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theoreticslut · 3 years

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When Wizards and Muggles Meet // Part 2

part 1

pairing: fred weasley x reader

requested: yes

word count: 2.4k

warnings: kinda angsty, kinda fluffy, mentions of toxic family

A/N: Alright, I seriously thought I had already posted this but I guess not. I know it’s only like half the length of the first part, but I think it ties things up fairly decently, but let me know what you think! I hope its good and that you guys like it!? As I mentioned last post, I’m working on a handful of requests from before/during christmas & new years so there’s a bunch of fics coming, i’m just not sure exactly how soon. I have a bunch started, I just need to finish/edit them and then there’s some more recent requests i haven’t even been able to start yet. either way, fics are coming your way Xx

Taglist: @justmesadgirl @xuckduck @yikesyikesyikes95 @filipi-yes @aestheticwh0r3 @siredkai @matsuno-nadeshiko @msmarklee1213 @immajustreadwritereblog @msmimimerton @perfectlysane24 @mischievous-queen @bunnyboo7 @grandeoptimist @kaitlynw011 @daddystevee @slytherinxhunter @streetfighterrichie @softlyqoos @sarcasticallywitty15 @isthereanymorejello @karushinekomiya @p0gue420 @hogwartslut @sebby-staan @darthwheezely @slytherin-7 @callmelilone @teenagesublimefan @midsummernightdream @hufflrpuffforfred @aviezap @snoopydoop1 @fredweasleypls @hopefullhearts @pandaxnienke @georgeweasleyishot @christhebell @fredshmeasley @youralternantpersonality @angeletarte @stoopidwithtwohoes

^let me know if you’d like to be added/removed (or add yourself here)! Xx

“Is everything alright?” Ginny asks as you and Fred join the rest of them again. She looks between the two of you as she tries to get any sort of clue.

While she truly had just met you this evening, she already liked you a lot and couldn’t wait to get to know you better. She didn’t want anything to upset that already.

“Yeah. Everything’s good, Gin.” Fred smiles, wrapping his arm around you as you both sit.

You smile, nodding at his sister who beams.

“Good. I can’t wait to get to know you more, y/n.” She smiles, taking a sip of her drink.

You frown, wondering if Harry truly had never once mentioned you even to his girlfriend.

“So Harry really hasn’t said a thing about me before? Not even to you, Ginny?”

The table falls silent as Harry gulps. He knew you’d wonder what had happened between the two of you, but he was hoping he’d be able to pull you aside later on.

“No? I mean, none of us know much about his...your family.”

You nod, frowning, but not bothering to ask any more questions on it.

“Oh. Sorry, I just thought maybe he would have at least told you, but never mind. It’s not important right now.” You say, shaking you head and not bothering to look at your cousin. Maybe he truly had tried forgetting about you?

“No, don’t apologize, darling. I’m actually curious myself.” Fred says, looking over at Harry.

You look up at Fred, not wanting anything to start. You didn’t want to look back at meeting his family and remember an argument starting.

He smiles at you warmly, assuring you that everything is fine. He doesn’t plan on arguing at all.

“Curious about what, Fred?” Harry asks after clearing his throat. Everyone turning to look at him.

“Why you’ve never mentioned y/n. From what I’ve heard you two were really close before you came to hogwarts. What happened?”

“Well, uh, I did write to her for a few months, but I-I don’t know. I guess it felt odd writing to someone who had no idea about any of this wizarding stuff.” He stutters out, visibly nervous.

“That doesn’t explain why you never mentioned her before? I mean, I’m sure you had heard me talking about her these last few months, nothing clicked for you?”

“Uh, well. I-I wondered, but I figured it must have been coincidence. I mean, what luck would you have met my cousin out of everyone in muggle London named y/n?”

“Harry?” You ask, everyone’s attention turning to you as he gulps. You suddenly had a thought that just might explain everything.

“Are you embarrassed by me?”

“What? No-“ he starts, being cut off as you continue.

“Are you embarrassed that I'm just...ordinary?”

You feel Fred hug you closer, running the back of his hand across your cheek as he pulls some stray hairs back behind your ear. You could never just be ordinary to him. In his eyes you were anything but, and he can't imagine you feeling inferior. Especially if the reason you felt inferior were your own blood. He really likes harry, but if it comes down to it he doesn't mind beating him up some.

Everyone else sits quietly, almost seeming to hold their breath as you wait for Harry’s answer.

“No. I’m not embarrassed by you one bit. I promise you that, y/n.”

“Then what is it?”

“I, uh, c-could we talk about this later? I think it’d be better if we talked about it alone.” He stuttered out, wiping his palms against his thighs as he sweats in anxiousness.

“Any of you ready for dessert?” Molly asks as she comes downstairs, oblivious to what’s been happening.

You nod, smiling at the woman as everyone nods and starts chatting again. You look over to Harry who looks guilty. You hold eye contact for a minute, frowning slightly before you turn your attention to the rest of the table.

You wanted an answer and so far Harry wasn’t giving one. It was driving you insane, but you’re not one to start a public dispute.

~.~

“That was delicious, Molly. Thank you so much.” You smile as you take yours, Fred’s and George’s plates to the sink.

“Of course, dear. I’m glad you liked it. It’s been so nice getting to know you. I can see how happy you and Fred are together.”

You smile, a blush tinting your cheeks as you nod, glancing over at your red haired boyfriend.

“We are. I’m so lucky to have met him.”

She nods, smiling as she turns her attention back to what she was doing.

Everyone had slowly been migrating to the living room, Fred already in there. You smile as you make eye contact, making your way towards him when someone grabs a hold of your arm.

You look over to see Harry standing awkwardly. He looks nervous and you sigh.

“C-can we talk now? Outside?”

You look over at Fred who’s been watching you, ready to join you if needed. You smile, shaking your head at him to tell him you’ll be fine.

You turn back to Harry and nod slightly, following him out to the hall so you could put on your jackets.

He opens the door for you, allowing you to exit first, following behind and shutting the door as he does.

You smile as you look up at the night sky. The stars had come out and created a work of art. You didn’t want to be the first to talk, but seeming as Harry has yet to say a word you figured you were going to be.

“So, where do you want to start Harry?”

“I don’t know.” He sighs, running a hand through his hair.

“I guess I should start with apologizing. I’m sure you’re upset with me and you have every right to be. I, well, I haven’t really been a great cousin.”

“Well, not particularly.” You mumble. “Why did you stop writing?”

“Like I said earlier, I-I found it odd to be telling you all of this stuff about the wizarding world when you didn’t have any idea what I would be talking about.”

“That’s all? Really, Harry?” You ask, not believing for one second that was the entire reason.

“Well, that and I, uh, well I had a tendency to get into a lot of trouble...and I-I didn’t want you to worry or be mad at me.”

“I wanted to make you proud, and I-I wasn’t doing much to do that. After finding out I was a wizard, there was a lot that changed for me and it kept getting harder and harder to do anything that would make you proud. I, well, I guess I didn’t have anything I thought was good enough to tell you.” He explains, mumbling his last sentence.

“Harry, I never expected you to tell me anything grand. I was happy just hearing about the little things. I liked hearing what this new life was like for you. I wanted to hear what you were doing and if you were okay. I wanted to hear all about your friends and classes and anything else that might have come up.”

“I know. I’m sorry, y/n. I was being a bloody idiot a-and it wasn’t fair to you.”

“You're right it wasn’t. I’ve constantly been wondering about you since you stopped sending letters. I wondered if you were okay, if you had made some good friends, if you were enjoying classes. All of it.” You said, crossing your arms and frowning at him.

“I’m sorry.”

“How come you never told anyone about me? If you’re not embarrassed by me then why keep your family a secret?”

“Well, I don’t know. Everyone there expected me to have this cool wizarding life, and I guess I felt ashamed that I didn’t have that. It’s not that I’m embarrassed by you by any means, it’s just, well that’s not what they wanted.”

“Who cares what people want from you Harry. If you’re proud of something, you tell people about it, even if it is only one or two people.” You state, getting a little agitated with your younger cousin.

He had always been your favourite relative, and he was definitely smart in his own way, but bloody hell was he also as dumb as could be at times.

“I guess I was embarrassed by how much I missed you and needed you. I mean, you had been there for me every step of my childhood, protecting me from your parents. I-I didn’t want people to know how much I relied on you to get through life.”

You sigh, your agitation dissipating at his confession, but not completely. It still bothered you that he wouldn’t have told anyone if he truly did miss you, but you can understand how it would have made him feel going to a new school, hell a whole new world, and telling people that he depended on his older cousin. You can understand not wanting to tell people how you come from a not-so-great family.

“I really am sorry, y/n.”

“Yeah. I’m glad to hear it, Harry, but I don’t think I quite forgive you yet. Nine years is a long time to go without letting someone you care about, and apparently need, know that you’re okay.”

“I know. I-I don’t expect you to just forgive me, but I-well I’d like to try to mend this. I’ve missed you a lot and I would love to tell you everything about school and what’s happened since.”

“Yeah? I'd like that a lot, Harry. We’ll work on it, okay? I’d love to hear what your life has been like since leaving Privet Drive, but I can’t just pretend none of this has happened. Whether you realize it or not, this hurt me. A lot.”

“I understand, I’m just asking for a chance.” He says, watching you as you think things over.

“You’ve got it, Harry, but you better not lock me out again. Or I swear to god I’m going to punch you. You’re truly the only family I have and I don’t want to lose that again.”

“You won’t, I promise. I don’t want to lock you out either.” he chuckles, a smile breaking out on his face at your words.

You nod, smiling a bit as you pull him into a hug. You may be annoyed with him, but he still is your younger cousin. You still care for him.

“How is everything going out here?” You hear Fred ask as he walks over to the two of you.

You smile and nod, watching as he smiles back. He would love for you and Harry to have a good relationship again, but his loyalty lies with you and he’d side with you if things weren’t good yet.

“They’re okay, Fred.” You smile, letting him pull you into his side, placing a kiss to your forehead.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I-Uh, I apologized and we’re going to try to mend things.” Harry says, watching the two of you.

He still can’t believe that out of all people, Fred had managed to run into and fall in love with you. He was more than happy to see you happy with Fred, but it’s odd all the same. He never once thought his muggle cousin would be such a part of his wizarding life.

“Good. I’m glad, mate. I do have a question for you if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead.”

“Did you know I was talking about your cousin when I’d talk about y/n?”

Harry gulps, digging the toe of his shoe into the ground.

“I-I had a suspicion, but I didn’t want to ask. What would you have done if I said that I thought you were dating my cousin who I’d never mentioned before?”

“I don’t know, mate. Wish you had told us about her though, I’m one hell of a lucky guy to be with her.” Fred smiles as you roll your eyes chuckling.

“Yeah, I wish I had too. It would have been nice to have my family visit during breaks and whatnot. I was just being a bloody idiot.”

“You've always kind of been one if I recall. I love you, but you are definitely not the brightest at times, Harry." You retort, causing fred to chuckle at you and kiss your forehead again while Harry just chuckles nervously and rubs his neck, not being able to do much else except agree.

~.~

"So is everyone on good terms? No one is upset with another?" George asks as the three of you make your way back inside.

You chuckle, shaking your head as Fred rolls his eyes at his twin before taking your coat from you.

"We're all good, george. No one is upset at anyone. That make you feel better?"

"Much. I didn't really want to have to pick sides in an argument."

"You won't be having to pick sides any time soon. I apologized and we're going to try to mend things." Harry states.

George lets out an over-exaggerated sigh of relief as he walks back to the living room. You and Harry both roll you eyes at him, Fred chuckling and pulling you into his side.

"On that note, I'd like to actually introduce y/n as my cousin. Sure she is Fred's girlfriend, but she was my cousin long before that and it's only fair that I give you all a proper introduction of my family." Harry explains as you and Fred sit down in one of the big chairs together.

You smile, blushing lightly. You really don't need some grand introduction, but it is nice to see that Harry is trying. He's at least acknowledging the fact that you're his family and is introducing you as such.

Hopefully you two will be able to have an even better relationship in the future and you can be a part of his life again. Granted, you're sure that as long as you're with Fred there's not much he can do about it. You'll be around with Fred and Fred will be around Ginny and Ron whom Harry is always around. Therefore, you will be around Harry more and more. Only time will tell, though, how your relationship with Fred and Harry will work out.

#harry potter #harry potter imagine #harry potter fluff #harry potter angst #hp imagine #hp fluff #hp angst #fred weasley #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley fluff #related to harry potter #cousins #requested

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peggyrose19 · 4 years

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Everything is Falling Apart - Part 3

I’m trying to not make this as angsty and give it a maybe happy ending? but as mentioned I have no control over these characters, I let them do what they want. Also straight up don’t realize how painful my writing is until people tell me, so. There’s that. Moving on. This whole thing ended up a lot longer than I ever intended it to be, but I’m not mad about it. Writing angst is fun. All of your wails and cursings of my name have been quite amusing to me. Am I a horrible person for that? It’s possible. Whatever. Hopefully this will be the last part, at least I’m intending it to be. If it’s not I’m mildly afraid @im-oknutzy-trash will kill me. She says I need to go back to writing fluff instead. I guess she doesn’t enjoy having her heart destroyed. *shrug* love you Hannah!

Also, can you tell I’m not from New York? I’ve been a handful of times, so I did my best. No, I did absolutely no research since most of this was written in bed when I was supposed to be sleeping or during class when I was supposed to be paying attention.

Characters belong to the amazing amazing @lumosinlove, AU is Clandestine by my fav @heyitssmiller, and shout out to @awanderingdeal for the cactus name! Thank you for that. Hope you all enjoy and don’t cry too hard. As always, leave a comment and I’ll love you forever.

“Logan?”

The voice shook him from his thoughts.

“Yes,” he blurted out. Finn frowned. “I mean no. Yeah, no. Wait, fuck- argh.” He stopped, taking a deep breath. “I mean, I won’t run away from you, not this time. You’re right, that was… that was not good of me to do.” He ran a hand through his hair, searching for what to say. “Merde, I didn’t think it’d be this hard.”

“Lo.” Finn reached across the table and laid a hand over Logan’s. “It’s okay, really.”

He sighed. “No, it’s not. I hurt you. Badly. And I’m really sorry for that. You- you didn’t deserve that.”

“It’s alright. I hurt you too, I know I did.”

“Finn, no you didn’t.” Logan shook his head. “You were nothing but good to me, and I just left. I left you in that apartment with all of Leo’s things still there and all those memories of us, of him. I left. And you might have forgiven me, but I haven’t forgiven myself for that.”

Finn bit his lip, unsure how to respond.

“It was really hard,” he admitted finally.

“What did you do with all his stuff?”

“It’s in a storage locker. I couldn’t bear to go through it all.”

“D’you-” Logan stopped himself.

“What?”

“Do you think we could go through it together? I just… I don’t have anything of Leo’s anymore. And I don’t want to forget him. Please?”

Finn took a shaky breath. “Yeah. Yeah, we can do that.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“You really mean it? That you’ll stay this time? Because I really want that.”

“Yeah. I mean it.”

It was a few days before Logan saw Finn again. He spent his time wandering New York City, exploring the place Finn had grown up. It was fascinating to imagine him as a little boy with his bright hair, scurrying about the city with his older brother, causing mischief and giving his parents brain aneurysms.

When Finn called him, it was Wednesday afternoon and he was in his hotel room, staring aimlessly at the television.

“Hey.”

Logan swallowed. “Hey.”

“So, uh, I’ve got some time tomorrow, if you wanna, you know… “

“For the storage locker?”

“Yeah, that. Um, I can meet you there or we can head over together. Best way to get there is by train.”

“I-” Logan thought for a moment of all the things he hadn’t gotten to say yet. “I’ll go with you, if that’s alright with you.”

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine. Okay. Good. I’ll uh, I’ll send you the details tonight.”

“Okay. I’ll uh, I’ll see you then, I guess.”

“See you.”

After Finn had ended the call, Logan sat for a long time. It had been like this every time they talked, a strange feeling of the past, present, and future all colliding together into one. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with it.

When Logan reached the train station the next day, Finn was there waiting for him, glasses perched on his nose. He stopped for a moment as images flashed through his mind. Finn peering over his shoulder at the mission outline, glasses slipping down his nose. Logan reaching up and pushing them back on. Finn taking his contacts out at the end of each long day, blinking away the dryness in his eyes. Late nights with the three of them sprawled on the couch, all tangled limbs and soft kisses as they relaxed into each other, knowing they were home.

Logan blinked back to reality. That was the past, he told himself firmly. It would do no good to dwell over something that couldn’t happen again. Shaking his head at himself, Logan crossed to Finn, coming to a halt at his side.

“Hi.”

Finn jumped a bit. “Hey. You snuck up on me.”

“What kind of spy are you, if you’re that easy to scare?”

“Excuse you, I am an excellent spy. I’ll have you know I won Brad three years in a row.”

Logan laughed. “How could I forget. You still have it?”

Finn looked affronted. “Of course I do! What kind of question is that?”

“Oh, sorry. Of course you do, why did I think otherwise?”

Fin was saved from having to respond by the loud horn of a train as it approached the station. It came to a stop with a hiss and the doors opened.

“This is us,” Finn said, and they boarded, finding seats together near the back. It was quieter there, with fewer people.

They didn’t talk the whole way there. Logan sat in silence, searching for something to say, but he came up with nothing. What does one say to the boy they used to love?

When they reached their stop, nerves suddenly bloomed in Logan’s chest. He hadn’t really thought too hard about what they were doing, more focused on Finn sitting beside him. But as they walked the few short blocks to the storage facility, his stomach began to churn. The building loomed before them, making Logan’s heart race.

“I-” He froze. Finn glanced back at him.

“Hey, Lo,” he said gently, walking back and grabbing his hand. “The moment you want to leave, we will. It’ll be okay. I’m right here with you.”

Logan took a deep breath. Finn always seemed to know what to say. He looked up at Finn’s worried eyes and gave him a small nod. Still holding hands, the two entered the building.

“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this,” Finn said quietly as they stood before the opened door of the storage unit. Logan clung to his hand.

As one, they stepped inside.

Finn grabbed the first box and tugged it open, Logan still at his side.

“This should have his clothing,” he said, reading the label on the inside flap. He was right; inside were piles of Leo’s old shirts and sweatpants, a few pairs of jeans, some hoodies. Logan pulled out a sweatshirt, soft and faded, one from Leo’s high school, his favorite. He pressed it to his face.

“It doesn’t smell like him anymore,” he murmured. Finn didn’t say anything. He moved onto another box. Logan pulled Leo’s sweatshirt over his head. It went down to his knees.

“Look at this,” Finn said, looking into the box he’d just opened. Inside were stacks of pictures.

“You didn’t keep these?” Logan asked, pulling one out. It was the three of them in the park by their apartment, bundled against the cold and leaning into each other, taken by a kind passer-by. The picture had sat on the mantel. Logan had looked at it every day and thought about how lucky he was.

“No. They just made me sad.” Finn pulled out an envelope, full of unframed photographs. He laughed a little as he began sorting through them. “Remember this?”

In his hand was a series of mugshots of the two of them, nearly unrecognizable in their disguises, both fighting a grin.

Logan snorted. “Do I ever. I kissed you for the first time that night.”

Finn smirked. “I nearly lost my mind when you did that.”

“So did I.”

They fell silent again as Finn kept looking at the pictures and Logan moved further into the room. He wasn’t really looking for much, just skimming the labels on the boxes and things left out. But one gave him pause. It was smaller, labelled “Leo Trinkets” in Finn’s neat handwriting. Curious, Logan opened it.

Inside were, in fact, trinkets. As Logan began sorting through them, he started to recognize them. A small rock he’d found on an op, the same color as Leo’s eyes. Cooking stickers he’d found on a bike ride, the ones Leo said were too precious to ever use. The rainbow mug he’d bought for pride month, Leo’s name in cursive on the side.

He dug deeper and deeper into the box, a new memory surfacing with each item. Every small trinket or bobble he’d ever gotten for Leo, placed lovingly in this small box. Logan didn’t notice he was crying until his tears fell onto the novel he was holding, the first-edition copy of Leo’s favorite book he’d found for his birthday.

“You okay?” Finn asked quietly, setting a hand on his shoulder.

Logan sobbed, “I can’t believe he kept all this. I can’t believe you kept it.”

“Of course I kept it,” Finn sniffed. “We kept everything you ever gave us.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Everything you gave me is in a box in my apartment. Some of it is still out. Like that funny little cactus you got me. I named it Sir Prick-a-Lot.“

Logan gave him a little smile. “Of course you named it something stupid.”

“Ah! Rude.” When Logan didn’t answer, Finn’s smile faded. He was still staring down at the book in his hands.“Do you wanna bring that stuff back with you?” he asked. Logan just nodded.

Carefully, they packed everything back up, adding a few other things to the box; a few pictures, some of his old clothes. A little while later, they shut the lights off, leaving everything else for another day.

On the train ride home, Logan held his box close to his chest. Finn sat beside him, their shoulders and knees pressed together. They didn’t say anything.

Logan thought of all the things he’d wanted to say. But maybe not all of them needed to be said. He looked over at Finn, then down at the box in his arms. He didn’t want to forget, to move on. He missed them. And he knew he couldn’t get Leo back. But maybe he could get Finn back, even just as a friend. He was tired of being alone.

“Finn?”

“Yeah.”

“I still love you, too.”

#lumosinlove #clandestine #o'knutzy #finnlo #angst #maybe happy ending?#sorry not sorry #spy boys

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vee-is-a-writter-now · 4 years

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FOOLS pt.3

[[Zuko x Reader]]

<- previous next ->

Summary: Zuko and Y/N had liked eachother for a while even though neither of them knew it. Y/N tries to get over her crush for him, failing miserably. So just when she decides to let go and embrace her feelings, the new Fire lord finds himself feeling jealous and decides to take matters into his own hands.

A/N: I’m still impressed by how many people have liked this series and I’m so grateful to everyone who reads, it’s getting a little angsty in here so be prepared. (Edit: I wrote that before actually finishing this part, scratch that cause things got REALLY FUCKING ANGSTY. Also this part is a little shorter than the others but believe me, it’s as much as your little hearts will be able to take.) As always if there’s any mistake or anything let me know.

Side note I’ll wait for a request to start writing pt. 4

Warnings: Angst but it’ll end well i promise

-IF YOU HAVE ANY REQUEST DONT HESITATE TO ASK-

You walked up to your friends once again, noticing someone was missing. “Hey... where’s Zuko?” You asked everybody as you saw the packaged dress in Katara’s hand.

“He said he had business to attend at the palace, acted really weird and stormed out the marked.” She replied looking at you with concerned look in her eyes.

“That’s...weird. Maybe he got bad news, firelord stuff.” You said more to yourself than to the others.

Sokka interviened, cutting your thoughts short. “He did say we could stay and eat around here, so let’s find a place, I’m starving.”

———————————

After lunch, you and your friends walked around the market a while longer. You saw the same thing you had seen the day before from the carriage, people were happy. This was a major concern for all of you once the war had come to an end, how would the people of the Fire nation take the new way of things?but Zuko definitely did a great job with it all.

Sokka ended up buying a bunch of junk against Suki’s advice, while you and Katara bought some pieces of jewelry to go with your dresses, Toph bought a set of nunchucks which worried all of you a little bit, and Aang bout a toy for Momo.

Soon enough you were back at the palace, Zuko still no where to be seen. You tried not to pay much attention to it, yet worry still lingered in the back of your mind. It was almost dusk when you proposed the idea of setting up a campfire outside for old time’s sake. It felt like forever since all of you had sat down around the burning flames to talk or eat or simply lay down and look at the stars. So after a while, when everyone went to their chambers to leave the things they’d bought and change to a more appropriate attire for the weather, the group was back outside setting up the fire.

You laughed at sokka who tried to light it up, struggling thanks to the fact that the only wood you had found was very old and affected by the humidity of the Fire nation’s weather. Ever since Aang learned how to firebend and Zuko joined the gaang, he hadn’t had to light up a fire from scratch.

“Hey, Sokka. It’s ok, we get it, it’s been so long since we’ve done this, you’ve kinda lost your touch.” You teased, knowing he was mostly trying to impress Suki with his abilities. Toph who was sitting next to you suppressed a laugh.

“I haven’t lost my touch, Y/N!!” He replied not taking his eyes away from the wood in front of him. “Actually it’s not a ‘touch’, it’s ability and knowledge, ok?”

Your only response was to laugh looking over at Katara. She looked at him worried and said “Are you sure you don’t want me to water bend the humidity out of the wood, Sokka?”

“No, Katara! No bending, just ability and knowledge”

“I could get the flame started for you” interviened Aang.

“Is no one listening to me? Ability and knowledge!!”

All of you let Sokka stay entertained trying to light up the camp fire for a few minutes more, after that you collectively and non-verbally decided you didn’t want to be there all night waiting, so you signaled Suki to distract him while Katara and Aang worked their quick magic. When he turned back around he saw the sparks consuming the wood slowly at first and then turning into a bigger flame. He smiled satisfied with himself and turned to look at all of you. “See? Ability and knowledge.”

“Of course it is , babe.” Suki hugged him from behind while the rest of you held a laugh.

The laughs and giggles didn’t take long to begin. It had always been so easy to get along with eachother, like you’d been friends for way longer that you really had. Before all of this, you never had any real friends at the Northern water tribe, the boys didn’t like you because you were a girl, and the girls didn’t like you because you liked fighting and bending. But when you met the gaang, it was like you could finally be yourself and not be judged, they were more of a family to you than anyone else had ever been.

You’d been outside for a while when you heard steps getting closer behind you, the night sky already spread above you. You were about to turn around, big smile on your face assuming it was Zuko, when you realized the look on all of your friends’ faces. The smile faded as you turned your head around. In fact, it was Zuko who was approaching the campfire, but he wasn’t alone. Holding onto his arm was Mai, in a jaw-dropping dress, looking as beautifuly dark as ever. You were sure the sound of your heart breaking must’ve been heard through out the entirety of the Fire nation.

Mai? You asked yourself internally making an outworldly effort to take your eyes away from them. Everyone but you greeted them equally as shocked, then he proceeded to take a sit in a log placed right in front of you, pulling Mai into his lap. There were a few seconds of awkward silence before Sokka started speaking again. You could hear his voice, but you weren’t paying attention to his words. Your eyes were glued to the floor, too scared to even dare to look up, your face lacked any color and a now familiar knot in your throat and tightness in your chest were forming again.

You reminisced to the previous months. After Mai and Ty Lee had been released from Boiling Rock, Zuko told you he’d talked to her. They’d left things in good terms, she understood why he did what he did, and he realized how he’d treated her wasn’t the best. But you were sure that didn’t mean they were back together, I mean, that happened almost a year ago, and this was the first time you’d seen Mai since the coronation.

Has he been seeing her in secret all this time? Why keep it from me? Did he know I liked him all along and was simply trying not to hurt my feelings? But why now? And why like this?

All these thoughts ran through your head while you tried your best to keep the tears that were threatening to roll down your cheeks inside. Suki’s touch dragged you out of your head. “Y/N?” She called in a soft and low voice.

“Yeah, sorry.” You replied looking up at her.

“Wanna go get some snacks from the kitchen?”

“Sure, let’s go” You took her hand and walked with her away form the open and into the palace.

Once you were sure you were out of the group’s sight, you let out a deep breath you didn’t know you were holding up until then.

“Oh, Y/N. Are you ok?” She pressed your hand reassuringly

You forced yourself smiled at her. “Yeah, everything is fine. I’m ok.” You lied.

“Zuko is an asshole for doing this. If you want me to punch him in the face I can do that, I’m still training all the time, I’m sure I could kick his ass no sweat.” She tried to lighten the mood while leading you to the kitchen.

“No Suki, thanks. It’s ok. It’s not like we’re a thing or anything, he can go out, be with and do what he wants with whoever he wants. I’m no one to tell him otherwise” you spat, trying to convince yourself as much as Suki.

You finally arrived to the kitchen. Chef Karou took one look at you before noticing something was wrong. “Child, what happened? You’re white as a ghost.”

“It’s nothing Chef, I just got a little dizzy out of the sudden, but I’m ok.”

“Well you’re in luck, I have your favorite dessert freshly made. That’ll make you feel better.”

You and Suki carried each a basket of treats and small snacks Chef Karou had sent for you and your friends. You had to brace yourself before walking back outside, only to realize Zuko and Mai weren’t there anymore, instead a head of white hair filled the space where they’d been sitting before.

“Iroh!” You called handing your basket to Suki and walking up to him.

“Hello, my dearest.” He replied, opening his arms to give you a hug. He’d always been one to give great hugs. Since you met him, the two of you had connected through Zuko. He cared for him deeply for a very long time, and even though you had just met him then, you cared about him too. He’d shared his wise words with you, advising you about your worry regarding the war, and you listened to his stories in return. He was warm and caring and he had a very special place in your heart. Hugging him helped release the tightness in your chest that had been building up for a good while, and that came with a few tears as well. “Miss Y/N, there’s no need for tears, this is a joyful reunion.”

“I’m just...very glad you’re here.” You tried to explain wiping the wetness from your cheeks.

“I’m very happy to be back, and to see this nation be rebuilt and led honorably. Talking about leaders... have you seen my nephew around? I haven’t gotten the chance to greet him yet.” He asked looking around for him.

“I um... I guess he’s back at his office or in his chambers.” You hoped he couldn’t tell the way you were trying not to let Zuko mess with your head.

“Do you mind calling him for me, dear? I’m a little tired from the trip.”

You wanted to say no, specially since you knew Zuko had left with Mai, but saying no to Iroh had always been a hard task for you. “I... yes, don’t worry, I’ll let him know you’re here.”

And with those words you walked off to find him. His office was your first stop, you hoped he was there, sitting on his desk and going through paperwork as you’d seen him do many times before, because if he was that meant Mai wouldn’t be there, and you wouldn’t have to deal with seeing them together anymore. But to your despair, he wasn’t.

Gathering all the strength you had left, you made your way to his chambers. The walk there seemed painfully short, you wished you’d had more time to prepare, although after knocking on the door and proceeding to open it, no amount of time could’ve prepared you for the sight. Zuko and Mai were both sitting on the edge of his bed, he had his hand on her jaw, holding her tightly in her place, while her hand layed on his neck, holding onto the roots of his hair. They were kissing... really kissing.

The sound of the door opening made them realize someone was there and forcefully Zuko pulled apart. He looked at you for a few torturous seconds before saying. “Y/N, what can we help you with?”

We, it was such a dumb thing to notice but you did. Zuko said we, as in him and Mai, as in the girl who’s throat he had his tongue down mere seconds ago.

“Your uncle is here, he wants to see you.” You replied, your voice slightly shaky making you pray he didn’t notice.

“I’ll be right there... anything else?” His tone was one you hadn’t heard before, it was harsh, merciless, out of everything that had happened that evening that small detail was what hurt you the most.

“No, good night.” With those words you turned back around closing the door behind you. You couldn’t hold back the tears anymore, your heart ached in a way you’d never felt before. You cursed yourself in silence for being so dumb, so gullible to even think Zuko would think of you as anything more than a friend, a colleague. You cursed yourself because you knew this was how things were going to end from the very beginning.

Now he was kissing another girl and you were alone in your room, sitting in the dark, thinking about how you were going to pick all the pieces of your heart and put them back together.

A/N: sorry don’t hate me <3

Tag list: @harmlessoffering @zukoshonourr @marvel-ing-at-it-all @booksandwonderlands @bison-whistle @darthsokaaa @royahllty @godoftheabyss @ilovespideyyy @literally-anythin @daddystevee @annie-are-u-ok @whalerus @galacticamidala @mangoberry43 @eridanuswave @katherinethedork @littleninjablake @taeeemin

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merinnan · 3 years

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Fic Tag Game

Grabbed from @hils79, because it looked like fun.

Name: Merinnan, which I’ve gone by for... fifteen years now, I think? Prior to that, I mostly used Calicia (and sometimes Zoi).

Fandoms: Like Hils, I’m only going to list the fandoms I’ve actually written fic for.

Star Trek: My very first fandom, and the one I’ve written the most fics for (so far - I suspect that DMBJ will overtake it. It certainly already has in terms of word count). I was (and am still) primarily a DS9 fan, and was a huge Kira/Dukat and Garak/Bashir shipper back in the day. Most of my Trekfics are DS9 fics, but I also dabbled a little bit in TOS and TNG, and had one or two crackfic crossovers that involved Voyager characters. Discovery has tempted me with a few fic ideas, but I haven’t written anything for it yet.

Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon: aka, the show that first had me seriously questioning my sexuality. Look, Haruka and Michiru are #goals, don’t judge me. This is also where my Zoi name came from, after the first season villain Zoisite, whom I cosplayed several times. Unsurprisingly, my main ships are HaruMichi and KunZoi. Despite this fact, neither of my published Sailormoon fics are HaruMichi.

Bubblegum Crisis Tokyo 2040: A short-lived fandom, but one I still liked enough to write a fic for and get the OST CD.

World of Warcraft: I wouldn’t say I’m really part of the fandom, per se, but I’ve been playing since the dying days of Burning Crusade, am a huge lore nerd, and started writing a crossover fic that is currently on indefinite hiatus. I do plan to come back and finish it, but first RL got in the way, and now I have to try and remember where I’d actually been planning to go with it.

A Court of Thorns and Roses: That crossover fic I just mentioned? Yeah, this is what it’s a crossover with. ACoTaR fandom went sleepy for awhile, but it’s back up and kicking now that A Court of Silver Flames is out - if any of you are still following me, it’s great to see everyone active again! To the surprise of no-one who knows me, I’m a big Nessian shipper.

Mo Dao Zu Shi / Chen Qing Ling / The Untamed: I came to this fandom via ACoTaR, actually, after a certain person (hi, @rhysand-vs-fenrys!) wouldn’t stop gushing about it :-) This is the fandom that really and seriously got me back into regular fic writing again after 15-ish years. I’m a multishipper here, and have written / am writing WangXian, NieLan, XiCheng, XuanLi, and XiSang.

Guardian / Zhen Hun: MDZS fandom led me to Guardian, which, along with DMBJ, has devoured my life in a way that hasn’t happened since my Star Trek days, and I love it! WeiLan is my major ship, but I’m also quite fond of the DaMian life raft.

Zhu Yilong: Yes, I’m going to list a person as a fandom. Zhu Yilong is one of the stars of Guardian, and is both incredibly pretty and an incredibly talented actor. So much so that I have suffered through some truly terrible dramas just to watch him in them. I do not write Z1L-fic, since RPF of living people is a personal squick of mine, but I am working on a massive crossover fic of most of his characters.

Mo Du: Guardian led me along to more of Priest’s works, such as Mo Du, which is now officially my favourite book, and I adore the main WenZhou ship. The Mo Du fandom right now is pretty tiny, and I’m still working on my first fic for it, but I hope that it will grow with the donghua due out this year, and the drama having just started filming.

Daomu Biji / The Lost Tomb: I initially came into this fandom because of Zhu Yilong, who played Wu Xie in the Reboot / Reunion / Chongqi drama, and then I got sucked into the fandom pit of all of the books and dramas and spinoffs, and it’s wonderful and fantastic. I have written so much for it, and have so much more planned. PingXie and PingXieSang are my main ships here, but I’m also a HeiHua fan, and very much enjoying the RiSang pool noodle that @kholran created.

Tropes: Hurt/Comfort and crack are my major ones.

Fic I spent most time on: A toss-up between Endings and Beginnings and Reunion, both DS9 fics. Endings and Beginnings is an alternate ending to the show, while Reunion is a Gul Dukat-centric fic set around, oh, season 5ish? Both were written for and initially published in print fanzines, so in addition to time spent writing, there was a lot of back and forth for editing, etc.

Favourite fic(s) you’ve written: Look, I honestly couldn’t say. I like most of the fics I’ve written, and there are several that I’m really proud of and really like.

Fic I spent least time on: Silent Graves, a super angsty DMBJ/Lost Tomb Xiaoge fic. I think I wrote it in like 15 minutes.

Longest fic: Cat’s Paw, a DMBJ/Lost Tomb PingXieSang canon rewrite fic I co-wrote with @xantissa, at 247 826 words. For fics written by just me, not with a co-writer, then that would be Nevermore, my WIP MDZS/CQL XiCheng Pacific Rim AU, at 22 276 words and counting.

Shortest fic: Every entry in my DS9 Drabbles series, with each one at exactly 100 words. Although if you count them as a quintdrabble, then Indiscretion (a DS9 missing scene vignette about Gul Dukat, set during the episode of the same name) at 169 words.

Most hits/kudos/comments/bookmarks/subscriptions: The answer to all of these is either Cat’s Paw or Nevermore, so I’m going to give the next highest.

Hits: Those who fear darkness have never seen what light can do, a DMBJ/Lost Tomb PingXie supernatural AU fic co-written with xantissa.

Since this fic also takes the highest kudos, bookmarks, and subscriptions after Cat’s Paw/Nevermore, I’ll skip to the next fic along on each of those.

Kudos: Stars fall like diamonds, a DMBJ/Lost Tomb PingXie missing scene fic from Reboot/Reunion/Chongqi.

Bookmarks: A Knight in Bloody Armour, another DMBJ/Lost Tomb PingXieSang supernatural AU fic (but a different supernatural AU) co-written with xantissa.

Comments: Ears and Other Related Calamities, yet another DMBJ/Lost Tomb PingXieSang supernatural AU fic (of a different again supernatural AU) co-written with xantissa.

Subscriptions: The Rescue Job, a Guardian WeiLan Leverage AU, currently at one chapter complete and posted out of a planned five chapters.

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: We have plans for a prequel and a sequel to A Knight in Bloody Armour, and a spinoff fic for The Zhang Identity (a DMBJ/Lost Tomb PingXie AU that is complete but not yet posted. It will be posted in April as part of the Small Fandoms Big Bang).

Share a bit of a WIP: This is from an as-yet-unnamed post-canon fix-it fic for the Guardian drama:

It was hurting again. Zhao Yunlan curled up into a tight ball under the hospital blankets, trying to ignore it enough to try to get back to sleep. He knew it wouldn't work, because he couldn't remember a time when it ever did, but it was always worth a shot, right? He squeezed his eyes shut and held himself tightly for a few...moments? Minutes?...before grabbing his stuffed cat and clutching it while he forced himself to breathe deep, slow breaths the way the doctors back in Spring City had taught him.

Eventually, the pain died back down to its usual dull ache, the one that was bearable and let him play, and watch TV, and do school lessons with his mother. One day, she said, they'd find a doctor who knew what was wrong, why he hurt all the time, and the doctor would give him medicine that would keep the worst pain away so that he could go to an actual school and meet more kids than the ones who lived in their apartment block or who frequented the same playground that he liked to go to.

Zhao Yunlan tried closing his eyes again, seeing if he could go back to sleep, but he was far too awake now. He sighed, sitting up in bed and looking around the room. Again. It was just like the hospital rooms in Spring City, and in Kiyota City. He figured that if the doctors here in Tomorrow Mountains couldn't help, his parents would take him to yet another city, and the hospital rooms there would probably look the same, too.

Then, over the faint beeping of hospital equipment, and the quiet murmurs further down the corridor of nurses at the nurse station or seeing to other patients, he heard a soft sniffling sound, like someone was trying not to cry too loudly. He picked up his stuffed cat and looked at it.

"What do you think, Dead Cat?" he asked it. "Should we go and find them?"

Dead Cat didn't answer, of course, but that didn't stop Zhao Yunlan from assuming that it agreed with him, and slipping out of bed. His feet touched the cold tile floor with barely a sound, and, still holding Dead Cat tightly, Zhao Yunlan padded over to the door. He looked up and down the corridor, then left his room to track down the sniffling noise.

He wasn't surprised that it came from the next room. He was surprised that it came from another kid, a boy who looked to be about his age, huddled in bed and wiping his eyes.

"Hi," Zhao Yunlan whispered. The other boy looked up in surprise, then stopped to clutch his chest as he began to cough. Once he'd finished coughing, Zhao Yunlan and Dead Cat were perched on the end of his bed.

"I'm Zhao Yunlan, and this is Dead Cat." He held up Dead Cat, moving one of the paws to wave hello. "What's your name?"

The boy wiped his eyes again. "Shen Ye."

I tag: ALL OF YOU! Are you a writer who hasn’t done this yet? Consider yourself tagged if you want to be.

#fanfic meme #dmbj #daomu biji #guardian #mo du #star trek #ds9 #bishoujo senshi sailor moon #sailor moon #mdzs #cql #acotar #bubblegum crisis #world of warcraft #zhu yilong

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senadimell · 3 years

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Fic writer tag game thing

I was tagged to do this by @rockymountainrattlesnake--you rock!

How many works do you have on a03?

5 at the moment. Someday I will finish the Martha Jones character study I’m working on...

What’s your total a03 word count?

107,733 officially, but one of those is an exerpt taken from a longer fic, which puts me at 105,782, and then we’d need to subtract out the poetry exerpts in Promises, so...

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

HA.

But I have Promises to Keep

The World in Ten Seconds

Growing Where Planted

Suspended Between Moments

Black and White are Also Colors

The order seems very logical.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Pretty much always. Sometimes I forget and write back months later, but I get really enthusiastic when people like my work (I swear I will answer my inbox soon!) Most of my stuff involves some degree of character analysis, so I enjoy continuing that discussion in the comments. (And compliments make my day, not gonna lie.)

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

That would be The World in Ten Seconds, I think. Looking at my work (published and unpublished), it’s a lot easier to be angsty when I’m doing an analysis-focused piece, because those tend to be snapshots in time. Narrative stories tend to end on a more hopeful note.

What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

But I Have Promises to Keep by virtue of being finished. It’s not totally happy, but there’s a lot of catharsis in there.

Do you write crossovers? if so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

Yes because my brain connects dots fast enough to make even a kangaroo court cringe. However, I haven’t published/finished any. I do have a Discworld/Doctor Who piece that’s a meditation on death, survivors, and moving on. The title will involve the word “Grandfathers.”

Then of course there’s the Q/Master epic enemies-to-lovers that I don’t have the guts to write.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No! Very grateful for that. There was one awkward incident involving a commenter shaming non-commenters, but that’s behind us now.

Do you write smut? if so, what kind?

Nope.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of...? Seems unlikely TBH

Have you ever had a fic translated?

No.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

well...there was that one Eragon set-in-Alegaesia OC epistolary back in high school...

What’s your all-time favourite ship?

hm hm hm hm. So I’ve found that I really like very very close platonic intimacy, except that sometimes looks like “you are the most important person in my life and I would die for you but we haven’t put a name to this thing we have and we don’t really kiss etc. but we might hold hands/cuddle/whatever and it doesn’t mean anything and I know random mundane things about you like your shoe size or soda preference (did I mention I would die for you?)” which sounds kind of like shipping?

So I’d have to say Nine/Rose or angsty Ten/Rose, with an emphasis on healing (see: RockyMountainRattlesnake’s Polyergus, A Wretched Ark, Terminarch, V762CAS’s Than All the Blue in the World).

I usually stick more or less with canon in most fandoms--if it’s not there, I don’t/can’t imagine it happening since romance is kind of weird and foreign to me. I tend to go for established relationships rather than “will-they-won’t they” stuff (Tevye/Golde, Vimes/Sybil etc. Though if we’re going musicals, I do actually like Elphaba/Fiero. I’ve never read anything about it, though.)

OH! I forgot! I don’t know if this counts, but I’m obsessed with sixbeforelunch’s Vulcan OCs, T'Lin and Veral, in the Pi’maat series.

Also the very specific way Erik/Christine works in Antiquarianne’s Phantom of the Opera piece The Sum of Earthly Happiness.

What’s a wip that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I don’t know if I’ll be able to finish the Grandfathers piece...it’s Discworld-primary from a stylistic perspective, and uh...I am not Terry Pratchett. I want to finish it, but I’ve got to be in the zone (reading a lot of Discworld stuff to get a feel for the style) and have SO MUCH PATIENCE because mimicking him is like writing poetry, if poetry was an accepted form of forced confession to be read for ridicule on live TV.

What are your writing strengths?

Purple prose.

yes i know that’s not supposed to be a compliment

Seriously, though I do tend to wax fruity in my writing, and I have a lot of fun with it. I think I’m also pretty good at writing conversations and arguments.

What are your writing weaknesses?

hehehehe

kill your darlings.

Editing? Who is she?

Which is funny, because I also do that stupid thing where getting words-on-paper is more painful than drawing a fishhook out of the fish’s throat when it’s mangled deep in the flesh. Is it perfectionism? I don’t know. Not in the anxious sense, certainly, because I can’t be chuffed to do a line edit before publishing. It’s more like I have two modes:

“Susan mad Grandfather confused insert Wrinkle In Time reference exept Uriel weird out of context IT vs keys of Marius brains fight”

“He’d known what Jackie was going to pull before Rose even passed on the invite, and he went and acted like Rose’d saddled him with an old ticket stub fished from her pocket. Trifling. Something you tossed in the first bin you saw. You think pretending it was only ever ‘her choice’ will wash away the guilt when you finally kill her?

That and...actually writing. Lost my mojo a while back and haven’t been able to get back into a routine since. Balancing life stuff and creative hobbies is a work in progress.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I think I generally would limit it to well-known exclamations or phrases for the most part. I’m familiar enough to use some Mandarin and not utterly fail, but I know I don’t have the rhythm or grace of a native speaker and it’s not something I have in mind to pursue right now.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Hm. Fortunately that is all tucked away in hand-written notebooks before I got perfection-scared off of writing past the 7th grade. I’ve been doing the whole fanfiction in my head consciously since 2nd grade, but the first stuff I think I wrote down was either Snape stuff or Eragon/Alagaesia stuff. Not exactly worldshaking.

What’s your favourite fic you’ve written?

The World in Ten Seconds! Gah, I’m so proud of that thing. Also I really adore Black and White are Also Colors, though some of my favorite bits aren’t published yet. That one’s a lot more idiosyncratic...a lot of infodumping about color and language and ideas in translation. I’ll probably get the next chapter of that up before I’m able to start working on Growing Where Planted.

Tagging (feel free to answer or not as you have desire or energy--also I’m sorry if I have misremembered your fic-writing tendencies or lack thereof) @pazithigallifreya @phoenixrisesoncemore @forever-food-and-fandoms@loupettes @elialys @onlycosmere

#asks #rockymountainrattlesnake #answers #fic stuff #writing #fandom #fanfiction

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myriadimagines · 3 years

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End Of The Year Faves 2020!

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 8 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome work!

i was tagged by the lovely @lxncelot & @musicallisto !!!

i’ve only written 10 one shots this year since i stopped taking requests rip. i only ended up picking 5 of them bc i didnt like the rest. also i love talking about the behind the scenes of writing like its just so fun. i literally went through my revision history in my google docs to see how i wrote these akjsdhasjd so literally........... if anyone wants to talk to me about a piece........... just shoot me an ask bc i will gladly tell u all about it

1. Lifetimes (Sebastien le Livre)

this might be my number one bc it’s the most recent and i havent decided i hate it yet but wrote this as an alternative to therapy lmfaooooooo and it’s been a month but um. it still hurts. but anyway, i started off with the below paragraph:

And Booker has centuries of pain under his belt. Endless years of trauma that he cannot even begin to unpack. But you don’t have centuries. You don’t have lifetimes to reconcile with all the cruelty in the world — you just have one, and Booker knows he of all people should know just how much hurt one lifetime can contain.

and just worked around it, bc i was just really obsessed with the concept of having multiple lifetimes and all that, and just the fact that life has so much pain and hurt and it just sucks. i edited the first sentence for the final but otherwise it’s the same. i think i came up with some pretty good lines in this if i do say so myself, and i mentioned it in the a/n, but i intended for it to be longer but didn’t want to push it after i feel like i had written all i wanted to. i just wanted someone to hold me and comfort me clearly.

2. Cursed Blood (Renfri)

i am obsessed with renfri as a character and her whole story, and the whole concept of her being cursed just felt like something that i really wanted to explore and write about. these were the first lines i wrote for the piece:

But every time you kiss her, you swear that it’s impossible her lips could be poison. Or perhaps you grew so used it, that the poison tasted sweet.

i ended up editing this a lot for the final version, but a trend in my writing seems to be i always come up with how to end a piece and just work around it. i really enjoyed going into depth into renfri’s character and it kinda felt more like a character study than a reader insert? but eventually i found a way to work the reader in there and i liked where the story went, bc renfri deserves happiness and someone to be there for her.

3. Roadside (Robin Buckley)

still in shock at how many notes this one got and i am forever grateful to everyone who reblogged/left comments!!! this was for lacey’s ( @moonlit-imagines ) writing challenge, and idk why when i saw the prompt i immediately decided to use robin. for this one, i actually started with the beginning, which was the prompt, “Let’s take a walk. Just you and me.”

i mentioned this in the a/n, but i planned it to be a lot more angsty and wasn’t even planning on ending it on a happy note askjdhaksd the original plot i had in mind was that robin and the reader were into each other but were dancing around each other’s feelings. so one night, the reader drunkenly kisses steve at a party to try and make robin jealous, but it ends up just causing a rift between robin and the reader even after they confess their feelings. here is a part i wrote for the original plot before i decided to scrap it and go with the final plot.

“Look, I don’t even care if you and Steve get together.” Robin waves her hand, and you’re not used to seeing such disappointment on your best friend’s face as she lets out a shaky breath. She looks as if she’s struggling to collect herself before she asks, “I just… why did you lie to me?”

“I didn’t.” you desperately blurt, and Robin’s eyebrows furrow. Shaking your head, you take a step towards her as you explain, “I didn’t lie, Robin, I swear. I don’t like Steve. What happened at the party meant nothing—”

Robin scoffs. “Then why—”

“—because I wanted you to see.” you finally confess, and Robin stares at you. You’re shaking, tears welling in your eyes as you continue, “Because I thought I could make you jealous, because I was just too afraid to make a move and wanted you too. And I know that’s silly of me, and I never meant to hurt your feelings—”

i changed the plot because i didn’t think i could pull it off, and i didn’t know how to fully end it. i liked where it ended up going anyway after the change of direction so all good!!

4. Games (Michael Gray)

so this was inspired by a gif imagine request that @fangirlsarah16 sent me, which you can find here!! you can literally see me already plotting for the piece in the tags aksjdha i just loved how angsty the situation was, and i love michael, so i decided to just run with it. i put what i had already written into a document and just pieced everything in around it. this is definitely one of my more dramatic pieces, but i just loved how the story came together and how all the other characters were included.

i already planned to write a part 2 while i was still writing this piece, but obviously that hasnt happened yet. also i got discouraged bc i thought it would do better in terms of notes but oh well. i wrote around 300 words of where i wanted part 2 to go, and i still have it saved, but i dont want to share it in case i end up writing it. also, i have 2 plots in mind for where i want part 2 to go, and haven’t decided which one i want to go with. we’ll have to wait and see i guess >:)

5. Off Limits (Cassian Andor)

ah yes, the first in my rewrite project that is going along very slowly. basically, im planning on rewriting my super old one shots in hopes that i’ll like them. i swear i’ve got the next one shot in my drafts but i just havent had the time to finish it yet. anyway, the original piece, which i wrote 4 years ago (!!!!), was the piece that really got my blog started and helped me get activity/attention, and it has around 500 notes, which kinda makes the new version look depressing bc it only has 97 and it’s definitely a lot better in my opinion.

i don’t really have a detailed process for this one, seeing as i was just improving upon an old piece, but one of the main things i did want to change was cassian’s characterisation. i felt like i just made him too mean in my old piece, and i wanted to loosen him up a bit. i managed to bang this one in one day and i just think it’s some cute content and i miss the rogue one squad!!

i’m tagging @moonlit-imagines @emcon-imagines @lotsoffandomimagines @dannyboy-writes @murswrites @randomfandomimagine @sonsofeorl @spxder-mxns & all other content creators that see this!! i’m definitely missing a lot but everyone should share their favorite pieces from this year :’)

#s talks #tag game

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oveliagirlhaditright · 3 years

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So, Podcast Now made a video about whether or not Sora’s character needs fixed. And I haven’t watched it yet (I will. And I’m looking forward to it), but I bet I know what it’s going to say: that Sora needs to go down a dark road, to really develop and not be stagnant. That’s what a lot of people say, who don’t think Sora’s had character development in a long time or at all.

But I personally don’t think that’s necessary. Rather, I think he should be treated like Buffy Summers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where there were definitely moments that you saw the toll that was being taken on this poor girl and how close she got to quitting and stuff... but she never did. And her strength, and her always doing the right thing, made her admirable. And not in a Mary-Sue way, either, because we saw her struggles through and through.

Like, one thing with Buffy that made her and her struggles so interesting, was that it was usually someone she loved who she ended up having to fight as the seasons’ big bads.

In season two, it was the love of her life Angel: a vampire who had turned evil again, who she had to kill in order to save the world.

In season three, she had to nearly kill her former friend Faith (and there may have been feelings here on both sides, too), who had gone crazy and essentially become a serial killer.

Season four pit Buffy against her new boyfriend, Riley, some, as he was very much a military/ask no questions kind of person, and Buffy is the opposite of that.

In season five, Buffy was faced with the possibility that her sister may have to die, to stop the world from being dragged into Hell (and this is Buffy’s darkest moment, where she nearly did quit. She starts talking about how she killed Angel in season two. “I sacrificed Angel to save the world. I loved him so much, but I knew [that I had to kill him. That that was the right thing.] I don’t have that anymore. I don’t know how to live in this world, if these are the choices. If everything just gets stripped away, I don’t see the point ...If Dawn dies, I’m done. I’m quitting.” Give Sora something like that. Even if it’s just for a moment, and something miraculous happens so he doesn’t have to quit, of course.) And she then has this epiphany that she could die to save the world instead, and does (and is brought back in season six by her witch friend, Willow... though Buffy’s actually not happy about that, as the poor thing was torn out of Heaven).

Season six, Buffy had to fight best friend Willow (and before that, she was even getting teed up to go against friend Anya. But thankfully, that one didn’t pan out)... after Willow’s true love Tara was murdered, and in her grief Willow wanted to end everything.

And what happened in season seven? Buffy fights the First ever evil. And this evil has the power to turn into anyone. And it does turn into Buffy a few times, so you can almost say she’s fighting herself. Like, there’s this line, where the First is “Buffy” while talking to her. “’To every generation, a Slayer is born. One girl in all the world. She alone will have the strength and skill to-’ There’s that word again. What you are. How you’ll die. ‘Alone.’” Buffy eventually tells the First to “get out of her face”, and she rises again.

Just- Buffy’s such a tragic character. And she is the Slayer. And there’s definitely a part of her that recognizes it--and is proud of it--and eventually would/could never want to be anything else... but it’s also brought her so much pain. And she never wanted to be the Slayer because of it.

Like, in the season five finale when Buffy’s friends are trying to decide if they should let Dawn die or not, it starts in a simple way: Buffy just saving an innocent bystander from a vampire again. And he says, “How did you do that?” She answers, “It’s what I do.” And the guy is baffled. “But you’re just a girl.” And Buffy sadly replies, “That’s what I keep saying.”:(

And in the series finale, Spike gives Buffy this heartfelt speech about how he loves her and “she’s the one”. And her response is, “I don’t want to be the one.” Because I think she always just takes the term “one” in connection with her, to being about how she’s the chosen one, and the only person in the world who can and does make all of these hard choices. And is surely why she finally gets to be happy in the series finale, when there are more Slayers and she doesn’t have to be the only one anymore.

I think if the series really hit on how much it hurts to be Sora, I don’t think there’d be all these arguments that he should go dark. Rather, I think everyone would be amazed by him that he remains light (as they should be).

Another thing Sora and Buffy have in common, is they both can be angsty and hurt when the situation calls for it, but also silly and happy when the reverse is needed.

Just moreso make Sora Buffy, Kingdom Hearts. He already is in a lot of ways, but do it more. Draw attention to how much he’s suffered.

Also... I’m not necessarily saying here that all of Sora’s friends should turn evil, and he needs to fight them. But rather... to show how hard he has it. And that with Buffy, was one way that that show did that.

...I should also mention the amazing thing that season one of Buffy did with its finale, where Buffy was prophesied to die when she fought that Big Bad... and she so did not want to die. And she quite being the Slayer in that moment... but she of course ended up doing the right thing in the end, because that’s who she is (she did die. She drowned. But her friend Xander was able to bring her back through mouth-to-mouth).

And I just think keeping Sora light--but with things like this to keep it interesting--would do well to separate him from characters like Riku... and show why he’s the hero of the franchise, of course, and make him even moreso Foils to characters like Xehanort, The Master of Masters, and possibly Yozora partly.

Edit: There’s also this great speech that Buffy gives when her mom finds out she’s the Slayer and hates the idea. She tells Buffy, “Well, it stops now!” And Buffy passionately answers, “It doesn’t stop! It never stops! Do you think I chose to be like this? Do you know how lonely it is? How dangerous? I would love to be up in my room, watching TV--or gossiping about boys--or God, even studying! But I have to save the world. Again.”

#have I mentioned that Buffy the vampire slayer had amazing writing? like the best ever?

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lori-hime · 4 years

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I haven't written much about what I've been up to lately, so here's some word salad updates~ 🥗

NijiGaku Anime

So I started watching the new LL. I hadn't been keeping up with SIFAS' story, but I did read some of it when it first came out. I gotta say, I'm really enjoying all of the changes they decided to make for the anime version of the story, to both the characters and story. It's starting to feel like something coherent. The story in the game was ok, but the main thing that interested me was the interactions with Muse and Aqours, overshadowing the actual "plot" and even Nijigasaki themselves. But the anime really made me interested and excited about the story and characters again. I would be a little annoyed about the personality and dynamic changes, but honestly, I'm used to it by now. LL always ends up doing this sort of thing, and the personalities only seem to become solidified after the anime airs.

A little disappointed in Kasumi's change in some vague ways I don't really feel like describing, but honestly it balances out because Ayumu is fantastic now (previously one of my least cared for of the group.) Yu's personality is surprisingly super gay fun and I'm really excited for her and Ayumu's dynamic in particular. They're so cute. Seriously feel like I'm gonna ship them hard.

I also really like Rina's initial personality in this. Not only is she bad at expressing emotions through her face, but she also seems bad at expressing them through words too. I feel like this is gonna be much more interesting than her already being cutesy and genki like in the promo stuff and SIFAS.

When Karin was first shown, I had mixed feelings. At first I was like oh god I'm gay and she's beautiful. But the whole sexuality flaunting thing kind of put me off for several reasons I don't really wanna get into explaining. I really didn't know how to feel. I started liking her a little more during SIFAS, when she competed against Muse in DDR and lost... started feeling like I was getting a glimpse of her real personality without the whole sexy idol persona. Although not much has happened in the anime with her yet, she's giving me Nozomi vibes and I love it. I actually think if I had gone into this without previous knowledge of the characters, I'd be betting she'd become my fave for sure.

My list has gone from Kasumi > Rina > Kanata / Emma > Karin > Ai > Setsuna > Ayumu > Shizuku to Yuu > Ayumu > Kasumi / Karin > Rina > Kanata / Emma > Ai > Setsuna > Shizuku

Still biased a bit towards characters that have shown up more in the first two eps, so it'll undoubtedly change. But It's really interesting how much the characters I already felt I had good placements for changed so much.

Edit for episode 3, because I didn't post this fast enough. Student council speedrun was fantastic. Yu continues to be incredibly gay. I wonder how this episode will affect the ships people will gravitate towards. LL has always been a fairly monoship fandom, heavily gravitating towards specific pairs. Of course that's largely the fault of canon itself, often pushing and developing single ships. Well, I suppose we saw a big change with Aqours, though, especially with season two. But even then, the ships tended to stay at least between girls of the same year (aside from my rarepair, shout-out to YohaRiko.) Now, I wonder. From the very beginning, before Yu even had a name, it felt like they were really pushing the shippy stuff @ the viewer. I wonder if that’s still gonna be the angle. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it yet. I really want to see more YuAyu rather than YuSetsu, but I can't really be mad at more gay content unless they try to make it a DEEP story and then fail to resolve it but haha they'd NEVER do that, I'm sure!!

As for the others... I'm guessing they're gonna push RinAi, KarinEmma, YuuKasu, and maybe YuuShizu? My original guesses were that AiKarin would be a thing, evoking NozoEli v3. But I guess that'd be too predictable a third time. KarinEmma sounds like it could be cute and sweet, RinAi feels like it has adorable potential, and YuKasu vs. YuAyu sounds like it could have some good comedic rival-y potential, given they don't make Kasumi super serious about it and make it really angsty. Not that a cute idol show would ever do such a thing haha!!!!!

Higurashi Gou

Also started Higurashi. I doubt many people know this, but I used to be a major Higurashi fan before I got into Touhou. It was my main "fandom" I guess, even though there wasn't really that much of a fandom to interact with comparatively. Anyway, despite that, I didn't think I'd get into this remake super hard... but I'm really loving it so far. The art style is really pretty and eye candy, and it turns out it's a direct continuation of the story rather than a remake. Very excited to see where it's going, and also to see a lot of my baby Rena again.

An interesting difference to me as I'm rewatching are my feelings for Keiichi. While I don't hate him, over the years I've really grown tired of the generic male leads (especially in harem anime) like him. Of course, he's definitely not AS generic as they come, or maybe perhaps that's just my bias from when I used to really like him. The me back then found him unique enough to stand beside the girls. Nowadays, I definitely can't say the same. At least he doesn't grate on my nerves as much as most other harem anime protags do, however. I feel like despite lacking the quirks that make the girls so likeable and unique, he still has something going for him... perhaps the fact he's framed as inherently different from everyone else, because he comes from the city, and the way he acts a bit more realistically to the scary things that are happening. Although those things are obviously explained away later, at least for now I still accept him for what he is, old bias or not.

Genshin Impact

Been playing Genshin Impact religiously and loved every second of it. Though I've caught up with the main story content, so sadly it's slowed down. I'd never heard of this game before it came out, so I was absolutely wowed that such a game was f2p. I've heard a lot of people criticizing it because they added gacha in at the last minute, and I definitely understand being annoyed through the pov of someone who was anticipating it. But part of me is still really thankful that the game is free at all. I suppose that full but paid 60 dollar game would still be a better experience, but because of my non-existent budget situation, I may not have ended up playing it at all.

Aside from the arguably shitty monetization practices, however, the game is fantastic. It really is as similar to BoTW as people have mentioned, and I really appreciate that. BoTW, from a gameplay standpoint, is absolutely my favorite game. It's exactly what I want from any given game. So I really appreciated this. The story and characters of Genshin are also really interesting. I really like Qiqi, Venti, Fischl, and Xingqiu, among others. I spent a while rerolling for Qiqi or Venti 5*s, and eventually got an account with Qiqi. Venti on the other hand I've been trying to roll for but sadly haven't gotten. I have 1 roll left before the banner ends, so hopefully.. My friends whaled him for me. I swear I tried to stop them! I owe them my soul...

HoloLive, Pikamee & Vtubing

I briefly started getting into HoloLive a little while ago. After the Aloe stuff, I started worrying a bit about how the company handles these situations as well as the girls' freedoms and how much of their donation money they actually get.. (I made a post about it a while back.) After a while my worries died down a bit, but then came back full force with the Coco and Haachama situation. After that and one too many uncomfortable sexual jokes, I decided to just distance myself from HL. It's a shame, because I really enjoyed their personalities, but it was making me feel uncomfortable more often than not.

I told myself it’s fine, I’ve got Pikamee if I ever feel like watching vtubers again. And then like a week later... Well, it’s not really something I wanna talk about here, but she made some posts on twitter that made me too uncomfortable to continue watching her either.

On a much lighter note... A friend of mine showed us how to use prprlive and facerig to use the Touhou CB Live2D models, and Asa and I played around with Mokou, Kaguya, and Lyrica’s. It was quite fun, and I do look forward to using the Kaguya one for private streams on one of my servers. I’ve actually always wanted to try out vtubing stuff myself, but not really publicly. Of course, the costs for getting a model drawn and made specifically for me are too much for something I’m not really committing to, so this is perfect. I’m excited~

Touhou Cannonball & Kagura Thoughts

It’s been a long time since I talked about Touhou CB on my blog, and I’m pretty sure I left things on a pretty bad note. Mainly dissatisfied with Mokou’s portrayal for pretty shallow reasons on my part, despite they game having just started and having a lot of room to grow. And grow it did. While I quit pretty early in because of that, Asa decided to take over my account. She realized that it was pretty easy to upgrade any given character you had to a 5* without having to rely much on the gacha. She ended up playing a lot with the goal of upgrading everyone we had. I came back to it around July and actually had a lot of fun with it. The cast had gotten much bigger and we really enjoyed playing on multiplayer. It wasn't the best game ever from a gameplay standpoint, but it definitely had it's charm. The announcement of its death, although unsurprising, came at the worst time. Asa and I actually cried a little when we saw the announcement, ngl. The game had such good, wholesome, Touhouy vibes to it. Nonetheless, we made the most out of the last month or so after the announcement. We played a LOT of multiplayer and had a lot of really cute and good interactions with other players. Near the end, we realized that Lyrica was the only character from the normal banner we were missing, so we grinded like crazy (mostly Asa) to try to get her... we ended up getting a number of 5*s but none Lyrica... she eluded us to the very end. It was quite sad, but how hard we worked for it still felt satisfying somehow. We were able to max out our multiplayer level and complete a ton of goals we wouldn’t have otherwise.

So after this bittersweet experience with Touhou gacha, and all the scummy things I've been hearing about Lost Word, I've been thinking like... I'm done with Touhou gacha, at least for now. Don't wanna hear anything else about it for a good while. And then the 25th anniversary hits and they announce Kagura. Ugh. Please, give me a break. Needless to say, I'm gonna have to give it a try. Touhou is my life, I love rhythm games, I love Touhou music, and I love character collecting games. And I've been waiting for something to replace SIF gameplay in my heart for a long time. I'd banked my hopes on SIFAS but it's really barely a rhythm game so.... at least now that I've gone through CB's death and seen how cruddy LW is, I'll have lower standards and not get my hopes up too high.

If you got this far, thanks for reading my rambles and have a good day~

#loritalk #super long im sorry #there's even more stuff i wanted to talk about but it was already long enough as it is

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theskytraveler · 5 years

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So, here’s the deal.

I’ve been a terrible internet friend lately to the lovely @dreamwritesimagines. Sorry. I didn’t mean to pull a Houdini, you know? In my defense, it’s been one of the craziest years of my life, but now I’m BACK! For good! And I know I said that before, but now it’s FOR REAL.

Btw, thanks for always tagging me in your work, it truly means the world.

Anyway, I need to make up to you, so here’s a little surprise 😉 Instead of reading each and every chapter I haven’t read yet and writing my lovely comments on them – spamming your notes with me in the process – I wrote this little thing here.

To you, Dream, here are my long overdue thoughts on your recent incredible work.

To you, my followers and whoever else might be reading this, here are some incredible fic recommendations. You’re welcome.

Since this is partially a fic rec post, I’m gonna write about everything available on your Masterlist, Dream. You know my thoughts on most of these, but ah well. I’m on a roll.

Series I have already finished: (so you can skip it if you’re curious about the ones I haven’t talked about yet)

First, my all-time favorite series you have ever written, the phenomenal Bad Habit. I guess this started as a one-shot and it became so much more. This series has it ALL! Great characters, smart and funny dialogue, fantastic character development and plot twists that hit you out of nowhere.

Oh, and the Y/N here is basically my spirit animal.

Btw, I reread this series a few days ago, and I wanna know: where is my sequel? Where’s the Christmas themed one-shot? My little Zoe acting as Matt’s sidekick and falling in love with Peter Parker (I still remember this anon headcanon, yes, and I still ship it, yes). Gah, I love this series.

While we’re on the Ben Barnes train, let’s talk about Daddy Issues. It’s a Westworld fic that doesn’t take place in Westworld. And it is GREAT. Logan and Y/N are so cute and the ending was perfect. And I still want a one-shot of a proposal, thanks.

And before we get into the more angsty stuff, we gotta talk about Invisible. It’s the softest series ever. I know it’s on a long hiatus for now, but I still think about Y/N and Steve and the fact that I lowkey ship her with Billy. When you find the inspiration for this series again, I’ll be ready. Also, what the hell happened in Detroit?

Ah, Don’t You Love Me. Don’t I love this series. (Sorry, terrible joke. Don’t you love me?). One of the best character developments ever. Y/N here is so flawed and struggling with so many things. It just makes her so human and real. And her road to recovery was a joy to read. And Steve is Steve. The most perfect puppy of a man. And how could I forget my favorite villain in all your series? Trent is GREAT! I STAN A PERFECT ANTAGONIST!

And, finally, it’s time to talk about Faint of Heart. Another one where the character development we see Y/N go through is astounding. I love Queenie, my favorite Y/N ever. This series had the most perfect ending I could dream of. And not just Queenie, I mean, this series has the most amazing cast of characters, I love all of them! The ones from the show and the new original ones. Queenie, Bree and Eric are my babies. AND I WILL DEFEND THAT SOMBER LITTLE PASSAGE WITH MY LIFE OK? THAT IS MY FAVORITE PART IN THE SERIES, NOBODY TOUCHES THAT!

From this point forward, be aware that there WILL be spoilers for new readers.

Series I started, but you have no idea who I feel about the ending because I never told you and series I haven’t started yet: (again, my bad, sorry).

There is never enough Billy Russo, is there? So, Once a Year. The one I never finished. UNTIL NOW THAT IS! Two dysfunctional people falling in love, ah. Or realizing they’ve been in love all along. Billy and Skittles give me the creeps, but I also couldn’t help but ship them. As I recall, the last chapter I read was Chapter 9 and I had a LOT OF QUESTIONS. Like, what the hell is actually going on kind of questions. AND WHAT HAPPENED LAST YEAR kind of questions. Here are my final (and edited, because this post was already super long, so I had to do some compromises) thoughts on this series:

Chapter 10: My desire to kill Krista is alive and well, I see. Carter is still a puppy and I see myself in Karen, because I too want to see all the drama up close. Skittles and Billy “broke up” and I am SAD. And also curious as to WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?! Always questions, never answers;

Chapter 11: THEY KISSED, OMG, STOP EVERYTHING THIS IS SO GREAT, SO FINALLY, OMG, I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS FOR LIKE 84 YEARS, NOBODY TOUCH ME! THEN HE SAID HE WAITED OVER 10 YEARS FOR THIS, EXCUSE ME DREAM HOW DARE YOU? YES THIS IS HAPPENING IN A PUBLIC BATHROOM, DON’T STOP THEM NOW! (This five steps game is so cute btw, BUT WE DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS NOW)! HE BROKE UP WITH KRISTA? YAY! JSFOIAHFI IT’S HAPPENING;

Chapter 12: THEY ARE SO SOFT, I CAN’T- and now everything has gone to shit. Well, it was good while it lasted. Why can’t they just communicate? Tell him what is going on, Skittles. Why are you marrying Carter? AT LEAST TELL ME! Oh, wait. They’re communicating. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT! EXCUSE ME, WHAT THE FUCK? Bring me this Aldrich dude, I’ll kill him;

Chapter 13: This whole “second wedding” thing is cracking me up, I laugh every single time. Aldrich has some nerve showing up in the gallery. And I am reminded yet again of how much Skittles and Billy scare me hahaha it’s great;

Chapter 14: It really is one step forward and two steps back with those two, huh? I love my girl Karen! She ships it and her being confused about the situation is the funniest thing ever. And then she gives the best advice. Gotta love her. And now, back to the Skittles and Billy show… COME ON, MAN! Wait. IS SHE BREAKING UP WITH CARTER? Man, I’m so glad I don’t have to wait to find out, which brings us to…

Chapter 15: Oh, geez. I feel for Carter. Dream, set him up with Rose or something, I’m suddenly so sad. Carter is such a great guy. DAMN IT, BILLY! There are only two chapters of this left, how are you messing things up, man? Oh, wait. MERMAID! Oh, I just remembered that these two CREEP ME OUT. Jesus, Billy. That’s not romantic, man. Skittles and Billy need professional help, my GOD;

Chapter 16: Poor Carter. I’m not really a beach kind of person, but I’m glad Skittles and Billy are happy in a remote location. “BEYONCÉ TAUGHT ME BETTER”, THIS IS THE BEST QUOTE OF THIS SERIES, I’M DEAD! Awn, the gallery is so cute! I love it! OH NO! Rawlings. Of course you needed to give us on last plot twist, why am I surprised? EXCUSE ME, HOW DARE YOU? YOU WRITE AN EPILOGUE OR SOMETHING RIGHT THE FUCK NOW! OH MY GOD! WHAT THE FUCK.

I just...

Of the new series I haven’t started yet, how could I not begin with Crown of Hearts? After how much I loved Faint of Heart there is a sequel? GIMME! Let’s break this down chapter by chapter (again, I had to edit my comments, because they were just too long):

Chapter 1: OMG I’M SO EXCITED. Ah, Queenie’s childhood was so sad, I’m glad she won’t let the same happen to her children. EITR, THE BEST FALCON, I MISSED YOU! The domesticity between Ivar, Queenie and Ragnar, I can’t. It’s too cute. BJOR AND BREE! I missed them too! And Gala and Hvitty. Where’s Ubbe? And Torvi? Btw, I don’t trust any of these new people;

Chapter 2: “Baby shark”. I’m gonna laugh every time I see that. “BWE” OMG! I LOVE THAT! Oh, yes! Flashbacks! I love those. Ok, I’m warming up to this Osmond guy, but I still don’t know if I trust him. Threats everywhere, they really can’t catch a break, huh? STOP EVERYTHING, ERIC the love of my life IS HERE! I am so ready for more Eric content. Can he fall in love with that dog loving shieldmaiden of the headcanons now, please? WAIT, QUEENIE, DON’T LEAVE! I WANT MORE ERIC CONTENT! NO! ERIC, FOLLOW HER! That was cruel, Dream. Wow, those rumors about Queenie. People sure are creative in defeat (burn people from her home country, burn). QUEENIE IS A LEGEND PEOPLE, YOU TELL THIS RAYDON GUY;

Chapter 3: They are really talking about teaching poisons and swordfight to a baby? Of course they are. Oh, they’re waiting until he’s seven. That’s better. I hate Queenie’s mother. Such a vile woman. Ok, I like Osmond. Can we keep him? Make him fall in love with a Viking girl! Or boy! I see him falling in love with someone rather clumsy. I ship it already. “Who did Ivar kill?” AHAHAH I LOVE THEM. It will happen, guys. But oh well;

Chapter 4: I love them all ganging up to tease Hvitty. Poor guy, but still. It’s so entertaining. DAMN BREE, WAY TO GET ME EXCITED LIKE QUEENIE OVER NOTHING! I want this wedding, damnit! But, sure, go off on a raid instead, I guess. “THE BJOR INFLUENCE” AND “IT’S LIKE A CURSE” I’M SCREAMING AHAHHA. Ok, Bree, you convinced me. Go chase your freedom. Excuse me, but WHO THE FUCK TOOK BABY RAGNAR? I’LL END YOU;

Chapter 5: Bree is a godsend. Bless her heart. Taking care of Queenie during this mess. This entire situation is awful, btw. That was MEAN, Queenie! This fandom has raised you better! OH THEY FOUND HIM, THANK YOU! Queenie scares me sometimes, but I guess this time those guys had it coming;

Chapter 6: Queenie is gonna have to make up to Ivar, sorry I don’t make the rules. HVITTY CALLS GALA “MY HEART”, EXCUSE ME THIS IS TOO SWEET! DAMN, Hvitty. Tell us how you really feel. But, yes, I guess Queenie needed to hear that little comment about Edgard. Bree is so smart, I stan. Why are you being shady right after I decided I like you, Osmond? Please explain yourself.

I’m loving this. I missed this gang so much. The only thing lacking in Crown of Hearts is more Eric content. How dare you show him for like two seconds and then NEVER AGAIN? You’re torturing me here, Dream. But ah, I want to know more about what is going on in Kattegat. I don’t trust a whole bunch of people, but, well, can’t say I’m surprised about that. CAN’T WAIT TO READ MORE!

I literally squealed with glee when I saw that you were writing for Bucky. Untouchable is the one I was the most excited about reading. And the best part? I already have 7 chapters to binge! And I am obviously going to tell you my you guessed it, edited thoughts on them:

Chapter 1: I’m liking this setting! The 1940s, what a twist for most of Bucky fics out there, this is great. And Y/N is already so interesting! AH, HI BUCKY, I LOVE YOU! I love flustered Bucky. This feels like they are star-crossed lovers, separated by their “places” in “society” and I am HERE for it;

Chapter 2: OMG SHE’S IMAGINING BUCKY, YES! I already ship them so hard, I s2g. This Charles guy, I don’t like him. I bet he is a Hydra double agent. Who sent her the flowers? Does Y/N have a stalker? I’m worried. OMG, HI LITTLE TINY STEVE! The alley scene broke my heart, thanks;

Chapter 3: Wait. Bucky and Y/N are sneaking around? What happened? Did I skip a chapter? Did we skip time and I didn’t notice? Like, I’m glad and all, but still. AH, it was a dream. I see. Rude. And on that note, Shirley is rude too. Oh, not now, Charles! Go away! Y/N and Bucky were having a moment. Oh, there’s bad blood between Bucky and Charles, I see. Interesting. “If you knew half of the things he did, you would have nothing to do with him”. Bucky, darling, do you really think Y/N has a choice? Men are so obtuse, my god;

Chapter 4: “And sooner or later he would get mean, all of them did” I AM CRYING! This is terrible. Y/N must have had a very difficult life. And her current situation isn’t really any better. LITTLE TINY STEVE TO THE RESCUE! I stan. Steve also ships it, welcome aboard, buddy. And, Y/N is in denial. I would argue that a broth is never just a broth. Thanks for coming to my TED talk. I LIKE YOU THOMAS! He ships it too and he has no idea who is the other half of the ship. Bucky sees the real her, I can’t- “There’s nobody” and I am deceased;

Chapter 5: Daydreaming about Bucky Barnes? I sure can relate. NOPE, Linda! Don’t even think about it! And she thought about it. Argh. But who cares about that when we have Bucky and Y/N being their ADORABLE selves? Bucky, my sweet summer child, you are so fucked. You will be happy eventually, but Hydra, man. Brace yourself for the next 50 years. THE KISS! THIS MOMENT WAS SO SWEET! OMG, I’M DEAD! This was so perfect. So of course Y/N had to run away. Thanks. LINDA I’M GONNA KILL YOU! AND CHARLES IS NEXT! Y/N get OUT of there;

Chapter 6: I need to know. Are the bruises a regular thing with Charles or did she do something that made him angry? I feel like it’s the former. I don’t like it. WHY THE EVERLOVING FUCK DID YOU SIGN THE CONTRACT, Y/N? I hate you, Linda. And you, Charles. OH MY GOD, BUCKY IS THERE! He is the best person ever, so soft. Someone get me a Bucky. Omg, tell him, Y/N! Why don’t you people ever communicate? This is driving me crazy;

Chapter 7: Do NOT ruin this for us, Shirley! Don’t tell a single soul! Or else I’m putting you on my hit list. Y/N and Bucky are going on a date and I am SO excited. Hey, Ruth? Do NOT ruin this for us! Go away. “I want you to trust me first” and my soul has left the earthly realm for I am deceased. Again.

Ok, I’m loving this? I don’t want it to EVER end! Bucky is perfect, Y/N is so interesting and Shirley is also pretty great. I hope she does find true love eventually. But that General guy… I don’t trust him. At all. I’m also pretty sure he’s Hydra and things will get really ugly for both Bucky and Y/N. And given your recent history with Once a Year, I’m not really sure we’ll have a happy ending, so thanks for that. I obviously CAN’T WAIT TO READ MORE!

Now, Burn It Down has nothing to do with FoH and CoH, but it was influenced by The Last Kingdom? I’m sold. (Like I always am when it comes to your writing, as you’re probably aware, but oh well). I obviously read all three chapters and here are my thoughts (edited, as I’m sure you know by now):

Chapter 1: That was a creepy way to start a story. Like, first paragraph and I’m already kinda creeped out, thanks. Hmm, the animal heart bit? We’re not in Kansas anymore, I guess. But I’m intrigued. She doesn’t trust men what a mood, very smart of her. I like her. She’s creepy, but I like her. What happened in Ivar’s tent two nights ago? Ok, I’m intrigued;

Chapter 2: I’m liking Y/N’s and Ivar’s dynamic. It’s fun to see them getting acquainted with each other and figuring out how to deal with this little situation they have going on. Ok, but why is she helping Ivar? Like, yeah, their destinies are entwined or whatever, but he’s so rude. I’d tell him to go to hell, honestly. He’d have to earn my help;

Chapter 3: Well, Hvitty is obviously the brother that will be forgotten. Poor guy, but oh well. At least forgotten doesn’t mean he won’t have a good life. Now, the brother who “shall be the victor” is Ubbe and the “tragedy” one is Ivar, because of course. Also because I don’t accept anything bad happening to my sweet puppy Ubbe. But like, “victor” of what? This is so vague. This Y/N and Skittles would be good friends.

Ok, I’m intrigued! Not sure how I feel about Y/N yet, but I think she’ll be more like Skittles than Queenie. I’m ready for that! This fic has a different atmosphere than the ones I’m used to see in your writing, but I’m liking it so far. Obviously can’t wait to read more.

So, there you have it! Hope you liked it and I promise I won’t disappear on you again!

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stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale · 5 years

Text

with you [2/6]

Summary: Clementine pops the question.

Preview:

“Fine.”

Violet pulls her cleaver out and tosses it down the hallway.

“You wanna talk?” She shoves her door open, turning to glower at Clementine. “Let’s talk.”

She walks into the dorm room, straight to her desk. She takes her chair, turns it around, and sits facing Clementine, waiting.

Suddenly, she’s terrified. Not the kind of terrified like when there are walkers, or like the terror she feels when someone gets hurt or doesn’t come back on time. This is a terror of facing Violet with the possibility of saying the wrong thing and shattering that little piece of lost hope for their friendship.

This is her last chance.

Warnings: There’s a little passionate smooching but no actual sexual content. Willy doesn’t know how to knock. Mitch is a level 10 tsundere. Violet’s very angsty this time around. Angry arguments happen. This one is pretty long, too.

Author’s Note: Ha ha remember when I said this’ll only be a 2 part story?? Well, that was before I went an got an idea that added two completely new scenes and made this WAAAAY too long. However, I’ll be posting part 3 after I finish up the new scenes and edit. Might take me a while but this story has thrown me into hell already so I’m committed.

EDIT: ha ha remember when I said this’ll be 3 parts? I lied it’s 4 it’s 5 now.

---

Before breakfast, Clementine sneaks away to give the string back to Mitch.

When she finds him, he’s digging around in one of the hallway drawers, muttering curses to himself. He takes the string without a word and hurries back outside. Odd, she thinks, but sometimes Mitch is hard to figure out. So, she lets it go.

She needs to find AJ now.

Considering he didn’t come back to the room last night, she assumes he had a sleepover with Tenn last night.

Thank goodness, she thinks. Not only would he have walked in on something, well, intimate, but AJ has a hard time leaving Louis alone after one of his nightmares. Clementine’s warned him about being clingy, but all AJ says back is, “I just want him to be okay.”

Louis always insisted he’s fine, that the nightmares aren’t really that bad, that he barely remembers them. She knows he still tells AJ that to reassure him. He used to tell her the same thing, only she knows better.

She can still remember the first time she told him to stop lying to her.

“Louis, stop. Just… stop. Lying to me isn’t going to make it any better. You can’t carry this on your own and I can��t fully be here for you unless you’re completely honest with me.”

She’d never held someone whose entire body rocked and crumbled with so much regret, so much fear.

That was the first night they slept in the same bed.

He moved in two days later.

She can only hope that tonight will be better, that he can find peace in his dreams again.

Clementine leaves the school and steps out into the fresh morning air and inhales the intoxicating scent of dew ridden grass and dirt. She spots AJ at one of the tables, scarfing down his breakfast next to Louis, James and Tenn. Even from a distance she can see how tired Louis is, even if he’s smiling and laughing with the others.

“Clem!” Omar waves her over, holding up a plate. That’s when the scent of breakfast hits her, causing her stomach to growl. She’s about to hurry over there until she sees Violet loading up her bowl. Their eyes meet for a split second, and that’s enough to make Violet jerk around and head to the farthest table possible. Clementine watches her go as she approaches Omar.

“Good morning,” she greets him.

“It is, isn’t it? I’m glad there’s a little breeze today,” he says happily.

“Yeah,” she agrees. She crosses her arms and brings her voice to a whisper. “Hey… did she say anything to you?”

Omar gives a sad frown and shrugs a shoulder. “Just thanks. Nothing else.”

“Oh.”

“Hey, have you seen Mitch this morning? He hasn’t grabbed his food yet.”

“Oh, um, I haven’t,” she lies.

“He’s in the basement!” Willy exclaims from behind her, causing her to flinch. Somehow that boy manages to be both too loud and too quiet. He’s a good sneak, she’d give him that.

“Again?” Omar asks thoughtfully. “He’s been down there a lot this week.”

Ruby comes over to them now with anger knitted in her brow and her cheeks puffed red.

“Oh, he’s been banging around down there all mornin’! I went to fetch him fer breakfast and he hissed at me like some sorta rodent,” she scowls, “tellin’ me to fuck off, he’s busy! What’s he been doin’ down there that’s so important?”

“He’s making something super awesome!”

“Oh, God,” Ruby groans. “And what would that be?”

Willy shrugs with faux innocence before shooting Clementine a knowing smirk that makes her freeze.

“What’s he makin’?” Ruby asks more sternly.

“It’s a surprise!” Willy exclaims before pointing at himself, “And I’m helpin’ him with it.”

No, no fucking-

Clementine has to refrain from slapping her forehead. So much for keeping quiet.

“It best not be another cherry bomb ‘cause I will whip his-”

“It’s not! Honest! Don’t worry, you’ll see!” He smiles at Clementine again, baring all his crooked teeth. She glares back. That seems to straighten Willy out. He looks down at the dirt and says nothing else.

“Well, either way,” Omar hands Willy a plate, “take that to him. I don’t want to hear him complain he’s hungry when he finally comes outta there.”

“On it!” Willy almost spills the food when he takes off towards the basement doors.

“Willy!” Clementine calls after him. “Hold it!”

He stutters to a halt in front of the basement doors. When she gets closer, she can hear a repeated banging echoing from down the stairs. They both look around to make sure everyone else is out of earshot. Deeming it safe, she leans down and demands, “What did he tell you?”

Willy grins. “Said he needed my help fixing your wedding ring,” he loudly whispers. Clementine’s hand shoots out to cover his mouth.

“Shhh!” Clem glowers. “Who else has he told?”

“No one,” the boy answers honestly, shaking his head. “And I ain’t gonna tell anyone either, I swear.”

“Willy-”

“Really! I even promised Mitch!”

“Clem!” She hears AJ calling for her. She turns to wave at them, letting them know she’s coming.

Willy gives her a sincere smile. “Don’t worry, Clem, we got it all figured out. Just leave it to us.”

With that, he hurries into the basement, calling out for Mitch. She sees some of the food slosh over and fall on the stairs.

She can’t help but sigh.

At this rate, Louis’ll find out before she even has a proper ring.

Doing her best to ignore the nervous frustration spreading in her belly, Clementine grabs her breakfast and joins the others at the table.

Interestingly enough, she finds that they’re done with their food. Instead, papers and colored pencils are scattered all over the table. AJ and Louis hunch over their papers in full concentration mode. James is sketching all over his paper lightly, his eyes darting up constantly to look at AJ.

Just as she sits down, Louis sits back, flashes a big smile and holds up his picture. “Ta-da!” The other three boys stop and look up. They say nothing as they study the drawing. Clementine leans over to see as well.

“...What is it?” AJ asks.

“What is it?” Louis repeats, his confidence wavering. “What does it look like?”

“Like…” AJ squints, cocking his head to try and piece together what the drawing depicts. Finally, he settles on, “A bunny?”

Louis’ eyes go wide. “A bun- what?” he exclaims. He re-examines his picture. “It’s not a bunny! It’s Rosie!”

When Clementine gets a better look, she can tell that it’s… sort of like a dog. It’s the same color as Rosie, but the face is very… odd. And the ears are definitely too big.

AJ takes the picture from Louis and shakes his head. “No, not Rosie.”

“Everybody’s a critic,” Louis snatches the picture back and holds it up to her. “Clem, you can tell it’s Rosie, right?”

She blinks up at him before slowly shaking her head. She can’t help but grin a little at the distress on his face as he looks at his drawing.

“I think it kind of looks like her,” Tenn says.

Louis sulks, resting his chin in his palm and slouching over. “Thanks, Tenn.”

Clementine rubs his back and offers an encouraging smile. He grins back at her and steals a potato chunk off her plate, popping it into his mouth.

“Clem, look!” AJ hands her his drawing. It’s of him, her and Louis standing together with a large beach ball hanging in the air. “We’re playing catch!”

“Wow,” Clementine beams. “You’re really becoming a great artist.”

Louis leans against her shoulder to look. His face scrunches up in consideration. “Hmmmm,” he turns the picture upside down for a moment, then right-side up. He glances at the young boy with a smirk. “Looks great, little man. This’ll look awesome on your wall.”

Pleased with the compliment, AJ laughs. He takes his picture back and signs it. When he goes to grab a new paper, he asks, “What’re you drawing, James?”

“Huh? Oh, um,” James snaps his head up, his hand instinctively moving to cover his page, “I was just… well,” he gives a sheepish smile, “I haven’t had a chance to draw in a very long time, so, AJ, I hope you don’t mind but…”

When he holds up his paper, Clementine gasps.

The portrait of AJ on the paper looks so… real.

“Dude!” Louis exclaims, amazed.

“Hey!” AJ gasps. “That’s me!”

James puts the paper down and looks away. “I-I’m a little out of practice, you see. The proportions aren’t exactly right, and I always had a hard time with ears-”

“Dude, are you serious?” Louis laughs. “That looks just like him!”

Clementine can tell the portrait has left Tenn astonished. And a little insecure. He covers his picture with his arm and starts pressing his fingers together nervously.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” asks Louis, dumbfounded.

James smiles. “It’s what I used to do, before. Charlie and I… we both drew. He’s a lot better at it, though.” He picks his pencil back up, looking fondly at the portrait. “He could do amazing things. These huge scenes with so much life and so much character. Me,” he chuckles lightly, “I could only ever do people.” He looks at Louis with a comforting grin. “I’m terrible at doing animals, too.”

“Damn,” Louis breathes.

“You’re a real artist!” exclaims AJ. “Just like Tenn!”

Tenn stills, looking back at his picture and tucking it under his stack. James notices the young boy’s hesitation and looks to Clementine with questioning eyes. She returns his look with a smile and a small gesture towards Tenn.

“Um,” James awkwardly places a hand on Tenn’s shoulder, “I could show you. How I draw like this, I mean. If you want.”

“R-really?” Tenn stutters. He takes a glimpse at the portrait. “I could draw like that?”

“Of course,” James smiles, “anyone can.”

“Even Louis?” Clementine teases, pointing at his picture of Rose.

“Hey,” Louis takes the picture and holds it to his chest protectively, “I worked hard on this.”

“No doubt,” Clementine laughs. Then, she turns to Tenn. “Taking lessons from James could be a lot of fun, Tenn. What do you think?”

The young boy nods, still not entirely sure, but willing to try. “Yeah, I,” he turns to James, “I want to draw like that.”

“Me, too!” AJ butts in.

“Actually, AJ, I need your help with something today,” Clementine says.

“Me? Why?” AJ complains.

Clementine picks up her plate and stands from the table. “C’mon, kiddo. You can draw with Tenn and James afterward. It won’t take too long.”

“But, Clem,” he whines.

“What do you need help with?” Louis asks. “Maybe my services could be used instead?”

She grins at him but shakes her head. “Sorry, Lou, need AJ for this one.”

“But-” AJ tries again.

“Now,” she says firmly.

James offers AJ a comforting smile. “I’ll give you a personal lesson when you get back,” he says. “Promise.”

“Okay,” AJ sighs.

Just as AJ and Louis are going to stand, James says, “Actually, Louis? Can you stay?”

“Dude, don’t mean to undermine your talent, but I don’t think even you could teach me to draw like that,” Louis tries to laugh.

James shakes his head. “No, it’s not that. We need a model.”

“A model?”

“To draw,” he explains, “drawing from life is the best way to learn.” He gives Clem a knowing look. She’s relieved at how intuitive James can be.

“Modeling, hm?” Louis sits back down, puffing out his chest and adjusting his jacket. He flashes a big, bright smile. “How do you want me? Happy? How about sad, distraught? Seductive, perhaps?” Pursing his lips, Louis winks up at Clementine.

“Still, looking straight ahead, please,” says James.

“Right, gotcha.”

AJ sighs loudly.

She nudges him, eyes warning. Before they can turn to leave, Louis reaches out for her hand.

“Hold on,” he says, pulling her closer. She leans down and he plants a sweet kiss on her cheek. “Have fun,” he smiles.

She squeezes his hand. “You, too.”

James places two blank sheets of paper in front of him and Tenn and hands him a pencil. Tenn takes it eagerly.

As she and AJ walk away, she hears Louis say, “Make me look good, fellas!” and she can’t help but giggle, just a bit.

“Can’t we go on patrol later?” AJ asks.

“Trust me, kiddo, this can’t wait,” she says. “It’s pretty important.”

“Did something happen?”

“No,” she says. “Not yet.”

---

Rosie’s tail wags happily as she trots out through the gates. She doesn’t go far, always sticking close to them as they walk the perimeter. If she ever does wander too far all Clementine has to do is whistle and Rosie will rush right to her side.

“James is a really good artist,” says AJ, “even better than Tenn.”

“He’s had a lot more practice than Tenn has,” she replies. “With enough help, Tenn can be as good.”

“You think so? You think he can teach me to be that good?” AJ asks hopefully.

“He said he would, didn’t he?” she smiles at AJ’s excited face.

AJ continues to gush about James as they walk. Clementine remains mostly quiet, only answering when AJ expects her to. When he’s run out of things to say, they’ve already gone all the way around.

“No monsters,” AJ says firmly. “And nothing else.”

“Looks like we’re clear.”

“Yeah,” AJ nods. He starts for the gates. Clementine places a hand on his shoulder.

“Let’s walk around one more time,” she says.

“Why? It’s clear.”

“I know,” she nods. “But, I need to tell you something, remember?”

AJ frowns. “Is it bad?”

“No, not bad at all.”

“Oh.”

Clementine whistles for Rosie and they continue walking. She takes a deep breath and speaks the words she’s been repeating in her mind the entire walk.

“AJ, you remember the couple at the train station, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“And, you remember what Louis said about them? After you found that picture?”

“Their wedding picture,” AJ nods. “He said they were in love.”

“Right.”

“A kissing love.”

“Right,” she says again. AJ waits for her to continue, but now, she feels at a loss for words. She stops walking and scratches at the back of her neck. “AJ, you know that I love Louis, right?”

“‘Course you do. You guys kiss all the time,” AJ teases.

Clementine feels her cheeks flush. “Yeah, yeah, right,” she murmurs. She goes and sits on one of many bulging rocks thrown about and inhales deeply. Rosie sits by her feet, dropping the stick she held in her mouth.

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking,” she finally says, “about that day and about that walker couple. You may not fully understand it because it was before you were born but… I’m going to ask Louis to marry me.”

AJ doesn’t say anything, not immediately. She can tell from his puzzled eyes that hundreds of questions are forming in his head. He starts with, “What does that mean?”

“Well,” she starts, “it means that, if he says yes, he won’t be my boyfriend anymore. He’ll be my husband.”

Husband.

Let me introduce you to my husband, Louis.

“And you’ll be his, uh…” AJ thinks hard, trying to remember the word.

“I’ll be his wife.” Just saying it makes her feel strange. Not a bad strange, of course, but a… nervous strange.

“His wife.” AJ sits on this information, mulling it over. “And you’ll be married. So, things will be different?”

“Well, no, not really. We’ll have rings on- well, he’ll have a ring on, maybe. But, nothing drastic.”

“A ring?”

“Remember the walkers?” she asks. “At their wedding, they gave one another one to seal the deal, I guess. That’s what that picture was.”

Then, AJ gets excited. “Okay,” he says. “So, you guys’ll have a big party?”

“Maybe we will, but I have to ask him first,” she says. “Last week, when I went to look for James, we went back to the train station to take their rings. Couldn’t find the lady’s, but the man still had his on.”

“You’re gonna give it to Louis?”

“That’s the plan.”

AJ has a wide grin on his face. “This…” he draws out, “this is a big thing, isn’t it?”

“It kind of is,” she answers honestly, “at least, to me, it is.”

“Me, too,” AJ laughs. “I like this. We’re gonna throw a huge party! We haven’t done that in forever! We can pull out that, uh, that… music thing! And play games! And-”

“Woah, hold it,” she stops him. “I haven’t even thought of a way to ask him.”

“Well, go ask him now!”

“No, AJ.”

“Why not?”

“That’s not how it works.” She stands up and places a gentle hand on AJ’s shoulder. “I want to do this right. If I just asked him like it was any other question, then it really wouldn’t mean anything. There’d be no weight to it, no point. I want it to mean something. I want it to be special,” she looks back at the school, “in a world that’s so fucked up, that’s taken away so much from all of us, where any moment could be our last… I want him to know how much I love him. How much I want to be with him in... a different way. That’s why I went back and got that ring, and that’s why I’m not just going to ask, I’m going to propose.”

AJ’s mouth parts silently as he stares at her.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is,” she sighs, “I love him, and I want to give us something that we thought was lost forever. Does that make sense?”

AJ grabs her hand. “I… I think I get it.” Then, he wraps his arms around her waist, holding her tight.

Clementine hugs him back. “Good. So,” she giggles, “that brings me to what I really wanted to ask you.”

“What?”

“Do I have your blessing?”

“My blessing?”

“Are you okay with me asking Louis to marry me?”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay? I love you, and I love Louis, too. We’re family.”

Clementine’s throat tightens, and so does her grip on AJ. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”

---

Once they pass through the gates, AJ goes straight for James and Tenn. Louis is still sitting there, cracking jokes and trying his best not to move while the two boys draw. James points to various parts of Louis’ face before motioning to Tenn’s paper.

She figures she can safely leave AJ to catch up on art lessons with James. He promised her he wouldn’t breathe a word of this until she had everything all planned out.

She spends most of the day helping around the school, doing usual repairs to the gate and their walls. She helps Omar clean out the fire pit and gather fresh wood. When the sky finally turns a lovely mixture of pink and orange, she decides to go inside.

Louis is kneeling on AJ’s desk with a roll of duct tape hanging from his mouth when she walks in. There’s a stack of papers next to him. He’s taping up one of the portraits of himself on the wall.

“Ey!” He waves at her before spitting the tape out. “Look at these!” He hops off the desk and points at the one he just hung up. “That’s the one James drew. Charming, isn’t it?”

She’s startled at the amount of detail put into it. It’s a fully shaded-in head portrait of Louis that seemingly stares right at her. Even the little details, like his freckles and the scar on his chin, are noticeable.

“It’s way weirder than I thought it’d be,” he says, “having someone stare and dissect every part of your face. Did you know I have a very angular jawline?” He tilts his head up to prove his point. “And James said I have a nice eye shape,” he smirks.

“He did do you justice,” she says, still admiring the picture. “Very handsome.”

His chuckle comes out loud and anxious, clearly not having expected her to say that. “Hah, yeah, except,” then Louis pushes his jacket back to place his hands on his hips, “um, do you think my nose is big?”

“What?”

“James said I have a wide nose. He drew it bigger than it actually is, right?”

“You have a very cute nose.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

Clementine giggles. “Your nose is fine, Louis.”

He eyes the portrait, still uncertain. He brings his thumb and pointer finger up to measure the width of his nose. When he pulls his hand back, he becomes sullen.

Then he gasps as if he’s just remember something. “Oh, wait though, ready for this?” He searches through the pile before plucking the one he wants out. “This is the one Tenn drew.” He proudly holds it up.

She can’t say she’s not impressed. It’s nowhere near as proportional or advanced as James’, but Clementine can definitely see the charm within the lines. Definitely Tenn’s work.

“Wow,” Clementine smirks, nudging him. “I see it now. James is right, you do have a big nose.”

“Hey,” Louis reaches up and playfully pinches her nose, “big talk from little button nose over here.” Louis sticks Tenn’s portrait on the wall, next to James’. “There. We’re getting quite the art gallery.”

“One’s missing, though.” Clementine grabs Louis’ picture of Rosie off the desk and tapes it up.

“Seriously?” he asks sheepishly.

“Oh yeah. We’re never taking that one down.”

“Terrific.”

Louis continues to look through the rest of the drawings. He hums to himself lightly, a tune she recognizes but can’t place. He sticks more drawings on the wall; ones that AJ drew of him and Tenn, one he drew of Disco Broccoli.

He pauses when he comes across the one of AJ, Clementine and him. The one with the beachball. He smiles fondly at it before sticking it up there with the rest.

She sits on AJ’s bed, leaning against the frame. She closes her eyes and listens to his cheerful humming.

She’s come to realize that one of the many things she loves is the comfort she has when he’s around.

Like now. It’s a comfort she never thought she’d find again. Before the school, she and AJ never had time for comfortable peace. When it was just them, there was always that lurking feeling, that bitterness, that lingered in her thoughts. Now, she had a place they could call home.

Clementine can’t imagine where they would’ve ended up had she not crashed the car. They’d still be out in the world, scavenging every little bit they could to survive. They never would’ve met the people she now considered family.

She and Louis never would’ve met.

That’s a real shitty thing to think about.

She sneaks a glance at him, and thinks, he has no idea.

He’s staring at her.

She raises a brow. “What?”

He shrugs, his grin sorrowful.

“What?” she asks again.

“You.”

It’s like the weariness of their previous night has caught up to him, like something triggered a sinking reality that weighs him down. The shadows along his face from the setting light do nothing to hide the sadness betraying his eyes.

She slowly approaches him and reaches out to grabs his hand, tugging him closer to her. “Hey,” she murmurs.

“Hey.”

“You feeling any better?”

“Of course.”

“Really?” Clementine locks their fingers together. “It’s been a long time since you’ve had one that bad.”

He keeps his stare focused on their hands. “It wasn’t that bad.”

“Louis.”

“Clementine.”

She uses her free hand to tilt his chin up. “It was about that woman, wasn’t it?”

He says nothing, but she can see the answer clear in his eyes.

Yes, Clem, you know it was. It always is.

The first and only living person Louis ever personally killed, and it was purely accidental. It frustrates her that it still haunts him and that it’ll always haunt him. She knows. That kind of guilt, no matter how irrational, never stops.

“Dorian.”

“Hm?”

Louis closes his eyes and leans forward to press his forehead to hers.

“Her name was Dorian.”

“Lou…”

“I know.” He pulls back, squeezes his eyes shut and forces a smile. “I know.” His gaze falls on her nose. He pinches it again. “I don’t wanna talk about it right now. Is that okay?”

She smiles sincerely. “Yeah. Just… want to make sure you’re alright.”

“Well, I’m always better with you around, so...” He bites his lip, shakes his head and lets out a dry laugh. “You don’t have to worry about me so much, Clem. There are more important ways to spend your time.”

With a quirked brow, her eyes dart down to his mouth.

More important?

Well, she wouldn’t put it that way.

Without any hesitation, she kisses him. It’s a quick, soft, comforting peck that catches him off guard.

Another kiss to his lips, and then another. She holds onto the nape of his neck and moves to his chin, his cheek, placing soft, intimate kisses against his warm skin.

He looks at her with lidded eyes before his hands caress her cheeks.

He kisses her, eager for every press of her mouth. He doesn’t stop kissing her, even when she tightens her grip on his jacket and pulls him back with her. The desk hits her hip. He lifts her up onto the surface, almost knocking over her venus fly trap.

A pleased sigh escapes her lungs. She desperately moves to his jaw, down his neck. His breathing is quick, shallow. His pulse is as quick as hers.

“Clem! Clem!”

Louis yanks back, their lips parting quickly with a loud smack. She nearly topples over when he rips himself away as the bedroom door slams open and in barges Willy.

She’s disoriented, lightheaded, blinking rapidly and frantically searching for any sign of danger. All she finds is Louis, who’s now over at AJ’s desking humming incredibly loud, and Willy hurrying in with a triumphant smile.

“Clem, it’s read-!” The second he sees Louis, he stops and gasps. “Oh no!”

“Oh, look, darling!” Louis stops pretending to look at the pictures and glares at the young boy. “It’s Willy, the boy who doesn’t know how to knock! Nice of you to pop in unannounced!”

Willy’s face flushes a scarlet red as his gaze darts between the two.

Clementine slips down from the desk and tries to casually straighten out her jacket and adjust her hat with an unfazed face, even though she’s positive that her skin is blotchy with redness. However, it seems that even Willy got the sense of what was happening before he ran in.

“I’m sorry!” he blurts out. “I’ll knock next time! I swear!”

“Uh-huh,” Louis frowns. “Said that last time, didn’t you?”

Now she’s not sure who’s redder, her or Willy.

“Willy, what do you want?’ Clementine sighs. She composes herself and approaches the boy.

His eyes went to Louis before meeting hers. That’s all she needs.

“Is it Mitch?” she asks calmly.

Willy nods.

“Alright, I’ll be there in a minute. Go wait outside.”

Willy leaves without another word. Clementine holds back an annoyed sigh. The previous mood is completely gone now.

Louis gives a thoughtful frown. “I’m a little worried about him,” he says, “about Mitch, I mean. He’s been down in the basement every day for the past week. I went to check on him yesterday, down in the basement.”

Panic shoots through her stomach and into her heart.

Louis continues, “When I tried going down the stairs, he threw a shoe at me.”

“A shoe?”

“Yeah, he about hit me in my big nose!”

“Oh boy,” Clementine rolls her eyes. “Again with the nose thing?”

“I’ve accepted its abnormally monstrous size,” he says. “Anyway, I don’t know what he’s doing down there and I’m not sure I want to know. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone shout ‘no!’ and ‘out!’ that many times in a ten-second time frame. It was pretty terrifying.”

“Mitch is…” Clementine’s at a loss. While she’s thankful for Mitch’s ability to think on his feet so quickly, she wasn’t sure if she approved of the shoe method. “...Hard to understand sometimes.”

“Understatement of the night,” Louis grins. “So, why does he want to see you? Not to throw the other shoe, I hope.”

“He’s working on a project,” she says lamely. “He probably wants a second opinion on it.”

“A bomb project?”

“Yeah.”

“Better not let sweet Ruby know,” Louis says. “She’s still got a personal grudge towards Mitch’s bombs ever since that thing in the greenhouse, you know.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” she smirks. “ ‘A bomb? I will whip his ass!’”

Her Ruby impression gets a chuckle out of him. “Hope he knows a shoe’s not enough to stop her. If anything, that’s just provoking the beast.”

“He’ll have to learn that for himself,” she smiles. “Will you be okay?”

“Don’t worry about me, darling.” He grabs her hand and kisses her cheek. “I was gonna go tickle the ivories a little bit anyway. Maybe you can pop in when you’re done? Assuming Mitch doesn’t blow you up, of course.”

“Tuning the piano?” she asks with a grin.

“I’m thinking we try a real duet. You up for it?”

“Absolutely.”

She gives him a long kiss goodbye before she leaves. Her face still feels warm after all the excitement, and she’s still a little annoyed at the interruption, but if she’s right about what Willy was trying to imply, then she has to hurry. She can only hope that Mitch found a way to fix the ring.

The wait is starting to make her anxious.

---

Clementine yanks the basement doors open and a nauseating scent of vinegar knocks her in the face. “What the hell?” she gags.

“C’mon!” Willy grabs her arm and hurries down the stairs, dragging her with him. “Mitch! Clem’s here!”

Something heavy and metallic drops hard to the cement. “Shit!” Mitch curses. “Told you not to do that, Willy!”

“Sorry!”

She follows the young boy deeper into the basement and finds herself amazed at Mitch’s set up. The work desk is completely covered with drills, hammers, saws, files, batteries, a few of their solar panels and other machines she didn’t recognize. Flashlights are wired in the air pointing directly at the anvil Mitch sits in front of. There’s a chipped bowl filled with a clear liquid sitting on top.

“Finally,” Mitch says when he sees her. He stands from his stool and tosses a dirty rag away. Willy rushes to help him scoot the various tools aside so Mitch can reach something closest to the wall. It’s a small, brown box.

Clementine approaches the two boys, trying to hide her eagerness as she asks, “Well? Were you able to fix it?”

Mitch scratches at the back of his neck and turns away. “Not exactly,” he says, “It sorta snapped when I messed around with it.”

Her heart drops. “You broke it?”

Mitch whips around, holding up a hand. “Don’t cry about it,” he says quickly, “it was a shitty ring, anyway.” He grabs a small wrench from the table and swings it around on his finger nervously.

“Mitch,” she can’t help that her voice came out so miserably angry. “If you couldn’t fix it then you should’ve left it alone! What am I supposed to do now?”

“Woah, hey, don’t freak out, just listen,” he says. “I, uh, didn’t mean to break it. I started messing around with some stuff to try and melt it back together but there was no saving that thing. Kind of a piece of shit. So,” he looks away as he shoves the brown box towards her, “I did you one better.”

Willy’s practically vibrating with excitement next to them as he motions eagerly to the box. “Open it! Open it!”

Clementine takes the box and pulls the lid off. It takes her a moment to process what she’s seeing.

There’s a clean piece of fabric bunched up at the bottom, and within the folds rests two matching silver bands. Her head snaps up and her jaw drops. His shit-eating grin is enough of a confirmation that what she’s seeing is real.

“Oh my god!” she gasps. “Where did you get these?”

“Made ‘em,” Mitch says.

“What? You-” she blinks up at him in disbelief, “-you made these?”

“Super awesome, huh?” Willy laughs.

“It’s not a big deal. Oh, and the smell’ll wear off, too,” Mitch says, “had to polish ‘em with vinegar.”

Clementine carefully lifts the bigger of the two rings out of the box. “How- How did you-?”

“Quarters,” Mitch smirks. “Willy here keeps a pretty impressive coin collection.”

“We made a shit ton of them!” Willy reaches into his pocket and pulls out various different rings, most of them scratched up or disfigured in some way.

“It’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it,” Mitch shrugs. “Just gotta hammer them then drill out the middle, do some filing and hammer some more. Once I knew what I was doing, I used the measurement I took of your finger and made yours. Just needed Louis’ to complete the set. ”

Clementine runs her finger over the smooth surface, “Mitch, this is-” she stops when she notices something engraved on it. She blinks, but it’s still there scratches into the shiny surface.

C + L

“That part was Mitch’s idea,” Willy points at the tiny letters, “had to use a really sharp nail to get it that clear.”

“We’ve all seen the piano,” Mitch quickly explains, rolling his eyes, “figured it’d be a good finishing touch. No big deal.”

She puts the box on the workbench. Without any warning, she throws herself at Mitch, wrapping her arms around his now very tense body.

“Woah, hey, um-!” Mitch panics and sticks his arms out to avoid touching her.

“Mitch, you have no idea what this means to me.”

“Uh-!”

He turns to Willy, bewildered. The young boy begins to laugh as he points at Mitch’s panicked face.

Then, like the realization that they’re hugging finally hits him over the head, he jerks back. He nearly trips over his feet when he turns away back towards the work desk. He clears his throat.

“Said it’s not a big fucking deal, just,” he grumbles, fumbling with the wrench, “... consider it a wedding present, or whatever.”

Clementine can’t help but laugh at how weirdly cute it is that he’s embarrassed. She picks up the rings again to pull out the smaller one. It fits perfectly on her finger.

“I don’t know if I could ever thank you two enough for doing this.”

“Yeah, well, y’know,” Mitch nervously scratches his cheek, a rare smile betraying his lips, “whatever.”

”Mitch! Ya still down here!?” Ruby’s voice echoes from the top of the stairs. “Lou’s in the music room! Did’ja find the box of spare candles? We’re gonna need a lot to fill the whole place up!”

“Oh, shit-” Mitch hisses.

Clementine closes the small box and shoves it into her pocket before turning to face Ruby.

“Clementine!” she gasps. Now, it’s Clementine’s turn to receive a surprise hug when Ruby practically tackles her. “Oh, hon, I heard the news! Why didn’t ya tell me!? This is so excitin’!” Ruby pulls away to ask the boys, “Did’ja give ‘em to her yet?”

Clementine slowly turns to glare at the two boys.

Willy lowers his head in shame and Mitch fake coughs into his fist. Neither of them answers the question, nor do they dare look Clementine in the eye.

“Mitch-”

“Before you flip the fuck out,” Mitch starts, ”she’s the one who came in here demanding to know what we were doing! She tried to wack me with one of Omar’s wooden spoons!”

“Oh, no I didn’t! I said I would wack ya with one if ya didn’t explain yerself!” argues Ruby. “I thought ya were makin’ another bomb!”

“I haven’t messed with that shit for, like, weeks!”

And, suddenly, Clementine’s exhausted.

“Okay, stop!” She raises her voice above theirs. The basement’s quiet again. She takes a deep breath. “I’m not mad.”

“You sound mad,” says Willy.

“I’m not. You guys were going to find out about it anyway, though I can’t say I expected it to go down like this. Does anyone else know?”

“No,” says Ruby and Mitch.

“Uhm, well…” Willy nervously laughs.

“Dude,” Mitch frowns down at the young boy.

“I didn’t mean to! Aasim saw me going through my coin collection earlier! Then he started asking all these questions and it just came out!”

Great, she thinks. She’s not worried about it, though. Aasim is a lot of things, and a great secret keeper is one of them.

“Anyone else?” Clementine asks.

Willy shakes his head.

So, of the people in their group, AJ, James, Mitch, Willy, Ruby, and Aasim all know.

That just leaves Omar, Tenn, and…

And Violet.

She’s about to speak, but Ruby grabs her hand to admire the ring. “Wow, it’s even prettier on,” she gleams. “Gotta say, boys, ya did a real good job.”

“Well, yeah.”

“How’re ya gonna ask him? We were thinkin’ that you do it in the music room, of course, and we’ll help ya decorate it with candles and lanterns, make it real romantic.”

“Gross,” Mitch murmurs.

“Hush,” Ruby warns him. “Or, on the roof, under the pretty stars! Or, we can even decorate your bedroom! Whattya think? Omar can cook ya something special and, oh! I found some real pretty classical records fer ya to play!”

“We can make some cool fireworks, too!” Willy exclaims.

“Oh, no you won’t! No bombs, no fireworks!”

“Wow, Ruby,” Clementine’s astonished at the girl’s excitement. “You’ve put a lot of thought into this.”

“‘Course! I know I may be buttin’ in a little but I never thought I’d get to witness somethin’ like this after all that’s happened! I mean, ya don’t hafta take my suggestions! You can ask him any way you want! Just know that we’re all here to help! Oh, and the wedding!”

“Oh, God,” Mitch groans.

“We’re definitely plannin’ a wedding!”

“Geez, who’s really getting married here?” Mitch asks, irritated. “You or Clem?”

“Oh, can it! Why can’t you just be excited?”

“Excited about what? Does nothing for me.”

“Y’know, thinkin’ ‘bout someone else fer a change won’t kill ya!”

“Okay, please stop fighting!” Clementine interrupts them. “Look, let me get through the actual proposal before we start doing anything else.”

“Shit,” Ruby curses herself, “sorry, Clem. Guess I got a little excited.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Willy asks eagerly.

Clementine peers down at the ring on her finger, and says, “I think I’m going to do it tomorrow. In the evening. I like your idea, Ruby, about the candles in the music room.”

“Thought ya would,” Ruby grins. “We keep a bunch of ‘em down here. We’ll all help ya decorate, ‘cept keepin’ Louis outta there might be a task.”

“That’s easy,” Mitch says. “Send him hunting for the day, him and Aasim.”

“My goodness, there’s an idea,” says Ruby, “that way, Aasim can keep an eye on him and make sure he don’t wander back here unannounced.”

“James, too,” Clementine adds. “Just in case Louis doesn’t listen to Aasim, or they get in a tight spot.”

“Right!” Ruby claps her hands. “Oh, I’m gettin’ excited again!”

“I think you’re more excited than she is,” Mitch shakes his head.

“No,” Clementine smiles. “Believe me, I don’t think anyone’s as excited as I am.” She holds up her hand to admire her ring one last time before slipping it back in the box. “We just have to be careful now. Louis can’t know anything.”

They all turn to Willy, who hangs his head in shame once more.

“I said it was an accident.”

“I know,” Clementine sighs. “Maybe you should avoid him for now, Willy. Just in case. And, Mitch,” she turns to him, “don’t throw any more shoes at him.”

“Hey, you want him wandering down here? No, you don’t. Thought we established that. ‘Sides, the ring’s done. Nothing left for me to work on.”

“Right, but still, you can’t be acting suspicious. He’s already worried about you. That’s why he tried to come down here yesterday.”

“Pfft,” Mitch scowls. “Worried…”

“Well, while we know Lou’s in the music room, I’ll gather everyone and we can discuss the plan. Don’t worry, we’ll be discreet,” Ruby assures her. “Mitch, yer on candle and match duty. Willy, tomorrow mornin’ I want ya ta go out and pick as many pretty flowers as ya can.”

“Aw,” Willy pouts, “how come I got flower duty?”

“It’s either that or ya gotta help Omar cook. Yer choice.”

Willy doesn’t argue. Omar’s a genuinely nice guy, but he’s also brutally honest and a very particular cook. Willy wasn’t going to willingly put himself into that nightmare.

Soon, they have all the details worked out.

Aasim and James will take Louis far away to go hunting until evening, giving them a few hours to set up.

Ruby will work on setting up a little picnic area for them on the floor and figure out the music. Willy will go around with Tenn and AJ to pick enough flowers for a bouquet, as well as decorate an old vase to put them in. Omar will cook them something extra special, and Mitch will gather all the candles and place them in the safest places around the music room.

As for Clementine herself, she’ll help fix things up in the piano room, sure, but there’s something else she wants to try. Something that she’s been contemplating for the past week.

She hides the box in her jacket with a big, dumb grin stuck on her face. She still can’t believe that Mitch and Willy actually made her a matching set of wedding rings. She tries not to show it, but the very thought of both her and Louis wearing them makes her giddy.

But, there’s still an issue pressing in her mind.

“Ruby?” Clementine’s grin is replaced with a worrying frown. “Are… are you going to tell Violet?”

And, just like that, the room becomes tense.

“Violet?” asks Willy.

“Oh, well, shoot,” Ruby mutters, “didn’t even think of Vi.”

“Don’t fucking bother,” Mitch snaps. “She’s not gonna give a shit, and if she does, she’ll just ruin the whole thing.”

Ruby looks up at Mitch with distraught eyes. “We gotta tell her, Mitch. She’ll be left out-”

“Oh, don’t start with that bullshit. Why do you anyways try to include that bitch?”

“You bite yer tongue, right now!”

A sick feeling comes over her. Clementine can’t quite place what it actually is, but it always boils within her whenever the idea of talking to Violet strikes her.

Over the past two years, she’s tried talking to Violet. Not big things. Saying, “Hello,” or “How are you?” or “Are you okay?” And every single time, Violet doesn’t mutter a single word. All she gives is a glare and the view of her back as she walks away.

She’d told Louis once how much she missed Violet.

He had watched her suffer after losing Violet as a close friend. There were a few nights just after the delta that Clementine found herself crying, and he was there to hold her, to promise her that Violet would come around, she just needed time.

When Louis tried to fix things between her and Violet, it became apparent that he just cares too damn much.

She can still remember that night. He’d snuck into the darkness of the room. AJ was fast asleep.

Clementine can remember the rage filling her insides when she saw the bruise forming on his face and the tears slipping down his cheeks. She barely made it to the door before Louis grabbed her, begging her not to go after Violet, that she didn’t even know what happened. AJ woke up, and Louis lied about what was wrong. It was only when they were alone in the hallway that he told her what happened.

They’d gotten into an argument, Louis and Violet. An argument about her. Louis defended her and tried to understand Violet’s animosity but she refused to talk. She only cussed and shoved him away. He’d gotten too close, and like a reflex, she swung.

Violet didn’t come out of her room for two weeks after that. She spoke to no one but Tenn when he brought her food.

She didn’t come out until Louis spoke to her again.

And it all happened because of her…

“Don’t worry about it, Ruby,” Clementine speaks up. “I’ll tell her.”

“The fuck you will!” Mitch‘s brow furrows in fury and his fists curl.

“It’s not like she’ll try to stab me just for talking to her,” Clementine argues.

“Oh yeah? Just like how she didn’t try to stab you after the delta, right? For fuck's sake, had Louis not stepped in you would’ve had a nice big gash right between your eyes! She’s a fucking traitor, Clem!”

“Mitch!” Ruby gasps out. “Don’t talk so ugly! Maybe it’s time they finally sort this out-”

“Fuck that!”

Clementine straightens herself out and confidently stands up to Mitch. “I appreciate your concern, Mitch, but-”

“My concern?” Mitch glares. “What, my concern that I’ll have to dig your grave when that bitch snaps and puts a cleaver in you?”

“Mitch!”

“She wouldn’t really do that, right?” Willy says, eyes widening.

“No, she wouldn’t,” says Clementine. “And Ruby’s right. I’m tired of this. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life avoiding her. It’s time to end this. Maybe we won’t ever be friends again, but we can at least be on speaking terms."

“How can you say that? After everything she did? She’s not gonna give a shit. Fuck, if anything, she’ll sabotage your wedding!”

“Not when Louis is involved,” Clementine meets Mitch’s glare. “I’m going to talk to her whether you like it or not. She’s not going to hurt me, and she’s not going to do anything. She may hate me, but if she really does care about Louis, she won’t try and hurt him again.”

Mitch fumes with rage, his lips pressed into a hard, thin line. Willy cautiously grabs ahold of Mitch’s sleeve, worried about what he might do. Ruby steps up beside her and places a sympathetic hand on her shoulder.

“If it’s really what’cha wanna do, I can’t stop you,” she shoots Mitch a look, “and neither can he. Just... promise you’ll be careful?”

“Thank you, Ruby.”

“Fucking shit,” Mitch hisses under his breath before pointing at her. “You’re not going alone. I’ll go with you and make sure she doesn’t pull anything.”

“You don’t have to-”

“Yeah, I don’t have to do anything,” he frowns. “But, I’m gonna.”

Clementine softens a bit. She had to admit that having backup did make her feel a little bit better. While she was sure Violet wouldn’t try to physically hurt her, it didn’t hurt to be careful. Then again, she might be doubly pissed to see Mitch, as well. “And you won’t threaten her?”

“No promises.”

“Mitch.”

He stares, then lowers his head in defeat. “I won’t say nothin’ unless I gotta.” Then, he turns to Willy. “You okay to clean this place up yourself?”

“Yeah, no problem.” Willy smiles.

“Well, ehm, guess I’ll get Aasim and James and tell ‘em ‘bout the plan,” says Ruby. “Violet should be in her room. She usually turns in early when she doesn’t have watch.”

Clementine nods. The feeling’s back, twisting in her gut and accelerating her heart.

With that, they leave the basement.

---

Violet’s door is shut.

Clementine makes no move to knock.

Mitch is beside her, waiting.

Her arms feel heavy, weighed down with dread. She didn’t even know what to say. She ran through different scenarios in her head and they’re all a jumbled mess.

She hears a sigh. Mitch leans over and knocks on the door.

They wait.

He knocks again, this time harder.

Nothing.

“Shit,” Mitch mutters. “Either she’s not here, or she’s ignoring us.”

Neither option would surprise her.

“Maybe this isn’t a good idea,” she whispers to herself.

“I coulda told you that,” Mitch mumbles. He knocks again.

Footsteps turn her attention down the hall.

Violet stands alert, angry eyes focused in on the two of them and arms crossed. It’s enough to send any normal person to hightail it out of there, but not her. Clementine closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, telling herself to remain calm.

“Violet,” she says, though not with confidence.

“What the fuck do you two want?”

It’s like someone injected ice into her veins. “I-” Clementine clears her throat. Her voice feels so small, insignificant. She pushes all her feelings aside, just like how she used to. “We need to talk.”

Violet scoffs.

“It’s important, Vi-”

“Fuck. Off.”

Then, they’re close, face to face. Violet’s glare bores straight into her. Mitch pushes her back and stands in between them.

“Watch it,” he warns.

Clementine moves from behind Mitch and pleads, “Please, Violet. I just want to talk-”

“I don’t really give a shit what you want.”

“Can you just fucking chill?” snaps Mitch.

“Can you go fuck yourself?”

“You-!”

“Mitch! Knock it off!” Clementine exclaims. “You’re not helping.”

He backs off, but not much. He keeps his attention on Violet, watching the girl’s every move.

Clementine tries again. “It won’t take long. It’s about Louis.”

That catches her attention.

“Can we talk?” Clementine asks again, this time much softer. “Privately?”

“Before that, though,” Mitch holds out his hand. “Give it.”

Violet doesn’t move.

“I know you have it.”

The tension between the two as they scowl at each other is suffocating. Clementine reaches and pulls out the knife she always carries.

“Here,” she offers it to Mitch.

He doesn’t take his eyes off Violet, even when he takes the handle.

“I’m unarmed now,” Clementine says. “Please, Vi…”

She breaks her gaze away from Mitch to look at the floor.

“Fine.”

Violet pulls her cleaver out and tosses it down the hallway.

“You wanna talk?” She shoves her door open, turning to glower at Clementine. “Let’s talk.”

She walks into the dorm room, straight to her desk. She takes her chair, turns it around, and sits facing Clementine, waiting.

This is her last chance.

Mitch gives her a firm nod. “I’ll be right out here.” She knows he says it more to Violet than to her.

Clementine closes the door behind her.

They’re alone.

Fuck.

Where did she even begin?

She can’t bring herself to look at Violet, so she does a quick glance over of the room. It’s similar to hers, but with only one bed and nothing to decorate the walls. It’s empty.

“Well?” Violet asks.

Clementine digs deep inside herself. She decides that she has to be as honest as possible, otherwise this whole thing could backfire.

“It’s been two years,” she starts. “Two years without really talking to you. I know that you still hate me, and I know that I’ll probably never be able to change that, but I just don’t understand why.” She waits for a reaction but gets none. “I don’t want to fight with or avoid you anymore. I- ...I really miss you, Vi.”

“You are un-fucking-believable.”

Clementine bites the inside of her cheek. Breathe in, breathe out. She tries to ignore the absolute loathing that vibrates from the other girl, and she recalls that last time someone looked at her like that.

Why… that had to be when Sarita died.

“Is that really all you have to say?” Violet asks. “You miss me? Fucking really?”

“We used to be friends before everything happened. Remember my first night here?” Clementine asks. “When you came in looking for that pencil box and we talked? And the card game and-”

“I remember,” Violet interrupts, “I remember being grateful to have another girl around to talk to. You said I kicked walker ass. You were so nice, and you listened to everything I had to say.”

She looks down to the wooden floors.

“I also remember AJ shooting Marlon. I remember everyone turning against you, ready to throw you both out right then and there. I also remember stopping them. I stood between you and a group of kids ready to tear you apart with nothing but my meat cleaver.”

Violet leans forward with her burning gaze.

“You know what else I remember? I remember voting for you to stay. I remember telling them that it was bullshit that you had to leave. I remember leaving you out there in the woods and then seeing that boot on your neck and shooting my bow to save your life. I was at your side the entire time, being the only one to defend you, to listen to you! I let you back into our school! But, do you know what I remember the most?”

“Vi-”

“I remember when the raiders finally got here and the bomb went off. I saw you fall off the balcony and I saw Lilly point her fucking gun right at you. And I stopped her. I tackled her to the ground.”

Violet stands.

“I saved your life.”

Clementine remains still, even as Violet advances towards her, slowly, one step at a time.

“And I remember looking for you. Seeing you.”

They’re barely a footstep apart now.

“And you just let them take me.”

“That’s not what happened!” Clementine protests.

“Then, what did happen, Clem? Why didn’t you save me?” Violet spits. “Because I have a pretty good idea.”

“What? Vi, I told you, I- I didn’t have enough time or a clear shot-”

“Bullshit,” Violet says. “Tell me the truth.”

Clementine searches the fury held in Violet’s eyes and finds she can’t speak. She opens her mouth, stuttering.

Violet leans close, whispering.

“You chose him.”

The words hang in the air between them.

“You chose him,” she repeats. “He wanted you gone. He wanted to leave you out there in those woods to die. He wanted nothing to do with you or AJ. And you still chose him.”

“Vi, that’s not-”

“Shut up!” Violet snaps. “I was there for you, not him! And you still saved him! Why? Because he batted his eyes at you and said sorry?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about-”

“The fuck I don’t! You two barely said a word to each other the whole time we prepped-!”

“That’s not true-!”

“-and then we play some stupid card game and you’re suddenly putty in his hands? Suddenly you have feelings for him? You decide to play that stupid piano with him instead of preparing for our fucking doom? Like fucking around with him was more important than our lives?”

“That’s not how it went down and you know it!”

Violet lets out an angry groan, turning around and kicking at her bed frame. “Just admit it, Clem, you left me to rot so that you and Louis could live to kiss another day!”

“Don’t twist it around like that!” Clementine glares. “I couldn’t let them take him-”

“Oh, but you were happy to let them take me?”

“No! I saved him but that doesn’t mean I didn’t try to save you or anyone else!”

“Bullshit!”

“Raiders were everywhere and then the walkers came in! I did the best I could to try and protect as many of us as possible!”

“Well, you did a shit job.”

Clementine’s nails bite into her palm as her fists tighten. Her heart is hard in her chest, it’s beat vibrating her entire body. “I’m sorry that they got you, Vi, I am. I always will be, but there wasn’t anything I could do except plan to save you. We all risked our lives to go back for you!”

“You should’ve just left us-”

“How can you say that? You’re here, alive and at home because of what we did!”

“So? You have no fucking idea what it was like on that ship, Clem. What they did to us.” Violet turns back to face her. “What they did to Minnie. They threatened us with inhumane things like it was nothing- Like we were nothing! Just dogs ready to be mutilated and thrown out if we didn’t sit down and roll over!”

“Then how can you say that I should’ve left you?”

“Because at least I would’ve had Minnie-”

“Violet, you were there when she admitted to killing Sophie! You were there when they tried to cut Louis’ hand off! When they took AJ away! They threatened you! And you still tried to stop me from breaking out! We’d all be dead if I hadn’t done anything and you know it! That wasn’t the Minerva you knew! How could you-”

“Do you know what it’s like to lose someone twice? Someone you loved more than you could ever love yourself? No, you don’t! Minnie never would’ve let them hurt me! She protected me, told me how to be safe while I was locked up! All you ever did was abandon me when I gave you so much. I never would’ve left you.”

“If that’s the case, then put yourself in my position!” Clementine roughly pokes Violet in the chest. “If it’d been you with the bow, and you had to try and save both me and Minerva, what would you have done?”

For the first time in several minutes, the room’s quiet.

Clementine steps back to steady herself. “You already know your answer. You would’ve tried to save us both but you also know that you would’ve tried to save her first.”

“It’s different- I loved Minnie-”

“I loved Louis-”

“You barely knew him!”

“I barely knew you!”

“It’s not the same thing, Clem! You may love him now but you didn’t love him then, so don’t even try and pull that shit with me!”

Violet turns her back to her, still shaking with resent.

Clementine’s throat is sore, and her chest aches. Frustration wets her eyes. Her head, filled with so many thoughts and so many emotions, feels ready to cave in under the pressure of the room.

“...What do you want me to say?” Clementine whispers.

Violet shakes her head. “There’s nothing you can say. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change that I thought you cared about me more than you really did.”

“I did- I do care about you, Vi. Why do you think I’m here?”

“Because Louis sent you.”

“No, he didn’t.”

Violet scoffs.

“He didn’t,” Clementine reassures. “I’m here because I want to be. I meant what I said, Vi. I miss you, and I want us to be friends again. I know that’s asking for too much, that you will never forgive me for what I did. But, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Violet. I hate that I can’t just talk to you like I could before. I hate that we can’t play stupid card games together with Louis. I hate seeing you hide away from everyone. We all miss you.”

Violet faces her again with an unreadable expression.

“Okay, Clem,” she says slowly. “Say I forgive. Say we work this out and become friends again. We’ll play our stupid card games and have a grand ol’ time.” Violet shrugs her shoulders, weakly motioning to her. “Everything’s all sunshine and rainbows. But, what happens when a new set of raiders come knocking on our doors?” She brushes her bangs out of her face, holding her hand against her head. “What happens when they break in again and I need your help?”

“That’s not going to happen-”

“No? It’s not?” Violet gives a dry laugh. “Let me tell you what’ll happen, Clem. I’ll look for you, and all I will see is your back when you run to Louis’ side.”

Clementine closes her eyes and lowers her head.

“You’ve made your choice,” says Violet. “And I won’t be hurt again because of it.”

She moves to the window, peering out. Clementine watches her with nothing to say. What can she say? That none of it is true? Keep denying it so they stay in this constant loop of arguments.

“Most days, I hate him, too.”

“What?” Clementine asks.

“Did he ever tell you what happened? After you knocked Minnie out?” Violet peers over her shoulder at her.

“Just that he and Aasim helped you out.”

Violet turns back to the window and runs her finger over the glass, smudging it.

“Louis had to carry me out. I kicked, punched, screamed, scratched, bit… anything I could to get him to put me down. Got him right in the chin a couple times, made him bleed. And he just wouldn’t let me go. He dragged me out of there… and we just left Minnie lying there.” She presses her forehead against the cool glass.

Clementine knew that they’d left Minerva there. Louis had confessed it to her one night after one of his nightmares. He had cried about it until he physically couldn’t anymore.

Even though Louis hated her in those last moments, hated what Minerva had become, he still occasionally wept for the girl he used to know.

“Know what he told me? After we got back?”

Clementine almost doesn’t hear her she’s so quiet.

Violet smiles, actually smiles. “He said he loved me. Called me family.”

Clementine’s lip curls, just a bit, into what could be a smile, as well.

Until Violet says, “I hate that he loves you.”

“...What?”

“It drives me insane, the fact that you love each other. He thinks the world of you, y’know. He never talks about you when he’s with me, but I can just see it on that stupid face of his. He fucking adores you. You and AJ.” She goes quiet. “You’re his family now.”

“He still loves you, Violet.”

“I know,” she murmurs. “He tells me all the time.”

“So, why do you hate him? Because of Minerva?”

Violet shakes her head.

“Honestly?”

Clementine risks taking a few steps closer.

“Because now I’m no one’s first choice,” she whispers. “He’d pick you first, always. He proved that after we escaped… after I attacked you. He didn’t even hesitate.”

After the delta ship completely sank and they all regrouped, Violet had lunged at her, knocked her to ground. But, she didn’t stand a chance, not with everyone there. Not even with the knife she’d stolen off of Clementine.

But, it was Louis that stepped in front of her, shielded her from the distraught girl she once called a friend. He was ready to wrestle the knife away from her if words didn’t work.

Thankfully, it never came to that.

“I’ll always be taken.” Violet’s voice cracks.

It takes the tears spilling over to make Clementine realize she’s actually crying. Her first instinct is to reach out and grab her, but then Violet turns and glares at her again.

“Violet-”

“You got what you wanted. We talked. I don’t think there’s anything else left to say.”

That’s far from the truth. There’s still so, so much more.

I wish I could take your pain away.

I wish I could have saved you, too.

Louis loves you. Tenn loves you. I love you. We all love you.

We miss you.

You don’t have to be scared.

You don’t have to be alone.

And, of course, the whole reason for this.

Violet, I’m asking Louis to marry me tomorrow.

But, she doesn’t say any of those things.

Instead, she wipes tears off her cheeks.

“I’ll never let anyone take you again, Vi,” she musters up all her confidence. “We’re family.”

“...You need to leave.” Violet turns her back to her one final time. “We’re done.”

She doesn’t want to.

She hesitates, waiting for Violet to change her mind.

And when she doesn’t, she leaves.

Mitch is there, right next to the door with a sullen expression. There’s no doubt in her mind that he heard nearly every word spoken between them.

The door closes with a soft click.

His hand touches her shoulder gently.

“You okay?”

She shakes her head.

“It’s late,” she says. “I- ...I need to find Louis.”

Mitch nods. With a comforting hand on her shoulder, the two head down the hall.

They stop when there’s an anguished scream and the sound of broken glass.

Clementine whips around and dashes for Violet’s room.

The door flings open and Violet runs out. She goes the opposite direction, turning the corner and out of sight.

“Violet!” Clementine calls.

Mitch stops her from going after her.

“She’s probably going to Tenn’s room,” he says. “Best not to get in her way.”

Shit.

She feels Mitch watching her. She rubs at her tired eyes and pushes all the air out of her lungs in a heavy sigh. She looks over into Violet’s room. The cause of the breaking glass sound is evident on the floor. From here, she can see it’s a framed photo of Violet, Minerva, and Sophie.

“Look,” Mitch says, “I’ll follow her and make sure she gets to Tenn fine, okay?”

She glances up at him and tries to smile. “Thank you.”

He pats her shoulder one last time before going down the hall.

Now, she’s alone in the middle of the hallway with a lump in her throat and an overwhelming desire to be in Louis’ arms.

---

“Oh, there you are!” Clementine finds him back in their room.

“I was starting to get worried when you didn’t show up to tune the piano. I thought Mitch really did blow you up this time.”

His laugh is warm and contagious.

“I got caught up…” she says.

“Right, well, I was about to leave to go find you and-”

Now that he’s closer, it’s no doubt that he can see the redness ringing her eyes or the stains on her cheeks. She turns away from him, slipping her jacket off and putting it over the back of her chair.

“Clementine?”

His warm hand grabs hers tenderly. The lump is back. Her chin quivers.

“Hey,” he pulls her to look at him and seeing his sincere, beautiful face breaks something inside her. She buries herself in his chest and holds onto him for dear life. She’s immediately enveloped in his warmth.

Violet’s words echo and repeat in her mind. The guilt, the sorrow, it makes her knees weak. She crumbles.

Louis is there to hold her up.

He rubs her back, kisses her forehead, her cheeks. His thumb brushes away any loose tears. He murmurs reassurances in her ear.

They end up in bed, wrapped around each other comfortably with an old CD player resting on Louis’ hip. They share a pair of old, dingy headphones. Classical, soothing piano hums in her ear.

It’s their favorite CD.

Sometimes, Louis’ nightmares get so bad that the music is the only to bring him back. Sometimes, when it’s been a particularly stressful day, or when the exhaustion catches up with them, they lie in bed and listen. They enjoy the comfort of each other’s touch, of each others breathing and beating hearts.

He traces the letters of her name on the back of her hand.

She plants a tender kiss on his chin, right where his scar is.

“I talked to Violet,” she murmurs against his skin.

His hand stills.

She doesn’t say any more. He doesn’t need her to. He pulls her closer, pressing her free ear against his chest. His heart thumps calmly as if in beat with the calm piano.

She tries to put Violet and her words, her face, out of her mind. She thinks about how filled with glee AJ was when she told him the news. She pictures her and AJ standing side by side with their arms hooked together, ready to walk. It brings a small smile to her lips.

She thinks about the rings tucked safely away in her pant pockets. She tries picturing the ring on Louis’ finger. That makes her smile grow.

She considers pulling them out now. She could do it. She could propose now, and they could celebrate the night away.

But, she won't. Not when she has something even better planned.

She glances up at him. His eyes have fluttered shut. A grin remains on his lips.

Tomorrow is so close.

“Louis?” She whispers.

“Clementine?”

“I love you.”

He doesn’t hesitate.

“I love you, too.”