serendipity

sara. xxi. writing blog.

[teavious]

MOVED! @brdweidrems13

hi guys, for everyone who is still active and follows this blog, you can now find my writing moved on another blog @brdweidrems13 ; and that’s also my new AO3 name.

i’ll still keep this blog around, as an archive of my older works, but anything new will be posted over on this new blog; please consider giving it a follow if you’re still interested in my writing! thank you!

[teavious]

MOVED! @brdweidrems13

hi guys, for everyone who is still active and follows this blog, you can now find my writing moved on another blog @brdweidrems13 ; and that’s also my new AO3 name.

i’ll still keep this blog around, as an archive of my older works, but anything new will be posted over on this new blog; please consider giving it a follow if you’re still interested in my writing! thank you!

[teavious]

MOVED! @brdweidrems13

hi guys, for everyone who is still active and follows this blog, you can now find my writing moved on another blog @brdweidrems13 ; and that’s also my new AO3 name.

i’ll still keep this blog around, as an archive of my older works, but anything new will be posted over on this new blog; please consider giving it a follow if you’re still interested in my writing! thank you!

[naruhina2020]

NaruHina2020 Official Theme List

[shadesfalcon]

send an ask: get to know your author

1) is there a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

2) what work of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

3) what order do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenes first? something else?

4) favorite character you’ve written

5) character you were most surprised to end up writing

6) something you would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated to change now

7) when asked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

8) favorite genre to write

9) what, if anything, do you do for inspiration?

10) write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

11) what aspect of your writing do you think has most improved since you started writing?

12) your weaknesses as an author

13) your strengths as an author

14) do you make playlists for your current wips?

15) why did you start writing?

16) are there any characters who haunt you?

17) if you could give your fledgling author self any advice, what would it be?

18) were there any works you read that affected you so much that it influenced your writing style? what were they?

19) when it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keep track of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

20) do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

21) what do you think when you read over your older work?

22) are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

23) any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped your writing?

24) have you ever become an expert on something you previously knew nothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

25) copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’re particularly proud of

[teavious]

oh, the fortune said; flowers bloom with no regret

Fandom: Dragon Age

Pairing: Female Hawke/Fenris

Summary: So Hawke does what she knows best doing. She steels herself, relaxes her fists, and grins a lopsided smile.

Word Count: Part 1, 5.2k words. (ALSO ON AO3)

All the people in the town call her Hawke – her and her only the embodiment of everything else that the other members of her family have only separately: the stubbornness of her mother, the wits of her father, the fierceness of her brother and the kindness of her sister. She understands it is supposed to be some kind of compliment, some kind of title that only she has the skills to unlock, but instead it makes her feel weirdly alienated from everyone else, from the common names everyone else gets called by. She yearns for it sometimes, for the intimacy it comes with having someone calling her by her given name, the effort someone would have to put in to even learn it.

But she likes being called Hawke as well, the easiness with which vowels roll off the tongue, the way she owns the name through her quick eyes, her fastness in combat, when she spars with her siblings, when she has to fight for the things her father asks her to bring from the market, and so many others wish for as well. She likes that each villager booms with pride when calling out to her – there’s our Hawke! - and when this happens she likes to imagine that she is no girl, no daughter, no sister, nothing and all, and just that: Hawke.

She doesn’t particularly like any member of her family though. She has siblings that she didn’t wish for, darting past her laughing about things that will always remain secret from their older sister, always with linked hands, always making a group of only two where she won’t be allowed. Her mother will always find a fault laying in her behavior, no matter how much she tries, and after a while, she doesn’t even do that anymore, instead growing more and more Hawke-like: fierce and reckless and unapologetically herself. For that, her father seemed to hold the whole blame she refused to take, and she saw him cowering with each passing year, with each news of a world he left behind and never talked about, with each evening where she’d end up escorted home by already bored guards. But she is her father’s daughter, and even rebelling is done with utmost perfection, running havoc.

She still somehow cares about each and every one of them, the only family she has, the only connection she knows how to hold – and she takes little solace in the minutes when she is alone, on battered paths long after everyone else fell asleep, at the edge of the village, almost tasting what’s behind this imposed limit on her life, the scenery peaceful and calm and safe in ways she never really learnt to be. The little good manners her mother tried to inflict on her, learnt by heart but never practiced, are buried under the years spent on farm, and Hawke likes it better like this: no more strain on her life and behavior. Potential is a heavy, heavy burden – and she’s oddly relieved and sad when her mother stops caring, at all, about her oldest daughter fulfilling any of her expectations. She senses the shift in their dynamic, as the focus turns to the twins: Bethany’s magic that risks burning everything to the ground, literally; Carver’s wish to fight, if only to help his sister in destroying everything in sight.

Her siblings are a force to be reckoned, especially when they work together, but she can’t quite hold any bitterness towards them. They are young and don’t know any better, their universes somehow stopping at Leandra’s smile, at Malcolm’s nod of approval. Hawke’s heart constricts in her chest, and when Bethany lays her hand over hers every time she feels as such, Carver’s arrival with stolen pie… She knows, she knows there’s something stronger than magic at work, a link as old as their name between the Hawke’s twins. But Hawke doesn’t like having her mind read, even with no ill intention, even by her sister, so at the back of her thoughts, whenever she’s around magic, she keeps playing the pounding of her heart, louder and louder, deafening, something to grasp at; her one defense against something she can’t fight with nails and fists.

And one summer day their father receives a letter. Hawke is old enough to see the distress on her mother’s face, and she is the first one back at home, watching Malcolm packing, everything done in less than an hour. Carver runs into her from the back, now taller than her, slenderer and a true sight for the village’s girls, true pride for their parents. Bethany follows, though she is the kind hand wrapped around her arm to steady her back on her feet, and they all three wait in the doorway for an explanation, for something to make actual sense in how fast their family dissolves. Because, if there is something holding together the Hawkes, that something is Malcolm. He turns towards them, a hand white around his staff.

“You must always make only mistakes you know you can live with,” he sighs. It’s the first time she starts to realize how her parents are getting old, Leandra defeated under knowledge she will never share with her children; Malcolm, although sporting a smile, having it too wrinkled, too dark. Then, she snaps out of it: shoving her fingers in her siblings’ side, pushing them away, following them, allowing secrets to keep festering between the two she still allows authority to.

Her mother’s sobs start way before the night falls, to cover Malcolm leave. Her father takes each of his family member to his side, hushes calm and hope in their ears, cheekily jokes to steal a smile from Carver, a giggle from Bethany. When his oldest’s turn comes, it seems like he ran out of reassurance.

“Dearest…” he tries, but then he feels the wrong in that tender word associated with his rowdy girl, and clears his throat. “I don’t know for how long I’ll be gone, or if I will ever return. You’re the only one they” and here he pauses, both their glances moving towards the kitchen, where Leandra is filling up the twin’s cups with warmed milk, “really have to help them now. You need to support Carver, learn to match his temper. You need to protect and hide Bethany, she’s still so young. And don’t be so harsh on your mother.”

Hawke wonders, dizzy, if he told them not to make all these jobs for her more difficult than they have to be, but she highly doubts it. In the other room, her family calmed down to a point – and now it’s on her to keep the semblance of put-together for as long as necessary. Malcolm starts searching for something in his pouch, shoving a package in her hands. Puzzled, she throws the cloth aside, revealing two daggers: old by the use in the handle, but well taken care of.

“You’ll need them,” is all her father says, patting her shoulder, straightening his back, grabbing his staff and cloak. He says no other goodbyes to his family.

And so, the only other one who might have stolen the tile of Hawke from her, disappears. She doesn’t cry until, two months later, she catches her first rabbit with her new weapons.

***

“Stop pushing me!” Hawke screams, shoving her elbow back in the face of an older woman who pinched her waist to get her to cower down, so she can better see the goods sold by the traveling merchant. She is bitter at Lothering – failing miserably at giving the people the resources they need, leaving them fighting over every new merchant cart that crosses their gates. But her calf is still hurting, the result of a fireball courtesy of Bethany, and her brother had been complaining about his leather boots falling apart for months now. If she can get some honey, she’d consider herself the strongest and most resourceful villager as well.

When the merchant, finally noticing her flailing arms, takes her money and makes a gesture for her to take what she needs, she moves fast. She might step on the feet of a curious child or grab a piece of cloth from the hands of a soon-to-be bride, but she paid for all, and so she takes. She sighs in relief when, finally, and with arms full, she exits the crowd. Her family is waiting at the crossroad, and she passes her purchases around in silence. Cloth for a new vest for Bethany and a lyrium crystal to help her figure out the magic thing easier. She throws the boots to Carver’s face, laughing when he almost fails to catch them. She’s more careful with the honey jar, though she is tempted to test her mother too, and when Leandra’s open palm still waits in front of her, she sighs and passes the last of her coins, too. At the end of all the struggle, there’s nothing for her.

Before she can start moving again, Carver’s hand is around her shoulder, a quiet come with me separating her from her duties. She frowns, shakes off his painful grip, slapping a palm against the back of his neck for being such a brute with her.

“Like you’re any lady,” he murmurs in response, massaging the spot. Hawke crosses her arms, raising a brow at him.

“What do you want?”

“I’m going to war.”

“Like hell you are,” she puffs, immediately afterwards laughing, hand going instinctually at her back, where she keeps her daggers. It’s unlike Carver to joke about something like fighting, which he takes so very seriously, which is why when he repeats the affirmation, slower this time, more confident, her smile falls.

“There’s word of the Blight starting again. If that’s the case, what’s the next thing after the Wilds?”

Lothering.

The two siblings look at each other, assessing the situation. “Mother won’t let you,” Hawke says in the end, certain she will now need to go fight in a war she is not sure she believes in.

“Mother wants a hero as a child,” he snaps, pride in his voice. Because finally, she is not the one that fits the criteria, she is not the one that can take this from him. There’s nothing more to be said on the matter, there’s nothing she can do – and she is painfully aware of the fact that he’s still so young, he’s still a child chasing things that he can’t touch, and oh, doesn’t he know those are the things that are least worth any hassle? Glory can’t fill a stomach and war can’t fill a heart.

But Hawke bits her tongue, nods at Carver, goes home and spends hours polishing his armor, washing his shirts, making his favorite meals. If, by the time he’s back from celebrating with his friends in the village’s tavern, he notices her efforts, he says nothing to her face.

Only late at night, when it’s been hours of trying to fall asleep, does she feel her sibling hovering around her door, sounds muffled through the door. She waits until they’re in, Carver’s body draped over her own, heavy and muscled and very heavy. Bethany laughs, but at least she has the delicacy to sit in the chair, rather than on her older sister.

“What,” Hawke grunts, throwing her elbow in Carver’s stomach, grinning when he groans, “do you want?”

She can feel Carver’s lips resting over her cheek, his hand squeezing at her own. Bethany rolls her feather between her fingers, anxious and silent. Hawke hates this; how she can’t help but love them in these moments when she can understand them.

“He’ll probably be scared,” Bethany says, taking Hawke’s other hand in hers, at the same time when Carver says “Like hell I will.”

Hawke frowns through the dark, seeing only the outlines of their bodies; and oh, how easier it is to talk like this, when no expression is certain, when no vulnerability fully shows.

“But they’ll be heroes, Hawke!” She can hear the tilt in Bethany’s voice and she’s sure her eyes glint with enthusiasm, the way they always did since they were very young. She squeezes Carver’s hand, warning for the future, a request for promises that she knows she can’t actually ask him to make.

“Make sure your surname doesn’t catch popularity, you hear me?” Hawke does her best to keep her tone easy, joking. She relaxes when Carver snorts in her shoulder, when Bethany finally plops in the bed next to them, over them. When Leandra comes checking out on them the next morning, he finds them all limbs-tangled, somehow fitting in a too small bed, Hawke’s arms around Bethany to keep her from falling from the bed, Carver’s leg thrown over the wall so that he won’t turn his sisters’ bodies numb from the weight.

***

Being stationed so close to home means that, in-between training sessions, Carver drops by from time to time, filled with stories of far-fetched people, all gathered together under one common purpose; of joking princes, serious tacticians, somber mages. His tone is light, his words hopeful – but Hawke is not blind, and she knows whatever is coming is way bigger than they all can understand. Carver is still raw, there hasn’t been a battle yet and the safety he feels in their number is easy to get lost in. It’s in her blood to worry about those she shares it with, though she keeps it all for herself. Carver is, for the first time, happy – not walking in the shadow of another Hawke, and Bethany and Leandra seem excited at the prospect, finally. So Hawke allows them this, and worries on her own. She trains in the night, she stops warrior caravans, gifting them food and drinks in exchange for more and more information. There’s nothing else she can do, not that she knows of, so she keeps sending her brother off, and she keeps hoping he’s the one who’s right.

But the alarm in Lothering goes off late, way too late, in the form of running, desperate soldiers. For many villages, there’s no time to gather their things. For those who think there is, there are no more hours in their lives. The Hawkes are no exceptions; the moment Leandra moves to shove her most prized possessions in a bag, her eldest drags at her arm, shoves her out the door, pushes her to run as hard as she can, to catch up with Bethany, already setting things on fire.

Hawke has no time to panic over the damn creatures, or the lack of humans around them. She stabs, jumps away, moves again to kill. There’s no other way but through. They meet Carver on the way, and the twins immediately fall into a rhythm, back on back, fighting with almost a mad enthusiasm, even as Hawke already feels herself tiring.

She expected panicked villagers, a lost soldier – but the weird duo was not on her list. It’s almost like two different worlds collide, seeing this strong woman lending a shoulder to a hurt man, wearing the very distinct uniforms of their loyalties. Seeing them doubting her sister even when she’s desperate is like a punch to the stomach, and she wonders if magic is so hated between their ranks because they fight creatures that would have not existed in the first place if magic didn’t, either.

Hawke barks at them; hurt and needy and having to watch her world go down. She passes the market where she elbowed older ladies in her youth, blood prints and debris in the place of the familiar, colorful stalls. She passes the place where she got into her first fight with her siblings, just outside the city, for the stupidest reason of all: who gets the last piece of apple pie. She goes further than she ever went, and keeps going, frowning at their new companions, but glad for their stead-fast presence, for their fierceness and bravery. It’s been a while now since Hawke felt brave, and it’s nice to know that’s not the case for everyone.

They hack at each wave of enemy, movement becoming mechanic, vicious in the fierceness with which they want to protect. In the same way her own siblings fell together in a fight, she does with Aveline. Hawke runs, feels the wind biting at her skin, the smell of fire in her hair. She wills her legs to keep going, even if her heart is booming in her chest with fear of what awaits her, even if all she wants to do is stop.

The ogre takes stumbling step by stumbling step, until it eventually marches into an opening. There are more darkspawns accompanying this monstrous appearance than they fought until now – and maybe this adrenaline rush is what pushes her sister to march, or maybe the poignant smell of fear raising off her companions, or maybe just the damn wish to have something on her own, maybe just to show that magic is useful in many ways in this battle that they’re fighting. Hawke will never know, and will always continue to curse the second when she takes on the creature all on her own.

It’s a lag of a few seconds, before she moves forward as well, followed by the others. She runs faster now, desperate and mad, unable to even begin to comprehend the true damage, her brain electrified, swimming in too many of her thoughts, too many sounding like the name of her dearest family. She has no idea where weak points are, so she stabs everywhere, in a frenzy, throat raw by the time it falls, eyes burning with unshed tears, bleeding palms and knuckles and cracked skin ignored.

It seems like forever before the world moves again, following the echo of the ogre’s fall, in which Hawke only feels numb. Her mother is in a really not that different state, but Hawke stays like that, unmoving and unknowing. When Carver reaches the body of his twin, his leg limping, everything finally unfreezes. Leandra runs to her children, crying out their names, gathering Bethany in her own arms, resting her head in her lap. Her hands desperately try disentangling her hair; she chides her for not opening her eyes.

Hawke sits next to Carver, hooking her arm around his waist, allowing him to rest his weight on her. He closes his eyes with a sigh, like it’s painful to feel her touch. She says nothing, does not mourn, does not complain this situation, instead tightening her hold around her brother. They only see her dead, but if rumors are to be trusted, Carver has not only seen her die, but also felt it happening, a part of him now gone as well.

Hawke hooks her other arm around him, giving him a hug, and pretends to not hear his stammer when he says her name, his sobs; pretends she doesn’t feel his shudder when their mother screams. Hawke gathers him closer and they stay like that until Leandra calms.

“My dear daughter,” she calls in her pain, and Hawke wonders what that makes her. Sir Wesley’s offer is not unkind and it brings a little peace for all of them. Aveline lets her hand rest on Carver’s shoulder, complimenting a work well done. If anything, Bethany died a hero, for those she loved. Hawke wants to throw up. Is your own life really a worthy sacrifice, even if it’s your own blood?

Leandra whips her head around at her eldest, fierce and stricken with grief, wild and her face open. She cradles Bethany’s body at her chest, with a love so bright it hurts to look at. Like this, Hawke understands why Malcolm might have fallen in love with her all this time ago, why over and over again he has taken Leandra’s side, has made her the queen of his decisions.

But Leandra speaks, and her words bite.

“It’s all your fault.”

Hawke’s arms fall from around her brother, her eyes turning moist, burying her nails in her flesh in blind frustration. Carver sits back, no words to defend his sister, and rationally she knows that their pain is raw and fresh, but the fact that they don’t think she shares it hurts more than she’d like to admit. For a mere second, enough for one Aveline Vallen to catch the change, she lets it visible on her face. But Leandra is imprinting Bethany’s face in her memory, Carver looking off into the distance, where safety is supposed to be.

So Hawke does what she knows best doing. She steels herself, relaxes her fists, and grins a lopsided smile.

“Should we get moving, before we all end up in a similar way? Or will stalling be my fault, as well?”

She looks pointedly at her family, the silence falling threateningly between them, because that means the monsters are done in the village, and they’re the next best thing. Sir Wesley coughs, cradling his hurt arm at his chest, and everyone turns their head on his pale face, his purple veins visible even from a distance.

“Oh, my. He already looks quite dead.”

There are stories you hear as a child and know for sure they cannot be true, and then there are those that are so terrifying exactly because the truths outnumber the lies. The legends about the Witch of the Wilds fall in the second category, and seeing this woman, oozing of power, laughing in the face of defeat, is overwhelming. Hawke steps forward, ready to make a deal with demons if it gets them out of this situation, if it makes the waters safe for how long it’ll take them to reach another place, at least whole.

The Witch of the Wilds doesn’t seem to be requesting that much. She’s cruel in her intelligence, mocking in her power. But, underneath all that, she holds some kind of respect for survivors, for effort. But, underneath all that, she’s human enough to know when even effort is not enough to hold a life together.

Aveline does not allow anyone to come close enough to her husband in these last moments, even with their best intention in mind. They’ve shared years and thoughts, visions and love. Wesley cradles her face for one last time, making sure that even if her hold on the sword trembles, it would not miss. This is the only request she has granted him so easily, so finally.

When the metal presses into the soft flesh of his stomach, Hawke feels like she’s floating, like the world is not real. They thinned their numbers by a third, and yet she does not avert her eyes from this death, willing herself to become as just and sure as the warrior girl before her, knowing her to be as shaken as she is.

The Witch takes them afterwards where they need to go, no unnecessary flash of magic spent. Not even once during their travels, not until they’ve reached a ship and sleep, not even when between people once again, does Hawke lets go of Aveline hand, even when it turns numb from the harsh clasping.

***

“You did a good job,” is what Aveline tells her first, when they step on land again. Hawke shakes her head, thinks of her family that didn’t say a word to her during the voyage, and then she wants to slap herself because she at least still has them. So she chokes on her biting remark, and instead pats Aveline’s arm; keeps her distance because she’s in desperate need of a bath.

There are several other families of refugees waiting for entrance in the city – and a chance at life, in the end. Kirkwall may be one hellhole once you’re in, but at least is something more than darkspawn territory. Each person here has a story as painful as them, each person fought with all they had in them to make it somewhere that doesn’t reek of instant death. The despair with which some of the people are bargaining make it quite clear how small their own chance at getting in is.

But this is Kirkwall. For Hawker, Carver, Aveline it might be the wide unknown, but her mother would rather call it home. This is the place where she’s been raised, this is the place she can navigate, where she was made in the woman she is. Hawke only hopes once they’re in, she won’t suddenly start taking after her. Leandra straightens her back, moves to talk with the guards, invoking old names, ending things in a fight and with a bargain. Truly the Hawkes way.

She’s not used to the humid air of Kirkwall and the wideness of the sea, or the scorching of the sun, as they wait, for three days, for some kind of passage into the city. By the time her uncle comes, walking like he has a stick shoved up his ass, Hawke is red with sunburn, groggy and stinking. She was promised a noble line and all she’s getting is a drunkard, and she almost swears at Carver when the idiot brother of hers stops her from punching him in the face. They’re family; family doesn’t give up on each other so easily.

Gamlen sounds so bitter and so familiar, and looking at the two, with Carver at her side, is like looking into a mirror. She clasps his hand, if only to make sure he’s not quite yet wielding a sword to stab her in the back. She knows it’s hard to control how you feel, and the first initial reactions – but things are not supposed to go like this. They struggled so much, for so long already and there’s no chance of resting any time soon.

It makes it clear, in her head, finally, that she must be harder. She must harden against what the world decides to throw her way, because the world won’t wait for you to mourn, to take a break, to do anything but survive. It’s clear there’s no other way, so she takes the harsh path, because she has no other choice. She has her brother for now, even if he still barely talks to her, and she has Aveline, a new constant at her side. It has to be enough.

She picks Athenril simply because she’s a woman, and she trusts her just a tiny bit more. She takes most jobs that are handed out, anything to buy back the freedom another sold so easily. She does so with immense bitterness, hating her family for dragging each other from problem to problem, wishing she could severe ties, but finding herself unable to do so.

For a few weeks, she goes on her own, Carver intent on helping their grief-stricken mother accommodate herself with their new life, learning to manage the gap where Bethany used to be in their relationship. She allows her brother the time he needs to patch his heart up and tolerate her again. She allows her mother the retreat of old age, remembering a time when the two of them shared the same hair color. She allows Gamlen the drunken tantrums and inappropriate remarks. It’s what she needs to do, and there’s no one to understand the extent of effort it all takes.

Then, on a random day, Carver is at her side when she reads a note from Athenril telling her all about a new job; Carver is at her side when she fights, which makes things way easier. It’s been a while since they’ve been on the same side, and she takes what he’s willing to give, puts it aside and keeps it safe in her heart, untouchable, making it her strength.

They await, in an alley, for those who are going to pay them for the work. The sun is going down, and Hawke’s muscles ache under an ill-fitting armor. Carver sighs.

"A hundred ways to run, and we choose backward. Whatever you say, but chasing an old name isn't really starting over."

“It’s not me you have to say this to, brother. It is mother the one who’s obsessed with the failures of her brother and the fall of her family.”

“Mother is grieving.” She looks up at him, playing with her daggers between her hands, eyes narrowing at him.

“We all are, brother.” Her voice cracks without her wanting it to. She knows he doesn’t trust these words; after all, she’s been way too put together, she hasn’t lost it in any way similar to the rest of her family. He doesn’t see that by turning their grief in anger directed at her, she eases the process for them. She doesn’t want him to. Well, most of the time. It’d certainly make things easier in moments like this one.

The moment is broken by an admiring whistling, and around six men stepping in their way, the one who hired them their chief. Their words are condescending, and they laugh at their willingness to take onto their dirty work, and anyone’s for the matter. They throw slurs in their face, show off their weapons, trying to intimidate. But Hawke knows they can’t afford to anger Athenril. She knows they won’t kill them, or they would have already done it.

So she pushes at her brother’s shoulder, hissing in his ear to run for Athenril, ask for help and return afterwards. It takes her three shoves to get him moving, and by the time he disappears around the corner, one arm is around her shoulder again, hands pulling at her shirt and pants, and she freezes on the spot, unable to scream, unable to act, their touches burning, their leers biting. There are a few who take their turn, others who are more pleasured by just watching – and at the end of it all, they leave her naked and spent, laid on her clothes, throwing a cackling sack of coins on the ground next to her head, laughing about making good business.

It takes her a while to return back to her own body, the whole experience seen from somewhere outside of her own existence, from very far away. She pulls her clothes back on, she fumbles with her daggers until she cuts her finger, she cradles the coin pouch and tries to tell herself that it’s been worth it in the end. Carver is safe, the amount of money is triple what they’ve been promised and she is fine. She’s back on her own feet by the time the back-up comes to get her, and she sighs in relief when there’s no Carver in sight – because she can lie to these people, but she doesn’t think she could to her brother.

She walks through the entirety of Kirkwall before making her way back home. She stops at Aveline’s barracks, even while she is out on patrols, to wash away. She gets a disgusting drink in an unnamed bar. And when she can stall on the streets on her own no more, fear now more powerful, rising painfully in her throat, it is still late enough that no one else is up.

She hides the satchel of money away once she’s inside their house, not trusting her uncle around money, and her delusional mother even less. She crawls in the same bed as her brother, wincing as she curls into a ball, constantly ordering herself not to cry. And when the morning comes, with still no wink of sleep, Hawke gets up, moaning in pain, hurrying to get dressed and hide the purple marks blooming on her skin, ignoring any questioning stare, just pushing through.

[teavious]

Hi can you write a fanfic about elias and laia from an ember in the ashes?

I really, really dislike Laia's character and I refuse to write anything involving her in a positive light. I'm sorry. I also didn't read the 2nd volume yet, so my characterisation would be off and based only on half the information available. I'm sorry :(

[teavious]

Kim Seokjin + “Have you lost your damn mind?”

a series featuring BTS, prompts from here.

You plop on the chair at your desk, plate in hand, at the exact moment your laptop screen lights up with a face call. It’s routine by now, your phone’s clock coordinated to wherever in the world Jin is, eyes glancing all throughout the day at the screen, waiting for the hours to pass until you can see his face again.

Even with the twitter notification on and the random heart selcas waiting for you when you wake up, it’s not quite the same as seeing him, those beautiful features and quirky gestures mingled into the one man you love.

His frame clears up on the screen, the call finally properly connecting - and it’s with a breathy sigh of your name that he greets you. Your eyes search his face, just as his do yours, digging for the exact level of extortion in his body and of happiness in his heart. You’ve gotten better at it with practice, now the tug at his lips when he smiles in defeat at your pleads to just go to bed, Jinnie! a prized possesion, the excited dance of his hands as he explains details from their shows a perfect picture. Your heart aches in too much affection when he drags closer his bowl of food, late dinner to be shared with you.

“Do I get the honor of my own eatjin?”

He chuckles, a bit embarrassed, but his eyes soften when you move to sit even more comfortable, focused on just basking in his image, forgetting all about your meal in the process. You think of how delicate his grasp on the chopsticks is, how cute his filled cheeks, how pleased his face, stuffed with delicious food. You miss being next to him to hand him a napkin, ask him for recommendations on a late night date in a fancy restaurant, steal a bit of his meat.

You mindlessly reach for your own food, having started to describe Jin your latest phonecall with your family and to whine about an assignment you’re procrastinating on - when the choked gasp coming from your laptop stops you. On your screen, Jin is trying his hardest to swallow the food in his mouth, his arm flapping in the air.

“Have you lost your damn mind!?” He finally says, throwing you a glare whose burn you feel even oceans away. You still push your food inside your mouth, even as it consists of corn flakes and mayonnaise, grinning triumphantly as Jin’s eyes widen, a shade darker than seconds before.

“When’s the last time you ate an actual meal, darling?” All earlier accusations are gone from his voice, now replaced with soft worry and tired resignation. You didn’t mean for this conversation to go like this - after all, you just forgot to go grocery shopping, not quite the same when you have to cut down your shopping list by half in his absence. Plus, you’re not even that hungry to begin with - but you know and understand how lonely it is to eat on your own. And you’re grateful enough that he’s taking this time away, just for you.

“Jinnie…”

He raises his eyes from his phone, where he’s probably sending a delivery service to your address with too much food, blinking down at you in curiosity.

“Thank you for always taking care of me, even when away. You know I love you, right?”

The change is almost instant, accompanied with the clatter of his phone dropping to the floor. The tip of his ears are now a beautiful shade of red, matching the one growing in his cheeks - and he’s hurried in launching after his glasses, glueing the sleeves of his hoodie to his lips, as he keeps watching you sending him finger hearts over the screen. When you eventually switch it to a hand kiss, even though burning with embarrassment, he’s still acting out catching it, folding it and placing it over his heart.

[teavious]

Kim Namjoon + “Come over here and make me.”

a series featuring BTS, prompts from here.

It’s one of those things, you suppose. You push, and he pulls - and you bump into each other, right in the middle, fumbling and embarrassed, but still in each other’s arms. It’s how it goes with the two of you, an ungraceful back and forth of late night calls, unplanned dates and charming smiles. It’s disarming how perfectly it works, how little you’re worrying, in the end, about things that would have drove Namjoon wild with worry before the start of your relationship. After all, he’s more attentive than he gives himself credit for, and you’re more patient and understanding than you seemed to be that time you grabbed his hand and begged him to kiss you for the first time.

***

It’s like this sometimes: your body curled in the armchair of his studio, his hoodie draped over your shoulders as you flip through his most recent read book, going over his annotations, leg bobbing in the air on the beat of his most recent piece. There’s a comfortable silence, both finding enough in this for now, as you each focus on your own thing. You can’t quite help the hurried glances his way, his brows focused in concentration, the faintest of smiles at the corners of his mouth when he’s getting something right - it’s Joon at his most, all his superlatives gathered at one moment in time. It’s always fascinating to watch, an honor to get to see what generally happens only in complete solitude.

So - you grab the book again, sigh a bit in half yearning and half pride, and try ignoring the restlessness growing in your body. When he eventually turns around in his chair, radiant with success and work well done, your arms open wide - and if he trips on the carpet in his hurry to reach you, he hushes your laughter with a kiss; and if that is not enough, one more, and one more.

***

But sometimes it’s like this instead: Calls delayed for days, and your brain trying to tell you to chill. You get rare texts, and you find comfort in the hurried words on the screen, the ‘dead’ emojis, though it feels hollow. You’d rather wish the free minutes to be spent resting and eating; you hope there’s someone reminding him to wipe the makeup off his face at the end of their schedule, someone working away the growing ache in his shoulders. But you’re restless anyway, missing him all the more for having gotten used to his presence. And maybe it’s childish to wear the Koya pajamas, or set your phone alarm to his voice - your brain, upon waking up, too hazy to figure out reality… But were he there with you, he’d find all of it endearing.

And it’s not his voice you’re waking up to, but the shy, barely there knocks at your door at 6 a.m., your screen lightning up to missed calls - finally. But it’s a slow process, pushing the sleep away from your eyes, making your legs move past the harsh, cold air outside your blankets. Seeing him in front of your door, though, wakes you up instantly. There’s a tired tilt in his dimples, and a hesitancy in his actions when he leans close to push a stray strand of hair out of your eyes, all the while smiling like you’ve just pulled the sun out in the sky. Like you’re the glowing segment of his day.

He almost staggers at the force of your hug.

“Missed you,” mumbled words in his jacket.

“Missed you more,” and a kiss at the top of your head, your hand already tugging him inside.

You feel like you’re a little bit drunk - on his smell, because of the lack of sleep, because he’s here. The way to the bedroom is covered in his things: a jacket on the back of a chair in the kitchen, his bag dropped in the hallway. He’s following you like a small puppy, unsure of his own decision making after so many sleepless, worked hours - and when you push at his shoulder, he falls all too willingly in your bed.

“Up,” you whisper, tugging at the hem of his shirt, helping him undress, pushing a spare, newly washed one in his hands, from the last time he slept over. He thanks you with a kiss, watches you leave the room, heading for the coffee machine - and he drops on the bed with a sigh, tired and in desperate need for a nap, immediately hogging one of your throw pillows to embrace, though it feels nothing like what he’d rather hold.

He can hear you prepare the cups - two teaspoons of sugar for yours, milk for his - then your footsteps getting nearer, and for a second he thinks of feigning having fallen asleep. But he missed you just as much, and his eyes involuntarily look for you, his arm grasping the air in hopes you’ll come near.

“You need to fall asleep, Joon.”

There’s worry in your tone, masked with harshness with no edge. Your fingers finally tangle with his, and he sighs, content, bringing them to his lips, his kisses barely touching your skin.

“Come here and make me.”

There’s a tug at your hand - enough to make you tumble over his body with a surprised gasp. His grin is humongous, his game successful - and you get closer, kissing his jaw, one of your hand now playing with his hair.

“What are you, a baby?”

“If I am your baby, I will survive it.”

You laugh; to his ears the best sound in the world, and one dearly missed.

“Even if I tell the boys?” You roll around in the bed, dragging the blanket after you.

“You wouldn’t do it.” His arms around your waist, his nose nuzzling at the nape of your neck, his feet cold against yours.

“Well, I heard decision making is at its best after a good slee-”

A loud kiss at your neck, a mumbled goodnight, one last squeeze around your body as he finally relaxes around you, his breath lulling you back to sleep.

***

No one said it’s not messy. No one said it’s not hard. But one thing that everyone knows is: it’s oh so worthy.

[teavious]

i’m between your past and future right now

Fandom: Naruto

Pairing: Sasuke x Hinata

Summary:  Probably this is why he is thinking of it right now, he supposes, as he stops a bit in his tracks, allowing Naruto to catch up with him, checking out his walk, calculating if they can make it each to their own bed without another break. Sasuke Uchiha, after a two months long mission, is sickly homesick. 2.6k words. AO3.

He has blisters on the heels of his feet, and each step is a painful reminder of the fact that there’ll be blood and flesh to clean up and tend to once he’s home. It makes him push forward with more determination, ignore the discomfort and Naruto’s talking at his side. He has been sporting a migraine for the past couple of days, a mix of sleepless nights, no food and a chatterbox for a partner for this mission, and the soreness has spread all over his body, that he’s not even sure what he’d complain of first, if asked.

But he’s a ninja with a mission, and however much unwanted it might have been, Sasuke Uchiha gets it done, and he does it well, and fast as well. For how much he’s been busy organizing diplomatic meetings, even Naruto is a bit impressed by the efficacy he displayed in this first actual mission; and Sasuke allows this one remark to pass by with just a smile, and a somewhat kind pat to his best friend’s shoulder, who is about to be a groom in less than two weeks.

This is why, Sasuke Uchiha tries to reason, he is ignoring all the nerves in his body screaming at him to stop. This is why he pushes away Naruto’s hand away from his arm, throwing biting remarks over his shoulder to get the blonde pumped up all over again, like this is a game, like they’re twelve again. Things could have been worse, he supposes. The night is clear, a chilly, but not totally unpleasant wind rustling through the trees accompanying their footsteps, and the air has that familiar forest smell that can only mean home.

If one were to ask the last survivor of the Uchiha years ago, back when he was but a child with bitterness as his only guide, when he was blinded by the notion of power, when his dreams were nothing but boastful pride where he would be at his current age, the answer would have been so easy:

Dead.

Well, present situation ignored, Sasuke cannot find many other things to complain about in life. He’d found some kind of peace in what was left behind the war, he found some kind of purpose in rebuilding so much of what was destroyed: people’s hopes, bonds, trust. In the beginning, he has worked on the new hospital wing in Konoha, alongside simple citizens, under blazing sun and chilly rain, screamed at as if he didn’t have a zombie hand now for his war efforts, served the same dull soup every afternoon, men boisterous at his side, the helping girls cautious,but welcoming. That was easy: fitting in, playing pretend at being just one of the others. And it worked, for as long as there was need for him there. Then, the last nail was hammered in, the last door was fixed, and one morning, out of habit than anything else, Sasuke turned the corner and saw children at one of the windows he helped mount, had a nurse wave at him on her way to the store to fulfill one patient’s needy request.

That’s when the politics started tugging at his sleeve, and in-between cleaning out his own district, making space for refugees coming in from worse-off areas, in hope of a better, new future in the village of the two heroes of humanity, Sasuke found himself quite often loudly arguing with a sighing Kakashi, or biting his lips to keep from teaching one young noble at a time what respect looks like.

He wasn’t loved, but he was good. He struck the best deals, he knew when to back down with his head bowed, when the flatter, and when to swear and fight his way into an agreement. It took time, but the eyes watching his back were less incriminating, less attentive, and Sasuke found himself breathing easier, smiling more in Naruto’s way, his grin blinding; allowing Sakura an afternoon here and there, to catch-up over tea; accepting Kakashi’s head ruffling the hair on the top of his head.

He was loved, by those who mattered.

Probably this is why he is thinking of it right now, he supposes, as he stops a bit in his tracks, allowing Naruto to catch up with him, checking out his walk, calculating if they can make it each to their own bed without another break. Sasuke Uchiha, after a two months long mission, is sickly homesick.

From a few meters in front of him, Naruto howls. Above them, one of Sai’s birds is looking back at them, and his best friend is jumping up and down, like his shoulder isn’t bleeding again, and muttering an idiot under his breath, Sasuke plops to the ground, head in his hands, and waits. Naruto is sprawled now on the lush grass, his backpack used as a pillow, and Sasuke wonders how the gifts for Sakura will survive under the blonde’s hard head, though he doesn’t seem to think too much of the consequences of his actions. There’ll be someone to pick them up soon enough, patch them in and get the reports on the last leg of the mission out of them.

“Nothing quite compares with Konoha,” his friend says, and the Uchiha can only nod along, even if it’s barely noticeable. But Naruto has always been good at picking up Sasuke’s feelings without needing explanations, without needing proof, without him even knowing he does it at all. After all, as Sakura likes to make fun of them when she gets drunk, possessively clinging to Naruto’s side and twisting their fingers together, they are the closest thing to soulmates she has ever seen.

Yes, Sasuke thinks, that would be one way to put it, although he suspects that he’s not the first person that comes to Naruto’s mind when he hears the term, just as Naruto isn’t his either. But it’s one easy way indeed to describe the desperate need for the other one to be happy, coupled with all the possible efforts to help them reach exactly what they need.

And it’s comfortable to know that whatever happens, he has Naruto, Konoha’s skyline and the rustle of the leaves during clear nights.

The briefing is short: Konoha missing them just as much as they missed it, and there’s a whole lot of urgency in being shoved in Kakashi’s office, and the warm cups of tea waiting for them on his desk. Neither dare to sit down, their muscles aching even worse after they took the earlier break, and they try to ignore Kakashi’s knowing and understanding smirk, because it feels like they’re 8 again and doing stupid young things.

Kakashi loops one final signature on the papers, making them disappear in a puff of smoke the next instant - and his pen is thrown somewhere on the opposite end of the room, as he takes on a very tired, slouched position. Sasuke is sure that under his mask, he must be smiling still.

“Agh, Naruto, you should have hurried a bit more. Sakura’s been scolding me for not having picked flowers for the wedding already, like it’s my fault that you couldn’t reply to any of her letters.”

At the mention of letters, Sasuke’s heart leaps in his chest. All contact has been forbidden throughout the mission, but knowing that Naruto’s fiancee still tried made him feel in a particular, strange way. Curious, maybe.

Naruto’s smiling too, scratching sheepishly at his neck, in an attempt to cover part of his blushing cheeks. Kakashi is laughing at his actions, pleased to have succeeded in making his loudest student even a bit bashful, though he knows too that it’s all tiredness and neediness.

The door slams to the wall, a teary-eyed and ravished Sakura standing in the doorway. For a few seconds, the two lovers just take each other in: Naruto’s grown beard, Sakura’s too big frog-patterned pajamas. Then, in a flash, Naruto’s voice pierces his ear with a scream, as he scrambles her all in his arms, and Sakura loudly sobs in his shoulder, hiding her face against his neck. After that, Uchiha at least has the decency to look away, towards his old teacher, silently asking for permission to leave. Kakashi weaves a dismissive hand, still enraptured by his other two students as they’re now sharing short kisses with each other, in-between hushed status updates. Sakura’s hand are green already by the time Sasuke makes a run for it.

The Uchiha district is eerily silent, and his own footsteps are thumping loudly in his head. He wonders, a bit, why he didn’t stay on Kakashi’s couch at least for a few hours, make himself a bit more presentable after such a long time, wash off some of the caked dirt on his skin, replace some of his old bandages. Spare his own haven the sight of his tiredness.

All the doubts disappear when he’s finally in front of his home: everything as it should be, everything as he remembers it. It’s the familiarity of it that presses at his throat, making him choke as he dumps his backpack on the floor at the entrance, as he slowly takes off his sandals. He almost stumbles and falls at the first corner, and a laugh bubbles at his lips, because he’s just so damn content to be home . He falls into his usual habits fast, eyes darting to the dresser at the entrance, immediately noticing the pile of letters with his name on it neatly stacked at one end. He grabs them in one of his hands before silently moving forward, making sure his slippers are on.

When he raises his face again, he is welcomed with the sight of her. Her hair is frizzled all around her like a dark halo, and her eyes have to blink several times before they finally focus on him. He’s smirking by the time she is properly realizing that he’s back.

“ Hinata,” he breathes, and she pushes forward with mad determination. He expects a hug, or a scolding for having been gone so long, but she is silent, and her hands are hesitant around him.

“Can I touch you?” she asks, barely audible even in the still silence, and something in him molds around the tone of her voice, follows the rise at the end of the question, and he finds himself blinking rapidly trying not to cry. He nods his head, bangs falling in his face and the first thing Hinata does is to get on her tiptoes and push his hair back behind his ear, meeting her beautiful, beautiful eyes with his.

Her fingers flutter lightly at his temple, immediately easing his painful migraine, and Sasuke almost moans in pleasure when her chakra is fast to fill up his own lacking one. She has one hand pressing at his back, softly pushing him forward, and he complies with her guidances until he’s sat on the bed, a bowl with warm water and three rolls of different types of bandages spread on the bed next to him, the letters still grasped in his hand.

Only the lamp by her side of the bed is on, and as she works silently, from time to time humming along to a song played on the radio in the morning, Sasuke is going through the stack of papers in his hand, discarding aside all that are of no real interest to him. Until something catches his eye: envelopes, at least ten of them, with just his name in the neatest handwriting he’s ever seen.

“Hinata,” he tries again, but she is not looking up from under her bangs, and he takes it as the slight embarassment that it is, and allowance to go on. He opens one, at random, and the same familiar handwriting, Hinata’s, welcomes him, filling up pages. She tells him of her days, of the weather, of the people living in the district, of those who asked her of him. She tells him of the food she’s eaten, friends she’s visited, cats she pet. She never says something directly about her, and it’s this underlying absence in all of her texts; of an actual presence to grasp, that makes him realize that his absence has been as frustrating for her as for him.

Hinata bends closer, wet cloth at the cut near his brow, carefully cleaning up his face, disinfecting the wounds she finds in the way, healing those that she knows she can.

She ignores Sasuke’s hisses, she ignores his attempts to push her back, to try and clean and patch himself up on his own, suddenly shy in front of her. They have staring contests over the smallest things, his fingers wrapped around her wrist to stop her each time she makes a go for his shirt, for the wet cloth, for the ointment she herself made. Everytime he does so, her frown deepens, her lips form a pout.

When she reaches for his pants, she is blushing; and only then does Sasuke notice that she’s wearing one of his sweaters, sleeves rolled up out of the way, whole body swallowed underneath the material. She ignores his hand shaking up around her waist, under the material of her top, the fingers almost ticklish on her skin.

“Hey,” he tries again, though it sounds rather like he’s purring out the word. She stammers, trying to say it back in return, and he laughs, pleased.

“I missed you so much,” he goes on, tugging at her body, getting her closer to him so that he can hug her her, resting his head over her tummy, as she’s still standing. Her hands automatically go to his hair, so much longer now, playing with the ends, humming once again. Her lips brush against the top of his head, and he automatically buries his head in the material of that damn sweater that smells entirely like the love of his life. Like his soulmate.

“Welcome back, Sasuke,” she soothes, dropping to her knees so she can once again look directly at him. Much like a cat, he pushes forward, his forehead against hers, relishing in her presence.

“I’d really like to kiss you,” he breathes, hand now cupping her cheek. She surges forward, like under a spell, lips stumbling just a bit awkwardly against his, but he pushes forward, more force, more need and they find their rhythm, arms lounging to get closer and closer. Only after they part can Sasuke breathe, can convince his brain that yes, he’s home and everything is fine. Hinata takes his hand in hers, fingers tangling together, and when their eyes meet again, she smiles so prettily that Sasuke wants to kiss her all over again.

“I missed you,” she says, and it’s the first selfish gesture he’s seen from her since he entered the room, and he positively gleams at her admission. She can pick up his joy flickering in his own eyes, and just as she’s about to retreat into herself, embarassed, Sasuke drags her after him, tumbling in the bed: bowl splattered on the floor, paper wrinkling at their feet, bandage rolls painfully digging in their sides.

“Sasuke,” she tries to admonish, but her voice ends with a smile he can hear in her voice, so he knows she’s not actually mad. He tugs her closer, almost suffocatingly so, but she is not complaining. Instead, her hand darts for his hair, playing through it once again, and Sasuke closes his eyes against her touch, pleased. His own thumb is drawing circles at her hip, and Hinata shifts just the littlest, so that their legs tangle together.

“Tell me, again,” he asks, almost dozing off to sleep already.

“I missed you.”

“More.”

“I’m happy you’re back.”

“More,” he presses, his hand squeezing her thigh.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Don’t go again,” she whispers, and they are so close that he can almost know the words by her breathing pattern.

“Ok.”

Thank you for reading! If you enjoy what I'm doing, consider donating to my ko-fi page! If you enjoy how I'm doing it, leave a request with your donation, and I will write it for you! 

[teavious]

flowers wither eventually, but not today

fandom: the arcana

pairing: asra/mc

summary: She tries to remember why she owns things she doesn’t remember buying or receiving, why some of the books she picks up from the shelves for the first time in her life bear her name in her own handwriting on the front page. She fights off headaches on her own, on the bathroom floor gluing her forehead to the cold tiles. She suffers, but with no results. (AO3) (ko-fi page)

She can tell, nowadays, when the day of his leaving approaches. Or maybe he’s not just as careful about hiding it, but either way, she knows. Part of it it’s because it feels like bribery, like the baker promising cinnamon rolls to his daughter right before he takes her to the doctor, or the young boy promising one more kiss to his lover if they finish their work early. So, days and even weeks before she’ll wake up in the morning and find him gone, Asra comes to her with flowers in his arms or expensive seasoning for their dinners. Once he brought her a new shawl, but afterwards he was gone for weeks with no sign of living in-between.

She’d be pleased with nothing at all, if it’d keep him close. She knows it’s selfish and ungrateful, given how her whole life is thanks to him, but she can’t help thinking like this. At times, even the sight of clients angers her, taking up of the precious time she gets to have with her master. She berates herself while she busies her hands with mixtures, and she allows her mouth to run off to poor Faust, half-asleep in Asra’s hat, on top of his mountain of pillows.

There are other signs, but – she doesn’t really know how to read them. So much more confusing than a card deck, and she finds herself running around meanings, never settling for one. If asked (because it remains a matter of if she will ever be brave enough to be truly honest with him), Asra might even answer her, or at least give her that first second of unfiltered reaction, and she’d know. She’d know, because it’s him and if there’s someone who would know, it’s only her, right?

There are other signs – like his gentle gestures towards her, kinder than she remembers them each time. How his hands go through her hair in the summer evenings, checking if it’s properly dried before allowing her to go on night’s errands. The way he grins at her in the mornings when she comes to wake him up, the way he pats the mattress next to him – and his sigh as she turns scarlet under his inviting gaze, but turns around slamming the door anyway. When he is really tired, he accepts her help, her hands careful as she helps him out of his shirt, voice tender as she gives him orders through the closed door of the bathroom.

If he sometimes forgets who she is, she can’t really blame him. Not when it results in him holding on to her wrist, whispering pleas before eventually falling asleep. Not when it allows her the intimate moments when she can cross her fingers through his hair, test for herself the softness she wonders about throughout the day. In the crowded rows of the market, his fingers curled around her elbow and his chest at her back almost feel like a hug, and she tends to enjoy the feeling of his closeness, knowing him to just be there next to her.

It’s the domestic activities that pick her undone the most. When she presses the leaves between her fingers before dropping them in boiling water for tea; at a certain point in time, and she envisions a brighter, happier Asra standing in the chair where her worried master sits. When during the days when he leaves on short trips and leaves Faust behind, she has to gently push the snake off his pillow, only to take his place and in the familiar smell of that man. When during evenings he reads, sprawled on his pillows, face relaxed.

She tries something, one slow afternoon, the lights dancing in the bottles in their shop.

“Asra,” she says, mouth so wide on the vowels, like she’s swallowing what he means to her whole only through his name.

He raises his head from his card deck, mouth agape and the most painful expression she’s ever seen on his face.

“What did you say?” he asks, unsure, scrambling to get up from the desk, stepping closer to her, one hand already reaching towards her.

She takes a few steps, stumbles with her back into shelves, but Asra seems not to have noticed. “I’m sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have – “

This stops him: the uncertainty, the formality. She has never seen a man so flustered, so obviously crushed. He still covers the distance between them, allows his fingers to touch her neck, her jaw, her cheek. Asra eventually rests his palm over her eyes, leans so close he can feel her breath at his collarbone, brushes his lips against her forehead.

She can feel the magic, fizzling out before it fulfills its purpose. Asra is hurried, releases her too soon, paces around the store, but with no drive behind his purpose. He still disturbs Faust from where she lazes around on the windowsill, moves her in his bag as he puts on his cloak and hat at the same time. His apprentice is still faintly tracing the shape of his lips with the tip of her fingers, looking way too beautiful in the sunlight, and Asra really, really wishes he could kiss her.

She learns something, she supposes. That she really, really wishes she could kiss him. That while she is bad at hiding how much she wants him here with her, he’s even worse at making himself look like he wants to go. She takes comfort in that information, stores it away together with all the other bits and pieces she manages to get out him, and she tries to convince herself she is content with just that. It works for her as well as it does for him thinking that staying away solves anything.

She tries to remember why she owns things she doesn’t remember buying or receiving, why some of the books she picks up from the shelves for the first time in her life bear her name in her own handwriting on the front page. She fights off headaches on her own, on the bathroom floor gluing her forehead to the cold tiles. She suffers, but with no results. When Asra comes home, all smiles and travel worn, she can’t find it within her to open her mouth, to say what’s actually been bothering her – but he doesn’t chastise her on her unfinished studies either. They dance around the very obvious elephant in the room, each time putting more and more importance on the whole business.

She’s curious; it’s one of her qualities that scare Asra the most. She’s kind to a fault, but having no memories of harm might make on be so, and she can’t find it in herself to refuse a cry of help. In a land far away, distanced from his apprentice on the day she might need him most, Asra feels the regret of his actions keenly. He has no Faust to anchor him to his task, and the pointlessness of his quest aches acutely in his chest. He buries his face in his scarf, allows his tears to fall on the material, as he moves forward, one step at a time.

It’s easy to like her, he imagines. She asks questions like her whole life depends on the answers, and she throws herself into her task with a passion that can excite even the most indifferent of hearts. She’s understanding, holds no real grudges and her reactions are authentic – at the price of having everyone else he knows making a blush bloom on her face. In a land far away, he imagines her navigating through the palace and its intrigues, and the need to be there and help and the knowledge that he’d be nothing but dead weight to her skills clash inside his heart.

He’d ignore it, like he always does. He’d remind himself how he’s the one kissing away her memories, how he’d never given her this one chance: to ask, to make a knowing choice. It’s partly because he’s tired and he somehow already misses her (though, he knows, logically, that that’s exactly why he should be away, he can’t -), and partly because she called. Asra has never been good at refusing her something, not when she asks so seriously. Not when she returns, night after night, back to him. Like she always does, even without her memories: carving her way back to his side. He shall do the same.

It turns out that, reaching out to grab her hand is the easiest thing he has ever done. How truly selfish of him – and yet he cannot stop the relieved sigh, the familiarity in his gestures as he pulls her into a hug, the way in which his heart immediately feels lighter at the sight of her. It’s not hard at all to admit what he’s been feeling on all his travels before this one, and on this one as well: that he misses her terribly, each and every time. In a land far away, with her right beside him, the explanations, even if still stark, fall out of his mouth with a force he cannot really stop.

It’s hard to make out what he feels, at first, besides his utter overflowing love. Pride.

She needs a few seconds to understand his request, to read his disgusted expression at the title she’s been calling him by for years. She opens her mouth, tries again, this time understanding exactly what she does and feeling a surge of pleasure in knowing she can please him.

“Asra.”

He stumbles over his invitation, the first time he actually even considers taking her on one of his travels, and the eagerness with which she responds embarrasses her, makes him laugh with so much happiness that he’s hard to look at, brimming with familiarity, feeling that she has managed to make him laugh like that before, but not exactly knowing when and how.

She’d like to explain to him exactly how fascinated she is by what he’s allowing her to see, even as she’s not talking about likeable creatures or a beautiful starry sky, unlike any she’s seen back at home. She risks a glance in his way, takes in his relaxed posture, the way in which it seems like all his walls came crashing down, allowing her the sight of his smile, understanding just how well he fits in the decorum, how he’s the best part of this realm far away.

Halfway into the conversation, neither is quite as sure that Asra still talks about why anyone in general would like her, and not his own personal reasons. His words burn straight to her face.

And yet, she doesn’t mind his arms around her, and not even the strange natural effects that apparently her presence brings to a world unknown, because he is here, here, here – and he hasn’t let go yet, and he is here.

She barely registers the rain, her attention stolen by his arm snaking around her waist. She breathes in, basking into his ravished looks and she’d like to follow the trail of that water drop on his lips with her own. She looks up at him, searching for admission – and the hope burning in his eyes pain her. She pushes, mad at herself for not remembering something he has to bear alone, for not doing this earlier, and he goes willingly, pliant under her fingers and needs.

The kiss is soft at first, a bit unsure – but this is Asra she is kissing and nothing else in the world matters after that one single thought. Instinct takes over, her lips pressing more urgently to his, her tongue surging forward, desire ignited when he replies in kind, desperately even, his fingers biting almost painfully in her skin. She pants into the empty air between them, leans her head back to give him enough space to continue the trail of kisses on her body. His body shakes, the moment broken, and she gulps down a needy moan.

She tries not to judge too harshly the hasty departure afterwards; she locks the treasured moment deep in her heart, hopes against all hope that her mind will not take away again something this precious.

And – oh, she might really love Faust the best.

It turns out that, returning back to her, fully and completely, it’s the easiest thing he has ever done, alongside the hug that follows. It throws off her composure, having so many witnesses around to notice their reunion, so he grins in her hair before letting go, pleased beyond himself by this one thing.

She doesn’t know what to make out of other’s forgetfulness. There are secrets too powerful for her to even start and comprehend without his guidance, and she refuses to push Asra to explain things that she maybe has no business knowing in the first place. She focuses on his presence then, the one constant in the whirlwind of intrigue around her, and she very much tries to ignore the tingling at the top of her fingers, or the pleading pout of her lips.

Asra’s looser with his tongue, more comfortable around her. His always now carries lives she only knows she’s lived, and any reference he makes to their shared past is cloaked in the revelation that it carries heavier meaning then initially intended. She doesn’t mind it, not really. Not when his fingers tie with hers, when his presence is the only thing that feels right.

Well, maybe that of the baker too, though she can’t help but feel betrayed at his happiness when Asra promises to take her along this time. She remembers herself sulking around his store, eating Asra’s share as well when he was away on his travels, wondering out loud when she will be considered ready for the trip that, back then, she was sure would completely change her life.

It’s nice to know that, up to a degree, she has been completely right.

He loves it when she indulges in his impulses, when she complies with his requests, however childish they might be. He supposes it’s reassuring to know that, in spite of everything, they’d always manage to know each other.

He’d recognize her by touch alone, by smell; he’d know her blind, by the way her breath came. He would know her in death, at the end of the world.

His desire for her to share the same feelings burns in his throat, turns him half desperate with need. Plastering on a smile and letting the words overflow, familiar because he’s felt them for so long, is nothing compared to it.

He hates that word: again. His whole life can be fit into that one single, short word – and he’d kill so he won’t have to hear it ever again, experiment its meaning so acutely. And still, if it’s love, it might not be too bad. If it’s her, he wouldn’t mind it at all.

His smile is a ghost at her neck, and her soft laugh in his ear is a blessing in itself. He’s not leading and she is not following, and it is the most comfortable they ever felt in each other’s presence in a very long time.

It surprises her sometimes, how attentive to her needs Asra and his familiar are. The past is a terribly scary thing to talk about, but she cannot imagine it’s any easier on the only man that actually knows anything about it. It’s always been like this: them dancing together through life, stepping on each other’s toe with each painful and ignorant remark, but arms always hooked together, weight supported. She might know her worth, might understand his admiration – but she has never minded having him lead.

She thinks it might say something about them – how they can allow themselves to love only when soaking wet after stressful situations. But his laughter is the most beautiful sound she ever heard, and no matter how hard she braces for it, there’s no headache coming. There’s a warm wave of gratitude washing over her, the memory so painfully delicious now that she has it back, now that she rewrote it right and being able to call it as it is: progress.

She doesn’t know how to comfort him, how to accept the embrace she’s wished for for so long. Her fingers brush through his hair, her lips so, so close to his neck; his own just a flutter of a touch at her cheek. It feels so intimate, so delightfully needed; her breath catches in her throat, her eyes fluttering close at his strong hand at her back, squeezing ever tighter.

“I’m here, Asra,” she says, because there’s nothing else she could say to calm him down.

“I’m just making sure.”

His words die in her shirt, as he shifts around to lying on top of her, heartbeat under his ear. From where she holds him, she cannot see the kiss, his gentle touches coming. Her pulse flutters; it makes him laugh again, though there’s no real force behind. She can feel him squeeze her tighter, even if there is no space left between their bodies.

It’s hard to think that somewhere, way back in time, he has lost the lover he has known and loved once. And yet he had pulled himself together, built her up all over again, and stayed by her side all along. It’s not like she would ever allow anything to happen to her, not now, not when –

“You worry too much,” is all she can manage to say, because anything would ring hollow against his pain.

She can’t do much yet but kiss his suffering away, and even if wet to the bone and so close that not even a tarot card would fit between their bodies, it is their most chaste touch. She thanks, from the bottom of her heart, magic for bringing them together, for giving them an excuse, and a purpose. There are hundreds of changes brimming under her skin, threatening to destroy her inner balance, and the world follows right behind, forcing her to rediscover it anew.

But despite all the magic and all the beauty around her – Asra is the brightest thing around her by far.

She hates secrets. She has eyes, you know? She can notice how each and every one of them, how every subject they breach in their discussions, sit heavily on Asra’s shoulders, put a worried line on his forehead. There are so many things going on that even he doesn’t know about, and it’s a scary thought indeed.

He wishes they could go – like he promised so many times. His lover trembles in his arms, deep in thought.

“Okay.”

Asra has a tendency to hug her breathless, but this time, alongside his relieved sighs are also the fervent thanks, whispered in her ear with oh so much gratefulness. By the time they separate, he is smiling. In having him talk of his travel tales, her fingers interlaced with his, is a domesticity so comfortable, unlike any moments they experienced even while sharing a household. This is them at their best, them alongside the wide world. She wants to weep with happiness.

She always kind of choked up each time she had to go out in the city on her own: too loud and too crowded, too different from the pleasant comfort of the enclosed world of the shop, where she doesn’t have to keep introducing herself to people,   each time ignoring stares that felt offending on her body. There’s really nothing like being around Asra, her chest overflowing with trust and love at each and every sight of him.

“If I was with you, I could probably go on forever.”

It’s true, and it echoes her own feelings – but he shouldn’t say it, not with so much easiness, like it’s the only truth he believes in, like he cannot notice the halt in her steps, the red growing in her cheeks.

Beasts are simpler: they don’t require her name, don’t require long introductions or past successes. The only thing that creature wants from her is validation; that they’ve been together at a time, and of that she can have no doubt. She wonders, in that moment, how much she changed exactly, if even her own smell is different. She thinks, at that time, of Asra – and his unwavering support.

You smell the same. Hope and Pain.

She cannot look at him, not when she knows part of both (she likes to think) is because of her. She is mainly confused: her own feelings clashing in her heart. She revels in his presence though, his chest at her back in a most comfortable position, his arms reassuring around her. She lets her palm pet the animal, struggling to grasp a semblance of calm.

When the beast first soars into the sky, she lets out a delighted shriek, Asra laughing behind her, but tightening his hold around her nonetheless. By the time they reach their destination, she’s sore and tired, unfamiliar with long rides, but excited nonetheless in front of the new location.

She wakes up first, spends embarrassingly long amounts of time staring at Asra’s sleeping face. This is all she knows; she startles herself with the realization: Asra and all that he ever offered her. Besides him, nothing else matters. The dream, the memory, just reinforces her place by his side. It’s nice to know that she has that: a place where she belongs.

She takes in the plants around and in the house with such childish fascination and pleasure in her eyes that it warms him up to his toes. In the end, the small amount of sleep, in favour of restoring this place to its natural glory, was worth it. They spend the time inside, cooped together, away from any distraction from the outside world; it reminds her of the days when he just brought her back, when she was fervently bowed over her magic books, trying to master everything in one go. Though, she doesn’t wishes those days back: she adores how much Asra’s been smiling the past couple of days, how her back keeps getting straighter with every praise he gifts her.

There’s one other thing she adores: how honest he is nowadays. She wouldn’t be able to admit out loud all these embarrassing things that he talks about with so much easiness and seriousness, even pride. Yes, she might have gone out of her way looking for his favourite spice to add to her food while he was gone, but never would she have imagined him to do as well, hundreds of miles away from her as he was.

Spirits, she loves him.

It’s with that realization that she kisses his cheek, teasing, taking him by surprise.

“You know, Asra, you don’t have to ask for another kiss. It’s yours for taking, always.”

His grin turns into a tender smile, as she pulls him in to give him exactly what he wants. His cheeks are hot under her palms, his blush still visible when they part. Unbelievable, she huffs in frustration, getting on her tiptoes to kiss him again, deeper this time, to make him understand exactly how much she wished for the freedom to kiss him as she pleased.

She can’t really concentrate during their training: both past frustration and thoughts running to wilder places. And yet, when asked, when needed, she is kind to a fault – and Asra can’t quite keep the fondness from his face.

It seems that wherever they might be, the world tips its balance wrongly. The ground shifts beneath them, groaning with the strain – and yet the only thing she can focus on is the despair in Asra’s voice as he’s calling out to her, as he searches for something she’s not sure she has, she’s not sure she can give. Yet, he’s happy, he’s relieved, he’s laughing – and so is she.

The townsfolk welcome them with arms wide open, all smiles and shoulder pats, and she takes comfort in knowing that, when away, Asra still had this occasionally, a place of rest. She’s barely surprised that they know something about him that she doesn’t, but silently berates herself for forgetting, rather than not knowing in the first place.

It’s rather easy; asking for more.

“Do you want to dance with me?”

His arms are around her as soon as he makes up his mind, pulling her into swirls and twists, her body following along with his steps, allowing him to lead her into song after song, happy laughter erupting from his chest when he tries something riskier and she somehow manages to keep up. Even as her forehead is glowing and her breath turns more laboured, she doesn’t want to stop, and it takes him a bit of tactical coaxing to return her under the cooler shade of the trees.

It’s a taste of happiness and freedom like none she has ever experienced before – and she tells herself, as she succeeds and fails in one go, that she shouldn’t be selfish. Asking for more feels like tempting fate, but when he asks, how can she not answer him in earnest?

Having him on top on her… having him full stop is the biggest honour of her life.

“You won’t ever have to hold back again, not from me,” she says between kisses, panting in his face and biting her lower lip, suddenly self-conscious about them all over again. He follows her lips, half dazed, his hands hungry at her thighs, and she lets her fingers trace his chest.

But he parts, thinking – and why is he thinking – and his words snap her out of her pleasure, bring her back to the troubles just outside their door.

“We’re stronger together than apart, right?” Her voice is still barely above a whisper, but her forehead connected to his ground him.

“Yes. Infinitely.”

[teavious]

“i just really need to have you here right now”

fandom: wolf 359

ship: doug eiffel / renee minkowski (platonic)

summary: He would know what to do – even in a very stupid, very improbable idea. He’d scream a bit, half-panic, half-incredulity that no one ever listens to him. (from this prompt list) (also on AO3)

The walls are creaking again. Yeah, Minkowski likes that verb, let’s keep it like that. Creaking. It keeps things mechanical; it makes them somewhat fixable, realer. Not a problem coming from her sleepless mind, not weirdness brought upon them by a glowing star that should not be fucking glowing in the first place. Not something that she has no words to name, that her mind cannot comprehend.

The walls are certainly not moaning in pain, strained under unseen forces. She’d ask Hera if she hears it too, but Minkowski figures that she’d have said something about it by now if it were the case. So it remains solely her trouble – and well, it fits better now, punishment for her inability to keep her crew safe. Never mind the hours in the middle of the night that she spends staring at the ceiling, replaying each decision and deeming them all wrong.

Her mental sanity is not the only thing slowly decaying. She thinks of the ship, the alarmingly increase in frequency between alarms: how with each of Hera’s status reports, they’re one step further away from ever making it back to their homes. No matter how much Lovelace slaves over engines, no matter how much Hilbert works out circuits: they all end up at the end of the day, crashing on chairs, tired and frustrated, having nothing to show for all the work they put in.

They don’t really talk besides crew decisions. Hilbert is released, but at this point, both his companions have not much to lose, and there’s nothing like helplessness and despair to bond two former opposite sides together. Lovelace is mostly silent: she snaps at Hera when big mistakes occur, she tries to comfort Minkowski with one shoulder pat, that she shakes off like it weights too much, like it burns through her uniform. It’s not this she wants, not the display of emotions she deserves. The awkwardness floats in the air for several days, no one to laugh it off, no one to make even bigger trouble, for the last one to be forgotten.

After two weeks of barely sleeping, Hilbert finds her dozing off at their communications officer’s desk. He says nothing, merely turns around on his heel, disappearing from her view. She gets up, straightens her spine like she’s a bird ruffling its feathers, and by the time Hilbert is back, she’s deep into a conversation with Hera about any other alien contact. He silently presses some sleeping pills into her palm, squeezes her hand in his in something akin to understanding, though she’s not sure she considers the doctor able of empathy, and says nothing.  Minkowski appreciates him for this; the lack of drama.

Though she’d lie if she’d say she doesn’t miss a kind of drama-seeking man.

She spends 30 minutes looking at herself in the mirror: taking in the longer hair, the deeper dark circles under her eyes. She tastes her title in her mouth, commander, puts it next to her name and she laughs until she can’t quite differentiate it from crying. Doug Eiffel has been damn reluctant of separating the two, returning to the familiarity of her title with the easiness of a slip of tongue, and she has loved him so much for it – because, in the end, it was proof of his trust in her.

And she’s so underserving of it. She so selfishly wishes it would have all been different.  She wants another chance, to prove to him that he made no mistake.

“Eiffel …“ her voice trembles, and she has to hold onto the sink to steady herself and continue. “I just really need to have you here right now.”

He would know what to do – even in a very stupid, very improbable idea. He’d scream a bit, half-panic, half-incredulity that no one ever listens to him. She wishes she could tell him now: that she always listened, no matter how often she agreed or not with his words. But there’s no one to hear her now, so she diligently takes Hilbert pills and falls, finally, into restful slumber.

The next morning, Lovelace punches her in the face for wanting to haul herself in Eiffel’s office again, and with the taste of blood in her mouth, she thinks. Finally. She pushes herself right again, spits words she doesn’t mean, and takes the shove and the next blow almost smiling. Finally.

[teavious]

1, 11, 24 and 25!

thank you so much for the questions!!

1. favorite fic you wrote this year

so this year i posted the smallest amount of fics i ever did, but i worked on bigger pieces that still have to be eventually published. so, in the end: my favourite fic is for bnha, i’d do it all again. 

11. fandom you enjoyed writing for the most this year

les mis! the general reception is absolutely terrible for a fandom so big, but this year i roleplayed les amis with two of my best friend and it was SO much fun! and all the fics i wrote for this fandom are based on our RP headcanons, so it was extremely fun to write for it!!

24. favorite fic you read this year

man!!! i loooove this question and pls get ready for a tons of recs:

your city sleeps, my lights stay on - which you already know and thank you so much for sharing this fic on twitter, because it’s been absolutely brilliant! for gekkan shoujo nozaki-kun, 10 years later fic that’s so incredibly written and wonderfully in character

without a mouth, i can swear your name - literally one of the not so many six of crows fics that i found totally in character! harry potter au, i loved the whole of it

bone-white - i love soft sasuhina fics so, so much! and this made so much justice to this pair of nerds that i just adore and it was beautifully written!

decouvrir - a miraculous ladybug fic with the charas in college, no power: just dorks being in love and misunderstandings. it’s so much fun, i binge-read it in a day and i love each update more and more.

there is no shepard without vakarian - mass effect, multiple timelines, time travel - literally all the good sci-fi things. painful as fuck and i’m SO here for it.

non believer - dragon age 2, mafia AU with a dynamic i’ve never seen before and that i’m in love with. jawbones is the best fenhawke writer i’ve encountered, and every update of hers makes me happy.

the chaos theory - another sasuhina; this fic is older, but it’s currently being rewritten. it’s prob my favourite naruto fic ever, and i love it with aaalll my heart.

heart-eyes emoji - a dragon age origins one this time, with the dorkiest alistair ever, the main charas talk through text and it’s the slowest, most delicious of burns and i’m so here for it. nice mystery/action on the side as well.

i also have a tag on my main blog, where every nice story (fanfiction or not, but tbh, mostly fanfiction) goes!

25. a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read

yikes, this is real though. but probably; naive, in defense of hannah abbot. it’s a hufflepuff (!!!) centered fic, so ofc it has my love already, and dirgewithoutmusic has such absolute control over the harry potter universe, the writing is so beautiful.... that’s quite impossible not to fall in love. all their series are bloody brilliant, and it’s a fic i recommend every single time i get the chance!

thank you again for the questions, i had so much fun answering them! to a better 2018!

[queenangst]

fanfic end of the year asks

since it’s december, i thought i’d make a little end of the year ask meme for fanfic writers and readers! reblog and ask away

favorite fic you wrote this year

least favorite fic you wrote this year

favorite line/scene you wrote this year

total number of words you wrote this year

most popular fic this year

least popular fic this year

longest completed fic you wrote this year

shortest completed fic you wrote this year

longest wip of the year

shortest wip of the year

fandom you enjoyed writing for the most this year

favorite character to write about this year

favorite writing song/artist/album of this year

a fic you didn’t expect to write

something you learned this year

fic(s) you completed this year

fics you’ll continue next year

current number of wips

any new fics to start next year

number of comments you haven’t read

most memorable comment/review

events you participated in this year

fics you wanted to write but didn’t

favorite fic you read this year

a fic you read this year you would recommend everyone read

number of favorites/bookmarks you made this year

favorite fanfic author of the year

longest fic you read this year

shortest fic you read this year

favorite fandom to read fic from this year

*feel free to specify fandoms or a fic depending on the question.

[pythiablogs]

Oooh. I love this! Ask away y’all.

[teavious]

dissolving like the setting sun

fandom: les miserables

pairing: enjolras/grantaire ; bahorel/feuilly ; courfeyrac/combeferre ; marius/cosette ; joly/bossuet/musichetta ; jehan/eponine

summary: They’ve been trying to decorate their apartment for what feels like too long for him, trying to find the perfect balance between Marius’ need for perfection and Cosette’s need for kitsch. The only thing that Courfeyrac requested, between mouthfuls of Jehan’s first batch of biscuits was fairy lights. It’s only fair to throw a fit over it now, right? OR: Les Amis have a Christmas party. Like all their parties, it's a bit diastruous, they make it too obvious they're just idiots in love, but at least they have food. Modern AU. commission written for @rthemis ! thank you so much for giving me the reason to write my fav nerds being nerds! merry christmas & happy holidays everyone! (also on AO3) (donate to my ko-fi page, request a fic and i will write it for you!)

Enjolras tests the quality of the sweater between his fingers, frowning at the two Christmas colours on display next to each other. He supposes if Courfeyrac would be here, a commentary about the universe somehow wanting to bring him and his boyfriend closer together sooner would be made, but as thing are right now, he has to bear Bahorel’s knowing glances, and his pointing at various hideous things.

“You should get it,” Feuilly smiles from his right, leaning to look closer at the piece of clothing that Enjolras started calling Grantaire’s present in his head. His friend needs no clarification, and Enjolras himself doesn’t feel enthusiastic enough to defend the way he makes puppy eyes at everything remotely green, remotely indecent.

Once the decision is made, it’s easier to enjoy the faces Feuilly makes every time Bahorel holds up another eye-hurting colourful shirt: lovesick, but equally terrified. The two end up settling for a rainbow striped shirt, Feuilly’s size so that he can stop wearing Bahorel’s identical one, and instead be together a matching pair of loving idiots. Enjolras applauds the easiness with which Feuilly makes his boyfriend bend to his suggestions, the immense trust Bahorel puts in the one he cares about the most.

Something in his chest tightens, and he goes on ahead, turns his head away from the image of Bahorel pressing his lips to Feuilly’s cheek, however sweet he would have found it at other times. He wishes he would have Grantaire’s awed and hooting laugh ringing in his ears, his hand between his fingers: then it would feel natural, the sight of other two in love wouldn’t feel so offending.

He sighs into his scarf, accepts Bahorel’s weight over him when he comes full force into a half-hug, and laughs at Feuilly impulse buying a new pair of socks, simply because the dogs printed on them reminds him of his own; bitterness be damned.

***

Bahorel tries to ignore the warm mouth set on licking his fingers, to stifle the laughter about to erupt – and he turns on his other side in bed, shifts closer to Feuilly’s sleeping body in hope that he can trick the dog into joining them in bed, rather than demanding a walk in the park at 5am on Christmas Eve. Frodo refuses to give up, and Bahorel swears as he starts tugging at the blankets. He scoops closer to Feuilly, arm over his waist, freezing legs against his much warmer ones. Feuilly murmurs at the contact, but that’s the only reaction, as he settles into the new position, having to share the one blanket left on the bed with a too big of a guy.

The dog paces around the room for a bit, whimpers at the head of the bed in hope of waking his owners – and seeing no reaction, he barks for good, his pacing exchanged for actual running. Bahorel sighs, rolls around in the bed, and speaks towards the ceiling:

“He’s your dog.”

Feuilly, eyes still closed, voice half muffled in the pillow, is making attempts at taking the blanket back:

“And you’re my fiancé. He’s your dog now, too.”

Bahorel rises, spends good seconds stretching, and although he already feels the cold biting at his toes, the hope that Feuilly might be staring at his ass is stronger. He whistles, Frodo coming running at his command, and before turning towards the wardrobe to get changed, he makes sure Feuilly is warm under at least two blankets.

Next time Feuilly is aware of his surrounding, Bahorel sits on the edge of the bed, dressed already, with his ridiculous winter hat on. He can faintly sense his fingers playing through his hair, and it makes concentrating on what he’s saying even harder:

“Would you like anything, my love?” He nods no into his pillows, tries to blow a kiss to Bahorel’s retreating frame, though he isn’t quite sure if he managed to.

By the time his boyfriend is back, the coffee machine is running in the background, as he hums along to Christmas carols in various foreign languages. He goes to greet the return of his two roommates, and the sight he’s welcomed with is a surprise: Bahorel, snowed in, holding a bouquet of half-freezing flowers for Feuilly’s taking, blush rising to his cheeks.

***

“You can’t have Christmas without Christmas lights. That’s why they’re called Christmas lights”, Courfeyrac repeat, slower this time, like he has to dig his idea into Marius’ head through the tone of his voice as well, besides the desperate arm gestures and invincible argument.

“The cat won’t like it,” Marius says, pointing towards the two glowing eyes from under the couch, the creature’s favourite (and only, from what Courfeyrac has seen while home) spot since Marius brought it home, scratched all over.

“The cat won’t care,” Courfeyrac shots back, this time turning towards Combeferre and Cosette for help in the matter, the two who up till this point decided to play the role of Switzerland in the debate. Courfeyrac really hates Switzerland.

They’ve been trying to decorate their apartment for what feels like too long for him, trying to find the perfect balance between Marius’ need for perfection and Cosette’s need for kitsch. The only thing that Courfeyrac requested, between mouthfuls of Jehan’s first batch of biscuits was fairy lights. It’s only fair to throw a fit over it now, right?

“We can ask everyone when they get here?” Ferre suggests, barely raising his head from his laptop, where he tries to put together a playlist to properly illustrate this mess of a year in their group. He tries to keep the love songs to a minimum, though it’s getting harder the more they go through the night and Courf loses an article of clothing with each passing hour.

“Fine,” he pouts, before dramatically falling into an armchair, trying to hide his growing smile that comes with Marius’ sigh of relief from the other end of the room, the husky meowing of that damn cat. Combeferre decides he can leave aside the more detailed parts of this party – after all, Eponine is sure to destroy every attempt at keeping it normal sounding – and he leaves his spot for shoving his body next to his boyfriend on a too small armchair for both of them. Courfeyrac’s grin is now humongous, and Ferre drags him into a kiss, if only not to let him think he won this time around.

****

Jehan knocks at the door, and shoves his face further into his scarf, trying to ignore the way in which the damn hallway of this building seems colder than the weather outside. There are a few seconds, during which he thinks he won’t receive any answer, then there’s a crash from the other side of the door, a shout – and out comes his girlfriend, frowning through her bangs, as she tries to put on a jacket that’s too huge on her frame, but that has all his favourite patches on.

He doesn’t say anything at first; he knows she’s better left alone for a while, so he simply follows her, humming a tune he can’t quite place. Then:

“I made cookies for the party.”

“Cosette wants to braid your hair.”

“Grantaire is certainly going to wear more decorations than the tree.”

“Enjolras will wear something… red.”

“You’ll probably going to drunkenly arm-wrestle Bahorel and win.”

The last two statements do it. Eponine erupts into laughter: loud and ugly, but Jehan’s face lights up like he just received the best present, and he catches up with her so he can hold her hand. Neither of them wears gloves, and the warmth is welcomed and comforting. Eponine sighs and stops to rest her head on Jehan’s shoulder, half hug, half awkwardly hiding her face.

“Hey,” he tries, squeezing her hand, sloppily kissing the top of her head. “You know you can stay the night? Well, nights, really. And even half of your friends will take you in without complaining, while the other half complains only because that’s who they are as a person.”

Eponine snorts, raises her head, leans to kiss Jehan. When they part, she’s smiling, though it lasts only for a moment, immediately exchanged for her usual frowning face. Jehan hums even louder, pleased now.

“I’m going to eat all your cookies,” Eponine says, before playfully shoving him and starting to run in the direction of Courfeyrac and Marius’ apartment. He counts to two before going after her.

***

“I’m pretty sure that’s not the way you do this,” Joly whispers, leaning his head onto Musichetta’s shoulder, reading the instructions in Bossuet’s neatly-kept recipes notebook.

“Well, I don’t know the correct way to do this!” Musichetta complains, passing a flour-covered hand through her hair. Joly tries to pat it away, pulling curls and blowing so close to her ear that he ends up making her giggle. Their meat pie is still in the very incipient state of creation, with the party ready to start in short of a couple of hours, but Musichetta isn’t sure she cares, taking in consideration she spent more time in Joly’s kitchen this day than she did the past few months since university started again. Plus, her boyfriend is especially cute when pouting, and even cuter is his after kissing face.

So it can be said that Bossuet’s attempt at teaching her basic cooking skills ended up with her trying to steal as many kisses from Joly as possible. It doesn’t help that her other boyfriend isn’t present to balance out things, or make them end faster.

“Musi?” She’s cut out by Joly’s voice, and she has to remind herself that she’s still very much dressed. “Don’t you want to get ready? We should be leaving soon.”

Yep. Right. “Yep. Right.” She adds out loud, lamely. She can feel Joly’s amused smirk, and if she ends up swatting at his chest with her dirty hand, just to leave a stain, at least he gets to know it too. She tries to tidy up, leave no proof of her failed experiment, and Joly is quick to help her out. There’s the faintest of music heard from the neighbours downstairs, and they finish cleaning in time with the dying words of Santa Baby.

And yet, Musichetta still hovers, eyes moving from the watch to Joly and back. He sighs under her stare, bids her closer with a hand movement. She’s already beaming by the time he snakes his arms around her waist, to give her one small, soft kiss.

“Happy?” he asks. She shakes her head no, tries to put on her most innocent face, slightly pucker her lips. He almost gives in to kissing her again, when the entrance door slams to the wall, making them jump apart. Joly’s the first to regain his composure, goes to welcome Bossuet, helps him in shaking off all the snow piled on top of his head.

“Bossuet!” Musi pouts, half because he interrupted her wooing attempts, half because it took him so long to come back in the first place. She joins the two in the hallway, dragging them into a group hug.

“Someone’s excited,” Bossuet laughs, but refusing to let go of his two lovers, squeezing them closer to his chest. It makes for quite a funny image, considering that both of them are so short, by comparison, and he’s glad that when not studying, Joly doesn’t wear his glasses, because knowing his luck, he would have accidentally smashed them through loving too much.

“And dirty,” he adds, sighing, once he takes a good look at his two lovers. He throws his coat and scarf on the hanger, shoos Musi and Joly towards the bathroom, for a thorough wash. Musichetta pauses for a second, turns to wink at him.

“Care to join us?”

He blows a kiss in her direction, but remains in the kitchen, sleeves rolled, to prepare the food casseroles for the party.

“Be good, babe.” He warns, smiling in a way that promises her better things if she does as told.

She nods slowly, catches up with Joly to ask for his help in combing away foreign stuff out of her hair. She manages to keep her hands mainly to herself, shampoos Joly’s hair while he helps wash her back. In the kitchen, Bossuet drops things only once or twice, and by the time they’re all in crisp shirts and nice dress, things have fallen into place. Bossuet and Musichetta make sure Joly is properly wrapped in several layers of clothes, wearing the one very ugly and very large sweater they bought him, and they leave, holding hands with him in the middle.

***

Enjolras doesn’t want to be here. Well, it’s not that he has any complaints about the place, the food, the music and least of all the company, but the feeling still persists, and it makes the whole place incredibly… incomplete. With the cat sleeping in his lap and a glass of red wine in his hand, he tries to comfort himself. He doesn’t think much of Courfeyrac’s shameless grins, or Cosette’s sudden leaves to answer and give phone calls. Combeferre’s place at his side is natural, and Bahorel hovering close became usual enough. He thinks Marius’ attempts to stuff his face with Jehan’s cookies are just host’s friendliness, and not even Eponine playing his favourite band doesn’t seem that much out of place. It is Christmas after all.

It starts getting suspicious the moment there’s no background chatter, no music. Courfeyrac runs towards the door before the doorbell sound even materializes, and Enjolras is a bit surprised to see Valjean on the other side – because, after all, the party is one of their parties, and it’s bound to end in disaster. Musichetta has already taken over the mistletoe, sharing kisses with everyone who makes eye contact with her (he’s been desperately avoiding that, all while Bossuet seemed but happy to comply to never watch anything else but her) and Eponine is probably on her 4th drink and still keeping perfect straight posture.

Then, Valjean moves a bit to the left, and Enjolras spots the dark curls, the sight of too green of a jacket. He’s up on his feet the next moment, Grantaire shoving his way through his welcoming committee so that he can welcome his boyfriend’s hug. No one else but Enjolras can feel the wet tears on his shoulder, and he stays there, patting his back, tightening his hold, for as long as Grantaire needs him to. They’re weary to disentangle from the embrace, but their eyes meet, and a new fascination is born, as they rediscover all the interior changes they’ve spent nights on skype talking about. Then, finally, Grantaire goes on his tiptoes, Enjolras leans his head down a bit: and they kiss. From somewhere, he can hear Bahorel hoot and Courfeyrac whistle.

“I’m home,” Grantaire says, his voice still raw, still chocked, his nose violently red from both the cold and the silent crying.

“Welcome home,” Enjolras whispers, helping him get out of his winter get-up, making unnecessary but very much needed contact along the way. The others keep their distance, friendly greetings and shoulder touches, but Grantaire still remains, basically, all his. It’s wildly fascinating to see all the familiar motions happen again in front of his eyes, after his boyfriend has been away for months at university. Any small trace of awkwardness is broken the moment Grantaire takes him by the hand, occupying the couch, half sitting in Enjolras’ lap, their legs tangled.

The others give them an hour: then, one by one, they form a circle around them, demanding stories told as just Grantaire knows how to tell them. Eponine is first, offering him a bottle of beer and pulling at his hair a bit too hard, maybe to make him taste how much she missed him. Bahorel screams his name from across the room, closes in so they can do a very complex but dorky hand shake. Courfeyrac joins in just to laugh at that. Joly’s warm eyes and kind offering of food make him break out in actual tears of gratitude: and then everyone takes their turn, hugging their small, finally home disaster of a man.

***

Marius almost falls asleep at the table, trying to pick the empty glasses to leave them in the sink for the morning. Cosette silently makes her way through the rooms, carrying so many blankets that the pink top of her head is barely visible, trying to make sure everyone is comfortable and warm, and will remain so throughout the night. Courfeyrac waves at them from the doorframe of his bedroom, and they nod in acknowledgement, keeping it down for the sake of the people asleep on the floor and on the couch in the kitchen.

Cosette, careful not to step on Bossuet’s hand, makes her way towards Marius. She gently shoves his shoulder with her hip, and when he almost falls over, she hurries to catch him. He snorts a bit, his sight lost in her hair, his senses in her perfume. He lets a hand touch her cheek, his voice softening beyond recognition when calling her by the nickname he picked for her ever since they started dating:

“Brilliance.”

Cosette huffs, nudges him to get up. “Worm, let’s get you to bed.”

“Will you sleep with me?”

She laughs, allows him a few moments to figure out why that phrasing was so wrong, given the context, and allows herself the enjoyment that comes with having made him blush, obvious even in the dark. She has learnt not to take his missteps too seriously, has learnt to figure out when he actually desires the physical contact. It helps that, when extremely tired, he seems to mind it less than usual.

The room is empty, their friends opting for the closer options as a sleeping place, and they both collapse on the bed with a grateful, tired sigh. She curls closer to his chest, his hand caressing her cheek.

“So? How was the first party you organized?” she asks, feeling herself growing sleepier by the second.

“This is the best part,” he answers, already half-asleep, and Cosette laughs; gets closer only to plant a kiss on his nose.

[teavious]

these violent delights have violent ends; day 3

fandom: boku no hero academia

pairing: katsuki bakugou / uraraka ochako

summary: nightmares, written for day 3 of kacchako angst week (i’m like.... months late!!) ALSO ON AO3

Ochako is a heavy sleeper; she barely manages to wake up in the mornings, and no matter how loudly he might swear when being called in the middle of the night, or how he bumps into furniture when he’s almost dropping from exhaustion, she only rolls on the other side of the bed, hugging tighter the small pillow with his hero name embroidered on one side, hers on the other – a present from Tsuyu, meant half as a joke, fully loved by his wife. On the other hand, Bakugou wakes several times throughout the night, anger still boiling just beneath the skin, the fire of his existence burning behind his eyelids.

She learns in time. She grows more aware to the way the bed shifts under his weight, to the way his hand sometimes touches hers – and holds on. She always gently opens her eyes, sleepiness inexistent, and focuses her kind and understanding gaze on his face like she wants to tell him that no matter what, her interest for his well-being can and will go only as far as he is comfortable.

Some nights, he allows her only to play with her fingers through his hair: a calming action that unsticks the locks from his forehead, that evens his breathing and lulls him back to a dreamless sleep. Some others, he goes to her arms willingly, wraps himself around her smaller body, inhales her smell and stays like that until she’s the one to fall asleep again first, and he’s happy to wait for the dawn with her in his hold: reassurance that at least for now, they’re safe.

He never expected fulfilling a dream to be this demanding; once sitting in a wanted position, to dream of earlier times. Being a hero is much tougher, a constant battle between good and evil going on inside him as well, besides the one that is immortalized in all the newsfeeds of the country. His violent nature reached the most nourishing grounds in his doubt in his abilities to protect others, in what differentiates him from a villain.

The nightmares started later on, though, when with his personal happiness, came the pressure to maintain it. When right beside him fights daily his wife, not an ex-classmate anymore, and he feels not even close to being enough. He dreams, more often than not, of being on the other side of having a quirk. He dreams, during the times left, of being on the other side of having her.

Then, startled from his nightmares, he reaches out in the dark, blind with panic, chest heaving painfully, and he finds her hand, he eventually registers her kind whispers of reassurance. He breathes – once, twice; and things are right again, her lips are still welcoming, her giggle still happy.

Ochako is a heavy sleeper, but when Katsuki dreams, he says her name. And she shifts, before even registering she’s awake, turning towards his call, knowing him in need (even now, he’d rather use nicknames, fondness seeping in the way his words roll off his tongue; so hearing her own name stirs something in her without meaning to). She weaved together a pattern that allows her to be by his side as he awakes; let her be his falling net, she can hold anything for as long as she needs to, as long as she has all fingers touching it. She’s so deep in under Katsuki’s skin that it doesn’t even count anymore.

He never tells her what is wrong – what his dreams are made of. He’s too afraid for that. How to phrase the sinking feeling he gets when the image of her bloody body keeps popping up, how to remain in their shared bed when, during his nightmares, he’s the one inflicting this pain and suffering onto her? He hates so much upon waking up that his only urge is to burn something, before her voice reaches his ears, stifling everything. The need and hypothetical guilt still simmer in his heart, unknown because he’d rather bite off his tongue before letting her know what terrible things his brain is capable of.

She’d come with some bullshit psychology thing, but he knows better: it’s so easy to break someone’s neck, to get used to the smell of burning flesh. And while he never wants to associate those things with the way she bounces on her feet in excitement, with her low voice when imitating him – it’s just so easy sometimes. How easy he swings to irrational hate, fear; and the familiar feel of them.

Ochako wakes with him, and it scares him that there are a few moments when he cannot differentiate between dream and reality. When the lines blur, and his instincts scream to hurt. He tries to breath, he chokes with the action.

There are also the nights when she’s the one called upon an emergency, when she’s the sparkling hero of their generation saving the night. He knows she’d scold him if he stays awake, awaiting a return that might come too slowly, and he tries to fall asleep – for her. He lays there in the darkness, sweat-soaked, desperate to grab onto something, reaching only air, and the panic is too overwhelming, too much – he just can’t fucking breathe –

He reminds himself: he loves her. She loves him. He closes his eyes again, fist tightening over her side of bed, and starts counting the lights dancing behind his eyelids. He falls asleep again eventually, wakes only when he’s too warm, with her soft body draped over his – but the complaint dies on his lips; he shifts only the slightest, to kiss the top of her head, and then he sleeps again.

[teavious]

these violent delights have violent ends; day 2

fandom: boku no hero academia

pairing: katsuki bakugou / uraraka ochako

summary: unrequited love, written for day 2 of kacchako angst week (i know i’m running behind, but i will fill up all the prompts, however late!!) ALSO ON AO3

The air grows hot around you with her sight. It’s familiar and comforting, the name at the top of your tongue, but swallowed when someone else is faster in catching her attention. You’ve been selfish all your life and it’s utterly dumb and pathetic to start acting otherwise when it matters the most; but around Uraraka it became hard to be anything but soft and compliant to her wishes.

If you hadn’t seen and felt and tasted what she’s capable of with that Quirk of hers, you would have blamed some kind of brainwashing technique. As it is right now, you’re simply looking at her back, held straight, hands enthusiastically waving around while discussing with some of her friends – and recognize in this fragile frame the strength to damage you.

The admiration is palpable in your gut, a looming pain caught in your throat, and you try not to linger on that touch she receives for way too many seconds at her shoulder – failing miserably in the process. You try not to set off an explosion the moment she turns her smiling face upon you, only to fall when actually registering who you are, shoulders hunching.

You know, logically, that you wouldn’t be a wanted sight – and yet, you can’t quite stop the flashing hurt from showing on your face, the fingers from forming a fist at your side, nerves made up all of frustration. She’s soft and kind, and maybe part of the lack of your usual reactions is this: making her actually question it.

She approaches, a smile on her face – fake, you know, but a smile nonetheless. Your name on her lips the greatest sound to your ears, and your heart beats so hard in your chest that you fear she might hear it, she might think it less than it actually is. You’re torn between wanting her to know, give you hope or crush whatever sparks beyond existing, and not know, allow you this bitter sweet torture for longer, still.

She’s surprisingly warm in her inquiry about your well-being and life in general, and yet the casual tone, when so much goes on inside your head – damn it, inside your heart, even – is the drop that fills the glass of frustration.

“Can you please shut the fuck up?” You don’t know when your voice stopped coming loud and raw, since these words are barely heard by the girl in front of you, and the sounds are chipped at the edges, the last words almost a hiccup.

Your nails bite painfully in the skin of your hands, and you refuse to look at her face, despite her confusion being palpable. Her fingers grazing at your shoulder in concern make you shudder.

“You don’t really care, not- “ not how you’d like her to, but the words die on your lips as she takes a step back from you, frowning.

“Katsuki-“ she starts; stops with the first spark flying off at your fingertip. She puffs out her chest, raises her head to finally meet your eyes, tries again.

“Katsuki.”

“What?”

This time, your words are as cutting as you want them, but Uraraka’s smile is finally genuine, and so they lose all fire.

“You need to stop.”

The breath hitches in your throat, your hands flex. Even when the purpose is to end, to hurt – she’s surprisingly strong-willed. You liked that about her to begin with, you appreciated her relentless optimism and strive to move further. If you’re the one keeping her still, you cannot bear to wear any ill-intent towards her.

Her hand brushes through your hair, a gesture half-soothing, half-painful. If you weren’t this close, an almost embrace now, really, you would’ve missed her whispered apologies, the way in which, for a second, her face contorted like she shared your pain.

You’re the first one to break the moment: embarrassing for your image as a hero, absolutely devastating for your first love. Before you get to walk away, she offers one last comfort:

“Ne, you’ll find someone stronger, better, okay?”

It’s the first time she saw Katsuki Bakugou smile, and when she’ll remember this moment, she’ll oversee the tears at the corner of his eyes.

“You are the strongest hero I know, round face.”