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farmerlarrry · 6 months

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Orange Slices (Joel Miller x f!reader)

masterlist | chapter twelve | chapter eleven | read on ao3 | playlist

story summary: A story about finding companionship and love in the midst of chaos.

a/n: I read a few books and remembered how to write again :) Sorry for being gone for so long. I will be doing a huge revise of the whole story, just because I had planned on doing that all along… and of course I kept putting it off and before I knew it I was almost 15 chapters in, so between the time of posting this updated and chapter 14 and writing chapter 15, just keep in mind that I did not go MIA again, I am working on updates. I'm going to try to get chapter 14 up tomorrow!

**I wrote this at work so if there’s typos, I’m sorry. I tried my best to catch as many I could and I get so eager to post**

word count: 9005

if you want to be notified when I post new chapters, follow @farmerlarrrylibrary and put on notifications! If you'd rather be tagged, just let me know.

Chapter Thirteen

Fuck, fu–ck, you incoherently hear. The distant sound of someone’s voice draws you out of your state of sleep. Your eyes gently flutter open, eyelashes brushing up against your under eyes as you take a deep breath in and tensing your body up as a way to somewhat stretch your limbs due to the limited space offered by the couch. Must’ve been a part of a dream, you think as the silence makes your ears ring, your eyes darting around at different spots on the ceiling.

A fleeting feeling of intense nausea comes over you, as it does most mornings after you drink. You let a small moan escape past your lips as you run your hand over your stomach; you hate the feeling that you’re about to vomit more than anything. Rolling over onto your side, you nuzzle your face against the back cushion and pull the thick woven blanket further up your body to bask in the remaining warmth. The cold weather arrived early this year, leaving you shivering throughout the nights.

The longer you stay cuddled into the cushions of the couch, the comfier and more relaxed you become, your limbs now feeling like puddles of liquid. I’ll get up in a few minutes, you think to yourself, allowing your eyes to become heavy, not fighting your tiredness any longer. The swirling colors that the dim lighting of the room curated behind your eyelids begin to hypnotize you back to sleep.

That is until a loud thud comes from somewhere inside your house, causing you to shoot up from your lying position, still clutching on tightly to the blanket. Panic washes over you and your heart is beating faster than it has in a long time. You have your eyes locked on the staircase, straining your hearing for any indication where the noise may have come from.

God damnit, the quiet but gruff voice of a man causes you to quickly turn around toward the kitchen, more muttering follows, but you can’t quite make out what they’re saying. Just as you begin to take a small step forward, Joel pops up from behind the counter, tossing the paper bag filled with coffee grounds on the surface. He is very visibly frustrated, letting out a soft sigh. You find yourself to be somewhat confused, shifting your eyes just past him; the cabinet door is slightly ajar and two mugs sit side by side on the counter.

As his head comes past the edge of the counter, the two of you immediately lock eyes, widening at your presence as if he were surprised. You’re in my house, you think. You toss the blanket onto the couch, only breaking eye contact for a few short moments. Joel’s mouth opens slightly, however nothing comes out.

“You scared me,” You say quietly, yet relieved. Your heart still feels as if it were beating outside of your chest.

“Shit, sorry,” His words came out as mumbled, resting his palms flat against the edge of the countertop and leaning his weight into his hands. He looks down for a moment, letting out a breath of air as you come around the back of the couch, situating yourself across from him. “I was tryin’ not to wake you.”

Joel appears to be slightly embarrassed by the current situation, his cheeks very subtly stained pink and he’s rubbing his thumb over the laminate countertop. As the two of you continue to stand there, you can’t help but feel confused; confused as to why he’s in your house, not that you’re upset by the fact– just confused. Although, who knows what you potentially said to him, after James left, the last thing you remember is finishing off the bottle of alcohol while Joel quietly sat at the table across from you, babying the small glass he ended up pouring himself. You cringe at the thought.

“When did you become so… domesticated,” You say dryly, meaning it as a joke, jutting your chin towards the mugs, going up on your tiptoes to see the coffee ground that laid messily in a pile in the ground. It was hard imagining Joel as anyone other than who he’s shown you; a man who will kill to survive– do anything to survive– not someone who brews coffee in the morning for himself and his… whatever.

Joel follows your gesture, bringing his hand up to his chin, rubbing it gently with his thumb and forefinger. You cock your head waiting for his response. Although you intended it as a joke, you were still curious. This wasn’t typical Joel, not the one you knew, or at least not the one you thought you knew.

“Was tryin’ to make some coffee before we head out, but I hit my head on the cabinet door and dropped the grounds,” He followed up, gesturing first to the cabinet and then to the loose coffee grounds that were still scattered on the ground. Joel drew some air before continuing. “I changed your kitchen light by the way, the one that kept flickerin’, nearly gave me a damn headache last night.”

“Last night?” You furrow your brows, the mention of it brings you a sense of impending doom, your stomach twisting up in knots. Closing your eyes, you let out a huff of air. “Right, last night.”

Your voice sounds muffled.

With your eyes closed, all you can see is tJames’ face and the way it changed from his sweet smile to a look of utter dismay. You feel guilty for lying to him and you thought that by drinking you could drown out that guilt, but now it’s the next day, you feel even guiltier and you feel like shit. This time, you’ve dug yourself into a hole you weren’t quite sure how you were going to get yourself out of. What do you even tell James? Sorry, the sudden return of a man who, for some reason, I cannot get off my mind and makes my heart flutter like it never has before, caught me off guard so for the time being I’m just going to tell you to fuck off. Please just give me some time and space while I figure things out. No, absolutely not. If it had been anyone else besides James, maybe.

“Take these,” Joel breaks you out of your thoughts. He’s sliding two pills across the counter and then fills a glass up with water from the sink. “Maybe a shower will help too, you were pretty messed up when I left last night.”

You let out a small hum, picking up the pills from the counter and throwing your head back, swallowing them at once. Joel continues to watch you carefully, running his eyes all over you. You raise your eyebrows at him, which seems to snap him out of some sort of daze. He clears his throat, turning to the now boiling percolator.

“I got our assignment today,” Joel says. The realization he is returning to patrol makes you happy, something you had been secretly hoping would be the case.

“The hunting sheds,” the two of you say in unison. Joel gives you a single nod, pursing his lips. You simply stare back at him.

The hunting shed was one of your least favorite assignments. It’s fairly easy other than the fact you’re out all day, climbing up and down steep hills. It’s more so tiring than hard, but it’s something that obviously must be done to keep the security of Jackson up to par.

“Yeah, hope you’re ready for a full day of fun,” His tone is sarcastic. You can tell he is definitely not looking forward to it either.

You give him a very obvious fake smile, letting your palms drag along the counter as you turn to head for the stairs, desperately hoping this shower will be your saving grace from how horrible you feel.

–

You take the steps downward slowly as you dry your hair with the already damp towel, only stopping for a brief moment on the bottom step when you see Joel sitting at the table. He has one of his ankles propped up on the other leg’s knee, a mug in one hand and the other is holding up one of the old newspapers you always leave on the table. He seems to be engulfed in whatever he’s reading, his eyebrows furrowing as his eyes dart across the page, reading it line by line. The massive stack of newspapers that were once neatly stacked on one end of the table are now messily strewn about.

Quietly, you come up from behind him, glancing down at the paper and running your eyes along the bolded article titles. This one you know particularly well after the many rereads you’ve done. September 13, 2003; Community Development Plan Completed, building is to start November of this year!; Jackson Men To Complete 2,350 Mile Kayak Trip, 2,050 Miles down with 300 Miles to go! A part of you wondered if they ever did complete their trip, and did they come back into town to the infected, or how exactly that all went down.

As you pass Joel, your elbow grazes his bicep, causing him to jump, likely startled by your sudden presence; neither of you say anything. The chair he’s sitting quietly squeaks as he shifts his weight, while you make a beeline directly for the stove. As you reach for the mug Joel set out for you, he clears his throat, causing you to glance at him over your shoulder.

You let out a small hm, prompting him to spill whatever is currently on his mind before turning back around.

“You read these often?” he says, the paper crinkling as he folds it back up.

“Most mornings… gives me something to do,” you respond dryly as you slowly fill your mug, stream rolling off the top and the moist warmth hitting the bottom side of your chin.

“Seems like a lifetime ago.” He says in a small voice. The statement is so simple, yet seems loaded.

“No kidding.” You say softly, you’re not even sure if he heard you.

You turn around to face him with your mug in hand, giving him a tired look while you run your fingers across the tattered edge of the countertop with your free hand. There is no denying that you feel like shit. The shower didn’t help and you are almost positive the coffee isn’t going to do anything either. Your exhaustion must be obvious because Joel is looking at you sympathetically, carefully watching you as you stand leaning against the edge of the countertop. Taking a sip of your coffee, you look at him through the rim of your mug, the two of you meet each other's eyes. Joel quickly looks away, sitting up straighter in his chair and setting the newspaper down on the table. He lets out a deep sigh, using the wooden surface to push himself upright.

“I’m gonna go get the horses ready to go,” He says while walking over to the sink and setting his empty upside down, then pulling a thermos out from the side of his bag. “Meet me at the stables in 15 or so… will that be enough time for you?”

You nod your head, pulling your lip in between your teeth as he turns and walks toward you.

Placing his hand just above one of your hips, you take a few steps to the side, to which he steps where you were once standing. The feeling on his fingertips against your side makes your stomach jump and you have to fight against your instinct to shiver. He fills his thermos with coffee, you staring at him, watching his face. He glances at you, you can see his throat bob as he prevents the percolator from dripping down the side of his container. The air is still. Your eyes dart down to his bottom lip which he is toying at with his teeth. Your heart begins to thump loudly in your ears, he’s making it hard not to imagine what it’d be like to be the one toying with it for him.

“I’ll see you in a few,” he says awkwardly, and you give him a shy nod.

The moment Joel leaves, you can feel your body relax, letting out a small huff of air. You mindlessly gather different supplies, making sure you have a lunch packed. As you’re doing so, you let your mind wander, how you were going to handle things with James, now that Joel is back. It feels wrong to continue things with James, especially when he’s not who you want– he was never who you wanted.

Whether Joel feels the same way, doesn’t factor into your decision.

–

The air is quite a bit chillier than you expected. This year the cold weather has come early, something that sort of threw the community for a loop. The town square is always already filled with people by 6am due to the increased workload in the gardens, making sure everything can be harvested before the cold gets to it. Today was no different, you could hear the bustling of the townspeople the moment you took a step out from your house. The murmurs make your ears buzz.

You’re messing with the floppy straps of your backpack that always find a way to twist, not quite paying attention as you come out of the side pathway that separates your part of the community and the townsquare. When you finally look up, you immediately notice James and Joel and they are very obviously arguing. People start to slow down as they pass by them, confused as to what could possibly be going on between the two men. You are wondering the same. Did James say something to Joel? Would Joel really be that upset about something like that? You think, slowing your pace. You can feel your eyebrows draw together, your teeth clenching down hard.

As people pass by, leaving an opening for you to look through, you then notice Nessa standing a few feet behind James as well as Tommy engaged in what seems to be a pretty intense conversation based on his active nodding and hardened facial expression with Maria. You feel your heart sink into your stomach. Continuing your slow pace, you observe the loosely formed group.

Nessa and you catch eyes, a fire is burning behind her eyes, before walking over to Tommy, tapping his shoulder, and gesturing in your direction. In unison, the four all stop their conversations, turning to look at you. They each hold a different facial expression. Joel appears to be heavily annoyed but his look softens when the two of you make eye contact, James looks nervous and mildly perturbed, Tommy’s usually cheery expression has been exchanged for an outright stressed one, and Maria looks concerned yet confident as always. The range of emotions make your stomach churn.

As soon as you and Tommy make eye contact, he lurches forward, quickly approaching you with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his worn jeans. You stop in your tracks, hoping he can give you the run down of exactly what the fuck is going on.

“You’ve been doin’ your patrol alone?” He doesn’t waste time asking, his voice is hushed not wanting the other around to hear. He places his hands on your shoulder and blocks you out of the view of the others. His usual kind, soft eyes are now intense and dark.

Fuck, you think to yourself, parting your lips ever so slightly, not quite sure what to say. You kept Tommy in the dark about this, not wanting him to worry and honestly, it was better if he didn’t know. You explicitly lied when he would ask you about patrol or when you’d tell him peculiar stories about the events that happened out on patro, usually pulling someone’s name out of thin air whoever was your partner for that day.

“James came to Maria this mornin’ with some concerns about you,” Tommy adds, anticipating your response, desperately hoping that James’ accusations aren’t the truth, or at least not the whole truth. His expression is pleading, darting from one part of your face to another.

As soon as James’ name rolls past Tommy’s lips, you dart your eyes over to him, who quickly tips his head down toward the ground, completely avoiding you. You can feel your face feel with heat which only makes the throbbing in your head to worsen, and chaos begins to brew in your chest. Fucking James.

“Tommy,” you say, sounding outright guilty and round your posture. Sweat begins to pool in your palms, soaking into the strap of your bag that you were still tightly holding onto. He lets out a disappointed sigh, shifting his eyes past you.

“Jesus Christ,” He says breathily, slightly shaking his head. He begins to knead his fingertips into your shoulder blade, taking a moment longer to think. You stare at him blankly. “Okay… we’ll figure this out, just tell Maria the truth, I’ll see what I can do after that… but she is not going to like hearing this.”

“Yeah,” you say quietly in defeat, looking down at your feet before looking back up at Tommy. “I’m sorry Tommy.”

When he finally looks back at you, he gives you a pitiful smile, one that quickly fades. Sliding his hand back between your shoulder blades, he guides you over to the rest of the ground. Nessa is still giving you a deathly stare, which annoys you because a few days ago the two of you were fine, you were laughing together over some old memory from your time as school girls. What changed so suddenly?

You can see her mouth move, saying something just quiet enough to where you couldn't hear her with you still being a few yards away. Joel’s face twists up, twisting his upper body toward her. Don’t fucking say that, his voice is unmistakable, and so is the harsh intent behind his words. She’s very clearly biting her tongue, fighting the urge to shoot something back at him, but before she can make the decision to respond, Joel turns away from her, chewing on his bottom lip. You can see the anger boiling inside her as she sticks her tongue in her cheek, shaking her head.

As you come up to the group, she scoffs, storming off into the opposite direction.

“What’s going on,” you ask. Your body is facing Maria, but you keep your eyes fixated on James who still won’t look at you.

“James’ had some… concerns regarding your patrols, would you be able to talk in my office? Me, you, Tommy?” Maria responds cooly, her tone seems hesitant yet confident. You’re sure this must be an awkward thing to do, the whole he said, she said situation. You force yourself to swallow against the lump of anger in your throat.

“Of course,” The annoyance you feel hangs heavy onto your words as they come out of your mouth.

You glance between James over to Joel and you begin to follow Tommy and Maria. His eyes are intense and you notice the quick rise and fall of his chest.

“I’m coming too,” Joel’s voice is loud as he tightens his grip around the bottom of his pack straps, taking a step forward towards you. A few community members who remained to watch, exchanged looks between each other.

Maria lets out a heavy sigh before turning around.

“If he’s going, then I am too,” James quickly adds. You know he doesn’t actually want to be there, but if Joel is going then he must too. You roll your eyes.

“Neither of you will be joining us,” She says firmly. “James, you already told us your concerns, I will speak to her, get her side of things and then I will handle it from there. And Joel… you haven’t been here, so I’m not quite sure why you are concerning yourself with things that you would have no idea about.”

You slowly shift your attention from Maria over to Joel, who is clenching his jaw. He’s looking at Tommy who refuses to look back, kicking at the dirt and rocks with his hands back in his pockets. When Joel realizes he won’t be getting a response, he quickly turns on his heel, giving you an emotionless look, and heading towards the entrance of the community. James is quick to follow, tailing closely behind Joel.

“C’mon,” Tommy juts his chin in the direction of the main building, reaching his arm out towards you.

–

It’s been a while since you’ve last been here. Everything remains the same, even the old dried flowers that still sit on the table between the two chairs in the center of the room. The morning glow illuminates the room with a warm glow, however the air is chilly. You have your palms resting on the rounded ends of the arms of the chair, slowly rubbing the back and forth. Maria and Tommy are standing in front of you; Maria is upright, her hands clasped together in front of her while Tommy is leaning against the edge of the desk with his arms crossed and shoulder slightly slouched. Even though you know both of them quite well at this point, it doesn’t stop you from feeling inferior, especially in the given situation.

“So, what’d he say,” You impatiently ask, your tone portraying your emotions very clearly. You already knew, but you wanted to know exactly what he told Maria.

Maria glances over to Tommy who returns with an awkward smile, unfolding his arms and pointing at himself. She gives him a single nod before he pushes himself upright, clearing his throat.

“Well, he came to Maria this morning, while we were talkin’,” He starts, “said he’s concerned– you haven’t been following the protocol or proper guard etiquette…”

He trails off, looking at Maria through his peripheral view who is waiting for him to continue. Her eyes are focused solely on him as if she were urging him to go on, silently supporting him through this tough conversation.

“He said something about you goin’ out, doing patrol by yourself,” Tommy finally finishes, a wheeze of air escaping past his lips before continuing, “‘n that he was concerned for your safety.”

You let out an amused scoff, shifting your weight in the chair. Concerned with my safety, his excuse was laughable. You knew exactly why he was doing this and it wasn’t his concern.

“I didn’t call in yesterday, I’ll admit to that, because I get it… it’s my responsibility to do that, and it slipped my mind,” you say, your throat burning as you speak. “But he’s known what I've been doing for months.”

Maria purses her lips and nods, walking over to the chair next to you and taking a seat. You turn your body towards her, waiting for her to say something.

“And that’s concerning for me, knowing that I've put him in charge and he’s allowing that,” she simply says. It was hard to read her calm demeanor, something that made you feel anxious.

You look at Tommy through your peripheral vision, he appears to be somewhat confused, staring at Maria.

“He also said you’ve been staying out late, sometimes the entire day,” she continues.

You can feel your nose twitch at the mention of you staying out past your patrol, you force yourself to slightly smile, although you know nothing will cover up your initial reaction. Your breathing becomes shallow. You’re completely done for. There’s nothing Tommy can do that will save you from being taken off patrol. You knew the chances, but you never thought James would be the reason you were caught. Your brain is racing with thoughts, trying to come up with something in response that may cover your ass.

Maria cocks her head and raises her eyebrows slightly, encouraging you to say something. Your mouth has gone dry. Time’s up, you think, letting out a small shaky breath.

“There’s an outlook I go to somedays– well, actually, most days,” Your voice is small. “I go there after I’m done with patrol, after I call in, and I just… think, I don’t know, I just do whatever.”

A feeling of embarrassment comes over you as you admit to your whereabouts. Telling them about the outlook feels shameful, and not for the reason that you aren’t supposed to be doing stuff like that. Them now being aware of a place that you connected with Joel through in absence made you feel sick, even if they don’t know that’s the reason why you went.

Tommy and Maria exchange looks again, this time her eyes softening.

“I know I’m not supposed to be doing that, I know it’s dangerous going out by myself, I just…” You say with your head hanging low. “When I’m out there, it’s the only time I feel like myself.”

Mmm, Maria quietly hums.

“About what happened at the dam–” She starts to say.

“Maria…” You abruptly cut her off, something you normally wouldn’t do, but you couldn’t listen any longer.“I don’t know what James told you, but I do my job. I do it exactly how I was taught and doing it by myself does not change that. I promise you I did not see anything out of the ordinary yesterday, otherwise I would have reported it the moment I saw it.”

You stare intensely into Maria’s eyes as you speak. It was the truth. You were good at what you did, whether you were alone or with someone else. Always being ready to go, ready to defend, ready to fight, to give your life if need be– it was all you knew in this new world, and you were good at it. You hadn’t made it this far on pure luck, anyone with a brain would know that. A one time mistake does not make that statement untrue and James all of a sudden coming forward with his concerns also does not make that untrue.

You can feel the anger creep its way up your throat as you think of James’ pettiness, how all of this was because Joel was at your house last night. Sure, you can agree that lying to James about having plans was wrong, but it didn’t make it right that he did this in response. How childish, you think.

The sound of Tommy clearing his throat pulls you out of your deep state of thought. Both you and Maria shift your attention to him.

“Maria, if you don’t mind, I was just thinkin’... with Joel being back,” Tommy says with a slight hesitation. He knew he shouldn’t be making any sort of suggestions without discussing with her first, but then again he promised he’d do everything he could to keep you out of trouble. This is him risking that to keep his promise to you. “There’s really no reason to punish her, ‘specially if James was the one allowing this, she took it as permission– him knowing, ya know… at least that’s what I assume. Her and Joel can just continue patrol together, then we take the rest up with James.”

You can feel yourself exhale in relief at his suggestion, a part of you slightly surprised by him throwing James under the bus. Regardless of Maria’s decision, you were grateful for Tommy having your back, proof that the two of you really are as close as you thought. The two of you carefully watch Maria as she contemplates his suggestion, her eyes glaze over as she thinks.

She gives a slight nod to Tommy, who glances over to you, giving you a short lived smile before you turn your attention back to Maria.

“You and Joel, never just you and never just Joel, is that clear?” She says, giving you a serious look. “Make sure you call in after every patrol, I do not want to hear any of this it slipped my mind nonsense again.”

“Yes ma’am,” You respond affirmingly, sitting up straighter in the chair. “I promise.”

“And you’ll be sure to pass that onto Joel?” Maria directs to Tommy as she rises from her sitting position.

“Yes, of course,” He says.

–

Tommy stayed back to have a few more words with Maria, telling you that he would be just behind you to talk to Joel. Don’t let him leave without talking to me first, he requested. You’re moving your legs as fast and they will allow you to move them, knowing your already long day has become even longer due to heading out so late now. On top of that, the animosity you now felt did not help with your headache and queasy stomach.

With the stables now in view, you see James standing out front by the wooden gate with Nora and a couple of the other guards. He’s using one of his arms to prop himself up as he leans against one of the wooden posts. Since you saw him earlier this morning, he’s had a complete mood shift; he’s laughing, his cheeks rosy with glee, his eyes soften as he jokes around with the others, lighting hitting the back on his hand against one of the men standing to his side. Seeing him like this, thinking he succeeded in his plan to get you in trouble, makes your heart skip a beat, a feeling of rage quickly taking over your rational thought. You begin to charge toward him, taking bigger and longer strides.

The moment he sees you, the blood drains from his face as if he has just seen a ghost. His jaw tenses up. Perfect, you think. The closer you got to him, the more you struggled to keep the newfound deep hatred for him from exploding out of you..

“What?” You yell out to him, charging straight for him with blurred tunnel vision. “You surprised to see me?”

Typically, you are not the confrontational type, but James crossed the line by going to Maria; putting the one thing you had that kept you sane on the line. Your anger hit a boiling point seeing him act as if nothing had happened and you didn’t care who heard what or who would be caught in the crossfire of it all.

“Get ready to head out, I’ll be right behind you guys,” He quickly says. Nora and the others give you a conflicting look almost as if they were confused by your brashness towards James.

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” You say to them, shifting your attention onto James when you are finished. There’s a bite in your tone that has made everyone in hearing distance stop in their tracks. “I didn’t get taken off of patrol duty like he wanted.”

James’ face drops at your announcement, his face twisting up. He’s shocked– shocked that his plan did not work. Seeing him like this was priceless, though the only thing you wanted to do was shove that confused and wide eyed face of his into the horse manure that was scattered around the stable grounds.

“You didn’t?” He says quietly, staring at you with furrowed brows. You couldn’t miss the surprise in his tone.

Your anger cools for a second and you take a step in closer, crossing your arms and looking up at him through your browline darkly.

“What the fuck was that about?” your words come out shakily as you try to act calm and collected. Your breath feels like it's coming out in flames. This was just meant for him to hear, you hushened your tone so no one, not even the shadows of his companions, could hear.

“I was concerned,” His tone is monotonous, not breaking eye contact with you. His chest was heaving at this point as he struggled to control it.

“Bullshit, James,” You practically hiss through your teeth. “You’re telling me this has nothing to do with Joel last night?”

His eye twitches at the mention of him showing up at your house. You can see his throat bob as he struggles to remain apparently unaffected.

“You lied to me,” he says slowly. “Lied about you and Nessa, lied about you and–”

“What’s goin’ on?” Joel calls out, coming out of the stable with Callus in hand. He gives you a look of concern before handing off the horses’ lead to one of the stable workers. James scoffs, gesturing towards Joel with one of his hands, giving you a sarcastic smile. His eyebrows are raised halfway up his forehead to tell you that he didn’t even need to say exactly who he was referring to.

Just as you open your mouth to speak, you feel someone rest their hands on your shoulders, lightly squeezing them, almost an nonverbal way of telling you to stand down. It’s Tommy, and he’s shaking his head, urging everyone to drop this. You chew on the inner flesh of your bottom lip, contemplating your choices. Narrowing your eyes, you take one step forward, Tommy’s hands now slipping away from you.

“Fuck you,” You whisper to James as you brush up past him, your shoulder firmly knocking into his. One of the stable workers opens the gate for you, giving you a firm nod as you pass by.

“Yeah? Fuck me?” he responds, now raising his voice in a way you’ve never heard from him before. “After everything I’ve done for you, for being there for you– now he’s back you’re just going to pretend we–”

Just as you begin to turn on your heel, Tommy cuts in and takes complete control over the situation.

“Hey,” Tommy shouts in a stern tone, cutting James off before he can finish. “Drop it, now. Maria would like to speak to you, tell your friends to go to the North tower, see if they need any help there today.”

James looks dumbfounded by Tommy, almost offended by him obviously choosing sides. He remains standing at the post for a moment longer, staring at the ground with his hands kneading at his hips, before turning to face his friends. You could hear the unmistakable sound of his voice, unable to make out what he was saying to them with the distance you created.

You watch as Nora starts walking back towards the main part of the community while the rest aren’t shy to hide their dirty looks from you. Initially, you didn’t care that much, not entirely bothered by their hateful stares, but it still somewhat hurt deep down inside of you. As angry as you were at James, it hurt you that this was how he thought to get back at you; how intental the damage that would have been caused if it hadn’t been for Tommy. Not being able to take the group’s lingering looks any longer, you drop your head to stare at the ground anticipating their departure.

“By the way, Charles has been wondering where you’ve been– Dot and Henry too,” James calls out from the other side of the gate. Now he’s the one who doesn’t care about who overhears. “Never quite sure what to tell them.”

“James,” Joel growls.

James head shoots in his direction, his reaction directly influencing Joel to take large strides over to the where James stood, the only thing separating the two is the rotting wooden fencing, something that could easily be bypassed. Tommy immediately comes between the two serving as another barrier, placing his hand on James’ chest. James swipes at Tommy’s arm.

“I’m leaving, damn,” He says quietly, giving a deathly glare as Joel and then you.

Callus nudges at one of your shoulders from behind causing you to turn, James’ look burned into your mind. You’re doing everything you can to stop your lip from quivering, running your hand down the smooth snout of the horse which has come to comfort you. Joel returns from the fence, quickly fixing your twisted strap on your backpack. You can feel him staring at you from your side, but you keep your eyes forward, avoiding his gaze– afraid of what might come out of you if you were to look at him. Last thing I need is for everyone, especially him to see me cry, you soothe yourself, desperately holding onto what's left of your ego.

Tommy has now joined the two of you by the entrance of the main stable building, forcing you to face the two men now. Joel takes a step closer to you, your arms brushing up against each other.

“You know this already,” He says to you before fixing his eyes on Joel. “You two stay together, no one does patrol alone… I mean that, Joel.”

Tommy glares at him until Joel acknowledges what he says. Joel gives a simple, single nod which causes Tommy to finally release a long breath of air, his chest very visibly falling.

“Okay,” He says in relief, returning back to his normal self. “We’re still doing dinner tonight right?”

Mhm, Joel hums along with a nod, his hands are stuffed deep in his pockets.

“I’ll meet you there, ‘round 7,” Tommy replies. “Be safe.”

He gives your arm a reassuring squeeze before exiting through the stable’s fence gate and returning to the main part of town. Joel and you are left standing there for a moment. You aren’t quite sure what to say and by Joel’s expression he isn’t quite sure either.

“Everything okay?” Joel is the first to speak, his tone somewhat dry.

Is everything okay? You mock him in your own thoughts. You want to roll your eyes, instead opting for a blake stare. You pass him, heading into the stables to start helping the others where were in the process of readying Lucky.

–

Without exchanging any deciding words, you took the lead for today’s assignment. As per usual, leaving the horses at the old worn down barn that was treated as a halfway point between the community and the treeline that led to the dense forested area. The anger from the events of this morning clung onto you fiercely and no matter how much you tried to push it away, it clung on tighter.

Joel was caught in the crossfire of these events. You weren’t mad at him, but that didn’t stop you from taking it out on him no matter how badly you didn’t want to. Between leaving the front gates to now, Joel tried to talk to you, tried making conversation. You're going to be warm enough with just that, he asked, gesturing to your hoodie tied around your waist. All you could get yourself to do in response was shrug your shoulders, not caring enough to even give him a second look.

“I came over last night to talk to you about somethin’” Joel says, the words coming out weak through his tired breathing. Initially his words piqued an interest with you, but that faded just as quick as it came. “But-uh, didn’t seem like the right time once I was there.”

“And right now is?” You responded just as breathily. The never ending steep hill seems to have taken a toll on you– both of you.

“I’d rather get it over with, good time as any, I suppose,” he says, pausing as if he were waiting for you to give him the go ahead to continue. You felt like you had already given him your answer, letting him decide whether he wanted to go on or not. He cleared his throat before speaking again. “About what happened the day I left…”

“Jesus Christ,” you mutter under your breath, quickening your pace, trying to let Joel fall behind to avoid talking about that. Perhaps on any other day, as uncomfortable as it would have been, you’d be willing to talk about it, but not today… not in the state of mind you're currently in. “There’s nothing to talk about, Joel, I misread your intentions and… and it's been a year. We have a job to do, so let’s just get it done.”

“That’s not–” He takes a deep breath, letting it out forcibly as if he were annoyed. “I tried stopping by your place before I left.”

“Stop,” you say with a bit more bite than you intended.

“I don’t want you to think–” Joel pressed on, truly determined to say whatever he wanted to say.

“Stop it,” you spit. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does now that I’m back,” he raises his voice to talk over you. “I want to make sure–”

“Make sure we’re good?” you interrupt him. “We are, so drop it.”

The two of you come to a stand still. Joel’s chest is quickly rising and falling, his cheeks stained pink by the energy required to climb up the steep hill. A breeze picks up, sweeping Joel’s longish hair over his eyes; he pushes the strands out of way, still holding eye contact with you.

Taking a deep breath as a way to cleanse your mind, an attempt to shake off this anger you feel, you begin to head up the hill again. This time slowing your pace to allow Joel to keep up without exerting himself too much. You both still had a long day ahead of you whether you wanted to be there or not.

As silence ensued, Joel finally accepted that no matter how hard he tried, you did not want to talk to him that night. Although you didn’t want to talk about it, it didn’t stop random thoughts from popping up in your mind. You couldn’t build up the courage to make one particular thought known, to ask him the burning question that haunted you since he left.

Joel managed to make his way to your side, his presence startling you from your deep state of thought. He didn’t say anything, just tightening his grip on his shoulder straps and giving you a quick glance. His jaw clamped shut.

“Were you planning on leaving before…” You stop prematurely as the words rushed out of your mouth, the burning in your chest disappearing the moment you let the words enter reality. A shaky exhale escaped past your lips. Why does it matter, you questioned your own words, if he says no, then what? What does it change?

A nasty feeling overcomes you when he doesn't react, not even looking up from his focused stare at the ground. Nothing? You think, your throat begins to close in on itself.

“Let’s just get this done, I’m tired and my head hurts,” you say, your heart feeling like it shattered into a million pieces.

–

After your little spat with Joel neither of you speak for a long while. A few task related words had been exchanged, but nothing beyond that. As the day ran longer and your mind returned to a neutral state, you felt bad for how you treated Joel. You felt bad for taking out your problem with James on him.

“Sorry I was mean earlier,” you say quietly, picking at the sandwich you brought for lunch today. “Just the whole thing with James, you know?”

“You’re okay, darlin’” Joel says, the words coming out of his mouth smoothly, sending a blanket of warmth over your entire body. “James does that to people, I would know.”

You force yourself to smile, although the guilt of how you treated him earlier when you were still seething with anger continued to eat at you.

“Take this,” Joel added, causing you to look up from your food which you had balanced on one of your knees. He pulled out a neatly folded flannel from his backpack. It turns out that the hoodie you brought was in fact not warm enough, and between your shivering body and your chattering teeth, it must’ve been obvious. “You’re makin’ me cold just watchin’ you.”

You mutter a small thanks to him as you meet him in the middle, taking it from him without any rebuttal or hesitation. As you slip your arms through the baggy sleeve, Joel’s smell engulfs you. Your heart flutters, quickening its pace, and your stomach twists into a knot. A smell that you couldn’t quite describe beyond comforting and one that warmed to the core, more warmth than any jacket could offer you.

“You said you had some stuff to wrap up in Boston” you ask, trying to continue the conversation from earlier and receive some sort of answer from him. Your mouth became dry as you chewed slowly on a small piece of stale bread. “What’d you have to do?”

“A friend, her name’s Tess,” he begins, his words coming out slowly. You remember Joel mentioning Tess once before, a long time ago. “I’ve known her for a while– met her on the road with Tommy after the outbreak happened.”

“I remember you mentioning her,” you say, carefully watching his expression for any changes.

“Yeah, she’s-uh badass… real badass,” he responds, his eyes lighting up. Not good, you tell yourself as a feeling of jealousy washes over you. “I wasn’t planning on being gone so long, but she needed help finishing up some deals, tried convincin’ her to come out with me, but she wanted to stay, so…”

You could see a hint of smile as he spoke about her and then a bit of sorrow at the end.

“You love Tess?” You remember asking him before if they were together, a part of you wondered if that had changed between then and now.

The question catches him off guard.

“No,” He immediately shoots back, his face twisting into a complex expression you couldn’t quite read. “No, no… it’s not like that. We’ve been through a lot together though, and– and I guess sometimes that has blurs the lines a bit.”

You didn’t know how to respond to that so you let the conversation come to an end. The faint song of birds soon fills the air giving you something to listen to as you think over his words over and over again. He doesn’t love her but he feels something for her, you think, the jealousy stabbing into your stomach repeatedly.

“I don’t mean this in a…” He starts, stopping a moment to think, “are you sure Nessa’s your friend?”

The mention of Nessa amidst all of the mess Joel witnessed this morning provokes a laugh from you. You have to bite your lip in order for you to stop and answer his inquiry.

“After this morning, I have no idea,” You tell him nothing but the truth. “We were friends a few days ago. What’d she say?”

Joel shook his head, his eyes lowering to his hand which had been fumbling with the edge of a paper bag that held the jerky he brought along.

“C’mon,” you egg him on. By his reaction, you knew it had to have been nasty and knowing Nessa, you weren’t surprised. You knew how she could get, the things she came up in her mind to say about people who crossed her the wrong way. Though, you never thought you’d be in her line of fire.

“It doesn’t matter,” he shook his head again.

“Why are you protecting me?” His resistance causes you to become annoyed. “First with James, now this.”

“James?” He says almost as if he had no idea what you’d been talking about.

“At the stables,” You try to cool your tone, now trying to come off nonchalant. “When he tried to provoke me about Charles and his kids, and even before….”

Joel scoffs, a sense of embarrassment hidden behind it.

“I’m not protectin’ you, I– I–” he stammers and throws the half filled paper bag onto the base of his bad. “It doesn’t matter what she said because it wasn’t true.”

You force down the rest of the food you brought along, not necessarily because you wanted to but more so because it gave you something to do while Joel sulked. The usual Joel that you knew too well returned, and he became standoffish. You didn’t pay much mind to it because something told you that his little mood swing wouldn’t last, so all you could do was wait it out. He put up with my mood earlier, I guess it's only fair if I do the same, you told yourself, stealing glances of the slouching man sitting adjacent from you.

Joel suddenly his throat, catching your attention.

“What do you do when you aren’t on patrol?” His words came out dry, but seemed genuinely curious.

You let out a puff of air. A whole lot of nothing, you thought and what you wanted to tell him. Nothing important or worth talking about.

“I drink with some friend,” you state simply, letting your voice falter on the last word. Joel picked up on your intonation of friends, narrowing his eyes.

“Friends?” He nearly mocked you perfectly. “Who?”

You have to bite your tongue from letting out a small giggle. He should get a kick out of this, you think.

“Don’t laugh,” you say, looking at him through your browline, a small smile appearing on your face. “I spent quite a bit of my evening with Heather and Aimee, Drew too… and Nessa of course, that whole group.”

You very specifically left James out of that out of spite, but you were sure Joel would include him as he was a part of that group. Joel, of course, laughed, nearly choking on his water that he just took in from his canteen.

“I told you not to laugh,” You broke out into a smile as Joel wiped his mouth clean from water and saliva. “Besides, there’s not that many people to choose from.”

“There’s enough people to not choose them,” he quickly rebuttal in a joking tone. You just shrug, mainly because he wasn’t wrong. “I’m assumin’ James is apart of that mix too.”

“Yeah, James is there too,” Your face drops. At least he was, you added just to yourself, Or at least I was, you corrected yourself knowing that the gang would choose him over you in any instance, including Nessa.

“What happened between you two?” He asked genuinely, cocking his head to the side as he studied you. “Is he your–”

“Friend I suppose,” You cut him off desperately wanting him to disassociate you and James as being that. “Just a friend.” You weren’t sure if you clarified for him or more for yourself. “Just some petty drama, hopefully it’s over now.”

That seemed to satisfy Joel’s curiosity because he didn’t press any further or ask more questions regarding your friends.

As you pack up your things, now in a much merrier and less hangry mood than before lunch, you catch Joel watching you. Not watching you in a way that he had in the past. It was almost as if he were stuck on you, unable to peel his eyes off of you even if he wanted to. The shift in the air made butterflies form in your stomach at his consistent attention, you tried to ignore it until you couldn't. The two of you lock eyes as you meet him at the base of a rocky ledge.

“What?” you softly ask as you unbunch your many layers of clothes under the straps of your bag.

“Hm,” he half-consciously responds as if he didn’t entirely grasp onto what you just said.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” you expand your question further, causing him to blink quickly a few times as if it were bringing him back to the present moment.

“Like what?” he frantically darts his eyes along the ground, furrowing his brows.

“Like–” you begin to say, but the words are stuck in your throat, unwilling to be heard. With your heart fluttering, you continue. “Nevermind.”

But regardless, you saw it in his eyes.

You saw it.

–

By the time the two of you make it back, the sun has nearly fully set for the day. Your legs hurt, you’re tired, and you’re hungry. The staff who had been there when you left had now all gone home leaving you and Joel to put all the equipment and horses away for the night.

“You hungry?” Joel asks, grunting as he picks up one of the saddles to be put away.

“Very” you drag out the word, letting the exhaustion fill the word entirely.

“Why don’t you join Tommy ‘n I for dinner,” His voice is quiet, slightly nervous sounding. “Goin’ to Jackson BBQ, best BBQ in town.”

“It’s the only…” You begin to say, your exhaustion not allowing yourself to pick up on his joke, only stopping once you realize.

He gives you a slight smile which causes you to stop for a moment and take in his offer.

“I– I don’t want to intrude,” You say quietly, though you want to say yes a million times over. “I know how much he’s missed you, so…”

“He admitted that?” Joel asks with a smirk, wiping his hands off on his already dirty jeans and taking a step in front of you.

“Not in those words, but…” You smile, lowering your head to hide your face. Joel lets out a hearty laugh.

“Well, I want you to come,” He follows up with a laugh still lingering in his voice. His emphasis on want made you flinch, not in a bad way, but his directness catches you off guard. When you finally look up from the ground to look at him, he’s eyeing you nearly identical to when you had packed up after lunch. Your breathing hitches. “He won’t mind.”

Joel adds the last part after a few moments of silence between the two you, the soft neighs of the horses and rustle of the wind fill in the spaces.

You draw in a deep, slow breath; the cool air burning your lungs.

“Okay,” You finally agreed.

read chapter fourteen here!

painting divider | credit: @cottage-writings

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hotdamnhunnam · 2 years

Text

UPDATE to the post below: Chapter 3 is now posted!

____________________

Considering dropping Chapter 3 of FoA tomorrow because I am chaos

Question for y’all below! ⬇️

I realize that this is basically putting this fic on a weekly-ish posting schedule so far which is DANGEROUS, as I’ve only finished writing Chapter 4 so I doubt I’ll be keeping this pace forever… but maybe it’ll be possible if I have enough time and feel sufficiently motivated/inspired/whatever…

Question: Is there a time of day for posting that works best for you guys…? ⏰

I think I have a few readers in different time zones so am happy to hear thoughts from you! I realize that there aren’t a lot of people who seemed to enjoy Chapter 2, so if no one replies I won’t be surprised 😅

____________________

Frontier of Anarchy Masterlist

⬆️ For those of you who haven’t yet read Chapters 1 & 2 and might have interest!

Frontier of Anarchy Tag List (if you’d like to be added or removed just let me know!)

@pomegranatearildreams @rayslittlekitten @samanthaisnthome @kesskirata @soaharleys @innerpaperexpertcloud @itspdameronthings @dvnvln @doll0026 @maeleeme @aussies074 @niki-xie @blondiekook @bettergetusetoit @rosegxoxo @trappedinlove666 @digitalhoe @oldstuffnewstuff @poge-life @mrspeacem1nusone @o0idk0o @thexhostess @melodranas @stellaa33 @midnight-dreams-23

#charlie hunnam #kristin kreuk #jax teller #sons of anarchy #soa #will miller #william ironhead miller #triple frontier #jax teller x oc #will miller x oc #asian oc #frontier of anarchy

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countingpaperstars · 3 years

Photo

I don’t do fake love (but I’ll take some from you tonight)

Chapters: 3/5 Rating: Explicit Fandom: Jujutsu Kaisen Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Fushiguro Megumi/Sukuna | Ryoumen Sukuna Characters: Fushiguro Megumi, Sukuna | Ryoumen Sukuna, Kugisaki Nobara, Gojo Satoru, Zenin Maki, Okkotsu Yuuta, Inumaki Toge, Fushiguro Tsumiki, Itadori Yuuji Additional Tags: Minor Kugisaki Nobara/Zenin Maki, Minor Inumaki Toge/Okkotsu Yuuta, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Tutoring, College Parties, Alcohol, Stubborn! Megumi, Hot Professor! Gojou, Misunderstandings, Eventual Smut, Drinking, Sukuna attempts to flirt, megumi is oblivious, Nobara and Maki’s combined sapphic powers, Minor Angst, Toge being a little shit, Megumi makes an attempt at tutoring Sukuna learns NOTHING, Yuuji is the densest element on the periodic table, Maki asking the important questions, rated teen until the last chapter, Complete and Total Chaos, Itadori Yuuji & Sukuna | Ryoumen Sukuna Are Twins

Summary:

“I hear he’s top of the class,” says Nobara.

“If that were true, why would he be coming to me for tutoring?”

Nobara presses a hand to her forehead. “Megumi, you cannot be serious right now.”

A deal is fulfilled and Maki asks the important questions.

Notes:

I'm posting a day early because tomorrow I am moving! Not far, but still an Ordeal™ haha. Hope you all enjoy!

(Please support by reblogging <3)

#sukufushi #jujutsu kaisen #jjk #sukuna #fushiguro megumi #my writing #college au

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not-majestic-bluenicorn · 3 years

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TXT Universe Theory: The Dream Chapter

Hello and welcome back to another one of my theories! This theory will be quite long and will take into account everything in the first chapter of TXT’s story. I won’t be doing Minisode 1 or either of the Chaos Chapters yet cause it will give us all a headache if I do, so yes, there will be things missing. Believe me, I know, I’m just pretending like I don’t know anything for the sake of my mind XD Let’s dive into the theory!

The Protagonists

Name: Choi Yeonjun

Keywords: Promise, guilty, sleepless, apricity

Association: Paranoid Park

Metamorphosis: Horns

Songs: Crown, Magic Island

Yeonjun is, perhaps, more relevant than his character wishes he was. Paranoid Park, the book (and perhaps also movie) he’s associated with, talks about a 16-year-old boy who accidentally kills a policeman and tries to cope with it while simultaneously hiding what he did. Yeonjun’s guilt can be seen almost everywhere. His Dream-Self grows horns during Nap of a Star, which are generally associated with evil and destruction, and in Crown he expresses his fear of being evil.

In the teasers for Magic Island he says “I think there’s someone else aside from us #itsmyfault”. And in the teasers for The Dream Chapter: Eternity he adds the hashtags #imscared #itwasjustajoke when revealing his association. He did something that makes him feel guilty. He possibly didn’t kill anyone (I mean, if anyone did, it’s most likely Beomgyu, but that’s not here nor there), but it hasn’t been revealed yet what he did do.

I associate Magic Island with him because it talks about promises and about the Odd Eye Cat, which I will talk about more in detail later, but suffice to say the Odd Eye Cat might have something against Yeonjun. There is a small chance that Yeonjun feels guilty about having forgotten their promise with the Star, since his word is promise. Everyone forgot, but maybe he’s more emotionally aware of it.

Name: Choi Soobin

Keywords: Tomorrow, invisible, understanding, apricity

Association: Le Doulos

Metamorphosis: Elongated ears

Songs: Eternally

Soobin is on the opposite side of the coin with Yeonjun. He too is aware about the promise with the Star, but in a very different way. He is perhaps what we would define as a traditional protagonist, as he can hear the voice of the Star well before anyone else can, even if he can’t remember the promise. The first time we see him perceiving the voice is in Magic Island, that is when he starts to feel separated from the group. He’s still unaware of it, but he knows something that the others don’t and that puts a wall between them. In the Magic Island teaser he uses the hashtag “#IThinkImTheOnlyOneWhosDifferent”, and in the Eternity concept photos he says “Why am I the only one having a hard time?” and “Everything is your fault”. He is also tagged as invisible, which alludes to the fact that he feels distanced from the others, and is also the only one to get no interactions on his posts. The fact that he’s blaming someone might be that he’s aware of the voice or that he knows someone in the group messed up.

Name: Choi Beomgyu

Keywords: Hope, unfair, relief, serenity

Association: The Catcher in the Rye

Metamorphosis: Spines on the back

Songs: ???

Beomgyu is an interesting if confusing character. Based on how he acts in the MVs, he seems to be rather headstrong and confident, much like the main character, Holden, of Catcher in the Rye, a story strongly related to growing up and leaving the innocence of childhood behind. Holden considers adults (and his life) to be quite unfair, doesn’t trust them, and wants to become a protector of the innocence of other children. However, much like Beomgyu, he’s rather headstrong and careless, moving forward without much consideration, which often gets him in trouble. These aspects can be seen reflected on the Magic Island Teaser, where he writes “What’s the problem? Let’s just do it. #rewind #hope #CantTrustAnyone, as well as the Port teasers from Eternity where he says things like “Who saw me that day?”, “We were all together then, right?” and “I don’t think this is the world I used to know” (which is tagged with “unfair”), and uses the hashtags #NothingToHide, #IsItMyFault?”. We do see him start the fire in both the Magic Island Teaser and MV, which might hint to the fact that he feels it’s unfair to blame him when they were all there, and he doesn’t actually believe himself to be at fault. He was just taking care of them.

Name: Kang Taehyun

Keywords: Clue, suspicious, breathe, serenity

Association: Philip Marlowe

Metamorphosis: Star eye

Songs: ???

Taehyun’s character is observant and prefers to stay on the sidelines to catch every detail before casting his judgement. In the Magic Island Teaser he says “There’s got to be a way out” with the hashtag #LetsThinkAboutIt, plus, in the Port Teasers from Eternity, he keeps a reasonable suspicion on his team members about who’s truly at fault and uses the hashtags #EverybodyLies and #IWantToKnowTheTruth. This ties in well with his associated character, Philip Marlowe, the private detective. Both characters keep a distance and analyze everything carefully, never resorting to violence. It is worth noting that he keeps Yeonjun’s teddy bear at the end of Run Away, which in the teasers is labelled as “clue”. Taehyun is always observing.

Name: Huening Kai

Keywords: Secret, lonely, longing, apricity

Association: Stand by me

Metamorphosis: Wings

Songs: Nap of a star

Huening Kai is perhaps one of the most complicated and mysterious characters in the story, since his role isn’t as established as the others. He’s constantly out of the loop about the situation that is happening, which is demonstrated by phrases like “What the hell is happening?” (Magic Island Teaser) and “What happened?” (‘Port’ Teasers) as well as the hashtags #OnTheSidelines and #IKnowNothing, as well as two of his keywords being secret and lonely. His associated media is also interesting, as Stand by me talks about a man remembering the trip he did with three of his friends when they were 12 to find the body of a missing boy. At the end of the movie, the main character Gordie, recalls his friends and comments on how much he’ll always miss them and how he’s never had friendships like that again. This raises the question if perhaps one of the boys would be the dead kid the others are trying to find. Kai being kept out of the loop could point to him being it, as he’s always trying to reach for them but can’t quite do it, however it could also be argued that either Yeonjun or Soobin could fill that space as well.

The Setting: The Real World vs The Dream World

Back on the very early BTS theories, a lot of us didn’t think time travel or time loops were the answer, but it turned out we were wrong. At first, when working on this theory, I wasn’t sure where I should draw the distinction between reality and fantasy. In the end, I’ve decided that everything is real but in different ways, and I’ve decided to make the distinction between the Real World and the Dream World; after all, this is called the Dream Chapter.

The Real World is, you guessed it, pretty much just our normal world. Nothing magical or physics-law-breaking to be seen here. The Dream World is, well, a world made of dreams. But remember I said everything is real (I know the names I gave the two realities contradict this, hit me up if you have better suggestions). Whatever happens in the Dream World is just as real as whatever happens in the Real World, it’s just in a different plane of existence. It might also be of interest to note that sometimes these worlds blend.

So, if everything is real in the Dream World, what is real in the Real World? This is a complicated question because even our characters struggle telling reality apart from the dreams, especially because the dreams aren’t just dreams. The fires that occur in Run Away and Can’t You See Me are very much symbolic, but them jumping into the Dream World through the subway in Magic Island is real. The visions they have in Eternally aren’t happening in the Real World either. It’s just a matter of what is supported through other clues and pieces of evidence, which I’ll try to provide.

The Story

So, you know, what is like… happening? Everything is extremely confusing and it took me a while to understand that pretty much all videos are happening like, at the same time? As in, it’s the same event but from different perspectives and slightly different intervals of time. So let’s try to lay down a cohesive timeline.

It all starts with the events narrated in Nap of a Star. When they were children, the five of them (or well, maybe I should say six) met through the Dream world and became such good friends that they promised to meet there again. However, as it happens, they grew up and forgot about it, meeting once again many years later through the school and the company without remembering each other.

While growing up, they have gone through many different things that have hurt and changed them, which manifested in their dream bodies as the “imperfections” that they all have. I believe these imperfections are tied to each of their characters: horns tend to represent evil, which ties in with Yeonjun feeling guilty and blaming himself for everything. Kai’s wings look angel-like, which fits his sweet personality who helps the “demon” (Yeonjun) and is always believing the best about his friends. Beomgyu is very defensive, which translates into his porcupine-like spines. Soobin is a good listener (plus he’s literally the first one to hear the Star’s voice) and Taehyun is good at observing the others. So these are all manifestations of how life has shaped them to be who they are now.

They become very good friends once again and get along well, nice! However, we know things are not perfect, and they have to confront a series of personal conflicts. Especially Yeonjun, who’s so overcome by the negativity in his life that he starts a fire that can’t be put out in Run Away. This fire is metaphorical, and represents all the pain and stress he’s been dealing with. So what do they do? They try to find an escape from all their troubles.

There’s two ways this could’ve happened: the first one is that they stumble with the Dream World by accident on the Run Away MV when they go in through the pool. This seems fitting because of their reactions. After that they research it and Soobin discovers that there’s a secret magical entrance at a train station, as we can see in the Sanctuary Photo Teasers from the Magic comeback in the official BigHit website. The other option is that this accidental discovery didn’t happen and they simply researched. This would turn their visit in Run Away into a “summary” of sorts of their first impression of the place.

[Translation:

Soobin: I saw how to find the hidden magic platform?

Soobin: When you close and open your eyes there, your dream becomes reality

Taehyun: Woah, cool

Taehyun: (not sure about this one) for real?

Soobin: Should we go together?]

Either way, they get there. Of course, as shown by the door being set on fire at the end of Run Away when Yeonjun looks at it, his worries aren’t entirely gone, but at least they’re under control now, or so it seems. This part of the video also ties in with the end of Nap of a Star. All of the children come together to help the “monster” and they reunite at the Dream World once again, awakening the Star.

After this, though, weird things begin to happen. Someone or something is trying to reach out to them, and causes them to have really strange dreams. This entity, presumably the Star as marked by the pieces of dialogue, even follows them to their practice room, and keeps begging them to remember them. Yes, I think the Practice Room Ghost and the Star are the same character (and I also think they represent MOA, in a way).

[Translation: Remember my name.]

Here’s where the visions in Eternally come into play. The individual vision each of them has is, physically speaking, nothing more than that: a vision or dream. So they start having these visions, and some of them, especially Soobin who keeps hearing the Star’s voice, start doubting their reality. Plus, weird things start happening in their practice room, so no doubt they end up hearing about the Practice Room Ghost.

They have a conversation about it on the subway, and Soobin goes to mention he had a weird dream but then he backtracks. Obviously, he’s talking about the vision we see in Eternally, because he even says he always wakes up crying from it. In a split second, they decide to stop at the Magic Island using the method that Soobin found previously, and they go have fun there.

[Translation:

Yeonjun: Did you hear about the practice room’s mirror ghost?

Beomgyu: *sland for shivering* A ghost? Wow

Taehyun: I heard about it. There’s no ghosts, you’re just tired and saw wrong.

Soobin: I’ve had weird dreams lately *cries* Maybe it was because I’m tired...

Kai: Did you have a scary dream again?

Soobin: (deleted message) In the dream we...

Yeonjun: Ah, I shouldn’t have said anything.

Beomgyu: What’s scary about this? If there’s a real ghost let’s go and check at night *laughs*

Kai: Hyungs, stop talking about scary things please *cries*

Taehyun: Beomgyu hyung is joking about this too??

Yeonjun: Should we just go to Ttukseom?]

Naturally, things go wrong, what else were we expecting? Their antics end up setting the magic forest on fire, until they end up destroying the whole Dream World, and it leads us to the start of Eternally. One thing I believe to be very interesting is how, when they’re trapped in the storm, Soobin keeps touching his ears, Kai touches his chest like in Nap of a Star, and Beomgyu touches his shoulder. Yeonjun and Taehyun aren’t properly shown but they probably also touch the affected places.

I would argue that Can’t You See Me? is also just a reinterpretation of the conflict they’re going through, both within themselves but also as a group, because they did just destroy their secret place. This is pretty much where the current timeline ends. I’m a bit uncertain if they’re trapped in the Dream World or outside of it without being able to go back, because Taehyun does mention wanting to go back in the Port teasers, but he doesn’t specify where. I want to bet that they’re trapped in the Dream World but I do need to analyze the Chaos Chapter better to decide that.

The Practice Room Star

Yes, this is a play on words, as I fully believe that the Practice Room Ghost and the Star are both the same entity. When they were kids, they made a promise with the Star, but they’ve forgotten it with time, and now that they have reunited and found their way into the Dream World again, the Star wants them back. The Star is probably a very powerful being, since they are able to interfere with the Real World to reach to them, enough to make them confused about their own reality. Their bond seems to be stronger with Soobin, who’s even able to hear them reach out on occasion. It’s uncertain what exactly it is that they want.

The Visions (Eternally MV)

The night of the last day & Song of a Star (Soobin’s visions)

Eternally starts at the end of Magic Island, with the Dream World completely in ruins. Eternally happens before Magic Island, so this dream Soobin has at the beginning is nothing but a prophecy. In the dream, he is holding a book, which we also see Beomgyu with. I think this book is the one they got the information about the Dream World during the Magic era, since the cover is very similar to the symbols we can see in Run Away.

I believe Song of a Star is the Star reaching out to him. He’s the first one to be able to hear the Star, as shown in Magic Island, and he also references the Star’s song in teachers. The kid he sees is probably the version of himself that first entered the Dream World as a kid (or maybe Kai lol), which might be why he wants to cry everytime he has that dream: it’s the nostalgia for a time he left behind.

Room No. 17 (Beomgyu’s vision)

While I’m not sure what the number 17 means yet, and my research on numerology yielded no results, this vision is particularly interesting to me. Through it we get to see Beomgyu’s more ‘brash’ nature as he defends the book that Soobin was seen holding previously. If that book is their key to the Dream World, then it makes a lot of sense that he’s trying to protect it. I’m not sure who the other person trying to stop him is, but it does kinda look like things didn’t go well for them after Beomgyu transformed.

Girl of Eternity (Huening Kai’s vision)

Perhaps the strangest of names for visions, this clearly represents how the rest of the members keep moving far away from Kai and become unreachable to him. He mentions several times how he’s clueless about what’s going on and wants to understand, but the rest of them continue to keep him in the dark, so he feels a distance growing between them, which might increase in the future.

Moratorium of Rest (Taehyun’s vision)

Taehyun’s vision is perhaps the most shocking of all, as it shows us Yeonjun sitting on a chair and covered in spines and purple “paint”. Yeonjun is sitting in the middle of a field of all sorts of violets, and Taehyun tries calling him before realizing the condition Yeonjun is in.

Promise (Yeonjun’s vision)

Yeonjun shares the misfortune with Taehyun of seeing his lifeless corpse, except his vision is much less artistic about it. After finding his body, he sees a fire from the corner of his eye, and right next to it, you guessed it, the odd-eyed cat. His vision in particular finishes with the phrase “I thought it was salvation, then.” And here is where things turn south.

Yeonjun’s promise and the Odd-Eye Cat

I have a very strong reason to believe that Yeonjun is in danger of dying an awful death, and it’s only partially because of the visions. Since Nap of a Star, Yeonjun has been followed by the vigilant eyes of the Odd-Eye Cat almost religiously, and it usually never brings good situations with it. It’s bad enough that the neck cut in Nap of a Star is replicated in Taehyun’s vision, that Soobin sees Yeonjun all bloody in Eternally, and that both Yeonjun and Taehyun see the former dead, but there might be some external clues that hint towards Yeonjun’s upcoming demise.

In the official BigHit website for TxT’s discography, where we found out that Soobin researched and figured out the way to go into the Dream World, we can find a picture of Yeonjun reading a book. In English, this book is called The Alchemaster’s Apprentice. This book narrates the story of a black cat who sells its soul to a sort of wizard in exchange for food, since he’s starving to death. The wizard agrees to fatten the cat for a month, after which it will kill it and use its fat for magical purposes.

The cat in this book doesn’t have heterochromia, however I found out some pagan groups in Eastern Europe believe that a different colored eye was a witch’s eye, meaning that the eye has literally been swapped out with a witch’s. I fully believe that Yeonjun made a deal he shouldn’t have, and the Odd-Eye Cat has been sent by whoever made the deal with him to check on him. It might just be that Yeonjun’s time is going to run out very soon, and the visions are trying to warn everyone of that.

Conclusion

Magic exists and TxT might have bitten more than they can chew because they wanted to run away from the problems of real life (relatable). Now, the Star that they made a promise with is trying to reach them, and maybe warn them about something that’s coming. The fact is that they’re not safe, especially Yeonjun, and things might turn south very quickly very soon.

I’ll try to come back soon with the Minisode 1 + Chaos Chapter Theory update, but for now, if you liked this, please interact with the post and check out my other theories here!

#txt #tomorrow by together #tomorrow x together #the star seekers #txt theory #tomorrow x together theory #tomorrow by together theory #txt yeonjun #txt soobin #txt beomgyu #txt taehyun #txt kai #kpop #kpop theory #bluenicorn does theories

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snowdice · 3 years

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Big Bang (Sort of) Editing Story [Day 58]

I started writing this fic while editing my Big Bang story, but am going to continue doing it for other things now that Kill Dear is out. I will write and publish 100 words of the story every time I finish doing whatever task I’m doing. If you’d like to block these proceedings, please feel free to block the tag proofread stories. I will reblog this post with the parts of the story I do today. Edited chapters are linked; everything else I’ve done so far is under the cut.

My Master Post Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6 Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16 Part 17 Part 18 Part 19 Part 20 Part 21 Part 22 Part 23 Part 24 Part 25 Part 26

Wow I am tired and have a headache, but also I have to get my grading in by tomorrow so...

If I get too miserable, I may stop abruptly and get up early to finish it in the morning.

Chapter 27

After an, honestly quite aggravating, breakfast full of Virgil’s cognitive distortions about the likelihood of being poisoned, Logan was relieved to finally be able to leave the dining area. In consideration to those serving breakfast, Patton did not lead them through the door in the back of the dining room that went directly to the kitchen, and instead took them out of the room and down the hall to a different entrance. This one had a guard stationed across from it as, despite what Virgil may believe, the castle workers did consider the possibility that someone would want to sneak into the kitchen for nefarious purposes.

Said guard, of course, saw nothing wrong with the prince and the head chef’s son entering the side door even with the bonus stranger. In fact, he may even have known Virgil could be coming through this door if Ms. Heart had mentioned him.

Though Virgil hadn’t managed to catch it, Logan knew enough about Patton’s mother that he’d surmised that she had insisted Patton bring the boy to meet her. It was bound to happen at some point anyway, Logan knew, and he wasn’t particularly worried. After all, this was Patton’s mother. Virgil himself didn’t even seem particularly concerned.

Logan had seen him panic and, while he tugged a bit at the sweater he was wearing, the motion was not particularly fervent, so he was likely just slightly nervous.

Of course, that may be because he did not know Patton’s mother specifically wanted to meet him and just assumed that they were starting the necessary process of introducing him to castle residents with a low risk person.

When they entered the hallway, Logan could already hear the usual noises of the kitchen: the clattering of plates, the bubble of conversation, and the sound of Ms. Heart’s voice calling out instructions.

He did see Virgil hesitate, but Logan couldn’t sus out why and Patton was already ahead of them and opening the door into the kitchen. It was fairly calm for the kitchen considering it was meal hours. Logan imagined that Patton had chosen the time between when the day guards ate breakfast before their shifts and the night guards after their shifts on purpose. There was still a bit of chaos as dishwashers attempted to catch up during the lull and a few orders were still being made, but overall the mood seemed, to Logan at least, to be light as Ms. Heart ordered her kitchen around.

Yet, Virgil clearly did not see the situation the same way that Logan did. He froze when the kitchen door swung open and some of the workers turned to look at them. He took a step back, bumped into Logan, startled violently, realized it was Logan, and then side stepped to hide behind him. Logan looked back at him in confusion, but Virgil said nothing, proceeding to mutely peer over Logan’s shoulder.

Patton had moved over to greet his mother as she wiped her hands off on a rag. She glanced over at Virgil and Logan and Logan saw Virgil shrink back a bit.

Logan could see Ms. Heart’s eyes soften as she tracked his movement. She turned to the woman next to her and said something before moving to remove her apron and hang it up in its designated area. Virgil’s hands clenched in the fabric of Logan’s shirt when she turned back to him.

“It’s fine, Virgil,” Logan told him, but Virgil didn’t seem to believe him. Luckily, Patton had turned back and seemed to realize something was amiss.

He stepped back over to them. “Hey, honey,” he said. A plate clattered in the kitchen and Virgil just about ripped Logan’s shirt.

Patton frowned sympathetically. “Too loud?”

“Virgil,” Logan said. “You are digging your fingernails into my skin.” Patton shot Logan a glare. “What?”

“How about,” Patton’s mom suggested. Virgil’s fingernails dug more into Logan’s skin. “We go to my office.”

“I think that’s a good idea, Mama,” Patton said. “Come here, Virgil.” He reached over to touch one of Virgil’s hands and had to pull a bit to get him to release Logan. “It’s back that way, away from the kitchen,” he said when he managed to twine their fingers. He stepped around Logan, probably so there was still a buffer between Virgil and the kitchen and tugged him in the correct direction.

Ms. Heart shot a glance at Logan and Logan felt irrationally like she was trying to read his thoughts. Logan smoothed his features out and turned to follow Patton and Virgil towards her office.

As head chef, Ms. Heart had a small office where she could plan menus without the hustle and bustle of the kitchen and have meeting with people who needed to discuss dietary needs and restrictions. It was very well organized, but still looked fairly messy because of the numbers of decorations she had in it. She had a tendency to keep everything that Patton made her, thus she had his childhood drawings on the wall and little projects stacked on her desk and on the shelves. A lumpy cat statue acted as a paperweight on a stack of papers on her desk and there was a vase of fake flowers (as it could not actually hold water) sat near the window.

By the time Logan entered the room, Patton was trying to coax Virgil into sitting down on one of the two mismatched chairs, but Virgil was having none of it. He had turned to face the door and was yanking at his sweater in nervousness.

Logan noticed that Ms. Heart did not come far into the room, instead pausing near the door. She did, however close the door to give them privacy, and that seemed to distress Virgil more.

She seemed to contemplate him for a moment. “Hello,” she said, her voice softer than Logan was used to hearing. “You must be Virgil.”

It seemed as though he were willing himself to magically shrink, but he still replied. “Yes, ma’am,” he said quietly.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said. “I’m Patton’s mom.”

“I know, ma’am.”

“There’s no need to be formal, Virgil.”

He hesitated. “Okay,” he said somehow quieter.

Her eyebrows drew together in concern, and it seemed that she decided to result to her default way of making people more comfortable. “Would you kids like some candy?”

Logan saw Patton’s hand squeeze Virgil’s lightly. “That would be great, Mama.”

She nodded and walked forward towards her desk. Virgil turned so his back was never to her. If she noticed, she didn’t react. She just grabbed a small tin off one of her shelves and took the top off. “How about a peppermint candy?” she asked.

She offered the tin out to them. Virgil stared at it like it was a venomous snake. Logan decided to act, stepping forward and taking three of the pieces of peppermint candy from the dish. He stepped over to Virgil and Patton and held out his hand, offering Virgil first choice out of all three.

He hesitated before glancing between Patton and his mother. He must have decided that Patton’s mom wouldn’t risk poisoning Patton and took one of the pieces. Patton took another one of them and popped it into his mouth. Logan ate the last piece.

“Thanks,” Virgil said to Ms. Heart before placing his piece in his mouth.

Logan watched Virgil’s eyes light up a bit when the flavor registered. His posture didn’t completely relax, but he seemed at least a bit less like he was contemplating jumping through the window. His trust was almost worryingly easy to buy sometimes. All it took was a not poisoned peppermint.

Ms. Heart seemed pleased by his reaction. “I’m actually going to be making some new ones soon and I’m trying to get rid of these. Would you like to take another one for later?” she asked, holding out the tin.

He looked at it warily again, but he still stepped closer slowly and took another piece. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Ms. Heart said, eyes looking over him intensely. “You look like you could do to with a few more sweets every so often.”

Virgil tilted his head in that way he did when he was particularly perplexed.

Patton giggled a bit. “She means your skinny.”

“Oh,” Virgil said. “Logan already gave me a malnutrition potion for that.”

“Did he now?” she asked, her eyes flickering to Logan. Logan winced. He was definitely in trouble for not bringing him directly to her. He was sure he’d hear all about it as soon as she caught him without Virgil in the room.

She turned back to Virgil with a smile, and Logan imagined Virgil had no idea how dead Logan was. “Well, that’s a very good start, but if there was need for a nutrition potion, we should be careful to make sure you get enough calories and nutrients every day going forward.” She sat down at her desk. “Why don’t you and I talk for a bit about making sure you get some good food.”

He still looked cautious but was predictably enticed by the promise of food. He did not sit still, but he did put his hands on the back of one of the chairs and slightly lean on it. “Yes, ma’am,” he agreed.

“Okay,” she said. “Well, I’m going to have a few more specific questions, but let’s just start with what are your favorite foods?”

“I’ll eat anything,” Virgil replied immediately.

“He really likes chicken alfredo,” Patton contributed.

Virgil perked up at the name of the food. “I did like that,” he agreed.

“Alright,” Ms. Heart replied. That’s a start.

Chapter 28

Thomas did not have to be told that something had gotten Helen Heart in a tizzy. He could tell just by the amount of food she had sent up on his dinner tray. She always made and pushed more food when she was stressed, and he couldn’t help but chuckle when he found both a hearty serving of roast beef and a mini chicken pot pie on his plate along with three vegetable side dishes and a side of macaroni and cheese.

He could also guess what had happened to illicit such a response. Thomas had caught up to Jeffers Deknis in his garden and they’d spoken at length about Logan and Patton’s new friend.

There was no way that after said discussion, Jeff had not mentioned Virgil (and more importantly his friendship with Patton) to Helen during their daily gossip sessions. There was also no way that Helen had heard the words “child” and “too small” in a sentence and hadn’t flipped. From there the inevitable sequence of events was clear: Patton went home, Helen talked his ear off until he agreed to bring Virgil to meet her, Helen met him and immediately committed herself to making sure he ate three square meals a day as well as multiple snacks.

Thomas had sussed all of that out before the kitchen worker bringing him his dinner had mentioned what had happened that day.

That in mind, he decided to wait until after dinner should have been cleaned up before walking his own dinner leftovers down to the kitchens.

Thomas was unsurprised to see Jeff already in the kitchen. He was sat at a small table off to the side where kitchen workers usually took their breaks. The only person other than Jeff and Helen left in the kitchen was a dishwasher who was finishing up. Helen usually spent a couple of hours after dinner in her kitchen or her office organizing for the next day and in case anyone needed food on an off hour, and then there was a night cook who would take over so she could go back to her set of rooms.

Helen took the tray of leftovers from Thomas herself and shooed the dishwasher out of the way. “I’ll handle the rest myself,” she told the girl. “You can leave.”

She nodded and started to take her apron off. Helen dumped the tray on the counter without care and turned back around to usher Thomas into one of the kitchen chairs. Thomas went willingly and she turned to fill the tea kettle with water and set it on the stove.

“It take it she met Virgil,” Thomas said to Jeff.

“She’s adopted Virgil,” Jeff replied, taking a bite out of a cookie.

“And what of it?” she asked. “Someone obviously needs to feed the boy. Speaking of, you’re grounding your son by the way.”

Thomas took one of the cookies for himself. “Why am I grounding Logan?” he asked.

“He was worried enough about his health to make him a nutrition potion, but still did not bring him to me,” she harrumphed.

“I see,” Thomas replied.

“In Logan’s defense,” Jeff interrupted. “the boy seems rather timid. He may have worried about you scaring him off.”

Helen slapped him with a dishtowel.

“Actually,” Jeff continued. “From what I’ve gathered he didn’t have contact with anyone since the time I saw him a couple of weeks ago until now.”

“Any adults,” Thomas corrected with a frown. “I’m pretty sure he, Patton, and Logan must have been around each other considering how close they already seem to be.” He paused, “Logan implied he wasn’t particularly… comfortable around adults.”

“I did get that impression, yes,” Helen said, pouring the hot water from the kettle into a tea pot and carrying it and some cups over to the table.

“He was incredibly jumpy,” Jeff confirmed. “I imagine he does not have good experiences with many people, but he seems to have grown attached to Logan and Patton. He defers to them in most things and seemed a bit protective.

“Where did he come from?” Thomas asked.

“I’m not sure,” Jeff said. “I found him hiding in the garden shed a couple of weeks ago.”

“Did he sneak in?” Thomas asked.

“That’s what I would have thought,” Jeff replied, “but when I asked, he said he wasn’t trying to steal anything and that he was supposed to be in the castle. So, I’d assumed that meant he was the child of someone living in the caste.”

“But neither of us could find anyone who knew him,” Helen said. “Of course, we didn’t even know his name until now.” She seemed to decide the tea leaves had sat long enough because she started to pour them each a cup of tea.

Thomas took a sip. “Earl Grey,” he commented. “I guess I’m not sleeping much tonight.” It was her ‘planning tea.’

“We need a plan,” she said, “but we’re going to have to be gentle.”

“At least with Virgil,” Jeff said.

Thomas laughed lightly, “and what do you plan to do with the other two?”

“I have my ways.”

Helen rolled her eyes. “You say that,” she said, “but you’re too soft. The two of them learned to run circles around you and your powers years ago.”

“We should talk to them though,” Thomas said. “Separately from Virgil.”

“We should,” Helen agreed. “I already spoke to Patton a bit yesterday, but I will again. We should see if we can ask around and find out why he’s in the castle. We don’t even know how long he’s lived here. Or who brought him here.” The look on her face told Thomas she wanted to have a talk with his guardians whoever and wherever they were.

Helen took a drink of tea, it seemed to calm herself. “We need to make sure whatever has been happening to him is not happening in these walls,” she said.

Thomas had honestly… not thought about that. He’d assumed whatever made Virgil so skittish was in the past, but it was possible that it was ongoing. The thought made him sick.

“Perhaps you should try to talk to him, Thomas,” Helen suggested.

Thomas winced. “I am not sure that is a good idea...”

“Why not?”

“We don’t have the best track record… I don’t think me being around him would be a good idea.”

“Oh, please, Thomas,” Helen said disbelievingly.

“No, you don’t understand,” Thomas said. “He seems disproportionately afraid of me. I think it’s a mix of me being king and how we met.”

“How did you meet?” Helen asked.

“I… gave him a bit of a fright,” Thomas admitted. “Logan and Patton weren’t in the room and I didn’t know who he was. He… ended up under the bed. Then… the second time I saw him he accidently ran into me. He freaked out again.” The memory still made Thomas feel gross. It also made him think there was a lot more to his backstory than the three of them understood.

43410

“Perhaps Jeff can try to talk to him then,” Helen said. “It sounds like he was calmest around you. I’ll push Patton towards taking him to the garden more often. I bet fresh air would do him some good anyway.”

Jeff nodded. “I will try to talk to him a bit more.”

“Great,” Helen said, but Thomas already knew the conversation wasn’t over. “Now we need to talk about strategic events to throw over the next few months that Patton and Logan to invite Virgil to. We’ll start slow, but we need to make sure he feels welcome in the castle.”

Thomas met Jeff’s eyes. Yeah, it was going to be a long night.

Chapter 29

Virgil finished eating the breakfast Patton’s mom had sent for him. It had been going on a week since she’d made the menu for him. She sent up little cards with each meal and he was supposed to rate each thing she sent on a scale from 1-5. Logan would read it to him before he ate, and Virgil mark the little box on the card. Usually, he would put a 4 for everything (he had tried to do 5, but Logan had told him 5 was reserved for things like chicken alfredo). Three was for things that he was neutral on, 2 was for things he didn’t like but could tolerate, and 1 was for things he didn’t like. So far, the only 3 was the unseasoned porridge she’d sent one day.

“Finished?” Logan asked.

“Yeah,” Virgil said.

“What would you like to do today?” Logan asked. “Patton is busy until after lunch, and then we thought you might like to go back to the garden again. It’s supposed to drop in temperature over the next few days, so it will be the last good day for it.”

“Sounds good,” Virgil said. “I don’t care what we do today though.”

“Well, there are a few options,” Logan said.

“What do you want to do?” Virgil asked.

Logan made an expression, and Virgil titled his head. “I’m don’t have anything in particular I want to do,” he said.

“You’re lying,” Virgil said immediately.

“You would not be interested in the activity I wish to partake in,” Logan said.

Virgil squinted at him. “I’d be interested in laying on the ground and staring at the ceiling.”

Logan chuckled. “No, truly. The activity I would do if you were not present would involve reading.”

“You can read to me,” Virgil suggested.

“…In Sanskrit.”

Virgil frowned at him. “Isn’t that, like, some sort of dead language?”

“It is,” Logan said. “I taught myself to read it to read a specific book called the Pragilium Text. It’s an encoded book that leads to a magical location that I have been trying to decode for years.”

“That’s fine,” Virgil said. “You can do that.”

“It would be in the library,” Logan said.

“Okay.”

“But…” Logan said. “It would in no way be interesting to you.”

Virgil shrugged. “Like I said. I’m content to lie on the floor for a few hours.”

Logan frowned. “I can’t make you do that.”

“You wouldn’t be making me,” Virgil said. “I want to go. Maybe you can find me an easy book I could try to read?”

“Are you certain?” he asked.

Virgil nodded, decisively.

“Very well, get dressed and I will show you the library.”

Virgil stood to do so and a few minutes later, Logan was leading him out of the royal wing.

Both of the guards greeted him kindly, and Virgil hunched his shoulders in a bit, but said a soft “hi.”

The library didn’t end up being too far away. It was through the small dining hall and to the left where the staircase to the kitchen was to the right.

“This is not the main library,” Logan said. “It is just a smaller one. The royal librarian comes here only about once a week to organize. Some other castle residents might come in too, but it is usually mostly empty.” Virgil could tell just by listening for a few seconds that the place was likely empty (unless someone was lying in wait).

“I’ll look and see if there is something simple for you in case you’d like to read. You can explore a bit if you’d like,” Logan said.

Virgil nodded and stalked off into the shelves to secure the area. There were many books, not that he could quite read any of the spines. The bookcases were mostly cramped into the space. There was the open area where they’d come in with a few comfy chairs and Virgil found a desk near one of the windows. It had stacks of books including one pretty large and old one. He looked at it curiously.

Virgil heard Logan’s footsteps approach from down an aisle. “That’s the Pragilium text,” he said.

“It’s pretty,” Virgil said, looking at the design etched into the cover.

“Yes,” Logan agreed. He reached forward to touch it and opened it carefully. The print was small and didn’t look like the letters Logan had taught him so far. There was a small map on the side that Virgil could at least guess at the meaning of.

“You can read that?” Virgil asked.

“I can,” Logan said. “Very few people can though.”

“Wow, you’re really smart.”

“Thank you,” Logan said with a smile.

“Now,” Logan continued. “I found you a book. I apologize as its subject matter is for younger children, but it has many pictures that can help give you context when you don’t know something. You don’t have to read it if you do not wish to, especially as we haven’t gotten very far in our lessons, but I thought you might like the challenge.

He handed him the book and Virgil took it with a smile. “I’ll try to read it,” he said.

“Well, you have free reign of the library. Feel free to continue to explore and to interrupt me if you need to.”

Virgil nodded and took the book before deciding to finish his sweep of the library. It turned out that appearances were not deceiving, and the library truly was empty. Once he was certain about that, he looked around for a comfortable place to settle down and try to read the book Logan had handed him. He found a sturdy looking bookshelf near where Logan was reading at his desk. He scaled it quickly. It was a little bit dusty at the top, but it wasn’t a bad place. It was close to the ceiling and kept him hidden pretty well, but still gave him enough room to pop up onto his elbows. If he looked left, he could see Logan down bellow with his head in the book, but if he looked right, he could see the entrance to the library.

He pulled the book in front of him and looked at the cover. It was covered in drawings of different colored flowers. One simple white flower was in the center and there were three words on the cover. He squinted at it and silently tried to sound it out based on what Logan had taught him so far. He could guess that the larger word was ‘flowers’ based on context. So, he was pretty sure it read How Flowers Grow.

He flipped open the book. Logan was right, there were many hand drawn beautiful pictures. He could pretty much understand what was happening just from them even if he couldn’t read all of the words.

It was an interesting book even if he couldn’t read it and it was obviously made for small children. Judging by the pictures it seemed to be detailing how plants, or at least, flowers grew through some kid planting and caring for a flower over the course of some amount of time.

Virgil had, of course, known flowers grew from seeds, but it was interesting to see things about how the stem would pop out of the seed in the ground and things about the roots growing.

He more looked through the pictures than read it the first time but had flipped back to the front to try to read the words when he heard the library door open.

Virgil perked up in awareness, but then settled when he recognized Patton’s footsteps. Virgil tilted his head to watch as he walk directly to Logan’s hideaway.

“Hi,” he said, gaining Logan’s attention.

“Hello, Patton,” Logan replied. He glanced at the window and must have seen that time had passed because he closed his book and shuffled his papers.

“The guards said you came here,” Patton said, glancing around. “Where’s Virgil?”

Instead of letting Logan answer that question, Virgil pulled himself forward, with the book in one hand and slid off the bookshelf to land lightly on his feet next to Patton.

Patton screamed before slapping a hand over his mouth.

Logan had placed his hand over his heart. “Where on Earth did you come from?” he asked.

Virgil blinked at him and then pointed to the bookshelf he’d been on top of.

“How long were you up there?” Logan asked.

“Pretty much the whole time,” Virgil answered.

“I…” Logan said. “I didn’t even know.”

Virgil squinted at him. “You need to learn to look up.”

Patton giggled.

Virgil turned on him. “You need to learn to case the area.”

“Oh honey, your shirt is all covered in dust,” Patton said instead of responding to his very valid criticism. Virgil frowned. “Let’s get you changed and then go grab some lunch.”

“Lunch?” Virgil asked.

Patton chuckled and grabbed his hand. “Yes, sweetie, lunch. Then garden.”

“Fine,” Virgil said. “But you do need to learn to be more observant.

“Yes, yes, whatever you say,” Patton said.

Logan just rolled his eyes.

Chapter 30

After lunch, Patton and Logan took Virgil out into the garden to walk around. They let Virgil lead them around wherever he wanted to in the garden. A bunch more flowers had died since the last time they’d been out here, and Patton felt sad despite having never felt very sad about that sort of thing before. But, Virgil seemed to really like the flower he’d found last time, so Patton thought he was probably sad on the boy’s behalf.

Of course, Patton thought, perking up, eventually it would be spring, and Virgil could get to not only see flowers but see all of the flowers grow. Patton couldn’t wait to see him amongst the garden then.

Virgil took them wandering through the orchard for a while, but most of the trees had been stripped of their fruits. They ended up in the food garden after a bit, and Virgil finally seemed to decide on the direction instead of just ambling about.

A few seconds after Patton noticed Virgil seemingly decide on a destination, Patton noticed Mr. Deknis kneeling on the ground a few feet away. Had… had Virgil been looking for him? Patton wondered. That was adorable.

Mr. Deknis looked up as they approached and smiled at them.

“Hello, Mr. Deknis,” Patton said as they came closer.

“Hello you three,” Mr. Deknis said. “Getting into trouble?”

“No,” Virgil said, shaking his head.

Mr. Deknis gave him a flash of a smile. “I know, I’m joking,” he said. “Especially since there isn’t much left in my gardens for certain princes to destroy with experiments.”

“Oh, okay,” Virgil said. He tilted his head. “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting the last of the acorn squash out,” Mr. Deknis replied. “It’s the last crop to get finished. Good thing too, it’s supposed to start snowing soon.”

Virgil looked down curiously at the dark green squash.

“Would you like to help me pick a couple?” Mr. Deknis asked.

“Sure,” Virgil said, sounding interested. Mr. Deknis patted the ground beside him and Virgil knelt down to watch him.

“They’re not too difficult to harvest,” he said. “You just cut the fruit off the stem. You want to leave about a hand’s width of the stem left over which will help preserve moisture. The earlier harvests, I left in the field to cure in the sun for a couple weeks, but the frost’ll ruin them so we’ll take them inside the green house and let them sit in the sun for a bit there. We also want to keep the leaves. You’ll probably be eating those for dinner tonight since they have to be cooked up within about 24 hours after they’re picked. Patton’s mom makes a good side dish with them and she’ll be making some curry tomorrow, probably. Maybe some stew if there are some leftover.”

“Put the squash in this wheelbarrow and the leaves into this pile, okay?” Virgil nodded and Mr. Deknis handed him the extra pair of gloves and shears he carried with him in case one set broke. “These might be a bit big on your, but they should work for now.”

Mr. Deknis looked up at Patton and Logan. “Would the two of you like to help?” he asked. “I can get some more equipment.”

“I can help out if you want, but you don’t need to stop and get more equipment just for me,” Patton said.

“The same for me,” Logan said.

“Well, if you’d like to help still, you can sort the leave. Give your mother a head start.”

“Sure,” Patton said. He and Logan went to do that while Mr. Deknis and Virgil worked on cutting the squashes from the vine.

“What do you do during the winter?” Virgil asked curiously. “If this is your last crop.”

“Well, at the beginning, I mostly will be working on making sure things are stored correctly along with some of the kitchen staff. There’s some drying to do and some canning. After that’s done, I’ll spend some time organizing and planning. Then, before the spring comes, I’ll start preparing seedlings in the green house.”

“Seedlings?” he asked.

“I let seeds start to grow in the greenhouse that I replant once it gets warm enough.”

“Why don’t you just plant them where they’re going?”

“I do for some,” he said, “but giving some a head start is good for them.”

Patton watched as Virgil continued to ask questions about gardening while working on harvesting the squash. Mr. Deknis continued to answer them in a calm, soft tone that Patton didn’t think he’d ever heard from the often gruff man before.

Patton wasn’t surprised when, after finishing getting most of the squash off of the vine, Mr. Deknis asked if Virgil wanted to help him with canning some pears in a couple of days. Virgil immediately looked over at Logan and Patton as though asking permission.

“Say yes if you want to Virgil,” Logan said.

“Yes,” Virgil said as soon as he was given permission. Mr. Deknis smiled at him softly and started loading the last of the squash into the wheelbarrow. Patton offered to run the squash leaves to the kitchen while Logan and Virgil helped Mr. Deknis take the actual squash to the green house.

He dropped the leaves off to a kitchen worker since Mama was busy and headed back out to the garden. By the time he returned, Logan was already back from the green house and sitting by one of the more decorative trees near the castle.

“He’s exploring,” Logan said, nodding at the large patch of bushes.

Patton chuckled. “I see.” He sat next to Logan. Every so often he’d hear the bushes rustle, but he couldn’t tell if it was actually Virgil or an animal.

“He’s adorable,” Patton commented, keeping an ear out.

Logan hummed.

“I’m glad we kept him.”

“He isn’t a pet, Patton.”

Patton rolled his eyes. “I know, but I’m still glad. I’m glad he’s making friends with Mr. Deknis. Once he knows how to read better, we should get him a book about gardening. He seems interested.”

Logan nodded. “Having a hobby would be good for him. Clearly he has a fascination with the garden.” He nodded to the blur of dark hair that could be seen through the bushes. It seemed Virgil had stopped his exploration and was now laying down in the bushes a few feet away.

“I’m going to go see what he’s doing,” Patton said. “I’ll be right back.”

Logan nodded and Patton got to his feet. The bushes were part of a small maze that was filled with flowers during the spring and summer months but were mostly just green and brown bushes for now. Despite the fact that Patton had been able to see him only a few feet away, it took him a while to wind through the path to where he was. When he finally turned the last corner and he came into view, Patton gasped softly.

“Ghost kitty!” he said, making sure to make his voice as quiet as possible.

Despite how soft he made his voice, two pairs of eyes shot over to him. The completely black kitten was perched on Virgil’s lap like she belonged there. Ghost Kitty hissed slightly, but Virgil reached forward to pet her head gently.

“This is Ghost Kitty?” Virgil asked. “I thought you said she was hard to pet.”

“She is,” Patton said. He lowered himself onto the ground from a few feet away from them. “How did you get her to come to you?”

Virgil glanced down at the cat and shrugged, scratching one of her ears. “She just came over to me and let me pet her.”

“Wow,” Patton said softly. He looked at the cat. “Could I pet you sweetie?” he asked, holding out a hand in her direction. She hissed again.

Virgil frowned down at her. “It’s Patton,” he said as though he expected to understand his words and the exasperation in the tone he said them in.

He pet the cat’s head to soothe her and then reached over to grab Patton’s hand. He pulled and Patton carefully leaned a bit closer until his hand was within sniffing distance. Ghost Kitty sniffed his fingers contemplatively and then bumped her head against it. He barely restrained a squeal, knowing that probably wouldn’t be taken well.

He carefully turned his hand over so he could stroke the top of her head. He gently scratched her ear, not daring to go for under her chin yet since she didn’t know him well. “Hi,” he said softly. After a moment, she started to purr softly. Virgil reached over and scratched under her chin and she purred louder. “Oh, you’re a good girl,” Patton breathed, letting a hand trail gently down her back once and then again. Patton settled himself carefully into a seating position continuing to pet her. After a few more moments of soft petting, she hesitantly stepped her front paws onto Patton’s thigh so she was sitting in both of their laps. Patton laughed softly. “Hi sweetie.” He glanced over at Virgil who had a wide smile on his face as he pet the cat. This. This was adorable. They continued to pet the cat for a very long time.

Chapter 31

Logan waited for a while after Patton left to check on Virgil, but the two never resurfaced. It was odd, Patton would usually remember to come back and get Logan or at least tell them where they were. With a sigh, Logan climbed to his feet to go find them. It took him a while to weave his way through the maze of bushes to them especially because they were suspiciously quiet (Well, suspicious for Patton. Virgil was often unnervingly quiet when alone.) Luckily, he knew the bushes enough after all of these years not to get lost and managed to find the two after a few minutes.

“Ah,” he said, immediately identifying the reason for Patton disappearing.

“Logan!” Patton said, his voice excited, but also quieter than normal. “We found a kitty!”

“I can see that,” Logan responded, taking a step closer. The cat hissed at him in response. The hissing was so intense and wild that he’d suspect the thing was feral if it wasn’t happily on Virgil’s lap having had it’s head in Patton’s lap before Logan had approached.

“No,” Virgil told the animal as though it could understand words. “That’s Logan. Be nice.”

The cat still glared at him and swished it’s tail back and forth threateningly. Virgil pet the top of it’s head and it broke eye contact with Logan to purr.

Patton seemed delighted by the purring, reaching to stroke under the thing’s chin carefully. “We should give her a name!” Patton said.

Virgil frowned. “I thought her name was Ghost Kitty.”

“That is ‘Ghost Kitty’?” Logan asked skeptically. From what Patton had said about that cat, it was terrified of people and no one could ever get near it, even him. Now it was in Virgil’s lap?

“But that was a temporary name,” Patton said, “for before we officially met her. Now we have to give her a real name.”

“Do not give it a name,” Logan said. “You will get attached.”

“How do you name a cat?” Virgil asked.

“Do not name it,” Logan said.

“You give them names based on their personalities, how they look, or even just because it’s a cute name,” Patton explained. “Like, remember Mittens? I named her Mittens because she has white fur and black paws!”

Virgil looked at the cat. “She’s completely black,” he said.

Patton hummed. “So, we could give her a name based on that like Midnight or Shadow.”

“Those are fine,” Virgil said.

“No, no,” Patton said. “I’m just giving you examples. You get to name her yourself.”

“This is a bad idea,” Logan said.

“Just throw out some names,” Patton said. “Anything you can think of.”

“Uh,” Virgil said. “Knife.”

“…Just Knife?” Patton asked.

“Nightmare.” Virgil seemed to think about it. “No, that’s mean.”

“How about things you like?” Patton suggested.

“Alfredo?”

Oh no, Logan thought, he was worse than Patton at cat naming.

“Good start,” Patton said. “Logan, do you have any suggestions.”

“Cat,” Logan said.

“Real suggestions,” Patton scolded.

Logan sighed and thought for a moment. “Aphrodite.”

“Catphrodite!”

Logan glared at him. “Helena.”

“Helenpaw.”

“Claudia.”

“Clawdia.”

“Persephone.”

Patton smiled at him, cheerfully.

“…Damnit!”

Patton turned to Virgil again. “Like that! They don’t even have to be serious. Like, uh, you could name her Madam Fluffywuffykins the Great!”

“Do not name her that,” Logan said, scrunching up his nose.

Logan sat on the ground, the cat eyeing him, but no longer hissing. Logan gently guided them towards more sensible names despite Patton trying his hardest to drag them into stupidity.

Virgil still didn’t quite get it. He mostly tried to name it after foodstuff, and often not even appropriate foodstuff such as “Corn” and “Acorn Squash” and “Sandwich” and occasionally would drop in semi violent ones such as “Razor,” “Nightshade” and “Void.” Patton suggested names like “Fluffers,” “Bobette” and “Darling” as well as some that were puns. Logan tried to direct them towards more sensible ones like “Salem” and even went so low as to suggest the contrary “Snowball.”

It quickly seemed to become less about actually naming the cat and more of a game. Patton had taught Virgil about playing with cats and had even gotten out a ball of yarn he cared around for his crafts. Both Virgil and the cat seemed to find endless entertainment with that. Logan hoped Patton had another ball of yarn that color because, he was never going to get that ball back.

The barrage of names fizzled out into naming things around them like “Leaf” and “Bush” until they stopped suggesting names altogether. Patton and Logan sat back and watched Virgil play with the cat.

Logan watched as they stopped playing suddenly and Virgil and the cat squinted at each other. “Marisol,” Virgil said, pulling the name out of nowhere. “That’s her name.” He said it with a certainty that was surprising considering how he’d treated the naming process with confusion and caution earlier. If Logan did not know better, his tone of voice would indicate that the cat, or Marisol he guessed, had gotten bored of them coming up with stupid names and decided to tell him her actual name herself.

The cat made a sound and batted at Virgil’s face without claws to grab back his attention.

He turned back to it and bopped its face with a finger in kind. It attacked his finger, but in a clearly playful matter as it still did not extend it’s claws and its teeth did not draw blood.

“That’s a great name, Virgil,” Patton said.

“Much more pleasant than any that Patton suggested all afternoon,” Logan said. He received an elbow to the side for his quip.

“A pretty name for a pretty kitty,” Patton said, scooting over to where Virgil was sat and attempting to pet Marisol’s head. Marisol, however, was too keyed up and batted at the hand.

“I love you too!” Patton said.

Logan rolled his eyes, but he had long since resigned himself to watching the two of them play with and coo over the cat for the rest of the day.

Eventually, though, it started to get darker. Even after Logan pointed this out, it still took over an hour for them to relent and leave the bush maze to go to the door. The problem was of course, that the cat had managed to grow very attached to Virgil in the last few hours and she followed them all the way to the door with manipulatively heart breaking mews.

“You’ve got to stay out here,” Virgil said, when they got to the castle door. He pet her ear softly and she shoved her head into his hand. “I’m sorry. I don’t have anywhere to put you.” He sounded horribly sad about that fact and Logan felt himself shift uncomfortably. “I basically live in a closet and Logan doesn’t like cats in his room anyway.”

Logan immediately felt unreasonably guilty, probably more so because Logan did not think Virgil was trying to make him feel guilty. “…Bring the dammed thing inside.”

Virgil blinked up at him. “What?”

“It will get cold soon anyway,” Logan said.

He frowned at Logan from where he was crouched. “But you don’t like fur in your room…”

“I will have to find a potion that works,” he said with a sigh, “and we’ll have to say it’s mine to the guards and Father since it will be staying in my room, but it is yours in every other way. That means you are going to feed it, clean it, and clean up after it.”

Virgil nodded immediately and swooped Marisol up in his arms. The cat went without complaint. “Thank you!” he said. “I love her.”

“I know you do,” Logan said, already regretting it already. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to even consider recanting the offer considering how happy Virgil seemed to be. They had a cat now, he guessed.

Chapter 32

“What are you doing?” Helen asked a few minutes after her son walked into the kitchen and started looking around as though he were trying to find something. It was a few hours into the afternoon, and she and a few workers were already prepping for dinner.

“Uh,” Patton said. “Have you seen Virgil?”

“No,” Helen said. “Why.”

“Er… Logan and I sorta, lost him,” Patton said. He was wringing his hands anxiously. Helen put down the knife in her hand.

“What do you mean you lost him?” she asked.

“Well, see, we were trying to teach him how to play hide and seek, um, but then we didn’t think to tell him that he eventually had to come out if we didn’t find him, and now we haven’t seen him since breakfast.”

“He didn’t know what tag is?” she asked. That was just one more thing to add to the list of why Helen worried about Virgil and where he came from. Every morsel of information she’d managed to wring from Patton despite his evasions made her lists of concerns grow larger, even little things like him not knowing about simple childhood games. Actually, thinking of concerning things having to do with Virgil. “Wait, so he hasn’t eaten lunch.”

“Um, we don’t know that,” Patton’s mouth said while his eyes said ‘no.’

“He needs to be on a consistent diet, especially when he’s still taking the malnutrition potion,” she scolded.

“I know, Mama, I know,” Patton said. “I’m trying to find him. I’d kinda hoped he’d gotten hungry and snuck down here. He probably wouldn’t want to risk being caught stealing food though.”

Helen grimaced. Yet another concerning thing.

“Wait! I have an idea, I’ll be right back.” Patton turned and ran out of the room. Helen frowned at the space he’d been and finished chopping the carrot on the cutting board in front of her. If it had been any other person in the castle missing, Helen wouldn’t have worried, but she had literally never seen Virgil without Patton and/or Logan by his side. Even when he’d gone to help Jeff can some fruit, Logan had reportedly hung around to read a book.

Considering that Logan had never exactly been clingy even with Patton, she imagined that either Virgil asked, or Logan thought he should stay with him for his comfort. So, she was surprised that he was apparently hidden away somewhere in the castle where neither of the other kids could find him.

Still thinking about this, she walked over to the entrance to the cellar below the kitchen where they stored most of the vegetables, planning to grab some more carrots. She was confused for a moment when she heard movement from deeper in the pantry. She reached over and touched the panel near the door that controlled the magic lights.

The newly illuminated figure startled as the lights came on, whipping around to stare at her with wide eyes.

“Virgil?” she asked.

“Sorry,” he said immediately, taking a step back.

“It’s fine,” she said immediately, “but what are you doing here?”

He considered her for a long moment, but apparently, she passed some sort of mental test, because he relaxed, at least as much as he’d ever relaxed in her presence. “Where are we?” he asked.

Her brow knit together. “The cellar under the kitchen,” she said, “You don’t know that?”

He shook his head.

“The only entrance is from the kitchen.” Now that she thought about it, she hadn’t seen him go through the kitchen at any point.

“No, it’s not,” Virgil said. “There’s a tunnel.”

“A-a tunnel?” she asked. Actually, taking a closer look at him, he seemed a bit grimy. He had dust all over his front and dirt on his nose. She thought he might even have a couple of cobwebs in his hair.

“Yep,” he said.

“Where’s the tunnel?” she asked.

“It’s right over here,” he said. He took a couple of steps and pointed to the ground. There was an open square hole there that clearly had been made a long time ago but which she had never noticed in all of her time working here.

“How did you find this?” she asked.

“We were playing hide and seek,” Virgil explained. “Logan said I could hide anywhere inside the castle. I hid on top of a dresser upstairs in some unused sitting room. There was a hole in the wall above it, so I climbed into it. Then, I crawled a little bit and it let out into a hidden passage in the walls. I wandered around in it until I found another hole in one of the walls. I thought it was a way out, so I squeezed into it, but it took me to a different hallway where I found an old room. There was a different hole in that room that had probably been covered by something because it was in the floor but whatever it was had rotted away. I crawled though it into a tunnel and came out here.”

She couldn’t help but laugh a bit at his explanation. “Well, it sounds like you went on an adventure,” she said, “but Patton and Logan have been trying to find you. You missed lunch.”

He tilted his head at her. “I know. I was supposed to hide.”

“Yes,” she explained, “but you are supposed to come out at some point if they can’t find you for things like food.”

“Oh,” he said.

“They probably should have explained,” she said. “For now, why don’t we get you something to eat? You must be hungry.”

Virgil frowned. “But I missed lunch.”

“You can still eat even though it’s not in normal hours,” she said. “You could even if you had made it to lunch.”

“Really?” he asked, he looked tragically confused by this offer.

“Of course, sweetie,” she said. “In fact, I insist you get something good to eat right now. How about I made you a grilled ham and cheese sandwich? Maybe some cookies too!”

Virgil titled his head. “You are Patton’s mother,” he stated.

Helen laughed softly. “He gets its all from me,” she said. “We should probably go find him and tell him you’re okay. He was worried.”

“I didn’t mean to worry him,” Virgil said with a frown.

“I know,” Helen said. “It’s okay. He’ll probably laugh when he figures out where you’ve been, and Logan will interrogate you all about the secret passageways.” He seemed happy about the prospect of seeing his friends. “Come on, let’s go upstairs for a bit,” she said.

Chapter 33

Patton’s mom had already made Virgil sit down at the small table in the corner of the kitchen and had handed him a sandwich by the time Patton barreled into the kitchen, Logan coming after him at a more sedate pace.

“Virgil!” he said, sounding surprised and relieved.

“Patton,” Patton’s mom scolded. “No cats in the kitchen.” Patton had brought Marisol in with him and had let her go as soon as he’d seen Virgil. She immediately plodded over to him and hoped onto the table to sniff at his face in greeting.

“But she’s the princess!” Patton argued.

“No,” Logan said.

“Yes, she is!” Patton said.

“The stupid cat is not a princess.”

“Don’t be mean to your little sister, Logan.”

“I regret every life decision that has led me to this point.”

While Logan and Patton were distracted squabbling and Patton’s mom was distracted watching them squabble, Virgil tore off a bit of the ham in his sandwich and offered it to Marisol. Marisol gracefully took it from his grip and ate it.

“So, this is Logan’s new cat I’ve been hearing about?” Patton’s mom asked.

“Indeed,” Logan said, his lips thinned. He and Marisol were mostly amicable when alone with just them and Virgil, but Patton had a habit of cooing over the kitten and needling Logan into being irritated.

“Mmm, yeah,” Patton’s mom said. She glanced over at Virgil right as Marisol basically slammed her face into his chin in a bid to get pets. “Your cat.” She shook her head. “But Princess Kitten or not, I do not want fur in dinner,” she said.

“Sorry,” Patton said, honestly not sounding sorry at all. Virgil was always a bit surprised when the insolent shrug garnered nothing more that a scowl that did not reach Patton’s mom’s eyes. “I thought she could help me find Virgil, but you already found him.” He turned to Virgil. “Where have you been all day?”

“Found a tunnel,” Virgil said. He had to use one hand to hold Marisol back from his sandwich as he took another bite, but then gave her a bite of cheese.

“You found what?” Logan asked.

“There’s a tunnel under the cellar,” Virgil said. “It goes to an old closed up room and also to a set of secret passageways.” It was a bit of a security risk honestly, though clearly no one had used it in years by how dirty it was. He did plan to go back into it and make sure the sprawling tunnels didn’t go to anywhere more dangerous like the royal wing.

“A closed-up room?” Logan said. He could see a bit of curiosity already building in his eyes.

“Yeah,” Virgil said. “Where the door used to be seemed like it had been bricked over.”

“Really? Can you show me.”

“Sure,” Virgil answered.

“Ah, perhaps we should be a bit more cautious about climbing through random tunnels we don’t know the stability of,” Patton’s mom said.

Logan’s frown edged on a pout.

“Talk to your father,” she said. “I’m sure he can get someone who understands these things so you can safely investigate.”

“It was safe enough for Virgil,” Logan pointed out.

“No, Logan.”

He sighed but seemed to concede. That was another strange thing about living here. By all rights Logan didn’t have to obey anyone except the king, but he often listened to those around him, not just the adults but Patton as well. It was interesting though it sometimes made the hierarchy hard to figure out. Virgil did sometimes stress out about the hypothetical situation where he got conflicting orders from two people, and he wouldn’t know which one to obey. So far it hadn’t been a problem luckily. They always seemed to work it out amongst themselves in some give and take social interaction that was a bit too complex for him to understand.

#not writing #proofread stories

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spicycreativity · 3 years

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Soft-Shoe Shuffle - Ch 1

Chapter: 1/12 Rating: T (for language) Content Warnings: Canon-typical Remus content. This chapter only: alcohol use Characters: All Pairings: Moceit, background Prinxiety, background Intrulogical (yes I played a little game of "pair the spares") Additional Tags: Hey it's the fic I published on Anon because I was embarrassed of how utterly pretentious it is!, post-PoF, sickfic, dirty poetry, humor interspersed with philosophy and Janus-typical pontification, this is VERY speculative and will get Jossed in the future lmao Summary: After claiming his place in the Light and coming face-to-face with the consequences of his actions, Janus finds himself unwillingly re-calibrating his moral compass. For selfish reasons, of course. But one apology snowballs into several, and soon he's running around the Mindscape with a low-grade fever and a guilty conscience as he desperately tries to regain some sense of self. Oh, and he's definitely not falling in love with Patton, so don't even bring it up. One Last Note: I wrote this in an ADHD fugue state. It is HEAVILY influenced by Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, but there are also references to poetry and various other works of literature. I also deliberately used symbols, themes, and motifs. Most of them are pretty in your face except for the recurring ouroboros, which is used as a symbol of rebirth. ...Told you it was pretentious.

When you wake up to the promise of your dream world comin' true With one less friend to call on, was it someone that I knew? Away you will go sailing in a race among the ruins If you plan to face tomorrow, do it soon

Janus appeared in the Dark side of the Mindscape, elation swelling in his chest. Even the ringing headache and bitter taste in his mouth couldn't hollow the unfamiliar triumph that warmed him to the core. Caught up in his own thoughts, it took a moment for him to register the sight before him: Remus, upside-down on the couch, his brow furrowed and face an alarming shade of purple.

For a moment, Janus stood stock-still as he tried to get his bearings. He must have been more flustered than he'd realized-- He'd been aiming for his bedroom.

But here he was, staring down at Remus, who was definitely going to burst a blood vessel (or several) if he didn't flip over soon.

"That's not horrifying at all," Janus said, thinking it would be rude to dismiss Remus, especially since he had probably been eavesdropping. He had likely heard everything. Everything. Even the ugly parts.

"Do you remember when Thomas read that post about Nutty Putty Cave?" Remus asked in a strained, strangled voice. "That spelunker who died because he got stuck upside-down?"

"No," Janus said, before realizing his mistake. "Yes." He definitely wanted Remus to remind him of the gory details.

"That's what I thought," Remus said with a wicked grin.

Janus sighed through his nose. Remus, though he thrived on attention, seemed content enough to continue his experiment by himself. On the other hand, if Janus didn't bring up a certain insult he'd levied at Roman, Remus most certainly would, and at a time where it would cause the most upset and turmoil. Better for Janus to deal with it now, even if he would have to fight the tension pulling his muscles taut. He wanted to dance. He wanted to scream.

Hesitation proved to be Janus' downfall, and by the time he'd opened his mouth to broach the subject at hand, Remus had beaten him to the blow. "You're not usually this quiet, Oralboros. Snake got your tongue?"

Janus, again, sighed. Rather than answer, he doffed his hat, set it on the coffee table, and clumsily arranged himself upside-down next to Remus. The change in position immediately made his head throb. He ignored it. "I definitely meant it when I called you 'evil'."

Remus' eyes widened in faux-shock. "You called me evil ?" he shrieked, voice ringing out high and clear. "Me? How dare you. I'm an angel!"

At least Remus was taking it well. "Sarcasm is my thing," Janus said, realizing that he might make it out of this without having to properly apologize.

For some reason, Patton's face flashed into his mind, and a subsequent twinge of guilt made his tongue go sour. Fine. If there was ever a time to start telling uncomfortable truths… "But I am sorry I said that."

"Wow!" Remus laughed. "You must be upset." A red stain began to spill across his left eye. "You don't apologize."

"It’s not like I care about your feelings or anything." Janus would have liked to have drawn himself up to his full height, but it was impossible to do while upside-down. "As much as I'm enjoying watching your blood vessels slowly burst, would you please turn over before you hurt yourself? I've suffered enough psychological trauma for today."

"Oh, fine." Remus kicked his legs and landed neatly on his toes like a gymnast.

Janus, by contrast, got his arms tangled in his capelet and nearly folded himself in half before he found his balance again. "I meant to do that," he said, turning to grab his hat so Remus wouldn't see the blush on his face.

The sudden sensation of blood draining from his head made the room whirl. He steadied himself against Remus' shoulder until it slowed somewhat, but nothing could dampen the horrible ringing in his ears.

"Well," he said, adjusting his shirt. The sudden appearance of his conscience had taken the wind out of his sails more than he cared to admit, and all thoughts of dancing bled out of him along with a good deal of energy. "I'm not going to go scream into my pillows until I tire myself out."

"Being an agent of chaos is hard work," Remus said with a sage nod, "but that doesn't sound very relaxing, Mr Self Care."

"It's a form of meditation, if you think about it," Janus said.

Remus made a face. "You know I don't do that."

"...Meditate?"

"No, think."

"Ah. Well." Janus made only a token attempt to hide his fond smile. "Good night, Remus. Please stay up late and injure yourself."

"Can do, Snakeypoo.”

Janus turned. It was close enough, he might as well walk to his bedroom, especially considering how well his last attempt at appearing in it had gone.

The reason why that had been so difficult became apparent in mere moments. Janus froze in the hall and dropped to his knees at the giddy wave of horror and delight that made him too light-headed to stand.

He knelt in front of the empty stretch of wall where his door had been previously. Heat flooded his face.

"Jay?" The rounded toes of Remus' boots appeared in his line of sight. Janus zeroed in on them, the mud splatters and stains on the soft leather. "You have an aneurysm or what?"

Janus, unable to speak, motioned for Remus to turn around. He couldn't deal with this right now.

"Ohhh," said Remus. "Well. Good luck with that ." He hauled Janus to his feet. "So you're a boner fide good guy now, huh?"

Janus stared over Remus' shoulder at the empty stretch of wall where his door used to be. "That depends entirely on who you ask."

Remus shrugged and rose up on his toes. "You can scream into my pillows instead, if you want."

"As tempting as that is…" Janus trailed off, his eyes still fixed on the wall. It was tempting, despite the constant chaos in Remus' room. But he'd have to face the Light side sooner or later. It wasn't like he could move his room back, not without psychologically damaging Thomas and undoing all the work he'd done. "I'm really looking forward to getting insulted some more."

"Alright," Remus said with a shrug. "Try not to throw me under the bus this time, alright? Unless it's a real bus…" His gaze became dreamy, unfocused. "And it's doing 50 in a school zone and there's a whole pack of screaming kids in the crosswalk--"

"Goodbye, Remus." Janus turned and left.

The barrier between the "dark" and the "light" sides of Thomas' brain had been a joint venture. It would have been there in some form no matter what, but it was Janus and Roman (with Patton's tacit blessing) who had worked to put up something more physical between them.

Janus ducked under the red curtain, trepidation percolating in his stomach, but what he found on the other side was anticlimactic to say the least: It was dead silent on this side of the barrier.

Janus wasn't sure what he'd been expecting. He knew by now that the so-called "Lights" had issues working out their interpersonal issues, and this most recent conflict wasn't the kind of thing you just got over. It did follow that they would all go off to lick their wounds for a time.

Hesitantly, toe-to-heel, Janus crept down the hall. It felt for all the world like he was sneaking around a vast hotel, right down to needlessly ornate design on the plush carpeting. That was probably Roman's doing.

Janus focused, trying to call the Mindscape to work for him. He wanted to go to his room.

The Mindscape listened. Janus turned a corner and found a row of doors stretching down yet another brightly-lit corridor. His eye was immediately drawn, not to the brilliant yellow of his own door, but to the figure huddled in front of it: Patton sat with his arms wrapped around his legs, forehead resting on his knees.

"Looking for someone?" Janus asked, slightly louder than necessary.

Patton jerked his head up. "Oh! Janus!" He plastered an unconvincing smile on his face. "You sure pop star-tled me."

Scaring Patton hadn't brought Janus nearly the level of schadenfreude he'd thought it would. He crossed his arms over his chest, extending a third to help Patton up. "Take your time getting to the point.”

"Oh." Patton accepted Janus' proffered hand and got to his feet. Warmth spilled from him, permeating the fabric of Janus' glove and gently heating his palm. "Well, it's just…" He took a deep breath. "I noticed your door and I thought-- Well, I wanted to make you feel welcome!"

A high-pitched tone resonated in Janus' skull. He bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from wincing at the mounting pressure-pain-exhaustion in his temples. "Aren't you just a saint ." Patton's face fell. Janus fought the urge to swear aloud. He usually had a better handle on himself, and he knew better than to alienate potential allies. "I mean, thank you, Patton. Truly. I appreciate it." Patton had proven himself useful. Janus should at least cultivate that relationship, even if it meant a little discomfort.

"Have you eaten?" Patton asked. "It's a little late, but I could make something if you wanted." He paused. "Maybe we could play cards or something." Another pause. "O-only if you want to, I mean."

Janus let his face remain impassive even as he internally cringed at the idea of staying awake for even another second. It would be so easy to brush Patton off with a few honeyed words and disappear beyond the barrier of his door. But Patton had stood up for him today, or at least he'd tried to. Janus sighed. Quid pro quo. "That sounds like an utter waste of time."

"Are you… I'm sorry, sometimes I can't tell when you're…"

"Yes, Patton. That sounds lovely."

Patton actually hopped in place, an adorable little jig that absolutely didn't send a confusing little shockwave of fondness through Janus' ribcage. "Really?"

"Really," Janus lied.

He followed Patton down the hall into the living room, which opened into the dining room and the kitchen. Janus studied his surroundings, trying to take in as much as his exhausted faculties would allow. Even in the absence of other Sides, the living room felt warm and welcoming. All the lights were on, and they bathed everything in gentle golden light .

"You're awfully quiet," Patton said.

Janus shook himself. "I was just getting my bearings."

"I guess you've never really been over here, huh?" Pattton opened the refrigerator. Was he actually going to cook , instead of just manifesting something? How quaint. "Do you like grilled cheese?"

It had been a long, confusing day. Doublespeak came to Janus as naturally as breathing, but he was obviously running circles around Patton even when he wasn't trying to. "Yes," he said, hoping to telegraph his sincerity by not emoting at all.

It seemed to work. Patton studied him for a moment before turning back to the fridge. "Then that's what I'll make."

Janus took advantage of this temporary distraction to clamber onto one of the barstools. The slick velvet of his capelet tended to disagree with surfaces like wood and vinyl, and he needed a moment to arrange things so he didn't look as unbalanced as he felt.

He watched Patton work in the kitchen, a detached coolness washing out the scene. Quid pro quo, he reminded himself when he felt his facade begin to slip. He owed Patton this.

He certainly didn't feel the slightest twinge of guilt, that he had been the one to orchestrate this breakdown. Yes, the Light Sides had loaded the gun, but in the end it was Janus who had pulled the trigger.

He shook his head and thought about playing cards, good Bicycle playing cards with holes punched through them like they'd come from a casino. "What should we play?" he asked, pulling the deck from his breast pocket.

Patton looked up from the stovetop, his eyes flicking to the cards in Janus' hand. "Do you know Kings in the Corners?"

"Not personally, no."

Patton laughed, but there was something cold about it. "It's really simple," he said. "I'll show you how to play and you can tell me if you like it."

It was nearly impossible to cheat at Kings in the Corners. Janus doubted this had been a calculated measure on Patton's part, doubted he had the capacity for that kind of foresight, but he respected it just the same.

They played in funereal silence, staring each other down across the light wood of the dining room table. Janus, ill-inclined to take off his gloves, utilized a napkin to keep from staining them with melted butter from the grilled cheese Patton had made. Neither one of them smiled. Neither one of them spoke.

Janus pulled a card from the deck to indicate the end of his turn and glanced up at Patton. His face was somber, almost sorrowful, and it clashed against the gentle domesticity of the dining room, with its floral table runner and mismatched placemats.

Janus started to laugh.

"What is it?" Patton asked, cheeks darkening. "What? Do I have something on my face?"

Janus swallowed down another peal of laughter and cleared his throat, unable to wholly restrain the smile tugging at the corners of his lips. "You look like I’m holding you here at gunpoint." It was somewhat ironic, considering Janus was the one who felt like he couldn't leave.

"What?" Patton smiled, but it was more akin to an offering than an expression of joy.

"It’s not really funny. " Janus wasn’t quite sure how to make Patton understand.

Patton sat back with a sigh, placing his cards facedown on the table. "But I guess it is pretty funny, huh? In a really sad way."

Janus almost asked what was sad about it before realizing that Patton probably missed his friends. Instead he said, "Yes" and stifled a yawn behind his free hand.

"I'll make coffee!" Patton leapt to his feet and was off to the kitchen before Janus could so much as blink.

The newfound solitude made it that much harder for Janus to ignore his headache, which had only worsened in the hour or so he'd been playing cards with Patton. Despite the nonchalant facade he'd tried so hard to project, he'd been holding himself tense.

Maybe the night (or morning, at this point) would be easier to tolerate if he had, say, a bit of gold rum.

The corner of a flask dug into Janus' hip. He smiled.

"Just how late are you planning on staying up?" he asked Patton when the latter returned holding two mismatched mugs.

"Oh, I don't know," Patton said. Lied. He set a mug down in front of Janus and then resumed his seat, the cards forgotten by his elbow. "I'm… A little scared of what tomorrow will be like."

Janus eased the flask out of his pocket. "Rum?"

"Oh, um," Patton said, staring at the flask. "I don't know…"

Janus raised an eyebrow, working something out. He landed on it a millisecond later: Patton wanted to be convinced. Easy enough. Janus opened the flask and poured what he hoped was a shot into his own mug. It was black, he noticed, except for the yellow snake that wrapped around it, its tail firmly in its own mouth. Ouroboros. "Surely you don't intend to make me drink alone?"

As Janus had expected, Patton buckled the second he was pushed. "I guess not."

It was funny, Janus mused as he carefully tipped rum into Patton's coffee, how lying was only off-limits when Janus suggested it. Hilarious.

But now wasn't the time for bitterness, now was the time to repay the debt he owed Patton. "Cheers," he said, pocketing the flask once more.

"Cheers."

Janus sipped his coffee. "You put milk in this," he observed.

Patton's smile was surprisingly sly. "I know you want me to think you take it black. Virgil did too, at first. I know you ‘Dark Sides’ have an image you like to uphold."

"And how does Virgil take his coffee now?" Janus asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"With Snickers-flavored creamer."

"Well, I do take my coffee black," Janus lied.

Patton's smile never faltered. "We'll see, kid-- Uh, Janus."

"Patton," Janus said, before he could start thinking about the implications of Patton wanting to call him 'kiddo,' "you are planning on sleeping tonight, aren't you?"

"Maybe eventually," Patton said, suddenly unable to look Janus in the eye. "At some point."

"Tomorrow will come whether or not you sleep. It's definitely better to pull an all-nighter and feel like garbage instead of facing everything with a clear head."

"I know." Patton leaned forward so he could rest his head on his hand.

For a moment, Janus was tempted to mirror him. Sitting up straight was becoming quite the chore. "I know how the others love a calm, rational discussion."

"Oh, I wish." Patton's expression turned wistful.

Janus stifled a yawn behind his hand. He had half-expected the coffee to counteract the depressant effect of the alcohol, but all he had to show for the combination was a racing heart.

"I'll be fine out here if you want to go to bed," Patton said. Without seeming to realize he was doing it, he brought his hand to his mouth and bit down on his thumbnail.

It was a tempting offer. A day ago, Janus would have taken it. After all, it wasn't like he cared about Patton outside of professional courtesy. They weren't friends. But guilt nagged at him and wouldn't let him entertain the idea of abandoning Patton for longer than a second.

"That's a remarkable impression of a window," Janus said, waiting for Patton to look confused before elaborating, "I can see right through you."

"You got me." Patton smiled sadly. "That's something I've always admired about you, Janus."

Now it was Janus' turn to be confused. "What?"

"You're so… clever."

Janus narrowed his eyes. "Please do keep trying to change the subject."

"It's just… I don't want to have to lie there and, and think about today and everything I did wrong. I hurt Thomas. I hurt my friends." Patton's eyes were shiny behind his glasses; the unshed tears sparkled in the light when he locked eyes with Janus. "Aren't you going to think about the same thing?"

Anger flared, perhaps prematurely, in Janus' chest. "About what you did wrong today?"

"About what you did wrong," Patton said timidly.

"I," Janus said icily, "didn't do anything wrong." He stared Patton down across the table, jaw set, daring him to push back. Let him lecture and nag, let him prove that he hadn't changed no matter what he said.

But Patton only nodded, his face lined with misery. "Okay," he softly. "I think you're right, Janus. We should go to bed."

Janus thought about how much faster he could get to bed if the table was cleared, and all the dishes and cards vanished in a blink.

"Um, Janus?" Patton said.

"Yes?"

"I don't regret everything that happened today."

"Oh?"

Patton only nodded and sank out.

Janus made a beeline for his own room; better to find his way there on foot rather than risk appearing in the wrong spot.

Once inside, he looked around to ensure nothing was amiss, eyes roving over the dark wood of his bookshelves and desk, his mirrored closet doors, the leather armchairs across from his bed.

Everything was exactly as Janus had left it. He nodded, satisfied, set his hat on the nightstand, and sprawled out of top of the covers without bothering to further undress.

One hazy thought crawled to the surface of his mind before he fell asleep: At least he wouldn't be one of the regrets haunting Patton tonight.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #janus sanders #moceit #spicywrites soft-shoe shuffle #song featured is: race among the ruins - gordon lightfoot #pics are free to use from unsplash and wikimedia commons

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black-streak · 4 years

Text

Little Pistol - Nothing Personal

Chapter 2

First Previous Next

It'll be a minute before Tim is actually introduced here, by the way. Mostly because I'm not 100% certain who exactly I want him to be affiliated with and how he'll operate yet.

Which reminds me, I'm opening that to a vote that I'll post tomorrow. It's open to all, but anyone tagged in this should expect to be tagged onto that as well. I would like your input, please.

LP Taglist

@zalladane @moonlightstar64 @amayakans @elmokingkong @queen-in-a-flower-crown @karategirl119 @dreamykitty25 @danielslilangel @melicmusicmagic @xahriia @sassakitty

Permanent list

@naoryllis @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @my-name-is-michell @maribat-is-lifeblood @dast218 @novicevoice @shizukiryuu @princess-of-fangirls @bigpicklebananatree @pirats-pizzacanninibles @abrx2002 @breemeister @darkthunder1589 @thestressmademedoit @severelyenchantedwonderland @isabellemasen @multi-fandom-freak0221 @fantasyloversblog @bzz75 @cloudiedraws @jardimazul @orbitsvt @gingerdaile @sotheresthatthought @kadmeread @novaloptr @unabashedlyswimmingtimemachine @crazylittlemunchkin @18-fandoms-unite-08 @tiny-goddess-of-chaos @ladybug-182 @toodaloo-kangaroo @the-alice-of-hearts

~---~

The next battle came as a stark contrast to the normal. Chat still flirted, still tried to get close, but he kept fighting, kept helping even when she ignored him. Then, the most amazing thing happened. She got hit after getting distracted by one of his comments and instead of yelling at him for it and being pushed off in turn, he turned to the akuma. Without a word from her, he stopped his comments and went after the cursed object with a single minded focus she'd never seen from him before. Within ten minutes with minimal help on her part, he was presenting her with the blackened hair tie of the victim.

"A token, m'lady," he bowed, but kept his eyes downcast.

"Thank you, Chat," she managed to get out in her surprise, taking the item and working her magic on it and the city alike.

"I'm sorry," he murmured at her side, "I distracted you and got you hurt. That's my fault."

"It is," she agreed, not wanting to lie and say it wasn't, but also fighting back her urge to comfort him, "You'll do better next time," she stated.

"Much better," he promised, peeking up at her in hope of forgiveness. She swallowed back her instinct to grant it.

"Good," she nodded and took off back to school.

…

She spent most of the school day comparing his attitude this time to the last akuma attack, startled to realize what a difference a single conversation could make. She did that. She managed to make him change. Sure, she was injured, but only the once and he even said he was sorry! Took responsibility for his mistakes. That was unprecedented. She couldn't help but wonder how much pushing it would take to stop him completely. To incite obedience. Not that she planned to push it to that level, but it was a curious thing.

As she pondered on the logistics of such an act, just for the fun of it, she stepped out of the classroom, intending to head out for the day, she noticed Chloe shooing Sabrina off. Probably to act on some offhanded whim of the blonde. Marinette can't help the niggling thought of how she could change that as well. What words would it take to set Sabrina free? What made Chloe tick?

As she passed Alya, the reporter talking to Nino, or rather, at Nino, she thought of how to switch the roles. How to encourage Nino to express himself more openly. To be comfortable in his own skin enough to confidently express it.

Her grin grew as she planned out exactly how each encounter went down, coming up with on the spot ideas and improvising at a drop of a hat for whatever response they might have. It reminded her of the thrill of figuring out a particularly difficult lucky charm. Plus, it was perfectly harmless to consider right? As long as she didn't act on it. And even if she did, it would benefit them all, so really, it didn't hurt to consider.

And if the outcomes were as good as Chat's were, even better. If she went through with it, that is.

…

A week came and went and as did another attack.

Chat waited until the akuma was caught and purified to flirt, ensuring she never became distracted by him or anything else for that matter. He called out any incoming projectile, caught her attention anytime anything happened that she might've missed. Took another hit for her. That frustrated her, but the rest was a needed reprieve from the stress of akuma's past. And then he started flirting.

"Chat, what are you doing?"

"Well surely, I've proven my dedication to you, m'lady. I figure we might celebrate?"

"You've proven nothing of the sort," she stated, head tilted in confusion.

"I did to! I made sure you weren't harmed, I took the attack seriously, I even apologized and caught the akuma for you last time!"

"That isn't proof of love, Chat. That's basic human decency. I would do that for any hero or civilian for that matter. If that's a show of devotion to you, I'd hate to see how you treat people you're indifferent to," Ladybug countered, lips pursed and eyebrows pinching in.

"I'm perfectly nice to people I don't know," he defended himself quickly.

"Oh," her expression swiftly morphed, eyes widening into a look of taken aback surprise, "So you treat strangers well, but those you care about are lucky to hear an apology from you? Thank kwami I'm a ladybug then, I guess."

"That's not what I meant, of course I apologize when I'm in the wrong," he backtracked.

"So you think last time was the only time you messed up with me," she clarified.

"Well no…" Chat hedged, looking down again.

"You've barely proven that you don't hold malicious intent towards me. Don't push your luck, kitty. Black cats don't have any," she stated, taking off to leave him alone with his thoughts once more.

…

Arriving home, she dropped the transformation, collapsing on her chaise and shaking her head, "I can't believe I said that. Oh my gosh, I actually said that," she stared off into the distance.

"Neither can I. That was very harsh of you, Marinette, I'm disappointed in you," Tikki spoke up from her knee where she sat glaring with a pout on her face.

However, instead of immediately groveling as she normally did, Marinette's eyes sharpened as they snapped to the creature, sick of the treatment she'd received from the goddess since she first implemented this new tactic, "Was anything I said a lie?"

"No, but you could've said it in a nicer way," she insisted.

"When has carefully and nicely ever worked with him in the past?"

Tikki opened her mouth, but Marinette swiftly cut her off, "Never. It always ends with you chastising me and me apologizing for something that wasn't my fault. Nothing ever changed. But this, being direct with him, it works. He's changing, finally," she felt relief in letting this out, especially in the face of someone so hypocritical in her expectations on her compared to that of her so-called partner.

"Marinette, you can't just change people into who you want them to be!"

"I'm not changing him. I'm telling him what I see and how I feel and he is reacting to that information how he sees fit," she corrected, eager now at the prospect once more.

Tikki frowned, considering this point, "That's technically true… I still don't like it though."

"It's okay Tikki, you'll see soon enough," she reassured.

…

As day shifted to night, she pulled out her tablet, checking for any news on her new favorite hero.

Nothing to discover today, though she did start making a few sketches of his suit, looking at possible redesigns. Adjustments or details that could be made to improve the overall look or functionality. Granted, it looked very functional already.

She was startled to discover that even she wouldn't change much in that aspect. It became blatantly clear that he designed the suit to accommodate him perfectly, playing up his strengths and drawing away from any potential weaknesses. It only further her admiration and assured her of her choices.

…

The next attack came sooner than expected, Hawkmoth apparently deciding he had more free time than them. As though that hadn't been obvious from the beginning. Surely, they knew that from the start and didn't need this reminder. Didn't the man have a job or something? Could he get back to it, please?

Speaking of, Chat was doing a remarkable job of trying to follow a purified white butterfly off into the horizon, wanting to please her by taking the hunt for the villain to heart. As though she hadn't tried that already.

You'd think he hadn't listened to a word she'd said before the way he retraced her own work over again. Rolling her eyes, she let him humor himself, waiting until he came back, tail tucked and ears flattened, to admit his failure.

Sitting down, she relaxed into her spot. This was going to take a while.

…

It was three am and she had pulled up the newest article on her Robin. She still hadn't found his official name, but she thrilled to see new pictures of him, though still shadowed and from such terrible angles. Apparently he had more recently been seen working alongside another. Something he hadn't done before as far as the city of Gotham knew, still so ignorant to him being their very own wonderful Robin. She couldn't really be bothered to look further into who he was seen working with, but something in the back of her mind twinged as her heart stuttered to know he was willing to fight alongside another.

Closing up the window and shutting down her tablet, she fell asleep with a smile.

#Dark!timinette #timinette #maribat #ml x dc #can yall see where this is going?

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kylorenfanfic · 4 years

Text

Long Away - chapter 1

Kylo Ren x Female Reader

Masterlist

Story: You have been hiding for years, ever since the slaughter in your temple. You were one of the many force-sensitive children that Luke Skywalker was training to be the New Jedi Order. You were there when Ben Solo killed everybody, but you were lucky enough to survive, you weren’t important, he didn’t remember that he let you go by accident. You had given up and ran away to hide in Dantooine, but when you heard that Kylo Ren had become the Supreme Leader, you realized that you couldn’t stay out of it any longer. Finding your way into the First Oder and gaining Kylo Ren’s trust so you could help the Resistance by giving them inside information. But things turned out to be very different than you expected to be the closer you get to the Supreme Leader. A/N: Hi guys, so this is my first fanfic and I am completely nervous about it. I have written more chapters of it already, but I am not sure if I am going to post it. Tell me if you guys like it or if I should keep posting. The first chapters are kinda boring because it’s the context of the whole story. If you wanna be tagged also, let me know. Love, and I hope you enjoy it. Words: 1.6k

It was a warm day in the Fields of Banir. It wasn’t sunny but you could feel the heat. It was the first time in a while that you were leaving the old Jedi Temple. You have been living there for the past few years, ever since you lost everything and everyone. You used your Force abilities to hide yourself, to shield yourself from any other Force sensitive being that might land. You had to go to Garang to get some of the supplies – even though you were living out of things you could collect in the fields. Sometimes you needed stuff, like medicine and fresh clothes, and that was when you would travel to the capital city of Dantooine.

You weren’t used to having many people around – especially when most of were Dantaris – but you still enjoyed having a change of scenery. Sometimes the cold walls of the ancient Temple became too much for you. It was there, in Garang when you first heard it.

“The First Order has a new Supreme Leader” someone around you said, you couldn’t identify the voice among the crowd.

“It is Kylo Ren, you know? That guy in the mask” other person replied.

“Does that mean things are getting worse?” the voice faded away and you couldn’t hear the answer. Kylo Ren was the Supreme Leader now? That meant he wasn’t being controled by someone, he wasn’t being brainwashed to be in the Dark Side. He was fully part of the Dark Side now. And was its leader. You shook your head, that wasn’t your problem. It was when your mind started to fade.

“(Y/N)!” you heard someone screaming. You were lost among the chaos, the buildings were collapsing and there were flames everywhere. “Stay where you are!”, you heard Hylia’s voice in your head.

Hylia was your best friend, the one who took care of you when you first arrived to the Temple, feeling alone and afraid, after losing your parents and discovering your Force sensitiveness. You couldn’t leave her there to die. You disobeyed her orders and tried to find her. Then you saw him, Ben Solo killing the padawans. Hylia was standing in front of him and with a furious scream, she ran into his direction holding up her green lightsaber. They started to fight and then she saw you, she didn’t say a word, she concentrated, her hand drawn out and in this weak moment the man in front of her killed her with his lightsaber. He turned around to find other remaining padawans and he passed right next to you. He didn’t see you. You ran to Hylia’s body. She was barely alive, wounds from lightsabers do not bleed, but are just as fatal as a blaster shot.

“Hide.” she said. It was when you realized she was using her powers to hide you from Ben. You felt tears on your cheeks. She faded away, hiding your Force signature has weakend her badly wounded body. And you ran, never looking back.”

Hylia died to protect you and her last word was the thing you have been doing ever since. You didn’t want to do anything about what was going on in the galaxy. Let the Resistance and the First Order kill themselves. But now… now things were different. Ben Solo wasn’t a bad person and you knew it, he had saved you once before during training, so long before the massacre happened. Maybe Ben Solo was indeed dead and now all that remained was the devious Kylo Ren, now the Supreme Leader.

It was one of the teachings of a jedi, to never be selfish. You could help to defeat him. You could help to avenge Hylia and all the others that died by his hand. Because now it was just himself, not someone controlling his mind.

You had a feeling. You could do it, you could help somehow. And inside you, you felt the urge to do something, you felt that you couldn’t handle another day of solitude in that goddamn Jedi ruin, another day in this goddamn planet. You had your lightsaber with you, you didn’t need anything else, you could leave everything behind and that was what you did.

You entered that place and it smelt bad, the smell of dust and old durasteel. You saw the man behind the balcony.

“I need a ship” you said straight forward. He looked at you and laughed.

“You have currency?” he replied with a sarcastic smile.

“How much?” and the answer that he gave you made you gasp. “That is an absurd amount of credits!” you protested, you didn’t have nearly enough credits for that.

“No money, no ship.”

“It must have another way to get it.”

“You are that girl, right? That lives in the ancient Temple?”

“You can say that.”

“Are you a Jedi? Hear they could do stuff.” he asked and you bulffed.

“Of course not.” you answered as it was an insult, mostly for him to believe you.

“You know how to fight?” he were asking with a lot of interest

“I do…” you suspicious answered. “Get to the point.”

“Get me this man, and the ship is yours.” He said showing you a hologram of a Dantari.

“What has he done?”

“He owes me credits. Bring him to me and you get a ship. His name is Barak Norurdi and he lives in the Taikana Hills. You have until tomorrow morning.”

“That is ridiculous”.

“Bring me Barak or no ship.”

You went out of that old place thinking about what you were going to do with your life. Going after a dantari? For what? Just for you to try to find Kylo Ren and kill him? Or at least help to destroy his Order? What were you thinking?

You had that feeling again. The Force wanting to talk to you somehow. You had shut yourself to the Force for so long and you couldn’t understand why now it was finding your way back to you. If only master Luke was still around…

You got in your way to the Taikana Hills, the sun was almost setting when you got there. You saw a little house, there was light on, you decided to go there, maybe they would know something about Barak.

You knocked on the door. No answer. You knocked again. You heard someone speak in Dantarian. The door was open.

“Hi” you said with a simple smile, hoping that he would know your language.

“Hello” he answered in a thick accent, no smile.

“I am looking for Barak Norurdi, have you heard of him?” the man gave you a suspicious look.

“It is I, who asks?” that was incredibly easy, you could barely believe it.

“I came to collect your debt to Caran Spero.” You said more firmly than you felt.

“I owe no currency to Caran Spero. Caran Spero owes me. He stole from me.” He said getting angrier.

“Look, I am sorry, ok? But I am just following what was asked from me.”

“Stupid human.” And he closed the door.

“It’s going to be on the hard way then.” You told yourself. You kicked the door and it opened with a bang. The dantari man looked at you surprised. He came in your way with angriness. You had your staff with you, you wouldn’t use your saber anymore. You fought the dantari man, he was using his bare hands and you were skiving from his punches using your body and staff. Your staff went down to his legs making him fall behind, his head hitting the floor, he had a painful expression on.

“Look man, I’m sorry ok, but I gotta get out of this planet.” And you knocked him unconscious. You thought about how you could bring that heavy dantari back to Garang. You went out the wooden house and tried to find for some short of speeder. What were you expecting? Dantaris aren’t people who use tech… well, but this one apparently was. Maybe that was the reason why he was in debt with Spero.

You put the unconscious man, tied up, on the speeder and started to drive. You felt the wind in your face, it was night already and you had to smile, you haven’t felt that alive for so long, maybe what you were doing was right afterwards. It felt right.

You got to the store after a couple hours.

“Oh, the bounty hunter is back.” Spero said when he saw you entering his shop.

“I am not a bounty hunter” and you dropped Barak on the floor in front of him. He was up now, but all tied up, he couldn’t make a proper move.

“Oh, ho ho ho. It seems like a bounty hunter to me! Well done, well done!” He said, coming around the dantari laying on the floor.

“Can I get the ship now?”

“Sure thing, sure thing. Let me show you, it’s already outside in the back.” you followed him to the back and there was an old ship there.

“That is garbage!” you exclaimed, angry.

“Well, I didn’t say what kind of ship, right? That is what you got. You didn’t seem that had that much work to bring him back to me.”

“You are a worm!”

“Careful with your words, young lady. You know what? Now you got no ship, that’s it, that’s what you get for ingratitude.” In your fury you got your lightsaber from your belt, hidden behind your tunic and threatened him with the saber on his neck, the blue light lightening up both your faces.

“You said you were no Jedi” he roared.

“And I am not, the Jedi are dead. Now give me the ship. A good one.”

“Alright, alright, since you asked nicely” and he escorted you to the other hangar. “It’s a CT-21, good model, you can get to where ever you want fast.” You looked at him and then ran to the ship, getting in. You knew how to pilot from your padawan days.

You started to pilot the ship, and in no time you were leaving Dantooine, the place you thought you’d die in. Now you were heading to the unknown… or better saying, heading to Kylo Ren.

CHAPTER 2

#kylo ren #kylo ren fanfic #kylo ren x reader #fanfic #star wars fanfic #star wars sequel #ben solo #ben solo fanfic #ben solo x reader #kylo ren x reader fanfic #ben solo x reader fanfic #kylo x reader #star wars fanfiction #kylo ren fanfiction #kylo ren x you #kylo ren imagine #kylo ren imagines #female reader #kylo ren x female reader

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nebulastarss · 4 years

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So, in that post with the art of Rantaro and Kaito, I talked about an au in the tags but didn't go into much detail. This post is just, all about the detail. Keep in mind, had it been just me planning out this AU, it wouldn't be nearly as angsty. I worked on it with @miswritten-chronology

It started off with me just... Talking about the different fusions and their appearances, and how fusing works, so let's start like that here too!

In this AU, the fusing is kind of similar to Steven Universe. A fusion can be unstable, corrupted, or stable. A large difference is, these aren't Gems, they're still humans. In this AU, fusing is a normal thing that everyone can do. Also, you can fuse with a corrupted person without getting corrupted yourself.

Shuichi fuses with all but 2 of his classmates: Tsumugi and Maki. The reason is, when you fuse, you share memories. He accidentally fused with so many people, but he's so likeable that none of the fusions fall apart or get corrupted.

Two of them are already corrupted actually. Miu and Korekiyo. They both have small dots all over their bodies, and not a soul realizes this about Kiyo until he accidentally fuses with Shuichi and they see the (smaller amount of) skin dot things. Miu also fuses with Shuichi, and Kaede at one point, so I'mma talk about their appearances for a second.

The Shuichi and Miu fusion is really pretty, wearing a balance between Shuichi's very covering clothes and Miu's explosion to make a crop top and shorts (not booty shorts). Their hair is around mid-back and I haven't decided on a color yet. They do have Miu's eye color though.

The Kiyo fusion has really nice hair and a lot of accessories. That's all that I wrote down about it. The hair is a more saturated blue than either of their individual hair. That's all I can really say about it.

The Kaede fusion was also accidental but Kaede just shrugged and let it happen and Shuichi always panics too much to really do anything when accidentally fusing. Their wearing a medium purple striped skirt with the long sleeved white button up shirt they both wear. The hair is shoulder length and a desaturated blond.

Kaede still kills someone in chapter 1, so their fusion is Kaito's way of trying to cheer him up. It has Kaito length hair, but down with a galaxy-like gradient. They have a white shirt with red lines, a long blue jacket with a galaxy under side. The pants are a dark purple with Shuichi's shoes. They're also tall as all hell, being around 7-8 feet tall.

The next one I talked about before we got into the story element is Kiibo's fuse. Kiibs wanted to prove that he can do it too, and chose Shuichi because everyone trusts Shuichi. It was mainly a robot Shuichi but with some Kiibo attributes, like eyes and antenna. When he heard the inner voice, Shuichi startled so fiercely that he broke the fusion.

Their talents are also fused, depending on who's more... There's no other way to say it. I'm not gonna tho. Let's take the Miu and Shuichi fusion. The fusion takes after Miu more, along with her talent, making them a puzzle designer. You can figure out why without me having to type it again.

Of course then we got derailed by talking about a fuse that would never happen. Kokichi doesn't like memory sharing, and fights fusions like there's no tomorrow, making them very unstable and fall apart near instantly. The only person he fuses with is Shuichi, accidentally. They just sorta... sit on the ground, blue screening as they process all of the information. The whole class is gathered around, asking if their ok but they keep staring off into space. Because of the memory sharing, Kokichi doesn't do anything too stupid, and Shuichi is the only one who understands him. I'll talk about their appearance in a second.

We had been talking about a fusion between Himiko and Kokichi (Talent: Illusionist) because... Short. Kokichi is 5'1, Himiko 4'11, fused they would actually shrink, being around Ryoma's height. If Ryoma joined the fusion, they would be even smaller, around 2 feet. The size of a baby. Ryoma and Himiko do fuse at one point tho, being around 4'3. They have a witch hat with cat ears, a red shirt with a black and blue striped jacket, leggings with shorts over them, and Ryoma's shoes.

Back to Kokichi, his fusion with Shuichi is very feminine. They have Kokichi's hair length, but straight like Shuichi's so it looks longer. Long as hell eyelashes too, from Shuichi. They have a long sleeved grey shirt and a skirt on (neither mind it, but it's kinda confusing). The skirt is about knee length and very poofy. Also I'm pretty sure I saw that Kokichi has a belt so I'm using that. And chubby cheeks but shhhh.

Now, to the story!

The first one to kill is still "Kaede", but Rantaro had accidentally fused with Kirumi, shared memories, and he trusted her. He asked if she could check it out, and she died. That gives both of them enormous guilt but Rantaro has a small, sickening relief that it wasn't him that he ignores. Chapter one, Kirumi, Kaede, and Monokid die.

Chapter 2, we didn't talk this one out much, but Ryoma accidentally killed Angie. Everyone still thinks well of Angie when she dies, because she never got a chance to form the student council. Chapter two, Angie, Ryoma, and Monosuke die.

Next, our trio. The murderer is still Kiyo, and he kills in the same way. Chapter three, Tenko, Himiko, Korekiyo, and Monophanie die.

In the next chapter, Miu wouldn't go after Kokichi as he's close to Shuichi. She goes after and kills Gonta. Chapter four, Gonta, Miu, and Monotaro die.

Chapter 5 is the heaviest chapter because she went fuking HAM on the angst. We both agreed that Kokichi wouldn't do his mastermind plan so we had to figure out a whole new chapter 5 to pave the way for chapter 6. We decided that Rantaro and Kaito are a Chaos Duo and would absolutely blow shit up. Kaito hadn't fused since chapter 3 due to his illness, and Rantaro barely fuses, keep that in mind. They've been working together since a bit before the 4th trial, making things with the help of Monodam, who really doesn't give a shit anymore.

They get into the other Exisals, and blow up the inner wall of the dome, and a bit of the outer. There's defense mechanisms, obviously, but they're in the Exisals so they're fine. They stop outside one of the buildings with a satellite. They figure out that everything is being broadcasted and hijack Kiibo's inner voice to tell him

Basically, they give Kiibs a heart attack because they just heard a bunch of explosions and gun shots and now suddenly his missing friends are talking to him through his head. He relays the information, but at some point they start coughing.

At that point, Monokuma had locked them in and filled the building with poison. The two fuse, a small smile on their face as they cut off Kiibo's voice, lose oxygen, and die. The other explosives they had rigged start going off around the school dome as Kiibo, now free and traumatized, starts upgrading himself.

The first Danganronpa chapter to end without a trial. Feels kinda weird am I right?

The 6th trial goes as expected. They already know that it's being broadcast to the outside so Tsumugi can't shock them with that, and the outside can't take over Kiibo, as he's been permanently disconnected. Kiibs doesn't have to self-destruct as the dome is already in pieces with the combined effort of Kaito, Rantaro, and him, so he just blows up the school and lands. Tsumugi dies, but Maki, Shuichi, Kokichi, and Kiibo survive.

Tada

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secretlynestaarcheron · 4 years

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Chapter Nine + Ten

Reposted Chapter Nine because I wanted them together, it would have bothered to have two by themselves haha. Enjoy!

Also I think @sjm-things asked on the last post but I deleted it before answering but yes, feyre and rhysand will meet! I outlined the story and I hope to have 25-30 chapters so it may take awhile but they will forever be endgame!

tagged: @sjm-things @justgiu12 @blxckbeaks @justabunchoffandoms @swagbookmaster @my-fan-side @heyitsrhysand

Chapter Nine: Nesta

Ianthe walks in with a new pep in her step and her hands full of binders, “Good morning ladies!” she says cheerfully, dropping the binders on the table in the center where Vanserra and Tara were sitting. They look taken aback as Tara reaches forward to grab one as if it was an unfamiliar object to her.

“We have a big day ahead of us, I can’t believe the King threw this at us so late,” Ianthe replies, grabbing a few binders and putting some on each table. She places two at Nesta’s and she reaches forward to grab one, flipping it open to see that it was full of color patterns and floral arrangements and gown designs.

“The King’s family will be coming in late tonight and we will be having an outdoor picnic themed get together tomorrow,” Ianthe replies, excitedly, she was practically beaming. “You will each pick a design for a gown your maids make for you, we must have the best for our guests!”

Nesta frowns, she wasn’t the best sewer but she couldn’t imagine designing and making a gown fit for a future queen by the next day. She looks up at Rita to see if she was feeling as overwhelmed as she was but Rita seemed nervous as she fidgeted in her seat. “Are you okay?” Nesta asks.

Rita nods but she doesn’t look like her usual spunky self. Nesta decides not to push her and looks over at Ianthe who had finished handing out the binders. “You’ll each partner up with one another and work on one aspect of the party,”

Rita stands up, moving over to Ianthe quickly, she whispers something to her before leaving the room in a rush. Ianthe turns to Nesta, “Looks like flowers are all on you, be careful the King’s sister in law has allergies!” she exclaims, dropping a couple magazines on the table before moving to the next one.

“Wait, what does that mean? What type of allergies?” Nesta calls after Ianthe but she either doesn't hear her or doesn’t care to answer. Nesta slumps in her chair, feeling very overwhelmed and all she had to do was pick flowers. “Alright ladies, you have to have your choice by 6pm tonight when we come together for dancing lessons,” Ianthe says, cheerfully, “And you all are dismissed!”

Nesta rubs her temples, how was she going to find hypoallergenic flowers? She takes her stack of binders and decides to head out to the gardens for some inspiration. She moves down the stone stairs towards the rose bush maze, Elain would love to see it. Her movements were restricted by the large binders and tight bodice.

She takes the last step, looking around on where she would want to sit down and begin working. Across the garden there were a couple of guards working on combat, Cassian and a girl stood watching at them. He glances up catching her eye, he says something to the girl before moving across the garden in long strides.

“You aren’t supposed to be out here,” Cassian says as soon as he’s close enough for her to hear.

“Hello to you too, Officer Cassian,” she retorts, blowing a strain of hair out of her face, “I have to pick the flower arrangements for the party and thought I could get some inspiration from the garden.”

“The King’s sister in law is allergic to almost all flowers,” Cassian replies drily, “And its Captain.”

She rolls her eyes, “This is a disaster, I am going to cause someone to go into allergic shock. What if she dies, is that considered treason? Maybe I shouldn’t even have a flower display at all, but that makes me lose those little competition.”

He reaches forward to grab the binders from her hand, she’s thankful, she didn’t realize how out of shape she had gotten over the past two days with all the heavy foods. She felt slow and out of breath a lot easier now that she wasn’t living off a piece of bread a day and running around town.

“You can’t tell anyone I told you about this,” he retorts, beginning to move down the trail towards the garden. She quickly catches up having to take a couple steps for one of his. “I am sure that no one is supposed to help you with this challenge but seeing how I don’t really want to see any of you thrown in prison for killing a member of the royal court.”

She chuckles, “Come on, I won’t tell anyone if you just admit I am the favorite,” she replies, a new edge to her voice that she regrets immediately. She wasn’t trying to flirt, she didn’t even think she was flirty, but he was close to the prince and who knows what he will say to him.

He shakes his head and says, “I don’t think it matters who I like and don’t like.” She raises an eyebrow questionably at his back but stops when he brings her to a small nook off the edge of roses that were full of different kinds of flowers.

“These were planted for the King’s sister in law,” Cassian explains, “she loves flowers, so as a welcoming gift the queen had this garden installed for her so she could enjoy it.”

Nesta feels relieved, “If only my sister was here, she would be able to name them all in a heartbeat,” Nesta replies, looking around the small garden. There weren’t a lot of vibrant colored flowers, but she didn’t mind she could make something beautiful out of them.

“Well, since your sister isn’t here, you can head to the libraries and take out the book The History of the Royal Palace Gardens, it’ll have an eleclopedia of every plant in the garden, including these,” Cassian says.

She feels a surge of excitement run through her. “Thank you,” she says sincerely, turning to face him, “I really appreciate your help even if you despise all of us.” She means it as a joke, but there is some truth behind it.

He chuckles, “He’s my best friend, of course I am going to be protective of him. You didn’t hear it from me but he’s pretty naive about all things related to girls,” he retorts.

She can’t help but laugh at that. “I definitely figured that out already,” she replies, thinking about the conversations she has already had with him and what the girls have said about their dates. It was a comforting thought that although he looked to be a stuck up businessman through the television he was still just a twenty-something year old who was trying to make his way through the chaos of his life.

“I’ve been trying to help him,” Cassian admits and she’s not sure why he's being so honest with her. Maybe they were on their way to being friends.

She purses her lips as she turns away from the flowers to look at him, “Ah, so the infamous Captain Cassian has a player streak, interesting,” she hums.

“The truth would come out eventually,” Cassian replies with a shrug, “All the time I have in between rebel attacks I use to swoon the ladies of Prythian.”

Nesta gringes, “Oh Stars, maybe you shouldn’t be helping him. Swoon the ladies,” she pretends to shiver, “No wonder he’s suffers from being unable to sweet talk if he has a teacher like you.”

“You haven’t even heard the best of it,” Cassian retorts, before nodding down to her binders and adding, “I wish I could stay and chat but I actually have a job to do. I’ll have a guard drop these off at your room.”

“Thank you!” she calls after him as he exits the small enclosure of flowers. Nesta twirls a little before sitting down on the bench in the center of the enclosure thinking about how much trouble she would get into if she acted upon the feelings she felt when she was with him.

~*~

She stayed in her room the rest of the day, channeling her inner Elain has she thought up the perfect boutiques for the party. An array of weigela sonic blooms, chinese evergreen, and bamboo palm. They weren’t colorful and vibrant as most of the flower arrangements at the special occasions were but she thought they’d do.

She even had time to flip through the dress inspiration magazines Ianthe had handed out and pick out a few designs she liked. As if on cue Beatrice and Hanna entered the room cheerfully talking they stopped when they saw Nesta sitting on her bed and curtseyed. “Apologies, we didn’t realize you were in here, m’lady,” Beatrice replies quietly.

“Its okay, I enjoyed the laughter, reminded me of home,” Nesta replies with a shrug, “I’ve been trying to find a dress I love for the party tomorrow.”

Beatrice and Hanna look at each before coming over quickly to go through the magazines with her, pointing out different dresses and what they could do differently. She felt like she was back home packing with her sisters.

It feels like they talk for hours, Beatrice pointing out everything they can do and Hanna sketching designs. There’s a sharp knock on the door and then Prince Rhysand walks in, Beatrice and Hanna stand up quickly.

“I came to escort you to Ianthe’s impromptu dance class,” Prince Rhysand says to Nesta.

Nesta chuckles, “More like Ianthe’s impromptu pain and misery boot camp,” Nesta retorts, pushing herself off the bed and moving towards him. She takes his extended arm, waving goodbye to her maids, before exiting the room with Rhysand.

“You aren’t a fan of dancing?” Rhysand asks quizzically.

She bites her lips instinctively, but stops herself, he wanted to know about her home. He wanted to know what she went through and she needed to tell him even if it seemed dumb so he would know. “As a four, I wasn’t invited to many parties and there was rarely any dancing, as a seven. Well, no one can afford to have a party let alone have the time.”

Rhysand purses his lips in thought, “That’s a shame, so that means no one has done this before-,” he replies, moving quickly as he pushes her away before twirling her back towards him.

She lets out a noise of surprise before chuckling as he tries to dip her. “See,” he says, “You’re a natural.”

“I appreciate your support, but I am more scared of being taught a box step for the first time by Ianthe with every other girl in this competition and off duty guard watching me fail miserably,” Nesta replies, realizing what she was actually scared of.

He steps, turning to face her, “Then I’ll teach you.”

She raises an eyebrow, facing him, “We don’t have much time,” she replies, glancing down the hall where she could already hear the music playing.

“Then I’ll be quick,” he replies, taking her hand and placing her empty hand on her shoulder. “Ready?”

She nods unwillingly, as he steps forward making her take a step back. “Look at you already getting it, now to the left.”

They go through it a couple of times before he begins to add the side stepping making them move in a circle. “Stop watching your feet,” he says. She looks up at him sheepishly, “I am trying not to break an ankle or step on your feet,” she counters. “I am sure I have to go home I break the prince.”

Someone clears their throat and they both stop looking down the hall to see Cassian standing there. “Sorry to interrupt, your majesty, but your father would like to see you,” Cassian says, turning away as if to give the two privacy.

“Good luck there, I’ll see you tomorrow for the party,” Rhysand says.

“Unless I break an ankle in there,” she retorts with a chuckle as she waved goodbye to Rhysand and nodded towards Cassian who barely looked at her before disappearing into the ballroom where lessons had already begun.

The sun was barely peeking through the windows when Nesta was awoken by her maids. “We finished it! Just in time!” Hanna exclaims, hooking the hanger onto her wardrobe and unzipping the garment bag. Nesta sits up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, as Beatrice moves over to the curtain and opens them allowing the light to pour in.

Nesta gasps, whipping the covers off of herself and taking the few steps of the dress, she took in the emerald color that was simple in the bodice but pushed out by her waist with a cascade of little flowers running down to the hem. “Its beautiful,” Nesta says in awe, the color would have looked beautiful with Feyre hair and gorgeous against Elain’s skin. She couldn’t wait to write to her sisters about it. “This is incredible, more than I could have ever asked for.”

“It was our pleasure, Lady Nesta,” Beatrice replies softly while Hanna nods along eagerly.

Nesta can’t help but pull them into a hug. “I am so glad I was paired with the two of you,” she replies.

Beatrice pulls away first clapping her hands together to get them all to focus. “Okay, we have a lot to do, let’s start with a bath,” she replies. Nesta spends the rest of the morning being pampered by them until she is dressed and ready to go.

“You look beautiful, Lady Nesta,” Hanna says behind Nesta reflection as Nesta turns to take herself in. She never thought she would get to wear something so extravagant before. There’s a knock on the door and then a guard yells, “The Queen and Ianthe have requested to see the girls before the party begins.”

Beatrice squeezes her shoulder and yells “Good luck!” as Nesta exits the room.

The guard escorts her down the hall toward the women’s room where all the selected girls were filing in. “Ladies, I am so proud of the work you have done to make this a success,” Ianthe says, before turning to the queen.

The Queen smiles in thanks, “I am very excited to welcome the Kings family in the palace, it’s been a long time since they have visited. I hope you will treat them all with the utmost of respect and welcome them as if they were your own family,” she says looking over all of them.

It was hard for Nesta to believe that she came from the caste seven, she was so respected and held herself tall. Nesta wonders if she was always like that or if she learned it through being the Queen.

“There will be many guests out there that you do not know. I expect you all to be on your best behavior,” the Queen says, “and of course, enjoy your hard work.”

The girls clap at that as they follow the queen out the doors and towards the white tent that was sent up in the middle of an open field. There were chairs and tables lined up by the shade next to a game of croquet.

The girls made their way into the tent to begin introductions, she stayed behind wanting to enjoy the sun against her skin before being forced into small talk.

A group of young boys walked by her talking loudly. One of them ran straight into her. He pauses, glancing her up and down. She feels uneasy under his stare, when he gets to her face he smirks. Lifting his half empty glass up to her, “Mind getting me refill, doll face?” He asks.

She grimaces, thinking back to her tavern days that seemed so long ago. She wanted to snap at him, to tell him to get his own drink but the presence of someone standing next to her. She turns to see Cassian with his arms crossed.

“She’s one of the selected, Tamlin. Most of the girls here are, you would do well to remember that,” Cassian snickers. The two eye each other before Tamlin chuckles as he leaves.

Cassian runs a hand through his hair as he turns to face her, “That's Tamlin, Rhysands cousin,” Cassian explains, “He’s also the worst person I have ever met. Are you okay?”

Nesta chuckles, “Yes, trust me, I have been treated worse than that before.”

He looks at her with a weird expression that she can’t quite grasp. “I am sorry to hear that, Lady Nesta,” he replies and she wonders why he’s being so formal but as she turns and sees Ianthe making her way towards her she understands why.

“Enjoy the party, your flower arrangements look beautiful-,” he pauses as if he wants to say more but he shuts his mouth, gives her a curt nod, and then walks away.

She doesn’t have much time to dwell on what he was going to say because Ianthe grabs her elbow and pulls her into the tent to socialize.

Chapter Ten: Cassian

Cassian hits the bag with more anger than he realized, he was mad at the king, made that he had to deal with Tamlin again, and mad about feeling mad about stumbling into Nesta and Rhysand dancing in the hall.

Nesta was in a competition to fight for his best friend's heart, just because they had a couple conversations didn’t mean that she was going to leave the competition, he didn’t even know if he wanted her too. He just knew he had some weird connection with her.

Sweat dropped down his back as he glanced down at his watch, he had an early morning and should probably get some sleep. He slips in his jacket leaving it unbutton since he doubted he would run into anyone from the training room to his room.

The cold air sent a shiver down his back as he locked the door behind him and began to move across the guards towards the palace. He couldn't wait to shower and go to bed, the day had been long and exhausting.

He pauses when he passes the Rose hedges when he hears sniffling, he glances towards the palace before moving towards the nose. Inside the small cove dedicated to the Kings sister in law was Nesta seated on the bench.

She was still wearing her dress from the picnic, her hair no longer in the braids from earlier but cascading down her back as she sniffled into her hands.

He steps forward, a crack from a branch quickly catching her attention. She turns, wiping her tears as she stands, he tries to mutter an apology but she beats him to it. “I am sorry, I know I shouldn’t be out here,” she says and he can hear the sadness in her voice.

“It’s okay,” He says, stepping into the enclosure, noticing how her eyes shine in the moonlight. “Are you alright?”

She turns away embarrassed, maybe he should have pretended that he didn’t hear her just scold her for being out and let her be but he knew that she would be in his thoughts if he left her.

“I think the homesickness is finally kicking in,” Nesta explains with a slight shrug of her shoulders. She's still looking everywhere but him. “I just keep thinking about how much they would love to be here and how selfish I am for being here without them.”

He furrows his brow, “How are you being selfish?” he asks, sitting down on the bench. She follows suit a second later. “I don’t think I need to explain where I came from, I think blatantly obvious that I am out of place here. I would go hungry for days so my sisters could have plenty and here I could ring a bell and a maid would bring me a tray of expensive treats,” she rants, standing back up and crossing her arms, “I know so many girls more worthy than I am of this opportunity, why do I deserve to have such luxury as all of this when I know there are fives, sixs, sevens, and eight choosing between their electricity or food.”

He frowns, it was a luxury in her mind to be able to eat, whereas most people thought a luxury was a private jet or multiple cars. He doesn’t know what to say to her, his mother passed away when he was young and he didn’t have any siblings, he didn’t know how to be comforting.

“You shouldn’t have to feel worthy to eat, it’s a human necessity,” he begins as she gives him a soft smile. “They didn’t just pick your picture because they thought you were pretty, they saw something in you that made them think you could be a good queen. The fact that you have experienced it and are so passionate about improving is what would make you a great queen.”

She chuckles to herself as if she knew something he didn’t about her being a future queen. “Thank you,” she replies sincerely looking over at him as she sits down again. “I really appreciate you talking with me, I know you’re probably busy.”

He shrugs, he didn’t mind talking with her if he was being honest and it worried him. “Anytime, but we should probably head inside. It’s late and who knows what Ianthe will put you through tomorrow.”

They walk in a comfortable silence back towards the palace, a new air between them. When they went their separate ways he can’t help but feel like something is missing with her absent presents beside him. He falters as he hears noises coming from the opposite side of his room.

He moves to open his own bedroom door brushing it off as something is falling but before he can step into his room he hears hushed whispers and then silence. Turning back to face the door across from him he furrowed his brow, the room across from his was just a storage closet that was hardly used.

He sighs, running a hand through his hair as a million thoughts crossed his mind of what he was going to see. Best case scenario a broom or something fell and worst, he had too many to choose from. He grabs the door handle twist and pushes it open fast enough that whoever was in there would be surprised.

His eyes adjusted to the dark room but it was clear that there were two figures in the room. He reaches around the door, hitting the wall until the light comes on. A new recruit stood in the middle of the small space, his uniform jacket unbutton hanging off one shoulder, he pushed it up quickly.

“Your name?” Cassian asks, his eyes flickering to the small figure behind him, he wonders if they really thought he couldn’t see her behind him.

“Private Bronson,” He answers and Cassian can hear the nervousness in his voice.

Cassian cocked his head to the side, looking beyond Bronson. “And your name?” he asks. Bronson clears his throat, looking anywhere but Cassian, as he shifts to the side to allow Cassian to see one of the selected girls, Demetra, standing behind him sheepishly. She held her dress to her chest to cover herself.

He looks away from her and back at Bronson, “Mind explaining to me what was happening in here?” he asks, raising an eyebrow quizzically.

Bronson glances back at Cassian. “I think you know what was happening, Captain.” Cassian can’t help but hear the sound of defeat in his voice. “We didn’t mean for it to happen, we were both threes, when I was drafted we didn’t think that we would ever see each other again.”

Cassian looks up at the ceiling, he couldn’t let them be put to death for treason when he had been finding himself wanting to be near one of the selected himself. “You’ll be reassigned to the borders,” Cassian says looking away from Bronson and towards Demetria, “And I would pack my bags if I were you. I am telling the prince you were caught gossiping about the other ladies. I am not sure what else he will do but I did not see anything so I will not say anything regarding what may or may not have been happening before I opened this door.”

They nod quickly and he turns to leave making his way back to his room deciding to deal with all of it tomorrow.

~*~

“So why did I receive word that one of my new recruits was being sent to border patrol? That’s basically a death sentence to a newbie like him,” Amren says, catching up with Cassian in the hallway, he had been on his way to talk to Rhysand about the girl.

“Trust me, Amren. This was a mercy sentence for what he did,” Cassian retorts.

Amren chuckles, “What exactly did he do to get on the captain's bad side that would make him deserve something worse than border patrol?” she asks, nudging his arm with her elbow. She meant well but he was in no mood for her jokes when he saw himself in the couple.

“You don’t wanna know, Am, believe me,” he retorts.

She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t question him on which he’s glad about. “Where are you headed?” Amren asks a harmless question in her mind but the fact that Cassian was going to tell Rhysand to kick a girl out it only made him more anxious.

“I have to discuss one of the girls with the prince,” Cassian replies, turning the corner that leads to the royal family's wing. He hoped Rhysand would be here, he didn’t feel like tracking him around the castle or having to have this discussion near the fellow selected.

“Oh, which one? There was one crying this morning no one could calm her down or the one who was caught trying to sneak through this very hall towards the prince’s room,” Amren asks, “Or maybe it’s the one in the green dress yesterday that you saved from Tamlin’s claws.”

He rolls his eyes, “I didn’t save anyone from anything,” he retorts, before glancing back towards Amren, “Which one tried sneaking to the prince room? Why wasn’t I notified?”

“You were too busy sending my troops away,” Amren replies, she laughs when he gives her a pointed look, “I think it was that girl Rita, I am sure she was just trying to get more moments with the prince, I think he’s planning on eliminating a few today.”

“Good,” Cassian replies, at least it wouldn’t seem weird that this girl was being sent home by herself, It wouldn’t seem weird. “I want this to go as quick as possible.”

“Just think, one of these ladies will be your queen,” she replies, shivering at the thought, “I hope there's a diamond hidden in all of this fluff.”

He thinks back to his conversation with Nesta last night, how she felt selfish for being here, she would be a diamond. She could do so much for all the castes because she lived through it. He knew that if Rhysand picked her there would be change.

He shook his head, pulling himself from the thought, he had to stop thinking about her. He pauses in front of Rhysand door and knocks. Rhysand opens it a second later, surprised to see them, “I’ll see you later Cas,” Amren says, continuing down the hall as Cassian turned to his friend to have a conversation he didn’t want to have.

#acotar #nesta archeron #acotar fanfiction #sjmaas #feysand #acotar instagram au #instagram au #rhysand #feyre archeron

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alexandrao · 5 years

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Author Meme

No one tagged me but I love this shizzz. Sue me.

Author Name: AlexandraO

Fandoms You Write For: Harry Potter

Where You Post: FFN and Ao3

Most Popular One-Shot: It’s interesting that they are both Harmony.

On Ao3: Her Scent

On FFN: In the Forest

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: Another Harmony story lol

Whispers in the Lake

Favourite Story You Wrote: My favorite story that I have written has to be another Harmony haha

Inked and maybeeeee the story I just finished called National Treasure, of course based on the movie!

Story You Were Nervous to Post: I think it was a piece I wrote for Halloween 2 years ago. It has non-con and graphic depictions of violence in it and I was really nervous but it was received well.

Draco’s Obsession

How Do You Choose Your Titles: Sometimes they just come to me and sometimes I got to fantasy name generator and piece some thingss together.

Do You Outline: I never used to but I do now. I find that when I sit down to write, I do a lot less of staring at my computer and actually get stuff done.

Complete: 39 and that doesn’t include the many drabbles in one of my short story/drabble collections

In-Progress: I have three stories in progress that are published to either FFN or AO3 — Whispers in the Lake, Flirting with Chaos, and Assassins of Tomorrow (indefinite hiatus).

As for Comps and Fests, I have 3 of those I am currently working on.

Coming Soon/Not Yet Started: I have two stories that I have plotted out but have yet to start working on: Border of Time and Growing Up Hogwarts. I have four others that I just have small ideas for: The Exchange, Awakening of the Wolf Within, Turning the Tides and an untitled Tomione/Dramione.

Do You Accept Prompts: Not usually because I have enough of my own ideas to write!

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: I am super excited to get back to working on Assassins of Tomorrow. It is currently on hiatus and has been for the better part of a year, but I have gotten a lot of feedback from a handful of people and I do want to re-write and re-post.

Tagging: @vino-amore @mrsren96 @crochetawayhpff @botwp and anyone else who wants to play!!

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all-that-is-gold · 3 years

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Chapters: 4/4 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Poe Dameron/Finn, Finn/Rose Tico Characters: Rey (Star Wars), Ben Solo | Kylo Ren, Finn (Star Wars), Poe Dameron, Rose Tico, Armitage Hux, Leia Organa, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious Additional Tags: Fix-It of Sorts, Angst with a Happy Ending, Not Canon Compliant, cameos galore, Canon Divergence but also not, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I wasn't happy with The Rise Of Skywalker so there, I'm Bad At Summaries Summary:

When a mysterious broadcast is sent from the Unknown Regions, the Resistance and the First Order are both confused as to what is going on; for the message comes in the voice of the late Emperor Palpatine. Who threatens revenge on those who dare oppose the true ruler of the galaxy.

As destruction and chaos loom in the air with the silence of the First Order, the Resistance is in a race against time to stop whatever threat could be lurking from within the Unknown Regions.

But not everything is at is appears to be.

Chapter Four is up!! I am so sorry for the delay, university has been a pain in the ASS. I decided to post chapter five tomorrow because of the wait. Hope you’re well wherever u are folks!!

#rey #reylo fic #ben solo #kylo x rey #kylo ren #star wars #daisy ridley #adam driver

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realityhelixcreates · 4 years

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Lasabrjotr Chapter 60: For the Lazy Mornings

Chapters: 60/? Fandom: Thor (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Mature Warnings: Relationships: Loki x Reader (There We Go) Characters: Loki (Marvel), Additional Tags: Post-Endgame: Best Possible Ending (Canon-Divergent), Bad Dreams, Loki has Unresolved Issues, Reader Contemplates, Walk Walk Fashion Baby, Lol Yes I Did Write A Whole Chapter That Takes Place Within Like Thirty Minutes

Summary: You miss breakfast.

Loki awoke to darkness; velvety, silent, and comfortable. A slight chill had crept into the room, the sensation familiar on his skin. The sun must be setting fully again, finally. The seasons on this world were so strange, foreign.

You shifted next to him. The chill might be soothing to him, but your fragile, precious human body might not take to it well. He should probably get an extra blanket for you.

Of course, there were other ways to keep you warm. Lust stirred in him, recalling your clumsy, insistent hands and hungry, determined expression. It wasn't the first handjob of his life, but it was certainly the most earnest.

For some reason, you hadn't wanted him to return the favor at the time. But now...

He placed his hand on your thigh. You rolled over to face him, bigger than you should be, twice, three times bigger than you should be. The bright, rainbow-scattered light of the old Bifrost Loki remembered lit up the room, highlighting your sapphire skin, your bright red eyes looking down at him fondly. Loki shouted, recoiling in revulsion, but the roar of the Bifrost drowned him out, the light overcoming him.

Loki sat up in bed.

It was dark, but to his eyes, faint light escaped from the edges of his blackout curtains. You stirred, and his head whipped around to stare. You were your normal, adorably compact size, and thankfully devoid of blue. He let out a relieved breath.

“Well.” You muttered. “That was weird. Is that what it's like, when you look down at me? What was that loud light?”

You must not have been able to see yourself in the dream, the way he had.

“That...that was the old Bifrost. It used to be like that, when it was fully functional and powered up. Brighter. Bigger. More color, more range, a louder roar. Just more powerful.”

Powerful enough to slice through the mile thick ice crust of a tiny, helpless planet, creating a canyon a quarter of the way across the equatorial region, exposing the water far below, and causing Norns only knew what kind of havoc.

You had still been beautiful, in the colorful light, in the wrong skin, the wrong size. Still beautiful. Somehow, it repulsed him.

But the dream was gone now, the shock fading away into the warmth you brought to his bed. He settled back down into your waiting arms. It was so comfortable here. Though not yet lovers exactly, you fit so well into his bed, and he fit so well into your arms, his head resting between your breast and jaw, so he could hear the steady pumping of your heart.

“Sleep, okay?” You encouraged. “Everyone's leaving tomorrow. Then you'll have peace again.”

“Hm? Whatever do you mean?” Loki said. He knew what you meant, but was surprised that you'd thought of it.

“Well, it's stressful, right? Having all these enemies around, pax or no.” You said, absently stroking his hair.

“Not enemies. Not anymore.”

“Not friends either, though. Bad blood.”

“Some of them.” He admitted.”Some of them weren't even there at the time. Many of the others have...well, not forgiven me precisely, but accepted the reality of me. Or simply moved on. But then, there are those who can't.”

“Tony.”

“It isn't his fault. My actions fundamentally changed him. How many others like him? I wonder sometimes.”

“You regret what you did?” You sounded...not surprised, but curious.

“I regret the lives lost. Though my actions actually brought some benefit to your world-forced your governments to realize there were threats from outside, to at least try to prepare for further incursions, revitalize your space programs, recognize your heroes...but it is terribly unbecoming to attack civilians.”

“Huglausi?” You ventured.

“Very.” He sighed. “I compromised my honor very severely. Obliterated it, really. I've done many unseen things to try to restore it. In the end, it's really all I have.”

He wrapped one arm around you and snuggled up as close as was possible without actually being on top of you.

“I've seen how superficial so many things really are, how easy it is to be stripped of them. Title. Wealth. Name. Home. Identity. The only thing that truly lasts, the only thing that has impact, is deeds. And mine have been...reprehensible.”

“But it wasn't entirely you.” You pointed out. “You were being controlled.”

“Not entirely. I told you, it was still me. I know it's tempting to attribute everything to some behind-the-scenes puppetmaster, but it wasn't like that, it was...” He trailed off, squeezing you.

“Like what?”

He held his breath and shook his head a little. If he told you too much, if he told you everything, you would never lie next to him again. He would lose this as soon as he had gotten it.

But didn't you deserve to know what kind of creature you slept next to? Didn't you at least deserve to know what was behind his actions on Earth? Maybe not the rest of it, but the things that impacted the world you lived in?

“You know how you hate the man who hurt you during the Sn-the Event? But you wish you did not, and you wish you could forgive him, but the anger and unfairness of it just hits you sometimes? And you feel guilty about it, and that makes you angry too; bitter, resentful. And that makes you feel even worse, and it just builds on itself, until it finally goes away, but you're miserable the whole time, and a while afterwards?”

“Uh...yeah. It's exactly like that, actually.”

“I too, have things that make me feel that way. And the influence of the Mind Stone was such that it made those thoughts, those angers and resentments come to the surface, and then it kept them there. It kept them fresh and constant-no healing, no overcoming, no acceptance or moving on, and, most importantly, no relief. It was neverending. A great font of anger and bitterness as fresh as the moment it was inflicted, and sustained, indefinitely, by the stone's power over me.

Thanos didn't put a ring in my nose to lead me around by; he didn't have to. A smidgen of psychological manipulation, and I was his. A nearly willing slave. I wanted the havoc I caused. I reveled in the chaos, the fear. I bathed in the sounds of screaming and destruction, lusted after the blood and terror.”

His breath had grown heavy. You fingers paused in his hair.

“I wanted it because I felt I had nothing else. No future, no identity. Only deeds. And I was determined to make them the biggest deeds I could, for good or ill. I was an avatar of the worst that a being like me could become, and the greatest I had ever been. I enjoyed what I was doing, because it was the only outlet, the only respite from the hate and anger that I had.

For all my plans, I could never have ruled like that. It's a lie the Mind Stone told me, that I tell myself, again and again. I could have done it. I could have made it work. But I could not even master myself. It was all lies, upon lies, upon lies. Lies built me. Lies define me, and that entire experience just proved it beyond any shadow of a doubt.”

“Loki...”

“Shhh.” He lightly brushed your mouth with his fingertips. “I committed great deeds. Great and terrible. And now, now that I control myself, now that the malign influence no longer hangs over me, I can no longer commit deeds so great. I cannot rebuild your city. You have already done that. I cannot show generosity in equal measure to my destructiveness. Asgards budget is too tight. Somehow, on the other side of madness, I am incapable of doing good in equal measure to ill. Why must it be so easy to harm you, but so difficult to help you?”

“Maybe because we all need different kinds of help, but we all die the same.” You said, and he grew quiet in contemplation. “ Loki, you have a lot you want to do, right? Rebuild Asgard, fix your reputation, help the people around you, be a good ruler. And on top of that, you have responsibilities to your family, and your people, and...well, to me too. As your...”

“Paramour...” He breathed. “Yes. I have...responsibilities. You...you need me.” It was almost a plea. “You want me...You want to be near me...I've been good to you...haven't I? Is there anything you need? Anything at all?”

You seemed to sense the tendrils of desperation that wound inside of him as he had explained himself, as he sought something to expend his energy on, and you resumed stroking his hair.

“Yes.” You said. “I need you to hold me for the rest of the night. I need to feel you close to me. I want to fall asleep next to you and wake up to you first thing in the morning. That's all I want right now. Can you give me those things?”

He didn't move, just remained molded to you, head tucked under your jaw. Purpose. Simple, attainable purpose.

“All those things and more. Thank you, _____. I needed to say it. I knew you would listen. Without the stone, I would have healed, at least a little. Without the stone, I have healed. A little. There was time to mourn, time to accept. Time to look forward. I...I wish I was already the man I could be for you. I will be though. If you will but be patient with me.”

“Sleep, Loki.” You said. “I want to get to that waking up with you next to me part.”

*****

And so you did, slipping gently back into consciousness, with the comfortable weight of Loki's arm across your chest. You turned your head to find he had tucked you under his chin, cuddling you like a plush doll.

You kissed his throat until he shifted and his breathing changed.

“Darling...” He mumbled sleepily. “Blessed maiden of comfort. Good morning.”

“Mornin' sweetie.” You said, and he scoffed at the pet name.

“I am a god.” He said

“You are a grump.” You answered, kissing the tip of his nose and shimmying out of bed.

He slithered out after you. “Am I really?”

“Only sometimes.” You teased.

You didn't join him in the bath this time, opting to take one in the evening instead. Your clothes had been left in a neatly folded stack just outside the door to Loki's bedroom rather than outside of yours.

Oh yes, everyone knew what was going on.

You reflected on how easy that acceptance seemed to be, as you slipped into your clothes for the day. Aside from a few loud, unpleasant, and downright dangerous individuals, the people of Asgard seemed perfectly fine with you.

Even though you'd been told several times that there was a struggle between human-friendly and human-unfriendly factions, it was really being treated as if the eventual failure and disappearance of the human-unfriendly groups was a foregone conclusion. As if it had all happened before, and had turned out the same every time.

Well, hadn't it?

The war with the Vanir had ended millenia ago, possibly before the first human civilizations had even begun. You could see the influence of their heritage in Saldis' features, and knew there were full Vanir here in Asgard who were trapped away from Vanaheim by the events of Ragnarok. Nobody cared anymore. The former queen of Asgard and the guardian of all Asgard were both raised by Alfar. Heck, with the strangeness of Heimdalls eyes, there might actually have been Alfar in his family tree.

Once you thought about it, there might be a little Jotun mixed in as well. Probably not Frost Giants, since they still seemed to be a point of contention among Asgardians, but other kinds of Jotun they didn't seem to have much trouble with. You knew the Vanir didn't have any trouble with intermarrying with them, and neither Loki, Brunnhilde, or Saga seemed to think they idea of marrying a Jotun was all that strange. Freyr was married to one, and they didn't act like he was a freak or anything. In fact, since Jotun were so genetically flexible, it was possible that any Asgardian could have a Jotun ancestor, and it might not even show at all.

You knew absolutely nothing about the previous queens of Asgard, save for where Frigga was raised...

Nah. You didn't actually want to go fishing for more royal scandal. You technically were one, even if the majority of Asgardians had accepted that you were but a harbinger of what was to come. They had survived intermingling with others, and they would survive humans too. Probably come out even better for it, if the history Saga taught you was accurate.

The real problem might just be other humans reactions to the idea. Humans were far too proficient at focusing on the differences between people, and dividing themselves up into groups that weren't supposed to be allowed to mingle...but still definitely did, even if the consequences were terrible. That was the problem. There shouldn't be those kinds of consequences, but there would be. For the longest time, humans only had other humans to define as 'outsiders'. Only very recently had extraterrestrial intelligent species come to their attention, and almost every time, it was in a very negative way.

Part of the world was very on board with the Asgardians, but it was because of a shared cultural history. They regarded the Asgardians as partially 'theirs' somehow. But the rest of the world had no such ties, and some countries had a definite-and admittedly justified-beef with certain prominent Asgardians. One of which you happened to be actually dating.

Okay, but what could they actually do to you, aside from troll you on the internet? Asgard was on the lookout for assassins now, and you had committed no crimes. Besides, being with Loki was a good thing, right? It was a symbol of friendliness and good will between Asgard and humankind, right?

That was definitely not why you were doing it though. You just really liked him. Loki was a man of many virtues. One of them was how he came back from the bath, shirtless, and with his hair still damp.

That was a very good one.

Loki gave his hair one last scrub with the towel, dropped said towel over the back of his desk chair, and opened the carved wooden doors to his huge wardrobe. He stood in contemplation of the perfect thing to wear.

“What do you think...” He murmured. “What's the best combination for saying goodbye to a group of not-quite-enemies?”

“Peacefully?” You asked.

“Of course! I can't let it be known, but I actually like some of them, just a little.”

“So you want the 'lady who has just divorced her jackass, loser husband, and is past ready to mingle' look.”

One perfect eyebrow arched. “Do I?”

“Yeah.” You ducked under his arm and peered into the wardrobe. “So you wanna show off, but not your very best, because that's trying too hard, right? All black is dramatic, and looks so good on you...”

He preened.

“...But I think it might make you fade into the backdrop. How about this one though? The green matches mine, so we could present as a unified front. Also I like this little short cape.”

“This is a capelet. Would you like one? They are not difficult to make; I can order some for you.”

He held up the tunic; a quilted thing of rich pine green and gold piping, knotwork designs at the stiff cuffs and mandarin collar.

“You like this?”

“It looks very...touchable.”

Both eyebrows went up this time. “Is that the image we want to project?”

“Put it on, and lets see.”

The tunic molded to him, so tight that you would have though it simply didn't fit. But he seemed to be able to move in it just fine. You ran your hands up his chest and over his shoulders.

“I was right. Very touchable.”

He caught your hands in his and squeezed them gently.

“I'm glad you like it, but I don't think so. Not this one. It is actually part of a matched set made for myself and Thor, when we were younger.. It doesn't feel right to wear it, if he is not wearing his. I doubt he still even fits into his.”

He removed the tunic, and searched for another.

“I do like the color matching idea though. Perhaps this one? It is similar.”

This tunic did not fit him quite as tightly, but was still expertly tailored, and still the same color of green. It fell all the way to his knees, split to the hips in four places, and the sleeves terminated in sharp points over the back of his hands. It was quilted as well, but the pattern was more like scales, and you noticed that the metallic thread was gradated; starting out black at the bottom, then shifting to green, then gold at the collar and shoulders.

“Wow.” You breathed. “You look like a dragon!”

“Well,” He said. “I did steal you and fly you away to my lair full of riches, did I not?”

“That you did. Speaking of riches...can you help me with my brooches?”

“Of course, my dear.” He plucked the oval brooches from your palm, very carefully pinning them in place, so as not to prick you. As you had thought, he got them perfectly centered, their strings of beads cascading over the top of your breasts. They drew his eyes. “But you know how to pin them yourself, don't you?”

“Yeah, I do.” You said, a little sultriness slipping into your voice. Loki's eyes flicked to yours. He licked his lips.

You were in his arms barely a moment later, drowning in his mouth.

“I wish I was the man I could be for you. I will be.”

No man had ever said anything like that to you before. Never expressed any desire to be better for you. It was usually the opposite.

Loki, prince and god, wanted to be better. For you.

You were going to miss breakfast.

#lasabrjotr #loki x reader #loki (marvel)

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miraculous-consequence · 4 years

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Consequence of Our Love, Ch 6: This is Everything You Want

“Order and chaos need each other,” Plagg mused. “They balance each other out. It’s not that farfetched to believe that they would seek each other out over and over again.” He looked up to see Tikki smirking at him. “What?” He snapped.

“Oh nothing. It’s just heartwarming when I get to see your philosophical side.”

Plagg sniffed. “Well, it’s true, isn’t it? If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have our bet.” Tikki chuckled and leaned back next to him.

Consequence of Our Love is a pre-reveal, post-Hawk Moth AU exploring Marinette and Adrien’s lives as adults. | Read from the Beginning | Read on AO3

Rating: Mature

Chapter Warnings (Overall in the tags): None

Tikki was sitting on the roof of Marinette’s apartment, gazing up at the stars, when Plagg found her. As he settled down next to her, she turned to him, eyes wide.

“Don’t worry, sugarcube,” Plagg assured her with a smirk. “You haven’t lost the bet. They just got creative.”

The worry in her eyes faded, and she snorted in amusement. “It’s amazing the lengths humans will go to for physical attention.”

Plagg shrugged and leaned back. “What can we say? They’re in love!”

“However much they try to deny it,” Tikki added, and they both burst out laughing.

They settled into silence. Neither of them felt the need to fill it.

“Can you imagine the face Marinette would make if she knew it was Adrien?” Plagg jeered. “She’d go insane!”

Tikki shook her head. “Marinette’s waaayy over her crush on Adrien,” she said. “Now if Adrien knew that she was Ladybug…”

“His poor heart might break.” Plagg finished, and they laughed again. They sat in silence a little longer, taking in the cool city night. He was glad that quiet wasn’t a burden for them.

“It never fails, does it? That our holders always fall in love?” Tikki mentioned.

“It’s not like they always fall in love. Some of them were just good friends.” Plagg leaned back and hung his head towards the sky.

“There are many kinds of love, Plagg.”

Plagg looked at her, expecting her to be looking back - but her gaze was on the stars. He watched as they danced in her eyes.

He lowered his chin. “Order and chaos need each other,” Plagg mused. “They balance each other out. It’s not that farfetched to believe that they would seek each other out over and over again.” He looked up to see Tikki smirking at him. “What?” He snapped.

“Oh nothing. It’s just heartwarming when I get to see your philosophical side.”

Plagg sniffed. “Well, it’s true, isn’t it? If it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have our bet.” Tikki chuckled and leaned back next to him.

“You might win this round after all,” she said. Plagg narrowed his eyes.

“There’s only a few more years before their 15th anniversary,” he countered. “With Marinette’s uptightness, there’s no way they’ll reveal their identities until after that.”

“Look at them, Plagg!” Tikki gestured in excitement. “They’re crazy about each other, however much they’re denying it. Once Adrien decides to stay, it’s only a matter of time before they find out. As much as I hate to admit it, you’ve got this bet in the bag.”

“Right,” Plagg managed, his shame rising higher. “Well, we’ll see.” He would see if Adrien really could manage to stay. Or if he would take Plagg’s advice and run.

Plagg glanced at Tikki and found her enraptured by the stars again. “What’s on your mind when you’re doing that?” He asked.

“What, stargazing?” Tikki said without looking at him. “I’m thinking of the pathways of the stars. We are the only beings in the universe that have followed the stars’ movements since the dawn of this universe. We have seen the orbits they follow, the joints they occupy in the universe, forging a tapestry of innumerable moving parts that are both everlasting yet changeable by the slightest force. Yet, as I sit here and look up… It feels like this is how it always was, and always will be. It’s all in perfect order.”

Plagg didn’t know what to say. So he didn’t say anything. He was reminded that Tikki could see a world of her own creation that he would never be able to quite fathom. To him, the universe was just… emptiness. Chaos.

“I’m ready, by the way,” Plagg said. Tikki turned to him and scrunched her face.

“Ready for what?” She said dryly.

“My big lecturing,” he said nonchalantly. “You know, for leaving you for 7 years?” He watched for the anger to flare up in her eyes, but instead Tikki just shrugged.

“Ah, yes, that one. I’m available tomorrow night, if that works for you?” She replied, equally nonchalant. Plagg paused, confused.

“You’re… not angry?” He asked, and Tikki snorted.

“I am. But I missed Marinette’s laugh even more. And you kept Adrien safe until he could make her laugh again,” Tikki said softly. “And… I missed you, too.”

The guilt pierced his heart.

Adrien awoke sometime later, pulled into consciousness by a nagging feeling. Bleary-eyed, he glanced at the clock on Marinette’s bedside. 2:36 AM.

Adrien realized that was his cue to leave. He had promised Marinette a night of no consequences - one big romantic date and then poof, she would never see him again. All of the fantasy, none of the aftermath.

Except… well, except that Adrien was maybe starting to want that aftermath. And he suspected that maybe Marinette wanted that aftermath, too.

It was about to be complicated anyway. When Chat Noir had offered to take Marinette on this date, he had been almost certain that he was never going to return to Paris. But after meeting with Ladybug, that kernel of hope that maybe he could be a superhero again - for the first time in a long time, Adrien felt like he might be able to actually do it. He might actually be able to stay in Paris.

And if he did stay, Chat Noir was bound to meet up with Marinette again sometime. If she was interested… Maybe Chat could start visiting her again, like he used to when they were younger. Maybe he could let this fantasy become something real.

Beside him, Marinette rested between his arms sound asleep, the blindfold she wore to conceal his identity still on from the night before. He remembered that brief, infinite moment where they both contemplated removing the blindfold. And how ultimately Marinette decided that was a bad idea. Doubt crawled through him.

He was being foolish. From the beginning, they had agreed that this whole night was just an act. Just because Adrien felt the glow, he couldn’t assume Marinette felt it too. Yes, they were attracted to each other. But he couldn’t assume that what he was feeling… This, something more… He couldn’t assume that Marinette was feeling it, too. Not when he had promised her just a few hours ago that he wouldn’t fall in love.

He should leave. Chat Noir would come back a few days later, if she would have him, to see if there really was something there between them. And if not, maybe he could at least convince her to keep being his friend. If she refused…That would be a loss bigger than anything.

Adrien sat up, trying not to wake her, but she stirred almost immediately. She turned to him, felt for him in the dark.

“You okay?” Marinette asked, her voice thick with sleep.

He answered her by taking her hand and kissing it gently. She nudged towards him and wrapped herself around him. Adrien smiled and laid back down. He could stay for a moment longer.

“Chat…” Marinette murmured, half-asleep. Adrien looked at her in surprise and rubbed her back to let her know he was listening.

“Please don’t leave. I want you to stay.”

His breath caught.

“I believe in you. I believe that you can recover from whatever pain you face. I promise I will be with you every step of the way. You are a hero. People believe in you. You just need to believe in yourself.“ Marinette grabbed onto him and buried her face deeper into his chest as she spoke.

“Please stay.” Marinette squeezed him tightly.

Adrien couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. He knew that she meant to encourage him. (This should bring you happiness.) He knew that she just wanted to help him more than anything. (This should bring you peace.) He knew that what she spoke of was entirely possible. (This is everything you want.) He could be fixed. (You idiot, why are you breaking down?)

But that didn’t stop (What) the anxiety from clawing its way (is) out of his chest and across his body. (wrong) His mind began to race, (with) and he desperately tried to calm his breathing. (you?!)

He hugged her tightly, letting her know he appreciated her words. But he couldn’t stop the tears welling up in his eyes. (Why are you like this? ) He couldn’t stop the overwhelming tenseness that overcame his body, threatening to release a monster of emotions. (How can you react like this?) He breathed through his nose and desperately prayed Marinette wouldn’t realize he was breaking down, yet at the same time, desperately hoping she did. (How can you do this to her?)

She shifted, and Adrien froze (I need to go away). But Marinette didn’t speak. She just sighed contentedly, and he smiled knowing she was happy, (I need to go away) even as he suppressed the shaking of his body and as tears streamed down his face (I need to go away).

They lay there for a long time. Eventually, Adrien was able to calm himself down, but the feeling that something was wrong (Go. Away.) would not leave him. He looked at Marinette, felt the slow, evenness of her breathing, and realized she was asleep. The emotion stuck in Adrien’s throat again.

Carefully, Adrien disentangled himself from her grasp. He watched her the whole time - but she didn’t wake up. He grabbed his clothes, looking back at Marinette before slipping out of the bedroom. She had draped her arm over the place where he had laid moments before, her hand dangling over the bed as if searching. Adrien turned the knob before closing the door so the click wouldn’t wake her.

As he stood on the dark balcony outside, Adrien reminded himself that he had made a promise - a night of no consequences. It was time to make the consequences go away.

“Plagg!” He called. “Plagg!”

A dark splotch in the dark night appeared before him, eyes flashing in the moonlight. Before Plagg could speak, Adrien declared, “Come on, Plagg, we’re leaving.”

“Back to the hotel then?” Plagg asked.

Adrien grimaced. “No. No, we’re leaving Paris.”

When he spoke those words aloud, Adrien realized that it was final. He had been misguided - he would never be able to overcome this fear inside of him. Ladybug and Marinette and everyone else just didn’t understand. They just didn’t understand how broken he had become.

Adrien had already met with the lawyers for his mother, had already signed all of the important papers - he would have Nathalie stay and finish the rest. It was high time he got out of this poisoned city.

He realized that Plagg hadn’t spoken. Grim silence hung in the air between them. When he considered why, grief threatened to overwhelm him.

“All I need you to do is get me back to the hotel,” Adrien managed. “Then you could go back to Ladybug. With the Miraculous. If you wanted.”

Another dark silence. But then-

“I’m with you to the end, kid.” Adrien felt Plagg’s familiar touch on his hand. “Let’s get you out of here.” Adrien rubbed the tears from his face and smiled in relief.

---

Before the first light of the morning sun had peeked through, Adrien was on a train, heading far, far away from Paris. He hoped Marinette would be okay. He hoped Ladybug would understand.

Three days ago, Ladybug held out her hand to Chat Noir and gave him a choice: stay, or give up his Miraculous forever. Now she waited, on the rooftop where they always meet, ready to collect on his promise.

She was certain he would stay.

Every part of Ladybug was buzzing with memories of Chat Noir. Every time she thought of seeing him again, she was filled with such excitement and nervous energy that she couldn’t help but dance around.

He might still decide to give it up, she dutifully told herself many times over the past couple of days. You shouldn’t get too excited. And she’d take a deep breath, nod solemnly, and remind herself that she couldn’t allow Chat Noir to roam the world unbound from the Guardian of the Miraculouses, and it was Ladybug’s duty to take the Miraculous from him and find a new partner if he chose to leave.

But then she’d remember their kiss and how natural and amazing it felt, and how cute his smile was and how charming his laugh, and how he made her-

Well, how he made her feel completely and totally amazing.

And she was sure he felt the same way. He had to. That night couldn’t have happened if he didn’t.

Ladybug held her hand over her mouth to hide her smile. She couldn’t help it. She had become completely infatuated with Chat Noir.

And that was going to make things a lot more difficult. Ladybug groaned aloud and covered her face with her hands. This was why she had never wanted to date in the first place. One magical interaction and she was lost to the whirlwind of romance. She should have never agreed to go on that date with Chat Noir.

(But he had been so charming and sweet and funny and she couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so alive-)

Ladybug took a deep breath to calm down. She reminded herself that Chat Noir had a very different relationship with Ladybug than he did with Marinette. She couldn’t let herself break out in a grin when he appeared. Ladybug scanned the horizon, hoping to see some shadow of him bounding towards her, her chest buzzing with nervous excitement. Nothing yet.

He would come.

Her thoughts drifted once again to that night they spent together. Ladybug touched her mask, remembering how she had almost removed her blindfold so she could see who Chat Noir really was. She had been foolish to even think about taking the blindfold off - but she couldn’t help but wonder what would’ve happened if she had…

Marinette removed the cloth from her eyes and turned to look at him - really look at him - and finally answer the question that she’s wanted to ask all these years. She gasped when he saw him, grinning softly, hopefully, and she smiled. Marinette raised her hands to her ears and removed her earrings, revealing their true form, and placed them in his palm. She looked up at him and spoke, “Hey kitty. I missed you.” And they stared at each other, grinning helplessly at their real selves for the first time, feeling whole and complete, and they leaned forward and kissed, ready to be together, truly and forever-

Ladybug slapped her hands over her mouth and let out a muffled cry of frustration. What was she thinking?! They could never, NEVER learn each other’s identities. She refused to risk Chat Noir’s life like that! No, it was best that Ladybug never knew who Chat Noir really was. And it was best that Ladybug left her superhero self out of her’s and Chat Noir’s newfound relationship.

Ladybug had debated trying to romance Chat Noir as Ladybug so she could preserve her independence as a civilian, but there were too many risks there. For one, she didn’t want to find herself suddenly in a love triangle with herself. For another, Chat Noir was fiercely loyal to those he loved. She wasn’t sure she could make him fall in love with Ladybug. Even if she did succeed, Chat Noir’s natural tendency to sacrifice himself would go through the roof. Ladybug dug her nails into her arm at the thought.

Instead, she would let this seed she had planted with Chat Noir as Marinette flourish. Chat Noir had promised to never contact Marinette again, but after tonight, he was going to stay in Paris. It was only a matter of time before he popped up again at her bedroom window, flashing his ridiculous grin and asking to be let in. And if he didn’t, she knew where she could to find him.

Of course, she would have to take it slow. She needed to take care of Chat Noir first. He still needed time to heal and adjust to being a superhero again. Ladybug would help make that happen.

She had already planned how she’d start reintroducing him back into work. Luckily, ever since Hawk Moth was killed, the threats against Paris have been minimal. At worst, Ladybug helped out in rescue missions with the police and fire department. She would start Chat Noir off with basic patrols. She’d talk to him, try to get him to open up, and assure him he was still a good person. She’d make sure he was seeing a therapist. When he was ready, Ladybug would start sparring with him and inviting him on missions. Eventually, she’d take him to an old abandoned building on the outskirts of town and guide him as he learned to use his Cataclysm again. She’d assure him that she could fix any damage he might cause. She’d assure him that she could protect him, no matter what.

Eventually, they’d be just like they always were. Two perfect partners, always in sync. Ladybug was determined to make it happen.

She searched the horizon again then checked the time. She frowned - it was already a few minutes past midnight. Any moment now, he’ll show up. Ladybug paced the rooftop restlessly, scanning the city and checking her yoyo every minute. When 12:30 passed, she tried calling his phone, but no luck. She sent a text message instead, but no answer.

Ladybug remembered how confused she had been when he left before she woke up, or when she didn’t receive news of him in the following days. Worry and anger began to rise in her.

No, Chat Noir would come. He had to. He was probably just caught up in something. Maybe that thing he said he had come here to take care of.

She believed in Chat. He would come. He wouldn’t leave her again.

…Would he?

Hours passed, and the answer became clear. Yet, still Ladybug waited. She sat huddled on the rooftop, hugging her knees against her. Her eyes were crusty and drooping. It was only when the sun began to rise did Ladybug accept the reality of Chat’s choice.

“Tikki, spots off,” she murmured, and Tikki formed before her.

“I’m sorry, Marinette,” she said gently.

“I’m sorry, too, Tikki.”

Tikki rested on her shoulders, and they watched the first light of the morning sun peek over the horizon. Tikki turned to Marinette and asked, “What will you do now?”

Marinette clutched her knees tighter. She should have known better. Chat Noir wouldn’t give up Plagg without someone forcing him. She should have demanded it from him when they met three days ago. She should have never let herself get caught up in what was so obviously just a game. She should have never let herself give Chat Noir a second chance.

As Marinette watched the sun rise up over the city, she understood that it was always going to be just her.

It was better that way.

She let out a long, deep breath, relaxed her shoulders, and stood up. Chat Noir had made his choice, and that was okay. She’ll take his Miraculous when the time came. She hoped that he would find some sort of peace before then.

But she wasn’t going to be burdened by his choices any longer.

“I think I’m going to go hiking,” Marinette declared. “What do you say, Tikki? I’ve heard Mount Blanc is lovely during this time of year.”

Tikki smiled at Marinette and summoned her powers from deep within her, bringing into existence a beautiful pink flower.

“I’ll be with you wherever you go, Marinette,” Tikki promised as she tucked the flower into Marinette’s hair. “Whatever you choose.”

Read Ch. 7: Requiem >>

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#miraculous ladybug #consequence of our love #ml fanfic #marichat #adrienette #long fic #unplanned pregnancy #trauma #mental anguish #angst and fluff #angst with a happy ending #violence #ptsd #discussion of abortion #friends to lovers #romance

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