(this is a quick and dirty draft i started yesterday and did my best to keep simple. hopefully i have a few more on the way! visual refs for my girls.)
"Gghh....ugh." Juno sniffled, shaking her head, resisting the urge to rub at her nose.
"Nhgh-hHh-!" Her eyes tighten shut, then blink back open uncertainly, grumbling and turning the page on the file she has in her hand.
She sighed, a sound which led to another hitching breath and yet another groan.
"...You alright?" Celeste was trying to pretend she couldn't hear any of this, but that sigh was loud enough that even if she didn't have freakishly good hearing for just this sort of thing, she wouldn't have been able to ignore it.
Juno suddenly perked up, cheeks a light pink, as though just remembering Celeste was in the room with her.
"...Yes." No. Celeste smiles, and Juno turns, pointedly, ignoring her again.
No, you're not.
Juno needs to sneeze. That much is very obvious to Celeste.
She hadn't noticed initially, but the second she'd walked in the door, her nostrils were already tinged slightly red. The kind of red they got when Juno just rubbed and scrubbed on the bare bottom of her nose, trying to conceal it. It was very clear from where Celeste was sitting now, leaning on the armrest beside her, looking up at the way her nose twitched, and her nostrils flared wide with each sniffle, each breath, nose hair and mucous and soft, pink flesh inside, sensitive to the touch in a way that made her just want to sneeze, and sneeze, and...
Celeste cleared her throat.
"You've been sniffling an awful lot, though."
"Mm. it-" she sniffled, "-it was colder out than I was expecting today. Nose won't stop running."
Ah. An acknowledgement. One Juno thinks may draw away suspicion, since she's already admitting something embarrassing.
Ahaha, not quite.
"That's it?"
"Yes. That-" Juno's breath caught, and her eyebrows curled together helplessly as the tickle wormed its way to the back of her nose.
"...That...hGh-!" Head shakes, her hair bobs back and forth with the motion until her eyes manage to open again.
"...is it." Her voice sounds a little thicker after that. There's building congestion back there.
"It doesn't sound like it."
Juno's eyes narrow, and she sniffles once more. Celeste stares back with a cheeky smile, tacitly admitting that she knows what Juno's hiding.
Though this wasn't like Juno in the first place. Lord knows she hated holding them in. The only reason she wouldn't just sneeze and get it over with is if...
And as Juno's expression softens against her will, eyes narrowing further to a close as her lips part slightly, showing teeth, it dawns on Celeste exactly what's going on here.
Juno doesn't just need to sneeze. It's stuck.
"...It's stuck." Celeste starts, smile only growing as she straightens, staring coyly into Juno's eyelids as they half-open again, her voice not cooperating with her to produce a response.
"Isn't it?" After a brief pause, Juno nods, unwilling to put words to it.
Celeste hums against her hand, staring.
"Would you like me to help?" Juno side-eyes her.
"Help you sneeze, I mean. I can only imagine how much that tickles..." Juno glares at her, not bothering to hide the blush on her cheeks as she does so. Celeste chuckles.
"Okay, okay. No teasing, for serious. I know how badly you need to sneeze, and I want to help you feel better." Juno rolls her eyes, only for them to blink shut once more, knuckling the bridge of her nose with reckless abandon, now, leaving it a similar shade of red to her nostrils.
"F-fihh-!...Fine. Make me sneeze, then." That command, in Juno's voice, made Celeste's smug smile turn into more of a shy little grin.
"Aheheh, I...yes ma'am...." Her heart all aflutter, Celeste plucks up a tissue with a shaky hand and begins twisting it with her thumb and forefinger. Juno watches her hands diligently, a lump growing in her throat as she realizes what she's just agreed to, and how Celeste is going to do it.
Sndf.
...Well, it would be better than this, hopefully. She's too stubborn to back down from it anyway, even if the thought of Celeste maneuvering around, tickling at her nose manually, holding her head still so she can...
It made her skin crawl, but that wasn't wholly unpleasant.
"Ready or not, here I come..." Celeste gave her implement a quick shake, as though testing its power, and Juno raised an eyebrow.
The tissue was twisted down to a long, thin point, seeming more like a probe than something like a feather, or a q-tip, or...Part of her wondered if Celeste had done this before (well, probably is the thought on her mind) and another wondered if it would even work. Not that she had much time to wonder.
Juno's lips thinned as her entire face contorted around the uncomfortable feeling in her nose.
Whatever it was that had made her sneeze earlier left her nose in a perpetual state of panic; every nerve ending was screaming for release, but nothing was quite enough to turn that burning itch into more of an active sneeze. Celeste's feather-tip tissue went to immediate work, stirring up small bits of particulate matter that had settled, working up the residual feeling in her nostrils into something that felt more like a building sneeze.
"Hg-hh-" A gasp, a hitch, a- "hHiAHhhhuhh-! hggHh-!" Another sniffle, Celeste's fingers worked the soft pointed surface of the tissue around to every single patch of untickled skin she could find, darting in and out, deeper and shallower around in her nose.
"ghHh-uhH-hhHH-! kGh...! Cmon...cmo-HhhH-!"
It was close, and they could both tell. Juno's mouth hung open. Tears stung at the corners of her eyes, threatening to fall along her cheeks at any moment. Juno huffed and sniffed and tried anything to work up the residual trigger to sneeze, her nose wriggling up and down as she struggled to keep her head level with her partner's hand.
Celeste was being gentler, using smaller motions to try and add just a little bit more on top, just that little extra bit she needed to sneeze. Unfortunately for Juno, this only had the effect of moving the feeling slowly, agonizingly, from one side of her nose to the other, a sensation that made her shudder and cough and finally go from watery eyes to crying, her tongue downright undulating, eyes blinking open again just as Celeste found her way up into a special little niche; a patch of extremely sensitive skin she was sure she'd find eventually...
...And, judging by the way Juno's eyes actually roll up into her head, something Celeste thought she'd never be able to actually achieve doing this, something that made Celeste's chest tighten and her breath die on her lips, as Juno finally rears back to-
"-GGISSCCHEWW!" Sharp. Over with remarkably quick. Quite a bit of spray, but thankfully nothing sizable came out of her nose.
Thank god. It was done. It was out.
Juno remained in the same position for a beat, head down, eyes closed, before sitting back up and sighing in relief.
"Thank y-" She barely had time to register what was happening before Celeste found that spot again.
Juno rubbed her nose upwards with her bicep, trying to cover it and back away from Celeste at the same time.
"Ngh-knock it off!" Her barked order was only met with sheepish giggling.
"I'm sorry! You just looked so cute like that, and it worked so well, I couldn't..." She fell to excited laughter again, downright kicking her feet as she thought about how easily she could make Juno sneeze. Inducing with perfume, or candles, or even dust, that was one thing.
Tickling Juno's poor, sensitive nose, gradually but so effectively bending her will against her own, especially when she...
"I'm sorry. But hey, it feels better, right?"
Juno sighed, almost refusing to give even a begrudging nod. It did feel better. It was such a relief, and that Celeste had done it so quickly and so efficiently filled her with hot shame.
...But it did feel better. She couldn't deny it.
"Good. I'm glad." For more reasons than one, but that was okay.
...Now that she was sure of that, she didn't feel as bad asking the next question.
"...So...can I try that again tonight?"
Juno glanced at Celeste, who had immediately let the curtain slip completely. She was practically drooling, hunched over, her head facing up from Juno's knees with a half-lidded, lurid expression on her face. Wet lips parted under freckled cheeks, a tacit request Juno rolled her eyes at, though she was smiling.
"Hm. Well, judging by that face, I think you'd prefer it right now."
Juno pats the brunette's hair with a bony hand as her eyes widen.
3.1k includes bitchy hayden, implied contagion, allergy inducing & caretaking
November, 2013
Cleo M
18:23 On my way!
18:24 *omw Autocorrect lol
Hayden stared at the texts on his phone screen, sat in a little armchair in the corner of his hotel room. When Cliff gets here, this will be their fifth hook up.
He could admit, it was exciting to keep this secret. He did feel like a traitor for fucking the enemy between games, but God did it make things more interesting. He was definitely the first to do something like this.
Hayden got up to do some stretches, leaving his phone on the chair. There was no need to stretch himself out, Cliff was the one to do that for him; he insisted every single time. The man had hands the sizes of hockey sticks, it worked out.
After Hayden's last nervous stretch, there was a knock at the door. Very light for the beast of a man that was behind the door.
Hayden stepped to the door, letting the man in. Hayden was worried that he would feel like a slum for wearing jeans and a t-shirt, but Cliff was stood in sweatpants and a hoodie. Nice.
"I told you we'd beat you today," Hayden started the conversation, plopping down on his hotel bed so he could send a smug look to Cliff through his lashes.
Cliff let out a breathy scoff which turned into a chesty choke into his elbow, head bobbing with it.
Hayden stared, forehead creasing between his brows at the man across from him. "It wasn't that funny."
Cliff sniffled, catching his bearings as he cleared out his throat with a syrupy cough. "You're n'dot fu'ddy."
"Uh," Hayden said, the initial heat in his stomach slowly departing. "Why the fuck do you sound so weird?"
Cliff blinked, expression stone on his face as he eyed Hayden. "My tea'bm has a cold," Cliff paused to wipe his nose with a little crumpled tissue from his pockets that looked like it got passed around the whole team. "'S why you bea'dt us today. Go'dt off easy."
Hayden's eyes flickered somewhere else in the room, trying to make sense of the given information. "So you thought it would be a great idea.. to still come here? For sex? Are you kidding me?"
"Wha'dt?" Cliff mumbled, looking uncharacteristically sheepish as he attempted to catch Hayden's eye again. "I do'dn't see the pro'ble'bm."
"You don't see the problem?" Hayden mimicked with a hiss, truly dumbfounded. "I don't wanna catch that shit!"
Cliff frowned, looking as if he just found out what contagion is. "We jus'dt wod'n't kiss. N'do biggie."
Hayden grimaced, throwing his arms in the air in frustration. "Are you fucking stupid?"
Cliff blinked, shifting his weight on his feet as he stood there, taking the insults. "N'do.. chill.."
Hayden scoffed, stretching across his hotel bed to open the window. Was it a requirement for the Boston Raiders to be obnoxiously unaware of how germs spread?
"There's no way we're having sex. I can't risk that," Hayden laid it out, glancing back at the bigger man. Cliff was looking down at Hayden's tummy from where his shirt had rode up to open the window, glancing back up to his eyes as Hayden turned.
"Fi'dne," Cliff murmured, shrugging a little. "Blowjob?"
"Fuck no," Hayden spat, rubbing his eyes with the back of his wrists. "I don't want you snotting on my dick."
Cliff continued to frown, not a smile on his face the whole time he'd been in the room. "You give m'be o'dne, the'dn.."
"In your dreams, man," Hayden mumbled, blinking up at Cliff. Something in Hayden stuttered as he took a moment to look at Cliff's face. His eyes looked softer than usual. His nose was a comical shade of red, harsh against the tone of his skin. He looked.. lethargic. Worn out.
Hayden inhaled a big breath, feeling slightly guilty for how he'd treated the man who just wanted some attention. The man who drove himself here after losing a home game — with a nasty cold — just for Hayden. The man who hadn't spat an insult back like he normally would. "Have you taken something for your cold?"
"Mmbh," Cliff reached into the right pocket of his sweatpants, pulling out a little vial of DayQuil cold medicine. "Bee'dn ta'kging this."
Hayden swiped the medicine from the mans hand, reading over the label. Hayden frowned suddenly, looking up at Cliff through furrowed brows. "This expired in 2010. It's 2013."
"Oh, uhbm," Cliff sniffled, pursing his lips. "Whoops. Aha.."
Hayden shook his head a little, getting on his feet to look through his own bag under his bed. Thank god for choosing an overthinking best friend like Shane. Hayden got out what he was looking for, holding his bottle of Buckley's out for Cliff to see.
"Alcohol?" Cliff cocked his head at the Canadian medicine like a dog, sniffling thickly. "Right o'dn."
"Medicine," Hayden corrected, snapping off the cap as he hadn't had to open it yet. He poured some into the cup cap for Cliff, holding it out to the man. "Drink, like a shot."
"Ger'mbs.." Cliff mumbled as if it was a question, eyeing the cap.
Hayden frowned. "It's fine, I'll wash the cap." Fuck, Hayden was an asshole. Now the man was thinking about germs after being yelled at.
Cliff held the cap off Hayden, taking the medicine like a shot as told. He grimaced lightly, keeping hold of the cap. "I'll clea'dn i'dt."
"It's alright," Hayden murmured, taking the cap from Cliff's fingers. "Just.. lie down or something."
Hayden stood, stepping into the connected bathroom to give the cap a rinse. Once the cap was screwed back on, Hayden returned to see Cliff sat on the floor with his back against the hotel bed.
"I thought I told you to lie down," he mumbled, leaving the bottle of Buckley's on the desk by the television.
"I'bm good," Cliff replied, tightening the strings of his hoodie. "I go'dt n'datural pillows."
"Well, suit yourself," Hayden shrugged, seating himself on the bed next to where Cliff's head was. "So, your coach let you play like this?"
Cliff nodded, knuckling at his nose subtly. "Yeah, he did. Cap didn'dt wa'dnt any of us ou'dt. Coach listens to hi'bm."
"Man, fuck him." Hayden sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Rozanov is an asshole for that. And many other things, but."
"He's no'dt so bahhhd.. hh.." Cliff hitched a little, hands grasping at the neck of his hoodie so he could bring it over his nose. "hH-H'RRSSHHuu! uRRRSShhjjww! RJJDDZZ'HHWWGgh.."
"Jesus, shut the fuck up," Hayden hissed down at Cliff, eyes wide. "My teammates are next-door."
Cliff produced an unproductive sniffle, glancing up at Hayden with his hoodie still held over his nose. "So?"
"So, they'll recognize your sneezes!" Hayden spat, as if it was terribly obvious.
"They won'dt," Cliff scoffed weakly, feeling like a burden with every minute he spent in this hotel room. "Tha'dt's stu'bid."
Hayden stood to stretch out his stress, rubbing at his forehead. "I can't believe you played like this. You shouldn't play tomorrow."
Cliff shrugged, not feeling up for another argument tonight. "It's u'bp to Roz."
"He's your pal, right? Just talk to him or something," Hayden said, sitting himself back down on the bed.
Cliff sniffled, shaking out his hair. "Mm, yeah. He'd probably le'dt us to'bhorrow. Agai'dst Thham'bpa.. easy. Hh- hih! G'nna s'deeze," Cliff warned, blindly feeling around the floor next to him for his tissue. Cliff grabbed the first thing he felt under Hayden's hotel bed, shoving it up to his nose.
"No, no — not my — !"
"Ktt'rRRSHHwwGgh! Kihh'tssSHHRRgghh! Hih — hhHK'hiht'rRSHHDDJjzzw!" Cliff sneezed into the material balled up into his hands, his sneezing not allowing him to breathe between them.
"Oh my fucking god." Hayden mumbled somewhere behind Cliff, eyeing the man on the floor with a grimace.
Cliff coughed a little, taking the material away from his nose. He straightened out the material, realizing that it was a Metros shirt. The logo was now.. thoroughly used. Cliff let out a stuffy laugh at the sight of it.
"Man, fuck you. You're fucking disgusting," Hayden groaned out, moving off his bed. "You did that on purpose, didn't you?"
Cliff balled up the shirt so his mess was contained, keeping the shirt in his hand. "N'do, asshole! I trie'dt to b'he quie'dd." Cliff looked up at Hayden, his brown eyes shining under the cheap light.
Hayden let out a dramatic sigh, bending down to snatch the balled up shirt from Cliff's stupid hands. Hayden threw the shirt in a little plastic bag that he kept for laundry. "You should have told me to come to you or something. I would have declined, but it's better than going out sick."
Cliff stretched his legs out on the floor, rolling his ankles. "I ha'be two roo'b'ates."
"Can't afford a place of your own?" Hayden chirped, eyeing the man on his hotel floor.
Cliff shrugged, closing his eyes for a moment. "I pay their ren'dt. M’by brothers," Cliff babbled, not looking at Hayden. "-a'dt tuitio'dn."
Hayden blinked, not expecting that. They never talk about anything personal with each-other. "Why would you do that?"
Cliff blinked, lazily scrubbing at his nose. "'Cuz I wan'dda? They're m'by brothers. I a'bm rich."
Hayden shifted his weight on his feet, taking in the information. "That's.. nice of you. Surprisingly."
"I ca'd be nice, you know tha’d," Cliff mumbled with a sniffle, stretching out his weirdly long arms. "You live alo'de?"
Hayden gave a nod, adjusting his shirt on his shoulders. "Got a place in Montreal.. obviously. Close to the rink."
Cliff made a little noise in his throat, which Hayden took as a scoff. Before Hayden could retaliate, Cliff was hitching again. Oh. So he wasn't scoffing..
Hayden winced, anticipating the loud sounds before they started. Cliff continued hitching, hands shielding his face.
After about 30 seconds of pure hitching, Cliff groaned, hands dropping down to his lap. He looked weirdly humiliated. "Los'dt it."
"Bummer," Hayden snickered a little, rubbing the back of his neck. "Do you usually sneeze this much with colds? Or, try to?"
Cliff nodded, puffing his cheeks. "Fu'gck, nor'bally a lot more. This o'de has me stuffed."
Hayden hummed in thought, feeling guilty for being such a bitch to Cliff. He couldn't help it. "Remember our first meeting? The hotel bar. Nashville."
Cliff grinned a little, recalling the event. "Mmh, yeah. Yu'bp. Wha'd abou'd it?"
Hayden rubbed at his chin, eyeing his suitcase. "I was wearing that one cologne.. you hated it. Remember? We had to go outside to talk because you got all.." Hayden trailed off, making a gesture to his nose.
Cliff bent his knees to plant his feet on the floor, patting his knees. "Tha'dt was stro'g s'duff!"
Hayden pursed his lips. "Well, I have that in my suitcase. I still wear it sometimes, not around you though."
Cliff eyed Hayden's suitcase, not able to catch up. "Okay.. n'diceee.."
Hayden scoffed a laugh, shaking his head a little. "Nice? Fuck, do I have to spell this out for you?"
Cliff blinked up at Hayden like a wet rat in a cold alleyway, looking back at Hayden's suitcase. "Oooh.. it, uh. You wan'dt to — hel'bp?"
Hayden nodded, eyes wide with sarcasm. "You're so smart. So smart."
"Fucki'd bully," Cliff mumbled, shaking his head. "Okay, wha'dever. How do we do t'hhis?"
"Alright," Hayden took a breath. "Just — get on the bed. Take off your disgusting outside clothes."
Cliff frowned, looking down at his outfit. He started toeing off his shoes, pulling his hoodie over his head. Cliff moved himself up to sit on the bed once he was left in his sweatpants and black vest.
Hayden was crouched over his suitcase, holding the cologne in his hand. Ralph Lauren Polo Black. "Wait, shit, I don't wanna mess you up even more or something. Will your throat swell?" Hayden eyed Cliff, standing straight with the cologne in hand.
Cliff shook his head, lapping his dry lips. "N'do, it won'dt swell. C'mo'd. Hel'bp me."
Hayden made a sound of contentment, stepping into the bathroom to get a spare roll of toilet roll for.. the inevitable mess.
"I know this isn't what you had in mind when coming here, but," Hayden said, coming out of the bathroom to step to the bed. "You'll probably feel.. way better. Hopefully."
Cliff sniffled, sitting crisscrossed at the head of the bed. Hayden moved to sit at the centre. Cliff eyed the man in-front of him, the closest they had been all day.
"Alright, you ready?" Hayden asked, putting the roll of toilet roll between them. The cologne was beside Hayden.
Cliff squinted. "Will you co'blai'd about the 'doise?"
Hayden shrugged, shaking his head. "I don't even think the guys are in their rooms. Probably out.. partying or something. It's Boston."
"So I won'dt ge'dt yelled at agai'd.. n'dice."
Hayden made a face at that, reaching for the cologne. "Alright. Let's do it."
Cliff nodded a little, watching as Hayden spritzed the cologne on his wrist, neck, and t-shirt. "If it gets too much, just hop in the shower. There's a bunch of towels, it's crazy."
Cliff hummed, nodding although not really taking in the information. Their knees were practically touching now.
Cliff leaned in, taking a sniffly whiff of the crook of Hayden's neck.
"Whooohkay. Bold," Hayden mumbled, feeling Cliff's nose against his neck.
Cliff leaned back into his prior position, producing a little sniffle. "Uuf, yeah. I'b feeli'g i'dt."
"Sensitive." Hayden noted, surprised by how fast it hit.
Cliff ducked his head, giving his nose a little rub to satisfy the itch. The squelch that sounded throughout the room made Hayden feel almost sympathetic. The man sounded absolutely miserable.
Cliff desperately reached out, snatching some toilet roll and cupping it over his nose and mouth. "hHH' H! Hh — hHHHRRRUSHHhiue.. hooh.."
Hayden felt the bed shake with just one sneeze, raising his brows at the sight play out in-front of him. "Jesus, bless you. That's one."
Cliff blew his nose out in the same tissue, tossing it into the trash can he saw next to the bed. "Hh- hhHHI'DDTSShhh! H'RUSSSHHHooie! Agh, fu'gck!"
Hayden stared for a moment before quickly ripping more toilet roll for Cliff, passing him some. Cliff hadn't managed to cover that time, instead he baptised his own lap. Probably Hayden's too.
"Are you good?" Hayden mumbled, trying not to think about how he was in the spray zone. Cliff hadn't lifted his head.
"M'by ears are so fu'gging blo'ged.." Cliff managed, pressing the tips of his pointers into his ears.
Hayden reached out to grab his wrists, bringing the mans arms down from his ears. Pressing on them couldn't be good for him. "Hold your nose and swallow, they'll unblock. Hopefully."
Cliff obeyed, bringing a hand up to pinch his nostrils together. The man swallowed, followed by a quiver throughout his body. "Whoa, tha'dt was weird."
Hayden breathed out an amused sigh. "Did that work?"
Cliff nodded, closing his eyes from how much his nose tickled. He grabbed the toilet paper between them, ripping multiple squares off. "hHH! HHRRSHHOO! HrS!- HRRsshu! TDJJSHWW! HrR — RSSHWw!"
Hayden pursed his lips, watching as the man began to blow his nose again. "Jesus, you're worse than a zamboni. So loud."
Cliff smiled a little, taking a big breath. "I feel a little better."
Hayden nodded. "You sound better. I can actually comprehend what you're saying now."
Cliff sniffled lightly, shoving one of Hayden's knees. "Mm. Uh, thanks. For that."
"Yeah, whatever. It's cool," Hayden shook his head, making sure all of the tissues were in the trash. "You owe me a blowjob whenever you feel better."
"You bet." Cliff stretched out, flicking at his nose. "You were a little mean earlier, though."
"I can be meaner," Hayden scoffed, watching Cliff. "I'm.. yeah. I know I can be intense. You just — caught me off guard."
Cliff shook his head, pinching his nose. "Mm, that's fine. Your fuckin' cologne is still irritating me."
"Shit," Hayden moved himself off the bed, standing by the far wall. "Okay, I'm due a shower. Are you staying, or..?"
Cliff made a face, looking down at the trash can. "Ehh, nah. I should probably get home."
Hayden found himself nodding a little, although he didn't want Cliff to leave. "Ah. You got somewhere to be?"
Cliff hid a smile behind his hand, rubbing at his stubble. "No, not necessarily."
"I'll see you after my shower then." Hayden said, stepping into the attached bathroom before Cliff could muster a response.
—
After coming out of the shower, Hayden found Cliff curled up in the hotel bed.
"Make yourself at home, why don't you." Hayden snarked, fixing the towel tighter around his waist so he could bend down for his shirt.
Cliff peeped from the quilt, sniffling softly. "You took forever. Longer than a girl."
Hayden sent a lighthearted glare to the man, throwing on a Nike shirt. "I got a whole ass routine, alright? Shane helped me pick out some skin shit."
Cliff chuckled to himself, keeping watch over the quilt. "Yeah. You and your perfect skin. Perfect hair. Perfect everything. Get outta here."
Hayden threw his towel at Cliff, grabbing some sweatpants and boxers from his suitcase to wear. He never unpacks. "You get outta here."
Cliff rolled up the towel, tossing it to the foot of the bed. "C'mere."
Hayden obeyed, climbing into bed next to Cliff. Cliff handled Hayden, turning the man over by his waist so they were spooning.
Hayden was the first to talk after a while of comfortable silence. "This is really gay."
Cliff took a breath, rubbing his nose against the crook of Hayden's neck. "We're gay. If you hadn't noticed."
"You're gay?" Hayden mumbled, voice audibly softening throughout the evening.
Cliff hummed behind him, sniffling quietly. "I don't care for a label."
Hayden took Cliff's hand, feeling the callouses on his palms from his years of weightlifting. "I.. yeah. I might be bisexual. Or the other one — pan? Pansexual?"
Cliff nibbled at Hayden's shoulder, sniffling over the area he bit. "I've never heard of that one."
"It's 2013.. get with the times, man," Hayden mumbled, bending Cliff's fingers one by one. "It's listed on that 'You Can Play' campaign thing."
"Huh," Cliff mumbled, fingers curling around Hayden's. He couldn't really come up with a response with his upcoming- "h'httDshx!"
Cliff stifled against Hayden's shoulder, arms tensing where they held the other man.
hold on a fucking second. delaware is a state?? i thought it was a river? or is the river more important than the state? why don't i know this? (i should mention i don't like in america, i'm just confused)
there is delaware (state) and delaware (river)
both are equally strange
the state is a tiny little cryptid thing
the rive is a monster that spans new york, pennsylvania, new jersey and delaware. also washington crossed it once and that was like kinda a big deal i guess. like crossing the rubicon in rome.
the state tries to me more important with its “im the first state!!!” bs (seriously its even on the fucking license plates) but we all know. its the river.
I know home depot, but dude I don't know anything about America mad have never been there. Are you sure there is not a some sort of store called something close to Delaware!?!
Pausing here to point out that op is “dear-AO3″ and now I’m wondering if Delaware fanfic would be categorized as RSF (real state fic) or AU (alternate unitedstates)
(odd numbers end in the digits 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 (one, three, five, seven, nine) and the only ones for which the word version doesn’t end in those words are/end in eleven, thirteen, fifteen, seventeen, nineteen. I will NOT elaborate or defend this lest this post become another. ur free to do this yourselves if you want tho)
What about infinity, if it's infinite the technically at one point as it goes on forever it does end in in either 1,3,5,7, or 9 but because it's infinite it's neither even nor odd. Yes? No? Idk I'm drunk
the scene in ep 4 where inej maintains direct eye contact with kaz while taking off her knives and handing each of them to him is more intimate and telling than any sex scene
CANNOT stop thinking about the Josh fight. Over 100 guys named josh got together to fight with pool noodles and they all decided that the winner was a five year-old so tiny the Burger King crown was too big for him. And they lifted him into the air and cheered like he was Simba. Earth is a good place to be after all
some Narnia Golden Age headcanons of the lighter-hearted sort
- during the course of their reign Peter managed to get himself enchanted by love spells no less than six times
- the first time it took the others ages to notice and even longer to break, because love spells are so complex in the casting. eventually they learned that Peter having an uncontrollable desire to write love poems was the tell-tale sign that he had been enchanted
- they also learned that there was an easy short-cut to breaking them. love charms generate obsessively positive thoughts about the beloved. if you can force a negative thought about them, you break the spell
- they developed a system where Susan or Edmund would manipulate the scheming ‘beloved’ into saying something mildly unpleasant in front of Peter, which would then ‘make Lucy cry’. anything that made Lucy cry was a Very Bad Thing to Peter, so this reliably did the trick for curing him
- he was always extremely embarrassed by these episodes and especially by the poetry-writing. this prompted Edmund to steal the poems for leverage before Peter could burn them but he was annoyed to discover that they were actually quite good
- Peter and Lucy were not really cut out for state operations of the covert sort. Peter was a dreadful liar and Lucy was a very frank, upfront person. this left all that sort of thing to Susan and Edmund and both felt it was safer if there were some things their siblings did not know to preserve the secrecy of their operations
- this, however, meant that the other two sometimes wandered in on Susan and Edmund doing a variety of strange things that were never explained to them, including but not limited to painting themselves green, constructing a miniature model of Oreius and dressing up as one another
- when Cair Paravel held open tournaments, Susan would accompany the winner to the evening banquet. if the one who looked like he was going to win wasn’t a pleasant chap, whichever of her brothers was representing the royal house would cheerfully up their game, trounce their competitor and escort Susan to the banquet themselves
- the first time a tournament was held while both of the boys were away, past sore losers flocked to the castle, figuring this was their chance to get at Susan. all of them were soundly beaten by a diminutive knight with a closed helmet fighting under the Narnian royal standard
- that evening, the ranks of losers stared, disbelieving, as sixteen-year-old Queen Lucy sailed into the banqueting hall smugly with Susan on her arm
because I just re-read Prince Caspian and remembered how completely different it is to the movie, and because it says Aslan is good but not safe and I think so is Narnia and, as they become part of the fabric of it, so are the Pevensies
“You may find Narnia a more savage place than you remember.”
Trumpkin has never heard a silence so loud as this that follows his warning. The children glance at each other, crowding the air with a language he isn’t hearing. His skin prickles with it. He turns away from them, drawing his knife to begin skinning the wild bear.
Only a moment later, the smaller, darker boy is drawing his own knife and dropping to his knees. Trumpkin looks at him sidelong, uncertain.
“I’m a fair butcher,” King Edmund tells him mildly, and he plunges his arms in up to the elbows.
~
This is the story Trumpkin knows.
That once, Narnia was held in the grip of a terrible Winter brought upon it by a tyrant Witch, that four children were called by Aslan the Great Lion out of their own land to cast her down, and when they had done so the Lion crowned them himself at the shining castle of Cair Paravel, where the ruins now lie on the sea. That they governed so wisely and well that the folk of Narnia knew nothing of evil or hardship. That all was joy, when the trees danced and the animals spoke.
That the first of them held with equal steadiness the sceptre and the sword, that to him was given the crown above crowns, that every sovereign before or since stood but palely in the shadow of his glory. That the second of them surpassed all other beauties, that she was soft of hand and soft of heart. That the third of them had learned such wisdom on the path of darkness that his counsel was worth more than rubies, and the tongue in his mouth was as silver as his crown. That the fourth of them was the darling of the land, that laughter and lightness were her constant companions, that to see her smile was to be blessed.
In front of him now, the fourth is drying her eyes with dirty sleeves, and the third curses as he picks blood from under his fingernails, and the second scowls, tugging at her long hair, all straggly with salty air and sweat, and the first of them is building a thin fire with trembling hands, silent.
~
“Don’t say much, eh, that brother of yours?”
He is walking alongside Queen Lucy the Valiant, who is all of nine years old, wearing a grin and a dagger. They are following the tall one, whose steps are sure and make no sound.
“Well, of course not. He has to be careful what he says.”
“Don’t we all?”
He is chuckling, but she isn’t. Her face is young and pale and flecked with sunlight that shifts like a glamour. There are moments when her teeth look too big for her mouth, when her eyes sit strangely, as though she has stolen them from another. Sometimes she is difficult to look at.
“Not like Peter does. When he speaks…”
Smiling, she spreads her arms wide, embracing the still trees and sleeping waters, the sky above them and the earth below.
“Narnia listens.”
They trudge on, and Trumpkin watches King Peter watching the clouds. He has never been so far as Narnia’s northern border, where the sky lies heavy and indomitable on the bleak, open land. He does not know what it would mean to be crowned for the blue mountains and distant thunder of the cold, still North; the terrible immensity of it. The carvings on the walls of Aslan’s How are flat and dead, fading under the dust of uncountable years. They do not show these things, and they do not show the High King’s lion-gold hair or his clear, calm predator’s eyes, or how at dusk in enemy lands it was once whispered that behind closed lips, his teeth were fangs and his breath smelled of iron.
The little girl skips ahead to catch her brother’s hand. The trees shiver around them, remembering the rhythm of her steps on the earth, the way she’d danced, mad and barefoot, her shrieking laughter in the night. The echo of it has hung in their leaves for a thousand years. Trumpkin sees them stirring, shakes his head, cannot help wondering if her voice, too, is threaded with this deep magic. It’s here in the very presence of these four living ghosts, in their fingertips and their footprints and the corners of their eyes. And though Trumpkin has never been a believer until now, he has heard enough to know that magic is not always sweet.
Behind him, the older girl is humming a tune that Trumpkin doesn’t quite recognise, though it catches in his ears like something familiar. There are no histories written of Queen Susan and the sly sirens, of how she would step from the sea like a drowned woman with her clinging hair, her deep-hued lips, to sing the music she had learned. The histories that remain crown her to the rich south, where the crops grow and the flowers open their delicate hearts for the indifferent eyes of the sun. As Trumpkin turns to look, pulled by that hypnotic song, she snaps a bloom from a bush of wild roses to slide into her hair.
She has not seen him glancing back, but the other one, the younger boy, has. Under his dark eyes, Trumpkin feels as pinned as if he were at the point of a dagger. Though they are far from the wild woods of the west, this is still King Edmund’s realm: the forest with all its shadows and its green secrets, laid bare when winter’s frozen hands come to strip them away. But now it is high summer and the leaves are thick, cloaking the woods in their mystery, and Trumpkin cannot see what is behind the boy-king’s sharp smile.
~
Time is long and wearing, and this is the story the Old Narnians have forgotten.
That Susan’s soft fingers had stung under the tautness of her bowstring, the first time she’d pulled it back to kill. That Peter had wept beside the corpse of the wolf. That Aslan’s maw had been red and sticky, dripping thick ropes of blood, and that the Witch had been beautiful, in her cold way.
~
“I have been told – I have learned about the Golden Age,” Caspian tells them later, shaky and fervent. “The legend. Of what Narnia was when you ruled it. It must seem like a sparse, savage place, compared with the one you knew.”
They watch him silently. Peter, whose eyes are bright and blank as a clear sky, and Susan with her full, unsmiling lips are already their own statues. After a moment, Edmund’s harsh laughter fills the darkness, and Lucy pinches him with fingers as sharp as any faery’s.
That night, Caspian puts the Horn where he cannot see it before he tries to sleep.
~
others in this series:
PYRE - in which Caspian meets the four under the auspices of the wine god
RIPTIDES - in which Eustace sees clearly
mrs pevensie on her children, autumn 1940
i can’t stop thinking about what happened right after the pevensies were crowned, knowing literally nothing about narnia or how to be kings and queens, so here are a bunch of headcanons
THE FIRST YEAR
After Aslan departs, the merriment at Cair Paravel goes on for three days. There is dancing and feasting, and the new kings and queens sleep wherever they fall, then awake and join in again. When they rise at noon on the third day, the castle is emptier and quieter than before, and there is work to be done.
The first thing they realise is that there is no furniture in Cair Paravel. There’s the odd stone bench, and all the glorious carvings and statues, and the thrones of course, but not a single scrap of wood. Every last splinter was stripped out during the Great Winter and burnt for fuel. They sleep in the simple beds from Aslan’s camp and eat sitting on the floor with their subjects, and it feels rather like camping in their own castle, like another adventure.
These early days are not like the coronation with all its pomp and splendour. Susan folds all their wine-stained finery into a pile and they do not wear clothes so rich as that again for a long time. Instead they wear practical leather and linen and their lessons are not in statecraft, but in combat, butchery, agriculture. Food is the thought in everyone’s minds after the Winter scarcity, with the land now so green and giving. And Peter’s shoulders grow broad and strong at the plough, and Susan finds the oldest of the wood-people and coaxes them out to the fields to teach those born in the Winter how to sow, and Edmund proves himself something of a genius with mechanical solutions, and Lucy delights in learning all the types of seeds and nurturing them under the sun. And before long they all four are lean and tanned and calloused at the palm with field work.
Summer brings news that a knot of remaining Fell Beasts has grown in the West, gathering their strength through the spring. Peter and Edmund, both pale and determined, don their armour again and ride out with a band of soldiers. In the weeks they are gone the first foreign delegation arrives: a group of Archenlandish nobles who approach the castle to present themselves before the thrones of Aslan’s chosen sovereigns, only to be led out into the fields away from the castle to a girl of eight with two simple braids, wearing leggings and boots, carrying out water. She drops her buckets with a gappy grin and sticks out her dirty hand as she is proudly announced as ‘Queen Lucy the Valiant’, and it is the start of a long and prosperous friendship.
The boys return from their bloody sweep through the west as the leaves start to fall, both taller and harder-faced. The harvest brings a bustle of trade, but after that the land goes hushed and fearful. With the cold comes the first of the mutterings that the summer may only have been a brief respite brought by Aslan; without him, what certainty is there that winter will lift again? And the cold starts to sink its teeth in.
It has been so long since the Narnians have seen a natural winter that they have forgotten that even without enchantment it is hard and cold. Edmund grows quiet and sleepless when the snow comes, and between this and Lucy’s night-time chills, Peter and Susan move all four of them into Peter’s room, which is small and easily warmed by its cavernous fireplace. It’s better to burn one fire than four and they abandon their individual wooden beds for a large heap of furs and blankets, taking heat from each other as the Animals do.
Edmund and Lucy hardly leave the castle all that winter. Lucy is too small to be trudging through the deep snows and Peter and Susan are keen to keep Edmund out of the cold, so when their people need aid, Peter straps his sword to his back and Susan straps her quiver to hers, and they venture out together into the merciless winter, leaving Edmund in charge of the castle and of Lucy for days and occasionally weeks at a time. It’s a clear and complete signal of trust which quiets some unfriendly whispers, and such important duties help keep him from darker thoughts of the previous winter.
No one is keen to waste precious food in feasting at Christmas in case the Winter truly has returned, but Father Christmas comes by the castle with plenty, so the gates of Cair Paravel are opened and there is a little cheer. And then all Narnia waits with bated breath to see if the snow will melt.
But eventually dawn starts to come a little earlier and the earth starts to thaw, and when the coming of the spring cannot be denied, the Narnians whisk their young sovereigns out into the meadows and crown them all over again with fresh flowers, and the second spring feels almost as much a victory as the first.
My girl Enola DEMOLISHED Tewksbury with “you’re a man when I tell you you’re a man” and he just TOOK IT with that charming little smile of his. This, my friend, is healthy masculinity.
Mycroft: *about duke of Tewkesbury* then you should marry her off to him. Maybe it will calm them both down a bit.
Enola and the Duke as a married couple:
-live in London
-help Sherlock solve crimes
-Enola as the new Duchess of Tewkesbury surprises everyone when she traipses into important social functions having just chased some ruffian with dirt smudged on her face and her petticoats like five inches deep in mud
-Sherlock at first is pretty sure the Duke is a “useless boy” as Enola told him but then one time his knowledge of flowers saves him from being poisoned so he’s like, okay, not so useless, I get it
-Mycroft turns fifteen shades of purple when he finds out the Duke does most of the cooking and cleaning since Enola is usually too busy solving cases. But once, Enola tried cooking for everyone and mixed the salt and sugar up so no one lets her in the kitchen anymore. He hires them a maid and cook as a wedding present and to keep the duke from “embarrassment” as he says despite the Duke insisting he LIKES cooking and cleaning.
-Whenever anyone says “Holmes” solved another case no one knows if it is Enola or Sherlock anymore, as she still uses her old surname undercover to be less ostentatious
-society women who come to call on Enola often at first don’t like her but then their jewelry goes missing or some strange mishap and when their husbands won’t hire anyone, they turn to Enola. She builds connections through her mysteries and friendships and people slowly begin to respect her.
-men come to their home thinking the Duke of Tewkesbury is the one related to Sherlock, and are often disappointed when they find out its this skinny scrap of a girl who is his wife but then when she solves the case brag about her to their friends about having used Londons most notorious Lady Detective. The Duke often gets irritated with this assumption and rants for ages about his wife being the best detective in London.
-the first time she and the duke go to a ball, they get distracted by someone’s arboretum where the duke spends the whole night naming flowers and Enola steals some out for his own collection. Mycroft is mildly scandalized as he hears rumors of them spending the evening “stealing flowers all evening at the ball” which he thinks is a euphemism and everyone else believes the young married couple snuck off to be intimate and lectures them about propriety and flowers not being taken but, in reality, the two were just honestly stealing flowers for the Dukes collection.
-one time, Enola chases a criminal through the streets of London and the halls of parliament and passes her husband there. She stops to kiss him on the cheek briefly, and is like, “what’s for dinner” and he’s all, “I had the cook put on a pot roast” then she quickly goes back to chasing the ruffian and the duke, who is with one of his colleagues finds himself being stared at wildly, and he just grins and says, “That’s my wife.”
In short, marriage does NOT calm them down. Not a bit. And its Mycroft’s worst nightmare.
