#the lighting and colour changed 800 times so this is the best i can do
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Bokseungah (pronounced: bok. seung. ah) noun: a group of 3 cuties, often found in each others company.
#the lighting and colour changed 800 times so this is the best i can do#kim seungmin#lee felix#yang jeongin#stray kids#bystay#createskz#asea 2024#skz gifs#staydaily#stray kids gifs#skzedit#seungmin was cute in this vid and thats not me having seungmin glasses on he was actually just cute
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It’s time for some facts about coelacanths!
I said I’d do this a while ago and I forgot so I’m doing it now because coelacanths are the best and more people should know how cool they are! I did not mean for this post to turn out so long but I promise the facts are very good (how could they not be when coelacanths are so cool)
There are two living species of coelacanth, Latimeria chalumnae, the West Indian Ocean coelacanth, and Latimeria menadoensis, the Indonesian coelacanth.
This is a West Indian Ocean coelacanth, they’re dark blue and each one has a unique pattern of white spots:
And this is an Indonesian coelacanth:
Indonesian coelacanths are noticeably different from West Indian Ocean coelacanths due to their background colouration being more of a greyish brown rather than blue. Their spots also appear more gold due to light reflecting off them :)
Coelacanths are old! The oldest coelacanth fossils date to more than 400 million years ago, and they were thought to have gone extinct about 66 million years ago, until 1938 when one was accidentally caught off the coast of South Africa and found by Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer.
Latimer contacted her friend, the ichthyologist J. L. B. Smith, who confirmed the fish was a coelacanth! Smith was given the honor of naming the fish, and he named it Latimeria after Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer. (Shown below with the coelacanth she found)
After their discovery, people mistakenly described them as the 'missing link' thanks to their leg-like fins, and this myth persisted thanks to the interesting way coelacanths swim, which appears almost like crawling.
Even today they are sometimes called 'living fossils' because of how little they have changed over millions of years. This label is not technically accurate since they are still evolving, but they do have one of the slowest evolving genomes in the animal kingdom, probably because they're already very well adapted to their environment and they don't have a lot of selection pressures affecting them.
Coelacanths can be more than six feet (up to two meters) long, weigh up to 200 pounds, and are estimated to be able to live up to 100 years! They are covered in hard, armor-like rough scales that are themselves covered in tiny spikes called denticles, which help protect coelacanths from rocks and other fish that might want to hurt them.
They also give birth to live young in litters of 10-25 pups and new research suggests they can be pregnant for as long as 5 years! This would mean that they beat out the frilled shark as the record holder for the longest gestation period by more than a year!
(Unfortunately this means that the birth rate for coelacanths is very low, which doesn't help their small populations. The West Indian Ocean coelacanth is critically endangered, and the Indonesian coelacanth is classified as threatened :( )
Coelacanths are what’s called a lobe-finned fish! This means that their fins look more like stumpy appendages than skin that's been stretched over flexible spines. Their closest relatives are lungfish, and that actually means they’re more closely related to us humans than they are to ray-finned fish like tuna or goldfish! Hell yeah!
Coelacanths live in the "twilight zone" which is between 500-800 feet deep. It’s hard to study coelacanths in their natural habitat for extended periods, but they never survive trips to the surface due to the pressure change, so a lot about their behavior is still pretty unknown.
Coelacanths are generally slow moving, nocturnal drift hunters, which means they tend to sort of just eat whatever fish cross their path, but they have a lot of interesting adaptations that make their particular method of drift hunting unique.
First, coelacanths have a hinge in their skull, called an intracranial joint, that lets them open their mouth more than would be possible with just their jaw.
Second, they display an interesting behavior when feeding, where they will float with their head pointed down, almost like they're doing a headstand. They do this while floating along catching prey, and it seems to be working out for them.
Third, coelacanths have a sixth sense! They have an organ in their snout called a rostral organ that functions as an electrosensor to help locate their prey by detecting the electrical signals given off by other animals!
They truly are a unique animal. They even have a caudal (tail) fin with three lobes instead of the two-lobed tail that is common in many fish.
(source for this diagram)
And here you can see the three-lobed caudal fin on a real coelacanth (and also you can have a reminder of how big these guys are. They are not little fish)
It seems coelacanths also have more similarities to their relatives, the lungfish, than we used to think. It turns out coelacanths have a vestigial lung! They have a lung that they don’t use anymore! It’s all shrivelled and wrinkly but it’s there!
They also have a spiral shaped intestine! Some sharks have this too, it’s basically shaped like a spiral to increase surface area for maximum nutrient absorption.
Another way they differ from many other fish is their swim bladder, which is how they control their buoyancy! In most fish the swim bladder is filled with gas, but coelacanths' swim bladders are filled with oil and fat instead!
Coelacanths are also the proud owners of notochords! They don’t have backbones, they’re so old they were around before animals had backbones and they just never got one, they still have their oil filled notochords! Don't fix it if it's not broken, right?
Also, just in case you were wondering, they would not taste good, they are full of all sorts of oils (as mentioned in the above two facts), plus they do have very hard and rough scales. (But also even if they did taste good it would be a bad idea to eat them since there aren't a lot of them left and it's generally considered bad to eat endangered species)
Well, that's the end of my coelacanth facts, so if you took the time to read this whole long post that was just me talking about my favorite animal, thanks for sticking around! Here, have some bonus content!
Coelacanths make a guest appearance in Atlantis: the Lost Empire!
I like seeing them in the movie so I ignore they weren’t discovered when the film takes place in 1914 (easy to ignore) and that they wouldn’t survive the trip to the surface due to the immense pressure change (less easy to ignore but I do it anyway) :)
My friend @thelunarbee even crocheted me one for a Christmas present :’) his name is Milo and I love him so so much
I also drew a coelacanth a while ago, here's where I posted it if you want to see it :) (I mean, I draw coelacanths all the time but those are mostly doodles, this one I actually put effort into)
Alright that's all I have to say, but I hope you liked the coelacanth facts and remember, if coelacanths can survive for 400 million years, you can make it through today. Be kind to yourself :)
#coelacanth#i love coelacanths#sorry for the long post#me rambling#featuring the coelacanth aka my very favorite animal#this turned out way longer than i meant it to lol#fish#fish facts#coelacanth facts#im also a big fan of relicanth the coelacanth pokemon#i dont know anything about pokemon but i love bulbasaur and relicanth#i also want to play animal crossing very badly because i know there are coelacanths in it#basically if a piece of media has coelacanths its a guarantee that i'll want to consume it#also i love reading tags so if you have any thoughts feel free to tag this post#credit for that last coelacanth pic with all the hearts: me! I did that :)
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Marker Mayhem
Lockwood and Co Appreciation Week: Day One - Favourite Main Trio Character
Summary: You find Lockwood asleep in the living room from waiting up for you but your delirious state gets a bit carried away with your permanent marker.
AN: This is for day one of the Lockwood and Co Appreciation Week! Lockwood is probably my favourite character but only by a smidge haha. I love how he can be so protective of George and Lucy while also being a reckless dickhead lol.
Pairings: Anthony Lockwood x Reader
Word count: 800~
Warnings: just some fluff and hysterical laughter
When arriving back home to 35 Portland Row it was late in the evening and way past curfew. You'd spent the past few days up north visiting your family but you train back to London was delayed, meaning you got home much later than expected. You made sure to enter the house as quietly as you could so you wouldn't wake any of your housemates, knowing they all could do with as much undisturbed rest as possible.
Once you had taken all your stuff back up to your room and gotten changed you headed back downstairs to make yourself a cup of tea, only to notice the living room light dimly glowing from underneath the door. Slowly opening the door, your tired eyes fell upon the sleeping body of your best friend - and crush, Anthony Lockwood. His body had slightly slid down in his armchair, a magazine sprawled across his chest which he'd clearly tried to read to keep himself awake, drool starting to form on the edge of his mouth. You couldn't help but quietly giggle at his sleepy state and you decided that you should probably get him up to bed. But first you had another idea in mind.
You scoured the kitchen draws until you came across what you were looking for, a permanent marker. He was going to absolutely hate you for this but you were starting to get delirious from your long day that you simply didn't care, it was going to be too funny. Plus, when were you going to get another chance like this again? Lockwood looked like he never slept so it was probably unlikely.
Creeping back into the living room where Lockwood was softly snoring in his chair, you uncapped the pen in your hands with a mischievous grin on your lips. Suppressing your laughter, you slowly and softly drew on Lockwood's face - first just an intricate moustache, but then you moved on to horns and other squiggles around his eyes and chin. What's more, Lockwood smarted to smile when you drew around his lips and temple, which made your face so red from holding in your sniggers. Once you were happy with your completed work you stepped out of the room to get yourself a drink of water and let yourself breathe steady, letting your face turn back to a normal colour.
It was getting late and you realised it was probably due time to wake Lockwood up so he could get some actual rest. "Hey Anthony, it's time to go to bed" you say to him softly as you stroked his hair, making him slowly wake up as he stretched out his arms, looking at you once he opened his eyes. "Oh you're back, thank goodness I was getting worried..." he looked around the dark room and then back to your face "what time is it?" giving you a puzzled look. "Way past your bedtime, come on let's go upstairs" you say as you pull him up from his chair. You lead Lockwood upstairs into his room, guiding him to his bed and away from his mirror so he didn't have time to see the drawings on his face.
The next morning you were in the kitchen with George and Lucy before Lockwood had woken up, but the next thing you heard was Lockwood's voice shouting from within his room "whAT THE-" and then rapid footsteps racing down the stairs. George and Lucy exchanged confused glances while you remembered what happened last night. Suddenly Lockwood swung the kitchen door open, still wearing his clothes from the night before and his face covered in slightly smudged pen "Alright, which one of you three did this!?" his voice mildly angry, breaking halfway through his sentence, eyes darting between the three of you in the room.
George and Lucy both broke down into laughter as soon as Lockwood came in the room "oh I thought it was something serious" Lucy said through snorted laughter, "it suits you quite well actually, really brings out your eyes" George adds in with a smirk. You were trying so hard to not laugh, your artwork looking so much more funny the day after, but because of your suppressed laughter Lockwood shot you a look "it was you.." "I'm sorry, I was really tired, I don't even remember doing it" you held up your hands in defence, laughter escaping your lips. "You don't remember!? Y/n look at my face!" he said, clearly in disbelief "I waited up for you to come home, I was worried, and this is what I get in return??" Lockwood continued, but you couldn't meet his eyes, you couldn't take him seriously looking like that. "I- I'm sorry" you force out amongst your hysterical giggles "I'll help you clean up, I promise" "I would bloody well hope so." Lockwood finally heaved out, finally letting himself laugh about the whole situation.
#allie writes#lockwood & co#lockwood and co#anthony lockwood#anthony lockwood x reader#anthony lockwood x you#lockwood and co x reader#lockwood and co imagines#lucy carlyle#george karim#l&coaw2023
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🎨 🥺👉🏻👈🏻
Astrid, Astrid, Astrid, what am I going to do? Sort through your consistently perfect gifs? Pick favourites? You have truly set me a great challenge.
Usually I will go through a person’s whole edits tag but I have sorted these into Narcos and The Mandalorian because I was just looking to see how much you had made and accidentally saw a major spoiler for The Mentalist which I am only on season 2 of. I’m looking forward to [redacted] happening, though, because I was starting to ship them a few episodes in! Anyway, onwards with my impossible task.
Narcos
So before I start on this list I want to say that your colouring? It’s perfect every single time. Seriously. Fair warning: I’m going to be saying “perfect” a lot.
Javier Peña + that thing he does with his right hand - A great compilation! I never noticed this little detail so this gifset was a real (pleasant) surprise. I was checking the notes just to see what the general consensus was and I like the he-wants-a-cigarette theory. Just excellent acting from Pedro what a very keen eye you have! Or maybe you just spend a lot of time fixating on Javi’s hands...
Javi being snarky - Gosh, I love this one! Javi’s sense of humour got me though Narcos, although I think only one or possibly two of these gifs is from season 3? The way the life drains out of him over the course of the series just breaks my effing heart, baby. By the end of the three seasons I was pretty cross with the guys in episode one for calling him an asshole, but maybe I can see their point now, haha! But I still love him. I will protec.
1.05 There Will Be a Future | 3.01 The Kingpin Strategy - It was a great choice to jump from one scene to the other like this. Really adds to the heartbreak. It makes the contrast between his life now (sharing stories in the cool dark) and what it could have been (warmth and light and checked shirts) all the more vivid. The way he looks back at her in the last gif? Ouch.
Narcos, “The Palace in Flames” (2015) | We Can Be Heroes (2020) - A parallel I love and respect, thanks for making such good gifs of it. Shout-out to @keanurevees for being the single funniest person on this planet.
“Jungle Rescue Javi” in Convivir - Listen Jungle Rescue Javi can come and rescue me anytime. You’ve done a great job of colouring so many scenes with different lighting conditions and still have that green shirt look like a green shirt. Like it’s the same hue in each one. How did you do that? That’s pretty neat.
We’ve all gone off the rails down here, Javi. - This scene! I’m not okay! I love the colouring work you have done here. It’s just so perfect, so nice to look at. The whole set has this earthy colour palette and I mean, even Javi isn’t wearing a colourful shirt for once. This is serious.
Javi wearing a leather jacket - These gifs are so HQ I could practically reach out and touch his jacket, you can just feel the textures... with-with your eyes...? You’ve picked shots that all work together as a set, nothing stands out for the wrong reasons. No wide shots, no super close-ups, nothing to throw us off of our jacket appreciation rhythm.
Javi and his yellow aviator sunglasses - My biggest “YEAH BOY!!!” ever for this one. The amount of work that must have gone into this. 24 individual gifs coloured to your usual levels of absolute perfection and then laid out in this very pleasing and completely accurate, not-a-pixel-out-of-line way. Amazing.
Javi chasing Franklin Jurado through Curaçao in Best Laid Plans - Gosh this scene was so tense! You’ve done a great job colouring this despite the changing lighting conditions and the blazing sunshine. Well done! And I never noticed until I saw this gifset for the first time that he’s wearing a pink shirt and jumps from a pink building, haha!
Javier Peña leaning over tables - You see stuff like this? This is why I consider you to be the ultimate expert on Narcos. You make compilations like this and make it look effortless. I wouldn’t know where to start looking for scenes like these without having to rewatch the whole series and take notes. But, hey, maybe that’s what you did. But the fact that you did and made this set is still amazing.
NARCOS | 1.06 EXPLOSIVOS - Great job with such a dark and unforgiving scene! You have the Talent. He looks really pretty here.
Javier Peña + favorite look - Gosh, yes. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, Pedro Pascal is a very talented actor. He takes clunky vintage tactical equipment and makes it look flipping incredible, like something he was born to wear. Also thank you for that delectable bonus gif. Arms.
The Mandalorian
Okay I have rambled for, like, 800 words already so I’ll try to say a bit less about these. I’ll try.
Din’s beskar spear heel kick in The Rescue - First of all, I saw this and now I’m pregnant. This is on the list because not only is it Din’s hottest moment for me, but because colouring-wise it is impressive. It’s bright, there’s no colour cast at all, and yet the blacks are really deep and rich. Gideon’s I’m-evil-I-must-wear-nothing-but-black cape looks especially good.
Din’s walk - You are the compilation queen! There’s nothing really that I can say here that I haven’t already said about your other compilation gifsets, it’s just perfect as usual, ya know? You make it look so easy. How does Din look so good when [New Yorker voice] he’s just walkin’ here?
Din just being a dad - Yeah. That’s the Good Stuff.
Din’s shoulder/waist ratio whenever he walks into a room - Everyone shut up I am Thinking.
Din engaging in a dogfight while his son has the time of his life on the backseat in The Siege - Like with your set of pink-shirted Javi chasing that guy in Narcos, you have a real talent for giffing action scenes. You’ve coloured this really well. You can still see details in the clouds and the shadows and your colour balance is impeccable.
Din lifting his helmet to sip soup in The Siege - I love the warmth of this little scene and the colouring you’ve done here. And the bonus gif... same, Grogu, same.
And I think I’ll stop there. I have sadly had to leave out some really excellent posts but I had to draw the line somewhere, haha! You, my friend, are just incredible. Time and time again you grace us with perfect gifs in crisp HD 4K 1080p HDR. And for what? Not for money or reward, but for love. Thank you for all that you do, because you may make your gifs look effortless but I know it is anything but. You’re amazing, you’re talented, you’re perfect.
creators send me 🎨 and i’ll tell you my favourite of your last ten creations and why
#javier-pena#ask#you're one of the best gifmakers on this site if not the best#i could go on but i already have#🎨 reviews
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Can ask for a cheerleader reader and douxie, like they are from rival schools but meet at a game and they really like each other
I love this !! 1000% yes !!!
“Come on girls, hair and makeup needs to be done in ten minutes !” You called out into the changing room filled with giggling cheerleaders.
It was a Saturday evening, and a big football game was happening between your school, Arcadia Oaks High, and their arch rival, Arcadia Oaks Academy. Even thinking about the school made your blood boil. They had a nasty tradition of pranking your school the night before a game. One year you’d ended up drenched in red paint, ruining your hair and makeup. It took ages to wash it all off.
Not only that but the student were the worst. Tight Jeans Hank was a player if you’d ever seen it, and had broken Mary’s heart. But the worst had to be Hisirdoux Casperan. His name alone made your blood boil and hands clench into fists. Since the day he’d moved into town the two of you had been at odds. As another magical being you felt threatened that he’d stumbled into your territory. You didn’t trust outsiders, certainly not strange guys with rude cat famialirs.
Also He worked at Mr. Benoits as one of your coworkers so there was no escaping him. You hated his stupid skull necklace and black hair with blue dyed tips. Who did he think he was, coming onto your turf as a sorcerer and stealing all the good magical items ?! Not only that but he always seemed to go out of his way to piss you off.
Also that English accent was definitely not real ! He was totally faking it !
“(Y/n) I need help with my hair it just won’t behave !” Mary yelled upset, flinging her hairbrush onto the side in frustration. You were brought out of your angry, rage filled thoughts by her whining, and quickly ran over to stop her tantrum.
“I’ve got you, no worries girl.” You said reassuringly smiling at her as you picked up the comb, and started to pull her hair up into a high ponytail.
As the head cheerleader you felt a level of protectiveness over your team, plus you were the oldest as a senior in the high school (and nearly 800 years old as a magical being). Girls like Mary and Shannon (who you had struggled to convince to join the team since she was very shy and not to confident) looked up to you.
There was no pressure on your team to look or act a certain way. You hated all the stereotypes about cheerleaders and were trying to get rid of them. For one the uniform ou guys wore came in a variety of styles. If a girl wanted they could wear a short skirt and crop top, but if they didn’t there was also shorts, T-shirt’s or leggings instead. All had your schools logo and colours.
You personally liked the short skirt and cropped top, you knew it bugged Douxie to see you wearing it. He couldn’t keep his eyes off of you and it pissed him off that you could do that to him. You on the other hand loved the power it gave you.
“There we go, you look great Mary.” Tying a neat bow into her hair you stepped back to let her eye your work in the mirror.
“You’re the best (y/n) !! I look fabulous !” She whipped out her phone to take a selfie which you rolled your eyes at.
Teenagers.
—————-
Douxie rarely came to things like high school football games, he wasn’t one for school events. Zoe has to drag him to prom, and he spent the short, thirty minutes he could manage there complaining about the awful music. However he knew that this game was against Arcadia Oaks high school. And he also knew that a certain girl was head of the cheerleading squad.
Douxie had laughed so loudly when he found out you were a cheerleader at work in one of your sarcasm-filled conversations. The amount of jokes he made like ‘give me a C for (y/n) can’t count properly’ or you being a ‘dumb cheerleader’. He’d planned on coming today to enjoy watching you embarrass yourself so he could tease you about it at work.
But then Douxie saw you and your team run onto the field And any thoughts of mocking you flew out of his mind, along with his drink which he dropped in shock, splashing the poor person in front of him.
You were clad in a skirt and top, both in your school colours, with a neat bow tied in your hair. The lively smile on your face made you look electric.
You looked really good. Like Douxie, who’s been alive for 919 years, has never seen anything that good good.
“Mordrax’s miracles.” He whispered, breathless as you and the other girls danced along to the music, pom poms flying in the air.
From atop of the pyramid formation, you and your team had taken, you noticed a certain punk rock guy in the bleachers surrounding the field. And you also noticed his shell shocked expression.
A mischievous grin spread across your face as you were launched into the air, flipping gracefully before the bases caught you. You weren’t daft. Douxie had practically been drooling the way he was looking at you, and it made your heart leap.
There might be some tension between the two of you but it wasn’t all bad.
————————-
For some reason Douxie hung back when the game ended. Even though everybody else was filing out of the bleachers, and into the streets of Arcadia, he found himself rooted to his seat. Well he had some idea why.
Maybe, just maybe, he’d get to see a certain cheerleader.
You bid the girls farewell, hugging Mary and Shannon goodbye as you headed out of the changing rooms. As your skin met the bitter winters night air you started to regret not brining a jacket. Shivering a little you rubbed your arms up and down as you turned to walk out of the field, lit by a few lampposts.
“Cold love ?” A British-accented voice asked aloud.
A scowl crossed your features as you recognised the smug owner of said voice. With a dramatic sigh you turned on your heel to glower at the one and only Hisirdoux Casperan.
“What’s it to you Casperan ? Also quick side note scene hasn’t been a thing since the early 2000s.” You sneered at him, putting your hands on your hips.
“Well darling I was going to offer you my jacket but I don’t feel quite so compelled now.” He answered smirking at the annoyed look on your face.
In all honesty he did feel a little bad for you. It was a chilly night and yet here you were in a tiny skirt and top. Honestly he knew you were dumb but really.
“Well I don’t want your stupid jacket ! It’s a lovely clear night !” You yelled at him, before turning around marching away. however you only got two steps before the heavens decided to open.
It began to rain, the droplets hitting your bare skin, making your slight shivering turn into fall on shaking. You cursed the gods who decided your life was a comedy routine.
However you kept walking, not wanting to be near Douxie anymore. The giddy feeling in your chest at being near him was quickly being overtaken by sheer annoyance. With a huff you tried to march away until Douxie reached out and grabbed your hand.
“Love as stubborn as you are, you can’t walk home in this. Come on I’ll give you a lift back.” He offered, for once sounding sincere.
Hesitating for a moment you looked him up and down, noting how his face had softened, the way his lovely dark eyes were focused on your so intently.
“Thanks.....Casperan.” You said awkwardly, unused to being civil with Douxie.
The boy smiled at you, chuckling a little at your awkward tone. As you both turned to walk to his car he unzipped his jacket and threw it at you.
“What the hell casperan !” You yelled, before quietening down once you realised he’d given you his jacket - abruptly sure, but he’d still done it.
Without saying anything you slipped the dark blue jacket on loving the feeling of warmth. The faint smell of pine trees and old books mixed with scent of the falling rain, and you couldnt help but take a deep breath in.
Douxie watched a content smile grace your face, and could feel his heart beat start to pick up. He prayed to Merlín that his cheeks weren’t as red as tomatoes. The sight of you in his jacket was doing things to him.
A sudden clap of thunder startled the pair of you and hurriedly you chased after Douxie, who made his way over to his car. You were dripping wet once you got inside the comfort of the vehicle, letting out a sheepish laugh.
“Sorry about your car seat.” You mumbled, rubbing your arm sheepishly. The leather of Douxies jacket was covered in rain and it dampened your fingers.
From beside you, Douxie glanced your way as he turned his keys in the ignition. The roar of the car was overtaken by another clap of thunder, a bolt of lightning shimmering through the sky.
It’s golden light lit up your face for a few seconds and Douxie’s breath caught in his throat, stunned for a second time today at your appearance. A few strands of hair were stuck to your cheeks, which were coloured with pink. Completed with your glowing eyes he couldn’t help but think how beautiful you were, especially when you weren’t saying something sarcastic.
“It’s no problem at all love....” he flashed you a small smile before reversing out of the parking lot and driving steadily down the streets of Arcadia.
The two of you, soaking wet form the rain, driving through the quiet streets to the soundtrack of a thunderstorm; it was quite romantic. For the first time you both were enjoying each other’s company, in peace and quiet.
It left you almost feeling unnerved, a slight tension building in the close confinement’s of Douxies car. You went to break the ice first but Douxie already started to speak;
“So umm where should I drop you ?” He asked, finally realising he actually had no idea where you lived.
“Oh uh Peach street, I live in an apartment above the flower shop there.” You quickly responded, a little embarrassed that you’d been so stupid.
Quickly, the pair of you were both engulfed in silence once again, as Douxie turned left down the street. He was struggling to think of anything to say. You guys had the odd witty, sarcastic conversation but never really spoke. There was attraction definitely, but your interests remained unvoiced. Hell the pair of you had never even spoken about your shared magical talents.
Until now.
“I know you’re a wizard.” Blunt as a butter knife, your words caught him off guard a little. He’d wondered when you would have this conversation.
Since the moment Douxie first met you, at Benoit’s on his first day at work, he knew you were a wizard like him, or soreceress rather.
He could easily sense your magic, an aura of red, so fiery and bright it caught him off guard, surrounded you. Whereas you felt the cool blue aura that shrouded the teen, calm but telling of how powerful he was.
“Blunt as ever love. And I know you’re a sorceress. A pretty powerful one at that, or just pretty.” He winked at you, a smirk on his face as he saw you roll your eyes.
“So....now that’s our in the open. Why did you come here ? You know this is my territory right ?” Your long buried resentment at his arrival here was starting to surface, an edge to your tone.
Douxie sucked in a breath, “it’s a long story really, but this place it’s special. I’m sure you’re aware of everything’s that’s go on here.”
A smirk made its way across your face as you thought about the magical nature of Arcadia. You were all too aware of what happened in this town.
“Trust me Im aware. Last week I had to send an incubus back to purgatory outside my school. And then after, spent the day cleaning up the messes left behind by a bunch of chanelings.”
Before you knew it, you were ranting all about your magical problems. It felt nice to have someone to talk to, besides your familair there was nobody else you could vent to.
“It’s nice you know, to actually be able to talk to someone about this...” You started, trailing off as you felt your nerves growing.
Douxie pulled up outside your apartment, the car rolling to a stop. He turned to you and noted the small pink tint on your cheeks, and the way you were fiddling with the hem of his jacket. A pang rang through his chest at the fact that you would go now.
“Well if you want to talk some more we could go grab something to eat ?” He asked a little unsure but hopeful.
Your face broke out into a large grin.
“I’d love to Casperan.”
With a quick turn of the wheel, you both sped down your street, laughter filling the car.
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Lightfoot Quarantine Headcanons
(These are a few headcanons to pass the time with some more optimistic friends; stay safe and wash your hands!)
--So as suspected, Barley ropes the others into playing Quests of Yore first thing, as often as possible.
--Colt infamously waged a short-range attack on the gelatinous cube. It. Did not end well.
--Barley is an essential worker and he jokes about it being the first time he’s been considered essential once before Ian threatens to show up at his job and pull the whole “Barley special” bit.
--”What is this? A brother coming to pay calls at my place of work just to inform the other village folk how adeptly I handle my profession?”
--”Barley, be quiet and appreciate yourself or I’ll intentionally go the wrong way up aisles.”
--Laurel and Barley come back from work with masks at the same time, coincidentally in the same patterns. Ian walks down to Target immediately after he sees them just to get a mask that doesn’t have a dragon on it.
--Barley quotes The Princess Bride at work in response to any reference to his mask and the customers love it.
--If Laurel and Colt don’t have to enforce the “No magic in the house” rule every other Tuesday--
--Many shenanigans ensue with using random things (moss, wildflowers, cool rocks) as assist elements to see what happens.
--Once Ian forgot he still had a splinter from practice and accidentally cursed Barley with a tickling cantrip. He never did hear the end of that one.
--Laurel jokingly "grounded" him for that one, to which Barley immediately declared since they were all on indefinite lockdown, the world was a lawless place and revenge-tickled Ian.
--Sometimes when Ian is really stressed out, Barley invites him to go for a “quest”. There, they drive past Ye Olde 7-11, grab some ice cream on the way up to Raven’s Point, pop the trunk, sit in the back, and just...watch the world go by for a little while.
(A la this amazing fanfiction which is *chef kiss*....I have read it....five times since lockdown? I’m okay.)
--Ian dislikes online classes, but Barley always counters with "Still better than shilling out $800 for textbook PDFs."
--It's also more entertaining than it should be to watch Barley rant about the scandal of charging full price for textbook PDFs.
--"I am a history major!! I should feel the ink and parchment beneath my fingers as strongly as the satyr playwrights of Greece did when they first penned the script! TAVISH OF ATHENS DID NOT WRITE 'OF SERPENTS AND STARS' TO CRASH WHEN TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE USING THE WI-FI."
--Blazey gets sooo many cuddles and has learned to squish under doors.
--Colt was unofficially kicked off the wi-fi during the most frequent overlapping Lightfoot class hours, so he plays with Blazey. As a result, Colt is now one of her most favorite people ever.
--The first time Ian got Blazey, Colt whistled for her, and she scrambled off Ian's lap and up to Colt, Ian pretended to be scandalized by her treachery.
--Blazey is also the best hot-water bottle for a cold night. Colt's friendship has absolutely nothing to do with the fact centaurs sleep in, essentially, nice stables.
--You think you need a haircut? Poor Colt’s tail got long enough to tangle with his back legs when he galloped five weeks in. While centaurs can wash and brush their tails easily, they are not quite flexible enough to cut them.
--The Manticore's Tavern is tragically understaffed for courtyard delivery; Barley pulls a shift now and again between his usual job and classes and the Manticore is unbelievably grateful.
--This boy can move orders like all-get-out, double the tip jar in three hours, and still spend most of his time on his phone or messing with Quest of Yore cards.
--Laurel and Barley pick up groceries and essentials weekly, but are notorious for forgetting that One Thing. Or two. Or five. Or vaguely remembering the list and happily checking out with a cart full of fruit juice and snack packs.
--The last few days before the next shopping trip inevitably become slapdash cooking competitions between two or three people at a time (or, if it’s really unsuccessful, pizza nights).
--Everything Laurel makes has a smiley face on it. Waffles? Sunny-side up. PB&J? Happiest meal of the day. Salmon piccata? Smiley face, comes with a note reminding you to do your best and show someone your friendly smile if she’s working on autopilot.
--Ian always attempts something elaborate, and it ends up as A) a decent four-star meal or B) fire.
--Barley’s entries always slap. You give him an egg, a pack of bacon, and half a box of spaghetti and he comes back with pasta carbonara. Nobody knows how he does it (there’s a rumor going around that he just throws it away and MordorDashes something when nobody is looking), but he does work with what he have and has a few sneaky cooking tricks.
--Every one of Colt’s entries is some form of queso griffin skillet, and there’s always way too much of it. He has a near-perfect record of wins by unanimous vote and Colt’s entries are lowkey anticipated all week.
--Near-perfect means he lost, once.....to the time Laurel and Barley teamed up to make a better queso griffin skillet.
--There wasn’t even any actual queso in the house, good lord.
--The boys stay quiet and inside for one (1) day and it's because they were building a LEGO castle.
--At some point Laurel changes into pyjama pants in the middle of the day. Ian asks her about it ("Mom, shouldn't you, uh, be wearing pants?") and she counters with "Why?"
--Ian leaves and comes back in pyjama pants.
--Colt has some kind of squad groupchat which he checks for a minute once in a blue moon. (There are few calls to go on, so it’s mostly, “My girlfriend’s kids liberated my hair clips and are serving a three-minute house arrest.” or “The eldest just put peanut butter on scrambled eggs, now that’s a crime.”)
--Long story short, someone offers a giant roll of butcher paper and even as he trots over to pick it up, Colt knows it’s the worst decision he’s ever made.
--It is.
--Ian and Barley get super excited when they first see it and spend days drawing or playing games on it in table-length sheets.
--Laurel gets tired of scooting past them every time she tosses something in the overflowing recycling, so she tapes them up like wallpaper with gold stars and compliments .
--Ian gets embarrassed when he first sees them, but Barley takes five seconds to pull a turnaround power move and start making a big deal about his stickers, especially in comparison to Ian’s.
--”Dearest mother! As you see here, Iandore has earned a green star for his magnificent drawing of a hippogriff--”
--”That was a hippogriff? I thought it was Mr. Nakamura, from the dry-cleaner’s. He loved it on FaeBook, even has it printed out and framed in his apartment!”
--”Ian has earned a green star for his magnificent drawing of Mr. Nakamura, but my, very similar picture of a pegasus has been acknowledged with but an orange star. Orange is the colour of defeat.”
--Absolutely, they would do faerie lights and bunnies in windows.
--Barley unsuccessfully proposes that fencing, ultimate frisbee, and archery are socially distanced sports (until you hit someone, that is), but he and Ian are kings of geocaching.
--Ian is content to read or draw by himself, but Barley is always a fairly affectionate person. He got a minor cold at some point and had a six-foot yardstick propped up in his bedroom just to lightly smack Barley with when he got too close.
--Ian reads the entirety of that one really long fantasy series (yes, that one, with the dragons) and soon becomes more or less illiterate.
--Too many conversations have opened walking in on Barley throwing sticky hands at the walls (yes, like Alex Hirsch) and asking, “Can I have some?”
--Colt is about six feet long and is infamous for asking in full Cop Manner whether people who won’t wear masks or want to see managers are “having a problem.”
--Laurel manages just to keep her sanity mostly because she is always down for a pillow fight.
#onward#ian lightfoot#barley lightfoot#headcanons#onward headcanons#laurel lightfoot#colt bronco#yayyyy now stay inside
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Soph’s Header + Doodle Tutorial (requested by anonymous)
Hi! I’m back again with the sequel to my icon + colouring tutorial, this time with headers and doodles! 🥰 You will need:
I’m using Photoshop CC 2018 to make these headers and doodles, but you could easily make them with earlier/other versions.
Basic gif making knowledge.
A screencap you want to use, some fun textures, and some time and patience!
I always start off with my headers as size 500 by 281 pixels. It doesn’t really matter necessarily, as long as the size is in line with the tumblr dimensions and fits. I find these sizes work to keep a gif or header small, so you can make it a bit longer without going over the tumblr size limit. I know technically tumblr doesn’t have a size limit any more, but I do still try to stick to the 3 MB limit when I can. This is because sometimes gifs lose their quality if you go over. In my opinion, you can afford to go over a bit, but if you go too far, the quality of the gif gets destroyed, and sometimes for me even on 4 MB they just don't play, so 6 MB or 8 MB doesn’t stand a chance. Not sure if anyone else has run into this problem, but you can read more about what I mean here and here.
Okay, so. Making simple headers is actually pretty easy, it’s just a lot of layering of the right things. Once you have your base size, pick a nice gradient to put on it. For me, I’m going with a light purple to a slightly darker purple:
It’s important that you have video timeline turned on for this. If you are not familiar with frame animation and video timeline, I suggest you take a look at this, since we are going to be using both quite a lot in this tutorial.
Next, you want a nice background texture for your header. You don’t have to, but I think it just gives it a little something extra. You can find some textures here they have A LOT to choose from.
Once you have your texture, make it black and white and set it to soft light (unless the texture is the same colour as your background, then sometimes leaving it in colour can enhance the whole thing). Then you should have something that looks like this:
Now add your cap, coloured + smart sharpened and whatever other adjustments you want to make, on top of these layers. If you don’t know how to do this, please see my icon tutorial, where I explain how to do these steps in depth.
Obviously in this instance, Steve is much larger than if this was an icon. Make the picture proportional to the header size, but it’s up to you how big or small you want that to be! So, you could just save the header like that, if you wanted to. BUT, since we’re going to be adding gifs + doodles, I’ve had to make some special adjustments. As you can see down the right-hand side in the layers tab, I’ve added some purple colour over and under Steve (set to soft light, opacity anywhere between 5-30%, whatever suits you) and also lightened the background A LOT. There is a reason for this, which you wouldn’t need to do if you weren’t going to add gifs (unless you wanted the background to be lighter, of course).
So, for the gifs underneath your cap. Here is a pack of gif overlays that I love and adore, once you have chosen one of those, you want to put it underneath your cap. To do this, open the overlay gif, it will look like this:
And you can just drag it across from one file to another, underneath your cap.
I turned off all the layers above the gif, temporarily, so I could move it into place. Once it’s in your header file, make sure to change the gif to “overlay”, which will then bring back your nice background colour. Setting something to overlay makes everything underneath it look darker, hence why we lightened the background before, as I personally didn’t want it to look too dark for the overall header. (You could also put your cap underneath it if you wanted the gif to go over the person, but you’ll have to do extra editing to make sure the cap isn’t too dark if you do so).
Now you should have something that looks like this:
You want to make sure you end the header where the gif ends, even if your layers are “longer”, as you can see above. Again, this is a perfectly acceptable place to leave your header and save it, but this is where I tend to add the doodles!
Open a new file, I usually make them quite big say 800 by 400 px, as you can scale the doodle down later on, rather than starting small and working in a small space, which makes things unnecessarily difficult. If you would like to add some premade doodles onto your gifs, you can find some here, but I will show you how to make your own below!
You could draw the doodles yourself, probably making your life a lot easier, but if you’re like me and you don’t want to do that (for me it’s because I suck at drawing on ps, LMAO) you can use a picture too. Find a picture of what you want, I usually just google it, so here I’ve got a simple crown:
I used the magic wand tool to cut it out, and now we have this:
Now what you want to do is change the video timeline to frame animation. Click the “creative video timeline” button if video timeline isn’t already displayed, then the three dots in the left-hand corner to convert to frame animation, and you should get something like this:
Now, here’s the long-winded bit. It’s slightly odd and a bit complicated, so if this doesn’t make sense, please feel free to message me and ask further questions.
So, we want the doodle to look like it draws itself, right? What you want to do is crop the image so bits of it are added as the frames go on, thus achieving that effect. The key to this is turning layers on and off on the right-hand side, so only certain parts of the image show themselves one after the other.
Firstly, duplicate Layer 1 and turn the original image off. This is a safety in case we mess something up later and need to revert to the original image. Now, crop out the first part of your picture. I’m going to start on the bottom of the crown and work my way around clockwise. Use the marquee tool (I’m using the elliptical one) to cut out one section of the image, then right click and select ‘layer via cut’.
Then turn off the rest of the layer, so you’re only left with this tiny piece:
Now, add a new frame. On the bottom bar there is a button, next to the bin/trash, that looks like a sheet of paper, which says “duplicate frame” if you click on it. Do that. Now is where the turning off and on part comes in. Each layer on the right-hand side corresponds to a frame on the bottom, and you want to build up what is shown in each frame every time.
This is going to involve a lot of duplicating and merging of layers, because I haven’t found a better way to do it currently.
First you want to turn off all the layers when you have Frame 2 selected. When you’re on Frame 1 your tiny piece (Layer 2) should be turned on (you turn layers on and off on the right-hand side, toggling the little eye icon). Like so:
You want to be working with Frame 2 selected for these next parts. Then you want to duplicate the tiny piece layer (so now we have Layer 2 copy). By turning the Layer 1 copy on briefly, you can cut out the next part of your image, so use the marquee tool again to cut out the next little piece. Make sure you have the layer with the rest of the image selected when you do this, otherwise you could be cropping nothing, since the other layers should still be turned off. Once you’ve done that (once again using layer via cut!) you should now have Layer 3. Move this to the top, turn off Layer 1 copy, and turn on Layer 2 copy, like so:
You may not be able to see in the picture, but the two layers aren’t quite touching. Since it doesn’t matter what the original image looks like for the end result of the doodle, you can move Layer 3 in line with your first piece. DO NOT move the original small layer, Layer 2, as then it will be in a different place on Frame 1 and Frame 2, and you’ll have to try to move it back, and that will be a mess. Always adjust the newest layer in line with the previously existing layers so this doesn’t happen.
When you’ve done that, select both Layer 2 copy and Layer 3 at the same time. I usually use the ctrl key to do this, which I think is command on macs, then when you’ve done that, right click on those layers and select merge layers from the menu that appears. They should now be one layer called Layer 3.
The problem is, when you do this in the second frame, it usually turns itself on in the first frame too, which you don’t want. So click on Frame 1, and make sure to toggle Layer 3 off for Frame 1, and on for Frame 2. And the opposite with Layer 2: make sure it is on for Frame 1, and off for Frame 2, like this:
Now, you want to repeat the process. So, add a new frame at the bottom, so you have three frames. Turn all the layers off when Frame 3 is selected. Duplicate Layer 3. Cut out the next piece from Layer 1 copy, and make sure it aligns with the other layers without moving the previous pieces. Merge Layer 3 copy and Layer 4. Make sure Layer 4 is turned off in Frame 1, because the newest layer WILL turn itself on there every time. Go back to Frame 3, and turn Layer 4 on again.
You should have something that is looking like this:
Can you see how all the different layers are corresponding to the different frames? I don’t mean to be patronising at all, so I hope it doesn’t come across that way. I just know that some people don’t understand how frame animation works, so I’m trying to be as clear as possible.
It doesn’t matter if your doodle is moving away from your original image, because you won’t be seeing the original image when the doodle is done, only the doodle. As long as the layers that correspond to your frames aren’t moved during the process, then don’t worry.
Continue to do this until the whole doodle is made, like so:
I ended up with 15 frames, and 16 layers. You can set this to whatever speed you think is best by highlighting all the Frames. If you click the thee little lines on the right-hand side of the frame animation window, a little menu pops up, and there you can select all frames (or hold shift and click on the first and the last frame). From there, you click on the time underneath the frames and adjust it whatever looks best for your gif, 0.05 usually works well.
Now, you want to convert the doodle into one object that you can move. To do this, click on the little lines in the left-hand corner (where the frame animation dots were before), and all the framers will turn into layers in video timeline. Then, to make them all one object, select all the layers at once on the right-hand side, and go to filter > convert for smart filters.
You should now be able to drag your doodle into your header file! Like so:
As you can see, sometimes the doodle isn’t as long as the loop of your gif, but that’s okay. What you can do is use the marquee tool and right click when you’ve selected the doodle, choosing layer via copy. This will create a still image of your doodle, which you can place after it ends to ensure it stays on the header until your gif is ready to loop again, as you can see here:
As you can see here, I decided to make the crown white, since I felt it fit better with the header’s aesthetic. To do that, I inverted the gif and the still shape, and set them both to lighten. I also added a white stroke of 1px just to make it stand out (double click your layer on th right-hand side, and find stroke in the pop up that appears, adjust to your liking!)
I also added another doodle to mine, using the same process as before. Spelling out ‘king steve’ had a lot more layers and frames, but it was the same process. Then I dragged it over, and copied the layer just before it re-looped so I could have it as a still image for a portion of the gif. You may need to duplicate your overlay gif underneath the cap to ensure eveything has enough time to loop properly, like so:
And that’s it really! If you would like to add a divider on top of your header AKA a header template, these are the ones I use (one, two). To add it, open the file and drag it onto your gif file, then place it where you want it to be. Once you’ve done that, set the layer to screen (here is a tutorial from the op) if you want it to be white, or invert the image (image > adjustments > invert) and then set it to darken if you want it to be black. If you want it to be a different colour, you’ll have to cut out the divider from the background image, and then double click the layer to get the style menu. In layer style, you can select ‘colour overlay’ and make it whatever colour you want!
To save your gif, go to file > export > save for web (legacy). It may take a while, so just let ps do its thing until the bar has loaded. You can preview the gif by clicking preview in the bottom left-hand corner, in case you want to cancel and make some changes to your gif before you save it. These are my settings:
And voilà, you have a bright and shiny new gif, doodle, header! If you’d like to use this, you can find it here 💜
#tutorial#header tutorial#tutorial*#resources#headers#chaoticresources#completeresources#yeahps#i hope this helps!!!#thank you to ally @siriusblacks for reading this over for me 🥰
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lovin’ you, hatin’ you, wantin’ you
warning: fluff, angst
note: happy 800 @versdan ! not me (creating two storylines for one idea and only writing the one with the happy ending bc i’m a sucker for love), wrong bitch. i’m so so incredibly sorry for not posting for like a month! i've been busy with work and i’ve really missed writing, so i’m hoping i can do a bit more (at some point) and get more work out for you guys to read :))
word count: 1.9k
THEN
the field was soft and light that morning. the wheat had barely begun to grow and only touched your mid-calf, but it still itches whenever you passed it. the oranges and yellows in the sky made the mornings better. the fresh, crisp air of the open space made the mornings better. gwilym made the mornings better.
and he was there, just a few feet in front of you, guiding you through the wheat field, making a path for you. often, he glanced back, watching as you trudged and trekked over the terrain.
this morning, specifically, it was tough. the lack of a downpour in the late spring weather had caused warm nights and dry days, even drier mud which you almost tripped over everyday. the passage through the field was just a small consequence of having the best view of the mornings, and gwil; you’d keep him with you wherever you went.
the lake was already glistening when you made it to the opening. like always, gwil waited for you before stepping over the hill, offering you his hand - which you gladly accepted - for support. your other hand wrapped around his bicep as you made your way up and over the hill, finding your nestling spot easily enough after so many times.
and the sky was orange, and yellow, and all shades of happiness that you could think of. it reflected off of the lake and across the scenery, covering the trees and grass with colour.
without his knowledge, you always snuck a glance at gwilym. his light brown hair always fluttered in the wind, making what was usually a neat look, a disheveled one.
the sun looked good on him in the morning.
after years of seeing him like this, after coming to this spot almost every weekend of every year for ten years, it never got old; he only seemed to get better every year.
NOW
it was raining. a typical instance for london in the autumn. your usual outing on a friday night was hastly changed to a night in at yours. as always, gwilym brought the food and you the drinks. after he arrived, drenched down to the bone in water, his coat was hung up to dry, his sweater was changed into one that was permenantly at yours and both of you were settled on the sofa.
an age old film was playing in the background as you ate and later cleared away from dinner. it wasn’t long before boxes were thrown away and your places were taken on the sofa. gwil’s back was pressed against the back of the sofa, with your body tucked into his side as one of his hands idly drew patterns on your skin.
as the night grew older, you changed and went through a few episodes of a joint-favourite tv show and your eyes slowly began to close, leaving you asleep on gwil’s shoulder. almost your entire body was cradled into his side, your body turning subconsciously in your sleep to the welcoming warmth of him.
the next morning, you found yourself in your bed sheets, tucked up and away from the patter of rain from outside. it seemed the storm barely let up, keeping the weather steady throughout the night. only a few inches beside you, gwil was still in his slumber, the steady rise and fall of his body telling you he wouldn’t be awake for a while.
the urge to stay next to his warmth was strong, but you wouldn’t allow yourself to do that; it would be too much to add to a definition. a definition of your relationship that was most definitely not, but also was most definitely, defined.
so, instead, you pulled yourself away from what could be - once again - and began brewing some coffee and making breakfast, something completely undefinable.
THEN
the late summer evenings were always your favourite. it could be nine o’clock, but the sun would still be hovering in the sky, painting it with the most gorgeous shades of pink and yellow as the heat of the day had settled and remained, requiring only a thin hoodie to shield yourself from the natural coolness of the night air.
it was only yourself and gwil out at the moment, the others having retreated back into the house to either sleep or grab a drink. neither of you had realised that you were alone, only being interested in each other and your conversation at the time.
gwil was sat straight on the long sofa, his knees knocking into yours often as he swung his legs side to side. you were sat curled up, your body facing gwil and the others - being on the end allowed that - with your knees only ever centimetres away from him.
throughout the night, even before your friends began to leave, you two only seemed interested in each other, having little giggles and whispers to one another while the others conversed together.
during the few days you’d been away for the last couple of weeks of the summer before returning to university, your friends had placed bets on when something - anything - would happen between you and gwil. they kept it hidden, not letting anything slip of what they were up to.
nothing happened, though. you spent the rest of your time away as friends, having your little moments together several times a day.
it wasn’t until the sun had completely set and the pinks and yellows had faded into blues and blacks, with hints of purple, that you and gwil retreated back inside. the fire was left to burn out and the mess of the evening was left until morning.
NOW
with typical london weather, it was pouring. the storm had been growing slowly over the past hour or so and now showed no signs of stopping. the weather had perfectly captured your mood over the past few days; the consequence of ignoring gwilym in turn of sparing your own feelings.
but that would end soon. he was outside your door, his face flushed and cheeks warm, a coat, matching gloves and scarf, haphazardly thrown on, his knuckles rapping at the door. it pulled you from yourself, the TV’s job at drowning out the world with white noise had failed.
you barley even registered that he said your name. it came as a sweet whisper, not even making its way to you, rather past you, and through into your apartment. uninvited, which he was. you had thought the minimal messages and short responses had told him what you wanted to say. but he was here and he was-
“can i come in?” he asked, taking your blank expression and the ignoring of his first word as your continued ignoring of him. you could only nod, moving to the side a little to allow him room to get through the door, closing and locking it quickly after.
gwil had begun to pull of his gloves and scarf, his coat drenched in water. he left it over the back of one of your chairs, hoping by the time he left it would be drier, whenever that may be.
you watched as his methodically made himself comfortable, as he had done many times before. except, this time, he didn’t pour himself and drink or take his usual seat, he remained standing, his body stiff and hostile.
who to speak first, you thought. there were the differences; gwil had arrived at your apartment, but you had been disregarding his presence for the last few days, so it was debatable. and yet, it seemed gwil was in no mood to speak first, so you had too.
“gwil-”
“no,” he started, “please don’t start this bullshit on not being ready to talk, because at this rate i’ll be dead before you finally tell me anything.”
sparing your feelings meant ignoring gwil in hopes of forgetting how to love him so you could be friends again. but, in the short time, the distance had made you feel deeply for him. the disappearance of him during your daily, and weekly, activities you do together was noticeable and you really didn’t want to leave it any longer.
but you also didn’t want to be left heartbroken. so you did what you did, and now, you regret the very idea of it.
“i just don’t know how i’m feeling, okay?” you felt small. even in your house, his presence was so large, so overbearing, you felt like you didn’t belong, like you were the intruder.
there had been many times where you tried. it had been something unspoken between you two for years and you wished, with your entire heart and soul, that you could just finish being the coward and own up to how you feel. yet, your heart refused to work, refused to be compatible with your head and pushed the only person you’ve truly loved.
gwil sighed, hearing those words for what could have been the hundredth time; he’d lost count. but he refused to get angry, refused to be hurt and upset over something you can barely help. “just,,, let me know so I can stop second guessing whatever is going on between us, okay?”
it was soft, not at all what you thought it to be. paired with the way you can only imagine he’s feeling, that should have been a lot harsher, more strident. but that wasn’t gwil, and that wasn’t the way he was with you.
the next few minutes consisted of harsh glares, glancing away and silence which could be cut with a knife. it wasn’t pleasant. yet, you could think of nothing to say.
pained and desperate to end this, you crossed the space between you, so that you stood in front of him, trying to get him to see that you don’t want an argument. your feelings for him are here and there, but most certainly, there. you’d rather keep gwilym than let him go, as pitiful as it sounds. the preference of keeping him in the knowledge that he feels for you like you do him is too strong to let him go as a result of your childish exploits.
so you tell him, more show him. you’ve never felt your touch to be so soft before you held his face, cupping his cheeks into the palm of your hands while your thumbs lightly stroked the outgrown beard that littered his face. gwil hadn’t even registered your touch, thinking it was his imagination and that you hadn’t, after the days previous, just touched his with such softness and kindness.
but you had, and you leaned up towards him, his height being an extreme disadvantage in instigating a kiss. yet, you reached, allowing your lips to rest a top of his with the upmost gentleness.
you felt twelve again, running through the fields in the early morning, your hand barely touching gwil’s as his wide stride took him further away from you. you felt like you were back at that lake, the early morning sun causing the ripples to glisten as the soft pinks and purples kisses the scenery around you.
you felt nineteen again, sat among friends as you laughed together, your body being only inches from gwilym’s, so close that you could feel the rise and fall of his delicate breaths, and his knees as they knocked into your own. you felt the warmth of him and the fire and the remainder of the sun, setting, leaving the world once again with a reminder of purples and blues.
you felt whole and where you were supposed to be.
TAGLIST: @shes-over-bored @i-barely-go-on-online @sohoneyspreadyourwings @brian-maybe-not @deakysbabybooty @1001-yellow-daffodils @retromusicsalad @hardcoredisneynerd @painkiller80 @goldhoran @scarecrowmax @mebeatlized @seesiderendezvous @alright-mrfahrenheit @someone-get-a-medic @miamideacon @chlobo6 @teenagepeterpan @spacedustmazzello @deakysgurl @forever-rogue @xcdelilahxc @keepsdrawings @igotsuckedintothevoid @kill4hqueen @supersonicfreddie @laedymoon @inthedayswhenlandswerefew @warriorteam1924 @painandpleasure86 @boomerangbassist @mamaskillerqueen @bhxrdy
#versdan800wc#gwilym lee#gwilym lee fic#gwilym lee x reader#gwilym lee fanfiction#gwil lee#gwil lee fix#gwil lee x reader#gwil lee fanfiction#bohemian rhapsody#x reader#acdeaky
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death and other drugs - part one
The Destiny of James Potter
A/N: Okay so a long time ago I saw a post about a grim reaper au for 5sos, back in those fandom days and I have never been able to get it out of my head so I’m finally writing a fic that is heavily inspired by my memory of that post, though I can not find it, just know some other human has inspired me to write this, somewhere out there…also Harry doesn't exist cuz idk what I’d do with him in this story. This is modernized sort of, and it deters from canon obviously, I make my own rules for the afterlife. Reader will be in the next part!
The Marauders x Reader / Grim Reaper Au. Word Count: 3.1k
Warnings: violence, death, drugs, mature themes. Mentions of drug use but I am Canadian so weed is super legal here fyi.
Destiny is a funny thing, some people believe in it, some don’t. If you asked James Potter a few days ago what his destiny was he would probably tell you something super mushy about Lily like his destiny was to find her and marry her and build a family with her, but things change and no one controls their own destiny.
The door to their small home in Godric’s Hollow is broken down with a silent bang that shakes the floor under his feet, Lily rushes upstairs to hide and James is determined to keep his wife safe. A green flash of light fills the small home and James Potter’s eyes roll into the back of his head as he hits the ground and everything goes black. He didn’t even stand a chance.
His head becomes an empty void of nothingness for what seems like forever and simultaneously no time at all.
Until he feels his soul leave his body, he feels light, he opens his eyes and he feels hollow and barely there, his feet planted on the ground but he feels as if he could fall through the ground. He holds up a hand and looks at his palm, his skin looks faded and he can see through his skin.
“James Potter, your destiny has arrived.”
“Destiny... what? Where am I? Wheres Lily?” The questions fall out of his mouth in a mess of words and worry.
“None of that matters, it’s time to face your destiny.”
A cloaked figure appears before him in the never-ending white room he appears to be in. It’s faceless and holds a scythe, almost the same appearance as the dementors from Azkaban. But he didn’t commit a crime?
“The title is being passed, it is going to you, it is your destiny to guide the dead to the afterlife.”
“Woah wait, I don't accept, I don't want that job,” he stutters in disbelief before deferring to humour not knowing how to handle this information, “that sounds like a shit gig mate, no offence. I never sold my soul or anything why me?”
“A greater force has decided.”
“A greater force? No way, this is all some stupid dream, I’m gonna wake up and Lily is gonna be okay and she will be beside me in bed and everything will be fine.” James takes a deep breath as he closes his eyes.
“It is not an option and even if it was you can never go back to that life, you are dead. Your wife is dead.”
“What?” James’ heart drops, it was inevitable that Voldemort would kill her after him, she wouldn't be able to stop Voldemort, “where is she?” James turns and looks behind him as tears fill his eyes, panic fils his voice and his heart feels like a million pounds in his chest.
“She’s already gone,” The figure, this personification of death pulls out what looks like an enchanted short scroll. “Lily Potter, witch, angel, was taken to heaven by angels two minutes ago-”
James gulps, at least she was going to heaven, at least she wasn’t in a situation like this.
“I thought it was your job to bring people to the afterlife.”
“Not my job, it’s your job now. And only some people, it’s a shared job. Angels handle heaven and demons handle hell, I do both, or you do now.”
“Great!” James yells sarcastically, he can’t even properly mourn his wife because he’s found himself in such a weird fucked up situation he doesn't even know how to react to any of it.
The figure hands James a key and he reluctantly takes it, the figure fades away and suddenly James finds himself alone in a dark room. It’s large, there are windows but no light comes in through them, it’s very empty with basic furniture and a letter and an old-looking suitcase on the bed.
He slowly turns and looks around before grabbing the letter which reads.
~
Congratulations you are the new “Grim Reaper”!
Your position will last until a new replacement is chosen, anywhere from 100 to 100,000 years is the usual duration.
You are currently standing in your new home/ office/ living space. Though you are not really living, you are the personification of death and this place is called the in-between. You can travel to the living world, heaven (only the gates) or to hell using the scythe placed under the bed.
The scroll inside the suitcase will tell you when your next job is, who they are, where to bring them. You won’t receive a new job until one is completed. You can also use it to see lists of the recently deceased, all older inquires can be handled at the main office.
You will also find your uniform inside the case, it is a requirement to be worn when guiding the dead. The scythe can be used as a weapon to defend yourself from the living, the dead and the various things you may encounter in between.
In this current state, you still have your magic abilities you had during life and can use them however you see fit.
For any questions or inquiries please call our main office at 1-800-666-DEAD, or email me [email protected] , ask for Lana!
Sincerely, Afterlife HeadQuarters,
- Lana Lynch, secretary.
~
“This is fucked,” James says aloud to himself, he took out the black cloak and holds it out. He lets the material fall to the floor before pushing the case and letter onto the floor and off the bed, lying down and bringing his knees to his chest, hiding his face in his palms and crying himself to sleep.
Not only had he been murdered by an evil dark wizard, but he was now given the task of being the Grim fucking Reaper, not to mention his wife was also killed and he didn’t know if he could ever see her again.
He wondered if he would have been sent to heaven or hell if this problem hadn’t gotten in the way. If he’d be an angel with Lily if they could have spent eternity together. Was Heaven nice? Was Lily happy and at peace or was she frantically looking for James just to find out he’s not even there? And he won’t be coming any time soon.
-
The apartment in the in-between had grey painted walls, it was the size of a large apartment, it had a small kitchen with smooth tiles, a bathroom and a living area with a large grey bed with black pillows. The decor really was ridiculous, was the grim reaper allowed to have things with colour?
James wakes up and takes a few minutes to open his eyes not wanting to accept reality when he opens them he sees the awful gloomy place, the empty side of the bed and lack of warmth beside him, none of Lily’s wild red hair tickling his face as he pulls her close.
He takes a deep breath and gets himself out of bed, he pushes his messy curls out of his face and cleans his glasses with his sweater. Figures even as the grim reaper he needs these damn things. He grabs the scroll and prepares himself to read the first name, might as well get started, there wasn’t anything else in this apartment to distract him. The scroll was a brown faded short piece of paper rolled into a silver metal tube, he popped off the lid and unrolled the paper.
= Sirius Black, Wizard, destination undetermined, to be decided upon soul retrieval. =
As if things couldn’t get any worse, James’ best friend, Sirius Black was dead. Great. James’ first job as the fucking Grim Reaper was to bring his best friend to the afterlife, even better he got to choose his friend’s fate. He didn’t know that could be part of the job, deciding whether someone got to go to heaven, this sucks.
The tears fell quickly, James was just so tired, he just wanted this nightmare to be over. He was so emotionally drained yet his body still found a way to produce new tears as he fell to his knees and screamed into a pillow.
He doesn't want to put that stupid cloak on, he doesn't want to do this but a thought crosses his mind. Sirius is already dead, from whichever means killed him, probably Voldemort, and he was just in this state of nothingness just stuck waiting for James. With that thought he quickly throws the cloak over his jumper and jeans and old scuffed up converse, he pulls the long hood over his curls and the shadow of the hood hides his face perfectly making him appear like more of an evil shadow than a person.
He leans down and pulls the scythe from under the bed gripping it tightly in his hand. He figures it works somewhat like a wand, with nonverbal magic. He holds it close and wills himself to be transported to wherever Sirius is.
There’s a quick flash of darkness before James finds himself hitting the ground outside a building, his knees ache as he hits the ground and struggles to stand up and fix his cloak.
Sirius’ body is on the ground, he was killed by the killing curse, James can just tell. He must have been doing an order mission. None of his other friends appear to be nearby which makes James feel a tiny bit better.
Sirius isn’t moving so James pokes his foot with the scythe which makes Sirius’ soul leave his body and form his ghost form, hovering over the dead body.
Sirius opens his eyes and looks around, shock evident on his face, trying to accept the fact that he just died.
“Bloody hell,” is all he mumbles.
“Are those your last words?” James asks as he pulls his hood down awkwardly.
“James...mate! What the fuck is going on.”
“You died,” James says awkwardly pointing to Sirius’ dead body
“Yeah, and you and Lily died yesterday, what is going on…”
“I'm the new grim reaper,” James states as calmly as he can and Sirius can’t help but burst into laughter, he doubles over as tears stream out of the corners of his eyes.
“The Grim Reaper!” another burst of laughter.
“Sirius this is ...serious! You died and now I have to bring you to one of the afterlife’s, you’re dead, Lily is dead and she’s an angel and I don't get to be an angel or demon or whatever this is a serious problem Sirus I’m so screwed.”
“Wait do I get to go to heaven?”
“It said undecided, it’s up to me.”
“Well then just don’t kill me mate! Easy.”
“I didn’t kill you!” James yells defensively, “but I can’t just not bring you somewhere, where will you go if I don't? I can’t bring you back to life.”
“I’ll just hang out with you, we can be inseparable just like in real life,” Sirius states so calmly, so certain that this is what he wants for eternity. The words make James break, the tears fall easily as he grabs Sirius in a tight hug and is surprised to actually be able to hold his friend and not have his arms go right through him.
Sirius isn’t as emotional, but he hugs James back and smiles to himself knowing he would follow James anywhere, even in death.
“There’s no afterlife without my best mate!”
James takes a moment to calm himself down as he works things out in his head.
“Okay I’ll just never complete this job and they won’t be able to give me a new one!” James says as he calms his breathing and rolls the scroll up sending it back to his apartment.
“So who will bring all the dead people to the afterlife then?” Sirius asks.
“I don't know I guess the angels and the demons will handle it.” James shrugs not caring about his lack of responsibility.
“They are gonna have their hands full with voldy going around, he’s killed three of us in less than two days already-”
With that realization, both young men look at each other in shock and speak in unison.
“Remus!”
James grabs Sirius’ hand and then holds the scythe, hoping it will bring them to Remus but it doesn’t budge.
“Wait, hold on to this,” James mumbles as he passes Sirius the scythe. James lifts up his cloak and Sirius bursts into laughter yet again.
‘You’re wearing normal clothes under that!”
“Well did you expect me to be naked?” James defends his wardrobe.
“No, I just thought the big bad death guy’s uniform would be more than a black bed sheet with a hood.”
“Shut up,” James mutters as he grabs his wand from his back pocket, he grabs Sirius’ hand and apparates them both to Remus’ small apartment.
-
Apparently it had been a few hours since Sirius had died, Remus had already heard the news that his other friend had died, he broke two plates in his kitchen, failed to be able to eat any food, made a mess of his apartment and hid himself in his bedroom to wallow in sadness and mourn his dead friends. Oh and to get high enough that everything feels numb and nothing feels real so he can pretend his friends aren't dead and he isn’t actually all alone!
His bedroom door is closed, the coloured light from his lava lamp and led lights reflect on the walls and a mix of smoke and incense fill the air making his room one big faded rainbow cloud.
Remus is sat on his bed hunched over with tears dried to his reddened cheeks, his hair is a mess. He was going to put on a record an hour ago but the one he grabbed he realized had belonged to Sirius and he forgot to give it back so he’s been sat for an hour just starring at it completely zoned out.
“Hey, that’s my fucking record!” Sirius says before even thinking of a proper thing to say to their very much alive friend.
Remus screams at the top of his lungs and throws the record into the air, Sirius catches it.
Remus realizes his dead friend is stood in front of him, holding the object he just had in his hands, his other best friend who was also dead as of yesterday is there in a weird black cloak and holding a giant scythe.
“Fuck this,” Remus mumbles and then lies down in his bead and turns to face the wall, pulling his blanket over his head wanting to just sleep off this bad high.
“Could he see us?” Sirius asks James.
“He’s not supposed to be able to, how strong is that shit he’s smoking?” James says in disbelief.
“Remus!” Sirius yells and watches as Remus brings his palms flat against his ears trying not to hear what he thinks is just a figment of his imagination.
“It’s not real, your friends are dead, it’s not real it’s not real it’s just a bad high a bad high,” he mumbles, a few tears trickle down his face as his hands start to shake.
Sirius and James sit on the bed and gently shake him pulling him to face them again. Remus’ eyes are wide and he looks horrified.
“This isn’t real you are both dead!” Remus is crying as he yells at the figures in front of him.
“This is real and yes, we are both dead...sort of”
“No, if you’re dead you wouldn't be here this isn’t real, I smoked some bad shit, it was laced, must have been I got it from Peter, never take weed from Peter!” Remus shakes his head and hides behind his hands, wiping his scared tears away with the long sleeves of his jumper.
“Remus I’m dead why didn’t you just go take my weed, it’s not like I need it,” Sirius states so matter of factly as if that’s something a normal person would do.
“Are you asking me why I didn’t steal a dead man’s drugs? Oh, I don't know I was a little busy crying over your death to think about stealing your things!” Remus yells, offended and feeling a bit crazy.
“I'm TALKING TO MYSELF!” He yells and then gets up abruptly, pushing the blankets off and going to stand up before being stopped by the presence of his two friends, knocking himself over.
He reaches out a hand and places it flat on James’ face, smudging fingerprint on his glasses. And then gasping as he pulls his hand away.
“We’re real Moony, I promise,” James confirms.
“Okay, you better tell me what the fuck is going on and make it make sense quick or I might bash my head in what the flower pot.”
“Do it!” Sirius yells.
“No merlin, no don't kill yourself for fuck’s sake, Sirius.” James rushes to correct his dumb friend.
“Then he could be one of us?” Sirius asks confused.
“No, then either an angel or a demon would appear to take his soul and he’d be gone.”
“I said make it make sense!” Remus complains, and Sirus and James proceed to sit him down and explain everything they know to him.
-
The trio made their way to the living room, sitting on the chairs and couch in Remus’ apartment.
“So James is the new Grim Reaper, and Sirius got killed and you are just avoiding taking him to the afterlife for as long as you can.”
“For forever!” Sirius clarifies.
“Okay, so what happens when these, angels and demons notice you aren't doing your job at all?”
“They won’t? And if they do I'm the Grim fucking Reaper, I’m their boss!”
“Are you sure about any of this?” Remus asks and both Sirius and James speak in unison.
“We aren't sure about anything!”
Remus rolls his eyes and plants his face in his palms.
“Remus don't worry about it too much, you are still alive and you just get to hang out with us all the time!” Siriustries to make this sound normal.
“I'm too high to deal with any of this right now, wait why can I see you if you are both dead?”
“We have no idea!” Sirius says with a big dumb smile.
“Great, a lot of information you guys have here.”
“All the information you need is the phone number for the pizza place across the street,” Sirius says as he relaxes back into his seat.
“You’re dead do you really need pizza?”
“I'm like half-dead Moony, please be more sensitive to my condition.”
“Fine, I’ll go get pizza, put the Jurassic park DVD on and roll these.” Remus orders as he tosses Sirius the DVD boxset and hands James his grinder and a pack of papers.
Not much had changed for the boys now that two of them were dead, the way they spent their night wasn’t any different from any of their previous hangouts, and that was the beauty of it, enjoying the little things, like pepperoni pizza and classic dinosaur movies. Maybe this would work.
#the marauders#the marauders x reader#Marauders#James Potter#Sirius Black#Remus Lupin#peter pettigrew#marauders era#marauder#maraduers#the marauders era#the marauders fan fiction#death and other drugs#daod#fan fiction#fanfiction#My writing#grim reaper au
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👀
send me a 👀 and i’ll post a snippet of art/writing that i never got around to finishing this year (r.i.p)
okay so here’s the tea on all the things that didn’t get finished in 2019!
2019 was the year of abandoning short stories lol oops! Here’s the hit list: :’(
1. Growing Season
This is such a hard hit because who doesn’t want to read a story about a woman replacing her boyfriend with a cactus, narrated BY the cactus?? I’d love to revisit this story because a) it’s told in my fave POV (first person directed to “you”) and b) “you” is an apathetic college dropout who goes for the hard dRAG after a bad breakup with her boyfriend, and c) because a cactus NARRATES it.
I’m at a little over 800 words in this story (it def gives me Sea Life by Eliza Robertson vibes).
2. Phantom Limbs in D Minor
Biggest hit! I’ve been working on this story since March, made good progress in the beginning, and slowly began drifting from it. I’ve chipped away at it sporadically over the last few months, and I’ve made it my goal to finish it over break! I don’t see myself hitting this goal, but I do hope to actually finish this story because I feel like it contains some of the best prose I’ve written and I love the vibe! I’m at over 2k words with a scene of about 1k floating around. I’ve actually toyed with making this story a novel because the scope seems quite large, but I definitely want to finish the short story before I think about that more! We follow chaotic Linda as she stress renovates her childhood home (a past! commune!) after her mother’s death. Linda is so precious to me, and I’d love to give her a story! If New York by Ex:Re was a person, it would be Linda lol.
3. Anatomy of a Swinging Door
I’m making a statement, and my statement is that this is my designated cult story which means it must happen in the future. This was originally my “test out first person retrospective” story, though I think the point of view isn’t working super well here, but we’ll see! I conveniently wrote a logline for this story when I was trying to narrow down the scope, so here you go: A young woman visits her childhood home on the one-year anniversary of her brother’s disappearance and meets the new (and strange) family who lives there.
(cult!)
So the second round of tragedies goes toward novels, AKA Houses With Teeth (which I can share excerpts from!).
4. Houses With Teeth
I really struggled with this book this year, because it came to be in a time where my writing was getting an overhaul (though I didn’t realize it at the time)! I’ve learned a lot about intention in writing over the last year, something the Fostered series has lacked (oops). This led to me being very unsure about where I wanted to go with this book in particular--the same route as all the others (weird contemporary with dystopian elements that haven’t fully gone away yet) orrrr plan out something a bit more literary! I’ve fought with myself over this since April, and still don’t know where I’m going, but I’m missing my chaotic diva narrator Reeve and would love to get back into her head!
This book has gone through about 3 openings, and I haven’t fully landed on any yet. I’m rethinking how I want to start this book, but taking my time with Moth Work to work me up to the timeline in HWT (which takes place about 8 months after the end of Rewired). I think I’ve shared most of this!
Some excerpts of first person retrospective Reeve (AKA Rachel trying to be Emma Cline looool):
Though the church was only a fifteen minute walk from the apartment, I packed a picnic basket of cha siu bao and a bottle of red wine and wore heels so they would know I wasn’t Christian. The basket wasn’t mine and neither were the bao—these were both things I’d taken from Liu. This wasn’t the first time I’d stolen from her. I’d once taken her fifty-dollar jar of saffron from the pantry because I’d heard it was the most expensive spice and wanted to feel rich. I took her jade Buddha necklace because she’d left it in the back and I wanted to feel cultured in her city, I wanted to become her history. The saffron jar was replaced. She didn’t comment when I wore the necklace at my next shift. This was why Liu and I worked well together. She pitied me so would never fire me, even when I skipped shifts and cussed at the customers. I felt entitled to her things because she was kind to me. I felt entitled to her kindness.
lol I haven’t read this in months and it made me laugh #valid:
I crossed the street before the streetlight changed because this is how I lived in New York City. The world was unfair and lightless and I was an atheist who believed in God, walking in five inch heels on a busted road in the ghetto so I could get enough holy water to drown the ghost out of my apartment.
When all else fails, add a dash of mother:
The air that summer was always the same: dense and wet, even on the good days. It clung to my arms and threatened to erode the skin there, even when it wasn’t sunny. I remembered my mother’s insistence of sunscreen when I was a child; before the pool, in the pool, out of the pool, when we weren’t even at the pool. Her hands were always cold and the sunscreen was always liquid—Izzy was never good at temperature or putting things in the right places. She’d put the instant coffee in the fridge and the cream on the counter. She’d cook the eggs too long and the ice too little. My father would criticize her as a joke and she’d threaten a divorce. This was the only thing I knew was true about my mother. Sunscreen was expensive, so I never bought it.
Reeve bringing out the drag:
“Grab me a pack of cigarettes?” I shifted the picnic basket so it rested in the crook of my elbow.
“ID?”
“You don’t need my ID.”
“I ID every customer. You’re nothing special, baby.”
The man’s mustache wilted in the tungsten light of the variety store, spindly like loose threads. My father had grown a mustache like that once, and it took only two nights before my mother cut it off in his sleep. Izzy was brash like that, and I wanted that too; to find a pair of scissors in one of the aisles and chip at that flaccid mustache. There was nothing special about this man, either. All men in New York City tried to look like that; facial hair like coiled up leeches, a gut they pretended wasn’t a gut, but the fault of an unflattering polo from their wives. I imagined the snip of the kitchen scissors on my father’s upper lip, the same snip I heard the next day when he clipped the evergreens lining the walkup. There was something coarse about how similar it all was—pruning trees, grooming facial hair. I had turned twenty that spring—it would’ve taken only a minute for him to pass me a pack, but this was too easy. I wasn’t biological in New York City; I shouldn’t have been.
5. Fostered But It’s Magic
So this was never meant to be a full project, though I had hoped to write a bit of it just for fun and never got around to it! FBIM (obvi working title lol) is exactly what it sounds like: the Fostered series but with a magical twist! I don’t write very much genre fiction, nor have I ever written fantasy, but a few months ago, felt drawn to the idea of putting Fostered in a magical world (my comp titles are SHREK 4 meets HOWL’S MOVING CASTLE).
I don’t have any of this written, but I do have a few notes which I can share!
I didn’t realize I’d made a tag yourself writing these notes but (I’m Lonan):
Reeve is a magical con artist who runs her own business selling bootleg magic.
Lonan is absent and part bird
Harrison *believes* he is #magic free but has been recently getting hot flashes during nightmares.
Foster has an in-home herbalism business where he helps mostly the elderly and children. He has a cart that he wheels monthly into town. Kind of a failing business.
The gist is that Harrison (who we’d be following) can’t sleep due to hot flashes and nightmares of his ex (@ Lonan) and is referred to a small business run by a clairvoyant who promises to make all psychological problems disappear—relationship issues, sleep issues, life issues. This clairvoyant is actually Reeve who is telikinetic of some sorts, and doesn’t actually provide magic, but manipulates (usually weak) brains, AKA tricks people into paying her large sums of money when she gives them no magical help in return. We ALSO have a “past” plotline, and this is the very loose logline I’d written down (tho if I ever write any of this, is subject to change):
After being tormented by nightmares of his ex lover resulting in violent hot flashes and an inability to keep up employment, Harrison seeks a magical intervention. When the clairvoyant he hopes will cure his strange ailment turns out to be a con woman—and his old friend—he is thrown back into the past and forced to rekindle relationships he thought he’d left behind.
Some dialogue I wrote down ft. clairvoyant Reeve being Reeve:
H: Why are you doing this?
R (reapplying lip colour): Is my lipstick distracting you? The colour is dazzling.
H: It’s bullshit.
R (abruptly stops drawing on lip colour): The lipstick?
H: Your work.
My fave interaction tho has to be this bit I’d noted down with pure Foster comforting Harrison after a nightmare:
Foster *reading on couch when Harrison wakes up in #panique*: What happened? Harrison? Do you need some eucalyptus?
*do u need some eucalyptus*
That’s basically all the writing related things I didn’t finish in 2019! I’d love to explore them all in 2020 though! Thanks for asking. :)
--Rachel
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— 𝗀𝖾𝗇𝗋𝖾: 𝖿𝗅𝗎𝖿𝖿 𝗍𝗈𝗐𝗇, 𝗀𝗋𝗎𝗇𝗀𝖾!𝖺𝗎, 𝗌𝗈𝗅𝗈 𝖼𝖺𝗋𝖾𝖾𝗋!𝖺𝗎, 90'𝗌,
— 𝗐𝗈𝗋𝖽𝗌: 2569
— 𝗌𝗎𝗆𝗆𝖺𝗋𝗒: 𝖨𝗍'𝗌 𝗍𝗁𝖾 90'𝗌 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖩𝗎𝗇𝗀𝗄𝗈𝗈𝗄 𝗂𝗌 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗁𝗈𝗍𝗍𝖾𝗌𝗍 𝗋𝗂𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗀𝗋𝗎𝗇𝗀𝖾 𝗌𝗍𝖺𝗋 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗒𝗈𝗎 𝗁𝖺𝗏𝖾 𝗍𝗂𝖼𝗄𝖾𝗍𝗌 𝗍𝗈 𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝗇𝖾𝗐 𝗌𝗁𝗈𝗐
Your fingers stick together as you apply some facial glitter to your cheek bones. “Yo, I think this face glitter is off, y’know” you say to your best friend Taehyung who is on the other side of the room, staring into the mirror, attempting to smoke out his eyeliner.
“Didn’t you get it off Kami? It was probably bought like a decade ago, and it’s only just resurfaced from her neon coloured makeup collection. ‘83 through ‘87 were wild, can’t believe people used to wear all that colourful crap.” He said, trying his best not to smudge his handy work, his face showing amusement.
“Ok, mister punk rocker, don’t go all cynical on me. You forget that I still have your baby pics with you and all your neon sportswear on, thinking you look so fly. Oh, and and don’t let me forget about your bright pink sweatbands! They were abominable.” You break out into laughter remembering all of his cute little baby jump suits. He looked like he was going skiing because they were all so padded.
“Oh eat my shorts, you know I’m a changed man now, grunge has taken ahold and I am never going back to” he dramatically shivers “bright colours. Never again.” He feigns a retch and turns back to the mirror to adjust his hair.
You were both in your bedroom, getting ready for hopefully the best concert of your life. You were going to see one of the best vocalists of the generation, in your opinion. Jeon Jungkook, also known as Jeon JK, is a tall, dark haired, leather clad, heartthrob that had weaselled his way into your heart, and pretty much held it tight. You’d be lying if you said you didn’t want to do him. Amongst having a rocking bod, he also is an amazing song writer, total cutie/dork, and most likely a general nice dude with a good personality. What wasn’t their to like?
So this is how you found yourself, and your best friend Taehyung, in your most grungy outfits you could make under a budget and about to go to a hopefully life changing concert.
Tae turned around from the mirror, “Tada! Do I look okay?” His eyes were gently smudged with not over the top eyeliner and his hair was slightly tousled. It had begun to grow over his eyes so he kept on sweeping the dark locks behind his ears. It matched well with his slightly too large black overalls and light grey tshirt. Over the tshirt he wore a checkered short sleeve shirt with black thick piping on the edge, a detail he’d added himself. All in all he looked like a grunge dream, he’d totally mastered the look.
Unlike your self ripped denim, stolen-from-Tae pearl jam shirt, and leather jacket, you didn’t really look very appealing in your own head but you figured it that was the best you could do so you’d just have to rock it.
“You look ravishing, my dude. King Kurt would say you look bangin’ and that’s honestly all you ever need in life, right?” You laugh at your own joke but it’s less awkward because Tae joins in too.
“Thank you! Right, come on Joan Jett 2.0 shall we hit the road? We don’t want to miss the opening act, do we?” He pulled on his doc martens and soon you were off.
☆:.｡.🥀.｡.:☆
As soon as you saw his face you had to pinch yourself. He looked so good it had to be surreal, it had to be a dream. His boyish long curly hair fell into his dark eyes, his cuffed baggy T-shirt, his ripped jeans, the sweat dripping down his neck, he was a heavenly vision. He looked like some type of Greek god among mortals. His smooth voice crooning out rich and melodiously. It was dulcet and velvety, yet full and powerful too. This man was, quite simply, enchanting.
You break out of the spell this magical pied piper put you under and lock eyes with Taehyung. He’s singing along to the words, eyes wide and full of awe. He’s putting his height to his advantage, he can see much better than you. “Oh so kind Tae Tae?” You shout over the guitars and drums blasting ahead of you. “Yeah?” “Can I please sit on your shoulders?” You say as cutely as possible whilst shouting over a live band. “I don’t know, we might block others view though.” He says eyes still locked on the brown haired boy ahead.
“Never mind them, I can’t see, I’m short!” You put your hand to your forehead and pull it upwards to make the point. “Fine...but you owe me big time.” He says rolling his eyes but a smile on his lips.
He pulls you up just as Jungkook throws his head back to the beat of the song. Damn, that was hot. A wave of heat flows up your body and you feel your blood run straight to your cheeks.
Thank goodness you got on Tae’s shoulders; you can see so much easier now, you can see well over everyone else, the slight swaying of Taehyung balancing himself is a small price to pay for getting to see the one and only specimen ahead.
Suddenly the song shifts, the guitars and drums crescendo and JK’s voice goes from velvety smooth, to something alike ice. Laced with something that can only grab your attention, sharp yet still smooth at the same time. The music was unfamiliar, the drummer begun a solo and JK swayed his hips. Then the drummer stopped and the guitarist started the opening chords to their latest single... so that’s why the sudden shift, it’s a mashup.
“That’s so cool!” You shout to Tae and then scream to show your approval.
Swiftly, the crowd surges forward and because of this so does Taehyung. You try your best to hold on to his shoulders, you’re approaching the barrier, much closer than earlier. All of a sudden Tae jerks forward, having reached the barrier and no more room to go, his body lurches and along with him, you. You tumble over the railings, legs hitting the metal as you go head first.
Head aching with pain and dust on your hands, you look up. You find yourself in the “no man’s land”, the small space between the barriers and fans, and the stage and the artist. You hold your head as you cautiously stand up and a familiar face turns in surprise. He spots you and perfectly ends his note as he powerfully walks over. Luckily it’s the instrumental outro so it doesn’t seem to alert anyone things are wrong; he crouches down to you, the stage separates you both but he makes the gap smaller.
“You ok, doll? That looked like quite a tumble you had there.” He soothed as he gently placed his hand over yours, resting it on where you bumped yourself. He stroked your cheek softly, consoling you. “I’m ok, I think, just a little dizzy.” Shooting pains were stinging your temple but like hell were you gonna show your true pain. “Let me help you.” He takes your hand in his and plants a gentle kiss on your forehead. “All better?” He asked.
“I think so. Although my elbows kinda hurt from the impact.” Your brain registers you’re actually holding hands with THE Jeon Jungkook and you feel your heart just about burst from your chest.
“I’m a tad concerned you may have a concussion darling, so I’ll take you back stage in a hot minute and I’ll get you some help. Just hold on here for me.” His dark eyes had a gentle expression, something new than what he usually has on stage. They sometimes look almost feral; like he’s going to jump someone’s bones. Not that you mind, however this was new and made your heart beat just the same, especially because you were the one who made him look so soft and fond.
The tall fellow rose and strode over to the centre stage. He languidly grasped the mic stand and began to sway to the rhythm. The guitars and drums began to fade out and the middle of the stage slowly started descending until his tousled hair was out of sight. You now realised this was the beginning of a ‘halftime’ break.
Soon enough Jungkook came running round the side of the stage and he bent down to where you were sat.
“Right, let’s get you sorted doll.” He grabbed both hands in his and gently and hesitantly helped you stand up. Once you were stood he put his arm around your waist and wrapped yours around his.
No way were you so close to your giant crush, never mind in an intimate embrace. Your brain struggled to process the whole thing and tried it’s best to act normal. Your brain was short circuiting and your heart pounding away; if you don’t die of a concussion, you’ll certainly die of a heart attack.
He quickly and fluidly moved you to the back stage area, escaping the roar and hungry eyes of the fans.
Once you were sat down on a plastic chair and he left to alert the medical staff, you began to shiver. Mainly out of nervousness and excitedness but quite possibly because you miss the warmth of his arm around you too. However as soon as he was gone he returned and had his arm tucked neatly around you again.
Why was he being so touchy? Was this just fan-service? Or maybe he is just like this when he is worried? Either way, it doesn’t stop the chill his warm touch sends up your side as his fingers brush against your hipbone.
All this time waiting for medical staff gives you a great opportunity to admire him. His visuals were so much more than stunning, they were quite simply unfathomable at times. A bead of sweat dripped down his temple and your mind can’t help but spin. His plain black T-shirt sticks to his stomach and you can see the faint outline of muscle. You look down to the hand around your waist. It’s broad and sinewy, a large vein running down the centre. His touch is gentle and caring, something you never expected from a stranger, never mind someone as famous as him.
You want to stay in this sticky plastic chair forever. “How are you feeling?” He asks, breaking you from your wild thoughts. “Not too bad, thank you for helping me, you really didn’t need to do this.” You reply, cheeks turning rose red.
“No, really, don’t worry about it. It’s the least I can do, you take your time to come here and support me, and for me to not help you up? That would hurt me inside. I’m glad you’re feeling a bit better though, that was a nasty tumble you took there doll, I hope your boyfriend is ok too?” He stiffens beside you, it’s as if as soon as he says it he realises what he said. “Oh no no, Tae’s not my boyfriend.” You run your hands across your thighs, a nervous reaction.
“Oh thank goodness, I only just realised how it could’ve looked, and I know I’d be ragin’ if some meathead like me touched my girl.” His body relaxes, and his hand grazes your hipbone for the second time. It feels like internal static electricity at his sudden touch, you hold in from jumping at it. “Do you have a girl?” You query, thoughts tripping over themselves to catch up. His ‘thank goodness’ reaction was certainly unexpected.
Was he relieved because he didn’t want you to look like you were cheating? Or because he could freely make advances without another guy in the picture? Or both? Either way your mind raced trying to keep up with everything, forehead still stinging in the background.
Eventually the medical staff turn up and sort you out, check you over to see if you have any insurance claimable injuries and bid your adieu with two tiny butterfly stitches over a cut you never knew you had.
JK walks you back to the stage floor, pulling you by the hand. He stops right before the last set of doors. “I’m sorry this happened, I’ll try and get health and safety sorted, but I’m not sorry we met, I’d love to say sorry to you in anyway possible though, so would I be able to get your number? I’d love to spend a good time with you, darling, some time when you aren’t in physical pain.” He jokingly adds in. The hazed over eyes that were once under the bright lights are now clear and genuine. You don’t even know how to feel anymore, everything is so much for you. You’d be stupid not to give your biggest most unlikely-to-reciprocate-crush your number, however it takes a moment to even register what to do. After what feels like forever, your body finally registers and you tell him your digits, as well as your email because your overwhelmed brain spills everything out by accident.
“Thank you for not reacting like a crazy screaming fan, this has been the best interaction I’ve ever had because you’ve treated me like a normal human.” He stammered. You look up to meet his eyes, they look intrigued, like he’s working out a puzzle. You’ve never seen him like this. Not performing. You guess you’ve never really contemplated how he is when he’s not performing, because you’ve never truly seen it. “I think I didn’t react like that because my head is about to explode at the moment, however you are still human, so we all deserve to be treated like humans.” You declare. You don’t know how you speak so frankly, it’s a miracle you haven’t passed out. “Very wise words.” He nods in approval,
“I’m sorry but I’m going to have to leave now doll, but it was lovely meeting you and I hope you enjoy the rest of the show!” He kisses your cheek like a date leaving for the night and jogs off down the maze-like alleys of the under-stage area.
What just happened? You stand in the hall in shock. Did Jeon JK actually just hold your hand, kiss your cheek, put his arm around your waist, AND take care of you? This was all too much. You decided to ponder it all later before you had an aneurysm and enjoy what was left of the night.
You walk through the doors and find your best friend in the sea of people. He wears a worried look and is right by the railing where you fell. “What the hell just happened? Are you okay?!” He barked. His hair was pushed back like he’d been running his hand through it, a nervous habit you knew he had.
You reach up your arms to him like a toddler and he pulls you up and over the barricade as easy as if you weighed nothing. He sets you down and looks at you, worried.
“As much as I want to tell you now I think my brain might explode so as curious as you are I’m going to tell you this all at home. However I assure you, I am fine.” You giggle at how absurd this all is, pulling Tae into a hug. It stabilises you and helps you know that you are real and you’re ok. This isn’t a dream and no matter how bad your head is banging it’ll all be clear soon.
The rest of the night passes by in a hazy euphoric blur.
#bestfriend taehyung#bestfriend!taehyung#Grungeau#grunge!jk#non-idol au#grunge jungkook#fluff#jungkook fluff#bts#bts oneshot#jungkook oneshot#oneshot#90’s au#90’s jungkook#90’s bts#jungkook#bangtan#bts fanfic#bts fanfiction#bts fic#bts fluff#jimin fluff#taehyung fluff
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borhap boys reading your favourite book
y/f/b = your favourite book
AN: these got a bit long-ish so the other boys are under the cut, enjoy!
Gwilym
you told gwilym about your favourite book on one of your dates
and when you say “told”, you mean “gushed about it for ten minutes straight, not letting him utter a single word”
‘cause when you started talking about your fave book, you were unstoppable
“what?” you asked when you noticed him looking at you affectionally
“you seem to really like that book”
“like? more like adore, love, cherish, or dreaming about marrying it, really”
he chuckled at that and told you how much he loved you
and when one early morning you find him sitting in his chair, your favourite book in his hands, and his glasses on his nose, you release a gleeful squeal
you hop over to him and hug his side, pressing a loud kiss against the top of his head
“have I told you you’re the best?”
“many times; now let me read this in peace so that I can tell how much I like it, okay?” he smiles and you plant another kiss on his cheek
you make yourself breakfast and sit down on the sofa
"what’s happening right now?”
“I’m still at the beginning, love, be patient”
easier said than done
you are restless, your leg jerking slightly, and you keep reminding yourself not to bite your teeth, which you totally itch to do
you’re stealing glances at gwil, trying to decipher what he’s currently reading from his face
you open your phone for a bit, mindlessly scrolling through your social media, but it doesn’t help
you need to know which part he’s at
you stare at him and squint, looking for the slightest change in his expression
he chuckles out loud
“which part, which part?”
he erupts in laughter as he looks at you
“just you! stop it, I can see you staring!”
“what?! no, I’m not”
“gosh, you’re so adorable” he smiles at you lovingly and you return the smile
“c’mere” he motions for you to come to him and open his arms
you leap to your feet and sit into his lap
embraced by his warmth, you read with him, every now and then planting a kiss on his stubble and turning the pages
and even though there are times when you can’t help yourself and you turn your face to see his reaction every time he gets to a good part, he tickles your sides as your punishment
Joe
“hey,” joe starts one day as you eat breakfast peacefully, breaking the silence”
“hmm,” you look up at him from the papers
“the other day, I saw you were reading this book? it had a colourful front cover”
“you mean y/f/b? oh it’s amazing, probably the best book I’ve ever read”
“yeah?” he asks tentatively
“what? wanna read it?” you smile at him when you see his eager face
“sure! if you love it, I bet I will as well”
“great, I’ll go grab it”
it’s sunday, so you’re both home, and he immediately starts reading
“okay, what’s this girl’s problem?” he sneaks up behind you and you almost jump out of your skin as you’re watering your plants
“not gonna lie, but I think I am lowkey in love with the main guy” joe enters the bathroom while you’re taking the shower
he opens the curtain
“he’s a good guy and apparently also quite good looking based on the description”
“god, joe! I’m showering! either join in or go, you idiot” you grin
next day, you’re at one of your lectures and you’ve turned the sound off on your phone but it’s sat on your desk and it keeps lighting up every minute, notifying you of a new text
it distracts you immensely and you can’t follow the lecturer’s explanation of the material
so you grasp the phone and drop it into your bag
when the lecture ends, you pull it out and see three missed calls and fourteen texts
14!
“call me, honey, I just reached that part you told me about” “call me, I need to talk to you” “I bet he’s not gonna do it” “OMG he did it” “bastard”
you had to giggle, what a cutie
you instantly dial his number and go out to sit on one of the benches outside the lecture hall
“ok, darling, tell me everything”
Ben
“oh my god, you have y/f/b!”
“what?” you yell from the kitchen where you’re digging through drawers to find a corkscrew
“I said,” Ben enters the kitchen, “that you have y/f/b”
he holds up the book in question and your breath hitches
it’s your most favourite book ever
“I’ve always wanted to read it, it’s supposed to be really good”
“yeah, I guess” you say reservedly
the truth is you love the book, absolutely fricking adore it, it’s one of those books that changed your perception of the world, the book you always love returning to, like an old friend of yours
the spine of the book is full of little white veins, since you’ve held it in your hands so many times, rereading it again and again
there were several dog-ears since you’ve always marked your favourite passages
and even though you couldn’t see them right now, you were aware of the scribbles in the margins that you’ve written down during those many years, always adding a new thought that occurred to you while reading it
but the book is so close to your heart, you already feel anxious about ben reading it
‘cause if he doesn’t appreciate it, you might have a problem
“may I borrow it?”
“yeah, sure” you say indifferently, doing your best to seem unbothered by it all
"red or white?” you ask, holding two wine bottles and changing the subject
for the next few days, ben doesn’t call
he doesn’t even text you
just nothing
you’re about to call him yourself when you hear a doorbell
ben stands behind your door, your favourite book clasped in his hands on his chest
“I finally finished it”
“it has 800 pages”
“I know, I just couldn’t put it down, it’s fantastic”
you lose your composure immediately and toss your arms around his neck as you crash into him, the book digging into your chest
“you like it! oh my god, you have no idea how happy I am”
“you really love this book, don’t you?”
“I do” you say earnestly, a wide grin on your face
“well,” ben says and pulls you closer to him, “I love it, too”
he kisses your forehead
“you do?”
“of course I do, it’s bloody amazing!”
you laugh at that and squeeze him in your embrace
“and I think it was your scribbles that have made me love you even more”
Rami
“what about this one?”
rami shows you the paperback that’s caught his eye
there is a skimpily clad woman stretching his arms to a broody looking dark-haired man
“oh my god, put it down, we’re not buying any bodice ripper romances” you laugh
he just smirks and returns the book to the shelf
you’re in a bookstore, trying to find a birthday gift for a mutual friend
“oh, I think I’ve heard about this one” rami suddenly exclaims from the neighbouring aisle and you pop your head from behind the corner
“you better” you say when you turn the corner and find him with y/f/b opened on the very first page “it’s my most favourite”
“ahhh” he smiles at you “I knew it” he examines the cover “should we take it?”
“sure, it’s the best book in the whole world, probably in the galaxy as well”
when you stand at the cashier, rami asks out of nowhere “do you still have your copy?”
“it’s at my parents’, I think”
“okay, hold on a second”
he runs off and is back immediately, carrying another copy
“what are you doing?” you ask
“buying a copy for us, obviously; I want to read it”
he pays and you return to your shared flat
he makes a pot of coffee for both of you and grabs the book from the plastic bag
you sit down on the couch, clutching a cup of coffee in your hands, trying to warm them up a bit
he follows the suit and sits down
“can you read it to me?”
“you want me to read it to you?” you ask him with disbelief in your voice
“well, you love it, I think if you read it to me, it’s gonna be like reading it with your eyes, you’ll give it your own perspective”
“okay” you agree and he lays his head into your lap
you start reading, the familiar feeling warming your heart as you realise you’ve got the whole book memorized
he stops you from time to time to ask you some question, but they all relate to the story so you’re not even mad
you hold the book in one hand and play with rami’s hair with the other
he listens intently and brings your hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to your knuckles in thanks
#gwilym lee x reader#joe mazzello x reader#ben hardy x reader#rami malek x reader#borhap boys headcanons#gwilym lee fluff#gwilym lee imagine#joe mazzello fluff#joe mazzello imagine#ben hardy fluff#ben hardy imagine#rami malek fluff#rami malek imagine#headcanons#borhap boys x reader#vee writes#*mine
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part four: “nothing left for us here.” (cal lowell x mc)
[a little note: I still haven’t come up with a name for my series. But I’m playing around with one or two names. In any case, I’ve mentioned before that this part is pretty long - but it’s after two in the morning and I want to post it before I give it another second thought. If you read it - than you! If you leave a comment, bless you! ]
[words counted: 11191] Yup 11.1k, I haven’t written this much for a series chapteer in foreverrrr.
[summary: when trouble brews on the horizon for Cal and Wren (MC) as a werewolf alpha threatens their pack’s safety - Cal must make a decision to protect them. Because after all, the pack must always come first].
[part one, part two, part three]
His biological clock ticks down the hours, minutes and seconds before his eyes fly open. He can never sleep past it. Not since adulthood came knocking at his door. The blood of the wolf thrums inside his vein. It demands him to rouse awake – always close to the highest peak of dawn.
Today is of course no different.
The beast inside him stirs with a keen sense of awareness. His nerves can’t sit still. Move. Move. He’s too wired up from last night and his urge to burn the lingering stress, outweighs his desire to stay in bed.
Still, Cal forces himself to take a second. He appreciates being home again – he appreciates the sense of security and stability that comes a long with it. And the comfort of coming home to someone.
He breathes deeply, letting his lungs fill with the allure of clean sheets and the slight musky scent from the clothes they discarded in a hurry last night. Rolling over, he nearly collides into the warm body nestled beside him but halts his free arm just in time. He keeps the rest of himself steady - barely a hair length away.
When she doesn’t stir, Cal utters a small sigh of relief.
The last thing he wants is to devoid her of anymore sleep than necessary. Sometimes, she hardly gets any – her job keeps her up more often than is. But more than that, his reasons are purely selfish for keeping her bed. It’s in moments like these – when everything is still, that makes waking up first worth it.
Cal props himself up on one elbow to study her.
His lover. His best friend. His mate.
Wren exemplifies all of these qualities and more. It’s exhilarating, terrifying and wonderful all at once to find someone he wants to spend more than a few precious moments with. Ever since they’ve met – it’s been one moment leading into another. Now that he’s had a taste of this, he doesn’t think he can go back to being alone again.
Cal’s brow creases at the thought.
He isn’t afraid. He should be, but he isn’t. For one, she isn’t the most reliable person. There’s been a few close calls of her coming home – battered and bruised. But it’s the nature of her job. For another, hey haven’t known each other for very long and as his mate there are certain responsibilities that comes along with the newfound territory. Not to mention they argue almost as much as they make-up, but in spite of all this – in spite of all the reasons he can think of – he’s still not afraid.
None of these reasons, plausible or not change how he feels. Deep within him, there’s a sense of peace and a surge of unadultered joy in knowing it’s her.
Before Cal is able to stop himself, his fingers stretch the rest of the distance between them and he weaves them through the softness of her hair. Lightly, his forefingers rub between its finer strands of earthy brown.
She stirs slightly from the motion; nuzzling further into her pillow with a half-hearted smile flitting across her face.
Something in his chest flutters.
He never gets tired of the view. He tucks a few of them behind her ear.
Taking another few seconds to admire her asleep, he drops a kiss to her brow and then slips out of bed. He rubs his eyes before they are drawn to the window, where the telltale signs of a new day have already begun. Sunlight seeps through their curtains, casting a dazzling gleam across his pillow as he swings his legs out of the way.
Cal stretches a second time, his muscles bunching as he rolls his shoulders back to release tension. Standing, he hunts for a pair of fresh clothes.
But clothes don’t matter, they never do for mornings like this – because mornings like this are made for running with the sun beating down his back. They are made to chase away the cold air from the night before and run until sweat beads across every inch of his skin. They are made for feeling the earth beneath his feet and for his paws to dig into the soil as he basks in its sunny disposition.
Twisting his chestnut hair into a loose bun, Cal fishes for a pair of shorts before he ventures downstairs and then out the door. His mind acts on memory as a roadmap for the best place to burn off his pent-up energy surfaces.
Within seconds, he takes off. A light jog is more than adequate for now. He deeply inhales the finer smells in the air, the taste of sunshine on his skin. His eyes linger on different sections of his neighborhood, searching for anything remotely off. Anything unfamiliar. After last night, he can’t be too careful. He can never be too careful again so long as another alpha threatens his territory.
By the time he steps off the main path leading into the woods, less than a half an hour has passed. He rolls his shoulders back again, does a few last-minute stretches before checking for his usual spots.
He ducks his head low after ignoring the first bush. It isn’t until he’s able to find a rosebush large enough to obscure most of his body that he stops inside his tracks. Thorns prick his skin as he makes quick work of shedding his clothes and abandoning his shoes. He doesn’t care; those bruises always heal fast– at least, far faster than the ones from last night anyway. He’s still feeling some of the pain, despite most of his body already undergoing his extensive healing process; with only jarred edges of scars to mark the only shred of evidence left behind.
But there’s still an ache in his body that reminds him he’s gone through hell.
Carefully, he stashes his clothes away.
The last thing he has to take care of is double-checking the area before he’s ready to shift. But wolf in him is impatient, it yearns to be free. His eyes and body work together to search the parameter. He can’t afford to have anyone else in town freaking out about their wolf population.
When Cal is satisfied with the knowledge of nearly complete solitude, he heads back in the bush’s direction.
Hunching over, he closes his eyes – and starts the change.
His bones break first. They always do to redefine what it means to be man and wolf. Then slowly, they begin to remake themselves – a sickening crunch here and there signifies the worst parts of it; where his limbs bend at an awkward angle and his legs buckle to keep him upright. Cal flinches but he doesn’t make a sound. He is accustomed to the pain and a sense of exhilaration comes along with feeling every crack, every bone that transcends into the animal as the beast inside him stirs awake. Familiar tingles travel up his spine; it’s his sensory perceptions overriding the more rational part of himself with the fundamental knowledge that it is almost over – and none of it is completely unpleasant anymore. Gradually, fur replaces skin and his large - often coarse hands shift into paws with claws sharp enough to tear through even the sturdiest of metals. With a howl, Cal sheds the remainder of his human form – as the final layers which prevented him from embracing his truest nature dissipates into nothing.
Everything is much clearer, crisper when he’s like this. When his heart races faster and excitement propel all 800 pounds of him forward. His better senses take control, he is no longer just Cal – he is so much more.
He pauses to sniff the air.
His ears perk at the sound of footsteps that leads further into the forest. Is that rabbit? No! He inhales deeply, and a slight shudder ripples his fur. It’s definitely antelope. He can almost picture the creature in his head – scrambling through the forest as though abruptly aware of his presence.
Then Cal sets off again – crouching low and digging his paws to feel the soil beneath him. He makes a beeline for the trees, howling over the wind and his russet fur ruffles by the motion. He leaps from tree to tree; its colour makes it easy to for him to blend in with most of the bark in his immediate area, and even if didn’t – he isn’t worried. Right now, he isn’t worried about anything.
He lets go of all those human novelties – of regret, fear and second-guessing his own past judgements. All that’s left is the wolf – and whatever the wolf demands, he simply gives.
-
An hour later, Cal has gathered his pants and changes with quick fluidity. Thankfully, no one has spotted him despite how embarrassingly loud he’d been during his hunt in the woods. He allows his hair to be free with a shake of his head and takes off into another jog to travel home.
The moment Cal approaches the front door, his stomach grumbles at the smell of something freshly made. To a regular human being the smell would have barely found its way outside, but to him – even the very whiff of it is intoxicating. He sniffs the air in excitement, trying to discern the flavors in the atmosphere – is that bacon? He sniffs again – and pancakes?
He boards the rest of their porch with barely contained eagerness, slamming the door a little too hard behind him before he empties his feet free of boots by their welcome home mat.
“There better still be a door, Cal!” Comes a loud yell from down the hall.
Cal winces guiltily and then double-checks its safety. So far so good. He hasn’t pried off any of their doors yet. Well – not in a long time anyway.
He quickly pads against the wooden floorboards of their home, finding Donny already sitting across the couch watching a familiar-looking show at first glance, with an ample amount of bacon and pancakes in his lap. “Morning,” He greets warmly, flashing his brother a smile.
Donny’s answer is lost within a grunt as he stuffs another mouthful of food into his mouth. His eyes haven’t even left the screen.
“Well good morning to you too.” Cal raises an eyebrow, waiting expectantly for some sort of response.
Donny visibly swallows. “Mornin’,” he mutters finally, almost appearing unwilful as he glances towards him. He tilts his chin, then directs his attention back to his screen.
Shaking his head, Cal reaches over to ruffle his brother’s head, earning a scowl from him before he slaps his hands away.
“Don’t.” Donny’s nostrils flares until he turns completely still, abruptly seeming uneasy as they made eye contact with each other. “Just…don’t.”
It takes a moment for Cal to realize the emotions flickering across his youthful features aren’t anger – they’re worry. Regret. Fear. Guilt.
“I’m sorry.” Donny blurts the words out, his cheeks suddenly going flush under the weight of Cal’s penetrating stare. His eyes fall to his feet. “I’m so sorry.”
“You should be, you could have gotten yourself killed.”
His brother flinches at the sound of anger in his voice. “I know.”
“You could have gotten Wren killed.”
A pause. “I know.”
“Donny,” Cal takes a ragged breath, letting his harsh exhale override his urge to snap at his brother. He isn’t mad at him, not really. He had been last night but not anymore. Anger isn’t going to solve any of their problems. It’s just a knee jerk reaction that causes the wolf in him to rise to its feet to snarl and snap at anyone he has a problem with. But Cal doesn’t have a problem with his brother. And he has to work tirelessly to temper that anger, to practice restraint and remain in control.
Donny is all he has left in this world. He wouldn’t trade him for anything.
After their dad’s death – Cal has always felt like it’s up to him to keep them alive – to keep them safe. “You scared me last night.” He confesses slowly, dragging his fingers through his hair. “When I came in and saw what was going on – fuck, I feared the worst.” He cuts off his sentence, suddenly grabbing his brother by the arm. He nearly knocks his plate aside, in his rush to pull him to his feet and hug him. To make sure he’s alright, that there’s nothing broken.
For a split second, Donny doesn’t react. Cal could feel his brother tensing as his arms remain loosely at his sides. Then another second passes and it’s almost as if he jolts out of it. Suddenly, Donny is embracing him back, and taking deep breaths to keep his pulse steady.
“You gotta stop doing this.” Cal mutters, releasing him. “You’re not just a kid anymore Donny. You’re seventeen. You’re growing up. You can’t keep making the same mistakes and not expect bad things to happen.”
Donny lowers his gaze to the floor.
Something in Cal’s chest squeezes. “You’ve –” his tone grows softer, “you’ve gotta stop giving me a heart attack Donny. At this rate – I don’t think I’ll make it to forty.”
Despite his half-serious tone, Donny glances back up and snorts. He’s never been good at explaining how he feels, and Cal wonders if it’s his fault for always wanting to shelter him. “I think you’ll be fine. You’ve dealt with a lot worse.”
“Nothing could be worse than losing you.” He says emphatically, holding his stare. “Nothing.”
The smugness in Donny’s expression falters. He’s suddenly blinking and glancing away again – as if he’s afraid of looking at him. “Even if it meant you wouldn’t have to deal with my shit anymore?”
“Even then,” Cal lips soften into a timid smile. He reaches between them to squeeze his shoulder. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
Donny ducks his head as his cheeks flush against his olive skin. He mumbles under his breath, “thanks, I guess.”
“You’re welcome.” Recognizing his brother’s tells that the discussion is uncomfortable, Cal drops the subject and gives his shoulder another squeeze before reaching for the remote. He rewinds the last several minutes and offers the remote to him.
“Thanks,” Donny mutters.
Inclining his head, Cal pushes past the door to wade into their kitchen. He sniffs he air again, stomach growling at the very thought of eating. His keen senses help him to determine and approve of the types of spices she uses to change its typical flavor. A slight pinch of ginger. A dash of salt. Some cloves. And is that…garlic power? He can almost taste how good it will be melting on his tongue. It’s his favourite kind of bacon after all, underneath all that sauce – and his mouth is practically salivating with the urge to suddenly dive in and eat.
It’s the sight of Wren bent and leaning over their counter that causes a different reaction. Something that goes further than his hunger. The wolf in him stirs, and yearns to touch her. Want. Need. Sometimes, the line blurs between the two.
Leaning against the door frame, Cal smiles. “What did I do to deserve such a view?” he teases.
“Knowing you Cal – probably something really good in your past life.” She answers without hesitation. “You just have kinda that look about you.”
He laughs.
“But you can always come closer and find out,” Wren tosses a wink over her shoulder. “I know a dozen ways to remind you why you deserve this, why you deserve me.”
“Oh, just a dozen?” He steps close enough for her cheeks to grow lightly flushed under his smoldering stare. But she doesn’t look away, not his Wren. She meets his gaze head on, tilts her chin back as he leans forward between them to nip her chin.
It may have been the heat from the stove, but he likes to think he’s always able to cause that kind of reaction from her. He relishes in her slight shiver. The proximity between them is close enough to place his hands at either side of her. Still, Cal eaves enough room for her to close the distance if she wants to.
Instead of stepping closer, Wren loops her arms around his neck and tugs him towards her – erasing the rest of the gap. “We’ll start with a dozen.”
Before Cal can respond, across the hall his ears perk at the sound of Donny making gagging noises. Gagging noises that are painfully obvious as lacking any sort of authenticity. He makes a point of ignoring him.
He buries his lips to her neck, drawing a deep breath – comforted by her scent. The faintest hint of her bodywash still lingers on her skin. Mmm. Vanilla.
“Is Donny okay?”
“He’s faking it.” Cal snorts, then releases her and glances down in surprise. “You actually sound worried.”
She smacks his shoulder playfully with the dish rag from the counter. “I am worried. A little.”
“It seems like things between you two are getting better.” Cal can’t keep the smile out of his voice as he says it. His smile grows wider when she shrugs and mumbles under her breath. He knows Donny’s adjustment to someone new in his life hasn’t been easy. It’s never been easy for either of them.
“Finally, last night was a lot.” Wren pauses, and a small smile pokes out from the corner of her lips when she meets his stare. “And Donny’s not a bad kid.”
“No, he isn’t.” Suddenly remembering last night, Cal winces and twists to lean against the counter behind them. “Although, sometimes I wish he’d think before he does something he knows I won’t approve of.” The words may sound harsh to someone who didn’t know them – who didn’t know the Donny he’s had to bail out of trouble countless of times. But Cal says it without malice, he has always been genuinely concerned for his brother’s safety. Just thinking what their dad would’ve done if it had been him doing those things would have gotten him killed a long time ago.
“You remember what it was like being his age, right?” Wren responds, bumping his hip and interrupting the flow of his thoughts. “Everything felt important, like something you just had to do. There was no waiting around for anything or anyone else – and,” she says the rest slowly, nodding her head as though lost in thought, “sometimes that means doing some really dumb shit.”
“It’s just a part of growing up,” Cal agrees whole-heartedly. How couldn’t he, when he’s done his fair share of dumb things as a teenager? But he can’t think of a familiar instance comparable to last night. That bar fight shouldn’t have happened. “I can’t think of anything as bad as last night.”
“Oh, come on.” Wren gives him a look. “I don’t believe that for one second, Cal. You’re as handsome as sin.”
He holds up his hands, “I swear to you. Never that bad.”
“Uh huh,” she arches an eyebrow and places a hand by her hip. “But you did all that other stuff right? Sneaking out, staying out late. Spent some time experimenting with drugs. Drink before you were actually legal– that’s the really exciting part about drinking, the thrill of doing something bad – that kinda stuff?”
“You’re painting such a colourful childhood.”
Uncharacteristically, she sticks her tongue out at him. “What I mean to say is – it’s not easy being a kid. At least, I don’t remember it being easy.”
His brow furrows at the last jab. “We all do some things we regret, whether or not we’re seventeen or in our twenties. I think our bars for stupid hasn’t changed much.”
Wren laughs, her lips quirking into a know-it-all smirk. “Yup totally. I think I was the poster child for stupid shit and for breaking all the rules.”
“It must kinda come with the territory.” He means it as a light and gentle kind of prodding, keeping his voice tentatively low while he gauges her for her reaction. They never spend a lot of time talking about her past. And he senses the change in the air, even before her expression slightly changes.
“Group homes aren’t the most stable environments.” Although, she says the words dismissively – her eyes are wary, calculated – like she’s weighing how much to tell him. “I ran away a lot, got in trouble a lot for it. There wasn’t any place for me to really call home.”
Cal tries to swallow past the sudden lump in his throat as he tries to picture her out on the street – surviving on her own. It breaks his heart a little to wonder what a younger version of her was like, living the way she did. But she’s here now, and he’d do anything to make sure she’d never go through that again.
She bumps her nose with his, and her eyes suddenly bright with resolve. “At least until now.”
He places a tender kiss across her nose.
Her shoulders relax. “But I bet it’s definitely nothing like growing up here in NOLA.” Wren changes the subject smoothly.
“Not when you’ve had a pack to contend with all your life – no.”
Her nose wrinkles. “All your life huh? It’s be all our end all with you guys.”
“It’s something we were born into,” Cal responds defensively. “And it’s all we’ve ever known.” There’s no sense of sugar-coating the words – not that he would ever want to. Cal loves being a werewolf – despite its ups and downs, it’s simply apart of who he is. “I wouldn’t want to change anything about it.” He adds earnestly.
Something passes quickly in her eyes as she slips out of his grip to grab a plate. “We should eat before it gets cold.”
-
Piled up unto the couch with their plates of bountiful food stationed in front of them, they’ve settled into their normal routine. Cal stretches out his long legs, bracing them loosely across the edge of their coffee table, after Wren’s able to successfully wrestle the remote from his brother and declares it her turn to choose a show.
Donny’s posture deflates a little as he mutters something about never having enough time to watch what he wants before Cal suggests something to watch on more neutral territory.
They both hesitate – Donny still shooting Wren a glare and in turn, she rolls her eyes until Cal steps in. He retrieves the remote out of her hands without a second thought and declares it’s what the alpha wants; making it a moot point to further argue anyway.
Donny, almost immediately recedes in defeat. He glances away and leans his wiry frame against the seat in sulky silence while Wren has more difficulty letting it go. She purses her lips before until Cal’s arm snakes around her waist and draws her snugly to his side.
“This way, everybody wins.”
“This way, you win.” She fires back, but surrenders control and she plants a kiss on his cheek. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you back later.”
Her sudden smirk, incites a reaction inside of him. His eyes drift down to her lips and then lower. “Is that a promise?” Because he’d really like to make good on such a promise.
Before Wren is able to answer, the younger Lowell brother loudly clears his throat. “I’m still right here guys.” Donny makes a point of grabbing a pillow and tossing at them. “Can you not be gross in front of me?”
Cal’s cheeks flush with a look of apology as Wren catches the pillow at the very last second and laughs. “Sorry kid. You know I can’t help it – your brother is so damn sexy.” She whistles as if to drive her point home and then wriggles her eyebrows at Cal.
His wolfish grin causes her to lean in closer.
“Oh, look. The show is starting.” Donny changes the subject quickly, grabbing the remote and turning up the volume to drone out the rest of their banter.
“Spoilsport.” Wren declares.
But Donny ignores her public outcry and shushes them both the second they both laugh.
Half-way through the episode, the door rings and Cal is up in a flash to answer it. He heard footsteps rustling around earlier, but it’s only after Wren grabs the remote from the coffee table that he’s able to tell whose it is. Their footsteps are measured and precise – there are only few people that had that kind of strut.
Wren’s eyes shoot up in question until Cal jerks his chin. “It’s just Jayde.” He says reassuringly and instantly her entire body relaxes.
“Okay, we’ll just wait.”
“No need, I’ll catch up – keep going.” Cal doesn’t leave room to protest as he takes several long strides towards the hall. He catches the end of Donny’s sentence on his way out. “…you heard the man, keep going.”
His Beta stands outside with her hands tucked loosely inside her leather jacket as he opens the door. The piercing on her nose seem to gleam against the sun. Her evasive dark emeralds have always been sharp, but they are currently missing as he’s able to tell by the slight dull amber colour of her eyes that she’s recently shifted.
Her slightly pointed chin, lowers in reverence after meeting his stare. “Cal,” she says his name smoothly.
Her greeting is nothing short of what he expects when she’s serious.
He’s known Jayde for several years and their relationship hasn’t always been this solid. They met at their local high school’s football team after tryouts had them competing for the same spot. While she’s been a part of the pack nearly as long he has, they wouldn’t have gotten a long if they hadn’t spent a lot of time outside of school together. Their awkward fumble at prom when they’d try working out as something more than friends in his father’s old car is still a haunting and uncomfortable memory that pops up every now and then when he sees her. Thankfully, they’ve grown a lot closer as friends than they ever did as anything else. “Jayde, hey.” He greets warmly, flashing her a smile. “What can I do for you? Want come in? We’re watching –”
“I’m afraid this isn’t really a social call.” She interjects and hesitates when he arches a brow at her; as though she’s trying to choose her words carefully. “It’s about yesterday night.”
The wolf in him stirs. He grits his teeth at the sudden burst of protectiveness for his pack, swells in his chest. “You’ve heard something?”
She shakes her head. “No, not really but those wolves we took in are restless.” She punctuates the word. “They were in a hurry to leave this morning until one of our guys caught wind of it and notified me.”
“Where are they now?”
“Wolf’s Den. Pete is keeping them busy when I came to get you.”
“Good call.” Cal gives her a brief nod of encouragement before he turns on his heels to promptly find his jacket. “We should get going then.”
“No time like the present.” Jayde agrees. Then hesitates again, her sharp features softening a little as she gestures behind him. “Sorry for interrupting.”
“It’s alright.” While he cherishes these moments of reprieve where he can stave away from the rest of the world; time slips by too quickly when he’s like this. When he can almost there’s more to life than just this, than just Wren.
“The pack’s safety comes first.” He says the words more to himself than to her, committing it again to memory. It’s more of a mantra at this point. It has too much meaning for there to be any kind of simplicity behind them.
It’s remarkable to him even after defeating Octavia all those months ago that he’s alpha. If only his dad was here to see it. But more than that – remarkable and responsibility are two sides of the same coin. Responsibility has always been Cal’s burden in some shape or form – whether it was taking care of their dad, Donny or the pack – there’s been countless of circumstances where he has to put everything else first.
“Donny,” He calls loudly, after finding his boots. “Change of plans buddy, we gotta go.” He turns his attention down the hall, waits expectantly for him to heed his call and follow.
Donny appears within seconds. From the look in his eyes, when he spots Jayde – whatever argument he’d make disappears with the knowledge that this is pack business and not just a simple social call. He ducks inside the closet to find his shoes and Cal’s attention has swerved to watch Wren when he feels her eyes on him.
Her confident gait stops a few feet away. She doesn’t greet Jayde; her eyes are solely on him – and for him only, when her eyebrows arch critically.
Cal knows what she’ll say even before she says it. She gets that same determined look in her eyes every time. Shit, it makes it hard to say no to her.
“I’m coming.” There’s no room in her voice for an argument.
From behind him, Jayde snorts.
This time Wren shifts her gaze. It’s only slightly but it’s enough to acknowledge his Beta’s presence.
There’s tension brewing, Cal feels it. He has to choose his words carefully, knowing that if he doesn’t – she’d fight him on this, given the chance. “It’s really not that simple.”
“How complicated can it be?” She counters.
“It’s…dangerous.”
She scoffs. “You say that like it’s supposed to stop me.” She strides past Donny to search for her boots.
Jayde raises an eyebrow, her lips drawing back into a frown. “It’s pack business.” Although, there’s no hostility behind her words – Cal does detect a hint of flatness that betrays her distrust of her.
“You say that like it’s going to stop me.”
“Look pup, this isn’t about you. We –”
Cal intervenes, physically putting himself between them before Jayde’s able to finish.
Jayde flinches and breaks off her sentence. Her eyes drift down to the floor while her jaw remains clenched.
There’s no sense in beating around the bush. Even with the months Cal has spent, integrating Wren into his pack – claiming her as his mate; the tension surrounding her in her complete disregard of committing herself as one of them has caused a shift in his power. An imbalance that he’s starting to wonder if anyone would fight him for. One that he’s keenly aware of in moments like this –when Jayde’s nostrils flare in hostility and Wren’s glare is enough to cut a lesser person down. He’ll have to think about that later, but right now – there are more important matters to deal with than this sudden pissing match.
“Wren is my mate.” Cal says the words with renewed purpose, his stare intense enough for Jayde to step back. “Despite how much I think it’s better for her to stay – she’s capable of making her own decisions.” He doesn’t miss the taunting smile Wren shoots back at Jayde. He gives her a look of reproach before the smile swiftly fades from view.
Nodding shrewdly, Jayde steps off their porch. “Then I’ll meet you at Wolf’s Den.” She says the words crisply, leaving no room for him to think she has anything more to add.
Donny stops her before she leaves. “Mind if I tag along with you?”
The tightness in Jayde expression softens a little as Donny walks in stride beside her. “It’d be my pleasure kid, let’s go.”
“I’ll meet you guys there!” The younger Lowell brother tosses behind him, eagerly keeping pace with Jayde as they approach her car.
Cal watches them go for a moment, sighing with relief that he’d avoided another fight. On some days, he isn’t always so lucky.
She lifts an eyebrow, “he’s never that interested getting in my truck.”
“Wren – are you jealous?” He tries to fight the smile off his face when she shoots him a glare, but eventually it wins out and he laughs.
“You’ve seen how long it took for him to even smile at me, let alone invite himself to hitch a ride.” She shakes her head. “Ridiculous.” She murmurs.
“Well, I’ll hitch a ride with you any day babe.” He drawls, throwin an arm around her shoulders.
“I think that goes without saying.” But her smile is bigger than her retort, and she reaches up on her toes to kiss him.
He kisses her back, immediately resting his arms by her waist. Her lips part. Cal’s tongue slides between the slight crack as he deepens the kiss. It only lasts seconds but Cal dejectedly let’s her go. He knows he has more pressing matters other than the boner his mate gives him with a searing kiss as she cups him through his pants.
Damn these fucking jeans.
He’s almost tempted to scoop her up and return back inside. The wolf in him is practically panting at the idea. He wants to ravish her – but she’s already tossing a teasing smirk over her shoulder as she gestures to her truck. “We’re taking my ride.”
Smiling in amusement, Cal follows the sashay of her hips until he finds the passenger seat and slips inside. He watches her profile view as the engine roars to life. All things considered; he knows he’ll have nothing to worry about so long as the most important people in his life are safe.
-
The Wolf’s Den is unusually quiet as Cal swaggers in with Wren in tow behind him. He walks with purpose as the air of authority clings to his every movement. He cannot appear anything less than an alpha – than in complete control despite feeling a little uncertain on the situation he’s walking in on.
Immediately all eyes in the room fall upon him.
The entire room is silent as he steps further inside the house.
Jayde is standing off to the side with Donny in tow, Wren is always more comfortable out of the spotlight and sticks to the shadows of the room. Every wolf has their head bowed as his long strides past them and it isn’t until Cal has uttered his first few words since walking inside, does the atmosphere in the room change.
“By now you’ve all heard about what happened at The Howlers last night.” He begins, gathering his thoughts. “We need to talk.” His eyes skim every member of his pack – every solemn and uneasy face until they’ve made a complete circle. “Because what I have to say could potentially threaten the safety of our pack.”
Murmurs break out uneasily between small groups of people. Jayde steps forward with a curt nod from Cal to bring the rest of their attention at three distinct people.
They’re young, probably somewhere between early adulthood. The tallest of the bunch looks the most reassured and the least nervous at being the center of attention. He doesn’t shrink away from it as the other two do, instead he remains in eye contact with Cal. His copper hair shines like sheen under the fluorescent light they’re standing under. The other two are almost indistinguishable from each other to be anything less than siblings. They don’t meet Cal’s stare.
The copper-haired pup doesn’t break eye contact with Cal as he opens his mouth to speak. “Look, we don’t want any trouble. We’ve been grateful to you since you’ve taken us in. So what the hell is this?”
“Someone from your old pack showed up to The Howlers last night. He threatened my brother, threatened my mate.” Cal punctuates the words, letting his entire pack know the enormity of the situation. Anyone doing that, shouldn’t be taken lightly. “If it was just about money, I wouldn’t have batted an eye but it’s about more than that.”
The trio of young wolves share glances between themselves.
“Isn’t that right – Nick, Theo and Saline?”
The tallest, Nick – goes almost and completely still, white Theo and Saline continue to cower slightly behind him – their grey eyes are wide and their skin pales in comparison to Nick’s at the question.
“I don’t want to worry you,” Cal forces his tone to be a little less firm and more neutral. “But your alpha’s beta had specific instructions to bring you back and when I told him no – he didn’t like that.” He takes a deep breath to calm the sudden quell of frustration inside him at the thought. The man tried to tear him into pieces and the wolf in him demanded his own penance in blood before Cal had nearly killed him. “I sent him my own message.” This time, his eyes don’t linger on just the trio of meek wolves in front of him – they look to everyone to attest and emphasize his own point. “I don’t abandon my family.”
Nick’s shoulders relax, Theo and Saline lets out sighs of relief as some of the tension begins to ooze out of the room. Even the rest of the pack seems a little less worried by the strong convictions in Cal’s voice. “But I do need to know why he’s come looking for you,” Cal continues, skirting his stare back in their direction. “Because if it affects you, it affects all of us. Because next time – we might not all be so lucky to have a simple bar fight.”
There’s another murmur of discontent, several wolves have looked worried again until Jayde roughly clears her throat. “Our alpha is talking! So shut the hell up and listen!”
Cal shoots Jayde a slight and grateful nod until he makes a point of standing in the center. “Why don’t you tell us why you left?”
Nick’s body has regained some of its hostility. His shoulders are too straight and his mouth forms a silent sneer. He jerks his chin defiantly. “We already did. He was getting violent and it wasn’t safe for us to be there anymore.”
And yet, by the slight tremble in his voice – and his aggressive posture, Cal doesn’t believe him. He narrows his eyes a little, straightens his shoulders back and peers down at him. The wolf in him snaps at the firm judgement call he’s willing to make. “You’re not telling me everything, and I’m not fond of liars Nick.”
The change in his posture makes Nick welp and he steps back as though Cal struck him. He might as well have.
“I –”
“He’s been selling us off!” Saline yells behind Nick.
Nearly everyone in the Wolf’s Den freezes at her public outcry. Even Nick looks surprised before he shoots a look of betrayal at her. “What the hell are you doing?!”
“Telling the truth!” Saline fires back, her greys suddenly sparking with anger.
“Richard’ll kill us the moment he finds us!” Nick hisses back, suddenly grabbing the younger wolf by the collar.
Theo slaps Nick’s hand away as a growl leaves his throat. “Paws off my sister!” He steps protectively in front of her. “And Saline’s right, when we left – we swore off anything to do with that pack, we agreed that anything else was better than going back there.” He tears his gaze away from the taller boy to stare pleadingly at Cal. “You have to do something! We got out but not everyone’s been so lucky!”
“Woah, woah. Slow down.” Cal raises a hand as civil unrest continues the uneasy glances between the members of his pack. “You mean Richard Shaw?!” He blinks in disbelief. The man had one of the biggest packs this side of the country.
Cal doesn’t Shaw well, they’ve only met a few seldom times but he didn’t strike Cal as a man capable of such things.
Saline nods vehemently, peeking out from behind her brother’s shoulder. “It used to be one at a time. At first, we didn’t even notice. Richard has a pretty big pack, one of the biggest in the world so we were really proud to be brought in the fold after all – we were a couple of orphans until he took us in.” As she speaks, Saline reaches for her brother’s hand and then Nick’s, squeezing them affectionately before continuing, “But recently more of us have been disappearing for us to notice.”
“It started with Bethany,” Nick continues slowly, dropping Saline’s hand. “She was my girlfriend and when I brought it up to Shaw, he decked me.” He rubs the side of his face, almost as though in memory of what happened.
“We couldn’t believe it – because we’ve never seen him look so angry before,” Saline steps away from her brother; eyes trained on her every movement as she keeps going. “Not for just asking a simple question, the whole thing was suspicious especially when Derek threatened to beat the shit out of us after.”
“So, we did a little bit of digging,” Nick muttered. “I was pretty good at computer science in school and I knew a couple professors personally, so I innocently asked my favourite professor to look into Shaw. At first, he didn’t find anything incriminating and told me if I was looking for something specific, I should go to the cops.”
“But we were too scared that he’d find out, so we didn’t.” Saline bites her lower lip, “But then he called Nick back a few days later mentioning Shaw has been hanging around with London Kavinsky lately and that drew a couple red flags for us.”
Cal’s eyes widen a fraction at the name. London Kavinsky is more than a casino mogul, he’s collector of antiques to the modern 21st century. He’s never cared about such things himself, but he remembers Kristof and Octavia talking about trading with him on more than one occasion.
Still, it doesn’t sound completely out of the ordinary for Shaw to have a contact such as himself – not if he’s been trading with him. Although what Shaw had to offer the multimillionaire, he hasn’t the faintest clue. “I don’t see why that detail is completely important.”
“The meetings Shaw and Mr. Kavinsky has go way back,” Saline insists, “we think –” she looks between her brother and Nick. “As far back since the first werewolf disappearance in our pack.” She stops short and corrects herself, “our old pack.”
For once, the entire room has gone silent.
Cal blinks a couple times in shock, before clearing his throat. If what they’re saying is remotely true… He can’t leave any room for doubt and interpretation; they have to be sure. “That’s a serious accusation.” Not to mention what it means – werewolf trafficking. The thought makes him ill.
“We wouldn’t be coming to you if we didn’t have some kind of proof of it ourselves.” Theo says. He’s been mostly quiet this entire time – silently assessing everything they’ve all said until now. “We followed Shaw. Once we could roughly put two and two together; he was due for another shipment to carry out for Kavinsky. He was meeting with Brady to go hunting alone. For a while, we thought he was grooming him since they’ve been getting along so well – but the thing is Brady has been there for only two years; and there’s plenty of other older and much mature wolves that were flying under the radar.” His eyes slam shut for a moment, before he opens them again to stare at Cal with a glint of determination. “So we followed them both after a long hunt one night – because we roughly figured when another shipment would take place and sure enough, Shaw and Derek had taken Brady out to eat. They called it a celebration until Kavinsky had showed up at the restaurant. We didn’t see where they went after that, but we do know that Brady never came back home.”
Cal’s brow furrows at the implication of Theo’s words. “That doesn’t mean anything happened to him,” he wants to believe them but there were still too many holes in their story. Were they even sure it was Brady? How much of a good look could they have without Shaw realizing someone’s been following him? “He could have simply left the pack.” Although the thought doesn’t sit well with him, and it doesn’t seem the likely scenario – it is a possibility they all have to consider.
Nick almost bares his teeth at him until a sharp look from Jayde deviates him into staring at the floor. Even Theo seems unsettled by his dismissal as he stuffs his hands inside his pants and stiffen. “We know Brady, he would never leave the pack. He’d pretty much bent over backwards to please Shaw. He wouldn’t just leave.”
“Not like you guys, right?” Someone from his pack mutters and Saline flinches at their choice of words.
“Why else would we risk everything and leave his pack if we didn’t think something fishy was going on?” Saline juts her chin out. Her looks is almost pleading when she gestures to Cal. “We’ve been keeping our heads down, doing everything we can for the pack. We would never try to risk anything to ruin our place here – unless, we really believed we had no other choice.”
Nick and Theo nod, stepping beside her to join in a unified front. “Richard Shaw is breaking pack laws by selling our own to Mr. Kavinsky.”
The room erupted into chaos. Everyone has started talking at once – some demanding justice, while others have condemned the three wolves in front of them for saying anything at all. The worst of it are his brothers and sisters that wanted to turn their back on them; declaring its none of their business to involve themselves in such a thing. All of it makes Cal’s stomach churn.
His mind is whirling with how to deal with the panic – the indifference and most of all the people that actually want to help, despite the potential doom it means for all of them, if they’re wrong. Or worse – if these proclamations are true – Shaw has to step down as pack leader of New York.
The arguments continue back and forth as members of his pack begin to shove at each other, baring teeth as if ready to fight until Cal’s thunderous voice engulfs the room. “Shut it!”
Immediately, the entire room falls impeccably quiet.
He jerks his chin at Jayde and she steps forward without hesitation. “Can you keep an eye on them?” He gestures to all three of them; still huddled together some paces in front – watching the room with apprentice caution as though expecting someone to jump out at them at any moment. But they wouldn’t – so long as Cal deems them family, no one would ever dare.
Still, his stomach seizes at the uncomfortable position they’ve placed him in. The tension in the air is almost palpable as Cal wets his lips and the room seems to hover uncertainty as he formulates his thoughts into words. “This isn’t an accusation none of us should take likely. If they’re right – what Shaw is doing must be stopped. It goes against everything we are to allow this atrocity to continue. But, if they’re wrong –” he focuses his attention solely on them.
As though a needle pricks his skin, Cal slightly flinches at sight of fear in their eyes. They want him to save them, to save everyone – but, how can he? He’s only one man, one alpha. And while his gut wants to trust them, to believe them – the reality is, he needs more. And he needs to put his pack first – above all else, their safety is paramount. “Then I can’t guarantee your safety, and Shaw’s demands will no longer go unanswered.”
They blink in shock, their mouths hanging slightly open and even the rest of his pack seems surprised and uneasy at his decision. “For right now, I think we should all be careful. Derek is still out there, and if the circumstances are to be believed – there’s more of them where that came from.” He nods once, letting his pack know that the discussion is over.
While the hostility in the air is still very much apparent, no one speaks up to challenge his decision. Feeling a little relieved, Cal gestures for Jayde to follow him towards the study upstairs. His gaze drops short of Wren, - who for all intense purposes looks furious but makes a show of keeping her mouth shut as he disappears from the hall.
When Cal and Jayde are alone, he allows himself a moment. Just a moment. His shoulders sag as he sits inside a chair and he runs his hands across his face with a resigned sigh.
“Holy shit Cal.” Jayde starts, bracing a hip across the long desk in front of them.
“I know.”
He leans back inside his seat and peeks a glance at her.
She seems speechless herself, which is rare for someone like her. Her eyes appear lost in thought before she rises off the table to pace the room. “If what they’re saying is true –”
“Then this is huge.” Cal finishes for her, rubbing his face. “How the fuck did this go unnoticed for so long?”
She shrugs, folding her arms. “Shaw’s been alpha far longer than you and Kristof combined. His influence probably goes so far higher than any of ours.” She stops to arch an eyebrow at him, “do you believe them then?”
“Fuck.” He squeezes his eyes shut.
“So, I take that as a yes.”
He opens his eyes to stare out of the office window. He watches as the afternoon sun barely touches the horizon. It’s so peaceful out there, and yet he’s stuck in here – dealing with problems, he has no idea of fixing. “It’s a – I-don’t-know-what-to-think.” He mutters finally, answering her with a response he hopes is adequate enough to show how screwed they really are. “How am I supposed to take the word of three kids over someone like Shaw?” He rubs his eyes and heaves another sigh. “You’re right that his influence stretches far and ours – well it’s nowhere even close.”
Jayde nods slowly, her brows pinching together. “Then what the hell do we do?”
Cal is starting to wonder than himself.
Shaw’s pack outnumbers his ten to one, and going up against someone like that requires proof. His thoughts turn to Kavinsky. He has to find some way to get to him – he may be more reasonable to at least talk to at this point. Besides, as long as he appears in the dark of the whole problem – what reason would the man have to suspect him of anything?
“First, we find proof.” Cal rises to feet, breaking the silence. “Proof can go a long way in crippling Shaw’s plans.”
“And how do you suppose we find proof?”
“I have to meet Kavinsky. In person.” He pauses and then adds, “on my own probably. I haven’t been alpha for very long and I know Kristof had deals with him in the past. It won’t really look suspicious if I’m coming to him for a favour.”
“Uh huh,” Jayde nods along. “I’m with you so far. Still….it’s risky,” she hesitates, glancing off to watch the window. “Going in alone.”
“It’s better this way. No one else gets pulled into this..mess. And all I’m doing is looking for clues – nothing else. Kavinsky is a major player not just for us – but for vampires, the fae witches - there’s a lot of other people that rely on him.” Cal shakes his head. “I can’t just try to stop him – compared to Shaw, the idea is fucking crazy at best.” He starts to pace the room as well; dragging his fingers through his hair as he contemplates his next move.
“So, we find proof that Shaw is a psychopath and then what?” He can almost see the wheels turning in her expression. “Look, his pack is much bigger than ours and even if we find anything –”
“That may not change anything else, I know. But I can’t just sit around and wait for another one of his wolves to do something again!” Cal gestures angrily in the air, turning on his heels to bang his knuckles against the window. “That puts us all at risk.”
“The easiest thing to do would be to send those kids packing.” She folds her arms defensively as he glances up, eyes flashing in anger. “and I know that’s not something you want to hear.”
He snorts derisively.
“And I know you Cal – you’re not going to do that anyway. You’re going to help, even if –” she falls short for a second and Cal is surprised at the sudden tremble in her voice. “Even if it ends up getting you killed.” A look passes in her eyes; something close to vulnerability before she glances away again.
Cal releases a breath. He’s under no false pretenses here. If he pursues this…there’s no telling what can happen. But he has to prepare himself, he has to prepare her and the rest of the pack for whatever the hell this all means. “There’s no way everyone’s coming out of this alive,” he tries to smile but it falls short. “But let’s hope it won’t come to that. Maybe it’s all just a misunderstanding.” Cal tries to smile but it falters and comes up short. He doesn’t believe his own lies.
Before Jayde can respond, the door bursts open and all five feet seven of Wren stands in at ready – with her hands clenched at her sides and her eyes a blaze of dark fury.
Shit.
The door rattles as it slams shut behind her. “What the hell was that?” As she takes a step towards them, Jayde’s posture shifts into one of almost fierce protectiveness. “Back off, Jayde.” She barks, waving an angry hand in her direction. She doesn’t tear her gaze from him.
“You don’t talk to the alpha like that.” Jayde’s bares her teeth at her in an angry snarl.
It’s out of instinct more than anything else, Jayde doesn’t have any malice behind her words. Still, Cal knows it’s better to defuse the situation than to let it escalate any further. “What’re you talking about?”
Wren’s withering stare intensifies. “That.” She points to the door. “Downstairs. What you said to those kids –”
“– is more than fair considering what they’re asking of us.” Jayde interjects; her eyes narrowing at Wren’s disposition.
“I’m sorry,” She shifts her hostile onto his beta. “I failed to remember when I asked for your opinion.” She presses her lips into a firm line, “now if you could actually give Cal and I a second alone, and when I ask you for your thoughts – I’ll let you know.”
Jayde stiffens, her eyes illuminating amber specks as she takes a step forward towards his mate. Wren moves almost right after her, tilting her head as if to challenge the wolf herself.
Cal beats them both to it. He stands a little taller and straightens his shoulders to exert his will as alpha. “We should probably get going anyway, it’s getting late.” He makes a point of waiting for Jayde to return his gaze before he inclines his head and asks for a favour. “Do you mind taking Donny home for us? And giving those three a ride home?”
She nods once, jaw clenching and unclenching before she excuses herself from the room. Her shoulders brush past Wren a little harder than Cal thinks it should, and he bares his teeth into a snarl before Jayde glances back to mutter a stiff apology.
“What a bitch.” Wren mutters.
“She means well,” his protest is almost immediate until she narrows her eyes at him. “Are you really going to defend her right now? You know that’s the last thing that’s gonna help you.”
Left alone with Wren, Cal closes the distance between them with a few quick and long strides. “I’m sorry.” He says the words softly but Wren doesn’t appear to be deterred by the sincerity of his apology.
“How could you?” She jerks her chin at him.
He swallows past the sudden lump in his throat. The look of anger that suddenly flits across her face, nearly stifles his lungs attempt to breathe. “It’s not that simple.” He protests weakly.
“It’s not that simple?!” She mimics him with a scoff, points a finger to his chest. “They’re kids Cal, orphans for fuck’s sake. The kind of treatment you’ve given them, they don’t deserve it!”
“What else was I supposed to do?! Take them by their word?” Cal blinks disbelievingly at her. “You have to realize how ridiculous that sounds – the allegations they’re tossing around are pretty fucked up. I’d be a fool to just listen to them without any proof, it’s their alpha we’re talking about.”
“Their old alpha.” She reminds him, lips thinning into a frown. “You’re their alpha now.” Her chin lifts defiantly, “and you’re doing a pretty shitty job at protecting them.”
The accusation more than hurts. It stings. They pierce a piece of himself that no one else has been able to reach. But for Wren, it’s always been easy, so easy for her to get past his defenses. Why doesn’t she get it? Why can’t she see why he’s doing this?
“I’m trying to protect everyone, not just three people that pissed off their old alpha. And if you haven’t noticed, there’s more than them out there – there’s goddamn thirty!” His voice escalates with every word he utters.
There’s less than a few measly inches between them and his taut body steps close enough to see the slight flicks of dark gold around the irises of her eyes as he gestures angrily between them. “Thirty people that have as much right to be protected than everyone else.” They need him – they all need him.
The way she makes it sounds – it’s as if she doesn’t get how hard this all is. How much stress and danger this puts on his pack, especially if a word of this gets out to anyone else.
And maybe she doesn’t, get it. She doesn’t get why it’s more complicated to protect those kids than it is to let them go. She’s doesn’t get why this could all get them slaughtered if he makes one wrong move. She’s never going to understand completely because she’s always had one foot in the door – meanwhile, he’s spent his entire life on the other side of it.
“They’re still just kids.” Her hands tremble as they grip the folds of his shirt. “They’ve been all alone and you were like – like a lifeline for them.” There’s a haunting look in her eyes that pushes far past their conversation. “Do you think it’s easy what they did? Standing up in front of all those people? They didn’t ask to be in this position!” Her grip tightens into tight fists as her eyes widen with a fierceness he’s never seen before.
“Yeah – well neither did I, fuck –” He lets out a string of curses. “And it’s not like I’m not trying to help. I’m sticking my own ass to meet with Kavinsky is the first place.”
He doesn’t want to put his hands on her, he’d never hurt her – but her fingers are wound so tightly into his shirt that Cal has to pry them off. The wolf inside him snaps when she fights his attempt to dissuade her. And the leash he often uses to keep the worst parts of himself at bay, rattles – because it yearns to be free. But he won’t give in, he can’t. This is Wren. This is the love of his life.
Wren flinches slightly at the roughness of his grip. Instead of dropping her hands, she places them on his chest and pushes. She pushes him with such abrupt force that he staggers back a fraction. “That’s not enough, don’t you get it Cal? This is something you need to fix now, and the Cal I know would never turn his back on someone – not when they needed him. Hell – you’ve never turned your back on me.”
“I’m alpha now.” He says the words defensively, but there’s no flash of recognition in her eyes – no hint that she gets the harsh predicament he’s in. It’s one thing when it’s been just himself, Donny and her – there was no one else to worry about then. They’ve been the center of his world for so long that he understands why she still believes that.
He used to have no responsibilities hanging over his head when he’d disappear for weeks at a time to be with her. But after challenging Octavia and winning – everything changed. Now he has too many people counting on him. Too many people that need protecting.
“Yeah? And? I’m your mate – since we’re throwing pointless titles around.” She lashes out, drawing upon her full height to stare up at him.
“That’s where you’re wrong Wren. It’s not just a title. It’s who I am. I fought tooth and nail for it because I believed I could do better than Octavia – I still do. And I’m not going to jeopardize that because you don’t believe in me.”
She fumbles to respond. “That’s not what I meant–”
“Isn’t it?” Cal shakes his head. “You’ve never believed in me Wren, let’s not pretend. You’ve wanted to, but you’ve never tried to make it work with my pack.”
She flinches.
“Every time I’ve brought it up – your answer has always been the same. You aren’t ready to be apart of my life – not the way I need you to be.”
“Cal, I’m your mate.”
He continues talking as if she hadn’t spoken. “Do you even know what that means? Mate? Do you know how much you’ve had to be willing to sacrifice to be my mate? To be apart of my pack?” He shakes his head again. “You’ve never been invested into that - not completely.” He forces himself to swallow, despite the sudden crack in his voice as he looks at her. “Into us. Into this pack. You’ve always had one foot in the door.”
Wren recoils in shock as though he’d struck her. Her hands drop loosely to her sides as she staggers away from him. “That isn’t –”
“True?” He goads, taking full reins of his temper. God, he should stop – he knows he should stop before he says something he can never take back. But the lines they’ve crossed over and over again, the lines they’ve blurred ten times over has always been something they’ve done together – except now, right now Cal feels completely alone.
“If isn’t true then tell me I’m wrong.” A sense of urgency threatens to overwhelm him as he closes the distance between them to grip her shoulders. “Tell me you love me right now. Tell me you’re willing to turn and complete the mating ritual to always belong to me. And only me.” His fingers dig into her flesh and he fights the temptation to shake her.
Her mouth slips open, before quickly snapping shut again.
The silence hangs between them.
And it hurts. The silence fucking hurts, it hurts even more to think he’s driven her speechless, driven her utterly dumbstruck by the one question he’s always been too afraid to pursue. He’s given her time; even when he struggles with his own patience – he’s given her more than enough to show how completely committed he’s always been to her.
Cal drops his hands, and blinks back the tears that suddenly prick at the corner of his eyes. He thought it could be enough. “You can’t say it, can you?”
But he thought wrong.
“That isn’t – that isn’t fair.” She’s shaking so much that she visibly has to reach for the wall behind herself to keep steady and her voice – it cracks, like there’s tiny pieces of herself breaking.
He doesn’t want to break her; he’s only ever wanted to love her.
“You know I care deeply about you Cal.” Her voice is suddenly desperate as she reaches for him, only to stop short when he steps away and create more space between them. “You’re the one person that I’ve ever cared about enough to stick around for – do you think I’d still be in NOLA if I didn’t have you? If I didn’t give a damn about you or Donny – or any of this?” She throws her hands up in the air, clearly frustrated as her eyes turn glassy. “The pack is yours – but you’re mine. You’ve always been mine.”
But it’s not enough. It’s not enough for her to give a damn about him, to claim him like he’s a regular human being when he’s not. It isn’t enough for what Cal feels - because he’s fallen so far and si deeply for her that there’s no hope of seeing the surface again.
“Cal, say something please.” She begs. There’s a vulnerability in her eyes and it clings to her as her gaze turns pleading. Her hand stretches towards him – as if to touch and erase whatever stain her words have made on his soul, except at the last second – they fall back to her side and Cal shudders at the mark that’s still left on his heart.
“Say anything.”
The only thing he can say isn’t something he’s ready to admit out-loud. Not yet.
Saying it out-loud makes it real.
Instead, Cal tries to commit everything about her to memory. The way her long chestnut hair is scooped up into a messy ponytail that he’s spent countless of hours running his fingers through. The way those dark eyes of hers’ have often winked mischievously at him now seems on the brink of tearing up – the way he currently feels on the inside staring down at her. The way those lips of hers had often laughed or whispered lewd things to his ears and smiled at him indulgently – even when the entire world was looking. The way her skin looks – albeit pale but flushed against him after the moments they’ve stolen together over the course of a year.
Cal memorizes it all, even as his heart breaks at the thought – he tries to piece together every Wren moment in his life that’s lead him here. In front of her.
It is in this moment, staring at her that Cal realizes what he hasn’t been able to before. All the reasons why relationships never work out are suddenly at the forefront of his mind and months of dancing around the subject has left him feeling tired, and heartbroken. He used to think they were the exception but now the truth is undeniable as it leaves an angry mark across his heart.
He can’t be alpha and be the man she wants.
It’s as clear as day now that he’s said to himself. Now that he isn’t pretending anymore. And there’s some relief and pain in knowing he’s done everything he can to salvage that. But he can’t keep this up – pretending everything will be okay and calling it love will break him. Break them.
As long as she can’t accept this is who he is, and his pack is who he is meant to lead – there’s no version of themselves that can be happy.
The air in his lungs evaporates within a heated frenzy as Cal finally breaks his vow of silence. The words are hallowed as they leave his lips, but they needed to be said. “I can’t be what you Wren, and you....can’t be what I want. There’s nothing left for us here.”
-
#cal lowell#cal x mc#part four#cal lowell fanfiction#nightbound#cal x mc fanfic#playchoices fanfiction#playchoices fanfic#nightbound fanfiction#cal x wren#cal lowell x mc fanfiction#cal lowell x wren howell#choices stories you play#long post#super long post#but necessary!#there was so much stuff happening#ahh#and so many ocs making an appearance#poor Cal though#he's got it rough#an angstymarshmallow writes
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Changing Our Destiny: Cayde-6 Birthday Special ♠
Summary:
Rae has found out from Ikora that some Guardians celebrate the day they were revived by their Ghost as a birthday of sorts, and that Cayde’s revival day is coming soon. So Fireteam Paralight put their heads together to decide on what they should do for the Hunter Vanguard for his revival day.
(Shout out to @aislinavalbane for the idea of making September 5th Cayde’s birthday!)
“Ugh…it’s no use! I can’t think of anything that would work!”
“I still think we should consider the ramen cake.”
“Blaze, for the last time, we are not baking ramen into a cake.”
“Why not?!”
“It’s weird and sounds gross!”
“Have you ever EATEN a ramen cake?”
“No! Because it sounds disgusting and I don’t wanna vomit!”
“Don’t knock it ‘til you try it!”
“Well, have YOU ever had a ramen cake?”
“I…uh, I mean…you see…Adam, back me up here!!!”
“How come whenever I hear the sound of Guardians plotting something strange, it’s always you three?”
Fireteam Paralight looked up from their pile of scattered-about notes to see Ikora looking down at them with a curious expression. It was mild early-September afternoon and the three friends were sitting under the tree outside Banshee’s gun stall with several pages of notes strewn across the ground involving decorations, food ideas, and a poorly drawn picture, which was of a large appalling-looking cake made of noodles and other ramen ingredients and the words ‘Super Awesome Ramen Birthday Cake’ scribbled above in what looked like crayon, that was being held up by Blaze. “Trust me, Ikora,” Stormbringer began, appearing beside Adam, “I’ve been asking that question myself ever since we formed this Fireteam.”
“What are you up to this time anyway?” Ikora asked, raising an eyebrow, “And Blaze, what is that abomination you’ve drawn?”
“NOTHI-wait, ABOMINATION?!” Blaze exclaimed, hiding the drawing behind her back, as Adam fell face-first onto the pile of papers in a starfish position in an attempt to hide them. However, the force of the fall caused a stray page to fly forward onto Ikora’s foot. She picked up the page and read it aloud, “’Operation: Cayde Birthday Plan’? Is this related to our discussion the other day?”
A few days prior…
“Got those books you asked for, teach!”
Ikora was alone in the meeting room of the tower when Rae came in with a stack of books in her arms that piled up so high that the poor Paragonialan could barely see where she was going. “Ah. Thank you, Rae.” Ikora took some of the books from Rae and helped her set them on the table. “Where are Zavala and Cayde?” Rae asked. “Zavala has gone looking for Cayde. He sneaked out of a meeting without Zavala noticing.”
“Did you notice?”
Ikora just winked in response as she began flicking through one of the books. Rae sat on the steps nearby, flicking through her journal to see if she can learn any new facts about her past. She arrived on a page that was apparently about her birthday. She almost did a double take when she saw her age, “Uh, Ikora? You know how Paragonialans live forever?”
“Yes.”
“I…just figured out my age…”
“Well?”
“…I’m over 800 years old.”
Ikora glanced at Rae with a surprised expression before chuckling, “Well, I suppose I can no longer say that I’m getting too old for certain things now. You look great for 800.”
“Thanks!” Rae laughed, “That reminds me…when’s your birthday, teach?”
“Guardians don’t really have birthdays, per se.”
“WHA!?” Rae jumped up in surprise, nearly falling down the steps for the 100th time. Ikora wiggled her ear, “Congratulations, I believe you’ve stolen the title of ‘Loudest Guardian’ from Shaxx.”
“Guardian’s don’t have birthdays?!” Rae exclaimed, her jaw seeming like it was going to hit the floor. “Well, most Guardians don’t really remember their birthdays after being revived.” Ikora explained, “But I believe some Guardians celebrate the day their Ghost revived them, or the day they arrived at the tower. I don’t usually celebrate anything like that, nor does Zavala. But I believe Cayde celebrates the day he was revived the odd year…well, by ‘celebrate’ I mean he usually goes to Spicy Ramen for longer and Zavala lets him get away with it. I think it’s coming up soon actually. 5th of September.”
“Hmm…” Rae seemed to go into though for a moment before a small smile appeared on her face. “I know that face.” Ikora began, “That’s your ‘I’m plotting something’ face. What are you up to?”
“Oh nothing!” Rae smiled, “I need to go ask my Fireteam something. See you later, teach!”
Rae hopped up the steps, nearly tripping on them again, before leaving the meeting room. Ikora just sighed as she left. “Maybe it was a bad idea pairing her up with Blaze of all guardians. That hunter is beginning to rub off on her.” Ikora muttered as she returned to her books, trying to get some reading done before Zavala returns with Cayde.
Back to present day…
“Uhh…maybe?” Rae replied, a sheepish look on her face, as Adam got off the pile of pages. Blaze helped the Titan neaten them up as Rae stood up from where she was sitting under the tree, “You said a few days ago that the 5th, tomorrow, was the day Cayde was revived, and I wanted to do something for him. So for the last few days, we’ve been trying to think of something but…we keep either drawing blanks or the stuff we come up with doesn’t seem good enough.”
“Ah, I see.” Ikora muttered, glancing at the page in her hands before smiling, “Well, if I may offer some advice, while Cayde is quite eccentric, he’s not that fussy about these things. Even with holidays like Dawning, he’s not fussed about it, but I do notice that he perks up a bit more than usually when someone gives him something small as a gift, or even just wishes him ‘Happy Dawning’, or the like. If you really want to do something for him tomorrow, even doing something small like giving him a small gift would make his day.”
“Huh…yeah…yeah, that’s good! Thanks, teach!” Rae smiled. “No problem. And best of luck.” Ikora turned and headed down towards the meeting room.
“So…now what?” Blaze asked. Rae smiled to herself before turning to face Blaze, “I have an idea!” Rae got one of the blank pieces of paper and folded it in half, “Ok, here’s the plan!”
The next day - 5th of September
“You sure you two got everyone?”
“As many as we could! Adam did his part and I did mine. Heck, Adam even went to the Reef to ask Petra for hers too!”
“Good. I finished my job too. They even gave me this little envelope for it.”
Fireteam Paralight were conversing excitedly in the meeting room when Zavala and Ikora walked in. “Now this is something.” Ikora began, “Not only do each of you have your plotting faces on, but you’re all here before Zavala and me. Even Blaze is up before midday for once. You three are definitely up to something.”
“Is this related to why you needed Ikora and I to sign that piece of paper?” Zavala asked, “I’ve received word from other Vanguards that you’ve asked them to do so too.”
“Maaaaaybe!” Blaze grinned. Rae whispered into Ikora’s ear and her confused look turns into a look of realisation and then a smirk, “Ah, I see. Nice thinking.”
“Oh! Everyone shut it!” Blaze exclaimed. “You’re the only one talking?” Ghost spoke up. “Shush! He’s coming!”
Cayde strolled into the meeting room and glanced confusedly between the Vanguards and Fireteam Paralight – the three Guardians having excited expressions on their faces. “Ok, I don’t know what these three are after doing but I swear to Light, I had nothing to do with it.” Cayde explained to Ikora and Zavala. “They’re not in trouble.” Ikora replied a small smirk before nodding at Rae. Rae walked up to Cayde with a smile and handed him a blue envelope which had his name on the front, “Happy Revival Day, Cayde.” Cayde seemed surprised at the gesture at first before chuckling, “Alright, who let it slip? It was Ikora, wasn’t it?”
“Open it, open it! I wanna see!” Sundance appeared beside Cayde, eagerly bobbing up and down. “Ok, ok!” Cayde laughed as he opened the envelope and pulled out its contents.
Inside was a paper card with ‘Happy Revival Day, Cayde!’ written in colouring pencil on the front along with a crudely picture of Cayde and other smaller pictures of other Guardians and friends of theirs; Fireteam Paralight, Zavala, Ikora, Eris, Petra, Shaxx and Amanda. On the inside of the card were the words, written in Rae’s handwriting, ‘To Cayde, Happy Revival Day to the coolest Hunter and Vanguard!’ followed by signatures from everyone who was featured on the front of the card. Near the bottom, Cayde noticed two small messages: ‘P.S: Blaze drew the front, so if it sucks blame her. Rae’ followed by ‘Which it doesn’t! Don’t listen to her! Blaze’ Cayde laughed as he read the card, “Is it bad that I immediately knew it was Blaze who drew the front solely because of the art style, or lack of I should say?”
“Hey!!” Blaze yelled, playfully punching Cayde’s shoulder. “Remind me to get you art lesson’s for your Revival Day, Blaze.” Ikora chuckled. “There’s also another thing in the envelope!” Rae grinned, motioning to the blue envelope. Cayde reached inside and pulled out several small pieces of paper. “No way…you serious?!” Cayde stared wide-eyed at the small pieces of paper. Each one read ‘Voucher for any meal at Spicy Ramen for free!’
“I told the owner your Revival Day was coming up, and he gave me these coupons for the restaurant to celebrate.” Rae smiled. “It was all Rae’s idea.” Blaze added, “She literally had stacks and stacks of possible ideas for this.”
“Ah, well…” Rae scratched the back of her head, a sheepish smile on her face, “I just wanted to do something and-” Rae was cut off by Cayde hugging her tightly, “You are awesome, you know that?! Thanks, Rae!”
“N-no problem!” Rae blushed but happily returned the hug. “That settles it!” Cayde exclaimed, “We’re going to Spicy Ramen right now! Paralight, Ikora, heck Zavala you come too! Let’s go!” Cayde practically dragged Rae by the arm as he ran out of the room, Blaze and Adam trailing behind. “Well, we might as well make sure they don’t cause trouble.” Ikora spoke up as she and Zavala followed them out.
Happy Birthday, Cayde-6!
5th September 2019
#destiny#cayde-6#destiny cayde#Cayde-6 Unofficial/Official Birthday#cayde-6 birthday#destiny ikora#ikora rey#destiny zavala#zavala#rae drakyx#blaze kiria#adam bergfalk#fireteam paralight#destiny eris morn#eris morn#amanda holliday#destiny amanda#petra venj#destiny petra#lord shaxx#destiny shaxx
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[A dealer's choice ask for the celebration thing] You sent me a peach, this gives me entirely too much power. So here's a writing prompt since I love your writing and I'm self-indulgent
Notes: This was originally meant as a gift for @pens-swords-stuff‘s 800 follower celebration, but better late than never! Maybe there will be future parts when the blog hits 2000 ;)
It’s not much –– just a few fluffy/angsty/filler drabbles set in the For Queen and Country ‘verse.
For some context: Casimir is a dhampire (with a rapidly approaching best-before date, as being a half-vampire is a life-limiting condition) and Callisto is an Unseelie Fae on a mission to take advantage of the political turmoil of Britain after the reveal of the Other to the general populace. They share a flat.
i.
Casimir takes in the sight of the cramped flat around him. There’s holes in the plaster, a jagged ridge on the laminate where he’d taken a spill in recent months, and some creeping damp behind the kitchen sink, but other than those small blips to be taken out of his security deposit when he dies, it’s like playing the most difficult game of spot-the-difference with the photos taken on the day he moved in.
Apparently and according to Callisto, the real flaws in his personal haven have escaped his notice for over a decade. Forget about unavoidable damage –– the real crime was the lurid orange paint flaking off the living room walls, untouched since 1972. Say, Casimir, if the walls were ‘arctic blue’, this room would feel far less claustrophobic. A gouge in the counter-top from an unfortunate encounter with the rock-hard skull of a dhampire (a fainting spell in January) is as good an excuse as any to replace cheap white plastic with tougher stuff. We could replace these, Casimir: imagine we instead had marble, not real marble, of course, don’t look at me like that, but something ‘marble-adjacent’.
At first, he only grins in response to Callisto’s not-so-subtle recommendations. The colour scheme has it’s own garish charm, he says, a relic from a different era of disco and poor design. What was the point in getting new counters if he runs the risk of breaking them again the next time he collapses? Not that he’s ever taken a funny turn in her presence.
That is, of course, one half of his unvoiced objection: why even change it up now that he’s approaching the end of his natural lifespan? His grandmother, the one on his mother’s side given his paternal one died in 1899, spent her eighties in a house that hadn’t changed since her husband died. Not an ornament out of place, not a changed pillowcase. Looking back, Casimir attributes that to more than just nostalgia. A fear of change he is familiar with, of fixing things up only to find out that he doesn’t much like it and there’s no way to eke out another twenty hours from the time he’s got left. Nobody in the history of the world has ever thought, ‘Oh, I want the walls to be floral-patterned when I kick the bucket,’ and yet…
Ditto for burnt orange.
Eventually, he finds things to dislike about the flat himself, however small they might be. “I’ve always hated these curtains,” he confesses in March, out of the blue but a long time coming. “Didn’t even choose them; they came with the place. No time to buy new ones, either…”
Callisto raises an eyebrow and leans in closer, the flowing sleeves of her blouse pooling around her elbows on the island counter.
Unprompted, Casimir spins around once more on the spot, taking in the flat with fresh eyes for the first time in twelve years. “We could spruce it up a bit, give it a lick of paint and such. New furniture.” He whets his lips before suggesting it. “You know, redecorate?”
When she smiles at him, eyes sparkling as if this was her plan all along (which, as it later turns out, was exactly the case) his answer is a sheepish grin at having taken so long to come to his senses.
“That sounds like a grand idea. Where do we start?”
“I’ve never been a big DIY bloke,” he says, “but if we’re on a quest for paint, there’s a place ten minutes away.”
ii.
They wander through the warehouse aimlessly, aisle by aisle, picking up various bits and bobs that are not entirely necessary before they get to the paint. A set of brushes here, ceramic plant-pots there. Those are for a wishful-thinking sort of hobby that Casimir just never found the time to start. Gardening in London is a laugh-out-loud joke: there’s no room for watering or weeding in a fast-moving, barren, grey, polluted city. Faraday Heights was not designed with greenery in mind, and he doubts these would even fit on the balcony.
But the thought of planting something and watching it bloom and grow over the year(s) he has left eases some unspoken tension yet to be overcome. Relief from the dread that he keeps pushing to the dark corners in the back of his mind.
Callisto waits under the light fixtures. She glances at him curiously as he brings his finds back to the trolley.
He shrugs. “It can’t be that hard to grow a plant, can it?”
The world is their oyster and Casimir’s credit cards are limitless –– in theory. No need to fret about debts for a man with one foot in the grave. Regardless of their freedom, to make the experience of planning home decoration less dull is an impossible ask, and as the hour drones on, the monotony is replaced by something much worse. The bright, flickering lights above set a pounding rhythm in his skull, pulsing through every fibre of his being.
Not here, not now.
He was doing so well in ignoring it, too.
“I can go look at floors or something while you pick out colours,” he suggests lightly as the dam begins to crack. The first trickle of pain courses along his jawline. He grits his teeth against both it and the urge to find a dark corner to hide in for half an hour, waiting for it to subside. “I’ve never had an eye for this kind of thing.”
“Don’t be silly. What if I pick something you absolutely loathe?” is all Callisto says, looping her arm through his in a fluid movement before he can even realise he’s being dragged off in the wrong direction. “Plus, I need to show you what ‘arctic blue’ looks like, otherwise you’ll never believe it’s a real colour.”
“Oh, I believe it’s a real colour. I just think that most people call it ‘blue’. Pale blue, at a push,” he teases.
Frayed nerve endings burn beneath his skin, but so do his cheeks. As always, her hands are cold. As long as he focuses on that, on the good, on her, he can maybe mask it for a while longer. That he is going to have to tell her eventually weighs heavily on his mind, shooting distracting pain down his rib-cage until he dismisses that thought for later. B&Q is hardly the place for that.
Deal with it.
There’s something about her expression, brow furrowed in concentration, worrying at her lip as she flicks through the palettes with graceful disdain, that captures and held his attention.
“As long as it’s not red, I’m happy,” he says, surreptitiously leaning most of his weight against the desk. Measuring his breathing against the ringing in his ears. Forcing a small closed-mouthed smile. “Vampire-chic is not my jam.”
He scrapes the inside of his lip with a short, blunted fang.
#creative writing#amwriting#original writing#writing#writeblr#fqac#casimir#callisto#my writing#drabbles
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The Eldest: A Klaus Mikaelson Imagine
Request from @cutielittlepie21: Hi! Could you do an imagine where the reader is Klaus' daughter and she's like 800 year old. When she was about 500 she's had to leave Klaus and live with her mother but when she died the reader comes back to Klaus and find out about Hope. There is some kind of dance or something at Mikaelson house and then there's Father-daughter dance and the reader thinks that Klaus will dance with her but he chooses Hope instead and she is all sad and heartbroken and stuff and she turn her humanity off
So I’ve never really written anything with the reader being Klaus’ daughter before so I’m sorry if it’s terrible (it may just be a one off). Hope it’s okay for you lovely, and enjoy x
Okay, just breathe Y/N. Breathe. He’s your father, he won’t turn you away. Okay, so maybe you haven’t seen him for three centuries, maybe you didn’t exactly part on the best of terms. Well, it was his fault, he can’t stand anyone leaving him. Especially after spending five hundred years with his own daughter. But who knows? Maybe, just maybe, it’ll all be okay.
You took a breath as you stood at the gates of the Mikaelson compound. It wasn’t exactly difficult to find, your father having a particular presence in the city of New Orleans. It sounded to you like he hadn’t changed much; still the fearless, ruthless hybrid that you had grown up with.
Still Niklaus Mikaelson, the Original Hybrid.
Still your father.
As you waited for someone to come along, to invite you in, you took in the decorations that adorned the building. Red and black ribbons dangled from the iron gates, light fixtures hanging from the crumbling walls, the Mikaelson crest among glowing hues.
Okay, so now you’ve arrived on the night they’re throwing a party, an infamous Mikaelson ball. Maybe you’ll finally get to go to one.
It wasn’t long before you were spotted by a young girl on the other side of the gates. With her red hair, and eyes the same colour as your own, she didn’t look more than fifteen. You tried to rack your brains, trying to remember who she could possibly be, which member of your father’s, no your, your family she could be. But she just didn’t ring a bell.
“Can I help you?”
“Um, I was looking for Klaus. Is he here?”, the girl’s eyes narrowed in suspicion as she looked at you. Her mouth opened to respond, but her words were lost as a familiar male voice echoed through the room.
“Hope? Who is it?”, you couldn’t help the way your heart beat in your chest as he walked into view, his eyes widening in shock as he took you in. For the first time in three hundred years, your father was looking at you. He walked over to the gates, opening them with a steady silence. It was moments like these that you recognised from the movies, the moment when a daughter is reunited with her father and he pulls her into a bone-crushing hug.
You waited for that hug. But it never came.
“Hope, I’d like you to meet someone. This is Y/N. Your sister.”
Sorry, what now?
Explaining why you were there wasn’t exactly fun. It turned out that your aunts and your uncles had never heard of you, the concept of you remaining a secret, something to be hidden, causing your heart unimaginable pain, let alone that which retelling the story of your mother’s death had awoken. Klaus wouldn’t even look at you, his eyes darting everywhere but your own face. Hope, on the other hand, was quite pleased to have a sister around, claiming you were someone she could talk to, a friend when she needed one.
Yeah, sure.
The party tonight would be to celebrate her birthday. Klaus had pulled out all the stocks, as would be expected. You couldn’t help but feel envious of her, of the adoration he showed her. But wasn’t it always that way? Didn’t the eldest always get booted aside where the youngest was concerned?
You watched on that night as Klaus danced with his daughter. His youngest. His Hope. He’d never danced with you like that, never looked at you with the love that he showed her. Never made a toast for you, never been as protective or supportive.
It was when you heard him tell her he loved her, something he had only said a handful of times to you, that it clicked. That you understood that if he was made to choose between you, he would always choose her. He had forgotten about you in those three hundred years, forgotten to care. Forgotten to love.
It was because of him that you would be alone, you realised as you turned your humanity off. As you turned your back on your family, taking one last glance at your father as you left the Mikaelson compound.
What you didn’t see was the tear that left his eye as he understood your intentions. Because at the end of the day, Klaus was Klaus. He wasn’t good with emotions at the best of times, and seeing his eldest daughter at his door had scared him. He had closed himself off, only wishing he could have protected you when he hadn’t.
And now, now he had lost you forever.
Masterlist
#the vampire diaries#tvd#tvd imagine#tvd imagines#the originals#to#the originals imagines#the originals imagine#klaus mikaelson#niklaus mikaelson#klaus mikaelson imagines#niklaus mikaelson imagines#klaus mikaelson imagine#niklaus mikaelson imagine#klaus mikaelson x reader#niklaus mikaelson x reader#Joseph Morgan
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