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marvelyningreen · 3 years

Text

Andante

[Peter Maximoff x reader (X-Men: Apocalypse)

Summary: When an injury brings Peter’s superhuman speed to a screeching halt, you figure he could use some company and cheering up.

Warnings: mild language

Notes: could be interpreted as romantic or platonic, if that’s more your speed]

You hurry in from the rain, pausing just long enough to shake off your umbrella on the doorstep before closing the door behind you. You take a moment to wipe your shoes on the mat in an attempt to keep them from squeaking in the tiled halls of the mansion.

The floorplan of this rebuilt version is practically identical to the original. The design and decor are much the same, too. Still… You feel a bit like a stranger, or maybe the mansion itself does.

With everything else that’d happened, you hadn’t really had a chance to process your own experience that day. One second, you were trimming the hedges by the mansion’s front steps. The next, you were a hundred yards away, surrounded by the students and staff, and the mansion was exploding, and suddenly there in your midst was your childhood best friend – Peter Maximoff, all grown up.

It’s funny how someone you knew for such a short time could’ve made such an impact on you. Really, you and Peter only knew each other for two years. It baffled the teachers how a quiet goody-two-shoes like you could be thick as thieves with resident mischief-maker Peter Maximoff, but you were practically inseparable. Perhaps it was partly due to some truth in the old saying about opposites attracting. But there was more to it than that. You and Peter shared a secret.

Your sporadic telekinesis had nothing on Peter’s incredible speed, but he never seemed to mind. You were both just so happy to finally have someone who understood, who you didn’t have to hide from. Those two years were some of the best of your life.

And years passed, and you grew up. You kept your abilities hidden, but you kept the memory of Peter with you. You’d think of him often, hoping that he was doing well, wherever he was. You never expected to see him again.

Lost in thought, Hank hurries around a corner and nearly bowls you over. You both apologize to each other, laughing, and continue on your respective ways.

It feels strange being back here after… Well, after everything. Everyone is doing their best to settle back into a routine, but it isn’t quite working yet. Maybe it won’t ever feel the same.

The students either converse too loudly or are oddly subdued, with very little in between. Scott Summers’ group of close friends is never far from his side, and the faculty likewise seem to hover around the professor. It’s difficult not to dwell on how bad things had gotten, and how much worse everything could’ve been.

And if it’s difficult for you, you can only imagine how it must be for the person you’re here to see. You pause to knock politely at his door, and the voice that answers sounds oddly terse.

“You can come in.”

You slip into the room to find Peter scowling morosely out the window. He’s still laid up in bed, his broken leg in a cast and propped up on a pillow. He’s got a wicked case of bedhead, and there are dark rings under his eyes. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him look so tired.

There’s an odd sound you can’t quite place – like the low hum of a fan or the purring of a cat – and you realize that it’s just Peter drumming his fingers restlessly on his nightstand at impossible speeds. He turns his head, and when he sees that it’s you walking through the door, his expression shifts into one of relief.

“Oh, thank God,” he says, “I thought it was somebody coming to make sure I’m still “resting.” C’mere! Have a seat!”

You grab a nearby chair and drag it closer to his bedside. You hate to see Peter cooped up and frustrated like this, but it’s good to see him, period. You don’t like to think about what could’ve happened to him in Cairo.

When you look back up at Peter, his hair is smoothed down neatly. You snort involuntarily. If he's feeling well enough to be vain, it must be a good sign.

“How are you holding up?” you ask.

Peter slumps against his stack of pillows and groans dramatically, letting his head fall back.

“I’m bored out of my mind. Do you know that they’re not letting me walk for a week? A whole week! Something about a risk of my leg not healing right if I move too fast on it. I said I’d walk like a normal person, but they apparently don’t trust me. Can you believe that? Don’t answer that. So I asked them just to drug me, knock me out for the rest of the week so I can get it over with, but they won’t do that either. This blows.”

It’s hard not to smile, but it’s just so good to hear his voice. And, damn, people say you talk too fast. You’d forgotten that Peter was the true motor-mouth. Maybe he’s where you picked it up from. Though he still looks annoyed, Peter seems a little more relaxed after all that. Apparently he needed someone to vent to.

He rolls his head to one side to look at you, and his brows furrow. “Hey, are you okay? You look tired.”

“I look tired?” you say, “Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

“I haven’t, actually, because the mirror’s all the way over there, and I’m stuck in bed. You wouldn’t guess that having to sit alone with your own thoughts would wear you out, but apparently it does.”

You’d had a feeling that the broken leg isn’t all that’s weighing on his mind. There’s still the whole Magneto business.

You almost ask him about it, but you think better of it. Peter’s got a lot to mull over on that front. If he wants to talk about it, you’ll be there to listen, but you don’t want to bring it up when he doesn’t have any way to exit the conversation if he needed to. You decide to change the topic slightly.

“Listen,” you say, “I never got a chance to thank you. You saved my life. You saved so many people. I don’t know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t turned up at the mansion when you did.”

Peter ducks his head a bit as he smiles, probably pleased to get a little recognition. There hadn’t been much time for gratitude in the moment. There hadn’t been much time for anything, really. And there certainly hadn’t been time to reconnect.

You’d chased after Scott and his friends into the wreckage, trying to make sure none of them got hurt, and then things went from bad to worse. Suddenly, you found yourself tagging along with these immensely powerful teenagers on a fly-by-night rescue mission. It’s a good thing you did, too. Who else was gonna fly that getaway plane?

Your own mutant abilities had never been particularly strong, not in a combat sense. You’d learned to be a pilot in an effort to make yourself useful. You just hadn’t expected it to pay off in a situation like that.

“What can I say? Right time, right place… Right speed.” Peter’s grin turns rueful as he glances down at his busted leg. “I mean, by all rights, I should be thanking you, too.”

You’d been trying not to dwell on that whole experience. It makes you feel a little sick to remember seeing that familiar silver streak darting around while Apocalypse was tossed in the air like a ragdoll, and then feeling the hope choked out of you as you heard Peter scream in pain.

You don’t know how you managed to scramble down out of that second story ruin after Hank and Scott without hurting yourself any worse, but you did. You tried to shake it from your mind – the feeling of shrapnel and energy battering the telekinetic field you’d struggled to maintain around Peter and Mystique.

You clear your throat, as though that’ll somehow clear out the memory as well. “Yeah… I guess sometimes you don’t know what you’re capable of until it’s literally do-or-die.”

“I don’t just mean Cairo.” Peter shakes his head. “Well, that, too. But I don’t just mean that. I mean when we were kids. You always had my back.”

Just before middle school, Peter’s family had moved away. You weren’t quite sure why, but it seemed like something had happened and Peter wouldn’t talk about it. He spent his entire last week in town with you, and on the very last day he hugged you tightly and promised that he’d come back and visit if he could.

You never heard from him again.

It was only years later that you’d put the pieces together – the Maximoffs’ sudden move, the well-dressed men turning up at the school and asking strange questions. Peter must’ve gotten caught using his powers, and his mother packed up the whole family and fled to protect him.

“For weeks, months after we moved away, Mom was so scared. She wouldn’t let me out of the house. She thought that, any second, somebody was gonna show up and… I dunno, take me away, I guess. But I wasn’t worried. I was a cocky little shit, y’know?”

You snort. “‘Was?’ Pretty sure that part of your personality hasn’t changed.”

Peter laughs, but it fades quickly.

“I heard that people came to our old school looking for me. And, hey, they never found me and Mom, so I figured you must’ve covered for me.”

If there was one thing you were grateful to your younger self for, it was your instinctive distrust of these suspicious strangers.

“I didn’t tell them anything,” you say, and Peter nods.

“I knew you wouldn’t. But this one day, something hit me. What if they found out that you were a mutant, too?” Peter shakes his head, biting his lip. “I was terrified. I thought they were gonna find you, and… and I don’t know what I thought they’d do to you.”

You feel cold all of a sudden. That thought hadn’t occurred to you. You’d been so focused on trying to keep Peter safe that you never once considered that you might be in danger, yourself. All those news articles about what Bolivar Trask had been up to ten years ago come flooding into your mind. You brush them aside and focus on what Peter’s saying now.

“I wanted to run back there, make sure you were alright; maybe – I don’t know – take you with me and run away so we’d both be safe. I actually bought one of those AM radios, if you can believe it. Every night, I’d use the skip to listen to the news back there. I never heard anything about you, so I had to make myself believe it meant that you were okay. Otherwise I would’ve gone crazy, y’know?”

He laughs again, but it sounds a little shaky.

“Yeah, I know,” you say quietly. The air in the room feels sorta heavy now. Damn it, you’d come here to cheer Peter up, and it’s about time you get to it. You change topics with all the grace of a sledgehammer. “Speaking of none of this, I brought you something.”

Peter immediately perks up. You rummage in your backpack and pull out a box of Nutty Buddy bars.

“I remember these where your favorite when we were kids. I didn’t know if you still liked them, so I brought some Star Crunch, too. But you don’t have to-”

Peter seems to blur for a moment, and suddenly both boxes are torn open and several wrappers are arcing their way into the trash can. Peter lets out a satisfied sigh. You might’ve remembered his favorites, but you’d forgotten his habit of absolutely inhaling them.

“Okay, I guess I shouldn’t have worried,” you say.

“What else you got in that bag?” Peter asks. “It can’t all be snack cakes. Unless it is…?”

He’s joking, but you can tell he wouldn’t be disappointed if the answer was yes. You heft your heavily-loaded backpack onto the edge of the bed.

“I figured you’d be bored, so I brought some books over in case you… What?”

Peter never had a great poker face. You can tell that he’s definitely trying to smile, but that expression is a pained grimace. He laughs ruefully.

“I might not be able to walk, but my hands still work. And my eyes. Did you know I can read a whole bookshelf in two hours?”

“Oh…”

You hadn’t thought of that. You look down, crestfallen. Of course, if something can be done at speed, that’s how Peter will do it. So that rules out all the other usual time-killers – crosswords or jigsaw puzzles or craft projects.

But you remember Peter enjoying some things that can’t be sped through – live music being the main one. You start to wonder about the logistics of sneaking Peter out to take him to a concert or a play or something, but that’d be difficult to pull off without the professor catching you. Hmm…

Peter’s brow furrows for a second, and then his expression brightens.

“Hey, why don’t you read them to me?”

You blink in surprise. “What, me?”

“Yeah, you. Who else?”

At this prospect, you’re suddenly rethinking everything. For all Peter might call himself a loser, you’d always seen him as infinitely cooler than yourself.

“I don’t know. These are some of my own books, and I don’t know if you’ll actually like any of them.” You can feel yourself blushing preemptively, certain he’ll judge your taste in literature. “Maybe if I run to the library instead-”

“No, don’t go!” Peter interrupts. “It’s raining cats and dogs out there, and I’m sick of being alone. Come on, read me your nerd books. Please?”

He turns those big, pretty, puppy-dog eyes on you, and it’d be almost impossible to say no, even if you wanted to. Which you don’t. You sigh, smiling at him.

“Alright, you win,” you say, “But you have to at least pick which one.”

His face brightens into a full thousand-watt grin. “Done!”

Peter blurs once more as he shuffles through your selection of books. Then suddenly he’s still again, tilting his head as he studies a stout little paperback.

“Hey, didn’t they make a movie out of this?”

He tosses it to you and settles back against the pillows, watching you expectantly. You pull up your legs to sit cross-legged on the chair and take a deep breath. Here goes.

“‘Carl Conrad Coreander – Old Books.’ This inscription could be seen on the glass door of a small shop…”

You read on, interrupted only by the odd quip or question from Peter. You hardly mind his commentary. You’re just happy that the story seems to be entertaining him. He’s a far cry from the agitated ball of nerves he’d been when you walked in.

You glance over at the clock and see that two hours have gone by. You wonder if Peter would mind you taking a quick intermission to give your voice a break. But as you turn to ask him, you fall silent.

Peter’s head is lolled back on the pillows, his eyes closed, his lips parted slightly. His chest rises and falls with deep, even breaths – sound asleep.

You smile fondly at him. Poor guy. He really must’ve been exhausted.

Telekinetically, you switch off the lamp. The atmosphere in the room softens to the grey light filtering in from the rainy day outside. There. That’s more conducive to sleeping.

You make note of the page you’d left off on and close the book, picking up your copy of Howl’s Moving Castle instead. Moving as carefully and quietly as you can to keep from waking Peter, you make your way over to a more comfortable spot on the window seat.

You’d hate for Peter to think you’d run out on him after he fell asleep. You’ll stick around. And if he needs anything when he wakes up, you’ll be here. That’s what old friends are for.

#peter maximoff x reader #peter maximoff #peter maximoff fluff #x men fanfiction #fanfiction #okay listen XP #we’re in the middle of a pandemic #and if writing something silly and self indulgent will cheer me up #(and hopefully entertain other people)#then I’m gonna write it XP #just shouting into the void #peter maximoff fanfiction

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vibraniumwing · 3 years

Text

what once was mine.

a neville longbottom x reader wherein the reader catches a disease that everyone fears to get, and when the former realizes what was happening, it was all too late.

WARNING: angst, hanahaki!au, mentions of death, major character death

A/N: okay so this is my own entry for my writing challenge !! the chaotic eggs were talking about hanahaki fics and i just couldn’t shake this idea off. i hate writing angst for this little bean but i JUST can’t let this go.

prompt: healing incantation from tangled.

word count: 3.2k

---

Neville walked through the path of what was once his safe haven, the chilling air biting into his skin as he reached the only tree that was in the middle of the vast land that was littered with flowers.

For the beautiful place that once brought him joy, also gave him despair.

---

You and Nevile got along quite well due to the fact that the two of you grew up next to each other and that you’ve always had this special bond over plants— whether it be magical or just the normal kind— meaning that you mostly bonded over tending to the plants at the greenhouse and helping Professor Sprout during your free time.

He would usually teach you the magical properties of the plants you’ve studied for in Herbology while you teach him certain meanings and symbolisms for flowers that you’ve studied in your free time.

---

Neville was making his way to the greenhouse when he heard a gentle voice through the window, peeking through, he saw you gently spray the pots of dittany with water as you quietly sang,

“Flower, gleam and glow Let your power shine Make the clock reverse Bring back what once was mine”

He mesmerized by the way you carried out the song, capturing him in a trance as you continued to sing and tend to the plant, unaware of his presence,

“Heal what has been hurt Change the Fate's design Save what has been lost Bring back what once was mine”

Your voice growing more silent as you ended the song, only noticing his presence as you turn around and see him looking at you with a rather dazed expression, amazed at what you’ve performed in front of him.

“Nev! how long have you been there?” You question, nearly dropping the watering can, cheeks flushed at the realization that he heard you singing.

He smiled at you shyly, “Just enough to hear you sing, why have you never told me that you sing so well?” he questioned, jogging to the door and entered the greenhouse, the smile still evident on his lips.

You shied away from his gaze, “It just never came up as topic, besides my singing abilities aren’t that good.” you now answer, walking back to the table to return the canister and face him, crossing your arms as you lean on the table. “Now I’m guessing you want an answer to why I was singing to them?” Questioning him, motioning to the plants that was in front of you.

He sheepishly nodded, genuinely curious at your habit.

Taking a deep breath in, you started to explain, “When I was young, my mom would always sing me this song when she’s healing the small wounds I would get to distract me from the pain, telling me that this song helps to revive what once was in agony.” You answered, walking back over to gently hold the leaves of the magical plant in front of you.

“Then when I started to grow my own garden, I would sing the song to the flowers in my garden when they would show signs of wilting, as if to help them grow back. It’s silly, I know, but I just believe that it helps them in a way.” You finished explaining, looking back at him with an embarrassed expression, still in disbelief that he had finally caught you.

He looked at you incredulously, shocked that you think he would shame you for such a habit. “I don’t think that’s embarrassing, I honestly think it’s adorable.” tone filled with sincerity as he rubbed the nape of his neck, “I would love to learn that song too.”

That was your turn to look at him with disbelief, did he really want to learn the song because of you?

A huge grin soon came over your lips as you pulled out a tattered leather journal from your bag, handing it over to him. “I might consider teaching you the song if you learn these flowers with me.” You persuaded him, his hands now opening the notebook to see the hand-drawn flowers you’ve designed on the pages, it’s names and meanings beside it.

“You’ve got yourself a deal.”

---

“Hey (Y/N), what do these flowers symbolize?” He asked you one day, pointing to the page that had carnations decorating the page, the name and its meaning missing.

You leaned over and smiled sadly at the drawing, “Those are red carnations, Nev.” You started off, leaning on your chair as you continued, “You can see that the red varies from a light red hue to a much deeper and rich one, right? Well, the light red carnations symbolizes admiration while the deeper ones mean deep love and affection.”

He eagerly listened to your explanation, nodding once as he motioned for you to finish what you were saying, you bring your hand towards the white and striped variations of the same flower, “The white ones represent pure love and good luck while the striped ones are for the regret of a love one cannot share. “ You finished, giving him an accomplished look as he was amazed.

“Who knew a single flower and its colors have tons of meanings.” He commented, fingers gently grazing over the surface of the page as he looked at it with awe.

“Everything has meaning if you look at enough, Nev.”

---

As days passed by, you’ve bonded over the simple journal filled with flowers, spending hours upon hours showing him what they could mean to a person and how you can care for it.

as the days passed, you also felt your heart slowly sink in deeper into the emotions you swore to never tell.

---

You were passing by greenhouse when you heard a familiar tune carry out from the windows, stopping by the very last one, you peek to see Neville carefully tending to his Mimbulus Mimbetonia that he bought in that same year, gently watering the plant as he sang.

“Flower, gleam and glow Let your power shine Make the clock reverse Bring back what once was mine”

Admittedly, his voice wasn’t that good but the tenderness in every word he spoke had you swooning; your heart swelled with adoration as he continued to sing, unaware of how you were silently watching him.

You’ve made yourself content with that, just admiring him from the distance; loving him silently from the side.

---

The two of you were in the Great Hall, immersed yet in another session of flowers and symbols, you were explaining to him the meaning of Camellias when you’ve noticed he seemed to be out of focus, staring off into the distance.

You followed his gaze to the group of students who proudly wore their house color of blue, landing on a certain blonde girl who was eating her food quietly, caught in-between two chattering girls.

Upon realization, your throat started to itch, making you wince at the feeling. “Hey Neville, are you still with me?” You asked, clearing your airway as to ease out on the uneasy feeling stirring inside of you.

He instantly snapped out of it and looked back at you with a grin, “Yeah, I’m sorry about that. You were saying?” motioning you to continue, eyes now glued to the flower you had recently drawn.

“There are called camellias. Generally, they would symbolize love, affection and admiration to a person. However, like what I’ve explained before, the colors vary what their purpose.” You explained, hand reaching over to scratch your throat as the its irritation intensified, “For example, red would mean love and affection.”

Neville silently nodded, not noticing how you were struggling with your words, “and these are?” he asked, pointing to the pink ones that were alone by the corner of the page.

“Those are pink camellias, those signify a longing for someone,” You finished.

“Your knowledge on these never ceases to amaze me.”

---

Weeks passed and the irritation just worsened, confusing you to no end about what you may have eaten to cause such a state.

Until you were walking alongside with Neville until you coughed, feeling a rather foreign object in your mouth. You covered your mouth and looked at your friend with wide eyes before running to the lavatory, stumbling to the sink as you release whatever was in your mouth.

It was petals, and not just any petals, it was striped carnation petals.

You stared at the bunch in your hands, rather terrified of the beautiful red to white design it had.

---

Seemingly enough, every time you would cough up these little monsters, it would be whenever Neville would be looking or talking to Luna.

Your eyes looked at the amount of petals you had coughed up in just a week, filling the little jar you had hidden halfway through already. Everyday would be a new struggle for you as your breathing would get restricted more and more each time.

You sat by the window of your dorm and watched how the glass reflected in the moonlight, gently shaking the jar as you watch the petals flutter inside the case, remembering how you

You had some alone time after telling Neville that you would stay back at Hogwarts rather than go down at Hogsmeade, telling him that you were feeling a little under the weather for such activities.

He offered to stay back but you said no, telling him to go have fun and enjoy the rest of the day, to which he reluctantly agreed to and left with Seamus and Dean.

You wandered into the library in hopes at you would find something that would answer what you had been currently suffering with. Eyes quickly skimming through the various books until you came across one that explained muggle ailments and illnesses.

Scanning through the pages, your eyes had caught a picture of lungs that were slowly being filled with petals, “Hanahaki Disease...” you read out loud, your head pulsating at the realization of what you had caught, its severity causing you to tear up.

‘This disease is stemmed from a love you cannot receive back, the petals usually appear from a certain flower and reminds them of the person they hold dearest.’ You silently read, blinking through the tears as your fingers played with the carnations that laid rest inside your pocket.

“It’s severity may vary from petals to coughing up the full form of the flowers, the only known cure for this is aside from the reciprocation of love is the removal of the petals, however the devastating side-effect includes the loss of emotions for the said person. This is severely fatal for those who decide to leave it be, death be their mark for those who pretend not to see.” you whispered, fear creeping into your mind at the realization if you get this removed, your love for Neville will also leave

That’s when you’ve decided to leave what you have as it, choosing to endure what may come rather than to lose Neville.

Your hand clutched the container as sobs soon followed, tears freely flowing down your cheeks, “I’d rather fight and endure the pain may give me than to lose the love I have for you, Nev.”

and for the first time in what seems like forever, there were no petals that night.

---

You’ve decided to keep a notebook to keep track on the days you’ve survived with this living hell, writing down what happened within your day and if you have coughed up any petals; small bits and pieces of how you adore your best friend.

You were by the Greenhouse, hugging your cardigan closer to your body as you admired the beautiful flowers of a rather wilted aconite, drawing the plant as you quietly sang to yourself,

“Flower, gleam and glow Let your power shine Make the clock reverse Bring back what once was mine”

Bringing comfort to your rather irritated chest as someone joined along, your head whipped to where the sound came from, seeing Neville walk towards you with a rather warm smile, the same smile that you found comfort in, the same one that caused you to be in the predicament that you are right now.

“What are you drawing there?” He had asked, attempting to peek at the notebook which you closed rather quickly.

You shook your head and hugged the notebook close to your chest, “You can’t look into this yet, Nev. Not yet.” You had said before coughing once more, a single petal escaping your lips.

He looked at you with concern etched on his face, rubbing your back soothingly. “You’ve been coughing a lot lately, (Y/N), are you alright?” He asked, voice laced with worry as you nodded, giving him a smile as you held onto his hand.

“I’m all good, Neville, don’t worry. It’s just a cold that’s been sticking around for longer.”

---

You crossed out another date on the calendar you’ve made on your journal, signifying you have yet lived another day with this treacherous disease. It’s been three years since the first day you’ve coughed up petals and you still can’t believe you’ve lasted this long.

The longest record for this was for just 5 months, yet here you are now, marching on your way down to the Great Hall with your heart pounding at the realization that you were about to walk into another battle aside from your own.

As chaos soon ensued, you and Neville were on lookout by the other end of the wooden bridge, on the lookout for the pack of death eaters that were bound to invade the castle that way. You were both staring out into the rather pitch black valley, you were chewing the inside of your cheek as your hands grip on the railing, “Nev, before we both get into this, I just want you to know-”

You were about to confess what you felt for him when a loud rumble of feet interrupted, making you both alert and grip onto your wands as you looked into the distance. You grabbed his hand the moment you saw the death eaters viciously towards the entrance when three of them just obliterated into nothing making the rest halt in their tracks,

Neville gave you a knowing look, a rather victorious smile on his lips, “Yeah?! You and whose army?!”, taunting the large crowd who stopped in their tracks. Yet when a single flare landed on Scabior’s want, you immediately tugged on his sleeve, “Nev, we have to run.” as the death eaters rushed inside the gatehouse.

You instantly took the lead, the both of you fleeing the bridge while avoiding the spells the snatcher was casting on the both of you while Neville casted a few spells to blow up the bridge.

You were the first one to the end, watching how the bridge fell as your friend disappeared from your sight, “Neville!” You shrieked, Seamus holding you back as you coughed, your throat not handling the rather strenuous thing.

You struggled in Seamus’ grip, sobbing at the thought that your friend might have plummeted to his death when his want re-emerged from where the bridge cut off, his head soon popping out as he supported himself on the ledge, “That went well.” He groaned.

You wiped your tears and ran towards him, helping him up as you cupped his face, eyes searching any bruises he might have. “Nev, don’t ever scare me like that again.” You sobbed, not minding the fact that every time you had to take a sharp inhale, it felt like glass was being pushed into your lungs because of the flowers growing within your chest.

A soft chuckle escaped his lips, breath heaving in lots of air as he felt the adrenaline course through his veins, “I’m okay, (Y/N/N). I promise.” he assured, smiling at you rather happily.

“Hey I hate to break your moment but we have to get back inside the castle now” Ginny spoke up, motioning the two of you to go and stand up. You both looked at each other and stood up, running along with her into the school as you maneuvered through the sea of students trying to flee the scene.

“What were you trying to say earlier, (Y/N)?” Neville had finally asked, glancing at you as he bumped into another student again, you shook your head, choosing not to speak up about your emotions in a time like this, “I’ll tell you once this thing is over, just promise me you’ll stay alive” You said back, giving him a smile which he mirrored, understanding what you meant.

“Ginny! Neville! (Y/N)! Are you alright?” Harry’s voice soon rang in your ears, watching how Harry took the lass by his side and looked at the both of you with expectancy. You gave him a mere nod while the other spoke up, “Never better! I feel like I could spit fire! You haven’t seen Luna, have you?”

Harry looked at him confused, “Luna?” “I’m mad for her! ‘Think it’s about time I told her since we’d probably both be dead by dawn!” Neville exclaimed, giving you a small pat on the back as he ran up the stairs.

You suddenly felt your airway constrict more as you violently coughed, hunching over as a bunch of petals escaped your mouth, a bit of your own blood trailing down your mouth as you looked at Ginny who was talking with Harry. Despite the painful ringing in your ear and your ragged breath, you shouted at the both of them, “I’ll go this way! Be safe, the both of you!” before running off into the distance, fighting your way through the crowd.

You didn’t know where your feet would take you as you ran until you reached a deserted hallway, making you finally collapse on the floor as you spat out buds of the beautiful carnation and even the flower in its full form.

With a shaky hand, you grasp onto in, heaving in your last breath before blacking out.

---

When you woke up next, you heard a voice quietly sing albeit the hoarseness present in it, you found the sense of familiarity in every word,

“Flower, gleam and glow Let your power shine Make the clock reverse Bring back what once was mine”

The song was cut off by a sob, causing you to stir as your vision was invaded by the bright light, looking down at what seems to be a distraught Neville. “H-Hey.” You managed to croak, wincing at the pain it caused you.

He looked up at you with bloodshot eyes, “Why didn’t you tell me, (Y/N)? Why didn’t you tell me?” He asked, crying harder as you brought your hand up to wipe his tears, silencing his sobs as you sang for one last time,

“Heal what has been hurt Change the Fate's design Save what has been lost Bring back what once was mine”

Tears of your own spilled as you realized that you have finally reached your end, that with every inhale that you took the exhales got shorter. You weakly cupped his cheek, smiling softly. “I didn’t want you to worry so much, seeing you happy was enough for me.” You explained, eyes exploring the ruins of the Great Hall for one last time.

“Because I’d rather die knowing that I loved someone as great as you, Neville. I’m sorry.” your answer cut off by coughing up the final camellia that escaped your system, giving it to him as you softly sang before drifting off, the cries of what once was your first love floating away.

“What once… was mine.”

---

TAGS: @theweasleyslut @violetravens @eunoia-kth @starlightweasley @minty-malfoy @glimmering-darling-dolly @slytherinsunrise @loony-loopy-lupinn @dogweedanddeathcaps @pastanest

#FoTT200wc #neville longbottom #neville longbottom x reader #neville longbottom x y/n #neville longbottom angst #neville longbottom imagine #neville longbottom imagines #neville longbottom fic #neville longbottom fics

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hops-hunny · 3 years

Text

Distance Makes the Heart Grow

CHAPTER 8

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Mafia Boss!Neville Longbottom x Reader

Pronouns: She/Her

Word Count: 4k

Summary: (Y/n) lives a normal life. But that’s the issue, it’s normal, it’s plain, and it’s growing boring. Everyday she wishes for something, anything to spice up her life. But, when her old school friend (and crush) shows up at her bakery with a new look (and what looks like a new life), what will it bring for her? Will their puppy love grow? Will his big secret lead to the end of them or will it spark a new beginning?

Warnings: none!

A/N: sorry it took me so long. The rest of the date will be in chapter 9!

(Y/n) huffed, crossing her arms across her chest at the mess Twyla had made. Originally, she had thought asking her to help her get ready for her date was a good idea. The two of them hadn’t spent as much time together as she had liked too and she knew how much Twyla adored fashion. But now, as her various designer dresses and shoes were scattered around the floor along with makeup palettes that had been tossed aimlessly, her patience was wearing thin.

“Was this mess really necessary? I hope you know I’m not cleaning this.” she said, causing the girl to turn around. She tossed a dress on the bed beside the girl before continuing to sift through the manmade jungle she had caused.

“I know. Neither am I, that’s what the maids are for!” she turned, watching as her friend bit at her lip nervously, picking with the skin around the bed of her fingernails. “You know for someone going on her first date, I seem more excited than you do!” when she didn’t get a response she looked over at her shoulder giving her a concerned look.

“I-it’s not that I’m not excited! Trust me, I am. I’ve been waiting for this date for over 7 years. It’s just..” she sighed, looking away from her as her cheeks heated up in embarrassment. “What do you even do on a date? O-or say? What am I supposed to wear?!”

“A good date will flow naturally no matter what you’re doing. And you said Nev was taking you to some fancy restaurant but also on a gondola ride, right? Pick out a dress that’s fancy but also gives you flexibility. Hold up, lemme look I think I saw the perfect dress.” Twyla dove back into the pile of clothes, causing her to giggle at the sight. She continued to lift and throw things until she popped up letting out a loud ‘A-ha!’ she watched as the dress was tossed on the bed along with a pretty pair of strappy white sandals and a purse in the same shade of white. Once she picked the items up, Twyla began to shove her towards the bathroom with the items.

(Y/n) looked in the mirror, letting out a shaky breath. She felt beautiful, undeniably so. Twyla had already taken the liberty of styling her hair and doing her makeup. They had gone for a natural but ethereal makeup look. Dewy foundation, subtle but glowly highlight, a thick layer of gloss along with some individual lashes to make her eyes pop. She felt like a fairy, a princess even. Reaching a jittery hand towards the doorknob, she opened it peaking her head out. Twyla looked up smiling before her jaw dropped at the sight of her friend’s full appearance. Squealing she walked up to her, twirling her around to admire the full look. Sure, she had seen her in a dress before, and even makeup. But this outfit, this look, was much more like her. Yet Twyla couldn’t help but feel as though something was missing.

“Hmm.” she trailed, eyes gazing across the room. Her eyes lit up at the sight of what it was. The diamond encrusted crown lay gently on top of a velvet pillow along with the diamond necklace and earrings. She handed the earrings to (Y/n) to put on before placing the crown on top of her head. Turning her around towards the vanity, she unclasped the priceless necklace before placing it around her neck. “Oh my…(Y/n) you look so beautiful! Like a, like a princess.” she felt her ears tingle from her kind words, smiling as she admired her appearance in the mirror.

“Now, let’s talk lingerie.”

----------------------------

“Didn’t peg you for the nervous type, boss.” Blaise piped up, chuckling as Neville fiddled with his tie for what seemed like the thousandth time. He glared at the man through the mirror, grumbling under his breath. Blaise wasn’t wrong, he rarely was. The bigger problem at hand was that he was nervous and he didn’t know how to handle it. Neville had punched some of the most powerful men in the face, made people gravel and beg for their lives, hell, he had even killed men and throughout all of that, he had not an ounce of nervousness in his system. But now, when he was taking the little baker girl who he had been madly in love with since they met in school all those years ago, nervous was the main thing he felt. He was excited, sure, plenty, but in actuality he had never been on a real date with someone he had feelings for.

“Do you even know what to do on a date? You were quite the playboy before she came back into your life.” Ron added, mixing around the scotch in his glass, pouring some for Neville who instantly downed it, not even wincing at the taste.

“ ‘S not true!” he said, turning his head some to glare at him. Seamus cackled, wiping the invisible tears in his eyes as he slapped his knee.

“Please boss, you went through more women than George does bullets on a mission, which is a fuck ton.” he said, causing everyone else to agree. The guys had all gathered in the spare room to help him get ready, calming his nerves and even giving him a few pointers. Although a lot of the advice was useless, he was able to make sense out of some of it.

“Okay, well, suppose I am nervous. How should I...what should I do on a date?” he asked, coughing over the last part to cover it up. They all heard loud and clear though, starting to overlap one another before Blaise whistled, causing everyone to silence. Neville gave him a nod of acknowledgement.

“Well, did you buy her flowers?” Draco asked, breaking the silence. He scoffed at the ridiculous question.

“Of course I got her flowers! Did you really ask me of all people that? I picked and charmed a bouquet for her the other night. Each flower was handpicked from my garden with intention behind every single one of them.” he rolled up one of his sleeves, seeing if he preferred them rolled or down. Pondering it he decided to roll them down.

“Well combine that with what we’ve taught you and you’re all set.” Harry said, shrugging some as he looked up from his newspaper. Neville gawked at the men. Taught? The only thing they had taught him was that he needed better friends!

“Taught me?” he let out an exasperated laugh, walking towards them. “Taught me? You haven’t taught me shit! I’d have half the mind to-” a knock on the door caused his breath to hitch. The boys all gave each other knowing smirks but their jaws dropped as the door opened revealing the (h/c) girl in all her glory.

There she stood, skin glowing in the soft streams of sunlight that came from the evening Italian sun. The soft lace and tulle draped across her skin delicately, bits of sparkles from the fabric shining brightly. What caught his eye the most was the crown on her head. Even though he had saw it on her yesterday, it was having the same effect on him today.

“Holy shit.” Seamus whispered, forcing his mouth closed. Not a single pair of eyes weren’t on her.

“Listen, if Nev fucks his date up tonight…” Blaise trailed, causing the girl to giggle, looking at the ground shyly. She glanced up at him through thick lashes, watching as he made his way over to her. He bowed, pressing a kiss to her knuckles causing her to giggle some. As he looked up at her, a soft barely there smile graced his face.

“I don’t think that’ll be happening.” he said as he stood up, grabbing the bouquet of flowers from behind him before handing them to her. “What are you doing here, petal? I said I’d come get you from the room.”

“Twyla was really adamant about you seeing me as soon as possible.” she smiled at the scene that had taken place a few moments beforehand. “She said that I looked too good to be kept waiting.”

“You know, that girl’s always speaking nonsense but for once I’ve gotta say I agree.” Neville said, stroking her cheek gently as he leaned down, placing a soft peck on her lips. “Ready to go?” he asked. She nodded eagerly, wrapping her arms around his arm, waving before exiting the room with him. Seamus watched as they left before standing up, wiping his hands on his pants.

“Where are you going, Finnigan?” Harry asked, quirking a brow at him. Seamus smiled, winking some.

“Launching operation ‘make sure the date goes well’. You didn’t think I was gonna miss out on this did you?” Draco eyed him suspiciously as the vein in his forehead began to throb.

“Twyla set you up to this, didn’t she?” Seamus turned once he got to the doorway, flashing him a smile.

“ ‘Course she did!”

------------------------------

“Woah! I’ve never seen a car like this in person before.” (Y/n) said, in awe as she walked up to the vintage car. Neville smiled some as the driver came over, bowing as he opened up the door. He slid the driver a large bill, thanking him in italian.

“Yeah, you like it?” she nodded, looking back at him as he climbed in the back of the convertible with her. He pulled her into his side, pulling his Dior sunglasses over his eyes to protect from the evening sun. “It’s mine. Should I have it imported back to England?” her eyes widened. Although Neville had a lot of nice things, she never failed to be surprised when he had something new to show her. She leaned into his side, pulling her legs up onto the seat as the car began to move.

“It’s pretty. I think you should leave it here though. You know, as a memory of tonight.” She looked up at him, smiling some. Neville felt his heart race as he looked down at her. He felt breathless. Whatever he had done in the past years to have the angel of his dreams sitting next to him, going on a date, he’d do it all over again just to see the smile she was giving him. He leaned down, capturing her lips into a passionate yet loving kiss. Their lips locked till they were practically breathless, pulling away. (Y/n) let out a breathless giggle.

Neville pulled out another large bill, leaning forward to hand it to the driver. “Guida piano, sì?” the driver looked at him through the visor mirror, giving him a nod along with a knowing smirk. He sighed to himself as Neville turned back to the girl, laughing at something she had said.

“Ah, giovane amore.”

--------------------------------

Neville opened the door for the girl, holding her hand as she stepped out of the car. He decided first that they could get dinner. It’d be an easy way to set the tone for tonight and give him another opportunity to spoil her yet again. He made sure to pick the best restaurant money could buy but even then, she deserved more. More than money could buy. He smiled as they reached the reception desk, clearing his throat to catch the attention of the man behind the desk.

“Welcome sir, name?” he asked, looking up at the man cluelessly. A few others in the restaurant were noticeably tense, but continued to work.

“Longbottom.” he stated, watching as the man looked through the reservation book. He sucked on his teeth, giving Neville a fake look of sympathy.

“Sorry, it looks like you’re about 5 minutes late! I’m sure if you come back tommo-”

“Did you hear what I said? You might wanna listen closer this time. I’m Neville Longbotom.” the man behind the desk blinked at him blankly before his eyes shot up in a sudden realization. He began to scramble, trying to form some sort of apology. Neville slammed his fist on the desk, leaning forward as he began to speak through gritted teeth. “Just get me my fucking table, yeah? My lady should never be kept waiting and if she has to stand here for one more god damn-”

“Yes, yes! Right this way sir.” he said, grabbing the menus. At some point he dropped them but continued to walk, leading them to a private table near a large window. (Y/n) gasped, leaning against the window to look at the breathtaking view. Below her was the ocean, the sunlight cascading across it as seagulls flew around freely. While she was distracted, Neville took the opportunity to pour two glasses of wine before tapping her shoulder. She turned around, smiling at him.

“You seem to be enjoying the view. I take it the table choice is fine?” he asked, pulling her chair out for her. He pushed her chair up before taking a seat in the one across from her.

“It’s beautiful, I haven't seen anything like it. Last time I saw views this beautiful was Hogwarts.” she tensed slightly as he reached across intertwining their fingers, before relaxing. Her heart was racing wildly, a million different thoughts running through her head. Her and Neville had spent many moments together, far more intimate than this. But there was something so nerve wracking about being with him in public where anyone could see them. (Y/n) found herself growing self conscious about the pressure of it all, but decided to push it aside. She had been waiting for this for years and she wasn’t going to ruin it with a few negative thoughts.

“Yeah? If you like this, you’re gonna love what I have planned for after this.” he smiled at her. After this? He had more than this planned for them? Her wonderings of what it was didn’t last long when the bread was brought out, causing her eyes to light up. As soon as the basket was placed on the table she reached for a slice of the expensive bread, layering butter on it.

“Th-they’ve got the good bread! With the butter that’s all smooth.” she muttered with her mouth full. Neville bit his lip to contain his laughter at her childish display. “Y’know what I’m sayin,?”

He smiled at her, grabbing a piece of his own. “Somehow I do.”

--------------------------------------

After 30 minutes of good conversation and 3 bread baskets later, the two were finally ready to order. (Y/n) opened up the menu, gaping at it in confusion. There was so many elaborate names with descriptions even more confusing. Neville noticed this, pulling her menu down to look at her a bit.

“You alright, pretty girl?” he asked, ignoring the impatient waiter that was supposed to take their order.

“I’m alright it’s just...there’s so much confusion. All I wanted was chicken alfredo and I don’t even see it on the menu.” her eyes continued to scan the menu, becoming more perplexed as the names grew longer. Her eyes followed the tattooed finger as it pointed to a name that she didn’t even wanna think about pronouncing.

“ ‘S right there. Don’t worry dove, I’ll order for you.” her shoulders relaxed some as she gave him an appreciative smile. As he sent the waiter off, a silence fell over them. It wasn’t necessarily awkward, but it was clear something needed to be said and for once, it wasn’t on Neville’s end. Did she really wanna ask him now? ‘I should at least wait for dessert, that way it won’t be awkward if he says something I don’t wanna hear.’ she thought to herself.

The silence was encroaching, slowly becoming unbearable. It was suffocating, she felt like she was on a rope, dangling above all the words she wanted to say but couldn’t.

“So I-”

“Do you-”

They both looked at each other as they began to laugh. “You can go. I insist.” he encouraged, taking another sip of his wine before she could protest.

“I was just going to ask if you picked the bouquet yourself? It’s far too beautiful to be store bought, the flowers look happy.” she said, smiling down at the bouquet fondly. When the waiter first came, Neville heavily urged them for a vase to put them in. The waiter originally had been hesitant but when Neville’s jaw began to clench he quickly went to look for a vase in the back room. He smiled at her eye to detail, nodding as he cleared his throat placing his glass back on the table.

“Yeah I did.” he secretly snuck his hand across the table, the edges of their fingers brushing against each other. “Do you remember flower code?” she moved her fingers under his, smiling when he tightened his grip on her hand.

“Of course I do. We learned it together during the spring in the astronomy tower together. Best spring of my life.” she sighed fondly at the memory. “Forget-Me-Nots for true and everlasting love, violets for faith and affection, however, the tulips are leaving my mind. I can’t remember what they mean for the life of me.” she huffed, looking off as she tried to recall their meaning. He chuckled, placing a kiss on her knuckles. He trailed his kisses as far up her arm as he could reach from his position at the table.

“Tulips, well, tulips represent perfection and royalty because that’s what you are to me.” their eyes locked in a passionate gaze, (e/c) meeting his own dazzling ones. “My tulip, so perfect. I have every intention to treat you like royalty.” she was left wordless. Was this all real? She had read many fairy tales growing up and now here she sat, experiencing one of her own. Sure, those fairytales never had dangerous tattooed men with hearts of gold, but the way he looked at her, holding her with such delicacy let her know she had found her prince charming.

---------------------------------

(Y/n) was thankful she had worn a dress because if she had worn jeans? The button would have flown straight off her pants. Her alfredo was delicious, every herb and seasoning used done so perfectly. Not another bite could fit in her. However, when the dessert menu (that featured pictures of each and every dessert) was brought out, she didn’t see why it wasn’t a good idea to get dessert!

“It all looks so good! Like I made it, but better.” she breathed out, eyes scanning the dessert menu eagerly. But when she saw the triple chocolate cake, it was like she was falling in love all over again. “This. We need this Nev or else I might die.” he laughed at her serious expression, rolling his eyes some.

“Alright, love. Un ordine della torta al cioccolato, per favore.” the waiter nodded, writing it down before walking off again. The same silence from before fell over them but this time, she was going to do it. She sighed, grabbing both his hands in one.

“Listen, Nev. There’s been something, or someone, I’ve been meaning to ask you abou-” her eye began to twitch as a familiar figure stood next to their table. She gave her a bone chilling smile before turning to Neville who was much to her surprise, even more upset than she was.

“Ah, Neville! What a pleasure it is to see you here!” she said, holding out her hand for him to kiss. However he glared at it, leaning back in his seat.

“Can I help you Gisele? Actually even if I can, I don’t want to. Get lost.” he said, waving his hand for her to go away. But as expected, she didn’t budge. She leaned forward onto the table, gripping the edge with her red manicured hands. Her cleavage was on display as a fake pout graced her face. “I’m on a date and I’d rather not see you.”

She gasped, placing a hand on her chest in surprise. “A date? Oh my, is that what this is? Gosh I am so sorry! When I met, er what was it? Ah, (Y/n), over here the other day she said you weren’t together!” he raised a brow at this, looking between the two.

“You two met? Why didn’t you tell me, love?” he asked, turning his attention to the girl. She gave Gisele a disgusted one over before looking back at him.

“Well, it wasn’t exactly the most pleasant meeting.” she pushed out, looking at him. He rubbed at his chin a bit as he hummed.

“Really? Do you recall what she said to you?” he asked, knowing it couldn’t have been good. Gisele’s expression gave it all away. Although she feigned being unbothered, her expression was slowly cracking.

“You know as a matter of fact, I do! She said I was a knock off version of her and that you were using me as a replacement for the original!” she said, giving Gisele a wide tooth grinned. Gisele’s lips were parted as she searched for the words to say, mind blanking.

Neville looked between the two girls as he took a sip of his wine. “Now that you mention it, you two do look alike. I never really noticed though, I didn't spend much of any time looking at her face. But now that I am…” he trailed off, eyes tracing Gisele’s features, “You’re definitely not a knock off of her. I think it’d be an insult to you to even insinuate that she’s a knock off of you!” Now it was her turn to be surprised. Had he really not noticed their semblance to one another? It was clear now that not only was it a coincidence, but Gisele’s whole story was a lie.

“You- I- you ruined everything!” she shrilled, stomping her foot angrily. “That should be me in your seat, me on this..” she tuned her out as she looked at her own glass of wine. It would be a shame if the wine was to somehow end up on her ugly little polka dot dress. She squinted her (e/c) eyes, watching as the wine splashed all over the girl’s dress. Gisele paused mid sentence, gawking at her dress. Neville began to cackle, eyeing his date suspiciously. His thoughts were confirmed when she sent him a wink.

“My dress! Look what you did to me!” she wailed, motioning to the giant red stain on her dress. A few people turned to look at them all, whispering as they pointed at the girl.

“Me? I didn’t lift a finger.” she said, shrugging as she gave her an innocent look. “I suppose that’s what happens when you meddle in people’s business.”

“Is there a problem ma’am? Sir?” the voice sounded familiar, but an octave deeper. Turning her head her eyes widened at the sight of both Twyla and Seamus. Both of them were in costumes, fake beards and mustaches on their face along with wigs. She went to say something but when the blonde put a finger to her lip, she quickly decided against it.

“Yeah we got a complaint from the head chef. You’re to be escorted out of here immediately. Come along now.” Twyla said, dragging Gisele along with her. Seamus went to follow but was stopped by Neville. He pulled him close, leaning near his ear.

“Next time if you’re gonna spy on your boss, make it a bit less obvious.” he pat his shoulder, tightening his grip. “Although I’m glad you were able to handle this, I’m gonna ask that you leave. It’s not a suggestion but an order from your boss. I’m a big man, I can handle my date on my own.”

Seamus nodded, tipping his hat to them both. “Boss, mini boss.” and with that, he was gone. Neville turned to her, thanking the waiter once the cake was sat down in front of them, two golden forks on the plate.

“Let’s have dessert, shall we?”

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TAGSLIST: @vayeya11 @pink-hufflepuff @clancyscookies @elemental-of-magic @beewitchedlou @simpforremuslupin @mottergirl99 @nevillelongbottomsgirlfriend @redpanda-poetry @vibingaesthetically @de4d-s0up

#Neville Longbottom #neville x reader #neville longbottom x reader #neville x you #neville longbottom x you #Harry Potter #harry potter x reader #harry potter imagines #harry potter imagine #mafia!au #mafia!neville

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adenei · 3 years

Text

Always A Bridesmaid, Never a Bride - Ch. 2

so much for only posting one chapter a week...oh well. You’re welcome for those of you who are into this!

AO3 || FFN

---RON---

“Ron, hey! Have a good weekend?” Neville Longbottom approached me as I walked into my office at The Telegraph.

“Hey, Nev. Yeah, I guess. You?”

“It was great! You missed out on Saturday night. The film festival was spectacular!”

“Yeah, well, in case you’ve forgotten, I work Saturday nights. I call it the curse of the commitments.”

I knew Neville meant well and he was a good friend, but he seemed to forget that I’m stuck in this hell hole having to attend weddings and then portray them as these beautiful, fairy tale level events. This was not what I anticipated my writing career to look like, yet here I was.

“Right. Sorry. It must be a truly despicable life. Dining on free food and red velvet cake. Was it a good wedding, at least? Find anyone to shack up with?” Neville asked.

I almost snorted out the sip of coffee I’d just taken. Nevile knew that I wasn’t on the pull, right? Let alone looking for someone to move in with. “Hardly. How many times do I have to tell you, one night stands and weddings are not a good mix, no matter how many people say otherwise.”

“But there has to be single bridesmaids looking for a fun night with no commitments,” Neville pressed.

“Maybe there are, but I’m not going for it. It’s not worth it.” I waved Neville off as I set my stuff at my desk and made my way over to my boss’s office.

I’d been waiting the rest of the weekend to unveil my brilliant story idea. I was convinced this would finally promote me out of the commitments section. Not bothering to knock, I strode in and dropped the overflowing Filofax on my editor’s desk.

“This better be important, Weasley,” Rita Skeeter said.

“Er, yeah. I’ve got a story idea I wanted to run by you,” I said. All the confidence I was feeling before somehow disappeared as soon as I stepped into her office.

Rita kept on working as she said, “We’ve been through this before. I hired you to write wedding announcements, not investigative pieces.” I could tell she was not in the mood, but I’d given this far too much thought to give up.

“All I'm asking for is a chance to prove to you that I can offer my writing skills to other sections of the paper—”

“If this is another story proposition about exposing some minute detail of how the wedding industry is ripping people off, you can walk right out of this office. I don’t have any interest in hearing it.”

“But those were meaningful stories! People deserve to know that bakeries are overcharging for cakes. You could ask for an elaborate birthday cake design and the price would be significantly less because it’s not for a wedding! They’re conning innocent people just because they’re in love!”

“Readers don’t want stories on the price gouging, Ron! They want happy, feel good stories that give them hope, and you do that quite well. Your articles make most of our money, and I’d be insane to switch you to a different section!” Rita said with a tone of finality.

“Just hear me out. Please? I promise this is a good one.” I opened the Filofax. “This girl’s been in seven weddings—”

“So?” Rita responded. She sounded unimpressed.

“—This year. She was in two this past weekend alone. On the same night! There’s a story here, and I can sense it. She’s like a perpetual bridesmaid. There has to be a reason for it. She doesn’t strike me as the type that has that many friends.”

Rita finally looked up at me. I couldn’t read what she was thinking, but I was mentally preparing to be shot down again. Not this time, though. I needed to fight back for this one. It might be the only way I can get close to Hermione again.

“Fine.”

“Seriously, Rita I can make this—wait, what?”

“I said, ‘fine.’ I’m giving you a chance. Two weeks to find something out of this, and we’ll see what happens.”

“Four,” I said. Two was nowhere near enough time.

“Three, and that’s it.”

“Okay. And if you like it, I move out of commitments for good,” I said firmly.

“Ron—”

“I’m serious. I’ll quit. I can’t spend the rest of my career finding creative ways to highlight baby’s breath and sugar roses.”

“Fine. But you won’t quit. I know you better than that.” Rita picked up the Filofax and handed it to me before ushering me out of her office. “Now, get that adorably cute face out of here before I change my mind.”

I flashed a grin at her. “You won’t be disappointed.”

If the indication from our conversation in the taxi told me anything, it was that I had my work cut out for me. I opened her Filofax and set to work. A plan was already formulating, and I was eager to set it in motion.

This was my chance. My ticket out. Now, I just had to get close to the woman who drove me insane two nights ago. The woman I was unable to get out of my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about her. It was just because of the bridesmaid thing, I kept telling myself. That was it.

---- HERMIONE ----

Monday rolled around far too quickly, but I was okay with it. Harry was coming back from a conference after being out of the office last week. I made sure things ran smoothly while he was gone since that was my job. You could call me his assistant, but I was also second in command of the company he’d started from scratch: Second Chance Publishers.

Harry Potter was the ultimate entrepreneur, and I was lucky to work for him. He was everything you could wish for in a boss. Kind and understanding, yet firm and determined in his vision. He was always one who wanted to help the underdog, hence the company’s name. We read author’s manuscripts that had been tossed aside from leading publishing agencies, and gave the promising ones a chance. It’d been eight years and the company was still going strong.

Harry had taken a chance when he hired me fresh out of university, and I like to think I’ve proved indispensable since then. I was incredibly lucky to work in a position where my opinion mattered and I felt needed, like I belonged. Not to mention my boss was unequivocally sexy, and somehow still single.

Single was a good thing. That meant I may still have a chance. He had to notice me eventually, right? Okay, yes, I’ll admit it; I fancy my boss, but it’s innocent! I swear.

I needed to stop thinking about him. The anticipatory butterflies were already fluttering in my stomach, and I needed to get them under control. Coffee in hand, I walked the remainder of the two blocks to the office, and met Lavender on her way in.

“Never made it home this weekend, I see,” I said with a smile as I handed her coffee over. I was totally judging her and she knew it. I was never one to engage in one night stands and she knew it.

Lavender gave me a smug smile and ignored my question. “Maybe. Not that I could find you to stop me. What happened to you the other night? You were hardly there and then you left with that guy. Did you get lucky?”

“What? No! Of course not.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot. You’re holding out for Mr. Right,” Lavender scoffed.

I ignored her comment as we meandered through the main doors into the office. Luna Lovegood, the receptionist, was sitting at the front desk. “Morning, Luna!”

“Hi!” she said brightly.

“Question for you: have you seen my Filofax around anywhere by chance?”

“No,” she answered simply.

“Oh, okay then. It’s probably in my office. No problem. I’ll keep looking. Did you happen to send out the order I left on your desk Friday afternoon for the manufacturer?”

She looked nonplussed. “No.”

“Alright. No big deal, I’ll take care of it,” I said as we continued on down the hall.

“Wow, Hermione, you really told her,” Lavender said.

I sighed. “It’s fine, Lav, I should have done it myself anyway..”

“But you’re the boss, you’re allowed to tell people what to do.”

“I’m not the boss, and you know that. I’m the boss’s assistant. There’s a difference.”

“Correction, there would be a difference if the boss didn’t rely on you so much as well.”

I rolled my eyes. “Maybe I just like my job.”

“Or maybe, it’s not the job you like, but the boss,” she raised her eyes knowingly at me.

“Get to accounting, Lavender,” I told her, since I wasn’t willing to admit that she was right.

“Oh, sure, now you get bossy,” she said as she meandered off.

I chuckled to myself as I walked into my office and got settled for the day. My first point of business was to find my Filofax. That held my life. Every appointment and event was written in there. Not to mention all my cut outs of details I loved and wanted to incorporate for my own dream wedding. I searched high and low and it was absolutely nowhere to be found.

Giving up, I turned to my computer and attempted to get some work done. My productivity didn’t last very long, though. I looked up a half hour later to see a flower delivery at the front desk. Did Luna just point to me? My heart beat a little faster in my chest. I think she did. The man was walking towards me and stopped just outside my office.

“Hermione Granger?” he asked.

“That’s me,” I said in a hushed voice.

“These are for you,” he said as he handed them to me and turned to leave.

I was dumbstruck. I never received flowers, let alone at work! Setting them on my desk, I began searching for the note card that should have accompanied the beautiful bouquet, but nothing was there to reveal the mystery sender.

“Oh, sure, I spend all weekend in bed with a guy and you’re the one who’s sent flowers!”* Lavender sounded annoyed as she strolled into my office. “Who are they from?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t say.” My voice still sounded shocked.

When I turned to look at Lav, I watched as her face went from annoyed, to understanding, and then it finally settled on pity. “Hermione, no, you can’t possibly think it’s from him.”

“Well, who else could it be?” I asked indignantly.

“I don’t know, but you’ve got to stop this! You’re in love with a man who doesn’t even know you exist.”

“I am not in love with him,” I lied. “And he does too know I exist.”

“Yeah, in a ‘she’s my assistant’ kind of way, not in a ‘she’s so sexy I want to rip her clothes off and have mind blowing sex with her’ way.”*

“You don’t know that,” I said weakly.

“I do too know that! Honestly, at least get it under control, will you? The whole office knows,” Lavender argued.

“They do not!” I said incredulously.

Luna, who was passing by my door at that exact moment, must have heard Lavender and chimed in. “Yes, we do.” She smiled at both of us and kept right going before I could stop her.

“See?” Lavender pressed. “I’m telling you—” she was cut off by a dog barking, which could only mean one thing.

“Pads!” I cried as the large black dog darted towards me.

“Hey, Padfoot, easy there. Hermione doesn’t want a face full of slobber this morning,” came Harry’s sultry, baritone voice.

“No, no, it’s okay!” I said quickly as I stood back up. “Hi. How was the conference?”

“Brilliant! If things went as well as I hope they did, we may be expanding into the American and Canadian markets.”

“That’s wonderful!” I noticed Lavender pretend to gag from over Harry’s shoulder.

“How are things here? Have we met our quota for the end of the month?” Harry immediately began business talk. I liked a boss who was no nonsense and wanted to make sure things stayed on track.

“Almost. There’s a few manuscripts to get through, and we’re waiting on approval from Hopkirk on the illustrations. If we can get that soon, the art department can move forward, and we should have the new publication out by the middle of next month.

“Great. I’ll make a point to call her personally to see if we can get the process moving more quickly.”

I nodded. “Just so you know, you’ve got an 11:00 meeting with marketing. Oh, and the Boys and Girls Club has an event coming up that they’d like you to speak at. Nothing too intensive, just a few words on the impact that reading has had on their kids, and how you’ve seen the program grow since you’ve become involved. But it will be a formal affair,” I added.

“Ah, so I suppose that means I’ll need to bring a date,” Harry acknowledged.

“Yes, probably,” I said with a small smile. I was trying to hide the hope that he might ask me. It was a work event. Sort of…

“Well, I guess that’s one aspect of my life that I shouldn’t need your help with, right?” he said with a chuckle.

“Er, yeah, right,” I said regretfully.

I watched as he turned and left my office. Lavender looked like she wanted to say something. “Don’t even start.”

“Fine. Hey, what are you doing before Luna’s sten party tonight? I’m meeting some friends for pre-drinks. You could use the distraction!”

I laughed at her brazenness. “My neighbor is coming back into town. I promised I’d pick her up at the train station

and we’d grab a bite before the party.” I lowered my voice for what I was about to say next. “Who schedules a sten party on a Monday anyways?”

“Are you just starting to question Luna’s decisions now? And is that the neighbor you’ve been friends with since you moved in, but know nothing about? The one who disappears for months on end?”

“Yeah, Jenny. But she’s really nice, and fun to hang out with when she’s in town. There’s only so much I can take of you,” I joked.

“You wouldn’t know what to do without me,” Lavender scoffed.

Just then, Harry popped his head back in my office. “Hey, Hermione, did you leave the coffee on my desk?”

“What? Oh, yes. It was nothing. I, er—I figured you might want it,” I said with a nonchalant shrug.

“Thanks! You were right, just like always,” he smiled and I thought my legs were turning to jelly. “That’s why I love ya,” he added as he disappeared from my doorway.*

I was awestruck. “I love you, too,” I said quietly under my breath as I watched him walk away*.

Slap! Lavender smacked me hard across the face. “Get it together!” she snapped.

I shook my head as I cleared my head from the haze. “Y-yeah. Yup. Thanks. I needed that.”

Lavender had no words for me. I always appreciated her realistic view on things, even if it was a bit crass. The fact that she was speechless over what had just happened was like someone dumping ice water down my back, and the cold realization creeped through my veins. I had it bad for my boss, and I was stuck.

~o~

I was right on time when I arrived at the train station to pick up Jenny. She’d been away for six months, which was longer than normal, but I was excited that she was coming home for a while. I loved Lavender and her friendship, but sometimes she was a bit much. Jenny was way more relaxed, and didn’t press me as much about my personal life. Soon enough I saw her flaming red hair in the crowd. I waved and it didn’t take long for her to spot me.

“Hermione!” I heard her cry as she made her way over to me. She wrapped me in a hug. “It’s so good to see you! I’m sorry you had to pick me up. My brother bailed on me last minute.”

“Ah, yes, this mysterious brother you insist exists, yet I’ve never met in our five years of sharing the same building,” I joked. “Come on, I’ve already called for takeaway.”

“Brilliant! I’m starved. Fish and chips, I hope? I can’t tell you the last time I’ve had a good English classic,” she said eagerly.

“Of course, would you expect anything less?”

Jenny threw her arm around my shoulder as I took one of her bags and we made our way to the taxis. The ride took a bit longer than usual since it was rush hour, but our takeaway was still warm by the time we got to the flat. Jenny dropped her bags off in her flat next door to mine, and then met me a few minutes later.

“Finally! I was drooling in the taxi,” she said.

“So, how were your travels this time around?” I asked between bites.

“Eh, same old, same old. It’s a rough schedule being on the job for six months and then off, but I wouldn’t change it for the world.”

“You’re an athletic trainer for one of the female football teams, right?” I attempted to verify.

“Something like that, yeah. It’s hard to believe I’ve finished my sixth season already.”

I nodded, storing that information in the file I had in my brain for her. I’d learned a good deal about Jenny over the past few years, even if it was nothing terribly close to her personal life. I knew she wasn’t overly fond of animals, hated cleaning, and could drink anyone into the ground and be completely fine the next day. She was strikingly beautiful with chocolate brown eyes that possessed a hardness to them when she showed the world her ‘no nonsense’ attitude. I was sure she had no trouble finding men even with her crazy work schedule getting in the way.

“Soooo,” Jenny said, interrupting my thoughts. “What’s been going on with you? Have you met a man yet?”

Maybe I’d spoken too soon when I said I appreciated her friendship more than Lav’s. “No, still single, but I received flowers from some anonymous person at work today,” I mentioned with a chuckle.

“Oh? Tell me more!”

“It was nothing, really. Just a delivery with no note. I have an idea who may have sent them, but they never came forward.”

“Do you think it’s from your mysterious workplace crush? Have they finally noticed what they’ve been missing out on?”

“One can only hope,” I said as I shrugged. “What are your plans for tonight?”

“Probably dumping the contents of my luggage on the floor of my bedroom and crashing, if I’m being honest. Why? Do you have anything planned?”

“Luna, the receptionist at work is having her sten party at XOXO,” I told her. “You’re more than welcome to join if you’d like. Meet new people, reacquaint yourself with London’s nightlife…”

“At an Indie bar? We’ll see how I’m feeling after this food digests. I’m way too full to think about going anywhere,” she said.

“Well, the offer stands if you decide you want to meet me there later on, though I don’t blame you for wanting to make a date with your sofa instead.”

We got up and took care of the containers. As Jenny was getting ready to leave, I saw her pause by the counter. “What are these?” she asked as she picked up several newspaper clippings.

“Nothing!” I said quickly, snatching them out of her hand.

“Do you really save wedding announcements?” Jenny asked me.

“Not all of them! Just the ones written by Billy Weston. He’s the best!” I insisted.

Jenny was looking at me quizzically before she headed for the door. “Well, you do you, I guess. Thanks for picking me up again! And for dinner. I owe you one.”

“No problem! It’s good to have you back.” Jenny flashed me a smile before she left.

I hoped that maybe someday she’d trust me enough to let me in on the parts of her life she kept locked up tight. The least I could do in the meantime was be a good friend. For now, I needed to get ready for the sten party.

~o~

Lavender and I were walking away from the bar in the club when I heard someone say Harry’s name. He was here! I turned in time to see him making his way over to us.

“You got them annual passes to the London Zoo and Aquarium,” I said, noticing the worried look on his face.

“Great! Thanks, Hermione. Any chance she’ll believe it’s from me?” Harry asked.

“Maybe. You do an okay job of getting to know your employees, so I’d say there’s a fifty-fifty shot,” I quipped.

He gave a look of approval. “Excellent. I’m going to head to the bar and get a drink. Do you guys need anything?”

I chuckled as I said, “No, thanks. I’m set.” I held up my own drink as Lavender also shook her head no.

Harry nodded and walked away as Lavender looked at me incredulously. “Are you kidding me?” she shot me a look.

“What?”

“When a guy asks to buy you a drink, you always say yes! Even if you already have one. If you ask for a sex on the beach, it’s a subtle hint to indicate what you’re hoping for later.”

I shook my head. “Honestly, Lav, do you ever not have sex on your mind?”

“What’s wrong with that? It might finally get you what you’re hoping for. He buys you a drink, you talk about something other than work, he sees you more than just his assistant and voila! Happily ever after!” She lifted her drink in a cheers motion.

I couldn’t help but laugh at her ridiculous statement. “We already do talk about things other than work. I’m not going to rush him into anything.’

Lavender rolled her eyes. “You’re impossible.”

“No, I’m responsible.”

“What guy wants responsible?” Lavender was clearly getting flustered now.

“Harry! He loves my responsibility and appreciates me for who I am,” I insisted.

“Well, yeah, but he might appreciate you more if he knew what you wanted,” Lavender said just before clamping her mouth down on her straw and taking a big swig of her drink.

I gave her a look as Harry made his way back over to us. “Hey, Hermione, I hope that thing I left on your desk this morning was okay…” he said quietly.

“That...thing?” I said breathlessly, immediately thinking of the flowers.

“Yeah. I mean, I know it’s kind of a new level for us and I just wanted to make sure you were okay with it.”

‘Y-yeah! Yes! Totally fine with it! Definitely,” I said as a grin broke out on my face.

“Great. Er, thanks,” Harry said as he nodded to me and took off to mingle.

I turned to Lavender. “It was him. He sent me the flowers. Oh my God! Lavender, he sent me the flowers!”

“Holy shit, he really did!” I could tell by the shocked look on her face she couldn’t believe it either. “What are you waiting for?!” she asked.

“W-what?” I asked, confused.

“What are you waiting for? Go over there and tell him how you feel! He made the first move with the flowers! It’s now or never! Go declare your love! I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s your fairy tale moment.”

“Oh, yeah, right. Go. Yes, I’ll go,” I said awkwardly.

Lavender pushed me in his direction and I began walking slowly his way. This was it. The moment I’d been waiting for years to come face to face with! My heart was beating faster with each step.

I was only a few paces away when I saw him notice something. I followed his gaze across the dance floor and saw Jenny looking around, probably for me. I was used to seeing her dressed down in a pair of jeans or sweats, but she was actually done up nicely. Her makeup was done, and her straight red hair fell over her shoulders. She was wearing a shimmery emerald green dress that showed off a bit more than I would have ever expected from her.

I saw her notice Harry, giving him a small smile. I should have stopped and turned around when they were clearly making their way toward each other, but I couldn’t stop my feet. They just kept propelling me forward. Ironically, I met up with them just as they stopped in front of each other.

Jenny noticed me out of the corner of her eye and muttered, “Hermione.”

“Oh, er, right. Harry, this is my friend Jenny, Jenny this is my Harry—no! I mean, this is my boss, Harry,” I clarified. How humiliating!*

“Yeah, Hermione’s the best assistant anyone could possibly have. Half the time she knows what I need even before I do, and she’s always willing to help,” he said nervously. Since when did Harry get nervous? “Just this morning I left Padfoot’s groomer appointment slip on her desk. It was last minute and I had a meeting, so I asked Hermione to drop him off for me.”

I felt like I’d been sucker punched in the gut. The flowers weren’t from him after all. How stupid was I to get my hopes up?

“Ah, Pads’ appointment. Right,” I tried to say as lightly as I could.

“Well, a clean dog is rather important,” Jenny agreed in a sweet voice.

“Would you like to get a drink?” Harry asked. He only had eyes for her.

“Well, I came to get a drink with my friend, but I couldn’t possibly say no,” Jenny giggled. Since when was Jenny a giggler?

My worst nightmare was coming true. Harry was clearly smitten with my neighbor. This wouldn’t be happening if I’d never invited her to come along, and now I’m watching them get a drink together.

Before I could turn and leave, there was a tap on my shoulder. It was Ron. “What are you doing here?” I asked. I was totally shocked to run into him again.

“Fancy meeting you here! Did you like the flowers?” he asked me.

“What? Those were from you?” I asked. My voice definitely sounded rude.

He nodded with the lopsided grin flashing across his face. “Er, yeah. Did you like them?”

“Oh great, the marriage hating cynic left me romantic mystery flowers this morning. How ironic!” Could this day get any worse?

“Yeah, I guess you could put it that way. Oh, also, I have something for you.” He paused, and I watched him dig around in his satchel. “Here you go!”

It was my Filofax. “Oh, thank God! You found it!”

“Yeah, it was in the back of the cab. You should be more careful where you leave stuff like this. It was either I meet you here tonight or Thursday at your dad’s birthday party.” He laughed like it was a joke, but I was deeply offended and creeped out.

“You read it?”

He shrugged. “I tried to. I didn’t know anyone could fill up every possible centimeter on the page,” he joked again.

I didn’t find it funny, and what made matters worse was I now saw Harry leaning in and whispering into Jenny’s ear. She was smiling and flirting and it felt like my life was falling apart.

“Hey, Ron, could you hold this for a sec?” I asked as I shoved my drink in his hand.

He never got a chance to respond as I made my way to the nearest exit to get some air. Luckily the club was loud enough so no one inside could hear the scream of fury that was escaping my lips. I wasn’t proud of the vulgar language I let out, but tonight called for it. I stopped abruptly when I heard someone clear their throat. I looked up and realized the door I’d left didn’t actually lead outside, but to another room where a child’s birthday party was taking place.

“Oh! I’m so sorry. I didn’t—5 years old, wow. Congratulations!”

I knew my face was red as I swiftly turned around and made my way back into the club. I reluctantly walked back over to Ron. “Sorry about that.”

“No problem,” he said, handing my drink back to me. “Do you want to get a drink?” he asked hopefully.

“I don’t know…” I said. I suddenly wasn’t in the mood.

“Come on, it’s just one drink,” he said. “Let me prove to you I’m not some creep.”

“It’s not that. I just—I won’t be any fun tonight,” I admitted.

“Oh, er, alright then. Well, maybe I’ll see you around? Thursday?” he joked again.

I glared at him. “Goodnight, Ron.”

He gave me an awkward wave as he turned to leave. Lavender had suddenly appeared behind me. “Ooooh, who was he and where can I get one?”*

“He’s no one, Lav,” I said. I wasn’t in the mood anymore, and I just wanted to go home.

“What happened?” She asked, concerned.

“It’s a long story. I’m going to call it a night. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

I found myself walking over to the bar, approaching Harry and Jenny in a last ditch effort before giving up. “Hey,” I said to them. “Jenny, you must be tired from all that traveling today. Do you want to share a taxi?”

“What? Oh, no Hermione, I’m fine,” she said dismissively. “Harry, do you want to go somewhere more quiet?”

“Sure, I know a place a few blocks from here.”

“What? No—Jenny, it’s getting—” I tried to interject, but nothing could break their attention from each other.

“Brilliant! I hardly ever explore this side of town,” Jenny said to him.

“Do you want to join, Hermione?” Harry asked.

I looked between Harry and Jenny, and she was giving me a frown and a slight shake of her head, willing me to say no. Of course, I couldn’t let her down, so I said, “Oh, no. You two go. I need to get back.” That was it. My chance was officially blown.

“Maybe next time,” Jenny said convincingly. “Let’s get coffee in the morning, yeah? I’ll text you!”

I nodded weakly as I watched them get up and head for the door. Jenny turned around mouthed ‘Thank you! You’re the best,’ before taking the arm Harry held out for her. My heart felt like it was shattering to pieces.

I caught a taxi and made my way home, resisting the urge to cry. There was no way I was going to sleep tonight. I tried to do a few things to tire myself out, like clean the kitchen and doing a home workout, but I found myself obsessively checking the peep hole in my door, and listening intently to hear whether Jenny had come home and whether or not Harry had joined her.

Just the mere thought sent needles through my heart. At around two in the morning, I gave up and forced myself to go to bed. It was everything I could do to avoid getting up. Eventually, after a lot of tossing and turning, I managed to fall asleep.

#romione #muggle au #romione muggle au #ron x hermione #27 dresses inspired

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tirorah · 3 years

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Road to Berlin’s Episode 12 Is a Spectacular Finish to a Spectacular Show

It was damn good!

After the slightly tame setup Episode 11 provided, it fell to Episode 12 to deliver the payoff not just to the finale that Episode 10 started, but also to wrap up the overarching story of the entire season. And oh boy, did it do just that!

First, let’s talk about our favorite looming antagonists with barely any world-building, the Neuroi! Well, they once again upped the creepy factor by replicating World Capital Germania. How they managed to do this is still unclear, as the city never left the planning stage; it truly does seem like the Neuroi don’t just consume for sustenance or whatever, but also that they can replicate whatever they find in the territory they conquer. Of course, none of this matters much to the story at hand, but it does give us a tiny bit of world-building on them, and it would also explain some of the more bizarre Neuroi designs. Do you remember the Cube Neuroi? I do.

I was also intrigued by this former emperor of Karlsland who designed the plans for Germania. Whoever they were, they were forced to step down, but this raises all kinds of questions. When did this happen? How long has Emperor Frederick IV been in power? What does the mere existence of these plans imply about Karlsland’s history?

By the by, the building that was never in the plans seems to resemble the Great Hall, which was, in fact, shelved due to the start of WW2. Strike Witches occasionally gets some stuff hilariously wrong, but much of the research definitely seems on the money.

See, as far as I know, Nazism doesn’t exist in Karlsland. (Actually, that’d be pretty awkward for Karlsland, with the 501st’s logo being the way it is...) Judea was wiped out by Neuroi in the year 29; this, and several other differences in the world’s history, produced a different world than the one we know. (See the Strike Witches Historical Timeline for more information.) Culturally, Karlsland is far more akin to Imperial Germany, but transplanted into the 1940s and borrowing some iconography and designs.

There WAS tension in Europe before the Neuroi showed up and forced everyone to unite against a common enemy; would that have been enough incentive to create these plans, as well as structures like the Flak Tower? I hope we’ll find out someday. Either way, the fact the Neuroi created such an intricate city-shaped structure based on nothing but plans on paper is pretty terrifying. What else did the overrun countries have lying around when they were invaded?

Right, well, enough about the ancillary stuff. Let’s talk characters!

And cutting right to the chase: Shizuka definitively earned her spot on the team this episode. Yes, I know she technically earned it in the Movie at the earliest, and I guess Episode 10 at the latest. But Episode 10 still left me a bit wanting, as it was part of the process of building up to Shizuka’s turning point as a character. But now we reached that moment at long last, and it was everything I’d hoped to see.

First, RtB shows us how far she’s come. Her determination is nothing short of epic; she’s grown so much since her first engagement in the Movie, and nowhere is that more obvious than here. She lands a difficult shot on the bomb while flying a Striker her magic can’t handle, to the point where it’s physically hurting her to breathe. And then, she sees Yoshika trapped down below, and she finally passes the point of no return.

For the entire season, Shizuka’s been utterly obedient when it came to orders. As soon as someone dropped that o-word, she’d stop whatever action she was entertaining and went along with what she was told, even if it didn’t sit entirely well with her at times. She still does that at first, actually. But then, she finally sees something she can’t walk away from, and she decides to risk her own life to protect the girl who always throws herself into danger for others.

She saves Yoshika’s life, and even though she’s definitely not sounding well, she then takes up the fight in her friend’s defense without a single ounce of hesitation. Her switch from defense to offense is almost explosive; no talking, no checking on Yoshika, just straight-up switching on a dime. And her valiant stand is successful!

Until this happens, and once again I have to commend everyone involved in RtB on the gravity of this scene. Shizuka’s injury is devastating. The cinematography is chilling and incredibly well done: the way the beam punches through the profile shot of her body; how the beam takes all the colors with it as it leaves the screen, monochrome swiftly washing over the scene in its wake, Shizuka already pale; the trails of blood; the dilated eyes. They don’t show her crash, but it sounds awful. And then there’s the blood, positively pouring out of the hole in her body, spilling out until it even reaches Yoshika’s knees, a symbol for Yoshika failing to save her.

As the scene dragged on and Yoshika became increasingly frantic, fear slowly trickled into me again. Strike Witches doesn’t kill characters, but Shizuka was dying for sure. I was still holding on to the hope that everything would turn out okay, but there didn’t seem to be any way out, and that was a gut-punch and a half. It was seriously upsetting, and in a good way: that moment when you realize you do, in fact, care about a character whose presence you’ve questioned for the entire season.

I’d never been so happy to see a Deus Ex Yoshika hit the screen.

Now, I'm not the biggest fan of Yoshika. I do like her as a concept: the pacifist medic thrown into war. But I still feel like Yoshika’s character leans too much on her desire to protect people. It worked well at first, especially when her new companions needed someone to give them hope, but while quite a few characters showed growth as time went on, Yoshika’s always remained relatively static. And RtB’s excellent character writing has only emphasized this for me.

That’s not to say she hasn’t grown into a badass though, because she has! This episode had her at her craziest yet, leveraging the power of her grief to jump-start her magic back to normal levels. And with the fine magic control she’s been forced to work on all season, she can finally let loose and do some incredible things!

A giant shield? Try more than one! Who needs a gun when you can use your magic as a battering ram? (Trude would be so proud!) And sure, just pump so much power into your Striker that you overtake the escaping Bell-type Neuroi holding Wolf! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Yoshika attained her final form of hax, and it was glorious.

Still, it was clear that battle, short as it was, took a toll on her. This means she’s not exactly all-powerful; it just so happens that she has some very powerful genes, and the right motivation to use them.

Anyway, it was to be expected that Yoshika and Shizuka would hog the spotlight for a bit in this final episode, and that’s all good. The others mostly filled their usual roles, but we did get some great character moments from them!

Let’s start with something adorable: Minna using Sanya as a portable telephone, and Sanya being entirely stoic about it. I was laughing so much, and even more so when Eila saw it happen!

“GYAAH!”

I also liked it when Eila and Sanya were so surprised at seeing so many Neuroi swarms that Sanya said this absolutely needless thing:

You know the shit’s hit the fan when Sanya, of all people, does this.

Oh, and let’s not forget: it was Eila and Sanya who finished off the dome! I’m not sure why everyone else decided to just fly off, but these two have their backs.

Shirley and Lucchini were a solid team. I liked how each of their personalities shone through in their mannerisms and dialogue, with Shirley being calm, perceptive and responsible, as well as looking out for Lucchini. She also made a good guess at Wolf’s hiding place.

Lucchini, meanwhile, was her adorable hyper self, chafing at the narrow tunnels which prevented her from bouncing around, and later, gleefully taking out one Neuroi tower, only to realize she was shooting at the wrong thing, and being utterly unconcerned as she switched targets. Nyroom! She’s such a playful kid.

I also really liked it when Wolf was running away, and Lucchini immediately looked to Shirley to chase it, but Shirley realized she couldn’t catch it from that distance. She’s come to understand her limits over the course of the series, which pairs well with her increased sense of responsibility in RtB.

Lynne and Perrine were once again the support squad, looking out for Shizuka and later on being quite attuned to anything regarding Yoshika. Unfortunately, they didn’t do much else of note, but that’s been a bit of a pattern for them since Episode 8. Either way, I’ll save my thoughts on that for the full season review. (Yes, I’m going to rant about the season in its entirety next. No one is surprised.)

Erica mostly fell into the same support role as Lynne and Perrine this episode, but she did make the highly useful observation of the anomaly in Germania: the big central building that hadn’t been in the plans. And of course, she was one of the determined Karlslander Witches who chased Wolf at the end, limits be damned.

Hey, while we’re on this pic: I’m pretty sure Mio has spent more time with Ursula than with Minna this season. How crazy is that?!

Mio was also here. I’m sad that we didn’t get a Mio Laugh, not even one at the end. I did enjoy how concerned she was about Shizuka’s well-being though; Mio is like Trude in that she’s quite married to her job (she’s even worse about that than Trude), and so her personal feelings can sometimes end up left behind. But she was still doing everything she could to help her friends, and she was genuinely terrified when she realized Shizuka was about to do something dangerous.

Before I forget, I even have to give a slight nod to Patton. He was good in this episode! Even though he loaded up his revolver, he never actually ended up using it; instead, he was a good supporting character. Even his “GODDAMU” was endearing!

Last but certainly not least, Minna and Trude were, again, excellent. I really loved how they worked together this episode: forming a united front when they told Shizuka she had to stay behind (like two parents telling their new kid to do what’s best for her, ha), and Minna using her reasoning and magic to navigate them through the tunnels while Trude smashed stuff.

Ah yes, Trude. Lovely, lovely Trude. When I wrote about Episode 11, I expressed bewilderment at her sudden suggestion of using the underground tunnels. How did she come by this information? Why did Minna not know? But Episode 12 had my back; Erica asked her about it almost immediately, and as it turned out, Trude had the most adorable reason of all time OMG:

All is forgiven, show. All is forgiven. The fact Trude learned everything about a subway system in a city Chris never even lived in, just to engage with her sister’s interests, is so downright cute and awesome that my love for her has once again increased to previously unimaginable levels. And she memorized it all so damn well that she planned out an entire route into the dome for them! This is the best thing ever!

I was also so, so happy for Minna at the end! In previous seasons, it was always Yoshika who dealt the final blow to their antagonist, but here, Yoshika only prevented Wolf from running away. It was Trude and Erica who pierced its defenses, and it was Minna who went in for the kill. Not only is this amazingly cathartic for her, it’s also something Minna 100% earned in this season. Episode 9 did so well in showing us how badly Minna wanted this, to secure victory for her girls and for herself, to the point where she disregarded her own views on self-sacrifice. And now here she was, maybe in the last sortie of her career, and she received the sweetest reward of all.

...Except the promised coffee in Berlin, which we never got! But that’s okay; this episode already did so much in its runtime, I can’t fault it for not showing us something that would take some time to happen.

Instead, we got something equally satisfying, and something I loved about the ending: it showed us everyone working hard to rebuild Berlin after the battle. RtB has been so good at details, at continuity and consequences, and here, we see that life moves on. Berlin is in ruins, and it’s going to take a lot of elbow grease to get it and the rest of northern Karlsland back into shape. But with people returning and the 501st doing everything they can to help, reconstruction will surely succeed.

And Perrine will one day conquer the world with her army of adopted children!

Life also moved on in a different way. As it turned out (or maybe I just forgot about this?), Wolf was one of two hives in Karlsland. The other one is located somewhere in the south, and thus, the 501st continues their battle for peace. I wonder if this means we’ll get more 501st content down the line? It hasn’t been ruled out, and it’d be amazing to see where these girls go next. (I demand more coffee scenes!)

#strike witches #road to berlin #funnily enough: there's one continuity error in this episode #RtB's usually so good at preventing this (except when that Neuroi tried to ram Lucchini in Episode 4)#anyway: when Trude punches through the wall into the dome's underbelly she's only carrying one gun #but no one else is carrying it for her #and pretty soon afterward she has two guns again #maybe her butt really is a pocket dimension!

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kwrittink · 4 years

Text

Wrong - ABISM

Pairing: F!Reader x AdoptedBrother!Jungkook

Genre: Fluff/Angst

Warnings: language, a tiny bit of belittling

It had been two- no, three - years since you last saw him. Your brother... If you could even call him that. No visits, no calls, not even a letter. He'd be completely out of your life, wasn't for his inevitable successful life, which caused people to talk about him once in a while, not aware of your past. Why would you even tell people you once were Jeon - after he took back his real name and career as the famous missing heir of the family's huge company - JungKook's relative when by that point you were nothing more than a complete stranger?

"Y/N, is the sketch finished already? Boss Min has been waiting for it since you arrived," Mou, secretary of said boss - your boss, precisely - asked, walking up to you and snatching your attention back to reality, the screen of the tablet showcasing an ad of some beauty product under Jeon's name. That's why your mind was wandering off.

"I have the final version already, I'm just waiting for TaeH-"

"I'm here, I'm here!" Kim TaeHyung, TI trainee and probably the best boy you've ever met in your entire life came rushing in, almost knocking stressed Mou out of his way, the art printed into a small poster. "Our printers were all malfunctioning, so I had to go to the copy place- Hope I'm not too late," he breathed out finally, strands of hair glued to his forehead as he tried to catch his breath. You chuckled at him, grabbing the page with one hand and patting the top of his slightly bowed head as you stood up.

"Don't worry, you were just doing me a favor, Tae. I'll pay you a coffee later, 'kay?" You reassured the newbie, then made your way towards your boss' office, happy that the whole printout was exactly the way you imagined it would be. Those sleepless nights wouldn't be wasted, it seemed.

"You know, sometimes it's a little painful to watch him," Mou started, by your side. You had barely noticed she was walking with you and snapped your head towards her startled, what she might have read as a confused look. "The new intern. TaeHyung, I mean."

"What about him?" You asked, now truthfully confused. Mou scoffed, rolling her eyes.

"I'm sure you're not that blind, Y/N... The boy obviously has a crush on you." She whispered, giggling as your eyes widened in surprise.

"Wait TaeHyung? No, he's just really nice. And I'm his mentor, he just wants to please." You waved it off, shaking your head in dismissal. There was no way that a guy like Kim TaeHyung was interested in you. He was really nice to you, but obviously, he was still a youngster, if the gossip was any indication.

Mou snickered, pushing the black glass door that separated the firm's director Min YoonGi from the rest of the world. "Whatever you say then. But keep that in mind when you have your coffee with him today." She advised, and it was your turn to roll your eyes at her before she announced your arrival.

Min YoonGi was someone really easy to deal with, once you did your job. The meeting was short, he had really liked your work and even had asked you to help in the presentation the company would have to the hirer - which meant he wanted you to talk about it. It was good to know your job was recognized, but you've been working hard for a while and was about to ask for a break before you collapsed. Sigh. Maybe after the deal was made.

"Hey, you don't seem so well," a voice came from your right, a small box of doughnut holes from that famous bakery on the building's street appearing into your sight. A smile was immediately plastered on your lips when you turned your face and met the dimpled cheeks of Kim NamJoon - not blood related to earlier mentioned Kim Taehyung -, thick glasses hiding his eye smile.

"You're water for the thirsty men sir," you sighed, picking one treat from the box and practically moaning at the simple yet tasteful ball of happiness. "Also, I can't believe you went to Jin's without me!"

"If you had answered my texts you'd know I was going," he quipped back, shrugging teasingly. You squinted at him, grabbing your phone and seeing that, for it was on silent the whole weekend you had let slip NamJoon's invite for this morning. Tsking, you put it away, snatching the box from his hands.

"Not an excuse mister, you have full access to my house," you countered, and he had the nerve to look coy, looking away in defeat. But in that motion you were able to see the badly hidden hickey painted on the side of his neck, giving you an idea why he didn't invade your apartment that morning. You'd tease him for that later, after figuring out who he had a date with.

"Anyway, be glad there's still some left, I ate most of it on my way here, I was starving,"

"I know you since we were children, you owe me this." Yes. Kim NamJoon, head of TI and the clumsiest guy to walk on earth was your childhood best friend and the only one in your current circle that knew about your past. Even more, JungKook used to admire NamJoon from a young age, and though you two were glued at the hip since even before your brother joined the family, JungKook warmed up pretty well to him. But when JungKook left, he had cut all ties with everyone from his past, embracing the new life presented to him, and leaving an equally devastated NamJoon missing a younger brother. That you couldn't forgive him for.

You got back to your desk, followed by NamJoon that was still after the doughnut holes even after having half a portion. He was stressed with the end of the month, where deadlines piled up and everyone was at each other's throats to get stuff done. You couldn't do much to ease his burden, too piled with your own work to try and help him with his. Besides, you were shit at programming.

"Oh I knew I smelled something familiar- Wait, you went to that patisserie down the street?" A cheerful face peeked from the other cubicle and revealed a handsome man eyeing your food. You quirked an eyebrow at Jung Hoseok, one of your other co-workers and part of said circle of friends. Not that you had that many people you truly enjoy talking to but you liked to live by the company's motto: quality is better than quantity. And that was also why the number of employees was so much less than others in the same area because Min YoonGi liked to hire only the best ones - and because he didn't want to waste time firing people later, you were aware.

For example, Jung Hoseok was an amazing designer, perfectionist and hard-working, even if he looked aloof and happy-go-lucky most of the time. But there was a reason for that, and because he expected from himself only the best, Hoseok - or Hobi, how he was called endearingly - also expected near perfection from his colleagues.

Unconsciously he had put himself in charge of keeping everyone in the line. And if anyone thought he wouldn't impose respect with his light demeanor, better change their mind quickly. The man was sharp and ruthless when disappointed, flipping his entire mood in a matter of seconds. It wasn't a point of him being bipolar or anything, he was just the type of parental figure that you wanted to only be on his good side.

"Not me, NamJoon fetched those before arriving at work. Want one?" Extending the bag at him, you saw how Hobi's eyes twinkled as he fetched a couple of sweets from the bag and chuckled to yourself, thinking he was cute, even if a couple of years older than you.

"Thanks, man I really needed this- Wow that's a hickey, if I've ever seen one," Hoseok was quick to notice as he turned to NamJoon, voice getting louder as he couldn't get a hold of his surprise. Your best friend's eyes widened greatly, apparently not aware that either the bruise was showing or that it was there at all while pulling his collar up. "Sorry dude, I couldn't help it, just... Sorry." Hoseok winced again, retreating to his desk while NamJoon glanced around in a panic to access who had heard the announcement. Apparently no one, but the crew had a sharp ear, you were aware. You just hoped Mou - who had a massive crush on him since he joined but never had the courage to tell him - hadn't heard it too.

Sighing, you got up your chair, grabbing NamJoon's hand and your purse in the other, meeting his lost puppy eyes. "C'mon, I'll fix this up. But you owe me an explanation, mister." You demanded while dragging him to the unisex room.

Your only regret was leaving the doughnut holes on top of your table, easy prey for all the wolves in the section.

The meeting was first thing in the morning, so you arrived an hour earlier to avoid any accidents and had a spare outfit in your bag if anything - NamJoon and his clumsy ass - were to happened to the cute but professional outdo you had put together so carefully. Mou was the first to greet you in the morning, her smile not quite reaching her eyes - maybe she had heard Hoseok's outburst the day before after all - as she handed you a cup with coffee and the keys to the meeting room.

You sighed. It was a tiring job the one you had, but it was at the same time fulfilling and well-paid. Min Yoongi was strict as he did expect everyone to work hard, but he was extremely fair when it came to paychecks. Every single extra thing the employees did was taken into account and correctly inserted into your account - including that one presentation you were to do for him.

"You're early today huh?" As if by summoning, a sleepy toned voice echoed through the room while you arranged your things - jolt of surprise barely concealed, and you could hear his quiet snicker when he noticed - and Min YoonGi entered the room. "Wouldn't expect any less of you."

You turned to him with a small smile, acknowledging his compliment, and waiting for what he had to say. YoonGi wouldn't show up before the meeting for no reason at all, you were aware. "So, I'm sure you read about our employers and are well-prepared for this but," He started, and suddenly your blood started to run cold. But? That's never good. He's going to make my life difficult, I feel it!

"The thing is, that company was recently bought by another one - don't look so scared, nothing has changed technically - and now you're going to be meeting the new owners, so just wanted to give you a heads up." The way he spoke was clearly as if he was casually mentioning that he had coffee in the morning and had an easy trip to the job today, but his words still couldn't avoid your internal panicking. Still, you nodded, swallowing the nervous lump in your throat, because you were a good designer, but could handle so much pressure. At least the whole ordeal wouldn't be changed. You breathed out.

"Okay boss, I'll handle this to the best of my abilities," you assured him, trying to put a brave face to the man that had hired you but was usually treating you like a sister/daughter he kept at arm's length. Even the satisfying glint of his eyes wasn't unnoticed by you, a sign of trust in your words.

"Good. Now, they have arrived earlier than expected, you think we can start or should make them stick to the schedule?" At that point Min YoonGi was definitely taunting you, corner of his mouth twitching slightly with undisclosed humor. You rolled your eyes.

"Send them in, I'm ready." Was what you answered, but minutes later you would regret that sentence immensely. Maybe you should have trusted your gut for once, as it told you that something was not right the moment your boss stepped outside the meeting room to get the new employers.

Because your smile faltered upon seeing that the man following your boss back inside was no less than - and that for some reason wasn't unexpected - Jeon JungKook.

So this is the layout we had and the whole process our team worked on with the previous employer - Mr. Park right here can confirm," you smiled warmly at the man who was accompanying the new owner for the meeting, glad of his reassuring and soothing presence. "But we are completely open to discussion and suggestions if the idea isn't to Mr. Jeon's interest." You tried to keep smiling as you glanced at the man who once had been part of your family now standing at the other side of the table with a completely unreadable expression while glaring at you.

"Well, I think we don't think that much different right?" Park Jimin, later owner - now co-owner of the 'ARMY' clothing line - nudged JungKook's arm to snap him back from staring at you so blatantly. YoonGi cleared his throat softly by the end of the table.

"Yes, we'll discuss some more of this project in the future, but for now it's fine," he said, and you had to restrain from quirking at eyebrow at him, though you could feel droplets of sweat trickling down your neck. Fine? "Next time though, I'd like to hold a meeting on my grounds, if that's okay with you?" And then he fucking turned to your boss, as if you weren't the one busting your ass in the last half hour explaining a project almost set to happen all over again.

"I think you should ask Miss Y/L/N, she's the one responsible for this," JiMin piped up again, and you were so glad he did, but not as how that forced the arrogant face of that other man to look back at you as if he was too tired to repeat his question.

"Won't be a problem, sir. We'll-"

"We? Weren't you the head of this project alone?" A frown creased deep between JungKook's eyebrows, as he looked down to his phone - probably checking his schedule -, already up and ready to leave. JiMin got up as well, seems to be confused by his partner's behavior, and you bit the side of your cheek in anger.

"Of course Miss Y/L/N is the prime creator of this whole entrepreneur," this time it was Min YoonGi's time to sprout into the conversation, and you were thankful he did before you said something insolent. "But to avoid being persuaded for any side whatsoever, she will be taking one from the team with her to the meeting - having in mind that Mr. JiMin will also be attending to keep it balanced."

For some reason, it looked like Jeon was taken by surprise, for his eyes widened for a moment before glancing at your boss. He wouldn't think we'd meet completely alone now, would he?

"Right, exactly. Mr. Park and I will be the only ones present, so it's only fair. I shall then talk to your secretary? I have a few days available."

"N-no JungKook, I think this you'll have to discuss with Miss Y/N, she's the one that's going to meet us there..." And just like that JungKook seemed to have lost his pose of nonchalant, seeming exasperated to leave the room but needing to face you one more time before doing so.

"Next Tuesday at 8 am at the north building?" What was he trying to do, set a romantic date or a professional one? Because either the case, he was failing miserably. You grabbed your mobile from the table, expression still stern and serene.

"I'll put it on the schedule. It's okay with you if I take Kim TaeHyung with me, boss?" You slightly turned to the man that looked as amused as someone would be while watching a drama unfold. He was only missing a snack.

"Sure, though he's a trainee..." The little squint your boss gave you was enough to tell you he was onto something about this whole thing - and if you could bet, you'd say he was thinking of something along the lines of ex-lovers or some other cheesy crap he secretly loved so much.

Thought it was much, much more complicated than that.

"It's good for him to learn on the job, plus his skills will help me, I'm sure." You explained, receiving a shrug in response from your boss. That was that then.

"We're all set then, I'm glad!" Park JiMin chirped, extending his hand at you. "It was really nice seeing you again Miss. Y/N, keep a great job!" He complimented after you shook his hand back with a small bow and a smile. Jeon's hand also appeared in front of you, for grasping.

"Till we meet again, Miss. Y/L/N." He said as you did the same to him, after a beat of hesitancy. It was somehow hurtful the way he said your family name in such an easy, detached way. As if he never was under it in the past, for so many years.

And it was in that way you realized the abysm between the two of you, the gap that separated your worlds definitely and clearly. He was no one to you, and you were no one to him.

________________________ masterlist

#wrong!jungkook #bts jeon jungkook #jungkook angst #jungkook smut #jungkook fluff #jungkook x reader

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jojoreadwhat · 4 years

Text

you're all in my hands tonight, tonight I'm a rock 'n' roll star. / honey & smoke - m.h. x OFC story

Four Days Later, On A Friday.

Matty's POV

Computer Education had already given me a sour taste in my mouth and I only sat through two of its lectures. One because I knew majority of what was listed on the slides Professor Nolan was scheming through. I really had no explanation why I applied at UNI in the first place. I had high hopes that the tapes the boys and I sent into Capital Records would hit a soft spot. Sending us on a one way trip to success, where none of these qualifications would matter as long as I wrote out the music.

Then again if it all went down hill where I'd arrive at my flat with a box of tapes with the word 'denied' repeatedly stamped over it like fragile, even though my heart would be the fragile piece in that box. It would open the door behind the scene, the little paper of a degree with my name. A ticket of being able to tweak the shitty tunes on the radio that replayed like the TV movies do on Sundays.

Two, Professor Nolan was a bit of a drag. A fine dapper looking gentlemen in his early fifties. His hair slick back dirty blonde with what looked like emerald eyes the last time I stood close. A close shaved beard that extenuated his sharp jaw line. Dressed to the nines that if you seen him on the streets, you would've thought he had millions and a white collar type business. Even though, his Gucci navy suit that my father had exactly and bought for fifteen hundred dollars could make you believe he sat on a green mountain of dollar signs.

I felt his personality and aura resembled a present me. Barely in tune with all the new things happening but completely in tune with the young ladies that gave any advantages to pass. But in his case the young ladies could pass as daughters if the sucker had any.

"Open Audio Access on your laptops." He commanded, changing the slides that was accompanied with taps and clicks from everyone following along. I sighed to myself, everything that was on those poorly designed boards. I had edited and achieved on a new track the boys and I had recorded last night.

I slouched back in my seat, listening to Nolan's cocky Mr. Know-It-All demeanor. His degrees decorating the back of his desk fact it in that he knew more. Only giving him the approval of having Professor in front of Nolan instead of Mister.

After commenting on Mindy's plaid skirt, Professor Feast-A-Lot finally dismissed us.

I still had a class within the hour, just some simple music class that I signed up for the laughing matter. Always stating my answers to bands I drowned myself in as the other students wanted to cuss me out. Sighing to themselves, like that mop got the spill of answers.

With the time I had between I decided to get some coffee. The tea I had earlier with George talking about his night wasn't living up to it's strong expectations. Even though the class I just left could stand as a contender of an explanation.

I walked with the rush of the hundreds in the halls, making my way to left wing lounge and turning the corner of muraled up wall, covered in vibrant flowers and weird shapes from the art program.

Waiting at the counter I turned to scan the little lounge, just many studying with their textbooks as heads. Some talking to another. Just the common vibe of any little coffee shop you stepped your foot into.

One of them sticking out like a sore thumb.

Lucy.

Writing in her leather bound journal that rested on her crossed legs, playing with the slight tear in her in the hem of her playful colored dress.

Relaxed and looking out the window on the purple wing-back in the cafe lounge. Watching the shades of orange, red and yellow converse against the blue sky. Admiring her side profile, a high cheek bone with a light dusting of blush against her milky skin, her perfectly rounded jaw. Her lashes curled with a coding of mascara that complimented her baby blues.

I watched as she grazed her bottom rosy lip with the back of her pen in thought.

The red headed barista asked for the second time what I wanted before realizing that she was even speaking. Finding it hard to take my eyes off the scenery near the window. I ordered my black coffee, then pointed out Lucy who looked disappointed in the last drops of her cup. Dark roast, light with vanilla, sugar and two shots of the sleep she had lost the night before.

--------------------------------------------

Lucy's POV.

I was finding myself becoming a frequent patient with my therapeutic glances of the vibrant trees and the sounds of the espresso machine. Sitting in the same wingback, looking about the window, stuck in what I was going to jot in my journal next. My first week of being in London and enduring classes was wrapping up, nothing worthy had happened yet to write about and I was finding myself running around a writer's block.

As much as I wanted my creative juices to keep blending. I couldn't complain about how things were going. University has been so far treating me well. I've met a good handful of my professors in Week A, many have taken a liking to me which I couldn't quite grasp. But it wasn't a bad feeling to know about, plus Professor Jones really liked my thesis of A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. Putting a good word into the librarian of the Uni's library and landing me a interview for Monday.

Things at the university housing with Liz and Abby was going pretty well too. I was growing more fond of them by the minute, both interested in the same type of books, music and films. Liz was a bit realistic and logic about life, which kind of put a damper on things if you were trying to live in a fantasy world with reality biting you in the ass. Then Abby was more free spirited and self aware of what made an individual very much happy, even when the world was not so happy.

Then lastly, home. I finally Skyped my brother Eric and my dad. It was early for them but quite late for me. But in all I was mixed with emotions, both joyful and sad that I wasn't home. They are doing well so far.

I sighed to myself, resting my leather bound on my lap and retreating my blue eyes to the shades of orange, red and yellow. Reaching for the coffee I had finished moments ago, but reluctant to get up and grab another.

But that was before one was brought to me instead. By another thing that I had happened to come across this week.

"Am I intruding?" The English native that I met my first night here had greeted, handing me the warm paper cup with pretty botanical flowers repeated. I shook my head, gesturing my free hand to the wingback across.

Matty sat down, folding his long legs over one another. His eyes meeting mine, smiling softly as his mouth indulged in a sip. Giving me a few moments to admire before another word.

He wasn't wearing his glasses today but his hair was the same as the night I met him. Pulled back into a bun with loose curls shaping out his face. My eyes leading down to his lined out jaw. His collarbones, the tattoo that always made an appearance no matter what type of shirt he wore this week. To the lasting hole over his knee.

I was broken from my stare when he had chuckled, possibly figuring out that I was staring long.

"Anything new?" He asked, his eyes gesturing to my open leather bound. I shook my head, slowly closing it against my knee before my eyes met his again.

He looked at me surprised and in disbelief, "So the storyteller doesn't have a story to tell?" He questioned, resting his cup on the table aside us. I shrugged, it was truly hard to believe but as my mind moved fast the world outside of it didn't and I was at a stand still.

"It just been classes, reading and then some." I finished, finally taking a sip of my coffee.

Matty smiled at me again, a smile I could watch curl at the ends of his mouth like a favorite part to a movie. "We may have to change that." He said, looking at me with tricks under his sleeves and me swimming in his over sized sweater.

I had to cut my coffee break short when I realized I had time run to my next class, Woman Studies.

Shortly becoming my favorite class as we debated fundamental rights and she played Kathleen Hanna fronted Bikini Kill winning my anarchy heart.

"Don't forget to read The Second Sex and please have your reasoning's sent in by 12 AM on Monday." She dismissed. I followed suit with the rest of the class as I packed away my things for the weekend.

Making my way to the hall to get lost in the hundred of others trying to head out and not miss the next Tube coming by. The boy in a leather jacket that I was sharing a coffee with an hour earlier was leaning against the wall next to the door.

His devious smirk gracing upon his face, "I'm feeling like you're onto something." I commented, a small smile plastering across my cheeks. Matty rippled a contagious laugh that I could listen to like an album on my turntable.

"Can't a gentleman just walk a lady home safely?" He remarked.

"No! That's a lie!" I laughed, hitting Matty's forearm lightly. We had moved onto music since Matty offered to walk me home. And let's just say we had a few differences.

Matty loved older music, which I did too. But I found Prince to be a bit cooler than MJ. Which didn't sit well with Matty. "Have you heard the magic in Rock With You?" He mentioned, "It's fucking legendary!" It was so funny to see him go off, but I never said I didn't like the man! I knew how the sounds had your hips moving. I was just a Purple Rain kind of girl.

Matty stood in front of me, walking backwards down the sidewalk.

Girl. Close your eyes... He began singing, moving his hips to the beats that played out in his head. Taking my hand, and pulling me close.

Let that rhythm get into you, don't try to fight it. Placing one hand above my hip, the other still in mine. Directing my hips into a sway, as his voice hit me like sweet serenity.

He went on, and I was enjoying every bit of it. Music was his muse like books were mine and he wasn't ashamed to show it. His hips showing that he never stopped moving either.

We had arrived to the front of my flat, Matty belting more songs of MJ.

"I have to get in," I mentioned, not really wanting to do so. Matty's lips kept moving "Not until you change your mind." Singing in the measures of Don't Stop Till You Get Enough.

I chuckled, still dancing with him till I finally caved in. "Alright, Michael Jackson is better." I confessed, meaning every word that fell from my mouth. He just chuckled, pulling me closer and bringing his lips to my ear.

"I think you're lying" his warm breath grazing my lobe. Sending chills down my spine. I went to protest when Liz and Abby got out of their car. Interrupting our manifest. They just softly smiled, saying Hello before retreating up the porch. I looked up at Matty, who still had his hand around my waist.

Matty pulled away with a soft but questionable expression on his face. I wondered what was on his mind.

"Come watch us play tonight." He said, "The boys and I are playing at the bar George's bartends in. I'd like to see you there."

Many different excuses ran through my mind. Studying, catching some sleep, watching the same three episodes of The Office, outline my far along memoir that would be a flop. Just a rush of things that could've fallen from my mouth.

"Alright, sounds like fun." Happened to be the better option.

Matty's smirk turn a bit shy, looking to the ground before he looked back up at me.

"I'll pick you up at 6?" He questioned, I nodded. Still confused on why I was agreeing to this extravaganza in the first place. A smile gracing his face once more before turning on his Vans to head back to where his road led him.

"See you soon, Blue."

#the 1975 fanfiction #matty healy imagines #slutforbritdick #wattpadarchives

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hillnerd · 5 years

Note

Do you have any headcanons on what would have happened if hermione said yes when Ron asked her to the Yule ball?

Sorry this one took so long. I just was not immediately able to sit down and think this out. I was just stumped for a while. :P In this scenario she would have to have not been asked out by Nev or Krum yet- leaving her wide open for Ron’s ask.

The Yule Ball was quick approaching, and no one had asked Hermione as a date yet. She wasn’t entirely surprised, as she’d not exactly garnered a lot of attention like other girls. She was no Fleur Delacour. She did her best to not let this bother her, though. She was quite busy with her studies, thank you very much. That’s what they were all in school for! Not romance, and definitely not some silly ball.

Dinner had been a lonely affair, with both Harry and Ron missing. It was just as well, she was still getting used to her new teeth and was a bit sloppier than usual as she ate her meal. She hadn’t ever indulged in much of the shallower things in life, but couldn’t help running her tongue over her now very even teeth and feel a satisfied smile warm her all the way to the common room.

She found Ron and Harry sitting by the fireplace with Ginny, both looking rather glum.

“Why weren’t you two at dinner?”

“They’ve both been turned down by the girls they asked to the Yule Ball.”

“Thanks a bunch, Ginny,” said Ron sourly.

“All the good-looking one taken, Ron?” said Hermione loftily, thinking back to his comments about avoiding going to the ball with a troll. “Eloise Midgen starting to look quite pretty now, is she? Well I’m sure you’ll find someone somewhere who’ll have you.”

Ron didn’t give a retort. Instead gave her a long hard look, as if working out some sort of problem, before his eyebrows lifted into his fringe.

“Hermione… You’re a girl!”

“Oh well spotted!” She wanted to punch him. She really did. Right on his long freckled nose.

“Well– you can come to the ball with one of us!”

Hermione wasn’t sure how to react. She had, in her most private of thoughts, hoped she’d get to go to the ball with someone. She had considered putting forth the idea to Ron, but didn’t dare do the humiliating task herself. For once she had wanted one of those silly traditional boy-girl teenage moments for herself- and to be asked out by a boy– but now, presented like this, it felt a bit hollow.

“I… I suppose that makes sense… Who would go with who?” she said, looking between Harry and Ron. She wanted Ron to chose her, and bit her lip in to hold herself back from impatiently claiming Ron for herself.

“You can come with me,” Ron said with a smile, not seeming to see the significance of this at all. Did he not care at all?

“Who says I want to go with you?” she let out. “Just because you finally realized I’m a girl, doesn’t mean I now owe you a date!”

“You can go with Harry if you like,” he said, brows furrowing as he looked between them. Harry was looking on with wide eyes and holding up his hands as he usually did when he sensed tension between them.

“It’s just the principal of it,” Hermione said, crossing her arms. “One person asks another out, not… not just randomly assigning a girl to be a date out of convenience to whoever is sitting there.”

Ron sat there looking at her for a moment looking like he might begin arguing, but he surprised her by smiling at her.

“Okay okay, Hermione Granger, will you, a girl, go with me, a boy, to the ball. That do? Will you come now?”

She could feel her cheeks begin to flush.

“Well… Well alright then. Since you asked properly.”

“Great!” he said with an easy smile. “I can go with Hermione, and Ginny you can go with Harry.”

Ginny blushed down to her roots, and looked away from them all.

“Alright then? We all have dates?” Ron asked the group.

They all nodded.

It wasn’t the ask Hermione would have wanted or planned on- but she had been asked out to a ball, and it had been Ron who did it.

Balls were just about the most barmy thing Ron could think of. Everyone had to spend loads on dress robes, a bunch of teens had to ask each other out on dates, and then they’d have to dance in front of everyone else. It sounded like just about the worst time in the world. At least he had a date, though. And it was Hermione, so he didn’t have to make smalltalk with some random girl or have an ugly date. He’d have a pretty date who quite liked. That worked out better than he could have hoped.

She and Ginny had scarpered off after a long snowball fight, saying they needed three hours to get ready for the ball. Three hours seemed an awfully long time to just put on a dress- but Ron probably should have spent more time himself, now that he looked at his own depressing robes. He’d tried a severing charm on the frills- but it didn’t do much to make the robes look less awful.

He glumly sat in a chair waiting for Hermione, when Ginny walked down the stairs looking very nice. She was wearing some old robes of Mum’s though, so even though they were dated, they weren’t as worn and crap as his own.

He hadn’t really meant to do it, but he’d paired Ginny up on a date with her crush pretty well, actually. Ginny was going to make out of this ball better off than most of the teens.

“You look nice,” Harry told Ginny, and she went scarlet but thanked him. Harry then turned to Ron. “Want us to wait with you for Hermione?”

“Naw, meet you down at the ball in a bit.” Ron wanted to put off people seeing his awful robes as long as possible.

The common room wasn’t much better since it was crowded- but at least it was just fellow Gryffindors. The common room was a wash of colors, instead of the usual black robes, and someone with floaty blue robes was standing awfully close to him.

“Ready to go down?”

He looked up and saw the robes were Hermione’s. She was always pretty, but right now she was looking girlish and pretty in a way he’d never seen before. She was standing tall, smiling down at him with an air of confidence and he found his mouth had gone dry. A few people in the common room were staring at her as well, but Ron had to smile, because she wasn’t any of their dates. She was his date.

“Yeah, let’s go down!” he said with enthusiasm. Thoughts of his own tattered robes were quite replaced having her at his side like this. She looked like one of the women from a fairy tale book. Her hair was sleek, which he didn’t like as much, but other than that she was a vision, really.

“You look…” Beautiful. Gorgeous. Pretty. “Really good.”

“Thank you,” she smiled prettily at him.

Ron felt a sort of jittery energy taking hold of him. There was nothing to be nervous about, as it was just Hermione. Maybe he was just hungry.

“Sorry about… About my robes and all… You look great, and I–” Ron couldn’t finish his sentence.

“You look fine,” she said, though they both knew it was a lie. “Maybe I can transfigure it a bit? I’m not great with these sorts of spells, but Parvarti and Lavender helped me a bit taking in my robes and I think I remember the spells.”

“Uh, alright then.”

She did a few spells, and it made his robes look less tattered, then she did a color switching spell to make the robes all the same dark navy color. It helped hide the horrible design of it having it be dark like this.

“Brilliant!” he smiled, doing his best to look at it all in the hallway they were in.

“I know you don’t like maroon,” she said with a shrug.

“I’m glad I can look better for you,” he said, then wanted to curse as his ears burned.

The Entrance Hall was packed with students waiting for the doors to the ball to be thrown open, but they found Harry and Ginny quick enough. Hermione was quite pleased to she and Harry were actually talking on their own. Ginny had always been rather tongue tied around Harry due to her crush, but perhaps she could make headway on that tonight.

They both made surprised smiles at Ron’s changed robes, which made Hermione happy, but not nearly as happy as the chuffed look on Ron’s face.

They entered the ball, and a ton of people started looking at them. At first she thought it might be because they were with Harry, or because Ron’s eyes were quite striking when he wore blue, but surprisingly a lot of people were staring at her agog.

“Do I have something in my teeth?” she asked Ron.

“Wha?” he looked closely. “No.”

“Hmmm…”

“Why?”

“A lot of people were looking at me.”

“It’s because you look so… fancy” Ron said, before turning pink for about the third time that evening and looking away from her. She was sure she was almost as pink as they found a table.

Ron had never been so awkward around Hermione in his life. He couldn’t seem to get out a conversation with her. Maybe it was because she looked so un-Hermione-ish. She didn’t have her usual wild curls bouncing about her face, and was wearing robes that clung to her and very much made it clear she was a girl. There was no ignoring that now.

Food was what he needed. Lots of food and butterbeer. The slightly polite stilted conversation began to relax as the two of them ate and people watched together, and by the end of the meal the two of them were at ease with each other again.

The Weird Sisters came out, and Harry and the other Champions took to the dance floor with their dates. After a moment other couples began to join them. Other couple from their table made their way to dance as well, leaving just Ron.

Hermione was looking nervously at the dance floor, but hadn’t said anything.

“Would you like to–” he said, nodding to the dance floor.

She smiled. “Only if you want to.”

In truth Ron had little interest in slow dancing, but it wouldn’t do to tell her that. Plus it seemed a shame to have her sitting it out when she had gone to all that trouble to look so elegant.

“Yeah. Yeah, let’s have a dance.”

The slow dance gave way to some fast ones, and Ron found he liked dancing with Hermione much more than he he’d ever anticipated. He even spotted Harry dancing a lot with Ginny, which was probably one of the more awkward things he’d witnessed.

The evening went on- and by the end of it they were all flushed and happy, and made their way to bed.

Harry and Ginny went up their respective dorms, leaving Ron and Hermione downstairs next to the fire.

“I had a good time,” Hermione said with a bright smile.

“Yeah, me too!” Ron was happy to say.

“Well, goodnight,” Hermione said, standing on her tiptoes and giving Ron a quick peck on the cheek, before scuttling up to her dormitory.

His stomach swooped and spent a good ten minutes standing there. He was surprised. Maybe dances weren’t as barmy as he’d thought. With that he went to bed, dreams a bit full of floaty periwinkle fabric, twinkling brown eyes and bright smiles.

#headcanon #fanfic #yule ball #au #romione #hinny (if you squint)#goblet of fire #hillnerd writing #Anonymous

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thedevillord-writes · 5 years

Text

Zemblanity - Chapter Two

Zemblanity is the faculty of making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries by design

- - -

~Present Day~

Whether she was invited to a party to perform or simply to attend as a guest, they were all the same. People liked to think socialites led an exciting and extravagant life, even films and dramas glorified that idea. How wrong they were. Or well, partly.

As she looked around the room, there was no doubt this was an extravagant life. The party was held in banquet hall of a five-stars hotel, decorated entirely in rose gold. There were pillars all around the hall serving no purpose other than aesthetics. The waiters, all of whom young and good looking, were dressed in the latest collection of white shirt and black suit of a brand that ordinary people would only splurge on for special occasions like their wedding. Or their funeral. The food served were all finger food, yet prepared by a world class Michelin's chef. Every single person attending the party wore clothes that were either customised or limited edition, but would only wear once for this particular party. Herself included.

She wore a strapless royal blue floor length mermaid dress with Swarovski crystals embellished, coupled with a pair of Alexander McQueen's heels with her initials hand sewn on. Misaki was as extravagant as anyone present in this hall, if not the most.

Patrolling the parametres of the hall, she watched the socialites. She never understood the art of people watching, she always thought it was just a nicer term for stalking or being creepy. Somewhere down the road, however, she found herself enjoying the activity. It was intriguing, more so than anything else, to watch people from far and notice the minute details that they thought no one would notice. She came to find at such parties, that none of these people were who they bragged themselves to be. That diamond necklace Mrs. Whoever showed off? Her husband did not win that at an auction. Not so much as bought it at a no name boutique for a small fraction of the price she thought it was.

"Your wine."

"Thanks."

Joined by Minato, Misaki finally stopped her patrol and took a sip of the red wine handed to her. Parties like this were never to the Kanemoto siblings' liking but they were always forced to attend by their father. It was one of the best way to sell the happiness they pretended to have. What better way to show how dedicated Junichiro was as a father, bringing his children along to spend more time with them. The reality was, they were nothing more than the rose gold pillars used for aesthetics.

"Misaki? Minato?"

"Mr. Nakahara."

"Are you here in place of your father?"

"Yes sir. He's not feeling well today so we offered to come in his place."

Lies.

If there was one thing a Kanemoto was good at, it would be lying. Junichiro lied about the life he led, the happy family he had, and the perfect children. Misaki learnt too, to lie through her teeth with a bright smile. Her father was not ill at home, he simply did not want to attend the party. However, to keep his reputations, he sent his children to entertain. They were upgraded from decorations to escorts. Even without her father here, these events were insufferable.

"You've always been a good daughter to your father, Misaki," Mr. Nakahara smiled, giving her a gentle pat on the shoulder. Minato tensed a little, seeing the contact but Misaki grabbed him by the wrist and gripped hard. "It was nice to see you two."

"Why did you stop me? He touched you."

"He's one of the good guys, Minato," Misaki said, putting her hand on her brother's cheek. "And even if he did touch me inappropriately, we cannot do anything about it. We're here in the name of father today. You know his rule."

"Keep low, stay low."

"Exactly. Except, this evening is about to become very interesting."

Following his sister's gaze, Minato frowned a little. Misaki was never one to follow celebrities. In fact, if you were to quiz her right now on the trending stars or even pop songs, she would not be able to get a single right. Which was why he was confused as to why she was suddenly taking an interest in Inoue Junko, the model.

Misaki was not the hero type, that much she was certain. As a child, she had always been passive. If someone was being bullied, she stood by the side and watched. It was just the way she was brought up. Getting involved in situations that did not benefit them was never the Kanemoto way. She did not want to be a hero either. She did not know the woman Junko humiliated at the previous event. She thought it was shameful that Junko would use her social status over the woman, accusing her of something that was so painfully obvious her own fault. She could have done a better job.

She was patient. She kept her eyes on Junko the entire night, waiting for the perfect opportunity. When Junko finally walked off by herself, Misaki saw her chance. She followed after the model into the bathroom. As luck would have it, they were the only two in there. She stood by the sinks, looking into the mirror while waiting for Junko to emerge to execute her plan. Coming out from the stall a few moments later, Junko stood next to Misaki by the sinks.

"Did it feel nice? You know, after bullying that secretary."

"What are you talking about?"

"It was only two nights ago, surely you haven't forgotten already?"

"She deserved it. Why? Are you going to avenge her?"

"Of course not. I don't even know who she is."

As she spoke, Misaki walked over to the door and locked it so no one else could come in. She let her hair down and messed it up, then she tore her dress down the side and broke off the heel of one shoe. Stepping on the train of Junko's dress, Misaki grabbed the other woman by her hair only to be pushed off by a very confused Junko.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Giving you a lesson on tasting your own medicine."

Unlocking the door, Misaki dropped to the floor and let out a blood curdling scream over and over, holding her left wrist as if she was hurt. Within seconds, tears were streaming down her cheeks and she looked so distraught that anyone who walked in now would instantly believe that she was the victim. Before Junko even had time to register what was going, the door to the bathroom burst open and security was rushing in.

Both women were hysterical. Misaki refused to let anyone near her, holding her wrist while crying in pain. Security was desperately trying to explain that they were there to help though nothing was calming her down. Junko, on the other hand, was frantically trying to explain the situation. That Misaki was acting and none of this was her fault. With Misaki's screams and cries, however, it was hard to hear anyone speak and they were both escorted out to a private room each where security had notified Minato. As soon as they walked through the door, Minato received his sister in his arms and held her tight.

"Would you like for us to call the police, Miss Kanemoto?"

"Yes," Minato replied.

"No, don't," Misaki said softly. "It was just a misunderstanding, I don't want to make a scene out of it."

"Are you sure, Misaki?"

This was unlike his sister, Minato thought. They had no relations with Junko; they did not know who she was, nor did they deal with her professionally. In all reality, this kind of conflict should never happen between the two. That was when Minato remembered what Misaki said just before she disappeared: this evening is about to become very interesting. Could his sister be faking like Junko said?

Even as he stared into her eyes and wiped away her tears, Minato could not tell if Misaki was pretending. He knew everything there was to know about his sister. Or at least that was what he thought. He could not quite put his finger on when, but there was a time when he felt that Misaki was slowly becoming someone unfamiliar. The subtle change in the way she spoke, the way she acted was so minute that he never noticed, not even now.

"I just want to go home, Minato," she whispered. "If the police get involved, we'd spend the whole night at the station and I really don't want that. Please...let's just go home."

Despite going against every fibre of his being, Minato nodded in agreement. As protective as he was, Misaki was right. Once the police were involved, they would be at the station all night and the last thing he wanted was for his sister to be further traumatised. Not to mention the media; nothing about a Kanemoto ever went unreported. If their father were to know about this incident, they would not be let off with just a simple lecture.

"Alright. You stay here, I'll say the goodbyes and I'll get the car around."

"Thank you. You're the best brother."

"I'm your only brother."

"That's why you're the best."

Leaving his suit jacket behind for her, Minato went back to the event hall. Misaki slipped her arms through the sleeves and brushed her hair out, waiting a few seconds before opening the door. The damsel in distress act was dropped since there was nobody around. She took her shoes off, holding them in her hand as she made her way down the hallway and to the elevator. She got on, pressed for the lobby and just as the door was about to close, a hand caught the door and someone slipped in with her.

One look was all it took.

One glance at the stranger who joined her and Misaki instantly knew who he was. She did not know he would be here, but then again, she never knew when and where he would be. Stepping aside to the back corner, she pretended not to know who he was though she could feel an intense gaze on her.

"How's your wrist?"

"Fine."

"You're a better actress than you are a pianist."

"Excuse me?"

"You were never a liar. Was it fun? Putting on that little show."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

This was so him. After all these years, he never changed. He was always playing games but by his own rules that were constantly changing and confusing. They used to be fun, refreshing even. Especially since his games were never meant for her. Or so Misaki thought. No one was ever exempted from his games, not even her. Everyone had to play the Sagara Yosuke game and she was in one of them right now. No longer, however, should Misaki play into his hands.

Slamming her palm on the stop button, Misaki looked Yosuke in the eyes without a single change in her expression. She was naive all those years ago, eating up every word he said. She used to believe that Sagara Yosuke was the angel sent to save her from her miserable life. All those years ago, she would look into his eyes and see a future together. All she saw now, however, were lies written all over. Lies that she should have seen from the beginning.

"Well that was a tad aggressive," Yosuke grinned. "Feisty. Different from what I'm used to."

"I'm not the girl you used to know anymore," Misaki stated.

"Is that why you staged that little performance?" he asked, stepping closer but she did not budge an inch. "Misa to the rescue?"

"Don't call me that."

"Then what should I call you?"

She imagined this scenario plenty of times. Not this specific scenario but one where she would see him again. She imagined she would be angry, lashing out at him for all that he had done to her. She imagined there would be tears and perhaps some hitting on her part. There was none of that, however. She was oddly calm, though a little irritated at his interrogation game.

Ever since he saw her again, Yosuke could not stop thinking about Misaki. How she still kept her hair long but put waves in them now. How she still looked like the high school student he met, yet matured in so many ways. The look in her eyes, however, was different. They no longer held that hope she had, that everything would get better. Her smile was no longer genuine either, just plastered on her face to please others. The dress, the shoes, and the jewelry, none of it screamed Misaki. She was no longer the Misaki he knew.

"You were there, were you not? The event two days ago, where that model bullied a secretary."

"You think I avenged that secretary? I don't even know who she is."

"Then why did you go through the effort?"

"To teach her a lesson."

"What lesson would that be?"

Turning her back on Yosuke, Misaki pressed the button to get the elevator going again. "That she shouldn't pull social status over others. Not when there are people with more power." As if on cue, the elevator finally arrived at the lobby and the door opened. Without another look at Yosuke, Misaki stepped out and headed for the entrance where she waited for Minato.

The cool air hit her harder than she anticipated and as she took in a deep breath, she found herself leaning against the glass. She was overcame by emotions for unknown reasons and before she knew it, she was crying. Tears kept streaming down her cheeks no matter how hard she tried to keep them in and wiping them away. Her breathing was getting heavier and heavier by the second, the feeling of being overwhelmed unstoppable.

Was this Yosuke?

She thought she could handle seeing him again. Her own mind tricked her into thinking she was fine after all these years but the truth was, she was not. There was no anger involved but there was plenty of misery. As his face flashed in her mind, she was reminded of how happy they used to be back in high school and how that happiness never belonged to her in the first place. When it all crashed and burnt, she was the one left in the rubble trying to pick up the pieces. She was the one left with all the scars when he went on with life as if she was never a part of it to begin with.

Having said all his goodbyes, Minato rushed out of the event hall. Without Misaki, he felt out of place facing all those people. He was born into this world but he never felt like it was his place. Years of training perfected his smile and every word he said, however, making it seem like he was one of them. He rushed not so he could be with his sister, he rushed so he could get out of there and away from them.

However, as he arrived at the lobby, he spotted Misaki wearing his suit jacket just outside the building through the glass. Something was wrong.

Misaki was doubled over, clutching onto Minato's suit jacket like it was a life jacket. Every noise around her suddenly became amplified and despite being outside, it felt as if the world was closing in on her. Running out to his sister, Minato made the mistake of touching her. Misaki swatted his hand away while stepping away from him though she stepped on her torn dress and fell backwards instead.

He had seen this many times before. The first time Misaki came home from an event with their father without Minato, she did not make it into her bedroom before breaking down. Almost every time before her final exams, she would have at least two attacks. A few shoes thrown at him and being screamed at right in the face, he had to learn how to help her through a panic attack. And this right now, was a panic attack. Whatever triggered it did not matter, guiding her out of it did.

"Misaki, look at me. Look, who am I?" Holding his sister's face with his hands, Minato made sure that she could not see anything else except for him. Focusing on one thing helped her to eliminate any other possible triggers.

"Mi-Minato..."

"You're going to be okay. I'm right here," he said softly. "I'm going to take my hands away but I want you to keep your eyes on me, okay?"

"Okay."

As he pulled his hands away, Minato kept his eyes on Misaki, as she did him. He moved slowly, careful not to startle her and reached into the pocket of his jacket to pull out a pair of earphones. Every time Misaki's eyes flickered elsewhere, Minato would make a soft clicking noise with his tongue, getting her attention back. He plugged the earphones into his phone and put on the playlist he made for her. Instant relief washed over Misaki the second the playlist started.

"Let's go home."

#zem ch2 #kings of paradise #kop #yosuke sagara #voltage inc

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sevenseasofrog · 5 years

Text

Lads ‘n Lasses Chapter 3

Pairing- highschool!ben x fem!reader

Summary- single sex schools are never boring

Word Count- 1,467

a/n- sorry this ones only short, as I’ve said though, the next chapter is a little juicier, it’ll be up later next week :) hopefully y’all like it though !!❤️❤️

As ever, September crawled by painfully slowly, with each student rebuilding the exhausting school routine for yet another year. For most of the other girls in your school, they started their day with a steaming mug of coffee or loose leaf tea. Your day however started with a real mug, who stood outside your door at 7:15 each morning waiting for you to stumble out. For the pair of you, coffee came later on in the process.

It would be fair to say that you had never bonded with someone quite so quickly as you had with Ben. The walks to school were no longer quiet and solemn as they once had been, and the walks home from school had you reaching your house with even more energy than you had at the start of the day. The pair of you had clicked into place almost immediately after first meeting each other, and it had become an extremely rare occurrence to see one of you without the other outside of school hours. You were most gracious when your friendship group welcomed him with open arms, a little. nervous at first that they wouldn’t want the new boy to cause a commotion. Him and Lewis became equally great friends, and it was nice knowing that he had friends at school too. The pair were hilarious to watch when they were together, mainly because they were polar opposites. There was Ben, short blonde hair, piercing green eyes, perfectly symmetrical face, very athletically built and a little shorter than the rest of the boys in his year; and then there was Lewis, long and lanky, often nicknamed Stretch by others, deep brown eyes, mousey brown bowl cut and slightly wonky teeth. The two boys couldn’t have been more different if they tried, but being able to call them your friends was one of the greatest privileges.

Things had moved quickly since the start of the new term, and you were working tirelessly to complete coursework in school simply so you didn’t have to do it at home, luckily, the free periods you had after lunch were becoming increasingly useful now the workload had gotten heavier. It was equally convenient that your friends were in a similar mindset, which meant that the time you had after school wasn’t spent alone. Making the most of the autumn warmth, the five of you would often head down to the park where you would lie contently until someone’s parents rang, instructing them to come home, at which point you would all leave. Maria and Lewis would step off the tram first, then Niamh a few stops later, once again leaving you and Ben alone for the rest of the journey home.

“You coming back to mine for a bit then?” You asked, looking up from your bag, in which you were searching for the pack of chewing gum you knew was floating around in there somewhere.

“Don’t have any reason not to, Mum and Dad are away on business until Sunday night anyway.” You felt yourself frown a little, today was Thursday, and to you it seemed a little unfair for Ben’s parents to leave him alone for a good chunk of the week, especially since you had become aware that this happened more often than not.

“D’ya wanna come round to mine tomorrow though? only seems fair really, your parents will start confusing me as one of their own otherwise” Ben had a gleam in his eyes and you let out a scoff.

“Go on then, I’ll check later yeah?”

Dinner was practically on the table by the time you and Ben reached the house, and it wasn’t long before you had both finished and we’re making your way upstairs. As ever, you flopped down onto your neatly made duvet, and Ben parked himself on the spinning office chair which was by your desk.

“I’m. So. Tired.” You dragged out each syllable for emphasis.

“Nah, you’re not the one doing laps of a field each day”, Ben replied with a smirk, stretching his arms above his head.

“That’s because I love myself dipstick.” You spoke back, giggling to yourself a little.

“Don’t be a bitch! I carry the whole bloody rugby team at the moment!”

“Sure you do… What would we do without our knight in shining armour to score all the tries in a match no one realllyyy cares about”, you both rolled your eyes at each other before Ben could slide in another sarcy comment.

Believe it or not, you enjoyed moments like this, you were both being yourself and there was no one else there to tell you to pack it in. Time you spent with Ben always went a little too quickly for your liking however, since you would both spend hours talking, it was easy to lose track of how late it was.

“Shit! it’s half-nine!”

“Are you joking?” You asked, genuinely shocked

“Unfortunately not”, Ben spoke as he sprang up from next to you on the bed and began to pick up his bag and put his jumper back on for the journey back to his house. You walked down the stairs with him and to the front door where you gave a quick hug before yawning.

“See you tomorrow Jonsey”

“y/n l/n.” He paused “We both know we’ll be talking on the phone in like 20 minutes so don’t get too ahead with yourself, aight?”

“You got me there!”, You three your arms up in defeat, “Now please piss off so I can go to bed!”

Ben gave one last grin before turning and heading down the gravelled path of your otherwise green driveway, you watched him walk to the corner of the dimly-lit road before shutting the front door and trudging up the stairs back to your room for the night.

When Ben said you’d be talking again shortly, he really wasn’t lying, and it hadn’t been half an hour before your phone began to buzz uncontrollably.

The bois and the gorls: 3 New Messages

Prince Ben of the South joined the chat

Prince Ben of the South:

Gooooooooooood eveeeeninggggg everyoneeeee

Nev joined the chat

Nev:

What.

Dear Maria Count Me In joined the chat

Dear Maria Count Me In:

Hello??

You joined the chat

Le Artiste:

Wassup

Prince Ben of the South:

Lewissss ??

Where are you my beany friend ??

Le Artiste:

What dya want jonsey

Long Boy joined the chat

Long Boy:

At your service

Prince Ben of the South:

Right

Not sure if you all care but basically I just got a message from the team group chat and there’s gonna be a halloween shout at some point in the holidays so do yall wanna be my plus four or na?

Nev:

Nice one mateee

Le Artiste:

Oooooooo

Long Boy:

One question my noble companion

Costumes?

Prince Ben of the South:

oh you know it ;)

Dear Maria Count Me In:

Omg yes

Le Artiste:

Im sold

Long Boy:

Don’t see why not ?

Prince Ben of the South:

We should SO do a group thing

Nev:

Fuck off

Dear Maria Count Me In:

Oooooooo, acc that’s quite a good idea

Long Boy:

Only if y/n is in charge of what we wear

Le Artiste:

So im a fashion designer as well now ???

Prince Ben of the South changed your name to Coco Channel

Nev:

Evidently, u better make me look HOT tho

Coco Channel:

of course bby ;)

Dear Maria Count Me In:

Is that that then ??

I can sleep now ??

Prince Ben of the South:

You are all free to go :)

Nev left the chat

Dear Maria Count Me In left the chat

Long Boy:

Not until i know how much of a prick ill look at this thing

What am I wearingggg

Coco Channel:

Gimmie a sec ive had like 3 seconds to think

Prince Ben of the South:

Steady on lhewees

Give the gal a chance

Long Boy:

If this isnt good then ill sue

Coco Channel:

Anything for u dear

Long Boy left the chat

Prince Ben of the South:

I have no problem believing that

Btw if u make me look silly then ill never forgive u

Coco Channel:

Im quite sure u wont tbh

Prince Ben of the South:

Cya in like 10 hours g

Coco Channel:

Bye stinky :)

Prince Ben of the South left he chat

You gave a tired sigh before placing your phone down on your bedside table and flicking off the lamp next to it, as you pulled the crisp duvet up to your ears, wondering what on earth you had just signed up for.

There was one thing you knew for certain however.

This was bound to be good.

Very good indeed.

tags(if you want tagging in future chapters lemmie know !!) - @fatbottomedbitch , @crazyweirdocalledfriday , @disaster—bisexual , @seedless-vascular , @annoyedsloth , @borhapandshawn , @prettysureimgayxo

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aurumaiz-blog · 6 years

Text

David Attenborough's "a day in a life of a broken hearted moron"

(Warning - I have decided not to go through this and edit is as it is honestly straight from a am deep thinking session and everything written is straight from the heart - so excuse poor grammar and please don’t hate me)

They say that during a break up, it gets easier over time. That as every day slowly rolls past, every sleepless night that you endure, it gets a little better. This is a stigma designed to just try and make you feel better. I’m sure that in some cases this may be true to a certain extent, but with every day comes more time, and with more time comes thought.

When it happened to me, it was expected. University is a difficult position when it comes to a long-term relationship; the fact that new memories with new people are being made; new places without the original person. Every young couple has the “we can try it through university” talk and it's the same story every time:

“oh did you hear about that couple that broke up?”

“Yeah but we’ll be fine”.

…

At the time this may be true, life is good! Every day you’re seeing your significant other while making the best moments and having the best time. Yeah there will be issues and arguments but the dreaded phrase “if its meant to be it’ll work out” is unfortunately true (to a certain degree). I was certainly in this situation where I was the happiest I could possibly be. Obviously issues arise and shit storms come and go; hell, my friends take the piss out of all the things i go through! Yet I have always lived by the “one foot in front of the other method” and so far in life it has got me this far. In the words that I used to describe my experiences to other, there really are bigger things happening in the world! It doesn’t make it any easier. When you think you and your partner are happy but it turns out one of you isn’t, it's the worst feeling in the world. The idea that you aren’t capable of keeping the girl that is your best friend and most important thing in your life happy is killer. Having that text conversation where you know exactly how it is going to end is devastating. Emotions are raw in your mind and mistakes are made. Of course being the idiot I am, I talk too much. I first felt surprise and then anger, almost as if I had been cheated. “But you aren’t even making much of an effort? Blah blah blah blah stupid pointless argument blah blah blah” - followed by instant regret.

At the end of the day, the outcome won’t change. As a quote I hold to my heart to this day: “If it's in my mind now, what about the future? That’s unfair on you” and it’s true to a certain extent. I could go on about the details of my break up but in the end I deserved it. Maybe one day i’ll learn to control my words. Hah not likely!

There’s that limbo stage where neither of you want to talk but you’re still technically not broken up. Let me say now that those few days were quite honestly the worst of my life. You constantly want to try and save it; to try your hardest to prevent the eventual outcome but alas, there is nothing to be done. Every heartbeat there is a new thought and with every thought there is a new possibility, a new outcome. At the end of the day I am honestly extremely proud of her for having the strength to drive to me and talk to me in person about it; as far as a break up goes i’m glad that my first real one was done properly. Cliché time! It was a freezing cold night at around 11pm when we sat in her car and just cried together. 3 years is a long time to get to know someone and be with them. But to grow up with them, to experience once in a lifetime memories with them and to be there for them in horrible situations (and vice versa of course). THAT is when its different in my opinion. I’m not saying my situation was the worst in the world because of course somewhere someone has had it worse. As far as my relationship goes, it was the best 3 years of my life and to this day I would not trade it for the world. That’s what made it so hard. 3 years coming down to this day. We sat there and while I practically begged for a way to try and sort it out, I could hear it in her voice that her mind was set the minute she first thought it. That's the worst part. Knowing that the other half has already made their decision. It’s heart wrenching. In the end i settled on an “ok” as i concluded I needed to try and let it go. She has never been brilliant at making big decisions in her lifetime so the fact that she made this one was truly a big important moment in her life. She demonstrated her strength and I greatly respect that. With a final “ok” and a final deep breath, I got out the car and walked home.

Being alone in an empty house in the middle of nowhere without anything or anyone to talk to is lonely enough. But to have this situation added on top of it was awful. I can’t count how many hours I sat in the bath (or lied down on the tiled floor), how many hours I looked at old photos and how many hours I sat contemplating talking to her. Every minute of every hour of every day you are wondering “is she thinking about me?” “does she feel the same way?” and every minute you are praying for that phone call or knock on the door to say “yeah this was a mistake, please, let us fix it”. Realism was never my strong suit, always been a benevolent dreamer. I must admit, moments of weakness overpowered my mind and I did send messages. “Are you sure this is what you want?”. Things like that. Every response was the same message in different words, essentially summed up as “yes, this is what I want”. May sound dramatic but literally I had 2 days of not eating. It wasn’t a good week i suppose. Every day you think of the memories you made and the memories that you want to make. I’m not ashamed to say that despite what happened, I was and still am so deeply in love with this girl that it breaks my heart every day not waking up next to her. She was my best friend, and I lost the battle for her.

A common saying during a big break up is that “always talk to friends” and to that I say this is true. But you need to pick the right friends to talk to. For that I’d like to say a huge thank you to Nev, Abby, Olivia and Philip. All 4 of them always checked up on me every so often and the simple 5-15 worded sentences always made me smile. It’s nice to be cared about. I'm sure that from reading this I come across as suicidal. I’d be lying if I said the thought didn’t cross my mind but suicide is never an option and of course thoughts were immediately erased whenever they cropped up. Not being able to properly talk to someone sucks and they say that you should always talk to someone, but it really isn’t that easy. To let your guard down and just vent to someone is a big thing and people should realise that. Maybe its my personality of not wanting to be a hassle but the idea of the person you venting too feeling obliged to check up on you because they are worried is the worst feeling in the world, and with that I apologise to those who i dumped this on. With that said, knowing that you can just phone a person and be with them the next minute is reassurance that I’m not sure what I would’ve done without.

Acting strong and non-caring is easy, it is something I have always been good at doing and it is something that she knew I was capable of doing. Sure, moments of weakness express once every while but generally speaking I pull it off easily. People commonly think or say “yeah but I can see your not” as its cliché, they probably have no idea, let's be honest. But these are the people who need to be kept closer to you. They’re the ones who make you think about the situation you are in and they are the ones who you should always vent to (Thanks Philip and Abby xo) Sometimes it’s healthy to just sit down and have a good ol cry because crying proves how important it is. Anyway, waffling...

Going to the party on new year's a week after being single was probably the hardest experience of my life, but i am glad i went. To begin with all was good, the walk was long but it was the first time I had actually properly used my legs since the event so it felt healthy to get out. But you know, for the past 3 new years its been the same; It's been spent with the best person in the world, so to suddenly have that change is dramatic. I’d like to say I’m pretty proud of how i was doing at the party, I spoke to people and generally had a good time. Then i saw her photo and it went downhill from here. She looked so beautiful with a light blue ribbon in her hair, her glossy red lipstick and her gorgeous black dress. This was the girl I had lost. I can’t remember how many times I had to step outside to just have a little cry and think about what I had lost but I managed to do it without ruining anyone elses night so go me. She looked so happy in her photos, but of course the point was raised that I looked happy in mine. Still, the doubt gnaws away at your mind like a poison working its way through your body. New years was fine; i honestly appreciate everyone for making it a decent night and having a good time. But (and i'm sure she would agree), 4 words that I constantly dread to hear; “Are you doing okay?”. Everytime someone said this my mind wanders and I regret to say I did have a little break down in front of some people in the bathroom but it's okay, someone peed in the bath so i wasn’t the worst mess in the room!). I don’t know what I thought would happen but I was driven by the idea that she would come see me or try to talk to me that night. Nothing happened and I was heartbroken all over again.

As previously stated, it’s honestly not true when people say it gets easier over time. In my experience, it got worse. Every day that passed was another day where I lost more influence on the girl I thought I would die an old age with. In a moment of 3 am stupidness, I sent a speech about how I still love her etc etc and i’m an awful person for doing that. Im making it out that only I am affected by this; that's extremely not the case and of course she has had all the challenges to face as well. My only hope is that she is stronger than me (which is probably true as evident by the fact i was always the one who caved and messaged her). Sending this speech I imagine was the deal breaker. I went on to talk about the memories we had and how i pray to god that one day I will be able to use it in my wedding speech to demonstrate to any young couples out there that the bad moments are worth fighting through. The realistic result is probably just unnecessary pain to her. This was selfish on my part and for that I am truly sorry. More and more sleepless nights followed and it was here when I finally found my courage and told myself to just let her go. At the end of the day, I will always cherish her and adore her for the rest of my life. I will always deeply regret how it ended and forever wish the outcome was different. But this is one sided and so as a final act of love, I tried to let her go.

It is currently 2 and a half weeks after the whole ordeal and I am still praying for that phone call of “i am on the train to bournemouth, i’ll be there in 15 minutes” but this is unhealthy. I have spoken to her best friend and I thank her for her opinion on the right move as it was horrible for me to put her in that situation. I spoke to 3 of her closest friends and asked them to look after her because she does not deserve to ever be hurt and deserves the best life ahead of her. I pray that whoever she gives her heart to is deserving of it and is able to make her happy as i failed to do so. I told her to phone me if she ever needs help out of a situation because the truth is I will always be there for her, to get her out of an awkward or unsafe situation because I will always love her with all my heart. There is no doubt that she will be more successful than she thinks she will be and with that I will always be so proud of her. I will always be questioning what I did wrong and what I should’ve done but thats life and as my motto goes, I will continue to put one foot in front of the other until the next hurdle is needed to be overcome.

I will not re-read this or edit the mistakes because this was a 2am vent from my heart and so I apologise on how dramatic it may seem, but whatever has been written is truly written with intent. No one will probably ever even read this other than myself so i guess see you in a couple of years when this comes back to bite you hard in the ass. If someone is reading this, give me my email back or get off my computer.

(Time stamp - 14/01/2018 01:58)

Thought i’d just jot down a bit more just to document everything cause who knows, maybe being able to share an experience with someone else would help them. General progress in life has been good i suppose despite everything happening. Results are going well so far and the alcohol is vastly being consumed so thats a 1up for sure. Sure, for once im starting to feel better but it doesn’t change how shitty the whole situation is; every so often you get the awkward question of “how is your girlfriend” and you have to make that person feel like a dick when you reply with the situation but their fault for asking.

In terms of the last few weeks/month (i don’t actually remember when I wrote the previous section) we’ve been talking and its more or less certain that whenever we talk she instantly wants me to “fuck off” so to speak. At least that is how it feels. We’ve settled on the whole kinda “being friend” thing but realistically it wont work, i think she knows that as well as i do but I don’t know what her game plan is so i guess just settle for wading through! Sleep is still shitty but that would probably be due to the stress and alcohol; at least it's good for my body in a sense as apparently the only way I can get to sleep is through running at 2 am - nothing more exhilarating than having to pick up your pace due to a drunk person following you and with Dawnism for dummies, if i get caught then i clearly wasn’t fast enough! My friends are once again pretty much the only reason i haven’t clawed my head to pieces with stress although it just makes me miss them more. Oh yeah, i stopped a couple from breaking up so at least i’ve done something useful! Nothing worse than seeing people fight over petty things but of course I can’t be hypocritical because I was always like that. On the lines of hypocrisy, I really shouldn’t look at her snap chat. I can’t really speak about it in the sense that I have done it but seeing her snap chat story with other guys makes me just want to curl up and start the whole grief stage again but what can I do. Like I said, I've done it but I’ve always done it in groups, not a 1-1 basis but anyway, this is me being petty and stupid. God I’m actually whining about snap chat, this really is 2018 isn’t it... Honestly though, it changes you as a person in a way. I’ve lost a lot of perks such as my confidence (which I used to have a fair bit off in a non-i’m-a-cocky-idiot sense) yet gained some perks like being open to trying new things and wanting to meet new people. Clubbing used to be the bane of my existence and yet here I am going out 4 nights in a row just to be with friends. It’s an odd experience to say the least.

Anyways, just wanted to quickly update myself because I think documenting this experience is important. Being able to tell someone and show that you know how they are feeling is important in helping them “dig down” and overcome what is honestly one of the worst experiences to experience.

Ciao and thanks to anyone who took the time to read this :)

(Time stamp - 3/2/18 - 00:44)

#relationship #breakup #honest #deep thoughts #long post #life #personal #mood #words

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an-affectionate-heart · 7 years

Text

Part 1

AO3

When Lestrade showed up the next day, Sherlock only felt numb.

He supposed he should have expected it. Since Mary’s death, his and John’s relationship had been carefully restrained at best, and that was only recently. Sherlock still bore the bruises and cuts John’s fists had bestowed upon him. They had only just been on the verge of some kind of reparation before Sherlock’s deepest, darkest secret was flung out into the open.

It was almost a relief to have it be revealed. To say the words “I’m gay” after all these years. To finally be himself in front of the person who mattered most. To see the look on John’s face when he finally understood the depth of Sherlock’s feelings.

Actually, no. Seeing the look on John’s face hadn’t been a relief. It had been a mixture of resignation and heartbreak. But heartbreak wasn’t a new concept to him anyway.

The minute he’d shut his bedroom door behind him, Sherlock regretted it. What would have happened if he had stayed? What would John have said? What would he have done? Sherlock had a desperate desire to know, but he couldn’t just walk back out. That would make him look even more pathetic than he already felt. Instead, he laid down on his bed, turned on his side, and stared at the door. He strained his ears for possible sounds of footsteps coming down the hall, but he only caught a door closing. Molly turned up two minutes later, and he pretended to be asleep.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, he thought when Lestrade arrived at John’s designated time. He dropped his eyes back down to the book he had open in his lap, though he didn’t read a single word.

“Hey,” said Lestrade, awkwardly looking around the flat. “Hope it’s okay, but John asked me to take his shift. Said he needed to be with Rosie today.”

Of course it’s not okay, Sherlock thought. I’ve gone and ruined everything good in my life. Again.

“Yes, of course,” is all he said, not looking up from his book. “Rosamund must always come first.”

He was sitting in his chair, and for Lestrade, the logical place to sit would be the armchair across from Sherlock. John’s armchair. Sherlock kept his eyes trained on the book, but he could still sense Lestrade’s hesitation. In the end, the DI sat at the table off to Sherlock’s left.

For a few minutes, the only sound in the room was their breathing and the fluttering of the pages as Sherlock flipped them. He wasn’t reading at this point, but keeping up with appearances was easier than dealing with questions.

“It’s clean in here,” Lestrade said after a while. “I’ve never seen it this clean.”

Sherlock had a hard time resisting rolling his eyes. He detested small talk. “Courtesy of my brother. I’m not to be trusted with… with anything, really.”

“Can you blame him?” Sherlock gritted his teeth together. “You went on quite the bender.”

Sherlock slammed his book shut and stood up. The book was tossed onto John’s distressingly empty chair as he stalked into the kitchen. He reached for the kettle to prepare tea, but stopped when he saw how badly his hand was shaking.

“I had a good reason,” he said, staring at his hand. He heard Lestrade come closer, and he wordlessly stepped out of the way when Lestrade picked up the kettle and filled it.

“Yeah,” said Lestrade. “To save John. I know.”

Sherlock looked at him. “How do you know that?”

Lestrade put the kettle on the stovetop and leaned against the table, arms crossed. His expression was casual and nonjudgmental. Sherlock wished his hands would stop shaking.

“Because I’m not an idiot,” Lestrade said. “Contrary to what you may think.” He paused. “And Mrs. Hudson told me.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes. “That woman needs to learn when to keep her mouth shut.”

That earned him a glare from Lestrade. “That woman cares about you. She’s concerned.”

Sherlock rolled his eyes again, but it was halfhearted at best. He slumped into a chair at the kitchen table and watched as Lestrade made the tea. He would get it wrong, Sherlock already knew. Only one person had ever bothered to figure out just how Sherlock liked his tea, and he’d given up his chance to be standing in Lestrade’s position today. Because Sherlock had revealed that he loved him. And he probably hated Sherlock right now.

Lestrade set the tea down in front of Sherlock before taking a seat beside him. Sherlock watched the steam from it rise and curl before dissipating into the air. He wished he could do the same.

“I don’t think you’re an idiot,” he said quietly.

Lestrade didn’t respond, just took a sip from his own cup. Sherlock knew him well enough to know his words were well-received.

“You better drink that,” Lestrade said. “John instructed me to make sure you eat and drink something.”

The scoff that escaped Sherlock wasn’t supposed to happen, but he couldn’t help it. He was tempted to ignore the tea just to spite John, but still found himself reaching for the cup a second later.

“He’d be here if he could,” Lestrade said, clearly trying to be helpful. Sherlock gripped his teacup harder. “You know he would.”

The words were out before he could stop them. “No, he wouldn’t.”

Lestrade’s eyebrows furrowed, and he put his cup down. Sherlock could see the stirrings of a question in his eyes. His first instinct was to avoid it, but he was so tired that he just let it come.

“What makes you say that?”

“Pure, unequivocal fact,” Sherlock replied. Much like with Faith (no, not Faith, he’d hallucinated her, idiot), he couldn’t prevent the flood of words bubbling up in him. “The first time he saw me after Mary’s funeral was when Mrs. Hudson threw me in the boot of her car and forced him to look at me. He only stuck around after that because there was the chance we were going to incarcerate an incredibly dangerous man, not because he missed me. Furthermore, yesterday, when he was here for his shift, he was prepared to leave early because he couldn’t spend another second with me. Right before he left, I divulged some very private information, and in return he left without talking to me about it and asked you to come today in his stead because he cannot bare to face me.” He hated that his voice cracked ever so slightly on the last few words, and he knew Lestrade caught it too from the way his lips parted.

“Also,” Sherlock plowed on, making his voice gruff once again. “I don’t know if it’s escaped your notice, but two days ago, he did this to me.” He gestured to the cut above his brow. Lestrade swallowed as his eyes traveled over the injury.

“Look,” said Lestrade. “John cares about you a lot. He’s just going through some stuff, and-”

“If the next words out of your mouth are ‘and you should be sympathetic,’ I’ll kick you out.”

The hurt look that crossed Lestrade’s face almost made Sherlock feel bad. As much as he pretended he didn’t, he really did care about Lestrade. Without him, Sherlock truly believed he would’ve taken some terribly drastic actions to end his boredom. Lestrade helped him get clean, and he gave Sherlock cases to occupy his always-racing mind. Loathe as he was to admit it, Sherlock owed Lestrade an awful lot.

“I was going to say,” Lestrade said, “that while his grief does not excuse his actions in any way, he’s not in the right state of mind right now. The John that blamed you for Mary’s death, the John that did that to you isn’t the John Watson I know.”

Then where is that John Watson? Sherlock wondered. Will he ever come back?

“I don’t know what to do,” Sherlock whispered. Lestrade shifted in his chair, his body language conveying his willingness to listen. Sherlock looked down at his tea, no longer steaming. “I’ve tried to wait for him to let me back in, I’ve followed Mary’s advice, I’ve let him blame me for whatever he wants to blame me for…” There was a lump growing in his throat, one that seemed to always be on the verge of choking him these days. “I don’t know what else to do. I went to a therapist, for God’s sake. John is a puzzle I can’t solve.”

Lestrade tapped his finger against his cup. “What was it you told him yesterday?”

“Hm?”

“The very private information. What was it?” His voice was undemanding. It was like he was asking about the weather.

“That’s none of your bloody business.”

Lestrade didn’t seem surprised or put-off by this response at all. “Probably not. I just thought I’d understand the situation better if I knew. But you don’t have to tell me.”

For several minutes, silence stretched between them. After years of keeping it in, to be faced with revealing his secret two days in a row made Sherlock uneasy. It was a part of himself he kept close, pressed up inside his chest like a second heart. Giving it away so easily felt wrong.

But he was tired. So very tired.

Sherlock didn’t touch his cold tea, and Lestrade made him another cup. The little gesture touched Sherlock and prompted him open his mouth.

“I came out to him,” he said. The words were so simple, the sentence so short, and yet it meant everything to him. Just like yesterday, he felt weight in his shoulders lessen.

If Lestrade was shocked, he hid it well. If anything, he seemed confused. “Wait. You told John you’re gay, and he just left?”

His hands shook as he tried to take a sip of tea, but he was unable to keep the cup perfectly still and ended up with a line of brown liquid falling down his chin. He wiped it away, scowling a bit at the feeling of his growing beard. He hated facial hair. It made him feel unkempt. Yet, he was unable to do anything about it for the exact same reason he’d just spilled his tea.

“There was a bit more to it,” he replied.

“Well?”

“It’s more personal.”

Lestrade wasn’t an idiot. Sherlock had always known this. It was why he kept going to him in search of cases and why he tolerated the man’s presence in his life. He knew Lestrade understood exactly what he meant. Lestrade knew just what Sherlock had said that made John flee, made John hide. He knew it without Sherlock having to tell him. For that, Sherlock would be forever grateful.

“I’d always suspected, you know,” Lestrade said. “After years of never seeing you with anyone, and then suddenly you show up with a man who – no offense to John – didn’t seem particularly remarkable.”

“But that’s exactly why he is remarkable,” Sherlock said, the words coming out easier than he’d thought they would. “I was just as astounded as you were. The thought that someone like him could be so fascinating… I never would have considered it. He wears jumpers, for God’s sake. And watches Doctor Who.” And always puts too much sugar in his tea and takes military showers and never sleeps facing away from the door and buys milk before we can properly run out and knows my takeout preferences and…

“And then you fell for him,” Lestrade said, interrupting Sherlock’s whirlwind thoughts, “and you didn’t care about any of that.”

Sherlock pulled his knees up to his chest, a defensive position if there ever was one. “Of course I cared. I just learned to cope with it.”

Lestrade shook his head as if to say, Yeah, sure. Sherlock glared at him.

“Why are we even discussing this? He knows and he ran and now he’ll never come back here. He’ll never want to see me again. I’ve lost him.” The admission fractured his already battered heart further. He’d done so much to keep John with him, and in the end he’d failed. The most important thing in his life… ruined.

Well of course you’ve ruined it, he thought. That’s what you do. Ruin things. Take them and break them apart into a million pieces. It’s what you’re truly good for.

He hadn’t even realized he’d started crying until Lestrade was by his side, brushing his tears away. His first instinct was to shove him away, lash out with a scathing remark, and retreat into his bedroom. It was what he had trained himself to do, what he had always done whenever his godawful emotions refused to be silenced and locked away. Things were better this way, he had always told himself. He preferred it that way, or at least he had before a certain ex-army doctor limped into his life. Now it was harder than ever to stifle his emotions and keep himself away from the comfort he desperately craved. After days of withdrawals, of recovering from the brink of death, after weeks of nothing but bleakness, he couldn’t hold himself together any longer.

He finally broke.

“Shhh…” Lestrade murmured, cradling Sherlock as he sobbed. “It’s alright. It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re okay, Sherlock.”

He wanted John. He wanted John and the softness of his jumpers and the smell of his aftershave and the warmth of his skin and the firmness of his body and the beauty of his smile and the brightness of his eyes. He wanted all of it. He wanted the John he hadn’t seen in so long.

He wanted what he couldn’t have.

Lestrade turned up at his house later that night. John wasn’t as surprised as he should have been.

“Evening, Greg,” said John, opening his door wider. Lestrade’s normally friendly face was stormy, and John had a sinking feeling he knew exactly what brought the DI to his doorstep at nearly eleven at night. He holds up his glass of whiskey (his second of the night). “Want a drink?”

“I’ll pass, thanks.” John stepped aside and watched as Lestrade strode into the house. He noted the tenseness in his back, the clenching of his fist. The signs of anger were all there. With a jerk of his wrist, he downed the last of his drink and shut the door behind him.

“You told me you needed to be with Rosie tonight,” said Lestrade. He turned to face John, arms crossed. John felt a bit like a little boy being chastised by his father. The thought of his father made his stomach turn, and he immediately crossed to the kitchen to put his glass in the sink. Two drinks were enough for tonight.

“That wasn’t a lie,” he said, his back to Lestrade. “I haven’t been spending enough time with her lately. I’ve been failing her.”

“She’s not the only one you’ve been failing.”

The always-simmering rage inside of John threatened to rise up and overtake him, and it took every ounce of his strength to push it down. These days, he was constantly a hair’s breadth away from snapping. He was tired of feeling angry all the time, but the burning hot emotion refused to leave. It scared him every day.

“So you talked to him.”

Lestrade scoffed, and John faced him, leaning back against the sink. There was a fight brewing, and he was ready. He craved it, in a sickening way.

“Of course I bloody talked to him. I spent four hours at his flat because you asked me to go in your place. He’s a wreck, John, and he thinks you hate him.”

John clenched his jaw. “I don’t hate him.” Could never hate him, no matter how much I try.

“You’re doing a real good job of convincing him of it. Blaming him for your wife’s death, keeping him out of your life, avoiding him at all costs. Well done, really. The man tells you he loves you and you leave without another word.”

His skin felt hot the way it did whenever he found himself in a terrifying situation. “He told you that?”

Lestrade shrugged. “More or less.”

John suddenly wished he hadn’t washed out his glass, but he was already feeling rather light-headed. He’d wanted to take the edge off of his suffocating emotions, and the whiskey had done the trick. But it also made his tongue looser than he would’ve liked.

“You don’t understand.”

Lestrade cocked an eyebrow. “Then why don’t you help me?”

John snorted. “You playing mediator now?”

“If it gets the two of you idiots to stop destroying yourselves, then yeah, I am.”

Rosie’s baby monitor was sitting on the kitchen table, and John could hear her snuffling through it. Now would be the perfect time for her to wake up crying, demanding her father’s attention, but he had feeling this was going to be a full night of sleep for her. Traitor.

“Look,” John said. His addled brain made it difficult to properly voice his thoughts. “Whatever Sherlock feels about me is… wrong. It’s all wrong.”

Somehow, that made Lestrade angrier. “I never took you to be a homophobe.”

“What? No, no, that’s not – I’m not – I couldn’t possibly be a –”

“After everything Sherlock has done for you, after everything you’ve done for him, you seriously can’t accept him for who he is?”

John shook his head. “No, Greg, that wasn’t what I meant.”

“What did you mean then?”

His anger was ebbing, leaving behind the familiar pang of self-loathing. His oldest friend. “I meant – I meant to say – he shouldn’t love me. After everything I’ve done to him, he shouldn’t. It’s wrong.”

Lestrade softened, though he still seemed very irritated. “So you didn’t leave because he’s gay?”

John almost laughed. “No. That would be pretty hypocritical of me if I did.”

That was the closest he’d ever come to admitting it out loud. It was the alcohol’s doing, he knew, but he still managed to feel a bit proud of himself. He hadn’t felt that in a long time.

“You too?” Lestrade asked, looking genuinely surprised. John couldn’t blame him, considering how often he’d insisted he wasn’t gay. According to Sherlock, he did it all the time.

“Not fully,” he admitted, his lowered inhibitions pushing him on. “I still like women. But I like men too.”

Lestrade nodded slowly. “Okay… Okay, yeah. I can see that.”

John actually did laugh that time. “Do I look like a proper bisexual?”

Lestrade grinned, and John could almost believe they were just two mates having a laugh. “I just meant I’ve seen you checking out some guys.”

“And here I was, thinking I had everyone fooled.”

Lestrade sobered. “You have Sherlock fooled.”

John realized that. Despite his incredible observational skills, Sherlock didn’t see what was right in front of him. It both astounded and frustrated John to no end. He never knew he was the cause of Sherlock’s heartbreak because he never knew the depth of Sherlock’s feelings for him, but now that he knew, he hated himself more than ever before. His therapist would tell him that was too much self-loathing for one person. He would just laugh and shrug, as if to say, Oh, well.

“I’m a coward,” John said, looking Lestrade straight in the eye. “I know I am. I blamed him for Mary’s death when it wasn’t his fault, and I ran when he confided in me. I could’ve gone to see him today, but I didn’t because I was afraid of what I’d say. I don’t trust myself around him anymore.”

He’d always had nightmares, but the subject of them had changed over the years. Recently they often were about Mary’s death, but the past few nights had featured Sherlock, curled up on the floor of the morgue, bloody and broken. John had put them there, and he woke up gasping every time, filled to the brim with remorse.

The truth was, he missed Sherlock more than he’d ever missed anyone. It was like when Sherlock had jumped off Bart’s, only worse because he knew Sherlock was still alive and would let him into 221B if he asked. But he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

“John,” Lestrade said, a touch disapprovingly. “You can’t avoid him forever.”

“How can you be so sure?”

Lestrade’s next words knocked the breath from his lungs. “Because neither of you can live without the other.”

His eyes burned, and his chest was tight. His head was spinning, thanks to the alcohol and what Lestrade had just said. Because he was right. John had said it himself years ago. “Sherlock lives means John Watson lives.” It was still on the Internet for everyone to see. And it would never stop being true, because Sherlock Holmes was just as much a part of John as John’s own daughter was.

And John needed Sherlock.

“How do I fix this?” he asked, the desperation slipping into his voice. “What do I do?”

Lestrade seemed pleased he’d gotten John to accept it. John would need to take him out for a pint or twenty once this was all finished. “Just sit and talk with him. That’s what he needs most right now, and I’m pretty sure it’s what you need too.”

The thought of talking to Sherlock about everything – and he was certain they would need to talk about everything – was frankly more terrifying than war, but he’d have to do it if he wanted Sherlock back. “I’ll go tomorrow. Wait, no, Rosie has appointments in the morning, and I said I’d take an emergency shift at the surgery. So, the day after. After my therapist appointment.”

Lestrade nodded approvingly. “Good man. I know it’s hard, but you two will work it out. You always do.”

John was feeling pretty confident about it as he got into bed that night, but when he woke up several hours later, shocked out of a dream in which Sherlock bled at his feet, he felt doomed.

Part 3

#johnlock #johnlock fanfic #tjlc #sherlock #sherlock holmes #john watson #my writing

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goldeagleprice · 6 years

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Letters to the Editor (May 1, 2018)

Letter spurs thoughts as well as questions

Reading the letters to editor online today. Someone from Sherman, Texas, wrote about buying copper rounds. What are they?

There’s a National Coin Week event at the Brockton, Mass., Library each year in April, and sometimes attendees receive a copper blank and a cent in cellophane; a little package, call it. Is the “copper round” the reader writes about a pre-minted coin? Shame on me I don’t know the terminology, but a round piece of copper with an edge but no die has hit it? What’s it called, a blank with the upset rim?

You don’t have to put my name in the newsletter! Why broadcast my ignorance? Maybe a copper round is a one-ounce round chunk of copper? (Too old too soon, too smart too late!) Keep learning.

Thanks again.

Name withheld

Editor’s note: You are quite right. Silver rounds are one-ounce silver medals of various designs made by private firms. Copper rounds are the same thing, only in copper. A coin blank is unstruck and does not have upset rims. A planchet is a blank with rims upset and ready for the coining press.

Denver nickel shows up in North Carolina

I received my first 2018 nickel on Thursday, March 29, at a CVS Pharmacy in Jamestown, N.C. Surprisingly, it has a “D” mintmark. We seldom, if ever, get Denver coins in change here, particularly this early in the year. It appears that the Denver Mint invasion of the East Coast includes more than just cent coins!

Bob Klippstein Greensboro N.C.

Cent and quarter first finds of the 2018 collecting year

It took until mid March of this year to find my first 2018 mintmark coin. Oddly enough, I found a 2018 Philadelphia (no mintmark again) new penny and a 2018 Pictured Rocks state park quarter the same day in everyday pocket change. Another oddity (to me, at least) is that down here in my dead-end corner of the country, I have found over three rolls of the supposedly somewhat rare 2017 “P” mintmarked pennies in my everyday change. A few other finds but nothing outstanding.

Name withheld

Passing of hobby friends brings sadness

As seems to happen more and more nowadays, another late night email reports that Ray Lockwood, of Indiana and the august Central States Numismatic Society lost his battle with cancer and passed away.

My contacts and crossing paths with Ray were few and infrequent but always with his wife, Fran, and usually attending the Royal Canadian Numismatic Association (RCNA) Conventions. He was always jovial, somewhat quiet, never opinionated but passionate about the world of money, and friendly and ready for a good joke and laugh.

Ray, along with Fran, and I had one commonality: we were all retired educators, and at the junior high level. Boy, junior highers and their puberty! In addition, we were passionate about numismatics and serving our hobby. Ray’s record for and with the esteemed CSNS is confirmation of that fact.

My personal remembrance was last fall 2017, when Ray and Fran took a train trek out to Sacramento, Calif., to relax and to rest. We met up, and the respected Lloyd G. Chan drove us up to Carson City, Nev., and the legendary Carson City Mint.

Having complimentary passes to the Nevada State Museum, which is housed within the CC Mint, we toured and viewed the exhibits. When done, we walked across the street to a well-known upscale coin shop.

Being devoted coin hobbyists, us four spent more time in that shop than the CC Mint across the street. Ray, going through CC dollars, found a semi-rare one, adding it to his collection. This purchase certainly made his trek to Carson City and train trip out West worthwhile, as he remarked.

Ray was one of the numerous coin celebrants that enlightened and enthralled our hobby, this world of money. Our hobby endures their passing and enjoys what they paved for us today. The question, though, is who shall continue their good work?

Marie Osmond once remarked, “Being in service to others is what brings true happiness.” Ray’s devotion to our “world of money” is evidence enough for that thought.

RIP, Ray.

Most all Numismatic News readers may not have heard of Harry W. Davis (1929-2018), who passed away recently just two weeks before his 89th birthday.

A native of upstate New York and longtime resident of Vallejo, Calif., Harry was the longest-serving president of the Vallejo (California) Numismatic Society and served several terms as the Northern California Numismatic Association president, leading during its last famous Nor-Cal Shows.

Harry, with the love of his life, Irene Carrillo, was for over a decade a regular presence at most all northern California coin club meetings and shows. At times, they would drive to a distant show the night before and assist with evening setup, then stay at a local motel. Awaking early, they would again work and assist all day at the show.

While they had no favorite local northern California coin show, a preference was the Livermore Valley Coin Club’s annual show, for the then-caterer had these “to die for” huge roast beef sandwiches they both craved!

Harry was an old-school hobbyist. A rarity nowadays, he collected both coins and stamps, adding collecting Greyhound memorabilia, being a retired Greyhound driver with an exemplary safety record.

Only health and age curtailed his organized numismatic involvements in recent years. Yet, even restricted to a wheelchair, he still collected and enjoyed the two hobbies of coins and stamps.

Harry, RIP.

Michael S. Turrini Vallejo, Calif.

2018 Philadelphia cents arrive in New Jersey

At lunchtime today, the cashier had to break open a roll of cents to give me correct change. She handed me three shiny new Philly Lincolns. I had not seen any 2018-dated currency prior to this.

Name withheld Flemington, N.J.

Ozark quarter joins 2018 Philadelphia cent in change

Yesterday, March 27, I found my first 2018 U.S. coin, a shiny new “no P” Philadelphia Mint Lincoln cent. Got it in change at a McDonald’s in Millington, Tenn. This morning, I finally got the 2017 mid-year release, an Ozark Riverways quarter in change, an item for which I’d been searching for months.

David Smith Somerville, Tenn.

Three new Denver cents fill out change at market

Thought you might like to know that I received three 2018-D Lincoln cents in change at the Tubac Market in Tubac, Ariz. (about 45 miles south of Tucson) on March 24.

They show like proof coins, very brilliant compared to the other Mint State coins I received that day. One cent looks like it has an impression of a wreath leaf running through the “8” in the date.

Bill Graney Address withheld

ATB quarter first 2018 coin received by reader

Yes! Today I received my first 2018 coin in change at Half Price Books, a 2018-D Pictured Rocks quarter. Very pretty. Had wonderful bookstore day.

Ginger Rapsus Chicago, Ill.

Shipwrecked ‘Pulaski’ not a naval vessel

I believe you will find that the Pulaski was not a United States navy vessel, therefore making the use of the prefix “U.S.S.” (for United States Ship) inappropriate. This mistake is common. I find it a little grating when people refer to “my” shipwreck, the S.S. Central America, as the “U.S.S. Central America.” And the Central America even had a naval master, as designated by the government. Anyway, “S.S.” will suffice.

Thanks for any attention you can give to this matter of editorial significance.

Bob Evans Address withheld

Editor’s note: Thanks, Bob. Good luck as always with “your” shipwreck coins.

Fractional silver Eagles might bring youth to hobby

I understand that the metals markets are always changing, and that does have something to do with the falling numbers of silver Eagles. It is a perfect time to redesign the reverse of the silver Eagle. Now would be a great time to issue half-ounce and quarter-ounce silver Eagles. This would kick start interest not only in buying silver but also in the collecting of new fractional sizes. Plus a great benefit could be to attract future young numismatists to collecting with less expensive bullion. If the U.S. Mint were truly interested in stopping the dropping sales of ASE, and finding a way to rekindle the flame of excitement of a new series to collect, this could potentially be a win-win situation for all.

Sean K. Stanczyk Lincoln, Neb.

This article was originally printed in Numismatic News. >> Subscribe today.

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