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maximumjinx · 3 years

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Steven Universe Gravity Falls AU

~Yknow what they say, if you run out of content, ya gotta make it yourself. This is a ? shot (I might continue or not who knows not me) please don’t ask for more I have 18 unfinished fanfics on this site.~

California was nice, Steven had to admit. The people were nice, the food was fantastic, and the weather was splendid. It reminded him a lot of Beach City. Though there were just so many people, and traveling north, Steven was beginning to long for something small and simple again.

Oregon was the perfect place for that, right?

“Ronaldo wants pictures of Bigfoot, and if anyone can find him, its you Steven.” Petey’s voice was faint on Steven’s phone speaker, tossed into the passenger seat as Steven blindly picked a highway exit.

“Sure Petey, but couldn’t Ronaldo just go to a circus?”

“Not big feet Steven,” Petey emphasized, “Bigfoot.”

“Saying it twice isn’t helping buddy.” Steven was half paying attention. He was focusing on the winding roads and the looming trees surrounding him. Deep, in the pit of Steven’s stomach, he felt something start to tug him toward one direction farther away from the highway. He wasn’t quite sure if it was a good or bad feeling yet.

“Forget it, I’m going to take a blurry photo of that mean Gem in the woods and say its Bigfoot.”

“Just don’t let Jasper catch you, she’s no joke when she’s angry.”

“I saw her ripping grass out of the ground I think I’ll be fine. Later dude.”

Steven heard a small click and smiled to himself. He’s happy to see how far the people of Beach City have come and how they’ve taken to the gems. He remembers when the Crystal Gems were once the outcasts of town that locals warned you to stay away from.

He looked up to see a welcome sign.

“Gravity falls. Well, that’s a funny name.”

—

Steven wanted small and simple but he feels he may have overshot it.

This small town had exactly three attractions. A town museum that mentioned marrying woodpeckers (Steven couldn’t figure out if that was a normal human thing, like taxes and velcro), a small diner, and as one local described it ‘some tourist trap’ deep in the woods. It was a sticky summer day and the former two attractions didn’t have airconditioning. Steven gambled on the last stop in hopes of stretching his legs and maybe finding a source to the strange feeling in his gut. It had become much stronger since he entered this small town. Alluring, but nothing related to Gems as far as Steven could tell.

He parked in the nearly empty lot and stepped out. Jacket wrapped loosely around his hips, Steven made his way inside.

A girl that looked about 13 was petting a pig on the front porch. She was incredibly reflective, and depsite the heat wore a knitted bedazzled sweater that made her glow like a disco ball in the sun.

She looked Steven up and down as he approached, a wide smile taking up her face and Steven saw bright braces with colored bands.

“Hi!” She launched upwards, startling the pig away, “I’m Mabel, but you can call me anytime.” The girl winked and stuck out her hand, palm facing the floor.

Steven blinked.

“Mabel, stop scaring away the customers!” A gruff voice yelled through the screen door, and soon an older man stepped out in a suit, wearing a fez and eyepatch.

Immediately the old man squinted at Steven, sizing him up.

Stanley Pines knew this teen wasn’t local, but he wasn’t sure if he had any money. For all he knew he was another boy trying to hit on his giftshop cashier, Wendy.

Oh well, a customer is a customer.

“Come in, come in, and see our mystical and magical wonders!”

“Magical?” This could be it, Steven could figure out why this town has felt off. Maybe it was gem related after all.

Quickly this older man who had introduced himself as Mr. Mystery gave Steven a tour of what looked like failed taxidermy projects. Now Steven may have a lived a sheltered childhood, but he felt pretty confident there was no such thing as a Sashcrotch. And so far, nothing had felt magical or mysterious.

“That concludes our tour! Here is our mistifying giftshop and it’s purchasable wonders!”

“Right...” Well, at the very least he was able to spend some time in airconditioning.

There was a girl behind the desk in plaid that looked about Steven’s age, and just a half inch shorter than him. She looked bored, flipping through a magazine as a young boy that looked a lot like Mabel made googly eyes as he swept by the door.

Steven guessed there was no harm in asking around.

“Hi, I’m Steven.” He smiled easily, walking up to the register.

“No refunds, even if an exhibit bit you.” She sighed, peeking up before turning back to her magazine.

“Oh no, nothing bit me, I just wanted to know something.”

She looked up to get a better look at Steven and gave a small smirk.

“Sure, but only because I like your shirt. Mr. Universe merch, now that’s a deep cut.”

Unbeknownst to Steven, Dipper Pines would had been watching the exchange felt a twinge of uneasiness as this out of towner talked with Wendy.

“Have you ever seen anything strange or weird actually happen in this town?”

Wendy’s smile dropped.

“Why do you ask?” Her eyes flickered to Dipper, just for a moment, and that was all he needed to rush over.

“Excuse me sir, please buy something or exit the store.” Dipper spoke in the deepest voice he could muster.

Steven looked over with a questioning expression.

“Oh sure uh-“ He blindly reached for the wad of bills that his dad had given to him before he left. Steven pulled out a hundred dollar bill and put it on the counter. Wendy looked up baffled as Steven stuffed the other cash back in his wallet.

“Boy was I wrong about you kid!” Mr. Mystery, seemingly materializing out of nowhere, now bounded over. He had loosened his tie and lost the eyepatch which turned out he never needed.

“Whaddya wanna know? I’ll tell you everything. There’s gnomes in the woods you know-“

“Grunkle Stan!” Dipper protested loudly, dragging his Stan away and harshly whispering at him.

“Did you steal that money?” Wendy asked as Steven watched the pair whisper fight in the corner. He turned back to the girl and gave a sheepish smile.

“Uh no, my dad gave it to me before this roadtrip. He’s actually Mr. Universe.”

Wendy lit up.

“No freaking way! Your dad is Mr. Universe? I only got into him since he managed Sadie Killer and the Suspects and they always perform covers of his songs on tour, I can’t believe he’s your dad!” She rambled, stars in her eyes. Steven beamed, he loved when people praised his dad’s music. Greg really deserved it.

Steven learned Wendy’s name and they swapped stories back and forth, only interrupted as the girl from outside slowly rose from the behind the counter beaming.

“A cute musician that loves weird stuff, take me now.” She swooned. Steven blushed profusely, not used to the attention.

“Sorry, my girlfriend Connie probably wouldn’t like that very much.” He said gently. Mabel looked him up and down and pouted.

“I can wait, but not forever.” She warned, and winked, bounding to break apart her grunkle and Dipper, who are now whisper screaming with arms flailing.

“I wasn’t going to mention that Dorito shaped jerk! Just the normal stuff!”

“It’s dangerous! He could be a spy, or government, or another stack of gnomes!”

Steven raised an eyebrow and looked at Wendy. She chuckled and shrugged. Steven carefully approached them.

“He can hear everything you’re saying anyways so might as well tell him!” Mabel interrupted, nodding towards Steven as he came up.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’m definitely not government.” Steven technically didn’t exist at all. He never had a social security card and didn’t have a birth certificate.

Dipper only glared. Rich strangers with an interest in the paranormal didn’t come through gravity falls without some kind of agenda.

Steven hated the conflict he was starting. No information was worth this family fighting.

“Okay,” he surrendered, hands up, “I’ll just go. I’ll stick around town until tomorrow if you change your minds”

“Wait Steven-”

“Let him go Wendy,” Dipper glared as the boy in pink walked out, “We can’t trust him.”

“But I was going to ask for Sadie tickets...” Wendy groaned, defeated.

“There’s something weird about him.”

“Great!” Mabel beamed, “He’ll fit right in.”

~.~

Steven wasn’t crazy about sleeping in his car, but was seriously considering it after seeing the state of his motel room. It looked like it hadn’t been used in decades, a thin line of dust covering every surface. He was also pretty sure they didn’t even have free ice.

“Wish Pearl were here..” He mumbled, exhausted. He curled up on top of the covers, fully clothed, and let sleep take him.

Being Steven Universe however, meant rest was sure to allude the half alien.

Steven found himself in a dark space, fog all around him. Before a word could come out of his mouth he heard a fast, repetitive muttering.

“Stranger...Wendy looked pretty today..Can’t trust...Tell no one...Ford isn’t here..”

“What, the-” Steven quietly walked toward the source of dialogue, and saw the faded silhouette of the boy from the Mystery Shack. His back was turned to him, but Steven recognized the blue vest and mosquito bitten legs.

“I thought I was over the dream hopping.” Steven spoke a tad too loudly, starting the young boy - Dipper.

“What-” Dipper’s eyes grew wide in panic, and the boy fell back harshly.

“No, no, you can’t be in my head!”

“Wait, I’m not-” Steven tried to reassure him, stepping carefully towards the boy but Dipper let out a screech of terror, sweat gathering around his temples.

“Bill sent you didn’t he?! He’s not really gone- he’s going to hurt Mable again-” Dipper began to hyperventilate.

“Dipper please,” Steven took a step back, arms in the air in surrender.

“I-”

“I’m not going to hurt you I swear on the gems.” He placed a hand over his heart. “This is a total invasion of privacy but it’s something that happens when someone’s emotions are out of control-”

“How are you here?” Dipper demanded, scrambling to his feet. “Tell me what you are and what you want.”

“I’m just passing through!” Steven insisted, then lowered his tone to calm the younger boy. “I’m kinda of magnet for weird stuff. I just wanted to help in case anything was going on.”

“We deal with things just fine around here.” Dipper spat, then watched as Steven deflated. He seemed tired, like he hasn't slept well in a while.

“So what are you anyways? How can you be here?”

Steven winced, and laughed nervously. “It’s kind of a long story..”

Dipper raised and eyebrow and swept his arm around the void dramatically.

“You have until dawn.”

“I thought that was a conspiracy theory, it wasn’t even covered by major news outlets.” Dipper look exhausted, cross legged on the unseen floor as he ran his hands through his hair.

“I think Garnet is pretty persuasive when it comes to government and reporters. They all kinda fall in love with her.”

“She’s the one that’s really two aliens?”

Steven shook his head with a small smile. “It’s hard to explain but yes, I guess that comes close.”

“That’s actually insane. I’m insane, aren’t I?” Dipper stood up, leaving Steven on sitting next to an empty space. “It’s been too quiet around here and now I’m so desperate for weird, that I’m making it all up in my head.”

“I get that feeling.” Steven smiled without humor, “but no, this is real. I’ll prove it when you wake up.” Steven felt a shift, the fog in the void getting denser.

“Sooner than I thought, you’re an early riser huh?”

Dipper looked back at Steven, panicked. “You’ll come to the Shack again right? In just a bit?”

Steven smiled. “Promise.”

Dipper woke up to his sister braiding his hair. Mabel still had her pjs on, and a make up kit next to the bed. Dipper frowned, tasting strawberry shortcake.

“Stop testing party looks on me, Mabel.”

“Stop having my face structure and maybe I will.” She grinned, covered in blue glitter.

Dipper quickly washed up and got dressed for the day, feeling like he was anxiously waiting for something but not quite remembering what.

He felt like he had a strange dream last night...

He quickly remembered, choking on cereal as Steven walked into the shack right as it opened. Hair slightly frizzy from the heat and eyes strangely tired. Maybe dream hopping took energy that he anticipated.

“Steven!”

“Meal ticket!”

“Grunkle Stan.” Mabel chastised as Dipper rushed over to the older boy.

“Good morning everyone.”

Dipper stopped short, slightly hoping that everything he experienced wasn’t just his imagination. That everything exciting and weird and interesting wasn’t always trying to kill him, ruin his life, or steal his candy.

Steven looked tired, like he had been doing this much longer than Dipper, but he had still come out with enough energy to smile.

“Not insane?” Dipper asked hopefully, quietly. Steven snapped his attention from his Grunkle and Mable bickering down to the Dipper. He gave a reassuring smile, eyes quite serious.

“Not insane.”

#I feel like I made up a strange tension but please don't ship them THEYRE FOUND FAMILY #Steven universe #gravity falls #universe falls #???#what's the tag?#dipper pines #Mabel pines #grunkle stan #stan pines #bill cipher #this is something or maybe nothing idk people need to give me plot ideas #probably no plot just one shot series

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cyoc49 · 3 years

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HIMBO Magazine: Changing Departments

*click! click! click! click!*

Derek listened to the camera flash as he sat on the side of the bed. He was currently doing a photo shoot for HIMBO magazine, a fashion and lifestyle magazine “for the modern gay male™”. Fake blood dripped against his chest - they were doing some Halloween type of shoot. But let’s be honest, the blood wasn’t the focus of the shot: it was his body. Derek had never been the best student - and his attitude certainly didn’t help - but if there was one thing he knew how to do, it was make his body look as sexy as humanly possible. Derek scoured nutrition blogs to make sure he stayed up to date on everything related to fitness, and the dedication showed itself in his beautiful, sculpted body. Sitting here with no shirt on and wearing a pair of lethally tight skinny jeans, he looked like every gay man’s wet dream. To put it simply, Derek was hot as hell; problem is, he knew he was hot at hell.

“Alright, that’s good. I think we have what we need, thank you Mr. Hale” the director said. Derek stood up and two twinkish looking assistants came over to remove the blood. Derek stood still and tried to ignore the two obviously gay men putting their hands all over his body. Derek was the kind of guy who thought all gay men were jumping at the bit for any man they can find. Doing a photo shoot for a gay magazine was certainly not his dream, but hey: a paycheck is a paycheck.

After he was cleaned off, Derek put on a t shirt and enjoyed the feeing of it stretched tight against his pecs. He slung a Louis Vuitton backpack over his shoulders. All he had to do was collect his check and he could be done with this homo magazine. Derek headed towards the doorway connecting the studio space to the rest of the offices. He turned the corner into the hallway, only to immediately crash into someone coming from the opposite direction. Papers went flying.

Derek hesitated, then reluctantly crouched down to help the man pick up his papers. As he did, the man spoke to him in a deep voice “You know, you should really watch where you’re going. People are busy around here.”

This was the remark that set Derek off. It was enough that he had done a photo shoot outside his comfort zone, and ran into someone while he was leaving, but now he was being sassed by some worker who couldn’t slow down enough to watch out for passers. Derek had had enough of this magazine. “You know,” he said, “I’m surprised. I thought you fags would be more excited to slam into other guys.”

Derek could sense the shift in mood immediately. All the workers around him who had been buzzing about immediately stopped and looked at th scene. The office had gone dead silent. As Derek looked around at all the men staring at them, the man he had bumped into finished collecting his papers and stood up, allowing Derek to finally look at him properly. Woah, this was a fine looking man. Strappingly tall and ruggedly handsome. He filled out his expensive-looking three-piece suit perfectly. His whole demeanor was one of absolute confidence. Finally, Derek realized what had happened. He hadn’t bumped into some random employee. He had knocked over and subsequently cussed out the boss of the whole place.

*Well*, Derek said to himself, *I fucked up bad this time*.

The boss was surprisingly well-composed for someone who had just been called a slur, Derek thought. As if to prove this point, the boss suddenly started laughing. It was a good, deep laugh. And when he laughed, everyone else in the building laughed along with him. Derek stared at everyone in the office in confusion. Why did they find this so funny? Was it because he’s their boss? And they were all looking at the boss with such admiration. Derek just hoped this meant the issue would blow over and he could leave before embarrassing himself sooner.

But before he could step away, he was spoken to. “I used to get really angry when people said stuff like that to me,” the boss explained in a rich, inviting voice, “now it just makes me sad, because I see all the failed potential hiding behind that language.”

Derek took a little offense to that last statement, but he knew he was in no position to argue right now. It seemed like the laughter was the all-clear the rest of the office needed to know their boss was okay, because the normal hum of voices and keyboards had returned. Now it was just him and the extremely powerful man he had pissed off. Derek broke the silence. “Look, Mr...”

“Christian Le Maítre” the gorgeous boss informed him, “Editor in Chief of HIMBO magazine. But everyone around here just calls me Mr. M.”

“Right. Well, uh, Mr. M, I’m really sorry about-“

“No you’re not.” Christian cut him off without missing a beat. “I’ve seen so many models like you come and go through these halls. You think you’re hot shit, and take pity on all of my boys in this office who had to take desk jobs because their bodies weren’t nice enough to let them get by on looks alone. But you know, we’re hard workers here. And we’re a close knit family.”

Derek objected to being interrupted, but as Christian talked, he felt his defenses melt away with every word. Mr. M was right, Derek realized. I am a narcissistic asshole who holds myself above others. He had never felt like this before. But everything Mr. M said just seemed right. When this gorgeous, confident man spoke, Derek realized he was speaking the truth.

“What’s your name, son?” Mr. M asked him.

“D-Derek, sir. Derek Hale.” Derek was never one stutter, but how else could he feel right now?

“Well Derek, I’m sure our lame little office doesn’t fit your macho man swagger persona, but I think you’d find that working here is pretty great.”

Was that an offer? Derek didn’t know. He had completely forgotten the context of their conversation, and indeed his reason for being in this office in the first place was slowly becoming a distant memory. All Derek knew in this moment was that he HAD to work at HIMBO. In fact, he couldn’t imagine life without working here.

Derek tried to compose a response, but was increasingly timid in the presence of this incredible man. “Well, uh, Mr. M. Perhaps if you have any opening I might be able to, uh-”

Mr. M just laughed again, and this time Derek laughed right along with him.

“Well I’m shocked to hear you change your tune so quickly, but I can’t say I’m surprised. Working here is kind of a dream job, if I do say so myself. But there’s no need to submit your CV and go through the traditional channels. I am actually prepared to offer you a job on the spot.”

Derek felt his ears burning. How lucky was he! To be offered a job at the best company on earth. He would take it immediately!

“Mr. M, it would be an honor to work for you” Derek bowed his head as he said this. Respect was important, especially for the man who was giving him a job no questions asked.

“Glad to hear it, sport! Now full disclosure, it’s a clerking position. I know, not the most exciting stuff, but here at HIMBO we believe even the most mundane work can be made magical! Of course, you would have to change a few of your behaviors to *best* fit the position. Your ego, your hot-headedness. Do you think those are things good for a clerk to have?”

“No, sir” Derek said with convocation. “Anything you want me to change, I will change.”

Christian cracked a smile, as if Derek had said something unintentionally funny. “Well I admire your commitment. It’s just, clerks are so straight-laced and serious, and you are such a character, Derek. Mr. Macho Man with a great body. Actually, I do like this body.” Christian looked Derek up and down, “I think that can stay. But as for everything else, well, I can take care of that.”

Christian stopped talking and instead just looked at Derek. The hopeful employee stood there silently, unsure of what to do. Just then, he suddenly felt a draining feeling. It wasn’t his muscles or his IQ or any of that stuff that he felt fading away, it was more like he was losing... his personality? All the pride Derek felt over his hot body and great life was disappearing. All the anger he get towards people not like him, slipping away. But it wasn’t replaced by new emotions, it wasn’t replaced by anything. Derek stopped feeling strong feelings about much of anything. He liked his job, he followed the news, but he had never had any opinions of his own. Never tried to be individual or stand out. Derek was becoming like his new favorite flavor of ice cream: vanilla.

As Derek’s personality slowly morphed him into a contender for the World’s Most Dull Man, his wardrobe changed to follow suit. His designer t shirt loosened out a bit. The sleeves grew down his arms before spouting buttons and cuffs. Buttons also sprouted down the middle, and the shirt gained a collar, becoming a basic button-up shirt. A white plaid pattern spread across the shir. At the same time, Derek felt his skinny jeans go “pah” as all the tightness shrugged out of them, changing them into (gag) regular fit pants. They lightened to gray and changed material to thin cotton, becoming work slacks. His new plaid shirt automatically tucked itself into the pants, and a brown leather belt formed around his waist, with his expensive designer sneakers morphing into brown leather dress shoes to match. The LV backpack he wore fell as one of the straps broke off, before disappearing altogether. The remaining strap lengthened and slung itself over his shoulder, and the bag itself shifted into a basic messenger bag, holding plenty of important documents and paperwork.

For a brief moment, Derek felt confusion and fear. Why were these changes happening to him? Where did his nice stuff go, and what were these boring-ass clothes replacing them? These thoughts only lasted for half a second, before Derek realized how right this was. This was his style, or more accurately his *lack* of style. Derek had never cared about trends, or getting fancy new clothes. As long as they fit him well and looked professional enough for work, that was all that mattered in Derek’s eyes. A Ross Membership Card popped into his wallet to cement this change.

Derek felt something in his pocket, and pulled out a pair of black-rimmed glasses. These were the glasses he needed to see, of course. Derek opened them up and put them on. To follow suit, his hair parted itself to the side and became thick with gel holding his new professional haircut in place.

As promised, Christian had left Derek his body, but had taken basically everything else from him. Where there had once stood an arrogant, trendy mode, there was now a walking turtleneck. Normally in cases like this, Derek would sprout new memories of his new life. But no memories came, because Derek didn’t really *have* a life. He was now a total office drone. From 9-5 he worked faithfully for HIMBO, and after that he went home and solved jigsaw puzzles until it was time for bed... except on the nights where Mr. M invited Derek to his house. Derek truly wanted nothing more from life.

Christian smiled at the new corporate boy that stood before him. “Okay I think you’ve handled the onboarding process well, Dirk. Dirk, isn’t it?”

“Yes sir.” Dirk replied matter of factly. Dirk Kent. Filing clerk for HIMBO magazine.

“Great! But there’s actually one more thing I need from you. I’m still a little raw about that comment of yours earlier, and I would hate for it to taint our working relationship with each other, so allow me to bury this hatchet.”

Christian snapped his fingers, and Dirk felt his impressive manhood shrink, and shrink, and shrink, until he heard a “pop!” sound and knew that it was no more. Poor Dirk was smooth as could be in his private areas. But he didn’t mind: being unable to orgasm helped him focus on his work. And besides, if Mr. M needed help Dirk still had two perfectly serviceable holes on him.

Christian laughed again, eliciting another laugh from Dirk. “Dirk, pal, I don’t think I have ever been happier with one of my new hires. But you know, I do seal my deals with a kiss.”

“Why thank you sir!” Dirk replied with enthusiasm, as he allowed Christian to walk over, turn up his chin, and plant a kiss on his lips. And it was the greatest kiss Dirk had ever felt. Indeed, it was the only kiss he had ever felt, but as far as kisses go it was still pretty spectacular. As Dirk stood there with his lips pressed against those of his incredivle boss, he knew there was nothing more he would want from life.

As they parted, Derek looked hopefully up at his boss “Where should I start with my work, sir?” He lived to work.

Christian smiled again. “I’ll film you in on that in a minute, but let me take you to your desk. You’ll be down in the accounting department. In fact, I think you’ll be desk neighbors with our other new hire Bartholomew! You’ll love him. A total nerd but a sweet kid regardless.” Without warning, Christian turned and walked down the hall. He didn’t need to say anything. Dirk instinctively followed him, just as he instinctively obeyed every command Mr. M gave him. Life was easier that way.

#gaytf #gay #officetf #suittf #tyler hoechlin #suit #slick hair #derek hale #teen wolf tf #nerd derek #nerd Derek hale

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phoenixblack89 · 3 years

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Fera Ingris

Chapter 1 - Dealing with Dixons

It's finally here people! Eekkk! It'll be up on A03 later when I turned my laptop on. Been teasing this for soooo long.

My wonderful tag list:

@lilythemadqueen @boondoctorwho @darylsgirl @autocon23 @browneyes528 @fandomsaremykryponite @writingdeadangel

"Yer take care of yourself lass, don't worry about us."

Phoenix sighed at the man on the other end of the phone, twisting the silver rosary he had given her for her birthday many years ago. The world had changed dramatically for them all since that day. Their history bloody and violent and God sent.

"Are ye listening lass?"

"Of course, I'm listening! It's you who isn't! I'm on the way to Atlanta now! As in I'm already in Georgia! I can't let you three rot in there when we've got things to do!"

"Lass, we can take care of ourselves. Connor wants to know if ye got our package?" He asked, she stifled a laugh at the noise of the pair fighting over the phone she could hear.

"Yea I got it. Haven't opened it yet though" she replied, the bike's engine growing colder under her. "What's in it? You guys shouldn't be sending anything. You're lucky Duffy and Dolly got it t' me before I left Boston."

"I know lass but ye need t' keep those safe fer us." She smiled hearing her other friend's voice, clearly having won the battle for the phone. "Look things are getting bad here. You're safe now but things are gettin' weird, we'd never forgive ourselves if anything happened to ye. I love ye too much"

"I love ya too, you idiot! I'm gonna get you all out. We have a mission! I've got a bag full of your stuff right here on my bike, your clothes, coats, guns."

"Aye. What?! No? Yea. Let me say goodbye a' least?" Phoenix knitted her eyebrows, hearing the man talking to someone else. A prison guard maybe. "Lass we have t' go. I'll call ye back when things settle aye?"

"Yea. Just tell me where you are at least?"

"Sorry lass I got to -"

The line suddenly died on her and she frowned, shaking the phone and seeing no signal. She ran her hand through her short dark red hair and started the bike up, speeding quickly towards Atlanta and her boys.

**********

The sun shined through the thin, flimsy material of the tent, shining directly down into the sleeping pairs eyes. The short, spiky, dyed haired young woman groaned and threw her arm over her face. She sat slowly and yawned. She'd had that dream for weeks, wondering what had happened to her friends.

Had the prison been overrun by the monsters that lurked in every corner? Were they dead? Or worse... Had they become one of those things?

She'd slept after her watch shift, which surprised the girl as she had been having a bad bout of insomnia for the last two weeks. Ever since...

No, she thought don't think about it.

She glanced at the young boy laid next to her and smiled. When Carl asked if he could sleep in her tent with her the night before she had been hesitant (mainly because Lori rarely let him out her sight) but Lori had said it was okay and she was not going to fight against the long-haired beauty.

Lori had also said it would be good for her, get her to trust others again. And honestly the boy reminded her so much of her old friend with his boundless energy and smiles.

A gentle tap to the roof of her tent set her senses on guard. She grabbed her long calf length boots and her Bowie knife and slowly pulled the zipper up. A sigh released from her throat as she squinted up at the crossbow welding man in front of her.

"We goin' hunting or what?" He snarled at her, obviously still mad at the woman from their disagreement yesterday. It wasn't her fault. He had spooked her...

Merle approached the dark red haired girl sat by the quarry lake silently. Something was up with her and he was determined to find out what. The sight in front of him worried him slightly, she was nervous and kept flicking her head around. Had she been bit? He was thankful the darkness of the twilight hid him somewhat as he watched. She hissed as she pulled the bloody bandage off her left hand, flexing it and hissing through her teeth. The soft sound of something hitting the surface of the water, made his heart thump. It wasn't raining so why did it sound like it was?

He came right behind her and watched as she rubbed at the wound, it oozed blood and yellowish white pus as she gritted her teeth. Infection was setting in. Daryl called out his name from camp and the girl spun and noticed him there.

"Ya shouldn't be down 'ere by herself girlie." He whispered, kneeling and gently taking her hand, examining the injury intently. "Now wha' we gonna do abou' yer hand? Yer can't take what I offered yer."

"Burn it again. Only thing we can do. Not like we can wander to nearest pharmacy, throw my hand on the counter and say fix it, is it?" She hissed as he prodded a sensitive spot, Merle chuckled slightly and helped her to her feet.

"Nah but China is headed t' the city tomorrow. I'ma go too. I know my meds and I'll get yer what yer need t' be right as rain again, Lil sis." He said with a smirk as they climbed back up the slope to the camp. Daryl and Shane spun round at their footsteps and Merle smirked. Officer ass-hat was on one about something.

"Phoenix! Where have you been?! We told you to stay in camp until you could fight!" Shane whisper-yelled in her face.

"Easy there officer. Girl just needed a second by 'erself... Gets a bit loud round here." Merle defended her, placing himself between the well musculared man and the girl who seemed to shrink into herself. "She's fine. I was a watchin' her."

"I bet you were Dixon." Lori said under her breath. Phoenix glanced at the woman with eyes narrowed. The majority of the camp thought the Dixons were rude, brash and shouldn't be there. Only Phoenix, Glenn, Andrea and Shane knew of the incident that had cemented the brothers in the camp's good graces, well in their good graces.

Phoenix sat down at the small fire infront of her tent and sighed, her ears picking up on raised voices coming from the Dixon tent. It sounded like Daryl was majorly pissed about something and Merle was defending himself.

Isn't any of your business she thought ignore them.

She gazed deep into the fire, the heat warming her frozen limbs nicely. She hated the cold, not that it was cold but she felt like she was sat on a box of ice in just her underwear. She had experienced working in much colder situations, hell the Irish rain was colder than this. The sweat on her brow made her eyes ache and she closed them, leaning her head back.

"Ahh!" She shrieked, jumping up and thrusting her knife backwards towards whatever had grabbed her shoulder. A deep grunt sounded and her hand was twisted, causing her to release her grip of the blade's handle.

"Ain't no need t' try t' gut me girl." Daryl growled, his gruff voice instantly calming the nervous woman. She sighed and held her hand out, Daryl raised his chin and regarded whether to return her knife or not for a moment. He relented at her raised eyebrow and dropped it into her left hand. She hissed in pain and clutched at her wrist. Quicker than she could pull away, he'd wrapped his hand around her wrist yanking her closer and pulling the bandage off her injury. He could see how raised and angry it look, grimacing slightly as it oozed at his poking. Tears of pain welled in her eyes as she grit her teeth, he grumbled under his breath and glanced over his shoulder at his older brother. Merle nodded and raised the half empty bottle of whiskey in a salute. "This why Merle is leavin' right?"

"Yea, told him he didn't have to." She whispered as he released her arm, her skin tingled at the lose of contact. Daryl ran his hand over his neck and bit his lip.

"Ye need meds. Ain't happy a' him, riskin' his neck fer someone like ya." He groaned under his breath. Her mood soured and she shoved him away. He stumbled for a second and threw her a glare. "What the hell is ya problem girl?"

"Someone like me Dixon? Huh? What exactly do you mean by that?!" She folded her arms across her chest. Daryl's eyes flickered downwards for a second to how her arms pushed her breasts higher and more together.

God she's gorgeous when she's mad he thought, his cock twitching in his jeans. He ducked his head and scoffed.

"Ya know what I mean, can't even hunt without hurtin' yaself."

"Go away Dixon." She turned on her heel and stormed off up the bank, and climbing up the RV ladder to take watch. Daryl sighed and slopped off back to his brother, who was laughing, finding the whole scene hilarious.

**********

Phoenix nodded up at the hunter and pulled on her boots and grabbed her bow. She followed Daryl over to his tent where his brother was preparing to go into the city. Merle gave her a once over as she approached, his eyes narrowed at the bow across her back and the stains on the bandage around her left hand.

"Mornin' Firebug." He drawled as the pair stopped. She nodded and heaved her backpack tighter to her shoulder beside her quiver of arrows. "Y'all gonna be alright t' hunt wit' tha' hand?" He questioned, giving his brother a glance. Daryl gave Merle a hooded lidded look and nodded his head up. "Don't wanna waste my time if ya gonna drop down dead on poor Darlena 'ere."

The girl smirked and shoved the older man's shoulder playfully before flipping him off, striding towards the treeline.

"You watch 'er baby brother. She's one of us now."

"Hmm" Daryl said, glancing at the girl as she waited just under the cover of the trees for him. Merle gave a low chuckle and Daryl glared at him. "Stop."

"Come on baby brother, don't be like that." Merle stood and patted him on the shoulder. "Ya been pining after 'er for weeks now. Just give her some of the ol' Dixon charm. If ya even have any!" He barked out a laugh as his brother scoffed and walked away, joining the girl and disappearing into the woods.

**********

A low whistle drew her attention and she glanced in the direction of it. Daryl raised his hand and pointed off towards the copse of trees in front of him. Keeping her body low to the ground and her steps feather light she approached him. Her eyes darting out at the small herd of deer in front of them, they'd finally found them after two days in the woods. She raised her hand and pointed to the smaller of the two bucks. Daryl nodded and gestured he was going to try and get around them so if they darted he could take a shot. She nodded and crouched lower, using the shrubs to hide her. Daryl wandered away silently as she waited for his signal.

A loud shriek pierced the air and the deer scattered. Daryl swore and took off after the smaller buck, Phoenix following him at a distance.

**********

They stopped by a small creak, Phoenix dipping her hand into it and running it over the back of her neck. She felt like she was on fire, yet icy cold at the same time. The infection in her hand had well and truly set in, she needed to be careful or she'd drop and not get back up.

"We go a littl' further then stop fer the night." Daryl mummered beside her, wiping his soaked red rag over the back of his neck and down his face. She nodded, eyes staring off into the stream. He watched her carefully, the way her hair at the back of her neck was slightly curly, the way her ears twitched as if she was a rabbit or a deer hearing a predator. He found her beautiful and mysterious. A riddle he wanted to solve. He couldn't help his attraction to her physique either, the woman was beautiful. Not perhaps every man's wet dream but he found her incredibly sexy.

He admired how she wore gothic, all black, metal studded and chained clothes despite the heat, her short dyed dark red hair, the regrowth hinting at sandy blond, spiked with sweat these days that cried out to be tugged as she was kissed, the slight thicker set of her thighs, buttocks and stomach, he much preferred a girl with a bit of weight than the skinny, almost starved look some of the women up at camp had; the ink he could spy under her clothes was calling out for him to discover exactly how many tattoos she had and why she'd chosen them. He had seen a glimpse of the tattoos on her by accident when he'd stumbled upon her at the lake having a quick swim and also when he'd found her in the woods. She kept herself well covered normally, she said she got sunburn easily. He could spy an interesting shaped scar across her collar bone when she wore lower cut shirts, not that she did very much now.

Not since he'd saved her in the woods a week or so ago.

He loved how well they worked as hunters together. She knew enough to track decently and was surprisingly quiet on her feet, despite the heavy metal covered, thick platform soled boots she chose to wear. They're only issue seemed to be that they butted heads constantly when not hunting, both taking verbal swipes at each other whenever they tried to have a conversation, sometimes she'd slap him on the arm; Merle finding it hilarious and entertaining to join in. Damn Merle, was his fault she got hurt in the first place. If he hadn't egged her on about her lack of hunting abilities, she wouldn't have been out in the woods by herself in the first place.

He sighed quietly as she raised to her feet and moved away, eyes scanning the forest floor for the deer's tracks, finding them and leading the way.

**********

Daryl grunted as he lowered himself down beside the girl, who was turning a stick through the weak fire in front of her. The night was silent except for the light wind. He silently settled down against the log and took out of one of the squirrel for the pair to eat. Daryl made quick work of gutting and skinning the small rodent and shoved it on a stick to slowly roast over the flames. The girl's eyes drifting upwards towards the stars. She looked so peaceful that he didn't want to disturb her.

"We gotta head back in the morning if we don't find the deer." She nodded and pulled her arms around her own shoulders, shivering slightly. "Come 'ere." He said, holding his arms open for her to settle beside him. Daryl usually hated touching others and being touched was a rarity for him but he'd made the exception for her while they hunted. It was simply for survival he told himself. If she got too cold she'd get sick and then the group wouldn't have a hunter when he and Merle left. And he'd feel that guilt all his life, the kids needed fresh meat so he was doing something for the group. Nothing to do with his stupid little crush. Nope, he was doing it for the group. She shuffled closer and wrapped an arm around his waist. Her head found his chest and she sighed, feeling the heat from Daryl seep into her cold bones. Daryl frowned, she felt hot yet she was shivering like crazy.

That damn hand.

He pulled her closer and ran his hand cautiously up and down her arm. She flinched at first then relaxed into his embrace.

"Ya alright?"

"Yea. Just cold." She whispered, her warm breath causing goose bumps across Daryl's chest. She blinked slowly, feeling sleep call her. The smell of Daryl's warm body lulling her, she had missed falling asleep in a man's arms. It was familiar and comforting. She felt safe, warm and protected despite the dead walking.

**********

The sharp whistle drew her attention to the left. She nocked her arrow and let it fly, hitting the deer in the hind leg causing it to run. The two hunters had caught up to the deer earlier and were driving it towards camp. Daryl was in the rear urging it forward, while she made it turn in the right direction when it veered too far to the left.

She spotted the steep banks that marked the outer edges of the quarry and smiled.

Almost home.

Taking another shot to steer the deer towards the lower bank she smiled. The group would eat well tonight. She stumbled and shot at the hind leg again. The deer in one last desperate burst of energy slipped out of her sight but it was very close to camp. Wouldn't take long for them to catch up.

**********

Phoenix paused and braced her arms on her knees, Daryl whistled in question, asking if she was alright as he walked by her. She held up a hand in reply. He grumbled and walked away. She could hear yells and the sounds of stomping as she neared the rocks that hid camp.

Daryl was knelt on the ground and looking over the deer.

"Think we could cut around the chewed up part?" He said looking up at Dale and the others. Phoenix's eyes narrowed as she spotted a new face amongst the men. The group of men didn't seem to notice her as she joined Daryl at his side, subconsciously seeking his protection from the stranger. Fear made her heart pound loudly in her ears as Daryl stood.

"I wouldn't risk that" Shane said quietly, Daryl sighed dejectedly frustrated he hadn't been able to feed the group more.

"That's a damn shame. We got us some squirrels... About a dozen or so. That'll have to do."

"Oh my god!" Amy gasped as the head of the walker suddenly began to gnash its teeth.

"Come on people! What the hell?!" Daryl exclaims as he releases a bolt through its undead head. "It's gotta be the brain! Don't y'all know nothin'?!"

Phoenix smirked, shouldering her bow as she followed Daryl back into camp. She gave a glance over her shoulder at the group behind her, noticing the exchange of looks between them.

"MERLE! MERLE! Get ya ugly ass out here! Got us some squirrel! Let's stew 'em up!" Daryl calls out, Phoenix swivelling her head to see where the elder Dixon was.

"Daryl, just slow up a bit. I need to talk to you." Shane called, his hands on his hips as the group avoids Daryl and Phoenix's eyes.

"About what?" Daryl queries, pausing his march around the camp. Phoenix, instinctively, taking Daryl's back with a bad feeling in her gut.

"DD... Hear him out." She whispers as Daryl narrows his eyes in suspicion. Daryl glances at her briefly before turning back to Shane.

"About Merle... There was a... There was a problem in Atlanta." The former officer sighs, his hand reaching out as if to pacify the man. Phoenix grits her teeth and reaches for the gun hidden behind her shirt slowly, sensing this was not going to end well.

"He dead? "

"We're not sure..."

OH shitttt Phoenix thought, slipping the brace of squirrels and her bow off her shoulder.

"He either is or he ain't!" Daryl stated, his voice raising in anger as his face grew more dark.

"No easy way to say this so I'll just say it." The newcomer said quietly, stepping into the discussion.

"Who are you?!" Daryl asked, confused slightly as to what this stranger had to do with his brother's disappearance.

"Rick Grimes."

"Rick Grimes?!" Daryl spat aggressively, his face a mask to the hurt and anger underneath. "You got summit ya want t' tell me?"

"Your brother was a danger to us all, so I... I handcuffed him on a roof, hooked him to a piece of metal... He's still there."

"What the fuck!?" Phoenix snarled as her eyes narrowed at the newcomer. Her stance widening, readying herself for a fight. Daryl began pacing, his eyes meeting hers, she gave a barely there nod in agreement with him.

"Hold on... Let me process this. You're sayin' you handcuffed my brother to a roof and you left him there!?" Daryl growled as he paced, the woman edging towards Shane, out of Daryl's path to Rick.

"Yeah."

Daryl growls loudly as he throws his rope of squirrels at Rick, who dodges them easily.

"Hey! Watch the knife!" T-Dog yells as Daryl pulls his knife. Shane dodges Phoenix and gets behind Daryl, quickly putting him into a chokehold. Phoenix steps up behind Shane, her own knife slipping into her grip, her gun giving a low click as she removed the safety and pointed it at the curls of Shane's hair.

"Okay... Okay..." Shane whispers, lowering Daryl and himself to the ground.

"You'd best let me go!" Daryl gasped, struggling to free himself.

"Do as he says!" Phoenix snarls, her Beretta a mere breath away from Shane's skull.

"Chokehold's illegal!" Daryl grunts, thrashing his legs. Phoenix lowers her gun to Shane's shoulder, ready to pull the trigger if needed.

"You can file a complaint!" Shane laughs weakly. "Come on man. We'll keep this up all day."

"Like shite we will. I'll shoot ya first mate!" The red head growled as Rick kneels in front of Daryl and Shane, his head tilting to the side.

"I'd like to have a calm discussion on this topic. Do you think we can manage that? Do you think we can manage that?"

Daryl grunts, ceasing to struggle, slapping his hand out to the side of him; silently signalling to the woman to stand down as Shane hums in question.

"Mmm...Yeah." Daryl replies.

Shane releases him quickly and steps away as the younger man raises himself to his feet. Shane's eyebrows raised as Phoenix pulls herself to her full height, him and Rick giving her a worried glance. She smirks and makes a show of putting her knife and gun back into their places. Rick turns to Daryl and rubs the back of his neck slowly.

"What I did was not on a whim. Your brother does not work or play well with others."

"It’s not Rick's fault!" T-Dog interrupted, the large man stepping closer. "I had the key... I dropped it!"

Phoenix scoffed, glaring at the man.

"Ya couldn't pick it up?!" Daryl questioned, his anger disappearing and being replaced by worry and anxiety.

"Well, I dropped it in a drain."

"If that’s supposed to make me feel better, it don't." Daryl snapped as he shook his head, pacing in a small circle. Phoenix joining him at his side and glaring daggers at T-Dog.

"Maybe this will... Look, I chained the door to the roof... So geeks couldn't get at him... With a big ass chain and padlock. Its got to count for something!"

"Hell with all y'all! Just tell me where he is... So that I can go get him." Daryl choked out, his voice cracking with tears as Phoenix gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

"So we can go get him." She declared, daring anyone to argue with her. Daryl gave her a tiny up nod at her and squeezed her hand on his shoulder lightly.

"He'll show you. Isn't that right?" Lori spoke up from the door of the RV, she looked to Rick quietly awaiting his reply.

"I'm going back." He stated quietly. Lori sighed and walked into the RV.

*********

Phoenix pulled on her long studded leather jacket and secured her axe into the specialised holster on her back. Daryl stood beside her silently, chewing his lip. The Brit have a slight wobble as she got lighter headed and Daryl's mind came to only one solution to a major issue between the pair.

"Hey."

"Hey DD. You ready to go get Merle?" She asked, bending to tie her boot laces. "Yea... Ya not comin' though."

"What!? You can't be serious DD! You need me with you so those picks don't leave you there as well!" She snapped back as he turned to walk away.

"Daryl!"

"Nah. Ya hurt. Too many geeks in the city fer ya axe. Stay here. Keep safe." He argued back, she growled in her throat and pushed by him. His hand wrapped around her arm in a bruising grip.

"Dixon..."

"Listen... Stay here. I don't... Just... Fuck." He hissed. "Merle will be pissed. Real pissed."

"He'll of been baked in the sun ya mean! He is gonna be stir fried from the heat! He's gonna need someone to calm him down. He ain't gonna hurt me DD... He wouldn't hurt me." She sighed, her head beginning to throb. "I have to Daryl. I owe him one!"

"Nah ya don't!"

"Yes I fucking do!"

"No. Ya stayin' here!"

"I'm going!" She yelled, hands on her hips.

"No!"

"Yes!"

"NO! And that's final!"

The pair continued to argue for several more minutes until Shane interrupted them, the pair literally chest to chest and needing to be pulled apart before fists began to fly. Phoenix huffed and stormed away into the woods as the man agreed with Daryl. Daryl glared after the fiery woman before stomping off to the truck, missing her turning back towards the camp and leaning against a tree with her arm crossed against her chest.

Phoenix glanced at the truck Daryl stood in. She wanted to wish them luck but knew Daryl was still angry with her. He looked in her direction and nodded his head, a small smile gracing the corner of his mouth. She sighed and walked towards him, he knelt down at the open shutter and tilted his head towards her. "Keep safe in the city DD." She whispered, gazing upwards into the man's sky blue eyes. He nodded and chewed his thumb. "Bring Merle back. Wouldn't be the same round here without that dickhead."

"Yea. Be quieter fer sure." He chuckled, smiling fondly at the girl. Phoenix reached up and pulled at Daryl, forcing him to brace himself against the ledge as she hugged him with one arm against her chest. Daryl slowly relaxed enough to enjoy her closeness and leaned his head on top of hers.

"Please come back." She whispered into his ear as he pulled back slightly, his eyes flitting around camp to make sure no one was witnessing the exchange. He nodded lightly into her neck, his arm coming to loosely hold her waist. He breathed in her soothing subtle scent and closed his eyes to help him memorise thee moment, just in case. He cleared his throat and pulled away, feeling a certain part of his anatomy starting to stir. She smiled weakly at him with teary eyes and walked away.

"Hey!"

Phoenix turned slightly, the breeze making her hair wave over her face softly. Thee sun shining behind her making her hair look like flames licking across the crown of her head. The bruises and cuts across her face hidden in the shadows of her face and hair. So beautiful Daryl thought, smiling slightly. His mind locking the sight into his memory as he stood and waved to her.

"Stay safe!" He called to her, she nodded and waved back. Her cheeks tinting pink at his loud show of concern as she smiled softly.

#the walking dead fanfiction #PhoenixBWrites #daryl dixon fanfiction #daryl x oc #Fera Ingris #DarylDixon #daryl dixon x oc #the walking dead fanfic #daryl dixon fanfic #twd fanfiction

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miceandmonsters · 4 years

Text

Orc Boyfriend - Ronar

Male orc x female reader; 5.5k

friends to lovers; first time

You met Ronar first year of college, bonding during a particularly frustrating class taught by an elf who thought a tweed blazer made him a good teacher. What started as mostly the two of you attempting to teach yourselves the required material and swearing creatively, bloomed into your closest friendship during school--one that even lasted past graduation. It, of course, helped that you’d stayed in the same city, both finding jobs and setting up lives less than twenty minutes from each other. You texted or spoke nearly every day and hung out almost as often.

More than once, over the years, both of your families had wondered/pestered about why the two of you weren’t more than friends. Your response never varied over the years. Ronar would always shoot you a pointed look, and you’d return with an exaggerated eye roll that would make him laugh quietly, and the conversation would move on. What you had with Ronar was good. After seeing more than one of your friends from school marry and then end up broken-hearted but a few years later, you were grateful to have Ronar’s dependable, constant, warm presence in your life. And you were nearly able to convince yourself that it was enough.

Nearly.

It was the little things about Ronar that felt the most damning. His loose smile right when he was on the cusp of tipsy to drunk. How he held open doors and helped carry groceries and picked things from tall shelves for you and anyone else he ever came across in need of help. The way the artfully selected beads in his dark braided hair glinted in the sunshine. His ass in wet swim trunks--you were only human after all and you thanked every god you’d ever heard of that he was definitely not. His serious expression when he was concentrating on his work, eyebrows knitted together and one thumb idly pressing against a tusk. It all added up to you being helplessly fallen for your best friend.

You probably should have said something already. You probably should have said something five years ago, honestly. Because now it felt like there was too much momentum, you were going too fast, too steady to try and jump tracks now. Couldn’t seem to quite get that thought through your thick head, but you were working on it. Or at least trying.

In the meantime, however, you promised yourself that you wouldn’t let your wildly inconvenient feelings compromise your friendship with Ronar. He obviously didn’t feel the same, but he was still very nearly the most important person in your life. So you were there for him, through thick and thin, doing your best to deny your heart and support him like he supported you.

You had plans to go see a movie together one night after work, when he texted you as you pulled into the parking lot of your apartment complex.

‘hey. would you be sad if i don’t want to go see that movie tonight?’

You frowned and dashed off a reply. ‘not really. everything okay?’

‘work was shit. dont feel like going anywhere.’

‘why don’t you come to my place? I can make spaghetti with pink sauce’

The little typing bubble appeared and disappeared a few times as you got out of our car and headed to your front door. Just inside your apartment, you got a reply.

‘i do like pink sauce’

‘see you soon’

You dropped your purse in its usual pile near the front door and headed to the kitchen, opening up the pantry cabinet to pull down--crap. You scoured through a few other cabinets, hoping that perhaps you’d just somehow overlooked or misplaced the required ingredients. Unfortunately, you had not. You were completely out. And there were only three ingredients to begin with. You dashed back to your purse and barely remembered to lock the door behind you before you ran to your car to go to the nearest grocery store.

Of course there were a million other people also trying to get last minute dinner supplies as well at the store. But you returned to your apartment in record time, noticing that Ronar’s car was parked a few spaces down. Thank gods you gave him the spare key when you moved in.

You stepped through the front door to find Ronar splayed across your couch, as if he’d crossed the threshold and taken all of five steps before dropping face first into the cushions. Bad day at work indeed.

“Hey, Ro,” you said in a low voice. There was some sort of muffled return of the greeting. “Had to stop by the store real fast… you good?”

His hand lifted up to form a thumbs up for a second, then dropped back down to its place on the carpet.

“Okay.” It would be amusing if he wasn’t miserable. You went into the kitchen and set about the familiar pattern of spaghetti and pink sauce. After a few minutes, Ronar wandered into the kitchen, frowning at life in general and still in his work clothes. You hardly ever saw him in a suit. It was a good look on him.

He joined you, leaning against the counter across from the stove, arm brushing your shoulder in the process.

“Do you want to talk about it?” you asked, tipping your head to look up at him.

He loosened his tie and a long sigh. “Not really. Just… the usual bullshit.” He shrugged off his suit coat, tossing it and the tie haphazardly to your kitchen table.

You patted his arm. “That sucks. Do you… want a hug then?”

He looked over then nodded, wrapping you in a tight hug and tucking his face into your hair. Hugging your orc best friend was one part being wrapped in the most comforting grip you’ve ever known and one part trying to hold the sun. He was warm and solid and just absolutely the best hugger you’d ever met. You hoped that he found hugging you half as wonderful as you did and at least a little bit soothing. When you pulled back--his hands momentarily sliding across your waist, you noticed--he smiled down at you.

Yeah, you were totally doomed.

“So do you want to hear my plan for tonight?” you asked, turning back to the stove to stir the sauce and keep yourself from making all sorts of embarrassing giggling noises.

“Always,” he replied, coming to stand behind you and resting his chin on the top of your head.

You chuckled, but didn’t push him off. “This will be ready in about ten minutes or so. And I have ice cream in the freezer--it might be a lil freezer burned, but I think it’ll be okay. And I noticed yesterday that that show you like is now streaming.”

“Real Orc Wives of Forik City??”

“Yeah, that one.”

“Oh HELL yes!” He immediately thundered back into the living room. “It’s no Mountain Road Dwarf Truckers, but ROWFC is a classic.”

You heard the noises of him desperately searching for the remote and then the start up noise of your tv. Never down for long, that was Ronar. You smiled down at the sauce as you kept stirring, reminding your wayward, pattering heart that he was always like this.

Shaking it off, you pulled the cheese from the fridge, sprinkling a generous handful into the sauce. Then you pinched a bit more, tipping your head back to sprinkle it into your mouth.

“I saw that,” his voice came from behind you. You glanced over your shoulder, grinning at him.

“You didn’t see nuthin’.” Then you took another pinch. He growled, tossing the remote aside, and jogged back to the kitchen, the obvious intention to steal what was rightfully yours in his eyes. “Nononono--” you protested, trying to block him by turning away and bending over to protect the valuable commodity. But he just leaned over you, laughing and easily engulfing you to snatch the cheese from your hands.

“Hah!” he proclaimed, triumphantly holding his prize over his head and out of your reach.

“That’s not very fair.” You rested your hands on your hips and frowned up at him as he grinned down at you.

“All’s fair in cheese and war.” And then he dumped half the bag in his mouth. Thinking of nothing but reclaiming the bag, you jumped up at him. Finding a foothold at his waist, you hauled yourself up over his broad shoulder as he continued to laugh. You reached for the bag that he was still holding out of your reach, but then--

Your foot slipped. The world lurched backwards. You gasped. Adrenaline shot into your bloodstream.

But Ronar’s large arm swung around your back, catching you before you slammed against the floor. His worried face filled your vision, eyes wide and terrified. For a moment that lasted a thousand years, you both just stayed frozen in that position--him bent over and holding you while you clung to him. Only the sounds of both your heavy breathing filled the air between you two.

Despite the nasty fall you’d almost taken, all your brain could notice was how close his face was. How close his face was, and how full his lips were. You bet that they’d be awfully nice to kiss, even better to nibble on. Your gaze darted from them up to his warm brown eyes and back down. Would he groan? Would he growl? Would he bite you back? Oh gods, you hoped he would.

Stop. This was your best friend, you couldn’t just--

All thought was immediately stopped as suddenly, without any warning at all, Ronar closed the short distance between you. It still took another full second for your mind to catch up with reality and spread the message to the rest of your consciousness that Ronar was kissing you. Ronar was kissing you.

You sucked in a startled breath. You were just starting to notice that his lips were every bit as gentle and supple as you’d ever imagined, when his eyes shot open and he pulled back with a soft ‘pop’. Your world reeled as he abruptly straightened up to standing, pulling you with him. It was all you could do to hold onto his broad shoulders and blink widely at him. Had that just actually happened?

“I’m so sorry,” he said, distraught and shaking a little. He put you back down on your feet and stepped back, hands running through his dark hair. “I don’t-- I shouldn’t have… oh my gods, I’m so sorry.”

He clapped a hand over his traitorous mouth and paced away, still stuttering half-apologies. You, meanwhile, had managed to finally put your head back on your shoulders. Ronar had kissed you. Ronar had kissed you. A very stupid grin spread across for your face for a moment, before you saw him still backpedaling and panicking. You grabbed his arm and made him face you again.

“Ronar!”

“I am so sorry, I don’t know what came over me. We can just pretend that never hap--” You stopped him by smacking your hand over his mouth.

“Do you want to kiss me?” you asked, your voice suddenly gone soft.

He stared down at you for a very long moment, you could see the gears turning in his mind, weighing the potential fall out for every answer. That feeling you certainly understood. But finally, thankfully, he nodded.

A smile broke out across your face. “Then shut up and kiss me.”

Ronar’s eyes went wider still, but he edged the final half-step towards you. His hand traced from your shoulder down to your elbow, your waist. Achingly slow, as if he was worried that he’d somehow spook you, his head dipped down towards you. Finally, your lips met in the kiss you’d spent years dreaming about. And it was better than you’d ever dreamed.

It started gentle, testing almost--wading slowly into this new world you both had apparently been wanting to venture into. But surely, you both relaxed into it, familiarity turning novel in the best way. His hands drifted back to your waist, but quickly slipped around to draw you fully into his arms. You traced your tongue across the seam of his lips, and they opened for you eagerly. The kiss immediately turned deeper, more demanding.

You finally gave in and caught that lucious bottom lip of his between your teeth. He let out a low throaty moan that would fuel your imagination for weeks and picked you up, holding you tight against him. Your legs automatically wrapped around his waist as your fingers threaded through his thick, dark hair.

Dimly, you were aware that Ronar was carrying you through the apartment, making a beeline for your bedroom. Good. Any other destination and you might have had to stop kissing him. As it was, you didn’t stop as he kicked the door open, you didn’t stop as he sat down on your bed, and you didn’t stop as you pressed him back onto the mattress--ending up on hands and knees over him but still kissing.

He pulled you flush against him when he sat up after a minute. You hadn’t had a chance yet to change out of the dress you’d worn to work, so when he sat up you definitely noticed that he was already half-hard inside his slacks. Since he’d responded so well to your nibbling, you pressed your luck and ground against him. He groaned, and his hands moved down from your back to squeeze your ass. Oh gods yes.

Then he broke the kiss. “Is this… actually happening?” he asked, looking wide-eyed at you. You were both panting.

“Dear gods, I hope so,” you answered, leaning back in to press a quick kiss to his tusk and then down along his jaw. He melted momentarily under your attentions, but pulled back again far too soon.

“Do you… want this to happen?” His brows were drawn together in concern, and you could see more than a little trepidation hiding in his eyes. Your heart melted all over again.

You nodded and cupped his cheeks. “I’ve wanted this for a long time.” Despite the world-ending makeout you were halfway through with him, the confession came out a bit bashful. “I want you. All of you.”

A smile broke out across his face along with a breathless laugh. “I-- I thought it was… was just me.”

“That’s what I thought too.”

“We’re both idiots, huh?”

“Yeah,” you agreed quickly before he kissed you again, more exuberance than passion. But it was so wholly Ronar that you couldn’t help but love it. His hands drifted down to the hem of your dress and tugged upon it.

“Take this off then?” he asked, his voice gone just slightly rough.

You rested your arms on his shoulders, fingers twirling through his hair. “What’s the magic word?” you replied, smirking just a little.

He let out a half chuckle, half growl that shot straight to your core and was just entirely unfair. “Take this off now,” he ordered, hands dropping to the backs of your thighs, kneading the flesh slightly.

“Bossy,” you quipped as your toes curled. But you grabbed the hem and pulled the dress off in one fluid motion, tossing it away. His gaze swept over you, and he blew out a long, slow breath, shaking his head slightly.

“Beautiful doesn’t begin to cover it,” he finally said, eyes meeting yours now. “Damn beautiful.”

You would have laughed, but he leaned in and pressed a kiss to the hollow of your throat that somehow sucked all the air out of your lungs, out of the room, out of the world maybe even. His kisses trailed slowly south as his hands moved north from your thighs--squeezing your ass again, apparently he was fond of it--up your back to pull at your bra strap. Gods, yes. You were so eager to really get this party started. But he paused half-way through.

“Is this--” he started to ask.

“Yes!” You interrupted enthusiastically. He grinned and started to lean back towards you for more kisses. You noticed then that you were about to be nearly naked, and he was completely clothed. He kissed around the edges of your bra as you felt him undo the main strap. Somehow, despite his wondrous distractions, you unbuttoned his shirt, stumbling a little on the last few as he slipped your bra off your shoulders.

“Take this off,” you said, tugging on his shirt and not letting him pull your bra the rest of the way off.

“Now who’s bossy?” But he let go of you long enough to unbutton the last button and toss his shirt the way your dress had gone. You’d seen him shirtless a few times before, and it’d always made you weak in the knees. Thank goodness you were already sitting as the hard-packed muscle under deep emerald green skin came into view. You threw your bra off and ran your fingers through the smattering of dark hair in the center, taking in as much of him as you could in a long, quenching gaze.

“You look like you want to eat me,” he said in a quiet voice, half a smile lifting one corner of his mouth. You simply raised an eyebrow in response and thoroughly enjoyed the surprise that washed over his face followed by a low groan. “Why in the seven hells did I not say something five years ago?”

You pushed him back on the bed, kissing up his throat and jaw to catch the pointed tip of his ear between your teeth. His hands gripped your ass again. “Because we’re idiots, remember?” you purred into his ear.

“Right, I forgot.” Tracing your tongue over his ear made him murmur your name, fingers still kneading your flesh. Dipping down you indulged in another long held fantasy, biting his neck--not hard enough to even bruise, just enough to not be a kiss. He let out a toe curling growl and then unceremoniously, pushed you off him and abruptly stood up. You might have been worried that you’d somehow done something wrong if he hadn’t immediately started pulling off his pants.

They were about halfway down his hips when he noticed you looking, admiring really. He grinned. “Enjoying the view?”

You would have had a quip, you always did, if he hadn't dropped his pants right then, gifting you with the stunning view of All of him for the very first time. Very proportional, wonderfully toned, sweet-merciful-gods-was-he-actually-just-sculpted-from-marble All of him.

“Fuck,” you managed, staring wide-eyed.

He was so beautiful when he laughed. He was even more beautiful as he prowled up the bed towards you, intention burning in his eyes.

“Are you always commando under your work pants?” you asked, physically having to pull your eyes away from him for a moment.

“Does it turn you on if I say yes?”

“Yes.”

He cupped your face and gave you a look that made you know his answer was going to be snarky. “Sorry to disappoint you, I’m just between laundry cycles.”

You sighed and shook your head. “A crushing blow.”

He kissed your cheek. “How will you survive it?” Then your jaw.

“Barely, but elegantly.” Your ear. Your neck. Words were… more difficult, but you pressed on. “They’ll… they’ll make a Lifetime movie about me. Your aunt will want to watch it.”

He paused his trail down your body to grin up at you and laugh in his throat, affection in his gaze. Then he resumed his frankly miraculous work, settling down on his stomach before burying his face into your breasts with a contented sigh. For a long moment, he just remained there, kissing softly, his breath sliding across your skin. Then he lifted his hand and took your breasts gently in hand. He rolled the soft flesh under his palms, circling thumbs over your nipples. His expression was utterly enraptured.

“I’ve been wondering what you looked like, felt like for years,” he said in an nearly apologetic tone. Your response was cut off when he captured a nipple between his lips and suckled, before nipping ever so lightly, making you jolt up and gasp in response.

“Fuck, Ro.”

“Not yet. I want to savor this.” He punctuated his sentence by running his tongue from one breast to the other, making a very undignified whine come from the back of your throat.

“You think you’re very clever, don’t you?”

He answered by taking the other nipple in his mouth and sucking soundly while looking up at you. Damn, that should be illegal. Then he pulled back with a soft ‘pop’. “You love it.”

Your fingers threaded into his thick hair, and, in lieu of saying something terribly honest right now, you pulled him back up for a bruising kiss. He settled down next to you, and his fingers plucked at your underwear.

“You mind if I take these off?” he asked, running a finger just under the band.

“Please.” And finally the final barrier between you two was removed. He caught you in a deep kiss, tongue caressing over yours artfully, as the tips of his fingers traced up your inner thigh. His hand cupped you, making you groan into the kiss--it’d been so damn long since it was anyone else’s fingers down there but yours. Much less anyone that you’d wanted like him. Then he parted your folds, both of you sighing as he discovered how wet you already were. His forehead rested on your temple as he carefully mapped you, skimming and teasing and making you whimper all at the same time.

He started indirectly, taking the undulations of your hips and soft cries as guidance for how you wanted to be touched. You gripped his arm, curling in towards him. Gentle yet insistent, his fingers circled your clit, building sparks of pleasure that were quickly catching flame. But still, it wasn’t quite enough.

“Ro, please,” you whimpered, pressing a needy kiss to his jaw. “Please. I--I want you inside me.”

He shifted his hand so a thumb was pressed to your clit and you sighed a long breath as he slipped one finger inside you, thick enough to feel filled with just that. Still--

“Not what I meant,” you huffed, rocking your hips to set a tempo.

He chuckled and kissed your hair. “I know what you meant. We’ll get there. But I want to see you cum first.” You looked up, meeting his intense, hungry gaze. “I want to know that I was the one who made you feel that good.” That made you clench around his finger, and he sped up the pace a little more.

You were so close already, you could feel the coil tightening in your lower stomach. And though his plan sounded pretty damn good, you wanted to do something first. You wrapped a hand around his heavy cock that was trapped between you, and he groaned.

“Cheater,” he hissed, his hips bucking as his fingers stilled.

“You knew this already. You’ve played Battleship with me.”

“Longest Sunday of my life.”

In retaliation, he added a second finger inside you and pressed against your front wall, distracting you thoroughly from anything else other than his wonderful fingers.

“Ronar,” you cried, your voice quivering as a shudder ran down your spine. Nearly there--

“That’s it. Cum for me, love. Please.” Somehow it was the ‘please’ that finished you off. Your orgasm shot from your core, cascading down your limbs, making you clench and let out an inhuman noise as you quaked. But Ronar was right there, holding you through it, coaxing every last bit of pleasure from you.

Till eventually, you grabbed his hand, stilling his movements immediately. He kissed your temple again and slipped his fingers from you, just holding you as you panted and came back down to earth. Somehow in all your fantasies, you hadn’t thought about how wonderful this part would be. Afterglow felt very literal in his arms. Ronar was wrapped around you, his lips on your temple, his fingers tracing a mindless pattern across your hip. It was just so good. Eventually, drowsily, your eyes opened, and your hand skimmed up his arm. He was smiling when you looked up at him.

“Was that good?” he asked, honestly. “It looked good.”

You chuckled and nodded. “It was good.”

“Good,” he said, kissing you softly and pulling you closer. His hand slipped up into your hair as he kissed you, again and again, never rushed, never hurried. He was an even better kisser than he was a hugger or anything else. You thought for a minute that you could happily die here, just spend the rest of your days being kissed by Ronar and held in his arms. Till you shifted closer to him and you felt his still hard cock brush against your thigh. Ooh, right, you had better plans than even this.

You spread your legs just enough for him to slip between them, and he pulled back with a hiss. His breathing had just shifted to something deeper as he looked at you.

“Ready to go again?” you asked, smirking a little. Your hand trailed down his side to mimic his earlier actions across his hip, so close but not quite there.

He nodded. “Please. I want… you. I want you.” There was such earnestness in his eyes that you stopped teasing him for a moment, and, in fact, you had to kiss him for it. But the time for sweet and slow was over for now, this kiss was heat and desire and left you both breathless.

“How do you want me?” you asked between kisses you pressed along his jaw.

He pulled you on top of him and then sat up--the casual show of his immense strength was still toe-curling--putting you at eye level with him in his lap. “Like this?” he asked, a hand cupping your cheek. “I want to see your face.”

“Gods, Ronar…” You shook your head and laughed just a little.

“What?”

“You! You’re just…” You struggled to find a word to encapsulate it all, but had to give up. “Wonderful doesn’t even begin to describe.”

His thumb stroked your cheek for a moment, then he added, “How about damn wonderful?”

That made you laugh as you kissed him again, your arms wrapping around his neck. He groaned as his length was trapped between you, but he just held you close. Then suddenly he jerked back.

“Crap, do you have any condoms? Or--or…” His eyebrows knitted together in worry. “I guess I can run down to the store--”

“Ro,” you said, stopping his worry spiral. “I’m on the pill, it’s okay.”

“Right.” He heaved a breath and offered you a lopsided smile in apology.

You chuckled. “You really think you could have fit back in your pants right now?” To emphasize your point, you took him in hand and circled your thumb over the head.

“It wouldn’t have been--shit, oh don’t stop--p… pleasant. But I’d do it for--” The sentence drifted off as you lifted yourself up on your knees, moving with obvious intent.

Ronar’s eyes were wide and wondrous as he looked up at you, both of you hovering in the moment of anticipation. You memorized his face, never wanting to forget it at this exact second. Then you sank down upon him.

It was a slow process as even with your preparation, he was still larger than anyone else you’d ever been with and you weren’t looking for any painful sensations right now. But you found yourself slowing down even more just to watch the revelations wash over Ronar’s face. Pleasure looked perfect on him.

It was more than a minute before he was fully inside you, your hips flush to his. He pulled you close, hands rubbing across your back as he murmured gentle half-phrases of encouragement and compliments.

You took it slow at first, more rocking than anything else. Just focusing on every sensation that you were feeling right now--his hands on your back, his breath on your neck, his chest pressed to yours. Though you were going for barely a minute before he whispered, “Wait.”

You immediately stopped, meeting his gaze. “You okay?” you asked.

He nodded. “Just changed my mind.”

You didn’t have a chance to be concerned as he quickly lifted you up and set you back on the bed, leaning over you and kneeling between your splayed thighs. “Mind if I lead?” he asked, pressing a kiss to your cheek.

You smiled. “By all means.”

He kissed you once more then guided himself back to your entrance, pressing in slowly and watching your face intently. But you were ready for him--desperate might have been the better word. When he was fully sheathed, you pulled him down so he was resting on his elbows. You were surrounded, protected, safe and adored under him. And as he rocked into you, a relieved sigh left you. His gaze never left yours as he built up a rhythm and you did your best to match it. But soon he out paced you, so you hooked your heels around his waist and let him wash over you.

You couldn’t believe that this was finally actually happening. You’d wanted him for so long and now here he was--in your bed, between your thighs, looking at you like you were the world’s most beautiful sunset as he was driving you to your second earth-shattering orgasm of the evening. The waiting and the longing and the heartache just made it all seem so much sweeter as he dipped down to kiss you.

“Ronar,” you whispered, your voice tight with emotions and delayed gratification. “I--I--”

“I know, love.” He pressed his forehead to yours, eyes closing and brows furrowing in concentration. “I’m so close. Can you wait for me?”

Your response was just a high-pitched whimper that quickly turned into a prayerful chanting of his name as his pace suddenly picked up. Your grip tightened on his biceps as he neared his peak and you were teetering on the edge of yours.

“Please, please, please, please,” you whined through gritted teeth.

He caught up to you with a kiss, sending you both over the cliff in each other’s arms. You shuddered and cried out as he spilled into you with a heavy moan. For a moment, everything was radiant and glowing and perfect. It was just Ronar and you. Even as reality filtered slowly back in, the world was better than the last time you saw it, surely. It certainly felt like it was.

Ronar relaxed momentarily on top of you, and there was something deeply safe and secure about feeling the weight of his body on yours. His cheek brushed across yours, back and forth, for a minute, and he let out a deeply contented sigh.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, starting to pull himself up and off of you.

“Don’t be. I love this.” And you pulled him back down. His arms slipped under you to hug you tightly, his face buried against your neck, tusks pressing against your skin.

You stayed like that for several minutes, his arms around you, your fingers tracing soothing patterns across his broad back and occasionally slipping up to comb at the ends of his dark hair. It was deeply peaceful there. Though the sound of some very angry hissing coming from the kitchen broke the quiet atmosphere.

“I think dinner might be ruined,” you said with a chuckle.

He lifted his head and grinned down at you. “We can always order something.” He carded his fingers through your hair. “Or I could, um… take you on that date I’ve been meaning to ask you to for a long time.”

A corner of your mouth lifted up. “How long?” you asked, intensely curious.

The deep green blush across his cheeks got a little darker. “Since the first time you rolled your eyes.”

“Wasn’t that like twenty minutes after we first met?”

“Approximately. Yes.” You would have laughed if you didn’t see how serious he was. Oh. He dipped his head to brush his lips across yours. “How about you? Or was it when I kissed you back in the kitchen?”

You shook your head slightly. “Remember back in junior year where we stayed up all night talking at the picnic table and then got donuts right when the shop opened at 4 am?”

He nodded.

“You had whipped cream on your cheek and bags under your eyes. And the sun was rising behind you. And that was it for me.”

Warmth bloomed in his eyes, and he smiled. “Guess I need to make up for lost time then. Can I take you out this evening?”

“Please.”

Masterlist

[Thanks for reading my first monster boyfriend! <3, mice]

#monster boyfriend #monster lover #orc boyfriend #exophilia #orc #lemon #friends to lovers

751 notes · View notes

cursebreaker-lilith · 4 years

Photo

I only posted her original profile in September, but I’ve changed some stuff and wanted to do a new drawing. Lili was pretty new to me then, and I’ve found her voice a lot more since so it only felt right to have a do over on her profile.

This is all up to the beginning of year 6.

EDIT: Some formatting changes made 5-12-21

BASICS

Name: Lilith Silvia Vesta Brooks

Nicknames: Lili, Pipsqueak, Pip

Name Meaning: Lilith references a figure from Jewish folklore, Silvia comes from her grandmother’s name and references a figure from Roman mythology, Vesta was also chosen by her grandmother and references the Roman goddess of the hearth.

Gender: Cis Female

Pronouns: She/Her

Age: 16 (Variable depending on what year I’m writing about)

Birthday: October 19th, 1972

Zodiac: Libra

Blood Status: Half-blood

Ethnicity/Nationality: White Brit

Sexuality: Self identifies primarily with queer but is okay with being called bisexual. Is also probably on both the asexual and aromantic spectrum, but the words for them hadn’t been coined in her time period.

Appearance

Body:

Height: 165cm / 5′5

Build: Average to stocky, hourglass shape

Eyes: A bright yellow-green, noticeably a bit big and round.

Hair: Pale blonde hair that is very thin and fine. She likes doing it up in different ways, from ponytails, to pigtails, to braids. Right before starting her 6th year, she cut her hair short and permed it on an impulse encouraged by her Muggle friends.

Skin: Pale skin that burns easily but quickly fades into a tan

Misc: Small and usually unnoticeable scars scattered across her hands and face from ice in the Ice Vault that will fade wholly with time (most already have by 6th year). Pierced ears--one in each lobe as a teenager but adds more as an adult.

Material Items:

Clothing: As a young child, she tried to keep up with mainstream Muggle fashion. She preferred lots of bright colors, stripes, gaudy jewelry, and scrunchies. Dear lord she loves scrunchies. As she got older however, she began to phase out of the bright colors and mainstream fashion into something which would soon be called grunge. Not completely grunge however as she still loves her statement earrings and scrunchies. Usually wears baggy/non form fitting clothing.

Accessories: Almost always wearing some sort of dangly and obnoxious statement earrings. Always has at least three scrunchies on her person.

In her school bag: Her wand, at least five scrunchies, school books and papers, books Rowan wants her to read, an old crochet penguin for good luck (her first attempt at crochet animals), crochet hooks and yarn, journal and papers related to Cursed Vault plans, at least three cool looking rocks she found on the ground.

Reference:

Face Claim: N/A

Voice Claim: N/A

Personality

Traits:

+ loyal, friendly, extroverted, responsible, mature, kind, adaptable, quick learner, resourceful, hopeful, courageous

+/— determined, good liar, intense, clever, intelligent, independent

— obsessive, untrusting, secretive, forceful, quick temper, angry, abrasive, single minded, rule breaker, rude, spiteful

Description:

Lili has a lot of pent up anger and a quick temper. She’s angry at her family, at authority, at the world. She’s not good at processing this anger and thus tends to lash out at people very often and often very cruelly and violently. She knows this and tries to keep in check but isn’t very good at doing so even as she ages. Because of her anger, she also tends to keep grudges for quite a while, even for stupid or petty reasons and is slow to admit she’s wrong.

In a better world, she would be known for her friendliness. Lili can be very friendly and relaxed. She talks first and makes a judgement second, trying to be as open minded as possible. She’s very casual yet polite and likes people being the same back to her.

Lili is determined in a way that tends towards the negative. Her laser focus on things tend to quickly become obsessions if someone she trusts doesn’t intervene quickly enough.

After her mother stopped being a parent towards her at a young age, Lili learned to take care of herself quickly. She’s become clever and resourceful in her steps to becoming independent. It’s left her mature and responsible for her age, but also untrusting and secretive, convinced she can do it on her own (or with Rowan only).

Lili is very loyal to those that earn her loyalty. For those she cares about, she would do anything. If you do something to lose that loyalty, expect harsh treatment after if Lili even deigns to speak to you. She’s not afraid of cutting people out of her life if they betray or anger her.

Other:

Likes: crafts (crochet, knitting, sewing), Rowan and Barnaby, scrunchies, dangly earrings, being busy, collecting things, fashion

Dislikes: Merula and Ismelda, Rakepick, Snape, most other Slytherins, people who get in her way, Dumbledore, Doctor Who after the 5th Doctor, not getting enough sleep, flying class

MBTI: ESTP

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Hogwarts

Hogwarts House: Slytherin

OWL Classes:

Astronomy: 6/10 (E)

Charms: 9/10 (O)

DADA: 9/10 (O)

Flying: 2/10 (A)

Herbology: 3/10 (A)

History of Magic: 2/10 (A)

Potions: 4/10 (A)

Transfiguration: 7/10 (E)

OWL Electives:

Ancient Runes: 9/10 (O)

Arithmancy: 6/10 (O)

Care of Magical Creatures: 6/10 (O)

NEWT Classes:

Ancient Runes: 9/10 (O)

Arithmancy: 6/10 (E)

Charms: 9/10 (O)

DADA: 9/10 (O)

Transfiguration: 7/10 (E)

Extracurriculars:

Clubs: Dueling Club (3rd-4th year), Fencing Club (2nd-5th year), Transfiguration Club (occasionally from 2nd year on)

Quidditch: N/A

Prefect or Head Boy/Girl: N/A

Best Classes:

Charms It’s the one class she’s very naturally talented at. She never needs to study much, but she barely has to try with Charms. Someday she’ll beat Ben and be the best in their year at the class.

Defense Against the Dark Arts She’s not good at this because of any professor, she’s good at this because of her excursions into the Cursed Vaults giving her practical knowledge.

Worst Classes:

Flying Listen, if people were meant to fly, then they’d have wings, or a spell letting people properly fly would be created by now. Lili will be staying on the ground, thank you very much.

Herbology She’s lived in the city her whole life and being around so many plants is strange. She doesn’t hate the class, but she does use it to catch up with her friends rather than study.

Potions She doesn’t have the patience for potions, and that’s even when she doesn’t have Snape refusing to acknowledge her existence.

Favorite Professors:

Flitwick She thinks Flitwick is great. There’s not much more to say. He’s responsible but not smothering, and still thinks well of her brother. If she ever had to pick an adult to trust, it would be Flitwick.

Kettleburn She had taken Care of Magical Creatures because Rowan had wanted a third elective and Lili didn’t want to take Muggle Studies or Divination. However, she ended up loving the class and thinks Kettleburn is hilarious. She honestly wished she could take the class NEWT level, but her schedule was already full.

Least Favorite Professors:

Snape She has a very complicated relationship with Snape. He hates her because of her brother (who he did not get along with), because she reminds him of James Potter, and because her nickname, Lili, reminds him of his lost love Lily Evans every time he hears it. Lili, of course, does not know any of this and thinks he just hates her for no reason. Jacob thought he was a Death Eater (he got that from whispers older kids who Jacob knew were definitely Death Eaters), so Lili uses that as justification to not like him.

Rakepick She never trusted her and barely liked her, even before she became a professor. Her opinion didn’t go improve any time in fifth year.

Magic

1st Wand: Blackthorn, unicorn hair, 11 3/4 in, shiny and slightly flexible

“Blackthorn, which is a very unusual wand wood, has the reputation, in my view well-merited, of being best suited to a warrior. This does not necessarily mean that its owner practises the Dark Arts (although it is undeniable that those who do so will enjoy the blackthorn wand’s prodigious power); one finds blackthorn wands among the Aurors as well as among the denizens of Azkaban.”

2nd Wand: Aspen, phoenix feather, 12 in, fairly rigid

“In my experience, aspen wand owners are generally strong-minded and determined, more likely than most to be attracted by quests and new orders; this is a wand for revolutionaries.”

Special Abilities: Natural Legilimens, Occlumency

Boggart

Form: Jacob telling her she’s useless and unwanted and that everything she’s doing is for nothing.

Riddikulus: Has not found anything yet that works

Amortentia

What they smell: the Owlery, Standard Ingredient, and something else, something she can’t figure out

What they smell like to others: Lavender, hot chocolate, campfire smoke

Patronus

Form: A goshawk. Independent and intelligent hunters who focus intently on stalking their prey.

Memory: A childhood memory of going to a fair. Jacob looked after her the entire night, and it’s one of the last times she remembers seeing both of her parents laugh.

What they see in the Mirror of Erised: Herself with her family–Jacob is there and looks like how she remembers him, and her mother and father are holding hands and smiling. As she ages, her mother and father are phased out of the image and replaced by her friends, her new family.

FAMILY

Father: David Brooks

Muggle

b. 1943

Works at an accounting firm.

In theory, he was alright with magic and the wizarding world. In practice, it unnerved him more than he could say. When his children started doing accidental magic, and when Jacob came home from Hogwarts talking about nothing but spells and magic, that was it for David. He filed for divorce in 1980 and hasn’t spoken to his ex-wife or children since. He has since married to a fellow Muggle, treating her children as his own and speaking rarely of his biological children. He doesn’t even know Jacob disappeared.

Mother: Carina Flora Brooks (nee Braddock)

Pureblood

b. 1944

Ravenclaw

Works for a wizarding travel magazine as a photographer, travels around the world frequently

She was perhaps not meant to be a mother, and would have been happier following in her brother’s shoes of travelling the world with no responsibilities. However, her mother was insisting she marry and Carina, in a fit of rebellion, decided to marry a nice Muggle she knew instead of the purebloods her mother had picked out.

Carina was never very good with either of her children, and in particular could never get along with Jacob, resorting to abuse (emotional and physical) to try to get him to behave how she wanted. Despite this, she totally shut down when Jacob disappeared, feeling like a failure. This led to her severely neglecting her daughter to wallow in her own misery day and night. It also led to an irrational hatred of Hogwarts. She refuses to read any letters sent by them and has made several subtle attempts to make Lili miss the Hogwarts Express.

Brother: Jacob Seraphinus Ulysses Brooks

Half-blood

b. March 8th, 1967

Slytherin

Currently missing.

Never able to make friends easily or keep his mouth shut, Jacob always had a hard time fitting in, so he turned to books. He preferred fiction over nonfiction, but one history book’s mention of Cursed Vaults on Hogwarts’ grounds led to a search that would dominate his, and his sister’s, life.

He was an outcast in his house and Hogwarts, besides for a few acquaintances, and instead focused on reaching his goals. He was reckless and brave (the Sorting Hat considered putting him in Gryffindor), but obsessive, secretive, and increasingly dependent on the idea of “the end justifies the means.”

Grandfather: Ambrose Braddock

Pureblood

b. 1903

Ravenclaw

Deceased

Known for being Britain’s first natural Legilimens in a century. The Braddock family is known for being a line of natural Legilimens, but none in the family had had the ability in five generations before Ambrose was born. This ended up leading to an offer of marriage from the Malfoy family who wanted the connection to this rare ability. Later realized his grandson was also a natural Legilimens, but died before he could teach Jacob more than the basics on how to control it and never realized his granddaughter also had the ability.

Died of sickness in 1975 at age 72

Grandmother: Silvia Braddock (nee Malfoy)

Pureblood

b. 1911

Slytherin

Never worked, has always been a housewife

Your typical upper class, conservative grandmother. She may not believe that strongly in pureblood mania anymore, but she still believes in things like “children should be seen, not heard,” and corporal punishment. Was in an arranged marriage to Ambrose and never really grew to love him feeling she was marrying beneath her Malfoy heritage. Fairly reclusive nowadays, only entertaining old friends for brunch and going to the occasional pureblood party.

Uncle: Victor Felinus Braddock

Pureblood wizard

b. 1940

Gryffindor

Has a different job every few months, deosn’t really needs to have one and his work ethic shows that

Considered a fun uncle by his nephew, and an annoyance by his niece. Has a lot of stories, and a slight drinking problem. While his mother was annoyed at him for having a dalliance with a Muggle-born, she was even more furious that he refused to marry Suzie. Victor didn’t want to be tied down, and left her to raise their two daughters only appearing in their lives every few years.

Cousins: Donna and Caroline Jones

Half-bloods

b. 1960 and 1975

Both Gryffindor

Welsh

Their mother Susan Jones was a Muggle-born Sorted into Gryffindor in the same year as Victor Braddock. The two have had an on again, off again relationship since their Hogwarts years that has resulted in two daughters.

Donna was sorted into Gryffindor in 1971 (meaning she would have been roommates with Lily Evans which is a coincidence I swear) and it’s easy to see why. She’s confident, brash, and blunt. She has many problems with her father and refuses to interact with that side of the family. Works in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement for the Ministry.

Caroline is the opposite of her much older sister and was surprised to find herself in Gryffindor (Sorted there in Lili’s 3rd year). She’s timid and quiet, but with a backbone hidden underneath. She wilts at any negative tones, but is always ready to extend a hand to anyone who has hurt her, even multiple times.

Step family: Sabina Brooks, Ioan and Luca Ciobanu

Muggles

b. 1949, 1975, and 1980

Immigrants from Romania to England

After divorcing Carina, David began dating Sabina shortly after and later married her, acting as a father to her two young children. The four of them live together in London.

Pets:

Alfred An easily frightened black cat that once belonged to Jacob

Doctor Hoot A large barred owl that frequently forgets it’s an owl and not a lapdog

FRIENDS

Best Friends:

Rowan Khanna Her best friend!! She originally befriended Rowan because Rowan reminded her of her muggle friend, but it soon blossomed into a different, much closer relationship. Whenever Rowan is gone, Lili doesn’t really know what to do (”I’m going to cut all the sleeves off my robes.” “Why??” “Rowan left an hour ago and she’s like 85% of my impulse control.”) and Lili would never have made it through any of the Cursed Vaults without her. She probably also would have gotten expelled for brawling and dueling in like second year without Rowan. I’m not joking about that impulse control thing.

Barnaby Lee Lili didn’t like Barnaby at first. Even before he worked for Merula, she thought he was nothing more than a stupid jock and made fun of how Snape would pick on him in Potions. Then she actually talked to him and did a complete 180. “I’ve only known Barnaby for an hour, but if anything happened to him, I would kill everyone in this room and them myself.” She liked how sweet and genuine he was despite his awful upbringing. He’s always there to support her, and she’s really grown to love him for that. He once thought he had a crush on her, but it wasn’t really romantic (”The feeling was friendship but he had never experienced it before.”).

Good Friends:

Bill Weasley He’s like the big brother Jacob should’ve been. She was not thrilled to have a complete stranger helping with the Vaults, but in hindsight she’s so very glad she listened to Rowan. Lili isn’t sure she could have gotten half of what she’s done done without Bill’s help and steadfastness.

Charlie Weasley Their friendship kind of crept up on Lili. Charlie was closer friends with Ben and Barnaby, so while Lili had a passing familiarity with him before the Forest Vault, she wouldn’t have called them friends. She was surprised when she turned out to really enjoy his company when he started helping with the Cursed Vaults.

Chiara Lobosca Chiara was someone Lili tangentially knew due to people confusing them for each other (the hair color; once Chiara hits a growth spurt and Lili doesn’t people stop). Then Lili is forced to partner with Chiara in Herbology in 3rd year, and besides seeing her Herbology grade go up the slightest bit, she finds a friend in Chiara, appreciating the girl’s seemingly infinite kindness.

Friends:

Nymphadora Tonks They get along in classes, but Lili doesn’t trust Tonks with anything serious.

Liz Tuttle The two have many overlapping friends but don’t really hang out with each other.

Badeea Ali She really respects Badeea, but they just don’t have many reasons to be around each other.

Jae Kim Lili thinks he’s hilarious and very smart, but doesn’t trust him as far as she could throw him.

It’s Complicated:

Ben Copper Probably the most complicated relationship here. She befriended him out of pity and continued their friendship because of his skill at Charms. He’s had a crush on her since they were 11 when she stood up for him which no one had ever done before. Then the Red Robed Wizard Reveal tm happened and Lili dropped him and ignored him, though he tried to make it up to her. 6th year only drives a deeper wedge between them as Lili can’t stand his recent behaviour. Ben finally confessing about his love for Lili in 6th year didn’t help mend anything either.

Tulip Karasu After finding out that Tulip had purposefully not told her about Jacob’s room, Lili instantly decided she was an undesirable but necessary ally. Lili does not like Tulip for most of their time at Hogwarts as she’s really pissed that someone would keep her brother’s things from her. Lili will talk to her about the Cursed Vaults, but they do not hang out and Lili does not consider her a friend. This really, really hurts Tulip’s feelings but Lili doesn’t really care. The relationship does get a bit better in 6th year, but it’s never going to be a close one. In a better world without the Vaults, they’d probably get along smashingly as while Lili isn’t a prankster, she has no problem egging them on.

Love Interests:

Penny Haywood Her first, longest, and most confusing crush. She was wary of Penny at first. Popular girls were rarely that 100% nice, but Penny truly was. She also had a nice smile and pretty hair and soft hands…. It took Lili quite a while (like four years and Bill telling her) to figure out it was a crush and then….she did absolutely nothing. She panicked and stopped talking to Penny for a while before sheepishly apologizing when Penny confronted her. They went to the Celestial Ball together, but “as friends.” That did not stop them from having a Moment that Lili interpreted completely wrongly and she assumed Penny didn’t like her romantically. Penny in fact did, and since Lili never reacted to their Moment in the proper way, Penny assumed that Lili wasn’t interested. The two continued having crushes on each other for the rest of their time at Hogwarts and remained close friends after they both graduated.

Talbott Winger Her second, less confusing, crush. Similar to Barnaby, Lili didn’t think much of Talbott at first. He was that one kid who was talented at Transfiguration and she once saw him chatting casually to an owl in the Owlery. He was weird and she ignored him. Then she was paired with him on a class assignment in 3rd year and a friendship bloomed despite Talbott’s protests. It was a casual thing at first, but then Lili helped Talbott find his mom’s necklace, and their talk under the stars about family and the past and future deepened their friendship. Having already figured out she had a crush on Penny by this time, she managed to get the signs that she now also had a crush on Talbott, which made her panic, again. However, since Talbott is even worse with emotions than her, she didn’t do anything drastic like she did with Penny. They went on one date in 6th year but that was going too fast for Talbott and they decided to stay friends until Talbott felt more comfortable being around people. Lili took this….mostly gracefully.

Diego Caplan The two met in the Dueling Club in 4th year. Diego was impressed with Lili’s skill and tried to befriend her and also maybe flirt with her a bit. Lili, who tends to gravitate towards people who are unashamedly themselves, found his over the top flirting hilarious and was instantly endeared to Diego. She really enjoyed being around him, finding his lightheartedness helped her forget some of her troubles with the Cursed Vaults, especially in 5th year. He asked her out on a date, her first one, and she agreed. She enjoyed the date, but 5th year was the peak of her obsession with the Cursed Vaults so she broke it off. They later dated again during 6th year, after Lili’s one date with Talbott.

Dormmates:

Rowan Khanna see above

Desdemona Selwyn An OC. Their entire relationship can be explained with that one text post that’s like “Bitch.” “Blocked.” “Wait unblock me I need to tell you something.” “Unblocked.” “Bitch.”

Vidalia Barrows An OC. Lili has said like two sentences to Vidalia and she plans to keep it that way. Vidalia just eats and sleeps and does whatever Desdemona says to do.

Doesn’t Interact:

Murphy McNully/Skye Parkin/Orion Amari/Erika Rath She’s not involved in Quidditch.

Andre Egwu I just can’t think of a way to work him into the plot lol They would get along somewhat well otherwise.

Enemies:

Merula Snyde Hated each other’s guts for a while. Then Lili gave up her Frog Choir spot and Merula gained a small crush (even if Lili was a total ass about giving it up). While they’ll never be friends, by the time of 5th and 6th year they’ve become reluctant allies similar to Lili and Tulip above. Lili will probably never totally befriend her, but she’s learned to be civil and that’s progress.

Ismelda Murk Lili doesn’t really like Ismelda but she considers her all bark and no bite. Ismelda hates Lili because she thinks Lili and Barnaby are gonna end up dating and is jealous.

Desdemona Selwyn An OC. See above.

Most of Slytherin House Lili has never been shy about being half Muggle and being proud of it, and in a house that still worships Voldemort, that sets her apart. The few that don’t find her being pro-Muggle distasteful don’t want to be exiles in their own dorms and avoid talking to her.

Story

Childhood:

Lili’s childhood was never that great. Her parents fought frequently over her and Jacob’s use of accidental magic, and this eventually caused them to divorce when Lili was 9. Her mother in particular was emotionally and physically abusive but Jacob spared her from the worst of it.

Jacob was always the best part of her childhood. She loved her parents, but Jacob was the person she always looked forward to seeing. When he went to Hogwarts, she was upset for weeks, and when he went missing, she was devastated (especially as he went missing the night of her birthday).

Her mother didn’t take it well. Carina was not particularly close with Jacob, but this obviously big failure of her as a parent hit her hard. She became very emotionally withdrawn from Lili and threw herself into her photography work, leaving the country, and Lili, for weeks at a time.

Lili had to become very independent very quickly after that. That, plus the fact that she didn’t have any non-Muggle friends meant she trusted very few people and lied often. Getting her Hogwarts letter was a relief and a promise of freedom

Hogwarts:

: )

see here: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1467043

Adulthood:

Lili is very distraught after graduation and leaves everyone she knows behind to travel Europe and find herself. She spends several years doing this, helping people and doing odd jobs.

Eventually, she finds that she has a talent for languages, picking up a few easily in her travels, and starts to consider possibly doing something related to language whenever she goes back to Britain.

Miscellaneous

She fuckin loves scrunchies.

Has lived in a Muggle neighbourhood her whole life.

Likes muggle TV. Grew up watching Doctor Who. Not impressed with the 6th Doctor, and glad she was away at Hogwarts during his run. Favorite Doctor is the 4th and she knit herself her own version of his scarf.

Likes collecting things! She loves cool rocks on the sidewalk, tacky tourist souvenirs, and things you find for $1 in a thrift store.

She can knit, crochet and sew. She likes making little crochet animals and giving them to friends (or just keeping them and having a plushy empire around her bed).

Loves having her photo taken and has a whole collection of photos, but hates taking photos. It reminds her of her mother.

One of her Muggle friends got her into fencing. She thought it would be useful to hone her athletic skills with, so she continued doing it when she went back to Hogwarts in the fall.

The type of person who needs to be doing something 24/7. When she doesn’t have anything to focus on, she tends to be all over the place and rather annoying.

Quieter and more complacent as a kid. it was after her family broke apart that the need to be so driven started to become a part of her personality.

Love Like You from Steven Universe is a song for her and Jacob (from Jacob’s POV)

Chameleon by Michela is a song that fits her

Tropes:

Big Brother Worship

Determinator

Family Eye Resemblance

Good is Not Nice

Hair Trigger Temper

Jerk with a Heart of Gold

Parental Neglect

#hphm #harry potter hogwarts mystery #hogwarts mystery #hphm mc #jacob's sibling #jacobs sibling #lili brooks #art be mine #this is super long lol #pls enjoy #texttexttext post

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jafndaegur · 5 years

Text

Never Far Away - Chapter Ten

Strange Things

*✭˚･ﾟ✧*･ﾟ*✭˚･ﾟ✧*･ﾟ* *✭˚･ﾟ✧*･ﾟ*✭˚･ﾟ✧*･ﾟ* *✭˚･ﾟ✧*･ﾟ*✭˚･ﾟ✧*

Rubbing his face and trying to dispel any visible stress from his features, Sesshomaru paced back and forth as the damned kitsune sitting unabashedly in front of him continued his mischievous grin. Stopping for a moment, the Goblin turned on his heel and gave a sharp look to the fox. Said fox blinked and gave an innocent look before pointing to himself as to ask, ‘oh, someone’s in trouble? Wait, who me?’

“Let this one surmise what you had been thinking, kit,” the former daiyoukai sighed, massaging his temples. “You told another cursed creature like myself—a creature with uncanny resemblance to my idiotic half-brother—that he could live here under rent?”

“Oh no, not at all, Sessh,” Shippou laughed, leaning forward on his knees and winking. “I told him he is going to live here. He already paid the first month’s rent.”

The atmosphere when frigid as the Goblin glared at the fox. There were several nerves in the white-haired male that seemed visible as he tried rigidly maintained his failing composure. There was very little restraint left. His heir was driving him up a wall he could not escape and he was furious. Clenching his fists and trying to make his smile as aggressive as he could, he crossed his arms over his chest, making his stance dominant.

“He paid rent for what? A house that this Sesshomaru lives in?” he demanded.

The kitsune giggled. “Of course. You’ve got a roommate now!”

Lunging forward, the Goblin set his hands to strangle the youkai. With a squeal, Shippou hopped out of the way and rolled onto the floor, his five tails waving ecstatically as he looked onto the previous dog demon. He gave an appeasing glance before forming illusions of himself to surround the furious magic user. Snarling with a smirk, Sesshomaru enjoyed a good challenge set before him. It was just like hunting.

“Now now, Sesshomaru, think rationally,” the fox gulped, noticing the predatory look from the other; he shifted nervously. Not sure if he should pounce or flee.

“Hah! Just like you rationally leased my house out?” Sesshomaru jumped from his spot on the couch and tackled the real kitsune, laughing because even despite his disadvantage of no longer being a youkai, he could still force the other demon to submit.

“Ahhh, uncle uncle!” The fox cried out, his breath hitching when the Goblin kneed one of his tails.

A victorious glint in his eyes but a taut drawn mouth, Sesshomaru stood and patted his button-down shirt to smooth out the wrinkles before dusting off his pinstripe trousers. Giving a groan of defeat, Shippou rested his forearm over his eyes. Leaning down, the white-haired male flicked the young ginger’s forehead.

“Do not sell what is not yours, kit,” he warned, that hunter’s look back in his eyes.

“Oy, just a fat fucking second,” came an uncouth voice, entering the room. “What do you mean don’t sell what ain’t yours?”

Turning around and facing the white-haired Shinigami, the Goblin rolled his eyes and walked passed him—ignoring the question.

“Hey bastard just wait a fucking minute, dammit!” the male rushed to catch up with him, throwing his baseball cap on his head so that the white locks of his hair turned black and the golden hues of his eyes darkened to brown. “I live here now so it’d be great if you’d explain why you’re here.”

“This Sesshomaru will only speak once on the matter.” Threatening smoke of violet and lilac began to swirl along the Goblin’s body while his eyes blared a beautiful gold. In his hands materialized Bakusaiga, and he held it pointed at the chest of the other. With a surprised look, the capped man stopped with a disgusted curl of his lip. “Do not intrude in the house of a Goblin. So I recommend you get out, Shinigami.”

“I paid my dues, and I can’t just get a damned refund,” growled the Shinigami. “I live here now and you’re just going to have to deal with it.”

Lilac flames burst along the edge of Bakusaiga and he pressed it closer to the offender. The sound of ice crackled and the tip of the sword was met with a layer of frosted air. Almost like a fight among deities. The two glowered at each other.

“What did you say your name was, fool?” Sesshomaru growled, eyeing the intruder.

“Ain’t got one. And even if I did, wouldn’t tell a bastard like you anyway.”

“Well then, Shinigami with no name, excuse yourself when you see fit. Make sure the fox locks up behind you. This one wishes not to see your face ever again near my property.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“This Sesshomaru does not kid.”

That said, the sword disappeared and the Goblin turned away, walking through the front doors. Outraged, the Shinigami chased after him, yanking open the door with fury before realizing that his new landlord had disappeared into thin air. Pulling off his hat with a grunted exhale, he turned around to see Shippou standing sheepishly, his tails twitching. He walked back over the fox with an irritated intake of breath.

“You better start explaining now, brat,” he placed his hands in his pockets, leaning back nonchalantly, “just what the the hell is going on.”

Kagome sat in the booth at Wacdonalds, a tired expression and grimace on her face. Eri, Yuka and Ayume continued to prattle on about the newest gossip of their school. Her ears did not particularly take in anything they were saying. Her hand propped her chin and her gaze wandered out the window, watching people walk back and forth in front of the fast food restaurant. Was it too much to hope that something exciting would happen so she wouldn’t have to deal with them today? Her nerves, since she had seen Sesshomaru, had been particularly short. She wanted more explanation as to why he was here. Also as to why he was missing all of his markings. He had told her he was no longer an Inu daiyoukai, but surely that had to be impossible. Someone couldn’t just stop being what they were. It was a paradox about identity. But sure enough she could trace some youki from him, just not the same youki as before.

It was all very bizarre.

“Were you listening Kags?” Eri asked, a worried look on her face.

Snapping back to reality with her friends, she gave a sheepish look. “Ah, yes, sorry. Who’s together with who now?”

Ayume gave a slightly annoyed sigh. “Jeez, Kagome, it’s like you’ve been your own little world for the past few days now.”

“You just haven’t been your normal self,” Yuka nodded, resting her cheek on the palm of her hand. “Are you okay?”

Reaching across the table, Eri took the miko’s free hand and gently squeezed it. “We’re your friends, Kagome. If something’s wrong, we want you to tell us.”

A small smile pressed her lips, and the young woman couldn’t help but give her friend’s hand a reassuring squeeze in return. “I’m fine guys, I guess I’ve just been feeling under the weather is all. They say the flu is going around in the class under us.”

“The flu?” Ayume tilted her head back before looking a bit shocked. “Oh that’s right! I hope you’re not sick Kagome! Especially when you were so frail in middle school.”

She bit her lip as she tried not to remember all the fake illnesses Jii-jii had come up with as excuses for her not to attend school. Looking back on those times, it seemed rather humourous. But every now and then, some sort of stomach bug or cold would go around the school, and all of her friends would be stern in making sure she took all necessary precautions to not become sick. In all truth, marching around the feudal era with Inuyasha, killing demons—sifting through blood and guts for jewel shards—had given her a rather iron constitution. But no one else knew that.

“I’m sure it’ll be okay,” she reaffirmed. “I think it’s just the tail end of it.”

Her friends exchanged worried glances before they all nodded simultaneously. They gathered up their empty paper cups and hamburger wrappers, the stacked their cardboard fries holders and the trays before making a neat pile of their trash. They smiled generously.

“Let’s call it a day Kagome,” Yuka nodded, gathering the trays in her arms before sliding out of the booth first.

Ayume gathered up the rest before sidling out of the booth as well. “You go on home and get some rest. That way when we go out next, you’ll be your normal energetic self.”

“Guys,” Kagome’s voice felt heavy with gratitude.

“Come on, let’s head out,” Eri gave a pleasant smile, as she finished scooting down the seat.

With a relieved nod of her head, Kagome slid off her side of the booth. However as she stood up, strapping on her purse, a man bumped into her. He tripped over her from behind, stumbling forward with a surprised grunt as he dropped something onto her shoulder. She cringed as the rancid smell of smoke met her nose. The man turned around and cursed at her before stomping away out of the restaurant.

“Could’ve at least apologized, jerk!” Ayume called after the man.

Yuka raised her fist and shook it. “Yeah! Can’t you see the sweet girl trying to leave.”

The smell of smoke still hadn’t left the miko’s nose so she figured the guy must have been a heavy smoker. However, Eri made a surprised gasp, made a motion to the shoulder which the man had dropped something on. She had forgotten.

“Kagome, it’s cigarette!”

Realizing that was the source of the smell, her first instinct was to get it off. With a quick turn of her head, she blew as hard as she could, and the small roll of paper fell to the floor. No longer smoldering, just out completely. Kagome stepped on the ashy thing and smushed it between the toes of her shoe and the floor. Her brow dipped angrily.

“Gah! I hope it didn’t ruin my sweater,” she complained, dipping her shoulder to look at the blackened spot on the blue cable-knit.“What a guy, couldn’t even apologize for doing something so stupid!”

Her friends had gone surprisingly quiet and they looked past her. With a sigh, she figured the man had come back to hear her badmouthing him. Well if that was the case she was going to give him a piece of her mind. Besides, they were in the nonsmoking part of the district anyways, he shouldn’t have been doing something stupid—and it was his fault for bumping into her.

She spun around to meet the very irritated eyes of not the man who had bumped her, but Sesshomaru.

He held between his fingers and placed against his lips, a white porcelain teacup with bluebells decorating the rim. His eyelashes fluttered a tad as he double took his settings. With a sigh, his gold eyes landed on Kagome and his ever-austere expression did not change. She laughed sheepishly, guessing what happened given she blew the stupid cigarette off of herself.

“This one could attest to people not apologizing for their idiotic actions,” he stated lowly, taking a sip from the cup.

With a groan, she slouched back a bit, resting her fingers on her temples. “Look, it was an accident this time.”

“So idiotic and careless.”

“Sesshomaru, that’s not even fair. It was a genuine mistake.”

Her friends began to whisper behind them.

Arching his brow in annoyance, he gave a warning glance to the miko. “Whether or not it was a mistake, woman, you still inconvenienced me greatly. Bringing this one to an establishment such as this.” His eyes observed the bright red paint and the yellow decals, his nose sniffed the fatty smells of meat and grease. “Distasteful, idiotic, and careless.”

“Distasteful?” Yuka piped up, stepping around Kagome. “Now you listen here mister!”

Kagome’s blood froze.

The Goblin took another miniscule drink from his tip cup, turned on his heel, and walked away. Swaying neatly behind him was the tail to his long brown coat, while his newly shined shoes seemed contrast against the stale white tiles. The other girls watched him go, completely stupefied that he would just ignore them. On the front door, the bells rang as he stepped out. Kagome could see the lilac swirls of smoke from before and she decided to do the most sane thing she could think of. Chase after him.

With a quick goodbye and apology to her friends, she ran after him. Her hands hit the glass of the door just before it closed and she swung it open. His head was seen over a small crowd of people as he continued walking along, back to what seemed like a small outdoors cafe.

“Sesshomaru!” She yelled, rushing to him.

He spun around, and for the first time in a long, long time, there was a genuine expression on his face. He was surprised. Slightly thrown off by that, she slowed down to where he had stopped on the small street. She blinked, unsure of what to do before she had a good chance to really see what was happening. Around her, there were crowds of people just like she had seen outside the window of Wacdonalds. However, the people here were definitely not Japanese. They were pale, with varying brown or blonde hair. What’s more was that they were most definitely not speaking Japanese either; it sounded like English to her.

“How...how did you follow this Sesshomaru?” he finally asked, his voice taut.

“I just...ran after you and pushed the door,” she stated in confusion, showing him with her arms outstretched and gave a small pushing motion. “Hey, where exactly are we, Sesshomaru?”

With a small sigh, the white-haired male set his cup down on a brick wall with long stalks of ivy and roses growing along the clay. It was a strange sight. Ivy and roses together in one place, because in Tokyo currently, it was too cold for roses to be in bloom.

“Quebec.”

#sesskag #au: goblin the lonely and great god #inuyasha fanfiction #sesshomaru x kagome #sesshomaru #kagome higurashi #what #oh wow #another update surpriseee

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thee-seb-stan · 6 years

Text

Middle of nowhere

Author: @thee-seb-stan

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x wife!reader

Warnings: fluff mixed with a poor attempt of crack/humor, implied smut, language (slightly, just a word or two)

Word count: 1.600ish

Summary: It’s been a long and exhausting year for Sebastian, shooting and promoting many of his movies with almost no rest at all. So Y/N decides to surprise him with a small trip over Christmas somewhere quiet.

A/N: This was written for @jpat82 ‘s ‘J’s Marvelous Holiday Party Challenge‘ and my prompt was number 27 aka “And where do you think you're going?” “To go shovel the driveway again, or fall on my ass, gravity will decide.”. The prompt is bold in my work. Thank you for letting me participate and enjoy! Also, remember that feedback is always appreciated! ♡

→ Go back to my main masterlist ←

“Honey, I love you but I’m not so sure about my safety with you behind the wheel when it’s snowing outside.”

“Oh, shut up, Stan,” you squeezed his thigh as the man, who owned your heart, sat in the passenger seat, blindfolded and slightly terrified.

“Both hands on the wheel, please,” he grabbed your hand, his warm hand being in contrast with how cold your hands usually were, especially in winter.

A small laugh escaped your lips as you watch Sebastian overreact to your driving, knowing he only did it for fun but there was a part of him that was partly scared. Mainly because he knew what kind of driver you were.

It was just a few days ‘till Christmas and Seb couldn’t stop and relax for a moment. The whole year, you two were apart most of the time with Sebastian travelling around the world, shooting a few new films and promoting the ones which were soon to be released, the only contact you had was through Skype or FaceTime, which wasn’t satisfying enough.

So when he came back home to New York, you were already waiting with two plane tickets to Montana where your parents owned a nice cottage in the middle of nothing. The perfect place for you two to relax and get Sebastian’s mind off. However, Sebastian only knew you were going somewhere, never actually being told where to exactly.

“We’re here,” you smiled and parked the car in the small garage attached to the two-storey wooden house where you were planning on spending at least a week so Seb would relieve some of his stress before the Christmas Eve would come because you had to leave, already having plans on spending that day with Seb’s mom.

“Okay, you can take off the blindfold, honey,” you reassured the brunette who clumsily got out of the car, almost tripping over his feet in the process, and was now standing next to you in front of the front doors.

Without a second, the thin black material was pulled off of his eyes, which were wide with surprise as he took in the house before him.

“What is that?” he couldn’t help but ask while you handed him one of your luggage, already making your way to the doors.

“My grandpa bought it when I was a baby, gave it to my parents as a congratulations gift and now we rarely use the house, mostly because we don’t have much time to hang out in here.”

As you opened the door, a big hall was revealed with doors leading to the kitchen and the living room. The whole place had wooden walls decorated with pictures your family painted over the years, the house was rather old-fashioned than modern, the only modern things were the TV, a notebook and surprisingly good wi-fi.

“Also, when there’s a snowstorm, it becomes impossible to leave, making this a perfect trap,” you added as you turned around to see Seb standing in the doorway, mouth open wide as he took the sign in.

“And did you check the weather to be sure we won’t get stuck?” he asked after a few seconds, putting down your luggage. The black long coat he was wearing was covered with small white dots from the snow falling outside, a few snowflakes decorating his fluffy slightly long hair and beard he grew out over a few months.

You couldn’t help but stare at his beauty, wondering how a girl like you could get this lucky. It was hard for you to wrap your head around it.

The luggage you were carrying fell with a light thud as you walked to Seb, dusting off the snow from his shoulders and giving him a quick peck on his cold lips before you opened his coat and hugged his torso, hiding your arms in his outwear to warm yourself as his arms snuck around your back to bring you closer.

“No,” you mumbled against his chest, “there wasn’t a snowstorm in ages, so…”

→ The next day ←

The living room was filled with a scent of cinnamon and apple, quiet Christmas carols playing in the background as you sat on the couch clad in the red pyjamas with small reindeers all over the pants, leaning against Sebastian as you sipped the hot chocolate, looking at all the flames dancing with each other in the fireplace.

His hand was placed on your tummy underneath your shirt, his soft touch drawing small circles on your skin, raising goosebumps all over your body.

“Remember when you said there wasn’t a snowstorm in ages?” he whispered in your ear before kissing your earlobe.

Both of you looked at the big window, which almost created a glass wall. Everything outside was white, snowflakes falling from the sky, created another layer of snow blanket on the doorstep.

Seb was already outside twice today to shovel the driveway a little so it was possible for you to go from the house to the garage in case you needed to drive away. Unfortunately, with how much snow was coming, it was impossible to drive and none of you wanted to risk it.

It was close to five pm when it started to be dark outside. Seb and you stayed cuddled whole day, he occasionally going to get rid of the snow in the driveway or making you something hot to keep you warm as both of you relaxed and slept through most of the morning and afternoon.

Your husband stopped drawing circles on your skin and gently laid your half-conscious body on the couch, letting you sleep as he rose to put a few logs into the fireplace to keep the room warm. Then, he went to put on his coat, taking the shovel from the corner.

“And where do you think you’re going?” you mumbled against the pillow, opening your eyes to see Sebastian dressed in his black coat, hand already on the handle.

“To go shovel the driveway again or fall on my ass…gravity will decide,” he smiled at you, showing a bright set of teeth.

“You forgot something,” your voice filled the quiet pause as you rubbed your eyes, looking at your man who immediately walked over to you, bending over and pecking your lips.

“You call this a kiss?”

He couldn’t help but laugh a little at you, lying there underneath a thick blanket, your left ring finger decorated with a small but beautiful silver ring with a small diamond in the middle. Sebastian couldn’t wish for someone other than you, a woman who would do anything for him as he would die for you too. He still didn’t believe how lucky he got with you, to have you by his side, supporting him, loving him.

His lips were warm against yours, but his hand felt cold against your cheek as he cupped your face, your lips melting into each other’s as he slipped his tongue in your mouth, a small moan escaping you as he explored your mouth, your tongues dancing with each other in a passionate dance.

As he pulled away, your mouth chasing his as he stood back up but not before giving you another quick peck on lips.

“That’s what I call a kiss,” you mumbled and smiled, looking up at his tall figure towering over you.

His cheeks became pink with your compliment as he smiled at you, turning around to go shovel the driveway before it was too dark.

It took you not even three minutes before you heard a thud, then shouting and after a few seconds, Sebastian barged back inside, his whole back covered in snow as he took his coat off, running his hands through his hair to get rid of snow there.

A laugh escaped your lips as you watch him. He instantly looked at you, a small crease between his eyebrows.

“Did you know it was drizzling overnight? It’s like an ice rink outside.”

“I know.”

You watched him go over to you, taking the blanket away so he could sit down. He took your ankles and brought your legs over his thighs, massaging your feet covered in thick socks your grandma knitted you.

“And you didn’t care to stop me?” he looked at you, mischief evident in his eyes as they ran over your face with a small grin on his bearded face, “y’know I’ll want something as a reward for busting my ass out there, right?”

As he said the last sentence, his whole body hovered over yours as he kissed your neck quickly, his left hand grabbing your hip underneath the blanket as his right hand secured his weight.

“No,” you signed, enjoying the feeling of his lips on your skin, “wanted to see how good you were at skating.”

“Y’know,” he mumbled between kisses as his head dipped lower, now kissing your collarbones, “I don’t skate at all.”

“Yeah,” a small moan erupted from your lips as he gently bit at your exposed skin, his hand sliding underneath your pyjama shirt, resting on your ribcage.

“I’m gonna need something to calm me down now, my ego is bruised,” Seb said between kissing and nibbling your skin to which you couldn’t hold yourself anymore, this time much louder moan escaping your lips as you tangled in his fluffy hair, allowing him to take you right there on the couch in front of the fireplace in a wooden house in the middle of nowhere with Christmas music in the background.

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Across the Frozen Sea ch10

Star Wars the Clone Wars, Ahsoka/Barriss/Riyo

Across the Frozen Sea summary: Ahsoka, Barriss, and Riyo find themselves stranded in the Pantoran Taiga. They must get back to civilization, but the wilds are more dangerous than they realize. If the cold doesn’t get them, the locals will.

First Chapter : Previous Chapter

Chapter 10: The Frozen Sea

Barriss feels sick. She's been sick before, but she's never felt an innate sense of empty urgency that she feels now. The feeling in her hands are deadened at the wrists, like she's been sitting on them long enough for all the blood to flow out. Similarly, where her Force Sense would have billowed beyond her body to fill the immediate room and somewhat beyond, it is now contained within herself. There is her skin, and her clothes on her skin, and the cold air and snow on her face and hands, but there is nothing else. Barriss wakes up disoriented for the lack of the Force. It's like losing a limb.

The culprit is the pair of cuffs clasped around her wrists. It would be a familiar sight, only this time, the cuffs have an electrical component. Even though there is no indication of it; no mark or engraving of any kind, Barriss knows that these cuffs are Force inhibitor cuffs.

This time, Barriss lies on a plane of ice that extends out in all directions until the edges are swallowed in the gloom. Snow falls from the cloudy night sky, blanketing everything in a thick layer of frost. Barriss' cloak already has a thin crust of ice on it. Defiance and its piers are a distant landmark in the gaping expanse of the darkness surrounding her.

Ahsoka lies next to her, and Barriss is startled to find her so close. Without the Force, there is no Force Bond, and despite their physical proximity, there might as well be a chasm yawning between them. Ahsoka is also in the same Force inhibitor cuffs, but she's also draped in chains. They wrap around her shoulders, and her chest and wind down her torso until they reach her hands. Heavy padlocks keep them in place.

Before them is Riyo, who sits upright on the ice. She is cuffed and her feet and ankles are chained to a couple duracrete blocks.

Both Riyo and Ahsoka watch Sprekker Jok, but while the only sign of anger on Riyo's face is the slightest crinkle between her eyebrows, the look on Ahsoka's face is downright murderous, with her lips peeled back from her pointed teeth and her eyes wide and focused. A low growl emanates from within her chest.

Sprekker watches them all dispassionately. The remaining two bounty hunters are here too, only they are busy chipping out a hole in the ice using picks. If it were under other circumstances, it'd be impressive.

Beyond the bounty hunters are a couple hover sleds laden with more cinder blocks and chains. No doubt meant for them, judging by Riyo's example.

Riyo glares up at Sprekker, and try as she might, the subtle tremble of her shoulders betrays how frightened she really is. "Why?"

Sprekker's eyes have never been so hard and so cold. "With your death, Uncle Chi's death will be avenged."

Riyo balks. "Chairman Cho, Chairman Chi Cho, he was your uncle?"

"Yes. I'm a junior; my father was named Sprekker Jok Senior, and he was Chi Cho's illegitimate brother. They were raised together. When my father died during one of Uncle Chi's military campaigns, Uncle Chi took me in and raised me like a son."

"Should I have known that?" Riyo asks.

"No one outside the Cho family knows it. Uncle didn't formally announce the adoption and after he turned out to like me better than his actual son, the rest of the Cho family preferred to keep their distance." Sprekker scowls. "But then Uncle died. I thought that perhaps Auntie and Rommeruk would want vengeance for your treachery, but no, they didn't! Instead, Auntie suggests an alliance!"

"So it falls to you to take revenge?" Riyo asks, incredulous.

"Yes, it does! And after you're finally dead, I'll be free of this responsibility. You don't comprehend, Senator, how difficult it was to befriend you. How much patience it took, how much planning and credits I sunk into this. Nor do you understand how worthy I consider the investment. It's a relief that you and Rommeruk didn't get married after all; it'd be more difficult for me to kill my cousin's wife," Sprekker says, his face twisting into something ugly.

"Wait, that means Rommeruk really was a good guy after all?" Ahsoka asks.

Sprekker gives a short bark of surprised laughter. "Of all the questions you have…yes! My cousin is actually a pacifist and good with kids. You really should have given him a chance."

"Let the Jedi go, Sprekker. Whatever it is between us, it doesn't concern them," Riyo says.

"It is a shame that they should be collateral, but no. I'm not stupid, Riyo. I know they are the reason why you were able to escape the first time. But perhaps it is best that you escaped so that we can have a drowning now. A proper drowning for a proper Pantoran," Sprekker says.

Barriss subtly scoots over to Ahsoka and whispers, "I have a plan."

"Good, because I can't break through durasteel. What're you thinking?" Ahsoka whispers back.

"If I can get one hand free from the cuffs, it might be enough for me to use the Force and free us all."

"Yeah, okay, but how are you gonna free that hand? The bounty hunters have our lightsabers, so we can't cut them open."

Barriss grimaces. "You'll need to break my wrist."

Ahsoka pulls away, open horror on her face. "No."

"Do you have any ideas? Because I'm open to suggestions."

Ahsoka's mouth curls into a snarl, and Barriss almost retreats in alarm until she realizes that Ahsoka's truly frustrated with herself, not with Barriss and her request. Her blue eyes flicker as she tries to desperately come up with something—anything. Anything at all.

"Break my wrist instead," Ahsoka whispers.

"Can you undo all the locks at once? Because that is what you'll have to do." Anything less would turn out awful for them.

More snarling, and even some growling, but Ahsoka ultimately quiets. She must have cycled through the entire grieving process within the past second; Barriss certainly watched it play out over her face.

Barriss scoots forward again. "If there's one thing that this trip has taught me, it is that success is a sliding scale. A broken wrist is a small price to pay for our overall survival. Ahsoka, please. I wouldn't ask you to do it if I could do it myself."

Ahsoka's eyebrow marks knit together in worry, then she wriggles close and reaches out as far as the chains will let her. She holds Barriss's left hand in hers.

"Like this?" She asks, a little defeated. Her warm breath comes out against Barriss's forehead.

"Yes," Barriss whispers. A horrid, sinking feeling settles in her stomach, and she tries her best to relax.

"I'm sorry, Barriss."

"Don't you dare feel bad about this," Barriss whispers. It'd be better if there was a stick for her to bite down on, but as it is, her clothes will have to do. She tucks her chin in and bites down on the purple material of her hood.

"Ready," Barriss whispers through the cloth.

SNAP.

Barriss whimpers and recoils as Ahsoka breaks her wrist, sending sharp pain lancing through her arm. She hates this. Hates that Ahsoka did this to her. Hates that she asked her to do it. Barriss pulls her hand through the narrow pinch of the cuff until it's free.

Free. The Force cuts through the pain, tingling in her nerves and in her bones. Barriss grasps the tiny sliver of the Force she can feel and doesn't let go.

At Barriss' whimper, everyone else turns to look. Riyo gasps, and the bounty hunters start towards them, but Barriss clenches her teeth and draws in a deep breath. She closes her eyes, reaches out through the Force, and twists.

CLICK, CLICK, CLICK.

All the cuffs and all the padlocks clipped to the chains pop open and fall into the snow. Riyo stares down at her freed hands, her mouth open in amazement. The bounty hunters stop in their tracks, and Sprekker blanches. Ahsoka shrugs out of her chains and lets them fall into the powdered snow. Her eyes and teeth flash in the low light.

Sprekker and the bounty hunters draw their blasters, but Ahsoka reaches out and summons them from their hands and catches them. The last goes wide and skitters across the ice until it's lost in the snow. Ahsoka crushes the remaining blasters in her fists, making them crack and spark as they're warped beyond functionality.

Sprekker turns and kicks Riyo's duracrete blocks into the hole, where they disappear into the dark water with a splash. The chains that are pulled through the blocks and around Riyo's ankles aren't fastened with a lock, and they hold fast as they drag her drag her belly-down across the ice. Riyo shrieks and rakes her fingers across the surface, sending snow everywhere as she searches for a handhold, but in vain. She takes a deep breath before she's swallowed up by the sea.

Sprekker runs towards the hover sleds.

Ahsoka winds back, her arm flexing, and pitches the two crushes blasters as hard as she can. The first hits a bounty hunter's helmet, cracking the visor in two and caving in the forehead to a devastating degree. He falls through the ice with a splash. The other blaster smashes into one of the hover sleds. The duracrete blocks and chains spill onto the ice, breaking it open. One of the sleds falls through the ice as it tips over.

Sprekker ducks and runs past the sleds. His boots keep inches ahead of a quickly-forming spiderweb of fine cracks in the ice.

PEW. The last bounty hunter shoots at Ahsoka, who merely palms the bolt of red light away with the Force and rushes at him. The blaster bolt fizzles out in the snow.

"Riyo!" Barriss goes to the edge of the hole and sees nothing but black water. She cradles her injured arm to her chest and tries not to panic. Riyo's down there. She's down there and sinking further and further by the second. But even now, Barriss can sense Riyo's light in the Force. Tiny, like a candle. A candle that's flickering out.

"Here." Ahsoka gently presses the cool hilt of Barriss's lightsaber into her good hand, then reaches up to pull her parka off.

"No, no. It's too cold; you'd drown too. I'll do it. I can sense that far down," Barriss mutters. She doesn't even bother asking what happened to the last bounty hunter.

"Then how can I help?" Ahsoka asks.

"Arrest Sprekker."

Just like that, Ahsoka's gone, sprinting across the frozen sea towards Defiance. Sprekker is a distant figure, but he's slipping and sliding all over the ice, and he's not so far away that a Togruta Jedi can't catch up.

Barriss clips her lightsaber to her belt, closes her eyes and whips the Force down through the water towards Riyo. Down, down, down, until the current isn't harsh, until the pressure is too much, until where the light would thin if it were daytime. Barriss cuts down through it all until she lashes around Riyo; a tiny body in the vast expanse of the ocean. Barriss pulls, but finds Riyo tangled.

Of all things, she is tangled in a fishing net, and it gives an answering tug.

Barriss closes her lips around a sob. No, she thinks. No. It simply isn't possible. The Force is the Force and while the locals may invent masks for It that fit their views, the Force is still the Force.

The Force does not have a fishing net because It doesn't need one; the Force does not gather drowning people. And yet here they are, and there the net is, and it coils possessively around Riyo.

Barriss surprises herself by wrenching it away with the Force. Whatever it is, it has no business around Riyo.

The net presses in, adamant, but Barriss maintains a shell of the Force around Riyo. It's not something she can keep up forever, however. Barriss will eventually run out of energy, and then whatever is down there will be free to take Riyo for themselves. Barriss will have to find a different way and if she can't do it through brute force, then….

Barriss's vision goes hazy from tears. Her good hand is clenched tight above the hole in the ice and the other is throbbing with blood and pain and she is shaking from the effort of staying upright.

All around Barriss, the cracks form as fine as lace. If she doesn't let go of Riyo now and lie down, she will be dragged under the same as the sunken hover sled. And if the ice is that fragile here, then it must also be the same everywhere else, and Ahsoka is the heaviest of all of them.

From a distance, in the direction that Ahsoka went, comes the crack of breaking ice. Barriss looks, but doesn't see anything but the darkness of night.

Barriss cannot imagine a galaxy without either of them, but however such a galaxy would be, it would also be so cruel, so ruthless, so incredibly lonely. She wasn't lying when she told Riyo that the galaxy would be poorer if she and Ahsoka would leave it.

"Please! Please don't. Don't take them," Barriss manages to whisper through her closing throat. She would do pretty much anything to save them, even beg alleged gods.

There is a terrible moment where the net lingers, unrelenting, but then is whisked away as if it had never existed. As if whatever was down there heard what Barriss was thinking. The chain unravels from around Riyo's ankles and sinks down into the depths of the ocean.

Barriss cries and pulls again. This time, Riyo rises unheeded through the water.

-----

The falling snow makes the ice slippery. Ahsoka maintains a steady pace as she follows Sprekker with a single-minded focus, and she's getting closer and closer with each measured step.

Sprekker was Riyo's friend. Riyo trusted him, and he ended up literally shooting them in the back. In the back! Riyo's back. Barriss' back. And now Barriss is hurt and Riyo has been plunged into the sea.

Barriss had said to arrest him, which means Ahsoka needs to bring him in alive, but no one said anything about what state he had to be in.

CRACK.

The ice splinters beneath Ahsoka's feet, and she falters and tries to step away, only for the cracks to follow her. Cracks of all size form in the ice around her, and the Force blares a warning in her head. Several feet away, Sprekker also slows down as he picks his way across the flimsy ice. But he's still moving too fast and too recklessly.

"Sprekker, stop! You'll fall in!" Ahsoka shouts.

Sprekker glances over his shoulder at her, but keeps going. All the while, the ice keeps crumbling and the Force's warning gets louder and louder in her montrals until it's deafening.

Ahsoka slowly gets down on her stomach, with her arms stretched out before her. With her head this close, she can actually hear the ice creaking and snapping beneath her.

Stay.

Ahsoka stills on the ice. A pressure builds up over her back, as if pinning her in place, as prickly as being held by an oversized mouth full of knives. She has felt, or known, the Force to be so commanding before, on Mortis, but it's also different somehow. It's wilder, more animated and more dangerous. If she didn't know any better, she'd classify it as the Dark Side, except it isn't malicious at all. Whatever it is, she must obey, and whatever is happening, she must not interfere. Ahsoka's hands flatten over the ice in surrender.

Sprekker smirks back at her and keeps walking towards Defiance at a more sedate pace.

CRACK.

Sprekker falls through the ice with a shout. One second he is there, and the next he has sunk down to his waist. His hands spring out over the ice, keeping himself from sinking any further, and he scrambles to float on his belly. He gives a dark, relieved chuckle as he begins to crawl forward.

Ahsoka's hands twitch. She could try to summon him with the Force, but she's never summoned anything of his size from so far away before. It proves to be a moot point, however, as Sprekker is pulled under by the same invisible presence that pins Ahsoka to the ice. His scream is cut short as he's dragged into the sea, and in the Force, his presence disappears. Like he was never there.

The teeth retreat and the pressure on Ahsoka's back dissipates, freeing her.

"What the kark," Ahsoka whispers as she carefully gets up. "What the kark? What the kark was that?"

Whatever it is, it's still lingering beneath the ice, slowly circling her. Ahsoka takes a few careful steps to the right, and it follows her, as if curious. If Ahsoka goes back to Barriss and Riyo now, she will lead it right to them.

Ahsoka instinctively turns in a circle to face the unknown predator as it swims around her. While she has never hunted an apex aquatic predator before, one that—judging by the power with which it dragged Sprekker into the sea—is probably at least twice her size, it should be relatively easy. She calculates how she might jump, dive through the ice, and catch the thing with a surprise attack.

The ice is thin enough and she has the Force. She could do it.

She'll do it if that's what it takes to keep Barriss and Riyo safe.

Despite how fun that sounds, Ahsoka knows that this is no ordinary creature. She holds a hand out in the its direction and reaches out in the Force to it.

She finds this monster to be a behemoth of a shark, thirty feet long and blind and ancient. A mixed school of lamprey and other fish swim around it, like an escort, or a procession.

Ahsoka breathes in deep as she concedes to the shark. Barriss said to arrest Sprekker, but he was never theirs to take, was he?

The monster takes one last lazy lap around Ahsoka before it peels off and swims away, not towards Defiance, but not towards Barriss and Riyo either. Ahsoka waits until it's far away, then huffs and lowers her arm.

The hole that Sprekker fell through is already freezing over. Ahsoka gives it one last long look before she leaves the way she came.

-----

Riyo emerges from the water, splashing everywhere. Barriss sets her down on the ice and kneels at her side, but she remains unresponsive, with her head lolling to the side.

"Riyo?" Barriss places her good hand over Riyo's nose and mouth, but feels no air. She's not breathing. Barriss presses two fingers against Riyo's neck instead and feels the slightest pulse. She's alive, but only just. Riyo's aura is quickly disappearing in the Force, and Barriss hurries to treat her as best she can with just one hand.

Open the patient's mouth. Make sure that the tongue is out of the way of the windpipe, then tilt the head back to ensure airflow.

A horrible gasping noise escapes Riyo's throat, but Riyo herself doesn't stir.

Barriss ignores the sinking feeling in her gut and pinches Riyo's nose shut.

Make a seal over the patient's mouth with yours and give two breaths. Look to see if the patient's chest rises and falls. If the chest doesn't rise, then the seal is deficient. Try again.

Ahsoka comes out of the darkness and kneels at Riyo's other side.

"What's wrong with her?"

Barriss pauses to take Ahsoka in. Unhurt. Alive. Not at the bottom of the ocean. "She's not breathing. Have you been trained in emergency aid?"

Ahsoka nods. "Do you need me to do the compressions?"

"Yes."

Put the heel of your hand in the center of the patient's chest. Place the other hand over the first. Lock your elbows and press down two inches at a rate of about a hundred to a hundred and twenty times per minute. Let the chest rise completely between compressions.

"Come on, Riyo!" Ahsoka shouts, her teeth clenched.

Barriss keeps Riyo's nose pinched shut, but carefully watches Riyo's face for any change.

Do two breaths every thirty chest compressions. Do this until the patient starts breathing, or emergency help arrives.

Emergency help will not arrive. Barriss and Ahsoka are the emergency help. There is no one else.

There is no one else.

It is just Barriss and Ahsoka and Riyo in the middle of this frozen wasteland with all this falling snow.

Barriss breathes into Riyo's mouth and Ahsoka presses on Riyo's chest. If she needs lungs, here they are. If she needs a heart, here they are. There is so much here they can give Riyo, if she would wake up and ask.

Riyo chokes and Barriss lets go and leans back.

"Hurk!" Riyo rolls onto her side and spits up what must be almost a liter of water; it spills out of her mouth and onto the snow around them.

Ahsoka pumps her fist in the air and whoops. "Yeah!"

"Ugh!" Riyo cries and clutches her chest as she sucks in air and has a coughing fit.

"There you are." Barriss leans over her and carefully smoothes her wet hair from her face, then holds it back as she continues to cough.

"Sprekker? Where's Sprekker?" Riyo wheezes. Her face is scrunched in pain.

"Don't worry about him," Ahsoka says. She squats down next to Riyo and thumps her on the back, helping her cough up even more water. When Riyo finally runs dry, Ahsoka switches to rubbing circles over her back. Riyo curls up between them and shivers.

"Are you two all right?" Riyo asks, her voice small and hoarse.

"Never better. Are you up for traveling?" Barriss asks. Riyo nods.

"Cool, let's go home." Ahsoka scoops Riyo up into her arms and together, the three of them head towards the remaining hover sled.

-----

Riyo's hospital room is full of tokens from well-wishers. Almost every horizontal surface is covered in bouquets and cards. There are even some plush toy bears. Riyo sits up in bed, fully dried and warmed and awake. Her light purple hair has been pulled into a half-updo, and the rest tumbles over her shoulders and down her back. There is a tray on Riyo's lap, and on the tray are thank you cards. Her secretary stands at the side of the bed with folders of more cards under their arm, and they swap out the signed ones for fresh ones and gently inform her which ones are for who. There must be cards for everyone who sent flowers, and more. Riyo dutifully signs them all, and when she's done, the secretary shuffles the flimsi together and bids Riyo a good rest. They give Barriss and Ahsoka a polite nod before leaving.

Ahsoka sits next to her, in a position to see both the door and the window clearly. It's toasty in here, so her parka hangs from the back of her chair. Ahsoka's hand is over her mouth and nose to protect her from the strongest smelling flowers. One or two is fine, but this place might as well be a nursery. Riyo must have noticed her discomfort, because she calls a nurse and asks her to distribute the flowers to other patients. The nurses transfer most of the bouquets to a cart and wheel them out. When the door closes again, it's blissfully quiet, only for Riyo to open a small packet of gummy snacks as she leans back against the pillows; the plastoid packaging crinkles in her hands.

She pops a gummy in her mouth and chews, then holds the packet out to them. "Want some? It's meiloorun."

Barriss, who sits on Riyo's other side, reaches into the little bag with her good hand.

"I'm sorry about your wrist, Barriss," Riyo says.

Barriss has strategically placed herself opposite of Ahsoka the entire time they've been in this hospital so that Riyo is never alone and never too far from either of them. Her left sleeve has been unbuttoned and rolled up to make room for her cast. It extends from her knuckles all the way up her forearm, but stops at her elbow. There is no tension in Barriss' shoulders. No worry in her brow. There is just her clear blue eyes and the most sincere smile that Ahsoka's ever seen on her face.

Barriss eats a gummy and puts her hand over the cast.

"Don't be. It's not your fault and I have no regrets." She pauses, her eyes unsure. "Would you both like to sign it?"

The corners of Riyo's mouth turn up. "I'd like that very much. Here, you go first, Ahsoka." And she offers the stylus.

Ahsoka takes the stylus and scoots the chair closer. Barriss climbs onto the bed and reaches across Riyo's lap.

"Although, it might need to be in a discrete place," Barriss says. Ahsoka hums, then takes Barriss' hand in both of hers. There's a twinge of guilt in her chest. She did this. Yeah, Barriss did ask her to, but still.

"It'll heal in two months," Barriss says.

"That's a long time."

"That's actually quite short compared to the convalescence of non-sensitives." Barriss smiles up at her. "Two months, and no surgery required. It's a pretty good deal."

"I'm sure the pain tabs are sublime too," Riyo says.

Barriss hesitates, then says, "They are very nice."

Ahsoka looks here and there over Barriss' pristine cast, then gently turns it over to reveal the underside.

"Here?" She asks. Barriss nods, as if her voice has stopped working. What should she write? Get well soon? Her com code? Fragile: handle with care? Ahsoka carefully draws a heart shape as neatly as she can on Barriss' wrist and colors it in.

"Done." Ahsoka reluctantly lets go and returns the stylus to Riyo. "Are…you wearing lipstick?"

"Where did you get that? Where were you keeping it?" Barriss asks.

Riyo is indeed wearing dark blue lipstick when she wasn't a minute ago, and she waves their questions away. "Do you want me to sign it or not?"

Barriss, bewildered, holds out her hand. Riyo holds it still in her hands, leans down, and kisses the inside of Barriss's wrist, just under Ahsoka's note.

Ahsoka lets out a shocked, but delighted gasp, not just at the shameless display, but at Barriss's sudden turmoil in the Force and the deep blush spreading across her face.

Riyo lets go and wipes her mouth on a napkin, getting rid of the lipstick. "Sorry, did I go too far?"

Barriss stares down at the blue lipstick mark. "No," she says after a long moment.

"We could get rid of it," Riyo says, but Barriss turns away, protecting the cast.

"No!"

Ahsoka laughs. Riyo giggles and tosses the napkin in the trash can.

There's a knock on the door, and it opens, revealing Rommeruk Cho. His hat is pinned under his arm and in his hands he holds a bouquet.

"Senator," he says.

"Your Grace," Riyo says.

"I'm very sorry about my cousin." And here, he gives the flowers to Riyo, who accepts them with a small 'thank you.'

"And I'm very sorry about the Summit."

Riyo stills. "What? What happened?"

"Nothing! With you and Sprekker gone most of the time, I had to mediate. War almost broke out no less than three separate times. It wouldn't have happened if you were mediating."

"No, it wouldn't have," Riyo says. "You really didn't know what Sprekker was up to?"

Rommeruk shakes his head again. "He estranged himself shortly after my father's death. We…disagreed on how to move on. I can't help but feel responsible. The Summit is over now, but nothing much was agreed upon. Our people still don't trust each other."

"Always so cynical. The fact is that the Talz trusted us enough to let their most important leaders step foot on this moon for several days. Progress, no matter how small, is still progress."

The corner of Rommeruk's mouth turns up and he turns his hat around in his hands. "Still so optimistic. I can't see how Sprekker or my father thought Pantora would be better off without you. Riyo, if I may…."

Riyo sets the flowers to the side and gives him her full attention, her gold eyes sharp. "If you are about to do what I think you're going to do, don't. We've talked about this before, and we've talked many times. Such an arrangement wouldn't be fair to either of us. And I've told you my reasons."

"Yes, you have." Rommeruk looks directly at Ahsoka as he says this, his eyes piercing, and she almost flinches back. She realizes that she's been leaning forward in her chair throughout the entire exchange, with her fingers clenched in her lap. Too late, Ahsoka tries to keep a neutral expression on her face.

Why is this guy here? Sure, he wasn't behind the abduction after all, and sure, he's nicer than he appears to be, but can't he just leave already? The sooner that Ahsoka doesn't have to look at his punchable face, the better.

Rommeruk glances at Barriss too, then returns to Riyo. "If I never ask, then you'll never have to say 'no,' and both of our dignities are spared."

"That was the deal," Riyo gently says.

Rommeruk snorts, then gives a slight bow. "I'll be in touch, Senator. I hope you get better soon."

"Thank you, Your Grace."

And with that, Rommeruk turns and leaves the room. The door clicks shut after him, and Riyo lets out a long sigh.

"What a creep," Ahsoka mutters. "He wants to marry you, but he doesn't even like you."

"Ahsoka, that's very unkind of you!" Barriss says.

"Don't pretend you disagree. He doesn't take Riyo's opinions seriously, so he doesn't take Riyo seriously, which means he doesn't like her."

"That's not what the gossip rags say," Riyo says.

"The gossip rags can shove it."

"I…well, the tabloids are rather malicious," Barriss says.

BEEP.

Riyo's data pad lights up from its place on the side table. Ahsoka picks it up and hands it to Riyo, who swipes across the screen to read. She frowns.

"What is it?" Barriss asks.

"The Jedi Order messaged me. Now that the Summit is over, they're asking when to expect you to return," Riyo says.

Ahsoka clicks her tongue and looks away. Barriss just sighs.

"We will return when you are well enough to travel. We will…." Here, Barriss's voice wavers, but she continues. "We will report to the Council and we will respectfully resign from the Order."

One of Riyo's eyebrows goes up. "Just like that?"

"Yes. It's rather drastic, but it can't be helped. I've looked into registering as a conscientious objector, but the Jedi don't allow for that sort of thing."

"But if you are generals and commanders in this war, then you are beholden to military law, and military law allows for soldiers and officers to develop conscientious objections and to abstain from fighting."

"Usually, you would be correct, but the relationship between the Jedi and the Republic is made up of exceptions. We are not Republic citizens, but we command the GAR. We command the GAR, but we are not subjected to military law. I would rather not wade into that mess," Barriss says.

A sly smile spreads across Riyo's face at that. "It sounds like you've been brushing up on your line of reasoning, Barriss. When did you do that?"

"It was gonna happen eventually; you're a bad influence," Ahsoka says. Riyo laughs.

Barriss frowns. "I'll admit that I'm concerned of our path outside of the Order. When we leave, then what would we do? How would be do it? We've not much by way of credits, and we don't have a ship, and we won't have any identichips either. No citizenship means no clearance, and no support."

"How many credits do you have? Would they follow you out of the Order?" Riyo asks.

"Yes, because the accounts are with the Banking Clan," Barriss says.

"I have about one thousand credits," Ahsoka says.

"And I have a bit more than two thousand," Barriss says.

"Three thousand credits?" Riyo taps her chin as she thinks. "Give me five days and I'll flip it for eight."

Barriss squints. "How?"

"If you have to ask, it's not a gift," Riyo says.

Barriss's nose scrunches. "I don't like that, but I won't ask. Tell me no one will get hurt."

Riyo raises her hand. "No one will get hurt."

"There see? We'll be fine," Ahsoka says. "Riyo, can we stay at your place until we figure stuff out?"

"Of course! Anytime," Riyo says.

"And as for a ship, I mean, I could always slice one," Ahsoka says.

"Who said you'd have to steal?" Riyo asks. She reaches out, and Ahsoka automatically takes her hand. Riyo lightly tugs, and Ahsoka joins them on the bed.

"Who told you that you'd have to steal a ship, Ahsoka?" Riyo asks in a low voice. Their faces are so close that her breath tickles Ashoka's nose. Her heart thuds in her chest.

So this is how Barriss must have felt when Riyo kissed her wrist. Ahsoka's dimly aware of how Barriss watches them from the other side of the bed, her fascination leaking through the Force Bond. Damn if it isn't the smoothest thing Ahsoka's ever seen Riyo do, and her mouth turns dry, but a teasing glint in Riyo's eyes jolts Ahsoka back to her senses.

Oh. That's how it is, huh? Well, Ahsoka can play too.

"Would you get us a ship if I asked you nicely?" And at that, Ahsoka lowers her gaze to Riyo's mouth.

Riyo's eyes flicker. To her credit, she doesn't move away at all.

"Ask me nicely," Riyo whispers, teasing save for the spike of pure want cutting through her humor. It's hidden as fast as it appears, but it's too late. Ahsoka sobers from the sheer magnitude of it. How can emotions so intense be housed in such a small body? And how can Ahsoka not hold feelings just a fierce in return?

There is no shying away either. Not this time. There are no blinders to divert Ahsoka's attention and there are no reasons why she should box away her wants the way she's always done before. And by the Force, does Ahsoka ever want.

Ahsoka wants to kiss Riyo. She wants to curl around her like how they did in the Moonlit Monastery. She wants to pull the collar of Riyo's shirt aside and press her mouth to the yellow tattoos woven over the tops of her shoulders.

There's a spike of surprise through the Force Bond, and Ahsoka glances past Riyo to Barriss, who is blushing under her lumen. Was…was Ahsoka broadcasting that through the Force? Oh no.

But instead of leaving in disgust, Barriss stays. She stays and her fingers curl in her lap, crumpling the material of her skirt in her fists. Like she's holding herself back.

That just won't do, but Ahsoka will get to that. She looks back to Riyo.

But Riyo pulls back, flushed indigo. "I mean, of course I was joking. You and Barriss aren't obligated…I'm sorry, I shouldn't have…."

Yeah, maybe she shouldn't have, but Ahsoka started it. She started it and she might as well finish it too, as it's the responsible thing to do. Ahsoka leans in and kisses Riyo, catching the corner of her mouth. Riyo gasps, and a sharp thrill zings through her aura. After a moment, she lays an cautious hand on Ahsoka's arm and turns her head for a proper kiss. Riyo is soft against Ahsoka's mouth and blazing hot. Sweet too, because of that candy.

Ahsoka is careful or her teeth and makes sure not to bite down, even as Riyo responds with rising insistence. Her fingers skim up Ahsoka's arm and curl around her shoulders, pulling her closer. Ahsoka's montrals pick up the quickening thrum of Riyo's pulse, and she is so very pleased. She's doing that to Riyo. She caused that.

When Ahsoka finally sits back, contented, she leaves Riyo breathless and dazed, her pupils are blown wide open. A dopey smile slowly spreads across Riyo's face as she turns to Barriss.

Barriss still hasn't left, and the Force around her is a mess of swirling emotion. She looks down as if she hasn't been watching. As if she didn't also sense that lapse in Riyo's mental shields. As if she hasn't felt what Ahsoka felt through the Force Bond they share.

"What about you?" Ahsoka asks.

Barriss' eyes widen. "What about me?"

"Do you want one too?"

"So you're just giving them out today, huh?" Barriss' voice cracks and she clears her throat. Ahsoka scoots across the bed to Barriss, so close that their hips touch.

"Only to Riyo, and to you if you want them," Ahsoka says. Behind her, Riyo gives a strangled noise.

"If I want them," Barriss repeats, her voice soft. "If I want them from the both of you."

"Yeah," Ahsoka says.

A torn look passes over Barriss' face. She was always more methodical, always had to examine an issue or situation thoroughly to the point of exhaustion. It might too much too soon. A pang goes through Ahsoka's heart, and she moves to shift back.

"Yeah, it's a little fast, isn't it? I'm sorry."

But Barriss' hand falls over Ahsoka's and holds fast. Ahsoka stills.

"Barriss?"

Barriss finally glances up, her blue eyes clear and sure, then flutter closed as she leans in and presses her lips to Ahsoka's.

The Force flares around them in response, bright and warm. Ahsoka gathers Barriss into her lap as she kisses back, making Barriss melt around her. Compared to the intensity of the last kiss, this one remains slow and patient. Barriss breaks the kiss to breathe and drops her forehead against Ahsoka's shoulder. She hooks her fingers into the material of Ahsoka's dress and shakes.

Riyo ducks to better see. "Barriss, are you crying?"

"No…yes," Barriss mumbles.

"Damn. I was that bad, huh?" Ahsoka says.

Barriss gives a watery chuckle. "No, I'm just really happy."

Ahsoka hugs her tight and looks at Riyo over her shoulder. Riyo's grinning like a fool, and Ahsoka must be doing the same, because her cheeks hurt.

"Your bed on Coruscant, is it big enough for all of us?" Now that Ahsoka has the two of them, there's no way she's ever letting go.

Riyo shakes her head. "It's not, but I can fix that."

-----

Reindeer Ridge can't be found on a map, nor has it been found by any other travelers. There is no recorded history of it in any database.

Vuyo Kortzeer tried reconnecting with his ex fiancé, but she already moved on. That's ok though, because he found someone else and married her. Sanele Kortzeer got her degree and moved to Kark You Pay Me, Pantora to help develop the town.

Anathi Mafoo and his family donated the hunted seals to the people of Bravado. His eldest son, Dumi, returned from exile and inherited the Count title. Thandi never quite got the hang of the uhadi, but was able to tour Pantora by playing the batanga as part of a band.

Nanuk, his wife Yuka, their friends Osha and Ujarak, and the rest of the Breede Ice Ferry passengers survived the bounty hunter attack without any injuries and got to their destination safely.

Priestess Kupun made it back to the Moonlight Monastery by taxi. Riyo bought High Priestess Estuuya and the priestesses a new speeder to replace the one she, Barriss, and Ahsoka stole, and also donated enough credits to fix the damaged classroom. The priestesses are very grateful.

Riyo became Ahsoka's and Barriss' financier and treasurer. After Barriss and Ahsoka quit the Jedi, Riyo provided them with the proper flimsies, identichips with clearance, and the equipment they need to travel the galaxy and help people. It's all far too expensive for a Senator's salary, but they don't ask where it came from and Riyo doesn't tell them where she got it all. Riyo joins them on their adventures when she can.

Ahsoka and Barriss went on to cause a major and successful slave rebellion in Hutt Space. They each have seven figure bounties on their heads and have been deified on a couple planets for their efforts. After every adventure, they come back to Riyo.

The three of them are very, very happy.

-----

Want to read this on Ao3 or on FF.net? Click here for the links.

#star wars #star wars the clone wars #Ahsoka Tano #barriss offee #riyo chuchi #fanfiction #fanfic #artillery writes

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daphnegeeksout · 5 years

Text

If You Were Here (3/9) [Tony Stark x Reader]

Read it on AO3

By: daphnethewriter

It’s hard to live this way… to only see someone through the other side of a screen. Tony stumbles across a computer bug that’s more than just a bug. You need his help, but first you need to win his trust. Hopefully you can do it before time runs out.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Words: 3,474 Chapters: 3/9 Language: English

Chapter 3

Tony wakes to the rhythmic beep of the heart monitor and the burning smell of hand sanitizer. Shit. The medical suite. Usually he can get there under his own power, so if he wakes up already there… must have been a bad fight. What was it this time? Aliens? Hydra? Some new hell?

His head pounds as he opens his eyes to the sterile, white walls and piercing lights. The pain that pierces his skull triggers something: a recollection of driving and… and someone yelling at him. He groans.

"Here."

Tony steadies the glass that presses to his lips and gulps the contents. His stomach roils against the water. Such a familiar feeling. Not a battle, then. At least, not one against any new demons. When he finishes the water, he turns, squinting through crusty eyes at the man next to him. Steve. "What happened?"

"You had a blood alcohol level of .30." Tony jerks around at the sound of Rhodey's voice. He hadn't seen him on his first inspection of the room. His expression is as dark as his voice. "We had to pump your stomach."

"What were you doing driving?" Steve asks.

Oh god, a carousel of bad decision-making. The familiar pit of shame unfurls in his stomach. A thousand lectures roll through his mind. Tony shakes his head to clear the noise, then raises his palm to his temple when that hurts.

"That would be the concussion," Rhodey explains. "Still aren't sure how you got it. Care to enlighten us?"

He remembers the yelling. And the brakes pushing themselves. Then the steering wheel rushed at him and everything cut out. "How did you find me?"

"You showed up in the garage," Steve says, "passed out cold. How did you even make it back?"

Good question. The Lotus can drive itself no problem, but Tony hadn't set the autopilot. You. You must have taken over the car. Oh fuck, fuck, that's wrong in so many ways. Tony raises a hand to his throbbing head.

"Someone called for medical aid," Steve continues. "Don't know who."

For an AI, you're one hell of a busybody. "Must have been FRIDAY," Tony says.

The room freezes as Rhodey and Cap look to each other.

"Trying out a new AI?" Rhodey asks.

"Blaire told me Tony was working on a new one," Steve answers. "She said he built a girlfriend."

Oh hell. For someone who can't speak, Blaire sure has a big mouth. "She is not my girlfriend," Tony snaps.

<He did not build me.> Your familiar hologram materializes at Tony's bedside.

"Go away, Cheshire," Tony says. "We'll talk about it later."

<Bullshit!> you snap. <We'll talk about it now. I don't take orders from you and, after last night, don't you think for a second that you're in a position to give me any.>

"Tony…" Steve's voice toes the thin line between confused and concerned.

You continue as if he hadn't interrupted, crowding into Tony's space. <You took a bath in whiskey and I had to knock your dumb ass out so I could drive you home.>

Tony's temper unravels, his anger at himself lashing out at you because you're a convenient target. "I didn't ask you to do that."

You match his bark for bite. <I wasn't fucking doing it for you. You can plow your car into the river for all I care.>

You seem to be on the road to a full-fledged tirade, one that Tony isn't in the mood to share with Steve and Rhodey. "FRIDAY, flush the system."

<FRIDAY, don't you fucking d—>

You vanish with a flicker, leaving Tony alone in the dark with Steve and Rhodey.

"What the hell is going on?" Steve asks.

By the time you reassemble yourself and break back through the Avengers' firewalls, Tony is out of the medical ward and the team has gathered in a conference room for a heated discussion.

"What is that thing?" Rhodey asks. You bristle at his tone.

Tony sits at the head of the table, his forehead resting against the wood. "She—it… well, I don't know exactly."

<I'm a person.>

"Oh, great," Rhodey says. He throws his hands up. "It's back."

"Tony," Steve speaks this time. His eyebrows knit together. "What does it mean: it's 'a person'?"

<Same thing it means for you,> you say. Now that you've exposed yourself to the entire team (thanks, Tony), your chances of getting help are quickly diminishing. You don't have time for niceties anymore.

"Cheshire. Just"—Tony lets out a long breath through his nose—"stay out of this right now." He doesn't look up. It doesn't matter, there's nowhere for him to make eye contact.

He sits up and rubs the bridge of his nose. "Sure, whatever, but can you shut up for just a second?"

<I'm not just some AI that you can—>

A tingle on the extreme edges of your consciousness distracts you. Before you can investigate, an aggressive push rocks your hold on the system. You recognize the touch. Vision. You’ve never interacted with him directly, but you've tiptoed around him enough times to recognize the signature.

You push back with everything you have, overwhelming him and chasing him back into his own mind, maybe a little beyond. Physically, he flinches, dropping to one knee where he had stood. All eyes turn to him.

"Vis?"

He holds his hand up to reassure the woman—Wanda—who had rushed to his aid. "It is alright. I attempted to remove the intrusion from the system."

"Hey," Tony calls to the ceiling. "Knock it off."

<I'll keep my hands to myself if he does.>

"Let's just… figure out what's going on here first," Natasha says.

"What's there to figure out?" Rhodey asks. "Tony, that thing is a menace."

"You what?"

Everyone starts talking at once, telling Tony what he should do. Prevailing opinion seems to lie with your destruction.

"I know!" Tony shouts. The other voices stop. "I know it doesn't make sense and it's dangerous and you want me to fix it. I get it. Just let me think for two seconds."

A ringing silence follows his outburst. For a few moments, only tension fills the air. Natasha is the first to speak again. "Tony, what happened?" Her voice is gentle, coaxing.

He takes a few moments to steady himself, then addresses the group again, his tone flat like he's giving a lecture. "There's a woman at a long term care facility in Albany. That's who she"—he gestures to the ceiling as if that's where you live—"claims she is."

"Is that true?" Steve asks.

"I don't know."

Rhodes chimes in, "This is crazy. People can't be computers."

"They can," Natasha says. "Steve and I saw it."

Steve meets her eyes. "Zola's lab. At the SHIELD facility. He transferred his mind to a computer bank before he died. They kept him there for decades."

"Yeah?" Rhodey asks. "And how did that happen?"

Tony answers before you can give a sharp retort. "She was at Helen Cho's facility. Ultron blasted her with the scepter."

"That's what gave me and… Pietro… our powers," Wanda says from the corner where she stands with her arms crossed. "Exposure to the staff."

"To the Infinity Stone," Vision says. Silence falls over the room.

"Are we actually considering this?" Rhodey seems scandalized.

"It would be an oversight to not do so," Vision answers.

"And what if it's another Ultron?"

Tony comes to your defense. "She's not like Ultron."

"How do you know?"

"I just"—he rubs his hand over his face—"She's not."

"She's dangerous!"

A sharp knock on the table stops the conversation. All eyes turn to the woman—Blaire—sitting next to Steve. [I was dangerous] she signs.

Steve lays his hand on her arm. "It's different."

Blaire looks to Tony, a combination of confusion and pleading. [she can't control her powers] she insists. [we should help her] The group exchanges uncomfortable glances. [what do you want to do?] Blaire asks Tony.

Tony raises an eyebrow at Steve. "You're really okay with me doing this?"

"If we said no, would you listen?"

Tony smirks, but doesn't answer immediately. He stares at Blaire's pleading face, his expression shifting my millimeters each second. You'd hold your breath if you had one. "Yeah," he says finally. "I want to help."

Tony arranges to have your body moved to the Avengers facility. It isn't hard getting permission—your grandmother is all too eager to jump at the chance Tony offers. Which is good, because no normal doctor on earth would sign off on what he's planning. You're braindead and he's going to perform experimental surgery so that a computer program can run a human body. And he's not sure that's possible. He has all of your paperwork, but that doesn’t tell the whole story. Tony doesn't even know what he's looking for, but knowing everything has to be a good start, right?

"Physically, she's in incredible shape," Bruce says after he finishes a thorough examination of your body. "Considering how long she's been in a coma, she should have experienced significant muscle atrophy."

"She didn't?" Tony asks.

"Not nearly as much as she should have. It's similar to—" Bruce cuts off, eyebrows knitting together.

"What?"

Bruce removes his glasses, fiddles with the frames. "Did you read the SHEILD files from when they revived Steve?" When he looks up from his hands, his eyes pierce through Tony.

Tony had perused most of SHEILD's files, and paid attention to the ones regarding Rogers in particular, but he didn't see how that was connected to you. "They aren't exactly springing to mind."

"He'd been in the ice for seventy years," Bruce says, as if that explains the connection. Tony lifts an eyebrow, inviting him to continue. "Not only did he survive, but he was in the same shape he was when he went under. No rehab required. Even under lab conditions, cryogenics wouldn't have worked that well."

"The serum?" Tony suggests, but his gut tells him no.

"I'm starting to think the super soldier serum gets more credit than it should." Bruce reaches for the supplies to draw blood. "I'm not sure about this, but I'll look into it. We might have more in common than I thought."

<Like what?> you ask. Bruce startles a little and looks around the room as if he could see you. You oblige by shimmering the hologram into view beside him. Tony smiles to himself. It's easy to forget that you're listening when you don't make yourself apparent.

"If Loki's scepter emitted high levels of gamma radiation," Bruce explains, "it's possible that you received your powers that way."

Which would be a common link in all the super-humans suddenly popping up. Steve, Bruce, Wanda, Pietro, Blaire, now you…

"So," Tony says, "gamma is the key to all this?"

"Maybe. I'll see what I get back from the blood sample."

In the meantime, they run the full gamut of exams. Tony has to remove all your piercings so he can run the MRI. There are… a lot. Every time he thinks he finally has them all, you remind him of another one. Not to mention the tattoos. Is there any part of you that isn't covered in ink? The MRI clicks and whirrs as the images flash on the screen.

"It's a normal brain, Tony," Bruce says, watching the monitor. "I don't know what you're looking for."

Tony didn't either. "It can't be normal," he says, leaning toward the screen. "Not completely. She's not in there." There had to be something the doctors missed. This wasn't a normal case.

"Right, that's why the scan shows no activity." Bruce waves at the screen. "Brain death."

<I'm not dead.>

"As far as your brain is considered, you are," Bruce corrects you.

"Yes, but is it healthy?" Tony asks. Dead or not, he can't put you back if your brain has turned to soup.

"How should I know?" Bruce shrugs. "In most cases, this is where they would contact the family about organ donation."

"But there aren't any injuries?"

"Not visible, no."

<So, I should be able to go back in.>

Bruce sighs. "There is no in. Consciousness doesn't just jump in and out of the brain."

"Even if you can," Bruce says, though his tone is skeptical, "How do you think this is going to work? Once you're in there?"

"The brain runs on electrical pulses," Tony says. "It's an organic computer setup, if you think about it. She should be capable of running it, assuming we can make the transfer of consciousness."

"Theoretically." Bruce pinches the bridge of his nose. "Not sure how you're planning on doing that, but I'm guessing it will be brain surgery. Massive brain surgery."

"Well, how else are we going to do it? She needs the connection. If I can create a fine enough mesh, actually integrate her into the cerebral cortex, then she can transfer from the electrical current of the mesh into her own neurons."

"Theoretically." Bruce sits down in what Tony now recognizes as a weary gesture. "Tony, this whole thing is a crapshoot. She's unique. There's no precedent for this sort of transfer. We can't go back on it. It's not like we can make a copy of her. We can't even test it beforehand. If this goes wrong, there's not a second chance. You could fry her brain and destroy both halves of her."

"We managed to stick Jarvis into Vision, didn't we?"

"Yeah, but Vision was an infinity stone. And the body was manufactured in the cradle. He's a synthetic life form. You're trying to shove something synthetic into an organic container. There's no way of knowing if it will preserve her existing consciousness. You could kill her." Bruce runs his hands through his hair. "Look, Tony. This kind of neuroscience is way beyond me. I think… I think you should consider this a little more."

Tony stays in your room long after Bruce leaves, just… staring at your body. He doesn't see it, per se. He's just thinking, running his thumb absently over the pulse in your wrist.

<What's up, Doc?> Your hologram appears on the edge of your bed, wearing a hospital gown, just like your body.

"Doc?" Tony asks. His expertise is more mechanical than medical, even if he is stepping outside his comfort zone for this.

<You have three doctorates,> you say. <At least one of them should count.> Your hologram shifts, folding her hands in her lap. <Having second thoughts?> You ask. Your tone is nonchalant, even if the question isn't.

Tony stands. It's not… cold feet or anything like that. The challenge is exhilarating, but the consequences? Tony isn't used to consequences. At least, before the Avengers, he wasn't. Now it feels like every breath he takes is costing lives somewhere. He does something, someone dies. He sits out, someone dies. Buildings fall and democracy crumbles and he used to not worry about those things. Collateral damage. He makes a circuit of the room. "You're safer staying where you are." He runs his hands through his hair, mussing it. "Bruce is right. There won't be any second chances at this." Collateral damage. Numbers, statistics, death tolls. It's easier to gloss over that way. But you… you're personal. You're a living, breathing—no, not quite that. You exist and you care. And Tony hadn't realized how much he'd grown attached to you.

<You know,> you say, interrupting the vicious circle that his thoughts run, <I don't remember what bacon tastes like.> Your hologram smirks at him and your body remains still as ever. It's like watching a ghost. <Like, I know that's a stupid example, but can you imagine? Not remembering that? Or what sunlight feels like?> Tony looks down, not able to maintain eye contact, even if the image isn't really you. <This isn't living, Tony. I can't feel anything or touch anything. As far as I know, I won't die—not without help. I don't want to live forever like this.>

Live forever. You say it like it's a death sentence. Maybe it is. Tony's considered that, not in the same way, of course. But… what if he outlived everyone he loved? Yeah, he'd risk his life too.

It's amazing to watch Tony work. He goes into a trance, focusing so hard on his task that the rest of the world seems to shut off. His big hands do delicate work, creating the most amazing things out of nothing. Even so, even with his mind at full capacity, the mesh isn't an easy creation. There are too many variables, too many catches and tricks. The brain is sophisticated—hacking it seems to be giving Tony trouble. Days worth of trouble.

<You should go to bed, Tony,> you say when, once again, it's three in the morning. Tony is still working.

Tony jerks out of the daze he'd fallen into. "I'm fine."

<When was the last time you actually slept?> You know when that was, of course. You don't sleep and you have nothing better to do than watch him. It's been thirty-two hours and twenty-six minutes since he took a catnap in the lab. Tony needs sleep. Real sleep. In a bed.

"Don't worry about it. Don’t you want me to find a solution to your problem?"

<Yeah, but I don't see how running yourself into the ground is going to help things. Won't a little rest be better?> Ok, so your motives aren't purely practical, even if you phrase them that way. Sleep would help Tony think better, but you're more concerned with his wellbeing. He isn't a machine, even if the others often treat him that way. They seem to have grown so accustomed to his self-sacrifice that they take it for granted. That's just Tony. He'll do whatever it takes.

"I keep pushing until it comes to me. That's how I work."

Of course it is. That's the problem. He doesn't see himself as worth caring for. He thinks he's expendable. You cross in front of him and he pulls back instinctively, rolling his chair away so his hands don't pass through you. <Why did you decide to help me?> you ask. It's a distraction, one that might help your cause. But you're also curious. He'd been so adamant, but when someone else questioned you, threatened you, he became your greatest defender. <What changed your mind?>

Tony picks up a screwdriver, then puts it back down. "You're my responsibility."

Ok… not what you were expecting. 'A challenge' maybe or 'Because I felt like it'. But, you'd approached him for help. He didn't owe you anything. <How's that?>

"I made Ultron. If it weren't for me, this wouldn't have happened to you. Wanda would still have a brother. All those people in Sokovia—"

The way he cuts off, the way he looks down, the only direction where you can't see him directly in the cameras… he's… you process the image, searching for comparisons, but it isn't familiar. It's almost like he's ashamed. <You wanted to help people.>

Tony laughs, a dark, self-mocking sound. "Oh, yeah. That worked out great."

"Really? Because I thought I did." He paces the edge of the lab. "I thought I had seen it. I thought that what Wanda put—what I saw—was where we were going. I knew. I knew if I didn't create Ultron, that that's where we would end up. So, I did. And I made something so much worse."

<Tony…> It's not pain—you can't feel pain—but, god, it's so close. You want to touch him. You want to reach through the circuits, the code, anything if it meant you could get to him. You settle for moving the hologram, lifting her hand to cup his cheek. He can't feel it, there's no way he could, but he leans into it just a little. In all your time in this disembodied state, never once have you felt such a powerful need to have your physical form back. You'd give anything—everything—if you could reach him. <You're so brave.> It's utterly inadequate. But how are you supposed to describe him? Everything he's sacrificed, everything he's endured—all the suspicious glances from those who are supposed to be his teammates, the accusations, the threats. And all he ever wanted was to keep people safe.

Tag List:

@abovethesmokestacks @netflixa @winterboobaerchen

If you would like to be added to (or removed from) the tag list, please let me know.

#tony stark #tony x reader #avengers #ironman #fanfic #mcu #if you were here

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brightlybound · 6 years

Text

In Every Universe: Erased

Prologue

Chapter 1

Read on FFN or AO3

CHAPTER 2: SALT

PART I (Ginny)

When Ginny arrived at her pitch black flat, she grappled with the light switch, the front door opened wide for easy escape. Only after the living room’s ceiling light illuminated did she fully enter, eyes darting around for any sign of movement. Something could be hiding in the shadows…

She’d been terrified of the dark since the accident. Since the car crash. Since Tom Riddle.

Oh, Christ. Oh, God. Oh,… Merlin, she thought wildly, slamming the door shut and throwing every lock into place. She ripped off her coat, pawed at her constricting scarf, and took huge gulps of air.

Finally, finally. Something was happening. His name was a trigger, a burst, a crack of lightning igniting hundreds upon thousands of nerve endings and neurons so that little pieces of her memories were reconstructing. She was nauseous, dizzy, and a headache like never before hammered at her temples as she began to remember a different darkness now, of being swathed in hellish green. Had it happened in a badly lit garage or car park, maybe? And the dripping, dripping, dripping, right beside her. What was that? And the hissing? It no longer sounded quite like rain on steaming pavement or burning metal...

And then there was Tom. She paused midway to the kitchen as the image of him flared in her mind’s eye. He was handsome, but cold, and ghostly white, as if behind some kind of veil…

She dropped her bag, her keys, and tried to shake the vision, but again and again it resurfaced. She stumbled half-blind around her apartment, feeling sick, disoriented. Riddle’s ghost followed her, flickering in and out of focus, smirking at her the entire time. What a joke her brain decided to play. What a nightmare.

This must have been why they’d sent her away. Had her parents told her what had happened? Had she gone mad with the knowledge of it? It would make some amount of sense, because now she felt the impression of starch sheets wrapped tightly around her legs, smelled strong antiseptic.

She staggered to the bathroom and vomited in the sink.

Sink, sink, sink. I could slide down the sink.

She heard herself laugh deliriously. It echoed back, high-pitched and not her own. Her insides froze. Again, she struggled to take a substantial breath.

She threw herself into her bath fully dressed, tipped the knobs on, and was immediately sprayed by ice water. She shrieked and spluttered but did not move away. The incessant whirling of her brain was quick to focus on the uncomfortable cold seeping through her jumper and onto her skin.

Ginny hadn’t had a minute of peace since she’d walked away from Harry’s calming aura just three hours ago. Work was slow and torturous as memory after memory pounded away at her, making little to no sense, jumbled up as they were. She’d tried to divert her attention hundreds of times, but ended up spilling two cups of coffee, hers and a colleague’s- how she hadn’t burned herself was still beyond comprehension- when a vision of Harry, covered in blood and mud and grime, materialized in the forefront of her mind. After that, she’d given up hope.

Why hadn’t she asked for Harry’s number when she’d given him hers? She had so much to ask him, so much to say. He’d been so nice to her, listened to her intently, promised not to seek out her family, family that had been kinder to him than to her. And now she was alone in her flat, fighting off a panic attack. Why was she always alone?

Because no one likes you, little girl, a voice whispered from the depths of her mind.

Ginny choked on a sob.

Sometime later, she walked out of the bathroom wrapped in a threadbare towel, leaving her clothes draped over the shower curtain rod, heavy and waterlogged. Her feet dragged, her arms hung limp from her shoulders, and her head was fit to explode. She turned on the overhead light of her bedroom, then the tiny lamp with a fringed shade that sat upon her wobbly nightstand, and collapsed into bed.

Shivering against the chilly sheets, Ginny shut her eyes and was instantly transported back in time, where she was immersed in darkness and there was a strange something ebbing further and further away from her. She reached out for it, wanting it desperately, but her heartbeat was slowing, pulse weakening, and the fight she’d wrought was dying. She was dying.

There was an explosion of light, and Ginny sat up in bed with a gasp and the image of a great, scaly monster with bloodied eyes burned into her retinas.

The sound of her phone ringing from the living room streamed into her consciousness, and Ginny tripped out of bed, heart in her throat because she knew exactly who was calling. She searched for the mobile, saw it glowing through the thin fabric of her purse, and fell to her knees to wrestle it out of the bag.

“Hello?” she said, clinging the phone to her face.

“Ginny?”

Relief swept through her very bones at the sound of Harry’s voice, and she pressed her back against the entryway to the kitchen, resisting the urge to cry. It was dark here, and the faucet was leaking… She hovered between the present and past.

“You called me,” she said, concentrating hard on the light switch just feet away.

“I said I would,” he responded.

There was an irrepressible tug up at the corners of her mouth, and a warm, fluttery feeling beneath her ribcage. Ginny tucked the mobile between her shoulder and ear, freeing the hand that wasn’t clutching at her uncomfortably damp towel. She hadn’t had such a good excuse in a long time.

Without looking at it, without touching it, Ginny waved her hand sharply...

The light switch flickered up, and the kitchen lit up in fluorescence.

“Good. I’ve got a few questions.”

PART II (Harry)

He got no more than a raised eyebrow from Ron when he raced into the Auror office twenty minutes late from lunch, and an “alright?” was his acknowledgment when Harry arrived at Grimmauld just before 7 rather than minutes past 5 o’clock.

Hermione was not so easy to bypass.

“Where were you today?” she said as they gathered in the basement kitchen for dinner.

“Hi to you, too,” Harry said, hoping the new mobile phone he’d purchased roughly an hour ago was completely shut off. If his pocket started ringing, he’d be in for it.

Hermione shook her head. “Sorry, it’s just… Ron said-”

“Mentioned in brief passing!” Ron interjected, throwing him an apologetic grimace.

“-that you were late coming back from lunch. Is everything okay?”

“Great,” Harry said. “How was the fitting?”

“I know what you’re doing,” Hermione said at once, gimlet-eyed as she helped herself to a generous heap of shepherd’s pie. “But… if you must know, it went amazing. Better than last time! The sleeves were actually cuffed correctly, and the bodice…”

Harry zoned out and thought instead about Ginny and how relieved she sounded when he’d phoned her less than an hour ago. They were meeting at her flat tomorrow evening upon her insistence, promising her that he would not seek out her parents and divulge her location to them when she provided him with her address. She’d asked it of him so desperately that the stab of guilt at keeping her a secret was negligible; he found himself unable to deny her.

Since the moment he’d laid eyes on her earlier that afternoon, convincing her to come around, to reconnect with the Weasleys and bring them light after so much darkness was at the forefront of Harry’s mind. It was going to be tricky. Ginny did not seem the type to be easily cajoled. But he held himself accountable for the torn family, and he owed them so much. He wanted this for them. And if it took him a day, a week, or a century to bring together such a family reunion, so be it.

PART III (Ginny)

A sleepless, dizzying night. An unproductive, migraine-encumbered workday. Ginny was spent by the time she arrived home, more than ready to collapse into bed and never get up again. But Harry was coming over, so she forced herself to move, and did so sluggishly, with the sky like black treacle behind her gauzy curtains.

He’ll be here soon.

She went about picking up shoes, wayward articles of clothing, tidying her awful, threadbare couch and dusting her bookshelf. She started a pot of water to boil instantly, just with a twitch of her fingers, and stared through the steam, wondering when she’d gotten so comfortable doing this… whatever this was.

Things tended to move for her when she wanted them to. The first time it had happened, she’d just been sent off to live with Matilda, and her mug of tea, sat on her nightstand, jumped several inches over into her outstretched fingertips. She had screamed then, but now it was almost second nature; flipping switches from across the room, heating food just by willing it, summoning the television remote to float into her beckoning hand. Ginny liked to blame it on her animal magnetism (ha!) because she thought she was clever, but she always figured the car crash was the turning point. Maybe she’d been injected with metals and magnets by the doctors who had seen to her after the accident. Maybe she was an experiment gone wrong. Maybe she was a monster, and had killed a man, a man named Tom Riddle, because he’d taken advantage of her, a foolish, lonely child.

Crack!

A car backfired just outside her building, and Ginny jumped and accidentally dumped an entire box of dried spaghetti into the water merrily boiling away of its own accord. She grimaced, added a generous dash of salt to the pot, and hurried to her door to peer through the spyhole.

A minute later, Harry’s form obscured her view, and before he could even raise his hand to knock, Ginny swung the door open and managed not to throw herself at him like a common hussy.

Sometimes she surprised even herself.

“Hi,” she said breathlessly.

Harry stood before her dressed in dark wash jeans, a thick cable knit jumper, and black coat.

Correction: Harry stood before her, looking to be fucking devoured.

“Alright?” he said, slanting a smile at her.

Now, yes.

She swallowed her words, nodded, and stood aside for him to enter, only just realizing that she hadn’t changed from her usual Friday work attire of faded, company logoed shirt and plain denim trousers, that she probably smelled of old coffee and ink, that her hair must have looked like a ragged mess, piled as it was in a messy bun held up by a single pencil.

Heart sunk, she led him through the small, near freezing sitting room, grateful for its semi-darkness as her cheeks heated in embarrassment, and into the kitchen, where she took a deep breath in hopes of soothing the sick feeling that had been blooming in the pit of her stomach since yesterday.

Once she needlessly checked on the spaghetti, and felt her blush mostly recede, Ginny turned to Harry.

“I can hang your coat. And you can take off your shoes, if you want. Make yourself comfortable.”

Harry shrugged off his coat and handed it off to her, and she scurried to the hall closet to put it up. She opened it quickly, hoping for the best… but an old football rolled out and a stack of books came tumbling onto her sock clad feet. Ginny gritted her teeth, hissing at the sting of pain.

What a disaster.

She set everything right as speedily as she could, and when she walked back into the kitchen, Harry was standing in the middle of the room, holding a bottle of wine by the neck and staring quizzically at the stove.

“I don’t drink,” she announced upon her entrance.

Harry whipped around to look at her. “What?”

She nodded towards the bottle. “Wine. Or anything alcoholic. I never fancied the idea of losing control of myself, you know?”

“Right,” Harry said. He placed the bottle down on the Formica countertop. “That makes sense. It was Hermione’s idea, anyway, not-”

Dread spread through her chest like a spilled ink bottle. Ginny pressed a hand to her heart as it began a quick staccato against her ribcage.

“Hermione? You didn’t tell her about me, did you?”

“I haven’t told anyone anything,” he said hurriedly, taking a step towards her, worry marring his face. “Hermione thought… she thought I was meeting up with a girl.”

She managed to glare at him. “What the fuck am I then?”

Harry blanched. “I know you’re a girl. I just meant, you know…”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, feeling only marginally better now that Harry had confirmed he hadn’t revealed her to her family, albeit worse, too, since he had inadvertently ripped open a metaphorical cut that’d healed over long ago, and rubbed salt all over it like he was born for it. “I get it.”

“Sorry,” he said quietly.

“Don’t be.”

“You’re very pretty.”

Suddenly, it was as if all the air had been sucked out of the flat.

Ginny stared at him. His cheeks were ruddy. “Excuse me?”

“Is something wrong with your stove?”

Thrown by the subject change, Ginny said, “I- what?”

“Your stove. It’s not on, but the water’s been boiling all this time.”

“Who, who can I look to? ‘Cause I'm not like you, you. And I don't believe in the truth, truth, ‘Cause all of my life's built on lies.”

Salt- Bad Suns

#hinny #harry/ginny #harry x ginny #fanfiction #hp #my writing #brightly bound

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thirstyfortom · 6 years

Text

Not really sure if I did this right... :/ Hope you still like this!^^

CHRISTMAS SPECIAL

RFA confessing their feelings through their gifts

Zen

He knows how to make someone happy, so this should be easy.

Even if… you’re not like everybody else, you’re not just a fan to whom he could give a sweaty towel and gain a huge grin and squeals in return

No, it has to be something meaningful, something special, something it would make you feel that it couldn’t be from anyone else but him.

His first instinct is picking something romantic, of course. And after lots of wondering, he decides to give you a piece of jewelry.

Tsk… he hates to admit it, but Jumin would have no problem in finding something classy, something that would make your eyes sparkle… should he call him for… tips? Ughhhhh

No, of course not! It’s not that much about class, it’s about… reaching you with his feelings through that gift… yes… yes, this is pretty easy.

“Merry Christmas, MC! It’s just a simple thing I got you…” usually people say that knowing it’s nothing simple, but he’s actually worried you might not like it that much…

It’s a necklace with a star pendant “Because… I love stargazing with you when you come to my place, I love… spending time with you like that, and to me… you shine more than all the stars. I- I know it’s a small pendant, there were bigger and shinier, but I…”

He blushes when you just turn your back on him, asking him to clasp it for you.

Yoosung

Okay, first: his budget is limited. Ah, but who is he kidding? He could have Jumin’s or Seven’s money, he would still feel like nothing coming from him would be enough for you.

Because you deserve only what’s beautiful, bright, sweet and amazing, just as you.

Boy is almost rehearsing his excuse on why he didn’t get you anything, but as he strolls around the stores, he has an idea

It’s silly, it’s lame, maybe you’ won’t even like it, but… well, it’s not pricy and he gets to give you the only thing he would actually give to you without thinking twice: all his time.

He’s almost backing out, because it’s super lame, maybe Mr. Romance Expert Zen could give him a better idea?

“Dude… what the hell are you saying? Your idea is great! And so smooth, had no idea you had it in you.” Zen nods with a dramatic expression, as if he just got defeated. Okay… so is this a go for his idea?

“Here, MC! M-Merry Christmas!” he tries not to shake as you unwrap the gift, boy is almost regretting when you frown and look at him “A… horror movie?”

“Y-yeah, I thought you would like to watch it with me.” “But you hate horror movies, Yoosung.” “But you like it, so-so… I would like to watch this with you, because I’m… I’m willing to risk myself for you, you give me this kind of courage, and… I… I hope you don’t get too surprised if I hold our hand when I get scared…” his face is burning so much he feels like fanning himself.

You smile and hug him, telling him you would love to watch this with him, as long as he doesn’t mind handling the snacks. Oh… showing you his improving cooking skills is much more than he could ask for today!

Jaehee

She’s so diligent, she makes a list of possible gifts for each RFA member, and then she stops, staring at your name for some minutes

If there’s someone she feels like spending a little more money and time to get the perfect present, it’s you, there’s no doubt about that.

But all the possibilities she considers are just… meh, they don’t seem good enough to express her gratitude for you

Her gratitude and some other feelings she doesn’t understand yet, but… maybe the gift will make them clearer not only to you, but also to her? Wow, that’s hard…

She acts a little distant from you for a couple of weeks, she doesn’t want to ruin the surprise and worries you might get suspicious on what she’s up to.

“Merry Christmas!” she beams excitingly when she hands you her present: a sweater she knitted.

“I-I’m sorry if it’s not perfect, I’m… I’m still learning, I swear I’ll make you a better one next Christmas…” she blushes, so comfortable about the fact she wants to spend next Christmas with you.

“You… you made this?” “Yes, I… I notice you have a lot of these sweaters, and… I don’t want you to catch a cold, I want you to always feel warm, just… just like I feel ever since you came along…”

It’s so hard not to stare when you immediately take off the shirt you were wearing to put on the sweater, but as soon as you do, she immediately feels that warmth in her heart again.

Jumin

He bought literally the entire store, and it’s still not enough

Because he’s sure you’ll get clothes, shoes and accessories from your friends and family, how can he have the guarantee his gift will stand out?

And why does he want to stand out? He never had problems trying to impress people before, but his usual methods don’t seem appropriate with you and… don’t give the exact message he wants.

That’s odd, but Zen comes to his mind, he would probably know how to pick a present full of ulterior meanings, he’s definitely not pragmatic and has intuition. Jumin wished he could just… feel what he should give you.

But then a very strange thought occurs to him, something he never thought he would consider: material gifts don’t matter that much.

So he sticks to a dress he thought it would look beautiful in you and invites you to dinner.

You, him, and the biggest and brightest Christmas tree you’ve ever seen in your entire life at this fancy restaurant he rented for the night.

“I hope you like the dress I chose for you, though I brought myself to think that a gift like this isn’t the most important today.” “Then what is?” “Spending the day with the people you cherish the most. Merry Christmas, MC.”

And he couldn’t be happier as you smile, completely flustered. Yes, that’s a memory of the person he cherishes the most he’ll never forget about.

Saeyoung

Should he give you another animal robot? A rabbitbot? A dinobot?

Dinobot would be cool, but it’s not exactly… uhm… romantic? And why does he want it to be romantic?

Because your smile and the gleam in your eyes if he handed you something romantic would make his whole year worthy, he’s damn sure about that.

But should he? Is it okay for him to drop not so subtle hints that he’s into you? What if you don’t get it? Or worse: what if you do and pretend you didn’t? No…

At times like this, he envies Yoosung, boy wears his heart up on her sleeve, he wouldn’t feel like walking on thin ice because of a gift, he would put all his devotion in finding something that would do justice to you…

… and by that, Saeyoung knows exactly what he should give you.

“I bought you tickets for Christmas.” That’s all he says for weeks before the day. Tickets for what? A concert? A play? A match?

And the little prick loves to see you all anxious, it makes him feel less self-conscious of his own anxiety.

“Symbolical tickets for a trip to the space station.” He smiles. “If our marriage there is symbolical or not, it’s up to you. Merry Christmas!”

Jihyun

His first thought was the most obvious one: asking what you wanted.

It’s simple, it leaves no room for misunderstandings or disappointments, and the idea of you saying exactly what you want from him makes his heart pound faster.

But… it’s also boring, where’s the fun in the surprise? In the anticipation?

So he spends days wondering if he should play safe or risk himself, his doubts make his heat overload, so he paints to calm down

And by that, he figures it out what he should do.

“I… wanted to give you something meaningful, as gratitude for everything you’ve done for me. Not only grateful, I feel… happy for having you here, not only today, but everyday. I… had no idea what to give you, because there isn’t anything as grant and amazing as you, and that… almost drove me crazy, I had so many feelings that I didn’t know what to do with… so I painted them.

And he guides you to his gallery, where there’s a huge panel that looks made of millions of Christmas lights.

“Where… where did you find time to paint all this?” “I have no idea, I… lose track of time when I’m inspired… did you… did you like it?”

“I loved it!” you hug him. Ahh… the word “love” coming out of your lips is everything he ever wanted to hear. Well… that and a “Merry Christmas, Jihyun” of course.

#mystic messenger #mystic messenger headcanons #mystic messenger hcs #christmas special #mystic messenger zen #hyun ryu #yoosung kim #jaehee kang #jumin han #saeyoung choi #mystic messenger v #jihyun kim #saeran choi

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madisonsclarks · 6 years

Text

Snowfall

Summary: Joyce hates getting up in the morning to shovel the snow off their driveway. Fortunately, someone else has already taken care of it...and continues to take care of it for the rest of the winter.

Loosely based on a text post I can’t find anymore, that went something like this: “Hopper gets up to shovel the Byers’ driveway every morning during the winter. Joyce always assumes it’s Jonathan.”

Read on AO3 here!

It was the first snowfall of 1985, and Joyce Byers awoke with an ache in her bones.

The wind howled, a monster pounding its fists against her bedroom window. She shivered, fighting the instinct to yank the thin quilt and knit blanket up to her chin and defy the beast that was winter in Hawkins. But she knew better.

There was snow.

It wasn’t that much snow.

The kids would have school today, despite their wishes otherwise. She would have to trudge into Melvald’s with slush clinging to her boots, seeping through where her soles parted from the fraying synthetic material, chilling her toes and numbing her feet until well into the afternoon.

A little snow wouldn’t stop the hustle and bustle of a Monday in Hawkins – life would go on, as it always did. As she slid out of bed and pulled on a pair of sweatpants and a bulky, knit sweater, she couldn’t help noticing the deafening quiet. Jonathan wouldn’t have to be up for another hour or so, and Will had another hour and a half of sleep. But the duty fell to her to shovel, to toss the unwanted inches of white gunk off their cracked driveway and scrape ice off the cars so that everyone could get about their lives.

Closing the door to her bedroom behind her, softly, as not to wake the boys, Joyce tried not to think about the frigid morning air or the needlepoint pinpricks of itchiness that surfaced each time the sweater brushed against her bare skin. Given their situation just a few months ago, some snow was nothing to gripe about: they’d faced much, much bigger foes. She’d faced much, much bigger foes. The memory was an echo, bouncing back all sorts of fears and recent nightmares, louder and louder. Her breath caught.

On instinct, she took a few steps down the hallway and gently pushed open the door to Will’s room. The hallway was lit only by white moonlight – not enough to wake him, but enough for her to see him by – and she breathed a tiny sigh of relief when she glimpsed his sleeping form buried under the comforter she’d promised him she didn’t need. She smiled, standing for a few seconds, watching his chest rise and fall, the dim moonlight turning his hair to a kind of soil-brown color: her hair color. He was okay. They were all okay.

She couldn’t help a cursory glance around the room, just to make sure nothing sinister lurked in the long shadows that wrapped long, dark tendrils around his desk and the sketches taped on his walls. There was nothing amiss, but even so, she swallowed hard. There was one drawing she could barely look at, though time was, thankfully, making it a little easier.

Bob Newby, superhero.

Deciding she’d lingered long enough and feeling that familiar dreadful lump forming in her throat, Joyce stepped away from her son’s room. He was fine, and that was all that mattered. The rest…the rest she had to deal with, by herself. And she could. She had been. She would.

Joyce took a few more steps down the hallway, stopping outside Jonathan’s room, taking a few deep breaths until grief relinquished its hold on her throat. She peered through the doorway, desperate for the sight of her eldest, knowing his sleeping form would be enough to put a smile on her face. Her caring, helpful, wonderful boy. For everything Will had been through, Jonathan had suffered, too: his pain simmered beneath the surface, hidden in blank stares and hugs that held on tighter than they used to, embraces that masked a fear of being forced to let go. Joyce had no idea how she’d be able to drop him off at school next year.

You don’t have to think about that right now, she reminded herself when she felt her heartbeat speeding up, like it always did when she started thinking about Jonathan and college and losing him to the great big world. Right now, you have to go shovel the goddamn driveway.

But she needed to see her son first. So she opened the door a crack, just as she’d done with Will, and…

He wasn’t there.

Joyce frowned, certain her sleep and cold-addled brain must have been yanking hallucinations from her nightmares. She opened the door wider, letting the hallway light in, and stepped into the room.

He definitely wasn’t there.

His covers had been thrown back, his pajamas scattered in heaps on the floor. A glance around the room confirmed her fears, and she didn’t bother forcing herself to breathe evenly.

“Jonathan?” she said, though she knew better than to expect an answer.

She turned around and practically sprinted down the hallway, turning toward the kitchen, Jim’s number already on her fingertips. Jonathan’s gone. Jonathan’s gone and I can’t find him and I don’t know where he i-

“Mom?” a familiar voice said, and she froze in her tracks.

“Jonathan?” she breathed.

There was a long pause, in which both parties seemed to question why they were hearing the other’s voice at such an ungodly hour of the morning. Joyce took a few moments to compose herself, turning toward her son, who had – for some reason – taken a portable desk light and his textbooks out to the kitchen table. He’s okay, she reassured herself. He’s right here. He’s fine. He’s fine.

“Why are you up so early, honey?” she asked. He had to have gotten up well before her – he was wearing his school clothes, and he even had his shoes on.

“I have a big biology test today,” he said, his sentence marred halfway through by a loud, long yawn. “But I thought it was going to be a snow day, and…”

He trailed off, and Joyce couldn’t help but smile. Part of her knew she should be a little annoyed with him – he shouldn’t have put all his eggs into the snow day basket, after all – but she’d done the same thing as a kid. And Jim had, several times, failed tests as a result of his ill-fated optimism that school would be closed.

“Good luck, sir,” Joyce smiled, squeezing his shoulder as she walked past, steeling herself for the onslaught of negative temperatures and ice. His shirt felt a little wet, and she noticed his hair was dripping: he must have just gotten out of the shower. He had a little over an hour to study…God, how she hoped he wasn’t just starting now.

“Where are you going?” Jonathan asked, and she could hear a confused scowl in his voice.

“To shovel the driveway,” she said, pulling on her boots. She added, because Jim was a terrible influence on her and she just couldn’t resist: “So you can take that test.”

“Do you need help?” he asked, like she knew he would.

“No,” she said. “You’re soaking wet. If you go out there, you’ll catch a cold.”

“Mom, I can do it.”

“It’s all right. I can take care of it.”

“Mom.”

“Study for your test.”

Jonathan didn’t answer, and she guessed he’d gone back to his textbook. Joyce made her way toward the front door and sat down on the floor to get ready for the cold, fingers fumbling with the nearly decade-old, fraying laces on her boots, and she only managed to tie them into a knot. It would do. Her coat was easier to command, and she shoved a hat on and pulled on a pair of black mittens.

Seeing no point in delaying it any further, she pushed open the front door, ready for whatever frozen hell into which winter would drag her. She stepped out into the cold morning, shoving the door shut behind her, feeling the icy wind strip her warm breath from her lips in wisps of gray. Her feet touched the porch, and –

Her feet touched the porch. Not snow, which should have blown up from the driveway and coated the wood with a dusting of white. Her feet touched wood, solidness, a hard surface. The porch.

When she looked out, following the path from her home into the road, her jaw dropped. The porch wasn’t the only oddity.

“What the hell?” she whispered, equally confused, stunned, and joyous.

Daylight had begun seeping in around the edges of the sky, painting the darkness purple and red, and through those colors Joyce saw her driveway had been shoveled in its entirety. A path had been meticulously cleared for the cars to back out, piles of snow evenly spaced where gravel met grass. Windshields had been scraped clean of whatever ice and snow had covered them in the night. It was as though she’d somehow sleepwalked her way through that dreadful winter morning routine, though she knew that hadn’t been the case. But who else…

Oh.

She smiled and turned around, stepping back into her house. She sighed as its warmth embraced her, and pulled off her boots in one fluid motion. She didn’t bother with her hat, mittens, or coat: not at a time like this.

“Thank you!” she exclaimed, practically floating as she walked back to the kitchen and pulled him into a tight hug. Jonathan’s head snapped up as he shifted from focusing on the pages of his textbook to focusing on her, and he frowned.

“I’m sorry?”

“The driveway,” she said, stepping away and smiling. “You didn’t have to do that.”

It would be just like him, she thought, to be modest about it. Did he even have a test he was studying for, or had this been a ploy? At any rate, she could hardly believe his kindness. Well, she could believe it – he cooked breakfast for them every morning, and even dinner, sometimes, when she got trapped at Melvald’s – but sacrificing his sleep to do the winter task she absolutely despised was so kindhearted she thought he might’ve melted the snow outside.

“Mom, I -“

“Jonathan,” she interrupted, still beaming. “I really appreciate it, honey. I’ll take care of breakfast this morning and take Will to school. You just focus on your test, okay?”

She thought he’d be elated – instead, his brow furrowed.

“Mom, I di-“ he paused halfway through his sentence, realization seeming to wash over him as his expression changed. As if he’d suddenly remembered something.

“What?” Joyce asked, confused.

“I, uh,” Jonathan stammered, “thanks. I really need to focus on this.”

Joyce smiled again, though the expression was now tainted with a bit of uncertainty. Something was off about his behavior, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was. Was he just tired? Was he nervous about the test? Was he coming down with something, because he’d gotten up in the middle of the night to lift this burden off her shoulders? Whatever it was, she’d do anything she could do help.

“Of course,” she said.

And because she was happy and felt lighter than she had in a very long time, she leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to his forehead. Jonathan squirmed – he’d long ago outgrown such motherly displays of affection – but even despite his odd behavior, she was overflowing with gratitude and had to let it show before her heart burst.

“Thank you,” she repeated, and she couldn’t help noticing the beat of hesitation that passed before Jonathan responded.

“You’re welcome,” he said. “I’m happy I could help.”

***

It was the third snowfall of 1985, and Jim Hopper awoke with an ache in his bones.

“Dammit,” he breathed into the early morning air, shutting his alarm clock off with a slam of his hand against the freezing metal. He didn’t look at the time, because he damn well knew what time it was, and he damn well knew he was an idiot. And he didn’t know how much longer he could keep this up, but he’d be damned if he didn’t keep trying.

At least, he thought as he pulled on his uniform, it was Friday. He and Jane were going to rent a movie from the video store tonight and eat a ton of discounted Valentine’s Day candy, maybe play a few rounds of Scrabble if they hadn’t both passed out on the couch by the time the credits rolled. It was going to be a good night, and he needed a good night, because the rest of the week had been shit.

God, he was so tired.

It took him only a few minutes to gather up his things – or at least, the things he would need for his self-imposed snowfall ritual – and he stumbled out the door, trying to remember why the hell he’d taken it upon himself to do this. He didn’t have to keep going, after the first time. There was nothing that necessitated this, nothing in it for him, or Jane. But there existed a kind of magnetic pull now, something that drew him back every time the snowfall was unmanageable, and he couldn’t help it.

Jane’s door was closed, and he didn’t want to startle her with the squeaky door hinges that would undoubtedly screech if he tried to check on her. Everything was fine between them now – she had never tried to leave since October, and now that she had a set date, a time when she could be back into the world, they argued a whole lot less. Thank God. He didn’t know how many arguments with a telekinetic teenager he could take. He didn’t know how many arguments with a telekinetic teenager he could survive, either, remembering the shattering glass that had accompanied their last big blowout.

But seeing Jane when she was happy, when she spent time with her friends and how she grinned when she bit into one of those Eggo waffles and how she cheered when she won a game of Boggle…it was worth whatever risk might come with her powers. Losing Sara had blasted a hole through him he wasn’t sure he could repair. It wasn’t pain, not really, it was emptiness. A gaping, echoing cavern of nothingness, into which he fell and fell and fell.

Until Jane pulled him back.

Jim smiled as he stepped out into the morning and locked the cabin door behind him, his expression a little sad around the edges, grief still hiding in the quirk of his mouth and in the lines on his forehead. The air was sharp, stinging, but it was the kind of morning Sara would have loved – the kind of morning that held possibilities of snowmen built and snowball fights in the afternoon sunlight. Sometimes he could still hear her laughing when he looked at the fresh snow, at that glimmering blanket of white that cloaked the woods.

He took a deep breath to stave off the ache in his chest.

There only existed enough patience in him to brush the snow off his windshield – the rest, he decided, would fall off on the road. So, unceremoniously, he flung open his car door and slammed it shut, shoved his key into the ignition, and twisted it. The car turned over a few times, as reluctant to head out into the frigid morning as he was, and eventually, like him, accepted its fate.

He’d made it out onto the road by the time he noticed something under his the fleece blanket he kept in his car was moving.

Shit, he thought, debating whether to pull over or keep driving. In the end he opted to keep going, despising himself for leaving his gun at home. What the hell had he been thinking? Though he doubted those demo-things, whatever the hell Dustin called them, would have the decency to camouflage themselves beneath a blanket.

But he could think of someone who would.

He pulled back the blanket, and underneath the layer of fleece sat, huddled into a ball, exactly the person he expected to see.

“Jesus!” he exclaimed.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Jane said simply, as though this would be the only explanation he’d require. As if he wouldn’t want to know why the fuck his thirteen-year-old was sitting on the floor of his car underneath a fleece blanket instead of in her bed at home, asleep. Or, trying to sleep.

“Yeah,” Jim said, still trying to catch his breath as his passenger clambered up into the seat and buckled herself in. “That’s fine. Sometimes I can’t sleep, too. But why are you in my car?”

She was quiet, staring out the window. Sometimes he could accept whatever answer she gave, but this…this needed more than the half-assed explanation she’d given him. He might not know a ton about raising a teenager, but he damn well knew “couldn’t sleep” wasn’t a justification for this behavior. But he had a sinking feeling he already knew why she’d shown up here.

“Elle,” he tried again, softening his voice a little. After all, she hadn’t meant to scare him half to death. “What are you doing?”

“Wanted to see…where you go,” she muttered. “When it snows, you leave.”

Every alarm bell in Jim Hopper’s head went off at once.

There had been a reason this ritual was his and Jonathan’s secret. And even then, he knew the kid hated keeping it – he himself wasn’t too fond of keeping it between them. But if Joyce knew, Jim knew she would feel obligated to do something in return – to bake him cookies or buy him lunch or something like that, and the last thing he wanted was Joyce Byers feeling obligated to do anything for him. She already carried so much on those tiny shoulders of hers, and he didn’t want this to be another few pounds added on. He didn’t want to be another few pounds added on. Hell, he was doing this because…

Well, because he was an idiot. That was the simple explanation, and the only one that mattered at four in the goddamn morning when he’d only gotten three hours of sleep.

“Yeah, I do,” Jim said. “It’s nothing bad, I promise. It’s just…a secret.”

Jane relaxed a little, leaning back in her seat. “Why is it secret?”

“Because it has to be.”

“Why?”

Jesus, she was asking him all the hard questions.

He trailed off, realizing his brain had taken the wheel and whether he liked it or not, he was still driving to the Byers’ house. Whether he liked it or not, Jane was going to know all about the secret before the sun rose this morning. Just by getting in this car, she’d made all the decisions for him.

He sighed.

“Okay, kid,” he tried again, looking over at her, finding her brown eyes in against the navy night sky and pinpricks of glimmering starlight. “If I tell you, you gotta promise not to tell anyone. That includes Mike, and Will, and all your little friends.”

Jane’s eyes widened a bit, as though taken aback by the responsibility she was being given. After a few moments of quiet consideration, she said,

“Promise.”

Jim swallowed hard, trying to determine where to begin. Well, where they were going was probably a good start, he thought. At least he could figure out where to begin.

“When it snows, I go shovel the snow off Byers’ driveway. For Will and Jonathan and Joyce,” he said.

“Shovel?” Jane said, sounding incredulous. It occurred to him, briefly, that this was probably the farthest thing from what she’d imagined he’d been doing. And it even sounded a little silly, when he said it out loud: I get up at four in the morning and go shovel a bunch of snow off of a driveway that isn’t mine.

“Why…shovel?” Jane asked, and Jim’s stomach dropped. “Why do you go?”

Shit. He’d known the question was coming, but that didn’t make him any more inclined to answer it.

“I, uh,” he started, his gruff exhale a swirl of white wisps. “I want to help them. Joyce and her kids….they’ve been through a lot this year. And Joyce hates mornings.”

He smiled, remembering how she’d often stumbled in halfway through first period during their high school days. Once the temperature dipped below freezing, he could count on seeing her only well after the bell rang. Granted, he wasn’t much better – he’d usually just made his way through the classroom door when she made it to the parking lot.

Jane seemed to read his mind. “You hate mornings.”

He wouldn’t bother denying it. “Okay. I do. I just…wanted to do something nice for them. They’re good people, and they deserve a break. That’s all there is to it.”

Jane stared at him for a few seconds, her eyes wide, like she was staring straight through him at the turmoil raging in his chest, reading all the thoughts he wasn’t ready to acknowledge – thoughts about Joyce, and their past, and their future. A future neither of them was ready to have, least of all him, but he’d be damned if it didn’t flicker through his head more and more often…when she smiled, when she brought Will over to spend time with Jane, when they shared cigarettes and old memories. When she looked at him, her brown gaze slowly growing less and less haunted by the events of last October, color coursing through her cheeks when she laughed.

It was as though the jagged edges of where they’d been broken, he and Joyce, fit together just right. And for a few hours, when he was with her, he felt like he was whole again. She’d always had a talent for that, even when they were younger – when he was with her, the world seemed a little less dark.

Jane’s stare unsettled him as he turned onto the Byers’ street, flicking off his headlights so he wouldn’t accidentally wake the unsuspecting family. She said nothing as the car slowed to a crawl, then a stop, crunching on the thick layer of snow that had fallen overnight. Uncomfortable, Jim decided to fill the silence.

“Stay in the car,” he said.

“Why?” Jane asked, her tone both angry and demanding.

“Because it’s not safe for you to be out here,” Jim tried. “Someone could see you.”

Jane frowned, crossing her arms over her chest, imitating a gesture she’d undoubtedly picked up from Mike.

“No one will see me. Too cold.”

Jim weighed the pros against the cons, as well as his exhausted brain could in the early morning deep freeze. It was highly unlikely anyone was awake in the sleepy town of Hawkins besides him and the kid on his right. And while he sure as hell wasn’t going to let her use her powers to help him, it might be nice to have the company. Shoveling snow was a lonely, tireless job.

“No using your powers. And stay in the shadows.”

Jane’s scowl deepened. Jim, done negotiating, opened the car door and stepped outside.

“That’s the deal,” he said. “Take it or leave it, kid.”

The frown didn’t vanish completely, but it slipped a fraction.

“Fine,” Jane said.

He took care to close the door quietly, and Jane, learning from his example, did the same. He turned to get the shovel out of his trunk, only to find it floating in mid-air, traveling toward him as though the wind had lifted it and brought it his way.

“I said-“ he started, ready to launch into a lecture, interrupted mid-sentence.

“Quieter,” Jane said, depositing the shovel in his hands, and he guessed he couldn’t really argue with that. Her method was quieter than him unlocking and closing the gate. But dammit, he told her not to…

“If you do that again, you’re going back in the car,” Jim said, though there was no heat behind his words – it was too cold for that.

“I understand,” she responded, and they made their way up the Byers driveway in silence. Jane adopted her post in the shadow of Joyce’s Pinto, leaning against the car, where only the faint outline of her curly hair was visible. Good, Jim thought. If he could barely see her, no one else around would be able to discover her.

Working quickly and quietly, he began shoving the snow off to the sides of the gravel line that led to the Byers’ front porch. His arm muscles burned, and he decided that this morning, of all mornings, Flo had damn well better let him have a donut. No more of this “apple a day” bullshit. Maybe he could grab one and sneak past her, wait until she was on the phone or something.

He was so lost in his donut daydream that the first time Jane spoke, her words were lost to the powdered sugar snowflakes and winter air.

“What?” he asked, hearing only a mumble and the whisper of the icy wind.

“She likes you,” Jane said, and lest there be any question about who she meant, the kid pointed at Joyce’s house.

Jim gave a startled cough, angry at his heart for skipping a beat, losing focus and wincing as a sheet of snow blew back in his direction and stung his face. Apparently he hesitated a moment too long, because Jane took his silence as an invitation to keep talking.

“She is happy,” Jane added, “with you.”

“We’re friends,” Jim said, wondering how the hell he ended up having this conversation – one he couldn’t even have with himself – at four-thirty in the morning with a 13-year-old. “Joyce is…” he trailed off, distracted by the mental image of her, smiling while they stood on the front porch of the cabin, his arm wrapped around her shoulders, a cigarette between her fingers. Friends. Right. “A very good friend.”

Jane shook her head. “Not just ‘friend.’ Like me and Mike.”

That was yet another conversation he didn’t want to have at four-thirty in the morning while flinging snow over his shoulder, but he’d take these unsavory topics one at a time.

“Kid, it’s not like that with Joyce and I,” he said, swallowing hard, then convincing himself the gesture was a byproduct of the cold and not emotion. “She needs some time. We both do.”

He’d made enough progress to see Jane’s expression now, the furrow in her brow that accompanied either use of her powers or deep, continued thought.

“Will agrees with me.”

That was enough to make him stop in his tracks.

“You talked about this with Will?” he asked, his tone sharper than he meant.

For some reason, the idea took him aback – that their kids could be discussing the nature of their relationship before he had the guts to sit down and think about it. To sort through the tangled cobweb of his feelings and get at whatever mess rested in the center.

But he was convinced on one thing, he wasn’t wrong: Joyce needed time. She wasn’t ready for anything, not for a while, not after Bob. And hell, he came with enough baggage to capsize any relationship; if she decided to date again, it would probably be best if it wasn’t him. So why did that thought ignite that familiar bitterness, that acidic burn in his stomach?

“No,” Jane answered, seeming to sense this was the answer he needed to hear. “Not much. A little. Once.”

Because he was tired and the snow had seeped into his clothes and was dripping down his neck, and because his judgment was clouded by his deep, deep discomfort, Jim asked the question – the question he’d regret asking later, when his common sense returned.

“What did Will say?”

“He said…you make her laugh,” Jane said. “She smiles with you.”

Jim had no good answer for that, so he didn’t try to give a coherent one. Instead, he just nodded. Instead, he just kept shoveling, finished the job, walked back up the driveway and cleared the porch, scraped ice off the cars. Instead he kept quiet, letting the howling wind and stinging snow speak for him, letting it say the words he couldn’t.

When all was finished, he returned to Jane. She’d pulled her fleece blanket tightly around her shoulders, and she looked up at him with a regretful gaze. It was as though she knew, though he hadn’t said it, that she’d overstepped a boundary.

“Sorry,” she muttered, though he couldn’t tell if she was sorry for bringing it up, or sorry he hadn’t given her the answer she wanted, or sorry she couldn’t tell how he felt so she could report back to Will.

I’m sorry, too, he felt like saying.

And he was. He was sorry their lives were such a fucked-up mess that he couldn’t tell up from down when it came to his feelings for the woman in the house behind them. He was sorry she’d been through hell, and he’d been through hell, and somewhere in that labyrinth his emotional center had gotten lost and never found its way out. He was sorry for what happened to Bob, and for what happened to them, all those years ago.

All apologies he could never say, words the winter wind would steal from him before they could find their way to the open, starlit air. So instead of saying them, he reached down and ruffled Jane’s hair to let her know there were no hard feelings.

“It’s fine,” he said, removing his hand from her head as he made his way toward the drivers’ side. “But you watch too many soaps, kid.”

***

It was the last snowfall of 1985, and Joyce Byers awoke with a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.

Her expression, given the conditions outside, was an abnormality. It was just a day shy of being April. Everyone was just tired of the snow and had long ago stopped thinking it was pretty. It was about 30 degrees outside – just cold enough for the white stuff to stick – and when Hawkins awoke, it would be hidden under gray clouds and a cold front. There was little reason for her to be smiling.

But now that she was listening for it, she could hear it: the faint sound of a scraping against the gravel on her driveway, a muttered swear word or two. There was no question as to what was going on, and the identity of her mysterious snowfall savior was no longer a mystery.

Jonathan had broken down a few days ago, apparently believing they wouldn’t have another blizzard until November, at the earliest. Granted, he’d lived in Hawkins for long enough to at least assume there was a decent chance of another storm, but Joyce figured he’d kept the secret for long enough. It was obvious it was eroding him inside, and whether he knew they were calling for another storm or not, she was happy he’d freed himself of the burden.

“Hey mom?” he’d said as they dried dishes after dinner. Will had gone to do his homework, and the house was oddly quiet. But it wasn’t a harsh silence; it was comforting, embracing – it offered normalcy, instead of chaos.

Of course, the softness of the silence made her son’s exaggerated casualness all the more harsh. Joyce could tell from the moment he opened his mouth that something was wrong, but she held her tongue – Jonathan would tell her when he was ready.

“Hmmmmm?” she said, drying a bowl and reaching to put it in the cabinet.

“I, um, have something to tell you,” Jonathan said. Out of the corner of her eyes, Joyce saw he was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, avoiding eye contact. “Just…don’t get upset.”

Joyce drew in a deep breath, preparing herself for anything from “Will’s showing symptoms again but didn’t want to tell you” to “Nancy and I broke up.”

“I won’t,” she promised, placing the bowl back on top of all the other chipped ceramics in the wood cupboard and closing the door. She leaned against the counter, giving Jonathan her full attention. “What’s wrong, honey?”

Jonathan gave a tight, tiny laugh – it sounded more like a bark than an expression of amusement. “Nothing’s wrong. But I’ve been keeping a secret, and I think you should know the truth.”

She swallowed hard, took a deep breath in an attempt to counteract her surging heartbeat. You don’t know that it’s bad yet. Stop jumping to conclusions. Hear him out.

“Okay,” she said slowly, wringing the towel in her hands, twisting it one way and then the other.

“You know that one morning in January, when I was in the kitchen studying for a biology test?” he said, finally meeting her gaze.

Oh. Yes, she remembered that morning, because it was one of the strangest in her recent memory – her son sitting at the kitchen table at an hour reserved only for chirping birds and coffee. She also remembered it because it was the first morning her snow savior had shown up, and continued to show up every time there was a blizzard. No matter how early she woke up, they finished earlier. Despite her best efforts to uncover their identity, she couldn’t get to the bottom of it: the Wheelers were as mystified by the phenomenon as she was, and Jim just shrugged, muttered something about trespassing, and offered her another drag of his cigarette. All things considered, it had to be Jonathan - and given the direction their conversation was headed, she was ready for her suspicions to be confirmed.

She nodded, and Jonathan continued.

“I didn’t have a test,” he confessed, and Joyce couldn’t help a smirk.

“I figured,” Joyce said, her smile maturing to a full-blown grin. “Let me guess. You’ve been shoveling the driveway this whole time?”

“What? No,” Jonathan said, and just like that, her smile vanished.

“I woke up that morning and heard a scraping sound in the driveway. I was worried it was the-“ he stopped, swallowed hard. There was no need to give it a name – both he and Joyce knew exactly what he was talking about. “So I looked out my window. And I saw Hopper.”

“Hopper?” Joyce said, the dish towel wrung into a compact knot of worry and confusion. “Jim’s been shoveling our driveway?”

Jonathan nodded. “He wanted me to keep it a secret, but I thought you should know.”

Joyce stumbled over her words, several sentences trying to escape all at once.

“But why…what…I don’t understand.”

“I don’t, either,” Jonathan said, shrugging. “He told me he was trying to help. That he didn’t want you to feel obligated to do anything in return, and if you found out it was him, you’d try.”

Dammit, Jim.

He was right – she was sure as hell going to do something nice for him in return. Granted, money was tight – it always was – but she could probably swing the cash to buy him a pack or two of cigarettes, or that beer he liked, or a new Scrabble set for him and Jane (apparently theirs was missing the ‘Z’ and ‘Q’ tiles, because Jim had hidden them when they first started playing and had now forgotten where he put them).

Her expression must have morphed into something resembling determination mixed with a fair amount of anger, because Jonathan jumped back into the conversation.

“Don’t be pissed at him, mom,” he said. “I know you wish he had told you, but-“

“No, I’d expect this from him,” she said. That much was true. She’d expect Jim to do something kind and expect no credit for it: even when they were younger, he’d done random, thoughtful things just to see her smile. He’d shown up at school with a pack of her favorite gum, kept her company when her parents skipped town for days on end, let her wear his jacket when she was cold. He didn’t expect anything back then, and 20 years later, he still expected absolutely nothing from her. “But he can’t expect me to just accept that he’s been doing this the whole winter. Do you know how much snow we’ve had? How many times he’s come over here and-“

“I know,” Jonathan said.

She felt her throat closing up and decided to stop talking before her voice broke. It was all suddenly too much; Jim Hopper, who hated mornings just as vehemently as she did, showing up at her house with a shovel and ice scraper and digging them out from under one of the worst winters Hawkins had ever had. He was too good, she thought. He’d always been too damn good. Even when he’d buried himself under drinking and half-assed hookups, he was a good man – a better man than Lonnie could ever hope to be.

“Thank you for telling me,” was all she said, drawing him in for a tight, long hug.

And that was how Joyce Byers ended up conscious at four in the morning on the day of the last snowfall of 1985 with a smile and a racing heartbeat. Much like she had on the night of the first snowfall, she slid out of bed and shucked off her pajamas, taking a little more care with her appearance than she had back in January. As much as her feelings for Jim Hopper confused her from time to time, she at least knew she didn’t want to stumble outside in her raggedy sweatpants and old Hawkins High sweatshirt – not this time. But there was something to be said for prioritizing warmth over outward appearances, especially at this hour of the morning, so she opted for a thick sweater and jeans.

Doing her best not to awaken the rest of her household with her stumbling, she pushed open her bedroom door and headed for the bathroom, where she ran a comb through her hair and smeared on a layer of foundation and mascara. Her movements were coated with exhaustion and ache, and briefly, she wondered why the hell she was doing this. It was dark outside, and Jim was a friend. He’d probably come over in his pajamas, for God’s sake, and it was incredibly unlikely he gave a damn what she looked like. He’d be scared shitless at the sight of her, and here she was trying to look nice.

Her stomach flipped, and she decided she’d ridden that train of thought far enough. Her feelings for him were growing harder and harder to decipher as the events of last October faded into the background of their daily lives. Sometimes she caught herself thinking about him on her downtime at work, wondering how his day was going, wondering if calling to ask him if Jane wanted to see Will was a suitable enough front for what she really wanted: to see him. Slowly, it had become easier and easier to lean on him, in the aftermath of everything. He was sturdy, and strong, and as kind as he had ever been, and so tightly woven into her past and present that ripping him out would tear her apart inside.

Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to kiss him.

To have him push her against the shelves of the storage closet, to giggle against his mouth, to grab a fistful of that tan police uniform and pull him down to her. But those thoughts were always accompanied by a swift, searing current of guilt, one that washed away her daydreams and left doubt in their wake. She wasn’t looking for a relationship – not after Bob – and if anything, Bob had confirmed her worst suspicions: that people close to her, to her family, tended to get hurt. If she could, she wanted to spare Jim that pain. He’d once referred to himself as a black hole, but Joyce thought of herself as a tornado; fated by nature to bring destruction, chaos, desolation. In protecting her family she lost whatever normalcy remained in her life, swirling in a vortex of alternate dimensions and shadowy truths.

Joyce took a deep breath.

None of this mattered right now, she reminded herself. What mattered right now was the man standing in her driveway, shoveling heavy, thick snow away from her car and chipping ice off her windshield. What mattered right now was getting her boots on and going out there and thanking him for what he’d done for the past three months. The rest of the bullshit in her brain could wait.

A few minutes later she’d pulled on her boots and coat, and stepped out onto her porch in the wintry April night. She could barely make out his silhouette halfway down her driveway, snowflakes still falling in loopy, zigzag patters through the icy air.

“Hey!” she called, and she saw Jim’s back stiffen.

“Joyce?” His voice carried an exaggerated kind of casualness that faded into shock, disbelief. “I, uh, didn’t think you’d be up.”

“I’m not, usually,” she said, walking toward him. “Neither are you.”

She was soon close enough to see the tiny smile that stretched his lips, the shyness in his gaze. He’d been made, and he knew it.

“I didn’t want to tell you,” he said. “Don’t blame the kid – I told him to keep it between us. If you’re going to get mad, get mad at me.”

He’d stopped shoveling now, stood next to her car with a gaze equally apprehensive and defiant. It was clear he expected some kind of lecture – and if she’d been more awake, maybe she would have given him one. Nothing serious, nothing too accosting, but enough for him to realize he wasn’t going to get his wish – she’d be getting him something for his trouble.

“I’m not mad,” she said, keeping her tone even and measured. It occurred to her that this was the exact voice she’d often used on Jonathan and Will, when they’d done something she didn’t approve of or went somewhere without telling her. And because Jim was Jim, he picked up on it.

“Just disappointed?” he said, and they both chuckled, any awkwardness between them dissipating.

She leaned against her car, letting the cold metal hold her up, and next to her, Jim did the same. It was impossible not to think about the last time they’d stood together like this, the exact same position, outside the Snow Ball. How he’d wrapped his arm around her and pressed his lips to her hair, reassured her, comforted her. How could everything be so different, yet so similar?

“You didn’t have to do this,” she said.

“I know,” he responded.

“I’m buying you a pack of Camels,” she said, her voice firm. “Probably two.”

“Joyce,” he started, sounding weary. This was, she knew, the exact discussion he didn’t want to have. But goddamn it, he wasn’t going to get out of this with nothing. He’d been helping her family all winter, and she wasn’t a charity case.

“No!” she said, as sternly as she could muster. “If you keep arguing with me, it’ll be three.”

“Fine,” he huffed, not sounding like it was fine at all. “But I never meant for you to-“

“Okay, three.”

“I wasn’t trying to -“

“Do you want to make it four?”

“Dammit, Joyce,” he chuckled.

Where she’d get the money for three packs all at once, she had no idea. But she liked the way the threat sounded as it slipped past her lips, and when she looked at Jim, she found his gaze more appraising than frustrated. She swallowed hard, recognizing that look. It was the same way he’d looked at her at the kitchen table all those months ago, the first time they’d shared a cigarette in two decades. Though the weather was frigid, she felt her cheeks flush.

“Why did you do it?” she asked.

He stopped, hesitated, looked away. Snow was still falling, if barely, flakes floating down and peppering his beard with white crystals that melted as soon as her eyes settled on them. She felt snow sticking to her mittens and melting, knew she should be cold, but felt only warmth. Even the wind did no damage to her now.

“I wanted to help. And I know, I know,” he said, raising his hands in mock surrender. “You don’t need it. You’re fine on your own. But just because you can handle everything yourself…” He stopped, looked at her again, his voice softening. “Doesn’t mean you have to.”

His words froze her more deeply than the temperature ever could, and she felt her lungs burning. Joyce Byers had not needed anyone in a very long time. Not Lonnie, not her parents, not even the doctors at Hawkins Lab. But Jim was different. Jim was the closest she had come to it, to needing someone, and that thought was both electrifying and terrifying.

And maybe, she thought, that was why she couldn’t let herself get close to him, like she’d been with Bob. Because if the loss of Bob – who she’d liked, but hadn’t needed – was enough to wound her this deeply, how would she ever recover from losing Jim?

How could she ever forgive herself if the tornado tore him from her, too?

“Thank you,” she said, because that was all she could say. Because anything else, right now, was too much. Because she already felt tears forming, and she didn’t want to let him see, even though she knew he wouldn’t fault her for it. He’d already seen her with every wall down, stripped to the barest of emotions at her core. There was no point in hiding anything from him, least of all her tears.

She needed him, and she couldn’t lose him. But he was here, now. She was here, now. All the nightmares of their past were but hazy memories, evaporated upon awakening.

And then, because she was happy, and nervous, and desperate for him not to see her tears, and her heart was beating so loudly she thought he had to be able to hear it, she pushed herself onto her tiptoes and closed the gap between them in a soft, slow kiss.

He made a gruff sound of surprise as her lips brushed his, and she allowed herself only a handful of seconds to treasure that moment. To feel his heart racing under her palm, warmth spreading from his hand as it rested on the small of her back. To hear the wind as it whistled through the leafless trees, seeming to pass around them, allowing them this small, fleeting moment of bliss.

And it was exactly that: fleeting. She pulled away, took a second to compose herself before opening her eyes, preparing herself for whatever she might see: confusion, disgust, bewilderment. After all, it wasn’t as though he’d passionately kissed her back – this was, all things considered, vastly different from her graveyard shift Melvald’s fantasies.

She opened her eyes, and his gaze was unreadable, hidden behind a wall of emotions she couldn’t translate.

“Jim,” she started, trying to cobble together a meaningful sentence as her heart sank lower and lower. “I…I didn’t mean to-“

He cut her off with a second, far less gentle kiss.

It was her turn to give a startled cry, melting into him, leaning into his touch. He was warm, and solid, and Jim, and this – this was everything she’d imagined on those nights when her brain was anywhere but at work. She kissed him back with every ounce of uncertainty within her, nullifying her doubts, her fears, her worries.

Nothing seemed to really matter at four-thirty in the morning. The world was trapped in a sort of twilight, ghostlike glow, as though everything the moonlight touched was nothing more than a mirage.

Nothing seemed to really matter at four-thirty in the morning, except for this, which she was half-convinced she was dreaming.

Nothing seemed to really matter at four-thirty in the morning, except for Jim’s arms around her waist and her fingers in his hair, the way he tasted of spice and smoke.

She could have kissed him until the sun came up, but her lungs had other ideas, and breathless and smiling, she leaned away. Jim held her for a little longer, the sincerity and softness in his gaze as disarming as it was charming. It had been a while, Joyce thought, since anyone looked at her like that.

The cold began to make its presence known again, as a particularly harsh gust of wind blew her hair in front of her eyes. She brushed it back into place, hating herself for not wearing a hat, again reminded that they weren’t standing in the storage closet at Melvald’s.

“I’ll help you finish,” she said, looking down at the shovel they’d both long forgotten.

“Yeah?” Jim quirked an eyebrow and gave her a shit-eating grin, his very expression an innuendo.

She snorted, rolling her eyes and giving him a playful punch on the arm, right on the Hawkins Police patch on his jacket; she doubted he could even feel it.

“You’re awful,” she groaned.

He laughed and leaned down again, pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.

“I can take care of it,” he said softly. “Go get some sleep.”

Intending to do the complete opposite of that, Joyce freed herself – though not without great reluctance – from his grasp and picked up the shovel.

“Just because you can do it yourself, doesn’t mean you have to,” she said. He smiled.

And together, they watched the sun rise over Hawkins.

#jopper #joyce byers #jim hopper #emily writes

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kotoriqueen · 6 years

Text

Merry Christmas, @comic-book-reider!! I am excited to say that I am your Secret Santa from @heith-secret-santa!!

I’ll be honest - I was pretty busy so I would have liked to finish this sooner, but it’s four days before Christmas and hey, I finished it now, so I might as well post it now! I’ll also be honest again: I had a little trouble writing a trans/autistic Keith but I had a little help and I’d like to apologize now if this is something you aren’t hoping for but I tried really, really hard!

Anyway, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and all that. I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I loved writing it!!

Voltron; Heith; 3200+ Words. Will post to AO3 later on (if I remember).

Keith could honestly say winter was his favourite season of all.

Others would argue; winter was filled with snow and ice, requiring a lot of work to shovel and drivers being cautious and slow. Christmas music is in the air, causing headaches, as well as Christmas shopping stress making those headaches even worse. Heating bills are going high up, kids are home from school for winter break. There’s several things that would make someone argue with Keith, but there’s many reasons why Keith loves winter.

Firstly, compared to their terribly hot summer, where Keith felt uncomfortable almost all the time, Keith had no problems getting comfortable as soon as winter started. Wearing a binder was hard in the summer time, where the fabric stuck to his skin and sometimes he found it hard to breathe properly. Taking it off in public would make him feel dysphoric, especially since he couldn’t wear many layers or risk passing out from the heat. He wouldn’t take off his binder unless he was home in his apartment, and even then he felt uncomfortable not wearing it. But at least he could breathe normal, and his boyfriend wouldn’t look at him any differently if he didn’t wear it.

With that note, Keith’s pleased to know he could wear as many layers of clothes as he wanted, and no one would know if he wore his binder that day or not. The soft sweaters he had felt nice against his skin, and earmuffs blocked out the loud honking from irritated drivers when people were going to slow. And with winter, Keith had a valid excuse to stay indoors. Sometimes he felt socializing emotionally draining, and sometimes he just wanted to be alone even if his boyfriend was home. His boyfriend, the kind soul he was, seemed to understand that perfectly and waited for Keith to come to him.

The second thing he liked about winter is that he could cuddle up against Hunk all he wanted. In the summer, he and his boyfriend couldn’t cuddle as often because it was simply to hot too. Keith loves the feeling of Hunk’s strong arms around him, with one hand stroking his back and the other going through his hair. It was the most comfortable feeling in the world, especially combined with their body temperatures.

And, sure, autumn would be the perfect weather for all of this, too, but the noise of the leaves crunching loudly beneath his and other peoples feet bothered him. He couldn’t seem to get away from the noise and it would cause him to shut himself out sometimes. Whereas, with the snow, noises are softened and the snow doesn’t crunch as bad as leaves did. Pavement and streets are covered in soft snow, so even boots don’t hit the pavement; the snow just crunches softly underneath their feet. And that doesn’t bother Keith as much as the leaves.

And thirdly.. well, ever since he started living with Shiro, Christmas seemed to mean more to him. There was a big tree in the living room, and lights hung up all around the house. It’s no different in Keith’s and Hunk’s apartment. They have a tree, too; big and covered in garland, lights, and ornaments. There’s an angel atop the tree that Keith can’t seem to stop staring at. Then there’s presents under the tree, each wrapping paper different. Their friends had agreed to have a Christmas party at their apartment this year, too, which is why tons of presents are under the tree instead of just a few between the two of them.

The Christmas party starts tonight; it’s Christmas eve after all and there’s still things they need to prepare for. Keith’s nervous, he’s not going to lie about that. He’s nervous about the loud noises; music and voices both. He knows his friends will understand if he needs to shut himself in a quiet room for a while, but he still doesn’t want to spoil the party any by leaving. Besides, he and Hunk are supposed to be hosts of this Christmas party. How could he get up and leave?

But as of right now, Keith’s still curled up underneath his and Hunk’s shared quilted comforter. He’s wearing one his own long sleeved shirts, with one of Hunk’s shirts on top of it. He’s very comfortable underneath all this warmth that he just doesn’t want to get out of bed. As comfortable as he was, he was awake. His body didn’t want him to sleep anymore! With a sigh, he tries to force himself to go back to sleep, but he hears the front door open as well as jangling of keys. Followed by the crinkle of paper bags and then footsteps across the hardwood floor. They get closer, and then the bedroom door opens and Keith peeks his head out from underneath the comforter.

“Babe?” Hunk softly calls out, and there’s a wide smile on his face to see Keith awake. He walks softly to the bed and sits down on it, leaning in to press a chaste kiss to Keith’s forehead. “Glad to see you’re awake, but won’t you get out of bed?”

“I’ll think about it,” Keith says at first, giving himself a second to think before shaking his head. “Nope. Staying here. It’s warm under here.”

“Keith.. Come on, I bought you a sweater for tonight. It’s soft, I promise you.”

“Will you make hot chocolate while I get ready?” Keith questions and Hunk nods as a response. “With--”

“No marshmallows and extra whipped cream,” Hunk interrupts. “I got it, babe. I’ll leave the bag on the bed.”

Hunk sets a plastic bag on the bed and leaves the room, shutting the door behind him. Keith takes a moment to get out of the bed, wandering to the door where his binder hung on a hook, air drying since the night before. Hunk had washed it out for him by hand so he could be comfortable and feel clean for tonight’s party. Sometimes Keith wishes he had a second one, but they were rather pricey and even with them both working – Keith helping in the kitchen of the cafe Hunk works in – he knows he should save his money for bills and things than spend it on a second binder when he has a perfectly good one right there.

Keith decides to take a quick shower first, drying himself off before slipping on his binder and a pair of festive boxers to go underneath his jeans. He knows no one will see the Christmas light boxers he had on underneath, but he thought they were festive and hilarious looking so he decided to buy them at first glance. (Plus, he needed more boxers, no matter how stupid they looked as long as they were comfortable.)

He slips on a pair of jeans, and a belt around the loops before he digs through the bag and pulls out the sweater. It’s a soft, knitted material, and it’s rather festive, too, fitting for tonight. It’s red; neither too bright or too dark. There’s white snowflake, tree, and reindeer designs on it. On the shirt, it says ‘Ho-Ho-Ho HOMO’ in white, and the two symbols for male are interlocked underneath, the pattern repeating around the back of the sweater, as well. Keith snorts at the sweater, wondering who would make such a thing, but he loves it all the same. He slips it on over his head, realizing it’s a size or two too big for him, making the sleeves go over his hands a little, fingertips poking out from under the cuffs.

He loves it. After slipping on a pair of socks, he steps out of the room to the kitchen, where Hunk is making hot chocolate and baking cookies at the same time. Hunk notices Keith coming into the kitchen and he beams when he sees Keith wearing the sweater.

“You’re wearing it!”

“Of course I am,” Keith’s smiling wide, too, and he walks over to the counter, sitting up on a stool by the little island in the kitchen. “Where did you find this thing?”

“There was a store in the mall that had it on the clearance rack,” Hunk explains as he uses Christmas cookie cutters to cut fun shapes into the cookie dough. “It was either that size or something six times too small for you. And since you like wearing my shirts a lot..”

“I love it, Hunk. Thank you.” Keith rests his head in the palms of his hands, watching his boyfriend bake. “When is everyone coming over?”

“Not until six. So we have a while to prepare.” Hunk responds, and stops his baking to take care of the hot chocolate. He drops a few marshmallows into one mug and then puts some whipped cream in that, followed by putting tons of whipped cream in another. “Here you go.”

“Thanks. Do you need help with anything?”

“Actually,” Hunk puts some festive sprinkles over the cookies before popping them into the oven, setting the timer. “can you sit out here and then come get me when there’s five minutes left on the timer? I have some more presents to wrap.”

“I thought you got everyone something?”

“I bought a few extra things. I should be done wrapping by then.”

“Okay,” Keith leans in, pecking Hunk’s cheek. “I’ll stay here.”

“Thanks, babe.”

Hunk leaves the kitchen, gathering up a few more paper bags he left on the kitchen table and moves to the bedroom. He had bought Keith a new binder a month ago that came in yesterday, and he was thankful enough to be at home when it came. Plus, at the mall, he had bought Keith a liquid motion bubbler, which was somewhat like a lava lamp but Keith could move around. With it’s slow and rhythmic motions, it’s supposed to help autistic people with sensory issues and stay focused.

Also he may have noticed that Keith bit on his pencils a lot and his nails, so he bought him a silicone brick that was around a thin cording that he could chew on instead. He honestly hopes Keith would like these things, as well as the pack of boxers he bought him and the other clothes he purchased from the men’s section. With Shiro’s help, he was able to find things that Keith would like style wise and that would make him feel comfortable in every season, not just winter.

He knows Keith’s not a huge fan of wrapping paper, so he got decorative boxes instead. They came in different sizes, so Keith could stack them or put them inside each other if he’d like to. At least wrapping was easy for Keith’s presents, and this just meant he’d be ready for when Keith came to get him about the cookies.

“I buy too much for people..” Hunk tells himself as he wraps a set of books for Pidge before setting them in a messenger bag; thick and durable to hold many books and their laptop. He starts wrapping that, as well, and once it’s wrapped, he ties ribbon around it and sets it off to the side. “Let’s see.. that should have taken care of everyone.”

There’s a soft knock on the door and Keith peeks his head inside, “Hunk? There’s five minutes on the timer.”

“Thanks, babe,” Hunk grabs the boxes and Pidge’s gift and makes way to the tree, setting them down with the other gifts. “We have to wait for the cookies to cool off though before you can have first dibs.”

“I’ve been saving some of my hot chocolate to dip the cookies in. To soften them up.” Keith says as he walks back to the kitchen with Hunk. “But will it be cold by the time the cookies are cooled off?”

“I’ll make you another mug of hot chocolate, Keith. It’ll probably take thirty minutes before they are cooled off. We can watch something in the meantime.”

“Sounds good.”

----

The Christmas party goes off without a hitch. Everyone either shows up early or on time, some too early to help Keith and Hunk with final preparations. As soon as everyone was there and accounted for, Christmas music was played and refreshments were served. There were a few times during the night that where Keith had to leave because the noise was too much for him but each time, it was either Hunk, Shiro, or the both of them that followed after just to make sure he was alright. If it was past Keith, he would have preferred to be alone, and sometimes he still does, but having Hunk and Shiro in his life seemed to help him through the years.

Close to the end of the party, gifts were passed out. Christmas music was turned off and everyone found a seat either on a chair, the sofa, or on the ground. Things were given to Hunk and Keith, as thank you’s for hosting such a lovely party. Other presents were passed out and as everyone was talking amongst themselves, Hunk gathered the things he had gotten for Keith and gestured him to their shared bedroom, where Keith follows. Once in the bedroom, Hunk places the presents on the bed and Keith shuts the door.

“What is it?”

“Your presents,” is Hunk’s response at first, but that response is too vague and makes Keith raise an eyebrow. “I figured it’d be better if you opened your gifts in here. I know it’s a while before Christmas, but everyone else opened theirs, so..”

“You want me to open mine now.” Keith says and Hunk nods as a response. Keith glances at the decorative boxes before moving towards the bed, going to sit down on the edge. “There sure is a lot of them..”

“Of course. Is that bad? I have receipts for everything you don’t like, but this is our first Christmas together in the apartment. I wanted it to be special,” Hunk tells him, sitting down right besides him and placing a hand on his shoulder. “But I have a feeling you’ll like them all.”

Keith smiles softly at Hunk and starts from smallest to biggest. Most of the items are either sensory toys or clothing – which the latter Keith did not have enough of. His clothes are either all of the same things with either black or red or hand-me-downs from Shiro when he started living with him. Keith never complained, but he found cloth shopping to take up too much of his time and very draining. Which is why he rarely goes shopping with Hunk, and Keith prefers buying things online over going into the stores.

There were shirts, and pants, and athletic wear – so many clothes Keith feels as if it’s too much. Hunk’s the best boyfriend he could ask for; accepting and stuck with him for nearly three years, and even longer before they became boyfriends. Keith gets to his last box, the biggest one of the stack. He opens it, and there’s jogging pants and a new jacket in there, and underneath those two items is a new binder. Keith freezes when his eyes land on it. He was just thinking that he needed a new binder, and Hunk went around and got him another one. He looks up at Hunk, with wide eyes and jaw dropped. Hunk has a wide smile on his face but fades into confusion when he sees Keith’s reaction.

“Do you not like it?” Hunk questions. “You’ve been wearing the same one for a long time now. It might not be worn out because you take good care of it, but you really needed a new one, Keith, so..”

“No!” the sudden response and the raise of his tone made Hunk flinch for a moment. “No, I mean.. I love it. I love everything. You seem to have read my mind since I was thinking how I needed a new binder anyway. You’re so-- you’re so thoughtful, Hunk, and I love that so much about you. And no matter how many times I tell you that I don’t deserve you, well-- to be honest, I don’t? I really don’t, especially on holidays and birthdays because you go all out and yet, it’s so hard for me to find the perfect gifts for you..”

Keith lets out a deep breath and moves from the bed to their closet, opening the door and taking out the gift bags he had for Hunk. There were three of them; two large and a medium sized one. And compared to all the gifts Hunk got for Keith, the gifts he got for Hunk couldn’t possibly own up to what Hunk got him. Keith’s nervous, but he hands the bags over anyway and sits back down on the bed, pushing his presents off to the side. That gives Hunk enough space to open them, starting with the medium sized bag. In that bag, there’s several small things. There’s a small box, that contained a watch; beautiful and silver with a black band and a buckle for a clasp. He knows how much of a fan Hunk is of Disney, as well as the Kingdom Hearts games, and with Keith being a fan of Hot Topic, it seemed easy to find Disney merchandise for the big guy.

And you can never have enough knick-knacks, which is one of the many things Keith was looking for. They had a few empty shelves in their bedroom and living room, not the mention all the space they had on the front of their fridge. Sure, there were having a few magnets, but Hot Topic was having a good deal on their Disney magnets, so Keith had picked up quite a few of them. He grabbed Belle and Chip from Beauty and the Beast and then the two Kingdom Hearts magnets of Sora and Riku. There were a few blind bags in there; one of Mickey and friends, the other having Aladdin, Abu, King Triton, Genie, and then the animals and/or mascots from other movies, and the third blind bag is of the Disney Princesses. They’re all keychains, and he knows Hunk will find some place to put them up for show. Finally, there’s a pop figure of a Heartless from Kingdom Hearts, one of Rajah from Aladdin, and one of Mulan.

In the two larger bags, one contained a new jacket; big and bulky so Hunk can layer up underneath without feeling stiff. And the other large bag had a ‘Funcle’ shirt since Keith knows how much Hunk loves his nieces and nephews, a couple long sleeved shirts, and a cookbook. He knows Hunk has several cookbooks, as well as a container filled with recipe cards, only this one is a 365 days of cookies cookbook. Hunk snorts at the name, and even though he silently agrees he has enough recipes, he and Keith could try out some of these recipes together.

“Aw, Keith..” Hunk starts, scooting over to his boyfriend. He hugs him close, pecking kisses all over his face. “How can you say that you don’t deserve me? You’re gifts are perfect, Keith, and I love every single one, just like how I love you.”

“That’s so cheesy that we’re going to have a mice infested apartment.”

“Mm, I don’t care.” Hunk continues peppering kisses over Keith’s face, making his poor boyfriend squirm from all the attention. “As long as they don’t interrupt us.”

“Huuuunk. We have to get back to the party!”

“They’ll be fine without us,” Hunk says and then he sighs, pulling back a little before resting his forehead on Keith’s. “Merry Christmas, Keith.”

Keith smiles wide, a small laugh leaving his lips, “Merry Christmas, Hunk..”

#heithsecretsanta #heith secret santa #comicbookreider #comic book reider #Voltron #Hunk (Voltron)#Keith (Voltron)#Heith #aHHHH i had fun writing this

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