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palmett-hoes · 3 years

Note

Do you have any fan casts or strong takes/feelings on the foxes’ appearances? Fandom tends to use the same Pinterest models, which feels wrong to me.

i do in fact! i've actually been meaning to make a post about how i choose to write all of the foxes' ethnicities anyway

but yes i absolutely agree that the typical pinterest model types u generally see on edits is not how i see any of them. nor is reece king or froy gutierrez or lucky blue smith one of my FCs for anyone

for a lot of them i don't necessarily have a single specific FC so much as i have like,, a general impression of features that i will see on various different people, who all may look wildly different from each other or who may not even look how i see the character as a whole but do have a specific feature i associate with them. mostly it boils down to the Energy i get tbh and that's just a Feeling i cant even explain

fun fact im a tiny bit face blind so that might account for some of why i'm so all-over about this

may as well go chronologically. some of them i definitely have more thoughts on than others

1. Dan

ethnicity: Afro Native (Sioux)

features: medium dark skin. buzzcut, killer fade. she often styles it in waves. she's very butch, wears a lot of basketball and cargo shorts, tank tops and flannels and jerseys, hiking boots. skinny but muscular, with a very rectangular body shape. defined jaw. probably like 5'4 or 5'5

FC/Energy: sometimes i get some dan energy out of janelle monae but more butch. lotta dan energy out of samira wiley. lashana lynch

2. Kevin

ethnicity: a lot of things tbd, but he's pretty multi-ethnic. i like the idea of kayleigh being half- or a quarter-japanese in addition to irish because it gives her more of a reason to go to japan for her undergrad. wymack is from d.c. which is a majority black city for its actual residents, but i also like the idea of him being Pasifika/Hawaiian. HOWEVER - and this is pretty important to my read of kevin's character - he's white passing, and has been mostly treated as a white guy who tans his whole life, like occasionally asked if he's italian maybe. learning that his father was a Distinctly Not White Man was a big shock to him.

kristin kreuk, lindsay price, phoebe cates, and marie digby are all half-asian actresses i base kayleigh on

i suppose i base his story partially on broadway actress carol channing, who revealed publically that she was a quarter black when she was like 80 years old. though maybe wentworth miller, a biracial actor who knows his father is black but also doesn't know him, is more accurate to kevin's story. then keanu reeves is a white passing actor with asian ancestry

also none of these people look anything like how i picture kevin lol. kevin is just like,, a guy. handsome ig. but kind of in a CW character kind of way

actually

kevin looks exactly like young jason momoa

3. Andrew

ethnicity: kayin/karen from myanmar

features: fat and muscular, very wide and heavy. this blog is basically all andrew body type refs. medium-olive skin, has a bit of a greyish tinge that makes him look a bit eerie or unhealthy. deep set, droopy eyes; looks so tired. flat face with a low-bridged nose. crooked teeth, especially his canines. natural hair black-ish but he bleaches it light blond. has the beginnings of martial artist punching callouses in his knuckles

FC/Energy: holy shit the characters i feel have Andrew Energy are all over the place. pedro pascal. babe ruth (yes fr). oddjob (harold sakata) from goldfinger. the jinn (mousa kraish) from american gods. gaear grimsrud (peter stormare) from fargo. takeshi kovacs (joel kinnaman) from altered carbon. and i wanna be clear, it's these characters specifically, and generally NOT the actors outside of that specific role. except pedro ❤️

4. Matt

ethnicity: cuban

appearance: matt has more of an Energy than specific features to me rn. that energy is Warm. he has that Warm bro jock dude energy. kind of a marvel hero build, hunky and muscular. very rectangular face. has this haircut:

5. Aaron

i get to cut myself some slack and not go AS in depth about aaron because he and andrew are identical twins

ethnicity: kayin/karen from myanmar

appearance: similar build to andrew, less confident and casual posture and body language. less apathetically murderous and more emotive expressions. better teeth bc his mom took him to the dentist. yes also bleaches his hair

celebrities: probably a lot like the difference between the characters and the actors. andrew is the characters and aaron is how the actors actually look. idk ive never looked at someone and thought 'hey! looks like aaron!'

6. Seth

ethnicity: have been going with half-vietnamese. considering looking into various south asian possibilities like pakistani

appearance: string bean build. that's all i have to offer

7. Allison

ethnicity: allison's very up in the air for me. she and seth are the two foxes i feel fine with being white, but im committing to having no white foxes sooo. i would say i generally see her as either half-middle eastern or chinese

appearance: plus sized and hourglass shaped. heart shaped face. taller, like 5'8 or 5'9. she has a pretty fraught history with her appearance and her parents payed for/pressured her into getting a nose job to have a 'prettier' nose. she also bleaches her hair blonde. she gets it done at a salon tho the twinyards do it in their bathroom

FC/Energy: elle king and nadia aboulhosn are my main inspos for her, esp body type but nadia esp in Vibes

8. Nicky

ethnicity: multi-ethnic. his mother is southern mexican Indigenous, possibly oaxacan. his father is mixed white/kayin

appearance: definitely takes after his mother while his father is white passing. dark brown skin, warm undertones. slightly stocky build. tall ovular head and thin aquiline nose. he's kind of just,, the opposite of the twins ig, so like their facial features look very different, which is a big part of why people don't make the connection between him and the twins alongside the difference in their skin tones, heights, and builds. nicky's build and features are very vertically-oriented, with a tall head, narrow-set eyes, thin nose with a high bridge, etc. the twins are horizontally-orienged, with broad, flat faces, wide-set eyes, wide noses with a low bridge, etc.

FC/Energy: yalitza aparicio, not a guy but one of the few Mexican Indigenous stars in the film industry and i really like her features for nicky. she's oaxacan

9. Renee

ethnicity: Black. african american

appearance: plus sized, circular/apple body shape. round face. dark skin. microlocs to a bit past her chin, bleached white and dyed at the ends. she and allison go to the salon together. femme but plain style, a lot of blouses and long skirts, practical shoes. knuckle callouses. about 5'6

FC/Energy: dominique fishback. tracie thoms, esp in RENT. gabourey sidibe. nicole byer, but not in Energy. brandy, for some reason, probably bc i think she has very serene Energy and is a little bit otherworldly. like if brandy played arwen or galadriel from lotr it would make perfect sense to me, and that's the Renee Energy™️

10. Neil

ethnicity: mixed. Black/Jewish on both sides. his father is polish ashkenazi and afro-brazilian. his mother is Black British and algerian jewish

appearance: very... sharp. like sharp all over. does that make sense? sharp features, sharp face shape, sharp angles to his body. he's got what i vaguely think of as a 'basketball build' not meaning tall but meaning very rangy and angular and lean. all limbs. seth has a similar build. lighter brown skin. he has waardenburg syndrome which is actually where he gets he gets his eye color, and his eyes are very large and widely spaced as well. freckles freckles freckles. freckles everywhere. 4a hair but at least during canon it's not very healthy and thus the curls aren't well-defined. he grows it out long enough to tie back and starts taking better care of it in post-canon. wonky, slightly crooked teeth, with a gap between the fronts

FC/Energy: now neil i actually have a ton for. mostly models which im a lil ashamed of bc i do try to draw more from athletes. alton mason is a main body type ref. mugsy bogues is good to see what i mean about the basketball build without the height. here're the boys: cykeem white, luka sabbat, désiré mia, Leo Hoyte-Egan, dylan hasselbaink, this beautiful stock photo model i've never been able to track down

i think about him every. goddamn. day.

in terms of like,, real ppl and not models: corbin bleu, especially during Jump In. figure skater elladj balde. rayan "ray ray" lopez from mindless behavior. A$AP Rocky a lil bit, maybe i just like his hairstyle idk

two more models i think are important: carissa pinkston and ralph souffrant

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kheta · 4 years

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In a Family of Monsters

Canon-Divergence, somewhat crack! Mostly just me wanting to write but being stuck atm. SOO... Garp adopts Buggy. thats the main prefix lmao, nothing else but this idea.

Buggy sees him at Loguetown after Roger’s execution and goes apeshit, because him and Shanks had only just had a fight and Buggy’s lost his own crew because of this bastard...And Garp sees this weak little Cabin Boy who could be an Upstanding-Marine™ if he trained better and he’s like..Wtf it’s not the brat I need to collect, but I Want Him.

Buggy fights and stabs and ultimately complains all the while, but Garp gives no shits and just steals him (to the protest of a few officers saying you can’t just steal people)

Insert two years of Garp training the shit out of Buggy by throwing him into wildly risky situations and him rolling with it, because if he can survive Roger’s bullshit he can survive being in a forest with large as heck animals and fighting goddamn Lieutenant Commander Boggart. (He draws a line at the Seaking Plan however, he doesn’t care how much Garp wants to see if has conquerors Haki, he will die before willingly facing a Seaking ((he doesn’t btw))

Garp tells Buggy nothing about Rogue, because he’s got some tact and it doesn’t seem like the kid will appreciate the your captain had a son bomb. If he had, he would have thought of going to Baterilla way before the World Goverment did though (bc I HC that Buggy is from there and Rogue stole him out to sea to keep Shanks company among other more serious reasons, bc I fuckn can okay)

Anyway, they still get there too late, because by the time Buggy knows and is demanding to go, Marine Presence is already there and Garp is absolutely forbidden to work anything about the Roger Pirates anymore bc the Gorosei don’t trust him.

But...Rogue does spend more than a damn day with her son cause even if its a long time later, Ace isn’t born yet and they try to keep her as well and alive as they can.

It doesn’t work, but she loves her son so much and DEMANDS Buggy tells Ace everyday how much she loved him and wishes she could be there for him and Buggy kinda just deciding to raise Ace because Rogue was still his mentor at the end of the day.

Because Buggy is attached, Garp sends the duo off to Dadan’s because he can always turn Buggy into a Marine later, someone needed to look after Ace in the meanwhile however.

This turns into Big Brother Buggy, who loves Ace even if he doesn’t show it, always telling Ace good but true stories about his Dad (Especially when the kid first doubts that his dad was ever really good) and hates Luffy bc of the dumb strawhat and Shanks and kinda tolerates Sabo cause he makes Ace happy.

And like, he doesn’t even love Ace bc of who he is in terms of Roger’s kid, he loves Ace bc he was a broken up teen with no prospects in life and all the anger of the world on his shoulders and there’s this baby, with cute dark eyes and a bright, gummy smile and an array of familiar freckles and he Melts.

Ace doubts Buggy’s, bc all the love in the world (AKA Canon-Luffy’s sorta love) wouldn’t give this child anything resembling a healthy sense of self worth, so he kinda tries as hard as he can to kill Buggy. (Only cause I wanna write funny failed murder attempts and Done Buggy looking at his dismembered body callously and with regret) Dadan calls it a rebellious phase, whereas Buggy calls it a Stupid Goddamn Tantrum.

Garp makes Buggy call him Gramps, despite the forced adoption and every bit of ‘training’ the kids get, is followed with a scared Buggy tryna protect them from certain death while in the shadows, bc Garp might be crazy but his brand of crazy Worked and it made people fucking strong, he knows okay. So if he has to stand by and make sure they don’t die while accepting them getting hurt, just to make sure no one else could harm them, then he fucking will stand by.

Anyway the rest of the series is Big Bro Buggy (reluctantly) saving the day and surprising people (himself included) with his strength (And with Garp The Fuckn Hero tryna whip him into being a Marine Officer, you can bet he’s stronger than Canon Portrayal)

I have more to this idea, but like when I can be bothered...So yup. That’s it. We fucking up canon before the MC is even born and I live for it!

#one piece #one piece au #one piece canon divergence #buggy the clown #Monkey D. Garp #Portgas D. Ace #monkey d luffy #sabo #roger pirates #gol d. roger #portgas d rouge #one piece headcanons

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luccislegs · 4 years

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Hiiii! Since I believe Ace deserves better let's assume that he left a son who look like him before he died. Can I request a scenario of hc of Luffy and Sabo meeting this little kid ? ♥️｡◕‿◕｡

Neither Luffy nor Sabo knew what to do with the information that, somehow, someway, Ace had fathered a son and kept it from not only them, but the World Government. It was only after Marco let them in on the secret, as he had delivered him, that they knew. He had given them the island name and avivre card, and sent them on their way.

Now they stood, hands trembling on the other side of a quaint looking house on a tiny island in the middle of the New World.

Sabo was the one to knock, Luffy just standing there looking on the verge of collapse. They had no idea if Marco had warned her of their impending arrival, and it only made them all the more nervous.

A very pretty young woman opened the door, all smiles. Behind her legs stood a child, hiding their face behind her skirt. Luffy’s eyes locked onto the boy, but he was too well hidden to make out anything about his face.

The smile faded from her face as she recognized the two men, turning sad before she invited them in.

“I was wondering when you were going to show up. Marco told me he was going to tell you,” she said as she poured them drinks. She had sent her– and Ace’s– son into his bedroom to play. “His name is _____,” she said when she realized their attention was on one thing only.

“We…we don’t want to disrupt your life. We know that the World Government isn’t aware of him, of _____, and we don’t want them to ever be, either,” Sabo said carefully. He threw a glance at Luffy, but his brother was determinedly focused on the faint sounds come from the other room.

There was a faint trace of amused irritation at his little brother’s one track mind before he turned back to _____.

“Can we meet him?” he asked, startling both _____ and Sabo. He was now staring at her with a frown, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Yes. Ace always wanted to introduce you. At least after…” she paused and then sighed, unsure of how to continue.

Sabo recognized instantly what she was trying to say. “After he realized it was really happening? Ace never did want kids. He never wanted his child to grow up without a father, or hunted because of who his father and grandfather was. He hated Roger, I’m sure you know that.”

_____ nodded in agreement. “Yes. He was upset when I first told him, but he never left. He was determined to give _____ a father. Then he found out Whitebeard was sick, and then Blackbeard murdered Thatch. At least… at least he knew him for a little while. He talks about daddy all the time.”

She gave the two of them a watery smile, then called for _____.

When the boy walked into the room, it felt to Sabo like all the air had been sucked from the room. Luffy made a strangled noise, like he had been doused in cold water.

_____ was the spitting image of Ace. Deep, almost black, brown eyes, freckled across the cute, slightly upturned button nose.

But it was the smile that did them in. That smile was wide and adorable and perfectly Ace.

“Hi! I’m _____,” he said, coming up to stand next to his mom. She pulled him up and into her lap, and he snuggled into her neck.

“Yes, and do you know who we are?” Sabo asked, his heart in his throat. He knew Ace well enough to know that he would have told _____ something, but he also knew that Ace would have wanted to surprise everyone with the information.

“Yeah! Daddy told me about you,” he said, and pulled two folded and dog eared papers out of his pocket. Sabo and Luffy recognized them instantly as their wanted posters. “Uncle Sabo and Uncle Luffy.”

They could have heard a pin drop in the silence that followed. When they had arrived at the small cottage, neither Luffy nor Sabo knew what to expect. They both hoped for similar things: that Ace’s wife and son were happy, that they would be welcomed and greeted with more than indifference, that they would be recognized.

No where had they expected that, and in an instant they were both in tears. Goddamn him. Goddamn him for dying, for leaving, for not telling them he had a family, for everything.

_____ was looking between the two sobbing men and his mother with confusion. “Why are they crying, mom?”

She gazed lovingly back down at him with a watery smile, on the verge of tears herself. It had been a long time since _____ sounded so happy. He had accepted Ace’s death as well as she could have expected, falling into a mild depression for a few months afterwards. He never really came out of it, she knew, constantly missing his father. Drawings of him littered his room, memories as well as imagined interactions. It pained her to go in there and see them, but knew she could never ask him to stop.

“They loved your dad just as much as we did is all, honey,” she answered, glancing towards the two. They had finally regained their composure and were watching _____ again.

“Oh! Do you wanna see my drawings of him?” he asked, perking up. His mom didn’t like to talk about his dad too much. Well, she did, but _____ knew it hurt her to, so he tried to avoid asking her about him.

“Oh, honey, I don’t think–” she started to say, but a gentle hand on her wrist stopped her. She jumped, meeting Sabo’s serious gaze. Luffy looked like he was going to burst into tears again, his lower lip trembling, but he also wore the same look.

“If it’s okay, we would like to see them,” Sabo said, smiling at _____ now, who perked up and hopped off his mom’s lap.

“Cool! I’ve got so many…” he said, his voice fading down the hall as he dragged Sabo by the hand.

As Luffy moved past, a soft hand wrapped around his wrist. He looked down to meet _____’s eyes, tears spilling over and down her cheeks, but she was smiling.

“It’s been a long time since he’s smiled like that. Thank you,” she said, squeezing gently. Even from the kitchen, she could hear _____’s happy chattering, likely explaining every detail of his pictures to Sabo. It was something he used to do with Ace as well.

He would “ooh” and “ah” at just the right times, nodding seriously as _____ told him about his reasoning behind everything, sometimes right up until he fell asleep. It was hard for her sometimes, and she tried to as well, but she knew it wasn’t the same. Ace was a special person and no one would replace him in _____’s heart.

But Sabo and Luffy had revived some of that spark in him, and she was sure that, given time, it would return in full. Maybe he would be able to heal with the two of them to fill some of the gap Ace had left behind.

Luffy nodded, wrapping his long, calloused fingers around her hand, and smiled. “We’re here for you, _____. And _____ too! We won’t let anything happen to either of you, I promise!”

Then he turned and left to find Sabo and his nephew, leaving ______ alone in the kitchen.

Even through her tears and pain, she smiled.

#portgas d. ace #sabo the revolutionary #monkey d. luffy #one piece scenarios

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angxlsgrxce-deactivated · 5 years

Text

we’ve got a long way to go (but baby, we’ll make it)

fandom: marvel cinematic universe

pairing: harley keener/peter parker

warnings: uhh,,,it’s kinda mature?

word count: 1938

prompt: road work ahead? (i made this so much more angsty than expected)

notes: yo i’m actually posting something for parker week, i’m just as surprised as y’all are, what the fuck (big big thanks to @peachy-keener for helping me with harley’s big monologue)

ao3 link

___

“It’s fuckin’ hot,” Harley grumbles, banging his head against the cabinet above the counter that he’s sitting on, legs crossed. “It’s. Fucking. Hot.” Each word is accompanied by the thump of bone against wood, and Peter winces.

“It’s not that hot,” he tries, and Harley, thankfully, stops his self-inflicted pain and turns his head slowly. His eyes meet Peter’s with the strength of a thousand suns, and Peter raises his hands immediately in surrender. “Okay, yeah, it’s hot, don’t kill me.”

“’m not gonna kill you, because that would take too much fuckin’ effort, and it’s too hot to put effort into anything.” Peter’s lips twitch in a smile, and Harley groans. He tugs at his shirt, and then, to Peter’s delight, yanks it over his head, throwing it somewhere over his shoulder.

“You look hot, babe,” Peter says, biting his lip to hold back a grin, and Harley stares at him.

“I appreciate the compliment, but did you just make a fucking heat pun?”

Peter loses control of his grin, and Harley frowns in response. “Maybe.”

“You’re lucky I love you.” Then, after he stares at Peter for three seconds longer, he adds, “And that it’s hot. Too much humidity to commit a murder right now.”

Peter’s grin turns to a smirk. “Would you call this a love-heat relationship?”

“I hate you.”

“I think you mean that you heat me. I mean, whatever, heaters gonna heat.”

Harley groans, his head falling backward. Peter’s eyes trace the smooth, strong line of his neck, the skin coated with a sheen of sweat that Peter wants to lick- “You’re not gonna stop, are you?” Harley-head still tipped back-asks, interrupting Peter’s thoughts. He flushes red, ignoring the feeling of desire coiling low in his stomach.

“Aw, babe, you know me so well. In fact, I’d say that you heat the nail on the head with that one.”

Harley brings his head back up, rolling his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m dating you.”

“Damn, it’s almost like you regret not being heaterosexual.” Peter’s laughing now as Harley’s groan echoes through the apartment, and he looks fondly at his boyfriend. “I’ll stop, babe. If you need me to. Or…if you refire me to.”

“That one was bad. That one was awful, darlin’,” Harley says, stretching out on the counter until he’s lying down. Peter almost dies, because God, it’s such a pretty picture, Harley’s pale skin in contrast with the dark granite, his chest bare and freckles on display, and Peter wants to take him then and there, teasing slowly up his body until Harley begs him to- “The counter’s cold, thank sweet baby Jesus.”

Peter swallows tightly and adjusts his jeans casually, because he needs to get himself under control now. “Don’t you mean heat baby Jesus?”

“I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you in your sleep and you’ll never see it coming,” Harley mutters, eyes closed, and he throws a hand over his face dramatically. The motion tightens the muscles along his side and Peter wants to bite them. He shifts awkwardly in his chair.

“That would be lit.”

Harley lets out a loud groan. “I seriously. Seriously. Hate you. I can’t believe you made a lit joke. That’s not even-I can’t.”

“Did I go a step too fire?”

“Darlin’. You’re on fire with those puns,” Harley drawls, and Peter grins brightly.

“Ha, I win, you made a pu-”

“And if you keep making them,” Harley continues slowly, “I will set you on fire.”

“But then it’d get even hotter in here,” Peter says instantly. Harley opens his eyes, long golden eyelashes catching on his cheeks, and fuck, he’s so pretty.

“Fuck, can’t argue with that logic.”

“I know, it’s such a hot take. Pretty spicy, some might even say that it’s sizzling.”

Then Harley’s sitting back up, and his abs contract as he spreads his legs apart, putting his bare thighs on full view, and Peter almost loses all control, because he wants those thighs wrapped around him now as he thrusts into Harley and- “Red alert, the counter is no longer cold, everywhere is hot, why do we live in a city?”

Peter feels a shudder run through him as he tries to tamp down on his thoughts, awkwardly putting his hands in his lap as he says, in an attempt at casual, “It was your idea to stay close to the Tower.” His voice comes out strangled, but Harley doesn’t seem to notice as he runs a hand through his hair, and fuck, Peter wants to pull on those blonde curls hard enough to make Harley scream.

“Okay, yes, point, but remind me again why we didn’t install an AC?”

“Because you were too lazy when we were moving in?” Peter offers, voice still tight.

“Fuck you, you’re Spider-Man, you could’ve done it,” Harley snaps, and it’s sharp and cold and wrong, a drastic difference to the swampy heat that is thick in the air. “’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.” Peter nods slowly as the desire to take Harley apart fades to background noise, concern for Harley becoming the only focus.

“Okay. Do we need to talk about something, babe?” he asks softly.

“No,” is the muttered reply, and Peter stands up, walking over to him.

“Harley,” he says, and Harley looks up at him, eyes empty. Peter pulls him close, standing in between his legs and cupping Harley’s cheeks to rest their foreheads together. “Baby. Talk to me.”

“I just feel fucking weak sometimes,” Harley whispers, and his voice cracks. “I should be able to do things without you. But I can’t sometimes, and that hurts. The week we were supposed to be moving in, Tony pulled you for a mission, and I was in charge of doing the moving shit, and I didn’t because you weren’t there and I was so scared that you wouldn’t come back, so when you did we just forgot about it. But I should be able to do things without you! Especially something simple like installing a fucking AC unit! But I’m so fucking dependent on you and I can’t and when you leave, everything feels wrong, because-” Harley lets out a shaky breath and pulls back to meet Peter’s eyes. “Because what if you don’t come back? Peter, what if I-what happens if I lose you? I love you so fucking much, and fuck, I love that you’re a hero but-but Spider-Man isn’t my boyfriend, Peter Parker is, and when Spider-Man gets hurt, all I can do is tear myself apart with worry and fear and it destroys me, and I-I just-I just fucking miss you. I miss you, but you always have to leave and you-you’re always gone, and I don’t-Peter-it hurts-I can’t-Christ on a fucking cracker, Peter, I-fuck.” Harley inhales sharply, and Peter rubs his thumbs across Harley’s cheeks, feeling splinters in his heart.

“Baby. You-baby,” he breathes, holding back tears. “Why didn’t you tell me-baby, I’m so sorry.” He presses their foreheads closer together, and the air is hot and thick. “We really need to talk, huh? I’m so, so sorry, Harley, and I love you so much. I’m not gonna leave, baby-”

“But you don’t have control over that!” Harley shouts, and Peter flinches. “You can’t promise me that you’re not gonna leave, because how am I supposed to believe that when you do dangerous shit every goddamn day?”

Peter’s heart breaks, because Harley’s right, and they both know it.

“Baby, I’m always safe, I promise.”

Harley shakes his head, pulling away. “Now I get why Pepper had to take a break from Tony.”

Peter folds in on himself, feeling bile rise in his mouth. “What-what are you saying?” And he doesn’t mean for it to come out so brokenly, but it does, and Harley immediately moves back towards him.

“No, no, I don’t want to leave you, we’re not doing that,” he says fiercely. Peter lets out a sob of relief, and Harley wraps his arms tightly around Peter, pressing his nose into his neck. “We’re not doing that.”

“You can’t scare me like that, Harley,” Peter says quietly, and Harley scratches his back lightly in acknowledgement.

“’m sorry.”

“It’s-“ Peter clears his throat roughly. “It’s okay.”

“We’re fucked up,” Harley says softly, and Peter laughs humorlessly.

“Yeah. Yeah, we are, baby.”

“Fun.”

“So fun.”

They stand there, holding each other in their too hot apartment that neither of them care about anymore, until Harley breaks the silence.

“I hate thinking about losing you, Peter, and I hate depending on you so much,” Harley murmurs against Peter’s skin. “I should be stronger than that.”

Peter brushes a kiss to his hairline and voices the thought that has been forming in his mind, whispering unsurely, “Do you wanna try-do you think couples counseling might help?”

Harley hums, tucking himself further into Peter’s body. “I don’t know.”

“Do you wanna try?” Peter asks, rubbing a hand against Harley’s bare back and up to the back of his neck, massaging slightly. Harley bites at his neck unexpectedly, teeth scraping skin, and Peter’s eyes widen, his desire coming back full force.

“Sorry. Reflex,” Harley says quickly, his face bright red, and Peter wants to wreck him.

But he steels himself, and repeats, ”Baby, do you wanna try it?”

Harley sighs. “Yeah. I do.” Peter smiles.

“I love you, Harley. We’ve got a long road of work ahead, but it’s gonna be okay, baby. Because I’ve got you, and I’m not leaving. Ever. It’s gonna be hard. But we can do this. We’ll get through it.” He feels tears against his neck, and brushes his hand through Harley’s hair. “Shh, baby, it’s okay.”

“Can you fuck me?” Harley asks, tears still wet on Peter’s skin, and Peter chokes.

“Wh-what?”

Harley tilts his head to look Peter in the eyes, and Peter sees tears scattered across his cheeks like stars against a pale sky, and God, he wants to kiss them away, to make Harley cry and scream and beg. Harley’s eyes follow him knowingly. “You heard me,” he says huskily. “Can you fuck me?”

Peter swallows. “Baby, I don’t know if that’s the best-“

“Peter, you’ve wanted to pounce on me all day, and just because we just had a fight about our relationship doesn’t mean you can’t fuck me. In fact, I think that’s a perfect reason to fuck me.”

“I haven’t wanted to pounce on you,” Peter mumbles.

“Sure, darlin’. As if I don’t know you at all,” Harley says. Then, “Peter. I’m being serious. I want to feel you. Yes, I’m upset, and sure, it might not be the healthiest thing, but I love you and I want to be with you right now. Is that bad?”

And he looks up at Peter, blue eyes shining, and Peter sees galaxies in them.

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Harley repeats, and he seems shocked. “I didn’t think you were gonna-“

He cuts himself off with a moan as Peter pushes him roughly against the same counter he was lying on earlier. Peter smirks. “I said, okay.”

---

The next morning, Peter finds a couples’ therapist in their area, and they start attending appointments bimonthly. He makes a pun about it, and Harley threatens to kill him, and it’s right.

It’s hard at first, and it continues to be hard. They fight and scream, and it’s messy and rough and painful, but they also love and cry and laugh, and it’s perfect and easy and real. Peter continues to risk his life constantly, and Harley continues to depend on his presence. But they’re in love, and they’re getting better, and they’re strong.

#parkner #parkner week 2019 #my works #peter parker oneshot #harley keener #parkner one shot

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grizztomysam · 5 years

Text

Grizzam and Power Naps Mini Fic

Disclaimer..lowkey NSFW..but really mild cuz I’ve yet to go buck wild

=================================

Taking care of a baby and toiling away at a farm that is responsible for the prevention of 200 plus citizens from starving to death can be exhausting. It’s an ache in the bones, lids so heavy, Imma close my eyes for a minute, head jerking back as they’re free falling mid dream, tired kind of exhaustion. Which doesn’t really help a relationship when your still in its honeymoon stages, although Grizz likes to argue its the only stage they’ll ever be in. He’ll always want Sam even when he gets all wrinkly and grey, earning him a scrunching of Sam’s button nose and “Ew..geriatric sex!” Which is cute as fuck and he nips the argument in the bud after he kisses Sam silly.

Kissing he discovers almost always solves everything.

What it can’t help is how tired they always seem to be. Not even the promise of alone time for some sexy sexy on all hard and soft surfaces deemed “Eden’s never going to reach that” can tempt them from the allure of long ass power nap. A contradiction in itself. Because a power nap by Sam’s definition meant a minimum of at least nine hours.

“That’s not a power nap Sam, that’s hibernation levels type of sleep.”

“Oh semantics...”

“That’s...that’s not how it works and no--”

But he drops it because Sam kisses him this time and that thing he does with his tongue can’t be legal.

They try tho. With an enthusiasm that brings forth a temporary rush of adrenaline against the stubborn and suffocating grip of work fatigue to make things interesting and romantic and new. But it’s so fucking hard.

Sex is awesome..but sleep is nice too.

It’s a particularly long ass day at the farm and Grizz is close to screaming or bawling, whichever comes first. The patch of romaine lettuce he’d carefully coaxed from seedlings have turned brown and riddled with pest holes and he’s itching to have a go at said pest with the heel of his work boot. He’s a lover not a fighter, once sobbing to his mom when he was seven how to perform CPR on a limp caterpillar he’d found on his windowsill. But his lettuce is hurt and he’s pissed. Because when push comes to shove, he’ll fucking defend to the death what’s his Goddamnit.

And he really is oh so tired, going on a measly four hours of sleep because Eden is teething and Sam looked like death last night, red rimmed eyes wet and helpless as he tried everything to get the squirming baby to bed. Becca was MIA; quarantined in the medical bay at the hospital after catching some freak of nature flu strain when it wasn’t even flu season. She was recovering, thank the Lord, but still weak and unsafe for Eden to be around.

He feels guilty he has the farm to run off to, tho Sam would argue its hard work and an obligation to the town. But he also really loves the dirt and endless potential of life it can grow. It’s back breaking yes, leaves him dripping and soaked in sweat, blistered hands and a farmer tan more reddish pink than glowy brown that Sam can’t surely find appealing, but he’s afforded a few hours of peace from Eden’s screaming lungs.

Because that baby can really yell. She’s tiny and cute and gorgeous as all hell, her baby head fitting neatly into his palm, but her lungs can’t be of the human species. He hopes it manifests into something nice like a beautiful soprano. Eden will only get louder and a screaming teenage Eden will be scary. At least a singing one won’t be so bad.

He wishes Sam would be able to hear that if it ever happens. He’s wistful remembering the night he’d forgotten how to breathe, because he was teetering at the edge of either having his heart crushed into a million fucking pieces or finally getting to taste Sam’s lips. The night Sam wished he could hear his voice.

If it meant Sam could hear again he wouldn’t hesitate to give up his own. But he keeps that to himself. Sam is too selfless to accept selfless acts back.

But he still would tho.

The moment is broken when he hears the ping of a text received from his phone.

Hey sexy farmer boy! Gwen’s gonna take Eden for the night...Wanna meet me on the couch later after your shift? I think it misses our naked butts.

He bites the inside of his cheek from grinning too wide as he rolls his eyes at the screen. But the the cobwebs and the tired in his head slowly ebb away.

He can handle two more hours.

Turns out he can’t. A bounty of things can happen in two hours when sleep deprived. Terrible terrible things like bawling and screaming at plants, stumbling over roots and almost cracking his skull wide open and falling and crushing the tomatoes he’d just picked off the vine after stumbling over roots and almost cracking his skull wide open. The shiny, big, juicy, multicolored heirloom tomatoes that would have made his grandpapa swoon with delight. He wants to punch the goddamn root.

At this rate they were screwed for the coming winter.

Bruised and battered and dirty he slinks back home defeated.

He has the right mind to steel back his scowl and quiet his mutterings of bloody murder for wayward roots that have the gall to grow above ground as he stands outside their front door. Composes himself and attempts to fashion some semblance of a smile.

Sam greets him at the door, he appears to have been waiting by the stairs in the foyer and reaches for a hug but stops.

Sam has always been able read right through him.

The shorter boy reaches up to cradle his face, running a soft finger across the space between his lips and chin as he kissed him on the tip of his nose.

“You ok?”

He sighs heavy but turns his head to plant a quick peck into Sam’s palm and nods.

“I’m just dirty and all. Let me wash up and I’ll meet you on the couch?”

Sam lets it go, but his eyes promise a talk will be had later on.

The shower helps, and his body soon hums to the promised feel of Sam’s hands on his own.

Disobedient plant children and screaming babies are forgotten.

“Hey baby..” Sam murmurs it into the line of his jaw..all breathy and hot after he grabs the smaller boy by the waist all sudden and rough to straddle his lap, pulling a giggled gasp from Sam’s lips, as they both fall back onto the couch.

His brain is happy and Gareth junior seemed to have perked up a bit, as his hands find purchase onto the loops of Sam’s jean, gripping and guiding Sam’s hips to rock against his own.

“You smell so good..” Sam moans into his ear, eliciting a growl from his throat.

Sam’s moaning was definitely the 8th wonder of the world.

The friction is delicious and Sam’s fingers are now kneading a pattern between soft and hard pressure on the sensitive skin at his nape and the soft space behind his ears. His lips kiss, languid and open, onto the juncture of Grizz’s neck, usually resulting to immediate eyes rolling back and ripped clothes on the floor.

But this time his lids grow heavy. A “No,no no..don’t you fucking dare” echoes in his head but its growing cloudy and distant.

The ministrations on his scalp lulls and soothes and he feels the rocking of their hips slow as his hands lose their grip on Sam’s hip, its rhythm stutters and then stops.

Sam’s mouth have stilled, but stay open, jaw slack as muffled snores fill the air, his cheek pressed into the crook of Grizz’s shoulder.

Goddamnit, he thinks, following soon after.

“Fucking adorable shit.”

Gwen stands with a smug smirk at the arched doorway to the living room, balancing a gurgling Eden on her hip, as she ogled, leered really, at the snoring coupled spectacle on the couch.

Sam is straddling and cuddled into Grizz’s neck like a man-sized koala while Grizz held him in place with a curled arm, the other dangling and trailing the carpeted floor below. Their clothes are in dissarray, Grizz’s left shoulder exposed, the collar of his shirt having been stretched taut, while Sam’s shirt has ridden up, leaving the freckled and dimpled dip of his lower back naked, his checkered boxers peaking from the waist of his jeans. Grizz’s head is a haloed mess as its tipped back onto the couch cushion, his mouth wide open with a line of drool falling from the corner.

The scene is clear: They were making out hot and heavy and somehow fell asleep.

Insurance purposes, she smiles all devilishly, snapping a picture.

“Can you say fucking adorable?” Gwen babbles into Eden’s chubby cheeks, stopping by the kitchen to get Eden’s forgotten pacifier. The baby blows spit bubbles and grabs for her hair as they step out the door towards home.

“Yeshh they are aren’t they, Eden. Fucking adorable.”

Becca’s gonna go for Gwen’s throat once the baby starts talking.

#Grizzam Drabble mini fic #Exhausted boyfies #another one from drafts graveyard #Grizzam #is life #grizz and sam #sam eliot #grizz visser #this would be nice if it was realized in season 2 #fic stuff #fanfic

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hozukitofu · 5 years

Text

the kids are doing espionage

He would like to preface everything by a singly stated -

It was Qing's idea.

He is only a simple tech boy, a robotic engineering undergrad, someone who just wants to corrupt enough of the capitalistic system and its funds to fund his recycling robot, to delete the littering problems around campus.

The facts that he happens to know like one bad form of martial arts and by virtue of being a robotics student, great with tools and improvised weapon creation, are irrelevant. Besides the point.

But Qing is deep down, within that core of his questionably existing heart, an opportunist - an investor of assets. She sees potential, she invests in it. That's always how it goes.

Zizhen is eating, simply existing, thinking about robots and redeeming himself at a round of chess with uncle Shao when Qing barges into his absolutely mundane life, waving a USB stick in front of his nose, crowing about how she cracked the capitalism code.

Normally he would care.

"That's great, cool, jie, but -" he doesn't even have time to bat the excited blonde away before a proposition is coerced into his food.

"You! Wanna be an anti-government agent?"

Zizhen almost drops his fork.

"I'm sorry," he blinks, not even bothering with his food any longer because his appetite had taken a nose dive out the processing plants by the back of the college. "What. Did you just say?"

Qing was going to elaborate, but he doesn't let her.

"No, it was rhetorical - jie! I'm not becoming your agent for hire! I'm too soft for killing people!" He denies, vehemently, because look at him! He wears clothes that have to oblige by fluffy and big standard, and his hair cannot be let loose outside of the house if it isn’t wavy and bouncy.

Doctor Wei calls him marshmallow unironically, on top of Romantic Guy, with debatable nuances under the friendly moniker because that’s his life goal, to be as soft and sweet as humanly possible. He is only someone who strives to dismantle the system in the ways he clumsily knows how to, but he always goes back to helping people at the end of the day.

Becoming a hitman for hire is never something he would consider, or ever would.

Qing badgered and wheedled, bombarded him with the benefits, the sheer overwhelming scale of everything good and pure tipping and burying onto his side of the balancing plates, to which he avoids, like one would, if a pack of mosquitoes with malaria starts heading your way. He had blended into the crowd. Worn disguises to avoid this woman's hawkish eyesight. Climbed out a window to avoid persecution and inevitable screeching. Legitimately broke into a dead sprint across the canteen as soon as he spotted Song-Xiao Qing looking for him.

One of these days she will catch up to him, and she will skin him alive, but not today. He weaves around busy college students arriving and leaving their lecture halls, his long arms tucked closely to his chest so that nobody snags them off him. It is a laborious chase that she incurred onto his person, and he dreads the reality where she finally hacks into a computer somewhere and puts a tracker onto him so that she can be two steps ahead of him and then she can beat him into the ground on the basis of him avoiding her like she will personally break all of his robots inside and out.

"Ouyang Zizhen!" He hears a death roar, and runs faster.

Gotta put that threefold authentication code into all of his login devices so that the two steps pre-planning stage doesn't happen. Yes. But run first.

He’s fallen asleep across a horizontal surface - he’s pretty sure that this is the first horizontal surface his eyes park on and his brain immediately decreed that We’re napping. Now. ASAP pronto LOL.

He comes back to the world of living when he is toed awake by a person, voice vaguely threatening and familiar to his ears -

“Ouyang. Ouyang.”

“Noo,” he whines, thinking it to be his father. “Dad I have the day off.”

“Zizhen. You will wake up or I will walk all over your face. Your choice, sweet guy.”

He sits up, immediately awake.

Look, he’s a coward. He has high sensors in-built to detect approaching danger to his person. It’s how he made it beyond high school to go where he does now. It’s nothing to be proud of - surviving, just barely, in this cutthroat world is a goddamn miracle, if he has to say so himself. So what if he’s a coward. He’s still alive. That’s what matters.

Also he has a feeling that if he had keep on sleeping, he will open his eyes in the next life, as a bug. Because he had been horrifically murdered in this life and that death was so bad that a bug’s body is the only viable and painless reincarnation the gods deem fitting for little poor him.

“I’m up,” he wheezes, vertigo slamming onto his head. “I’m physically with you but my brain had just taken a holiday. Please allow it some time to return.”

“I don’t need your brain for this,” Qing beams at him, mouth spreading in a Joker-ish feral look. “I’ve got a favour to ask.”

I’ve got a favour to ask sounds exactly like those questions that ask you for something but if you deny, you will die on sight.

The way his upperclassman is smiling at him gives him all the answers he has.

“What,” he grouses, mouth twisting, pulling his hoodie even more over his forehead and eyes, covering the majority of his freckles. They’re still here despite the lack of hours he spends in active avoidance of the sun and the majority of this goddamn school hates the sight of freckles like they’re something contagious so his instincts mostly had been ‘cover up’.

“Someone took something from me and I need a boy to get it back for Yours Truly,” she smiles, still feral and not the least friendly.

He squints suspiciously at her. “Why a boy. Is this hard even for you, lawbreaker extraordinaire?”

“I need a boy, you stupid robot builder,” she rolls her eyes, throwing a hairband onto the table in front of him. “Because someone from Gusu took my things and on virtue of me being a woman, I can’t enter without the security shooting me on sight.”

He groans out loud and slumps even further onto the table, hoping to become one with the recycled plastic.

“I don’t even go there. They’ll shoot me on sight too. They have stun guns -”

She cuts him up, retying her space buns. He lets out a huff of hysterical air and rethinks back to every wrong decision he had ever taken in this life.

“Which they’re not allowed to use on trespassers, chill. Listen, how you get it isn’t my problem. Get me the thing and I’ll squander all the favours you owe me.”

This sparks his interest. A-Qing is stingy. The stingiest person he has the misfortune of ever running across. She studies economics. She lives on cash alone. Just. Cash. She hoards money and favours and then harvests them like produce of her questionable farm.

Ouyang Zizhen owes Qing a lot of money for the completion of his robotics projects and the launch of his career as a junior lab assistant to the research team of the mechanical engineering department. She did all that, knowing that her investments were wise, and she constantly lords the favour over his head.

It sounds great, to get rid of one Song-Xiao Qing infinitely, but he can’t help but wonder if the catch, beyond You’ll die if you trespass Gusu like the absolute moron that you are. This sounds like it’s much more than just a suicide run. It sounds more like...a test? Of sorts?

“All the favours?” He looks up, hood slipping, his freckles all in glorious sight and judging his upperclassman. “Are you sure?”

Qing-jie grins at him, looking every bit like the crook she is. “Are you?”

“Heck, yes, why do you even ask. But I feel like you’re betting too much on this. How do you know if I’ll come back for you to squander all your favours for me? Seems fishy.”

“You’ll come back,” she waves him away. “I wouldn’t swear on it if I’m not sure. So, what of it, marshmallow? You want in?”

He can’t say no anyways. “You know I can’t say no,” he scowls, and refuses to shake her hand. “If I don’t come back, tell my father to take all my robots. And burn me paper money.”

Qing cackles right at his face. “You’re exaggerating, kid. It’ll be fine. I swear on it.”

“Your words are all lies anyways! Shut up!”

Research on how to get into Gusu? Actually kinda fun.

Actually sneaking into Gusu unscathed? Less fun. Bordering on traumatic.

Technically he knows the blueprints. Technically he knows that the scanning gates at the southern entry can fit an entire person if they just, like, lie down and limbo through the gaps of the plastic closing gates. Technically eight twenty-seven in the night is the time gap that he can safely limbo through without getting zapped by a stun gun. Technically from here he can just jog to the international student’s dorm and scale to the second floor, open the window fourth from the right, slide in, get the thing from under the desk, get out the way he did before, go home, change his name, get plastic surgery, genetically rewrite his fingerprints and DNA makeup, move back to Baling, call it quits.

Technically he knows all of this, but he had just slid through a scanning gate and his heart is trying to punch out of his own ribs. He’s wheezing as if he climbed up a mountain twice for no reason at all. None of this makes sense. Why is he here. He should go home. There’s still time. Father will be tired and disappointed but when is he not.

No, his brain, traitorous, but also wanting to get rid of the human leech Song-Xiao Qing, mutters. No we will get back that bundle for Her Highness and then leave her presence indefinitely. That’s what we’ll do.

He swings his feet, nothing short of Spiderman, into the intended room, huffing as it wastes him no effort.

Too easy. Smells exactly like a trap.

It’s nearly curfew, except that people haven’t been rushing back through the easy way in, because he saw people coming out and they pretended to not see him as he came in. Are they stupid. Are they not going to come back for roll call and suffer the wrath of Lan Qiren? Or worse, He Who Must Not Be Named.

He reaches for the bundle, stuffs it under his hoodie, and prepares for take off, when a door swing open and someone walks in, without turning the lights on.

His danger alarms not only went off, but into overtime and exhaustive underpaid labour.

“Ouyang?” He hears, hissed in the dark.

He should have covered his face, because wow he didn’t think he was that popular outside of his own robotics class for setting off that fire alarm back in first year. But. He is digressing from this imminent danger! This voice. That sounds distinctly similar.

“Do we know each other?” He hisses, crouching back in a Spongebob stance, eyes narrowed at the boy in the cats-covered face mask. He can’t make a run for it here but he can try for the knee caps.

“Yes. Oh my god, yes,” the person pulls his face mask down and lo and behold, it’s -

“Lan? Lan Jingyi?” He gapes, while sidestepping a stray tennis ball lobbing at his head. “Why are you here?”

Jingyi shoots back at him - “I go here. Why are you here?”

He throws up one hand, the other preoccupied with the bundle - “Qing-jie!”

“Bad answer, but expected,” Jingyi tuts his tongue, and shoves him out of the way. “You don’t seem the type to engage in trespass and theft.”

“Ha ha, pot calling the kettle black,” he sneers back, tracing back his steps. “Why are you here here. I know you go here, but this isn’t your room. Or anyone else’s room that you are affiliated with. It’s the international student wing. You never answered my question.”

He would not receive any answers because there are footsteps, grave and reverent footsteps, that bring pandemonium outside the corridor and Jingyi, not even thinking twice, shoves him into a wardrobe, finger on his lips.

“Quiet,” the boy hisses. “And when he’s gone, you can scram.”

Zizhen thinks that is the end of it, but somehow his bundle! Had gone missing from under his hoodie! When! And how!

“Lan, give that back!” He hisses, almost lunging and falling out of the closet. Jingyi shushes him even louder, forcing the doors to close in on his nose and shoes.

He grabs onto a wrist, clinging onto the arm stubbornly. Jingyi jostles his shoulder violently like he’s got himself a human-sized limpet that won’t let go and he elects to kicking it back to the depth of the closet, telling him to ‘stay put, come on, don’t make this harder for us’.

Zizhen is shoved back into the darkness of a small enclosed space with hangers falling onto his head and clothes dropping onto his shoulders. The tracking sticker he placed on his fingertip had migrated from him to the inside of Lan Jingyi’s hoodie. Now he waits.

There is a polite knock - because that’s Lans for you, polite even in walking and knocking.

Jingyi answers the door with a soft - “Hello, uncle.”

For a moment Zizhen thought he actually screwed up and somehow stumbled head first into Lan Qiren of all people on the night he attempted trespass and theft, but he listens some more, waiting for the dulcet tones of disapproval that the Lan Headmaster is so famed for dishing out at his relatives slash pupils.

“Jingyi,” he hears, and. Well.

This is worse than Lan Qiren. Somehow he had messed up even worse than Lan Qiren.

Lan Wangji, the Hanguang-Jun, is in the same room as him. The professor reliable for dishing out punishments at Gusu. The resting disappointed man. Doctor Wei’s long-term crush and object of pursuit. He’s caught. He’s gone. They’re going to string his corpse like a disappointing sight from here so that all across the country, people can see what happens when idiot college boys who sneak into prestigious Gusu get as a punishment.

He is suddenly religious. He asks for protection from the Buddha to the corner ghost to the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.

“I suggest you return to your own dorm,” Lan Wangji gravely - and flatly - informs Lan Jingyi. “Unless you want to introduce me to your friend?”

Lan Jingyi, for someone doing a theatre degree, is woefully awful at lying. He starts laughing hysterically and like a bloody hyena under noise suppression and the target of at least twenty stun guns and he’s lost all sense of control so now his fight or flight response is to laugh.

Ouyang Zizhen regrets not leaving his father with a dying letter. It’ll be awful and humiliating to find him as a human flag on the top of Gusu’s flagpole.

“What friend, Uncle Wangji? It’s only me here!” Jingyi hacks out hysterically, as footsteps start heading his way, purposeful and brisk.

There goes living through tonight then.

“Hmn, what’s in the closet, Jingyi?” Hanguang-Jun asks, as the doors of the wardrobe rattle and -

promptly stop.

Jingyi, because he’s panicking and somehow is still the greatest and most shocking improvised line under possibly murderous circumstances, blurts out, completely and utterly from nowhere.

“That closet is fine. It has no one in it! Well, not me anymore!”

Zizhen can barely swallow down the wheeze that tries to climb its way out of his nose because what.

To his credit though, Lan Wangji stops his advance onto his hiding place, and promptly takes Lan Jingyi out of the room, so he hopes that he’s not being thrashed thoroughly for well, being gay, but in keeping it and using it as a distraction tactic on their Hanguang-Jun.

Zizhen quickly kicks the doors open and tumbles out, sliding the window up and climbing out, his watch telling him dimly that he has two more minutes before curfew comes and security tightens. He would check on Lan, but he’ll be fine. Hanguang-Jun isn’t a blind rule follower as the people make him out to be - by people, he meant just Doctor Wei, who went through a period of time in his life actively cursing and mooning over Lan Wangji, and it’s entertaining and just embarrassing to bear witness to. No. Bad memories. Let’s forget that and go back and report to Qing-jie.

He’s going to start breaking ankles the next time Lan Yuan asks for a big hang out.

“He took the bundle from you? Without touching you?”

“I snuck in the death place for that stupid bundle and that’s all you cared about?”

“Damn Lan. Anyways, good job, it’s fine, I’m seeing the golden trio in, like, ten hours. We can haggle the bundle back.”

He hears this, but he also has the tracker sticker. Does it work? Does it not work? Unclear. He’s not too sure. He hasn’t been doing this illegal theft and tracking gig for long. He lets Qing-jie and her favours reinstate themselves as constant reminders in his life as he stumbles back to his laptop and kick starts it to see how he’s going to not set a hoodie and a person on fire.

The good news is Lan Jingyi and his Lan Approved Hoodie will not be catching on fire.

The even better news is that he can get rid of Song-Xiao Qing for life now, because he knows where the package is.

The bad news is that the package is in Jin Rulan’s home. His room, to be specific.

Okay, so maybe he met Jin Rulan a few times when he went to archery tournaments to cheer on Lan Yuan, a friend but also practicing archer to become as great as Wen Ning, Olympic-level archer. Maybe he and Jin Rulan had gotten into a few arguments over pointless things in the past, like all stupid middle schoolers do. The point is that since his friend is a friend of Rulan, he has the honour of being flung at, in the face, with the address of his sizable family manor, because Jin Rulan can and will, with no preamble or social niceties, and so now Zizhen knows where he lives.

Not that a simple Google search wouldn’t tell him which place this is, but being reminded with Jin Rulan, a runt then, probably a runt now, he hasn’t seen the kid in like, two years. A-Yuan doesn’t want him to start testing his robots on real life people and everyone who had ever interacted with Zizhen knows who’s first on his list to be humanly pitted (sorry, tested) against his robots.

He bikes to the manor, easily buzzes his way in with a screwdriver and some tinkling with the system, and strolls right through the front door.

He did do research before this. Everyone’s out. Jin Rulan is out. He’ll just take the bundle and leave, and they don’t have to talk about it anymo -

Lan Jingyi tackles him to the floor from behind the door to Jin Rulan’s room, with a distant bark of a guard dog and Jin Rulan’s dulcet tones shrieking the heavens, hard, so that his dead ancestors can rise as zombies in the night and slap Zizhen back to Baling.

“How is he here?” He can hear Rulan yelling distinctly, as he grapples with Jingyi and rips the sticker cleanly from under his sleeve.

Jingyi and him get along okay. When A-Yuan wants people to wait for him after guqin recitals, he has Zizhen and Jingyi wait for him, and they play jianzi as they quiz each other on class things they should know, bickering back and forth. They played soccer together a few times, and Jingyi’s good - Jingyi’s training to be in the under 20′s representative Asian Games in a few months. They get along fine. They love literature and art. Zizhen doesn’t want to set a short-circuiting robot onto him.

Literally there is no reason for Jingyi to wrestle him to the ground like this outside of the context of a soccer match.

“You found us, how,” Jingyi demands, frowning. “Did you put a tracker on me?”

He huffs, bunching up his knees and kicking up, before rolling away with the bundle. “I will neither confirm or deny your accusations. Goodbye.”

Rulan is at the window, slamming it shut, and holding out a hand, snarling rabidly at him. The scuffle he was tackled into had knocked over metal plates and car parts all over the floor, everything looks like it’s a disaster zone, if he was at home then Father would have lost it. The shining mistress of the Jin family snarls at him, forcing him to step away from the window with the sight of his sharp canines alone, eyes narrowing at him and his bundle.

“Give that over,” he frowns. “And then you can scram.”

“I broke into your house to get it back,” he stresses, with hysterical stress. “No.”

“No can’t do, Ouyang,” Jingyi’s voice drifts to him, as his wrist is seized. “We need it.”

“And Qing-jie needs it, but none of y’all are telling me what you need it for -”

The door eases open with a loud creak, like a bow on an erhu string gone wrong, and both boys might as well have screamed in his face because the expressions on their faces are thunderous.

“Uncle!” Jingyi squeaks.

“Uncle!” Rulan also yips, stepping away from the window, and coming over to -

Oh my god he needs to scream.

Doctor Wei and Hanguang-Jun are at the door, brows raised in vague interest at the war zone spilling out all over their socked feet, Doctor Wei humming interestedly at their thunderstruck and mutually devastated faces.

Jin Rulan is almost the same height as his uncle but he’s looking as if somebody ran over his finessed bow. He and Jingyi, who unhands Zizhen quickly, are both standing and arms splaying, kicking and shifting so that the mess of robot parts are somewhat not so obviously sprawling all over the floor.

“A-Zhen!” Doctor Wei beams, and proceeds to squeeze him in a hug until he dies, stuffing his face into a shirtfront with too much Versace sprayed all over it. “You didn’t say you were friends with the kids!”

“We don’t know each other,” he squeezes out, gasping as he’s released.

“Not a friend,” Rulan vehemently denies.

Lan Wangji lifts two unimpressed eyebrows. Rulan swallows back whatever else he was meant to say.

“Occasionally a friend?” Jingyi amends.

He turns and gripes at the Lan boy - “How can someone be occasionally a friend, you lump of spineless potato?”

“His insults are creative,” Doctor Wei notes, half way between an explanation and a praise. “Listen, kids -”

He then gets cut off by Jingyi and Rulan, talking not only over each other, but in synching fragmented sentences.

Jingyi “Uncles, we’re going to pack this up, we know you need the house for guests to come over -”

“ - and we will introduce you and acquaint everyone, but this guy needs to hand over his things first and then everyone can go,” Rulan finishes, hand still reaching out to Zizhen and his bundle.

He tries to step away, but two much taller men - Lan Wangji and Doctor Wei, are in his way, benevolently smiling and stoically staring down at him, and he feels his resolve crumbling. In fear, but also they are educators and they’ve perfectly polished the I’m not angry at you, I’m just disappointed and very very sad.

“Sounds like a party in here,” he hears the dreaded singsong, the sound of the dead coming to collect his soul and putting him through all the levels of hell.

Song-Xiao Qing pokes her head around Lan Wangji’s elbow and beams at him. “Oh you’re here! I thought I had to call for you! You made my job so easy, marshmallow boy.”

“Uh,” he’s still being held captive by Doctor Wei. “Please. Explain.”

Lan Yuan finally emerges, serene, beautiful, refreshing and soft-spoken.

“Many apologies for my family’s treatment of you, Zizhen-xiong. Would you like some tea?”

The gist of it is this -

It was a test. And his gut feelings were correct.

And the test was Would Ouyang Zizhen Make Good Agent. Apparently he passed, because nobody expected him to pursue the bundle all the way to the Jin Manor, along with wrestling with Jingyi so fiercely.

“You -” he looks at Qing-jie, who is sipping chrysanthemum tea so calmly, as if she hadn’t led him on some wild goose chase. “I actually have no words. That was very clever.”

“I have words,” Jin Rulan, apparently part of whatever the hell this is too, whinges from his post at the arm of Lan Wangji’s chair. “Why him?”

“What, besides the obvious?” Jingyi looks at his friend. “He held me off, and snuck into Gusu. Like, impressive?”

“The sticker was a nice touch,” Qing-jie notes. “Although we did make it easy on ya.”

“He’s calm,” A-Yuan smiles at him. “You’re very calm, even though you opposed to this vehemently.”

He gestures broadly, to Everyone Present. “I can’t exactly freak out before this peanut gallery. I want to live past 5 pm today. I have an aunt’s dinner I have to go to. I can’t die before that.”

A-Yuan shrugs like that’s a good answer. It is. He knows. He has a few fire-breathing aunts himself.

“So,” someone prompts. “About this -”

“The answer is still no,” he looks over specifically at Qing-jie, who he knows no doubt will be sending him on more of these trips.

“You did good though,” Jingyi notes. “Considering that you improv like, 9 out of 10 things.”

“Well excuse me for being new at this stuff, how am I supposed to -” he stops his snapping tone as a familiar face walks by, blinking widely as the entourage of idiots who may or may not are influencing a youth in joining the forces to lawbreaking. How is Hanguang-Jun in the middle of this, he just wants to talk. He swallows his caustic words, and cautions a wave to the boy. “Hey, A-Song.”

A-Song bows back to everyone. “Zizhen-xiong -”

“Calling me gege is fine, sheesh, this kid -”

“I’ll see you at tutoring, gege,” A-Song, Jin Rusong, literally the sweetest kid ever, smiles back politely, before he retreats back to where he has to go back to, leaving their Idiot Entourage to their own.

“You know my cousin?” Rulan quirks a judgemental eyebrow.

“Yes,” he replies, tersely. “Can you not pay attention? He said tutoring. I tutor him. Shut up, I’m only mean to you because you’ve an awful personality.”

Nobody is sure who laughed but there is a ripple of a muffled laugh as Rulan screeches that I’ll have your head, Ouyang!

“Our deal is off,” Qing-jie snaps her fingers before his face. “You can go now.”

“Just like that?” He squints, suspicious. “No forcing?”

“No forcing,” Doctor Wei smiles, the same Jiang-Wei smile that put the cardiac arrest in people’s hearts. People being undergraduates. “We’ll win you over one of these days,” Doctor Wei slaps a fist to a palm. “Our doors are always open for you to join, A-Zhen.”

Lan Wangji levels a stare at him. “Hmn.”

He’s not quite sure how Doctor Wei isn’t freaking out in the presence of his beloved Lan-er gege but he’s not going to ask or go there. He has a dinner to go to.

“Well,” he stands, and bows, because he still has manners. “I’ll be taking my leave?”

“I’ll see you off,” Doctor Wei also stands, turning to the four idiot monkeys first. “Here ya go, kids. Don’t be playing hot potato with that now.”

It’s then that he realises that his bundle is gone, yet again, and Doctor Wei had only hugged him once.

“Shall we go?” The Doctor’s eye glints, and he wants to bolt out the door.

“How are you a part of this too?” He hisses to the Good Doctor, the top medical examiner of the goddamn country and youngest biology professor in his college, as he is shown out.

“I’ll tell you when you join,” is the cryptic answer he gets, as the doors close behind him.

Tell me, his Kermit brain says. But then you’ll have to join, his rational robotics brain whispers back.

Zizhen elects to just scream at the door and turns on his heels marching out.

The nerve of some people!

#mdzs #future fic #modern college AU #ouyang zizhen #lan jingyi #a-qing #jin ling #lan sizhui #jin rusong #lan wangji #wei wuxian #there is a universe where people fear lwj more than lan qiren #it is here #spy AU #this is so stupid please love it for me

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ericbrandonrp · 5 years

Text

|| Headcanon: Il Barone Rosso

“The guy’s a feckin’ judge!” He was frantic, nervous, and yes, even scared. Three aspects that were the most horrible combination when working in a profession as Eric did; hell, one alone was enough already to have the job blow up right into his face. What made everything worse, and life-threatening, was the fact that the villa he had broken into, was the property of a judge. The estate was seated at the coast of a beautiful town in Italy, with the study’s windows delivering the wonderful view at the waves crashing against the shore. It had seven rooms - two of them bedrooms - one big kitchen, three garages, and a breathtaking garden in the back filled with all sorts of Mediterranian trees and bushes, flowers and a grass that couldn’t be greener. Right now, in that very night, the sea underneath the estate was calm - unlike the thief’s nerves.

Not even Ian, on the phone, managed to calm him down. “Take the goods and leave, like you always do.” “Ye’re sayin’ tha’ so easily. Ian, he’s famous here! They call him il barone rosso.” “The Red Baron,” Ian muttered at the other end of the line, sinking back into his pillows. Shit. Not even he, the hitman, the one cleaning up, would be able to correct this one. Even Ian, and he was glad that Eric didn’t notice, was scared of that name. “You’re in Francesco Rossi’s villa? Why the fuck are you in fucking Francesco Rossi’s villa? What the fuck were you thinking? Have you any fucking idea who the fuck that even is?” “Yes, Ian!” Eric growled. “Then why the fuck are you there?” “I didn’t know it’s him! Look, I had a job in Italy,” he explained with the phone pressed to his ear and his other hand holding onto the small flashlight, eyes scanning the expensive wooden furniture and carpets, and the painting he was supposed to steal - still hanging on the wall, “I was ‘bout to leave, bu’ me client called and offered me ‘nother job. No big preparations, nothin’ to worry ‘bout.” Or so he had thought. But now he was sitting right in the middle of the wasps’ nest and was planless on how to leave it again.

“Get the fuck out of there.” The thief sighed. “Thanks for the advoice, there’s just one problem.” “Which is?” “Me client’s gonna murder me if I don’t get him wha’ he wants.” “You’re off worse if you take it, though. The fucking Red Baron won’t stop until he got the fucking arse that was stupid enough to break into his fucking home and fucking steal from him. You know that. Remember Antonio Spinelli? Ten years. James Rogers? Seven fucking years.” God, he wanted to cry, and Eric did actually feel tears well up in his eyes. This was a bloody catch-22 he got himself caught in. On the one hand: death. On the other: years in prison. The latter seemed like the worse option, however. “Also, you already broke rule number one.” Eric sighed. “Don’t bring yer phone to the job, I know, I know...” What a stupid beginner’s mistake; maybe he was really getting too old for this job. Maybe it was time to retire. The thought was on hold as his gaze fell on what the flashlight illuminated. Pictures in nice golden frames sitting on sideboards and in cabinets. One of them particularly caught the thief’s attention. Eyes narrowed, he stepped closer, then tucked the phone between his shoulder and ear and picked the frame up. The little boy’s face looked an awful lot familiar. The eyes...the lips, thin, pressed together. He couldn’t have been older than three, maybe even two years old, was sitting on a man’s lap. The man he knew: it was the Red Baron himself, Francesco Rossi. But the boy...

“Ian...” “Are you out?” “No, but---” His eyes stung from the sudden brightness flashing across the room, and Eric nearly let go of the frame when he turned around abruptly to face whoever had turned on the goddamn lights of the study. He did so in time to see a gun being lifted and pointed at him. The familiar clicking noise, as quiet and soft as it was, told him that he was better off remaining just the way he was: standing. Not making a single move. “...Eric?” Ian’s heart was beating faster. He sat up in his bed, ignoring Mr Freckles’ groan of disgruntlement when the cat was shoved a few inches away. His son was out there, in a completely different country, and he couldn’t help him. “Eric? What’s going on?”

“Cosa stai facendo qui?” The old man’s voice was soft, but firm. A bit raspy, Eric noticed, but still full of life. And those blue eyes...the same as the boy’s in the picture. The same as--- “Parla, o sparo.” “I--I don’t--” The thief sucked in a breath, but his throat closed down. Godfuckingdamnit. Slowly, very slowly, he lifted his hands up. The man was old, yes, probably around seventy - but he had heart a lot about him. Rossi did shoot. And he did hit his target.

“I said, what are you doing here?” His English was clear, words spoken slowly, carried with the natural Italian accent. Rossi came closer, small steps, careful. “Put the photo down.” “I don’t wanna harm ye, a’righ’?” But the fact that he was wearing black trousers, a black hoodie, and black gloves, probably didn’t help much on that matter. He was fucked. Majorly. Especially when Rossi stood right in front of him and pressed the gun - an old one, Eric guessed it was still from the last World War, but really, why the fuck did he care with what kind of gun he was going to be shot? - against the thief’s forehead. Piercing blue eyes stared right back into Eric’s, but for a moment the old man was hesitating. For a moment Eric noticed him narrow his eyes and look at him as if he recognized him.

#;hc:eric #;;drabble #;fc:francesco rossi #;fc:ian

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the-wonder-duo · 6 years

Text

Random Ass Update #3

This one is dedicated to all you shits that can’t read.

A tsunami rocked the West coast. In light of the ongoing investigation into InvisaInk’s death, we decided that it’d be best if Deku went alone to aid with recovery efforts.

Thousands died. Recovery efforts are still ongoing.

If you’ve got the means, you oughta donate to the Japan Relief and Recovery Fund.

I stayed in the East.

Answered some shit questions between patrols. Told you fucks about Deku’s questionable taste in music.

PSA: I’m better than Deku at everything.

Deku kept in touch while he was in the Nagano through audio logs and holocalls.

There were sightings of someone that might’ve looked like me. At the time, I dismissed it as bullshit.

Explosions rocked the streets of Hosu. The cause was not determined.

Get your conspiracy theory asses off my blog.

I was arrested after an attack in Hosu; Okane Trust & Banking Company had been robbed in an explosive attack.

The Hero Police Force released a statement revealed that on-site video surveillance captured footage of me at the scene, though the security system experienced technical difficulties only moments later.

Sweat and hair analysis also placed me at the scene.

Deku came back— even though I told him to stay in the East. Even though he was supposed to stick to the West to help tsunami victims.

There were protests. I guess some of you lot aren’t complete dickheads, after all.

Thanks.

I was drugged with Quirk suppressants. Standard procedure for those that’re being detained.

My body didn’t react that well to ‘em.

Footage of the bank robbery was leaked.

Deku compiled evidence to prove that I was innocent.

When presenting his argument to the detectives who were in charge of the investigation, Deku was dismissed without any consideration.

Asshole discovered that I was gonna be transferred to a maximum security prison even though I hadn’t even been arrested in any official capacity. Hadn’t even been charged of any crimes.

Idiot broke me out of jail.

Words don’t even begin to express what I felt.

That idiot has so much going for him, you know? Wouldn’t have partnered up with him if he weren’t a damn good hero. He lives to help others. Dunno if he could live without it.

And that could’ve been the end of it. Right there.

He would’ve given it up. Thrown it all away.

For me.

You’re an idiot, Deku.

We were pursued by Pros and police, but we managed to make it to the sewers. Since we’d spent weeks combing through them, we knew them pretty well.

Took refuge in an undocumented Quirk shelter.

Deku’d scheduled a leak of information to be posted onto the blog before he’d left. To tell everyone that he could of what had really happened, and to show why I wasn’t guilty of the crimes that I’d been accused of.

Here’s the gist of what he wrote:

I’m sure that the people who were responsible for kidnapping Kacchan are those who are responsible for InvisaInk, and do not say that without backing. The proof is in the visual evidence that has already been uploaded online by multiple sources; I suspect that the footage that was sent to me last night will be uploaded before long, as well.

Most would say that those leaked stills that show an apparent Kacchan robbing a bank appear to be wrong, somehow. And those conclusions would be correct.

There’s the obvious— the haircut, for one, which doesn’t at all match was Kacchan is currently sporting —but then there’s the more subtle (for those who don’t know Kacchan as well as I do, anyways).

The imposter in the video is a mirror image of the actual Bakugou Katsuki.

Upon reviewing some of the footage taken by crowd’s phones that day in the park— the day the fake InvisaInk confronted the both of us—I can see now that that InvisaInk was a mirror image of the actual InvisaInk, as well; for those that want obvious proof, I suggest slowing the video down to a fourth of it’s usual speed and pausing as InvisaInk lifts his gun to Kacchan’s head— you can see the visible outline of InvisaInk’s tattoo as his shirt sleeves rides up— on his left arm.

The actual InvisaInk’s tattoo was located on his right arm.

A closer examination of each of their features has further proved that this person is, in fact, able to create mirror images of their target— given what they’ve known to have taken from both Kacchan and InvisaInk, I can only infer that they use bone marrow to supply this transformation with the aid of their Quirk.

This also shows why the YouTube video uploaded of the fake InvisaInk’s spiel had actually seemed to be right for both Kacchan and I— before the video had been uploaded, the murderers had actually edited and flipped the footage, so that the person being displayed was on the correct side again.

And yes, I did say murderers— because I believe this to be the work of not just one person, but at least two. Further inspection of the sight of the bank blast and an analysis of the explosion has proven that yes, while Kacchan’s actual sweat had ignited the ensuring explosion, it had blown the wall upon from inside the bank— he hadn’t entered from the outside, as witnesses and the footage depict of the alleged “Ground Zero.”

I have come to the conclusion that the second accomplice is one that harvests body parts in order to gain use of that target’s Quirk; for InvisaInk, the murderers harvested his skin, and for Kacchan— his hands.

The same hands that were taken from him months ago. During his kidnapping— which had been so similar to that of InvisaInk’s.

Chillingly, a closer look at footage captured at the Charity Smash event depicts a person that looks eerily similar to InvisaInk— with the exception of his height, his hair, and his features. In fact, his skin seems to be the only startling match— a comparison shows that the freckles on this man’s face exactly match those of InvisaInk’s.

‘Course it wasn’t me.

I’d never pull a stunt like that.

I’m a goddamn hero.

Anyways, some numbskull who’d just been released from their own interrogation actually managed to snap a pic of Deku breaking me out of there.

Didn’t cower in the sewers, though.

We found the fuckers that were responsible for what had happened.

Had some help from another Pro Hero, Earphone Jack.

Deku kept more of a level head than I did, admittedly.

I dunno. I guess it was harder than I ever would’ve imagined it’d be. Keeping my cool. When the sick bastards that skinned InvisaInk alive were right in front of me.

Chased ‘em to a crowded street, police got involved, caught the murderers, and gave ourselves up.

Seems like they might’ve been two of Backlash’s lackeys, but in all goddamn honesty, they seem like a pair of those Anti-Quirk Liberation League nutjob extremists. ‘Least, they seem that way to me.

Toga Akane was one of ‘em. Sister of Toga Himiko, who gained some fame from working as member of the League of Villains some years back.

She’s in possession of a Quirk that allows her to become a mirror image of anyone who’s bone marrow she consumes.

Claims she hates her sister. That people like her are the scum of the Earth. That people like herself are scum of the Earth. That people like them ought not to exist, and that their actions— and more importantly, their Quirks —are proof of that.

Says that she did it for the greater good. Part of a way of showing once and for all that Quirks ought to be eliminated— part of a way to show us all how they ruin lives.

The Anti-Quirk Liberation League won’t claim her. Say that they don’t associate themselves with common criminals, and that they’re horrified and repulsed by her actions.

Last I heard, she’s attempted suicide at least twice since the beginning of her imprisonment.

The other murderer was Hada Dorobō. Possessed an undocumented Quirk that snatches the abilities of other Quirks through imbibing body parts conducive to the utilization of other Quirks.

Appears that the sick bastard can only snatch one Quirk at a time; if he tries to take on another, the body part that he stole rots off of him.

Deku and I were released after Lead Detective Naomasa discovered that the secretary to the Senior Commissioner had been, essentially, brainwashing most of the force via email. Had a Quirk that affected perception through written word.

It’s been confirmed that the Senior Commissioner was bribed to ignore these criminal acts, and both of ‘em have been arrested. S’why the force had been acting so unreliably recently.

Originally, we were given a week of house arrest and ‘till the first of June of suspension, but that was changed to house arrest ‘till the first a few days ago.

After the first, we’ll be allowed to work as Pro Heroes again.

So we’ve been sitting around the house ‘till then.

Answered some more questions.

Deku revealed that he’s come across a Quirk that allowed the wielder’s dick to function like a compass. Pointed towards what the user really wanted, apparently.

I think that Deku’s a gullible dumbass and that it was just a boner.

Deku doesn’t wanna be the number one hero anymore.

He wants to be the best hero.

A great hero.

Fuck you, Deku.

There’s been some fallout. Apparently you can’t just break outta jail and expect to be considered a shining example of heroism by everyone.

Who would’ve imagined that.

I don’t give a damn what you have to say about it. Yeah, breaking me out was a stupid move, and yeah, it could’ve been so much worse, but you know what? Deku’s still a hero in my eyes.

In case you’ve lived under a rock for the past decade, you ought to know that the leader of the League of Villains is dead.

My biggest rival made a comeback.

Played some games.

One of ‘em was perverted as hell. Our publicist is a real piece of work, putting that crap together.

Truth or Dare ended with a naked Deku in my bed.

Deku worried too damn much about it.

It’s fine. Fucking weird, and awkward, and yeah, I was pissed that he pulled something like that just ‘cause he thought he could get some info that I wouldn’t hand over to him on a silver platter, but the fuck got too caught up in that.

Culminated in Deku putting himself into a slump.

Asshole told me that it’d be best if we didn’t share a bed for now.

Informed him of how goddamn stupid he is.

And then I told him to come to bed.

For better or for worse, we’re a team.

Shitnerd’s just gonna have to accept it.

We’re not fucking.

And we’re more than ready to go back to work already.

#bakudeku #katsudeku #izukatsu #eventually #only a few more days 'till i'm out of this goddamn house #two weeks cooped up with deku #is two weeks too long #trust me #weekly update #ground zero signing in

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decembercamiecherries · 6 years

Text

Graffiti- Chapter 6

Ao3 link

Chapter word count: 7,545 -> Total story word count: 30,762

Chapter summary:

"Hmm." Leorio was studying him carefully again and Killua had to make a conscious effort not to squirm under that studious gaze. He didn’t like it, the way Leorio was looking at him.

Leorio asked suddenly, “You really trust Gon, huh?”

A pang of shock jolted through Killua. “I–I trust his abilities, that’s it! He’s strong, okay.”

Dammit, he sounded way too defensive right now!

Finally getting to post this thing after three months of finishing off grad school XD A big thank you to @sketchxhunter for being my beta and for making the chapter art, and thank you to @xcoruscaminex for supporting me and this fic in every possible way <3 I love you both!

Chapter title: Contract of Trust

(Chapter art)

“I still don’t understand why you two need to borrow my car—” Leorio started angrily.

“Yeah!” Gon cut in and Killua bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself calm. “Why can’t we just use my motorcycle to get to this Kurapika guy’s place?”

“I already explained this to you last night,” Killua growled. “We can’t use your motorcycle; Kurapika lives in the next country over, this drive is going to take us all day! And I’m not about to cling to your back for seven and a half hours until all my fingers go numb!”

“I can think of a few things I could do to keep you warm,” Gon countered, wiggling his eyebrows, and Killua almost socked him in his cheerful, freckled face. It was too goddamn early for Gon and his stupidly blunt flirtations—

“Okay you two, relax. Damn.” Leorio shook his head. “I didn’t know I was dealing with two children, today.”

“Gon is the only child here!”

“No, I’m not! I’m twenty years old!”

“No way,” Killua said, horror seizing his heart. “Are you seriously saying you’re older than me?!”

Gon blinked. Then his expression twisted in delighted glee. “I dunno, am I? When’s your birthday, Ki-llu-a? Mine was a few weeks ago—”

“Hey, hey, time out!” Leorio made a cutting motion with his hands. “You both can discuss who’s older later! I wanna know why you need my car so badly!”

Killua turned back to Leorio with an irritated glare. “I just told you, old man, we need to go see Kurapika! Or are you losing your hearing in your old age?”

A muscle in Leorio’s face twitched. “Watch who you’re calling old, brat.” He poked Killua hard on the forehead and Killua yelped. “Do you want my help or don’t you?”

“I do,” Killua grumbled and rubbed the place where Leorio had jabbed him. “I didn’t think it would take this long to get it, though!”

“It’s my car and my baby, I think I deserve to ask a few questions.”

“You have got to be joking, that thing’s nothing but a pile of junk held together by some screws and oil—”

“Then why don’t you use your own car if it’s that much of an inconvenience for you, huh?!”

“You know why!!!”

Killua’s vicious snarl was met with resounding silence. For a long moment, no one spoke. Second after second ticked by while Killua and Leorio continued to glare murderously at each other, and a thick, palpable tension hanging in the air between them.

Rage simmered under Killua’s skin, coiling through his veins. Leorio knew better than anyone why Killua couldn’t use his own car, why going into enemy territory with something so directly tied to his own name was equivalent to pointing a huge arrow at his forehead for Milluki to trace back to him within seconds! It was something even Killua and Alluka, with all their tricks and careful strategies, couldn’t counter.

That was why they needed Leorio, and it was way too early in the morning for Killua to be awake and playing question games right now!

“So—” Gon started, finally breaking the silence, “—you guys are good friends, huh?”

Killua uncurled his white-knuckled fists and looked away with a tch. Leorio let out a short breath.

“Yeah, we’re friends,” he grumbled. “Someone has to take care of this kid.”

Killua’s cheeks grew hot. “I can take care of myself!”

“Sure, and that’s why you’re here, right?” Leorio shook his head. “Save your breath, Killua. Even if you hadn’t…you know, gone out on a limb for me, I’d still do whatever I could for you and Alluka. You’re family.”

Killua wrinkled his nose and ducked his head. Ugh, great. His whole face was on fire now.

“Yeah, well. You’re not so bad yourself,” he mumbled, scuffing his shoe on the floor. He saw Leorio’s chest swell out do the corner of his eye and smiled to himself. They might get on each other’s nerves a lot, but he trusted Leorio. And that alone said a lot.

“Um. I’m sorry, but…I still don’t get it.”

Killua turned to see Gon wrinkling his nose in confusion. “I mean,” the gang leader continued. “I know we need this Kurapika person because he’s in the Mafia and he’s got the information Alluka can’t get through the computers, but—”

“But, what?” Killua asked sharply. He had a bad feeling about where this conversation was going, felt the dread pooling in the base of his stomach like lead. “What else could you possibly need to know?!”

“Let me finish!” Gon puffed out his cheeks. “But the Mafia works all over the globe, right? Why can’t we just ask someone from the Mafia here, in this country? Then we don’t have to bother Leorio about his car, and we won’t have to travel as far…”

Killua stilled, blood turning to ice. He was careful not to look over at Leorio because he knew one glance could give away everything, even without saying a single word.

He heard Leorio cough and the sound came out somewhat strained. “It’s not that simple, kid. There’s only one reining Mafia family per country and everyone else just works under them. The reining families share resources under occasion but it’s not that common of a thing.”

Gon deflated. “Oh. So, then, the Mafia family here might not have what we need?”

“Exactly,” Killua said, voice ten times calmer than he felt. “And besides, Kurapika is the only Mafia connection I have as of right now. There’s no point in talking to anyone else.”

“So, what do you say?” he abruptly asked Leorio to change the topic of conversation. He shoved his hands deep into the front pockets of his jeans. “Can we borrow the car, or can’t we?”

Leorio hesitated. He looked between them—Gon, wide eyed and entirely too innocent looking, and Killua, exhausted and irritated—before finally sighing.

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” he grumbled. “You just better not hurt my baby....”

Killua turned to Gon with a grin, only to find Gon already looking back at him with the same delighted beam on his face. He felt his skin warm as Gon’s glimmering brown-gold eyes locked on his face and stayed there, refusing to break their shared gaze. He only distantly noted Leorio walking over to his kitchen counter over the heavy thud-thud-ing of his heart.

“Make sure to get her back to me in one piece, yeah?” Leorio said and Killua forcibly tore his eyes away from Gon’s. Leorio was making his way back to where they stood in his apartment entrance, fiddling for something in his wallet.

He eventually managed to fish out his keys and tossed them to Gon. Gon caught them one-handedly without flinching.

“Go to the parking garage on the street corner,” Leorio told him with a jerk of his head. “The keys should help you find my car once you get inside.”

Gon nodded, then glanced at Killua expectantly.

He said quickly, “You go get the car. I want to talk to Leorio for a bit before we go.”

“Oh…okay.” Gon wilted a bit at that, sounding put out.

Killua rolled his eyes and nudged Gon in the side. “Don’t sound so sad, jeez!” he laughed lightly. “I’m not going anywhere, stupid. I’ll still be here when you get back.”

“I know that!” Gon stuck his tongue out, but the childish action did nothing to hide the blush darkening cheeks. Killua just grinned, eyebrows shooting upwards. He couldn’t help but find it funny how much Gon acted like a little kid sometimes.

He continued to watch Gon with amusement as his partner jerked open the front door and stomped down the front steps of Leorio’s apartment. He kept his gaze pointedly trained on Gon’s green spikes, ignoring the heavy weight of Leorio’s gaze digging into the side of his face.

Just like he was ignoring the steady warmth creeping across his cheeks.

“Oh!” Gon turned around on the last step and called back at them, “It was nice to see you again, Mister Leorio! Thanks for the help!”

“It’s just Leorio!” the older man hollered after Gon. “I’m only a few years older than you, dammit!”

He leaned against the doorframe with an angry huff. Together, he and Killua tracked Gon’s progress as he jogged down the street.

“Never thought I’d see that kid again,” Leorio admitted and folded his arms.

“Yeah, well, that makes two of us.”

“Hmph. I could have said that a year ago the way you dumped him on my doorstep then bolted for the hills….you do know what all this means, though, right?”

Killua tensed. “What all what means?”

“This.” Leorio made a general sweeping gesture with his hands. “You and him, going to see Kurapika. You won’t be able to hide your connections to the Mafia from Gon like how you did just now. You’re going to have to tell him the truth.”

Killua grimaced. “I—yeah.” He rubbed his forehead, the wrinkles there. “I know. I knew that the second Alluka mentioned Kurapika’s name.”

Leorio stared at him critically. “And are you ready to tell him? You didn’t look like it just now.”

Killua felt a muscle in his face twitch. “What are you, my therapist?” he snapped. “I’ll tell him when I’m ready, okay? I just couldn’t tell him there, that’s all. I’ll tell him soon, jeez.”

“Yeah, yeah, okay. No need to yell. I was just acting like the concerned, kind friend I am. What’s your relationship with him, anyway?”

“Huh?” Killua glanced at him sharply. “What are you talking about now, you geezer? If you’re just gonna harass me maybe I should’ve just left with Gon to get your car after all—”

“Hey, don’t get all defensive!” Leorio held up his hands in surrender. “I just think it’s kind of strange that this is the second time you’ve shown up here asking for my help with him in tow. You haven’t done that at all since I set you and Alluka up with the apartment two years ago.”

Killua scowled and said shortly, “If you’re asking whether there’s a deeper relationship going on here there isn’t. The only reason Gon showed up is because he wants my help with this very specific…thing. And the only reason I’m helping is because he can keep me and Alluka off Illumi’s trail for a while.”

Leorio visibly paled. “I-Illumi’s here?!”

Killua shrugged, trying not to appear as sick as the horrible knot of dread in his gut made him feel. “Seems like it. Got a handwritten note from him confirming he knew where we were, at least.”

“Shit. That’s…” Leorio shook his head. “Killua, that’s bad.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

“And Alluka? Is she safe?”

“For now, yeah. She’s staying with Gon’s gang while we pay this visit to Kurapika.”

“You don’t think you should’ve taken her with you?”

Killua scoffed. “No. You think I would ever risk taking Alluka into Mafia-infested lands? To a place that’s so directly connected to our family that she could be dragged back to home within a few hours of being recognized?” He shook his head, nostrils flaring. “I don’t think so. She’s safer where she is for now…”

“But you’re going,” Leorio pointed out and Killua rolled his eyes.

“I’ll risk my own safety, sure, but never Alluka’s. And, besides, I’m not totally alone; I have Gon.”

“Hmm.” Leorio was studying him carefully again and Killua had to make a conscious effort not to squirm under that studious gaze. He didn’t like it, the way Leorio was looking at him.

Leorio asked suddenly, “You really trust him, huh?”

A pang of shock jolted through Killua. “I–I trust his abilities, that’s it! He’s strong, okay.” Dammit, he sounded way too defensive right now—

“Uh-huh. Sure. And then what was with the whole—” he nudged Killua’s side, like Killua had done to Gon just a few minutes ago, and Killua flushed hotly.

“Th-That was nothing!” he stammered. He waved a hand in the air, as if that would somehow help explain himself. “Just, you know, a bit of harmless teasing; you saw the puppy dog face he was making at me!”

“Oh, trust me, I think I’d have to be blind to miss the way that guy was looking at you,” Leorio said and Killua bristled. He opened his mouth in a snarl—

“Hell, I thought something might’ve changed over the past year, but apparently not.”

Killua froze. “W-Wait…what?”

“Nothing, I’m just thought a year passing would’ve changed the way Gon looked at you but.” Leorio shrugged. “He still looks at you like the way you look at chocolate. And that’s saying something.”

Killua suddenly felt warm all over. “You—you mean, Gon was interested in me a year ago? All the way back when we first met?!”

Leorio quirked an eyebrow. “That’s what it looked like to me. Did you seriously not notice? He never shut up about you the entire time I was stitching him up. Wanted to know everything about you—not that I said anything, of course, but—”

“W-Why didn’t you tell me?!” Killua sputtered out, mind racing

He wasn’t expecting this. Meeting Gon had been a whirlwind of activity; he was too terrified back then to see Gon as anything more than a threat to his and Alluka’s carefully crafted life, so that’s how he treated him. He took care of Gon, washed his hands of the whole situation and walked away, determined to never think of the bleeding man ever again.

But, according to Leorio, Gon had thought of him.

Distantly, he heard Leorio’s complaining start up again. He refocused just in time to hear him say, “You never wanted to hear about it! Every time I tried to bring Gon up you always shrieked your head off at me!”

Leorio let out an irritated huff. But then his expression shifted and changed, morphing into a sly smirk. Killua glowered at him. What the hell was he thinking about now?

“But maybe that’s all in the past,” Leorio said in a sing-song voice. “After all, it looks like there’s been some recent developments.”

Killua’s shoulders jerked upwards. Bristing, he hissed venomously, “You—!”

“Don’t get mad at me, kid! I’m just calling it as I see it, okay? I can count on my fingers the number of times I’ve seen you get this flustered, and I’ve known you longer than most.”

Killua looked away furiously. His body felt hot all over. He didn’t even know why he was reacting like this; it was dumb and stupid and none of this even mattered. His so-called ‘feelings’ for Gon were nothing short of basic tolerance moving onto acquaintanceship, and that was if he was being generous.

His nails dug into his palms hard enough to draw blood as he ground out, “We only met a week ago. There can’t be anything.”

“Attachments have formed in less time,” Leorio said wisely. “Love is spontaneous. You can’t always control what you do or don’t feel.”

Killua’s head snapped up. Leorio’s eyes softened, filling with a kind of dull pain. He asked, voice strained, “Say hello to him for me, will you?”

Killua swallowed thickly as the anger drained out of him. There was only one person Leorio could be talking about: a person with shoulder-length blonde hair, and piercing but exhausted gray eyes.

Kurapika always looked so tired whenever Killua had talked to him. But he came to life around Leorio.

Killua answered, heart twisting, “Of course.”

“And Alluka, once you get back. Haven’t seen her in a while either.”

Killua felt a sharp stab of guilt. “I-I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to—”

“Killua.” Two warm, sturdy hands gripped Killua’s shoulders, steadying him. Leorio smiled down at him and there was nothing but genuine fondness shining in his brown eyes.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said softly, giving Killua’s shoulders a squeeze. “Alright? Visit when you have the time. When you’re safe. That’s all that matters to me—and to Kurapika, I know. He will help you with whatever this all is. And when you’re done we’ll figure something out to get you and Alluka out of this mess again.”

Killua’s eyes prickled. He sucked in an unsteady breath and reached up to grip one of Leorio’s hands, nodding. He couldn’t properly express what Leorio’s support meant to him. It went beyond words.

The sound of a car pulling in front of Leorio’s apartment broke the moment. Killua turned to see Leorio’s older car with Gon in the front seat, his usual sunny beam in place.

“Killua!” he called happily through the open window and Killua’s chest lightened somehow at the simple call of his own name. “I found it, I found the car! We can go, now!”

“Guess you better get going,” Leorio said. “He’ll wake up the whole neighborhood if he keeps hollering like that.”

“Yeah.” Killua faced him one last time and bit his bottom lip. “Uh, listen. Th-Thanks. I promise I’ll get her back to you in one piece and everything—”

“You are much more important to me than any car, kid.” Leorio ruffled his hair and Killua squawked. “Get yourself in and out of Yorbia safely, first and foremost. Got it?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Killua grumbled as he tried in in vain to comb his hair back in place with his fingers. He was going to have to spend another fifteen minutes messing around with it now thanks to Leorio’s intervention—

“I’m glad he’s with you.”

Killua jolted at the unexpected statement, his fingers caught on a stray knot. “H-Huh?” he asked and voice squeaked.

“I’m glad Gon is going with you,” Leorio repeated with a satisfied nod. “I can tell he’ll take care of you. Make sure you two stick together, and tell him if anything happens to you—anything at all!—he’ll have me to answer to!”

Killua’s face flushed in horrified mortification. “Holy shit, please never say that again; you are not my dad, Leorio!”

“I should be! I would do a better job than that asshole!”

Killua burst into startled laughter. He didn’t know what to say to that, other than— “You’re right,” he said, grinning, and gave Leorio a fist-bump. He began to edge out the door. “Thanks again, man. I really owe you for this.”

“Thank me when you’re back and safe!”

Killua waved a hand in acknowledgement and finally turned on his heel to face the street. He ran down the final steps of Leorio’s apartment, to where Gon was waiting for him in the car. Gon reached over and pushed open the passages side door just in time for Killua to slip in.

“Ready to go?” Gon asked, beaming, as Killua slammed the door shut behind him.

Killua nodded, breathless. “Yeah. Let’s get this show on the road.”

-o0o-

“So…”

Killua looked up from the map, half a piece of chocolate sticking out of his mouth. Gon was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel as he drove, a slight pucker in his brow.

Killua quickly chewed the rest of the chocolate piece and swallowed. “What?” he asked when he could finally talk. “You can’t just say something like that then not follow up, Gon.”

“Eh, it’s nothing big!”

“I don’t care, I’m involved now. Spill.”

Gon’s lips twitched, like he was trying not to smile and failing. “Mm, well, I was wondering…how do Leorio and this Kurapika guy know each other? It seemed like you three had all been friends at some point the way you were talking back at Leorio’s apartment.”

Killua raised his eyebrows. Of all the questions he was expecting Gon to ask, that one had certainly not been high on the list. But then again, Gon rarely did anything on Killua’s list of ‘expected Gon things’…

“They were a thing,” Killua said shortly, letting his eyes drop back down to the map.

“A-A thing?”

Killua snorted at Gon’s tone. “Yep.”

“As in…”

“Yes, that sort of thing. With a capital ’t’.”

“Oh.” A pause. “What happened?”

Killua looked back up the question, confused. “Huh?”

“You said ‘were’,” Gon said matter-of-factly. “So, what happened? Why did they break up?”

Killua blinked owlishly. He was genuinely surprised Gon noticed that. Not that Gon wasn’t smart, but. Well. He was more observant than Killua gave him credit for, sometimes.

“They…” Killua began, hesitating. How the hell could he explain this? “Kurapika wanted to stay in the Mafia. Leorio wanted out. So, they split.”

Gon’s frown from before returned in full, deepening at the corners. “But, didn’t they love each other?”

“Uh. Yeah? I guess. I mean, they were usually arguing whenever I saw them together, but—”

“If you really love someone, you should stay with them no matter what!” Gon said stubbornly. Killua eyed how Gon’s knuckles whitened under his tightening grip, honey eyes hardening to solid gold as they narrowed in anger. “That’s what love is all about!”

...jeez.

Killua sighed heavily, slumping back in his seat. “It’s not always that simple, Gon.”

“It should be! If you really, really love someone, that’s all that matters in the end!”

“Well.” Killua folded his arms over his chest. “Love actually was the problem, in the end.”

Gon stiffened at that. “W-What?”

“Kurapika is in the Mafia because of love,” Killua explained. “Familial love. He’s in it for revenge against his deceased family and he’ll never leave until he gets it. That love triumphs over everything—even what he and Leorio had. Leorio tried to convince him to leave with him, ‘course but—” he shrugged, “—Kurapika naturally refused. So, yeah. You’re right. Love wins, just not always in the way you expect.”

Gon didn’t say anything to that. He stayed quiet, silently absorbing what Killua had said, and Killua studied him in turn.

He let his gaze wander over those freckles scattered across broad cheeks like stars, focused honey eyes, the tired lines in Gon’s face softened by dawn. It was still too early for sun to rise yet, but light was starting to creep into the sky ever so slowly, painting the sky and Gon’s bronze skin in a warm glow.

Gon was talking about Kite, Killua thought to himself. He had to be. Gon’s definition for love was cut from the moments he was fighting for his life and the life of his friends against the ANTS. For Gon, it was all or nothing when it came to love.

For Killua, it was be grateful for what still remained.

“And…you helped him?”

Killua jolted out of his thoughts, face growing hot when he realized he’d been staring at Gon blankly that entire time.

“H-Huh?” he stammered with blazing red cheeks.

“You helped Leorio escape, right?” Gon repeated. He hadn’t noticed Killua’s gwaping since he’d been driving, and Killua couldn’t be more relieved. “That’s what Leorio kept saying. That must be how you two know each other!”

“Y-Yeah? So?” Killua furiously scrubbed at his flushed skin with the heel of one hand. He was only half listening to Gon at this point. He felt hot and prickling all over and he hated it.

But even more so, he hated how simultaneously comfortable and hyper-aware he was of Gon all damn the time. They’d only spent a week of being in each other’s near-constant company, but it was all too easy for Killua to let down his defenses around Gon. To joke and tease and challenge him almost as easily as he did with Alluka.

Even now, he and Gon had been in this rickety old car for at least an hour already, and yet the conversation had flowed easy and smooth, almost as if Killua was talking to Canary or Leorio or Kurapika, himself.

But the instant Killua really looked at Gon…

Another wave of heat crashed over him, accompanied with a strange little lurch in his stomach, and Killua grounded his teeth together.

Stupid, he snapped at himself. It’s early and you’re cranky and not fully awake right now. That’s all this is. None of these feelings mean anything—

“You know…you’re a really good person, Killua.”

Killua’s head whipped around. He stared at Gon, wide-eyed, as the other man smiled softly at the empty road.

“Idiot,” Killua finally said after a small pause. The insult had no bite, and he would have been mad at himself if not for the strange, heavy, twisting inside his chest. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I do, though! You helped Leorio, and you saved me last year!” Gon chirped. “I bet you’ve helped a whole bunch of people! And that makes you a good person!”

The heavy feeling was worse now; it was crushing his lungs, making it hard to breathe and get the following words out. He looked down at his lap, at his clasped hands, and blinked rapidly.

He whispered hoarsely, “I wouldn’t be so sure about that if I were you…”

“I am.”

Killua blinked when a warm hand enveloped his, squeezing once. The hand pulled away again before Killua could think to shake it off, and he looked up in time to see Gon leaning back into his seat with his gaze still on the horizon.

Killua’s heart sped up ever so slightly. He didn’t know when Gon had even looked over, or how he had managed to do that while still staying so focused. But—

But it made the crushing feeling lighten, somehow. It was hard not to believe Gon when he spoke with such conviction like that. Even when Killua’s heart seemed dead-set on proving him wrong.

Killua glanced out his window to hide the scarlet tinge his prickling cheeks. As steadily as he could manage, he said, “You and I have very different opinions on what qualifies as a good person, Gon.”

“Hmm. You think?”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Why’s that?”

Killua rolled his eyes at fields of grass flying past them. “Because. You’re this—this bubbling ray of sunshine—”

“I’ve seen my fair share horrors, Killua. Don’t forget that.”

Killua stiffened at Gon’s tone. He twisted back around; Gon’s face was carved from stone now, lips pressed into a thin line.

“I never said you hadn’t,” Killua said after a pause.

“I know.” Gon shot him a smile that didn’t reach his eyes before turning back to the road. “But I know that’s what you were thinking. Besides, it’s not what you’ve seen or done, I think. What makes you a good person is how you react to whatever life has handed you. It’s how you respond.”

Killua snorted bitterly. “Then that still makes me a bad person in your books.”

Gon’s expression became confused. “How? You’ve never done anything wrong or bad that I can see. Not ever!”

This was it: the moment of truth. Killua heard Alluka’s voice echoing in his head—

“This agreement, between us and Gon?” she said, sitting cross-legged on their shared bed just minutes before he left for his trip with Gon. “It’s a contract of trust, Brother.”

Killua wrinkled his nose. “Trust, huh?”

She bobbed her head. “Mhm! Trust! Think about it; Gon didn’t have to tell you all that stuff about Kite. Or anything about his past, right? He could have just said he wanted our help to find Kite’s body. But he didn’t. He told you something personal, something important to him; that night he put his trust in you.”

Killua leaned back, letting out a long breath. He hadn’t really thought about it like, well, that. He’d just thought…

He frowned. He didn’t know what he thought, actually. Gon was an enigma to him—an incredibly frustrating, freckled, and muscular enigma with a smile made from the sun itself, sure, but an enigma all the same. And Killua had lost plenty of hours of sleep trying and failing to pick apart the meaning in the playful glimmer in his eyes and hopeful curve of his lips.

“So,” Killua started, ignoring the slight warmth on his cheeks that always came from thinking about Gon a little too long. “What you’re saying is, I should trust him? With everything?”

“No, I’m saying that maybe you should cut him some slack. You don’t have to give him everything at once, and to be honest, you probably shouldn’t tell him everything anyway…”

Alluka bit her lip, fingers lingering along a strand of beaded hair she had just tucked behind her ear. The pink smiley-faced beads gleamed in the low light and Killua touched the bracelet on his left wrist out of reflex. The thread and beads were cool under his fingertips, just like always.

“Just—let your guard down a little,” Alluka said finally and Killua looked up to blue eyes that were so like his own. “It’s a matter of trust, remember? Tell him what you feel you can trust him with, and no more than that.”

Killua gripped his left wrist tightly, until the bracelet’s beads dug painfully into his skin. He didn’t flinch at the pain; this was nothing, compared to the heart-stabbing symbolism of the bracelet itself. “And what if I tell him too much?”

But Alluka just smiled. “You won’t. I trust you, Brother.”

Back in the car, Killua breathed in deep. Alluka trusted him. And Gon…Gon trusted him, too. Somehow.

But did Killua trust Gon?

“Killua?” Gon asked, a quiet but clear concern woven between the syllables of his name. “Are you okay?”

Killua leaned his head against the back of his seat. He ignored Gon’s question, instead stating flatly, “You know, I envy you, Gon.”

“Huh?” Confusion flooded Gon’s tone. “Wh-Why would you—”

“Your drive to avenge Kite,” Killua said loudly. He waved his hand in the air. “Your 'response’ or whatever you called it. It’s how how you’re reacting to the ANTS Hunter Extermination. That’s how you’re reacting to Kite’s death.”

There was a low, somewhat strained, chuckle from the driver’s seat. “I always thought you believed I was crazy for all of that.”

“Oh, you are. Don’t get me wrong. I think you’re totally insane and gonna get yourself killed one day wrapped up in all this ANTS bullshit. But—” Killua let out a long breath, his bangs flopping against his forehead. There was a tightness in his throat, a twisting in his stomach. He almost didn’t want to voice this confession, but…

But a larger part of him, a strange urging in his heart, wanted him to continue. Wanted him to give in and stop fighting, to surrender to whatever pull Gon seemed to have on him.

(And maybe, if he finally opened up, he would start to understand a fraction of the alien feelings Gon stirred within him)

So he plunged ahead, forcing the words out before he could overthink them:

“—but I think there’s some bravery in that. In refusing to forget the person you lost, and wanting to remember what they meant to you, wanting to take them back in some way from the people that took them away from you.”

He paused. “That’s what it is, right? That’s why you want Kite’s body back. Because you don’t want the ANTS to have his final remains after everything they did to him. They don’t deserve that right.”

He finally looked over at Gon. The other man had frozen, hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly that Killua could see the whiteness of his bones under taunt skin. Even Gon’s gold gaze was locked and unblinking on the road in front of them with his lips slightly parted in shock.

It took a few seconds, but with a shuddering breath, Gon came back to life. He swallowed thickly and Killua’s eyes automatically darted to where his Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat—

“Killua,” Gon whispered hoarsely. His face was very pale, the palest Killua had seen yet. “H-How did you know all of that?”

“Because you’re not the only person who has lost loved ones.”

Gon’s mouth shut with a snap. Killua’s heart was heavy as lead now, and there was a burning in the back of his eyes that wouldn’t go away no matter how many times he blinked. But that always happened when he got like this.

Whenever he thought about Nanika.

“That’s why I envy you,” he continued and was proud at the steadiness of his voice. “Because you’re going back. You’re strong enough to do that. You care enough to do that. I—” he blinked rapidly, the world around him starting to blur, “—I w-wasn’t. And I probably won’t ever go back there again, even if I wanted to. I’m not strong like you are.”

Silence fell between them. Killua looked away and raised a shaking hand to his cheek. His skin was dry, thank god. But his eyes still prickled and his throat still felt raw with pain and the gaping hole inside his chest still chanted that same scream from when he was six years old:

'it’s all your fault it’s all your fault it’s all your fault she’s gone—’

“Is it…” Gon hesitated. Killua didn’t turn around, choosing instead to wait and let Gon speak for once. “Is it okay if I ask you what happened?”

Surprise shot down Killua’s spine. He felt like he’d been slapped in the face. He’d never thought—after saying all of that, after his entire speech and picking Gon’s motives apart and confessing a coded piece of his own past—

He never once thought Gon would ask for his permission for wanting to know more.

He laughed quietly, unable to stop himself. He pressed his hand to his mouth to keep the laughter locked away and his shoulders shook with the effort to keep himself calm.

“You,” he said breathlessly before flashing a smile at the confused driver. “Really are something, Gon. And yes, you can ask me anything. I don’t think I could stop you if I tried. Whether or not I actually answer is up to me, though.”

“O-Okay.” Gon’s brow furrowed. “Are you sure, Killua? I want to know, but you sound kind of weird—”

“I’m fine.” And he was. Really. He…he trusted Gon. With part of the truth, at least. “You said so yourself, you want to know about my past, right?”

“Um. Right, but I don’t want to force you—”

“You’re not forcing me into anything. You asked, and I’m going to tell you. It’s that simple.” Killua took a deep breath, folded his fingers together in his lap just to have something to do.

To keep them from shaking.

“I told you before that I have four siblings,” Killua began in a murmur. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Gon straighten in his seat. “And that is true, but it’s also not. I do have four siblings, but I have another one I didn’t mention to you: a fifth sibling.”

Killua heard Gon suck in a sharp breath. “A fifth sibling? Then, who’s–”

“Her name is Nanika,” Killua cut him off. He kept his gaze locked on the smiley-faced ring on his left pinky as he continued, “She’s Alluka’s twin, and my younger sister. We were inseparable when we were kids.”

“Alluka has a twin?” Gon repeated, sounding dumbfounded. Killua didn’t respond, waiting for the gears in Gon’s brain to click into place, because he knew Gon was smart enough to piece together the scattered hints from the past week their lives had collided and crashed and melded into each other—

Gon gasped suddenly. “Oh! The picture! From your bedroom! The one with you holding Alluka, that’s…that’s not Alluka at all, is it?”

His question ended in an unbearably soft tone. Killua gritted his teeth to stop the painful way his heart twisted and tore.

“No,” he finally choked out. “It’s not.”

There was a small pause. Then—

“Killua,” Gon said quietly, gently, why was Gon being so gentle— “What happened?”

Killua squeezed his eyes shut and breathed out through his nose.

“I don’t know,” he finally whispered. His throat was raw again, burning. Aching for something too long lost and never coming back. “I guess that’s the worst part of it all, not knowing. I should’ve known what was going to happen though; Alluka and Nanika were always brilliant from the moment they were born. Smarter than anyone. They were always inventing stuff when we were kids, you wouldn’t believe some of the things they made if I told you about them. They were true geniuses.”

Killua paused, then shook his head. “But my parents…they didn’t see Alluka and Nanika as anything more than tools. That’s how my family works: everyone is analyzed and valued to the extent that they can push the family forward. The greater their potential, the earlier they must be trained to use it. That’s all that matters.”

“My sisters’ potential was their minds. And my parents wanted that gift, wanted it badly. So, one night we went to sleep like usual, and the next day, they were gone.”

“Just like that?” Gon repeated. His tone was still soft, not at all demanding or harsh. “Without warning or anything?”

“Just like that.” Killua brought his legs to his chest and dropped his head onto his knees, wrapping his arms around his shins.

“God,” he choked out between gritted teeth to fight back the tears. “I wish I—I wish I had been smart enough to know better. But I was still under my parents thumb back then, so I didn’t. Who knows what kind of hell Alluka and Nanika went through while they were gone, what horrors my parents forced them to go through or invent just for the sake of advancing our family’s status.”

“Killua,” Gon started. “You can’t blame yourself for something like that, you sound like you were really young when this all happened—”

“Doesn’t matter. None of that matters. All that matters is that two years passed before I saw Alluka again, and by then, it was too late to do anything.”

Gon tensed. “Before you saw Alluka again? But, what about…?”

Killua felt hollow now. His voice was flat and empty when he said, “Alluka came back. Nanika didn’t. She never has, and she never will. She’s gone forever, my parents made sure of that. Alluka’s all I have left now.”

There was another long pause. A beat heavy enough for Killua to know the weight of his words had been felt. He bit his lip, letting his teeth sink into his flesh until the physical pain of his action hurt more than the pounding of his heart.

“…but you still have Alluka.”

Killua’s head snapped up. “What?”

“You still have Alluka,” Gon repeated in that same, steady tone. He turned briefly to smile at Killua and Killua stared back, stunned.

“Wh-What are you going on about now?” he stammered, caught off guard.

Gon looked back to the road. “Your family sounds evil. That’s not something Alluka could’ve escaped from on her own. And yet, she’s here today. How did she manage to survive this long after what happened to Nanika? How is Alluka still here?”

Killua shut his gaping mouth. Pinpricks of heat were starting to crawl across his cheeks. “I…I saved her. I made sure we escaped. I couldn’t let what happen to Nanika happen to her, so I got us out as soon as I could.”

“There you go,” Gon chirped. “See, Killua? You saved her, just like you saved me and Leorio. You saved us all.”

Killua struggled with what to say next, overwhelmed. He was caught between the crushing sadness over his dead sister, the embarrassed but light fluttering in his stomach at Gon’s praise, and frustration, because Gon didn’t understand what he was trying to say. It wasn’t the same thing. Because— “But I couldn’t save Nanika.”

“You can’t save everyone. I couldn’t save Kite, either,” Gon said and that shut Killua up. “You said you envy me, but to be honest, I envy you. You’re letting your love for Alluka win. You were strong enough to save her, to get her away from your parents. You’re strong enough to protect what’s most important to you.”

Killua’s heart twisted. He never thought about it like that. He always saw himself as weak for failing Nanika, and he knew he always would. But, somehow, Gon didn’t see it that way.

Gon said thoughtfully, “You know, we’re not that different, you and me. You lost Nanika, I lost Kite. We both lost someone important to us. We’re just dealing with that loss in different ways.”

Killua scowled. “Yeah. But you’re going to lose yourself in the path you’re going down,” he snapped.

Gon shrugged. “I never said what I was doing was smart or sane. I’m doing what I think needs to be done. It’s like what you said earlier; those ANTS don’t deserve to keep Kite’s body. I won’t let them.”

“You make it sound so simple,” Killua grumbled and Gon hummed.

“In theory, it is! In practice, not so much. But that’s why I have you.”

Heat flared in Killua’s cheeks. An abrupt surge of happiness rose inside him at Gon’s words, even though he knew how dumb it was. Gon was using him. That was all this was. He didn’t need Killua for any reason besides this crazy mission of his, and then it was goodbye forever.

Killua looked out the window, eyes stinging. He kept his gaze firmly locked on the ever brightening horizon as he said, “Yeah, well. It’s not really me you need. Alluka’s the one doing most of the heavy lifting here, digging through data on the computers and everything.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Gon said softly and the hairs on the back of Killua’s neck rose. “You’re the one with me right now, aren’t you?”

Killua’s head whipped around.

Gon was staring ahead at the road, just like always, like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Like he hadn’t just whispered something that made Killua’s breath catch in his throat, and his skin tingle with electricity.

The only hint that he’d been looking at Killua at all, in fact, was the slight curve of those perfect lips into a smirk, and the loud, rapid pounding of Killua’s heart against his ribcage.

Gon gasped suddenly. “Oh! Killua, look—”

Before Killua could speak, Gon swiftly pulled the car over to the side of the road. He turned off the engine, scrambled out of his seat, and was pulling open Killua’s door in record time.

“G-Gon?!” Killua yelped as Gon tugged him onto the grass by his wrist. He stumbled to get his footing while Gon half-yanked him up a hill and away from Leorio’s car. His clumsiness didn’t help rid the still-scarlet tinge of his cheeks from Gon’s suggestive commentary only minutes earlier, and he gritted his teeth in frustration.

“Hey!” he yelled at Gon’s back. “Gon, slow down a second! Where are we going?!”

“Just a few more steps, Killua! Then you’ll see, I promise!”

He pulled Killua forward again. They finally made it to the top of the hill and Killua shivered as a small gust of wind hit his face. He closed his eyes with a wince, turning away slightly. It was only after the wind had passed that he was able to hesitantly squint out at the sight in front of him.

Killua sucked in a sharp breath, eyes flying open wide.

Just like with the sunset Gon had shown him only yesterday, this morning’s sunrise was breathtaking in every sense of the word. Dark reds and bright yellows outlined the sun as it started to cross the horizon and rise into the sky, bringing with it light and warmth. The clouds hanging low in the atmosphere turned from shocking pink to a soft purple, just as the sky itself was slowly giving way to a natural but soft blue.

“See?”

Killua blinked out of his reverence. He turned to see Gon beaming happily at him.

“I told you sunrises were just as beautiful as sunsets!” he said proudly. He squeezed their still-interlocked hands and Killua’s heart jumped into his throat at the feel of Gon’s fingers curled around his.

Quickly, he looked back at the view to hide his flushed face. “Y-Yeah, you did…”

And I said if I ever saw a sunrise with anyone, Killua thought, mouth dry and skin tingling where Gon touched him, they’d have to be something really special.

So…what exactly did that say about Gon?

Killua didn’t know. He never thought about the sunrise as anything more than having to be awake too many hours too early. But then again, he’d never talked about Nanika before, either. Not even with Alluka. It was too painful, and no one could fully understand what her loss meant to him.

And yet, he had talked her with Gon.

Killua raised his face to the rainbow-colored sky as more butterflies came to life in his stomach. Maybe he needed to spend more time looking at sunrises, after all.

#dc writes #killugon #hunterxhunter #killua zoldyck #gon freecss #Graffiti #Graffiti chp6 #leorio paladiknight #gang au #modern art #mafia au #alluka zoldyck #okay i think that's it

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legrandepapillon · 6 years

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A Walk On The Wild Side (thomas & john, washette)

Summary: He shouldn’t be here. He didn’t belong here. But he was. Prompt: Prison AU Author’s Notes: I’ve always wanted to write a prison AU, but never fully committed the idea to get enough of it finished, so here’s my (self-indulgent, washette filled) prison drabble.

If someone had told Thomas Jefferson two months ago that he would be sitting in the Attica Correctional Facility in an blue and white uniform, he would’ve laughed in their face and went on about how his brand new Givenchy sunglasses cost more than their yearly living wage. And yet, here he was, sitting on the hard mattress of his bunk and trying to stifle back tears. Though he wanted to say he didn’t know how he had wound up here, he would be lying if he did. He knew exactly how he’d wound up in the penal system, and he knew the only way out, too.

Thomas’ father, Peter Jefferson, was the Warden of Rikers’ Island. He’d been trying desperately to move into better politics however, politics that didn’t involve the tarnishing of his name by most of his associates being convicts. Peter had been trying all sorts of new gimmicks and campaigns in order to separate himself from the title of ‘warden’, and that had included nearly isolating his name from that of his half-black son.

Jane Randolph was not only black, but also the sister of Peter’s political rival. With a monthly child support payment of nearly half a million dollars, Peter had bought his son’s mother’s silence. However, Thomas hadn’t been willing to settle for that. He had grown up his entire life being claimed as his father’s son—albeit far away from New York City, in sunny Shadwell, Virginia—and now he was being treat as a dirty little secret? What kind of shit is that?

So he’d done it. Sold his story to a rival politician’s endorsed newsletter, spilling all the dirty secrets about his parents’ marriage, life and his true parentage. And they’d ate it up.

A week later, he’d wound up in prison on charges of possession with intent to distribute. He’d had less than a gram of pot with him—but since he’d been the owner of the vehicle, had been passing the blunt between his friends who were riding with him, and had been caught with a DUI before, there had been no leniency. Though, the young man knew the real reason the Judge threw the book at him. It was the same reason that very Judge had bounced him on his lap as a kid and bought him brand new coloring books.

He knew and had ties with Peter Jefferson.

Thomas knows all of this, and still… he stares at the cell around him with contempt. With fury. He shouldn’t be here. All he’d wanted was for his father to give him the same attention he gave his white family’s kids. The same love, and support, and nourishing. He hadn’t done anything too offensive, hadn’t committed some awful violent crime. He wasn’t a thief, or a pedophile, or a murderer. But here he was. With the sleaziest and grimiest that lovely New York had to offer.

“Hey, kid. Lighten the fuck up will you? You’re making my book all sad with your moping,” a voice says, and the voice is strong enough to snap the young inmate from his distant trance. Thomas looks up from where he’d been glaring burning holes into the bars of the cell in efforts to melt them away, looks over to where the man had spoken from—viciously wiping the tears he hadn’t known had fallen from the wells of his eyes.

“Don’t be an asshole,” he snaps back at the man, though his voice shakes and lacks the courage he’d tried to muster. Its now that Thomas sees that there are three other men in the room with him—not just one, which was what he’d expected. Had he been so caught up in his fathers betrayal that he’d had completely missed not one, but three presences surrounding him. The man that had been speaking is on the bottom bunk across from him, but there’s another man there with him… on the side closest to the wall, at first seemingly sleeping. The other man looks up briefly, and Thomas catches a flash of inquisitiveness on his face before he goes back to seemingly cuddling against the bigger man.

A fleeting thought of, ‘That’s his bitch. That could happen to me’, passes through Thomas’ mind, but he pushes that thought out of his mind.

“I’m not trying to be, but you see—my roommates and I don’t really fancy mopy little boys with too hot of a head and too short of a temper. And you look like exactly the type,” the man is completely disengaged from his book now, and the look of fury on his face frightens Thomas for the smallest of moments. He wonders now if he has to ‘prove’ himself, if now he’ll be beaten to nothing but a puddle for the slightest of offenses. He takes a deep breath, gathers his courage, and is about to retort when he’s interrupted.

“Lay off him George—” another man, the man above him, starts before Thomas can shoot back. Jeffersons’ bunk is briefly blocked by long legs slipping from the bunk above him and then a freckled face leaning down into his. He instinctively leans back, eyes widening with a bit of surprise and a bit of fright. But then the other man's hazel eyes soften, and he offers a half-cocked smile. Thomas can’t help but smile back, which earns a nod of approval.. “—he ain’t gonna be no trouble. I know it.”

“Oh, and why do you propose that, John?” ‘George’ asks, sitting up now—propping himself on his arm. Thomas watches the strain of veins against his muscles, swallows thickly. Still fears that he may be nothing but a bruised mess seconds from now… but also refusing to allow that fear to control him.

The man lying with him groans in what seems like a great annoyance, before rolling over his ‘cuddle buddy’ and slipping from the bunk. Now that he’s standing, Thomas can see him wearing a form of makeshift makeup on his eyelids and lips, and his nails are painted. His prison uniform has been altered greatly—so that the deep navy jumpsuit arms are wrapped around his waist, and the white undershirt torn into a crop top. There’s a glimpse of sturdy, gorgeous caramel abs before the man turns his back. Thomas shudders with both fear, a tiny bit of disgust. ‘Oh, that’s definitely his bitch.’

“Does it matter whether or not he’s gonna be trouble, kids?” the man in the Penitentiary Crop-Top asks, stretching again as though he’s just woken from the longest sleep of his life and going over to the toilet. Thomas is a bit taken aback when he doesn’t sit to pee, instead leading on the wall while he goes. He had thought bitches in prison were supposed to be far more submissive than that, but the act just screams masculinity. “He’ll be moved soon. You know they don’t put newbies with George. Not after what happened to poor little Seabury.”

“What happened to Seabury?” Thomas finds himself asking nervously, wringing his hands before he can stop the motion from happening. He looks to the man leaning above his bunk, feels like a little kid looking to a mother for comfort. Was the other man George’s bitch for a reason? Was this George—who actually looked a little unassuming, though far bigger than the bunk allowed, he seemed like the type of man you find in a CEO office somewhere—actually some sort of behemoth, that had a habit of bashing in the faces of newbies?

“Oh, nothin’,” the man assures though, clapping Thomas’ shoulder goodnaturedly. The knot that had been forming in his stomach untwists itself, and Thomas relaxes against the hard prison-issue mattress. “Our buddy likes to make a point sometimes.” John says these words, but its painfully obvious he’s hiding details from him—to spare him, most likely. The knot starts to twist again.

The ‘bitch’ begins returning to his spot on the bottom bunk—much to the grumbling protests of his… what, lover? Boyfriend? That seemed too juvenile for this situation, too sweet and romantic for what this really was. “Yeah, and use my ass to do it. He was so rough, I couldn’t sit straight for weeks. Like, babe, I wasn’t the one to call me a faggot, why did I have to suffer? Anyways, we tell them not to place us with the homophobes but do COs actually listen to anything anyone says? Of course not. God, I miss our Lexi.”

Thomas shudders in horror, too caught up in the young man's previous words to really think too much about who this ‘Lexi’ might be. His own ass was starting to hurt at the thought of being brutally raped by this big guy that seemed to enjoy being rough on his lovers. The kid seemed alright with it, but that wasn’t gonna stop Thomas’ assumptions and imagination from conjuring up the worse situation. “I’m not gonna be your bitch like him, if that’s what your assuming, George. You might wanna look elsewhere to terrorize your fuckin’ newbies.”

John gives a boisterous laugh at that, pulling away from Thomas’ bunk to lean on his own and laugh. The other kid at first seems offended by Thomas’ words, but then he too starts to giggle on the look of pure annoyance that comes over George’s face. Thomas can’t see what is funny—and at first, thinks they’re laughing at him. His arms cross defiantly over his chest, and he tries to set his face in a way that one might assume he was not-to-be-fucked-with. Judging by the growing volume of the laughter, he is doing a miserable job.

“What?! Dude!” John exclaims, when his laughter has subsided enough to form words. “No, Laf ain’t George’s bitch, or nothin’ like that. You couldn’t control that idiot if you put a leash on him, and he’s got a thing for collars.”

“Hey!” Laf squeaks indignantly, still giggling to himself. George has started to smile now, though its more at his apparent affection for the younger man beside. “I told you that in confidence!”

“No, it’s not like that at all. Lafayette is just gayer than a goddamn unicorn shittin’ rainbows. They were together on the outside, before the Penn. Plus, George has a known affinity for the cute li’l twinks. Don’t ya, Washy?”

“Shut your fuckin’ mouth, John,” George snarls, fixing his face into annoyance once he realizes the attention is back on him now. He wraps an arm around Laf’s shoulders, bringing him closer. He seems… hurt, almost. At the idea that he was some evil rapist that was keeping Lafayette with him through intimidation. For a moment, Thomas feels bad—wants to apologize for assuming. Now that he pushes his own thoughts from his mind, he realizes that the natural way they seem to coexist together is almost… cute. Lafayette leans into George’s large figure, places his hand on his chest in order to soothe him. And he even makes a point of looking over at Thomas and giving George a quick, cute, messy kiss—though the action is done in teasing.

“Yeah, John. You know I’m touchy ‘bout my man. Don’t get your new li’l friend shanked in the showers,” Laf teases, though he giggles so Thomas assumes the threat is a fleeting suggestion at best. He cracks a smile, and the other man notices it. “By God, he smiles! He’s not the defensive piece of shit we thought he was! Babe, you owe me like… eight honey buns.”

“Goddamn you and your sweet tooth,” George hisses, slapping Lafayette’s ass affectionately and shoving him to the side. Laf responds by blowing him a kiss and picking up his CD player from the floor, popping one headphone in. “Guess there goes my book. Now that you three seem to be all chatty, wanna give us your story, kid?”

Thomas stops. He’d heard a rumor from his cousin that you’re not supposed to talk about what you’re in for when you’re in prison. However, now that the other men had opened up—and he realized that as long as he wasn’t a homophobic, hotheaded prick, he would be fine with them—he felt that he owed them the same in a sense.

“Possession,” he decides to say, avoiding the others eyes. He purposefully omits most of the story, not wanting to give away too much. Not wanting them to know the humiliation that burned in his face when they put those handcuffs on wrists, knowing exactly what kind of high class person he was. He was around them now, and he couldn’t afford to be seen as a rich sissy boy. “A bit of pot. They gave me six years.”

John frowns, seems confused. There’s obviously a piqued interest, but Thomas doesn’t know if he wants John to ask the questions that settle on his mind or not. “Six years? For some weed? That sounds a little… harsh, don’t ya think? You’re a first time offender, you’ve gotta be. Should’ve just been some probation.”

“Well, it wasn’t. Can we move on?” Thomas asks, and much to his surprise, John reluctantly obliges. He’s left with no choice, as the air fills with a sharp whistle and the other two in the cell begin getting up. Lafayette groans, says something to George that makes the other man laugh. John jumps down and slips into his shoes.

“Chow time,” John says slowly, almost as if he’s gauging Thomas’ reaction. “You’ve been sitting on your own lately, but there’s a spot at our table… if you’d like.”

Thomas looks up at the face of Lafayette, who is giving all of his attention to George. Looks to George, who’s barely paying him or John any mind—too much busy listening to whatever enthralling story Lafayette. Finally, he looks up at John and gives a small smile.

“Sure. I’d like to.”

And John smiles back.

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ren1327 · 3 years

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Stay Away From Lake Derek: A Sentry Prequel

Hi guys, this is my first creepypasta that would be my jumping off point for The Sentry series. I thought I'd post the first three chapters here (minus The Midnight Tea Party). I really like my series and want to give it some more love here. And if you guys like it, please find more on my AO3 under Original Works!

The Sentry series follows three young men: Cole; an adhd boy who's often about to be killed by his own curiosity, Jacob; his best friend who is trying to escape his past trauma and make something new, and Mac, thier schoolmate turn friend desperately trying to find a sense of normal as he find himself shifting into a murderous beast nightly. They try to come to terms with losing thier humanity and escaping the sights of a Wendigo and his human followers. They are taken in by Grayson; an exiled fae prince turned sentry of a sealed doorway between worlds, Jasper; his literal man-eating southern husband, Mac's cousin Paige; a badass barista and her sleepy bat-shapeshifting partner, Toffee, and later a mysterious hybrid humanoid named Kai, among many familiar myths and legends known through out the united states and the world.

CW: Violence, Gore, HS senior aged boys being dumbasses.

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His mom had just got a new job as a deputy at a sheriff's office in a town surrounded by thick woods on one side and the coast of Washington state some miles west of Victoria. The town wasn't too big, but not staggeringly small. They had a Walmart and the drive to the city wasn't too hard to manage.

His new school was a one-story building with a gym, a computer lab, a standard size library and about eight classrooms. So, getting to class was quick and easy, the only downside being no official cafeteria, but a fully stocked kitchen. The food was often delivered to the home rooms, where they would report to for their lunch break and free period.

Another plus was that they only had four classes a day, so the students were able to arrive at 10, have lunch, then start the one-hour classes. They had our forty-minute home room, where they would gather supplies for the day, finish homework, catch up, use the bathroom, hear school announcements, and watch the local news on donated TVs. Then the first of their five-minute change of classroom started. Being a small school with under one hundred students, it was easily managed by both staff and students.

Cole, luckily, already had a friend to help him get around.

Jacob Bennett had been his friend since he was a boy. Despite the very religious and severe upbringing, Jacob was colorful and kind. Then he had been taken from his parents and placed with his Uncle Tristan. Tristan had taken Jacob as far as he could to Seattle, then moved farther as an opportunity to give Jacob a new outlook and the ability to start over.

Cole knew Jacob needed this change, and despite the many years that passed, Cole never made any more friends.

So when his mother told him she would go as a consultant for a year, Cole begged to go and see his friend. Esperanza Fletcher-Ruiz had counted on Cole coming along for the ride and told him her new apartment had two rooms so he wouldn’t have to stay behind with his grandmother. The moment he saw his blond friend, now delightfully chubby with freckles doted over his honey toned shoulders and cheeks, as opposed to sallow and thin, Cole knew he would be okay.

Jacob let Cole know the rules over the phone; how to easiest navigate school life and mostly, who was who and how to connect. And who to avoid.

Cole’s first day had been pretty nice. He had connected with a few teachers, and even made some acquaintances.

During fourth period, he was packing up his history notes when he noticed…her.

She was willowy, thin and pretty, but a little on the shorter side, with long dark hair that hid some of her face. She was still writing in her journal. The teacher had long gone already, and the school would be closed soon for the night. Cole adjusted his glasses and cleared his throat.

"Hey, um, class is over." He called.

She didn't move except her scribbling.

"Hey?" Cole called again; now nervous he might have to talk to her even more. He didn't like talking to others if he could avoid it.

He felt Jacob’s warm hand grab his wrist and yank him away. “Hey, yeah, no. Do not talk to her.”

"What? Why?" He asked, rubbing his wrist.

"That Marla Gutierrez. Her Grandpa is scary as hell." He explained as they walked to the bus stop. They lived a few stops away and luckily were only a floor apart in the apartment building.

Once they paid and took their seats, Jacob continued. "Rumor is the old man killed his wife and son and kidnapped Marla. She never ever talks. Like ever!"

"That can't be true. Wouldn't the cops have taken him away?" Cole asked, knowing how much Jacob liked tall tales and gossip. "Come on, Jake, you don't believe in that stuff."

"They can't prove it." He said with a huff.

"DNA test on her?" The speckled boy countered.

"Well...okay, you got me there. But what if he killed her parents. His son went missing and washed up on the lake shore in pieces. They said a bear did it...but you never know." He said in a spooky voice.

"Lake? As in Lake Derek?" He asked.

"Yeah! Lots of kids go there to mess around. Speaking of which...Wanna go tonight?" Jacob asked, cheeks a little rosy. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

As much as Cole hated socializing, he was curious. Jacob had talked about a new friend in the last few months.

“This Dom guy?” Cole asked, a little flare of jealously igniting in his gut.

“He doesn’t like that name.” Jacob said, smoothing a lock of hair behind his ear. “But trust me, you’ll love him.”

They went to Lake Derek, parking by a chain link fence with a huge hole cut into it, duct tape wrapped around the lose wires to protect clothes and flesh from the cut metal.

Sneaking through, they came upon a huge bonfire and several people standing around, drinking from a couple of kegs and coolers filled with wine coolers and sodas. There were even a few beanbag chairs thrown onto a tarp as the occupants passed around a gun shaped bong.

Jacob snapped Cole out of his stupor.

"Cole, meet Macrae. But call him Mac. This tall jerk was my only saving grace I had when I first got here." Jacob said, motioning to the tall teen next to him.

Cole shook the stranger's hand. So this was the boy who had soothed Jacob’s transition.

The guy was tall, with dry, most likely dyed blond hair and eyes that held blackout contacts, as one could see a ring of pale blue around them. Cole noticed he had faded scars on his shoulders, and slouched lazily, wearing blue jeans, a sleeveless rock band shirt, combat boots and a shark tooth necklace.

"Jakey! I was gonna go for a swim. Wanna join?" He asked gleefully, immediately ignoring Cole and pulling Jacob close.

"No. I just got here!" Jacob said with a laugh, pushing the sweaty boy away. "Take my buddy here on one of your famous adventures. Just don't get tangled in the rocks again."

"I got out...minus some skin." Mac muttered before putting a long arm around Cole’s shoulders. "How about it, Cole?"

Cole looked at Jacob, who smiled and nodded. Cole could feel the taunt muscle of Mac’s arm, warm from the fire and nodded back, Mac feeling him and whooping loudly.

He guided Cole down a dirt path, away from the party, away from Jacob.

" Let's go visit old Mr. G." Mac said, taking out a flask and downing whatever was in it.

The smaller teen dug his heels in the dirt, causing Mac to pause. "Wait. Isn't that bad?"

"Naw. Come on." Mac said, taking off his jeans and shirt.

Cole covered his eyes before he noticed Mac hanging up his clothes in a tree and walking down to the sandy area. He kicked off his shoes and waded in the water. Cole sighed.

Might as well just stay in the shallow area. He undressed to boxers and went in. They waded in the shallow area along the edge of the rocks. Cole noticed some looked broken from the cliff and Mac huffed.

"Weird, right? Use to be connected to the sea." Mac said and he climbed on a boulder above the lake. "They'd find all kinds of fish that swam through this underwater cave from the cove. That's why the water smells so salty. Plus, this lake is a deep goddamn hole. My pop said people use to scuba dive into it. Til the Main Cave collapsed. Blocked off all the other underwater caves. Now it's just a deep ass lake. Bet ya down there, in what the old folks call the Way Deep...there's something."

"Really?” Cole asked, scrambling up the bolder. "People would have had noticed or something, right? That can’t be true."

"Then how do you explain the disappearances?" Mac asked with a grin.

He pulled Cole up to sit next to him, making sure he was steady.

"In the last ten years, there's been 35 drownings in this lake. And the bodies never found. Everyone thinks it Old Man Gutierrez.”

“Why?” Cole asked.

“He lives out here and acts all suspicious, like he's hiding something.” Mac said. “I bet he axed off his wife that way. Everyone thinks he dumps the bodies in the lake, weighing them down so they can never be found."

"Seriously?"

"I kid ya not. I try to get Jakey out here, but he can't swim. Still love him though." He slurred slightly. "Plus, I got stuck in them at one point. Maybe I was drunk, but it felt like something was yanking me into the water."

"Uh...I think I need to get back. I still have a curfew." Cole said, trying to find an excuse to get out of the creepy lake.

"Whatever, dude!" Mac teased. "Tell Jakey I'll be back soon!"

Cole nodded and scuttled down the rocks back to the sand, quickly getting dressed and quickly following the path. He stopped when he saw a deep red from the corner of his eyes.

Marla.

She was staring at the lake several meters from me. Just standing there on the edge like she was frozen. Her long dark hair fluttered along with her deep red skirt that brushed the dirt around her feet. Cole thought to call out, but just wanted to find Jacob and go.

Speak of the devil, Jacob was walking towards him.

“Cole?” He asked. “Why are you alone?”

Cole looked behind him to see Marla was gone and so were Mac’s clothes.

“Where—” Cole looked at Jacob.

“Where’s Mac?” Jacob asked.

“He wanted to go to Mr. Gutierrez’s.”

Jacob froze, looking shocked and scared. He pushed pass Cole. "We gotta go get him!"

"What? Why? What's wrong?" Cole asked.

“I can only assume he’s drunk right now and he’s not the safest guy.” Jacob hissed. “He’ll really hurt himself this time.”

Cole looked at his feet, face burning in shame. He stammered and pointed the way he came.

“This way.” he said, taking Jacob’s hand and leading him to the boulder, but finding the area barren of any life.

"Where is he?" Jacob asked, distraught.

"Maybe he’s already at Mr. Gutierrez’s house?"

Jacob nodded and led Cole around the lakeside, his hand trembling in Cole’s.

“What are you not telling me?” Cole asked.

“…Mac…He’s an alcoholic.” Jacob said. “He’s been doing better, moderating.”

“But?”

“But he got all weird when I told him you were coming, and I don’t know why he would fall so hard off the wagon.” Jacob whispered.

“Are you guys…a thing?” Cole asked. “Does he know why you’re here?”

“No. I mean, yeah, he knows about my parents but we’re not exactly…No.” Jacob answered, cheeks red. “Just, keep walking, we’re like, right in front of the house.”

They finally made it over to a rough looking lake house. The wood exterior looked murky, the porch littered with dirt and dead leaves. The wooden railing was splintered and rotting, the steps in just as bad shape.

"Is this it?" Cole whispered too loudly.

Jacob winced and made a push down motion with his hand, Cole covering his mouth.

"Yeah." Jacob said in a better volume. "Mac might be around the dock. It leads into the house."

“You guys come here often?” Cole asked.

“Not to mess with him.” Jacob said with a soft sigh. “just for a thrill or two…”

Jacob pulled Cole to a dock that led into a boat garage. The lake went under the thick rusty door into a pool Cole assumed a boat or canoe would be docked to. Jacob went to the door and jiggled the handle, finding it unlocked. He slowly opened the door and both teens gasped at the sight.

Leading from the pool where a worn rowboat was, blood led out of the water, along the edge of the opening and through a door leading into the house. From the blood pattern, it looked like someone was dragged.

And in the blood smears was a familiar shark tooth necklace.

Cole covered his mouth to keep in a fearful shout down.

He grabbed Jacob’s shirt, who had picked up the necklace and gave a breathy shutter. He cradled it in his hands, cheeks and nose reddening as he let out a soundless gasp.

They both shrank against each other when they heard a yell from inside.

“No!” Mac’s voice, muffled, yelled out. “Let go, man!”

“He’s alive…” Jacob whispered.

"We have to get help.” Cole croaked.

"It might be too late when they get here!" Jacob said. And Cole remembered with cold dread they had left their cell phones in Jacob's car, halfway around the lake. Cole knew he was right.

Gutierrez could kill Mac before they even had the chance to call for help.

Cole crept to the open door and peeked through into the kitchen to find Marla hiding under a table, hugging her knees and drenched in water.

“What the…” Jacob scanned the room and crawled under to kneel in front of her.

"Are you okay?” He asked.

She nodded, her eyes wide and lips pressed together hard.

“Have you seen our friend? He has long blond hair and was wearing a ripped shirt.”

She looked at them, eyes widening more as she clutched the fabric of her long skirt and nodded again.

"Do you know where he is?"

Another nod.

"W-where's your Grandfather?" Cole asked.

She pointed to the window and they peeked out to see the grizzled old man going into a shed. They heard a machine start, maybe a table saw, and immediately knew the small window of time to find Mac was closing.

"Can you show us where he is?" Jacob asked Marla.

She nodded and started to crawl from under the table through the door. Jacob followed and Cole noticed Marla’s hands had left a few red splotches.

She still crawled forward despite them being out of sight from the windows. Cole stood up as he looked at the peeling wallpaper…No…newspaper clippings…

Most were about people missing from the lake or even sightings of a strange creature. And framed on the wall, was a news article about a man's remains being recovered on the rocks near the lake.

To the left was a shrine to the same man and an older woman in the corner, their pictures immaculate and fresh flowers around the frames. They were in several pictures with Mr. Gutierrez. Two newspaper obituaries were laminated in plastic: Alma Gutierrez, who died of breast cancer and Derek Gutierrez, who had been attacked by a bear.

Cole’s head was spinning with so many questions, but he found himself gravitating to another shrine across the room, where a small…coffin with a glass top was, salt poured around it. The box was wrapped in chains and Cole looked over it, gasping at the sight, drawing Jacob’s attention.

He fought the urge to vomit when he and Jacob saw it was the torso and head of a mummified woman. Her waist was covered on scales and looked like she had been cut in half, nails long, hair greenish and scales along with two wide membraned fins next to her in the box. Her teeth were all as sharp as steak knives and thin as nails, jutting out in a snarl. Like a goblin shark. Her body was still decomposing, skin leathery and hanging off the bones, and the stench that escaped horrible.

On the box, carved around the border, it said: "Fair is fair Trade a life Take my child Take my knife Rest in pieces Like your prey Sleep now, devil Evil still stays"

Marla opened a trapdoor in the floor at the back of the room and pointed inside.

"Marla...what is this?" Jacob asked hands out.

Marla looked at the shrine and mouthed "Papa"

"Derek's your Dad. Okay...but what is this...thing?!" Cole asked, voice cracking as he gestured at the box.

She pointed again to the inside of the trap door. Cole finally noticed the same smell of rotten meat came from there too. But...fresher.

Cole shook his head. "What is this monster? Why is it here? Did it kill your Dad? What is it?!"

Marla stared at them for a few seconds before smiling. Her lips opened to reveal the same jutting sharp shark teeth. In a lyrical voice she said, "My Mama."

Jacob pushed Cole out of the room and slammed the door behind them. Marla screeched like some alien creature and banged on the door from within. Jacob ripped off his belt, clumsily tying the doorknob to an exposed pipe in the wall.

Cole grabbed his arm and quickly ran back to the kitchen, seeing Mac being helped onto the table, wearing a splint made of crudely cut pipes and blankets. Mr. Gutierrez looked at the boys, holding Mac steady.

“Jakey! Cole!” Mac croaked. Mr. Gutierrez still held him as he growled.

"What the hell are you doing there? You think I put up that damn gate for decoration?!" He shouted before going pale at hearing Marla's screeching.

"Shit! You all need to get lost. Take my truck and get out of here! Make sure no one comes near the lake!"

"That thing in the box...it's the thing that kill those people back then..." Cole said, connecting the dots. "It came in from the sea and..."

"Got trapped here." Gutierrez said, looking for his keys. "It lured my son in. He was such a romantic boy...who wouldn't want to be friends with a mermaid? But she...she killed him. I went after it. I found it and made sure it would never hurt anyone again...and then I found the baby. She looked normal. Legs and all. She looked so much like Derek did...”

He took a deep breath.

“I thought it was all over until our dog went missing. She had eaten him in the bath. She can't be out of water for more than a few days or she'll die like her mother did. But she also can't help hunting. I let her out to hunt fish and deer but..."

"She started hunting people." Jacob said.

"I should have..." Gutierrez shook his head, finding his keys and handing them to Cole. "Marla is still Derek's daughter. I can't...I can't lose my son again!"

He gave Mac a metal bat to lean on as he helped him to the door. "All three of you get out of here! Get out!"

Jacob and Cole grabbed Mac, shuffling out to the truck and starting it as Marla's screams grew louder.

The next few hours were a blur.

Jacob had drove around the lake to the hole in the gate, got Mac into his car and gunned it to the nearest hospital. Mac had a huge bite on his calf, which would leave him with a nasty scar and a temporary limp, but at least he was alive.

Esperanza had been the officer to respond to the hospital’s call and grilled Cole on what happened, but all three boys stayed quiet. After she noticed how all three of us were scared out of our minds, she simply asked if an animal had attacked them, wherein all three nodded.

They never went back to the lake. As far as Cole knew, Mr. Gutierrez built a new fence. One that was high, smooth bars with spikes on top. Impossible to climb or scale.

Many people noticed right away it had no door or entry way. As if not trying to keep anyone out, but keep something in.

Inside, the game would run out. The fish would be gone. And Mr. Gutierrez would find his last moments like that of his son.

It would be comforting to think Marla would eventually starve to death. If not for the rumors of a hooded figure seen walking in the trees.

Then recent news update about a storm reopening the Main Cave and the recent disappearances.

#original story #original characters #the sentry #the sentry cole #the sentry jacob #the sentry mac #the sentry series

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officialspiderboy · 6 years

Text

Split Lip (Peter Parker x Reader)

A/N: Heyyyyy I’m posting after disappearing for some time!! I’m not sure what this is exactly and there’s not really a plot line and the ending sucks but hey! It’s something that I hope you enjoy! ALSO PLEASE TALK TO ME I DON'T BITE AND I WANNA BE FRIENDS

Warnings: If you’ve read my fics you know it’s pretty much always swearing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (also this isn’t edited)

Request: No **Literally request things pls I don’t have ideas thx

Summary: Reader is mad at Peter but then can’t remember why because of his damn cute face.

Word Count: 1.8K

Masterlist | Mobile Masterlist

“I’m gonna murder him,” you growled, rage seeping through your words as you stomped up to his apartment.

You yanked open the door with your spare key and slammed the door shut behind you.

“Peter Benjamin fucking Park- oh hey May,” you greeted. She just raised her eyebrows slightly at you and nodded her head in the direction of Peter’s room.

“Thanks,” you mumbled, walking over to the all too familiar door.

“Don’t kill him,” May called behind you nonchalantly.

“I'll try my best,” you said loud enough so she could hear. You violently knocked on the door and didn't wait for a reply when you pushed the door open harshly so that it hit the wall with a bang. You jumped at the loud noise and checked to make sure you didn't break the door or something before remembering why you were here. You turned to Peter, his eyes wide with fear.

His stupid big brown chocolate eyes, and his stupid soft curly mess of hair, and his stupid freckles, and his stupid button nose, and god his stupid fucking kissable li- which were covered by his hands in a very awkward position?

You took a deep breath before remembering why you were here in the first place. Your anger replacing the adoration you felt momentarily, although less intense than before.

“Peter Benjamin fucking Parker, how dare you??” His eyes filled with confusion at your outburst.

“You ditched me you asswipe, you promised that you would help me with dinner last night! You better have a damn good explanation,” you huffed, crossing your arms and plopping down on the bed next to Peter.

“Sorry Y/N, something came up,” Peter sighed, his voice sincere and caring. You looked up at him ready to lecture him some more before you actually caught sight of him.

“What the fuck happened to your face??” Panic bubbled inside you as you gently grabbed his head in your hands and pulled him towards you to inspect the injuries. You barely got a good look at the deep cut that ran from the top of his ear down to his chin before he pulled away.

“Ow, jeez I’m fine,” he laughed, pushing some hair out of his face. You rolled your eyes at him and got up and walked out of the room, mumbling a quiet “yeah right” on your way out. You made your way around the small apartment and grabbed some bandages and some small soft towels you could use to clean up the cuts.

Peter had followed you out, his hood up again so May wouldn't see his face. He followed you and you shot a glare at him while dumping some things in his hands to take to his room.

To say that your family was close to the Parkers would be an understatement. And since Peter moved in after the horrible incident with his parents, you two instantly became close. He was understandably distant at first but you were stubborn and needed a friend so he was stuck with you, and you were both inseparable ever since.

“I really am sorry for not giving you a heads up about last night,” Peter apologized, you shook your head and pointed at his bed.

“It's fine. Sit,” you ordered. He obliged as you sat in front of him, dampening a towel and bringing it up to his face. He winced when you the towel touched his skin and moved away from your hand.

“No, it's not. I know how badly your extended family treats you and you needed me there to get them off your ass. You needed me and I wasn't there for you like you always are for me,” he admitted. A pout adorning his split lip.

You didn't know how Peter kept getting injured so badly. You had your suspicions about his after school activities, but it was also so outrageous that you wouldn't put faith in that being the truth unless you heard it from his own lips.

You sighed and gently held his face still so you could clean up the dried blood stuck to his face. Your heartbeat quickened in pace and was pounding in your ears at the closeness between you two. You tried to ignore it as you always do and concentrate on the task at hand. But when Peter looked at you through his lashes with those goddamn gorgeous eyes, your heart skipped a beat and it took everything in your power to keep your hands from visibly shaking. He was so close you could feel him in every inch of your body. He completely clouded your thoughts. You could count every freckle that adorned his face, you could examine every wince or glint of any emotion flash through his eyes. You could feel the heat from his body seeping through to mix with yours, you could smell the faint remains of the chocolate that he ate earlier that day from his breath. You were completely inundated with the warmth and comfort that was Peter.

You hadn't even realized your hand stopped moving when you flinched at the sudden feeling of his skin barely grazing yours. His hand was gently near your face, brushing a stray hair back to its original position. He let his hand linger there, hesitantly resting it against your cheek. You leaned into his feather light touch, wanting to feel more of him and the feeling that only Peter could give you.

“Y/N I'm sorry,” you were surprised you even heard him with how quietly he was speaking. His thumb brushed across your cheek capturing a tear that unknowingly escaped.

“I'm sorry for ditching you, and I'm even more sorry for putting you through this,” he gestured to his own beaten face, “Yet you stick by me day after day and don't even hesitate to help me. I'm sorry I haven't treated you the way you deserve.”

You took in a shaky breath and held onto his hand that was still resting on your cheek.

“Peter,” you breathed, the intimacy of the moment preventing your voice from coming out above a whisper.

“I- I know that whatever it is that you aren't telling me, you aren't telling me for good reason,” you paused looking away to gather your thoughts before you got drowned in Peter forever. “I also know that you'll tell me when you're ready... hopefully” you dropped your voice to an impossibly low level for the last word, looking into Peter's eyes wanting to lose yourself in them on purpose.

“I love you.”

Your heart stopped. Your body stiffened and felt numb all over. Why the everloving fuck did you just say that? You weren't thinking and the warmth you felt suddenly dissipated, quickly leaving you cold and anxious.

“Shit,” you deadpanned, getting up and moving away from Peter, who still sat in shock over your words.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” you repeated, the silent whispers between you two forgotten and now drowned out by your panicked breaths.

“Pete-Peter, oh god I'm so sorry, forget I said anything motherfucking shitballs I'm so stupid,” curses were flying out of your mouth at rapid speed while you started pacing around his room. You refused to look at Peter, who didn't seem to have moved since you confessed your feelings moments before.

“Good one Y/N, you ruined your friendship with your best friend because you decided to accidentally confess your undying love good job,” you sarcastically mumbled to yourself. You dared to glance at Peter, whose eyes were widened in surprise as a ghost of a smile adorned his lips.

You couldn't stand rejection and his teasing at the same time. You pinched the bridge of your nose in between your fingers and sighed. Quickly excusing yourself, you turned around to head out of the apartment when you felt his hand graze yours.

“Wait,” Peter croaked, quickly clearing his throats and he gently tugged your hand to pull you back towards him.

“I have to tell you something,” he said seriously, pulling you closer towards him. You started psyching yourself out and tried to find ways to quickly escape so you didn't have to deal with whatever he wanted to say, worried that it would only end in your heartbreak.

“Wait Peter, your cut started bleeding again let me go get some-” you started to pull away and tried to open the door when it suddenly slammed shut and was stuck.

“What the f-” you looked up and saw webbing. Immediately catching on, you jerked your head back towards Peter in shock.

“Peter-”

“Nope,” he cut you off, “you aren't changing the subject this time.”

“But you're Spi-”

“Hopelessly in love with you? Yes.”

Your mind was racing a hundred miles a second. On one hand your best friend just revealed that he was, in fact, the masked hero of Queens, confirming your previous suspicions. On the other hand, the boy you were completely enamoured with said he felt the same way about you. You didn't even have enough time to realize the heat that now spread through your body as Peter came close to you, his hand cupping your face gently as the other held yours. He leaned in slowly, leaving a space to see if you stopped him, his breath fanning across your face, making your entire body shiver. You closed the gap between your lips and allowed yourself to be engulfed by everything Peter. Your lips danced together as you pulled him impossibly closer to you.

He tried to kiss you harder for a second before he pulled away abruptly with a wince. You reached up and gently brushed your finger on his split lip, almost forgetting about the injury.

“Sorry,” you chuckled, grinning widely looking at him.

He shook his head at you, leaning into your touch and sighing.

“My fault, I've been wanting to kiss you for a long time, I forgot I had it,” he blushed. Your cheeks heated up to match his and you leaned in to ghost your lips over his in a peck, to avoid hurting him more.

You were reliving the moments before your kiss, and thanked yourself for being stupid enough for accidentally admitting your love to him.

“Fucking hell, you're Spider-Man,” you remembered, glancing over at the web that still stuck to the door, “I’m in love with Spiderman.”

Peter pulled you closer to him, snuggling his head into the crook of your neck, letting out a contented sigh as he held you.

“And I’m in love with the most beautiful person I know.” Your face heated up at his words and your heart soared.

“Wait- you little shit I’m supposed to be mad at you right now! I came here to yell at you for-“

“Shh love.”

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #peter parker x you #peter parker imagine #peter parker oneshot #spiderman #spiderman x reader #spiderman x you #spiderman imagine #spider man: homecoming #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland x you

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peakyblinders1919 · 6 years

Text

That Makes Her A Murder

“And what do I do Tommy?” You asked eagerly, watching your older brothers run off to get the supplies Tommy had just requested of them. He threw on his coat, his hair still flopping in his face from the rain as he looked down at you.

“Nothing. You’re not to leave this house. You stay with Ada or Polly, and you don’t move.” He said sternly, wagging a finger at you while you crossed your arms.

“That’s not fair. I’m just as much a part of this family as you. My nephews still missing and you want me to sit here?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got Finn out looking for him.”

“And it’s getting dark, he’s supposed to be back soon. He’s older than you anyway.”

“By two bloody years.”

“Too many people are going to get hurt tonight, you have to stay here.” He said while shuffling around the room, obviously confused, over thinking, worried.

“But Tommy-”

“I don’t want to hear it Y/N. Do not leave this goddamn house.” He said harshly while banging his hands on the table, making you jolt.

You left the room in a furry, almost running into Finn as he entered the house, breathless.

“Anything?” You asked, looking up at him. He just sighed and shook his head, walking into the room to talk to Tommy. You lingered by the stairs, hearing your brother dish out commands to the other, while your only one was to wait. Wait for everything to get back to normal. You were impatient, waiting made you anxious, especially when you could be out helping.

You grabbed your coat, running outside towards the garage was Finn was packing the petrol into Tommy’s car, like he was told. You lingered in the shadows for a moment, really contemplating what you were about to do. But if you waited any longer you’d probably run back inside and stay with the others like you were told. In the spur of the moment you jumped out from your hiding place, scaring your brother half to death as a can of petrol went flying through the air.

“Jesus fucking christ Y/N, what the hell was that for?” He spat angrily, staring you down before walking to retrieve the can and load it in the car. You walked right beside him, picking up a can as well and putting it in the car.

“I wanna help.”

“Well you can’t.”

“Why not? Because Tommy said no?” You said defensively, putting your hands on your hips as you watched him finish pacing the car.

“Yeah,” he said, as if it was obvious that no one went against your brother’s orders, ever. And you guessed no one really did, except for you.

“Well, I don’t care what Tommy said. I’m gonna come with you.”

“Y/N, you know I love you, but no.” Finn said, hoping the conversation would end there as he walked past you and into the car, bringing it around front like he was told.

“Come on Finny, you and I are like partners in crime, wherever you go I go, right?” You screamed as he shook his head, driving ‘round the corner.

You sulked in the dark back alley for a second, wondering how the hell you were supposed to live up to the Shelby name if they treated you as if you weren’t. You knew what Aunt Polly or Ada would say if you complained to them then, “He loves you, that’s why he’s not letting you get involved,” “You mean to much to him to be out there,” “He’d never live with himself if something happened to you.” You’d heard it all before, and there was no doubt you knew it was true, but there was always some missing. You felt a void inside when you couldn’t do what you wanted because someone told you you couldn’t, regardless of the reasons.

You huffed, running inside to get the gun you had stored under your bed. No, none of your brother’s knew you had one, if they did you’d probably be grounded for life, or worse. You had managed to steal it one time when John drunkenly left it on the sideboard and you’d found it before Polly even noticed. You rolled it in your hands, a foreign object somehow felt like it belonged in your hands. You didn’t know what you were going to do with it, but by God you were helping.

You ran down the street, pumping your arms and breathing heavily as your feet carried your closer to the office where everyone was waiting with Charlie, who was found and safe after all.

You stopped outside, trying to regain your breath before going in and that’s when you remembered. You stood up straight, taking the gun in your pocket and throwing it into the Cut.

“Y/N?” Finn called, emerging from the office looking for you. He found you hunched over the river, your reflection staring back at you.

You could smell the blood that dotted your face like fiery freckles, and surprisingly it is didn’t freak you out to think that the blood of someone else was on you. You didn’t feel a desire to wash it off quickly, you wanted to rid your face of the evidence that you’d done it. You were ashamed, you had done what you had needed to; Charlie was home, and Tommy was on his way, but if they saw…

“Y/N, where were you, what happened?” But you didn’t have time to answer as a car roared towards it, the bright lights illuminating the front of it. You cursed yourself, having waited too long. If it was Tommy, which you were sure it was, and he walked in to find you missing, you might be the next one dead.

“You better run for it.” Finn joked.

Ignoring him, you ran into Tommy’s side, catching him off guard. You kept him from his son, who was just on the other side of those doors. You cried into his chest as you hugged him, Tommy looking down at you confused but this was nothing you. He ruffled your hair playfully, noticing his breath was gagged too.

“I’m OK, I’m OK, but Charlie…” he said, knowing he wanted you to move. You let go and stepped back, the crimson splattered on your face illuminated by the lights. His face fell, no words spoken as he took your chin in his hands, examining it. “It’s ok, it’s ok.” He finally said as tears rolled down your cheeks. His big hands meet your face, running across them, freeing it of blood. “Come on, we’ll talk about this later.” He said, pulling you into his side and walking through the doors, a smile crossing his face and yours as you saw the little babe happily in Polly’s hand, reaching for you brother.

“I’m sorry Tommy,” you cried into his side as he sat on the bed with you. Your hair dripped down your back. After the happy reunion everyone had gone their separate ways, you falling into Finn’s side in the back of the car as Tommy took you guys and a sleeping Charlie home. He’d told you to take a bath and calm down, letting the boiling hot water numb you for 30 minutes until there was a knock on your door.

“What happened?” He asked calmly, and growing up with Tommy as your brother, you knew you should be scared.

“I...I don’t know, it all happened so fast…” you started in a shaky voice.

“What were you doing anyway? I told you not to leave the shop.”

“I’m sorry ok! But I more capable than you think.”

He sighed, running a hand over his face, trying to clear his head and keep calm, because he was seconds from breaking. His heart had stopped the minute he saw you with blood on your face, but he didn’t know what to do about it.

“Y/N, I wasn’t doing it because I don’t think you're capable. I know you are. In fact, I know just how capable you are. I was protecting you.”

“I don’t need your protec-”

“I was trying to protect you from this lifestyle. You deserve better than this.”

The room fell silent as you let the words sink in and wash over you. You furrowed your brow, looking around the your big bedroom with endless windows overlooking the rolling estate your brother owned, everything he worked hard to get. How could it get better than this?

As if reading your mind he inhaled sharply, drawing your attention back to him. You looked into his familiar blue eyes. “You deserve a good life.”

“But I have a good life Tommy, I have a good family that I love, what more do I need?”

“You should be safe. You should do something you're proud of.”

“But I am proud of-”

“Proud of the man you killed?” It was as if he pushed a knife right into your heart. Even though it was a few hours ago that you pulled the trigger in an attempt to save your own life, pushed up against a wall with a man twice your size on the other, you had forgotten what you had done. It had happened and then it was over. He was dead on the ground, non-existent anymore. You had done that, taken his life from him. It was setting in, becoming real again as Tommy talked about it.

“Y/N, once you kill, you never stop.”

Tears were pricking your eyes again. You couldn’t look at Tommy know, knowing his words were true. It was playing over and over again in your head, the bang, watching him fall to the ground, the rush.

“You deserve a normal life.”

“I don’t want a normal life Tommy.”

“You’ll never be safe again. You’ll always be worried about someone watching you, someone trying to hurt you.”

“I’m not afraid to die.” You blurted, thinking again about how it felt to be pushed into a corner, a gun pointed at you. Your life flashed before your eyes, but then it fueled you, enough so to pull the trigger.

“You should be.” He said, then breaking the tension with a bit of laughter, something that brought you back in time. “But you're definitely a Shelby.” He said, shaking his head and giving your hair a ruffle again, something he felt compelled to do everything he was with you out of brotherly love, and partially because he knew you hated it now. He walked towards the door, once again leaving you wondering what he was doing.

“Tommy, is everything going to be ok?”

“Yes, everything is going to be ok. Give me the gun.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Threw it in the Cut.” You said followed by a chuckle as he looked at you and shook his head.

“Yup, definitely a Shelby. Don’t worry about him, it’ll be taken care of.”

You sat back down as he left, alone in the dark with nothing but your memories of the night. You didn’t know how he did it, how any of them did it. Killing. You weren’t afraid, you hadn’t hesitated in the moment, it coming like second nature to you to pull the trigger and watch the bullet fly through the air, and through the man's skull, but you knew the you’d never be free of the image. Tommy was right, if this is how you felt after killing, imagine if you killed again, and again. You didn't want that to control your life. You'd seen how too many ghosts can drag people down, Arthur and John and Tommy completely different people since the war.

You snuggled up in the warmth of your bed, thinking that maybe Tommy had a point. You'd always have them as family, but you didn't the burden that always came with the name.

yes so sorry its late but i wanted to get it up. there will be another part or follow up or something. tell me what you think of her and what not. also sorry the gif isn’t the best match but ya know

#peaky blinder imagine #peaky blinders imagine #peaky blinders fanfic #peaky blinders fanfiction #thomas shelby #thomas shelby imagine #thomas shelby fanfic #thomas shelby fanfiction #young

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