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cleolinda · 11 months

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Varney the Vampire: Chapter 15

Chapter 14: So anyway, when do we kill him

I need to start this off with a full Previously On, and you’ll see why in a minute:

Fair damsel Flora Bannerworth was attacked one night by a befanged, leaden-eyed vampyre. Her mother mostly faints about it; it’s her two brothers, Henry and George, who have been trying to protect her and figure out what the fuck is going on. Their allies are their housemate/kinda-uncle, Mr. Marchdale, who was once their mother’s sweetheart before she chose the brothers’ shitheel father (RIP) instead; Flora’s recently returned fiancé, the virtuous young artist Charles Holland; and a Mr. Dr. Chillingworth, who thinks vampyres are bullshit. Amid several incidents where various Bannerworths shoot the vampyre, Henry realizes that the ancestor in a spooky portrait in Flora’s bedroom is one and the same. But also, a mysterious new neighbor keeps offering to buy the family estate. In the last two chapters, Henry and Marchdale paid a visit to this Sir Francis Varney, only to realize that HE is the vampyre/ancestor. Henry said to his face, “HOLY SHIT, YOU’RE THE VAMPYRE.” And the vampyre said, “Nah.”

None of these characters and none of these settings are in this chapter. Instead, two entirely new characters are introduced (for 4800 words). You are either going to love this, or you are going to hate this.

Chapter XV.

THE OLD ADMIRAL AND HIS SERVANT. -- THE COMMUNICATION FROM THE LANDLORD OF THE NELSON'S ARMS.

We've already been told that the servants (both the ones who immediately quit after the vampyring, and the replacements who reluctantly agreed to start working at Bannerworth Hall) have run out and told everybody in the neighborhood everything; Henry's already had total randos ask him about The Horrors. We're told now that:

The servants, who had left the Hall on no other account, as they declare, but sheer fright at the awful visits of the vampyre, spread the news far and wide, so that in the adjoining villages and market-towns the vampyre of Bannerworth Hall became quite a staple article of conversation. [...] Everywhere then, in every house, public as well as private, something was being continually said of the vampyre. [...] But nowhere was gossiping carried on upon the subject with more systematic fervour than at an inn called the Nelson's Arms, which was in the high street of the nearest market town to the Hall. There, it seemed as if the lovers of the horrible made a point of holding their head quarters, and so thirsty did the numerous discussions make the guests, that the landlord was heard to declare that he, from his heart, really considered a vampyre as very nearly equal to a contested election.

Ahhh, contested elections. Sad lol. But now, we're told, on the very evening of the day that Henry accused Varney of being a vampyre, and Varney just shrugged, two new characters that we don't know shit about have arrived:

One of these people was a man who seemed fast verging upon seventy years of age, although, from his still ruddy and embrowned complexion and stentorian voice, it was quite evident he intended yet to keep time at arm's-length for many years to come. He was attired in ample and expensive clothing, but every article had a naval animus about it, if we may be allowed such an expression with regard to clothing. On his buttons was an anchor, and the general assortment and colour of the clothing as nearly assimilated as possible to the undress naval uniform of an officer of high rank some fifty or sixty years ago. His companion was a younger man, and about his appearance there was no secret at all. He was a genuine sailor, and he wore the shore costume of one. He was hearty-looking, and well dressed, and evidently well fed.

James Malcolm Rymer's favorite humor format is Characters Who Don't Talk Classy Lmao:

"Heave to!" [the younger man] then shouted to the postillion, who was about to drive the chaise into the yard. "Heave to, you lubberly son of a gun! we don't want to go into the dock." "Ah!" said the old man, "let's get out, Jack. This is the port; and, do you hear, and be cursed to you, let's have no swearing, d -- n you, nor bad language, you lazy swab."

Lol. Rofl, even.

The Younger Man is Jack Pringle, and he helpfully informs The Old Man, one Admiral Bell, that he has been his [the Admiral's] walley de sham on dry land for ten years. The Dictionaries of the Scots Language (before and after 1700) inform us that this term is derived from the French valet de chambre, a personal servant. (The search also turned up some British and Irish usage, and Jack does not otherwise sound Scottish, or even "Scottish.") Interestingly, when I googled this phrase, the image search tab pulled up nothing but Varney the Vampire illustrations. None of them had Jack or the Admiral.

I'm belaboring this point because about 85% of this chapter is just these two characters squabbling and it is draining my will to live.

"Be quiet, will you!" shouted the admiral, for such indeed he was. "Be quiet." [...] "Belay there," said Jack; and he gave the landlord what he considered a gentle admonition, but which consisted of such a dig in the ribs, that he made as many evolutions as the clown in a pantomime when he vociferated hot codlings.

"Hot Codlings" is a song from a Mother Goose pantomime. What evolutions are vociferating. Why are words doing this. Where are we.

Bruised and confused, the landlord of the Nelson's Arms is doing his best to be hospitable; finally, the Admiral reveals that he has been sent a letter asking him to stop at this very inn, here in Uxotter (which might be Uttoxeter), by one Josiah Crinkles:

"Who the deuce is he?"

I don't know, you're the one who just drove up! The landlord cannot seem to get anything useful out of his mouth for several lines, because James Malcolm Rymer gets paid more that way. Note: "d -- -- d" will show up several times; it's just "damned," censored, and it's the expletive these two mostly fall back on:

"I'll make you smile out of the other side of that d -- -- d great hatchway of a mouth of yours in a minute. Who is Crinkles?" [The landlord:] "Oh, Mr. Crinkles, sir, everybody knows. A most respectable attorney, sir, indeed, a highly respectable man, sir." [Several lines of banter] "To come a hundred and seventy miles to see a d -- -- d swab of a rascally lawyer!"

But then, Jack Pringle says something interesting:

"Well, but where's Master Charles? Lawyers, in course, sir, is all blessed rogues; but howsomedever, he may have for once in his life this here one of 'em have told us of the right channel, and if so be as he has, don't be the Yankee to leave him among the pirates. I'm ashamed of you."

Who in this story do we know named Charles? We'll get to that several hundred words from now. Meanwhile, a bit more of the rapport between Jack Pringle and the Admiral:

"You infernal scoundrel; how dare you preach to me in such a way, you lubberly rascal?" "Cos you desarves it." "Mutiny -- mutiny -- by Jove! Jack, I'll have you put in irons -- you're a scoundrel, and no seaman." "No seaman! -- no seaman!"

The fact that this line does not end with the dialogue tag "he ejaculated" is one of literature's great tragedies.

This goes on for so long that it starts to take on a nonsensical—dadaist? that can't be right? what is happening. I don't know—quality:

"Confound you, who is doing it?" "The devil." "Who is?" "Don't, then."

Over a couple hundred words, Jack and the Admiral demand grog and a private room at the inn, and for the landlord to send for one Mr. Josiah Crinkles ("and tell him Jack Pringle is here too"). After jawing a while about how they'll serve this rascally lawyer out howsomedever, Jack says something interesting again:

"And, then, again, he may know something about Master Charles, sir, you know. Lord love him, don't you remember when he came aboard to see you once at Portsmouth?"

And right when you think we might hear who Master Charles is, they start arguing again, this time about the time they were yard arm to yard arm with those two Yankee frigates (wait they were what now? when now? the War of 1812, maybe? they can't both be old enough for the American Revolution?) and "you didn't call me a marine then," which is insulting and distinct from "seaman" in some way,

"when the scuppers were running with blood. Was I a seaman then?" "You were, Jack -- you were; and you saved my life." "I didn't." "You did."

CHRIST ALMIGHTY THEY KEEP ARGUING ABOUT THIS (bickering is how they show they care) until finally the landlord, with a flourish, ushers in one Mr. Josiah Crinkles.

A little, neatly dressed man made his appearance, and advanced rather timidly into the room. Perhaps he had heard from the landlord that the parties who had sent for him were of rather a violent sort. "So you are Crinkles, are you?" cried the admiral. "Sit down, though you are a lawyer."

There is no respect for lawyers in the Admiral's house! Ship! Room! We are now about halfway through the chapter. God give me strength. The Admiral bids Josiah Crinkles read the full supercut of the letter from Josiah Crinkles, aloud. I will reproduce it in full whether you like it or not:

"To Admiral Bell. "Admiral, -- Being, from various circumstances, aware that you take a warm and a praiseworthy interest in your nephew Charles Holland,

CHARLES HOLLAND BABY

I venture to write to you concerning a matter in which your immediate and active co-operation with others may rescue him from a condition which will prove, if allowed to continue, very much to his detriment, and ultimate unhappiness. "You are, then, hereby informed, that he, Charles Holland, has, much earlier than he ought to have done, returned to England, and that the object of his return is to contract a marriage into a family in every way objectionable, and with a girl who is highly objectionable. "You, admiral, are his nearest and almost his only relative in the world; you are the guardian of his property, and, therefore, it becomes a duty on your part to interfere to save him from the ruinous consequences of a marriage, which is sure to bring ruin and distress upon himself and all who take an interest in his welfare. "The family he wishes to marry into is named Bannerworth, and the young lady's name is Flora Bannerworth. When, however, I inform you that a vampyre is in that family, and that if he married into it, he marries a vampyre, and will have vampyres for children,

Remember what I said about family stains and tainted bloodlines?

"I trust I have said enough to warn you upon the subject, and to induce you to lose no time in repairing to the spot. "If you stop at the Nelson's Arms in Uxotter, you will hear of me. I can be sent for, when I will tell you more. "Yours, very obediently and humbly, "JOSIAH CRINKLES." P.S. I enclose you Dr. Johnson's definition of a vampyre, which is as follows: "VAMPYRE (a German blood-sucker) -- by which you perceive how many vampyres, from time immemorial, must have been well entertained at the expense of John Bull, at the court of St. James, where nothing hardly is to be met with but German blood-suckers."

I was legitimately about five minutes from hitting post with this written as "I despair of figuring out who Dr. Johnson is," when suddenly I managed to dredge SAMUEL JOHNSON WITH THE DICTIONARY!! out of my covid-riddled brain. ~Dr. Johnson didn't define "vampyre" (any spelling), so whatever Rymer's on about here, he made it up himself with a wink to the reader.

I also wasn't going to deal with the fact that vampyres are suddenly German rather than Norwegian, or Swedish, or Levantine, or Arabian. But then I realized that this might be related to that time Empress Maria Theresa sent a guy out to deal with A Vampire Problem. (The fact that I'm the kind of person who would go, "Oh, right, the Austrian vampire problem" is why I'm recapping this godforsaken serial in the first place.) And you might refer to vampires as "German" because all the areas involved, including the Austrian Empire, were in the German Confederation at the time Rymer was writing in the 1840s. Referred to as "the 18th-Century Vampire Controversy,"

The panic began with an outbreak of alleged vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Habsburg monarchy from 1725 to 1734, which spread to other localities. [...] The problem was exacerbated by rural epidemics of so-called vampire attacks, undoubtedly caused by the higher amount of superstition that was present in village communities, with locals digging up bodies and in some cases, staking them.

I gotta refer you here back to Chapter 14 last week, in which we discussed a Romanian incident of this nature that happened in 2003. Meanwhile, back in the 18th century, some real-true vampire history is unfolding: this panic was the subject of Dom Augustine Calmet's classic Treatise on the Apparitions of Spirits and on Vampires or Revenants of Hungary, Moravia, et al. ("Numerous readers, including both a critical Voltaire and numerous supportive demonologists interpreted the treatise as claiming that vampires existed.") The hysteria spread to Austria, where Empress Maria Theresa sent her personal physician to sort this shit out; there is a movie somewhere to be made about Gerard van Swieten, Vampire Hunter. Except for the fact that he came to the conclusion that vampires were bullshit in his report, Discourse on the Existence of Ghosts; as a result, Maria Theresa decreed that her subjects must stop digging up corpses and doing unfortunate vampire-hunter things to them. (Or is that just what they wanted us to think??) "Dr. Johnson's" definition of vampyres as German could have been referring to any/all of the Controversy, and it has more real-life historical basis than Vampyres of Norway. So I'll allow it. *gavel*

by which you perceive how many vampyres, from time immemorial, must have been well entertained at the expense of John Bull, at the court of St. James, where nothing hardly is to be met with but German blood-suckers.

Wait, what?

Is this referring to young Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, being German? Is this like the mystifying snark about "German princes" earlier? Have I finally cracked this? British citizens were chortling over their penny papers at such political humor, I guess?

Meanwhile, the Admiral is bellowing; the lawyer is stammering. What we come to understand, after all my digressions about German vampyres, is:

Josiah Crinkles didn't write this letter.

And he has no idea who did. He's only heard of Admiral Bell "as one of those gallant officers who have spent a long life in nobly fighting their country's battles, and who are entitled to the admiration and the applause of every Englishman." Well, when you put it that way: Jack and the Admiral decide that Josiah Crinkles, Esq., is a fine and honorable gentleman, even if he is a lawyer! I sure hope you didn't have anywhere you meant to go today!

"No. I'm d -- -- d if you go like that," said Jack, as he sprang to the door, and put his back against it. "You shall take a glass with me in honour of the wooden walls of Old England, d -- -e ["damn me"?], if you was twenty lawyers."

Uh, slow down with the false imprisonment there. What Josiah does know is a little bit about the Bannerworth family, by which I mean everything, and we're gonna hear all about it, again, because James Malcolm Rymer got bills.

There is still another 1700 words left in this chapter, by the way.

"Shiver my timbers!" said Jack Pringle, [...] -- "Shiver my timbers, if I knows what a wamphigher is, unless he's some distant relation to Davy Jones!"

Jack Pringle's interpretations of the word "vampyre" is maybe my favorite thing about the entire serial.

Jack and the Admiral bickering for another 300 words is maybe my least favorite thing about the entire serial. WOULDN'T YOU LIKE TO HEAR ABOUT THE VAMPYRE? "It appears that one night Miss Flora Bannerworth, a young lady of great beauty, and respected and admired by all who—Jack and the Admiral are still bickering. Nobly, Josiah Crinkles continues to recap chapters 1 and 2 for us (in fairness, this may have actually been helpful to penny dreadful readers in 1845). But what of the Admiral's nephew? Josiah knows nothing, much less what was written in the letter. You'd think it was Varney being nefarious, except that I don't know how he would know anything about Charles, either. One wonders who might.

[A couple hundred words of bickering]

The Admiral asks Josiah what he would do about a nephew who "has got a liking for this girl, who has had her neck bitten by a vampyre, you see."

[Josiah:] "Taking, my dear sir, what in my humble judgment appears a reasonable view of this subject, I should say it would be a dreadful thing for your nephew to marry into a family any member of which was liable to the visitations of a vampyre." "It wouldn't be pleasant." "The young lady might have children." "Oh, lots," cried Jack. "Hold your noise, Jack." "Ay, ay, sir." "And she might herself actually, when after death she became a vampyre, come and feed on her own children."

I did not remember any of this when I wrote the Consequences of Your Decision to Propagate the Family Stain section, and I'm starting to feel very smart for putting it in.

"Whew!" whistled Jack; "she might bite us all, and we should be a whole ship's crew o' wamphigaers. There would be a confounded go!"

For some reason, this bit is just absolutely fucking iconic to me. Indeed, Jack. In case of wamphigaers, the go would be confounded.

The Admiral steels himself to see "to the very bottom of this affair, were it deeper than fathom ever sounded. Charles Holland was my poor sister's son; he's the only relative I have in the wide world, and his happiness is dearer to my heart than my own." Having changed his mind about d-- -- d lawyers, Jack Pringle wishes Josiah Crinkles well, and he and the Admiral resolve to go find Charles at once—"our nevy," that is to say, "nephew," so—our nephew? Well, Jack and the Admiral definitely have an "argumentative life partners" vibe, be they employer and walley or not. So they'll go see Charles,

"see the young lady too, and lay hold o' the wamphigher if we can, as well, and go at the whole affair broadside to broadside, till we make a prize of all the particulars, arter which we can turn it over in our minds agin, and see what's to be done." "Jack, you are right. Come along."

As I've said, I did read halfway through the entire serial some ten years ago. These two are (give or take) 67% exhausting and 33% hilarious when deployed at just the right narrative moment. I'll run the numbers again once we're a few more chapters in.

Varney the Vampire masterpost

#varney the vampire #vampire studies #wampfaster wamplonger wamphigher #wamphigaers #a confounded go #vampires #long post #recaps

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mysteryshoptls · 2 years

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SSR Vil Schoenheit Halloween Personal Story: Part 3

"Becoming who you want to be"

(Part 1) (Part 2) Part 3

[Pomefiore Dorm – Lounge]

Vil: Vil Schoenheit presents: Beauty Session for Halloween Week

Vil: Finally, it's Floyd the Mummy… I'll show you the makeup that will pair well with your mummy man costume.

Floyd: Why am I the only one who had to get my face washed again…?

Vil: Don't open your mouth so wide! Don't turn towards me!!

Floyd: Ow! That's my head you're grabbing…

Vil: You're supposed to be a mummy revived from its casket… Let's try to show an inorganic and dry texture.

Vil: The base makeup needs to use a strong matte foundation. Carefully use a puff to pat it down.

Vil: Use a concealer to kill the signs of life in your lips and use a blue-based lipstick.

Vil: Although usually its visibility on stage is low and is normally frowned upon, perhaps we should use lamé here?

Vil: You'll be up close and personal with the general public, since it's a live event, after all.

Floyd: Ooooh～! It's totally different! Is that really me in the mirror?

Vil: Fufu. There's no magic involved, either.

Floyd: ? Come to think of it, Betta-chan-senpai, your vibe's a little different today, ain't it?

Floyd: I mean, you're still as scary as usual, though.

Ace: Now that you mention it…

Ruggie: Yeah, his intensity during the fashion checks he did to Leona-san was completely different from this.

Vil: How rude. I simply cannot tolerate sloppy people who lay around and neglect making a proper effort.

Vil: You all have been positive and willing to learn about the makeup for Halloween.

Vil: I do not dislike teaching those who are willing to learn.

Rook: I agree, I also noticed that Vil is enjoying himself more than usual.

Floyd: Hmm～ Maybe if I also did all this stuff like Betta-chan-senpai does, even makeup can be fun?

Floyd: I'm from the Coral Sea, right? Makeup's such a pain when you're livin' underwater.

Floyd: Hm? Oh, wait? But Azul wears makeup every day with his dorm uniform, even though we both come from the same ocean.

Floyd: Oh right, Azul said that the Sea Witch would wear tons of makeup even under the sea, and always keep up her appearance.

Floyd: Maybe he's just trying to copy those legends of her?

Vil: It's good to be curious. That's right, all fashion gets its roots from somewhere.

Vil: From something as deep as cultural backgrounds, to something as trivial as imitating your friends…

Floyd: D'you got something like that too, Betta-chan-senpai?

Vil: For me, my father's influence is quite strong.

Rook: Vil's father is also an actor. They are a whole family of performers.

Vil: My father would fly all around the world for his filming. However, that did not mean he left his child at home…

Vil: He would take me to set. And there I was in for a surprise!

Vil: That's because every time I went to see him, he would have transformed completely. One day he was an old man. The next, a young man.

Vil: When he played the role of that Monster Hero, fighting with his long claws, I believed that my father was protecting the world.

Vil: I cried once, when cosmetics for a serious injury genuinely surprised me.

Vil: And whenever he would greet the audience on stage, he would return to that wonderful father, dressed to the nines with his makeup on point.

Vil: That is how I naturally began to understand it. Makeup is neither the control of beauty or ugliness, or is it an intuitive art.

Vil: It is created on the logic of becoming who you want to be…

Vil: Beauty is created, not given. It is for those who know their path to their ideal, and strives towards that goal.

Vil: That is why I love makeup. I love fashion. I love the me who loves fashion.

Vil: Whew… I was so swept up but your own motivation that I spoke for a little too long. My apologies.

Ace: Uh, so, you're saying that your dad's a movie actor…

Floyd: My old man's favorite movie's got a monster hero in it that fought with some long claws…

Ruggie: Is it possible that…

Ortho: Displaying keyword search results. The actor’s name retrieved from the cast list is…

Ortho: "Eric Venue."

Ruggie/Ace/Floyd: EEEEHHH～～～!! THAT FAMOUS ACTOR IS HIS FATHER!?

Silver: However, his last name isn't Schoenheit.

Vil: It's obviously a stage name. Alright, break time is over.

Vil: Stop looking around and face the mirror!

Floyd: Ow! You grabbed my head again…

Vil: EVERYONE IS FINISHED!

Ruggie/Ace/Jamil: THANK YOU VERY MUCH!

Silver/Ortho/Floyd: THANK YOU!

Vil: It's too early for you to relax. Every single student will need to be able to apply it the same.

Everyone: YESSIR!

Silver: Now then, if you will excuse me.

Ortho: Saving today's lecture. Uploading the video to the cloud.

Floyd: When I get back to the dorm, I gotta show Azul and Jade all this.

Ace: I wonder if I'll be able to teach all my upperclassmen good enough～ If I mess up, the Dorm Leader'll get mad at me.

Jamil: You're not shy when talking to your elders, so you'll be fine. Even in the Basketball club, you get along better with the third years than we do.

Floyd: Want me to come over to your dorm and teach it for you, Kani-chan?

Ace: No, anything but that…

[Pomefiore Dorm – Vil's Room]

Rook: Good work today, Vil. With this, the quality of our school's Halloween has just increased.

Rook: Everything will be fine. You should rest up, especially for your skin with all the makeup you've used today.

Vil: That was my intention, but something occurred to me while I was talking about my father.

Vil: Would it be possible to use not only stage makeup, but also special movie makeup for horror films?

Rook: Beauté! That's a great idea!

Vil: I'll use all the techniques I've learned in the acting field and show them the greatest Halloween ever.

Vil: I am no longer Vil Schoenheit. Instead, I am classical and elegant, the pinnacle of royalty.

Vil: The Monsters of Monsters―

Vil: A VAMPIRE!!

Vil: HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

(Part 1) (Part 2) Part 3

#twisted wonderland #twst #vil schoenheit #ace trappola #ruggie bucchi #floyd leech #jamil viper #rook hunt #ortho shroud #twst vil #twst ace #twst ruggie #twst floyd #twst jamil #twst rook #twst ortho #twst silver #twst translation #twst halloween event

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lovinkiri · 5 months

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Undercover Wild Cat, The Perfect Date

Description: Sasha and Eijirou go on their first date. There's a lot to anticipate, and plenty of cute moments between them, including their first kiss!

Art Credit: @.jabberwockyface

OC Credit: @jix-the-dragon

Sasha was excited to start her day. Not only did she not have class, but today was a crucial milestone in her new, budding relationship with Eijirou. A day they would never forget, a truly special day.

It was their first date. Not only was it their first date together, but it was their first date in general. And Sasha was determined to complete another first today.

She and Eijirou had discussed their first kiss once before. It was awkward and a little embarrassing, but Sasha brought it up because it seemed like Eijirou did not intend to do it. Of course, she wasn’t trying to rush him. She just wanted to communicate and make sure there wasn’t a problem.

Sasha could still remember the bashful smile on his face and the red hue on his cheeks, which eventually found the tips of his ears. He said that he’d wanted their first kiss to be truly special, and with everything their classmates had recently been through with the league, he told her that it wouldn’t be very manly to give her such an important memory during a time she’d want to forget eventually.

His words had melted her heart, and she quickly agreed with him. With that, she figured their first date would be the best day to have their first kiss. The two of them had already had a few close calls before quickly snapping out of it, remembering their agreement to wait. Now that wait could finally be over.

She finally settled on a sundress, the weather was perfect for it. Looking into her full-body mirror, she began to move her hips, grinning at how the skirt of the dress swished around her legs. It wasn’t often she wore a dress, but she loved it when she did.

Once she was satisfied with her appearance, she went into the closet, pulling out a red and white checkered blanket. She and Eijirou had decided to have a picnic, she was in charge of grabbing the blanket while he grabbed the food they prepared together the night before.

She couldn’t help but giggle as she remembered the small food fight they had. They were playfully going back and forth about something silly. Sasha was winning the argument, so Kirishima had lightly thrown a piece of cheese on her. He hadn’t expected it to connect, let alone stick to her cheek, but his laughter was heard throughout the dorm. At least until he had a slice of cheese chucked over his lips, then Sasha was the one laughing. This continued until Iida came down and scolded them for wasting food.

“Maybe we should grab some cheese on our way back,” She mused aloud, hugging the blankets in her arms. It was soft against her skin, comfortable enough to sleep in. Maybe after the picnic, she could wash it. Then she and Eijirou could cuddle and watch a movie with it.

Making her way downstairs, she immediately heard a loud gasp from Mina upon entering the common area. The pink-haired girl jumped up and ran towards her, taking in Sasha’s outfit. “Wow! Someone looks good!” She exclaimed with a grin.

Sasha laughed and smiled back, tilting her head. “What? Do I usually look bad?” She asked playfully, raising an eyebrow to emphasize her question. Of course, she knew that wasn’t what Mina meant, but it was fun teasing her classmates.

Pouting, Mina hugged one of her arms, leaning against her shoulder. “You know exactly what I mean, Quinnie. You never wear dresses. The closest I’ve gotten to seeing you in a dress is our uniform skirt.” She grumbles, her cheek pressed against Sasha’s shoulder.

With a smile, Sasha lifted a hand to pet Mina on the top of her head. “Maybe we could go dress shopping soon with the rest of the girls. A girls' day out sounds nice.” She said thoughtfully, looking at her.

Mina’s head shot off of her shoulder and she looked at Sasha, holding out a pinkie. “You gotta promise, Quinnie.” She sang, grinning broadly when Sasha hooked their pinkies and agreed. They exchanged a few more words before Eijirou entered the common area, wearing a white button-up shirt and some black pants. He held a picnic basket in his hands.

When the two lovebirds saw each other, their eyes might as well have turned into hearts. It was nice to see they both had thought of dressing up for the other. Bakugou groaned from his place on the couch, rolling his eyes. “There they go.” He grunted, watching as they approached each other.

“Hey, Sash.”

“Hi, Eij.”

Their exchange might have looked awkward on the outside, but the two simply couldn’t find the words. Even though they’d just seen each other, the time leading up to this felt like forever. They were excited, this was their first date after all.

“You look beautiful,” Eijirou smiled, admiring how the dress looked on her. “I mean you always look beautiful, but you know.” He quickly added before she could tease him like she teased Mina. Though he wasn’t here when it happened to her, he knew Sasha well enough.

She laughed, knowing exactly why he felt the need to add that second part. “Thanks, Eiji. You look amazing.” She complimented, looking him up and down purposefully, watching him flush. She would always find a way to tease him.

Reaching up, she gently pinched his cheek, careful not to hurt him with her claws. “You’re so cute when you blush.” She said, watching him pout the same way Mina had. Though she had to say, he was a lot cuter, though maybe she was biased.

“C’mon, Sash, let’s go.” He placed a hand on her back, gently leading her towards the front door. It seemed he wanted to run away, not wanting their classmates to see his face turn as red as his hair.

Mina tilted her head curiously. “Where are you guys off to dressed all nice?” She asked curiously, jumping over the couch and landing next to Bakugou, who looked up from his phone.

“Yeah, hanging out without us?” Denki spoke up, coming out of the kitchen with a bowl in hand. He looked between Sasha and Eijirou, taking in their clothes before grinning in admiration.

Eijirou, already almost out of the door, looked back at them with Sasha still holding his cheek. “I’m taking my girlfriend on a date. And it wouldn’t be a date if you guys all came along, right?” He spoke as if it was obvious, and maybe it should’ve been. But the class had no idea they decided to make their relationship official.

Letting go of his cheek, she waved at her classmates as they walked out of the door. “Bye, guys! Sorry, Denks, Maybe next time!” She called out as she shut the door. As soon as it closed, she heard everyone in the room erupt into shock.

“Get back here, Idiots! When did we start keeping secrets, hah?!” That was undeniably Bakugou’s voice, the loudest as always. She hadn’t expected him to be so shocked, but hearing it was amusing.

Then there was a whistle. “Finally!” That was all Denki exclaimed, and Eijirou laughed at that. Out of everyone, Denki had supported them from the start. They couldn’t imagine how happy he must have been to hear they were finally an official couple.

“What?! You owe me details, you two! Details!” Mina shouted after them. Sasha knew what that meant. After the day, she was going to have a girl talk in Mina’s room with the rest of the girls. Either before or after a talk with Bakugou and Denki.

Those three were the loudest, the rest of their classmates who were in the common area were surprised but not as surprised as the three.

“I love our classmates.” She told Eijirou as made their way out of UA, looking up at him. “It’s never a dull day. I’d have thought the blanket and basket would have given us away.”

Eijirou looked back at her. “Yeah, but we always did romantic stuff, even when we weren’t officially together.” He pointed out to her, swinging the basket just a little, not enough to ruin the food.

“Romantic stuff like what?” She asked though she knew exactly the kind of stuff he was talking about, he could see it in the way her eyes seemed to sparkle with mischief.

Deciding that it was his turn to tease, he took her hand in his, interlocking their fingers. He wished he could have taken a picture of Sasha’s face at that moment, how her ears perked up and her eyes widened, let alone the red hue on her cheek that only darkened as Eijirou smirked.

“Romantic stuff like this.” He leaned down, kissing her cheek. He smiled against her soft cheek, feeling how hot her face had gotten. “Now who’s the cute one?” He asked teasingly, pulling away with a wink.

“Okay, fine, you got me this time.” She huffed, her cheeks puffing as she looked ahead, too shy to make eye contact when she knew how flustered she probably looked. He only laughed and gently swung their hands, rather than the basket. Anyone who looked at the two as they walked by couldn’t help but smile. Young love in its finest form.

Eijirou and Sasha had decided to go to a very specific location for their picnic. It was a park, and the people who knew about it knew it for its beautiful flowers and scenery. It took quite a bit of research to find this park it wasn’t exactly well-known. It was in a small, suburban area a little ways out. A train ride and a small walk away.

When they reached the train, all of the seats were taken. Thankfully, not many people were standing. They managed to get inside right before the doors closed, laughing at how quickly they’d started to run just to make it.

The train began moving and Sasha reached up, her fingers just barely wrapping around the handle hanging from the bar above them. She looked up at Eijirou, grinning. “Nice job, Eiji.” She said proudly, as he’d been able to keep up with her speed. She hadn’t given it her all, but she was going fast. The plan was to hold the door for Eijirou.

He panted softly, holding onto the bar above him. Still, he smiled at her through his deep breaths. “Yeah? Getting used to your speed,” He let out an airy chuckle. He’d been right though, Eijirou was getting better at keeping up with her.

“You didn’t have to run so fast, you know. I was going to hold the door open for you.” She told him, watching as he quickly regained his breath.

He shook his head and glanced out the window as if trying to hide how his next words would fluster him. “I always want to run by your side, no matter what. I may not be as fast as a leopard, but I’ll settle for the closest I can get to it.” He said softly, giving a small shrug.

Sasha blushed at his sweet words, nudging him gently with her free hand. “You’re so manly, Ei.” That was all she needed to say to make him perk up.

“He’s just too cute. Almost like a puppy..” She thought to herself, imagining him with soft, floppy puppy ears. She nearly cooed at the thought, watching him with an adoring gaze. Her stare caught his attention, his cheeks blooming with red.

“W-What happened?” He asked, tilting his head and only making him look cuter to Sasha. She had no idea how he didn’t realize just how adorable he could be.

Reaching up, she gently pinched his cheek again, giving a teasingly smile. “Don’t make that face anymore. You’ll end up making my heart explode, okay?” She said cheekily. When she was an agent, she never imagined she’d be flirting with her boyfriend on a train, on her way to a picnic. But there they were.

Eijirou gave a flustered pout and pulled her hand from his cheek, holding it in his own. His thumb brushed against her knuckles gently. “You’re teasing again, Sash.” He huffed softly. When he noticed the mischievous sparkle in her eyes, he decided to retaliate, bringing his palm to her lips. He placed a loving kiss there, watching her go wide-eyed.

“You’re my favorite person, you know that? No one else gives me butterflies like this.” She told him, wanting him to know how special she was to him. He was the only person to ever make her feel this way. For a moment, she thought about a particularly annoying agent she used to work with, one who flirted with her constantly. ‘Hex’, that was what he was called. But she quickly dismissed the thought, not wanting her memory of him to ruin this date. Not like she’d have to see him again anyway.

He smiled warmly, his eyes reflecting a mixture of surprise and delight. "Really? Just me?" It was obvious no one had said that about him before.

She chuckled softly, her heart feeling lighter seeing how happy her words had made her. "Oh, yeah. It's the little things you do too, like the way you make ordinary moments extraordinary. No one else has this magical ability to turn the mundane into something extraordinary. No one but you, Ei.”

He raised an eyebrow, intrigued by her assertion. "Magical ability, huh? Little things? I don’t do much. Not as much as I wish I could. Because you’re special to me too, Sasha." He admitted bashfully.

Her gaze softened as she began to recount moments that had left a lasting impression on her. "Like the time we went on that trip and ended up cuddling on the bus. Or when you surprised me with my favorite dessert last week just because, and your thoughtfulness made my day."

His expression softened, touched by her words. He hadn’t realized the significance of his actions. "Those were super small things though, Sash. Not nearly as much as you deserve. Especially for what you went through, you deserve it all.”

She shook her head, looking at him as if he hung the stars himself. "Super small to you, maybe, but they meant the world to me. It's not about grand gestures; it's about the sincerity and thoughtfulness behind them. You make me feel seen, appreciated, and loved in a way not many people do."

He reached for her hand, a silent acknowledgment of the connection they shared. "Well, like I said, you're my favorite person too. You bring so much joy and warmth into my life. I never knew someone could be so.. Manly?" He said it questioningly before shaking his head. “No, not just manly. I mean… You’re just.. Everything? Does that make sense?” He scratched the back of his head, wishing he was better with his words.

Little did he know, he couldn’t have said it better. Her heart went fluttering at his sweet sentiment. She nodded, noticing how his hand still held her, warm and secure. “It does. It makes perfect sense.” She assured him.

The rhythmic hum of the train created a soothing backdrop as Sasha and Eijirou spoke, eventually able to sit down as an old couple stood. Eijirou let a small thought pass, that maybe he and Sasha would be together when they were that old. He figured he was probably getting ahead of himself, not knowing Sasha had the same thought.

When they do get off the train, they make their way to the park. It’s a short walk, and it feels even shorter to Sasha when she’s in such in company. The park, adorned with vibrant blossoms and tall, swaying trees, welcomed them with a gentle breeze that carried the sweet scent of flowers. Sasha couldn't help but admire the sunlight filtering through the leaves, creating a pattern on the stone path under their feet. She held her arm out, watching the pattern reflect against her skin, over the cheetah print of her arm. Smiling, Eijirou held out his arm to do the same, their fingers brushing together.

As they approached a quiet enough spot beneath the shade of an old tree, Sasha couldn't help but appreciate the simple joy of sitting beside Eijirou against the soft blanket. “I was thinking we could use this to cuddle later. Feels soft against my skin.” She mentioned her thoughts from earlier, smoothing out the blanket as he opened the basket.

Pulling out some sandwiches they poorly cut into different shapes, he smiled at the thought. “Sounds pretty good to me. The more time I get to spend with you, the better. Especially when all of the studying I’ve been doing with Bakugou. Wish he’d let you join.” He sighed, remembering how Bakugou had told Eijirou they had to study privately. Or at least, without Sasha. Otherwise, he’d stare at her the entire time. He knew that Bakugou was right, but he couldn’t help it. How could he not look at her?

She laughed softly, pulling the plastic wrap from the plate of sandwiches while Eijirou pulled out a bottle of juice and two portable plastic cups. “You’ll have to stop staring at me then.”

“Easier said than done, babe.”

Her heart skipped a beat at the new nickname. He’d never called her that before. She didn’t hate it. It spread a warm feeling through her chest. Noticing the way she hesitated before speaking, he looked at her nervously.

“Was that okay?” He asked, not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable. He’d been wanting to call her that for a while, only now finding the courage to try. Eijirou wasn’t sure what reaction to expect, so he had to be sure she wasn't upset.

But she quickly shook her head. “More than okay, Eijirou,” Sasha reassured him, her eyes sparkling with a mix of surprise and affection. The nickname lingered in the air, a newfound fondness for the nickname. He grinned at her, glad that she liked it.

As they continued unpacking the food, Sasha found herself replaying the moment in her mind. 'Babe'—it was such a simple word, yet its impact was amazing. It felt like a key unlocking a door to a new layer of intimacy between them.

“Hey,” She spoke up, gaining his attention as he unpacked the last of it. “Does that mean I finally get to call you ‘Darling’?” She gave a playful grin, watching his face flash as he nearly dropped the brownies they asked Sato to make, which he happily did as he was craving brownies anyway.

He smiled, looking almost shy. He’d started it, but to hear her calling him ‘Darling’, he understood why she’d gotten quiet. The initial reaction had left him speechless too. He instead poured a cup of juice, downing it as Sasha waited expectantly for a response.

He nodded, wiping his mouth quickly, hiding his cheeks behind his hand while he did. “Of course you can, babe. I’d like it if you did it more often, honestly.” He said softly, wanting to be honest about how much the name had affected him.

“Okay, Darling,” She purred affectionately, leaning her head against his shoulder. Eijirou wrapped an arm around her, laying his head against her. As far as picnic dates went, they were off to a great start.

Leaning into Eijirou's side, Sasha found comfort in the warmth of his presence. Her head nestled against his shoulder, creating intimacy within the bustling park. The gentle rustle of leaves and distant chatter was static in their ears, their focus on their private moment, one that seemed to suspend time like an enchantment of shared affection.

Lifting a brownie, Sasha offered to feed it to Eijirou, and he didn’t bite immediately, deciding to mess with her first this time. Instead, he gave her a confused look.

"Eat it, Eiji," she urged a lightness in her tone that echoed the carefree nature of their date. Eijirou's grin widened, and he leaned forward, playfully pretending to nibble at the air.

Finally, with a theatrical sigh, Sasha tried again, bringing the brownie closer to Eijirou's lips. He took a playful bite, and the rich, chocolatey goodness hit his tastebuds quickly. The taste was a burst of sweetness, Sato truly was a master in the kitchen.

As Eijirou savored the brownie, Sasha couldn't help but admire the way his eyes lit up with delight. The sight made her take a bite as well. It was a small, intimate exchange, yet it spoke volumes about the comfort and joy they found in each other's presence. The park seemed to fade away, leaving only the two of them in a world where every shared bite became a celebration of their connection.

The couple continued to cuddle against the blanket, feeding each other. It was a sweet sight to anyone who passed by them. An older man gazed at them as if he were remembering something. They waved and he waved back with a smile before walking along.

Sasha traced circles on Eijirou's hand, her voice melodic in his ear. "You know, these moments feel nice. After everything we went through, I think we really needed this, right?” She looked up at him.

Eijirou grinned, his eyes reflecting the affection he felt. "Yeah, it's like we've found our own little moment away from the world,” He furrowed his eyebrows at his own words. “Moment..?” He repeated, wondering if that was the best word.

She nodded, assuring him once more. “Our own little moment.” Sasha's fingers played with the edges of his white shirt as she continued, "I never imagined a simple picnic could turn into something so special though. Somehow, you make eating on a blanket the best experience ever.”

Eijirou chuckled, his gaze fixed on the stars. "Remember what you said earlier? Sometimes, it's the simplest things that mean the most." He pointed out her words from their earlier conversation and she nodded.

Sasha continued to rest her head on Eijirou's shoulder, sighing contentedly. "I like what you said about this being our own little moment. I'm grateful for moments like these. It's like time stands still, and it's just us." She expanded on his statement and he nuzzled the top of her head.

Eijirou nodded, his fingers gently intertwining with hers. "It's the kind of peace that makes everything else fade away. Never liked that kind of peace before, but I like it now. Easier to focus on you.” He told her, watching her practically hide her face against his.

With a soft smile, Sasha gazed into Eijirou's eyes. "You make ordinary moments extraordinary, you know that?" She pointed out, wanting to voice these thoughts once more, wanting him to truly understand how his presence affected her life.

Eijirou blushed, a playful glint in his eyes. "Well, it's easy when I'm with someone as extraordinary as you." He decided to flirt, watching her turn the same shade of red.

As the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in warm hues of orange and pink, Sasha and Eijirou stayed on the picnic blanket. The soft glow of twilight swept over them. The distant chirping of crickets serenaded the couple, and the rustle of leaves in the gentle evening breeze provided a soothing soundtrack to their shared chatter.

As the last traces of daylight faded, they exchanged soft whispers, their words carrying the weight of shared dreams and untold promises. Promises of how they would always stay together, how they’d always protected each other. Eijirou began thinking about a promise ring. He knew it was a big commitment to him, and he definitely thought it was worth Sasha. With how sweet she was looking at him, he could have married her right then and there.

With a final gaze at the fading sunlight, Sasha and Eijirou rose from the blanket, hand in hand. The park, now bathed in the soft glow of streetlights, made her eyes move across their scene happily. Even cleaning up their food was fun with Eijirou.

As they strolled away from the picnic spot, the evening whispered its blessings, carrying the echoes of shared laughter, stolen kisses, and the quiet joy of being intertwined in the tapestry of love. The picnic blanket, picked up from the dew-kissed grass, silently held the memories of a day well spent, promising a future adorned with countless more moments like these.

They stopped at the entrance of the park, looking out at it one more time, taking in the scenery. They hadn’t even paid much attention to it, even though that was the point of coming here. Instead, they lost themselves in each other. Still, it was a nice experience, a perfect date.

Almost perfect.

Sasha turned to Eijirou, her eyes reflecting her vulnerability. "This night feels... different, doesn't it?" She said, brushing her hair back with a smile.

Eijirou met her gaze, his heart beating against his chest. He what was coming. It was time. "It's like the universe is giving us a moment we've been waiting for." He returned her smile, nodding in agreement with her statement.

A soft breeze played with Sasha's hair as she leaned in, their breaths mingling in the cool night air. "Maybe it's time we stop waiting," she whispered, her voice delicate and sweet.

Eijirou's heart raced, mirroring the anticipation in the air. "Yeah, maybe it is." He murmured softly.

Their proximity intensified, and the magnetic pull between them was undeniable. Sasha's fingers traced a shy path up Eijirou's arm, and in that moment, time seemed to slow for the both of them.

Eijirou cupped Sasha's cheek, his touch gentle yet filled with a longing that spoke volumes. "Sasha..."

She met his gaze, and without uttering another word, the universe granted them permission, finally giving them their special moment. Their lips met in a tender dance, a culmination of unspoken emotions and the magic of the night.

Then everything else fell away as they lost themselves in the sweetness of their first kiss. Sasha's heart fluttered, and Eijirou felt an electric warmth coursing through his veins. The kiss was everything they hoped it would be and more. They weren’t sure what to expect, but any expectations they might have had wouldn’t compare.

They conveyed everything through a gentle, simple kiss. Eijirou could feel Sasha’s appreciation for how he always believed in her, and never let any doubts sway him away from her. And Sasha could feel his understanding for her, he wanted to make her happy after such a difficult life.

Breaking the kiss, Sasha looked into Eijirou's eyes, a soft smile playing on her lips. "That was... perfect." She spoke breathlessly, giggling nervously. She couldn’t help but wonder if she was any good at kissing.

Eijirou grinned, his eyes reflecting the newfound connection. "More than perfect." He said quietly, making her relax in response.

Hand in hand, they made their way back home. The train was emptier this time around, so they were able to grab seats as soon as they got on. They talked softly about how the date went, what they would tell their classmates when they got home, and were roped into conversations about today.

On the way back, they made sure to pick up some cheese like Sasha had wanted. She hoped Iida wasn’t still upset about it. She doubted it, he could be very forgiving. Still, she thought it’d be best to replace wasted food in the dorm.

Just as they thought, they were immediately bombarded with questions. Looking at their friends, they gave them relaxed smiles.

“One second guys, at least let me walk my girl to her room,” Eijirou said, gently her hand in his. It felt good to say, calling Sasha his girl. As for Sasha, it felt good to hear. Everyone took a step back, letting the two walk to Sasha’s room.

“Aren’t you manly? Walking your girl to her room,” Sasha giggled as they approached her door. Stopping outside her room, she looked up at him affectionately. “Guess that makes you my man, doesn’t it?”

Eijirou chuckled at Sasha's playful comment, a warm glow spreading across his face. "Well, I can't let my girl walk alone, can I?" he teased, a twinkle in his eyes.

As they stood by her door, a comfortable silence settled between them. Eijirou couldn't help but admire the way Sasha's eyes sparkled with a warmth that mirrored his own feelings.

She leaned up and gave him a quick kiss. He returned the kiss, holding her cheek against his palm. A goodnight kiss was the perfect way to end this perfect day. It wasn’t until they heard a chorus of gasps that they pulled away. Looking behind them, they say their classmates duck behind a corner. They couldn’t help but share a laugh at their silliness.

“Looks like they’ve been waiting for us all day. Let’s get through these talks, yeah?” She said, rubbing her arm bashfully. Eijirou agreed with a few stutters, making Sasha grin at him.

“Right, yeah. Well… Goodnight, babe.” Eijirou said, hugging her close to him. It was as if he couldn’t get enough affection.

Sasha hugged back, wrapping her arms around his neck. She didn’t mind, she felt the same way. Was this the honeymoon phase she heard people talking about?

“Goodnight, Darling.” She spoke softly, and he nearly melted in her embrace.

Then, like moments ago, they heard their classmates again. This time, they awed at the couple, finding their new nicknames adorable. The two pulled away and exchanged amused looks before Sasha made her way into her room.

Not even five minutes later, someone was knocking rapidly at her door. She walked over and opened it, finding that it was Mina who knocked, unsurprisingly. The other girls were right behind her.

“Girl, you dropped such a huge bomb on us earlier. We’ve got questions!” Hagakure spoke up first, jumping up in excitement, the others agreeing with her.

She grinned at them, grateful to have friends she could talk with like this after a date. She moved aside, giving them room to enter. “I've got a lot to share ladies.”

Meanwhile, Eijirou wasn’t even able to answer most of the questions he was asked, stuck in a lovestruck daze. “She kissed me..” He trailed off.

Bakugou let out a frustrated groan. “Yeah, we saw. You gonna talk about your shitty date or not?”

“Again..” Eijirou finished, smiling happily. “She kissed me again.”

Denki jumped up in shock, hand on Eijirou’s shoulders. “Again?! Man, we need all the details, all of them!” He insisted.

As Bakugou tried to argue that they didn’t need every detail, Eijirou looked out the window, talking under his breath as Sero tried to get him to spill this time. “My girl. Her man. Her Darling…” He blushed softly.

#bnha #mha #my hero academia #boku no hero academia #fluff #eijirou kirishima #writing commissions #eijirou kirishima x oc #undercover wild cat 💕

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jaws-and-canines · 1 year

Text

With Disgrace

A Count The Days story. As part of his sentence from the Court Martial for Conduct Unbecoming, and prior to being tried as a civilian for the murder of Jacob Kay, Haskell is formally expelled from the Department. Contains mentions of death.

---

Here I am, in uniform, for the last time, being escorted down the corridor to the one event I would give anything to skim over in my fall from grace. Anything else- save if I were to hang, I suppose, and the thought makes my face twitch- would be more bearable.

The Rangers are there to take me out- two of them, uniformed, sharp sabres glinting under the fluorescents. I squint at their uniforms until I work out they’re both Warrant Officers. That’s a deliberate snide on Davies’ behalf, rubbing in that I no longer hold the authority I used to, and they both seem to know it. As it stands, I was the head of the Chairman-General’s Corps. There is nobody there who I was subordinate to, so they default to the unit I was in prior to that, the Rangers.

There’s Nelson coming up behind me and the two Prison Service officers either side of me. Nelson is carrying my sword under his on his hip. I thought, somehow, that this would be more momentous than this. It’s not.

Davies is waiting just at the end of the corridor, where the windows, high and small, are open, and I can hear the wind howling in. Through a heavy iron-bar gate and an equally imposing door, there is Nation Square. There is the parade of the Chairman-General’s Corps assembled, waiting for us, waiting for me. Waiting to see my shame laid out for them and my status and honour ripped from me and thrown to the wolves for the sake of justice. It’s not justice. I did fuck all to deserve this.

Prison, yes. I can understand that. I don’t agree, I don’t- but I can understand how the idea of retributive justice makes people happy, and even though it seems unfair to punish me for an accident of all things, a man did die. Jacob did die. There has to be something to balance the scales. If only to soothe hurt feelings. This enforced shame, this humiliation, however, I can’t reconcile in my head just yet. It doesn’t seem fair to me. I didn’t fucking mean to kill him. It just happened.

“Sort your face out, Haveter, and sort your collar out,” says Davies, gesturing to me as we walk closer to him. I stop, and try to force the look of disdain, of put-upon suffering off my face. Davies carries on. “Why is the top button undone? You should know fucking better.”

“It makes me feel like I’m choking,” I say simply. I’m sure the undertone is evident- if there’s one thing Davies could do, it’s pattern recognition. I’m sure he pieced together the undone top buttons and looser ties that all began the day when it was made clear to me that being hanged was a distinct possibility- and I could no longer tolerate something touching my throat.

He tuts and gestures for me to do it up regardless. He doesn’t care, and he’s right. but I thought I might get away with it given they’re just going to rip all of this apart anyways. But, no. I button up the uniform right to the top- ignoring the slight edge of panic that seeps into my head- and straighten out the pins on the edges of my collar.

It’ll all be gone soon. It pains me. It utterly pains me. I straighten out the coat and button it up, and by instinct feel, checking my sword is the right way around- it’s not there, I have to remind myself, and flex my hand to try to hide the movement I made. I realise I’m shaking and clench my fist to hide that as well.

Nelson wordlessly passes my sword over to Davies. Davies hooks it behind his. I look at it, a little forlorn. I know it’s like me- fate already sealed, blunted for the Court Martial, and now filed so it will snap when it is broken. Our fates are both decided now- blunted, to be broken in the name of justice. The irony is not lost on me.

“Let’s not prolong this,” says Davies, and then the keys rattling and scraping in the locks set my teeth on edge, more than I already am. Then I’m pressed outside by the two escorting officers, one on each side of me- had I lingered on the threshold, I am sure it would have turned from a gentle but stern push to a drag.

Through the courtyard of death and bloodshed. Out into the parade ground of the more psychological sort of suffering- in front of the eyes of the assembled Corps. My heart twinges. Thankfully, for now, I don’t have to see their faces as I’m led towards the front of the parade, my back to them.

Davies stands in front of me, warming up his hands by rubbing them together before reading off the sentence from a piece of official letterhead paper I didn’t even notice he was carrying. “Haskell Irvin Haveter, by a unanimous guilty verdict of a lawfully assembled Court Martial of the Department of State Affairs, you are hereby to be Displaced with Disgrace from our ranks,” he says to me.

I say nothing. It’s not my place to speak. The escorting officers have swords for a reason- if I say a word, I will be struck by one of them across the back of my legs. From training, and other misadventures, I know a sabre to the calf really fucking hurts. I’d rather not add injury to insult. I’d rather not have the Corps at my back see that happen to me.

Davies chooses, as the commanding officer has the right to in the Displacement proceedings, to take a moment to address me. I knew he probably would, and I wish he would not. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed in you. You had potential, Haskell. You had real potential. And I’m sorry it’s going to go to waste now, I really am.”

Dead face, I tell myself. No expressions. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I can’t let any of this show. “You’ve got a long road ahead of yourself now, Haskell. This isn’t the end, not really. It’s not going to be easy but you’re going to make something of yourself despite all this. It may not be as much as it could have once been. But something is better than nothing, if you’re going to be sensible,” he says, and nods towards Nation House. “They’ll tear you apart in there if you aren’t sensible.” The brief image of me being torn to shreds surfaces in my mind, and then back again, as I look at Davies with dead eyes. “I don’t want to see you hanged for this. Because then that really will be the end for you.”

He puts his hand out towards my uniform. I do not flinch. The corps patches come first. He uses the edge of his wedding ring to get the first stitch to break. Then they come easily. His expression is something halfway between anger and uncomfortable pity. The gold stitching on the scales of Justice, the white of the feather pens crossed at her feet- into the rain between the cobblestones. The filthy water seeps in. No longer gold, no longer white. Just meaningless fabric at my feet.

He takes my medals in one hand, and tears them from my chest. I keep looking at him- face as still as I can make it, as if I’m not even here. Long ago, I was paraded in front of my fellow comrades-in-arms with a missing eye and flayed skin, as some sick sort of warning. I suppose now is no different- all the people out here, if they do what I’ve done, they will become like me. Wretched. That same blank expression did not break then and it will not break now.

Even as he casts my medals to the floor and rips off my awards patches like it is nothing, even as I hear stitches snap and give way and my coat tear and with it my honour and pride. The Wounded ribbon catches in the wind. A deep sort of crimson-purple. It turns over once, twice, and then flutters away. I touch my hand to the bottom of my scar, almost as if that too might be blown away by the wind, and then have to remind myself to keep my hands at my sides.

He stops with a hand on my shoulder and I can feel that almost imperceptible trembling in my core through his touch- and then he rips off my epaulettes. Quickly. One, two, gone. I realise I have been holding my breath and inhale shakily through my nose, keeping that dead expression.

Davies knows that beneath the porcelain face I am falling apart. I am crumbling. He decides to try to soothe things, but as he always did, he drives the knife in to the hilt in the process. “You were a good man. I still maintain you can be one again,” he says to me. I almost shatter entirely. I don’t.

My face just twitches.

He takes my sword from the loop on his belt, holding it flat-side-up to me so that I can see the seals on it, I can see my name engraved onto it. “By my authority, Haskell Irvin Haveter, I declare you Displaced, stripped of all honour and accolade, for your actions of conduct unbecoming.”

He brings the sword up, one hand on the hilt, the other on the blade-end. He brings it down, a forceful arc. Not slow in reality, but slow in my mind with the sense that this is it; this is the end of it all.

I close my eyes as my reputation, my life’s pride and work, every achievement I ever made, shatters into three pieces over my head and falls to the ground with a clatter, broken. One moment it’s there, over my head, the next there’s shattered pieces of it on the ground.

Dead eyes, dead face, that’s all I let myself think. I can’t let this show. I can’t let this show.

I’m turned to face the parade with a hand under each of my arms. Dead eyes, dead face, dead man. That’s all I am. The coat is pulled from me. I close my eyes again as the jacket is taken from me as well, and I’m left to shiver in a white shirt that could be a civilian’s if you didn’t look twice, and green khaki trousers that do nothing to stop the wind from cutting into my skin.

A hand- I don’t look to see who, because that would let the tears welling up in my eyes spill out- comes along with a field knife and cuts the tiny red tabs at the corner of my shirt collar. The last indication on my clothing that could be remotely mistaken for showing status. They roll up my sleeves. The barely scabbed-over cut from the ceremony of the court martial along my arm smarts in the cold air.

My achievements, my life’s work, my sacrifice and my pain are all scattered in little pieces of metal and brightly-coloured fabric all over the cobbles. I’m left with nothing but an oozing cut across my arm, a creased white shirt and the aura of a migraine playing across the right edge of my field of vision. The bitter wind carries on screaming across the parade ground. As it always has, as it always will.

And then comes the walk. Through the ranks of soldiers stood out on parade and back towards Nation house. Hands on swords- mine broken and abandoned behind me- and hands on my arms, preventing me from making a break for it. As if I would. As if that would be at all well advised. As if I’m not practically leaden at this point. But still, the porcelain face serves me well.

For once, for once in my life, I wish they’d hood me. As much of a humiliation it is to be led somewhere as a cowering figure with a black canvas hood over your head, this is worse- to have to fix your gaze on nothing in particular as the wind tries to claw tears from your eyes- to have to walk over your own achievements on your way back into the courthouse where you have been tried, and you have been found guilty, and you will once again be judged.

We pass between the wrought-iron and limestone fencing that separates the parade ground from the miserable courtyard where the blood that the law demands is spilt has stained the concrete of the cobbles a few shades darker. Many die here- whether stood before the firing squad or on their knees with a round to the back of their head. I will not be of that number.

The only thing that awaits me, disgraced as I am now, in the realms of state-sanctioned death is the hangman. The number that I could still well be a part of here is the cohort who are deemed to need a physical reminder of what they have done carved into their fucking back with a flogging. And they are brutal enough, that whilst better than death, the difference is only marginal in my mind.

I can’t help but stare at the chips of ricochets - or echoes of bullets that found their targets and tore right through- taken out of the wall at the far side of the courtyard. That little reminder seeps through- I am dead eyes, dead face, and, perhaps most importantly, if I don’t play my cards right, a dead fucking man. There are two dead if you count Jacob. Again, that little involuntary twitch of my face, the only expression I’ve let slip through my mask all through this. I put my hand to my face briefly to try to smooth it out. The migraine aura remains, shimmering a white-yellow at the edge of my visual field.

Two dead men. One on the corner of a hearth, broken skull- another soon to be before the judge, soon to be before the hangman, soon to be before the noose. I am, still, dead eyes, dead face, and a dead fucking man.

#haskell haveter #count the days #writeblr #whumpblr #original content #yall this is tag soup at the moment #original writing #its not ok

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mythicamagic · 3 years

Note

May I have one for "just wait for me here." "It's not like I can go anywhere." please.

Sesshoumaru arched a brow, staring across the sunlit glade towards a peculiar sight. His brother’s miko was acting strangely. She stood, clutching her bow tight- knuckles turning pale from the force of her grip. She tentatively used one end to feel around the grass, before prodding the ground with her shoe and inching forward.

Although they shared the same clearing, Kagome didn’t look up, nor acknowledge his presence.

Sesshoumaru gave in to curiosity, not particularly concerned about an enemy but too intrigued to ignore this display. She jerked when his boot crunched on a twig.

“Stay back!” Kagome snarled, voice shaking as she whipped her bow up defensively.

Sesshoumaru bit back a chuckle. What good would a mere bow do as a weapon without arrows? His humour soon abated however, staring into her murky blue eyes that gazed just over his shoulder.

Ah, I understand.

“W-who’s there?” she stammered, fear clouding her scent.

Inuyasha and her friends were clearly absent, always so foolish. They’d left a blinded miko vulnerable and alone?

Sesshoumaru gave the quivering woman a once over, noticing a few scrapes over her bare knees. Cut rope looped around her freed wrists. That strange white and green clothing she always wore was marred with dirt, torn in various places. She’d likely been kidnapped and escaped her captor on her own. Mildly impressive.

Still, she was nothing to do with him. Sesshoumaru turned on one heel.

“S-sesshoumaru?” Kagome called out tentatively. The words became firmer, more confident. “Sesshoumaru...wait. Please.”

The Daiyoukai paused, looking at her sightless blue eyes. “How is it that you knew who I was?”

She released a short, hard breath, clearly relieved to be speaking with someone. “I’m getting better at sensing stuff, I guess.”

“Hn,” he frowned, “and your eyes?”

Kagome touched her cheek, curling in on herself a little, “a demon blew a powder into my face and it blinded me. He kidnapped me...but I managed to get away. I just hope its temporary, ya know?” she gave a nervous giggle, despair threatening to take her under. Sesshoumaru hummed, attention drawing away to the forest surrounding them. He knew these woods well, and there was nothing around for miles. No villages nor clans. Just wild flatlands that eventually led to the mountains. She’d certainly ran a long way.

“I know we’re not friends- or even allies,” Kagome mumbled. “You’ve got no reason to help me-”

“That is correct,” he silkily agreed.

Her pretty features tightened with barely concealed frustration, amusing him. “But I’d owe you, hugely, if you just drop me off where Inuyasha can find me. I promise I’d return the favour- tenfold!”

Sesshoumaru chuckled, rather liking his position in this situation, studying his immaculate nailbeds in an unnecessary show of disinterest. “There is nothing a human could give to me that would be worth my time- nor do I need a favour.”

Blowing out a frustrated hiss of air through her teeth, Kagome stepped forward, gazing in his general direction. “So you’re going to just leave me here?”

“As previously established, miko,” he purred in a low tone. “We are not friends nor allies. Are we lovers?” he teased.

She instantly turned red, barking; “in your dreams!”

“Well then, if we are not friends, allies nor lovers, I have no need to heed your cries above those of the ants I crush beneath my feet when I walk,” Sesshoumaru turned away again, heading in the opposite direction.

“Wait!”

The desperate crunch of feet thundering through tall grass reached his ears, though the demon lord kept pace. Something knocked into his side- and Kagome stumbled, before latching tight onto mokomoko, wrapping her arms around his furs and hugging them to her chest.

Golden eyes widened at her audacity, pressing a palm against her forehead, trying to extract her from his person. “Off.”

“No way!” she twisted and tried to bite at his hand, narrowing sightless eyes. “Don’t be so heartless. At the very least, leave me at the nearest village- jerk!”

“You are doing a poor job of endearing yourself to me, wench,” Sesshoumaru lifted his hand, resting sharp claws against her damp forehead, slick with sweat. He prodded warningly. “Release this one.”

Kagome shuddered but refused to let go. “I-if I do, I’m as good as dead anyway,” she murmured, tightening her grip. “Please.”

Sesshoumaru flirted with the idea of releasing acid from his nails and reducing the nuisance into a pile of melted flesh and bone. However, even while blind- those blue eyes managed to fill him with a strange sense of intrigue. If this woman died, he ludicrously felt that the fates would turn their wrath upon him, not that he heeded the threat of any higher powers. She was so unusual in appearance, word and deed he could not help but think her a special existence, but even were she ordinary, Sesshoumaru felt his world would become less amusing without her presence in it. Encounters with Inuyasha would prove somewhat blander.

Sneering, his claws lowered. Continuing to walk with no acknowledgement of her trailing form hurrying after him, Sesshoumaru allowed her to hang onto mokomoko like it were a lifeline.

----

Kagome focused on keeping her footing, stumbling after the silent Daiyoukai. His furs pillowed her cheek, comfortable and silky. From what she could tell they’d left the wilder grass behind, her muddy loafers crunching on twigs and dry earth.

They didn’t talk often and she didn’t give voice to her exhaustion, closing her eyes after a while since it did little good to keep them open, her world endlessly black.

She tried not to fall prey to the dark feelings of dread and worry threatening to claim her, lingering on the outskirts of her tired mind. She’d come too far to give up now.

Kagome bumped into something solid and stopped. “What is it?” she mumbled.

“I am going to rest for the night.”

“Oh…”

His voice sounded a little light, which meant he found something entertaining. “I take it you are going to cling to me throughout?”

“Y-yeah, can’t have you running off on me.”

“Hn, if that is the case, measures will need to be taken.”

Kagome wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. Nonetheless, she faithfully followed when he walked on, having little choice in the matter.

Warm, stuffy vapour began caressing her skin, rendering it slightly damp, her hair curling from the humidity. It began closing in around her like a shroud, the air thinning a little. Lapping water reached her keen hearing.

“Hot springs?”

“Indeed.”

Mild alarm raced through her bloodstream. Kagome squeaked- feeling herself being lifted up, a single hand grabbing her by the scruff and yanking so hard mokomoko was successfully pried from her grip, sending her flying through the air. Kagome cried out when water rushed up to meet her, warm and lulling, closing over her head. She quickly found her footing on the bottom of the pool and pushed up, sputtering as she broke the surface.

“You jerk! What the hell?!”

Sesshoumaru answered with a lofty chuckle. “You cannot expect to sleep near me while wearing such dirty clothes.”

“Throwing me into a hot spring isn’t the answer though!” she growled, splashing the water in his general direction, though she had no idea if it made contact or not.

“Hm? Would you have preferred being stripped bare to shudder against me all night long?” he suggested offhandedly.

“Of course not,” Kagome gritted out.

“Then I suggest you start bathing yourself, miko.”

Hesitating, Kagome wrestled with herself. The sound of his boots stepping over rocks and drawing further away loosened her tongue.

"J-just don't abandon me here, okay?"

He halted. "And what will you do if I decline to listen?"

"I'll haunt your ass once I'm dead."

"Hn."

He continued on, his answer not exactly assuaging Kagome's fears. With little else to do but tentatively trust him, she stripped out of her uniform and bathed as best she could. Without the use of soap or a sponge and being unable to see the dirt being washed away, it would likely be an unsuccessful bath. She tried her best to make herself 'clean', scrubbing at her uniform for good measure.

The silence was heavy, only broken by the sound of gently lapping water. She had no idea what time it was. How far away Inuyasha and her friends were. Kagome shivered, hugging her arms to her chest. She began to feel paranoid, suspecting the slightest sound. Dark youkai reached out, brushing her senses.

Kagome exhaled in relief, hanging onto Sesshoumaru’s aura.

“Step out of the water.”

She stiffened at the abrupt sound of his commanding voice. “And let you see me naked? No thank you.”

“There is no point in assuring you that I will not- since you cannot see if I am being truthful. I can merely promise that my curiosity about the human form will never be acted upon.”

Kagome flushed red. So he could look He just disliked humans too much to ever be ‘interested.’

She reluctantly supposed she had little choice in the matter. Standing, Kagome waded through the hot waters towards his voice, reaching out to feel for the side in order to climb out- only for her hand to be ensnared, captured by lithe fingers.

Kagome’s hazy eyes widened, climbing out with the aid of his grip, quickly covering herself with both arms as soon as she were able. “M-my clothes are wet…”

Something wrapped around her body, and she recognised the material to be a short towel. Quickly drying herself, Kagome paused when new, silky material nudged against her cheek. “Dress in this once you are done,” Sesshoumaru’s low voice rumbled.

Since she could sense his strong, dark presence linger close, she wondered if he were watching out for enemies or just plain watching her. Kagome fumbled with the silks, feeling around for the collar. Sesshoumaru’s rumbling chuckle made goosebumps race over her bare skin. She nearly bit out a comment- feeling hot breath fan over her forehead. His single arm nudged at hers, guiding her hand through a sleeve, before holding the parting open, allowing her to slip it on. Kagome blushed wildly, groping for the obi and hurriedly tying it at her waist.

A cool hand stilled hers once she was done, cutting into the rough rope still bound around her freed wrists. Kagome murmured her thanks.

“Where did you get the yukata?” she mumbled.

Mokomoko bumped her chest and Kagome held onto it reflexively as Sesshoumaru strolled away, the furs guiding her forwards. “I have many bases littered around the countryside, should I need to make use of them for trysts or shelter.”

“T-trysts?” she squeaked. “Is this clothing from...?”

“Do not worry, foolish one. That is an unused article of clothing. I keep them in case my lovers are in need of a spare change of clothes. I have been known to be...impatient.”

She arched a brow and used her free hand to measure the length of her sleeves, touching the seams. “This is a man’s yukata.”

“What of it?”

Kagome clicked. “Oh, nothing. I just didn’t know you were interested in guys.”

Sesshoumaru gave a tired, long-suffering sigh while wafting steam pulled away from their bodies, leaving them exposed to the cool air while they walked through what Kagome assumed to be a sparse forest. “Provided an individual captures my interest, gender has no bearing on who I share a bed with. It is inconsequential to me, unlike humans with your...limited choices.”

“Hey! Humans can swing both ways too. A-and look who’s talking! You’re getting all high and mighty about gender but species and blood purity matter a great deal to you. Sounds limiting to me.”

He became silent for a moment, which made Kagome feel slightly victorious. “Admittedly I have never lain with a human before,” he pretended to sound considering. “Are you volunteering yourself, miko?”

“As if,” she snorted, cheeks burning red. “You’ve tried to kill Inuyasha,” she quickly supplied as a valid excuse.

“Hn,” he gave an entertained noise, “so if we were not enemies, you would accept?”

Her mouth grew dry, feeling like she’d held her face over a flickering fire. “You’re way too arrogant to be my type.”

The sound of his quiet chuckle changed as they seemed to step into an enclosed space. Kagome reached out and touched a rocky surface, dragging her palm over it. The remnants of a demonic barrier littered the area. She suddenly stopped, yanking mokomoko and forcing Sesshoumaru to stop with her. “Have you just taken me into one of your trysting spots?"

“Where else are we to rest?”

“Not here!” she burst.

“You complain often, miko. I will leave you to the hungry animals outside if need be," he sneered. "Do not worry. This place has not seen use in a long time and is clean, I assure you,” his tone lulled into a patronising one.

Kagome held her tongue, uncomfortably settling down onto a silky bed of furs when he guided her over to it. She felt extremely weird. Staying in a place where Sesshoumaru had once had sex wasn’t exactly how she’d envisioned her Thursday going.

Something smooth and pronged was placed into her hand- and she gentled a little, quietly thanking him. Beginning to brush her wet hair, Kagome carded her fingers through the strands, making a soft noise of enjoyment.

All the while, she felt the keen sensation of being watched. Arranging herself into a more comfortable position on the bed, she sighed, gazing in his general direction. “I might be blind right now but I can feel your eyes on me. What’s up?”

“Up?”

“I mean- is something bothering you?”

“No,” he sounded briefly considering. “Rather...this one noticed your ears.”

“Hm? The fact that they’re round compared to yours?”

His thumb and forefinger closed around the sterling silver stud pierced through her earlobe. Kagome stiffened, soon relaxing. “Oh, my earrings? They’re not a big deal.”

“They are different from what I have seen before,” he stroked the shell of her ear consideringly, making her shiver. "I wish to test something.”

Since the demon lord had been magnanimous enough to offer shelter, provide new clothing and allow her to tag along with him, Kagome decided to indulge his curiosity. She sensed him move and root through something nearby, a box, she assumed.

I wish I could look around, her lips pursed, exceptionally interested in what one of his hideaways looked like.

“Remove the earrings.”

Nodding, Kagome fiddled with them, taking them out and rubbing her ears slightly. Removing them always felt weird. An inquisitive claw brushed her ear, and Kagome swallowed, holding still with mild confusion as Sesshoumaru donned her with new earrings. When he pulled away, Kagome brushed her fingers over them, finding some sort of stone dangling from her ears. They were cool to the touch and weren’t too heavy, a nice weight.

“What kind of stone are they?”

“Never you mind,” he rumbled, something tickling her brow. She wondered if it were his bangs sliding forward. Soft breath fanned over her nose before it pulled away. “Merely wear those for the duration of your stay. They suit you.”

Kagome tilted her head slightly, “well...okay? They’re not a keepsake from an old flame, are they?”

“No. Those are mine.”

She hummed, touching them again. “You can keep my earrings if you like. They can be my way of saying thanks. They kinda look like diamonds so maybe they’re to your expensive tastes.”

Even though they’re fakes.

Sesshoumaru made a rumbling noise that she assumed was positive, and wondered if they had been his true aim all along. She figured that would be all for the night- before feeling a touch against her hair. Kagome paused, fighting an exasperated smile. Who knew Sesshoumaru could be kind of… cute?

"Anything else?"

"Hn, your hair would suit this kanzashi. Hold still."

Kagome got the feeling their dress-up session was going to take a while.

---

When she awoke, the permanent darkness made it difficult to know exactly what time it was. Only the birds chirping in the trees outside let her know dawn had broken. The heat at her back that had warmed her throughout the night was gone. Kagome sat up, touching her bed hair and refusing to examine what the warmth had belonged to.

"Sesshoumaru?" she rasped.

She heard him shift and stand within the cave, "I sense something nearby. Wait for me here."

"It's not like I can go anywhere," she quipped, smiling slightly.

He made a noise of acknowledgement, walking away. His footsteps became softer until they disappeared completely. Kagome felt unnerved by it.

She reached out with her aura, but this time there was no assurance from his dark youki. Kagome steadied her breathing, trying not to freak out.

Strangely, the darkness was giving way to something. Murky shapes. Browns, whites and buttery yellows. Kagome’s heart burst with gladness.

“Holy shit,” she breathed. “It wasn’t permanent...thank God.”

She could see! Well, kind of. Colours were back though, and shapes were sure to follow.

A commotion was happening outside though. Distant cries could be heard, along with familiar shouting. Kagome stumbled to her feet, following the light source out into the open despite the lack of solid objects yet.

Inuyasha’s loud voice broadcasted his location, making him easy to find- a bold red blur to Kagome’s eyes. Other colours were nearby, purples, blacks, pinks, yellows, oranges and greens.

“Guys!” she breathed.

The murky shapes turned, sharpening slightly into hazy focus. She registered Inuyasha’s horrified features. “K-Kagome...what the hell?”

She blinked and frowned, wondering what his problem was. The Hanyou rounded on a white shape that had sprinkles of red mixed in. “Hey, bastard! Why the fuck is Kagome dressed up like that? W-why does she reek of you!”

Looking down towards a nearby puddle, Kagome crouched and squinted, curious about what Inuyasha was babbling about. Her face came into focus, and her lips parted in surprise.

It wasn’t just one kanzashi, a few were nestled into her fall of curling wild hair. They glittered in the morning light. Some made of ivory, the others were black and adorned with gems. The blue of her eyes linked beautifully with the sapphires hanging from her ears. Everything paired well with the yukata he’d given her, which was white with illustrated ocean waves and smoky clouds patterning its hem and sleeves.

After enduring kidnapping- stumbling about blind for many hours, falling into ditches and streams and not knowing if she would live or die- Kagome couldn’t help but appreciate being swathed in finery. It made it feel a bit...pampered. Happy.

“Kagome, are you alright?”

She raised her head to find Sango and the others drawing closer, Inuyasha was still engaged with a verbal sparring match with Sesshoumaru that would likely head south soon.

“I’m fine,” she murmured, Shippo’s cute face appeared near hers, clear as day.

“We were worried!” he exclaimed. “We couldn’t find you anywhere after Inuyasha caught up with that demon goat and killed him.”

Nice to know my kidnapper is dead, she thought dryly, murmuring an assurance to Shippo but soon standing. She hurried closer to Inuyasha just as he took out Tetsusaiga.

“Hey- stop,” she called firmly, grasping his trailing sleeve. “That’s enough. Sesshoumaru took care of me last night, that’s all.”

“Took care of you?” Inuyasha paled, ears pinning back.

Kagome turned red. “W-what? What’s weird about that? Nothing happened!”

“Then why are you dressed like- like...that!”

Sesshoumaru gave a velvety chuckle from where he stood further away, tilting his chin up and curling his lips with an air of disdain. “I amused myself with your miko, Inuyasha, that is all,” he sneered. “She struggled so sweetly beneath me when I forced the clothes on her.”

“Bastard!” Inuyasha snarled, confused when Kagome stepped in between them. She glared first at the Hanyou, “Quit it- both of you! You’re acting like children!”

Turning her dimmed sights on Sesshoumaru, she struggled to see him clearly since he stood further away. “I don’t know what you seek to gain from lying but...thank you for all that you’ve done up till now,” she murmured. “My offer still stands if you need a favour.”

Inuyasha blustered behind her, shouting up a storm. Kagome muttered a ‘Sit’ to get him to quiet, straining to hear Sesshoumaru’s reply.

To her surprise, with Inuyasha briefly incapacitated, Sesshoumaru drew closer. The sweep of his brows, regal nose and cupid’s bow of his lips caught her dazed attention- her breath halting. Familiar diamond style studded earrings adorned his ears.

“These will do nicely as payment, miko,” he rumbled.

Kagome blinked and slowly smiled, sharing a quiet moment with him. “I-I suppose you’ll want these back,” she murmured, closing her hands around the sapphires on her ears.

“I have plenty more.”

“Right, of course you do,” she giggled, hearing Inuyasha squeak out a ‘did you just giggle at Sesshoumaru?!’ from his crater.

“Hn, as I said, they suit you,” Sesshoumaru turned. “And miko?”

“Yes?”

He began walking away, but she could hear the smile in his voice without seeing his expression. “You have captured my interest.”

Kagome’s eyes widened, heart bursting into overdrive. Her stomach fluttered with butterflies, and she felt a mix of confusion and anticipation.

Ditto, she thought with a faint smile.

#sesskag #sesshoumaru #inuyasha #sesshoumaru x kagome #sesskag fanfiction #kagome higurashi

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sirthisisa-wendys · 3 years

Text

The General Epilogue: Geto Suguru x Fem!Reader

synopsis: Some goodbyes are simply “See you later!”

wc: 1.3k

tw: none!

masterlist

“Yuji, let me see what you have!” Yuta calls out, watching the six year old with caution as he runs around the fountain behind Nobara and Megumi, who appear to be terrified.

“A knife!” Yuji cries out, and Yuta takes off after the child, screaming,

“No!”

You watch the unfolding scene with mirth, holding your swollen stomach with one hand and the other pressed to your mouth as you laugh heartily. Kaori, who is setting tea before you, shakes her head and sighs.

“Empress, you really should consider not letting Satoru watch the children alone. They come back with things no child should have and… stories.”

“Kaori, you speak of your own husband like he’s incapable of being a father-figure,” you reply, and Kaori shrugs, her long braid sliding over her shoulder.

“He’s the fun uncle who has minimal privileges. I’m not sure we’ll ever have children because--”

“I’m not infertile, if that’s what you’re implying,” Gojo mutters, sliding past the door that leads outside to where you two are sitting. Suguru follows him, hands massaging the temples of his forehead. At the sight of your husband, you hold a hand out to him, beckoning him closer. Suguru obliges, a smile splitting his face at the sight of you resting with his child in your belly. It only takes a minute, but when he sits behind you, you lean into his frame and sigh contently.

“How are you feeling?” Geto murmurs in your ear, pressing a kiss to your temple and rubbing your stomach in slow circles.

“I feel fine; how was the meeting with the heads of--”

“Terrible,” Satoru replies for him, rolling his blue eyes and groaning. “I’ve never been so bored in my entire life. All they talk about is what land they have rights to, where their children will settle, heir naming, blah, blah, blah.” Gojo sits next to Kaori, chin resting on his hand.

“You act as if you didn’t want this position,” Geto retorts and his friend sighs exaggeratedly, laying his head in Kaori’s lap. There’s a strong kick from inside of your belly against Suguru’s hand, and you chuckle while he hums happily, feeling the heel of your child sink back into its place.

“There are a lot of positions I want,” Gojo grumbles back. “But this wasn’t something I signed up for. I wanted to be a general of an army, not listening to old geezers talk about stuff that has nothing to do with me.”

Haibara appears with Yuji and Junpei in tow, holding his hand as Yuta stresses the importance of the pink-haired child needing a “buddy at all times”, citing the earlier knife incident as proof. Haibara nods repeatedly to his superior, and you can see Nanami’s slim figure by a tree, consoling the other two terrified children.

And before long, there would be one more child to add to the bunch.

“This is heaven,” Geto whispers behind you, and you nod, fully agreeing. “You know,” he begins, shifting a little. “I can’t imagine life with you.”

“Oh?” you reply, raising an eyebrow and looking up at him curiously.

“It’s true.” You crane your head up to accept a sweet kiss from Emperor Geto, and as you pull away, he whispers, “In every lifetime, I know I’ll find you. Just wait for me, okay?”

“I will,” you promise, a smile dancing across your lips. “Every single time, I’ll wait for you.”

_______________________________________________________________________

2006 A.D.

You grip the strap of your blue backpack tightly, looking at Jujutsu Tech with wary eyes. You’d been recruited, but that didn’t mean much in the end. You could fail and leave Tokyo just like you came: as an inexperienced young woman who had very little except a particularly useful ability to exorcise curses. Nothing special.

When you walk onto campus, you eye the other students with varying degrees of interest. There are quite a few, you note, but no one looks like they would know where you had to go.

“Hey,” a voice shouts out over your left shoulder. You turn to look at the person who spoke, and a white haired man with sunglasses and a black uniform - like yours - is waving at you excitedly. “Are you the new student?” You consider lying to him - because, who is he? - but you figure if he knows you’re brand new here, he might have more knowledge about the other things at this school. Like where the best hiding spot is.

“Yeah, my name is y/n.” The man huffs a breath, smiling as he sticks out a hand.

“Gojo Satoru.” You take it and shake it willingly, and a jolt of lightning bursts through your veins when you touch. Immediately, you snatch your hand back, and the man does the same, frowning and shaking his fingers.

“Should’ve used infinity,” he grumbles, but you’re looking over his shoulder at the two other approaching, and not listening to his complaints.

Behind him, a short girl with chopped brown hair and a tall man with black hair are talking, obviously intent on joining their friend in front of you, dressed in the same black colored outfits.

“Shoko, come meet your new best friend,” Gojo calls out and the woman’s eyes slide to you, before she scrunches up her brows.

“New student?” she inquires, and you nod your head, holding the strap of your backpack even tighter.

“Hey, you look familiar,” You feel the pang of recognition as you look upon the face of the balck haired man who spoke, but you’re sure you’ve never met the man in person before. Maybe you saw him in passing somewhere? “Haven’t I seen you somewhere before? Maybe at the train station?” He places a hand on his chin, thinking deeply as his onyx eyes roam over you. A tingle runs down your spine, but you shake your head.

“No, I don’t come from Tokyo,” you clarify, but that doesn’t stop the feeling of something nagging at your brain. You’ve met him before, the voice inside of you affirms, but you brush the noise aside and focus in on the other two.

“I’m y/n, pleasure to meet you.” You shake Shoko’s hand, and then the other man’s hand firmly, but you find yourself holding onto his fingers for longer than you really should have.

“Shoko Ieiri.”

“Geto Suguru.”

Just wait for me, okay? You hear those words as clear as day, and you see his expression change just a little too, but then it all goes away when Gojo speaks up.

“You know, y/n, you seem cool. Want to join us when we go see the cherry blossoms this weekend?”

“That sounds like fun,” you chime in, and you look around. “But I need to find the principal first.” Gojo and Shoko grimace, looking at each other.

“Uh, we both have this thing to do… Geto can take you!” The other two disappear into the background and you look at the raven-haired man cautiously.

“Well, I suppose you should be glad I found you. Those two never seem to want to be helpful when it’s really needed.” Geto waves you along, looking over his shoulder as you stand on the walkway, staring after him with the nagging feeling growing more and more pronounced. “Hey, you don’t need to wait anymore,” he laughs, waving you along again with a wide smile.

“I guess I’m a little worried,” you reply, looking down at your shoes nervously as you walk alongside him.

“Nah, don’t be. I’ll be right there with you. The principal won’t do much except talk, then we can catch up with the others later.” Without warning, you feel at ease speaking to this man, and you look over at him, catching his tender gaze. “Gosh, I swear I’ve seen you before.”

“I don’t know,” you laugh. “Maybe we knew each other in a past life?” Geto laughs heartily, shoulders shaking while he puts his hands in his pockets.

“Maybe… maybe...”

TAGLIST: @kamisamaundercover @jotazinha @just4readingfics @mxhi @sammytamaki @brownskinnedgirll @keelyshayee @leanne-tamashi @vabybizzle @amaris9 @fuegy-fuegy @ambiguous-something

#jujutsu kaisen getou #geto x reader #jjk geto #gojo satoru #jjk haibara #jujutsu kaisen #getou x reader #getou suguru #geto suguru #getou suguru x reader #nanami kento #yuji itadori #nobara kugisaki #megumi fushiguro #yuta okkotsu

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clusterbuck · 3 years

Text

i want you by my side (so that i never feel alone)

(3.2k, rated T, complete) read it on ao3

Eddie sits in his pew and tries to remind himself that he is in the lord’s house, and that he should really at least make an effort to keep his thoughts respectful.

It’s hard, though, when Buck is at the altar standing up as Maddie’s best man, wearing a suit that should honestly be illegal.

It’s only now, sitting in church trying not to blaspheme, that Eddie realises he’s become desensitised to Buck’s whole… everything. Buck in his firefighter uniform is a lot to take in, but Eddie’s trained himself to look past it. Mostly because he doesn’t ever want to have to explain to Bobby that he missed something on a call because he was distracted by the sight of Buck harnessed up for a rope rescue.

Buck at home—in his apartment or at the Diaz house, they’re practically synonymous anyway—is a whole other matter. Buck in old, faded t-shirts and comfortable sweats, in the LAFD hoodie they’ve been stealing back and forth for so long Eddie isn’t sure whose it was originally. It’s a different kind of intensity, a quiet one that stems from the knowledge that Buck doesn’t let many people see him like that, soft and a little dishevelled on a Saturday morning.

These are incarnations of Buck that Eddie has learned to live with, in the interest of remaining a functional human being capable of doing his job and caring for his son—the only two things on his list of priorities that manage to claw past his highly inconvenient unrequited feelings for his best friend.

But Buck in a suit? This is new, and Eddie’s defences are down. Eddie doesn’t have defences for this. He’s never seen Buck in a suit before.

Maybe he should have made Buck try the suit on at home first, so he could have gotten used to it in private.

Can you get sent to hell for thinking impure thoughts in church? Not that his thoughts are impure, exactly. He’s just thinking about the way the lines of the suit cling to Buck’s figure and highlight his broad shoulders, about the way Buck’s arms strain against the sleeves when he adjusts his cuffs, about the way the starched cotton would feel between his fingers as he unbuttoned Buck’s shirt… Okay, so he might be going to hell.

Eddie shakes his head. This is ridiculous. He’s a grown man, he can pull it together for the duration of a wedding ceremony.

Next to him, Christopher pokes his arm and looks at him curiously. “Dad? Are you okay?” he whispers.

Eddie swallows around the dryness in his throat. “I’m fine, buddy.”

“Why were you shaking your head?”

“I just—uh, forgot something I was supposed to do yesterday,” he whispers back. Forgot to mentally prepare himself for the sight of Buck in formalwear. “Don’t worry about it, just watch the ceremony. Look, I bet Chimney’s about to cry.”

The ceremony is just reaching the vows, and sure enough, as soon as Maddie starts reciting hers Chimney starts tearing up enough that it’s clearly visible to their seats near the back of the church.

This is good. If he focuses on Chimney’s quest to win the title of sappiest man alive, it’ll distract him from the public health hazard that is Buck in that suit.

“Is Chimney okay?” Christopher asks, and Eddie laughs under his breath and wraps an arm around his son.

“Yeah, he’s okay,” Eddie says and ducks down to kiss Christopher’s forehead. “He’s just really happy.”

One of Maddie’s first proclamations about the wedding was that she wanted to do away with any tradition that didn’t make sense to her, and the first thing to go was the separate table for the wedding party.

“Why would we invite all these people just to sit at a separate table all night?” she’d said, and nobody had been able to come up with a counterargument.

Then she’d gone one step further and decided to forego seating arrangements altogether. “Assigned seating is for middle schoolers and people who don’t like each other,” she’d said at Eddie’s kitchen table one night as Buck supposedly helped her plan the wedding. His helping mostly consisted of eating wedding cake samples, but Eddie was pretty sure Maddie wasn’t there for the manpower anyway. “And we’re neither of those things, so people can just sit with whoever they want.”

“I’m gonna be a middle schooler in the fall,” Christopher had pointed out, just serious enough that no one had quite known how to react. Then he’d grinned, and the kitchen had exploded into laughter.

“Good thing the wedding is in the summer, then,” Maddie said with a conspiratorial smile. “No assigned seats for you just yet.”

So when they get to the reception venue, instead of being exiled to the high table Buck is by their side almost immediately. Eddie doesn’t know how he does it, but Buck always seems to be able to find them in any crowd, effortless like gravity.

“I vote we find a table and set up camp,” Buck says.

Eddie nods, because Buck and his suit are in very close proximity and he isn’t entirely sure he’s capable of forming words right now.

He really needs to get a grip, or this is about to be a very long night.

“What do you think?” Buck asks Christopher, pointing at a table along one wall. “That one?”

Christopher agrees and they set off, carefully weaving through all of the dearly beloved who have gathered to witness and rejoice in Maddie and Chimney’s marriage.

“I figured you’d want to be by the wall,” Buck says, hanging back so Christopher doesn’t overhear. “You usually are.”

“I—yeah,” Eddie says, a little bewildered. He doesn’t remember ever actually talking to Buck about this. About the way that ever since the shooting, he can’t seem to make himself turn his back on crowds. He sits with his back to the wall whenever he can, and when he can’t—like in a church watching his friends get married—he sits as far back as he can, and glances over his shoulder every three seconds like his head is mounted on a swivel.

He’s never talked to Buck about it, but apparently Buck noticed anyway.

Their table, Eddie discovers, is also close to the open bar. He debates taking generous advantage of this fact in order to deal with the continued proximity of Buck and his suit, but—getting drunk would probably make it worse, actually. Drunk Eddie isn’t very good at filtering his thoughts.

Buck, however, doesn’t seem to have similar qualms, and by the time they’ve gotten through dinner, he’s bright-eyed and a little flushed.

Eddie loves Buck like this, tipsy and giggly and affectionate. He gets the feeling that Buck tries a little too hard to be taken seriously sometimes, but when he’s had a drink or three he lets his defences down.

“You should dance with me,” Buck says now, leaning so far into Eddie that his head is resting on his shoulder.

“It’s not dancing time yet,” Eddie says, fighting to ignore the thrill that runs through him at the idea of dancing with Buck. “There’s still speeches and cake first.” Buck, thankfully, had given his best man speech before any food or drinks were served, so Eddie doesn’t need to worry about Buck getting too drunk for it.

“Later, then,” Buck says, and makes no move to pick himself up off Eddie’s shoulder. “When it’s dancing time.”

“Sure,” Eddie agrees. “Later.” Then he wonders whether he can get out of it somehow, because there are a lot of people around and his self-control is already worn thin by Buck practically draping himself over him.

Buck puts a hand out, fumbling around like he’s looking for something until he finally lands on his wine glass. When Eddie looks down, Buck’s eyes are closed.

“Hey,” Eddie says, poking at Buck until he sits up straight again. “Have you been drinking enough water?”

Buck opens his eyes and squints at him. “I’m not that drunk, you know,” he informs Eddie.

“You sure about that?”

“Yeah,” Buck says, and touches his nose with alternating forefingers like a field sobriety test. “See? I’m just lazy.” Then he puts his head back on Eddie’s shoulder.

“Okay,” Eddie says, a warm rush of affection running through him. “You wanna do me a favour and drink this water anyway?”

“If you insist,” Buck says with a put-upon sigh, but he grins at Eddie so widely that water almost spills out around the edges of the glass.

It takes almost another hour for it to get to dancing time, and as soon as dancing starts, Buck is whisked away by partner after partner. It’s Maddie first, for the slightly altered tradition of the sister-brother dance, then it’s Hen, and then Chimney wants a turn, too. And Eddie can see why: Buck on the dance floor is joyous and carefree. He looks like he’s having fun, genuinely from the bottom of his heart, and like he’ll spread that joy to anyone who dances with him. It’s no wonder everyone wants a whirl.

Eddie desperately wants one, too, but something stops him every time he tries to get up and walk over to Buck. He’s worried that five seconds of dancing with Buck will give everything away, that everyone around them will be able to see exactly what he feels. That Buck will be able to see. He’s worried that if he dances with Buck he’ll read something into it that isn’t there, and then when Buck turns to the next partner with a grin and a little bow he’ll crush Eddie’s heart under his heel as he goes.

It’s a lot to put on just one dance, but Eddie’s always been good at overthinking.

So he stays at his table. The first time someone tries to get him to join the dancing he makes a vague gesture at Christopher, like the reason he isn’t dancing is that he has to stay and watch his kid. But then Hen and Denny come over to get Christopher to join the kids' dance circle they’ve got going on and Chris goes without a look back, taking Eddie’s only real excuse with him.

He manages to dodge the dancing for almost half an hour until Karen materialises at the end of their table and holds out her hand. It’s not a question so much as it is a declaration of what’s going to happen next. “Come on,” she says. “Can’t have you sitting here looking so gloomy at a wedding, people will start thinking you’re secretly in love with the bride.”

“I’m not—” Eddie starts, and Karen gives him a look that feels like it goes right through him.

“I know,” she says. “Wrong Buckley. Now come on.”

Eddie goes, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

He doesn’t know the song that’s playing, but it’s the kind of easy-listening music that always gets played at weddings, inoffensive and easy to dance to. It’s easy to take Karen’s hand and rest his other hand loosely on her waist, to sway around vaguely in time and in tune with the music.

It’s less easy to look at her after what she’d said, because looking at her means acknowledging it. But he looks anyway, and finds nothing but understanding in her eyes.

“Why don’t you just dance with him?” Karen asks. She doesn’t ask if she’d gotten it right, which Eddie takes to mean that he’s probably not as subtle as he’d hoped.

Eddie doesn’t say anything because he can’t quite put it into words, this certainty that dancing with Buck will be the beginning of the end, somehow. He doesn’t know how to explain that he wants to, more than anything, but the idea terrifies him because it feels too close to a confession for comfort.

“Okay,” Karen says. “What level of crisis are we talking about here? Is this a gay crisis? Or—bi crisis?”

“Bi crisis,” Eddie confirms. “I mean—it’s not that, but if it was. It would be a bi crisis.”

“Copy that. Okay, so what’s the crisis?”

“The crisis is that I’m in love with my best friend, and he’s—not,” Eddie mutters. It strikes him then that he’s never said it out loud before.

“What makes you think that?”

“Wouldn’t he have said something by now?” Eddie asks, and Karen looks at him like he’s a little slow.

“Have you said anything?” she asks.

“I—” Eddie starts, and finds he doesn’t know how to finish his sentence.

Karen smiles. “Just dance with him, Eddie.”

Eddie doesn’t end up dancing with Buck. He keeps trying to talk himself into it, but before he can get all the way there suddenly the banquet hall is emptying out. It’s just him and Buck, now—and Christopher, sleeping in a corner on a pile of spare tablecloths, because he’d insisted he was old enough to stay until the end and proved himself spectacularly wrong.

Buck is going from table to table, making sure none of the guests left anything behind. There’s still music playing—the DJ had gone home an hour ago, but she’d left a playlist on.

Just dance with him, Eddie.

Eddie takes a deep breath. It’s now or never.

Buck looks up when Eddie walks over to him, smiling the soft smile Eddie has only ever seen directed at himself or Christopher.

“Never got that dance,” Eddie says, hoping his voice doesn’t give away the fact that he has spent the past several hours thinking about it.

To his surprise, a blush spreads along Buck’s cheekbones. “No, I guess we didn’t.”

Wouldn’t he have said something by now?

Have you said anything?

There’s a moment where neither of them speaks. Like they’re weighing the options, like they know this isn’t the kind of dancing Buck meant—he’d been talking about a dance floor full of people, safety in numbers, jumping around to something more upbeat.

Then Buck raises an eyebrow and holds out his hand. “You did promise,” he says.

Technically, Eddie thinks, he hadn’t promised. All he’d said was sure. But as he takes Buck’s hand and steps closer, arguing the semantics couldn’t be further from his mind.

Buck is in his shirtsleeves, his jacket long since sacrificed to be Christopher’s blanket. Eddie spreads his fingers along the small of Buck’s back, and his shirt feels exactly like Eddie had imagined back in the church.

The music shifts just as they settle together, going from a soft pop ballad to something closer to a waltz. Buck takes a few halting steps, but it’s clear he doesn’t know what he’s doing.

Eddie huffs a soft laugh under his breath. “Here, just follow my lead,” he says. He steers Buck, gentle pressure on his back, and counts steps out loud until Buck gets the hang of it.

Then they’re waltzing around the empty room, and once Eddie stops murmuring one-two-three one-two-three there’s nothing left between them but a couple of inches of air. It feels like nothing, and it feels like the Grand Canyon.

Buck looks up from where he’d been watching Eddie’s feet. “How come you know how to waltz?” he asks, whisper-quiet even though there’s no one else in the room to disturb.

“There are still things you don’t know about me,” Eddie says, equally quiet.

Buck narrows his eyes like he’s going to challenge that, but they’re interrupted by a door clanging open. It’s a teenager in a catering uniform, one Eddie vaguely recognises from throughout the night.

“Uh, sorry,” she says as Buck and Eddie spring apart, looking anywhere but at each other. “Just, we’re about to close up?”

“Sorry,” Buck says. “We’ll get out of your hair.” The girl disappears back through the door, and Buck turns to Eddie. “You get the kid, I’ll get our stuff?”

“Meet you at the car?”

“Race you,” Buck says, and Eddie grins.

Christopher is sleeping soundly enough that he barely stirs when Eddie picks him up, careful to keep him wrapped up in Buck’s jacket. He makes it to the car just as Buck approaches from the other direction, and they work together to get Christopher settled and buckled in without waking him up.

Eddie doesn’t have to ask if Buck is coming home with them. They don’t talk on the drive, mindful of the sleeping child in the back seat, but there’s a tension humming in the air, the feeling of something unfinished and unresolved.

Christopher doesn’t react when Eddie extracts him from the car and carries him to his room. Briefly, Eddie debates whether he should wake Christopher to brush his teeth, but—the kid’s already asleep, and pretty deep, from the sounds of it. Chances are waking him up now would do more harm than missing one night of brushing teeth.

Besides, he doesn’t want to risk Christopher waking up wired and refusing to go back to sleep. He doesn’t know exactly what’s going to happen when he goes back into the living room, back to Buck, but based on the way Buck had been looking at him in the banquet hall before they were interrupted, and the way Buck kept stealing glances at him on the drive home, he’s pretty sure something is.

And he’d thought he’d be nervous, if this day ever came, but all he feels is excitement starting to build somewhere in his stomach.

Buck is waiting for him in the living room, something like determination blazing in his eyes. “Hey,” he says. “Is this one of those things you think I don’t know about you?” He cups Eddie’s face and pulls him in, closer, pressing his entire body along Eddie’s before finally fitting their lips together.

Eddie kisses back instinctively, wrapping his arms around Buck to pull him closer. He feels simultaneously like he’s drowning in Buck and like Buck is his only supply of oxygen; he wants to keep getting closer and closer until he’s crawling inside Buck’s ribcage.

The need for real oxygen pries them apart eventually but they don’t go far, foreheads pressed together and their heavy, panting breaths mingling.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Eddie asks. “If you knew?”

“I didn’t for sure,” Buck says. “Not until today.”

“What about today?”

“I saw the way you looked at me in the suit,” Buck smirks.

Eddie groans.

“Hey, all’s well that ends well,” Buck says, and leans in to kiss him again. Eddie loses track of how long they stand there in the middle of the room, getting to know each other in this new way, exploring with hands and tongues, marking time in hitched breaths and soft sighs.

When Buck eventually starts steering them towards the sofa, Eddie goes willingly. They collapse in a tangle of limbs, and Buck lands mostly on top of Eddie. Buck’s weight presses him down in a delicious way, and Buck’s every movement sends sparks skidding down Eddie’s spine. Buck wastes no time in taking advantage of his new position, shifting his hips against Eddie’s and grinning when Eddie lets out a noise somewhere between a gasp and a moan.

“Buck,” he hisses. “I’m—it’s been a while, I’m not gonna last long if—”

But Buck just grins above him. “Who said I’m trying to make it last long right now?” he says, grinding his hips in a slow, deliberate move. “We have the rest of our lives for that.”

#buddie fic #buddie #eddie diaz #evan buckley #this is the buddie at a madney wedding fluff that i have been dreaming of for a month now #no this isn't what i said i'd write in september but the idea materialised in my head fully formed #what was i gonna do #not write it??#shush emma #emma writes

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thebadgerclan · 3 years

Text

Moya Soverennyi

Pairing: Aleksander Morozova x reader

Summary: The Darkling’s wedding day...

A/N: Not requested, but I wanted to do some S&B fluff!

Also, I don’t know if we see a Ravkan wedding, I’m only partway through Siege and Strom, so I just improvised.

Y/G/C is your Grisha color (silver for Squallars, red for Heartrenders, etc.)

Lotta notes here, but if you know anyone who might want to read this or and other Shadow and Bone reader inserts, I would love it if you could send it their way!

He never thought he’d see the day. After 400 years of life, with countless more ahead of him, Aleksander never thought he’d be standing at the altar of the Royal Chapel, his black kefta pressed and steamed, foot tapping against the marble floor anxiously. In just a few moments, Aleksander would be married to you, his beloved Y/N, the most beautiful woman in all of Ravka, Fjerda, Shu Han, and any other nation.

You were the light in his darkness, literally and figuratively, the only person who could calm his rage, the only person to ever see him smile. Most people thought General Kirigan to be a cold, unapproachable man, incapable of any emotion other than anger. But you knew differently: you knew that Aleksander, your Aleksander was a warm, kind man, a man who loved you and protected you fiercely, who would never let any harm come to you. He was a man who worshipped the ground you walked on, who considered you higher than the Queen herself, and he would love, protect, defend, and worship you for all of eternity. After all, that was how long you had together.

Aleksander heard the doors to the chapel open and the assembled guests getting to their feet. His heart was racing, and Aleksander slowly turned around, and as he did, all the air left his lungs. There you were, slowly walking down the aisle, draped in a keftas white as freshly fallen snow, a veil pinned in your intricately braided hair. Your father had you on his arm, dressed in a clean First Army uniform. It felt like an eternity before you were standing before him, your father kissing your cheek and extending a hand to him.

“Take care of my little girl, moi soverennyi,” he said, and Aleksander clasped his hand firmly. “I will, sir, you have my word.” Your father nodded, kissing your cheek once more before taking his seat next to your mother. You took the remaining few steps to stand next to Aleksander, looking up into his face. “Y/N, milaya, you look incredible. Simply stunning, my love.” You blushed, smiling widely. “Thank you, Aleksander.”

Before either of you could say anything more, the Apparat appeared before you, his hands folded before him. “We gather here today, before Saints and men, to join two in marriage,” he began simply. “Please join hands. Aleksander extended his right hand to you, and you took it in your left, both facing the altar. The Apparat rose his hands turning his face upwards. “I call upon any and all Saints to bless this union, to ensure it is filled with love, trust, companionship, and faith. May these two souls rely on and care for one another in times of need, may they lead long, happy lives with one another, and may they have nothing but joy and peace.

“Please join me in reciting the Saint’s Prayer of Marriage.” Most in attendance blessed themselves and bowed their heads, lips moving along with the Apparat’s words, Aleksander included. He might not believe in Saints, he might not follow the Faith, but it was important to you, so if you wanted him to pray at your wedding, then Aleksander would pray. “Please face one another and recite your vows.”

Aleksander turned to face you, you doing the same, taking both of your hands in his. “Y/N, my love, my light, my darling, my angel. I have tried time and time again to put it into words how deep my love and devotion runs for you, but there are simply not enough of them. So I will say this: There is nothing I would not do for you, Y/N. I will cross any ocean, conquer any nation, just to see you smile. I love you, my beloved, and I will love you for all eternity. I have seen your face in the making at the heart of the world and there is no one more beloved, brave and unbreakable.”

He slid a ring onto your finger; black stone with the sun in eclipse engraved. You wiped a tear from your eye, and Aleksander squeezed your hands. “Aleksander, you are everything to me. My strength, my comfort, my love, my general. You are kind, you are sweet, you are smart, you are strong, you are handsome, and you are mine. And as long as you’ll let me, I am yours. I love you, Aleksander, and I will love you for the rest of my life. I have seen your face in the making at the heart of the world and there is no one more beloved, brave and unbreakable.”

You slid a matching ring to yours onto Aleksander’s hand, and he smiled. Ivan came to stand at his side, and Genya came to yours, the former with a black kefta draped over his arm. “Please drape the bride,” the Apparat said, and Genya unbuttoned your white kefta, sliding it from your shoulders. At the same time, Aleksander took the black kefta from Ivan’s arms, unfolding it. You could see the Y/G/C embroidery now, and you turned your back to Aleksander.

He slid the kefta over your arms, settling it on your shoulders, and when you turned around, he fastened the front. You were now one of two people in all of Ravak who wore the black kefta, your status as General Kirigan’s wife clear to anyone who glanced at you. The Apparat raised his hands once more, muttering a blessing under his breath. “By the powers of the Saints, I pronounce you wed.”

Aleksander wrapped his arms around your middle, pulling you close to him. He pressed his lips to yours in a deep, sensual, romantic kiss, not giving a damn that he was in a church. The Saints could watch, for all he cared, he wanted to kiss his wife. His wife, the thought surged through him like a drug, filling him with elation, and he deepened the kiss. You were blushing like mad when he pulled back, and Aleksander simply kissed you again.

The feast that followed went by in a whirlwind. Nobles and dignitaries all wishing to greet the general’s wife, wanting to earn her favor. But you only had eyes for Aleksander, your husband, as he led you about the ballroom. When King Alexander and Queen Tatiana made an appearance, you curtsited deeply as Aleksander bowed, both of the royals congratulating you. “You will make a fine wife, Y/N, I am sure of it,” the Queen said, and you curtsied again. “Thank you, Moya Tsaritsa.”

The King and your husband talked for a few moments before the former turned to you. “Well, I suppose we should let you get back to your party. Congratulations again.” Then, to your shock, the King bowed, a shallow bow, but a bow nonetheless. “Moi soverennyi, Moya soverennyi.” He and the Queen turned and left, but you were left stunned. Moya soverennyi, your title. You had a title. Aleksander smiled at you, noticing your slightly stunned expression.

“You’ll get used to it,” he said, dropping a kiss to your cheek. “Eventually.” You smiled back, leaning into his side. Aleksander wrapped an arm tight around you, kissing your head. “I love you, milaya, so very much.” “I love you too, Aleksander.” The two of you made your way around the room twice more, greeting those you hadn’t seen yet, before your husband pulled you aside. “I believe it’s time to retire. Wouldn’t you agree, Moya soverennyi?” Blushing, you nodded. “I do, Moi soverennyi.” Aleksander grinned madly, pulling you from the ballroom and down the corridors of the Little Palace towards your rooms.

#aleksander morozova x reader #general kirigan x reader #the darkling x reader #shadow and bone fanfiction #shadow and bone reader insert

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i-need-air · 3 years

Note

I just read your nsfw Hybrid with Bakugou and it's SOOO PERFECT. So, I was thinking, imagine this: Relationships between hybrids and humans are still frowned upon and one of your co-workers begins to disturb you about dating Katsuki. You are annoyed, but you don't tell Bakugou until one day your co-worker tries to harass you (kiss you, pull your clothes off) saying "you shouldn't be with that damn DOG". You run away and come home crying and sobbing over and over. Giiirl, Bakugou will go FERAL. ❤

I'm so glad you liked it 💗💗💗💗💗 Yes, god, Bakugou would indeed be F E R A L indeed; ok, i started writing it and I somehow progressed this story further. MORE LORE TO HYBRID!BAKU. I also went with the flow, got very carried away and gave it a different ending to what you suggested, so I really hope you don't mind. 😅 It just happened, maybe made it darker than it should've been, oop—, BUT everything works out.

Warnings: mentions of attempted sexual assault;

Word count: 1.8k or so, I just keep adding stuff 💀;

[ Masterlist ] [ Part 1 and Part 2 of General Hybrid!Bakugou HCs. ]

× you weren't really hiding it because it was legal, yet some [ many ] were judgemental about it

× you also weren't publicly proclaiming it but whatever, that didn't stop you from putting a picture of Katsuki playfully biting your cheek as wallpaper on your phone

× one of your co-workers, Albert, was somewhat pushy

× while you got along with everyone and had an okay relationship with them, he wasn't part of your friends group

× yet you always found him near you everywhere, to which you paid no mind

× it was once he looked over your shoulder when you unlocked your phone to see that picture, and Katsuki's sandy ears could be seen

× again, you didn't hide it so when he asked who was that you just said your boyfriend

× "Uhm, your boyfriend is a... hybrid?" he asked making a face; that's when you knew Albert had to stay away for real

× you just smiled and minded your own business

× but throughout the days he kept dropping comments about, his attitude even pushier than before and you realized talking to him about it wouldn't help

× "is he any better than a normal man?"

× "like... I don't get it, [Y/N], he's a dog..." he'd whisper at you while on lunch break, baffled expression on his face

× you gave him a look of disgust, getting up from the table and going somewhere else; why the hell was he following you around?

× "seriously, tell me, is it the sex?" Albert asked hours later, following you to the exit, unaware of your absolutely uncomfortable responses as you quickened your steps, but he grabbed you by the arm, surprising you with his strength

× "if it's just the sex you better know there are some men, real men out there that can take good care of you, [Y/N]."

× you had to raise your voice for him to let go of you since heads started to turn towards both of you

× "Just drop it, Albert, it's none of your business!" you said before turning to leave

× when you walked through your apartment door you were rattled

× Katsuki walked through the door just as you prepared yourself a tea, shaking slightly, frown on your face

× "Hey, what's up?" he eyed you and sniffed the air, feeling you nervous, cup of tea almost spilling everywhere; "Hey, hey, hey, give me that. [Y/N], seriously, are you ok?"

× "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." you lied and he knew, it was obvious even if you pretended everything was dandy

× on the other side you didn't want to make him worry or anything, Albert was just annoying and hopefully he now understood where he was standing

× but Bakugou Katsuki ain't having it, babe, nuh-huh

× he didn't say anything else about it that day though, just acted as normal but prepared your favorite dinner and a warm bath for you

× the next day he decided to pick you up from work by just arriving there half an hour earlier and see if something is really up, to make sure you're fine and the issue is from there

× he'd have to walk there from his job and then you'd both drive home and it wasn't a problem as he'd do overtime some other day;;

× what he did not expect was to hear your scream of help from the wooden area behind the parking lot in your office building

× let's go back in time for context;

× you walked out of work in a rush, finishing earlier than anyone else, car as your destination just ready to bolt home; Albert was eyeing you funny the whole day but stayed behind, so you didn't know if to feel worried or relieved

× as you walked to your car and pulled your keys, someone smashed you against the door

× "ungrateful bitch" you recognized the voice instantly and froze

× before you could open your mouth he put his palm on it and dragged you somewhere

× you dropped everything on the cement, bag, keys, phone...

× of course you were putting a fight but he was strong

× "I tried to be nice, sweeheart—" he mumbled while struggling to drag you into the wooden area

× "I told you, yeah? You shouldn't be with that damned mutt!" he pushed you unto a tree, making his first and last mistake, because he freed your mouth

× "HELP!" you screamed while he started grabbing your clothes, ripping sounds could be heard

× "I'm gonna have to show you what a real man can give you—"

× and as if planets aligned, in a blurr, Bakugou Katsuki appeared, jumping straight on him and knocking him out instantly, a loud crack deafening your ears

× Katsuki was shaking in anger

× he barely could control his body, his eyes were bloodshot and he had the most feral scowl you'd ever seen on him

× you just trembled in place, grabbing your clothes to cover yourself as you could

× Albert groaned on the floor, twisting his body to turn around and see what attacked him and in a broken speech, blood coming out of his mouth, he attempted to swear, but Bakugou's growl made him freeze in realization

× he was about to pounce again, any self-control leaving his mind when you hugged him tight

× in your arms you could feel his ragged breath, a deep continuous growl still coming from within his chest

× at this point some other people heard your cries too and called the police

× meanwhile you tried to calm him down because you felt he wanted to murder that son of a bitch

× intention was clear in his eyes, even Albert stood there terrified, broken jaw forgotten as he tattered on the floor like a weak animal

× "If you ever fucking dare to look in [Y/N]'s direction again I will find you—" he said and you shivered, holding him even more tightly "—I will kill you." he tried to take a step further but you wouldn't let him "And I'll make sure your body is never found."

× sirens could be heard in the distance and after that everything passed fastly

× they took Albert away, who was muttering scrawled stuff, and took both of your statements

× much to everyone's surprise they didn't cuff Bakugou [ 💖because we live in a society💖 ] so that was a good thing;

× although you did have to go to the station; they found security camera footage of the attempted assault, which Katsuki had to watch and almost erupted in rage yet again

× but it all came to an end when you got home, both absolutely silent

× he was huffing and walking around the place, shoulders tense and hands fisted into balls

× just to distract himself he started cleaning around the house and not looking at you, while you still stood there with his jacket on staring at him

× it wasn't until he finally looked at you when he really took in your state

× until now you behaved exemplary, calming him down, giving a statement, just acting strong

× yet once you reached the comfort of your own home you just couldn't take it any longer

× tears were falling on your face, you were shaking in place at the entrance, hugging his jacket close to your body as if it were your salvation and you just watched him

× it dawned on him how his rage took over him so hard that he couldn't focus on anything else, not even your heartbeat, your scent, your breath

× in an instant he was all over you, hugging you tight and lifting you up

× "I got you, baby, you're safe now." He'd whisper in your ear as you'd pull him closer

× he'd prepare you a warm bath and never leave your side while whispering sweet nothings to you

× "I'm never leaving out of my sight again, do you understand?"

× "I'll kill him if he ever comes close to you."

× "You're safe." he'd say as pulled you into him

× you spent the following days at home as you were granted emergency leave from work and found out the bastard was, of course, fired and prosecuted

× it would've been a lengthy process but from there on some things changed between you

× he'd walk to your job from his, even changed his work hours to fit yours, and you'd go home together, for starters

× his behaviour changed and even if he still gave you the Special Bakugou Attitude, he was gentler and sometimes you'd catch him looking at you like you're the most precious thing ever

× he wouldn't really word it at first but seeing you like that and finding out it was basically because of him really fucked him up

× it would take you to remind him that it's not his fault he's a hybrid, you always want to be with him, you don't care what he is really and the only one to blame was Albert

× [ he'd growl whenever his name would be mentioned ]

× anyway, remember, he needs to be held just as much as you do and that guilt will take some time to wash away; you got each other's back and that's what mattered at the end of the day

× but the weirdest thing was, as you went to the police station some more times, Bakugou somehow impressed the Captain, Tsunadu Hakamada:

× "That dude reeks of cocaine." he'd scowl and point with a sharp glare at this cuffed man sitting in a corner, making you look at him in wonder

× "How do you—"

× "Excuse me, did I hear that correctly?" someone said behind you, making you turn towards a tall blond man in uniform watching your boyfriend curiously

× "Hah?"

× low and behold, he's the captain of the precinct and asked Bakugou to come by any other day noting it would be a pretty great opportunity that would benefit both

× [ and after some attitude and snide comments from Katsuki, he agreed ]

× you went through a lot in a few weeks, like the trauma you'd both have to work through together but one good thing that came out of this situation apart from putting a piece of shit in jail was that Bakugou was offered a position as a special officer in the precinct as long as he went through the academy as anyone else would

× people were starting to see the value of hybrids and the Captain wasn't one to let go of such an opportunity

× things were progressing little by little and it gave you hope for a better tomorrow with Katsuki by your side.

Notes: For those that don't know, Tsunadu Hakamada is Best Jeanist.

#bnha #mha #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou x reader #hybrid!bakugou #hybrid!au #best Jeanist #the lore thickens #bnha headcanons

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deannaroxannewrites · 3 years

Text

Tropetember Day 11 - Time Travel / Amnesia / Coma

Coma comma revelation

Pairing: James T Kirk x GN!Reader

Fandom: Star Trek AOS

Rating: General Audiences

TW: Coma, minor swear

AN: Day 11 of @tropetember. Sorry for the wait, life has been a bit mad. Not the best but hope you enjoy :)

The aftermath of an away mission gone wrong.

Find this story on Ao3 here.

Word Count: 1.3k

It wasn’t uncommon for members of an away crew to end up in the sickbay upon their return to the Enterprise. Injuries regularly ranged from small cuts and bruises to native diseases to broken bones. A visit to Dr McCoy was something all members of the crew had to mentally prepare before beaming down. What was uncommon was for people to be in the sickbay for longer than an overnight stay.

Spock and Kirk had both had a couple of longer stopovers following heroic (read: risky) actions. Dr McCoy dreaded either, or worse both of them, being there because they were both hard-headed and constantly tried to sign themselves out against medical advice. Luckily, this wasn’t something McCoy had to worry about with the current resident of the sickbay. What was happening was far more worrying. Because you had been in a coma for 4 days now and nobody had any clue as to what to do.

Running his hand down his face, Dr McCoy’s gaze remained laser focused on the most recent test results, trying to find an answer. Any answer. Even a clue. Nothing. There was nothing indicating why you weren’t waking up.

Sighing quietly to himself he got up and headed to your room, checking on the monitors. He hadn’t even realised anyone else was there until he turned to exit.

Stood leant against the wall next to the door, Captain James T Kirk stood like a sentry. His eyes watched everything in the room, in between regularly checking on you. The Doctor pressed a hand to his heart as he processed his surprise. Had Kirk not been wearing his yellow command shirt, chances are McCoy wouldn't have even noticed him with how still he was standing.

“Jim, you’re the Captain not a shadow” he observed, his normal gruffness softened slightly.

The gentle rebuke received no response from Kirk. He simply flicked his eyes from the body in the hospital bed to McCoy and back again.

It was clear to see that all was not right with the Captain. His uniform was creased, his eyes red. He looked like he hadn’t slept in days.

“Jim, you ok?”

A small sigh and a shake of the head is all he receives in response. McCoy props himself up against the wall next to him, a show of silent solidarity.

"They weren't even supposed to be there, Bones."

You'd opted to go on the away mission instead of Mr Spock to allow the Vulcan some time off from Kirk-sitting, and as part of your push to keep at least one of them on the ship at all times. "Cos, you know, regulations" was all you scoffed when someone pointed out that they'd both made a break for it onto some distant moon, leaving you as Lieutenant Commander in charge of the ship.

The additional position had been created to help support the demands of a 5 year mission on the crew as a whole. Given the Enterprise's tendency to have an engineering emergency in the middle of crisis, Mr Scott was often unable to support in the way the Chief Engineer may on other ships. You bridged the gap, allowing Kirk, Spock and Scotty to hand over some of their day-to-day responsibilities to focus on the extreme.

Though they had initially railed against it, they would all now agree that your presence had improved the efficiency of the ship. It also allowed them all some welcome downtime. The crew appreciated that more than they would ever admit in front of the higher-ups. Kirk in particular could get bitchy when he was tired.

Something that no one would have predicted about adding you to the crew, was the depth of the friendships you had formed with the command crew. In particular, you had developed a close friendship with the Captain, despite his initial wariness. You and Jim were regularly spotted in observation watching the stars float by whilst having a drink, or heading to each other's quarters with a holodisk in hand.

Jim, for his part, had been reluctant to get to know you. The Captain of a starship is supposed to be separate from the rest of their crew. But, as with the interpersonal relationships between the crew, the length of the mission had required these expectations be adjusted in the interest of crew morale.

The outcome of the slow blossoming relationship with you was something he had not predicted. Where he always felt responsible when crew were hurt, the shot of ice through his system when he saw you being stabbed with a syringe was much, much stronger. More importantly, his almost visceral reaction had been completely unexpected. He was the Captain, he had to look out for everyone. Yet, he spent every second of the day and night since returning to the Enterprise worrying about you.

Drawing himself back from his thoughts he glances to Bones, who is watching him with a combination of concern and soft understanding.

“We have the best people in the Federation working on this Jim.” He gently grasps Kirk’s upper arm. “They’ll be ok. You’ll get them back.” He pauses then, glancing between the two of them. “Then you can maybe have an honest conversation about the two of you.”

Kirk sharply glances at him over his shoulder before allowing his own shoulders to sag.

“I hadn’t even realised,” he quietly whispers, moving to the side of the bed. He takes your hand in his before sitting down next to the bed. “It’s not allowed, Bones.”

McCoy for his part just smiles at him.

“Never stopped you before”

That gets a small smile out of the Captain as he turns his eyes back to you. He’s so focused on you that he doesn’t even notice as Dr McCoy slips out to head to his office.

-----------

Waking up after being unconscious for an unknown amount of time is, in a word, disorienting. The sickbay lights are bright, your throat is dry and sore and your head feels like it’s stuffed with cotton wool.

It takes you a while to come to but you’re ever so grateful to hear Dr McCoy's southern drawl welcoming you back.

“There you are darlin’, you had us worried.”

You let him run all of his tests without complaint, using the time to orient yourself. It’s not until he’s nearly finished that you notice there’s someone else in the room. You throw Jim a small smile, followed by a grimace as McCoy hits you with a hypospray.

“That should be everything for the minute,” McCoy tells you. “We’re going to keep you in for observation for a few days but your recovery is going as well as we could have hoped.”

You smile in relief at that, and he tells you he’ll be back in a few minutes before he heads out of the room.

After taking a moment to shuffle yourself into a more comfortable position, you wave a hand at Jim to beckon him over. He takes a gentle hold of your hand as he moves closer. It fills you with warmth and you can’t help a small smile.

“Managed not to blow up the ship while I was out of commission then?” you tease, wanting the frown to disappear from his face. He shakes his head in response.

“I honestly don’t know. I haven’t really left this room.”

You glance at him surprised, and then see the soft expression on his face. Huh. You thought it was just you.

Taking the plunge, you gently tug at his hand until he slides into bed next to you, your head resting on his chest. The beat of his heart starts to lull you back to sleep.

It’s probably best to rest while you can, you decide. You’ve got a lot to talk about.

#tropetember #fanfiction #star trek aos #star trek #james t kirk x reader #Captain Kirk x reader #kirk x reader #coma

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binniesthighs · 3 years

Text

call me babydoll | reader x chan

a/n: ahhhhh holy holy heck this chapter is SO DAMN EXCITING hehehe I had sosososo much writing and doing all the research!! please let me know if there is anything factual/cultural that I need to fix! I tried the best I could although I most def am not an expert in Egyptian culture so I appreciate it a lot :) hehe i hope ya have fun reading this chapter teehee oh! also I love hearing what you thought of it too! :D

Four

Pairing: self insert, female reader x bang chan

Genre: action, mystery and suspense, fluff, smut, angst

Tags: (of this part) bodyguard au, secret agent au, royal au, moderndayprince!chan, secretagent!reader, secretagent!jeongin, secretagent!jisung, collegestudent!seungmin, royal!minho, skz side characters, adventure and mystery, action and peril, plot driven, running out of time, slow-ish burn, growing feelings, sexual tension, explicit language, several mentions of food and alcohol as well as getting tipsy/drunk that good, good making out, suggestive themes

CWs: mentions of guns, mentions of knives, themes of jealousy (expressed by the reader)

Word count: 7.5k

Parts

ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE

“Well, we’re in Cairo alright.”

Two tugged the amazed young stow-away-student, Seungmin, by the hand of his backpack to keep him from running into one of the palm tree planters decorating the terminal. The young man had nearly slept the whole flight due to the length as well as the exasperation that he had just been through. While his eyes were still darkened from his nap, his glossy pupils still wondered all around him.

“I take it back. I’m so glad that I almost died so I could end up here with you guys.”

Jeongin slapped him from the backside of his head. “Never be thankful for almost dying. Life is a lot more fucking fragile than you think. This isn’t just some joyride--”

“--Ease up F.” You interrupted your partner as you shouldered your bag. The kid had already been through enough already: he didn’t need accosting on top of it all.

The dashing prince sighed out and stretched his arms. “Ahhhh Cairo. It’s been a while; too long actually.”

The airport was humid: the kind of sticky warmth that dripped down your neck in a matter of seconds to then get caught above your lip. It wasn’t much help to the anxiety that already had seeped into your veins. The closer you got to a gun the more comfortable you would be. You and the other two guards created a formation around the prince with two in the front and the other in the flank. While each of you were dressed in regular street clothes, your responsibility of his detail still hung over your head with a severe air.

Chan threw his arm over the young student with an obscene grin. His hair had become a little disheveled from the plane seat and his hoodie, but he didn’t appear to mind. Seeing him so normal was somewhat of an odd change to your previous unbreakable impression of him.

“Seungmin my friend, you’ve never lived until you’ve been to Cairo. I’ve never seen another place so enriched in history in my whole life...it puts my kingdom to shame. It’s almost like...you can just feel the time here: hundreds of thousands of years...beauty, art, food, industry...I’ve got a thing or two to learn.”

Seungmin nodded at the prince’s grandiose gestures in the terminal with an enamored smile. “I can’t wait to see it!”

Your partner put a firm hand on the prince’s back to guide him to the baggage claim. “We won’t be here for long, so, don’t get too excited. We’ve come here for one reason and we shouldn’t dally otherwise.”

The young boy appeared to frown, and Two bit his lip with a little chuckle. “Way to crush the kids dreams F.”

“You know the mission, J.” Jeongin gritted his teeth with the words. “Everything is set, there will be a car waiting for us in the garage, and at the hotel we’ll have anything we need.”

Prince Chan lulled his head back with heels clicking on the flooring. Rogue strands of his hair hung over his sunglasses where he threw a look back at you while pulling them down.

“Don’t forget our little deal Bee? We’ll have time for a little pleasure.”

The white haired agent rolled his eyes with gusto then adjusted the royal’s glasses over his face. “We’ve still got to be careful, you Highness. We never know where they could have eyes.”

“I know where I’ve got mine...” He turned back once more to throw his cockiness in your general direction.

“Listen to F, your Highness...if you want to live.”

“Oooo. Feisty as ever, Bee. I love it when you bite back.” Chan turned to his new pet, Seungmin, “She’s really something isn’t she?”

The young man nodded, but not necessarily because he agreed, but it just seemed like it better to agree with a prince than to disagree with him.

The air appeared to turn even thicker in the summery and arid city and your group approached the parking lot half shaded. Outside of the cement lot, iridescent waves of heat wiggled on the horizon, and further, the astonishing urban sprawl of Cairo, and just over it, the stretch of the Nile and Giza. Palms and other varieties of plants spotted the landscape and above it all, a perfectly crystal blue sky streaked with thin clouds. Had the circumstances been different, you really would have wished to have been there for pleasure.

“This one. Right here.” Jeongin announced upon spotting the black armored sedan. It wasn’t the most inconspicuous vehicle, but you were prioritizing safety over aesthetics. Your partner touched his index fingerprint to the car door’s invisible panel, and it flashed blue just as the lock had at the safehouse with the ticking clock insignia.

Two whipped his head around to make one last check of the surroundings before taking off his sunglasses and reddened eye. “Get in. Both of you.” He urged the prince and the student. He popped the drivers side open to find a different pair of glasses in the storage compartment: gold framed aviators.

“Huh,” He said happily while putting them on. “This is more my style.” He rummaged around a bit more to find a new pair of black framed glasses there too. “Fox! Think fast!” He threw them over to your partner who sighed out with relief.

“Thank god.”

The trunk opened with a mechanical sounding creek, and you lifted up the trunk bed to find your whole arsenal: Heckler & Koch MP5′s submachines, Remington 870 shotguns, and Glocks complete with thigh holsters. Among the pile of metal, various knives and other weapons were held in foam holders.

“They’ve got knives back there?” Two asked while pulling the rearview mirror to see.

“Oh yeah. What? You more of a knife guy?” You teased while looping your thigh holster over your cargo pants. It fit just right.

The illusive man popped his gum with a shiny smile. “‘Don’t ever have to reload them...that’s what I’m saying.”

“Thank you Carroll.” Jeongin sighed upon seeing the thick laptop among the weapons. “Finally I can do some real work. That kid’s damn Chromebook was killing me. I nearly short circuited it trying to connect to our network.”

“You what?!” Seungmin was suddenly much more interested.

“Dont worry yourself too much, its still fine.”

“Are there cameras in here?” You quickly asked your partner.

“Agency should’ve fried them a long time ago. Why?”

From the trunk bed you sized up the Glock to feel its weight and how cool it settled into your sweating hand. You unloaded the magazine to see that it had already been filled.

“Carroll. She really is too kind to us.” You slid the magazine back in then, pulled back the slider to lock it once more, catching Chan’s adoring glance.

“Something interesting pretty boy?”

The prince appeared to shiver a little, but brushed it off sighing, “Oh, nothing.”

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Either it was Carroll or the King, but someone had spared no expense on the young prince. The sun set upon the sparking Nile where you had arrived at the Four Seasons Hotel Cairo at Nile Plaza.

Anything for His Royal Highness The Prince.

The towering and gleaming building was a sight to behold in and of itself. It was nestled right into the riverside anchored with several leisurely sailboats bopping in the evening breeze. As day crept into night, the city grew with a swell of lights washing as far as you could see. Extensive bridges and roadways glowed with headlights and every building appeared to be illuminated along with more boats strolling down the river in a rainbow of colors and music.

The prince craned his head as close to the window as he could and rubbed together his hands excitedly. He looked from you to your partners, finally making a disapproving scoff.

“Come on. You’re not just a little excited to be here?”

“We’re here on business, how many times do we have to explain?” Jeongin typed away at his computer from the front seat.

“Bee?” He looked back to you with a hopeful little glint to his eye.

“Like Fox said...tomorrow is our appointment with White Rabbit, then we’re on the first flight back home for you.”

The young prince frowned, but this quickly faded once he had seen the golden brass doors to the magnificent hotel. Seeing the state that the four of you were in, it was a bit comical that you had rolled up to a place such as this. Immediately a valet and bellhop jogged up to the car wearing perfectly pressed uniforms and spotless shined shoes. Little did they know you had no belongings to your name...the rest was waiting in your suite: the royal kind.

Seungmin cranked his neck to take in the scale of the building in all of it’s regal glory and let out an airy laugh his with his backpack straps snapped tight.

“Holy shit.” He exclaimed with a giant smile

Two rose a “no thank you” hand to the valet, and asked him where the garage was in perfect Arabic. The gesture surprised you...as many things did with that man. Jeongin gave a little nod in appreciation to the bellhop and expressed with his own broken version of Arabic that you group had no luggage. The young man was confused, but still gladly took the bills that Jeongin had slipped into his hand for the inconvenience.

“We’re staying here?” Seungmin wondered while he followed you in.

“When you travel with The Prince, it comes with some perks.” Chan tore off his glasses with a particularly prideful grin.

“I feel like I need to pay for just...breathing in here.”

Indeed, it was a luxurious and grand place. The atrium was patterned with various plush lounge chairs and benches and the path was made of emerald green marble tiles with swirling designs of beige loops. Thick, round columns also supported the ceilings in the lobby, and crystal glass chandeliers sparkled. On several tables, massive floral arrangements had been freshly placed, and you wondered how much the hotel must've paid for them to look that good just to have them replaced the next day.

A couple formalities were exchanged with the worker at the front desk, and soon the keycards to the royal suite were placed into your hands. Seungmin held his piece of plastic as if it were a gold bar in his hands whereas Chan shoved it right into his front pocket.

“Everything that we should need should be up in the room.” You told the group who were too distracted to hear what you had just said.

Just before you had entered the elevator, a tug at your sleeve stopped you in your tracks. Jeongin pulled you back, nodding at Two to go with the others up first.

“Remember what we talked about before?” He muttered in the hollow and stone corridor. “About the prince?”

“I need to stay beside him?”

Your partner nodded with a furrowing brow. “We’re out in the open here, it’s a big city...anyone could be watching us. No distractions, no messing around, no anything. We see White Rabbit and we leave. Hell, I’m even inclined to make sure he doesn’t leave the room...”

“Jeongin...” You squeezed your partner’s shoulder which felt stringy and tense under your fingertips. “I got it. Trust me. He won’t leave my sight. I promise.”

“..Okay.” He said with a nervous brush to his hair, then he pressed the elevator button with his knuckle.

“You...okay?”

The young man appeared to snap out of a trance. “What? ...Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be? I’m keeping it together fine. It’s just...there’s a lot riding on this mission. I don’t...”

The gold and reflective elevator dinged to the ground floor.

“We can’t disappoint Carroll with this one. There’s too much riding on it...I can’t disappoint Carroll.”

You invited your partner into the marbled and mirrored interior of the small space.

“Don’t worry, we won’t.”

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

Even without the help of his royal helpers, Chan managed to clean himself up nice...provided, only the finest clothes had been sent for him to wear. While they weren’t the usual designer labels that he was used to, it was clear that they had been picked out from the finest markets and boutiques in the area. Chan, as he always was, was a prince to the full extent of the word. After a shower and some perfume to his chest, he was the same man that you had been introduced to.

A loose linen shirt swayed from his frame with little regard for the usage of buttons. He wore slacks that had been pressed made of a kind of fabric that you had never seen before, but looked airy and comfortable. As always, there was a small assortment of shoes for him to choose from as well. He picked brown leather loafers, then tucked up his sleeves to reveal his arms; scratched as they were, but still strong and spiderwebbed with thick veins.

Arrangements had been made for you to share one of the bedrooms with him--as much as you had fought it at first. Chan was thrilled with the idea, and gladly let you settle into his room with your small assortment of sidepieces and modest set of clothes by regulation of The Agency. While it had mostly been denim button downs and several kinds of functional trousers, they had sent an evening gown.

The silky white fabric was not unlike the dress that had worn for the gala, but it appeared to be even more sultry once you held it to your frame. The thin spaghetti straps barely held to your shoulders and the back dipped nearly halfway down your back.

Knowing the man that you had an appointment with, you figured the dress would make it just a little bit easier to talk to him. Along with it, there was a matching set of diamond earrings and a necklace that glinted with the same sheen of the sea.

“You’ll look gorgeous in that.” Chan said while slipping on a wristwatch. “I’m sure that it will suit you perfectly.”

The wooden bedside nightstand creaked when you put your holster and Glock in with a matching matte black knife. You had to be careful with that one, as it had nearly cut your finger upon inspection earlier.

“Hm. I think the both of us know that you’d prefer it on these lovely marble floors rather than on me. Correct?”

The confident prince strode across the room in the dim lighting of a couple lamps with stained glass shades. Outside of the balcony attached to your room, the sheer curtains blew in the night air and distorted the city lights across the river. Further, Cairo Tower surged with a pink light wrapping around the length were the cylinder pierced the sky.

“Maybe.” He tutted, then crinkled the king-sized bed where he sat. The prince’s disposition was alluring, there was no denying. He tiled his head to inspect you further, jaw clenching with a sharp angle and a testing glare to his brown pupils. The man smiled slightly while rubbing his index and ring finger down the sleeve of your considerably less scratchy blouse.

“I hope that during our time here Bee, I’ll get to know you a little better. I’m...really looking forward to our drink later. I made reservations for us.”

“Reservations? When did you do that?”

“Oh. When you were showering.” He smirked at his sneaky plans unbeknownst to you.

“If you think that I’m letting you go anywhere else besides this hotel--”

“--Bee?” The young royal grew quieter, softer, careful even. His hand cascaded from your arm down to your waist where he tentatively went to grab at your hip and squeeze lightly there.

While your first reaction was to swat him away, your second crept up on you unexpectedly, and swelled with a kind of confused euphoria feeling the pressure of him on your body. You let his hand linger there, thumb pressed into your hipbone.

“You don’t need that dress to be beautiful.”

His words snapped you back; sickly sweet, and sticky in your chest. You cast his hand off of you.

“You’re crossing the line, your Highness. Don’t...don’t touch me again.”

The royal sighed as he rose, then inspected his face in the sizeable mirror. Each of his cuts and scars had been skillfully covered with makeup the best he could manage.

“Bee, I’d cross multiple lines for you. I thought you knew?”

“THIS BED IS FUCKIN’ AMAZING!!” Seungmin called from the opposite of the suite.

The prince smiled, then followed you to the door.

“I’ve already got enough on my hands, your Highness. I ask that you not distract me.”

“Distract you?”

As soon as you had said it, regret bit at the tips of your ears. You couldn’t meet his teasing glances, but rather slid one of your more discrete sidepieces into your crossbody bag--as if guns as such could be such a thing.

“I-I...I’ll sleep on the couch.” You then resolved out loud, however the prince chuckled at your sudden break.

“As you wish Bee.”

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

“I think that this is the best meal that I’ve ever eaten in my entire life!!”

Seungmin kicked his legs under the table to the embarrassed glances of both Jeongin and Chan. Before you, the prince had ordered a variety of both cold and hot mezzah dishes with a couple main entrees for you to share. While he was the only one to drink, he indulged in the most expensive wine that the hotel had to offer. Granted, everything would be paid for in cash from The Agency, however the Prince swore up and down that anyone could order anything that they wanted and that The Agency would be paid back in full. You and your partners ate modestly, however the young student didn’t hold back. As the boy shoved his face, it appeared to make the prince happy to see him eating so well.

You were still an odd group, and garnered curious glances from other restaurant guests. While they were only glances in passing, they still didn’t make you feel any better. You had already drawn enough attention to yourself with you being an odd mix of foreigners who each held themselves differently. You could sense that you partner felt it too while he sipped at his seasonal soup with eyes up to scan the room as he did so.

Chan threw his arm behind your chair to take in the rest of the room: perfectly decorated with jade green chandeliers and perfectly symmetrical wallpaper and furnishings. It was as if he felt somehow content with your strange little group; like he was the ringleader of it all or some king of the round table. For a moment, he paused to watch the way that the boats passed by on the river from the window nearest to him and sighed. Knowing him, he was probably enjoying running for his life in this way.

Two cleared his throat and unbuttoned his fashionable suit jacket as the waiters came to clear the table for dessert.

“So. What are the specs for tomorrow?”

Jeongin fiddled with his glasses, then dabbed away at the corners of his mouth. “He’s invited us to come around 11pm. He wants us to dress up too--as I’m sure you’ve all seen the clothes that have been provided for us. He apparently loves his formalities, but, anything to make him feel more comfortable I suppose. His men will meet us in the front and take us to him, then we try our best not to fuck it up.”

“--Which we won’t.” You soothed your partner.

Seungmin perked up, “I’m coming too?”

“How else are we going to look after ya, kid?” Two ruffled up the young man’s hair.

“W-wait. Didn’t you say that it’s a club? Will they even let me in? I’m not like, 21 yet? I mean, I will be in a couple months--”

“--Ahhh you’re so cute.” Chan beamed. “If you’re rolling with us that doesn’t matter.”

Seungmin blushed and played with the condensation of his water glass. “Oh.”

Your partner shifted in his seat. “Speaking of. Considering that you’re “one of us” now. We need to discuss something important with you. Your identity.” He looked over to you to finish the rest of the speech that had been pushed off for just a bit too long.

“Your name...is your most valuable asset. It’s the only thing about yourself that you can keep for yourself. No one else should know it besides you...and, well, us. If they know your name, they know your family, they know where you live, where you go to school, even that girl that you had a crush on in the fourth grade. Got it?”

Seungmin gulped dry with blown out eyes. “I-I think that I understand.”

“What do you want us to call you from now on?”

He paused, considering towards the ceiling. ”Well...if you’re B, and he’s F...and he’s J...I could be S? Simple enough right?”

“S it is then.”

The waiters arrived with every dessert possible: chocolate cake, Crème Brule, fruit cheesecake garnished with mint, as well as traditional desserts like Om Ali and Mehalabiya--a type of milk pudding dressed with delicate, pink, edible flowers.

Seungmin--now dubbed S--made happy little eating sounds while he tried a little bit of everything.

“Thank you.” You finally spoke to the prince, who now smelled strongly of Lotus and Jasmine.

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t mind treating my friends.”

The word hung in the air, and you didn’t quite know what to do with it.

Friends.

“Where is this reservation that you mentioned?”

He took a swing from his crystal glass with finesse. “Hm. That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

“Jeongin told me that I need to keep an eye on you, you know that? It would be best if we didn’t leave the hotel at all--”

“--But what would be the fun in that?” The prince nearly pouted.

From the others side of the table, Two in his aviators brushed off his lap before standing. “I’m going to get some sleep, if that’s alright with you? I’m feeling pretty jetlagged and I want to be prepared for tomorrow. Excuse me.”

The slender man bowed to you at the table, then even deeper to the prince.

“What was that about?” Jeongin muttered while he poked at the thin caramel layer of his French dessert.

“Actually, I think I want to head to bed too, I’m stuffed.” Seungmin rubbed his belly in his contentment. “Also...I think I might have homework due...heh. I don’t know...I’ve got to figure out all these all these time differences and stuff.” He pushed in his chair then gave the prince a deep bow. “Thank you, your Highness.”

“My pleasure.” Chan said with a tiny bow back. “Rest up, kid.”

With the empty holes at the table, the silence was deafening.

“And then there were three.” Jeongin yawned. “Bee? Wanna do some laps in the morning? I saw that they had a pool? Wanna see if you can beat my record...again?”

“Psh. I was coming off that biochemical cocktail the last time we tired. You had an advantage.”

“Then you’ll beat me? Hm! I look forward to that.” Your adorable partner flashed the first smile that you’d seen in a couple days. You missed it, you realized.

“Sleep tight Bee. Goodnight your Highness.”

“Thank you Fox.” The prince mirrored his warm smile.

Knives and forks clinked on china in the dining room, and music softly payed the soundtrack of the evening. A low hum filled the space where the tourists and patrons chatted among themselves. It was peaceful and normal amidst everything that had been pricking your skin and plaguing worry over your mind. The prince merely sighed, sparking eyes reflecting the candles dying out on the table.

“And now it’s just the two of us.”

“Seems like it.”

“Can I whisk you away now?”

“Whisk? Who said that I would allow any whisking?”

“Come on...Bee. Just this one time? I promise to be on my best behavior.”

You laughed out incredulously at the comment. “You out of all people can’t promise something like that.”

“I guess you’re right about that. But...still, I won’t try to make a scene or anything.”

The royal placed his napkin on the table with his knife and fork respectfully tilted off the edge of his plate.

“Follow me?”

Chan held out his hand. It was pink with heat and scraped a little from the glass that had pierced the fragile flesh. In some way, you had felt a twinge of guilt seeing the small injury knowing that you couldn’t have protected him well enough then. You allowed him to lace your fingers with yours, and felt the rough cuts of his scars in your palm.

You had promised to yourself that he would never know such pain again.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

“Annnd...this is it!”

You had taken all of twenty paces outside of the hotel when Chan gestured with open arms to the riverfront. Just at the riverbank, a steamboat was anchored with open doors for hotel guests to enter. The massive, multideck, white steamboat shone like the moon peaking at the ocean’s horizon. Each of the semi-circle windows were lined with white lights and from the inside, the delightful sound of laugher and live music spilled out to the glossy water of the Nile.

“W-what is this?”

“Well…it’s a dinner cruise but I just signed us up for the bar part. Are you...surprised? I thought that it must be pretty safe considering that we’re on the water and no one can drive up and shoot at us.”

“I mean...it’s a bit closed off, but nothing that I can’t handle.”

The prince held out his arm for you to lead the way, then took your hand to help you watch your step down the stairs. Chan provided his name to the conductor in elegant sounding Arabic, leaving you shocked.

“Y-you speak Arabic too?”

Chan chuckled once more, taking your hand in his to bring you down the creaking wood deck with swinging with lanterns above your heads.

“As a royal and diplomat, it’s best for me to know how to communicate if I might need to.”

“I must say your Highness, I am definitely impressed.”

“What? You thought I was just another pretty face?” The charming prince escorted you to a room within the steamboat that was lined with red velvet carpets and small bar tables with tea candles and water lilies floating in a shallow dish. He pulled out your chair before his own, then settled with hands folded in his lap. “I’m trained in hand-to-hand too, although I could use a refresher; that was so long ago, back when I went to school.”

“Hand-to-hand? Well! You really are full of surprises.”

The prince appeared smug and faintly amused by the compliment as he crossed his legs under the table and leaned in with his dizzying floral scent.

The waitress appeared and Chan flexed his language skills once more while he ordered a Hemmingway Daiquiri for himself and a French 75 for you. Somewhere off in the distance or perhaps a different part of the boat, louder and more excitable music played along with the echoing claps of those who listened along. Here, it was much quieter, and the loud sound was replaced with a jazz song that you had heard before--likely from your more formative years.

“It’s a beautiful night.” Chan began, “Thank you for agreeing to do this with me. I know that I’ve been a bit forward, but, I appreciate you entertaining me.”

“If I had said no, what would’ve happened then?”

“Well, maybe I would’ve dropped it, but...knowing you...I don’t think that I would’ve given up easily.”

The waitress returned with the drinks on a silver platter: his grapefruit pink and yours the color of a lemon drop.

The royal rose his glass for you to clink with yours, “To...adventures.”

“To adventures.”

With a resounding sound, the glasses met, and you watched the way that the shimmering liquid ripped across the prince’s nose.

The two of you sat for several moments more, saying nothing, but sipping and soaking in the night breeze and the humidity that made your whole body feel blanketed with a sense of calm. You had felt this way before back at the safe house, and it snuck up on you once more. Simply exisiting with the prince provided you with a sense of solace that had long since faded from your life. The sense of responsibility that you felt for the man was noticeable, but you couldn’t help but notice how he provided for you the same sense of safety that you did for him.

Perhaps it was the loneliness of the job and the solitude that came along with it. Was that you craved to be touched? Listened to? Admired? You had distanced yourself from irrational things such as love and other feelings of attachment. In your line of work, people died often, and you had to move on just as fast as their lives had been taken from them. You supposed that you had become unfeeling at this point...but this prince, so full of himself and focused on the material...there was something about him that reminded you how to feel.

“Bee? What are you thinking about?” He asked carefully.

“Oh...nothing.”

“You looked kind of lost here.”

“Was I?”

“You okay?”

“Yeah...yeah. I’m fine. Maybe the drink is just...getting to me.”

“Just one drink?” Chan giggled a bit, “I didn’t take you for being a lightweight Bee. I thought that they gave you like, drinking lessons or something back at that agency of yours.”

“I’m fine. I shouldn’t have more than one drink anyway.”

The prince nodded, understanding. “So, what will you tell me about yourself? Is there anything that you’re allowed to tell me? Or...will you always be this mysterious, beautiful, enigma?”

“Me? Enigmatic? Ha! Hardly.”

“Well? What then?” The prince sucked at the lime garnishing his glass. “Since I don’t have the pleasure of knowing your real name, I’d love it if you could tell me something.”

Over the stereo, the muted trumpet played along with the twang of thick upright bass strings,

“I suppose I could tell you how...” Chan leaned in, “I didn’t want to join The Agency. At first.”

“Oh? Why’s that?”

“It felt like a bit of a last resort and anything that is a last resort is something that can’t come easy.”

Chan titled his head as if to say, I’m listening.

“Life...fucking sucks sometimes. Sometimes...you’re left...living with your sleazy uncle with a letter addressed to you post mortem telling you to carry on the family name if you want to feel some connection to the parents that you never knew.”

The royal cast his eyes down, “I-I’m so sorry.”

“The Agency has been everything I’ve known since I was a teenager. This life...it’s everything. I think in a way I feel obligated to it...since it was what took my parents from me...I owe it to them to do a job that they spent so much energy on so that it wasn’t in vain.”

You stopped, realizing the weight of your words in the air and how they cut like the blade of the knife that you kept tucked in your waistband sheathed in a leather cover. Once the sharp metal was taken from it’s confines, there was nothing to protect those from the damage it could do.

“Bee...I don’t know what to say besides I’m sorry. That’s terrible. I can’t imagine what it must be like to loose your parents and have been thrown into this life...no one deserves that.”

“Its okay.” You sighed. “I did it to myself. Now, it’s of no concern. I can take care of my own, and I have a new family. I try not to look back.”

As he had done numerous times before that night, Chan’s hand reached out for yours under the table, brushing up against the white cloth.

“I can’t say how much I appreciate you enough for what you do; risking your life for me...I owe you everything Bee.” The prince softened, rubbing his thumb against the back of your hand.

The chug of the steamboat hissed softly behind you in that back bar room, and just through the windows, you could see the stars dotting the sky just as they did in any corner of the world. They were a reminder that while some things changed, others didn’t.

The echo of footsteps on the deck clicked, causing you to turn a careful glance back to the direction of the sound. The man who entered was dressed in a casual cotton button up and navy slacks. On the white of his breast, he wore a pin holding the symbol of a crest.

“Lee Minho?” Chan gasped.

“Your Highness!” The handsome man bowed immediately with a startled little smile.

The friendly prince stood immediately upon seeing the other royal to shake his hand. “What a coincidence that we meet again!”

Lee Minho shied with a polite smile while fiddling with his hair that looked to be masterfully styled. “Must be...fated. Or something like that.”

“Are you alright? Last I saw you was at the shooting at the gala. I’m so glad to see that you’re safe. You didn’t get injured I hope?”

This close, Lee Minho had oddly cat-like eyes that were as intense as they were alluring. He was just as you had remembered him to be--put together and polished like a true royal, dastardly handsome with all the right curves to his body, and just enough mystery to him to pique the interest of anyone who had sensed his air--just as the prince had.

“What are you doing in Cairo?” Chan asked, gesturing for the stranger to pull up a chair.

Lee Minho swatted away the question with an annoyed cringe. “Royal stuff, you know how it goes. Everyone is always trying to poke their noses in places where they shouldn’t be...unless they’re looking to get themselves killed. That's why they send me. I’m dispensable.”

“Oh, I’d hardly say that.”

In seconds the prince’s entire body had shifted towards the direction of the other man, and hung onto each of his words as if they were a siren song.

��When you’re not as high up in the ranks as you are your Highness, royalty starts to feel more like servitude than a legitimate position.”

“So, where are you poking your nose?”

Lee Minho’s eyes nervously flicked to you, and Chan realized that he had skipped right over introductions.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t introduce the two of you. Minho, this is Bee, my--”

“--I’m a member of his detail.” You spoke for him. “It’s a pleasure to meet you formally Lee Minho. I recall seeing you at the gala.”

Minho bowed slightly, “It’s a pleasure to meet you too.”

It was obvious that you had made the man uncomfortable, just as you had liked it to be. While you could see what the prince had seen in him, you had the disposition to be much less trusting than his Highness.

“Which royals are employing you? I’d love to know! It’s always exciting for me to learn about who is plotting what. The royal drama keeps me really entertained.”

Minho sat up straighter, then waved a hand for the waitress to come scuttling over.

“Some of my family members. You wouldn’t know them, we’re all dreadfully insignificant to be honest. They heard all this business about those men with the red crests and they’re starting to get scared. After they targeted...you, they’re wondering which royal family might be next...if any. I’m here to find out who they are, their whereabouts, anything else.”

“Wow! That’s actually what we--”

“--And where are you planning on getting this information if I may ask?” You hushed the prince’s loose lips as quickly as you could.

Minho leaned in over the flickering candle to lower his tone, “I heard that there’s an informant here in the city who might now something about this group. They’ve been popping up on national news too as of late. I’m looking to talk to him tomorrow evening. Luckily, I was able to make an appointment but it was no small feat. I had to bribe him to high hell to get him to speak with me.”

“Hm. Sounds familiar.” You mumbled.

Chan’s eyes widened, then he looked back to you to ask for permission. You gave him a nod.

“It seems like we’re here for a common purpose my friend.” The prince leaned in to bridge the gap between them, his hand notably reaching to rest on the other man’s thigh below the table’s surface. “We’re seeking similar information and I think we might be speaking of the same informant.”

“But your Highness, isn’t it dangerous it you to do something like this?”

“Not when I’ve got her around.” Chan threw a sly grin to you across the table. “I’m well protected. And you? Where’s your detail?”

“I’m afraid that I’m out here alone. Like I said, when you’re as low in the ranks as I am...”

“What? That’s terrible!! They aren’t even protecting their own? Bee!!”

“Yes, your Highness?” You already knew where this was going.

“Let’s bring Minho along with us tomorrow! We know that there’s safety in numbers--”

“Your Highness, in case you haven’t noticed, our hands are already a bit full...”

“I can fend for myself.” Lee Minho suddenly piped. “Travelling alone, I’ve picked up a few things about protecting myself. You don’t have to protect me, but, I appreciate the offer.”

“Nonsense! You should come with us! I would feel more comfortable if you did rather than went by yourself.”

Lee Minho gave the royal a smile in his thanks, it was pure and a little adorable you had considered...but that was likely the champagne going to your head.

“Really? I appreciate it, your Highness.”

While you were distanced, you nearly could’ve sworn that the prince had squeezed the other’s leg reassuringly, and you were willing to bet he had rubbed it with his thumb too just as he had done to you.

After long, the waitress returned with Lee Minho’s drink, and the two men chatted like old college buddies while you slipped away at your drink in an attempt to make it last as long as you could. While Chan did try to engage you in conversation, it would never last for long until he would become puppy-eyed over the stranger again. In the end, you wondered if the tipsy prince would’ve also confessed to this man if he had one too many drinks.

The table bumped with their jovial and restless legs, and you could only imagine what wandering hands sought to discover.

━━━━━━━━━▲━━━━━━━━━

The hotel was quiet save for the click of heels on the marble floors from ladies who had just gotten off the steamboat and clung to their husbands in their drunken stupor. They cackled in the empty and golden lobby, then pressed hasty kisses into the stuttering mouths of their husbands who’s mouths then smeared with hot pick lipstick. Chan giggled at the sight while he tripped over his own feet too.

“Ahhhh. Being in love is so cute.” He adored them once you had entered the elevator.

“You’re not going to throw up on me, are you?”

The prince hiccupped, then shook his head. “Unlike you I know how to hold my liquor. I’m fine. Just a bit sleepy I think. Must be the jet lag.”

The tones for each floor beeped in the compartment, and Chan lulled his head back and forth.

“So. Lee Minho huh?” You said, not even able to help yourself. The alcohol had brought you a bit of an edge...so you thought.

“Lee. Minho.” He sighed out dreamily. “What do you think of him?”

“I think I can’t trust anyone as long as I haven’t ran at least three background checks on them.”

“Awww, Bee, you’re so thoughtful of me.”

In the empty hallway, the prince with squinting eyes leaned against the doorframe to the royal suite, reaching out to brush up against your blouse once more. You let him, excusing his drunken state. After he did so, his eyes hazed over with something much different, while he looked exhausted, it was laced with something else: something much more longing.

“Bee...fuck, I really want to kiss you again.”

“Hm. That’s ripe coming from you who was just viciously flirting with Lee Minho.”

You could see his head spinning in his dilated pupils. “What?”

The door clicked open and you less than gracefully lead the prince through the dark to your shared bedroom.

“B-Bee, what are you talking about?”

You scoffed, “I’m not blind, you know.”

“A-are you...jealous?”

“W-what? Fuck no. I’m just...you can’t just...toss people around thinking that they’ll all bend to you.”

Chan sat at the edge of the bed and rubbed at his temples when you turned one of the lamps on.

“I-I was doing that?”

You tore a pillow from the bed as well as the throw blanket at the end. “I’m sleeping on the couch. Good evening, your Highness.”

“Wait! Bee!” The young prince stumbled after you, stubbing his toe against the bedpost in the process. “Ah-FUCK!” He grunted.

“What?” You growled back to him, half shrouded in the darkness of the suite living room.

The royal stumbled out, eyes blank and backlit from the bedroom. While you couldn’t see him fully, you later could assume that there was something in him terribly torn and ripped in that moment that made little sense to him, as it did to you to.

Arms reached out, bodies softly illuminated by the lights of the city, and the prince leaned himself fully into you, pressing bitter tasting lips to yours with a heat and desire that only seemed amplified the breather he had gotten. While he tasted of lime and grapefruits, with a twinge of alcohol. He was just as addictive as any vice. You wanted to feel him. As infuriating as he was, and oblivious, your abhorrence to him was just as strong as your attraction.

“Mm, Bee--” He moaned directly into your mouth while shuffling both of you back to the bedroom.

The prince’s trembling breath floated from his mouth to yours where he used both of his large hands to pull your face closer to his. You knew that in some way, there must have been something ingenuine about the whole scenario, but you didn’t care too much, not when kissing him felt like something. Maybe he had kissed you out of pity, or because he really had wanted to kiss you. You broke for seconds before both of your tangled limbs hit the bed.

“Before...you said that you wouldn’t kiss me.”

“I didn’t make any promises...but, how come...you said that you wouldn’t hesitate...? But you kissed ba--”

You silenced the prince’s words with your own heated kisses that made little sense, only that kissing him as such felt good. You straddled the man while his hungry fingers traced all the way down your back. The prince’s hips sunk into the cushiony mattress, and you screwed him down even harder into it with your own heated hips grinding into him with as much pressure as you could muster.

“This is what you want, right?” You pulled at his lip with your teeth to hear him groan from it.

“Is it...what you want?” Chan got out between more kisses.

You could blame it on loneliness or lack of touch all that you wanted, but it wasn’t even close.

“Wait. Wait.” Chan suddenly interjected.

“What? What is it?”

The prince looked up at you, that haze in his eyes now fading to something much different that wasn’t covered in the lust that he held before.

“Bee...I-I don’t know if I want it to happen this way. It feels...it’s not...”

“Not what?”

He brushed his hand upward now to caress your face, lingering on the side of the peach fuzz on your cheek. “You deserve better than whatever the hell this is.”

“Oh, so when I finally want to fuck you, you’re saying it isn’t right?”

“I’m saying, I’m drunk, it’s late, clearly there’s something that’s upsetting you, and I want to know what it is before we do anything else. Tell me, what’s wrong?”

It might’ve been Lee fucking Minho, or it might’ve been something else much stickier for you to admit, but seeing the prince like this, it was too much. He was gorgeous under you, practically angelic looking.

“I-I’m...complicating things.” You whispered out, and the prince softened even further.

“That’s what it is? Bee, I told that you don’t have to worry about--”

“--Yes. Yes I do...your Highness. I-I can’t feel...”

“Bee--let’s just talk about--”

The prince might’ve said more, but his words faded into murmurs once you closed his door behind you, then crawled onto the couch in Jeongin and Seungmin’s room, locking their door too.

~🌹~

Bunch of (Ro)ses!

@minaamhh @dazzlehoseok @synnocence @jjewibeans @hyunsluvv @unexceptional-h @bobawithchaitea @lechanters @sailorhyunjinz @silencefavarchive @eunaeiekim @lunarskzzz

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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youtube

Watch the American Climate Leadership Awards 2024 now: https://youtu.be/bWiW4Rp8vF0?feature=shared

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pi-cat000 · 3 years

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BNHA: Kakashi dimension hops crossover (2)

Summary: Kakashi gets dumbed into the My Hero Academia universe through random plot devise.

Characters: Kakashi Hatake

Fandoms: My Hero Academia and Naruto

WARNINGS: Mentions of violence/injury

... PREV / NEXT

...

Life in his hospital bed passes slowly while he waits for his chakra to replenish. Always a sluggish process for Kakashi. With nothing to do, nowhere to go and a significant lack of motivation to find either, there is a lot of time to think. Too much time. With what was shaping up to be the fourth great shinobi war, there was no time for reflection or resting. To suddenly have this much downtime thrust upon him is throwing him through a loop. And he doesn’t even have his periodic trips to the memorial as a distraction. If only Sakura could see him now, resting and recuperating like a good injured shinobi.

Doctor Wada, the ever-attentive physician, returns a few more times to ask more questions and offer more reassurances. He seems set on his theory that Kakashi’s yet to be properly identified quirk was the cause of his memory problems. Kakashi runs through a sweet of memory and vision tests. A baseline for later testing when his eye is healed he is told.

“The police have a few questions regarding your situation. With your permission, they would like to conduct an interview,” says Wada on Kakashi’s third day of being officially awake, “Of course, as your doctor, I have the final say in the matter so if you would rather wait just say the word.”

Kakashi gives another bland smile, “Ah, you are too kind.” Police…as in, an authority the dealt with civilian conflict? “I think I’ll answer their questions. Wouldn’t want to stall an investigation.”

He had been wondering when or if he would be investigated. How similar would it be to Kohoha’s internal police force?

“Humph. If you think you’re ready for it.”

He maintains his smile. It was as good an opportunity as any to continue gathering information with the bonus of breaking up the monotony of waiting in a hospital bed for his injuries to heal. Doctor Wada spends the rest of the check-up muttering about pushy police officers and how underappreciated his medical opinion was.

The two men that come to question him are wearing matching uniforms which are very telling of the sort of organisation they belong to. White and dark blue. Not made to camouflage or reinforce. Restrictive seaming around the arms, preventing any extreme movement. Their shoes are sturdy but inflexible with heavy soles. Manurable but not designed for any excessive combat. Not a uniform you would give a force intended to physically subdue threats. Whereas Konoha’s police force was comprised mainly of genin and chunin, these men were closer to civilians in pure physical ability. Ah, but he is beginning to suspect that this was the norm here. The people here were softer in a way that was hard to define.

Kakashi watches them approach, seated upright in his bed, hands resting loose in his lap, aiming it create an impression harmlessness. One good thing to have come from agreeing to this interview was getting his own private hospital room. Now there was no one around to raise an alarm if something went wrong and he was forced to act.

“Good morning,” The older one of the two starts, politely dipping his head, “Kakashi was it?”

“Hmm,” he smiles, “Morning.” There is a pause like they are waiting for him to give his last name. He doesn’t.

“Well,” The man clears his throat, “I am officer Takata Toyokazu, currently in charge of investigating the circumstances surrounding the assault on your person.” An ID card, very similar to Konoha’s own ID cards is presented, “This is my partner. We’re from Hosu’s Central Police and we have a few questions if you don’t mind answering them for us.”

“Ah,” Kakashi eyes the ID, lamenting the fact that his sharingan is covered under a swatch of bandages and thus inaccessible without obvious movement, “I am afraid my memory just isn’t all there. Apologies in advance if my responses are lacking.”

He lets a little humour leak into his tone. It was time to do a little prodding and gauged how this place's ‘police’ conducted their investigations.

“Yes. We were informed about your memory problems.” The two share an obvious glance and there is a definite note of scepticism there. “Nevertheless, any information would be appreciated.”

“Of course.” He easily agrees, shrugging, projecting an air of casual nonchalance.

Takata blinks “Right,” and Kakashi can practically see his brain stalling, “Well, you were found on the corner of First and Eleventh street in Hosu’s Central Business District. Would you say this is accurate?”

Kakashi thinks for an exaggerated moment, “I do remember a lot of people. I think someone called for help?”

“You were picked up in an ambulance yes. Do you remember what happened before that?”

“Hmm, I was attacked…there were a lot of trees.” He nods like he has just delivered a useful bit of intel.

“Trees?” Is the deadpan response.

“You know…tall plants with leaves and a….”

“We know what trees are. So, you were in a place with a lot of trees before you were in Hosu’s business district.”

“Probably.”

“A park maybe? There are a few around Hosu. Do remember anything else. Distinctive landmarks?”

“Ah,” he waits for a beat, “No.”

Kakashi is the subject of a disbelieving squint. “No names. Streets. Nearby locations?”

“Nope. All gone.” He says cheerfully and Takata’s brow twitches into an irritated frown.

“You were admitted with multiple stab wounds. Do you remember how you got them?”

He shrugs, “A knife probably.”

“Well, do you remember anything about who was holding the knife?”

“OH!” The two men startle at this sudden exclamation, “It was a man.”

There are a few seconds of silence. “What did the man look like?”

“I don’t remember that bit.”

This time he gets a very obvious frown. Apparently, realising that the current line of questioning is getting them nowhere, the officer motions to his partner and is handed a large envelope. After some shuffling around, a paper file is produced and flipped upright in Kakashi’s direction. It is a photograph of kunai, shuriken, senbon, razor wire and assortment of other weaponry he carried around on his person. He had wondered what the hospital had done with his stuff.

“These are the weapons found on your person when you were admitted to hospital. All confiscated. It’s illegal to carry these sorts of thrown weapons and knives in Japan.”

He scans the photo with interest. The image has his weaponry all laid out in neat lines.

“Really?” He is not even faking his curiosity this time. No one carried around any weapons at all? That wasn’t just a trend limited to the hospital?

“Yes.” Comes the short response, “what were you using them for.”

“Oh, I don’t remember,” he says gleefully, “How scary.” And gets another round of scowls. After doggedly refusing to give more than vague answers and misdirection, the two increasingly frustrated men prepare to leave.

“If you do remember anything, please call.” A small paper card displaying a string of numbers is presented to him. “You’ll have to come down to the station and give an official statement once the hospital clears you as well so don’t forget. We’ll get in contact if any arrests are made regarding the perpetrator.”

Kakashi knows enough about investigations to recognise that one, the two standing next to his bed were searching for some specific information and had found Kakashi’s responses lacking, and two, they had no idea who Kakashi was and knew even less about how he might have gotten here.

In the end, they just leave. No threats. No mind games. No attempts to arrest or move him to a secure location for further questioning. Nothing. Kakashi follows after the pair, pausing behind his door to listen to the two talk just outside his room. Officer Takata is obviously angry going of his slightly uneven breathing.

“That was a waste of time,” he grumbles.

“Do you think he was lying?”

“Oh, that smiley bastard definitely knows something more than he is letting on. Tch. Memory problems my ass…”

The is a pause before the younger man asks, “still think it’s connected to that Hero Killer sighting from a few days ago?”

“If he is telling the truth then no. The stabbing lines up with the Hero Killer’s MO but the target is all wrong. There is no Kakaski with a ‘sharingan’ quirk listed on the Registry or as any Hero, Sidekick or Hero agency employee. If he did have a run-in with the Hero Killer, it wasn’t targeted. Probably annoyed the guy into stabbing him if anything.”

There is the sound of footsteps as the two men begin to retreat down the hall.

“A dead-end then.”

“Yeah, looks like it.”

“What a shame. I thought for sure, what with the extent of the injuries, that this was a Hero Killer case. Perhaps it was another Villain? Or a vigilante maybe?”

“Who though? Hosu doesn’t have any active Vigilantes or big-name Villains. Not ones who go around stabbing people to that extent. You saw the hospital report. The man was seconds away from bleeding out and that head wound was obviously aimed at disabling his quirk.”

“Tch. Without any leads, we have nothing to go on. And if Kakashi is a Villain or criminal himself, there’s no evidence and nothing we can pin him with other than a fine for carrying banned weaponry.”

The voices grow fainter as the two walk further away from his room. They seemed suspicious but not overly concerned with Kakashi’s lies so it is not a huge surprise that nothing came of the interview. Despite their obvious irritation, their response had been ones of mild annoyance and moderate distrust. If either of them had had a kekkei genkai it hadn’t been used. Perhaps, their abilities weren’t suited to interrogation. Kakashi had been obtuse enough that surely, they would have been tempted if it were a possibility. It does conform to a general trend in which people underestimate his threat level, treating him like a civilian. It was probably for the best.

Kakashi returns to his bed and stares at the paper card with the numbers. Obviously, they expected him to know what to do with it. Something to do with communication. Probably related to the small plastic devices nearly everyone in the building carried and spoke into on occasion. A radio of some sort. He had seen a few with numbers running across them.

From the exchange, he has a few more points to consider and mull over. Villain. Hero. Vigilante. He knows these terms, has heard people in his ward mention them before and knows they are important in some way.

…

Having a new room meant he needed to relearn everyone’s schedules. While doing so, he finally pinpoints why the people here feel so off. They lacked a level of…weariness…vigilance…that was both hard to describe and hard to notice until it wasn’t there anymore. Kakashi eyes the young nurse as she enters his room yawning, fixing her hair up as she walks, talking over her shoulder at someone behind her.

He had always thought the civilians of Kohoha lived free from most trouble. Not completely relaxed but still having a calm enough life. Well, calm when the village wasn’t being invaded. Now, he is revaluating that opinion. When compared with these people, Kohoha civilians were stiff, suspicious, almost paranoid. Konoha’s people had hardiness to them, a useful trait when living in a Hidden-Village. They were especially wearily when it came to interacting with shinobi no matter how banally and harmless the shinobi acted. It was an attitude to be expected when there was a very real chance of deadly injury should the shinobi be unfriendly or unstable. A very real possibility with all the war and ever-present threat of enemy invasion and chakra monster attacks.

Or maybe that was just his own experience as he never really interacted with many civilians and he his reputation wasn’t great.

“Hello Kakashi, how are you this evening,” The nurse greets him with a relaxed grin. He gives his bland smile and watches as she checks the various medical apparatus around Kakashi’s bed.

“I talked to the ward supervisor about your television. It should be working now.”

“Is it?”

Kakashi knows what a television is…they had a few of them in T&I, used for surveillance, and for a few more for monitoring remote training grounds like 44’s Forest of Death.

“Here is the remote. There are quite a lot of channels so now you’ll have something to keep you entertained.” He stares at the metallic rectangle object. He thinks that there might be a cultural difference between his understanding of a television and the nurse’s because watching an interrogation was never something he found particularly entertaining.

“Maybe it will help jog your memory as well.” The nurse gives him an encouraging smile before returning to her work.

Kakashi examines the object, bemused, “Ah, thank you Ms.”

“My name is Iori Ie I handle this ward on weekday evenings. I’ll be happy to answer any other questions if you have any. Anything to make this transition process easier.” She is sincere in her next assurance, “Just you wait, by the time your injuries are healed, we’ll have you right back up to speed.”

Television is…interesting and somewhat baffling. It’s not that Kakashi hasn’t seen examples of this sort of technology before now, it is just the availability and use he finds strange. Whereas a sensible village might hoard any new technology of its own use, here it is distributed and shared without limit. There was one of these things in every patent’s room! The same went for the information it communicated. Information so undervalued there was almost too much of it. Kakashi gives up trying to make sense of anything a few days into gaining access to the television and its hundreds of ‘channels,’ pumping out a constant stream of information. Some of it was obviously fictional, movies, entertainment, but most of the time it was hard to tell if what he was looking at was staged or if he was misreading a cultural difference. There were ‘channels’ devoted to daily status updates, delivering ‘news’ on everything from the weather, local politics, villain attacks, general crime and everything in between.

One thing he does confirm is that he is nowhere near any hidden villages or even on the continent, maybe not even in the correct world. This place was separate. This village or city as it was called, consisted of millions in a country of billions. There were more people in ‘Hosu’ than there were in the whole Fire Country. A logistics nightmare for sure. No wonder security was so lax around the hospital. Kakashi shakes his head and ends up switching off the television. Never would he have thought that having too much intel could be a bad thing.

“Ms Iori how would I go about getting something to read,” he asks the next day. She seems to be genuinely happy about his sudden sudden request. Kakashi hasn’t spoken or interacted much since waking, to busy trying to gauge whether the people surrounding him were threats.

He ends up with a pile of old manga volumes detailing the heroic adventures of some up and coming Hero protagonist and a stack of thin ‘magazines’ belonging to the nurse’s grown up son. The magazines are full of Hero analysis, speculation, and rumour like some sort of super detailed self-defeating bingo-book. He just…doesn’t understand why anyone would let this sort of information circulate.

At least now he has a better idea about what a Hero and Villain was. A Hero was this word’s shinobi equivalent- if shinobi went out of their way to draw attention to themselves- acting more like a police force in that they managed threats to civilians instead of taking commissions and repelling external threats. Actually, they were nothing like Shinobi apart from their use of blood line abilities in combat. A Villain was like a missing-nin, hiding among the ridiculously large civilian population…sort of…

He needs to start working on a way home because he definitely doesn't understand this world.

...

NOTE: When Kakashi discovers the internet his brain will explode.

PREV / NEXT

#bnha #naruto #my hero academia #boku no academia #hero killer arc #CrossOver #dimension travel AU #hatake kakashi #fanfiction #crossover fic #kakashi headcanons #culture shock

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leejeongz · 3 years

Text

jealous treasure (hyunsuk-jaehyuk)

requested: yes, by anon

🔅hiii! thanks for requesting. sorry this took so long 😭 i wrote it all and the. decided i didn’t like what i wrote so i had a breakdown and started again. but nevertheless here we are. I hope you like it! i made jihoon’s a little longer since idk he was the one this was based off of🔅

⛱ a/n no. 2 i’m gonna use another member in each one because it’s easier than making up a whole new person and explaining a bit about them for each one if that makes sense. but this is just for fun, it’s fictitious, remember that pls⛱

find the other members here

🪐 hyunsuk:

having never met his closest friends before, you wanted to dress nicely on the day. you grabbed the accessories that you had laid out the night before that went perfectly with your outfit and put them on while admiring how great you looked in the mirror.

upon arriving at the diner, you spotted your boyfriend and his friends sat closely together. you slowly walked over to their booth, not wanting to seem too eager. your boyfriend stood up and flashed you a smile before pointing for you to sit next to a boy dressed in blue and while, who you later found out was named mashiho. you ordered from the menu together and started to chat amongst yourselves.

“so what do you do, y/n?” the boy next to you asked while hyunsuk was distracted.

“i’m a student, but i work part time. actually i work just over the road” you pointed to the sports shop over the way.

“i think i’ve seen you in there before, sorry i didn’t recognise you, you look so different when you’re not wearing their fluorescent uniform,” he smiled, pointing to the bright trainers you now remember selling him a few weeks ago.

“oh that was you?” you laughed loud enough to catch hyunsuk’s attention, who’s smile faded as he glanced at the pair of you bonding “nice taste” you complimented mashiho.

“not as nice as mine though, right?” hyunsuk piped up, while brushing the shoulder of his shirt.

“it’s not a competition” you smiled, awkwardly, not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings.

“but if it was…” one of his other friends spoke. you made a mental note that from now on, you hated that guy.

you thought about your response for a while. mashiho looked disinterested, too busy picking the crispiest fries from his plate. your boyfriend, however, looked a little helpless, he was practically begging with his eyes for you to compliment him.

“then i think my boyfriend would win. hyunsuk has better taste than anyone, and i think we can all agree” you rattled on, face burning, knowing that the others around the table thought you were just sucking up to him.

“well of course, i fell for you, baby” hyunsuk winked in your direction while his friends made exaggerated heaving noises at your cringiness as a couple.

🌸 jihoon:

you have the pettiest boyfriend, you know it, he knows it, everyone knows it. he gets jealous even at the tiniest things, but it’s kind of endearing. your graduation was no exception, he really wanted to be happy all afternoon, but seeing you with so many guys hugging you while you cried tears of joy, made him mad, that should be him.

to treat you (and also to show off to everyone that you were his) he took you to the bar in town that you liked the most. you sat down at the table for two and scanned over the menu, wondering why you were even looking, knowing you were going to order the same thing as always. you told jihoon what you wanted as you could see the waiter getting nearer to your table, he always ordered for you when you asked him to.

“y/n” you heard coming from behind you. you turned around to see a familiar face, junghwan, and following behind him, a friend of his that you’d once met in passing.

“i saw that you graduated today! congratulations!” he spoke, indicating that you stand for a hug. meanwhile, jihoon ordered, but not without side eyeing you and this boy.

“can we join a table onto ours please and make it sit 4 people?” you asked the waiter who nodded and did as you requested without a fuss.

jihoon shot you the darkest stare at you sat opposite to him. “our order will be out way before theirs” he snarled quietly.

“it’s fine we can bring them out at the same time” the waiter smiled at him upon hearing your boyfriends petty remark.

“thanks” jihoon replied sarcastically, the smile on his face showing clear signs that the waiter needs to back off now.

“so why are you here?” junghwan asked “you should be going out partying, is he not letting you?” he looked over a jihoon after joking around with you a little.

“there are no parties to go to” you frowned, “but i’d rather spend my days with jihoon, and now you guys, than with my classmates anyway” you bubbled. you looked over once again at your boyfriend, who’s expression was still as stern as when they'd arrived. you kicked at his leg gently and flashed him a warm smile, hoping he’d mimic it and look at least a little genuine with it.

“i’m going to the bathroom, order quickly” jihoon told the pair. you glared at him as he walked off, all while still trying to participate in the conversation. jihoon returned with an obviously fake smile, yet it was an improvement so you went along with it. to your surprise, jihoon had managed to endure 3 drinks before deciding it was time to leave and go home with you, which you were more than happy to do since the bar was getting pretty full. you said your goodbye to the two friends with a small hug, while jihoon watched from the side. “come on” he rolled his eyes as he watched your arms wrap around junghwan’s shoulders.

leaving the bar, jihoon’s hand engulfed yours. “there has got to be some kind of reward for spending 90 minutes with them. oh and for watching all of those other guys hug you” he whispered into your ear “i’m sure you’ll think of something”. he laughed a little and pressed a warm kiss against your cheek. you smirked, knowing the perfect way to show him that you were all his, now almost too eager to get home.

⚡️ yoshi:

“it’s just what we needed” yoshi relaxed back onto the sofa, stretching an arm out to the side and wrapping it around you casually. you threw the remote onto the coffee table and nestled into your boyfriend. today was movie day, a full marathon of romcoms, chosen by you.

the first movie, you cried. the second, you cried again. however, by the third, you’d gotten a little bit bored. you pulled your phone from your back pocket, your fidgeting catching yoshi’s attention.

“hey what’s wrong?” he asked, his question fading as he read your notifications. “why did haruto ring you-“ he paused to check the number “4 times?” he didn’t think too much of it. you guys were friends, your boyfriend just wanted to know the gossip.

you called him back straight away, leaving your boyfriend clueless. he waited patiently as you spoke on the phone. “no way!” you let out with a smile “i’ll be there in a second” you got up, wafting your hand so that yoshi would follow.

“what why?” he stayed put, waiting for a response.

“he said he’s got a surprise for me” you rushed, getting your coat on as quickly as possible. yoshi, once again, sat back in his comfortable position, which you knew meant that he was not moving any time soon.

“but what about our movie day” he whined and sulked. you rolled your eyes knowing he wouldn’t stop for anything, you had to give in. you slowly started removing your jacket, pulling your phone out of the pocket and launching it towards the sofa.

“i’ll just text him and tell him to give it to me, the love of your life, okay?” he continued “gosh he knew it was our day, he should have left us alone instead of distracting you”

you smiled at his hint of jealousy, hoping it wouldn’t be the last you ever saw, because honestly, his mini tantrum was rather cute.

🌟 junkyu:

“what homework is that? what subject?” junkyu shuffled through your sheets of paper over your shoulder with a pout while you worked.

“considering i study japanese i think it would be pretty wild if it was the timeline of the spanish armada, don’t you?” you snapped unexpectedly, you’re not even sure why you said it in the tone you did.

“i was just making conversation” he slumped onto the bed while pulling a face behind your back, only then noticing the familiar young boy on your phone screen. “oh, you’re calling someone, i’ll leave, give you some privacy” he pouted once again, dragging himself from your bed. “clearly i'm not needed here”

you turned to asahi, the boy you were calling, who was generously helping with your work, as he avoided eye contact with you. you stared at the small image of yourself in the corner, biting your lip with guilt.

“i’m sorry junkyu, i didn’t mean to snap” you admitted, throwing your head into your hands as soon as the words left your mouth. you’d be kind of stressed lately with all the learning, but that doesn’t mean you can take it out on your boyfriend, you thought.

“it’s okay, you shouldn’t be nice to me when your handsome tutor is calling, i understand” he rolled his eyes and tutted with a hint of exaggeration. it didn’t take long for him to register what had just happened though, as a few seconds later you felt his arms wrap around you from the back and a gentle kiss placed on top of your head. he turned off the call and whispered an almost silent “sorry”.

“i only called him to help with this one passage.”

“you don’t need to explain to me. but why didn’t you ask me for help?” he blew his cheeks up and pouted in a way that was even bigger than before. “i'm really good at japanese” he boasted

“junkyu, sweetie, next time maybe” you giggled, finally regaining the power to sit up again slightly. “but your jealousy was kinda cute, so maybe i will call mashiho next time”

“don’t even think about it” he hushed you in a harsh, yet sarcastic tone.

☀️ mashiho:

it was pretty rare that mashiho got jealous, or that he told you/showed you that he was at least. you and doyoung actually spent a lot of time together these days and your boyfriend never seemed to mind so you never stopped. but little did you know, he’d just about reached breaking point. he was tired of you “not being able to meet up with him” because you’d already made arrangements with doyoung to do something. he wanted to do those things with you.

“where are you going? you don’t usually dress like that on a sunday?” he questioned as you headed towards the door.

“i told you, doyoung and i are gonna watch that movie today. i can’t go in my pjs” you replied.

“oh with doyoung, i should have guessed” he rolled his eyes, leaning back against the sofa. he pulled his phone from his pocket, ready to text one of his friends once again to ask if they wanted to do something.

“what’s that supposed to mean?” you turned your head back to look at him. he looked hot like that, but you didn’t think right now was the time to bring it up.

“you’re always doing things with him. would it be so wrong if you went and watched a movie with me?” he asked as you walked towards him, ready to hug him and apologise. you thought for a moment, realising that you had been spending more time with doyoung than your own boyfriend, but was it really all that bad? you sat besides him and placed his phone on the sofa so he had nothing to do other than talk to you about this.

“so i can’t see my friends?” you snapped back at him in a higher pitch, even though he wasn’t shouting at you. his eyes softened and his right eye filled with tears, shortly followed by his left. you refused to look at him, half in anger, half in shame.

“that’s not what i meant, you know that. just go, have fun” he ran his hand down your arm while you sat in silence. it really was that bad. you didn’t want to be THAT couple who never did anything together.

“do you want to come with?” you smiled.

“maybe, only if we, you and i, can go bowling afterwards, alone” he replied as if he was still mad.

“of course!” you exclaimed, it was an offer you couldn't refuse. upon hearing your response, mashiho grabbed your hand, leading you to his room which was full of clothes.

“now, which tshirt matches with yours the best?” he hummed.

❄️ jaehyuk:

more than the party itself, wayyy more than the party itself, you enjoyed having your friends over beforehand to get ready and vibe with. tonight you expected only your boyfriend but he ended up bringing along another friend too, yedam, who you were actually pretty close to, he even introduced you to jaehyuk in the first place.

both had gotten changed pretty quickly in the bathroom while you slipped into your outfit in your bedroom. you were just applying a layer of lipstick when you heard a knock at the door.

“can i come in?” yedam asked.

you shouted a “yes” and he did so. his outfit was all black except for the flannel he’d thrown on, his hair was a little messy and his boots were untied.

“look at my nails” he smiled brightly, offsetting his outfit perfectly. “i just painted them so they’re wet, and jaehyuk is doing his business in there. can you tie my shoes for me, please?” he begged. you agreed and offered your chair as a place for him to put his shoe. “tight trousers” he shrugged, leaving you with no other option but to get down on the floor and tie them, it was a good job it was yedam, you thought.

“get up” jaehyuk’s voice could be heard from a mile away, despite how softly spoken he is. you stood up and looked over at him with wide eyes “oh i thought you were proposing” he laughed, playing the whole thing off as a joke. “let me, i don’t want your outfit to get dirty, which might i add looks extremely good, honey” he complimented while getting down on the floor to tie his friends' laces.

“yoon jaehyuk, are you jealous?” you smirked, looking over at yedam, who was smiling too.

“no, i just don’t want your outfit to get messed up, i just said that” he lied once again. “but if you were proposing yeah, i think i’d be pretty jealous” he continued.

#treasure #treasure reactions #treasure imagines #choi hyunsuk #hyunsuk #jaehyuk #yoon jaehyuk #mashiho #junkyu #yoshi #park jihoon #jihoon #long post

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uniarycode · 3 years

Text

Takari Week 2021, Day 1 - Sibling Shenanigans.

Things have gotten too bad, Taichi and Yamato need an intervention. And if they pay close attention, they might learn something important.

Nah, who we kidding.

Written as part of @takariweek

In some ways, Yamato was Taichi’s closest friend. They had gone through hell and back together, forming an unbreakable bond.

That said, they had different tastes in music, TV, and basically anything. Taichi preferred to watch sports and anime, Yamato preferred dramas and cooking shows. Taichi flourished in the company of others, Yamato demurred in the presence of anyone he wasn’t familiar with.

But one pastime they could both agree on was a good old fashion round of Smash. Whenever it was just the two of them, they generally sat down, fired up the N64, and just let their preferred characters bash one out.

As they were doing until a few seconds ago when an unsightly banner obscured their view of the television. “intervention” was proudly displayed, with one ‘i’ dotted with the crest of courage and the other with the crest of friendship. The phrase was repeated in Japanese, just underneath, in case the translation caused them to miss the point.

Either end of the banner was affixed to a small wooden tripod, being gently lowered to the ground by a devious sibling.

“What’s going on?” Yamato grumbled, still mashing buttons on the control in hopes of gaining an edge. “And when did you even have time to make that?”

Hikari ignored the protestation “We’re here because we’re your family and we care about you. We hoped that time would heal this wound, but time is no longer on our side. You two will be going to college soon, and we need to break through to you before too late.”

“What are you talking about?” Taichi asked. “We were in the middle of something.”

“Smash can wait, we can’t keep putting this off.” She took a deep breath. “This may be hard to hear, but please understand, it needs to be said: You are atrocious when talking to girls.”

“What?”

“Look Taichi, you’ve already near exhausted all your high school options, if something doesn’t change, you’re going to end up alone and unloved, filling your apartment with pets for some form of companionship.”

“Don’t you think you’re being a bit dramatic?” he asked. She solemnly shook her head ‘No’ in response.

“Can I go?” Yamato cut in. “I have a girlfriend, if you remember. We’ve been dating for years now.”

“Yes, and she still calls me to rant about it after every date.” Takeru cut. “I can only clean up your messes for so long Yamato, you have to learn how to do it yourself. Or better yet, don’t make messes in the first place.”

“Ouch.” Taichi said, casting a sideways glance at his co-captive.

“You aren’t any better Taichi,” Hikari shot, “You had seven people and eight Digimon wingmaning you on a simple phone call, and you still managed to mess it up.”

This time it was Yamato who glanced at Taichi.

“Now.” Takeru said “The first thing you need to learn is observation. If you pay attention to someone and signal that you notice when something changes. This shows you care enough about the other person to actually look at them and remember what they looked like yesterday.”

He cleared his throat, “For example, if say, your girlfriend decides to style her hair differently, you should maybe compliment the style change, instead of being oblivious. Wouldn’t you say, Yamato?”

“It was one time.” Yamato grumbled.

“Perhaps a practical demonstration would be better.” Hikari said. “Oh, Takeru, Honey, sorry I’m late, the train was delayed.”

“Don’t worry about it Babe, I’m just glad you’re here. Hey is that a new ring?”

“Why yes, thank you for noticing,” she said, bringing her hands up and giving the ring a twirl. “my BFF got it for me as an end-of-middle school present.”

“Ahh, I could tell it was someone close to you, that’s your birthstone on top right?”

“Yep.”

Takeru turned back towards his unwillingly captive audience. “See how I not only noticed the ring, remarked upon it, but also showed I remember her birth date.”

Taichi looked across at Yamato, “Do you know any of the birthstones?” A shrug was the only answer.

“You may think observation is only for what you can see, but it’s deeper than that. Any piece of information falls under observation, and if you like a girl, you will do your best to remember anything you learn about her.” Hikari said.

“Observation is really important, right Hikari?” Takeru asked.

“Very, but knowing everything can’t help if you don’t know how to use it. Which brings us to lesson two.”

“Is this whole thing just a ploy for your sister to practice being a teacher?” Yamato muttered.

“Tact!” Hikari and Takeru declared in unison.

“Tact is pretty tricky. You mostly define it by what not to do. Like not being a dumbass.” Takeru said.

“True, tact can be hard to see when done well. It’s basically about avoiding the obvious traps. For example, when calling a girl whose Maine coon died recently, you should maybe try and avoid mentions about that dead cat, unless she needs to vent. Isn’t that right, Taichi?”

“That was one time.” He protested.

“Right, right, a demonstration?” Takeru asked, pulling a magazine out from behind his back, and pretending to flip through the pages.

“Oh Honey, there you are.” Hikari said looking him up and down. She paused for a few seconds, then pulled lightly on his arm. “Say, I hear there’s a Harry Potter-themed escape room running these days, how about we go there on our next date.”

Takeru put the magazine down “Oh, what’s that? Thanks Babe.” he asked.

Hikari turned back towards the couch. “Notice how I observed the story about his favorite basketball star being caught in a scandal, and deflected toward other interests, instead of stepping on that land mine.”

“How would we even think to notice that?” Yamato grumbled.

“With observation of course.” Takeru replied. “Notice everything, even the things that aren’t being conveyed directly.”

“Being perfect might work for you Takeru, but some of us are human.” Taichi said.

“Oh, I’m hardly the only guy with a girlfriend. You just have to put some effort in.” Takeru said, “Which is as good a segue as any to topic three: Compliments.”

“I know how to give a compliment.” Taichi said.

“Do you?” Hikari asked. “So if you were at the beach with say Sora, or Mimi, or Meiko, you would be able to properly compliment their swimsuits?”

“One time!” Yamato and Taichi yelled together.

“And yet three failures. Pretty poor performance when you think about it.” Takeru said.

“Compliments can be tricky; they require you to combine the previous two skills. You need to observe someone so the compliment makes sense, but you also need tact. Something that’s a compliment to one person may be a touchy subject to another.” Hikari explained.

“Especially when it comes to appearance and body parts,” Takeru said, “and you don’t want to get too accustomed to your compliments either, keep them fresh and exciting.”

“It’s amazing isn’t it Taichi?” Yamato asked.

“So many words and I don’t think they said anything.” He agreed.

“Perhaps the demonstration then.” Takeru said, turning to his partner. “Hikari, I saw you reading to some of the elementary students today, boy am I lucky to have such a kind girlfriend.”

“Don’t mention it. I enjoy it, and I like to think they did too. Say, can you open this jar for me? It should be easy for a strong man like you.” Hikari said.

Takeru mimed grabbing and opening a jar. “Anything for you Babe, say, is that a new shirt, you look positively radiant today.”

Hikari raised her hand to cover her giggle, “I’m so glad I have such a funny boyfriend. You know this is the school uniform, I’ve been wearing it for almost three years now.”

“Huh, you’re right. I guess I never noticed, every time I look at you I can’t help but be overwhelmed by those pools of milky hazel, whenever I see them, my troubles float away and I feel like I have the strength of a thousand men. I could spend hours just staring into those wells of pure emotion.”

“I, uh, uhh, I like your eyes too?”

Takeru let out a large laugh and the pair turned back to the couch to find it no longer occupied.

“That’s no good. They’ll never learn like this.” Takeru admonished

Hikari raised her hands again, twirling the promise ring on her finger. “Do you think they noticed?” she asked.

“Them? No way.” Takeru replied, “but that’s what makes it fun. See how long it takes before they catch on.”

“What if someone else tells them we’re dating first?”

Takeru shrugged, “Just say we already told them, they just weren’t paying enough attention.”

#Digimon #takari week #takari #takeru takashi #hikari yagami #digimon tri

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myenterpriseisparked · 3 years

Text

The Voyager Bunch

Or, Rascals: Voyager Edition

-----

Based on this post

This is dedicated to @jellybeansarecool @bizships @emilie786 @joyful-voyager and @subtle-spock for providing ideas, encouragement, and for generally being really awesome people. Also they are the nicest folks ever. Go follow them.

This ain’t my first fanfiction rodeo, but it is my first Star Trek fanfiction rodeo so I beg for your patience. Also, I am perfectly aware that there are some plot holes in here. This is because I am an animal scientist, not a Starfleet physicist/biologist/whateverist. Swiss cheese also has holes and swiss cheese is good so please consider that.

Click here to read on AO3, if you prefer. Thanks for reading!

-----

Despite having only been a captain for a few years, Kathryn Janeway had seen more unusual occurrences, courtesy of the Delta Quadrant, than most Starfleet captains combined. Some days, she felt a little overwhelmed by the summary of the last three years of experiences. Other days, she was grateful for the callouses such challenges had built over her nerves, preparing her to face even the strangest incidents without panicking.

Today was a day to be grateful, because without having seen everything she had seen, the prospect of her Chief Engineer, Chief of Security, Head Helmsman, and most brilliant Ensign being reverted into child-like versions of themselves would have launched her straight into a spiral of panic.

“How-” Janeway paused for a moment to pinch the bridge of her nose, “how exactly did this happen?”

“Well, ya see, ‘Lanna and Harry and I were in that shuttle and then this big black thing showed up and we flew into it and there was a big flash and-”

Janeway held a hand up, cutting off the shockingly fast string of prattle. “I think I understand that part, Tom, thank you.” She spoke as gently and patiently as possible. “What I don’t understand is how Tuvok got into this.... predicament.”

She turned toward the tallest of the four children, who stood with his hands behind his back in a way that would have been exactly like Tuvok, if the pre-teen boy weren’t fidgeting with the hem of his shirt and looking around the bridge, open mouthed and starry-eyed. “Tuvok?”

The Vulcan turned toward her. “The shuttle was stuck in the anomaly and the tractor beam wasn’t working, so I rammed my ship into theirs to dislodge it.” Tuvok nearly smiled, which was jarring to see on his features, no matter how much younger he looked. “It worked, but I got sucked into the anomaly too. When we came out the other side, we looked like this.”

He motioned to Tom and B’Elanna, who were standing next to him, both of which appeared to be around the age of 5 or 6. Harry, who looked to be about a year old, was currently tucked into Chakotay’s arms, playing contentedly with the rank bar at the large man’s throat.

Janeway looked the group over, ignoring the humored smiled playing at her first officer’s lips. With a sigh, she turned to the members of her senior officer team that were not currently under the age of 13. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“I would like to run some experiments first, but I am wondering if I can age their DNA back to the correct age in a process similar to the one I used to turn you and Mr. Paris back into humans after the, ah, Warp 10 incident,” The Doctor said.

“That might put their bodies back at the right age,” Kes said, brow furrowing, “but their minds appear to have reverted to their new biological age as well. Will the DNA reversal process fix that?”

The Doctor tilted his head. “I’m unsure. I need more time to research and run simulations.”

Janeway nodded. “Get started on that right away. In the meantime,” she turned back to the children and her commander, “let’s get you four something to eat.”

Neelix jumped to his feet, practically lighting up the room with his enthusiasm. “I’ll fix you kiddos up something real nice!” He dashed over to the door with a wild grin. “Give me ten minutes, and I’ll have the best grilled cheese sandwich you’ve ever smelt!” He saluted the whole room and practically bounced out the door.

Janeway glanced over at Chakotay who, for the first time since he had picked up baby Harry, looked nervous. His worried glance met her own and he tilted his head.

“Well,” Chakotay sighed, “hopefully these guys aren’t as picky of eaters as I was.”

-----

As unappealing as Janeway found Neelix’s cooking to be, it was, apparently, perfect for kids, as evidenced by the unrestrained glee with which Tom, B’Elanna, and Tuvok devoured their sandwiches.

The captain couldn’t help but smile as Tom downed the second half of his sandwich in a few bites and think how the older version of Tom would have been appalled to see himself eating Neelix’s cooking with such enjoyment.

As the older children ate, Janeway found herself spooning some kind of mashed vegetable mix into Harry’s waiting mouth. At first, she was a little uncomfortable with the idea of feeding one of her best officers, but, once she was able to get past the strangeness of the entire situation, she found herself enjoying the funny expressions and eager attitude of the baby in front of her.

“Gosh, he’s such a cute baby.” She said with a grin for the fourth time.

Chakotay leaned over, his shoulder brushing hers as he smiled at Harry. “I’d like to agree with you, Captain, but you keep hogging him so I can’t get a good look.” He turned to look her in the eye, raising his eyebrow teasingly.

She shoved him playfully with her elbow. “You got to hold him earlier in the conference room. It’s my turn.”

“I think your turn ended about ten minutes ago,” he grinned.

“I think I can find something else for you to do if you’re going to take Harry away from me, Commander.” She returned his grin.

“Fine,” Chakotay shook his head with a chuckle, “but I get him later.”

-----

Several hours had passed since lunch and, much to Chakotay’s disappointment, baby Harry was still firmly in Janeway’s possession, perched on her hip and looking for all the world like he belonged there.

Chakotay tried not to think too much about how naturally Kathryn had taken to caring for Harry as he watched her pace the bridge, checking on various scanner readings and flight paths, from his position on the floor by their command chairs. Beside him, Tom and B’Elanna rolled a ball back and forth between them, excitedly chattering about... well... everything.

“Do you think the whales were really THAT big?” Tom spread his arms out to the side.

“Yeah they were!” B’Elanna exclaimed loudly enough that the entire ship could probably hear it. Despite Chakotay’s best efforts to get her to lower her voice, the young girl seemed to only have one volume. “I saw a big fake one in a museum once and it was HUGE!”

“Whoa!” Tom’s eyes widened. “Bigger than this ship?”

B’Elanna tilted her head. “I don’t know, but it was definitely bigger than me!”

The two kids laughed, rolling the ball back and forth faster.

“Hey Tom?”

“What?”

“You’re my best friend!” B’Elanna suddenly reached forward and gave Tom a hug.

Chakotay glanced up at Kathryn to exchange a look of awe before he turned back to the kids on the floor. “But B’E, I thought you just said a few minutes ago that I’m your best friend.” He raised an eyebrow, hiding his smile.

The young girl gave him a look that he had seen far too many times on her older counterpart’s face whenever he said something particularly dumb. “I can have two best friends, duh.”

He laughed. “Fair enough.”

Suddenly, he saw Kathryn’s purposeful walk stop out of the corner of his eye.

“Chakotay,” her voice was even and tense, “where’s Tuvok?”

Eyes widening, Chakotay glanced around the bridge. Tuvok was no where to be seen.

“Chakotay to Tuvok.” He stood as he tapped his commbadge. “Tuvok, please acknowledge.” They waited a moment and, upon receiving no response, moved simultaneously toward the turbolift.

“It’s possible he hasn’t figured out how to use his comm.” Janeway tucked Harry closer to her side as they stepped into the lift. “Computer: locate Tuvok.”

“Unable to comply.”

Janeway gave the ceiling a glare. “Why?”

The computer did not respond.

“Maybe the de-aging effect has made it difficult for the computer to locate him.” Chakotay rested a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure he’s alright; he’s probably just exploring the ship; you saw how amazed he was by everything in the conference room earlier.”

She nodded tightly. “Let’s hope so. Where do you think he’s gone?”

“Maybe to the holodeck?”

“Or his quarters.”

“What about the mess hall?”

“He just ate.”

They both paused, mulling it over.

“Alright.” Kathryn straightened. “I’ll check holodeck one and his quarters, you check holodeck two and the mess hall.” She turned back to the lift door. “Holodeck one.”

Chakotay swallowed around the lump in his throat, trying not to think of all the ways a small child could get hurt on a spaceship like Voyager. As the turbolift began to move, Janeway’s badge chirped.

“Kes to the captain.”

Her brow raised as she tapped the emblem. “Go ahead.”

“I think I’ve found something you’re missing.” Kes’s usually lighthearted tone was even lighter, clear amusement seeping through.

Kathryn turned to look Chakotay in the eye, a hopeful smile brightening her face. “I’m on my way.”

-----

Honestly, Janeway was a little ashamed of the fact that she didn’t think to go looking for her best friend among the orchids and other plants in the aeroponics bay, considering his horticulturally-related hobbies. As she and Chakotay stepped into the room, smiles crept onto both of their faces as they watched Tuvok carefully transfer one of Kes’s sprouts to a bigger pot. After patting the soil around the plant firmly, he wiped a hand across his forehead, smearing dirt on his face to match the dirt on his uniform.

Kes smiled up at the command team. “He came down and asked about a hundred questions about our system and then offered to help me with my work while we talked because its ‘more efficient to talk and work than simply talk.’”

Janeway chuckled at Kes’s approximation of Tuvok’s speech pattern. “Thanks for letting us know, Kes.” She reluctantly handed Harry to Chakotay, who flashed his dimples, and crouched next to Tuvok. “Hello there.”

Tuvok glanced up quickly before resuming his work. “Hello, Captain. Did you know that these Talaxian green beans take only a week and a half to reach maturity?”

“I did not.” Janeway raised a brow and tilted her head. “That’s very impressive.”

“I thought so too when Kes told me.” He patted the soil around another plant and set it aside, retrieving another sprout.

“Tuvok,” the captain reached forward and rested a hand on his shoulder, “I’m glad you’ve found something to do, but you have to tell someone where you’re going before you wander off. We didn’t know what happened to you and Chakotay and I were really worried.”

Behind her, Chakotay’s heart flipped. There was something rather... intimate about the way she had referred to both of them being worried about a child.

“I’m sorry, Captain.” Tuvok nodded his head. “It won’t happen again.”

“Good.” Janeway smiled and stood. “Why don’t you help Kes down here for a while and then come back up to the bridge when you are ready?” She looked at Kes. “That is, if Kes is alright with that.”

The young woman smiled. “Of course, I’d love some help.”

Janeway nodded and turned back to Tuvok. “Be sure to let us know when you’re on your way back up.”

“Of course, Captain.”

She patted him one last time on the shoulder and turned back to Chakotay. They fell into step beside one another and entered the elevator.

As the doors whooshed closed, Janeway turned to Chakotay with the intention of reclaiming Harry, but stopped. A smile grew across her lips as she watched Chakotay bounce Harry gently, allowing the little boy to palm his tattoo in curiosity. Even as one of Harry’s chubby fingers poked him in the eye, Chakotay simply chuckled and took the tiny hand in his own.

He finally turned to look at her. “What?”

Kathryn just shook her head, grinning wider. “I was going to take Harry from you, but I can’t bear to break up this cute little arrangement.” She motioned to the two of them with a long finger.

The corner of Chakotay’s mouth kicked up a little higher. “Captain, did you just imply that I’m cute?”

Her brow arched, but her smile didn’t diminish. “It would be hard for anyone to look unappealing with a cute baby in their arms.”

Her heart stopped suddenly as she realized what she had just said. From the look of Chakotay’s face, he had caught it too. Implying that he and the baby were cute was one thing; calling him “appealing” was another. Before she could say anything else she might regret, Kathryn turned back to the lift door, schooling her features back into the face of the Captain.

If she had turned but a half-second later, she would have seen a wide smile break across Chakotay’s face.

-----

“I’m sorry, Captain, but I need more time. I won’t deactivate myself until I have a solution, but this situation is very delicate and I can’t risk rushing my tests. You’ll need to find somewhere for the children to sleep. Hopefully I’ll have a solution tomorrow.”

Kathryn nodded. “Of course. Thank you, Doctor.”

With a grim smile, the feed from sickbay switched off, leaving her to look at her dark reflection in the black screen. Something like relief swept over help alongside a touch of regret. On one hand, she could really use her senior officers back in functioning shape. On the other hand....

Her eyes drifted back down to Harry, who had pulled a bit of her hair out of it’s ponytail and was curling it around his tiny fist in unbreakable fascination. A smile tugged at her lips as she cuddled him a bit closer.

She could get used to this.

The thought struck her before she even knew what she was feeling and, as soon as she admitted it to herself, she took that feeling and shoved it as deep into the recesses of her mind as she could. She was the captain of a ship that was constantly in danger and she shouldn’t dwell on things she couldn’t have.

Kathryn sighed, rubbing the back of her neck. “Well, Harry, looks like we need to find you a place to sleep.”

Turning back to the computer, she moved to set him down so she could use both hands to search the crew quarters layouts for a suitable place to keep the children overnight. As soon as Harry’s feet touched the ground, a wail rose from the back of his throat and his face scrunched.

Kathryn quickly scooped him back up. “Harry? What’s wrong?”

The boy’s cry of protest faded into whimpers and he buried his head in her shoulder, clinging to her tightly.

A warm feeling washed over her. “Ah,” she smiled, “I see.”

She pulled him closer and turned back to the computer, tapping buttons with one hand. “You can stay up here with me, then.”

The door to her quarters chimed.

“Come in.”

Before she could turn to greet her guest, mischievous giggles rose from the door. Eyebrow raised, she whirled around to find Chakotay standing in the doorway, a stack of PADDs in his hand, a tiny engineer on his left leg, and a tiny helmsman on his right.

He stepped forward with far less difficultly than she would have expected, given the extra weight on his legs. He crossed the room quickly and passed the PADDs to her. “The crew reports you requested.”

“Thank you.” She smiled, glancing down at the still giggling forms. “Not to alarm you, Commander, but it would seem that you have a couple of lifeforms attached to you.”

Chakotay’s eyes grew wide in mock surprise. “Really?” He turned his head and shuffled around, as if to look at his back. “Where?”

Tom and B’Elanna’s laughter grew. Suddenly, Chakotay leaned over and scooped the two of them off his legs, lifting them both up over his shoulders as their shrieked in delight.

He turned back to Kathryn with a wide smile. “Not to worry, Captain, I’ve apprehended the life forms.”

She smiled back with a soft chuckle. “We need to find a place for the life forms to stay tonight.”

Chakotay’s smile faded into a more serious, but not displeased look. “The Doctor doesn’t have a solution yet, then?” He lowered Tom and B’Elanna to the ground. They scampered off to the viewport, excitedly chattering about the stars.

“No, he needs a bit more time.”

Chakotay nodded. “Maybe I could take them for the night, that way someone is there to keep an eye on them.”

Kathryn shook her head. “I have no doubt in your babysitting abilities, Commander, but four children is a lot for one person to watch alone and your quarters are not big enough for Trouble 1 and Trouble 2 to run around in.” She gestured to the kids at the window.

“Fair point. Maybe I should take Harry and Tuvok then, and you could take Tom and B’Elanna?”

She turned Harry away from Chakotay. “Trying to take my boy again, are you Chakotay?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “Do you have another idea, then, Mom?”

Her breath caught in her throat, but she managed to smirk at him and continue speaking without any indication that his previous sentence had impacted her. “My quarters are the largest on the ship. If we set up cots here in my living room we could easily both keep an eye on the children overnight.”

“Sounds good to me.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall. “How about I go collect Tuvok from aeroponics and some food from the mess hall while you get the cots set up?”

“Sounds like a plan.”

He gave her one last lingering smile, which she returned, before heading out the door and down the hall.

-----

Apparently the lunch they had shared earlier that day had been misleadingly easy. Supper was, to put it lightly, a challenge.

“B’Elanna, eat your own food and stop taking from Tom’s plate,” Kathryn said firmly.

“But Tom isn’t eating it!”

“I was going to eat it! I’m just a slower eater than you are!”

“Well eat faster then!”

“B’Elanna!” Chakotay set down the spoon he had been using to feed Harry and fixed her with a stern look. “That food isn’t yours, and Kathryn already asked you to stop taking Tom’s food. You won’t be asked again.”

B’Elanna mumbled out an apology and stuffed another bite of her own meal into her mouth.

Kathryn shot Chakotay a grateful smile and turned to Tuvok, who was holding up one of his vegetables to the light. “Tuvok? What are you doing?”

“I’m looking at the xylem and phloem of this plant.”

She bit back a smile. “I appreciate your curiosity, Tuvok, but I need you to stop studying your food and start eating it.”

The young Vulcan turned to her and nodded. “Of course.” He politely chewed and swallowed his food and turned back to the captain. “Did you know that this particular plant is a distant cousin of Terran broccoli? You can tell by the-”

Chakotay smiled as he watched Kathryn listen to Tuvok’s fourth lecture of the evening on plant biology. Neither of them were certain of what he was talking about most of the time, but his enthusiasm for the subject was nearly infectious and neither of them minded listening.

“Chakotay?”

He turned away from the scene across the table and looked at Tom next to him. “Yes?”

“After dinner, will you read to us?”

“Of course.” Chakotay smiled and ruffled Tom’s hair. “Anything particular you want to hear?”

“I want to hear about your missions with the Maquis!” B’Elanna bounced in her seat, all of that barely-contained Klingon energy starting to spill over.

“Or perhaps you could read to us from a classic story,” Tuvok raised a brow. “I’m fond of the works of Tolkien, maybe Tom and B’Elanna would like ‘The Hobbit’ too?”

“What’s a hobbit?” Tom’s face scrunched in confusion.

“Maybe,” Kathryn interjected before Tuvok could give a detailed recounting of the beloved childhood book, “Chakotay could tell us a story from his tribe.” Her eyes met his across the table. “He is pretty good at recounting ancient legends.”

Heat crept up the sides of Chakotay’s face as he held her stare. “Maybe.”

“Nah,” Tom’s voice broke through the pleasant tension between them. “I wanna know what a hobbit is!”

Chakotay chuckled. “Alright, ‘The Hobbit’ it is.”

-----

It took some time to get the older three to settle into bed, but finally, they began to yawn and snuggle deeper under their blankets. As their heads grew heavier, Chakotay wrapped up his story telling and the command team began to tuck their young companions in for the night.

As Chakotay wished Tom and Tuvok a good night’s rest, Kathryn carefully extracted B’Elanna from where she was snuggled into her side and took her over to her cot. As she got the small girl settled, she suddenly reached up and captured Kathryn in a tight hug. Surprised, Kathryn’s eyes widened, but she returned the gesture in earnest.

“Kathryn?”

“Yes, B’Elanna?”

“You’re my best friend.”

Kathryn blinked and pulled back to look B’Elanna in the eyes with a small smile. “I thought Chakotay and Tom were your best friends.”

“I can have more than one best friend.” B’Elanna’s voice was filled with deep confidence, despite how sleep-laced it was.

“Fair enough,” Kathryn chuckled, pulling the blankets tightly around the girl. “Goodnight.”

She met Chakotay in her bedroom, Harry still in his arms.

“Any time I try to set him down he starts crying.” Chakotay grinned sheepishly.

She grinned back. “I had a similar experience earlier today.” She reached up and brushed hand over the boy’s soft, black hair. “Its a good thing he weighs next to nothing.”

At Kathryn’s gentle touch, Harry stirred. His dark eyes found Kathryn’s and he reached out for her. With a look of mock hurt, Chakotay transferred the boy to his desired location.

“I’m trying not to be offended right now, Harry.”

Kathryn simply grinned and bounced the baby in her arms gently. “It’s alright, Chakotay. He has excellent taste.”

Chakotay shook his head, dimples flashing. “I suppose I can’t argue with that.”

She turned toward the bed and settled herself on one side, her back resting against the pillows and Harry resting against her chest. “Let’s see if we can get this one sleepy enough to not notice if we set him down.” She looked back at Chakotay, who was still standing, rather awkwardly. She patted the bed next to her with a smirk. “Come on, Commander. Get some rest. We’ve has a big day, wrangling the kiddos.”

He smiled and crossed the room to the other side of the bed, gently sitting next to her, his legs stretched out. “It has been a long day,” he said with a sigh. “But, I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed it.” He tilted his head to look at Kathryn, who was already looking up at him.

“Nor I.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

Suddenly, Chakotay was very aware of how close their faces were. He watched as Kathryn’s eyes slid down to his lips. Before he could do something he couldn’t take back, he took a deep breath and turned away.

“Well,” Kathryn cleared her throat, sounding more like the Captain now, “it’s been fun but we should get some sleep. I’ll keep an eye on Harry here and take him to his cot in a few minutes. You should go ahead and rest, Commander.”

“Of course.” He tilted his head and gave her a small smile. “Goodnight, Kathryn.”

She grinned back. “Goodnight, Chakotay.”

-----

Apparently, Kathryn didn’t stay awake long enough to take Harry back to his cot, as evidenced by the weight on her chest as she stirred awake the next morning. She slowly became aware of her surroundings and the previous day’s events came flooding back to her.

She also became distinctly aware of the warm, comfortable presence beside her. As she opened her eyes, she realized that her first officer’s arm was settled around her shoulders and that his shoulder was currently her pillow. His head rested atop hers and the hand that was not draped around her shoulders was resting on top of Harry’s back next to her own.

The situation was all rather snuggly and, were it not a violation of every professional barrier Kathryn had erected between her and the commander, she would have had no issue in savoring the moment.

Then again.... maybe she could allow herself just a few moments to pretend that the baby in her arms wasn’t her star technical officer and that the man holding her close wasn’t her XO and that this was a perfectly normal situation.

Before she could get too far into her fantasy, however, Chakotay stirred next to her, his dark eyes fluttering open to find her own.

“Good morning,” he said, his voice huskier than her own as sleep clung to it.

“Good morning.”

They looked at each other for a moment before Chakotay carefully extracted himself from her side, helping her up so she could carefully place Harry in his cot in the living room without waking the boy or the other children who were still sleeping. Without a word, they quietly prepared breakfast and coffee, steeling themselves for another day of handling the kids.

-----

“I’m afraid I’m a bit.... stuck,” The Doctor ground out with obvious difficulty.

The captain raised an eyebrow. The EMH admitting that he was struggling to solve a problem was a rare instance indeed. “How so?”

With a huff, The Doctor turned back to his desk, flipping through experimental results from a stack of PADDs. “Kes was right; the DNA reversal process I initially thought might work will not account for the de-aging of the officers’ brains, so I decided to look at the type of radiation that might have caused this and, to be completely honest, Captain,” he turned back to look her in the eye, “I have absolutely no idea how this even happened. There’s no evidence of radiation, the temporal energy around them is unidentifiable, and I can’t figure out how their cells and their minds were reversed.” He lowered his head. “I’m unsure of how to even proceed from here.”

Kathryn nodded, taking the emotions that were beginning to tumble in her chest and stuffing them as far down as she could. “Very well, Doctor. Take a rest and we can all come back to the issue later once we’ve had time to think.” She rested a hand on his shoulder, causing him to look up. “Don’t despair yet; there’s a lot of other brilliant minds on this ship besides your own. We’ll figure it out together.” She smiled and gave his shoulder a squeeze before heading into the turbolift.

As the doors slid open, she found Tuvok waiting in the lift for her. She smiled down at him and stepped inside, calling for the bridge.

“Chakotay to the captain.”

She tapped her badge. “Go ahead.”

“We need you on the bridge, there’s a bit of a situation.”

She raised a brow, glancing down at Tuvok, who was gazing at her intently. “On my way.”

-----

“So they want to.... interview us?”

“They want to interview you specifically.”

“To see if we are worthy of going through their space.”

“Something like that.”

“And going around their space isn’t an option?”

“It would add another 7 months to our journey, so this interview is our ideal option.”

“No pressure, eh, Commander?” Janeway shifted Harry from one hip to the other with a long sigh. “Alright. Hail them.”

After a moment, a blue and red humanoid alien appeared on the screen.

“Greetings, Ambassador.” The Captain flashed a polite smile. “I’m Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Federation Starship Voyager.”

The alien woman inclined her head. “Hello, Captain Janeway, I’m Ambassador Tel Parah of the Doonian Delegation.” Her eyes swept the bridge. “You’re ship is heavily armed, which, according to the laws of our people, requires that we do a personal interview of the commanding officer to ensure that violence or other manners of chaos will not be instigated as you pass through our space.”

“Of course, I understand.” Janeway smiled again. “What questions may I answer for you?”

Over the course of the next 30 minutes, Janeway was grilled on their purpose in passing through Doonian space, the types and numbers of weapons they carried, and the journey they had made so far. Just as Janeway thought there wasn’t possibly anything more she could tell them, Ambassador Parah paused and looked up from the computer device in her hand to study Janeway. After a moment, she spoke again.

“Just one more thing, Captain Janeway,” a slow smile slipped onto her face, “What’s your son’s name? He’s absolutely precious.”

Janeway raised her eyebrows in surprise and glanced down at Harry, who she had nearly forgotten was still in her arms. At some point, he had removed her combadge and was currently turning it over and over again in his tiny hands, taking a moment here and there to bite parts of the object he must have found particularly interesting. Kathryn exchanged an amused glace with Chakotay, who shrugged off screen, before turning back to the ambassador.

“This is Harry.” Janeway smiled, turning the boy so the ambassador could see him better.

The other woman smiled widely. “How adorable. He has the brightest eyes.”

“He does.” Kathryn smiled back down at him.

“You know,” Parah leaned back in her chair, “I usually don’t allow anyone through our space that isn’t from a system or planet we are already know and trust and so I wasn’t planning on letting Voyager pass. However, when I saw your baby and how well-cared for and happy he seems, I felt that I could trust you somehow.” She smiled again. “We value children highly in the Doonien Delegation. Children are often a reflection of a parent’s character. I can tell by Harry’s disposition and curiosity that you are of a fine character, Captain.”

Janeway cuddled Harry a little closer, heart warming. “Thank you, Ambassador, I take that as a high compliment.”

“As you should.” Parah leaned forward again. “You may pass through our space. We will have you stop at three checkpoints on your way though which I will send you the coordinated for in a moment. Have a safe journey.”

The screen went blank and Kathryn turned to Chakotay.

“Should I feel bad that I let her believe Harry is my son?”

Chakotay chuckled, stepping close enough and lowering his voice enough that the rest of the bridge could pretend not to hear him. “Are you saying he’s not?”

Her gaze grew softer. “I guess he’s sort of been like a son to me since we got on board.” She looked back down at him. “I feel very protective of him.”

Chakotay rested a hand on her shoulder. “I know.”

They smiled at each other again. Chakotay opened his mouth to say something more but, suddenly, there was a tug at Kathryn’s elbow.

“Captain? Now that the negotiations are over, I think I have an idea about how to fix Tom, B’Elanna, Harry, and me.” Tuvok’s eyes were bright and eager.

“Alright,” Captain Janeway smiled down at him. “Let’s get The Doctor up here and we’ll hear your idea together.”

-----

Chakotay exchanged glances with The Doctor and the Captain over the table as he bounced both Tom and B’Elanna on his knees. “Could that really work? It seems almost too easy.”

“Well, if this is a phenomena that’s inexplicable and is tied only to the anomaly the shuttles passed through, I feel like sending the children back through isn’t our worst idea.” The captain rubbed the back of her neck. “Doctor?”

The holographic man continued typing into his PADD for a moment before stopping and reading. “I- I honestly think this could work.” He slid the PADD over to Janeway. “It’s hard to predict, since we have no idea what exactly caused this, but if we send the shuttles through the anomaly opposite of the way they first went through, I think it just might turn them back to their usual ages.”

“How do we know it won’t just make them even younger?” Chakotay watched as B’Elanna slipped off of his knee, pulling Tom along with her to go play in the corner.

“We’d have to run some tests to be sure that they don’t. Perhaps we could send a plant through first, or some other organic life form.” The Doctor took the PADD back and made a note.

“We would also have to make sure that, if the tests show some promise, Tuvok can take the shuttle back through the anomaly.” Janeway turned to the boy sitting at her right. “Well, Tuvok? Do you think you could pilot the shuttle?”

He shook his head. “Since I don’t have my older self’s memories I don’t think I could.”

“We could use the tractor beam to send the shuttle through,” Chakotay said. “If we give them enough of a push to go through the anomaly, they should be able to pilot themselves back to Voyager once they get out the other side and have returned to their normal ages.”

Janeway raised her eyebrows. “Well, it’s worth a shot and I don’t have any better ideas. Commander, set a course for the anomaly. Doctor, prepare the experiments.”

-----

Tom and B’Elanna seemed to sense that something was up as they suddenly became even more clingy. The whole trip back to the anomaly, B’Elanna shared the captain’s chair with Kathryn, insisting with all of her Klingon passion that the older woman tell her more stories from earlier in their journey through the Delta Quadrant. At the helm, Tom hung on to Chakotay’s arm, watching the stars go by and asking Chakotay a hundred questions about piloting starships. Tuvok sat in Chakotay’s usual seat, interjecting with questions of his own here and there, and Harry sat on Kathryn’s knee, chewing on her jacket sleeve, her combadge still clutched tightly in his left hand.

After they reached the anomaly, it took a couple of hours for The Doctor to complete his experiments and, once he had declared that plants that had gone through the anomaly twice were returned to the same age the started as, they began preparing the children to enter the anomaly themselves.

“Will it hurt?” B’Elanna asked in the smallest voice she had ever used in her life as Kathryn tucked the small Starfleet uniform that she had come through the anomaly with around her shoulders.

“It won’t,” Tuvok said. “It didn’t hurt when we came through the first time, did it?”

She shook her head, but didn’t look very reassured.

“It’s okay, ‘Lanna!” Tom grabbed her hand. “I’ll be right beside you.”

Kathryn stood and took a step back, feeling almost as if someone had filled her chest with some of Neelix’s heavy stew. She had to let them go, of course, this wasn’t the way they were supposed to be, but she was certainly going to miss seeing the level of innocence her officers had now. B’Elanna was unburdened by trust issues, Tuvok was passionate and bright, and Tom - well, she supposed he hadn’t changed all that much, but at least he seemed to be genuinely happy, not just putting up a front of humor to protect himself.

It would be hard to see them go back, but maybe, now that she understood how the world and time had changed her friends, she could help them.

She was shaken from her thoughts by a tug at her collar. She looked down to see Harry pulling at her pips, completely enamored by the gold metal.

“Oh, Harry.” She nearly choked on his name. Since he was so young now, she didn’t have any insight into his personality after having seen him as a baby, but she was going to miss his innocent curiosity and familiar weight on her hip.

Before she could think too much about it, she handed Harry over to Tuvok. The younger boy scrunched his face up and whimpered at the change of hands, but Tuvok bounced him gently and he settled down, reaching for the pointed tip of Tuvok’s ear.

Kathryn took a step back, feeling Chakotay step up behind her so that they were nearly touching. “Best of luck, you four.” She gave them her most reassuring smile. “See you on the other side.”

She and Chakotay hurried up the bridge and gave the go ahead for the ensign who had taken over Harry’s post to begin using the tractor beam to move the shuttle out into the anomaly. They stood side-by-side on the bridge and watched the shuttle go through. At come point, they grabbed each other’s hands and squeezed each other tightly.

There was a flash as the shuttle passed through the anomaly. After a few terrifyingly quiet moments, the shuttle came bursting out of the other side and a voice crackled over the comm.

“Cochran to Voyager,” confusion leaked through Tom’s voice. “What the hell just happened?”

Kathryn and Chakotay smiled at each other in relief. “What’s the last thing you remember, Tom?” Chakotay asked.

“B’Elanna, Harry, and I were coming back to Voyager when we- wait a second, how did you get here, Tuvok?”

Janeway laughed. “Why don’t we get you four back on board and then we’ll explain everything.”

“Copy that. See you in a few.” Tom’s voice grew quieter, like he was leaning away from the comm. “I have a feeling this is going to be one heck of a story.”

-----

After everyone had been debriefed and left to process the last two days of strangeness, Chakotay found Kathryn in her favorite spot; on her couch and staring wistfully out at the stars as they drifted past. She had shucked her jacket and taken her hair out of it’s clip, leaving her in her grey turtleneck with her hair falling around her shoulders and face.

“Got a lot on your mind?”

She turned to smile at him, a note of sadness in her eyes. “It’s been an interesting couple of days.”

He settled on the couch a ways down, turning to face her. “It sure has.” He was quiet for a moment. “I’m going to miss our kids.”

“Me too. It was fun having little ones around, playing at being a parent.” She fidgeted with the seam on the couch. “It was different and they sure did give us some challenges,” she chuckled, “but I loved it.”

“Have you ever thought about having kids of ou-” he coughed, “your own?”

Her crystal blue gaze caught his. “Yes.” She smiled and looked out the window again. “I always thought someday I would be a mother.” With a snort and a smirk, she continued; “Of course, I never thought I’d be mothering my helmsman, security officer, engineer, and technical officer.”

Chakotay laughed softly. “I think you were mothering them before they were turned into actual children.”

“Perhaps.” A pause. “What about you? Did you ever think about being a father? Outside of the whole instance with Seska, of course.”

He nodded. “When I was in the Maquis, no. My life was too fast-paced to be a proper father. If I was going to be a dad, I wanted to do it right and I couldn’t have done that from a Maquis ship.” He took a deep breath. “After joining this crew, though.... I’m in a better place now, and I think I’d be thrilled to be a father.” He looked over at Kathryn to find that she was already looking at him with something like wonder in her eyes. He held her gaze for a moment and, finally finding a bit of courage, he said: “I’m more at peace.”

A smiled played at the corners of her lips, and her eyes looked a little like they were silver-lined, though Chakotay couldn’t quite tell for sure in the low light of her quarters.

“You were really good with the kids. You would make an excellent father, I have no doubt.”

He smiled. “You would make an excellent mother. You’re a natural.”

“Thank you, but I barely felt like I knew what I was doing.” She chuckled.

“You could have fooled me.” He grinned for a moment, before his countenance grew more serious. “I hope you get your wish someday, Kathryn. I hope you get to be a mother.”

She was quiet for a moment, and Chakotay suddenly felt his chest tighten. Had he said too much.

Before he could fall too far into his panic, her hand slid over to his, giving it a squeeze. He looked up into her eyes, which definitely had tears in them now.

“I hope you get to be a father too Chakotay. Someday.”

He squeezed her hand back and they both fell into a comfortable silence, enjoying the view of the stars outside Kathryn’s window.

#whew okay that got emotional there at the end #lets all take a breather and remember cute little Harry #Okay that's better #anyway #thanks for reading!#hopefully this wasn't too plot-hole-ridden #star trek voyager #kathryn janeway #captain janeway #janeway #chakotay #harry kim #b'elanna torres #tom paris #tuvok #neelix #kes #the EMH #the doctor

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