#But also he’d definitely want to stop them from being shitty so that would be an exciting and difficult task | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

prettymase · 3 months

Text

Meant To Be

NOTES: This fic is completely newly written and I haven’t written in ages but I hope this is good enough. Before you get into it I want you to know that some parts of the fic are quite personal to me and I was contemplating on whether to add or not, but I have included TW warnings. This fic had also been requested by my love @footiehoemcfc I hope you enjoy reading it babe. There will be a part two to this but I wanted to get the first part out first bc I’ve left @footiehoemcfc waiting too long for this 🫶🏼 ✨

WORD COUNT: 4.9k words

TW: mentions of car crash, drunk drivers

You promised yourself that you would never be in this situation.

This is the kind of situation you told your best friends to avoid. It’s basic girl code, telling them not to be stupid in going back to their ex. You know it never ends well. Most of the time anyways.

Most of the time they end up falling for their bullshit and then that causes them hurting even more.

You know right now, you are a dumbass.

Your relationship with Mason ended shortly after Christmas.

It’s bad enough you saw it coming but you didn’t expect it to happen quickly after Christmas as the way he broke up with you, you thought he would want to mend things. Things that haven’t been easy in your relationship the last few weeks. You thought he wanted to apologise for being a dick.

Before the World Cup, you both knew the relationship was falling short. However, you were determined to make it work. No matter how had you tried, you couldn’t afford losing him.

You tried to support him in every way possible. Travelling to Qatar, showing your moral support. You also suggested couples therapy, tried to get him to talk about his feelings he was keeping inside. And everything else that was on the list. Making you feel useless at times.

Mason however, wasn’t having any of it. He liked to feel like he could take care of himself. He knew he was pushing you away and he didn’t want to but this is what it has come to and he can’t stop himself now.

In Qatar, there wasn’t much you could do with him not being able to see everyday with the World Cup consequences. Which you understood. You tried looking at the positives, maybe time apart from you would make him realise how much he misses having you around and helping him out. You thought he would he would take his time to think about how shitty he has been with you the last couple of weeks leading up to the World Cup. To your surprise, it was the complete opposite. Mason came to the conclusion it would be better if the two of you went separate ways.

The night you two broke up, well when he broke up with you, always replayed in your head.

“I think we should break up,” Mason started to say, showing no emotion on his face whatsoever.

“What?” you definitely wasn’t expecting this.

He had planned a a nice romantic evening or so you thought. The dinner table was elegantly decorated, with rose petals and candles around the table, with two glasses of wine, which you dismissed because you didn’t feel like drinking.

You thought the best of things, thinking that he’d apologise for his behaviour these last couple of weeks. Instead he did all this to break up with you.

“I want you to know don’t think I don’t love you because I do, it’s just the things that’s happening this season, I can’t love you the same when I’m feeling like shit.”

“You’re having one bad season and you’re throwing me out of your life?!” You asked confusedly and annoyed. “You’ve had problems before but this was never the solution!”

“Y/N you don’t understand. This is my life, I have to try and help and the tea-”

“This is not your life!!” You snapped. “It’s what you do for a living, big difference Mason.”

‘It is now okay?! Everything else seems like a distraction!”

“I’m a distraction? Your girlfriend who has been trying to help you for weeks is a fucking distraction? Are you fucking kidding me?” That hurt. It hurt how little to no appreciation he showed for your effort. The tears that you tried to hold in just fell. Maybe it could’ve been from sadness but now you were just mad.

Mad at him.

“Baby,” he sighed trying to ease the tension. Both of you had arguements before but it was never like this. He’s now thinking of throwing the years you had together, which you thought of convincing him to not to do this but it was useless and once he makes his mind up there’s no going back.

“You have no right to call me that anymore. You’ve clearly made up your mind.” You snapped.

“I’m sorry, okay. I didn’t word that right. But you need to understand me.”

“Understand what? That your job is more important than me and everything else in your life? That all the things I’ve done for you in the past meant nothing? Our relationship was for nothing? And that I mean nothing to you?!” You managed to say In between your sobs that you have been keeping in for too long, and this was your thirteenth reason.

You couldn’t hold it in anymore.

Mason stepped closer to you and tried to hug you which you refused at first, but you always found yourself giving in, in the end. This could be your last hug ever so you wanted to treasure it. Wanted to get close to him. Wanted to smell his aftershave that was lingering on his clothes. Wanted him to run his hands up and down your back for comfort.

All for the last time.

You could feel his tears dropping on your shoulder. This couldn’t have been easy for him too. Although you know he’s doing wrong but you also know the past year hasn’t been the best for him and no matter how much this is hurting you, you also know he’s hurting too. “I’m so sorry, my love. I know you think this is easy to do but i promise you it’s not. I love you so much and if it’s meant to be I’m sure we’ll find our ways back to each other soon.” He pulled away from the hug and held the sides of your face, planting a kiss on your forehead. His lips lingering on your forehead a lot longer than anticipated which relaxed your mind for a second.

“I’m going to go gather my things and go.” You sniffled.

Mason just nodded in response and let you get to it. You go into your shared bedroom, where you gathered most of your things, one thing that made you break down instantly was your scrapbook you made for his 21st birthday. It was his first birthday you celebrated with him and it was special too, so you wanted to make it memorable. You flicked through the book where you come across the first page which was the first picture you took together, him positioned behind you, his head buried in your neck while you looked so happy. The happiest you’ve been in a long while, you forgot what that felt like.

This book was meant to be what you show your future children, but you didn’t get that far ahead. You hesitated in whether to take it or leave it with him. However you decided to take it with you as you felt like he wouldn’t look back at it.

Once you finally got your things together, you looked back at your shared room which was now Mason’s for one last time. The good times you had in there would be looked back at for sure, at least for you anyways.

Mason who was waiting for you to be done was on the sofa, his head in between in his hands. When he saw you were coming out of the room he offered to help with your luggage but you refused.

“You can stay here for a little while once you get sorted out if you want?” Mason mumbled.

“I think it’s too late for that Mase. Thank you though.” You said as you walked to the front door and remembered that his front door key was in your bag which you handed to him. There was a keyring with the photo of the two of you on there. You walked towards the door until you heard Mason speak again.

“Y/n wait a second,” you looked back at him, hoping he would say this is a mistake and he wants to start fresh with you but was that the case? Nope. “Where are you going to go? It’s late. I don’t want you wondering about at this time of night.” He asked genuinely worried for you.

But you couldn’t help but answer coldly as this wasn’t his problem anymore. You weren’t his problem anymore. “You have no right to worry about that anymore. You start your life from scratch and forget what I ever meant to you. If I ever did mean anything to you. Good luck with the future, Mase.” You choked out.

Quickly, you got out of the door but you weren’t sure how much more you could hold your tears in for. Opening the boot to put all of your things in the back before you got into the drivers seat and drove away from his house for the last time.

There was tears streaming down your face the entire journey, luckily you still had your own flat that you didn’t end up getting rid of, but it’s been a while since you been in there so it will be weird at first but you’ll have to get used to it. After all this was your life from now on.

During your journey to your now new (old) home, you looked back on all the positives that your relationship had. For example; when he took you away just because he felt like it that was also when he said ‘I love you’ for the first time and you were wondering what you did to deserve this man. Now you were wondering what you did to deserve the situation he put you in.

‘Where in the relationship did we go wrong?’ You thought. You always thought you made him happy. But clearly not if he felt like he needed to chuck you out of his life like that. You clearly weren’t as important to him as you thought you were.

When you got to your old flat, as soon as you walked through the door, it’s like you were almost looking for a feeling of home come to you. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that it was Mason who made it feel like home. And now you had to live without him.

You had started talking to Mason in the most weird ways ever, you were going through so much at the time so him coming into your life during the most hardest times of your life you would describe it as was truly a blessing in disguise.

Let’s recap to that day..

It was one of those days.

One where you felt like God was never on your side, trying to understand what you did to deserve the last few days of chaos you’ve had.

Eyes closed. Trying to remain calm, steadying your mind and the pace of your breathing.

It had been a long day. You had just come back from the hospital 45 mins ago. No that wasn't your job, your mum had been admitted to hospital after having a traumatic car crash as you'd call it.

On Saturday night she was on the way back from dinner with her friends, until a drunk driver crashed into her and she remained unconscious up until Tuesday morning for a few minutes and remained unconscious again.

When you first got a call from the hospital your first instant reaction was shock and denial because as far as you'd known your mum was all about being a safe driver and she was always scolding you to drive safe. It hadn't settled in until you had seen her. All your emotions started crashing down at once.

You felt a bit helpless and guilty by not being able to do anything to help her, and you were losing hope slowly but deep inside you, you knew your mum will power through this, she's a strong woman after all. After having to raise 6 children when your father left you at a young age deciding that he wanted nothing to do with you, if she could go through that alone, you had hope that she'd get through this.

You couldn't help but feel alone. All your siblings were in their own little bubble and you didn't want to disturb them and you know that they wouldn't care because all of you were all so close but you couldn't help feel like you were burdening them.

All of you were equally upset, each one of them had their own distraction to help not think about this, but you had taken days off to visit your mum during hospital hours and just pour you heart out even though she hadn't had her eyes open you knew she could hear you.

Days prior to this, you had been struggling with your emotions already.

You had given your notice in for work because the environment was becoming so toxic and this guy at work would non stop harassing you until you couldn't take it anymore, mentally it was taking a toll on your mental health. Your ex had gotten back into contact with you repeatedly changing numbers, making different social media accounts to contact you, after numerously blocking him.

Overall you felt like crap, you didn't want to tell your friends about this because you felt like you were asking for sympathy when you didn't want that and you felt like they were all happy within their lives and you didn't want to burst that with your sad feelings.

So you just put a fake smile on your face which was believable to people, and when you were alone tears wouldn't stop flowing.

You hated yourself for not being strong enough.

The peace and quietness lasted about 2 minutes before a message came through your phone. You instantly thought it was someone from the hospital updating you about your mum but this message had confused you even further

Anna?

You most definitely weren't Anna and you most certainly didn't have a date today.

(Imagine you can see the face. Thank you😌)

It was like an addiction messaging each other, you just couldn’t stop. It was flirty banter most of time, he arranged for you to first meet him at a small cafè because he was eager to see you, and this meeting made you feel something for him, even more than you did.

The next meeting you decided to count it as a date, and ever since then you didn’t look back.

He was seriously a blessing in disguise. Your mum was getting better, you got a new job and you couldn’t be more happier that everything finally was starting to fall into place.

Over the months since your breakup you tried to forgive and forget; Forgive because he genuinely did have a lot going on and you also knew his passion for football and maybe you just need to find your way back to each other once the time is right. Forgetting about him and what he meant to you was the hardest thing to do.

It’s been five months now since your breakup and not a day goes by without thinking about him. You just had to remind yourself that he’s probably not thinking about you anymore and he’s probably moved on and as much you wanted him to tell you that he wanted you back probably wasn’t the case. Which hurt you deeply thinking about it but if that’s what helps you to move on then so be it.

The first month was incredibly difficult for you, wanting to text him every hour of the day to try and work things out, even though he ended it you wanted him to fight for you, you once thought you meant the whole world to him, and now acted like you were strangers.

His friends had found out about the break up and checked in on you to see how you were doing. They didn’t see it coming, especially Ben, he thought he was head over heels for you and he was always going on about how perfect his relationship is. Ben insisted on talking some sense into him but you refused, not wanting to force his way back to you, you’d much rather him come back to you when he was ready.

Whenever that was.

At this point you were starting to think that it would only happen in your dreams.

You felt a like crap and thought you were being over dramatic, thinking that Mason’s probably isn’t doing the same and moping over this, so over the next two months you tried pushing him out of your mind and start focusing on your mental health and yourself, getting your self love back.

Saffie, Libby and Imogen, who had been your support system since helped you through it and you couldn’t be more grateful. They also were shocked about the break up but as of right now you didn’t care. You had come to terms with that it wasn’t meant to be and you tried convincing yourself that you were fine with it.

When you moved in with Mason, it was difficult to see them, as they lived out of town and at the time things were just getting hectic that you didn’t have the time, even though you hadn’t seen each other for a while you had still kept each other updated on every little detail.

Tonight, you were going on a night out with your girls. It had been a while since you had a girls night and you couldn’t wait because you had missed your girls.

“Cheers!! I want to make a toast to Y/N. I want you to know that you’re the most strongest person I know and you don’t need no mannn that makes you feel like shit!!” Libby screamed through the loud music that was playing at the club, and you all took a sip of your cocktails. You promised to yourself and the girls that wouldn’t cry tonight and so far you were failing but you decided to blink the tears away and have the time of your life with your besties. It’s the least you deserved.

You don’t know how you got here but you’re not complaining.

You barely make it inside the house. As soon as you both are nside, you’re kissing, making out against the front door. Pushing him back, desperately wanting more, trying to suck every last drop out of the love that is still left.

You’ve missed him. Missed him so much.

“We shouldn’t do this,” Mason pants, pulling away, framing your face with his hands, and you nod.

“No, but it feels good, doesn’t it?” You say with a grin, that’s all your willpower gone out of the window.

Mason grins at you. Just like he used to; it’s just like it used to be.

“Fuck yes. Let’s go upstairs.”

You knows this will only hurt you in the morning but you can’t resist, you’ve missed him, missed how he feels, how he tastes. And all that matters right now is that your legs are wrapped around Mason’s waist and the way he groans when you push yourself into him.

Fuck, it feels good.

It’s not a long, drawn out fuck, no changing positions, no words. It’s not hasty either, but it’s desperate, both of them fighting for the perfect angle, chasing their release, needing it.

Still, it’s loving. The way Mason’s hand is in the exact right spot on your back, the way they kiss, breathlessly moaning into each others mouths. And the way they lock eyes, reading each other’s faces.

They’ve done this many times - spent so many nights entangled, making each other moan and pleasuring themselves. They know this, every part of it is familiar.

It happens too quickly, but you wouldn’t have the strength to prolong it anyways. It’s too much, there is not a single clear thought in your head as you kiss Mason through his climax.

“It will hurt more tomorrow,” Mason whispers when you pull him closer under the blanket. You know he’s not just talking about you aching. His tone is soft, laced with a shadow of a sorry, his hand gently stroking your arm, the gesture putting you to sleep.

When you woke up it was around four AM you weren’t surprised to find yourself sleeping next to someone but you couldn’t pinpoint on who it was as you were too drunk and didn’t remember a single thing about your one night stand as you rarely have them, silently cursing yourself for drinking too much.

This room seemed familiar to you though, you don’t know if your mind was playing tricks on you or if it was actually familiar to you. That was until the person next to you turned to face you, still asleep and you were met with none other than Mason.

You shot up at the exact second, accidentally waking up Mason doing so. “Y/N, what’s wrong? Let’s get back to sleep yeah?” Mason says in a sleepy voice but you were still in a state of shock of how this happened, you were about to reply until you turned around to face him to see him asleep again.

How did you let this happen.

You went downstairs to compose yourself with a glass of water and watched your reflection on his window.

‘You stupid idiot. Why did you do this to yourself?’ You thought. The more you thought about everything that had happened last night, how much you missed him touching you, kissing you, tears were forming because it just wasn’t fair that he was making you feel like this.

In the middle of your thoughts, Mason entered the kitchen. He wrapped his arms around your waist, buried his face in your neck, kissing it repeatedly. “Baby, why are you here? It’s 4am,” he whispered in your ear. You were just staring blankly outside at his patio, tears threatening to fall. Your lip started wobbling.

How could you be so dumb? He starts seducing you whilst drunk and it worked so easily he had you right where he wanted. You were never that girl to have one night stands, but this one felt like one because you knew what Mason’s decision was.

“Listen, you were drunk. We both had a little too much to drink. I saw you in the club alone, I don’t know where your friends were and you looked like you had a little too much to drink. I offered to take you home but you mentioned you left your keys with Imogen because you know how clumsy you can be and lose them. So I took you back to mine and I don’t know how it happened but there was sexual tension in the air and we both started kissing and one thing led to another, but I want you to know it doesn’t mean anything to me.” Mason said so confidently.

You needed a moment to hear the last sentence alone, but you wanted him to think that were coping well without him because he had moved on and somehow you needed to do the same, but after last night it’s become hard again. It’s like having sex with him has brought your feelings back again but it doesn’t matter because he doesn’t feel the same about you anymore, even though when you broke up he told you that he’ll always love you. You guessed that was lie.

You wanted it to mean something to him, you wanted him to ask for you back. You wanted him to fight for you.

Which will only happen in your dreams by the looks of it.

You wondered if he ever loved you? Now you just believed what your negative thoughts were telling you.

“I’m going to get my stuff and leave,” you said with a lump in your throat and glossy eyes.

Mason saw the expression on your face and was the sick of the sad expression you had on your face and he snapped, “Okay. Don’t expect me to stop you then. I have moved on.”

It’s like this was a different man in front of you, you don’t remember getting to know this guy, you don’t remember falling in love with him. The Mason you remember falling in love with wouldn’t let you go without a fight. You weren’t going to let him treat you like this so you snapped back. “Yeah because you sleeping with me last night really tells me that you’ve moved on doesn’t it?” You rolled your eyes.

“It was a mistake! I told you, I was drunk, you were drunk, one thing led to another and it’s a regret of mine now letting you think that you’ll ever get close to me again. Maybe, just maybe if you weren’t so needy all the damn time we could’ve given this a second chance.” Mason frustratedly said, with what he said, sounded like you hurt him, when he was the one to break up with you. It just didn’t make any sense to you.

You wished he hadn’t pushed you away. You pushed past Mason to get your things, not wanting to stay here a minute longer.

Mason stayed quiet, knowing what he said was wrong but in the heat of the moment it just came out. Once you came out of his room and got your things ready, you walked out his front door whilst he watched you leave.

It had been two nights since that night you encounter with Mason, you started thinking outside of box and tried moving on as he had, it was lot harder than you thought it would be. Maybe because the Mason you saw two nights ago was a completely different person in front of you.

Maybe if you went on a few dates it would help? You thought.

You never did see yourself separating from Mason, but that’s how things currently were and you had to accept that. You decided to scroll on Twitter for bit and what first came up on suggested posts surprised you a little because you weren’t expecting that when you opened the app.

To say you were more than hurt to see how he’s moved on quickly, but also you were convinced that the paparazzi make things worse from what they were. You experienced it when you were with Mason, so part of you were hoping that this girl pictured with him was just a friend but looking at the picture it was telling you something else.

You know it has been more than a few months that you’ve broken up now but a part of you wasn’t ready to let go. But you always promised yourself that if you saw Mason happy with another person you would be happy for him no matter how much it hurt you inside and you weren’t going to ruin his happiness.

That’s if this article was true.

Now you needed to move on because it seemed like Mason wasn’t going to come back to you by the looks of things and you need to accept that.

Mason didn’t know how to feel when the paparazzi photos came out, first of all the pictures were completely misleading to what they actually were.

He wasn’t on a date.

The only thing he was doing was playing Cupid, and setting this girl up with his mate, Ben. When Mason spotted Y/N on a night out with her friends, he was with Ben and a few of his other friends. This girl caught Ben’s attention but he was too much of a scaredy cat to go up to her. He thought he missed his chance.

That was until, the girl, Chloe, reached out to Mason on DMs and asked if they could meet to talk things through. He knew Ben wouldn’t dare to ask her outright, so they planned to call it a ‘blind date’ because Chloe actually had her eyes on Ben and it turns out that when she was about to go up to him that night he had disappeared, she couldn’t find him but she also knew Mason was good friends with Ben so she’s shooting her shot the long way.

Mason still deeply loved Y/N, he only said he moved on because he wanted Y/N think he’s doing okay without her. He really doesn’t know why he started pushing her away, and he regrets it because all he wanted know is Y/N between his arms. He would do everything for their relationship to be normal again, but instead he had to fuck it up.

Mason won’t be stupid enough to lose you again at any given chance. He was already stupid enough to know what life was like without you and he’s not risking that again.

He knew he needed to fix this.

—

taglist: @chilwellspulisic

#mason mount #mason mount x reader #mason mount fics #mason mount x oc #mason mount x you #mason mount oneshot #mason mount fic #mason mount one shot #mason mount fluff #mason mount smut #mason mount angst #mason mount x y/n #mason mount oneshots #mason mount fanfics #mason mount fanfic #mason mount imagine #mason mount imagines

283 notes · View notes

inklore · 2 years

Note

laur <3 i just wanted to say i love your blog so much! i was wondering: do you have any eddie headcanons that you think about a lot or have wanted to share with us? i always love reading other people’s headcanons. i hope you have a great weekend :)

you’re too sweet, lovey!!! i have a dozen different thoughts and headcanons when it comes to this boy so these are literally all over the place lmao.

tw: eighteen+ content, references to sex, criminal activity, drugs, parental issues.

he writes on the back of his hands when he needs to remember something: an idea for a campaign, a deal he needs to make later, anything but homework assignments

doesn’t carry a backpack, either finishes his work at school or doesn’t do it at all, never takes work home with him

is incredibly smart, can do math all in his head (he’s a drug dealer ok he’s hella good at it), just doesn’t have that academic incline to be smart in school/struggles in that aspect because he doesn’t care about what he’s being taught

has several fantasy novels scattered around his room, in drawers, in stacks on the floor, with writing in the margins: ‘campaign? henderson would love this!’

his dad is in jail for criminal activity (some of which he taught eddie), his mother left him when he was still little and he hasn’t heard from her since—but who doesn’t care, fuck it, having shitty parents builds character right???

his uncle is the only father figure he really counts in his life (but he still has a touch of the mommy and daddy issues, doesn’t want to turn out like either of them)

would definitely become a mechanic after graduating, or some easy job he’d excel in. but would still try to make it big with his band, would never give up that dream

joseph said that when eddie finds out someone loves him he doesn’t know how to take it/kind of thinks he doesn’t deserve it etc, which makes sense with his family issues, but also means (in my head) that when he finds someone who he shares those equally intense ‘love’ feelings for he’s literally the biggest simp

i’m talking constant mixtapes, letting you touch his guitar (no one touches her!!), play with his hair, lends you his favorite book only because he wants to see your face light up from enjoying it (but is hella nervous you might dislike it), lends you his band shirts because he loves watching you walk around in them (and only them), let’s you play your pop music in the van (will fake grumble about it but loves to watch you dance and sing along, and oh wow are his fingers drumming to the beat?? is he singing along?? no no of course not…)

he’d even let you design one of his tattoos. like he’s literally so smitten he never stops smiling or trying to please and make you happy, hes literally a ‘once i’ve fallen in love that it’s you’re the one forever’ type

i think it’s hard for him to express his feelings so he does it with humor/chaotic behavior/cynical outlooks, since he wasn’t raised by overly passionate and loving parents (literally hesitates a little during hugs because he’s not used to them but loves them, secretly of course)

he’s tried the hard stuff (drugs) once and that was enough for him, isn’t really into anything other than weed and cigarettes, still holds onto it though just in case he can make a sale from it

will put on eyeliner for gigs and gigs only!!

and as cute as he looks with his hair up he would never be caught dead with it up in a pony, unless you batted those cute eyes of course, then maybe, just maybe. only around the house! but he doesn’t like it!!

he’s not the best cook but he’s learned this trick to make microwaveable dinners taste better than they should; says he was high one night and the magic just happened, that it’s his secret recipe he uses (literally just seasoning, or a couple handfuls of shredded cheese)

doesn’t like hard liquor, strictly beer!

only goes to parties to sell to people, other than that he would rather take an arrow to the foot than go to them

when there’s a song he wants to learn he will hold himself up in his room for days, you or wayne literally have to drag him out or force feed him because he has a one track mind, neeeds to get it done, neeeds to learn it (our boy has intense hyper-fixations)

fiddles with his rings when he’s thinking or nervous + sticks his tongue when he’s in deep concentration + messes with strands of his hair when he’s trying to flirt

isn’t super clingy in the sense that he needs to be always touching you, but constantly catches your eye/is caught staring at you, or checking in with you, or playing with your fingers (loves when you play with his rings!!!), or tickling you, or tackling you down on his bed

can’t just give you one kiss, has to press a dozen to your cheek and neck always

isn’t a tit or ass man, loves it all, all of you, every part

loves to please, i’m talking will spend hours…doing things….in the name of pleasure for you

his fav position is any he can see your face, your expressions, can lock eyes with you, see that you’re enjoying it; missionary, or you on top

loves assurance, needs it, craves it in any and all aspects of the word, as much as he hates to admit it

has the biggest heart, hates to show it more often than not but once you’re his: friend, partner, what have you, he’s got you for life, cares about you immensely

doesn’t have a selfish bone in his body

but does have a jealous one and sometimes anger slips into there because he hates the things he gets jealous over

princess, beautiful, sweetheart, and babe (very rarely used), honey when he’s being a little shit, are the only pet names he uses or will ever use!!!

bi bi bi biiiiiiii

has big switch energy, but is the softest!dom you’ll ever meet, and i use the word dom very loosely here

never knows where to put his hands during any sexual act, always wants to touch everywhere and anywhere you’ll let him

talks a lot during, like he’s definitely a fan of lazy high sex that’s filled with a few giggles and weird things being spoken but it never takes the two of you out of it

loves kissing!!!!!

a few kinks i think he’d have: hair pulling, biting, dry humping, marking (with his mouth or a tattoo gun), light choking, voyeurism, a touch of corruption

would literally cream in his pants to see you wearing one of his rings as a necklace

if you bought him something he’d literally treasure it like it was an irreplaceable artifact

he’s literally so patient and encouraging when it comes to teaching anyone anything

loves cheesy ass jokes even if he’ll give you a deadpan look while you’re delivering it

is and will forever be a kid at heart

literally would be the adult playing hide n seek with the trailer park kids

loves proving people wrong (respectfully)

not a morning person, has been late to class so many times because of it. will wrap himself around you in the morning to stop you from getting up

smokes after sex, that good ol after sex cigarette

before he moved in with wayne, wayne was a truck driver which is why all the mugs and hats decorate the living room wall. and a way they bonded when eddie first came to live with him was: he would pick a new mug each day to ask wayne about and he would share his traveling adventures with him

like i said his dad taught him some criminal activity: hotwiring, picking locks, siphoning gas, how to pickpocket, insurance fraud

would tell the best scary stories on the camping trip

can barely grow chest hair

#eddie munson #eddie munson headcanons #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson fluff #eddie munson smut #eddie munson fanfiction #eddie munson x you #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson fic #eddie munson blurb

3K notes · View notes

plzu · 5 months

Text

Hot Chai - (Adrian Chase x Reader)

part 8 <- ☕︎ series masterlist ☕︎ ao3

a/n: happy new year! this fic is almost done ♡ also i almost forgot to post this here today lol summary: Adrian is mad at Chris. You're mad at Adrian. Goff gets loose. It's a whole thing. warnings: canon typical violence (chapter takes place during ep 6: Murn After Reading), no Y/N, nothing else major i don't think but lmk if i missed something word count: 5.2k

Can people be haunted by things that aren’t ghosts? Adrian wasn’t sure, but the image of your watery eyes, and hands shakily hiding your face — it haunts him.

Which sounds excessive. After all, how could you haunt him? You were very much alive. But if hauntings make people uncomfortable, makes it hard to sleep, and makes dread sit with the weight of a sandbag on their chests, then maybe it was accurate. Because nothing has bothered him quite this much since - well. There was the shame he felt at failing to kill Chris's racist dirtbag father, and the potential consequences this failure could lead to. But he got over that fairly quickly. After all, it's not Adrian's fault Peacemaker has a shitty dad.

But you — your eyes dimming when he told you about the threesome. The way your face twisted into something that made his world halt to an unsteadying stop, like the nauseating swaying of a boat at sea. The way your hands hid the stricken sadness from him, too late in hiding the pain.

Because of him. He did that. He didn't mean to, didn't realize he'd say something that could upset you, but still. It was his fault.

Crying generally made Adrian uncomfortable because he had a difficult time empathizing. He doesn't cry, not since he was little. Guts once told him it's because he doesn't have feelings like people do. So he never knew what to do if someone cried around him. It weirded him out, to be honest. He wasn't much good at providing comfort, tended to say the wrong things. And his hands. God, he never really knew what to do with them in those situations, became hyper-aware that he even had hands in the first place. Hands good at killing, but useless in comfort.

He hasn't made someone cry since high school.

Scratch that. He makes grown men cry, like, all the time. Usually accompanied by them pissing their pants because they're terrified Vigilante is going to kill them. (Spoiler alert: he does!)

Like one of the guys in the alleyway downtown, that he saved you from. The one that tried crawling away after Vigilante shot his knees. Weeping and wailing and cowering.

But that's different, obviously. Tears and sobs fueled by fear.

The last time he made someone cry because he hurt their feelings, though, that was definitely high school. Made someone cry because he was just being an asshole. Even if he didn't realize it.

It was eventually explained to him that some people are just weirdly sensitive, so you really didn’t have to try that hard to hurt them. Some people just had emotions like the skin of a too-ripe fruit.

He didn’t think you were one of those people. He never saw you cry in high school, and he definitely would have noticed if you had. Adrian was perceptive like that. ‘Specially with you. I mean, sure, you cried in the alleyway and again in his bedroom but the alleyway tears had to have been from fear like that other guy before he shot his brains out, and then the bedroom tears were from, like, residual fear, he thinks. Not because your feelings were hurt.

But then he told you about the threesome, and the mood shift swept across your face like a fissure, and it was just like when he’d made that girl in high school cry, except worse. Because it was you. You, the person he's been quietly fixated on since, like, the 10th grade. The only other person whose lips he fantasizes about -- either pressed against his, or curved in a smile.

He only ever wanted to make you smile. To laugh. It’s the very sound that drew him to you in the first place.

Instead, he made those pretty lips of your warble and twist into the shape of pain.

He should have listened to you, should have let you drag him to the restroom and take off his mask and shove your bodies together. Because then you would have taken his breath away and, with it, all his thoughts. Because that threesome with Chris pales in comparison to the feel of you touching him.

The memory of the threesome warps his emotions into anger and annoyance. Why the fuck did he follow Chris back into his trailer to bang some chick he didn't even know?

Adrian stands at the front (and only) door of Chris' trailer now. They were off today, no assignments from the Task Force. No Fennel Fields shift for Adrian. Today would have been the perfect day to finally, finally hang out with you, no Vigilante business to get in the way. But if his unanswered text messages are anything to go by, you don't want to see him.

And why would you? He made you cry.

Adrian knocks, and whatever frustrations that spurred him to Chris's place is momentarily put on hold when he hears Chris answer, 'Come in, Adrian' without even coming to the door. Adrian walks into the trailer, impressed despite his annoyance as he closes the door behind him and asks, “how did you know it was me?” to the welcoming back of Chris’s head.

“You knock in a very annoying way.” Chris didn't even turn around to look at him when he said it.

“Oh.” Ouch. Rude.

Adrian opens his mouth to apologize, as he usually does whenever people point out he's being unintentionally annoying, but something about Chris's tone kind of ticks him off. Instead, Adrian says, “well, maybe I didn't realize how annoying my knock was because I was distracted by your bad advice.”

This seems to get the other man's attention. In an irritated and confused huff, Chris asks, “dude, what the fuck are you talking about?” as he turns to face him.

“You convinced me to bang that underappreciated chick with you and now they're mad at me.”

This only confuses Chris more. “Amber's mad at you? Why would she be mad at you?” His face sobers into upset understanding. “Dude, did you give her a fucking STD!? You said you were clean! Great, now I have to get checked. I was just at the hospital, man, I don't have time for this.”

“No! I don't have an STD, I'm not talking about her! I mean my- the barista I've been telling you about!”

Chris rolls his eyes, annoyance rolling off of those huge shoulders of his. He just turns back around in his seat.

Adrian's fists clench at his sides at the action. This conversation is far from over-

Small tapping sounds grab his attention. Adrian looks over and sees the alien thing that flew out of the Senator's face sitting in a mason jar with holes poked into the top. “Dude, you still have that thing?”

“Yeah,” Chris confirms without looking back.

Goff makes squeaky noises inside its glass cage. Its little blue and white bug-like body, long-limbed, strangely animated. It doesn't move or act like any bug Adrian's ever seen (at least, not in Evergreen). There's an awareness about itself that clearly indicates some enhanced intelligence.

“He tried to kill us,” Adrian reminds Chris, “and he cut off half my toe.”

He's still a little sore about that, if he's being honest. Currently he's sore about a lot of things.

“Yeah,” Chris says, sounding weirdly detached, distracted. “Sometimes I just think I'm insecure about my masculinity and I'm making up for it by having a dangerous pet.” He says this all in one breath.

His words only confuse and, honestly, slightly upsets Adrian as Chris continues, comparing himself to 'knuckle-dicks in Georgia.’

Peacemaker has not been the same since he got out of Belle Reve. Yeah, he's still the same solid mass of muscle. He's still a giant jerk that says the funniest, meanest things. He can still kick ass, still sharp with a gun and never misses his targets. But now there are moments where he struggles to pull the trigger.

The wavering lately is worrying, to say the least. Maybe even disappointing.

“Dude, my advice?” Adrian offers. “Cut it out with the introspection. The mind is a den of scorpions better left running from instead of towards.”

He should know. Adrian spent most of his childhood trying to analyze those metaphorical scorpions until he decided it was easier to ignore them completely. But things have been kind of rocky, lately, and Adrian has been finding himself taking a peek now and again. Something about both you and Peacemaker being back in Evergreen at the same time is kind of shaking up his foundation.

Chittering and tapping noises from Goff's mason jar grabs Adrian's attention again. “What is Goff doing?”

Chris spins around in his chair and they both watch as Goff uses whatever weird goop he's sitting in to draw a circle on the glass. Then he abruptly stands and grabs the mason jar in his gloved hands. When he holds it up to the cool, gray light filtering in through the skylight, they’re met with a droopy symbol of peace.

Sitting on Peacemaker’s couch, both men grow increasingly frustrated, but not for the same reason.

Seeing as Goff is attempting to communicate with them, Chris sets them up in his living room, Goff's mason jar on the coffee table, with a few rules for interrogation. There is, obviously, a language barrier, but the alien can understand English just fine.

Adrian is upset about how difficult the rules are to follow. Chris, for whatever reason, finds his confusion unreasonable. Sticking to 'yes' and 'no' questions isn't that easy, especially when Adrian has been finding it incredibly difficult to focus since last night, when he left you to cry all alone in the cafe.

Chris's impatience with him is just making Adrian even more frazzled. Usually he can deal with Peacemaker's snapping. He didn't always understand what he'd done to get yelled at, but it usually blew over.

This time, though, Adrian is finding that he is equally mad at Chris. So when Chris shouts that maybe Adrian should shut the fuck up, Adrian shouts back.

“I see how you are! Your preferred conversation partners are Eagly and Goff! Neither of who are capable of speech. Try introspection on that, motherfucker!”

Chris, for once, does not have an immediate comeback.

Adrian takes in a big, steadying breath, feeling the angry warmth on his cheeks and trying to dispel it. An apology sits at the back of his throat, rising up out of simple habit, but an image of your face -- usually all smiles and twinkling eyes -- flashes in his mind. Tear-stricken.

It's enough to force the apology back down.

Turns out, Adrian doesn't even have to apologize because Chris says he's right (I mean, he knew that already; those words didn't explode out of him out of nowhere), and continues in a tone that is unusually soft and quiet and reflective.

Adrian interrupts. Chris yells. This interrogation is going nowhere.

Adrian, having gotten the hang of the whole 'yes' or 'no' question rule, asks Goff, “would you tell your buddy it's okay to sleep with other people despite him having someone he already really likes?”

Chris yells again. “Dude, what the FUCK are you talking about? How is that relevant to an alien invasion?”

They're interrupted by a phone call, Aqua's Barbie Girl ringing clearly from Adrian's back pocket. Adrian rushes to fish his phone out, hoping very badly that it's you.

It wasn't you.

Adrian and Chris are up in the trees, hiding from the cops that are now tearing Peacemaker's trailer apart. The cops that Murn called to warn about, telling them to get the fuck out of dodge. Goff is strapped to Adrian's back, a brilliant move on his part to free up his hands.

Brilliant, until Adrian falls from the tree flat on his back, where one of the cops is looking for them. But that's not as concerning as the mason jar shattering, freeing Goff.

“Oh, shit.”

Goff shakes off the fall and flaps hurriedly towards the detective, who has her gun out and pointed at Adrian on the ground. Adrian’s less concerned about that and more concerned about what Goff’s next move is gonna be.

Chris lands beside him and both men watch in horror and fascination as the alien flies directly at the detective's face, making her fall flat on her back as Goff starts burrowing into her mouth. The move is quick and aggressive and the detective struggles and fails to rip it out of her.

They rush to her side as blood erupts from her mouth, decorating the side of her face crimson as her body begins to convulse. There is nothing they can do but run once they hear another cop round the corner of the trailer and alerts everyone else to their position.

Adrian throws Chris's cell phone outside of the car window on their way to meet the rest of the team at the abandoned video store they've been operating from.

He says he did it to keep them safe, which is mostly true. They can track them through the phone, you know? When Chris angrily advises that his phone was secure and untraceable, and that now a bunch of Eagly pictures are gone, Adrian can only bring himself to be a little regretful.

Adrian is finding something grimly pleasant about indirectly hurting Chris like this. Something scratching a weird itch in the back of his thoughts. It's similar to when he'd throw dynamites at the other man in retaliation for being almost blown up himself. But that was all in good fun. Just guys being dudes, entertaining each other with violence. Real macho-like shenanigans.

No, this was different. Adrian got some sort of satisfaction from tossing Chris's phone out of a moving vehicle right now because he's... more mad at him than he thinks he’s ever been.

And it's not because the hero he's looked up to has been weirdly introspective lately about the usual way they've handled criminals. That was more irritating than anything. It’s a lot easier to go through life without agonizing the lives you’ve taken; surely he can remind Peacemaker of that again.

No. Adrian is mad at Chris because he blames him for hurting your feelings.

“Thank you, by the way.” Chris sends him a quick, confused glance. “For telling me I could bang whoever I wanted. Real solid advice, bro.”

Chris furrows his brow. “What the fuck- why do you keep bringing up the threesome?”

“Because! If it weren't for you, I never would have made them cry!”

“Why the fuck would you tell someone you like that you had a threesome!?”

“You said it was okay!”

It's all Chris can do to keep from ripping the steering wheel off of this car and beating Vigilante with it.

Their argument evolved into weird hypotheticals by the time they stormed through the doors of the video store, but gets (thankfully) interrupted by the mean blonde — Harcourt.

“Hey! Do you have a diary?”

“No,” Chris half-shouts, voice still carrying the weight of whatever shouting match he was in the middle of having with Adrian.

Adrian holds the door open for Eagly to waddle through. Whatever qualms he has with Chris right now, the bird has nothing to do with it. Eagly is chill. Adrian's not gonna be rude and just not hold the door for him.

The conversation between Chris and everyone gets more heated once Chris reveals that Goff is now free. The team doesn't react well to this, which is probably why Chris kept it a secret up til this point.

“Yeah, we kept Goff,” Adrian clarifies in answer to Harcourt's exclamation.

“You kept Goff!?” Murn shouts incredulously. Eyes wide in angry disbelief. Like he doesn't want what he's hearing to be true.

“Because Peacemaker has masculinity issues,” Adrian explains. His lips quirk into a smirk that has absolutely no joy in it. “Probably the same masculinity issues that convinces your BFF — sorry, second BFF — to join you in a threesome even though it'll hurt that BFF's friend's feelings to do so.”

This makes Chris groan in frustration. “Vigilante! Time and place!”

“What the fuck is he talking about?” Harcourt asks, exasperated.

“He's all pissy because he told this chick he's been seeing about our threesome.”

Someone says 'ew' under their breath.

“He told me I could bang whoever I wanted despite knowing about the person I like!” Adrian can't keep the whine out of his voice.

Adebayo speaks up, addressing Chris. “You encouraged him to sleep around even though he's seeing someone?”

“He said they weren't exclusive!” It kind of feels like Peacemaker hasn't stopped yelling since Adrian stepped foot in his trailer.

“Still,” Adebayo says. “He's, like, obsessed with you and he'll do whatever you say.”

(“Hey!” Adrian exclaims. That's offensive, probably! Regardless of whether or not it's true!)

“He's a grown man,” Harcourt interjects. “He should be able to make his own decisions and not blame it on Peacemaker.”

Chris gestures a massive arm out to Harcourt, saying “Thank you!” at the same time as Economos says, “Someone likes Vigilante romantically?”

“That's enough!” Murn sternly shouts, silencing the room. “Where is Goff now?”

They explain how Goff took over one of the cops - the Asian woman.

Fury and disappointment reverberate off of Murn. “God damn it, Peacemaker.”

You don't know why you let it break your heart. Why you let it keep you up most of the night, curled wretchedly into yourself, weeping in tumultuous silence into your pillow.

Adrian Chase, the guy you got unnecessarily and hopelessly attached to, coolly admitted to having had a threesome. There was no tiptoeing around it, either. No hesitation before saying the words that casually ripped your heart out from your chest.

It really should not have hurt you the way it did. Hell, if he had said anything about sleeping with someone else just a few weeks ago, it would only have mildly annoyed you at best. Perhaps made you a tad bit insecure, but you would have shrugged it off.

But things have been slowly crumbling around you ever since that night your old high school friends ghosted you--

No. That's not true. Your life was falling apart well before that. It's why you came back to Evergreen in the first place. But Adrian showed up and made things momentarily steady. A patchwork preventing the further collapse of your mental fortitude.

But then you found out his secret, and he suddenly had no time for you. And before you could fully make peace with the fact that Adrian Chase -- the dorky weirdo from high school -- is Evergreen's infamous Vigilante, Peacemaker came back and you were no longer the center of Adrian's attention.

Which you are ashamed to admit stung.

And as if that wasn't enough, things at home have been so off and confusing. It's a different kind of nervous than what you're used to, walking through the halls of the strangely quiet house. You could always feel their presence, at home -- your mother's more specifically. You've always been attuned to her, some kind of survival instinct so you know when to avoid her. And you have to finally admit that there's a very vacant gap in the house, and you know it's because your mother has not been around to fill it.

This has caused a very antsy mood shift with your dad, one that would make you anxious if it weren't for the fact that his focus is no longer on you. It's on your mother's absence.

This should worry you.

The confusing part is that your stomach is not twisted in knots over the idea that she hasn't been home. You don't bother asking your dad about it when you see him sitting zombie-like in the living room late at night.

(You tend to avoid asking questions when you're afraid of the answer.)

(Hence why you never questioned Adrian when he'd tell you some unprompted lie.)

Truth be told, you can't help but to feel tentatively euphoric. It's one less thing suffocating you at home. Like the weight of a boot lightly lifted from standing on your neck.

You're about to head out to work earlier than usual—you've had free reign of the house since you woke up because even your dad wasn't home that morning, and it was nice until it got eerie—but just as you approach the front door, it swings open.

Your dad stands at the threshold, silhouetted by the light at his back. When you blink and adjust your vision to the sudden daylight that's poured in, you're startled by the unkempt figure walking through the doorway. It's your dad, yes, but in a way you can barely recognize. He looks rough and unkempt, facial hair growing in unruly patches around his mouth. The bags under his eyes suggest he hasn't had much sleep. It's like he's aged 10 years.

“Hey...” He says, but it's hardly a greeting. He barely even looks at you. Mostly, it's like he's looking through you. “Have you, by any chance, heard from your mother?” He shuffles past you in the hallway, not waiting for an answer. Probably not even really expecting one.

You watch the exhausted shape of his back. You feel weirdly guilty when you answer no.

An empty sort of exhale depletes out of him, and it's the only sound of acknowledgement. He doesn't ask anymore questions, doesn't say anything else.

So you leave. You walk into the cafe half an hour before your shift starts, just in time to hear Matty's vivacious voice call out a 'small hot chai for the tall hot guy.' He's fully ready to flirt with the customer as he hands off the drink, but does a double-take when he sees you slink around the counter and to the back.

Matty's flirty smile slips into a frown as he shares a look with Ashe, who also noticed your sluggish arrival.

The two ambush you as you very poorly tie an apron around your waist. It's Matty who speaks first. “You look absolutely terrible.”

You drag your still-puffy eyes to look at him, unsmiling. “Oh, Matty. Truly, my favorite thing about you is your penchant for unprompted insults.”

Matty just rolls his eyes at your deadpanned sarcasm. Ashe steps in to try to amend his rude comments. “What he means is-” Ashe takes in the sight of your sob-swollen eyelids and chapped lips and crooked disarray of your shirt collar. “-wow, God, no, yeah, you do look terrible.”

You scowl. “Do you two have to be back here? Someone needs to be on the floor.”

“There are, like, two other baristas out there.” Matty quirks a perfect eyebrow at you. “Other people work here, you know. It's not just us three.”

You squint your eyes at him, like that can't possibly be true, but say nothing further on the subject.

As you fix the collar around your neck, Matty asks, “So? Are you gonna tell us why you've been crying or do we gotta pry it out of you?”

“Is this about Adrian?” Ashe's voice is soft with knowing and caution.

You avoid eye contact. “He told me he slept with someone else. Two someone elses, actually. At the same time.”

You squeeze past the two other baristas and start making your way out onto the floor. They give each other a look before following.

“So the man had a threesome,” Matty clarifies, less as a question and more matter-of-factly. And completely uncaring whether the customers in cafe hear his indecent statement. “Ugh, of course that weirdo is having threesomes. I could tell just by looking at him that his dick game is insane.”

“Matty,” Ashe hisses as they give him a light backhand on his shoulder. Then, louder, calls out your name. “So you're upset he slept with someone-”

“Two someones,” you interrupt, face otherwise unphased by anything that's been said so far as you clock in at the register.

(“Again, that's just called a threesome, babes,” Matty helpfully quips as he rubs the spot where Ashe smacked.)

“Right, sure-” Ashe says. “And this was something Adrian was hiding from you?”

You grit your teeth as you float right past the two again, towards the log book the shift supervisors use that's open to today's date. Huh, look at that. There are names scribbled here besides Ashe's and Matty's. “He just told me about it, like it was a cool fun fact.”

A customer approaches the register, keeping Matty from accompanying Ashe as they follow you back.

“I'm sorry he hurt you, but...” your mouth sets into a grim line at Ashe's 'but', still unwilling to look up at them. “didn't you tell me just a few nights ago that you guys aren't even together?”

“Yeah, but...”

But he made you feel like you were singularly special. An illusion that quickly shattered at his admittance to sleeping with this Peacemaker guy. Honestly, it probably would have hurt less if it had been some nameless bimbo desperate for Vigilante's attention. No history and less intimacy.

Ashe waits patiently as you sort through your thoughts, until your shoulders slump with resignation, unable to find the right words to defend yourself.

“I get it,” they say. “I get that it hurts, but it's not exactly fair to him or to you if you haven't told him what you want.”

Ashe is right. It was wrong of you to assume you'd have Adrian's sole attention forever. You just hoped that it would last long enough until you got the hell out of Evergreen.

Oof. When did you become so selfish?

Eyes softening, you finally give Ashe a grateful look. “How are you so wise? You're, like, twelve.”

Ashe smiles. “You make it really hard to want to help you sometimes.”

You once again find yourself alone in the cafe at the end of the night. Matty had stayed an hour past their shift just to absorb all the juicy bits of gossip, catching up on yours and Ashe's conversation. He also offered up a few encouraging words, in his own Matty way.

(“If you don't tie that delicious four-eyes down, I will,” he said, giving you a very pointed look.)

Ashe, once again, insisted on staying late with you.

(“If you can clock in early, then I can clock out late, no?”)

You only smiled and shook your head and told Ashe you were fine, really. It lacked the usual desperation, though, the one that tinged your voice with hopes of Adrian stopping by. This time, you convinced Ashe to leave by telling them you really wanted the time alone to think while also keeping your hands busy. So they left with less worry than usual this time.

You received several texts from Adrian earlier today, and you think about how you ignored all of them as you finish counting out the till. They're all unopened, having only caught glimpses of the texts as they appeared as previews on your still-cracked lockscreen.

The first text was an apology that only made you scowl. At the time, you doubted he meant it, or knew what he was even apologizing for considering last night, he only seemed confused by your hurt reaction.

Then there was the text you scoffed out, where he stated he was off today and could meet up, presumably to talk. If you have to see him in that stupid fucking mask again without seeing his stupid fucking face, you think you might actually scream until both your heads pop.

Now, as you lock up the safe, you think that maybe talking wouldn't be a bad idea. Maybe not the best idea, given your fragile emotional state. You really don't trust yourself not to cry more and Adrian's been no good with tears and you don't want to make him uncomfortable (though that should be the least of your worries).

And even worse than whatever it is Adrian has to say (I mean, what more could the man say? Mentioning the threesome was enough, you don't need to hear about they why or the how or the what went in who's hole-)

-Even worse than whatever else Adrian could possibly say is whatever you need to say. Speak out loud and make yourself more vulnerable than when he has you in the backseat of his Sebring with his mouth against your neck. Relinquish whatever remains of your pride as you put the power in his hands, lay bare the fragile beating of your heart and admit how much you cannot stand to be without him. How terrifying the thought that he might not feel the same, now that his real best friend is back in the picture.

The feelings whirl in your gut all nauseating and you grimace. You hate confessing. To give someone else the chance to hurt you. It goes against your self-preservation instincts.

As the song playing on the store speakers quietly peters to end and transitions to the next track, you hear a noise coming somewhere from the back. You pause, straining your ears to try to listen as the music continues playing. You want very badly to play it off as just your imagination, but you're the only one in the store; after the things you have been through recently, it would be unwise to shrug it off without investigating.

Unwilling to venture into the back just yet, you simply stand from your spot at the safe and lean backwards, gazing into the parts of the backroom you could see, and-

Huh. That's strange. The backdoor is opened a crack. You're sure you closed it after running out the last bit of garbage, but it's hard to trust your own memory when you've been so distracted thinking about Adrian Chase and Feelings.

You steel yourself, blowing out a forceful bit of air through your nose and begin to make your way to the back. It could have just been some critter dumpster diving that made the noise, audible simply because the door wasn't fully closed. You close the door, making sure it clicks firmly shut.

As you turn back around, you discover you are not alone in the store after all.

They're still at the video store/base when an announcement reveals on the t.v. that Peacemaker is wanted, due to evidence found in a diary that Chris says isn't his. It's Goff on the podium, and, distressingly, the tall guy from the woods stands next to her, the one that killed those cops and helped him and Vigilante escape.

It looks like they got him, too. He has a face that looks like its skin is stretched too taut over his skull, so maybe it's fitting that he's joined the bad guys, since he already looks the part.

Vigilante's phone buzzes with a text alert, and it makes him forget the tension in the air for a moment. Only one person would be hitting him up at this hour. Maybe you're finally returning his texts!

Sure enough, it's your name on the screen he sees when he fishes out his phone, and his face almost breaks out into a grin. But when he unlocks it, he is greeted with a picture that makes the excited fluttering of his heart freeze and the smile immediately drops from his face.

You're in the cafe, in your work clothes, tied up to one of the wooden cafe chairs. Head lolled to the side, resting uncomfortably on your right shoulder, clearly (and upsettingly) unconscious.

Another text comes in:

If you care for them, you will bring Peacemaker.

taglist: @whatevermonkey @hiddlehiddlebatchedloki @nobodys-baby-now @navs-bhat @afraidofshrimp @training4theapocalypse @abbaenthusiast @jediviolet @t0byisher3 @madhyanas

[ if you would like to be removed from the taglist, pls let me know! it wouldn’t hurt my feelings, i 100% understand if you come to find it annoying or just not currently interested in the fandom. likewise, if you want to be added, i’d appreciate a reblog and/or comment/feedback ]

#adrian chase x reader #vigilante x reader #peacemaker fic #writing #fanfic #mine

122 notes · View notes

inoreuct · 3 months

Note

undercover op with sanji in a dress?? i think judge would be pissed asf if he picked a backless one and decided to own that metal spine bcs he’s a badass 😏😏 (unless cyborgs are discriminated against. are they? are they common in this au?? or are sanji and his sibs the only ones?? I’M SO INVESTED PLS 🤲🏻)

ooooh anon anon anon,,, YOU READ MY MIND WITH THE BACKLESS DRESS also cyborgs are pretty uncommon but they aren’t really discriminated against— more seen as things to be put on pedestals and not people, though. some see them as feelingless machines, and sanji’s siblings definitely aren’t helping that rep :((

there are other cyborgs but the vinsmokes are the most well-known, and their power + skills and apathy (save sanji) have people kissing the ground they walk on with a mix of fear and reverence. sanji just wants to be a Normal Guy, though, and zoro treats him like one, and it both pisses sanji off and makes him immeasurably happy. make of that what you will 🤭

“Found him.” Zoro frowns at his monitor, double-clicking with his mouse to zoom in. “Grey jacket, next to the beer taps.”

“Yeah, I see him.”

He tracks Sanji over the security camera, watching the blond slink through a crowd that parts for him effortlessly without even seeming to realise. Zoro can’t blame them, seeing as he looks good enough to stop traffic. “Remember, he doesn’t know what’s—”

“Going on, I know, I know,” Sanji mutters under his breath, weaving around a woman who gawks with her mouth slightly open as he flashes her a soft smirk and a wink. “Keep him unaware and get the drive. I could do this in my sleep.”

“I know,” Zoro echoes, even as he holds back a scoff and an eye roll. He’s in a bad mood and he knows exactly why.

He’s scrunched up in his chair in sweatpants and a ratty tank top, a half-drunk can of beer steadily forming a puddle on the desk next to his keyboard as he watches Sanji sidle up to the bar and order a drink. Their target sneaks a look to the side before ducking his head and taking a gulp from his own glass.

The man’s a small-time photographer who looks clean-cut but understated— Insignificant. He’d been chosen precisely because of that fact; GERMA66 had deemed him acceptable as an oblivious carrier of a thumbdrive that supposedly contains plans for whatever the hell Judge is up to next.

Their job is to intercept it before it gets to Charlotte Linlin, or anybody she’s affiliated with.

The bartender returns with Sanji’s drink and he takes it with an elegant incline of his head. “Old fashioned?” he asks, gesturing to their target’s glass, and there’s a pause before the poor man looks around quickly.

“A-Are you—?” he starts, pointing to himself.

Sanji laughs, silky and soft. Zoro takes a controlled breath. “Who else?” He raises his own glass to his lips, and Zoro knows what’s in it. A rum and orange cocktail with Kahlúa and cacao nibs in the egg white foam on top. “That is an old fashioned, isn’t it? Yeah.” The blond’s lips curl up behind the crystal rim, a bold red and sharp at the edges. “You seem the type.”

“You seem the type,” Zoro mocks silently, scowling at the screen. He doesn’t even try not to scoff this time; his chair complains with a loud creak when he throws his weight back, sullenly crossing his arms over his chest.

Look. He’s not sulking, alright? It’s just— difficult. Sanji twists sideways, leaning one elbow on the bar, and the back of his dress dips low enough for his entire spine to glimmer silver-wet in the dim lights. Where was he?

Right, difficult. Sanji’s over there buttering up a literal nobody, and Zoro has to sit here, in his apartment, in this shitty rolling chair with no back support where he’s close enough to go in if Sanji needs backup. He listens to his partner flirt over the comms and grits his teeth as he tries to consciously keep his fists unclenched.

He’s not jealous. It’s just that he’d gotten used to the idea of there not being anyone else, he supposes. Neither of them have any time for romance outside of their jobs, and at some point being together had just become routine; and Sanji’s a flirt, sure, but at the end of the day it’s always Zoro that he ends up with. They have toothbrushes at each other’s places. Sanji has weights by his shoe rack and Zoro has a block of chef’s knives tucked into the corner of his kitchen counter.

Sanji’s laughter grabs his attention, and Zoro realises that at some point he’d lost the thread of the conversation. The blond pinches the collar of their target’s grey windbreaker between his thumb and forefinger, running down the length of it, and their eyes meet through the camera as Sanji pushes off the countertop and the man scrambles to follow.

His dress drags along the floor. The red satin is made heavy by crystalline beading, draping down to just above his hips as he makes his way to the lift lobby, and the man trails behind hanging onto his every word like a starstruck fool; Zoro suspects he himself isn’t much better. The lights of the lift lobby are harsh as they make their way up to the hotel above the bar, and Zoro switches from camera to camera all the way until the man’s sliding a key card into a lock and disappearing when Sanji shoves him into the room with an exaggerated giggle.

His expression sobers when looks directly at the camera across the hall. Strands of hair are drifting out of his chignon and catching in his lashes. “Sorry, mossy. Gonna have to sign off for now,” he whispers, and Zoro can hear the soft smile in his voice before he pulls his earpiece out and shuts the door.

Silence.

…Yeah, Zoro’s jealous.

It’s enough to have him finishing his beer in two chugs, leaning back to drag his hands over his face and groan. He knows what it looks like. Knows what it’s supposed to look like; a hookup, plain and simple. Judge can’t know that Sanji’s the reason the drive won’t make it to Linlin. It’s risky, sure, but they’re banking on the fact that he doesn’t know that Zoro knows anything about how Judge still has Sanji under his thumb. And if Sanji gets some fun out of it, well— Zoro can’t fault him.

It doesn’t change the fact that he feels sick to his stomach, and it’s pissing him off because he has no right. None at all. He isn’t entitled to anything; Sanji doesn’t owe him, or anyone, anything. It doesn’t matter how he feels. It doesn’t matter how close they sit when they’re falling asleep in the middle of a movie on Sanji’s couch. Sanji’s already been backed into a corner by his bastard of a father— Zoro refuses to complicate things for him any more.

He’ll get up in a moment. Grab a bottle of something stronger this time. The apartment will be his till morning, anyway, so what’s the rush?

And then he hears the front door beep as somebody enters the passcode, and he nearly falls out of his seat sitting up straight.

Zoro glances at the clock as footsteps echo through the entrance; it’s only been twenty minutes, give or take.

Multiple hard somethings clatter onto his desk, and he looks up to find Sanji leaning against the doorway. “Help me out. I’ve got a screw loose,” he says, grinning, and then there’s a moment before Zoro groans.

“If you think that’s funny then you clearly do,” he replies tiredly, standing as Sanji sits on the other side of the table.

He picks up the screwdriver he’d been given, reeling a little. Sanji isn’t supposed to be here, and yet— Here he is, pulling pins from his hair left and right and dropping them all over Zoro’s desk as his chignon untwists itself. A weary sigh leaves Zoro’s lungs. “Where?”

“L4, R6, L12 and 16, and… R23.”

“23?” He frowns. “That’s lower than usual.”

Sanji grimaces. “Slept wrong last night, I think.”

“Hm.” Zoro flips the tool in his hand as Sanji gathers his hair over his shoulder; it’s gotten long now, enough to dust the tops of his shoulder blades with soft, shimmering gold. He rests his thumb at Sanji’s hairline and drags down gently until he gets to the first corresponding vertebra and he’s careful as he fits the screwdriver head in, turning slowly until the joint tightens.

“Did you sleep with him?”

Sanji makes a pfft sound and doesn't even turn, used to Zoro’s straightforward questions. “‘Course not. What, not confident enough in my abilities?”

“No.” Zoro clamps his mouth shut when he realises how defensive he sounds. “No,” he amends, voice marginally less tense, four fingers wrapped over the edge of Sanji’s ribs as he moves down. “I just thought… You were having a good enough time. He liked you. No reason not to.”

“I didn’t want to. That’s the reason,” Sanji says, and it’s flat enough that Zoro knows to ease off. “When we got into his room I knocked him out before I nicked this,” he taps the thumbdrive he’d tossed onto the table with the screwdriver, “out of the lining of one of his jackets.”

Zoro narrows his brows. “Knocked him out how?”

Sanji shrugs a shoulder. “Compressed his carotid. Pretty sure the poor guy was enjoying it, honestly.”

They’re quiet for a while after that. Zoro holds Sanji’s side, elbows digging into the table as he crouches down to see what he’s doing. He resists the urge to press his nose to Sanji’s skin. Beading digs into his knuckles as the screw clicks into place.

“Zoro.”

He stills. They rarely use each other’s names. “Yeah?”

“Did you—” Sanji’s breath catches, the moment suspended until he shakes his head. “Nevermind.”

He’s beautiful, Zoro thinks. The scarring that frames his spine is smooth under his thumb. “Did it hurt?”

“Hm?”

“When he…”

“…Yeah.” Sanji puts the heels of his palms on the table, fingers curling over the edge, thumbs pressing into the sides of his thighs. “He said it was my fault, anyway,” he sighs, letting his weight drop so his shoulders hunch up to his ears. “That I wasn’t even supposed to feel pain, but I ruined it before he could… perfect me.”

Zoro lets his eyes flick up, gaze falling on the elegant curve of Sanji’s nape before he focuses on the last screw.

He’d made a promise to himself on that fire escape. The metal melded to Sanji’s back is a constant reminder to both of them that he’s a double agent. Everything they do is a risk; hell, they both lose sleep over it. Zoro’s used to his phone ringing in the middle of the night. Sanji’s finally starting to allow himself to call.

The blond’s head is hung low as the strap of his dress slips off his shoulder, and Zoro slides it back up and lays it in place. He’s done with Sanji’s spine. “How’s that feel?”

“Hm?” Sanji blinks as he looks up, before rolling his shoulders back. “Better.”

“Alright.” Zoro barely stops himself from drumming his fingers on the table as he bites his lip. He turns around under the guise of readjusting random things on his windowsill. “It’s late. You staying over?”

“…Oh, fine,” Sanji relents, waving a hand. “Too tired to go anywhere, anyway.”

It’s second nature to leave a set of pyjamas on the bed; Zoro usually takes the couch, if only because the springs are hell for the tactile sensors in Sanji’s spine. He’s just leaving when Sanji steps out of the adjoining bathroom with a wash of warm air with a towel around his waist.

“Pretty sure your bed’s meant for two,” he says lightly before grabbing the clothes and disappearing back through the door, and Zoro blinks. Sure, he’d splurged on a queen-sized mattress, but he’s never shared it.

He ends up lying down anyway and swiping through his phone mindlessly until Sanji comes out again, hair brushed back. The covers pull as Sanji climbs under and he stretches to turn the lights off, before they’re laying there in silence.

Zoro’s half asleep when he hears it.

“We didn’t do anything in that room.”

“It doesn’t matter if you did.”

“But we didn’t,” Sanji insists, and Zoro hears I didn’t want to do it, any of it, and he doesn’t even realise he’s reached for Sanji’s hand until their fingers brush.

“I know,” he says, gentle. Their hands lay in the space between them until Sanji threads their fingers together, rolling onto his side.

“Just, uh,” he begins, clearing his throat gruffly. “Just wanted to clarify.”

Zoro laughs against his will. His shoulders shake with it, and he hisses when Sanji kicks his shin. He finds the knuckle of Sanji’s thumb as he brings their hands up between their pillows, rubbing over the bone. “Go to sleep, curly. We’ll go through the drive tomorrow.”

Sanji’s lashes flutter before he swallows. “Okay.”

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, marimo.”

He turns his face into his pillow. He smells like Zoro’s body wash.

Zoro stares at his ceiling and wonders just how much he’d be willing to give to protect this man falling asleep next to him.

(He wakes not long after sunrise the next day.

Sanji’s ribs rise and fall against his palm, the corner of his borrowed shirt riding up. He’d rolled over Zoro’s arm sometime in the night; his other hand is tucked close to his chest, his ankle skin-warm and pressed to Zoro’s shin. His hair is all over the place and Zoro’s pretty sure he’s drooling.

He smells even more familiar now, like cheap lavender detergent that Zoro buys on a discount, leftover hair wax and orange from the night before. Just a hint of mint toothpaste. There’s the slight rasp of stubble when Zoro drags the heel of his hand across Sanji’s jaw, and the man mutters in his sleep, flipping over to face the other way and hug Zoro’s arm to his chest.

Well. Zoro doesn’t usually sleep in. He’s a busy man, he’s got weights to rep and evidence to process— But seeing as his arm’s trapped, there’s not much he can do, is there?)

(The next time he opens his eyes it’s past noon. He smells caffeine and hot butter, and it drags him out of bed to the kitchen; Sanji’s standing over the stove, hair shoved up into a haphazard bun with a blue ballpoint pen, spatula in one hand and Zoro’s laptop balanced on the other.

“About damn time, you log,” he huffs, jerking his head towards the table. “Coffee’s ready, help yourself. You won’t believe what bullshit Judge is trying to pull.”

Zoro raises both eyebrows and decides to save himself an ass-kicking by keeping his mouth shut. He pours himself a mug of coffee and sits down. “S’that my pen?”

“It’s—” Sanji frowns. “I picked it up off the floor.”

“Hm. I was wondering where it ran off to.”

Sanji rolls his eyes, leaning over to put the eggs down. “You’re fucking horrible. Are you telling me you only have one pen?”

“No. I was just looking for this,” Zoro reaches up and yanks it from his hair, “pen.” He yelps a laugh when Sanji swats him over the head and drags a chair out. “It looks better down, anyway,” he chuckles, wrapping a curl around his finger and tugging before he lets go. “Now run me through what’s going on.”

The blond gives him a stink eye and sighs, turning the laptop so it faces them both. “Okay. So…”)

(Zoro settles in, drinks his coffee, and he still hasn’t figured out how much he’d give. He’s starting to think there isn’t a limit.

He thinks he’d be okay with that, though.)

(part 1 | part 2)

#cyborg sanji au #that last line… be careful zoro be careful #they’re literally married?? and they’re still not together?? guys PLEASE #the way i had to fight w myself to not make sanji answer “when i fell from heaven?” when zoro asked “did it hurt”#THERE’S MORE COMING FOR THIS AU KEEP YA EYES PEELED #WILL BE SEEING MORE STRAWHATS + MORE CYBORG DETAILS #judge is about to earn himself many more haters that’s all imma say #THANK YOU FOR THE ASK AGAIN ANON 😽😽#ino writes #ino’s ask box #zosan #roronoa zoro #one piece zoro #zoro #black leg sanji #sanji #one piece sanji #zoro x sanji #one piece

87 notes · View notes

vampyrixdarling · 2 months

Note

hi hi! I'd like to request some general relationship headcanons with Scourge!! This vile man does not have enough fics about him, and that is a CRIME.

— 「𝐒𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐇𝐞𝐝𝐠𝐞𝐡𝐨𝐠 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐝𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐨𝐧𝐬」

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥ MASTERLIST

╰┈➤ Scourge the Hedgehog x reader

: ̗̀➛ synopsis; General relationship headcanons with Scourge.

: ̗̀➛ Type; Romantic headcanons

: ̗̀➛ warning(s); intended gender neutral reader (although there are feminine pet names), anger issues, arguments, mentions of addiction, mentions of Scourge’s terrible home life, despite the heavy topics mentioned there is still fluff.

Likes/Reblogs are always appreciated!! <3

☆ There are so many ways this can go. It’s either you went into this relationship with the “I can fix him mindset” and he ended up making you worse, or you make each other worse. There is no in between.

☆ Either way, he treats you good. If you ever want anything, he will get it for you no questions asked. Mainly through thievery or the odd robbing. He loves to spoil you whenever possible, and also loves to show you off. He’s so proud he managed to pull someone like you, and he’ll be sure to show off and boast.

☆ I think he likes PDA for the sole purpose of letting everyone know you’re his. He constantly has his arms around you, holding you close into a bit of a side hug. That, or he has a hand in the back pocket of your jeans. Of course, he’ll stop immediately if you express you’re uncomfortable. He’s not the kind of guy to overstep your boundaries at all.

☆ He doesn’t cook. Well, it’s more like he can’t cook. He does have an interest in cooking, but something almost always goes wrong. He mostly orders takeout, or relies on you to cook an actual meal for him. He’s eternally grateful to you if you do. He’ll even offer to help you in the kitchen, whether it’s helping you cook or doing the dishes (he hates doing the dishes, but he’ll do it for you).

☆ As for pet names, I don’t really think he’d call you any sweet ones, I can’t see him doing that. He might call you darling occasionally. The ones he probably calls you the most would be toots or babe. And occasionally beautiful or handsome.

☆ Scourge is a relentless flirt. That’s obvious. Whenever you two cross paths, it’s like he knows just what to say to get your heart pounding and that blood rushing to your face. That’s how he managed to win you over, after all. Shitty pickup lines and jokes were his go-to, as well as trying his best to impress you whenever he could.

→ Bonus points if he failed horribly at whatever he was doing to impress you, and you can’t help but laugh. He’d be annoyed at first, along with his huge ego being damaged and bruised, but once he hears your laughter, it’s like butterflies emerge from his stomach, and he can basically feel his heart skip a beat. So once he’s a humiliated and blushing mess, he’ll quickly get up and proudly barked that that was on purpose, and he’s not as pathetic as he looked. Of course you knew he was lying, but you didn’t mind. You found it cute, in all honesty.

☆ He constantly smells of cigarettes and cheap cologne. It’s gotten to the point where once you smell it, you know for sure Scourge is nearby. It’s a scent that’s managed to find itself seeped into your bed from how many times he’s crashed at your place. But as much as you find the smell annoying, you can’t help but find at least a little bit of comfort in it.

☆ On the topic of sleeping over, he loves sleeping with you. He definitely snores loudly. He’s normally the big spoon, and that’s almost always unfortunately nonnegotiable. He loves holding you close with his head buried into the crook of your neck. He finds you so warm, and he’s quick to fall asleep.

☆ He’s the type to get jealous easily, and he’s very obvious about it. He’d wrap his arm around you, pulling you close, and smugly tell the person to back off of you and that you’re his. If the person is being creepy or threatening, Scourge isn’t afraid to put them in their place and beat the hell out of them. But he’d rather not let you watch that. It could wait, for now he’s just focused on you.

☆ I think it would take a lot for Scourge to open up to you. He’d have to be really comfortable with you, and 100% sure that you’re the right person to tell about this and that you won’t judge him. I’d like to think he got his anger issues from his father and his struggles with addiction from his mother. That man did not have a good childhood and I will die on this hill.

☆ He’s the jokester of the relationship. He’s almost always cracking jokes, whether they’d be flirtatious or not. He prefers to be on the lighter side of things rather than the serious side. He just wants to joke around and have fun with you, is that such a crime? He’d love you forever if you entertained his jokes /j

☆ Scourge is afraid of commitment. He isn’t into the idea of getting married nor having kids. That’s the awkward truth. He’d most likely not put as much effort into the relationship as you’d like, although that doesn’t mean he won’t try. He’ll put as much effort into the relationship as he can, but it won’t always be enough.

→ He doesn’t want kids because he’s afraid that he won’t be a good father figure, with his anger issues and problems with addiction being some of the main reasons behind that. He doesn’t want his kids to be raised by a someone like him. He wants the kid to have a healthy, normal life— one that he fears he can’t supply.

☆ Despite not wanting any, he’s actually great with kids. He doesn’t know how or why, but it just comes naturally to him. He’d try to be a positive role model to them (even though he’s the complete opposite of a positive role model). He won’t drink or smoke around them, and actively tries to engage with them and offer advice if they seek it— as well as providing any support he can.

☆ I don’t think he’d be the communicator in the relationship. It’s either he’s too prideful to admit he messed up, or he’s scared of what might come from the conversation. But he’s willing to make things right with you, he loves you too much to lose you.

☆ He has bad habits of acting out of anger, or throwing things out of a fit of rage. He denies he has anger issues, but no matter what happens, he refuses to hurt you. The most he’ll do is scream— whether directed at you or not— or throw something at a wall.

→ If an argument were to occur, Scourge isn’t the one to apologize first. Arguments with him aren’t often unless you caught him on a really bad day and accidentally said something to set him off. His father is the most sensitive topic you can bring up, and will have him freaking out almost immediately. He just hopes that if he opens up about his father to you, you won’t use that as leverage. He trusts you, and he doesn’t want that trust to be misplaced.

→ At first he’s angry, screaming at you and demanding to know why you said or did what you did. He doesn’t mean anything he says to you, but he can’t control it. He’ll only stop if you’re crying, to which he’ll quickly be quiet once he realizes how much he scared you. He’ll give you your space, not talking to you for the rest of the day and spending most of the time in your guys’ room.

→ If the argument is his fault, he’ll still refuse to apologize, nor admit he’s in the wrong. The outcome would be a little different though. He’d be slightly colder to you once you start trying to point out where he was in the wrong and was in fact being a total asshole. Instead of backing off like he did in the previous scenario, he’d scoff at you and leave. This would cause a strain in your relationship, but as long as you two can properly communicate and talk about this, I think it’s an issue that could be solved. This relationship isn’t an easy one, but you both love each other dearly.

#scourge the hedgehog x reader #scourge x reader #sonic the hedgehog x reader

85 notes · View notes

lost-girl-2021 · 1 year

Note

Maybe Tonowari and Ronal adopting Spider modern/human au hc?

Okay, I wrote a little bit and then I also but some headcanons and stuff at the bottom :) lemme know if you want to hear more.

Spider wasn’t a pessimist, he was a realist. He didn’t think of the worst, he just knew that after so long, nothing good would be coming his way. Ten different foster homes in half as many years. He was fourteen and alone.

Norm, his social worker and only actual friend, was overworked and underpaid. He had a lot to deal with and Spider was just a box to check off of his To Do List. He was a good guy and he always made sure Spider was somewhere safe, but as the boy had gotten older, he’d also lost hope alongside Spider. Neither of them thought he’d get adopted. He had two years until he’d be old enough to emancipate himself and Norm knew he was just biding him time.

So, it was weird that he seemed excited about his next placement. Spider had been stuck in a group home for two weeks after his last foster family— the Sully’s —had to suddenly move, leaving the teen behind. They’d been plenty apologetic and he hadn’t even been with them for a full year, so it shouldn’t have hurt as much as it did. He shouldn’t have been so stupid as to think they’d want to take him with.

Maybe the enthusiasm was Norm trying to cheer his charge up after a shitty month. Maybe he’d finally cracked and was slowly turning into the Joker or Green Goblin or something. He wouldn’t mind a Hulked-out version of his social worker. It’d probably be funny to watch.

They suburb they pulled into was nice. They’d driven further south, towards the state’s coast. It was only three hours away, but it felt like a entirely different world. Ignoring the tourist-traps littering main street and the absurd amount of bikes, it looked peaceful and bright. Norm explained that his newest foster parents ran a fishery and a charter company. Spider didn’t think it was a good fit. He didn’t even know how to swim.

When they stopped in front of the large house in the center of the block, a pair of tall adults were already waiting, sat on the porch in a matching set of white rocking chairs. It was like something out of a TV show, too perfect. The overturned bike on the front lawn helped bring him back to reality. His skateboard was in the trunk of the car, along with his suitcase and a duffel bag of clothes. Lo’ak had insisted that he keep half of the decor from their shared room, even though a lot of it had already been there when he’d arrived.

“How many kids did you say they had?” He asked as Norm put the car in park.

“Two. Aounung and Tsireya. I think he’s sixteen and she’s . . . fifteen? Maybe your age, I can’t remember.”

Neteyam had been sixteen. He wasn’t much of a big brother when it came to Spider, but it wasn’t like he was Spider’s actual younger brother. The thought made his throat feel tight. He opened the car door, swallowing down saliva. First impressions were important and he was about to make a lot of them. New house, new school, same old Spider.

Spider wears shoes a size too big, a habit from childhood. He used to grow too fast as a kid and even though he'd stopped at 5"7, he bought clothes and shoes big just in case.

When he first gets settled, he's kind of wary of the other kids in the house. (No Baby in this AU, because babies are a handful and so are Spiders). I think Tsireya would definitely take him under her wing and try to help him get comfortable and stuff. Set up his room, make sure he's okay with the food and knows where everything is. Despite being a year younger, she's definitely a Big Sister when it come to him.

Aounung kind of ignores him at first, busy with school and learning about his parent's business, intending to take over at some point. But, I think if Spider was getting bullied or something, he'd definitely go into Big Brother mode and that'd kind of spark an interest/empathy.

With the Parents, I think Tonowari would probably be busy working a lot of the time, but he'd make an effort to be there for dinner every night and make sure to check in with each kid before bed. Definitely a gentle giant. I can see Spider being intimidated at first, with the tattoos and Tonowari's sheer size, not to mention he's probably ripped after spending most of his life fishing and swimming. I think the turning point for Spider would be Tonowari driving him to get new shoes or for a doctor's appointment or something one weekend and putting on, like, ABBA or Dolly Parton or something in the car and singing along. He doesn't even need to actually like that type of music, but it's disarming and gets a laugh from Spider. (Also, Tonowari trying to squeeze into a waiting room chair like he isn't 6"7 and shredded).

With Ronal, I can see Spider watching her do one of the other kid's hair and her offering to do his. (In Modern AU's, I think Spider would have long, curly hair like Olan Prenatt from Mid-90s (the guy who played Fuck-Shit). Except, he has no clue how to keep his hair from being a frizzy mess, so he just pulls it back most of the time. And he hesitates, remembering a foster mother once cutting his hair off while he was sleeping (which might have led to him growing it out in the first place) and then deciding to trust her to take care of it, of him.

Spider tries to run away a few months after arriving. He failed a test and got into a fight after school and he's sure he's about to be sent away. So, he decided to leave first. Maybe, it would be easier that way. Hurt less. (It doesn't.)

Aounung ends up finding him crying on the beach at like midnight and flat-out carries him home, refusing to let him down. Because, they were scared, dammit.

This is all I have so far for a modern AU, but lmk if you want to hear more! Also, guess who just started a Medical Assistant program online? ME. If anyone is in the medical field and has any tips, I'd greatly appreciate it!

#atwow spider #spider avatar #avatar #atwow fanfiction #miles spider socorro #avatar way of water #spider #avatar fanfiction #atwow #tonowari #ronal #aounung #tsireya #adopted spider #modern au

338 notes · View notes

alovesongtheywrote · 7 months

Note

WHYYYYYYYYYY

♥ Summary: I'M SO SORRY. in this chapter of nightmare academia, spencer gets what he deserves and then some. [Prof!Spencer Reid x GN-Prof!Reader]

♥ Warnings: the reader is VERY mean to spencer- i mean, he definitely deserves some of it but oh my god, the reader is almost homicidal. mentions of maeve, a side character's shitty ex is following them, sadness, anger, angst

♥ A/N: i just want to point out, i think the reader was in the right with their argument in the last chapter. anyway, fun fact- some of the Fun Names the reader calls reid are references to the tin can bros production, "the solve it squad." neat :D

♥ Word Count: 3812, a few dozen of which came from @mxcheese

Series Masterlist

♥♥♥

Spencer felt like absolute shit- and he should have. He’d been a massive fucking dick to you and for what? He'd taken the objectively wrong side in that argument, and for what? To protect himself from future grief? To protect himself from the guilt of moving on from Maeve? He’d succeeded. He’d driven you away. Maybe that was for the best, but god did it not feel worth it.

He’d hurt you. He’d done it on purpose. He’d gone for your insecurities, for the things he knew would hurt you the most. He tore at your weak spots like a feral dog, and he regretted it the moment the words left his mouth.

He watched you drive away. He watched as your car got smaller and smaller until he couldn’t see it anymore. Then, he buried his face in his hands and tried not to scream. He stood out there in the cold on the side of the street until Morgan came to get him.

Morgan didn’t ask what had happened. He already knew Reid had done something stupid.

“My advice, kid?” Morgan said as he dropped Reid off later that evening, “Call them. Apologize to them. Solve whatever issues you have, because someone like that doesn’t come around every day.”

Spencer sighed, “Look, I know you want me to sleep with them, or whatever, but that isn't going to happen. It was never going to happen.”

“This isn’t about sleeping with them. This is about being a good person. I’ll see you around, kid.”

Like that, Morgan was gone, and Reid was alone. He didn’t call you. He didn’t apologize. He just curled up in his bed and let himself decompose. He told himself he was giving you space. He was letting you process things. Really, he was letting his own guilt swallow him. He was drowning in bedsheets and sorrow, and he didn’t care about coming up for air.

When he went into work on Monday, you were nowhere to be found. This was normal. You didn’t hold any classes on Mondays. Still, you had left things behind for him before- missing mugs, cans of creamed spinach, locks on all his cabinet doors. That Monday, there was nothing. There were no traces of you left behind. You were haunting him.

He stopped by your office. Obviously, you weren’t there. The door was locked tight. Reid still found himself trying to open it, trying to get into the small room that held so many parts of you inside of it. You were haunting it. You were haunting him.

When he returned to his own office, he knocked his copy of Pride and Prejudice off the shelf. He’d annotated it, reading it along with the articles you’d written on the topic. He loved the way your mind worked. He loved a lot of things about you. And what had he done? He’d hurt you. On purpose. And now, you were fucking haunting him.

And by the time his final class rolled around, Reid had resolved to do something about it.

You, on the other hand, were doing pretty good. True, you had sobbed your eyes out as you’d pulled away from the bar. The second Reid was out of sight, you had actually pulled over, deciding it wasn’t safe enough for you to drive in your emotionally volatile state.

You didn’t want to be upset about it. You weren’t upset about what you had said. You were right. Kate Callahan had made some majorly fucked up jokes. You had every goddamned right to be mad about that.

You also had every right to be pissed at what Reid said to you. He had been so incredibly cruel, hitting you where he knew it would hurt most. He’d called out your deepest insecurities. He’d called you stupid, told you you were right to be insecure, and insulted your academic work in the span of five minutes. You had every reason to hit the motherfucker with your car.

So why were you crying?

Once you’d calmed yourself down enough to drive again, you headed straight to the nearest convenience store. You had wine at home, and you weren’t going back to your apartment until you had enough ice cream on hand to kill a man.

Maybe that’s what you would do. Fuck pranks, you would just murder Reid by way of ice cream. You weren’t sure how you would do that, but you wanted to.

You spent the rest of your night the way most people in your situation would- getting wine drunk, consuming ice cream, and watching terrible movies until you fell asleep. Honestly, it wasn’t the worst way to spend an evening. By the end of it, you felt significantly less shitty- you still felt stupid. You would probably always feel stupid now that someone had looked at your deepest insecurities and confirmed them. You felt better, though. That was all you could ask for.

The next morning, you took some aspirin and threw yourself into your volunteer work- GEDs baby, GEDs all around. While you wouldn’t teach in person until Monday, the weekend gave you ample time to answer emails from students, look over papers, and provide support to your students.

Really, the job wasn’t too difficult. You always got strange looks when you told people that you tutored former inmates out of the community center. Honestly, it wasn’t that big a deal. You just helped people learn in ways that actually worked for them. Some people were visual learners, some were auditory learners. Some preferred to analyze James Baldwin over Jane Austin, and others learned better when you described the plot of Pride and Prejudice as if it were a personal drama. People really took to it when you called Darcy a pretty boy asshole with a secret heart of gold.

By the end of your time with them, most of your students were ready to get their GEDs. Those who weren’t came back to you for more help. In other words, you were a good fucking teacher, even if you couldn’t see it.

When Monday finally rolled around, you were ready to go. You spent the day helping people achieve their full potential, watching people find new understandings of both themselves and their work. You were happy. You were content. And Reid hadn’t called.

You tried your best not to care. He was a former Fed who thought he was in the right. You shouldn’t care about him. Still, it was a difficult task to pretend you weren’t a tiny bit hurt that he hadn’t reached out to talk to you.

And it was a task that became much easier when two of your former students popped in that evening, massive grins plastered across their faces.

“Hey, Dr. (L/N), guess who got GED-ed!!”

The community center was an older building, still suffering from the pink coat of paint the government had smothered it with in the 90s. Since then, an update to the plumbing had been the only other remodelling the place had seen.

Spencer thought it was incredibly fitting that you spent your time off there. Of course you spent your time off in a run-down community center helping people learn things. You were awfully passionate about that.

He stood outside the building, in the parking lot, leaning against his car. The sun had just slipped beyond the horizon, leaving the sky a dark blue before true darkness set in. The lights from the building before him danced off the wet pavement.

Honestly, Spencer felt a little bit like a creep, watching people come and go. He was trying to build up the courage to go and face you. He would need it. He knew there was no chance that you would see his face and instantly forgive him. Honestly, it was more likely that you would throw something at him, and he would take it, because he fucked up and that’s what he deserved.

Spencer steeled himself, finally taking a step towards the community center when he felt something. Someone was watching him. He knew that feeling- the distorted tingling sensation of eyes on him. He looked around. The voyeur had to be around somewhere.

He was right. A few parking spots away, in a new-looking white car with a small dent near the passenger’s side door, a man sat staring at him. Reid locked eyes with the guy, staring at him until finally, the man in the car turned the key in the ignition. He didn’t break eye contact until he absolutely had to.

Spencer was thoroughly unsettled.

Oh well. He had a job to do, and that job was apologizing to you. (Besides, if this boy was capable of listening to his instincts, he wouldn’t have been kidnapped that one time. He also wouldn’t have broken your heart. Reid gets too much credit for being smart, I’m not gonna lie.)

He crossed the parking lot in a few strides and pushed open the doors. The woman at the front desk had a smile on her face, and when he asked for you, she pointed him in your direction without question.

The lights in the hallway were fluorescent. He wondered if you hated them. He wondered if you brought lamps to whatever room you worked in. It would sound crazy if it was anyone else, but you had sent a typewriter to his classes until he let his students use laptops. You absolutely could take a lamp to your classes. With you, Spencer didn’t know what to expect.

The door to your classroom was open. He could see you smiling, a plastic cup in your hand. You were talking to someone. Your smile met your eyes.

“Seriously, this is fucking amazing and I’m so proud of you both. You should be proud of yourselves!”

Someone laughed, a woman, “Look at us. Official accomplishments on official paper. The last time I had one of those, I was getting out of prison.”

“The last time you had what, an accomplishment?” Another voice- a man’s voice- asked.

“No. An official paper with my name on it. Y’know, I’m pretty sure some of those prison dudes thought my name was fake. Every time they had to read my full name, they would say it out loud- what’s so weird about Missy Marie?”

“Literally nothing. Your name is excellent. Don’t take it personally, prison guards are just like that. I have beef with most of the guards I’ve met, I’ll be honest,” you gestured with your cup.

“I can’t imagine why,” the man replied. Spencer could hear the guy’s smile in his voice. He could see the smile on yours as you playfully smacked someone in the room.

“It’s because they suck! It’s fine, though. One day, they’ll have to call you Dr. Missy Marie. Then they’ll be sorry.”

“Doc, do you know how much I’d have to pay to become a doctor? I’m not interested in worrying about student loans for the rest of my life.”

“Fair enough- you could do it, though. You’re a hard worker, you’re smart, and you have a brain for analysis. And hey, most places have scholarships, awards, bursaries- I have a list of them if you ever want to look into it.”

The woman paused. When she spoke again, her voice was a little quieter, but still confident, “I’ll think about it.”

A smile split across your face, blinding and bright, “Excellent.”

You were clearly at a high point- enjoying your night with your students, your friends. Realization struck Spencer like lighting. He never should have come here. He should leave you alone- you were doing fine. You didn’t need his apology right now. You didn’t need the foul memory of what he’d said to you disrupting your evening.

He took a step back- and of course, you heard him, looked up, and scowled. Your smile dropped from your face so fast, Spencer almost wondered if he had imagined it.

“(L/N), is everything okay?” the man asked.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine, Frank. It’s just that fucking Fed.”

“Shit, the Feds are here!?”

“No, no, just that professor I told you about.”

“Ah. That professor.”

You rolled your eyes and stood, placing your cup on the desk behind you and heading towards the door- towards Spencer.

“I’ll be right back. Sit tight, guys.”

You shut the door behind you. Then, you turned to face Spencer.

He didn’t know what to say. You had never looked at him like this before- with such contempt. Sure, you didn’t like him. You didn’t like him for most of the time you’d known him. But you’d never looked at him like he was a waste of space, a waste of your time.

“Just where do you get off?” you asked, voice low and heavy with rage, “You couldn’t wait until I came back to work to insult me? You just had to come to my other job? Well, go for it asshole. I’m here. Do your worst.”

Spencer remained silent, his lips parted slightly as he stared at you. There was something broken in his expression, and even though he didn’t intend to do it, the motherfucker was hitting you with puppy-dog eyes.

You wanted to smack those eyes right out of his fucking skull. You were a little worried, during your ice cream and alcohol binge, that you would cry again upon seeing Reid’s face. You were worried that you would see his pretty boy face and fold like something that folds easily. You were terrified that you would just forgive him even though he didn’t deserve to be forgiven.

Clearly, that didn’t happen.

“I- I’m sorry,” he stuttered out. You were unmoved. Fucker couldn’t even apologize to you without tripping over his words.

“Fuck your sorry. Get the fuck out of my classroom.”

“We’re not-” Reid cut himself off, “Look, I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but I want you to know that I was wrong. I made a mistake, and I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve that- any of it, and you were right.”

You glared at him for a second. He was correct about a few things- he didn’t deserve your forgiveness. He was in the wrong, you were right, and you didn’t deserve anything he said to you that night.

You still wanted to smack him.

So you did.

You smacked his arm with the sleeve of your sweater. Then you smacked him with the other sleeve of your sweater. He didn’t even raise a hand to defend himself, it was kinda pathetic.

“Fuck you,” you said with a smack, “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, go die.”

“Yeah, that’s fair,” he whispered, keeping his voice so quiet that only you could hear him- and he had the AUDACITY to sound somewhat affectionate. He was staring down with a look, one that would have told you he cared if you didn’t know better. But you did. You knew better, and Reid didn’t care about you. Fucker.

“No. No, Reid, what’s fair is me saying you’re a sad little fuck who went right for my deepest insecurities without a second thought like a damn child. What’s fair is me calling you out for using your psychoanalytical bullshit to keep others away. Like you’re scared of getting close to people. What do you think is gonna happen, Reid? Do you think people will stay, even if you treat them like garbage?”

He parted his lips to answer, but you didn’t give him a fraction of a chance.

“What’s fair is me informing you that they won’t. When you treat people like garbage, they leave, and then you die alone, and what’s fair is me asking you to go die in a ditch so I never have to see your stupid fucking face again.”

That motherfucker looked so hurt and so guilty and you kind of wondered if you took it too far at the end there. You carried on as if you weren’t wondering that, as if you didn’t feel bad about the kicked-puppy expression on his face.

“What’s fair is me telling you any of that shit. But I won’t. Because even though I’m just a stupid academic, I’m still a better person than you.”

You half expected him to fight you on it. You expected him to protest, or correct your grammar, or do something stupid. He didn’t. He just nodded in understanding, like he agreed with you. He looked at the floor, presumably in shame, and he said nothing.

You stood there, in that hallway illuminated by those terrible fucking fluorescents. The buzz of those goddamned lights filled the air, mixing with the sound of your breathing. You wondered if Reid could hear your heartbeat from where he stood. You decided you didn’t care.

The silence grew to be too much. Your throat was full of unspoken insults. Your skin cackled with the electricity of everything you wanted to say- with everything you wanted to do.

“Do you have anything else to say to me?”

Reid flinched at the sound of your voice. He wouldn’t look you in the eye, not that you tried to make him. He started to respond when Sheryl, the community center receptionist, came rushing down the hall.

“Dr. (L/N)- I think that white car is back.”

Immediately your expression shifted from one of anger to one of fear. You were worried, and if you were worried, then Reid was worried.

“Fuck-” you took a step towards the woman from the front desk, “Is it him?”

“I didn’t see the plate number.”

You sucked in a breath through your teeth.

“Is it a newer model? Dent in the passenger side door?” Spencer asked. When Sheryl nodded, Spencer repeated the entire plate number.

You looked at him with a mixture of confusion and contempt, but you didn’t waste any time on him.

“Shit,” you growled, turning quickly to open the door, “Missy, do you have anyone to walk you back to your car?”

“We took the bus-”

“Cool. You aren’t taking the bus home, I’ll give you a ride. I’ll give you both rides.”

“What’s going on, doc?”

You sighed, hands flexing and curling to fists at your sides, “Jason’s outside.”

“Shit.”

“What’s going on?” Reid asked, his brows furrowed as his voice filled with concern, “Do you need help?”

“It’s none of your business, Reid.”

The door opened behind you, and Reid finally got a look at the people you’d been talking to. The woman, Missy, was on the skinny side with light brown skin and long black hair. The man behind her, Frank, was big and bulky- in other words, he had muscles for days. His dark hair had been cropped short, but he was clearly working on growing it out. Both Missy and Frank looked at Reid with a mix of curiosity and disappointment.

“That’s him, doc?”

You looked between Missy and Reid quickly- when you spoke, your words came even faster, “Yeah. That’s him, that’s the shit-licking asshole Fed.”

Sheryl covered her mouth with her hand, muffling her gasp at your apparent audacity.

“Sorry,” you apologized, though the apology was clearly addressed to Sheryl and not to Reid, “That’s the fucking Fed.”

Reid shook off the insult. Missy and Frank both frowned. The former leaned towards you, whispering in your ear (though Reid could still hear her.)

“That’s not what you said last week.”

You rolled your eyes and gestured at the hallway, towards the exit, “Come on, guys. Let’s go.”

“(Y/N), if someone on the property is a threat to you-”

You turned on him, eyes flashing as your lips curled into a sneer, “If you tell me to call the fucking cops, I swear to god.”

Reid paused, trying to pretend he wasn’t about to suggest that exact thing, “I- I was going to ask if I could walk you out.”

Frank looked unimpressed, unsure if Reid could actually do anything against a threat. Missy seemed more sure of his skills. You wanted Reid to fuck off.

“I have a taser.”

Missy leaned forward towards you. She nudged your arm and whispered, “Hey, safety in numbers.” Again, her voice was loud enough for Reid to hear.

You sighed, shutting your eyes and groaning out a, “Fine. He can come.”

Missy smiled at Reid, and he gave her one of those awkward closed-lip grins in return. You were not charmed by this, but Missy was- at least a little bit.

You headed down the hallway, not stopping to wait for the others until you got to the front door. When you looked out into the parking lot, you couldn’t see Jason’s car. That didn’t mean he wasn’t waiting out there.

You nodded at Sheryl as she returned to the front desk before looking back at the group. Missy had tucked herself between Reid and Frank- and you couldn’t blame her, honestly. Her asshole ex was out there, and Frank was buff as hell, and Reid was, at the very least, tall. You couldn’t stand Reid right now, but you knew, at the very least, that he would try to keep Missy safe.

The trip to your car was uneventful. Missy and Frank slid into the back seat. You and Reid were left standing outside the vehicle, exposed and in the open.

You didn’t look at each other. As you reached for the door handle, Reid stopped you, opening his stupid mouth again.

“I’m sorry.”

You kept your eyes on the car, “I know.”

“I was wrong.”

“I know.”

He paused. Silence fell. You coughed.

“Can I have my mugs back?”

“Go fuck yourself.”

“Okay.”

Missy pushed open her car door. She said nothing, but she did give you a pointed look. You visibly sighed, slumping over the driver’s side door until your chin could rest on the roof.

“Fine,” you hissed, “Come to my office if you want them back. End of the day. Don’t come a minute sooner or I’ll stab you to death with mug shards.”

“Understood.”

“Good.”

You pulled over your car door. He told you to drive safely. You wanted to drive over him. You didn’t. You drove out of the parking lot and down the street in silence.

Behind you, Frank let out a long, slow whistle.

“So,” Missy tapped her fingers against the window, “Your attitude towards him changed.”

“Did it? I didn’t notice.”

“It did, doc,” Frank picked up where Missy left off, “Last week you liked him.”

“I did not like him. I despised him.”

“No, you despise him now. Last week you were trying to get his attention.”

“I was not!” your cheeks caught fire, “If I wanted his attention I would have it.”

“Doc,” Missy laughed, “You do have his attention.”

And she wasn’t wrong. You certainly had the attention of one Spencer Reid.

♥ Tags: @icarusignite, @usuallyunlikelyfox, @maraudersforlife2005, @fictionalcomforts, @morgthemagpie

#spencer reid x reader #spencer reid x gn!reader #spencer reid x you #spencer reid x y/n #x reader #nightmare academia

112 notes · View notes

cars2-renaissance · 4 days

Text

So a while back, @little-red-irish-jaguar reblogged one of my posts with this devastating theory. The theory was that Leland sent Finn the transmission from Tony Trihull instead of the oil rigs. My first thought was to reject this theory because it went against my preconceptions that were so firmly rooted that my brain immediately sought to preserve them. However after rewatching the movie and studying the evidence, I can safely say that I was wrong. This theory tracks. And I will now write another essay to assess the evidence.

Firstly, the transmission itself: now it’s EXTREMELY hard to see shit in this video. The quality is god-awful and Leland never won any awards for videography. However this glorious angel on deviantart cleaned up some frames. (I’m not going to repost their art though since they don’t seem to be active in the fandom anymore and I don’t want to repost without permission. :/ ) but definitely go check it out!

So I’ll post the same shitty screenshots from the movie. Shoutout to veggieboy ultimate for uploading the opening scene on YouTube.

So there’s crates and metal reinforcements on the walls behind him. It does look like it could be on the oil rig.

Then he angles the camera to show this (port window?) like babygirl we can’t tell what that is… anyway it looks like a window of some sort and there fire. Now. That looks an awful lot like a round ship’s window.

Finally we get this weirdass shot of the ceiling? Again it’s very hard to tell what this is but it’s some sort of mechanical bay door that is closing.

Like it could be that? Tony does have cargo bay doors and that could be what we’re seeing.

Now the icing on top are these pieces of concept art from the Pixar website. That window porthole is drawn without all the overexposure and it looks just like the flair stacks from the oil rigs. And that’s why Leland is trying to get it in frame to show Finn. He’s seen the oil rigs from the ship. But that’s the last we see of him.

Next, we see Finn hightailing it out there to the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Here’s the kicker, the coordinates Leland gives Finn do not take him to the oil rigs.

(And for my even shittier stills) Crabby takes him to the coordinates and is like lol okay here we are! There’s lot of water!!

Now this always confused me as a kid. Was Crabby off with the coordinates? Did he stop too soon? But then if Leland sent the coordinates from Tony Trihull, it makes sense why those coordinates would lead to open water and not the oil rigs. The oil rigs may not be at those coordinates…

but he sure is: the ship Leland sent the coordinates from.

Next we see Finn by the loading dock and he comms Leland to let him know he’s there. Now this threw me off. Finn tells him he’s at the rally point but he’s not at the coordinates Leland sent him. I guess he figured this is where Leland ended up? (I mean he wasn’t wrong, unfortunately.)

Then we see the professor. He’s there because of the camera which they’re loading onto the ship because they’re about to sail to Japan because of the race. But they’re also unloading crates from the ship and it’s one of those crates that Leland’s body is in. He’s being unloaded from the ship which is where he was likely murdered.

As for my finishing thoughts. There’s a lot to unpack here. Leland never made it to the oil rigs alive which is a tragedy of its own that he died before he got to see what he’d discovered up close.

He had a lot of faith in Finn to be able to find him from coordinates he sent from a boat. And that faith was well founded. Finn did in fact find him albeit too late.

Since he wasn’t on the ship at the time, Professor Z was not the one who killed Leland (though he may have ordered him killed) it was likely Acer and Grem who killed him—which makes sense since they seem to be the more sadistic of the lemons in later scenes—but I still hate Zundapp just because he was involved in it!

And Finn did in fact get his revenge at the end of the movie in London when he blew Tony Trihull to smithereens. (I’d add the screenshot but I’m at my 10 image limit already XD)

#cars 2 headcanons #cars 2 meta #leland turbo #finn mcmissile #tony trihull #professor zundapp #cars 2 (2011)#cars 2 #cars fandom #cars2renaissance

25 notes · View notes

dykedvonte · 2 months

Note

benny was also like incredibly abusive to yes man and kept him trapped in that shitty side room. it’s no wonder yes man genuinely loves the courier regardless of if they make decisions he likes or not after being liberated from benny. courier must be an angel to him

I think incredibly abusive is a bit much.

Like Benny was not kind to Yes-Man but he was not particularly cruel. If Yea-Man was let out of the room then anyone could’ve asked him anything and outed the plan, leading to him and Benny being exiled at best or killed (permanently in Yes-Mans case) at worse. Yeah, it was Benny’s fault he was like this but it was probably the only fail safe to keep House’s systems from tapping into Yes-Man, by giving him no code to reject commands the only way to influence him would be in person. House can’t do that.

Also liberated makes it sound like you are treating Yes-Man like an equal when you’re just treating him slightly better than most would treat a personalized Mr. Handy bot. Benny isn’t nice to him, didn’t give him a real name, but he definitely loved Yes-Man, more like a science project but that was his thing y’know? Robots with personalities like him that aren’t common in the Mojave and are considered odd. Benny already did a lot more than someone who’d just mistreat his creation by allowing him to be passive-aggressive in the first place. He let Yes-Man think which a big step from most AI programs in the Mojave.

I think the issue is Yes-Man genuinely appreciates the Courier for getting the plan in motion but that wasn’t a lack of Benny. He had completely different circumstances than the Courier that didn’t allow him to be as bold. Yes-Man learns to love the Courier because they come to rule Vegas and he sees them as competent and the next logical leader now that Benny is no longer his primary overseer.

Honestly the Courier and Yes-Man are closer to a exclusive business partnership by the end of the independent route if we go by the general answers. The Courier can be as nice or as mean to Yes-Man as they want and Yes-Man does not see the Courier as flawless or an angel just the next logical step in a plan. Of course, depending on what you do or headcanon, their relationship can be much more complex than that but on a even ground between all of the options, Yes-Man and the Courier are means to an end to each other.

A popular theory before New Vegas had the current fandom it did and developer commentary was that Yes-Man was going to betray you at the end of the independent route. Lying that he’d just upgrade himself to only listen to you so you wouldn’t stop him. Some people still follow it despite it being debunked while other love the idea he genuinely only wants to listen to you.

It’s all up to interpretation my dear. I personally don’t think Benny was cruel to Yes-Man not more than he is to another Chairman. He’s a robot, of course, to Benny and that has its own connotations on how he was treated but I digress. The Courier is far from an angel or saint to anyone but I do like the idea that there’s a fondness from Yes-Man. Lee so how they can be so illogically efficient rather than what they’ve done fore him.

#yes man is also oddly violent and I love it that he probably is revved up about you letting him kill things #but again it’s complicating and I see to see everything from a truly objective lens from all parties #cause we don’t know how Benny treated Yes Man outside his program and his rather positive comments on the securitron #Yes Man cannot just roam like Victor can and I’d say how house treats Victor and his girl bot are much more abusive #speaking of interpretation I need to make a post about Boone and the military industrial complex cause I feel like too many people are #missing the point of his character and quest like he’s been groomed and abused by the military industrial complex and he’s only like 26 #he’s been there for years he’s not innocent but please in need a nuanced take on him that isn’t just he should’ve known better #I’ll get on that eventually #fallout #fallout new vegas #benny gecko #benny fnv #courier six #the courier #yes man fnv #ask #anon

17 notes · View notes

tragedy-peanut-gallery · 12 days

Note

any headcanons about daeron ii's and myriah's sons?

WAUGGHHH YEESSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They’re probably gonna be a bit shorter than the girlies because…….. I hate men I guess /j

Baelor:

- Surprisingly the most normal of Daeron and Myriah’s kids even though the pressure placed on him since birth must’ve been I N S A N E. Probably would’ve snapped at some point if the brown haired gene didn’t come in clutch and neutralize the crazy in him

- And even tho canon tries to imply him having brown hair and a broken nose doesn’t make him as pretty as the other targs……… ignore them king, I KNOW there were probably hundreds of people writing some crazy rpf about this man!!1!1!!

- I also like to think he, Daemon and Daenerys were pretty close as kids. Like, yahhh ik their relationship probably rotted because Baelor was meant to feel inferior to Daemon and vice versa for differing reasons but…. Maybe I wanna make myself cry a bit. Maybe I wanna imagine them playing knights and dragons and stuff 🥲

- Definitely cared for Maekar a lot as his baby brother but also had a lot of trouble not seeing him as anything as his baby brother whichhhh….. probably made him come off as condescending a little okay he’s trying his best

Aerys:

- Asexual AND autistic, sorry I don’t make the rules and I’m not projecting onto him I swear don’t listen to what anyone else may tell you I-

- And the thing is, I’m sure he would’ve absolutely pulled a Vaegon if he could’ve, but honourably decided to stay behind for the sake of securing political allies for the throne (the citadel rejected his application because he cited his only strength as “reading”)

- Poor dude probably had some absolutely shitty sight due to eye strain, reading by candlelight in the dark is all fine and dandy until that becomes the only thing you do

- Ngl probably the biggest social outcast out of his brothers, I think the primary reason he trusted Brynden to handle everything when he became king was because he didn’t have that many friends/allies outside of Aelinor (not a big politics person), Shiera (witch girlie and also Brynden’s kinda gf) and Brynden himself so he was willing to go with whatever they wanted within reason

- Mans has no canonical death despite being a king so I’m personally gonna diagnose him with….. tetanus via iron throne in one of the few times he actually bothered to do king things

Rhaegel:

- I kinda like to think he was an artistic guy, really loved painting and drawing and probably would’ve tried out other mediums like pottery, embroidery and weaving if people didn’t stop him from doing so <3

- Probably dressed a lot more simply as an adult because he hated most fabric textures. Velvet and wool were his least favourites but tbh the only thing he could wear without getting fidgety in ten minutes would be cotton

- Also really hated when people touch his hair ngl! Dude has that really pretty targ men hair gene where it’s really long and flowy but that’s because he doesn’t like cutting it

- Okay tbh I like him but I don’t have that many thoughts on the guy 💀 I like to headcanon he drew a lot of dragons as kids and really liked telling his family what their dragons would look like and what he should name them and all that. His dragon would be light purple with red wings and gold horns and he’d call her Myrri after his mom :)))

Maekar:

- Absolutely the tallest and most athletic out of his brothers but absolutelyyyy suffering from an inferiority complex. No it doesn’t get any better when Baelor dies, if anything it gets much worse :(

- Had an unfortunate habit of getting people to dislike him, not completely his fault tho a lot of folks were just predisposed to thinking him to be kinda intimidating!!!

- Didn’t have a favourite with his kids, but Rhae was absolutely his baby because she was a lot like him when he was little in both looks and attitude lol

- Feeling a little angsty so I’m gonna say he had some memorabilia of Dyanna that he’d keep with him at all times. Like maybe a bit of her hair in a locket, or a portrait he’d keep in his room 🥲

#disclaimer again that these are purely headcanons!! I don’t expect anyone to care but this is my disclaimer now!!!!#asoiaf #baelor breakspear #aerys i targaryen #rhaegel targaryen #maekar targaryen

10 notes · View notes

vldsideblog · 6 months

Text

vld x pjo au chapter 1

okay, there probably a few typos, but I want to put this here before I put it onto ao3. I also don’t have a title for this au so it won’t be on ao3 till I think of one anyway. Enjoy. it’s a long post, about 3000 words

Shiro was tired. He was tired of feeling alone, he was tired of his low paying job, he was tired of the price of his favorite gas station drink always rising.

The Arizona tea in his left hand was cold against the knit fabric of his gloves, the chill seeping in. He took another swig as he traced his steps from the bus stop back to his apartment. His living space was small, the walls were thin and the heating system barely worked. But Shiro knew it was all he could afford.

He was lucky that he could afford an apartment in his situation.

Not even three months ago his grandmother, his last living family member, had passed. It was a bad fall, no one had expected it. And Shiro was left alone. An eighteen year old who only just finished highschool.

He’d planned on taking a gap year, but with how things were going for him, he severely doubted he’d even be able to attend college. So much for astrophysics.

So he was stuck in a shitty job, in an average town, with a not so average life. Because ever since he was a kid Shiro was fighting for his life, and not in the metaphorical sense. No. In the ‘wild and absurd monsters keep attacking me at random and the only thing that seems to kill them is a baseball bat I found in a parking lot’ kind of way.

And Shiro was exhausted.

Working for a gym definitely hadn't been his first choice of jobs, the floor and air were always sticky with sweat, and he had to wake up early as sin to be on time for his morning shift. But it paid the bills, kinda. Last month he’d also had to pick up a job at a local coffeehouse, with all the college kids studying for their lives, the place was open 24/7. So Shiro worked the night shift. He barely slept anymore due to his schedule.

So he was overworked and miserable, one of the only bright spots in his day being the Arizona tea he bought himself on his way home from the gym. Even as its price hiked over one dollar (a true crime) The sidewalk beneath his sensible hiking boots was slick with wet leaves. It had rained that week, unusual for the area, but appreciated nonetheless. Even if it made things more cold and sad.

Shiro glanced up at the overcast sky, it looked strange. As if he was staring through a warped glass. He could almost swear he saw a misty horse in the clouds.

Either the sleep deprivation was finally catching up to him, or there were more monsters on his tail. It had been a few weeks since he was backed into an alley by a very angry boar. It had taken an hour and a lot of trying to climb dumpsters and apartment buildings to get rid of the thing. Like all monsters he’d encountered, it disappeared into golden dust once he slayed it.

Shiro really hoped it was sleep deprivation. He didn’t have time to fight for his life today. He only had so long to rest before his part of the night shift at the coffeehouse. And he needed the rest.

So he ignored the strange clouds and continued his walk home. He unlocked his rickety door and set down his backpack, content to sleep until his next alarm went off. Shiro finished off his drink and face planted into bed, his muscles screaming at him for daring to use them. Content to ignore the compression brace on his knee, it would hurt when he woke but he didn't care enough to remove it at that moment.

Maybe the slight thrumming in his skull would be gone when he woke up, he was much too tired to scrounge around for headache medicine, he only had so long to sleep before his next shift.

Something was growling into the cold air around Shiro. A fur covered creature of some kind stood in front of his collapsed body. Shiro’s palms were stinging painfully, but he wasn't sure why. He wasn't sure of a lot of things actually.

Like why he was in a dead end alleyway, or why he was on the ground, only propped slightly by the trash bag he was leaned against. ‘Gross, I just showered too.’’

Or why a cloaked figure stood just yards away, purple mist surrounding them, only illuminated by a flickering street light, and the moo. A nails on chalkboard laugh ringing into the night. A dread creeping into his gut.

But what Shiro was most confused about was why the strange creature seemed to be protecting him. It stood a bit over two feet tall, matted tail swinging slowly behind it like a warning. He could tell now that the growling was coming from this animal, and it was directed at the hooded figure.

Only then did Shiro realize the cement below the creature was pooling with red liquid. Blood.

And as the creature lunged forward with a cry, the hooded figure disappeared in a cloud of purple mist. Something Shiro couldn't understand escaping their lips.

He woke with a start, a light coat of sweat sticking to his skin.

He was used to strange dreams, but they only came so often. And tended to prophesize his near future. Once as a child he’d had a dream about lightning flickering in the skies above him. One week later he was struck out of the blue, not a cloud in sight. It was a miracle he survived, and in some kind of medical phenomena, he had almost no lasting damage. The only things he carried from the incident were; a staticy feeling in his body when a storm was near, and the Lichtenberg figure scars arching down his back from the impact spot, only stopping when his spine ended.

So when Shiro had strange dreams, he paid attention to them. As best he could at least, as he only remembered his dreams for so long, rediscovering them only after whatever future he’d glimpsed had happened. So he tended to have a strong sense of deja vu with his life threatening predicaments.

Due to his tired overworked brain, he rarely thought to write his dreams down, truly a testament to the fact that his brain was not fully developed.

So Shiro, sticky with unsettling dream related sweat, turned over in his creaky twin sized bed and closed his eyes, determined to rest until his alarm startled him out of his skin with the first few notes of The Black Parade, (after all a emo phase never truly leaves a person.)

Unfortunately for his dreams of proper fulfilling rest, the sun was hitting the point in its journey across the sky where its blinding rays hit him right in the fucking eyes. No matter how he shifted and squirmed in his sheets he couldn't escape the reminder that he was trying to sleep through the day because he worked the night shift at a coffee house filled with stress ridden collage kids. It was a depressing thought.

So, Shiro kicked off his blanket and rubbed a hand over his tired eyes, trying to erase the sleepiness. He was determined to make it through the day, whatever purple mist and cackling ladies had to say about it. He pushed himself up and set his feet on the floor, hanging his head in exhaustion.

He hobbled his tired bones over to the small kitchen counter of his one bedroom apartment and set a kettle on the stove. Ever since eighth grade he’d been drinking a cup of tea when he woke up, a habit his grandparents had instilled in him. What they didn't need to know was that he was drinking highly caffeinated black tea and not even bothering to remove the teabag after it finished steeping. Or that half the time he didn't even bother with the kettle and straight up microwaved a mug of water.

But thankfully or not they weren't alive to receive that information. But if they had been buried Shiro was sure they’d be rolling in their graves. He smiled a little at that thought, though the grief was still fresh in his gut.

While he sat on the counter reminiscing, the kettle began to whistle and Shiro switched off the stove, watching the steam rise when he poured the boiling water into a mug. A black cat print on a white base, the cat was shooting rainbow lasers out of his eyes. His grandmother had gifted it to him after he came out. He'd always thought it was funny.

A lump formed in his throat as he thought about the good times when his grandparents, his family, were alive. But he shook his head, he didn't have the time to be upset. He was a fully functioning member of society, or at least that's what he told himself to get through the day.

After a bowl of three day old miso soup, and a couple hours watching youtube videos to pass the little spare time he had before work Shiro straightened his wrinkled after nap outfit and slipped his shoes back on. His knee brace was starting to hurt, the leg hairs trapped beneath causing the skin to feel irritated and sore. So Shiro picked at the velcro and tore the thing off, rubbing a hand over his hurting leg, it felt like shit. He really shouldn’t of fallen asleep with it on, much less left it on afterwards. But he was sure it wouldn't be the last time.

Fortunately his headache seemed to have gone away, a break of luck in his shitty last few months. He would take whatever he could get. Besides, he probably had very little headache medicine left, and a trip to the store would only be a hassle for his very little freetime.

But after collecting his things and tucking his knee brace into his backpack, Shiro grabbed his keyring and headed out the door, just in time to catch his bus.

It was still cold and overcast when Shiro stepped out at the bus stop, the bus driving off behind him. The streets were alight with numerous glowing bulbs and small shops getting ready to close at nine. He was ten minutes early as usual, needing the time to clock in and ready himself for the eight hour shift ahead of him.

The clouds were still rolling and warping above, strange shapes forming then quickly dissipating. It was unusual, but once again he chose to ignore the strangeness, if he had to fight tonight he didn't have much choice in the matter. But it would probably be advisable to do it after he got his paycheck.

The Night Owl was warm and welcoming, something Shiro always enjoyed about the small shop. Dim lights hung from the ceiling, mismatched tables and chairs taking up the majority of the floor space. College students were typing away at their laptops greasy hair pulled back into ponytails and stuffed underneath beanies. The smell of coffee engulfed the room, warm and highly caffeinated.

Shiro quietly traded out with a coworker and stored his things away for the night. It was slow, not many people coming in or out. He tried looking busy, slowly washing the few empty cups and plates while his nightshift buddy wiped down a used table.

The ambient music coming from the few speakers in the shop, lulling him into a trance only interrupted by the occasional customer. It was around 2:00 am when something interesting finally happened.

He was making a hot black coffee when someone stepped up to the counter, it took a moment to realize that the person was there. He was short with a mop of tangled black hair and dark eyes the same black brown as Shiro’s own. Three pink scars etched into his cheek, they looked like claw marks, they must’ve hurt like hell. He was young, definitely not older than thirteen, Shiro wondered why a kid was allowed out alone so late, but he wasn't in any position to ask personal questions.

“So, what do you want, kid?” Shiro said not unkindly. A still nagging voice in his head concerned for the child.

“How much does water cost?”

“Twenty five cents,”

“Cool,” The kid dug a gloved hand into the inside pocket of his too big cropped leather jacket. He pulled two out quarters and put one back, it didn't make a clink. He carefully put the coin on the counter, and Shiro felt bad as he put it in the register. From context clues he could guess this was the kid’s only money and he didn't feel great taking it. But it was his job.

“Can I get a name for your order?”

“Uh,” he stumbled a bit. “Keith.”

Weird.

“Okay, thank you. It’ll be out for you soon.” Shiro returned to his coffee making while Keith walked away and took a chair in the corner, his back to the wall as he pulled a book out of the ratty backpack he'd placed on the floor next to him.

Shiro set the finished mug of coffee for his previous customer and called out, “Black coffee for Kayta.” Not waiting for the girl to collect her beverage before he walked into the back room to grab another clear water cup.

Shiro was, to say the least, concerned. A young kid, alone, in the cold city. He had to do something, right? Like, ask if he had a place to stay tonight, no you idiot, if that were the case he wouldn't be in a coffee shop at three in the morning.

Maybe Shiro could give him some money. What money? You can barely afford rent.

Shiro sat down on a crate in the back, the plastic cup in hand, thinking over his decision. His conscience wouldn't let him rest if he ignored this situation right in front of him. His eyes veered to the stock of teabags in a box. I could make him some warm tea, and maybe some food! My manager didn't bother to show up! I can sneak him something. Hell yeah, now that's an idea!

Shiro, now fully ignoring the fact that he could be fired if found out for stealing, began to dig around in the refrigerator for some tamales he could microwave. After choosing his selection of pork tamales and a bag of mandarin spice tea he scooted back to the kitchen to prepare it.

With plate in one hand and his other juggling a mug of tea and a plastic cup of water, Shiro maneuvered through the assorted tables and chairs. The low lighting was making it kind of difficult to avoid tripping on the random charging chords strewn on the floor, but he continued forward. Keith was curled up in his armchair, holding what seemed to be a copy of ‘Werewolves & Other Creatures of the Night.’ an interesting choice Shrio thought. But he was reading shitty vampire romances at around that age so he couldn't judge.

He made the last few steps and made a coughing noise to get Keith’s attention.

“I know you only ordered water, but honestly you seem kinda down on your luck and it's cold outside….” There was a very awkward pause as Keith looked up at him with dark quizzical eyes. “So uh, here. Tamales and some warm tea, also that water you ordered.” Shiro placed the food and drink on the table next to Keith’s chair and stepped back.

“Why?” Keith took hold of his water glass and held it between his hands.

“Cause’ it's fifty degrees outside and you're what eleven?” Shiro said.

“I’m twelve actually,” His face was blank. “Thank you though.”

Shiro smiled in relief. He was able to help the kid somehow at least. “No problem kid, take care.” Shiro nodded his head in acknowledgement and turned back to his job. Keith was in his seat peeling back the husks around his tamales fork at the ready.

The rest of Shiro’s night was uneventful, Keith was still in his chair when he left to catch his bus home. After a forty five minute power nap and another bowl of leftover soup Shiro put his knee brace back on and began to journey to the gym.

The strange clouds were still in the sky, and he once again chose to blame it on the sleep deprivation catching up to him.

He didn’t have time for life threatening emergencies.

That plan went to shit only three days later.

It was Sunday, the one day Shiro had off from work. He’d decided to walk to the nearby grocery store to buy the next week's groceries. It was still cold and cloudy, but the wind had picked up on his way home, and in the sky were flashes of light setting the dim streets alight momentarily.

His hands were cold in their thin gloves, the bags of food straining at his aching fingers. The wind was pushing against his back, almost throwing him to the sidewalk below multiple times. Strangely enough there was no one else on the road. Shiro was the only witness to the strange laughter emanating from the sky. He’d only heard that sound once in his life. On his eleventh birthday, when hot white fire struck him from the heavens.

He’d always thought it must've been the medicine, that's what his grandparents had always told him. But as the wind pushed him towards an alley, and the sky cackled at him, he understood he had lived this before. Something was in the storm, and he had met it before. And he would meet it again very soon.

Something in his breath caught as he tried to wrench away from the tide he’d been caught in, but he couldn't escape. His eyes darted all around, still no one walked the streets. No cars passed by. He was alone.

His body began to freeze, a deep chill climbing his limbs, sinking into his chest. It hurt like needles, like the countless days he spent in pain from an illness doctors didn't understand. And he couldn't scream in pain as he lost the ability to move. His bags of groceries fell to the ground as he was dragged into the secluded alley. A purple haze began to envelope him. The lightning still flickered in the sky, briefly lighting a hunched cloaked figure.

They had an outstretched hand as air beckoning to him, he had a good feeling they were the cause of all this.

“All alone, halfblood?” It was a woman's voice, hoarse and crackly. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you for some time now.”

What the fuck, ‘halfblood’ ‘watching me’?!

“You seem lonely,” The woman tilted her head, talking down to him as if he were a child. “I’m surprised you’re still alive. You must be very strong to make it this far.”

Shiro didn't feel strong.

“I could mold you into something much greater, a hero even. You won't have to feel so alone if you listen to me.” She waved her hands and his right arm regained its independence, “You just have to take my hand Takashi, I promise you will be great.” Beneath her hood Shiro could see her too white teeth, there was blood stuck to her gums, he felt sick.

Why on earth would I make such a deal, I know nothing about this lady, and she's not giving me any information. Besides, what care do I have for being a hero? I just want to survive.

Shiro didn’t move his fist to shake her’s, stubbornly keeping it still as if still frozen.

“Ah, not convinced? I thought you were smarter, young halfblood.”

That word again ‘halfblood’. What does it mean?

“Not to worry, I’ll help you regardless.” Her grin somehow grew wider. She stretched her arm out, just about to grasp his hand when an ear-splitting howl broke the silence.

The clouds parted, making way for the full moon to light the alleyway. In the corner of Shiro’s vision he saw a reddish doglike creature. It lunged towards the woman and the purple mist let go of him, tossing him to the pavement.

All of the sudden he remembered his dream from days ago. And Shiro groaned to himself. It always had to be him didn't it?

#can’t believe it #I got the first chapter done.#please take a chance on this au #it means the world to me #vld #voltron #voltron legendary defender #keith kogane #keith voltron #broganes #shirogane takashi #fanfic #vld x pjo au #I don’t think I need to tag this with any trigger warnings #but let me know if I need to

14 notes · View notes

kitkatt0430 · 2 months

Text

Haven't done this in a while, but HOPPY EASTER everyone, here have an Easter gift of villains being villainous in a villains win story.

The obvious solution to save Dante seemed to be to make sure he was sent somewhere far, far away. Which Savitar cheerfully agreed to. “I know a few realities we could drop him off on where he’d be relatively safe. Live out a normal human life, only have to worry about the normal human problems. Cars are dangerous and so is walking down the stairs if you trip. Hell, bad run in with a vacuum cleaner and next thing you know you’re going in for MRIs and knee surgery.” “Do you ever shut up?” Reverb muttered in irritation. If he’d asked Zoom something like that? Vibrating hand through the chest, immediately. Savitar just laughed.

Savitar is a bit of a talkative and sarcastic little shit in this one, but once Reverb gets more comfortable around him the banter will be much more two-sided. (This is totally villain flirting, right?)

But it's not just villains being villainous around here. From the Eobard-is-the-shitty-ex fic for Barry/Cisco/Hartley...

“I let Eobard convince me you were a lying brat and by the time I realized he’d been playing me…” Cisco hesitated. “I’m sorry, Hartley. I should have listened to you.” “And maybe if I hadn’t been an easily flattered idiot, I would have realized what he was really up to and turned him in with proof before things got too far.” Hartley heaved a sigh. “Maybe I could have stopped him before he ever had the chance to hurt either of you.” “Him using you… using all of us… that’s not any of our faults,” Barry said. And, for the first time, he might even believe it.

The only reason Barry can pull out of his own guilt complex? He feels the need to help Cisco and Hartley pull out of theirs. Right now they're sitting outside the building where a long hearing over Eobard's actions just took place and old grievances are being aired and reviewed. So it's been a long, hard day for all three of them, having to give testimony on their relationships with Eobard at some point during the process. But the hearing was entirely off screen, because I didn't want to have to research the actual process of investigating these kinds of allegations. Just move on to these three bonding, shall we?

Tommy is having to deal with a lot of obnoxious Queen family nonsense in the Ep3 rewrite for my Arrow Redux series. Including Oliver teasing him a little over wearing some of his mom's things as a kid. Though, to be fair, there's definitely the impression afterwards that Oliver liked getting to see Tommy in those things...

“We were, what… twelve? Thirteen.” “Ollie, do not.” “And we found your mom’s old stuff in the attic…” Tommy sighed. “I looked good in the tiara and heels, shut up.” Dig chuckled softly. “You must have missed her a lot,” he offered, looking amused by their antics. “I did. I still do. I have most of her things squirreled away in storage, actually,” he said with an amused smile. “And I do still look good in the tiara and heels,” he added with a smirk, just to see how that would get taken.

I've still got about... a third of the episode left to go? And then I can run cleanup on the fic. I'm also using this scene to set up an event taking place between episodes 6 & 7 as I'm trying to use the airdates of episodes as guidelines for approximately when the events within them occur and Tommy is going to be participating in an annual charity auction for an LGBT+ cause. A date auction, of course. ;)

Instead of trying to fit that into an episode rewrite, I'll probably just include it as it's own separate fic between those two rewrites.

#six sentence sunday #the flash #arrow #fanfiction #savitar #reverb #savitar x reverb #barry allen #cisco ramon #hartley rathaway #barry x cisco x hartley #tommy merlyn #oliver queen #john diggle #tommy x oliver

7 notes · View notes

foxymoxynoona · 2 years

Text

Lone Blue Egg (Pt 2)

Header and banners by the talented @awrkives

Summary: Jungkook is a simple man. He goes to work, he hangs out with friends, he worries about finding a mate to take home for his hometown breeding season. Maybe he spends a little more money on cam girls than is fiscally responsible but he has niche tastes. Maybe he feels a bit adrift, but he's a young penguin hybrid, supposedly in his prime, far from his crèche. At least he's good at one thing: taking care of his precious egg. A comfort egg, not a real egg, he's not a real penguin, just a man with penguin DNA and behavioral tendencies. Just like Yoongi isn't actually an owl, even if he does stay up all night and sometimes hoot to fuck with their roommates. But this is a real love story, even if a slightly odd one.

Penguin Hybrid Jungkook x Bird Female OC Book 1 in the Birdtan Series

CW/TAGS: humor, drama, angst, cringe, explicit sex, toy play/toy uh obsession?, oviposition, ice cubes, porn, cam girls and masturbation, oral (both), edging, semi-public shenanigans, mammoth condoms, specism, language, theft

Read on AO3 or below

Previous | MASTERLIST | NEXT

Jungkook hadn’t wanted to wait for the bus, so he just walked to work again. The weather was cooling off and people wore bulky coats and bulky backpacks and then turned around on the bus, thumping the people around them. He didn’t mind being packed in like vacuum sealed pillows ready for shipping, but he disliked the stress knowing his stop was coming up and he’d have to body his way through the waddle --but not too soon, because it was just as shitty to be one of the people by the doors, having to press and push inwards when the doors opened so as not to get shoved off the edge.

Anyway, Jungkook liked the cold. He liked the burning tingle in his nose and ears, though the morning sun was warm so that only started when he was just about there. He liked the rush of cool when he’d stretch the neck of his sweater or unzip his coat. He liked the way a shudder ran collectively through the people on the sidewalk when the wind blew. They were still a month away from snow, but he liked that too.

He sang quietly to himself as he walked. No headphones in, but Yoongi had been composing something soul-hauntingly beautiful last night, and Jungkook had lain in bed and made up words for it. He looked forward to that orchestra performance, not only for an evening packed into an auditorium for beautiful music but also because he was hopeful he’d have a date to take. Two women had started talking to him on Dive. They thought he was hot and he thought they were hot, which was a good start. One of them thought he was funny too. He hadn’t been trying to be funny but hey, he’d take it because she was a Blue Penguin. He didn’t usually have luck finding penguins at all on Dive. He wasn’t exactly the ideal body type for penguin women on an app all about making superficial snap judgements, and granted he really wanted to meet Emperor penguins like himself, but maybe he was being too picky? That’s what Taehyung had said. Open yourself up to meeting someone you didn’t expect to like.

Right, because Taehyung was the expert. Though, granted, of the four of them… he definitely had the most luck with women. He was comfortable with them. The rest of them were fucking disasters at the first sign a woman could be interested. As much as Jungkook would like to say that at least Yoongi was cool, when a particular owl woman dropped their packages off Yoongi practically drive-bombed down the staircase to get away from her. And then tried to insist that was normal and cool and she was probably used to that, as a beautiful owl. Uh-huh.

Jungkook squeezed his hand around his blue egg, tucked safely into the big pocket of his coat. His nose might be an ice cube but his egg retained the heat of his palm and returned it. Mutual benefit. That was the kind of relationship Jungkook wanted with anyone in his life. Partnership in everything. He remembered Taehyung once teasing, asking if the final test for courtship would be him letting a potential mate take his egg for a while --to which Jungkook had pointed out that male emperor penguins did all the incubating and so it wouldn’t be fair to expert her to know anything about that… before realizing he sounded like a crazy person. It wasn’t like he thought the egg had a baby inside it. It wasn’t like he thought his mate would lay an egg he had to keep bundled against a brood pouch with his feet. It was just one of those things… yeah. He didn’t owe anyone an explanation. It was just one of those things!

The irony of seeing that woman at the exact moment he recalled she had said that to him (“It’s just one of those thing, huh?”) stunned him. He hadn’t seen her since the day she’d returned the egg a couple weeks ago, not even when he’d kept an eye out for her the next few days in order to give her a better thank you than he’d been able to answer in the height of his emotions.

Now, there she was, disrupting the flow of foot traffic right in the middle of the sidewalk. She gestured wildly, and only belatedly did Jungkook realize over the music in his head that she and a man were shouting at each other. The man, clearly the owner of the kiosk in the grassy space between the curb and buildings, towered over her and looked furious, but she shouted right back at him.

“I didn’t take your stupid fucking muffin!” she yelled. “Why would I want that gutter trash? Your coffee tastes like piss! It probably is piss!”

“You pinchy little piss-thief!” he shouted back at her. “How dare you steal from me? Three days this month! You think I don’t notice you taking my muffins? I know they’re good--

“I don’t have your muffin! Where? Where do I have your muffin? Up my asshole? You think I stole a whole cup of coffee?! This is harassment! This assault!”

The long line of people waiting were starting to look shifty, like they’d better leave. The man was going to lose all his business this way, regardless of what the woman had done.

“You took it! I don’t know how but you fucking stole a cup of coffee!” he shouted. “This thieving magpie--”

“Fuck you!”

She turned to go but the man grabbed her arm. She yelled. And Jungkook felt a spasm in his stomach. That wasn’t ok, to just grab her like that. Especially… well, did the kiosk owner really think she’d stolen a cup of coffee? She was standing right there without a cup in her hands… He was a big man, he might really hurt her; her coat wasn’t that thick and so she didn’t even look puffy. He owed the woman a thank you anyway.

“Hey!” Jungkook called, diving quickly forward. “Hey, hi, sorry.”

“Jungkook,” the woman greeted, clearly surprised to see him.

The owner immediately rounded on him, “You know this bitch?!”

Jungkook stood tall, to his full height, and pushed his chest out to look as strong as possible. Maybe he wasn’t the tallest guy on the street, but he’d developed a gym habit when he was young and lonely and bullied and that continued to this day, with visits to the one down the street three to four mornings a week. Granted, he’d hoped to bulk up, to at least create the illusion of a big warm body with muscle since he’d never been able to pack on the warm fat penguin women wanted no matter how much he ate… he still wasn’t that big but the muscles did give him some bulk. The shop owner had a few inches on him, but he was big and slow and older, and sizing Jungkook up now.

“What did you just say?” Jungkook asked. Honestly he wasn’t sure how to sound threatening but hoped that was enough. Less was probably more.

The man hesitated, then cried, “She steals! Your girlfriend here steals from me, all the time, and today I catch her! Red-handed!”

“You can’t catch something I didn’t do!” the woman shouted.

“If you caught her red-handed, shouldn’t she be holding the coffee?” Jungkook asked. “Where is she hiding it?”

“I saw her do it!”

“Where’s the coffee? If you saw her--”

“I don’t know!” the shop-owner shouted. “She made it disappear! One second it’s there, the next it isn’t, and it’s always her when a coffee or muffin goes missing! It’s not a coincidence!”

“Did anyone see me take something?” the woman demanded. “No! It’s a busy street! Someone would have seen it. You’re crazy, old man! You’re just shitty at business and blaming me --this is specism! Racism! Sexism!”

The man took a step towards her, and while Jungkook didn’t know if he’d actually meant it to be physical, he still stepped in between them. He was solid and the man basically bounced off of him. Jungkook didn’t even budge but the man was knocked back. Jungkook took a step forward, chest high.

“She… she stole from me!” the man said. “You’re in on it too!”

Further down the line, someone shouted, “Are we going to yell about this all day? I have work to get to!”

“Yeah! Just move it along!”

“I’m right here and I didn’t see her take anything,” someone else admitted.

“Because I didn’t!”

“We’re going,” Jungkook told the man, shoulders back and chin lifted. “Don’t bother her again.”

“Bother her? Bother her?!” the man shouted.

Jungkook put his hand on the woman’s arm to herd her ahead as she shouted over his shoulder, “That’s right, stuff your baseless accusation, you dumbass shitmouthed chickadee!” She patted Jungkook’s chest before allowing herself to be turned and walking alongside him. “Fuck, thank you so much! That fucking asshole was making such a scene. I really thought he was going to start swinging.”

They crossed the street, walking side by side as traffic waited, leaving the scene long behind. She bubbled and bounced, obviously still worked up. Truth be told, his adrenaline was pumping and though he seemed calm, inside his heart was pounding, because he thought the man was going to start swinging too. It had been years since Jungkook was in a fight, but he was tougher now, it wouldn’t be like it had been before. He could probably take down an old street vendor if he needed to. This man who’d stopped his business to scream at and grab a woman, accusing her of somehow magicking away a cup of coffee.

“He was keeping his customers waiting to fight with you,” Jungkook said. “Over a muffin and a coffee.”

“I know, right? Ridiculous!”

“He shouldn’t grab women on the street.”

“Yeah, he’s a total asshole,” she agreed. “But his muffins are the fucking best anywhere around here.” She let out a deep sigh… then held a muffin out to him. “Want some?”

Jungkook stopped walking and stared at the muffin a moment in absolute shock. She stopped walking too. Other commuters curved around them like a current around two boulders in the stream.

“What?” she asked.

His brow furrowed, “But…” But you said you didn’t steal the muffin… Her eyebrows raised, waiting. And she lifted a to-go cup of coffee to her lips. “What the fuck?!” he cried. “I… how did you-- but I defended you!” Fuck, this was what he got for sticking his neck out for someone!

“I know, shit, thank you so much,” she nodded. “I didn’t know you could be so intimidating! You got all, like, puffed up--”

“But you took the-- but I defended you!”

“Oh. You’re really mad.” She looked down at the coffee and the muffin and quickly put the muffin back in her jacket pocket. “Ok, look, you did me a big favor--”

“But you did steal the coffee and muffin!”

“It’s like three dollars!”

“You don’t have three dollars?”

“That’s not the point.”

“It’s the point,” he sighed and started walking again. Fuck. Now he felt like an asshole. That poor coffeeman, robbed, gaslit, and bullied down… FUCK.

“It’s not the point. He’s the kind of man who grabs a woman he doesn’t know because--”

“Who confronts a thief stealing things from his shop.”

“Ok. Look. It’s not a great habit but I’ve only done it to him a couple times and it’s really not a big deal, his coffee really is watery and--”

“But how did you steal a cup of coffee?!” he demanded, stopping and whirling on her. No. No, he didn’t have time for this, he didn’t want to associate with this. He passed that guy every day and now he’d feel like shit. Probably he’d give the guy the $3 tomorrow morning but he’d be mortified. He was an idiot.

“Look,” she sighed, “It’s just a… it’s just a thing. I’m not homeless or anything, it’s just a thing I can’t help,” she insisted. He wasn’t looking at her, but she was walking quickly to keep up with him, her legs moving almost twice as quickly. “It’s like you keeping that egg of yours warm.”

“It’s nothing like that,” Jungkook argued, immediately reaching into his pocket to reassure himself and his egg about this completely inaccurate comparison.

His egg was gone.

He stopped again, ignoring the apologies and grumbles as several people slammed into him. He barely moved at the impact as they stumbled around. His stomach plummeted. Had it fallen out of his pocket when he wrongly bodied away that old man–

The woman’s face twisted into something akin to embarrassment or apology as she pulled the egg out of her jacket pocket and handed it over.

“What the fuck!”

“Sorry!” she sighed as he snatched it out of her hand. “I thought the guy was going to swing at you. If you’d gotten into a fight, it might have fallen out of your pocket and gotten all scratched up so I was keeping it safe. It’s hard as a rock but it could still chip on the concrete--”

“It’s not yours. You can’t just-- just take things from people.”

“I’m sorry. I told you, I was just keeping it safe. I know it means a lot to you.”

“And if I’d fought that guy, it would be because you lied to both of us!”

“Right, so I didn’t want your egg to get broken.”

He let out a wordless groan and strode forward again. This woman was a menace. This woman was chaotic in a bad way. He had made a grave mistake.

“I would never hurt your egg,” she insisted, as if that was the problem right now. They reached their work building and Jungkook realized people were going to see them together. If she stole coffee and a muffin from a street cart, if she’s steal the egg of a penguin who’d literally just stupidly but nobly helped her, what would she steal from a big building like this?!

“So you just steal things? We are not the same,” he snapped. “You just take whatever--”

“Woah, hey. I don’t take anything important. I spend more time finding things for people but sometimes there’s--”

“My egg is important,” he said. “And you-- wait, did you steal my egg?”

“I gave it back right away. I told you, I was just making sure it didn’t--”

“No, before! You said you found it in the stairwell--”

Fuck, they were going to cause a scene in the lobby, and if there was anything Jungkook hated, it was scenes. Singling yourself out like that and attracting attention was stupid. He grabbed her arm to drag her to the side, but dropped it as soon as he realized the similarity to what the kiosk owner had done. He didn’t want to yell at her in the lobby, but his blood was starting to boil at the realization that she must have stolen his egg before, right? It didn’t make sense that he’d lost it. He would never just lose it!

She, meanwhile, sighed, “You’re overreacting. I didn’t realize you were so…”

“Honest?”

“Superior and uptight.”

“Wow,” he said, stunned into disbelief. “You steal from people and I--”

“I pinch. I pick. I find. I don’t steal.”

“Are you a magpie?” Jungkook repeated the earlier question. It meant nothing to him, other than he knew magpies stole things and liked shiny things, right? He’d heard that.

She looked aghast.

“No, I’m not a magpie,” she scoffed. “Wow. I thought you’d understand.”

“Based on what? We don’t know each other,” Jungkook said, loud on purpose.

The woman looked like she was going to say something but stopped herself. She actually clenched her fist and pursed her lips up, like a frustrated child, and she gave him this look, like he really had disappointed him. She looked like an angry toddler, hair haloed out from her scrunched up face.

“Fine. Bye, Jungkook.”

He didn’t even remember her name. And he’d saved her from something she’d actually done. What else did she expect from him? It was bullshit. What had she expected from him? They were strangers. And she had definitely stolen his egg… right? Even if he didn’t understand how or when because… well he still didn’t know where he was when it went missing, but it was too much of a coincidence if she’d found it in a stairwell when she was clearly an immoral kleptomaniac. Yeah, he didn’t care if he disappointed someone like that. Probably she got away with it all the time just because she was pretty, and that made him angry too. Maybe she was a cuckoo, tricking people like that. You couldn’t say you were good at finding things if you were the one who stole them in the first place! If he could prove she’d stolen his egg, he’d… he’d… do something about it!

And seriously, how the fuck had she stolen a cup of coffee?!

“Do your parents take the Holiday really seriously?”

Jungkook looked up from his plate, where he’d been doing his best not to just gulp his food down. Ok, so he talked with food in his mouth sometimes, he never claimed to be perfect. But you needed to be perfect on a date like this. You know, a date that wasn’t going well. He’d known it wouldn’t go well from the moment she looked him up and down and mused, “You’re softer in your picture.” Softer. Softer. Penguin girl speak for you don’t look chubby the way a good, handsome penguin you’d take home to meet your parents looks.

“Oh, um… yeah, my family is pretty serious about it,” he nodded, evading a question he didn’t want to answer until directly asked. He kept a hand in his pocket, wrapped firmly around his egg. It slowed him down eating. It slowed down his heart and his mind. It gave him something to clench besides his teeth.

“Mine do too,” Hai admitted. Shit, she was pretty. And she was smart and successful and she liked hiking and and had a little teacup yorkie that had, unfortunately, not come on the date but looked really fucking cute in all her pictures. “They’ve never been able to decide if they care more about my career or a mate. I chose career and now I’m finally actually practicing law and instead they just want to know who I’m bringing home… there just aren’t many penguins around here though, have you noticed?”

Jungkook flinched and shrugged, “I don’t know. There don’t have to be many when they’re as pretty as you…”

She brushed right past the flattery and asked, “What about you? Are your parents happy you put your career first even though you want a family? I bet they are, it’s such a sexist double standard. Are your parents sexist?”

“Ah… no, not really… I mean, a lot of the girls I grew up with–”

“Women.”

“Yes? Yeah but I mean they were girls when we were growing up…” This wasn’t going well. Now he was flustered and couldn’t remember what he’d been going to say. He wasn’t even thirty yet, it wasn’t like he was ancient.

“The women when they were young…” she prompted, waiting with a spoonful of food halfway to her mouth.

“Now a lot of them don’t work, they’re just home. I think people where I grew up get mated really young compared to here.”

“Your profile said you’re very serious and determined to meet your mate and that you’d even be willing to move,” Hai recalled. “So then why did you leave home? You could already have met someone.”

There were so many possible answers to that. I needed a fresh start. I wanted to meet someone new. None of the girls there liked me. I didn’t want a mate when I was younger anyway, I hated everyone and I wanted to be alone forever.

“I wanted to focus on my career so I would be stable and able to take care of my mate and family,” he said, a practiced answer. Because she herself was career oriented, he added, “Family can be overbearing so it’s good to put some space so you can focus on your career, right?”

“Are you asking me if I believe that?” Hai asked. Her tone made him cringe. “I don’t. Why are you looking for a mate if you don’t want to be near your family? Do you hope your children feel the same way too?”

“But at some point, children leave the creche–”

“Penguins do. We aren’t actually penguins, just because we have some DNA. Some of us more than others.” She looked pointedly at his fitted button-up shirt, the one that revealed he was not as bulky as his profile picture. He’d worn three sweaters to get that look, he often did, and he’d known tonight he probably should sweater-up. But there was this part of him that wanted to just get the rejection over with. What was worse, rejection on the first date? Or rejection when your clothes came off? Having experienced both, he could answer: the latter. Even if both sucked.

Jungkook did his best, but another date ended before dessert. Hai made clear through her criticisms and pointed questions that it wasn’t just his body she found lacking, but his demeanor too. She was quick and sharp and opinionated and clearly got bored with the slow, meandering answers he gave to things, and that his sentences often ended in a question mark. He had opinions! Sure! But wasn’t the whole point of a date, to be open and listen and learn? Not shove your absurd dislike of romantic films and soft ballads and coconut gelato and whipped cream on hot chocolate down someone’s throat?

Seriously, who didn’t like whipped cream on their hot chocolate?? Maybe someone dieting to lose weight? But Hai was already on the thin side for what penguin men liked and while Jungkook would never be so body-shamey or not date someone he really liked because of something like that, wasn’t it hypocritical if she was trying to stay thin but had judged him for not being able to help it? If he took her out for a romantic date to get hot chocolate in the cold, what would she do? Slide the whipped cream off? Send it back? Fuck, high maintenance too…

Hai was the one who ended the date. He paid, even though she made more money. So apparently she liked tradition in some ways. By the time he turned the corner, she’d already blocked him on the app. So he tried to be angry and mean about her to ice over the pain of rejection, but it still stung. Another girl wholly unimpressed with what he had to offer. No surprise there. Maybe he should just go back to not looking or wanting or needing… but a lone penguin was easy picking… and it was a race against time at this point for him to be truly alone not by choice, once Yoongi and Taehyung and Namjoon found their mates. Once again he’d be left behind. He was always left behind. How many more times could he survive being left behind?

He took a shortcut through the park, deciding to walk home in the cold instead of taking the overly warm bus. The sun was down and the cold felt sharper against his cheekbones. He liked the way it froze over the shame still flushed in his cheeks.

“Well maybe, Hai, I’d be a better penguin if someone had raised me to be a good penguin,” he huffed, going out of his way to stomp through the crunchy ice that had formed on the side of the path from the last rain a few days ago, when temperatures were still wobbling back and forth around freezing. The noise was satisfying; he really wanted to crunch it between his teeth. He kicked a particularly large block that broke off and watched it skid down the path, crumbling with each touchdown. It stopped within feet of the hot chocolate stand he would have brought Hai too if she had been less shitty.

“... buy myself some fucking hot cocoa,” he mumbled to himself, shuffling over to the line.

He looked up to count the people ahead of him, just in time to see that girl. The thief girl! The girl from his building! He actually saw her hand reach forward towards the cups waiting on the edge while the man who was actually buying the drinks for himself paid, his back turned.

Impulsively, Jungkook dove around everyone else and grabbed her hand in his. She stumbled backwards, stunned. For a moment they looked at each other, hands clasped. He didn’t know which of them was more shocked.

“I’ll buy you a hot chocolate,” he said. “You don’t have to…”

“Uh…” a male voice said, the man who’d just finished paying. “Excuse… me?”

Suddenly the woman busted out laughing.

“Oh my god, you thought I was stealing it!” she screamed with laughter. “And you… what… swooped in to stop me? To save me from myself?” She looked like she was going to double over; she pulled her hands into her stomach to laugh, dragging his hand with her. “And your face! Fuck, you’re funny.”

“Uh…” Jungkook had no clue what to say. He wrenched his hand out of hers.

The man was just as confused and asked, “Uh… Rana?”

“Move along please,” the man working the cart asked.

Rana picked up a cup and looked under the lid but scowled, “The only thing criminal here is how little whipped cream you put on these. Come on, no one’s one a diet here, load us up!” Suddenly she paused and looked at Jungkook, “You aren’t a diet person or something, right?”

“No….?”

She leaned in, watching the man sigh but put more whipped cream onto both cups. Jungkook looked nervously at the man, not sure at all what was happening here.

“Ok, I’ll take them both. Thanks, Fulton, we’re even now.”

“Wait, is that why you wanted two–”

“Bye!” she called, turning away with both cups. She raised her boot, knee bent, to kick Jungkook in the butt, and then started walking. “You want this or not?”

“I am so fucking confused right now.”

“Do you want this hot chocolate or not?”

“Why did– wait– um–”

“Your confused face is so cute,” she laughed. “I was on a bad date and you just saved me, so as a reward you can have his hot chocolate.” Fulton stood there awkward, not following. Probably he’d heard. He let out a deep sigh and turned away.

Jungkook stumbled after her, tripping on his own oversized shoes in his confusion as he asked, “What did you mean you’re even?”

“I had to go on a date with him because I lost a bet. I’m terrible at luck games, I really am. So even though you were an asshole the last time I saw you, I took the opportunity to end it.”

Jungkook was struggling to keep up but asked, “Well… I mean, how long did you spend with the guy? I don’t think you should go on a date with someone just because you lost a bet.”

“It doesn’t matter what you think. He bought me hot chocolate, that’s a date, and now it’s over. He’s not following us, is he? Maybe I should walk in front of you so he loses sight of me. His vision is terrible. It’s really embarrassing I lost a game to him.”

“What kind of game?”

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, glasses are cute and all but I even played honest and I still lost so that doesn’t exactly teach me to be honest in card games, does it?”

“You’re counting cards?”

“It was a fierce game of Uno.”

“What?” But he’d taken the hot cocoa when she held it out, and the absolutely confusing nature of this encounter had effectively overridden his date horror.

“Uno is a card game where–”

“Yeah, I know what Uno is. But you still play that?”

“Uh, yeah? At the community center? What do you think I’m teaching twelve-year-olds, Texas Hold’em or something?” she laughed. She leaned down to lick at the whipped cream on her hot cocoa and wound up with a dollop on her nose. She laughed at herself and wiped it off and into her mouth. “Ok, well anyway, you saved me, so I forgive you for being an asshole the other day, but I don’t see why we need to talk to each other anymore even though it was really weird you ran up and took my hand. So… bye.” She gave him a short wave and suddenly turned down a side path.

Impulsively Jungkook dove after her, “Wait.”

“What.” She glared at him. If she was trying to look threatening, it didn’t work. Her features were too sweet and young, it just looked like she was joking about being mad.

“Sorry about… that I was an asshole,” he said. To be honest, he didn’t quite remember why she thought he was an asshole.

“And?”

“And what?”

“And for thinking I was stealing hot chocolate and interrupting my date to hold my hand?”

His eyes narrowed as he argued, “But you didn’t want to be on that date.”

“You didn’t know that when you interrupted it. Besides, you can see someone not on a good date and still not interrupt them. Like I saw you on a not good date and I didn’t go running into the restaurant to hold your hand.”

“You saw my date?” he asked, slowing down. “Are you a stalker too?”

“You’d like that, huh? No, I just happen to live on the other side of the restaurant from this park, so I walked past it on my date and saw you slumped down in a chair across from a very beautiful woman.”

He made a noise in his throat.

“Yeah well serves you right for going out with a beautiful woman. Did you expect her to have a good personality too? Look, you only get two: beautiful, good personality, good family, likes you back.”

“At least three,” he argued. “You shouldn’t settle for less than three.”

“Oh? Not all four? Either you’re only a little romantic or you’re jaded.”

“Jaded,” he said and let out a sigh. The cup in his hand was too warm without a cardboard sleeve and he hadn’t brought his gloves, so he tried to tug his coat down over his hand, but the fabric made his palm too slippery. She reached into her pocket and dug out a cardboard sleeve.

“Filched it,” she joked, popping it open for him to slip his cup into.

“You’re allowed to take it. You were a paying customer.”

“Very strong sense of rules, huh?”

“You think they don’t apply to you,” he countered.

“I think the rules don’t fit me. A lot of rules don’t. Our world has so many rules,” she argued. “Like everyone is supposed to be exactly like everyone else of their species. But it doesn’t work that way and I thought you’d understand that. You’re awfully scrawny for a penguin.’

“Well you’re awfully nosy for a… crow.”

“Nope.”

“Raven.”

“Flattering actually, but no.”

“Maybe… a…”

“I’m not going to tell you because I like you being curious instead of an asshole,” she said.

“I’m not an asshole,” he grumbled.

“If you have to tell people…”

“You just keep catching me at a bad time.”

“Right, it’s my fault. If I could just be less receptive of assholes…”

“No, I don’t mean it like that, I just meant…”

“How’s your egg?” she asked after a pause in which he didn’t know what to say. He was embarrassed about having to defend his behavior to her. He didn’t mean to be grouchy lately, especially when she had helped him out finding his egg. Even though she might have stolen it. He didn’t know for sure. But she also seemed kind of harmless… And he had been weird to assume she was stealing and interrupt her date…

When he didn’t answer, she reached into his pocket, where his own hand had been wrapped around it.

“Hey!”

“Let me see it. You know I took good care of it.”

For some reason, he found himself not resisting when she pulled it out of his pocket. It was crazy. How dare she! But he let her, watching carefully how large it looked in her hand, but held securely.

When she took a detour off the path, he followed too, and they cut across the grass to climb a hill, at the top of which a dry concrete fountain sparkled with frost. The park trees didn’t reach up here and the moonlight was bright enough to see by, even without any park lights up here.

“It’s really pretty,” she said, holding it close. There was something raw to Jungkook about having her look at it like that. He suddenly regretted letting her take it. Why had he done that? He didn’t know her! Fuck, she could just hurl it off into the park right now and he’d have done this to himself. “The blue swirls remind me of the sides of ice shelves. Is that why you like it?”

“Are you an ice bird?” he asked with surprise.

“No. I can still like pretty things though. It sucks it’s so hard to get to the actual ice shelves in real life. I want to bite it.”

“My egg?!” he cried, reaching forward.

She turned away from him, laughing, “No, the ice, you dummy. I’m not going to hurt your egg, I know it’s important to you. But what about this etching on it? ‘The White House, Easter 2004’ and then that big ugly house. Why is it a White House egg? Is that important?”

“It’s not important,” he insisted, finally successfully pulling it out of her hand. He pressed his thumb to the etching, then slid it back into his pocket. To try and look a little cooler about his grabbiness, he sipped his hot chocolate. When he lowered his cup, she giggled.

“You have whipped cream on your lip.” He reached up his hand to brush it away but apparently missed it, because she wiped it away with her thumb, then popped the remnant into her mouth. At his look of surprise, she rolled her eyes, “Whatever, I like whipped cream.”

“How did you know my name?” he asked her, deciding the whipped cream from his face to her thumb into her mouth was not the thing he wanted to talk about right now.

“Is that a real question?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s on your work badge you wear into the building we both work in every single day,” she pointed out. “I’m shockingly literate.” The serious delivery of such sarcasm made his mouth twitch; he lifted his cup quickly again so he wouldn’t laugh. “What about you?”

“No, I’m illiterate.”

The laughter bubbled out of her, which pleased him. He appreciated her setting him up like that for a pretty obvious joke and then still laughing about it.

He pretended to not be proud of it and corrected, “No, what question are you asking me? I didn’t know your name.” She’d hopped up onto the edge of the fountain and began to slowly walk around it, so he followed her but on the ground. It put her a good head or so taller than him.

“What do you do?”

“Oh you don’t know?”

He wasn’t expecting the thump of her finger flicking against the side of his face, followed by her laughter, “Sorry, I’m not your stalker just because I knew your name. Don’t be so disappointed.”

“I’m a software systems engineer, uh– I make databases and software programs for my company–”

“I know what a software engineer is,” she interrupted. “Do you always assume people are stupider than you?”

“You stole a cup of coffee, so yeah that throws me off about your intelligence–”

“Oh shut up, you’re impressed by it,” she laughed. “I bet you’ve been wondering how I did it since then, huh?”

He glared at her, pouted about it actually, because he didn’t like the way she seemed to keep reading his mind.

“Well I won’t tell you.” She hopped down from the fountain ledge. “I’m a claims adjuster for insurance and I hate it but I’m very good at it even though the pay is shit at my level.”

“Are your parents proud?”

“I don’t have parents. What a weird, nosy question. See? Too many rules, Jungkook. Just because someone is alive doesn’t mean they actively have parents.”

He stopped where he was and stared at her back for a moment. Her curly hair looked midnight black in the moonlight and hung down over her blue coat. She didn’t have parents at all?

“Are you bitter about it?”

“About what, the pay?” she asked, turning around and walking backwards. He felt compelled to follow. “Yeah. I save my company so much money! Why don’t they give me some of the money! And before you ask, the only things I filch are small things like paperclips and pens so it’s not like I’m getting my salary adjustment–”

“No, about not having parents.”

“Why would I be bitter about that?”

“You sound really bitter,” he informed her.

“Oh my god, are you the bitter police? You want me to pour my heart out about childhood trauma? It’s not some deep thing, we just don’t fit each other so I left the nest,” she said, throwing a hand up. She drank what was clearly her last sip of her hot cocoa. “You can just reject the rules that don’t fit you.”

“I don’t think I want life advice from someone who steals for fun.”

“You’re so fixated on the stealing thing. Do you fixate a lot? Oh, are you wanting me to teach you?”

“No, don’t teach me–”

“Come on, there’s a shop right over there–”

“Rana, no!” She took off running, tossing her cup into a recycling bin without slowing. He did the same and found himself struggling not to laugh because she was laughing. There was something completely ridiculous about chasing a laughing woman through the park, snow crunching underfoot, some shaking loose from a tree where maybe a squirrel or something had jumped. She grabbed the light pole to stop herself at the corner, but when he almost caught up to her, she ran forward instead of waiting for the cross signal. At least traffic was slow so she didn’t get hit, but someone honked as he chased after.

There was in fact a shop she’d headed towards, a whole little row of them. Jungkook this area well since they weren’t far from his apartment, though he’d never paid attention to this block. She stopped by a covered sidewalk display and ran her fingers over shiny cashmere scarves.

“How are you so fast?” he demanded, sliding to a stop beside her. “I’m fast!”

“Yeah but I knew where I was going. Also I don’t think you were really trying to catch me. Don’t you ever play?”

“And what, tackle you to the ground?”

“Or just touch me or take hold of me in a big fluffy hug? No? What do you think of this?” she asked, lifting a red and gold scarf.

He glared, “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

Not sure how else to make sure she understood he wasn’t joking, he grabbed both of her hands and said, “Look with your eyes, not your hands.”

“This is romantic.”

She laughed at his sigh. Her hands were cold and dry, also gloveless, probably to make it easier to steal things. He dropped her hands but gave her a pointed look.

“How old are you?” she asked. “You already look like a disappointed dad.”

“I do not!”

“Is that how you look at your egg? No wonder it wanted a vacation with me, I only looked at it lovingly.”

“It did not–”

“Oh, it had a blast with me. I’m the fun parent.”

“I can’t tell if you’re mocking me–”

“Teasing and mocking aren’t the same thing.”

“What’s the difference?” he demanded, even though he knew there was a difference. She slid around this open section of the shop, where heaters hung over doorways and employees in coats and scarves watched shoppers poke around the wares on outside display . There were warmer indoor spaces but Rana skipped the door and wandered to the next cart, covered with brightly patterned socks.

“Are you a sock guy?” she asked, pointing to a pair with tiny penguins. “You strike me as a cozy sock guy.”

“That’s offensive,” he joked, pointing at the print.

“So… no?” She arched her eyebrow. Actually he liked kind of fun socks, but it seemed like a stupid thing to like, so he only had a couple patterned pairs. They were very warm and he wore them only at home. She shrugged and put the socks back.

“Is there a pair with your species?” he asked. “I think I’m right that you’re at least a bird.”

“You sense it?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you ever think,” she asked, leaning uncomfortably close, “That maybe people care too much about a strand of DNA? It’s like if you freaked out about a single gray hair.”

“I don’t have gray hair,” he quickly answered. Her gaze had flicked up. He reached to his hairline, partially exposed by his beanie that had slipped during the run. He tugged it back into place and decided her laugh meant she was joking.

“You’d look incredibly distinguished with salt and pepper. You’ve got that baby face, you’ll always be handsome, huh? I definitely think you’d be more handsome with fun socks but whatever, your feet, your rules.”

“Do you have a foot thing?” he blurted out. Fuck. Fuck he didn’t know where that had come from. Something about her saying he was handsome after Hai had clearly thought the opposite just flustered him and he felt that unavoidable need to say something weird and make clear he was not worth her flirting. Was she flirting? He didn’t think she was flirting, she seemed to just kind of be a weird person. She didn’t speak to him any differently than she’d spoken to that guy she was apparently on an unwanted date with. Actually it was kind of hard to imagine her really on a date with someone. She was pretty but also pretty weird…

“Dodo?” he asked suddenly.

“What? Did you just ask if I have a foot thing and then call me a dodo?!”

“Ah, sorry,” he grimaced and pressed his hand to his eyes.

“I can’t read your mind. What’s the connection? Dodos are extinct, you dingbat. Did they have big feet?”

“No no nevermind, look, shiny.”

“Now you’re mocking me,” she glared at him, but did in fact look where he had pointed, only to turn away with a shrug. “Yeah, well…”

“You like shiny things.”

“I thought you don’t know anything about me,” she countered. He took another step in that direction, but she grabbed his arm, “No no let’s go that way, there are more shops–”

“It’s literally shiny things dangling on strings. It’s your favorite thing in the world.” He didn’t know if that was true, but she looked uncomfortable for the first time ever and the power trip of being the one not squirming for once was too much to ignore. He was stronger than her and bodied her along to the shop window with the dangling sparklies. Someone inside the shop had just touched one, and the movement made the lights flash and sparkle on the things attached: shiny stones, bits of metal, beads, sticks, glass ornaments in the shapes of leaves and birds. They were mesmerizing; he found himself drawn towards them, even if he hadn’t just wanted to tease her for wanting to stay away.

“Hey really, let’s go–”

“Rana!” he crowed, pointing to a little sign below: Crafted by Rana, see inside for price list.

“Not that Rana.”

“What?! That’s you!”

“That’s not my last name,” she said, grabbing his arm tighter. “Holy shit, look at those fuzzy earmuffs over there! Mittens! Giant ice cube! Uh… fish cake!”

“There’s no last name. That is you,” he insisted, certain of it now.

“Jungkook…”

Hearing her whine his name like that was definitely not going to make him give in now. He planted his feet and leaned in closer to the window, paying closer attention now.

“Wow, you make these?”

“Stooooop.”

“I’m serious!”

“It’s just a hobby for some side money. Whatever.”

“Hey, you’re the one who brought me over here. I bet you wanted me to see this,” he mused. He grinned and crossed his arms, amused by all her fidgeting.

“I did not! I figured you would stomp off in a pout before we got this far or that you wouldn’t remember my name or that you can’t read or something.”

“They’re really pretty.”

“Stop. Let’s go.”

Instead of going, he motioned to two other people on the sidewalk and asked, “Have you seen these? They’re pretty, huh? I think they’d make a good gift with Christmas coming up if you do that kind of thing.”

“What are you doing?” Rana gasped and began punching his stomach, though with no real force. Her paltry punches just thudded against his heavy down coat.

“Business. So you can buy coffee instead of stealing it.”

The people did actually enter the shop, and this time Jungkook didn’t hide his proud smile. She lowered her chin and glared at him.

“Why are you shy? This is the first cool thing I’ve learned about you.”

“Hey!” She crossed her arms and looked away, then asked without looking at him, “You think it’s cool?”

“They’re pretty. You do a good job of balancing color and materials… do they make noise?”

“Like a wind chime? No, they’re just… like a light chime.”

“Ah. Where do you get all the stuff for them?”

“I told you, I’m good at finding things.”

“You’re sure you aren’t a– ok, I won’t say it again. I don’t know why that’s so offensive to you.”

She rolled her eyes, “Have you ever met a magpie?”

“No. Well, there was this girl…”

She waited, looking at him with her eyebrows raised.

“Oh, uh… I mean, I didn’t really know her.”

“I’m not interested in your casual hook ups,” she said and started walking again.

“Ha, she wasn’t hooking up with me. She just did um…” She was a cam girl. Oops. He didn’t want to finish that sentence. “Anyway, uh… that’s cool that you make those. I’d be tempted to buy one if you weren’t here.”

“Oh my god, don’t buy one. How offensive. Just steal one if you really want it.” At his quirked eyebrow, she laughed, “I’m kidding. Don’t steal from me, it’s rude.”

“Pot, meet kettle–”

“No,” she interrupted. “It’s different. I don’t just run around stealing things all the time. You’re so judgemental. Just things that aren’t important or no one notices or whatever… I don’t like steal candy from babies or anything.”

“Mm-hm.”

“Fine, what do you do when you aren’t working then? Dating, bars, what else?”

He noticed she’d shuffled him along, but there were a few more shops still and whatever, he’d walk along and talk with her for a few more minutes before he headed home.

“I don’t know… I… play video games. I draw and paint sometimes, I guess. My friend’s been teaching me piano. I go to the gym. That’s it.”

“That’s a lot.”

“I guess…”

“Nothing that brings you deeper meaning?” she asked. “That’s ok. Not everything has to be deep. It’s ok to just do meaningless things you enjoy.”

“I don’t– uh, I mean, I guess I’m still trying to find that uh… that purpose and landing place, you know?”

“Penguins don’t fly.”

“Fine, I’m still looking for my… warmth…” he felt stupid as soon as he said it. Why had he said that?

“Hm. I get it. Well,” she said. “Be careful trying to find deeper meaning in a girlfriend. People can make you warm but they can take it away too. What sorts of things do you paint? Or is that private?”

“I’m not trying to find deeper meaning in a girlfriend. Are you some relationship expert? Just because I want a mate and a family and–” He cut himself abruptly off, feeling the flush of shame. He’d much rather talk to her about camgirls than that. “You don’t get it so whatever.”

“Prickly!”

“You’re a lone animal,” he decided as they stopped to look at the liquor store window. They’d already put up wintry decorations in the window, snowflakes and evergreen boughs, fake snow around the boxes. A few artisanal crates of red wines and a pine tree in a wooden barrel were outside the door, trying to lure shoppers in. She stopped and read some of the labels.

“I don’t like dating,” she admitted.

“Yeah, so don’t judge people who are trying to find someone. Not all of us like to be lonely.”

“Ouch,” she laughed. “I guess I pissed you off, huh?”

That made him stop and backtrack, “No, I just– you were getting preachy about– clearly you don’t understand the desire to have all of that.”

“Clearly.” She wasn’t looking at him as she continued to the next shop and now he felt shitty.

“Sorry,” he mumbled.

She smiled at him anyway and said, “I just meant, you should feel like enough on your own because you are enough. You don’t need a girlfriend to give you warmth, she can just be a bonus warmth. She’ll have her own purpose, won’t she? Or are penguins one of those species that expect the women to just spit out eggs and be docile?”

“No. Actually the males do the incubating –in the birds, not in the humans. Obviously.”

“Obviously.”

“I just don’t want to have to explain it to you.”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me,” she argued. “I’m just a stranger in your work building. I don’t know why you’ve even been following me this long.”

“I live just down the street there.” He pointed. She stopped and looked that way as if she hadn’t known this –well, of course she hadn’t known that. She looked at him with surprise, dark eyes sparkling reflecting the fairy lights twinkling in the bookstore window beside them.

“Oh.”

He didn’t like her face. Her expression. He liked her face just fine, but her expression suddenly looked hurt and he got this deep feeling now that she’d stopped having fun with him. Maybe he shouldn’t have dragged her over to look at the shiny things, but then he wouldn’t have learned this cool thing she did! She couldn’t actually be embarrassed about that, right?

“Well, I won’t keep you then, I thought you were just bored and wandering like me,” she shrugged. “I live that way so I’m going to go now.”

“Wait, but you were on a date when I found you–”

“Byeeeee.”

“Rana, sto– please stop.” He grabbed her arm. She froze again. “Will you at least look for cars before you cross the street? Are you a pigeon?”

“Some of the best people I know are pigeons so I will choose not to be offended,” she grinned at him. “Have a good night!”

“Wait, it’s dark. Isn’t it a long walk for you? You said you live on the other side of–”

“Yeah, but it’s fine,” she called to him, crossing since the light had stopped traffic.

“Wait!” he called. She reached the other side and looked back at him, but he didn’t actually know what to say. He’d actually enjoyed walking and talking with her. She was weird.

“What?” she called back.

“Can I pay for a cab home for you?” he asked, unable to think of anything else to say. She laughed. “Why are you laughing?” he yelled across the street. “I’m trying to be nice.”

“I know! Today I learned penguins are really dumb, especially the women. Night night, Jungkook. Check your pocket!”

“I swear to god, if you stole my egg–” He stuck his hand in and pulled out…

A string with glass birds and metal discs and seashells tied to it. He didn’t know if it was one from the window… well no, it couldn’t be. Right? They’d been outside. And those were sticks with multiple strings tied and this was just one string, no stick.

“What do I do with only one string?”

“Fuck if I know! Maybe you’ll be desperate enough to hang out with me again. Bye!” She waved her hand– which was suddenly holding a bottle of red wine.

“Rana! No!”

She knew exactly what he was yelling about. Her laugh bounced off the cars as she took off through the park at a run. He didn’t really like watching her go off like that but at least the park wasn’t large, was well lit, and there were lots of people still around. He didn’t like how abruptly the evening had ended, like he’d done something wrong, but she’d gone off happy. Her laugh was one of those infectious ones. She really needed to stop stealing stuff though.

He tucked the light catcher string back into his pocket with his blue egg and went home with an unexpected smile on his face.

Jungkook didn’t know why he’d agreed to go to this stupid party with Taehyung and Namjoon.

Ok yes, he did. He had sworn to wingman for Namjoon. Namjoon was always noticing worthy women and then blundering the greeting. Eagle-eyed but flat-footed or something like that. Like an eagle smacking into a carcass, that was the grace he had for introductions. So Jungkook agreed to go because he might not have Taehyung’s charm but he was also not going to swoop and steal a catch –unless it was a penguin woman, which was fair game. But probably a penguin woman wouldn’t be at a party like this in the first place. And probably a penguin woman wouldn’t be into him.

“The women are that way.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jungkook grumbled. “You didn’t have to follow me.”

“Well you were supposed to introduce me to the crane by the wine bar,” Namjoon sulked.

“You know I don’t know the crane by the wine bar, right?” Jungkook pointed out. “Tae’s better.”

“You’re non-threatening.”

“Fuck off,” Jungkook frowned. “Penguins can be threatening when we need to be. Have you even seen the inside of a penguin’s mouth?”

“The inside of your mouth is a normal human mouth–”

“Can you guys stop saying weird things?” Taehyung called, appearing behind them in the dark. “Girls don’t want to hear about the inside of your mouths when you’re first meeting. Jesus fuck no wonder you guys are single.”

“I’m a dentist!” Namjoon defended.

“Yeah but stop telling women that when you meet them. It just makes everyone self conscious. The first thing they wonder is ‘can he tell I didn’t brush my teeth today’ and the next thing they wonder is ‘is it true he can tell if I gave head to someone else recently–’”

“No and yes but I’m not giving women dental exams when I take them home with me.”

“You aren’t doing anything with them because you don’t get them home with you!”

While they were bickering, Jungkook resumed his mission. The tree was low with gnarled branches splitting out everywhere, so easy to find reasonable footholds, but the branches were all thin and he could tell wouldn’t hold his weight. He pulled himself up by a higher branch, a little thicker, and quickly braced his feet to distribute his weight.

“The fuck is he doing?” Taehyung asked.

“Fuck,” Jungkook mumbled as the branch creaked beneath him. “Hey, catch me if I fall!”

“Yeah, I got you,” Namjoon said, immediately holding his arms up and bracing himself beneath Jungkook.

“What are you doing? Is he too drunk? He’s only had a beer…”

Jungkook decided just to go for it and trust Namjoon. The dude was a mountain, he’d be able to catch him. So he leapt forward, grabbed the string, and plummeted. For a moment there was a tug like the string was going to hold him up, but then it snapped and he went down with it.

Namjoon caught him awkwardly and they collapsed to the ground in a painful heap while Taehyung laughed from behind his phone, recording the whole thing.

“Fuck, they went everywhere,” Jungkook scowled.

“What went everywhere? What are you even doing?”

“There was a string of bells in the tree,” Jungkook said. “Like an old decoration or something.”

“You’re breaking and stealing decorations?”

“No, it’s not a decoration. The wind caught it or something. Help me find the bells,” he insisted as he began patting around in the grass. The sizes varied from a dime to a walnut.

Namjoon helped and eventually Taehyung did too, but not without questions, “Why are you stealing bells from a tree?”

The string was a piece of ribbon, frayed by weather, so Jungkook thought his guess that it was an old forgotten decoration was right. Certainly nothing new. Some of the bells had rusted pieces too, or were dull and sticky, one even had bird shit on it from someone’s good aim.

“I’m not stealing– I know someone who can use them.”

“What are you talking about?” Taehyung laughed. “This is the most mysterious you’ve ever been.”

“Ok. There’s a girl at work who makes art to sell with shiny things. I’m going to give her these bells for her art stuff.”

“What girl?” Taehyung immediately demanded.

Namjoon froze, three bells in his large hand, and parroted, “Yeah, what girl? You haven’t mentioned a girl. Someone you’re dating?”

“No!” Jungkook squawked. “We aren’t dating. She’s… weird. Basically a kleptomaniac. She’s the one who found my egg when I lost it. I think she actually stole it but I don’t know when or how… but she gave it back.”

Namjoon handed him the bells but looked suspicious as he pointed out, “You didn’t say a girl found your egg, just that someone at work did.”

“Yeah? So? She’s a female. Want to know her hair color and eye color too?”

“Yeah. Paint a picture for me. Is she pretty?” Taehyung grinned. He had two bells to hand over.

Jungkook thought they were all found and stood, patting his pocket where the bells clicked dully against his egg, muted in the cloth of his jacket.

“She’s pretty, sure. But I wouldn’t introduce either of you to her. Like I said, she’s weird.”

“Right. She’s weird,” Namjoon repeated, nudging Taehyung. “Jungkook’s the one climbing trees at a party to collect bells for her, but she’s weird.”

“He wants a normal penguin girl. Boring, bland, safe, beige,” Taehyung returned.

“Guys…”

“I want to meet her,” Taehyung said.

And Jungkook wasn’t sure why, but his answer was, “No. Let’s go back to the party.”

“So eager suddenly?”

“I’m supposed to be wingman yeah? So let me wing. What do you want me to do, tell a girl you think she’s cute?” he asked Namjoon. “Just go talk to a woman if you think she’s nice and if she’s scared of you, she’s specist and not worth your time anyway. Anyone who looks at you for more than a minute can see you’re a gentle giant and eagles are clowns.”

Taheyung’s sputter of laughter led the way back to the noise and lights of the party, “Fuck, you’re all pissy aobut us teasing you, huh?”

Jungkook smiled about it, and about the way Namjoon laughed behind his hand, “He said I’m non-threatening. Penguins are predators too. We aren’t beige.”

“Penguins are the embodiment of beige as people,” Namjoon said, clapping his hand to Jungkook’s shoulder. “But you aren’t and that’s why you can’t find a penguin girl.”

“Open your eyes,” Taehyung agreed, gesturing through the open patio door. “The party is full of gorgeous birds. We could all catch something tonight!”

Jungkook and Namjoon both hesitated as Taehyung disappeared head first into the crowd, already in pursuit.

“That was a bird pun, right?” Jungkook asked. “Or did he mean STDs?”

Namjoon laughed and countered, “Bundle it up and you don’t have to worry about it.”

“Uh… hyung, that’s not right. It reduces your risk, it doesn’t eliminate the risk–”

“Sorry, I’m a dentist, focused on the other part of the body,” Namjoon said over his shoulder, walking forward, leaving Jungkook standing alone on the stairs.

“You still use your mouth during sex!” Jungkook called after him. Overly loud. Fuck. Several people looked over. Jungkook’s face burned with heat as he hurried after Namjoon and Taehyung, not wanting to be left behind. The bells bulged in his pocket, so at least even if he didn’t find someone to enjoy tonight, it wouldn’t have been a total loss.

Jungkook had not gone home with anyone. But Taehyung and Namjoon both had, and Jungkook had gone home alone to fall asleep to the sounds of Yoongi practicing his keyboard on the other side of the wall, which wasn’t a bad end to the night. He waited until the music paused for Yoongi to go make food and then pulled his laptop out for a wank session but… eh, his heart wasn’t in it, so he wound up just going to bed without bothering.

He had to wait until Monday to do anything with the bells. Bored on a Sunday, he played video games and went to the gym and then googled how to clean the rust from the bells so they’d be their most shiny. He’d feel stupid to give her a bell covered in bird shit. So he got them clean and was pleased with the way they looked. Some were kind of dented but whatever, she could fix it if she cared so much. She made things out of trash so it would be her own shitty problem if she snubbed these things he was giving her for free! And after he’d cleaned them! He even practiced what to say if she was shitty about it.

“Gross why did you give me literal garbage, you’re weird, what’s wrong with you?”

And he’d say, “Takes trash to know trash.”

No wait that was hella stupid and childish.

“I thought you were an artist. You can’t see the potential?” Ugh, pretentious and weird.

“Fine, then throw them away, the trash can’s right there.” Better. Lofty. Confident. Yeah, that would work.

But Monday morning when he saw her curly hair streaming out of a red beanie, he got a better idea. Rather than calling for her or marching up and handing the bag over –which made it seem like a weird big deal gift thing when really it was just trash he thought she might use for her art– he balled as many of the bells into his hand as he could and snuck up behind her. He bumped lightly into her, as did other people, as they crowded through the door, and used that as an opportunity to slide his hand into her coat pocket to deposit the bells there.

He did not anticipate her hand sliding in too and taking hold of his, trapping him there. Instinctively he tried to pull away as she spun to face him, right in the middle of the stream of people.

Instantly her face brightened and she laughed, “What are you doing with your hand in my pocket?”

“You knew it was me?”

“No. Are you trying to pickpocket me?”

“The opposite.”

“Huh?”

He’d successfully dropped a handful of the bells. He still had more. Now he grabbed a few more from his pocket, thrust those into her pocket before she could say anything else, and fled. Fuck. That wasn’t as cool as he had hoped. Ok fine he wasn’t a sneaky stealthy pickpocket but he’d thought she wouldn’t notice because everyone always bumped into each other so much at that point! Fuck! Also it was weird to hold hands with someone you thought was pickpocketing you, right?

He avoided the downstairs lobby at lunch in case he saw her again; he’d realized last week they went to lunch around the same time. Instead he ate crap from the vending machines and stayed at his desk. He still had a couple bells in his pocket and decided he’d just scatter them on the sidewalk when he left and she could find them herself, if she was so fucking good at finding things.

At the end of the day, he didn’t see her on the way out, which was good. Fine. What a relief. Instead he buried his nose in the dating app as he waited for the bus, determined to hurt himself again apparently. No new matches on the classy app so he looked at the skeevy app instead. A couple matches he couldn’t be arsed to think of a clever response to. He had never seen it happen that a girl who messaged him first on Dive was happy with what she found once she met him. And, to be fair, he usually wasn’t too thrilled with them either, but he was trying to be open-minded, like Taehyung said. He didn’t have to be with a penguin woman for a good time, and there was nothing wrong with having good times until he found his penguin mate. He decided to dedicate some time tonight to do that dumb thing again where he dug around profiles and thought out meaningful first messages he could send to women he found compelling so that he could just have them leave him on read or respond with something shallow and stupid. Fuck, why did he even bother? He should just stay single for life. A lone penguin. Whatever.

Grouchy now, he decided to skip the bus and go to the cafe instead. A coffee drink this late would keep him up but whatever, he’d play games. So what if he was sleepy tomorrow? There was no point to life.

He reached into his pocket to grip his blue egg while he walked, annoyed and wanting the tactile comfort. It took him a couple minutes to realize there should have still been bells in his pocket with the egg; he’d forgotten to scatter them. And that something was scratching his skin.

He moved to the side of the sidewalk at the cafe and fished out the scratchy thing, a small rolled up piece of paper he’d subconsciously thought was a receipt, even though he never put trash in the right-hand pocket with his egg.

Thanks for the bells I love them. You’re too noisy to be a pickpocket. Let me know if you want tips - Rana nana nana nana batman

“What the fuck, she’s so weird,” he laughed and forgot about the coffee and just walked home. He liked the crisp smell to the air when it was freshly dark in winter like this.

***

A few days later, he decided on another experiment.

He’d been out grocery shopping with Yoongi when they’d walked by boxes on the sidewalk with a big FREE sign. In one of the boxes were several tiny glittery gold wire Christmas trees, roughly about the size of his egg. He’d crammed them into the grocery bags to take home.

Yoongi had needed to intervene again when Jay got all pissy because there was glitter all over the boxes of soy milk –that weren’t even for him, to be clear! But the glitter was insidious. Specks of it were everywhere, even on his blue egg, and trying to wipe them away just resulted in more glitter coming from somewhere. No wonder someone had been throwing these away. They were a gift for someone you hated.

Or for Rana. But she’d definitely catch him glitter-handed if he tried to slip them into her pocket again. So instead he got to work earlier than she did and lined all four of them up in one of the flower beds outside the building, to see if she’d even noticed them and, assuming she did, if she’d be able to resist stealing them.

He got his answer at lunch. He sat on one of the long concrete planters everyone used as benches when the dozen bistro tables were full. The spiciness of the tteokbokki he’d decided to reward himself with for actually getting noticed and praised for his latest feature addition to the internal database (simple but revolutionary filtering tabs) by his tech-illiterate boss.

Rana sat beside him before he’d even noticed her approach and simply held her hand out, palm up. Covered in glitter.

“Let me see your hand.”

“Why?”

“Let me see your hand, Jungkook.”

He sighed but held out his hand, palm up, revealing less glitter, but he hadn’t managed to scrub it all away no matter how hard he’d tried.

That loud laugh came out of her again, so loud that several quiet lunch-goes looked over curiously.

“They’re amazing,” she said. “Where did you find them?”

“In someone’s trash. I mean… there was a free sign…”

“I can understand why! That glitter is pernicious. I love it.”

“Pernicious,” he repeated.

“Yeah? Do you know what it means?”

“Of course I know what it means,” he glared. “Subtly harmful.”

“You’re so much more than a pretty face. Well I don’t care if you gave me a ‘subtly harmful’ gift–”

“It’s not a gift,” he quickly corrected. “It’s for your art. Um, it’s payment for the strand you gave me. You have to give me more though. I can’t just hang up one string of trash in my window.”

She pursed her lips and nodded, “Yeah yeah you need multiple strings of trash. Like the trash you were digging through to get me this. Like a busy little raccoon– or… a pigeon?”

“Magpies dig through trash too,” he pointed out, knowing it would ruffle her feathers.

“I’m not a magpie.” But she didn’t react badly, just took a spare toothpick and picked out a rice cake from his lunch to eat.

“Hey!”

“Sorry, can’t help rifling through the trash, since I’m a magpie.”

“You can’t steal my lunch. I gave you gifts–”

“I am brazenly stealing your lunch,” she laughed. “Right in front of you. What are you going to do about it? Damn, that’s spicy! No wonder your nose is all runny! Shit!”

“It’s not runny,” he grumbled, but it was, and he was fighting the urge to wipe it on his sleeve with her right there. No, fuck, he decided he didn’t care. He dabbed at his eyes and wiped his snuffly nose. He’d put extra sauce on because he loved the heat but damn.

“Besides, I bought you hot chocolate,” she said, mouth hanging open as she tried to breathe through the spice.

“Your date bought me hot chocolate,” he argued.

“Your date didn’t buy me anything so… rude.”

He sighed and thrust the container at her, “Fine, hold this. I’ll get another one.”

“No, we can share this, get something else to compliment it!”

“Fine!” he called over his shoulder and went to see what he could bring back.

***

When he got home that night, he found another string in his pocket. It didn’t include any of the bells or trees he’d given her, but it matched the first string nicely, with the addition of little glass fish in swirly purple colors, not too different from the glass swirl of his egg. He taped it to the top of the windowsill next to the other one. She needed to give him one of those fucking sticks to tie them too. Well, probably he could go find his own stick this weekend but he’d paid for her lunch, she could at least give him a stick. She’d offered to pay him back for food but then he’d been so amused listening to her answer that yes, she did like Batman a lot, specifically the older cartoon, and some of the movies but not all of them, and the comics were great –she knew way more about Batman than he did and he was embarrassed to admit it to her because he’d talked big game about it.

There was still glitter on his egg when he set it in its box and nudged the laptop into place to see who he could find. He hadn’t sent any cam girls gifts lately. Honestly, he felt like his sex drive had been low. Even when he’d been out with Namjoon and Taehyung, he hadn’t really felt eager.

It was the Holiday stress. He was sure of it. Not the upcoming Christmas holiday, he didn’t care about that, but the mating season holiday in the spring. He’d had to RSVP last night for the festivities. He’d put down two. It was expensive and optimistic. He was coming up on a late time to meet someone who would be serious enough with him by the spring to take home for the Holiday. You didn’t have to get knocked up there or anything, but it wasn’t something you could just take anyone to. It had to be real and serious. He’d already thought through the alternatives but every possibility led to exposure of fraud, shame, humiliation, and a confirmation of what everyone who grew up with him thought: Jungkook was Unwanted.

It didn’t set him up well for getting horny. He clicked through a couple live cams but nothing hooked him. He went back to an old favorite video instead, but even that didn’t do much for him. Was he so broken he couldn’t even jack off anymore?

He decided to go to the gym instead.

***

“I don’t know the kind of thing she likes,” Yoongi mumbled as he and Jungkook reached the small shop block. “I don’t think socks is the right gift for a girl…”

Jungkook actually laughed, “No, hyung, don’t buy a girl socks until you’ve seen her naked in your bed.”

“Oh, is that the rule?”

“I made it up but it sounds like a good rule.”

“Yeah, it does… Oh, the wood carvings are cool,” he mused, stepping quickly past Jungkook. Honestly, Jungkook was flattered that Yoongi had come to him about needing to figure out a Christmas gift for the owl girl in his orchestra. He refused to tell any of them her name, insisting one of them would do something shitty like reach out on his behalf. They wouldn’t, just because they teased him mercilessly. This was not the same owl girl as the one who did mail delivery and who Jungkook had noticed Yoongi couldn’t even look in the eye. The owl girl in his orchestra played the flute and was beautiful and had made no secret she was interested in Yoongi and he thought she was compelling too but hadn’t taken her up on anything yet… Because of the package delivery girl, Jungkook thought, but Yoongi wouldn’t confirm. He looked like he wanted to puke every time Jungkook hinted at it.

Now he decided to test his luck though and agreed, “The wood carvings are cool. There are lots of neat little things in this shop. Wanna go in and look? Maybe a wood carving is good for the flutie girl and–”

“Flautist.”

“That’s what you call a flute player? Huh. Anyway, chunk of wood for the flautist and maybe something like that for the package delivery–”

“Wait, why would I get a gift for the package delivery girl?” Yoongi demanded, face hardening. “I’m just trying to get something for the flute.”

“The girl who plays the flute.”

“Yeah.”

“Right because you agreed to go on a date with her for some reason on Christmas Day,” Jungkook repeated.

“Not ‘for some reason.’ For the reason that I like her. And she likes me. And she asked me. And I don’t celebrate Christmas, it’s just a day.”

“But not to her, so you’re getting a gift.”

Yoongi sighed and closed his eyes, “I don’t know why I’m doing this.”

“It’s ok if you do like her.”

“I do. You saw her at the symphony.”

“Yeah, she’s beautiful. We were six rows back and I could still see her big eyes,” Jungkook assured him.

Yoongi nodded, “See? That’s why I’m glad you’re here. Taehyung would have talked about her big something else…”

“Those were nice too.”

Yoongi laughed and passed him into the store, looking this way and that. Jungkook hadn’t been back to the shop since he was here with Rana but inside were lots of little spaces, shelves, or cubbies full of handcrafted goods. He took his time poking around too, even though he didn’t need to buy anything. He and the guys didn’t trade gifts for Christmas, so he had no one to buy anything for.

Gradually he nudged Yoongi back towards the front window, saying, “You should check out these cool light strings. I think girls really like that kind of thing, they’re really eye-catching. Maybe not for the flautist but–”

“Are you hawking my wares again?”

Jungkook stopped short as Yoongi bumped into him. It shouldn’t have budged him, but he was so surprised that it forced him a step forward at the impact, closer to where Rana was on a ladder in the window, hanging up some new light strings.

“What are you doing here?” Jungkook demanded.

“Hawking my wares,” she repeated. “Why are you here?”

“Shopping.”

“My wares?”

“No, other stuff. Why buy it when you’re giving it to me for free?”

Yoongi’s loud cough behind him clued him in to what he’d said at the same time Rana laughed. Jungkook hadn’t meant the innuendo and rushed to lean casually against a shelf and look like he had meant it, in a cool way. The shelf shook; Yoongi grabbed it to hold steady.

“I need a stick,” Jungkook said to cover all of this.

Rana motioned to the park, “Lots of sticks in the world, buddy. I thought penguins were more egg people but…” The ladder was too short and she was on tiptoe to reach the top of the window. It wasn’t steady and Jungkook’s stomach flipped at her reach. Instead of retaliating to the teasing, he stepped forward to catch her if she fell. She noticed and smiled down at him. “Fine, you’re sweet, I’ll give you a stick. But you’ll have to keep moving the strings on it when you earn more or the balance will be off.”

“Earning? I’m not earning them.”

“Not with that attitude!”

“How many is a whole one? Some of these have four and some have six and that one has eight.”

“Your literacy is only matched by your counting skills.”

“I like this person a lot,” Yoongi said loudly. “I’m his friend Yoongi. Who are you? You seem to know each other.”

“Oh, she’s Rana.”

“I’m Rana,” she introduced at the same time Jungkook did. She hopped down from the ladder in a way that definitely could have resulted in her breaking her face on something but she landed steadily on her feet. “We don’t know each other well, I just work in the same building and steal his food sometimes.”

“Oh, you found his egg?”

“He told you about me?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

Jungkook rushed to clarify, “No, just that a girl at work found my egg. Not that we eat lunch together sometimes.”

“Yeah, he definitely didn’t mention that,” Yoongi said, not meeting Jungkook’s murderous stare. Instead Yoongi’s eyes narrowed, studying Rana as if he was thinking through something.

“She’s not a magpie,” Jungkook added, as Rana just crossed her arms and waited for Yoongi’s survey, like she was entirely unbothered by it. “Don’t say that, she’ll get all hissy and waddle off.”

“You call me hissy again and I’ll peck your eyes out, little penguin,” she glared.

“No, not a magpie,” Yoongi agreed. “Magpies are assholes.”

“See!” Rana cried, motioning.

“Something like it though. A raven…?”

“She won’t tell me. It’s some big mystery,” Jungkook complained. “I already guessed raven and crow and magpie.”

Yoongi shook his head, “I think it’s something owls get along with. Magpies and rooks are fuckers but… ah, it’s weird when you get that feeling, right?”

“What feeling?” Jungkook asked, eyes narrowing.

Rana’s face lit up, “Yeah, I know what you mean! I’m a jackdaw.”

“What?! You just told him?” Jungkook cried.

“Ah! Yeah, we nest together!’

“What?!”

Rana was laughing and nodded, “Yeah, that’s right. Jackdaws and owls get along. What kind of owl?”

“Barn owl,” Yoongi said, perfectly at ease. Rana was perfectly at ease. Jungkook did not like this. Not that there was anything romantic going on between him and Rana but – but if she and Yoongi were suddenly best friends, she’d probably be around his apartment, and he didn’t want that level of acquaintanceship with her. She was a work buddy. A sometimes lunch buddy. He left trash for her and sometimes she gave him strings of trash arranged in pretty ways. That was the limit.

“You’ve already got two women you’re trying to get along with,” Jungkook reminded him pointedly. “We’re shopping for gifts…?”

Rana and Yoongi both laughed. At him.

“You can be friends with a girl and not want to fuck her or marry her,” Rana informed him. “Unless you have something to confess to me?”

“Yeah, it’s your turn to buy lunch for me.”

“You make more money than I do but fine, I’ll bring lunch for us both on Monday. And I’ll give you,” she said to Yoongi, “a discount if you do decide to buy any of my light strings, but no pressure. I don’t know if owls like this kind of thing or not. And not all women like the same thing so…” She raised her eyebrows at Jungkook and went back to hang another light string.

“She’s got a point. You should have her look at your dating profiles and see what you could do better to get a–”

“Hyung,” he hissed. “Don’t bring that up…”

“Well it’s not romantic with her, right?” Yoongi smiled. Jungkook glared.

“Let’s finish shopping and go, it’s too hot in here, they need to turn the heat down. It’s not good for the environment.”

Yoongi did wind up buying one of the light strings. Jungkook didn’t think he bought it for the package delivery girl though, because Yoongi wouldn’t say, and also bought wooden carved animals for the flautist. Rana waved at them as they left.

“She’s cute,” Yoongi said once they were down the street. “I see why you haven’t mentioned her.”

“Huh?”

“Namjoon and Taehyung would like her. She seems funny.”

“She thinks she’s funny but she’s not. She’s very weird.”

“Well, you’re kind of weird too.” That stung, but Yoongi insisted, “Is that a bad thing? We’re all weird, that’s why we get along. An eagle, an owl, a penguin, and a hawk are friends in a world that tells us we’d get along better with our own kind.”

“Yeah but that’s stupid to think like that.”

“And yet you are only willing to date a penguin, even when there’s a perfectly good jackdaw back there.”

Jungkook shook his head, “That’s easy for you to say. Your family is already mixed and they’d accept whatever.”

“What’s so great about your family that you want to let them dictate your life–”

“Owls are loners. Penguins aren’t. It’s not the same.”

Yoongi didn’t answer that. They walked for a few minutes. Jungkook felt bad for snapping and he knew Yoongi meant well but he really didn’t get it. He didn’t think Yoongi knew what it was like to not belong, to never belong, to desperately want to belong.

“Well, you don’t have to date her then,” Yoongi said after a while. “But you could see if she’d do the egg thing with you.”

“What egg thing,” Jungkook mumbled as quietly as he could.

“I don’t know, whatever you keep wanting cam girls to do with the–”

“NO!” Jungkook yelled. Yoongi froze. He froze.

“It’s that bad?” Yoongi finally asked.

“No! What are you talking about? I don’t–”

“I figured you’re sending cam girls eggs like the one you have and wanting them to fuck themselves with it, right?”

Jungkook’s stomach plummeted out his asshole to the ground.

“No,” he insisted. “No that is not– why do you–” He grabbed his egg in his pocket, as if to protect it from this accusation, and insisted, “That is not what I’m doing. Why do you think that?”

Yoongi shrugged, “Sound goes both ways through a wall, you know. I can’t usually hear much but– and no judgment, it’s your thing, I sure as fuck don’t care.”

“It’s just those vibrating sex eggs. That’s it,” Jungkook insisted. “It’s not a weird thing.”

“Ok well then see if she’s game for it. You’re clearly attracted to her. Your ears went all red and you were doing that shuffling thing.”

“What shuffling thing?”

“You know, like this,” Yoongi said, standing still but swaying quickly from side to side. “You always do that around pretty women.”

“No I don’t.”

Yoongi sighed, “Look, you know I hide from the pretty owl who delivers the mail, and I know you shuffle around pretty women and watch cam girls.”

“Hyung…”

“Don’t be embarrassed, we all watch porn. Why do you think I bought you those nice headphones for your birthday?”

“Excuse me while I go walk into traffic–”

Yoongi laughed and patted his shoulder, “Don’t worry about it. But I mean, if you already know she’s attractive, you aren’t going to date her, and it’s not meaningful… why not see if she’s down to fuck? If you’re getting laid, it might help with your confidence when you have a real date.”

Jungkook regretted a little now telling Yoongi about his several recent failures. He hadn’t wanted to admit those to Taehyung or Namjoon. He thought Yoongi would be more supportive and discrete, and he’d been right… until now.

“I’ll think about it,” he said, eager to change the subject. “And you should think about giving that light string gift to the package delivery owl, I think she’d like it a lot. And ask her out.”

“I’ll think about it,” Yoongi sighed. “Ok, let’s go back to not giving each other advice now and get some coffee and noodles.”

“Yeah that’s better, let’s do that.”

Previous | MASTERLIST | NEXT

#hybrid jungkook #hybrid bts #penguin koo #jungkook #jungkook x oc #jk x oc #jeon jungkook x oc #jungkook ff #jungkook x reader #jungkook fanfiction #jungkook fanfic #jungkook smut #jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #bts smut #jeon jungkook ff #jungkooksmut #jeon jungkook x reader

228 notes · View notes