#I knew it looked weird; just realized I forgot the cape | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

gangles-toybox · 1 year

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Drabble request, vampire kid Tommy

Thank you for the request!! Sorry for this taking a little long, but this was really fun to write!! This was all over the place but I think it has an...unexpected ending. Things to note: -Flits/flitty = homosexuals/gay(term from the '40s I believe) -Mild language

Tommy was walking to school one day. After his whole…episode…when Orel tried to “help” his misunderstanding of God, his mother didn’t really care about how he dressed. If he was so far from God already, what’s a little more that couldn’t hurt? At least in her eyes. So, Tommy had his fake fangs in, and a cape that tied in the front that was red on the inside and black on the outside. He knew he would be made fun of, but he didn’t care much about the opinions of others, for the most part, especially since people viewed him so low, to begin with.

He walked into his special classroom and the kids in there looked confused since it wasn’t Halloween, it was just an ordinary day in March after all. Not much about his outfit was said that day for the most part. That was until he had to step outside of his special classroom, he heard a few murmurs of slurs under people’s breaths, likely to try and not get in trouble with the principal, not that he would care much.

Despite the slurs, he carried himself proudly, he felt good dressing like this. He went to lunch as usual and at this point, his mother should just stop packing his lunch, since it was all mushed up so he wouldn’t choke. He only took it so she felt important for doing something in his life. So, he sat his stuff down, got up, and got in line. Once he got up there, he realized he had no more lunch money in his account and his mom, being as idiotic and forgetful as she was, forgot to give him any money. Sometimes he wondered if she drank. He sighed, the only way he was going to get more than a snack cake was to ask the person behind him for money. He turned around. Oh boy.

It was Joe. Of all people, why did it have to be Joe? He would have liked Orel better, despite the fact they weren’t really friends. However, he didn’t really have much of a choice if he wanted to eat today.

“Hey, Joe…do you have any money? My lunch is out…”

Joe stared at him for a few moments. Tommy was confused but thought he was just looking at how he was dressed today more than anything else.

He pulled out a fat stack of cash from his pockets and gave him the bare minimum, a dollar. “Just be lucky I stole this from the rich kid…” He shoved the money at him as if it was worthless.

Tommy found this strange. Joe of all people giving somebody like him money? The same person who hurled rocks at him and his friends? “Wow…uh thanks Joe…”

“Shut up, goofy-toons, before I change my mind!” Ah, there it was, classic Joe.

He handed the dollar to the lunch lady and got his lunch and ate normally. Still, though, it confused him. Why? Why Joe? Why today of all days? He shrugged, he wasn't going to pester somebody over a kind action, still though it made him wonder.

He continued wearing his vampire outfit every day, and eventually, it just became a part of his reputation. Not only was he one of the dumbest kids in school now, but he was also the weird vampire kid. He didn’t mind very much, at least he was dressing how he wanted to now, although his mother thought he was dressing satanically. To avoid his mother in the mornings, he had to use the bicycle helmet he already wore every day to good use.

On this particular day, he put his bike on the bike rack and went inside the school. Today, he had also brought something else with him to make him even more like a vampire. Plus, it wasn’t technically immoral or illegal since he remembered drinking it at the communions before he realized he was an atheist.

When he went into the special classroom, Ms. Stoopdown looked depressed, but he disregarded that. Today was the day he would at least look like he was a real vampire. He readjusted the fake fangs in his mouth that he got from Buried Pleasures recently. As she taught rudimentary math, he started to think as to why he even wanted to drink it in the first place. Sure, it would look like he was drinking blood and all, but it might also make him act peculiarly, given it would be killing his brain cells in the process of him consuming the liquid he hid in his cape. Still, though, he wanted to at least try and look like a vampire because it was one of the few things he enjoyed because people saw it as satanic, it was a way for him to rebel without breaking any written school rules.

He waited until lunch had already passed into recess before even thinking of taking it out. He would have shown the other kids that the school deems special, but he didn’t know any of them well enough to actually trust them. Plus, ever since he was put into the special class, he was always the backup friend to Orel’s friend group. Not that he was ever at a forefront of his friend group, but it grew worse when they realized he was an atheist and learned differently than others.

He went out to the farthest tree he could that he wouldn’t get yelled at for going. He sat down on the dry grass below. He opened up his cape and let the bottle of wine fall out of his pocket. He looked around quickly, just to make sure no goody-two-shoes would snitch on him for bringing it because despite it being at communion, he knew how hypocritical this town and its people were. The only people he saw were Joe and some random kid he was wailing on. Perfect.

Now was the time to drink the liquid of his choice. He tried to pull out the cork with all of his might. The people on TV sure did make this look easier than it was… He continued to try, going to the point he had his foot on it and trying to pull it out that way, hoping the pressure would help the cork pull through. It did not. Then, he tried to get it out by scratching out the cork that way, but all that did was hurt his fingernails. Well, this thing was a bust, now he wouldn’t like a vampire, well not as much of one anyways. He let out his frustrations by shaking the wine bottle furiously. Why couldn’t he just couldn’t have this one thing? He knew it was dumb to even try to consume an alcoholic beverage at school since he was underage, he would get caught, and alcohol only damages the mind, but still. For once he wanted to put his logic aside to feel something other than being invisible but he couldn’t even have that. He just sat there, defeated as he pitifully still tried to open it, despite knowing it wouldn’t bust.

Meanwhile, Joe was finishing chewing out the kid of the week he decided to pick on. “And never talk shit about the nurse again, got it?”

The boy in question nodded before scampering off. Joe wiped the blood on his hands onto his shirt. He started to head back out to where the majority of people are, when he saw a bottle of wine, belonging seemingly to Tommy of all people. Wow, he was cooler than he thought.

He plopped down beside him. “Can I have some?”

“If you can open it…” Tommy sighed.

Joe tried to get it open the same ways Tommy did before just smashing it against the tree.

“Jesus Joe, do you want us to get caught?”

“Well, I got it open didn’t I?”

“Yea but how are we gonna drink it?”

“Like this, dummy.” Joe proceeded to drink it out of the broken half of the bottle, somehow not cutting himself. “Hey, this isn’t half bad.”

Tommy took the other half of the bottle and carefully sipped it. Oddly enough he never really considered the flavor of the wine itself, more so just that it looked like blood. But he was right. “Hey you’re right, this is pretty good.”

“So…goofy-toons, why do you even have this in the first place? I thought you were a dumb goody-two-shoes.”

“Thanks. Well, my reputation is already through the floor and ever since the principal ushered me to the special classroom, nobody pays attention to me anyways. Plus, it makes me look like a vampire, don’t you think?” He asked as he opened his mouth to show the “blood” dripping off his fangs.

“The hell are you obsessed with vampires so much anyways?”

“Well, it’s a way to rebel I guess since everybody thinks I dress satanically.”

“Yea, after you started wearing it. Why did you start?”

He pulled on the neck of his cape. It was a bit odd to be telling something a little personal to somebody like Joe, but he seemed alright enough. “Well…vampires are always cool, especially when they’re alone. Have you ever seen a vampire being made fun of for being lonely or being too nerdy? No, they’re always shown as edgy love interests or powerful villains, never pathetic. I guess I was just tired of being viewed as pathetic I guess.”

“Damn…” Joe said as he gulped down some more wine.

“Now I got a question for you.”

“Hit me with it.”

“Why do you care? Why are you listening to me?”

“Well…you aren’t the lamest kid at school.” He responded as he looked at the grass below them, picking the grass from the ground.

“Really? Why’d you pick on me so much then?”

“None of your business,” Joe said oddly defensively.

Tommy was a bit caught off guard. “C’mon I told you somethin’ personal…”

“Didn’t have to.”

He rolled his eyes. Why did he think he could have a competent conversation with Joe? Before he was about to get up and leave, Joe finally decided to respond.

“Well…you’re smart, whether you believe it or not. Guess I was intimated or some edgy bullshit ‘cause I’ve always been called the dumbest at home.”

Tommy gulped, his face beginning to grow oddly warm. “Thanks…it means a lot…but you’re not dumb. Trust me, I’ve seen dumb and you’re not. Plus, nobody can be dumber than Doughy.”

He giggled. “Yea ‘guess you’re right.” He looked at his face. “Why are you so red?”

Shit.

“J-Just wasn’t expecting you to say that is all…I’m not a flit or anything…”

Joe smirked a little. “Never implied that, plus I don’t care about that kinda stuff. I’ll kill you if you tell but…I think I’m a flit myself.”

“Really? Never took you for one.”

He shrugged. “Dunno…I just feel somethin’...odd..”

“‘Round who?”

“...doesn’t matter…” He began turning red himself.

Tommy looked at his face turning redder, despite Joe trying to hide it. He scratched the back of his neck. “Y’know…there’s nobody out here…we can be flitty if you want to…”

“Why would I want to with you?” Classic Joe.

“Well you sure are red for one…plus…I have a strong regard for you…”

“‘I have a strong regard for you’ who the hell talks like that? Do you like me or not?”

Tommy nodded. Joe’s mouth slowly crept into a smile as he got closer to Tommy. “Well…?”

Tommy gulped but nodded. “Heh…you look like closeface…”

“What?”

“N-Nevermind…” Tommy could feel not just his stomach fluttering but his heart pounding. He never thought he would feel this way around somebody like Joe but the universe has a funny way of working. Due to his nervousness, he didn’t do much, despite just consuming an alcoholic beverage on school property.

Joe rolled his eyes. “For fuck’s sake, you’re going to make me be the flitty one, huh?” Before Tommy could respond, Joe had already kissed him. Tommy was surprised because even though it was obvious it was going to happen, it did happen suddenly. He let his body relax into the kiss as he held Joe’s hand.

Joe pulled away after a few moments and looked at the red tomato named Tommy. He smiled. “Who’s the flit now?”

“Y-You’re not exactly straight yourself, idiot.” He continued to hold onto Joe’s hand.

“Heh…do you wanna be flitty together…?”

Tommy nodded, his mind was still whirling from the moment before. He never thought he would be kissed in his youth, especially by a boy, but he didn’t mind. He liked him and Joe liked Tommy and that’s all that mattered at that moment.

Soon enough though, recess had to end but their relationship didn’t, they continued sneaking kisses and exchanging gifts with one another behind the trees. If anybody did see them, Joe would take care of them.

A vampire kid and a goth kid, who would have ever thought?

The End.

A/N: Fun fact, Britta Phillips who sang Closeface also voices Tommy so it can in a way be interrupted as a Tommy love song, anyways I know this is kinda weird and random but I hope you enjoyed it

#flits #flitty #moral orel #tommy littler #vampire kid #vampire #tommy is a vampire #mild language #writing #drabble #creative writing #asks #request #lucyaskz #lucyfanficz #lucyreqz

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gyllenhaalstories · 3 years

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HIGH HORSE — QUENTIN BECK

request: what about fighting with quentin beck for the first time, after he's been all smug and acting like he doesn't care about the reader and him realizing after they leave that he needs them in his life real bad - so he gets off his high horse for once and admits he cares about the reader?

warnings: canon divergent quentin (set in an alternate universe where quentin survived far from home), mentions of janice, guterman and a very out of character victoria, throwback scene (including violence, knives and manipulation), 18+, MINORS DON’T INTERACT.

word count: 1525

gif credit: winterswake

notes: i was listening to dark horse by katy perry, high horse by kacey musgraves, save your tears by the weeknd and the raya soundtrack? weird mix, but it takes what it takes to get the angst juices flowing. thanks for reading, remember to reblog!

“Next time you want to come up with a lame apology, I’d advise against asking Guterman to write it for you.” You finally broke the silence.

Quentin had just dismissed Janice for the next couple of hours, asking her nicely to change some part of his collar. You overheard her say something about knowing how to make the cape even more dramatic, and that was all the sweet talk Quentin needed to soften up and let her do her job without micromanaging.

You would never create a scene in front of Janice, she was sweet as pie. The fact he treated her with more kindness, patience and respect than he treated you made your blood boil. You blamed it on the piling up, the lies and the secrets. Your hands were deep under the water, in the sink. You toyed with your wedding ring, loosened up by the water.

“I don’t want to have this conservation again,” he scoffed.

“Again? You never let me finish it the first time.”

*~*~*

It was Victoria, another of his evil sidekicks, who had broken the news to you. He did not make it. His plan backfired, some kid had shot him.

You don’t remember much from this day, aside from Quentin insisting you did not follow them to London. Aside from Quentin renting a beautiful villa in Greece, where you were at that very moment. Aside from Quentin’s last promise to meet with you, after he shook the Queen’s hand of course.

You were so hopeful, you wanted nothing more than to see his pretty face. Instead, when you ran to open the door, it was Victoria who gave you one of her compassionate smiles. She was as great a liar as Quentin, as you. You could see right through her, although Quentin refused to believe that she was as twisted as him.

“They won.” She had told you, twisting the blade in the wound. It was just a game for her, for all of them. Except, for you, it was not. It was the life of your husband that was at risk (that part out of his origin story was true, it was the part both Hill and Fury fell for), the life of millions of innocent people who ignored just how far he would go to make his own dreams come true. “He fought like a King, it’s truly unfortunate he had to die a martyr.”

You squinted, taking in Victoria’s features. Her smile was turning into an evil smirk. She had one hand on your shoulder, the other one behind her back and before she could move any further, you shoved her against the wall. You saw a knife sliding on the tiles of the villa’s foyer, you rushed to grab it and point it towards her while you walked backwards, hoping the reach the balcony.

“You made him weak. He lost focus. We would be the masters of the world if you did not walk into his life and ruined everything for us. He was just a pawn for all of us, well, all except Janice.” She escaped her villainesque speech to roll her eyes, facepalming herself at the desperation of Janice to always check up on everybody and take care of everyone. Janice had loved you since the beginning, and it rubbed Victoria the wrong way.

Your back reached the railing of the balcony and you looked over your shoulder. You took a deep breath, your knuckles turning white from your grip on the knife. “I understand you, Vicky.”

The brunette frowned, snapped back to reality.

“He’s the charming type, isn’t he?” You noticed her repress a wave of laughter. “He sweeps you up, promises you to fly on a magic carpet and to show you a whole new world. You always wonder... Does he mean it this time? Is he being honest? Or is he smarter than we think?”

Her traits appeared softer.

"You say he’s a pawn, I say he’s the rook, except his ego gets in the way of the Queen. He’s quick and witty, though, can’t take that away from him. And next thing you know... He pulled out a checkmate behind your back.” You walked towards her, still the knife in hand. “I understand you can’t always get what you want, even if that’s all your heart desires.” You walked around her, so that she was now the one aiming towards the balcony.

“He doesn’t deserve you.” Victoria said. “I could have given you the whole world.”

Your jaw clenched. You stepped even closer, so you could feel her breath on her skin. “Too bad I want the whole universe.”

With one swift movement, you pushed her off the railings and watched her as she fell practically in slow motion. You shook your head, deciding to deal with this turn of event later and rushed out of the villa. You could take the car she drove to the house with, and see for yourself if Quentin was the idiot they all believed he was. Dead because of a kid who’s obsessed with spiders? What was next, he would have consented to let Tony name his technology BARF? You knew him better than that. You knew him better than he knew himself.

By the time you reached the door, you heard the splashing sound of Victoria falling in the infinity pool, down there in the courtyard and let out a sigh. The knife, you left it on the bench and let your adrenaline guide you to your final destination.

*~*~*

“I was terrified. I was sick. I was losing hope.”

He looked in your direction, swallowing thickly.

“I waited months to see you, Quentin. To find you.” You washed another dirty glass, paying attention to the noise of his heavy costume squeaking and dragging on the floor while he approached you. You shook your head, and he listened, taking a seat by the kitchen island. “You left without hesitation. You left me without any hesitation.”

“I didn’t leave you.”

You chuckled and turned around, soap dish foam flying around as you spinned on your heels. “Oh, really? Then how come you didn’t even text me where you were hiding? How come you ignored all of my calls? How come you made Janice lie to me? Why were you avoiding me?” You dried your hands with a towel and approached him. “Why were you not searching for me all these months?”

These months he wasted trying to hide from everything, to play dead so that his plan would work out. These months he wasted putting his mission before his emotions first. These months he wasted waiting for the phone to stop ringing while you called him. These months he wasted stepping on his own pride and searching for help, for shelter, which he found in some abandoned head quarters of Stark industries that Tony and him used to build BARF years ago. The months he wasted trying to fix the broken pieces so you could see him as a hero again.

“I know I promised to be there for you through thick and thin, but some promises are meant to be broken.” Your voice cracked and words got stuck in your throat. The sight of his costume disgusted you, but the pain in his eyes made your heart skip a beat.

“I love you.”

You forgot what these three words sounded like when he spoke them.

“I love you so much. More than this,” his arms gestured to show his costume, then moved around his head, meaning something bigger than the two of you. “All of this. It took me all this time to realize it.”

Checkmate.

“You deserve so much better. You deserve safety. You deserve comfort. You deserve to go out and not wonder if there’s a witch hunt trying to take you down.” He did not dry the single tear that was falling from his eye. “You deserve that stupid married life we always made fun of. The wine, the cardigans, the annoying kids running around. The only spider you should worry about is the one creeping on our ceiling.”

He was wrapping his arms around your waist, you helped him tighten his embrace.

“I’m sorry, for all the pain and danger I put you through.” You knew it came from his heart, and not from one of his rehearsed scenarios and speeches. “I’m sorry I failed you. You need a prince charming on a white horse and I’m just the royal buffoon.”

You chuckled, the sight alone lit up his whole face. “What I need is for you to get down your high horse. Go out, get some sun. Maybe you could shave, wear a cap and sunglasses. No one will recognize you, that’s how it works when you’re an undercover hero, right?”

“I don’t want to play the hero anymore.”

“Then, stop. Use those fish bowls you wear on your head to adopt gold fishes. Use the cape as a carpet. Kill Mysterio so that Quentin can live.”

He leaned against your hand, which was stroking his cheek.

“So that I can live with my Quentin again.”

#quentin beck imagine #quentin beck x reader #jake gyllenhaal imagine #jake gyllenhaal x reader #jake gyllenhaal angst #jake gyllenhaal #quentin beck

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hournites · 3 years

Text

Bait & Switch

Hournite Week 2021 - Day 3: Secret Admirer

~.~

“And then we can head to the Pit Stop for—eeep!!” Beth jumped from her locker as a piece of white paper landed in her hair.

“Oooooh!” Yolanda poked her side. “Is that another letter?”

Beth reached up for the standard printed paper sheet folded in three. She glanced at it, biting her lip as she scanned the page. “Looks like it, yeah!”

“I’m sorry,” Rick interrupted when Courtney grabbed Beth’s arm to squeeze. “Another what?”

“Beth’s been getting letters in her locker.” Courtney pointed to the little green shelf attachment Beth had on her inner locker next to magnets and pictures of Yolanda, Court, and Rick. A small pile of like creased letters accumulated there, sitting innocuously.

“Love letters,” Yolanda chimed in.

Rick’s frown stayed in place. “Since when did Beth have a boyfriend?”

“I don’t,” Beth corrected him. “I mean, not yet? I don’t know? I haven’t reached out or anything, I just started getting them a few days ago. I’d ask Chuck to scan them for fingerprints or something, but...you know.” She laughed a bit, pushing down the way Chuck’s blown in frames still stabbed at her heart. “Anyway, there’s no handwriting since it's printed, see?” She handed it to Rick.

“Hey Beth, I notice your yellow shoes.” His eyebrows raised past his hairline. “Why does this kid have a foot fetish?”

“Rick!” Courtney scolded.

“Sounds like Bowin.”

Yolanda scoffed at the Isaac comment. “As if Isaac had the balls.”

“To you, maybe.” Beth took the letter back when she realized Rick wouldn't appreciate it. “To me, it’s kinda sweet?” She flashed her friends a shy smile. “They always have something to say about what I’m wearing.”

“So they’re watching you,” Rick deadpanned. “Not creepy at all.”

Her face fell. “You think it’s creepy? Like ISA creepy?”

“Rick!” This time it was Yolanda. Courtney swatted his arm.

“Hey!”

Yolanda veered Rick off to the side, speaking in a hushed tone. “Believe me, you and I both know the guys here can be horrible, but this all seems very PG. I don’t see anything wrong with it, and neither does Courtney. Can we not ruin this for Beth?”

Rick pursed his lips, but Yolanda crossed her arms until he gave in.

~.~

One letter turned into two, and then three. Rick leaned against the metal row of lockers as Beth tried to catch the fluttering paper before it touched the dirty floor.

“More mystery mail?”

“Second one today, I didn’t get one yesterday, I was wondering if they forgot.” She tucked it in her pocket and went for her lunch bag.

“You’re not going to read it?”

“I thought you weren’t interested.”

Rick straightened his back. “No no, I’m interested! I’m very interested.”

“You just want to make fun of what they said.”

“No!” Though he was lying and Beth knew it.

They walked to the cafeteria, Yolanda and Court were already eating their lunches.

“C’mon,” Rick pestered the girls. He leaned his arms on the table conspiratorially. “Don’t we all want to hear what Beth’s secret lover has to say today?”

“I don’t have a secret lover,” she protested, but the girls got excited at the news of Beth getting locker mail twice and Rick leaned back in his plastic chair, satisfied.

“Secret admirer, then.”

Beth shot him another look of exasperation, but he merely raised his eyebrows at her.

“What,” he countered. “Is that not what it is?”

“Um, yeah,” she scooted in her chair, pressing the letter down and smoothing it out, refusing to look up at any of them, embarrassed. “We can call them that. Aw! They said I’m pretty!” Beth squinted at the paper. “Oh, they spelled it wrong.”

As much as he found Beth’s notes weird as hell, he got a rise out of watching her stammer and flush at all the attention. Courtney’s usually the one to flail around with massive blushing and her awkward high pitched voice when confronted about Cameron. In all honesty, hearing Courtney gush about Cameron without either of them making real moves on each other got tiring. Yolanda never looked like she wanted to talk about a love life for herself ever again, so Beth’s bright eyes reading out loud her dumb letters were new. He’d never seen her so eager to get to her locker. She’d drag him out of their class together to make a beeline for it. Really, it was cute. Maybe that’s why Rick couldn’t stop teasing her.

~.~

Later that week, the group sat together at lunch as usual. Courtney’s hair would not stay up in the messy bun she’d been trying and failing to pull off. She kept wrapping a hair elastic around the ball of blonde curls. Rick watched as she huffed out an annoyed breath at the fifth time it flopped over the front of her face.

“You need a mirror,” Rick pipped in unnecessarily. He smirked when she glared at him.

“I give up!” Courtney reached across the lunch table to grab Yolanda’s wrist when she gave up for the sixth time. “Help?”

Yolanda laughed, scooting her chair over and said, “I’ll just give you a braid.”

“Oh!” Beth jumped in her seat as if she just remembered something. “My letter today said something really nice about my hair!” She unzipped her school bag to bring it out. Yolanda peered over at it while she continued to fix Courtney’s mess. She read it out loud for them.

“That’s not even that great,” Rick pointed out when Beth finished. “They like your hair. So what? Your hair always looks great, there’s no effort involved on their part.”

Beth frowned at her letter. “Really?”

“It’s superficial, don’t you think? They don’t say anything about why they like you as a person.”

“Yeah,” Courtney cut in. “Probably because they don’t know her that well? Cut them some slack?”

“I don’t need to cut anyone any slack.”

Yolanda took a bite out of her apple. “If you liked someone, what would you do?” She batted her eyelashes at him as she chewed on her snack, clearly expecting a lame answer.

“I don’t like anyone.”

Yolanda shared a look with Courtney. Courtney would do that a lot with Mike and Beth would do that a lot with himself but when Yolanda did that with Courtney, Rick always felt a bit paranoid.

“Is that illegal or something?” Rick muttered, stabbing his fork into his food.

“No,” Yolanda replied, dragging out the syllable carefully. “But let's say hypothetically that you did, would your answer be the same?”

Now Beth was waiting intently for his answer as well.

Rick pushed his plastic tray away, no longer hungry. “If I liked someone I’d let them know… like a normal person.”

Courtney stifled a laugh that irked him. Her ice blue painted nails covered her mouth to half hide whatever joke she had within.

Yolanda tugged at one of her stray curls as a warning. “Court.”

“What now?” Rick groused.

Courtney leaned forward, gripping the edges of the table. “Would you actually?”

“No offense Court, but if I liked a girl, I wouldn’t run off to tell you about it.”

Now Courtney really did laugh, but Rick was dead serious. If he liked someone, he wouldn’t make it overcomplicated. If it were someone that could actually like him back, he’d just be honest with them. No frilly notes or secret rendez-vous.

He pushed Beth’s little love letter across the table. Beth took it wordlessly, mouth pressed in a careful line, eyes inquisitive.

Not that Rick had much time to think about what he’d do if he did like anyone. There wasn’t much time for Rick to develop feelings other than the deep-rooted anger and hatred that brewed for years over the conditions of his life.

Rick shook his head at her. This wasn’t anything complicated. If he were the one secretly crushing on Beth, he’d tell her. He said as much to the girls when they pestered him some more. “It’s not that hard.”

~.~

Beth got new letters every day for the next week. It became routine for her to read them during their lunch period. The girls pushed their chairs closer together to scrutinize the text, eyes peeled for anyone they might think to be the secret admirer. Rick played along half-heartedly, though mostly ate his lunch suppressing eyerolls.

“That top looks great on you. Also, why did you take off your rainbow necklace? It's cute.”

“Hmm,” said Yolanda. “Maybe it’s a girl.”

Rick scraped his plastic fork against the paper plate on his lunch tray. “Maybe they should stop staring at Beth’s shirt.”

“I don’t mind,” Beth said, looking up at him.

Rick scraped the styrofoam plate again. These letters weren’t amusing anymore.

~.~

Beth approached him that day after training. She drummed her fingers against the green cloth of her cape along her arms, craning her neck up to look at him as he raked through his upswept hair. They were in the loft of the Pit Stop where they’d dumped their bags. Beth was on the couch, in no hurry to change into fresh clothes because she hadn’t sweat through hers the way he had. Chuck was still offline, so she had been cautioned to stay a few paces behind the others for protection. She usually chose to stick by Rick.

Rick shook out his aching fingers. His hood was hanging low over his shoulders and the heaviness of his suit weighed after the effects of his tapered strength.

“What?” he asked after several moments, acutely aware that she just stood there, staring.

“Is there anything you’re not suspicious of? Sometimes you just have to trust people.”

Rick sighed, turning around. He thought this was about the training or the sweat or the way his hair stuck up like a cartoon and he didn’t have enough gel to smooth it back down, but Beth clearly wanted to revisit their conversation from lunch. He’d rather not. “If this is about the letters—”

“It is. What’s your deal with them, really? Even my mom knows! She thinks it’s funny! I’m having fun!” She grinned widely and threw out her hands to back up her words. Like he needed to see her laugh off the fact someone was following her around the school without coming forward about it to prove it wasn’t something to be reasonably concerned about.

Rick sat down beside her on the couch, taking a moment to articulate his phrasing. He didn’t want Beth to bristle at his tone or words. He’d made the mistake enough, seen the hurt written on her face way too many times. She could handle his heat, but it always left Rick feeling shitty to realize she needed to guard herself around him. Steel herself to get offended. He needed to stop offending her, Beth was quite frankly the kindest person Rick knew. This was why Rick felt strongly about the twenty-seven ways this secret admirer situation emerged red flags. “Don’t you want to know who they’re from?”

Beth shrugged. “It’d be nice.”

“Would you date them if they revealed themselves?”

“Um.” Beth flushed. “Maybe? I don’t know. I’m not planning any weddings but I’ve thought about it, I guess.” She side-eyed him. “Are you going all big brother on me now?”

Rick almost said yes, but bit his tongue at the last second, making a face. It didn’t feel quite right. He opened his mouth instead to retort about protecting the team. Beth accepted it well enough, wrapping her arms around his middle to thank him for bothering enough to care. Rick stiffened at her hug, thrown off by the carefree way she clung to him. He placed his hand on her back and she pushed her head further against his shirt.

“I don’t want you upset with me.”

Her words stabbed at his gut. “I’m not,” he said, surprised and dismayed. Of course she’d perceive it that way even after he tried. “I’m not, Beth. Though I guess you’re right, trusting people isn’t my thing.”

“I know, I didn’t mean to be so defensive about it.” She looked up at him and removed her cowl. Her hair sprung out high, decompressed from the tight, restraining fabric. “It’s just that I wish when a note makes me smile...You’d smile back at me.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Beth crossed her legs, eyes and hands now at the clasp of her vintage cape. Her hair expanded, reclaiming its crown over her head. It bloomed in front of him. Not just the hair, her wisdom and hope and trust to share that so candidly with him.

“I’ll try?”

A tiny pleased smile began as her thumb looped through the hook. “You will?”

“Yes,” Rick said.

The green of the cape flashed in front of them. Only a trace of that smile remained once it was neatly folded on her lap. “Thank you.”

~.~

Rick tried.

It was like now that Rick gave her his disgruntled blessing of the elusive secret admirer, Beth no longer capped the word count on her inner novel of thoughts about it. She’d speak freely without checking back or worrying that Rick would make any comments and Rick had pretty much shut up about it to her face.

This was her thing, and it made her happy. Why did it matter what Rick thought about it anyway?

Though it did matter, exactly because of how happy those typed letters made her. It wasn’t wrong that Beth saw the best in people or found cheerfulness in all uncertain things. Rick was glad for it, honestly. That persistence in her wrestled with his own stubbornness— somehow it evened each other out. Beth’s drive blazed a fire that refused to be stomped out. Rick liked that drive in her. He appreciated it, even, just as much as it sometimes drove him insane. He didn’t want to be the one to smother that flame— Not him, or anyone else.

~.~

Rick didn’t realize he was intentionally hanging around Beth’s locker to scout out her secret admirer until he caught them in the act.

He straightened up from his slouched position against the wall across the drama room, taking in the uneven dirty blond haircut and letterman jacket worn by the person in question.

At first, Rick figured the guy was at the wrong locker. He stood there rummaging into his gym bag for something. But then he produced a familiar folded paper and Rick realized this was the guy. Beth’s guy. It got very real. Beth had a guy. This guy wanted Beth. Liked her. He liked her and wrote stupid letters every day with things in it that actually made her want to like him back. And he had freckles and looked pretty short, and would probably make her laugh and would offer her his jacket to show her off to the dicks on the football team.

Rick’s eyes narrowed, seizing him up. That was right, the guys on the football team were dicks. Beth’s secret admirer was friends with them?

She wouldn’t take that well.

He looked new. Young, even. Not any of the faces he’d cataloged that tormented Yolanda over the last year and a half. Should he follow him?

Rick lurked.

The kid glanced around nervously, letter slotted in the hinges for the locker. How many days had it been? Two and a half weeks? How was this guy still skittish for sneaking around the school to send love letters to a girl? Wouldn’t he know one of these days he’d get caught?

Alright, Rick had two options. He could turn around and keep this to himself. Never say a word to anyone and let this guy and Beth work out whatever they have and just.... watch.

Or he could walk up there right now and get information. What the hell is your deal? Do you have a foot fetish? Are you another supervillain freak? How did you meet Beth? Why are your notes so uninspired? Do you even know her? Are you embarrassed that you’re into her? Why do you care?

Rick's legs marched him over, having made up his mind.

“Hey!” It came out harsher than he intended by the reaction of the football player. He yelped, backing up against the locker and widening his eyes at Rick.

“It’s not what it looks like, I swear!” This poor kid’s voice cracked.

Rick squinted at him. “Who the hell are you?”

“Huh?”

“Your name. Parents? Date of birth. Alien status?”

The kid didn’t say anything. Rick sighed, already regretting it but knowing he’d have to in order to speed this along. He slammed his fist against the nearby locker, cornering him. The kid looked properly terrified. At least it was something to know those Rick Harris rumors were still thriving. “Well?”

“Joe! Joseph Kindersef. Son of Harold and Shoan Kindersef. August 9th, 2006. Um, Non-alien?”

“Sounds like something an alien would say.”

“I swear I’m not an alien! I’m just a freshman!”

“If I back off, are you gonna run?”

“I’m on the football team!” he yelled out as if that question was undignified.

Rick rolled his eyes. “You’re fourteen years old. I don’t care what team you’re on. Are you gonna run?”

“No.”

Rick relented, pulling back to put some room between them. “So, you’re the one writing to Beth for the last few weeks?”

“Yes, but—”

Rick pulled a face. “She’s a bit old for you, don’t you think?”

“Maybe, but—”

“Beth really likes the letters, okay? She doesn’t need someone that’s too much of a coward to come up and talk to her. So pick it up and do something meaningful or leave her alone.”

Joseph squeaked. “I can’t.”

“Okay so—She really likes yellow and cute shit so try sticky notes to include—“ Rick backtracked and paused. That didn’t sound normal. “What? You can’t? Yes, you can. You just have to find the guts to tell her who you are and ask her out so she can finally meet you so she can decide if you’re worth a—”

“No!” Joe cut Rick off. “I can’t leave her alone!”

Rick’s stomach sank. Joe heaved, eyes blown back wide as he grimaced as if waiting to get yelled at again.

But Rick lost the wind in his rant, lowering his voice to a shocked whisper. “What do you mean? You don’t…want to be Beth’s boyfriend?”

“No! I don’t really know her! I don’t get what the big deal is!”

Rick nearly slammed him back against the metal row. “Then why are you leading her on?”

“Oh my god!” He weaseled out of Rick’s grip, hands up in surrender. “I swear, I can explain! Just don’t beat me up, I get enough of that from the team!” He dropped his gym bag and kicked it, yanking off his letterman jacket. “God, I’m sick of this!”

Rick was at a loss for words. He clenched his jaw, keeping his fuming to a minimum to give Joe a chance. Not that he deserved one, in Rick’s honest opinion, but Beth probably would’ve wanted to at least hear his case before Rick undoubtedly scared her only potential prospect of a boyfriend away with a piss stain in his pants.

He furrowed his brows. “Sick of what?”

“This!” Joe gestured at the floor. “Blue Valley High! The goddamn team!”

It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. The thought of it all made Rick sick to his stomach. Of course, in a twisted way it all made perfect sense. There was no villain here, only two victims. Raze the newbie recruit on the team and mercilessly bully the girl that raises her hand one too many times in class all at once. Force Joe to do the dirty work and laugh at Beth’s disappointment when her non-existent secret admirer gets shoved in her face.

Wonderful. Great plan for a group of football meatheads that barely even grieved Henry Jr’s death. Rick hated this school so much.

“Can’t you just stop?”

“No!” Joe insisted. “I can’t, I would’ve if I could!”

“What are they doing to you?”

Rick knew the answer wasn’t going to be pleasant. He crossed his arms, eyebrows raised as he stared up at the ceiling while Joe lamented over the football hierarchy in disarray, wanting to make it past waterboy dweeb status, razing punishments incorporating the abandoned construction porta potty beyond the field parking lot, and the daily checks on Joe the team did to ensure he’s following their crazy rules.

“You know what I wanna say?” Rick told the guy when his sob story was over. “I wanna say that’s your problem.” Because after this and his last encounter with Sportsmaster Rick was very close to never watching any organized game in America ever again.

“It is my problem.”

“Actually, it’s not.” Rick scowled. “You’ve entangled Beth Chapel into this, so you’ve made it my problem.”

Joe stared at him. Rick muttered under his breath, dragging a hand over his face. For some reason he pictured Courtney. If she were here right now with him, Rick could perfectly imagine what she’d say: This was part of what it meant to be a superhero. You are a superhero now.

Rick knew this, theoretically, but thinking about that word in association to himself still felt beyond stupid. Stupid, but so painfully accurate by the way a feeling ate at his insides to help this pathetic freshman. Not just because of Beth. Rick had a magical hourglass and a skintight suit and belonged to a secret crime-fighting team. But it wasn’t just about crime, it was about injustice. And this fits that bill to a tee.

He flapped his hand at Joe before he could change his mind. “Go. I’ll take care of it.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t have to do this anymore.”

“But they check at lunch every day for the letters and there are still two and a half weeks left in the month—”

“I know!” Rick groaned just thinking about all the ways this was going to ruin his entire schedule. The sneaking and evasion. The random class cutting he’d have to pull off inconveniently now that Yolanda and Pat have drilled it into Rick that he needed to get a decent pass...

Joe stepped away, looking over his shoulder at the deserted hallway, unable to believe his newfound freedom. “You need to make it sound like you care or else they’ll get suspicious,” he stressed.

“I get it.” Rick shooed him away. “Trust me. I get it.”

The anxious red splotches all over Joe’s face faded away. He sniffed, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his varsity jacket. “You really want to help me?”

“Just tell me what I need to do to make this work.”

He pulled out his dad’s notebook from his bag as Joe ranted about the nonsensical expectations the football team had of him, and what they had planned for Beth via public embarrassment by the end of the month. His dad’s handwriting blurred past as he clicked the top of his ballpoint to start on a fresh page, jotting it all down. He ended up with over a page and a half. A page is more than he thought he’d need. It was excessive and tedious and stupid enough to put an end to today. He wouldn't, though, end it today. Because of one thing Rick knew for certain. He was going to one-up the Stockholm secret admirer deal Joe had going on. Two weeks of nice deeds weren’t completely out of his reach.

~.~

Rick stared at the blank word document in front of him, tucked into the furthest computer monitor desk at the very corner of the library. Sneaking in here was easy, though it was stressful enough to make Rick’s hands sweat. It was dumb, nobody questioned a student at the library over lunch. The tenth graders came in anxious packs to prepare for their PSATs, and the juniors freaked out over college pamphlets at the communal tables. Nobody would care that Rick Harris was hunched over a keyboard, glancing down at his lap to refer to an original letter for help.

Beth didn’t even notice Rick swiped a letter from her. Her locker door swung open while she chatted about the science homework and then the muffins she planned on making and then the recipe Barbara sent to her phone that she pinned on her Pinterest board. That Pinterest board was very important, something she’d curated since elementary school after her mom accidentally forgot to include a lunch for Beth, exhausted by the first surgery she’d operated on as the new head surgeon at Blue Valley Medical Centre. This was all new information Rick only learned from their walk to get her lunch box, so Beth’s talkativeness did have its advantages some days. Rick reached over and plucked a folded letter from the pristine metal basket right over her head to stuff in his back pocket. Even if she were ever tall enough to catch that, the muffin recipe had too many steps for her to list to ever let her take her eyes off her phone.

Rick stood firm in his belief that Joe’s letters were creepy and lame, regardless of how the creepy and lameness parts were now halfway excusable under Joe’s duress and whatever. Still, he couldn’t deny he needed one in his possession to study. At least as an example for formatting one correctly if he wanted to pull this off; the font and size had to be exactly the same. And, most importantly, the letter provided a base of comparison to work from to make the letters going forward less weird.

Rick knew Beth better. He could do so much better. And he should, anyway. There’s no harm done. He’s going to have to tell Beth at the end of the month what exactly happened to her secret admirer, so she’ll know Rick became the author somewhere along the line. He’d never be caught dead authoring notes that made it sound like he had a foot fetish or some other weirdness. And if Beth likes the letters more, Joe won’t get as much shit either.

So why wasn’t this working?

Hey, Beth.

Rick stared at the screen. His eyes were dry, he needed to blink. A Hey, Beth wasn’t going to get anyone anywhere, and this letter had to be slotted through that locker rust a good half hour before the class that went into lunch.

I just wanted to let you know how kind you are. I saw you today give away your extra hair elastic to the other girl in the hallway—

No.

Beth,

Your laugh is out of this world.

Rick slammed his palm against the backspace button, the stiff keyboard jam startled the senior girl half-napping over her notes beside him. He deleted the word document altogether and started over. Nobody needed to see that. That sentence came out of nowhere. Forget that it was bad and sounded like Hallmark garbage, reading the words on the computer mortified him. Maybe it wasn’t out of limit to find Joe and force him here to do the actual writing himself. At least as a draft for Rick to work with. No wonder Joe’s letters came out awkward and stilted. But where would he even find Joe and was the answer something Rick even wanted to find out?

Rick didn’t like Beth like this. How was he going to write to make it seem like it could be implied that he did? This was fucking hard.

“Since when do you study?”

Rick crumpled Joe’s letter into his fist. He minimized the tab for the Word document. Yolanda’s braids swept over the built-in camera of Rick’s computer monitor, peering down at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Since today.” He clicked on the school browser to type in one of the chemistry learning sites he went bleary-eyed scrolling through last semester late at night.

“When’s the test?”

He shrugged. Her braids swung over his screen again. Rick shot her an exasperated high brow, flicking them away.

Yolanda shook her head at him and took the next seat. The binders she pulled out for her math assignment told Rick she wasn’t planning on leaving anytime soon. Fine. Rick put the letter on hold. It wasn’t something he wanted to rush anyway.

~.~

Beth,

Your laugh is special. Because you can make anything sound great, and find laughter in everything. It’s what you do and who you are. I wouldn’t change that about you, ever.

Rick skipped the last ten minutes of class to get to Beth’s locker while the hallway was still empty. In slipped the letter. Out went his breath.

They were just words. Once he was able to wrap his head around that fact it got a lot easier. They were just words. Nice words. For Beth. It didn’t really matter if they were poetic or fancy. They were genuine, though, because Rick wasn’t going to lie on top of everything. But they weren’t in the sense Rick felt anything romantic for her. If Beth and the girls read it and felt otherwise, it was only because they were under a preconceived notion. One Rick would explain away when it is all over.

Above all, he was sparing her any humiliation by lifting her up and giving some nice compliments. It was a win-win situation. Once Rick was able to digest that, it got a lot easier to justify the emotional connection he teased out of himself to work the right sentiment he needed and had written down.

~.~

The problem was, sometimes letters didn’t cut it. Rick didn’t always have the right words. It was because he knew how Beth’s face brightened up when he wrote something right. She’d let out a breath that was almost a sigh, hugging the letter close. It would put her in a mood nothing could deter for the rest of the day. It’s what Rick noticed two weeks ago when these started, but it was all the better now, admittedly, when they came from him. She’d show them to her mom over FaceTime at lunch, to Barbara and Pat. Beth shared her secret admirer letter with anyone that had an extra second to spare.

When Rick missed the mark, that was too obvious. Yolanda and Court never seemed to pick up the difference, and Beth never appeared dissatisfied, but Rick knew it wasn’t what she deserved.

He’d tear out pages in his notebook before and after classes Rick took without her, practicing what he’ll type up by the time he gets to the school library. The pencil in his hand would tap against the paper as he ignored the lesson, thinking about how to best word how much it meant to him to see her turn around and flash him one of those breathless grins without giving himself away. He’d shred the paper after, stuffing it in the trash. The best parts Rick kept memorized to reuse the next day.

It took another three more neutral letters for Rick to change tactics. Instead of stressing over ways to tell Beth things he didn’t mean without revealing his identity, he found a way to work around keeping the secret admirer ploy alive while cutting out the amount of time he spent failing at writing. Small things he could afford like her favourite chocolate bars when he filled his car with gas at the station, or cheap bracelets from the dollar store to add when he wasn’t confident that he wrote enough.

He kneeled down in the wet grass by the bike rack behind the school on a Tuesday, weaving in the red and yellow roses he plucked from a nice garden a block down Main street through the handlebars of Beth’s teal bike. Beth was the type of girl to press flowers in books. She’d find the roses and would smell them and then keep them with the intention of saving them forever.

When he managed to get the stem properly wrapped around her handlebars, he realized Beth forgot to lock in her bike properly. He fixed it, then leaned back, appraising his work.

He froze when he felt a warm breath against his neck.

“I didn’t know you were a part of the garden club.”

Rick dropped his hands to his sides, gritting his teeth through a polite nod at Isaac Bowin, who was peering over the bike rack in his pristine band clothes. “I’m not.”

“I see.” He scratched his nose. “That’s Beth’s bike.”

Rick eyed him. “I know.”

“That’s a nice gesture. I didn’t know you liked her.”

“She’s my best friend.” Rick stood up and brushed the dirt from his pants. “It’s not like that.”

Isaac shrugged. “It looks like that.”

“Okay,” he replied lightly, rolling his eyes. Rick knew he was saving a high school freshman from being bullied by substituting his required secret admirer quotas because of his newfound moral superhero standards, but conversing with Isaac Bowin was something Rick hadn’t yet tolerated the patience for. He slipped his bag and walked around the side of the school building to go through the back. “Bye.”

Later that afternoon, Rick got tackled by Beth. He tensed as he always did when someone got a hold of him from behind, though he released the tension immediately when he looked up and saw her.

“I got flowers!” She wrapped her arms around his shoulders from his seat at their shared sixth-period class.

“Did you?” He replied, measuring his tone.

“Roses! They were on my bike. I wasn’t sure if I locked it properly this morning so I got a hall pass in geography and went to check, and they were there!”

“Wow,” he said. “That’s pretty thoughtful, right? Do you like them?”

“Are you kidding? The KitKat was great but the last time I ever got flowers was like, my fourth grade spelling bee from my mom!” Beth moved her hands from his back to slide into the seat beside him. “They’re so pretty. I love them!”

Rick glanced at her empty desk. She pulled out her school bag and pencil case. “So where are they?”

“They’re safe.” She hauled out the large math textbook and flipped to the middle, revealing the two roses, freshly pressed in. “I want to keep them forever.”

He knew it. Rick suppressed his grin. “Cool.”

~.~

“... You warm my heart, Beth.” Beth paused, taking it in. She looked dizzy. “Oh my goodness. This is a lot.”

“Stop. That’s stupidly cute.” Yolanda groaned as she ran a hand over her face as if the sweetness pained her.

“You’ve gotta write them back!” Courtney urged, taking a swig of juice.

Beth wrinkled her nose. “I dunno.”

“What! Why not?”

“I don’t want to scare them off?” Beth took her eyes off the letter at last, raising her head to meet Rick’s eyes. She straightened her back immediately. “Why are you smiling like that?”

In spite of himself, it grew bigger. “Like what?”

She didn’t reply for a moment. Her eyes squinted and she tilted her head as if to study him. “I can’t explain,” she said at last. “It’s just different.”

Yolanda and Courtney stopped talking to watch him too. Rick felt his face heat up at all of their attention. “Shut up. I’m being supportive,” he mumbled. “It’s what you wanted.”

~.~

The thing with Yolanda was that she didn’t fall for bullshit. Rick should’ve known. Books against the table with a slam, she leveled Rick a serious look of incredulity in their next class. “Who are you and what did you do to my best friend Rick Tyler?”

He stuck a hand in his pocket. Still grinning. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Says every suspicious clone, ever.”

“I’m not a clone.”

“Then what are you, sick?” She poked his cheek at the stretched corners of his mouth. “You’ve smiled more in two days than I’ve ever seen you smile in three years and in art class you were zoned out completely.” Rick batted her hand away when she clapped a whole palm over his forehead.

“I don’t have a fever.”

“You’ve got something .”

“I don’t,” he insisted again. “I’m fine.”

“Well I’m not an idiot,” Yolanda settled on as class started. “But whatever is going on, keep at it. It’s a good look on you.”

~.~

Three reasons why I’d date Beth Chapel

I’d be dating the smartest girl in school

I could share the homemade food she brings for lunch

I’d see one of those perfect smiles & it would be just for me

~.~

Three reasons why Beth Chapel should date me

I’d let her sit shotgun in my car

She could talk to me all day about whatever she��d like and I’ll listen to it all

She can stop wearing fuzzy sweaters to classes without heaters because I’d give her one of my jackets so she’ll stay warm

I actually really like her

“Ah shit,” Rick whispered harshly to himself at the computer monitor in the library. He buried his head in his hands, putting the computer to sleep. It was supposed to be generic. Nice enough that Beth would feel touched but not personalized enough that it could directly trace back to Rick. It was his ‘66 he was thinking about in the first sentence. Her effect on his mood was when she placed her arm on his during an imploring talk in the second. And the way Rick knew exactly which jacket he’d like to see her swallowed in with the pooling cuffs rolled up six times to reach her wrists for the third. And now that it was out in that 12 point font, Rick didn’t even want to delete it.

“Shit. Shit. Shit. I"m a fucking idiot.”

He whacked the side of the iMac too hard to wake up the monitor and printed the thing before he could incriminate himself more by adding extra lines. The heat that crawled up his face was sign enough that this was bad, but he’d felt that same sickly warm feeling drop in his stomach sometime before his brain kicked in to realize what he’d done. He was supposed to be doing a favour for his best friend to not humiliate her unjustly by being her pseudo secret admirer.

Not actually become Beth’s secret admirer.

The next morning, Rick waited until Beth raised her hand for a hall pass during their class before lunch. Their teacher handed over the laminated card for Beth to go to the bathroom. Rick counted five seconds then leaned over and dragged her backpack from the dusty classroom floor to his side.

She started keeping the letters she liked the most in the pocket folder of her agenda. Rick pulled them out, unfolding the papers as he read them over, eyes scanning over what he’d been writing to her, trying to find the moment in which his feelings for her morphed into something more. Rick felt stupid, reading back.

He never wanted to lie to Beth, so he hadn’t.

He couldn’t lie to himself either. This started before meeting Joseph. This started before the letters. Hell, it might’ve even started before the JSA ever stopped Project New America.

A part of Rick wanted Beth all along.

~.~

That evening, Rick locked himself in his bedroom and wrote a long and frankly terribly written letter to get his feelings off his chest. Staying up all night to perfect it, he overslept halfway through the morning. He drove to school late and worried over how to get through the day. His entire schedule was thrown off and he needed to both find a way to get his letter in and survive seeing Beth that afternoon. Bad turned to worse when teachers chased after him to pile on detentions for skipping class after he’d just started to improve his attendance.

If he wanted to make this work he was going to need support. He needed Court.

The only time Rick found Courtney alone was during dodgeball in gym class. They were somehow the only ones left on their team. Courtney used handsprings and cartwheels to avoid the red rubber balls as though her gym mark should be the deciding factor of her Stargirl training success. Rick didn’t take it as seriously, but that’s exactly why he was still winning. He launched the ball to the other side, hitting Cameron Mahkent square in the face.

“Court, get Jenny out, and then we can free the rest.”

“Good plan.”

Rick picked up another that ricocheted off the wall, missing both targets. “Hey, you know Beth’s letters?”

“Yeah?” Courtney hit Jenny, who yelped in her expensive tennis skirt, manicured hands protecting her face even though she got her hip instead.

“They’re me.” Rick caught a ball and everyone came hollering back into the game. Courtney gaped at him, motionless in front of the red line. Rick tried to warn her when another ball came flying, but it bonked the side of her curly hair before Rick could push her out of the way, and then another ball assaulted Rick from the other side, disqualifying them both.

Rick explained it all once they got to the bench. The important parts, at least, without any of the messy stuff. Joe’s razing and the awkward excuses to use the library computer every day.

Courtney grinned so wide. “Shut up!”

Rick regretted telling her immediately. She shook his arm like she wanted to make a protein shake out of it. “Shut up! Stop! Are you kidding me? That’s so sweet!” She slapped her hands to her cheeks. “Oh my god. Oh my god! That’s why you’re smiling so much! You like her!” She gasped. “You love her?!”

“Woah,” said Rick, grabbing her wrist to keep her from bouncing off the gym walls. If he wasn’t careful she’d text Pat this for his advice or something which would be horrifying. “I didn’t say anything like that.”

Courtney rolled her eyes, undeterred. “Okay okay okay but you totally are into her. Like a lot!!! A lot a lot, oh my god, Rick this is such big news! You’re falling for Beth!”

“Oh my god,” Rick muttered to himself, wanting to disappear. “Court, if I say yes will you please be quiet?”

Courtney squealed, dancing in her seat on the bench. “You didn’t deny it!”

“Okay calm down.”

“Why are you telling me? Are you going to confess? Do you need help?”

“I need you to print out her letter for today and get it in her locker. I don’t have the time.”

Court clapped her hands and squealed. “Yes! Deal! Done!”

~.~

“You know what?” Beth layered on an extra woolly sweater over her already thick-fabric shirt. Just by looking at it Rick knew it was expensive and set off some type of fashion pattern-texture dichotomy scheme. Though, what mattered was how warm it made her after shivering all throughout their homeroom period. What mattered was how she clutched at her sleeves now, creating friction to sweep out the cold that seeped into her bones. The way she held herself in front of him and how she’d feel if Rick hugged her like that soft-spun sweater instead. She pulled a sticky note out of her school bag’s front pocket and stuck it to her locker door then stepped away from it, nodding along for Rick to follow her down to their first class. “You’re right.”

“I’m right?” For his credit, Rick was cold too. The school heater conked out over the weekend and the weather was abnormally cold, even for their chilly Spring Nebraska. He shoved a hand in his pocket so he wouldn’t feel the joint pain settling into his bruised knuckles.

“You are.”

“About what?”

Beth half-spun on her heel, facing Rick in the thick of the school crowd. “My heart is in this. I need to know who my secret admirer is.”

The immediate nausea Rick got from that sentence nearly stopped him in his tracks. He couldn’t stop though, it would be suspicious and then Beth would know and then Rick very might well be sick. So he jerkily forced one foot in front of the other and swallowed the lump down his throat. “You...do?”

“We always find my letter after our fourth-period class right before lunch. So they have to be sending it out before then, right? If we both subsequently skip our third-period classes respectfully--”

“How does one skip class ‘respectfully?’” Rick used air quotes around the last word.

Beth elbowed his side lightly. “When a straight-A student like myself has love on the line!”

“ I’m not a straight-A.”

“Yeah, but you’ll be with me so I’ve got you covered.” She linked her arm in his. “It’s a buddy system. I posted a sticky note on my locker for my secret admirer to visit this morning!”

Oh no. Which meant Courtney was going to find it soon and pressure him to tell Beth too. God, no.

“And you need me there...why?”

Beth furrowed her brows, fidgeting with her rainbow necklace. “I haven’t completely ignored what you said to me this whole time. I don’t know who it really is. What if I put myself out there and they show up only to hurt me?”

“Beth, they won’t.”

“But what if you were right and it was the ISA, and they were waiting for me to lure them into a trap to kidnap me because they discovered I’m Dr. Mid-Nite without Chuck?”

“Where was this support when I suggested this as an actual possibility four weeks ago and you all ignored it and called me an asshole?” He was teasing her, honestly, but it was wild to Rick he was finally hearing her address some of his previous legitimate concerns. What good was she doing bringing this up now if she already made up her mind?

“We didn’t!”

“Yolanda did!”

“Yolanda doesn’t use that word.”

“She doesn’t need to say it! You’ve seen her glare, right? Yolanda could glare at you and brand you “ asshole ” just with her eyeballs.”

“You are ridiculous.” Beth huffed out an indignant breath. “And I wasn’t ignoring it completely.” She tugged on his sleeve. “So you should come.”

“I swear you’re going to be fine by yourself. It’s just some person here that likes you. It’s not a criminal. No need to suit up.”

“I want you there.”

He wavered at her pleading face, her big eyes hopeful sucking him into dangerous territory. “Fine,” he relented, dooming himself. “I’ll come.”

~.~

Courtney did not know how the printer at the library worked because she never used the computers at the library because she never came to the school library. Like. Since she moved here. She banged her hand against the table when she got prompted for her Blue Valley High School student account password to access her printing credits. Was she supposed to pay for that? She didn’t know. She promised Rick to get his letter delivered and he was counting on her so there wasn’t any time for messing this up.

“It’s just your initials and the last 3 numbers of your student ID card number.”

A thousand butterflies let loose in her stomach at the tell-tale sound of her crush’s deep voice.

“Cameron!” she greeted with a nervous laugh. “Hi! What are you doing here?”

“It’s the library.”

“Right!” She smacked her head. “Dumb me, of course. You must be studying.”

“Actually, I have an oral presentation after lunch and need to reprint my speaking notes. I spilled paint on my cue cards this morning. What are you working on?”

“Oh!” Courtney laughed it off. “It’s not important. Thanks for the login info!”

“No problem. Maybe we can see each other later after my grief counseling?”

Courtney nearly knocked the magic mouse off the surface of the table. “I’d love that!”

“Awesome, I’ll text you?”

“Great!” She waved as he turned around and sat down at the next computer. Courtney pulled up the tab she had with the word document of Rick’s letter to Beth and fawned over it, imagining herself in Beth’s shoes with Cameron. She printed it out and ambled over to the printing center while it was still warm. According to the school clock, which was probably ten minutes fast if it were anything like the other clocks in her classrooms, she had twenty minutes to find Beth’s locker and get it in securely without being seen. Courtney packed her bag and folded the sheet in three like Beth had been getting since the beginning of March, sticking it between her teeth as she got that bag over her shoulders.

“Court.”

She twirled around at the tap on her shoulder, not expecting to find Cameron waiting for her with a grim look on his face. “Huh?” She removed the paper and crinkled her eyes at him. “Hey!”

“Hi,” Cameron said, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I think my essay got mixed up with your uh….letter…”

“What?” Courtney checked Rick’s letter in her hand. “No! This is um, uh it’s ‘ The Republic of Marino is a small country in the region of--’ oooooooh crap.”

Courtney snatched it from him, giving herself a papercut in the process as she swapped sheets, mind racing when she put two and two together. Oh no. Oh no oh no. The blood drained from her face.

“That’s not mine!” she yelped.

The librarian barked at them both from across the room as Cameron blinked at her with a complicated expression.

“I mean!” Courtney added in more quietly but equally harried, hissing at the stinging from her thumb. She sucked at the blood that trickled down her palm. “I printed it obviously! Because we were here and I was at the printer and you were at the printer and I wrote it!” She was going to get blood on Beth’s love letter and make her think that she’s being stalked by an ax murderer or The Gambler’s personal hitman. “These words aren’t from me ,” she stressed. “I didn’t say these things!”

Dang it, this was bad. He wasn’t going to draw her flowers anymore or cute stars passed in notes during their shared homeroom. She continued to ramble when Cameron didn’t say anything. “Actually!” She wiped her palm on her jeans and returned it. “It’s for you!”

Cameron maintained cool and collected when he pointed at the opening address, becoming amused. “It says ‘ Dear Beth ’”

“Does it!? Typo!”

“Look, I don’t blame you for developing a crush on a close friend. It happens, you don’t have to explain it to me.”

“But!”

Cameron backed away. “I’m gonna go.”

~.~

Rick let Beth drag him out of class so they could meet up with her secret admirer in the empty hallway at her locker knowing this wasn’t going to end well.

Beth tapped at the yellow sticky note on her locker that had the details of her rendezvous.

“What happens if he doesn’t show up?” Rick crossed his arms awkwardly when Beth turned around to look at him. “If they don’t show up.”

He should’ve noticed the second that he saw Beth that this had been her plan since she got out of bed. She was wearing a dress and tights that perfectly so matched her colour, it took a second glance to confirm it adhered to the no dress on skin school dress code.

Her hair had clips in them too, a moon clip that parted the left side of her afro in a way that let it drop slightly over her face like her mom’s weave. It was beautiful and she looked beautiful and Rick got stuck in those thoughts all over again when she slid down the lockers to wait, drawing up her knees.

“They will.” She patted on the dusty ground for him to sit.

“You’re not going to check your locker first?”

“You want me to?”

“Do you want to?” Rick countered.

Beth scrunched up her face at him. “I asked first.”

His face warmed and he finally sat down across from her. “Usually you rush to it, that's all.”

She stretched out her legs, pulling at the hem of her dress. “It’s not going to matter what was written in whatever they put in my locker when I get to see who they are. Meeting them in person will be more exciting.”

Bold words to say to her secret admirer, sitting right in front of her. Rick sighed and stretched out too. He drew up one leg, the other bent at the knee. “What if they’re really ugly?”

Beth rolled her eyes.

“Just asking. You can like someone’s sentiments but not their face.”

“I’m going to like their face,” she reassured him. “Even if I’ll have to learn to.”

“Okay,” Rick drawled. He was hoping if he extended the talk long enough, Beth would grow bored and give up. Just because the secret admirer won’t show up today doesn’t mean that they did so with ill-intent. Rick tried to remind Beth of this as they sat around alone. The secret admirer could’ve got swept up in a test in class or had an early dismissal. Beth wouldn’t know the difference. Rick wasn’t hurting her by playing along.

When an hour passed and Rick saw how determined she was to stick this through, the internal panic ramped up.

Of course, the thought came to him that he should come clean. It’s just that. That meant Rick would have to come clean . He hated that Courtney was right to laugh at him over this. It freaked him out to just blurt out the truth. It would take Beth by surprise. Rick hadn’t planned yet how he was going to wind the secret admirer thing down to prepare her about it all. He thought she’d get to read his letter today to gauge how she’d feel.

He stared up at the ceiling thinking through five hundred strategy plans to get out of this mess while untangling the secret as Beth played a game on her phone.

“Soooo,” Beth said some while later. “Are we going to be waiting another hour or…”

Rick jerked up, saucer-eyed and mouth agape. His brain short-circuited.

“Because we can take all the time you need, Rick.”

“You knew?” He banged his head against the metal behind him. She didn’t need a supercomputer to figure out Rick liked her before Rick figured out he liked her, did she? “Of course you knew,” he muttered to himself. The shock wore off as the embarrassment settled in, his face flushing as bright confirmation. A massive shot of adrenaline flooded through him, similar to the rush of his hourglass.

“I pieced it together a few days ago,” she admitted. “I don’t think you realize how much lighter you are now.” Beth picked herself up and crossed the hall to sit by his side. Her hand went to his right knee and she leaned forward. “Rick, it’s okay. It’s okay to like me.”

The words clogged up in Rick’s throat as she spoke softly, overwhelmed. He wanted to explain everything but it was complicated and delicate and if she’d only read his freakin letter trapped in that locker maybe he’d have a chance to get her to understand-

“Oh my god, you’re really nervous.” She lifted her hand up to give him room. “Rick, it’s just me. I like you too, I’m just a bit confused about how this all makes sense.”

“I didn’t know,” he managed out, stilted. “I really didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

“I’m not your real secret admirer.” Rick corrected himself. “I wasn’t your first.”

“Okay…”

“There were those weird letters at first. The random ones. And I didn’t understand why they got under my skin so much. But they did. So I found the guy who was making them and I-"

"Really," Beth deadpanned.

"I know, I know." Rick scowled. "I found out it was that they were being forced to.”

Sourness etched over her mouth as it pulled her lips thin together. “Oh.”

“And I wanted it to quit but by then it was involving the bullying of that other guy, not just you.” Rick sighed. “So I took over to help.”

“Rick.”

“I just didn’t want you to get crushed!” he told her, going into more detail about Joseph and the football team. “I was going to explain when it was all over what happened, and you were going to laugh it off and thank me and then I would’ve shrugged that off because it was whatever. It was the right thing to do.”

“But?”

Rick rolled his eyes at himself. “But I liked what I was doing too much for it to be normal.” He raised his head to give her a crooked smile. “I like you. ”

“You are so ridiculous,” she giggled out. She stood up and leisurely made her way to the locker. “So you have this important letter in here for me that you want me to read?” She toyed with her combination lock. “What’s in it?”

“Uh. A mess?”

“I’ll keep it for later then,” she decided and grabbed his hand. He stood up and followed her, hyper-aware of the way she led him away with her hand in his. “Come on, we have something we need to do.”

She brought him to the school library, which Rick did not understand. She sat him down at a macbook and darted in to kiss his cheek. Rick stuttered, lightheaded as she booted up his computer.

“Uh- What exactly are we doing?”

“Writing.” She tapped on his keyboard and moved his still hands over them with an exciting squeeze. “There are four more days left in the month and I don’t know about you but I’d really rather spend our free periods and after school with you on a date.”

"That is...a really good idea."

She glanced up from their screen to find Cameron watching them oddly.

Beth awkwardly waved.

“Why is he looking at us like that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care.” Rick put his arm around her, ignoring everyone else. He leaned forward to steal her move, gently kissing away her curiosity.

Beth grinned and leaned her head against his shoulder as he typed lines and lines of compliments. “Then I don’t care either.”

#beth chapel #rick tyler #hournite #rick x beth #hournite week 21 #hournite week 2021 #secret admirer au #hournites fic

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miss-choco-chips · 4 years

Note

Umm... I was wondering if you could Maybe do a follow up on your mini fic Last Line from dicks pov? It gave me alot of feelings and i would love to see the fallout?

Your work is really good! Its so cool how your brave enough to put pieces of yourself out there for other people!

Hey babe! Thank you for your kind words! It made me smile getting this, you are very sweet <3

I totally forgot about Last Line lol, but when I saw it reminded me that I actually wrote a bit more of it, both before and after the scene I posted. So, this isn’t exactly what you asked, but here’s some backstory and then the fallout!

---.---

Four years old, and he watches the red string on his finger pulled taunt towards the crying boy, the color of the thread well disguised among the red blood of the murdered acrobats.

Nine, and he watches from the shadows as it swings right and left, following Robin’s pirouettes from building to building. The thread, that usually goes a few feet before ‘vanishing’ from sight, was almost completely visible now, at such a short distance from the person holding onto its other end.

He’s on his twelve when he tries to explain to Dick the importance of him going back home. He wasn’t sure of his success, even though the older hero took him to the manor, because during his whole speech, Nightwing hadn’t looked up from the red joining them together. It wasn’t exactly how Tim wanted him to find out, but… Batman needed a Robin, and he was out of options.

At fourteen, he feels Kon’s hand clenching on his shoulder, as they both watch from the side how Nightwing swept Barbara off her feet and twisted her around, laughter falling from both their lips even as Dick thread’s end was pointing towards Tim. The third Robin didn’t turn to look at his best friend, didn’t meet Bart’s eyes or react to Cassie taking his hand on hers. He just made sure his face was perfectly devoid of any emotion when he muttered, low enough only a kryptonian would hear, ‘I wish it was any of you’.

(A few nights later, when he and Conner were sitting quietly on the Tower’s roof, the clone took Tim’s hand with his own, his lack of red string blatantly obvious as he said ‘If I had any, I wish it could be you’. To this day, it’s the sweetest thing anyone ever said to him)

He is so, so tired, and he’s only sixteen. But keeping up with the shitfest that was the Battle for the Cowl, helping Dick while ignoring his red string (pulling him towards Nightwing, now Batman, stark contrast against the dark of his suit, with distracting insistency), dealing with Damian’s abuse as expected of him as the ‘mature, older brother’, coping with Bruce’s death, the shock of Dick throwing him, his soulmate, away so so easily…

(Shouldn't be surprising; Dick had been discarding him in favor of others since they met, shamelessly displaying his various relationships in front of him with an attitude that might be called cruel from anyone else but that just earned him playful shoves from other Leaguers while Tim was expected to swallow his pain, because a red string isn’t a promise, Dick is free… and yes, he knows that, but it doesn’t mean shit to his dying heart)

(Maybe, when he left for proof of Bruce being alive, it wasn’t so much for his old mentor than it was for himself)

----.----

Tim is seventeen and halfway across the world, looking at the string attached to his hand that never truly meant anything to any other than him (not to Bruce, who never took Dick aside and talked to him about consideration with his soul mate; not Dick's conquers, who never gave a fuck about the red string in the hands that touched their skin, even when a lot of them knew who was on the other end of it; not Dick himself, who after asking every thing out of Tim and having it, forcefully took the one thing Tim wouldn't give by choice and claimed Tim was his equal, his soulmate, so he never could be his sidekick... even if it was the first time ever that Dick even mentioned the string tying them both together), when he thinks 'you were always free; now, I'm freeing myself’.

He gingerly bites on the string, and with his other hand takes a handful of it and pulls.

The pain piercing his heart is expected, but not new. He had been feeling it since the first time he saw Dick's back as he walked away with someone else.

He times it carefully, too. He doesn't think Dick would care, but just in case, Tim waits until it's morning in Gotham, when he's sure Dick is probably sleeping after patrol.

Maybe he would wake up without noticing

---.---

In Gotham, Dick is carried by Alfred and Damian to the cave, when the new Batman's screams of pain woke everyone in the Manor up. They are suspecting cardiac arrest, and then Dick looks down to his hand and notices the string, always tense, signaling him where his north is, where Tim is, laying loose and lifeless.

He panics, asks Superman to track Tim down or something, and when the man confirms Tim is still alive somewhere in the Middle East, he knows.

And like a freight train, the parting words Kori told him the last time they saw each other hit him right in the chest.

"He isn't going to wait for you forever"

----.-----

When Tim does come back, at nineteen, it’s a quiet thing.

He spent the last how many days carefully setting his systems up, making sure his mainframe would outstand Oracle’s scrutiny when she realized he was back in town and tried to hack her way into his life.

(He didn’t blame her, of course not. Dick was charming enough, good enough, anyone he set his eyes into would be helpless to nothing but fall in his arms.

And, wasn’t Tim the one who would have been intruding, had he tried to chase after the first Robin? Everyone knew he and the original Batgirl were a perfect match, thousands of times better than Tim, whom Fate just wanted to screw over.

But not anymore)

The first thing he did, once the safe houses were chosen and his programs up and running, was to ruthlessly hack into the Batcomputer and take a look at patrol routes.

He would need to keep clear of Diamond District and Old Gotham, least he risked crossing paths with B and R. The Financial and City Hall Districts were apparently Batgirl’s playground for the night, and if he wanted to drop by and let Cass know he was back, he could always search for her by the Upper West Side down to Chinatown.

He would avoid the Upper East Side like the plague, though. Maybe Coventry too, just to be safe. Lots of skintight blue in that direction.

Which left… Crime Alley, the Bowery and Burnley, mainly. He needn't check to know who’s house that was.

And that’s how he ended, on his very first night back on the streets, dragging Red Hood’s bleeding ass away from a blowing up building.

-----.-----

Apparently, saving a recently rehabilitated murderous vigilante was a bonding experience, because Jason didn’t kick him out of his side of town, nor tell on him.

He couldn't, however, do anything to prevent the criminal gossip mile from spreading, and before a week had passed, half the city was aware of the new player on the board.

-----.------

Jason was taking a breather, smoking while sitting on his favorite rooftop, when the rustling sound of fabric told him his peace and quiet was over.

“I thought you were back at being N”, he greeted, not bothering to turn around or get up.

“B was out of town, and Robin needed someone to watch over him during patrol.”

A quick glance around had Hood snorting, “Then y’re doing a shitty job. Don’t see the midget anywhere.”

It would never NOT be weird to hear a strangled laugh coming out of the Bat suit, as tight and humorless as it was now. It seemed big ol Dick wasn’t doing so great tonight.

“Batgirl took him to a party in Diamond District. Gang war.”

He humms in response, not bothering to keep on the smalltalk. N, no, B was here for something, and it wasn’t Jason’s job to ask it out of him; if it was important, he would do it himself.

“Where is him, Hood?”, he finally went to the heart of the matter.

Jason tilted his head, still looking over his city, unmindful of the steps coming closer to his position, “Robin? Ya just said it, B. Going senile? Gang war, wasn’t it?”

“Don’t play around. You know I mean…”

Oh, yeah, Dickie still wasn’t sure what to call Timbo. Criminal gossip only went so far, for someone who didn’t bother to shout his hero name to everyone he beat up. It was very possible only Jason was aware of his new monicker. All gothamites knew was a young vigilante showed up recently, wearing red and black and hanging out with the Hood, which immediately upped his street rep to ‘not to be fucked with’.

“Lil red?”, he completed for his older brother, feeling both charitable and petty. Batman’s wince was more evident by the rustling sound of his cape; he had hit a sore spot, hadn’t he?

“Where? I’m not asking again.”

“Good, ‘cause I’m not answering. Must be ‘roundere somewhere, the little creep.”

“Hood, I’m running out of patience.”

“And I’m out of cigarettes, your point? I don’t have him on a leash asshole. We just share the same hunting space, it’s not like we go home together and do face masks while we talk about feelings.”

They did go to a safespot, though, and share beer and pizza while cursing their relatives and Fate as a whole, but it wasn’t necessary information for the fucker. He just breathed in the last of his smoke before dropping the cigarette butt and stepping on it, stretching as he did.

“Now, any more of this riveting conversation, or can I go? No, wait, it was a rhetorical question; get out of my part of town, ass. I’ve been plenty generous by letting you come this far, but our truce lasts as long as the lot of you don’t build any sandcastles on my playground and you know it. Now, scram.”

He could feel Dick’s reticence at leaving without what he came here for, but Oracle must be talking him into letting it be for tonight, because he didn't push. Jason turned just in the right moment to catch the way Dick looked down to his gloved hand, as if expecting the lifeless red string to be pulled taunt in Tim’s direction by some miracle. Jason felt the smallest ping of pity, quickly washed away by the memory of the younger hero’s haunted eyes as he told Jason the story of his severed soul bond and how he came to do it.

Thirty seconds after the bat vanished into the night, a little red bird landed softly on the spot next to him.

“Thanks, Hood”, he muttered, just as tired and hurting as he’d been ever since he saved Jason’s ass and they became partners, but with the smallest hint of lightness that made him prouder of driving Dick away than he’d ever been.

“Don’t mention it, but fair warning, the big B scomin back home in a few days, and he’s harder to kick out than a hurting, annoying bluebird.”

“I know”, Tim sighed, well aware of both facts. “I’ll play it by ear. For tonight, what about bashing some skulls and ruining Two Face’s new op? Good intel says it’s just a few blocks from here, and shattering bones always makes you smile.”

“Babybird, you speak the language of love.”

“Wasn’t that french?”

“I’m trying to compliment you, don’t be a smart ass about it.”

“I am smart, and I do have a good ass. That seems like an impossible request.”

----.----

#ask #last line #dicktim #but not #soulmate au #red string au #angst #tim drake #dick grayson #jason todd #red robin #nightwing #red hood #jason is a good bro #dick sucks as a soulmate #bruce is gonna be confused as fuck when he comes back #my writting #my writing

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baticorngirl · 3 years

Text

Title: “Dad, you’re embarrassing me!’

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Relationship(s): Talia Al Ghul/Bruce Wayne (Brutalia), Talia Al Ghul & Ra’s Al Ghul, Bruce Wayne & Ra’s Al Ghul, Dusan Al Ghul & Ra’s Al Ghul, Nyssa Raatko & Ra’s Al Ghul, Talia Al Ghul & Dusan Al Ghul,

Characters: Talia Al Ghul, Bruce Wayne, Ra’s Al Ghul, Nyssa Raatko, Dusan Al Ghul,

Summary: Bruce Wayne, an average (other than his parent's death) billionaire, was nervous. Very, very, nervous. It was a simple task, really, but meeting his girlfriend's family seemed rather intimidating at the moment. She has mentioned her father being strict or whatnot many times, and it had gotten many worries to arrive in his mind.

Unfortunately, Bruce had every right to be worried.

A/N: I don't own the characters, DC does.

This fic was originally made (or at least started) for @brutalia-week Day 4: Family. Since I wasn't able to finished it in time, I tried to make it a "day 8" kind of thing.... although I'm a teeny bit late for that, too, lol. It was originally just supposed to be a short humor fanfic, but... let's just say it got out of hand. Fair warning that some of the characters may be a teeny bit OOC (nothing too bad, though) because of humor or just plot-convenience.

For context, this takes place in an alternate universe where Bruce doesn't become Batman, but that's the only big difference. Anyway, enjoy!

Related Links: Read it on FF.Net (x), Read it on Ao3(x),

Day 1(x), Day 2(x), Day 3(x), Day 5(x), Day 6(x), Day 7(x),

______________________________________________________

Bruce was uncomfortable. His tie felt itchy, and hot, like a fever that somehow didn't spread to his forehead. In fact, his whole body felt hot, and the tiniest bit shaky. Bruce's stomach twisted up in a knot, making his face turn visibly red with discomfort. His breathing was a bit quicker and shorter than normal. He was nervous. Very, very, nervous. But considering the situation, he had every right to be.

Talia and him had been dating for quite a while now. Over 6 months, actually. They met up when they could, and every time they went on a date, they started enjoying each other's company more, and more, and more. Talia often had things she needed to do, though, and they would often come up out of what seemed to be nowhere. She'd always say she just had an assignment from work of some kind, but it often occurred to Bruce that she never mentioned what she did as a profession.

Perhaps, today would be the day he found out. Now that their relationship was feeling more serious, Talia had finally decided she would introduce her boyfriend to her parents, and the rest of her family. It had taken some convincing for her to do it, but her father had been adamant that meeting and evaluating any of her potential husbands was necessary.

"What if they're not worthy?" He had insisted, pacing back and forth in urgency. "What if they plan to spy on you, or hurt you, or are simply a failure? Besides, my Dear Daughter, what's the issue with him meeting us? Please, tell me you're not seriously acting embarrassed of your own family at this age." Ra's stopped to look at her, a disappointed look on his face.

"I-" Talia hadn't wanted to upset him, or even worse, make her view her as immature. She sighed, "Fine, but please…. try to stay calm with him. Be understanding if he's not quite up to your qualifications of worthy, and…. Just try not to kill him, okay? You can be very overwhelming, and although he's a very nice man, he's not used to murderers." She had tried to put it lightly, but truthfully, she wanted to yell the list of commands in his face. It was ridiculous -absolute ludicrous- that she had to tell him such simple things.

"Of course, Daughter. Whatever makes you most comfortable." Ra's smiled at her, and leaned in to kiss the top of her head affectionately. Yet again, she was reminded by why she had spared his feelings, but quickly forgot it as he spoke again. "But you can't truly expect me to hide my whole personality, can you? I'll try to make sure there's minimal stabbing at the family dinner that night, but you can only expect so much of me."

Talia had stared at him, with her eyes squinted with concern, but she pushed a smile on her face regardless. "J- Just do your best, Father. Thank you." The minute she had gotten out of the room, though, her smile immediately dropped. She let out a huge, tired, sigh. She loved her family, but sometimes she just wished they could hold their murderous instincts in for a moment.

Now, as her and Bruce inched towards the door, Talia felt that wish more than she ever had before. Even if Bruce was nervous, thinking of the times Talia had mentioned her Father being strict, controlling, and painfully traditional, he was nothing compared to Talia. She flinched every few moments. Her every instinct told her to lead Bruce away, to come up with an excuse, but it was too late now. She gulped. Maybe, if she had the best luck in the world, her father would only talk about his Endangered-Species-Saving Programs, and not his Murder-Most-Humans program.

But when Bruce looked down at her, he felt a sense of excitement. He surely hadn't heard the best things from Talia about her family, but if they have raised someone as wonderful as Talia, he was sure they couldn't be too bad. He knew they may not have the most similarities, but wasn't caring about Talia the most important similarity of all?

Despite his slight optimism, inside the Al Ghul house, not everyone was on their best behavior. Screams echoed through the dining room as everyone got settled down. Nyssa and Ra's, specifically, were the ones having the heated argument. Heated arguments were not uncommon for them, so much that no one had any clue why she was even invited to the family dinners. She didn't even consider herself part of that family, but Ra's was convinced that it was such a special moment, no one could miss it. His little girl has her first boyfriend! Inevitably, he lived to regret this decision.

"You're a dirty excuse for a father, Ra's! You left me to fend for myself when I needed you most!" Nyssa yelled, standing up from her chair. Her breath was heavy with rage. "You should be ashamed of yourself!" She quickly picked up her fork, throwing it as hard as she could in Ra's' face.

"No, you should be ashamed of yourself! You're the one that betrayed me, before I had done a thing to you!" Ra's screamed back, throwing the fork aside. Fortunately for Ra's, the fork hadn't done any damage. He quickly pulled himself out of his seat to balance the dominance in their positions. "Everything that happened was your own fault, so stop pushing the blame on to me just because I blatantly decided you weren't worth saving from torture!" Unaware of how bad that sounded, he picked up the fork again and threw it back at her.

They continued throwing things at each other, screaming endlessly. The danger of the things thrown escalated as they went. At first it was simply things like forks and spoons, things that wouldn't do too much damage. But it started getting worse, and worse…..

Outside, at least Bruce was getting some kind of a warning. Talia stopped him just before he opened the door, turning him to face her. She stared at him, a glint of dead seriousness in her eyes.

"Beloved, you are not ready to meet my family. You never will be. They're a lot to deal with." She warned. Talia's hands gripped his shoulders even harder than a villain does when threatening a hero. "Every single one of my family members is weird. Very, very weird. A bit absurd, even. Albeit a nice guy, you're also only a simple billionaire, so it's definitely going to get on your nerves. They even get on my nerves, they-"

Bruce gently tugged her arms off of her, "Talia, I can handle it. I'm not a judgemental guy, I swear. It's fine if they're a little weird." His face rested in a blank, -but more importantly, not a horrified or angry- expression. "Come on, let's go inside. They're probably waiting for us." He pointed towards the door, beginning to open it. Talia, still frazzled, immediately swung her arms over to stop him from opening it.

"Please, Beloved, you don't understand! It's not a difference in culture, tastes, or even opinions! I swear on my life… they're crazy." She stared into his eyes. Her pupils were huge, and her hands were shaky as she held him back. "I don't care if you don't believe me, but just… promise you won't blame me for them?" Talia looked down desperately. Her words slowed for a moment.

"Of course," Bruce nodded, but before she could even communicate her gratitude, he abruptly swung the door open. "I've told you a million times, though, I'm sure I won't even be blaming them! You're worr-" The second he took his eyes off of Talia, and on to the room in front of them, his mouth dropped. Every word he said about it being fine was regretted almost immediately. It was so very, very, not fine.

Bruce had looked just quick enough to see Nyssa cross a final line with the throwing… a full, sharp, assassin knife. It shot directly into, and right through, Ra's' guts. Blood dripped down his stomach area and onto his shirt and cape. Ra's looked down at the injury for a moment, before quickly realizing that Talia and her boyfriend had officially arrived.

"Look what you've done now, Nyssa!" Ra's scolded, pointing to Bruce angrily. "Our guest has arrived, and you've done this right in front of him! Look at him, so startled at your audacity to stab me that he can't seem to speak…. Congratulations, you've embarrassed the whole family!" Bruce couldn't seem to listen to Ra's, with his eyes stuck on his stomach. Blood kept spilling out of it, yet Ra's hardly seemed to mind.

"...Are you okay?" Bruce took a slow, hesitant step towards the dinner table. His eyes were as wide as he thought they could go. "Shouldn't someone call an ambulance? You're bleeding out!" With the pure shock of it all starting to fade, he whipped out his phone and started navigating to the dialer.

Now dripping even more blood on the ground, Ra's pranced over to the front door to greet Bruce. "No, no, no! Don't mind my other daughter's ill manors. She's never well-behaved anymore, I'm afraid. But you're the guest, you shouldn't worry about this. Just sit down and relax." He led Bruce over to his seat, nudging him to sit down onto it. Ra's turned his stomach away from the chair to be sure he didn't get any little drops of blood on it. As he made his way back to his own seat, he gestured towards his stab wound. "If you'll excuse me, I'm going to have to get changed and cleaned up. I'm afraid this stab wound has created quite a mess."

Still recovering from the shock of the stabbing, Bruce attempted to reason with him, "But don't you need to get medica-" Before he could even finish his sentence, though, Ra's was already out of the room and down the hallway. As hard as Ra's had tried to keep the floor from too much damage, there were still drips of blood every few feet. Bruce considered following them to make sure he was okay, but quickly realized that with all the servants here, at least one person would help.

Talia sat down next to him, surprisingly unstartled by her own father's stabbing, "Try not to worry too much about it, Beloved. This happens a lot -sometimes even ending in the opposite- and as you can see, it has never resulted in his -or even Nyssa's- death. Oh, and don't worry for your own life, the stabbing is very personal. I doubt Nyssa thinks you have enough of a connection with him to be worth hurting." She explained matter-of-factly. Her hand gently reached over to pat his hand, in an attempt to sooth him.

"Okay… I just, I don't want you to lose him. I don't want you to feel the same pain of losing your parents as I did…" His voice quivered at the thought of his own parent's tragic murder. Talia nodded, understanding his pain, but in no way attempting to agree with him.

"As I've said before, don't worry. I'm afraid my mother already died when I was a child, and her death frightened me, but him? No, no, no, he's quite the survivor. He's survived so many ridiculous situations, in fact, I believe he's practically immortal!" She exclaimed the strong statement, seeming a bit excited, but not quite cheerful. Seeing the statement as a casual joke, Bruce laughed nervously. Talia did not laugh with him, though. To his discomfort, she stared at him, just as dead-serious as she was with her original warning.

The sound of her father's pattering footsteps knocked them both out of their odd conversation. Ra's entered the room, his blood now nowhere in sight. Despite how formal the arrangement was supposed to be, he was shirtless. A new shirt, looking very similar to the one he was wearing when Bruce arrived, was tucked under his arm.

As Ra's started pulling the shirt on, Bruce noticed something. The place where the stab wound had been just a moment ago was perfectly visible, with no clothes covering it, and yet it just… wasn't there anymore. Certainly no blood, but not even any bandages, or any kind of scar! The only thing in the victim's gut area was skin. Pure, undamaged, skin. Talia's family was starting to seriously freak Bruce out.

Once Ra's had gotten his upper-half dressed, he promptly began making his more formal greeting to Bruce, "I'm afraid, with all that chaos, I never got the chance to introduce myself! I'm Ra's Al Ghul, Talia's father. You can call me Ra's…. At least as long as I haven't found you unworthy of casual nicknames." He narrowed his eyes, scaring away any joy in Bruce for the moment. "...And you are…? I'm afraid I don't think Talia's mentioned your name."

"I'm Bruce… um, Bruce Wayne." Bruce stuttered, trying to shake away the strong sense of uncomfort Ra's was starting to give him. Ra's smiled politely, and shook his hand.

"Welcome to our home, Bruce… Or Mr. Wayne, whatever you prefer to be called." He gestured to the grand mansion they were having dinner in. Having had enough of leaning over to be eye-to-eye with Bruce, he slumped back down onto his chair. His grand, collared, cape got thrown back in the process.

"..Bruce is fine," Bruce answered, still a bit nervous. Ra's nodded at him. Surrounded by a thick layer of eyeliner, his eyes seemed to stare into Bruce's soul. Bruce hated to judge someone for their clothing style, but the way Ra's dressed was certainly off for a meet-the-family type dinner. In fact, with the gold button on his cloak looking eerily like a demon's face, he was practically dressed like a supervillain.

Everyone began eating the food in peace. Nyssa did not try to stab anyone during that time, and neither did Ra's. It was pure silence at the dinner table, with everyone focusing purely on their plates instead of making conversation. Eventually, Ra's finally brought his head up from it and started speaking to Bruce.

"So… You want to marry my daughter?" Ra's asked, looking at Bruce sternly. His eyes carefully moved up and down, evaluating every single part of Bruce to see how worthy it was. He squinted at Bruce's jacket, his shoes, his expression… everything. As much as Bruce tried to seem calm and collected for Ra's, both the sudden assumption of marriage and the intense staring were only making him feel subconscious.

Fortunately, Talia immediately cleared it up, "We haven't even spoken about marriage yet, Father! Please, you're going to overwhelm him. Didn't I already tell you not to do this?" She pleaded. Talia gulped, just as she had been doing consecutively for this entire dinner. Watching her father act this way always felt a bit off, but having her boyfriend there just made it so much worse. She could easily feel what Bruce was feeling, -or at least what she thought he was- and she knew it was far from positive. Talia looked back down at her plate, hiding her face as it turned bright red. She didn't think she'd ever felt quite this embarrassed in her entire life.

"I apologize, but you do realize, Talia, that if you ever want your relationship to go anywhere you must marry him at some point. How long have you two been dating, again?" Ra's looked back at Bruce, waiting for him to finally speak for himself.

Bruce took a deep breath, "Somewhere around 6 months? Or possibly 7, it's hard to get it exact." Ra's raised an eyebrow at the number.

"You two… have not even been thinking about marriage yet? Let me tell you, every single one of my marriages has always started with a month -at most- of prior dating, and I have had at least one perfectly good marriage. You all remember Sora, may she rest in peace, and we had the happiest of marriages. Yet, we married out of convenience! We hardly knew each other! Sometimes, you young ones must just let-" Ra's rambled, only to be cut off by Talia sighing. The gush of air was so loud and obviously exasperated that it completely cut off his story. After a second or two of silence, he continued despite it, "As I was saying, sometimes you young ones need to understand that dating isn't going to secure a marriage. A good attitude will! Both Sora and I had a good attitude, and she managed to be the light of my life. But of course, that only lasted so-"

This time, Talia simply used her words to stop him, "-So long because she got strangled to death in front of your eyes. We all know, Father, and frankly I don't think Bruce needs to know your life story. Why can't we just talk about something a bit more.. Conventional? We already talk about murder and death so much, can't we just lighten up a bit?" She begged, biting her lip uncomfortably. Her eyes looked at Ra's softly, almost as if she was attempting to do puppy eyes.

"Fine, fine, I really should get to the point, anyhow. We must tell if he is worthy enough to even date you! Only the finest in the lands are worthy of you, my darling, and so far I doubt he's up to that standard." Ra's scoffed, and Bruce couldn't help but roll his eyes in return. Talia looked down again, rubbing her temples. She was just about ready to fall asleep on her father's nonsense. "Hmmm…." Not paying any attention to his daughter's misery, he stared into Bruce's eyes for what must have been the fifth time.

"He's…. Very….. Wealthy…." Talia stated. Each word was separated by a ton of sighs, groans, and deep breaths of frustration. Even as she spoke to her father, she kept her eyes locked down on her plate, in a painful stare. Ra's rested his chin on his hand as he considered her words. He looked side to side, while tilting his head every which way in correspondence.

"Well… I suppose a bit of extra money surely isn't hurting his worthiness." Ra's titled his head one last time, glancing up at Bruce from a different angle. Slowly, he adjusted his head back to normal. His arms were lightly touching down on the table, propping up his hands to wrap their fingers in between the other one. Ra's leaned forward, with his face now less than a foot in front of his hands. "But… you can already get as much of that as you'd ever possibly need from me. Worthiness, you see, is about much more than that. It's about the intelligence. The skill. The strength. The willpower…. The grace." His index fingers, now pointing up from the rest of his hands, tapped against each other. Each tap was methodical, rhythmic… like the ticking of a clock, clacking each second away.

Bruce felt a cold, thick, drop of sweat roll down his forehead, "I… I once took an IQ test. Mine is… higher than normal. Quite a bit higher, I believe." He picked up his napkin and quickly wiped the sweat off, attempting to push a smile onto his face. Or, just some sign of confidence, at the very least. Unfortunately, he was just a billionaire -and not a very emotionally-mature billionaire at that- so it wasn't exactly helping his case.

"Good. That's very good…." Ra's nodded approvingly. His index fingers tapped together again each time his head bopped up and down. Finally looking up from her plate, Talia started to smile, a glint of hope in her eyes. "But if you really have such an impressive intelligence quotient, you better start acting like it. Hit it where it really counts, not just some meaningless quiz. If you want to receive my daughter's hand in marriage, you will prove yourself worthy of such a thing in real life." His head's nodding quickly came to a stop.

Talia sighed again, but didn't even try to bother stopping it. Her mind was much more focused on the worse tests she reckoned would come after… the ones her beloved, as wonderful and skilled as he was, was still bound to fail. She glanced up at Bruce, noticing how wet his forehead looked. Her warnings had not done a thing, as even now, he was acting as if this was a big problem in comparison to the other thing her father most valued.

As she silently brooded, Ra's began to start his opportunity for Bruce to prove his intelligence, "Bring. It. In!" His voice boomed through the room as he looked at his assassins servants expectantly. To his dismay, they all simply stared at him, waiting for some more clarification. Their eyes blinked unknowingly. Ra's cringed at his servant's lack of understanding. "I said, bring. It. In!" Yet again, he got nothing brought in at all. A long, exasperated sigh, -almost as heavy as Talia's had been all night- escaped his mouth.

One of the servants, still unsure what to do but eager to help, went over and stood by his side. The servant bowed, but didn't dare ask for clarification. Not wanting to anger the master, the servant made sure to be patient and let Ra's have time to explain himself.

Ra's turned directly towards the closest servant, looking him in the eyes desperately, "You know, it. The thing. The one you should be bringing in right now. Whipping up out of nowhere." The servant nodded, but continued to wait for even more of an explanation. Ra's waved his hand in front of the person, unsure if they were even listening. "Come on! Get to it! Bring. IT. IN….. Ah, forget it! I was really hoping I wasn't going to have to ruin the suspense and the drama like this, but the chess board! The one I always pull out dramatically when attempting to test whether I should respect someone! The grand assessment!"

"Ohhhhh…." The servant slowly nodded. They spun on their heels, beginning to make their way off to get the chess board. Every breath Ra's took was long and agitated, gushing out like the wind as he watched the servant disappear into the next room.

He turned back towards Bruce, "I apologize for that mishap. It seems I really should just keep my chess board nearby in these kinds of situations, but I promise you, my assassins did say they'd have it handy." He scoffed at their incompetence. Bruce, on the other hand, was a bit more focused on another thing. He stared at Ra's, his eyebrows furrowing.

If this family wasn't already freaking him out, they certainly were now, "A… Assassi-?!"

But before he even got to finish expressing his frantic confusion, Ra's quickly interrupted him. These 'assassins' of his were back, now with the chessboard that he desired so badly. Ra's rapidly swiped the chessboard out of their hands and slapped it down in front of the two of them.

"Finally, we can begin!" He exclaimed, a tint of annoyance still in his voice. He turned back towards his assassins for a moment, gritting his teeth. "We'll talk about this whole 'ruining my drama' thing later. All of you." Ra's pointed at his own two eyes with two of his fingers, and then pointed the fingers back down on the League of Assassins members.

"And I think we need to talk about this whole assassi-!?" Still more focused on the other matter at hand, he persisted in attempting to get some kind of explanation. But yet again, Ra's was simply not listening.

"You may go first. It's only fair that the guest gets privileges. Besides, I think you'll need every advantage you can get when playing with someone who's been playing this game for centuries." Ra's pointed to Bruce's end of the board, waiting. Bruce's lips quivered as he stared at it. From the corner of his eye, he watched as Ra's folded his hands together calmly. "Go on,"

Bruce chuckled nervously, "You're exaggerating… right?" His finger slowly inched towards the board as he thought about his first move. It was a strategy game, and Bruce was good at such games, but the claims Ra's was stating were more than intimidating. He bit his tongue, thinking back to all the games he'd won against Alfred.

"Exaggerating? Oh, hardly." Ra's shrugged, "You see, young man, this game has been going on far beyond even an old man like me's lifetime. I've been playing it for a long time, and I haven't gotten bored. But I have, as a matter of fact, learned many, many, strategies. I'd find it incredible for this to even last more than 30 minutes before you lose." Bruce leaned towards the board in concentration, attempting to ignore the chills running down his spine.

After what felt like forever of them playing chess, Talia finally saw an ending as she looked at the chess board. All of Bruce's pieces were blocked, in some way or another. She sighed in relief. Not only was this game not going to last forever, but her boyfriend wasn't even going to lose.

"It seems we've ended with a stalemate…" Ra's grinned at the outcome. He pulled out a clipboard from under the table, scribbling down the points this gave Bruce. Quickly tucking the clipboard back under the table, a look of awe sparkled in his eyes. "This is… incredible. Quite entertaining, actually! I haven't had a good opponent like this in years! Decades, even… if not centuries!" Bruce smirked, a sense of confidence raining over him. Talia rolled her eyes. She had certainly stalemated with Ra's at least once.

"Good, but now, can we please focus back on the fact that you called these… people around us... assassins?!" Bruce shook off the pride as he finally remembered the eerie mention. Talia's face flopped back down to face her plate. Her breaths were thin and short as she held back the urge to stand up and run straight out of this embarrassment.

"I did, didn't I...? Is that a problem? Did I offend you with that term?" Her father's voice rose. Despite the innocent questions, he fought back the urge to roll his eyes or scoff yet again in annoyance. "Would you prefer them to be called ninjas, murderers, or simply 'the people around us'? …..You're the guest."

"Murdere-?!" Bruce leaned back, unsure how to even say such a terrifying word. His mouth dropped open as his eyes anxiously darted back and forth. "These people are really… actual….." Talia reached over to Bruce, squeezing his hand.

"Are you alright, Beloved?" Talia asked. Her hand was warm, or possibly even a bit fever-ish to the touch. As was her cheeks, so very red with nerves. Bruce stared at her face, observing the not only embarrassed, but almost shameful expression smeared across it. A thought suddenly occurred to him… a quite unnerving, but eerily plausible one.

Bruce sighed, "...yes," He muttered through gritted teeth. Talia's shoulders slouched down, feeling her tense muscles relax at the reassurance. Bruce turned back towards Ra's, pouting his lip in a disapproving frown. "But… I don't want to stay here any longer than I have to. Let's get on with it, Ra's." Talia's muscles tensed right back up.

"Very well then, young man," Ra's aggressively shoved the chess board to the side. He pushed himself up from his seat, pulling out a sword that he had apparently been hiding in his pockets. "The next test is all about your ability to fight. Not only do I expect you to protect my daughter if the need comes up, but you also must be capable of winning wars if you want to win my daughter's love."

Talia pulled herself up from her seat, as well, "He already has my love, though, Father! No offense, but your tests and evaluations are all for yourself, and yourself only. We've already dated for long enough that it's ridiculous to act as if we aren't already in a romantic relationship." She crossed her arms, starting to get seriously fed up with her father's absurd behavior.

"Yes, yes, of course. But if you want me to treat you as my son-in-law, much less, my equal, you need to complete this test. It's about the respect! You've already shown competence in a battle of wits, now you must show you are just as skilled in physical battles for me to respect you." Ra's pointed his sword towards Bruce, making a stabbing motion towards the air. Bruce flinched as the sharp blade reached towards his chest. "Go on, get your blade out. This may not be a duel to the death -since Talia did go out of her way to make me promise I wouldn't stab you- but it's still a battle that you need to be prepared for."

"My… blade?" Bruce raised one of his eyebrows in confusion. He shook his head and squinted his eyes at Ra's. "I was just trying to go to a formal dinner, to meet my girlfriend's family. Why. Would. I. Have. a. Sword. With. Me?!" After having to listen to Ra's constantly scoff throughout the dinner, he finally managed to gather the courage to scoff back.

"You must always be prepared, young man. Always. You are obviously immature. You know strategies, but you lack the true wisdom to use them properly. But, I suppose that is only to be expected with your young age, so…. I will still give you a chance." Ra's slid his sword back into his pocket. His lips rested in a strict frown, but began to curve up ever so slightly for a moment. "Besides, you already stale-mated me. I love a good stalemate! I can't believe I found someone who could achieve such an outcome! You're wonderful, Bruce. Just wonderful… Assassins, get him a sword!"

Bruce could only stare as a woman, dressed in all black attire, handed him her sword. He opened his mouth to reject it, but only a small, frantic, l uttering sound sputtered out. Everyone, including Talia, Nyssa, the assassins, and a man who's name hadn't been mentioned yet, stepped back, leaving Bruce and Ra's alone. Bruce slowly wrapped his hands around the handle of his weapon, still adjusting to the odd feeling of holding such a sharp object in his hand. By the time he realized what was happening around him, it was much too late to eat his last bite of food.

In fact, it was too late to even stretch before the battle. Ra's, who was seemingly having enough of Bruce's shock, was already lunging over. His sword slashed at Bruce's. With Bruce's fingers barely even holding on to it, Bruce's sword immediately got flung to the ground upon feeling any kind of impact.

Clang! The metal blade chimed as it hit the hard floor. The sound instantaneously knocked Ra's out of his intense battle-focus. His teeth were not gritted anymore, and his eyes widened from their stern glaring. He looked down at the stray weapon, then back up to Bruce. Now realizing what had happened, Bruce's face turned red. A tiny spray of sweat appeared on his forehead as he looked down with embarrassment.

"With all due respect, I have never had a weaker or less skillful opponent." Ra's blinked at the pathetic sight, shaking his head. He bent down to the ground and picked up the sword. The woman who it belonged to eagerly reached out to take it from him. Ra's turned back towards Bruce, who gulped as he saw the disappointment in his eyes. "I suppose I should've expected this kind of thing from such an average billionaire, although that chess game had sure gotten me hopeful. I mean god, was that a good game!" Ra's mumbled, holding back a smile.

Bruce sighed, "Let me guess, you want me to never date or even speak to your daughter again." He looked back at Talia, his shoulders slumping at the thought of leaving someone so lovely. But almost just as quickly, his shoulders pulled back up again. "Because if I may just say, this is completely unwarranted! You could've at least given me a warning about this nonsense…"

"You.. have a point." Ra's nodded, "Which is why I haven't completely ruled you out. That chess game still proves your utter excellency in nature, so perhaps it is rather cruel to blame you for this one time. But-"

Out of pure instinct, Bruce punched Ra's in the gut and kicked him to the floor. Ra's quickly jumped back up and dusted himself off, hardly bothered physically. But mentally, he was shocked. Talia ran to her father's side to make sure he was alright.

"Why would you do that, Beloved?" She yelled at Bruce. With Ra's obviously unarmed, she took a step towards her boyfriend. "You already weren't doing very well on his evaluations, so how do you think attacking him is going to help you?"

"I've proved I can defeat him." Bruce narrowed his eyes, still confident in his reckless behavior. Talia sighed, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. "He was doubting my ability to fight, but I've proved that I'm perfectly capable of throwing a punch or two. Since he's so obsessed with my fighting, it should help me be 'worthy' or whatnot." He crossed his arms.

Ra's rested his forehead against his hand, facepalming, "Yes, you got me on the ground for a bit, but at what cost? Ambushing may be a great strategy, and I already admitted you knew many strategies, but what kind of true warrior would use it on his own friend!?" He snapped. His large boots rattled as he stomped his foot on the ground. "A little agitation and frustration towards me does not take away the fact that you never declared us at war!" He began to stomp back to his seat at the dinner table.

"For goodness sakes, you're really going to lecture me about my morals when you've got a freaking assassin cult surrounding us!?" Bruce yelled back in return, "In my defense, when I see assassins, it really seems like anything I do would be in self-defense… Even if you weren't currently attacking me…" He argued. Every sense of nervousness had spiraled into anger.

"Exactly, we never attacked you except for a formal, well-mannered, spa-"

"Shut up! Can't you both just agree to disagree?!" Now shaking from frustration, Talia finally let her voice really rise and scream at them both. She tugged Bruce back to the table, and motioned for them both to sit down. "Apparently you're both a bit crazy, but two different kinds of crazy that apparently don't mix. I just- I just want this dinner to not be the worst experience of all of our lives…." As she settled back down into her own chair, her voice began to lower again.

Bruce and Ra's both begrudgingly nodded. Everyone's muscles began to relax, and their breaths were much slower and calmer. The ticks of an old clock clacked in the background as everyone went back to eating calmly. After a few minutes of peaceful silence, a soft conversation began again.

"I don't think you two ever introduced yourselves." Bruce pointed to another man and woman who were seated at the table with them. They had been simply watching and speculating as him and Ra's did their shenanigans. "You're Nyssa, right?" He pointed to the woman who had stabbed Ra's not long ago.

"Yes, and it's been quite amusing to watch him be kinder to you than he is to me." Nyssa sent him a cold glare across the table. He shuttered. "I'm Talia's older sister… or technically half sister, but you get the point."

Ra's quickly took up the introductions once she was finished, "Yes, yes, she's my other daughter. Much older than Talia, but nowhere near as wonderful." He smiled at Talia, who blushed uncomfortably. Being the favorite was better than being the least favorite, but it could certainly be embarrassing, too. Ra's turned towards Dusan, "He's… my son? I think. I'm sorry, it's been a long time since his birth, so I sometimes forget it even happened! His name is… hmm… I'm fairly sure it starts with a C…"

"It's Dusan, Father. It doesn't even start with a C…" The man corrected. He sighed at his father's forgetfulness. Ra's titled his head at Dusan, displeased at the answer. His expression was questionable, with an eyebrow raised, like he was about to question Dusan on his own name. Dusan sighed even deeper.

"I… supposed that's his name, then…" Ra's gave in, his tone still indicating his lack of certainty on the matter. He looked Dusan in the eyes, making direct eye contact, "But don't call me Father! You're hardly my son if I can't even remember my name." Dusan returned the eye contact with a look of sadness and disappointment.

"If it makes you feel any better, Dusan, I still consider you my big brother." Talia stated, smiling towards him shyly. Dusan shook off the eye contact with Ra's to send a bitter glare back to his younger sister.

"Oh really? Like I care, Favorite! One day, he's going to realize that I'm the better child and you're going to be forsaken considering how much trouble you've caused him!" Dusan scowled at Talia. She groaned, but stayed quiet in an attempt to avoid another embarrassing argument.

"Don't you dare speak to your superior that way!" Despite her silence, Ra's was far from quiet. He immediately looked back towards Bruce as he finished speaking. His speech was completely polite to Bruce now, as if the spontaneous attack had never even happened. "I apologize for his foul behavior, Bruce. It seems that sometimes immature children will act out if you forget to treat them kindly."

"Um… okay." Bruce squinted at Ra's, concerned but still confused. He was still certain that despite the uncalled-for attack, Ra's was still indefinitely the crazier one. But of course, in an effort to not upset Talia, Bruce kept this thought to himself. "I… suppose you must have another test for me, right?"

"Of course! Even though your manners aren't the very best, I will admit you did get me on the ground for a bit there, so… I still haven't counted you out. With a little teaching, you could be a very worthy man." Ra's complimented, "I'd just like to ask you a few questions, to get a grip of your personality just a bit better." He explained, pushing his food to the side.

"Go ahead," Bruce said. Despite his encouraging words, though, he was frowning in utter disinterest. He slowly pushed his food to the side to clear a path between them. Ra's pointed to Bruce before he asked the first question.

"How do you feel about the environment? More specifically, the planet. Innocent animals made endangered by man-made devices and pollution!" Ra's began. He eagerly stretched his hand over to grab a nearby globe, pulling it into his clutches. His thick, strong, fingers spun it nonchalantly.

Bruce thought about the question for a moment, "I feel bad for the animals. Since I have so much money, I've donated tons to helping them, and I feel the environment is a very important cause. I will admit I haven't done a ton of work with it myself, though…" He answered the question as truthfully as possible, figuring it probably wasn't too important.

"That's good… although I would appreciate a bit more enthusiasm for such an important cause." Ra's nodded, quickly moving on to the next question. "How about… murder? Assuming there's a good cause for it, of course."

Bruce froze, "Do I… do I have to answer truthfully?" He whispered into Talia's ear. She nodded, pointing towards her father. With a couple of her fingers pressed up to her neck, she made a cut-throat gesture. Bruce shuttered and shook at such a threatening signal, even if it was more of a simple warning. "I think it's horrible. One of the worst crimes imaginable. I would never commit it, even if it cost me my life. I don't think there's any excuse for taking another human being's life, no matter what that human being has done."

Ra's frowned at the blunt response, "But what if it saved other lives? The animals, which we've hurt so much with pollution's lives, perhaps?" He argued, continuing to spin his globe fidgetly. His eyes peered down at the bright blue paint, thinking of the dolphins, fish, seals, and whales that all inhabited that precious space. The space humans were constantly taking over, with their plastic, machinery, and oil spills. To Ra's, such horrid actions seemed surely worthy of the death penalty.

"I said no," Bruce shook his head stubbornly. "No one deserves to die, period. I'm not going to be persuaded on this." He glared at Ra's, starting to get more and more confident by the minute. Ra's glowered right back at him.

Talia sighed, "You know, Beloved… You didn't have to be this blunt about it." She leaned her head on chin on her hand wearily. Her eyes began to close softly, having no energy left after all the messes that had gone on. "I just didn't want you making up something too-good-to-be-true…."

Bruce rolled his eyes, "Well maybe I want to be blunt-"

"Well, I'd like to remind you that my father isn't exactly the person you want to upset!" She gestured back towards all the highly-trained assassins surrounding them. Every single one had belts with an arsenal of weapons tucked inside, and half of them had enough muscles to take down most people without the help of the weapons. "Only a fool would mess with such a man. After months of dating you, I hope I am not misled when I say you're not that much of an idiot."

Bruce gulped, immediately realizing his mistake, "I…. I'm sorry, Mr. Al Ghul." He looked back at Ra's nervously. He quickly tightened his tie and fixed his posture, hoping even that small of a change could make a difference. . . Whether that difference was a matter of life or death, or simply whether Talia and him were allowed to keep dating.

"You know... '' Ra's considered his options, peering at Bruce judgmentally. "That kind of rebelness does show courage, if you squint. I'll be fair and say it's bound to come in handy at some point in your life… so, I have decided that you two may keep dating. From what I've heard, you make my daughter happy, so I suppose I'd feel bad being too judgemental." He smiled at Talia. Getting up from his seat, he wandered around the table to kiss her forehead lovingly.

Despite the loving gesture, though, Talia was much more focused on the wonderful news this meant for her and Bruce. The minute her father was done giving her the kiss, she ran over to Bruce and hugged him. Bruce wrapped his hands around her as well, squeezing her against him.

"Thank you, Father," Talia turned back towards Ra's for a split second before leaning back into Bruce's hug. She rested her cheek against him affectionately. "You're alive. I can't believe you're still alive. Everyone's still alive…." She smiled, tilting her to the left to peck him on the cheek.

"Yes.. although I will admit it's a bit sad that we even questioned that.. Not that we didn't have the right to." Bruce glared at Nyssa and Ra's bitterly. Fortunately, they were both looking the opposite way. He really had to stop doing so much of this rebellious, impolite, glaring at those he was attempting to make fond of him. "But more importantly, we get to stay together! I knew I had made the right move by attacking your father." He smirked.

"Sure you did," Talia's smile twisted into a smirk along with his, "There's a reason he didn't kill you, though, Beloved. You were wonderful… and the stalemate? That's more than impressive. It took me my entire childhood of playing chess with him to start being able to get those! You're so intelligent, and brave, and… well, I'm just very glad I fell in love with someone as wonderful as you. Even if you did punch my Father." Her eyes softened for a moment, now taken over by a bittersweet gaze.

"...Thank you," Bruce smiled softly back to her, but it was quickly taken over by a more solemn, concerned, expression. "Can we talk outside for a moment, Talia? After all this, I think there's a lot we need to go over… privately." He nudged her out of the comfy hug.

Talia's smile immediately dropped, "Of… course," She stuttered, now remembering that Bruce had just learned tons of secrets in this one evening. Her head turned slightly back towards Ra's, "Please excuse us for a moment." Taking Bruce's hand, Talia led him outside to a nearby courtyard.

Once they got there, Bruce let out a long, painfully loud, groan. He flopped down onto one of the benches drowsily. Talia sat down with him, letting out a smaller groan herself. They sat there, with all masks and forced smiles dropped for an awkward minute or two. Their eyes were closed for the most of it, only flickering open every few seconds.

"I assume you want to break up with me, anyway." Talia finally spoke, her words slow and quiet above the peeps of nearby crickets. She stared straight down at the ground, neglecting to blink or let the aching tears stream out of her eyes. Bruce slowly looked up at her. Both their heads were still dropping forwards for the most part, but he peered at her from the corner of his eye. Another gap of silence stood between them before he finally opened his mouth to answer her question.

"...No, not necessarily." Bruce finally answered. He looked back down at his lap, avoiding any kind of eye contact. Her chin twitched upwards at the good news. But as he spoke again, Talia's chin lowered. "But… out of curiosity, if I did, would your father kill me?"

"Well… yes, probably." Her skirt gently flew up, caught in the airy breeze. She breathed in and out, as slow and soft as the wind. Bruce bit his lip, pouting ever so slightly. He swallowed in consideration. "But I would try my best to stop it from happening, Beloved. As much as it would ache me, I would never want you to die, of course. …..You could fake your own death." She suggested, finally lifting her chin enough to really look at him.

Bruce flinched, but kept his head down, "I'd… rather not do that." A muffled groan escaped his lips. Talia's lips quivered at the uncomfortable sound. Her head dropped again, spinning towards the opposite direction. As she turned away, Bruce continued thinking over his options. Everything felt wrong, but somehow right in an odd way. They sat in silence for another couple minutes as he fell deep into his thoughts.

"You promised," Talia suddenly blurted out. Tears had begun to well up in the corners of her eyes. She continued to look away from him, hiding the weak, desperate look on her face. "You promised you wouldn't blame me for them….. You promised." Her voice was careful as she attempted to keep her tone as calm as possible.

Bruce nodded, "You're right," He stated. For a second, but only for a second, did his voice crack into a much shakier tone. It pained him to look at her, to hear her faltering voice, and most of all, to know that she hadn't truly done a thing. At least, as far as he knew. "Your father's a criminal. The leader of a league dedicated to murder. So, with that knowledge in mind…. How many people have you murdered?"

Talia gulped, "You- You don't want to know." She shook her head shamefully. Bruce winced at the cold, gut-wrenching answer. "You and I both know you don't truly want to hear the answer to that question." She repeated. Talia pressed her eyes closed, letting tears seep out out and on to her trembling cheeks. Bruce was going to go. She was sure of it.

"Why…? Why would you-" Bruce stuttered. He finally fully lifted his head to face the apparent-murderer. Talia turned even farther away from him in response.

"Can't you see? My father is an ecoterrorist, Beloved. A mass-murderer. A genocidal maniac. I spent my entire childhood in his care… Of course I've killed for him!" Her voice rose a bit. Talia's eyes peered back at Bruce to see his reaction, but she didn't move a muscle in her neck to truly look at him. "I swear on my life, I didn't enjoy it. But I couldn't let him down. I still can't let him down. He's still my father, and… I can't betray my own family, can I?" She wrapped her arms around herself. A sad look sparkled in her eyes, almost mirroring the stars above them.

Bruce felt a tinge of anger run up his spine, "But…. you want to, don't you?" Talia's neck shook as her head flopped even closer to her lap. He moved his hand a bit closer to her, considering whether he should place it on her shoulder or not.

"Maybe I do," Talia whispered, her words barely audible. It was if she was simply mouthing them to herself. She squeezed her eyes shut as she spoke the tiny, quiet, little words. As she slowly opened them again, she gradually turned her head to finally face him. Their eyes met for a moment, "But maybe I don't. It's more complicated than that, Beloved ..." Her head still faced him, but her eyes broke out of the eye contact. They wandered in the opposite direction wistfully.

Bruce sucked in his lips, every muscle in his body cramping together. He resisted every urge in himself to touch her, hug her... or simply just reach a bit closer to hold hands. She was a murderer. He shouldn't have felt this way, he knew he shouldn't, but the urges were there. Bruce. Still. Loved. Her. It hurt to say the words inside his head, but not quite as much as it hurt to deny it. He kept his hand still, worried even a small vibration of movement could result in him fully wrapping his arms around Talia. But as he focused on stillness in his body, Bruce felt another hand reach over and squeeze his.

"All I know now, Beloved… is that I don't want to betray you." Talia looked straight at him now, adjusting her entire body to lean towards him. Bruce looked straight at her, as well. Her green eyes were glossy, with wet tears glistening in the moonlight. "We could still work out. My father actually seems to admire you, and I do, as well, but…. I'm not sure if you return such admiration…. After everything you've learned."

"You have a point," Bruce pushed himself off the bench. He began to tread forward, wandering around the courtyard. "I lose nothing from staying with you… except perhaps my lack of relations with murderers. It's not like I'm completely innocent myself. I may not have taken anyone's life, but I certainly started some fires against people who didn't completely deserve it. My poor math teacher…. Besides, I made a promise." He paced back and forth, gradually walking faster and faster|.

Talia sighed, "But that promise only included what my family did," She stood up with him. "They are my murders, not my-"

"Yes," He looked down for a moment, lost in thought yet again. His mouth rested in an aloof frown. Bruce's eyes narrowed. "But even then, it's more than clear you wouldn't be such a murderer if it weren't for where you were raised. Blaming you for such a thing could be considered breaking my promise either way." His hands spun up and down, gesturing as he explained his logic.

Talia's hand reached over to his, "Please… I'm not some kind of damsel in distress. I may have tears coming out of my eyes, and I may look pathetic right now, but…you still must make the choice that suits your heart. I don't want your pity." Her eyebrows arched, a stern focus taking over. Bruce's hands stopped twirling. A stillness crept over, with her hand just barely resting on his arm peacefully.

"-And I will not give you any, Talia," Bruce cleared his throat. Finally giving in to the undying urges, he wrapped his arms around her. Talia felt him pull her into a soft embrace. "Even through mistakes, and even, well... crimes, there is one thing standing. One thing other than pity- and that is love. It may make me crazy for doing so, or even a criminal, but I will give you mine."

"What does that even mean, though?" Talia asked, looking downwards. Her eyelids flapped up and down as she quickly blinked. "I… suppose it doesn't even matter, does it? Not now, anyhow… If you will give me your love, then I will give you mine." She quickly peeked back up, now with a wide smile across her face.

"I think we both know what that means, then… and what it doesn't." Bruce sighed, carefully taking a step back from Talia. Their loving embrace loosened. Talia's smile began to drop, but still not fully hit a frown. "I'm sorry. I… may have gotten lost in the fairytales there. Or maybe I was right. I'm not even sure anymore, Talia…"

Talia took deep breaths as she thought everything he was saying over, "You… you said thought we both knew what it meant… and what it didn't, of course. But perhaps…" Her hand, hesitant and unsure, began to slowly nudge him back towards her. Despite his overall reluctance, he easily let her lead him in the movement. "Perhaps for now… we can just focus on what it does mean, Beloved." She whispered the endearing nickname, a hopeful smile appearing on his face. Bruce couldn't help but smile back.

With their arms already wrapped tightly around each other, Talia slowly began to lean in for a kiss. Bruce closed his eyes, gently following her affectionate behavior. Both of their soft hugs towards the other one tightened even more as they leaned in close. The soft glow of the moon shimmered behind them as they finally kissed. Talia and Bruce held the other one happily. Happy. Even for just a moment, they were happy.

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kkeidawrites · 3 years

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Castlevania spoilers!!!! If you don’t want to know how the show ends in season 4 please refrain from reading the rest of this post because I’m not holding back! Also I’m writing this as I watched so, this is my raw review!

Okay, so first off I want to say personally, I loved how season 4 brought heat to the finale of the show. Although I’m sad as hell that this is the last season for a great show.

Episode 1: Murder Wakes It Up- I thought that it was cool to see Trevor and Sypha fighting again after what happened in S3, obviously they are tired from the long four week journey of fighting night creatures, skeleton zombies, vampires from different countries, etc. but clearly the end game is that humans and vampires alike are working together to bring back Dracula. Like seriously, y’all might not know this but I hate, HATE when children become involved in stupid shit like human sacrifices like I can’t. Not the children. Please, not the babies. Sypha complaining she’s becoming like Trevor, and she’s so cute when she curses lol. Then when they arrive in Targoviste we have some new faces as potential enemies. I thought they were lame honestly lol I couldn’t take Barney-Larney whatever his dumbass was; he was mad annoying.

Then they shift over to Alucard…I have never seen a more broken beautiful drunk man in all my life. Like I had S3 flashbacks. He’s asked for help from a messenger who ended up dying on the way to the castle but his horse made sure he continued the journey and Alucard received the message for help in Danesti. Alucard fights with the horse, I thought that was funny. He was thoughtful enough to bury the rider, that was very sweet of him.

Also, shirtless Alucard will be engraved in my mind for life. Whew, chile that’s one fine man. He’s beginning to talk like Belmont and I can’t help how hilarious that is.

Episode 2: Having the World: Quite honestly this episode to me was meh. Hector talking with Lenore about how he needs this and that to create his hammer to continue forgemastering then Lenore talks with Carmilla and the white haired bat talks about how she is going to rule the world and what not, clearly losing her sanity.

Then it shifts over to Trevor and Sypha and they are fighting in a barn and new character Zamfir. Her character for me was also meh, but it’s nice to see more PoC in the show.

Episode 3: Walk Away: I liked this episode a lot. Issac altogether was nice enough to sit down and talk with a night creature and tell him/them that they were free of their original program, which was: eating humans, causing destruction, used as tools to forge masters. But man when he received that berry from Issac he realized that there is still some kind of humanity in them.

Issac is contacted by Varney to bring back Dracula but, Issac wants no business with that; he doing his own thing and seeing him being sassy again is so refreshing.

Morana and Striga scenes!!! I loved them, and then there was Striga’s day armor, man listen…I have never felt more closer to watching Berserk again than in that moment. They are hesitant to return back to Styria when Carmilla calls them, and it puts them in a bind to return home to continue through with Carmilla’s plans.

Sypha being annoyed by Zamfir was me the entire time. How you gone run a kingdom again with out a kingdom. Like girl, help the people instead of the royals, my god.

Episode 4: You Must Sacrifice: A cute little Trevor and Sypha scene. They decide to investigate Targoviste more before helping Zamfir. The scene shifts and Alucard is riding towards Danesti, donning a shield and a longer cape. Monsters are attacking the walls of the village, villagers are on the other side waiting to defend themselves. Some Castlevania popular screenshots appear here.

Then we meet Greta…Miss thang…that’s one beautiful woman okay. And she’s the chief of the village, cares for her people? Y’all I present. Her. And the fact that she is sassy too? I rock with her heavy as hell.

Saint Germain meets Alucard and I have a weird vibe coming from him. We see Saint Germain’s backstory or what little it will show us; he had a whole girlfriend, she a baddie too. Apparently she was like him? And she was the silhouette we saw in S3. Cool scene, inside the Infinite Corridor and I liked the library scene a lot too. Now he’s on a rampage trying to find access to the Infinite Corridor again to find his girl and he also wants to bring back Dracula? The fuck?

Refugees arrive at Danesti, and Saint Germain is acting very strange indeed. Like he’s desperate to go to the castle to help with the village “defenses”. Alucard agrees I guess? And he says another Belmont comment which I was happy to see again in the season.

Episode 5: Back in the World: Alucard leads Greta, Saint Germain and the villagers to his castle but, encounter a couple of night creatures on the way. Greta does Saint Germain y’all and I’m with her 100%. Alucard’s powers have definitely improved from last season. It was kind of interesting how Alucard willing told Greta what happened with him and you know who, kind of early in my opinion. Greta is bisexual?!!!! I love her 1000% now! I sense some chemistry between Greta and Alucard. I like that a lot.

Lenore really like annoys my soul, I do not like this mini bitch. I didn’t really care what Lenore and Hector talked about🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️sue me. Bruh Greta, beating that monster’s ass with just a hammer and a sword?! And Alucard impressed by it?! I’m here for it!! Some cute moments between Alucard and Greta got me gushing over here😝😝. Poor puppy😢😢. Alucard decides to “grow up” which I think is a nice step forward. Saint Germain is really making me mad.

They arrive at the castle and here goes Saint Germain acting like a fan boy, I mean who wouldn’t but you know…Greta killed me when she said the castle was ugly as hell lol. Another little cutesy scene between Alucard and Greta. Like I really like their chemistry y’all I’m sorry.

Trevor and Sypha demand that Zamfir take responsibility to help the people and I forgot what it was called but, before that they are attacked and Zamfir has something placed on her neck by a night creature.

Then Issac, he’s ready to fuck some shit up. And I’m here for it. Get em, bitch!

Episode 6: You Don’t Deserve My Blood: Carmilla’s castle is attacked by Issac’s night creatures. Lenore old punk ass running away does not surprise me in the slightest. Hector betrays Lenore and locks her in a cage. Hector has contact with Saint Germain like what? I don’t understand but, Issac comes in and it looks like Hector has given up, wanting to die honestly. Issac decides against killing him and Hector asks for his knife. This boy cuts his ring finger that the Lenore placed the ring, in front of her. That scene was meh, I thought he would get pissed at her for what she’s done to him in S3 but, I guess not.

Issac literally stole this episode, from his fight with the vampires and night creatures to Carmilla that shit was -chef’s kiss- magnifico! I loved the animation the fight scenes, yooo I was hyped the whole episode.

Morana and Striga make their decision to go their own way, living their own lives in the west so, bittersweet ending with them, I wanted to actually Striga fight the main trio but, whatever I guess.

Hector still has plans to bring back Dracula and asks Issac if he’s doing the same. Issac has other plans obviously, and tells Hector that they need to find their path in their lives. I feel Hector never knew where he was supposed to be placed in the world but Issacs words are very inspiring in my opinion. May have woke Hector’s dumbass up a bit.

Episode 7: The Great Work: Varney and the other guy, I really forgot his name found out about the catacombs and head there. Trevor and Sypha demand Zamfir take them underground, which to me I think it’s nothing there but her shit. Sypha gets mad at Zamfir and I’m with her, how you part of the royal guard when the people above need your help girl my god.

The cutest scene ever in this episode, was when the kids from Danesti wanting to play with Alucard and this boy jumps off the highest part of the castle just to show off. There should be more scenes of soft Alucard with children. Saint Germain is placing these weird stones it looks like in the castle walls. What is going on with him?

More Alucard and Greta moments please and thank you. The artwork in the castle is fucking phenomenal work. Saint Germain just gave the location to a vampire it looks like, from episode 4 maybe? He looks familiar.

There is a freaking army coming to the castle…lord Jesus. Like can they catch a break please? The kids just got settled.

Trevor and Sypha go to the catacombs and it’s just as bad as the people above grounds. New weapon acquired for Trevor, pretty dope. The king and Queen are dead and Zamfir is officially insane. She really thinks that the king and Queen will come back alive and protect their people like she’s done them. Sypha tries to talk to her, that puts her in a weird daze, Trevor is just being Trevor. Varney and his lackey, come to the catacombs looking to kill I really do not know that man’s name y’all so I apologize for not giving a damn about him lol.

The castle is about to be under siege, I’m not ready. Having a whole heart attack over here from nerves.

Episode 8: Death Magic: Varney and his partner attack the people in the catacombs, Varney is looking for a giant mirror? Why I don’t know. Poor Trevor and Sypha they are soooo tired, I feel so bad for them. Zamfir is actually not bad of a fighter, I like that. Sypha still the goat, no cap.

The castle is under attack, it’s actually nice to see how diverse the vampires are in this show, you can tell what countries their from and I think that’s dope as hell. And then every time a human dies their souls are transferred to Saint Germaine? So is this another S3 human sacrifice crap again? Omg…I’m so sick of that. Saint Germain uses the key he received from the woman in the Infinite Corridor and it creates the symbol of the corridor’s portal.

Here goes Alucard being a badass again, I never tire of him being one. Greta holding it down too is really cool, I don’t care what nobody say, she is that bitch. Her and that hammer, a force to be reckoned with.

Everyone is overwhelmed and have no choice but to evacuate to the castle, right before those doors closed Alucard nods to her to leave him out to fight and she looks at him like boy bye. Get yo ass in this castle. Greta pulling Alucard in just shows they are compatible for one another. Even the playful banter between them is cute.

The discovery of the stones in the walls leads Greta and Alucard to his childhood bedroom and they find Saint Germain where he reveals he’s opening the Infinite Corridor to bring back Dracula by using death magic. Petty Saint Germain, I do not like him bro.

They have to deal with him later though to fight off the night creatures that got into the castle. Greta still holding it down.

Trevor and the vampire guy is still fighting but, Trevor being so tired he’s slowing a bit, and honestly I don’t know how he’s still able to function at this point. Sypha shows off her powers like a G that she is and Zamfir is doing some great damage with the knives she’s got and that’s crazy how little knives can do to the body.

Did Sypha always have lightning powers? I don’t remember. If it’s new I love it! Trevor’s almost killed but a woman and child save him in time but, unfortunately Zamfir is stabbed in the stomach when the vampire moves to kill them both. I’m going to be honest I didn’t really care for Zamfir’s character she was just…there lol.

Then that scene with Sypha basically incinerating the rest of the monsters is fire!!! No pun intended lol. Varney finds the mirror and steps through it where Saint Germain is. Trevor and Sypha goes through the mirror as well but in a different location in the castle.

Episode 9: The Endings: This whole episode was literally the best of the best in any other seasons. The fight scenes, the banter, the main three…oh my God I loved it all. Noooooo, the dolls!!!!!! You bastards!!!! Trevor and Sypha’s entrance was perfect. Muah! Perfecto! The rock monsters really confused me on how they were killed but you know what who cares?

Alucard has wings?!!!!! What?!!!!!!!!! The general of the caravan have brought in the man woman thingy to Saint Germain. Death has appeared. His character design is dope af. Noooo not mom and dad!!! Nooo! Poor Alucard had to witness his parents literally in pain and of course Trevor ends it again, somehow Saint Germain redeemed himself almost?

The four vampires fighting the main trio had me running for my money. I liked the whole scene it was nice to see at least one or two vampires almost have the upper hand on the main trio.

That general vampire? His fight was wild, throwing his arm as it was about to explode and use it against Trevor was genius. And main trio…they don’t need to have a plan to fight they just work so well together that it works out in end.

Trevor vs. Death. Also was that the first time Trevor told Sypha he loved her? I can’t remember. Anyway, back to the final battle. The quality of the fight, the sheer power between both characters, and then he goes and sacrificed himself like Trevor are you deadass? You deadass died? Unacceptable. And then episode just ends.

Episode 10: It’s Been a Strange Ride: Lenore died so lame, and she was drunk as well when she died. I really won’t be missing her because she was just a character I very much disliked. Hector is finally free, little dumbass.

I wanna see what Issac is up to and Morana and Striga seems appropriate. But oh well, I hope they are happy wherever they are.

Tombstone for Trevor, it’s not real. He ain’t dead, I don’t believe that. Omg, Greta and Alucard are together?!!! Whoooooo!!! And the village kids are calling him father? Yasssssssssssss!!!!! I’m here for it. Alucard saying he’s not used to people is 100% me in public I don’t like being around a lot of people and it doesn’t help I have anxiety either. Sypha being pregnant was a given she looked a little thicker in the hips from episode one. She can’t leave…we need her. Really Castlevania creators? Y’all gone play with all our hearts? Thinking Trevor was dead and he gone pop up on a horse?

And look at this⤵️⤵️

He’s smiling, happy, soft, has a boo thang I’m….😭😭😭I’m so happy.

Y’all….all in all this was a great ending to the show…a great ending…

Oh wait…wait…wait wait wait, mom and dad are alive?!!! But how? You know what I don’t care their going to travel to England and their heart shaped embrace is everything. Oh no I’m crying again….

#castlevania #adrian tepes #Alucard #trevor belmont castlevania #castlevania spoilers #castlevania season 4 #issac castlevania #hector castlevania #sypha belnades

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imagine-loki · 4 years

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You Have Heart

TITLE: You Have Heart CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 2/?

AUTHOR: nekoamamori ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine finding out that your soulmate is Loki and your very first kiss is interrupted by Thor shouting “Yeeessss” RATING: M NOTES/WARNINGS: This is a rewrite of the original work of the same name. Also on AO3 here

You looked up in shock and saw that the entire theater was looking at you. The flash of power had been brighter than you thought to draw everyone’s attention away from the action on the screen. But it wasn’t every day that someone became the soulmate of an Avenger. Or worse, the soulmate of Loki. Loki was supposed to be the villain, wasn’t he?

No, the news and the team had made it clear that Loki had been under mind control during the battle. Loki wasn’t a villain, he’d just been made to do terrible things.

That didn’t stop your shock at the flash of power from your tattoo. Or the rest of the theater’s. The whispers started almost immediately. The tattoos sometimes did weird things when they were activated, when the soulmate had been found. Changing colors was frequent. Some people reported a buzzing, fiery, or cold sensation. There were reports of a flash of light.

Usually, it wasn’t quite so flashy.

You glanced at the words on your arm again, still in disbelief. There was no denying it, though, the words had changed from black to emerald green with gold sparkles throughout the letters.

You have heart

You hadn’t expected the words to be said in the manner they had been.

Would he even believe you?

There was no way a god would want someone like you for a soulmate.

Soph was looking over at you with her mouth hanging open. “Did-?” She couldn’t even form a sentence. Her eyes went to the tattoo on your arm, which was still glowing faintly. That definitely wasn’t normal. Her eyes went wide. Neither of you had known why those would be the first words you heard your soulmate say.

Now you knew.

Fuck.

What were you going to do?

The entire theater was still whispering and you realized that moments had passed, if that. They were all still staring at you and you wanted to vanish and get away from all of their stares. But of course that wasn’t going to happen. The best you could hope for was everyone deciding it wasn’t interesting anymore and going back to the movie.

After the movie, you could figure out what to do with this new development.

And try to come up with something to say to Loki.

But… that would never happen. There was no way a no one like you was going to get to the Avengers, get them to believe you that you were Loki’s soulmate because you’d heard this line spoken in the movie, or get them to care or help you. There was also no chance Loki would want you as a soulmate.

You were doomed to being alone, your soulmate found but not reciprocated. It was very rare for the soulmate bonds to be rejected, for soulmates to never be found, but it did happen on occasion. And there seemed to be little to no hope that you would actually meet yours in person.

You tried to focus your attention back on the movie. Maybe if you looked at it hard enough, everyone would stop staring at you and return their attention back to the movie.

For a moment, you thought it was going to work.

For one single moment.

Then the moment was ruined by the shimmer of green magic at the front of the auditorium. Two figures appeared there and you could see them clearly as the green shimmer faded away. There was no denying who the two men were. Especially since one of them was still on the giant screen behind them.

Thor and Loki.

The two brothers couldn’t be more different, Thor hulking, blond, and bearing his trademark hammer. Loki was slimmer, though no less muscled and raven haired. Both were dressed in their armor with their capes of red and green.

“Brother, why are we here?” Thor boomed, drawing any eyes that hadn’t already been on the pair. There were very few pairs of eyes that hadn’t been on them. Most everyone was taking out their cameras now to take pictures of the pair showing up in the middle of the Avengers movie screening. Thor seemed surprised that Loki had teleported him here. You hadn’t even known Loki was on the realm. Last you had heard, he had been taken back to Asgard to face punishment for a crime that wasn’t his fault.

So why was he here on Earth? And why was he here now in this movie theater?

“You saw my tattoo light up. She’s here somewhere, Thor. I have to find her,” Loki replied in what sounded like a panicked snarl. Her. He wanted to find his soulmate. Fuck. Not her. You. He was desperate to find you. You heard what sounded like disbelief in his voice, like he hadn’t believed that he would have a soulmate.

“And you brought me along because…?” Thor asked as he scanned the staring crowd. All eyes and cameras were on the brothers. The whispers were back and louder than ever and not a single person was paying attention to the movie, which kept playing in the background. “And how do you know she’s here anyway?”

“I put a spell on the tattoo centuries ago to make sure I would know when it was activated. And I brought you along because the mortals like you better, oaf. I did not wish to start a panic. Now stop scaring them and help me look for her-“ Loki growled at his idiot brother. The pair were definitely brothers with how they interacted.

“Oh shit. It’s real…” Soph said from beside you, her eyes wide with shock. You were sure your expression was just as shocked and stumped.

You nodded dumbly. You had no idea what to say. Or what to do. Not only were you Loki’s soulmate….somehow… but he was here and was looking for you. It was only a matter of time before…

His eyes rose up the rows of seats and caught on you and the glowing mark on your arm. You still weren’t sure what to do. Or what to say. How did you greet a strange god? How did you greet your soulmate?

You forgot your phrase. You’d come up with a stupid phrase to greet any stranger you came across, as everyone did. You couldn’t remember what it was at the moment. Whatever it was wouldn’t have been appropriate for meeting this soulmate. Nothing you could say would be appropriate for meeting a god.

So what were you going to say?

Loki’s eyes lit on you and he strode with his patented murder strut up the aisles toward you and Soph. You had to come up with something to say. And fast.

#Loki #Lover #Submitted fic #submission #you have heart #chapter 2 #nekoamamori

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writings-of-a-daphodil · 4 years

Text

Fire Keeper: Chapter 16

Douxie x fem reader

Chapter 1

Masterlist in bio!

Series Summary: You are Jim’s older sister who is taking a break from college and has moved back home to Arcadia. You end up joining Jim and his friends on their adventures.

Chapter 16 summary: You go with Aja, Krel, and Stuart to the moon to rescue Varvatos.

If there was one spell you were using more often it was the lullaby spell. You quietly sang to the baby in your arms. It was late and you had caught her crying. Thankfully she hadn’t woken any of the other babies and your lullaby was helping her fall back into a peaceful sleep.

Just as you put her back into the crib you felt your phone vibrate. You took it out of your pocket and saw that Toby was calling. You quickly left the house so you wouldn’t wake anyone.

“Hello?” You asked, answering it.

“Hey, Y/n, so my friends, Aja and Krel need help with something and I immediately thought of you.”

“Oh, I know Aja and Krel. What do they need? Is it another bounty hunter?” You asked, concerned. You had only known them for about an hour, but you had grown to care for the siblings. Your older sister instincts had kicked in.

“They need help finding their friend and since you were able to track down Glug I thought maybe you could help them out.”

“Yeah, I can figure something out,” you said. You knew you couldn’t ask Archie to help Aja and Krel, but you could look for their friend’s aura. “Text me the address and I’ll be there soon.”

“Okay, and Krel said you might need a disguise.”

“Got it.”

~~~~

After dropping Mao off at Douxie’s you arrived to see Aja, Krel, Eli and Toby waiting.

“He should have been here by now. Those Durians are always late!” Krel whined.

“And this is all one big rescue mission for your geezer friend?” Eli asked.

“For Varvatos, yes,” Krel corrected. “He's being held at a bounty hunter outpost on the Earth's moon.”

“The moon? So flipping cool!” Toby exclaimed. “Although, probably not so much for your friend.”

“Wait we’re going to the moon?” You asked.

Krel, Toby and Eli turned to you. “Oh, hey Y/n. Thanks for coming,” Toby said.

“Um, yeah. I’m here to help.”

“Thank you,” Krel said. “Our friend Varvatos is trapped on the moon in this Bounty Hunter’s guild and we don’t know how big it is and Toby said you could help us find him.”

You smiled. “Yep, I just need you to tell me about him.”

“We can talk on the way there,” Krel said.

Aja paced behind you, talking on the phone. “I told you, we're at a sleepover with our friends Toby, Y/n, and Eli.”

Aja sighed. “Y/n does. I'll find out more and report back. Tomorrow.”

Aja hung up and turned to Toby and Eli. “Thanks for covering for us. Did you bring the gear?”

“As requested,” Toby said, patting a box. You jumped as a spaceship appeared behind him.

Eli gasped. “Awesome!”

“Sauc-er!” Toby joked and you shook your head, smiling at his pun.

“Greetings, Your Majesties. Your chariot awaits. Ah!” The green alien yelped as the ship sputtered.

“That doesn't inspire confidence,” Krel muttered and you nodded.

“And how long is it going to take us to reach the moon... in that?” Aja asked, jumping onto the ship.

“Assuming we make good time, 20 to 30, tops,” the alien said as Krel hopped on after his sister, with the box. He almost fell backwards, but you caught him with your magic. You levitated onto the ship.

“Wow! Minutes?” Eli marveled.

The alien laughed. “Very droll. Ha! This one's a comedian. No, not minutes, hours! So, if you have to use the john, do so now or forever hold your pee.”

“Oh dear,” you mumbled, slightly regretting your decision to help out. However, you weren’t gonna chicken out now, you really wanted to see the moon.

You hopped into the ship and took a seat.

“Who’s she?” The alien asked.

“I’m Y/n. The sorceress, but, uh, you can’t tell anyone that last part. Toby thought I could help, so here I am.”

“Well, I’m Stuart. Welcome aboard,”

~~~~

You yawned, waking up to hear the same song playing that you had fallen asleep to. “How long have I slept?” You asked, confused. In your sleep deprived state you had expected yourself to get a lot more, but the song was still playing.

“Most of the journey,” Krel said.

Aja groaned. “Why do I feel like I've heard this song a thousand times?”

“Ah, ah, ah! It is Uncle Stuey's turn to pick the music,” Stuart said.

“But I'm the-“ Krel started.

Stuart cut him off. “Yes, yes, king-in-waiting. It's a nice try. Out here, rules of the road, thank you very much.”

“But there are no roads,” Krel protested.

“I'm so bored!” Aja groaned.

“Are we there yet?” Krel asked.

“No,” Stuart said and you sighed.

“Are we going to be there soon?” Aja asked.

“No,” Stuart replied.”

“How much longer?” Krel asked.

“Not for a while,” Stuart answered vaugly, which was beginning to annoy you.

“Like, ten mekrons?” Aja asked and you wondered what a mekron was.

“No.”

“Twenty mekrons?” Krel suggested.

“No!” Stuart snapped.

“Thirty mekrons?” Aja asked.

“We'll get there when we get there! Oi!” Stuart yelled. The ship settled into silence again and you decided it was time to try your hand at entertaining the kids.

You did a few magic tricks, mostly creating things with magic, but they were entertained nonetheless.

~~~~

Krel chuckled. “Huh.”

“What?” You asked, turning away from the game of chess you had created using magic.

Krel gestured out the window where you could see earth and the sun rising behind it. It was a beautiful sight.

Aja yawned, as Krel woke her up. “If you're waking me up, we better be there,” she threatened.

“Come on! You're gonna wanna see this,” Krel said excitedly.

“Oh, lively!” Aja breathed.

“You know, for a dump heap, it's really quite beautiful,” Krel admitted and you gave him a look.

Aj smiled. “Or as Vex would say, glorious.”

You continued to admire the planet when you heard gas hissing from Stuart.

“Ah!” Krel cried.

You plugged your nose. “Really?”

“Ah! Stuart!” Aja scolded.

“That was rank, even for you,” Krel said.

“The fact that you'd assume immediately that it's me, it's really very offensive,” Start said as he pulled down towards the moon's surface. You marveled at it.

“As far as I’m aware, I’m the first sorceress to step foot on the moon,” you said excitedly.

Aja patted your back. “Lively.”

Stuart called you over to the computer screen. “According to the computer, there appears to be an anomaly in quadrant two hundred and forty five, here in sector fourth five.”

The spaceship docked, and you, Aja, and Krel rushed out of the spaceship. You were glad to finally be out of the cramped ship.

Aja gasped. “Get me out of here!”

Krel took a deep breath. “I can't take it anymore!”

“I can breathe!” You cried.

Aja jumped to the ground, but she instead hovered in the air. “A moon with low gravity. So lively!”

Krel jumped after her. “I got you, I got you!”

Aja sighed. “Great, but who's got you?”

Stuart jumped up to get them and he sighed contentedly as they floated to the ground. “Ah! I forgot how much I love it here. You weigh less, you've got none of that unnecessary oxygen clogging up your respiratory system.”

They reached the ground, landing in front of you. “Y/n how are you breathing?” Krel asked, suddenly realizing the lack of oxygen.

“Magic,” you said vaguely. “I cast a spell when I realized we were going to the moon.”

Krel nodded as the four of you continued walking.

“Zadra's ship! Alpha must have taken it when he captured Vex!” Krel stated excitedly. You and Krel had exchanged life stories on the long ride over, so you knew what he was talking about.

“Then the intel from that hammer guy was right. They're here,” Aja said.

The siblings went to walk away, but Stuart grabbed them. “Yeah, whoa, whoa! Easy there! This is the Hunter's Guild Lunar Outpost, where the most dastardly bounty hunters in the galaxy refuel and reload. It's also got a temporary prison. Humans would call it a drunk tank.”

“Oh yuck!” You exclaimed, you did not want to deal with a bunch of intoxicated aliens.

“I get it! It's a rough crowd,” Aja said, shrugging off Stuart's hand.

“Which is why we're going to stick to the plan, thanks to Toby and Darci,” Krel said, spinning the box and tossing it. He held his arms out for the box, but it took awhile for it to fall. He sighed. “Let's do this.”

Krel took out the mole mascot costume and he put it on while you put a large black cape around you to hide your face and body.

“Oh!” Krel cried as a cup hit him when you walked in.

“Bounty hunters are a touchy lot. You have to stay alert.” Stuart warned.

“You try staying alert without any peripheral vision,” Krel pouted.

“Psst. Zeron Brother, 12 o'clock,” Aja warned. You looked to see a weird coyote looking thing.

The Zeron guy pulled a dagger on the robot. “I didn't order this.” He cut the robots head off and you shuddered. “Heads up, comrades. I have a drink I call the energizer. Light it up, Tronos.”

Tronos laughed. “With pleasure! Bottoms up!”

“Heh, rough crowd,” Stuart chuckled.

“Psst, keep them busy,” Aja ordered as the two of you went to find Varvatos.

The two of you eventually found him after you looked for an aura similar to Aja and Krel’s.

You approached the cell and Varvatos growled. “You enter this cell, Varvatos Vex promises you will only be hastening your own dismemberment.”

“That wasn't the reaction I was looking for,” Aja said smiling.

“Aja? Queen-in-waiting!” Varvatos exclaimed.

“Shh! That guard could come back any mekron,” Aja warned.

“Varvatos thought you were-- What are you doing here?” He asked.

“Krel and I thought a little rescue mission might make for a fun summer vacation,” Aja explained.

“A suicide mission is more like it. This place is replete with bounty hunters! Varvatos did not train you to be this foolish,” Varvatos reprimanded.

Aja grinned. “I'm glad to see prison hasn't changed you, Varvatos.”

Varvatos sighed. “This prison is a fitting punishment for what Varvatos did. Now go, and leave him to rot.”

“Haha, I didn’t come to the moon just to see it. Krel told me all about the amazing Varvatos Vex, I’m here to save you too,” you explained, hoping to encourage the poor Ackaridian.

“And who are you?” Varvatos asked.

“She is Y/n. A sorceress, but you can’t tell anyone that last bit,” Aja explained, obviously losing patience.

“Don’t worry, Aja,” You soothed. “We’ve got this.”

Aja grumbled. “We don't have time for this! As queen-in-waiting, shouldn't I decide what's a fitting punishment?” She cleared her throat. “By order of the Akiridion-Five throne, I grant you a royal pardon. I overturn your banishment and sentence you to the protection of House Tarron. Come home, Varvatos. We need you.”

Aja didn't wait for Varvatos to answer, she blasted the key pad, but it didn’t open the door.

“It's no use. The diavelant laser grid can't be deactivated without the prison guard's key,” Varvatos explained.

Aja began to scream. “What are you doing? You'll alert the guard!” Varvatos warned and you realized what Aja was doing. You began to scream too.

“I'm getting the key,” Aja said.

You didn't have to wait long for the guard to come. “Hey, what's with all the noise down here?”

You and Aja hid and when he walked to Varvatos’s cell she attacked the guard.

Unfortunately the guard fought. Back and you did your best to blast them without hitting Aja. The guard growled when your magic skimmed him.

“This is some rescue, really,’ Varvatos said.

Aja huffed. “A little patience? Or did you forget that part of your warrior training?”

Soon enough the two of you were able to kick the guard towards Varvatos’s cell. “No touching!” Varvatos warned as the guard fell into the wall. He then fell to the ground unconscious. Aja got the key and freed Varvatos.

“Varvatos was wrong to doubt your tactical prowess. It is most impressive.”

Aja smiled. “You taught me well. Wait, you're missing something.”

“Varvatos' serrator?” He laughed as Aja handed him his protractor like weapon. “Oh, how he has missed you, sweet mistress of death!” He kissed his serrator.

“I can't tell if you're happier to see me or your serrator,” Aja laughed. You began to lead them out of the dungeon, but Varvatos stopped.

“Wait. Wait one delson. Where is Zadra?” He asked.

“Come on,” you interrupted. “We need to go, I can hear fighting.”

The three of you made your way to the bar. “A room of Foo-Foo fighters. A battle of the ages!” Varvatos laughed.

“There they are!” Aja said, ignoring him. You ran over to Stuart and Krel.

“Glorious!” Vex yelled, as he watched the fight between what appeared to be all the bounty hunters.

A robot that looked like a rabbit found a gun and started firing it while you hid. “Die, die, die, die, die, die!” It yelled.

“Vex, wow! Looks like someone's been getting beefy in the clink. Really digging the lats, brah. Boom-boom!” Stuart joked.

“Hello, Stuart,” Varvatos said, but he didn’t seem too excited. His eyes lit up though when he saw Krel. “Your Highness!”

Aja interrupted the reunion. “Run now, reunions later.”

“Varvatos approves of this plan.”

The rabbit robot continued yelling. “Die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die--“ Varvatos jumped out at him. “I'm dead.”

Varvatos grabbed the rabbit and began to spin it around. “Now come get some!” Varvatos challenged.

“Let’s go!” you called, creating a shield around your group as Varvatos took care of the bounty hunters.

“Varvatos thanks you for the light exercise,” he called as you left the bar. You burst out of the doors only to stop when the low gravity made you run slower.

“Varvatos Vex!” The coyote bounty hunter yelled. “Your death is mine!”

“Glorious!” Varvatos yelled only to be slowed as he exited the building. “The gravity here is most unhelpful.”

“Kleb!” Krel cursed.

“Yah! They're mine!” Coyote guy slammed the doors to the bar, keeping the other bounty hunters out.

“Hurry! He's right behind us!” Aja called.

“If we want a shot at outrunning these guys, we should take Zadra's Stryker,” Krel said, pointing.

“Hey, what are you trying to imply about my ship?” Stuart protested. You ran towards Zadra’s ship only to stop when it exploded.

“Ah!” Krel sighed. “Oh, but I'm sure we can make it work.”

“You three, go ahead. Varvatos Vex will hold him off.”

“We came all this way, we're not leaving without you,” Aja said.

“Alpha killed Varvatos' family. Varvatos must end this.”

“Now give Alpha a glorious death,” Aja encouraged, running off.

You made it to the ship and helped Aja up.

“Is no one gonna back up Vex?” Stuart asked.

Aja shook her head. “The Zerons killed Vex's family. This is his fight.”

You hopped into the ship to help get it ready, just in case you had to make a hasty getaway.

You heard shouting outside.

“Do you think he's winning?” Stuart asked. You heard something hit the ship. “It sounds like he's winning.”

The lights outside the ship turned off and you heard Varvatos grunt.

“Any idea what's going on out there?” Aja asked, concerned for her friend.

“Still too dark to see,” Krel said.

It got quiet. “I’m going out there,” Aja said.

“Me too,” Krel agreed.

“Here,” you cast a spell that lit up the hanger. Aja nodded to you and left.

Eventually they came back and you smiled at them. “Who’s ready for the up to thirty hour journey home?” You asked, sarcastically excited.

~~~~

You watched the window as earth steadily got closer. While space was fun, you really missed earth.

“Varvatos must admit, he is looking forward to returning home. If you were to grant him that honor, despite his own failings.”

“Hey, we've all made mistakes and we've all lost people that meant the world to us,” Krel consoled.

“But the three of us are a family,” Aja said and you smiled, it was sweet seeing them happy. You were glad you could help.

Stuart cleared his throat and you all chuckled. “And Stuart,” Aja added.

“And Varvatos will not fail his family again.”

You watched as Stuart pulled you closer to Arcadia and you were excited to see your home. That excitement suddenly disappeared when someone shot at you.

“Somebody is shooting at us!” Varvatos yelled.

“But who?” Stuart asked.

“Maybe it’s the government lady,” you suggested, falling as Stuart did his best to make a crash landing.

You coughed as the door opened and Stuart fell out. “Uncle! Uncle! We come in peace. Ah! Ouch.”

“I thought you were an enemy ship! I could have killed you!” An Acaridian who you believed was Zadra said.

“Well, you... you definitely tried,” Stuart pouted.

Aja cleared her throat and Zadra came over to her.

“What? You said you were at a sleepover,” Zadra said.

Aja laughed sheepishly. “I am sorry. I feel bad about that.”

“You have no idea how much I worried! I nearly took up knitting!” Zadra said and you laughed.

“Such is the pain of raising teen-agers,” Varvatos said as he came out of the ship.

Zadra narrowed her eyes at Varvatos. “I didn't ask for your opinion, nor did I authorize the rescue of a traitor.”

“He's family. We had to rescue him,” Aja protested.

“We will discuss your actions later. For now, I fear a far greater battle lies ahead,” Zadra said ominously. You heard your phone beep from your pocket and you checked the message.

You sighed. “As much as I’d love to stay and hear about this great battle, I’ve got to get going. Thanks for bringing me along.”

“Any time Y/n,” Stuart said.

“Thank you for assisting,” Varvatos said.

You smiled and turned to Aja and Krel. “If you need anything just call me. I’m here to help, okay?”

“Thank you, Y/n,” Aja said, hugging you.

“Of course. Just send me a text if you need to. I’ll be visiting my brother Jim in New Jersey next week, but I’ll still be available to talk.”

“Bye Y/n, thank you!” Krel called as you walked away. You turned and waved at them before settling in for the long walk in the heat to the bookstore. You were glad Douxie had air conditioning.

~~~~

“Where’s my darling?” You asked, walking into the book shop.

“Up here!” Douxie called and you followed his voice to his living room. Mao was curled up with Archie next to Douxie.

“Aww, see you had nothing to worry about,” you said, gesturing to the adorable kitten sleeping peacefully.

“At first she was a little hesitant, but she warmed up to him,” Archie said.

“Of course she did, I never had any doubts.” You took a seat next to Archie and leaned back into the couch. It was pretty comfy and his home was so cold.

"So, what was the errand that called you out in the middle of the night?" Douxie asked.

"I went to the moon," you said excitedly. "I made friends with these nice kids who are from a planet far from here. They needed to rescue their friend from a bounty hunter's hide out on the moon. It's a long story."

Douxie chuckled. "Huh, who knew."

"Arcadia has a lot to offer." You smiled brightly, it warmed your heart that Douxie didn't even hesitate to believe you. You had really fallen for him. He was just so great.

~~~~

The two of you continued chatting for quite a while longer until you grew tired.

The past few days had been very eventful for you and it has been over a month since the eternal night so you were out of routine. Not only had that made you tired, it was the crying babies who currently at your household. You adored them, but you where definitely much more tired than normal.

Archie and Mao cuddled up close to you and Douche brought you a blanket and pillow. He understood what it was like to be exhausted and he wanted to do his best to help you feel better. Unbeknownst to you he really cared for you. He really liked you.

****

Thank you all for reading, I really appreciate all of you and I hope you have fantastic weekends and stay safe! Next half chapter will be you visiting Jim in New Jersey, so stay tuned for that next week!! 💕

P.S. if you want to be on the taglist feel free to ask. I hope it works and please message me if it doesn’t.

P.P.S. I'm totally open for requests on fluffy half chapters! If you have any ideas for the half chapters send them in and I'll do my best to include them.

#douxie x reader #douxie imagine #hisirdoux casperan x reader #hisirdoux x reader #wizards imagine #trollhunters imagine #tales of arcadia imagine #toa imagine #douxie #toa douxie #wizards douxie #hisirdoux casperan #wizards #trollhunters #trollhunters douxie #toa #tales of arcadia #tales of arcadia douxie #fire keeper

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royalprinceroman · 3 years

Note

"In awe, the first time you realised it" with rivya pretty pretty pleaasee

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MAXI!!! this ask is old af but I was inspired so I wrote you this rivya drabble fic thinggggg idk i hope you enjoy it!!

(These characters are our own ocs based on the Sanders Sides from this blog. This is an irl AU so enjoy!! Some Sides might show up idk why don't you read and find out hehe)

On mobile so sorry for no read more :(

---

River felt himself waking up; the stream of his consciousness pulling his thoughts to the real world around him. He slowly opened his eyes to see the glow of the early morning sun peeking through the edge of the curtain he swore he had tucked behind the bookshelf so it wouldn't get him right in the face, but alas, it had failed. River sighed, pulling their comforter over their head in denial.

Mondays sucked and River did not want to pull themselves out of bed, but within seconds of stretching their arms above their head, a shrill alarm from their phone began to sound on the side table next to their bed. River slapped around until successfully snoozing the alarm before throwing the blanket off.

There was one reason and one reason only River was getting up for class on this day. He had that one class today - economics. And that one boy was in it. The transfer student.

He had the gall to talk to River the day before, and several days before that. As well as the day the teacher had given him the seat next to River.

"Hello." The boy had said as he sat down. His hood covered most of his face but River could see his right eye and a soft smile on his face. "My name is Arya. It's nice to meet you."

River had glanced his way, their chin balanced on their palm. With the intent to simply brush him off, River had opened his mouth only to feel his words caught in his throat once he had made eye contact with the gentle boy.

"I'm River." River had managed to cough out that day. "Pleasure."

It was a dry introduction, but it didn't seem to offend Arya at all. He had smiled again and turned to his bag in front of him, pulling his notebook and pen out as River heard the teacher begin to speak.

River had been brought back to his dorm room by a jolt of him missing his pant leg while trying to get dressed. Arya had left him feeling weird that first day and every day after that, Arya had continued to say hello and be super kind to him. River didn't really understand why Arya was acting that way-- if Arya knew River at all, he would know that River didn't deserve that kind of kindness.

River zipped his jacket up and heard his cell phone begin to chime again, but this time it was a text tone. He absent-mindedly reached for the phone, unlocking it in one motion.

He bit his lip as he saw a message from his brother- his twin, Meph. Meph had chosen not to go to college but to work at a friend's laboratory. River sometimes regretted going to college but since he was there on a scholarship, it only made sense to stay. Besides, Meph had only chosen not to go to college to help River actually go for his dream: to be a marine biologist.

River loved the ocean. It was his favorite place to be and if he managed to put his past behind him and become a marine biologist, he'd never have to leave the ocean again. Meph had gotten the job with his friend to pay the bills so River could focus on school.

Meph the Grump: Hey so Nic needs me to stay late again this weekend so I won't be able to come up to visit. Maybe we can work something out for next weekend. Just let me know.

River sighed and locked his phone, shoving it into his pocket. That makes the 3rd time Meph canceled on him in the last month. River didn't really know what Nicolaus did for a living but Meph was apparently very important to the lab. It paid for the roof over his head so River ignored the pain of disappointment running through his chest.

He grabbed his bag before stopping by the mirror near the front door. Messing with his hair for only a few moments, he sighed and left the house, locking the front door behind him. His college was a mere three blocks away so walking was the simplest way of getting there.

River began the trek down the semi busy street, staring at the ground as he walked. From the corners of their sight, River watched the world go around him: People walked solo past; some girls in groups crossing the street laughing together; a single mom holding her baby while opening the door to a store.

The world kept going despite of all the troubles people had. River knew this and yet he always wondered what he looked like from that perspective. Was he intimidating? Were they interesting to the world around them or forgettable?

River adjusted his back on his shoulder as he stopped at a crosswalk. Several people lingered around him as they all waited for the traffic light to change. As he considered his plans for the weekend now that Meph wasn't coming into town anymore, he realized he was staring across the road at a familiar face.

It was Arya. However, Arya was standing against a brick building with another few men around him. River scrunched his face in curiosity and confusion. He had never seen Arya outside of class and he walked this street everyday. Wouldn't they have crossed paths before?

River heard the chime of the crosswalk allowing pedestrians to pass as suddenly one of the men grabbed Arya by the shoulder rather roughly. Arya stumbled into one of the other taller men who shoved him back towards the building. River felt his blood boil nearly instantly as he took off across the street. He was still fairly far away but he picked up the pace as the three men pulled Arya down an alleyway behind the brick building.

"I promise I'll have it to you soon. I will. I will." Arya's voice filtered through the air as River got closer. It was staggered and breathless; shaky and soft. He was clearly scared. "I know I said today, but my job hasn't paid me yet so--"

CRACK.

River dashed around the corner, hearing a bone crushing noise as they did so. It took River's eyes a few seconds while blinking to adjust to the darkness of the alley only to see Arya on the ground, unmoving.

"You bastards! What did you do to him?" River shouted as he stomped forward, leaving barely any space between himself and the strangers. His heart was racing-- Arya still hadn't moved. "Arya! Hey!" River shouted as the men laughed.

"Arya has a friend? Haha, that's the funniest thing I've heard all day," said the tallest man, turning to face River. "You should scram, kid, if you know what's good for you."

"Kid? I'm not a child, and I'm not scared of you." River said confidently, even though his hand was trembling. He was convinced it was his anger peaking. "Get away from him." River snarled through bared teeth.

The leader looked at his two friends and all three of them laughed.

"Kid, I don't think you understand the situation you're in." the Leader scoffed before suddenly darting towards River with his fist reared back.

In one step, River bent down, dodging him swiftly and flattening his right hand, shoving it perfectly timed onto the man's elbow forcing it the wrong direction. River heard the satisfying snap of the bone.

"Sonofabitch!" The leader shouted, falling to the ground, grasping towards his left arm. His partners ran to his side as he struggled to stand. "I won't forget this!" He growled as the three of them took off out of the alley.

River relaxed his stance, releasing a deep breath before spinning on his heel and dashing back to where Arya lay still unmoving. River fell to his knees, picking Arya up gently.

"Hey... hey Arya." They whispered, shaking the boy. Within a minute, Arya's eyes opened and he immediately pushed away from River, the innate fear of the other men still fresh. "No, Arya, it's okay-- it's me." River held his hands up.

Arya's breathing slowed as he realized the other three men were gone. His hand snapped to his head, his left eye closing in pain. Silence fell between the two of them. River wasn't sure what to say, and Arya... he looked like he might pass out at any moment.

"What are you doing here?" Arya broke the silence. His voice was scratchy but still the soft, kind tone River was used to hearing in class. "This doesn't concern you."

River scoffed, "The hell it doesn't! Who were those men? What did they want from you?" Arya stayed silent, choosing to look anywhere but River's face. "Fine then, I guess it doesn't matter..." he stood up to leave.

"Wait!" Arya jumped to his feet.

River turned to see Arya reaching out towards him only for the boy to be overcome by his injuries. His eyes rolled back and he fell towards the ground. River was quick enough to catch him before he made contact with the pavement. The momentum of the fall had caused Arya's hood to reveal his full face. River blinked in surprise-- the right side of Arya's face was covered with a severe burn scar. How had they never noticed it before?

Out of respect, River pulled Arya's hood back over his head and held the boy close.

"Excuse me."

A voice from behind them both caused River to whip around, holding on to Arya even tighter.

A man stood there, holding his bowler hat in front of his face. His cape like top blew in the wind of the alley and his yellow gloved hands nearly look illuminescent in the alley.

"Who are you?" River demanded.

"I am that boy's guardian, and I would appreciate you giving him to me." The man said as he put his hat on his head. It revealed his face to be similar to Arya except the left side of his was... a snake, wait what?

River stood, holding Arya in his arms. "Why should I believe you? Maybe I should take him and run away?"

"No, that's not necessary. You see... that boy is not human, my dear." The man began to walk closer. "Well, not anymore." He stopped walking. "Ah, how rude of me. I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Janus."

"Okay... Janus what do you want with Arya?" River questioned, backing up a step.

"Oh no. You misunderstand. Arya came to me, you see. Alone and with nothing to lose, he made a deal. A deal with a snake." Janus explained, the snake side of his face never losing the grin it held. "Losing your entire family in a fire you caused and leaving yourself scarred for life is a rough thing to go through. He wanted to forget-- however it comes with a price."

"Yeah well... he needs medical treatment from whatever those assholes did to him so I'm taking him to the hospital. He's not going with you." River said firmly. "So I'll be leaving now."

River adjusted Arya in his arms before brushing past Janus toward the main street. River never once looked back and kept walking, avoiding the busier streets with nosey people. A regular hospital would ask too many questions. It was time to pay an old friend a visit.

After a ten minute walk, River arrived at what looked like a simple flower shop. He walked inside. A boy stood behind the main counter and turned to face them.

"Oh River! It's been awhile." He said. "Oh... is your friend hurt?"

"Yeah... can you help him Gabriel?" River asked as Gabriel held a back door open for them to walk through.

"Of course. Let's get him checked out." Gabriel assured.

River placed Arya on a rather large bed and sat down across from him and Gabriel in a plastic chair. River could feel the tension leaving his body finally and the realization of everything that happened was making his mind race as he watched Gabriel check Arya's vitals. Who were those three original men? Who was Janus? Was Janus telling the truth when he said Arya wasn't human anymore? What did that even mean? Nothing about this morning made any sense.

"River?" Gabriel's voice called them out of their stupor and River could see Arya was covered by a blanket now and his hoodie has been removed. "Are you okay? Do you need me to check you too?" Gabriel reached and felt River's head before they could lean away.

"No I'm fine." River assured.

Before Gabriel could ask again, a chime went off above their heads: a customer had walked into the flower shop. Gabriel excused himself and left the room. The room became silent other than the ticking of the clock on the far wall.

River stood up and walked to look at Arya. He looked peacefully asleep and more relaxed than before. Gabriel must've given him some medication. River pushed Arya's bangs out of his face and Arya stirred a bit, as if he was going to wake up.

"River.... wait.. please..." Arya murmured, his eyes still closed but tightened in fear. A dream. "I can explain... don't go... I need you."

River grabbed Arya's hand, intertwining their fingers. Arya seemed to relax and stopped talking. River was an idiot-- why hadn't he noticed it before? All of those feelings towards Arya... it was love. A need to protect.

"Don't worry, Arya..." River sat down on the side of the bed, brushing their fingers down the side of Arya's face. "I'm not going anywhere."

FIN.

#sanders sides #ocs #my ocs #arya sanders #river sanders #though technically they arent sanders here but idc #janus sanders #rivya #happy birthday maxi 2021 #sorry this wasnt longer ;^; work sucks

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jcmorrigan · 3 years

Note

It's giovanni's bday today! (or yesterday if you get this ask tomarrow) Any HCs for the birthday boy?

Okay I am once again doing this off the top of my head because I wanted to go improv style, but here is a story called THAT TIME THE BLASTERS TRIED TO THROW A SURPRISE PARTY AND IT DIDN’T GO WELL.

-Crusher has Giovanni’s birthday marked in his personal planner, and in his phone, and he also has the week leading up to it marked, and his calendar has that entire week outlined in pink marker, and basically mid-January he bursts in on a meeting of the other Blasters and goes “THE BOSS’ BIRTHDAY IS COMING UP YOU GUYS”

-One of them - I’m gonna say Flamethrower - actually has a late January birthday and is like “Can we not focus on my birthday first? Please? No? Okay.” (Don’t worry. Giovanni himself will throw Flamethrower THE BIGGEST PARTY)

-So for a while, Giovanni has been going around like “So my birthday is coming up. I sure hope nobody..............IS PLANNING A SURPRISE PARTY”

-Crusher: “So, guys, I’m not sure, but I think he might want a surprise party.” Car Crash: “Are you sure about that?”

-They resolve they are indeed going to throw him the most surprising of parties! Which means they CANNOT acknowledge his birthday until the moment of truth. They have to make him think they FORGOT.

-Which is not easy when Giovanni enters the temporary lair (I still love “abandoned library”; pry that one from my cold fingers) and goes “THE BIRTHDAY BOY HAS ARRIVED”

-There’s a host of grunts and vague acknowledgements. Nobody gets up from what they’re doing.

-Giovanni clears his throat. “I SAID. The birthday boy HAS ARRIVED!”

-Ben: “Happy birthday.” Giovanni: “SHUT UP, BEN!”

-So he tries to just focus on heist planning since nobody seems to be up for birthday talk. Halfway through detailing how he’s going to break into the local public pool after hours for illegal swimming, which is TOTALLY a thing high-profile criminals do, he just slams his hands down on a table and goes “SERIOUSLY, DOES NOBODY CARE THAT IT’S MY BIRTHDAY?”

-Nope. (At least...that’s what they WANT him to think.)

-”That’s fine. This is fine. It doesn’t have to be about me all the time. I can take it.”

-Ten minutes and he’s crying in the corner, wiping his eyes with the corner of his cape, because nobody cares about his birthday

-Ten more minutes and he just storms out. Spike: “So I’m thinking maybe we didn’t think this plan all the way through...”

-Nobody wants to celebrate Giovanni’s birthday? He’ll throw HIS OWN BIRTHDAY PARTY

-He spends, like, four hours making the world’s most perfect layer cake, with the layers dyed all different colors

-His mom walks in on him hanging a “HAPPY BIRTHDAY ME” banner in the living room and is just “Giovanni what are you doing”

-(She then hands him a watch and a gift card because she might argue with her son a lot but she’s a good mom)

-None of the Blasters seem to care about Giovanni’s birthday...so he’s going to invite his OTHER friends!

-Except Molly’s...busy. Busy? With WHAT? Does she not get that it’s her boss’ birthday?

-(She’s helping the other Blasters prep for the party later.)

-Fast forward fifteen minutes and Giovanni has rounded up one (1) party guest. And the only reason Sylvie is here is because it will get Giovanni to stop blowing up his phone. (Bonus reason: there’s cake. Sylvie doesn’t like to admit it but he loves cake.)

-Sylvie starts to rethink his decision when Giovanni makes him wear a sparkly party hat

-Sylvie realizes that generally one should give a birthday-haver a birthday gift. He doesn’t particularly WANT to but it’s only polite. So he offers for a free therapy session

-(..............is Sylvie the THIRD therapist character with weird nightmare powers that I like? That’s for another post)

-Giovanni: “Please. I am completely self-actualized. I don’t need any help with my emotions.”

-Giovanni, two minutes later, on the couch sobbing: “AND THEY ACTED LIKE IT WAS NO BIG DEAL AND I THOUGHT WE WERE ALL FRIENDS”

-Sylvie is...weirdly sympathetic. But also curious. Why would everyone bail on Giovanni? People mostly seem to like him.

-”And then Bear Trap was busy with some weird appointment she couldn’t even tell me about - “

-It hits Sylvie like a freight train, and he says it before he can think through the consequences: “You...you realize they’re all planning a surprise party for you, right?”

-Giovanni: “They WHAT”

-Sylvie lines up the evidence. Everybody loves Giovanni, but they’re acting like his birthday is nothing, meaning it’s a fakeout.

-Giovanni: “WHY THOSE NO-GOOD DIRTY LIARS - I LOOOOOOVE THEEEEMMMMM”

-Well, the problem is that he and Sylvie have already put away an entire layer cake. Oh, well! Birthdays are for eating two cakes. Birthdays are for doing whatever you want, really!

-Crusher calls him to tell him to come down to the temp lair at once and Giovanni’s just “Riiiiiight. I gotcha.” He winks, even though Crusher can’t see him wink over the phone. Then he goes to head out -

-And at the last minute, invites Sylvie to come along, because Sylvie is his rival, and to a true villain, a rival is as important to you as any friend! (Read: Sylvie is his friend and he wants him at this party)

-Crusher, in the meantime: “I think he figured us out.” Molly: “Probably.”

-So when Giovanni shows up to find the temp lair decked out in confetti and streamers, and a big ol’ chocolate cake on the table, the Blasters all yell “SURPRISE!” with these looks on their faces like they don’t know if he will actually be surprised

-Giovanni: “OH MY GOD I AM SO. SURPRISED!”

-Sylvie: “Yeah, literally no one here is surprised by anything. You all knew what each other was doing.”

-Giovanni: “Though I am touched that you guys gave me the surprise party I’d been bugging you about for weeks - “

-Sylvie: “YOU MEAN YOU TOLD THEM YOU WANTED THIS AND THEY STILL FOOLED YOU? WHAT THE HELL”

-And they all dance the night away to rock songs that probably have too many swear words for Molly to be listening to, but she doesn’t care.

That was more of a story than headcanons but I hope you enjoyed it anyhow

#giovanni potage #HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY DUDE!!!!!!

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rayne-storm · 3 years

Text

AUgust 14 - Chefs

Title: WENN LIEBE IN DIR IST… UND GUTES ESSEN

Fandom: Tanz Der Vampyr

Alfred/Herbert, Graf/Sarah

This is my favourite musical. Straight up. You cannot get better than this. Maybe "Master and Margarita" but I haven't found a good bootleg of it.

I really hope you guys like this one!!!

Oh, there they were again. That damned truck with it's bombastic orchestral music, the catchy paintings, and the obnoxious sign boy. Alfred knew they were doing this on purpose, parking there because they knew how much it pissed off the staff of his own restaurant. Sure, it wasn't really "his" restaurant. It really belonged to Abronsius, the eclectic perfectionist who taught him everything.

And there the sign boy went, platinum hair flowing ever so delicately on the wind. He chatted up anyone that came by, and of course the mesh shirt mixed with the weird cape thing only made the spectacle that much more intriguing.

Alfred must have been glaring for too long because the blond eventually turned and winked straight at him through the window.

Damnit!

His face must have turned red because Abronsius asked him what was wrong, and he quickly made up some excuse about the heat before going back into the kitchen.

"You know," Sarah - the newest pastry chef - whispered, "their food's really good, and the sign dancer guy is single~" she teased.

Alfred felt his face pucker like he'd eaten a lemon.

Yes, the man was attractive, but from what Abronsius had said, they were all bad sorts there. But… well… whatever. Whatever. He had soups to make.

---

Three nights later. They were back. He had the evening off. Fuck. He was pissed. Abronsius had denied him a raise again. He shouldn't have been surprised, but if always stung when he was educated on exactly why he wasn't worth an extra two dollars an hour.

He knew he was young, sure, but he wasn't stupid or incompetent, he didn't have wrong priorities. He wasn't any of the things that stodgy old bastard said. And all he had wanted was two (2) more dollars. It wouldn't have even made him the highest paid (even discounting the profits he knew the old asshole was keeping).

So he wanted to make the man upset. As the sounds of Tchaikovsky drifted towards him, he couldn't help smirking. He hoped Abronsius was watching. Hoped Abronsius saw him ordering off the competition's menu, and he fully planned on eating right outside the restaurant, in full view from the large glass windows.

"Well hello there, finally come to see what all the fuss is about?"

Alfred nearly jumped out of his skin. He hadn't heard anyone approaching, but there he was: the sign guy. Blond haired, pale skinned, and just, umf, fucking beautiful.

Alfred felt his heart rate increase just from the sheer proximity.

"I-I-I, uhm, yeah. Uh, m-mostly, well, I, uh, wanted to p-piss off my boss."

Real smooth, dipshit!

Sarah was right. He was hopeless.

The guy grinned and, of all things, kissed his hand.

"Well, I'm glad you did. I thought I might have to venture into that tacky place to properly say hello."

Alfred honestly didn't disagree. The restaurant was called Knoblauch, which just meant "garlic" and the interior was kind of gaudy. Not that he would have ever dared say so.

"I, uh- wait. You wanted to see me?"

"Every day since I first spotted your adorable pout, yes."

It was effortless the way this guy flirted and Alfred was just getting more and more shy.

"I'm… um… that's sweet. Thanks."

"So did Sarah get you to take a look? She's been very chatty about you, you know."

Ah fuck.

"I, uh, I mean, maybe I guess, but, uh-"

"She says you're a single hopeless romantic, and I really hope she's right," the man interrupted, and whoops, there went Alfred's ability to speak anything but flustered gibberish entirely.

The man leaned down and grinned.

"My name's Herbert von Krolock. What's yours?"

Oh, Alfred knew this man knew, but he couldn't help answering anyway, stuttering it out.

Herbert grinned. "You're so cute! Do you wanna have dinner with me? Now?"

"U-u-uh, um, I mean, uh, I…. Yes…?"

Herbert took his hands (both of them, like this was some kinda romcom), and led him over to the side of the food truck, music playing louder there, and the magnificent frescoes truly visible. They were gothic scenes, dark balls. Alfred couldn't help liking them, for whatever reason.

Then another beautiful man appeared, pale and salt-and-pepper tied in a neat bun.

"Oh, the boy finally came. What shall we have tonight?"

Herbert smiled and nudged Alfred, who realized in a panic he had no idea what kind of food they even sold. The man seemed to take pity on him, luckily.

"Let's start you with a sampler, then. I know it's a wide variety… I'm glad you stopped by. Sarah speaks highly of you," he added with a small smile.

If he survived this Sarah was getting the bougiest fucking brunch ever.

Hebert led him to a small table over to the side to wait.

"You know, Graf is head over heels for her, but he's afraid his age will put her off," the blond murmured conspiratorially.

Alfred couldn't help snorting softly.

"She has a thing for older guys, actually. He should go for it."

Herbert grinned brightly. "I'll try to let him know that…"

Alfred couldn't help smiling. Was it something in the air? Who knew? He just… was having the best night he'd had in a long time.

The food was ready and Herbert got it, stopping only briefly to greet visitors. Alfred was a little surprised, since he always seemed so sociable before, inviting people in.

"What's the look for, hmm?"

Alfred was startled again by the quietness of Herbert's steps.

"O-oh! Nothing, really. Just… you always seem so chatty when…"

"When you spy on me from your little restaurant? I am. But tonight I'm on a date with a very cute guy, and he gets all my attention."

Alfred once again lost all coherence, nibbling at a strawberry to hide his sheepishness.

Herbert just chuckled, and began telling him about the food truck.

Graf (the owner, Mr. Sexy Older Guy) had taught himself to cook after dealing with a very hard childhood, and one day he decided he would take his knowledge out and feed others. He quickly became popular as a caterer at parties, the rich-people kind, like masquerade balls and that kinda thing.

He still did them sometimes. But his true love lay in cooking for the masses, it seemed, out on the street, in parks, at games. He decided to take the Balls and Parties with him.

"That's… really cool," Alfred admitted.

"Yeah? I think so. But we might have to give it up… he's thinking of doing a world tour in his golden years," Herbert began with a wry smirk, "as though he ever plans on retiring… but he wants an apprentice. I'm no good at anything except cold foods and people-pleasing…"

Alfred sighed and shook his head. Just his luck. He found a new favourite place and they were closing.

"I mean, you seem pretty good at what you do…" Herbert added suggestively.

"Wait, wait, what? Me?"

"Yeah. You. You're not the only one that spies from time to time. You seem really passionate about food. And fast. And competent in general."

Everything that Abronsius berated him for not being.

"I… is this all just a ploy? To poach from the competition?" He asked, stiffening. It was one thing to be all flirty and friendly, an entirely other thing to-

"What? No. Of course not! I'm not so shallow I'd do that."

Herbert looked genuinely hurt and offended. Fuck.

"I… I… I'm sorry it's just… I'm pretty often reminded that I'm a young, stupid know-nothing that'll never make it on my own and all…" Alfred muttered bitterly.

"That old hack doesn't know what he's talking about."

Graf's voice came from nowhere, and you know what? Alfred could live in a state of permanent heart-attacks. That was fine.

"What? You know him?"

"That pompous blowhard is the reason I never went to culinary school. Way back when, he made everyone's life hell because it had to be his way or nothing, because he knew how to cook 'properly' and we knew nothing."

"....so I take it he hasn't changed much."

"Nope. Almost ruined food for me. I decided I'd never go through anything that would turn me into a rude monster like that."

"Well, I'm quitting tomorrow, so I don't blame you."

Graf chuckled. "Why bother with that courtesy? Just come work for me. Rub it in his face. Bring the girl too. Take his two best kids from him."

Yeah. That… that sounded good.

"You know what? I think I will. If you'll excuse me, I have a call to make."

He walked over to the other side of the truck, a little ways away, where he could look in and see the kitchen. And there was Sarah, flinching at something the old bastard was saying.

He called her number.

He almost couldn't believe it when she picked up.

"Look outside," he directed. She did, and gave him a wave and a bright smile.

"How do you like it?!”

"So much I'm gonna work here. I quit. You should too. They asked for you by name."

"Say no more."

She hung up, and without further ado completely stripped off her uniform, leaving her in a sports bra and leggings (cause let's be real it got fucking hot in that kitchen sometimes), and she just sauntered on out.

Herbert started laughing, and Alfred turned just in time to see the look on Graf's face as his dulcet darling was strutting over.

"So, you want to give a recently unemployed girl a job?" She asked with a bright smile.

Alfred was glad he wasn't the only one who sometimes forgot how to speak.

Herbert took over, and the pair quickly bantered a deal, and Alfred just took a minute to watch.

They looked good, all together like that. Almost like a family.

Of course, then Herbert glanced up at him, and gave him another of those heart-stopping winks.

Well.

Carpe noctem and all that.

#my writing #rayne writes #au-gust #au gust 2021 #fanfic #tanz der vampire

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poorlytunedukulele · 3 years

Text

Day 13 - Night of the Hunter

September 13, 2872

It had all started with a cryptic message.

Andal Brask: Party. Tuesday. 29°30'57.2"N 147°42'28.2"W. ;)

Azra didn’t have much going on that day, so she figured why not? If it didn’t end up being her scene she could always just leave.

Still, some paranoia (it wasn’t not paranoia if it was useful, she had to remind herself) made her want to check out the place beforehand. Or maybe she was just bored. In any case, she found herself staring at an empty patch of Pacific Ocean at around 1pm local time. Andal’s coordinates had her smack dab in the middle of nowhere. There weren’t even any islands nearby. She flew her jumpship in lazy circles, wondering exactly what kind of prank he was playing.

It took her a good fifteen minutes to realize that Andal had never specified the coordinates were on Earth. A quick check with her maps revealed that 29°30'57.2"N 147°42'28.2"W was at the peak of a very prominent mountain on Venus.

But there wasn’t a party site at the mountain, either. There was a cache. A cache with a cheeky note (written in unfamiliar hand) and another set of coordinates. Those lead her to a cave on Mars, then an archive in Freehold, then a weird spire on Venus.

Azra was having so much fun she almost forgot about the party. There was a clue in a dead zone so full of interference even the GPS failed and she had to navigate by her map alone. She had to go diving in a cenote for another.

Then one clue dropped her off in the middle of nowhere. While she’d been galivanting about the system, night had fallen on the Appalachian Dead Zone. She was in some unremarkable stretch of forest in the mountainscape. There was nothing. No tracks, no trail signs, no notes with hints, just the cooling night air.

Azra closed her eyes and listened. And though there wasn’t any sounds to be heard over the wind, she did smell something. Just the barest hint of smoke. It grew stronger as the breeze picked up, so she followed her nose upwind. She paused to listen frequently. After a few minutes, she heard… something. Were those voices in the distance?

Azra had finally found the party. She hadn’t seen the fire because it was in a deep gully, hidden by foliage. She crested the ridge and watched for a few minutes below as figures talked, danced, gestured, lit by the roaring flames. It was hard to recognize anyone from the distance, but this had to be the right place.

Azra picked her way down the slope, social anxieties forgotten. Why she’d needed to go through a scavenger hunt to get here she had no idea, but she wasn’t about to complain. It had been fun.

The ground was slippery at the bottom of the valley (there was mud beneath the dead leaf cover). Azra would have normally paused to gather herself before approaching, but she was robbed of the opportunity when she tripped and slid the last few meters.

She stumbled into the light of the fire. A ragged cheer went up from those gathered- all Hunters, she noted. Azra was mortified for a second, all eyes on her-

Then everyone went back to their conversations.

Almost everyone. There were a few familiar faces in the crowd. Andal ambled over, drink in hand, hood thrown back. “Hey, you made it! Wasn’t sure you would.”

“Liar,” Cayde called from across the clearing. “You bet she’d get here before the night was up.”

“Didn’t mean I knew,” Andal countered, then turned his attention back to the young Hunter. “How long ago did you start looking?”

“Uh… four hours ago?”

Andal raised an eyebrow. “Scoping out the site early, I see. It’s not even dark in the Pacific yet.”

“I was bored.”

“You bored now?” Cayde asked as he also came over. He slung an arm over her shoulders and gestured. “Welcome to the cool kid’s club.”

“Is that what it’s called?” Azra asked. “With capital letters and everything? The Cool Kids Club?”

“No,” Andal sighed, “but it should be.”

“Only the cool kids get invites,” Cayde explained. “Only the good kids actually find the place in time. So here we’ve got ourselves a bunch of good, cool kids. That includes you, now.”

“Who arranged all of this?” Azra asked.

Andal shrugged. “Someone from Dead End Cure, this time. Sometime tonight there’ll be a contest to see who has the honor next year. Speaking of honor, did you remember your party etiquette?”

Spark answered by transmatting two bottles of rum into his Guardian’s hands. She waggled them in a proud boast.

“Brought the good stuff, I see!” an unfamiliar voice said. “Though I don’t recognize you.”

Azra turned as a stranger approached. They were half a head shorter than she was, leanly muscled, with dark skin and a camouflage-patterned cape. Azra glanced for half a second at Andal, who shook his head.

“You’re going to have to do a lot of introducing tonight,” the Gunslinger said. He clapped her on her shoulder and wandered off to talk with Shiro and another unfamiliar Exo.

Message received: you stand for yourself here, no help from me.

“I’m Azra Jax,” she said, transferring the bottles to her left arm so she could stick out her right hand. “My Ghost is Spark.”

“Name’s Puck,” the Hunter said, taking her hand and shaking it firmly.

“It suits you,” Azra said without thinking. They had a certain mischievous air about them. That didn’t stop Azra from immediately regretting opening her mouth. These were new people, she couldn’t go around saying whatever asinine thing came into her head first.

But instead of taking offense, the other Hunter just smiled. “Thanks! I picked it myself. I think I have heard of you before, but I can’t recall when. You frequent the ADZ?”

“No more than anywhere else,” Azra replied. “Um. I did some stuff at Twilight Gap.” She really hoped it was that and not the other thing people always recognized, but the other Hunter’s face remained contemplative.

Puck shook their head. “Fun story, actually. I was stuck on Venus that whole time. My ship got shot down and nobody could come pick me up. I don’t think that’s it.”

Azra realized she’d be having this conversation a lot tonight. She considered just leaving. Booze and a bonfire didn’t really outweigh hours of curiosity she’d have to entertain. “I’m the Arcstrider,” she said, aware of the weariness in her voice.

“Oh, yeah!” Puck’s eyes lit with recognition. “Say no more.” A pause. “Damn, aren’t you like, four?”

“Yeeeessss?” Azra said.

“Andal!” Puck barked. The Gunslinger ambled back over with Cayde and Shiro in tow. He was trying to suppress a grin and failing.

“You didn’t break the rules, did you?” Puck demanded. “No hints.”

Andal bowed. “No, ma’amsiree. Just the starting coordinates. And a winky face.”

“I told you ‘sir’ is fine,” Puck sighed.

“I think mine is the more elegant solution,” Andal said with an air of superiority. “Rolls off the tongue. ‘Sir’ sounds like ‘zir’ and then we all get confused about how formal we’re being.”

Azra had already lost where the conversation was going. “I ended up staring at the Pacific Ocean for a while before I realized what was up,” she offered. “Also I have no idea what you’re arguing about.”

“Listen,” Puck said. “Zavala uses ‘sir’. Sloane uses ‘sir’. Nobody is going around saying ‘him yes him’! It’s never going to get confused. Yours just sounds dumb.”

Azra turned to her Ghost for help, but he just did a shrug-twirl and floated closer to her shoulder. “I didn’t spend a lot of time with people before meeting you,” he whispered. “I have no idea either.” Puck and Andal continued their debate, to Azra's befuddlement.

“Somebody please explain it to the newbie before she gets an aneurysm?” Shiro interrupted. "She's turning red."

Puck turned to face her, dark eyes flashing in the firelight. “Okay, fine.” Azra knew that tone of voice. It was identical to the one she’d used earlier, a weary ‘let’s get this over with’. Puck spoke slowly. “So I’m not a ‘ma’am’.”

“You’ve made that very clear, sir,” Azra said.

“I’m not technically much of a ‘sir’ either,” Puck explained.

Azra’s brain plugged the new information into her equation and threw up an error message in response.

Andal cackled. “I’m not sure we’re out of aneurysm territory, my fey friend.”

Azra held up her hands. “You just spent like two minutes arguing-“

“I’m sure we could drag this on for another few,” Shiro said, “but let’s not. Puck uses ‘ze’ and ‘zir’. Andal always complains about honorifics because he likes smashing words together in terrifying new ways.”

“That’s it?” Azra said.

“There is no widely accepted gender-neutral honorific,” Andal said. “But one day…”

“Really trying to change the world, this one,” Puck muttered. Ze looked at Azra with a question in zir eyes. Does this have to be a conversation?

“Uh.. it suits you?” was all Azra could think of.

Andal grinned and nudged Puck with an elbow. Puck rolled zir eyes.

Azra turned on her Gunslinger friend. “Your solution to the ma’am/sir issue was ma’amsiree?”

“It’s in beta,” Andal said. “Still working out the kinks.”

“It’s a wonder you haven’t come across this problem before if you’ve been running with him,” Puck said. “Referring to people in… interesting ways is kind of his thing.”

Azra shrugged. “That’s the trick. I just don’t refer to people in general.”

“If it really bothers you, Puck, I’ll stop,” Andal offered. “I was getting the vibe that you liked that bit, but I’m always willing to be proven wrong.”

Puck just laughed. “As long as you don’t teach the newbies any bad habits.”

“I am sorry to inform you it is far too late for that,” Shiro intoned. “The puns, Puck. They get so much worse when she’s around.”

“Well see if I share my liquor with you,” Azra groused. “I had to go into the City proper to get this stuff.”

Puck eyed the bottles she still cradled in her arms. “Well, since you brought two, you deserve a present. Come on.” Ze swatted her shoulder until she moved to stand by a mostly-empty folding table. Puck vaulted easily on to the table and stood.

“Hey!” ze shouted, clapping zir hands once. All conversation died immediately. “Public service announcement! This,” ze gestured down to where Azra stood, frozen in shock, “Is Azra Jax. She’s an Arcstrider. Oooooo. Big mystery.” The Hunter waved zir hands in a spooky gesture, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Here’s the deal: if any of you bug her about it, she gets permission to stab you.”

“She won’t stab anyone even if they bug her,” Cayde called. “She’s shy.”

“Then I give Cayde permission to stab you,” Puck said blithely. Cayde made a silent gesture of celebration, which Puck ignored. “I just eliminated a lot of boring conversation. You’re welcome.”

“Is giving Cayde permission to stab people a good idea?” someone asked.

“Better not toe the line then, shouldya?” Puck waggled a finger, then jumped nimbly down from zir table. The hum of conversation resumed after a few seconds.

“Thanks,” Azra said.

Puck waved her off. “I’m the host, it’s my job. Drinks go over there. Ashton left to get pizza like two godsdamned hours ago, you’re welcome to some whenever that gets here. No explosions or ordinance unless some Fallen show up. Be nice. No bothering Azra about being an Arcstider. That’s all the party rules as of now.” Ze fixed her with a stern glare. “Don’t make me add any more.”

There was a loud crack- a branch snapping under someone’s foot. A cheer went up as an unfamiliar Hunter walked into the clearing.

“That’s my cue,” Puck said, giving a sly wink. “Have fun.” The Hunter strode off to welcome the next person to the party.

"Come on," Cayde urged. "I don't think you've been introduced to Mot Balek. I have to be there to see that."

AO3 Linky

#destcember #destcember2020 #destiny #destiny the game #shhhh #it's still the thirteenth somewhere #andal brask #cayde-6 #shiro-4 #and self-indulgent nb characters #oh my

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