Chapter 25: Love Amongst the Dragons of Try Hard is officially live!
I really love seeing everyone’s takes on what they thing the Love Amongst the Dragons play that Zuko loves is really about! And as such I was SO exited to write my own!
I really hope you enjoy and even if you don’t read the rest of the fic please let me know if you like this version of LUtD I’ve written 🥰
I’m not ready for LUTD to be over😭😭😭😭😭😫😫😫😫😢😢😢all good things must come to an end tho ig😔 also, Texan Leo got me blushing and gigling amd licking my feet over here😍😍🤭🤭🥰🥰
~Love, Evie
I KNOW!!!!!!! i'm not either evie. sobs. for some reason I forgot I had other fics scheduled and I was like "yeah I have a few weeks of posts in my queue, lutd is still going". lmao nope. BUT the good news is I can drop the playlist (if I haven't yet) and once you're done reading it you can read it again and again!!!!!!!
LITERALLY. texan leo is so underrated. says shit just to make you blush and giggle. he gets a cowboy hat and you cry. you love it that much. you have at least one picture from your wedding photoshoot where you insisted he wear it. you wear shirts that say save a horse ride a cowboy. leo's the cowboy.
genre: mid adventure domestic fluff overture, romance, smutty lemony bit towards the end
word count: 3k
pairing: Leo x gothy!child of eros!fem reader
requested: very much so, yes
warnings: magic manipulation powers, feelings are hard and weird and scary, some innuendos, the phrase hot gusher out of context, the word dirty talk, trying to "proposition [someone] in front of two for one cookie crisp", brief credit card theft, jason thinks ketchup is spicy and gets clowned on for it, one use of the word lube in reference to mechanical lubricant, shirtless leo remember that one piece of shirtless leo viria art?????? remember the caption?????, your facade is beginning to crack, deadpan joke about being dead in space, making out, whole lotta sexual tension, brief mention of a boner, teeny tiny bit of grinding, getting interrupted, c*lypso
summary: after an extensive shopping trip, you, Leo, and Jason settle into your airbnb and wait for the others to arrive. Jason takes a nap, and Leo helps you dye your hair. You return the favor by helping him make dinner which leads to two things; a well timed boner, and a poorly timed visitor.
listen to: power and control - marina, 100 bad days - ajr, all I ask - adele
a/n: let's play spot the zack and cody reference within the first paragraph
also surprise the series isn't dead!! a shock to all but mostly me!!
as with all smexy smutty nsfw content, all characters are aged up to 18+
Standing in front of a wall of hair dye taller than you are should have been exciting. It would have been, except for the fact that all the colors were various shades of honey mist auburn. You really don’t want to have to make a separate trip to a beauty store for hair dye. Your eyes land on a firetruck red box, and gratefully, you realize you won’t have to.
“Perfect,” you muse, throwing it into your cart, along with the other stuff on the list you’d divided between you. You grab a few other things from the beauty section while you’re there; some makeup, eyeliner, a glass nail file, and a tiny pair of oil slick cuticle scissors.
Nearby is a guy a little older than you in a varsity hoodie and sweatpants squinting at a two in one shampoo label.
Perfect, you think, beginning to approach. You work your magic - literally - and within a few minutes you have his credit card. It takes way less time than it used to. You also didn’t have to smile and flirt nearly as much as you used to. You’re relieved that you don’t have to fake enthusiasm around rich douchebags the way you used to, and a new inky drop of fear begins to stain the corners of your mind. You can’t even bear to admit it to yourself, but you’re kind of scared. Before you can begin to question if you know what love is and if you’re capable of experiencing it without the influence of your divine heritage, you shove it all away. Not the place, not the time. You speed up a little, passing an endcap of candy, and knock a box into your cart.
On the other side of the store, Jason checks off items from their half of the list as Leo tosses items in the cart, talking along the way. Of course, you came up in conversation rather quickly.
“She’s… a real piece of work.” Jason says, treading lightly.
“You said it, man,” Leo agrees, sliding a pack of coke onto the bottom of the cart. Jason thinks for a moment before continuing.
“She seems to,” he tries to figure out how to phrase their dynamic, “not hate you as much as everyone else.” Leo laughs at the accuracy of the statement. He can tell Jason has something else to say, so he’s quiet while putting paper plates and napkins into the cart.
“Hey, Leo?”
“Yeah?”
“Just… don’t let her hurt you, okay?”
He stops for a second. He’s so lucky to have a friend like Jason, one that will genuinely look out for him, but sometimes people caring for him still catches him off guard. Really off guard. With no idea how to begin to verbalize that complicated mess, he takes a split second to collect himself.
“Thanks, man.”
His smile is sincere.
Don’t let her hurt you. Can he just do that? Not let someone hurt him? Especially someone like you. He’s only had a few long term crushes before, all just out of reach and only getting further away. Only one had amounted to something - not that he could call what he had with Calypso ‘something’. She certainly wouldn’t. He looks around, trying to shake off the sting. He starts to get that unsettled, itchy feeling when he focuses on stuff like that for too long.
‘At least I got some good stories out of it,’ he thinks, messing with the back of his hair and fixing his hoodie strings.
“Here.”
He turns around, coming face to face with you, holding out a box very close to him.
“Hot gusher.” You say softly. What? His cheeks heat up, pulse speeding up suddenly. He glances at Jason, who’s at the other end of the aisle asking an employee something. Are you implying something? Are you trying to proposition him in front of two for one cookie crisp? He’s unable to look away from your gaze, intense and striking. You couldn’t possibly mean what he thinks you mean. Your fingers brush and he’s struggling to find an elegant way to say ‘hey, maybe the grocery store isn’t an ideal place for dirty talk’.
“W- uh, sorry, what?” he says, laughing in an equally hushed tone, needing to make sure you meant what he thought you did. You glance down, then back up.
“They’re spicy gushers. I thought you’d like them.” the feeling is gone in a split second, the same time it took to arrive, and is replaced with relief. He looks down at the box, realizing he’d taken it from you at some point. He laughs at the ridiculousness of his previous panic.
“Thanks,” he says, a reflective smile on his face.
You realize how comforted you are to see him smile, really smile, when you catch yourself having to keep a neutral face. One of the first times your resting bitch face has been intentional. Before you can say you’re welcome, Jason comes back over. You hand him the card.
“Pin number’s 0401.”
They both stare at you, skimming the label of a granola bar, completely unperturbed.
“How…”
“Credit card theft.”
The logical part of Leo’s brain starts to speak up, telling him to raise his guard, that his stomach should be twisting. If you can just take someone’s credit card without a hint of remorse, who knows what the hell kind of damage you could do to him if he got closer to you? And he really wants to get closer to you.
“Oh,” you pull a small pop top tube out of your cart and hand it to Leo, “this is for you too. You know, since you don’t like coffee,” you trail off as he reads the label. Caffeine and electrolyte drink tablets, red berry rampage flavor. He looks up at you, feeling warm and… something else, something ineffable, at the gesture.
You stare at each other, eyes locked, surprised at the strangely intimate feeling stirring in both of you.
“What are those?” Jason asks, snapping you out of whatever that was.
“Spicy gushers,” Leo says, smiling again, “I didn’t even know they made those.”
“Hot mango,” Jason reads from the side of the box, “that actually sounds pretty good.”
“No way dude, you can’t handle spicy food.” He starts to protest, and Leo continues, “You think ketchup is spicy!” He looks shocked.
“Okay, that was one time! It was a weird brand and there was way too much pepper in it!”
You bite back a giggle at their bickering, taking note of how much better Leo seems to be doing and finding surprising comfort in their banter.
It doesn’t take long to get to the airbnb and get set up. You all dump your bags in your rooms, bring in the groceries, and shove everything into the cabinets in a reasonably organized manner.
Jason heads upstairs to unpack and call Piper, announcing a few minutes later that they should be here in less than two hours.
“Perfect,” you pull out your hair dye from the last bag. It’s not exactly the manic panic wildfire red you’d initially wanted, but it’s definitely better than nothing. You stare at the box for a second, then up at Leo who’s trying to get one more bag of chips to fit in with the others.
“Hey,” you say, just loud enough to get his attention, “do you… can you get the back of my head?” He looks at you, questioning, and you hold up the box dye. He smiles, once again noting your softened edges around him.
“Yeah,” he agrees, and minutes later you’re in the bathroom, adorned in a big tee shirt covered in all your previous hair colors. He’s staring at your shirt, eyes dancing over the swirls and splatters of color. It reminds him of a painting he’d seen once, unable to remember the name.
You shake the bottle, skimming the instructions again, then start speaking to him, eyes still on the box.
“Take a section of hair, about this much,” you demonstrate, holding out a section of hair, “rub in the dye like this…”
You hand him the second bottle of red dye, and he starts on the back. His fingertips start separating out a section of your hair, and you still, a shiver running up your spine. He hesitates for a moment, then continues, and you hope he hadn’t noticed. His breath fans your ear, and you can feel the heat radiating off his chest. Your lungs are shallow suddenly, squeezed tight like a bouquet clutched in a shaking hand. You find it almost impossible to focus on dying the front half of your hair.
You don’t want it to stop, you realize. His fingertips dancing along your hair, the glimpses of his incredibly focused face in the bathroom mirror, the way he’ll gently turn your head to make sure he didn’t miss a spot.
“Shit,” he leans back, hunching forward. You look behind you, eyes landing immediately on the spot of red dye on his shirt.
“Shit,” you echo. He looks back at you, waiting to see how he’ll react.
“Oh, it’s all good - no worries. I already have a ton of motor oil and lube - lubricant… machine grade, petroleum based engine lubricant-” he laughs, “stains on this shirt anyway. Don’t sweat it.”
You almost laugh. A giggle bubbles up from your chest and stomach, but catches in your throat. Before it can come out, he slips off his dye stained gloves, and tugs off his dye stained shirt from the back. It seems to happen in slow motion. In a mere moment, your eyes engraving every detail, every line and curve and freckle to memory.
There’s really no delicate way to put it; he’s fucking jacked. Deceptively so. You’re frozen in place, cheeks flushed. You suddenly wonder what it would be like to be wrapped up in his arms, held so close to him.
You snap yourself out of the thought, all of that occurring in just a few seconds. He leans past you, setting the dye stained shirt carefully on the counter, glancing at you intensely.
“Are you checking me out?”
You make yourself roll your eyes and turn away, replying, “I’m sure you’d love that.”
Angled away from him, you momentarily reprimand yourself, squeezing your eyes shut and mouthing oh my god. You turn back to him, not recalling the last time you had to deliberately keep up your aloof front around someone like this.
“So, are we finishing my hair or just gonna leave it like this?” you ask rhetorically, motioning to your half done hair.
He watches you do this, confirming his suspicion that you’re really not as cold as you let on. A smile blooms on his face, and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything as… cute as that.
“Yeah,” he replies, slipping his gloves back on. The things you do around him seem to mean more now. He notices the way your eyes flutter closed for a moment when he plays with your hair, working in the dye, or the way you still for a split second when he gets a little too close to the side of your face, checking that he didn’t miss a spot.
He doesn’t want this to end either. But eventually, your hair is fully saturated with dye, the timer on your phone counting down slowly. There’s still some dye left. He sits on the closed toilet.
“Your turn. Do me.”
“What?” you laugh.
“Yeah, a little streak - up here.” He leans forward, sectioning off a part of his hair.
“Seriously?” you ask.
“Yeah. Unless you don’t want to match…” he muses. Your eyes get this dreamy look for the briefest second, then you’re turning back to shake the bottle some more.
“I guess… I mean there’s too much dye to throw out, we might as well do something with it.”
It’s his turn, now, to feel the warmth from your body, your hands running through his hair. His eyes want to close, and bask in the feeling, but he refuses to miss out on the view of you so soft, so close to him. It doesn’t last nearly long enough for either of you, and much too soon you’re pulling away and throwing away the gloves and empty bottles.
By the time you finish cleaning up and throw out the garbage, it’s time to rinse your hair. Hanging your head over the tub, you let the water flow over your head until Leo tells you it’s running clear. He does the same, and you point out too late that he only had to rinse the dyed part, not his whole head.
You both laugh as you wrap a towel around your hair, teaching him how to do the same.
“Sweet, I’ve always wondered how to do the spa snail towel thing.”
“The spa snail towel thing?” You try in vain to fight another laugh.
“Yeah, you know… cause it looks like a snail, and they do it at spas…”
“Oh… my gods…” you laugh, exiting the bathroom and heading down the hall, “I”m going to get changed.” you call.
“Am I wrong?” he asks after you, and you bite your lip to stop yourself from laughing. He heads to his room to do the same.
A few minutes later, you’re carefully pulling on your top, when he calls through your door.
“Hey, I’m gonna be in the kitchen, come down when you’re ready.”
“...Okay,” you agree.
You check your outfit in the mirror. You can still feel his fingers brushing your neck. Your head tilts at the memory. Snapshots of him pulling off his shirt in slow motion flash in your memory.
You realize how much of an affect the last hour has had on you. Your stomach drops.
You can’t possibly be falling in love. No way. Not a snowball’s chance in hell.
You’re not the falling in love type. At most, you’d hook up with someone a couple times on the rare occasion you thought they were hot, too.
Oh, you decide, that must be what’s happening. I just think he’s hot. I mean, duh. Of course he’s hot. Did you see him in there?
That’s all you have to do; hook up with him once, maybe twice, then you’ll get over it. It’ll make his ex jealous, and they’ll get back together. It will go just like it always has. Then you can move on to whatever the next crisis is.
You take a breath, resolving to follow the plan, exit your room. You throw yours and Leo’s old clothes and towels in the hamper, and head down stairs. He greets you, and pulls you into the kitchen.
“I have something to ask you.” Your brow furrows.
“...Okay.”
He takes your hand in his, the other behind his back.
“Will you…” he looks at you, gaze piercing, “...be my sous-chef.” he finishes, holding out an apron, matching his.
You study him, a hopeful, surprisingly confident look on his face. His hair is still damp. You’re sure yours is, too. You wait a beat, before replying slowly.
“Yes. But I’m not wearing that.”
“That’s fair,” he says, setting the apron on the counter, “I will have to dock your pay for being out of uniform, though.” You let out a puff of air from your nose, biting back a laugh. He pulls out a skillet, bowl, and oil, and begins preheating the pan. You watch him pull out more ingredients, and begin to set things up.
“Right now we’re waiting on that,” he says nodding at the stove. You nod, inspecting a bottle of seasoning he’d pulled out, and settle into a comfortable silence.
He thinks back to the last time you had time like this - playing twenty questions at your apartment. A pit forms in his stomach as he remembers the conversation veering to Calypso, as it always seemed to. He shoves it away. Not this time. He steadies his nerves.
“So, you want to play twenty questions?”
You agree, coming closer to him.
“If you could go anywhere, where would you go?”
Your eyes flick over to the clock. You have a solid hour, hour and a half before the others are supposed to get here. You stare at him, brushing hair out of his face.
“I’d be dead in the endless void of deep space.”
He cracks a smile at how on brand that response was. Your fingertips trail down to his neck, rethen shoulder. The smile doesn’t leave his face, not completely. Your heart beats loudly in anticipation.
“My turn. Do you want to make out?”
His head snaps up, eyes locked with yours, trying to tell if you’re serious or if this is another example of your distinct sense of humor. But he can tell it’s not - there’s something a little too close to the surface in your eyes.
“Yeah. Yes, totally-”
You grab his collar, pulling him in for a kiss, and leaning back against the empty counter.
His lips are soft and warm, moving gracefully with yours. You barely register that the first kiss ends before you dive back in. You angle your head, deepening the kiss. He plants one hand on the counter, the other making its way to the small of your back. You flick your tongue past his lips, and his grip on your waist tightens. You clutch his collar tighter, other hand moving through his hair, still damp at the ends.
You can tell he’s enjoying what you do by the way his mouth quirks up ever so slightly at the corners, and by the way he starts to harden beneath you. You roll your hips into his, and he falters, sighing, breath fanning your lips. Not quite a moan, but you’re getting there.
The front door opens before you can.
Leo pulls away reluctantly, very reluctantly, and turns off the stove.
“That was fast,” he says, panting slightly and still very flushed. They’re not supposed to be here for a while, still.
A tall girl enters the kitchen, dark strawberry blonde hair pulled over her shoulder. She looks between you and Leo with a sour expression on her face.
The shoot was quite successful and experimental, and I felt that as the shoot progressed I created images closer to what I had imagined when I thought of this idea. The shoot focused on photographing a garden shed and seeing how i could enhance it in the dark.
Setting Up
The shoot for this Lighting Up the Dark project took place in my friends garden To set up I got my tripod set up and figured out where the best place to set it down would be.
Lighting Technique
For this project, I incorporated my skills from previous projects that involved exploring light painting techniques during HND year 1 and NQ. From these projects I learned that these shoots take time to get right and can be tedious to photograph, however I quite enjoy the process and exploring how different light sources interact with the subjects.
So, initially I used my phone’s torch light with a snoot made from rolled up paper taped onto it, Working from the foreground to the background and experimenting with the light intensity as well as the distance between the light source and subject, moving the light closer where I wanted the attention to be drawn to and further for a softer light that didn’t distract from the colours and textures I aimed to highlight.
The second light source I used was a torch light that had one beam of light that could also change in light intensity using a sort of focus ring that would disperse the light or narrow it down.
Equipment
- Tripod
- Torch (light source)
- DIY light modifier (snoot created with rolled up paper)
Exposure Settings
For this project I used a shutter speed of 30 seconds to give enough time to allow light to enter the camera. Keeping the ISO at 100 to maintain a high-quality image with as minimum amount of grain or noise as my camera allowed. When selecting the aperture I knew it needed to also be large enough to allow light in without overexposing the image (despite shooting in a pitch black room with a fairly dull light source for the majority of the shoot). I set the aperture at f7.1 which allowed for the subject to be in focus with slight focus on the background without overexposing the image.
Todd Hido was born in 1968 in Kent, Ohio. He studied at a variety of art institutions including California College of Art & Design and Rhode Island School of Design. His work has featured in publications such as Artforum, The New York Times, FOAM and Vanity Fair. He has work in permanent collections in galleries and museums like The New York and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. He is currently based in San Francisco. Hido is heavily influenced by Alfred Hitchcock, Edward Hopper and Larry Sultan.
The main subject of his work is the American urban and suburban landscape, often photographed at night. Todd shoots on film and digital but mainly sticks to film. He chooses based on which aesthetic they will present depending on the subject and location. When editing his negatives together, he manipulates them until he produces a picture that he feels portrays his encounter with the location. His images are created on long, solitary drives. Isolated suburban houses are an ongoing source of inspiration and investigation. He shoots mostly with natural light and some artificial using a tripod. Hido is known for his use of textural detail and colour. Also exploring subtleties and variations in light and shadows. His work has a cinematic quality, reproducing the characteristics of a film still.
Tim Simmons
Tim Simmons is a Norfolk based photographer who worked as in commercial photography up until
2005, before enrolling in a Fine Arts course at Norwich University of Arts where he studied a Masters degree. His work has been exhibited internationally in the USA and in South Korea, more local exhibitions and some of the first took place in Norwich, Hampshire and at the Aspex Gallery. He now photographs landscapes and long exposure night scenes. Simmon’s approach to photography is to explore the relationship between humans and the land we live on as well as considering how we depend on the land. His work captured the impact of weathering on the shapes and textures found in the ground caused by wind and rain. He expands upon the link between who we used to be and who we become.
I was drawn to Simmon’s work because of his consideration for texture and the concepts in his approach to his work. I was also interested in the way he brings out the colours within a landscape, almost creating a whole new environment.
The purpose of this project was to explore an environment using an artificial light source with the ability to introduce additional subjects to tell a story. The image must be lit using an artificial light source and explore the textures, colour or atmosphere of the selected location.
For this project I had a couple of set-backs with my initial ideas where I had intended on photographing an environment on location, and due to weather and some other complications I was unable to do this. So to overcome this obstacle I decided to photograph this project in my bedroom by clearing a space and creating a simple set with a simple subject that included a lot of texture to add visual interest. My set up included a draped bedsheet and a bouquet of roses. To light this subject I experimented with two kinds of torches with different colour temperatures, an iphone torch with a cool toned light and a standard handheld torch with a warmer toned light. I found the iphone torch to be a larger light source and made my own snoot to act as a light modifier, this introduced another lighting technique to my approach on top of the overall painting with light technique.
To gain inspiration for this project, I looked a the work of photographers such as Tom Hido and Tim Simmons who create striking and atmospheric bodies of work on location. Despite not shooting on location in the end, I took more inspiration from fine art artworks and imagery where they use lowkey lighting to enhance the textures and form of the subject. This is a style of work I really wanted to explore with this project.
I really enjoyed photographing this project and working with a technique that although I had worked on before, I knew there are always areas for development and it is a very creative and experimental technique. For example, after taking a few exposures I looked at the images and altered my strategy when moving around the subject as well as changing the distance between the light source and the subject to achieve the quality of lighting I was aiming for.
Overall, I believe I have created a successful image using an artificial light source to light up an environment in an attempt to create an atmosphere and tell a story. By using the light painting technique with my chosen environment along with an additional subject, I worked on highlighting the features of the subject and the location it was placed within. Overcoming the obstacles I faced initially and putting my post-production skills to work on this brief, I created a final image to demonstrate my skills in the light painting technique.
The shoot was quite successful and experimental, and I felt that as the shoot progressed I created images closer to what I had imagined when I thought of this idea. The shoot focused on photographing a vase of roses, baby’s breath and eucalyptus branches in a vase with white draped sheets as the background to add depth as well as texture without distracting too much from the main subject.
Setting Up
The shoot for this Lighting Up the Dark project took place in a corner of my room. To set up my subject, I placed a wooden stool about 2-3 feet from corner then hung two bed sheets onto the wall and positioned them so they draped down and behind where I would position the subject. I placed a third white sheet onto the stool and trailed it down towards the camera to create a textured foreground. As the stool was round on top I placed a large book on this stool to make the white sheet material appear more structured and textured. Then I placed a beige-coloured vase onto this stool and spent a few minutes arranging the flowers in such a way to create height, add texture and visual interest.
Lighting Technique
For this project, I incorporated my skills from previous projects that involved exploring light painting techniques during HND year 1 and NQ. From these projects I learned that these shoots take time to get right and can be tedious to photograph, however I quite enjoy the process and exploring how different light sources interact with the subjects.
So, initially I used my phone’s torch light with a snoot made from rolled up paper taped onto it, pressing down on the snoot to morph the circular spotlight into ovals and figure of 8 shaped pools of lighting. Working from the foreground to the background and experimenting with the light intensity as well as the distance between the light source and subject, moving the light closer where I wanted the attention to be drawn to and further for a softer light that didn’t distract from the colours and textures I aimed to highlight.
The second light source I used was a tungsten torch light that had one beam of light that could also change in light intensity using a sort of focus ring that would disperse the light or narrow it down. Working through the same processes as I did for the torch light but without the snoot modifier. I also explored backlighting the subject in a few of the shots.
Equipment
- Tripod
- Torch (light source)
- DIY light modifier (snoot created with rolled up paper)
Exposure Settings
For this project I used a shutter speed of 30 seconds to give enough time to allow light to enter the camera. Keeping the ISO at 100 to maintain a high-quality image with as minimum amount of grain or noise as my camera allowed. When selecting the aperture I knew it needed to also be large enough to allow light in without overexposing the image (despite shooting in a pitch black room with a fairly dull light source for the majority of the shoot). I set the aperture at f7.1 which allowed for the subject to be in focus with slight focus on the background without overexposing the image. After reviewing the images I could increase the aperture to f5.6 to throw the background out of focus and bring attention to the subject.
Contact Sheets
This contact sheet is a collection of images photographed using the torch light from my phone with a homemade snoot modifier taped onto it to create a softer, oval-shaped pool of light on the subject that I moved onto and around the subject throughout the duration of each 30 second exposure. I have drawn in red the areas that are underexposed and where detail is lost, and in green are areas within the images where I believe the light has fallen how I intended it to and that is complimentary to the subject.
This contact sheet is a collection of images photographed using a small torch that created a small beam of tungsten light with a ring that increased and decreased the intensity of the light. I worked with the same method to the iphone torch of lighting the foreground, middle then background but I did explore lighting each separately whilst decreasing the intensity of light.
