“How did you get those scars?” he asks, green eyes narrowing as he runs his fingers all over you, as if mesmerised by the traces he left on his skin.
He may not remember, but you will never forget.
“Car accident,” you lie, but he doesn’t seem to believe you.
“Do you have more?” he asks, hands fumbling with your belt, trying to sneak into your trousers.
“The Healers said it’s a bad idea,” you remind him, gently pushing him away. The hurt in his eyes stings more than the dittany did on your wounds.
You know he’s been rejected most of his life. You promised him it would never happen again, not with you. You swore when you married him, and yet you’re hurting him.
“Right…” he mumbles, but you take his hands in yours and kiss them tenderly.
“We’ll get your memories back,” you whisper, trying to blink away the tears. “I promise, my love.”
You take him to Godric’s Hollow, but he stares at the graves as if they belonged to strangers.
You hold his hand as you walk down the Hogwarts corridors, hoping he will remember something, even the ugly sides of you.
You run down the hill where you got married, the wind in your hair as he looks so alive and laughs when you both stumble and end up in a tangle of limbs among the wildflowers and the grass. You kiss his lips, and they taste like lemonade and sunshine. You let him take you there, slow and feverish, his lips parted on a gasp as he sinks inside you, and he still doesn’t remember.
You take him to Tromso to see the Northern Lights, and he stares at the sky with the same awe and wonder as the first time.
You take him to Marrakech to get lost in the souk with him again.
“We used to travel a lot,” he notices as he hugs a koala in Australia, a delighted expression on his face.
“You’d never been anywhere,” you explain, “so I took you wherever you wanted.”
You scream as you zoom along the zipwire to see the gibbons in Thailand, and he turns to smile at you, so full of life and yet empty of memories of you.
“Want you,” he whispers against your skin in a Venetian calle, his hand sneaking under your t-shirt, thumbing at your scars. He loves them because he can’t remember he put them there, and you won’t tell him.
“I love you,” you confess, as if the matching rings on your fingers were not enough. “Always, even if you can’t remember me.”
He doesn’t say it back.
You take him everywhere. Machu Picchu, Grand Canyon, Paris.
He’s eating a cherry blossom ice-cream in Kyoto when it happens, and his green eyes widen.
The ice-cream lands on the floor with a splat, and his hands shake as they grab the front of your shirt, pulling you closer.
The memories come back, one by one, your awful past and his mingling together, finding a reason to belong.
“I love you,” he says, and you smile through the tears.
today i’m sad about that one line from the creator’s commetary about how zuko is a tsungi horn prodigy and the little letter zuko, aged 7, sends iroh in “legacy of the fire nation” where he very politely requests that iroh come home and teach him pai sho tricks, because that casts such a different light on their interactions in book one. it was never iroh trying to push his own favorite things - pai sho and music night - on an uninterested zuko, it was iroh desperately trying to reconnect with zuko by recreating the activities he knows zuko used to enjoy. zuko, aged 7, once begged iroh to come home and play board games with him and now zuko wants nothing to do with him and you know that eats iroh up alive
The previous owners had been the ones to put up the sign, of course. Every time Nicky unlocked his front door, he looked at it—non pubblicità, solo lettere d'amore—and reminded himself to take it down. It wasn’t that Nicky particularly wanted any advertising leaflets, but he couldn’t imagine himself getting any love letters in the near future, either. But there were many tasks that needed doing around a house that had stood empty for so long, and figuring out which tool he’d need to pry a whimsical little sign from the top of his letter box wasn’t near the top of Nicky’s renovation list.
Which was why now, on the first proper spring morning, Nicky walked home from the bakery to find a man standing on his doorstep. He was broad-shouldered and curly-haired and had a small sheaf of envelopes clutched in his hands.
“Can I help you?” Nicky asked. By now, he at least knew everyone who lived on this little street by sight, even if not by name. This man wasn’t one of them, although when he turned around he smiled at Nicky with all the warmth of an old friend.
“Possibly,” the stranger said with a smile. His Italian had an accent to it that Nicky couldn’t quite identify—almost American, but not quite. His eyes were a deep and liquid brown. “Possibly not, I think I’m being very foolish. Someone told me about the old custom you’ve got here, and I thought hey, if I’m going to be living here now, might as well commit.”
“Old custom?” Nicky was confused. The town had as many customs and quirks as any other in the region, but they were mostly associated with saint’s days and holidays, and not with showing up on a stranger’s doorstep on a Tuesday.
“Yeah,” the stranger said, holding up the sheaf of envelopes. “The one where if you’re hoping to fall in love, you write letters to your soulmate and send them out into the world so they know you’re looking for them. I was on my way to the post office but then I saw your letter box and I thought it was a sign that…” He trailed off at the expression on Nicky’s face. “There’s no such custom, is there?”
Nicky shook his head.
The stranger said something in English, too fast for Nicky to follow, and then threw his head back and laughed. “This is Quynh’s revenge what happened last week. Well, I guess I deserved it.” He stepped down from Nicky’s doorstep. They were much of a height, Nicky realised vaguely. “I’m sorry I bothered you, I will take my embarrassed self and my nameless love letters home.”
Ever after, Nicky was never able to say what it was that made him speak up then. Was it how lonely he had been ever since he’d moved here himself, or was it being close enough to see that there were fine lines around the stranger’s eyes, as if laughter came to him easily and often?
In the grand scheme of things, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that Nicky held up his bag from the bakery and said, haltingly, “Focaccia with coffee is a local custom. If you would like to try it? With me.”
What mattered was that the stranger—Joe, Nicky learned, over a slightly belated breakfast—had a smile that grew ever more beautiful the more that Nicky studied it.
What mattered was that some months later, they would lie together in their bed while the late autumn rain pattered against the window pane—that Joe would finally open the letters and read them aloud to the one for whom they had been written.
summary: You wake up in Ah Sahm’s arms one morning and help ease his sore muscles before you have to leave for work. Reader is gender neutral.
genre: Fluff, morning cuddles, soft slices of life
warnings: Mentions of violence and bruises, implied nudity
a/n: Thank you so much to @simpingforclaudette for her help and inspiration for this
The day began with the bright but tired eyes that watched you with a smile, their corners crinkled. You’d seen his gaze strike like lightning when his mind was full or elsewhere; His brown eyes made of habit of singeing all they touched, however brief or fleeting, with the fiercest focus. But that morning his eyes were wide and happy, they were warm. Sleep clung to his lashes like dew and tenderness tugged on their curve so gently. As you lay there in his arms, his body meshed with yours, his gaze was empty of anything other than pure affection. You couldn’t find anything but a sense of home in those burning eyes.
You traced a finger over the short hair on his jaw until his eyes fluttered closed and he swallowed, jaw clenched. Your touch feels so good on his skin, it almost doesn’t seem real. He’ll never get used to such delicacies. This could be the thousandth time he’d woken up with you in his arms or felt your hands on his skin and it still feels like the first to him. It’s so unlike anything else he’s used to.
“ ‘Let me help’. A hundred years or so from now, I believe, a famous novelist will write a classic using that theme. He’ll recommend those three words even over ‘I love you’. ” - Star Trek
i’m just thinking about the moonlight scene and the Jenkins interview yesterday about Stede being an unwitting seducer and it just makes the scene so much more enjoyable to rewatch. From Ed’s perspective this guy is pulling the smoothest moves of all time, like the most forward, i’m about to sweep you off your fuckin feet lines, looks him right in the eyes and tells him straight up “i’m gonna make you fall in love with me rn.” And it COMPLETELY works on Ed like he can’t even breath he’s being so actively seduced. And even though Stede isn’t doing that on purpose at ALL it’s almost even MORE effective because he’s being so authentically genuine and truthful that he is just exuding pure kindness and love and insight into Ed’s soul. It’s just so funny to me thinking about how Stede has absolutely no idea what he’s doing to this man in that moment.
And it paints all future interactions with them with a completely different brush because one of them is consciously aware of the VIBEZ and one of them is only subconsciously aware. Ed thinks Stede knows what’s up so he is purposefully flirting in all their little moments but hesitates to do anything outright because he’s getting mixed signals from Stede, he just doesn’t know the mixed signals are because Stede doesn’t know that Ed knows that he’s feeling a vibe and Stede himself doesn’t even know what the vibe even means for himself.
It just really subverts the power dynamic that you would expect from this naive sunshine man meeting his broody hero. Stede holds all the power here and he has NO idea that he has Ed wrapped around his finger. Ed wants to leave bc he’s afraid of the intensity of his feelings and the mixed signals from Stede and Stede is like “no <3” and puts on a cute outfit and takes him on a walk and makes Ed stay. Stede says he doesn’t like Ed’s personality around CJ and Ed is so gutted he leaves FOR STEDE not for himself but to spare Stede from himself. While they’re being arrested Stede literally just SMILES at ed and ed signs his entire life away for him.
I just think keeping all of this in mind is so important to understanding why their break up is SO melodramatic. Stede has unknowingly taken Ed on this emotional rollercoaster and he’s been at following around Stede at his feet like a puppy dog just WAITING for a sign that this is real and Stede isn’t toying with him so on the beach everything finally falls into place for the first time and Ed can finally just RELAX he isn’t crazy and the power dynamic has shifted so that they are finally on the same page, he doesn’t have to feel like he’s just pining anymore, they are equally in love and that is so reassuring and validating. AND THEN HE LEAVES. That is such insane emotional whiplash and he was wrong the whole time and he feels like a fucking idiot and he must be SO FUCKING CONFUSED. Because the moonlight scene it seems like Stede is being so fucking crystal clear about his intentions and how could he have possibly got all of this wrong, and he ws right the whole time because Stede kisses him back and agrees to run away but actually no he was WRONG the whole time but how??? and yet it also goes back to that exact same scene where Ed tries to kiss him and Stede doesnt return the energy where this dynamic becomes so unbalanced and murky
Tel’enara bellana bana’vhenadahl, Sethen’a ir san’shiral, mala tel’halani Ir sa’vir te’suledin var bana’vallaslin, Vora’nadas san banal’him emma abel revas. Ir tela’ena glandival, vir amin tel’hanin. Ir tela las ir Fen halam, vir am’tela’elvahen.
“We lost eternity, the ruined tree of the People Time won’t help when the land of dreams is no longer our journey We try to lead despite the failing of our markings. To the inevitable and troubling freedom we are committed. When we could no longer believe, we lost glory to war. When the Wolf won, we lost the People to war”.
Sights of Ankh-Morpork: the old Watch House at Treacle Mine Road.
“It could all be put back, commander. In memory of John Keel, a man who in a few short days changed the lives of many and, perhaps, saved some sanity in a mad world. Why, in a few months you could light the lamp over the door…”
![siriaeve:sheafrotherdon:Nicky’s mailbox. [No advertisments, only love letters.] For @sheafrotherdon](https://64.media.tumblr.com/86515d3378890c989ce1e964650059fb/95279eb6990dbeac-40/s1280x1920/cca265818e40af5fa4c0d766248dd42a824032a8.jpg "siriaeve:sheafrotherdon:Nicky’s mailbox. [No advertisments, only love letters.] For @sheafrotherdon")
