This is a small excerpt of a Harry Potter fanfiction I wrote with some of my characters in it.
They had been so tired that they didn’t even change, and instead just fell asleep right there. She just looked over at Jezza with a smile as the sunlight seeped through the windows onto them. Jezza’s eyes opened slowly and she smiled back at Atrius.
She had found herself thinking that in some way, life had lead her up to this very moment. The universe had decided to be so kind as to introduce this person into her life. Jezza pulled Atrius into her and closed her eyes. Atrius shut hers as well, and as the morning sun washed over them through the windows, the dust in the sunlight danced the way her heart did.
Give your heart and soul to me, and life will always be La Vie En Rose.
Vi takes care of his flock, even when sometimes they come home covered in blood.
Hollow stumbled back into the music center at 2:00 AM. Vi was sitting at the piano bench next to the entrance and stood up. Hollow looked down at the blood on his shaking hands. He had been assigned another mission and if he refused, he and all his friends would be in danger. It’s been like this since he was twelve. “Come on,” said Vi, turning around and expecting him to follow. Hollow did so and walked past the rooms of his sleeping friends. He glanced at Bea’s name on her door and looked away quickly. Vi turned into the bathroom and Hollow followed in.
“Here,” said Vi, picking up a bucket he had already filled with soap and water. He placed it in front of Hollow and Hollow sat down in front of it, placing his hands into the water and rubbing away the blood. Vi walked over to a cabinet and pulled out a fingernail scrubbing brush and took one of Hollow’s hand in his, and began scrubbing the blood out from under his nails. They did so quietly every time Hollow came home after an assignment. Vi never asked questions. How it went, who he had to kill, what he was thinking. Hollow spoke when he wanted to and Vi listened. It’s been like this since Vi found out about his situation.
Hollow decided to speak this time. “I want out, Vi. I want out so bad.” Vi stopped scrubbing.
He didn’t look up. “I know. I know, and I promise I’m working on it. I won’t rest until you’re out of this situation.”
Hollow took in a shaky breath and Vi continued scrubbing. Once he was done with that hand, he moved on to the other. “Did you get any on your clothes?” asked Vi.
“It’s on my shoes and my pants. But the rest of it is clean.”
“Alright. I’ll get them washed. Go to your room and change and we’ll take care of it, alright?”
Hollow nodded slowly. “Okay.” He stood up and left the room. Vi stood as well. He walked out and looked over at the door Hollow had glanced on his way over. Hollow cared deeply about her. But he didn’t want them finding out that she was especially important to him. She didn’t know what he did, but she trusted him.
Hollow came back out of his room and handed Vi his stained shoes and pants. “Go get some rest,” said Vi. “I’ll have them back in your room tomorrow. Let me take care of the bucket.”
I enjoy suffering and hurting my own feelings, so I’m going to keep Valor dreaming.
Valor could not remember how he had gotten here. It lead him to wonder if maybe this was a dream.
He hoped, with everything he had, that it wasn’t.
His breathing was more steady than it had ever been for as long as he could remember. He felt at peace. It was a feeling he imagined was unattainable for people like him. If there were people like him. “Peace” seemed to be something only the loved could achieve. Love was something he never thought he would receive.
Somehow, though, he was here. She was here. The only thing he could remember was that she left Sina for Karline. She didn’t stir much when she slept. She was calm and collected in everything she did, including sleeping.
He didn’t dare say her or any of her family’s names in this castle ever since he had learned them. Unless it was out of hate.
He pressed his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. For a long time, there was silence. Until he heard her voice say, “Hello, Valor.”
And then he woke up.
He lurched awake and sat up as his bedroom door was thrown open.
“Get up,” said his uncle. “It’s time to train.”
The door slammed shut and he looked around the room. Empty, save for him.
“Shit,” said Valor immediately.
Dreaming of one of the people he’s been taught to hate felt illegal. And now he would have to continue to pretend it hadn’t happened. Again.
He threw off the covers and got up to get dressed.
Recycling writings again. I wrote this and attached it to a Jazz & Hailee moodboard at one point but you may not have seen it, because it was a while ago. So, here you go:
“Sometimes, during those long nights, when she was really sad, she liked to pretend that she was in love with me. And then in the morning, when the sunlight seeped through the windows, I was to her, again, that best friend that had yet to give up on her.
“It hurt because in order for her to feel better, she could fake something that I felt so honestly. I always wondered to myself how someone could convince themselves they’re in love with someone they’re not. I always wondered if I could convince myself that I was not.
“But I held on to every moment I spent with her. She was, and always will be, my best friend. Even if sometimes she hurt me without realizing.”
“I love you, Jazz,” said Hailee.
“No, you don’t. You’re saying that because you’re sad. You’ll feel better in the morning.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
After a long, punctured silence, Hailee spoke softly, “I might be right this time.”
Yo, I wrote a whole Vi & Annie thing somewhere else, but I’m just going to copy and paste the softest part of it for you. So basically, Emma was hosting a ball to help all the regiments get along better, and each of the Ackerkids had to invite someone from a different regiment. Vi was assigned the Military Police, and there was only one person there he could stand, which was Annie, so he invited her.
Everything seemed like such a blur to Annie. She was introduced to multiple important-looking people, and didn’t remember any of their names. It was all so hyped and fancy, and she had no idea how to act. She nodded when she was introduced, and Vi made sure she didn’t need to answer any questions she didn’t want to (which was any question at all). They were taking a break by the table where Queen Emma had some snacks set out. Annie didn’t feel at all like eating.
Vi was watching the room, when he spotted someone near the exit. His face went from formal and collected to tense and unnerved, but only for a second. She looked over to where he was, to see a blonde girl about Vi’s age talking animatedly to a friend. “Who is that?” asked Annie. It was her first question of the day.
“Mm, just someone I don’t have a nice history with,” said Vi. He turned to Annie. “Do you know how to dance? I probably should have asked you this earlier.”
She hesitated. “Uh, no.”
“Well, I’m sure I could teach you something simple. Would you like to dance with me? No one really asks questions to dancing people.”
She realized he was referencing the blonde girl who was making her way over to where they were. Annie nodded, not wanting to learn what this history was just yet. He took her hand — in the process, causing her to internally sound off warning alarms — and lead her to the ballroom floor where others were dancing. There was someone on the piano in the middle of the room, the piano that Vi might play something on later, where a man was doing his best on a tune fit for dancing.
Vi lead her through the steps of the dance, which seemed complicated at first. It was slow, which was good, because that meant she could take her time. “No, your other wrist,” was Vi’s commentary. “Oh, better move over a little.” “You okay?” “There. That’s perfect.”
They had gotten into a rhythm and Annie was significantly less afraid of messing up in front of everyone there. She looked past Vi, to where the girl was standing where they were. She then looked up at Vi again. They hadn’t been this close before, so the height difference was more noticeable than usual. She usually had to look up at people, but it was different dancing with someone. He looked very nice from this angle. Shut up, Annie.
She then noticed that more people were looking at them, and she glanced around at them nervously. “People are looking at us.”
“We can escape, you know, just ask,” said Vi. She didn’t know where to, but she definitely wanted out of here.
“That would be preferable,” said Annie.
He nodded and they left the dance floor.
~.~
Vi was sure Annie didn’t really expect to go into a smaller corridor and climb up a ladder in formal attire, but here they were, ascending to his favorite spot in the castle. The night had indeed fallen, which was more obvious when they reached the top. They were on the roof, where the parapets kept them from jumping off the side, which Vi had thought about previously, and on multiple occasions. “I like to come up here when I’m stressed and look at the sky,” said Vi.
Annie climbed out through the hole and stood next to him. She looked up at the same sky he was. “Weren’t you going to play a song on the piano?” asked Annie.
He shrugged. “Not important. You needed to escape, so that’s what we did.” He said it so casually, as if it should be obvious and expected of him to ditch plans for Annie’s comfort zone.
He walked up to the parapets and rested his hands on top of one of them. “Jazz studies the stars, and he knows the names of almost every constellation. He likes to point them out to us sometimes when we’re outside at night.”
Vi talked about his siblings a lot. He was so proud of them, and what they were like, and everything they did. “They’re very nice,” said Annie.
Vi smiled. “Yes, I think so, too.”
Annie placed her hands on the parapet next to Vi’s, and watched the sky. Vi felt so calm under the stars, and he hoped Annie did too. “Vi,” said Annie. She sounded like she was about to dump something that had been wearing on her mind.
“Yes?” asked Vi.
“Have you ever been betrayed by someone close to you?”
He looked down at his hands and ran them along the cold stone. At first, the incident shattered the glass he was made of, and then built up a wall of more stone. “Yes. You almost met her tonight. You?”
She shrugged.
“I hope you never have to deal with that pain, Annie.” He looked over at her. “I can’t begin to explain how it feels.”
She looked down at the stone. She pulled her hands off of it suddenly as a bug fell on her hands. “Ouch,” said Annie. Her hand had rubbed against the uneven stone.
She was wiping it on her dress when Vi took her wrist. There was just a small scratch, but it was bleeding enough to be annoying. He pulled a white piece of cloth out of his pocket and wrapped it around her hand. He held onto it just a little longer than he needed to, rubbing his thumb over where the cloth was wrapped. Vi felt her other hand close over the top of his. “Thanks.”
He gave her a soft smile, the softest he’s ever offered her. Something inside of him told him that it wouldn’t stay like this. It couldn’t stay like this. It’s too nice, and Vi doesn’t keep nice things for very long. They either walk away or get ripped away, and he wasn’t sure which one hurt more. Despite this, he wanted to kiss her. She didn’t seem like the kind of person who would like that, though, so he didn’t. He knew he was going to regret this, but he slid his hand out from between hers. “You should clean that, just in case.”
The first time Walter saw his best friend cry was… something. As a kid, he’d always been told to keep his emotions to himself. He never learned any healthy ways to express them. Even now, any time he shared what he felt, he could feel his father’s voice in the back of his head calling him names.
But here he was, sitting on a rooftop at 3 in the morning with Vi, and Vi just started… crying. Honest, full on crying. Walter tensed up immediately, unsure of what to do. He knew Vi was raised to express his emotions instead of fear them, but he never really thought about Vi expressing them to him.
“I just…” Vi began. There were tears streaming from his eyes; a waterfall of unrestrained emotion. “I just don’t think I did enough.”
Walter was obviously hesitating. He had no idea what he was supposed to say here. The only person he’s ever seen cry was his mother, and she always told him to walk away. Vi wasn’t asking him to go away, though. He was opening up to him. Which meant that Vi trusted Walter, and Walter had never had anyone do that before. He was more shocked than anything. Floored, really.
”God dammit, say something,” was what the reasonable part of his brain told him to do. ”Just freeze,” said his instincts. He went with the former.
“I think we both failed, Vi,” said Walter finally. That was a good thing to say, right? “But in the end, it wasn’t our fault.”
“I promised I’d check up on him more often,” said Vi.
“We both did. They just pushed him too far, and he wasn’t ready for that kind of shift.”
Vi looked up at the sky with puffy eyes. “I always get that heavy feeling before getting another tally mark. Before I come to you, I carry a rock around in my chest for weeks. These ones are particularly heavy. The ones that I could have prevented.”
He was referencing to the tally marks he got for every large loss he suffered, of course. The process was always silent as Walter applied the new tattoo next to the others. They never spoke about it before.
“John wouldn’t want you to think that way at all,” was what came out next for Walter. “When you were in that position, you never wanted anyone to blame themselves. You know that. When people do this, the last thing they want is for the ones around them to feel that way.”
Vi wrung his hands together in his lap and looked back over at Walter. He used his sleeve to wipe the tears off of his face and nodded. “I know.”
Walter had the urge to say something, then, that he’s never told any of his friends before. It just wasn’t something he wouldn’t feel judged for. But not with Vi. “You mean a lot to me, Vi,” said Walter. “I hope you know that.”
Walter’s ears screamed for a moment before Vi answered, “Yeah. You mean a lot to me, too, Walter.”
He placed a hand on Walter’s shoulder and Walter allowed himself a smile. He wished he had this kind of support as a kid. But it was here now, and he would do everything to keep it. Walter’s best friend.
Okay, I’m going to do a sort of modern beach AU for this
Terren leaned back on his foldout chair in the sand, unnecessary reading glasses perched on his nose for the aesthetic, and a book in his hands.
As soon as they’d gotten here, Eren had immediately gone off to play beach volleyball with some friends, and Terren had gotten himself sucked into this novel. Aside from the unnecessary romantic interest that got in the way of most of the plot, it was an okay book.
Why on Earth he was focused on this instead of enjoying watching Eren play volleyball like the cute ass competitive boy he is was something Terren couldn’t answer.
It didn’t seem like he’d be ignoring Eren for long, however, because soon the boy was stomping over to him in a huff. Eren plopped down into the sand next to him and Terren closed his book slowly.
Eren glared out at the water as if it had done something wrong to him, and Terren knew what he was waiting for.
“Something happen, Eren?” asked Terren finally.
“Jean happened,” said Eren immediately.
Terren nodded. “Ah.”
“He’s just so — aggravating!”
Terren shrugged. He took his reading glasses off and dug around in his back for his sunglasses, slipping those on instead. “You see, Eren, once you stop letting Jean get to you, you’ll be so much more at peace.”
“How do you do it? How do you stay so calm all the time?” asked Eren. “Especially around people like him?”
“I had to learn to control it,” said Terren. “My anger never got me anywhere good. There’s a reason I don’t get angry, Eren, and it’s not because I’m physically unable to.”
Eren’s frown remained etched into his face.
“Cute angsty boy,” said Terren. “Would sitting up here make you feel better?”
Terren moved aside on his chair and pat the empty space. Eren sat there with his arms crossed for a few minutes grudgingly before standing up and sitting down on the chair next to him.
Terren ran a hand through Eren’s hair. “Imagine Jean as just a head, rolling around in the sand hopelessly crying out for help.”
Eren’s frown faltered.
“Oh, he’s rolling out to the ocean… he’s free…! Oh, no he’s… he’s sinking… turns out people with rocks for brains don’t float.”
Eren bit down on his lip to keep from smiling but let out a small, short laugh.
“Just gotta learn to laugh it off.”
Eren leaned his head on Terren’s shoulder and Terren smiled.
“It’ll be okay. He’s just one person.”
Terren continued to run his hands through Eren’s hair. “Thank you,” said Eren.
“Hold still, Jean,” huffed Eris impatiently, dragging the wet rag across his face. “I have to remove the dirt first.”
He frowned and looked off to the side, once again upset about having lost a fight with Eren. But, he thought to himself.Eren doesn’t have The Eris Ackerman tending to his wounds, now does he? A small, satisfied smile crept across his face.
“Wipe that stupid grin off right now,” said Eris and he dropped it immediately. “You’re lucky I’m not about to fight you for being so reckless. You wouldn’t come out so in tact.”
He shifted uncomfortably on the table he was sitting on inside HQ, thinking about how badly it would turn out if he ever picked a fight with one of the Ackermans.
She pulled a small black container out of her pocket and twisted it open. Something Styx made a few years back that helped bruises heal faster.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally. He knew it was what she’d been waiting to hear.
She nodded. “I’d say that I hope you’ve learned your lesson, but you never really do, do you?”
“I suppose not,” he answered honestly.
She rubbed some of the cream from the container under his right eye and twisted the lid back on. “All right, I’m done.”
She stepped back, but he stayed in place, looking down at the ground guiltily.
Her expression softened and she pat his hair softly since she couldn’t touch his face. “It’s okay, you’re still cute.”
She slipped a flower from behind her ear to place behind one of his.
“Really cute!”
She smiled and he looked up at her. It was a lovely smile. “Yeah, this bruise must be very attractive,” said Jean sarcastically.
“It’ll heal up, and then it’ll be all back to normal and soft and pat-able.”
“I can’t wait for you to pat my cheeks again,” said Jean.
