#its the morning after i beat violet and i rushed to make this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thesyndicateofeden · 1 year

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My first ever true attempt at a story, a fanfic, more are to come.

Sources: Circeil is an OC, a lot of the world is taken from The Arcana game, with some background lore changes, the name Fort Dawnguard is obviously a Skyrim reference and the Lightbringers are closely tied to the Dawnguard Faction. Circeil’s Morning Star is inspired by Trevor Belmont’s weapon of the same name. Crowley in his entirety is a reference to Ranger’s Apprentice and functions like their special horses.

Notes: Circeil’s voice has a slight accent we would know as French, her name is pronounced, funnily enough, like “Sir-seal” her eyes are a light violet/pink, which is a normal, but recessive gene in this world.

Enjoy, give feedback, and even criticism!!

Rise of the Morning Star

Circeil stepped out of the inn as the morning sun beat down on her and the rest of the more or less backwater town she was staying in for the night. The knight was out of place amongst the peasantry as shining plate armor with a golden sun inlaid upon the chest gleamed almost as brightly as its muse high above. Circeil was here on business, the kind that required steel plate and her fascinating weapon upon her hip. A whip made of chain with what looked to be the head of a flanged mace on the end, a yellow gemstone on the tip ever so slightly glowing. To the uninitiated, the Morning Stars were a legend, myths used to strike fear into evil doers and monsters. What most didn’t know was that they were real, magically enchanted weapons of many types for the sole purpose of keeping peace and life. As a knight of the Lightbringers Circeil dealt with everything from petty bandits to organized crime to vampiric threats to the innocent people of her world, and today looked to be more of the former. A series of cattle raids and petty theft were plaguing this small village and after most of the militia had been killed, a plea for professional aid finally made its way up the chain and so it was time for Circeil to go to work. Mounting a lightly armored horse for travel, the woman set out into the rising sun towards the last known encounter with this group, her shoulder length brown locks flying behind her with the wind as the clinking of metal followed her.

After a few minutes of riding, the knight was caught off guard as it seemed her prey had decided to come to her. A crossbow bolt hissed from the tree tops and slammed across her breastplate with an ear piercing screech. Although it didn’t penetrate it’s force still bluntly delivered through the steel, causing a grunt of pain to fly from her lips as Circeil quickly dismounted, placing her helmet on. Gauntlets clinked as Circeil drew the Morning Star from its base and flicked the chain-whip out. Calling forth her voice rang, strong, powerful, and with a hint of professional playfulness.

“So nice of you to make yourselves easy to find!”

Before more bolts could reply the knight slapped the behind of the horse to spur it into motion and get away from the battle, she didn’t need it getting in the way. With strong arms the knight started to whirl the chain and mace as the weapon’s enchantments flared to life in the form of a yellow glow across its length that spilled warmth across the trail. Circeil sent two round, twirling strikes up above her into the trees, the branches flying off with sizzling sparks. On the second pass the chain caught the previously concealed body of her assailant and wrapped itself around his leather armored waist. Of course, leather wouldn’t be helping much against the magically scalding chain and the bandit yelped from the heat and the shock as Circeil tightened the slack before tearing the man out of the tree to slam against the dirt path with another grunt. Rushing forward the knight uncoiled the whip as she calmly placed a steel boot on the bandit’s back.

“I think you are going to tell me where the rest of your vile, unlawful friends are. Quickly and politely.”

She let the head of her whip dangle in front of his eyes, the heat of its sun-like glow bathing his face. The bandit quickly broke, deciding that gang loyalty wasn’t exactly worth a magical inferno beatdown.

“Woah woah woah! Woah! What kinda voodoo-

Circeil dug her heel in a bit to his spine and he sighed through a groan

“Quickly, yes. Over the knoll and a two minutes walk there’s a camp milady. Clearing, two men on watch.”

“Thank you, that wasn’t so hard, was it? I’ll have guards pick you up shortly, for the moment…”

The knight carefully brought down the end of the whip to knock him out before dusting herself off.

“Sleep tight.”

Circeil stepped down and began a calm jog to the described location. They didn’t know she was coming and as such she saw no reason to tire herself out needlessly.

It was a good day so far, last night the gang had gotten a sweet amount of loot from some poor merchantmen caravan loaded with gold from a prolific spice deal, and even the morning after the bandits were riding high on good spirits. The crossbowman on guard planned on taking his cut and spending it lavishly on the finest-

CRACK

Was the last thing he heard as the flanged mace on the end of Circeil’s whip slammed into the side of his head, in an instant snapping his neck and cutting off all thoughts forever. His body thumped to the grass as the gem on the Morning Star glowed with satisfied justice. Following through with the swing, Circeil moved with the weapons movement behind the second guard’s head. While the mace head swung back the knight coiled forward and around the yelping and startled man. In a matter of two and a half seconds the cooled steel chain was suffocating the bandit, leaving him unconscious in a few more of those seconds. The rest of the camp sprung to confused action as they saw the flashing of orange from the treeline, two men with dented iron swords and the other guard were all that stood in her way. One of the swordsman spotted her first, through the trees, and only her face. The lackluster view of what he truly dealt with led him to call back,

“It’s just some woman! Come o-”

He was silenced as Circeil’s arms pumped in and out, sending the whip to spin and slam into his stomach, causing blood from ruptured internals to spew after his words. Trees meant nothing to her magical inferno, wood and leaf being burned in half to part way for her attack. Spinning her own body and the whip for a second strike this one caught him in the side and the massive crack of his spine snapping in twain was all the confirmation the knight needed to focus on the next target. A bolt whizzed past her helmet and stuck into a nearby tree, terror causing the ranged bandit to miss at the brutal display of power. She stepped forward calmly into the clearing, the other swordsman refusing to come any further. Her left hand opened out in a sign of parley as the glowing macehead dragged along the floor behind her..

“Bar any further attacks and disrespect, you may come quietly to the law. From there, the judges will decide your fate.”

The bandit shook a little and verbally spat,

“Why should we trust you?

Circeil was quick to respond with a sigh,

“A Lightbringer never goes against their wo-”

Apparently having no intent to surrender and finding himself an opportunity, the crossbowman opened fire and this time his aim was truer as the bolt slammed into the side of her helmet. The metal cracked along a seam with enough force to send it spinning off and to the ground with a sharpened rent, taking a slice of flesh and hair with it. The slice from the spinning helmet’s edge was thin but the knight noted the gentle droplets of blood coursing down her cheek. Growling through the pain and ringing in her left ear Circeil crouched low and rushed forward after flinching, shouldering aside the swordsman and putting that steel-covered shoulder into the crossbowman in a tackle. A tooth went flying as he was knocked flat with a grunt as the plated woman knelt atop him, delivering quick jabs to his face. Even if her hands weren’t in steel armor, Circeil was incredibly strong. After one his nose broke into pieces, blood spurting out to cover her right hand and his chin, the second strike knocking him out cold and further pulverizing whatever whole cartilage remained. The remaining bandit’s feet told Circeil of his oncoming approach. Rolling off the unconscious ranger Circeil flicked her whip out like a striking snake, wrapping itself around his legs and tripping him flat as he screamed in agony from the searing steel. Circeil quickly yanked the chain back and out into the air, spinning with it to slam it vertically back down into the back of the man’s head. Sizzling followed the wet crunch of the Morning Star embedding itself into the back of his head, blood and brain matter splattering across the dirt before evaporating under its magical heat as he lay forever still.

“Well..So much for parley.”

She yanked the chain back into its coil on her belt, the inner flame having already purified it of any sign it was just involved in battle. Circeil shook her head as she regarded her crimson gauntlets and the damage to her armor from the bolts, gently touching her sliced cheek with a wry smile.

“Portia’s going to kill me.”

The knight chuckled as she whistled to her horse to come once more to her side.

“Guess I’m making dinner tonight after I report mission success, eh Crowley?”

The horse’s neigh almost sounded like a snicker and she saw sarcasm in his big brown eyes as he walked up to her and waited to be mounted

“What?! I can cook! Just..not as well! I’ll make it up to her somehow, you old cynic.”

With that promise made to herself, Circeil set off in a trot to the village to report success and the location of the unconscious prisoners, before beginning her long trek home to her lover and the Lightbringer order within the capital city of Vesuvia.

* * *

The horse and rider crested the final hill before the city in a trot just as the evening sun was dipping its brow below the horizon, casting the grand city of Vesuvia in an orange and dark yellow glow gleaming along its many spires and towers. Sitting upon a mountainous ridge with the Shattered Sword range extending northwest to south east in a diagonal, mountainous slash across the earth, the Imperial City stood alone on its gray throne. Any settlement or nearby town were to be found on the rolling plains and forests below the mountain, a grand highway of carved stone staircases leading visitors, citizens, and traders up the path and onto the high ridge. Aqueducts constructed to stream mountain water down into the city sparkled with the fading sun. Its walls were gorgeous marble, enchanted long ago to be as durable as they are beautiful. Like a cake the city was tiered, the outer and lowest upon the mountainside were the residential districts, low end shops, and food-places. The next tier, marked by the golden veins spider-webbing itself throughout its own circle of marble wall, was for the traders and clergy to reside and do business and prayer. The last tier housed the Palace and the Countess herself plus her court, its separating wall being marked with beautiful, gently pulsating violet amethyst veins through the walls. Its magical reinforcements were of the highest echelon and while Circeil had never seen it in action, it was said that when a projectile tried to pass over them it would be rebounded with a violet forcefield. Vesuvia held no true kingdom under its name, being content to be a city state. This however was not out of weakness, for the city was as ancient as the dustiest tomes in its Grand Library and was easily the most prosperous, blessed city in the region. Even the capital of the Prakran Empire could not hold a candle to its luster and magical power. The Founder, they’re name and body unknown to the modern minds, built Vesuvia as the cradle of civilization, a magical metropolis that to this day still expands. In recent years, having run out of ridge, the city has been digging itself into the mountains in order to feed its ever growing population and to feed them well.

Crowley’s impatient neigh broke Circeil’s awe filled stare and her mouth clamped shut in surprise that it was even open. The horse snickered, “You’ve only seen it a thousand times.” Quick to smile and retort the knight blew a raspberry at the horse

“Yeah? I’ve seen Portia just as much, when you love something, it never loses the charm or beauty you first laid eyes on.”

The horse practically rolled his eyes and began to quickly gallop down the hill and along the road to reach the gates before nightfall. A minute or so later the experienced steed was galloping off the wide stone stairs up the ridge, galloping over the top and then slowing to a trot as Circeil approached the gates. The setting sun provided enough light for the guards to see her and the sigil of the Lightbringer order emblazoned across her chest. A man on the right of the gate with a halberd cried out

“Halt fair Lightbringer! I’ve been tasked to give a message to one of your order who went to the village of Karth in a bandit hunt. What is your name?”

Circeil brought Crowley to a halt and smiled cordially at the common guard,

“I am Circeil, the one sent to Karth, what is the message and who is it from?”

The guard swallowed a bit confusedly,

“No last name milady?”

She shook her head and paused for him to continue. Stuttering back into professional form he nodded

“Of course milady, sorry milady. It comes directly from the Herald of the Sun.”

Circeil straightened her posture, while she personally had some grievances against the Order’s leader, his name was drilled to instill respect and orderly conduct in her. The guard continued

“His Holiness received a request from Countess Nadia to assemble a team of knights for some purpose. You are to immediately head to the palace.”

Circeil’s brow knitted in curiosity and a bit of apprehension, the Countess had personal guards already, perhaps a diplomatic mission? Did she want to up security? The inquisitive inquisitor tried to push down her pondering though, orders were orders and she was sure someone would explain eventually. Circeil opened her mouth questioningly but was swiftly answered by the guard, knowing her inquiry from the look on her face.

“I…sorry, no milady. Immediately means immediately, your..woman can wait.”

Frowning now the knight set the also aloof Crowley through the gate, and although she tried to remain stoic she couldn’t stop a sarcastic aside,

“And what were His Holiness’s Pure, Powerful, and oh so Exalted words exactly?”

The guard was now visibly nervous as she and the horse passed him. The man sighed and gulped even heavier than the first time.

“I..I think it was…’Remind that debaucherous, perverted soldier of mine that orders do not halt for her dirty vice.’...Sorry, Milady Circeil.”

Nothing new there, so the woman waved a gauntleted hand, one covered in dried blood to show no harm done on his part. There wasn’t a river between Karth and Vesuvia, and now the knight was proud she didn’t take a detour to wash the battle from her. The Herald wanted immediate presence in one of the most pristine, noble, and powerful courts in the world? She’d certainly comply, dented, bloodied steel in all, with a broken helmet strapped to her hip. If she couldn’t see Portia before this meeting, surely a bath and smithy were equally unimportant! Crowley gave a great heaving snort and stamped his feet in apparent agreement against the cobblestones on the first tier of the city. While he was tired, Crowley would sprint to hell and back for Circeil, and she’d do the same for him. She also hoped she wasn’t the only knight in the world who talked to her horse. To that Crowley snickered,

“Probably.”

“Thanks for the vote of sanity buddy.”

“You’re welcome.”

Circeil always replied to the horse out loud, but luckily the confusing, one sided conversation would be lost in the bustle of the evening crowd as she quickly rode up the street. The knight, because apparently the universe was against her today, was forced to ride past the inn where her love called home. For anyone else it would be a lavish guest room within Castle Dawnguard, staying in the entire wing it had for the families and spouses or even just blossoming loves of its soldiers. Portia was denied such because for the same reason Circeil couldn’t stop to see her right now, she was another woman. To her love’s credit she took it in stride and it barely put a dent in her beautiful step, but to the knight it always put an angry prick in her heart that ate at her everytime she viewed the inn or stepped inside it to sleep next to Portia. For all her anger though Crowley’s gait did not slow and it was out of eyesight in a moment as rider and horse ascended, out of the Marble Basin, and past the beautiful gates with sparkling yellow inlay into the Gold Districts of Vesuvia, luxurious shops, temples, and estates for merchant families and minor nobility. The knight, born peasant, didn’t exactly enjoy the idea nor find some of those gaudy houses appealing, so unlike the first tier, she didn’t look around as much, that couldn't be said for the passerby though. A Lightbringer’s striking sun on their chest gleaming in the about to fully set, larger sister’s light would obviously turn eyes, but Circeil got the feeling from the mildly disgusted muttering that it was due to the fact she was dusted with dirt, dried blood, and had dents in her armor. Of course..being known for her preference played a factor. While commoners really didn’t care, because they had no reason to, stuck up nobility and gaudy merchants for once would be cohorts with their opposing, holy priests, united by their traditional mistrust. To any that glared Circeil would hold her head high, proudly showing the marks of battle and stare back. Crowley snorted in warning at one fat man who opened his mouth to say something, before he backed down.

“Like..fake sugar cubes.”

“What?”

Her response was a whisper to avoid even more looks,

“They are hard, crunchy, and pretend to be sweet and nice, like those fake sugar cubes you say are good for my health.”

That managed to get the woman to smile.

“You know..you’re right. Do you think Countess Nadia will be like them?”

Crowley made a noncommittal “snorf” noise before,

“You have not met her?”

“Not face to face.”

“Let’s hope she is a real cube. At least an apple.”

Crowley sped up, not into a full galloping charge but enough to blur out the annoying flies gossipping in the clean stone streets around the bloody warrior as they made their way to the last inner tier, its walls cracking with veins of what appeared to be pulsating purple amethyst, the most grandiose gates of all. With clamoring of shouts from the attendees the large gates swing open silently and on well kept, magical mechanics, leaving the way open to the fanciful bridge across the clear moat leading up to a many spired, marble and ivory palace that held dominion over the surrounding land. Beside it, and attached to the right wing of the castle, lay something Circeil thought ruined the gorgeous atmosphere. Fort Dawnguard. The only thing of beauty along its walls were the banners of a golden sun on a field of white, stretching its flaming rays out to the corners of each tapestry, encompassing the field in its radiance. Underneath those banners were thick walls of stone that looked like they could take a dragon crashing into them. While polished, kept clean and smooth, the greyscale Fort clashed heavily with the palace, a strange duo of the power of magic and the power of machine combined into one megastructure to rule over all. Even seeing it countless times, the sight took Circeil’s breath away for both positive and negative reasons. Crowley chimed in with his snort.

“Seriously..I swear you don’t even gasp that much when you see Portia’s-“

“Forward Crowley.” Came the halting and mildly embarrassed response, and the horse snorted again like he was laughing all the way across the bridge and up the many stable houses in front of the entrance to Wyrvwald, the official name of the ivory colored palace.

The knight brought the brown horse into one and dismounted, letting the reins trail. Crowley, like all Lightbringer horses, were trained to never move nor let another person ride unless they were ordered to, and received the password given to them if it was a new person.

“Now. You will be a good boy. I appreciate you defending my honor but please do not bite Sergeant Arlin again or his horse.”

Crowley stomped his feet like a child crossing their arms to pout, snorting indignantly,

“I hate that horse, no..stuck up, noble-bred pony! She’s rude to me.”

“If you don’t start a fight, I’ll give you a sugarcube.”

“Deal. Now..good luck. Don’t punch the Herald, or Countess Nadia if she is another fake cube.”

That got Circeil to smile and she whispered,

“Deal.”

Before giving the loyal steed a kiss on the cheek and exiting the stables. Her broken helmet clinked on her hip alongside the rest of her plate armor, which soon began to echo in the main foyer of Wyrvwald. The foyer opened right into a sitting area, presided by a short and wide staircase up and to the even wider main hall consisting of four long, mahogany tables for feasts, which could be cleared to turn it into a ball room. Up a smaller and narrower set of stairs sat the throne, a beautiful affair of ivory, marble, and pulsating lines of amethyst crystal crackling themselves like veins across the chair. Even with its craftsmanship and magic, it didn’t hold a candle to the woman atop it. Countess Nadia was a sight, warm, powerful, and exotic. Firstly, the entire length of her hair, which held itself in many braids and gathered tails and impressively still reached just below her thigh, was a deep violet. The hue was of Byzantium purple and was her most striking feature. Next was her face, chocolate toned skin like the rest of her body, with a medium, slim nose that came to a rounded point which delicately tasted the air with light breaths. Above its bridge were brown eyes, warmly observing behind horizontal, slim almond lids and heavy lashes. Her Prakran heritage was clear, an exotic form of beauty that made Circeil gasp in surprise to her chagrin and nagging thought. “Shit…Crowley’s right, I do that way too much.”

Her humor was quick to subside as she became acutely aware of her choice to not wash the mission from her. In the magical light of the room’s chandeliers and sconces, her armor gleamed in sections, cut and dulled in others by the dents of crossbows, and muted entirely by the now more brown than crimson blood that stained several parts of her. In comparison, the countess wore a beautiful dress of silk, pink satin highlights over a sky blue base, all under a golden crown with amethyst set center piece to match her hair. The difference could only be greater if Circeil had arrived in rags or nothing at all. However, the Lightbringer swallowed her doubt in her choice, she’d be proud of it, and she’d make her point to-

Him.

The knight’s eyes finally noted the gleaming figure in the room, at first looking like that of a golden statue for how deathly still he was. Wearing the finest of Sunsteel, the gilded Herald’s armor was of similar, plated style to the standard for all knights, but was golden and the symbol of the sun was engraved into the breastplate, instead of the heraldic cote on cloth she wore over the top the armor. His grand helmet with a plume of yellow tassel was on his hip, revealing his face. Like the exterior of each building, where Nadia was gorgeous and powerful at the same time, the Herald was rugged, with a weathered, old face covered in many scars of battle. As far as Circeil knew, they coated his full body. Standing at 6 foot 7 and muscular to boot he was an imposing figure, no matter the fact his hair and closely trimmed beard were stark-white with age. His eyes were brown, but cold and hard as the magically tempered Sunsteel he wore, for even though he was the Herald of Light, he brought no warmth to the job. Upon seeing the bloody and dirty Circeil he growled, a deep sound that would make the largest bear in the land believe their voice was equivalent to a prepubescent girl, and a dragon to take pause.

“Lightbringer Circeil. You are in the court of our lady Countess Nadia and you come, dirty, covered in blood, and late to boot. Are you mocking us?”

Circeil opened her mouth to defend and make her point, but to her surprise, the Countess raised her left hand to pause the Herald, tilting her head to the side and searching the Knight’s soul with those eyes, before she smiled warmly, and feinting a tad of confusion.

“I know not what you growl about Orlin.”

Her voice was like melted chocolate. Sweet, warm, deep, thick, and all around an absolute pleasure to hear.

“If I remember correctly, your orders were to come immediately to Wyrvwald and..”

Her right hand pointed to one of the many high and large windows. While stained with the depictions of the Golden Goddess Passonas, it was clear the sun had just set.

“If I’m not mistaken, Lady Circeil here is on time. Early even. I had planned for your chosen squad to finish arriving at 20:00, and our dear here does not even have a clock, she used the sun.”

The countess stands as Herald Orlin sets his jaw firmly in a grimace, staring hard at Circeil, who stares right back, even if the man definitely intimidated her. Apparently, his effect was lost on the Countess if she had dared address him as “Orlin” without his very powerful title. Still kneeling, Circeil spoke.

“Yes my lady, exactly my lady. With the word immediately and a note I could not stop for my lover from the Herald himself, I thought it imperative to get here as fast as I could, skipping both smith and bath.”

Circeil’s gaze kept Herald Orlin’s, although she desired it to gaze on the far more pleasing and warm sight of the Countess, the Knight feared to be the one to break her superior’s stare. The exotic woman nodded and her smile widened.

“You have a wonderful Lightbringer here if she takes her duty as seriously as this. Although, with now two hours to spare and being the first, surely she could have been allowed to see her man, no?”

She looked to Orlin curiously, and inquisitively, the point bothering her, and those eyes began to insight into the Herald’s soul like she had done with Circeil, taking in the now even tighter grip of the man’s frustrated jaw. It may have been a trick of the light, but something gleamed silver on her regal forehead. The gilded man kept his voice polite for his ruler, but strong.

“Apologies my lady, but you do not understand..Lightbringer Circeil has no lover, but rather a perve-

Having heard enough the knight finally stood and held her arms behind her back to keep them in check with the sudden boiling of her fury.

“She’s a she, Exalted Countess.”

It was clear immediately that the Prakran understood, and knew exactly Orlin’s game now as her narrow eyes widened a little at the surprise, but not disgustingly, and they were even warmer now as she chuckled lightly.

“Ahh..I see. My sincerest apologies for assuming, Lightbringer, and my sincerest for the order, I hope you can see her later tonight.”

Circeil wondered how many more statements it would take before the Herald’s scarred jaw broke from the pressure he was clenching it with and the words it kept locked in. Nadia seems to have noticed it too and her eyes portray the mirth she’s hiding, just sharing it with the other woman, which caused her to smile. Maybe she did have allies after all. Clapping her dark hands softly to break the tension the Countess stood pointedly.

“Well! Considering the fact, even though she’s ‘late’, Lady Circeil is the only one here, I think she can retire for the remaining two hours, any objections Orlin?”

His wrinkled face screamed yes, but he tightly spoke through his teeth.

“Not at all. Perhaps she can bathe in Fort Dawnguard and look..presentable. Fix the armor.”

The noblewoman put a hand to the middle of her chest softly, her favorite resting position.

“While I’m sure your Fort has them, I think for the orders and sacrifice of visiting her lover she should be a bit more rewarded, no?”

She waved a dark hand to dismiss Orlin,

“I’ll send over her armor, she can use my private bath, follow me, lady Circeil.”

The Herald of the Sun looks like he’s about to blow a fuse as he quickly leaves at the bidding of Nadia, and Circeil likens a yellow dog tail between his legs in her mind’s eye. A yellow dog that at any moment he could turn and smite both of them. Being the leader of the Lightbringers, he wielded the strongest weapon of the order, and easily one of the strongest known in the world. Each leader called it by a different name, but Orlin had named it Sol, and it took whatever form the wielder desired it to. Circeil had only ever seen it once, at a graduation ceremony he had lit it in the form of a giant, flaming claymore. Luckily for her, the Herald left the main hall through one of the numerous side doors without ever reading what lay in her mind, and left her alone with the Countess. Her silky voice sighed as the fabric rustling alerted the keen woman to the fact she had brushed past the throne and soon appeared in her peripheral,

“What a…codger.”

The countess chuckled and covered her mouth daintily and winked at Circeil

“I trust that comment stays between you and I.”

The knight’s smile reached her ears and she winked right back. Stepping to the side and down the Countess held out her soft hand. Circeil looked around a bit shyly. Her gauntlets were dirty, and she was in such a nice dress…

So Nadia just took the knight’s hand without a second thought, quietly chuckling again, and now gently guiding her while teasing in her exotically accented, smooth voice,

“I don’t bite, I promise. Not unless they ask nicely of course.”

The confident ruler winked down at Circeil, while the knight was tall, Nadia was even taller, about cresting 6 feet. They came to a door gently letting out steam and heat underneath the cracks, marked with the seal of Vesuvia formed of amethyst, which a Runed Sword overtop an open book of a language long forgotten except for the magic it produced. The byzantine-haired woman turned slightly and pushed the symbol in, whirring gears sliding the door open and bathing the hallway in warmth and mist.

“Enjoy, simply leave your clothes and armor for the servants, we’ll send the suit over to the Fort for repairs, use anything you find to your taste.”

Like the last piece of cake she was gone too soon, leaving Circeil with many questions, few answers, but a hope in her heart, because it seemed like Countess Nadia was indeed a true sugarcube. Maybe she wasn’t so alone in her uphill battle afterall.

The bath was large and of marble, more akin to a square pool than the wooden boxes peasantry and soldiers called their tub, and along one of the rims lay dozens of soaps and bath salts, and a large, open window had the steaming water flow over the front rim due to tiny, magically fueled jets below the surface on the other three walls, which tipped over into a bi-stream. These led back down to the eternal fires that kept the bath forever hot and purified, with filters catching anything that fell over and was too large to burn below. It was an ingenious design and worked perfectly, leaving the knight to wonder who designed it. Stripping and letting the plate armor clank to the wet floor and her undergarments to pad atop that, she sighed as her muscles relaxed from carrying the metal all day. Circeil hadn’t realized how sore she was from the fighting, the hits, and the riding Crowley, and as such quickly sank into the just perfectly hot bath, sighing in relief. After a few minutes of letting the heat and jets relax her, Circeil flipped her back up, and swam to investigate the selection of soaps. This was Nadia’s bath after all, and the Lightbringer wanted to know more about this..exotic ruler she had been graced with. A twinge of regret passed her, wishing she had met her nation’s leader sooner. No matter..the past was the past, Circeil would make up lost time with her seemingly newest ally. Getting closer to the selection and even just having walked in, it smelt of lavender, and the theme ran. Every other wash was based on the purple flower. Lavender for her body, her hair, a lotion, and a conditioner. Other types did exist, most namely vanilla and cinnamon, but it was clear based on the levels of the bottle and sheer number that the Countess’s favorite was lavender. At least she knew what kind of gift to give her, and Circeil chuckled at the thought.

The knight finished actually getting clean quickly, trained to do so in the Lightbringers’ bootcamp, but she soaked languidly for many more minutes afterward in the steaming room.

“I could get used to this..if Portia were able to get in with me.”

“Tomorrow she will.”

The smooth, regal voice startled Circeil, who practically leaped out of the bath like a fish, then sinking below the now even more choppy depths to cover herself. The countess chuckled apologetically, stepping out from the entrance with her hands up and eyes closed.

“Apologies! Apologies! I seem to have caught you discussing the very thing I wanted to. Tomorrow I am moving your lover into one of my guest chambers, Orlin..refused her stay at the Fort, and I felt like I had pushed his buttons far too much already, politically speaking. I can’t order him to bring her into his castle, but I can bring her into mine.”

While her eyes remained politely closed and her thick lashes sealed, Nadia smiled warmly in the general direction of Circeil, who stammered out, unable to believe what was happening in such a short amount of time,

“T-thank you milady! Thank you! Whatever..mission you needed the Lightbringers for, I will execute above and beyond.”

The Countess beamed and nodded as she retreated, saying, soft and genuinely,

“No, thank you, and I know you will.”

Circeil bit her lip as she turned to leave..

“Oh? You’re not staying? I was going to get out and give the room to you. It’s yours afterall, and thank you for that by the way, but you have to get ready too.”

The exotic woman shrugged and her chocolate voice was like a low purr,

“Did you want me to stay?”

Before she exited with a dignified chuckle to prepare her own way for the meeting ahead, leaving behind a whiff of lavender amongst the steam in farewell.

* * *

Seven or so minutes later Circeil looked and felt like a Lightbringer again. No, even better, a Royal one. No wonder people coveted nobility, she thought, it certainly does wonders for your hair. Donning the repaired and polished armor completed the regal look as the chain of her Morning Star clinked and jangled while she attached it to her belt. Circeil jumped upon opening the door, for there stood-

“Lightbringer.” Came the deep, monotone growl of The Herald of the Sun.

“Affix your helmet, tuck that hair strand back, and advance to the guest parlor. The Countess has chosen to address and speak of the mission there, for some reason.”

Without waiting for a response the imposing mountain strode away through white corridors, and turned a corner to vanish from sight save for his reflection. After biting her lip and waiting to make sure he was gone, Circeil took off through the hallways of Wryvwald, but the opposite direction. The walls were marble with pillars of golden inlay spaced every few feet on the left or right side. There weren’t many signs around but the Knight began to see design patterns. Purple lines of amethyst on the ceiling would roll and in some hallways turn sharply to go into another direction, but the same was true of a golden line on the left side of the roof. As far as she could tell right now, Violet led to at least something of importance, the only basis being she passed a massive door set of dark gray granite; carved into it was half of the Seal of Vesuvia, the Runed Book without its Runed sword laid atop it. Two guards stood outside and as Circeil walked past a man exited the room, bumping into her. Behind him the view of massive bookshelves disappeared under the heavy door. His voice was remarkably smooth and calm for the event, sounding like the lap of ocean waves.

“Ahhh..my apologies, Lightbringer.”

He made a small, graceful bow. Were it not for his round ears Circeil would have believed him to be elven the way he held and moved. The stranger didn’t wear the white-orange garb of a servant. He wore clothes resembling that of eastern Nadith, developed nomads who often had close connections to magic: Loose white robes under a blue shawl..weirdly thick and appearing to shift over his shoulders. The robes were split down the middle in a deep V revealing a tan, toned chest, an interesting contrast to his more wiry arms and legs. That’s when the shawl lifted itself and brushed the man’s white, poofy hair, a forked tongue hissing out. Circeil backed up and put a hand to her Morning Star.

“Sir..there’s a snake on you.”

“Oh yes, she’s very cuddly.” His voice was airy, but not like that of nobility without substance. His “airy” was thick, wise, and for some reason kept reminding Circeil of how the ocean sounds. He continued while giving the azure serpent’s chin slow pets,

“Her name is Faust, and mine is Asra. I’m the..unofficial court mage here. You seem a little…” The man’s smirk grew like he held all the secrets of the world.

“Lost. What is your name?”

Circeil was understandably…off put. Not negatively but rather in mild confusion. Magicians were strange beings who talked to and pulled power from even stranger ones. All that to say: they were the kind of people who let snakes be their shawls. Clearing her throat as she moved her hand away from her weapon, the knight tried to relax,

“I am Lightbringer Circeil, and I’m looking for Countess Nadia’s Parlor. The Herald said it was the guest Parlor, if that makes a difference.”

Asra frowned and squinted his eyes slightly,

“He told you where to go, but not how to get there?”

“Correct.” Came the matter of fact response.

“And…you did not simply..follow wherever he was going?”

A little embarrassment came into her voice,

“I..I know I could have but I..dislike the man greatly. I figured I could find it myself.”

His frown got a little more knowing.

“Careful. Pride is good, but not in abundance. It always predates a fall.”

He smirked and began to walk away,

“Of course I’m sure we’ve all heard that line far too many times.”

Circeil balked a little bit and shouted,

“Wait! I could really use your help! Just this once?”

The mysterious man halted, gave a slight shrug, and kept walking. Circeil scoffed quietly and fidgeted with indecision. There was nothing else to do except follow this “Asra” wherever he was walking to, and hope that he was leading her to this “Parlor.” The metallic clank of her boots soon rang out on the hard floor behind his softer thumps, echoing together in the magical palace’s hallways..

If you made this far, thank you so much for reading. If I have time and energy, I’m definitely expanding this story. (Unless it’s hated and trash haha). I’m gonna post my other stories.

Until next time, may the stars guide you.

-Eden

#fanfiction #lgbtq #literature #fandom #fantasy #fanfic #the arcana #writing #oc stuff #writeblr #fandoms

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astralis01 · 3 years

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Rivalry (Isn’t it Bitter Sweet): Bakugou Katsuki x Reader

Your feud with Bakugou Katsuki only escalated throughout your years at Hogwarts; whether it was on the quidditch field or who would be the first to sit down in class, there always seemed to be some sort of raging competition between you two.

Read it here on AO3

You could feel his presence from across the dining hall, immediately dowsing you in a raging hatred that you only reserved for him. His arrogance mocked you as he basically danced into the Great Hall bathed in compliments.

The Slytherin quidditch team won against Ravenclaw the night before. You didn’t know why he had all of the glory… he wasn’t even the captain. Being a keeper had its perks, you guessed. You rolled your eyes and focused your attention on your food. You tried not to stab the plate as you heard the varying praises to the boy in green and silver.

And what annoyed you the most was the herd that he always seemed to have around the place he sat. Varying from girls to boys, from Slytherin itself to the other houses too.

Stab, you picked up a piece of broccoli from your plate as you heard, "Wow, Tsuki, the last save was so cool."

Pierce, “That last block was brilliant!”

And that was the last straw for you. Who had even given the very, obviously bright idea of making the Gryffindors and Slytherins almost sit together?

Katsuki Bakugou was simply not someone who deserved such compliments. He was vile, annoying, and did everything in his limited power to poke and prod at every single one of your nerves. You used to ignore the burning hatred that you harboured for him; but late in your second year, you had let it all out.

And, as it turned out, he wasn’t quite fond of you either.

It had been years since then, yet the feeling remained the same. It was just the start of your sixth year and you already wanted to gouge his eyes out with the pointy end of your fork.

Hanta Sero caught your eye from across the tables and gave you a cheeky smile in return and the rage which had simmered down a bit rose again with a vengeance. He was the captain of the other team and you wished you could hate him as much as him. But he was quite fun to be around when he wasn't hanging out with that loser.

Though before you could get up from your place in the hall, Shouto Todoroki stopped you, holding your hands and preventing you from getting off your seat.

You turned to look at him, with the most terrible glare you could offer but he just gave you the most unimpressed look and pulled you down to sit beside him again, still holding your hand and preventing you from charging at the Slytherin table.

Then a young Slytherin, probably a first-year piped out, "Next week at the Gryffindor versus Slytherin match, you guys are sure to win."

Shouto's grip faltered and you grinned. One thing that annoyed Shouto the most, perhaps, after his father was the fact when someone insulted the Gryffindor Quidditch team that he was a proud member of.

And that was the moment you needed to charge towards the Slytherin table before any of your other friends tried to put an intervention to your actions.

"I wouldn't be too sure, you know, we have a pretty good team this year," you said, casually leaning on the table.

"And why would that stop us from winning, Captain? We have a pretty good team this year, perhaps the best," Sero drawled out, almost stretching onto the table like a tabby cat and you just wanted to slap the smirk off his face.

And before you could put that thought into action, Izuku Midoriya, came and dragged you away back to the table, so you yelled back, "Next week, we'll surely be the winners.”

"We'll see," Bakugou said.

Perhaps five years ago, you wanted to be friends with Katsuki, but now Katsuki and you were bitter enemies.

It started in the first year when you met with Katsuki and Izuku on the train.

As soon as Katsuki entered the train cart you sat in, he dozed off and Izuku came rushing in, apologizing for 'Kachaan's' manners. You laughed it off and invited him to sit with you and you two spent the train ride talking to each other, making friends when suddenly the announcement to be ready to get off at the station sounded off.

"Kachaan, wake up. We're here. We're here at Hogwarts."

"Shut up Deku."

You frowned at the interaction but you forwarded a hand towards him and said, "Hello, I am-"

"No need to tell me you shitty extra," and he walked out on the both of you.

Izuku tried to apologize for his actions but you shushed him and dragged him out with you to climb aboard the boats.

And perhaps, that was the start of your bitter rivalry.

The ending of the second year was when you finally cracked the nut in the middle of Charms class and told him off in the middle of class, in front of everyone. This is why you were put in Gryffindor, a small part of your mind thought.

(another part of your mind had thought that you shouldn't have done that and perhaps you might be at the very least allies today.)

"For Merlin's sake, can you stop shouting for a moment? This," gesturing towards his mouth, "is getting super annoying. Don't you ever get tired of shouting so much, all the time?"

And an awkward silence blanketed the class as everyone quieted down to watch the fight between you two.

Bakugou slowly turned red and then shouted, "This is getting annoying? Well, your presence is getting annoying but do you see me screaming at you to fuck off all the time, you prissy prick?"

You turned at him with the vilest look and said, "If you are going to be an idiot, you should actually try to be subtle about it."

Katsuki froze and said, "Funny you should say it."

“You’re so ridiculous.” You rolled your eyes. “Oh, I’m Katsuki Bakugou and I am a perfect student that can’t even properly pronounce a simple spell! But that doesn’t matter because guess who’s a keeper for the quidditch team when I’m only a second-year!! I am perfect!! Literally, no one likes you.”

“Trust me, no one likes you either.”

No one meaning, and translating to, I don’t.

Just to show off, you easily cast the charm that he had failed. Charms were your strong subject, so you only needed to say the spell and flick your wand before turning your attention back to him.

He was nearly smoking from his ears, he was both embarrassed and livid.

And you felt a satisfied smirk curl up on your face as you turned to Ochako to help her complete the spell.

You waved to Momo Yaoyorozu as you walked down the hallway to meet up with Shouto and Izuku. Even though she was a Ravenclaw, she was a close friend of yours through Shouto.

And you kinda owed it to your housemates for stopping you from embarrassing yourself multiple times to be nice to their friends.

“Hey, Yao-momo.” You said. “I wasn’t expecting to see you until classes tomorrow morning.”

“Yeah, I’m waiting for Kyouka.” She turned his body to lean against the wall. “We’re going to Hogsmeade today.”

“No invitation?”

She smiled at you and asked, “Would you like to join us, Captain?”

“I was joking, no need to sound so enthusiastic.” You chuckled. As you started to speak again, Kyouka Jirou left the classroom the two of you stood outside of. She smiled at you, her violet eyes gleaming at you, reflecting the sun rays.

“Captain!” Kyouka greeted, putting an arm around your shoulder. “Are you coming to Hogsmeade with us?”

“Be careful, your mortal enemies are coming.” Momo interrupted and warned, motioning over your shoulder.

You turned around to find Sero and Bakugou walking next to each other, laughing about something only the two of them knew. You had to hold back from commenting.

“Yoohoo!” Hanta Sero caught your eye. You sighed and turned back to your friends, sharing a look.

“Hello, Hanta.” You felt him beside you before you looked.

You purposely didn’t look at Bakugou.

“We’re celebrating our win tonight, you guys should join!” Sero invited. You heard Bakugou’s exhale of frustration, but you only rolled your eyes in an attempt to ignore his presence.

“You want a group of your rivals, plus one from the team that you beat today hanging out with you, celebrating your win, when Gryffindor go against you in less than a week?” Momo spoke up. Shee moved off of the wall. “No thanks. Come, Kyouka. Let’s go.”

Kyouka waved goodbye and followed her best friend down the hall. You pivoted to fully face the two Slytherins.

"What about the mighty Lion's Captain?" Sero asked.

"No, thanks, I have better stuff to do," you said, turning on your heels and waving at Sero.

Bakugou glared at your retreating figure.

It was the time of year just before winter, where the air starts to cool but the sun still warms your skin. You took a breath and held your broom at your side.

It was near minutes before the anticipated game against Slytherin, the two fated rivals, and you could hear the crowds already. The rivalry between your houses was something that everyone enjoyed; the rivalry between you and their keeper was all you.

“Alright team.” You pivoted to the team behind you. “We’re playing Lion first; and if we don’t get any points within the first two minutes, I’ll hold up the signal for Golden. Got it?”

“Got it.”

You had pretty much the best team between all of the houses in your honest opinion. was perfect as your keeper, he was never one to let anything get past him. Your chasers included you, Shouto, and Eijirou Kirishima. You had Leon and Leo for beaters. Two-third years that showed a huge amount of potential. And, rather recently, you gained a new seeker named Izuku Midoriya. And Izuku being one of your old friends made your teamwork with him, flawless in games

The Slytherin team was not one to mess with, they had a nice team too. Bakugou as the keeper, the Idiots Monoma and Tetsutetsu as beaters, their new seeker Aoyoma… but the problem was their chasers: Sero, Kyouka, Mina. They were so quick on their brooms, it was like working against the wind.

But your team was faster than theirs.

Today was no day to lose.

“It’s our first official match of the year.” You encouraged. “Let’s show them who not to mess with.”

“Let’s absolutely destroy them,” Leon added.

You grinned.

As you headed towards the field, you could feel the adrenaline creeping into your bones. Quidditch had become routine, simple muscle memory as you moved to your starting positions.

The Slytherin team appeared, and you felt the excitement enter you in a rush of air.

And as soon as the whistle sounded, you all flew off in the air, fully intent on kicking Slytherin's butts.

In the air, Bakugou Katsuki felt at peace. He was very good at what he did, and he knew that, and the game was something he was passionate about.

He was also passionate about beating you.

You were the bane of his existence. You had never once sent him anything other than something bitter or sarcastic. You were an annoying pest that he simply couldn’t get rid of.

And as you threw the Quaffle into the goal just above his head, Katsuki felt his eye twitch.

And what even irritated him, even more, was the small smile that you shot at him as you rushed back for a high-five at Todoroki.

Slytherin won, Izuku Midoriya’s hand high with the Snitch inside.

You watched in triumph as the teams descended on the brooms. From the skies down, you cheered.

“Congrats, Gryffindor,” Sero said, though his tone was bitter and sour.

And it did not feel as the statement was supposed to be at all but you ignored it in favour of the elation.

You knew that he hated losing, so you didn’t push it. He was a friend, after all. Sending him just a small “I’m sorry you didn’t win” smile, you headed to your team. You gathered them into a hug, or rather– a huddle, and ruffled the hair on Izuku’s head.

You peeked over your shoulder to catch sight of Bakugou. He was standing, hands at his sides, red face and eyes blank of any expression other than anger.

You smirked at him.

And he snarled back at you.

Katsuki Bakugou was on the other side of the victory this time, silently brooding as he picked at his food in the Great Hall. The Slytherin table emitted zero volume.

He was pissed off the second you entered the hall, Deku and Todoroki walking beside you. The gold and red seemed to glow, mocking him in the worst way imaginable.

Sero tried to bring his attention back to the food, but Bakugou was focused primarily on you. You were gloating, relishing in his loss, taking delight in the compliments from your house. A Hufflepuff appeared at your side, and you smiled as you thanked them for their congratulations.

He felt sick.

And a small part of him felt angry. But that was well deserved by you, he supposes.

You could not help but drown yourself in the triumph. You walked on air, the feeling of superiority tickling every inch of skin it could touch.

You waved goodbye to a couple of friends, heading directly to the Slytherin table. You placed your hands on Sero and Katsuki’s shoulders, leaning to place your head right between theirs.

“I suppose we beat you as I told you.” You sent a wink to Bakugou, knowing full well how it would provoke him.

“Fuck off.” Bakugou shoved your hand off of his shoulder.

“To receive your praise at the Gryffindor table.” Mina shooed, fork in hand. “You won’t find it here.”

“Sore losers.” You mocked just for fun. You stood straight. “I imagine that I would be the same, given it was the other way.”

You basically skipped back to your table for breakfast.

You were absolutely elated for the rest of the day. It was quite similar to being on cloud 9, winning your first game of the year against your rivals. The look on Katsuki Bakugou’s face only added to the feeling.

You were walking down the hall, talking to Denki who had his arm wrapped in yours. He was going on and on about how he wished he could have imprinted Izuku's snitch catch to his memory. Or made it into shirts so he could sell it to his fan club and you laughed at that idea.

That was when your shoulder collided directly into a firm body.

Your arm was ripped away from your classmates, along with your bag that fell onto the hard ground with a loud thud and wisp of parchment and ink. Everything in your bag is now scattered on the ground, covered in dark ink and dirt.

Your mood was too high to get too angry. It was an accident; you would bite your tongue and clean up the mess.

Until you realized just who’s the shoulder you ran into Bakugou Katsuki. Your greatest enemy and now the destruction of your contents.

“Watch where you’re going next time, Bakugou.” You grunted, kneeling to save some of your parchment before the ink could reach it.

“Perhaps if you had your head out of your ass, you wouldn’t have run into me,” Bakugou responded. He had turned to face you midway through your fall.

“As if you didn’t feel this way a week ago.” You told him, standing up. Nearly everything that was in your bag was soaked, including the bag itself. You inhaled deeply. “You did this on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Now, why would I run my shoulder into you on purpose hoping to ruin your mood?” He asked. “You must be very arrogant to think that everything must be about you.”

You clenched your jaw and closed your eyes. “I will not let a piece of shit such as yourself bring my mood down today. Today is a good day.”

You knelt once again to find the essay that you had written for Aizawa, searching your documents. Only to find it one of the few that were directly under the ink, completely doused in black.

“Actually, fuck you.” You lifted the paper. Ink dripped off and onto the ground. “Do you know how long I worked on this?”

“I don’t know, a couple of minutes?” Bakugou shrugged. “You aren’t exactly the best at your schoolwork.”

“You wish you knew me well, but you don’t at all.” You felt anger boil in your chest. “I worked very hard on this essay. Days, even. And you destroyed it in less than five seconds..”

“There’s the Gryffindor in you.” He let out a humourless laugh. “You think everything has to be about you, and if it doesn’t then someone is out to get you. Your ego is so fucking enormous that you can’t even muster the idea that maybe something isn’t about you. And then you shout at me for that. You didn’t even win, Deku won the game for you. God, why don’t you go make a friend instead of standing here arguing with me about an accident?”

"Fuck you, I actually have friends, unlike you, who only has followers," you answered back to him.

"Well, you have everyone hanging over you. You're just a slut aren't you?"

Denki's eyes widened and the small groups of people who were conversing around you stopped and for a moment you thought that the whole school had heard with the silence that spread.

You could feel the tears welling up in your eyes. Yes, both of you fought in front of each other. Both of you told each other to fuck off or even curse out a few times but none of you ever shouted such vulgar words at each other.

It was one thing to make comments, to be bitter and roll your eyes at each other’s presence. It was one thing to bicker, to fight, to joke to friends about the other’s incompetence and purposely pull on each other’s strings.

It was something else completely to call you a slut in front of everyone in the middle of a hallway after a thread of insults.

The overwhelming force to cry was still there but you would not allow yourself to cry in front of him.

Right after he called you that.

You would not let him have that satisfaction.

So, you turned on your heels and said, "You're more than an asshole Katsuki Bakugou."

And your prompts hurried away.

Denki, who was still frozen on the spot after the volley of insults had to be shot and the worse had been done, shoved Bakugou aside and said, "You shouldn't have said that Bakugou," and rushed behind you, calling out your name.

"You shouldn't call anyone a slut, Katsuki. Those words are not meant to be uttered in a civil society. It's like calling you a pussy publicly," Mitsuki Bakugou uttered, with the most strict voice she could offer while Masuru Bakugou spluttered at the usage of curse words in front of their son.

Katsuki Bakugou did not think often before speaking. He was just so used to people either bowing down and agreeing to his demands or just ignoring them that when he meet you, someone he could neither affect with both of his options, he always blew up.

Perhaps it was the fact that you had such a kind heart that you shook the Giant Squid's tentacle when it came on your boat during your first year because you thought it was lonely.

Or perhaps it was how easily you made friends with people. Just collecting the lonely bits of a big puzzle and joining it together, seemed to be your speciality.

But perhaps the most infuriating thing about you was the fact that you just refused to bow down to his screams and shouts and temper. You rose to receive the challenge he posed.

That is why his heart tore and clawed its way in his chest when you had turned around and run away from him.

He supposes you had stuck beside him long enough.

And he could not ignore the way that your friends glared at him while sitting in the Great Hall, Todoroki being the most vocal about it.

Or the way, Mina made excuses whenever he tried to talk to her.

Or, how Kirishima had stopped trying to drag his butt to Hogsmead for a friendly meet during the weekends.

Yes, he could not ignore all that.

"Maybe you should apologize," Sero suggested one day after catching the solemn look on his face.

"Do what now?" he screamed at him.

"You know, apologize to them," he repeated, slowly.

"Why should I apologize to them?"

"Because you know that you went too far. I know you still have feelings and stuff that you seem to everyone else for it."

For several days Katsuki Bakugou did not see you anywhere. Not in the classes, not in the Great Hall and the weight of his deed was still there.

So he did the next best thing.

He found out when you had booked the Quidditch pitch for practise of your team because he knew you wouldn't abandon them even in your worse days and planned to apologise to you there.

He had even practised it a few times in front of the mirror, "I'm sorry that I hurt your feelings by calling you a slut." It was a small apology but he was hopeful that you would forgive him.

Yes. And you two could go back to the regular hating and biting remarks instead of the new empty kind of feeling that settled in his chest.

But the second he stepped onto the Quidditch, he was stopped by Shouto Todoroki and Izuku Midoriya from going any further.

"Kachaan, you should not be here," Izuku said with more force than he had ever talked to with Katsuki and he wondered, what had you done that so many people were standing in defence of you.

"I know. I just came to apologize to them. Just move out of my way Deku."

Todoroki stepped in front of Izuku and said as bluntly as ever, "They don't want to see you. And I don't think your apology will mean anything to them except for sending them into a bad mood."

Before he could say anything, you came and said, "Zuku, Shou, the break is over. Get your butts moving."

Katsuki felt himself freeze in surprise. You had been at the practice for about two hours yet your voice was not hoarse from shouting. Even your energy levels seemed to be at the ever high.

Though before he could unfreeze and say his apology, you had already flown into the sky with Izuku and Shouto behind, in tow, leaving him behind in the dust.

The loneliness that you left behind with ignoring him was cold.

And his heart broke a little.

And he finally understood, all those years he thought he had the vilest hatred for you was just his stupid emotions trying to tell him that he liked you.

But he was too late now, he supposed.

How could he be such an idiot, to believe that you, out of all people, could ever love him?

Hanta Sero took a place beside you. It would have been normal if it were not for your avid avoidance of anyone with a Slytherin robe on.

“Hello, Hanta.” You said without sparing him a glance.

The thing was, you weren’t angry with him. You didn’t hate him, you hated his closest friend. And by association, you didn’t want to talk to him just as much. Sero had always been the middle ground between the doom and gloom that was the sandy-haired boy you hated.

“I think you should talk to Kats,” Sero said. Plain and simple, to the point.

“I think you should mind your business.” You retorted. “I never talked to him to begin with, what’s different now?”

“Because now is different.” He grabbed his book as the professor walked in. “Now, you won’t even say your smart ass remarks or tell him how fucked up his hair looks. Now he is just… boring and sad. And he mopes all the time. He isn't even playing his best on the field”

“So you want me to talk to the guy I hate in order for him to not be sad?” You scoffed and collected your things. “No, thank you. I've been keeping my distance, just like he wanted and I am happy to keep it this way.”

You stood up from your seat and sat beside Izuku just as the professor started talking, receiving a few stares in the process. It wasn’t as if you weren’t used to that.

You were walking with Ochako, laughing about the attempts everyone had tried to do to make Todoroki laugh when you committed the most horrific mistake of your life.

You caught the eye of Bakugou across the street who just had to look at you at the same moment.

You quickly averted your eyes but not before it caught his attention

It had been snowing, so most of the students were in their winter gear and warm clothes. You yourself had a hat and scarf on, gloves to cover your hands despite the hot to-go mug of cocoa in them.

Hogsmeade was quite busy with everyone getting last-minute holiday gifts and hurrying to hang out before the break. Yet, somehow, your eyes found the reds of Bakugou's.

You turned around, forcing Ochako to follow. The girl didn’t even have to ask about your change in demeanour, easily falling into place beside you.

You felt a hand on your wrist and heard your name being called. “Hey. Can I talk to you? I’ve been trying to apologize…”

You stopped dead in your tracks as if you were pulled on a leash. As if his bare hand touching your empty gloved one had scolded you. Bakugou stood before you, red cheeks from either the cold or from rushing after you. Either way, you wanted nothing to do with it.

He had spun you in his grasp, his jaw tight and eyes searching yours before falling to his hand around yours. His grip on your wrist was tight, and he swallowed as his eyes found yours again.

“I don’t want to talk to you.” You snatched your arm away. “Have you ever considered that? I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to see you, and I don’t want to hear your half-ass apology! What gives you the right to just waltz back into my life after all the pain you’ve caused."

“I have been trying to talk to you.” He said. “I…” His eyes scanned yours. His tongue rolled in his mouth. “You mean to tell me that you don’t want my apologies?”

“You’ve made it very clear what you think of me, so I hope that I can make this very clear for you,” You took a deep breath. “I hate you. I don’t like you, I have never liked you, and I hope that whatever it is that is eating you up inside continues to do so.”

Katsuki Bakugou’s eyes twitched. He started to take a step towards you, but decided against it, falling back into the same step. “I don’t…” His voice was nothing as you had ever heard it. “You…” His eyes clouded with the emotions you were familiar with. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

Bakugou faltered for a moment, his eyes held remorse and you almost wanted to forgive him but you remembered what he called you.

He quickly shoved a box of chocolates into your hands and said, "I brought this for you as an apology gift but you didn't want my words. I hope my actions will speak louder. And I hope that someday you will find it in your heart to forgive me," and he promptly left, leaving you flabbergasted in the middle of the streets of Hogsmead, with Ochako by your side.

It was a sudden realization. It was not something you had even considered before, not something planned or reasoned. It was much like a tsunami, a build-up of unrelated activity that brought something else entirely.

Emotions were unfortunate things. If you feel extreme emotions for someone, no matter what… they are still very strong feelings.

Hate to love, what a strange concept.

You held the potion below your nose, inhaling the scent.

“What does it smell like?” Aizawa asked.

“It smells like… caramel.” You distinguished the varying smells. “Apple. And… burning wood?”

You stepped back and hoped no one could see you connecting the dots through your eyes.

Hanta Sero was an observant person. He was known to be the person who knew the best for his team, easily finding the perfect techniques for each on the field and as encouragement. He was one for connections and relationships. He was the one who handled the emotional part.

This is why he knew that you were masking feelings of something else with this burning hatred. This is why he knew why you felt so bad after Kats called you a terrible name in front of an audience. This is why he knew who it was when you listed your amortentia scents.

He tried to send you a look from his seat across from you, classes later. He wanted to tell you that he knew; that he knew there was something more to what’s going on, and that something was Katsuki.

You just sent him a middle finger, knowing full well what he was getting at.

Your feelings didn’t just suddenly arrive. And you were full of confusion, disorientation, and most of all… anger.

For as long as you could remember, Katsuki Bakugou was supposed to be your arch enemy. He was your nemesis on a daily basis. He was the reason for your annoyance. He was the reason for your hatred for the colours green and silver. He was the reason you became the quidditch captain. He was the reason for the breath leaving your lungs.

And he was the reason for the breath entering.

You were pissed. You were pissed that you had unrealized feelings for the man you were supposed to hate, have hated for years. You were pissed that your love had been in a game of chess, where the only outcome is to win or forfeit. You were pissed that the entire time you had spent a vast majority of your time hating, loathing, rolling your eyes at… the entire time you had reserved space for hate when it should have been quite the opposite.

The luck must have been exclusively for someone else because it seemed as though whoever created you had decided to have a fun game.

You had punched Bakugou Katsuki once.

It was something you thought of a lot, and it was the main reason Bakugou chose not to test you too close to that day.

He was rolling his eyes at something Denki was saying when you walked by. You were heading to your quidditch practice, the captain not one for latecomers. And he caught sight of you. He quickly jumped from his spot and stopped you from passing.

“Out of the way, Katsuki, I have practice.”

“Oh, right, because you’re on the quidditch team now.”

“I am, thank you very much.” It was the beginning of the third year, and you were not only annoyed but you were also a Growing Person going through puberty. You did not have time to deal with a teenage boy pissing you off. “You forget that not everyone got on the team their first year of trying out.”

“Because we’re better than the entire Gryffindor team.”

“Talk to me when you win a house cup.” You tried to push past him, but he stood directly in front of you in one step. “Move, or be moved.”

“What are you going to do? Punch me?”

So, you did. Your fist collided with his cheek before you could even register that it had happened. Denki gasped out loud, it quickly turned into a laugh.

“They punched you! That was superb.” Denki laughed, grasping at his sides. “Ah, man!”

While Bakugou touched his cheek to check that— ah yes, you really did punch him— you were already walking away to the practice field.

Katsuki started t missed you if he were being fully and completely honest with himself.

It was right, you only miss something that is completely removed from your life.

He found himself searching for you in classes or in common areas, prepared for your snide remarks and bitter taunts. He found himself waiting for you to roll your eyes at his presence; looking for you to quip about the next quidditch game.

But when none of it came, he felt out of place.

He actually missed your annoying banter. He missed you shoving your middle finger in his direction. He missed the redness on your cheeks when you would try to calm yourself down. He missed the silence that would escape you if he entered a room and you were anything other than angry.

He missed catching you smiling at someone and watching your face change. He missed the arguments in class. He missed the little comments during eating.

Confused, he pushed those feelings down as he watched you eat with some Ravenclaws and a Hufflepuff that he had never talked to before.

And the empty space in his heart only grew larger in size.

It had been several weeks of silence from your end. You had thrown yourself back into quidditch before the break, happy to have a distraction from whatever the fuck you were feeling. You weren’t going home for the holidays, so you spent some time planning for the spring and classes.

You found yourself outside, sitting in the snow and writing a makeup essay for Aizawa. You had found a nice spot under a roofed area, so nothing smudged your writing (or, you know, covered it completely).

“Oh.” A voice said from above you.

You looked up to find Bakugou, hands in pockets and staring at you as if you had never existed and he was discovering you for the first time.

“I wasn’t expecting to find anyone here.” He said.

“Yeah, obviously neither was I.” You started to put your things away.

“No… no comment?”

“Hm?”

“No… snarky comment? No, you look terrible to me?”

You shook your head. Mainly because you didn’t have the energy. You were content, bored, and just overall exhausted. You had exhausted yourself in thinking of every possible outcome to your love for the boy in front of you, none of which made any sense.

None of it made any sense.

It was as if one moment, you were standing on the ground. And the next, you were swept away by a giant wave that you thought was only an earthquake. You hated to love.

“Then, can I finally say what I have been meaning to?”

“No.” You finally got the last of your things into your bag.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why can’t you just hear me out?” He stood in front of you, hoping to stall your leaving. “I’ve been trying to tell you that I shouldn’t have called you a slut, and I should have…”

“And I don’t want to hear it.”

You started to leave, but he jogged to jump in front of you again. Through the years, he had gained height compared to you. You weren’t necessarily kids anymore, you weren’t at eye level to just punch him in his cheek without reaching for it.

“God, you’re fucking annoying.” You shifted your bag on your shoulders. “You want me to call you a name so it can be even? Do you want me to tell you that everything is fine and we can go back to our constant fighting? What do you fucking want from me? Did it mean anything to you? Did I mean anything to you?”

“What do I want from you?” He asked, voice rising to match yours. “What do you want from me? I’ve been trying to get your attention for over a fucking month and you have given me every reason to just stop.”

“Then why don’t you!” You dropped your hands. “Why don’t you just leave me the fuck alone?”

“Why?”

“Why what, Katsuki?”

“Why?” Katsuki let out a small breath, the grey cloud leaving his lungs. “Why won’t you just let me talk to you for five minutes?”

“Because I don’t want to! Because I don’t want to hear you make up excuses. Because I cannot listen to your voice for too long.”

Before you could stop yourself, before you could recognize your own voice, before any thoughts arrived, you said, “Because for some fucked up god awful reason, I’m in love with you!”

Everything froze all at once. The oxygen left your lungs, the snow stopped falling, and everything became so unbearably silent.

You stared at him, regret drenching you in an instant as if the tides of the ocean had risen and fell in one single motion. You couldn’t breathe, your heart seized in your chest and against your ribs. You couldn’t bring yourself to look into his face, fearing to find yourself lost and never found.

He let out a single breath. And you held yours.

He froze and then he leaned forward.

He remembered the last time he was too late to act.

His lips touched yours, gently and then suddenly was full of the fireworks that everyone had said about their first kisses. The fervent feelings that ran through your bodies, the anger and the misplaced love, all tumbling out in the biggest mess he'd ever seen.

But he continued. And then you broke apart.

Both of you had a lot of talking to do with each other but hopefully it would all turn out to be well.

"And so, we both are kinda dating now," you finished with an awkward look on your face, rubbing your neck.

A silence overtook your friends and Izuku whispered, "What the fuck?"

Shouto screamed at the both of you, "I fucking knew it." And then his voice slipped into his conspiracy theorist voice, "There was sexual tension between the two of you."

You facepalmed.

Katsuki turned red.

#bnha #mha #bnha x reader #bnha imagines #x gn reader #bakugou x y/n #mha bakugou #bakugou katuski x reader #bakugou x reader #boku no hero acadamia oc #bnha fanfic

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fawnandshadows · 3 years

Text

After The Ceremony - Chapter 1

Hey Guys!

This is the first chapter of a mini Elriel fanfiction that I'm working on. You can also read it on AO3

Summary: Elain and Azriel after Nesta and Cassian's Mating Ceremony.

Words: 1,847

Nesta and Cassian’s mating ceremony has long since been over, but Elain couldn’t bring herself to go back to her room. No, Elain had too much restless energy to even attempt to fall asleep tonight, and instead of tossing and turning in her bed all night, she decided she may as well be useful and start to clean up. It took only ten minutes of laying in her bed, staring at the ceiling, before silently walking downstairs to the ballroom. Nuala and Cerridwen offered to help her, and Elain knew that they wouldn’t have minded staying up all night to clean with her, but she really just wanted to be alone. So, the twins like everyone else went to bed, and Elain stayed in the ballroom of Feyre and Rhysand’s River House putting herself to use.

There was something about being alone in the middle of the night that just seemed right to Elain, when everyone else was sleeping, she didn’t have to worry about putting on a face for everyone to see. She didn’t have to plaster a smile on her face while her heart was cracking in her chest. It was a test of her resolve today, Elain thought, as she pretended, yet again, that everything was alright. It took everything in Elain, every ounce of will power and restraint, to not break down and cry in the middle of the ballroom as she saw a familiar rose necklace around somebody else's neck.

Elain wanted to cry, scream, and cry some more whenever she looked at Gwyn, or Azriel, or even Mor. Especially Mor, when Elain saw her dancing and smiling with Azriel. It just felt so wrong. It should be Elain wearing his necklace, and it should be Elain in his arms as they spun around the room completely oblivious to everyone else.

After seeing Gwyn wearing her necklace, Elain immediately turned to leave the room because all she wanted was to be alone with her feelings and not worry about someone seeing through her fake smile, but as soon as she turned she caught a glimpse of the sun and a shadow dancing across the floor.

Elain had never seen Mor and Azriel dance together, and she never wanted to, especially when watching them smile at each other ruined whatever was left of her heart. They looked so incredibly beautiful together, and Azriel was smiling down at Mor with a warmth Elain hadn’t seen since the last solstice when she made him laugh. And Mor was smiling up at Azriel with an ease Elain had never noticed between them.

Confusion danced in her chest with every other emotion she was feeling.

Elain was only forced out of her staring from a heavy arm that fell across her shoulders. She blinked and a drunk Cassian appeared in front of her face, a stupid grin strectched across his face that was the result of unadulterated love and copious amounts of wine.

“Dance with me!” Cassian pulled her onto the dance floor, snapping her out of her imminent depression and into a crowded dance floor.

Elain let out a sign and continued sweeping the surprisingly messy floor. It seemed like most of the cake she and the twins had baked for the party ended up on the marble floor somehow, but she supposed that drunken fae couldn’t be expected to be tidy. The full moon illuminated most of the room, but there were still some faelights along the wall that added just enough light for her work. After sweeping, and picking up a surprising amount of glasses from the floor, Elain collected the bouquets from the tables.

It took her months to craft five bouquets for the ceremony, one for Nesta, and four for the women standing beside her. The core of Nesta’s bouquet were red carnations, pink roses, with bursting dahlias. Every bouquet held pink acacia’s - the flower of friendship. Feyre’s bouquet consisted of blooming magnolia’s and eye-catching violets. Her own was made from magnolias, nightshade, and a sprinkle of periwinkles. Emorie’s held vibrant hyacinths with white jasmine, and Gwyn’s bouquet was crafted from lavender, morning glories, oleanders. All the flowers were grown and cultivated by Elain herself, and she felt a shimmer of pride as she looked upon them.

Elain was getting ready to move the bouquets and their vases from the ballroom into the dining room, thinking they would look nice in a room where her family spends most of their time, when a familiar shiver floated down her spine. She didn’t look up as she said, “Hello, Azriel.” She knew he would reveal himself to her.

“It’s late. You should be sleeping.” His deep voice blended in with the night, causing her knees to weaken slightly and her eyelids to relax. What she wouldn’t give to fall asleep with that voice whispering in her ear while his fingers slid against her skin. What she wouldn’t give to stay awake all night with his voice in her ears and his fingers on her skin. Elain lost count of how many times she lost herself in thought as she tried to imagine what his lips would feel like against her throat.

“So should you,” Elain said, turning her body slightly to see him walk further into the room from where he leaned against the doorway. “I thought everyone was asleep. I’m sorry if I disturbed you.”

“Do you normally spend your nights cleaning up after drunken fae?” Azriel asked as he approached her. He stood maybe two feet away, but Elain could still feel the warmth radiating off his body. Another shiver made its way down her spine. Her skin felt so sensitive in his presence that it was hard to focus on anything besides him.

“Normally just Cassian,” Elain attempted to joke. Her chest felt slightly lighter as she noticed the twitch of his lips. It was a mistake looking at his lips. Her tongue brushed against her own that suddenly felt dry. “Did you enjoy yourself tonight?”

Azriel nodded. No words, no explanation, no attempt at conversation.

“You’re a lovely dancer.” Elain said, unable to stop herself, but she wanted him to know that she noticed him. She wanted him to know that she wished it was her in his arms dancing in front of everyone else.

“Thank you. You didn’t dance much at all.” Azriel noted and Elain felt the warmth of a blush on cheeks.

She gave a small shrug and said, “I was only asked by Cass, Rhys, and Lucien.”

Rhys was the first to offer her a dance, and she loved her brother-in-law too much to say no. Rhys was a lovely dancer, and she fought to keep a smile on her face under his prying eyes. Her dance with Cassian involved mostly her propping him up so that he didn’t collapse on the floor. Her dance was Lucien was non-existent.

“Why didn’t you dance with him?” Azriel asked softly. If it wasn’t the dead of night she wouldn’t have heard it.

“I don’t want to give him false hope,” Elain said, taking a fortifying breath before she continued, “It’s wretched to think you have a chance, a connection, to someone when you don’t.” She prayed to the Mother that Azriel didn’t notice her shaky breath, her racing heart, or how it took all of her bravery to say that.

In the soft glow of the faelights Elain saw a flinch run across Azriels face. It took him a moment longer than usual to school his features into their usual mask, but he couldn’t hide the pain that shimmered in his eyes.

The similarities weren’t lost on Elain. How this night resembled that of the solstice. Azriel and Elain being the only two people awake in the house. Her mate sleeping upstairs. The same crackling excitement rushing through her. The hope that maybe she would finally feel the brush of his lips against hers, and she wouldn’t have to speculate about what he tasted like anymore.

“Elain.” Azriel said her name as if it pained him.

“Why did you do it?” She whispered hotly. “Why did you give my necklace away? Why did you dance with Mor and look at her as if she were the only female in the room?” Before her bravery completely ran out she took a step forward, grabbed his hand, and placed it against her heart. “Did you feel this break tonight?”

His hand was hot against the thin cotton of her nightgown. She could just barely feel the traces of his scars. Elain wished there was nothing between them.

“Because it did,” Elain continued. “It broke every time I looked at you. It broke when I saw the necklace, and it broke when I saw how beautiful you and Mor looked.”

“Elain,” Azriel said, his voice harsh, his hand pressed further into her as if he too wished there was no nightgown separating them. “I want to, but I can’t.”

“I don’t understand,” Elain stared at his churning hazel eyes. She couldn’t help the lonesome tear that slid down her face. She was about to wipe it away when he beat her to it. His large, warm, wonderful hand brushed away her tear before cupping her cheek. Despite the pain that was growing in her chest, she would feel it all again if it meant his skin on hers. She would withstand any pain if it kept them together. “Make me understand.”

“I want to kiss you,” Azriel said. Elain felt each word as it brushed against her face. “I want to rip this nightgown from your body, lay you on the table, spread your legs open and feast until I’m drunk off the taste of you. I want to slide into you until I’m the only thing on your mind, and then I want to bring you so much pleasure you’ll never want to be away from me. And once you found your pleasure, I’d take you upstairs and do it all again. If I ever got a hold on myself I would make love to you the way you deserve.”

Elain, loving the warmth and wetness that flooded her core, felt as if she was about to combust. One tiny spark and she would erupt into flame.

“And why can’t we do that?” Elain asked quietly, as if she were afraid of ruining the moment. As if she were afraid he would slip away from her yet again.

“Rhy’s pulled rank on me.” Azriel replied. The only sign of tension was the muscle that contracted in his jaw. Elain ignored the urge to run her tongue over it.

“Huh?” Elains brain was too hazed with desire to form a proper sentence.

“He forbid it.” Azriel replied, tilting his head forward slightly, and brushing his nose against hers. The breath that floated across her face threatened to knock her over.

“Forbid what?” Elain managed to get out - too absorbed in him to think clearly.

“Us.”

Elain didn’t have time to think about what Azriel said as his lips descended on hers.

#elain archeron #azriel #elain acotar #elriel fanfic #pro elriel #elriel fanfiction #elain x azriel #elriel #acotar fanfiction #acotar

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oh-for-merlins-sake · 3 years

Text

SLOW BURN | gw | golden

summary: y/n, a local florist, stops in weasleys’ wizard wheezes for the first time and finds more than she bargained for. soon, she’ll teach george that there are many reasons to stop and smell the roses.

pairing: george weasley x fem!reader

word count: 2.6k

warnings: alcohol

a/n: AAAAAH you guys i did not want to stop writing this!! i had so much fun, and i’m really happy with how it turned out! it was really challenging for me to write a “slow burn” relationship, but i hope i did it justice! as you’ll see, this is not a “song” fic, but a lyric (in bold and italics) was used. cheers to the first installment of the golden collection!!

taglist: @iliveiloveiwrite @andromedaa-tonks @pansydaisy @a-little-too-much @slytherinsunrise @marvelettesassemble @msmarklee1213 @letsgotothehop @finnishslytherin @starlightweasley @witch-and-a-half @darthwheezely @vogueweasley @gcdric @breadqueen95 (message/ask to be added/removed, loves!)

Blackbirds trilled overhead as you glided over the cobblestone path to work. The sun was finally reemerging from behind the dark, dreary clouds, which had just finished bathing the streets of Diagon Alley in a springtime shower. You admired the lingering smell of fresh rainwater that dripped from the eaves above you.

Today, you were taking a detour from your ordinary route. Your younger brother’s birthday was just around the corner, and you had yet to find a gift worthy of a teenage boy’s microscopic attention span and angst-ridden ennui. You smiled to yourself as you spotted the vibrant shop down the street with its mechanical mascot tipping his hat to you.

It was curious to you that this shop had a natural magnetism to people of all ages. If you hadn’t found a thing yet, this shop should surely hold something that would cater to your brother. You’d seen the troves of young wizards clamoring in a morning or two before.

As you approached the large front doors, you glanced at your watch: half an hour until the start of your shift. You strolled into the whimsical shop, dodging a Fanged Frisbee in the process. You slowly turned in place, eyeing the towering shelves of eccentric gadgets and vivid pyrotechnics. Truthfully, it was a little intimidating; where to start was beyond you.

“Can’t find what you’re looking for?”

Startled by the sudden voice, you spun to face its origin. You were met with a tall, redheaded man with freckles that practically danced across his cheeks as he chuckled at your expression. Suddenly, you felt sheepish. “Sorry?”

“You looked a little...” he pondered the right word, “overwhelmed.”

You laughed, “To be honest, I’m not even sure what I’m looking for.”

He nodded, a knowing smile tugging at his lips. “Younger brother’s birthday?”

“How did you know?”

“Just a guess,” he shrugged.

You were quite impressed. As he motioned for you to follow him up the stairs to the next floor of the shop, you couldn’t help but notice how familiar he looked. Surely you’d seen him before — perhaps in line at Gringotts or sipping mead in the Leaky Cauldron. You couldn’t quite pin it.

You were relieved to leave the gargantuan fireworks below — on behalf of your mother mostly. You followed him to a wall of massive tubes that were filled to the brim with colorful candies.

“Our full collection of sweets,” he announced.

You eyed the assortment, noticing the words Puking Pastilles on a golden label. “Are these different flavors or...?”

“Yes, but more importantly, they serve different purposes. These, for example,” he pointed to the pastilles, “induce vomiting — perfect for skiving class!”

You chuckled. “Surely these aren’t allowed at Hogwarts?”

“‘Course not! But that’s what makes them so bloody popular — hot commodity,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “We’ve got a sweet for nearly every malady.”

“Who even thinks of this sort of thing?” you mused — again, thoroughly impressed.

“I guess we do,” he answered, leaning against the counter.

Your jaw dropped. “You made these?”

He shrugged, the faintest smirk on his lips, “I made everything.”

“Get out!” you laughed, pouring some candy into a purple plastic bag.

“Of my own shop?” he teased. “I don’t think so!”

You twist-tied the bag shut and turned to face him. “So you’re Weasley?”

“One of them, at least — George, to be exact.”

“That’s wicked!”

You noticed his freckled cheeks growing rosier by the second. “That’s awfully kind of you,” he said, waving dismissively.

“No, honestly! It’s incredible!”

As you reached for another plastic bag, George rushed over to interrupt. “Here,” he pointed to the display of Skiving Snackboxes. “Take one of these — they’ve got all our best-selling sweets in one box. Your brother’s sure to love it.” He led you over, plucking a box from the top and handing it to you. “On the house.”

“Oh, I couldn’t,” you said, shaking your head.

“I insist! Consider it an incentive.”

“An incentive?”

He nodded. “To come again.”

Your heart skipped a beat. “Thank you, George — really! I just know he’ll love it!” As you turned the box in your hands, you caught sight of the time on your wrist: five ‘til. “Merlin!”

George furrowed his brows.

“I’ve got to go!” If you hadn’t known any better, you could’ve sworn you’d seen a flash of disappointment in his eyes. “But, perhaps you’ll stop by sometime. I can return the favor — clip you a free dozen roses for your girlfriend or something,” you rushed out.

“I’d have to find one first,” he chuckled, following you as you skipped down the steps towards the doors.

A warm blush flooded your face as you laughed nervously. You spun to face George one last time as he landed at the foot of the stairs. “Well, maybe you’ll stop by anyways.”

“Florist down the road?” he asked, pointing in the general direction.

“That’s exactly the one!” you called, stepping backwards onto the street.

You rushed down the path towards the florist, your step feeling a touch lighter than it did earlier. You noticed the result of the sudden sun after the storm: a rainbow hanging above the grinning man attached to the storefront.

“Aha!” you exclaimed, finally realizing why George had looked so familiar.

When you arrived at work, you swung the screen door into the greenhouse open, announcing your presence, “Sorry I’m late!”

“Not to worry, dear,” Muriel remarked.

Muriel hired you a few months prior, admiring your proclivity to gardening and greenery. She taught you something new every day without ever realizing she was doing so. Her green thumb had a knack for nurturing every flower both under and out of the sun. And her extraordinary eye for piecing together various plants and flowers to create a stunning and elegant arrangement never ceased to amaze you.

“Be a dear, Y/N, won’t you?” Jasmine grunted as she attempted to haul a heavy-bottomed, ceramic pot.

You threw your things onto a nearby stool and rushed over to lift the side closest to you. The two of you managed to hoist the pot just above the dirt floor to carry it to its destination.

“Re-potting the Wiggentree,” Jasmine explained, dusting off her hands. “Pretty soon it’s going to be too big to stay, mum,” she called to Muriel.

“Yes, I know, dear,” Muriel muttered, “That does not change the fact that it must be re-potted.”

Jasmine was less fond of gardening than her mother was. But if something unfortunate were to happen, the shop would fall to Jasmine, so she figured it’d be best to at least try and learn a thing or two.

You walked through the door leading directly from the greenhouse into the shop. “Morning, Candace!”

“Morning, Y/N!” the cheery teenager chirped as she balanced a vase full of violets on the counter.

A set of hooks adorned with various dirt-stained aprons lined the wall just behind it. You reached for the one with your initial embroidered in the upper right corner, quickly throwing it over your head and down your body. You tied a bow behind your back before throwing your hair up and stepping back into the greenhouse. You grabbed a pair of gloves and began heaving soil into the planter with Jasmine.

Beads of sweat were already forming on your forehead as the humidity of the greenhouse settled into your skin.

Re-potting the Wiggentree proved to be a difficult and timely task, taking up most of the morning. By lunchtime, you’d moved on to trimming daisies and de-thorning roses, and come sunset, you were planting hyacinth seeds and watering Flutterby bushes in the garden.

“Y/N,” Jasmine announced, stepping out from the greenhouse. “Someone’s here to see you.”

You wound your way through the garden and the greenhouse, stepping into the shop in search of your guest. Candace giggled as she zipped her coat and nodded towards the front door. You stepped onto the patio, where the outdoor displays danced in the gentlest of breezes. You were shocked to spot George leaning over to smell the roses.

“George?” you laughed. “What on earth are you doing here?”

“Someone said something about roses,” he teased.

“Well,” you began, walking over and gesturing to the basket of pretty, pink roses, “What do you think?”

“Well worth the walk over here,” he answered, smiling brightly at you as he rocked on his heels with his hands in his coat pockets.

Jasmine rushed onto the patio with her jacket and purse draped over her shoulder and swiftly said, “Y/N, I completely forgot about my mother-in-law’s birthday dinner, and Candace just left! I’m so sorry — would you mind —”

“Go on!” you hurried, waving her off of the patio, “I’ll close up!”

“Thank you, Y/N!” she called over her shoulder, “You’re an angel!”

You chuckled and rolled your eyes in amusement as she disappeared around the corner.

“I’ve got to tidy a few things but... the bar down the street doesn’t close for an hour,” you began, your heart fluttering as your stomach burst with butterflies, “We should take a walk and look at all the flowers down the alley.” You chuckled, feeling your face grow warm, “I planted half of them.”

George smiled, a light laugh gracing his lips, “All right, sounds good then.”

George busied himself with the outdoor displays while you prepared the shop for closing. He brushed his calloused fingers over the delicate flower petals, occasionally indulging in their sweet scents. He imagined how you likely smelled of flowers after a long day of work, and how that would be the perfect antidote to the lingering smell of gunpowder that constantly plagued his pillows.

“Ready?” you asked, stepping back onto the patio.

“More than ever,” he said.

As you walked down the alley together, you pointed out flowerbed after flowerbed resting on the windowsills of various shops and bakeries. Your favorites, he learned, were always the dahlias. He was surprised by the natural beauty that erupted from the brick and stone storefronts, and even more so by the fact that he never once paid attention to any of it. How could he have missed this?

“Merlin!” you gasped, rushing over to Mr. Reilly’s butcher shop. “Mr. Reilly has been doing an absolute lovely job tending to his poppies! You see, when I first popped in, he swore to Godric that he was incapable of keeping anything alive but himself, but look!”

George laughed, racing to keep up with you.

You led him to the pub that had just opened the month prior, Brenda’s Brews, whose owner agreed with your suggestion of keeping a few Fire Seed bushes out front to “really grab the people’s attention!”

Upon entering the pub, Brenda greeted you from behind the bar, “The usual, Y/N?”

“Two please!” you called, sliding a few sickles across the counter faster than George was able to dive into his pockets. “Don’t worry about it,” you winked.

“Okay, but next one’s on me, yeah?”

“No, no, consider it a thank you for earlier,” you said, raising your glass.

George clinked his glass with yours before sipping from the foamy ale. “Good choice,” he nodded.

“Can’t go wrong with a little Dragon Scale,” you remarked, savoring in its tangy, bitter taste.

“I’ve got to ask,” George began, setting his glass down on a coaster with The Weird Sisters plastered on it, “It seems like you know everyone in this bloody part of town. How come we haven’t met? Have you been here long?”

You laughed at his disbelief. “I’ve only been here a few months, so I haven’t quite gotten to everyone yet — for example, Number 93,” you muttered as you fidgeted with your diminishing glass.

“That’s wild,” he paused before snapping his fingers and saying, “Y/N?”

“Y/N,” you confirmed, taking a swig from your glass.

“And you’ve already made that big of an impact on everyone?” he continued.

You blushed, feeling flooded with a sudden warmth. You were quite flattered by the idea that you may mean something to this place; a place that was so new and intimidating not that long ago; somewhere you were certain a florist could never thrive: the middle of the city.

Perhaps the finger pricks from a thorn every now and then was worth it.

You shrugged bashfully, “I don’t know about all that.”

“Y/N,” a bartender called as he raced past, carrying two different mugs with different colored ales, “May loved the mayflowers! She said yes, by the way!”

You clapped, squealing in excitement, “Congratulations, Borden!”

George raised his eyebrows, as if to say, See?

Brenda bellowed, “Last call!”

You checked your watch: half an hour until close.

And despite the short burst of time remaining, it felt as though you’d been laughing and chatting away with George for hours. If someone insisted that they’d magically slowed time, you might have believed them. It felt so familiar to talk to George; it came so naturally. You wondered if he’d been talking since birth, given the way he animatedly told stories and produced witty comebacks within nanoseconds of the original comment.

At last, your glasses had been drained of their contents, and Brenda was shooing the last of the stragglers out the door. George followed behind you as you ducked out, calling goodbye to Brenda and Borden back inside.

Perhaps you’d been imagining it, but it certainly seemed that you and George were walking much closer together than you had been originally. One misstep and you might have brushed his hand.

You were suddenly distracted by the vibrant purple dahlias sitting outside of Rosa Lee’s. You raced over, carefully assessing exactly which flower to pick, explaining, “She won’t mind, I give her a new basket every week.”

George felt suddenly in awe of your natural grace and delight. It seemed so simple to please you: a dainty dahlia was all you needed to feel like the world was a good enough place to live. In a way, he envied your childlike wonder; it was different than the one exhibited in his shop by his products. It paid attention to the smaller things in life, rather than inciting big, booming bangs. It provided a sense of serenity.

You giggled and tucked the flower behind his right ear. He blushed as your hand gently grazed his skin. “How do I look?” he managed.

“Beautiful,” you said sincerely.

You continued walking as George fiddled with the dahlia. “Your favorite, right?” he asked, pointing to it.

“That is correct, sir,” you answered, impressed by his memory.

Once you reached Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, George leaned against the door and twiddled with the tiny flower between his fingers. He considered asking you inside, despite the lights clearly being off, indicating that the shop was clearly closed, and therefore, indicating that he meant inside his flat.

Likewise, you pondered the same prospect. You wondered if it’d be too forward: to suggest the idea of coming inside. Perhaps, tonight wasn’t the night.

And that was all right.

“Well, George,” you sighed, “I must say I’m really glad I stepped into this wacky shop of yours today.”

“I’d say the same,” he said earnestly.

You paused. “You’ll have to stop by again... you know, to finish off your bouquet,” you said, gesturing towards the dahlia.

He smiled. “You’ll be there tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” you echoed, a smile growing on your lips. You stepped onto the street and waved.

The sight of George waving back with a lopsided grin on his freckled face was enough to tide you over until next time. You spun in place and apparated home.

Honestly, George liked the idea of taking his time, carefully picking flowers — a few each day — until his bouquet was erupting from its vase.

Maybe then, you’d come in.

#george weasley x reader #george weasley x you #george weasley x y/n #george weasley fanfiction #george weasley #hp fanfiction #george weasley x fem!reader #golden collection

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toomanyfandomssss · 3 years

Text

His Girl - Three

When Violet woke up on her first morning down on the ground she felt the familiar strong, muscular arms wrapped around her. When she opened her eyes all she saw was the bare chest she had been using as her pillow all night. She smiled to herself and cuddled even closer to him wanting to enjoy the feeling as long as she could.

Unfortunately it didn't last long as the loud voices outside of the drop ship woke up her boyfriend.

"Morning angel," were the first words he spoke. He look in the direction of the voices, "The hell is happening out there?" Bellamy stood up bringing Violet up with him. He kissed her cheek and looked at her as he said "Meet me out there once you gotten dressed gorgeous, can't let anyone see what's mine," his eyes glancing down at her cleavage that was on display due to the fact that she was only in a bra.

"But you're going out there, showing your abs off to all the girls who have been drooling over you since we got here," Violet said as she raised an eyebrow. "Doesn't seem fair to me," she added.

Bellamy leaned down to her level, slowly moving his head to her neck. He left a few open mouthed kisses down the column of her throat, making her knees go weak. As he lifted his head he whispered in her ear, "I'm all yours angel." With that he exited the ship leaving Violet with her heart beating rapidly as she tried to catch her breath.

✶✶✶

When Violet exited the drop ship she saw Bellamy taunting Wells once again. She rolled her eyes as she heard him say "You still don't get it do you chancellor?" She kissed him before walking off, feeling his eyes on her ass as she went.

"This is home now," Bellamy said. "Your fathers rules no longer apply." He walked over and snatched one of the shirts, making Wells lung forward to get it. Adam held him back before Bellamy stopped him. "Oh, no, no, Atom. Atom, hold up." He looked back at wells teasing him by dangling the shirt in front of him, "You want it back, take it." He smirked proud of himself, waiting for the other boys reaction.

Frustrated, Wells drops the pile of clothes cause a many of the teenagers to run and try to grab some. "Is this what you want? Chaos?"

"What's wrong with a little chaos?" Bellamy threw his shirt on before they all heard a loud scream. Both of the boys rushed over to see what was going on.

✶✶✶

Murphy was holding a girl over the fire, speaking up when he saw everyone head over. "Bellamy! Check it out. We want the Ark to think that the ground is killing us, right? Figure it'll look better if we suffer a little bit first."

"Let her go!" Wells shouted, pushing Murphy to the ground. He looked at Bellamy, "You can stop this."

"Stop this?" he smirked, "I'm just getting started." Violet glared at him as Murphy jumped back up. attacking Wells.

"Bell this isn't okay, you can't let people get hurt just because you're on some power trip," she scolded shaking her head in disapproval. She went forward to stop the fight but was pulled back into a hard chest.

"Please stay out of this angel, I know what I'm doing." Bellamy whispered in her ear as he held her tighter to his chest.

Kids were cheering the fight on and all Violet could do was watch as she struggled to get out of her boyfriends tight grip. Wells had gotten the upper hand and had Murphy on the ground again as he turned back to Bellamy.

"Don't you see you can't control this."

Bellamy and Violet watched as Murphy got back up, this time with a knife. "You're dead."

"Wait!" Bellamy held his hand up. Violet let out a sigh of relief. That relief was short lived as Bellamy threw Wells a knife and said "Fair fight." And again, she was being held back from trying to help. Once again the boys squared up ready to fight each other. "This is for my father!" Murphy shouted as he went to cut Wells a second time. However, Wells was able to grab a hold of him, turning him around and holding his knife to Murphy's throat. "Drop it!" He shouted.

All of a sudden a voice sounded from the distance. "Wells! Let him go!" the princess demanded.

After Wells had thrown Murphy forward once more, he was about to get jumped again by said boy. Luckily this time Bellamy stopped him. "Enough, Murphy."

He and Violet rushed over to Octavia who was being supported by Monty. "Octavia are you all right?" Bellamy asked her, panicked. "Yeah," she said as she held onto him.

"Where's the food?" he questioned the other members of the group that went on the hike to Mount Weather.

"We didn't make it to Mount Weather."

"What the hell happened out there?"

"We were attacked!"

"Attacked? By what?"

"Not what. Who." "Turns out, when the last man from the ground died on the Ark, he wasn't the last grounder."

"Its true. Everything we thought we knew about the ground is wrong. There are people here, survivors." People started murmuring to each other as Clarke continued, "The good news is that means we can survive. Radiation won't kill us."

"Yeah, bad news is the grounders will."

Noticing someone missing, Wells spoke up. "Where's the kid with the goggles?"

Clarke looked at him. "Jasper was hit." "They took him." She looked down noticing something. "Wheres your wristband?" She questioned.

He looked at Bellamy and nodded at him as he said "Ask him."

Violet looked at Bellamy in disbelief. "Bellamy what did you do?" He looked at her, not answering. He didn't want her to know what he had done. What he had forced Wells to do. Her opinion of him mattered so much to him. But in order to protect the two people he loves most in this world, he has to do things like this.

"How many," Clarke asked very obvious pissed off.

"Twenty four and counting," Murphy answered her with a smirk.

Clarke shook her head in disapproval, "You idiots. Life support on the Ark is failing. That's why they brought us down here. They need to know the ground is survivable again, and we need their help against whoever is out there. If you take off your wristbands, you're not just killing them. Your're killing us."

Bellamy stepped forward. "We're stronger than you think. Don't listen to her. She's one of the privileged! If they come down, she'll have it good. How many of you can say the same? We can take care of ourselves. That wristband on your arm? It makes you a prisoner. We are not prisoners any more! They say they'll forgive your crimes, I say you're not criminals! You're fighters! Survivors! The grounders should worry about us!" His speech was met with many 'yeahs' from the crowd.

Bellamy's speech only made Violets insecurities go up. I'm privileged, maybe that's why he won't listen to me, she thought.

As Clarke and and Wells walked away, Bellamy made his way to his girls. When he saw the look on Violets face, he grew worried. "What's wrong angel?" She just shook her head and went to get something to clean up Octavia's leg with.

✶✶✶

Violet was crouched down in front of Octavia, cleaning her wound as Bellamy was standing above both of them. "What the hell was it," he asked O.

"I don't know, the others said it looked like a giant snake." Her words making Violet grimace.

"You could have been killed," Bellamy scolded.

"She would have been if Jasper didn't jump in to pull her out." Clarke's voice sounded from behind the three.

"You guys leaving? I'm coming too." Octavia went to stand up only to be pushed back down by her brother.,

"No, no. No way, not again."

"He's right. you're leg's just going to slow us down. I'm here for you." the blonde said looking at Bellamy.

"Clarke what are you doing?"

"Clarke what are you doing," Violet repeated the boys words.

"I heard you have a gun" Bellamy lifted up his shirt showing proof. Violet may or may not have checked him out while he did it. "Good, follow me."

"And why would I do that?"

Clarke turned back, "Because you want them to follow you, and right now they're thinking only one of us is scared." With that, she walked off.

Violet tried to discreetly follow after the blonde, failing miserably as her boyfriend noticed her escape attempt immediately, grabbing her arm. "And where do you think you're going?"

"I'm going to go help them find Jasper."

"No way in hell"

"Bellamy"

"No" he tightened his grip on her arm.

"Just because we're dating doesn't mean you can control me," Violet told him. She was fed up with him acting like he could order her around.

"You want to bet on that angel?" Bellamy raised his eyebrow at his girl. Daring her to keep arguing with him.

"I'm going Bellamy. With, or without you." Violet managed to get her arm free and ran to catch up with Clarke and Wells. Bellamy growled lowly, angry and honestly turned on by his girlfriends little act of defiance.

"Murphy. Come with me." "Atom? My sister doesn't leave this camp. Is that clear?"

"I don't need a babysitter"

"Anybody touches her, they answer to me" "Lets go"

✶✶✶

"Angel wait up," Bellamy yelled. Violet rolled her eyes but stopped, waiting for the two boy to catch up. "You stay in my sight at all times"

"Whatever Bell"

"I mean it Violet"

"Okay, I get it. Let's just go find Jasper."

Murphy directed his question at Bellamy, "Since when are we in the rescuing business?"

"The Ark thinks the prince is dead. Once they think the princess is too, they'll never come down." "I'm getting that wristband, even if I have to cut off her hand to do it."

"And what about your pretty little angel here, she is Kane's daughter." Murphy looked over at Violet smirking and then winking at her.

"Come near me and I'll castrate you," Violet spoke trying to sound as intimidating as possible.

"My pretty little Angel will hopefully choose to take of her wristband soon," Bellamy said looking at her.

"My dad's up there Bell, I don't want him to think I'm dead." Violet said as she stared back at him with her big doe eyes. Bellamy nodded understandingly, pulling her close to him and kissing her cheek as the three walked together in search of the boy with the goggles.

Much more Violet/Bellamy interaction in this part! Hopefully I'll get a chapter or two posted everyday.

#bellamy blake #bellamy #bellamy x oc #bellamy blake x oc #bellamy imagine #bellamy blake imagine #bellamy fanfiction #bellamy blake fanfiction #the 100 #the 100 imagine #the 100 imagines #bellamy x reader #bellamy blake x reader #bellamy blake smut #bellamy smut #the 100 smut #the 100 x reader

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philliamwrites · 3 years

Text

sunkissed

Fandom: Genshin Impact

Pairing: Albedo / Aether

Tags: #kissing, #morning softness, #fluff

Words: 1.6k

Summary: “Don’t,” Aether laughed, rising his shoulders to hide his skin from Albedo’s hungry mouth. “I’m stinky after yesterday’s battle.”

“No.” The tip of Albedo’s nose grazed his sensitive skin. “You smell like the sun. Always warm. As if the sun loves you. As if it wants to cling to you as long as possible.”

Notes: A birthday present for my lovely friend. This pairing just butters my biscuits, fam.

Also I'm still taking commissions for anyone interested! Just write me a dm!

Masterlist

sunkissed

»’cause you’re so lovely, you’re so lovely, i can’t help but fall for you, love when you love me, it’s so lovely loving you

When Aether awoke, he was all alone.

He opened his eyes in a sleepy daze, and as his hand reached out to his left, he found the crumbled sleeping roll empty and cold. Immediately, he startled fully awake as if struck by lightning, his mind clearing from sleep and dreams that tasted like ashes on his tongue.

“Lumine?” he said out loud—the first name he remembered ever speaking, and the last he wanted to be his dying breath. But when usually his sister would come to his aid, trained to respond to the sound of his voice from childhood, to rise from bed when Aether cried, to run to help him when he fell down, now he was all alone inside the tiny tent.

No. Not quite alone.

It’s his first day in Teyvat all over again after he’d regained consciousness and called out for her, and had found Paimon in her stead, drifting in the ocean stretching before Starsnatch Cliff. Now, her little snores filled the suffocating quiet and coated his throbbing heart in a soothing balm labelled companionship.

Aether thought that with time, missing Lumine would become easier to bear. That he’d simply grow dull and time numbed his feelings. Clearly, he was wrong, and Father Time was not that kind.

He crawled outside the tent, quietly so he wouldn’t disturb Paimon, and emerged into the early sunlight winking through the tree crowns. Their little campfire from yesterday night had lost its battle and died hours ago, and Aether shuddered when a light breeze stirred its ashes into the air.

That was when he spotted Albedo sitting at the top of a slope. He hadn’t noticed Aether waking up, his eyes fixed on the horizon where clouds had gathered in the east, and the rising sun lit them in brilliant shades of reds and corals and violets. His hand, holding a fine brush, danced across a canvas, trying to capture that ephemeral beauty with lithe fingers Aether knew were capable of much more than painting. His chest tightened when he thought of yesterday night. Their quiet voices and hushed whispers as they tried not to wake up Paimon even though all Aether had wanted to do was scream Albedo’s name when he finally came as Albedo’s rough thumb had grazed the tip of his member. Thankfully, Albedo was kind enough to swallow all of Aether’s moans and gasps, leaving his mind completely fogged and drunk on his kisses.

Aether tried not to think too much of it as he went up the slope where Albedo sat, overlooking the vast valley stretching out under them.

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” Aether asked. He stretched in the morning’s light, delighted by the early warmth and slight breeze on his skin. “I wanted to see the sunrise with you.”

Albedo’s eyes drew lazily from his canvas to Aether’s waist, watching how his shirt rode up and revealed more of his skin without allowing his hand to stop once as the brush mixed reds and blues. “I tried. But you just drooled.”

“That’s a lie.”

A smile crept up Albedo’s face. “True. But you looked too lovely to wake up. Like you had a good dream,” he said so seriously, Aether felt heat rise to his cheeks. His arms dropped back to his side. He couldn’t handle Albedo’s honesty first thing in the morning.

Albedo rose an eyebrow. “Am I wrong?”

Aether did have a dream. A dream about Mondstadt’s Windblume Festival where all his friends had gathered around a table in Angel’s Share, and in the centre, like the sun holding its own universe, sat Lumine, beaming at him.

“Happy birthday, brother,” she’d said, intertwining their fingers just like on the day they were born.

“Happy birthday, sister,” he’d said, touching his forehead to hers just like during their days spent inside their mother’s womb.

How much he longed to be with her again.

Aether exhaled. He hadn’t realised he’d been holding his breath until that moment. Albedo must have heard him, for he raised his head and his gaze met Aether’s, and he wondered how much of the endless black hole that his grief cut into his heart Albedo could see.

The corner of his mouth pulled up into a rueful smile. “No, you’re right,” Aether said. “I had a dream. A good dream, indeed.”

Albedo stopped painting. His eyes were the colour of the ocean after a storm, clear and bright and deep enough for Aether to drown in them. He wanted it. Aether wanted to be swallowed whole. Become tiny, pocket-sized, perfectly fitting in Albedos’ palm and be devoured. Be completely consumed until nothing was left, and all of him belonged to Albedo only. What a wonderful mess that would be.

Quickly turning his eyes away before he dropped to his knees and begged Albedo to take him right here and now in the open, Aether tried to douse his desire by gazing out at the sublime scenery. A flock of birds took flight from a nearby tree, their song echoing through the valley. Clouds drifted over their heads on their lazy journey over fields and rivers, taking unrecognisable shapes as they told stories about every place they’d seen. Aether envied them.

“You know, in the world where I’m from, it’s always night,” he said. “Sure, it’s beautiful, we have so many more stars than you guys. And moons. But it’s the same. Wherever I looked, it was always the same. But this—” He waved his hand at the sky above them. “Your sky changes every day. It’s always different, the colours, the clouds. Dawn, dusk. I didn’t know words like that existed when I first came here. It’s beautiful.”

Albedo followed Aether’s gaze, considering the landscape in front of them. But his eyes—suddenly ablaze, a roaring fire—drew back on Aether as he said, “It truly is beautiful.”

Aether didn’t feel beautiful. He’s pretty sure his bed-hair was still sticking to all sides and his clothes were rumpled. But Albedo never failed in making him feel wanted, desired. Be that in the early morning hours without having his face washed or teeth brushed, or on the battle field with blood and grime spattered all over him.

Just like now, Albedo was able to make Aether come undone with a single gaze of those piercing, ocean eyes.

“Let’s go back before Paimon wakes up and throws a fit because she thinks we’ve left her,” he said and turned around before this would turn into an unholy, filthy ceremony out in the open not even the Archons should witness.

Aether didn’t come very far. Halfway down, Albedo caught up to him and in a flash, seized Aether’s wrist. He pulled him to a nearby tree, and a second later, Aether felt rough bark against his back. Albedo closed the distance between them in one step. His hands cupped the back of Aether’s head, his mouth slanting down over his, hot and sweet as tea with honey. Aether ran his teeth lightly across Albedo’s bottom lip, and he made a guttural sound that raised the hairs along Aether’s arms. He pressed his body hard against Aether’s, lowering his head to kiss his throat, to lick and suck at the pulse point where he could feel the beating of his heart.

“Don’t,” Aether laughed, rising his shoulders to hide his skin from Albedo’s hungry mouth. “I’m stinky after yesterday’s battle.”

“No.” The tip of Albedo’s nose grazed his sensitive skin. “You smell like the sun. Always warm. As if the sun loves you. As if it wants to cling to you as long as possible.”

Aether’s knees buckled. How could simple words like that make him forget his own name. In Albedo’s hands, he turned to clay, left at Albedo’s mercy for he was the potter and Aether would become anything to please him. Albedo’s fingers traced his curves, the dips and hollows of his body as if he were describing a painting in gilt and ivory with each rush of his hands. Aether raked his hands over Albedo’s body, trying to find purchase before he completely turned into a puddle and dissolved between Albedo’s fingers. His hands caught on the belt strung across Albedo’s chest, and they both halted for a second as they waited for a heartbeat that didn’t come.

Albedo exhaled softly as he lowered his forehead to Aether’s. “If I had a heart, it would hurt for your burden.”

“It’s fine,” Aether said. He took Albedo’s hand and put it over his own heart. “Mine is enough for both of us.”

Albedo smiled. He pressed Aether’s knuckles to his lips, and murmured against his skin, “And what a magnificent heart it is.”

Aether held onto Albedo so much, just a little more and they’d become one. It felt like they were the only two people on this earth, just the two of them off to see the world and all its wonders. Aether wouldn’t mind. He wouldn’t mind if tomorrow came and all of Teyvat’s people fell into an endless slumber, and eventually completely disappear. Until recently, Aether hadn’t know it was possible to love someone this much. That if the world were to end tomorrow—if Aether were to have just one wish before it would all end in darkness, it’d be to wake up to Albedo’s sunkissed face in a quiet place they called home, built with their own hands. If that wasn’t love in its truest form, then every fairy tale Lumine used to tell him was a lie, and it was up to Aether to write his own story in which he’d make sure to burn so bright by Albedo’s side that even stars envied them whenever they come together to create a whole new universe.

__________________________________________________

please drop by my ko-fi if you enjoyed my writing!

#genshin impact #albether #genshin impact albether #albedo #aether #genshin impact albedo #genshin impact aether #genshin impact albedo x aether #albedo x aether

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qveenzie · 3 years

Text

Think Twice

Pairing: Damian/Raven Timeline: Pre-Apokolips War Trigger Warning(s): Domestic abuse, violence, swearing Summary: The moment Raven stepped into the tower with a bruised cheek, was when Damian drew the line.

[Inspired by the song Think Twice by Eve 6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeCgUnhOgDI

Damian had been with the Teen Titans for over a year now. As he grew closer with his teammates, he couldn't deny that he had feelings for the one who showed him the most kindness; Raven.

However, his hope was lost when it was revealed to him that she had a boyfriend.

Malchior and Raven had a special relationship. They had similar interests, and he really seemed to love her. However, as the weeks went on, the man she thought she knew soon changed. His sweet facade turned into a dark reality as his true colors showed.

What started as verbal abuse turned into physical, and the moment Raven stepped into the tower with a bruised cheek, was when Damian drew the line.

It was a little after midnight, and Damian was grabbing a bottle of water from the fridge. Raven was surprised that he was still awake, so she instantly hid her face from view with her jacket and began to make her way towards her room.

Damian raised an eyebrow as he watched her. Before she could reach the hallway, Damian stepped in her way.

"Move.... please," Raven spoke, averting her gaze from him. Her change in behavior raised his suspicion.

It was obvious to him that her and Rorek weren't working out. Sometimes Raven would come home in a bad mood, or she wouldn't even speak to anyone and lock herself in her bedroom. Sometimes, late at night, when everyone was sleeping, he could hear her crying from his side of the thin bedroom wall. But this time, it was different. He could tell.

"Why are you hiding your face?"

"Just leave me alone," Raven pleaded as she tried to get by him, but he caught her by the arm before she could get far.

Damian pulled her to where he could see her face, and his emerald eyes widened at the sight of a light purple cheek. "Did he do this to you?"

Raven closed her eyes shamefully. "He didn't mean to."

Despite her words, the tears that began to slip from her eyelids said otherwise.

"Why are you covering for him?" Damian questioned as he released her arm.

"Just leave it alone, okay?" Raven said before taking another step forward. "It's nothing."

"Nothing?" Damian asked, his voice raising. "That's not nothing," he gestured to her bruise.

Raven turned her back towards him as she let more tears stream down her cheeks. "Please lower your voice, you'll wake the others," she quietly pleaded. His expression softened at the sound of hurt in her tone.

"You shouldn't be with him. He doesn't love you," Damian spoke, this time more quiet.

Raven let out a breathy exhale as she tried to contain herself. "I know," she confessed just above a whisper.

Damian furrowed his eyebrows. "Then why the hell are you still with him?"

A heavy silence filled the hallway as Raven pondered the question. Damian inched closer and placed his hand on her shoulder, pulling her to face him. Her eyes remained fixed on the floor underneath her feet.

"I don't want to be alone."

Damian slowly loosened his grip at her words. Hesitantly, he raised a hand up to lift her chin, looking her in the eyes. "Raven, you're not alone."

Her eyes widened at his statement before squeezing shut again, trying to keep herself from crying more. As she took a deep breath, a warm thumb wiped away her tears, making sure to be careful around the bruised flesh of her cheek.

Raven leaned into the touch, reluctantly taking a step forward and wrapping her arms around him before pulling him into an embrace. Her fingers softly gripped the fabric of his shirt.

"Why is it... that you care so much about me?"

His heart started to beat faster in his chest as he pondered the question. Would telling her now be wrong?

"Now isn't a good time for that answer," Damian decided, letting out a sigh after.

Raven pulled away, a puzzled expression on her tear stained face. "What do you mean?" she innocently questioned, her violet eyes tracing his face ever so intently.

His eyes quickly averted from hers, a red tint rising to his cheeks. "You're in a vulnerable state right now. Telling you... wouldn't be right. Besides, I don't think I want to hear your response."

Raven narrowed her eyes toward him. "Tell me," she insisted, lightly tugging on his shirt. This caused his face to flush even more. "Please."

He met her gaze briefly before closing his eyes, taking a silent breath before he spoke. "I care about you so much because I've... had feelings for you. For a while now, actually."

She looked at him round-eyed, watching as he opened his eyes the slightest to see her expression. "You don't have to respond to that. I completely understand if the feeling is not mutual."

Raven cleared her throat before speaking. "You... feel that way towards me?"

His eyes opened completely as he answered her. "Yes. Ever since you showed me the slightest bit of affection, I've harvested these feelings for you," he said before averting his gaze shamefully, "Seeing you hurt makes me so mad that I can't think straight."

The faintest smile made its way to Raven's lips. "I would be lying if I said I didn't feel the same," she quietly admitted.

Damian's eyebrows raised at the statement before his expression softened, and he held her close again. Raven returned the gesture and relaxed in his arms.

—

The sound of Malchior's voice first thing in the morning made Damian's blood boil.

"Come on out, Raven! Let's talk this out!"

Before anyone could confront the boy, Damian swung the front door of the tower open to greet him. Raven quickly rushed to him, afraid of what was about to happen.

"Go away, she doesn't want to see scum like you," Damian spoke as soon as he caught sight of the taller boy.

Malchior laughed at his comment before smirking. "What are you, her dad? Let me see her," he insisted before trying to walk past him, but halted when Damian placed his hand on his chest.

"I don't think you heard me. I said go away," Damian repeated, this time glaring at Malchior.

"Damian, don't," Raven worriedly spoke from behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Malchior ignored Damian's presence and reached his hand to grab Raven's hand. At this moment, all Damian could see was red.

"Get your filthy hands off her!"

Raven watched in horror as Damian swing his fist at Malchior, knocking him to the ground.

"If you ever touch her again-" Damian said between punches as he sat on top of Malchior, repeatedly beating him, "I swear I'll cut your fucking hands off! Do you understand me?" "Stop!" Raven pleaded as she tried to get Damian off from him. When Damian finally came back from his rage, he let Raven pull him up from the spot. His knuckles were a bright shade of red. Malchior quickly got up from the spot and sprinted towards his car, blood trickling from his nose.

"He can't hurt you anymore," Damian assured as he turned to look at Raven, his eyes widening when he noticed her distraught expression. "I'm sorry, I should've controlled myself better."

Raven was silent as she wrapped her arms around him, pressing her head against his chest. Damian slowly returned the gesture and rested his chin on the top of her head, closing his eyes as he calmed down. One thought remained in his head as he held her close;

Think twice before you touch my girl.

#song fic #damirae #my shitty writing #demonbirds #damian x raven #inspired by Think Twice - Eve 6

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bonesofapoet · 4 years

Text

From Dusk ‘Til Dawn

[marcus lopez arguello x you]

author’s note: i dunno about you guys, but i miss this show So Much, and i wont disappear from this fandom again!! you know, probably. (used to write for deadly class under ladyofstadvst) also, this prompt is like ten years old but im still a sucker for it so here! we! are!

word count: 1148

ao3: @ ladyofstardvst (apparently tumblr doesnt like links anymore??)

two times Marcus wanted to kiss you, and the one time he did.

Marcus Lopez Arguello couldn’t remember the last time he paid attention to the world around him.

He noticed thunderstorms and sunshine, knew when it was cold enough to snow. Saw the leaves begin to change from bright, leafy greens to honey gold and russet red. Of course he saw these things. He simply stopped caring about little happenings when Reagan killed his parents.

The last memory he had of a sunset . . . he couldn’t remember.

And he still couldn’t, even with the one painting the sky right before his eyes. Because when it was transforming into a radiant Monet as the sun descended down, down, down below the skyline, then the harbor -

The only place that held his attention was you.

You, with a smile that tugged the corners of your lips up towards your eyes. Eyes that reflected the deep violets melting into vibrant magentas and swirling with heavenly golden clouds. You, standing next to him in awe at the raw beauty this world had to offer for no cost but your time.

The air had become tinted with that specific shade of pastel pink, and Marcus had to catch his breath. His chest tightened, hands began to shake just enough to be noticed. He shoved them in his pockets so you wouldn’t see.

He would trade all the sunsets in the world just to feel your lips against his own. He would do it in a heartbeat.

II.

This time, it’s different.

Power outages darkened the city, torrential rain threatened to flood the streets, shutting down trains and buses, and no, don’t even think about walking. Wind came alive to uproot small trees and gift certain people with wings. It rattled the glass of Lost Innocence Comics right inside of its frames.

You and Marcus were soaked to the bone after stepping outside to just get a look down the street.

Great, he groaned, slamming his head against the locked door. The C L O S E D sign rattled against the glass. We’re fucking stuck here.

In front of him, the clouds changed from heather gray to deep navy and, within minutes, they were almost midnight black. It began to look like night had come to call early.

“Think we can find some candles around here?”

“Uh,” Marcus scrambled to collect himself, turned to face you in the fading light. “Who knows, there’s all kinds of shit in back.”

An eyebrow raised in curiosity. “Lead the way, then.”

Thunder rumbled low and followed you into the small storeroom. It was all damp concrete and chaos and muted rainfall past the small window lodged into the far wall. Bright, violent flashes of lightning accompanied scavenged flashlight beams as you scored a box of matches. Marcus balanced the half-burned pillars he found on a stack of inventory crates to breathe the treasured warmth of fire into the darkness.

Your chilled bones didn’t complain, either.

Flickers of flame danced across you both, the silence slowly growing thick with that special sort of tension. The kind that was only present when something big was about to happen, or when no one had anything left to lose. It would have become overwhelming, but then – then. You were closer to each other than you had been before. Closer than the moment that had just passed. Maybe it was the sharp crack of thunder that made your heart beat faster when his lips were drawing so close to yours -

A bright, harsh light filled the room and you both jerked apart.

The power kicked back on, and the worst of the storm had passed.

III.

Things were different after Vegas.

Distant, secretive, hushed.

A fog followed them around like a phantom that thrived on fear, and fear alone. The friends who came back were not the same people who left the day before, not really. Those mere hours seemed to age them years, decades, eons.

Maybe it was smart that you bailed on them with Willie. You wondered if the abandonment of their two friends led to their downfall.

That was the thing about King’s Dominion - death clung to it’s students like a cloak one could never shed. You didn’t always want to rush off to meet danger at it’s doorstep when you didn’t have to. There was value in a quiet, comfortable weekend spent in your room, thank you very much. So you turned them down.

But that was the thing.

There was no such thing as comfort in a place like King’s, in a life that trained the next generation of assassins. It felt detached somehow, the reality that there were no safety nets, no promise of a life growing old, no promise of even growing at all. Comfort, ease, dreams – those ceased to exist the day anyone walked through those monstrous front doors.

Marcus forgot that too, sometimes.

Vegas reminded him that life was so impossibly fleeting, invincibility certainly did not exist, and there was no fucking time to live safely when there was nothing safe about life in the first place. When all you really had were ghosts that didn’t yet exist, and nightmares of the ghosts already born from your own making.

When San Francisco greeted them in the early morning sunlight, Marcus Lopez Arguello found himself heading straight to your dorm.

I almost died, he greeted you with tired eyes and a rough voice. Like. Five fucking times.

He watched as your eyes drifted over his silhouette propped against the door frame, all bruised and bloody boy. You expected nothing less at this point.

“But you didn’t.” came your reply.

“No,” he said. You were so close that it had gotten difficult to breathe – and, no, it wasn’t because of his bruised ribs. Probably. “I didn’t die.”

The unspoken ‘yet’ hung in the air, the elephant in your room.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t with-”

The dam inside Marcus cracked, hitched, broke.

There wasn’t a universe where he would allow you to apologize for something he had no right to ask for in the first place. No universe where he would allow death to take him home before he did the small things. The important things.

The kind of things that almost dying in an alleyway dumpster in Las Vegas made him realize mattered.

He kissed you, and you kissed him back.

It was hesitant, at first. All soft lips and warm breath questioning if this was real, if this was happening, if maybe Marcus really was dead after all. Then passion crept in, the comfort of his arms wrapped around you, your hands threaded through his hair, his own pulled you closer and closer and closer.

He was so very much alive, with a pounding heartbeat to prove it. With your skin grazing his, with your breath in his lungs. For the first time in a long time, he was so very grateful to be alive.

#marcus lopez arguello imagine #marcus lopez arguello x you #marcus lopez arguello x reader #deadly class imagine #deadly class #marcus lopez imagine #kas writes

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lightwithinthedarknessu · 3 years

Text

A Crown to Adorn

Starting off #sokaiweek2021 with a fluffy one-shot!

Wrote a little fluffy one-shot for Day 1 of @sokaiweek Prompt: King and Queen. Childhood memories for #sokai and a cute flower date! A time of healing and reminiscence, adorned with flowers fit for a King and Queen.

A03: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32511775

Fanfiction. net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13918369/1/A-Crown-to-Adorn

A Crown to Adorn

*.*.*.*

“Wear a crown of flowers on your head, let its roots reach your heart.” – Kabir

*.*.*.*

The smell of the grass, the warmth of the sun on their faces, and the slight scent of honeysuckle wafting through the canopy above was the perfect complement to an otherwise ordinary day. Ordinary, that word seemed to slip into her mind with a lithe bump, nestling into her heart but leaving behind a tinge of anxiety. Was it good to cherish something even if you knew it wouldn’t last? Those words danced within her mind as warm rays of light kissed her cheeks.

Living in the moment. Cherishing those small moments of reprieve-sometimes Kairi had to keep reminding herself to do that. Whether it be taking in deep breaths of the salty air or cherishing the soft sensation of sand squished between her toes- those small insignificant moments she needed to hold close. The way the wind hit her face as Sora and Riku rushed past her in one of their many races or the sensation of cold droplets hitting her face during one of their many water fights. Those moments, they would rush back at her all at once during those times she was alone, listless, and longing for their company.

Somehow, Kairi knew that today would be one of those many moments she held close to her heart. She took in a deep breath, savoring the crisp air hitting her lungs.

The Kingdom of Corona was as beautiful as Sora had claimed it would be. Filled with flora and fauna, clean air, and warm bathes in sunshine. Even the few heartless around were, she had to admit, cute in their own way. Made her almost sad to pummel them, but once she found herself attacking in unison alongside Sora- every thought she had just melted away. He always seemed to do that, make her feel as if she could do anything, be anything. It sounded silly but- his light made hers stronger somehow. It radiated within her a warmth that felt so comforting she never wanted it to leave.

After clearing the area, they had decided to take a quick swim in the spring nearby and were now sunning themselves like a couple of lizards on the forest floor. They had taken off their shoes and fully let themselves relax for what felt like an eternity. Peaceful, it was so peaceful that Kairi felt she could fall into a sleep here without a care in the world.

“I’m glad you brought me here. It’s so pretty.” Kairi turned to Sora, her eyes welling with shimmering light. After hours of training, Sora had dropped by unannounced, unattended by the other two little half-pints, to whisk her away for a “well-deserved break” as he put it. At the time he had a shy grin on his face, letting her know that really, he had just wanted to see her. Not that she minded. She wanted to see him too.

“I had to! I mean you love flowers and well the beach back home isn’t as green as this. Heck, I hadn’t even seen some of the plants here before. It’s really something- all those worlds we wanted to see- just there’s always something new.” Sora blurted out, his excitement burgeoning behind an uncontrollable grin. He rubbed the back of his neck and leaned forward. “Sorry, I’m getting a bit too excited. I’ve been wanting to show you all these new things for so long. Every time I see something I think, “Kairi and Riku need to see this!”

Kairi giggled. Sora did seem to be holding in boundless energy every time she saw him. “I want to see it all with you. I mean, we always wanted to travel and learn everything we could. Even just seeing this world makes me want to go to all kinds of places with you- and Riku too…” Kairi tucked a stray piece of hair from her face. She felt almost embarrassed to say anything more- to tell him that really, she wanted to just run away with him right now. Leave it all behind. But that would be selfish, wouldn’t it? They had to face Xehanort. Even if that meant risking their lives. Still, that incredible wanderlust creaked within her bones. Even now her heart began to beat faster at the thought of Sora whisking her away to world after world. She could just picture it-brisk walks on stardust touched beaches, huddling close in frigid snow-kissed air, or dancing on the tips of their toes across warm cobblestones-

Everything. Just experience it all-together- hand in hand in a world all their own.

Kairi felt something lightly fall on her head. A light gasp escaped her lips at the sensation. It tickled her eyelashes as she looked up to greet Sora’s impish grin. Her hand reached up to touch the delicate petals of a ring of flowers he had placed on her head. Her eyes widened. “When did you…”

“Oh just while you were humming to yourself earlier. Did I do a good job? I mean I’m not as good at connecting them together as you…but I did have a good teacher.” Sora winked.

Tears pricked the edges of her eyes. When they were children, Kairi often spent her time near the shore picking small wildflowers and clover. One of the few things she remembered about her grandmother was her love of flowers and the way she used to weave together flower crowns. It used to make her feel like she was almost home again, weaving the flowers together, creating something from nothing. It was cathartic. For hours she would lose herself in the action- maybe that was why piecing shells together also soon became second nature. Once, Sora sat down next to her, and watched intently as she connected each stem of clover flower without asking any questions. When she was done, he told her how pretty it was and how “he wanted one too.”

For a few days after school, they would go down to the shore, make flower crowns, and pretend they were a King and Queen of the flower people. Well, the last part was entirely Sora’s idea. When she thought back on it- Kairi wondered if Sora did that to help her feel better about being homesick. She had missed her grandmother so badly back then. Every day she felt so alone. But then…Sora was there. And Riku…and the three of them found new things to do together.

Back then, Kairi hadn’t paid a second thought to the idea that most boys wouldn’t find what she was doing that interesting. Thinking about it now, Sora probably only said he wanted one too so she wouldn’t feel lonely- after all…she wasn’t the fastest runner or could hold her own at the time in a mock sword fight. What she was good at was making things, connecting flowers, shells, and bits of shattered sea glass into stars shapes or crowns. Her room back home was filled with makeshift stars, unfinished and marred imitations of the charm Sora now held close as an oath to her. Her childish fantasies of an unbreakable connection, made real and whole through a brush of their fingers as she passed the charm to him. Her fingertips warmed as she recalled his touch.

Now, with the newly coronated flower crown atop her reddened locks-Kairi felt that same bubbling joy well up inside her.

Kairi couldn’t believe Sora had still remembered that time or well had even retained his “flower-tying skills” as he used to call it. Sora had remembered a time that even she had pushed back deep into the depths of her heart. “I think that you retained some skill.” Kairi puffed out her chest. “But I think I’m still the master. So, I’m going to work my magic! It’s only fair that you have one to match.”

Sora chuckled and placed both hands behind his head. “Well, I guess we’re off flower picking then huh?” His hips swayed from side to side, his legs acting listless as if they hadn’t moved in hours.

Kairi bounced up on her heels, feeling a renewed vigor in her veins. “Yep! Lead the way, King!”

“King?” Sora’s jaw slacked. “Gosh, when you say it like that it only reminds me of “the King.”

Kairi lightly patted Sora on the shoulder. “Now, now.” Kairi chided. “There can be more than one King and Kings of different things. He may be “the King” but you- you’re my Flower King right?” An impish grin filled her cheeks. Sora blinked a few times before averting his eyes. She could swear a tinge of red was on the tips of his ears.

“Geez flower King? Don’t tell Riku, or Donald or Goofy- I’ll never live that down.”

“But I’m the flower Queen- we have to match!” Kairi pointed an accusatory finger at him. Sora jumped back a beat, his deep blue eyes tinged with uncertainty. Soon, his eyes swirled with glimmering sunshine, his smile so subtle she found herself itching to gently brush her fingers across his lips. Her cheeks heated at the thought.

“Okay, I mean if you are I have to be then.” Sora put a hand over his mouth to muffle a laugh. Though clearly uncomfortable, there was a hint of joy in those words. Poking fun at him like this was almost too nostalgic. With ease, she slid her hand into his and gave it a tight squeeze. He recoiled slightly before sheepishly squeezing her hand back. His eyes wouldn’t meet hers, but she knew- he was just a tad shy still.

Hand in hand they traversed the woods searching for violet, azure, and fuchsia hues. Their still bare feet brushing against rough patches of dirt and slick grass, staining their toes a light green as they went. The morning dew, still kissing the tips of their hair, kept them cool against the ever-rising sun. Every flower they came across seemed more beautiful than the rest- they gathered until they were spilling out onto the ground beneath them. Sora sneezed a few times, sending them flying much more than he would have liked. The air filled with laughter as they collected them all again, each time regretting having over-prepared their bounty.

They returned to the clearing in no time at all-and she set about her work. Connecting the flowers together wasn’t hard- but choosing which flowers suited Sora best- well that took some thinking. Baby’s breath, delicate and kind, hydrangeas as blue and calming as the sea, red carnations brandishing the passionate courage in his heart, and yellow calla lilies to represent his happy disposition. When she was done- it was a crown only befitting him. When she held it up against the light, the shadows cast across her face danced- truly she could think of it as her best work yet. Smirking and a bit too proud, Kairi stood up and delicately laid the crown atop her “King’s” head.

“I, Flower Queen Kairi dub thee- Sora- Flower King.” In a grand bow, Kairi placed a hand over her heart, glancing up at him with mischief and mirth.

Sora’s wide toothy grin greeted her. “It’s an honor!” He paused, searching his mind before snapping his fingers in the realization of something important. “Does it look Kingly?”

“I think it suits you, just as mine suits me.” Kairi spun on her heels, dancing as she delicately brushed the petals she adorned. She gave Sora a taunting wink as she thrust out her hand. “I’d say a dance is in order, sire.”

A deep laugh escaped his chest as Sora jumped up to grab her hand and pull her close. Their eyes connected as if a thread between them became taught, sure, and certain that the entire world around them could just melt away into nothing, and it would all be alright. One step, then two, a sway and a swish, he even threw in a twirl or two as they danced to the bubbling brook and twilling birds. The melody in their hearts flowed and swirled at a tempo that pulled her into a sense of weightlessness. The countless times she dreamed of the two of them, blissfully dancing, suddenly made it real.

It was real, him, her, this moment. It was a sensation, a scent, a feeling she wanted to bottle up and keep close- like an herbarium filled with preserved flowers. Bright, opulent, and ever so warm. As their dance slowed, and her heart settled, Kairi leaned her head on Sora’s shoulder, letting herself melt into his rising chest. It was then Kairi knew that home wasn’t ever far anymore. That homesickness had long flitted away like petals in the wind once she let Sora into her heart. Now, every time she thought of their memories, these moments, the rise and fall of his chest, his heartbeat…Kairi knew somehow she was always closer to home.

Years Before

*.*.*.*

The bluff at the edge of town was filled with clover flowers. Though she had been warned with a stern shake of the mayor’s finger, and a disapproving huff or two from the town elders, Kairi always found herself foraging for flowers here. The wind blowing through her hair, and the misty salt air gently caressing her chubby cheeks made her feel more at home here than anywhere else on the island. In the afternoon quiet, only the rumbling low roar of the waves had been keeping her company. Lightly and carefully, she hummed a melody as she worked, losing herself in knot after knot.

*.*.*.*

“What do you think she’s doing?” Sora muttered in a hushed tone, trying to keep his usually loud voice as quiet as possible. He was huddled on his haunches behind a large hedge, practically wiggling to keep himself from falling over. He and Riku had followed Kairi from a distance like two ducks up the winding hillside. When they had seen her leaving the Mayor’s house she had been stomping and letting out a long-winded sigh or two. Riku had said that she was “probably angry” and that it mostly had to do with her going off alone. Sora, being extremely curious about Kairi ever since she had arrived on the beach, had never not kept watch over her. So, Riku being Riku had suggested they follow her, knowing well that Sora would have found himself trailing after her absentmindedly.

Riku let out a sigh and shook his head. “She’s going to make something again. The last time she came back down from here she had a crown of flowers in her hands. That’s probably what she plans on doing.”

“Hmm, that seems more lonely than fun. She’s all by herself.” Sora pursed his lips, his nose scrunching up. He crossed his arms and readjusted his drooping bum with a light hop. “Seems like it’d be better to do with more people.”

Riku raised a brow, then smirked as he realized something important. “You know, if you want to join her nothing’s stopping you. We can go back to the play island any old time.”

“But it feels like if I go over now, I’d be like- I don’t know- I’d um make her mad…”

“Mad?”

“You always say I talk too much. Kairi seems a bit scared when I do that.” Sora looked down at his fidgeting toes. “Still, I think she’s lonely.”

“She just doesn’t know much about us yet. And well you do talk a lot. My dad says sometimes though that just being near someone without saying anything is enough.” Riku crossed his arms, and nodded, certain his father’s words were true.

“Really Riku?”

“Yeah, Really.” Riku put a hand on Sora’s head and gave his hair a quick ruffle. “Now, no more waiting!” Riku placed both hands on Sora’s back and pushed him forward- not even worried if he would fall over on his face. Usually, he did, and Sora had to brace himself for a fall that didn’t come. Instead, he found himself balancing on one foot and staring into the wide cerulean eyes of a frightened girl.

*.*.*.*

When a rustling bounded behind her Kairi gasped and found herself on her feet, her hands clutched close to her chest. A familiar head of spikes was what first caught her eyes, then the twigs and leaves sticking out every-which-way, followed by the shy grin of a boy caught doing something he shouldn’t.

“Geez, Sora! You scared me!” Kairi tucked her hair behind her ear as if she were suddenly aware of her own messy mop.

“Sorry, Kairi! Me and Riku were just…” Sora paused to look behind him. Not a soul was in sight. “Aw man, where’d he go? We were just talking about…ugh never mind.” Sora stood up straight and puffed out his chest as he shook the stray twigs and leaves from his head. Once he was done, he placed both hands behind his head. “So…what-cha doing?”

“Making flower crowns…” Kairi mumbled under her breath, feeling herself carefully enunciate each word. Sora was nice, after all, he was the one who found her on the beach that day. But a part of her felt scared, nervous, and a bit rumbly in her tummy when she talked to him. He was always so bright, and his grin was wider than his face. Kairi didn’t know how to be around him. Kairi turned her back to him and smoothed the ends of her dress.

“Okay.” Sora uttered. He continued to stare at her, unmoved until she decided to sit back down among her work. As she picked more flowers, she began to take more glances over at Sora. He watched her intently, swaying from side to side on the edges of his sandals. He stayed that way for a beat then promptly plopped down next to her. Kairi’s breath hitched in her throat at the sudden invasion in her little bubble. But Sora didn’t say anything, although his face was twisted into an unnatural frown, alerting her he really did want to say something.

Kairi tried her best to get back to her crown, but she fumbled with shaky fingers as she tied the tiny stems together. Her lips moved into a fine line, her teeth biting down into the corners of her cheeks. Again, soon she became lost in the motions, not even noticing Sora get up and go look around. Moments later he dropped back down next to her, this time, with a handful of clovers.

“It’s really pretty.” Sora blurted out. His eyes were wide, expectant.

A shivering jolt went through her back, and Kairi shyly looked back down at her completed crown. He said it was pretty, what she made. A slight hint of pride wafted through her chest. “Thanks…”

“I-I want one too!” Sora’s voice was louder than he intended, for Kairi almost fell back at the sudden noise. She made sure to quickly put on a smile for the boy looked almost as if he would cry if he knew she was scared.

“Okay, I’ll teach you.” Kairi found a new strength in her voice. She was more confident now. A voice inside her heart, but from where she didn’t know, whispered caressing words.

Whenever you feel lonely, look to the flowers. Surround yourself with them, let them take root in your heart. Every moment may seem small, but you can make them bigger and more beautiful. For those moments when you’re alone, the flowers will remind you of me and of those who love you. That light in your heart will continue to bloom and grow, as long as you let it. Adorn your head with a crown of flowers, my dear. Adorn the head of the one you love. Find that light, never lose sight of it.

Notes:

Thank you for reading! This fic was inspired by the prompt King and Queen for SoKai Week 2021. Visiting Sora and Kairi's childhood and what they meant to each other during that time was pure joy. I hope that this little bundle of fluff reminds you of the wonder of picking flowers as a child, and how even the smallest acts of kindness can mean the world to someone else. I tried to add in some of Sora's flowers from his herbarium by super groupies as well as flowers that spoke to his personality. Fun fact: Clover flowers were something that I would gather when I was a child, and luckily they do grow at least in Hawaii at high elevations, so it's possible they could be on the mainland in Destiny Islands!

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#sokaiweek2021 #sokaiweek #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts fanfiction #sokai #sora and kairi #kairi #sora #kingdomheartsfanfiction #KH #kingdomhearts

16 notes · View notes

aibari · 3 years

Text

safe returns

a @destielsecretsanta2020 gift for @misha-moose-dean-burger-lover

notes: this fic is set after the s15 finale. there’s a bit of canon-typical grief at the start, but this is a fix-it fic :)

read on ao3

Afterwards, the world knits itself back together slowly, like broken bones healing. People come back to their loved ones, but not all at once, filing in gradually. Dean guesses they've had a long way to go. Wherever the hell they went, when Chuck had punted them out of existence.

So it's a slow and gradual thing, and it sucks. He catches himself out constantly, thinking that maybe -

And then Sam will give him a concerned look, so understanding and careful it makes him feel like he's been skinned alive.

And he knows by now what that feels like.

Anyway, the point is that while people are still coming back, he can't quite let go of the thought that Cas might, too. Even if he's in the Empty. Even if it's dumb as hell to think that it could ever -

So. The thought sits in his chest like a tumor metastasizing, like a rusty fishhook, like a birdcage. Hope is a thing with feathers, or however the fuck that saying goes.

He can't think about it for too long. If he does, he starts needing a drink, starts to feel his jaw lock up. Can't touch it, or he'll slice his fingers open.

So instead of thinking about it, he joins a pie eating competition. Goes on a series of hunts with Sam that all resolve easy. Drinks beer and sleeps in motels and eats greasy diner food, and it's familiar in a way that's both familiar and deeply fucking depressing if he lets himself think about it. He's forty-one, he's helped defeat God, and he's still doing this shit? Does he even know how to be anything else? Does he have it in him?

Six months after the end of Chuck, the stream of people showing back up slows to a trickle and then dries up. Dean takes his fragile hope and buries it as deep as it will go.

So it goes.

He dreams about Cas, which is business as usual. Dreams with Cas used to mean something, and maybe that something was covert fraternization and angel politics, most of the time, but it was Cas. Now it's just trauma. Dean sits on their bench, and Cas sits next to him, and Cas says:

Because you cared, I cared.

And Dean says:

Don’t do this, Cas.

And then he starts to choke, words and letters pushing up against the back of his throat like yesterday's dinner.

Cas is still talking, words fading in and out like a radio with bad reception, and his hand rests heavy on Dean's arm, and he says:

"Dean."

And then Dean wakes up, gasping, staring up at the water-stained motel room ceiling.

The handprint on his shoulder burns.

He stumbles into the bathroom to splash water on his face and then stands there, hands clutching the edges of the sink, staring blankly at his own reflection.

There's a pull in his chest, tethered somewhere under his ribs.

He takes a deep breath, and then another.

Then he wakes up Sam, who groans and then squints at him in the half-dark of the room. The light of the neon sign outside paints a violet streak across his cheek.

“Dean, what -?” Sam says. “What’s going on, what time is it?”

“Don’t worry your sweet little head about it, Sammy,” Dean says. “Just got a little something to take care of, so I’m heading out.”

Sam frowns at him. “What do you mean, out?”

“What are you, some kind of detective?”

“Dean,” Sam says, with the kind of heavy, long-suffering bitchiness that means he’s gonna get passive aggressive about it.

Dean doesn’t have that kind of time. “I’m going to Minnesota and I’m gonna have to go there alone.”

Sam opens his mouth to say something.

“Don’t say anything, Sam,” Dean grits out.

“I wasn’t gonna,” Sam says, like a liar.

Dean rolls his eyes at him and starts packing. It takes about a minute; it’s not like any of them ever really unpack.

There’s a joke in there, somewhere, Dean thinks, jaw clenching despite himself.

“Dean,” Sam says from behind him. Dean freezes in the middle of stuffing a t-shirt into the bag, unable to turn around and look at him.

“What,” he asks, stiff like set concrete.

“Just promise me you won’t do anything stupid,” Sam says, like he has his own ideas about where Dean is going. “Promise me, alright?”

“Sure,” Dean says. It’s a like, but he’s pretty sure they both know it.

It’s not like he even knows where he’s going, exactly.

He doesn’t even know what he’s going there for. He just knows that he has to.

He finishes packing and they say their goodbyes. Sam bitches about it when he takes the impala, but Eileen will be coming up later in the day to discuss some kind of hunt developments. Sam will be fine.

Whether or not Dean will be fine might be a different question.

He’ll figure it out.

He takes the I-35 up through Illinois and Iowa, barely stopping to take a piss. The burn of the handprint has settled into something gentler, but it still throbs in a telltale heart rhythm. He thinks about Cas, at the end, standing tall and telling Dean that he loved him.

It makes his jaw go tight.

He turns up the music. It’s Creedence, and he sings along as hard as he can stand, white-knuckling the wheel.

“That’s real healthy,” he murmurs to himself in the space between songs, but it does help to have something in the car that isn’t his own thoughts, his own fuck-ups and messes.

The closer he gets to Minnesota, the stronger the pull gets.

He’s playing with fire, not doing the research and going in solo like this. Whatever’s pulling at him could be freaking anything.

But it won’t be.

He knows that for sure, even if he doesn’t know exactly what it is.

He just has a feeling.

After he crosses state lines the final time, rolling on into Minnesota, he stops at a diner for dinner. He gets a burger and fries, and by this point he is so full of whatever thing is pulling him forward it’s hard to stop moving. His ribcage feels like it’s full of bees.

He keeps thinking about Cas.

“This is you, isn’t it,” he murmurs. “Whatever’s happening here. It’s about you.”

No-one answers him, but he’s used to that by now.

He can fill a silence like nobody’s business, so he launches into a rambling review of the music on the regional radio station, (bland enough to give Wonderbread a run for its money,) the scenery (cold and snowy), and the present company (non-existent; please, Cas, come back to me).

The waitress keeps looking at him funny. When he goes to leave, she won’t let him pay. For a second, he thinks she might be interested, but then she gives him a soft, sad look and tells him about how her partner had taken months longer than her to come back, and that she understands what he’s going through, that he shouldn’t give up hope, and then he has to go.

He sits in the parking lot for a while, hands on the steering wheel, wishing he’d paid more attention to the mindfulness kick Sam’s been on for the past month.

He can’t stop thinking about the look on Cas’ face, right before -

Fuck.

If he were in any other car, he’d be punching the dashboard.

He turns up the music again instead, and wipes his face, and gets back to driving.

So it goes.

He stops at a motel by the interstate and stumbles out the morning after to a bright winter’s day. The sky is blue enough that he has to squint against it; the snow crunches under his boots. With every breath, the cold air knifes down his throat.

He follows the pull of his invisible line.

The forest is quiet. The snow muffles all sound but the crunch of his boots, which reverberate like gunshots. Dean makes a quick mental inventory of Minnesota monsters. He’s unprepared for most of them; if any of them show up, or if this is a trap, he’ll be up shit creek. He’d probably deserve it, too, coming here like this.

He walks for hours, pulled forward, chest sweetly aching and handprint throbbing to the beat of his own heart.

By the time he reaches the field, he’s almost lost track of time.

It’s just a large, empty space. If it hadn’t been covered in snow in the middle of winter, it’d make a sweet concert space.

There’s no-one else here, but -

(something in his chest wrenches)

-then there is.

A man in a trenchcoat stumbles into the clearing, and Dean knows him. He knows him, with a bright and certain rush of heat that leaves him breathless.

“Cas!” he yells, and hears the answering, “Dean!” and then he’s running and laughing and tearing up at the same time. He’s a mess, but he can’t help it, couldn’t stop it if he tried. They meet in the middle and it’s like a scene from Love freaking Actually, hugging each other tightly and spinning each other around. Cas smells like petrichor and ozone and day-old sweat. The stitching on his coat is rough and reassuring under Dean’s fingers. He never wants to let him go.

“Thank you,” Cas says, serious as a freshly dug grave, “for meeting me.”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, buddy,” Dean says. Then he leans back a little to look Cas properly in the eye. “Cas,” he says. “Earlier. I said the wrong thing.”

Cas gives him an expectant look. His hands are fisting into Dean’s coat. “What did you want to say, Dean?”

The way he says his name makes Dean shudder. He swallows thickly. “I. Back when you - I said don’t do this, but what I should have said was - me too, Cas.”

Cas tilts his head slightly to the side, like he’s confused by something. Dean had almost forgotten what shade of blue they were.

“What?” Dean asks, as softly as he can, which isn’t much. He’s not good at this. Not with Cas. Not yet, but hopefully - if he dares to hope - hopefully soon.

“You don’t have to humor me, Dean,” Cas says, stiffer than a freaking fridge magnet in a freezer. “I know I’m not what you -”

And Dean can’t stand hearing him finish that sentence, can’t stand not having them be on the same page.

“Alright, fuck this,” he says, and pulls Cas down into a kiss.

#supernatural #i write stuff #writing the first half of this felt like being mildly posessed #destiel #deancas

80 notes · View notes

gone-daddy-gone · 4 years

Note

18 with Shinsou please I beg of you

Rating: 17+

Warnings: murder, yandere themes, gore, throw up

Word Count: 5,288

Tags: @the-grimm-writer <3

Prompt: “Cry for me baby.”

The day had an odd air to it that soaked your senses from the second you opened your eyes. It felt colder than usual, even with his arms caging you in. It compelled you to push him off you, make breakfast and clean yourself off from whatever happened last night. You tried to forget the grisly details, glimpse of sweat and purple hair invading you peripherals. So you fought his grip, whispering about how much you loved him and will be back with his food. You're praise had earned you you’re temporary freedom. His large arm relieving you of its weight before settling behind you. A sigh of relief pushed itself out of your raged body before you pushed off the large bed with the palms of your hands. He grumbled at you, looking at you with those empty violet eyes; and for a quick second every punishment you ever received came rushing back to your hippocampus. Luckily, he let them flutter closed again. And another sigh was pushed out.

“You know what today is right?” He asked, waiting till you were almost free of that godforsaken room.

“Y-yes...our...our anniversary?” You tried to make it sound less like an answer and less like a question. You didn’t want your loyalty to be questioned after all.

“Mmm hmm. Why don’t you make me my favorite?” You nodded, shooting him the best half smile you could muster. You hated being docile for him, so much, but you hated when he was angry even more.

The living room had changed some from when you first arrived into your captivity. Originally he had glass and other breakable things to be thrown during a tantrum. Now there was a single couch, adjacent was his rather large TV courtesy of his pro hero money. In the corner was his wall of toys as he liked to call them. A large range from things to shove into you to things to beat you with. Below his sadistic wall was his cage he would put you in when you were in aforementioned tantrums. He preferred to gag and bind you, placing you in that chair till you exhausted yourself out with all the kicking and screaming you would do, the tears would do little to energize you either. He just liked those. That was all he had in his living room, like his whole life revolved around you, which it did. If you stared at it too long, you might just break out into hysterics again, and as much as sobbing uncontrollably on the floor sounded pleasant; you opted to just finish your original task.

Now the kitchen was a much livelier place than that so called “living room”. The kitchen was the only place he let you have free reign, he wouldn’t even grope you, or shove your head into the counter to force himself on you when you were in there. It was like those safe zones you used to have during four corners, back when you were a kid and your only worry was going home and being able to catch the reruns of pokemon. Oh, how the times have changed, now you were making food for the number five hero, praying he’d like it and won’t slap you around for not saying you loved him right.

The daylight was spilling in from the kitchen windows and illuminating the pale floor in a beautiful yellow and orange. Oh, the daylight. You missed that simple privilege of being able to be outside in the morning. Feeling the UV rays cook your skin in the most pleasant way. Walking towards the window, the only glimpse of outside you ever got. You reminisced on when you were first in captivity and tried for hours to break it, a horrible mistake on your part; as he had already thought about it and made sure to put some sort of plexiglass on it thus making it unbreakable. If you soaked in the sun and wallowed in your misery for too long you might just break down. Not that he would be upset, he liked watching you cry, to crumble like an old withered statue. Today might be one of those days, you were almost too suspiciously reminiscent.

Making breakfast was a good break from your surroundings that we’re going to send you into a full fledged panic attack. The eggs reminded you only of eggs, the bacon reminding you about that one video you watched in health class, the one about what they really do to those animals. For that small moment in time, you could pretend that you were a willing participant in your domestication.

Once you had plaited up a mountain of food for the lean hero, you allowed yourself some of the same meal; much smaller in comparison. Holding up both on your forearms, a ghost of your old life taking over your senses.

Suddenly you were back at the Sushi Bar and Ramen restaurant you worked at. Your hair up in a messy bun, four plates of food and two cups of water in each hand. The heat making fat globs of sweat run down your back, beading at your forehead. It all seemed so real, the low rise lanterns casting that oh so familiar orange hue over mahogany tables.

“(Y/N)?” In absolute horror, you turned your head to see your old manager. A middle aged man with ashy hair, golden eyes and a smell of designer cologne faintly in the air.

“What-what?” You began to shake. You weren’t so sure what was happening, but you were more than happy to hear a voice that wasn’t Shinsuo.

“Dear, why are you so shaken? Did that guy come by again?”

“What- I….What guy?”

He made a face of confusion, shaking his head from side to side to signal his displeasure. “The one with purple hair...he’s a hero?” You felt yourself begin to hyperventilate, a sense of dread coming over you.

“I don’t...I was just…he...he”

“Baby? Commer why are you crying.” He began to walk towards you.

“NO! Don’t come near me…” You began to sob, setting the food down and backing up.

“Darlin...what did he do?” You just shook your head, frantic as ever. The mirage was too good to be true, too kind.

“Listen, commer, ok? Let’s talk it out.” He moved towards with you, hands up to show he meant no harm.

“Please...please…” Your withered and beaten body caved under the pressure of your mental psyche, before you crumbled to the ground.

“What’s wrong? What did he do?” His shadow casted over you, words refused to come out of you as you hiccuped a sob. You flinched in horror, and he looked miserable to see you in pain. It was such a beautiful contrast to glee at seeing you in pain. You gave into the illusion and let your body slump itself into him. He cradled you like he used to during a particularly hard dinner rush. Rub soft circles into your back before rubbing the opposite direction into the same spot. You clawed at his arms, reveling in the feeling of his flesh in your nails.

“What is happening? Common, you can talk to me.”

“He...he...I was…”

“You were what?” His voice sounded like home, a place you missed so desperately. You took his hand and rubbed your face into the back of it, smelling the sweet smell of miso paste. Talking was going to ruin this moment, you just wanted to be held by him while you still could.

“He killed me didn’t he.” Your heart and your breathing stopped all at once. If this was a fantasy your brain was cruelly displaying for you, why was your heart racing?

“What...did you just say?” You wanted to make sure you heard him right. Yet you still lacked the courage to look him in the face as he said it. Maybe it was the guilt. Wait what guilt?

“I said that he murdered me. And it’s all your fault.” Your heart was thundering, and your ears were ringing as you brought your head up slowly to look at him. Your breath was shaky when you looked to see Shinsuo staring back at you this time.

“I killed him Kitten...all for you...now come here be good…”

“NO! I won’t!” With all your strength and what little sanity you had left you pushed away from him. Kicking your feet desperately until you were almost to the couch.

“No what?” The intrusion surprised you enough for you to avert your eyes to the offender. The only other person in the house, Shinsuo.

“But...but you were…” You looked feverishly from him to the spot your episode had taken place at, only for there to be an empty spot where there was once a body.

“Are you feelin alright kitten”

Not wanting to have him stay home and “nurse you back to health” you sputtered out a yes I am fine before you clambered up to your feet, still a bit shakin. He must have taken notice.

“Your face is all red and puffy...and you’re shaking like a leaf. Were you crying?” You felt a twinge of disgust as you could practically hear the grin in the way he spoke about it.

“No! I...I just cut myself on a knife and its cold in here…” Those were very obvious lies, not well thought out lies on your part. Which is something he hated when you do. Lie to him. He owned you heart, mind, body and soul. He had made that abundantly clear taking over your mind by force plenty of times. You could feel what was coming next, the complete shut down of your brain by force. Making you prisoner in your own body, mindless to your own actions. The sunken place like Get Out. You could hear him about to form words to take you over, his mouth was already forming them when, by the grace of god you heard his familiar ringtone. Saved by the bell.

“Do not move.”

You didn’t respond, not even in your head, only doing what you were asked. While he was steadily raising his voice in the other room, your mind was going wild. Did he kill him? Why would he do that? You had worked there so long ago after all, he wouldn’t be a threat. But...just how long ago had it been? You gave up counting the days. Shinso never let you near his phone, as if he didn’t have a million and one passcodes on that thing if you ever did get your hands on it. On top of all of that, you had no cable either. No new outlet to let you know what was going on in the outside world. No recent TV shows to watch, no movies to update you on pop culture. All that put together made it quite literally impossible for you to know about his possible untimely death. The episode was obviously meant to feel real, anyone who had the trauma you did would want to create that escape, if only for a minute. But what kind of deranged masochistic person invisions someone saying something like...that. Maybe you were over analyzing it...what reason would he even have for killing him. Like a reason mattered to him, he was one of those “the end justifies the means” type of hero’s, a red flag the public liked to think of as a light blue.

Almost if on cue, Shinso emerged from the dungeon that was your shared bedroom. You gulped and couldn’t fight the instinctual flinch at his seething that seemed to sour the already grim room. He looked at you before he clenched his jaw and shook his head.

“You are lucky, I have to work.” Your fingers dug their way into your palms, scrapping over the scabs, the intensity increasing as he went on, getting ready for his day.

“You do not lie to me, you know that.” The aforementioned scab had finally broken its very fragile seal, and you felt the blood flow out in time with the tears in your eyes. Crescendoing with that sickeningly familiar sense of dread rising in the very core of your chest.

“Get over here, now.” You released your palms from your self inflicted torutre. Almost running over to him, willing to do anything in that moment to appease him.

He just gave you a long look, those violet eyes holding nothing in them against his snow white skin. He breathed out his nose slowly, to anyone that would have seemed like he was trying to take as much oxygen into his system as he could. Not to you, the trained eye. That was his signal that he wanted you to know he was trying his hardest not to beat you.

“You better do dinner right, and after we are done, you’re going to tell me what was going on.” After he was done ordering you around, with a dash of a threat. He forced you into a kiss, capturing your elbows in between both of his pointer fingers and thumbs. You kissed back, hoping your desperation would be mistaken for genuine love.

He slammed the door and you stood there. Stood there breathing in the silence. What was I supposed to say? I don’t even know what I had experienced you thought to yourself. You moved in slow motion to the couch, setting yourself onto the couch. One day, all you wanted was one day where you didn’t get “punished”, for anything. You let your body fall back onto the couch, a heaviness that wasn’t quiet sleep taking over you. Your nose was so stuffed up with snot you could barely make out the smell of eggs still...that smell of eggs.

“Hey! (Y/N), crack this egg and put in the bowl why don’t cha?” You opened your eyes and you were...back in that restaurant…in the kitchen to be exact.

“W-what?”

The young cook, who for the life of you you can’t seem to remember the name of; rolled his eyes and sighed.

“Common toots, I know you aren’t just a pretty face, crack these for the customer while I go flip this meat before it burns.”

You took the egg out of the rude cook's hands, giving him the stink eye. If I was going to hallucinate, why can’t it be people who aren’t snarky. With reluctance, you tapped the fragile shell on the counter before you pulled them apart and watched the egg splash into the broth. You smiled at that familiar sight, enjoying the ripple and all.

“Ya see, that was juuuust perfect.” You watched as he looked up from his meat that he was now cutting into pieces.

“We need it to be perfect...with that customer out there. Thank god he’s in your section.”

This conversation seemed so familiar, like it barely felt like you needed to think about what you were to say next.

“Who?”

He slams the knife down making you jump, the fight or flight mode you’re always in is still active even in your dreams.

“Who? WHO!?” He looks around like someone was going to hear your conversation, or care for that matter. “What do you mean who? You live under a rock or somethin’?”

“No I-”

“EH, I don’t care when you see the customer, you’re going to act like you know him alright?” With no other real choice than to agree you shake your head yes, face contouring into an uncomfortable one.

“Take these and get out of here...can’t you see it’s crowded in here?” You slowly pick up the bowl he had so delicately placed the meat in, and you so carelessly plopped the egg in. Looking around, he was wrong. It was the exact opposite, there was no one but you two in the kitchen. A rarity in any restaurant.

“No...actually I can’t…”

You stared at you, expressionless before he busted out laughing, he kept laughing as he threw his head back and cradled his stomach. He kept going for an inhuman amount of time before he took his knife and slammed it into the cutting board, exhaling the air in his lungs with a sigh eyes upward.

“You know...I get it now.”

You shivered, feeling scared for some unknown reason.

“You get what?”

He smiled, eyes skyward still. “Why he loves you.”

“Who?”

He cast his eyes downwards, not tilting his head just letting his eyes come down to see you.

“You’re a funny thing, you know that.” You didn’t say anything, slowly trying to walk out the door into the main floor. “You killed me…” He let those out with a smile, before walking to you.

“You killed me...and the worst part is we all get why he loves you...but I just…” He was right to your nose, you could smell whiskey and mint on his breath. “I don’t think I can forgive you.”

“I-”

“Wake up.” He shoved you, and you quite literally were pushed back into your body. Rising up from the couch, gasping and clawing at your throat for air. You were panicking, trying to grip onto the cushions frantically looking around trying to ground yourself. After a while you finally got a grip on yourself. Why was this even happening? What did you even do to deserve this? You rubbed your forehead and pushed yourself off of the couch; approaching the kitchen to relieve your dry throat. You took a small glance at and noted that it was now lunch time, and you had been knocked out for at least four hours. Shinso would be calling any minute now. Turning on your heel and retrieving a glass you watched the bubbles of the water form at the top of the glass. You started off with a small swig before chugging the rest down. Your hand seemed to act on its own, as you absentmindedly wiped the sweat off your face. You filled the cup up more before you went to the bookshelf full of Shinso approved books, trying to find one you had yet to read. Then you heard the phone that only received calls ring out, beckoning you into retrieving it. With a sigh you sauntered over and pulled it up to your ear.

“Hello Kitten, how are you?”

“Oh I’m...just trying to pick out a book.”

He hummed happily before responding. “That’s my girl, always trying to better herself. Did you see the new one I got you.”

Your ears perked up at those buzz words. “New one?” You couldn’t hold back the smile that pushed its way onto your face.

He giggled. “Yes Kitten, happy anniversary. I love you.” Your smile faltered at his words, loving someone and being utterly obsessed with someone was two totally different things.

“Happy anniversary, I love you too.”

“Alright Kitten, I’ll see you when I come home for dinner tonight.”

“Ok.” You hung up the phone, setting it down and letting your face fall. You turned to the bookshelf, scanning over all the books before you landed on the new one. You smiled, letting out a shaky laugh. He could be sweet, when he wasn’t being manic. It was a book from before you were in containment, so you couldn’t get a grasp on reality. You turned it over and went over the reviews before flipping it over and looking at the cover again, only to discover it was a different book. One you read. Oh no.

You shot up and suddenly you were in your bedroom again. Sitting criss cross applesauce from your sister.

“This book should take your mind off of...you know. Picked it up just for you sis!” She beamed at you, and your heart ached. You just stared at her and all her beautiful glory, it had been so long since you'd seen her, or even heard her voice. The only reason you realized you were crying was your sister looking at you in shock, mixing with horror.

“Hey, hey now it’s ok! You’re safe here...you’re safe here.” She wrapped her arms around your torso and pulled your sobbing form.

“Sissy...what’s happening to me?” She furrowed her brows and kissed your forehead, petting your head.

“Nothing baby...just...some boy with too much power had taken a liking to you…” She didn’t know what to say to you to keep calm, to make you feel safe. It was like she was insinuating without insinuating, that she knew where this was going.

“He’s a monster…”

“Oh baby.” She kept stroking your hair, letting you vent all your emotions out.

“It’s not fair! It’s not fair! It’s not faaair!” You screamed into her shoulder.

“Remember what momma always told us.” She knew what she was doing as soon as you turned your sobbing into some suppressed laughing.

“I hate you.” You smiled, wiping your tears and globs of snot off of your face.

“Now that’s just blatantly not true!” She said with a laugh, turning around to grab her wine glass. She took a large swig before looking down at you, meeting your expectant eyes staring back at her.

“You know what happens now right?”

“Yeah…” You said sadly, a part of you is happy that it wasn’t a sad twisted goodbye this time. Maybe your brain just couldn’t bring itself to turn her into a nightmare.

“You need to make dinner afterall…” You nodded and closed your eyes, the last thing you felt was her lips on your forehead. Before you opened your eyes.

You stood back up and walked into the kitchen, four thirty. You laughed, she was right for once. It was about time you made dinner. Shinso’s favorite, ramen. You turned the water on to boil in a few different pots for different reasons. Going into the fridge to retrieve the noodles, the vegetables and your special ingredient in your broth. You got to work chopping, seasoning the broth, and cooking the meat. The kitchen smelt so lovely, you were proud of your forced skill you developed. You were weary at every turn waiting for another hallucination to take over your senses. Weary as you dropped the eggs into the ice bath, weary as you grilled your vegetables, weariest as you dropped the noodles into the broth. Something about them seemed untrustworthy to you. You looked back out the window to be greeted with the sun going down, a deep shade of maroon with just a twinge of yellow outside. It was a calm end to the stormy day. You plaited up the food, throwing the tea kettle on the stove so Shinso could have his favorite tea with his favorite meal. You looked over the bowls one last time, realizing that you forgot to put the egg in. You giggled at yourself, how could you forget the best part? For the second time today (at least in your head) you cracked the egg on the counter and watched it fall into ramen. You smiled at your masterpiece.

“Hey that's pretty good!” You groaned before you turned, and this time it was your best friend who also worked at the restaurant.

“Hey, don’t be dick , I'm being nice to you!” She chuckled out before taking the bowl in front of you.

“I wish you wouldn’t…” You mumbled, watching as she took an ungodly amount of dishes into her arms.

“You just gonna check me out or are you gonna help?” You rolled your eyes and took the rest of the plates.

“Listen pop your tits out I need to pay rent.”

“Girl!...I am not doing that”

“First off, don’t pretend I haven’t seen you do worse.” You glared at her before you mocked her behind her back.

“I can see what you're doing.” She taunted before turning her head only a little bit so she could see you out of the corner of her eye. You just rolled your eyes at her, watching as she set her table's plates down, encouraging you to take the foot out of your mouth and do the same. You snapped out of your stupor and did just that. She said something about you being new and absentminded before gripping your elbow and tugging you in the direction of the kitchen.

“What is your problem?...Is it...you know?” You sighed, why did no one ever say his name?

“You mean Hitoshi?” Almost exasperated.

“You’re on a first name basis with your stalker?” She said inquisitively.

“Oh you don’t know half of it.” You retorted back.

“Oh...don’t like the sound of that. Here, I made you something that will make you feel better!” She exclaimed out loud. You really doubted it. And you gave her that look that meant, you doubted it.

“Don’t look at me like that. Common, I have just the thing.” You reluctantly followed after her, hoping this would be just like the time before. You couldn’t say you were entirely disappointed when you two stopped at a ramen bowl, it looked like your favorite.

“Come on go ahead, I made this one myself.” She said so giddily that you couldn’t help but smile back and obliged her. Letting the large spoon take in the broth, sipping it and letting the warm liquid slither down your throat. It felt good, tasted even better. You smiled and looked at her confused, as she sucked at cooking.

“What do you think?” She urged you to give your review.

“It’s amazing, what did you do to it?”

“You have to guess!” You took another sip, twirling the chop sticks in your fingers to catch some noodles to assist the broth.

“I don’t know...extra ginger?” You asked, genuinely at a loss.

“No! Do you see any ginger? You dense chicken wing.” You looked at her with offence, shaking your head as you shoveled more in your mouth.

“No I suppose I don’t” You scratched your head before taking some of the meat into your mouth.

“Is this wagyu?”

“Yes but that’s not it!” You shrugged your shoulders, signaling your defeat.

“Give up?” She asked eerily quietly. You nodded your head, still absentmindedly digging into your meal.

“The secret ingredient is me.” She said it sounded like a smirk was on her face. Her ominous words caused you to stop mid bite. With shaky hands, you looked from the bowl then back at her, your breath caught in your throat as you realized you weren’t looking at anything. Her neck was clean off of her neck. You began to breathe heavily through your nose, looking to the ground to find her head before you heard.

“Psst, over here.” Coming from the direction of the ramen in front of you. You tried swallowing the food but realized you couldn’t. You turned slowly, gagging before you made eye contact with her lifeless head in the soup. You began to cough, spitting up something that had to be cartilage, something was still in your mouth, so you reached inside, retrieving a long strand of hair from your mouth. That was the final push you needed as you threw up all over the floor, chunks of your best friend getting all over your shoes.

“Do you see now?” You looked up, hiccuping in horror at the severed head speaking to you now. “He killed all of us. In this very shop, right in front of you.” You shook your head, trying to deny it, for your own sanity. “Just look.” Her freaky bulging eyes moved over to the left, and you followed accordingly. You had to cover your mouth to stop yourself from throwing up again. Every person who worked there was dead on the ground, their body parts strewn around like they were those dolls whose limbs popped off. Perhaps, in the most horrible of displays was your manager's body, stomach open, arms sprawled backwards and organs on the outside. The worst part was that his lungs were moving.

“Do you see now? You sleep and kiss the monster who did this to us all those years ago...it’s your fault...its all your fault.”

“No..”

“It's all your fault. It's all your fault. It's all your fault!” “NO! I-I didn’t do this…”

“IT’S YOUR FAULT IT'S YOUR FAULT IT’S YOUR FAULT!”

“NO!” You were screaming now, covering your eyes and crying.

You kept screaming till the only other sound's the tea kettle screaming back at you to ift it off of the burner. You were still crying, standing shakily as you removed it rather violently from the burner. You look at the time, Shinso would be here any minute now, so you cleaned yourself up and put both his tea and ramen down in his spot. Putting your food in yours and sitting down, face stone cold as you stared at the door, waiting for him to come in.

It was a few minutes before he came bustling in, exclaiming about how hard his day was. Right. You said in your head, watching as he took his coat off. He walked over to you and gave you a kiss on your forehead.

“Guess who I saw today.” You didn’t answer him, only looking at him waiting for him to tell you the answer you didn't ask for.

“Chargebolt! Can you believe that? Haven’t seen that kid in-” You tuned him out, the sounds of your best friends screams and blaming you were all you could hear. The stench of death still burns your nostrils too.

“Anyhow Kitten, how was your day?” You looked at him, cocking your head.

“How was my day?” You repeated the question. You thought about it, before you licked your lips and looked him in those cold eyes.

“Fine.” You said, poking at your food like a toddler.

He just hummed in response. Then talking incessantly about this villain he had a hard time dealing with. Somewhere between needing to call backup and him getting punched in the face, you tuned out again. Thinking about how much you wished that could have been you that did that to him. You snapped out of your thinking when he spoke to you directly again.

“What’s wrong? Is it your finger.” You looked back at him, not caring to play this game anymore.

“You killed them, didn’t you?

He made a face that said “whatever do you mean kitten?”, it made you mad. “Who? The villain?” He had the audacity to act dumb.

“My friends...all of them...you killed them...in front of me.”

He cocked his head, before smiling. “I don’t know what you mean Kitten.”

“Don’t lie to me!...Don’t you dare lie to me...I remember it...I remember it all.” You began to sob and shake, staring at him expectantly and angrily before watching him rise to his feet. He tilted his head back before he laughed, long and hard, making you angrier.

“Oh Kitten, of course I did…” You cringed and sobbed harder, tears mixing into the broth below you.

“That’s right, cry for me baby, you know I love it when you do.” You let out a wail before your fingers found their way into your hair again, ripping out the strands.

“I brainwashed you to forget, for a year, every year. Just so I get to see the anger and horror on your face like it’s brand new. You don’t remember any of it all year, until I ask you the phrase “Do you know what day it is?” He said smiling, that cold sadistic smile down at you before he leaned into your face.

“Think about it this way Kitten, I save you from all that pain for a whole year. Aren’t I so thoughtful?” He said with a sinister cackle, and all you could do was sit there and cry.

144 notes · View notes

jj-ktae · 3 years

Text

Note I - Ionones -

Moodboard : Courtesy of the lovely Jacqueline @jaebeomsmullet ! Thank you for helping and hyping and just being here whenever I need it.

› Title : Fragrances › Genre : Angst, Fluff, Romance, Composer!Jungkook x Perfume Maker!Reader › Pairing : Jeon Jungkook x Female Reader › Warning : Mentions of Suicide, heavy subjects, depression (none of these are used with the idea of glamourising mental illness), strong language, smut in later chapters probably. Do not read if any of these trigger you.

› Author’s note : This is another version of the story I wrote a few years ago for GOT7. Some of the events will be different, others will not change just like some paragraphs will be the same and others won’t. Informations, definitions and words are taken from this website.

› Summary : In the world of Perfume making, it is believed that everyone has their own natural fragrance. It is also believed that everyone has that one scent capable of making them feel a thousand things. You find yours in the form of a composer on the verge of breaking, right when you have to face one of the biggest challenge in your life.

Masterlist | Note I - Ionones | Note II : Aldehydes

________

Note I: Ionones

Violets and Iris depend on this group of highly valued synthetic chemicals. Used in small amounts in many floral, green, woody perfumes. Although this group of chemicals is dominated by just two chemicals "Ionone" and "Methyl Ionone" there are many, many isomers and qualities available that give different odour profiles from fruity - violet - green to iris. An important function is they act as blenders in a perfume helping the perfume to smell harmonious. It is also interesting to note that the nose quickly fatigues when smelling Ionones and the smell appears to fade. This same effect is found when smelling natural Violet flowers.

You are going back home the first time you meet him. It takes a nanosecond for the feeling to hit you straight in the bones. It forces your steps to slow down and stiffens your muscles right in the middle of the streets. You think for a minute, contemplative and in awe. Nothing about his physical appearance strikes you at first, it’s your nose doing all the job. It’s overwhelming, and so very rare it can’t be ignored. You come across this type of person once in your life as they say, causing an overwhelming feeling you never pegged as being so entrancing. It brings back memories from times you thought were forgotten, makes you want to scream and laugh. He is leaning on the bridge’s safety barrier and he doesn’t see the way you’re frozen behind him, blinking. You have never met him but it feels like you’ve known him forever.

You almost forget about your dear bed for a minute, but your phone tears you out of your adoration and you snap, your pace fastening before the man can turn around. It is hard to say if he was able to see you, and you don’t want to go away but you’re aware it might seem weird so you just keep on walking. Your body revives and your heart slows when the air turns evanescent.

You’re at home when your phone rings again, which pulls an annoyed groan out of your mouth. “What?” you mumble, plopping on the sofa in desperation.

“You need to come to the meeting tomorrow morning.” Your boss’ voice feels like a scratch on broken glass and you wince, unpleased “they want you to be here, and we have to make sure they’ll work with us.” He adds to soften you.

“I’m never invited to these and I like it better that way, why tomorrow?”

“It’s a big brand, I want them to see who is going to be in charge of their perfume. They don’t want to talk with managers. They don’t care. I promised you holidays and I swear once this is over you’ll have it. Please.”

The headache is pounding yet you sigh, defeated. You can’t reject this, you’re in no position to do that.

“I’ll be here.” You sigh, his relief now evident yet adding to your misery.

He is beaming on the phone, rushing thanks and stuttering, probably because of what seems to be a big, juicy contract. Exciting. His voice is way too loud when he wishes you a good night, leaving you with the deafening silence once he hangs up.

Being a composer is your job. You’re often called a perfume-composer, a perfume maker or even a perfumer and all of these are fine with you. It all explains the same thing; you use your nose to put scents together and create a perfume. You usually work with a tight schedule and precise requests, leaving you with generic projects. They involve what you call capitalist perfumes, targeted and produced for masses instead of harmony. Nowadays perfumes are for ‘suave’, ‘sexy’, ‘dynamic’ or even ‘active’ people. They’re best-sellers, perfumes you smell in the streets, shops, public transport, elevators. They’re repetitive and senseless. What used to be something exciting is now boring and dull.

You’re even starting to be disgusted by some of your creations.

And it’s for a good reason. People do not buy perfume according to their own smell. It’s something that is barely exploited by the companies, the probability of not selling in mass too counterproductive to bother explaining why some perfumes are not suited to everyone. You see it in the stores, how vendors spray anyone willing to be perfumed. These places became a hotchpotch of scents and it gets to your nose so easily it hurts.

You are able to distinguish a lot of different scents, and this is your job. Mixing stuff, looking for new elements, blend oils, this is what you love about making perfume. Your sensitive nose had made you choose a career surrounded by a farandole of fragrances, and while it may sound like a horrible life, it was what had helped you survive the probability of a boring job surrounded by horrible coworkers. It’s a solace so unusual and mysterious that you can selfishly appreciate its beauty and complexity on your own.

But now, you find yourself doubting as you peak at your neat organ*, brown and rustic. You didn’t sign for tasteless nights and headaches.

Going to sleep is hard that night, when your brain can’t forget about this man and his scent, his oh so perfect scent which you have yet to put a finger on. You finally forget about him and your brain turns off, while another person is going back home, head heavy and mind lost.

Jungkook throws his bag on his table and goes on the floor, silent.

He wasn’t able to end his life, again.

It’s hard to believe that you are currently meeting with a famous brand directly. Most of the time, they would meet your managers and you’d have a project sent over your way, leaving you a mere two weeks to work on a foolish project with foolish requests.

Today you are in shock though, because they are asking you what you want to do. It’s the first time you get asked about this and it frightens you, it scares the hell out of you when you suddenly have too much freedom. All ideas evaporate, like you have no taste and no dreams for a perfect perfume.

The woman’s stilettos make too much noise on the floor, and she speaks in a slow and irritating manner, like you’re too stupid to understand her request. She comes closer and you smile, weakly. It’s a mix between pain and fear, it looks like she is about to eat you up. Maybe it is because you look like a deer caught in headlights. “I’m asking you about your plans concerning our next fragrance. You get that we want an Eau de Parfum, and not an Eau de Toilette, which means we need lasting scents. We have no guidelines, no themes, no requests, just a thirst for your creativity. You have what it takes to make it from scratch without us poking into your business- I mean, I'll be here to check on how it is going, of course.” She speaks words at an incredibly fast pace, with a tone deprived of any doubt.

All you feel is your boss’ stare, boring holes into your back; he knows what you’re going to answer. “I’m afraid we don’t work that way. How am I supposed to know what kind of product you need? Don’t you already have an advertisement sample to show me? A muse, somebody representing the brand?” You try the best you can, because now you have too many possibilities and it can’t happen.

“We only have you and your talent, for now.”

Your boss walks up to you two and waves his hands “Not that we think you’re not worth our time, but we mostly work based on requests. We need a guideline.” He pleads, and his fake laugh nearly makes you scoff.

But the woman is thick headed, and she points a finger at you, accusingly. “This person doesn’t need us in order to create a perfume. We’ve been following you for so long after your last fragrance won 1st rank in Vogue’s top 10 Perfume recommendations. You were not easy to find, though.”

But you know, you know it wasn’t your own work, but simply something you were asked to do. “I’m sorry madam, but I simply did as I was told. Without this, I’m nothing.” You say and it sounds depreciatory concerning your own capacities but you don’t care. You are getting so scared right now that you’re ready to call yourself a scam in front of anyone.

The woman laughs and it looks like she can see through you “There is a thousand way to create a perfume with the same elements. You simply refuse to admit you’re a genius, but we both know you can’t waste your time beating yourself.” She adds and lets the contract fall on the glass table, stilettos beating the floor again and her expensive bag back on her shoulder.

“What the hell was that?” Your boss takes the contract and starts reading, but you just want to cry. You don’t want to do this, because you’re scared and afraid and you know you will fail. At the same time, you wanted this, you wanted to create on your own. You had thrown away so many samples until now, thinking it was useless. Now that somebody is asking for your true self, you back off. Your brain screams at you to stop being so contradictory and grasp that opportunity but you just feel numb and pressured and it’s enough to petrify you.

“I can’t. We can’t.” You mumble but your boss looks shocked, mouth agape and fingers gripping the contract.

“This is big, Y/N. Looks at this.” He says and you feel like fainting when you see the amount of money they are willing to pay. You know your boss will never refuse this and panic takes over.

Your shaky fingers almost tear the contract away “I’m going to fail; they will lose their time and the company will be ruined, you know it!”

But he knows better and smiles sweetly at you. “You’re always complaining about plain perfumes and cheap fragrances. You’re given a chance to compose on your own and I fully support you, so please tell me you’ll try, at least. We still have an observation period in case you can’t do it, okay?” you know he is not thinking about the money only, yet you hardly think he is thinking about your well-being either but you can’t refuse now, and you’re left with two pieces of paper and a lump in your throat as your boss goes out of the big office.

For the next couple of days it’s all you can think about, while your boss keeps on calling to make sure you’ll do it. You try to act rebellious a few times but to no avail; you end up agreeing because you don’t have the luxury nor the power to reject this offer.

You agree but deep inside you’re burning with fear. It’s not even exciting, it’s like a wide ocean, with no shores and huge waves. It’s suffocating.

The second time you meet the mysterious guy, he is at the same spot. He keeps on leaning against the bridge, and his whole existence looks like a misery but his smell makes you slow down again. It’s overwhelming, almost unbearable. There is no way a perfume can do that.

It’s a natural smell.

He doesn’t see you and you don’t see his face, but this is not even important right now. Your brain goes back and forth, and it’s a long journey to your past. This guy doesn’t even feel your presence and when you walk away, the feeling is gone, and you breathe again.

“I’m glad you decided to take this offer.” You’re just behind her. She is walking fast, passing halls after halls and you look around, unfamiliar with the smell. It’s like you’re entering the mafia because everyone bows like she owns the place. Only her smell lingers, suiting her perfectly.

Leather.

“As written in the contract, we will provide a lab and supplies. We can have everything you need, so feel free to ask.” She is bragging, and you know it’s her way of making you feel at ease but it’s even scarier. Obviously they are going to provide whatever you need. It's a big investment for little result.

“Oh, and I’ll introduce you to your assistant.” She turns around and winks at you.

“I- I have an assistant?” you stutter, it’s unreal. You don’t mind working alone- why would you even need someone to help?

“You’ll have an assistant, of course. You’re telling me you don’t have one at your company ?” You shake your head with power and she gasps “See? You don’t deserve to be treated this way.” She whispers and opens a door, white and shiny.

When you enter, the smell is strong with disinfectant. There’s no doubt they deep cleaned this place for the launching of a new product. The walls are grey, covered by old advertising pictures from the brand, the furniture seems brand new and there is a man. He looks around you age, with designer clothes and loafers. His hair is blond and he is wearing blue lenses.

“You’re here already?” The woman asks and he nods, his plumps lips revealing shiny teeth. He looks so happy.

“I couldn’t miss it, not when you’re bringing a genius here.” He talks funny and walks with no hidden enthusiasm. He looks like he is out of a fashion show and it’s making you step back with apprehension.

“Good, I guess we can start with the introductions. Meet your assistant.” He offers a hand and his smile widens when you reciprocate the gesture.

He smells like your latest creation “I’m Park Jimin. Nice to meet you, boss.”

Boss. What the hell.

“Nice...to meet you too?” It sounds like a question, but it’s actually a plea. You don’t want to do this.

“I’m so glad you agreed on working with us! It’s not easy to know who hides behind perfumes and it was hard to find you but we did !” He beams at the woman as she taps his shoulder, nodding.

“You found me ? How ?”

“I saw you at a launch product party. When I heard it was you I was so happy. I’m a big fan.” He laughs and you feel even more burdened. The woman is looking at you two like a proud - and rich - mother

“You’re wearing-”

“Yeah, it’s yours! Amazing, right? Oh, tell me if it suits me!” He lifts his head and offers you his neck, giggling.

“Jasmine. You bring out the jasmine in it.”

It’s true, Jasmine suits him.

He makes a weird noise before pointing a finger at the lady “I told you! She is a genius! It’s exactly why I bought it.”

“Since you’re getting along pretty well, I’ll leave you in the hands of this young boy.” Her strong smell of musk stays behind her when she turns around and leaves the room.

“I’m such a big fan of you. You might find it weird, but I bought every single perfume you made. For study purposes, of course!” He is embarrassed but a second later, he is back to serious. “You don’t wear perfume.” He looks intrigued.

“It blurs my sense of smell.”

“Oh my god, this is exactly what a genius would say.” He shakes his head, amazed at your apparently smart answer and proceeds to show you around the lab, the explanations never ending.

The rest of the day is spent next to this guy, who knows every single person in the building. You keep on shaking hands, and soon, you’re exhausted. Jimin is chatting non-stop, offering you drinks and being a perfect assistant.

You discover he is still an apprentice in the perfume industry and is aiming to become a composer for the brand. He tells you he loves fashion, and this you noticed, but he also says something that triggers you.

I want to be like you

You want to laugh at him for being such a fanboy, and you tell him numerous times that the perfumes you made are only things you were asked to create, that it wasn’t your own work, but he brushes you off, explaining you know nothing about your own skills. Jimin is the type of guy who loves to socialise, he has this way of communicating that makes everyone love him. The same day, you go back home with his phone number saved and a tone of messages from him about how excited he is to be working under your care.

On your way back home, you don’t see the guy.

Jungkook has plenty of time to think and he doesn’t like it. His apartment is silent and not even the cars passing by outside can ease the emptiness. He doesn’t dare look at the papers scattered on the floor. They are all creased, and the trash is full. He wants to crash the whole place; he wants to tear it to pieces. It’s infuriating, how everything is here for purpose and he has nothing to look forward to.

He can’t stand it anymore.

His phone rings but he ignores it. His best friend has been calling all day, and he knows he’ll receive a lot of nagging from him but he doesn’t care.

Soon, nobody will have to deal with his abnormal self.

Maybe it was supposed to end like this, even though he has no idea when it actually started. All Jungkook knows is that at some point, he became useless. He used to be efficient, powerful. But now everything is dull. His eyes burn, his ears ring, his mouth is dry.

This is garbage. You’re not what you used to be. Where did your talent go ?

He can stand critiques; he knows the music industry and its perks but he can’t stand being belittled. He doesn’t want anyone to question his way of functioning but it was starting to get a bit too frequent for his taste.

He gets up and goes to his huge and sophisticated window.

He wants everything to stop.

“How did you end up being a perfume maker?” Jimin is swallowing his food, filling the whole lab with spiciness and you want him to go away.

“Give me the bergamot sample.” You open another small bottle and ignore his question, trying to focus on your task.

“You’ve been on this all day, have a break, boss.” He tries although his voice is muffled by all the food he is trying to swallow. You know he is right. You have absolutely no idea about what you’re doing, so you mix stuff in hope of a miracle. Nothing works, everything smells terrible, it’s disgusting even.

“Here, drink something, at least. Take your time.” He coos with a worried expression.

You sigh and rub your face, tired. “I can’t do this.”

“I know, they gave you nothing. I’m here to help so don’t stay quiet and let’s think about this together. I know how they work, let’s take our time, no one is rushing you yet.”

You look at the scattered glass bottles and smelling strips. This is a mess.

Jimin asks you if you want to go to a party held by another luxury brand the same night but you refuse. He isn’t surprised when you tell him you hate going to these places. You’re not the type of person who likes to socialise, and your assistant understands but tells you that you have to go with him next time. You also refuse.

So you go back home. Your head hurts, your body is sore, and your brain is empty. The air is thick with humidity but you like how it resets your sense of smell, erasing all the stuff you’ve been smelling all day.

The guy is here. He is leaning against the bridge again but something about him irks you. He is shivering. His smell slowly fills your nostrils as you approach him and you can’t help but notice that he is leaning against the barrier a bit too much. He sighs, again and again and when he leans even more to look at the river under the bridge, you stop walking.

You’re right behind him.

It’s true that you’re not into socialising, but you definitely recognise someone in pain. His smell makes you move on your own and before he can sigh some more, you find yourself next to him.

It’s even stronger now.

He isn’t surprised when he feels somebody next to him. He stays quiet and acts like he is alone but straightens his back like he was caught doing something wrong.

“Did you...lose something?” You ask, peeking at the river far under your feet. You know he didn’t, but he doesn’t need to know that it’s not the first time you see him here.

“No.” His answer is short and it allows you to finally take a good look at his face. His brown locks cup his face, from his shiny eyes to his round nose and pouty lips. He’d look cool if it wasn’t for his pitiful aura.

“Are you trying to...?” You begin but his eyes go wide and you both understand. He can’t hide it anymore. You don’t notice how blunt your words are but your brain is processing too many things to focus on your conversational skills.

“Can you...leave me alone?” his voice is low and the words are slow. He is almost pleading.

“I can’t. You’re about to do some serious shit right now.”

“I’m not. Go away.” He asks again and you can feel how annoyed he is now.

“Look, I don’t know what happened, but I doubt you should be thinking about this.” He laughs at you and you regret trying to be such a smart-ass.

“How would you know? Just go, please.” He is irritated now, but you can’t let him do that. His smell works like a spell on you.

“I just do. Stop this. I’m not going anywhere until you go back to a safe place.”

“There is no such place. We don’t even know each other.” He is now looking at you with a bored expression.

“You must have a place to stay.”

He sighs loudly and turns to you, looking exhausted “I don’t, I’m homeless. What are you going to do about it?”

“Then come to my place.” You shrug and he makes a face. There is no way you just asked him to come to your place, right?

“You must be crazy.” He breathes but you shake your head. You can’t let this smell go to waste. Not when you don’t know what it is.

Your mind is screaming.

“I’m perfectly fine. If you’re going to do something stupid, I’ll call for help. If you don’t, then come to my place. I have enough room for two anyways.” You are really crazy.

“You’re a stranger. I might be some psycho running out there.”

“You’re none of that. Don’t try to make me back off.” He doesn’t smell like trouble. He smells like safety.

And he is crazier than you, because he agrees. His backpack is firmly hanging on his shoulder when he turns to face you once again.

“You’re not going to let me be.” Jungkook knows that at some point, he won’t get out of this. Now that you discovered what he is about to do, he won’t be in peace until you make sure he is safe, which is totally crazy. Serves him right for not even being good enough to leave peacefully.

“You...agreed?”

“What, you changed your mind? Good, then I can-”

“No! it’s fine! I thought I was being too crazy, that’s all.”

Jungkook nods. “This is crazy, but it can’t get any worse now.”

So you walk in front of him and toward your place. It is hard to think or talk with the smell right behind you, but you keep the game strong and walk proudly, like you just did something great. And you did, you’re bringing him home, when he was about to throw himself off the bridge. You don’t dare ask for more right now, because he might run away.

You open the door and Jungkook stops as soon as he enters the place.

It’s huge.

“There is a guest room but It’s full of my stuff. I’ll take it off tomorrow.” You say, taking off your coat.

“So I’m living here now?” Jungkook scoffs, hoping he is being sarcastic enough to make you give up on him.

“Why not? If you’re homeless, you can stay. I’ll note the door’s passcode on a piece of paper for you. Also, here is the-”

“Wait, I’m not going to live with you.”

“So where are you going to live? On this bridge?”

“I still have a flat until the end of the month, I lied. I thought you were crazy so I said whatever came to my mind.” He confesses, almost feeling guilty.

You’re not mad, not at all. Because now your flat is full of his smell, and it makes your brain work again. You want to know what it is.

“Oh then you’ll be homeless by the end of the month. If you’re uncomfortable, you can pay for your room. I don’t mind.” You shrug and his mouth is wide opened now.

You are really insane. Really.

“This situation is beyond weird. I don’t even know you.”

“And I don’t know you either, but you didn’t slaughter me yet so I guess we’re cool.” You’re being a bit too familiar but he doesn’t notice it, and simply walks deeper into your living-room.

Jungkook doesn’t know what is happening, but in a way, it’s not worse than his current situation. He wouldn’t be homeless; he would never be homeless but he prefers this rather than going back to the family house and admitting he failed. His best-friend is going to lecture him about how the music industry is full of drug addicts, and his parents, oh his parents.

His father would be too happy to prove his superiority.

His pride speaks for him “Okay, I agree. But I’m not staying for free.” He sits on the expensive couch and you know you’ve won this fight.

“Good. My name is Y/N. You are…?”

“Jungkook. Jeon Jungkook.” He lets his head fall on the fluffy material and closes his eyes. He is exhausted. He needs some sleep.

“Nice to meet you, Jeon Jungkook.” You speak like a robot, making him smile uncomfortably and mumble an answer. He doesn’t know why he is feeling so calm when he was about to do something horrible. Maybe he is going insane too. Maybe he has no idea what is going on in his life.

“You can wander the flat, I don’t mind. I’m seriously spent so I’ll head to bed. The guest-room is right there and the bedding is clean, I think...ah, the bathroom is at the end of this hall. Knock if you need something.” You escape now, the scent is filling the place and it makes your brain go wild. You don’t need this right now. Or maybe you do and you’re scared he will vanish if you push your luck any further.

“Good night. If you escape I’m going to fight you.” You try to warn him but he simply nods, smiling apologetically. He makes an okay sign and you don’t know why, but you believe him.

You forget about the probability of him being a scam, a thief, a killer or whoever could hurt you in your sleep. You just focus on the feeling, that one scent invading your olfactory bulb and exciting your axons.

You can’t sleep that night. Jungkook either.

He is thinking about a thousand things. He falls asleep at some point, body as exhausted as his brain. When he wakes up, he finds himself alone in the huge flat along with a sticky note, neat on the fridge.

Suit yourself, I’ll be back by 8 p.m.

Even in the middle of this movie-like situation, he can’t help but look around the rooms, staring at the paintings and furniture. The place is cuddly, calm and warm. He starts writing when he doesn’t find it in himself to question his life choices. The living-room is perfect for his plan and it doesn’t take long for him to fill numerous pages.

Inspiration is creeping and he can’t let it go.

___

*Organ : Refers to a unit of stepped shelving containing hundreds of bottles of raw materials. Arrangement is in a way to assist the perfumer in the creation and compounding of perfume compositions.

71 notes · View notes

ellipsesarefun · 3 years

Note

Request for DamiRae prompt #1

Prompt #1: Come to bed with me?

Now on AO3

Help!"

The pleading cry jars him awake. Robin jolts up with tensed muscles and a fierce grip on the unsheathed sword beside him. A deep, revolting, menacing laugh rumbles in his mind like a prelude to an unforeseen terror. It is a frequent occurrence in the middle of the night that still terrifies him but his assassin-trained muscle memory is already built for danger's spontaneity.

His five senses still hones into the nightmare he escaped but he grounds himself to the present moment. He needs to be sure that nothing escapes his awareness.

A beat of silence passes before he concludes that there is nothing amiss. Damian allows his hands to release their grip from his sword as his head gently relaxes on the pillow. His mind reels back to the stream of thoughts he only indulges in the late night.

There are visions that he cannot fully comprehend sometimes. They haunt him at night, more than the usual nightmares he gets from his time with the League of Assassins.

The visions spoke of a future, desolate of any human life. The streets crawling with creatures from another planet, eating human flesh and leaving trails of dismembered corpses and spattered blood and guts. The Titans tower was in ruins and the rest of his team was nowhere to be found with no knowledge of their death or survival. His own father in the hands of an unforeseen conqueror of worlds and his brother revived from the dead yet barely living himself.

And then there's Raven.

The visions of her are somewhat incomprehensible. They were of confessions of a love they both pined for, of a passing moment of bliss before being enveloped in a blinding light of the unknown, of an oath they were bound to keep no matter the life they will lead to next..

"I will find you. I promise." He would hear himself say. For all his sixteen years of living, he's never promised anything to anyone. So it must have come from another time.. another place..

Another life. And the only thing that remained is a magic connection that somehow transcended the laws of time, space, and reality.

It’s that moment when he woke up one random morning after a random day and the only thing on his mind were those violet eyes.

Damian's always been enamored by her vibrant violet eyes. He's seen them before, at the brink of death in the snowy mountains. That was the first time she healed him but he felt otherwise. His body welcomed her magic like a memorized passage, as though he sang this song a long time ago.

The comforting familiarity is a bliss but the horrible foreboding nightmares that follow it provide him a plethora of adjectives he cannot transcribe in a sentence.

Damian thinks that maybe it started with her screams. He hears them sometimes. The pain in her voice echoes throughout the gruesome horrors of Hell. He'd find himself in a demon-swarmed stadium under blood-ridden skies where a little girl draped in a white cloak escapes a swarm of cackling chimeric beasts. At the side of the stadium, Trigon is at ease on his throne with a nasty smile on his face.

In those moments, not once does Damian's eyes stray away from her expression. Because the longer the battle ensues, the more her tear-stricken face masks into empty blank eyes and a dead frown of a shell. Damian feels the numbness of it all. The magic that which she possesses gradually strengthens but the trauma lingers.

Being trapped in a crystal and encased in a box sealed in a complex spell work, most of Trigon's power is inhibited and contained. Being the daughter of a demon and conqueror of worlds, Raven carries the burden of his occasional psychic torture.

And Damian… he's helpless to it all. He can't rush over to her with a sword in hand like they would in every Titan mission. He can't wrap his arms around her like he would in their previous life.

Because it's someone else's nightmare to relive and he's merely an audience in a movie theater.

Damian doesn't know how far their connection can bridge their minds but he can still hear her father's demonic laughter reverberate throughout their combined consciousness. He cannot quantify the strength of the magic within their bond and he hesitates to learn the truth.

Neither of them broached the topic and he isn't sure how. As Robin, he sees her as a competent partner, her magic strangely complementing his every movement in any mission. As Damian, he lists her as one of the most important people in his life. For the three years they've cohabited the same Titan tower, they ventured through the most dreadful nights and the peaceful days without a single shred of a thought of running away from each other. Their conversations during sleepless nights involved a lot of their trauma, with thick blankets around their shoulders and tea to last the endless dark skies.

But they don’t instigate a heavy discussion over the bond and they skip past the nightmares, and most of her more burdensome memories that come with it. Simply because he has little to no understanding of their connection and is waiting for her to break the silence. A part of him senses that she has an inkling but still has yet to comprehend its entirety.

(If that’s what he picked up from the bond or from his own deduction, he cannot say.)

Damian slides his feet to the ground and moves to the couch by the window. He watches the clouds pass by, parting space for the moon to grace a smile. He gazes back as its shimmering reflects against his green irises. He feels a heartbeat that isn't his own, loud and clear outside the hall. Taking deep breaths, he closes his eyes and focuses on his own heartbeat, as though soothing his own would soothe theirs.

The door suddenly opens and his ears twitch at the light footsteps coming towards his way. His eyes stay closed, trusting her presence. The footsteps stop by his feet but not a word escapes her lips, not even a sound. Damian opens his eyes and looks up, entranced by her weary violet irises glowing in his dark, moonlit room. Neither of them breaks the silence. Damian allows himself to peruse through all that is her. The purple hair flows down to her waist, with a shadow cascading against the dark circles around her eyes and the deep frown formed on her lips.

“I had a nightmare.”

“It was him again.”

“And I felt you with me while I was with him.”

“I’m tired.”

She doesn’t say but her whole body screams it so.

He stands up and takes one step, barely bridging the gap between them. Damian takes Raven’s hands in his, raises them to his face, and plants a tiny kiss. The gesture seems to break her mask when he finds a single tear stream down her face and her lips quivering. He feels her hands shake and his heart aches that she might collapse to the floor then and there.

So he kisses her hands again and again, making sure he doesn’t leave a corner untouched. Her body doesn’t stop trembling quietly as more tears start to fall. She pinches her eyes shut and lets her head fall, hiding away her vulnerable state. Raven has done that for years, hiding her tears in the darkest corners, keeping herself within the shell she’s made. She doesn’t have to do that with just him.

He closes the gap between them and tucks her head on his neck. Damian rubs one hand on her back, soothing the tension away from her muscles. He kisses the shell of her ear and asks, “Come to bed with me?”

Without waiting for her affirmation, Damian scoops Raven into his arms and saunters over to his bed. He lays her down first, her purple tresses pooling his pillow. He gently combs them away and follows after as he snakes an arm around her waist. His beloved turns to face his chest and closes her eyes. Exhaustion now prominent in her features. Her shell is now broken and she’s laying herself bare to him. So Damian cradles her, feeling her breaths gradually evening out.

And for a moment, everything is still and steady that the past is already just a page from an old book, no longer terrifying and the future is somewhere written among the stars as a prophecy of hope. The present is all that matters as they sleep a dreamless sleep in each other's arms.

Everything else can wait till morning.

#damirae #Damian Wayne #Raven #writing practice #ellipsesarefun writes #am sorry i took so long #i wasnt sure if i did it right

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dream-a-little-bigger-x · 3 years

Text

Parallels | Chapter 20

Add yourself to my taglist! | Here’s my masterlist! | Parallels Masterlist

Characters: OC! Violet Grace Dawson, Luke Patterson, Julie Molina, Carrie Wilson, Bobby Wilson, Reggie Peters, Alex Mercer, Flynn nolastname, Willie nolastname, Nick Danforth-Evans, Dirty Candy

Guideline: Sunset Universe is the universe in which Sunset Curve is famous and Violet is friends with Carrie, Julie and Flynn. Candy Universe is the universe in which Dirty Candy is more famous and Sunset Curve has broken up.

Song(s) used: Perfect Harmony - Julie and The Phantoms

Warnings: Bit of cursing

Words: 2,777

The knock on Alex’s door startled him a little. He was getting ready for the day, not expecting anyone to knock on his door before nine in the morning. None of the boys were ever up that early.

“Come in?” he called, making it sound more like a question than a command.

The door slowly inched open, revealing a shy-looking Violet in the doorway. He wasn’t used to this version of Violet. He’d befriended the confident, sassy version of her. The one that just barged into rooms, owning her place on this earth.

“Vi, hey!” he greeted, a little surprised to see her there.

She chuckled slightly, nervously fiddling with her handbag. “I don’t know why I’m here, but something told me this morning that I should come and have a chat with you…”

Alex’s head tilted slightly.

“I had a dream about us talking about a song you wrote. It felt more like a memory than a dream, so I felt like I should… I don’t know… Come and talk to you?”

A chuckle erupted out of Alex. “I had a conversation with Violet before she left. I showed her a song I wrote.” He turned to his nightstand and grabbed the notebook he had left on it. Opening it on the right page, he showed it to Violet.

Something inside her shifted. She hadn’t worked on any music since getting back, but she felt as though Alex did need her help a little, as though he was asking her for some help. With more than just the song.

Her eyes skidded across the page. She could feel the hurt and melancholy seep off the page. She could only imagine what it would sound like with the music added to it.

“You should show this to the boys,” she whispered, amazed by the power this song held.

Alex shook his head. “I don’t think so. Not today, at least. Our manager is coming over soon for a meeting.”

“All the more reason to show them!” Violet exclaimed excitedly. This was the most joy she had felt since returning to this universe. “I know what this song is about, Alex. I know about Willie…”

The mention of the boy’s name caused Alex’ head to snap up in surprise. “How do you know about Willie?”

“You guys are actually in a relationship in the other universe,” she told him with a small smile and she could see the relief on his face. “Why’s it you’re not out in this universe?”

“Management,” he replied angrily. Violet decided not to push it. She could feel the frustration around the topic. “That’s why I can’t show this song today. Not when our manager is coming over.”

A burst of confidence coursed through Violet as she spoke the next words. “Do you mind if I sit in on this meeting?” It surprised herself a little, but she went with it anyway.

“Why?” Alex questioned, shutting his notebook and placing it back on his nightstand.

Violet shrugged. “I feel like it’s a good day for a meeting.”

While Alex went to wake up the boys, Violet occupied herself in the kitchen, getting some breakfast ready for them. In her mind, she went over the things she would say to their manager. There were a bunch of things she wanted to say. A bunch of which were things she knew the other Violet would say.

“What are you doing here?” Reggie asked when he entered the kitchen, a surprised smile on his face.

Violet snapped out of her thoughts, facing the boys that walked in. “Getting you guys prepped for this meeting with your manager,” she replied and handed them plates with stacks of pancakes.

The boys happily ate the breakfast she’d made, no questions asked. Not even when she joined them in the music room when their manager had arrived. All five of them settled on the couch while their manager sat on the armchair.

“Okay, I’m gonna cut to the chase. Here’s what we’re gonna do to promote your new album; a launch party at the mansion, like we’d done last time. After this, all four of you will be seen with at least one girl on your arm.” The boys stirred in their seats when the manager’s eyes landed on Violet. “But I can tell one of you is already on that.”

Violet couldn’t help but roll her eyes at him. “Seriously?” she spoke up, surprising everyone in the room, including herself.

“Excuse me?” The manager challenged.

“I’m gonna cut to the chase,” she started, mimicking the boss himself, “Here’s what we’re gonna do for the promotion of their next album;” she raised her voice a little when saying the next words, “actual promotion of the album.”

“I’m sorry?” he scoffed.

“Yeah, you should be sorry.” Violet’s heart started beating faster as she continued. “You’ve been living off these boys’ lives without asking them what they wanted. They wanna make music. They wanna love who they wanna love without any restrictions. They wanna live their lives and be them. Authentically. Unapologetically.”

The boys stared at Violet with wide eyes and surprised smiles. This was the Violet they had come to know. The Violet that had lived here over the summer. Had they switched again without them even noticing?

“I’m sorry but who are you to tell me how to run my business?”

Violet stood up from her spot on the couch next to Alex. “I’m Violet Grace Dawson, and I’m gonna need you to step the fuck up and let these boys do whatever they wanna do. Let them make the music they wanna make. Let them love who they wanna. It’s not gonna affect their music or their success. If anything, them being true to themselves will attract even more people because they’re gonna be able to identify themselves with them. The whole world is queer, why not let this band be queer?!”

“It’s been proven that straight white men have more success than the queer,” the manager objected. “And what are you gonna do against me, huh? Little girl?”

Violet scoffed. “If you’re not gonna be a good manager to them–” she thought about what she was gonna say next and eventually settled on, “I’m gonna do it myself!”

The man let out a bitter laugh. “As if a child like you would ever be able to manage a band like this one!”

“This child has her connections. My mother happens to be a lawyer and my father is a manager himself. Used to be pretty good in this game. So either you step the fuck up or I’m gonna get this band the manager they deserve!”

Her face had gone beet red, her hands clammy and her heart was pounding. That was exhilarating and scary at the same time. But the payoff was more than worth it. The manager got up from his chair, regarded Violet once more before turning to the boys.

“You’re fired,” he said to them, but all four of them shook their heads.

“You can’t fire us,” Luke said and got up as well. “Because we’re firing you.”

Everyone held their breath as the guy opened his mouth to say something, then closed it and turned to leave the room. A collective sigh echoed off the walls before the gang erupted into cheers while wrapping Violet up into a group hug.

“Did you switch places with the other Violet again?!” Bobby questioned excitedly.

Violet giggled. “Nope, still me… Gosh that was scary!”

“Your parents really can help us though, right?” Reggie queried anxiously.

“Obviously. My dad owns a chain of supermarkets, but he used to be a music manager back in his days. I’m sure if he knew he had a band as great as this one, he’d get back to that world asap!”

“You’re amazing,” Luke told her, shaking his head.

“Thanks for doing this for us, Vi,” said Alex.

She smiled at him. “Don’t miss the gun at the starting line.”

While the boys tried to figure out a way to switch the two Violets back, the girl herself kept her mind preoccupied with Dirty Candy rehearsals. Though she wasn't sure what to think of the new route the band was going into, especially since she had no clue how to play the drums.

She asked the girls to focus on choreography right now, stalling every possible instrument-rehearsal for as long as she could. Thankfully, Carrie helped her out and came up with new excuses every single day.

“Are you okay?” Carrie asked Violet at the end of the Dirty Candy rehearsal.

“Yeah,” Violet breathed out, “I’m really feeling it today, you know? Keeps my mind off of things.”

Carrie knew what she meant by ‘things’. It was Luke. She knew that if Violet stopped, she’d be thinking of the boy she had fallen in love with. The boy from the alternate universe.

“Should we try and find a way to get you back?” Carrie then asked. “We did it once, I’m sure we can do it a second time? Which is technically a third since the first was accidental…” Carrie’s blabbing reminded Violet of other Carrie. She was this intense, this excitable.

“I’m sure that, if the universe wants me back, it’ll do its job.”

Violet knew there was nothing she could do to switch them back. The universe had to figure this one out by itself and all she had to do was wait. Wait and wait and write. That same night, she picked up a pen and her notebook.

“Don’t blink, no I don’t wanna miss it One thing and it’s back to the beginning ‘cause everything is rushing in fast Keep holding on, never look back And it’s one-two-three-four times That I’ll try for one more night Light a fire in my eyes I’m going out of my mind”

Then the melody in her mind switched, as though someone had switched the radio station. For a second, she heard Luke singing. She heard his voice, singing these words to her that she had never heard before. Words that were meant for her to hear. Words she needed to hear.

Not wanting to forget those words, she flipped through to an empty page and started jotting them down while her heart bled and beat faster at the same time. These were Luke’s words. She could feel it. This was from him, to her.

This was the perfect harmony.

After Reggie, Alex and Bobby had left the rehearsal space, Luke and Violet were the last ones left. There was a comfortable silence wrapped around them as they sat on the couches, basking in each other’s company.

“How did you do that?” he asked, “With the manager? Back in the day, you barely dared to say ‘hello’ to strangers, let alone give off on our manager like that.”

Violet shrugged, “I may have learned a thing or two about confidence from Carrie and Luke – the alternate universe versions of you.”

Luke couldn’t help but smile at that. “If you could, would you wanna go back?”

The question had taken Violet aback a little. Would she want to go back? She did miss Carrie and Bobby’s bickering. She missed Reggie’s smart ass and Alex’s sass. She even missed Dirty Candy a little.

She missed Luke. More than anything.

“If I could, yes…” Luke tilted his head slightly, urging her to elaborate. “I felt right, there, you know? Like a fish in water. That was my place, my home. More so than this has ever been…” Luke shot her a tight-lipped smile. “But there’s no way I’m ever gonna be able to get back.”

There was nothing Luke could say to that. He wanted to help her. Somehow. Someway. If it would mean this Violet could be happy. If it would mean he’d get his Violet back. But there was nothing he could do about that. All he could do was make this universe as bearable as possible for this Violet.

“I started writing a song, by the way,” Luke announced and got up to retrieve his songbook from the piano wing. He opened it to the right page and showed it to her. At first glance, Violet could tell this was a song he’d written with Violet in his mind.

Something this Violet had wanted him to do for years.

Violet got up from the couch and made her way to the piano. She sat down and started playing the keys, a sweet melody floating out of the majestic instrument. Her eyes quickly found Luke’s, urging him to start singing.

“Step into my world Bittersweet love story about a girl Shook me to the core Voice like an angel, I've never heard before”

Violet smiled to herself. Who’d have thought that this guy, whom she was convinced was the biggest jerk on the planet, would write this song for a girl? A version of herself. A better, more confident version of herself. But that was something she needed to shake off.

She took the next verse, just to preoccupy her own mind with something other than her alternate self.

“Here in front of me Shining so much brighter than I have ever seen Life can be so mean But when he goes I know he doesn't leave”

Their voices blended together on the chorus and it reminded them both of each other’s parallel self. Though their personalities were completely different, their voices still sounded the same. Their voices still worked so well together.

“The truth is finally breaking through Two worlds collide when I'm with you Our voices rise and soar so high We come to life when we're In perfect harmony”

“Whoa, whoa Perfect harmony Whoa, whoa Perfect harmony”

Luke grabbed Violet’s hands, pulling her up from the piano stool and guiding her towards the middle of the rehearsal space whilst they alternated lines.

“You set me free”

“You and me together is more than chemistry”

Holding her hands close to him, the two sang to each other, almost forgetting this wasn’t the song for the two of them, but rather for their alternate selves.

“Love me as I am I'll hold your music here inside my hands”

“We say we're friends, we play pretend You're more to me, we're everything Our voices rise and soar so high We come to life when we're In perfect harmony”

“I wrote a song,” Violet had told Luke. She had written a song and now the two of them were dancing together. As though they’d forgotten all about the parallel universes and they were singing to the person they had fallen in love with over the past few months.

“Whoa, whoa Perfect harmony Whoa, whoa Perfect harmony”

It felt so natural, dancing and singing together. Like they had been doing it for years.

Luke then stopped, holding her hands in front of him as they sang the bridge together. They were all smiles and glistening eyes. In a dream-like state, hoping their parallel selves would feel what they were feeling.

“I feel your rhythm in my heart, yeah You are my brightest, burning star, whoa-whoa I never knew a love so real (so real) We're heaven on Earth, melody and words And when we are together we're In perfect harmony”

Luke then swayed her to the left, then to the right. She twirled and they shuffled along to the music in their heads.

“Whoa, whoa Perfect harmony Whoa, whoa”

Violet almost felt like they were in Dirty Dancing, her favorite film, and they were having a moment like Johnny and Baby. Intimate. Sensational. Craving the wrong person.

“We say we're friends We play pretend You're more to me We create”

Luke had twirled her inwards before twirling her outwards, letting her turn and turn and turn until she returned to him from the other side.

“a perfect harmony”

The girl that had just been in his arms seconds ago, had gone. She’d disappeared and instead, reappeared on the other side. He knew right then and there that it wasn’t the same girl. He knew who he had caught in his arms.

“Violet,” he whispered, looking into those brown orbs he’d come to love. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

The girl looked around her. Seconds ago, she was dancing with Luke in the rehearsal space in Beverly Hills. Now, she found herself in Luke’s arms in Julie’s garage. She was back. She was home.

“I’m home,” she whispered before Luke kissed her. Sweetly. Hungrily. Lovingly.

She was back home. They managed to switch them back. Once more.

To the universe where she felt most herself.

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