#from the pollen. like the petals are mostly okay i think but if i touch the yellow part it’s really bad | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

noses-in-winter · 1 year

Note

Innoportune for Solara?

Thanks so much for my first prompt ask, yay! Okay so this is about my angry fairy princess OC Solara who has the SUPER rockin hot body of the fairy goddess. She wears an outfit made of ceremonial daisy petals, buuuuut she is very allergic to it. She's also a very petite individual but has a loud, violent sneeze that is very un-princesslike, so there really is no opportune time for her to sneeze.

It's in the POV of Callum, her sweet servant who's mute but loves her very much and would do anything for her! I wouldn't label this nsfw but it DOES have descriptions of her, um, overactive chest with her overactive sneezing.

2.4k words, f sneezes, tiddy descriptions, PLEASE DON'T REBLOG TO NON-KINK BLOGS PLEEEASE

There was always a very limited window of time for Princess Solara to sport the ceremonial daisy bralette. Even when overloading herself with antihistamines, the chokehold that daisy pollen had on her was ultimately unstoppable. That’s why Kien the royal painter had been told to work fast to paint Solara in the bralette before she could wind up sneezing every last petal off. If yet another portrait had to be restarted due to the interruption of Solara’s allergic sneezing fits…Well. Callum knew that the Queen would be having a very different kind of fit in response.

He sat patiently on the window seat, silently observing the portrait at hand. Callum would occasionally peek at Kien’s canvas as he painted the visage of Solara, but the majority of his attention was on the princess herself. She was…not faring well. Root-based allergy potions always got her sleepy and a touch disoriented, a stark difference from her typical fiery personality. Solara’s nose had evidently missed the memorandum that said potion was meant to last several hours. It had only been two since Kien began painting, and Solara was already beginning to scrunch her nose with persistent sniffles. That’s how it always started, with harmless, delicate sniffling that steadily grew damper and heavier as time went on. He supposed that was rather how Solara was as an individual; Seemingly the proper, fragile princess that grew increasingly difficult to deal with as one got to know her.

“Hold still, Princess,” Kien urged, using a small brush to paint the hundreds of tiny petals of the bralette.

Even as the antihistamines took away most of her typical awareness, Solara scowled with pink eyes flashing in irritation. “And just whaddoyou think I’m--sdff, trying to do here, Kien?” she asked, words beginning to run together slightly.

“I just--”

“No, I’d like knowing wha’ you’ve thought m’goal has been this--snf--entire--snff! Damned time. Enlighten me.”

Callen looked over to Callum, silently asking for help. Callum pursed his lips into a flat line and simply offered the painter a shrug. Kien sighed and nodded, leaning back behind his canvas to avoid Solara’s glower. “Nothing, Princess.”

Solara’s frown softened, though she was still evidently unhappy. She simply focused back on her posing with a sniffle. Callum had to admit that it was…difficult not to stare. Princess Solara was considered to be the end all, be all of Aurorian beauty, and for good reason. The bralette didn’t cover much, allowing her full chest to rest mostly exposed in the sunshine filtering through the grand windows. One strap hung loose on one shoulder, simply allowing the daisy petal garment to slip lower down her chest. Her nipples weren’t quite exposed yet, but Callum kept an eye out in case more of her areolas became visible. He knew she would very much not want the bra to get that low. Solara didn’t seem to notice amidst her concentrated sniffling, and Kien evidently wasn’t interested in adjusting it. Callum supposed it made sense for the Aurorian princess to show off as much of her body as possible for a portrait, but he wondered if Kien knew or cared how sick of the public sexualization Solara got.

Kien leaned back on his stool, examining his work with a slight tilt to his head. He nodded over to Callum. “Would you go tuck the hair on her right side over her shoulder? I’d like an unobscured look at the cups of the bralette.”

Callum obeyed without question, rising from his seat to go to Solara’s side. He offered her a soft smile as he took her curls in hand. He tucked the hair behind her shoulder, fingers inadvertently brushing along her bare skin as he did so. A warm blush spread over Callum’s face as he flashed her an apologetic wince, but Solara was oblivious. She was currently sniffling at a much faster pace than before, freckled nose scrunching to the left and right. She let out a shaky, whining little breath as her running nose escaped the confines of her nostrils to slide down onto her upper lip.

“Fuck…” she swore, shoulders shuddering as she crossed her eyes to look at her nose. She made a valiant effort to sniffle the beads of mess back into her nostrils, but Solara’s attempts proved useless. While she didn’t move her head, her eyes flickered up to the painter. “Kien, I need---”

“Not yet,” he said, motions speeding up as he captured the visage of the royal before him. “Don’t move.”

“I--”

“Just a few more minutes.”

Princess Solara looked to Callum next with an expression of pleading that only he ever saw. Solara was an…angry individual, to put it kindly, but she knew that she could turn to her lad-in-waiting in times of crisis. “C-Callum…?”

He knelt to her side immediately, collecting the handkerchief from his breast pocket. A Solara in her right mind would have sooner screamed than allow Callum, or anyone, near her nose. This Solara, however, was only a fraction of her regular self at the moment. She hardly seemed to react at all initially, eyes crossing once again to look at the center of her face. Callum gingerly folded the handkerchief over her freckled nose, using all the care in the world as he wiped the underside. Solara’s cheeks began to visibly darken. Instead of shoving his hand away or barking at him, she simply looked away from Callum’s eyes with a sniffle. “Th-....Thank you, Callum,” she murmured.

Despite Solara being unable to see him, Callum gave her a nod and a reassuring smile. After all he did for Solara on a daily basis, cleaning up her nose was hardly notable for him. Solara, of course, would be apoplectic once her antihistamines (and allergy attack) wore off, but Callum could handle it. He could handle anything about her.

“Stay close,” Kien requested of Callum, nothing but focus on his face as he painted. “In case she needs you again.”

Warmth bloomed in Callum’s chest. In case she needed him again. Callum was quite vocally disliked throughout the entirety capitol, and yet he was somehow good enough for Princess Solara to need. He nodded, remaining seated at her side.

Solara continued to sniffle, though her nose didn’t run as it had a moment ago. She inhaled and exhaled through parted lips in some attempt to keep her nose as unbothered as possible, but Callum was very aware that this wouldn’t last long. He wasn’t sure if Solara was capable of that realization at the moment, though.

As he expected, it didn’t take long for Solara’s nostrils to flare into perfect little circles with a hitch of her breath. Her lashes fluttered shut as she drew one hand up to fan beneath her nose.

“Nonono!” Kien pleaded, gesticulating to Solara. “Stay as you were! Just a minute longer!”

A low whine rumbled in Solara’s throat as she set her hand back in its previous position on the fainting couch. She sniffled sharply, nose starting to scrunch irritably to the side. “I need to s-sneeze,” she said pointedly to Kien, words beginning to snag.

Kien nodded, dipping his brush into a brilliant daisy cream shade of paint. “I understand. We’re nearly there. I’ve just got to finish getting all the petals, so you won’t have to wear the bralette for our next session. Okay, Princess?”

Solara was evidently debating how much she wanted to avoid wearing the daisy bralette in the future. Without waiting for her to ask him, Callum cautiously extended the hand still holding his handkerchief. She stared at his hand for a beat before her eyes flickered up to Callum’s. Solara opened her mouth to speak before she instead trembled with a heady hitch of her breath. Her chest shuddered with the itchy little gasp. Callum pretended not to notice. “Hh--! I-I can’t help it. O-Okay--hehh--!”

He didn’t hesitate. Callum reached behind Solara, placing one steadying hand between her shoulder blades. With the other, he folded his handkerchief back over her nose. There wasn’t a moment to spare before Solara convulsed with a sneeze, doing her best to stay as still as possible. A massive feat, Callum thought, given how very…indelicate her sneeze was.

“HiYYshiyUHH!” she sneezed, just as voluminous and violent as usual. She very nearly forced the handkerchief from his hand with the strength of it. Warmth immediately flooded into the handkerchief with the productive release. Callum found himself glad that he’d made it in time. Daisy-induced sneezes were always terribly messy for Solara, and he knew she would have been horrified to sneeze openly at the moment. She wobbled in the aftermath, momentarily disoriented from that big sneeze.

Callum couldn’t blame his Princess for avoiding sneezing whenever possible. He supposed he would avoid it, too, if his sneeze was as aggressive as hers. It suited her loud personality, though, in a way he found painfully endearing.

Kien jumped in response, just as everyone did when hearing Princess Solara sneeze for the first time. “Fuck--ahem. Goodness. Bless, Prince--”

“Shut up,” Solara snarled at him, flashing Kien a pointed glare over the handkerchief. Just after, her eyes snapped shut all over again. Callum tightened his hold on the handkerchief over her nose to ensure it wasn’t at risk of being sneezed away. He wasn’t the strongest individual, so there wasn’t much he could do about the way she rocked back into the hand he held between her shoulder blades. Once again, Callum tried to avoid staring at the way her chest heaved with every sneeze. “Hh’shYYUH! Woah--!” she gasped when she rocked back.

Callum gave her a quiet look in the eye that he hoped communicated: I’ve got you.

Kien gasped. Callum was about to shoot the painter an unhappy look of his own before seeing exactly what Kien did: Half a dozen daisy petals shuddering off of the bralette’s wire frame with that last sneeze. “No--keep the petals intact!”

Callum didn’t need explanation for the importance of this. Solara’s breath was already seesawing in preparation for another sneeze. Callum rapidly looked between her face and the shuddering bralette. Her hitches were so strong that it began to shake a few petals off of it without even needing to sneeze yet.

He had seen this happen on many an occasion. One or two heavy, hard sneezes, and the bralette would begin falling apart. And Princess Solara was only full of heavy, hard sneezes.

“Hah--!”

He had two options, neither of them ideal. As Solara’s chest rose with a final hitch, Callum decided on the lesser of two evils to keep his Princess’ pride as intact as possible. He dropped the damp handkerchief in his lap and used both hands to hold her chest.

“HihHYYSHuh!”

Attempting to keep Solara’s chest from wobbling with a sneeze was as effective as trying to keep a shattered vase from crumbling. Callum tried, certainly, and he did succeed in cutting down on the amount of petals that could have been shaken free, but it did require holding both cups of the bralette with splayed fingers. Solara’s chest was so…much, that he couldn’t have held them otherwise.

This also involved Solara needing to sneeze without a handkerchief. She seemed to realize at the very last moment that her protective cover was now gone and managed to sneeze downward rather than straight ahead. Even with this precaution, a fine mist still settled on her chest as well as Callum’s forearms and hands.

He wasn’t perturbed. Callum simply hoped this wouldn’t be getting him slapped later. Even if it did, he would have rathered Solara be temporarily enraged with him than permanently humiliated by sneezing her bra to pieces in front of Kien. Callum didn’t distrust the painter, necessarily, but he didn’t think there were many people in the capitol who wouldn’t go bragging about getting to see the Princess completely topless. After an out of control sneezing fit, no less.

After her first love’s abandonment last year, Callum didn’t think Princess Solara could handle much more whispering about her.

Solara sniffled, blinking at Callum through teary lashes. She looked exhausted and embarrassed and--

“Good save! Just a few more---”

No. No few more minutes. Callum was a patient individual (he had to be to work for Solara) that anger didn’t come naturally to, but the sight of Solara’s discomfort mixed with Kien’s calloused response was enough to push him over that edge. Callum shot Kien a pointed frown and shook his head, beginning to discard his jacket. A few petals fell loose from the bralette once his hands were away, but not enough to send it falling apart yet. Solara was already getting a new sneezy expression on her face, so Callum worked quickly.

He wrapped his jacket around her shoulders, doing his best to close it over her ample chest. It didn’t cover them completely, but enough for the moment. He wrapped an arm around Solara and helped her to stand. She looked confused for a moment before that look crumbled with a wobbling chin. “Hh! HyYYshuHH!” she sneezed openly in front of her, another burst of mist dampening her chest. Callum gave her a squeeze in lieu of a blessing and had to resist the urge to use his handkerchief to dab at her chest to dry it.

“‘M sorry…” Solara murmured with a nose-crinkling snuffle.

Kien, of course, was less than thrilled. “No!” he exclaimed, jumping to his feet and nearly knocking the easel over in the process. “Where are you--? No, no, we were nearly--”

“Kien.” Solara’s voice was unsteady as she let her head fall against Cananver’s shoulder. He smiled softly and squeezed her again. “Fucking deal w--hih! With it.”

He was still protesting as the princess and her lad-in-waiting left the room, Callum holding Solara protectively.

She was out of it. Her head lolled sleepily against him. She blinked up at Callum with a sniffle, raising one hand to rub under her nose. “I…I wanna take a nap,” she said just before she hitched with flared little nostrils again. This time, she was able to smother a sneeze into the arm of his jacket. “Ughh. I’b sorry…”

Callum shook his head, reaching up to smooth unruly locks from her forehead. He couldn’t tell her with words, so he could only hope that Solara felt how he would do anything for his Princess.

Always anything for his Princess.

#sneeze kink #sneeze fic #f sneeze #noses in writing #oc solara

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oumaheroes · 3 years

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Earthbound: Arthur’s Story

Context:

Hundreds of years after the fall of Earth, mankind is slowly starting to return. Some people have a stronger urge to return than others, confused by fragments of memories from a life already lived.

Full fic can be found here.

---

Arthur is eight. He sits on the side of the playground, watching the children run about and play games together that he was never invited to play and which he doesn’t really want to, anyway. This is what he tells himself, at least, because really, he does want to play but whenever he’s asked to join in before, they’ve said no, so he’s stopped asking now. They’re fun to watch though, both the game itself and the people playing it. He can watch who cheats, who misses the kick, who pushes too hard on purpose and who kindly let’s things go.

He learns a lot, from watching.

Arthur has always watched. He watches his parents fight when they think he can’t hear or see them, he watches his mum graze her hand over Mr Benson’s arm as she passes him in the corridor of their building, watches his dad see and press his lips into a firm line but say nothing.

Arthur stands apart from other people, cut adrift on his own, and takes in what he sees, carries the information he finds in his mind like pebbles in a pocket and tucks them away for later. He feels that this keeps him safer, somehow, because he knows about things. Not that he knows what he will use any of what he’s learned for, or why he feels as though he needs to carry secrets that aren’t his in his heart, but he does, anyway.

Granddad tells him it’s ‘endearing’, that he watches, when he catches him doing so. Calls him patient, and a wise old soul with an island heart. Arthur doesn’t know what an island is, and Granddad tells him that it’s something Earth used to have, swathes of land rising out of the sea.

‘Is all land not an island, then?’ He asks, ‘Because the earth was mostly all sea, wasn’t it?’ At least, this is what he’s heard in school in lessons about the Fall; stale secrets as old and thin as air, a dying whisper across the ages from humanity long ago.

Granddad shakes his head and combs a calloused hand through Arthur’s hair. ‘No’, he says, ‘islands are smaller bits of land apart from the rest. They’re surrounded by the ocean, all on their own.’

He means it kindly but Arthur feels hurt anyway, because he doesn’t want to be on his own. He tries to make friends, tries to play with the other children and talk with them and share his collection of secrets but they never want to, telling him that he’s strange or haughty or boring.

Granddad notices his disappointment and crouches down to pull him in for a hug, pressing him into his chest. ‘No, it’s not a bad thing!’ he says, holding him tight. ‘Islands are strong, they stand up all on their own. The sea keeps on pushing and pushing, but an island pushes right back, no matter how hard it is.’

He pulls back, looks Arthur in the eye. ‘Don’t change for the sea of people, Arthur; you don’t need to be anyone but yourself. Sometimes it’s better to be an island, than to lose sense of who you are.’

Arthur nods, feeling better. Half of him hates that even Granddad sees him as that, alone and different, recognising his failure to fit in, but the other half of him takes pride in it, that he is who he is and if that’s different from everyone else, then maybe that’s okay. So, he carries on watching the children play games without him, carries on looking for secrets and listening for change, hoping all the while that, maybe, they’ll reach out and invite him in.

Arthur is eleven when his granddad dies. It wasn’t a surprise and he knew it was coming, but the blow hits him hard anyway and sweeps him off his feet. He feels hollow, like his insides have been carved out and not replaced with anything; a ringing deadened nothing that weighs him down and leaves him numb. It doesn’t seem real, because Granddad was here and now he’s not and Arthur is exactly the same but his world has collapsed. And that, that doesn’t seem possible because how can so much be the same when such a huge part is missing?

After the funeral, a sad sorry affair where adults drift aimlessly like ships unmoored, he hides himself away in his room where his heart hurts and he can hardly stop crying long enough to think. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, now, because Granddad was the only person who really knows- knew- him. He curls in on himself, tight fists and thick throat, and reaches for an e-tab, loaded with stories Granddad thinks -thought- he’d like and even some straight from Granddad himself. They’re all old, old old old things about heroes and monsters, courage and loss, long journeys across wide wide seas, and from the tales of others Arthur forgets himself, briefly, and escapes for just a moment.

Using them to start, he begins to try his hand at his own.

Each night when he is supposed to be sleeping, Arthur huddles under his blankets and spins his own stories, weaving together all of the secrets he’s ever found to make somewhere real and alive; a large family with scores of people to talk to he sails ancient seas and explores the unknown, making friends wherever he goes. They speak to him as he sleeps in unknown familiar voices and it’s a place warm and happy where he can’t hear his parents scream at each other and someone will remember to wish him goodnight.

More and more Arthur hides himself away, feeding off tales of a different place entirely and a yearning in him grows so strong that he’s surprised no one can see it, read it like his soul is mapped on his skin.

Arthur is fifteen and his school have decided that it’s time for a school trip. It’s to the botanical gardens, this time, set up in the middle of the main city dome. It’s only recently been built because, as with all human colonies, the focus is on survival first, the basic needs for life: oxygen, water, heat, food. His colony isn’t new, but it also isn’t that old and things are just advancing enough that money can be spent on more frivolous things. The gardens are just plants: grasses and flowers and trees that aren’t good for anything other than looking pretty, he guesses, but it’s new and educational so his school bundles them all up into year groups and ferries them across town to study what’s there and write a journalistic report to justify the excursion.

Arthur has made a few friends now, people he can talk to about homework, sit on shuttles next to, and hang out with after school. The air between them is stale and flat but safe and predictable, and Arthur is thankful he has this, these people at least, who like him enough to tolerate his presence, a small fragile bridge connecting them together. They’re all corralled into dreary lines as they approach the gardens, Arthur’s group slinking at the rear, so it takes a while for Arthur to notice that they’ve properly arrived.

He hands over his ticket, watches it marked with a stamp, and turns his gaze to go through the doors and stops, dead. There, right at the start to welcome them in, is an assault of colour; flowers bursting from the ground in a cacophony of hues that capture the eye and dazzle him. It’s a vivacity that he’s never before dreamt was possible and he can’t look away, even as people jostle him to get past and he feels himself moving powerless along with the tide.

It’s odd, it’s strange because he’s seen flowers and things in e-books but he’s never seen any before in real life and he can’t seem to match them together in his head, the pictures in his mind and what is in front of him now. He’s overwhelmed with the experience, the sights, the smells- a heady thing that turns his mind to cotton, and he stumbles forward to touch them, fingers stroking velvety petals before his teacher pulls him sharply away.

‘Can you not see the signs?’ she hisses at him, ‘we need to stay off the grass; I told you all this in the shuttle. Don’t touch.’

Her voice comes at him through a fog and it is an effort to turn his head to look at her, nodding dumbly. ‘Sorry,’ he mutters, fingers tacky with pollen and time, ‘I just-‘

He just, what? He doesn’t have the words to describe this, what he’s feeling, even to himself; his emotions a curious storm of sensations: he feels home, he feels homesick, he feels calm and sad and happy and angry, for some reason because it’s so familiar and beautiful and achingly new that what he really wants to do, embarrassingly, is sit down on the grass and cry into the dirt.

Luckily, he has enough presence of mind and teenage pride to shake himself free of whatever is happening to him and manages to locate his friends, watching him awkwardly from the path. They greet him, unsure, but Arthur can’t bring himself to care, can’t bring himself to be ashamed for not hiding his strangeness, for letting his normalcy slip. He feels the bridges between them shake and weaken but his eyes dart about the trees, drinking in the depths of green and he struggles to stay afloat in today.

That night he dreams of the sea, the sea and the sky and an endless horizon that broadens outwards, endlessly, just for him and he feels the tug of the unknown call to him across a vast and forgotten ocean. Then, as the sea rocks him in his dreams it turns dark; pulling him down into its vast weight he drowns on sea foam and regret. Unfulfilled dreams and broken promises fill his boots and drag him down and it's all his fault, all of it, everything he ever did could have been so very different, all those people he hurt when he didn't mean to, all those terrible things he's said, all those-

He gasps awake.

His room is dark, starlight blocked by curtains, and unmoving, but still he feels rocked by non-existent currents and the room dips and sways when he moves his head to clutch at his knees.

The visit to the gardens, plainly, changes him; something morphs or grows within and he knows, deeply, that he doesn’t want to do anything else. He begins to select classes and at nineteen he specialises his studies in agriculture, in plants and trees and earth and grasses. He wants to grow them; learn how they work and how to use them for things. They have so many uses, in so many sectors, and Arthur can’t understand how other people don’t find them as fascinating as he does.

There’s a breakthrough, that year. Earth, the original home of humankind, becomes viable and opens its arms wide. They’re looking for people, for farmers and fishers and growers and makers to stabilise the colony and Arthur knows that that’s where he needs to be, that’s where he needs to go and he can’t wait, won’t wait, not for one moment longer. He applies, pouring hours over his application the days before he submits it because there is a wild hunger in him, a need that he knows deep in his bones won’t be extinguished any other way and he makes sure to press what he knows about plants into what he writes.

It’s a wait, a tense hard thing than wears at him, eroding him away but then, at last, confirmation; he’s in.

A two-year journey is all that’s between him and the sea of his dreams and the greenery of fields and trees. He tells his parents, separately. They divorced, last year, and Arthur is glad, so glad that they never had any children other than him, glad that there was no one else caught in that maelstrom of words and bitterness. It poisoned the house, poisoned the space between them all and filtered down to Arthur, trapped in the middle with nowhere to go.

But not anymore. He packs very little, stands to reminisce not for very long, before heading out of the door. He’s early, about five or so hours left before he can board, but once he’s said his goodbyes and gathered his things it’s as though he can’t stand to be there in that house, in that place, for one more second. The opaque material of his colony’s domes press down on him as he walks, murky and grey; he all at once feels as though he is sinking underwater and he stops on the way to the launch site, arms swinging and a pounding in his head. A deep breath, a catch in the throat, and he instead turns to veer back towards town, to the botanical gardens.

They’re familiar to him now, as known to him as his own hands, and he settles himself underneath a wide thick tree next to a bush of roses spilt red like blood and gets out an e-tab. His granddad’s voice emerges, soft and old like paper telling tales of the sea, and his words curl around Arthur’s chest to rock him back to himself and wish him good luck.

#APH England #APH #hws #HWS England #Hetalia Fanfiction #hetalia fic #My writing #arthur kirkland #one day i will finish the second part to Arthur's story by golly

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detectivejigsawpines · 4 years

Text

Relatively Relativity-part 2 (Some adjustments required)

Eventually, the worst of the noise subsided.

Only for Mabel to take another look at her boy grunkles, and make them nearly jump out of their skins with her amazed and delighted squeal of, “Oh my gosh, you guys are so CUUUUUTEEEE!!!!”

“Gah!” Stan saw the impending doom, and tried too late to escape from one of her arms snatching him up into a hug. Seconds later Ford was grabbed by her other arm, and made a strangled noise as he had what felt like all of his air squeezed out of him.

Mabel actually lifted both of them off their feet in her enthusiasm, swinging them back and forth with far more strength than someone her age should have been capable of when they hadn’t spent years living on the streets or traveling the multiverse. “You guys are just the most precious little pair of sweeties I’ve ever seen! As soon as we get home I’m making you both tiny sweaters and taking a hundred pictures!!”

“Mabel-leggo-we need air-” Stan struggled, and finally just rolled up her sleeve and licked her arm. Even though she was more often than not guilty of using the same tactic, it was enough to make her release them.

Dipper was by now curled up in the fetal position against a tree, rocking back and forth and gasping, “Not again, not again, this can’t be happening again!” He glanced down at himself. “I mean, at least I’m still in my own body, so that’s nice.” He resumed rocking. “But this still can’t be happening!”

“Okay, okay, everybody STOP!”

Ford waited until all eyes were on him, and then climbed up onto a nearby convenient tree stump. He adjusted his glasses in a way that looked soothingly Ford-like even in his tiny child body and higher-pitched voice. “Let’s all just calm down for a second.”

He glanced over at the flower, and saw with concern that it had wilted, with all the petals lying in a heap around the stem.

That can’t be good.

“...I think we all need to go home so I can examine that-” he pointed to the remains of the flower- “and figure out what kind of spell it cast on us. This is nothing to panic over.”

“Nothing to panic over?!” Dipper demanded. Fascinating; even with his voice fully developed he still managed to make it crack to an astonishing degree. “Look at me, Grunkle Ford! I’m old!”

“Yeah, and if ya don’t figure out how ta calm down you’re probably gonna start giving yourself a heart attack!” Stan said.

“Stanley! That is not helpful!” Ford snapped, hopping off the stump and going to his nephew’s side.

“...Sorry.” Stan joined him, and Mabel crouched down on Dipper’s other side. Three hands rubbed his shoulders as he pushed his head between his knees.

After a minute Dipper took a few deep breaths, and then slowly got to his feet. He still looked shaken up by the situation, but at least he had calmed down a little. “Ugh, ow. Do your guys’s joints creak this much when you have to stand up?”

“Oh yeah. It’s even worse first thing in the morning.” Stan stretched his back, and then his eyes widened in delight. “Whoa, wait. It’s been years since I’ve been able ta do that without it feelin’ all messed up!” He looked down at his legs, and a wide smile stretched across his cheeks.

Before Ford could stop him, he took off running back down the trail with a whoop.

“Stanley! Stanley, get back here! We have to-”

Stan was already practically out of sight. Ford groaned, and shrugged off his now-giant backpack which he had barely realized he was still wearing. He glanced at the-well, technically the children, they still had the minds of thirteen-year-olds. “Find something to put that flower in, would you?”

Then he chased after his brother.

****

Ford was disconcerted when he realized, very quickly, that his body had reverted back to the physical limitations he had possessed at this age.

Back then, while it was all well and good to go running around on the beach with Stan, chasing the waves or the sea gulls or each other, he had hated exercise when there were far more enjoyable options available, like reading his books or just sitting and drawing something. He hadn’t gotten into the habit of going for long walks in the woods, or been forced to spend a lot of time running for his life from interdimensional bounty hunters.

Soon enough Ford was forced to slow down because of the stitch in his side, and double over gasping with the need to get more air into his lungs.

He clenched his fists against his knees in frustration, because he knew that he was capable of running faster than this, at least when he was in his regular body, he’d done it a million times, and now he couldn’t.

A few moments later he heard the thud of boots pounding against the ground, and a familiar out-of-breath voice.

“Whoo! What a rush! If I tried doin’ that when I was old I’d have ta sit on the couch for a week afterwards! Ha! Who’s an old fossil now, Mabel?”

Coming from the man (boy? Shoot, that was going to get confusing pretty fast) who was capable of punching out giant squid monsters and outrunning angry leprechauns while carrying a heavy treasure chest, that was definitely an exaggeration. But Ford was too busy trying to stop wheezing to call him on it.

“...You okay, Poindexter?” Stan asked, reaching out and touching his shoulder.

Ford lifted his eyes until they met his twin’s. “W-We...should probably...go back to the kids. I realize...you’re excited...about rediscovering your youth...but they’re not enjoying this as much as you are.”

Stan gave him a chagrined grimace. “...Oh yeah. Sorry.”

Ford patted his arm as he straightened up. “‘S’ okay. I get it. It feels good to get some of those aches out of my bones.”

“Yeah, no kidding!” Stan looked down at his arms with wide eyes. “Can you believe these things were ever this skinny?”

Ford snorted. “Your face is back to being mostly nose, though.”

“Hey!” Stan slugged him in the arm. “Take a look in the mirror, genius-you’re not much better off!”

Ford punched him back, giggling.

He was a little surprised by how natural a sound that felt to make, now that he was no longer an old man.

****

It turned out that Dipper had emptied out part of one of the water bottles, and then dug the flower out-roots and all, just in case-before placing it and its petals inside. He’d even managed to get some pollen samples and add them to the inside of the bottle.

“Good job, Dipper!” Ford praised him, accepting it and slipping it into his backpack. Then he straightened up, puffing out his chest. “Okay, let’s get this back to the lab, and turn ourselves back to normal!”

Mabel cooed and clasped her hands together at her chin. “Awww, you sound so adorable when you say stuff like that now!”

...Ford couldn’t help feeling like she was spoiling the gravitas of the moment. He tried to ignore Stan’s wide smirk, and adjusted his coat collar with a cough before he started marching back the way they’d come.

****

A new problem arose when they reached the car.

Stan dug into his pocket and pulled out the keys, and just as he was unlocking the car Dipper grabbed his shoulder.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

Stan raised an eyebrow at him, in a way that was still very grunkle-like despite his young face. “Gettin’ ready ta drive us home.”

“Grunkle Stan, you’re thirteen now! You can’t be the one driving!”

The boy folded his arms. “Uh, last I checked, you didn’t exactly have a driver’s license, kid.”

Dipper faltered. “I-I know how to drive the golf cart!”

“Not the same. Besides, remind me how many times you crashed it last summer?”

“Oh, like your driving is any safer!” Dipper lunged for the keys.

Stan jumped out of reach. “Fair point, but this is still my car! And nobody but nobody is allowed ta drive it but me!”

Dipper chased after him, meaning that they were suddenly running around the car, with Stan defiantly holding the keys out of his elderly nephew’s reach. “We’re gonna get pulled over if the cops see you behind the wheel, Grunkle Stan! Be reasonable!”

“Never! I’m not lettin’ you scratch up my car cuz you-”

Mabel finally stepped between them. “Boys, boys! I have a solution that’ll fix everything!”

****

Five minutes later, Dipper was in the driver’s seat, with Stan sitting on his lap, head tucked against his shoulder. Dipper’s feet worked the gas and brakes at his grunkle’s command, while Stan did the steering and watched the road with his newly improved vision. Neither of them looked pleased with this solution, but they’d had to admit that they hadn’t been able to think of a better one.

Mabel and Ford sat in the back, with the water bottle containing the flower clenched in Ford’s lap. He stared at it thoughtfully, scribbling notes in his journal and thinking about other experiences with enchanted plants, and how they might compare to this one.

Unnoticed by him, Mabel had pulled a cloth tape measure out of her pocket and was taking his measurements; already she was thinking about what kind of sweaters to make him and Stan. Because on the one hand, both of them seemed to like the color red, and looked pretty good in it; on the other hand, this was a special occasion, and maybe she should make something in blue, or green, or gold. Maybe all of them together? Decisions, decisions…

She was still thinking about her options when the car pulled up in front of the Mystery Shack. Stan turned the engine off, and unbuckled himself and Dipper.

“Geez you’ve got bony knees,” he said dryly as he looked up at his nephew.

Dipper snorted. “Now you know how I feel.”

Fortunately Stan’s mood had improved enough for him to grin before opening the car door and bounding up the steps of the porch.

“Soos, we’re home!” he called as he opened the door.

A few seconds later there was a startled yelp, and a thud.

A little bit after that, the front door opened again, and Stan peered uneasily out at his family.

“...Guys? I think I just killed Soos.”

********

Don’t worry, I didn’t actually kill Soos.

I’m not that much of a monster.

Usually.

#relatively relativity #gravity falls #grunkle stan #grunkle ford #young stan #young ford #old dipper #old mabel #precious boy #stan is enjoying this #ford and dipper not so much #gravity falls soos #dipper pines #mabel pines

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lady-divine-writes · 4 years

Text

The Prince of the Sea and his Child of Fire - Chapter 5/15 (Rated NC17)

Summary: Blaine is a water sprite, prince of the undersea kingdom and sole heir to the throne. Five days away from turning seventeen and his big coronation, he decides to take a journey to the surface, to seek out a legendary flame said to be tended by an evil witch. Instead of a witch, he finds something else entirely ...

Kurt is a fire fairy, prince of a race of fire fairies and heir to the throne. Five days away from turning seventeen (on the night of a full solar eclipse when he will transform and become king), he sees for the first time in his life a water sprite - a member of a race that he's been raised to hate.

What will happen when these two mortal enemies fall in love? Is there any way for them to escape destiny and be together?

Read on AO3.

Chapter 5

Blaine zips through the water, laughing as he goes. He twirls through the current on pointed toes, dancing with arms outstretched the way Kurt does around his flame. Tripping several times over nothing proves that Blaine is nowhere near as graceful as Kurt, but that doesn't matter. Attempting those complicated steps makes him feel closer to the fairy.

Like he doesn't ever have to leave him.

Blaine weeds in among a school of moonfish, leaping from bony back to bony back, checking himself in the reflection of their scales. He holds up his arms as if he's circling the water with Kurt in his embrace. He closes his eyes, and in his mind he's back on the surface with Kurt's body pressed against his, the handsome fairy throwing his head back and laughing up at the sky. He's so real in Blaine's mind that Blaine can actually feel him - his skin warm, his hair soft as it tickles Blaine's cheek, the two of them daring anyone to see them, to know with one glance what Blaine realized the moment Kurt spoke to him and his heart stopped in his chest.

Blaine is in love.

How it can happen so quickly – or how it can happen at all considering – Blaine doesn't know, nor does he care. He is filled to the brim with this new sensation, leaving not an inch of room in his heart or in his thoughts for anything but Kurt. He’s light-hearted, ridiculous, adolescent – all the things his father tried to train out of him.

He nearly dances all the way back to the castle, his mind a mess of thoughts that make little sense other than they’re about Kurt, and that makes a million-and-one other vastly important things easy to miss.

Like the eyes of both friend and foe watching his every move as he finally arrives to the castle and skips inside.

"Blaine!" Trent races to catch up with his friend. "Blaine! Wait up!"

"I can't." Blaine gives in to a huge yawn but quickens his steps. "I have to hit the rack. I had a big night and I'm exhausted."

"Yeah … that's … kind of what I need to talk to you about."

Blaine slows as he reaches his door, which gives Trent the chance to catch up.

"Do we have to?" Blaine groans. “I really need some sleep. I’m dead on my feet as is.” In truth, he’s running on adrenaline, so even though he’s yawning after every other word, he probably could spare a moment. But he doesn't want this now. He doesn't need it now. Not when he has plans to spend a long morning dreaming about talking to Kurt, making Kurt laugh, dancing with Kurt …

… kissing Kurt …

Trent puts his hand on Blaine's door, holding it shut. "It's important." Blaine sighs. He can easily strong-arm Trent away from the door, but Trent is his best friend. He's only looking out for Blaine's best interests. Blaine knows that.

If only Trent took his job a little less seriously.

"Fine. What is it?"

"Where were you last night?" Trent asks, having the good sense to whisper. But that regard for Blaine’s privacy doesn’t earn him any points. Blaine is long over people checking up on him. When will being prince, or king for that matter, mean that he can be trusted?

Apparently, today is not that day.

"Where do you think I was, Trent?"

"Did you go back to the cove? To see …?"

Another heavier sigh. "Yes. I did."

"Why didn't you take me with you?" Trent asks, sounding hurt.

Ugh! Not that! Blaine thinks. Anything but that! Be angry! Be disappointed! Don’t be hurt! He clenches his jaw until his ears ring. No! He refuses to feel guilty! He doesn't want to have this conversation! He doesn't want to admit to his best friend that he deliberately left him behind!

"Plausible deniability," Blaine says. "This way if my father asked, you wouldn't need to lie. You're a horrible liar."

"But … but why?" Trent asks.

Blaine doesn't answer. He shouldn’t have to. But from the look in Trent's eyes, he doesn't need to.

"You … you didn't," Trent stammers. "You don't …!"

Blaine drops his forehead against his door with a hollow thunk.

"How can you!? It’s only been one damn day! Why didn't you tell me!?"

"I only have four days left, Trent!" Blaine growls. "Do you know how heartbreaking that is? Can you even comprehend how much that hurts? I may be a prince, but that doesn’t mean I have any rights to my own life, any say in what I do or how things turn out! I should think that your job as my handler makes that obvious! I am a servant of our people! Everything I have, everything I am, I’m expected to give to our kingdom, with my father disappointed in me every step of the way! But I’ve finally found something that I might have a chance to call mine - that can make me happy - and I only have four days to enjoy it! So forgive me if I wanted to be alone with him!"

Trent doesn't respond, doesn’t move, barely breathes, lingering by his prince’s side with that same look of hurt in his eyes. Maybe even a hint of betrayal.

And Blaine can't stand being in his friend's presence any longer.

"Look," he says, removing Trent's hand roughly and opening his door, "I will be king for the rest of my life, trapped down here in this palace. I'll probably turn into some sort of disgusting, bloated bottom-feeder just like my father has. All I'm asking for is four lousy days!I thought that maybe, as my friend, you would understand."

Blaine storms into his room and slams the door in Trent's face. He throws himself down on his bed, squeezing his eyes shut to capture his last memories of Kurt's soothing song to lull him to sleep.

***

"So are you really a prince, or are you trying to impress me?" Kurt asks, tossing a handful of fresh leaves into the flame, turning it a sapphire blue. Blaine applauds as he watches Kurt pick up a handful of flowers and toss them in after, turning the fire violet as a result.

"Yes, sir. I am a bona fide prince, I promise you that," Blaine says. "I tried to tell you last night, but we got invaded and you pushed me overboard."

Kurt thinks back on the moment his mother arrived, remembering that he had shoved Blaine into the water mid-speech.

"Oh." Kurt blushes to match the flame. "Right." He dusts the pollen from his hands and walks over to where Blaine has been sitting on the branch, watching him work. "Should I call you your highness then?" he jokes. "Or will your majesty work?

"No! Never!" Blaine reels backward and pretends to vomit. Kurt raises a dignified eyebrow, but laughs at the sprite's antics. "You're a prince, too, so I would say your station and my station cancel each other out."

Kurt bobs his head as he thinks it over. "I agree. No titles then. Just Kurt and Blaine."

"Right." Blaine settles back onto the branch. "Kurt and Blaine."

Kurt swings his legs back and forth, the soles of his feet barely brushing the surface of the water. "So what is it like where you live? It seems so dark and spooky to me from up here."

Blaine puffs his chest with pride at Kurt showing interest in his kingdom. "It's not that at all!” Blaine looks into the pool for an example, but all he sees is dreariness and black. If this pool always looks this way, he can understand why Kurt thinks that. "Well, okay, there are places that are spooky," he amends. "It can be dark and cold definitely, but mostly it's glorious."

"Really?" Kurt asks, eyes bright with the glow of the flame a short distance away. "What's glorious about it?"

"So much, I don't even know where to start!" Blaine dips into the water, then climbs back up onto the branch - a habit he's developed to combat the drying heat of the flame. "There is so much life under the sea, plants and animals of every shape and color. It can be overwhelming if you’re not used to it, but it's also peaceful."

Kurt's head starts to bow, his cheerful smile creeping toward a frown.

"Like … like up here, right?" Blaine asks, wondering where Kurt's smile has gone. "The night sky, the colorful flowers, the forest and all its inhabitants to keep you company …"

"The fire keeps the sea calm," Kurt says. "It protects the fairies from the water, but it also keeps the animals away. It's actually rather lonely for me out here."

"What about during the day?" Blaine asks. "When you're not guarding the fire?"

"Then I am at the palace learning what I need to know to become king. It takes up most of the day, all of my time. My mother is … how shall I put it … vigilant."

"So in that large palace of yours, you don't have any friends?" Blaine watches Kurt pick up a petal and set it down gently on the water, pushing at it with his toe until it drifts away.

"No. None but my sister Rachel, and she can be a colossal pain." Kurt chuckles dryly. Blaine tries to smile. He tilts his head, watching Kurt examine his reflection in the water. It gives him an idea.

"What would happen to you if you went into the water?" Blaine asks.

Kurt's eyes pop wide, but not with fear. Not of Blaine. Blaine can see Kurt considering the possibilities of visiting his kingdom beneath the sea. Kurt leans forward. "Can I tell you a secret?"

"Of course." Blaine moves closer. He'd really like to touch Kurt, feel what the heat of Kurt's skin would do to the cool of his hand, but he keeps his hands locked to the branch.

Kurt's eyes shift uneasily left and right, searching for ears in the forest that might overhear. "I have touched the water," he confesses. "Only briefly. Out of curiosity. And that is fine. But if I were to submerge myself, I would die." He turns his head to the flame, eyeing the flickering light. "We all come from the fire. It lives within us. It keeps us young and alive forever. If I were to go beneath the water, like any fire fairy, that fire would extinguish. Even my mother, the most powerful fire fairy among us, does not venture under the water."

Blaine's spirits fall.

The more he learns about Kurt and the fire fairies, the more Blaine knows this tiny cove is the only place they’ll ever be able to meet. There's no way he could visit Kurt for long on land, or in his palace. He would dry out without the sea, and the daylight would kill him.

But he’s going to be king soon, and as king, there has to be something he can do - some small way he can change things. He chews his lower lip, giving it thought. As a prince, he’s limited. He is constantly watched, and there are things he needs to ask permission for. But not as king. He’ll have advisors, yes, but the final say belongs to him. As king, he could end the feud between the sprites and the fire fairies. And then he and Kurt would have no need to hide their affection for one another.

Maybe he doesn’t have to be bound to the palace the way his father is. There’s no reason he can think of that he should be required to lock himself away to serve his people. He’s always felt his father’s decision to stay in one place was a deficit. As King of the Sea, he should travel the whole ocean for himself instead of having generals and ambassadors do it for him. Yes! Blaine will do that! He’ll have the power to make that happen!

In this way, he will be a far better king than his father … and he may get to be with Kurt yet.

It might just be a dream, but the thought raises his spirits once again.

And now, only four more days no longer feels like a sentence.

"Too bad." Blaine kicks his feet, his toes forming ripples over the water's surface. "It would be nice for you to see my world, feel the water on your skin, how it can calm, soothe …"

"I don't think the water would feel the same to me as it does to you." Kurt catches his reflection again when the ripples on the water cease. He’s shooting down Blaine’s suggestion, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t dreamt about it - swimming in the water, his legs and arms cutting through, propelling him forward, seeing things he’s never seen before, things he can’t even imagine. A loud pop pulls his attention, makes him turn toward the fire snapping and shimmering in ways Kurt can't recall seeing before. When he turns to Blaine to mention it, the sprite is staring at him.

Strangely so.

"Why do you look at me that way?" Kurt asks.

Blaine jerks back. "In what way?"

"In … that way," Kurt says, not knowing how to explain it. "Like you've lost something. Or you've found something. Something you’ve been looking for forever. It's a little … unnerving."

"I'm sorry," Blaine says but not looking away. "It's only that …"

"Only what?"

Blaine reaches into the water with his cupped hands. He scoops up some water and pours it over his hair, down his face. Kurt watches the water drip down his body, each droplet reflecting light like a prism across his skin. For a moment, he becomes a beacon – and that beacon calls to Kurt.

Everything about Blaine calls to him.

His voice, his eyes, his skin, his hands, his smile, his laugh …

"I would like to kiss you."

Kurt's eyes, which had been chasing the beads of water as they dripped along Blaine's skin, fly up to his face.

"Why?" Kurt asks. “We are not related.”

Blaine feels his cheeks redden. He hadn’t expected this. He didn’t know a single thing about fairy courtship or mating rituals, or if they even had any! But who knew he would need to explain why he might want a kiss?

"Where I come from, when you like someone, and they like you, you press your lips to theirs."

Kurt makes a face. "Ugh!" he exclaims. "My mother has only ever kissed me on the forehead! Or the cheek! But on the mouth? Where you eat!?” Kurt puts his fingertips to his lips, nibbling the tips with his teeth. Perfect white teeth … “That sounds foul!"

Blaine rolls his eyes away in embarrassment. “I don’t know. It didn’t seem so bad to me.”

Kurt looks at Blaine's lips, focusing on the way they pull down at the corners as his expression changes, his tongue running over them slowly to wet them.

"Have you ever kissed anyone?" Kurt asks shyly, paying more attention to Blaine's lips than he has ever paid attention to anyone's before. “On the mouth?”

"No," Blaine admits. "I've never liked anyone like that before. Besides, I'm royalty, and no one kisses royalty but royalty."

The fairy and the sprite grow quiet, legs swinging in an even rhythm over the water.

"I am royalty," Kurt says softly.

"Yeah," Blaine agrees, eyeing the fairy prince as he contemplates his next move. Kurt slides down the branch up to Blaine, feeling his own fire cool as Blaine's skin absorbs his heat, turning it a light shade of rose where Kurt's skin brushes against it. But it doesn't burn.

It tingles.

"So, would it be …" Kurt whispers, leaning closer, pausing a moment to see what Blaine will do "… like this?" Kurt fits his lips to Blaine's mouth – carefully, unsure. Blaine stops breathing. Or his breath gets stolen away. But the first touch of Kurt's lips against his own feel like falling too fast, plummeting down to that bottomless abyss Trent nearly lost him to with no one to stop him.

But Blaine doesn't want to stop falling. Not for a minute.

Then Kurt pulls back and the kiss is done – over too quickly, his fairy too far away.

“Like that?”

"Close." Blaine clears his throat awkwardly as Kurt stares at him, nervously awaiting a reaction. "But maybe we could try it like this …"

Blaine reaches out a hand, pausing at Kurt's neck to get used to the heat stinging his fingertips. He threads his fingers through Kurt's hair and pulls him close. Kurt's lips on his are surprisingly cool. He smells like the flowers he gathers in the meadow that he feeds to the fire, his hair soft like their petals. Blaine feels himself engulfed in light, the flame behind them moving through the spectrum of colors from pink to green to blue and then gold. He hears Kurt hum in his ears as he slides his lips against his and it becomes a song – a new song, one he's never sung before.

Kurt only stops when he hears Blaine's skin sizzle.

Blaine drops down in the water to cool off, quell his blush, calm the erratic pounding of his heart. The first thing he sees when he bobs up is Kurt's worried face.

"How was … how was that?" Blaine asks, climbing back onto the branch, his skin returning to its normal color.

"Are you alright?" Kurt asks, hands hovering in the air, prepared to do … something to help.

Blaine grins like the quarter moon. “I’m fine. Actually, I'm better than fine."

"Do you … do you think you might want to do that again?" Kurt asks.

"Yes! Of course! But only if you want to-umph!"

Blaine stops talking with Kurt's mouth on his. Blaine smiles and Kurt kisses him harder. Blaine wraps his arms around him, stopping every so often to dip into the water. But the longer they kiss, the more Blaine can withstand the heat of Kurt's skin, until nothing about Kurt burns anymore.

***

Blaine doesn't want to leave Kurt. He doesn’t ever want to leave. It takes another shove back into the water from Kurt to get Blaine to realize that daylight has started skating across the ocean, spreading its fingers to grab hold of them.

It would energize Kurt with one hand, and with the other, burn Blaine alive.

The whole night spent kissing Kurt, Blaine couldn't stop thinking about bringing Kurt with him under water. There has to be a way, even if it’s only for a little while – just long enough to show Kurt his kingdom, his castle, and all the incredible beauty of life beneath the sea. Besides his father (and he has no intention of asking him) Blaine can think of only one creature in the sea who might know a way.

But she is going to be difficult to get to.

#klaine #klaine fic #klaine fanfiction

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not-safeforsanders · 4 years

Text

Kinktober // 19

Prompt: Aphrodisiacs

Ship: Roceit

Deceit had wandered into the imagination of his own accord. He hadn’t quite been trying to cause any disturbances or any sort of trouble he was just curious and Roman had left the entrance unguarded and unlocked; so Deceit, in a mood that can only be accurately transcribed as “I’m bored so why not?” had passed through the gates and entered the imagination.

On the other side was a wide field full of flowers, all shimmering in different colours and managing to sparkle in the sunlight as if the petals were made of glitter; knowing Roman this is most likely the case. He’s not exactly infamous for his subtlety that much is for certain. The snake-like man had wandered through the field, staring at the flowers as they brushed against his shirt and gloves, the petals leaving behind some glitter on his clothes. Curious and with no one else around to see, he slid off one of the gloves and brushed his fingertips against the petals, enjoying the deceptively soft texture as it brushed over his scaled hand.

His moment of joy is cut short as there’s a quiet sound of someone else passing through the portal. “You shouldn’t be here,” Dee turns to see Roman walking towards him, looking neither annoyed nor amused as he sighs “I don’t really know what these ones do yet, they’re probably harmless but even so you shouldn’t touch them,” Deceit swallows dryly and pulls his glove back on, his skin feeling a little flushed; he brushes this off as being caught without his gloves on, he doesn’t like people seeing his scales. Not because he is self conscious, he loves his scales, but because they always have the same unnerved reaction like they cannot be bothered to hide that they fear anything different from them.

Except Logan, who mostly just looks consistently irritated with his presence. The feeling is mutual.

“Come on, let’s leave,” Roman’s voice is curt and clipped and...many, many other things that Deceit doesn’t have words for as he swallows dryly. No, he definitely feels warmer than he did a minute ago, hot and cold at the same time, cheeks flushing as he feels something crash over him hard and fast. “Deceit? Are you...are you alright?” Dee sways on the spot a little, bringing a hand to his forehead to alleviate the rush of blood to his head. Roman stares at Deceit, then at the flowers, before he grabs Dee’s arms and starts pulling him frantically back towards the entrance from the imagination. Suddenly he is thankful that he took the extra precautions and wore gloves and a long sleeved shirts, whatever pollen this has seems to be absorbed through touch; or at least he hopes it isn’t airborne.

By the time they stumble into Roman’s room and Roman locks both the entrance to the imagination and his own door, Dee is visibly sweating; pupils dilated and a panicked look on his face as he tries to catch his breath “I’m so sorry I honestly didn’t know! I was just playing around with some spells I thought I was making a love spell but my spells never seem to go right ever,”

“Please...shut up,” Deceit hisses lightly “What’s happening to me?” He gasps, heat coiling through him almost painfully, he feels like he’s wearing too many clothes and pulls his gloves off. The glitter has gone from his hands as though it had been absorbed through his skin, eliciting a noise of worry. “Why do I feel so warm?” Roman’s mouth opens and closes as though the answer should be obvious. Had Deceit never felt like this before? He supposes his general job has nothing to do with sex or romance, but Logan still visits Roman occasionally for some ‘stress relief’ and his job has nothing to do with either.

“I think I accidentally created an aphrodisiac,” Roman explains blankly, “Do you know what that is?” Deceit looks up at Roman with a look that is certainly not pleasant or kind, but he looks too weak “It’s okay, I’ve got you, unless you want me to leave...I can do that too...I...” He waves his hands around, looking stumped before swallowing “You should take your clothes off, I won’t look if you don’t want me too! But they’ll need washing to make sure no more of the pollen is stuck to them,”

Deceit sighs through gritted teeth but does as he’s told, and strips down to his underwear, “You can look I really have more important things to worry about right now,” He sits on the edge of Roman’s bed, legs feeling too weak and skin feeling too sticky. Roman’s eyes glance to the large bulge in Deceit’s pants and feels a hot wave arousal flush through him before he tears his eyes away, placing the basket with Dee’s clothes to the side for him to wash later.

“Do you want me to...help?” His voice comes out shakier and at a higher pitch than he had intended but there is simply nothing he can do about that, his eyes flickering to sweat-slicked scales and two-toned eyes and the noticeable bulge that looks more interesting than it should. “I don’t mind either way, I think you can just sweat it out but it might be more enjoyable if I helped,” His hands wring his wrists nervously, unsure what the protocol was here. Deceit looks up at him, hair mussed with strands sticking to his clammy forehead.

“Please just do something,” He finally manages, voice strained and sounding like he’s in pain. Roman doesn’t need telling twice as he moves over to stand hesitantly over Dee, taking a second before he leans down and kisses him, hands cupping his cheeks as their lips part messily, moving against each other feverishly. Roman pushes Dee down onto the bed and presses their hips together, feeling how hard the other is. “Jesus, fuck, okay, it’s okay just relax I’ve got you,” Then Roman pulls back, kneeling between Deceit’s legs at the edge of the bed and pulling his boxers down his legs. The other man gasps as his hard cocks bounce against his stomach. “Right, snake, of course,” Roman mutters to himself, doing the math in his head before shrugging and taking the heads of both into his mouth.

Deceit moans loudly, hips bucking as his hands scrabble through the bedsheets, his entire body rushes with blood as he sees spots in front of his vision, releasing immediately into Roman’s mouth with a whimper. The creative side swallows easily but notes with some level of pity that Dee’s cocks don’t soften, he has the feeling they’re both in for a long day.

By the time the aphrodisiac is starting to wear off, Deceit is practically sobbing in both pleasure and pain, tears streak his face as his heartbeat finally returns to normal and his soft cocks lie against him. Roman brushes his hair out of his eyes and places a kiss to the other’s forehead, whispering soft words of comfort to him.

They were both covered in sweat and cum, both sore in different ways and incredibly, completely exhausted. “Do you think you could make it to the bath my dear?” Roman asked softly “You won’t want to wake up like this,” He presses a gentle kiss to Dee’s lips and watches the rise and fall of the other’s chest “Then we can both sleep,”

Deceit lifts his arms tiredly, allowing himself to be lifted as he rests his exhausted head against Roman’s chest. “I’m glad it was you,” he muttered, eyes half closed and speech slurred “I’m glad it was you,” Roman smiles down at him even though he doesn’t know what Dee means, instead focusing on cleaning the other and making sure he was okay.

ko-fi

#not safe for sanders

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thiscatastrophe · 6 years

Photo

A late raindrop slides down one of the waxy green leaves that now flank the entrance to the once-abandoned lot. Beyond, bushes grow thick with pink and purple flowers, attended by butterflies of every species: jet black swallowtails with iridescent blue accents, regal orange visitors deep in pollen cups, brilliant yellow flashes, tiny and delicate and almost out of place in the dreary midmorning haze. They flutter in and out of plants, carrying away breakfasts that cling to their feet, dancing in circles around a grey form that fits neatly into the flora.

In his hands, a simple tin watering can. His glasses are nowhere to be seen. Deep brown eyes reflect infinite colourful wings.

From the gate, Sakura watches him tend to the flowers. She takes catalogue of her her thoughts and worries, then dismisses them with a gentle sigh.

“Shino,” she murmurs.

And she giggles; Shino nearly drops the watering can. The butterflies retreat to the bushes far from them, hiding in leaves and petals. “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” Sakura coos, “I didn't mean to spook you.”

“You're here,” he replies.

“I'm here. Come sit with me?”

They don’t sit. They wander, hands touching intermittently, to a cafe for some warm paper cups full of smoky tea, then around town while Sakura looks at the subtle changes. Different flowers in windowboxes. Shopkeepers in light jackets. Children looking over textbooks, thumbing through the first few pages of Introduction to Shinobi Codes and Mental Mathematics and Geography of the Five Great Nations.

Shino guides her back to the garden when their tea runs out. He touches thick, healthy branches of flowering bushes like a proud father, frowns and turns away just a little when Sakura thumbs the dying branches that he couldn’t quite save. “It’s okay,” she says, and snaps them off. The bush beneath is healthy. The broken twigs become playgrounds for his beetles.

In the back of the garden, he’s set up a small bench. Clearly it’s hand-built, rough and clumsy but sturdy enough. A weather-beaten, tiny book, From Faded Murals, sits open across the back of the bench; Sakura smiles and opens the cover to see her own penmanship: Haruno Sakura, Village Hidden in Stars, summer.

“I tried my best,” Shino says. “I am not sure the plants are as healthy as they would have been with you here.” He sits on the far edge of the bench and takes the thin book from her, closing it and folding his hands over the cover image. “Without you around, it has been… a struggle.”

She sits on the opposite end; it’s not clear that her close company is called for yet. “They look just fine to me. Nobody can keep branches from dying.” One of his beetles crawls across the bench towards her, and she accepts it with an open palm. “Be realistic, Shino. You did a great job.”

He doesn’t respond. Sakura looks over to check his face: gentle pink through his ears and into his throat, eyes cast away. His brows curl into tense vees, lips tight. Fingers clenched.

“Shino,” she says. The beetle in her palm scurries in a quick circle. “I’m… really not sorry I left. Overall I think it was necessary.”

His face turns away.

“But, wait—okay, I’m not sorry, but I sort of am at the same time?” She chances a move closer to him; there’s no reaction, so, emboldened, she continues. “Leaving makes me no better than Sasuke, which… is sort of a paradox, I suppose, but I’m really not trying to be better than him or even good enough for him anymore. The point is…”

As if an indicator, the beetle opens its wing cases and flutters out of her palm. She reaches out to take one of Shino’s tense hands in hers.

“The point is, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I know how you feel about being forgotten, and I… I really should have considered that more.”

A flock of loons, enjoying the last balmy days of summer, pass overhead. The rustle of their feathers blends into the sound of butterfly bush leaves disturbed by a gentle breeze. Shino’s hand turns over slowly until his fingers lace with Sakura’s.

“I didn’t ask you to be better than anyone,” he says.

Sakura’s smile lights up the tiny garden.

“So then, in this little town south of Takigakure, they asked me to plant a flowerbed around their village gate. Some of the elders helped me out, but I mostly asked them to run errands for me and water plants so they didn’t have to kneel down all the time. And the flowers they brought for me… Shino, you should have seen them! All shades of blue, and they organized them so the beds faded into white when you leave the town… Ah.” Sakura sighs and slumps into his side, gripping his hand. “I’ll take you there someday.”

In Shino’s free hand, a pair of beetles play-battle, bowling each other over like tiny wrestlers. The afternoon now wears into a cool evening, winding down as Sakura’s travelogue draws closer to Konoha. “I would love to see it,” he murmurs. “It sounds beautiful.”

She giggles and separates the fighting pair with a fingernail. “It’s not, really. The flowers are nice, but the rest of the place… well, alright, I liked it there. It’s not as pretty as other places, but it’s more than its appearances.”

Sakura feels the stiffening in Shino’s shoulder. “That phrase again,” he mutters.

“That was one of the first things you said to me, you know,” she comments. “When we started hanging out. You told me that about your beetles. And it always stuck with me. Lately I realized that it was because I don’t care as much about beauty as I thought I did.” She frowns. “Traditional beauty, that is. And you’re not unattractive, but… I think I care more about who you are than what you are. Inquisitive and kind and gentle and caring.”

Shino doesn’t look up. His eyes follow the lines of her hands, so Sakura continues. “I know that doesn’t make everything all perfect again, and you aren’t obligated to forgive me for being rude that one day, or for leaving you behind, but—”

“—I want to forgive you.”

“What?”

“I do.” He fixes his eyes on her face for the first time in quite a while. Tears gather in the corners of his eyes; it looks at once completely unlike him and exactly like Sakura expected him to look. “I know you didn’t forget me. That’s because I could read it in your letters. I felt lonely, but… never abandoned. And I hoped you’d say something like that when you came back.”

Sakura sighs in relief and nudges his shoulder. “Of course I didn’t forget you. You’re important to me.”

Looking much relieved, Shino turns his face away and watches the late butterflies that dance around the flowers. Evening sunshine glows on his high cheekbones and mingles with his eyelashes, turns his hair temporarily into bronze.

“You know,” Sakura murmurs, “you look away a lot now that you’re not wearing your glasses. Are you shy?”

“Please don’t tease me about it.”

“I’m not.” Sakura touches a fingertip to his cheek and comes away with tears. “Just wondering.”

Shino slumps into her, pressing a cheek into the hair that pools on her shoulder. As the sun sets, the butterfly bushes bow towards them, framing both in purple and pink flowers against the gold-light-glowing fence. Sakura looks down at Shino’s face hidden in her hair and, slowly, gently, smiles.

“Shino, could I kiss you?”

He doesn’t respond, but he does sit up. Sakura runs a cool hand along his cheek and leans in.

#shinosaku #shino #sakura #naruto #konoha guide

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dat-town · 6 years

Text

Waiting for spring to come

A sequel to Waiting for autumn to pass, it probably makes more sense if you read that one first.

Characters: autumn spirit!Young K & spring spirit!You

Setting: fantasy au

Genre: angsty fluff

Summary: The wind of change is in the air. Is it good? Is it bad? You are not sure but spring and autumn has never been so close before.

Words: 2.2k

For those you liked the original drabble, I hope you will enjoy this one too! ♥

Seasons are a part of the cycle of nature. Eternal, ongoing, always unseen. Seasons are sassy, it’s a known fact. Sometimes summers are cold and winters don't have snow at all. Sometimes they are unpredictable but never like this.

"We have to wake up Spring," the spirit of winter rasps fussily as soon as she leaves the doorstep behind. Her presence itself is a blinding brightness with her beautiful silver locks, ice blue eyes and pale skin. She’s like white frost flowers on windows, pioneers of the cold season creeping into the hearts of humans. A sight to behold.

Younghyun slowly looks up from his so-called throne that’s just one of the four around the round, gilded table in the meeting room designed for their trimestrial encounters. There are never more than two of them present but they all have a chair assigned just for them, bearing their marks and symbols, made by a tree so uniquely theirs. It’s a reminder that no matter what, the four of them rule together in this area and when one goes down, another one comes up.

Now, the chilly September wind being the messenger, it’s Younghyun’s turn. The smell of sweet rain and pumpkin pies is already in the air, the leaves are losing their green colour and the flowers are leaving their colourful petals on the dead ground. He’s in the prime of his life, stronger than ever just like he’s supposed to be in the beginning of the autumn season that took everybody by storm after the days of summer officially ran out.

"Why? What's happening?" he asks confused, brows furrowed but can’t help his heart that’s beating furiously of the thought of you. Of better days of spring and flower crowns withering away under your careful gaze and soft smile.

He harshly grabs onto his wooden chair made out of oak tree and overgrown by grape leaves. Normally, he should be discussing important matters with the winter spirit who just woke up and sent Summer into sleep. He should definitely not talk about such blatant nonsense like waking up another season before their time. There's still three more lunar months until you are supposed to be up and Tingyan knows this very well too. Then what the hell is she talking about?

"Don't you feel it? The change?" she quirks an eyebrow at him and even though she usually hides her feelings pretty well, Younghyun can tell she’s pissed, probably thinking about how she ended up with such fools around her.

Of course, he feels the change, the weather getting warmer and more chaotic each year, but he has been sensing this for decades now and he got used to the uneasiness.

“But the rules...” he’s mumbling, hanging onto the only thing he believed to be as certain as writings set in stone.

"The rules change, too. Taeyang can’t fall asleep,” the winter spirit explains and a sun-kissed boy with wide smile steps into the meeting room on cue. “Before, when this idiot accidently touched me, icebergs melt. Now? Flowers bloom from ice.”

“Hey, folks, I’m here too and I take full offense for that degrading comment,” Taeyang snickers like he always does with Tingyan.

Winter and summer are total opposites and their spirits’ personalities are quite different too, so maybe that’s why they never really got along. They didn’t even need to due to the fact they only met twice a year. But now that both of them are up and Summer really doesn’t look sleepy at all, it makes Younghyun mull over the odds of impossible in fear. Their job was to keep the balance. Does that mean they failed?

Yet, here he is recklessly hoping that it means that he can see you soon.

“But how is this possible?” he furrows his brows, fingers twitching as he gulps down his nervousness.

“Ask Mother Earth,” the winter spirit shrugs while Taeyang shoots finger guns at him instead of answering the question.

“Come on, Autumn, bring Spring into the party! You have to be the one to wake her up, otherwise it would confuse her a lot and we don't want any more unnecessary changes or do we?” he raises an eyebrow clearly as a joke. However, Tingyan doesn’t appreciate his funny side and smacks him on the arm that makes him let out a yelp.

Younghyun doesn’t pay attention to their dispute, he’s too immersed in the thought of meeting you so early. Such an unexpected turn of events! He steps towards the direction of your suite almost blindly, pulled by invisible strings and a magnetic power stronger than gravity.

The golden doorknob is cold under his touch and he’s shivering even though he’s not capable of feeling neither warm, nor cold. At least, not in that sense humans feel them; it’s more like an emotion for him, something stirring deep in his heart. His breath hitches as the door opens so easily and the immerse dose of flower scent is already suffocating him. He chokes on his own saliva but it doesn’t break his determination as he marches towards your baldachin bed thoroughly hinted with fresh flower petals. Where in the midst of roses, lilies, jasmines and even more exotic kinds Younghyun doesn’t even recognize, there’s you, the prettiest flower of all.

You are like an angel sleeping in your rosy coloured dress with your long, dark hair sprawled on the white sheets. You have flowers among your locks, like always, and this time they are midnight blue forget-me-nots. Like he could ever forget you! Your heart-shaped face and glossy lips are imprinted in his mind making him crave something he shouldn’t. Because there’s a bridgeless abyss between something you simply won’t have and can’t have. Still, it’s not about owning, about such filial want for physical things but also the longing for a life in which you are with him and not only for one day. But forever.

What can he do though? Autumn and spring is half a year apart, yet you are here, so close, so mesmerizingly beautiful and peaceful while he’s choking on the pollens that are scratching his throat. He absolutely adores this irreplaceable sweetness of yours but the realm of Spring is killing him. He has to act soon or else, his recklessness will be his undoing for being here too long.

He sits down on the edge of your soft bed, the mattress dampening under him as he can’t take his eyes off of you. He’s certain of how he feels, how pathetically autumn is in love with spring, yet he never dares to act on those feelings. Not even when he has seen the same yearning in your eyes because he would hate himself to bring chaos down onto the two of you.

Maybe it’s the change in the air or maybe it’s something completely different but now he feels daring, desperate enough to lean closer until he cannot process anything else but your light breaths on his face and the flutters of your eyelashes. Without further delay, he dives in and presses his lips gently onto your forehead. But as if you burnt him, he pulls back almost immediately, wiping his still tingling mouth with the back of his hands not believing what he just did. Silly, silly deity, has nobody taught you that this mundane thing called love is such a dangerous thing to do?

A heartbeat later, when you blink once, twice and then slowly open your eyes drowsily, he’s there with the softest smile despite being terrified of the possible consequences of his own actions.

“Hey...” he greets you and no matter the centuries that went by, you still get flustered by the way he looks at you so fondly.

“Is it time already?” you ask suddenly wide awake and sitting up in your bed hastily. Did you sleep in? Why did he come into your room when he always waits outside for you?

“Well, about that…” Younghyun gulps and his gaze drops somewhere between your bodies on the flower-made bed. When he looks up, his eyes are autumn days you dreamed about, the warm but windy ones when you wish somebody would hold your hand. But the boy next to you doesn’t do that, no, he rather brushes a stray lock out of your eyes and tucks it behind your ear carefully not to touch your skin. “Everybody is required to be at this year’s autumnal equinox.”

You can only gape at him in awe. This has never happened before.

“What… what does it mean?”

“We are not sure.”

Nobody is. The Seasons’s Council is more crowded this year than ever before and of course, a lot louder too. You stay close to Younghyun as the spirits from all over the globe arrive and start discussing the issue at hand. You don’t understand much of it but you are fascinated by all the new faces you see.

“Is she a rain season? I have never seen one before,” you point at a girl whose hair is like waves and she moves so fluidly as if she was made of slippery water.

“Yeah, she is from the East,” Younghyun nods and introduces you to some other spirits he knows from other areas where only two season spirits exists. You find the monsoon seasons particularly funny so you enjoy yourself despite the seriousness of the situation. Thought, it’s mostly because your beloved autumn spirit is by your side. He’s the calm river in a thundery forest and whenever you feel him getting closer signalled by that dizziness that rushes over you, you are reminded that everything will be okay.

Even if the meeting goes by fruitless and the seasons leave even more fidgety than before, you don’t mind it. Not if it means you can stay and watch autumn unfold in front of your eyes, if you can spend more time with the spirit who stole your heart from bits to bits over the last millennium.

“What happens now?” you speak up when the two of you step out to the balcony of the building. You don’t have to say your fears out loud explicitly for Younghyun to understand what you mean by that: what if you die like humans?

“Now we are here to see every season until we can,” he reassures you with your favourite kind of smile, that genuine one that warms and melts your insides. It takes your breath for a moment and you don’t have any more self-restraint to keep yourself from asking what you’ve wanted to since he woke you up.

“Do you think I can touch you without causing havoc?”

“I- Maybe,” the forever young man blurts out nervous like a teenager in love, clearly taken aback by your direct question but he doesn’t move an inch when you lift your hand to his face.

You hesitate. You’re afraid you will wake up from this dream if you touch him, or you might ruin him just like how spring conquers winter every year. The what ifs horrify you and Younghyun sees your wobbliness in your eyes and shaky fingers. So he gently takes your hand slotting his fingers between yours as he presses your palm flatly on his cheek.

Wow. You let out a relieved sigh.

“You are warm,” you whisper being lost for words. It’s not his ageless face or the touch itself, but the warmth that’s coming from the heart and feels like home.

“You fault,” the spirit of the current season says cheekily and you chuckle in embarrassment. Why is he so cheesy?

“Liar,” you shake your head in disbelief and step back. You need a breather because your lungs are on fire and you’re sure it’s because of the incompatibility between your seasons’ nature. It would be dangerous to prolong the moment more. So you turn towards the jaw-dropping scenery and smile tenderly at no one in particular. “I can’t believe I can see autumn. It’s beautiful.”

Younghyun’s breath hitches as he watches you marvelling at the colours he created and just like an artist presenting his masterpiece, he can’t help but feel proud that you like his work. Oh how he wished so many times you were there to see the beauty of fall.

“I have always known though. I saw it in your eyes,” you keep rambling, confessing in your own innocent way but oh boy, he knows you too well to let it slip through his fingers like that.

“So is it spring I see in your eyes?” he looks straight in your eyes with a look so serious you don’t know what to expect but still, your heart is beating rapidly like the clopping of wild horses on the run.

“I don’t know. What do you see?”

“Something I would be willing to bloom and wither for.”

It’s the softest kiss, a silent I love you and a promise. It takes your breath away and your heart skips a beat as he kisses you shortly. You both know it won’t be easy but you believe it’s worth it, especially because for the first time since forever you are waiting for spring to come with him by your side.

#day6writersnet #kkreationsnet #stories #day6 angst #day6 oneshot #day6 scenarios #young k scenario #young k angst #brian kang #young k fluff #fantasy au #mythology au #a bit of worldbuilding and cameos

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askbloomtale · 7 years

Link

Chapter 15 is up!!! Even if I’m on break, I keep updating things... Kaito, just go to sleep xD

For those who can’t access AO3 or just don’t want to do it, the chapter is pasted under this sexy cut!!!

Bloomtale

Chapter 15 – The Ball Game

The skeleton rose from the frozen ground as soon as she was left alone again; her teeth were chattering due to the great cold that had almost set in her bones. She had needed to sit on the snow for what felt like forever in order to wait for the dog monster to finally go away.

And boy, was it horrible.

After her first death to the blue knives, she awoke to the marvelous sensation of yet another flower wriggling its way out of her skull, this time from her left eye socket. The feeling was as awful as she remembered it to be like when it all started, back at Toriel’s house.

She was about to freak out yet again, because that meant she was also going to lose sight from her left eye, and that completely terrified her. But she soon realized that she was, again, back at her last save point, and that made her remember she had talked to her phone buddy. That he would come for her, at some point. She had saved that conversation, so it would really happen.

That fact… it filled her with a good feeling.

So after spending some time to calm herself down, she had tried to face the blind dog again. She hadn’t yet fully understood the power of that cerulean magic, and she didn’t know how to face someone who just wanted her to stop moving, so she tried to run past the guard post. Maybe he wouldn’t have the time to notice her…

Oh, but she was wrong.

Of course he noticed.

And no matter how much she tried to stay away, he always followed her. It didn’t took much until he caught up to her, anyway, because the young skeleton wasn’t really athletic.

He swung his knives again, and Athela was horrified to discover that, even if the attack went right past her – she had minimally good dodging skills at that point, since it was all practice, –the blades still cut her as if she was a tender piece of cheese. Just what was the trick??

After her second death, and after thinking a little, she tried the craziest thing she could imagine. Despite going against all natural self-preservation instincts, she… let the blades hit her.

Not like it was completely illogical. He was literally yelling “don’t move” at her. So maybe that was what she had to do. Maybe. If it wasn’t, she would just die and she would curl up in a corner and cry a bit.

But she was delighted to discover that, indeed, the attack went right through her. The dog monster looked everywhere, confused, looking for his prey, but she stood completely still.

Her breath quickened, and she felt her SOUL pulsating strongly. It worked! So she would not move again. Just… stay still. Wait for the monster to give up and leave.

…

After ten minutes of “battling”, she just sat on the floor because that dude was not going away. Talk about persistence. The floor was really, really cold, but she was too tired of standing as frozen as an ice statue.

And that would be what she would’ve literally become, if it wasn’t for her magic. Her glowing eyes helped her stay warm, even if they didn’t provide much heat, and even if they didn’t glow much. Somehow, the glow seemed… weaker. Probably because she was tired. She didn’t think much about it as she remained still, sitting on the blue-ish snow.

A few minutes later, after what felt like a whole eternity, the dog just frowned and went back to his stand. Athela waited some more, and thought about dogs in general. Dogs were cute, but… as a skeleton, she did not feel completely comfortable around them. She was made of bones, and… every dog she had seen on TV, or read about on a comic book or a novel… They all ate bones. Would dog-monsters be different, or would they also…?

Good thing the dog was blind and probably never found out what she was. Shivering, but not because of the cold, she shook her head and thought about pollen and sunshine. That, until she saw the dog monster close his eyes. And start snoring.

“Phew… finally,” she sighed, with a relieved smile. That dog could be persistent… but she was even persistenter!! And he could not be even more persistent, because she was the persistentest! Even if that was grammatically wrong. It didn’t matter.

She finally stood up, giggling. Victory!

Her giggles only lasted so far, for she had a strange reaction. Her teeth were clattering slightly, and her nose –or what could be called her nose –felt funny. It itched… but not really, it was…

…

“A…” Oh, jeeze. “Achoo!” She felt the need to close her eyes and her head rocked forward, expelling some air for some reason. Athela didn’t know what just happened, but it felt really, really weird. She had also made a small, funny noise.

Why? Was it because of the cold?

Interesting.

But wait, did the noise wake up the doggo? Alarmed, the skeleton covered her nose as she looked to the station’s direction. The dog seemed to be sleeping still… phew. Good.

She felt like she was really freezing to the bone… and that thing she just did made a few petals fall. There they were, in the snow. It didn’t hurt, but… she felt dizzy. She should better hurry to the save point, then. Poor Athela didn’t know what was up ahead, so there was no option but to go back. There could not be a save point nearby aside from that last one, so for Athela it was a better option to go a few meters back.

And so she did.

The save point felt really warm… A goofy smile appeared on her face as she approached her bony hands to the shiny star. Like a campfire, it made her feel warm soon enough. But she chose to stay there for a while more, because she liked the fuzzy feeling.

She suddenly felt the usual skull pain. Was it stronger this time? The young skeleton closed her eyes and hissed as she brought a hand to her head and rubbed her forehead. What a bother. She didn’t remember the pain lasting for so long… it had to be because of the flowers. The dang curse.

Anyway, it seemed like her progress was now saved. Sighing, Athela decided to keep going. She ought to be close, right?

…

Oh, right, she had just started walking through the forest area… jeeze. It had felt like forever. How much more would she have to walk? She thought as she kept walking. There was no time to stop. The chilling cold immediately made her stiffen a bit once she got out of the save point’s comfort zone.

She walked in front of the dog’s post again, and he was still there, breathing slowly, apparently feeling calm. How nice, to have hair all over your body… he probably could not feel the cold, could he? That made Athela slightly jealous.

She could not afford to stop, though. So she kept going, only dedicating a few seconds to look at what looked like burnt, bone-shaped cookies. Bad omen? Coincidence? Athela went with coincidence, she didn’t want more negative things in her life at the moment.

Soon enough she arrived to a fairly big area. It was like… an iced up lake. Beautiful.

Athela’s eyes sparkled as she approached the frozen water. It was so different from the river… the ice felt cold, hard and sparkly. She, of course, touched it. Slippery. And yes, really cold; she soon withdrew her hands from its icy surface, and was just content with… looking at it. The mirror-like surface also reflected her own image…

She looked at herself, and the ice mirrored her sad, sorry expression. It was not every day that she looked at herself with pity. The flowers made her look… scary. She wasn’t used to REAL monsters; she had mostly seen human shows, but now she definitely looked like one. Some flower monster. She felt sorry for the poor girl she saw reflected on the ice.

Sighing, she backed away. She couldn’t stand looking at herself. At least it was still her… in some wicked, distorted way.

Athela had the feeling that she would never like flowers anymore. What a shame.

There was a sign in the middle of the ice lake… Athela felt like reading it. Unknowing of the full extent of ice’s slippery properties, she set foot into it and tried to go for the sign. And of course, she slipped big time.

“Aaaaaah!!” She yelled as her feet slid on the ice for some meters, and then went up in the air as she crashed against the ground with her bony butt. It hurt. “Ouch, ouch… what the…?” Confused, Athela looked around her, and then at the floor. “Are you serious…?”

She tried getting up. Her sense of balance was now off, thanks to her feet not really getting attached to the floor like they should be. It was Athela’s first time ice-skating, and she wasn’t really enjoying it. The danger she was feeling was likely the main reason for it, really. She was now far from the snow, and she didn’t know how to go back.

Trying to push herself further, Athela ended up with her body on the floor once again. It was cold and it hurt a lot!! She whimpered, rubbing her poor frozen butt. That was the second fall already. The sign was somewhat closer now. She tried crawling to it, so she could maybe try getting herself back to the shore from there.

She succeeded.

Athela took the chance to read what was written on the sign… it probably wasn’t worth all the falls and butt-pain, but she was already there, so she just read it.

“North: Ice

South: Ice

West: Ice

East: Snowdin Town … and ice.”

Oh wow. Actual indications!! Athela was really glad to see… some kind of written map. First time in forever. Now she was glad she went and read the sign. So north was death, south was death, west was death… and east was less death and more like a town? A monster town! And more death.

But she would trust the town, maybe the monsters there were nice, like her phone buddy, and no one would try to kill her or to give her any weird puzzles. She would trust that.

Nodding, she prepared to leave… but… the lake. Oops. What was she supposed to do now? Okay, she would… she would step slowly into the ice, and then she would use the sign to propel herself to safe ground again. But it didn’t go according to keikaku, of course.

[Note: Keikaku means plan]

First, her feet slipped again, making her stumble backwards. Then, she fell, with such bad luck that she hit the wooden sign behind her with the back of her skull. Athela heard a low cracking sound, and felt a lot of pain immediately afterwards, but it was not enough to turn her to dust, luckily.

Bad news: she fainted immediately afterwards.

Worse news: as she lied down unconscious on the snow, she became colder. Each minute that passed… cold. Colder. And yet, colder. With no magic to warm her up, her flowers froze up and withered in less than half an hour.

And she died along with them.

Athela jolted out of her dark slumber when she spawned back in the world, confused and scared. Her hands immediately went to the back of her head, where only her pretty hair could be found. Wasn’t there supposed to be a crack there? Confused, she kept touching, trying to find it… and…

Oh, no, her hair was tangled. Athela ignored the usual head pain –she was already too used to it to consider it as something new –and just used her fingers to brush it, still dazed and unaware of her current situation. In her mind, she was still on the ice lake; she didn’t know what happened, that she had fainted, or anything at all.

But soon enough, the warmth of the save point pulled her back to reality and made her look at the scenery around her.

“What…? Why am I here?” Still a little bothered by her pained skull, she gazed around, seeing the same familiar box and save point from before. “Did I die? What? How??” The urgency in her voice increased as she became aware of what was happening.

And soon, anger rose up too.

“Oh, great. Just great.” Grumbling and muttering a few soft curses that she learnt from a TV series once, she crossed her arms and thought about what she had just lost. Fortuitously, she saved after her encounter with the dog, so… now he should still be sleeping.

All in all, it didn’t look like she had lost a lot of progress.

…

But she was angry anyway.

What a dumb way to die. She would avoid ice from now on as if it were poisonous. All because of a little slip… she didn’t even remember what happened! It wasn’t fair.

The grumpy skeleton started walking again, still grumbling about her sad fate and her clumsiness. Curses. That had been so NOT worth it.

She remembered what was written in the sign, so she went past the lake, of course, avoiding to step on the icy surface. East… head east. She had to head east.

…

Where was “east”?

She could use the sun, usually, to guide herself. But she was underground now! No way she would know where east was, right?

Athela tried using her brain to solve that situation. Let’s see… she just came from that road over there, so that had to be one “ice”. There was no path if she looked to her right, so that had to be more “ice”. Two left… but… where was east? Maybe… the way she just came from led to the Ruins, and that was a warmer place. So perhaps that was “south”. So east…

…

No, that was not right. Then “east” would be that path-less direction.

…

Ah, she just didn’t know… maybe “north” was up, and “east” was… her left? She didn’t have anything else… so… no, wait. Wait. That would be west, not east. She wasn’t good with directions. Jeeze, even her mom told her so in a fairly easy way. “If you head north, east is to your right, and west to your left.” Don’t forget about that, Athela.

When she read the sign, she was looking to the path that was now to her left. So according to the sign, the path that was now to her left had to be “north”. And then… east…

“Over there!” With a proud smile, Athela moved forward. She would usually take her time inspecting every little inch of that place, but it was too cold. Maybe she would go back, once she got some warmer clothes. Not like her flowers would stay alive forever if she kept wandering around that tundra. She didn’t want to be careless. Also, there were monsters in that place. Not like they were evil or anything, but… well, accidents happen. Accidents happen a lot.

Feeling like she chose the right direction, she happily moved onward. To her delight, there were no indications that she had chosen a dead end; the road kept going and going. There was nothing at first, just snow and more pine trees… but soon enough, she saw someone in the distance.

Was it a bunny?

Athela’s eyes… well, the eye she had left, sparkled with amazement. She loved bunnies! They were so cute and fluffy… and that was a very big bunny, wow. And it had blue fur, and… was that an ice cream stand?

She approached meekly, just in case the bunny would try to greet her in a funny way. It would not be the first time. But he seemed sad… she wondered why. Taking a quick look at the stand’s outstanding parasol –it was really flashy, she couldn’t help but look at it –she approached and greeted the bunny shyly.

“Er… hello?” The skeleton rose her hand slowly, carefully. It didn’t seem like he heard her, despite her coy attempts; he kept muttering things.

“I don’t understand why these aren’t selling... it’s the perfect weather for something cold…” He said, looking down, his floppy ears pointing to the floor. Athela tried again.

“Hello!” This time, she spoke with a stronger voice, and she was heard. Immediately after comprehending that he wasn’t alone, the male bunny smiled widely and his ears perked up.

“OH!!!! A CUSTOMER!!!” He yelled, his voice overflowing with joy. Athela had to slightly jump back due to the sudden shock; it seemed like that guy hadn’t had a customer in years… that was quite sad.

The bunny stopped leaning on his stand and gave her a really warm smile; that made Athela feel… better. She smiled back as the bunny monster continued talking.

“Hello! Would you like some Nice Cream? It’s the frozen treat that warms your heart! Now just 15G!”

So enthusiastic. Athela felt compelled to… buy ice cream. And heck yeah she was right it had been ice cream all along, score for cute Athela.

She even had some coins on her. Back at the Ruins, some one-eyed monster gave a bunch of gold to her because she was nice to him. She reached to her pocket and took the money out. Counting… She had a good number of coins, amounting to… 5G.

Wait, that was not enough. Oh… oops.

“Oh… sorry, I don’t have enough money.” She said, slightly sad. Immediately after saying that, she realized something else. “And… I don’t think I could eat frozen food right now. I’m really sorry…”

Despite her saddening words, the bunny didn’t lose his smile. He kept his ears up, and his smile wide. However, his eyes did seem slightly emptier now. Oops?

“Well then… tell your friends…” He started saying, his voice slightly vacant too, now. That actually made Athela feel bad for not having money. “There’s ice cream… out in the middle of the woods…”

Ouch. That felt awful. That poor guy sure had it rough. Because, thinking straight, who would even go to the forest to buy ice cream in winter? Athela was just starting to experience cold temperatures, but she just felt like having warm food. Was it really the perfect time to eat ice cream? Or… Nice Cream. She wasn’t quite sure about the differences between those two things, but… it was still cold, cold ice cream in the end.

Sighing, and still confused, she gave one last look to the Nice Cream guy and kept walking, paying extra attention to the small bridge in front of her. It was easy enough to cross anyway, so she didn’t mind it. It didn’t give, either. Fantastic.

Soon enough, something caught her attention. There was what looked like a snow field of some sort, and… a giant snowball. Lying there, with no apparent purpose whatsoever. She stared at it, intently. Could it be a puzzle? Would anything happen if she pushed it?

No… she shouldn’t. It was definitely a bad idea. What if she got killed again, and… … why was it so big? It looked like it would be fun to roll it around… no, Athela… well, maybe a slight push…

…

She did it. She pushed the ball.

It rolled away fast, bouncing away on the snowy field, until it stopped. It was really light… how strange. But it was incredibly fun to see it rolling. Athela giggled as she saw it just lay there.

…

Wait, was it getting smaller?

Noooo!

She ran to the ball and gave it another push. That, somehow, made it stay big. Not like it was getting bigger, but it wasn’t getting smaller. It was cold, but she kept pushing, because… what if something bad happened when it disappeared? She shouldn’t have touched it on the first place. Athela blamed the appealing round curves of that majestic giant snowball.

Anyway. What to do with it now?

Maybe she should push it somewhere… like a puzzle. Was this a puzzle? It made sense that it was, she was still expecting spikes and death. But where to put the giant ball? Well, the field was kinda big, so she should just keep pushing.

She had to stop a couple times to just glow her eyes a bit; her hands were getting frozen. And so was she, but… she was having fun, by hook or by crook. It was like a game, she didn’t mind playing a bit. In fact, she was quite enjoying it.

The ball ended up not being so giant anymore, but it was okay, it was still whole. Athela tried to avoid an ice puddle that was at one side of the field, but she succeeded. It wasn’t long after that that she saw what looked like a hole. There! There was the place!

It was difficult… because the ball would just bounce wherever it wanted to. Also because her vision was not the best, with one eye covered and other to some extent. But in the end, after many trials and tribulations, and after learning about the ball’s erratic behavior and bouncing, she did it. She was hugely relieved when she heard what looked like a victory sound. Then, the ball disappeared, and what it looked like a flag emerged. A purple flag.

Athela smiled. That was good, right? She really liked purple, so it better be something good.

There was a note attached to the flag… the skeleton took it and read it.

“PURPLE – Even when you felt trapped, you took notes and achieved the end of ‘Ball.’”

There were also two coins. Athela took them, slightly confused.

“What…? It looks like a normal game,” she cocked her head to one side, unable to find out where the puzzle was. Maybe it was just a nice game. That would’ve been… well, nice, but slightly upsetting. She thought she was in danger… but apparently, it was all good. She even got money! She had 7G now.

…

Still not enough for an ice cream.

Not like she wanted to eat one anyway. Too cold. She felt sorry about the bunny guy anyway. He was nice. Very peaceful. He was added to Athela’s good list. But she was not going to eat the ice cream anyway. If snow was cold to the touch and it was generally uncomfortable, she could imagine how bad it would be to put something as cold in your mouth. Maybe it was even painful. She didn’t know, tho… but she was not willing to try.

Athela patted the flowers coming from her left eye as she sighed. They were really cold again… all that playing on the snow was starting to affect her. Her teeth were chattering… it was not a pleasurable feeling. She could go back to her last save point…? No, it was too far. Athela felt like it was too far for her to reach before freezing.

It was a scary thought… to know you’ll freeze to death soon, and that MAYBE you’ll save yourself if you kept walking. Maybe.

B-but she had been walking for a lot of time… right? Surely, there had to be a save point nearby. Feeling the grip of anxiety, she started walking. The flag had nothing else to offer, so she followed the path ahead of her, barely taking a minute to examine the snowball placed next to the cliff to her left. Why was it there? And… well it didn’t look really round, so that was weird.

But she didn’t have the time to think about snowdecahedrons. She was really cold. And the wind was howling again, making her flowers send painful signals all over her head. She groaned as she paced on ahead trying to cover her eyes as best as she could.

She walked for what it looked like a long time… but it was just actually just for a few minutes. Of course, it felt longer than that… when you’re focusing every second of your time into thinking about how cold you are, every second matters. But soon, light could be seen at the end of the tunnel… figuratively speaking, of course; it’s not like Athela was in a tunnel.

Amidst the light mist, she could see a light. Was that… a save point light?

She ran next to it, and almost tripped again in her excitement. Finally…

For the time being, she was safe again.

Athela - LV 1 Snowdin – Spaghetti Nº Resets: 33

#Bloomtale #Bloomtale AU #Chapter 15 #Main Story #Snowdin #Spaghetti #Athela #OC #Doggo #Nice Cream Guy #Ball Game #she sneezed #thanks for reading <3

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setepenre-set · 7 years

Text

Poetry and Flowers

Megamind/Roxanne

Roxanne is disconcerted when she receives a mysterious gift on Valentine’s Day.

(K rating, pre-movie AU, inspired by a @ramendobe prompt.)

AO3 | FFN

It comes on Valentine’s Day, delivered to Roxanne’s desk, waiting there for her when she walks in.

Her eyes go wide when she sees the bouquet. What—who in the world would be sending her flowers?

It’s a very large arrangement, interesting, too; not just ordinary roses. Some of the flowers she doesn’t even recognize.

There’s a slim, dark-blue book beneath the vase of flowers; she slips it out and looks at it curiously, flipping it open to the first page.

your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself as fingers, you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens (touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

Roxanne feels her face go hot.

She turns to the next page.

I go so far as to think that you own the universe. I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses. I want 

to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.

Roxanne slams the book shut.

Love poetry? Who the hell would send her flowers and love poems? On Valentine’s Day? What the hell is this?

She puts the book down quickly on her desk.

There’s a card, in the flowers. She plucks it out and looks at it.

The card is small and white—nothing written on it but a sharp black—

“Oh, your boyfriend got you flowers!” Katie exclaims from over Roxanne’s shoulder.

Roxanne jumps, card fluttering from nerveless fingers.

“My—my what?”

Katie gives her a look that says she’s wondering if Roxanne has lost her mind.

“Your boyfriend,” she says. “You know. M. For Metro Man.”

“…ahahahah! Yes! Of course! M! For Metro Man!” Roxanne says.

Katie gives her a look that says she’s pretty sure Roxanne has lost her mind, and then she goes back to her desk.

But.

See.

Here’s the thing.

Metro Man is not Roxanne’s boyfriend. They are not dating.

Not.

Dating.

Wayne pretends to his mother that they are, and Roxanne lets him, even though she’d really prefer that he just go ahead and explain to his mother that he’s aromantic. Lady Scott loves her son; she’d understand, eventually, Roxanne thinks, if Wayne explained. But, then, Roxanne knows that coming out to her own mother as bisexual didn’t exactly go well, so she does get why Wayne’s worried. That’s why Roxanne lets Wayne lie to his mother about dating her.

But he’s never really acted like they’re dating (he doesn’t have to; the public fills in the blanks without any evidence anyway). So there’s no reason for him to have sent her flowers and poetry.

Also, Wayne overdoes the Metro Man thing, yes, but he isn’t going to give her a card with his logo on it instead of his name, because that would be ridiculous. Even for him.

So.

Logically, that means that someone else sent her the presents.

Someone else whose name starts with M, and let’s put it this way, Roxanne is pretty sure Minion isn’t the one sending her poems and flowers.

Maybe it’s a joke.

Maybe it’s a trap.

Maybe it’s a trap and a joke, maybe—

Roxanne eyes the gifts with deep suspicion.

Okay. All right. Focus, Roxanne; think this through.

The poems are the most—emotionally…disconcerting part of the present (because they seem to indicate a depth of sincerity unmatched by the flowers. Roxanne can picture Megamind giving her a showy bouquet as a joke, but it’s more difficult to see him doing the same thing with a book of love poetry.

So. If the presents are a trap, then the poems are probably meant to be the distraction and the flowers are the dangerous part

Roxanne looks at the vase of flowers with even deeper suspicion than before, then carefully pushes it to the edge of her desk, sits down, and opens up her laptop. Maybe one of the flowers has some sort of—hallucinatory pollen or something…

After some searching, she finds a site with a database of flowers, organized by image, name, and something called ‘floriographic meaning’. (The website’s definition of floriography is ‘the language of flowers, used to communicate messages cryptographically’.)

The flowers in her bouquet are all in the database, and none of them have any weird side effects listed.

Roxanne frowns at the computer screen and taps a pencil on her desk.

Hmm. Okay. That’s—well, it should be reassuring, but mostly it’s just—odd.

On a whim, she checks the flower language meaning of one of the blooms, and then she nearly drops her pencil in shock.

Apple blossom—temptation.

(temptress)

That’s—that’s probably just her reading too much into this, right?

(her heart is beating oddly hard and fast, and her face is hot again.)

She clicks on the next flower in her bouquet, reads the floriographic meaning.

Iris—a message.

A message.

Temptress.

A message—for her?

(floriography does seem like the nerdy, obscure sort of thing that Megamind would be interested in—)

She looks up the rest of the meanings.

There’s peach blossoms, which apparently mean ‘I am your captive’ (she blushes even harder at that); daffodils, which can evidently stand either for happiness or unrequited love (that’s…confusing); bluebells, which mean delicacy (she doesn’t quite get that one, but—maybe he’s using the color as a signature?); gardenias, which mean either joy or secret love (what is it with the confusing double meanings?); clematis, which means mental beauty (or maybe he’s using the clematis as the signature? unless…’mental beauty’—surely that’s not a compliment meant for her—); cypress, which means despair (why despair?); and red tulips, which stand for—

—a declaration of love.

Roxanne does drop her pencil. this time.

She reads the line again.

Red tulips. A declaration of love.

A—a declaration of love, and that means the gardenias probably do stand for secret love and the daffodils for unrequited love, and that’s why he added cypress for despair and oh god

oh god she can’t breathe

Megamind—Megamind is in love with her?

Roxanne clutches the edge of her desk, needing to ground herself, because she is reeling, not just from the shock of the revelation (Megamind is in love with her. Megamind.) but from the sheer, utterly unexpected pulse of joy that goes through her in answer to the thought.

What—why is she happy about this? She can’t possibly be in—

Oh—oh, she is, isn’t she?

Oh no.

Roxanne makes a small, choked noise and only refrains from hiding beneath her desk because she is frozen in terror.

What.

What is she going to do?

Roxanne reaches for the book of poems in a sort of daze, opens it, and starts to read.

The book isn’t long; it takes her only about twenty minutes to finish the whole thing. It’s—it’s a very intense twenty minutes, though.

She’s pretty sure he must have selected all of the poems individually, and printed the book himself; there’s no publisher’s mark, and all of the poems have different authors.

And each of the poems is—they are all very beautiful and very romantic.

Extremely romantic. This is—this is by far the most romantic gift that Roxanne has ever been given.

She turns to the last page, and—blinks in confusion.

This isn’t a love poem; it’s the opening soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Richard the Third; she recognizes it from her college english class. Why would he—

But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass; I, that am rudely stamped, and want love's majesty To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;

(wait—unrequited love, the daffodils stood for, and cypress for despair)

I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion, Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature, Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time Into this breathing world, scarce half made up, And that so lamely and unfashionable That dogs bark at me as I halt by them—

(but—Richard is talking about how ugly he is, how he’s—)

Why I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun And descant on mine own deformity.

(Megamind calls himself ‘incredibly handsome’ but she knows how other people talk about the way he looks and he must know that, too, and—)

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover To entertain these fair well-spoken days, I am determined to prove a villain And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

(since I cannot prove a lover, I am determined to prove a villain)

Is—is that—

Is that an offer to give up villainy for her? Is that what he’s trying to say?

Can that possibly be what he’s trying to say?

There are no more poems after the soliloquy, and so, in frustration—why can’t he just say that, if he means that—she turns again to the first page, reads over the first poem again.

your slightest look easily will unclose me though i have closed myself—

Roxanne closes the book, eyes wide, heart slamming against her ribcage.

Oh.

Oh, wow.

Oh, wow, this is—

Roxanne looks at the clock. Almost noon; Megamind will probably show up to kidnap her on her lunch break; he always has an evil plot planned for Valentine’s Day, and surely he’s going to want to see her, after sending her this message; surely he’s going to want—

—her answer.

How is she going to answer?

(yes, of course; the answer is yes; it would have been yes, she realizes, even if he hadn’t offered to give up villainy, which probably says something worrying about her morals, but she doesn’t really care about that right now because she needs to find a suitably romantic way to indicate to Megamind that the answer is definitely yes—)

An idea hits her; she turns again to her laptop, to the floriography website, and scrolls quickly through the database of meanings, looking for—

There. Perfect.

Now she just has to find a florist that hasn’t sold out of red carnations. Before Megamind shows up.

Roxanne, sitting outside the coffee shop, nervously tears her croissant into pieces and resists the urge to touch the red carnation she has pinned in her hair.

This is happening; she can’t believe she’s doing this.

What is taking Megamind so long? She wants this to be happening now.

(Roxanne has never been good at waiting for the things she wants)

She bites her lip—maybe she should check the placement of the flower again? And her makeup, maybe she should check her—

Roxanne stands, turns and—

Walks into a cloud of knockout spray.

She’s smiling when Megamind pulls the bag off of her head.

“Miss Ritchi; we meet again,” Megamind says, and Roxanne blinks, surprised.

He’s opening with his usual line? That’s—all right, maybe he’s waiting for her to set the tone for the conversation.

She smiles a little more warmly at him.

“Finally!” she says, “It felt like I was waiting at that coffee shop forever!”

Megamind is the one who blinks this time.

Then he—

—frowns.

(what? why is he—)

“You may have anticipated today’s kidnapping, Miss Ritchi,” Megamind says, gesturing dramatically, “but I am certain that today’s evil plot will leave you shocked and dismayed!”

(—wait, this—this isn’t right! he’s supposed to—doesn’t he see the flower; doesn’t he get it?)

“Do you like what I’ve done with my hair today, Megamind?” Roxanne blurts out desperately.

Megamind, who has turned away to the console, looks over his shoulder, looks down his nose at her.

“A flower; very romantic, Miss Ritchi,” he says, tone dismissive, and Roxanne’s heart twists painfully.

“—that’s…good; it’s—meant to be,” Roxanne says, willing him to understand, to turn and face her properly, to come over to her chair and tilt her face up to his and kiss her. “You see, I—got a present. Today. A gift. For Valentine’s Day.”

Megamind goes still for a long second, and then turns to her.

(good; yes; thank god)

“Oh?” he asks, voice casual.

“Yes,” Roxanne says. “There were flowers. And a question…”

“—oh,” Megamind says, and she thinks she hears a crack in his tone of indifference.

“Are you familiar with floriography, Megamind?” Roxanne asks.

There’s a pause.

“…I’ve read a few books, yes,” he says.

“Do you know what a red carnation means, then?”

Megamind’s expression—

“Yes,” he says flatly, eyes shuttered, face blank. “It means ‘yes’.”

Roxanne’s heart feels like he’s reached into her chest and crumpled it. Why is he looking at her like that, if he knows what it means? Why doesn’t he kiss her?

“—yes,” she says. “It—it means yes. So that’s…my answer. To the question.”

There is a long silence. (Roxanne feels her heart break during it.)

“Well, that’s fascinating, Miss Ritchi,” Megamind says, finally, voice caustic, arching an eyebrow, “Perhaps now we can get back to the evil plot.”

He turns away to the console again.

Roxanne doesn’t cry then, doesn’t cry during the rescue, doesn’t cry during her broadcast. She doesn’t cry until she gets home to her apartment, and then she lies down in her bed and clutches a pillow to her chest and she cries and she cries and she cries until she runs out of tears.

(she does, eventually, run out of tears.)

So.

It seems that the Valentine’s Day gift from Megamind was, in fact, either a joke or a trick, meant to taunt her for her feelings. (Megamind is smart; Megamind could easily have picked up on the fact that she’s in love with him before Roxanne even realized).

This is not the end of the world, but Roxanne wishes that it was.

Unfortunately, though, the world keeps happening; life keeps happening; she goes to work and she smiles and she talks to people and she pretends that her heart isn’t broken.

The week seems to last forever, but finally the weekend arrives and she’s able to go home and be alone with her heartache. She takes the flowers and the book with her; she’s had to leave them on her desk all week, so that no one suspects anything odd about the gifts, about Roxanne’s emotional state.

The flowers are wilting now; she shoves them into the trash, vase and all, weeping, then curls up on her couch. (she can’t quite bring herself to throw away the book, and she hates herself for it, for being so weak.)

The text message alert on her phone goes off; Roxanne scrubs at her face with the sleeve of her sweater and looks at the screen.

hey forgot to ask if u liked the flowers —wayne

Roxanne stares at the words. If she—if she liked the flowers.

She calls Wayne.

“What do you mean, if I liked the flowers?” she says, as soon as he answers the phone. “Did—did you send me flowers, Wayne?”

“Oh, hey, Roxy! Yeah, sorry, my mom’s been really on me this year about not being romantic enough for my girlfriend, you know, and the whole Valentine’s Day thing is a big deal for her… I bought it really late; they said they only had a lot of stuff nobody else wanted, so it probably looked kinda weird—”

“You sent me flowers,” Roxanne says, feeling numb. “You. Sent them. You—”

“Yeah, didn’t you know they were from me? The florist said they included a card…”

“You sent me a bouquet of flowers and a card with your logo on it?” Roxanne hisses into the phone.

“What? My—my logo?”

“M! For Metro Man!” Roxanne whisper-shrieks.

“No, I told them to sign the card with a W. You know. For Wayne,” he laughs. “They must have put the card in upside down. Hey, what’s that noise?”

“Nothing,” Roxanne says bitterly, smacking her own head against the wall again.

It wasn’t from Megamind.

It wasn’t from Megamind, which, hey—silver lining—means that he wasn’t mocking her or trying to be cruel, on Valentine’s Day, except that also means that the message wasn’t from him and Roxanne is still in love with a supervillain who doesn’t return her feelings and everything is awful.

“Did you call a bookstore and make a salesperson pick out the book for you, too?” she asks Wayne, wanting to be angry with someone besides her stupid self.

“What book?” Wayne asks.

Roxanne, pacing her kitchen floor, stops cold.

“The book that came with the flowers,” she says slowly. “The book of poetry.”

“I didn’t send a book with the flowers,” Wayne says.

Roxanne sits down on her kitchen floor.

“Anyway, Roxy, I’m gonna have to—”

“Wayne, you’re going to have to stop pretending to your mother that we’re dating,” Roxanne blurts out.

“—to—wait, what? Why?” Wayne says, “Roxy—”

(because if Wayne didn’t send that book, then there’s still the smallest chance that Megamind did)

“I found someone I want to date for real, Wayne,” Roxanne says, pulling her knees to her chest. “Or—well. Not found. Realized. Realized that I want to date for real.”

“…oh,” Wayne sighs. “Well. I guess—good luck, then.”

“Thank you,” Roxanne says, then bites her lip, remembering the meaning she’d originally ascribed to the last poem in the book, coupled with the first.

(since I cannot prove a lover / I am determined to prove a villain / your slightest look easily will unclose me / though i have closed myself)

(the possibility of Megamind wanting not to be a villain any more, and if he wants that, then Roxanne wants him to have it, wants to help him)

“—Wayne,” Roxanne says, “if—hypothetically, if I—convinced Megamind—to stop being a supervillain…would you leave him alone?”

There’s a moment of silence.

“Uh,” Wayne says. “I mean—yeah, I guess? Why do you—wait. Is—is Megamind the person who you figured out that you want to date?!”

“Yes,” Roxanne says, a dangerous edge to her voice, “he is, actually.”

“…huh.”

Roxanne waits, but Wayne doesn’t say anything else.

“‘Huh!’?!” she says, at last “That’s all you have to say?! I’ve realized that I’m in love with a supervillain and all you’ve got to give me is ‘huh’?!”

“I mean, the whole romance thing is weird to me, but I guess you guys sort of make sense together,” Wayne says.

Roxanne collapses back on her kitchen floor, her hand over her eyes.

“So you guys are dating now, then?” Wayne asks.

Roxanne groans.

“No,” she says. “I don’t know if he wants to, even; I’m going to have to talk to him and try to see…”

“Oh,” Wayne says. “Well, uh—like I said, good luck. You really think you might be able to talk him into quitting supervillainy?” His voice sounds hopeful.

“I think—I think maybe he wants to be talked out of supervillainy,” Roxanne says.

“Really?”

Roxanne runs her hand through her hair.

“Yeah,” she says. “If I’m—if I’m reading him right. I might not be. I don’t know.”

She bites the inside of her cheek, doubt assailing her. This is crazy. She’s crazy.

“…hey, Roxy,” Wayne says, voice hesitant. “Do you—do you think I should tell my mom? About…me?”

Roxanne sits up and leans against her kitchen cabinets. She rubs her hand over her face.

“Do you want to tell her?” she asks.

“I—yeah, I think I do,” Wayne says. “I just—I want to feel like I can be myself, you know? I feel like I have to—pretend, all the time, with—with a lot of things. Actually. Not just—I don’t want to have to pretend, anymore.”

“If you want to tell her, then I think you should tell her,” Roxanne says. “You deserve to stop pretending, if you want to.”

“…even if what I want to stop pretending to be is a superhero?” Wayne asks, voice small.

Roxanne takes a sharp breath.

Oh.

“—yeah,” she says. “Even then.”

Waiting does not suit Roxanne’s temperament; her stress level rises every day that she doesn’t see Megamind, every day that she becomes more and more certain that he can’t really love her back.

Wayne does tell Lady Scott; she cries, evidently, and then hugs him and tells him she’s proud to be his mother.

Roxanne tells Wayne she’s happy for him, when he calls to tell her, and she is happy for him, but she’s also ready to climb the walls of her apartment in her anxiety, and she considers making Wayne take her to the Lair so she can get this over with, but she doesn’t think breaking into Megamind’s home is a good start to asking him out—yes, he’s broken into her house plenty of times, but never in a romantic context, and Roxanne really doesn’t want to screw this up.

So she waits.

She waits for two whole weeks and it feels like a year, but finally—finally!—she wakes up one day to darkness and the sound of Megamind’s voice and then he pulls the bag off her head.

And—god, but she’s missed him. Just seeing his face again sends a sharp pulse of joy through her; she wants to—to look at him until she’s memorized all of his features perfectly, wants to cup his face in her palms and learn the texture of his skin, trace the sharp edges of his cheekbones and brush away the tired shadows from beneath his eyes.

“—hey,” she breathes, completely idiotically. “Hey, Megamind.”

Megamind pauses for a moment. Then he jerks his head in a sharp motion of acknowledgement.

“Miss Ritchi,” he says. “—once again, I have you in the clutches of my evil!”

“—so it turns out I actually got two Valentine’s Day gifts,” Roxanne blurts out, not wanting to let Megamind get into full monologue mode.

His eyes go flat and his eyebrows snap together in a frown.

“How nice for you,” he says, “having a rich boyfriend who can afford to indulge you during meaningless human holidays.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” Roxanne says.

An expression flashes across Megamind’s face for a moment, but only for a moment, and then the mask of boredom is back in place. It’s not perfect, though; when he smiles, it’s sharp and bitter, and his hands curl into fists.

“Of course,” he bites out, “my apologies, Miss Ritchi. Your fiancé. Tell me, have you set a date yet for the happy event?”

Roxanne stares at him.

“Wh—?” she says. “Fiancé? What—are you talking about, Megamind?”

His lips press briefly together in a hard line, then he smiles again, a smile that definitely does not reach his eyes.

“Come now, Miss Ritchi,” he says, “you’ve already given the game away, twice. Or are you forgetting our little conversation about floriography that we had on Valentine’s Day?”

“…our conversation about floriography?” Roxanne asks, frowning, utterly lost. “How did you get ‘engaged’ from that conversation?”

“The bouquet of flowers and the question,” Megamind says, with a sharp gesture, and he’s not smiling now, not at all. “And the red carnation in your hair that meant ‘yes’.”

“…oh,” Roxanne says, understanding dawning.

Megamind’s lips curve up again in that unhappy smile, and Roxanne wants to put her arms around him and make him stop looking so miserable, but if he’s this upset about the possibility of her being engaged to someone else, then maybe—

(please, please, please)

“—the carnation was for you,” she says, “the—I—I thought you were—I thought you had. Asked me a question.”

Megamind goes still and frozen, his lips parted and his eyes round.

“…like I said,” Roxanne says, “I got two gifts on Valentine’s Day. And—and one of them—one of them was a book.”

Megamind is staring at her still; she doesn’t think he’s breathing, even.

“Are you—” Roxanne swallows, “—are you so very determined to prove a villain, Megamind?”

Her voice is quiet, but it echoes in the Lair. Megamind stands like a statue for another long, breathless moment, and Roxanne’s heart hangs in the balance.

“—your slightest look will unclose me,” Megamind says, his voice shaking, “you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens—

“I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees,” Roxanne says softly, watching Megamind’s expression, watching joy bloom in his face, just as joy is blooming in Roxanne’s heart.

“—oh,” he gasps, stumbling forward to untie her, “—oh—”

And Roxanne tips her head up and kisses him as he’s reaching for the ropes.

💙

notes: poems quoted are somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond by e.e. cummings (your slightest look will easily unclose me) and Every Day You Play by Pablo Neruda (I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.)

Happy Valentine’s Day! Much love to you, my dear readers, from Set! 💙

#megamind #roxanne #megamind/roxanne #fanfiction #poetry and flowers #valentine's day

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jimlingss · 7 years

Text

A Bed of Roses [2]

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

Words: 3722

Genre: Fluff, Angst, Superpower!Au

Summary: Superpowers are suppose to make you invincible, someone who could save the world, a hero. It’s not suppose to be like this...not like this.

“Unnie!” You hug her close, a hand over her head and pressing her to your chest. “They’re coming! Wha- What do we do?!”

She quivers and you exhale a soft breath, letting go. Placing hands on her shoulders, you bore eyes into her’s. “Listen. It’s going to be okay.”

But the knot in her stomach doesn’t rest and she holds her trembling hands out, staring at them. “They’re gonna take me away from you! They’re going to kill us!” She screams, a dam of tears rushing out. “This- this curse!”

You’re unable to respond when suddenly there’s banging. “POLICE! OPEN UP!” A fist booms against the door, a thunder beat that leaves the walls shaking. “WE KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE!”

Soomi begins hyperventilating, unable to breathe. “They’re going to kill us! They’re going to kill us!”

You shake her. “Soomi. Listen to me!” She stops for a moment and finally looks back into your eyes. And you make a false promise, lying straight through your teeth and cloaking your own fears. “It’s going to be okay.”

You grab her hands within yours and you close your eyes. For a moment, your skin tingles and goosebumps rise along your arms. Then suddenly pain shoots up from your hands, into your spine and straight into your skull. You repress a scream as your body heats up and your hands glow. “Unnie!”

Your heart stops beating. The pounding rattles the hinges of the door and it finally bursts open.

Your eyes shoot open and you inhale a huge breath, lungs filling with air again. Your vision darts around, confused at where you are and the surroundings shifting. But when you realize that you’re in your prison-like room, you’re comforted again.

Standing up, you shake off the queasy feeling and ignore the sweat sticking to your skin. Everything’s okay. Heading to the washrooms, you swish your mouth and splash your face with some cold water. The sedative they injected you earlier yesterday knocked you almost out for twenty four hours and now your vision still swirled a bit.

As you venture out of the bathrooms, you notice a vase full of budding, purple tulips sitting on the reception table. There’s no one around and you find yourself walking forward, as if magnetically attracted.

“Unnie! Look at what I can do!” She grins with big eyes. Inhaling a breath, she turns to the cherry tree and presses her hands flat to the bark.

The leaves rustle together and as if being called, the breeze howls. In an instant, the blossoms bloom and fall, cascading down coral petals that swirl around you like a tornado.

Blinking back from your daydream, you find a smile on your lips and you wonder why you’ve been thinking about her so much lately.

With a quirk of your head and a hum, you lift your fist to the purple tulips and without touching them, ever so slowly, you begin to open your palm. The flowers perk upwards and the petals begin to open, the fresh pollen tickling your nose. A rich scent releases into the air and the tulips intensify in colour, mauve and amethyst.

A shrill scream cuts through the air and instinctively, you run to it. “Soomi! Soomi! What’s wrong?” You find her curled up in a ball with clenched fists, pulling her own hair.

“THEY’RE SCREAMING!” She shouts in agony, voice cracking. “Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop!” You freeze, darting eyes around at what she could possibly be talking about. “SHUT UP!” She suddenly roars, straight from her gut and she swings her arm at the vase.

The yellow daisies fall to the ground.

Feeling a presence linger behind you, you escape your trance and turn on your heel. It’s the young man who you recognize as the one who fabricated your worst fear into reality. He was the one with eyes full of horror and the one who dropped to the floor, screaming. But today he looks much better, so you greet him with a smile.

“Lame power right?” You point your thumb to the vase full of purple tulips. “....blooming flowers…”

“YOU FREAK. YOU MONSTER. YOU WILL DIE AND BURN IN HEL-”

You purse your lips at him, narrowing your eyes. “Have I seen you somewh-”

“I’m so sorry.” He cuts you off, downcasting his entire face. You assume he must be referring to the whole fiasco yesterday.

You chuckle. “It’s alright...We can’t control it.” He lifts his head and meets your eyes. He returns your smile with a small one of his own and for a moment, you admire it. “I’m Y/N.”

“Hoseok.”

“YOU’RE A POOR EXCUSE. A SAD EXCUSE. YOU FREAK OF NATURE. YOU SHOULD JUST DIE ALREAD-”

“Wait.” You hold a figure up, smiling wide. “Can you just hold on for a second?”

He nods with a frown, slightly confused but you quickly spin around and in one motion, you rip the petals of the flower off. They shriek in your ears, hundreds of voices screaming in torment before they fade out as the petals hit the ground. For good measure, you lift the vase and chuck it across the room. It shatters against the wall into a million pieces and the rest of the tulips are smashed.

Finally it is quiet.

You sigh of relief, turning back to Hoseok with a huge grin. “Yeah...sorry about that. They’re really annoying.”

He nods slowly, lifting brows at you and his lips tug upwards. He stares at you intently as if you were a puzzle that he was trying to solve. You don’t notice though, a flying blur in the background stealing your attention. “Oh it’s a bird.” You point past him and he shifts his head to follow your finger. “How’d it get in here?”

“Must’ve somehow gotten in the building and up the elevator…” Hoseok muses and you hum.

“How strange…..I’m going to go see where it goes.” Curiosity tugs you away and he’s left staring at your back, lingering longer than necessary.

“Okay.”

The blue feared bird chirps happily, landing on tables and the tiled floor. You follow it while maintaining a good distance, trying to not scare it away. It turns to you and twists its head to the side, as if saying something to you. You wonder if it’s trying to lead you somewhere.

But it swiftly takes off again and suddenly you feel so envious that it can fly. It could leave everything behind, soar into the sky and away from this earth. Then you ponder how it got trapped in such a place, such a building...such a hell.

Mindlessly walking, you find yourself in the rec room where a brunette boy is seated, staring out the window in silence. Before you can speak up, he shoots his head around and his eyes grow wide but not at you. Instead he’s staring at the bluebird that’s perched itself on top of the bookshelf, looking down and tweedling some sort of melody.

A second passes and like a switch is flipped, the brunette boy begins screaming at the top of his lungs. He covers his ears with his hands and wails in distress as if being tortured. You’re startled and he falls out of his chair and onto the floor, curling into a ball while the bird continues to chirp, now landing on the armchair.

Two nurses rush in. “What’s going on?!” They shoot their eyes to the boy who’s shaking and wailing. One lugs in a silver cart full of metal trays and scrambles to grab a needle.

Something clicks inside your head. “NO WAIT! IT’S THE BIRD! IT’S THE BIRD!”

In one motion, you pull the white tablecloth off the table, the decks of cards fly and scatter across the floor. You lunge towards the bird and with the white sheet, you cloak and trap it.

Immediately, the boy stops screaming and his arms drop to his side, breathing stabilizing. You take a long sigh of relief as the nurse puts her needle away.

“It’s the bird…” You murmur out.

“How’d you know?” A voice catches you off guard and you turn around to another boy who was hidden in the corner, witnessing the scene.

The nurses escort the boy, whose name you learnt is Taehyung, back to his room to rest. One of them takes the bird wrapped in the tablecloth to set it outside and you're thankful that everything ended up okay.

“So...what’s your power?” You ask the other boy who introduced himself as Jimin. You recognize him from peeking his head out yesterday before everyone had their meltdown.

He’s pretty cute with round cheeks and plump lips. He’s shy, easily jumpy and still wary of you but you don't blame him. “That’s...a pretty straightforward question.”

“Meh, it’s better that way.” You shrug and maybe it’s your eyes playing tricks on you but is he smiling? You learn closer, stare more intently and it disappears.

“Emotions...I feel people’s emotions.. but...but ten folds the effect.” He downcasts his eyes and twiddles his fingers. “It’s kinda lame.”

“Are you kidding me?!” He jumps from your loud volume. “That’s terribly cool!”

“Terribly cool?”

“Well yeah! I mean you can tell if someone’s being honest or not, right? And oh man, you can be happy all the time! You should go feel out someone who’s won the lottery! I bet you’d be on cloud nine all the time!”

He laughs, eyes crinkling and a high pitched sound emitting from his lips. He covers his mouth and tilts his head backwards. “Ah, really…” It's contagious and you find yourself giggling with him. “Yeah...that’s not a bad idea.”

You quickly become acquainted with the others. Jungkook is the youngest of the seven and he’s the one who had stormed down the hallway, causing a ripple anger effect. Interesting power. He’s quiet and keeps to himself mostly but you already figured that the majority of people here are like that.

Taehyung thanks you for saving him and you brush him off, not minding much. You're far from a hero or any of the sort. You do however, take a liking to him and his positive energy, a rarity to come across in this rehabilitation center.

You wander around a bit more but finding there’s not much to do, you take a nap. If you weren’t being held against your will or forced in such ugly-khaki-green clothing and medication wasn’t forcibly shoved into you, you’d say this was paradise.

A knock wakes you up and you can hear the nurse’s voice. “It’s meal time! Everyone downstairs! MEAL TIME!” She walks down the hallway, thumping her fist on each door.

You rub your eyes and step out into the hallway, nodding your head in greeting to the others. The nurse inserts her key into the elevator and the doors open. Everyone steps inside and when you count inside your head. One person’s missing. “Isn’t there suppose to be one more of us?”

“Min Yoongi...he’s...” Jimin frowns, unable to find the right words.

“Unsociable.” Jungkook adds and Jimin nods.

“Tired.” Jin corrects.

“I see.” You comment and the doors shut. The terrible saxophone elevator music begins to play and you can’t hide the scowl on your face.

A young nurse is in the corner, holding her clipboard tightly against her body. Her eyes are downcast as if afraid and every so often, she glances upwards but instantly flinches when someone stares back. Handsome Jin sends her a greasy wink and she abruptly turns away to face the steel doors. You exchange grins with Hoseok.

The doors slide open and your heart squeezes at the familiarity. The first floor was vast, huge with intertwining hallways that you could explore for hours. Much more exciting than the eighth floor. Once, you found yourself at the back of some janitor’s closet and you opened a door which led to another room and then four more. The nurses weren’t very happy when they saw you strolling about but you always managed to find your bunk room again, thanks to the occasional map on the walls.

The young nurse leads you straight to the cafeteria blue double doors. “Ple- please don’t wander and when time’s up...we’ll meet- meet here again.” She stutters and Namjoon nods. The other nurses standing guard outside the cafeteria lift their eyebrows at you, staring out of the corner of their eyes.

You push the doors open and instantly the chatter silences. The flow of conversations are chopped in half as folks begin nudging each other to your group. Wow….exactly like mean girls...are we in high school? You almost burst into laughter at the tension.

Namjoon walks in between the silver railings where line-ups are supposed to be and grabs a tray. Jimin follows him and with slow steps, the rest do too. “Mommy...who are they?” A young boy asks and the lady, presumably his mother, shushes him.

“Don’t talk to them. They can’t be cured. You’ll be infected like them too if you touch them.” She hushes him harshly and you shake your head at the absurdity. The rumours that spread around are utterly ridiculous.

Murmurs start up again but you don’t pay any attention. Instead you’re gaping at how the lunch ladies have plopped down some kind of oatmeal jelly into your bowl and then they pour a spoonful of potato-shit soup on top of it. You internally die a bit.

With a heavy sigh, you shift past Taehyung and Jungkook who are standing there like statues. “Hey! How’s it going?” You plop down on a bench, placing your tray on the table. But as you sit, the rest of the people around stand up and rush to another.

You almost laugh at the childishness but hey...more space. You motion the younger boys to come take a seat and with sluggish steps, they follow. Eyes brightening when you notice a few familiar faces, they outright turn their heads away from you. Sure, you were never close to anyone since everyone was always on edge but it still hurt. The people that don’t ignore your group, send snarls and glances of disdain.

You feel goosebumps rising along your skin and when you look over, Jungkook’s got his fist clenched together. Jimin who’s affected by emotions, is not faring well either, his face filling with red. “Hey...where’d you get that?!” He becomes momentarily distracted by your question and your finger, pointing towards his fresh apple.

“There was only one left…” Jimin responds and you snag it off his tray. “Hey!”

“All’s fair game in war.” You flash a smirk and he shakes his head with a smile. You bite the apple and though it’s stale, it’s still hundreds better than the shitty-excuse-of-food on your tray. “Man...they really need to up their game here…”

“I know right!” Jin slams his fist on the table and the surrounding people flinch but he doesn’t take notice. “Like what kind of torture is this?! Food is the best thing on earth and they give us this crap!” He almost flips over his bowl. “I’m going to die!”

Hoseok starts laughing which leads Jimin into uncontrollable giggles. “Hey…” You slide your bowl over to Jungkook. “Bet you can’t finish both of it under five minutes.”

He darts his eyes over, fists unclenching and a smirk taking place on his lips. “I so can.”

“Nu-uh.” You close your eyes and shake your head. “Don’t think so.”

“Oh well I can!” He says defensively, sitting up straighter.

“You should have a race with Jin since he loves food so much.” Taehyung adds mid-spoonful with a grin.

“Why are you dragging me into this?!” Jin childishly complains and Taehyung giggles.

“One, two, three, go!” Jimin suddenly announces and the two of them scramble to grab their utensil. They shove spoonfuls until their mouths are full, like chipmunks storing acorns for winter and Jin is whimpering.

“Finish both! Finish both!” You nudge your bowl over to Jungkook’s and he mumbles something incoherent. The potato soup is dripping from his chin but he pays no attention.

“RHIS IZ DICHUGUSTING!” Jin shouts and a potato cube falls out into his mouth, back into his bowl.

Just then, Jungkook lifts the bowl to chug and everyone cheers. “Woahhhh~” You and Taehyung chime together, gaping while laughing.

“Oh my god.” Hoseok is grinning and watching intently.

Jungkook finishes the first bowl and quickly begins to chug the second one. He sputters a bit and potato chunks hit his face. Namjoon shakes his head and slaps his back, helping him through it. “Don’t die kid.”

He tips the bowl back further and with a final slurp, slams it back to the table. “DONE!” He shouts and everyone claps. You inhale a deep breath with a huge smile on your face, watching Jin smash down his spoon and slump in his seat, nagging at the world.

When Jungkook’s catching his breath, you finally notice how everyone... and by everyone you mean...everyone is watching. The adults are glaring at your table but the teenagers have grins and the children are giggling behind their hands. Jimin downcasts his face, hiding his bright beam.

“Well, nice job Kook.” You slap him on the back, standing from your seat. “You proved me wrong.”

“Of course I did.”

“Where are you going?” Hoseok asks.

“Washroom.” You answer, taking another bite of your apple. You turn on your heel and open the door. The nurses on the other side ask you the same question to which you respond with the same answer. They don’t press on any further, simply telling you the directions but you already know them.

Biting the last part of the apple, you chuck the core into the trashcan and instead of turning right to the bathrooms, you keep walking. Pushing a door open, fresh air slams into your face and tint your cheeks pink.

It was nice to be outside and for the sunshine to crash down onto your skin for once. You were sick and tired of being trapped inside, elated when you found an exit one day after wandering around the first floor, several weeks ago. But it was far from an actual escape. The rehabilitation center had stone walls that surrounded the place, tall to the roof with chicken wire at the top and rumours of an electric shock if you tried to go past it.

It was still nice though, even if the small yard was unkempt and goddamn these dandelions, flying up your nostrils.

You sneeze, a finger rubbing under your nose and you turn when you feel a presence.

There’s a young girl who’s seated at the stone bench. Her feet are not even touching the ground but she’s sniffling, her entire body shaking. “What’s wrong?” You ask gently, tilting your head while taking a seat beside her.

She looks up surprised and tears flood her eyes, pouring hot streams down her cheeks. Bringing her arms up, she rubs them away and tries to talk to you in choked muffles. “My momm-y and...dad-dy….they’re gone!” She hiccups and you tap her back gently.

“Is that so?” You lean down, meeting her at eye-level. “Where did they go?”

“They-they got cured….and they- they...left me!” She cries harder and begins hyperventilating. You hug her shaking body, glancing at the blue sky with a long sigh. Poor girl. You assume she’s no more than six years old. “The- the nurses took them away.”

“Oh no.” You manage a small smile, speaking as gently as you did when your sister was that age. “Do you have anyone else?” She furiously shakes her head and you sigh again.

“When will they...- they let me go too?”

“I don’t know.” You honestly answer as your eyes trail to the ground. Suddenly, a light bulb flicks on in your brain. “Here! Look!”

You pluck a closed dandelion from the grass. Holding it in front of her, you hover a hand over it and it blooms. She stares intently, leaning in closer and when the flower flourishes, her eyes light up. “Woah.” She smiles, now only sniffling out of reflex. “How’d you do that?”

“Magic.” You return her smile, tucking the flower behind her ear and ignoring how it screams wretched things at you.

“Like how I can magically move places?” She looks up at you with big eyes and you frown.

“What?”

“I can do…” She places a finger on her chin and thinks deeply. “Tela-potty.”

“What?” You grin.

“Telapotty?”

“Teleportation?”

“Yeah! That!” She exclaims with a giggle. “It hurts my brain when I do it though and blood always comes. It hurts a lot.” You nod and she continues her chatter, swinging her legs happily. “Mommy said I should never use it. If the doctors find out, she said they’ll hurt me.”

You squeeze her nose and she squeals. “Then your mommy’s smart.” She nods enthusiastically and hums in agreement. After a minute of silence and staring at the cotton clouds, you speak up again. “Do you really miss your mommy and daddy?”

“Uh huh.”

“How much?”

“This much.” She turns to you and opens her arms up wide, as wide as they can go and you laugh, ruffling her hair.

“Then here. Take my hands.” Innocently, she places her small hands inside yours and you close them.

You concentrate on them and your skin begins to tingle. It heats up and then suddenly, a burn shoots up from your hands. Your muscles strain and you clench your teeth together from screaming. Your hands glow and the pain travels up your spine, settling all around you.

You grow numb and then your heart stops beating. Your vision floods with bright light and for a moment, you really think you’re going to die. But life’s not that merciful.

Inhaling a sharp breath, reality dawns back and vision returns.

“Wh-what was that?” The little girl asks with a frown and you manage a giggle.

“Shhh.” You lift your heavy arm, pressing a finger to your lips.

And she mimics you cutely, scrunching her body up and flashing a huge smile. You ignore the throb in your hands.

“Don’t tell anyone.”

#bts scenario #bts fanfic #bts ot7 #bts ot7 fanfic #bts ot7 scenario #bts ff #bts scenarios #bts jin #bts yoongi #bts namjoon #bts hoseok #bts jimin #bts taehyung #bts jungkook

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