaki’s number. However, the dial tone continued to ring out, without any indication that the call would be picked up. Kaname hung up the call with a heavy sigh.

(Even if I were to look for her, where should I even begin to look?)

“There are girls… There are lots of girls. Girls in yukatas!” Mitsugu looked around enthusiastically, holding grilled corn and some cotton candy in his hands. The jinbei that he wore, which had the words “Pretty Boy” written on the back, made him stand out even in the crowd.

Listening to the roaring voice of Mitsugu, Kaname glanced down at his phone again. Considering the current situation, he felt as though he should have invited Misaki out from the very beginning.

Deciding on a proper meeting time and place, meeting up, going around the stalls, and watching the fireworks---.

(Aah, but, that’d be a date…)

They were not dating or anything. When club activities ended late, they would go home together. When they took shelter from the rain in a family restaurant, they had made inane conversation with each other. During the examination period, they had also studied together in the library.

Ever since Kaname entered High School, he found that he had been spending more time with Misaki than he did with anyone else. Before he knew it, it had become a natural occurrence to have her by his side.

“Is it normal to be teased for it?” Kaname muttered under his breath. Misaki hated being teased by others. Everything had happened because Kaname had given her a memo.

(And yet, I got angry with her…)

Kaname messed with his bangs in resignation.

(I really should apologise to her properly…)

Kaname reached for his phone to send a message, when his ringtone went off. He got his phone out in a hurry, but the name shown on the screen was not Misaki’s.

(Shuichi…?)

Even though Shuichi had come to see the fireworks as well, Kaname could not spot him anywhere.

When Kaname answered the call, he heard loud background chatter on the other end of the line, as though Shuichi was in the middle of a crowd. Owing to the noise, he found it difficult to hear Shuichi’s voice.

“I saw… Sakurai a while ago…”

“Eh, Sakurai? Where?!” Kaname blurted out loudly, pressing his phone to his ear.

“...She was caught up with some strange people. I’m looking for her now, but I can’t find her anywhere.”

(...She was caught up?)

“Where are you now?”

“Around the second Torii gate.”

Kaname began to run, gripping his phone and shoving people away.

~Misaki’s Feelings~

(The fireworks are going to start soon…)

Misaki looked up at the sky as she sat on the stone steps of the shrine, seeming to be at a loss. She managed to make it this far with just her courage, but she had gotten caught up in some people who seemed to be drunk University students, had managed to get blue stains on her yukata from some shaved ice syrup, and the sandals that she was not used to wearing caused her legs to hurt.

(Should I try contacting Akutsu? But, if he’s having fun with the other boys, he may not come even if he finds out that I’m here…)

They did not arrange to meet in the first place. Misaki was just clinging to the small hope that they could meet by chance.

“This really is no good… huh…” Misaki mumbled weakly. As she grabbed her yukata with both hands and looked down, some girls in yukatas casually walked by her. Hearing their voices, Misaki turned back to look towards the shrine.

It was then that she remembered that the girls in her class had said that the shrine was a famous shrine for love fulfilment.

She knew that she could not just sit at such a place forever.

(I want to see Akutsu…)

She would be able to take another step, if it was for the purpose of seeing him.

Misaki stood up, having made that resolution in her heart.

Even if her love was unable to come to fruition---.

(I don’t want to give up.)

✿~♪~✿

Perhaps it was because there was a fireworks festival that day, the administration office of the shrine, as well as the amulet sales counter were still in operation, with a shrine maiden seated behind it. Deciding to take a look since she was there, Misaki saw various amulets with different purposes, such as for traffic safety or academic achievements, arranged neatly in a wooden box.

Among the amulets, Misaki picked one up that had been embroidered with “Love Protection”. The Milky Way and some stars were embroidered on the indigo-coloured fabric. On the back was a cute embroidery of characters resembling Orihime and Hikoboshi.

“Tanabata… huh.”

The amulet seemed to be exclusively sold in July.

Looking up at the sky, Misaki noted that it was the same colour as the indigo amulet, with stars twinkling amidst the darkness.

(God… please let me see him, somehow…)

“I’ll take this.”

Making a wish on the amulet she had picked out, Misaki handed it to the shrine maiden to have it put into a paper bag. When she received the bag, planning on returning---.

“Sakurai!”

Suddenly hearing a voice yell her name, Misaki’s heart thumped loudly. Turning around, she saw Kaname dashing through the torii gate and running up to her.

(You’re kidding… really?)

She had just made her wish. Even so--- Kaname really came.

Misaki squeezed the paper bag in her grasp.

(I really… saw Akutsu…)

As Misaki looked on in disbelief, Kaname put a hand on his forehead as he tried to catch his breath. His forehead was drenched in sweat, as if he had run over as quickly as he could.

“Akutsu…?” Misaki called out fearfully.

Kaname exhaled the breath that had accumulated in his chest before raising his head. “Sakurai, you didn’t look at your phone, right?!”

“Eh, my phone?!” Misaki hurriedly untied her pouch and took her phone out. When she checked it, she found new messages displayed on the screen.

(Ah, there are messages from Akutsu!)

Misaki wondered why she had failed to notice the messages. She had even been using her phone throughout the evening.

“Sakurai, Shuichi told me that you were caught up with some weirdos… But I couldn’t find you at all, and you didn’t even pick up the phone!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t think that you’d contact me.”

“...You weren’t forced to do anything unpleasant, right?” Kaname stared at her.

“I wasn’t!” Misaki quickly shook her head. “I’m okay. I ran away immediately… Aku...tsu?”

Misaki looked at Kaname, who had his head down in resignation, in confusion. “Could it be… that you were worried about me?”

“Of course I was!” Kaname raised his head and blurted out strongly, causing Misaki to flinch in shock. “Sakurai, it’s dangerous… Why didn’t you contact me when you arrived?!”

“I-I’m sorry, I’m really sorry!” Misaki frantically apologised. Considering how angry Kaname had been earlier at school, she did not expect that he would search for her, and worriedly, at that. She genuinely could not believe her eyes when Kaname had appeared in front of her.

A warm heat blossomed in her chest and spread throughout her body. She did not think that Kaname should be this worried about her. But--- she was happy about it.

She was happy that he cared about her, even a little. Even though she thought that he would no longer talk to her.

“Thank you, Akutsu,” Misaki smiled shyly, her cheeks slightly reddened.

Kaname glanced at Misaki before quickly turning away stiffly. “I guess… I’ll contact Shuichi. I have to tell him that I found you…”

“Ah, okay…”

Kaname turned his back to Misaki as he exchanged a few words with Shuichi over the phone. Misaki looked at his back. She wondered what was on Kaname’s mind. She wondered if the reason why he had rushed over to her was solely out of worry.

(Is that just it? What does Akutsu… think about me?)

She wanted to hear it---.

Kaname kept his phone away and finally turned back to face Misaki. “It’s not time for the fireworks yet… Wanna take a look around the night stalls?”

“Ah, but, what about those you came with, Akutsu…?”

“I told them that I went to find you, Sakurai, so it’s all good.”

As Kaname started to walk, Misaki hurriedly chased after him.

“I’m fine by myself. I came alone, after all,” she said as she fell into step beside Kaname.

Kaname stopped walking and looked at Misaki. “Sakurai, do you hate being with me?”

“I don’t hate it! But…”

It was not that she hated it. Conversely, it made her so happy that she felt rather troubled.

Misaki’s face heated up, and she let her gaze drift to her feet.

The light of the lanterns that illuminated the path to the shrine extended throughout the vicinity. Misaki could hear lively voices, as well as festival music drifting out of the speakers.

“But…?”

When Misaki looked up slowly, she saw Kaname looking straight at her. As she hesitated to speak, Kaname opened his mouth. “Tell me what’s on your mind, Sakurai. I’ll hear you out properly… I want to know what you’re thinking.”

“I…”

(I want to be together with you…)

Without being able to say that single phrase, Misaki felt her entire body begin to heat up. She secretly clenched her clammy fists.

“I-I wanna eat… candy apples!”

Even though she had decided not to say anything, she found those words flying past her lips.

(What did I just say?!)

Kaname stared at her blankly.

“Ah, t-that’s not it… I like candy apples and I want to eat them, but that's not what I wanted to say!!”

Misaki had intended to tell Kaname that she wanted to walk around the night stalls together with him.

(He’s gonna think that I’m just a glutton!)

As Misaki panicked, Kaname covered his mouth with a hand. “...Pfft!”

“Akutsu…?”

“Sakurai… you’re funny…!!” Kaname began to laugh, his shoulders trembling in his unrestrained mirth.

“Aren’t you laughing too much, Akutsu?!”

“You really wanted to eat candy apples that much?” Kaname continued to laugh as he spoke, wheezing a little as though he found it difficult to breathe.

“...I told you that that’s not it,” Misaki muttered in embarrassment.

Kaname coughed lightly before sighing a little. Then, he straightened up his back, which had been leaning forward when he was doubling over in laughter. Though, his eyes were still twinkling in amusement.

“Well, let’s be off. To buy your candy apples, that is.”

Smiling at Kaname’s words, Misaki nodded. “Yeah.”

Her face had turned red…

It was a special fireworks festival.

It was a special Summer festival.

With the current conditions, Misaki felt like she could muster a little more courage than usual.

✿~♪~✿

As the time for the fireworks to start got closer, the number of people increased.

In order to avoid the crowds, Misaki sat down on a bench near a lamppost which was a distance away from the night stalls.

Eventually, Kaname returned to her side and offered one of the two candy apples he had in his hands to her. “Here.”

“Thank you,” Misaki thanked him as she received the candy apple, which was bright red and shiny, even through the transparent bag it was wrapped in. As she removed the bag, Kaname sat down next to her.

“Hey, Sakurai.”

When Misaki turned around, she saw Kaname pondering in thought as he spun his own candy apple around. He stopped spinning it and turned to face her.

Misaki’s heart skipped a beat when their eyes met. There was a serious expression on Kaname’s face.

“I’m sorry… about what happened today.”

“Eh?”

“I didn’t mean to say what I did… I said way too much,” Kaname lowered the tone of his voice and turned back to face the front. “I just wanted to say that it was my bad.”

“That’s what I should be saying,” Misaki hurriedly replied. “I also thought that I should apologise for what happened today, Akutsu.”

She knew that she had to say it, but she found herself unable to say so in front of Kaname---.

Had Kaname not spoken up first, she was sure that she would still be hesitating to say so.

“You’re not at fault though? Sakurai, you were teased because I gave you a memo, right?” Kaname smiled a little awkwardly. “I have to think it through from now on. I shouldn’t pass too many memos to you…”

“...wanna…”

“Eh?”

“Don’t wanna!” Misaki yelled as she looked down.

She had been exchanging memos with Kaname ever since they had enrolled in the school. It had become an important connection for her.

“But Sakurai, don’t you hate being teased? There are also times when it could cause misunderstandings. I… don’t really care about it though.”

“It’s fine. No matter what, it’s fine. Even if I’m teased, even if I’m misunderstood…”

Kaname listened to her words without looking away, though he had a confused expression on his face. Misaki felt her heart rate increase.

(I don’t want us to stop… Is this selfish of me?)

“Akutsu, is it a nuisance for you…?”

“It’s not… but…” Kaname replied.

The two of them remained silent for a while.

“Is it really okay with you? Even if it causes misunderstandings,” Kaname exhaled lightly before checking with Misaki again.

“Yup, it’s fine.”

Misaki did not care about such a thing. Rather, she did not want to lose that important connection that she shared with Kaname.

“Then, you… don’t hate me, right, Sakurai?” Kaname asked with a straight face.

Misaki’s heart pounded. “...I don’t… hate you.”

“Really?”

“Really… really!” Misaki’s face heated up and she put the back of her hand against her forehead. She was unable to meet Kaname’s eyes straight on.

After a beat of silence, Kaname suddenly relaxed his shoulders. “Is that so? I’m relieved…”

“I’ll never hate you! I definitely…” Misaki mumbled, her face blushing deeply. “...won’t.”

“But, Sakurai, you declared that you don’t love me. You said that it was a nuisance to be misunderstood, so anyone would think that you hate me, no?”

“That was, well… I was troubled after being teased and subjected to strange rumours.”

“Then, you weren’t being serious when you said it, right?” Kaname’s eyes sparkled happily.

(I wasn’t being serious… because I…)

Misaki squeezed her eyes shut, her words clogged up in her throat.

Then, some sounds echoed throughout the sky. When she opened her eyes, she saw a brightened up sky. Almost at the same time that the sound disappeared, the sky darkened again. Lively cheers filled the air.

“Ah, the fireworks have started,” Kaname stood up, extending a hand to Misaki.

“Come on, let’s go, Sakurai,” Kaname smiled.

Misaki felt as though her heart was beating in tandem with the sound of the fireworks. She hesitantly reached a hand out, which Kaname grasped with his own.

Pulled along by Kaname, Misaki started to walk amidst the crowd.

(Because I really…)

With her heated hand, Misaki hesitantly squeezed Kaname’s hand back---.

✿~♪~✿

On the narrow path to the shrine, everyone else had stopped walking to look up at the sky. Every time the fireworks ascended to the skies, cheers were raised from the surrounding people.

Misaki spaced out as she walked, her half-eaten candy apple pressed to her lips, when Kaname suddenly stopped. Owing to that, she bumped into his back. As she stumbled backwards, Kaname turned back to look at her.

“That…”

“Eh?”

“You look pretty good in a yukata,” Kaname smiled shyly as he spoke.

Misaki was overjoyed to hear those words from him, and she felt as though she was floating on cloud nine.

“Ehehe…” Misaki laughed shyly as she looked at Kaname from the side. Unable to take her eyes off of him, she pressed her lips together.

Another big, golden firework illuminated the night sky.

“Oh, another one went up,” Kaname muttered happily.

Thump, thump, thump. Misaki’s heartbeat continued to ring out.

Feeling as though her heart rate was gradually increasing, Misaki put her hand against her chest. She grabbed the collar of her yukata.

“Tell me what’s on your mind, Sakurai.”

Recalling Kaname’s words, Misaki slowly looked down.

(Such a thing is obvious…)

There was only one thing that she wished for---.

(Aah, God. I beg of you. Please grant my one wish…)

Misaki looked up at the sky with her tearful eyes.

She wanted to get through to him.

“Hey… Kaname.”

The name that she called out for the first time wavered slightly. However, her voice was too quiet for Kaname to hear her.

“Kaname…”

She would only call out to him just one more time.

“I love you!”

A loud sound rang out almost immediately. The vivid fireworks that bloomed across the sky brightened up the area. Kaname’s side profile was also clearly illuminated by the fireworks.

“Those were amazingly big, yeah!” Kaname looked back, his eyes shining brightly. “Hm, what’s up?”

Misaki, who had been staring at him, quickly looked back up at the sky. “No, it’s nothing…”

Her neck felt hot, her pulse throbbing beneath her skin.

“...The fireworks are beautiful!” she said, dodging the subject.

“Right?” Kaname smiled.

Misaki looked up at the sky, feeling heat build up at the corners of her eyes. Otherwise, her suppressed tears would surely fall---.

(I love you…)

Misaki swallowed the words that she was unable to voice as she laughed with Kaname.

Even as her feelings remained unconveyed, the sound of the fireworks continued to ring out.

The Summer night’s breeze was warm and slightly humid.

She would never forget that day which she had spent together with Kaname.

She was sure that she would never forget it---.

~Tsubomi’s Feelings~

(Ah… the fireworks have started.)

Tsubomi looked out of the window in her room when she heard a faint sound ring out from the distance. The moon was shining brightly in the dark sky.

Sitting on her bed, Tsubomi looked down at the phone in her hands.

(...Has Misaki met up with Kaname?)

About an hour ago, Misaki had texted her an “I’m going!”, but she had yet to send a reply.

Do your best---.

Such was the simple phrase that she should have replied with.

Tsubomi hugged her knees.

(I know… that Misaki is cuter than me.)

Tsubomi knew how much Misaki loved Kaname, and about how hard she had worked. She had been watching over Misaki from her side the entire time. She had also given Misaki some advice.

Misaki had been her important best friend ever since they were in Middle School.

It was not a lie that Tsubomi wanted Misaki’s first love to bear fruit.

Or, that was how it should have been---.

Tsubomi jumped in surprise when her phone chimed. Checking the screen, she found a text message from Kaname.

“The fireworks are pretty. You should have come too, Natsukawa.”

A photo of the fireworks was attached to the message.

Gripping her phone tightly, Tsubomi looked down.

(Has Misaki… confessed yet?)

If she had, Tsubomi wondered how Kaname had replied to her.

Tsubomi had realised her own feelings for the first time.

Those feelings were one of “love”---.

Those feelings of “love” have been existing for a long time.

That was why there was a pain in her chest. That was why it was hard for her to see the two of them getting along.

Tsubomi found herself unable to support Misaki any longer…

“That lip gloss… Why not buy it? I think it looks good on you, Natsukawa.”

As Tsubomi recalled the moment when she was told those words, she subconsciously reached up to touch her lips. She felt as though the sensation and heat of having her lips traced by his finger still lingered.

Perhaps that had been the moment when she gained feelings for him.

Or perhaps, that moment had been even earlier.

Perhaps it had been when Kaname had invited her to join the Wind Ensemble Club.

Perhaps it had been during a Cultural Festival when they were still in Middle School, when she had watched him perform happily onstage, from her spot at the corner of the gymnasium where she had stood with Misaki.

When Tsubomi thought it over, she had no idea when she had fallen for him. However, those feelings were present in her heart. She had noticed that a small love had sprouted. She just did not understand her own self. She had been dense to her own feelings, and had only supported Misaki’s feelings instead.

“Why didn’t I realise it sooner?” Tsubomi mumbled as she looked at the photo of the fireworks.

If she had realised it…

She wondered what she would have done if she had realised it.

She wondered if she would have confessed before Misaki did.

Even if she did confess, it may not even have worked out. She had no idea what Kaname was thinking.

Tsubomi raised her head and got out of her bed. She left the room in her home attire of a hoodie and shorts, holding nothing but her phone in her hand.

As she ran down the stairs, heading for the front door, the door to the living room opened and her mother poked her head out.

“Tsubomi, it’s almost time for dinner.”

“Sorry, I have something important to do. I’m heading out!”

Thrusting her feet into her sandals, she left through the front door.

The sound of fireworks rising in quick succession echoed throughout the night sky.

Tsubomi ran towards the shrine, where the two of them were supposed to be at.

(I want to know what Kaname’s feelings are… I may be late, but I want to be sure!)

✿~♪~✿

“How about you, Natsukawa? Have you ever fallen for a guy?”

If Tsubomi had been aware of her feelings back then, she wondered how she would have responded.

Upon arriving at the path to the shrine, Tsubomi looked around as she tried to catch her breath.

(Misaki… Kaname…)

Fireworks ascended to the sky, one after another. Every time the fireworks bloomed across the sky, the people around Tsubomi stopped walking and cheered, as if they were impressed by the display. Owing to that, she found it difficult to move forward.

“Excuse me! I’m sorry!” Tsubomi squeezed between the crowd as she kept an eye out for Misaki and Kaname.

It was when she had approached the stone steps of the shrine after having gone down the pathway lined with stalls that she saw them. She stopped when she finally spotted the yukata-donning Misaki and Kaname together.

Misaki was looking at Kaname, who was taking photos of the fireworks with his phone. When Kaname turned around and said something to her, Misaki smiled bashfully.

(Aah, I see…)

Tsubomi slowly turned her back on the two of them. As the sound of the fireworks continuously rang out through the sky, she quickly left the place.

As though she was escaping---.

(Misaki confessed to him.)

From the looks of the situation, Kaname had probably accepted her confession. The two of them, who were standing next to each other, seemed to be dating each other, regardless of who looked at them.

(I was too late after all…)

“You don’t want to fall in love?”

Tsubomi’s chest clenched painfully as Kaname’s voice lingered in her ears. She squeezed her eyes shut.

She should have noticed her feelings sooner and had done her best.

She should have said “I love you.” to him earlier.

Even if she had her regrets, it was too late---.

(Why did I… come here?)

To stop Misaki from confessing to Kaname?

She could not do such a thing. She had been supporting Misaki up till then.

Or, was it to see how things had played out between the two of them?

Even though it had been painful to see things go well between the two of them, and she had run away instead…

Tsubomi headed to the back of the deserted shrine and leaned her back against the trunk of a tree.

“I hope they don’t work out,” she had wished as she made her way towards the spot.

Even though Misaki was her best friend. Even though Misaki had fallen in love with Kaname first.

Tsubomi regretted noticing her own feelings. If she had not noticed them, she could have had fun with them as a trio, just like they did before.

She would have been able to continue to see Misaki as her precious best friend.

Tsubomi wondered why she had to fall for the person that her dear best friend loved. She wondered why she could not have fallen for a different person instead.

Tsubomi had hoped for Misaki’s love to go well. She had wanted to cheer Misaki on without any hesitation. She had wanted to sincerely tell Misaki “Congrats.” when things went well for her.

“I won’t be able to say it anymore…”

Tears rolled down Tsubomi’s cheeks and splashed on her feet.

Tsubomi wondered what kind of expression she should have on her face when she next spoke to Misaki. She wondered what kind of expression she should have when she next saw Kaname.

The two of them were definitely dating each other. And yet, the thoughts continued to run through Tsubomi’s mind.

She had finally noticed it.

Even though she had noticed it.

Her love had ended, just like a bud that was unable to bloom into a flower---.

Tsubomi covered her face with both of her hands as she cried softly to herself.

She pressed her back against the trunk of the tree and sank down to the ground.

#honeyworks #sekai wa koi ni ochiteiru #akutsu kaname #sakurai misaki #natsukawa tsubomi #project sekoi: wind ensemble stars #instant ramen instructions comprehensions

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tundrainafrica · 3 years

Text

Title: Bite

Summary: To say the least, Hange's last month of pregnancy turned out a little bumpier than what Levi would would have liked it to be.

A New Year's piece of Levihan Domestic Fluff. Happy New Year everyone!

Link to cross-postings: AO3

Notes: I know I've been writing a lot of fluff lately but yeah, just me coping with this being my first ever New Year's stuck at home with our family not together this year. Sorry for my French but Fuck Covid.

The house was quiet.

But that's how Levi wanted it. Hange was eight months pregnant after all. When she was carrying a fragile growing mini person inside her, he would rather she stayed quiet anyway. The peace and calm of the household was an improvement from the clack of rock to wood and her humming. It was a sign at least that Hange was finally getting the well needed rest that came with carrying an extra human.

But it was just a little too quiet. Too quiet for it to ever be comfortable for Levi. Levi had to note that it was past noon and Hange should have been up, playing around with whatever rocks she had on the workbench or at least sitting on the sofa reading a random book from the bookshelf in the dining room.

She probably stayed up late last night. Levi thought to himself. That thought was quickly shot down when Levi recalled that she had actually slept much earlier than him.

Of course, she's eight months pregnant. Levi attempted to scramble for other reasons for that silence as he started to give in to the nagging worry. When Hange was home, she was always making noise. Levi found it almost eerie that the noise levels were down to when Hange was out for work. All he could hear were the clatter of pans as he placed them on the sink and the simmer of the fire as he started to prepare lunch.

After I finish making lunch I'll check on her. Levi promised himself.

Levi had been up since five and had not entered the room again since then. It was for good reason. Hanger was notably crankier than usual, particularly in the mornings. Carrying an extra human to term had her having rough days every day and Levi just wanted to be a little more careful with his cards.

He turned on the radio by the kitchen window. Having an extra voice at least even if it wasn't Hange worked to alleviate some of that discomfort. He had started on reorganizing one of the cupboards when the radio whirred to life.

Hearing the man on the radio was oddly comforting. He never did leave the house as often as Hange so the radio had been his anchor to real life. With Hange home more often, he never needed to turn it on, Hange always had her own personal talkshow going on when she wasn’t asleep. Either that or he was too busy worrying about her to even have time to focus on the happenings that day.

For the first time in so long, he had the time. Enjoy it while you can. Levi told himself as he started to ponder what the news of the day would be. Having lived a long life constantly being chased in the underground that eventually evolved into a life killing man eaten giants, Levi found listening to the societal problems that plagued Paradis almost calming.

He had been dubbed ‘humanity’s strongest soldier’ and had been fighting man eating beasts and preventing the fall of humanity for a huge part of his life. Yet at present, most problems that made their way to Paradis were at least solvable by the average conscripted soldier or the average office worker. More than half the time, no one was actually in danger of dying. A significant improvement from the Paradis he grew up in.

Listening to the happenings on the radio, he was reminded of the joys of retirement. He indulged himself by listening to the last few parts of a radio drama and news on preparations for the fireworks festival that night.

The world is so peaceful. Levi had been daring enough to think that statement to himself.

“Breaking news!” It was as if the radio had sentience and read his mind, wanting to prove Levi wrong as if to say ‘the world will never be completely peaceful.’ “We just received word of a hostage situation in one of the warehouses in the Southern port.”

A wave of panic ended up running through him. It could have been from the tone of the reporter or Levi’s own instincts. Calm down. You’re not a soldier anymore. This isn’t your problem. It wasn’t at all new for Levi to react like that internally. He had an unnaturally strong sense of urgency having lived a life of danger for too long. He willfully brushed it off and attempted to focus instead on cutting the vegetables for the soup he was making for lunch.

“More information is coming in…”

Having spent most of his days alone in the house with nothing but a radio for a companion, Levi had mastered the art of multitasking, being able to pick up all the details of the radio article over the sound of the pots and pans, the sound of plates being stacked or the whistle of the kettle.

A gang car jacked one of the buses on the way out of the Southern port.

Gang holds hostage in the port fireworks which were slated to be sent to the capital for Paradis’ first ever New Years Celebration...

The fireworks were ordered more than a year ago…

Levi knew enough at least to understand what would have pushed people to steal them. Hange had mentioned it once during one of her rambles. She had been the one who had suggested they buy fireworks from Marley and celebrate New Years more than a year ago. It was apparently a highly anticipated festivity every year in Marley and having been so excited at the idea of celebrating it in Paradis, Hange went overboard with the organization. They had sent people to Marley to train with handling fireworks and had gone over multiple displays before deciding on one, which ended up being one of the more expensive options.

But it will be beautiful. Those words echoed once again in Levi’s head. He recalled seeing stars in her eyes as she said it.

Eventually Armin had taken over and with Hange’s hand out of the project, Levi had forgotten about it until he heard the details of the hostage situation over the radio. I wonder what Armin’s doing about it. A food for thought he reflected on while he prepared the ingredients for boiling.

“The police are assessing the situation as we speak.” Levi was aware they couldn’t give the exact details, the hostage takers could be listening in.

Another report came in a few seconds later. "The escaped hostages have confirmed the hostage takers do not have a radio on site. No chance of them listening in."

Levi found himself silently commending the escaped hostages for noting such a small detail. He hadn’t expected civilians to be that sharp especially in such a stressful situation.

“We escaped through the vents with one brave woman’s help but she had to stay behind.”

“How many are left inside the warehouse?”

“Just her.”

“Couldn’t she escape with you?”

“No sir. She doesn’t fit.”

“Doesn’t fit?"

“She looked like she was at least eight months pregnant.”

A pregnant woman in a hostage situation? Levi’s ears perked up at that. His thoughts flew to whoever that woman’s poor husband could have been. He had his own pregnant wife after all so he was quick to sympathize. Despite not believing in a god, he found himself sending prayers to that phantom husband. I hope someone at least informed him.

Levi kept his attention on the radio news as he mixed the ingredients and the spices for the soup.

“We have to get her out soon then.”

“She said she’d be fine. She even called the hostage takers amateurs.”

Levi was familiar with hostage situations though to know it was in their interest to keep their hostages alive. When taking the risk though, losing meant losing a life and Levi found himself sympathizing with whoever was left. Maybe I should call Armin? After I wake up Hange.

“But she could end up dead.”

“She said they wouldn’t.. On the off chance they did, she could defend herself.” Despite having just come out of a hostage situation and seeming concerned about a pregnant companion they had left behind, the woman talking on the radio seemed convinced that the pregnant woman could take care of herself.

How can an eight month pregnant woman defend herself though? Levi was starting to get a little more interested in the identity of the pregnant woman. There were two possibilities, she was a pregnant woman with a screw loose in her brain or she was an actual genius, Maybe he could ask Hange to ask Armin about it and they could learn a thing or two from her.

“She used to be in the military… And apparently had dealt with worse situations before."

So she was from the military? The military was a small community and Levi was sure he should know who it was. Was anyone pregnant though… Other than Hange?

Levi had racked his brain for a few seconds considering all the possibilities. Except one.

He did not know how many minutes he had spent considering the other possibilities before moving on to the exception. Yet that possibility was just outrageous. So outrageous that Levi had to ask Hange even if it meant waking her up from her nap.

Sorry for interrupting your sleep Hange, I just heard about an eight month pregnant woman who used to be part of the military and got taken hostage in a warehouse by the port. Just wanted to make sure it wasn’t you. Levi rehearsed his lines quickly as he made his way to the bedroom. It sounded ridiculous the second time he repeated it to himself. At that point though, it seemed worth it.

Levi’s heart started to beat faster as he entered the room, he could almost hear it. It could have been from the fear of waking up that lump on the other side of the bed or the fear of finding out it was just a pillow.

He never found out where that fear came from. It turned out the pillow was just a lump. Before Levi could even process his bodies’ reaction to the suspense and that harsh realization, his body went into survival mode. It came as a torrent of unintelligible emotions reminiscent of his fights against the beast titan and the invasion of Marley.

Just like it did then, his survival mode switched on and his instincts took over. Levi’s body was moving much faster than his brain. He called a taxi to take him to the port.

It was an option ten times more expensive than the shuttle but the price was the last thing on his mind.

Bite

The crowds on the port were large and Levi was disappointed to find out that many of the people there were uniformed policemen. He pushed his way through the crowd clutching one of the men in the front by their collar. “Why the hell are you not moving? You probably outnumber the hostage takers at this rate!”

“But sir… we don’t have orders. And there’s one more civilian inside.” The uniformed policeman who had answered Levi seemed a little too unsure and inexperienced that just listening to him made Levi miss his comrades in the survey corps all the more. That man looked like he had never fought in his life.

“Fuck this, I’m going in.”

“Sir are you sure? I think those men inside are armed with some very high end guns. We can never be too careful.”

Armed with what? Levi had been pitted against guns, thunder spears, man-eating giants and the king of all these founding titans. Despite the big ham the policeman was making those weapons out to be, Levi was not nervous at all.

He ran towards the building and in that few seconds vacillated between breaking through the window and bursting through the door. He had to act fast. Behind him, he could hear soldiers and policemen screaming at him to stay back and if he allowed himself a brief moment to stop and consider the situation, they might actually catch up.

Levi took a glance at one of the windows as he ran. The guns were on the table. Their guard was down. Levi found himself all the more disappointment at the policemen as he did. How the fuck is anybody not noticing that.

He crashed through the window where he had seen the guns on the table.

He never gave them time to pick up the guns. Even during that small moment Levi had allowed them as he took stock of the situation, they did not even attempt to dive for a weapon.

Levi and Hange did not have many things that could have served as a weapon in the house. Having only allowed himself a few seconds to get ready, Levi used the time to turn off the stove and cover the pot he had used to cook the soup. The only thing that he had managed to grab then was the vegetable knife that sat on the board he had used to cut vegetables that morning.

Levi though had worked with knives for years. He had also mastered the art of looking menacing even with the most mundane household objects as weapons. Even if he didn’t look menacing and the five hostage takers weren’t frozen on the spot, Levi was sure he still had enough agility left inside him to slit all their throats before they could shoot the gun. Preserving life had always been part of his principles though and he found himself giving the men the luxury to talk.

“Please! Don’t kill us!” One of the men begged as he fell to his knees. The others soon followed suit.

“You take hostages and you expect us not to attack?”

“We just needed money. Just give us money for the fireworks and we’ll be off your backs.” The first man who had kneeled explained. He looked to be their leader.

Levi kept his eye on the weapons on the table as he listened to the men. “This is a crime. I should be turning you in.” He had expected that to at least provoke the men. Alas, he had expected too much from them. All they did was kneel on the floor in defeat, their eyes downcast.

He approached the guns on the table and he could hear the men whimper as he did.

“The guns are broken,” one man said nervously. “We couldn’t get them to shoot.”

Of course you won’t get them to shoot. They need to be loaded first. Levi knew those guns too well. They were the guns Kenny and his police used after all. He had been at the end of that muzzle enough times to last a lifetime.

These hostage takers are amateurs. Levi had to admit, Hange probably would have been fine in this situation even if he didn’t show up.

“Where are your hostages?” Levi did not need to focus on the guns. Even if the men dove for them, Levi was sure they wouldn’t be able to shoot them.

Levi heard a kick behind him and one of the men nervously made his way beside Levi. “Over here… er sir.”

He was led to a dark room at the end of the hall. He kicked the door open, not bothering to wait for the man next to him to get the key.

The door opened to a room with many empty chairs lined up, one of them occupied by someone, someone Levi recognized almost instantly by the large belly and the fact that he had been seeing that face everyday for the past five years of his life.

Hange was there, sitting on a chair her hands tied behind her. As she looked up at them, Levi could see she had a face of overexaggerated terror for a while. For that split second, she was faking it. Levi had known her enough to know that. Within that second, it had twisted into something else, guilt and possibly actual terror.

“Levi… it’s nice to see you here,” She said. Levi had been with her enough to see that was the terror she exuded when she knew she had done something wrong.

“Why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be at home?” Levi kept his voice cool, calm, feigning an expression of fake surprise. He was sure Hange would see through it. In fact, he wanted her to see through it.

“I would have been home by noon.”

“Answer the fucking question.”

Hange avoided his gaze. “The fireworks. I wanted to make sure they got to the capital safely.”

“You are an eight month pregnant woman on fucking leave. Why the fuck can’t you leave this to Armin.” He asked in the form of a statement. A statement he very much wanted her to reflect on.

“Armin and Mikasa are on a business trip to Marley. Besides, these are the expensive fireworks I ordered,” Hange explained. A shitty explanation which Levi refused to buy.

“The expensive fireworks Paradis ordered. We’re going home.” He approached Hange, ready to cut up the ropes behind her only to see there was nothing tying her to the chair. Of course. The others had gotten away. And the only person who could have helped them was Hange.

He noticed their means of escape in the form of a vent. It was closed yet, somehow Levi could tell it had been disturbed by its relative cleanliness when compared to the room that was covered in a layer of dust.

For a second, he had considered going out through there. The layer of dust and the large belly of Hange only made it a not too appealing option. “We’re going out through the front door and----”

And we’re leaving the rest to the police. They should be competent enough to arrest them at least. Levi would have wanted to say. That was until he heard the sound of gunshots.

Not the gunshots from the old military police guns. Those are the police guns.

“We surrender!”

The next thing he heard was an explosion then unfamiliar pops.

“The fireworks!” It was Hange who had answered that question of what that popping was. From seeing her crestfallen face, Levi was sure she had not intended to answer his question.

“We’re going out through the vent then.” He pulled Hange from her seat, making a silent apology to the baby inside her. “Can you hold your stomach in?” A dumb question to ask his pregnant wife but Levi was desperate.

It turned out though she didn’t need to squeeze her way through. The vent had been big enough for her to fit through without having to hold her stomach in.

And Hange should have known that. Hange wasn’t an idiot. In fact, Levi was sure she had better spatial reasoning skills than him, seeing as she had been in charge of the recent infrastructural developments over the years.

When he had carried her far away enough from the fire and the consequent blast, he had started to understand why she had been so adamant not to leave in the first place.

“The fireworks!” Hange was kneeling on the grass, a safe distance away from the blast and sobbing. “We paid so much for this Levi… This was supposed to be our first New Years celebration…” The intelligible words devolved into babble and Levi wondered whether that kind of emotional stress would be good for the baby.

At least, the hostage takers had gotten out safely. Levi thought, a desperate attempt to see light in the situation.

Bite

“So let me get this straight. You stayed behind on purpose?” It had been a good few hours since the incident and it still took Levi some effort to talk to her calmly. Levi understood at least that he had a duty not to cause her any more stress especially right after what had happened.

She had shut herself in the room for a good hour or so as soon as they had gotten back. Levi had made sure to check on her a few times since then since she was almost as quiet as that pillow that had pretended to be Hange that morning. By evening, her face was still red and her eyes swollen.

To Levi’s relief, she had replied, a significant improvement from her catatonic state. “We were looking forward to some grand festivities and those fireworks were expensive.…” Hange mentioned the cost of the fireworks and Levi was sure that amount was the fund of the survey corps for one year.

With the price of the fireworks, he was somehow starting to sympathize at least. “You sure we don’t need to go to the hospital?” He asked, his voice a little gentler.

“No, it’s okay I’m fine.”

Levi did believe her. She had little to no scratches on her and she was still walking normally at least. It was her almost catatonic state which troubled him. He could give that until the next day. “We still have next year for fireworks,” he said, an attempt to comfort her.

A moment later, he started to hear the familiar popping. “Is that fireworks? I thought they got destroyed?”

“Yeah, those are the normal fireworks. The ones I wanted to see were the expensive ones I ordered last year.”

So we had fireworks already? Levi found himself moving to the kitchen mechanically, with the one goal of making himself a cup of tea. If he allowed himself any emotion then, he probably could have strangled Hange at that moment. “If you wanna see the fireworks, you can go down.” Just another precaution, he set for himself so at least he was a safe distance from her

The kitchen was near the window and although they were in one of the upper floors, he should be able to hear Hange’s footsteps as long as the windows were open and he concentrated enough.

The tea was calming and it kept him more alert to Hange’s footsteps. Just in case she did something else stupid. He wasn’t at all feeling trusting that particular night.

He had expected to hear footsteps, leather on wood or cement. For a few minutes, that was what he was hearing.

A few minutes later, he heard something he hadn’t expected to hear at all. In fact it was something he probably wouldn’t have had to listen closely to hear.

A loud squeak then a surprised scream from Hange.

Bite

The last place Levi would have expected to spend New Years was in the hospital.

He had expected Hange to have done things during her pregnancy which would have ended up with a hospital visit. Never in his life would he have thought that it would have been from a rat bite and it would have been eight months into her pregnancy during New Years day.

“I tried to sit on the dumpster because it had the best view and there was a rat there...” Hange explained to the doctor from her bed in the emergency room.

Levi had stayed silent as Hange went into detail. He tried to tune it out himself, knowing ‘bitten by a rat’ was all he needed to hear for his whole body to shudder. Being drenched in titan’s blood seemed like a better alternative.

“I recommend you stay overnight. We’re uhh… going to have to talk to some doctors in Marley about this. I don’t think we’ve ever had a case of a woman getting bitten by a rat in her third term. We’ll have the nurse set you up with a room.” With that, the doctor left and it was just Hange and Levi together in that little corner of the emergency room.

Hange lay back on the hospital bed, her belly making a giant hill on top of her. It was so unnaturally large that Levi realized he wouldn’t be too surprised if the baby came out at any moment.

“You know Levi, I think he enjoyed today. He was kicking my belly back in the warehouse,” Hange quipped playfully as she rubbed her belly. Levi noted that the line that connected to Hange’s hand must have been some sort of painkiller or sleep drought. Hange’s smiling face was a brief respite from her crying face that afternoon, even if it was medicine-induced.

“Or maybe he thought you were a complete idiot.”

“You know… When I heard the window crash, the baby kicked harder… I think he knew daddy was coming to save us.”

“Or maybe he knew mommy didn’t need saving after all.” Levi returned her playful smile with a glare.

“Hey, you had fun. It was just like the old days...”

Fun? Levi wouldn’t have used that word at all. Getting shot at and being almost eaten on a regular basis wasn’t fun. Not knowing when you would die wasn’t fun. As Hange had mentioned the word ‘old days,’ Levi did start to realize he had been a little disappointed to see the men hadn’t shot at him.

He put a hand to his forehead. “Do I actually miss fighting?” He pressed harder into his forehead as if that action was enough to push some sanity back into his brain. No one should be missing a war. “Hey Hange, do you miss it?” He wanted to search for some assurance at least that he wasn’t the only one slightly insane.

He looked back at Hange to see the latter had dozed off, her face fixed into a warm comfortable smile, her hand resting on her belly.

He didn’t know how long he had been staring. It could have been minutes or hours. His trance though had been broken by one greeting of “Happy New Year!” then a few soft cheers and some light clapping. Levi wasn’t too worried that Hange would wake up. She looked to be in a deep sleep.

Levi put his hand on hers, and even with one hand beneath his and the belly, he still felt it, a light small kick. He’s coming out soon.

He leaned close to her ear, taking in the rare sounds of her relaxed breathing before he whispered his own greeting. “Happy New Year… Next year we’ll see the fireworks together, all three of us.”

It was a promise only he would have remembered. But it was a promise he vowed to keep.

#levihan #levi ackerman #hange zoe #levi x hange #fanfic

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weasleydream · 4 years

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Family reunion - Part 3 (Last part)

Here we are for the last part of this mini-serie! I hope you enjoyed it and don’t forget to tell me what you thought about it, I really would like to know. Enjoy!

Masterlist

Part 1 - Part 2

Later that day, while Fred, George and I were eating dinner, I told them what happened at the Ministry. I told them everything, except the fact that Percy was afraid they would hate him forever. I felt like I didn’t have the right to do so, and I could just hope that one day, he would have the courage to face his beloved family.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

The two following weeks had been busy, to say the least.

George was almost constantly angry because of Percy’s reaction. I knew he would have been, I knew him quite well. The Ministry’s commands of Shield Hats were increasing, and made it impossible for the boys to keep up, I had to help them although George was not okay with it. Being aware that I didn’t like Verity’s proximity with him, he had begun to be more distant with her, which obviously didn’t please the helper. In short, our private and professional lives were full of tension.

However, George had never been sweeter with me than now. He always tried to keep his anger away from me. He was so protective, and when we cuddled together, his hands eventually found a new home: they both rested on my belly like a loving protection for our baby.

We were currently in each other’s embrace. The moon was shining in the sky, but I couldn’t find sleep. It was like this since the day we found out I was pregnant, one week ago. Too many preoccupations were in my mind, too many questions were obsessing me.

Would I be a good mother? My only model was Mrs Weasley. Of course she was awesome, but was I really able to be as gentle, caring and perfect as her? And the war… We didn’t even know if we would have a future. I was afraid - no, I was terrified. What if something happened to George? He would do anything to keep us safe, but that was the point: he would do anything, even if it had to kill him. Without him by my side… Of course, I would have Fred: he would be broken, devastated, but he would still be here for us. If only nothing happened to him.

Merlin, Y/N, stop this right now! They are both here with you, alive and okay. Stop this!

But I couldn’t. The dark in our room was an invitation for the dark thoughts. It was like when you’re a child: you’re not afraid of the dark but of what’s inside. I was in the same situation. What was scaring me was the vicious fears creeping where I couldn’t see them. I curled up in a small ball, my head resting on George’s torso, and his slow and regular heartbeat acted like a beautiful lullaby.

“Fireworks, really?”

I had just told the twins about my idea. I wanted to announce my pregnancy in a special way, and considering their talent, I had thought fireworks could be fun. George smiled sweetly while holding my hand. Fred, however, seemed like he couldn’t believe it.

“Yes, it could be fun! Plus, I thought you loved fireworks?” I added in a teasing tone.

“Of course I love fireworks! It’s just… Well, usually, you’re not the one to propose such extravagant things.”

“I know, but we’re going to announce the arrival of George Weasley’s baby! We have to do something extravagant.”

“I’m in!” Fred was, indeed, very excited to organize a firework at the Burrow.

“Whatever you want, babe.” George agreed.

It was going to be fun.

The friday before Easter, Bill arrived from France. He had let Fleur with her family.

“I know mum doesn’t really like her and I didn’t want to ruin her family reunion.” he explained.

The flat was small and, even if Charlie, Ron and Ginny weren’t here yet, we were starting to run out of room. Fred shared his room with Bill and they would be joined by Charlie. George didn’t want me or Ginny to sleep on the couch: he decided to sleep in the living-room with Ron while Ginny and I would stay in the room. When Charlie, Ron and Ginny arrived the following day, the flat was full. It remembered me of the Burrow at Christmas.

It was the first time in more than two years that Charlie was in England and he had plenty of fascinating stories about dragons. We spent all the saturday afternoon listening to him, watching him with big eyes, gasping when he told us about a particularly dangerous Hungarian Horntail, Ginny and I cooing when he described the three dragon births he had the chance to see.

By this time, the fireworks were ready. Fred had decided to develop them alone so that it would be a surprise. No one knew about the baby: obviously, the Weasley were suspicious, they knew something was going to happen but we did a pretty good job ensuring everyone this reunion was perfectly innocent.

Easter was the following day. Everyone woke up way too early for me. Once Ginny in the kitchen, I was alone in the bedroom, still under the soft blankets. George came to see what was taking me so long. When he saw me half-asleep, he couldn’t resist the temptation and cuddled with me, which caused Fred and Ron to mock us the entire morning.

We had decided to take the Knight Bus in order to go to Ottery St. Catchpole. When we finally stepped out of this hell-with-wheels, relieved and wanting to throw up (it was my case), we headed towards the Burrow. The walk was nice, the sun was already high in the sky and the trees showed the most beautiful colours. Soon, the fantastic house could be seen, and Charlie seemed a bit emotional. We stopped outside, in front of the door, positive that Mr and Mrs Weasley were up but not aware of our presence. I grabbed George’s hand as I was starting to feel stressed. He hold mine tight, sending me a sweet smile as Fred knocked at the door.

To say that Mrs Weasley was shocked was an understatement: in fact, she looked like she didn’t know if she would scream or faint. Fortunately, she choose the first option. Her shouts of joy along with her tears were heartwarming. She practically jumped into Charlie’s arms, sobbing and constantly repeating how much she was glad to see him. Charlie, with the biggest grin I had never seen on his face, was hugging his mother and stroking her hair, telling her he would stay in England during all the holidays. Knowing her son wouldn’t vanish soon, Mrs Weasley finally moved to Bill, then to Ginny, to Ron, to Fred and finished with George and I. Mr Weasley arrived soon after we all entered the house and seemed quite shocked, like his wife. Like her, he pulled Charlie into a strong embrace, though shorter, and welcomed everyone.

“Who do I have to thank for this beautiful surprise?” Mrs Weasley’s voice was still emotional.

“I think the one you can kill with your hugs is Y/N, mum.” Ron responded. “Even if we had to drag her and George out of bed.” He added, much to Fred’s amusement.

Mrs Weasley practically ran to me and engulfed me in one of her famous hugs. I could feel her tears on my skin, and she apologized about a hundred times before I could stop her.

“You don’t have to apologize, Mrs Weasley, it’s a pleasure to see you that happy.”

Everyone was gathered in the living-room, chatting happily. Charlie was telling his father the story about the Hungarian Horntail he had told us before, and Ron and Ginny were also listening to him. Fred and George were showing Bill some new product they kept in their old room. The only one silent was Mrs Weasley, and, when I saw a single tear on her cheek while she was rushing to the kitchen, I knew it wasn't a tear of joy. I joined her and found her sobbing. I sat next to her and silently passed my arm around her shoulders. I knew what was bothering her.

“I’m sorry.” My voice was quiet.

I didn’t want to tell her why Percy wasn’t here. She would probably run to London, begging him to talk to her and ensuring him they didn’t hate him. However, I didn’t want her to think her son hated her either. I decided to tell her the truth.

“Mrs Weasley, I… I went to see Percy at the Ministry.”

Her reaction was immediate. She squealed and looked up to me with teary eyes.

“He doesn’t hate you” I spoke softly. “He’s afraid, Mrs Weasley, afraid that his father would hate him. He’s sorry.” I added, even if he hadn’t told it explicitly.

She nodded, sighed, and started to prepare the lunch for everyone. I helped her and, after a while cooking silently, George’s worried voice echoed in the house.

“Y/N, where are you?”

“In the kitchen” I replied, not without hearing Ron chuckling to Fred’s answer (“Your boy wants to cuddle, kiddo!”)

George went to check on me and sent me a questioning look. I shook slightly my head, and he understood I would tell him later. He joined Fred in the living-room without telling a word.

“Why did you do that, Y/N?”

Mrs Weasley’s voice was calm. She was obviously curious, because she stopped what she was doing, waiting for my answer. I suddenly found myself very uncomfortable, because we wanted to wait for the night to fall to announce my pregnancy with the fireworks. We thought it would be better. I avoided her eyes and responded quickly.

“I just thought you would be happy.”

She seemed suspicious but didn’t tell anything. We finished while chatting about a lot of things and everyone reunited around the table. The lunch was a typical Weasley lunch: loud, full of laughters and absolutely delicious. The good old habits were slowly re-emerging: Mrs Weasley was complaining about Bill and Charlie’s hair length and Mr Weasley was babbling with Ron about some muggle objects. Ginny was laughing at Fred while he was trying to turn a chicken wing into something more entertaining. George was holding my hand under the table, just like he used to when we were younger.

“It was a wonderful idea, baby.” He murmured into my ear. “Look how they’re all so happy, and we didn’t even tell them the good new yet.”

The afternoon was honestly one of the best I had in months. After eating, we installed ourselves in the living-room. I sat on George’s lap while Ginny was complaining about the Slug Club. Then Ron proposed to play Wizard’s chess, and a true tournament was organized. It reminded me a bit of Percy, because playing chess was something I did with him during the holidays. Ron was the undisputed winner. During the following hour, each one went about their occupation.

George and I went into the twins’ old room and cuddled in my boyfriend’s bed. He immediately put his hands on my belly and sighed in satisfaction. He had been unable to do that since Bill’s arrival and it was pleasant to feel his hands again. But George seemed to have missed our baby more than I thought: he slowly lied me in the bed and kneeled next to me. He slowly pulled up my shirt. He kissed lovingly my belly, murmuring some sweet things to the baby.

“I love you so much, little one.” His voice was low, his eyes full of pure love. “I love you both so much. I can’t wait to finally meet you.”

My eyes were filling with tears in front of this beautiful scene. He seemed so happy, at this moment, so genuinely happy that my heart seemed to be ready to explode. He slowly came back in the bed and kissed me. Moments that emotional were rare, and I knew George wasn’t really comfortable with opening up like this. That’s why he started to tickle me, my giggles getting louder and louder as he continued. I was almost crying when we stopped, a soft knock on the door being heard. It opened and Fred’s face was on the opening.

“The night is falling, lovebirds.”

We followed him downstairs. Everyone was gathered in the living-room, but soon Fred was nowhere to see. Outside, the sky was turning bright red as the moon started to show itself. A loud noise disturbed the peaceful silence and everyone hurried outside, almost as if they were waiting for something like that to happen.

The sky stayed empty for a few seconds. It was as if the purpose of the noise was to make everyone go outside. Then the real show started.

At first, the space in front of the family was coloured in blue and pink with plenty of pretty little explosions. It looked like flowers. When these first fireworks disappeared, others were thrown and wrote a sentence in the air.

George and Y/N have a surprise for you!

All eyes turned towards us. George sent his family a bright smile and his grip on my hand tightened. When other fireworks exploded, no sentence was needed and everyone understood perfectly. It was a pretty good representation of George and I. The firework-George was behind the firework-me and both had in their hands a baby. Below this pretty portrait of our future family was written:

We're going to be parents!

While it was fading, a big orange W, the inimitable signature of the twins, appeared in the sky with written in yellow:

See you soon baby Weasley!

And the sky was empty. The silence was almost deafening as I was waiting for the reactions of the Weasley, and most particularly for Mrs Weasley's one. I was also tearing up because what Fred just offered us, it was… It was perfect. He showed up, a huge grin on his lips. The other Weasley were still silent, probably trying to process what they just saw. Ginny was the first one to squeal happily as she threw herself in my arms.

“I’m gonna be an aunt!”

From this point, everything became a blur where I could just distinguish the congratulations. George never released his grip on my hand. However, despite everyone’s kind words, I couldn’t stop to look anxiously at Mrs Weasley who was still silent. Tears were rolling on her cheeks and when she made a first hesitant step, everyone stopped and watched her. Then she ran towards George and I and took us into a bear hug, our heads colliding in the process. She was sobbing and muttering something that seemed like “I’m too young to be a grandmother” but when she looked at us, her eyes showed her happiness and her pride.

“I’m genuinely happy that you have decided to start a family. I still think you are too young but… I know you’re made for each other. Congratulations!”

Her voice was still a bit trembling. We all went back to the living-room because it was starting to get cold outside. Mrs Weasley looked like she wanted to talk to us alone, but we had something to do before that. I spotted Fred and jumped into his embrace, sobbing like Mrs Weasley a few minutes ago.

“Fred, it was… It was… It was perfect! Thank you so much! Thank you Freddie!”

He laughed and ruffled my hair.

“Anytime kiddo. I can’t wait to see the little one.”

When I finally agreed to let him go, George took my place and pulled his twin into a hug.

“You don’t know how much it means to me what you did, mate… Thank you.”

“I know George, I know… You’re gonna be a great father.” Responded Fred while patting his brother’s shoulder.

“And you a great godfather.” Replied George with an emotional voice.

“Godfather?” Fred looked like he couldn’t believe it, but a sparkle in his eyes showed how much he was touched.

“Of course you silly, I would have asked Hagrid but he’s too far right now.”

“Hagrid? You’re disappointing me brother, I was sure you would have chosen McGonagall.”

As laughter erupted in the living room, Mrs Weasley took my hand and led me into the kitchen. We were now alone, and she sat next to me.

“Are you mad?” My voice was trembling.

“No dear, I’m not mad.” She answered sweetly. “But I’m worried.”

“Me too.” I confessed. Seeing her interrogative look, I explained to her my insomnias. “I always think about this war. What if George is killed? What if I’m killed? Who- who would take care of our baby if we weren’t here anymore? What kind of life can I offer to my child with all this darkness in our world?”

Mrs Weasley listened to all my questions, all my uncertainties, all my worries without saying anything. She was just holding my hand, allowing me to know she would always be there. When I was finished and waiting for her answer, I was half-sobbing. Her answer was short and her voice was sweet.

“Everything will be okay, dear, because George and you have a family who’s gonna protect you at all costs. I promise you that you will be able to raise your baby with George. You hear me? I promise.”

I nodded slowly. But I had other worried, way more normal for a pregnant woman. I felt like I could confess these things to Mrs Weasley, after all, she had always done the job my mother should have been able to do with me. She had answered all my questions, she had helped me.

“Does it hurt?”

I felt quite ashamed to ask such a thing, but I wanted to know.

“Giving birth? Yes darling, it hurts like hell. But when you have your baby against you… All the pain vanishes. It’s the beginning of a wonderful story.” Her eyes were a bit teary because of the memories.

“What if I’m not a good mother?” As I expressed my worst fear, Mrs Weasley took firmly my hand and put her other one on my cheek.

“The fact that you’re already worrying shows that you’re gonna be a wonderful mother, Y/N.”

With that, we headed back to the living-room, where George was telling how we found out about my pregnancy. He was already at the pillow part, but Mrs Weasley wanted to hear all the story.

“Y/N hadn’t thrown enough pillows at Fred’s face and he found it suspicious.” Ginny summed up the story.

Her mother seemed confused. As everyone laughed at her furrowed eyebrows, George went to me and kissed me.

#harry potter #harry potter imagine #harry potter imagines #george weasley #george weasley x reader #george x reader #george weasley x you #george weasley x y/n #fred weasley

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fericita-s · 4 years

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We Run a Very Tight Ship

Guest chapter! @sagiow challenged me to write a chapter for the Mercy Street Cruise Ship AU that involves “floor bacon” and “leftover snow cone” and this is the result, heavy on the Emmry. Thanks for inviting me to play in your sandbox! I hope I didn’t make things too dirty!

Thanks @the-spaztic-fantastic for beta-ing and for some research on this chapter that I won’t out you for. Let’s call it medical.

Previous Chapters by @jomiddlemarch and @sagiow

Quarantine – Day 5

Maple Bourbon Snow Cones

The lewd bag was empty and every time Emma looked at it the same hysterical giggle worked its way up from the depths of her belly, just like the one that had made her gasp against the wall with the realization that she was quarantined in the honeymoon suite with the man she’d been crushing on for as long as she’d had this job. And then it had been Henry making her gasp, and occasionally the depths of treasure they extracted from the lewd bag. What hadn’t needed batteries – the lotions, some of the condoms, the novelty lipstick shaped like a penis – was used up or laughed over and then discarded, Emma was still too good at her job to stop taking evaluative notes on what should be added or permanently excluded from future honeymoon packages. She had berated herself for not thinking to check that the outlets matched the plugs for the plug-in, but who wanted to spend any time thinking on Alice and Frank’s sexual satisfaction. Anyway, Henry was just as good as a Hitachi. Better even, what with the stubbled jawline and forearms to admire.

They were ensconced on the bed, the silk duvet and the plush matching bathrobes the only part of the experience that felt vaguely like a sick day.

Mostly, it felt like a vacation.

Three times a day, a steward knocked on the door to deliver food. There were increasingly entertaining videos livestreamed by PS I Love You Squivers and Henry was just as fun and funny to talk to post-sex, or more accurately in-between-sex, and no one had died.

Emma knew that should have been what she was most grateful for, and Henry was leading with it in the sermon he was live-streaming later, but it was easy to forget the chaos going on in the medical bay when she was on her honeymoon. Even a borrowed one.

A brisk knock sounded and Henry kissed her forehead as he left the bed to answer. The voice on the other side immediately scolded him and Emma tilted her head, trying to place it.

“You shouldn’t be opening the door for anyone without proper protective gear on!”

Emma wondered why someone would insist Henry answer the door with a condom on until the door opened wider and she saw the scrubs and mask Dr. Foster was wearing.

“Hello, Jed. Should I close it?” Henry seemed unbothered though he did take a few steps back, motioning for the doctor to come in. Emma thought Jed looked like he’d been awake for the five days of quarantine, and perhaps he had. It gave her a slight pang of guilt that he had been working so hard to take care of her sister and brother and soon-to-be brother-in-law/ex-boyfriend.

“Is Alice alright? And Jimmy?” She didn’t ask about Frank. Not because it was awkward, but because she didn’t really care and she’d rather keep thoughts of him out of this room where she definitely had not been thinking about him, beyond regretting that she had poured the premium bourbon Frank insisted the room was stocked with down the drain. If she had known she’d be the one holed up in this room, she wouldn’t have discarded the Pappy Van Winkle’s Family Reserve and refilled the bottle with Jim Bean, which at the time had felt like a delightful power move. Would Frank brag about the superior taste of the good stuff instead of the cheap swill of the masses? Or would he have a Princess and the Pea moment and demand the high-end alcohol? Either would have been fireworks that amused her; it was just too bad she and Henry had to make do with the cheap stuff. It made the melted snow cones from lunch more bearable at least, and who could even taste the bourbon with the snow cone on her tongue and then Henry soon after.

“Alice and Jimmy are fine. The others too. No worse, no better. We just administered the tests and I’ve been assured we’ll get results soon. Alice sent me to collect the ‘sparkly, pretty, rainbow shoes’. The payment required for her participation in the swab.”

Emma tightened the bath robe and got out of the bed, her hands lingering on the silk, wishing it could have been longer that this room had gone without the name “Alice” being spoken. Hearing it twice was like breaking a spell.

“I don’t think her luggage is here. She was staying with her bridesmaids in an ocean view suite on A Deck.”

Jed sighed and raised a hand like he was going to rub it over his eyes and face, but then stopped, letting it fall back down. “I went there first. To Kayleigh or McEnany or MacKayleighAnnie or whatever the hell her three bridesmaids’ names are. They were next to useless and either lying or clueless, but they weren’t sick at least. Mind if I look here?”

Emma’s eyes met Henry’s and they both looked around the room at the detritus of one lewd bag and four and a half days’ worth of food and condom wrappers. Henry cleared his throat.

“How about we look and call you when we find it? And how about you take a rest in your own room before heading back to med bay? Before you need a cot there yourself?” Henry put a hand on Jed’s shoulder but Jed shook it off.

“Fine. I shouldn’t spend time in here with you anyway, stop the spread and all that. Let me know?”

He left and Henry bent to retrieve the breakfast tray that had been left and kicked at the door to shut it, but the pocket of his bathrobe got caught on the doorknob and the tray jerked out of his hands as he was pulled back with the door. Emma watched in horror as a plate slid off of the tray and the bacon slid off of the plate and onto the floor.

“Five second rule!” Henry shouted, pulling his bathrobe free of the door and scooping it up.

“On a cruise ship? During an epidemiological disaster? I don’t think the five second rule applies.”

“Fair,” Henry said, and threw it into the trash instead. “I suppose floor bacon is not what B Gibson intended for our culinary satisfaction.”

“I’m starting to feel like this is the Battle of Manassas and we’re all on a picnic watching the horror go down with amusement. Should I be doing more to help? Jed seemed pretty exhausted.”

“Manassas, eh? Not Bull Run? Took me five days but I finally found your flaw. You’re a secret Confederate.”

Emma swatted at him, but then reconsidered and swiped a pancake from the tray he was still holding instead. “I’m from Virginia. It’s what the battlefield sign says.”

Henry put the tray on the bed, resettling the plates and arranging the fruit and sausage that remained and took a pancake for himself. He spoke in between bites and he was so comforting and certain, Emma thought that online ordination must have included some contact hours for counseling training. He was so good at it. “I think quarantining is the most helpful thing we can do right now. That and look for these shoes. We know we’ve been exposed to Alice and if we go out, we just make the problem worse.”

Despite the sentence ending with “make the problem worse,” Emma felt a thrill of victory. For right now, for this perfectly weird moment, the best thing she could do for her job, for her family, for the good of the public health, was to remain in a honeymoon suite with Henry. It was a sacrifice she could handle.

They finished their breakfast and then began searching for the ridiculous shoes Alice apparently needed while prone in a hospital cot. Henry turned the livestream on and they watched with amusement as Percival Squivers apologized for the unhinged magic shows he had been giving over the past few days and then pledged to provide truly riveting content for the remainder of quarantine, however long it lasted. Then he reached to turn off his camera but missed, and Henry and Emma abandoned their search as they watched, open-mouthed and eyes wide as Squivers pulled a half dollar from behind a woman’s ear as she leaned in to kiss him. Squivers kept attempting to say, or guess, her name, like it was a magic trick that would have the best reveal yet: Lisette? Linnette? Laurent? And then what followed wasn't exactly porn, it wasn't exactly not porn, but it definitely wasn't good porn and they turned from it to keep searching.

As she lifted pillows and emptied drawers and looked in the smallest closet to ever bear the name, Emma considered how much easier it was going to be to stop this wedding now that the bride and groom were both sick. But she wanted it to not happen ever, and the means to prevent it was still not in her grasp.

Henry hadn't asked why and she wanted to think it was because he could tell how awful they were or that he'd do whatever she asked or that he was ready for hijinks of any kind, and not that he expected an explanation. Because she wasn’t sure she could explain the mortification of her former boyfriend marrying her little sister. It was cute when Amy March did it, but if Emma had to choose a scene to repeat from that book it would be letting her sister fall through the ice, and not necessarily the rescue that followed.

“Bingo!” Henry called, holding a shoe box aloft that had been stashed behind a pile of towels they hadn’t worked their way through yet.

Emma crossed the room to sit next to him as he opened the lid. The shoes were very sparkly, every color of the rainbow shimmering and shining in the sequins as they caught the light. Emma lifted them out and frowned as she saw something left behind, half-hidden by the tissue paper surrounding the shoes.

“That’s Frank’s phone,” she said, reaching for it and flipping it over so the rebel flag phone case was at least not offensively visible. She put in the code she knew he’d use: 1-2-3-4 and a series of pictures was already queued up.

She swiped through selfies of Frank, Jimmy posing obscenely, all the groomsmen posing obscenely, a close up of Alice’s ass, Frank boarding a plane, and then a series of photos with a random seatmate who looked to be the reigning Miss Italy. Photos in the cramped bathroom that left Emma with no doubt that plenty of germs and viruses and perhaps even an entire plague could have been caught from the amount of skin and orifices and fluids being exchanged in the bathroom, fully documented on his phone, in black and white, in video, in various filters that Emma appraised with a critical eye and announced, to Henry's amusement "Yep. Just as bad as I remember.”

He flashed her a smile. The one that meant this round was over and it had been a good one. “You did it. You found the evidence. No wedding.”

Emma shook her head. “If it was in her shoes, she knows. Nothing matters. The truth is out there and no one cares.”

A new sound was coming from the livestream and Henry and Emma turned to look, able to see clearly as Silas the pig and Mrs. Brannon came into frame and demanded of Squivers “Did you find it for me? I’m tired of paying you and seeing nothing but lousy magic to show for it.”

“I think we figured out Squivers’s side hustle,” said Henry, but he turned the tablet off at Emma’s blank look. “The truth does matter. And I made a no-vow vow. I don’t break my vows.”

“No wedding,” Emma said, equally solemn.

“The truth matters,” he repeated, and Emma wondered if he meant the revelers still having pop-up parties in hallways and acting like quarantine was a suggestive role play you could opt out of if it didn't suit your entertainment interests. It would be a good sermon, if anyone could tear themselves away from the trainwreck of the Squivers show to watch.

***

Jed came to retrieve the shoes later, looking marginally better rested but wielding test kits and insisting he administer them so the mad rush of the second round could at least be staggered. Emma giggled hysterically as Henry yelled “Peacock! Peacock!” and then again as the swab went so far up her nose she thought it was tickling her hairline from beneath her skull.

“Let’s add some more bourbon to the leftover snow cones,” she said as Jed left, bags and shoes in hand. The phone they had kept; the plan was still formulating on how to wield it.

“I want it that way,” Henry sang, sounding sexier than a Backstreet Boy though somewhat more nasally as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose and grinned at her.

#Mercy Street #Cruise Ship AU #Emmry #Foster #Squivers #and then they were quarantined #floor bacon #leftover snow cones #We Run A Very Tight Ship #Quarantine Day 5 #fan fic #guest chapter

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despressolattes · 4 years

Text

CONSEQUENCES | CHAPTER TWELVE | LEGACIES/THE ORIGINALS

BOOK THREE IN THE SIDE CHARACTER/LILAH SERIES

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─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

4TH OF J U L Y S A L V A T O R E S C H O O L

Landon was outside, trying to set up an outdoor movie session with Rafael. With his best friend in wolf form and no idea how to bring him back to normal, he just wanted to be able to make him as comfortable as possible. And that meant trying to make him a wolf den.

"So, I should probably tell you I moved rooms last month. Ours was getting painted, and I figured I'd move back in once you were, you know, you again," Landon said. "But if for any reason you become you while I'm out, like looking for ways to help you become you, I just didn't want you to go back and see that I wasn't in our room anymore and think that I bailed on you because I would never do that obviously. I also brought the photos of that mystery girl I told you about into the new room with me so the painters don't... yanno, mess them up."

Rafael approached, growling. Landon wondered what Rafael would say about the girl in the photos. He noticed that in the ones they had with her, he had a certain look on his face that Landon hadn't seen in a while. Not since Cassie. He wondered if there was perhaps something that had gone on between them, and if there was, he was sad that his best friend may never remember.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"No matter what path I go down, it seems like a dead end. I mean, there were at least two other people with Landon the night Malivore was destroyed," Alaric said as he walked around town square with his daughter, standing behind people holding things to decorate for the holiday. "They left fibers, footprints, hair. I just don't know who they were."

"Maybe one of them is Lilah," Josie suggested. "She had to go somewhere, and if none of us remember her, the only logical explanation is into Malivore. And that's just the point of Malivore, if someone went into the pit, they'd be erased from our memories."

"Yeah, well, that's what's haunting me," Alaric replied. "Who've we forgotten? There was two others there. It can't just be this Lilah girl."

"It couldn't have been anybody we've known. There'd be keepsakes, photos, an empty bed somewhere. We only have Lilah's, so if someone else went into that pit with her, it's not someone we knew," Josie shrugged.

"Well, whoever they were, they were important to somebody."

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

N E W

O R L E A N S

"Why is she running around and decorating the Abbatoir?" Rebekah muttered, watching as Lorelle went around the Mikaelson compound with Fourth of July decorations. "She doesn't even know that America is like, she's been dead for over a thousand years."

"Maybe she's feeling a bit patriotic," shrugged Marcel, grabbing her hands and bringing them closer to him as they sat on the couch. "Rebekah, I know you've been missing your brothers lately, and I understand you're upset with Lilah for not telling us about her identity sooner, but she's your family, babe. You guys already spent a thousand years without your niece, and now you want to spend more?"

"What does my frustration with my brother's daughter have to do with her mother running amongst decorating?"

"I think it's cute," Kol stated, making his presence in the room known as he walked over to the couch, placing his hands on the back of it. "It's Lorie's first holiday with her daughter. Maybe let her enjoy it."

"Perhaps we figure out how the mummy came back from the dead, and then we can deal with her being a mommy to Lilah."

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

"I just can't get over the fact that he's your dad," Josh said, leaning against their kitchen counter munching away on a bag of chips while Lilah cleaned the table. "This is a bigger surprise than the look on your face when you found out I was gay."

"Let it go, Josh!" Lilah yelled with laughter, sending a playful glare his way.

He shrugged, "I'm just saying. You went from Lilah Desmarais, mysterious, small, and badass to Lilah Mikaelson, deadly, unkillable, and in love within the matter of weeks."

"I am not in love!" Lilah denied, placing her hands on her hips.

Josh rolled his eyes.

"Normally, you and I spend practically every waking moment together, either here or at Rousseau's. Since you've met Roman, we've hired him to work with us, and when you're not with me, you're spending time with Mommy dearest or Mr. Mystery Blond," Josh said, pulling out facts to hit his best friend with. "Lilah, we hired him because you two wanted to spend more time together. You can't tell me that's not you being in love."

"It's been a month and a half! I only want to be around him so much because his presence helps me unlock the weird deja vu feeling I get, like there's things I need to remember,"

"Time doesn't tell what love is and isn't, and the fact that he's the key to you're weird funk might just prove my point even further," shrugged Josh.

Lilah threw the rag she was using to clean up the table at him, accidentally knocking his bag of chips out of his hand. He stood there with his jaw wide open, looking at her like she had killed someone. She shrugged, walking out of the room.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Lilah got to the Mikaelson compound, seeing red white and blue streamers and decorations everywhere.

"Lilah, be a dear and help me with this."

She was surprised when she saw Rebekah putting up decorations, but what really threw her was that Rebekah was speaking to her. Since her revelation about who her dad was, the relationship she had with the blonde was strained. She had been one of her best friends prior, and perhaps that's why it hurt so much. Rebekah hated when secrets were kept from her, especially since when she was rolling with just Klaus and Elijah, she would be kept out of the loop a lot.

Lilah walked over, helping her aunt put up some balloons.

"What is all of this?" Lilah asked.

"Your mother wanted to put on a little party," Rebekah explained, looking at her niece for the first time in forever. "And I'm not the type to turn one down. Especially not when it's in the honor of my family."

Lilah turned her head to the side, confused. It did touch her heart that Rebekah was finally acknowledging her, though.

"She wants everything to be extravagant. She gets to experience her firsts with her daughter, who's grown into a fine young lady," Rebekah said, before sassily adding, "Who obtained her auntie's horrible taste in men."

"I heard that," Marcel said from the balcony, where he was hanging up some more balloons.

"Good!" Rebekah called back. She turned back to her niece, "Thinking of poor taste in men, go invite that hot vampire of yours."

"You mean the one you practically threw in a dungeon?"

"We don't have a dungeon," Rebekah replied. "Though... not turning down the suggestion to make one."

"That was not a suggestion!"

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

New Orleans during any kind of holiday seemed like a dream. The excitement, the music, the people, and the liquor. Lilah stood on the roof, faint music playing in the background. She had a drink in her head, onlooking the city her father helped build with the help of her uncle, aunt, and Marcel—who no matter what title Lilah gave him, it sounded weird considering he was married to her aunt.

The sun was well set, which only meant that the fireworks would be starting soon. Lilah reflected on her life, how she should've felt like she was on top of the world. But the brunette could've shake the feeling that this was all fake, that she was living a lie. She was unsure why or how, but she had the strangest feeling that this wasn't the life she was meant to live.

Someone stepped onto the balcony, and she glanced over her shoulder to see Roman. He smiled at her, walking over and wrapping an arm around her waist. The two of them hadn't talked about what they were, whether they wanted to be exclusive or anything like that. Lilah kept brushing it off to Josh that they were just having fun. She knew that when fall came around, he'd go back to work, leaving New Orleans and herself behind.

But it was nice. It was nice to feel good to be wrapped in someone else's arms. She couldn't remember the last time she let herself feel something so all consuming. She denied it though, denied that her knees buckled every time the curly haired boy looked in her direction.

She denied that her dead heart fluttered when he kissed her.

She denied that it almost made her want to cry when she thought about how his departure was inevitable.

She denied that it felt wrong almost, to love someone who played even the most minor of roles in the death of Hayley Marshall.

She denied that he made her feel almost the same way Stefan once did.

She was a lot like Elijah in that way. He was big on how true love was hard to find, something he himself believed to have only found three times in his life. For his daughter, however, she could only think of one instance where she had been in love, and with her new predicament, she felt that this might just turn into the second time.

She really was a little miniature version of Elijah, whether or not he raised her.

She heard the small hum of something being shot through the sky, both of them turning their heads to the sky. People started to pour out of the compound or go onto the balcony alongside them, the sound of the party coming outside. Lilah and Roman moved to the corner together, watching as the sky lit up in beautiful colors.

She couldn't help but hold onto his hands that were on her waist or lean back into him with a giggle. She moved her arm so that one of them was around his shoulder, and he placed a kiss on her cheek.

"Happy Fourth of July," he said to her.

"It's been a pretty epic summer," she said back, smiling ear to ear.

Seeing his wide smile and dazed eyes, she knew that denying it would only get her so far.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

A U G U S T

S A L V A T O R ES C H O O L

"Songwriting, stop," Lizzie said dramatically. "I can't take it anymore. Somewhere in Belgium, Penelope Park's black heart just exploded."

Josie gave her twin a look.

"You and Gizmo the Gremlin?" continued Lizzie, not letting up on her disgust about her sister and Landon.

"Actually, Gizmo's a Mogwai," responded Josie.

"Oh, God. He's got you speaking nerd!"

"Relax, we're just friends."

"You are not friends! You're a montage," pointed out Lizzie.

"It's been... fun," explained the brunette. "It's been like, actual fun."

"You know what's actual-actual fun? Mom and I taking the speed train to Rome for the weekend. So get your ass across the pond! Stop worrying about Dad, and stop worrying about whoever Lilah used to be—"

"Love you," Josie said, and Lizzie gasped and Josie practically press the end button of their witchy video-call.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

Josie and Landon looked all over the woods and the building out there, but they couldn't find Rafael anywhere. Josie and Landon continued to get closer, slowly falling for one another. Despite Rafael going missing, Landon and Josie talked about what things made them happy-ish.

Outside of the school, Dorian William's almost runs over a girl. She plays off how she knew Dorian, and acts like she's going to be on her way. She goes back into the school, knowing the gate code, feeling happy to finally be the place she called home, a place she had been longing for for who-knows-how-long.

She just wasn't expecting to come back looking for her best friends and her boyfriend, to see that they both moved on without her. That the people she loved would just fill in the gap she left when they can no longer remember her.

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

TAGLIST

@akshi8278

it's come to my attention that you guys don't like lorelle... LMAOO. elijah was never the type to have good taste in women (the exception of hayley) i mean... celeste??? katherine??? LOL

also, i've talked about this before since others have commented about it before, but writing a book about lilah in the vampire diaries?? i've been thinking about it a lot lately, and perhaps i love the idea because i can't let go of lilah. i mean, she's my baby. she's the first character/first book where people totally fell in love with my writing, where people have stuck with me. so, on the topic of lilah desmarais/mikaelson having a series in the vampire diaries? yes, i want to write it.

it would be a bit of an 'au' i guess. nothing about that book/series will have anything to do with lilah's storyline here, since this timeline never has lilah go be in mystic falls until the salvatore school. the only thing that would be the same is who her family is, her backstory, her friendship with katherine.

i'm thinking of writing this series as a "spin-off" but that then prompts the question: what about with the mikaelson's leave mystic falls and goes to new orleans? lilah will get to choose between staying in mystic falls or going with her family. i am excited to start this spin off. it'll still technically be "book 4" of the SIDE CHARACTER CHRONICLES, but i may write this book and book 4 at the same time.

the names i want for book one is currently:

IN THESE CIRCUMSTANCES

DISCUSSION BOARD!!

· did anyone actually read the book plot i just ranted about?

· time skipped through july and august, and now hope is out! it does take them a while to remember hope, but... what happens when roman goes back to work?

· i absolutely loved writing the lilah and roman fireworks scene

· everyone's opinions on lorelle?

· opinions on rebekah and lilah's relationship

14 notes · View notes

candideangel · 4 years

Note

19~

Soft Summer Prompts Prompt 19: Fireworks Other Characters included belong to (-clears throat-) @ofthesilverlining @whitherliliesbloom @windup-dragoon @maiden-born-in-snow @invidia1988 @meepsthemiqo (there’s others with context of the adventurer’s guild, but I couldn’t add too many or it would’ve been way overblown) Content Warning: 5.3 Spoilers Mentioned! (I have an addiction to it and I apologize deeply)

It was another year, a new Moonfire Faire, Angelique had only experienced it once and at the time she had done so alone at the tail end of the celebration. This time around she had been so surprised to be surrounded by amazing friends, allies (which a handful of them were city state leaders). In fact she had been so enthused by the inspiration that she had to pull some strings with Gegeruju to let her rent out one of their more high end cabanas close to where the festivities would be taking place. With most of the adventurer’s guild being paired off with two per room (three if she counted Ardbert with Shuri and Estinien). Honestly, she was nervous because she had never done this with anyone much less with friends and more so someone that she genuinely loved as something more.

“And...done!” Laurelis spoke after helping Angelique tie off the back of a summer top making sure it was pleasantly secure and the Hyur took a look and smiled a little at the soft ocean colors that covered most of her skin. “You look beautiful, I was thinking you were much more for green, but I daresay blue looks quite fetching on you.” The pink haired Miqo’te was certainly someone with good fashion taste, and lightly she would pat Angelique’s shoulders and would turn on her heel, making mention she was going to be joining the others on the beach. Angelique glanced over to her path and lightly waved over to Haurchefant who had been waiting for Laurelis to finish up and flash her a smile before placing an arm around his love’s shoulders and they went out to the sounds of where the ocean was crashing against the shores.

“G’raha?” Angelique called over curiously to one of the doors that was still firmly shut, but she still heard some faint shuffling behind it. “Everyone’s gone ahead, are you certain you’re comfortable with this? You didn’t have to come if you-.”

“I wanted to.” his voice filtered through the door followed by nervous shuffling, possibly just his feet. “But...you know me, I’ve been covered up so much my entire life that something like this just feels so...exposed. Besides, how could I allow you to be disappointed and being here alone at the festivities? Understand, you have your friends here, but I know you wouldn’t be happy on your own when they started pairing away to do more...couple-like activities.” That was when the door clicked open and slowly G’raha Tia stepped out, a fresh bloom of red on his cheeks that could have matched his hair as he stood there in an open white shirt and red swim shorts, as well as a pair of simple sandals.

“You aren’t wrong, but it is silly of me to be jealous of them. However, I won’t deny, coming here with you certainly will give it a bit more of a meaning.” Reaching over she brushed part of his hair back a little when she approached him, and she pulled away one of the hair clips that he used to brush some of his bangs out of his eyes and replaced it with a similar one only this one had a little artisan craft cherry bomb on the end. “Now, if we’re both over our insecurities...how about we join the others and have fun, hm?”

G’raha chuckled softly as she took his hands in hers and her lips graced his knuckles. “Very well. Though I must ask...where did you come up with the gil to afford such a luxurious place like this?” He wondered as they were starting to leave the cabana, Angelique gave him a wry smile, lightly nudging his shoulder with hers.

“Those treasure map ventures were helpful, and Gegeruju owed me a favor, so it was somewhat at a discount, but for the love of the Gods, do NOT under any circumstances let Illya know.”

It was that level of luxury.

The Moonfire Faire had begun in earnest and as always it would seem the Lalafell in charge spared no expense for the fun. Much like last year he had put up a wooden platform jump course. It had taken some convincing for most of the men who were more athletically inclined to try and race to the finish, with the exception of Alphinaud who was perfectly content with keeping his feet in the sand with Illya, who was looking pretty in a white swimsuit and a straw hat on top of her equally white colored locks. G’raha took a deep breath as he could feel himself bounce a little on the fronts of his feet, he had been working out with Angelique, mostly for stamina training and endurance. Certainly he would be okay with this. Though he was surprised that Ser Aymeric had chosen to partake, if only for the mere fun of it. Everyone else from Estinien to Thancred were...more understandable at best.

“Ready?” Kiya questioned holding up a satchel that held some shards that would go off together with the correct incentive.

“You got this G’raha!” Angelique called from down below as they were prepared in starting positions, and though he smiled a little to himself, his tail couldn’t help but flick in response.

“Go!” came the dark haired Miqo’te’s call as suddenly a spark of red shot off into the air, a star forming against the blue of the sky and like any race the guys took off at first in what appeared to be a dead heat.

However, it wasn’t until the platforms split off into two different direction did the real competition reel out, some took the more safe space with wider platforms, but the more nimble took the riskier way. Of course, Estinien was the one that had forged ahead leaping from beam to beam with utmost ease as if he simply stood on a branch. G’raha though wasn’t too far off from him, but his ears flicked at the occasional splashes from those who lost footing and were disqualified like Ardbert and surprisingly Hien had taken a tumble too. In the end though, after Shuri had fired off the golden star prism did the first competition end with Estinien taking in the first place, Aymeric had done surprisingly well all things considered to get into a second place next to his friend. G’raha had come up third, if he hadn’t fumbled during the climb up he would have at least met up with Estinien.

After a quick reprieve and swim back to the main shore, they continued their little races with the ladies and Kiri had come on top, still claiming to be the better dragoon than Estinien, Angelique had taken to second on that one because of her archer’s instincts. They even attempted a carry back for pairs, but that...didn’t really end up going very well with most falling into the ocean below. It eventually started to devolve into just a competition between Kirishimi and Estinien, fun for the first couple of rounds, but eventually the group had decided to go and do some other activities while they would try to blow off whatever steam that had built up.

“Let’s go get something to eat!” Meeps spoke up excitedly, her long black tail flicking a little bit as she caught the scents of freshly cooking meals, most likely fish dishes and other tropical favors from Limsa Lominsa. “You’ll share with me right?” Her eyes darted over to Asahi who looked rather startled by the sudden turn of his love.

“I...well…” he stammered, reaching for words, but he watched as this very cute smile started to form on Meeps’ lips.

“I love you~.” she cooed sweetly, Angelique had to stifle a chuckle behind her hand with a cough. Then again this wasn’t an uncommon trait, watching as the Doman Hyur groaned and reluctantly agreed. It was the charm of the Miqo’te, weapons of mass destruction right to the heart. When he had agreed, she would wrap her arms around one of his and happily go over to one of the stalls that was starting to gain an audience with the delicacies served. Apparently though the group had worked up an appetite. Eventually Shuri with Estinien and Ardbert in tow, and Kiri who had come with a soaked Hien joined them.

Conversation and stories were shared around while they sort of sat in this big group circle away from the crowds for a little while. The ones most popular were the experiences they had ended up sharing in the First, more so the more light hearted ones. Angelique smiled a little to herself as she munched into a skewer of fruits, listening as Thancred lamented that he couldn’t bring Ryne for a little trip here. Or even bring something to her, but those being a Warrior of Light who could gain access to and from the First always offered to run anything they could to her on request. After all she had become part of this family. G’raha smiled to himself and lightly nudged his shoulder against Angelique’s, setting his head down on it for a moment, “Do you still have that item from Valentione’s day?” he asked softly and her cheeks brightened to a shade of red.

“If you’re talking about the moogle toy with a heart for the pom then yes, you would know. It’s in our room back at the Rising Stones.” She muttered softly and he gave her a sly smile to show that he had indeed been aware that it was there. “Geez, you’re lucky you’re cute.” she muttered softly as she would hold out the skewer to him and he just chuckled softly moving over and took a piece of melon that had been the closest one to get at.

“It’s still odd to be genuinely hungry.” he replied softly and Angelique smiled, knowing that when she cooked for him at times, it was mostly just to make her happy. It wasn’t that he couldn’t taste it, no he loved everything she did, but the appetite to really be classified as hunger wasn’t there at the time. It was the same with resting and exhaustion. “But it feels good to genuinely work up an appetite.”

It was apparent he was having fun, and that was a good thing.

After they had their fill, the group still played a few games related to the beach until the sun started to set. Laurelis was the one who called for the group to go get dry and cleaned from the sand, she had some surprises at the cabana for them. As it turned out she had come prepared with plenty of summer themed wear for everyone, some were yukata and others were happis, all were from Othard in origin. They came in a variety of designs like blue and silver for Alphinaud, pastel pink with white flowers for Illya, it was apparent that Laurelis was someone who thought her friends were worth every bit of gil. She even got Angelique a kimono that went to her thighs in pastel green this time with a variety of bright and colorful flowers stitched across it. Of course she had given her some tights to wear underneath it for modesty’s sake. Shuri had gotten a kimono in blue and white with snowflakes stitched across it, and the list went on until all were dressed for the evening.

Dark was upon them though as they were gathered around the shorelines, Asahi and Meeps were setting off a few sparklers with others, just having a good time until there was the announcement that the fireworks would begin soon. At first the group had been discussing options, but then G’raha would lightly tug on Angelique’s hand to get her attention. He wished to take her elsewhere and at first the bard was unsure, but Shuri smiled and shooed them off, after all they had been together most of the day and if they wanted to split off that was fine too.

“G’raha where are we going?” Angelique asked as they had gone pretty far away from the group, but he was smiling a little bit as they came to one of the huts with a sturdier roof than some of the ones built from straw appeared to be. Shifting a few crates he would climb onto them ascending to the roof and would hold out a hand to Angelique with a small smile.

“Do you trust me?” he asked and she looked a little bit confused before nodding, taking his hand and with his help pulled her onto the top. “Just be careful where you step, it’s sturdy, but don’t want you falling through.” he spoke as he moved over to take a seat as she followed suit, and there was no mistaking the reason why. The view was beautiful, the entire beach stretching out before them. Angelique could see that indeed their group had split off into their own little spaces for them, she could just barely see Alphinaud holding Illya in his lap, Shuri settled between both Ardbert and Estinien like a petite princess, Kiri and Hien were close with an arm around her waist...everyone just being together in their own worlds if only for a time. Carefully she would pull her knees to her chest, staring out at the smooth dark surface of the ocean.

“This is nice.” she spoke softly after a moment of silence. “Last time I came here it was on the tail end of the festivities...and I was alone.” she gave him a small smile, “After all I couldn’t very well drag a pool back to the First.”

G’raha chuckled softly and reached over to lightly brush his fingers against her hair, “It wouldn’t surprise me if you tried.” he spoke calmly, smiling a little. “But from what you had given me during previous festivities despite the distance, I was happy you attempted to include me at that time. Though some of them I often wondered what drove you to do certain things. Like wearing that dress for All Saint’s Wake and...that one attire that is shut away forever to not be seen again.” He slid his hand away for a moment and sighed as he stared out at the water for a moment. “Though I think my favorite holiday was celebrating the day you came into the world…and I’m not speaking of the First, I mean you.”

“I know, I think my nameday was one of my favorites too. After all I wasn’t wanting for a ceremony or anything large...I was fine with just allowing it to pass. But it seems that you wouldn’t let it be.”

“Still won’t.” he replied with a smirk, “Now that I truly get to spend these times with you. I wish to experience everything with you, like here and now.”

“Raha…” Angelique spoke softly, but any other words failed as they came to silence as a high pitched shriek echoed through the air and a burst of color followed right after and cheers from down below. Looks like words would have to wait as the display began in earnest, but she glanced over to G’raha as he placed an arm around her shoulders and gently pulled her in close so she could rest her head against his shoulder, his hand sliding down to her waist, the weight of his cheek pressing to the crown of her head, an ear flicking on occasion to the loud pops and explosions. And really it made Angelique happy just being in the company of her friends and G’raha...marking this as one of the best days she has had since indeed her nameday in the First.

#adventurer's guild #ffxiv #ffxiv writing #5.3 Spoilers!#Also on behalf of me I do apologize if I have somehow mistakenly misrepresented a character and ship #And that not all of them had dialogue #crystalangel #g'raha tia x wol #g'raha tia x angelique #the writing is also a bit trash

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thebiasrekkers · 4 years

Text

Make It Right [BTS Mafia!AU]

Pairings: Jin x OC | Taehyung/Hoseok x OC | Yoongi/Jungkook x OC Genre: BTS Mafia!AU Warnings: Graphic Violence, Heavy Language, Angst, Smut, Slow Burn WC: 2,494 Prologue 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 “It’s always darkest before the dawn…” It’s a dog-eat-dog world in Seoul, South Korea. One has to dwell in the shadows in order to reach for the light. What are you willing to sacrifice in order to feel the sunlight on your face? What will it take to drag you back into darkness? How long will the journey be to make it right?

AO3 | WP

Chapter 18: Magic Shop

"I won’t say clichéd things like 'have strength'. I’ll just listen to you, listen..."

Busan - Marine City; Haeundae District South Korea

The trip to Busan yielded much fruit.

Seokjin expected no less, however, when it came to Anastasia.

While she already submitted her letter of resignation to her own company, holding true to her word, Seokjin decided it was best that he kept his as well. He would give her time to bid her co-workers farewell and to get her affairs in order. When she brought the contract, it was signed and he also put his own signature on it as well – completing the deal with his sealing stamp. It didn’t surprise him that she was anxiously waiting for anything to change; for the final nail to sink into her coffin.

But no, this was the beginning of a very beautiful relationship. He would make sure of that.

And he did. Not wanting to waste anymore time, Seokjin informed her that she needed to pack a suitcase so they could go on a business trip. He wanted to take the time to properly get to know her in the business aspect. He knew what she was like personally, at least from what the younger ones often mentioned. She was funny, loyal, and fair. But she also had self-esteem issues, mostly stemming from attempting to claim a dream and failing in said endeavor.

He didn’t want her to feel she couldn’t take anymore risks. Certain risks could bring the greatest rewards. But some gambles left a person completely destitute. Seokjin wanted to make sure that she was capable of discerning which types of deals she would be willing to take to bring more profit to the company, as well as reassure her that it was okay to make mistakes.

They took the train to Busan. There was no need to rush. They had three days of work ahead of them, all paid for and then some. Seokjin explained the details of what they were to do while they were out and about. It was also a chance for her to explore and get some downtime away from the cramped office space of a corporate building. Most of her work would involve being at his side as he conducted business deals and attended corporate meetings. Again, something she was used to, but not in such an intimate fashion.

Anastasia enjoyed taking photos and would do so every time they stopped. She had a keen eye for location and architecture, as well as for anything that looked aesthetically pleasing or what sorts of things could use improvement. It was a little difficult to get her to talk about herself, but when she did, the American woman did not hold back and it was something Seokjin appreciated. Her honesty made her human and being more human meant being more empathetic to the ideas and understandings of others. It was a necessary skill when it came to being an investment company. Sometimes it wasn’t always about turning a profit.

He took her to various shopping centers, allowing her to take notes on a variety of stores. They tried different foods and tested out a plethora of products. Everything from electronics to makeup and skincare items. She seemed a little surprised at how her complexion looked after having a makeup artist provided her with a color palette to suit her skin tone. Seokjin purchased the kit, as well as the skincare lineup that accompanied the makeup. Anastasia protested, of course, but he simply told her that it was work-related and to let it be. She couldn’t properly help to advise him on what to do with his finances if she didn’t know what they were investing in.

The first day blew by faster than either anticipated. They enjoyed a nice meal at a high-end restaurant where he offered up suggestions. She listened and even asked the servers what they recommended for the evening. Again, Anastasia took notes even while they ate, which amused Seokjin.

The second day was much more productive and they visited more stores. A few of them offered sales pitches to which Seokjin listened politely. He offered his ear to Anastasia, wanting to hear what her thoughts were on a few of the companies. Practical and fair, she agreed that some needed to be reworked before they could be given investment funds to continue their ventures. She even reached as far back to the factory workers who would be producing some of the items that were being pitched to them. This was something most people failed to consider or would completely disregard the workers’ financial needs in the production line. Could they afford to give compensation and pay their people overtime? Would they have paid holidays off and was there a rollover system for PTO?

Every single detail was not overlooked by Anastasia and she gave advice even when they looked to Seokjin since he rarely spoke in these instances. In actual board meetings with a few of the companies he’d invested in, he made sure that she was right beside him to hear and comprehend everything that was going on. She didn’t have very many questions and when she did, she did not hesitate to ask them to the other board members. There were whispers about her being disrespectful for speaking for Seokjin, but he quickly squashed those comments when he explained her position on his staffing team.

They took breaks often, which he insisted. She didn’t complain but he could tell that she was averse to the idea of breaking her momentum. But after the eighth meeting scheduled for the day, he could tell that Anastasia needed a break.

Seokjin took her to a variety of places, explaining the reasoning behind wanting to invest all the way out in Busan. The Golden Jackals weren’t planning on working the underground circuit forever. Assimilating their assets, selling off those they didn’t need, was all part of the plan to legalize themselves. Golden Star was just the beginning. With Jimin working Jeju and Taehyung dipping into the entertainment industry alongside Namjoon, eventually they would be able to build from those foundations and focus on key aspects of their company that they wanted to shine the most. Even Jungkook’s eyes were turned toward industrialization and Yoongi’s foreign relations were key to solidifying their own need for investment overseas.

And Hoseok would be the figurehead over it all.

Their final night in Busan was a celebratory one. He wanted to reward Anastasia for all her hard work. She agreed to the reward, but only accepted it on the terms and conditions that it would be a casual night. Nothing fancy and nothing that involved her having to walk around in high heels all night. Seokjin laughed, obliging.

They agreed on dinner and a movie. Anastasia preferred actions or thrillers to horror films and Seokjin wasn’t really a fan of romantic comedies. They came to a happy medium, settling for a murder mystery film instead. After it finished, they discussed when they were able to conclude who the actual killer was at the family estate.

Seokjin liked it when Anastasia laughed. He enjoyed seeing her nose wrinkle up when she blew her food and how freely she smiled when something tasted good or if she saw something amusing. There were times when she seemed to have a faraway look in her eye, but then he’d have to catch her as she tripped over her own feet. As organized as she was, he found it a little humanizing that she was also a bit of a klutz.

“I want to shoot fireworks on the beach,” she said suddenly as they walked and ate Bungeoppang.

He chewed, the sweet red bean paste thick on his tongue as he looked down at her. “What?” Seokjin laughed. “Do you know how cold it gets at the beaches here during this time of year?”

She took another bite of the fish-shaped bread, blowing around her teeth to cool the snack. “So?” Anastasia swallowed, puffing one of her cheeks out at him as he scrutinized her. “I’ve never done it before. Get off me.”

He sighed, shaking his head. “And you want to do it now?”

Anastasia shrugged. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back out here just for fun.”

Seokjin grinned, nudging her shoulder just a bit. “Don’t worry,” he said gently, “you’ll be able to come out here when you have time off and enjoy yourself. I promise.”

She rolled her eyes. “You and your promises.”

“I haven’t broken one yet, have I?”

Anastasia raised her brows at him. “Well, no…but—”

He shook his head. “Then trust me when I tell you that you’ll be able to come out here again.” He leaned in toward her as they continued walking. “…when it’s warmer.”

“I’m holding you to that,” she said while pointing at him.

“Feel free,” Seokjin replied easily, polishing off the rest of the fish-shaped bread. He watched her do the same. “Tired?”

Anastasia gave a nod while attempting to stifle a yawn. “Yeah, a little bit.” She stretched her arms over her head. “Are we still scheduled to leave in the morning?”

He nodded. “We are. Unless you’d prefer we leave tonight.”

“Getting train tickets this last minute is expensive.” She frowned up at him and he did his best not to smirk. He merely arched a brow with mild curiosity. They began walking down the street to head back to their hotel. “Besides, we haven’t even packed our things or checked out of the hotel yet. Don’t be unreasonable.”

“Who’s being unreasonable?”

“You are,” she clipped while rolling her eyes, “knowing you, you’d make the staff work double time just so they wouldn’t get a bad review.”

Seokjin laughed outright as they turned the street corner, his hands slipping into his coat pockets. “So harsh. Last minute checkouts aren’t unheard of, nor are they unreasonable.”

“No, they’re not. But in this case, it’s completely unnecessary. Don’t make those people sweat for no reason.”

He laughed at the reprimanding expression painted over her face and nodded, making sure that she walked on the inside of the sidewalk and away from the street. It was a little late, but Seokjin knew that they would have enough time to pack and get everything together tonight before leaving first thing in the morning. As soon as they arrived back in Seoul, it would be business as usual. He’d already received the reports from Namjoon and the others. Taehyung was out of the hospital and Hoseok was uneasy after his meeting with Changkyun.

He knew that Hoseok would never say it out loud, but Namjoon conveyed his worries over the phone. Things were moving faster than they anticipated and Seokjin couldn’t help but wonder if The Jade Fangs were in the process of making another move to expand their reach.

“Seokjin-ssi?”

Seokjin looked at Anastasia, blinking a few times when he realized she had a concerned look on her face.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?”

“No, you just looked like you were deep in thought.”

His smile fell a margin. “Did I worry you?”

She nodded and, again, he appreciated her honesty.

Seokjin reached out to press his hand to her lower back, ushering her toward their hotel just as a sleek gunmetal sedan pulled up by the entrance. He took note that her brows were furrowed and he tried to give her his best smile. He didn’t like that he even had such a look on his face.

Strange, he thought, I normally don’t let people read me like that.

As they made their way toward the front entrance, Seokjin’s eyes narrowed when he saw a familiar figure exit the vehicle. He leaned toward Anastasia so he could whisper into her ear.

“Go ahead and get some rest.”

She seemed to take note of the situation, reading it quicker than he’d anticipated. Her brows furrowed with concern as she tried her best not to bring any attention to herself. He really did appreciate her care.

“Are you sure?”

He nodded, an attempt to reassure her. “Yes, I’ll be inside soon.” Seokjin met her gaze, smiling to alleviate any worries she may have had. “I promise.”

Anastasia bit her lower lip before nodding and entering the hotel. Once inside, Seokjin waited until she entered the elevator. Once the doors closed, he turned and glanced over his shoulder as the person approached him. His lip piercing was connected to a chain that was attached to his right earring. Seokjin saw him grin widely at him, however he didn’t return the smile.

“Well, this is certainly a pleasant surprise. I didn’t expect to see you here of all places, Jin Hyung.”

“Wonho-yah,” came Seokjin’s even tone, a soft lilt toward the end of it, “I didn’t expect to see you here either.”

Wonho shrugged. “Oh, you know, business meetings and the like.” Seokjin watched his eyes dart toward the hotel lobby where, thankfully, Anastasia was no longer located. “Was that your personal assistant?” Their eyes met once more. “She’s kinda cute.”

“Don’t even dream about it,” he said while grinning, “you wouldn’t be able to keep up with her.”

He saw Wonho’s lips form into an “O” shape before it melted into a smirk, his eyes narrowing deviously. “Is that a challenge?”

Seokjin scoffed while tilting his head to the side. “She’d eat you alive. Salvage your pride a little, will you?”

Wonho belted out a full laugh, his eyes almost disappearing as he did so. Seokjin grinned but there was no warmth behind his eyes. The younger male held his hands up in mock surrender while shaking his head. After a while, the two just stood shoulder to shoulder, faces in opposing directions.

“You know, Jin Hyung, I heard an interesting little rumor.”

“Do I want to know?”

Wonho shrugged, his head lifting to the sky. “If it’s true, it’s a shame.”

Seokjin cast a sidelong glance to him. “Yeah, I don’t think I want to know.”

He pivoted on his heels to head back into the hotel. Just as the sliding glass doors opened, he heard Wonho shifting behind him.

“When you’re gone, Jin Hyung, I want to see just who is going to be able to stop us…”

Seokjin paused, craning his neck slowly to look back at Wonho, whose smirk was still firmly in place.

“…when we decide to completely take over.”

He narrowed his eyes at Wonho as the younger man stuffed one hand into the pocket of his leather jacket.

“It’s not smart to aim for the sun, Wonho-yah.” Seokjin smirked, scoffing soon after. “Icarus died when he tried.”

Then he went inside the hotel lobby and made his way toward the elevator. A soft buzzing reverberated in his pocket and he pulled out his phone to see a text from Namjoon.

Namjoon: Hyung, it’s almost time.

Seokjin’s eyes narrowed.

We’re almost there, my brothers. I promise it’ll all be over soon.

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moonbeambucky · 5 years

Text

Magical Vacation

Pairing: Lance Tucker x Reader Word Count: 1465 Warnings: fluff, bad jokes

Summary: The Tucker’s go on their first family vacation!

You had been looking forward to this day for a while, a milestone for your children and you couldn’t be more excited. The Tucker’s were going to Disney World!

Theodore had been sleeping since before you left. You thought Ariel would have woken him up a few times already due to her excited screaming but somehow even she had fallen asleep, with her head resting against the car seat, a little bit of drool pooling precariously on her bottom lip.

Like your daughter you were also four when your parents first took you to Walt Disney World. The drive was under two hours but when you were a kid that seemed like an endless journey. Sometimes Lance would join you when Dorothy couldn’t take off work but still wanted her son to enjoy himself and your parents were more than happy to bring him along.

You had so many memories, from running down Main Street USA hand in hand with Lance, with both of your jaws dropping to the floor when you saw Cinderella Castle transformed into a giant pink birthday cake for the park’s 25th anniversary.

Each attraction holds a special place in your heart because of your shared memories. The hills of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roared with delightful screams as you dared each other to keep your hands up during the whole ride. You exited the Mad Tea Party on unsteady legs, falling into each other and laughing, and when you were too scared to scream during Alien Encounter Lance would knowingly reach out his hand towards yours so you could squeeze it tight.

Lance was your prince charming but better because he was also your best friend. It may have a taken a while to achieve your happily ever after but here you were, ready to make new memories with your beautiful children.

Softly you called out to Ariel, reaching your arm back to gently caress her leg to wake her up. She rubbed at her tired eyes before they widened, noticing your smile.

“Are we here?” she asked, gasping when you nodded your head.

“Look Starfish!” Lance said as he drove onto Disney property, seeing the welcome signs along the highway. You instead watched your daughter’s face light up with joy as you took in the first of many smiles to come.

As an ESPN employee you were entitled to large discounts since Disney owned the company. This allowed you and Lance to splurge for the kids, staying at the Grand Floridian with a view of Cinderella Castle from the balcony.

Over the next week you spent your days in the parks, marveling at how so much had changed and enjoying every new memory you were creating. As an adult you had much more of an appreciation for Epcot and not just because of the alcohol or kid-friendly attractions. You had traveled to almost all of the countries in World Showcase, something young Y/N never would have imagined.

Magic Kingdom had the familiar rides of your childhood along with new ones. Ariel was so excited to meet all her favorite characters and Lance couldn’t help but notice how giddy you were as you sat next to a beloved mermaid friend for a picture.

Theodore was all smiles, the two year old not quite understanding where he was though enjoying every moment of it anyway, but when he saw Mickey his eyes lit up and he bounced over to the mouse to give him a big hug.

Clung to her father’s side, Ariel watched with glee as fireworks exploded above the castle. You checked on Theodore, asleep in his stroller through the noise and glanced over again towards Ariel. The light sparkled in her eyes and you were so happy to share this magical moment with her.

Lance caught you staring his way and he smiled brightly.

“I love you,” he said, his words of affection drowned out by the loud boom of the fireworks. You didn’t need to hear him say it, the love Lance had for you was evident from the way he looked at you like you hung the stars in the sky.

He leaned in to kiss you, giving more of a peck considering Ariel was in his arms and you were in public but you felt his need for more, seeing the burning hunger in his eyes. Looping your arm through his you leaned your head against him and watched the rest of the fireworks together.

The following days were spent exploring the other two parks neither you or Lance had ever been to. Ariel belted out all the lyrics at the Frozen sing-a-long show as you bouncing Theo in your lap and clapped his hands together through the songs you wouldn’t be able to get out of your head.

Lance’s favorite part of the day was scoring higher than you on Toy Story Midway Mania.

“As the winner I know what I want as my prize.” Lance’s warm breath on the shell of your ear sent a chill down your spine.

“Mommy I have to go potty,” Ariel said, tugging at your leg.

You shrugged your shoulders, mouthing an apology to Lance as Ariel took your hand and you led her towards the bathrooms.

With Theo in his arms Lance sighed, “How is it when I win I still lose?”

Theo responded with a smile and Lance tickled his stomach causing Theo to burst out with laughter.

There was so much for your children to take in but they loved seeing the animals on the safari at Animal Kingdom the most.

“Woarrr!” Theodore exclaimed when you passed by lions sleeping on top of their hill, to the amusement of the other guests on the ride.

Your phone was full of so many pictures and videos, including the latest one you were filming, Ariel being pulled up to dance during “The Festival of the Lion King.” A young girl dressed as a zebra also encouraged Theo to join her but he sunk his shy head back into Lance’s chest.

Lance’s favorite part of the show was seeing the “monkeys” perform a gymnastics routine. He couldn’t help but watch them intently, studying their form.

“Do they get gold bananas?” you joked, nudging him. Lance smirked because you caught him and he couldn’t help himself, gymnastics was in his blood.

Most afternoons you would head back to the hotel to either spend some time relaxing in the pool or to let the kids nap a little longer, especially if you were planning on going back to the park at night. You and Lance rested as well, needing a break from all the work it took to give your kids the best first family vacation ever.

Curled up against Lance’s side, you rested your palm on his chest, feeling his hand cover yours as he squeezed you tighter.

Lance hummed contently as his lips found your forehead, pressing a soft kiss to your skin. “I love you baby.”

You smiled against him, tilting your head to look into his gorgeous eyes that sparkled with affection. Shifting your body, you moved upwards to bring your lips to Lance’s, kissing him softly until his tongue slipped past your lips and your body felt hotter than all the time you spent in the sun.

Lance flipped you on to your back, nudging your leg open with his knee as he got on top of you, caging your head within his lean arms. His lips were on yours again as he rocked slowly against you, desperately wishing the layer of clothes that separated you would magically disappear.

You swallowed a moan as you pulled away, knowing the kids would be waking up soon. You wanted Lance just as badly but lately each day has left you exhausted. It was easier the first night when you weren’t worn out from the sun, getting clean and dirty in the shower as the kids slept.

“Fine,” he huffed playfully, “but maybe tonight you can ride the monorail.” Lance’s lips pulled into a devilish grin, with his eyebrows rising up flirtatiously.

“Lance!” you whisper-yelled, swatting at his chest.

“Y/N please, I need you,” he pleaded, “I want to Hakuna your ta-ta’s.”

Lance could barely say the line out without giggling and you joined in, laughing wildly at his terrible joke.

“You’re a real dad now with these bad jokes,” you chuckled, cupping his cheeks and pulling him in for another kiss, “But I still love you.”

Lance rested against you now, looking over at his children sleeping peacefully on the other bed. With a smile on his face Lance reflected on how “The Most Magical Place on Earth” wasn’t Walt Disney World but anywhere, as long as he was with his family.

#lance tucker x reader #lance tucker fanfiction #lance tucker x you #lance tucker fluff #dad!lance tucker

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softest-cinnamon-roll · 5 years

Note

Reddie with “I missed you.” and “Kiss me.”?

This was super fun to write so thank you for the prompt!!! It’s taken from this list

AO3 link

It was like the universe had been testing him for some reason and Eddie wasn’t sure how much more of it he could take. After finally getting together with his long term crush and best friend, Richie Tozier, Eddie was finally looking forward to spending the entire summer with his friends, and spending time with Richie as boyfriends. They even had a plan set out between them all, as well as all the things they were going to do over the course of the summer.

Then his mother had to go and announce that he was to spend the whole 10 weeks of his summer vacation with his aunt in Michigan. There was no arguments, Eddie was going and that was final. There was a part of him that hoped it was just a weird coincidence, but Eddie knew deep down that his mother must have known about him and Richie, and this was her master plan at keeping them apart for the summer.

Of course, Richie was pissed, as were the rest of the losers. Eddie’s departure put a dent in their summer plans, but Eddie assured them that things will be easier now, as they had an even number. He said all this with a huge smile, even though he was dying inside. His summer plans were screwed and he’d have to spend ten weeks doing old people things that were extremely boring.

His suspicions were proven to be correct the second he touched down in Michigan. His aunt was there to collect him, the spitting image of his mother and ushered him to the car. On their way to her house, she explained the numerous rules in place for his visit. He wasn’t to watch television after nine, phone calls home were only to last fifteen minutes and he was to be in bed by ten.

The ten weeks dragged by, and Eddie found himself wanting to go back to school. At least then he would get to see his friends and spend time with his boyfriend. He divided up his call time between his mother and Richie as well as the occasional call to the losers, but his mother always sounded bitter when he didn’t call her every day.

During his calls with Richie, he described all the fun they were having, at Eddie’s insistence. He described how they went swimming to the quarry, or went to see the new blockbuster movie at the Aladdin. Eddie felt his stomach churn with jealousy at each word Richie spoke, and he had to hide his tears from his aunt. If she found out he was crying, she might have blocked all calls to his friends all together.

“It’s not fair, Rich…I wish I was home with you. All our summer plans…” Eddie whispered one day, about five weeks into his visit. His aunt was out shopping so he got to spend a little more time on the phone to Richie.

“I know baby,” Richie breathed back down the line and all Eddie wanted to do was reach through the phone and grab him, holding on tight. “But you’ll be back the night before the Derry Fair, so we can still go together. We can still play all those rigged games and ride the Ferris Wheel.”

Eddie sighed, but nodded, even though Richie couldn’t see. The Derry Fair was his silver lining in all this mess. He would be home in time to experience it with his friends and that was what kept him going for the rest of the five weeks he remained with his aunt.

Finally, the day came for him to travel home and his aunt drove him to the airport, planting a huge sloppy kiss on his cheek and reminding him to let her know he arrived in Bangor safely. He nodded with a tense smile, edging further and further away from her until he couldn’t see her anymore. Scared that she would pull him back for another week, Eddie sprinted off towards security, breathing a sigh of relief when he was on the other side.

Through security. I’m almost home! - E

Can’t wait to see your cute face, Eds. I’m deprived! - R

Beep beep, Richie. - E

Can’t wait to see you too. - E

The flight back home went by quicker than Eddie expected, which was a good thing, and soon he was landing in Bangor and collecting his suitcase from the baggage claim. When he walked through into the arrivals lounge, his mother was waiting for him with her overprotective smile and Eddie deflated.

“Eddie-bear! You’re home!” She cooed, pulling him into a hug and planting a kiss on his forehead. She pulled back and held him out at arms length, clearly inspecting him for some reason or another. “You look pale, and tired. Do we need to make a visit to the emergency room?”

At the mention of the hospital, Eddie perked up and shook his head violently, “No ma, no need to go to the hospital! I’m not sick, I’m just fine. I’m sleepy from the long flight. A good night’s rest and I’ll be good as new.”

His mother pursed her lips, and Eddie could see the wheels in her head turning before she finally nodded and they headed out to the parked car. “Alright Eddie-bear, but maybe you should stay at home for a few days, I don’t want you getting sick before school starts.”

And there it was…the icing on the cake. His mother knew about the Derry Festival and she also knew that Eddie would want to go with his friends. Not wanting to miss out on the last chance of summer fun, Eddie put his foot down. “I’m going to the Derry Festival tomorrow with my friends Ma. I’ve missed them all summer and I’d like to have some fun with them before we go back to school.”

She clearly wasn’t happy with that, but there wasn’t a valid reason for her to keep him indoors, so she relented. “Fine, but you have to be home by eleven, after the firework display. Understood?”

Eddie nodded his head, exhaling in relief. He understood, and was perfectly fine with that.

* * * * *

The following afternoon, Eddie got himself dressed for the day before rushing out of his house to meet his friends, not giving his mother a chance to change her mind. He saw Ben first, who was waiting outside the Aladdin, looking at his phone and Eddie let out a scream of his name.

“Ben!” Ben turned around and his face broke into a wide smile.

“Eddie!” They met in the middle, hugging each other tightly and Eddie had to resist the urge not to cry. When they pulled away, Eddie told Ben all about his awful summer, until the other losers were spotted from over the hill. As much as Eddie would like to have said he spoke to all his friends first, he didn’t. The second his eyes landed on Richie, he was off like a rocket.

The second he was close enough, Eddie jumped into Richie’s arms, wrapping his arms and legs around him like an Octopus, not planning on letting go. “Oh my god, I’ve missed you!”

Richie chuckled into his neck, holding him close, clearly returning the passion of ‘not letting him go’. “I’ve missed you too Eds, so freaking much.”

A clear of a few throats caused them to break apart and Richie sat Eddie back down on his feet, lacing their fingers together instead. “Sorry guys…”

“You’re forgiven, but come on, I’d like to see the fair!” Bev grinned, taking Ben’s hand and walking ahead of the others. Eddie blinked…when did that happen? Richie seemed to sense his confusion and leaned down to whisper as they walked.

“Last week, during a game of truth or dare. Finally, right?” He laughed and Eddie chuckled along with him. When they reached the fair, it was already busy with families, teenagers and adults alike. All the losers went their separate ways then, making a promise to meet up for the fireworks at the end of the day.

Richie tugged on Eddie’s hand, leading him towards the stalls where they got some candy floss and attempted to win some prizes at darts and other games. It was almost like Eddie had never been away, how comfortable they were with each other, and soon they found themselves in the line for the Ferris Wheel.

Luckily, at that point there wasn’t much of a queue, so they were seated in no time and being sent up to the top. When it came to a stop, right at the peak of the wheel, Eddie looked around at all of Derry and for a second he thought it looked rather peaceful. He turned around to voice his thoughts to Richie but when he did, he realised that Richie was staring right at him.

“That’s not creepy at all,” Eddie teased and Richie nudged his side playfully. “Seriously though, do I have something on my face?”

Richie shook his head, and in a moment of softness, he reached a hand out to tuck some of Eddie’s hair behind his ear that his blown astray with the wind. “No…no you’re just…you’re beautiful and I’ve missed you.”

Now Eddie’s heart was hammering in his chest. He took in their situation and setting. It was almost considered romantic in every high school cliche movie. Eddie wasn’t a fan of them, not really, but right in that moment, with Richie staring at him, he wanted nothing more than for them to kiss.

“Kiss me?” Eddie voiced, his breathing a little light and he exhaled as Richie moved his hand to cup his cheek, bringing their lips together in what would be their second, but best, kiss so far. Richie’s lips tasted like the candy floss, sweet and strawberry and they were so damn soft that Eddie melted into the Ferris Wheel seat like goo.

So Eddie might have missed his summer with his friends and Richie. He might have not gotten to do all the things that he wanted to do, but as long as he never had to trade this moment up? He wasn’t going to complain.

* * * * *

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#reddie #richie tozier #eddie kaspbrak #writing tag

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officialleehadan · 5 years

Text

Courting Rituals

“Leave off, Noble, I’m fine.”

“Fine usually means that you’re nothing of the sort.”

"It's nothing."

“You look like you got caught in a mining rig.”

“I’m fine.”

Mila was not fine. Mila ached all over even after another week of licking his wounds and soaking in the hot springs after his fight with Crimmelast. His unexpected revelation, that of his true breed, had gotten him plenty of attention.

There weren’t a lot of Golds knocking around anymore. There had been a particularly bad territory dispute a few millennia back that killed most of them.

Mila remembered that, although he hadn’t been particularly involved. The clans involved were no relation of his, and the fight was none of his business. His own family was killed off thousands of years earlier, during one of the earlier Galactic Wars. He took brutal revenge, but it still left him without clan or territory.

Later he found out how nice traveling was and decided to do more of that rather than settle down somewhere.

Of course, everyone at the Convocation had an opinion on his loyalties and wanted to know if he was going to call Challenge on anyone else. After all, plenty of them had been rude to him over the years. It wasn’t unreasonable to be concerned.

But no. Mila didn’t care if they were rude. He only cared about Crimm because Crimm almost cost him something important.

Crimm was, as expected, being very, very quiet. That was a pleasant change.

Eventually Mila gave up, finished his negotiations, and took one of the transport-ships up the star-base to collect Tilsie.

He had forgotten that his injuries, which were healing, although not quickly, would show in his human form.

Tilsie took one look at him and immediately bustled him into their ship to fuss over him.

The fussing was actually rather nice. Dragons groomed each other to show fondness. Tilsie couldn’t know that her instance on bandaging him up was the dragon equivalent of sweet little kisses.

He really needed to get her caught up on dragon custom if she was going to be traveling with him. They still needed to go rescue her sister. He was honestly surprised she was alright with stopping for the Convocation but then, he supposed she didn’t have much choice. She couldn’t go on without him.

“Tilsie, I’m honestly alright,” he told her, although he didn’t try to stop her. She made the face when he tried last time. Like his injuries were all her fault and she didn’t know what else to do with herself. “Injuries in human-form are a bad mirror of my dragon-form. The only injuries that actually were bothering me were my wings, and I already had a healer look at them.”

“Something happened to your wings?!”

Perhaps that was the wrong thing to say. She filled a bucket, tossed a clean cloth in, and pointed for the cargo hold, which was the only room on the ship big enough for his true form. “Move, Scaly. The faster you shift and let me see, the faster I’ll leave you alone.”

“If you wanted to get your hands on me, you could have just asked.”

“I’ll ask next time. When you’re not bleeding. Go.”

Mila went, ever at the whim of his favorite human. He really needed to find something nice for her. Earrings maybe. She liked earrings and he wanted to put treasure on his Treasure.

He definitely needed to talk to her about dragon courting rituals. His instincts were being unreasonable about her. He was practically nesting, which was just embarrassing, considering that he hadn’t given her a single courting gift.

How was she supposed to know what a good mate he could be if he didn’t give her courting gifts?

…he maybe needed to put a choke-chain on his instincts.

The cargo hold was almost never actually used for cargo, since Mila slept there sometimes when he wanted to stretch out. It was instead, stuffed with soft, heavy blankets that were specially made for dragons. The fabric was spelled against ripping, and the stuffing inside was fluffy even after being slept on.

Tilsie waited until he shifted into his Brass-form, took her bucket, and began going over him, pausing to buff here and there when she found a place that was scraped or needed cleaning.

Mila started to purr, and tried valiantly not to fall asleep.

“How do you feel about diamonds,” he asked as he scrambled up his side with his spines as a handhold. He helpfully boosted her with one careful wing-claw and made sure his wing was under her in case she slipped. “Yellow ones.”

“They’re nice,” Tilsie said, scrubbing at a bit of blood under his scales. He was reasonably clean after soaking in the springs, but clever human fingers were perfect for finding the itchy spots. “I have some at home I think.”

“But do you like them?”

He needed to know. For reasons.

He thought he still had some of his smaller scales too, from his last shed. She would look beautiful in gold scales and gold diamonds.

“Better than the colorless ones, if you must know. I like yellow sapphires too. Why?”

“No reason,” he lied, and bent up to bump her with his nose before stretching out so she could do as she pleased. Yellow sapphires. He could do that.

+++

HGE - The Maw

Tilsie needs to find someone in the worst part of space. For that, she needs the kind of help money can’t always buy, and the kind of luck she only hopes she has.

Back Room Handshakes

New Understandings

Poker Face

Brassy Secrets

Coffee Treasure

Fireworks at Midnight

Dragon-Tongue (Subscriber Only!)

Challenge-Battle (Subscribers only!)

+++