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#later on it was discovered that they probably ended up dating after the contest but they broke up
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Hi! These are my favorite fics that take place in the summer. These fics are organized by word count from longest to shortest. You can view my other fic recs here. Enjoy!
I’ll Fly Away byjuliusschmidt / @juliusschmidt (122k)
Harry and Louis grew up together in Lake County, Harry with his mom and stepdad in a tiny cottage on Edward’s Lake and Louis in his family’s farmhouse a few minutes down the road. But after high school, Louis stuck around and Harry did not; Harry went to Chicago where he found a boyfriend and couple of college degrees. Six years later, Harry ends up back in Edwardsville for the summer and he and Louis fall into old patterns and discover new ones.
ft. One Direction, the local boyband; Horan’s Bar and Grill; families, most especially children and babies; Officer Liam Payne; many local festivals and fireworks displays; and Anne Cox, PFLAG President.
Jump Before We Fall by green_feelings / @greenfeelings (113k)
Louis and Zayn's lives revolve around running a hotel by the sea, Harry is a student who wants a life far from home for just a little while, Niall doesn't know where life leads him and Liam thinks he has already found all purposes in his life.
Speaking of Marvels by navigator, quitter (100k)
AU. Louis is a nanny in suburban New Jersey, and the neighbors' son is home from college for the summer. It was supposed to be a fling.
Somewhere In Between Lightning by jassy117 nauticalleeds shiningdistractionwrites / @nauticalleeds @shiningdistraction (99k)
As Louis took another bite, he thought back to how he had once believed that the hardest thing about being on Love Island would be Liam handling his social media.  He had been wrong. It was Harry Styles, peeking over at Louis as he forked a pancake into his mouth, and gauging his reaction. It was having to quench the swelling of his heart, which felt simultaneously like hope and the breaking of a thousand pieces.
---
A summer gone wrong (or very right) when, under Liam’s persuasion, Louis finds himself drunkenly applying for Love Island, and getting accepted. Oh, well. A summer spent on an island paradise couldn’t be all that bad, right?
Imagine his surprise when Louis arrives in sunny Majorca to find that his first love and ex-boyfriend, Harry, is another contestant, about to capture the hearts of everyone in the villa. Most normal people don’t have to face their ex on an otherwise straight TV show. Most normal people don’t fall for their ex again in front of the whole nation, either. Too bad this whole situation isn’t normal.
Sun Means The Sky’ll Be Blue by pearlydewdrops / @moonhusbands (91k)
As the only singleton under thirty attending his cousin’s five-day wedding, Harry is desperate to find a date, or at least a reason to get people’s questions about his love life off his back. So when Louis, Harry’s old uni roommate and fellow wedding attendee waltzes back into his life, Harry seizes the opportunity, pretending Louis is his ex-boyfriend and that it’s a sore subject not to be mentioned.
If it’s a little bit closer to the truth than Harry would like, well, he’s a master at living in denial.
So cue a mess of trudged-up feelings, past misunderstandings, a rekindled summer romance and a whole lot of sexually-charged bickering.
You Come Beating Like Moth's Wings by supernope (81k)
Harry smiles. He's only known Louis for about two hours, knows nothing about him past his first name, but he's nice and sarcastic and helpful and so, so pretty. And Harry's still got a few days left in Barcelona, and he thinks he wouldn't mind spending them with Louis.
Also known as, Harry takes the summer before uni to travel Europe and meets Louis in Barcelona, and they end up traveling together.
Summer’s In the Air and Baby, Heaven’s In Your Eyesby starryhaze / @starryhaze28 (71k)
“So we probably shouldn’t do this.” Louis says, and Harry knows he means staying like this, wrapped up in each other, and he nods, then lifts his head from Louis’ shoulder. His eyes are focused on the ground while he tries to will the tears away.
“We shouldn’t. I’m sorry Lou it’s just-“
“Hey it’s fine, baby.” Louis promises, gently rubbing this thumb over Harry’s cheek. Harry leans into the touch and blinks up at Louis.
“Not your fault.” Louis says, looking around before he presses his lips against Harry’s in a short but sweet kiss. “You’re like my dirty little secret now.” He grins wickedly and gives a wink, making Harry blush and bite his lip as he steps away.
⋆ .ೃ ࿔ *: ・
or a 70s tennis au filled with skirts, pet names and intrigue
Adore You by isthatyoularry / @isthatyoularry (66k)
“We invited our new acquaintances from uptown. You’ve simply got to meet their oldest son!” said his mother with a flourish, and suddenly it became abundantly clear as to why his parents had so adamantly demanded he join them in Deansville for the entirety of the summer.
Against his wishes, Harry spends the holidays at his family’s summer estate, and is reluctantly pulled into a courtship he didn’t ask for. Harry doesn’t want to get married, but Louis does. They don’t fit, but then again they really, really do.
Vaguely set in the 1920’s. Headpieces, jazz, fashionable canes, and flapper dresses, and that.
Your Memory Over Me by shimmeringevil / @shimmeringevil (64k)
Three years have passed since Louis last saw him, but all it took was a few minutes in Harry’s presence for him to be relegated to the desperate twenty-one year old that was practically begging his boyfriend for an ounce of reassurance that he still cared about him.
Harry shouldn’t be here. He’s brought too many unresolved feelings with him, that Louis thought he’d never have to face.
It’s Harry’s apparent apathy that’s the most difficult to come to terms with. Anger, he could handle. Regret, he would welcome. But Harry’s amiability, and carefree demeanor can only be born from indifference.
He’s moved on. He doesn’t care. And that is something Louis doesn’t think he’ll ever be strong enough to face.
-
OR - The worst heartbreak of Louis’ life walks right back into it when his parents invite their family friends on an all-expenses-paid trip for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. Facing a past that he tried to bury long ago, Louis learns that some people have a way of sticking with you even when they’re gone.
I’ll Crash Until You Notice Me by stylinsoncity / @aliensingucci (61k)
Louis sets off to Barbados to oversee the massive resort his family owns known as Sandy Hill. For years, he’s been looking for a change in the monotony of his life, seeking adventure and perhaps love too. What he doesn’t expect is the bright eyed boy who spills a milkshake on his shoes.
Cue the summer loving.
Where the Tide Takes You, I Will Follow by pinkcords / @pinkcords (53k)
There’s no way around his departure, their inevitable fate. Harry will leave and he will return to London and when he sits in his new flat, wherever it might be, he will think of this summer and the warmth the sun brought him and the way it felt to be loved. He will compare all his future relationships to Louis and when they fall short, he will be disappointed. Harry knows this.
Or, Louis lives in Gloucester and Harry tries to find a way to stay.
The Boys of Summer by afirethatcannotdie / @afirethatcannotdie (45k)
“I mean…we’re gonna have to sneak around anyway, yeah? Like, with that whole rules thing that I guess we’ve decided to ignore. Might make it a little more fun this way.”
AU. In which Louis is a reluctant sports coach, Harry’s a fellow counselor who wears tiny yellow shorts, and camp rules say they’re forbidden to date.
Suddenly Last Summer by disgruntledkittenface / @disgruntledkittenface (44k)
Louis is bored, rich and lonely. He has no reason to expect that this summer in the Hamptons with his friends will be different from any other – until he meets Harry. Suddenly he has someone who listens to him and cares about what he thinks. Someone who really sees him. But their happily ever after is forever marred by an incident at a party during Labor Day weekend, and Louis is left with a choice to make.
Some Clear Jellyfish Don't Sting by gloria_andrews / @gloriaandrews (32k)
Louis Tomlinson is starting grad school in New York City in the fall and when his best friend Niall Horan finds out, he invites Louis to spend the summer with him on the end of Long Island, at the house of their childhood friend, Harry Styles. Louis hasn't seen Harry in years, not since he was sixteen and Harry was fourteen and Harry had a somewhat massive crush on him. What will happen when they meet again? Will the tables be turned????
Our Little Corner of the World by brownheadedstranger (29k)
AU. Louis is stuck in his mom’s diner for the summer. Harry is the line cook with a pickup truck.
Naked & Proud by kiwikero (18k)
The town itself is tiny, as evidenced by the ten minutes it’s taken Louis to drive the entire thing. There’s not a single recognisable brand in sight—no Tesco or McDonald’s or even a bloody Starbucks. Lining the streets instead are mom and pop stores with names like ‘Jerry’s Burgers’ and ‘The Market Basket’ and…
“'Naked & Proud?'” Louis almost slams on the brakes at the outlandish sign, the name written in a seemingly innocent font, words curved around a large cartoon peach. He can’t help turning into the carpark, easing the car into a spot next to a beat up truck.
He isn’t sure what to make of it. Surely it isn’t a strip joint or sex shop, not with the families and little old ladies going in and out of the establishment. Some kind of nudist hangout, perhaps?
And, oh, God. Did Louis’ mother accidentally send him to live in a nudist colony?
In which Harry runs an organic store, not a nudist colony, and Louis doesn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
We Were Made to Love by supernope (16k)
“Everything all sorted? Need help with the buckles? I know they’re a bit tricky in this compartment.”
The voice startles Louis out of his daze, and he turns toward the voice to let him know he figured it out. When he catches sight of the owner of the voice, though, his response dies in his throat. Whatever he had imagined the conductor of a children’s train that rides around the shopping centre in Leeds would look like, this is certainly not it.
Leaning through the window, arms folded across the sill, is a green-eyed angel with cherry red lips stretched wide in a smile and dimples flirting in his cheeks. A black conductor’s hat is the only confirmation that this is not some gorgeous stranger who’s come to flirt with Louis through the window of a children’s train, but is just a man doing his job.
[or, Harry drives a kiddie train in the shopping centre for the summer and is obsessed with babies, and Louis never stood a chance.]
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tuhbanbuv · 3 months
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EWJ AU and Headcanons:
Guess people wanna hear my AU bullshit lol /j
I have a fuck ton I had to dump in a notepad and try to organize it.
Jim:
Jim can get drunk off of ice cream and fro-yo because the sugar fucks up with his system so much.
Jim curls up in the neck of her supersuit when she's too tired to reach her bed or overstimulated.
Jim is bigender him/her lesbian, Psycrow is bi, Professor is gay, Peter is gay as well.
Jim's full legal name is Jim/Kim Clayton, and she switches between he/him and she/her pronouns. Just don't call him an "it".
Jim is dyslexic, autistic and has a TBI.
Jim got her name from a grave she discovered in New Junk City. She didn't know anything about gender and stuff at the time, so she just assumed the masculine persona that people gave her due to her voice and suit. This would end up biting her in the ass years later.
Insectika courting rituals are much different than human courting rituals. WHN didn't know Jim was interested in her until he accidentally proposed to her in an Insectika tradition. After a bit of back and forth they began properly dating afterwards.
Princess WHN:
Snott is actually WHN's pet, he only sticks around Jim because of the snacks he forgets he puts into his suit's backpack and Snott is very much a glutton.
Princess WHN is also autistic, but she wouldn't know until Saturn was diagnosed as autistic.
WHN is part human part Insectikette, her true heritage and birth being the catalyst for her sister taking up the throne and mother's murder because the royal family was basically advocates for eugenics. It did not end well for all parties involved, big shocker there.
WHN LOVES human food, especially pizza. She'll be completely distracted if someone offers her food. Want to make her happy, give her food.
WHN thinks that a lot of Creepypastas are real, even the bad ones. She has spent at least a couple nights searching to bring down Jeff The Killer and Slenderman only to be dragged back home by Peter.
WHN often enters in strongman contests, and has several first place trophies from them.
Peter/Amos:
Peter's parents were used in animal experimentation an attempt to make the strongest fighting dog known to man. When the ring was broken up and arrested, the dogs were sent to a farm where Peter would be born as the run of the litter, only to be adopted by a young Addie.
Peter was adopted by Addie and her family when he was a normal puppy. As he was a runt rejected by his bio mom and adopted as a newborn, Peter was 100% convinced Addie was his real mom. Even if he knows he's adopted, he still calls her his mom.
Peter is a Jack Russel-Beagle mix, though he's technically now a hellhound.
Peter does most of the housework, at least the ones involving chemicals and flammable equipment because Jim is very accident-prone.
Peter is around 20-30 during the main canon. He aged up in dog years as a normal dog only for his biological age to slow down when he became Amos' vessel akin to that of a human. He'll probably live for 100-200 years though.
Peter is very small for his breed and was often mocked for it. Now, he uses it to his advantage because seeing WHN or Psycrow pause in shock as he gets drinks at a bar is hilarious to him.
Amos is Peter's demon and later lover. Originally Satan's right-hand man…until a certain cat came along and ruined it for him.
Peter has six puppies, named Paimo, Rono, Molo, Bapho, Corso, and of course, Solo. They all have some sort of demonic power thanks to Peter's demon and their other parent, Amos. If you understand the naming scheme for them you get a free cookie.
Amos can take up a form almost like Venom when he's going parrot-mode on Brock, just chilling in Peter's shadow. Except Peter's shadow now has eyes and a mouth and scares the shit out of everyone he comes across while doing errands.
Peter is Amos' longest-lasting vessel, as most of the others died from being murdered in witch hunts or took their own lives. He only made himself known to Peter after he temporarily died after a mission gone wrong because he was so impressed with Peter that he had to see him in the flesh.
Peter has severe anxiety, and honestly, who can blame him? Though he usually medicates it with those dog CBD treats and weed whenever he can. Addie Newman:
Addie is part Corvidian part human, with her biological mother unknown and potentially dead. Addie has a suspicion that Psycrow is her biological father, however.
Addie is currently dating Grayson, president of the Earthworm Jim Fanclub. As you can imagine, the meet the parents dinner went as well as you'd expect.
Addie has a large mixed family, biological and adopted, including her adoptive fathers, David and Mike, and her adoptive baby sister, Penelope.
Addie had anger issues in her childhood, once overthrew the leader of a gang in less than ten minutes, got expelled from several schools before the age of ten, amongst other things. Her parents went to adopt her a puppy in hopes it would help her, leading to her picking the runt of the litter, Peter. Peter would help Addie immensely...until he was separated from her when he fell through a portal to Heck.
Addie kept and wore Peter's collar on her person until she would eventually try to summon Evil to retrieve Peter herself, fully knowing and accepting that she would have to sacrifice her own life according to Evil. Jim would save her and Peter and became her friend.
Addie is still a delinquent but is more geared towards vigilante justice rather than purposeful crime. She wouldn't outright say it, but Peter and Jim saved her life.
Psycrow would discover a baby Addie abandoned while he was doing drug trades. He would take Addie in for the first three years of her life until ultimately deciding to give her up to an earth couple so she wouldn't be killed due to his criminal career. The two would later reunite and Psycrow would be accepted in the Newman family after he permanently put his criminal days behind him.
Saturn, Solo and Bessie:
Saturn is selectively mute, and Solo often speaks for her when they do missions
Saturn hardly speaks even as an adult, usually only hissing or screeches. She of course knows how and can speak quite well, but just prefers not to.
Saturn was born with just her arms as a lot of baby Insectoids/Insectikettes have a "larval stage", and much like Saturn did, grow their legs later on, usually as a toddler.
Saturn can curl up like a cat, and usually does this to fit in human chairs/seats/etc.
Saturn lets Solo and the other pups ride on her back. Seeing as she's literally a giant centipede and can fit all 6 of the pups on her back at once
Saturn considers Bessie her sister/half-sister due to their parents being clones. Bessie hates her guts, so the feeling is not mutual :(
WHN stressed and worried over not being a good mother to Saturn. She was ultimately worried over nothing, as Saturn is technically the only member of the royal family that had loving parents.
Solo was completely convinced that Saturn was a dog much like her and the other puppies until Peter had to try to explain otherwise. For five straight hours.
After a mission gone wrong, Evil Jim was sucked into a wormhole and presumed dead. Jim tried to take in Bully Bessie and it worked for a while until she ran away as a preteen and assumed Evil Jim's role. She works endlessly to find her dear papa and will not hesitate to find any way to save him, even if it means backstabbing her "sister". And she'd gladly do so.
Bessie is part jaguar, part piranha, part scorpion and radioactive cow, as Evil Jim wanted to make her with every advantage known to man.
Bessie ironically enjoys using butcher knives and cleavers as her weapons of choice, considering Evil Jim's guns as "too quick". Creepy.
Evil Jim didn't know what sex/gender Bessie was at birth and still doesn't, so he just let Bessie choose her clothes even as a baby.
Solo, despite being the smallest of her siblings, is pretty much the litter's leader. Mess with her family and you'll beg for death. She makes her fathers proud though Peter is a bit worried.
Solo can see and speak with the dead.
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lilyvandersteen · 1 year
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Critically Yours
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This story was written as part of the Klaine Secret Santa Gift Exchange 2022, and is gifted to @honeysucklepink. Merry Christmas, sweetie, and I hope this hits the spot for you!
The prompt can be found in the end notes.
Many thanks to my beta @hkvoyage, who was lightning-quick to review this for me so that it would still be in time for Christmas.
Critically Yours by @lilyvandersteen​
Kurt let out a big yawn as he walked into the kitchen. The party after the premiere had been fun, but he’d had too short a night’s sleep because of it.
He was on his second mug of coffee when Rachel called him.
“Kurt, you were amazing yesterday, as I knew you would be!”
Kurt grinned and thanked her.
“And I know you always tell me not to read the reviews, but… There’s this one you really need to read. You’ll love it. I’m sending you the link.”
“Rach, I don’t think…”
“Read it. This guy is so sweet, aww. Well, at least I think it’s a guy. He’s using a nickname. But the way he writes feels like a guy. Am I making sense? Maybe I’m still a bit drunk. One thing’s for sure, though, you have to read it. You just have to. I wish he’d say things like that about me. Anyway, got to go. Yoga tonight?”
“It’s a date!” Kurt promised her, and when she’d hung up, he clicked on the link.
It wasn’t a fan site that popped up. It was the New York Times website. The comments section, to be precise.
The commenter’s name was IconicWarbler, and unlike the other one-sentence commenters, he’d gone for the novel-like approach.
“I went to see Cabaret last night, and found myself totally enamoured of the MC, played by newcomer Kurt Hummel. I’ve never seen this actor on stage before, but I can assure you I will attend every play he’s in from now on. That’s how much he enchanted me. Such clear, strong vocals. Such a master at conveying emotions. And what a compelling personality! He draws you in, even pulling focus when he’s in the background. I could not keep my eyes off him. I urge you all to go see Cabaret and discover this promising fresh face.
Mr. Hummel, I’m calling it now: you will get a Tony nomination for this role. You are just THAT good.
Critically yours,
IconicWarbler”
Kurt covered his hand with his mouth and let out a happy squeak, smiling ear to ear.
Rachel was right, that was exactly the pick-up he’d needed this morning.
Thank you, IconicWarbler!
 K&B
Blaine fist-pumped happily when he read the announcement that Kurt Hummel would have the title role in the Jesus Christ Superstar revival.
The actor had gotten a Tony nomination for his role in Cabaret, as Blaine had predicted, and though he hadn’t won the award, it had opened new doors for him.
By now, Kurt Hummel had played in Dear Evan Hansen, causing Blaine to rave over how high his vocal range was, and opposite Rachel Berry in West Side Story, after which performance Blaine had waxed lyrical over how convincing they had been as star-crossed lovers, defending Kurt in replies to other commenters who seemed to think he was too gay to pull off the role of Tony.
Blaine had gone to see both shows as many times as his budget would allow, and had waited at the stage door to get his playbill signed every single time, even when it was pouring rain or freezing.
Kurt was always courteous and kind to every fan, taking his time to greet and thank them.
Every encounter with Kurt had Blaine walking on sunshine for days, especially when Blaine’s praise coaxed a rare smile out of the handsome man.
But after West Side Story, Kurt had disappeared from Broadway, not even starring in smaller roles. He was just… gone.
It had made Blaine worry and wonder what had happened.
But now, a year later, Kurt was back, and Blaine was relieved and excited to see his favourite actor in a new role.
The anticipation that had been building inside of him rose to a fever point when the radio station he listened to every morning announced a contest.
“Good morning everyone! I have some exciting news to share with you! You’ve probably already heard it: Jesus Christ Superstar is coming back to Broadway. And with it crowd favourite Kurt Hummel, who’s going to play the title role, and who is with us right now to have a little chat.”
“Hello, everyone!”
“On a scale of 1 to 10, how excited are you to see Kurt take on this role? Let us know through our app!”
Blaine grinned and opened the app, sending a quick message.
“Oh, lots of enthusiasm so early in the morning. Let’s see: Ruth says she’s missed you the past year and that she’s stoked you’re back, Blaine says you’re sure to be stellar in your new role, and David says he can’t wait to see you in the play, Kurt!”
“I hope I’ll do you guys proud,” Kurt said.
The ensuing interview cleared up why Kurt had been away for so long. Apparently, his father had fallen ill, and he’d moved back home to be with his family.
“But now he’s better, and he told me to stop fussing over him and get back to work. So here I am!”
Blaine chuckled and crossed his fingers that the radio presenters would coax Kurt into singing a fragment from his new show.
What he got was even better.
“When our family celebrated Thanksgiving a few weeks ago, it got me thinking about what I was most thankful for. Dad getting better, obviously, that’s a big one. He’s my rock, and I’m so grateful I get to keep him, hopefully for decades more. But apart from that, I’m so thankful for all my fans. You are the ones who brought me here. Who believed in me when I had doubts I could do this. Who have stood by me from the very beginning. Who have defended me when people tried to tear me down. And I don’t have enough words to tell you how much that has meant to me. So I’m going to show you instead.”
At this point, the radio presenter took over.
“Prick up your ears now, all you Broadway lovers out there! This is a contest you won’t want to miss! Kurt is offering not just tickets to Jesus Christ Superstar, but an extra special main prize. The overall winner will get a ticket to the premiere, a meet-and-greet with Kurt and the rest of the cast, and will get to attend the party with the cast and crew afterwards. Isn’t that something?”
Blaine’s heart started pumping double speed.
Oh wow.
“Yes, you heard that right! Ever dream of getting the chance to chat with your fave actor over a glass or two? Well, for one lucky guy or girl, this dream will come true! And what do you have to do to win this, you ask?”
“Tell me, tell me,” Blaine muttered.
“Well, from now until the day of the premiere, we’ll be having a little quiz every morning, about Broadway topics. If you want to take part in it, sign up for the quiz in our app, and each morning, we’ll pick two listeners to compete against each other. The goal is to be the first to answer five questions correctly. The winner will go through to the next round, and then on the last day before the premiere, we’ll find out who wins the main prize.”
Blaine opened the app again and looked for the sign-up form.
There wasn’t much chance he’d be chosen, but it couldn’t hurt to try, right?
One day after another passed, and it seemed luck was not on his side. He listened to the morning show even more attentively than he otherwise did, and he made sure he always had his phone on hand, but the show host always picked other listeners to play the quiz.
Sometimes, they were so abysmal at answering the questions that Blaine rolled his eyes. Did they really know so little about Broadway shows, or was it nerves blocking their brain?
Two days before the premiere, just as he’d all but given up hope, his phone rang as he was eating a bowl of cereal, and his heart slammed into his throat.
Was it really…?
And yes, it was. He’d been selected to play the quiz!
Hearing the presenter’s voice both over the radio and on the phone was distracting, so he switched off the radio so as to be able to focus better.
“And today, we’ll be playing the Broadway quiz with Blaine and Tiffany!”
Wow, my hands are clammy. And why is my throat so dry all of a sudden?
The first question was about West Side Story. The presenter wanted them to name the two street gangs.
“The Jets and the Sharks,” Blaine yelled.
The other contestant groaned.
“Second question: you’re going to hear a snippet from a Broadway song. Tell me what show it is from!”
The song was “All That Jazz”. As soon as Blaine recognised it, he yelled, “Chicago!”
He heard a muffled curse, and knew he’d beaten his opponent again.
“Number 3: where does “Hairspray” take place?”
Blaine chuckled and sang a few lines of “Good morning Baltimore”.
“Wow, nice! You’re a fine singer yourself!” the presenter praised him.
“Thank you. I was in show choir for years. The Dalton Warblers.”
“Wonderful. And you’re firmly in the lead, with three right answers to nil. Tiffany, what’s happening?”
“He’s just too fast,” Tiffany whined, and both Blaine and the presenter chuckled.
“Okay, next question: complete this Hamilton lyric: I’m just like my country, I’m young…”
“Scrappy and hungry, and I’m not throwing away my shot!” Blaine rattled off glibly.
The presenter whistled low. “You didn’t even have to think about it, did you? How many times have you seen Hamilton?”
“Uhm, I’ve never really counted the times,” Blaine confessed, and the presenter laughed.
“Okay, if you keep this up, Blaine, you’ll only have to answer one more question. Here it is: name all seven children of the von Trapp family.”
“Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta and Gretl,” said Blaine, counting them on his fingers to make sure he left no-one out.
“Yes, you did it!” the presenter enthused, and he played the jingle that pronounced Blaine the winner.
Blaine sat back and mechanically put a spoonful of cereal with milk in his mouth.
Wow, I’m through to the next round. Now what?
Now, as it transpired, all the winners would be competing against each other the following morning, and the first two to get five questions right would then play a sudden death round.
Blaine spent the rest of the day frantically reading up on all things Broadway, and also did his research on Kurt Hummel. In the process, he may have gotten a bit side-tracked when he found YouTube recordings of Kurt performing as a cheerleader, a clip of him singing “Le Jazz Hot” and then his audition for NYADA, “Not the Boy Next Door”. Those gold pants. And his moves. Unf.
When the next morning rolled around, Blaine may have been just a little sleep-deprived from watching certain Kurt Hummel videos on repeat. But he regretted nothing.
Despite his sleepiness, Blaine had no trouble answering questions, and became the first finalist. He ended up playing the sudden death round against a guy called Chandler, who was just as knowledgeable as Blaine was.
After they’d each answered another ten questions correctly, the presenter sighed. “Okay, this is not going to work. You guys know EVERYTHING! So what do you say to a practical challenge as a tie-breaker?”
“Okay,” said Blaine.
“I guess,” said Chandler.
“You each get to sing a song from Jesus Christ Superstar, and then the other listeners will vote in the app and decide who becomes the overall winner!”
Blaine grinned. “That sounds good.”
Chandler said nothing.
“So who wants to go first?” the presenter asked.
“Let’s get it over with,” Chandler groused.
“Okay, Chandler, what are you going to sing?”
“I don’t know how to love him.”
“Great choice! Let me put the music on for you.”
Chandler started to sing, and Blaine winced and wanted to clap his hands over his ears.
He didn’t, because it would be his turn in a short while, but aah, Chandler’s singing was worse than nails on a chalkboard!
He let out a sigh of relief when the song came to an end, and announced to the presenter that he’d be singing “Heaven on their minds”.
He threw his everything into the performance and found himself panting rather heavily when he was done.
Applause startled him. The presenter whooped and hollered and then said, “Wow, that was quite something. Are you sure you’re not a Broadway actor in disguise?”
Blaine laughed. “I wish!”
“And it looks like the listeners agree with me. Look at that, what an overwhelming victory for BLAINE!”
“Yay!” Blaine yelled. He’d given it his all, and he’d actually won!
K&B
Though he was an old hand at giving interviews by now, Kurt found himself fidgeting with his shirt cuffs this time.
It wasn’t the interview itself he was nervous about, but the contest he’d be announcing.
As he talked about celebrating Thanksgiving with his family, and being so grateful for his fans that he wanted to thank them, he felt a bit deceitful. Yes, he truly was thankful for his fans and their support, but his real goal with this contest was something else altogether.
The idea had come to him one night when he’d had a sleepover with Rachel, Quinn, Brittany and Santana, and Santana had wanted to know if Kurt had ever slept with a fan of his.
“I’m sure there’s tons of them that slip you their phone number and that are itching to discover what’s under those tight pants of yours.”
“Nah,” Kurt had said. “Well, I’ve gotten some phone numbers, yes, but I didn’t fancy the guys in question. Too pushy. The worst one’s called Chandler. He comes to my show every night, and he always waits at the stage door, and he’s forever running his hands over me and gushing and professing himself in love with me. Ugh.”
“Well, aren’t there more respectful fans that you’d like to get to know better?”
Kurt had taken another sip of his drink and thought it over.
The first fan that had sprung to mind was IconicWarbler, with his wonderful reviews. Wouldn’t it be great to get to thank him in person for what his words had meant to Kurt? But the chances of ever finding this anonymous reviewer were slim to nil.
Then, Kurt had thought of a fan that hadn’t been such a fixture at the stage door as Chandler, but who had shown up regularly nonetheless. This guy was always dressed dapperly, with gelled hair and a profile that were reminiscent of a 1950s movie star, and with impeccable manners. He clearly loved getting to talk to Kurt, but he never got handsy and never tried to monopolise him.
Yes, that was someone he’d like to get to know better. But how would he manage that?
That’s how he’d come up with the contest plan. It was a wild shot in the dark, and chances were he’d end up meeting and greeting another person entirely, but he wanted to try this.
So he tuned in to that radio station every morning to find out who’d win the quiz that day. He grimaced when he saw the name Chandler pop up, and hoped that would not be the winner of the meet-and-greet package.
The second to last day of the contest, he got a pleasant surprise. One of the contestants, a guy called Blaine, had a voice he recognised – velvety smooth and soothing. Was it… could it be the Mr. Dapper he’d seen so often at the stage door?
Then Blaine started to sing, as an answer to a quiz question, and Kurt was blown away. Wow!
And what did he just say? He’d been in a show choir called the Dalton Warblers?
It might be just a coincidence, of course, but maybe Kurt had found his IconicWarbler…
The next day was the finals, and Kurt cursed loudly and at length when Chandler made it through and was still in the running for the top prize.
Please no!
Thankfully, Blaine made it through as well.
On an impulse, Kurt sent the radio show host a text that said, “Make them sing.”
At first, the two finalists got questions again, but when neither Chandler nor Blaine cracked under the pressure and they just kept giving right answers, the show host decided to make the both of them sing instead.
Yes!
Chandler was as bad a singer as Kurt had hoped, and Blaine was even better than in Kurt’s wildest dreams. He sang better than the actual actor playing in the show with Kurt!
Kurt grinned ear to ear when Blaine was pronounced the winner, and hoped so much that it was the fan he remembered.
The day of the premiere, he felt more than just the usual pre-show jitters. He also felt butterflies in his stomach, as if he was about to go on a first date.
Before the show started, he peeked through the curtain to check the place, front and centre in the Orchestra section, he’d reserved for the main winner of the contest.
He saw a neatly gelled head and fist-pumped. Yes! He’d guessed right! Blaine was Mr. Dapper all right!
Blaine certainly lived up to Kurt’s nickname, as he was dressed to the nines in a tuxedo.
The tuxedo jacket was made of burgundy velvet with black lapels, and Kurt was itching to find out if it was as soft as it looked.
He checked out the other reserved places, and saw Chandler, looking like thunder and throwing poisonous looks in Blaine’s direction. His plus-one seat was the only one left unoccupied.
Kurt drew back from the curtain, and went to have a chat with the security guard, warning him about Chandler, just in case the guy tried to get backstage or to make trouble for Blaine.
And then it was showtime, and Kurt threw himself into the performance with double the energy he’d shown during the dress rehearsal.
Afterwards, while bowing to the audience with the rest of the cast, his eyes strayed to Blaine again, who was clapping and cheering.
See you soon!
Back in his dressing room, he got out of his costume, freshened up and put his regular clothes on in record time, because he wanted to be the first of the actors to welcome Blaine backstage.
When he left his dressing room, he found Blaine attentively listening to John, one of the stage hands, who was explaining how all the equipment worked.
“Hello Blaine!” Kurt said, and Blaine’s attention shifted to him at once.
John chuckled. “I guess that’s my cue to disappear. Once the big star comes out, nobody’s interested in the technical stuff anymore.”
Blaine looked stricken, and started to babble apologies.
John clapped him on the shoulder. “Nah, don’t worry about it. You came here for Kurt and the others, I get it. See you both at the party!”
John left, and Blaine looked after him, biting his lip.
“Don’t worry,” Kurt said. “John’s not offended at all.”
Blaine’s eyes flitted to Kurt, and he flushed and nodded.
“I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?” Kurt asked. “At the stage door?”
“Yes.” It sounded timid and uncertain.
“But this is your first time backstage?”
“Yes.”
Kurt winked at Blaine. “A lot less glamourous than you’d think, right?”
Blaine grinned. “Yep. Smaller, too. But I’m still stoked to get to see it. And it’s so interesting, how it all works…”
“I know, right? I remember when I started working on Broadway that I was fascinated with the technical side of things.”
They stood there, smiling at each other for a moment, and then Kurt said, “Oh, right, I should give you a tour, until my colleagues get here, too. Come with me.”
He let Blaine peek into his dressing room and then took him to see the costumes and the orchestra pit, introducing him to everyone they passed on the way.
By the time Blaine had seen every nook and cranny of the backstage area, the other actors were there to greet him and talk to him.
Blaine was a lot less shy around them than he was around Kurt, and when they all left the theatre to go to the party venue, it felt already as if Blaine was part of the group.
At the party, Kurt introduced Blaine to Rachel as well, and smothered a giggle behind his hand when Blaine treated her as if she were royalty (“It’s such an honour to meet the great Rachel Berry – you are a legend!”) and Rachel lapped it all up.
Rachel and Blaine got on like a house on fire, and Kurt left them to it to go procure some drinks.
When he came back from the bar, Rachel had drifted away to go talk to her off-and-on lover Jesse, and Blaine was talking to one of the musicians about his violin, which was apparently an antique.
“You play the violin?” he asked.
“Well, I haven’t in a while, as I told Ashley, because I need to get round to restringing my violin first, but yes, I do. The piano as well, and drums and guitar.”
“Wow. And you sing so well, too! You should have heard him, Ashley, he sang “Heaven on their Minds” on the radio, and he sounded better than Jesse!”
“Don’t let Jesse hear you say that,” Ashley laughed. “He wouldn’t take it well!”
Kurt handed Blaine a glass of champagne, and offered Ashley the one he’d brought for Rachel. “Cheers!”
A few hours later, he and Blaine were still nursing the same drink and talking their heads off about anything and everything when Rachel turned up again, phone in hand.
“I was just looking on the New York Times website, and it’s weird. Usually around this time, there’s a review already. But this time, not a word from IconicWarbler.”
Blaine’s head shot up, but Rachel didn’t notice, she was too busy scrolling.
“Do you think he didn’t come?” Rachel asked Kurt.
“Oh, he came all right,” Blaine said softly. “He’s just been too… busy to write a review just yet.”
Kurt, who’d had a hunch that Blaine might be IconicWarbler, beamed in satisfaction, and Rachel gasped, “It’s you?”
“It’s me.”
“I love your reviews,” Kurt told Blaine. “They’re always so kind and so supportive. I reread them when I’m having a bad day to get the strength to carry on, and on good days they make me want to strive to become even better. It means the world to me to have you in my corner.”
Blaine took his hand and squeezed it softly. “Always.”
After that, Kurt didn’t stay at the party much longer, and when he left, he took Blaine home with him.
As he explained to Blaine, “I don’t do this, usually. Or ever. But with you, it feels different.”
Blaine nodded. “I know. I feel the same. May I kiss you?”
Kurt threw his arms around Blaine’s neck and pulled him closer until their lips met.
A long moment later, Blaine’s eyes fluttered open and found his, and he whispered, “Oh, there you are. I’ve been looking for you forever.”
THE END
This is the prompt the story is based on:
Blaine always reviews Kurt's performances in the NYT comments section but uses a nom-de-plume. (Blaine is not a critic--Blaine is in love!) Kurt doesn't know who, but he is also kind of falling for the person giving him such glowing reviews.
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pancakes4two · 2 years
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that summer feelin’ | prologue
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summary: wanting to do something impulsive after graduating university, you answer an online ad promising a free paradise vacation and a chance to win 50 grand. expecting a summer filled with rest and relaxation, you instead wind up as a contestant on love island.
you spend the summer under the hot majorca sun, in the nation’s most famous villa, and you meet a boy who forces you to rethink everything you thought you knew about yourself. somewhere in between, you fall in love.
word count: TBD
warnings: language, sexual references
NEXT PART | MY OTHER BLURBS/FICS | LEAVE A REQUEST
prologue
soundtrack: right down the line
harry’s pov:
Harry was on a lounge chair, tucked away in a far corner of the villa, when the text arrived.
Time to change out of those swim shorts, was how the message started. Tonight, you will be going on a private date with Y/N. #tablefortwo #pastalavista.
It couldn’t have come at a better time, considering he was honestly hours away from dramatically lamenting how uneventful his Love Island experience has been so far. It’s not that the other islanders weren’t lovely—at the very least, Harry didn’t get the vibe that any of them were planning on killing him in his sleep to eliminate the competition. It was just that he didn’t really have a connection with anyone yet. Maybe that’s a bit of a premature judgement for him to make, but he can’t help it when the majority of the other islanders have already settled into somewhat-comfortable pairings.
And honestly, his lack of a companion at the moment may very well be entirely his fault. On the first day, four out of the five girls had stepped forward, hoping to couple up with him. He had chosen Emi because she seemed funny, and looked like the girls he’d typically pick up back at home. One conversation later though, and he discovered that they had absolutely nothing in common at all. They swiftly decided they would be better off as friends, and she moved on to Hunter, a real estate agent from South London.
The rest of Harry’s attempts to find someone to couple up with went in a similar fashion. They’d chat and get on well enough, but realize they’re not very compatible. The two of them would couple up to avoid elimination, but ultimately at the end of the night, Harry would hug the girl and chivalrously send her off to greener pastures, aka the laddy lads in 5 inch inseam shorts who think they’re whispering when gawking at a girl’s body, but are actually speaking loud enough for the entire villa and production crew to hear.
Which brings Harry to his present situation. He knows that if he’s still single by the end of this week, no one will want to abandon their couple to save him and he’ll likely be dumped from the villa. Back to Holmes Chapel and smelling like coffee grounds and sourdough bread all day. The production team probably feels really bad if they’re sending in a bombshell specifically for him. He’d feel bad too if he sent one of his mates into a villa full of singles and he hadn’t managed to find one potential match in three weeks. He really needs to get it together.
“Got a text!” Harry yells towards the general vicinity of where the rest of the islanders are gathered, probably trying to figure out where the production team has hidden the alcohol for the night.
He walks over when it becomes apparent that none of them are willing to abandon their treasure hunt and run to where he’s sat. Slotting himself into an empty space in front of the kitchen island, he reads out the text message.
“You’re going on a date!” Lucy, a fashion buyer from Brighton squeals excitedly while the rest of the boys cheer for Harry.
“Our boy’s got big dinner plans for tonight,” Hunter laughs, throwing a muscled arm around Harry’s shoulders. “Gonna bring home something more than leftovers?”
It’s at this exact moment that they find the hidden alcohol. The discovery leads to another round of loud cheers, and a request that Harry make a toast for good luck on his date.
“Fuck off,” Harry grins while Callum pours him a glass of champagne.
“Here’s to me hopefully getting out of Friend Island and finally making it to Love Island,” He says, raising the bubbly drink in the air. The islanders erupt in a chorus of “Good Lad”s and “Yes”es.
Still bigging him up, the boys lead him towards the inside of the villa and into the bedroom where his suitcase is sitting.
“Think she’s going to be fit?” Matthew, a blonde boy who recently entered the villa asks.
“Of course she’s going to be fit, it’s fucking Love Island,” Callum responds, while Harry unfolds a white linen shirt, holding it up to his body. He slips his arms through the sleeves, letting the material settle on top of his skin as he works with the buttons.
“If he brings her back and she’s hot, I’m stealing her from him,” Hunter says while gesturing at Harry with his thumb. The rest of the boys murmur in agreement.
“Jeez, don’t get too ahead of yourselves,” Harry scoffs. He pulls on a pair of shorts that are just a shade darker than the shirt. Looking at his reflection in the mirror, he messes with his hair a little before giving up and letting his curls fall naturally around his face.
“If you’re having wine on that date, you’re a bit fucked, aren’t you,” Alex motions jokingly at Harry’s all-white outfit, while sucking on a popsicle.
“A little wine on the shirt never hurt anybody,” Harry retorts, smoothing his hands over his chest. “I’ll just be starting the first fashion trend of Love Island 2022.”
They slowly make their way out of the bedroom and into the foyer of the villa. Alex has his hands on both of Harry’s shoulder, jumping up and down as the rest of the boys pump their fists behind him. A cameraman is positioned in front of them, no doubt filming a slow motion montage of the boys sending young, unsuspecting Harry off to his dinner date. When they finally make it to the foyer, the girls are already piled onto the staircase, eagerly waiting to see how Harry has cleaned up for tonight. They gasp and clap excitedly when they spot his monochrome outfit, and before Harry knows it, there’s a crowd of nearly twenty young adults clamoring around him and wishing him good luck for his date. He’d be lying if he said the cheerful energy around him didn’t make him feel good, and less apprehensive of leaving the villa to meet a girl who the Love Island production team has apparently deemed suitable for him.
soundtrack: diet mountain dew
Harry walks out of the villa doors with a ball of anticipation in his stomach. As a PA leads him down a cobblestone path and towards an open field, he notices offhandedly that the sun has already mostly set. An inky black was already beginning to bleed into the muted red and orange sky. Distantly, the moon was also starting to appear, a small yellow-white sliver taking its place in the highest corner of the fading sunset.
As he makes his way further into the field, he notices a white table that has been set up. In the middle of the table, there’s a small basket with a piece of gingham cloth sticking out of it. There are two bottles of wine set on either side of the basket, and utensils perfectly laid out. Diverting his attention away from the dinner spread, Harry then notices you walking out towards one of the chairs. You’re wearing a white babydoll dress with spaghetti straps that have been tied into bows at the tops of your shoulders. You pull your chair out, briefly turning your back towards him. Your hair is half pulled back with a small ribbon that matches the color of your dress. The rest of your outfit is simple: brown loafers, which Harry notes as a smart choice. It would have been hell trying to walk out of this field in heels, considering that it had rained earlier in the afternoon. Small gold hoops with tiny cowboy boot charms, and a thin gold necklace.
Once in front of the chair directly opposite from you, Harry sits down and gives you a small smile, letting himself take in all of your features and tiny details. Your skin is bronzed and there are light freckles dusting the apples of your cheeks and the bridge of your nose, likely evidence of the fact that you’ve already spent a couple of days in Majorca. Your lips are upturned, and you’re giving him a slightly lopsided smile. When you bring your hand up to rest against your cheek, elbow propped on the table, you stare up at Harry through your lashes and his breath hitches in his throat.
It’s the first time he’s been rendered completely speechless since coming to Majorca.
Your face brightens even more as your smile grows into a grin, and Harry notes that your eyes have turned into little happy half moons. 
You point at Harry with your fork, and poke your tongue out at him slightly. “Do you show up late to all of your dates, or just the ones that are being filmed for national television?”
Fuck, Harry thinks.
~
let me know if y’all are interested in more of this series!
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stargazer-sims · 6 months
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Journal Entry #59
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Journal Entry #58 // STORY INDEX
Victor
We’ve been having an amazing summer.
Yeah, I know we’ve been neglecting our journal again, but in a way I feel like maybe we’re outgrowing it. We’ve been chronicling our life this way for over a year, and so much has changed for us in that time. So much has changed about us as well. We’re not the same people we were a year ago, and that’s a good thing.
I started this journal for fun because I wanted to do some travelling that wasn’t connected to a snowboarding competition, and I thought it'd be cool to document my adventures. I did get to go to Sulani, but in hindsight, now I see how unrealistic it was to think I’d be jetting frivolously all around the globe.
But, starting the journal wasn’t a wasted effort by any means. Looking back on it, it’s a reminder of how far Yuri and I have come, what we’ve learned and how we’ve grown as individuals and as a couple. I love us, and I'm proud of the progress we’ve made together.
It’s been interesting to share a part of our story with everyone, but I feel like we’re moving into a different stage of our life now. I don't know if we'll keep recording our journey like this in the future. We'll see.
Anyway, we're still doing it for now, so let me pick up where I left off back in June.
After Mom and Julian's wedding, Yuri and I had a few days together before he and his family returned to Japan. I had a great time showing them around, and I think Mr. and Mrs. Okamoto fell in love with Willow Creek a little bit, because they said they wanted to come back for a longer visit in the near future. Yuki's favourite thing was actually the amusement park in nearby Newcrest, and her parents really seemed to enjoy the scenic walking trails and the farmers market.
Before they left, Mr. Okamoto asked me if I'd like to stay with them when I returned to Mt. Komorebi instead of moving back into Uncle Kaz's house for what might end up being only a couple of months. My knee-jerk reaction was to say no, but I'm glad I managed to keep that to myself. The offer did make a lot of sense, after all. If Yuri and I both stayed with his parents, we wouldn't have to pay rent on top of our mortgage payment for the haunted house, and we could pack up the rest of our stuff so we'd be ready to leave whenever we reasonably could. I just didn't know how I'd feel, being in such close proximity to my in-laws for an extended period of time.
I told Mr. Okamoto I'd think about it and get back to him, and he seemed satisfied with that.
Grandpa Michael also hung around in Willow Creek for a while after the wedding. I said he could stay with me, but he declined, claiming the house would be too crowded with all Yuri's family members staying there too. I found that a little odd at first, until I discovered that he somehow managed to hook up with someone at the wedding and got invited to stay in her guest room for a few nights.
"She's a younger woman, and she’s hot," he told me confidentially. "Her name's Juliet. How about that?"
"Uh... how much younger are we talking?" I asked.
"She's sixty-six."
"Don't you think you're moving kinda fast? Like, sleeping over at her place after you literally just met her?"
"Listen," Grandpa Michael said. "At my age, you gotta move fast so you don't miss the good opportunities."
He's seventy-three. If he was in a contest for old people who move fast, he'd probably win a medal.
Still, he deserves to find happiness and have fun. It’s been seven years since my grandma passed away, and I’m pretty sure he’ll never stop loving her, but seven years is a long time to be alone if you’re used to being with somebody. If he feels like he's ready to get back into the dating scene, who am I to tell him not to?
When I met the aforementioned Juliet a couple days later, I totally understood the attraction. Although ‘hot’ wasn’t exactly the first word that sprang to mind, I could definitely see why Grandpa Michael would think so. She was elegant and confidently attractive in the way women are when they embrace aging with grace instead of engaging in a useless battle with it. I could easily imagine her being a knockout in her younger days. When she was my age, I bet she turned every head in every room she stepped into.
Beyond my initial impression of Juliet Picard, I was startled to realize I recognized her. She was the woman who'd been in charge of all the flowers for the wedding. Turns out she owns a florist shop called Hearts and Flowers, which happens to be down the street from Mom and Julian's clinic. Coincidentally, the flower shop also occupies the same building as the flat where Davian St-Jean, a friend of mine from high school, lives.
I used to say Willow Creek was the most boring place on Earth, that nothing ever happens there, but that's when I was viewing it through the eyes of a guy who thought events didn't have much meaning unless they were big and exciting and important to everyone. I was wrong about that. Sometimes the most seemingly insignificant thing carries the most weight.
A lot happens in Willow Creek. It's a town of connections, of opportunities small and large, the sort of place where a chance interaction could change the course of somebody's life in ways they might never have been able to imagine.
I mean, I was in Willow Creek when I met Yuri. Sitting alone in my sparsely -furnished unit at the Sage Estates apartment complex, scrolling through a forum for snowboarding enthusiasts, I had no idea I was going to see a photo of this impossibly cute Japanese boy doing a silly pose with his board. My impulsivity made me message him, and his curiosity made him message back. Prior to that day, if anyone had suggested I would meet my soulmate through a random encounter on the internet, I think I would've laughed out loud.
But now? Don't tell me stuff doesn't happen in Willow Creek. Dreams are born there, and nobody will ever convince me to change my mind about that again.
The day after Yuri and his family headed home, Grandpa Michael and I departed for Brindleton Bay. He returned his rented car, and then Juliet met us for breakfast and dropped us off at the bus station afterwards.
"I'll be back," he told her as we were about to board the bus, and I swear it was totally dramatic, like something out of a movie. He was dead serious, though, so I had to do my best not to laugh.
"I'll be looking forward to it," she said.
I reached into my bag and pulled out the keys to the house. "Here," I said, handing them to my grandpa. "Consider my place your place until Yuri and I come back. Feel free to use it any time."
He grinned at me, and for a split second I could've sworn I saw the face of a man half his age. "Thanks. I'm sure I'll enjoy that heated swimming pool, and your fabulous kitchen. I'll make myself at home."
"Go for it," I said. "Just don't use the red mug, and don't sleep in the basement bedroom."
Juliet raised an eyebrow. "What an odd thing to say."
"It's only odd if you don't know about the ghost," I told her.
"The ghost?"
"Victor's house is haunted," Grandpa Michael said cheerfully. "Cool, don't you think?"
"Really?" Juilet looked intrigued. "Well, I can't wait to see that."
"Victor, I presume I'm allowed to have houseguests?"
"Go for it," I said. "Far be it from me to cramp your style."
He winked at Juliet. "Heated swimming pool."
"Oh, lord..." she responded, but she was laughing. "I think I'll have to keep him, Victor. I wouldn't want to unleash him on anyone else."
"Consider me kept." Grandpa Michael put the keys into his own bag, and then gave me a thumbs up. "Just let me know when you're coming back. I'll make sure I'm there, so you can get in."
"Don't worry," I said. "Mom has the other set of keys. We'll be able to get in. I'll let her know you'll be coming and going, though. We don't want her to think somebody's trying to break into the place."
"Imagine explaining that to the police," he said, and the look on his face implied he'd very much enjoy stirring up a little trouble like that.
Mom says I'm just like Grandpa Michael. She's probably not wrong. Aside from sharing an almost obsessive passion for snow sports and being international competitors — he was a world champion slalom skiier back in the day — we have the same love for food, the same enjoyment of being with other people, the same sense of humour and, I think it's safe to say, the same impulse control issues.
I love him. I mean, I love my other grandparents too, but I think I have a deeper bond with Grandpa Michael than with the others. We get each other on a fundamental level.
We had a blast during the week I spent in Brindleton Bay with him. We passed a lot of our time at the local fitness center, and every morning we had tea and breakfast with his friends at a café in town. His friends are awesome, for the record. After the first day, I kind of forgot I was hanging out with guys in their seventies. One afternoon, we all played golf together, and on another day we went deep-sea fishing with one of the friends who owns a boat.
When we weren't socializing, we managed to get loads of yard work done, and we did plenty of cooking. Oh man... the cooking. It was so nice not to have to worry about ingredients and portion sizes and making sure everything had the right balance of protein and carbs. We cooked whatever we felt like having, and trust me, we had a lot of it. I'm pretty sure I've never eaten so much in a week in my entire life. With my belly full, I slept like a dead man every night, and it was absolutely satisfying.
On the evening before my flight back to Japan, Grandpa Michael and I were sitting on his back doorstep, drinking some fruit juice and staring out at the ocean. If I thought sunsets over the lake in Granite Falls were beautiful, let me tell you they've got nothing on sunsets over the ocean. The last time I'd seen anything like that, I'd been in Sulani, but somehow this was better. It wasn't that the sunset itself was any more gorgeous, but because I was seeing it with someone I care about and who I know cares about me.
"It's been a long time since I got to sit here and enjoy this with another person," my grandfather said, as if he were reading my thoughts.
"I'm glad I get to watch it with you."
"Me too," he said. "I hope you'll come back here more often, once you're all settled into your new home. Bring your husband too. He seems like a sweet little fellow."
I laughed at that, thinking about how Yuri would respond to being referred to as 'a sweet little fellow'. He'd probably love it, and I could picture him blushing.
"I will," I promised. "But I guess you'll be coming to Willow Creek more often now too, won’t you? So we'll have extra chances to see each other."
"Hmm..." Grandpa Michael leaned back in his chair and stretched his long legs out in front of him. "I never thought I'd find someone I wanted to be with after your grandmother. I didn't think I'd ever want to love anyone that way again, honestly, but I might have changed my mind."
"You think love at first sight is a thing?"
"No," he said. "You never want to say 'love' too quickly, but it's okay to think about it, and I've got a good feeling."
I smiled. "I'm really glad you met Juliet."
"So am I. She made me remember that being alive and living life aren't the same thing," he said. "You know, it's easy to give up on living when you feel like you've lost your reason to live. But, I think we forget that we've got more than one reason. There's more to live for than that one person or thing we lost."
I thought about Yuri. He'd been at his lowest point this past winter, and for a while I'd really been afraid that he'd given up on wanting to be alive, not just on living. Nothing I said or did seemed to matter, and it was scaring me more than anything else ever had. But then, just when I was wondering what would become of him, of us and the future we’d planned, his reminder to live came from the most unlikely source; his father.
If somebody asked me to guess who'd save Yuri in the end, I never would’ve predicted it’d be his dad. Their relationship was practically non-existent up until this year.
It’d taken some pretty horrible events to make them take the first tiny steps toward fixing their broken trust, but all the pain and suffering was worth it if Yuri and his dad learned how to communicate with each other. They’ve both found hope and renewed determination to make the most out of their time in the world, and I’m thankful.
Since March, their relationship has grown by leaps and bounds, and it's been truly amazing to observe. Yuri is happier than I've ever known him to be. He's looking forward, rather than being stuck in a bubble of self-pity and going nowhere. Even the smallest things seem to bring him joy now, and I can't even begin to describe how full my heart is over that.
I want this to last. I want him to be happy forever, and I don't even care if I'm not the catalyst. Seeing him happy makes me happy. The reason for it doesn't matter, as long as he's thriving.
Of course, I'm enough of a realist to get that it's not always going to be sunshine and strawberry milkshakes. Yuri's chronic illness will never go away, so it's inevitable that he'll have bad days or weeks. Plus, we're doubtless going to have to deal with difficult stuff that's completely unrelated to Yuri's health.
That having been said, I'm of the opinion that happiness is a state of being. Like, even if we're not constantly cheerful and we're navigating scary or unpleasant situations, we can still be happy. There's always something to be grateful for, always one more reason to keep on living, and that's what I want for Yuri. My wish for him is that he'll finally understand happiness is something he can choose for himself, and even if everything around him is dark and bitter, he can still find his own metaphorical sunshine and strawberry milkshakes on the inside.
When I shared that with Grandpa Michael, he told me he was proud of me and said I should be proud of myself too.
"You've grown up a lot since you've been away," he commented.
"Thanks. I've had a lot of people helping me."
"Other people can only get you so far. You have to want to do it."
"I don't know if I wanted to," I confessed. "Being an adult is hard. Part of me wishes I could just stay a kid forever, Know what I mean?"
"Believe it or not, I do," he said. "But you know what they say. You don't have to stop playing just because you're growing up."
With that in mind, I've made it my mission to get in as much playtime as possible this summer and to bring as many people along with me on my adventures as I can.
I made up my mind to stay with my in-laws when I got back to Mt. Komorebi, and I have no regrets. Yuri and I have been filling our days with all kinds of activities from long walks on the mountain trails, to visiting local museums and galleries, to picnic lunches by the lake near his parents' house. I returned in time for the Festival of Snow, and the whole family went to it together. We were out all day, and it was even more fun than last year.
A few weeks ago, Yuri and I took a weekend trip to Kyoto for shopping, sightseeing, and a classical music concert. Yuri convinced me to go back to the spa we went to on the day before we got married, and afterwards we bought dango from a street vendor and ate it in the little park where we had our wedding pictures taken.
We've been spending time with our friends as well, and it probably goes without saying that Sakura and I are training on the mountain as much as we’re reasonably able to. Last week, Yuri told me that he thought he was finally feeling strong enough to get back on his board, so I called Sakura and asked her if we could skip training for the day so I could take Yuri snowboarding. She sounded only too glad to oblige, and said she might come out to join us, if Yuri didn't mind. He said he didn't, so Sakura met us at the intermediate slope, and the three of us had one of the most wonderful mornings I've had in a long time.
Yuri was exhausted by the time we were done, but even more importantly, he was hungry. He practically begged me to take him to a local ramen house for his favourite meal of the moment, kake udon. That's a kind of mild noodle soup that can be served with different toppings like tofu, sliced fish or shrimp tempura. Yuri likes it with scallions and fish. He somehow talked me into buying him strawberry daifuku as well, and then he didn't even share them with me. Like... the nerve! When it became clear I wasn't going to get even a bite of one of his, I had to order my own. I pretended to protest, but I was secretly thrilled, if you really want to know.
Yuri's been doing so good with his eating that Dr. Kasongo thinks she might be able to remove his feeding tube by the end of the year. He officially finished the first phase of his nutrition rehabilitation therapy in mid-July, so that means no more food intelligence classes and no more weekly visits with the nutritionist and psychologist.
He's happy about not having to meet with the psychologist every single week, but he's nervous about not seeing the nutritionist as regularly. She's been like a safety net for him, I think. He had to be accountable to her, and now he's worried that he's not going to be able to do it without her encouraging, reminding, and occasionally scolding him about his food intake and eating choices. He's supposed to continue with his daily food diary, and at this point he's supposed to start planning his own weekly menu or at least contributing to the planning of a family menu. He has a short consultation with the nutritionist every two weeks, usually ten or fifteen minutes by video call, so he can go over his food diary and meal plans with her. It's nothing like his previous hour-long weekly in-person sessions, and he's stressed.
Everyone in the family is cheering him on, though. We all know he can do it.
His current goal is to go sixty consecutive days without a single tube feeding. That, and his general overall health, are the criteria for having the tube removed. He looked like he was about to panic when the doctor told him that, and on the way home from his appointment he cried while telling me he didn't think he was ready to go sixty days in a row.
"It's okay," I said. "If you're not ready yet, that's not a bad thing. Just do the best you can."
"But, I'll be delaying our move even more if I can't do this," he said.
"No, you won't. We've got the date for your first appointment with Dr. Kim now, don't forget. We can move any time between now and then, and if you still have your tube when we move, I'm sure Dr. Kim can take it out just as easily as Dr. Kasongo could."
As a matter of fact, he'd received the email from Dr. Kim, the gastroenterologist at Willow Creek Regional Hospital, just the day before we last saw Dr. Kasongo. Yuri's initial appointment with Dr. Kim is scheduled for the twenty-second of October. While I wanted to leave Japan before autumn, I had to acknowledge there really was no rush, and if we didn't get to Willow Creek until mid-October, that would still be fine.
When we got back to Yuri's parents' house, we told them all about how it'd gone with Dr. Kasongo. Mr. and Mrs. Okamoto agreed that it was okay if Yuri didn't think he was ready to commit to the sixty-day home stretch yet, but they also said they were confident in his ability.
Yuki, who had overheard part of the conversation, later offered the helpful suggestion of making a sticker chart. "So every day you go without formula, you get to put a sticker on it, and at the end, you get a big reward!"
I thought she meant the 'big reward' was having his tube taken out, but Yuki had something else in mind. She conspired with her mother to create the most fantastic sticker chart I've ever seen. They drew it on poster board, and blocked it with six rows of ten squares each. Every tenth square had 'reward' written on it, and the sixtieth square boldly proclaimed 'BIG REWARD!!!' in alternating yellow and pink letters, Yuri's favourite colours. They bought an assortment of stickers for him to use on it, including ones with pink ice cream, seashells, glittery rainbow stars, cute baby animals, and — to his obvious delight — sparkly musical instruments, including violins.
"Look at this, Yuri. We have a plan," his mother said, as she went about hanging the chart on the wall in the kitchen. "Whenever you're ready to start counting your sixty days, let me know, and I'll give you the stickers."
To my surprise, it was less than a week later when he told her he was ready to begin.
Today is the ninth of August. We're on day eight of the first ten days today, and the full sixty days will bring us up to the first of October. We’ll be sure to keep you informed about how it’s going, but so far, so good.
We're tentatively planning our move for the middle of September, and I'm cautiously optimistic. Everyone who's watching this, please wish us luck.
There are people who say luck isn't really a thing, and that we can only get ahead by persistence and hard work, but I think it's a combination of the two. Like, I think it's true that our own efforts and our determination to succeed is the real driving force, but who would ever say no to a serendipitous stroke of luck? Even the hardest worker needs a helping hand now and then, and I'm not too proud to accept a well-meant wish for good fortune and success.
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p3l0k3n · 1 year
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MSP 7
Gun and Yo are playing with fire.
We learned from Tinn's senior that the no dating rule is in place because the faen could be a distraction. Yak discovered that they could be a liability as well.
Yak disregarded the spirit of the law but adhered to the letter of the law. He probably saw her as a driving force and not as a distraction, just as Gun and Yo do. In both years, the other band members either feign ignorance of what is happening or know about it outright, and Chinzhilla paid the price for it last year.
I believe Tinn's mom is aware that nothing can really happen between her son and Gun until after Hot Wave. I can see her inserting herself into the situation after the contest is over regardless of the results.
Gun seems uncomfortable with Tinn's behavior, and that makes me see that behavior as total cringe. On the flipside, Gun's jealousy is truly unfounded; but I'm glad that Gun actually communicated his feelings.
I can understand the band having a second vote, but having them help Yo pursue Nook after she blocked his number is highly questionable behavior, plot twist be damned.
I'm looking forward to whatever drama comes Pat's way. They flesh out Yo's arc this episode, but Pat is still underutilized.
I would love to see the band have a pet chinchilla, but could they handle taking care of one? Por seems up to the task at least. Tiw would probably help him.
I can't tell how much time has passed between the end of this episode and what we are seeing in the preview of the next episode. How many rounds of the contest, if any, are we skipping over?
Later
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periapsystems · 1 year
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Dream Diary: Desert Timeloop
I had a dream last week that made a big impact on me and I finally got around to writing it down before I forgot it.
The dream started off with me in a dry and hot world. It was maybe an alternate version of our Earth perhaps a short time into the future. Or it was possibly just a planet very similar, such things are hard to tell in a dream. I was searching for a girl that was important to me although I did not know if she was a sister, friend or someone else. To my relief I was able to venture into shade, the underside of a building. Among the concrete support columns I explored and found an entrance into some kind of underground tunnel. It was both a sewer/drainage system and also maintenance or access tunnels. At the end of them I did find the girl I was looking for and we also discovered records of scientists trying to find a way to restore the world's environment.
After this there was a new day and there was some kind of contest one could join for points. But I didn't want to join this contest and instead went looking for people to help with the data I had found. Along the way I managed to find a young man who in the style of something like Neon Genesis Evangelion, or The World Ends With You was some sort of divine or angelic being. He found my desire to try and change the world to be appealing and decided to help me break out of the loop the world was in. It turned out that at the end of each day he reset the world, so it was stuck in a time loop. While I could remember the previous day now and didn't get reset, everyone else would.
But to help overcome this I could now create an email newsletter, by signing people up I could send them messages letting them know they were in a loop and coordinating with them. Through this I found out that the world wasn't actually in a time loop; hobby astronomers had noticed that stars weren't in the positions they should be for the date they thought it was and had calculated that it was actually a few months ahead of the supposed date. The divine figure was changing the position of everything in the world and recreating any consumed food or items.
One day I woke up and someone attacked me and stole half of me "points". He knew what I was trying to do and was opposed for some reason. The divine person told me that he liked his actions and that he had let him perceive the loop as he had done with me. As a result when I had tried to sign him up to my newsletters he realised I was his opponent in the nebulous and undefined conflict that was occuring. The arena challenge that was happening tied into this somehow, that man was trying to win enough points which would in some way conflict with what I was trying to do.
The world of the dream was a lot like the city I live in during summer, which makes sense given I had this dream in the middle of summer. I could feel the dry heat most places I went, except when during the dream I was invited to lunch by a friend and we entered a mall which had running water and fountains. There was definitely a sense of exclusive luxury to this as the world was very dry and arid.
I think that I could probably adapt this into a story of some kind by working out the more incoherent dream elements and rewriting it a little. I don't think I will, but I wanted to write down the dream anyway so that I remembered it. Even five to six days later certain elements and scenes of the dream feel very vivid to me.
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i’m emo, can’t believe they did that 😭😭😭😭
espero verte feliz, aunque sea sin mí
#alba reche#natalia lacunza#okay but i need you to understand what this means#this is gonna get a bit long but this performance is a lot#so as you might already know from my posts and stuff#alba reche and natalia lacunza are two spanish singer that started as contestants of ot 2018#they were super mega close during the contest#like it was a delight seeing them together their relationship was so beautiful#and of course people started shipping them#as what happens in these cases#people started to harass them and it was a lot#kinda like the spanish version of larry levels of fanatism#so after a few months#they unfollowed each other on social media and just weren't pictured together for a while#later on it was discovered that they probably ended up dating after the contest but they broke up#but anyways#this remained like this for like a year#until they followed each other back and started commenting on each other photos and all#very minute things but fans were relieved#i don't know how this experience was but for me#i did ship them during the contest but i had enough rationale to understand it shouldn't be pushed on them#and i just wanted them to be friends again cause i had already seen in ot how much they cared for each other#so again baby steps but it was something#and some months ago it was announced that they would sing the same day in a music festival#one after the other#everybody went wild#lots of people went#and it was yesterday#so july 24th 2021#they did what's on the video
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tommyspeakycap · 3 years
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Can I request some chilly fluff? Anything really, just some cute sweet chilly fluff with a little bit of angst maybe?
of course! here's an idea that's been swimming around my brain all day lol
helping hand
ben isn't coping with his newest responsibility and his best friend comes to save the day once again
It's honestly less about the news than it is about the fact that you didn’t here it from him. Texts have gone mostly unanswered since you read that online article you first believed was false, only for it to be confirmed by him. You offered a congratulations despite the pain it brought to you to hear that you had completely lost your chance.
You had probably called him about a million times, each time ringing out and some even being hung up after merely a few rings.
At first, you worried that something had happened. Then you managed to wrangle the news out of Mason that everything was well, you let yourself have those days of utter heartbreak that he had found a girl, started to settle down and then completely cut you out of the picture. This was the first time in all of your 23 years that you hadn't been able to speak to him about things that were going on. He seemed to have completely fogotten about you and you couldn't bring yourself to think of a reason why.
She never really did like you, his girlfriend. You could only imagine it had something to do with the fact that Ben was incredibly close with you. A lot of girls had been unhappy with the fact that while dating Ben, they were subject to teasing that everyone was surprised he was dating when they had thought he was so clearly in love with you. You understand that, it would be irritating but nothing had ever happened between you and Ben that might suggest you would ever get together. People just love a rumour.
What had really hit you, however was seeing her from the Instagram you followed. She didn't even appear to be in London, never mind with him and that made no sense by the timeline you had managed to figure out.
That's how you found yourself standing at his door with what felt like a million bags and a feeling of hurt you had never actually had before. You cornered Mason, refusing to leave until he told you what the hell was going on and when he did, you were gone like a flash with a broken heart to seek out the man who needed you now more than he ever did.
Your heart shatters even more when you step into his house, pushing it open and pulling out the key he gave you a few months ago as you head carefully to the kitchen. You can hear him trying to talk, his voice strained and croaky as he attempts to speak over the sound of the screaming baby girl.
"Come on sweetheart," he begs, "Please take your bottle, I promise you're just tired."
His house is messier than you've ever seen it with gifts unopened, blankets and bottles, baby toys and clothes strewn around everywhere you could see.
You're quick and quiet to get to work clearing the place up, clean clothes being folded and sat in his clean laundry hamper while sorting the dirty things and shoving them into the washing machine by colour before tidying away all the blankets into the baby boxes he had set up in his front room. The infant upstairs screams the entire time you whiz around, throwing an entire bin bag worth of rubbish out of his kitchen before restocking all the shelves and his empty fridge with food for him and milk powder for the little girl. The pizza you shoved in the oven the second you arrived was finished after 15 minutes, so you plated that and left it on the kitchen island before you decided to make you presence known to him.
"Need a helping hand?"
His head whips around rapidly, instinctively tucking his daughter closer into his chest before he recognised your voice and turned his face back away from you. "You shouldn't be here, (y/n)." He mumbles, bouncing his legs to try and get that screeching to stop before he starts crying again himself.
How had everything ended up so messy? He found a girl that he thought he loved, he had his best friends and he had you. She got pregnant and he was ecstatic until she told him she wasn't interested in having a baby. It was too late to do anything about it, so she gave birth to that baby and legally signed over parental rights wholly and fully to a destroyed Ben. You, of course, had to find this out half from the tabloids and half from Mason. Ben was absolutely affronted. He was mortified. How had he gotten himself in this position?
You were the first and only person he wanted to tell. He was desperate to seek out your arms and have an absolute sob to you so you could help him fix this like you do with everything else, but he couldn't bring himself to face you. He cut you off slowly and carefully without even noticing himself because she had coaxed him into it. She played him like a fiddle, let him grow her platform and fund her lifestyle until she had everything she wanted from him and left him with something that was supposed to be theirs to love forever.
As if things couldn't get worse, from the moment he found out she was having a baby he had realised he didn't want kids or a life with anyone but you and now here he is, with a baby that has no mother and he had lost you. How could he just go back crying to you now after all the hurt he had caused you? What kind of person does that? He made this mess and it was his to clean up.
"Mason told me what happened. You can fight me all you want, Ben but I'm not going to go anywhere so you may as well just let me help." You say firmly, not inviting a single space for him to actually contest your words. His shoulder deflate even further than they already are as he finally turns to meet your eyes.
There's bags and dark circles beneath his with greasy, messy hair and a shirt he probably hadn't changed in longer than he should.
"I'm sorry." He croaks, clamping down on his lip with his teeth so he doesn't immediately burst out crying at the sight of you standing there in his house. God, he's missed you so much he couldn't even begin to put it into words and his emotions are so messed up from the lack of sleep that he'll cry at just about anything right now. "It's forgotten about. We don't have to talk about it, I'm here to help."
The weight that lifts off of Ben's shoulder is the kind of immense relief that only really you can bring to him, honestly. There are few people that he has ever met that can ease him like you can and knowing he doesn't have to explain this whole situation really is something he's so thankful for.
"This is Lilly," he says weakly, nodding his head down at her whining. You smile immediately and without thought, stepping forward to get a closer look at the small baby, only two weeks old and already giving her dad a run for his money. "Hello Lilly," you coo softly, raising your hand to stroke her cheek with your finger in the most gentle manner he's ever seen. "Can I? I feel like I've missed out on two weeks worth of aunt (y/n) cuddles."
He tries not to think much into the fact you refer to yourself as her aunt because if he lets enough thought onto it, he'll find himself breaking his heart over you all over again. Ben nods, passing her into your arms carefully.
"I'll feed her, I made some pizza for you so you should go eat." You hold our your hand to take the bottle from him, but he frowns. "I-" Ben stutters, "I don't want to just lump you with her, plus she's upset so I shouldn't leave her y'know? It's not fair on-"
"Go and eat Ben, and have a shower while you're at it. We'll be fine in here, I've babysat a million times before." You shrug, taking the bottle from him as you step further into the nursery instead of standing in the doorway cradling the still whimpering little girl in her pink onesie. "But I-"
"Go."
"I should-"
"Ben go, now."
Ben sighs in defeat and turns on his heel, the rumbling of his stomach finally giving him away as he realises just how hungry and smelly he actually is. No wonder the infant was crying in his hold.
He trudges downstairs, hearing the sounds of those winging dying down as he does, half expecting to walk into the messy swamp he had left when he went upstairs earlier this morning, only to see the whole bottom floor of the house was basically as spotless as it had been the day he moved in, bar the baby variety adjustments he had made to welcome the new arrival.
He makes a mental note to thank you more and do some grovelling and apologising later on. He knows he has to do it and he knows he'll explain in more detail what really happened probably later today, but for now he will scoff that pizza down his throat faster than he has ever consumed a meal in all of his life before raining the cupboards that he discovered you had stocked. He is reminded with every step he takes around his house that this is you, again, here holding him up when the world around him feels like its completely crumbled.
This is what you do, you keep him together, fix him up after the heartbreaks and breakups preparing him for the next girl who's pieces you'll have to pick up when they hurt him. This time he doesn't want another girl, he wants you. This time, the one time that he would be miles too late. He's got a baby now that he needs to focus on and he can't imagine that you're going to want an instant family even if you could really see past the fact he had ghosted you for nearly five straight months from the moment he found out his girlfriend was pregnant. He can't forgive himself, so how on earth would you?
If he would ask, you would tell him you already had. Seeing how hurt he was, how genuinely sorry things had ended dup like this with everyone in his life he was was enough for you. It was enough to cause you actual physical pain. You never could hold a grudge considering the situation he had ended up in.
Ben had never ever once in his life being more thankful for his shower. He’s also pretty sure he fell asleep against the wall with the heat of the shower steam loosening his muscles and the fatigue of barely an hours sleep catching up to him. He towel dries off his hair, letting the towel hang around his neck as he rubs it against his head while he pads along the soft carpet of his hallway from the bedroom to his beautifully done pink nursery where he hears no crying, at all.
But he does here soft talking.
“Giving your daddy a hard time eh, pretty girl.” You hum softly, slowly swaying from side to side. She lays in your arms, looking up at you and stealing every bit of your heart with her daddies eyes. “He deserves it a little, you know. Just ‘cause he done me out of some adorable baby cuddles y’know?” Ben can hear the teasing smile on your lips as he leans against the doorframe out of your sight, keeping quiet so as not to be detected. “But he’s a good man, sweet girl. One of the best, actually. And i know he’s already such a good daddy to you, he loves you so so much. Do you know that, eh?” You say quietly. Ben catches the sight of you swaying that amazed little baby who coos up at you, reaching for your finger to hold. “Mhm, and i love you too. You have no idea how loved you are.” That’s one thing Ben can agree on.
“And you might not know it now because you’re little, but i do know one thing for absolute certain; I’m always gonna be here for you, and for your daddy even if he’s as stubborn about it as they come. You’ve got to help me out though, eh sweet girl? Be good to that daddy of yours. Yeah, sleepy baby? Mhm, my sweet girl.” The way you hum, bouncing her carefully and swaying in just the right way for her to fall asleep in your arms. Ben watches you for only a minute more, softly singing a little lullaby to her that makes Ben’s heart swell to ache so much that he has to take a small little video before he heads off downstairs with one last look.
When you finally greet him downstairs with a tight hug that he sinks into immediately, resting his cheek on your shoulder as your hands massage your fingers through his freshly cleaned hairs as his arms hug around your waist. “I’ve missed you.” He admits, words muffled by your sweatshirt. The feeling of your fingers at the nape of his neck makes him hum in content and sink into you peacefully just like his baby daughter did not half an hour ago. You’re just perfect for them both in every way and there is not one bone in his body that doesn’t wish he had started his family with you.
But with that realisation comes one more; that he will not settle until he has given everything he has, tried with every morsel of him to earn your forgiveness. He might not of started his family with you, but he is damn determined to make you part of it.
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canary3d-obsessed · 3 years
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Restless Rewatch: The Untamed, Episode 25, part one
(Masterpost) (Other Canary Stuff)
Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!
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Holy crap, Episode 25! We’re halfway through! *Cue Bon Jovi*
Hunt Invitation
After taking a nice long break to watch Word of Honor pick lotus pods, Wei Wuxian and Jiang Yanli return to stressing over the shitshow that is the post-Sunshot cultivation world. Jin Zixuan has come to invite them to the Phoenix Mountain Hunt, with a special invitation from his mother to Jiang Yanli. Jiang Cheng reacts to this in a mature and reasonable manner, while Wei Wuxian...doesn't.
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On the surface, Jiang Cheng has matured in recent months; much more than Wei Wuxian, with his secret burdens, has. But it's only on the surface, as we'll see later in the episode, when Jiang Cheng's insecurity will take the reins.
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Jin Zixuan is adorably pleased by Jiang Yanli's acceptance of the invitation. Wei Wuxian is less pleased, but sort of tries to suck it up. 
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Jin Zixuan kind of undercuts the romance of his errand by asking Wei Wuxian for the Yin tiger amulet as soon as Jiang Yanli is out of earshot. 
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As always, Jin Zixuan makes an impression by being the best Jin currently in existence, but the Jins are terrible. JZX is working to advance his dad's ambitions, and as such he is currently Wei Wuxian's enemy.  
(more after the cut)
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Opening Ceremonies
There's a bunch of cultivators arranged for the opening ceremony. Later someone will say that this is more than 5 thousand people. Ok, sure.
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As I've said before, it's best to think of it like a theatre production and assume the other 4,900 people are offstage or, you know, painted on the backdrop.  
The young lead cultivators from the four main clans are standing together. Nie Huaisang is trying out some new body armor.
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The clan leaders are seated up on the stage, along with Jin Furen and Jiang Yanli. Unfortunately Jin Furen doesn't seem to have a personal name that I can discover. Her title Fūrén ( 夫人)  means she's the primary wife of the head of the family, according to this excellent meta. 
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So “Madame Jin” is a decent translation...if you're French?  I feel like instead of English subtitles including borrowed words from French (”Marquis” in NIH), Greek (”Water of Lethe” in WOH), and other European languages, we could try borrowing Chinese words instead. Jin Zixuan's mom is titled, not named, Jin Furen. Since we don’t know her actual name, I'll call her that and abbreviate it JFR.
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Wei Wuxian's childishness continues at the opening of the hunt, as does Jiang Yanli's encouragement of his childishness. I know she's had a rough couple of years, and it's understandable to want to baby her little brother out of a sense of nostalgia. But it's not good for him, and she shouldn't do it; she should encourage him to be more mature, just as she does with Jiang Cheng.
War Crimes Contest
Jin Guangyao says they're going to have an archery competition, and they're going to liven it up by endangering some prisoners. These prisoners are Wens in Wen cultivator uniforms, meaning they're not the noncombatants that were being hunted down earlier. But they’re still helpless people in chains. 
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There are three different reactions when the Wen prisoners are brought out.  All the Jins are pleased, or neutral. All of the Jiangs, including Wei Wuxian, are upset.
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The Nies and the Lans, what we see of them, are a little shocked, but not obviously upset. Based on those reactions, it seems like this is a maneuver that in-world is considered shocking and cruel, but not necessarily unethical or immoral.  Shocking, cruel displays of power are pretty normal in this world; remember when Wen Chao lit a Lan cultivator on fire just to say hello, and nobody complained? 
This whole scenario, of course, has been designed to provoke Wei Wuxian. One major goal of this event, and the whole reason for wanting Wei Wuxian to come,  is to get the Yin Tiger amulet.  Making him lose his shit in front of 100 5000 cultivators is a good step toward compelling him to hand the amulet over.  
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We see Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli both signaling Wei Wuxian to keep it together, and he takes a step back and tries to chill.  
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Meanwhile, Jin Zixuan seems annoyed by all this, and goes to take a shot at it, making it clear from his demeanor that this is easy and JGY is making a show of nothing. 
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He hovers in the air and makes a perfect shot, pleasing most of the crowd and impressing Jiang Yanli. 
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Then his cousin Jin Zixun taunts the crowd, challenging anyone to do better.  This presents a bit of a problem for Wei Wuxian. For the sake of the Wen prisoners, Wei Wuxian should just take this taunting and let the contest end, if no-one else is willing to take a shot. But for the sake of the Jiang Clan’s status, and his continued control of the Yin Tiger amulet, he needs to put the Jins in their place.  
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Every Day is Blindfold Day
This moral dilemma is resolved with an abrupt tonal shift, where the humanitarian concerns of all parties seem to vanish. Wei Wuxian flirts embarrassingly with Lan Wangji and then goes as far over the top in besting Jin Zixuan as it's possible to go.
The flirting hits differently, incidentally, when you edit Jiang Cheng's annoyed reaction out of it: 
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Lan Wangji doesn't seem embarrassed by Wei Wuxian's request, despite it happening in front of 100 5000 of their fellow cultivators. He looks Wei Wuxian straight in the eye for longer than necessary before turning away; it’s not exactly stern disapproval. We’ll get very used to this look, in Wei Wuxian’s second life. 
Fortunately, Wei Wuxian carries a blindfold with him wherever he goes, (gifset here), and he is such a good cultivator he can hit 5 parallel targets simultaneously without even holding his bow straight or tightening the string.
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(OP fixed the angle of the bow for this gif, which is why everyone is standing on a hill in the background).
Everyone is pleased by this shot except Jins Guangyao and Zixun; even the Jin cultivators are clapping, and Madame Jin is presumably this happy any time Jin Guangyao’s plans go wrong.
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With that they start the hunt. Jin Zixun challenges Wei Wuxian to do the whole hunt blindfolded. Wei Wuxian agrees, but the censorship committee said no, apparently, so we don’t get to see that.
Flute Hunting
We do get to see Wei Wuxian luring monsters into his nets by being too sexy for his robe, too sexy for his robe, and playing the flute.  
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We also get to see Jiang cultivators looking puzzled while random monster roars happen in the woods around them. We do not get to see any monsters, which is probably just as well.
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Jiang Cheng is annoyed and concerned, muttering "I told you not to overdo it" which means he didn't, you know, tell Wei Wuxian NOT to do this, just not to do it quite so well. Jiang Cheng knows what Wei Wuxian’s abilities are and he is making use of him, as he should, but he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions. 
Tree Confession
Wei Wuxian sees Lan Wangji and starts to say hi, but then he has a desaturated flashback to Lan Xichen telling him to back off, so he stops himself.  But then Lan Wangji comes over to talk to him.
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Lan Wangji starts off talking to him about his latest anti-resentment musical discoveries, and Wei Wuxian pushes back, even calling him Lan Wangji, but gently.  Wei Wuxian asks "who am I to you?" and Lan Wangji turns the question right back at him, then waits a looooooong time, eyes downcast, while Wei Wuxian thinks of a serious answer.
Wei Wuxian says "I used to treat you as my zhījǐ" --which, as we’ve discussed before, is variously translated soulmate, confidant, intimate friend--with a strong meaning of "the person who truly knows me." Lan Wangji says "I still am." Coming from Lan Wangji, who NEVER says how he feels about Wei Wuxian or about anything, really, this sounds a lot like a confession of love. 
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It definitely takes the form, visually, of a love confession, as Lan Wangji speaks, then gazes at Wei Wuxian while he waits for a reply.  Wei Wuxian's reply is this:
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I don't think Wei Wuxian is oblivious (I'm speaking strictly of CQL, not MZDS, as always with these posts; they are different works). I think he loves Lan Wangji back, and knows it. But Chenqing and everything it represents are between them.
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Lan Wangji is quite literally NOT his zhījǐ any more, because he doesn't truly know Wei Wuxian right now. He loves him desperately, but he doesn't know about his core, and hasn't accepted his cultivation method.  So Wei Wuxian answers his confession by showing him Chenqing, effectively declining to accept his still-conditional love.
Snake Measuring
Next we get terrible hetero courtship in the form of Jin Zixuan finding snake discharge on the ground and talking to Jiang Yanli about comparative snake measuring. Seriously: that is the actual conversation that they are having.
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Jin Zixuan boasts for a bit, and then awkwardly tries to ask Jiang Yanli on a date. When she turns him down he gets mad, because he's a typical heterosexual dude even though he's secretly a delightful person...very, very secretly. Jiang Yanli, for her part, can't string a fucking sentence together to save her life whenever he's around, so she's not helping their mutual understanding. 
Lan Wangji attempts to hold Wei Wuxian back from beating Jin Zixuan’s ass yet again, but eventually JYL wants to leave, JZX tells her to wait, and WWX intervenes. Why doesn't Jiang Yanli have a maid or Jiang cultivator with her while she's on a date, incidentally? These kids are confused about whether they're doing feudal patriarchy or whether they're doing modern social life.
Jin vs. Jiang
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Wei Wuxian jumps in between Jiang Yanli and Jin Zixuan, which JZX objects to. Jin Zixuan has no fucking business objecting and Wei Wuxian is 100% right, at this point. As soon as WWX shows up JZX should hand her off to her Shidi, bow, and leave her the fuck alone. Instead, he draws his sword on Wei Wuxian, and kind of on Jiang Yanli since she's right behind Wei Wuxian.  Fortunately, Lan Wangji blocks him. 
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This instantly blows up into a Jiang-Jin Clan conflict, with Jiang Cheng unfortunately absent since he let his unmarried sister go off in the woods alone with the son of the Cultivaton world's most famous lecher. It looks like it’s a personal conflict, but since Jin Zixuan already told Wei Wuxian directly that Jin Guangshan wants his amulet, any arguments between them are part of a larger power struggle. 
Cousin Jin Zixun comes running up to start shit. Wei Wuxian pretends--I am SURE he's pretending--not to know who he is. The dude hassles Wei Wuxian every time he sees him; Wei Wuxian is a troll, and right now CJXZ is butting in to something that doesn't concern him. Rather than argue, Wei Wuxian insults him by telling him he’s not memorable.
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Jin Furen shows up with several maids and cultivator dudes in tow, which is the proper way for a highborn woman to wander around in the woods. She also brings Clan Leader Yao, because if it's Wei Wuxian Blaming Hours, Yao is going to be there.  
I initially found the deep friendship between superhot Yi Zuyuan and dumpy Jin Furen implausible, but then I remembered that my lifelong bestie is a smokin' hot redhead with impeccable fashion sense, while I am a roly-poly nerd.  Friends don’t always match. Also, Jin Furen's actress, Hu Xiaoting, looks like this: 
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...so she is actually hot in real life. Not as hot as Zhang Jingtong (who plays Yu Ziyuan) but literally nobody is as hot as Zhang Jingtong. Don't @ me, you know I'm right.
This is a heck of a long scene, so we’ll pick it up in part two! 
Soundtrack: Livin’ on a Prayer by Bon Jovi
Writing prompt: Newly-divorced, cold-hearted CEO Yu Ziyuan buys an apartment next door to newly-divorced, warm-hearted pastry chef ...uhh let's call her Jin Dàngāo (蛋糕), sure. She can name her business after herself. 
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They discover their daughter & son are in the same college class, and so they meet up over coffee....several times...trying to matchmake their hopeless, hapless kids, while bonding over their own terrible (former) taste in husbands. Who will Cupid strike first, the kids or the moms?
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remuswriting · 3 years
Text
skirts; s. koushi
Summary: Y/N has a box in his closet that he doesn’t tell anyone about.
Pairing: Sugawara x Male! Reader
Format: Headcanons
Word Count: 925 words
Warnings: suggestive but not much
Notes: Uh, this kind of sucks but content lol.  I am god awful at second person but it just be that way sometimes.
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You didn’t like the term femboy
Actually you hated it
You felt like it invalidated trans women, especially after they said it definitely did
You liked the fashion though
Of course, you knew there was a difference between wearing the fashion and the term, so you started to collect clothing pieces
Maybe a skirt from some mall you went to alone
A top from an online store that you just fell in love with.
Black thigh high socks because you thought they matched everything
You also discovered they were incredibly warm.
There were other things like a gold chain choker and shoes but you never wore any of it.
You were too scared to actually wear any of it.
It wasn’t like you’d feel less of a man but it was the fear of it being a real “dirty little secret.”
It wasn’t until you started dating Sugawara that you fully thought about it.
He went through your closet constantly to steal clothes from you.
The clothes you feared him finding were in a box shoved in the farthest corner of your closet.
After a couple months, you were pretty sure he wouldn’t find it until he did.
You were ready for him to break up with you when he pulled the box out of your closet.
“Hey, Y/N, what’s this?” He asked as he opened to look inside.
You were ready to die.
It also didn’t help that you were a terrible liar but you tried not to think of that now.
“Oh, that’s my sister’s. I’m on to it for her,” you lied and he gave you a confused look.
“You don’t have a sister.”
Well he got you there.
“These are cute pieces,” he said as he touched all of them. “When do you wear them?”
“I don’t,” you said as you stared at your hands in your lap. “I’ve never even tried them on.”
Suga was silent, which made you panic.  He was probably debating on breaking up with you, wasn’t he?  This had to be the end of the best relationship you’ve ever had.
“There aren’t any socks,” Suga stated and he looked up to see he had laid the outfit out on the bed.
“Oh, I wear those under my pants in the winter.  They’re black.”
Koushi shook his head as he put his hands on his hips. “You need white socks for this.”
“How would you know?”
“Remember Asahi?” Suga asked and you nodded.  You had met him and Daichi at a bar not long ago. “He’s a fashion designer and ripped my fashion to shreds all throughout high school and college.”
You could faint remember that but you had gotten completely wasted.
Daichi had dared you to a drinking contest for a reason you could not remember and you somehow won.
“You should try this on.” Suga walked over to you and cupped your face. “I’m pretty sure it would look cuter on you.”
After maybe 10 minutes of coaxing, he sent you off to the bathroom.
You stared at the white button down blouse and green and blue plaid tennis skirt.  All you had to do was put it on.
What if you look bad though? Suga would see it and wouldn’t think you were attractive anymore.
You weren’t sure how long it took to put the shirt on before tucking it into the skirt like you had seen in photos before.
Koushi had been right that this wouldn’t be the best with black socks but you would’ve most likely worn them anyways after realizing how cold it was to wear a skirt.
When you finally looked in the mirror, you didn’t know how to feel.
You knew you looked okay but it was just weird for some reason.
Maybe the climax of finally wearing it didn’t meet the suspense leading up to it.
“Y/N, are you done yet?” Suga asked from behind the door and you took in a deep breath.
You didn’t expect Koushi to blush at the sight of you.  His face was bright red and he looked embarrassed about it as he covered his face with his arm.
“What do you think?” You asked after extended silence lingered over you two.
“You look really good,” he said as he took a step forward and straightened your shirt. “Like really good.”
“Really?” You asked and his reaction was more than him just saying you had expected. “Like you really think so?”
He pulled you close to him and you finally felt his erection.
Oh, okay.
It wasn’t the first time he had been turned on by you wear certain clothes.
It had been near impossible to keep him tamed when you wore a suit.  Or the time you wore something your friend had picked out for you.
Both times ended with you fucking him until he cried.
“Too bad this skirt was expensive.”
“You’re so mean, Y/N,” he whined, just like he always did when he didn’t get his way.
“Take a picture for later,” you joked but he whipped out his phone so fast.
“Okay, will you please sit on the bed for the first one?” He started and you laughed  little before you kissed him.
“You’re so annoying.”
You loved him though and you were happy he didn’t think any less than you.
You were also prepared for him to get you more clothes like this.
He did and may have went overboard but you kissed him with a small “thank you.”
Now you weren’t sure why you were so panicked about it to begin with when he was showing you all the outfits he bought for you.
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Tag List
@chaoswrites​ @joyuyush​ @sinningissuprisinglyfun​ @xmalereaderfics​ 
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tokugou · 3 years
Note
do you have your favourite tdbk fanfics? (share pls i'm out of things to readdd) ♡
Finn!!! I gonna try my best to share something and hope you gonna like at least one of them. Also I didn't have time to read anything for a past month (?) so I am not very up to date with new ones.
okokok I need to share this one first because it was written for me (well i requested it but it still counts!!)
the right kind of home by @dabibones​
“comfort food”
I will start with on-going I really liked so far (I need to catch up with them too)
love lies bleeding by twopinchesofcinnamon - the best setting I could ever ask for - Zombie Apocalypse AU
“We could. Y’know,” Red-eyes sucks his teeth hard, as if his own words physically pain him. “Compromise.” Shouto lets himself slip down the railing until he’s propped against it. “What do you propose?” “Easy,” he zeroes in, contemplating, and Shouto can’t quite decipher him anymore. “Split the food and go our separate ways. We never need to speak again. Deal?” Shouto tips his chin up at the clouds. He blows out a breath, counting to seven. “Can I get two thirds?” Or: a loner, a wanderer, and flowers that glow in the dark.
20:04 by redonthemoon - it is finished already but I still didn't finish it
He’s now lying on his floor, naked, listening on repeat to the same song trying to come up with an idea of what he is supposed to do. He has watched all the movies that are out there about the topic. He has even taken the car and drove as far as he could. He has even taken a plane to another country and landed there but the second the clock hit midnight, he woke up on his bed, alarm pounding and the same date: Friday, October 28th. He can’t do it anymore. He can’t repeat the same day over and over.
let's ignore my 200 tabs opened on my phone - to read later - cos I am lazy, so I went through my bookmarks to pick the ones I think are good (and not embarassing to share) - under read more because yeah there is a few
better late than never 
Bakugou and todoroki get hit by a body swap quirk, and physical contact seems to be the only answer to their predicament
My Hero Love Story 
After the two of them are spotted at a Valentine's Day hero convention while on a mission, Shouto gets the brilliant (and extremely bad) idea to pretend he and Bakugou are there on a date together. It's brilliant because it's the perfect cover story. It's bad because he's desperately in love with Bakugou, and Bakugou has no idea.
Whatever It Takes 
That one where Bakugou agrees to pretend to date Todoroki just to piss off Endeavor, and ends up falling in love instead.
Bam Went My Heart 
Bakugou Katsuki is 100% not on a date with Todoroki Shouto
A fishy deal
Bakugou Katsuki, a rebel spy, attends an auction and leaves with more than just intel.
better than myth
Amidst domestic disasters, the infernal water bill and the armchair in the shower, there was a comfortable rapport between them. Bakugou was falling disgustingly in love with it.  
The Energy Between Us Blossoms Colors In My Heart
Todoroki Shouto has always been a bit curious about his punk roommate with red hair tips, but he never had the opportunity to get to know him better. That's until they get assigned as partners for their university projects.
Teenage Rebellion
Shouto dye his hair
Can I Get A Name For Your Order?
Coffee Shop AU
i like you so much (what do i do?)
Katsuki is really good at what he does, except when Shouto's there. another coffee shop au
i wanna ruin our friendship
Todoroki and Bakugou make out, become friends, and fall in love, all in that order.
You Set My Soul Alight
When enrolling into college, Shouto thought he’ll be freed from under his father’s thumb, but that’s not true. Never was true. Even here his father is controlling his life. To be more specific, his dating life out of all things. After witnessing his roommate, Bakugou, arguing on the phone with his mother about significant others, Shouto gets an idea. They form a compromise. Shouto is tired of his father orchestrating dates for him and Bakugou wants his mother to leave him alone. Nothing could go wrong.
Sweeter than Victory
In which Katsuki sets out to slay a chimera, ends up hunting down an elusive, mystical flower, and encounters a nymph known for being beautiful and unattainable. He really needs to have a damn talk with the Fates. Or Aphrodite. Because seriously, what kind of bullshit quest is this?
Sorry (Not Sorry) For The Distraction
Bakugou Katsuki may have made a mistake. Not that he'd call it that, of course, but he probably should've thought more about what he chose to wear when he allowed Todoroki into his home to work on their shared case.
He just hadn't exactly anticipated that Todoroki would notice his piercings. Or more importantly, not shut the fuck up about them.
hope you think of me high, hope you think of me highly
Shotgunning
Raising the Steaks
Inasa serves dishes, Bakugou serves food, Camie serves customers and Shouto serves looks.
threadache
Todoroki asks Bakugou to make his outfit for the Met Gala - nothing is what it seams.
love you sideways
Katsuki is the undisputed King of the arcade until some asshole comes in and starts beating all his high scores.
Synergy
Katsuki, a top pro gamer, encounters a worthy and very irritating rival—who may also be about to become his teammate.
Bloom
In recent years, it's been assumed that the appearance of soul bonds has disappeared. Katsuki, a cocky pro hero, and Shouto, the barista at Katsuki's favorite coffee shop, are about to discover that's not quite true.
Upon My Back
the soulmate au where every time your soulmate cries a flower tattoo appears on your skin
Vampirism wasn't in the roommate contract
“You’re a vampire?!” “And you’re a werewolf. You don’t see me complaining even though-“ Todoroki’s nose scrunched, and Bakugou could feel the vein in his head about to pop. “If you say I smell, I’m going to kick you out right now, dead blood.”
The best kept secrets aren't secrets at all
In which, Todoroki dates the edgy chemical engineering student who keeps stealing his friends parking spaces and is only just learning how to get along with others.
i want you (to want me)
invisibilia (or voyeur, of the unwilling kind)
Hagakure Tooru is invisible, and that is sometimes a lot more trouble than it's worth.
Just One Bite
This particular fuckup begins when he saves a cat from a demon in a sketchy alley.
How To Lose A Costume Contest But Still Win At Life
Bakugou Katsuki was determined to win a costume competition with the most realistic werewolf costume he could feasibly put together.
Without Hesitation
The first time Bakugou told Todoroki he was in love with him, he thought he’d die.
did i say a few? i overdid it I AM SORRY but i do hope you gonna like/read a few of these, I liked them. Also thank you so so so much for the ask! It made me so happy no one ever ask about my favorite things it was such a nice thing to do!
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neon-vocalist · 2 years
Text
day 3: lazy day: damiaaron ft cadnis
Originally written November 10, 2021
It's one of those rare days that Aaron doesn't wake up at the crack of dawn, and Damian plans to seize that opportunity and milk it for all it's worth. He has grand plans, which include making himself bacon and also rudely awakening his boyfriend with Janis' trumpet and probably also Cady's violin thing if he can figure out how to do both at the same time.
While some gay couples- Cady and Janis, maybe- may get up early before their partner to do something sweet, make breakfast or leave doodles on sticky notes or something, that's not how Damian and Aaron roll. Damian rolls his eyes thinking of it, because that's exactly something Cady would do for Janis. They're too cute for existence. They've discovered some cheat code or hidden hack to just be the most adorable couple ever, gay or not, and it nearly drives him crazy.
He did call it. In the very beginning of their relationship, he'd said it. "These two are going to be the most saccharine sweet couple we've ever seen." Aaron had snuggled into him after he sighed and flopped down on the bed, assuring him that they'd be cuter, but alas. Damian's pranky streak will never end. He can live vicariously through his best friends.
Since Janis gets up crazy early to do her painting for an upcoming contest, Damian knows she'll be awake. He grabs his keys and calls her while in the car.
"Yo."
"Hey, Jan, I'm coming over."
Her face instantly goes from slightly amused to confusedly terrified. "What's wrong, Dame?"
"Nothing's wrong," Damian rushes to explain. "Really. I just need your trumpet."
"My trumpet?" Janis' nose scrunches up in confusion, and it reminds Damian of what he found so attractive about her when they dated. She was so cute- her voice, her face, her body language, all so expressive. All so easy to read and so simple to get along with. Everything about her was adorable- still is.
"Y'know, Jan," Damian starts absently. "Actually, never mind." He dismisses the sentence almost as soon as it comes to him. "Also Cady's violin."
"Viola."
"Whatever. I need her thing." Janis sighs.
"Why?"
"Wanna wake up Aaron."
"With... my trumpet and Caddie's viola?"
"Yes."
"Do you know how to play them?"
"No. But that's the point? Now listen, I'm almost there, your key's still inside the fake plastic dog poop?" Damian makes a quick left and Janis falls off the dashboard. "Oops."
"Nice floor," says Janis dryly. "Yes, it's still inside the fake plastic dog poop. What happened to the key I gave you?"
Damian blushes. "I-"
"You lost it, didn't you?"
"I lost it."
"Damie," Janis whines, rolling her eyes. "Can I get off your floor?"
"Yeah." Damian leans quickly down to grab the phone, and that's when disaster strikes.
Just kidding. All that happens is that the phone gets further jammed between the seat and the floor. "Still there, Jan?" asks Damian. Janis delivers another heavy sigh.
"Yeah. You got me stuck under the chair again, didn't you?" Damian sighs back in reply.
"Maybe."
Janis groans. "Damian."
"I'm sorry! Oh, I'm here, Jan. See you in a second." Janis hangs up with an affectionate chuckle, rolling her eyes and swirling a paint brush in some water. According to Damian, the judges of the contest are sick of her submitting paintings of Cady. So she's painting her family, both biological and chosen: sister Jett, cousin Veronica, cousin-by-proxy Lydia, Cady, Damian, Aaron, the Plastics, painting them as beings of light, chasing and swatting at the shadows circling the silhouette of herself in the center of the painting. There are a lot of dark colors. Lots of shadows. But Cady with her orangish-pink shimmer, Jett with her violet blue, all of her fighters are helping overtake them. The piece is gonna take a bit of explaining. Probably more than one description card. Oh, well.
A few minutes later, Damian enters the house, more than slightly frustrated. "Janis, your key is crappy," he announces, slamming it down on the entry table.
"Shh!" Janis hisses sharply. "Cads's still asleep. Maybe you'd have a better key if you didn't lose yours. My trumpet is right here." She shoves a case into his hands, manipulating the handle into one of his fists before passing him Cady's viola. "I had to smuggle this out from our closet, and the closet has a really creaky door, so you better make my suffering worth it and at least record the arousal of Aaron." Damian quirks an eyebrow at her and she sighs, exasperated. "You knew what I meant. No one in their right mind would be sexually attracted to whatever ungodly sound you're gonna make come out of those instruments."
Damian grins sarcastically and turns to go out the door. "Alright, thanks for the vote of confidence, Jan. I'll tell you how it goes."
By the time Damian figures out how to play the trumpet and the viola both at once, it's almost 7 in the morning, and Aaron's still out like a light. It makes Damian feel a little less guilty about waking him up, not that he was very guilty in the first place, but still. He's ended up having to hold the viola awkwardly between his legs and sort of pluck it with one hand while holding the trumpet with the other. It's a good thing he's not actually trying to play anything coherent.
"Rise and shine!" he yells before blowing into the trumpet and plucking wildly at the viola. It's absolute chaos, and very loud. If Aaron sleeps through this, he can sleep through anything.
"Damie, what is that?" asks Aaron sleepily. Damian just grins and continues playing. Aaron gives a breathy giggle and sits up in bed. "No, really, what are you doing?"
Damian smiles, satisfied, and puts down the instruments. "Waking you up," he replies sweetly, coming over to Aaron and giving him a kiss on the forehead. "Good morning."
Aaron groans and throws a pillow at Damian. "I hate you."
"Love you too."
"Where'd you even get those?"
"Janis and Cads."
"Oh." He sits blinking for a few minutes before turning back to Damian. "Were they in on it too?"
"Nah, just my accomplices. Where else would I be able to get the screechiest instruments on earth?"
"True," Aaron nods. "Okay, well, now that you've loudly awoken me, wanna make me some breakfast?"
"No."
"Wrong answer."
Instead of giving in to Aaron's breakfast ideals, Damian smacks himself in the forehead. "Darn it! I forgot to record for Janis! I'm in for it now."
"Oh, you weren't recording?" asks Aaron.
"No."
"In that case..." Aaron leaps off the bed and tackles Damian to the ground. "You're gonna pay for that!"
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Text
Akhenaten
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The name Akhenaten is rather well known as a Pharaoh of Egypt. Like Ramesses II, Hatshepsut, Cleopatra, and Tutankhamun, Akhenaten won the popularity contest of modern society through defining himself as far different from most other Pharaohs. With Akhenaten, however, he’s not even like the special Pharaohs.
Let’s look a little at his life and the history of the time period he ruled over. He was in the 18th Dynasty of the New Kingdom, from 1353-1336 BC. Like most Pharaohs there are a few different pronunciations of his name, including Akhenaton, Ikhnaton, Khuenaten, all meaning of great use to Aten, which leads into his conversion into the cult of Aten. Before the conversion his name was Amenhotep IV, son of Amenhotep III. His mother was named Tiye. Later on in life he married Queen Nefertiti, fathering two children, one from his wife Nefertiti and one from his lesser wife, Lady Kiya, having Ahnksenamun and Tutankhamun to each wife respectively.
Before we get into the whole mess of his religion and the ‘revamping’ he did of ancient Egypt, let’s recognize the other things he did for or to the country.
You’ll recognize the vastly different art style between Akhenaten’s rule and the history of most of Egypt. In art that depicts Akhenaten, he was shown as long and spindly, a style that carried into his family. Some people believe that this was because he and his family suffered from Marfan’s syndrome, a disease that caused the elongation of bones and skinniness. A more likely explanation stems from the Pharaoh’s religious beliefs, which as you know, was vastly different from other Pharaohs. This theory is a little more likely because there was no reason for the queen Nefertiti to have the same condition as her husband. Instead, it was probably because their status was far different from the other Pharaohs, as they were moved into a genuinely god-like status for their worship of Aten.
The part of Akhenaten and his rule that interests me the most is the way the royal family was presented in art, despite the style. Like many parts of Akhenaten, it’s entirely different from other Pharaohs (though, whether that’s good or bad is up to you).
Now, most Pharaohs presented themselves highly in art. They could do that, so why not? If I had the guts and the money I probably would too, but my point is that essentially all Pharaohs depicted themselves alone on stelas, engaging in hunting or other activities that strengthened the image of themselves that they wanted to show the world. Usually they were masculine tasks that could be done only by those with great strength and great riches. Akhenaten went in an entirely different direction; he depicted himself with his family. In the stele of Akhenaten, he is shown in a private way, the scene being him with his family, enjoying themselves together.
While we can’t say the definitive reason for him presenting himself as this, the most logical conclusion has to do with, again, his religious beliefs. In his mind, the Aten was held above all else, even the Pharaoh. With Aten as the highest consideration, the Pharaoh and his family enjoyed their lives under the influence of the Aten’s love and grace.
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Now that we have a little insight, let’s get into the whole mess of his religion that died immediately after he did.
Akhenaten originally reigned as Amenhotep IV, a reign that lasted around five years before he switched religions. Changing his name, he converted to a cult that worshipped Amun to that of Aten, abolishing the ancient rites of those before him, and instituting what is believed as the first example of monotheism state religion in the world. His rule as Akhenaten lasted 12 years, during which he was labelled as the infamous ‘heretic king’, so that should give you some insight into how people felt about him. 
Before his rule, the cult of aten was a cult like all others in Egypt. It was a bit like choosing your favorite God – find the one you like most, and join that cult. For example if I were to join a cult, I would join the cult of my favorite God, Ma’at. I mention this because before the change, the Aten was shown in inscriptions of Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV at that point), represented by the sun disk. It’s also important to note cult doesn’t carry the same meaning as it did then, and each cult shared the same goal: balance and eternal harmony.
At the time of Amenhotep IV’s rule the Amun cult (where the Aten is from) held incredible power. Their power had been growing for a long while, and by the time of his rule, they held nearly as much power and riches as the Pharaoh himself, and actually owned more land than Amenhotep IV. The fifth year of his reign he switched everything; this was when he abolished the practices of the previous religion of Egypt, and proclaimed himself the “living incarnation of a single all-powerful deity known as Aten,” (Joshua J Mark), and by the ninth year, he closed every single temple, prohibiting all the old practices and devotion to the many Gods the people of Egypt worshipped.
Around then was when he moved the royal seat of Egypt from the traditional house of Thebes to a city of his own creation, a city named Akhetaten, and with that he changed his name to Akhenaten. Here he earned the name the Heretic King, earning the ire of some historians and the admiration of others.
Despite the fact that Akhenaten’s influence completely destroyed worship of the Gods many Egyptians loved, one of the main problems with his rule was that the Old Gods of Egypt instilled harmony and order in the citizens, ultimately helping to create a country that lasted over 4,000 years. Without these Gods, things got a little wonky.
Religious tolerance was allowed with the many Gods, emphasizing peace to the point where religious intolerance wasn’t even an issue. Unfortunately, for monotheism to work, there has to be something inherently wrong with the other side, which made Akhenaten’s work a lot harder, and its’ effects much stronger. It led to the intolerance of other beliefs and some severe suppression, and if you look at the monotheistic religions of today, you can see the same sort of pattern. With intolerance comes hatred and war.
“Dating to this point in Akhenaten’s reign was a campaign to excise the name of gods other than the Aten, especially Amun, from the monuments of Egypt. This was done with violence: hieroglyphs were brutally hacked from the walls of temples and tombs. This was probably carried out, at least in part, by illiterate iconoclasts, presumably following the orders of their king. [Akhenaten] carried out a religious revolution the like of which had never been seen before in Egypt.” (Zahi Hawass, 42-43).
There were priests of Atum who attempted to hide religious artifacts, storing statuary and texts away from the soldiers ordered to destroy them. The priests, with nothing left to do, were forced to abandon their temples. In response Akhenaten either hired new priests or forced the other ones to obey him, proclaiming him and his wife once more as Gods on earth.
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Now you can see how Akhenaten kind of sucks. Let’s talk about how he sucks even more.
His foreign policy.
With his ego inflated to the size of the sun, Akhenaten thought himself above interactions with foreign powers. He left his duties to spend more time on himself and his family, ultimately leading to a severe neglect.
You might be asking, “didn’t every Pharaoh have a super-inflated ego?” and yes, you’d be right, but no Pharaoh before Akhenaten had genuinely claimed themselves to be a God. As a self-proclaimed incarnated God, he must’ve thought such affairs beneath him.
Discovered through letters of the time, several (former) allies of Egypt had asked for their help several times with various affairs. At the time Egypt was wealthy, prosperous, and strong, a state that had been slowly growing before halting at Queen Hatshepsut’s reign. Hatshepsut and her successors employed a strategy of actually doing work, by working out when to approach with diplomacy, and when military action was required. Akhenaten on the other hand, ignored everything outside of his palace at Akhetaten. 
The uncertainty of Akhenaten’s rule, along with letters of correspondence between the city of Amarna, the Pharaoh, and foreign nations, led to this era being called the Amarna period. These very letters were proof of the Pharaoh’s negligence. However, the letters also show his keen eye in foreign diplomacy, if the situation interested him so. It was a whole thing with the Hittites, but since this is chiefly about Akhenaten, I’ll leave that topic for later. All you really need to know is that he only tended to issues that affected him directly, and through the Amarna letters, historians can see how poor of a King he was, as well as how deeply many of his subjects disliked or despised him. 
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Essentially, the main reason this mess didn’t work out was because it brought about something new: exclusivity. And the Egyptians did not like that, believing that the world needed to have a balance in order to stay away from slipping into chaos. In the end monotheism didn’t last; hell, it was ended basically the second Akhenaten’s son took the throne. Tutankhamun, originally named Tutankhaten, changed his name to reflect the return to polytheism. His successors tore down the reminders of Akhenaten’s reign, removing him and his adoration for the Aten, eradicating his name from the record.
There’s no saying he didn’t affect the world – he did, a lot. Whether that affect was good or bad is up to the interpreter (personally I don’t like it all that much). By Freud’s thinking (hear me out, I know he sucks) Akhenaten’s rule inspired the ancient world, leading others to copy his ideas and theology, eventually snowballing into our modern world, where there are essentially no polytheistic religions. You have to give him credit – he was the first person of the ancient world to dream up monotheism, changing what had defined humanity for so long.
With his name stricken from the books, historians only discovered him upon finding his city Akhetaten. In the records, Horemheb is labelled as Amenhotep III’s successor, skipping over both Akhenaten and Tutankhamun’s rule. Later when Tutankhamun’s tomb was found as one of the very few graves still filled with treasure, interest spiked in Tutankhamun’s life, eventually leading back to his father Akhenaten. 
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minecraftninjerkid · 3 years
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By the Fountain's Edge
Pairing: Friendship-Established, No Watch Ben x No Watch Courtney Warnings: None Word Count: 3,070 words Summary: After the AOTT S1 finale, Ben notices Courtney is harboring her own secret woes, despite their recent victory. A/N: Inspired by @cipheress-to-k-pop ‘s recent Ben Tennyson x Reader posts, I thought it would be fun to post oneshots I wrote for Ben 10 fanfiction writing contests! (Quick note, this one was the Fall 2020 first place winner!)
Ben honestly had no clue how he'd gotten this far in life.
It had really been quite the ride.
They'd spent so long saving the multiverse, battling giant Time Beasts, saving timelines, forming a team with his alternate Omnitrix-armed counterparts, meeting new races of aliens left and right, not to mention finally beating Eon and saving the Temps once and for all.
And within that time, he'd managed to learn more skills as a Timewalker, discovered a few of the many secrets the Sword of Epoch held, and find so much confidence hidden within himself, it was hard to realize that he was the same average teenage boy who'd been nothing but a dreamer before all that.
The best part was, he wasn't even done yet. Not even close.
After recovering from their near-death experience when they evacuated everyone else from Tempuspatium (I won't disclose what actually happened, because spoilers), it was decided that he and his partner would find out more about the mysterious crystal that brought them here and try to see if there were more out there.
Finally.
After that, there would be nothing to fear, no more unanswered mysteries hanging over their heads. They could continue their apprenticeship as Timewalkers in peace, and maybe even fill in for Paradox someday when he passed the torch on to them. Though Ben couldn't deny the twinging feeling in his gut at the thought of some unknown danger waiting in the shadows, he was calmed with the added thought that he would be able to take on whatever hidden challenge awaited them. It was a nice reminder of how far they'd come.
He settled back further against the warm sheets under him, fingers stroking senselessly through Julis's fur, his dog's eyes half-lidded, head resting on his paws.
It was almost easy to forget why he was here, sitting back on his bed, watching the sun sink slowly into the horizon from his bedroom window, setting the sky ablaze with color.
He remembered when he would do something like this with Courtney. Just two eleven-year-olds sitting on the roof of his two-story house watching the sunset. The shingles would always burn his back at first, digging hot fingers into his skin. But the discomfort would only last a few minutes before the summer sun would calm, painting every inch of the sky with a new kind of fire. Then, long after his parents had gone to bed, they'd spend more hours pointing out constellations, though most had been made up of laughing over ridiculous new ones they made up, neither scared of the future, only certain that they'd go through it together.
He deeply missed the old times, back when they were both naive and carefree. They seemed a lot simpler compared to what they had just gone through. But he wouldn't deny that now was any less important to him than then.
Courtney...
It never took long for Ben to start thinking about his best friend. He hadn't really given it much thought until now, but she seemed to have taken a lot of blows on their adventures so far. Nearly breaking the space-time continuum with her powers, losing an innocent individual in the Temps, watching Courtney Prime die twice...it seemed that he had been doing all the winning for them while she took all their beatings. It wasn't exactly a fair trade.
Whilst swimming in his growing pool of thoughts, his phone rang, lightly vibrating against the surface of his dresser, showing a photo of a boy with curly hair and glasses.
J.T.
Ben's eyes never left the scene outside his window as he answered the call. "Hey, J.T,"
"What's up, man? Just wanted to check with you real quick. Courtney wasn't answering her phone, so Clem and I figured we'd call you and see if you knew what was up with her."
Ben hesitated upon confrontation. So even their friends were catching on to her despondent attitude. "It's nothing, dude. She's just been going through...some stuff. She just needs some time to recover, is all."
"You sure?"
"Yeah. I'm going out to Mr. Smoothy's with her later, so I can double-check then, so don't stress,"
"...Well, if you say so, you've known her for longer. I've got a date with Amelia later today, so, y'know, probably gotta run soon."
Ben's brows lifted a little at the combination of "J.T" and "date" in one sentence. "A date, huh? Wow, well done, J.T."
His friend let out a dry laugh from the other end of the phone, but Ben could sense a nervous waver in his voice for the night ahead, lost in whatever scenarios were playing in his mind.
Ben could relate to those nerves wholeheartedly.
"Try to be subtle with Lawrence tonight," J.T advised through the phone. "We both know she can be pretty uptight if she doesn't want to admit to something."
"Preaching to the choir on that one..." Ben muttered, knowing all too well confronting her wasn't going to be easy.
"Best of luck to you, Tennyson,"
"You too."
***
"Dammit...dammit...dammit all...!"
A sharp pain shot across Courtney's hand as her shield toppled to the floor with a loud clank before dissipating.
"DAMMIT!"
Courtney clenched her fists in frustration for the fifth time. Her arm was still wasn't at full strength since their last battle in the Temps and it was annoying her. She was about to attempt it again when she heard a knock at the front door.
She slammed her Timewalker's badge on the dresser with a huffed sigh before getting up from her chair, more than grateful for the much-needed distraction from failing over and over again with the shield because she could not lift that stupid thing up-
When she answered, Ben stood at the doorway, hands behind his back, looking about as chill about the coming outing as Courtney was irked. She noticed his eyes shift to her arm, whose rolled-up sleeve bore the scars from their last battle and seemed to look more agitated as a result of her recent tests of strength. Avoiding eye contact with him, Courtney quickly rolled her sleeve back down as to hide the scars, shifting from foot-to-foot and giving a halfhearted wave as Ben continued to stare. "...Hey."
Emerald green eyes blinked, snapping him out of his trance. "Uh...hi."
"Let me just get my MoPed from the garage. It's still a little busted up from before, but it should still-"
Ben grinned at that, hands finally going out from behind his back to toss her a pair of riding goggles. "Mmmmm, not this time. You up for a ride?"
Not seeing a vehicle parked behind him, it took a moment for Courtney to realize what he was referring to. Before she could say anything, Ben reached into his pocket and drew his own Timewalker's badge, which transformed him into his trench coat. He did so at full strength too, Courtney noticed, slightly miffed that their intense fight hadn't affected him as much as it did her.
Materializing the Sword of Epoch, Ben tossed it down and it caught itself low over the ground, blowing up tiny clouds of dust from the sidewalk, now in hoverboard mode. Hopping on, he turned and held a hand out to her. "Ready to go?"
Courtney reluctantly took it after a moment's pause of sliding the goggles still gripped in her hands over her head and into place. She let him pull her up onto the hoverboard behind him, hands immediately going to wrap around his waist as it roared to life underneath, the familiar thrum starting up as Ben leaned forward and maneuvered it up and into the orange-tinted clouds.
It was a quiet evening flying over Bellwood. The sky was partly cloudy, hiding them from the public eye, the seemingly endless canvas of stars starting to blink to life in the distance, stretching for miles in front of them, the rising moon their first source of light soaring over the open space sprawled out below. The city lights began to wink, signaling the presence of busy cars and office buildings, the very world they had fought so fiercely to protect continuing its common cycle of life as if it had never been under threat to begin with.
The scene made Courtney feel peaceful the further they flew, settling her chin against Ben's shoulder, braid whipping behind her. Her anger and frustration from before seemed forgotten as she viewed the calm scene beneath them. Ben noticed her closer presence and his cheeks stung red, putting more throttle into the hoverboard by leaning forward, hoping the evening breeze would cool him so Courtney wouldn't notice.
All too soon, the thrumming came to a close behind a Mr. Smoothy's and Courtney was sliding off the hoverboard and onto her feet. Seeing Ben transform back with such ease once again reminded her of her foul mood from before. She grumpily followed him through the familiar bright-green doors to the counter, where he ordered his usual grape smoothie and her mango and blueberry. They both took a seat in their regular booth, right by the first window with the fountain view.
Considering Courtney would usually be prepared with some random topic before they even sat down, Ben already knew something was amiss, the way she uncharacteristically stared wistfully out the window without a word, her mocha-brown eyes locked on the spewing fountain outside. Deciding it was up to him to start a conversation, Ben cleared his throat. "So...nice night out, huh?"
"I guess," she replied. "Still don't think it was the best idea to whip out the hoverboard, but I guess we weren't seen, so..."
Ben frowned. He was sure that a spin on the hoverboard would've cheered her up. Still, he didn't give up. Remembering seeing her scars back at her house, he brought those up. "Um...how's your arm?"
"My arm's great," she muttered back. "Wounds are getting bigger all the time."
Courtney lifted her head from the perch of her palm slightly upon seeing Ben's concerned stare and looked away, slightly embarrassed. "Sorry. Just trying to lighten the mood..."
"That's what she calls lightening the mood?" Ben thought skeptically to himself. He turned to see one of the employees hold out a tray with their smoothies on it. They both took the foam cups off the tray and thanked her, shifting back to silence as they sipped their drinks. Seeing as they weren't getting anywhere being subtle, Ben knew he was going to have to stop beating around the bush.
"Sorry, J.T..." he apologized in his head as he faced Courtney again. "Hey, look bud, I know our last battle was kind of rough-"
Courtney scoffed. "'Rough.' Right. All that happened was an event that nearly destroyed all of reality as we know it and let me with a possibly permanent reminder of all the times I've screwed up as a Timewalker apprentice. 'Rough' is the LAST word I want to use for this."
Ben shook his head and sighed. "Courtney...the hardest thing about this job is that we can't do everything right. I'm sure every once in a while Paradox slips up too."
"Oh, so now you're comparing me to Paradox? As if I need another reminder of how BACKWARDS I've gone!"
Ben was suddenly miffed. "Okay, what the heck is your deal?! A few months ago, you were this raring-to-go kickbutt warrior, but now, you constantly look like you just scraped something gross off your shoe!"
As expected, Courtney didn't take kindly to this. "Why is it any of your business? We won, didn't we? Just drop it,"
"Well, you're sure not acting like we won! Care to explain why?"
"You wouldn't understand,"
"What won't I understand?!"
"Dude!" the voice of a slightly older boy sounded from behind their booth. The two turned to see a customer sticking his head out. "I know you're having issues with your girl, trust me, I get it, but you're making a scene, man!"
Ben's eyes darted around to double-check, only to notice half of the other customers were looking in their direction, and his cheeks flushed again, hardly daring to believe this was actually happening. "What?! No, you're crazy! I just-!"
"Hey, no need to be hostile, man! I'm just trying to help out, one bro to another,"
"I don't even know you!"
"Do you people mind?" another patron called from another table not too far away from the booth. "Some people are TRYING to enjoy their smoothies in peace!"
"Hey, I'm just helping this guy out with his lady issues," the first customer said defensively. "It's the bro code."
"Alright, that's my limit!" Courtney snapped, standing up. "I'm out of here!"
Courtney stormed out the front door, the exit's cheery jingle sounding much more ominous than it should've to Ben. "Aw, very nice!" the random guy complained. "Thanks for the unwanted assistance there, lady!"
"Okay, young man, FIRST of all-!"
Ben ignored the budding argument and followed Courtney outside just in time to see her stomping past the fountain. "Courtney, wait!"
Courtney halted, her shoulders still squared in anger. "Just...leave me alone, Ben. I need some time to myself."
"That's the last thing you need right now," Ben protested, his voice stern for a moment before melting into one of imploring. "Talk to me. Please."
After a moment's hesitation, Courtney's shoulders loosened, finally digressing and sitting on the cold stone edge of the fountain, head hung. Ben sat down next to her, eyes set on her before tilting towards the starlit night sky, ears open to catch her voice.
"Look, I know I should be happy because we saved the Temps and all of reality or whatever..." Courtney began solemnly. "But I can't shake the fact that our last battle really broke me."
"What do you mean?" Ben asked, turning to her.
Courtney bit her lip. "I mean, it's not that I don't enjoy being a Timewalker apprentice. It definitely has its quirks. I just...don't think I match up to them anymore."
Ben blinked. "'Anymore'?"
"I've been training to use the Pendulum Shield for who knows how long. And before our last battle, I thought I was really good at it. But I LITERALLY got whooped while you and the others managed to fight on without a scratch. It made me realize...I'm nowhere near the level a hero should be."
Courtney gazed back into the fountain pool, where a rippled copy of her face echoed her forlorn expression. "At first, I thought when I looked into the mirror, I'd finally see someone worthwhile."
A glint of tears began to form on her pale eyelids. "But I was wrong...I see nothing!"
Courtney turned fiercely away from the fountain pool, her hand splashing the water and further distorting her image. Ben felt awful for her, moreover because he couldn't say it wasn't true. He and the other Bens HAD left the battle unscathed, while those scars she tried and failed to hide from him were just a reminder of her worries.
Still, he didn't want her to believe that. If only he could tell her somehow, in a way she'd understand, that she wouldn't be like this forever. One glance back at the fountain, whose spout was steadily getting smaller, along with the ripples it caused in the pool, gave him an idea.
"...Well, obviously you can't see anything in a reflection that's so agitated," he said, looking down at the pool, where his own reflection also looked warped. "The surface needs to regain its original composure before you can see anything in there. If you just give it time to cool down...you'll find what you're looking for."
Almost on cue, the fountain reached its cooldown point and the water spout stopped. Eventually, without the flow to disturb it, the ripples vanished, reflecting a picture-perfect image of the two best friends sitting at its side, the stars above twinkling like diamonds within the water.
"And when it all clears up, you know what I see?" Ben said, gently turning Courtney back to the fountain so she could see herself again. "A strong, independent, go-getter of a girl whose perseverance and upright refusal to back down got her and her best friend to where they are now."
Ben's encouraging compliments seemed to bring some life back into Courtney's expression. Her eyelids lifted a little, able to see her face clearly reflected in the water.
Ben scratched the back of his neck. "Courtney, I can't say what happened in our latest battle didn't happen for comfort's sake. Bad things DID go down and I know it's really hurt you."
Ben lifted his hand out to her. "But if I'm sure of anything, it's this: you'll bounce back. You always do. You did it when we got shot down by the Plumbers and you'll do it again now."
Courtney gave him a slow smile, clasping his hand in a familiar sign of friendship, blinking at him with a grateful fondness, remembering all the times they'd done this before. She really was lucky to have a friend like him to remind her that the burdensome feelings rushing through her mind were only fleeting, and that she would be her old self again, given time.
Before Ben could react, Courtney had him wrapped in a tight hug. "Thanks, Tennyson. I didn't know it, but I really needed to hear that."
Ben seemed a little surprised at the sudden movement, but he returned the hug with a smile. "Good to know. I was worried it was going to come off as cheesy."
"Oh, it was cheesy, alright. Nacho-level stuff, really. But, y'know, considering it worked, I guess I'm in no place to poke fun,"
"Ugh, all this talk about cheese is making me hungry. Wanna hit up Burger Shack and pig out on some chili fries?"
"Ah-hahaha! Does it always loop back to chili fries with you? Must've used too many of your braincells just to have a serious talk once in your life."
"Aaaaaaand we're back to square one. What do you want from me, woman?!"
Courtney laughed and got up from the fountain's edge. "C'mon, Hero Boy. We've got a long walk ahead of us,"
"Aww, can't we just take the hoverboard again?" Ben playfully whined as he followed suit and also got up.
"I dunno, do I get to push you off and get to steer for a change?"
"Alright, alright, we'll walk!"
"There, was that so hard to agree to? Friggin drama queen..."
"You threatened to push me off a flying object, I'd say that was an adequate amount of drama!"
"Oh, please, it's not like that's the first time I've done that,"
"That doesn't make it better!"
And so, continuing their playful banter, the two friends walked into the cool night air, all troubles made up. Perhaps more challenges awaited them in the near future, but at least now, they had the confidence that said challenges wouldn't trouble them forever.
I’M NOT CRYING, *YOU’RE* CRYING-!
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elsanna-shenanigans · 3 years
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August Contest Submission #13: Icy Justice And Poisonous Roses
Words: ca. 4,500 Setting: Modern AU (Superheroes) Lemon: No CW: graphic violence, mentioned character death, trauma, acid burns, enemies to lovers, poisons
Elsa wasn’t a fan of these formal gatherings. Not that she didn’t enjoy a good party or enjoy dressing up, but mainly because of the sorts of people that were usually in attendance. People who cared more about the money in their pockets than the betterment of others.
Still, Elsa was the most eligible woman in the city and probably the richest woman in this room, so she had to keep up appearances, lest people suspect what she did in the hours she wasn’t running her company or attending gatherings such as this.
She stood by the window, gazing down at Arendelle City, wondering if she was doing enough for this city. Granted, things had gotten better, police reforms, elimination of the more corrupt members of the city’s elite, but still there was suffering in the streets and for every supervillain locked away, someone more powerful and dangerous likely took their place.
It was a long war, a war that Elsa often wondered the point of fighting for. But then she remembered her parents, of the man who had taken them from her, the pain that had caused her, pain that had awoken the power within her.
“Enjoying the view?” a voice spoke to Elsa.
Elsa turned around, seeing an acquaintance of hers, Hans Westerguard, walk over to her, offering her a glass of champagne. She should have been talking to him more tonight, what with this being the fundraiser for his mayoral campaign and Elsa being a major donor.
Hans wasn’t exactly a perfect individual, but considering he was running against candidates that were a mob boss who posed as a philanthropist and a businesswoman who Elsa knew had been supplying tech and resources to supervillains, he was the lesser of three evils.
He had a good sense of justice about him, being the current district attorney. Though, Elsa had hoped he could do more with his position. She hoped that by donating so much to his campaign, she might be able to sway him to enact more progressive policies once he was in office.
Though of course, he had to get into office first.
“Oh, Hans,” Elsa replied, fiddling with her braid and blushing a little. She was good at putting on a shy, flustered dork act, a deliberate act to play up her more casual nature in her secret identity. “I didn’t see you there.”
“You seemed to be staring off into space there,” Hans remarked. “Care for a drink?”
“No, I’m driving myself home tonight,” Elsa responded.
“Really?” Hans remarked. “I’d have figured you’d have gotten your butler to handle it.”
“Kai has the night off, visiting some old girlfriend of his,” Elsa explained. Kai had been working himself too hard down in Elsa’s hideout of late, so she’d given him the night off.
“Fair enough,” Hans admitted, walking up beside her. “So… what do you suspect my chances are?”
“Of what?”
“Winning the election.”
“Oh,” Elsa said. “Well, the election isn’t for another month or so Hans. There’s still plenty of time to go.”
“Yes, but as you’re my largest donor, you must have a lot of faith in me,” Hans stated, looking smugly.
Elsa rolled her eyes. She had to at least humour the man. “Well, since you asked so nicely… I think you’re the city’s best chance. You’ve actually got policies that seem to be what the city needs. The others just want to uphold the status quo that has caused so many innocent people to suffer.”
“Why thank you.” Hans said, sipping his drink “Though I think an endorsement from that wonderful hero Fenris would probably seal the deal for me in this election.”
Elsa chuckled. “I don’t think superheroes are meant to give that sort of political statement.”
“True, but she’s done more good for this city in the last three years than anyone else… well except…” The two of them then saw a woman with short dark hair and wearing a rather snazzy tuxedo walking towards them. Though she didn’t exactly look very comfortable here.
“Commissioner Espinosa, good to see you here!”
“Westergard,” the commissioner replied flatly.
Elsa smiled. Cassandra Espinosa was one of Elsa’s closest friends, one of the few people she shared her secret with. Despite Cassandra being a policewoman, she was actually living up to what a police officer should be, not someone who gleefully enacted brutality on innocent people, values much more like those of her father, the previous commissioner.
“Enjoying the party?” Hans wondered. “You must not get a chance like this often other than maybe the annual policeman’s ball.”
“To tell you the truth, I’m only here because we got a tip earlier that someone might be targeting you tonight,” Cass stated. “You have pretty lax security here.”
“Cass, I’ve helped to put away some of the nastiest criminals in this city, I’ve learned to live with people wanting to kill me. One more threat against my life isn’t going to change that.”
“Mr Westerguard?” someone called to him from the crowd. “The governor wants to talk to you!”
“Oh, excellent,” Hans replied. “Ladies, if you’ll excuse me.”
As Hans left, Elsa and Cassandra stood alone, Cass leaning against the wall and sighing. Elsa leaned close to her, wanting to give her friend some reassurance.
“Good man, but I wish he’d look out for himself more,” she remarked. “Anything on your end, Els?”
“Not exactly,” Elsa admitted. “I’m starting to think tonight might be a quiet night for once.” She smirked playfully. “At least you got to wear your tux again.”
“Yeah well, take a look while it lasts,” Cass grumbled.
“I know my cousin would,” Elsa remarked. “Surprised Raps isn’t with you tonight.”
“Yeah well, after what happened the last time I took her out,” Cass remarked. “I figured it best she stayed at home.”
Elsa sighed. Cassandra was dating her cousin and childhood best friend Rapunzel. A few months back, while the two were on a date, a sniper hired by a mob boss had tried to assassinate Cassandra. They’d failed, but Rapunzel had been gravely injured. Elsa didn’t blame her for wanting to keep her cousin safe.
“Still, aren’t you two planning to tie the knot soon?” Elsa wondered. “You’ve been together long enough.”
“I… I don’t know,” Cass admitted. “It’s hard finding a good balance between her and my work. I’m worried marriage might… complicate things.”
“I know how you feel,” Elsa replied. “It’s why I’ve honestly never had much luck with relationships myself.” That was a lie. There was one woman in the world she still loved… though she was partly ashamed to admit it, even to Cassandra.
Suddenly, the entire building started to shake. Elsa thought there was an earthquake and quickly grabbed onto something. There was panic and commotion across the ballroom, Cassandra grabbing onto a nearby wall for support. Screams and cries filled the room.
“What the fuck is going on?!” Cass shouted.
Elsa tried to reach for her watch, but she found there was no need to, as she then saw several large vines rising up from the side of the building pressing against the windows. She gasped, looking straight at Cass in terror as a dark shadow overwhelmed them.
“CASS LOOK OUT!” Elsa shouted, tackling Cass to the ground as the vine crashed through the window.
All across the ballroom, there was utter chaos as the gigantic vines smashed into the room, knocking people over left and right, firmly entrenching themselves into the walls of the building.
In the middle of the room, the largest of the gigantic vines smashed through the window, a gigantic flower at its tip. As it stopped in its tracks, the large flower burst open, releasing a gas that caused all those around it to cough and splutter. Through the smoke, a figure emerged from the blooming pink flower, a rather revealing woman in a skintight pink and purple outfit with green highlights and long red hair.
“Rosethorn,” Cass whispered.
Elsa blushed and looked away. Anna… why now…
“You gonna deal with her?” Cass wondered.
Nodding reluctantly, Elsa looked at Cass. “Try and keep her distracted, but don’t hurt her too bad… she’s still my sister.”
“Elsa, she’s trying to kill people!” Cass argued in a hushed whisper.
“I can see that but she’s still family!” Elsa rasped.
Cass grumbled. “You know if she was my sister, I wouldn’t hesitate but fine, I’ll make sure I won’t do any permanent damage to her.”
“Thank you,” Elsa said gratefully, before she quickly ran out of the room, Cass pulling her pistol from her pocket.
Elsa rushed out of the bathroom, making her way through the panicking, scared crowds. As she arrived in the room, she looked at herself in the mirror, making sure she was alone.
To think that tonight she’d have to face her sister again. The two sisters had always been close as children, virtually inseparable. But that all had changed one fateful night. Her wealthy parents had taken Elsa out to see a movie, but Anna had to stay home and do her homework.
Anna had been spared in a way, as on their way home from the movies, Elsa and her parents were attacked by a mugger. The mugger had killed their parents without a second thought, gunning them down. In a rage… something had awoken inside of Elsa, a power that no other human had.
As she got older, she learned how to control this power, a power to manipulate ice and snow to her whim. She soon discovered that some people had the rare chance of being born with such powers, people who were later dubbed Metahumans. While Elsa’s had been the power to control ice, Anna’s power was somewhat different.
A few months after the funeral, Elsa had discovered Anna’s powers had awakened as well, the power to control plants and other forms of vegetation. As elated as Anna was at using her new powers, Elsa was worried about her, about them both. At this time, Elsa had decided to hone her powers and train herself in the arts of combat and science so she might one day fight to protect the innocent people of Arendelle City, so that no other child would go through what she and Anna had.
Anna on the other hand… was a different story. Her plant-based powers had made her infatuated with nature. At first, Elsa was glad that Anna was using her love for nature to cope with her parents’ grief. But as they got older, Anna started to get more involved in environmental work.
More than once, Elsa had to bail Anna out of jail for getting involved in protests and the like. She worried Anna was going down a dark path. Yes, protecting the environment was a noble goal… but Anna seemed obsessed. And then one night, Elsa’s worst fears were confirmed when she found Anna attempting to strangle the CEO of one of her business partners.
“Anna let him go!”
“No, he has to pay! All their kind have to pay! They’re choking the planet to death, Elsa, and no one is doing a damn thing about it!”
“And that justifies you being a murderer?!”
“Why do you care? I thought you’d be happy seeing scum like this die, after what happened to our parents!”
“What?! Anna, No!”
And then Anna had used her vine to snap the man’s neck. A fight broke out between them, Elsa blasting Anna with her ice powers… and leaving a permanent mark in the form of a white streak in her hair. Elsa looked down, wondering when this nightmare would end.
She loved Anna, she always had… but at this point she had to accept that her sister was truly dead, replaced by a monster that now called herself Rosethorn.
Pressing a button on her watch, Elsa watched it transform into a device that released dozens of tiny nanobots that she then rearranged and merged with her ice, forming a wolf-themed armour and long cape that completed concealed her body, the symbol of her alter ego, Fenris appearing on her chest.
Elsa looked at her masked face in the mirror, glaring sternly. “This will be the last friend of mine you hurt, Anna. I swear it.”
———————————————————————————-
Anna grinned wickedly as she sat on her throne of vines as her large tendrils wrapped themselves around the building, bursting through the windows of the ballroom. She watched as the pitiful humans ran in fear, taking a certain delight in what was happening.
Rich fools. Their kind loved to pollute and terrorise the environment, now they would know what it was like to be terrorised. The large pods on the side of the vine that Anna was riding on burst open, releasing toxic gas into the room that caused those surrounding the tendril to cough and splutter.
But while watching the humans suffer was delightful, she had a more important goal in mind, one of these pathetic fools in particular. Hans Westerguard was running for his life, trying to make it to a nearby door. However, Anna sent one of her vines forward, blocking his path.
"Now where are you off to, Mr Westerguard?” Anna sultrily remarked, getting off her throne. “We have important business to discuss.”
Hans turned, realising he’d have to hold her off. “What do you want, Anna?”
“Why, my dear, you of course,” Anna said, stroking the underside of his chin with her gloved hand. “I’ve waited a long time for this.”
“Look, Anna, I know I’ve made mistakes, but this isn’t right?”
“Isn’t right?!” Anna yelled. “Oh, it is very much right, Mr Distrct Attourney. You lined your pockets with all the greedy fuckers in this town who destroy and pollute the earth around you, who tore up innocent grassland to build a Metahuman prison where I was tortured!”
“They were trying to help you!”
“Help me?! I don’t need help!” Anna growled, wrapping tendrils around his neck. “I’ve dedicated my life to protecting this planet and all of its natural beauty. If that’s so wrong, then I’d prefer not to be right.”
Hans choked and gagged, struggling to breathe. “Anna… Ack!”
“What’s that Hans? I can’t quite hear you over the innocent people you’ve stepped on!” Anna growled. Suddenly, she heard a loud gunshot. A bullet flew through the air and pierced one of the tendrils around Hans’s neck. Anna screamed, feeling the pain like it was one of her own limbs as Hans was freed.
Cassandra, along with a few other out of uniform police officers and security guards, had arrived, taking aim at Anna with their pistols. “Come quietly, Rosethorn!”
“You’d protect him, officers?!” Anna remarked. “Such a deplorable monster who would be better off locked up in jail?”
“Look who’s talking, red,” Cass growled. “Put down the tentacles and I promise you, you won’t get hurt.”
“Dear, dear commissioner,” Anna chuckled. “I have no intention of doing anything of the sort. However
"Then, I’ll take you out as well!” Anna roared, sending another flurry of vines at the officers, the ends of the tendrils opening into mouths full of razor-sharp teeth.
The vines disarmed the other officers quickly, one of them literally disarming one man, spewing blood all over the ground from the severed limb. Not wanting to suffer the same fate, Cass quickly ducked out of the way, unloading a few bullets from her pistol into two of the vines.
However, she wasn’t fast enough, as a third quickly rushed up behind her. But Cass could be attacked by the vine, a blast of icy wind quickly froze the tentacles and a sharp sword made of a mix of ice and metal quickly slashed them apart. Fenris then stood, her wolf-like appearance and glowing blue visor making for an intimidating look.
“Ah, my dear arch enemy,” Anna said with a laugh. “Figured you’d be coming to the rescue of the oppressors.”
“The only person oppressing people is you, Rosethorn,” Fenris stated, pulling out her sword. She looked over at Hans, who was stumbling to his feet. “You alright, Mr Westerguard?”
“Fine, now that you’re here,” he groaned.
Rosethorn cackled. “I think it’s time I dealt with you first, my frozen foe. Let’s see if this will melt your icy armour!” She then sent out one of her tendrils behind Elsa, which shot out a glob of acid.
Hans’s eyes widened. “Look out!” He yelled, to which Elsa was barely able to react in time. Hans then leapt in the path of the glob of acid… and was struck in the face. He screamed and cried out in pain, writhing on the floor as the acid melted his face.
“Hans!” Fenris exclaimed, rushing to his side. She was almost sick at the sight of the injuries on Hans’s face.
“Oh well, I doubt he’ll be running for office anytime soon,” Anna remarked as she jumped onto one of her tendrils. “Time for me to make like a tree and leaf.”
Elsa turned to look at Anna, then she gazed down at Hans, who was still in agony. Cassandra rushed to Hans’s side, looking up at her.
“Go after her, I’ll take care of Hans and the wounded,” she reassured her.
“Thank you,” Elsa replied, before she then got up and rushed after Anna, the latter’s tentacles retracting from the building and coalescing into some kind of gigantic tentacled plant creature that leapt across the rooftops. Elsa stared at the Lovecraftian horror that Anna was controlling, wondering how powerful Anna was now.
Leaping from the window, Elsa used her ice powers to alter the shape of her cape into a pair of icy wings and activated jet boosters in her boots that sent her flying through the sky after Anna. Summoning her ice sword, she slashed through one of the tentacles.
Anna cried out as her creature rocked about from the loss of one of its limbs. “Gah!!”
“Take this!” Elsa shouted, blasting the tentacled creature with her powers. The creature managed to dodge the attack and one of its tendrils wrapped around Elsa, throwing her down onto a nearby rooftop. Anna then leapt down from her creature, summoning blades made of thorns that she slashed at Elsa with.
Elsa brought out her ice sword again, clashing it against Anna’s blade. Anna summoned her tentacles again, trying to attack Elsa with them. Elsa turned around, quickly taking out all the tentacles with ice spikes that brought Anna to her knees with pain, as Elsa quickly blasted her tentacle creature apart with an icy blast.
Reeling from the pain, Anna then screamed in agony her eyes glowing a sickening green as a gigantic tendril burst from the ground beneath them, quickly wrapping around Elsa tightly. The blonde tried to fight, but this tendril’s grip was much tighter, Anna pouring all her strength into it.
“How about a little spin!” Anna cried out, commanding her tentacle to spin Elsa round and round as fast as it could, before launching her into the sky. Elsa screamed as she was flung across an entire city block. She eventually landed though, crashing into an abandoned building a few streets away, smashing through a window.
As she rolled on the floor in pain, Elsa grunted. “Damage report.”
“Nanosuit integrity at 65%,” her suits onboard computer reported. “Minor external and internal injuries, recommend evasive action.”
“No way,” Elsa argued. “Anna’s madness ends tonight one way or another.”
“Where are you?~” Anna called out in a sing-songy voice. Elsa grunted, and rushed into a nearby stairwell, cloaking her retreat with an icy mist. She headed down a nearby stairwell, panting heavily. She was still shaken up from the impact, but she needed to get away from Anna.
If she could lull Anna into a false sense of security, she could jump her and take her out easily. But of course, she needed the essence of surprise first. She looked in the corner of her eyes, watching Anna’s tentacles quickly rushing down the stairs. She ducked into another room to avoid them.
Using the technology in her mask, Elsa scanned the building around her. This was once an office building, which meant large open rooms, not many places to hide.
“Don’t think you can hide from me for long, ” she heard Anna’s voice again. “I’ll always find you, my dear sister.”
Elsa didn’t respond, merely continuing to scan the room. Eventually, she managed to find herself an air vent. It didn’t take much effort to freeze the grate and smash it apart so she could climb inside. Crawling up the vent, Elsa rested and panted. Anna likely wouldn’t be able to find her here.
“What’s the matter, Elsa?” Anna remarked. “Nothing to say to your dear sister?”
“My sister is dead!” Elsa shouted, crawling down the air vent.
“Yeah right, keep telling yourself that,” Anna told her. “You should be grateful I haven’t blown your secret identity by now.”
“What’s stopping you?”
“Because I still carry a torch for you, Elsa,” Anna argued. “Hell, part of me once hoped we could do this together, make the world pay for what it’s done. To itself… to us.”
“I’m not a killer,” Elsa replied, crawling further. She looked through her visor, seeing that Anna was directly in the room below her, vines surrounding her. She had the element of surprise now.
“Neither was Hans, yet he’s just as guilty as one, what with his connections and dirty money,” Anna argued. “No one in this world is innocent, Elsa.”
“Says the woman who just burned a man’s face off with acid!” Elsa argued, crashing through a nearby vent right behind Anna. She rushed up with her ice sword and slashed at Anna, razor-sharp thorns then extending from Anna’s gloves to act as Claws. The two sisters fought one another.
It was surprising how evenly matched they were. Elsa had trained herself to the physical peak, while Anna had enhanced her own strength and agility thanks to her many, many plant-based serums. However, in this particular round, Anna was able to get the upper hand, as her tentacles managed to knock Elsa back, smashing her mask apart. Before it could regenerate, Anna slashed Elsa’s face with her claws.
Elsa grunted as she clutched her cheek in pain, blood oozing from it. Her suit was much too damaged at this point to start regenerating itself, leaving her at Anna’s mercy.
“Don’t think of trying to move, Elsa,” Anna replied, walking closer to her. “My thorns were tipped with poison. Not strong enough to kill you, mind you, oh no, I don’t want to kill my beautiful sister. But it’ll make you as weak as a kitten.”
Tentacles wrapped around Elsa, restraining her to the floor. The tentacles pressed against Elsa’s face, forcing her to look up as Anna stood above her. Elsa felt her heart beating as she gazed at Anna. As she looked into Anna’s eyes, she was reminded of her sister.
How beautiful and sweet she was, how much she wanted to protect her and love her, more than a sister would. But that was a lifetime ago. And yet… part of her wanted this, a part of herself that ashamed Elsa. Anna leaned in, caressing Elsa’s cheek, bringing her face closer and closer.
“You want this, don’t you?” she whispered. “You can still be a hero with me, Elsa. Only you’ll be a hero who actually makes a difference instead of upholding the pathetic status quo.”
“I won’t become… a murderer!” Elsa spat, Anna retreating.
“Why are you so against killing?!” Anna shouted. “Just accept that for things to be right in the world, some people just have to die! The corrupt CEOs, the politicians who line their pockets with dirty money while they let corporations pollute the planet!”
“There are laws, Anna!” Elsa argued. “They can be held accountable for their crimes!”
“And how often does that happen?” Anna replied. “Sure, you’re making change, but it’s not fast enough. The planet is already choking to death and in order to save it, more… radical action must be taken.”
“You don’t think I don’t know that, Anna!” Elsa argued.
“Then why don’t you do something about it!” Anna shouted.
“Because…” Elsa stopped herself.
“Because what?”
Elsa looked down. She had never shared this with Anna, this secret she’d kept buried for all these years. But if she was going to die here… then she should die with Anna knowing how much she never wanted this, for either of them.
“Because… I know what it’s like to feel tempted to take such action,” Elsa replied. “Because I’ve…. I’ve killed before.”
“That’s a lie,” Anna argued. “You said it yourself that you aren’t a killer.”
“No, *that* was the lie,” Elsa insisted. “Do you… do you know what happened to the person who shot our parents, Anna?”
“He… He got away,” Anna said, her voice shaky. “You said the cops found no sign of him. It’s… It’s what started me down this path, of wanting to get my own sense of justice.”
“I… I lied to the police, Anna,” Elsa expressed. “That night, after that bastard shot our parents, something inside of me awoke, something powerful… I lashed out at the guy as he ran and I… I froze him solid and he shattered before my eyes, Anna. The moment I first used my powers… I killed someone.”
“I…” Anna was stunned by the revelation.
“I regretted it, I didn’t want to indulge in the anger that I felt that night,” Elsa expressed. “I didn’t want to become a mindless monster, a killer. I’d be no better than the man I killed, perpetuating an endless cycle of violence. That’s why I did my best to stop you going down that path.”
“And… I failed,” Anna realised, tearing up. “All this time… I thought you didn’t understand me, that you thought I was crazy… but in reality, you cared about me more than anyone.”
“I even pleaded against the rough torture you had in prison,” Elsa expressed. “They wouldn’t listen to me. Don’t you get it, Anna? I love you, more than anyone else in the world… but I can’t let you hurt anyone ever again.”
“I… I love you too,” Anna whispered. She started to cry more and with a flick of her wrist, her vines let Elsa go. “Please… just go.”
“Anna… I can’t go,” Elsa argued. “I need to bring you in.”
“No, I won’t go back to prison again!” Anna argued. “Why can’t anyone have seen that I was doing good… why didn’t you try and help me!” She broke down in tears and wrapped her arms around Elsa. Her villainous persona had completely broken and for the first time in years, Elsa saw her sister again.
Wrapping her arms around Anna, Elsa stroked her sister’s hair, listening to the sound of Anna’s shaky breathing as she held her. God, she hadn’t held Anna like this in… well she’d honestly forgotten it was so long. But to have Anna, her Anna, let her do this… it felt rewarding to her.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” Anna whispered. “I’ve been such a fool… I’ve been going at this so wrong.”
“Shhhh,” Elsa whispered, going fully into her big sister mode. “Everything’s gonna be okay… I’m going to be right here, Anna, like I’ve always been.”
Anna pulled away and the two sisters gazed into each other’s eyes, holding one another close. Both of them felt gravity pulling them together, part of them knowing that they needed the other now. Yes, they had been enemies… but now, perhaps they were something different.
And then… Elsa and Anna leaned in and shared a tender, passionate kiss. Neither of them knew what was in for the two of them next, but at this moment, all they wanted was to be together, as they kept kissing in the light of the moon shimmering through a nearby window, tears streaming down both of their cheeks.
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