Dreaming Every Moment

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[dem-obscure-imagines]

Hiii, i know i'm like way late to this but i absolutely adore your fic the lighthouse it's my favorite Bob Reynolds fic i love the way you write him and just the general vibes🫶 Would u ever consider writing for Bob again?

Omg thank you 🥺 this is so sweet. I definitely would! These days I mostly follow my hyperfixations and write some fic between the original works I’m writing so hopefully someday soon the wind will blow me back to him lol.

[dem-obscure-imagines]

Bottom of a Bottle

Daeron the Drunken x Reader

Fandom: A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms

Summary: At Midsummer Grove, your LARP of choice, you win an amulet supposedly belonging to one Prince Daeron Targaryen the Drunken. You’re sure this is made-up lore…until the man himself makes an appearance.

Note: I have been to one (1) LARP ever in my life, but it literally changed my life. Also, yeah, Daeron Targaryen has done something for me. Fork found in kitchen. Water wet. We know I love a wet cat of a man. This’ll be cross-posted to Ao3 as soon as it’s back up and running. It has been lightly edited.

Warnings: This one gets a little saucier than I usually go. Not full-on smut, but they have a makeout with some heated above-the-clothes stuff. Swearing. Alcoholism/withdrawal. Daeron is very self-depreciating so lots of hurt/comfort. Hallucinations, a little/mentions of madness.

Word Count: 21.6k

Reader Is: Female, an author, a LARPer, modern!reader

The Dreamer

“Come on, lassie, what’dya say?” Arlong the Strong. Perched at his usual table in the corner of the tavern, his arm raised in challenge. He was sloshed, undoubtedly.

“I’m a scribe, ser. We are not known for our upper arm strength.”

“Heard.” He reached into a pouch tied to his belt, retrieving a necklace. Gold metal arranged in a graceful knot, a large red sphere of a gem set into the middle. “Let me sweeten the pot, then. The ruby amulet, said to once belong to Daeron Targaryen the Drunken. And you can use both hands, love.”

That did it.

“Alright, I’ll bite.” You took a swig of your cider, sitting across the table from him to the jeers of the people gathered around, pressed a few coins to the table as a courtesy. He’d been winning all night; he hardly needed them. Perhaps that was why his hand was lowering. Perhaps he was all tired out. Too tired to win an arm wrestling match against a tipsy scribe.

Or perhaps it was fate.

***

You stood in front of the quest board the next morning, writing down any that caught your eye. Low effort, high reward. You didn’t mind running around a little bit, but you thrived on quests that pertained of going somewhere, getting information, and returning. The coin in your pocket said as much.

It was a hot one at Midsummer Grove, your immersive experience of choice. Your LARP, that was. This was a LARP, and a rather good one. There were hundreds of campsites, hundreds of buildings, dozens of guilds. It was easy to slip away for the week, forget about the real world and your deadlines and truly become Lydia Lightwood, the lowly scribe.

You stopped by the guild you were courting, the Librarians of Eastwood, to drop off some letters you’d translated for them and accepted a hearty payment in return, then hit the destination of your message board quest to document a rare flower in bloom there. You weren’t much of an artist in your opinion, but you sketched it regardless, capturing all the detail you could with your pencils and tiny set of watercolors, contained in a mint tin you’d covered with fake leather to maintain decorum. Immersion and all that.

You asked the local guild about it and they said it was said to glow under moonlight. Bonus points, you were sure.

Then, you headed back to the Sages, turned in said observation. They slipped you a handful of cards that you promptly took to the bank, exchanging them for the in-game currency. Your friends would be grateful. You’d been buying their drinks.

You took your haul back to camp as the sun was tracking a little lower in the sky, showing them your haul.

“Damn, Lydia, good work.”

“Thank you, Amira.” You replied, her fake name rolling off your tongue. It had taken practice, detaching her real name from your vocabulary, but you were coming around on it.

“You coming out tonight?”

“Duh. I just gotta figure out what to wear. What are our plans?”

“Get some dinner at that tavern, then swing by the stage, I think. There’s supposed to be a really good band tonight.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“And I will buy your first cider tonight, Lydia. You’ve been carrying and we’re gonna need that coin at the market tomorrow.”

You turned to the other two, sitting beneath a tree. Flynn had a lyre in his lap, Axel, his leatherbound journal. “And how goes it?”

“Oh it goes great. I’m gonna do caricatures tonight and make a killing. And Lonnie—sorry, Flynn, has almost finished writing his song for the bard competition tomorrow.”

“Grand prize is 300 crescents and an inspiration point, which we can sell to the Mages down by the river for like…200 more. On a good day.”

“I can negotiate.” Axel promised.

“Right on, brothers.” You chuckled, counting your coins quick before portioning most of them away into your coffer for the night, leaving a few for whatever shenanigans the night held. 

You dug through your clothes to find something appropriate, then changed, refreshing your hair, your perfume, putting on a fresh layer of makeup now that the sun was going down and you wouldn’t sweat it right off. You opened your jewelry box, the red gem of the amulet you’d won the night before gleaming. You pulled it from the pile, fixing the clasp behind your neck and letting it sit between your collarbones, nice and warm from sitting in your warm tent.

It was a relatively long trek down to your tavern of choice, then a shorter trek down to the stage. A shorter trek yet to the tent beside it, where people were drinking cider and engaging in dagger fights. You stopped at the counter, had your tankard filled, then settled in with your friends. Axel, true to his word, was posted up doing sketches for people and had amassed a healthy pile of coin.

You sat atop a table and took a long sip of cider, the sweet apple and cinnamon rolling down your throat. That pleasant warmth began to bloom, the world becoming a little brighter, a little friendlier, everything around you a little funnier.

You played dice games with some guys from a viking guild, hung on the arm of a wizard you barely knew. And once your cup was empty, you found yourself marching back up to the counter for a refill.

On the way back to the table, you stopped in your tracks, the amulet around your neck suddenly very heavy. You noticed a man, all dressed in red finery, facedown in his own wine on one of the tables in the corner. A mess of dirty blond hair shrouded him, and no one was near him.

Mmmmm, that wasn’t sitting right.

You walked over, cleared your throat. “Hello? Ser? You alright there?”

He stirred a bit.

“Ser?”

He sat up dagger-first, brandishing his fake weapon at you. You chuckled a little, getting a better look. He had a weariness about him, to be expected of someone face-down on a table, you supposed. Wild bright eyes, shoulder-length hair falling all in his face, chin dusted with a thick layer of stubble.

“Wooooah, easy, tough guy. You alright?”

He huffed, blew the hair out of his face, and stared at you. His eyes slid from your face down to your necklace. His eyebrows furrowed, and a hand patted his chest, right where a necklace might have sat, but none did. A problem he would have to deal with tomorrow, you figured. He reoriented himself in that way drunk people do, like the world is off-kilter. You hadn’t yet hit that point, but at the bottom of your second tankard, you were sure you’d get close.

His eyes slid back up to your face, the way your hair fell. He blinked a few times. Swallowed. “I dreamed of you.”

That struck you, perhaps deeper than it should. Something you blamed almost entirely on the look in his eyes. It came out in a pleading way. Pleading for what, you weren’t sure, but you found yourself gathering up your layers and sitting on the bench across from him.

“Can I sit?”

He nodded, suddenly concerned with his cup, hands fiddling with the fine embellished chalice.

“Do you have friends nearby? What guild are you with?”

Chuckled, shook his head, the ends of his hair dancing in the candlelight. “No guild. That I know of, anyway. I’m sure I will find my way back to my lodgings just fine. Always do.”

“Are you fighting in the tourney tomorrow?”

“Gods, no.” He laughed, a ragged sound. You found his smile to be quite charming. A sneaky little thing, parting just enough to give you a glance at his teeth. “You mistake me for a knight, my lady. My part in this is…that of a reveler. I will be around, I suppose, finding something to drink.”

You were quiet for a moment, mulling over his earlier words. “You said you dreamed of me?”

A bitter chuckle floated from his lips, as though suddenly ashamed at his drunken confession. His eyes flicked down to your lips for the most fleeting of seconds, then back up to your eyes, not denying it. “Worry not. All good things.”

“Well, in that case…I’m not fighting tomorrow either. Maybe I’ll see you around.”

“Unlikely.” His eyebrows furrowed. His gaze fell to his thumb, which circled one of the gems set into his chalice. Red, not unlike the amulet around your neck. “But I am not…opposed to the offer. I merely ask that you save me a drink.”

You gave a soft smile. “Won’t be a problem. They always seem to abound in this place.”

Melted in Rain

The next morning began as any Midsummer Grove morning did. Bright sunshine in your eyes, streaming through the tent window. One of the boys—probably Lonnie—was cooking on your camping stove outside. It was a great way to wake up, really.

You slipped into the garb you had set out for the day and joined him at your campsite, taking care to put on your belt and pouches.

Axel sat up, glancing up from his sketchbook to point at the amulet around your neck. “You said you got that from Arlong?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I feel like it’s gotta have something to do with our pirate quest. He’s in Voyagers, isn’t he?”

“I don’t feel like it’s a quest thing. I think he just had a trinket taking up space in his trinket bag.” You fiddled with it, getting into the food tub and taking out bread and jam. Smeared a bit of blackberry on your sourdough. Offered him some. Amira would be up soon, you were sure, but the girl valued her sleep, something you very much did at home, but you didn’t want to miss a single Midsummer second. There was always so much going on.

“Where are you headed today, Miss Lightwood?”

“I gotta see the psychics to drop off some cursed ring I picked up.” You announced, sitting down to eat some eggs and sausage. “And then I’m gonna catch some of the tourney.”

“We’ll see you there; we were planning on checking that out.”

Once you’d eaten and chugged some water to get ahead of the heat, you headed down to the psychics’ guild, handing over the cursed ring you’d tracked down for them.

“My dear, thank you for your bravery. We will forward our thanks to the Librarians on your behalf. Would you like a reading, while you’re here?”

“Oh, yeah, that’d be really awesome. Thank you.”

They led you to their scrying table, a magnificent thing carved from oak with lights embedded beneath poured resin. One of the psychics sat across you, draped in fine patterned fabrics and adorned in jewels. She was a middle-aged lady with a few streaks of gray near the front of her head.

She took a sip from a Pepsi can tucked into a tankard, a common trick people used to keep the immersion. She held out her hands for yours and you gave them to her. Her eyes fell on the amulet around your neck, and as you took some deep breaths together, something sparked in her gaze.

Then, very quietly, she prophesied, “In the turn of a year, your heart shall find its companion and anchor them at your side. I’m hearing your spirit guides here, and they’re saying…‘the sun will shine through the rain and wine and all shall be set right.’ May not make sense now, but it will someday.”

Another psychic peeked into their reading tent. “Sorry. Adelaide, the tourney is starting soon.”

“Right you are. We’ll be just a minute.” She said, reorienting herself. “Sorry. I don’t usually get butted in from the spirits so early into a reading. Anyway, would you like the bones or the cards today?”

***

Popcorn and cider in hand, you found a spot on the grass at the tourney field, a great ampitheater of sorts, at the bottom of which was a sandpit where certain events were held. The tourney was a strongman competition, mostly, with some sword duels mixed in to rile up the crowd.

You snacked on the popcorn, which the vendor had labeled Dragon’s Fire, salted with a delicious mix of spice, giving the treat an orange and red color. And by god did it pack a punch. You washed it down with some cider. The amulet around your neck felt warm. But to be fair, so did the rest of you, after that spicy bite.

Up near the top of the hill, people were still trickling in, looking for seats. You glanced over, hoping to find your crew, but instead, you spotted the guy from the cider tent the other night. The blond guy. Once again, he was holding a cup, a metal tankard this time. And once again, it appeared he’d had quite enough to drink.

Didn’t stop him from drinking more, though. He took a long sip from his tankard the moment he spotted you, something like a deep resignation coming over him as he crossed the grassy arena to meet you, dropped down beside you. He adjusted his robe and tunic, pulling at his belt until it sat the way he wanted.

“Hey, you. Fancy meeting you here.”

“Likewise.”

“What was your name again?”

“I did not give it, my lady. Have I missed anything?”

“Nope, they’re just getting warmed up.” You told him, watching as the competitors began to gather, stretching in preparation for the games to come. You wondered what the prizes were for that kind of thing, or if it was just for the love of the game.

The event unfolded cleanly. No injuries, as far as you could tell. You spotted your friends eventually, but they were all the way on the other side of the bowl, and it was far too late to go sit with them. Besides, your company was decent.

You glanced over at him, the mysterious drunken man who couldn’t seem to stop finding you. He looked to be having a decent time. He was certainly sloshed already, despite the fact that it was so early in the day. Normal, you were sure. Everyone was drunk at Midsummer. For many, being drunk in elf ears was the point.

“Their swords are bending rather strangely.” He mused, puzzled.

“They’re foam, I think. Thick foam, most of them, but…”

He gave a slow nod, cup raised to his mouth. Swallowed. He took a long moment to form his next question. “So what is your…role in all this, then?”

“Me? I’m a scribe.” You opened your satchel, pulling out the thick leather journal you carried around to take notes.

“A scribe that drinks before sundown.” He motioned to your cider, a weary grin tugging at his lips. “My kind of scribe.”

“And what’s yours?” You were eager to figure him out. He wasn’t giving you much. You could tell it was on purpose.

“My role?” He glanced down at himself, the fine red velvet robes. “A noble, I suppose. One with a penchant for wine.”

“Good place for that. Plenty of it.” 

His eyebrows furrowed ever so slightly, and there was that smile again. Unsure, unraveled, and certainly not sober. But a smile, nonetheless. One you couldn’t help but be charmed by.

“So, will I see you around again, or is that just wishful thinking?”

He exhaled, shaking his head. “I suppose you’ll just have to wait and find out.”

***

You didn’t see the mystery man again until the last night of Midsummer, an event coloquially known as the Great Emptying. Or: the night everyone drank or gave away all the alcohol they had brought so they didn’t have to bring it home.

That night already felt like Medieval Booksmart in the best of ways. Mostly on accident, you had stumbled from tavern to party to feast, and now you were in the midst of your fourth party of the night, as one could predict, pretty drunk.

People were dancing to less than decorum songs, as were you, bobbing along to the drum beat, cup held aloft between sips. Somewhere in the crowd were Amira (Willow), Flynn (Lonnie), and Axel (Alex). 

Come tomorrow, you’d be back to your regular names, kissing your cooler alter-egos goodbye until the following year. It was always bittersweet. Leaving Lydia behind, becoming (Y/N) again. But if there was one thing you were good at, it was drowning out the bittersweet.

“Good evening, scribe.” His voice cut through the din.

You gave a clumsy, drunken curtsy, giggling all the while. Your cheeks felt hot. “Your Highness. Are you having fun?”

He swirled what must be wine around his cup. He hid a smile behind its rim. “The night seems rife with it.”

“Have any good dreams lately?”

He huffed in surprise, shaking his head. “No. No good ones. But…dreams, sure.” He tipped his head back, chasing the numbness that followed. With one finger, he motioned around the tent. “What’s the occasion?”

“Everyone has to get rid of their alcohol before we all go home tomorrow.”

“Ah. So you are not really a scribe.”

“I’m a writer. I take it you’re not exactly a prince.”

He gave a self-depreciating chuckle. “Not much of one, no.”

You studied his face in the flicker of the artificial torches, mentally preparing a post to send out when you got back. Looking for this guy I met in a tavern. Sullen eyes, long dark blond hair, real chip on his shoulder. Any help appreciated.

This guy was not about to give you his phone number.

“Hey, I know we kinda don’t know each other, but…what’s—” Willow took you by the hand, tugging you away. You reached back for your mysterious man. Missed. “Hey, what are you—?!”

“Girl, I know you are gone right now, but who the fuck were you talking to just now?”

“I was literally about to get his name.” You rolled your eyes. By the time you glanced back, it was only in time to catch the rueful little smile he gave you before slipping out of the warm, crowded tent and into the night.

She blinked a few times, then narrowed her eyes. “Aaaaallright, you think you’ve had enough for the night, maybe?”

“Are you cutting me off?”

“I’m not not cutting you off.” She took your cup, eyeing what was left of your mead before pouring it onto her own cup. “We’ve gotta be up early to leave tomorrow anyway. What time is it?”

“Too late. Let’s go back to the tents.” Lonnie said, yawning as he slung an arm over each of your shoulders.

“Yeah, okay.” You agreed, reluctance slipping away when you looked around the tent once more, your mystery man lost to a magical Midsummer night.

***

The next morning, the four of you waited in the rain for an hour for the shuttle to arrive. Your sweatshirt was soaked through. You’d left a dry shirt in the car, thankfully. As soon as you got settled, you’d be able to change into something dry.

It was an odd thing, watching the magic melt away before your very eyes. Where vikings and pirates and knights once were, IT guys and middle managers and shelf stockers now stood in their place, soaked in their street clothes.

You looked for him. Of course you did. Perhaps in an oversized tee, rainsoaked like you were. But even then, with that shining red amulet safely tucked against your skin beneath your clothes, you knew it was not to be.

Not yet.

The Prophet Prince

Beeeeeep.

The dryer tumbled to a stop. The door opened with a tug and a click and you emptied the contents into a basket, scraping the lint from the trap before padding up the stairs. You turned into the guest room, setting the basket on the bed. A stack of hangers waited on the forest comforter.

You hung up each piece of your garb. Your blouses and dresses and tunics and skirts. All of your gear was tucked into a small tub, freshly cleaned and emptied, your trinkets sorted away for the following year.

And just like that, Lydia Lightwood was gone.

You stared at your Lord of the Rings mural on the wall, your shelf of fantasy books. This guest room had more often than not become your LARP room. Or at the very least, your nerd room, if the Skyrim Funko Pops on the shelf were anything to go by.

An aggressive buzz tore through your pocket. Mmmmm, right back to normal.

“Hello?”

“(Y/N), hi!” Your agent, Alyssa. “Made it back safely, I hope?”

“All in one piece. How is everything?”

“Good! It’s been good! The publisher is narrowing down some titles and covers for the Lighthouse Project and they cannot say enough just how much they love it. They were, however, wondering if you are working on anything right now.”

You pondered for a moment, humming. “Well…I have been playing around with an outline. Might be the LARP fresh on the mind, but I’ve been wanting to dabble in some fantasy, actually.”

“Oh, that’s perfect. The Prince and the Prophet is really big right now. Modern fantasy is back. You let me know when you’ve got a draft I can look at and we’ll go from there, alright?”

“Sounds good!”

Your shoulders slumped the second the call went dead. Playing around with an outline had been a vast oversimplification. You didn’t have character names, let alone a plot. Just some…swirling inklings of a scribe and a mystery man in a tavern.

Wonder why.

“Ughhhhh, why do I always do this to myself?” You groaned, walking out of the guest room to get yourself a coffee.

***

The next few weeks rolled by. You swiped the apps, went out for coffee with a few guys, but nothing clicked. You poked and poked at your book outline, but you just could not for the life of you figure out this mystery man’s deal. Not even the fictional one you were trying to cook up.

You sent out a few messages into the Midsummer forums, trying to get a handle on this guy, if he even existed. No bites yet. None that mattered, anyway. The pictures they sent never looked anything like him, and, of course, you hadn’t gotten his name. His fake one or his real one.

Just your luck.

***

Wine glug-glug-glugged out of the bottle and into your waiting glass. You jammed the cork back into the neck of it. You’d brought your laptop to the dining room table for a change, hoping the alternate scenery would jog…literally anything. Write drunk, edit sober, as they say. You were hoping that outlining drunk would also work.

Your fingers curled around the necklace. You know the one. The red one. While all your other Midsummer trinkets you had tucked away, this one…couldn’t sit in a box all year. It was far too pretty for that.

Another long sip of wine. That familiar haze began to settle in. Your fingers got looser on the keys. Quicker, sure, but clumsier. Sober you would have a time cleaning it up the next day, you were sure.

You felt warm all of a sudden. Probably the wine, you figured, rubbing the back of your neck. Your fingers trailed down the chain to the stone, which was hot. You flinched, dropping it back against the fabric of your t-shirt.

“Tricky little thing, isn’t it?”

You looked up slowly, eyes sliiiiiding up to the seat across from you. There he sat. Your mystery man, drunk as ever.

He gave a lazy smile. His hair was a mess, eyes half-lidded, hands clumsy as he reached for his own glass. It seemed the two of them were a package deal.

“You—! You’re—!” You sputtered, trembling as you set your glass on the table. “What the fuck.”

He held up his hands, palms forward. “I mean you no harm, my lady. I am as…surprised as you.”

The guy was bigger than you, but he’d already out-drunk you three times over. You could take him, you were pretty sure.

His eyes drifted down to the back of your laptop, the glow it emitted across your figure. His eyebrows furrowed.

“You’re…in my house.”

“You’re wearing my necklace.”

You took a breath, rummaging around in your wine-muddled head for the name just so narrowly evading the tip of your tongue. Suddenly the necklace felt as though it was made of lead. “You’re…”

“Daeron Targaryen.” A rueful little smile played across his lips. He huffed a breath. Swallowed. “The Drunken, they call me.”

“Sounds familiar.”

He chuckled, shaking his head, strands of hair falling in his weary eyes. They were so brilliant in brighter light. So blue you could almost swear they were violet. “Targaryen? All red flags, surely. Dragons, madness, incest…such an odd shape for a family tree…but Daeron, no, you wouldn’t know me. Two kings have shared my name. A dragon rider. I am a blot of wine on an otherwise impressive lineage.” His head tilted, eyes narrowing. You couldn’t tell if he was trying to read you or get them to focus.

“So are you, like…dead? Or my guardian angel, or…?”

He barked a laugh, head shaking. “You don’t want me as a guardian angel, scribe. As for being dead…no. Well, I suppose, in your time, yes, I must have died by now if that…glowing box is any indication. But when I leave this place, I awaken in my chambers and all of this is…hazy. Dreamlike. More than my…well, my actual dreams.” He went quiet, eyes intense and searching. Waiting for something. “This is the part where you give me your name.”

You smiled. “(Y/N) (L/N).”

“Mmm.” He sipped, holding it in his mouth for a moment before swallowing. “A beautiful name.”

“Thanks.” You swirled your wine in your glass. “You said you dreamed of me.”

“I suppose I must have.”

“So what’s the difference between those dreams and this one? If you’re…asleep right now.”

He seemed stumped by that. “Well, my lady. Those dreams play like memories that haven’t happened yet. I am powerless to change them. They can be in vivid detail or maddeningly vague. And these…visits, we’ll call them…I am in control.”

“And you’re drunk in your dreams, too?”

One of his eyebrows quirked. “Seems so.”

You leaned forward on the table a bit, elbow brushing your wine glass. He looked so solid. But when your hand passed through his, you weren’t all that surprised. Neither was he, it seemed, by the huff of breath that escaped. Though you didn’t miss the glimmer of disappointment in his eyes.

“Was worth a try. I wondered that myself.” He admitted. Gave a shrug. “Now we know.”

“I’m not sure I know anything. I’m gonna wake up tomorrow and think I hallucinated this.”

“Perhaps you did. Perhaps I truly am something your overtired subconscious co-wrote with that bottle of wine.” He leaned back in your chair, sighing at the ceiling. “It would be easier.”

Dreamers and Dragons

You rolled over. Heavy. Let a slow breath roll in. Rolled onto your back.

The daylight was gentle. Overcast. But the tinge of pain in your head was enough to tug you right back to the previous night.

Daeron the Drunken, sitting in the chair across from yours, boring into you with those all-seeing violet eyes. Telling you of his dreams and wine and not much else.

What a dream.

Still, it struck you. Braided deep in your mind, like a plot detail that never really leaves you. So often, you’d be by your lonesome with your thoughts and your characters would dance through them, telling their story in the only way they could; through your daydreams. 

And then there was Daeron.

There had to be more there.

You started in the Midsummer forums, posting around to see if anyone knew some lore of him, since Arlong had known his name. No bites yet.

Next, you did some searching online, but nothing came up. Checked historical databases, fandom wikis, ancestry sites, but there were no hits for any Targaryens, real or fictional.

You called your friends in publishing, asked them if their research departments had anything with their fancy resources. Not a peep.

It was fairly often you hit walls in your research. But you were a stubborn thing. Not one for giving up, if you could help it. 

You ate your sandwich, pacing the room. Maybe he was right. Maybe he truly was a machination of your subconscious. Your loneliness had finally had enough. The book boyfriends just weren’t cutting it anymore; you had to cook up one of your own. A yearning prince that drowns his sorrows.

Well, at the very least, he’d make a good love interest in your next novel.

You piddled through more of your outline, etching Daeron into the framework. You conjured a heroine, a healer. One of gentle disposition. One who had been asleep too long, awoken by the dreamer prince. Sleeping Beauty, in a way. Retellings were in, you were pretty sure. They always were.

One writing session took you to the library, so, between writing sprints, you visited the desk, asking if they had anything about a family of dragon-riders, the Targaryens.

“If we do, that’s gonna be over there in the fantasy section. I would check the young adult. Dragon riders are really in right now.”

Yep, so that was a bust, too. You were pretty sure the answers did not lie within the binding of Fourth Wing. If they did, you would have found them already. You skimmed anyway. The love interests were indeed broody, but not in the way your tortured loverboy was.

You don’t exist in history, you don’t exist in fiction…maybe it’s true you live only in my head.

***

Burning the midnight oils, you sat in the glow of your laptop, bluelight glasses doing their darndest to protect you despite the fact that you had been sitting there too long and neglected to turn on the lights. An oversized shirt from the Renaissance Festival drowned your figure, beneath it, a pair of sweatpants from Buccees. Utterly glamorous.

You clicked through the forums you’d posted in. Mostly people telling you they’d forward it to their guildmates to see if they knew anything.

But there was one. 

Arlong_the_Strong7.

Beside his username, a long string of a link. Internet safety aside, you clicked it.

What followed was an ancient-looking webpage. Dark blue with stars, a few dragon silhouettes. Bronze text in a medieval font. A Game of Thrones: Tabletop RPG | Create your own fantasy and fight for the Iron Throne.

Huh. Okay. A niche little tabletop game from the nineties. That checked out. You added a few of the guidebooks to your cart, deeming them a business expense. For inspiration, of course. The starter book seemed a good a place as any. For good measure, you snagged one more.

Dreamers and Dragons.

Ink and Sorcery

A kiss. A breathed groan. That delicious curled whisper of his voice. A thick thigh pressed between your own. Caged in arms. Hair hanging in your face. Then, stubble harsh on your jaw, your neck, your…

The bubble burst and you surfaced for air. Cheated once again by the morning light.

***

You spent the next handful of days working on your outline. It was almost done now. A tale of a sacrifice who had slept her life away. A weary prince the only one left to show her how the world was now, how different it was than when she’d gone to sleep.

There was still something missing. You felt it’d come in time.

Every night, you made eye contact with your wine bottles. Resisted their call. Though more often than not, the amulet still rested between your collarbones. A comforting weight.

Finally, your books came in, wrapped in a red silk bow, a note attached. “Thanks for the interest in the game. I love sharing my world. -George”

Huh, thanks, George.

If this guy had made Daeron up, what did that mean for him? Was he some god? Some master of ink and sorcery? Surely he must be. And if he didn’t, and your prince was not within those pages…what did that mean for you?

***

It had been well-meaning to begin with, you were sure. A night of movies and wine with your friends. Perhaps some rum and Coke. Perhaps a second rum and Coke.

Suddenly the movies got a whole lot funnier.

You curled in your usual chair, teetering on deeper contemplation as you nursed your cup. It sloshed when you noticed him, lazing in the one empty spot, leaning back, legs spread, hands folded over the crest of his middle. His nose caught the light. The cleft of his chin. Hair shone like honey in the warm rays of your lamp.

In the background, the movie droned. Your friends commentated. You didn’t care. Your heart was pounding. It was real. He was real. He was here.

After a languid moment, he noticed your stare. You didn’t stop, admiring the way his tunic draped over his form. A grin unveiled his teeth and your stomach dropped, eyes flicking back to the screen. The picture of innocence, you were sure.

“Didn’t think you’d be able to catch me, my lady. These glowing windows of yours do make all kinds of pictures, do they not?” He asked, sitting up a little now that he had an audience. 

Even in this room full of people, you were the only one who could see him. Which is why you didn’t reply, merely took another long sip, sharp and sweet.

“Ah. The silent treatment. Understandable. Only one of us should be known a madman. A fate too cruel for you.”

You rolled your eyes a little, pretending to lock back in on the movie. Your eyes wandered, though. Magnets, you could swear, drawn right back to him. And his, right back to you.

“Ogling me, even with guests. Dangerous habit scribe.” He tsked, shaking his head. He took a long sip of his drink. “This honeyed mead is rather good. Sweeter than my taste. But good.”

“(Y/N)? You good over there?”

“Dude, that is her third drink. She passed good halfway into that one.”

“I’m a lightweight, alright?” You shook your head, cheeks red for all kinds of reasons.

“Something we do not share.” Daeron held his drink aloft, then downed the rest of it, head tilted back.

His eyes stuck on the ceiling, eyebrows furrowing at the popcorn effect smattered there. It wasn’t what he was used to, you were sure. Stone castles and candlelit chandeliers. He lived in a world you couldn’t comprehend. The closest you’d ever come to a castle was the one in Disney World. Daeron lived in them.

“It’s alright, scribe.” His head lolled to the side, impossibly heavy, you were sure. Then, that voice of his dipping even softer, “Before you noticed, I was admiring you, too.”

***

Willow helped you rinse out your cups in the sink. The warmth and the bubbles were making you sleepier than you already were. You were reaching the age where drinking wiped you out. You were creeping back towards sober now, hopefully in time to scare off any hangover.

Daeron had left. Just kind of faded, the room emptier in his wake. Emptier only to you.

“Hey, uh…you were kinda spacey tonight? You okay?”

“Me?”

“Just the drinks, or…?”

“No, I, uh…” You shook your head. “I’m fine, I just…”

She was quiet for a moment, the tingle of water on the glasses filling the silence between you. “You remember when we were kids, and you got teased for having an imaginary friend?”

You chuckled bitterly, nodding. “I recall.”

“Is this like that?”

Mmmm, there it was. You’d almost forgotten. This was not the first time you’d seen someone who wasn’t there. But that was different, wasn’t it? You were a kid. This was real life. Your adult life. You were supposed to be too old to be seeing imaginary princes.

“Yeah, it is.”

“Come shopping with me. I’ve got something for that.”

“I’m not sure retail therapy is gonna work for hallucinations. I might need actual therapy for that.”

“Trust me.” She implored, both of you getting back to sobriety in the quiet of your kitchen.

“Fine. Yeah, alright.”

See Pg. 201

“Okay, I love crystals and candles as much as the next girl, but…this is excessive.”

Willow handed you a book on meditation and a book on astral projecting. You stared at the small stack, a gold globe etched onto the baby blue surface of the top book.

“I am telling you, you need to…detatch. It’ll bring everything into focus. Help you lock in.”

“Or my consciousness drifts off into the aether and I’m never heard from again. My agent will love that.”

“One of the two, certainly.” She had an unreadable look on her face. One she got when she knew too much. When she’d done a particularly insightful tarot reading and had some idea of the things coming towards you.

The Tower, for sure. Always was.

“Alright, well…I’ve always wanted to see Salem in the fall. Saves on plane tickets.”

Willow pushed you towards the checkout. “It’ll be good for the book. Trust me.”

You did stop at a convenience store on the way home, though, to buy a few more bottles of wine. You know, just in case.

***

Astral Projection, though you trusted Willow with your life, was not the first thing you wanted to try. Instead, you finally decided to crack open your books.

“A Game of Thrones is a game about family, conquest, and power. Play as a member of a noble family in their quest to take the throne or keep it. Or, start as a peasant, navigating the seven cruel kingdoms of Westeros.”

You pressed the pages flat, skimming the families until finally, your eyes fell on the name Targaryen.

“The house of the dragon. The Targaryens had once been dragon riders. Some even thought themselves to BE dragons (See Aerion “Brightflame” Targaryen, pg. 94). Others were blessed—or cursed—with Dragon Dreams, visions of things yet to come. For many, these dreams led to their downfall or contributed to detrimental coping mechanisms (See Daeron “The Drunken” Targaryen, pg. 201).”

You chuckled, at that, shaking your head. But flipped anyway. On the spread, a gorgeous painting. Daeron Targaryen, sitting in the corner of an inn, lit in firelight, a drunken haze cast over his eyes, hair a mess. Something akin to warmth bloomed in your chest. God, why did it have to be him?

His biography was laid out beside him, an overview, as well as the rules for playing him. His buffs. Weaknesses and strengths. It felt too personal, suddenly. You shouldn’t know these things about him. Not without him telling you, anyway.

If he ever made another appearance.

You thought for a moment, turned towards the kitchen, poured yourself a glass of wine. You took a few good long sips, fingers curled around the amulet. You photocopied yourself a character sheet, rolled up some stats with your favorite dice set, but hesitated at the name line. In your heart of hearts, you knew neither Lydia Lightwood nor (Y/N) (L/N) belonged in Westeros.

And half a glass of wine deep, Daeron had not made his appearance either. You doubted he would.

Wine splattered into the sink. Washed it down with the sprayer. Set your glass upside-down on the drying mat and went to bed, amulet hanging up for the night on its hook on the wall.

***

Most of your dreams were not quite so fuzzy, so echoey, as the one unfolding around you. It was a tent of some kind, not unlike ones you knew from Midsummer. This one was more authentic, devoid of the warm-toned fairy lights you were so accustomed to.

No, this one was tense, a thick air about it despite the cold. There was a man there, perhaps the tallest you’d seen in real life, if you could even call this that. Another, smaller man with dark hair and a mess of facial hair.

In the mouth of the tent, a little bald boy. Striding in behind him, steps long and lazy, a long black cloak shrouding his figure. It didn’t take long for the giant man to pin him to the table, so soon as he shed said cloak. And once he was held there, a knife to his neck, you realized it was Daeron.

You seemed to float closer, unsure if you were yourself in this dream or an unseen camera, plopped into this other world. Daeron’s world. Until that very night, you weren’t sure it existed. Now you were. If the place he came from was real, that stood to reason…

“ARE YOU MAD COMIN’ HERE?! I OUGHT TO DRIVE THIS THROUGH YOUR NECK!”

Daeron huffed, grinning like a cat. “I’d sooner you pour me a cup of wine.”

Uh oh. Your boy was in trouble. Something, it would seem, to do with lying about where the little bald boy had gone off to. Daeron’s brother, you gathered. And now the tall man was going to pay the price for it.

You stood by, silent, watching. You wondered if Daeron could see you. If he knew you were there. If this was like when he visited you. With slow steps, you crossed the tent, sitting tentatively beside him, nervous the wood would creak beneath you. It didn’t.

“I never asked to have my honor redeemed. Whoever has it can keep it, so far as I’m concerned.”

He reclined against the table, breathing heavy. Groaning. 

It was fuzzy, their words. You couldn’t make the rest of it out. He turned his head, eyes catching yours for just a moment. Then everything went hot hot hot, like you were boiling out of your skin. The shadows and warm low light exploding into stardust, blinding.

It felt like falling, what came next.

You landed hard in your bed, chest heavy. Took a long breath. Another. It evened out after a while.

But by god, ouch.

No, maybe you were done with all of this. It was getting too intense. Astral projecting and whatever else could not hold a candle to whatever the fuck that was. You weren’t eager to do either.

In My Cups

To say you’d given up felt anticlimactic. But it was how you felt. You put the wine away. Got back on the apps. Pining after an imaginary prince was well and good for a while, but like it or not, Daeron was imaginary. You were pretty sure. Or at the very least, locked to a plane of existence that very clearly did not want you to come visit any time soon.

How healthy could it be to keep getting drunk in the hopes of maybe seeing him?

After weeks of swiping, you’d finally landed a date—an impossible feat in a world full of “wyd” texts and ghosts—with a guy named Ryan. Then a second. Then a third.

He was sweet, funny, charismatic, paid for everything. You were wined and dined thoroughly. Well, as thoroughly as one can be in three nice dinner dates and one trip to an ice cream shop after. But Ryan was nice. Very nice. You found yourself giddy when your phone lit with a text from him.

Date number four was at a cozy Italian place. You’d been craving pasta and the rest was history. The reservation made, the table booked, Ryan’s card on file. What a guy.

You got there first. He rushed in a little late, apologizing and plucking up a menu. And it was then that you noticed the golden ring, glimmering against his finger. His left ring finger, to be precise. You pretended not to notice for a moment, took a sip of ice water. His hands fell under the table and he swapped the hand it sat on.

“Sneaky.” You said with a bitter chuckle.

“What is?”

“You’re married.”

To his credit, he didn’t even try to gaslight you. “Well…it’s a good thing we didn’t order, huh?”

On your way out, you ordered yourself an entree, breadsticks, and a bottle of wine on his card. He didn’t object. And while you were fuming in your car, you sent a message to your groupchat, hoping one of them had the resources to track down his wife and let her know.

So, all in all, you supposed you must have looked like a nice-ish mess, sitting on your kitchen floor, half a bowl of pasta, a breadstick, and three fourths of a bottle of wine gone. Mascara smudged beneath your eyes, no doubt. There was a tear in your nylons, you were noticing. And there was also a drunken prince seated across from you.

Drunk-you had put the amulet on for old time’s sake. She had a real wicked sense of humor.

He gave you a once-over. Tsked. “Whoever he was, he wasn’t worth…this. Tell me his name.”

You hadn’t expected to be read like that by someone so far gone. “Ryan.”

“My lady, one does not cry over a man named Ryan.” That earned an embarrassed little grin. “What has he done to you, scribe?”

“Nothing. We went out a few times. He’s married, though. I didn’t know until today. Four dates wasted on that loser. But…I’ve got leftovers in the fridge and…got this really fancy bottle of red out of it. I’d share if I could.” You sighed, shaking your head. The wine was beginning to taste like honesty. Or trauma-dumping, if you were being honest. “It’s not even about him, really, and more about…I don’t know. I thought I’d be somewhere else at this point of my life. Happier. Less…saying lonely makes me sound pathetic, but—”

“There is no shame in loneliness if your only options are a puddle of men the likes of Ryan.” He tilted his head, hair falling in his eyes. He eyed your bottle. “And I wish you could share. Smells divine.”

“You can smell here?”

“Of my senses, it seems I’m afforded three. I cannot touch nor taste you. But yes, I can smell.” He raised his own cup, a metal tankard stamped with the symbol you now knew belonged to house Targaryen. He sighed, satisfied as he leaned back against your opposing cupboards like he owned the place.

Your eyes wandered his form, his finery stretched across it. Maybe if you stared long enough, you could parse what lay beneath his loose tunics. But something else rolled through your head. “It’s not my business. Like at all. But why are you always…”

“In my cups?” He replied knowingly, a tired grin tugging at his lip.

You nodded.

“I…have been plagued by nightmares for…well, as long as I can remember, really.” Took a long sip, swallowed harshly. “Horrid things. Unspeakable things. Things that…no matter what I do, always come to pass.”

“You’re a prophet.”

He laughed, bitterness curling its edges. “One seldom believed. It’s all but…driven me mad. Typical for a Targaryen. It is in our blood. The wine helps. And if I drink enough of it…I get lucky enough to find you. This strange pocket where the lights buzz like flies and the air is fresh. Be thankful you cannot smell me, my lady.”

You rolled your eyes. “Ew.”

“Will you try again?”

“Will I go on another date with some other asshole, you mean?”

He nodded, violet eyes intense.

“I deleted all the apps before you got here.” You noticed the furrow of his brow. “Right, that means nothing to you. I…got rid of all the messenger pigeons. No new messages going out. No dates. No assholes.”

“You do not have pigeons.”

“You don’t know that.”

He glared. “I am fairly certain. Would have smelled those, too.”

“Touche.” You finished your glass, leaned your head back again, staring at the kitchen fluorescents. You really needed to get those replaced. “We’ve gotta stop meeting at the bottom of a bottle.”

“I am open to suggestions.”

Willow’s advice finally clicked. “I’ve got a few.”

Out of Body

Deep breath in…and out. As you prepare this place to rest your body, you also prepare yourself for the journey ahead. You are a soul. Your body is your vessel. These things work in tandem, but can also work apart.

The squish of your noise-cancelling headphones on your ears was always a comfort. Now, it almost felt foreboding. Still, you followed the instructions, breathing deep as you arranged a pile of blankets and pillows on the comfiest couch you had. On the coffee table, a scented candle, its flame flickering faithfully in its tiny glass cradle. It was the scent you used to wind down with in college, eucalyptus and spearmint. It worked. Pavlov’s dog be damned.

You took a deeper breath, sitting down in the nest you’d made. In your hands, you gathered your mug, cradling it as you took a long sip of chamomile. The warmth rolled down your throat, spread through your core, calmed your organs and mind.

The weighted blanket you tugged atop you grounded you instantly.

Feel how safe your body is. How soft. How cared for. It will be waiting here for you when you return.

Chilling. But Willow wouldn’t lead you astray. And besides, you had a promise to keep, to a prince no less.

In and out. In…and out.

The guided meditation invited you to imagine a tunnel. You walked through it, step by tedious step. And when you reached the light at the end…nothing. Frustrated, you sat up, taking off your headphones. Or…trying to. Your hands touched your exposed ears. Had they slipped off? What was—?

You turned around to see if they’d fallen behind you and came face to face with yourself, sleeping peacefully on the couch. Ohhhhhhh that was weird.

If you could have passed out, you were pretty sure you would have. Instead, you scrambled to your feet, tripping on the carpet, chest vibrating where your heart would be if it wasn’t across the room.

“I…” For once the drunken prince was at a loss for words. Those haunted eyes watched you, chalice forgotten in his grip. “You’ve…What is it you’ve done?”

“Astral projecting.” You replied, voice a little unstable as you found it again. You took deep breaths, trying to ground yourself outside your body. You didn’t know much, but you knew you had to stay calm.

Daeron heaved himself to his feet, standing in front of you in his long black tunic, form tense with anticipation. You brushed yourself off, finding your balance on these astral legs. Dizzying, is what it was, planted in the gaze of a Targaryen. Those all-seeing dragon eyes bore right through you. Chilling. And yet, you couldn’t move away.

He was taller than you’d thought. You supposed most of your time together, he was seated or slouching. Now, he stood to his full height, drawing your gaze up towards his.

A broad palm hovered just beyond your cheek, so close his warmth seeped out. He drew a shaking breath, then closed that half inch that divided you. Skin on skin. You stood, frozen beneath his touch.

His brow curled into some blend of relief and sorrow. Eyes tender and heavy. You’d crossed one bridge, but in turn had made things increasingly more difficult for the both of you.

His thumb brushed your cheekbone, voice a mere whisper. “I never thought I’d feel your skin under mine.”

“Didn’t know it was possible to miss something I’ve never had.” You murmured, leaning into his touch. “But I missed this.”

He chuckled, leaning closer. He drew you to him easily, movements languid, familiar. You curled your arms around his middle. His head came to rest against yours, scruff brushing against your skin, a delicious bit of friction.

“I’m sure my breath stinks of wine.”

“Don’t care.”

“A lady of your caliber should have a higher standard.”

You rolled your eyes, holding him tighter. “Higher than a prince?”

“You know what I mean.” He pulled away, guiding your face towards his. He couldn’t hold your gaze for long, pressing his forehead to yours instead, clumsy and heavy. That wine-scented breath wafted across your skin. Utterly intoxicating. “You could have more than me.”

You shook your head. “I think we both know I can’t. We’re connected for a reason.”

“I have yet to find it.”

Silence stretched. You found yourself easing upwards, a hand wandering to his face, relishing in the hitch of his breath, the dragon’s fire alight in his eyes. The emotion on his face was enough to bring you to your knees under any other circumstances. Those eyes had seen this before, and knew how fleeting and precious it was.

“I found it.”

“Enlighten me, then.”

Your lips brushed his. Tentative. Hovering. Did one need to ask permission before kissing a prince? 

You hesitated, pulled away to look at him, just in time to catch that grin before he pulled you in for more. 

He tasted of wine and smelled of smoke, but you found yourself sinking deeper. It was searing, sweet. You found your breaths falling in time, your chest warm, your everything tingling. It was dreamlike. You supposed everything about him was. You were weightless in his arms, your body across the room, but your soul oh so loved.

Or so you hoped.

Daeron pulled back, breaths ragged. “I have dreamed of that for months.”

Your breath caught, eyes softening. God, this dreamer of yours… “What comes next?”

He took your hands, guiding you backwards towards the armchair he’d been on earlier, a wide one, mostly wide enough for two. He sat first, guiding you atop his lap, his legs extended on the plush ottoman sitting in front of it. He had a hearty build, a layer of softness clinging to his frame, something you only noticed now, due to the way your bodies were pressed. It made sense, you supposed, years of drinking and avoiding his princely duties. You didn’t mind. The opposite, in fact.

Daeron brushed the hair from the side of your face, eyes intense, still troubled despite the spark of warmth in them.

“What?” You wondered softly.

“Don’t worry yourself with it.” He brought your knuckles to his lips and kissed each with care.

Your hand rose, cupping his cheek as you studied him. He looked just like that painting in the book. It was impossible, wasn’t it? That he could be here, in your arms, in your living room, and also haunting the shelves of a gamekeeper named George?

Maybe George was like you, in a way. Able to glimpse the world Daeron was from.

“You’re real, right?” You hoped the fear didn’t bleed through your tone.

Daeron’s eyes softened. His arm crested your back, drawing you nearer. “I hope so, my lady. But I ask myself the same thing every day about you. Here, in this place, you are vivid as the spring. When I return home, this is…a haze. Your form becomes…blurred by the pain in my head.” He chuckled bitterly. “Which I chase with a morning glass of wine. I’m sure it improves memory. I look for you in taverns, but I only ever seem to find you in the bottom of my cup. Only after several of them, in fact.”

You leaned your head against him, unsure how to respond. Instead, you let a hand smooth across his tunic, the black velvet soft beneath your fingers. “You’re not what I thought you’d be like.”

He gave a self-depreciating, sheepish little smile. “Well, I am not built for fighting.”

“Not what I meant. But I don’t mind it.”

“Then what?”

“I didn’t expect you to be so…touchy.”

He nodded. Huffed. “I am no stranger to touch, scribe. I admit, it is not usually quite so…tender.”

Brothels, he meant. Seeking quick pleasure, not…whatever this was.

“Are your dreams of me…like the rest? When you have dream-dreams, I mean. Not when you’re projecting yourself across time and space.” Your eyes searched his. “Are they…?”

“Nightmares?” He asked, the word made of iron. A weary weight tugged at his eyes, the sparkle in them vanishing for just a moment. “No. My dreams of you are not nightmares.”

You wanted to ask, but couldn’t bring yourself to push the words together. Didn’t want to pry into the things he held so close to his chest. Your gaze wandered to your own sleeping form in her nest on the couch. She looked so peaceful. So blissfully unaware of all of this. You hoped you’d remember it when you woke.

Daeron glanced over as well, eyes soft. He kissed your forehead.

“They are…the only solace I get when I lie in bed. Aside from the lucky nights I am called to your side.” His fingers curled around the amulet, playing with it. His thumb smoothed over the head of the golden dragon coiled around the ruby. “And on other nights…I dream of staying.”

Something Old

You weren’t really a huge fan of portal fiction. Never had been. And yet, on a particularly rainy afternoon, you found it was the only thing you wanted to write. A story about a girl at a fantasy festival who accidentally met a real life prince.

Rain splattered on the back deck. A sparrow played in your birdbath, wings splashing happily.

Maybe “wanted to write” was a strong turn of phrase. That wasn’t how writing worked. You needed to write this, felt it clawing its way out of your chest, but the words just wouldn’t come. You were stuck on an ending, anyway. Did Maeve go through the portal into Daelan’s world? Did he come through to hers?

Imagining Daeron in a t-shirt and sweatpants felt so wrong. Stripping him from everything he was just so you could have him felt…selfish. But it didn’t stop you from missing how it’d felt to have him, just for that little while, to borrow him from Westeros.

It was worse now. You’d made it worse. And yet, you still had plans to do it again. A dangerous new addiction, you knew…but you supposed there were worse addictions to have than craving the wine on a prince’s lips.

You pushed through the block, fingers flying across the keyboard. There it was. 

Daelan came through the portal into the modern world, knowing nothing of Maeve, and found himself a stranger in a strange place, trying to get back home from a world without magic. Along the way, they’d find out Maeve had a hidden bit of magic in her after all, and despite the fact that Daelan had been trying so hard to return, he decided that he did not owe his world his life. Maeve would end up getting sucked through a portal for the angst of it, Daelan would rescue her, make his peace with his world, and then…inevitably choose hers instead.

Happily ever after. Neat little bow.

You’d work some magic into the epilogue, of course, to show he’s still tied to that place, but…that was it.

Outline finished, you closed your laptop and shot Willow a text. You needed to get out and let that marinate before diving into your first draft.

***

The hangers clicked as you slid them down the rack. Willow was a fit of giggles, holding up the ugliest t-shirt you’d ever seen, embellished with flames and a bald eagle wearing sunglasses. “Hear me out.”

“No!” You laughed, shifting further down. You weren’t looking for anything particular, but you were always kind of shopping for Midsummer. The thrift gods had called and you always answered.

“Fine, fine.” She shoved it back into the rack, shuffling through the other options. “Hey, did you try that stuff I showed you?”

“Astral projection? Yeah, sure did.”

Willow was taken aback by your casual tone. “So it didn’t work?”

“No, it worked.” You sighed, putting a hanger back. “It worked.”

She blinked a few times, turning her full attention towards you. “Spill. Now. You’ve been holding out on me.”

“His name is Daeron.”

“He.”

“Yeah. The imaginary friend in question. And, uh…I only see him when I get really drunk. But the amulet I got from Arlong—that pirate at Midsummer—it was Daeron’s. And so…I don’t know, if I wear it and drink, sometimes he shows up. He’s a dreamer. He sees the future. And he’s from a place called Westeros from this niche 90s tabletop game.”

She stared at you. Hard.

“I know how this sounds.”

“So how did the astral projection…go? Did you go to that place? Westeros?”

“No. Dreamed of it once, but it spit me out. No, I was in my living room, looking down at my body, and he was already there waiting for me. But in the astral…he and I could…touch,” you admitted, cheeks taking on a rosen hue.

“This guy have a last name?”

“Targaryen? Daeron Targaryen the Drunken, to be specific. There are like six Daeron Targaryens.”

She chuckled. “The Drunken, you really know how to pick ‘em, huh? I’ll…email my aunt. This is above my paygrade. But I think it’s safe to say this guy is more than imaginary.”

“Thanks for not making me feel crazy. I have been feeling a lot of that lately.”

“I’m a witch. I know crazy. And I know you. You’ve got your head in the clouds, but you’ve got a good head on your shoulders. We’re gonna figure this out.”

Change in Scenery

It was a rainy night when next you slipped out of your body. Perhaps it was like a muscle, getting easier every time you tried. You didn’t even use the meditation this time, just got into some cozy clothes, lit your candle, and closed your eyes. It felt a little like being lightheaded. Things are just a little too floaty and then, suddenly, you were somewhere else entirely.

Kind of. You were still in your living room. Just not your body.

The clang of metal on metal was the first sound you heard, sitting up and stretching that astral form of yours. Puzzled, you turned to find the source of it. Daeron, stumbling through the doorway in a suit of armor.

“What—?”

He grunted. “This blasted…” He glanced up, noticing you’d slipped out. “(Y/N).”

“Daeron.” You walked around the couch to him. 

It was a humbling thing, really. The man of your dreams standing before you in armor. Your stomach sank when you caught the look in his eyes, sank even further when you saw him try to hide it with a well-meaning, drunken smile.

“What’s the, uh…occasion?”

He tilted his head, hair falling in his eyes. “I thought you might like to see me look gallant for once. Wearing something other than my wine-stained robes. D’you like it?”

Your eyebrows furrowed, lip tugged into an unconvinced pout.

Daeron sighed. “I will be partaking in a fight on this day. A Trial of the Seven. Battle to the death or until forfeit. The latter is…unlikely, knowing my brother.”

Fight to the Death. As if he hadn’t already been haunting you. You didn’t know what would become of this connection if Daeron died. “Daeron…”

“Worry not, my lady. I will ride the first charge, then feign dead until it is over. My brothers have my measure when it comes to most things: fighting, dancing, reading books…but none of them is half my equal at lying insensible in the mud.”

It didn’t make you feel much better, but it did help soothe the pit in your stomach a little.

His eyes softened. He leaned down closer. “I will be careful, scribe. You have my word.”

You reached a hand forward, letting your palm smooth across its surface. Layers of dark metal. Vertical stripes. Big shoulder pauldrons and a gorget that encompassed his neck. He had pieces all down his arms, plates in front of his shins and thighs, as well as a long flared metal skirt. He hadn’t brought a helmet, but you assumed he had one. If he didn’t, that was another problem entirely.

You couldn’t scrub the worry from your eyes, but let some of it be replaced by awe. You had seen LARP armor, of course. Some of that was real metal. But this was otherworldly on a literal level. This was armor meant to protect a prince. The highest quality, carved with the finest details.

He could tell you were nervous, perhaps in a way he hadn’t expected. Perhaps this was the moment Daeron Targaryen realized that this scribe loved him. Truly loved him. That this was deeper than some passing fancy, some strange connection. You never got this quiet with him. 

That scared him more than the trial itself.

“My cruelest brother—the one whose brainchild this whole fight is—once remarked that if I kept guzzling wine all night and shirking my training, my armor would cease to fit.”

That jogged you from your brain fog. Diffusion. You chuckled, letting your eyes wander back up to his, fingers still tracing the edge of one of the plates on his chest. “And?”

“Well…” He gave a rueful look, a self-depreciating smirk. “I admit, it is a little snug.”

You tilted your head, eyes glimmering with affection. “You still look gallant.”

“And yet, I feel…drunk, mostly. Anyways…help me out of it?”

That, you could help with.

Daeron raised an arm for you and you set to work, unbuckling his gauntlets, helping him free his hands, then loosening his chest plate and all the connected pieces. He helped you raise it over his head. It was heavier than it looked, but light enough for him to move in. And, you hoped, thick enough to deflect any blows coming his way.

“God, this is a lot of work. No wonder you guys have squires.”

“Best squire I ever had ran off with a hedge knight. I can scarcely blame him. Egg is ten and dreams of far more adventure than he’d ever find with me.” He sighed, eyes trying to hold a humor that his words did not. “I…am a coward.”

You chucked the current piece of armor onto the pile of it with a noisy clang. Instead, you reached up and touched his face. He’d shaved a bit. There was still stubble, but it was much shorter beneath your thumb. “You are not a coward.”

Daeron’s eyes closed. He leaned into your palm, pressing a tender, tender kiss there. “You said that in my dream. Meant it then, too.”

“What is this fight even over anyway?”

“My brother, Aerion is his name…it is a long story. Involves puppeteers. The short of it is that I was a bad brother to Egg. Lost track of him in a drunken stupor. Lied. Let a hedge knight take the fall to appease my father’s temper. Said hedge knight found himself on Aerion’s cruel side and he has…inflated this all to epic proportions. There hasn’t been a trial like this in a hundred years.”

Something about that felt familiar. Still, you pressed, “And no one stopped him?”

“No one can. He thinks himself a dragon, the kingdoms all think him mad, yet we all pay the price time and time again. It is not a cause I believe in. Should the hedge knight kill him…well…I would not throw myself between their swords.”

“Hence the mud-laying.”

He nodded against your hand, kissing it again, longer this time.

You slowly retrieved your hand, working quickly to help him out of the bottom half of his armor, then finally, the padding atop his tunic and trousers. There he was. Even in his most basic layer, it was obvious he had royal blood. The fabric was of high quality, sewn so well. Every stitch done with care to ensure a properly dressed prince. Even one dressed for war.

“I, uh…had a dream about you.”

His eyebrow quirked. “Do yours come true, scribe?”

“No. It, uh…it was you in some tent, getting pinned down by a big, big guy with a knife. Dagger, maybe? He was angry. I didn’t get much of it. It was blurry. For a second, I thought it was like this.” You glanced over at your body, still soundly asleep on the couch, her noise-cancelling headphones covering her ears. “But I woke up and it hurt so bad. And it didn’t seem like you could see me, but you were definitely drunk.”

“How long ago.” His violet eyes turned intense.

“Oh, god, that was like…a month ago? Longer than that. Before Ryan. It kinda scared me, honestly. That’s why I…stopped drinking.”

He huffed a chuckle, eyes blown wide with disbelief. They glimmered with something akin to pride. “You had a dragon dream.”

“Pardon me?”

“That happened last night.” His hand landed on your hip, the other gripping your hand and pulling it upwards, lips grazing your wrist. “Perhaps Valyrian blood runs through these veins after all, my lady.”

You scrunched your nose. “Ew. Well…I guess you wouldn’t be the first Targaryen to kiss your cousin.”

He huffed, lips still sealed over your pulse. “I suppose I walked into that one.”

“Mmhmm.”

His eyes were drawn to the pile of armor in the doorway, then to your sleeping form on the couch, then to the you that was planted in front of him. Tension creased his brow. Clearly, a change in scenery was in order.

You led him to your bedroom, awash in the gentle purple glow of your strip lights. His eyes scanned the art on the walls, the soft swell of the comforter atop your bed. It was nothing like his bedchambers, but it was so you, it filled his heart with warmth anyway.

He studied the pieces hanging in the closet, and then, once he had studied all he cared in his drunk-ish state, stepped closer to you, arms winding around your waist. He rested his chin on your shoulder, kissing up your neck to the shell of your ear. “I should like to lay with you. Just this once.”

Who were you to deny the request of a man headed off to war?

You climbed onto the bed first. It was strange, being cradled by something that wasn’t acknowledging your body. It did not sink beneath your weight, as in your current astral form, you had none. Still, Daeron climbed in after you, holding himself above you for a moment. His eyes trailed your form, both familiar with it, and yet seeing this for the first time. You wondered just how many dreams of you he was still holding to his chest.

Your heart sank when you wondered if this might be the last.

As if sensing your dip in mood, he closed the gap, driving every other possible thought out of your head with his lips. Your breaths became one. Your hands tugged at his tunic, urging him closer, until one arm braced on his elbow, the other trailing down your side, squeezing your hip affectionately before moving to your thighs.

His kisses were hungry, but each was savored. You were not dinner, you were dessert. With a soft moan, he sealed it, then began to wander down your neck to find which spot was the most sensitive. His thumb found a sensitive spot as well. Your thighs clenched around him, and you felt him grin against your pulse, latching on harder.

One hand twisted in the sheets, or would have, if you were tangible to anything but him. The other threaded into his long hair, curling into a fist. He rasped, breath ragged, but pleased with both his work and yours.

Eventually, you both slowed, satisfied for now. He flopped down on top of you, which you accepted with a giggled oof.

“Tell me of this world, scribe.” He requested softly, punctuating it with a lazy kiss to your neck. His arms wound around you, using your chest as a pillow. “I’d like to escape mine a little while longer.”

“What do you wanna know?”

“You are a writer. Yet, I have never seen you with a quill. Where do you keep your ink?”

You chuckled. “I use that glowing box you hate to do my writing.”

“I do not hate the box. It merely confounds me.” He argued. “How does it write?”

“Each of the buttons on the keyboard represents a letter. I just press each letter in order and type out sentences in seconds.” You explained.

“Well yes, but where is the paper, then?”

“That’s gonna take a while to explain. I don’t suppose you know what a microchip is.”

“I don’t suppose you speak the common tongue.”

The two of you went back and forth for a bit. You tried to explain cars, the modern dating scene, the Renaissance faire. After a while, he stopped rebuttaling. Instead, a low snore rolled from his lips, breaths slowing. Somehow, he’d fallen asleep in a dream. Unbelievable.

You supposed there were worse places for him to be passed out than in your arms. He seemed content, comfortable. You felt unbalanced suddenly, just ever so slightly off-kilter, and moments later, Daeron vanished. You woke up in your body not long after, feeling heavy but warm.

That warmth faded when you remembered where it was he’d gone…

Soul Caller

This might have been a record for how quickly you’d put a first draft together. But as you typed the final words, it felt…right. You packaged the PDF and emailed it to your agent. Our of your hands, off of your mind. For now. Fantasy was having its moment, still, so…you hoped it stood a chance. Your crazy kids deserved to see the light of day, even if the relationship they were based on never would.

You stared at your stress relief candle loathingly. It was not fulfilling its purpose at the moment. If anything, it was serving to do the opposite. As much as you wanted to slip into the astral, you didn’t know if you could face the heartbreak that awaited if something had happened to Daeron. If you stepped out and there was just…nothing. Him being gone would just crush you. Someday, you’d try again.

But how long was too long to give your medieval situationship to heal from a potentially deadly battle?

You searched the books, sure, but there was nothing in them about a Trial of Seven, let alone a record of how that one had gone.

Bzzt-Bzzt!

An email from Alyssa.

(Y/N), I am obsesseddddddd. Will read in full and get back to you. I think Maeve and Daelan have got a real fighting chance. Start working on the next one ;)

Something settled in your chest. Well, at least that was taken care of. But as soon as that thread was tied, another came swiftly unraveled.

Willow texted: Aunt Iris wants to talk to you. You free for tea tomorrow?

Well, you were now.

***

Willow’s Aunt’s house was a whimsigoth maximalist’s dream. It was like stepping into the house from Practical Magic on witchy steroids. Hanging flowers and herbs, star-covered pillows and curtains and rugs, steaming mugs of tea waiting on the coffee table, sugared just right.

You sat on her couch, admiring the crochet throw blanket draped over the back of it.

Aunt Iris set a thick stack of books on the table, sitting in her favorite armchair. Her cat, Pesto, wandered through the room, his gray tail flicking in curiosity before he eventually leapt up onto his cat perch in the window.

Iris herself had a Miss Frizzle vibe about her. Her dress matched her large dangling earrings. She had gemstone rings adorning her fingers.

“So this is the Soul Caller I keep hearing so much about.”

“Aunt Iris, that is a crazy bomb to drop right out the gate.” Willow choked on a laugh with her tea, setting the cup down with a clack.

“Sorry, what?”

“I thought you’d told her already!”

“That is not the kind of bomb I would just drop on her—!”

“Excuse me?” You interjected as politely and calmly as possibly despite your racing heart. “What was that?”

“Soul Caller. It’s a new term for old magic. You, my dear, are connected to this universe in ways few are. And now, it sounds, you’ve snagged the soul of a prince from an Elseworld.”

“An Elseworld?”

“A realm that is not our own. He doesn’t exist in our history, but he…does exist.” Iris explained, voice sincere. “Or he did. A long time ago. His story was all etched out.”

Your eyebrows furrowed, one of those words heavier than the rest. “Was.”

“Yes, was. A sad end. Now…that ending has been uprooted.”

“He’s dead?”

“No! No no no.” Iris shook her head, hands frantically, trying to calm you. “You, my dear, have been calling souls since you were young. Beckoning them to visit, then forgetting them once your need for them had passed. It is possible, however, to…pull them. To anchor them elsewhere.”

“Here.” Willow said, cutting through her aunt’s cryptic ramblings. “She means you could pull him here, into our world. But it would be permanent. And I’d need to round up five more witches.”

“You’re telling me he’s real. And I could have him forever.” Saying it out loud did not make it feel any more true.

“You’ll have to ask him first. It’s a blood bond. He’d have to give up his world, his family, his life and pick one up here.” Iris pushed the stack of books towards you. “Read into it. Make your decision. Then, call Willow. Either way…sounds like quite the adventure.”

And it would be. On the drive home, you let yourself imagine Daeron in the passenger seat. Running errands with you. Going to the grocery store together, the movies. Brewing two cups of tea in the morning. Reading a good book in his lap.

You ached for it more than you knew you should. Maybe he only pretended to be jaded by his world because he was so accustomed to it. Maybe he didn’t want to leave it for any longer than his visits drew him away. He was a prince. You were a poet at best. You lived a mundane life in an imperfect world, one that would take him a long time to get acquainted with. There was no finery in your home. No infinite gold or royal jewels. Your only dragons were figurines.

But his only dragons were dreams.

You pulled into the driveway, shifting the car into park. Resolute.

The least you could do was ask.

And the worst he could say was no.

The Offer

You dressed up nice. A black dress. The amulet provided a nice pop of red between your collarbones. You poured two glasses of red wine, lit some candles, sat at the table. All this time, it hadn’t been the necklace, nor the wine. It was you that summoned him through centuries. Still, the routine of it felt right.

Wide awake, mostly sober, you reached out.

He answered. He always did.

Daeron shimmered into existence in the chair beside you. He leaned forward and took a whiff, seeming satisfied by the scent. His movements were heavy with the drink he’d already had. “Mmmm…you do like it sweet. What’s the occasion, scribe?”

Across his cheek, a long, crudely-stitched gash that stretched the length of his cheekbone and up around his ear. There was some blood caught in his eye, giving his iris an almost amber look.

Your breath hitched, words lost on your tongue. He didn’t seem to have any other injuries, but you were sure he had bruises beneath his tunic. A two-toned shirt, red velvet on one side, black leather on the other.

He reached for your hand, but his went right through. He stared for a moment, hurt flickering through his mismatched eyes. Still, he insisted, “It is merely a scratch. I am fine. Go on, then. What is it you’ve summoned me here for? I feel it is more than just companionship.”

“I had tea with my friend’s aunt. An aunt of…a witchy persuasion,” you admitted carefully. He was a Dreamer called here by magic, but that didn’t mean people from his world had kind things to say about witches.

“Aye. And did she tell you I’m…a figment of your imagination? Why is it your eyes are so troubled?” He studied you. “Is it I’ve done more wrong?”

“No. You’re not imaginary.” You shook your head, took a long sip of wine. “Not wrong. I’m just…nervous.”

He smirked. “I make you nervous?”

“Shut up.” A breath rushed out of you, chased by some semblance of an explanation. “It was never the necklace calling you here. Or the wine. It was me. I’m a Soul Caller.”

“Oh. Well. I could have told you that.” He murmured, fingers tracing the table where yours sat, unable to touch you, but not craving it any less. “Did you think yourself ordinary? Not just anyone can conjure worlds.”

“This is relatively new—”

“I am talking about your writing.” The conviction in his voice struck you. “Muses are mysterious things. I sense I’m not the first you’ve called.”

“No, you’re not. You’re the only one I remember. And…”

His gaze could have sliced right through you as you chose your next words.

“And you’re…the only one I’d want to…”

“Stay here.” He finished, lips pressed together. An interesting cocktail of emotions flashed across his face. Like he was already grieving things he hadn’t lost yet. In it, though, a deep warmth. Something you’d almost mistake as love.

You exhaled a little sigh, staring at your hands. “Yeah.”

“Did the witch tell you about that, too? Blood magic comes with a price, my lady. A price you may find too steep.”

“It’s not my price, it’s yours. Anchoring you here would be…permanent. You wouldn’t be able to go back to Westeros. Your home, your family, all of it…You’d be stuck here forever. If we did it and if it worked.”

He let the silence bloom between you for two long before huffing and shaking his head. “My love, that is hardly a price.”

Your eyes jumped to his, heart setting its pace at a gallop. Surely, you’d misheard him. “Daeron, you—”

“I have carried the weight of my family’s fate for as long as I can remember. I spend my days drunken into a stupor, my nights tormented by things I cannot stop. I know my own end is…a whimper. Not a brave death. One sick, alone, withering of something that in your time can be handled with a needle or a handful of pills.”

He didn’t elaborate, but you could only imagine the kind of medieval disease that would have taken him out. Shuddered at the thought.

“Strange though it is, this place…it is the only quiet I’ve ever known. I’d sooner risk any disaster in the jumping of worlds than stay rooted in that wretched place. I…will miss Egg. But Westeros will forget me. They will find relief in their drunken prince never ascending to that cursed throne. And I will find relief in your arms, in your lips, in the feeling of your fingers in my hair. And perhaps on occasion, this modern wine on my tongue. I…get a feeling I shall scarcely need it to drive out my visions.” He took a breath, one violet eye and one bloodied one searing into you. “I told you once I dreamt of staying. And they always come true. I knew someday you’d offer. There is no world in which I would have said no.”

You didn’t have a response for that. You finished your glass of wine. Reached for the second you’d poured and started to drink that one, too. Daeron chuckled at the sight. A woman after his own heart, indeed.

Finally, you murmured, “Okay.”

His eyebrows raised, waiting for more. “Is that it?”

“Full moon is in three days. Say your goodbyes. Wear whatever you want to bring here. Jewelry, belt, boots…be thorough.”

He nodded, taking a long breath. “I will.”

A Witch of the Seven Kingdoms

Your head was so heavy on the pillow each morning that followed. Dread sat heavy on your chest. Well, not dread, precisely. Anxiety. The crushing weight of a million things to do. This house was not ready for another inhabitant in three—oof, two—two days.

You rolled out of bed, sent Alyssa a reply email to let her know you’d gotten her list of developmental edits for draft 2, and ate a quick breakfast, throwing on some clothes and brushing your teeth before hitting the thrift. 

A solo thrift trip was always dangerous, you’d found. A companion was necessary, grounding, kept you humbled and stopped you from running off the rails. But you had a goal in mind. Clothes for Daeron.

You, of course, had some he could borrow. Oversized tees, mostly. He’d need more. Whatever you could find that would fit him and be comfortable. No matter what you scrounged, it wouldn’t compare to the finery he’d worn his entire life.

It would all be so different, in fact.

The food, the wine, the bed. He would be a stranger to everyone he met. You would be the only person he knew or could trust for a long time. It would be a lonely existence. That voice on your shoulder was sure to inform you Daeron would resent you for it. That he’d come to regret his choice.

You pushed it away, continuing through the racks and adding some more sweatpants to the pile. Black, mostly. Dark gray. A few pairs of slip-on shoes, but you’d have to bring him back to actually try some on.

At the grocery store, you stocked up on socks, underwear, toiletries, a few pairs of pajama pants. Toothbrush, comb, conditioner, shampoo. A loofah? Eh, toss it in. Can’t hurt. You picked a scent or two of deodorant and then closed your eyes at the checkout. The number on that register was between your bank account and God.

You made up the bed in the guest room. A quilt you’d thrifted with a dragon on it. Wondered if it’d feel too much like home. Decided it didn’t matter when there was a mural of Smaug on the other wall.

Maybe he’d want to spend nights with you. Maybe he’d want space to himself. It was hard to gauge. Despite your connection, you didn’t talk much about…living habits. Hadn’t needed to until now. Your heart both fluttered and sunk when you thought about it.

***

Daeron clawed through his chambers. Part of him wanted to stay sober for his last few nights in Summerhall. What goodbyes did he even have to say? Egg had already slipped off with Ser Duncan. Aerion was on his way to Lys. Baelor was dead.

There was his father, of course. What would he think when his last son finally vanished? Surely Maekar would have known it was inevitable. It didn’t make him feel any less cruel. When he closed his eyes at night, he dreamt of terror and pain, sickness pooling in his chest, sweat caked on his forehead, and a tremble in his bones. It made the decision easier, at least. 

He drank more wine, raised a quill and penned as long a letter as he could muster to Aemon. By the time his brother received it, he would already be gone. At this rate, he wouldn’t figure out what to say to his father before he left. He wasn’t sure it would matter, in the end.

Daeron set out his most comforting clothes, the ones (Y/N) had seemed to like the most. He filled a pouch with tiny jewelry no one would miss. In the best case, they would have some value in her world. But even if not, perhaps she’d like them. 

He should bring her flowers.

He penned his prophecies into a great leather book. The ones he could make sense of. Dragon dreams were vague, slippery things and he’d drowned most of them in wine. Still, he tried. He felt he at least owed his father that.

At a quiet dinner in a quiet hall, Daeron finally spoke his piece with his father. Thanked him for the life he’d lived. Thanked him for trying. Apologized for being a sorry excuse for a prince. Daeron’s heart twisted when Maekar apologized for being a sorry excuse for a father.

When it was over, Daeron found his amulet. He admired it one last time, pressed a kiss to its ruby surface, then tucked it into a small wooden box, hoping it would find its way to you in some strange twist of time. He glanced at the moon, round and full, and wondered if you had the same one beaming down on you tonight.

He slumped into his desk chair, the wine making him heavy as he sipped. That familiar tug began to pull in his chest, tightening with each passing moment. He gripped the wildflowers in one hand, taking another long, defiant, burning sip. Any second now.

Any second now…

Any…

***

Willow arrived at sundown with five of her closest witchy friends. Together, seven of you. One for each of the old gods. Daeron’s gods, specifically. There were far more than seven in most of the pantheons you were familiar with.

With table salt, Willow drew a seven-pointed star on your dinner table, lit seven candles, an eighth in the middle. Coiled around its long wax base, the chain of the amulet. And at each of the eight table places, a glass of sweet red wine.

You were all jitters, but Willow drew you in for a long hug. It instilled confidence, at the very least.

“You look hot.” She complimented, peeling back to look at you.

It was true. Disheveled though you felt, you had done your utmost to look presentable. If all went to plan, it would be the first time Daeron saw you with his eyeballs instead of his soul. Had to make it cound for something.

The witches nibbled on the charcuterie board you’d set out for them for a few minutes, discussing the spell excitedly. It seemed they had different backgrounds when it came to magic, but it was clear none of them had ever attempted something like this before. If anyone could do it, you had full confidence in the roster of baddies assembled around you.

You set a few pillows on the floor beside your seat. Took a breath. Then, you sat in your chair as the other witches filled in. You gave one sidelong glance to the moon.

“We are your circle, (Y/N), but you will be doing the majority of the pulling. Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Willow asked, sitting to your right. You looked to your left, the empty spot where Daeron would sit. Where he would…exist.

That was answer enough.

You took a few long sips of water, then stowed your bottle back under the table. “I’m ready. Let’s do this.”

“Call him. You know how.”

With a deep breath, you closed your eyes, resting one hand over the amulet. With the other, you took a long sip of wine, letting the smoky cherry flavor roll over your tongue. You rested your head against the chair, eyes opening slow.

“Good evening, my lady.” He murmured, voice soft but strung tight with anticipation. He wasn’t there there, not fully. Instead of his usual form, he sat there half-translucent. Halfway between your dining room and Westeros. “You’ve brought friends.”

The other girls all looked at him in awe. It was clear some of them thought you wouldn’t even get this far, but the fact that they could see him proved to you that this spell had a fighting chance.

“You okay?” You asked softly, searching his eyes. One still shone a striking violet, the other still bloodied from his time in the trial. He was drunk, undoubtedly, but it was doing nothing to hide his nerves.

He nodded. Wiped his palms on his tunic. His gaze strayed to the pillows on the floor, eyebrows furrowing. Assuming they were for him, he gave a wry little grin. “I am alright.”

You glanced over at Willow. She grinned, quirking her eyebrows in a damn girl, good for you. Flushed, you turned back to Daeron.

“I would like to do this before I lose the nerve.” He admitted. His voice had the slightest tremble, but he held your gaze as fiercely as ever. “Are you ready?”

“Are you?”

He gave a soft nod, closing his eyes for a moment.

Willow reached for your hand and you gave it, finger poised at the ready. With a thin needle, she pricked it, sharp and quick. Blood beaded on your fingertip. You squeezed three drops into the flame of the center candle, which accepted them with eager licks. It sent a chill down your spine.

Daeron winced, uncomfortable with the sight of you in pain, but you took it with a steely determination, slipping your hand into Willow’s and giving hers a squeeze. Around the table, each witch joined the circle, joining hands. You held your other out to Daeron, who rested his atop it, though you couldn’t feel his touch. Not yet.

You and the girls began to softly recite the spell you’d written. Your middle ached, hoping beyond hope it would be enough. Your words were powerful. Powerful enough to crack the universe in two? That had yet to be seen.

“Drunken Daeron, long since dead,

Snatched from time before he’s wed,

Soul called forth by woe and wine,

Pull him through and make him mine.

Boots accustomed to the mud,

Bind him to me with this blood

Anchor him in times of new,

If fate is right and love is true.”

With a flush of wind, all the flames in the room went out, smoke tumbling over the tabletop, a silken fog. Silence. It was too dark to see if it had worked.

For a moment, you felt lightheaded. Then, as though the heavens themselves had opened up—and maybe they had—the candles burst into a blinding light, and a wave of energy hit you, as heavy and swift as the ocean, knocking you from the chair and onto the waiting pillows, eyes sliding shut.

The candles dimmed again, their light flickering shadows onto Daeron’s very solid form. He felt the chair sink beneath his weight, the table cool beneath his skin. He marveled at the veins of his hands, trembling fingers turning to reveal palms. He met Willow’s eyes, bewildered, then looked down on the floor, where you were collapsed in a heap he thought was meant for him.

He dropped from his chair, crawling to your side and scooping you up in his arms. Despite your time together in the astral, this touch was decidedly different. Real. Your skin was so soft. Your breaths so shallow.

His eyes glistened in the low light as he gathered you against him. His voice rasped. “My love…my love, please. You can’t have traded yourself for this. You must open those eyes. I’m here now, please, please…”

With a gasp, you came to. The world was a warm meld of fuzz until everything came into focus. His eyes, namely, a deep violet in the dim light. You reached up to touch him, but stopped short when you remembered his wound, hand hovering just a milimeter from his cheek.

He scoffed, guiding your hand there anyway. A tear trickled onto your fingers. “I could feel no pain right now, my love.”

You leaned against him as much as you could manage, the weight of an elephant resting on your chest. Ripping a hole through the universe had left you utterly spent. Still, you could not think of one single regret.

His hand shook in yours as he held it to him. He pressed a long kiss to the base of your thumb, letting his eyes fall shut if only to savor the feeling of you all the more. A sleepy smile tugged at your lips as you admired him. Your prince. You dreamer. He smelled of leather, smoke, spilled wine, and musk, but you couldn’t bring yourself to care. Instead, you savored it, trying to memorize it before modern soap could wash it away.

Daeron adjusted his hold, cradling you higher as he brushed the hair out of your face.

“You like that spell? Wrote it myself.”

He chuckled, amusement sparkling in his eyes. He pressed a long kiss to your forehead. “It may be, perhaps, the very best thing you have ever written, scribe.”

You heard stirring in the kitchen. The girls, helping themselves to the meager feast you’d prepared. Two crock pots loaded with chicken and vegetables and broth, slow-cooked to perfection, some dinner rolls and herb butter you’d gotten at the farmer’s market.

“What do you need, my lady?” He murmured, searching your dazed expression. “Let me get it for you.”

You shook your head. “You. Just you.”

After several long moments, you made an effort to stand, Daeron helping with gentler hands than you ever expected. He moved your chair beside his, scooting the others around. He sat, an arm wrapping around your waist as you joined him. You rested your head against his shoulder, comforted by the feeling of his thumb tracing constant circles there. It was hard to pay attention to anyone but him.

Your world had recentered. The rest of it was just noise.

One of the noises, however, had a name.

Willow waved a hand in front of your face, trying to draw your attention. She chuckled at the look in your eyes. “You doing okay, girl?”

“Mmmmmhm,” came your lazy hum.

Daeron chuckled. “I take it you are Willow. Pleasure.”

“Your Highness.” She grinned. “Welcome to the twenty-first century. That stack of papers over there needs to be filled out in the next few days. My aunt and I are gonna cast an Identification Spell, get your bases all covered there. She’ll feel better in an hour or so.”

“You hungry?” Asked one of the other witches, an acquaintance of yours named Paige. 

You nodded, attempting to sit a little straighter. She set a bowl in front of you, another in front of Daeron. You nudged his wine closer to him, but he shook his head. 

“Not tonight. I want to remember every moment.” He confessed, pressing another long kiss to the crown of your head. “Did you cook?”

“Kinda.”

“It looks delicious. Thank you.” His eyes softened, looking down on it. He’d seen some strange foods in your kitchen, teal bubbling elixirs, triangles dusted in too-orange cheese but this meal was…decidedly familiar. You’d wanted it to feel like home. His heart ached at the very thought.

He gathered the wildflowers from the table. One tiny handful of Westeros he’d drunkenly picked for you. He offered them, curling your fingers around them. A piece of his home in yours. “For you. The loveliest I could find.”

“I love you.” You murmured. You’d meant to say Thank you, but it had just kinda slipped out.

The prince didn’t seem to mind. His arm tightened, lips brushing the shell of your ear ever so gently. “And I love you.”

***

One by one, the witches cleared out. You perked up with each minute that passed, slowly returning to your regular self. Willow stayed to clean the kitchen while Daeron got unpacked. In the guest room, he began to empty his trinkets from his pouch to a small wooden box, tucking them away for later. You’d set out clothes on the bed for him, and had seemed so nervous about it. About how they’d fit, how he’d like them, all of it. It was as if you were afraid to breathe in your very home now that he was there, something he hoped to remedy soon.

First, he’d attempt to take a shower in the strange apparatus you’d shown him. After, he would begin to coax you from your new shell and into his waiting arms.

The water trickled down his frame, warm and steady. It ran brown. Years of grime, he was sure, the least of which came from his lying facedown in the mud a few mere weeks before. Your soap smelled of lavender. It lathered in his hair nicely, cleaned his skin gently, and best of all, left him smelling like you. 

When he was done, he fumbled with the nozzles until suddenly the water stopped, and dried himself with an impossibly fluffy towel.

The clothes sat in a pile atop the toilet seat. He put them on with ease. Comfortable, but feeling strangely exposed in so few layers. He stood in front of the mirror, combed his fingers through his damp blond hair. A prince in commoner’s clothes. Not that his title held any weight here. You, Willow, and those handful of witches would be the only ones who knew. He hadn’t yet decided if it was dread or relief that welled in his gut at the thought. Perhaps some brew of both.

Still, he looked…fine, he supposed. A big black shirt with a king holding a mug of ale on it, a banner boasting the 40th anniversary of the local Renaissance Festival. He did quite like the lounge pants you’d chosen for him. Dark gray and oh so soft against his legs. It would take some getting used to.

He pulled the door open, creeping out into the living room. The other witches had gone, leaving just you, in your pajamas now. In front of you, a sprawling pile of papers.

You cursed softly, shuffling through them.

Daeron cleared his throat.

You turned, grinning at the sight of him in your clothes. “You look good. Do a lil’ spin.”

“If it pleases the lady.” He did a full rotation, grinning, then crossed the room and sat on the couch. He pulled your hands away from the paperwork, drawing them both to his lips and pressing kisses to your knuckles. “This can wait.”

“I’ve gotta get through some of this—”

“You’ve done enough for me tonight. You tore a hole through the universe with your finger—”

“We’ve gotta get you to an urgent care to look at that cheek and your eye and—”

“I am quite sure I will live through the night.” He insisted, voice firm. Daeron’s lips pressed, head tilted. “Am I too horrid to look at?”

You scoffed, rolled your eyes and huffed a “No.”

“Then come to bed.” The words were soft. Heavy words for a dreamer. To share that place with you was a whole other proposition. Not just in the astral, but a real bed. He was pulling back the curtain, inviting you to see whatever dreams awaited him when he closed his eyes.

You followed him to your room, climbed into bed with him. He pulled you closer, lips soft on yours. Your legs tangled, a hand in your hair. Your chest ached, overflowing with warmth. This was every night, you realized. Every night would look like this now. You deepened the kiss, rolling on top of him. His lips curled, breaths ragged.

Constellations glimmered in his eyes. “It’s better than I dreamed…”

Those words served to soothe you. Yet something still nagged. You bit your lip. “I hope you still think it’s worth it tomorrow.”

His brows furrowed, hands languid, warm, coaxing up your middle, then back down your thighs. “When the sun rises, I shall still be yours. And every sunrise after that, for better or worse. They…they shall not all be easy, but…they shall be ours. And I rather think that is worth it.”

“It’s not a fancy place. No servants. Just…chores and taxes and laundry.”

“Contrary to popular belief…we have those things in Westeros, too.” He murmured, voice soft. His arms coiled around you, pulling you closer to him. “Granted, I never had to do them, but…I can learn. I will gladly wash our clothes and scrub our dishes if it means holding you in my arms every night.”

Our. He said the word so easily. Like this place had always been his. You wanted to know how long your life together had lived in his dreams. Instead, you tilted your head up, slotting your lips to his once more. A soft moan slipped from his throat, and with it, your doubts melted away.

Your troubles could wait until the morrow. Tonight, you were curled in the arms of a dragon, warm and sleepy and loved.

***

When his eyes closed, his dreams carried him somewhere decidedly new. A sun-soaked meadow, flowers abounding. Wildflowers, white and yellow and purple among the grasses and brush. A wooden arch stood, blooms twisted around its structure. Cloaked all in white, not a ghost, but…his bride.

He found himself in attire more familiar to him. A cloak bearing the crest of House Targaryen, fine clothes beneath. His eyes stung, but a laugh of joy bubbled in his throat.

When you finally reached him, your thumb brushed at his tears. He leaned into your palm, savoring its warmth. He’d wake and this would be but a premonition, perhaps the happiest he’d ever had.

This time, he wouldn’t dread waiting for it to come true.

Withdrawn

Daeron was awake before you, a blissed-out smile on his face.

“Any good dreams, Your Highness?”

“You do not need to call me that.” He chuckled. “But if you are using a title, Your Grace is what I’m accustomed to.”

“Answer the question.”

“I do not dream and tell, my lady.”

“Uhhh, since when?”

“Some things are best kept private, you know.”

You grinned, tugging his arm tighter around you. “A really good one then, huh?”

He nodded, kissed your forehead, your cheek, your jaw. “The best one.”

***

Work began straight away. You showed Daeron the whole house. Basement, kitchen, bathroom. The lightswitches were a point of fascination. You found him marveling at them more than once, content to stand in the entrance of the den, turning the light on and off with the knob, twisting it to adjust the brightness.

You explained the importance of making sure the fridge was closed tight, that metal should never go in the microwave, but could go in the oven. The house became covered very quickly in sticky notes to aid him and before you knew it, he was running laundry like an expert. He’d do chores while you had your writing sessions at the table. Earning his keep, he called it.

It took several hours, but you filled out all the information Willow’s Aunt Iris needed and sent the papers her way so she could get him flushed into the proper systems. Days later, his ID and an insurance card came in the mail. Magic. What a wonderful thing.

The doctor was next. They gave him a full once-over. Screened him for everything. They asked about his alcohol consumption. He didn’t miss the way your eyes wandered, nor the way your cheeks flushed. You’d never shamed him for it, but there was certainly shame blooming in his chest.

“I drink…perhaps more than I should.” He admitted and left it at that. The doctor gave him a flimsy paper brochure.

They checked his cheek, took his stitches out and covered it in an ointment and a bandage. His eye was supposedly healing and would clear up in some weeks.

At the end of it, they took some of his blood. He’d be on antibiotics for a while to kill whatever mementos the harlots from the brothels had given him. An odd and guilty peace settled in his middle, his fate crossing like a passing ship. It was a new course he charted now.

It wasn’t always easy.

You hadn’t noticed that Daeron had stopped drinking until you found him shivering on the floor of the guest room one evening. You’d been up working on your edits. He’d told you he was going to get ready for bed. By the time you went to change, he was already curled up there, sweating and shaking.

You knelt beside him, cupping his warm, warm cheeks in your hands. “Daeron, baby, are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“They’re all going to burn…” He murmured, eyes faraway. Those haunted, haunted eyes of his. You loved your Targaryen, but sometimes, he sent a chill up your spine.

“Hey, we’re fine. It’s okay. No one’s going to—”

“They’re all going to burn and I left them.” He confessed, a sob tearing from his throat. “I am a selfish, cruel coward and they will all burn because of me.”

You shook your head. “Daeron…come on, let’s get you off the floor.”

He sniffled, met your gaze, finally, and noticed that you were there. “Scribe.”

“Hey, you. What are you doing in here?”

He motioned to himself, the sheen of sweat that covered him. “Your bed…”

“Our bed has handled worse. But we can stay in here tonight if you prefer.” You slung his arm around your shoulders, hauling him up and over to the bed, which was easier said than done. You got a washcloth, wiped his face off.

He leaned achingly into your touch until you were finished, then put his full weight against the headboard, eyes half-lidded, skin sallow and dewy. A bitter laugh fell from his lips.

“I told you. You could have more than me. Why do you bind yourself to…this?”

“We used to meet eachother at the bottom of a bottle, you know. I’m not without my vices.”

He scoffed. His violet gaze was withering. “I’m a shit knight. Can barely get myself onto a horse more oft than not. Would scarcely be able to defend your honor.”

“I don’t have a horse, Daeron. And I can defend my honor just fine.”

“The sentiment remains. Why me?”

You didn’t entertain that notion. You could talk circles and circles with him in this state. Instead, you reached for his hand, drawing it up to your cheek. He flinched at the touch. His eyebrows furrowed, lip curled into a frown. A shaky inhale gave way to tears. He let you pull him into your arms, then, all but collapsed against you. You threaded your fingers through his hair, massaging his scalp. The another arm wound tight around him, soothing circles into his weary muscles.

“I’m gonna call my friend Alex, okay? He’s a nurse. He can stay here tonight, make sure you’re okay. I don’t want to force you into a hospital, but we can go there if you really need to.”

He nodded, trembling too much to reply.

“I love you. We’re gonna get through this.”

He only sobbed harder.

Still curled in his arms, you called Alex, explained to him as best you could what was going on. Willow had filled him in, thankfully. He didn’t live far and he knew your garage code. Twenty minutes later, he was in the doorway of the guest room with a big bag of medical supplies.

Took Daeron’s vitals. His blood pressure was high, but not an emergency. Temperature was warm, but not a fever. So long as he didn’t have a seizure, he was good to stay right where he was; in your arms.

Alex slept on the couch in the next room. You slept beneath Daeron. Slept was a strong word for it. You laid under him, played with his hair as he snored atop you. You considered every breath a victory, urged yourself to stay awake, not that you could sleep right now if you wanted to.

He awoke a few times. You lulled him back to sleep relatively easily. But one of those times, he had something to say. 

“We were dragon riders. The Targaryens.” He murmured, eyes locked on the painted Smaug on the wall opposite him. “They’re all gone now.”

“I can paint over it if he bothers you.” You promised.

Daeron shook his head, a short tremor rattling him. “He…soothes me. What is his name?”

“Smaug.”

“A noble name.” He seemed satisfied. Then, quieter. “You know I love you.”

You nodded.

He gave a soft sigh. “I cannot bear it sometimes. The weight of it is almost too much to carry. You’ve carved a life for me here and I am your—”

“Boyfriend.” You cut him off before he could fill in the blank with something worse. “More than that, really. You’re everything to me, Daeron. These days…they feel long now. Long and hard, I’m sure. But in a few years, they’ll feel so…short. A teeny, tiny blip in our long, beautiful relationship.”

“There is madness in my blood. Madness and fire. I don’t want it to consume you.”

“I don’t mind a little madness.” You murmured. “You used to be my imaginary friend, remember?”

“Mmm. Yes, I recall. Feels so far now.”

You brushed his hair back, careful. “It does, doesn’t it?”

“Some mornings, I still expect to wake to my chambers at Summerhall and an empty bed.” He sighed, tucking his face against your pulse, your warmth. “Other mornings…I dream of you in white and wildflowers…”

***

Better mornings came. His withdrawal ebbed, little by little. His hands still shook some days, as he made two cups of tea with his favorite device in the house. The Little Hot Water Maker. Your Keurig.

He loved to stand behind you as you cooked breakfast. Pancakes, if you were feeling fancy. He’d slide a hand under your shirt, letting his palm rest on your warm skin as his face pressed into the crook of your neck, lost in that lavender scent.

“You’re gonna fall asleep standing up if you keep doing that, dreamer.”

“I am quite capable of remaining upright, scribe.” He kissed up your neck. “How else do you expect me to learn to cook?”

“Oh, a lot of learning you’re doing with your eyes closed.”

You could have sworn he growled. His head dipped down, lips suckling your shoulder. “Well go on, then. Flip it.”

You laughed, flipping the pancake with your spatula.

“See, I’m learning.”

“Uh-huh.”

He trembled a little, muscles betraying him. You smoothed your free hand down his forearm, that silent comfort he was so used to now. Unspoken. No shame, no judgement, just…love. The kind of love he’d never had in Westeros. He kissed back up your neck, pressing one long one to your temple.

“I shall set the table.”

Breakfast was quick and nice. Pancakes and some fruit. You knew it wasn’t what he was used to, but still, he savored every bite. Before you could even think about lifting a finger to handle the dishes, he swept them out from under you, taking them swiftly to the sink, then the dishwasher.

“You don’t need to do that every day.” You called, a fond smile on your lips as you sipped your morning tea.

“And you needn’t be so good to me, but you are.”

“You’re impossible. Being good to you is bare minimum.”

“I find myself thinking the same about you. Perhaps we are a perfect match.” He waved a dismissive hand. “Attend to your missives. I shall join you shortly.”

You opened your laptop, scrolling through your emails. Mostly spam. A few shipping notifications from your Ebay plunders. Finally, one from Alyssa. You’d told her to email you until further notice while things with Daeron settled. Even so, the message scrawled before you felt like spam.

Daeron walked behind you, hands settling on your shoulders. His thumbs expertly dug into the knots there, unwinding them. “What does the glowing box have to say today, my lady?”

You didn’t reply, trembling, mouth ajar.

“Scribe?”

“Uh…”

“...my love? Good news? Bad? Speak to me? Please?”

“It sold.”

His eyebrows furrowed as he dropped into the chair next to yours, pulling your free hand to his lips. “Is that good?”

You gave a shaky nod, tears welling in your eyes. “It…it sold to one of the biggest publishers in the world. Alyssa’s talking about six figures and…streaming rights and…Ohhhhh my god.”

“What is streaming?” He wondered aloud. “What does a stream have to do with a book? Are they waterproof now?”

You laughed, the intense flurry of emotions effectively diffused. He was good at that. “Long story.”

He saw the way you trembled like a leaf, opened his arms. You slipped from your chair to his, letting him hold you. Tears fell from your eyes, an unsteady hand anchoring on his good cheek. You kissed him, soft and sure. Two dreams of yours wrapped into one. The love of your life, and the book deal you’d wanted since childhood. You couldn’t have had one without the other, and how blessed you were for it.

His hand smoothed over your hair, eyes twinkling in the late morning sun. “How shall we celebrate? This is a big deal.”

“We’re getting Italian tonight. Pasta and breadsticks. Right now, I have to call Alyssa. After…we can watch the Princess Bride.”

“I know not what that is.” He admitted with a chuckle. Daeron’s violet gaze grew serious. “But someday soon…I would like to make you both.”

Midsummer Nights

Eight months later, you found your boots in the Midsummer soil once more. Your usual adventuring party had reconvened with one notable new entry. Prince Daeron Targaryen, who drew the eyes of many a young maiden, but had eyes for only one. You’d ordered him a crown online, built him a kit as similar to his home clothes as he dared to get, and brought him along for the ride.

From the first moment he stepped through the gates, even as people were still setting up and getting comfortable, you could see the light fill his eyes. It was how you felt there, too. Something about Midsummer Grove healed a piece of you that you hadn’t known was broken. It was tenfold now, hand in hand with the love of your life.

“It is terribly immersive.” He murmured, head dipped down. He had a tankard strapped to his hip, a fake dagger on the other. “When first we were here, I thought you were Westerosi. Would have been easier.”

“Less of an adventure, though.”

“True.”

You showed him around town, the village, the taverns, the cider tent where you’d first met. He had that look in his eyes, the one he got when he had deja vu. You grinned, slinging an arm around his waist and pressing a kiss to his jaw. “You recognize it?”

“Somewhat.”

You chuckled at the confirmation. “I thought you were blackout, yeah.”

Realization flickered across his irises. “This is where we met?”

“Mmhmm. You were facedown on that table over there.” You pointed, a fond look in your eyes. “And you brandished your dagger at me. All romantic-like.”

He hung his head with a huff. “Ah, yes. I vaguely recall. How you ever gave me a second look, I shall never know.”

“You didn’t give me much of a choice. Stole me right away with those haunted violet eyes. All ‘I dreamed of you’ with all the yearning in the world in your voice.”

His cheeks flushed as he tugged you closer, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “Do we have somewhere to be, scribe? Or do you plan to embarrass me all afternoon?”

“You never told me what it was you dreamed.” You said softly, pushing very gently on it for the first time. “Before that first time we met.”

“You truly want to know?”

You nodded.

“I dreamed of you…” He murmured, a finger hooking under your chin and drawing your gaze to his. “What I now know was the two of us in your room. In my mind, it was a cave, bathed in a purple glow. I dreamed of your lips on mine. My hair between your fingers. Your soft, silken gasps. I knew your love before I knew your name. I suppose that is why I could not stay away.”

You pressed a long kiss to the corner of his lips. He savored each moment, eyes rolling shut.

“Lydia!” One of your friends from the guild, Rae, rushed in, embracing you eagerly. She took notice of Daeron. “Who’s this?”

“Daeron Targaryen, at your service.” He gave a short bow.

She gasped. “You’re the prince I keep hearing about.”

He gave a wry grin. There it was. That recognition he was so accustomed to. It was different here, though. His name didn’t come with the baggage it once had. Here, he was a mysterious prince instead of a drunken fool. Daeron the Dreamer instead of Daeron the Drunken.

“I very well may be. Pleasure to meet you.”

“Any interesting dreams lately?”

He quirked an eyebrow. “Oh, I never tell.”

***

That night, the two of you hit the taverns. Daeron had a different relationship with alcohol now. He found that often, he didn’t need it. Didn’t crave it. Didn’t use it to drown his memories or dreams. With you, he wanted to remember every moment. But that didn’t stop him from partaking.

He found the cider in his tankard to be quite sweet. He found the look in your eye to be even sweeter. You clung to him, the drink in you making you all the more eager to be by his side.

“So, Daeron, how’s your first LARP?” Asked one of the guys from Ursa, draped in a great brown pelt.

Daeron stood a little straighter, one arm wrapping easily around your waist. “I’ve found it feels quite like home.”

“What’s your backstory?” Asked a guy with elf ears, looking over the finery he was draped in.”

“He’s a prince.” You bolstered proudly. Your voice dipped to a loud whisper. “And he dreams the future.”

“Woaaaaahh!”

“Dude, that is so sick.”

Daeron hid a smile behind his tankard.

Later, the two of you navigated the dark woods to get back to your campsite. You had hit the point of giggly drunk. Daeron was lightly tipsy. Once you crossed the bridge, his hands flew to your hips, guiding you over the roots in the dirt at the base of the hill. Big and warm and gentle.

“My love…be careful.”

Your hands rested atop his, your eyes fond, your movements loose. “I’m bein’ careful.”

“More careful, please.” He grinned, getting the two of you over the worst of it. He led you up the hill to your tent and unzipped it with a skilled hand, motioning you inside.

As soon as it was zipped again, your tiny LED lantern clicked on, you rested your arms on his shoulder, drawing him in for a long, lazy kiss that he gladly returned. “A prince in a tent. I know these aren’t the luxurious accommodations you’re used to.”

He chuckled, hands roaming your frame with familiarity. “You have me mistaken, my lady. I spent many a night in shoddy taverns and disreputable inns.”

“A prince of the people.”

Daeron scoffed through a smirk, utterly enamored. “You are kinder than they were. I…was something of a joke. Too many people found me drunken to a stupor to have respect for me.”

You cupped his cheeks, too far gone to be anything but honest. “You’re my favorite person. And I’m so proud of you.”

Caught off-guard, he studied you, guiding you to the queen-sized cot you were sharing. “You need rest.”

“I love you, Daeron.” You murmured, reaching for his hand. 

He knelt in front of you, setting to work on your boots. “And I love you.”

You withdrew your foot, shaking your head. “You do not need to do that, Your Grace.”

Something darkened in his gaze at that title. He snatched your foot back, more firm in his efforts to unlace the boot in question. “I shall do what I please. And I do so love caring for my scribe. Especially when—by some act of the gods—she is drunker than I.”

You watched him work, diligent and caring. “I mean it, you know. I am proud of you.”

He nodded, meeting your gaze. His voice came soft, lips tugged into a nostalgic smile. “I know.”

***

The next morning, you awoke to the sizzle of eggs and sausage and an empty cot. You pulled on a silk robe and put on some sandals, trekking outside to find Daeron there, crouched over the small stove. He looked so beautiful in the morning light, violet eyes catching in the sun. By now, his cheek had healed into a jagged scar. He kept his hair shoulder-length. This morning, he had it held back with one of your clips. Some sense of pride welled in you at the thought.

You dug through the food, spreading blackberry jam on a hunk of bread and holding it to his mouth. He accepted the bite gratefully, lips lingering on your fingers for just slightly longer than necessary.

“Mmmm, blackberry?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Tastes good.” He straightened up a bit, capturing your lips. “Tastes better.”

“Good morning, Your Grace.” You murmured, a teasing glint in your eye.

“Good morning, my royal scribe.” His eyes roamed your features like it was the first time he was seeing you. He drew a long breath, then pressed another quick kiss to your lips before turning his attention back to the stovetop.

“Thank you for cooking breakfast.”

He chuckled, nervous. “Thank me once you taste it.”

To his credit, Daeron was a fine cook. The eggs were scrambled and seasoned to perfection, the sausages seared just right. 

After, you got dressed in your layers for the day. You emerged from the tent. “Babe, would you tighten up this corset a bit? I can’t…”

He strode over, dressed all in red and black. His fingers curled around the strings, giving them a tug so they sat just so, supporting you. Once it was tied in a neat loop, his hands slid around to your front, pulling you back into the danger zone. His lips latched beneath your ear, kissing and suckling down your neck.

“You’re being naughty right now. We’ve got a quest, you know.”

“The dragon queen can wait. This dragon prince has found his treasure.” He murmured, scruff tickling against your sensitive skin.

“You’re a sap.”

“And you love it. That is why your heart thrums when I am near.”

Guilty as charged.

***

The two of you found yourself surrounded by friends that evening, grabbing dinner in a tavern. Stew and slow-roasted meat, bread that crackled when you split off a piece for Daeron. He accepted it gladly.

“Tell us about Westeros.” Your buddy Flynn requested, intrigued by the tale Willow—now Amira—had spun for him, but not entirely convinced.

“What is there to tell, really? It is a place much like this Grove. No…electricity, no glowing boxes. Violence is our primary entertainment, though I’ve never been much for it. There used to be dragons…but there were none when I left. They will return someday. I’ve dreamt it.” He confessed, voice soft. “A prince’s life is a privileged one. I ate fine meals, bathed regularly enough. Drowned my sorrows in wine. Too much of it. And then along came a scribe who I long thought was a fabrication of the madness in my blood. Pulled my soul to hers against all logic and law. Nursed me through nights of tremors, loved me despite the flaws of my flesh…”

You reached for his hand, but he was already reaching for yours. He gave it a firm squeeze.

“There was a time when I feared I was doomed to a hell without wine. Now I live my days without need for it in a quaint paradise I get to call ours.” He raised your hand to his lips, relishing the contact like a man starved. “And I eagerly await her next novel.”

“How’s that coming, by the way?” Amira asked.

“It’s…coming. There’s just one bit I’m stuck on. It’ll come to me.”

“Then inspiration shall be our true quest, my love.” He poured himself a cup of cider, drawing a long sip. It almost tasted like home. But when he looked at you, he knew he was already there.

The group of you ambled out of the tavern and down the dirt paths towards that fateful tent down by the stage. A group of musicians played Celtic music. People danced. With some convincing, even Daeron did, a smile on that handsome face.

You couldn’t believe it sometimes, how different he was now than that jaded, drunken prince you’d met all those nights ago. Not every day was a good day. He still fought with his visions, with the shadows that curled at the edges of his mind, but now, he didn’t have to fight them alone.

Lydia meant light. He didn’t think it was any coincidence that it was the name you’d chosen for yourself. After all, you were most certainly his.

You crashed into his arms, giggling as you both fell in the grass. Soft firelight danced across his features. Your dragon prince. Your dreamer.

Fireworks erupted overhead as your lips graced his, and as your fairytale night unfolded, so did the end of your next story. You pulled away from him with that sparkle in your eye he so adored.

“What?”

You rested a hand on his thigh, pressing ever nearer. “Got it.”

[dem-obscure-imagines]

I regret to inform you all that I have been charmed by Daeron the Drunken from a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Please standby.

[dem-obscure-imagines]

New Year's Eve Kisses 2025

New Year’s Eve Drabbles 2025

Note: Happy New Year!! Welcome back to yet another year of New Year’s Eve Drabbles. I’m very happy with this year’s roster, and I do so love doing these. It’s such a fun exercise to stretch my writing muscles at the end of the year. Thank you all so much for spending another year with me, and I will see you next year!

And a very happy birthday to @cap-lu20

Fandoms: Bridgerton, DCU, MCU, One Piece Live Action, Date Everything

Total Word Count: 4.5k words

Warnings: Benedict’s is slightly fem!reader (because Regency era, deeply sorry) but the rest are gender neutral), Kissing, Slight spoilers for Date Everything (Specifically Chance’s route ending)

Benedict Bridgerton

Word Count: 0.8k

Aubrey Hall was ever so lovely in the snow, you decided, having been invited to spend the evening of December the 31st there with your dear family friends, the Bridgertons. You were a mere twenty-four, yet, despite your parents’ best efforts, you had not yet been married off to one of the many eligible young gentlemen of the Ton.

Thank the Lord for that.

You spun your champagne around your glass, watching as the people mingled, dancing as they got drunker and drunker into the night.

Chief among them, Mr. Benedict Bridgerton himself.

Ah, Benedict. A childhood friend in every meaning of the word. You had spent your entire lives together, as your mothers had always been great friends. And your connection was, indeed, strictly…friendly.

As much as you wished it was not.

Benedict glided through the room with an easy smile, keeping himself upright despite the amount of brandy on his breath. He mingled with the others, making smalltalk, touching arms, and then vanished. To where, you were not sure. And perhaps it was the drink you’d had—certainly too much for any self-respecting young lady, as far as your father was concerned—but you were beginning to feel rather warm.

You pushed open the door to the terrace, wandering out onto the snow-covered stone that overlooked the sprawling Bridgerton property. You took a long breath, watching the thick flakes come down, arms wrapped around yourself. It felt refreshing, though. The country air was always so kind to your lungs.

“You’ll catch your death out here, Miss (L/N).” A voice called. For half a moment, you feared it was Anthony, but when you turned, you found Benedict standing in the doorframe, wearing that catlike grin. “As always, our minds are in the same place. It is simply too warm in there.”

“Quite, yes.”

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“At your own home? How could I possibly?” You grinned.

“Are you having an acceptable New Year’s Eve, (Y/N)?” Benedict asked, dropping the formalities.

“I am.” You smiled, exhaling a breath. “Another year, come and gone so quickly, it seems.”

“I was thinking rather the same thing, yes. Another year of mother imploring me to find a wife and…yet another year of telling her my heart is…bound to other obligations.”

“Other obligations?” You asked softly. “Don’t tell me Miss Cowper has caught your eye.”

He sputtered his drink. “You are exceptionally humored. No, I think if that was the case, I would require you to fetch the doctor. Clearly, my head would not be in the right state. But then…perhaps it is not.”

“Are you quite alright, Benedict?”

He let out a long breath, grinning. He shook his head, mulling over his words for a long few moments, then started. “I…have been…No. I have not been entirely honest when I’ve found myself in your presence, I fear.”

“Do elaborate.”

“I have been…hesitant in the pursuit of love. Not hesitant, I suppose. I’ve had my…dalliances, but…I have…prolonged settling down in…in the hopes that someday, you might…return my affections.” He admitted, those ivory cheeks flushing, and not from the cold. “And in the case that you do not, please feel free to disregard all of this. I have had quite a bit to drink, this night.”

Your eyebrows furrowed. “Are you being genuine?”

“You are one of my dearest and oldest friends. You make me laugh. You are so very talented with your words, the way you make them flourish on the page. I…I am a second son. I shall inherit no title. Surely, there is more for you out there, but…”

“Benedict, please listen to yourself. You are a Bridgerton. You could have anyone you desire. You should not limit yourself to—”

“I am not limiting myself to anything. As far as I’m concerned, reaching for your heart may as well be reaching up into the sky and hoping to catch a star. I…am in love with you, (Y/N). I have been since we were very small. I never let myself dream you could feel the same. But I…have overheard your father speaking this evening of finding someone for you this coming season and…”

“And you felt rather ill at the mention of it?”

He stifled a laugh, relief washing over him. “Precisely that.”

“Benedict…I…so obviously I love you, too. Every leading man in every novel I have ever written has been stretched into your shape.” You admitted, the words falling before you could dare to stop them. “And if you’d have me…I would be honored to court. Someday, to wed. But tonight…”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight, beneath all this snow, I should very much like to kiss you.”

Benedict took quick steps to close the distance between you, pressing his lips to yours, soft and pink and laced with liquor and love. He was not shy on experience, and the way he kissed you made something flutter deep in your core. He pulled away to rest his forehead against yours, dark eyelashes fanning his seafoam eyes.

Inside, your friends and family and the rest of high society rung in the new year. Outside, you stood in the arms of the love of your life, a warm and tender bubble where time did not exist.

And you would not have it any other way.

Lois Lane

Word Count: 1.0k

Lois bit her lip, arms crossed as she stood just slightly behind your shoulder as you looked over her article. It was late, nearing midnight. Everyone at the Daily Planet had long gone home aside from the two of you and the one lone janitor mopping the halls on New Year’s Eve. Outside, the chatter from partygoers as they traveled from bar to bar, club to club.

You two, meanwhile, were making sure every comma was in place before she sent out what was set to be a bombshell of an article come morning: a hitpiece on yet another Metropolis billionaire that was funneling funds into Metahuman torture and experimentation instead of a more worthy cause this time of year.

“Well?”

“It’s good, Lois. Really good.” You assured. “Rock solid stuff.”

“How much longer is it gonna…”

“Done. Didn’t need much. Just a few commas. One typo. You’re a clean writer, Lois. I’ve always loved that about you.”

She grinned, plopping herself down in the chair next to yours. You rolled your chair away from her computer so she could package the article for publication. For some poor rich sucker, it was going to be a hard, long year in a prison cell, you were sure. You started packing up your things, tucking your laptop into its bag, slinging it over your shoulder and collecting your coffee cup from your desk, a little ways down from hers.

“Thank you for sticking it out with me. Couldn’t have done it without you.” She said, doing the last few mouseclicks before freeing herself of her deadline, a mere forty minutes to spare. She’d had closer. You’d been there for those, too.

“Don’t mention it. I had nothing better to do. Would have been on my couch with my cat. Which, I should probably get back—”

“Do you want to go out?” Lois blurted, cut that thought short. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“Nothing. Go out? Where?”

“I know a spot. It’s pretty lowkey. Wouldn’t be crazy.” She suggested, shrugging. “Good drinks.”

You glanced at your watch, mulled it over, then nodded. “Yeah, why the hell not.”

Lois’ spot was a good few blocks away. Not a bad walk, by any means. She led you into a corner building in a slightly older part of town, overlooking the water, then onto an elevator to a penthouse bar. She was right. There was a decent little cluster of people there. You were sure this was a busier night for them, but it wasn’t by any means busy. In fact, it was just right.

There were floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the smattering of fireworks, and when you glanced outside, you swore you could make out Superman’s silhouette whizzing by. But maybe it was just a trick of the light.

Jimmy Olsen was over by the bar, nursing a drink as he was attended to by three of the most gorgeous women you’d ever seen. How he did it, you had no idea. But he noticed the two of you immediately, smiling that charming smile and holding up his drink in salutation before getting absorbed right back into his conversation.

Lois marched right up to the bar, ordering two drinks. She held hers up for a cheers. “For helping me with my final article of the year.”

“And to many more in January.”

She chuckled and took a long sip. Once again, Lois was right. Good drinks.

The music floated through the room. Hits from the previous year, sprinkled with oldies. A song by the Mighty Crabjoys, which Lois wrinkled her nose at. You didn’t mind them. Your coworker Clark loved them. Had a little poster at his desk and everything. You wondered where he was on a night like this. Big nerdy Kansas farmboy. Guy like him…you were surprised he didn’t often find himself in Jimmy’s position.

“It has to be the freckles, right?” Lois asked, nudging you, nodding her head in Jimmy’s direction.

“Oh, definitely. No doubt about it.” You agreed, sipping your drink. Your eyes wandered out the window to the city below, the water, the way the lights glittered across it as the snow came down like a blanket over Metropolis. Before you knew it, you found your feet carrying you towards them to get a closer look, Lois not far behind.

“I’ve always loved this place.” She admitted, an arm around herself. “Makes the city feel small.”

“Bird’s-eye view.”

“Mmhmm. Good thinking place. On quieter days, I’ll come up here with my laptop and get a thousand, three thousand words minimum. Watch the clouds roll by.”

“Also has a decent view of Superman, I’m sure.”

“I can’t get a handle on that guy.” She admitted, chuckling.

“Neither can anyone, it seems like.” He had only publicly debuted a few months before. You liked him. Liked his vibe, his mission. He seemed to be genuinely wanting to do good for the city. Others were divided, given his origin. You hoped they’d come around.

“I can’t believe it’s over.” She mused, resting her glass against her cheek, those crystal blue Disney Princess eyes of hers softening as she grew more reminiscent. “It’s been…such a crazy year.”

“Yeah, well, you earned it. All of it. The promotion, the big move, the cool apartment…”

“And I…I’m really glad you were there through it with me. Every big day, you were…there. I needed it. Needed you. I’m so lucky I have you.”

“I…feel the same way.” You said, feelings welling in your chest. Was this it? Was it finally happening? “I…I feel more than the same way, probably. I…I’ve never known how to tell you this or when, but now is as good of a time as ever so—”

You didn’t get much further. She was already kissing you. You melted into it, blindly setting your empty cup on a nearby table so you could cup her face with both hands, keeping her close as you fell into a rhythm. Push and pull, lost in the feeling, far, far away from the bar and all the people in it, even as their counting came to a close and the clock rolled over one final time.

Lois pulled away, smiling with pride. She leaned her forehead against yours as she murmured the words you were too kiss-drunk and drunk-drunk to force past your lips. “Happy New Year.”

Bob Reynolds

Word Count: 0.8k

Bob’s silhouette stood dark against the window as the year drew to a close. You clicked on the light. He turned, those wide blue eyes searching. They landed on you and his posture relaxed.

He was wearing a pair of plaid pajama pants, an oversized sweater you’d thrifted on his behalf. He gave a little shrug of greeting, that timid smile. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” You replied, walking closer. You handed him a glass of what appeared to be champagne.

“Oh, thanks, but I don’t—”

“It’s the sparkling stuff. The white grape juice. We have red too, if you’d prefer that instead.”

Bob’s protests died on his tongue. He washed them down with the sharp sparkling drink. “Thanks.”

“Mmhmm.” You stood beside him, glancing down at the streets below, absolutely flooded with people in glittering clothes, drunk beyond belief, staring up at the crystal ball that they’d drop any minute now.

“Can’t believe Alexei is down there somewhere.” Bob muttered, chuckling to himself. “Wanted me to go with him.”

You grinned, shaking your head. “I know. He asked me, too. I can think of no place I’d rather be less than in the middle of a giant, grid-locked crowd like that, wearing a diaper.”

“A diaper?!” Bob choked on his next sip of grape juice.

“Yeah, they’ve been out there all day.” You shrugged. “Just one of those things you can’t unlearn, I guess.”

“Right.” He shook his head. “Nasty.”

“Very.”

He was quiet for a long moment, twirling the juice around in his thin little champagne glass absentmindedly. He fidgeted quite a bit, you’d noticed in your months cohabitating. You found it cute. You found most of him cute, really. It was hard not to. He was just so…Bob.

“You…didn’t go out tonight.” He said, as if noticing it for the first time. “I kinda thought you’d go clubbing with Yelena and Ava.”

“No, I…I don’t have much use for clubbing, to be honest. Just not my vibe. Besides, tonight? Those places have gotta be jam-packed. Barely any breathing room.”

“Mmm, yeah. Makes sense.”

“John still here?”

“Left for some trip yesterday.”

“Bucky?”

“Yeah, I think he’s down in the gym somewhere. I don’t think he likes the noise. Or the fireworks.” Bob reasoned, always so thoughtful.

“Just you and me then, huh?”

“Y-yeah. Just you and me.” He held up his glass and you clinked yours against his. “Happy Freaking New Year.”

“You got a resolution?”

“Yeah, uh…Doing more things that make me scared this year.”

You glanced over at him, raising an eyebrow.

“Not in a bad way, just…going to restaurants I’ve never tried before. Going to the movies alone. Getting a handle on…that other side of me. Figuring everything out. Letting people in.” He let in a big breath, seemingly mulling something over, but he let it slip. “Just, yeah, just that. Do you have one?”

“Pushing myself a little. I wanna read more books. Go more places, do more things. Quarter-life crisis stuff, I’m sure.”

“You can borrow mine. My books. Valentina keeps buying them. I think she thinks they’ll fix me.”

“I don’t think she knows anything about you.” You admitted, taking a long sip of juice. “Also, she’s an asshole, don’t listen to anything she says.”

He huffed a laugh. “Duly noted.”

“Besides, you…you’ve been doing so well, you know. With the therapy and stuff. She just wants her weapon she doesn’t care about Bob.”

He glanced over, eyes going soft. Those big, cobalt blue eyes, deep like clouds before a storm. The gleaming lights reflected in them, making them glitter like stars. “You do, though.”

“Of course I do.”

“Yeah, but like, more than that.” He said, words heavy.

You stared at him like he’d thrown a rock through your window. Then, cheeks a little flushed, relented. “Yeah. Definitely more than that.”

“Is that why you stayed?”

“Partially. I really do hate crowds, though.”

He chuckled. “Me, too.”

Outside, the crowd chanted as the ball began to lower. You swore, over all of it, you could hear Alexei bellowing somewhere below, his voice carrying high above the rabble.

“I…I’m gonna do something that scares me now.” He confessed. “And if you hate it, we never have to do it again.”

“I trust ya.” You said softly, turning towards him.

With the gentlest hand, Bob brushed a piece of hair from your face, hesitating for just a moment before leaning in and pressing his lips to yours. It was chaste. Soft and delicate. And before you knew it, it was over, leaving you feeling like you were walking on air.

He searched you for some sign of disgust. Didn’t find it, though. Would never find it in your eyes.

You gave a soft smile, whispered, “I didn’t hate that.”

He grinned, a little less shy. “Cool. I, uh…I didn’t hate it either.”

And as the crowd beneath heralded the new year, you leaned in again and kissed him like you meant it, the way you hoped you’d be kissing him well into the new year.

Nami x Reader

Word Count: 0.6k

You took another long sip of rum, passing the bottle back to the redhead seated on the floor across from you. “Nope, no sevens. Go fish.”

“Dammit.” Nami laughed, taking a sip and digging through the puddle of cards between the two of you, fishing one out. She contemplated for a long moment. A longer moment, you were sure, because of the amount of alcohol swimming through her veins. And yours. You were sure it was bending time a bit.

You were docked for the night, on an island that was celebrating their new year. The boys were out reveling, but the two of you had decided to stay in. A girls’ night in your shared cabin. Ever since you’d joined the crew, you’d always been close. Something a little more than sisterhood tied you together. A heavy, hot feeling that sat in your gut when you thought about her too long. One that became heavier and hotter the more alcohol you drank. Slippery as a fish.

“Thinking awful hard about those cards there.”

“Do you have any…threes?”

“Yeah.” She forked one over, adorned in three blue little shells. You paired it with its match and laid it with your pile. “How much you wanna bet we’re gonna have to bail those idiots out of trouble?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t get too comfortable with your evening plans, Nami.”

She laughed, taking another sip. “And just when it was getting good.”

“How so, me kicking your ass at Go Fish?”

“No, but I can tell you’re getting to that point in the night where you start telling everyone you love them and I thought I was finally gonna be on the receiving end.”

“I do not—”

“You do. Every time you’re drunk. You cling to Usopp like an octopus. It’s…adorable, really.”

“Embarrassing is more like it.”

“No, it’s adorable.” She tilted the bottle back, taking a long, hard sip and letting it settle before she took aim with her next words. “I always kinda wish it was me.”

Your eyebrows furrowed at that. “Huh?”

“And I always kinda thought you did, too. But maybe these eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

You stared at her for a long time, trying to decipher her words like they were one of the ancient codexes you’d spent so many hours untangling at Luffy’s behest. “I might be too drunk for this conversation. What are you saying right now?”

“I want that too, to be clear. I wouldn’t just…” She shook her head, reconsidering. “Listen, let’s talk about this another time, when we’re—”

“Sober and forget all about it? No, sorry, I just…You…like me too? But I thought you and Sanji…”

“He’s hopeless. Sweet—sometimes—but hopeless. I…I know what I want. And it didn’t leave the ship tonight.” She quirked one eyebrow, her lip tugging into that confident little smirk that she did when she’d caught her prey. And sure, you might have been the prey, but she was the one who got tackled.

Nami giggled as you pinned her to the floor, peppering her face in kisses, but then stopping to hover in front of her face, waiting, watching, letting the anticipation build like a cresting tidal wave fit to wash you both away before the sun came out. And yet, all the sunshine you needed was right there in her laugh. Her smile. That twinkle in her eye that told you she was exactly where she wanted to be, tied only with this exact position, but in reverse.

“You know, I heard this island celebrates the New Year like…five times a year.” She murmured as the crowds on the shore cheered, swept up in their feasts and dances and drinks.

“Well…” You leaned down, pressing a long, slow, savory kiss to her lips. One that she gladly reciprocated. “Then I guess we know where we’re docking in two and a half months.”

Chance, Your D20

Word Count: 1.1k

Part of you had been a little anxious approaching your first holiday season with Chance. You couldn’t imagine why. You loved the holidays and you loved him, but it was decidedly…different now than it was last year. For one, Chance was human. A living, breathing human. And for two, the house was…decidedly more empty than it had been the previous year. All your furniture had been realized and moved out.

All of them but Chance.

He’d gone out, of course. Explored. He’d gone on a trip with Parker and Teddy, and after a few sad, quiet weeks with an empty house, there was a knock on the door, Chance behind it with his suitcase in tow, a sheepish look on his face.

You’d all but jumped into his arms, crying very embarrassingly into his shirt. You wondered if he thought about it. If he remembered calming you down for an hour after from the panic attack it had sprung on you. Not him, but simply the emotions you’d been carrying, of everyone leaving you in the dust and then, unexpectedly, one coming back. No wonder he was such a good therapist.

That was what he did now, tabletop therapy. He GM’d therapy sessions for clients, using the insight he got from playing with them to help unpack their lives. He did sessions at youth centers, at the local juvenile detention center, the old folks’ homes, and he was really making a difference in the community. It made him happy.

On the side, he went to cons with you, took you to see every comic book movie in theaters at least twice, and spent a lot of time being the best boyfriend in the world. He was in the middle of the living room now, staring at the Christmas tree while the New Year’s Eve broadcast played on the TV.

You stared at him for a long time, admiring the sight of him in his pajamas, all cozy. The matching set you’d worn in your silly JCPenny Christmas photo shoot. The first year you’d ever gotten to do a Christmas card with a significant other. And still, every time you looked at him, part of you was expecting him to be whisked away, just like all the others were.

Holly, who would have done all the decorating, Telly, who would have been playing the broadcast, and Stefan, who would have made all the Christmas cookies.

A weird trauma that you couldn’t possibly share with anyone else. Anyone but him.

A giant, warm hand on your face snapped you out of your trance. You blinked a few times, giving him a soft smile. “Hey, hot stuff.”

He giggled, cheeks flushing adorably at the nickname, as they so often did. “Heheh, hey yourself. Having some big thoughts tonight?”

“Mmmm. Clocked me.” You murmured, taking a step forward and wrapping your arms around him, pressing your face to his chest. “Just New Year’s stuff. I’m fine. I’ll be fine in the morning.”

“You wanna talk about it now?” He asked, resting his chin on top of your head.

“You don’t need to therapize me on your day off.”

“It’s not therapizing, you are my partner. Now, talk to me.”

“Just…thinking about it. All of it. I…guess I miss everyone and…I…I’m just so glad you came back and…I…I guess maybe part of me is just…”

“Afraid I’ll leave again.” He finished softly, guilt heavy in his tone. “Baby, I’m not leaving. There is no place on this earth that could compare to being right here.”

“And I shouldn’t be so determined to keep you here.” You mumbled, trying to fight back the welling tears. “You deserve to have a life and explore and…a-and…”

“And nothing. You are allowed to feel that way.” He cradled your head, rocking you in his arms. “You found out, all at once, that you had a hundred people living in your house. You nursed a lot of needs that weren’t your own, and then, one by one, a hundred people left you behind. Me included. I’m glad I got to explore and see what’s out there. But every place we went, I just…I kept imagining you there. And then I’d get sad that you weren’t. So the second we got off that cruise ship, I got on a bus to come right back here. I have a life. It’s here with you. And any exploring I have left, we can do together.”

You sniffled, reaching up to wipe at the tears that were beginning to down your cheeks, but he beat you to it, the pad of his thumb wide and warm against your skin.

Chance lowered his face to yours, meeting your eyes through his glasses. “I love you. You’re stuck with me. Okay?”

“Okay.” You mumbled, hugging him a little tighter. “Love you, too.”

“I know you do.” He pressed a few kisses to your hairline. “Now, let’s pour some champagne, watch the New Year’s Countdown, and when that clock hits midnight, I am going to kiss you senseless, my Beautiful Traveller.”

“Good.” You pecked the corner of his lips, walking to the mini bar and popping open a bottle, pouring each of you a glass. You settled on the couch together, curled up against his side. Your big guy loved to cuddle.

He held his glass with one hand, his other fiddling with your hand, massaging your palm as he so often did. “These things used to be my whole world, you know.” At your quizzical look, he elaborated. “Well, I was so small, you know. Fit right in your hand. And now look at me.”

“You’re huge.” You joked, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“Hey!”

“Comparatively, I mean.”

“I know.” He grinned, kissing your forehead. “But I am, huh? A lot bigger than I used to be. Big enough to hold you properly, thank god. I dreamed about it for so long.”

“You did?”

“Mmhmm. Beautiful nerd picks me up at a comic con, starts rolling me around in their palm…I couldn’t help but wish you’d be the one that took me home. I…never expected to make it our home, though. And next year…I can’t wait to really dig in and make it special for both of us.”

Finally, the clock ran down. The numbers dwindled lower and lower until before you knew it, the two of you were sitting in a brand new year and, true to his word, Chance, formerly your D20, was kissing you senseless as the ball dropped.

“Happy New Year, my love.”

“Happy New Year, Chance.”

[dem-obscure-imagines]

Reblogging for the morning crowd. Happy New Year!!

[dem-obscure-imagines]

New Year's Eve Kisses 2025

New Year’s Eve Drabbles 2025

Note: Happy New Year!! Welcome back to yet another year of New Year’s Eve Drabbles. I’m very happy with this year’s roster, and I do so love doing these. It’s such a fun exercise to stretch my writing muscles at the end of the year. Thank you all so much for spending another year with me, and I will see you next year!

And a very happy birthday to @cap-lu20

Fandoms: Bridgerton, DCU, MCU, One Piece Live Action, Date Everything

Total Word Count: 4.5k words

Warnings: Benedict’s is slightly fem!reader (because Regency era, deeply sorry) but the rest are gender neutral), Kissing, Slight spoilers for Date Everything (Specifically Chance’s route ending)

Benedict Bridgerton

Word Count: 0.8k

Aubrey Hall was ever so lovely in the snow, you decided, having been invited to spend the evening of December the 31st there with your dear family friends, the Bridgertons. You were a mere twenty-four, yet, despite your parents’ best efforts, you had not yet been married off to one of the many eligible young gentlemen of the Ton.

Thank the Lord for that.

You spun your champagne around your glass, watching as the people mingled, dancing as they got drunker and drunker into the night.

Chief among them, Mr. Benedict Bridgerton himself.

Ah, Benedict. A childhood friend in every meaning of the word. You had spent your entire lives together, as your mothers had always been great friends. And your connection was, indeed, strictly…friendly.

As much as you wished it was not.

Benedict glided through the room with an easy smile, keeping himself upright despite the amount of brandy on his breath. He mingled with the others, making smalltalk, touching arms, and then vanished. To where, you were not sure. And perhaps it was the drink you’d had—certainly too much for any self-respecting young lady, as far as your father was concerned—but you were beginning to feel rather warm.

You pushed open the door to the terrace, wandering out onto the snow-covered stone that overlooked the sprawling Bridgerton property. You took a long breath, watching the thick flakes come down, arms wrapped around yourself. It felt refreshing, though. The country air was always so kind to your lungs.

“You’ll catch your death out here, Miss (L/N).” A voice called. For half a moment, you feared it was Anthony, but when you turned, you found Benedict standing in the doorframe, wearing that catlike grin. “As always, our minds are in the same place. It is simply too warm in there.”

“Quite, yes.”

“Do you mind if I join you?”

“At your own home? How could I possibly?” You grinned.

“Are you having an acceptable New Year’s Eve, (Y/N)?” Benedict asked, dropping the formalities.

“I am.” You smiled, exhaling a breath. “Another year, come and gone so quickly, it seems.”

“I was thinking rather the same thing, yes. Another year of mother imploring me to find a wife and…yet another year of telling her my heart is…bound to other obligations.”

“Other obligations?” You asked softly. “Don’t tell me Miss Cowper has caught your eye.”

He sputtered his drink. “You are exceptionally humored. No, I think if that was the case, I would require you to fetch the doctor. Clearly, my head would not be in the right state. But then…perhaps it is not.”

“Are you quite alright, Benedict?”

He let out a long breath, grinning. He shook his head, mulling over his words for a long few moments, then started. “I…have been…No. I have not been entirely honest when I’ve found myself in your presence, I fear.”

“Do elaborate.”

“I have been…hesitant in the pursuit of love. Not hesitant, I suppose. I’ve had my…dalliances, but…I have…prolonged settling down in…in the hopes that someday, you might…return my affections.” He admitted, those ivory cheeks flushing, and not from the cold. “And in the case that you do not, please feel free to disregard all of this. I have had quite a bit to drink, this night.”

Your eyebrows furrowed. “Are you being genuine?”

“You are one of my dearest and oldest friends. You make me laugh. You are so very talented with your words, the way you make them flourish on the page. I…I am a second son. I shall inherit no title. Surely, there is more for you out there, but…”

“Benedict, please listen to yourself. You are a Bridgerton. You could have anyone you desire. You should not limit yourself to—”

“I am not limiting myself to anything. As far as I’m concerned, reaching for your heart may as well be reaching up into the sky and hoping to catch a star. I…am in love with you, (Y/N). I have been since we were very small. I never let myself dream you could feel the same. But I…have overheard your father speaking this evening of finding someone for you this coming season and…”

“And you felt rather ill at the mention of it?”

He stifled a laugh, relief washing over him. “Precisely that.”

“Benedict…I…so obviously I love you, too. Every leading man in every novel I have ever written has been stretched into your shape.” You admitted, the words falling before you could dare to stop them. “And if you’d have me…I would be honored to court. Someday, to wed. But tonight…”

“Tonight?”

“Tonight, beneath all this snow, I should very much like to kiss you.”

Benedict took quick steps to close the distance between you, pressing his lips to yours, soft and pink and laced with liquor and love. He was not shy on experience, and the way he kissed you made something flutter deep in your core. He pulled away to rest his forehead against yours, dark eyelashes fanning his seafoam eyes.

Inside, your friends and family and the rest of high society rung in the new year. Outside, you stood in the arms of the love of your life, a warm and tender bubble where time did not exist.

And you would not have it any other way.

Lois Lane

Word Count: 1.0k

Lois bit her lip, arms crossed as she stood just slightly behind your shoulder as you looked over her article. It was late, nearing midnight. Everyone at the Daily Planet had long gone home aside from the two of you and the one lone janitor mopping the halls on New Year’s Eve. Outside, the chatter from partygoers as they traveled from bar to bar, club to club.

You two, meanwhile, were making sure every comma was in place before she sent out what was set to be a bombshell of an article come morning: a hitpiece on yet another Metropolis billionaire that was funneling funds into Metahuman torture and experimentation instead of a more worthy cause this time of year.

“Well?”

“It’s good, Lois. Really good.” You assured. “Rock solid stuff.”

“How much longer is it gonna…”

“Done. Didn’t need much. Just a few commas. One typo. You’re a clean writer, Lois. I’ve always loved that about you.”

She grinned, plopping herself down in the chair next to yours. You rolled your chair away from her computer so she could package the article for publication. For some poor rich sucker, it was going to be a hard, long year in a prison cell, you were sure. You started packing up your things, tucking your laptop into its bag, slinging it over your shoulder and collecting your coffee cup from your desk, a little ways down from hers.

“Thank you for sticking it out with me. Couldn’t have done it without you.” She said, doing the last few mouseclicks before freeing herself of her deadline, a mere forty minutes to spare. She’d had closer. You’d been there for those, too.

“Don’t mention it. I had nothing better to do. Would have been on my couch with my cat. Which, I should probably get back—”

“Do you want to go out?” Lois blurted, cut that thought short. “Sorry, what were you saying?”

“Nothing. Go out? Where?”

“I know a spot. It’s pretty lowkey. Wouldn’t be crazy.” She suggested, shrugging. “Good drinks.”

You glanced at your watch, mulled it over, then nodded. “Yeah, why the hell not.”

Lois’ spot was a good few blocks away. Not a bad walk, by any means. She led you into a corner building in a slightly older part of town, overlooking the water, then onto an elevator to a penthouse bar. She was right. There was a decent little cluster of people there. You were sure this was a busier night for them, but it wasn’t by any means busy. In fact, it was just right.

There were floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the smattering of fireworks, and when you glanced outside, you swore you could make out Superman’s silhouette whizzing by. But maybe it was just a trick of the light.

Jimmy Olsen was over by the bar, nursing a drink as he was attended to by three of the most gorgeous women you’d ever seen. How he did it, you had no idea. But he noticed the two of you immediately, smiling that charming smile and holding up his drink in salutation before getting absorbed right back into his conversation.

Lois marched right up to the bar, ordering two drinks. She held hers up for a cheers. “For helping me with my final article of the year.”

“And to many more in January.”

She chuckled and took a long sip. Once again, Lois was right. Good drinks.

The music floated through the room. Hits from the previous year, sprinkled with oldies. A song by the Mighty Crabjoys, which Lois wrinkled her nose at. You didn’t mind them. Your coworker Clark loved them. Had a little poster at his desk and everything. You wondered where he was on a night like this. Big nerdy Kansas farmboy. Guy like him…you were surprised he didn’t often find himself in Jimmy’s position.

“It has to be the freckles, right?” Lois asked, nudging you, nodding her head in Jimmy’s direction.

“Oh, definitely. No doubt about it.” You agreed, sipping your drink. Your eyes wandered out the window to the city below, the water, the way the lights glittered across it as the snow came down like a blanket over Metropolis. Before you knew it, you found your feet carrying you towards them to get a closer look, Lois not far behind.

“I’ve always loved this place.” She admitted, an arm around herself. “Makes the city feel small.”

“Bird’s-eye view.”

“Mmhmm. Good thinking place. On quieter days, I’ll come up here with my laptop and get a thousand, three thousand words minimum. Watch the clouds roll by.”

“Also has a decent view of Superman, I’m sure.”

“I can’t get a handle on that guy.” She admitted, chuckling.

“Neither can anyone, it seems like.” He had only publicly debuted a few months before. You liked him. Liked his vibe, his mission. He seemed to be genuinely wanting to do good for the city. Others were divided, given his origin. You hoped they’d come around.

“I can’t believe it’s over.” She mused, resting her glass against her cheek, those crystal blue Disney Princess eyes of hers softening as she grew more reminiscent. “It’s been…such a crazy year.”

“Yeah, well, you earned it. All of it. The promotion, the big move, the cool apartment…”

“And I…I’m really glad you were there through it with me. Every big day, you were…there. I needed it. Needed you. I’m so lucky I have you.”

“I…feel the same way.” You said, feelings welling in your chest. Was this it? Was it finally happening? “I…I feel more than the same way, probably. I…I’ve never known how to tell you this or when, but now is as good of a time as ever so—”

You didn’t get much further. She was already kissing you. You melted into it, blindly setting your empty cup on a nearby table so you could cup her face with both hands, keeping her close as you fell into a rhythm. Push and pull, lost in the feeling, far, far away from the bar and all the people in it, even as their counting came to a close and the clock rolled over one final time.

Lois pulled away, smiling with pride. She leaned her forehead against yours as she murmured the words you were too kiss-drunk and drunk-drunk to force past your lips. “Happy New Year.”

Bob Reynolds

Word Count: 0.8k

Bob’s silhouette stood dark against the window as the year drew to a close. You clicked on the light. He turned, those wide blue eyes searching. They landed on you and his posture relaxed.

He was wearing a pair of plaid pajama pants, an oversized sweater you’d thrifted on his behalf. He gave a little shrug of greeting, that timid smile. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” You replied, walking closer. You handed him a glass of what appeared to be champagne.

“Oh, thanks, but I don’t—”

“It’s the sparkling stuff. The white grape juice. We have red too, if you’d prefer that instead.”

Bob’s protests died on his tongue. He washed them down with the sharp sparkling drink. “Thanks.”

“Mmhmm.” You stood beside him, glancing down at the streets below, absolutely flooded with people in glittering clothes, drunk beyond belief, staring up at the crystal ball that they’d drop any minute now.

“Can’t believe Alexei is down there somewhere.” Bob muttered, chuckling to himself. “Wanted me to go with him.”

You grinned, shaking your head. “I know. He asked me, too. I can think of no place I’d rather be less than in the middle of a giant, grid-locked crowd like that, wearing a diaper.”

“A diaper?!” Bob choked on his next sip of grape juice.

“Yeah, they’ve been out there all day.” You shrugged. “Just one of those things you can’t unlearn, I guess.”

“Right.” He shook his head. “Nasty.”

“Very.”

He was quiet for a long moment, twirling the juice around in his thin little champagne glass absentmindedly. He fidgeted quite a bit, you’d noticed in your months cohabitating. You found it cute. You found most of him cute, really. It was hard not to. He was just so…Bob.

“You…didn’t go out tonight.” He said, as if noticing it for the first time. “I kinda thought you’d go clubbing with Yelena and Ava.”

“No, I…I don’t have much use for clubbing, to be honest. Just not my vibe. Besides, tonight? Those places have gotta be jam-packed. Barely any breathing room.”

“Mmm, yeah. Makes sense.”

“John still here?”

“Left for some trip yesterday.”

“Bucky?”

“Yeah, I think he’s down in the gym somewhere. I don’t think he likes the noise. Or the fireworks.” Bob reasoned, always so thoughtful.

“Just you and me then, huh?”

“Y-yeah. Just you and me.” He held up his glass and you clinked yours against his. “Happy Freaking New Year.”

“You got a resolution?”

“Yeah, uh…Doing more things that make me scared this year.”

You glanced over at him, raising an eyebrow.

“Not in a bad way, just…going to restaurants I’ve never tried before. Going to the movies alone. Getting a handle on…that other side of me. Figuring everything out. Letting people in.” He let in a big breath, seemingly mulling something over, but he let it slip. “Just, yeah, just that. Do you have one?”

“Pushing myself a little. I wanna read more books. Go more places, do more things. Quarter-life crisis stuff, I’m sure.”

“You can borrow mine. My books. Valentina keeps buying them. I think she thinks they’ll fix me.”

“I don’t think she knows anything about you.” You admitted, taking a long sip of juice. “Also, she’s an asshole, don’t listen to anything she says.”

He huffed a laugh. “Duly noted.”

“Besides, you…you’ve been doing so well, you know. With the therapy and stuff. She just wants her weapon she doesn’t care about Bob.”

He glanced over, eyes going soft. Those big, cobalt blue eyes, deep like clouds before a storm. The gleaming lights reflected in them, making them glitter like stars. “You do, though.”

“Of course I do.”

“Yeah, but like, more than that.” He said, words heavy.

You stared at him like he’d thrown a rock through your window. Then, cheeks a little flushed, relented. “Yeah. Definitely more than that.”

“Is that why you stayed?”

“Partially. I really do hate crowds, though.”

He chuckled. “Me, too.”

Outside, the crowd chanted as the ball began to lower. You swore, over all of it, you could hear Alexei bellowing somewhere below, his voice carrying high above the rabble.

“I…I’m gonna do something that scares me now.” He confessed. “And if you hate it, we never have to do it again.”

“I trust ya.” You said softly, turning towards him.

With the gentlest hand, Bob brushed a piece of hair from your face, hesitating for just a moment before leaning in and pressing his lips to yours. It was chaste. Soft and delicate. And before you knew it, it was over, leaving you feeling like you were walking on air.

He searched you for some sign of disgust. Didn’t find it, though. Would never find it in your eyes.

You gave a soft smile, whispered, “I didn’t hate that.”

He grinned, a little less shy. “Cool. I, uh…I didn’t hate it either.”

And as the crowd beneath heralded the new year, you leaned in again and kissed him like you meant it, the way you hoped you’d be kissing him well into the new year.

Nami x Reader

Word Count: 0.6k

You took another long sip of rum, passing the bottle back to the redhead seated on the floor across from you. “Nope, no sevens. Go fish.”

“Dammit.” Nami laughed, taking a sip and digging through the puddle of cards between the two of you, fishing one out. She contemplated for a long moment. A longer moment, you were sure, because of the amount of alcohol swimming through her veins. And yours. You were sure it was bending time a bit.

You were docked for the night, on an island that was celebrating their new year. The boys were out reveling, but the two of you had decided to stay in. A girls’ night in your shared cabin. Ever since you’d joined the crew, you’d always been close. Something a little more than sisterhood tied you together. A heavy, hot feeling that sat in your gut when you thought about her too long. One that became heavier and hotter the more alcohol you drank. Slippery as a fish.

“Thinking awful hard about those cards there.”

“Do you have any…threes?”

“Yeah.” She forked one over, adorned in three blue little shells. You paired it with its match and laid it with your pile. “How much you wanna bet we’re gonna have to bail those idiots out of trouble?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t get too comfortable with your evening plans, Nami.”

She laughed, taking another sip. “And just when it was getting good.”

“How so, me kicking your ass at Go Fish?”

“No, but I can tell you’re getting to that point in the night where you start telling everyone you love them and I thought I was finally gonna be on the receiving end.”

“I do not—”

“You do. Every time you’re drunk. You cling to Usopp like an octopus. It’s…adorable, really.”

“Embarrassing is more like it.”

“No, it’s adorable.” She tilted the bottle back, taking a long, hard sip and letting it settle before she took aim with her next words. “I always kinda wish it was me.”

Your eyebrows furrowed at that. “Huh?”

“And I always kinda thought you did, too. But maybe these eyes aren’t what they used to be.”

You stared at her for a long time, trying to decipher her words like they were one of the ancient codexes you’d spent so many hours untangling at Luffy’s behest. “I might be too drunk for this conversation. What are you saying right now?”

“I want that too, to be clear. I wouldn’t just…” She shook her head, reconsidering. “Listen, let’s talk about this another time, when we’re—”

“Sober and forget all about it? No, sorry, I just…You…like me too? But I thought you and Sanji…”

“He’s hopeless. Sweet—sometimes—but hopeless. I…I know what I want. And it didn’t leave the ship tonight.” She quirked one eyebrow, her lip tugging into that confident little smirk that she did when she’d caught her prey. And sure, you might have been the prey, but she was the one who got tackled.

Nami giggled as you pinned her to the floor, peppering her face in kisses, but then stopping to hover in front of her face, waiting, watching, letting the anticipation build like a cresting tidal wave fit to wash you both away before the sun came out. And yet, all the sunshine you needed was right there in her laugh. Her smile. That twinkle in her eye that told you she was exactly where she wanted to be, tied only with this exact position, but in reverse.

“You know, I heard this island celebrates the New Year like…five times a year.” She murmured as the crowds on the shore cheered, swept up in their feasts and dances and drinks.

“Well…” You leaned down, pressing a long, slow, savory kiss to her lips. One that she gladly reciprocated. “Then I guess we know where we’re docking in two and a half months.”

Chance, Your D20

Word Count: 1.1k

Part of you had been a little anxious approaching your first holiday season with Chance. You couldn’t imagine why. You loved the holidays and you loved him, but it was decidedly…different now than it was last year. For one, Chance was human. A living, breathing human. And for two, the house was…decidedly more empty than it had been the previous year. All your furniture had been realized and moved out.

All of them but Chance.

He’d gone out, of course. Explored. He’d gone on a trip with Parker and Teddy, and after a few sad, quiet weeks with an empty house, there was a knock on the door, Chance behind it with his suitcase in tow, a sheepish look on his face.

You’d all but jumped into his arms, crying very embarrassingly into his shirt. You wondered if he thought about it. If he remembered calming you down for an hour after from the panic attack it had sprung on you. Not him, but simply the emotions you’d been carrying, of everyone leaving you in the dust and then, unexpectedly, one coming back. No wonder he was such a good therapist.

That was what he did now, tabletop therapy. He GM’d therapy sessions for clients, using the insight he got from playing with them to help unpack their lives. He did sessions at youth centers, at the local juvenile detention center, the old folks’ homes, and he was really making a difference in the community. It made him happy.

On the side, he went to cons with you, took you to see every comic book movie in theaters at least twice, and spent a lot of time being the best boyfriend in the world. He was in the middle of the living room now, staring at the Christmas tree while the New Year’s Eve broadcast played on the TV.

You stared at him for a long time, admiring the sight of him in his pajamas, all cozy. The matching set you’d worn in your silly JCPenny Christmas photo shoot. The first year you’d ever gotten to do a Christmas card with a significant other. And still, every time you looked at him, part of you was expecting him to be whisked away, just like all the others were.

Holly, who would have done all the decorating, Telly, who would have been playing the broadcast, and Stefan, who would have made all the Christmas cookies.

A weird trauma that you couldn’t possibly share with anyone else. Anyone but him.

A giant, warm hand on your face snapped you out of your trance. You blinked a few times, giving him a soft smile. “Hey, hot stuff.”

He giggled, cheeks flushing adorably at the nickname, as they so often did. “Heheh, hey yourself. Having some big thoughts tonight?”

“Mmmm. Clocked me.” You murmured, taking a step forward and wrapping your arms around him, pressing your face to his chest. “Just New Year’s stuff. I’m fine. I’ll be fine in the morning.”

“You wanna talk about it now?” He asked, resting his chin on top of your head.

“You don’t need to therapize me on your day off.”

“It’s not therapizing, you are my partner. Now, talk to me.”

“Just…thinking about it. All of it. I…guess I miss everyone and…I…I’m just so glad you came back and…I…I guess maybe part of me is just…”

“Afraid I’ll leave again.” He finished softly, guilt heavy in his tone. “Baby, I’m not leaving. There is no place on this earth that could compare to being right here.”

“And I shouldn’t be so determined to keep you here.” You mumbled, trying to fight back the welling tears. “You deserve to have a life and explore and…a-and…”

“And nothing. You are allowed to feel that way.” He cradled your head, rocking you in his arms. “You found out, all at once, that you had a hundred people living in your house. You nursed a lot of needs that weren’t your own, and then, one by one, a hundred people left you behind. Me included. I’m glad I got to explore and see what’s out there. But every place we went, I just…I kept imagining you there. And then I’d get sad that you weren’t. So the second we got off that cruise ship, I got on a bus to come right back here. I have a life. It’s here with you. And any exploring I have left, we can do together.”

You sniffled, reaching up to wipe at the tears that were beginning to down your cheeks, but he beat you to it, the pad of his thumb wide and warm against your skin.

Chance lowered his face to yours, meeting your eyes through his glasses. “I love you. You’re stuck with me. Okay?”

“Okay.” You mumbled, hugging him a little tighter. “Love you, too.”

“I know you do.” He pressed a few kisses to your hairline. “Now, let’s pour some champagne, watch the New Year’s Countdown, and when that clock hits midnight, I am going to kiss you senseless, my Beautiful Traveller.”

“Good.” You pecked the corner of his lips, walking to the mini bar and popping open a bottle, pouring each of you a glass. You settled on the couch together, curled up against his side. Your big guy loved to cuddle.

He held his glass with one hand, his other fiddling with your hand, massaging your palm as he so often did. “These things used to be my whole world, you know.” At your quizzical look, he elaborated. “Well, I was so small, you know. Fit right in your hand. And now look at me.”

“You’re huge.” You joked, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

“Hey!”

“Comparatively, I mean.”

“I know.” He grinned, kissing your forehead. “But I am, huh? A lot bigger than I used to be. Big enough to hold you properly, thank god. I dreamed about it for so long.”

“You did?”

“Mmhmm. Beautiful nerd picks me up at a comic con, starts rolling me around in their palm…I couldn’t help but wish you’d be the one that took me home. I…never expected to make it our home, though. And next year…I can’t wait to really dig in and make it special for both of us.”

Finally, the clock ran down. The numbers dwindled lower and lower until before you knew it, the two of you were sitting in a brand new year and, true to his word, Chance, formerly your D20, was kissing you senseless as the ball dropped.

“Happy New Year, my love.”

“Happy New Year, Chance.”

[dem-obscure-imagines]

Any chance we could get Nami for new years this year? Ive been in a one piece mood especially with the new season coming out next year.

Oh absolutely!! Good pick! I’ll add her to the list!

[dem-obscure-imagines]

It is approaching that time of year. If anyone has requests for who should get a Drabble this New Year’s Eve, send it my way.

My first two picks are Benedict Bridgerton and Chance from Date Everything; three slots remain.

[dem-obscure-imagines]

First three drabble slots are going to be

-Benedict Bridgerton

-Chance (Date Everything)

-Bob Reynolds

Let's get some ladies on the board! Who do you want me to write for this year?

[dem-obscure-imagines]

Christmas/Holidays/New Year's Eve Masterlist

In the mood for some winter fluff? Look no further than these curated picks from my collection.

General Winter Imagines

Arthur Curry x Reader

Sweater Weather - Fluff

When it gets colder outside, the king of the sea loans you his sweater.

Jack Frost x Reader

Snowflake - Fluff, Soulmate AU

Your soulmark is a snowflake, and thus, winter easily became your favorite season. However, you have a good feeling about winter this year, a tingly feeling that makes your mark glow...

Tired of Gray - Fluff, Soulmate AU

It’s Christmas time and you’re just about sick of your gray, gray world. Luckily, your soulmate is known to visit in the winter.

Christmas/Holiday Imagines

Bernard the Elf x Reader

The Way it Was Before - Alternate Universe, Bernard exists during Escape Clause Plot, Magic!Reader, a light angst, a lot of fluff.

Something is VERY wrong this Christmas, and it seems you’re the only person in the world who remembers the way things were before. Well, almost the only person. It’s up to you and the Head Elf to save the day before Jack’s wish becomes irreversible.

Home for the Holidays - Fluff, Christmas, Santa’s Daughter!Reader

When you come home for Christmas, Bernard realizes that you’re the reincarnation of someone very dear to him.

All I Want For Christmas - Fluff, Christmas, Santa’s Daughter!Reader

Being Santa Claus’ daughter, it was only inevitable that you’d catch feelings for his head elf…

Dear Santa… - Fluff, Writer Elf!Reader

The writing department has been especially short on elves this year, and this means you find yourself responsible for writing a whole bunch of letters. Luckily, the head elf has his eye on you.

Druig x Reader

Merry Little Christmas - Fluff, Christmas, GN! Reader

Christmas with the Eternals is a little extra special this year because of a certain mind-controlling telepath…

Prince Eric (Barbie in the Nutcracker)

Real - Fluff, Christmas

After arriving back in your living room, you’re startled to find out that the previous night was real, Mouse King, Nutcracker, and all.

Home - Fluff, Christmas

The locket is supposed to take you home, but in your heart, you know you’re already there.

Steve Harrington x Reader

About Time - Fluff, Soulmate AU, Time Travel

You discover a time-traveling wormhole in your closet and a hot guy from the 80′s on the other side of it.

Steve Rogers x Reader

The Nutcracker - Fluff, Ballerina!Reader

When your winter recital finally comes around, Steve is more than happy to support you.

Warren Worthington III x Reader

Merry Christmas, Darling - Fluff, Christmas, Mutant!Reader, Gender Neutral!Reader

The Holidays are in full swing at the X Mansion, and as always, you are tasked with helping run the place. But things are a lot less dull with a certain winged mutant around.

Santa Baby - Fluff, Christmas

You use the power of invisibility to put a Santa hat on each of the X-Men. 

New Year's Eve Kisses

New Year’s Eve Kisses 2017 - Steve Harrington, Marty McFly, Edmund Pevensie, Thackery Binx, Wanda Maximoff

New Year’s Eve Kisses 2020 - Alex Vreeke (Jumanji), Jack Frost, Ben Tennyson, Diaval, Peeta Mellark

New Year’s Eve Kisses 2021 - Bernard the Elf, Bucky Barnes, Diana Prince, Killian Jones, Pietro Maximoff

New Year’s Eve Kisses 2022 - Eddie Munson, Druig, Kili, Neville Longbottom, Peter Pan

New Year’s Eve Kisses 2023 - Roronoa Zoro, Barbie, Jaime Reyes, Hank McCoy, Sasappis

New Year’s Eve Kisses 2024 - Fiyero Tigelaar, Poe Dameron, Captain Boomerang, Cisco Ramon, Penelope Featherington

[dem-obscure-imagines]

Some holiday reading for you all <3

Happy Everything and Merry Whatever You Celebrate

[dem-obscure-imagines]

It is approaching that time of year. If anyone has requests for who should get a Drabble this New Year’s Eve, send it my way.

My first two picks are Benedict Bridgerton and Chance from Date Everything; three slots remain.

[dem-obscure-imagines]

Kind of out of the blue, but did you know you're featured in a ColeyDoesThings video? I saw a screenshot of one of your posts pop up on screen and I almost cracked my neck doing a double take.

BUH ? Omg I did not!! I watch her tho! That’s crazy!!! Which video???

[dem-obscure-imagines]

I just wanna tell you I love your writing so much and thank you for everything you write🖤

awwwwww, this is so sweet! Thank you so much! And thanks for reading! <3

[dem-obscure-imagines]

hii can you please write a smut fic for tony stark

Nope! I do not write smut. Never have.

[annaxbolina]

Reblog if you are a fanfiction author and would like your readers to put one of your fic titles in your ask + questions about it

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

1: What inspired you to write the fic this way?

2: What scene did you first put down?

3: What’s your favorite line of narration?

4: What’s your favorite line of dialogue?

5: What part was hardest to write?

6: What makes this fic special or different from all your other fics?

7: Where did the title come from?

8: Did any real people or events inspire any part of it?

9: Were there any alternate versions of this fic?

10: Why did you choose this pairing for this particular story?

11: What do you like best about this fic?

12: What do you like least about this fic?

13: What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

14: Is there anything you wanted readers to learn from reading this fic?

15: What did you learn from writing this fic?

[dem-obscure-imagines]

Been a while since I’ve done one of these

[dem-obscure-imagines]

The moment I saw Superman, I knew I could count on your for a Jimmy Olsen fic. I saw him and I was like,"Hmm... better check in with Morgan."

It was so cute, too! I love seeing all of the wholesome fics to come out of this movie. It's really what we've been needing.

Hope you're doing well!! 💛

HAHAHAHAHAHA I love that omg he is definitely my brand 😭😭😭 it’s good to see you in my inbox!! I’m glad you liked it! Thank you so much for reading!! 🥺🥺🥺 I’ve been doing very well! I hope you are too!! 🫶🫶

[dem-obscure-imagines]

On Deadline

Jimmy Olsen x Reader

Fandom: DCU

Summary: Jimmy Olsen is catnip for girls, much to his own chagrin. Luna Moth, Metropolis’ newest hero, is way out of his league. But since when has that ever stopped him from trying to take a lucky shot?

Note: Hi again. Long time no see. So I now write for Jimmy Olsen as played by Skyler Gisondo. I have been charmed by him. Which is…unsurprising to anyone who knows me. Anywho, have this. It’s set a bit after the new Superman movie, but I don’t think there are any major spoilers here. Leaned more into his abilities in the comics for always being in the right place at the right time.

Warnings: canon-typical violence.

Word Count: 6.5k

Reader is: Female, a Metahuman, late twenties

Around the Daily Planet on a typical afternoon, one devoid of giant robots and blasting lasers, several sounds could be heard. The tapping of keyboards as journalists wrote out their articles and made quick edits. The steady drip of the coffee pot in the corner of the room. The printer running. High heels on the tile floor. Perry White keeping the machine in motion.

And of course, the clicks. Couldn’t forget the clicks. The pen Clark was fiddling with in his kitty corner cubicle. And the mouse beneath Jimmy Olsen’s palm as he manipulated the photo on his screen.

It was a picture he had taken. A good one. Luna Moth, kneeling down in front of a little girl at an event at the Metropolis Public Library. It had been a Metahuman awareness event. Luna Moth was a new superhero on the scene. A young woman who, because of her large, translucent green wings, had no choice but to live openly as a Meta despite the stigma that carried. But in her brief impact in the public, she’d already been taking a stance to make the public less afraid of people like her.

He’d gone along with Clark to the event. Clark knew her from college. Apparently she’d been studying film, so he’d had some media classes overlap with hers. That was why she had agreed so easily to an interview, unlike Hawkgirl and Green Lantern, who had also been in attendance. Certainly Clark didn’t know her from…anywhere else.

It wasn’t front page stuff, like the details of Lex Luthor’s detainment, following his criminal trial, but it would be a nice fluff piece, he was sure.

Jimmy let out a breath, taking a long sip of coffee while his trained eyes scanned over the photo. The colors looked good. Her wings were so stunning, draped behind her like a cape, catching the fluorescent lights just so, glinting the tiniest bit of a rainbow into his lens. He grinned to himself at that small accomplishment.

“Hey, Clark?”

“Mmm?”

“You think you could get Luna to come to my niece’s birthday party?” Jimmy asked, calling the question over his shoulder. It was mostly a joke, but his sister’s kid really did love Luna. Had a poster on her wall and everything.

Clark thought on it for a moment, the clicking ceasing. He tilted his head. “You know, she keeps weird hours, but I can ask. No promises.”

Jimmy laughed. Clark wasn’t kidding. But the two of them went about their day, finishing up their work with…surprisingly minimal interruptions for a Tuesday. It was nice. Refreshing, even.

Obviously he didn’t know that one little joke would change his entire life. But that was just his luck, wasn’t it?

***

A few days later, Jimmy milled through the Metropolis Public Museum, a warm coffee from Jitters in hand, his camera bag slung over his shoulder. Sunlight streamed through the windows. He’d finished up early at work, so Perry had turned him loose, as he did sometimes on slow news days. Jimmy tended to get good shots mostly by sheer luck, getting insane angles of the insane conflicts that so often came to a boiling point in their beloved city. Right place, right time.

Which, surely, must have been at play at the moment.

He walked in the revolving doors, as he did any other day, showed his annual pass to the girl at the door, who giggled a greeting and grinned as he passed. Lois and Clark were always astounded by his “natural charisma,” but truly, any conceived “rizz” he had with the ladies of Metropolis was entirely by accident.

He’d headed up the stairs, through the empty nature exhibits to the space section. There was a visiting exhibit on Metahuman history opening in a few weeks, it would seem. Maybe that was newsworthy. Metas Through the Ages, it was called. He’d have to let Clark know. That seemed to be his wheelhouse of late, what with all the Superman interviews.

Jimmy chuckled to himself. He wasn’t sure who Clark thought he was fooling with that. No one who knew him, anyway. He’d always worn his heart on his sleeve. But still, the general public hadn’t caught on yet, so his secret was safe, ironically, in the hands of one of the world’s biggest news publishers.

And there, around the corner, staring at the recreation of Mars’ surface, was Luna Moth, in all her glory. Or, as her personal friends knew her, (Y/N) (L/N).

Jimmy found a small gasp entering his lungs, his heart speeding up just a tad as the streams of sunlight hit her wings just so through the windows. His shutter-finger itching at the sight. He pushed that instinct down along with another swig of coffee.

Honestly, if he hadn’t spent so much time editing photos of her, he wasn’t sure he would have recognized her like this. She had her hair up. In one hand, an iced coffee, a bag hanging from her shoulder. A pair of headphones covered her ears as she read the display plate in front of the exhibit.

Well, there were the wings, of course. Kind of a dead giveaway, but still.

And he wasn’t sure how or why, but his feet carried him a little further, closer to her, preparing his first words to her on the tip of his tongue. They’d been introduced, sure, but it had been brief and strictly business. This was different. Her private life. You know what, on second thought, maybe he shouldn’t—ah, shit, she turned around.

You smiled warmly, pulling your headphones off. “Hey.”

“Hi there. Jimmy Olsen, Daily Planet. Off-duty, though. Obviously.” He said with an awkward chuckle. “You’re…here.”

“I come here a lot, yeah. Helps clear my head. And I know who you are, Jimmy.” You grinned, tapping your temple. “I always remember a face. Clark texted me a few days ago. Something about a birthday party for your niece? Next Saturday?”

Jimmy chuckled, rubbed the back of his neck, freckled cheeks a little flushed. This was not usually how his interactions with women went. “Oh. I was joking, mostly. Clark can never tell. She, ah, she loves you, though. My niece. She’s seven. Has a poster of you on her wall. But that stuff is way below your paygrade. You do not have to come to her birthday party.”

“No, I want to.” You replied, sipping your drink casually, as though you hadn’t just promised him a Hail Mary miracle that would cement him forever as the “bestest uncle ever” in Cecilia’s eyes.

He replied very eloquently. “Huh?”

“It’s kind of a hallmark for a new hero. Being invited to a little kid’s birthday party. This is my first. Obviously I’m going to go.”

“Oh. Okay. Cool, that’s cool. I’ll, uh, email you my sister’s address. She lives in the suburbs.”

“Cool. Sounds awesome. But keep it a secret. This job of mine…makes planning things kinda difficult. It’s a weather-permitting kind of situation. But, barring a giant robot or an alien invasion, I’ll be there.”

He nodded, blue eyes wide in thought, locked on the wheel of the Mars rover beyond the glass. “Awesome. That is awesome. Any preference in cupcake flavor?”

***

The morning of the party, Jimmy kept his eyes both on the skies and also his phone, expecting the unexpected to strike at any moment, even as he strung up streamers and balloons in his sister’s backyard. Somewhere inside the house, his little niece had no idea Luna Moth herself had been invited to her bug-themed birthday extravaganza. That was the kid’s thing. Bugs. It was kind of adorable when she didn’t have a spider cradled in her tiny hands, all excited to show her uncle her latest creepy crawly find.

And yet, no disaster came. A few of the guests started to arrive around noon, and Jimmy thought maybe you’d forgotten. Maybe this all really was below you. Until there was another ring on the doorbell and he pulled it open to reveal you standing there in your uniform, wings extra perky, hair flawlessly done, and a large giftbag in your hand.

“This the right house?” You asked with a grin that he quickly reciprocated, stepping out of the way so you could walk into the house.

“I can’t believe you’re here. The kids are just getting here.” He chuckled, eyeing up the bag you’d brought. “Whatever this is, it’s too much.”

“Oh, nonsense. You said she had a poster, you said nothing about toys. They had some stuff at the store.” You said, handing him the bag.

He took it without asking, leading you through the house, toward the backyard, his camera around his neck. “Do you mind if I take some pictures? I can make sure they don’t end up on social media. They’re just for Cece’s scrapbook.”

“Post them wherever you want once the party is over, I don’t care. I trust your vision. You always get my best angles.” You chuckled.

He grinned, a little more comfortable now that it was clear you were just a person who happened to do hero stuff. “Oh, you noticed that, huh?”

“It would be hard not to.”

Jimmy pushed open the backdoor, stepping out onto the deck where the dads had convened, grilling up some hotdogs and burgers and suitable substitutions for the little ones. A few of them stared at you, jaws slack, their beer bottles almost slipping from their hands. “Hey, Cece, this random lady wandered in the front door, you think she can stay for cupcakes?”

Cecelia sat straight upright, little eyes wide, her bright red hair pulled up into two spacebuns. With a squeal, she came running over right as the two of you stepped down onto the grass. “Luna Moth!”

“Hi, Cecelia! Hope you don’t mind me crashing your awesome party. Your Uncle Jimmy told me you like bugs, so I brought you some goodies.” You gently took the giftbag back from Jimmy, handing it to her instead.

“What do we say?” Jimmy asked, but he barely had the chance before the kid yelled out “THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!”

She took you by the hand, confidently guiding you over to where all the kids were settled on the grass, looking at you in shock and awe.

“You’re not the reallll Luna Moth…” A little boy insisted, his eyes suspicious.

“I am.” You said softly, confidently. You gave a shrug.

“Prove it!”

“Alright, well, if you’re twisting my arm…” You chuckled, raising your wings and giving them a performative flutter. They changed their tune pretty quick after that.

In the middle distance, you heard Jimmy’s camera shutter as he snapped what you were sure were great photos. He had a real eye for it. Anytime you saw him credited for the photos in an article about you, you knew they’d be kind. A lot of photographers weren’t, just based on your status as a Metahuman alone. It was the one silent, blameless way they could detest your kind, an unflattering photo.

But here, in the Olsens’ yard, that wasn’t a concern for you. You sat with the kids, excitedly discussing moths and their wingpatterns, theorizing what might be inside Cecelia’s birthday presents, and enthusing about the cupcakes that were chilling in the fridge.

Eventually, the kids were guided to other activities. You participated in some, but got some respite during others, the chance to eat a hotdog, get a can of soda from the cooler. Jimmy stood beside you, shuffling through his photos on the screen of his camera.

“Thank you so much for this, again. I can’t repay you for this. She’ll never forget it.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. Like I said, it’s a big deal for me, too. And I was promised there’d be cupcakes.”

He chuckled, smiled a genuine smile. “I made sure we got your favorites in addition to the birthday girl’s. Least I could do.”

“It will not go unnoticed. I hope she likes her toys. I only ever really shop for my little cousin and his thing is LEGOs and Fortnite.”

“Whatever it is, she’ll love it.” He promised. “She’s a good kid.”

“She is. And she’s got a good uncle.” You replied, nudging him. 

The comment didn’t come out in a flirty way like every other woman that was ever in proximity to him. Instead it was just, genuine. Friendly, even. Like you were on the same playing field even though you were literally a superhero that could hold a car over your head on a good day and he was a photographer. Clark was right. You really were down to earth. 

And not just because you’d come there from space, or so the story went…

***

The next Tuesday proved to be far less refreshing for the reporters of the Daily Planet. Perry White shouted orders as a large creature stomped through the city. And before he knew it, Jimmy was outside with his camera, dodging through whizzing attacks and running people. It was the reason he was allowed to wear running shoes to work.

Superman was out and about, red cape billowing in the wind. Jimmy lined up a shot, the shutter firing. Moved further down the street, got a few more. And then, lucky him, snapped one right as Luna flew into action, the momentum of her wings giving her the energy to punch the thing square in the chest. She used her energy to hit a frequency that shattered all the streetlights. Jimmy shielded himself from the falling glass. And then the thing collapsed, knocked out cold and snoring loudly.

Jimmy tucked himself in an alley, looking over the pictures he’d gotten, searching for good ones. He loved a good action shot, but if he hadn’t gotten any in-focus ones, he better get back out there to get Superman and Luna reveling in their victory. But nope, sure enough, a good handful to let Perry choose from, his favorite being the one of Luna swooping in, wings perfectly poised behind her, almost like an air glider, fist making impact.

Yep, that was the money shot.

Perry agreed once Jimmy got back inside, the damage to the building very minimal. Like clockwork, Clark stumbled out of the bathroom a few minutes later, hair wind-tousled, tie a little crooked until he fixed it with a practiced hand, trying to smooth his shirt back down.

“Woah, what happened out there?”

Jimmy ignored it, instead motioning him over behind his computer monitor. “Look at this sick shot I got.”

“I don’t know how you do it, Jimmy. Not even a scratch on you.” Lois said with a chuckle. “You’ve gotta be more careful out there.”

“Yeah, I know. Tell it to the front page splash and the bonus I’m gonna get. Hazard pay.” Jimmy chuckled, locking in on the photo as he played around with it in Lightroom. 

Honestly, it was already really good, the way the light caught her wings, the way Superman was just out of focus behind her, holding one of the creature’s giant hands to prevent him from swinging at a building. He brightened Supes’ cape a little, but besides that, it looked good. He couldn’t help but smile, admiring it. Her wings filled out the frame so perfectly, the forewing (yes, he had looked up wing terminology) fell so meticulously into the lower right third, right where the axes met. He didn’t even have to shift it over at all.

His eyes raked down the translucent veins on its surface. He’d never captured those before, despite the quality of his camera. They were iridescent, almost. No wonder she cast rainbows everywhere.

Lois chuckled and glanced over to see what had her cracking up, but her eyes were squarely on him. “What?”

“Nothing, just…the interns are going to be devastated, Jimmy.” She said with a grin, snacking on a bagel as she outlined her article about the fight that had just happened.

“About what?”

“I’ve never seen you look at anyone like this before. But given the women I’ve seen you pull, maybe this isn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.”

Clark perked up, looking up from his phone at Jimmy’s screen, pretended to squint through his glasses. “Who, Luna? No shot.”

Jimmy laughed. “No shot?”

“Yeah, no shot. She doesn’t date humans.”

Jimmy’s eyebrows furrowed, the humor chased from his face. “What? Are you serious?”

“Yeah, man. She said so herself. Finds our lack of wings ‘uncanny and disgusting.’ That’s a direct quote from college. Could have had any guy on campus and stayed single all four years aside from a few flings here and there.”

Lois chuckled. “Huh. Seems his bottomless rizz isn’t going to come through this time after all.”

Jimmy spun his chair back around, looking over the picture. “The one time I actually need it to work…”

***

Some nights, Fridays, namely, the museum stayed open later than usual. It was a popular date night spot for college kids. It wasn’t as overdone as a dinner and movie date. They turned the regular lights down low, turned on some fun colored lights instead, and lowered the price of admission to half of what it usually was.

Jimmy walked through the aquarium portion of the museum, bathed in the vast blue light. Clark had said once that he liked the ocean because it made him feel so small. At the time, he hadn’t understood what he meant, but once Jimmy picked up on the Superman thing…yeah, it made sense.

Jimmy didn’t need to feel small. Being a human guy in Metropolis did that well enough.

As he walked further, he couldn’t believe his eyes, but…you were there. Again. You were a little more undercover this time, wings hidden beneath an oversized hoodie. Well, mostly hidden. The apexes were peaking out from the hem, glowing faintly beneath the dim lights. You were staring up at a sea turtle as it coasted along near the surface of the water before diving down deeper.

He thought you hadn’t noticed him standing there, but a little smile tugged at your lips. “Listen, I figured you knew my schedule, but this is ridiculous.”

Jimmy laughed. “Hey, Luna.”

“Hey. Nice night.” You said with a grin as rain pounded on the skylight, thunder rumbling in the distance.

“Super nice.” He still had rain caught in his caramel hair. “You are…glowing.”

You glanced down at the tips of your wings, chuckling. “Yeah, they do that.”

“Makes night shots of you tricky, let me tell ya.” Jimmy huffed, scratching the back of his neck.

“Night shots?”

“Oh, uh, yeah. I like to get photos of the city at night. Sometimes, I’ll climb up the observatory. Once in a while, I catch you in the distance. Not in like a creepy way or anything, just—”

“Right place, right time.”

“Yeah, that.” He nodded, letting the moment settle to see if he’d messed it up. But you didn’t seem to be disgusted or anything, so that was a good sign.

“So, can I see them?”

He nodded immediately, fumbling for the tablet tucked into his camera bag. “Yeah, one sec.” He scrolled through his portfolio until he found them.

Sure enough, there you were, floating beside a skyscraper, hand on the glass, wings pointed down, but glowing their mint green hue, making you look ethereal, even in your alienness. Pink and purple was reflected from some signs on the other buildings, filling out a beautiful palette pretty effortlessly.

“This was a few months ago. Saw you floating out there and…couldn’t help myself.”

“Wow.” You murmured, staring at it. “This is insane.”

“I thought so too. How do you, uh…I mean, your wings weren’t moving, so…”

“The wings don’t make me fly.”

He perked up at that, interested in the science. “What?”

“I’m only half Motharian. My wings are about two thirds the size of a full Motharian’s. They’re like fancy landing gear, basically. They help me steer and cushion my landings, but that’s about it. The flying stuff comes from inside. Like literally, I have a gland that produces an antigravity enzyme and—” You chuckled, stopped talking. “I don’t need to bore you to sleep with the technical stuff, but yeah. Two separate things.”

“Wouldn’t have come to the museum if I didn’t wanna learn.” Jimmy shrugged, still holding his tablet aloft, illuminated by the photo on the screen. It really was something.

“True. Can you send that to me? I’ll post it on my Insta. With credit, of course.”

“Oh! Uh, yeah, I can, absolutely. I’ll send you the hi-res version later. Check your DM slush pile.” Jimmy was practically vibrating at the prospect. You had seven million followers. Compared to his 3k…Yeah, it was a nobrainer.

“Oh, I won’t need to. I’ve been following your account for about a year now. The photography one, anyway. On my burner.” You said with a shrug. “But obviously I’d post that one on my main.”

He blinked a few times. “You are?”

“Well, yeah, dude, you’re the only photographer that doesn’t like…make me look like a freak.”

“There are a lot of words I could use to describe you. Freak is not one of them.”

You scoffed. “Thanks. You’re sweet, Olsen.”

“I’m a journalist. We’re honest. We’re supposed to be, anyway. Those other guys are assholes. I get cool shots of you because you’re cool. They get lame ones because they’re lame. That’s no reflection on you.”

You gave a soft little smile, a nod. “I think I’ll just continue to believe you’re ridiculously talented, if it’s all the same to you.”

He laughed at that, his smile breathtaking in the soft blue light of the aquarium as the sea turtle coasted by the glass. “Yeah. Yeah, that works, too.”

***

Every once in a while, your superhero work let you contribute even more directly to causes you cared about. In this case, the construction of a new children’s hospital in Metropolis. It was set to be state of the art, with a revolutionary cancer research center. And if you, Superman, and the Justice Gang had anything to do with it.

You worked your way through the room, talking up billionaires and millionaires with something to prove and more money than anyone reasonably should. It was fairly easy enough, batting your eyelashes a little, fluttering your wings, and mentioning how nice their names would look on the signs outside the building. You were rarely all dolled up like this, face fully done, wearing nice eveningwear instead of your uniform. It got a very different reaction out of people.

“Doesn’t the Fitzgibbons Center for Neurology have a nice ring to it? So…intelligent. So sophisticated. What do you say?”

In the distance somewhere, you heard a camera shutter going off.

“I think…you’re right, Ms. Moth.”

Hook, line, and sinker. “I often am. The funds coordinator is right over there, with the clipboard and the cool earrings.”

Sure enough, not too far from the bar, was a familiar head of red hair, face obscured behind his camera as he snapped a picture of Superman mid-handshake with some oceanside tycoon.

You didn’t have time to go over and talk to Jimmy, the way you were immediately swept up with another potential sponsor, but eventually, you did find the opportunity to slip away for a moment while he was at the bar, getting some water.

You put a gentle hand on the sleeve of his cornflower blue suit, ordering a water as well. “I thought I recognized those camera shutters.”

“Oh, hey! You…look great.” He murmured, eyes scanning down your figure, dressed in a lovely evening outfit.

“Thanks.” You said, proud. “You clean up nice, too. These heels are killing my feet. Gonna get into my slippers ASAP when I get home.”

He glanced down, chuckled and then let them slide back up to yours. Jimmy wasn’t a particularly tall guy, so the shoes on your feet gave you a few extra inches on him. You kind of liked him looking up to you like this. And the little gulp he did up close like this suggested he did, too. “Well they, I mean, they sell the look. Seems like you’re doing really well out there.”

“I’d say so. Got most of the cancer wing funded, I think. Picking up some of Guy’s slack. He’s not exactly great at the whole people thing.”

Jimmy nodded, grinning knowingly. “Yeah, I figured as much.”

Your eyes wandered down to his lapel, where he was sporting a little moth pin.Well, that sealed it, then. No chickening out now. “I, uh…I don’t suppose you have any plans after this?”

He thought for a long moment, the wheels whirring behind those vibrant blues a mile a minute. He let out a disappointed breath. “Ahhh, well, I’ve gotta edit these photos. I’m on deadline. Otherwise, I…I’d love to do…well, anything you had in mind.”

“Actually, uh, Lois and Clark are coming over to my place. I live up the street. She’s gonna finish her article, Clark is gonna proofread, I’m going to play Animal Crossing on my Switch. But if you want to edit photos there, you’re welcome to. We’re gonna order some food, put on some movies.”

Jimmy blinked a few times and found himself nodding. “Yeah, that sounds great, actually. I’ll be there.”

“I’ll have Clark send you the address.” You said, giving his arm one last touch before turning back towards the waiting hoard of heirs and heiresses ready to performatively throw their inherited fortunes at you. Performative or not, it was going towards a good cause, and you were more than prepared to harness it. “See you later, Jimmy.”

He took a breath and almost asked you for your number then and there, but stopped himself, letting things remain professional with so many eyes on you. “Keep fanning those wings for me. I got some really good ones earlier.”

You winked, sending a jolt down his spine. “You got it.”

***

You and Superman stayed after the event ended to help clean up a bit and then made your exit, reaching your apartment long before the other two. Jimmy had to stop at the Daily Planet to get his laptop. 

As soon as you got into the apartment, you kicked your high heels off, Clark chuckling as you did. You hovered across the floor to get the weight off of your sore feet. Clark got to ordering the food while you took your ensemble apart in your bedroom. It was a new record for how fast you got out of that dress and into your Daily Planet sweatpants and a baggy tee, wiping the makeup off your face. 

You hovered back into the kitchen, where Jimmy and Lois were just coming in. Jimmy shrugged off his jacket, draping it over the back of one of your barstools. He froze when he saw you, dressed all the way down, hovering through your apartment, wings drooping down low. His eyes darted away. There was something so…unexpectedly intimate about it. Domestic, really. He’d seen you in street clothes, sure, but this was different.

“When’s the food getting here?” You asked, floating over towards your Switch and grabbing it, settling down on the couch with a groan.

“Twenty minutes.” Clark said.

“Sick.” You looked up at your guests. Lois had been there a few times before for girls’ night with some of your lady friends, but Jimmy was still studying your decor like he’d be tested on it later. “Come on in, get comfortable. I already did.”

Jimmy unpacked his camera bag, getting his laptop out, unfurling the charger. He surveyed the seating options before setting the computer on the coffee table, pointing to the other side of the couch from where you were settled. “This seat taken?”

“Not at all.” You said, the opening notes of the Animal Crossing theme drifting from the device in your hands. You were almost horizontal, legs up on the end of the sectional, wings folded beneath you somewhere. “Three’s a powerstrip on the side of the coffee table there.”

“Oh, thanks.”

Lois came over with a glass of wine, handing one to you. She settled into her usual chair, laptop on hand. She got to work quickly, tapping out the article with incredible speed. You could tell she’d already had it mostly outlined in her mind. Something like this was hardly the hardcutting journalism she was so good at, just an overview of an evening event. But seeing as there had been some very famous Metas there, Perry had sent the Daily Planet’s best. And speaking of…

Jimmy had plugged his SD card into the adapter connected to his computer and was already looking at pictures. You tried to focus on the fish you were supposed to be catching on the tiny screen in front of you, but it was hard not to let your eyes be drawn to the—seemingly hundreds of—photos of you he’d gotten that night, looking like a goddess with your wings perfectly poised as you charmed the fancy socks off those billionaires.

There were some silly pictures of Clark, too, making faces directly into Jimmy’s camera, some more serious ones of him taking the responsibility that had been handed to you as vow, but it was clear that his photos were a little you-heavy. Not that you minded.

Lois noticed you looking, but didn’t say anything.

The food arrived not long after and Clark got it plated up for the rest of you. He didn’t really need to eat. It was a weird Kryptonian thing. He ate for pleasure, but that was it. The rest of you, however, were starving. There hadn’t been much in the way of refreshments at the gala, despite the sponsors that had put it on.

“Thaaank you.” You sat up a little straighter, setting your Switch down.

“Of course.” He took a seat in the chair next to Lois’. He looked at Jimmy. “You get my good side?”

He rolled his eyes, grinning. “Dude. Shut up. You know they’re all good sides.”

It struck you a little, how open Clark’s secret was. He’d told you in college, of course, the alien thing, but you’d assumed that was because you had something in common and Clark didn’t want you to feel alone. He was just like that. Putting others before himself, always. It made sense to you that he’d told Lois, since they were dating, but you were a little surprised Jimmy knew. But you could tell he’d keep it secret. And that applied to anything else you told him, you were sure.

Jimmy readied a selection of photos for the article in record time, doing some basic edits and getting captions written up for them. Lois finished up her article not long after, and Clark proofread it, taking the laptop from her with a kiss to the temple. It was sweet, what they had. A journalist and a superhero.

“This one good?” Jimmy asked softly, turning his laptop screen towards you. On it, a picture of you shaking a CEO's hand, smiling, wings on display. They were glowing ever so slightly under the dim lights, but he had captured them perfectly anyway, framed up nice.

“Does every subject of yours get direct approval?” You asked, leaning a little closer to see better.

“Only the really special ones.”

“Offense taken.” Clark piped up with a smirk, earning chuckles from the rest of you.

“It looks great, Jimmy. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. I just let my camera do the talking.” He replied, sending the files to Lois.

They were done with their work not long after that, the article and related photos submitted for approval. Once Perry looked them over, he emailed them to let them know that they were all set for the night. But the four of you stayed up a little longer, chatting and joking around, putting away the leftovers before Lois and Clark retreated to the guest room for the night.

It was approaching three in the morning. Far too late for Jimmy to go back home. But it seemed he wasn’t in too much of a rush to get to sleep, instead helping you pack up the kitchen. You snapped the lid down on a tupperware container, tucking it in the fridge while Jimmy ran the silverware under the faucet before tucking them in the dishwasher.

Your phone was sitting on the counter and buzzed with a notification for a dating app. Jimmy chuckled. “That must be hard. Finding aliens on Bumble.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Huh?”

“Clark said you don’t date humans.”

A slow, confused smile spread on your face. “He said what?”

Jimmy looked like a deer caught in headlights. “Well, he…It came up at work, I guess. That you…don’t date humans. Find them…uncanny or something because we don’t have wings.”

That rang a bell. You laughed. “Oh my God.”

“Not that I blame you, I mean…I find us pretty disgusting, too. If I had other options, I probably wouldn’t choose us either, so—” 

“Jimmy.”

“Yeah?”

You closed the fridge, looking at him. “I date humans. I date humans all the time. I…used to say that when I was in college to get guys off my back. That humans were disgusting or whatever. When you’re different, you become a different kind of passport stamp, you know? The guys at school were all super gross about my wings, so I wanted to get them to leave me alone and stop trying. That’s all. Clark must have thought I was serious. We haven’t really talked about my dating life since then.”

That made sense. “Oh.”

You studied him, halfway dressed down after the event, his shirt unbuttoned a little, bowtie tucked away in the pocket of his blazer that was hanging on the barstool. It gave you just the tiniest glimpse of the hair on his chest. “Yeah, oh. But yeah, I hate the online stuff. It’s hard to meet anyone real that way.”

“On that, we can agree.” He nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat, nerves cresting now that this was…real. A possibility.

You gave a soft smile. The moment felt right, and you were never one to beat around the bush when it came to stuff like this, so you said softly, “Jimmy, you know I like you, right?”

He blinked a few times. “And…you know I’m just a guy, right?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You…you’re Luna Moth. You punch monsters and fund cancer departments for children’s hospitals and…you have these literal, actual, beautiful wings and…I’m a guy with a camera.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you still looking at me like that?” He asked, drying his hands on your kitchen towel.

“Because I happen to like the guy with the camera.” You shrugged. “I think he’s funny and smart. Makes me look like a goddess when everyone else makes me look like a freak.”

He shook his head, more serious now than the last time it had come up. “You’re not a freak.”

“I know.” You said, taking a few steps closer. “But you’re the only guy with a camera in this city that seems to know that.”

“There are plenty of camera-less guys in this city that would die for a chance, you know. Guys with your poster on their wall and…you know…the action figures and Funko pops and whatever…other merch there is of you.”

“Those are the guys I was trying to chase away in college.” You chuckled.

He gave a little scoff, amused. “Yeah, well…still.”

“If you don’t feel the same, I get it. You’ve got girls crawling all over you, from my understanding. I just thought you should know.”

“They’re not you.” He said simply, as though that explained all of it. “But I do. Like you, I mean. I’d be an idiot not to. You’re…” He shook his head, letting out a sigh, a pathetic little chuckle. “God, I’m not used to being on this side of it.”

You laughed a little at that, crossing the distance to him. He was at eye level again, but he was still looking at you as though you were towering above him. You guided one of his hands to your waist, but the other wandered up to your cheek of their own accord, brushing the hair out of your eyes.

“(Y/N)...” He murmured, his real name rolling off his tongue like it was meant to be there.

“You keep looking at me like that, I’m gonna kiss you.”

He smirked. “Promise?”

“Listen. I…can’t promise you anything normal. I float. I have a fucked up schedule. I keep weird hours. And then there’s these…things.” You gave one of your wings a little wave.

“My hours aren’t exactly normal either. And my work is about you a lot anyway, so…” He shrugged, letting a very gentle hand drift down one wing, like it was made of glass. “Besides, you already know I love these things.”

“So does your camera.”

He chuckled. “And my paycheck.”

“Right, can’t forget that.” You murmured, searching those impossibly blue eyes of his. You supposed you’d never realized how many freckles he had until now.

“I mean it. I’m all in.”

“Okay.” You nodded, leaning closer. You pressed your lips to his, slow and sure, an arm winding up around his shoulders.

His hand steadied on your waist, curling around your back to pull you closer, fingers careful at the base of your wings as his lips melted against yours, nose nudging against yours as he slotted closer. He tilted his head, pulling away for just a moment to look at you. “Okay meaning like…we’re going to keep doing this? Or okay as in this is a tonight type thing and you’re letting me down gently?”

You giggled, kissing his lips again, soft and chaste. “Not just tonight.”

“Cool. Yeah, I thought so too.”

“Great. Glad we’re on the same page.” You chuckled, pressing a kiss to the corner of his lips as his arms slotted further around your waist, pulling you closer. One hand smoothed across the space between your shoulders as he let out a long breath.

“I’ll still sleep on the couch, though.”

You laughed, shaking your head. “You don’t have to do that.”

He pulled away to press another long kiss to your lips, then your forehead, blue, blue eyes scanning across your face, memorizing every detail.

“A picture might last you longer.”

“I know.” Jimmy grinned. “But I’ve already got enough of those to last me a lifetime. Not that I won’t…you know, take more tomorrow, but still.”

You remembered mid-kiss that Clark had superhearing. That he had probably heard all of this and relayed it to Lois. That he could see through the walls with his X-Ray vision, could see the two of you tangled up in each other. 

Tomorrow, this would be news to a very small subset of people. But tonight, it was you and him, sharing this small moment in your kitchen, just before sunrise. Swallowing up each other’s smiles and laughs and warmth. This was your little corner of the universe now, and you were very glad to be living in it.

[dem-obscure-imagines]

I humbly request literally anything Chance related pleaseeee, your characterisation of him is chefs kiss perfection! You for sure rolled a nat 20 on the writing Chance stat! <3

Omg thank you so much!! I'm glad to hear it! I was worried about his dialogue lol. But I would love to write more for him! Let me know if you have any specific requests; if not, I'll keep brainstorming.

[dem-obscure-imagines]

Roll for Love

Chance x Reader

Fandom: Date Everything

Note: Surprise, I now write for Date Everything! I have not played through the entire game yet, so I tried to namedrop people, but there are definitely some missed opportunities here. But yes, welcome to the thing that has been living in my head rent free for the last month or so. Genuinely probably the best $30 I have spent in recent years. Also, I have not played much D&D irl, so my G&G lingo is dubious at best. This is set pre-canon and pre-Dateviators, so just roll with me here (hehe see what I did there). ((Also I skipped Nightmare’s route, so I’m sorry if she’s a little out of character. It’s set before the game, so I figure her relationship with Reader probably isn’t great right now anyway))

Summary: For the last couple years, you've been taking ValdiVitamins brand Melatonin every night to get to sleep, but they have some...weird side effects on your subconscious at night. Before college graduation, before your job at Valdivian, you had Chance, even if your waking mind didn't always know it.

Warnings: Nightmares, panic attack/sleep paralysis symptoms, hurt/comfort, some swearing

Word Count: 14.1k

Reader Is: Human, female, in college

Dealer’s Choice

Since you’d started taking melatonin your sophomore year of college, your dreams had been…weird, to put it lightly. But if your options were sleepless nights and odd slightly-lucid tumbles through your dreamscape every night…the choice was pretty clear.

And therefore, you had been running for…well, you weren’t sure how long, from a giant creature with a horse head and a giant gaping, glowing mouth where its stomach was supposed to be.

Your foot caught on something and you tripped headfirst into a…pillow fort? Or a massive tent of some kind, maybe, fabric stretched across the ceiling and walls, mounted with what appeared to be massive pencils. Gold shapes were etched into the black fabric. It was familiar, in a way, but you didn’t have the wherewithal to put together where you recognized it from.

You’d never been in here before, you were sure. You would certainly have remembered somewhere so cozy and…warm. A few paper lanterns hung from the ceiling, strings of lights filling in the blanks.

Over at a large table, there was a guy hunched, a pencil in his hand, the other deep in a bag of chips. He looked up at you, eyes widening. After a long moment, frozen, he pulled his hand out of the bag, brushing the crumbs onto his pants and scrambling to his feet, over towards where you were collapsed.

“H-Holy crit…Hi…” He stared at you, his eyes gliding over your form, shielded by his square, red-tinted glasses. He had a quaff of dark brown hair, swept up and away from his face. Square jaw, soft, smooth skin. Flushed cheeks, at the moment. He was a big guy, tall and broad, solid, a good bit of heft in his middle. A pair of black sweatpants sat on his hips, a red cutoff hoodie atop a white undershirt adding to his overall very huggable appearance.

“Hi. Um…”

“I never thought you’d come in here. I heard you’d been bopping around, but…”

“You…you know who I am?”

His gaze softened and he knelt down on the rug beside you, assessing you for damage. “Of course I know who you are. You’re (Y/N). Are…are you okay?”

“I…I had a pretty bad nightmare. I get them sometimes. I’m okay now.” You insisted, dusting yourself off. You glanced back towards the entrance of the fort. He did, too, something in him sinking at the thought of you leaving so soon.

“You, uh…you don’t have to go back out there. You can stay.”

“I don’t want to intrude. Really, it’s…it’s fine.”

“No, really. Come on in. Sit down over here. I’ve got a beanbag I know you’ll love and more snacks than you could ever need.” He offered a large hand, helping you up with ease. Unlike some of the other characters you had met in this place, there didn’t seem to be a twist to this one. No tricks, no games, well, aside from the tabletop one he seemed to be planning on his table. He was just a nerd. A friendly one. You could tell you were safe there.

He guided you over to the aforementioned beanbag, tucked into the corner of his cozy little workspace, a big cushy thing. It was red and yellow striped. You settled into it with ease. He dug through the snack cabinet on the wall. “What are you feeling, sweet, salty, dealer’s choice?”

“Surprise me.” You said, crossing your legs and getting comfortable.

He grinned, handing you a bag of chips. “Sugar gives you nightmares. Seems you’ve had your share of those tonight.”

“Thanks.” You tilted your head, studying him. He was…definitely your type, right down to the kind sparkle in his eyes. “What’s your name?”

“Chance. Should have introduced myself earlier, sorry. I just got a little distracted.”

“Chance. Nice to meet you. Thank you for…this.”

“No need to thank me. This place…it’s meant to be a refuge for any weary traveler. You’re the first. Aside from my friend Parker, I guess, but he hardly counts.” He grinned when you laughed, eyes soft as he took in the sight of you. “Stay as long as you need. Come back whenever you want, I’ll be here. I’m always here.”

He tried to make it sound casual, but you could tell it was a big deal that you were there, that…maybe in some corner of his mind, he had been waiting to meet you, wondering if the day would ever come. You didn’t know why. Maybe you never would. But you were glad you’d found your way there, one way or another.

Girl Math

It was like clockwork every week. Try as you might, you could not stay awake in your stats class. And sure enough, glancing down at them, your notes were once again a jumble of nonsense that you’d have to decode later. Girl math be damned.

You shook your head and tucked it into your bag. Well, that was a problem for later. Nothing you could do about it now. Besides, what would a Customer Service major use statistics for anyway? It’d be fiiiiiine.

You slung your bag over your shoulder and walked through the math building out onto campus.

“Boo!”

You gave a playful shriek, bumping shoulders with your friend Valerie as she joined you. “Hey, girl.”

“Hey yourself. How was class?”

“Boring. As always. And the notes I took are basically hieroglyphics, so I’ve gotta translate those.”

“You know, you’re really good at math when there’s dice involved. Maybe you can get a G&G-playing tutor to kindly mansplain it to you.”

You chuckled sardonically. “Oh, I’m sure the G&G club has no shortage of those.”

“Speaking of: session this Friday?” She shot finger guns with her neatly manicured nails.

“Wouldn’t miss it.” You grinned. “We gotta get our guys out of that pinch.”

“Where are you going now?”

“Library. Gotta hunker down and finish some stuff if I wanna drink Friday night and sleep it off Saturday morning.”

She laughed. “Fair enough. Good solid plan there. Mind if I join you after my last class?”

“You know where I’ll be.” You grinned, splitting off once you turned towards the library, while she continued along her own path towards the science building. You took the back entrance, slipping inside the familiar academic building, following the sound of the coffee grinder to the louder, more ambient area of the first floor. Handfuls of students gathered around the tables there, sipping from their caffeinated drinks. You stood in line at the counter for a few minutes and then ordered your own, checking your phone while you waited for the barista to make your iced mocha. Once the top of it had been sprayed with whipped cream and drizzled with chocolate syrup, you carried it back to your usual table, sliding the prongs of your laptop charger into the power outlet with familiarity.

You browsed online for a bit, a break from studying for just a little while before really getting to work, clicking out of pop up ads from Valdivian’s new streaming service. You added a few things to your Shopazon cart, did a quick scroll through Zumblr, and made sure you hadn’t missed any emails from Ao6.

With that out of the way, you locked in, typing up a quick paper and knocking out some discussion posts, crossing each assignment out on your planner once they were done. Next order of business, Stats homework. Ughhhhh. It was only five problems, but at the rate you figured out the equations, it would be the bulk of your work. Maybe Valerie was right about you needing a nerdy man to gently mansplain it to you. Certainly, it couldn’t hurt.

You took a sip of mocha, rolled out your neckbones, and pulled out your dicebag, a decent fidget to have tucked in there for times like these. It was a sizeable bag, big enough to carry three or four sets of dice with ease. Instead, you had your favorite set, a matching one made of clear, deep red resin, with gold flakes and glitter suspended within, matching nicely with the gilded numbers painted into the grooves on the sides. With them, your lucky D20. It matched the rest of them, but it was like thrice the size of a normal one, nice and substantial. It was weighted, fit comfortably in your palm, and always rolled well, especially when you needed it to. So much so that sometimes, your companions demanded to test it out, make sure it was still rolling fair.

It was. Obviously, it was. It just seemed to like you.

You grabbed a pencil, beginning the process of plugging numbers into the problems spread out before you, cradling the lucky die in the other hand, expertly spinning it between your fingers while you worked.

Valerie joined you a few hours later, once the sun had begun to dip beyond the horizon, paint the sky a brilliant orange that glittered in the gold flakes of your dice. She eyed them up with a grin. “You trying to attract that nerd the old fashioned way?”

“Ha ha. Very funny. You know I have to keep my hands busy.” You chuckled, setting the die down, 20-side facing up. You took another long sip of coffee, letting the bittersweet taste roll over your tongue as you approached the end of the cup.

“Yeah, whatever, nerd.” She grinned, opening her laptop and stretching out her back on the shitty library chair. “You done with your Stats?”

“Against all odds, yes. You know what that means.”

She laughed. “Adding to your obscene collection of fanfic?”

“Duh. I’ve gotta be over a terabyte at this point.” It was mostly a joke when you said it. Mostly.

“Who are you writing for now?”

“Dunno. But I shall scroll until inspiration strikes. Writing up a oneshot always puts me in a better mood.” You chuckled. “I’m gonna fill up my water bottle. I’ll be right back.”

You took your empty coffee cup to the trash on your way to the water fountain, toting your sticker-covered metal bottle over to the nice, filtered water fountain embedded in the wall. Your eyes wandered to some of the guys from the school’s G&G club. You’d been in there for a few months. They all checked the same boxes: mansplainy, know-it-all, condescending losers. That was why you preferred to play with your own friends, separate from their horde. Cool nerds, you had dubbed your noble party, although that felt like an oxymoron in and of itself.

Grottos and Gargoyles was meant to be fun. You all kept it that way. No rule sticklers or exclusionary assholes allowed.

Yet, looking at them, you couldn’t help but let your mind wander to--

Water spilled over the rim of the bottle and you snapped out of your trance, chuckling to yourself as you lifted it to your lips, sipping the water down so you could twist your lid and straw back into place.

You sat back down at the table, trying to lock into your fanfic endeavors, but getting caught almost immediately, eyes glazed over as you stared at the table between your dice. It felt like there was something you were forgetting. Hmm. Funny how that happened.

***

When you got back to your apartment, you went through your night routine. Put on your pajamas, did your skincare, haircare, brushed your teeth, and then stared at the bottle of melatonin in the medicine cabinet. ValdiVitamins. They weren’t the best brand, you were sure, merely from an ethical standpoint, the company making your entertainment and hosting your internet probably shouldn’t also be making vitamins, but they were the cheapest ones and they got the job done.

You popped two, 10mg total, and then retreated to your bedroom for the night, climbing beneath the covers. You had a nice, healthy doomscroll before passing out for the night.

And as you faded from consciousness, the voices rose once more, as they so often did, the nearest one floating smoothly from the phone in your very hand. “Get some rest, baby. We’ll take it from here.”

The Forever GM

The horrors you had just witnessed were enough to make you handwash your dishes for the rest of your life. You crawled backwards, soaking wet, breathing heavy. Eventually, the cold tile gave way to carpet and warm light. A few soft murmurs left your lips, not quite words and not quite calls for help.

“Woah, woah, hey, what…?” A friendly, familiar voice approached from behind you as you stared out of the mouth of the pillow fort, trembling. “What happened out there?”

You were frozen, staring out into the abyss beyond the curtain. Or was it a fabric wall? A sheet? Hard to say. You swore somewhere in the distance, you could still hear its laugh, its grating electronic tone.

“Hey, they can’t get you in here. See?” Chance stepped in front of you, pulling a rope near the entrance, drawing it shut tight. “They'd never fit in here anyway.”

That did make you feel a little better, though it raised a few questions. Or would have, if you weren’t preoccupied with your other thoughts.

“T-T-There was a…well, the dishwasher had…razor sharp teeth and…g-glowing eyes and…and there was water everywhere, like…like a fucking hurricane in the kitchen and…”

He nodded in understanding. “Ahh, Dishy. Yeah, that guy’s a freak.” He took stock of you, hands on his hips. “Come on. Let me get you fixed up.”

You tried to stand, but your legs were jello. A common nightmare symptom, right along with the cotton mouth that prevented you from speaking.

“Here, hold on.” Chance crouched down, scooping you into his arms with ease. You blinked in surprise. He was a lot stronger than he looked. “I’ve gotcha. You’re okay.”

He carried you deeper into the fort, back towards his little corner. He had a bunch of minis spread out on the table, some paint laid out. He set you in the beanbag chair again, a careful hand smoothing some hair out of your face. “Are you hurt?”

You shook your head, taking stock of yourself. Everything seemed to be in place. No head trauma, no blood as far as you could tell. “No, I’m okay.”

“Listen, when I said ‘weary travelers’, I didn’t mean you needed to get tangled up with that guy to come back here. You can just visit, if you want.” He said with a soft chuckle, pulling open the little minifridge against the wall. He ruffled around and then pulled out a juice pouch, handing it to you.

You pulled the little yellow straw off of the front of it, freeing it from the clear plastic it was packaged in and then plunging the pointy end into the pouch. You took a few sips. It helped. Something about the taste grounded you just a little. It felt so real. You knew it wasn’t, though. And neither was he, the kind nerd that was looking at you like you were everything. It was a shame. He really was very your type.

“Why do you have all these snacks and stuff?” You asked softly, staring at the art on the front of the bag, a friendly little juice pitcher with a vintage cartoon-style face. It was a little reminiscent of your new acquaintance, Dishy, but not enough that it set you off.

He walked back over, carrying a thick orange crochet blanket and draping it across your legs. “Come on, GM is always in charge of snacks. Gotta keep my players fed when we’re plunging Grottos.”

You perked up at that. “You play Grottos and Gargoyles?”

Chance blinked a few times, a shocked look on his face for a moment before he masked it with an excited grin. He wasn’t sure what all you knew, having been poking around aimlessly in whatever this place was that his soul and the souls of the rest of your furniture and other inanimates inhabited. 

But this confirmed at least one thing for sure. You had no idea he was your D20.

And he decided, in that moment, that he’d like to keep it that way.

You had no idea that he was your favorite and most loyal fidget toy, no idea that he had accompanied you to G&G every Friday night for the last three years since you’d gotten him, no idea that he had felt every little lucky kiss you’d pressed to his 20-side before a big roll.

Your back was to the wall that had his framed paintings of your G&G characters on it. You looked up at him, all sweet and unknowing, sipping from your juice pouch as you awaited his response.

In your eyes, he was just Chance.

He gave a chuckle, honing his words. This was all very fragile. He couldn’t fuck this up. Time to slip into GM mode. “Yeah, of course I play G&G. I’m a nerd. I’m kind of a forever GM, so I never get to make an adventurer, really. Lots of NPCs and BBEGs, though, and I have a lot of fun with those. Tell me about your character, who are you playing right now?”

The words fell out easily, as though he didn’t know every detail about Tobias Sweetwater, your current and longest-running character.

You smiled, happy to level with someone about it. It wasn’t often you met someone like Chance, really. Someone like the friends in your group, a friendly nerd who wouldn’t trample all over your ideas, or tell you that certain things were “technically against the rules and wouldn’t be accepted at a regulated G&G table.” A direct quote from the president of the G&G club, Josh. But if his constant offers of snacks was anything to go off of, Chance didn’t seem like that kind of nerd.

“His name is Tobias. Chaotic good, but he doesn’t really mean to be so chaotic. He’s clumsy, is what it is. An inventor. He writes a lot because he’s forgetful, but he’s constantly losing his blueprints. Worked as a henchman for a little while, but it wasn’t paying enough, so he joined his current adventuring party, the Wandering Walruses. It’s a working title.”

He chuckled at that, recalling the many discussions pertaining to the team name in question. “I like it.”

“It’s really bad.”

“In a charming way, though.” He grinned, sitting down at his table, pushing his glasses up his nose with a practiced finger.

“Yeah, I guess.” You chuckled. “I wish we could play together.”

He sat up a little straighter. “Hmm?”

“I wish you could play G&G with us. My friends. Out…there.” You murmured, mulling over a lot of questions you didn’t want the answer to. Part of you knew this was fleeting. That you weren’t supposed to be here, wherever here was. “I wish you could play with us.”

He nodded at that, letting out a long breath, a wistful look on his face as he gave you a thoughtful smile. He had played with you, more times than he could dream to count. Not that he could tell you that. Instead, he settled for a, “Yeah, me too. That…would be really nice.”

You woke up shortly after that, the blanket dropping down onto the beanbag once you faded from existence, your empty juicepouch fluttering to the rug. He picked it up, dutifully tucking it into the trash can.

Then, to the empty beanbag, he promised, “See you Friday, (Y/N).”

No Pressure

“(Y/N), not to alarm you or anything…but I think this is a job for the big fella.” Your friend Jake advised, running the calculations for how much damage he had just taken. Yeah, his elven Hotshot might be down for the count…

“I agree.” Lance corroborated. His guy was down, too.

You were low on hitpoints, but you had a few tricks left up your sleeve. Namely, the spell marble you’d been holding onto since the first village. It had been a gift from a little girl, the daughter of a powerful witch. And with your slingshot, you might just be able to…

“I still have that spell marble in my pouch. The one from the little girl in Stonesthrow. I’d like to use it now.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” Delaney, your resident GM asked, pressing the tips of her fingers together menacingly.

“With my slingshot.”

“It’s seen better days. You sure you want to risk that?” She asked, voice edging on evil.

You looked around the table, into the hopeful eyes of your weary companions. These Walruses needed you. “I think I have to.”

“Okay. Roll for attack.” She goaded, her eyes falling on the big guy. Your infamous lucky die.

You picked it up with a familiar movement, clutching it in your fingers comfortably. You rubbed your thumb over the 20 on its side, holding your hand to your lips and murmuring very softly, “No pressure or anything.” And then you let it fly, dropping into the middle of the map, right beside your mini of Tobias.

Nat 20.

Delaney looked down at her notes, pencil scratching against her notebook. She made a thoughtful face, considering. Then, she uttered those fateful words. “Alright. How do you want to do this?”

The table erupted in cheers and you smiled, lining up the attack in your mind’s eye.

“Tobias, with a shaking hand, draws his slingshot from the pouch in his bag. He holds it up towards the sky, a desperate plea to any of the gods that are listening, and then loads the spell marble into the pouch, drawing it back and aiming for Malthor’s good eye. He lets it fly, ducking to safety in the bushes, where Derevin is hiding.”

She chuckled, nodding. “The orb melts straight into his glowing eye. Immediately, a giant hand slaps over the spot as he stumbles back. ‘OOOOOWWWW! OW! MY EYE!’ He groans and gurgles and eventually falls back with an impossibly loud thud, crushing the shack at the edge of the village. Luckily, no one was inside, as Serah evacuated them all in time. The villagers cheer, rushing the giant’s body, kicking him and hitting him with their improvised weapons, glad that their overbearing evil overlord, Geoff Behsohz, has finally been overthrown.”

Your group celebrated. You finished your glass of wine, retrieving your lucky die from the center of the table, where it still sat. You set it upright on your coaster, head tilting as you looked it over. Every time, without fail. Every saving throw, every final battle, it had been there through it all, making sure your characters never died at the hands of Delaney and her twisted campaigns.

You gave it a few rolls just for posterity. 12. 18. 5. 7. 12 again. Yep, still as fair as ever, just also still as lucky as it had ever been.

You’d bought it from a man dressed as a wizard at the Renaissance Festival. Maybe the beard and the pointy hat had been more than a costume after all.

The celebration was interrupted by your growling stomach. Unlike another GM you knew, Delaney didn’t often bring snacks. But…Delaney was the only GM you’d ever had, so…where had that thought come from, you wondered? Strange.

“Can we order something? I’m starving too.” Lance raised a hand.

“I am one step ahead of you. What kind of sushi do you want?” Jake said, looking up from his phone.

You chuckled and told him your order, CashSend-ing him right after to cover the difference. Delaney wound down the campaign, reading you all your happily ever afters, and once the sushi arrived, you discussed the future of the campaign, which you would pick up after winter break. One last campaign for one last semester of college.

But yeah, no pressure or anything, right?

“I was thinking we could do something about legacy? Like…the kids of these characters, since we’ve done so many adventures with them already. I think it’s about time we move onto whatever comes next.”

“In real life or…?” Valerie asked, her questions met with a round of nervous chuckles.

You didn’t like to think about it often, but graduation was looming ever nearer over all of your heads. After that, the unending expanse of adulthood. Wooooo, so fun and not at all nervewracking.

But that word…Legacy. It felt so big. You’d have to give some thought to what a child of Tobias would look like. Who they would be and…who he would have them with. What the rest of his life looked like. It was a lot easier to map out than yours would be…

***

Back at your apartment, you unloaded your G&G bag, making sure everything was accounted for.

You pulled out your lucky die, turning it over to admire the way the letters gleamed in the dim light. Grinned, chuckled, let out a soft, “Thanks for that. You never let me down.” And then shook your head, feeling silly for talking to a hunk of resin.

You tucked him--it…tucked it back into your dice bag and started getting ready for the night. 

But now that you looked at it…Hmm…you swore you’d seen that pattern somewhere else before. And not just at the fabric store where you’d gotten it…

***

For the first time, you found yourself in the pillow fort without horrible circumstances driving you there. This time you didn’t stumble, you didn’t crawl, you just…walked inside, looking around.

“Chance? You here?”

It was a rhetorical question. He was barely anywhere else.

He gasped. “Hey, you! I…I was hoping you’d come. It’s been a while.”

“I think I’m getting better at this dream-navigating thing.” You chuckled, stepping further into his den.

“It would seem so.” He looked you over for the typical signs the others had put you through the ringer, but you weren’t trembling or crying this time. He gave a lovesick smile, tilting his head.

“What are you up to tonight?”

“Celebrating, actually.” He admitted.

“Celebrating?”

“Yeah, my, uh…” He hesitated. Uh-oh. Careful now, Chance. “My G&G group won our campaign tonight. We’ve been playing this one for a while. Kind of a big deal.”

It was kind of sad when he thought about it, celebrating a campaign he hadn’t even played, not really. But it was the little things. You’d kissed him, even if you didn’t know that. His cheeks flushed just thinking about it. How embarrassing.

“That’s worth celebrating, I think. Do you mind if I join you? I would have brought champagne, if I knew…”

“Come, sit.” He pointed to the chair next to him, brushing himself off. He glanced up in time to see a few figures in the doorway, peering in curiously. He held up a hand, motioning for you to stay at the table. “One sec.”

Daisuke and Beverly were lingering in the doorway, talking quietly between themselves.

“That’s the human? She’s cute.” Beverly mused, looking you over from the distance. She handed Chance the bottle of champagne he’d asked for.

“Yeah, she is. Thank you for this. And this, Daisuke.” He said, turning to the other inanimate. You and your friends having sushi had given him a serious hankering for it. Luckily, Daisuke had been dabbling with some new recipes and was eager to get some opinions on it. And Chance had asked for enough for two. Wishful thinking on his part, surely, but it had paid off.

“Has she told you what she is doing here?” Daisuke asked. “Why she wanders our plane?”

“She doesn’t know. I don’t either. I can’t figure it out. But I’ll keep you posted if I do.” Chance promised, gazing down at the sushi container with a soft smile.

“Go. Enjoy it. She’s never down here for long.” Beverly encouraged with a grin, giving Chance a push back inside.

He turned, heading back towards the table where you were sitting, looking around his space again. You eyed the pair of plates at the table, the fact that there were two. Two glasses, two napkins, two sets of chopsticks.

“Are you expecting someone?”

Chance chuckled, giving a shrug as he unpacked the food onto the plates, setting down each platter with care. “You, admittedly. I…I mean, like I said, I was hoping you’d show up.”

“I love sushi.”

I know. Chance thought, but his wit was quick enough to catch it before it slipped out. “Who doesn’t? And, as the lady requested…champagne.”

“You read my mind.” You chuckled, watching as he popped the bottle open, his big hands surprisingly dextrous and unsurprisingly strong. “Who were, um…those people over there?”

“Ah. Uh…some of the…other people from this place. Daisuke is trying to open a sushi place. Beverly handles the, well, the beverages around here.” Chance shrugged. “They’re nice. I don’t see them often, but they were curious.”

“About me.”

He hesitated. Nodded. “Yeah, about you.”

Thankfully, you didn’t prod. “Mmm.” You picked up your chopsticks, freeing them from the paper they were in and then rubbing them together out of habit, trying to get the stray splinters of bamboo off the ends of them. “My group won our campaign tonight too.”

“Yeah?” He grinned, sounding as casual as he could, weaving surprise into his tone. “Did Tobias save the day?”

“You know it. Rolled a Nat 20 right when I needed it.” You said, proud, unaware of the way Chance’s heart was absolutely racing. “Slingshotted that bitch in the eye.”

He stammered, staring at the edge of his plate for a moment before giving a sheepish chuckle and meeting your gaze. He’d definitely…adjusted your odds a bit. He always did. He couldn’t help himself. “L-Lucky shot, it sounds like.”

“Super lucky.” You agreed, picking up a piece of sushi and popping it in your mouth. It was good stuff, the kind you’d just had in the waking world, flavors melting against your tongue just as real as they had mere hours before. “This is good stuff.”

“It is.” He agreed, tongue darting out to get the stray piece of rice in the corner of his mouth.

“What was your campaign like?” You asked.

“Hmm?”

“Your G&G campaign tonight? You’re GM, right? So…how’d that go?”

“Ah, yeah, they beat up my BBEG pretty good. One of the party members sacrificed himself. It was really brave. They were fighting a djinn that got loose on their university campus. It was kind of their fault, but then one of their mentors joined up with him and it got really bad. But they won in the end.”

It was an old campaign. He hoped you didn’t recognize it, given how vague he’d left the details. But it was one he’d been wanting to repurpose anyway for a campaign of his own, if he ever got the chance. Ha. Pun intended.

He’d been wanting to get a group together, but it was hard. Parker had some interest in playing a chaotic neutral Troubadour. Mac might play. Dasha and Jerry if he asked nicely. And Lux, but…he didn’t really think they were cut out for it, to be quite honest. Still, he’d give them a shot, see how it went.

“Sounds like a hell of a time. I bet you’re a real good storyteller.”

Chance nodded, eyes soft. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “I like to think so. My players, too. My last campaign, I put them all in this giant library in a tower, and each level of it represented one of the stages of grief, which corresponded with one of their characters’ backstories in a twisted and beautiful way. And to get to the next level, they had to solve a puzzle and then beat up a monster based on their trauma.”

You stared at him for a long moment, awestruck. “You…you’re the real deal.”

At this point, he didn’t think he could stop smiling if he wanted to. You were just…perfect. But he’d known that all along. “You think so?”

“Yeah, absolutely. I…I’d love to play with you sometime. If…if that’s how this works. I can’t promise I’ll be on schedule, since…you know…my time down here is always so fickle, so…no pressure or anything, but…”

“No, I get it. Whenever you can. It’s…it’s a date.”

The Girl Made of Letters

Your teddy bear gazed up at you lovingly as you sat on your bed in your childhood bedroom over winter break. You’d found him in your mom’s closet, just sitting there. How he’d gotten in there, you weren’t sure, but he didn’t belong in there collecting dust.

Without classes for the month, your homework had instead been rolling up your new character. You’d been stuck for a while, but you’d finally had a spark of inspiration that involved a call with Delaney to make sure the lore allowed it. And somehow, against all odds, she’d given you the okay.

One last time and all that.

Using your lucky die, you rolled up a few stats, letting it land on your binder, as flat as you could get it on your bed.

You laid down for a moment on your side. It was late, but you still had the lights on, working diligently to finish so you could use the rest of your very limited winter break brain power to finish the fanfic that had been burning a hole through your brain. You really just…needed to rest your eyes for a bit. Yeah, that was it.

Obviously you dozed off immediately.

The next time you opened your eyes, you were not back in that familiar pillow fort, as you’d expected. Instead, you were still in your room, on your bed, but a weird, dreamy glaze had settled over the place, like there was a fog machine somewhere, pumping the faintest bit of haze into the room.

“Ohhh, Betty is gonna have a field day with this…Hey, Teddy.” The voice was right behind you. You stirred a little, pivoting. “Oh. Um, hi.”

You turned to find Chance, sitting on the bed, looking down at himself in barely-corked awe. He’d never been this big before. Granted, he didn’t leave the dice bag much. But part of him had expected to remain that size, his usual stature, small enough to sit comfortably in your palm. He was glad that wasn’t the case, though, or you really would have had some questions for him. 

He was sitting on top of your binder, though, right where your lucky die had been resting before you’d shifted onto this slightly parallel plane of existence. Chance chuckled and slid off of it, onto your comforter instead, and, more or less unintentionally, closer to you.

“Hey, you. Who’s…Betty?”

“A friend of mine. Don’t worry about it.” He smiled softly, eyes glittering as you sat up, adjusting your hair. Clearly you were asleep. This was a dream. And yet, like the others, it felt so…vivid. The mattress seemed to dip beneath his weight, the lights seemed to hum. “Hey yourself. Got a project going, huh?”

You motioned to the character sheets spread across the bed. “Rolling up a new character for my last college campaign. It’s taking longer than I thought it would. I’ve made good progress, though. Aside from…well, literally falling asleep in the middle of it, I guess.”

He grinned, all too excited by the prospect. Now, you were speaking his language. He always loved the characters you came up with. “Hit me with it.”

“Her name is Elodie Sweetwater.”

“Elodie…pretty name. Mmm, Sweetwater sounds familiar.” He mused, playing dumb perfectly, reaching for another piece of your dice set to fiddle with idly, expertly rolling it in his wide palm. Notably, your lucky die was missing, but you hadn’t seemed to notice. After all…he was sitting right in front of you.

“She’s Tobias’ daughter.”

“Who’s the mom?”

“No mom.” You replied, chuckling. “It’s a little out there, but…she’s made of love letters.”

Chance raised an eyebrow. You could tell he was hooked. “Elaborate on that.”

“Tobias wrote a bunch of love letters to his…well, his husband, Merlinus--”

“MERLINUS?! MERLINUS DEVAIN?!” Chance exclaimed, jaw slack, eyes wide. Merlinus had been the BBEG in the first campaign your college friends had done. He wasn’t…super evil, but he had in fact been evil. And now he was married and would apparently be celebrating Father’s Day.

You laughed, nodding. “Yeah, I know, I know, but I got permission from my GM. We decided that he’s in magic rehab and he’s been doing therapy, so it’s fine. Besides, the theme of our campaign is legacy, so I thought that was a good way to tie it all back together.”

“Right. I mean…it’s certainly a little unpredictable, but very creative. Anyway, tell me how this works. The love letter thing.” He said, hoping to distract you from the fact that…he very much wasn’t supposed to know about Merlinus. The two of you hadn’t talked about him. But of course, Chance had been there for that campaign, picking up every roll. Of course he remembered the first BBEG you faced together.

“Right, so she’s made from love letters that Tobias wrote to Merlinus. They were sitting on the desk in his workshop and one of his potions of Enlightenment accidentally spilled onto it and turned it into a little baby girl. It’s been about twenty-two years since then, and now Elodie is ready to embark on her first real adventure.”

It was really sweet, creative in your unique flavor that he loved so dearly. And Chance couldn’t help but latch onto the fact that…even if you didn’t understand the weight of it…you were writing about an inanimate. Someone like him. It made his heart go fuzzy.

You shrugged, letting your eyes wander along the edge of the bedspread. “I know it’s kinda…I know it needs work, but…”

He’d been thinking too long, quiet. Chance took one of your hands, touch warm and delicate, but reassuring in a way that chased those insecure thoughts right out. “No, no, it…she sounds great! The love letter thing is so fresh and sweet. What class is she?”

“She’s a Troubadour. I haven’t played one before. I thought it would be a good opportunity. Seemed to suit her. She’s a bit of a dreamer. Head-in-the-clouds type of girl.”

“Sounds like you.” He couldn’t stop himself from saying it, the words slipping right out. They seemed to land okay, though, judging by the look on your face. Maybe not a Nat 20, but certainly a seventeen or eighteen.

You gave his hand a squeeze, searching his eyes as best as you could through his ruby-tinted lenses. “Do we…know each other? Out there?”

Hope crested at the edge of your voice, like you wanted him to be someone you knew, someone tangible. Someone you could find. Chance shook his head, nipping that in the bud before you got the wrong idea. “No, that’s not how this works, unfortunately.”

“Hmm, figured.” You nodded, pondering for a moment before asking, “Then you’re, what, my conscience? My muse?”

Chance’s heart fluttered at the accusation, specifically the second one. He laughed, the tips of his ears tinted red. “I’m honored you’d think I could be either of those.”

“Then…what is this? Why do we keep…?” You exhaled a breath, head shaking ever so slightly. “Finding each other?”

“I don’t know why. I wish I did. But I’m glad we…keep meeting like this. As for what I am…I’m Chance. Just Chance.” He faltered a little, thumb brushing over your knuckles as though that action alone could steady his shaking soul. “Is…is that okay?”

You nodded, a wave of something warm sweeping down your chest. Your fingers curled a little tighter around his. The flush you felt spread across your cheeks meant you were probably looking pretty rosy. You hoped he didn’t mind. Maybe he couldn’t even tell, the way his glasses were tinted like Cyclops’ visor. “That’s okay. I…well, I think I like Chance, to be honest with you. A lot. Probably more than I should, considering he’s relegated to my dreams.”

His eyes widened, sparkling like you’d just handed him three new G&G manuals. “I…I like you too! Obviously. I…yeah. You’re…you’re perfect. I never thought I’d get to meet you like this. It’s been a dream come true. Pun intended.”

You chuckled and shook your head. “I’m not perfect.”

He scoffed, grinning. “Alright, well, agree to disagree.”

You rolled your eyes, unable to wipe the smile off of your face. “Dork.”

“Yeah, well, you’re kind of into it, though. Unless I’m reading this wrong, but…I rolled a Nat 20 on my insight check of you, so…I’m pretty sure you’re perfect. Argue with Walla--ahem with the wall.”

You squeezed his hand, leaning in to press a kiss to his steadily reddening cheek. He caught your eyes as you pulled away, the self-consciousness that had been cradled in his gaze huffed out immediately, replaced only with love. Just love.

Chance knew this was reckless. It was selfish and dangerous to string this lie out any further. To not tell you what he truly was stripped you of your choice in the matter of whether or not you actually wanted to foster anything with him. When you found out, surely you’d be mad at him. Maybe not for what he was, but certainly for not telling you sooner.

And yet, as he met your gaze, brushing a stray piece of hair out of your face, leaning ever so closer…telling you…losing this…it just wasn’t a chance he was willing to take.

Other Nights

Winter break made its graceful exit and you moved back to school. Same apartment as last semester. Same roommate, who was so quiet sometimes you forgot she was there. Same friend group, although another one of your friends had climbed on board for your last G&G campaign all together. She’d always talked about joining the rest of you, but had never made the time. Senior year was a good time for pushing people into finally doing things, it seemed.

Sam slipped right in, surprisingly. She was good at G&G. Her character was a punk rock Hotshot who was on the lookout for their dad, a famed evil sorcerer, who had all but dropped off the planet a few years after she was born. Obviously this sorcerer was Merlinus, though Sam’s character, Ruby, had not yet divulged this information. And no, your characters had no idea that they were, in a sense, sisters. But you couldn’t wait for them to find out.

Your third week back, you had a few tests looming nearer and one decently long paper that your professor had assigned on the fly. He was well-meaning, if not a little scatterbrained, which was why, somehow, he had neglected to mention you had a five-page term paper due by midnight on Sunday. It was in the syllabus, but you hadn’t looked at that since, well, syllabus day. Who the hell did that anyway?

And so, Sunday evening, you were camped at the very empty library, making poor decisions left and right. Not least of which was the tall can of Zinger sitting on the table beside you. 100mg of caffeine this late at night was surely a bad idea, but given the work cut out for you, you had no choice. The clock was ticking, and this paper wasn’t going to write itself.

So, you tipped the can back, letting the sweet Raspberry-and-battery-acid flavor rush down your throat and into your waiting organs, who surely would not let you forget this decision.

***

You tossed and turned a lot that night. And when you finally did fall asleep, you had something akin to the worst sleep paralysis you’d ever experienced, flat on your back in the pitch black room. It felt as though your jaw was wired shut, your eyes strung open. And that whispery, familiar voice rolled through your ears like smoke. Thick and heady. Liquid nitrogen poured down your spine and you felt her arms coil around you.

Nightmare.

“Oh, darling…you couldn’t scream if you wanted to. You’re mine, tonight. May as well get comfortable.”

You tried to move, but didn’t budge an inch, quite literally held in place by her inky tendrils. You steeled yourself, trying to calm your breathing, trying to do anything, really. The feeling of entrapment unsettled you to your bones, and the weight on your chest felt as though it really could crush you.

“All that caffeine is bad for a sleeping mind. You should know better than that. We’ve got quite the night ahead of us…buckle up.”

***

It was hours later that you finally managed to rip yourself free, literally crashlanding into Chance’s fort, but it felt like you had been shivering there for centuries, bound and helpless as hallucinations clawed at the edge of your vision. Whispers, screams, you weren’t sure what was worse, but both filled your ears for the hours Nightmare held you, both gentle and vicelike simultaneously. It was enough to make your head spin. And it was, ragged breaths tearing themselves from your lungs, ears ringing, muscles reduced to jelly.

By the time you came to, you weren’t sure exactly how long you’d been laying there on the patterned rug, staring up at one of the twinkle lights as it blinked on and off. Chance stood over you, frowning down at your trembling, collapsed form.

“Are you okay?” He hesitated, unsure whether or not he could touch you, or if he should try in your state. Sometimes rousing someone from sleep paralysis was worse. He didn’t want to send you into shock or something.

You tried to speak, you really did, but it was like your jaw was still wired shut, an icy ribbon threaded through your lips, preventing you from doing anything aside from moaning pathetically and reaching out for him.

He knelt to the ground immediately, scooping you into his arms and brushing your hair back, shushing you. Chance made an effort to soothe you, strong hands smoothing down your arms, chasing away the sensation of the frigid tendrils that still lingered along the edges of your skin.

“I’m gonna move you, okay?”

You whimpered, nodding. As he’d done before, Chance scooped you up with ease, carrying you back to the warmer, safer corner of the fort, but when he went to set you down, you latched onto his arm, shivering still.

“Do you want me to get you a blanket? Or…or juice or…?”

Tears welled in your eyes and you shook your head, the muscles in your neck burning, eyes aching and red. God, it always hurt to cry in your dreams, and this was no different. You gave his arm a weak little tug, trying to get him to stay with you, unsure how else to convey it other than the silent pleading you were doing.

He melted immediately, understanding in his eyes. You’d had a lot of nightmares, but…he’d never seen you like this before, shaking and nonverbal. Whatever that horse had done to you…it made him want to go and give her a piece of his mind. If she didn’t vanish the moment you were awake again, that was. “Okay, okay, here, let’s…” He picked you up again, getting you to your feet so he could sit down first, gently coaxing you down on top of his large, welcoming frame.

His warmth helped. It helped a lot. You closed your eyes, resting your head on his chest for a long moment. A gentle hand pet your head, goading you back down to earth slowly, bit by bit. Feeling trickled back into your fingers, your toes. You tested your voice, but it was still hard, inaudible and crackling like a radio without signal.

“Don’t push yourself. I understand.” Chance assured, resting his chin on top of your head. “Nightmare?”’

You nodded.

“Bad one?”

You nodded harder, letting out a shaking breath. You managed to croak out a, “Sleep…’Ralysis”

“Sleep paralysis?” He asked softly, voice as tender as his touch. He pressed his lips to your forehead, reaching for one of your hands, fingers lacing with your own. “No wonder you’re shaken up so bad. That’s some serious stuff. You’re so brave.”

All you could manage was a scoff.

“I mean it. I’ve never met Nightmare, but…I think I’d be a lot worse off than you right now if I had. Have you been with her all night?”

You winced. Nodded.

“We don’t have to talk about her. I’m sorry.” He hooked a warm finger under your chin, tilting your face up so he could meet your eyes, make sure you were still with him. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, okay? You’re safe here.”

You could feel yourself thawing, both physically and emotionally. Breathing got easier. Not right away, but little by little. You tilted your head forward, resting your forehead against his cheek, eyes fluttering closed.

“You’re so warm…”

He smiled against you, a large hand rubbing soothing circles in your back. “You think so?”

You nodded, an arm looping tighter around his soft middle. A long breath floated from your lips, heartrate finally beginning to slow to something that could be considered normal. “It’s helping. A lot. Thank you.”

“She really has it out for you, huh?”

You rasped a bitter chuckle. “Yeah, it’s…my fault this time. Chugged a Zinger before bed. I had to churn out a term paper.”

His eyebrows shot up. “Oh yeah? And how’d that work out for you?”

“Fine. Until it wasn’t. Thank you. For this. You uh…you really know how to handle a panic attack. I think that was record cooldown for me.”

“My buddy Parker…gets them. I’m usually the one who has to talk him down. We don’t usually end up, well, like this, though.” He chuckled, motioning to your position, sprawled atop him. “Not that I mind. You make a great weighted blanket.”

You laughed at that, pulling away to look at him, at the soft, reassuring smile on his face, the way his eyes kept searching your expression, just to make sure you were still alright. One of your careful hands reached up towards his face, still trembling ever so slightly, but not enough to hinder you from this.

He leaned into the touch, voice impossibly soft as he whispered, “You okay?”

“I’m okay now, yeah. Thank you.” You looked around the pillow fort, taking stock of everything. 

Most of it was unchanged since the last time you’d seen it, although, instead of two frames on the wall, there were three. From that angle, you still couldn’t see what, or who was on them, but it wasn’t your main concern. Instead, your gaze fell on the game pieces Chance had set up, his GM divider standing upright on one side of the table, a few minis planted on his gridded map. It was clear he was ready to play a game with you, whenever you stopped by next, which was now. And instead, you were…

You frowned a little, guilt welling in your chest. “Aww, Chance…”

“Don’t you dare apologize for getting sleep-kidnapped and having a panic attack,” he said, voice mock-stern.

“But you got everything ready, and--”

“There’ll be other nights.” The way the words sat between the two of you, you could tell he didn’t fully believe them.

Every time you closed your eyes, it was a gamble of where you’d end up, who you’d end up with. There was no guarantee this wasn’t your last time there with him, in his dice bag. No promise that these weird dreams wouldn’t cease as quickly as they’d begun, leaving you both with the increasingly heavy question of what could have been. You might never get to play that game he’d spent so long crafting just for you. He might never tell you that he was your lucky and faithful D20. Maybe someday you’d downsize your dice hoard and get rid of him by mistake. That outcome…wasn’t so likely, admittedly. You were a pack rat and he held a lot of emotional value to you even in his resin form. But still, it was something he’d thought about on lonesome nights when you were elsewhere, one of the points his own anxiety liked to kick around his head just to make him sad.

“Chance…”

“Listen, there are worse ways to spend my night than cradling the woman I…” It almost slipped out then. You could feel it. And the way your heart caught, it was almost as though it had. “Than, you know…cuddling with…with someone I care about, alright? I’m perfectly content right here. This is good for me.”

“We could…try to…”

“There’s no time. Sun’s came up a little while ago. Your alarm goes off a few hours after that.” Chance recited. That’s all it was. Patterns and routines. Simple facts. Nightmare had stolen most of your sleeping hours tonight, but he’d be damned if he didn’t make the most of what he had left.

You frowned, gazing up at him.

He chuckled. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s fine. This is fine. I could never blame you for anything, let alone this. My…my realm, this place, is beyond your control.”

He didn’t say it, but you could see it in his eyes. Chance was willing to take anything he could get when it came to you. That made you feel worse. He deserved…everything. Right now, the way your little arrangement worked, you didn’t feel like you could give it to him.

Before you could protest, Chance gathered your hands together, cupping them before pouring a little pouch of dice into your palms. His own personal set. They were gemstones with gold lining around the edges, cool to the touch and smooth against your skin. An emerald D6, an amethyst D4, a topaz D12, and of course, the showstopper, his ruby D20.

“I have a red one, too.” You murmured, turning it over carefully. “It’s like three times the size of this one, though. My lucky one.”

He took stock of himself as you unknowingly spoke about him, chuckling as he thought it over. “A big guy, huh?”

“Yeah. My big fella. Weighted. Rolls really nice.”

“That’s your favorite one?” He felt a little guilty, fishing like that, but he did genuinely want to know, and this might be the only time he could get an objective answer.

“Oh, definitely. There’s not a single session I’ve played without it. I misplaced it once between moves, when I was moving back to college from home. A full forty-eight hours where it was unaccounted for. I had the crashout of the century.”

He chuckled at the mention. Chance definitely remembered that, being tucked in the crate where you kept your blankets due to a packing mishap. He hadn’t minded spending some time with Mateo, of course, but he could hear snippets of your crashout from within the cozy depths and…it didn’t sound so great… “But you found it, I take it.”

“Oh yeah. I found it.” You reassured. “We’re on good terms. A few weeks into our last campaign now. Always rolls exactly what I need, exactly when I need it.”

Chance found himself blushing at that, unable to convey exactly what the praise meant to him aside from holding you a little tighter, pressing a kiss to your forehead. Not that he wasn’t already blushing from hearing you call him ‘your big fella.’ But he was steadily taking on his familiar red hue.

He should tell you. This was the perfect moment. You seemed to be putting the pieces together a little bit, at least so far as Nightmare went, that she was the personification of night terror itself, which meant that he…must be something similar. That was it. His mind was made up. He was going to tell you.

“Uh, I…so actually…” He opened his mouth to say something, but that train of thought was derailed when you sat a little straighter in his hold, carefully smooshing his dice into one of his large, soft hands, curling his fingers around them for safekeeping.

“Ooooh, there it is. I’m slipping.” You crooned, turning towards him. Your eyes scanned his face. Even as you became less solid in his lap, you were still so worried about him, his feelings. One semi-transparent hand cupped his cheek as you leaned closer, pressing a long, deliberate kiss to the corner of his lips, so tantalizingly close to his own. So close, in fact, that his lips moved of their own accord, puckering ever so slightly in response, chasing the whisper of yours as you faded from his grasp, surrendered to the sunlight. “See you later, Chance.”

“Y-yeah, later…” he murmured to the empty room.

Crit Fail

“I want to seduce the door.”

The table devolved into chuckles and Delaney shook her head. “You can’t seduce the door.”

Sam retorted, indignant. “Why not?!”

“Because it’s a door. Made of wood. Next question.”

“Right, but do we know the door can’t feel? Maybe the door has dreams. Maybe the door is lonely.” 

“Roll for insight.”

She did. “Nat 20.”

“The door doesn’t have feelings, or dreams. You’re not seducing the door.”

“Dammit.” Sam huffed.

“I would like to try to pick the lock.” You announced. “That Swashbuckler I met in the pub in Bloomsbury gave me a metal hair stick.”

Delaney grinned. “Quick thinking. Give me a roll for that.”

You rolled your regular D20, playing with the other one in your other hand, letting it tumble against the table beneath your palm. “15, with a +2 modifier.”

“Alright, yeah, you work on the lock for a few minutes and the door drifts open. From within, you hear a whisper of a voice. A feminine one. She beckons and…something in you wants to follow. You could close the door again…walk away…or you could follow it. What would you like to do?”

The group deliberated before deciding to very cautiously venture inside. You rolled a Crit Fail and tripped head first into a pile of haunted portraits, freeing their very angry residents into the room for all of you to fight. After that, your little D20 was relegated to timeout and your lucky one finally got its chance (hah) to shine.

The battle was long. It was a rough one. You all had some pretty bad scrapes, so you took a long rest after to recoup and rethink your approach to the manor you’d stumbled into, which seemed to be the key to finding the Legacy Stone.

Elodie sat at camp, writing letters to her dads back home and was joined by Ruby, who asked about her parents and, as the party watched on in glee, the two finally discovered they were sisters, in a strange sort of way. Some of your friends hadn’t figured it out yet, so it led to a lot of shock and elation as the two of you made plans to get in contact with Merlinus as soon as you could, since Elodie had been raised by him and was on good terms with the guy.

When the other members got their moments, your mind wandered a bit. You rested your cheek on your fist, elbow on the table. In your other hand, your lucky die, two of its points pinched between your thumb and middle, spinning it idly with your ring finger. You watched the numbers go around and around. Something about it…

You adjusted your hold, looking deeper. Your memory tickled with the sensation of a cold set of dice in your hands. Gemstone dice. A ruby D20, much smaller than this one. Had you…seen them at the mall maybe? In that card shop? In the metaphysical store? No…no, you’d held them. You’d handed them back to someone, curled his fingers around them. His big, warm fingers.

Chance.

Somehow, in all of it, you’d forgotten about Chance.

Chance and his careful, comforting touches. Chance and his reassuring voice that carried you through the worst of the worst. Chance, who gave you snacks and juice pouches and kisses on the forehead. Chance, who played G&G, who listened with rapt awe to your new character as you laid her out for him. Chance who…

Chance who…knew who Merlinus Devain was…somehow…

You took a sip of your smoothie, eyes narrowing in thought. You pretended to be strategizing, pencil hovering over your notes.

You hadn’t told Chance about Merlinus. How had he known who Merlinus was…? He was from a campaign so long ago, he was barely relevant anymore, aside from his connections to Elodie and Ruby in this campaign.

“I never thought you’d come in here. I heard you’d been bopping around, but…Of course I know who you are. You’re (Y/N). Are…are you okay?”

Of course I know who you are, he’d said. If this worked like…Nightmare being your nightmares, Dishy being…your dishwasher…Then that stood to reason…

The session ended quietly and you reached for your dicebag, stopping when you had both in hand, your lucky D20 and your dicebag, and you froze, staring at both. The walls of Chance’s fort looked…looked just like the fabric your bag was made of. Which meant that…if Chance was always in there…well…

You stared at your D20, realization cutting through your chest as your thumb gently grazed its--his…side.

“Aww, shit.”

***

After a long, riveting conversation with Sam about her job lined up at Valdivian and her offer to try to get you in there, too, you headed back to your apartment. 

You filled up the water filter in the fridge before getting ready for bed. Put on your cutest pajamas, did your skincare, took your ValdiVitamins, brushed your teeth extra good, and then returned to your bedroom.

You hesitated for a moment, but took your dicebag out of your tote bag, fishing your lucky die from inside and setting it, ever so carefully, on the surface of your desk. You gave it one long look before tucking into bed to see if you’d managed to crack the case after all…

And if not, maybe you were finally losing it.

Here and Now

You didn’t sit up for a long while, laying still as you felt everything shift around you, slipping into that other place, that ephemeral place that always seemed to slipped from your waking self’s memories. But not this time. No, this time you were determined to hold on.

You opened your eyes slowly, overly cautious after the Nightmare incident. But when you finally dared to peek, all you saw was Chance sitting at your desk, fidgeting with the rest of your dice set, head hung in something between nervousness and shame.

The D20 was gone. Your lucky die. Well…not gone, exactly. You gave a soft, sad little smile.

“You’ve always been pretty clever. I really didn’t expect you to figure it out, though.” He wouldn’t meet your eyes, staring at the edge of the desk, then the little dice in his hands again.

You…well, you didn’t really know what to say to that. You took a long moment to look him over, with the new knowledge in mind. His broad shoulders, his strong arms, the bit of pudge that clung to his middle. He was a weighted die, it…well, it made sense he was built the way he was. Your big guy.

Your soft chuckle broke the otherwise very cold silence that had settled between the two of you.

“Are you mad?” He asked softly, voice pulled taut like he was bracing for a punch.

“No, I am not mad. Why would I be mad?”

“I…I’m made of resin. I fit in the palm of your hand, I…” He was getting choked up, face flushed red. He set the dice back down on the desk, huffing a breath. “I would be mad at me. I…I am mad at me. But…I mean, how was I supposed to explain all of this to you? That we’re all…here.”

You let his words sink in, the confirmation of your wild, half-baked theory, that the kind nerd with the big, big heart was your lucky die…It was almost too much to comprehend. But the look in his eyes, the guilt, the shame…it was real.

“Dishy is the dishwasher. Nightmare is…as the name suggests, I guess.” You said quietly. “So, the others?”

“Betty is your bed. Daisuke is the dishes, Beverly’s your wine cabinet.” He confirmed. “And my friend Parker is the pile of board games in your parents’ attic. But he sometimes hitches a ride on your Uno deck if he wants to spend a semester here. That’s…why he gets panic attacks. There’s not a lot going on up in the attic. He never has anyone to play with.”

You were quiet, thinking. You didn’t know what to say. You had a million questions, yes, but none that seemed okay to ask. You had gotten Chance at the Renaissance Festival your freshman year of college. Had he been conscious before that? Had he gained consciousness when you chose him? And by that measure, how long had the others been awake?

“No…human has ever been on our plane before. Whatever this is, it’s an anomaly.” Chance said, solemn and sure. “It shouldn’t be happening.”

“It is, though.” You murmured, voice steady, despite your racing heart.

“Right. It is.” He nodded, lips pulled aside in concentration. He still wouldn’t look at you. Maybe he couldn’t. Couldn’t face whatever it was in your eyes now that you knew the truth. “But we were not supposed to meet, ever. Definitely not like this.”

“Why not?”

“Because! It’s not--!” He huffed, cheeks even redder than before. He shook his head, letting out a slower breath in an attempt to keep a lid on it.

You shifted in the bed, letting your legs hang down, bare feet dangling above the carpet as you faced him. “Chance.”

“Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

He finally turned to look at you, eyes glassy, cheeks flushed. His glasses had slipped down the bridge of his nose, giving you a good look at the shape he was in. He pushed them up again, like a shield, a thin red film to hide behind, just like his GM divider.

Chance studied your face, searching for some telltale sign of rejection. Of disgust. There wasn’t one. He softened a little, a bitter chuckle floating between you. “Listen, I…I’m used to getting thrown around, okay? It’s what I do. I roll with it. B-But…I…I don’t think I’d recover this time.”

You stood, letting him accept that movement before making another, taking slow, careful steps closer to him. He just watched, preparing himself to field whatever words came out of your mouth. He didn’t expect you to plop right down in his lap, though.

And yet, that didn’t stop his arms from wrapping around you, his forehead tilted forward, resting against your jaw. He let out a long breath, face falling into the crook of your neck, seeking warmth and comfort. You wrapped an arm around him, the other venturing up to comb through his dark hair.

“This isn’t a game to me.” You murmured softly. His slow, deliberate inhales meant, you hoped, that your words were sinking in. “I am not playing with your heart.”

“Yeah, I know. That’s kind of what I’m afraid of. That…this, these feelings, these dreams…they’re real to both of us in the way they’re real to me and…and it doesn’t matter anyway. That you’ll wake up one day and all of this will be gone. You’ll go about your life, get a normal partner, a house, a car, some kids and…and I’ll get to sit on your shelf for all of eternity, collecting dust in my own front row seat to your happily ever after.”

It sounded like torture. You were sure to him, it was. He’d seen you go on a handful of dates in the years you’d had him, you were sure. But you couldn’t imagine what it was like to fall in love with someone who couldn’t see you. Someone who you couldn’t communicate with unless she was asleep.

And then the possibility that it would all evaporate, the connection you’d painstakingly built piece by piece, gone in an instant…that he’d be trapped, doomed to be…nothing. That he’d have to watch. It all but shattered you.

“And…and I want you to. I want you…to…have something nice and normal. I can’t give you anything real aside from a good roll here and there when you really need it.” He said, voice edging into mischievous territory at the end there, though his eyes remained serious.

“You’ve been fudging my rolls?”

“Yeah, a little. Not the point. You deserve so much. Certainly more than me.”

You stared at him for a long moment, guiding his face out of the crook of your neck so you could get a better look at him. He met your eyes reluctantly, letting you look him over for a good, long moment. He still looked like forever to you.

God, this all sucked so bad.

“I can’t promise you that won’t happen. My memory of all this is a little fuzzy out there. I…I don’t know how any of this works. Why the dreams started, what’s causing them, if they’ll ever stop someday.” Your thumb soothed a circle into his cheekbone, palm anchored against his soft skin, just below the rim of his glasses. “But I know I’m in love with you. Here and now. And it’s real to me. You are real to me.”

You could have gone on. Could have given a monologue so good it would put any BBEG’s to shame. But you didn’t have the chance.

He was already kissing you.

It was a hungry kind of kiss. An experienced one. You didn’t know who (or what? You weren’t sure the semantics) had been kissing your D20, but whoever they were, you thanked your lucky stars for them.

One of his large hands slipped lower, giving your thigh a squeeze, while the other anchored itself on your face, keeping you right where he wanted you. And you all but melted into him, caught up in the motions, crossing the line in one swift movement into something decidedly more.

“I love you, too.” He murmured, catching your lips between words, punctuating it with another long one. You parted just an inch, his forehead hovering just in front of yours, warmth melding together until you weren’t sure where yours ended and his began. He met your eyes, smiling a little. “But you knew that.”

You nodded, letting the clipshow of your moments together play in your mind while they were all accessible to you. Your nights spent curled together, your shared meals, aimless nights where you talked about everything and nothing and laid on the rug inside what you now knew was your dicebag. You’d had so much time together, and yet, it didn’t feel like enough. It never could be.

You wanted a life together, and you couldn’t even have a waking day.

Still, you spent the whole night there, tucked in his lap, kissing him, murmuring promises you couldn’t keep. And when you woke up the next morning, his warmth still lingered on your lips, your faithful D20 sitting on the desk.

Everything Leads to Love

It was a weird little thing when it happened. You ran out of melatonin gummies. Went to the store to replace them, and the entire shelf of ValdiVitamins was cleared out. There was a recall. Apparently people taking them had reported…weird side effects, including but not limited to auditory and visual hallucinations and incredibly vivid dreams.

That explained that little thread.

For a while, you held onto Chance. Looked for him when you were lucid, which wasn’t often anymore. Never found him. Never even found his fort or any of his friends. Your dreams were normal. Your nightmares were, too, returned to awkward memories from work, bad days in high school, and public speaking and realizing you weren’t wearing pants. That whole world was cut off and, as far as you knew, you had no way to get back.

It got easier when you started to forget, as awful as it sounded. You knew there was something special about your lucky D20, aside from its luck. But his features blurred in your mind. His voice had gone first, followed by his name, and pretty soon, all you had was the feeling of his hands around yours. A year later, and that was gone, too. You figured he must have been one of the guys from the G&G club at your college, a member of the nerd herd, whatever vague memory of him was left got neatly sorted away with those.

You moved back into your childhood home. Your parents moved out, headed for warmer weather down south. Your Dad had turned the other upstairs bedroom into a gym, though you barely used it. The attic door was locked, and you weren’t sure where the key was, but…there wasn’t much up there anyway, just some holiday decorations and some board games, you were sure.

Surprisingly, there weren’t a ton of jobs readily lined up for someone with a Customer Service degree. But thanks to your friend Sam, you had gotten a foot in the door at Valdivian. They were one of the biggest companies in the world. It was a big deal.

Your first day was going relatively smoothly until you got more or less fired on the spot, replaced by VAL 9000, an AI assistant. Well, technically not fired, just…put in “labor limbo” until they could figure out what to do with you.

You sat at the desk, shell-shocked. “Huh. Great.”

Your eyes wandered to the D20 you kept sitting on your desk. The red one from college, your lucky die. You didn’t have much time to play anymore, with all of your friends scattered to the winds, but it still made a good fidget when you were knee deep in paperwork, job applications, and fanfic. You reached for it, but were interrupted by a ping on your phone, a Thiscord message from…some rando.

And to make a long story short, a drone floated past your windows, carrying a neatly wrapped blue and yellow box. You opened it, watching in awe as a pair of pinkish-orange glasses floated right out of it and…onto your face.

Yep, you were doing this.

***

You laid in bed the next morning, staring at the ceiling. Maybe it had been a dream. The glasses. The phone lady, the bed lady, the handsome door guy, the magnifying glass. Maybe you had a gas leak or something. Black mold?

You turned to look at the glasses sitting on your nightstand, however, and realized that it was very much real. Your house was alive.

Your…your house was alive. Why was that so familiar? You reached for the Dateviators, putting them back on and getting out of bed. Well, there was only one way to find out.

You poked around the house a bit, using three charges to meet a cluster of himbos in your closet, an Elvis impersonator in your shower, and a bubbly ginger running your mom’s minibar. When you woke up the table, however, a big, kind cowboy named Abel, he had some advice you weren’t expecting.

“Well hey there, (Y/N), wasn’t expectin’ to see you so soon. I thought you’d be tucked away in the office by now.”

“The office?” You asked.

He gave a knowing chuckle. “Why don’t you go take a look in there? I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

“Thank you, Abel. I’ll…I guess I’ll go take a look.”

You walked up the hallway to the office, each step slowed by your thoughts, mulling over exactly what, or who could possibly be waiting for you in there, when it hit you all at once.

Those nights in the dice bag came flooding back.

His silly little laugh that curled into a snort more often than not, those kind red eyes he always sheltered behind his redder glasses. The way his cheeks would flush any time you complimented him, the way his big, warm hands would cup your face when he was reassuring you, making sure you absorbed every bit of his words, that you breathed until you calmed down after particularly bad nightmares. The way he so easily scooped you into his arms, holding you until you woke up back in bed. The way his lips so perfectly chased yours, smooth and soft and passionate and hungry all at once, sending flutters of pleasure and warmth through your middle. 

Chance, you remembered. His name was Chance. A fitting name for a D20.

In all meanings of the word, he had been your boyfriend, and…

You’d forgotten him. God, you’d really forgotten him! All of his fears had come true. You’d gone about your life, you’d had a handful of shitty dates, hell, you didn’t even play G&G anymore! He…he’d been sitting there for so long, collecting dust, aside from the few times a week when you’d fiddle with him while working on things.

You swallowed the lump in your throat, parsing through the guilt that was threatening to spill over. What if it wasn’t him anyway? What if all of that, all of these memories you hadn’t touched in ages were just…dreams after all? And you woke up your D20 and it was just some other nerd?

You took a shaking breath. You had to try, though. You owed him that.

So, mustering what courage you could, you opened the office door, slipping inside. It was dark, night had fallen and you’d spent your whole day conversing with the furniture. God, Sam was going to think you were losing it.

You picked up the die with both hands, Dateviators locked on, and woke it up.

Standing in front of you was a man in a cloak, face shrouded in shadow, a gridded tabletop map hanging from his shoulders, character sheets wrapped around his collar, a rulebook shielding his front, and tucked into a pair of baggy trousers that looked like your dice bag.

Your heart sank to your toes, staring up at him. He…this wasn’t him. Chance. He really had been a figment of your imagination after all.

“Ho there, traveler!” He greeted, voice warbled a little as he presented himself to you. He was in good spirits, whoever he was, but you couldn’t fight the tears that were welling in your eyes, the disappointment swelling in your chest.

“H-hey there. Sorry.” You murmured, voice caught in your throat as you wiped away a stray tear. You were trying to be polite. No reason to get off on the wrong foot with this guy, despite the heartbreak ripping itself through your sternum. “I-I just…thought you would be…”

“Woah, woah, hey, it’s okay.” He faltered, hastily taking off his cloak and revealing his true self beneath the facade. His voice slipped into a more natural tone.  “This thing is kinda scary, I know. I come in peace. I…I’m Chance. I’m your D20.” He brushed himself off, straightening up again.

There he was. That upswept dark hair, those kind, vulnerable eyes that were searching every facet of you for some glimmer of…something.

Your voice was caught in your throat for different reasons now, just staring, unsure of what to say or…or how to say it. Total deer in headlights. Your heart raced, lip wobbling.

“...but I take it you…already knew that.” He said softly, sounding hopeful more than anything. But that little bit of hope went undetected in your emotional state.

You scooped up the pieces of your broken heart and blurted out the thing at the very forefront of your mind. “You don’t remember.”

“No, hey, of…of course I do. I…I didn’t think you would, since, well, since it’s been so long. Two years is a long time to be hung up on a chunk of resin, you know.”

You crossed the distance, arms wrapping around him immediately, his guidebook, well, corset acting as a barrier between the two of you. Yet, he pulled you close, a large hand cradling your head, the other wound tight around your back.

He let out a long breath, cheek smushed against your forehead, eyes closed. It felt…real. Not real real. There was still some level of fuzz there, given the nature of the Dateviators. This wasn’t a physical Chance, just a projection of him that your conscious could interact with. But to your nervous system and eyeballs…it felt pretty convincing.

“I’m sorry I forgot.”

He shook his head, voice soft. “It’s not your fault.”

“I remember now.” You reassured, looking up at him, meeting those gentle eyes through the red-tinted glass.

He pushed some stray hair out of your face, pressing a kiss to your forehead. “I…I still can’t quite believe this is happening. I’m gonna wake up any second now.”

“No, we…we’re wide awake now. Both of us this time.” You said, voice certain.

“So what are these things?” He poked the bridge of your glasses with a careful finger.

“Dateviators, apparently. And they let me…interact with your plane again, the way I used to when I was asleep.” You told him. “I think they’re very stylish. And we match now.”

He grinned. “We do, don’t we?”

You explained the rules Skylar had laid out for you. Five charges a day, one charge per object each day, which meant that you wouldn’t be able to spend a whole day with Chance, but it meant you could come back and see him tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. It wasn’t perfect, but you’d take it.

“Holy crit. Well, that…yeah, that works. Do you have any plans tomorrow? I’ve been working on a G&G campaign for the last, say, two years that I think Elodie would be perfect for. If you’re still playing her, that is.” He cupped your face in his hands, nose dangerously close to yours.

“I could bust out those old character sheets.”

Chance grinned, eyes taking in your features, memorizing each crease and freckle like it was the first time. “I’ve been dying to play with you.”

“Like old times.” You murmured. “But better.”

“So much better. I think a few of the others are interested, too. But, uh…I wouldn’t mind having a one-on-one Session Zero. Make sure I know all of…you know, Elodie’s stats and stuff. It’s been a while.” His cheeks flushed red at the suggestion.

“It’s a date.” You promised, a hand smoothing up the spine of the book on his chest. You wondered if he still looked the same underneath. You hoped he did. “Well, what do you wanna do with the rest of this charge? We probably have an hour or two left.”

He grinned, glasses flashing in the light, making his eyes nearly unreadable. “Oh, I’ve got a couple ideas.”