a writer named lisa / requests are open! / link to masterlist / rules for requesting / side blog @keaygerard / f1 blog @starsainz / hockey side blog @strome-dylan
Hiii i hope ur having a good day! I whanted to request for dead poet society ,steven meeks x femalt reader technically it is the 1950s so maybe the alt reader would be more of a wensday from the adams family type .The story if u do write it would be them falling in love for the first time ,maybe charlie invited a bunch of girls to the cave and she stood out to him?
masterlist
When Charlie announces he’s bringing girls to the next meeting of the Dead Poets Society, Steven assumes it’s going to go terribly
Instead of being a sacred moment between his best friends, he’s just going to have to watch Knox and Charlie fall over themselves to flirt with whatever girls they found at the nearest high school
As it turns out, though, Steven is the one who ends up so starstruck he can hardly recite a single word
Among the pack of girls is one who strikes him like a silver arrow, dressed all in black with the most beautiful, captivating eyes he’s ever seen
Not only is she stunning, she’s smart, too– when Neil asks if any of the girls have some poetry they want to share, she stands up and reads off a dark, melancholy excerpt that makes Steven think of a storm-tossed sea, a deep emerald forest, a place untouched by human hands
He thinks some of the others might have been put off by the poem’s macabre message, but not Steven, and Y/N has hardly sat down again before Steven is whispering to her ecstatically about how much he liked her work
She’s been entirely unaffected by the antics of the Society all night, but when Steven speaks, he earns himself a faint smile
It’s enough to keep him by her side the whole night, especially when she reads him a few more lines in whispers so no one else hears but him
It makes Steven feel special, like the two of them are on a frequency no one else can find
And, when the night ends and they have to reluctantly drag themselves back to reality, Steven manages to leave with three very important things, because every decent poet knows anything of value always comes in triplicate:
A phone number (hers)
A poem (hers again)
A promise (that she’ll be back to visit again very soon)
Steven is certain that no night in the history of nights has ever gone quite so well as this one, and none will again, except maybe the next time he crosses her path
Hiii i hope ur having a good day! I whanted to request for dead poet society ,steven meeks x femalt reader technically it is the 1950s so maybe the alt reader would be more of a wensday from the adams family type .The story if u do write it would be them falling in love for the first time ,maybe charlie invited a bunch of girls to the cave and she stood out to him?
masterlist
When Charlie announces he’s bringing girls to the next meeting of the Dead Poets Society, Steven assumes it’s going to go terribly
Instead of being a sacred moment between his best friends, he’s just going to have to watch Knox and Charlie fall over themselves to flirt with whatever girls they found at the nearest high school
As it turns out, though, Steven is the one who ends up so starstruck he can hardly recite a single word
Among the pack of girls is one who strikes him like a silver arrow, dressed all in black with the most beautiful, captivating eyes he’s ever seen
Not only is she stunning, she’s smart, too– when Neil asks if any of the girls have some poetry they want to share, she stands up and reads off a dark, melancholy excerpt that makes Steven think of a storm-tossed sea, a deep emerald forest, a place untouched by human hands
He thinks some of the others might have been put off by the poem’s macabre message, but not Steven, and Y/N has hardly sat down again before Steven is whispering to her ecstatically about how much he liked her work
She’s been entirely unaffected by the antics of the Society all night, but when Steven speaks, he earns himself a faint smile
It’s enough to keep him by her side the whole night, especially when she reads him a few more lines in whispers so no one else hears but him
It makes Steven feel special, like the two of them are on a frequency no one else can find
And, when the night ends and they have to reluctantly drag themselves back to reality, Steven manages to leave with three very important things, because every decent poet knows anything of value always comes in triplicate:
A phone number (hers)
A poem (hers again)
A promise (that she’ll be back to visit again very soon)
Steven is certain that no night in the history of nights has ever gone quite so well as this one, and none will again, except maybe the next time he crosses her path
Hiii i hope ur having a good day! I whanted to request for dead poet society ,steven meeks x femalt reader technically it is the 1950s so maybe the alt reader would be more of a wensday from the adams family type .The story if u do write it would be them falling in love for the first time ,maybe charlie invited a bunch of girls to the cave and she stood out to him?
masterlist
When Charlie announces he’s bringing girls to the next meeting of the Dead Poets Society, Steven assumes it’s going to go terribly
Instead of being a sacred moment between his best friends, he’s just going to have to watch Knox and Charlie fall over themselves to flirt with whatever girls they found at the nearest high school
As it turns out, though, Steven is the one who ends up so starstruck he can hardly recite a single word
Among the pack of girls is one who strikes him like a silver arrow, dressed all in black with the most beautiful, captivating eyes he’s ever seen
Not only is she stunning, she’s smart, too– when Neil asks if any of the girls have some poetry they want to share, she stands up and reads off a dark, melancholy excerpt that makes Steven think of a storm-tossed sea, a deep emerald forest, a place untouched by human hands
He thinks some of the others might have been put off by the poem’s macabre message, but not Steven, and Y/N has hardly sat down again before Steven is whispering to her ecstatically about how much he liked her work
She’s been entirely unaffected by the antics of the Society all night, but when Steven speaks, he earns himself a faint smile
It’s enough to keep him by her side the whole night, especially when she reads him a few more lines in whispers so no one else hears but him
It makes Steven feel special, like the two of them are on a frequency no one else can find
And, when the night ends and they have to reluctantly drag themselves back to reality, Steven manages to leave with three very important things, because every decent poet knows anything of value always comes in triplicate:
A phone number (hers)
A poem (hers again)
A promise (that she’ll be back to visit again very soon)
Steven is certain that no night in the history of nights has ever gone quite so well as this one, and none will again, except maybe the next time he crosses her path
Hiii i hope ur having a good day! I whanted to request for dead poet society ,steven meeks x femalt reader technically it is the 1950s so maybe the alt reader would be more of a wensday from the adams family type .The story if u do write it would be them falling in love for the first time ,maybe charlie invited a bunch of girls to the cave and she stood out to him?
masterlist
When Charlie announces he’s bringing girls to the next meeting of the Dead Poets Society, Steven assumes it’s going to go terribly
Instead of being a sacred moment between his best friends, he’s just going to have to watch Knox and Charlie fall over themselves to flirt with whatever girls they found at the nearest high school
As it turns out, though, Steven is the one who ends up so starstruck he can hardly recite a single word
Among the pack of girls is one who strikes him like a silver arrow, dressed all in black with the most beautiful, captivating eyes he’s ever seen
Not only is she stunning, she’s smart, too– when Neil asks if any of the girls have some poetry they want to share, she stands up and reads off a dark, melancholy excerpt that makes Steven think of a storm-tossed sea, a deep emerald forest, a place untouched by human hands
He thinks some of the others might have been put off by the poem’s macabre message, but not Steven, and Y/N has hardly sat down again before Steven is whispering to her ecstatically about how much he liked her work
She’s been entirely unaffected by the antics of the Society all night, but when Steven speaks, he earns himself a faint smile
It’s enough to keep him by her side the whole night, especially when she reads him a few more lines in whispers so no one else hears but him
It makes Steven feel special, like the two of them are on a frequency no one else can find
And, when the night ends and they have to reluctantly drag themselves back to reality, Steven manages to leave with three very important things, because every decent poet knows anything of value always comes in triplicate:
A phone number (hers)
A poem (hers again)
A promise (that she’ll be back to visit again very soon)
Steven is certain that no night in the history of nights has ever gone quite so well as this one, and none will again, except maybe the next time he crosses her path
(i do not want to stress you out since youre just back from your break so you dont have to answer)
Could i pretty please request a Ron Weasley x Reader where reader (ravenclaw) happens to be in most of his classes and even while quiet and seemingly not listening always gets good grades so Ron asks them for some tutoring? and he gets kinda shy and soft when they are alone in a part of the library? just some soft school romance
'Tutoring' - ron weasley x reader
masterlist
It’s been a busy few weeks, but if you didn’t know better, you’d say you’re actually almost done with your work. Yes– with a few last penstrokes, you wrap up a particularly clever Charms essay, and survey the piles of work on the desk in front of you. There’s the set of Arithmancy derivations, excruciatingly thorough just as required, and your Potions notes, all complete for the practical exam tomorrow, plus the Transfiguration practice, a row of buttons all perfectly round and shiny despite the fact that they’d begun this morning as a pack of snails.
You put your pen down and lean back with satisfaction. Merlin, you’ve done it. All your work is complete. There’s nothing particularly pressing to study for, no more essays in need of revising, and your readings are all complete and ready with notes for their respective classes. If you didn’t know better, you’d say you’ve actually earned some time off.
For a Ravenclaw, that’s no easy feat. You swear your professors pile on extra work when they have a room full of blue-robed students in front of them, something about wanting to challenge their brightest students to their greatest potential. As any true Ravenclaw, you do find your work fascinating, but you wouldn’t mind a break every now and again.
And, for once in your storied academic career, you’ve actually managed to earn yourself one. Stars above, you think the last time you were this caught up on your work was first year. You look out the library window happily. The sun is shining still, and the weather charms you’ve cast all promise clear skies for the next few days. Maybe you’ll take a book out to read on the grounds, or walk around the lake for a bit–
All of a sudden, your view of your perfectly free afternoon is blocked by someone slumping down in the chair opposite you. Your forehead creases and you try to peek around them still, but one look at Ron Weasley and you know you won’t be getting off that easy. You fight a tortured sigh. Ron may be staring at you beseechingly, but surely your perfect afternoon isn’t gone quite yet. Maybe he’s just here because he’s lost and he needs directions to the Quidditch pitch. Why else would he be in the library?
The only other times you see Ron between these hallowed bookshelves are when he’s trying to hunt down clues with Harry Potter about whatever dangerous thing is currently terrorizing your school, or otherwise trailing after Hermione and begging her to do his homework. Only, you haven’t seen Hermione in here for a while, which means that he’s probably moved onto a new target.
You cast a terrified glance Ron’s way. You’ve hardly interacted with Ron the whole time you’ve been at school, and can count on one hand the number of times you’ve spoken over the past years. Surely, if he wanted to dump his schoolwork on someone, he’d pick a victim whose name he knew, right? And that isn’t you, right?
Ron still hasn’t moved, and the hopeful possibility that he might be here for someone else grows more slim with every passing moment. Still, you try anyway. “Are you here looking for Hermione?” You ask desperately.
Ron shakes his head quickly, sending tousled copper locks flying. “No, no. I actually wanted to talk to you, Y/N.”
Hex and double hex. He knows your name after all. Steeling yourself, you ask, “Why did you want to see me?”
Ron nods slowly, clearly glad you haven’t chased him off quite yet. “I need your help with class.”
“What class?” You ask airily, trying to pretend as if your hopes of a work-free afternoon aren’t vanishing by the minute. “I’m sure you’ve got tons of friends in all of them.”
Ron scratches his head, looking up at you bashfully. “Well, that’s the thing. I’m having trouble following the lectures but I go to my friends on so much stuff that I think they’re going to get sick of me if I keep asking. Besides, Harry’s not much better. We’d just be clueless together.”
“The blind leading the blind,” you murmur sadly, half to yourself. “If this is about homework help, I still think Hermione would be a better bet–”
“I don’t want your homework answers,” Ron says in a rush, clearly anticipating this. “I just want– I need someone to help explain some of the concepts, that’s all. Like, tutoring, I think?”
He whispers ‘tutor’ as if it were a dirty word, and you suppose to a Gryffindor, it might be. You’re certainly staring at him as if he’s lost his marbles. “Why do you want me to tutor you?”
Ron flushes. “I know we haven’t exactly talked a whole lot before, but you’re super smart, everyone says it. Besides, I felt safe asking you, I guess. I see you in class, half the time you’re just staring out the window like me but you manage to get good grades even despite zoning out. I want to know how you do it.”
You feel your own face starting to heat up. You won’t deny that you appreciate the compliment to your intelligence, but his observation of you losing focus in the lecture hall isn’t off the mark, either. You try to pay attention in class, really, you do, it just happens that so much of what the professors say on a day to day basis isn’t entirely useful for completing your assignments. The teaching staff clearly love what they do, and they can go on rambling detours that never come up again. You’ve gotten a rough sense of what information is useful and what isn’t, the rest can be tuned out once it’s clear it isn’t important. Besides, the grounds of Hogwarts are beautiful, much prettier than a stuffy classroom, and–
“I’ll help,” you say, surprising both Ron and yourself. “It’s just about paying attention to the right things, that’s all. I’m sure you’ll pick it up quickly.”
“Great,” Ron says, cracking a broad grin. “I’m excited to learn the Y/N Method.”
You chuckle in spite of yourself. “It’s just a few tricks I picked up, nothing special.”
“I’d argue with that,” Ron says wryly. “From my point of view, it looks pretty special indeed.”
The desk in front of you suddenly demands all of your attention, and you stare earnestly at the completed page of Charms writing as you mumble, “It’ll wear off once we start working.”
“Agree to disagree,” Ron says glibly, and for some reason that makes your stomach do a slow loop in your chest. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then? If that works for you?”
“Sure,” you say before you can stop yourself. “See you then.”
Ron flashes you one last smile, then disappears from the library as if being there too long is physically painful. You watch him go and try to remind yourself that he’s only doing this to save his grade, that he’s picked you on a whim. It doesn’t entirely stick in your head.
You’re only half certain that Ron is actually going to follow through with this, but sure enough, the redhead comes traipsing up to your table the next morning. You’ve opted for a secluded desk in an empty classroom, giving you plenty of space to spread out your books and even draw on the blackboard if need be.
Ron glances around curiously as he takes a seat opposite you. “Nice place to study. Though I guess I’m used to seeing more people in here at a time.”
You shake your head dismissively. “I think they use this room for fifth-year History of Magic study hall, but they won’t host that class for another few hours. We’ll have plenty of time. Plus, I figured you wouldn’t mind avoiding any onlookers.”
That thought had occurred to you this morning, that Ron might be embarrassed to be seen tutoring you. He’s got loads of brothers, he probably doesn’t want to get noticed by any of them, certainly not with you.
However, Ron just looks confused. “I don’t care about them. ‘Sides, they’d probably be jealous I managed to convince you to do this.”
You look at him, surprised. “Jealous? Why’s that?”
Ron’s eyes widen like saucers. “What? No reason. It’s because you’re, uh, smart! Yeah, you’re super smart. They’re jealous that my grades are going to be good.”
He nods hastily, and you have to bite back a smile. “Well, I’m happy you believe in me. For what it’s worth, I think you’re a pretty clever guy, too.”
Ron scoffs. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw my Potions essay. I think there’s more red ink after Snape’s done grading than my actual writing.”
You lift a shoulder in a casual shrug. “Well, maybe I’ve got you beat in the classroom, but from what I hear you’ve been in plenty of scary situations. You’ve got to think quickly on your feet to survive half the stuff you have.”
Ron brightens. “You really think so?”
“I do,” you answer honestly, “Unfortunate that most of our grading comes from essays, not defensive practicums, then.”
“Yeah,” Ron agrees fervently. “I don’t think there’s any way to make spellwork as interesting as fighting Dark magic.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” you reply.
Ron gives you a highly doubtful look. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” you say crisply. “Here, I’ll convince you.”
With that, you start your first tutoring session with Ron. By the end of it, you’re not sure he’s entirely swayed to your point of view, but he has got the hang of a few tricky Transfigurations and his notes for the latest Potions assignment are greatly improved, so you’d consider that a win. Better yet, he’s actually smiling ear to ear as he leaves, not cursing your name and running for the hills. In fact, he even goes so far as to ask if you can do the same thing in a few days.
You agree, and let him walk you to your next class; Divination, which the two of you have together. One of your friends from Ravenclaw gives you a stunned look as you slide into your usual seat next to her. “Were you just with Ron Weasley? Since when have you hung out with Gryffindor athletes?”
“Shut up,” you tell her matter-of-factly.
Your friend stares, baffled, between you and Ron, who’s gone over to sit with Harry in a nearby corner. “No, seriously. He was laughing. I didn’t predict the two of you getting on together in my last tea leaf reading.”
“I’m going to predict your imminent doom in my next tea leaf reading if you don’t drop it,” you say tartly.
Your friend has the presence of mind to change the subject, although she does keep eyeing Ron, who for some reason has started grinning as he buffs up his crystal ball with the edge of his sleeve.
Ron meets you at the end of the week, griping about Binns’ inability to be interesting for once in his already-over life, and the next week, too, where he goes on for quite a while about the seemingly identical swishes and flicks Flitwick is having you all memorize for an upcoming exam. For someone who’s seemingly so annoyed about schoolwork, though, he does seem to spend an awful lot of time in tutoring, and he has this habit of making jokes and then looking up at you with big, hopeful eyes to make sure you laugh.
And laugh you do, more than you expected. Ron has a way of making you smile even in spite of yourself. Your friends have started to comment on your recent swing of good moods, but you just shrug and say that you’ve been doing well in your classes. They accept that reason well enough.
It’s not just you who’s been doing well in class, though. To the great surprise of his friends and himself, Ron has been steadily improving in his schoolwork, consistently pulling decent grades out of seemingly nowhere. He’s not getting perfect scores, but he’s understanding the material more than he ever did before. The professors have started to notice, too; after Ron earns three straight ‘Exceeds Expectations’ on Charms assignments without ever having to bug Hermione for free answers, Flitwick passes by your desk at the end of class and mutters, “Ten points to Ravenclaw.”
You glance at him in surprise. “For what?”
He just smiles. “A Ravenclaw ready and excited to share their wit with the other Houses is an excellent example of our students indeed. Well done with your tutoring, I am sure Mr. Weasley appreciates the help.”
You stare at him incredulously. “Thank you, sir, but how did you know it was me?”
Professor Flitwick looks around the room serenely. “A wizard never tells. Unless it is to help someone learn, of course.”
With that, he walks away, leaving you to wonder about just how obvious you’ve been with your happiness over Ron’s success. That happiness starts to come with some trepidation later on, though, as during your most recent tutoring session, it occurs to you that Ron may not want to keep this up forever.
He had come in happy, brandishing a Potions practicum write-up with an ‘E’ written regretfully across the front. “Snape looked like he wanted to murder me when he handed it over, but look at that! Merlin, a few more of these and I’ll be set for life. Maybe I’ll start tutoring you.”
Something in his wording gives you pause. “You’re happy with your grades, then?”
“More than happy,” Ron says gleefully. “Never thought I’d see stuff like this in my life. Mum’s over the moon, keeps writing about how I might make Prefect with grades like these.”
A weight settles over your chest. “Does that mean you feel like you’re done with tutoring? If you’re happy with your results?”
Ron glances up slowly from his paper, registering at last that the look on your face isn’t as pleased as his. “Well, I guess. You’re probably busy anyway, wouldn’t want to bother you.”
“Wasn’t a bother,” you murmur under your breath. “I liked doing it.”
“So did I,” Ron says back hesitantly. “But you’re right, I should quit while I’m ahead.”
Although he just got here, Ron shoots to his feet, and stares at you awkwardly for a few moments before raising his hand. “I’ll, uh, see you around, then?”
“Yeah,” you whisper back.
Ron hangs out for a second longer, as if waiting for something that never comes, then turns and slowly slinks out of the room. You watch him go, feeling as if you’ve lost something you could never get back. This moment was always going to come, you knew that, and if it wasn’t now it would be later in the year when the Quidditch season kicked up in earnest. Still, it hurts even more than you expected.
You sit there, all alone in your little classroom. You don’t have any work to do, you wrapped up your essays and practices earlier today in anticipation of today’s tutoring session, but the time off doesn’t fill you with the same joy as it had several weeks ago. Instead, you just feel lonely, wishing there was someone else here who would make you laugh and smile at you over quiz questions on the ingredients of a Pepperup Potion.
You’re starting to discover that you’ve really blown everything when footsteps echo in the hallway outside, and all of a sudden Ron is back again, pushing himself through the doorway and up to you again.
“I just realized, I was wrong,” Ron says through hurried breaths, “I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to stop talking to you. You can tutor me about anything you want. I like hanging out with you, Y/N. I haven’t just been doing this for the grades. It’s been all about you for quite a while now.”
You look up at him, speechless, then finally manage to eke out, “Me too.”
His face splits in another one of those beautiful smiles. “Good. Good! Just– just wanted you to know.”
Ron falls into a seat opposite you, slinging his bag onto the ground again. “Shall we get back to it, then? What are we studying?”
“We don’t have to study anything,” you say, getting courage out of a place you didn’t know existed until just this moment. “Maybe we could, you know, just hang out and get to know each other. Maybe even get lunch or something.”
Ron nods excitedly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that. Harry said I should do something like that. He’s the one who told me to come back in here, you know. He saw me walking around like a rejected first-year and told me to get my head in order. Guess he was right.”
You send a silent thank-you out to Harry Potter and remind yourself to get him something later. Maybe a homework or two. “I think he was.”
Ron smiles over at you, the sunlight streaming from a nearby window and coalescing on the copper of his hair, the shine of his eyes whenever he looks at you. If you didn’t know better, you’d say that Ron really, really likes you. If you didn’t know better, you’d say that you feel the same way about him.
harry potter tag list: @blondsauduun, @cameronsails, @neewtmas, @lovesanimals0000, @with-inked-solace, @sher-lokid7, @eclliipsed, @frenchgirlinlondon, @23victoria, @ilovexavierthrope, @faerieroyal
(i do not want to stress you out since youre just back from your break so you dont have to answer)
Could i pretty please request a Ron Weasley x Reader where reader (ravenclaw) happens to be in most of his classes and even while quiet and seemingly not listening always gets good grades so Ron asks them for some tutoring? and he gets kinda shy and soft when they are alone in a part of the library? just some soft school romance
'Tutoring' - ron weasley x reader
masterlist
It’s been a busy few weeks, but if you didn’t know better, you’d say you’re actually almost done with your work. Yes– with a few last penstrokes, you wrap up a particularly clever Charms essay, and survey the piles of work on the desk in front of you. There’s the set of Arithmancy derivations, excruciatingly thorough just as required, and your Potions notes, all complete for the practical exam tomorrow, plus the Transfiguration practice, a row of buttons all perfectly round and shiny despite the fact that they’d begun this morning as a pack of snails.
You put your pen down and lean back with satisfaction. Merlin, you’ve done it. All your work is complete. There’s nothing particularly pressing to study for, no more essays in need of revising, and your readings are all complete and ready with notes for their respective classes. If you didn’t know better, you’d say you’ve actually earned some time off.
For a Ravenclaw, that’s no easy feat. You swear your professors pile on extra work when they have a room full of blue-robed students in front of them, something about wanting to challenge their brightest students to their greatest potential. As any true Ravenclaw, you do find your work fascinating, but you wouldn’t mind a break every now and again.
And, for once in your storied academic career, you’ve actually managed to earn yourself one. Stars above, you think the last time you were this caught up on your work was first year. You look out the library window happily. The sun is shining still, and the weather charms you’ve cast all promise clear skies for the next few days. Maybe you’ll take a book out to read on the grounds, or walk around the lake for a bit–
All of a sudden, your view of your perfectly free afternoon is blocked by someone slumping down in the chair opposite you. Your forehead creases and you try to peek around them still, but one look at Ron Weasley and you know you won’t be getting off that easy. You fight a tortured sigh. Ron may be staring at you beseechingly, but surely your perfect afternoon isn’t gone quite yet. Maybe he’s just here because he’s lost and he needs directions to the Quidditch pitch. Why else would he be in the library?
The only other times you see Ron between these hallowed bookshelves are when he’s trying to hunt down clues with Harry Potter about whatever dangerous thing is currently terrorizing your school, or otherwise trailing after Hermione and begging her to do his homework. Only, you haven’t seen Hermione in here for a while, which means that he’s probably moved onto a new target.
You cast a terrified glance Ron’s way. You’ve hardly interacted with Ron the whole time you’ve been at school, and can count on one hand the number of times you’ve spoken over the past years. Surely, if he wanted to dump his schoolwork on someone, he’d pick a victim whose name he knew, right? And that isn’t you, right?
Ron still hasn’t moved, and the hopeful possibility that he might be here for someone else grows more slim with every passing moment. Still, you try anyway. “Are you here looking for Hermione?” You ask desperately.
Ron shakes his head quickly, sending tousled copper locks flying. “No, no. I actually wanted to talk to you, Y/N.”
Hex and double hex. He knows your name after all. Steeling yourself, you ask, “Why did you want to see me?”
Ron nods slowly, clearly glad you haven’t chased him off quite yet. “I need your help with class.”
“What class?” You ask airily, trying to pretend as if your hopes of a work-free afternoon aren’t vanishing by the minute. “I’m sure you’ve got tons of friends in all of them.”
Ron scratches his head, looking up at you bashfully. “Well, that’s the thing. I’m having trouble following the lectures but I go to my friends on so much stuff that I think they’re going to get sick of me if I keep asking. Besides, Harry’s not much better. We’d just be clueless together.”
“The blind leading the blind,” you murmur sadly, half to yourself. “If this is about homework help, I still think Hermione would be a better bet–”
“I don’t want your homework answers,” Ron says in a rush, clearly anticipating this. “I just want– I need someone to help explain some of the concepts, that’s all. Like, tutoring, I think?”
He whispers ‘tutor’ as if it were a dirty word, and you suppose to a Gryffindor, it might be. You’re certainly staring at him as if he’s lost his marbles. “Why do you want me to tutor you?”
Ron flushes. “I know we haven’t exactly talked a whole lot before, but you’re super smart, everyone says it. Besides, I felt safe asking you, I guess. I see you in class, half the time you’re just staring out the window like me but you manage to get good grades even despite zoning out. I want to know how you do it.”
You feel your own face starting to heat up. You won’t deny that you appreciate the compliment to your intelligence, but his observation of you losing focus in the lecture hall isn’t off the mark, either. You try to pay attention in class, really, you do, it just happens that so much of what the professors say on a day to day basis isn’t entirely useful for completing your assignments. The teaching staff clearly love what they do, and they can go on rambling detours that never come up again. You’ve gotten a rough sense of what information is useful and what isn’t, the rest can be tuned out once it’s clear it isn’t important. Besides, the grounds of Hogwarts are beautiful, much prettier than a stuffy classroom, and–
“I’ll help,” you say, surprising both Ron and yourself. “It’s just about paying attention to the right things, that’s all. I’m sure you’ll pick it up quickly.”
“Great,” Ron says, cracking a broad grin. “I’m excited to learn the Y/N Method.”
You chuckle in spite of yourself. “It’s just a few tricks I picked up, nothing special.”
“I’d argue with that,” Ron says wryly. “From my point of view, it looks pretty special indeed.”
The desk in front of you suddenly demands all of your attention, and you stare earnestly at the completed page of Charms writing as you mumble, “It’ll wear off once we start working.”
“Agree to disagree,” Ron says glibly, and for some reason that makes your stomach do a slow loop in your chest. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then? If that works for you?”
“Sure,” you say before you can stop yourself. “See you then.”
Ron flashes you one last smile, then disappears from the library as if being there too long is physically painful. You watch him go and try to remind yourself that he’s only doing this to save his grade, that he’s picked you on a whim. It doesn’t entirely stick in your head.
You’re only half certain that Ron is actually going to follow through with this, but sure enough, the redhead comes traipsing up to your table the next morning. You’ve opted for a secluded desk in an empty classroom, giving you plenty of space to spread out your books and even draw on the blackboard if need be.
Ron glances around curiously as he takes a seat opposite you. “Nice place to study. Though I guess I’m used to seeing more people in here at a time.”
You shake your head dismissively. “I think they use this room for fifth-year History of Magic study hall, but they won’t host that class for another few hours. We’ll have plenty of time. Plus, I figured you wouldn’t mind avoiding any onlookers.”
That thought had occurred to you this morning, that Ron might be embarrassed to be seen tutoring you. He’s got loads of brothers, he probably doesn’t want to get noticed by any of them, certainly not with you.
However, Ron just looks confused. “I don’t care about them. ‘Sides, they’d probably be jealous I managed to convince you to do this.”
You look at him, surprised. “Jealous? Why’s that?”
Ron’s eyes widen like saucers. “What? No reason. It’s because you’re, uh, smart! Yeah, you’re super smart. They’re jealous that my grades are going to be good.”
He nods hastily, and you have to bite back a smile. “Well, I’m happy you believe in me. For what it’s worth, I think you’re a pretty clever guy, too.”
Ron scoffs. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw my Potions essay. I think there’s more red ink after Snape’s done grading than my actual writing.”
You lift a shoulder in a casual shrug. “Well, maybe I’ve got you beat in the classroom, but from what I hear you’ve been in plenty of scary situations. You’ve got to think quickly on your feet to survive half the stuff you have.”
Ron brightens. “You really think so?”
“I do,” you answer honestly, “Unfortunate that most of our grading comes from essays, not defensive practicums, then.”
“Yeah,” Ron agrees fervently. “I don’t think there’s any way to make spellwork as interesting as fighting Dark magic.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” you reply.
Ron gives you a highly doubtful look. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” you say crisply. “Here, I’ll convince you.”
With that, you start your first tutoring session with Ron. By the end of it, you’re not sure he’s entirely swayed to your point of view, but he has got the hang of a few tricky Transfigurations and his notes for the latest Potions assignment are greatly improved, so you’d consider that a win. Better yet, he’s actually smiling ear to ear as he leaves, not cursing your name and running for the hills. In fact, he even goes so far as to ask if you can do the same thing in a few days.
You agree, and let him walk you to your next class; Divination, which the two of you have together. One of your friends from Ravenclaw gives you a stunned look as you slide into your usual seat next to her. “Were you just with Ron Weasley? Since when have you hung out with Gryffindor athletes?”
“Shut up,” you tell her matter-of-factly.
Your friend stares, baffled, between you and Ron, who’s gone over to sit with Harry in a nearby corner. “No, seriously. He was laughing. I didn’t predict the two of you getting on together in my last tea leaf reading.”
“I’m going to predict your imminent doom in my next tea leaf reading if you don’t drop it,” you say tartly.
Your friend has the presence of mind to change the subject, although she does keep eyeing Ron, who for some reason has started grinning as he buffs up his crystal ball with the edge of his sleeve.
Ron meets you at the end of the week, griping about Binns’ inability to be interesting for once in his already-over life, and the next week, too, where he goes on for quite a while about the seemingly identical swishes and flicks Flitwick is having you all memorize for an upcoming exam. For someone who’s seemingly so annoyed about schoolwork, though, he does seem to spend an awful lot of time in tutoring, and he has this habit of making jokes and then looking up at you with big, hopeful eyes to make sure you laugh.
And laugh you do, more than you expected. Ron has a way of making you smile even in spite of yourself. Your friends have started to comment on your recent swing of good moods, but you just shrug and say that you’ve been doing well in your classes. They accept that reason well enough.
It’s not just you who’s been doing well in class, though. To the great surprise of his friends and himself, Ron has been steadily improving in his schoolwork, consistently pulling decent grades out of seemingly nowhere. He’s not getting perfect scores, but he’s understanding the material more than he ever did before. The professors have started to notice, too; after Ron earns three straight ‘Exceeds Expectations’ on Charms assignments without ever having to bug Hermione for free answers, Flitwick passes by your desk at the end of class and mutters, “Ten points to Ravenclaw.”
You glance at him in surprise. “For what?”
He just smiles. “A Ravenclaw ready and excited to share their wit with the other Houses is an excellent example of our students indeed. Well done with your tutoring, I am sure Mr. Weasley appreciates the help.”
You stare at him incredulously. “Thank you, sir, but how did you know it was me?”
Professor Flitwick looks around the room serenely. “A wizard never tells. Unless it is to help someone learn, of course.”
With that, he walks away, leaving you to wonder about just how obvious you’ve been with your happiness over Ron’s success. That happiness starts to come with some trepidation later on, though, as during your most recent tutoring session, it occurs to you that Ron may not want to keep this up forever.
He had come in happy, brandishing a Potions practicum write-up with an ‘E’ written regretfully across the front. “Snape looked like he wanted to murder me when he handed it over, but look at that! Merlin, a few more of these and I’ll be set for life. Maybe I’ll start tutoring you.”
Something in his wording gives you pause. “You’re happy with your grades, then?”
“More than happy,” Ron says gleefully. “Never thought I’d see stuff like this in my life. Mum’s over the moon, keeps writing about how I might make Prefect with grades like these.”
A weight settles over your chest. “Does that mean you feel like you’re done with tutoring? If you’re happy with your results?”
Ron glances up slowly from his paper, registering at last that the look on your face isn’t as pleased as his. “Well, I guess. You’re probably busy anyway, wouldn’t want to bother you.”
“Wasn’t a bother,” you murmur under your breath. “I liked doing it.”
“So did I,” Ron says back hesitantly. “But you’re right, I should quit while I’m ahead.”
Although he just got here, Ron shoots to his feet, and stares at you awkwardly for a few moments before raising his hand. “I’ll, uh, see you around, then?”
“Yeah,” you whisper back.
Ron hangs out for a second longer, as if waiting for something that never comes, then turns and slowly slinks out of the room. You watch him go, feeling as if you’ve lost something you could never get back. This moment was always going to come, you knew that, and if it wasn’t now it would be later in the year when the Quidditch season kicked up in earnest. Still, it hurts even more than you expected.
You sit there, all alone in your little classroom. You don’t have any work to do, you wrapped up your essays and practices earlier today in anticipation of today’s tutoring session, but the time off doesn’t fill you with the same joy as it had several weeks ago. Instead, you just feel lonely, wishing there was someone else here who would make you laugh and smile at you over quiz questions on the ingredients of a Pepperup Potion.
You’re starting to discover that you’ve really blown everything when footsteps echo in the hallway outside, and all of a sudden Ron is back again, pushing himself through the doorway and up to you again.
“I just realized, I was wrong,” Ron says through hurried breaths, “I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to stop talking to you. You can tutor me about anything you want. I like hanging out with you, Y/N. I haven’t just been doing this for the grades. It’s been all about you for quite a while now.”
You look up at him, speechless, then finally manage to eke out, “Me too.”
His face splits in another one of those beautiful smiles. “Good. Good! Just– just wanted you to know.”
Ron falls into a seat opposite you, slinging his bag onto the ground again. “Shall we get back to it, then? What are we studying?”
“We don’t have to study anything,” you say, getting courage out of a place you didn’t know existed until just this moment. “Maybe we could, you know, just hang out and get to know each other. Maybe even get lunch or something.”
Ron nods excitedly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that. Harry said I should do something like that. He’s the one who told me to come back in here, you know. He saw me walking around like a rejected first-year and told me to get my head in order. Guess he was right.”
You send a silent thank-you out to Harry Potter and remind yourself to get him something later. Maybe a homework or two. “I think he was.”
Ron smiles over at you, the sunlight streaming from a nearby window and coalescing on the copper of his hair, the shine of his eyes whenever he looks at you. If you didn’t know better, you’d say that Ron really, really likes you. If you didn’t know better, you’d say that you feel the same way about him.
harry potter tag list: @blondsauduun, @cameronsails, @neewtmas, @lovesanimals0000, @with-inked-solace, @sher-lokid7, @eclliipsed, @frenchgirlinlondon, @23victoria, @ilovexavierthrope, @faerieroyal
(i do not want to stress you out since youre just back from your break so you dont have to answer)
Could i pretty please request a Ron Weasley x Reader where reader (ravenclaw) happens to be in most of his classes and even while quiet and seemingly not listening always gets good grades so Ron asks them for some tutoring? and he gets kinda shy and soft when they are alone in a part of the library? just some soft school romance
'Tutoring' - ron weasley x reader
masterlist
It’s been a busy few weeks, but if you didn’t know better, you’d say you’re actually almost done with your work. Yes– with a few last penstrokes, you wrap up a particularly clever Charms essay, and survey the piles of work on the desk in front of you. There’s the set of Arithmancy derivations, excruciatingly thorough just as required, and your Potions notes, all complete for the practical exam tomorrow, plus the Transfiguration practice, a row of buttons all perfectly round and shiny despite the fact that they’d begun this morning as a pack of snails.
You put your pen down and lean back with satisfaction. Merlin, you’ve done it. All your work is complete. There’s nothing particularly pressing to study for, no more essays in need of revising, and your readings are all complete and ready with notes for their respective classes. If you didn’t know better, you’d say you’ve actually earned some time off.
For a Ravenclaw, that’s no easy feat. You swear your professors pile on extra work when they have a room full of blue-robed students in front of them, something about wanting to challenge their brightest students to their greatest potential. As any true Ravenclaw, you do find your work fascinating, but you wouldn’t mind a break every now and again.
And, for once in your storied academic career, you’ve actually managed to earn yourself one. Stars above, you think the last time you were this caught up on your work was first year. You look out the library window happily. The sun is shining still, and the weather charms you’ve cast all promise clear skies for the next few days. Maybe you’ll take a book out to read on the grounds, or walk around the lake for a bit–
All of a sudden, your view of your perfectly free afternoon is blocked by someone slumping down in the chair opposite you. Your forehead creases and you try to peek around them still, but one look at Ron Weasley and you know you won’t be getting off that easy. You fight a tortured sigh. Ron may be staring at you beseechingly, but surely your perfect afternoon isn’t gone quite yet. Maybe he’s just here because he’s lost and he needs directions to the Quidditch pitch. Why else would he be in the library?
The only other times you see Ron between these hallowed bookshelves are when he’s trying to hunt down clues with Harry Potter about whatever dangerous thing is currently terrorizing your school, or otherwise trailing after Hermione and begging her to do his homework. Only, you haven’t seen Hermione in here for a while, which means that he’s probably moved onto a new target.
You cast a terrified glance Ron’s way. You’ve hardly interacted with Ron the whole time you’ve been at school, and can count on one hand the number of times you’ve spoken over the past years. Surely, if he wanted to dump his schoolwork on someone, he’d pick a victim whose name he knew, right? And that isn’t you, right?
Ron still hasn’t moved, and the hopeful possibility that he might be here for someone else grows more slim with every passing moment. Still, you try anyway. “Are you here looking for Hermione?” You ask desperately.
Ron shakes his head quickly, sending tousled copper locks flying. “No, no. I actually wanted to talk to you, Y/N.”
Hex and double hex. He knows your name after all. Steeling yourself, you ask, “Why did you want to see me?”
Ron nods slowly, clearly glad you haven’t chased him off quite yet. “I need your help with class.”
“What class?” You ask airily, trying to pretend as if your hopes of a work-free afternoon aren’t vanishing by the minute. “I’m sure you’ve got tons of friends in all of them.”
Ron scratches his head, looking up at you bashfully. “Well, that’s the thing. I’m having trouble following the lectures but I go to my friends on so much stuff that I think they’re going to get sick of me if I keep asking. Besides, Harry’s not much better. We’d just be clueless together.”
“The blind leading the blind,” you murmur sadly, half to yourself. “If this is about homework help, I still think Hermione would be a better bet–”
“I don’t want your homework answers,” Ron says in a rush, clearly anticipating this. “I just want– I need someone to help explain some of the concepts, that’s all. Like, tutoring, I think?”
He whispers ‘tutor’ as if it were a dirty word, and you suppose to a Gryffindor, it might be. You’re certainly staring at him as if he’s lost his marbles. “Why do you want me to tutor you?”
Ron flushes. “I know we haven’t exactly talked a whole lot before, but you’re super smart, everyone says it. Besides, I felt safe asking you, I guess. I see you in class, half the time you’re just staring out the window like me but you manage to get good grades even despite zoning out. I want to know how you do it.”
You feel your own face starting to heat up. You won’t deny that you appreciate the compliment to your intelligence, but his observation of you losing focus in the lecture hall isn’t off the mark, either. You try to pay attention in class, really, you do, it just happens that so much of what the professors say on a day to day basis isn’t entirely useful for completing your assignments. The teaching staff clearly love what they do, and they can go on rambling detours that never come up again. You’ve gotten a rough sense of what information is useful and what isn’t, the rest can be tuned out once it’s clear it isn’t important. Besides, the grounds of Hogwarts are beautiful, much prettier than a stuffy classroom, and–
“I’ll help,” you say, surprising both Ron and yourself. “It’s just about paying attention to the right things, that’s all. I’m sure you’ll pick it up quickly.”
“Great,” Ron says, cracking a broad grin. “I’m excited to learn the Y/N Method.”
You chuckle in spite of yourself. “It’s just a few tricks I picked up, nothing special.”
“I’d argue with that,” Ron says wryly. “From my point of view, it looks pretty special indeed.”
The desk in front of you suddenly demands all of your attention, and you stare earnestly at the completed page of Charms writing as you mumble, “It’ll wear off once we start working.”
“Agree to disagree,” Ron says glibly, and for some reason that makes your stomach do a slow loop in your chest. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then? If that works for you?”
“Sure,” you say before you can stop yourself. “See you then.”
Ron flashes you one last smile, then disappears from the library as if being there too long is physically painful. You watch him go and try to remind yourself that he’s only doing this to save his grade, that he’s picked you on a whim. It doesn’t entirely stick in your head.
You’re only half certain that Ron is actually going to follow through with this, but sure enough, the redhead comes traipsing up to your table the next morning. You’ve opted for a secluded desk in an empty classroom, giving you plenty of space to spread out your books and even draw on the blackboard if need be.
Ron glances around curiously as he takes a seat opposite you. “Nice place to study. Though I guess I’m used to seeing more people in here at a time.”
You shake your head dismissively. “I think they use this room for fifth-year History of Magic study hall, but they won’t host that class for another few hours. We’ll have plenty of time. Plus, I figured you wouldn’t mind avoiding any onlookers.”
That thought had occurred to you this morning, that Ron might be embarrassed to be seen tutoring you. He’s got loads of brothers, he probably doesn’t want to get noticed by any of them, certainly not with you.
However, Ron just looks confused. “I don’t care about them. ‘Sides, they’d probably be jealous I managed to convince you to do this.”
You look at him, surprised. “Jealous? Why’s that?”
Ron’s eyes widen like saucers. “What? No reason. It’s because you’re, uh, smart! Yeah, you’re super smart. They’re jealous that my grades are going to be good.”
He nods hastily, and you have to bite back a smile. “Well, I’m happy you believe in me. For what it’s worth, I think you’re a pretty clever guy, too.”
Ron scoffs. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw my Potions essay. I think there’s more red ink after Snape’s done grading than my actual writing.”
You lift a shoulder in a casual shrug. “Well, maybe I’ve got you beat in the classroom, but from what I hear you’ve been in plenty of scary situations. You’ve got to think quickly on your feet to survive half the stuff you have.”
Ron brightens. “You really think so?”
“I do,” you answer honestly, “Unfortunate that most of our grading comes from essays, not defensive practicums, then.”
“Yeah,” Ron agrees fervently. “I don’t think there’s any way to make spellwork as interesting as fighting Dark magic.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” you reply.
Ron gives you a highly doubtful look. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” you say crisply. “Here, I’ll convince you.”
With that, you start your first tutoring session with Ron. By the end of it, you’re not sure he’s entirely swayed to your point of view, but he has got the hang of a few tricky Transfigurations and his notes for the latest Potions assignment are greatly improved, so you’d consider that a win. Better yet, he’s actually smiling ear to ear as he leaves, not cursing your name and running for the hills. In fact, he even goes so far as to ask if you can do the same thing in a few days.
You agree, and let him walk you to your next class; Divination, which the two of you have together. One of your friends from Ravenclaw gives you a stunned look as you slide into your usual seat next to her. “Were you just with Ron Weasley? Since when have you hung out with Gryffindor athletes?”
“Shut up,” you tell her matter-of-factly.
Your friend stares, baffled, between you and Ron, who’s gone over to sit with Harry in a nearby corner. “No, seriously. He was laughing. I didn’t predict the two of you getting on together in my last tea leaf reading.”
“I’m going to predict your imminent doom in my next tea leaf reading if you don’t drop it,” you say tartly.
Your friend has the presence of mind to change the subject, although she does keep eyeing Ron, who for some reason has started grinning as he buffs up his crystal ball with the edge of his sleeve.
Ron meets you at the end of the week, griping about Binns’ inability to be interesting for once in his already-over life, and the next week, too, where he goes on for quite a while about the seemingly identical swishes and flicks Flitwick is having you all memorize for an upcoming exam. For someone who’s seemingly so annoyed about schoolwork, though, he does seem to spend an awful lot of time in tutoring, and he has this habit of making jokes and then looking up at you with big, hopeful eyes to make sure you laugh.
And laugh you do, more than you expected. Ron has a way of making you smile even in spite of yourself. Your friends have started to comment on your recent swing of good moods, but you just shrug and say that you’ve been doing well in your classes. They accept that reason well enough.
It’s not just you who’s been doing well in class, though. To the great surprise of his friends and himself, Ron has been steadily improving in his schoolwork, consistently pulling decent grades out of seemingly nowhere. He’s not getting perfect scores, but he’s understanding the material more than he ever did before. The professors have started to notice, too; after Ron earns three straight ‘Exceeds Expectations’ on Charms assignments without ever having to bug Hermione for free answers, Flitwick passes by your desk at the end of class and mutters, “Ten points to Ravenclaw.”
You glance at him in surprise. “For what?”
He just smiles. “A Ravenclaw ready and excited to share their wit with the other Houses is an excellent example of our students indeed. Well done with your tutoring, I am sure Mr. Weasley appreciates the help.”
You stare at him incredulously. “Thank you, sir, but how did you know it was me?”
Professor Flitwick looks around the room serenely. “A wizard never tells. Unless it is to help someone learn, of course.”
With that, he walks away, leaving you to wonder about just how obvious you’ve been with your happiness over Ron’s success. That happiness starts to come with some trepidation later on, though, as during your most recent tutoring session, it occurs to you that Ron may not want to keep this up forever.
He had come in happy, brandishing a Potions practicum write-up with an ‘E’ written regretfully across the front. “Snape looked like he wanted to murder me when he handed it over, but look at that! Merlin, a few more of these and I’ll be set for life. Maybe I’ll start tutoring you.”
Something in his wording gives you pause. “You’re happy with your grades, then?”
“More than happy,” Ron says gleefully. “Never thought I’d see stuff like this in my life. Mum’s over the moon, keeps writing about how I might make Prefect with grades like these.”
A weight settles over your chest. “Does that mean you feel like you’re done with tutoring? If you’re happy with your results?”
Ron glances up slowly from his paper, registering at last that the look on your face isn’t as pleased as his. “Well, I guess. You’re probably busy anyway, wouldn’t want to bother you.”
“Wasn’t a bother,” you murmur under your breath. “I liked doing it.”
“So did I,” Ron says back hesitantly. “But you’re right, I should quit while I’m ahead.”
Although he just got here, Ron shoots to his feet, and stares at you awkwardly for a few moments before raising his hand. “I’ll, uh, see you around, then?”
“Yeah,” you whisper back.
Ron hangs out for a second longer, as if waiting for something that never comes, then turns and slowly slinks out of the room. You watch him go, feeling as if you’ve lost something you could never get back. This moment was always going to come, you knew that, and if it wasn’t now it would be later in the year when the Quidditch season kicked up in earnest. Still, it hurts even more than you expected.
You sit there, all alone in your little classroom. You don’t have any work to do, you wrapped up your essays and practices earlier today in anticipation of today’s tutoring session, but the time off doesn’t fill you with the same joy as it had several weeks ago. Instead, you just feel lonely, wishing there was someone else here who would make you laugh and smile at you over quiz questions on the ingredients of a Pepperup Potion.
You’re starting to discover that you’ve really blown everything when footsteps echo in the hallway outside, and all of a sudden Ron is back again, pushing himself through the doorway and up to you again.
“I just realized, I was wrong,” Ron says through hurried breaths, “I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to stop talking to you. You can tutor me about anything you want. I like hanging out with you, Y/N. I haven’t just been doing this for the grades. It’s been all about you for quite a while now.”
You look up at him, speechless, then finally manage to eke out, “Me too.”
His face splits in another one of those beautiful smiles. “Good. Good! Just– just wanted you to know.”
Ron falls into a seat opposite you, slinging his bag onto the ground again. “Shall we get back to it, then? What are we studying?”
“We don’t have to study anything,” you say, getting courage out of a place you didn’t know existed until just this moment. “Maybe we could, you know, just hang out and get to know each other. Maybe even get lunch or something.”
Ron nods excitedly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that. Harry said I should do something like that. He’s the one who told me to come back in here, you know. He saw me walking around like a rejected first-year and told me to get my head in order. Guess he was right.”
You send a silent thank-you out to Harry Potter and remind yourself to get him something later. Maybe a homework or two. “I think he was.”
Ron smiles over at you, the sunlight streaming from a nearby window and coalescing on the copper of his hair, the shine of his eyes whenever he looks at you. If you didn’t know better, you’d say that Ron really, really likes you. If you didn’t know better, you’d say that you feel the same way about him.
harry potter tag list: @blondsauduun, @cameronsails, @neewtmas, @lovesanimals0000, @with-inked-solace, @sher-lokid7, @eclliipsed, @frenchgirlinlondon, @23victoria, @ilovexavierthrope, @faerieroyal
(i do not want to stress you out since youre just back from your break so you dont have to answer)
Could i pretty please request a Ron Weasley x Reader where reader (ravenclaw) happens to be in most of his classes and even while quiet and seemingly not listening always gets good grades so Ron asks them for some tutoring? and he gets kinda shy and soft when they are alone in a part of the library? just some soft school romance
'Tutoring' - ron weasley x reader
masterlist
It’s been a busy few weeks, but if you didn’t know better, you’d say you’re actually almost done with your work. Yes– with a few last penstrokes, you wrap up a particularly clever Charms essay, and survey the piles of work on the desk in front of you. There’s the set of Arithmancy derivations, excruciatingly thorough just as required, and your Potions notes, all complete for the practical exam tomorrow, plus the Transfiguration practice, a row of buttons all perfectly round and shiny despite the fact that they’d begun this morning as a pack of snails.
You put your pen down and lean back with satisfaction. Merlin, you’ve done it. All your work is complete. There’s nothing particularly pressing to study for, no more essays in need of revising, and your readings are all complete and ready with notes for their respective classes. If you didn’t know better, you’d say you’ve actually earned some time off.
For a Ravenclaw, that’s no easy feat. You swear your professors pile on extra work when they have a room full of blue-robed students in front of them, something about wanting to challenge their brightest students to their greatest potential. As any true Ravenclaw, you do find your work fascinating, but you wouldn’t mind a break every now and again.
And, for once in your storied academic career, you’ve actually managed to earn yourself one. Stars above, you think the last time you were this caught up on your work was first year. You look out the library window happily. The sun is shining still, and the weather charms you’ve cast all promise clear skies for the next few days. Maybe you’ll take a book out to read on the grounds, or walk around the lake for a bit–
All of a sudden, your view of your perfectly free afternoon is blocked by someone slumping down in the chair opposite you. Your forehead creases and you try to peek around them still, but one look at Ron Weasley and you know you won’t be getting off that easy. You fight a tortured sigh. Ron may be staring at you beseechingly, but surely your perfect afternoon isn’t gone quite yet. Maybe he’s just here because he’s lost and he needs directions to the Quidditch pitch. Why else would he be in the library?
The only other times you see Ron between these hallowed bookshelves are when he’s trying to hunt down clues with Harry Potter about whatever dangerous thing is currently terrorizing your school, or otherwise trailing after Hermione and begging her to do his homework. Only, you haven’t seen Hermione in here for a while, which means that he’s probably moved onto a new target.
You cast a terrified glance Ron’s way. You’ve hardly interacted with Ron the whole time you’ve been at school, and can count on one hand the number of times you’ve spoken over the past years. Surely, if he wanted to dump his schoolwork on someone, he’d pick a victim whose name he knew, right? And that isn’t you, right?
Ron still hasn’t moved, and the hopeful possibility that he might be here for someone else grows more slim with every passing moment. Still, you try anyway. “Are you here looking for Hermione?” You ask desperately.
Ron shakes his head quickly, sending tousled copper locks flying. “No, no. I actually wanted to talk to you, Y/N.”
Hex and double hex. He knows your name after all. Steeling yourself, you ask, “Why did you want to see me?”
Ron nods slowly, clearly glad you haven’t chased him off quite yet. “I need your help with class.”
“What class?” You ask airily, trying to pretend as if your hopes of a work-free afternoon aren’t vanishing by the minute. “I’m sure you’ve got tons of friends in all of them.”
Ron scratches his head, looking up at you bashfully. “Well, that’s the thing. I’m having trouble following the lectures but I go to my friends on so much stuff that I think they’re going to get sick of me if I keep asking. Besides, Harry’s not much better. We’d just be clueless together.”
“The blind leading the blind,” you murmur sadly, half to yourself. “If this is about homework help, I still think Hermione would be a better bet–”
“I don’t want your homework answers,” Ron says in a rush, clearly anticipating this. “I just want– I need someone to help explain some of the concepts, that’s all. Like, tutoring, I think?”
He whispers ‘tutor’ as if it were a dirty word, and you suppose to a Gryffindor, it might be. You’re certainly staring at him as if he’s lost his marbles. “Why do you want me to tutor you?”
Ron flushes. “I know we haven’t exactly talked a whole lot before, but you’re super smart, everyone says it. Besides, I felt safe asking you, I guess. I see you in class, half the time you’re just staring out the window like me but you manage to get good grades even despite zoning out. I want to know how you do it.”
You feel your own face starting to heat up. You won’t deny that you appreciate the compliment to your intelligence, but his observation of you losing focus in the lecture hall isn’t off the mark, either. You try to pay attention in class, really, you do, it just happens that so much of what the professors say on a day to day basis isn’t entirely useful for completing your assignments. The teaching staff clearly love what they do, and they can go on rambling detours that never come up again. You’ve gotten a rough sense of what information is useful and what isn’t, the rest can be tuned out once it’s clear it isn’t important. Besides, the grounds of Hogwarts are beautiful, much prettier than a stuffy classroom, and–
“I’ll help,” you say, surprising both Ron and yourself. “It’s just about paying attention to the right things, that’s all. I’m sure you’ll pick it up quickly.”
“Great,” Ron says, cracking a broad grin. “I’m excited to learn the Y/N Method.”
You chuckle in spite of yourself. “It’s just a few tricks I picked up, nothing special.”
“I’d argue with that,” Ron says wryly. “From my point of view, it looks pretty special indeed.”
The desk in front of you suddenly demands all of your attention, and you stare earnestly at the completed page of Charms writing as you mumble, “It’ll wear off once we start working.”
“Agree to disagree,” Ron says glibly, and for some reason that makes your stomach do a slow loop in your chest. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning, then? If that works for you?”
“Sure,” you say before you can stop yourself. “See you then.”
Ron flashes you one last smile, then disappears from the library as if being there too long is physically painful. You watch him go and try to remind yourself that he’s only doing this to save his grade, that he’s picked you on a whim. It doesn’t entirely stick in your head.
You’re only half certain that Ron is actually going to follow through with this, but sure enough, the redhead comes traipsing up to your table the next morning. You’ve opted for a secluded desk in an empty classroom, giving you plenty of space to spread out your books and even draw on the blackboard if need be.
Ron glances around curiously as he takes a seat opposite you. “Nice place to study. Though I guess I’m used to seeing more people in here at a time.”
You shake your head dismissively. “I think they use this room for fifth-year History of Magic study hall, but they won’t host that class for another few hours. We’ll have plenty of time. Plus, I figured you wouldn’t mind avoiding any onlookers.”
That thought had occurred to you this morning, that Ron might be embarrassed to be seen tutoring you. He’s got loads of brothers, he probably doesn’t want to get noticed by any of them, certainly not with you.
However, Ron just looks confused. “I don’t care about them. ‘Sides, they’d probably be jealous I managed to convince you to do this.”
You look at him, surprised. “Jealous? Why’s that?”
Ron’s eyes widen like saucers. “What? No reason. It’s because you’re, uh, smart! Yeah, you’re super smart. They’re jealous that my grades are going to be good.”
He nods hastily, and you have to bite back a smile. “Well, I’m happy you believe in me. For what it’s worth, I think you’re a pretty clever guy, too.”
Ron scoffs. “You wouldn’t say that if you saw my Potions essay. I think there’s more red ink after Snape’s done grading than my actual writing.”
You lift a shoulder in a casual shrug. “Well, maybe I’ve got you beat in the classroom, but from what I hear you’ve been in plenty of scary situations. You’ve got to think quickly on your feet to survive half the stuff you have.”
Ron brightens. “You really think so?”
“I do,” you answer honestly, “Unfortunate that most of our grading comes from essays, not defensive practicums, then.”
“Yeah,” Ron agrees fervently. “I don’t think there’s any way to make spellwork as interesting as fighting Dark magic.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that,” you reply.
Ron gives you a highly doubtful look. “You can’t be serious.”
“I am,” you say crisply. “Here, I’ll convince you.”
With that, you start your first tutoring session with Ron. By the end of it, you’re not sure he’s entirely swayed to your point of view, but he has got the hang of a few tricky Transfigurations and his notes for the latest Potions assignment are greatly improved, so you’d consider that a win. Better yet, he’s actually smiling ear to ear as he leaves, not cursing your name and running for the hills. In fact, he even goes so far as to ask if you can do the same thing in a few days.
You agree, and let him walk you to your next class; Divination, which the two of you have together. One of your friends from Ravenclaw gives you a stunned look as you slide into your usual seat next to her. “Were you just with Ron Weasley? Since when have you hung out with Gryffindor athletes?”
“Shut up,” you tell her matter-of-factly.
Your friend stares, baffled, between you and Ron, who’s gone over to sit with Harry in a nearby corner. “No, seriously. He was laughing. I didn’t predict the two of you getting on together in my last tea leaf reading.”
“I’m going to predict your imminent doom in my next tea leaf reading if you don’t drop it,” you say tartly.
Your friend has the presence of mind to change the subject, although she does keep eyeing Ron, who for some reason has started grinning as he buffs up his crystal ball with the edge of his sleeve.
Ron meets you at the end of the week, griping about Binns’ inability to be interesting for once in his already-over life, and the next week, too, where he goes on for quite a while about the seemingly identical swishes and flicks Flitwick is having you all memorize for an upcoming exam. For someone who’s seemingly so annoyed about schoolwork, though, he does seem to spend an awful lot of time in tutoring, and he has this habit of making jokes and then looking up at you with big, hopeful eyes to make sure you laugh.
And laugh you do, more than you expected. Ron has a way of making you smile even in spite of yourself. Your friends have started to comment on your recent swing of good moods, but you just shrug and say that you’ve been doing well in your classes. They accept that reason well enough.
It’s not just you who’s been doing well in class, though. To the great surprise of his friends and himself, Ron has been steadily improving in his schoolwork, consistently pulling decent grades out of seemingly nowhere. He’s not getting perfect scores, but he’s understanding the material more than he ever did before. The professors have started to notice, too; after Ron earns three straight ‘Exceeds Expectations’ on Charms assignments without ever having to bug Hermione for free answers, Flitwick passes by your desk at the end of class and mutters, “Ten points to Ravenclaw.”
You glance at him in surprise. “For what?”
He just smiles. “A Ravenclaw ready and excited to share their wit with the other Houses is an excellent example of our students indeed. Well done with your tutoring, I am sure Mr. Weasley appreciates the help.”
You stare at him incredulously. “Thank you, sir, but how did you know it was me?”
Professor Flitwick looks around the room serenely. “A wizard never tells. Unless it is to help someone learn, of course.”
With that, he walks away, leaving you to wonder about just how obvious you’ve been with your happiness over Ron’s success. That happiness starts to come with some trepidation later on, though, as during your most recent tutoring session, it occurs to you that Ron may not want to keep this up forever.
He had come in happy, brandishing a Potions practicum write-up with an ‘E’ written regretfully across the front. “Snape looked like he wanted to murder me when he handed it over, but look at that! Merlin, a few more of these and I’ll be set for life. Maybe I’ll start tutoring you.”
Something in his wording gives you pause. “You’re happy with your grades, then?”
“More than happy,” Ron says gleefully. “Never thought I’d see stuff like this in my life. Mum’s over the moon, keeps writing about how I might make Prefect with grades like these.”
A weight settles over your chest. “Does that mean you feel like you’re done with tutoring? If you’re happy with your results?”
Ron glances up slowly from his paper, registering at last that the look on your face isn’t as pleased as his. “Well, I guess. You’re probably busy anyway, wouldn’t want to bother you.”
“Wasn’t a bother,” you murmur under your breath. “I liked doing it.”
“So did I,” Ron says back hesitantly. “But you’re right, I should quit while I’m ahead.”
Although he just got here, Ron shoots to his feet, and stares at you awkwardly for a few moments before raising his hand. “I’ll, uh, see you around, then?”
“Yeah,” you whisper back.
Ron hangs out for a second longer, as if waiting for something that never comes, then turns and slowly slinks out of the room. You watch him go, feeling as if you’ve lost something you could never get back. This moment was always going to come, you knew that, and if it wasn’t now it would be later in the year when the Quidditch season kicked up in earnest. Still, it hurts even more than you expected.
You sit there, all alone in your little classroom. You don’t have any work to do, you wrapped up your essays and practices earlier today in anticipation of today’s tutoring session, but the time off doesn’t fill you with the same joy as it had several weeks ago. Instead, you just feel lonely, wishing there was someone else here who would make you laugh and smile at you over quiz questions on the ingredients of a Pepperup Potion.
You’re starting to discover that you’ve really blown everything when footsteps echo in the hallway outside, and all of a sudden Ron is back again, pushing himself through the doorway and up to you again.
“I just realized, I was wrong,” Ron says through hurried breaths, “I don’t want this to end. I don’t want to stop talking to you. You can tutor me about anything you want. I like hanging out with you, Y/N. I haven’t just been doing this for the grades. It’s been all about you for quite a while now.”
You look up at him, speechless, then finally manage to eke out, “Me too.”
His face splits in another one of those beautiful smiles. “Good. Good! Just– just wanted you to know.”
Ron falls into a seat opposite you, slinging his bag onto the ground again. “Shall we get back to it, then? What are we studying?”
“We don’t have to study anything,” you say, getting courage out of a place you didn’t know existed until just this moment. “Maybe we could, you know, just hang out and get to know each other. Maybe even get lunch or something.”
Ron nods excitedly. “Yeah. Yeah, I’d like that. Harry said I should do something like that. He’s the one who told me to come back in here, you know. He saw me walking around like a rejected first-year and told me to get my head in order. Guess he was right.”
You send a silent thank-you out to Harry Potter and remind yourself to get him something later. Maybe a homework or two. “I think he was.”
Ron smiles over at you, the sunlight streaming from a nearby window and coalescing on the copper of his hair, the shine of his eyes whenever he looks at you. If you didn’t know better, you’d say that Ron really, really likes you. If you didn’t know better, you’d say that you feel the same way about him.
harry potter tag list: @blondsauduun, @cameronsails, @neewtmas, @lovesanimals0000, @with-inked-solace, @sher-lokid7, @eclliipsed, @frenchgirlinlondon, @23victoria, @ilovexavierthrope, @faerieroyal
I wanted to request an Edmund Pevensie request where he falls for the loud, sarcastic girl with no filter but has a lot of trouble deciphering whether she likes him back until she kisses him? Please and thank you!
'Caught Between Waves' - edmund pevensie x reader
masterlist
Edmund Pevensie still isn’t used to being a sailor.
The sea is not an unfamiliar part of his memories of Narnia. During his time as King, Edmund had his fair share of days spent at the seaside or traveling aboard a ship to reach distant lands. He had thought the shimmering waves of the Narnian oceans pleasant enough when sparkling from afar, and if you had asked him he probably would have said he’d make a decent seaman, all things considered. He’s decent with a sword and his balance isn’t half bad. By all means, it seemed like this sort of life would be right up Edmund’s alley.
It’s not terrible, to be sure. It’s just that, well, when Edmund had gazed fondly at the painting on Lucy’s wall and reminisced about the Narnian design on the hull, he’d really been thinking about the wood carvings back in Cair Paravel, or the emblems in the tapestries lining the halls he used to rule. Sure, a few pleasant memories of sunny days by the water had cropped up in his mind, but if Edmund were to pick any place for a Narnian return, he’d probably first choose dry land.
That’s not to say that he isn’t enjoying himself. Even the most perilous storm in Narnia makes Edmund feel twice as joyous as any day back in England. He feels alive here in a way he couldn’t ever manage in the modern day. So no, it isn’t that he’s unhappy to be out to sea, he’s just surprised by it, that’s all.
Not that he’d tell anyone that, of course. Edmund is happy to be back, and especially happy that he’s managed to come back with enough time to see his good friend Caspian, even if he had imagined their reunion in the fabled halls of Narnian castles rather than on the salt-soaked boards of the Dawn Treader. Besides, he has to keep a stiff upper lip so as to avoid comparison to their unfortunate younger cousin, Eustace, and most importantly of all, to avoid being teased by Y/N.
Y/N is Caspian’s first mate, and how she crossed the path of the heir to the Narnian throne, Edmund can’t imagine. Apparently, she was a bona fide pirate before joining the crew of the Dawn Treader. She still acts like it, too, a hair’s trigger away from crossing blades whenever she gets too bored. Edmund has seen her fly up the ship’s rigging the second anything interesting crosses the horizon. Half the time, he swears she’s not even climbing, just being pulled up on a string like a marionette. She’s blindingly fast on sea or land, both in body and in mind. She has a quick counter to anything that’s said to her. Edmund has no idea how she can pull one-liners out of the air that fast, but it leaves him in something like awe, and something like fear if he’s on the receiving end of one of her teasing remarks.
One time, he told her that with a sense that quick, she should have been a politician, and she nearly threw a knife at his head. He says ‘nearly,’ not because she stayed her hand, but because the knife hit a few paces away, not actually connecting with his skull, although it had certainly felt like it might at the moment. The first week Edmund spent in Y/N’s company, he was sure she would kill him in his sleep. He’d voiced this concern to Caspian, but the other man had merely laughed.
“Y/N’s a mad one, to be sure, but she means you no harm,” Caspian had said, grinning broadly. “There’s no one else in this realm I’d trust to have my back. She’s fiercely loyal, too. If I say you’re a friend, she’d die before she’d see you hurt.”
Edmund had tried to believe that, but the idea of a loyal pirate just couldn’t stay straight in his mind. Still, he supposes Caspian’s words have merit. A few of the times they’ve gone ashore to find trouble, Y/N’s first instinct has been to defend her captain, even when it places her directly in the path of danger. However, Edmund can’t quite determine if that’s because she’s intensely loyal, as Caspian claims, or if she just loves the taste of peril. Her raucous laughter during furious fights doesn’t really help him make up his mind, either.
Still, he supposes Y/N does have a quiet side, too. There had been that one morning, early, just as the sun was starting to rise, that he thinks about all the time now. Edmund had been unable to sleep, dreams keeping him awake, and he had given up on trying to get any rest and quietly shuffled out onto the deck to watch the delicate pinks of dawn trace their way against the brightening sky. He had assumed nobody else would be up except the poor soul on the tail end of the night watch, but to his surprise, someone slid into a seat next to him on the stairs leading up to the high point of the deck.
Turning to the side, Edmund didn’t see Lucy or Caspian, as expected, but Y/N. Her eyes were trained on the rising sun, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the chill of early morning.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She had asked softly.
“Yes,” Edmund said a little too quickly.
He must have been staring too long, because she glanced curiously over at him. Edmund turned quickly back to the horizon, oddly embarrassed for a reason he couldn’t explain. In his peripheral vision, he saw her face the sun again as well.
“I missed sunrises like this,” Edmund said quietly. He’d meant that everything looked different in Narnia, looked better, like he was seeing the world through a spell that carried him away from ugly reality back in modern day, but Y/N had misunderstood him.
She’d let out a cold laugh. “What, it wasn’t as easy to watch the sun come up when you were cooped up in one of those palaces for the High Kings and Queens?”
Edmund had shaken his head. “No, they were pretty there, too. I just mean–”
“What?” Y/N had asked, a trace of bitterness now present in her tone. “You like being able to pick and choose, right? You can come play out in the wild with us when you want, then go back to a castle at the end of the day. Or, better yet, you can go off to that mystery world of yours and only make appearances in Narnia, where you’re hailed as a legend and treated better than royalty?”
“Why are you angry with me?” Edmund had hissed. “I’m not the one in control here, you know. Something makes me come here or leave, I don’t know what, and I’m not the one who built the damn castles.”
“So we’re all just an accident to you, is it?” Y/N had shot back. She had made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. “Some of us live our whole lives in your little play-pretend world. I’ve seen Caspian, you know. He’s been talking about your visit for years now, always with that same note of regret. Every time you and your family come back, you throw everything into chaos, then leave us to deal with the rest.”
She went to stand up and get away, but Edmund, moved by something stronger than his good sense, tugged at her blanket to make her sit down again. “I’m not trying to leave you,” he said back, looking her directly in the eyes. They both stared at each other, refusing to back down, and in a way it reminded Edmund of those old wild-West programs they used to show back home. “I never wanted to leave, you know. Every time I come here, I make up my mind to stay. If I had it my way, I would spend the rest of my life in Narnia. And not in a castle, necessarily, although you can’t tell me you wouldn’t do that if you had the choice.”
Y/N arched a dubious brow. “You’re telling me you’d go settle in a cottage in the middle of the smallest village if you were actually given the choice?”
“Yes,” Edmund said, and he was surprised by how fervently he meant it. “If it meant I could still see my friends, and practice my swordsmanship, yes, I would. I’d even live forever on one of these sailing ships and see the world. I don’t abandon you by choice. If you have a problem, take it up with your realm’s magic.”
He had turned back to the sunrise, annoyed with himself for turning a peaceful moment into a fight. There was silence for a beat or two, and then, out of nowhere, Y/N started to laugh. She was clearly trying to keep it in, but a laugh like that is genuine, and it spilled out of her like a cascade of gold coins.
“Of all the kings I’ve met,” she said with a grin, “You’re the strangest, Edmund Pevensie.”
“Of all the pirates I’ve met, you’re the most insane,” Edmund replied, not sure whether he should be pleased or upset.
“I’ve met many pirates,” Y/N had commented, “That’s a compliment.”
“Take it however you want,” he had shot back, but when she’d tilted her head to look over at him, still smiling broadly, he’d been unable to stop his lips from twitching upwards as well.
They’d passed the rest of that moment in silence. It hadn’t been awkward, far from it, and when the sounds of daily activity had started to rise up from the hold Edmund had found himself oddly annoyed that the rest of the ship’s crew had dared to interfere. Y/N had slipped away in a moment, and Edmund had left not long after. The deck, although by then warmed by the early sun, felt cold without her.
That morning had lingered long on Edmund’s mind even after the sun had fully risen and set that night, so much so that he found himself creeping up to the deck at daybreak the next day, and the next. Some mornings she was there, some not. Edmund can’t ever make up his mind if she’s fine with spending these quiet moments with him or if she wishes he’d let her have her mornings in peace, but she’s never said anything to dissuade him from coming, so he keeps showing up. She’s never said anything to keep him, either, but that’s beside the point.
He tries to understand her, of course, tries to peer through those rare chinks in the armor, but it’s as rare as a miracle around here. Midway through a sparring bout, trading blows of steel through an impromptu fencing match on the deck, Edmund searches for dropped guards or rare moments of opportunity, but he finds just about as much luck in the bout as out on those open mornings. Y/N easily matches him in swordsmanship, and the results are always quite close. It’s addicting, in a way, those narrow wins, those slight defeats. He’s always wanting another round, another test. Sometimes, she gives it to him, and sometimes she just laughs in his face and tells him that he won’t always get what he wants. Then he has to watch her boldly stride away, already counting down the minutes until he gets another chance to see her in the ring.
Edmund finds himself especially grateful for her skill with the sword when the Dawn Treader docks in a small coastal town only to find themselves set upon by raiders. They were only out on a supply run, but as the sun sinks below the hills, ranks of dark-clad warriors appear out of nowhere, blocking them off and demanding gold or blood. Caspian orders them back to the ship, and it’s a fight to get out. Edmund has to use every iota of his strength with the blade to fight off the raiders; they’re decently skilled, but there are so many of them that the numbers threaten to crush them.
At one point, he finds himself pinned between a rocky outcropping and three of the thieves. He’s certain he’s done for until someone hurls themselves at the raiders from behind, distracting them enough for Edmund to surge forward and turn the tide. He looks to his rescuer to thank them, only to find Y/N there by his side. She flashes him a quick grin, then looks behind him and shouts a warning. Edmund only just manages to whip around in time to fend off the blow coming towards him from behind. More raiders are coming their way, but Y/N has his back, and together they join the crew in sprinting for the ship. They only just manage to cast off before the raiders catch up, although several crew members sustain injuries in the process, and the ship is a bit worse for wear by the time they’re pulling out of the harbor and into safer waters.
Surprisingly enough, Edmund is actually in decent shape other than a few odd scratches, but that’s not the case for everyone. The sailors with the worst injuries are taken below decks to recover, and Edmund realizes with a sickening lurch to his stomach that Y/N is among their numbers. As soon as he can assure a panicked Lucy that he’s quite alright, Edmund hastens down to search through the wounded sailors for the one he most wants to see.
Y/N is tucked away in a quieter part of the ship’s makeshift infirmary, hidden by a curtain to most. Edmund pulls it away and sucks in a breath at the sight of her. The ship’s medic has done a good job patching her up, but there appear to be several deep cuts lacing her arms and chest.
“Y/N, you’re–”
He doesn’t make it far before Y/N cuts him off, one eyebrow raised. “Sliced to ribbons? I’m aware.”
An awful feeling of guilt swirls through him. “This is from that skirmish by the rocks, isn’t it? You saved my life, but they were too many for you too, weren’t they?”
Y/N shakes her head quickly. “No one’s too much for me, Edmund. I’m much too good for that.”
She tries for a laugh, but Edmund just feels horrible. “You should have left me there by the rocks. It wasn’t worth it to have you hurt like this.”
Y/N huffs out a sigh. “I don’t do it for no reason, you know. I’m not that terrible a person as to have left you there.”
Edmund feels the weight of her frustration again, though he can’t tell why. “I’ll tell Caspian that this loyalty of yours is no good when it gets you hurt. You don’t have to put your life on the line just because I got backed into a corner.”
“Edmund!” Y/N snaps. “I didn’t do it for Caspian.”
He stares at her dumbly. Slowly, carefully, she stands up, wobbling slightly on unsteady legs. Edmund’s hand darts out to wrap around her waist, steadying her. They’re closer than they’ve ever been below decks. Proximity has only ever been allowed under the private eye of the rising sun, but in the dull light of the ship’s lamps, Edmund somehow feels more obvious than he ever has been.
“Not for Caspian,” she repeats quietly, “I did it for you. Because I couldn’t stand to see you killed.”
Edmund is about to stammer out something stupid like really– for me– when Y/N leans forward and kisses him. It’s funny, Edmund had assumed that nothing he did could convince bold, fearless Y/N to like him as he did her. It had not occurred to him before now that she may have felt for him just as much, maybe even the whole time, maybe since the start. It isn’t until he kisses her back that he realizes just how badly he had hoped she had.
“Y/N,” he says, quietly, urgently, but she interrupts him.
“I know,” she tells him, and Edmund gets the feeling that she knows all of it. Quick-witted, he’s always thought of her. Quick to decide how she felt about him. Quick to figure out that it would be more fun to play with him and see how long it took Edmund to get over himself and tell her that he loved her. Smart enough to realize Edmund wasn’t going to get anywhere without a little help.
Anything he could tell her, Y/N has already figured out. So, Edmund decides to cut to the chase and kisses her again. Judging by her satisfied smile, this was the move she’d been wanting him to make. As it turns out, Edmund had quite wanted it too.
narnia tag list: @remussbitch, @faerieroyal, @goldfish4403
I wanted to request an Edmund Pevensie request where he falls for the loud, sarcastic girl with no filter but has a lot of trouble deciphering whether she likes him back until she kisses him? Please and thank you!
'Caught Between Waves' - edmund pevensie x reader
masterlist
Edmund Pevensie still isn’t used to being a sailor.
The sea is not an unfamiliar part of his memories of Narnia. During his time as King, Edmund had his fair share of days spent at the seaside or traveling aboard a ship to reach distant lands. He had thought the shimmering waves of the Narnian oceans pleasant enough when sparkling from afar, and if you had asked him he probably would have said he’d make a decent seaman, all things considered. He’s decent with a sword and his balance isn’t half bad. By all means, it seemed like this sort of life would be right up Edmund’s alley.
It’s not terrible, to be sure. It’s just that, well, when Edmund had gazed fondly at the painting on Lucy’s wall and reminisced about the Narnian design on the hull, he’d really been thinking about the wood carvings back in Cair Paravel, or the emblems in the tapestries lining the halls he used to rule. Sure, a few pleasant memories of sunny days by the water had cropped up in his mind, but if Edmund were to pick any place for a Narnian return, he’d probably first choose dry land.
That’s not to say that he isn’t enjoying himself. Even the most perilous storm in Narnia makes Edmund feel twice as joyous as any day back in England. He feels alive here in a way he couldn’t ever manage in the modern day. So no, it isn’t that he’s unhappy to be out to sea, he’s just surprised by it, that’s all.
Not that he’d tell anyone that, of course. Edmund is happy to be back, and especially happy that he’s managed to come back with enough time to see his good friend Caspian, even if he had imagined their reunion in the fabled halls of Narnian castles rather than on the salt-soaked boards of the Dawn Treader. Besides, he has to keep a stiff upper lip so as to avoid comparison to their unfortunate younger cousin, Eustace, and most importantly of all, to avoid being teased by Y/N.
Y/N is Caspian’s first mate, and how she crossed the path of the heir to the Narnian throne, Edmund can’t imagine. Apparently, she was a bona fide pirate before joining the crew of the Dawn Treader. She still acts like it, too, a hair’s trigger away from crossing blades whenever she gets too bored. Edmund has seen her fly up the ship’s rigging the second anything interesting crosses the horizon. Half the time, he swears she’s not even climbing, just being pulled up on a string like a marionette. She’s blindingly fast on sea or land, both in body and in mind. She has a quick counter to anything that’s said to her. Edmund has no idea how she can pull one-liners out of the air that fast, but it leaves him in something like awe, and something like fear if he’s on the receiving end of one of her teasing remarks.
One time, he told her that with a sense that quick, she should have been a politician, and she nearly threw a knife at his head. He says ‘nearly,’ not because she stayed her hand, but because the knife hit a few paces away, not actually connecting with his skull, although it had certainly felt like it might at the moment. The first week Edmund spent in Y/N’s company, he was sure she would kill him in his sleep. He’d voiced this concern to Caspian, but the other man had merely laughed.
“Y/N’s a mad one, to be sure, but she means you no harm,” Caspian had said, grinning broadly. “There’s no one else in this realm I’d trust to have my back. She’s fiercely loyal, too. If I say you’re a friend, she’d die before she’d see you hurt.”
Edmund had tried to believe that, but the idea of a loyal pirate just couldn’t stay straight in his mind. Still, he supposes Caspian’s words have merit. A few of the times they’ve gone ashore to find trouble, Y/N’s first instinct has been to defend her captain, even when it places her directly in the path of danger. However, Edmund can’t quite determine if that’s because she’s intensely loyal, as Caspian claims, or if she just loves the taste of peril. Her raucous laughter during furious fights doesn’t really help him make up his mind, either.
Still, he supposes Y/N does have a quiet side, too. There had been that one morning, early, just as the sun was starting to rise, that he thinks about all the time now. Edmund had been unable to sleep, dreams keeping him awake, and he had given up on trying to get any rest and quietly shuffled out onto the deck to watch the delicate pinks of dawn trace their way against the brightening sky. He had assumed nobody else would be up except the poor soul on the tail end of the night watch, but to his surprise, someone slid into a seat next to him on the stairs leading up to the high point of the deck.
Turning to the side, Edmund didn’t see Lucy or Caspian, as expected, but Y/N. Her eyes were trained on the rising sun, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the chill of early morning.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She had asked softly.
“Yes,” Edmund said a little too quickly.
He must have been staring too long, because she glanced curiously over at him. Edmund turned quickly back to the horizon, oddly embarrassed for a reason he couldn’t explain. In his peripheral vision, he saw her face the sun again as well.
“I missed sunrises like this,” Edmund said quietly. He’d meant that everything looked different in Narnia, looked better, like he was seeing the world through a spell that carried him away from ugly reality back in modern day, but Y/N had misunderstood him.
She’d let out a cold laugh. “What, it wasn’t as easy to watch the sun come up when you were cooped up in one of those palaces for the High Kings and Queens?”
Edmund had shaken his head. “No, they were pretty there, too. I just mean–”
“What?” Y/N had asked, a trace of bitterness now present in her tone. “You like being able to pick and choose, right? You can come play out in the wild with us when you want, then go back to a castle at the end of the day. Or, better yet, you can go off to that mystery world of yours and only make appearances in Narnia, where you’re hailed as a legend and treated better than royalty?”
“Why are you angry with me?” Edmund had hissed. “I’m not the one in control here, you know. Something makes me come here or leave, I don’t know what, and I’m not the one who built the damn castles.”
“So we’re all just an accident to you, is it?” Y/N had shot back. She had made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. “Some of us live our whole lives in your little play-pretend world. I’ve seen Caspian, you know. He’s been talking about your visit for years now, always with that same note of regret. Every time you and your family come back, you throw everything into chaos, then leave us to deal with the rest.”
She went to stand up and get away, but Edmund, moved by something stronger than his good sense, tugged at her blanket to make her sit down again. “I’m not trying to leave you,” he said back, looking her directly in the eyes. They both stared at each other, refusing to back down, and in a way it reminded Edmund of those old wild-West programs they used to show back home. “I never wanted to leave, you know. Every time I come here, I make up my mind to stay. If I had it my way, I would spend the rest of my life in Narnia. And not in a castle, necessarily, although you can’t tell me you wouldn’t do that if you had the choice.”
Y/N arched a dubious brow. “You’re telling me you’d go settle in a cottage in the middle of the smallest village if you were actually given the choice?”
“Yes,” Edmund said, and he was surprised by how fervently he meant it. “If it meant I could still see my friends, and practice my swordsmanship, yes, I would. I’d even live forever on one of these sailing ships and see the world. I don’t abandon you by choice. If you have a problem, take it up with your realm’s magic.”
He had turned back to the sunrise, annoyed with himself for turning a peaceful moment into a fight. There was silence for a beat or two, and then, out of nowhere, Y/N started to laugh. She was clearly trying to keep it in, but a laugh like that is genuine, and it spilled out of her like a cascade of gold coins.
“Of all the kings I’ve met,” she said with a grin, “You’re the strangest, Edmund Pevensie.”
“Of all the pirates I’ve met, you’re the most insane,” Edmund replied, not sure whether he should be pleased or upset.
“I’ve met many pirates,” Y/N had commented, “That’s a compliment.”
“Take it however you want,” he had shot back, but when she’d tilted her head to look over at him, still smiling broadly, he’d been unable to stop his lips from twitching upwards as well.
They’d passed the rest of that moment in silence. It hadn’t been awkward, far from it, and when the sounds of daily activity had started to rise up from the hold Edmund had found himself oddly annoyed that the rest of the ship’s crew had dared to interfere. Y/N had slipped away in a moment, and Edmund had left not long after. The deck, although by then warmed by the early sun, felt cold without her.
That morning had lingered long on Edmund’s mind even after the sun had fully risen and set that night, so much so that he found himself creeping up to the deck at daybreak the next day, and the next. Some mornings she was there, some not. Edmund can’t ever make up his mind if she’s fine with spending these quiet moments with him or if she wishes he’d let her have her mornings in peace, but she’s never said anything to dissuade him from coming, so he keeps showing up. She’s never said anything to keep him, either, but that’s beside the point.
He tries to understand her, of course, tries to peer through those rare chinks in the armor, but it’s as rare as a miracle around here. Midway through a sparring bout, trading blows of steel through an impromptu fencing match on the deck, Edmund searches for dropped guards or rare moments of opportunity, but he finds just about as much luck in the bout as out on those open mornings. Y/N easily matches him in swordsmanship, and the results are always quite close. It’s addicting, in a way, those narrow wins, those slight defeats. He’s always wanting another round, another test. Sometimes, she gives it to him, and sometimes she just laughs in his face and tells him that he won’t always get what he wants. Then he has to watch her boldly stride away, already counting down the minutes until he gets another chance to see her in the ring.
Edmund finds himself especially grateful for her skill with the sword when the Dawn Treader docks in a small coastal town only to find themselves set upon by raiders. They were only out on a supply run, but as the sun sinks below the hills, ranks of dark-clad warriors appear out of nowhere, blocking them off and demanding gold or blood. Caspian orders them back to the ship, and it’s a fight to get out. Edmund has to use every iota of his strength with the blade to fight off the raiders; they’re decently skilled, but there are so many of them that the numbers threaten to crush them.
At one point, he finds himself pinned between a rocky outcropping and three of the thieves. He’s certain he’s done for until someone hurls themselves at the raiders from behind, distracting them enough for Edmund to surge forward and turn the tide. He looks to his rescuer to thank them, only to find Y/N there by his side. She flashes him a quick grin, then looks behind him and shouts a warning. Edmund only just manages to whip around in time to fend off the blow coming towards him from behind. More raiders are coming their way, but Y/N has his back, and together they join the crew in sprinting for the ship. They only just manage to cast off before the raiders catch up, although several crew members sustain injuries in the process, and the ship is a bit worse for wear by the time they’re pulling out of the harbor and into safer waters.
Surprisingly enough, Edmund is actually in decent shape other than a few odd scratches, but that’s not the case for everyone. The sailors with the worst injuries are taken below decks to recover, and Edmund realizes with a sickening lurch to his stomach that Y/N is among their numbers. As soon as he can assure a panicked Lucy that he’s quite alright, Edmund hastens down to search through the wounded sailors for the one he most wants to see.
Y/N is tucked away in a quieter part of the ship’s makeshift infirmary, hidden by a curtain to most. Edmund pulls it away and sucks in a breath at the sight of her. The ship’s medic has done a good job patching her up, but there appear to be several deep cuts lacing her arms and chest.
“Y/N, you’re–”
He doesn’t make it far before Y/N cuts him off, one eyebrow raised. “Sliced to ribbons? I’m aware.”
An awful feeling of guilt swirls through him. “This is from that skirmish by the rocks, isn’t it? You saved my life, but they were too many for you too, weren’t they?”
Y/N shakes her head quickly. “No one’s too much for me, Edmund. I’m much too good for that.”
She tries for a laugh, but Edmund just feels horrible. “You should have left me there by the rocks. It wasn’t worth it to have you hurt like this.”
Y/N huffs out a sigh. “I don’t do it for no reason, you know. I’m not that terrible a person as to have left you there.”
Edmund feels the weight of her frustration again, though he can’t tell why. “I’ll tell Caspian that this loyalty of yours is no good when it gets you hurt. You don’t have to put your life on the line just because I got backed into a corner.”
“Edmund!” Y/N snaps. “I didn’t do it for Caspian.”
He stares at her dumbly. Slowly, carefully, she stands up, wobbling slightly on unsteady legs. Edmund’s hand darts out to wrap around her waist, steadying her. They’re closer than they’ve ever been below decks. Proximity has only ever been allowed under the private eye of the rising sun, but in the dull light of the ship’s lamps, Edmund somehow feels more obvious than he ever has been.
“Not for Caspian,” she repeats quietly, “I did it for you. Because I couldn’t stand to see you killed.”
Edmund is about to stammer out something stupid like really– for me– when Y/N leans forward and kisses him. It’s funny, Edmund had assumed that nothing he did could convince bold, fearless Y/N to like him as he did her. It had not occurred to him before now that she may have felt for him just as much, maybe even the whole time, maybe since the start. It isn’t until he kisses her back that he realizes just how badly he had hoped she had.
“Y/N,” he says, quietly, urgently, but she interrupts him.
“I know,” she tells him, and Edmund gets the feeling that she knows all of it. Quick-witted, he’s always thought of her. Quick to decide how she felt about him. Quick to figure out that it would be more fun to play with him and see how long it took Edmund to get over himself and tell her that he loved her. Smart enough to realize Edmund wasn’t going to get anywhere without a little help.
Anything he could tell her, Y/N has already figured out. So, Edmund decides to cut to the chase and kisses her again. Judging by her satisfied smile, this was the move she’d been wanting him to make. As it turns out, Edmund had quite wanted it too.
narnia tag list: @remussbitch, @faerieroyal, @goldfish4403
I don’t know if you remember me (probably not) but back in like 2022 you were my FAVORITE teen wolf writer on this app!! I sent you a few requests for Derek and I loved them. Since then I’ve moved on from my teen wolf phase (it’s forever in my heart) but you inspired me to start writing!!!
I’ve been trying to find you for literal years so I could tell you that. Luckily tumblr added an oldest to newest thing in the like tab and I was able to find you.
omg hello!! of course i remember you, you had amazing requests and were always so nice. i'm so glad to hear that you're writing!! that is so amazing and i hope you have as much fun with your writing as i have with mine. let's pls stay in touch, it's so kind of you to have thought of me and i hope you're doing well <333
I wanted to request an Edmund Pevensie request where he falls for the loud, sarcastic girl with no filter but has a lot of trouble deciphering whether she likes him back until she kisses him? Please and thank you!
'Caught Between Waves' - edmund pevensie x reader
masterlist
Edmund Pevensie still isn’t used to being a sailor.
The sea is not an unfamiliar part of his memories of Narnia. During his time as King, Edmund had his fair share of days spent at the seaside or traveling aboard a ship to reach distant lands. He had thought the shimmering waves of the Narnian oceans pleasant enough when sparkling from afar, and if you had asked him he probably would have said he’d make a decent seaman, all things considered. He’s decent with a sword and his balance isn’t half bad. By all means, it seemed like this sort of life would be right up Edmund’s alley.
It’s not terrible, to be sure. It’s just that, well, when Edmund had gazed fondly at the painting on Lucy’s wall and reminisced about the Narnian design on the hull, he’d really been thinking about the wood carvings back in Cair Paravel, or the emblems in the tapestries lining the halls he used to rule. Sure, a few pleasant memories of sunny days by the water had cropped up in his mind, but if Edmund were to pick any place for a Narnian return, he’d probably first choose dry land.
That’s not to say that he isn’t enjoying himself. Even the most perilous storm in Narnia makes Edmund feel twice as joyous as any day back in England. He feels alive here in a way he couldn’t ever manage in the modern day. So no, it isn’t that he’s unhappy to be out to sea, he’s just surprised by it, that’s all.
Not that he’d tell anyone that, of course. Edmund is happy to be back, and especially happy that he’s managed to come back with enough time to see his good friend Caspian, even if he had imagined their reunion in the fabled halls of Narnian castles rather than on the salt-soaked boards of the Dawn Treader. Besides, he has to keep a stiff upper lip so as to avoid comparison to their unfortunate younger cousin, Eustace, and most importantly of all, to avoid being teased by Y/N.
Y/N is Caspian’s first mate, and how she crossed the path of the heir to the Narnian throne, Edmund can’t imagine. Apparently, she was a bona fide pirate before joining the crew of the Dawn Treader. She still acts like it, too, a hair’s trigger away from crossing blades whenever she gets too bored. Edmund has seen her fly up the ship’s rigging the second anything interesting crosses the horizon. Half the time, he swears she’s not even climbing, just being pulled up on a string like a marionette. She’s blindingly fast on sea or land, both in body and in mind. She has a quick counter to anything that’s said to her. Edmund has no idea how she can pull one-liners out of the air that fast, but it leaves him in something like awe, and something like fear if he’s on the receiving end of one of her teasing remarks.
One time, he told her that with a sense that quick, she should have been a politician, and she nearly threw a knife at his head. He says ‘nearly,’ not because she stayed her hand, but because the knife hit a few paces away, not actually connecting with his skull, although it had certainly felt like it might at the moment. The first week Edmund spent in Y/N’s company, he was sure she would kill him in his sleep. He’d voiced this concern to Caspian, but the other man had merely laughed.
“Y/N’s a mad one, to be sure, but she means you no harm,” Caspian had said, grinning broadly. “There’s no one else in this realm I’d trust to have my back. She’s fiercely loyal, too. If I say you’re a friend, she’d die before she’d see you hurt.”
Edmund had tried to believe that, but the idea of a loyal pirate just couldn’t stay straight in his mind. Still, he supposes Caspian’s words have merit. A few of the times they’ve gone ashore to find trouble, Y/N’s first instinct has been to defend her captain, even when it places her directly in the path of danger. However, Edmund can’t quite determine if that’s because she’s intensely loyal, as Caspian claims, or if she just loves the taste of peril. Her raucous laughter during furious fights doesn’t really help him make up his mind, either.
Still, he supposes Y/N does have a quiet side, too. There had been that one morning, early, just as the sun was starting to rise, that he thinks about all the time now. Edmund had been unable to sleep, dreams keeping him awake, and he had given up on trying to get any rest and quietly shuffled out onto the deck to watch the delicate pinks of dawn trace their way against the brightening sky. He had assumed nobody else would be up except the poor soul on the tail end of the night watch, but to his surprise, someone slid into a seat next to him on the stairs leading up to the high point of the deck.
Turning to the side, Edmund didn’t see Lucy or Caspian, as expected, but Y/N. Her eyes were trained on the rising sun, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the chill of early morning.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She had asked softly.
“Yes,” Edmund said a little too quickly.
He must have been staring too long, because she glanced curiously over at him. Edmund turned quickly back to the horizon, oddly embarrassed for a reason he couldn’t explain. In his peripheral vision, he saw her face the sun again as well.
“I missed sunrises like this,” Edmund said quietly. He’d meant that everything looked different in Narnia, looked better, like he was seeing the world through a spell that carried him away from ugly reality back in modern day, but Y/N had misunderstood him.
She’d let out a cold laugh. “What, it wasn’t as easy to watch the sun come up when you were cooped up in one of those palaces for the High Kings and Queens?”
Edmund had shaken his head. “No, they were pretty there, too. I just mean–”
“What?” Y/N had asked, a trace of bitterness now present in her tone. “You like being able to pick and choose, right? You can come play out in the wild with us when you want, then go back to a castle at the end of the day. Or, better yet, you can go off to that mystery world of yours and only make appearances in Narnia, where you’re hailed as a legend and treated better than royalty?”
“Why are you angry with me?” Edmund had hissed. “I’m not the one in control here, you know. Something makes me come here or leave, I don’t know what, and I’m not the one who built the damn castles.”
“So we’re all just an accident to you, is it?” Y/N had shot back. She had made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. “Some of us live our whole lives in your little play-pretend world. I’ve seen Caspian, you know. He’s been talking about your visit for years now, always with that same note of regret. Every time you and your family come back, you throw everything into chaos, then leave us to deal with the rest.”
She went to stand up and get away, but Edmund, moved by something stronger than his good sense, tugged at her blanket to make her sit down again. “I’m not trying to leave you,” he said back, looking her directly in the eyes. They both stared at each other, refusing to back down, and in a way it reminded Edmund of those old wild-West programs they used to show back home. “I never wanted to leave, you know. Every time I come here, I make up my mind to stay. If I had it my way, I would spend the rest of my life in Narnia. And not in a castle, necessarily, although you can’t tell me you wouldn’t do that if you had the choice.”
Y/N arched a dubious brow. “You’re telling me you’d go settle in a cottage in the middle of the smallest village if you were actually given the choice?”
“Yes,” Edmund said, and he was surprised by how fervently he meant it. “If it meant I could still see my friends, and practice my swordsmanship, yes, I would. I’d even live forever on one of these sailing ships and see the world. I don’t abandon you by choice. If you have a problem, take it up with your realm’s magic.”
He had turned back to the sunrise, annoyed with himself for turning a peaceful moment into a fight. There was silence for a beat or two, and then, out of nowhere, Y/N started to laugh. She was clearly trying to keep it in, but a laugh like that is genuine, and it spilled out of her like a cascade of gold coins.
“Of all the kings I’ve met,” she said with a grin, “You’re the strangest, Edmund Pevensie.”
“Of all the pirates I’ve met, you’re the most insane,” Edmund replied, not sure whether he should be pleased or upset.
“I’ve met many pirates,” Y/N had commented, “That’s a compliment.”
“Take it however you want,” he had shot back, but when she’d tilted her head to look over at him, still smiling broadly, he’d been unable to stop his lips from twitching upwards as well.
They’d passed the rest of that moment in silence. It hadn’t been awkward, far from it, and when the sounds of daily activity had started to rise up from the hold Edmund had found himself oddly annoyed that the rest of the ship’s crew had dared to interfere. Y/N had slipped away in a moment, and Edmund had left not long after. The deck, although by then warmed by the early sun, felt cold without her.
That morning had lingered long on Edmund’s mind even after the sun had fully risen and set that night, so much so that he found himself creeping up to the deck at daybreak the next day, and the next. Some mornings she was there, some not. Edmund can’t ever make up his mind if she’s fine with spending these quiet moments with him or if she wishes he’d let her have her mornings in peace, but she’s never said anything to dissuade him from coming, so he keeps showing up. She’s never said anything to keep him, either, but that’s beside the point.
He tries to understand her, of course, tries to peer through those rare chinks in the armor, but it’s as rare as a miracle around here. Midway through a sparring bout, trading blows of steel through an impromptu fencing match on the deck, Edmund searches for dropped guards or rare moments of opportunity, but he finds just about as much luck in the bout as out on those open mornings. Y/N easily matches him in swordsmanship, and the results are always quite close. It’s addicting, in a way, those narrow wins, those slight defeats. He’s always wanting another round, another test. Sometimes, she gives it to him, and sometimes she just laughs in his face and tells him that he won’t always get what he wants. Then he has to watch her boldly stride away, already counting down the minutes until he gets another chance to see her in the ring.
Edmund finds himself especially grateful for her skill with the sword when the Dawn Treader docks in a small coastal town only to find themselves set upon by raiders. They were only out on a supply run, but as the sun sinks below the hills, ranks of dark-clad warriors appear out of nowhere, blocking them off and demanding gold or blood. Caspian orders them back to the ship, and it’s a fight to get out. Edmund has to use every iota of his strength with the blade to fight off the raiders; they’re decently skilled, but there are so many of them that the numbers threaten to crush them.
At one point, he finds himself pinned between a rocky outcropping and three of the thieves. He’s certain he’s done for until someone hurls themselves at the raiders from behind, distracting them enough for Edmund to surge forward and turn the tide. He looks to his rescuer to thank them, only to find Y/N there by his side. She flashes him a quick grin, then looks behind him and shouts a warning. Edmund only just manages to whip around in time to fend off the blow coming towards him from behind. More raiders are coming their way, but Y/N has his back, and together they join the crew in sprinting for the ship. They only just manage to cast off before the raiders catch up, although several crew members sustain injuries in the process, and the ship is a bit worse for wear by the time they’re pulling out of the harbor and into safer waters.
Surprisingly enough, Edmund is actually in decent shape other than a few odd scratches, but that’s not the case for everyone. The sailors with the worst injuries are taken below decks to recover, and Edmund realizes with a sickening lurch to his stomach that Y/N is among their numbers. As soon as he can assure a panicked Lucy that he’s quite alright, Edmund hastens down to search through the wounded sailors for the one he most wants to see.
Y/N is tucked away in a quieter part of the ship’s makeshift infirmary, hidden by a curtain to most. Edmund pulls it away and sucks in a breath at the sight of her. The ship’s medic has done a good job patching her up, but there appear to be several deep cuts lacing her arms and chest.
“Y/N, you’re–”
He doesn’t make it far before Y/N cuts him off, one eyebrow raised. “Sliced to ribbons? I’m aware.”
An awful feeling of guilt swirls through him. “This is from that skirmish by the rocks, isn’t it? You saved my life, but they were too many for you too, weren’t they?”
Y/N shakes her head quickly. “No one’s too much for me, Edmund. I’m much too good for that.”
She tries for a laugh, but Edmund just feels horrible. “You should have left me there by the rocks. It wasn’t worth it to have you hurt like this.”
Y/N huffs out a sigh. “I don’t do it for no reason, you know. I’m not that terrible a person as to have left you there.”
Edmund feels the weight of her frustration again, though he can’t tell why. “I’ll tell Caspian that this loyalty of yours is no good when it gets you hurt. You don’t have to put your life on the line just because I got backed into a corner.”
“Edmund!” Y/N snaps. “I didn’t do it for Caspian.”
He stares at her dumbly. Slowly, carefully, she stands up, wobbling slightly on unsteady legs. Edmund’s hand darts out to wrap around her waist, steadying her. They’re closer than they’ve ever been below decks. Proximity has only ever been allowed under the private eye of the rising sun, but in the dull light of the ship’s lamps, Edmund somehow feels more obvious than he ever has been.
“Not for Caspian,” she repeats quietly, “I did it for you. Because I couldn’t stand to see you killed.”
Edmund is about to stammer out something stupid like really– for me– when Y/N leans forward and kisses him. It’s funny, Edmund had assumed that nothing he did could convince bold, fearless Y/N to like him as he did her. It had not occurred to him before now that she may have felt for him just as much, maybe even the whole time, maybe since the start. It isn’t until he kisses her back that he realizes just how badly he had hoped she had.
“Y/N,” he says, quietly, urgently, but she interrupts him.
“I know,” she tells him, and Edmund gets the feeling that she knows all of it. Quick-witted, he’s always thought of her. Quick to decide how she felt about him. Quick to figure out that it would be more fun to play with him and see how long it took Edmund to get over himself and tell her that he loved her. Smart enough to realize Edmund wasn’t going to get anywhere without a little help.
Anything he could tell her, Y/N has already figured out. So, Edmund decides to cut to the chase and kisses her again. Judging by her satisfied smile, this was the move she’d been wanting him to make. As it turns out, Edmund had quite wanted it too.
narnia tag list: @remussbitch, @faerieroyal, @goldfish4403
I wanted to request an Edmund Pevensie request where he falls for the loud, sarcastic girl with no filter but has a lot of trouble deciphering whether she likes him back until she kisses him? Please and thank you!
'Caught Between Waves' - edmund pevensie x reader
masterlist
Edmund Pevensie still isn’t used to being a sailor.
The sea is not an unfamiliar part of his memories of Narnia. During his time as King, Edmund had his fair share of days spent at the seaside or traveling aboard a ship to reach distant lands. He had thought the shimmering waves of the Narnian oceans pleasant enough when sparkling from afar, and if you had asked him he probably would have said he’d make a decent seaman, all things considered. He’s decent with a sword and his balance isn’t half bad. By all means, it seemed like this sort of life would be right up Edmund’s alley.
It’s not terrible, to be sure. It’s just that, well, when Edmund had gazed fondly at the painting on Lucy’s wall and reminisced about the Narnian design on the hull, he’d really been thinking about the wood carvings back in Cair Paravel, or the emblems in the tapestries lining the halls he used to rule. Sure, a few pleasant memories of sunny days by the water had cropped up in his mind, but if Edmund were to pick any place for a Narnian return, he’d probably first choose dry land.
That’s not to say that he isn’t enjoying himself. Even the most perilous storm in Narnia makes Edmund feel twice as joyous as any day back in England. He feels alive here in a way he couldn’t ever manage in the modern day. So no, it isn’t that he’s unhappy to be out to sea, he’s just surprised by it, that’s all.
Not that he’d tell anyone that, of course. Edmund is happy to be back, and especially happy that he’s managed to come back with enough time to see his good friend Caspian, even if he had imagined their reunion in the fabled halls of Narnian castles rather than on the salt-soaked boards of the Dawn Treader. Besides, he has to keep a stiff upper lip so as to avoid comparison to their unfortunate younger cousin, Eustace, and most importantly of all, to avoid being teased by Y/N.
Y/N is Caspian’s first mate, and how she crossed the path of the heir to the Narnian throne, Edmund can’t imagine. Apparently, she was a bona fide pirate before joining the crew of the Dawn Treader. She still acts like it, too, a hair’s trigger away from crossing blades whenever she gets too bored. Edmund has seen her fly up the ship’s rigging the second anything interesting crosses the horizon. Half the time, he swears she’s not even climbing, just being pulled up on a string like a marionette. She’s blindingly fast on sea or land, both in body and in mind. She has a quick counter to anything that’s said to her. Edmund has no idea how she can pull one-liners out of the air that fast, but it leaves him in something like awe, and something like fear if he’s on the receiving end of one of her teasing remarks.
One time, he told her that with a sense that quick, she should have been a politician, and she nearly threw a knife at his head. He says ‘nearly,’ not because she stayed her hand, but because the knife hit a few paces away, not actually connecting with his skull, although it had certainly felt like it might at the moment. The first week Edmund spent in Y/N’s company, he was sure she would kill him in his sleep. He’d voiced this concern to Caspian, but the other man had merely laughed.
“Y/N’s a mad one, to be sure, but she means you no harm,” Caspian had said, grinning broadly. “There’s no one else in this realm I’d trust to have my back. She’s fiercely loyal, too. If I say you’re a friend, she’d die before she’d see you hurt.”
Edmund had tried to believe that, but the idea of a loyal pirate just couldn’t stay straight in his mind. Still, he supposes Caspian’s words have merit. A few of the times they’ve gone ashore to find trouble, Y/N’s first instinct has been to defend her captain, even when it places her directly in the path of danger. However, Edmund can’t quite determine if that’s because she’s intensely loyal, as Caspian claims, or if she just loves the taste of peril. Her raucous laughter during furious fights doesn’t really help him make up his mind, either.
Still, he supposes Y/N does have a quiet side, too. There had been that one morning, early, just as the sun was starting to rise, that he thinks about all the time now. Edmund had been unable to sleep, dreams keeping him awake, and he had given up on trying to get any rest and quietly shuffled out onto the deck to watch the delicate pinks of dawn trace their way against the brightening sky. He had assumed nobody else would be up except the poor soul on the tail end of the night watch, but to his surprise, someone slid into a seat next to him on the stairs leading up to the high point of the deck.
Turning to the side, Edmund didn’t see Lucy or Caspian, as expected, but Y/N. Her eyes were trained on the rising sun, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders to ward off the chill of early morning.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” She had asked softly.
“Yes,” Edmund said a little too quickly.
He must have been staring too long, because she glanced curiously over at him. Edmund turned quickly back to the horizon, oddly embarrassed for a reason he couldn’t explain. In his peripheral vision, he saw her face the sun again as well.
“I missed sunrises like this,” Edmund said quietly. He’d meant that everything looked different in Narnia, looked better, like he was seeing the world through a spell that carried him away from ugly reality back in modern day, but Y/N had misunderstood him.
She’d let out a cold laugh. “What, it wasn’t as easy to watch the sun come up when you were cooped up in one of those palaces for the High Kings and Queens?”
Edmund had shaken his head. “No, they were pretty there, too. I just mean–”
“What?” Y/N had asked, a trace of bitterness now present in her tone. “You like being able to pick and choose, right? You can come play out in the wild with us when you want, then go back to a castle at the end of the day. Or, better yet, you can go off to that mystery world of yours and only make appearances in Narnia, where you’re hailed as a legend and treated better than royalty?”
“Why are you angry with me?” Edmund had hissed. “I’m not the one in control here, you know. Something makes me come here or leave, I don’t know what, and I’m not the one who built the damn castles.”
“So we’re all just an accident to you, is it?” Y/N had shot back. She had made a disgusted sound in the back of her throat. “Some of us live our whole lives in your little play-pretend world. I’ve seen Caspian, you know. He’s been talking about your visit for years now, always with that same note of regret. Every time you and your family come back, you throw everything into chaos, then leave us to deal with the rest.”
She went to stand up and get away, but Edmund, moved by something stronger than his good sense, tugged at her blanket to make her sit down again. “I’m not trying to leave you,” he said back, looking her directly in the eyes. They both stared at each other, refusing to back down, and in a way it reminded Edmund of those old wild-West programs they used to show back home. “I never wanted to leave, you know. Every time I come here, I make up my mind to stay. If I had it my way, I would spend the rest of my life in Narnia. And not in a castle, necessarily, although you can’t tell me you wouldn’t do that if you had the choice.”
Y/N arched a dubious brow. “You’re telling me you’d go settle in a cottage in the middle of the smallest village if you were actually given the choice?”
“Yes,” Edmund said, and he was surprised by how fervently he meant it. “If it meant I could still see my friends, and practice my swordsmanship, yes, I would. I’d even live forever on one of these sailing ships and see the world. I don’t abandon you by choice. If you have a problem, take it up with your realm’s magic.”
He had turned back to the sunrise, annoyed with himself for turning a peaceful moment into a fight. There was silence for a beat or two, and then, out of nowhere, Y/N started to laugh. She was clearly trying to keep it in, but a laugh like that is genuine, and it spilled out of her like a cascade of gold coins.
“Of all the kings I’ve met,” she said with a grin, “You’re the strangest, Edmund Pevensie.”
“Of all the pirates I’ve met, you’re the most insane,” Edmund replied, not sure whether he should be pleased or upset.
“I’ve met many pirates,” Y/N had commented, “That’s a compliment.”
“Take it however you want,” he had shot back, but when she’d tilted her head to look over at him, still smiling broadly, he’d been unable to stop his lips from twitching upwards as well.
They’d passed the rest of that moment in silence. It hadn’t been awkward, far from it, and when the sounds of daily activity had started to rise up from the hold Edmund had found himself oddly annoyed that the rest of the ship’s crew had dared to interfere. Y/N had slipped away in a moment, and Edmund had left not long after. The deck, although by then warmed by the early sun, felt cold without her.
That morning had lingered long on Edmund’s mind even after the sun had fully risen and set that night, so much so that he found himself creeping up to the deck at daybreak the next day, and the next. Some mornings she was there, some not. Edmund can’t ever make up his mind if she’s fine with spending these quiet moments with him or if she wishes he’d let her have her mornings in peace, but she’s never said anything to dissuade him from coming, so he keeps showing up. She’s never said anything to keep him, either, but that’s beside the point.
He tries to understand her, of course, tries to peer through those rare chinks in the armor, but it’s as rare as a miracle around here. Midway through a sparring bout, trading blows of steel through an impromptu fencing match on the deck, Edmund searches for dropped guards or rare moments of opportunity, but he finds just about as much luck in the bout as out on those open mornings. Y/N easily matches him in swordsmanship, and the results are always quite close. It’s addicting, in a way, those narrow wins, those slight defeats. He’s always wanting another round, another test. Sometimes, she gives it to him, and sometimes she just laughs in his face and tells him that he won’t always get what he wants. Then he has to watch her boldly stride away, already counting down the minutes until he gets another chance to see her in the ring.
Edmund finds himself especially grateful for her skill with the sword when the Dawn Treader docks in a small coastal town only to find themselves set upon by raiders. They were only out on a supply run, but as the sun sinks below the hills, ranks of dark-clad warriors appear out of nowhere, blocking them off and demanding gold or blood. Caspian orders them back to the ship, and it’s a fight to get out. Edmund has to use every iota of his strength with the blade to fight off the raiders; they’re decently skilled, but there are so many of them that the numbers threaten to crush them.
At one point, he finds himself pinned between a rocky outcropping and three of the thieves. He’s certain he’s done for until someone hurls themselves at the raiders from behind, distracting them enough for Edmund to surge forward and turn the tide. He looks to his rescuer to thank them, only to find Y/N there by his side. She flashes him a quick grin, then looks behind him and shouts a warning. Edmund only just manages to whip around in time to fend off the blow coming towards him from behind. More raiders are coming their way, but Y/N has his back, and together they join the crew in sprinting for the ship. They only just manage to cast off before the raiders catch up, although several crew members sustain injuries in the process, and the ship is a bit worse for wear by the time they’re pulling out of the harbor and into safer waters.
Surprisingly enough, Edmund is actually in decent shape other than a few odd scratches, but that’s not the case for everyone. The sailors with the worst injuries are taken below decks to recover, and Edmund realizes with a sickening lurch to his stomach that Y/N is among their numbers. As soon as he can assure a panicked Lucy that he’s quite alright, Edmund hastens down to search through the wounded sailors for the one he most wants to see.
Y/N is tucked away in a quieter part of the ship’s makeshift infirmary, hidden by a curtain to most. Edmund pulls it away and sucks in a breath at the sight of her. The ship’s medic has done a good job patching her up, but there appear to be several deep cuts lacing her arms and chest.
“Y/N, you’re–”
He doesn’t make it far before Y/N cuts him off, one eyebrow raised. “Sliced to ribbons? I’m aware.”
An awful feeling of guilt swirls through him. “This is from that skirmish by the rocks, isn’t it? You saved my life, but they were too many for you too, weren’t they?”
Y/N shakes her head quickly. “No one’s too much for me, Edmund. I’m much too good for that.”
She tries for a laugh, but Edmund just feels horrible. “You should have left me there by the rocks. It wasn’t worth it to have you hurt like this.”
Y/N huffs out a sigh. “I don’t do it for no reason, you know. I’m not that terrible a person as to have left you there.”
Edmund feels the weight of her frustration again, though he can’t tell why. “I’ll tell Caspian that this loyalty of yours is no good when it gets you hurt. You don’t have to put your life on the line just because I got backed into a corner.”
“Edmund!” Y/N snaps. “I didn’t do it for Caspian.”
He stares at her dumbly. Slowly, carefully, she stands up, wobbling slightly on unsteady legs. Edmund’s hand darts out to wrap around her waist, steadying her. They’re closer than they’ve ever been below decks. Proximity has only ever been allowed under the private eye of the rising sun, but in the dull light of the ship’s lamps, Edmund somehow feels more obvious than he ever has been.
“Not for Caspian,” she repeats quietly, “I did it for you. Because I couldn’t stand to see you killed.”
Edmund is about to stammer out something stupid like really– for me– when Y/N leans forward and kisses him. It’s funny, Edmund had assumed that nothing he did could convince bold, fearless Y/N to like him as he did her. It had not occurred to him before now that she may have felt for him just as much, maybe even the whole time, maybe since the start. It isn’t until he kisses her back that he realizes just how badly he had hoped she had.
“Y/N,” he says, quietly, urgently, but she interrupts him.
“I know,” she tells him, and Edmund gets the feeling that she knows all of it. Quick-witted, he’s always thought of her. Quick to decide how she felt about him. Quick to figure out that it would be more fun to play with him and see how long it took Edmund to get over himself and tell her that he loved her. Smart enough to realize Edmund wasn’t going to get anywhere without a little help.
Anything he could tell her, Y/N has already figured out. So, Edmund decides to cut to the chase and kisses her again. Judging by her satisfied smile, this was the move she’d been wanting him to make. As it turns out, Edmund had quite wanted it too.
narnia tag list: @remussbitch, @faerieroyal, @goldfish4403
Hi! I have a request for Peter Hayes(I js started reading Divergent for the second time and I'm on a roll). I'm thinking y/n is a transfer(amity..?) and she's a bit too kind to be dauntless, but way tougher than she seems(because whats a fanfic without trauma obvi), and she starts getting close to Peter because he reminds her of parts of amity, so she's the only person who really sees good in him, and he's the only one who sees that she's really strong, before he stabs Edward in the eye, and she like loses all her trust? Idk I'm just feeling like I need a super angsty betrayal rn.
requested by @sugarcooki, i hope you enjoy!
'Dangerous Games' - peter hayes x reader
masterlist
You can’t tell who is getting the most stares: the transfer from Abnegation or the transfer from Amity. You’d met Tris on the train after the Choosing Ceremony, her drab grays had made her distinct among the blacks and whites and blues. However, as unnerving as it is to see a Stiff in this arena of bravery, your yellow garments make you stand out more than a canary in a coal mine. No one knows how long it’s been since someone from either of your factions transferred to Dauntless, but it feels like an eternity. That only makes it more stunning that both of you are here right now.
You can’t let it get to you. You know why you’re here, anyone else’s opinion doesn’t really matter. They try to figure you out at dinner that first night, staring at you shamelessly over their meals like you were a zoo exhibit.
“I don’t get it,” Christina says, cocking her head to the side to get a better look at you. “I mean, I understand leaving Abnegation, I’d get bored out of my mind. But wouldn’t you like it in Amity? I mean, they’re happy all the time. I never hear any complaints. What, were people too sweet? Did it rot your teeth or something?”
Next to her, Will snorts. “Pretty sure that only applies to sugar.”
Christina rolls her eyes. “You get my point. Seriously, though, why’d you do it? What’s so wrong with Amity?”
You force a calm smile. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with Amity.”
Will turns his questioning gaze onto you. “Then why’d you leave?”
For a second, your mind goes blank. For years now, you’ve thought of leaving your old faction behind, dreamed of it practically every night. You know exactly why you had to go. But these people have only ever lived in their home factions. They’ve never been to Amity, just heard about it. Word of mouth is often misleading. You have your reasons, but at this moment it occurs to you that they will never understand.
So, you just shrug casually. “Needed a change of pace. Guess the whole thing got old. Nothing interesting.”
Christina looks disappointed, but moves on to interrogate Tris more about Abnegation instead. You almost think you’ve managed to duck under the radar this time, and then a voice sounds from further down the bench.
“Bullshit.”
You glance to your side and notice a boy looking over his shoulder at you. You recognize him as Peter, one of the Candor transfers, already having made a name for himself as one of the harsher candidates this year.
“What?” You ask him.
He jerks his chin towards the group. “Your reason for transferring. It’s bullshit. I used to be a Candor, you know. We can spot a lie from a mile away.”
You regard him dismissively. “You left, didn’t you? Maybe you’re not as good at spotting a lie as you thought. There’s nothing interesting about me leaving Amity. Go look for gossip somewhere else.”
You make to turn back to your group, but Peter speaks before you can. “I know there’s something you’re not telling us. It’ll come out, but maybe you’ll just fail out before we get the chance to discover what it is.”
You grit your teeth and don’t answer him. When you look back at the group, you realize that they’ve all been listening in to your conversation with Peter.
Christina leans forward and gives you a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about him, Peter’s just an asshole. Honestly, I’m surprised he transferred. He sure seemed to love being rude to everyone back home and getting away with it because he was honest.”
You flash her a thankful smile and try to turn back to your meal, but inside, you’re still thinking about Peter’s words. Christina and the others may be your first friends here, but they were just as curious as Peter was. At least Peter made his intentions obvious. Say what you will about Dauntless, but no one’s hiding anything around here. Everyone wants to drag each other down, it’s as clear as day. If you look to your left and right, the people at this table aren’t just focused on their celebratory dinners, they’re thinking about who would be the easiest to crush. What matters is getting a top placement out of initiation for the job of your choosing. Everyone knows this, so there’s no point in lying. You can twist and scheme as much as you like, but nothing is more blatant than the body on a training mat after a fight. One winner, one loser. Plain and simple.
See, Peter’s right. You are hiding something about Amity. There is a reason you left your sweet, sunny home behind for the coldness of Dauntless steel. No one here knows what it’s like in Dauntless because they, too, have only ever been at home– their homes, not yours. That’s the problem with the faction system, you suppose. All anyone sees is one very narrow view of how life is supposed to be, and so they cannot fathom what your life might have been like growing up, or why on earth you would want to leave the city’s most saccharine faction if it was so nice.
It wasn’t nice, that’s why. Sure, it was on the surface. Everyone’s words were sweet, their voices dripping with concern or praise whenever they crossed your path, but none of it was real. If any Candor visited, you think they’d die of shock. There have never been a prettier batch of lies than the ones told by Amity, and there are so many lies that it’s almost impossible to tell what people actually mean. You could go to town one day in a dress ripped to ribbons and everyone who saw you would run over to say how much they loved your new fashion choice and how brave it was to go for a deconstructed look! The second you turned away, they’d gossip about you until the cows came home. It’s just an excuse to chitchat with the neighbors, of course. They don’t mean anything by it.
There was one girl in particular who made your childhood a misery. She was a perfect Amity, it’s no surprise she stayed there after the Choosing Ceremony. You dreaded having her in your classes because she was always firing off the cruellest comments hidden under a veneer of charm. Everyone loved her, or maybe they were just scared of being her next target. There was never anything you could do about it, because her words were just sly enough to avoid being an outright insult. You couldn’t stand up to her, because that would involve aggressive language and get you a week’s worth of detention helping weed the school gardens.
The worst part is that you could never tell who agreed with her– it felt like she had everyone in Amity under her sway. You’d think you made a friend, someone you could trust, and then after trusting them with your secrets, you’d see them out with your bully and you’d get this sinking feeling in your chest like you’d been betrayed. Soon enough, that girl was teasing you with things you only told your friend in confidence, and you’d have to wonder if you’d ever had a real friend or just someone sent to spy on you because they thought it was funny.
It felt like you couldn’t trust anyone. Nothing was real, not really– the people checking in on you were just filling an empathy quota set by their supervisors, and you’d heard rumors about food getting spiked with Peace Serum whenever your neighbors were getting a little too testy. Life was a pantomime, and with every year that passed, you felt your grip on the truth fading little by little.
You had always assumed that you would stay in Amity, just about everyone did. It wasn’t until you took the mandated Aptitude Test and got a different result that you seriously considered leaving. Of course you’d thought about it, a life without lies, but you had just assumed what went on in Amity would happen everywhere. When you went home from the test that night, though, you thought about the people from other factions you’d seen on your rare visits to the city. They seemed sure about themselves in a way you weren’t at home, like they could trust what they saw or else figure it out on their own.
It occurred to you at last that you could not stomach the rest of your life in the perfumed unreality of Amity. After that, the decision to transfer was obvious. You briefly considered Candor, but worried they’d be no better than Amity regarding hidden lies. Dauntless, though, Dauntless seemed like the polar opposite of anything Amity. In that way, it was perfect. Did you see yourself as a fighter, a killer? Only time would tell, but at least in Dauntless, you know exactly where you were.
So, early into initiation, when the leaders revealed the rankings, you weren’t as freaked out as everyone else. Honestly, you loved the idea. At any given moment, you knew your standing in your faction. Back in Amity, that would have been a lifeline. You’ve heard most initiates hate these lists of names, that the constant display of skill or lack thereof sets their minds afire with nerves, but they don’t know how good they have it.
You take that as a sign that you really are meant for Dauntless after all. And, when you start doing well in training, and your name begins to steadily rise through the rankings, you’re certain you’re right. Everyone is stunned that an Amity could be halfway decent at proudly Dauntless feats of strength and brutality, and they take their misplaced assumption as an excuse to hit you twice as hard in an attempt to knock you down to where they think you belong. It’s not fun, and leaves you with more than a couple of painful bruises, but again, it’s all so obvious that you want to laugh out loud. Everything is so clear here.
Well, almost everything. There’s still one murky patch on your horizon, and that’s Peter Hayes. Honestly, you just can’t understand him. Everyone around you says that Peter is not to be trusted, that he only gets close to people to figure out how to cut them down. That makes sense by itself, so why is it that Peter finds a space beside you at every meal, every training drill? Why would he keep making comments under his breath to you when no one else can hear, and why would a smile split his otherwise moody face whenever you have to bite back a laugh?
It makes no sense. If you knew what was good for you, you would keep your distance. You came here for straight lines, obvious risks, and Peter is deception walking. There’s only one reason people leave Candor, Christina had told you secretly, after she’d caught you walking back from practice with Peter by your side, just close enough to touch, far enough to make you wish he would. They love lying so much they don’t care if they get caught or not, so they go somewhere it won’t matter.
You’d whispered back to her, Is that why you left? And waited for her to roll her eyes, annoyed, and go back to her bunk. Still, her words had played over in your mind longer than you care to admit. Peter is a liar. They’re all liars, the ex-Candor. But Peter’s putting a lot of time into you, surely more than anyone would for a mere backstabbing. If Peter’s just playing with you, it’s an awfully consuming game.
The questions circle through your mind day after day. When Peter finds you again, after hours in the training gym, your musings seem to echo through the hall with every blow of your fist against the punching bags.
It was as if he appeared out of nowhere, black clothes blending in with the shadows of the gym. “You know, for a so-called pansy Amity, you do seem to train more than anyone else.”
You glance over your shoulder. Of all the people to come visit you during one of your night training sessions, you can’t say you’re surprised it’s Peter. He’s been more present than ever as of late; feels like you can’t take a breath without him noticing.
“Not everyone,” you call back. “You’re here too, aren’t you?”
Peter ambles over to you, seemingly indifferent about the whole thing, the dark room, the tense shadows wrapping around the two of you. “You’re working, I’m not. Maybe I’m just here to watch.”
You roll your eyes and turn back to the punching bag so you don’t have to look at him anymore, so you won’t risk saying something stupid. “If you want a show, I think some of your old Candor buddies are trying to sneak into some parties a few floors up.”
“I couldn’t care less about them,” Peter scoffs. The rest goes unspoken, that the one he really cares about is you.
You force a fake laugh, but on the inside, you’re afire. “What, already bored of the other initiates? Doesn’t bode well for the rest of training, does it?”
“Not everyone bores me,” Peter says offhandedly. “Or haven’t you noticed?”
“I have noticed,” you reply. “You stare an awful lot for someone who doesn’t care about any of us.”
“You stare a lot too,” Peter fires back. “Half the time I look at you, you’re already looking at me.”
“So you admit you look at me?” You counter.
For a fraction of a second, Peter’s face freezes, and then it breaks into a wide, sharp grin. “Maybe I do. What’s it to you?”
“Why do you look?” You press. “Everyone else moved on from the fact that I was Amity ages ago. Don’t tell me you’re still trying to figure out why I transferred.”
“No,” Peter decides, “That’s old news. I already know why you’re here.”
You get the odd sensation of a pit opening in your stomach. “Yeah?” You try to sound casual. “And why’s that?”
He leans in, close enough that you can see the reflection of the lights in his eyes as they shine at you. “You’re perfect for this place. It’s obvious. You want to hurt people as badly as I do.”
For some reason, you feel relieved. He hasn’t figured you out yet, he just thinks you’re like him. Having Peter Hayes think you’re built of the same bloodthirsty material as him is probably a bad thing, but you can’t stop a spike of something like pride from ripping through you.
“You’re wrong,” you say decisively. “I don’t want to hurt people. I just don’t feel like being pushed around anymore.”
“Sure, sure,” Peter says, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Me too. If someone ever tried to get in my way again, I’d probably knock ‘em down, throw a punch, maybe even get out a knife–”
“Peter,” you say sharply, and he breaks off, grinning even despite the serious expression you’re fighting to keep on your face. “I wouldn’t do any of that. And neither would you.”
“No?” He asks, eyebrows raised. “Clearly you haven’t heard what the others are saying about me. They think I’m a monster.”
“Well, some would say you can’t believe everything you hear,” you fire back. “You may be good at building up an image, but I think both you and I know that not everything your old faction believes about you is true.”
Curiosity flashes across Peter’s face before he can stop himself. “Alright. What am I, then? Don’t tell me you think I’ve got good in me, I’ll throw up.”
You roll your eyes. “Maybe I do. You’re the one who’s here keeping me company on a dark night when any other initiate would take this as an opportunity to beat me up to keep me low in the rankings.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m here,” Peter says, face suddenly sinister. He takes a threatening step towards you. “Maybe I’ve had my fun talking and I’m about to stick you in the infirmary for the next week.”
You meet his gaze steadily. “Do it, then. Throw a punch.”
Peter holds his stance for a second longer, then relaxes. “Nah, I’m just kidding. I’m not the type to beat up on a harmless Amity with no witnesses.”
“I know you’re not the type,” you say, then, with a bit more heat, “I’m not harmless. And I’m no Amity.”
“I know,” Peter says calmly, and you get the sense that he means it, every bit of it. He knows you’re a threat, and he doesn’t see you as your old faction. He might be the first. Even Christina and the others keep side-eyeing you when they think you can’t see, as if Amity is something that can be studied on a person, that might rub off on them if they spend too much time around you. Peter is the only one who assumes that you can change, that you might be just as much a Dauntless as the rest of them, if not more so.
His good opinion means more to you than you care to admit. “Alright then,” you say as casually as you can, “Don’t fight me. Keep lurking if you like.”
You make a show of turning away from him back to the punching bag, but you’ve only landed a few strikes before Peter’s opening his mouth again.
“You’re moving while you’re still off balance,” he says quietly. “Take your time. You’re only half as strong if you’re not sure of your footing.”
“I won’t have time to wait when I’m in the ring,” you counter.
Peter scoffs, but the sound is fond. “I’m just trying to help, you know. I’ll just shut up, then.”
“No,” you say too quickly. “I didn’t mean it like that. Just trying to think things through, that’s all. How am I supposed to be patient in a real fight?”
“You’ll have more time than you think,” Peter replies. “Most of these guys need time to catch their breath, anyway. Just give yourself a quick second, then go back in.”
You nod. “Like this?” You try a few more punches, this time allowing yourself a heartbeat longer between each blow. You can tell that something’s different, that you’re able to hit more squarely, even before Peter nods in satisfaction.
“Yeah, that’s good.”
You grin over at him. “You’d make a halfway decent trainer. Maybe next year it’ll be you, Four, and Eric leading initiation.”
Peter shudders. “No thanks. I intend to head to leadership.”
You shrug. “You’d be good at that.”
Peter’s eyes dart to you, genuinely surprised. “You mean that.”
“I do,” you say.
Peter holds your eyes a second longer then makes himself look away, a small smile rising to his lips. “You’re probably the only other initiate who’d say that.”
“Who cares about them?” You ask. “I didn’t think you were the type to let anyone else get to you.”
“Of course not,” Peter says disbelievingly. “Do I really strike you as the type to cave to peer pressure?”
“No,” you answer steadily, “but I don’t think you’re an uncaring killer, either. I think there’s more to you than you’re letting on.”
“Funny,” Peter quips, “I was about to say the same thing about you.”
It’s not the first time he’s insinuated that you’re hiding something, but for some reason, tonight it feels less like an accusation and more like a declaration of admiration. You’re alike, the two of you. You rise above the crowds. You have depth that others don’t.
You finish the rest of your late night training session like you intend, but everything feels different with him there, more charged. You feel wide awake even though the rest of the faction is asleep. It’s as if the whole world narrows to just the two of you, the weight of his eyes on the bruises on your knuckles, his breathing aligning with yours as you make your way through two quick jabs, one strike, a step forward then back. You’re not honestly sure by the end if you’re two people or just one single mind. And, when he walks back with you to the dorm, stalking silently through the darkened halls, you keep feeling the brush of his fingers against yours in the shadows of the night. Neither of you call each other on it.
Everything is different after that night. Peter has been increasingly present as of late, but it doesn’t feel like he’s waiting for something anymore, as if you’ve found a threshold and leaped over it. Instead of watching silently, or only making quips under his breath when he’s certain no one can hear but you, his presence is active now, commanding you to pay attention. When you wake in the morning, his eyes flick to you over and over again, making certain that you won’t be late to training. He picks you as his sparring partner, and if he can’t, he shoots dark glares at the person working with you instead. He walks back with you every time, again close enough to touch, but far enough to make you be the one to make that last move. Sometimes you do, if you can convince yourself that the halls are empty enough and you won’t be spotted. It appears your newfound Dauntless bravery doesn’t always extend to the judgment of your peers.
Your late-night training sessions take on a different shade, too. He’s more open there, when the eyes of the world are not upon him. He tells you things about himself, why he left Candor, what he’s hoping to find here. You talk, too, about the vicious side of Amity. He seems surprised, but not completely taken aback, as if he had expected it. You get the sense that your initial impression of Candor as a surface coating of truth protecting a dark underbelly of lies was true, or Peter wouldn’t be so certain when talking about how appearances can be so deceiving.
There are times at night when you’re certain he’s going to kiss you. Sometimes, you’re overwhelmed by the sureness of it, like when the two of you are lying on your backs side by side on a mat after a round on the ring, chests heaving, and he rolls over onto one side to look down at you. There’s a hunger in his eyes for something more than blood, for the heart within your chest. He catches himself though, always just in the nick of time, right before you both do something you’ll regret. You can’t tell if you’re grateful for his control or hate it.
Your friends try to warn you off Peter once it becomes obvious that the two of you are growing closer together. Christina especially keeps insisting that he’s cruel, that he’ll tell you things to mess up your head just to get ahead in the rankings. She’s so certain that you start to doubt yourself, but then you spend another night with Peter, and get to see that soft smile he’s starting to let slip out when no one is around but you, and you just can’t believe her. Peter has a cruel streak, you’re not denying that, but you don’t think he’d hurt you. Selfishly, you almost think that’s enough to justify the rest.
Maybe you were so caught up in wanting to believe him that you forgot where you were, what the stakes of the initiation ranks might mean for everyone here. Maybe you wanted to believe that if you could change from the mold of your past faction, so could he. Maybe you forgot that cruel boys don’t lose their shape all that easily, and even if he wants to pretend to be soft and sweet with you, that sharp edge appears eventually. It always does. You of all people should know that.
A scream splits the dark air of the initiate’s bunks late one night, and even then, with an odd coppery scent billowing around you, with the howls of one of the trainees rattling in your ears, you don’t think to suspect Peter until you have no other choice. The screams are loud, blood-curdling, cries of agony you had never before heard from a human being. You hear rustling around you as initiates wake up to this living nightmare. Someone shuffles around, looking for a light switch, and, finding it, drowns the room in blinding light.
You blink a few times, trying to shake the spots from your vision. As your eyes adjust, you see people huddling around a figure a few beds from you. Edward’s bed, you think dully, but why would everyone be so worried about Edward? It takes your sleep-addled brain a few more moments to realize that he’s the one screaming, that the copper stench of blood is coming from his bed, from the gaping wound in his head that he’s clutching with one hand.
Your stomach lurches and you have to fight a wave of nausea. It’s his eye, you realize with horror, someone’s cut out his eye. No one else is in the room and you didn’t hear the door. It would have to be one of you.
Tris hurries over to Edward and starts pressing cloth to his head to try to stem the outpour of blood. Always selfless, Tris, your mind contributes helpfully. Always looking out for others. Guess you really can’t take the Abnegation out of the girl after all.
It makes you think about other people here from old factions, how those trends might inspire them to do something worse than help somebody. And only then, as if in a dream, do you start to think about who might be cruel enough to blind somebody just to get the top slot in initiation. There was only one name right below Edward’s, of course. Everyone knew the number one rank was between Edward and– and Peter.
Peter, who is sitting calmly on his bed, watching the proceedings. Unlike the rest of the room, he doesn’t look the slightest bit surprised that something like this might have happened. You realize that he’s absentmindedly picking at something under one of his nails, a dark stain, a dried brown smear on the palm of his dominant hand.
It’s blood. It’s Edward’s blood.
It hits you now, the full weight of how wrong you were about Peter. So many people tried to warn you, and you had too much pride to listen, so sure of yourself about people’s true characters and first impressions and all of that nonsense. If you had just looked– if you had just listened–
You wonder if he passed over your bed with the blade, if he had stared at your sleeping body and debated killing two birds with one stone before carrying on to Edward. No, you decide self-loathingly, he would have no need to kill you. You are no threat to him, not when you fell for his scheme so perfectly.
Christina has the kindness not to comment on your silence that day, nor why you no longer go to Peter during practice sessions but stay there with your friends. You do see a few ‘told-you-so’ looks exchanged behind your back, but everyone’s so shaken up from what happened to Edward that they let you off easy. Besides, it must be obvious that you’re beating yourself up enough that their judgement would hardly matter.
Peter only tries to talk to you once after that night with Edward. It was casual, a hand reaching out to you at the end of a training session, a low voice asking how your fights were that day. You can’t even bring yourself to look at him, sure that you can still see the ghost of Edward’s dried blood on those fingertips, and end up forcing yourself to walk right past him without a second thought. It hurts like a gunshot to the chest, like a knife in the eye. You can see him startle in your peripheral vision, start to turn to you as if to ask why, but you’re out the door before he gets the chance.
Peter gets the picture after that. He stops trying to walk next to you in the corridors and doesn’t try to train with you any more. He doesn’t even show up in the gym after hours anymore, although you swear you can still feel the ghost of him watching you when it’s just you and the bruise in your knuckles and the weight of having misjudged him so terribly.
He still watches, though. Still waits at the end of the ring while you’re fighting. He won’t let you go, not completely, and one night when you’re walking back from a party he finally gets his chance. You’re on edge, head pounding from too-loud music that you were always one line away from recognizing, and decide to head out to the roofline to clear your head. The night air is crisp, takes your breath away, and you decide to wander over to the railing and stare out over the city. It’s beautiful at night, with the buildings sprawling out before you like an old photograph. You can imagine people in every window, opening every door, waking and sleeping and going about their business. A whole world, and to you it’s just one pinprick of light in this immense darkness.
A sudden voice splits the peace of the night, and you’re instantly on your guard again. “And here I thought I’d never get a chance to see you.”
You whip around to see Peter quietly emerging from the door you’d just left. “Peter,” you say breathlessly, then remember all the weight and ache of his betrayal and look away again.
He folds his arms across his chest. “Still won’t talk to me? I see Christina got to you at last. Funny, I really thought you could see through all that.”
“It’s not Christina,” you spit at him. “You stabbed Edward when he was sleeping, Peter. You blinded him. He was top of the rankings and now he’s factionless. His whole life is over because you backstabbed him.”
Peter’s gaze hardens. “If he was top of the rankings, he should have known to be ready for anything. A real Dauntless would know better than to let his guard down in a room full of competitors.”
“He was asleep,” you say disbelievingly. “We fight in training, sure, but not in the dorms. You cheated and lied. You made me think you were better than this. I should have listened to them in the first place.”
Peter’s eyes look hollow. “If you fooled yourself into thinking I’m a saint, that’s your fault, not mine. I’ve known what I am for a very long time. I am the perfect Dauntless, whether you want to believe that or not.”
“You weren’t,” you stutter out. “You could have been something else. For a while there, I really thought–”
“Thought what?” Peter asks scornfully. “That I was a nice guy? That there was any world in which I stopped wanting to win and just decided to roll over because people deserved it more? No. If Edward deserved to win, he wouldn’t have given up. You know he did. I just wanted to show it to people. Now everyone knows he was a coward who would rather drop out than try to live with discomfort.”
“Discomfort,” you laugh incredulously. “He’s blind.”
“I left him an eye,” Peter retorts.
You shake your head. “You’re insane, Peter.”
“But you liked it for a while,” he says. “Didn’t you?”
You can’t answer, the words cling like dust to your throat. You try to push past him, but Peter grabs your arm, stopping you from going too far. “You can think whatever you want of me,” he says hollowly, “but I have always been this way. Don’t blame me for your high expectations.”
“I never expected you to be perfect,” you hiss back. “I just wanted a friend. You’ll never have that, Peter, not again, not after this. We’re all too scared of you to ever let you get close again.”
He pulls back for a moment, wounded, and you take that opportunity to yank your arm back and storm away. Selfishly, you want Peter to call after you, to stop you, but for once he lets you go without a fight and you’re gone, disappearing back into the quiet darkness of the Dauntless corridors.
You’re distracted. You feel the absence of him like a phantom limb. It affects you more than you care to admit. You have a fight two days after that, one you should win with a decent effort, and you find yourself zoning out halfway through. You try to force yourself to focus, but your mind is elsewhere. You don’t see the hit that knocks your legs out from under you, and your arms seem to move far too slowly to block your head when the fist comes at you. There’s an intense blast of pain, and then you’re not in the gym at all anywhere, but floating somewhere in the darkness, untethered and spinning in endless nothingness.
Your eyes blink open some time later, after hours or days or maybe just a few minutes. Your world is shaking slightly, side to side with a rhythmic motion, and you realize that you’re being carried by someone. You open your eyes a little more, although the lights hurt. There are arms wrapped around you, someone running with you to who knows where. You look up, squinting, and realize that it’s Peter who has you, Peter who is running at a full sprint.
He glances down at you, realizing you’re awake. “Keep your eyes open. Don’t fall asleep again.”
He’s saying something about a bad hit to your head, but you’re tired, tired from weeks of intense training, of late nights and bad habits and exhaustion, and the thought of sleep really is quite nice. Your eyes start to flicker shut again. Dimly, you hear Peter’s voice taking on a pleading tone, but it’s too late now. The darkness swallows you whole once again.
You don’t wake for a while, of that you’re certain. Even then, you shift between sleeping and consciousness, finally able to pull yourself solidly into reality with great effort. When you’re finally able to sit up and look around, you realize that you’re in the infirmary. Your head aches, as if it’s been punched into the ground, which you suppose it has.
You groan lowly, remembering the fight. It had felt like you were moving through water, every action slowed and dull. The pained sound from your throat draws the attention of someone in the chair next to your hospital bed, who sits forward intently. It’s Peter, you feel with an unwanted rush of fondness. He’s the one who got you here and he stayed the whole time.
“How are you feeling?” His voice is rough, tired.
You wince. “Good enough, considering. How long have you been here?”
He shrugs, not quite looking at you. “Needed to make sure you were alright. That was some hit you took.”
“A proper Dauntless would have said if I was weak enough to lose that fight, I would deserve the hit.” You don’t say it kindly. Peter takes it like a blow.
“I already know you’re good enough,” he says, head low like a kicked dog. “You weren’t yourself today. Doesn’t mean I want to see you get beaten like that. When you stopped moving–”
He cuts himself off suddenly, a pained expression twisting across his face. You look back at him, really look at him, in a way you haven’t allowed yourself to look in a while. He’s still every inch the boy you wish he was. His dark hair still curls slightly over his temples, and his eyes shine even with the poor fluorescents of the infirmary. You’ve always thought him handsome, a feeling that hasn’t gone away despite your brain telling you otherwise.
“I thought you were gone,” Peter says abruptly. “You were just lying there. Scared me.”
You reach over and lay your hand on his. “I’m still here.”
He’s not done yet, the words pouring from him like blood from a wound. “I hated the way you looked at me after what I did to Edward. I don’t regret blinding him, I don’t, it was the right move, let me in exactly where I needed to be, but I hated that it meant I lost you. Didn’t feel as good being at the top when you weren’t around anymore. It’s all bitter now. I’m not a good person, Y/N, I never have been, and I’ll keep doing shit to people if it gets me where I need to be, I just– I wanted you to know that I miss you, that’s all. You got one thing right about me. I wasn’t happy being alone.”
He leans back slightly, chest heaving with the force of all that truth. Somewhere in there is still a Candor’s spirit. He will always feel better after he spills his guts.
“I forgive you,” you say quietly. “And I missed you, too.”
Peter meets your eyes at last. “Don’t leave me again.”
“Don’t make me find out about your bad decisions at the same time as everyone else,” you counter. “I can’t stop you from doing what you do, but I hated feeling like you betrayed me. You tell me everything or you’re done.”
A flicker of a smile ghosts his lips. “You want me to be honest?”
“I want you to be talkative,” you decide. “I was getting bored with you.”
This time he grins in earnest. “I knew there was a killer in you somewhere.”
“Not a killer,” you answer, “but a Dauntless for sure.”
“Oh, that we all knew,” Peter laughs quietly. “I figured that out on the first day.”
You glance at him, curious. “How? Everyone else just saw some clueless Amity.”
He lifts a shoulder, pleased. “You stood up to me, then ignored me without a second thought. You were the most interesting thing I saw that whole day.”
You laugh at that. “You just wanted entertainment, you mean. You wanted a puzzle to solve.”
“Haven’t solved you yet,” Peter says. “Are you going to let me stay around long enough to get a second chance at figuring you out?”
You take a slow breath in, then out. The reasonable answer is to say no, because by now you know that Peter may be alluring and always one step out of reach, but he’s a bloody and twisted soul. If you go down this path too long, it’ll consume you. You know that.
You also know that you didn’t come to Dauntless to play it safe, but to live, and to live fully. “Yes,” you reply at last, “I think I will.”
For someone so dark and dangerous, Peter certainly has a wonderful smile. “I’m glad to hear it.”
He squeezes your hand once, twice. You smile to yourself with satisfaction. Peter may be using all of this as a game to keep himself busy while he stalks to the top of the rankings, but he’s forgotten one thing: you’re playing, too. He’s not the only one curious about just what makes a Dauntless initiate the way they are. The way you see it, you’ve just had one great view of the inner workings of a Candor. You’ve got a great many questions. It’s time to get some answers.
Hi! I have a request for Peter Hayes(I js started reading Divergent for the second time and I'm on a roll). I'm thinking y/n is a transfer(amity..?) and she's a bit too kind to be dauntless, but way tougher than she seems(because whats a fanfic without trauma obvi), and she starts getting close to Peter because he reminds her of parts of amity, so she's the only person who really sees good in him, and he's the only one who sees that she's really strong, before he stabs Edward in the eye, and she like loses all her trust? Idk I'm just feeling like I need a super angsty betrayal rn.
requested by @sugarcooki, i hope you enjoy!
'Dangerous Games' - peter hayes x reader
masterlist
You can’t tell who is getting the most stares: the transfer from Abnegation or the transfer from Amity. You’d met Tris on the train after the Choosing Ceremony, her drab grays had made her distinct among the blacks and whites and blues. However, as unnerving as it is to see a Stiff in this arena of bravery, your yellow garments make you stand out more than a canary in a coal mine. No one knows how long it’s been since someone from either of your factions transferred to Dauntless, but it feels like an eternity. That only makes it more stunning that both of you are here right now.
You can’t let it get to you. You know why you’re here, anyone else’s opinion doesn’t really matter. They try to figure you out at dinner that first night, staring at you shamelessly over their meals like you were a zoo exhibit.
“I don’t get it,” Christina says, cocking her head to the side to get a better look at you. “I mean, I understand leaving Abnegation, I’d get bored out of my mind. But wouldn’t you like it in Amity? I mean, they’re happy all the time. I never hear any complaints. What, were people too sweet? Did it rot your teeth or something?”
Next to her, Will snorts. “Pretty sure that only applies to sugar.”
Christina rolls her eyes. “You get my point. Seriously, though, why’d you do it? What’s so wrong with Amity?”
You force a calm smile. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with Amity.”
Will turns his questioning gaze onto you. “Then why’d you leave?”
For a second, your mind goes blank. For years now, you’ve thought of leaving your old faction behind, dreamed of it practically every night. You know exactly why you had to go. But these people have only ever lived in their home factions. They’ve never been to Amity, just heard about it. Word of mouth is often misleading. You have your reasons, but at this moment it occurs to you that they will never understand.
So, you just shrug casually. “Needed a change of pace. Guess the whole thing got old. Nothing interesting.”
Christina looks disappointed, but moves on to interrogate Tris more about Abnegation instead. You almost think you’ve managed to duck under the radar this time, and then a voice sounds from further down the bench.
“Bullshit.”
You glance to your side and notice a boy looking over his shoulder at you. You recognize him as Peter, one of the Candor transfers, already having made a name for himself as one of the harsher candidates this year.
“What?” You ask him.
He jerks his chin towards the group. “Your reason for transferring. It’s bullshit. I used to be a Candor, you know. We can spot a lie from a mile away.”
You regard him dismissively. “You left, didn’t you? Maybe you’re not as good at spotting a lie as you thought. There’s nothing interesting about me leaving Amity. Go look for gossip somewhere else.”
You make to turn back to your group, but Peter speaks before you can. “I know there’s something you’re not telling us. It’ll come out, but maybe you’ll just fail out before we get the chance to discover what it is.”
You grit your teeth and don’t answer him. When you look back at the group, you realize that they’ve all been listening in to your conversation with Peter.
Christina leans forward and gives you a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry about him, Peter’s just an asshole. Honestly, I’m surprised he transferred. He sure seemed to love being rude to everyone back home and getting away with it because he was honest.”
You flash her a thankful smile and try to turn back to your meal, but inside, you’re still thinking about Peter’s words. Christina and the others may be your first friends here, but they were just as curious as Peter was. At least Peter made his intentions obvious. Say what you will about Dauntless, but no one’s hiding anything around here. Everyone wants to drag each other down, it’s as clear as day. If you look to your left and right, the people at this table aren’t just focused on their celebratory dinners, they’re thinking about who would be the easiest to crush. What matters is getting a top placement out of initiation for the job of your choosing. Everyone knows this, so there’s no point in lying. You can twist and scheme as much as you like, but nothing is more blatant than the body on a training mat after a fight. One winner, one loser. Plain and simple.
See, Peter’s right. You are hiding something about Amity. There is a reason you left your sweet, sunny home behind for the coldness of Dauntless steel. No one here knows what it’s like in Dauntless because they, too, have only ever been at home– their homes, not yours. That’s the problem with the faction system, you suppose. All anyone sees is one very narrow view of how life is supposed to be, and so they cannot fathom what your life might have been like growing up, or why on earth you would want to leave the city’s most saccharine faction if it was so nice.
It wasn’t nice, that’s why. Sure, it was on the surface. Everyone’s words were sweet, their voices dripping with concern or praise whenever they crossed your path, but none of it was real. If any Candor visited, you think they’d die of shock. There have never been a prettier batch of lies than the ones told by Amity, and there are so many lies that it’s almost impossible to tell what people actually mean. You could go to town one day in a dress ripped to ribbons and everyone who saw you would run over to say how much they loved your new fashion choice and how brave it was to go for a deconstructed look! The second you turned away, they’d gossip about you until the cows came home. It’s just an excuse to chitchat with the neighbors, of course. They don’t mean anything by it.
There was one girl in particular who made your childhood a misery. She was a perfect Amity, it’s no surprise she stayed there after the Choosing Ceremony. You dreaded having her in your classes because she was always firing off the cruellest comments hidden under a veneer of charm. Everyone loved her, or maybe they were just scared of being her next target. There was never anything you could do about it, because her words were just sly enough to avoid being an outright insult. You couldn’t stand up to her, because that would involve aggressive language and get you a week’s worth of detention helping weed the school gardens.
The worst part is that you could never tell who agreed with her– it felt like she had everyone in Amity under her sway. You’d think you made a friend, someone you could trust, and then after trusting them with your secrets, you’d see them out with your bully and you’d get this sinking feeling in your chest like you’d been betrayed. Soon enough, that girl was teasing you with things you only told your friend in confidence, and you’d have to wonder if you’d ever had a real friend or just someone sent to spy on you because they thought it was funny.
It felt like you couldn’t trust anyone. Nothing was real, not really– the people checking in on you were just filling an empathy quota set by their supervisors, and you’d heard rumors about food getting spiked with Peace Serum whenever your neighbors were getting a little too testy. Life was a pantomime, and with every year that passed, you felt your grip on the truth fading little by little.
You had always assumed that you would stay in Amity, just about everyone did. It wasn’t until you took the mandated Aptitude Test and got a different result that you seriously considered leaving. Of course you’d thought about it, a life without lies, but you had just assumed what went on in Amity would happen everywhere. When you went home from the test that night, though, you thought about the people from other factions you’d seen on your rare visits to the city. They seemed sure about themselves in a way you weren’t at home, like they could trust what they saw or else figure it out on their own.
It occurred to you at last that you could not stomach the rest of your life in the perfumed unreality of Amity. After that, the decision to transfer was obvious. You briefly considered Candor, but worried they’d be no better than Amity regarding hidden lies. Dauntless, though, Dauntless seemed like the polar opposite of anything Amity. In that way, it was perfect. Did you see yourself as a fighter, a killer? Only time would tell, but at least in Dauntless, you know exactly where you were.
So, early into initiation, when the leaders revealed the rankings, you weren’t as freaked out as everyone else. Honestly, you loved the idea. At any given moment, you knew your standing in your faction. Back in Amity, that would have been a lifeline. You’ve heard most initiates hate these lists of names, that the constant display of skill or lack thereof sets their minds afire with nerves, but they don’t know how good they have it.
You take that as a sign that you really are meant for Dauntless after all. And, when you start doing well in training, and your name begins to steadily rise through the rankings, you’re certain you’re right. Everyone is stunned that an Amity could be halfway decent at proudly Dauntless feats of strength and brutality, and they take their misplaced assumption as an excuse to hit you twice as hard in an attempt to knock you down to where they think you belong. It’s not fun, and leaves you with more than a couple of painful bruises, but again, it’s all so obvious that you want to laugh out loud. Everything is so clear here.
Well, almost everything. There’s still one murky patch on your horizon, and that’s Peter Hayes. Honestly, you just can’t understand him. Everyone around you says that Peter is not to be trusted, that he only gets close to people to figure out how to cut them down. That makes sense by itself, so why is it that Peter finds a space beside you at every meal, every training drill? Why would he keep making comments under his breath to you when no one else can hear, and why would a smile split his otherwise moody face whenever you have to bite back a laugh?
It makes no sense. If you knew what was good for you, you would keep your distance. You came here for straight lines, obvious risks, and Peter is deception walking. There’s only one reason people leave Candor, Christina had told you secretly, after she’d caught you walking back from practice with Peter by your side, just close enough to touch, far enough to make you wish he would. They love lying so much they don’t care if they get caught or not, so they go somewhere it won’t matter.
You’d whispered back to her, Is that why you left? And waited for her to roll her eyes, annoyed, and go back to her bunk. Still, her words had played over in your mind longer than you care to admit. Peter is a liar. They’re all liars, the ex-Candor. But Peter’s putting a lot of time into you, surely more than anyone would for a mere backstabbing. If Peter’s just playing with you, it’s an awfully consuming game.
The questions circle through your mind day after day. When Peter finds you again, after hours in the training gym, your musings seem to echo through the hall with every blow of your fist against the punching bags.
It was as if he appeared out of nowhere, black clothes blending in with the shadows of the gym. “You know, for a so-called pansy Amity, you do seem to train more than anyone else.”
You glance over your shoulder. Of all the people to come visit you during one of your night training sessions, you can’t say you’re surprised it’s Peter. He’s been more present than ever as of late; feels like you can’t take a breath without him noticing.
“Not everyone,” you call back. “You’re here too, aren’t you?”
Peter ambles over to you, seemingly indifferent about the whole thing, the dark room, the tense shadows wrapping around the two of you. “You’re working, I’m not. Maybe I’m just here to watch.”
You roll your eyes and turn back to the punching bag so you don’t have to look at him anymore, so you won’t risk saying something stupid. “If you want a show, I think some of your old Candor buddies are trying to sneak into some parties a few floors up.”
“I couldn’t care less about them,” Peter scoffs. The rest goes unspoken, that the one he really cares about is you.
You force a fake laugh, but on the inside, you’re afire. “What, already bored of the other initiates? Doesn’t bode well for the rest of training, does it?”
“Not everyone bores me,” Peter says offhandedly. “Or haven’t you noticed?”
“I have noticed,” you reply. “You stare an awful lot for someone who doesn’t care about any of us.”
“You stare a lot too,” Peter fires back. “Half the time I look at you, you’re already looking at me.”
“So you admit you look at me?” You counter.
For a fraction of a second, Peter’s face freezes, and then it breaks into a wide, sharp grin. “Maybe I do. What’s it to you?”
“Why do you look?” You press. “Everyone else moved on from the fact that I was Amity ages ago. Don’t tell me you’re still trying to figure out why I transferred.”
“No,” Peter decides, “That’s old news. I already know why you’re here.”
You get the odd sensation of a pit opening in your stomach. “Yeah?” You try to sound casual. “And why’s that?”
He leans in, close enough that you can see the reflection of the lights in his eyes as they shine at you. “You’re perfect for this place. It’s obvious. You want to hurt people as badly as I do.”
For some reason, you feel relieved. He hasn’t figured you out yet, he just thinks you’re like him. Having Peter Hayes think you’re built of the same bloodthirsty material as him is probably a bad thing, but you can’t stop a spike of something like pride from ripping through you.
“You’re wrong,” you say decisively. “I don’t want to hurt people. I just don’t feel like being pushed around anymore.”
“Sure, sure,” Peter says, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “Me too. If someone ever tried to get in my way again, I’d probably knock ‘em down, throw a punch, maybe even get out a knife–”
“Peter,” you say sharply, and he breaks off, grinning even despite the serious expression you’re fighting to keep on your face. “I wouldn’t do any of that. And neither would you.”
“No?” He asks, eyebrows raised. “Clearly you haven’t heard what the others are saying about me. They think I’m a monster.”
“Well, some would say you can’t believe everything you hear,” you fire back. “You may be good at building up an image, but I think both you and I know that not everything your old faction believes about you is true.”
Curiosity flashes across Peter’s face before he can stop himself. “Alright. What am I, then? Don’t tell me you think I’ve got good in me, I’ll throw up.”
You roll your eyes. “Maybe I do. You’re the one who’s here keeping me company on a dark night when any other initiate would take this as an opportunity to beat me up to keep me low in the rankings.”
“Maybe that’s why I’m here,” Peter says, face suddenly sinister. He takes a threatening step towards you. “Maybe I’ve had my fun talking and I’m about to stick you in the infirmary for the next week.”
You meet his gaze steadily. “Do it, then. Throw a punch.”
Peter holds his stance for a second longer, then relaxes. “Nah, I’m just kidding. I’m not the type to beat up on a harmless Amity with no witnesses.”
“I know you’re not the type,” you say, then, with a bit more heat, “I’m not harmless. And I’m no Amity.”
“I know,” Peter says calmly, and you get the sense that he means it, every bit of it. He knows you’re a threat, and he doesn’t see you as your old faction. He might be the first. Even Christina and the others keep side-eyeing you when they think you can’t see, as if Amity is something that can be studied on a person, that might rub off on them if they spend too much time around you. Peter is the only one who assumes that you can change, that you might be just as much a Dauntless as the rest of them, if not more so.
His good opinion means more to you than you care to admit. “Alright then,” you say as casually as you can, “Don’t fight me. Keep lurking if you like.”
You make a show of turning away from him back to the punching bag, but you’ve only landed a few strikes before Peter’s opening his mouth again.
“You’re moving while you’re still off balance,” he says quietly. “Take your time. You’re only half as strong if you’re not sure of your footing.”
“I won’t have time to wait when I’m in the ring,” you counter.
Peter scoffs, but the sound is fond. “I’m just trying to help, you know. I’ll just shut up, then.”
“No,” you say too quickly. “I didn’t mean it like that. Just trying to think things through, that’s all. How am I supposed to be patient in a real fight?”
“You’ll have more time than you think,” Peter replies. “Most of these guys need time to catch their breath, anyway. Just give yourself a quick second, then go back in.”
You nod. “Like this?” You try a few more punches, this time allowing yourself a heartbeat longer between each blow. You can tell that something’s different, that you’re able to hit more squarely, even before Peter nods in satisfaction.
“Yeah, that’s good.”
You grin over at him. “You’d make a halfway decent trainer. Maybe next year it’ll be you, Four, and Eric leading initiation.”
Peter shudders. “No thanks. I intend to head to leadership.”
You shrug. “You’d be good at that.”
Peter’s eyes dart to you, genuinely surprised. “You mean that.”
“I do,” you say.
Peter holds your eyes a second longer then makes himself look away, a small smile rising to his lips. “You’re probably the only other initiate who’d say that.”
“Who cares about them?” You ask. “I didn’t think you were the type to let anyone else get to you.”
“Of course not,” Peter says disbelievingly. “Do I really strike you as the type to cave to peer pressure?”
“No,” you answer steadily, “but I don’t think you’re an uncaring killer, either. I think there’s more to you than you’re letting on.”
“Funny,” Peter quips, “I was about to say the same thing about you.”
It’s not the first time he’s insinuated that you’re hiding something, but for some reason, tonight it feels less like an accusation and more like a declaration of admiration. You’re alike, the two of you. You rise above the crowds. You have depth that others don’t.
You finish the rest of your late night training session like you intend, but everything feels different with him there, more charged. You feel wide awake even though the rest of the faction is asleep. It’s as if the whole world narrows to just the two of you, the weight of his eyes on the bruises on your knuckles, his breathing aligning with yours as you make your way through two quick jabs, one strike, a step forward then back. You’re not honestly sure by the end if you’re two people or just one single mind. And, when he walks back with you to the dorm, stalking silently through the darkened halls, you keep feeling the brush of his fingers against yours in the shadows of the night. Neither of you call each other on it.
Everything is different after that night. Peter has been increasingly present as of late, but it doesn’t feel like he’s waiting for something anymore, as if you’ve found a threshold and leaped over it. Instead of watching silently, or only making quips under his breath when he’s certain no one can hear but you, his presence is active now, commanding you to pay attention. When you wake in the morning, his eyes flick to you over and over again, making certain that you won’t be late to training. He picks you as his sparring partner, and if he can’t, he shoots dark glares at the person working with you instead. He walks back with you every time, again close enough to touch, but far enough to make you be the one to make that last move. Sometimes you do, if you can convince yourself that the halls are empty enough and you won’t be spotted. It appears your newfound Dauntless bravery doesn’t always extend to the judgment of your peers.
Your late-night training sessions take on a different shade, too. He’s more open there, when the eyes of the world are not upon him. He tells you things about himself, why he left Candor, what he’s hoping to find here. You talk, too, about the vicious side of Amity. He seems surprised, but not completely taken aback, as if he had expected it. You get the sense that your initial impression of Candor as a surface coating of truth protecting a dark underbelly of lies was true, or Peter wouldn’t be so certain when talking about how appearances can be so deceiving.
There are times at night when you’re certain he’s going to kiss you. Sometimes, you’re overwhelmed by the sureness of it, like when the two of you are lying on your backs side by side on a mat after a round on the ring, chests heaving, and he rolls over onto one side to look down at you. There’s a hunger in his eyes for something more than blood, for the heart within your chest. He catches himself though, always just in the nick of time, right before you both do something you’ll regret. You can’t tell if you’re grateful for his control or hate it.
Your friends try to warn you off Peter once it becomes obvious that the two of you are growing closer together. Christina especially keeps insisting that he’s cruel, that he’ll tell you things to mess up your head just to get ahead in the rankings. She’s so certain that you start to doubt yourself, but then you spend another night with Peter, and get to see that soft smile he’s starting to let slip out when no one is around but you, and you just can’t believe her. Peter has a cruel streak, you’re not denying that, but you don’t think he’d hurt you. Selfishly, you almost think that’s enough to justify the rest.
Maybe you were so caught up in wanting to believe him that you forgot where you were, what the stakes of the initiation ranks might mean for everyone here. Maybe you wanted to believe that if you could change from the mold of your past faction, so could he. Maybe you forgot that cruel boys don’t lose their shape all that easily, and even if he wants to pretend to be soft and sweet with you, that sharp edge appears eventually. It always does. You of all people should know that.
A scream splits the dark air of the initiate’s bunks late one night, and even then, with an odd coppery scent billowing around you, with the howls of one of the trainees rattling in your ears, you don’t think to suspect Peter until you have no other choice. The screams are loud, blood-curdling, cries of agony you had never before heard from a human being. You hear rustling around you as initiates wake up to this living nightmare. Someone shuffles around, looking for a light switch, and, finding it, drowns the room in blinding light.
You blink a few times, trying to shake the spots from your vision. As your eyes adjust, you see people huddling around a figure a few beds from you. Edward’s bed, you think dully, but why would everyone be so worried about Edward? It takes your sleep-addled brain a few more moments to realize that he’s the one screaming, that the copper stench of blood is coming from his bed, from the gaping wound in his head that he’s clutching with one hand.
Your stomach lurches and you have to fight a wave of nausea. It’s his eye, you realize with horror, someone’s cut out his eye. No one else is in the room and you didn’t hear the door. It would have to be one of you.
Tris hurries over to Edward and starts pressing cloth to his head to try to stem the outpour of blood. Always selfless, Tris, your mind contributes helpfully. Always looking out for others. Guess you really can’t take the Abnegation out of the girl after all.
It makes you think about other people here from old factions, how those trends might inspire them to do something worse than help somebody. And only then, as if in a dream, do you start to think about who might be cruel enough to blind somebody just to get the top slot in initiation. There was only one name right below Edward’s, of course. Everyone knew the number one rank was between Edward and– and Peter.
Peter, who is sitting calmly on his bed, watching the proceedings. Unlike the rest of the room, he doesn’t look the slightest bit surprised that something like this might have happened. You realize that he’s absentmindedly picking at something under one of his nails, a dark stain, a dried brown smear on the palm of his dominant hand.
It’s blood. It’s Edward’s blood.
It hits you now, the full weight of how wrong you were about Peter. So many people tried to warn you, and you had too much pride to listen, so sure of yourself about people’s true characters and first impressions and all of that nonsense. If you had just looked– if you had just listened–
You wonder if he passed over your bed with the blade, if he had stared at your sleeping body and debated killing two birds with one stone before carrying on to Edward. No, you decide self-loathingly, he would have no need to kill you. You are no threat to him, not when you fell for his scheme so perfectly.
Christina has the kindness not to comment on your silence that day, nor why you no longer go to Peter during practice sessions but stay there with your friends. You do see a few ‘told-you-so’ looks exchanged behind your back, but everyone’s so shaken up from what happened to Edward that they let you off easy. Besides, it must be obvious that you’re beating yourself up enough that their judgement would hardly matter.
Peter only tries to talk to you once after that night with Edward. It was casual, a hand reaching out to you at the end of a training session, a low voice asking how your fights were that day. You can’t even bring yourself to look at him, sure that you can still see the ghost of Edward’s dried blood on those fingertips, and end up forcing yourself to walk right past him without a second thought. It hurts like a gunshot to the chest, like a knife in the eye. You can see him startle in your peripheral vision, start to turn to you as if to ask why, but you’re out the door before he gets the chance.
Peter gets the picture after that. He stops trying to walk next to you in the corridors and doesn’t try to train with you any more. He doesn’t even show up in the gym after hours anymore, although you swear you can still feel the ghost of him watching you when it’s just you and the bruise in your knuckles and the weight of having misjudged him so terribly.
He still watches, though. Still waits at the end of the ring while you’re fighting. He won’t let you go, not completely, and one night when you’re walking back from a party he finally gets his chance. You’re on edge, head pounding from too-loud music that you were always one line away from recognizing, and decide to head out to the roofline to clear your head. The night air is crisp, takes your breath away, and you decide to wander over to the railing and stare out over the city. It’s beautiful at night, with the buildings sprawling out before you like an old photograph. You can imagine people in every window, opening every door, waking and sleeping and going about their business. A whole world, and to you it’s just one pinprick of light in this immense darkness.
A sudden voice splits the peace of the night, and you’re instantly on your guard again. “And here I thought I’d never get a chance to see you.”
You whip around to see Peter quietly emerging from the door you’d just left. “Peter,” you say breathlessly, then remember all the weight and ache of his betrayal and look away again.
He folds his arms across his chest. “Still won’t talk to me? I see Christina got to you at last. Funny, I really thought you could see through all that.”
“It’s not Christina,” you spit at him. “You stabbed Edward when he was sleeping, Peter. You blinded him. He was top of the rankings and now he’s factionless. His whole life is over because you backstabbed him.”
Peter’s gaze hardens. “If he was top of the rankings, he should have known to be ready for anything. A real Dauntless would know better than to let his guard down in a room full of competitors.”
“He was asleep,” you say disbelievingly. “We fight in training, sure, but not in the dorms. You cheated and lied. You made me think you were better than this. I should have listened to them in the first place.”
Peter’s eyes look hollow. “If you fooled yourself into thinking I’m a saint, that’s your fault, not mine. I’ve known what I am for a very long time. I am the perfect Dauntless, whether you want to believe that or not.”
“You weren’t,” you stutter out. “You could have been something else. For a while there, I really thought–”
“Thought what?” Peter asks scornfully. “That I was a nice guy? That there was any world in which I stopped wanting to win and just decided to roll over because people deserved it more? No. If Edward deserved to win, he wouldn’t have given up. You know he did. I just wanted to show it to people. Now everyone knows he was a coward who would rather drop out than try to live with discomfort.”
“Discomfort,” you laugh incredulously. “He’s blind.”
“I left him an eye,” Peter retorts.
You shake your head. “You’re insane, Peter.”
“But you liked it for a while,” he says. “Didn’t you?”
You can’t answer, the words cling like dust to your throat. You try to push past him, but Peter grabs your arm, stopping you from going too far. “You can think whatever you want of me,” he says hollowly, “but I have always been this way. Don’t blame me for your high expectations.”
“I never expected you to be perfect,” you hiss back. “I just wanted a friend. You’ll never have that, Peter, not again, not after this. We’re all too scared of you to ever let you get close again.”
He pulls back for a moment, wounded, and you take that opportunity to yank your arm back and storm away. Selfishly, you want Peter to call after you, to stop you, but for once he lets you go without a fight and you’re gone, disappearing back into the quiet darkness of the Dauntless corridors.
You’re distracted. You feel the absence of him like a phantom limb. It affects you more than you care to admit. You have a fight two days after that, one you should win with a decent effort, and you find yourself zoning out halfway through. You try to force yourself to focus, but your mind is elsewhere. You don’t see the hit that knocks your legs out from under you, and your arms seem to move far too slowly to block your head when the fist comes at you. There’s an intense blast of pain, and then you’re not in the gym at all anywhere, but floating somewhere in the darkness, untethered and spinning in endless nothingness.
Your eyes blink open some time later, after hours or days or maybe just a few minutes. Your world is shaking slightly, side to side with a rhythmic motion, and you realize that you’re being carried by someone. You open your eyes a little more, although the lights hurt. There are arms wrapped around you, someone running with you to who knows where. You look up, squinting, and realize that it’s Peter who has you, Peter who is running at a full sprint.
He glances down at you, realizing you’re awake. “Keep your eyes open. Don’t fall asleep again.”
He’s saying something about a bad hit to your head, but you’re tired, tired from weeks of intense training, of late nights and bad habits and exhaustion, and the thought of sleep really is quite nice. Your eyes start to flicker shut again. Dimly, you hear Peter’s voice taking on a pleading tone, but it’s too late now. The darkness swallows you whole once again.
You don’t wake for a while, of that you’re certain. Even then, you shift between sleeping and consciousness, finally able to pull yourself solidly into reality with great effort. When you’re finally able to sit up and look around, you realize that you’re in the infirmary. Your head aches, as if it’s been punched into the ground, which you suppose it has.
You groan lowly, remembering the fight. It had felt like you were moving through water, every action slowed and dull. The pained sound from your throat draws the attention of someone in the chair next to your hospital bed, who sits forward intently. It’s Peter, you feel with an unwanted rush of fondness. He’s the one who got you here and he stayed the whole time.
“How are you feeling?” His voice is rough, tired.
You wince. “Good enough, considering. How long have you been here?”
He shrugs, not quite looking at you. “Needed to make sure you were alright. That was some hit you took.”
“A proper Dauntless would have said if I was weak enough to lose that fight, I would deserve the hit.” You don’t say it kindly. Peter takes it like a blow.
“I already know you’re good enough,” he says, head low like a kicked dog. “You weren’t yourself today. Doesn’t mean I want to see you get beaten like that. When you stopped moving–”
He cuts himself off suddenly, a pained expression twisting across his face. You look back at him, really look at him, in a way you haven’t allowed yourself to look in a while. He’s still every inch the boy you wish he was. His dark hair still curls slightly over his temples, and his eyes shine even with the poor fluorescents of the infirmary. You’ve always thought him handsome, a feeling that hasn’t gone away despite your brain telling you otherwise.
“I thought you were gone,” Peter says abruptly. “You were just lying there. Scared me.”
You reach over and lay your hand on his. “I’m still here.”
He’s not done yet, the words pouring from him like blood from a wound. “I hated the way you looked at me after what I did to Edward. I don’t regret blinding him, I don’t, it was the right move, let me in exactly where I needed to be, but I hated that it meant I lost you. Didn’t feel as good being at the top when you weren’t around anymore. It’s all bitter now. I’m not a good person, Y/N, I never have been, and I’ll keep doing shit to people if it gets me where I need to be, I just– I wanted you to know that I miss you, that’s all. You got one thing right about me. I wasn’t happy being alone.”
He leans back slightly, chest heaving with the force of all that truth. Somewhere in there is still a Candor’s spirit. He will always feel better after he spills his guts.
“I forgive you,” you say quietly. “And I missed you, too.”
Peter meets your eyes at last. “Don’t leave me again.”
“Don’t make me find out about your bad decisions at the same time as everyone else,” you counter. “I can’t stop you from doing what you do, but I hated feeling like you betrayed me. You tell me everything or you’re done.”
A flicker of a smile ghosts his lips. “You want me to be honest?”
“I want you to be talkative,” you decide. “I was getting bored with you.”
This time he grins in earnest. “I knew there was a killer in you somewhere.”
“Not a killer,” you answer, “but a Dauntless for sure.”
“Oh, that we all knew,” Peter laughs quietly. “I figured that out on the first day.”
You glance at him, curious. “How? Everyone else just saw some clueless Amity.”
He lifts a shoulder, pleased. “You stood up to me, then ignored me without a second thought. You were the most interesting thing I saw that whole day.”
You laugh at that. “You just wanted entertainment, you mean. You wanted a puzzle to solve.”
“Haven’t solved you yet,” Peter says. “Are you going to let me stay around long enough to get a second chance at figuring you out?”
You take a slow breath in, then out. The reasonable answer is to say no, because by now you know that Peter may be alluring and always one step out of reach, but he’s a bloody and twisted soul. If you go down this path too long, it’ll consume you. You know that.
You also know that you didn’t come to Dauntless to play it safe, but to live, and to live fully. “Yes,” you reply at last, “I think I will.”
For someone so dark and dangerous, Peter certainly has a wonderful smile. “I’m glad to hear it.”
He squeezes your hand once, twice. You smile to yourself with satisfaction. Peter may be using all of this as a game to keep himself busy while he stalks to the top of the rankings, but he’s forgotten one thing: you’re playing, too. He’s not the only one curious about just what makes a Dauntless initiate the way they are. The way you see it, you’ve just had one great view of the inner workings of a Candor. You’ve got a great many questions. It’s time to get some answers.
just wanted to say that i recently graduated from university with my degree in engineering :) it's been a lot of very hard work but well worth it, thx to everyone for your support and patience during this time and hoping to get back to some writing this summer before i start grad school in the fall!
