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chuckbass-love · 3 years

Note

20,39,42 with Andy Barber?

Hey, lovely anon. First of all i hope you’re doing well and second of all, i thoroughly enjoyed writing this and i hope y’all have a lot of fun reading it. It’s been a hot minute since i last wrote for Andy.

Disclaimer: My work is not to be posted anywhere else other than MY Tumblr, Wattpad and Ao3 without my permission. However, reblogs are welcome.

Pairing: Andy Barber x Fem!Reader

Prompts Used:

20) “You’d better be quiet or everyone’s going to know what a naughty little slut you are”

39) “I’m so sick of your voice. Why don’t you come over here and put your mouth to better use?”

42) “I guess i’ll just get off all by myself”

Warnings: Smut. Sexual intercourse, vaginal sex, spanking, daddy kink, love making (kinda), arguing, swearing, angst and a sprinkle of fluff for good measure. That’s right, used all 3. 18+ you know the drill.

Word Count: 6,796

GIF NOT MINE!!! Credit to @cassercole go check them out💕

Do You Feel What I Feel?

After a long and interesting weekend, you’re a lot less eager to get back behind your desk to work for Andy Barber than you usually are. One reason in particular being that you’ve been dating other people behind his back. See the thing with you and Andy is that you’ve known him for 2 whole years, worked for him for 1 year and been fucking him since the evening of your very first day. He got you the job to work with him after you got laid off.

You met him after he showed up for one of your seminars at college and he gave a presentation on what it’s like to be a lawyer and you just clicked. But it was strictly platonic...until you showed up on that first day dressed in a knee length skirt, a semi sheer polka dot blouse with stockings and heels. He was shocked to say the least. You looked entirely different and he’d never seen you this way before. It turned him on and he let you know it.

As you were packing your things away and bidding him goodbye for the day, he called you back into his office and instructed you to lock the door behind you before he began to inform you of the effect you had on him. Starting slowly by telling you how he was taken aback by your ability to think on your feet, use your initiative and then just like that, it all came out and he couldn’t control his hunger much longer.

He kissed you so hard that night that the breath was knocked from your lungs but you loved it, you yearned for more of that feeling and he fucked you so good that you made it a regular thing, without even realising it was becoming one until it was too late. You’d just show up at each others places without a warning and before you knew it, he was fucking you into the mattress and making you cum with a cry of his name.

Now back to the present... you like Andy, in fact if you’re being truthful with yourself, you’ve fallen so madly in love with him that you know it’s time to quit him. He’s like a drug, an addiction and you need to stop going back for more. Hence why you decided that enough was enough.

You met a guy online, his name is Ashley and he was more than keen to take you out so you happily obliged and sure you had a nice time but there’s just one issue lying in your way. Andy is unsuspecting of your little date and it’s been eating away at you since said date walked you back to your apartment. You know that you need to tell him but you fear that it’ll cost you your job, he did hire you to help you out after all.

Before you can wallow more in your choice to keep things from him, he calls you into his office and you haven’t even gotten any work done yet, you only sat down 5 minutes ago.

What could he possibly want so early on?

“Yes, Mr Barber?” you ask flirtatiously, making him glare up at you before gesturing for you to take a seat opposite him. Which you do.

“So today i’m gonna need you to file this paper work into the data base for me” he starts, lifting up a pile taller than the length of your forearm and now you’re annoyed for real this time. He knows full well that you’re still finishing off the stack from Friday and yet here he is presenting more work for you to do “get it done by the end of the day” he finishes, flashing you another stone cold glare as he looks back down at the paper on his desk, not even bothering to acknowledge your presence for a second longer.

Until you speak up “Andy, you know i’m still finishing off Frid....”

“That’s Mr Barber to you and you can leave now” his rude and snappy interruption makes you scoff as you shake your head at the tone in his voice, he’s not in any mood today to help you out or make exceptions. So you do as you’re told, hauling the heavy pile into your arms and lugging it back to your desk outside. Once it’s on your desk, you walk back to shut his door before he asks, making sure to slam it harder than needed to make it known that you’re angry with him.

He doesn’t seem to notice or care though.

Now to get started on all of this work that’ll probably mean you staying later tonight, just brilliant. Guess your second date with Ashley will have to be rescheduled.

------------------------

You finish off half of the pile by the time it gets to 1:30pm and you’re due a lunch break round about now so seeing as though Andy hasn’t left his office all day, you decide to pop out for some food with one of the other assistants, Stacey. Thank God you don’t have to face him since you have absolutely no clue what could have possibly rattled his cage this morning to make him snap at you like that. The two of you have always had this ongoing joke of you calling him Mr Barber and he usually allows you to call him by his first name until today when that alone was enough to anger him.

It’s obvious that you’ll have to put off telling him about your date until he’s in a better place to receive the news. You’re hoping that since he’s always been opposed to commitment that he’ll take it well but the halt in your fooling around might annoy him a little. It’s not your problem though, he always knew you were planning to eventually settle down.

Upon your return to your desk you find Andy sat in your chair, looking through your work “where the hell have you been?” he mutters as he avoids your eyes “you know what, don’t even bother making excuses, my office, NOW” you jump out of fear as he raises his voice slightly at you for the first time in the whole 2 years you’ve known him. Your anxious body shuffles into his office, scared of what’s about to happen.

“Was i not clear enough earlier Y/N? Hm? Because i specifically remember asking you to have this work done by the end of the day. You get off at half 4, it’s now half 2 and you’ve only done half. Do i pay you to galavant around town with Stacey or do i pay you to do your goddam job?”

In the 2 years that you’ve known Andy, he’s also never made you cry, yet here you are trying your absolute hardest not to let these tears fall in front of him.

“You pay me to do my job and i’ve tried my best to get it done. I-I’m sorry” you stand there awkwardly, picking at the torn skin around your fingernails as you stare hopelessly at your stilettos. “Well your best isn’t fucking good enough Y/N, try harder. You can stay here until all of the paperwork is done and that includes Friday’s load too now close the door on your way out”

Is he actually serious? He can’t be, surely. What is wrong with him?

“No” you stand tall, hands on your hips as you talk back and if he was angry before then now he’s livid with you “What do you mean no?” he questions, stepping towards you, hands in his pockets as he awaits your answer.

“I said, no. Just because you’re in a bad mood for whatever reason does NOT mean that you get to stand here and humiliate me. I said no and that’s final. I’ll do my best to get today’s work done before i leave but Friday’s work can wait and i don’t care what nasty comment you have in store to throw back at me”

His face screws up as he clenches his jaw again, you should feel really scared right about now, that comment might have just cost you this job but you don’t care. If that’s the case then you’ll walk out of here proud of yourself along with one less so called friend in your life.

“Bad mood? I’m furious and you don’t even know the half of it” he picks his phone up, tapping a couple times before handing it to you and walking back to his desk to sit down. You watch the clip in his camera roll, squinting as you try to make out the faces in it and then you realise that it’s you and Ashley. Fuck. He was there that night at your apartment, he was obviously coming to see you and you didn’t even know it. He must have seen you with another man and changed his mind. You feel awful as you look back at him, he just sighs once you place the phone onto his desk.

“Andy, i-i”

“Save it. If you wanted to cut our little deal off then you shoulda just said. I don’t appreciate being lied to Y/N and i don’t fancy talking about it with you for a minute longer so just do as your fucking told and get back to work”

All you can do is turn around and walk away since you’ve done enough damage already. But all you can think about is the look on his face after you watched the incriminating clip. He looked sad, broken even and it’s replaying in your brain over and over. Torturing you.

This is why he’s been so nasty today, so demanding and harsh. He’s hurt that you lied to him, hurt that you were with someone else, even if it was just dinner. You still arranged a date with another man and went and what Andy has never wanted to admit before, not even to himself is that he really likes you. In fact no, he’s fallen madly in love with you.

Every waking moment of his life is spent with you on his mind. You even corrupt his dream world too and it’s gotten out of control. Saturday he decided it was time to cut your little deal off and start over. He was going to do it right, confess his feelings, ask you on a date and then take you out and treat you like a princess.

Ever since he laid his blue eyes on you that first time when he was doing the presentation in your class at college, he liked you. You asked so many questions, engaged a lot in the debates and he knew then that you were going to play an important role in his life. And you have. You became close friends, going out regularly and doing things like bowling and eating dinner together more than a handful of times. He enjoyed your company and you enjoyed his but there was this unspoken rule that you had to remain just friends. He wasn’t ready for anything serious and you were still not over your ex.

But then when you walked through his office door on your first day dressed in that skirt, those heels and stockings and lets not forget about that blouse. He was trying his hardest not to drool. One things for sure though, he was painfully hard for you.

When he came to your apartment Saturday and saw you outside your door with some preppy douchebag who was around your age, he felt this lump in his throat form as his heart ached. Sure he expected you to get a man eventually after all you are 24 and he’s in his 30’s. But he didn’t expect it to happen so soon. He also didn’t expect you to have such an effect on him the way you have but here he is, angry at you for moving on without telling him and angry that you aren’t his anymore.

He feels bad for shouting at you today, for being so harsh with his words. He could see the tears pooling in your eyes right away but he was too pissed off to stop and now he’s almost certain that any friendship the two of you had is gone for good thanks to his vile actions.

Another 2 hours tick by and you’re still working at your pile, you’ve still got a lot left being that he’s included Friday’s in your load too. It’s going to be a long night so you pick your phone up and call Ashley.

“Ashley hey, it’s uh, it’s Y/N. Listen, i have to work late today so i won’t be able to make it” you announce and as he responds, Andy opens his door but you don’t notice.

“Rain check? Uh...” you trail off, trying your hardest to decide if you even want to see him again. It’s like you’re torn. On one hand you have Andy, your dream man. A man who knows your body like the back of his hands and a man who can more than likely take care of you if you just took a leap and told him about your feelings but then on the other hand you have Ashley. A guy who is your age and who makes you laugh a hell of a lot. Before you can even decide though, you hear a cough behind you. It’s Andy.

“Ashley can i call you back? It’s just now’s not really a good time, i have a lot of work to get done”

You hang up the phone as your eyes are locked onto Andy’s and the moment your phone is placed back onto your desk he wraps his large hand around your wrist, lifting you up off your chair and tugging you into his office. You watch as he locks the door behind him before going back to sitting behind his desk.

“You gonna see him again?” he asks, jaw clenched.

“I-I uh, i don’t know. I’m a little torn right now” your eyes settle on his plump pink lips, wanting nothing more than to bite down on his bottom one as you sink down onto his cock but you’re dirty thoughts come to a staggering halt as he speaks. “Torn with what? You like him right?” why is he asking you these things? Is he trying to torture himself with the details.

“Yes i mean no i mean I don’t know. I like him but i don’t think i can date him”

“How come?”

“Because i like someone else, in fact i love someone else”

Andy feels his heart sink further as more cracks appear threatening to shatter it completely. You love someone else and now he’s truly out of the game.

Rage works it’s way back into his body and he can’t help but take it out on you “did you sleep with him? Huh? Did the douche bag get to fuck that tight cunt of yours?”

At first you find him funny, laughing as you look around the room, anywhere but his eyes but then your own rage sets in.

“Not that it’s any of your business but no, he didn’t. We had dinner and that’s it” you state, matter of factly as you place your hands back onto your hips..

“Bullshit”

“Is that what you really think of me Andy? You think i’d just give it up to any guy that even looked my way. Wow, i knew you were a lot of things but vicious was definitely not one of them and what’s that i smell? Is it jealousy? Surely not.” you tut, shaking your head “I don’t think i even know you at all by the looks of things if you thought lying to me was better than being honest and trust me, i’m not jealous in the slightest, in fact i pity you. It’s your sex life that will suffer” he doesn’t falter for even a second as he stares you down and just as he anticipated, you’re the first one to break, looking away from him. You can’t help the way your heart starts to race from all of the fury filling up your body. How dare he.

“I was only keeping it from you until i found the right time to tell you. And don’t you dare think for one second that just because we’ve slept together that you have any right to comment on my sex life. You made it perfectly clear that monogamy wasn’t your thing so don’t be mad when i finally want to move on from being someone’s fuck buddy” you spit, heat rising to your cheeks as you realise what you just said. Fuck.

“I’ll comment on whatever i fucking want to so quit the bitching and yeah, i don’t do commitment but i sure as hell wouldn’t be with you even if i did”

You don’t respond to him this time, there’s no quick comeback to fire his way, no insult that could mean you having the upper hand again. Nothing is left but shock and disappointment. He really said that, he really played on your biggest insecurity. He played on it and used it to his advantage, to get the upper hand and win the argument.

“What? Got nothing to say?” he snorts, smug grin on his face. Watch his smile disappear now...

“I love you, Andy” you finally get the words out and you feel as if you’re going to choke on them and die right here in his office. Cause of death, unrequited love.

“W-what?” he’s practically speechless, his words barely audible.

“I’m so madly in love with you and i have been for a while now. But i continued to shut my feelings out and reject other guys because i came to the realisation that having you in any way that i could would be enough for me even if it meant that i couldn’t have you in the way that i’ve always wanted. But none of this matters now, right? Because you’ve made it pretty clear how you feel and where you stand. You wouldn’t date me even you did date and that’s fine but at least now both our cards are on the table”

He looks up at you, using his index finger to force you to look back at him and when you do, he looks so deep into your eyes almost as if he’s attempting to see into your soul. Like he’s trying to search for any signs of dishonesty.

“Why didn’t you just tell me? Instead of going out with other guys you shoulda told me and been honest about it?” is all he can say and that’s the last response you expected but what catches you off guard the most is how he said it, almost like he was hurt and relieved simultaneously.

“Andy, you’re my boss and you made it clear that you didn’t want a relationship” he has absolutely no right to lecture you about honesty when he’s spent the entire time he’s known you blabbering on about how the single life is better for him and how he’d hate to be tied down again. You roll your eyes as you move away from him when he attempts to move closer.

Silence falls upon the two of you and it seems never ending, leaving you no choice but to leave. The moment you turn around to walk away he’s on his feet too “where are you going?” the tone his voice makes it sound as though he’s pleading for you to stay without actually saying the words.

“I’m going back to my desk to do my fucking job, just like you told me to do earlier” you turn back around but just as you expected, he stops you “look. I’m sorry, okay. I was just mad that you”

“Mad about what? That i went out on a date? I’m a single woman Andy and despite our little deal, i don’t belong to you so you have no right to be mad at me for doing what any other single person does”

He bites down on his bottom lip as he runs his fingers through his perfectly styled locks, messing them up instantly “God, you’re so fucking infuriating”

“I’m infuriating? You really are clueless to your own behaviour aren’t you? I just told you that i love you and you still haven’t told me if you feel the same. So i think that says it all, don’t you?” you stop yourself before continuing your rant, trying your hardest to prevent something worse slipping out. Right now in your state, you’re bound to say things that you don’t mean and will later regret. “you know what, i think i’m gonna take the work load home and complete it there. I’ll see you tomorrow, if i still have a job that is” you raise your brows at him, praying he doesn’t fire you for your attitude alone. But to your surprise he doesn’t.

“You really think that low of me? That i’d ever fire you because of what’s going on between us outside of this office? Wow” he leans back on his desk and his shoulders drop as he slumps over, looking down at his large calloused hands.

“It’s what i assumed would happen. You’re really gonna pretend like you don’t want me gone after today?”

“I don’t, believe it or not. But i have no time to deal with this discussion any longer, i have to leave early today” he says as he goes back to sitting behind his desk again and turning his computer back on “i don’t expect you to stay any longer, you can take that work home and finish it after your date” he mutters the last few words, pulling a face as if they make him sick.

“Really? We’re back to that again. God i’ve had it with you” you spit, biting down on the inside of your cheek before strutting over to the door but his hand stops you before you even get yours on the lock.

“Let me go Andy. I don’t even want to look at you, let alone be stuck in a room with you” harsh, but in this moment it’s true. He’s done nothing but upset you all day long and even after your stupid decision to confess your love for him, he’s still doing it. You feel so defeated right now that you can’t take another second of his shit.

“Just one more thing and then you’re free to go and fuck whoever you want, whenever you want. How many guys have you been on dates with since we started hooking up?” the desperation is evident in his eyes as they pierce into yours, searching again but this time for the answers before you can even open your mouth to give them to him “one. It was only one date on Saturday night with Ashley” and that’s the truth. You would never repeatedly date behind his back, this was a one off. A one off you’re regretting more as the seconds tick by.

An awkward silence falls upon the two of you once more as he walks back over to his desk, pacing next to it and creating a draft. “Are you planning to see him again?” and he’s back with more questions. Why does he care so much?

He clearly doesn’t love you too otherwise he’d have said it once you confessed your feelings for him. Instead he left you looking like the biggest joke ever, the clown. And you feel so mortified for even believing he’d say it back.

Silly little Y/N, always catching feelings for men who don’t feel the same way back. You’re starting to feel as though you’ll never find someone.

But still his behaviour has you second guessing him. Maybe he does like you and that’s why he’s acting so hurt.

“Maybe i will, after all i am single. That shouldn’t be a problem, should it Andy?” you know full well that you’re pushing down hard on his buttons and you can see his cheeks turn red as his knuckles turn white from his tight grip on the side of the table.

“What you don’t like that? You don’t like the thought of me on top of Ashley, sinking down onto his cock as he touches my body and kis -”

Out of nowhere he interrupts you, slamming his fist down onto his desk “dammit, Y/N, what is it with you? Trying to make me jealous? Because i’ve had just about enough of you running your mouth” he pulls one of the chairs out, falling into it and spreading his legs “In fact. I’m so sick of your voice. Why don’t you come over here and put your mouth to better use? Huh? Maybe then you’ll shut up about that fucking douche bag” he is jealous, it’s so obvious to you now. He’s jealous of Ashley, jealous of the possibility of him spending time with you and he hates the thought of someone stealing you away from his tight grasp.

You can’t quite believe your ears or your eyes as he spreads his legs further, grazing his hand over the tent in his dress trousers and you can’t help the gulp that follows.

“Andy”

“Shhh, enough talking. I don’t have it in me anymore to argue with you, just come here” he insists but you stand your ground “no. i can’t keep going round and round in circles with you with absolutely no end in sight and with no hope for you to reciprocate how i feel. I’m sorry but i’m leaving”

Yet again, as expected, he clears his throat “fine. I guess i’ll just get off all by myself”

Like they always do around Andy, your legs turn to jelly and your eyes glaze over along with your better judgement being clouded by x rated thoughts of him railing you. The idea of him touching himself, working his hand expertly around his girthy cock causes arousal to flood your panties. How dare your body betray you like this. How dare your mind do the same. It’s not fair that every time you think you have the upper hand and the dominance, he comes along, snatching it away from you and proving you wrong.

You have absolutely no idea why you’re about to do what you’re about to do other than the fact that your body gravitates toward him like a magnet and it’s out of your control.

So without a second longer to fester or overthink, you spin around on your heels, charging towards him. Andy watches in awe as you drop to your knees and make quick work of his belt. Once you free his cock from the confines of his black Calvin Kleins and into your small hand you spot the droplets of precum oozing out of the slit on his red bulbous head. You look up at him through your eyelashes, batting them as you give the tip a couple of kitten licks before spitting all over his shaft and pumping him agonisingly slow.

“Fuck” he groans, rolling his eyes back as he grips the arm rests on the chair when you take him into your mouth “attagirl, sucking daddy’s cock like a fucking pro” his hands grip your face as he continues to watch you go to work, making a mess of yourself as you gag around him,

You don’t bother to issue a warning before taking all of him in your mouth, all the way down to his balls over and over. Making sure to hollow out your cheeks as you bob your head up and down, your tongue licking the underside of him as your hands grasp his balls. He starts bucking his hips up, attempting to fuck your mouth but you push him back down as a whole batch of unholy sounds that only you can elicit from him fall from his perfect lips, the sounds that are so loud and downright filthy that he has no option but to cover his mouth with his hand, biting down one of his thick digits to keep from exposing himself to his unsuspecting colleagues outside.

He soon pulls you off and you do so with a pop. He forces you to look up at him, his hand grabbing your cheeks and squeezing aggressively “no matter what undeserving boys you go out on a date with, no matter who flirts with you. You’re mine, always have been and always will be” he moves you to straddle his lap before he stands up to move the two of you to the couch.

“So no more dates princess, no more other guys. Because i’m the only one who gets to have you. Is that clear?” he cocks his brow up at you and you nod in response before mumbling a quick “yes” to satisfy his need for confirmation and assurance.

He lifts your knee length dress up to your stomach before he gets to touching you, squeezing at your ass cheeks a little too hard for your liking but you secretly love the way he gets so rough with your body, the way he smacks both ass cheeks repeatedly until you wince from how sore he’s made you.

“God, these clothes drive me crazy. Ever since that first day i met you, i’ve wanted you and when you started working here, i was so desperate to fuck you as you wore these stockings and these heels. You’re so fucking hot, princess and you have no idea how crazy you drive me when you bend over, shoving this ass in my face”

He starts to kiss your neck, sloppy open mouthed kisses on the spot that has your back arching as you grip onto the back of his neck to steady yourself. He’s working you up all the more, turning the pool in your panties into a river. You’re dripping wet for him, desperate for him to just fuck your greedy pussy, desperate to clench down around his cock as he pounds into you.

“You’ve done it before Andy. Many times in fact”

His kisses halt as he smirks at you, that devilish look in his eyes. It always drives you wild “do it again, please, i need it” you beg pathetically and much to your surprise, he does exactly that. He takes your panties, tugging them to the side and playing with your soaked core a little as well as touching your bundle of nerves. You whine into the crook of his neck as you urge him to hurry before he eventually pulls his pants further down his legs to position himself at your entrance better. You don’t even have time to breathe before he’s knocking the air from your lungs as he fucks himself to the hilt inside of you.

The way his pace continues to pick up until it’s rendering on animalistic is causing you to let out the loudest and sexiest sounds, it’s like music to his ears but he can’t have anyone hearing this. He flips the two of you over so that you’re below him, your legs pushed back to your head and you hold them in place. His hand covers your mouth as he slides himself back in, not making any effort to start slow “you’d better be quiet or everyone’s going to know what a naughty little slut you are” he continues with rough snaps of his hips as he fucks into you with reckless abandon and causing the sweet music you make to vibrate onto his hand.

“Yeah, like this? Like the way i fuck this pretty little cunt?”

Thrust

“Bet his cock couldn’t even touch what mine does to you, the way you cry out for more and scream my name every time. The way i can make you cum with just my words and my fingers. God, such a dirty little girl for me, ain’t that right, princess?”

Satisfied hums follow his questions along with a frantic nod as you feel the coil tightening in your stomach, like a knot twisting and pulling, you’re so unbelievably close that you can almost taste the impending orgasm. “Don’t make a fucking sound when i move my hand, okay?” again you nod in response and he moves his hand, smiling down at you with adoration in his eyes before moving his hand to your aching sex. His fingers pressing down onto your bundle of nerves, rubbing firm circles on it and as soon as your walls flutter around him, he knows your close.

“Gonna cum, huh? Gonna make a mess all over my cock? My filthy girl, go on baby, cream all over me”

Just like that, along with his permission you let everything go, allowing yourself to really feel the pleasure. Your walls flutter around him again and again and each time he pulls out of you he spots your juices as they cover his cock beautifully. The sight alone has his hips snapping harder, the sound of his skin slapping against yours bounces off of the walls in his office and you accidentally let out a lewd moan that he swallows with his kiss as you wrap your legs around him to pull him closer “cum for me daddy” your encouragement sends his entire world spinning as his thrusts stagger.

His cock jolts inside of you, twitching like crazy before his cream fills you up deliciously, painting your walls in thick ropes. You arch your back as your arms wrap around his neck. You need to feel his lips on yours.

He kisses you so hard that your teeth clash, making the two of you chuckle into each others mouths before attempting again. This time his tongue forces it’s way past your lips, battling with yours as he rides the two of you through your dramatic and intense highs.

Once his hips still and he pulls out, he flops down next to you. The two of you are nothing but a panting mess. Chests rising and falling along with your erratic heart beats.

“I love you too” he confesses, making you gasp as you turn your head to look at his spent body, the way his eyes meet yours and tears pool in them has your eyes doing the same.

“Andy”

“I’m not finished. I’ve felt this connection with you since the day i first met you, it caught me completely off guard. When we made the deal for it to be just friends, i was upset. I wanted a lot more but i know i wasn’t ready just yet. But the way you’d draw out laughter from me that no one else has ever been able to and the way you’d boss me around only made my feelings grow. Then we fucked and it was like confirmation to me that i was well and truly screwed. But i kept coming back for more because it was like an addiction, i had to have you in any way that was possible and if sex was the only way then i’d have stayed single forever just to keep you close. I’d have done anything to be able to hold your body and kiss your neck and make you feel good. If doing that as just your fuck buddy was the only way then so be it. But i got to a point where just fucking you wasn’t enough. I wanted something real with you. So on Saturday-” before he can even finish you sigh, sitting up.

“You came to tell me how you felt? Andy, why didn’t you just say that earlier?” you don’t know how to feel right now. You’re so consumed by emotions that your head is spinning. One one hand you’re angry, annoyed and upset that he kept this from you and didn’t just tell you he felt the same when you confessed how you felt. But then on the other hand you’re relieved and happy that he does feel the same. This was never some unrequited love, it’s always been reciprocated and real.

All the lingering stares you’d catch, all of the compliments thrown your way and the insults hurled at random guys who’d ogle you whenever you were out in public with him or whenever another guy at work would take an interest.

“I saw you with that guy Y/N and i broke down. Then today, i expected you to come in and talk to me about it but instead you sat down at your desk, acted normal and didn’t say a word. I was hurt that you’d keep this from me. I know we both felt these things and i know both of us were unaware of the feelings being reciprocated but you still didn’t tell me you’d even thought about seeing other people and i guess i just expected more from you, more honesty”

He’s right. You don’t have it in you to argue because he’s right. He might have had his reasons for hiding his true feelings but you hid your date from him and that’s a lot worse. How was he supposed to just come out with it when all he could think of was you with Ashley.

“You’re right. I was wrong, i didn’t even think about the effect it would have and i was selfish. To tell you the truth i only went out with that guy because i was trying to move on from you, i didn’t want to keep feeling this strongly with no possibility of you feeling the same so i did the first thing i knew to do, date some other guy”

Andy can’t say he isn’t relieved to hear you admit that preppy college boy means nothing to you but it’s bitter sweet, you saying that you thought your feelings were one sided so you wanted to move on to avoid getting hurt further makes him hurt too. You’ve always meant more to him than just some friendship or some steamy sex. You’re the first woman he’s even looked twice at since Laurie and that means a whole lot more than you’ll ever know or understand.

“So what now?” you ask, puppy dog eyes showing as you await his response.

“I know it’s a bit backwards but how about a date tomorrow?”

God, he really is so handsome, so sweet. His deep and raspy chuckles make you giggle along with him as you straddle him once again, crashing your lips to his, his beard scratching at your face just the way you like.

He pulls away for a second “is that a yes?” once more you shake your head, tutting at him “a thousand times yes, Mr Barber. Yes i’ll go out with you” he wraps his arms around you as he pulls you flush against his suit clad torso, kissing you eagerly and smiling into it. He finally got the girl.

---------------------------------

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tsukishimaenthusiast · 4 years

Note

hb a scenario where reader and tobio are best friends and they are practice kissing and it leads to a make out session 👀 and he’s actually a really good kisser so it throws her off guard

practicing kissing with kageyama

nonnie, this shit is GAS

also my plot was like ,,,, also making this kags first kiss so i hope that’s ok !

update! ok pt.2 is : here

“and hinata always talks about how i’m not popular with girls! he can sometimes barely talk to shimizu senpai… and we’re with her everyday!”, kageyama yelled. you laughed at his complaints. kageyama was going off on another tangent about hinata while you helped him with his homework in his room. “i meannnn, he does have a point,” you added. kageyama gasped, probably because you agreed with someone he had just complained about. “that’s not true. i have you,” he reasoned. you rolled your eyes at him. “that’s not the same, tobio! we’re best friends; we already had a relationship established. just say you’re pressed and go,” you argued. kageyama lightly threw his notebook at you to retaliate.

“have you ever even kissed a girl, tobio?” he folded his arms and nodded. “WHAT???”, you shouted. “in first grade. she came up to me and kissed me. and i ran away crying,” he said. you stared at him blankly for a few seconds before bursting out with laughter. “AHAHAHAHAH!!! YOU’RE JOKING!”, you wheezed, trying to catch your breath. “i meant an actual kiss, idiot.” kageyama narrowed his eyes at you but relaxed them again. “never… why? how many people have you kissed?”, he asked. “i dunno…three? four?”, you answered. he seemed a little shocked but hummed as a response nonetheless.

kageyama soon spoke up again, “were you nervous? like… have you ever wondered if you’d be bad at it or not?” you thought about his questions for a moment. “not really… although i do regret my first kiss. i was super nervous for that one, so it was probably a bad kiss,” you answered honestly. “why?”, you asked. “i would probably be nervous for my first…” you pushed yourself back to lay on his bed. “maybe we should practice then,” you suggested sarcastically. “really??”, kageyama asked. you immediately sat up again. “woah, i was just-“ kageyama cut you off, “i can practice with you so that i won’t be nervous for my first real kiss.” you stared at him in disbelief. you started laughing but stopped when you realized he was being completely serious. “i-i guess?”, you said.

you and kageyama had cleared all the notebooks and textbooks off of his bed and sat next to each other. “well… um. from personal experience, i usually just start kissing someone normally. like this…” you leaned in and gave kageyama a short kiss. you pulled away and noticed that he was slightly blushing. “obviously it’s more than one, though.” you leaned in again, except this time, kageyama started puckering his lips to kiss you back. his lips were surprisingly soft… and he wasn’t rushing anything. you two kissed like that for only a little while longer, then you pulled away. if you were being honest, you were kind of flustered. you were expecting him to mess up or something. “then…then uh, either myself or the person i’m with will start using tongue… i’ll initiate it since this is just practice for you, but you should also learn how to do it yourself.” kageyama stared at your lips in anticipation.

you leaned in again. when your lips were against his, you slowly sneaked your tongue out to lick his lips. you don’t think kageyama realized what you were trying to do, so you kind of opened his mouth yourself by pushing your tongue through his lips. you felt his breath hitch as you did it. he gracefully moved his own tongue against yours. damn, he wasn’t so bad at this… you automatically placed your hand on his thigh and felt him tense underneath you. for some reason, it made you excited. you slid your hand up a little and squeezed, causing his breath to hitch again. you felt yourself grow hot so you decided to pull away. however, your face stayed only a couple of inches away from his.

kageyama’s face was flushed with a beautiful shade of his pink and you noticed that his eyes seemed darker than when you two first started. you thought you guys were done, but kageyama leaned in… to the point where your noses were barely brushing up against each other. he titled his head and shoved his tongue in your mouth. it caught you off guard so you gasped, allowing kageyama to give you an open mouth kissed. he reached one hand over you and placed it on your waist. he squeezed your hip and pulled you onto his lap.

as you moved on top of him, kageyama sucked on your tongue. you weren’t sure if it was an accident or on purpose, but damn did it turn you on. you could feel that kageyama was hard under you and you subconsciously grinded on him. you accidentally let out a moan and froze. kageyama looked into your eyes and let out a deep breath before pushing down on your hips, kissing you again. his kisses grew rougher, but you couldn’t complain… he was really good.

your tongues continued moving against each other, but only for a couple more seconds… because you ended up getting a phone call. you jumped off of kageyama’s lap and answered. “-yup, okay! got it.” you hung up the phone and turned back to look at kageyama. “it was my mom. i have to pick some things up at the store… and she wants me to be home soon,” you said. kageyama cleared his throat, “oh uh, yea. okay.” you started packing up your things to try to avoid him but you could still see him awkwardly stand up and fix his pants in the corner of your eye.

you two stood near his bedroom door since you were just about ready to leave. “y/n… thanks for uh, helping.. me today.” he seemed unsure by his “gratitude.” you bit your lip out of embarrassment, “no problemmm.” both you and kageyama awkwardly stared at each other for what was probably too long. “well, bye!”, you blurted, quickly opening his door. “yeah! see you tomorrow!”, he babbled.

this fr has potential for a pt.2 but idk,, it can go SO many ways … if u guys have ideas lmk😌😌

#haikyuu #haikyuu boys #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu scenarios #haikyuu smut #kageyama scenarios #kageyama smut #tobio kageyama #kageyama x reader #kageyama tobio #kageyama imagines #tobio kageyama x reader

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asthmark · 4 years

Text

❝ stuck ❞ l.dh

request → “Hi~ I'm absolutely in love with your work. It makes me so soft uwu. I was wondering if you could write a Haechan one similar to the roommate Jeno one you wrote. About what it's like to just live with him” —@demiwizardstay

pairing → demon!haechan, reader, guardianangel!mark

word count → 4.5k

a/n → whoops i made this into a demon!haechan au hahaha sorry i hope this is domestic enough for u tho :D

your eyes must be playing tricks on you.

there’s no other reasonable explanation.

on the other hand, the shadow splayed out ever so comfortably on your couch seems to be very real. it must be just as aware of your presence as you are of its but to your surprise, it isn’t telling you to put your hands where it can see them or demanding to know where all your most valuable items are. it sits there, peacefully as if it owns the place. for a split second you consider the possibility that you walked into the wrong apartment but the key in your hand reminds you that the situation you are in is not your fault in any way.

“so... are you gonna scream or just stand there?”

the figure’s voice is unmistakably masculine and drips with sass. you know you should feel scared. your heart should be pounding as your shaky fingers dial 911 and you hysterically report an intruder to the authorities and beg them to come fast. however, it seems that this stranger’s calm aura has rubbed off on you as you respond with an equally as unbothered tone.

“well, i would appreciate it if you invited me in.” you pause. “oh wait, it’s my apartment.”

with that, you step inside and go about your regular routine with a calmness you didn’t know you possessed; especially when there was an… unwelcome visitor lounging on your sofa. despite that, you kick off your shoes and toss your jacket somewhere on the floor like you normally would. you twirl your keys around your fingers as you go to turn to flick on the light switch. it rids you of the darkness that had settled upon your apartment and the stranger is completely revealed to you.

the first thing you notice about them is their sun kissed skin that’s littered in the freckles you would compare to the most captivating constellation. although, the stranger’s flawless complexion is the least of your worries considering the two horns that peek out from underneath their tufts of brunette hair.

you physically restrain yourself from asking for his skin routine and instead opt for yet another sarcastic comment. “all ready for halloween, i see.” your eyes lock onto the appendages, choosing to ignore how realistic they were. “was party city having a sale?”

your comment seems to get your uninvited guest out of his daze as he scoffs. “are you kidding?”

“hey, this is my place, i ask the questions,” you scold.

he ignores you, instead going to tug on his horns. “these are all real, baby.”

you force yourself to maintain eye contact with him, waiting for him burst into laughter and tell you it was all a prank. instead, his unfaltering smug gaze pierces into you. you swear you stop breathing when his eyes flash bright red for a second.

“alright, you can tell the camera crew to come on out.” you glance around hoping this really was just some sort of hidden camera–practical joke type of thing. you half expect ashton kutcher jump out and tell you that you had gotten punk'd but you’re never granted that privilege. your eyes end up back on the boy lounging on your sofa and he returns the stare, eyes narrowed and mouth curved into a smirk.

it was almost… devilish.

“oh my god.”

“not quite.” he finally stands, stretching his limbs out without a care in the world. “wanna try again?”

you stay silent, mouth slightly agape. there was only one other explanation.

he’s satan. and he’s also in your living room. and the worst part was how undeniably hot he is.

you regret giving him the satisfaction of your stunned silence as it seems like that was the exact reaction he wanted. he laughs at your expression and it just sounds evil.

“alright, alright. i’ll tell you what i am. but only because you mortals are always so cute when you’re scared.”

“i’m not scared, you idiot,” you interject without a second thought. “i just didn’t know i’d be selling my soul today. it’s a total bummer. i’m so young, i still have so much to do. i never even got around to trying yoga with ryujin!”

the boy’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “your soul? did i say i wanted your soul?”

“well, you’re like, satan right? isn’t that what you do?”

he rolls his eyes. “i’m obviously a demon. satan is a loser who never leaves his fiery throne. which, by the way, isn’t as cool as it sounds. we’re not on the best terms at the moment.”

“so... you don’t want my soul?”

he shakes his head vigorously, looking disgusted at the mere idea of it. “what would i even do with it?”

“i don’t know. honestly i’m just going off of what i see in the movies.”

“that was your first mistake, baby.” he makes his way closer to you. “this isn’t the movies.”

“okay, back it up,” you say, attempting to put some distance between you and him.

he raises his hands in defeat as he obeys, retreating back to your couch.

“why are you here of all places? shouldn’t you be sipping on a piña colada with satan right now?”

he crosses his legs nonchalantly. “like i said, we aren’t on speaking terms. in fact, i’m kind of… banned.”

“banned?” you echo. “from where?”

“hell? duh.”

you scowl at his attitude. “it’s not my fault you’re on timeout.”

he pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. “don’t call it that. it’s just a punishment.”

“same thing,” you say, making your way into the kitchen. you weren’t sure if leaving a demon unattended in your living room was the best idea but the initial shock had already worn off. besides, it seemed like he had been in your apartment for a while already. “what did you do anyway?”

“it’s not even that bad,” he grumbles.

“must have been if you got kicked out of hell.” you chuckle to yourself as you open up your pantry, looking for something to stuff your face with. “do you understand how bad you must be if even the devil himself can’t stand you?”

“i’m not bad, per se,” he says, picking at his nails. “just a little annoying.”

“no kidding,” you grumble to yourself, rummaging through your pantry, in pursuit of your favorite snack. you were sure everything would make more sense once you got some food in your system. when all you find is an empty, crumpled bag where your chips had once been, you whine loudly. “did you eat all my hot cheetos?”

“they reminded me of home!”

“i can see why they kicked you out,” you retort.

“listen, i get that this is an inconvenience—”

“that’s kind of an understatement.”

“but, this is the only place i can stay. turns out people freak out when you appear in their living rooms. you were the only one that didn’t.”

“yeah, people usually don’t take too kindly to that—hold on, did you say stay?”

he crosses his arms over his chest. “where else am i supposed to go?”

“anywhere but here.”

he gives you an unamused stare, his eyes glinting red once again.

“i mean, don’t you have any demon friends you can stay with?”

“not here. we avoid earth at all costs. it’s trashy. that’s why this is a punishment.”

not even you can argue with that. “understandable. well, how long are you gonna be here?”

“don’t know.”

you blink at him. “so… you’re planning to crash with me until satan decides to be your friend again?”

he groans. “first of all, he’s never been my friend. second of all, yes, that was the plan i had in mind when i broke into your house.”

“broke in?”

“well, actually i used teleportation powered by the dark arts to get in but i don’t think your tiny human brain is ready for that conversation.”

“and i don’t think it’d be in your best interest to insult the person you’re currently trying to move in with.”

that seems to shut him up, as he purses his lips together and stares at you blankly.

“listen, if we’re going to do this, there’s gotta be some ground rules, okay?”

he stays silent so you decide to continue.

“you have to pull your own weight around here. you might be some powerful being of the underworld but that doesn’t mean you get out of laundry day and doing dishes, got it?”

he seems displeased, if the frustrated huff of air he lets out is anything to go by.

“and you have to promise me that by staying here you aren’t putting me in any kind of danger.”

“well, i can’t guarantee i won’t cause problems,” he says, raking his fingers through the hair in between his sharpened horns. “but i can protect you from whatever crap comes our way.”

you contemplate it. you weren’t entirely sure what a demon like him was capable of but it seemed like it would be a list that was equally lengthy as it was impressive. yet, you still can’t bring yourself to agree to anything.

as if he senses your apprehensive nature, he grabs your chin, forcing you to look into his hazelnut eyes. you only get to admire the warm tint for a split second before his eyes flash red yet again. they stay glowing longer than any of the previous times; long enough for you to notice how shiny and bright they are, reminding you of ripe cherries.

“i promise.”

the tone of his voice is surprisingly firm and definitely the most serious you’ve heard him the entire night. he retreats his hand from you and you find yourself leaning forward, almost craving his touch. his eyes go back to their original hue and you feel yourself regain your senses.

“what did you just do?” you ask, leaning back from him. “what kind of dark magic was that?”

he tries to conceal his smile but ultimately fails, his pearly whites coming onto display. “that wasn’t magic, baby. i believe you just got lost in my eyes but don’t worry. i would too.”

you let out a bitter laugh. “oh my god, you’re vain.”

“do you mortals have to mention him every five seconds?” he chides, grimacing.

it takes you a moment to realize who he’s referring to but when you do, you erupt in laughter. “really? that gets to you? you’re pretty sensitive for a big and bad demon.”

“i have a name, baby.”

“so do i.”

his lips curve into a coy smile. “donghyuck.”

you give him your name in response, not even bothering to think about it twice, much to your surprise. most would probably be more hesitant to introduce themself to a demon, much less invite them into their home.

yet here you were, doing both.

he offers you nothing more than a grin—it seemed more genuine than the last—before turning on his heel to make his way farther into your apartment. “so, where will i be sleeping? i was thinking your bed would be ideal.”

“well, i was thinking you could start with a thank you,” you suggest, trailing after him.

he saunters down the hallway, twisting the knob of the door second to the left and peeking in. you can only imagine how much snooping around he had done before you had arrived, judging by the fact that he maneuvered your home so expertly.

he hums as he scans the room as if it’s the first time (which you’re sure it’s not). “it looks comfortable enough for the two of us.”

you can tell there’s no arguing with him, especially as he steps inside and sits himself on the edge of your bed, hands running over the soft fabric of your comforter. he bounces up and down a couple times, seeming satisfied enough with the mattress.

in the blink of an eye, he’s underneath the heaps of blankets, tucked in snuggly.

you exhale, trying to maintain patience. “i can tell this whole dark magic thing is going to be a problem for me.”

even though only his eyes peek out from beneath the polyester sheets, you’re positive he’s wearing an obnoxious smirk. his voice comes out slightly muffled when he answers, “think of it as a blessing, not a curse.”

“we’ll see.” you try to suppress a yawn but it manages to escape you, eyes squinting and your hand clamping over your mouth. “right now, i gotta sleep. hopefully i’ll wake up tomorrow and realize this was all a dream.”

“so, what you’re implying is that i’m a dream?”

“i meant to say nightmare.”

“that’s more accurate.”

as if the dazed tone of his voice didn’t give his sleepiness away, donghyuck’s drowsy eyes and horns sinking into the soft plush of your pillow certainly did. he looked the least threatening right then and there and you decide that this is the donghyuck you like best. you can’t help the sudden urge you feel to curl up in bed right next to him and doze off into blissful unconsciousness.

“what are you waiting for? get in here.”

could demons read minds too? you can’t be bothered to think about it for another second before you take donghyuck’s very tempting offer and crawl into your bed. you don’t care that you’re not in your pajamas or that you smell like coffee beans, courtesy of the cafe you worked at.

all you can seem to focus on is the feeling of donghyuck’s soft breath against your neck and his oddly cute snores. it was ironic; a demon all cuddled up beside you, sleeping like a baby. you almost giggle at the striking comparison.

needless to say, you fall asleep with a smile on your face.

“you know, it really pisses me off to come home and see you sitting in the exact same position you were in when i left.”

donghyuck rolls his eyes, an expression he’s mastered over time. “what else am i supposed to do? you made it pretty clear that you hate my demonic rituals and that’s kind of my speciality.”

you shrug as you kick your shoes off upon entering your shared apartment. “i don’t know. but binging the entire marvel movie saga can’t possibly be healthy.”

“we don’t have this in hell!” donghyuck exclaims, gesturing to the television his eyes remained glued on.

“well, you should get used to life on earth considering you don’t know how long you’re gonna be stuck here.”

“i’m already on it. pop culture is actually really informative.”

“not what i meant. i was thinking more along the lines of a job.”

donghyuck finally tears his eyes away from the television to give you an unamused stare. “that’s really funny, y/n.”

“i’m serious! would it kill you to get off the sofa?”

“no. nothing would. i’m immortal, remember?”

you narrow your eyes. “oh yeah, almost forgot. you’re gonna be a bother to me forever and ever.”

“this isn’t the ideal situation for me either. but no need to torture me with low life mortal tasks.”

“bills gotta be paid, it’s a part of life,” you respond, taking a seat beside him. “or else we’ll both be breaking into people’s houses and begging them to move in.”

“i didn’t beg, alright? and i didn’t break in either! i simply... appeared.”

“that’s even worse.”

“you didn’t seem to mind when you were all snuggled into me this morning.”

donghyuck’s words paired with his taunting tone cause you to feel slightly warm but you ignore it for the sake of a comeback. “you seemed comfortable yourself because when my alarm for work went off your arm was pretty tight around me.”

you swear you see him pout for a moment. “that’s not my fault! there aren’t many people open to cuddling in hell! i was just… seizing the opportunity.”

“since you’re all about opportunities, you should really look into that job. remember what we agreed on? no slacking off.”

“i’m not! just look in the kitchen!”

you know whatever it is, you’re not prepared for it. nevertheless, you tiptoe to said area, hoping your roommate had simply followed instructions and done the dishes and swept. but, of course, that itself is too much to ask as you watch the sink overflow with suds, plates and silverware scrubbing themselves clean and floating into their respective cupboards. a broom dances across the tiled floor, dust flying everywhere. you find that the mess in your kitchen resembles a train wreck; you want to look away but you just can’t.

you call out to donghyuck, eyes still trained on the chaos before you, asking, “what did we say about rituals?”

“it’s a little more complicated than a ritual, baby!”

once you finally gather enough willpower to walk away from the kitchen and whatever is happening in it, you return to the living room, placing yourself in front of the television that donghyuck is so entranced in.

“you’re coming with me to work tomorrow, got it?”

donghyuck groans for a second before rolling his eyes dramatically hard. “fine. now, can you move? the avengers are about to fight thanos.”

you comply, retreating to your bedroom but not before shouting back, “iron man dies!”

you shut your door, donghyuck’s frustrated screeching still coming through loud and clear.

your phone alerts you that it’s 6 am by playing an alarm so loud donghyuck falls out of bed. comically enough, it’s the loud thump! that comes when donghyuck makes contact with the floor that really gets your eyes to flutter open. you peek over the edge of the bed, every bit of grogginess leaving your body the second you see your roommate tangled in your sheets, limbs sprawled on the ground.

“are you okay?” you ask, laughter lacing your words.

“doing just fine,” he mumbles in response. soon thereafter, his eyes shut once again.

“hey! no way are you going back to sleep, we have work!”

you drag yourself out of bed over to where donghyuck lays, attempting to resume his peaceful slumber. you grab his arms, attempting to hoist him up. you’re almost positive he’s making it more difficult than it should be as he lets his body go completely limp in your grasp. when you finally get him standing upright, he smiles lazily at you, obviously still half asleep.

“c’mon dork, you need to get ready. you’re gonna make some cash today!”

donghyuck makes it clear he understands nothing as the morning progresses.

he doesn’t get the importance of being on time or even working in the first place. he offers to just take out your landlord, which according to him will “solve all your problems”, more times than you count and you’re sure that if he mentions it one more time you’d actually consider it. he also claims he doesn’t understand the concept of a shower, asking you to help him out, yet the knowing smile on his face lets you know he’s more than well aware of what it entails. unfortunately, you realize this after spending more time than you’d care to admit explaining the concept of getting naked to him in a tight, confined space to him only for him to request a demonstration.

upon leaving your apartment, more new things are revealed to donghyuck. you can’t help but admire the wonder and awe in his eyes. the adoration quickly wears off when he throws a temper tantrum at the subway station, refusing to board it and you have to physically force him on and promise that no, he won’t get trapped inside.

despite the slight bumps in the road, you arrive at your shift with time to spare. the clock tells you that you won’t have to be behind the counter for another five minutes so you grab your apron and provide donghyuck with one too. you give him quite possibly the quickest tour of the cafe ever and explain to him over five times what you were there to do (“so, we just take people’s orders? we serve them?” “and they pay for it.” “just when i thought it couldn’t possibly get dumber”). you end putting him on cleaning duty since you were well aware of his lack of social skills. he frowns when you tell him he has to do it himself, no magic allowed. the last thing you needed was someone getting nearly knocked over by a levitating broom and bringing it to your manager’s attention. speaking of—

“good morning, y/n,” greets doyoung. his hair is slicked back and his eyes shine, as always. “always a pleasure to see you on your shift.”

donghyuck watches you cautiously, observing the way you smile nervously and avoid meeting doyoung’s eyes. he assumes he has some kind of authority over you.

“and hello there. who might you be?”

doyoung is now very aware of donghyuck’s presence, giving him a wide smile but a menacing stare. you don’t get a word out before donghyuck’s giving him a polite smile and nod of his head.

“i was just hired, y/n is showing me the ins and outs. i honestly could not be happier working under leaders like you, sir.”

doyoung hums, obviously enjoying donghyuck’s praise enough to let it blind him from the fact that you hadn’t even been hiring in the first place. “sir, huh? haven’t heard that one before.”

donghyuck holds his breath, wondering if he had overdone it.

“i like it. you seem like a hard working fellow. glad to have you on the team.” your boss gives him a firm pat on the back before walking away, probably to go scare some other employees.

donghyuck sticks his tongue out at him once his back is turned and you simply laugh, smile still present on your face when your first customer arrives.

“i’m here!”

you glance up from the cash register to catch your coworker rushing in, looking frazzled… as always.

“hey mark,” you greet, giving him a welcoming smile. “i’m so glad you’re here. there’s been this crazy demand for frappuccinos all day and you know i suck at those.”

mark chuckles as he ties on his apron. “no offense, but the only order you should be taking are the puppuccinos.”

you shoot him the most non-threatening glare possible which ends up with you bursting into a fit of laughter. “i’m not even gonna argue with that.”

“hypothetically, if i made doyoung’s coffee explode on him but made sure he didn’t know, would you be mad?”

you roll your eyes at donghyuck’s bold entrance yet you still giggle. “at this point, i say go for it. ooh, maybe we could even sneak out while he’s cleaning it up. what do you say, mark?”

where there would usually be a giddy laugh, there’s nothing but silence on your coworkers behalf. you put a pause on counting the money in the register to steal a glance at mark who’s eyes are dead set on donghyuck who also seems to be intensely focused on the blonde.

“demon,” mark mutters.

you feel yourself freeze up; how could he possibly know? despite the panic that settles upon you, you’re sure donghyuck will find a way to handle the situation. you expect a lie, maybe even some magic if the situation called for it. when you see his lips curve upwards sinisterly, you know you’re in for an entirely different outcome.

“angel.” there’s a teasing lilt in donghyuck’s voice; it sends chills up your spine.

mark’s jaw is clenched and you know he’s equally as tense as you are. “we should go, y/n.”

“mark, he’s just—”

“now.”

the sudden desperation yet dominance in mark’s tone is even more alarming than donghyuck’s.

“you know,” donghyuck begins, rounding the counter, dramatically. “i’ve never been a fan of the way guardian angels think they own their person.”

you swear your brain shuts down. there was no way you had come into contact with a demon and now an angel—your guardian angel. and there was definitely no way it was your closest coworker, right?

“it’s our responsibility—she is my responsibility.”

donghyuck folds his arms as he gives mark a once over. “you won’t mind if i take over, right?”

mark chuckles, begrudgingly. “you know i can’t let that happen.”

“i’m not hurting her, i’d never hurt her.” donghyuck takes his place next to you, wrapping an arm around you. he peers down at you, eyes glowing red for the first time since your first encounter. “my angel.”

you know the nickname is to piss mark off and you assume it works as you observe his hands clench into fists. although, you’re more focused on how the pet name effortlessly rolled off donghyuck’s tongue, like temptation itself.

“don’t make this difficult for yourself,” donghyuck continues. “you know feelings are dangerous. that’s what they tell you when you first sign up. just don’t let that get you into trouble, got it?”

the tension is suffocating and you almost wish a customer would enter the currently empty cafe to save you from it. although, donghyuck makes sure that you don’t have to endure it any longer as a second later, you’re both gone, only a cloud of red smoke left behind.

mark stands alone in the cafe.

he had gotten this job for you; to look after you.

perhaps he had caught feelings, as well.

he assumes that was his first mistake.

when donghyuck takes you back to your apartment, it seems the awkward atmosphere from the cafe has followed you home.

“uh, can i ask what that was all about?”

“that guy, mark was it? yeah, he’s your guardian angel. i can’t stand it when those guys act like they’re in charge of the person they’re sent to look after,” he seethes.

you watch donghyuck’s fit of frustration carefully, eyes wide. when he sees how confused you are he can’t help but sigh.

“i’m sorry, i just… didn’t appreciate him acting like you were his. guess i don’t really like the thought of that.”

you would have to be oblivious beyond compare to not realize donghyuck was completely and utterly jealous. you prod him further, asking, “well, then who would you rather i belong to?”

he glances up at you. “whoever you want, baby.”

“you know what? i think i have somebody in mind.”

not even a second later, donghyuck takes you back in the security of your bed, under your piles of fluffy blankets. what feels most comfortable (and strangely familiar) is the feeling of donghyuck’s arm clinging to you, making you sure you’re pressed right into his chest like a puzzle piece.

“the person you had in mind was me, right? ’cause if not, this might be awkward.”

your eyes roll back despite knowing he can’t see it. “no, it was mark.”

“not funny.”

your shoulders shake with laughter. “it’s a little funny.”

“whatever, keep laughing. just let me hold you, alright?”

“that would be heaven.” silence settles upon the both of you as you go into nearly hysterical laughter. “get it? because you’re a demon… from hell… and that’s like, the opposite—”

“yeah, i get it, baby.” he pauses. “how many more lame jokes surrounding me being a demon will i have to endure?”

“i definitely have more where that came from so my guess is... more than you can count.”

he moans in displeasure. “you’re lucky you’re cute… for a mortal.”

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it-was-summer · 3 years

Text

Video Killed the Radio Star- Chapter 8 (Spencer Reid x Fem!Reader)

A/N: Hello!!! After a very very very long hiatus, school is over and I am ready to write again. I'm sorry for dropping off the face of the earth, but I did indeed get burnt out this semester and I just needed some time to recover. I also got sick with COVID-19, so I'm sorry that chapter 8 took so long to write. As regards to the things in my ask box, I will be answering them as soon as I post this chapter today. I will be working over the Summer, but I promise to write over the Summer. Thank you all for being kind and I hope that this chapter or two nerds being nerds makes up for some of it... a little at least? Also the text will be italicized

Warnings: One? Curse word? Fluff and texting?

Plot: Spencer and you fight against all judgement and ignore the growing feelings the two of you have for each other. Spencer sends you a text.

Word Count: 2.1K

Spencer had come and gone, and now your couch carried the faint smell of peppermint and old books. The moon peered through your living room window as you poured steaming water into a mug, the smell of peppermint making your stomach flip pleasantly. Your mind wandered dangerously, thinking about how sweet Spencer’s laugh sounded when you nitpicked something the Doctor had said.

Thinking about how he stood in front of your bookcase and how bright his smile became seeing The Nightingale and the Rose amongst the masses, his fingers brushing the spine for a second before he let out a soft ‘oh’. You shook your head from side to side gently, trying to shake the recent memories from your brain as you took a short sip of your tea.

You couldn’t help but feel dirty thinking about Spencer. If you were just thinking about him you would’ve felt better, but you weren’t thinking about Spencer necessarily. You were thinking about how soft his hands felt in the split second the two of you reached for the remote. You were thinking about how he used that same hand to push back his hair from his eyes, how the dying sunlight outside reached his eyes, and how he looked when he lingered for a second too long at the door.

That wasn’t right. You weren’t supposed to think about him like that, you didn’t want to. Every lingering thought was shoved into the back of your mind in a forceful act of rebellion. You needed to remain grounded, you couldn’t let yourself get carried away. He was your friend and he was going to remain your friend, just a friend.

The peppermint tea felt thick as it went down your throat, a soft chime bringing you back to reality. Your hand shot over to your phone, feeling desperate for any kind of distraction. Your mother had texted you a simple ‘Hi’ and you felt your shoulders relax instantly. You hit the call button.

___

Spencer stood in the middle of a park, he wasn’t there for a case or to play chess, he was just there-- sitting on a red blanket. His head raised to the sky as a breeze shook through his hair sweetly. He heard a gentle and familiar laugh beside him, his head snapping away from the blue sky to look at you. “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing,”

Spencer frowned, sitting up on his elbows, eyes locked onto yours, silently interrogating you. You waved him off with a smile, “Fine,” you said, leaning your head into the palm of your hand. “I never get to see you like this, so free.”

“I’m always free, thank you very much,” Spencer taunted uncharacteristically as he felt your hand shove into his shoulder with a gentle jab.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” soft wind blew your hair into your face and Spencer could already feel his hand moving to push the hair out of your eyes, “You’re always worrying about work or a case or something else, sometimes it feels like you’re running a thousand miles a minute and I can’t catch up, but sometimes it’s nice to just see you be still for a while.”

Spencer felt pleasant shivers pass through his spine, opening up his mouth to whisper something sweet to say to you, but the words never got the chance to leave his throat as he woke up in his dark bedroom.

His eyelids fluttered gently, begging him to fall back asleep against his will. Spencer forced his eyes open, turning his head to the side to look at the time glowing on the digital clock that sat upon his nightstand. Four in the morning.

Spencer felt his face grow warm as he laid awake in bed, thinking about you. Your laugh, your smile, your eyes, your hands. Spencer didn’t like to touch people, being a slight germaphobe, he tried to avoid touching other people as much as possible. So why was he so comfortable with it in a dream? He didn’t believe that dreams reflected the subconscious, but sometimes he ignored that gnawing feeling inside his brain and believed in dream analysis.

This was one of those times. He knew that if he mentioned anything to Derek, he would make fun of him, and then he would tell Penelope and then everyone would know. So maybe this was something he was going to keep to himself. He wordlessly decided that he wouldn’t tell anyone, it felt wrong to tell anyone. You were hurting. Recovering.

Besides, if he said something-- if he reacted to it, wouldn’t that make this feeling grow? He bit his lip, rolled over on his other side, closed his eyes, and tried to resume the dream he had just woken up from.

A lump filled Spencer’s throat as he stepped through the elevator, coffee’s in hand. He wasn��t the best at lying about things and he worked with profilers. Literal people that could look at him and dissect his brain without him saying a word. Usually, he had the upper hand, usually, he didn’t feel so different. He had no reason to feel so strange, he was just happy, was it so strange that he felt happy? When Prentiss’s eyes fell on him, he decided yes.

The team didn’t always say something when they noticed something was off with Spencer, but most of the time they made a habit to say some teasing remark in passing. Spencer wasn’t sensitive, nor was he immune to throwing out some special one-liners of his own, he was just skittish about receiving them.

“Spencer,” Emily’s voice cut through the room, snapping Spencer’s head up from his coffee. “You seem,” she paused “Weird.”

“Weird? Reid?” Derek chuckled softly, eyes meeting Spencer’s for a quick second.

“Yep, always weird.”

“Yeah, okay, he’s being weird,”

Spencer took a long sip of his coffee, his fingertips gripping the cup a little tighter in a desperate attempt to calm himself down. He had no reason to feel weird, no reason at all. It’s not like his dream was real. It had just been so long since Spencer had liked someone as much as he liked you. That wasn’t the right way to think about it; he simply had a crush on you. That was all it was, a crush.

“I just had a good night,” he muttered nervously into the lid of his cup.

“Yeah, with a cute little miss thing that lives in Richmond.”

“Richmond?” mused Emily with a smile.

Spencer frowned at Derek, “Who even told you that? Was it Penelope, because she told me she wouldn’t tell,”

“When she says that, she means she won’t tell Hotch, but she’ll most likely always tell me.”

Emily waved her hand from side to side, “Wait go back,” she pointed at Spencer “Did you have a date yesterday?”

“No!”

“Yes.”

“No, it wasn’t a date. It was coffee. We drank coffee and talked.” Spencer argued quickly, making him seem guilty in a matter of seconds.

“Can she even do anything with that boot on?” Emily teased, earning a laugh from Derek.

“Come on, Prentiss. Reid only makes moves on girls in the middle of a case, not after.”

“That was once!”

“So you made a move on her then?” Emily implored gently, letting the interrogative teasing be cut short.

“No, we went back to her apartment to watch a show, and then I went home,” Spencer answered, trying to let his nerves settle down, when he said it out loud it sounded like it was nothing. It sounded silly. Derek and Emily shot each other a glance, shared a smile, and then both mouthed a simple ‘okay’, before going their separate ways.

Spencer knew that Emily was probably running over to whisper something to Rossi or J.J and Derek was probably heading over to Penelope to tell her what just happened. He could care less, he needed to work, and they all needed to work judging by the way Hotch walked into his office.

You had woken up near noon to a text that simply read; Hello.(: It was short, sweet, and from Spencer. To be fair, he had mentioned that he wasn’t the best with texting people, so the fact that he sent you a text said something.

You didn’t want to seem too eager as you texted Hey, did you have lunch yet?

You set the phone down, trying to get over the initial feeling of embarrassment that caused your cheeks to flush, remembering in a second that you were a nerd. You couldn’t text people for shit and as you stared at the message you had just sent Spencer it showed.

You sat up, sliding off to the edge of the bed, hand reaching for the phone as another chime made your heart burst. No, I spent lunch on a plane to Georgia.

Georgia?

Chime.

We got another case and the whole team is running on coffee.

Eat something soon.

Chime.

Can’t ignore a demand like that.

Good, don’t.

Chime.

Text me later?

Absolutely (:

You pressed your lips together, fighting back the growing smile on your lips as you left your phone on your bed, today already seemed promising.

Being out yesterday made you realize how much you missed being outside, the only downside was it took forever for you to get anywhere. So, you called your mom out for lunch. You found the slow walking easier to deal with when you were talking to someone else and she was worried about you, so it was a win-win.

The restaurant was crowded, crowded areas usually made you feel nervous like you were being watched. Being watched wasn’t so bad, being kidnapped was worse, and being physically abused was worse than being kidnapped. So you could deal with some crowds.

Certain things kept catching you by surprise, like the way slow-moving cars rolling down the street made you tense up, and the way you clenched your jaw as the waitress’s name tag shined ‘Heather’.

Your mother was kind enough to reach over the table to hold your hand in hers, a smile brightening her eyes effortlessly, “You look lovely today,”

You let out a small sigh and shrugged “I had a good morning,”

“Really?” she repeated, smile growing wider.

“Yeah,” you squeezed her hand gently “I went out for coffee yesterday with Spencer, too.”

“The F.B.I agent, Spencer?” You nodded quickly, hand leaving hers as you looked through the menu. “Was this a date?”

“Mom,” your eyes peered up at her, lips turned down into a gentle frown “I just went through something very traumatic, I don’t think it was a date.”

“What was it then?”

“A friend, being nice to another friend.” You replied quickly, trying to move your focus back onto the menu in your hands. You heard a small sound from your mother that reassembled an ‘okay’ before she went silent, but you could tell she was burning with questions.

You didn’t blame her, you never got out much but when you did, she was the first one to know. You had mentioned over the phone last night that the two of you were friends and he was helping you through so of the tougher things that recovery involved, but she seemed to ignore that then. You had yet to mention the addictive tendencies you were feeling, the yearning for a release, an outlet of some kind. You knew it would break her heart, so you kept quiet.

“I like him,”

“Mom,” you scolded with a smile, setting down the menu. “You met him once.”

“And he made a good impression,”

“You left the room!”

“I can read body language,”

“Okay, mom,” You scoffed as you took a sip of your water.

“All I’m saying is,” she put her hands together “Recovering doesn’t mean you have to ignore every opportunity that comes your way because you don’t think it’s the right time.” She met your eyes and let out a tiny laugh, “I know you and you won’t let anything happen if you feel like it’s not the right time, sometimes it’s not a bad thing to let things happen. Romantic things or otherwise.”

You opened your mouth to say something but instead, you let out a tiny sigh, nodding slowly. She didn’t need to know how miserable the night made you, how suffocating a day alone was for you, so you nodded. After all, maybe she was right, she was your mother.

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terrible-fanfiction-of-course · 4 years

Text

All thanks to you

Lila sits in her room rewriting the latest chapter of her novel, A novel she started when she transferred to (school name). As she finished, she mused on the best part that had yet to come. You see, Lila is a writer who loves being inspired by life. She doesn’t mind trying to create her inspiration, also known as manipulating people. Lila moves so often that it been a hobby for some time now, Lila had long given up on actually forming real bonds with people. It never works out and she usually would have to move soon after.

Lila daydreams about the first days of this school initially she wanted to try and write a romance novel about two people from different worlds type of thing when that got ruined fast. Hence, she assumed her inspiration would become someone having to deal with having a wrong first impression and coping with bullying, so she avoided school for a while, and strangely when she came back, no one else knew she was a liar. And her lies were not smart. It would have been too easy to figure her out, yet these people believed every word she said, barring that Marinette character. Marinette was prefect; she created such a beautiful chance at her favorite genre of writing. Tragedy. She loves tragedy, she loves the aspect of seeing a story play out, and with only a few decisions seeing something that could be a happily ever after turn so terrible. Lila realizes that this makes her a terrible person she just doesn’t care, at least she will come out and say it. when she wants to. but for now she wants to think about Marinette

Marinette was the prefect protagonists or I guess victim, I so easily turned all her friends against shifts the aspect and comfort she took from those people and even poisoned her own thoughts about them. To the point, she chose a healthier life and has moved on mostly, cutting all of those too stupid and greedy to see through the thin veneer of my lies before it was too late. And while she didn’t leave without a few emotional scars, she will be all the better in the end. Marinette, my wonderful protagonist, had her ending. But the tragedy aspect of the story is no longer just hers. An epilogue is in order for those left.

The players who made this whole drama come to life deserve to know what there just deserts are. As Lila finishes typing up Marinette’s new ending, she stands up and gets to gathering items she has been buying and saving for months. Being a part-time model did help with this, but she doesn’t think she would want to continue with this. Modeling was tedious, and so was Adrien. So dull that she is almost glad that her romance novel failed so fast, she has a feeling that she would have had to scrap it anyway. Anyhow she got to finishing warping all her gifts for her wonderful classmates. Monday would be an exciting class. She had already convinced her naive teacher to be out of the classroom for her show. She can’t for the life of her recall what lie she used for this but it’s unimportant as she finished her preparations and snuggles up to bed and falls asleep. Monday comes around as Lila gets up early and makes her way to school with giant bags of presents. She made it to class first; she places all the gifts on each desk. She then makes her hidden cameras were well hidden and video set up. She sits on the teacher’s desk and waits, and as her classmates come inside, she tells them that she has a surprise but not to open the present till the end. As everyone gets to their sits and looks so excited and happy and really why shouldn’t they be? They don’t know what about to happen to the perception of reality. The only desk with no gift was Chloe a very surprising character indeed, she made for a beautiful and unexpected redemption arch, she sits in her seat and simply glares at me. I smile sheepishly and once everyone is settled. I start my spiel. “Hello everyone, today I wanted to thank you so much for all that you have done. If it weren’t for you all, none of this would have been possible. I’m going to play this video and I just need you all to watch to the end thank you as Lila leaves the room and goes to an empty classroom to watch from the cameras she had set up earlier in the morning. The video starts with Rose, “Rose I wanted to thank you. You saw me as a friend and trusted me so fast, you were so able to gather all the girls like no other and because of you, Marinette understood that none of her ‘friends’ really cared about her anymore” Lila makes sure to air quotes, in the video, the word friends of course. She had seen true and real pure friendship and this class didn’t cut it. Rose and really the whole class seem to turn from happy and thankful to shock as she continued to speak, and Adrien looked the sickest of them all. But seemingly too shocked to stop her speech. “Of and Juleka I also have to thank you for being so willing I believe everything I said and making sure Marinette couldn’t get comfort from your big brother of yours it really helped the isolation aspect that you completely turned everyone outside of school against her but really I guess I can give credit to everyone for that” Lila blow a big kiss to room and flips her hair back. This unforcedly seems to break them from there stupor and Rose stood and said “I-I didn’t do that! I just wanted Marinette to go back to being a good friend why would you say such things?!” and Juleka says more quietly “Marinette did so many terrible things I didn’t want my brother getting involved in the wrong crowd” she seems to tremble like the weight of saying her words are too much. Lila having seen this coming had set up the video to say “now calm down, I have a reason for saying all this, and I promise everything will be clear in the end, while everything may seem bad to you now I promise by the end you’ll have new clarity about everything.” this rather surprisingly seems to calm them down. Though I have the sneaking thought that the present in front of them was an excellent positive investment to say silent for just a while longer.

I start going through everyone involved with making Marinette miserable, some of the highlight being Kim looking somewhat ashamed when he and Alix pushed Marinette down the stair multiple times and Max and Sabrina made sure to get the taps erased every time. Their expression was of a child being scolded for something they didn’t think was wrong. Which made sense they still thought of Marinette as a bully a terrine person. They didn’t seem to understand why I brought all this up. And why I was adding you chose and did this with no instruction from anymore else to the statements. The build-up was killing Lila and looked like it was killing Adrien as well. Oh, to see him squirmed was such fun. From her classroom, she laughed and kept recording there reactions. So much fun really. But before we get to the fun of causing a spineless boy to squirm their video goes over Alya’s involvement of her so-called ‘my best friend’ “Alya oh Alya you were always there for me, guarding me and making sure Marinette stayed in her place. Calling her a jealous bitched and completely disregarding anything she tried to tell you while also still trying to take advance of free babysitting and free clothes and pasties usually on the same day you make her cry.” Alya’s face was red she stands up to start yelling she had a betrayed expression on her face. “Girl what are you saying? I was defending you from a bully!” The class nodded in agreement. And Chloe starts to laugh “Really are you all this ridiculously stupid??? She is literally telling you how you fucked up and you still can’t take responsibility” Chloe said expression of sadness and slight disgust as she stares at them. While Lila didn’t like the interruptions to her spicy video she let it slide as it gave pause time for people to scream for a good ten seconds. “we still have one more person because I can finish my little speech.” past Lila said with a wink. She then speaks to Adrien I wanted to thank you most! If you had gas-lighted Marinette into staying silent and then totally abandoning her when supporting her would have been a widdle bit hard, without your totally knowing and willing approve and support now of this would be possible.” Before the class could argue more she added “Most all of you took my side because you thought you could get something from me, you wanted to use me the same way, Marinette was going to let herself be used by you. You deemed me a more valuable asset when you found you couldn’t have both and then diluted yourselves into thinking you are the justified ones. But your wrong, because I was lying to you all about everything I said to you were totally lies.” The class seems to freeze then exploded and start yelling and freaking out, I stare at them to recall all their beautiful betrayed reactions. As they started calling me the bad guy, all I say is please open your gift and read the letters first” video Lila was explaining what the letter was because the gifts were just that useful nice gifts for the most part. Rewards for being such good suckers and throwing away their ‘good friend’ The letter was super well-documented evidence of the harassment and bullying they had all done to Marinette while Lila was in the class. It showed how they chose to do what they did. It finally seemed to sink in for them that hey had fucked up and the expressions on their faces would be so helpful to finish off her novel as the all tried to call Marinette only to discover that she was gone they have no way to get in contact with her. Truly only then had some of there actions seem to matter at all to them. They have finally expressed the loss that Lila was craving for them to feel.

#Class salt #alya salt #Lila spicy #adrien salt #Im salty #i dont really write but here #ml salt

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writingfortoomanyfandoms · 4 years

Text

Mudblood

Pairing: Draco Malfoy x Hufflepuff!Muggleborn!Reader

Summary: The complicated relationship of a pureblood and a muggleborn, shown through their time at Hogwarts

Requested: No

Warnings: Swearing, blood purity, angst, death, mentions of torture, all that kinda stuff

A/N: can you truly count yourself as a Harry Potter writer if you haven’t written something about Malfoy dating a muggleborn??? I hope you guys enjoy this! Please let me know what you think - hearing your comments always perks me up and inspires me to write more! Also this is a long’un so strap yourselves in!

First Year

Y/N Y/L/N wasn’t scared of Draco Malfoy.

It wasn’t because she was brave, or because she knew she could outsmart him or anything like that - nothing like the reasons so many Gryffindors and Ravenclaws gave to try and convince themselves that they held no fear of the Slytherin bully.

No, it was nothing like that.

In a way, she felt sorry for him.

Sometimes, it seemed as though he was merely parroting his father’s words when he spoke so harshly to people.

She had been scared of him - most Hufflepuffs were. Hufflepuffs were aware of the way that a lot of the students - Slytherin’s in particular - viewed them. Knew that they were often perceived as being the ‘lesser’ house. And being a muggleborn as well just seemed to reinforce the point that there was no way that Draco Malfoy and his band of Slytherins would ever allow her a single peaceful moment.

During her first term at Hogwarts, she had dreaded every lesson she had with Malfoy, who she felt went out of his way to make her and Justin (the other muggleborn Hufflepuff student) feel inferior to everyone else.

But it didn’t take her long to get over that initial fear.

It probably came from her friendship with Harry, Ron and Hermione. It wasn’t as though they were close friends, but after helping them out during Herbology class and studying in the library with Hermione fairly regularly, it was safe to say that they were definitely friends.

And any association with the trio was immediately seen as a red flag by Malfoy, putting an even larger target on Y/N’s back.

But after hearing the many, many, rather creative insults thought up by Harry, Ron and Hermione about Malfoy, it was difficult for her to fear him.

“Watch where you’re going, Mudblood.”

Y/N had collided hard with the floor, her books falling from her bag, scattering on the ground.

“You walked into her, Malfoy,” Ron piped up from where he had been walking with Harry, a little behind Y/N and her friends, all of them on their way back into the school after Herbology.

“Then she should have gotten out of my way, shouldn’t she, Weasley,” just one glance up at Malfoy’s face allowed Y/N to understand how happy he was to pick a fight with anyone - the fact that Ron was also getting involved only served to cheer him further.

There was nothing that Malfoy enjoyed more than aggravating Harry and Ron, goading them into a fight just so that he could somehow swing it to a teacher to place the blame on them instead, causing the loss of Gryffindor house points.

Harry had dropped to the floor beside Y/N, kneeling down to help her gather her books back up.

“Thanks,” she muttered with a small smile, standing up and watching the interaction of Ron and Malfoy, both of whom were getting more and more worked up. “Ron, just leave it,” Y/N called, grabbing the attention of both boys mid-argument.

Malfoy glared at her but Y/N ignored him, looking instead at her friend.

“It doesn’t matter,” she told Ron, who opened his mouth to argue, but Y/N cut him off. “It doesn’t matter,” she repeated more forcefully, looking to her Hufflepuff friends before walking away.

It was a surprise for Y/N when Malfoy approached her the next day, when she was sitting alone in the library, getting her Potions homework finished.

“Can I sit here?”

“You’re asking?” Y/N asked in surprise. She shook her head quickly before offering a slightly nervous smile. “Go ahead.”

Malfoy sat in the chair opposite, but didn’t say anything - instead he stared at her from across the table, seemingly deep in thought as he studied her.

“Did you want something?”

Malfoy glanced down at the parchment Y/N was writing her homework on, tilting his head just a little to be able to read it.

“You got question four wrong.”

“Oh - right.”

Y/N was still frowning in complete confusion at Malfoy’s actions.

“Seriously - can I help you with something?” She asked after they had sat in awkward silence for another five minutes at least.

“You never fight back - is it a Hufflepuff trait? Being a pushover?” Malfoy inquired cooly.

“I’m glad you sought me out to attempt to insult me.” Y/N commented mildly.

“Attempt?”

“It’s not a Hufflepuff thing, being a pushover. I just don’t think you really mean it when you’re rude to me, or to most people, in fact.”

“You think I secretly like you?” Malfoy asked scornfully.

“No - I just don’t think that you’re as big of a dick that you act. I think that you’re trying to live up to some stupid expectations that you think everyone thinks that you should.”

Silence fell between them again, but (and maybe it was just Y/N’s imagination) Malfoy’s gaze seemed a little less harsh on her. She returned to her homework, aware that Malfoy was still watching her and feeling embarrassed under his scrutinising look.

Second Year

“Y/L/N!” Y/N nearly jumped out of her skin at the harsh call of her name.

She saw Justin’s eyes widen a little, looking over her shoulder to see who it was.

Y/N turned around, equally surprised to see Draco Malfoy stalking towards her - unusually, he was not accompanied by Crabbe and Goyle, or any of his usual Slytherin crew.

When he came to a stop in front of Y/N, his eyes slid over her to glare at Justin, who quickly caught onto the message.

“I’ll just…” he pointed helplessly towards the Great Hall, where the feast was about to start.

“Save me a seat.” Y/N responded, smiling to her friend who nodded, before rushing away, evidently wanting to be as far away from Malfoy as possible. “Hey, Malfoy,” she tried to maintain her smile but was incapable of keeping the mild worry off of her face - even now that they weren’t on exactly bad terms, it wasn’t like Malfoy to go out of his way to seek out a conversation with her - Y/N wouldn’t kid herself, she knew how Malfoy continued to view her.

“You’re awake,” Malfoy finally breaks the awkward silence between them, stating the obvious. It brings a real smile to her face as she nods.

“I am.”

“I’m… I’m glad,” Malfoy confessed, looking uncomfortable, breaking their eye contact.

“So am I.”

“Do you… remember anything?”

“I don’t know what happened while I was petrified if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Oh… right,” a faint tinge of pink rose in his cheeks and he scuffed his shoes. “I… I visited you.”

“What?” The shock-induced word was out of her mouth before she could think better of it and she stared at him, wide-eyed.

“Nothing - it’s stupid,” immediately he had built his barriers back up, meeting her eyes again but the harshness was back in his gaze, his jaw set in place, all angles and hard edges.

“You visited me?” Y/N repeated, finally regaining control of her surprise and beaming at him.

“Well… yeah,” Malfoy looked wary of her as he confirmed his actions.

“Why?” A light laugh accompanied her words and she could have sworn that she saw the corner of Malfoy’s mouth twitch, too, as though he wanted to smile back at her.

“I… I didn’t want you to die.”

“That makes a change,” but it’s clear that she’s teasing him from her smile, from the tone of voice that suggests that she’s about to start laughing again and she sees Draco soften a little, even allowing himself to smile back at her, albeit tentatively.

“I can help you catch up, if you want,” he doesn’t seem to be aware of making the offer, judging by the look of mild surprise that crosses his face, but which he quickly covers up as best he can.

“Pardon?”

“I know we only have a few days left of term but, I could try and help you catch up, if you wanted - I’m pretty good at Potions,” he seems more sure of himself this time and it causes Y/N’s smile to widen.

“Thanks.”

“Of course.”

Third Year

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Y/N turned her head to look at Draco, not at all surprised to see him standing there, with his arms crossed, glaring at her.

“Is that so?”

“You know you have,” Draco grumbled, pouting a little at her.

“You’re acting like a child,” Y/N warned, turning the page of her book dismissively.

“You’re being a bitch,” he huffed in response. “Hey!”

Y/N had hit him with her book the moment the insult had left his lips.

She lifted her book to hide the smile growing on her face from his indignant reaction.

“What do you want, Draco?” She sighed.

“I want to know why you’re ignoring me.”

“I thought you didn’t care what mudbloods think?” A groan slipped past his lips and he fell to the ground beside her, watching her intently.

“What’s it really about?” Draco asked at last.

“I thought everything was about blood purity,” Y/N commented.

“Y/N.”

“Why did you do it?” She burst out, snapping her book closed and staring at him.

“Do what?”

“Make such a big deal about your arm - I know it didn’t hurt that much and Madame Pomfrey healed it immediately. You didn’t need to get it executed.” Tears were burning in her eyes.

“I didn’t know it would be executed,” Draco protested.

“You knew your father wouldn’t let it go easily - you must’ve known something like this would happen,” Y/N declared, shaking her head.

“Why do you care so much?”

“Because Buckbeak was a living creature, Malfoy! It didn’t deserve to die just because you were too bloody proud to listen to what Hagrid was saying!”

“You weren’t in the class! You don’t know what happened!”

“Harry told me what happened.” Y/N muttered, aware of the reaction it would bring from her friend.

“So you’ll believe Potter over me?”

“You haven’t denied it,” Y/N pointed out darkly.

“You’ve been avoiding me for months because of a fucking Hippogriff?”

“Well it does make a change from it being you avoiding me.”

Her words had an immediate effect on Draco, who recoiled a little, becoming even more defensive, wounded by her accusation.

“You know why I avoid you.”

“Yes - because your reputation is more important to you than your friends.”

Y/N went to stand up but Draco caught hold of her hand, looking utterly desperate when Y/N cast her eyes back to him and he tugged, evidently hoping that she would sit down and join him again.

“Please don’t leave me,” guilt laced his voice, and Y/N wondered if he understood at last where she was coming from - if he understood how it felt for her every time he pretended she didn’t exist, when he scorned her in front of their classmates but acted like she was his closest friend when it was just the two of them. “I’m sorry.”

It didn’t take much to get Y/N to give in to his pleas, one look into his puppy-dog expression and she sighed, resuming her previous position beside her friend.

“You’re really important to me, you know,” Draco said after a while, his words quiet and when Y/N looked to him, he didn’t look up, studying his hands as though lost in thought but by the blush on his cheeks it was clear that he was just embarrassed.

“It’s okay, Draco - I understand. It’s how you were brought up.”

“But you really are - you’re one of the most important people in my life,” Draco insisted, finally looking up. Y/N gave him a small smile. “But… not just… as a friend,” he was frowning a little and y/N’s heard began to thud in her chest.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that… that I like you. I like you a lot,” he breathed a slight laugh with his confession, giving her a nervous grin that sent her heart fluttering even more.

“You do?”

“Yeah.”

“You know that makes everything between us even more complicated than before?” Y/N asked, but she moved closer to him, resting her head onto his shoulder, wanting to reassure him that she wasn’t rejecting him.

Draco seemed to pick up on what she was truly trying to say and grabbed her hand, lacing their fingers together.

“Are you okay with hiding with me a little longer?” He whispered.

Y/N squeezed his hand.

Fourth Year

Y/N had been able to feel Draco’s eyes glaring into her all day, and she had a feeling that she knew exactly what it was about.

This knowledge was why she wasn’t exactly surprised when she was walking with Ernie, Justin and Hannah towards the Great Hall for dinner, after Transfiguration, and a hand reached out and clasped around her wrist, tugging her to the side.

A slight yelp left her lips, however and her fellow Hufflepuffs turned to look at her, frowning in concern.

“I just realised I forgot something - go in, I’ll catch up with you,” she offered with a strained smile. Her friends exchanged looks before doing as she asked and Y/N turned to the figure that had retreated the moment that her friends had looked towards them, rolling her eyes at him. “Way to be subtle,” she told him, but Draco just glared at her. “What’s wrong?” She sighed, following Draco a little further into the shadows, out of view of any other students.

“Is it true?” Hurt was clear in his voice and it was only then that Y/N took in the sadness that gleamed in his eyes.

“Is what true?” A feeling of dread settled in her stomach, though - she was well aware of what Draco was asking her.

“I heard Potter talking during Potions - apparently he’s taking you to the ball. Is that true?” Draco’s words were stiff, desperately trying to hide how much it hurt him to speak them aloud.

“Yeah, I’m going with Harry,” Y/N confessed.

“Why?” He didn’t even attempt to keep the shake from his voice.

“You weren’t going to ask me - Harry needed a date so he asked me to go with him. As friends,” Y/N shrugged.

“You wanted me to… to ask you?” Draco repeated a little faintly, his eyes searching hers desperately. Y/N smiled just a little and gave a half shrug of her shoulders.

“I thought that much was obvious.”

“I couldn’t ask you.”

“I know.”

“I wanted to.”

“I know,” Y/N reached up a hand, cupping Draco’s cheek and angling his face carefully to force him to look at her and she gave him a sad smile. “I understand, Draco - I do, I promise.”

“But why Potter of all people?”

“Because we’re friends, Draco,” Y/N laughed, watching Draco lean into her touch, his eyes closing contentedly. “And I knew you were going with Pansy,” she admitted in a whisper, not wanting to allow her own insecurities to be heard too clearly in her voice, but it was clear that she had failed in that regard when Draco’s eyes snapped open and met hers.

“It’s not like that,” he hastened to assure her and Y/N responded with a half-smile accompanied with a slight shrug of her shoulders. Silence fell between them before Draco let out a slight sigh. “I wish I could go with you,” he confessed, leaning down and resting his forehead against hers.

“I would’ve said yes if you’d asked - just for the record,” Draco breathed a laugh, his eyes closing again.

“I don’t deserve you,” he murmured, brushing his lips against hers, feeling her smile her shy, sweet smile.

“I’ll always wait for you,” she responded instead, stating it as though it was a simple fact.

Harry had conveniently forgotten to mention to Y/N that agreeing to being his date to the Yule Ball also meant agreeing to dancing in front of the whole school and their visitors.

“I thought you’d say no if I told you!” Harry laughed as he led Y/N off of the dance floor, towards Ron who was standing with his rather disgruntled-looking date.

“And it would have been perfectly reasonable for me to say no!” Y/N announced, pushing her friend’s shoulder playfully.

“Can we go sit down?” Ron muttered, barely sparing a greeting for his friends. Y/N raised an amused eyebrow at Harry who grinned at her, a silent promise in his eyes to fill her in later.

As Y/N crossed the room with Ron and Harry - Padma Patil in tow, though not looking at all happy about the company she was in for the evening - she could feel eyes watching her. Y/N looked over in the direction of the group of Fourth Year Slytherins. Sure enough, Draco was standing there, Pansy in front of him, evidently attempting to engage him in conversation. Draco was nodding along with whatever she was saying but his eyes were on her, an expression on his face that Y/N didn’t quite understand.

She offered him a small smile and thought she saw a slight quirk at the corners of Draco’s lips before he managed to get control of his expression again and returned to his conversation with his date.

Y/N felt a pang in her chest when she saw Draco laughing at something Pansy had said.

It was late into the evening when she was, once again, grabbed by the wrist from the shadows, having been on her way to get butterbeers for herself, Ron and Harry.

Draco pulled her into an alcove off of the Great Hall, where they could still hear the music being played by the band. He smiled down at her.

“You look beautiful tonight,” he told her, squeezing her hand. Y/N’s skin crawled with embarrassment and she looked down to the floor, grinning to herself.

“Thanks - so do you.”

“I look beautiful?” Draco asked, laughter in his voice and when Y/N looked up at him, her heart fluttered at his crinkled eyes.

“You always look beautiful.”

Draco flushed a bright pink but his smile only widened.

“I know it’s not the same but - would you like to dance with me?” He offered, tilting his head a little in the direction of the source of the music. Y/N bit her lip and nodded, stepping closer to him and breathing in the scent that she had become so familiar with lately.

“I should warn you, though, I stepped on Harry’s toes a lot when we danced.”

“I’m sure that was Potter’s fault, not yours. He strikes me as an awful dancer,” Draco commented, beginning to lead them in their dance.

“I never thought you’d be so good.”

“Most purebloods are - we go to a lot of galas and dances, see?” He looked a little embarrassed. Y/N knew that, when he was with her, he didn’t like to talk about his blood status, it only served as a reminder to what she was - to the reasons why they had to dance in alcoves, rather than with the rest of the school.

Y/N didn’t reply other than to rest her head on his chest, her eyes squeezing shut as they continued to dance, wanting to savour every moment of happiness.

Fifth Year

“She’s a bitch.” Y/N stated, fixing Draco with a glare that practically dared him to disagree with her.

“She’s not that bad,” Draco insisted.

“You only like her because you share a dislike of Harry!”

“That’s not true.”

“She’s an awful teacher,” Y/N pointed out and Draco sighed heavily. “And she’s just awful to everyone!”

“She’s not that bad to me,” Draco shrugged, going back to his Defence Against the Dark Arts homework that him and Y/N were both meant to be working on.

“Of course she’s not that bad to you,” Y/N laughed.

“What do you mean by that?”

“You’re a pureblood - and a Malfoy at that! She respects you!”

“I am pretty deserving of respect,” Draco mused and Y/N rolled her eyes, throwing a scrunched up piece of parchment at his head, causing him to laugh, batting it away. “Does she really give you a hard time?” He asked and Y/N could see the concerned look in his eyes as he asked.

“It’s nothing that I’m not used to,” was her response, immediately feeling bad for bringing up her blood status.

“Y/N…”

“You of all people understand how some witches and wizards feel about mudbloods.”

“Don’t call yourself that.” Draco snapped immediately, a harsh look in his eyes.

“Why not? Everyone else does,” Y/N pointed out drily, going back to her own piece of parchment. “You did.” She added, not looking up. Not needing to, to know the reaction that her words would cause.

“I was stupid,” Draco told her, a pained edge to his voice.

“You still call the others it.”

“You’re different.”

“Why?” Y/N inquired, looking up again, tilting her head just a little to the side, taking in the expression on Draco’s face.

“You know why,” Draco muttered.

A heavy silence fell between them, unlike any that they had experienced since their second year. Y/N broke it at last, scooting over towards him and resting her head on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry - I shouldn’t have said anything,” she said quietly. Draco hesitated for a moment before dropping his head down to rest atop hers.

“I don’t want this.” He admitted and Y/N tensed up, unsure if she wanted to hear what else Draco was going to say. “I don’t want to hide you.”

“You said that it was for the best,” she reminded him mutely.

“And it is,” Draco agreed through a long sigh. “Especially now he’s back,” they were approaching dangerous territory.

They had yet to discuss Voldemort’s return. Y/N was aware that Draco’s parents were Death Eaters - Draco had confided in her that his father had indeed returned to Voldemort’s inner circle the night marking the end of the Triwizard Tournament the previous year. But other than that, it had been very much a taboo subject - it made their relationship even more turbulent than before. Even less certain of a future.

“But just because it’s for the best, it doesn’t mean that I have to like it,” he finished and Y/N couldn’t help but smile a little.

“You sound like a child.”

“I wish it were all easier.”

Y/N thought she heard a slight crack in his voice, but knew better than to mention it. Instead, she nestled a little closer to him, craning her neck to press a kiss to his cheek.

“One day it will be.”

Sixth Year

Y/N allowed her fingers to trail up and down Draco’s arm, lost in thought.

Lately, they had gotten into the habit of sneaking Y/N into the Slytherin boys dorms after everyone had already gone to sleep. Draco didn’t go to bed until well past midnight anymore anyway, choosing instead to spend his time working on the Vanishing Cabinet in the Room of Requirement.

He had confided in Y/N fairly soon into the term - he never had been very good at hiding things from her, and while he would by no means allow her to help him directly, completely refusing to let her be tied to his awful assignment in any way, she had done her best to help him.

Joining him in his dorm after he would turn in for the night was one of the ways she would attempt to soothe her boyfriend.

Draco didn’t sleep anymore.

His mind was plagued with far too many anxieties, overworked with ideas of how to fix the Vanishing Cabinet, of how to get Voldemort to forgive his father.

He was carrying the weight of his family on his shoulders and he was only sixteen. Y/N wondered how he hadn’t cracked yet.

“Draco?” Y/N whispered into the darkness.

“Yeah?”

“What’s going to happen now that… now that you’ve fixed it?” She asked and she felt Draco take a deep, shuddering breath and held onto him a little tighter.

“I have to… fulfil my duty,” his voice was hoarse and Y/N could feel dampness on the top of her head and felt her heart break. She moved so that she was looking up at him, meeting his eyes, swimming with tears that had begun to overflow.

She reached up a hand, cupping his cheek, using her thumb to gently brush away his tears.

“Hey - it’s going to be okay.”

“Is it?” He sniffed, turning his face to kiss her palm, his eyes shutting. “I’m so fucking scared - and it’s happening tomorrow. There’s nothing I can do anymore.”

Silence engulfed them again, broken only by the sounds of Draco’s dormmates snoring.

“I think we should break up.”

Y/N physically recoiled from him, staring at her boyfriend in wide-eyed hurt shock. She can see the response that the loss of her touch has on him, Draco looked a lot more alert, a lot harder than before, but a little more broken, craving the reassurance that her gentle touches would bring him.

“It’s for the best,” he whispered, another tear slipping down his cheek.

“Draco…”

“He’ll hurt you if he finds out about you - he’ll use you to get to me, just as he used my Father. And it’ll be worse for you because you’re...”

“A mudblood,” Y/N finished for him. Draco gave a quiet, pained moan at her words, grimacing.

“I shouldn’t have started this,” he said quietly. “I shouldn’t have let myself fall in love with you.”

Y/N let out a quiet laugh, though her cheeks were wet with tears.

“If only it were that easy.”

Seventh Year

“Where is she?” Draco demanded Harry.

Tears were burning in his eyes, pain radiated off of him, the aura of loss hung around him. He had just lost Crabbe - one of the closest things he had ever had to a friend, one of the people he figured he’d always have, even just as back up.

He needed her.

The one person who wasn’t scared or intimidated by him, but who loved him because she thought that he could do some good.

“She was tortured because of you!” Harry screamed back, the two of them seemingly unaware of the Battle that continued to rage around them.

“I love her,” Draco told him, utterly defeated. “I’ve always loved her.”

“We had to rescue her from your home!” Harry raged, his gaze murderous, ignoring Ron and Hermione’s calls to him.

“Please just tell me that she’s not here - please tell me that she’s safe somewhere - somewhere far away from here,” Draco pleaded.

Harry didn’t respond, but the look on his face before he rushed away with his friends was answer enough for him.

It was enough for him to pull himself together, heaving himself up off of the floor outside the Room of Requirement and, leaving Goyle still recovering on the ground, he moved towards the sound of fighting, determined to find her.

Determined to put her right.

The last time that he had seen her was one of the worst days of his life - it was tied with the day that Voldemort had looked into his mind and discovered her existence and the importance that she held to Draco, and also with the day that she had been captured and brought to Malfoy Manor.

It was his Aunt that took the most pleasure in her company.

While Draco had screamed and writhed against his father’s restraints, wanting to get to her, Bellatrix had cackled and tortured Y/N, though Draco wasn’t exactly sure what she had hoped to gain from it.

Y/N was screaming for death by the time Bellatrix had grown weary and she had been taken to the basement to join Ollivander and Luna who were already being kept captive down there.

Draco had screamed himself hoarse and was sobbing, pleading with his parents to let him go, to let him free her.

It hadn’t taken long for him to realise that they kept her alive only to keep him in line.

Anytime he showed even the slightest sign of doubt, Y/N was brought back up.

When Fenrir had appeared with Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dean and the goblin, Draco had for the first time since her arrival, allowed himself the slightest bit of hope.

“Take her with you,” he had pleaded in his mind as the group were thrown down to join the others in the basement. Draco knew that there was no chance of Harry remaining there - he knew he would escape because it was Harry Potter. As infuriating as it was, getting out of tight situations was what Harry did best.

Draco didn’t find her until he entered the Great Hall after Voldemort had called a truce and implored Harry to find him in the forest.

He skirted around the sides of the room, not wanting to disturb the mourners. He felt a pang in his chest when he caught sight of the group of redheads, all of them gathered around a body on the floor.

But his sympathy didn’t last long because only moments later did he catch sight of her and relief flooded through his veins.

He was running towards her before he could think better of it. Tears were streaming down his face and she looked up, hearing the fast approaching footsteps. Her lips parted in shock and then they seemed to twitch upwards in the beginnings of a smile.

Y/N stood up, opening her arms to embrace Draco the moment that he barrelled into her, muttering apologies to her over and over again.

“I’m okay,” Y/N whispered, running her hand through his platinum-blond hair which was, at the moment, tinged black with soot and grime. “I’m okay.”

“You shouldn’t be here,” Draco hiccuped, trying to get a hold of his emotions, pulling back but before he could wipe his eyes, Y/N had lifted her hands to do it for him.

“You still look beautiful, you know.”

And even though the word was burning around them, even after the horrors that they had both seen in recent days, months, years, even with the grief in the room and the hollowness in their chests, Draco laughed.

And then, aware that they were being watched by many of their former classmates, he pushed some hair away from her face and kissed her.

#draco malfoy #draco malfoy fanfiction #draco malfoy imagine #draco malfoy x reader #draco malfoy fluff #draco malfoy angst #harry potter #harry potter fanfiction #draco malfoy x hufflepuff!reader #draco malfoy x y/n #courts writings

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laurelnose · 3 years

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Very New to your blog and the posts are probably way old but I saw you do Witcher Biology (??) rants sometimes and Id love to hear your take, if you have one, on what monsters (namely "naturally occurring" ones like draconids and insectoids) contribute to the ecosystem if anything and whether or not they should be hunted into extinction. I was discussing it w/ a friend last night after dealing with Iocaste, the last silver basilisk, and now its smthn I'm Invested in

re monster ecosystems: I just figure theyve probably found a niche in the world by now and can eat anything smaller incl. humans but because theyve got no natural predators aside from eachother and arent hunted by anything but witchers , monsters are just breeding and eating and wldnt that damage the land? or have they made their own like, circle of life or whatever ? Ive little knowledge on the subject as a whole but the whole thing intrigues me

hi & extremely belated welcome, anon! my apologies for the length of time you’ve been waiting for this answer; I had to think carefully about how I wanted to respond to this ask, because: there’s a lot going on here. also, because I am a disaster, I ended up posting it to ao3 first while I was avoiding tumblr for a spell and then completely forgot to come back. oops. i’m sorry!! This one’s about 5000 words long, which is a lot for tumblr, so reading on AO3 may be preferable.

The two main thrusts of your first ask (how do monsters interact with the ecosystem and should they be eradicated from the Continent) are questions of invasion ecology, the study of non-native/invasive species and their effects on the environment. Monsters, having arrived on the Continent about 1200 years ago during the Conjunction of Spheres from entirely alien dimensions, are indeed technically non-native species!

However, invasion ecology is…somewhat controversial, to say the least—there are a lot of invasive species, who have a lot of different & complex impacts, and a lot of different ideas about what we might do about any of this, and it’s basically all arguing all the time, so I wasn’t really sure how I wanted to approach the topic. Not to mention that for reasons I couldn’t initially put my finger on, it seemed wrong to apply theories of invasion ecology to the Witcher monsters. We’ll get into it! There are also a couple of common misconceptions/oversimplifications of how ecology works in your second ask which I want to unpack. Hopefully I pulled this together into something that makes sense, and feel free to ask me for clarification!

Some important background facts:

Species have always been moving to and “invading” new places on their own; humans and globalization have accelerated this process into a Big Problem, as the sheer number of invasive species being introduced all over the globe strains ecosystems already under pressure, but “native ranges” are always shifting, sometimes more dramatically than you might expect. If you go far enough back in time, all species are “non-native”.

Because of this, the very definition of “invasive species” is hotly contested. This is why you’ll hear dozens of terms like introduced species, injurious species, naturalized species, non-native species, etc.; these all have slightly different connotations, but all refer to a species that did not originate in a particular location.

An introduced species is usually classified as “invasive” as opposed to “non-native” or “naturalized” if its presence significantly alters the ecosystem it invades; some people define this more narrowly as a species that causes harm to an ecosystem. “Harm” can take a lot of different forms, as every non-native species interacts differently with the ecosystem they were introduced to.

Aside from various potential impacts to human economic activity, most forms of ecological harm by introduced species involve the decline of native species, by a variety of mechanisms; invaders might eat natives, outcompete them for food, interbreed with them, carry novel pathogens, etc. Invasive species are primarily a threat to biodiversity.

Now, here’s my Hot Take:

The Conjunction of Spheres is analogous to real-life ecological cataclysms such as the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event, and thus monsters are not invasive species.

The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event saw the extinction of 75% of all species on Earth after the Chicxulub asteroid hit, including the non-avian dinosaurs. The Earth has had several disasters like this, of varying severity—the Great Oxidation Event killed almost literally everything on Earth except for the cyanobacteria who caused it. These cataclysmic extinction events completely upended existing ecosystems, altering habitats beyond recognition and leaving swathes of niches emptied of life that the survivors could evolve to exploit.

The most recent Conjunction of Spheres on the Continent is supposed to have thrown everyone living on the planet at the time into chaos and darkness; it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that the interpenetration of multiple spheres caused mass extinction of species living in the pre-Conjunction environment, similar to Chicxulub or the GOE!

But Socks, you might say, evolution works on a massive timescale! It took millions of years to fill the niches left open by Chicxulub, but it’s only been 1200 years since the Conjunction of Spheres! And you are absolutely right*, but the Conjunction of Spheres canonically came pre-loaded with new species. We actually have no proof that any of the animals we see originated on the Continent: if humans are a post-Conjunction phenomenon, why not also dogs? Why not bears? Who’s to say any of those were actually there before-hand? (The elves, I guess, but as they have not, actually, said so, there’s no proof!!)

* FTR, 1200 years is a shockingly short period of time to go from cataclysm that plunged the world into darkness and chaos to functioning medieval-era society considering how long it actually took humanity to build 13 century Europe (horses had been domesticated for at least 3000 years by that time), even if we’re not assuming that most of the ecosystem was destroyed, so, my timeline concerns here are minimal, lmfao. TIMELINE WHAT TIMELINE.

…and actually now that I think about it the three options for the origin of dogs are a) elves or dwarves domesticated them, b) humans brought dogs with them during the Conjunction, or c) dogs have existed for less than 1200 years, and I refuse to accept that dogs are practically a new invention in the witcherverse, wtf.

Anyways: we really have no idea which species are truly “native” to the Continent, or what the physical environment was like prior to the Conjunction. While monsters are not native to the Continent, monsters are also not invasive—there cannot be decline of pre-Conjunction biodiversity or harm to the pre-Conjunction ecosystem because there is no pre-Conjunction ecosystem anymore.

should monsters be hunted to extinction?

So, the thing is, I think we should try to eradicate invasive species from non-native ranges if we can; the biggest problem with that is feasibility, not morality. It’s much more difficult than one might think to eradicate an invasive species once it’s established, and we have to be very careful that the methods we choose don’t have other impacts, but invasive species are a huge threat to the biodiversity of Earth! If monsters are invasive species, then the answer is yes, they should be eradicated from the places they are not native to.

(Notably, on Earth this kind of eradication is not the same thing as extinction; it would be a local extinction, or extirpation, where the species is totally wiped out in the places it invaded but still exists in its native range. This does get way more complicated if the invasive is already extinct in its native range.)

However, I have just outlined a possibility that would make it plausible for monsters not to be invasive species. Let me also outline why I prefer this interpretation. Here is a book conversation between the sorcerer Dorregaray of Vole and Geralt:

“Our world is in equilibrium. The annihilation, the killing, of any creatures that inhabit this world upsets that equilibrium. And a lack of equilibrium brings closer extinction; extinction and the end of the world as we know it. … Every species has its own natural enemies, every one is the natural enemy of other species. That also includes humans. The extermination of the natural enemies of humans, which you dedicate yourself to, and which one can begin to observe, threatens the degeneration of the race.”

“Do you know what, sorcerer?” Geralt said, annoyed. “One day, take yourself to a mother whose child has been devoured by a basilisk, and tell her she ought to be glad, because thanks to that the human race has escaped degeneration. See what she says to you.”

–The Bounds of Reason, ch. 6

This is a, uh, incredibly unsubtle reference to a debate that has been ongoing for decades; Geralt’s stance here is one of the key arguments in opposition to wolf and bear reintroduction. What do we do about large predators that may pose a threat to humans? How do we balance preservation of the ecosystem with the safety of people who have to coexist with these predators?

I can’t fully agree with Geralt, because large predators are integral to the ecosystem, which I value for its own sake and because humans depend on healthy ecosystems. But I can’t fully agree with Dorregaray either, because Geralt is right: human life is valuable and worthy of protecting. This is an issue that India has been running into in the past ten years; as their tiger conservation efforts yield fruit, people become more likely to encounter tigers, and thus more likely to have a bad encounter with a tiger. It’s become a political struggle as rural people who have to actually live with the possibility of a tiger attack come into conflict with urban conservationists who just really want to preserve tigers (& in some incidents, some of those conservationists have been Western, which is a whole additional level of fuckery). The fact is, there isn’t a good answer to this yet! We certainly should not drive tigers, wolves, or any other large predator to extinction, but we also have to figure out a way to keep people safe. It’s something humanity still has to wrestle with.

Under this framing, which CDPR reinforced when they chose to have the Count di Salvaress defend Iocaste as an endangered species while making significant provisions to minimize the damage she could do to human life, there’s far too much baggage attached for me to say yes, monsters should be hunted into extinction. If you’re going to make monsters analogous to wolves, of course I do not think we should get rid of monsters entirely!

And frankly, Geralt doesn’t think so either, despite his hardline stance about monsters that eat humans. Sapkowski isn’t exactly an anti-conservationist; though Dorregaray is shown as out of touch in this passage, at another point the narrative sides with him calling Philippa out on exterminating a species of ermine for her fur collar, and it’s consistently put forth that Geralt’s best quality is that he doesn’t want to perform violence for the sake of it or destroy things without cause, and one of the representations of that is that he refuses to kill endangered species even at cost to himself:

“What should I say about you, who rejects a lucrative proposition every other day? You won’t kill hirikkas, because they’re an endangered species, or mecopterans, because they’re harmless, or night spirits, because they’re sweet, or dragons, because your code forbids it.”

–Eternal Flame, ch. 2

If monsters and other post-Conjunction creatures are invasive species, the nuance in this conversation is flattened, and Geralt’s refusal to kill mecopterans and hirikkas becomes a flaw rather than a virtue. Boring! I also think that one of the strongest themes in the witcherverse is the idea of all monsters being human ills; wraiths are manifestations of hatred, necrophages multiply because of human bloodshed, cursed ones are created out of malice, mages like Alzur and Idarran of Ulivo go out of their way to straight-up create monsters from scratch*, etc. Iocaste attacks humans and takes livestock because the traditional prey of the silver basilisk, roe deer, has been extirpated by human destruction of their habitat. The aeschna in Blood of Elves attacks humans because humans have altered and polluted the flow of the Pontar, hunting the aeschna’s previous food (seals) to extinction. The true monster is the actions of humans. Monsters that appeared unbidden from another dimension into a previously functional ecosystem to invade and cause problems undermines this theme; monsters that are integrated into the ecosystem and subject to the same social and ecological forces as other animals supports it.

* Idarran’s “idr” monsters from Season of Storms absolutely should be eradicated. Did the world not have enough man-eating arthropods, Idarran? Did you really have to mutate horrible new ones and release them in populated areas?? Mages are a scourge, lmfao

Additionally, one of the biggest reasons I felt like I couldn’t actually apply invasion ecology to monsters was that, whether you accept my Conjunction theory as sufficient biological justification for this or not, monsters just don’t really behave like invasive species. It’s hard to explain this because the setting is pretty brief about its ecological details, but aside from the fact that the narrative frames them like just part of the ecosystem of the world, there are never any details like “that type of flower doesn’t exist anymore because giant centipede tunneling destroyed the soil they needed to grow in.” When monsters are the aggressors, their victims are always humans, not the environment or other animals, and again monsters are themselves often treated as victims of human actions.

So I say monsters aren’t invasive species!

Which means that monsters are, regardless of their strange origins, now a part of the Continent’s ecosystem just as much as bears and wolves.

So let’s talk monster ecology.

what do monsters contribute to the ecosystem, if anything?

So, the phrase “contributing to the ecosystem” is actually super loaded, and I want to unpack that before we go anywhere else. Ecosystems are made up of organisms, and organisms interact with and impact ecosystems, but they don’t necessarily contribute to ecosystems! The implication of “contribute” is that it is possible for an organism to not contribute, and it follows from there that some organisms are not useful. This is functionally nonsensical, and also dangerous.

Conservationists talk a lot about “intrinsic value,” which in this context is the idea that we should want to keep species around just because their existence is valuable! Biodiversity is intrinsically valuable. This is important, firstly because I do believe that all species are intrinsically valuable, but also: ecosystems are so enormously complicated that we do not know the full extent of any species or individual organism’s impact, and we can’t predict what the consequences of removing any given species might be. Treating all species as intrinsically valuable is hedging our bets. All organisms affect the ecosystem, because it’s impossible for them not to, and while some species definitely have outsize impact, none of them are “not contributing,” and frankly even if some of them weren’t, it would be the absolute height of human arrogance for us to decide we could tell which ones were useless when we barely even know what most species eat. Mosquitoes are the base of the entire goddamn food chain, and you still get assholes claiming they don’t “contribute anything.” Of course, most people don’t really mean all of these implications when they use the phrase, but I don’t find it useful to talk about what species “contribute,” and avoid using that language if I can!

What I assume you mean by “what do monsters contribute” is a combination of “what roles might monsters play in the ecosystem” and “are monsters actively harmful to the ecosystem, i.e. do they cause loss of biodiversity?”

And this is difficult to answer! As I’ve said, I don’t think monsters are invasive species, and thus don’t harm the ecosystem, though we know that monsters can be harmful to humans. However, when it comes to the role they do play in the ecosystem, there isn’t enough in canon for me to do more than wildly speculate! Also, there are so so many of them, and the role of a hirikka is going to be wildly different from that of a draconid.

Just offhandedly, most of the big predatory monsters can be assumed to fill the same roles as Earth’s big predators, one of the big ones being overpopulation of prey species, which has ramifications throughout the ecosystem. Some of them are canonically ecosystem engineers, or animals that physically alter their environment (think beavers); for instance, shaelmaar and nekker tunneling. Additionally, the big insectoid colonies can’t be relying solely on naturally-occurring caves for their homes; they’ve gotta be constructing some stuff themselves. These tunnels can be repurposed as habitat for other organisms, from giant centipedes to sewant mushrooms. Necrophages, like corpse-eaters in our world, likely limit the spread of diseases from decomposing flesh (and really wouldn’t be as much of an issue if everyone would stop, you know, doing war and mass murder, lmfao). Arachasae use tree trunks and organic plant material to conceal themselves, which is likely contributing to plant reproduction in a few different ways—but the arachasae decorating essay is a different topic that I swear I will finish one day oh my god—

…anyways, feel free to ask about any specific monsters or niches if you’re curious, but if I tried to go into detail with every single potential niche/ecosystem service all of the monsters we know of might fill, we would be here all day!

Let’s talk about a couple specific things you brought up in your second ask.

> theyve probably found a niche in the world by now and can eat anything smaller incl. humans

I mean…maybe! That is, yeah, they’ve definitely settled into niches by now, but feeding is way more complicated and interesting than that.

For instance: orcas can eat basically whatever the fuck they want—orcas are fully capable of bringing down everything from fish to seals to gray whales to great white sharks. But they don’t. In the Pacific Northwest, the resident orca pods almost exclusively eat salmon, while the transient pods largely feed on seals. Orcas are kind of an extreme example, but this is something called resource partitioning and it’s a big part of how animals limit competition with one another and what enables lots of predators to coexist in one place!

We see a big fuck-off dragon thing and we assume that it’ll eat anything it can fit in its mouth, and definitely some predators work like that. But just because an animal is technically capable of eating something and deriving nutrition from it doesn’t mean that it will. Silver basilisks made roe deer the staple of their diet before the destruction of beech forests meant they had to turn to humans—which is a pretty specific dietary restriction when there should be multiple species of deer running around, not to mention everything else a draconid could be killing! And given how many types of draconid there are…I have to assume there’s some kind of resource partitioning going on to prevent them all from conflicting with each other! For instance, if basilisks prefer roe deer, maybe forktails prefer wild goats, while wyverns are mostly kleptoparasitic (stealing other predators’ kills).

And of course, not all monsters eat humans at all; harpies steal from and attack humans, so they’re a dangerous nuisance, but they don’t seem to eat them. And in the books Geralt mentions plenty of monsters which are totally harmless.

So yes, there are lots of things monsters could be eating, but it would strongly depend, and there’s a lot of interesting places one can take monster diets! Netflix decided their strigas only eat specific organs, leaving the rest of the body untouche, & I love that for her. More monsters that need a particular kind of nutrition that leads them to take only specific body parts from some kills!

> because theyve got no natural predators aside from each other and arent hunted by anything but witchers, monsters are just breeding and eating and wldnt that damage the land? or have they made their own like, circle of life or whatever ?

Absolutely—invasive species whose populations rapidly increase once they’re away from their natural predators cause the decline of native species, often by eating natives directly or competing with natives for resources. And in fact, even native species who become overpopulated can seriously damage the ecosystem (see: white-tailed deer in the United States, whose overpopulation has such negative ecological effects that some people argue we should classify them as invasive, even though they have definitely been here this whole time).

However, even if we grant that monsters are invasive, it’s a little more complicated than that for a few reasons!

Despite the apparent preponderance of them in the witcher games, most monsters are supposed to be strongly on the decline, like witchers themselves. Geralt’s profession is falling out of necessity; human development of the Continent is going to be the biggest suppressing factor in monster populations in the future. Monster overpopulation is just canonically not a problem in this universe! But even in the scenario where the Inevitable March Of Civilization isn’t threatening monster populations, there are a lot of factors that could and would limit monster populations.

(TL;DR for this next part: yeah I definitely think they’ve figured out their own little circle of life—the term you’re looking for is ecosystem equilibrium, btw!—& I’m going to take the next 1.2k to talk about how.)

For starters, predation is only one among many limiting factors that affect populations & prevent them from ballooning out of control:

food availability: If there’s not enough food, there’s not enough food! It also matters how adaptable the animal’s diet is—silver basilisks moved from deer to humans, but if the eucalyptus went extinct koalas would not switch to eating cycads.

illness and parasites: Some people argue these are more important than direct predation for limiting populations, and I am often inclined to agree. Basically, if a population becomes very dense, illness and parasites spread more quickly, creating a natural limiter on how many animals can live in any one place. The greater susceptibility of some individuals to illness or parasites also winnows down populations. Non-native species often escape a good portion of their native diseases by moving to a new range—however, given how fast bacteria and viruses evolve, 1,200 years is a pretty decent amount of time for new diseases to arise. Also, just going to drop a link to my treatise on monster parasites here. It’s gross, mind the warning at the start of the post.

mate availability: If only a certain percentage of the population is actually able to reproduce, that’ll eventually bring the total number down. RIP Iocaste’s boyfriend 😔

territory/shelter availability: Animals need a certain amount of space and certain types of spaces to survive, and space isn’t infinite! It again depends on how adaptable an animal is; rats find ways to thrive nearly everywhere, but pandas can only live where there’s bamboo. If there’s not enough space to hide from predators, reproduce safely, store food, and avoid adverse weather, the population again limits itself naturally.

natural disasters: Wildfires, drought, flooding, tsunamis, storms, etc. pick off significant portions of wildlife populations. Disasters are sporadic rather than directly linked to population like most of the other factors but these periodic blows to population and the other impacts of fire or flooding are often integral to the ecosystem (see especially: fire regimes and fire ecology.)

Now let’s talk predation & monsters! (Genuinely, I think predation is one of the most interesting things in ecology; people tend to simplify it down to things eat other things, which—yeah, but there’s so much more going on there!)

First, I wouldn’t underestimate the effects of monsters eating other monsters! Even if it’s rare for a draconid to snatch up a nekker and carry it off, the threat of a draconid doing so can have dramatic impacts; researchers found that just playing the sound of dog barks on a beach stopped raccoons from foraging for crabs for over a month after the barking stopped, leading to an increase in crab populations, even though no raccoons ever encountered a dog. This is called the ecosystem of fear (which as a term is metal as hell) and it theorizes that just the fear of predators can lead to chronic stress for prey animals, decreasing reproduction and making them more susceptible to disease. Maybe draconids in Toussaint eat only a few dozen nekkers a year, but that might cause thousands of nekkers to have fewer offspring or fall to disease. When it comes to ecosystems the direct effect is usually only a small part of the story!

Second, when we talk about a species not having natural predators, we’re usually talking about an animal that would have a predator back in its home range—lionfish, for instance, have plenty of predators in their natural range (the Indo-Pacific), but no natural predators in their invasive range (the Caribbean), so invasive lionfish, suddenly freed of a limiting factor, can run amok. However, a great white shark has, aside from orcas (who do not actually eat white sharks, they’re just assholes sometimes) and occasionally other white sharks, more or less no natural predators anywhere once it reaches maturity, and that’s fine! Lack of predation of great white sharks did not cause their populations to explode and consume the ocean. White sharks are limited by other factors.

So: it is possible that wherever draconids originated (and it’s entirely possible that “draconids” came from multiple different places, tbh) there was something bigger that preyed on them, but it’s not unreasonable to assume they were also apex predators in their previous dimension (I mean…look at them), and that adult draconids were never really preyed on by anything else! It isn’t necessarily an issue for there not to be predators of certain monsters on the Continent.

(Though, of course, we also shouldn’t forget that most apex predators are prey when they’re young—baby white sharks are snack-sized for a lot of fishes, and bear cubs and wolf pups are similarly vulnerable. Based on the size of the eggs you see in TW3 draconid nests, a basilisk is hatched around the size of a little dog, which is the perfect size for small, ballsy predators such as wolverines to sneak into a nest and snap them up—predators such as more wolverines or raptors like eagles and hawks might also come directly for the eggs.)

When it comes to smaller monsters such as nekkers, who likely weren’t apex predators in their original dimensions and would thus be subject to that lack of natural predators—there are usually specific reasons why prey species manage to avoid predation in their introduced range. Lionfish confound Caribbean predators because lionfish are covered with huge poisonous spines that Caribbean predators don’t know how to deal with.

Drowners, on the other hand, are basically just man-shaped fish; they don’t have any adaptations or defenses that would really stump a bear or a wolf. Again, bigger monsters are still probably checking the populations of smaller monsters no matter what, but there’s really no reason a bear couldn’t figure out how to eat a drowner! Unless a monster has a unique defense (e.g. scurver spines), is actively distasteful to eat (rotfiends, probably), or is just difficult to take down (nekkers in packs), most of the non-monster predators* on the Continent will have incorporated various monsters into their diet by now, or suppressed monster populations indirectly with the threat of predation or by competing with them for food. It has been over a thousand years, which is nothing evolutionarily but is still a decent period of time for mammals, who pass hunting techniques down to their babies, to figure out how to eat ghouls—especially if we’re considering that the Continent’s mammals may also be a result of the Conjunction and would thus have to have been just as adaptable as the monsters to establish themselves. And I’ve also actually talked before about how wolves specifically might be preying on necrophages!

* For reference, the non-monster predators are, considering the Continent is more or less Europe, most likely lynxes, brown bears/polar bears (in Skellige), wolverines, foxes, badgers, and a variety of large birds of prey.

So—yes, if monsters were truly overpopulating, then that would damage the ecosystem. However, canon tells us they are definitely not doing that, and there are also many factors that would prevent that from happening!

(Though I will say that some of the reasons white-tailed deer are overpopulated are that we got rid of cougars and wolves and human development creates a lot of extra habitat of the type that deer like. Given that we know many of draconids are for sure in significant danger of going extinct, and the trajectory that Europe’s wolf and bear populations followed in real life, it is possible that the Continent will have to contend with an overpopulation of some of the smaller monsters at some point as they continue to try to eradicate the larger predators, both monster and non-monsters—you think the drowner problem is bad now, wait until the bears are gone and city development has tripled the number of sewers. Yet another of those humans-make-monster-problems-worse things I am fond of in the Witcherverse!)

…whew. that was a lot of words. In conclusion: ecology is really cool & there’s a bunch of ways monsters can fit into it!!

#kaer morhen biology of monsters 101 #and a bit of #witcher book blogging #asks #anonymous

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fruitlicense · 3 years

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I have a theory about one of the reasons why Lupin left Tonks in Deathly Hallows - if you look at his past, Remus Lupin has never really learned to live without moving or running, so when the chance comes to settle in one place, he doesn’t quite know how to cope.

We start with when he’s bitten by Fenrir Greyback. Remus was just under five years old, so this is effectively the beginning of his life besides some hazy childhood memories. He’s a werewolf now, which he has to keep secret, so his life can never really be “normal” again. He and his parents move a lot, because they can’t let anyone close enough to find out. Remus’ early childhood is marked by movement and secrets, because if he’s not literally moving homes, he’s moving around the people he knows, eventually avoiding them altogether by becoming homeschooled.

When Remus goes to Hogwarts, he’s not moving as much in a literal sense, since Gryffindor Tower is kind of his home base now. However, he’s still sitting on a secret that’s a little too big for him, and as a result, he’s moving around his roommates, trying to balance being friends and keeping them in the dark. This is a constant for him - he can’t take a break from hiding his lycanthropy. It’s always in the back of his mind.

When the Marauders find out, I think it’s interesting that their acceptance is characterized by their willingness and ability to “run” with Remus in a sense. Part of their friendship is being the school pranksters, going out on secret missions with the cloak and Map to help them stay steps ahead of everyone else and run or hide if they need to. When they become Animagi, they literally change themselves to keep up with Remus as he runs. They’ve stayed by his side as a human, running around together to cause mischief, and now they can keep pace with him as the wolf as well. Their willingness to change something as intrinsic as the ways they move shows how much the Marauders care about Remus and about each other in general.

When school ends, the war hits, and Remus joins the Order of the Phoenix, the moving, running, and hiding become more literal and more pervasive in his life. He’s part of an illegal underground organization that’s fighting a supremacist terror group, and his colleagues are getting murdered around him. Post-graduation for him isn’t a time to go to college, find a job, or find a more permanent place to live. He’s fighting Death Eaters, jumping from safe house to safe house, and dropping off the grid for long periods of time to live amongst the werewolves (presumably - I don’t have much canon basis for all of this beyond what we know of the second Order and assuming it functions much like the first). As a marginalized group, the other werewolves don’t have jobs or homes either. The nature of the way their condition is treated in the wizarding world means that they always have to keep moving, or else risk injury, imprisonment, and/or death. At this point in Remus' life, the rule is keep moving and keep your secrets or die. Settling in one place is a death sentence, as the Potters find out.

After Voldemort is defeated the first time, Remus has to deal with the fallout of the war and what it did to his friends and family, and he also has to deal with trying to create a life for himself. His demons have increased in number - he’s not just running from his wolfish side now. He’s got the ghosts of James, Lily, and Peter to reckon with, as well as the specter of Sirius Black. He has to keep moving from job to job and place to place, not only because his lycanthropy means long-term employment is hard to find and requires him to find safe places to transform, but also because he doesn’t want his guilt and grief to catch up to him. We can assume that he doesn’t have a steady income or place to stay during this time, and it’s very likely that he has been homeless for periods of time. When Dumbledore finds him in that cottage in Yorkshire, the way it’s described - “tumbledown,” “semi-derelict” - makes me wonder if it’s a squat instead of a home, and Dumbledore just catches him at a short stopping point.

When Remus returns to Hogwarts, he’s again in one physical place, but he’s still moving a lot. He’s hiding his lycanthropy from the students and possibly some/most of the staff, so his personal life is still full of secrets. In addition, his job as the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor doesn’t really lend itself to a calm career. He’s teaching his students about defensive spells and Dark creatures, and since a lot of his qualifications probably come from his experience of the first war, his daily routine is permanently linked to his trauma. Most importantly, he’s also hiding a lot of his history from Harry, because the central threat in Prisoner of Azkaban is tied directly to his backstory. He’s still moving around in a more figurative way, trying not to stay still long enough for someone to pick up on his patterns and expose him. When his secrets catch up to him, he becomes more erratic, forgetting his Wolfsbane Potion and expressing willingness to kill Peter Pettigrew without a second thought, a departure from his usual cool-headedness. He’s back in the mindset of the war, dropping everything at signs of danger and covering his tracks to move on to a new place, and Sirius, now an ally and friend once again, is keeping pace with him. “Together?” “I think so.”

When Snape exposes Remus’ lycanthropy to the school, he has to start moving again. We don’t know where he is between leaving Hogwarts and joining the Order again once it gets restarted, but we can infer that he probably experiences another year of itinerant living as he jumps from job to job and place to place. When he does “settle” (comparatively), he comes back to Grimmauld Place, but he’s clearly in a war mindset once again, and half the time he’s on missions and not even present in the house. Just because he’s apparently the Order member most frequently there with Sirius doesn’t mean that he’s present all that much, because Sirius can’t keep pace with him anymore. He’s being blocked by Dumbledore and is physically and emotionally stagnant while under house arrest, and we know by now that Remus must always keep moving to survive.

Order of the Phoenix is a turning point for Remus. With Sirius’ death, he finally outpaces his childhood - the last person who he was close to as a young man is now dead. Remus is effectively the last living Marauder (at this point, I would argue that Peter Pettigrew’s betrayal has removed him from Remus’ list of people he cares about and who care for him). It’s also when he meets Tonks, and their relationship grows from one of coworkers to friends to lovers in unseen scenes during and between Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince. She’s kind of a weird choice if you’re picking someone to sort of settle Remus and slow his pace, since I wouldn’t describe her as mellow exactly, but the fact of the matter is that Remus’ growing relationship with Tonks is an obstacle to his habit of movement. She keeps pace with him at first as a colleague/friend like the Marauders did, but her pace changes with her feelings, and she wants Remus to slow down with her. Tonks is stubborn and adamant about what she feels, and in her outburst after Bill Weasley is attacked by Fenrir Greyback, we see that she’s not willing to let Remus try to breeze past his feelings for her. She plants herself right in the middle of his path, and he’s forced to either stop or destroy her as he tries to push past.

Here’s the thing - Remus doesn’t want to stop moving, and we see him resist it, but it’s not necessarily a bad thing to slow down. If we parallel his habit of movement with his lycanthropy (since they’re already linked), we can infer that just as being a werewolf has left him scarred and in pain, constant movement takes a toll on him. Just because he’s lived this way his whole life doesn’t automatically make it healthy. The secrecy and isolation don’t make him happy, and they are directly tied to how much faster he’s moving compared to everyone else - trying to outpace the ghosts. Tonks, in directly blocking his path, is essentially staging an intervention to bring him back to a speed that his loved ones can keep up with. He still has her, Harry, and the Order, just as long as he stops trying to convince himself he’s better off alone and outrunning the dead.

The problem with this is that, as physics tells us, it’s not easy to stop an object that has had a set path of motion for most of its existence. Remus isn’t used to slowing or stopping, and he’s antsy to run again. The things he’s been trying to avoid catch up to him - self-doubt and self-hatred about his lycanthropy and its effects on his life, the need for adrenaline and movement that the wars have acclimated him to. When he feels like it’s all too much to handle, he falls back into his old track of movement in a hunt for something known and familiar. Even Harry notices this, comparing Remus to Sirius and accusing them both of wanting to be daredevils. Remus is trying to get back to the pace he ran at with the Marauders, but Harry argues that that’s not the pace Remus’ family needs him to be at.

The only way for Remus to be content is to copy what Tonks showed him how to do - stand his ground and face the ghosts head-on. He has to go back home and learn to live a slower life if he wants to have a family, and he does want that. When asked what he would say to Harry on Potterwatch, he makes it clear that he is thankful for Harry’s intervention, and his later joy at Teddy’s birth is infectious. He fucks it all up initially, but Remus does eventually come to the understanding that the way he was living - constantly moving to stay ahead of his secrets and regret - wasn’t sustainable. He’s willing to try, and I only wish we’d gotten to see the just-barely-a-month he got to slow down with Teddy and Tonks.

The Battle of Hogwarts, in a way, proves my point about movement. Remus is forced to drag himself out of family life and back into the mindset of the war, and in a very Marauder-like impulse, Tonks decides to join him at his pace this time. I won’t say they doomed themselves, because the battle required them to exist at the pace of war, and they didn’t have a choice if they wanted to keep their loved ones safe. However, it is undeniable that it is the running that killed them. The movement of war is deadly, and this time, it hit the people we were wishing the most to escape it.

TLDR: Remus Lupin has lived his whole life trying to outrun his personal demons, and his behavior at Grimmauld Place in Deathly Hallows was a deeply shitty reaction to feeling out of his depth when living a slower life.

Sources:

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/remus-lupin

https://www.wizardingworld.com/writing-by-jk-rowling/werewolves

(Sorry this is so messy! I was excited to write it and put it on paper as if I was speaking it in a sort of tangled stream of consciousness. I hope I got my point across okay!)

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words-writ-in-starlight · 3 years

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for the ship headcanon meme: star trek pairing of choice, #16-#20?

Bet you thought I forgot about this ask meme, fuckers! And you’re right, I did, but the beauty of forgetting is that sometimes you remember. Anyway, as always, it’s Michael/Saru Hours, lads.

16) When the zombie apocalypse comes, how do they cope together?

This is not a headcanon, but I have this fragment of a fic idea in my head based on this question, and that fragment of a fic idea is like...some kind of case fic where Discovery finds a planet being ravaged by Basically A Zombie Apocalypse and Michael and Saru get stranded there. Ideally, for my personal enjoyment, I would want to slot it into the plot of s1 as early as possible, because the best/worst dynamic there would be Michael choking with guilt and yet still one of the finest scientific minds in Star Fleet, and Saru unable to keep himself from pressing on the fresh bruise of loss, unable to trust her, and the two of them still working together flawlessly.

Because that’s the thing, isn’t it? Even when they can’t stand each other, they argue like a choreographed dance, and when the chips are down and they have to think on their feet, they still move like Georgiou’s trusted right and left hands.

Anyway. That, but make it zombies.

17) When they find a time machine, where do they go?

If Michael came into possession of a time machine that actually allowed her to reliably control where she went and let her come back, I think she would sit down and try to do the temporal math to figure out how to avert the war. I do not, however, believe that Michael and Saru, survivors of a fair amount of timeline hopping already, would actually risk going back in time. I think they would both talk about wanting to go back, specifically because they know the other will talk them out of it, but I don’t think they would do it.

That being said, I would love a lotus eater prison AU where Michael and Saru are trapped in an idyllic dream of a world where the Shenzhou was never destroyed, Michael was being prepared to be promoted off the ship as a captain, and Saru was preparing to take her place, ft a lot of sadness about Georgiou and Michael and Saru working together to find a way to wake up.

18) When they fight, how do they make up?

Michael wears Raised On Vulcan tattooed on her face, sometimes, and especially when she defensive or guilty--if she’s angry with Saru, she’ll tell him exactly what she thinks he’s doing wrong, to his face, and it takes her a long time to learn that she should pull that punch a little more with people she cares about. On the upside, that means that, when she feels like she’s been out of line and unnecessarily harsh, she’ll walk right up to Saru and tell him, blunt as anything, what she did, why she thinks it was wrong, and that she understands if he’s angry with her.

This was initially��a weird experience for Saru on several levels, if he’s being honest. A lot of his experience with people is colored heavily by the fact that very few people know how to deal with Kelpiens, and that means that he’s either handled like glass or he puts in the work to be treated like any of the other crew members. He’s not really sure how to deal with someone who handles him with exactly the same unemotional ruthlessness as everyone else, and it’s disorienting, and it makes him angry that it’s disorienting, because that’s what he wants, but also, Michael is sometimes an asshole. She’s the first person that he’s ever argued with on the regular—really argued, a push and counterpush, shoving each other away from the science console and pulling out ad hominem attacks in a way that visibly infuriates Michael’s Vulcan training. But quite frankly, they never felt like they needed to apologize for those early fights, under Georgiou. It was part of the ship dynamic, to have Burnham and Saru trying to take strips off each other in a very professional and scientific manner. As long as Saru never took a cheap shot over Michael’s upbringing and Michael resisted the impulse to go full xenoanthropologist on Saru’s species, they were very good at fighting.

(Personally I am of the belief that Michael only tried to pull the I understand where you’re coming from because of what your species makes you after the mutiny, after she was trying to be nice. Before then, she expected Saru to perform to her standards and fuck the details. Half the reason he’s so coldly furious with her over it is because he knows she’s trying to manipulate him, because if she wasn’t, she would never play that card, because no matter how nasty their fights were, she always fought with him as a person, not as a Kelpien.)

19) Where do they go on their first date?

There’s a fic that bounces around my brain every time I watch Discovery, and it’s about Michael and Saru having a first date (sort of) very late at night, when they’re both having trouble sleeping. It’s not an arranged date, they’re not even really friends even though they’ve gotten past the stage of Michael letting Saru flay her alive for her guilt, but Michael is having trouble sleeping and she’s not a prisoner anymore, so she wanders, and Saru, frankly, sleeps like hypervigilant garbage since the Binary Stars, so he has a preferred hiding spot on one of Discovery’s few observation decks. As Lorca likes to point out, they’re not a goddamn pleasure cruiser, but Star Fleet never built a ship without at least one view panel, not even their top-secret war machine.

Michael is avoiding people—she hates being asked why she’s awake, gets tangled up in her automatic shame over not being able to control her emotions. It’s the middle of the “night” by ship standards, but Discovery seethes with activity around the clock, especially since Stamets pulls regular all-nighters when he gets really entranced and often has to be peeled away from his work by Local Exasperated Doctor Hugh Culber. So she ducks into the parts of the ship that she usually doesn’t go, the places that are more for socializing and are empty at this hour, the places that aren’t often used, the places that are quiet.

She finds the observation deck dim and blessedly silent, with the stars spreading infinitely outside. The room is faintly lit by the nebula off to the starboard bow, the one they’re using to hide their signature while they run some necessary repairs. It’s a practical use, but it’s also beautiful, every window in the ship glowing with warm reds and golds, and Michael still finds the stars soothing after all this time, and so she drifts up to the glass with the vague plan of sitting down and spending an hour or two there in an attempt at meditation. She only sees Saru, leaning back against the edge of the viewing window, when she’s close enough to nearly trip over one of his long legs, stretched out in front of him.

Michael, of course, apologizes, and turns to leave. Saru never really does have a good answer, as to why he stops her. But he doesn’t ask any questions about why she’s awake and she doesn’t ask any questions about what he’s doing here, and instead they sit in relative quiet for a while before Saru sits up straighter and offers Michael, again, a small bowl of fruit. It’s not familiar to her, this time, but he says it won’t hurt her, that it’s sort of like a lychee, and she believes him. It leaves a bit of thin red juice on her fingers when she bites into the first one, and he recommends eating them whole to avoid it while she ruefully sucks the juice off her thumb. It’s good—less sweet than she expected. Saru settles next to her in the middle of the window and sets the bowl between them, and she asks how he always manages to have fresh fruit, and he admits that he can wring a lot more out of the replicators since he never gets meat. Somehow it turns into—talking.

Michael is startled to realize, around the hour mark of murmured conversation, that she might have literally never just talked to Saru before. It’s—nice.

(Because I’m physiologically incapable of letting things be nice, if I wrote this fic there would be an immediate sequel of Observation Deck Chats Redux, featuring them doing basically the same thing but after Michael gets back from the Mirrorverse. Michael leans against Saru’s shoulder in a way that she would never, if she hadn’t been awake with nightmares and grief for pushing three days, and she tells him about the Empire like she’s confessing her sins, and they talk quietly about the ghost haunting their ship in the shape of Empress Philippa Georgiou. It’s not nice, but not for lack of kindness.)

20) Where do they go on holiday?

I think Saru and Michael would have two very distinct kinds of “holiday” and they have two destinations accordingly.

The first kind of holiday is Nerd Holiday, in which they find an unexplored planet and appoint themselves to the away team—everyone else on the away team is wryly aware that they are, essentially, third-wheeling a date, but Discovery has watched this whole situation unfold and honestly the popular opinion is that it would actually be easier to deal with a little bit of PDA than the current Very Professional Mutual Adoration Show. Local Red Shirt Absolutely Agonized By The Very Correct Ten Inches Of Space Between Her Captain And First Officer, Reports As They Come. Michael and Saru are pleasantly unaware of this and are having a great time arguing over whether they need another sample of that plant if it’s just a different color.

The second kind of holiday is actual fucking shore leave. They both prefer planets or stations with a large variety of species—Saru is uneasy with being the center of attention among strangers, and since he stands head and shoulders above a decent percentage of the Federation, it’s hard to avoid unless they’re in mixed company; Michael never quite recovered from the perpetual sense of disjoint when it comes to being around all humans or all Vulcans, so being in a place where everyone is different makes her feel less out of place. Neither of them like big crowds, so they’re the tourists who immediately leave the usual Tourist Area and find somewhere else to be, which has its ups and downs. The first time they get into trouble on a totally safe colony planet because they decided to go exploring, there’s a beat of them looking at each other and silently agreeing that they won’t be telling the crew about this, because there’s already a running ship joke about what trouble magnets they are and they do NOT need to feed anyone more material.

#star trek #star trek discovery #michael burnham #saru #michael x saru #i'm trying to think of more things to say but WOW my brain is full of fog today #i want to write that observation deck fic very badly #also you can't tell me that there weren't some WILD theories on the shenzhou about michael and saru #some helmsman goes to his friends and goes 'y'all are never going to believe it but saru TOUCHED burnham'#and all his friends go 'no one touches burnham she's got that vulcan nine-foot personal space thing going on'#and he's like 'yeah but they were arguing and he just like grabbed her elbow and MOVED HER'#'and she kept arguing with him and just came back and fully hip-checked him away from the console'#and there were probably some Theories is what i'm saying #michael is less obviously Touch Me Not on discovery of course #but once there start being some Theories on discovery for SURE one of the shenzhou survivors is like #'ah yes the eternal burnham and saru debate. you are like little babies. [lays out seven Y E A R S of gossip].'#a queue we will keep and our honor someday avenge #meri47 #asked and answered

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rahneii · 3 years

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Apollo has friends surprisingly ( interactions with the VALORANT agents )

i am bored and i've been wanting to write some of these down for a while so yes have my content, this is also really long so bear with me. Apollo is usually a lone wolf but he loves interacting and socializing with other people if it weren't for her curse.

Controllers

Brimstone Ugly boomer

Apollo and Brimstone are like old friends with a silent grudge between each other. Brimstone was the first person for Apollo to meet in the Valorant Protocol but was hired by Viper instead.

Apollo likes to counter any of Brimstone's plans or ideas by either calling it stupid, old, already done it and 'Maybe we should do what I said instead' proceeds to say the same thing but with curse words and slangs and some dramatic posing.

They don't talk too much but whenever they talk its like Apollo just heard something offensive argues with him.

The way they bond is in the field, though Apollo hates him, she still protects him from any harm. Its the only reason why Brimstone ever respects the false saint.

"Apollo, stop glaring me with you two eyes open. I'm still getting used to your 3rd eye." "Are they too distracting for you? Here ill give both of them for you to confiscate."

Viper

Apollo absolutely hates this woman with a burning passion, and refuses to speak to her or give any satisfaction of a bond.

Viper was the one who removed his wings, though there were other doctors, he only remembered Viper being there.

Viper could care less if Apollo hated her but what she wanted was for him to work with her and the protocol and cause no trouble whatsoever. She still feels guilty about it sometimes.

"Mad scientist down."

Omen "We are both traumatized"

Apollo and omen surprisingly relates together in some way except for eating people and stuff.

Omen teaches Apollo how to knit, garden, cook etc. So that he can learn how to calm herself instead of being isolated in his room 24/7.

They both like to share their experiences in Kingdom, body changes and radianite. They also made inside jokes that only they could understand. "Apollo, isn't it funny how Kingdom keeps this good reputation up just for Monsters like us to be in the background"

Astra "She teaches me how to fly sometimes"

There's this one incident at HQ where Astra tried to teach Apollo how to float with his small wings and accidentally dropped him off the second floor. Apollo forgave her for the effort but they were banned from floating around HQ again.

"Apollo, my friend! We are finally out in the field together. Lets spread our wings and fly!"

Duelists

Reyna "Scary hot woman"

Reyna and Apollo share a mutual agreement on having a desire for bloodlust, Apollo sometimes even envies how Reyna handles it so well.

Apollo likes to get tips from her as well sometimes

"Reyna! you were amazing back there! You truly are a goddess!"

Yoru "Who? oh that guy"

Apollo tends to forget that he exists just because he teleports everywhere it makes Apollo have a brainfart.

Yoru only asks random stuff about him like his form and abilities. He also takes down notes about it sometimes so that he could flex about knowing an angel in real life.

"Killed the uh, blue boy..."

Pheonix "If he touches my wings again i will bite him."

Pheonix always asks the question everyone usually has when they meet an angel. And sometimes repeatedly...

Apollo tries his best to avoid the questions by letting him get distracted by something or changes the subject. Apollo loves his determination but he can do that from afar.

"Pheonix PLEASE stop trying to touch my wings. They're attached to my ears and its hard enough to take care of them."

Jett "She's very talented for sure"

Just like Pheonix, she has a lot of questions but she learns quickly.

She sometimes likes to run with Apollo and would most likely ask Apollo if he could fly.

"Apollo, could you promise me a race if you get your wings back?" "For sure that's something I would keep to heart."

Raze "She's fun to be around, but I also have a lot of questions "

Apollo likes talking to her and looking at her tech since she was always interested on how this stuff worked even back on the church days since his priest prohibited tech like this.

Raze mostly chats with Apollo a lot because of him and KJ meeting up a lot. She has also has a lot of questions to ask but keeps it simple.

"Damn Apollo! You are.. Scary. In a good way of course! It was badass"

Sentinels

Killjoy "She still has never told me if she made KAY/O or not, or I haven't been listening"

Killjoy has enough of Apollo's bullshit most of the time but also has been "threatening(?)" him to make mechanical wings that can fly like the jet.

Apollo has asked a lot of weird requests and Killjoy would just shame her about it.

Apollo is always seen with Killjoy and Brimstone whenever he has to go with Brim.

"Fine.. you win this time, ill think about making your request."

Sage "She's the calm to the storm and I admire her for that"

Apollo admires Sage's hard-work and personality, he'd hang out with her a lot too.

Sage gives her advice and sometimes help as well. She is one of the few that wasn't really scared of Apollo

"Apollo, You worry me as well. Find your inner peace in the battle."

Cypher "A charming fellow, he sometimes concerns me though."

They both know a lot of stuff about the other agents and would share that info together sometimes. They even have code names, inside jokes and etc.

Apollo thinks the guy needs a rest and made a lot of promises for this guy and has no clue if she'd ever make those true.

"Apollo, Promise me you'd be the one putting the knife to my throat *chuckles*"

Initiators

KAY/O "The robot is TOO human for his own good to be honest with you. How charming"

KAY/O is seen with Apollo outside of HQ, the living spaces, outside and almost everywhere since Apollo was being monitored after the incident (which was eating a whole ass chair and almost eating the person on the chair too). Every week of the month at least.

Apollo is funnily enough is allergic whatever KAY/O's electric fluid that creates fragments and supressor has. But She chooses to stick with him since that's the most "safest" option there is.

Their relationship is strange, you see they both share sarcastic jokes in a room and the next thing you know the robot has random makeup marks on his body.

"You fragile humans sure like to put up a fight." "snort"

Sova "I could steal his eye for... personal purposes."

Apollo would usually, try to steal his eye. And Sova would always try to stay away from him. He's a little scared of her but he can handle being in a team with him.

Apollo is also usually nice to him most of the time, and also kept a promise for him.

"Apollo, you are a saint. Please stay that way."

Skye "I love her hawk, it would sometimes bite me though"

Apollo. Loves. Animals. I mean who doesn't? But Apollo always wanted a pet so he'd go to Skye just to pet her animals.

Skye enjoys the company of the Angel but she intimidates her, The whole 3rd eye thing and all

"Skye please please PLEASE can you let me hold the bird?" "Last time you did that it exploded on your hand mate"

Breach "He's...interesting."

They both are scared of each other. Apollo with his intimidating eye and Breach's personality. All you can hear is awkward small talk if you make them talk to each other.

Breach accidentally hit Apollo with his arm once and has never stopped thinking about it. Apollo just promised to herself that he'd stay away from him now.

#apollo valorant #valorant oc #no apollo did not eat anyone atleast #but she did eat brimstones favorite dining chair #brimstone never forgave him because of that

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crashingmeteorz · 4 years

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rich kid runaways (ft. yuexzukoxtoph friendship)

for my 100 Followers Celebration - credit to @aroacebitchboi for this amazing idea!

zuko faces his father in the agni kai, and when he is told what he must do in order to be welcome in his homeland again, he just says “fuck this” and runs away.

he’s not sure where he’s gonna go, just that he has to get out, and fast, because his dad’s gonna kill him. like. for real. so he stows away on a fire navy ship headed Literally Anywhere Else (and maybe the soldiers don’t care! because he’s 13 and hurting children is a disgrace! maybe they sneak him food and blankets idk!)

yue, meanwhile, in the north pole, has just been told she is going to enter an arranged marriage for the good of her people when she turns 16. respectfully, she asks her father what exactly this marriage will do, politically speaking. the north isn’t at war with itself, in fact they’re more united than ever. maybe if it were a southern water tribe boy, sure, but no, it’s going to be a northern boy.

her father just tells her it’s imperative to the stability of the tribe that they uphold tradition. yue, realizing this is bullshit, even at the tender age of 13, says “fuck this”, and runs away.

she is all but screwed without waterbending or any practical survival knowledge - except, she’s been chosen by the moon spirit. when she steals a boat and heads south, the moon takes pity on its ward and keeps her safe, at least on her waterbound journey. once she lands on the northern shores of the earth kingdom, yue depends on the kindness of strangers to survive.

zuko, meanwhile, is angry and mistrustful and afraid when he ends up on the western shores of the earth kingdom, and he depends entirely on his determination to survive. he learns to live off the land the hard way, and avoids major cities and towns for fear of being found out as a firebender. of course, if he’s ever spotted, he’s regarded with pity and empathy because of the festering burn on his face, but zuko doesn’t realize that.

yue never stays in one place too long, bouncing from family to family and learning more skills in a few months than she was ever taught in her whole life up north. she cooks and cleans and sews, yes, but she also farms and skins hunted animals and does house repairs. she is happily taken into homes because of her ability to heal - though never a waterbender, yue still learned basic healing with the other northern women, and can manage even bad wounds all on her own.

afraid she’ll be recognized by her vibrant hair, however, yue continues her journey south, considering running to the south pole for sanctuary. she wonders how their women are treated. zuko, meanwhile, lives alone in the wilderness most of the time, and moves very slowly up the west coast.

they’re 14 when their paths cross. three fire nation soldiers harass yue while she’s journeying along a rural road, asking her for a made-up toll. usually trading in work, yue has no money to speak of. the soldiers threaten violence, and, though he is afraid of being caught by his countrymen, zuko was never one to let bullies have power over the innocent.

he emerges from the forest, swords in hand, attacking the soldiers. at first it seems like he has the upper hand - and then he stumbles, and the soldiers laugh and pull him up to beat him. zuko panics and relies on instinct - firebending at the soldiers and burning them badly. they run away yelling, and zuko panics, certain that he’ll be caught out. he goes to run, but yue stops him.

“you’re hurt,” she says, pointing to where he’d been cut by the soldiers’ swords. “please, let me help you. it’s the least i can do.”

“you’re not scared of me?” zuko asks in confusion, looking around wildly, afraid his father will pop out of the trees and strike him down.

“you saved me,” yue says, just as confused, because between the rescue and the obvious burn mark, she doesn’t really think this boy would have any reason to hurt her. also he’s kinda shrimpy, and yue, who has built up some strength through hard work, is pretty sure she could take him. “come on, i have some herbs. is there clean water nearby?”

shocked that anyone in the earth kingdom wouldn’t call for zuko’s arrest on the spot, zuko leads yue to a stream in the forest. yue silently patches his wounds, and then eventually asks if she can get a look at his eye. apart from the initial work of the fire nation healers, zuko hadn’t really done much to treat his eye, and it’s so badly crusted he can barely see out of it. when yue reaches for him, he jerks away.

“i don’t need your help!” he snaps, standing and shaking himself off. “if it weren’t for you, i wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with.”

“excuse me.” says yue, standing as well, because who is he to talk to her that way? “i didn’t ask you for help, you chose to do that. and you’re mad at those soldiers, not me, so why don’t you try being a little nicer?”

they stare at each other furiously for a moment. then yue sighs and says “i think i can help you with your eye, so that you can see. let me do that and i’ll leave you alone.”

it’s painful, and a very slow process, but with water warmed by zuko’s bending (”just heat up the water.” “someone could see!” “we’re in the middle of a literal forest! who’s spying! the frogs???”) and a few medicinal herbs, yue manages to clear away most of the crust and dead skin over zuko’s eye. when he finally opens it again, he’s shocked to find that he can see.

“well, i won’t bother you anymore,” yue says huffily, moving to leave the forest. as she does, she realizes she doesn’t know where the heck she is. zuko’s still marveling at how different the world looks with two eyes.

“umm, which way is out?” yue asks him. zuko snaps back to reality and says “oh, um. i’ll show you.” because he is, admittedly, grateful.

of course, when they try to leave the forest, they run into bandits and barely escape. then yue reccomends they take a country road, and zuko reluctantly agrees, except they run into more bandits. after the fourth round of bandits in two weeks, they’re convinced they’ve been cursed with bad luck.

“can we just go to a town or a city?” yue asks, panting from their desperate escape. “we’re not having much luck living in the wild.”

“i was fine until you showed up!” zuko retorts, panting as well. “fine! then i’ll leave!” yue yells back.

“wait,” zuko says, and yue turns, tapping her foot impatiently. “i’m sorry,” zuko says, to yue’s shock, because if her few weeks with this kid who calls himself lee has taught her anything, it’s that he does not apologize. “i don’t really...understand, um, local people and-“

“let me do the talking,” yue says, gentle as always, reaching for zuko’s arm. he smiles at her, a real, happy smile, and they make their way to the nearest earth kingdom town.

after that, yue and zuko are inseparable. they argue a lot, naturally, but they become good friends, too. yue says she always wanted a sibling, zuko says he always wanted a different sibling, so it’s nice, to have each other. without going into too much detail, they bond over their shared experiences of pre-determined destinies and overbearing parental figures (“my father said i have to get married for the good of the people! what does that even mean?” “tell me about it, my father got mad that i talked out of turn, so he tried to kill me.” “...he what?” “hahaha just kidding that’s not a normal thing that happens.”) no matter how scary it gets, they agree, the earth kingdom makes them feel freer than they ever have before.

does the food they cook suck because they’ve never had to cook in their lives? yes. do they sometimes put all four feet in their mouths because of how they speak to the poor people of the earth kingdom? yes. have they ticked off a lot of fellow teenagers for acting bratty? yes. (“what, so, you don’t have palaces around here?” yue asks. “yeah, where are the royal gardens?” zuko asks. “leave before we rock your shit.” says Every Teenager They Meet.) but at the end of the day, they’re happy.

at 15 they reach a city called gaoling. by now they can both do enough odd jobs that they always have some pocket money on them, although yue still struggles to behave in a way that isn’t dainty and delicate, and zuko still struggles with basic social skills.

they’re getting ready to move along, when they’re stopped by a girl. she’s young, about 11, and entirely blind. she’s being chased by a loud crowd, who seem to be just around the corner.

“please!” the girl says. “help hide me! they’re after me! i think they’re going to kidnap me!” yue and zuko, who are the captains of the child-protection-squad, immediately move to protect the girl.

“this way!” zuko says, and the three of them run down narrow streets and alleyways, in and around shops, until they’re stopped at the city gate by the mob going after the girl.

“alright, kid,” the leader, a tall, buff man with long greasy hair says. “you’ve stolen from us for the last time.”

“how many time do i have to tell you?” the girl bellows, much different than her sweet and innocent pleas from before. “i won fair and square! you’re just mad because you got your butt kicked by a little girl!”

before zuko and yue can even react, the girl pummels the mob of men with an avalanche of rocks, and then launches the earth they’re standing on into the air, landing them far outside of the city limits in a dizzying display.

“woo! that was awesome!” the girl says gleefully pumping her arms. zuko and yue are both trying to wrap their heads around what just happened. “thanks for the help. not that i needed it, i just didn’t want my parents’ guards to see me bending...i wasn’t really planning on running away, but, i mean, i doubt they’ll even notice i’m gone-”

“just a second,” yue says, collecting herself. zuko’s jaw is still hanging open. “who are you?”

the girl grins smugly. “name’s toph. who are you?”

i cannot fully express how much i love this idea. top-notch. god-tier. thank you again!

#rich kid runaways #100 follower celebration #zuko #yue #toph #atla #avatar the last airbender #life happens wherever queue are

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thefossilwhale · 3 years

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i filled out this super cool button character profile by @extraordinarymage for sabrina! thank you for making this, it was a lot of fun to fill out <3 the bulk of it is under a cut and oh boy is it long !!!

Short, Quick Reference

Name: Sabrina Wiseman

Pronouns: She/her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Love Interest: Kent

Main personality trait: Confidence

Secondary personality trait: Morbidity

Relationship with Nick: Full of love, haunted by unaddressed guilt and frustration. But mostly full of love.

Nickname for Nick: Saint Nick (used sparingly)

Resentful or accepting?: Slightly resentful

Main strategy (interpersonal, insightful, innovative?): Insightful

Ethical or expedient?: Expedient

GENERAL

Name: Sabrina Larkspur Wiseman

Nickname(s): Sab, used by anyone; Sabby, only Nick and Sally; and, of course, Button for Nick.

Birthday: I think I made her an October Libra for the purpose of a template I did months ago, but I’m not sure! No concrete birthday yet, I’m always very slow to nail down details like this.

Age: 20

Pronouns: She/her

Sexuality: Bisexual

Hair color + style: Blonde. A little past shoulder length, sometimes wavy. Usually a middle part. For Aeon, tied back in a bun.

Eye color: Blue, entirely because of the section of Frank O’Hara’s “Meditations in an Emergency” that goes, “My eyes are vague blue, like the sky...”

Height: 5′5

Piercings: Multiple in each ear, but a couple have started to close.

Tattoos: None yet! Sab likes the idea of a tattoo but is worried about finding the perfect design, whether she’d end up hating it, that the pain might be greater than she expects and she’ll look like a baby in front of her tattoo artist. I’d like to think she eventually consults Sally and/or Glitch to come up with an idea that she falls in love with, but I haven’t come up with what that would be!

Clothing style: Mostly solid colors, not a lot of patterns. Nothing super bright, but a fairly varied mix of pastels, neutrals, dark colors, black. Partial to denim skirts and sweater tops. Ankle boots. Likes a good turtleneck. She’s bolder when it comes to formal wear, and especially loves suits. Big fan of silk and satin.

Since she has a pretty accurate face claim, I’ll link some gifsets I’ve rb’d for appearance ref if you are so inclined.

STATS

I’m always adjusting minor things and swapping scenes around, but these are from my most recent Sab run! Most scores hover somewhere around these values.

Personality:

Confidence: 53%

Humor: 5%

Morbidity: 22%

Resentful: 57% | Accepting: 43%

Strategy:

Interpersonal: 12%

Insightful: 50%

Innovative: 10%

Ethical: 43% | Expedient: 57%

KEY DECISIONS:

What is Nick’s nickname and why?: Saint Nick, used very rarely. It’s a joking reference to the time she thought Santa was an evil Ment out to ruin Christmas, and a point about Nick overdoing it with the cheer. “Saint Nick” is usually code for “I know you mean well, but please mind your own business.” Otherwise, she just calls him Nick.

What is their favorite type of cookie (and its name and why?): Salted caramel chocolate chip! No special name.

What was their initial reaction to Sally hugging them, as kids?: She just froze. That could just be me projecting adult Sabrina onto her childhood self; I don’t imagine that she was as uncomfortable around strangers or quite as cautious back then. But that’s what I’ll stick with.

How did they ace the ASE test?: The in-game option she takes is “My entire life has revolved around strategic avoidance,” but the one about being just plain smart also sounds like her. If Sab has the chance to thoroughly (over)prepare for something, she will do it. Her mind blindness also has her constantly (over)analyzing situations. So, hard work and relentless anxiety!

Did they manage to win their first assignment? How?: Yes, by having Sally block the door. I’ve headcanoned some slight differences in how it plays out, which I wrote about in-depth here. To summarize, Sab thinks of blocking the door as a desperate last resort, not a clever loophole, and she pushes back against Rosy’s praise because she wishes she could have done it the “real” way. Rosy goes from being impressed to being annoyed that she’s willfully missing the point.

What was the primary emotion Button felt during the Aeon bombing (love, gratitude, etc?): Guilt. She feels very guilty about how much Nick has given up for her in general, but I think that in the moment, it’s on a smaller scale. The fact that Nick was on the phone with her when it happened, coming to her rescue like always, becomes emblematic of their whole relationship for her, and she really fixates on that.

Who drove them home from the hospital from and why?: Glitch. Sab responds to her initial text with “Are you sure?”, and is relieved when Glitch takes that as “Yes, please.” She doesn’t relish the idea of being around someone more connected to her family or Nick at that point.

How do they feel about Nick riding around in their mind?: Worried, at first. Just because it’s so unknown and absolutely insane. After seeing Doctor Amari, she’s excited! Sab is thrilled to be a Pollard Five and intends to take full advantage of it. I am not looking forward to seeing how she reacts when that’s taken away from her.

Why did Button agree to do the undercover mission?: To prove she still deserves to be an MIV. Sabrina feels stupid and reckless for putting herself, Nick, and Aeon in this position, but she knows she’s smart, and she hasn’t worked this hard for nothing. She wants to prove what she could do with a normal Pollard Score and make herself too valuable to give up even when she’s back to Zero.

Told Glitch about your mind blindness?: Depends on the playthrough. I’m constantly going back and forth on whether Sab meets Glitch for coffee or wanders the city with Nick in her second chapter 5 slot (after trying to track down Kent). If she does meet Glitch, though, she absolutely tells her; with how touchy Sab is about privacy, she couldn’t stomach not warning Glitch that Nick could hear everything they said.

Figured out K’s secret?: Nope. She finds enough of the clues to be given the “I knew it!” option in-game, but she didn’t actually put it together. Sab is too angry and embarrassed by learning that Kent is an AMO to find any reason to interrogate it. “The random guy I met before school just happens to be a jerk” is a perfectly sound explanation to her.

Found Noh’s clues?: Not at the metro station. Sometimes she sees the Vengeance brooms in chapter 5 (again, depending on the playthrough), but that’s it.

ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP:

Love Interest: Kent

Why them?: Sab feels an immediate kinship with Kent after learning about the NPO program. It’s kind of funny how quickly he moves from the least sympathetic position in her eyes (Ment who got past me and read my mind without my knowledge) to the most sympathetic (non-powered child of a prominent family aiming a league above where he “belongs”). A lot of new respect for his competence. Her fate is sealed when she realizes that his kindness at the hospital wasn’t him trying to make up for some wrongdoing, but just him being very sweet. (She had scoffed over “You needed help.” But now she’s like, “Oh. He meant that?! Fuck.”)

As they spend more time together, Sab realizes how weirdly similar they are in other ways, too. And she starts to feel safe/secure around him in a way that she’s extremely not used to. Growing up surrounded by Ments, Sab has a lot of issues about being too much, too difficult, needing to “be worthy” of love. So someone like Kent who is not a Ment, who has no “obligation” to care about her, and whose judgement she trusts implicitly? Being around him and being loved by him mean a lot, and I think will go a long way towards helping her reflect on her other relationships!

What are their first impressions of each other?: Okay, there are like 3 first impressions with Kent. First: he’s tall and handsome and secretly adorable, and they have similar career goals, so she’s drafting a five-month plan to woo him and get his number. Second: he’s a lying, self-obsessed loser who owes her many explanations. Third: oh no, the first impression was true! And he’s been continually, selflessly kind to her in spite of her overt hostility. Scratch the five-month plan, because the crush was only fun when it was entirely superficial; now she really, really likes him and that just sucks.

We know that Button makes a good impression on K by stopping for their dogs, but apart from that... I mean, the “we confused each other” from chapter 7 is very apt. Sab has lots of shifting personas, and Kent sees pretty much every one within 24 hours. The prevailing impression before everything gets cleared up is probably just that she cares a lot? About everything? Her stopping for the dogs, how seriously she takes the first assignment, the way she seems so deeply affected by something he said or did that morning. It’s a rare side of her to meet first because she usually pretends to be above everything.

What feature does your Button find most attractive in their RO (ex. appearance, personality, etc.)?: Probably his composure. And his... steadfastness? The way he seems unruffled by anything, his soothing presence. She really admires that about him and finds the calm contagious.

What do they do to spend time together?: Going on drives together! Kent driving while Sab plays songs she thinks he’ll like, talking or not talking. Cuddling on the couch while reading their own separate books. Museum dates. Walking the dogs together.

Do they argue? How do they handle arguments and disagreements? How do they make up?: I imagine that the first month or so of their relationship would be difficult, just because they’re both bad at expressing themselves and not used to relying on other people. Kent kind of negates a lot of Sab’s impulses to get defensive or hostile, so instead of arguments, I think there are more likely to be awkward periods where she’s just stewing in something without addressing it. Most of their fights would be, like, one of them becoming really distant for a concerning number of days until the other tries to awkwardly check in on them.

What does their future look like?: Uhh some random lore: I think eventually they do get married, despite neither of them caring that much about it. Sabrina would be excited to have something to plan, and she knows it would make the people around her happy. They have a long engagement; there’s never really an “official” proposal, just an acknowledgement that yeah, they’ll get married one day, and then eventually they get rings. The engagement is almost Sab’s favorite part, honestly. She likes planning and showing off her ring and calling Kent her fiancé, a lot of fanfare on her part for a wedding that ends up being very modest and chill.

OTHER RELATIONSHIPS (Feel free to go in depth!)

Relationship with Nick: When I first started developing Sab, I thought that with as difficult/prickly as she can be, her relationship with Nick would be worse than it is. Never bad, but certainly strained, with more jealousy/resentment on her side. However, she rejected this. She is resentful, but never towards Nick—she internalizes the negative parts of their relationship so they manifest as guilt instead. And that’s the problem, not resentment. Sab thinks he’s overprotective, but that doesn’t make her angry; it just makes her sad. She wishes things were different and he didn’t feel so responsible for her, but she also doesn’t know how she could manage without him taking on so many of her burdens. So, guilt! So much love, but always looming guilt.

Having Nick in her head has helped. It’s added a new kind of guilt (“I’m a horrible person for being so giddy that people can’t hear my thoughts even though that requires my brother to be in a coma”), but getting inside Nick’s head for once and really feeling his love for her changes things. Makes her feel way more secure, I guess? It’s easier to see her brother as human person, a friend who loves her, rather than a perfect selfless paragon who sacrificed everything to raise her, which is an important shift.

There are also Things happening with self-presentation in the fact that they’re both models, and flirts, and pretend to be shallow. And the ways that they’ve responded to vastly different expectations. And selflessness versus selfishness. But I have no idea how to talk about that yet.

Relationship with Father: Strained and distant. Sabrina doesn’t necessarily blame him for leaving, but she hates how he’s handled it. She’s incredibly frustrated that John insists on keeping them in this miserable limbo of uncomfortable visits, even though moving away was (to her) a tacit acknowledgement that she and her parents are better off without each other. He’s trying to force a relationship that Sab thinks is ultimately harmful for everyone involved. For Nick’s sake, she’s willing to grin and bear the visits, but it never works because John can obviously tell it’s an act. He pushes her, she gets defensive, and so on to infinity.

Relationship with Mother: Like with John, Sab doesn’t resent Hope for the incident itself, or for leaving afterward. It was terrifying, and the idea of being around Hope makes her panic—but she thinks of that as just another irrational anxiety symptom, and she’s trying to work through it. What she does resent Hope for is letting it get to that point at all. Sab is incredibly bitter that Hope will suffer silently to the point of almost killing her (during the incident) and potentially herself (with the BRS), while Sab has no choice but to be completely open. Especially because they’re so similar in that way—she’s almost jealous. “Oh, so your silence is allowed to almost kill me and it’s ‘nobody’s fault’ but I can’t pretend to enjoy a single lunch with Dad without him calling me out for lying?”

And even though she doesn’t hold the incident itself against her, Sab is very hung up on “Why are you never quiet? Why are you always there?” She knows, on some level, that this was not a Personal Judgement against her. But because Hope keeps so much quiet, this is the only honest expression of her mother’s feelings that she can remember! It would take a lot for Sab to believe that Hope was really, genuinely interested in reconnecting with her, rather than just pretending to love her "enough” this time because to do otherwise would reflect poorly on Hope as a mother.

Relationship with Sally: Besties <3 Sally is the only member of the Wiseman inner circle that Sab doesn’t have complicated feelings about. They both have hidden morbid streaks that they bring out in each other, and can laugh about. They both have competitive streaks that work well together because they’re always on the same team. And their wants/needs from the relationship complement each other well, I think. Sally has always felt valued because she’s useful and not because she’s loved, while Sab has always felt smothered by love/care without feeling like she genuinely adds value to other people’s lives. So it means a lot to both of them that they’re able to help each other practically, while also genuinely loving and supporting each other outside of that.

Relationship with Gray: Full of trust and genuine care, but predicated on distance. Sab loves him a lot for being so careful not to cross any boundaries, physical or emotional, with her. She’s grateful that he’s there for Nick in a way that she doesn’t feel she can be. But "I like Gray because he doesn’t push me and is good to Nick” means that any hand he extend makes her defensive, because she’ll either view him as an emissary of Nick or start to panic because their normal routine is being disrupted (she doesn’t tell him about Hope in ch 3, for example).

They get along very well in a friend-of-a-friend sort of way, and bond over being cautious counterparts to Nick. Also, Sab never had a crush on Gray, but she is not immune to tall superhero and thinks it’s fun to fake flirt with him. (You know Isabela’s “You have pretty eyes” routine from DA2? Sab does that to Gray when conversations steer towards things she’d rather not talk about.)

Relationship with Glitch: I’m really excited about these two! They click from the start, and Sabrina feels immediately comfortable around Glitch, which makes her feel distinctly uncomfortable whenever she catches herself. Externally, they have pretty different personalities, but they’re both perceptive and... socially manipulative? aware of their self-presentation?... in ways that they both pick up on right away. So it’s a lot of conversational maneuvering and trying to figure out what the other’s game is, while also genuinely enjoying each other’s company.

Relationship with Kent/Kenna: I could go truly insane here. See the romance section above instead.

Relationship with Kim: Sab wants him to like her sooooo bad. He’s one of the only people to ever really get through to her, re: my headcanon conversation after the first assignment. Authority figures tend to treat her as special, whether that’s negatively because of her mind blindness or positively because she’s such an overachiever. She had no idea how to respond to that not being the case (and didn’t handle it well at first), but chapter 6 solidifies her respect for him.

It also turns Rosy’s opinion of Sab around; he was impressed by her in class but left his office thinking she was self-absorbed and naive. But the bombing is a reality check, and her response is very measured and practical in a way that surprises him.

Relationship with Lev: She doesn’t mind the comparisons to Nick or the “maybe one day they’ll fix you” comments as much as you might think. They aren’t her favorite, but she prefers that sort of thing to the inspirational platitudes belied by coddling that she got from her family growing up. Sab has fond memories of Lev and is grateful that he’s always been kind to her, but doesn’t have any particular feelings apart from that.

Relationship with Clarence: Holds a grudge against him for causing a scene, making her late, and generally being a jerk. But she can’t fault him for being right, after what happened! Mostly she just wants to avoid him, but she’ll be thrilled to lord her success over him if/when she proves herself.

Relationship with Dean Branham: Like Rosy, another authority figure that Sab desperately wants to impress. But without the personal investment she has in Rosy’s validation, more “Oh, this person is in charge, so I should make her like me!” Despite Nick’s and Rosy’s reservations, Sabrina doesn’t really have a problem with being “strongarmed” or manipulated into cooperating; for now, she figures Branham was just doing her job and respects her tactics.

Relationship/attitude towards Ments in general: Mostly just uncomfortable and wary around them. Sab doesn’t want her mind read, and she figures that no Ment wants to be forced to read it either. So she has a pretty strict “no Ments” rule for close personal relationships (excluding Nick, Sally, and Gray, of course. But only Nick really counts because he’s the only one who can hear her thoughts whenever she’s nearby). Not out of hatred or resentment, just because she knows it will be easier for everyone in the long run.

Do they have any other important relationships, past or present? (Relatives, friends, etc.?): Not many, but yes! Sab dated around a lot in the 2 years before Aeon (more like year and a half, because she completely shut it down once she was more focused on preparing for the MIV program), but there are 2 relationships that were formative/important for her. A high school sweetheart, and someone Sab met through modeling. She doesn’t keep up with her high school ex, but the model is her best friend outside of Sally and Nick, and they still keep in touch! I’m still developing them/the relationships, and I’ll probably post more about them someday. They’re fun!

PERSONAL BIO

Describe their personality: Confusing and contradictory. She has two main modes that confuse people who meet both (e.g., Kent). She’s either cold, stuck-up, and sometimes hostile, OR she’s charming, frivolous, and sometimes flirty. Mode 1 is tense but stoic and inexpressive; mode 2 is seemingly relaxed but very posed and insincere. Mode 1 is for when she feels uncertain or has no agenda apart from “get to point B”; mode 2 is for when she’s more comfortable or trying to manipulate someone. Her actual personality is a bit closer to the second, but she doesn’t pretend not take things seriously or hide when she’s annoyed.

Strengths: Analytical, methodical, detail-oriented. Very driven and hardworking. May not always act like it, but does have social skills/charisma; a great liar, if you can’t read her mind. Unfailingly loyal and loving to her favorite people, so so so warm and affectionate and supportive if she really loves you. Very perceptive.

Weaknesses: Way too proud. Can be petty and vindictive. Self-absorbed (she doesn’t mean anything by it, but it’s hard for her to see past herself sometimes). Stubborn, hates being wrong. And... emotional isn’t the word, but strong negative emotions can really cloud her judgement. It ties into her being proud, petty, and stubborn; if she’s really upset about something, she can cling to that emotion instead of re-evaluating it or moving forward.

Phobias: From this ask about the phobias that are planned to show up in-game, there are a few that I could see fitting Sab, but I want to wait to see how they’re implemented before I fully commit. Which is very metagame-y, I know (and I am very metagame-y about IF), but “fear of X” is so broad that it really does depend on when/how it manifests in the text.

That being said, agoraphobia is almost a lock; crowds do make Sab very anxious if she can’t keep track of everyone within a certain distance, and if she can’t leave when she starts feeling antsy. Claustrophobia is a maybe. The choice that triggers it (in chapter 4, about hating MRI machines) suits Sab, but I’m not sure if she hates MRI machines because she hates tight spaces, or if it’s more related to her general anxiety about hospitals, medical tests, etc. Which she definitely has!

What activities/club did they do in school?: She avoided anything group-oriented as far as possible. She took piano (maybe violin?) lessons and did recitals, but wasn’t in orchestra. The one exception was maybe National Honor Society or some equivalent, which she would have joined for her resume’s sake. And I think she would have tutored!

Where do they escape to when they need space?: A little used library corner, where she can people watch without being seen/heard.

How do they feel about/cope with their mind blindness?: Sab hates it but tries not to dwell on it. She knows that it’s no one’s fault, and she mainly just tries to... minimize it? Drown out her thoughts, limit her contact with Ments. And, least healthily, very rigidly managing herself. Because there’s so much of her that exists outside of herself, without her control, she tries to either filter or completely suppress everything else. Part of why she got into modeling, she can perform and be perfect and have total control over the final product of her body in the photographs for whatever campaign. Some Day This Will Be Better. But definitely not where she is in current canon.

How has your Button changed since the Incident with Hope?: Developed many new anxieties and disorders and syndromes :) She also became way more self-conscious, as in literally conscious of and way more tightly monitoring herself, what she’s thinking, what she’s expressing, how she’s sitting, etc. Less emotive face, more rigid posture.

If they weren’t an Aeon student, what would they be doing?: Sab would have beaten herself up forever if she “proved everyone right” by avoiding Unity/Ments entirely, so she’d want to stay in the family business somehow. She probably would have ended up doing scientific research on mental agility. Maybe even working for Mirrortech or some other biotech company, which I imagine would have been an interesting conversation to have with the family.

RANDOM FACTS:

Zodiac sign: Like I said, I assigned her Libra months ago for the sake of a template. But I don’t know enough about astrology to commit. Libra or Leo, probably.

Hobbies: Music, reading poetry, “cooking” (i.e., sitting on the counter and not helping while Nick makes dinner)

Likes: Watching other people (Nick) play video games, dressing up, taking long showers/baths, dark chocolate with caramel, back hugs

Dislikes: Being patronized, hot weather, going to the doctor, driving, doing anything she is not good at

Type of bedsheets: Bamboo.

Drink of choice: Cucumber mint lemonade! For hot drinks, some kind of caramel coffee. For alcohol, she refuses to get drunk because she’s terrified of having even less control of her mental broadcast, but at home/around people she trusts she’ll have a glass or two of wine. Doesn’t know enough to be picky, but doesn’t like it too sweet.

Favorite food: Probably some pasta dish Nick makes with asparagus and tomatoes and a lot of garlic.

Favorite color: Like a light turquoise!

Favorite music: Music to her was another mind-shielding tactic before anything else, so she tends to like upbeat-ish electronic/pop stuff. Catchy and repetitive, and/or with lots of personality to drown out her own thoughts. On the other end of the spectrum, she does have a soft spot for crackly, lo-fi, old or old-sounding slow songs—something about fuzzy recordings simulating a weak telepathic signal.

Favorite season: Hmm, spring and autumn are both good. She likes either side of winter.

Anything else you’d like to share: My heart and a long, fulfilling marriage, with anyone who reads all this 💍

#wow this is so long. insanity luv lit ral insanity #this was super helpful for articulating certain things about sab's character so it's already done its job #pls do not feel pressured to read Thousands of words about sabrina my beloved. but if you read all or even some of this <333 a kiss for you #why am i embarrassed to overshare about my own ocs on my own blog. i live here #oc: sabrina wiseman #also this was very much a stream of consciousness deal but i tried to go back and make it comprehensible. good luck all ye who enter here

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twoidiotwriters1 · 3 years

Text

Written In The Stars CXXIV (Harry Potter xF!Oc)

A/N: I’m really anxious about this one -Danny

Words: 4,934

Series’ Masterlist

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Chapter Twenty-Two: Sickness.

"You're right," Erick sat on the couch next to her. "Emily and Sirius are undeniably together."

"But they're hiding something," Mel pointed with the rubber wand she was holding. "Every time I hint I want to know more about their relationship, they panic—"

"So that's where you learned it from?" Fred smirked.

Mel slapped the back of his head and he moved away from between her knees, facing his brother from the other side of the rug instead.

Things had gone swiftly after Erick's rescue. Sirius was in a jolly mood on the daily, surrounded by good company and decorating the house with everyone's help. Mel would spend most of her days with the twins and Flint, who surprisingly seemed to have taken a liking to Fred and George, or maybe it was that Ron and Harry kept on treating him like he was Malfoy's long lost cousin.

Erick's attitude towards her did change a bit after the first night. She'd expected him to keep on teasing her and acting as if she were a little girl. However, he would follow her around the house like a very polite shadow, and he was usually eager to be of use for her.

Maybe it was his way of showing how grateful he was about being there, and Mel could tell the twins wanted to tease him, but given the recent misfortune the boy had gone through they were keeping everything to themselves.

Either way, after a few awkward mornings in which Mel had attempted to catch her mother and Sirius off guard only to get really vague answers or watch them walk away from the conversation, she decided to involve the boys. After all, if there was a group of people who were experts at finding out secrets, it was this trio.

"You know," Erick sighed as he picked up a book he'd been reading, "maybe you should tell them you're okay with it and let them do the rest of the talking if they want..."

"They already know I'm okay with it," Mel huffed. "I don't know why are they acting so weird now, it's like they think I'll murder them if I catch them snogging..."

"Maybe you should tell them you and Fred are dating," The Slytherin replied with a smirk. "See if you get a reaction out of them."

"You know what, maybe I will," Mel said resolutely. "I'll do it right now, while everyone's scattered around the house..."

"I was joking," Erick's smile evaporated and he added in a whisper. "Don't do that! You're not even dating for real!"

"Well no, but no one apart from you knows that!" She replied quietly. "It might catch them off guard..."

"I'll never understand why you take his advice right away but when it's me you refuse to listen," Fred grumbled.

"Because your advice is always to 'let things be' or 'maybe a few kisses will make you forget it'," Mel frowned. "Your advice sucks."

"You didn't think I was so terrible the other nigh—"

"I swear on my Grandad's grave," Erick warned him. "If you finish that sentence I'll leave George twinless."

"Sorry," Fred turned back to his game of exploding snap, "forgot we have to watch our mouth now that you're around, grandpa..."

Erick threw a cushion at Fred, but he was looking livelier than ever before. From time to time, he would loosen up and act like an actual teenager, which looked quite nice on him. Mel could feel him healing , and the best part was that she could feel herself healing too.

She knew everyone was keeping Harry at a proper distance from her as well, her friends had listened to their argument, but the funny thing was that if anyone would've tried to ask her about Harry now, she would've answered with no hesitation.

Telling Erick was liberating, especially after her last fight with Harry where she realized that -unfortunate, but expected- her feelings for him had diminished to the point where they were nothing but a memory.

She didn't hate him anymore, didn't resent him either. That helped both of them coexist in the same house without imploding. Harry was treating her like a real person and not a damsel he needed to save, and Mel was finally able to talk to him without being afraid of hurting his feelings. She could be honest because she didn't have anything to lose by doing so.

Mel walked through the house when she heard Sirius arguing with her mother in the kitchen. Curious to know what was the fight about, Mel sneaked in as silently as she could, and she hid behind the railing so the adults couldn't see her in the dim light.

"I'm telling you it's nothing!" Emily was saying. "It's normal, the first few months the nausea is always like that, you're losing your mind over nonsense!"

Mel's stomach dropped. Nausea?

"It's been a hard couple of weeks," Sirius replied, "I shouldn't have let you leave the house after Fred and George said they'd go get Erick, you're in no condition—"

"I will ask you," Emily said impatiently, "to stop talking about me like I'm dying. Don't be ridiculous, I've gone through it before, I know my limits!"

Her mum! It was her mum the one who was sick!

It was enough they'd hidden her uncle's sickness from her all those years ago, it was not going to happen again.

"What's wrong with my mum?"

Sirius and Emily stopped their bickering, both adults turning to see the girl with wide eyes.

"Mel..."

"Nothing's wrong with your mum, little Em," Sirius was quick to reply. "We were just... we were..."

"Don't lie to me," Mel frowned. "I heard you, you said my mum was sick..."

"No, love, you misunderstood–"

"We were talking about your mother's morning sickness," Sirius said pointedly.

Emily hit the man's arm, but Mel didn't react.

"What's that?"

Sirius looked positively confused.

"What do you... you don't know?" He looked at the woman next to him and whispered something. Emily turned bright red.

"Of course she knows how babies are born, Sirius!"

"Then why is she—"

"Because we never went into those specific details," Emily replied. "Fine! I've avoided this conversation long enough, and you're bound to found out in the end. Sit down, Mel."

Mel obeyed.

"Well..." Her mother started. "I guess by now you're aware that Sirius and I..."

"Yes, much like everyone else in this house," Mel pushed it aside. "What does that have to do with your sickness?"

"Because my sickness," Emily's voice faltered. "My... er..."

"Morning sickness is a symptom, Mel," Sirius continued. "But it doesn't come from a disease."

Mel's frown deepened. "What is it, then?"

"I'm pregnant."

"What?" The girl blinked. "How— Are you sure?"

"Yes," Sirius scratched the back of his head. "For the last two months..."

"TWO MONTHS?" Mel stood up, her hands going up to cover her mouth. The rest of the sentence came out muffled. "You've been pregnant for two months?!"

"Don't be vexed," Emily winced. "I tried to send a letter, but it felt like such a cold way to let you know... then you came home but trouble just kept coming..."

"That's the reason you were fighting when we arrived!" Mel said in realization. "You didn't want my mum to hurt herself!"

"Which is stupid, really," Emily huffed, glaring at the man standing behind her. "I'm not that far yet, I can do stuff."

"Oh my god," Mel covered her mouth again. "The baby's yours!" She exclaimed, pointing to Sirius.

The man cackled in that barking laughter of his.

"Yeah, the baby's mine too."

Mel let out a short squeal.

"I'm going to have a sibling!"

"You're not angry?" Emily asked.

"Angry?" Mel frowned, a smile still playing on her lips. "Why would I be angry about having a family?"

"I told you she would understand, Mily," Sirius said proudly.

"I'm so happy!" Mel beamed, pulling in both adults for a hug.

"That's great," Emily chuckled nervously. "You can't tell the others though, we're waiting..."

"Waiting for what?"

"We want to give the news during Christmas," Sirius said, completely elated. "It just seems like the right moment to do it."

On Christmas morning the girl woke up to the usual pile of gifts at the foot of her bed, but for the first time, she ignored them and walked out of her room, already looking for her mother.

Fred and George stopped her at the top of the stairs and shook their heads grimly.

"Don't go in, Lady. Mum's just gotten Percy's jumper. He didn't even try to ask about dad."

"Go back to bed," George shook his head. "Trust us."

"Oh," Mel frowned. "Okay..."

She returned to her bed and grabbed the first present. It was from Lupin, a book on defense against the dark arts and another of magizoology, both with beautiful front covers and illustrations.

The second was from Hermione's, a quill that was magically fixed so its users couldn't make mistakes. Mr and Mrs Weasley gave her a new jumper -a nice cream colour with an 'M' in the middle- the first she was getting with her initial, and as she moved through the pile she realized three people were missing: Her mother, Sirius, and Harry.

The last one was not a surprise, but she wondered why her mother hadn't given her a present that year.

'Maybe the baby is my present,' she thought with excitement.

When she left her room, she ran into Erick.

"Merry Christmas!" She said happily.

"Merry Christmas," He yawned. "Hey... can you believe I got presents?"

"Well, yeah," Mel grinned. "What were you expecting?"

"Joseph and Gran were the only ones to give me things apart from my family," He said, still a bit unused to his situation. "But here I got presents from everyone and they don't even know me..."

"Did you like mine?" She looked down for a moment and gasped. "Is that... is that a Weasley sweater?"

Erick stared down at the emerald green fabric and smiled.

"Yeah, look," He pointed to the snake in the middle. "Slytherin themed and all... it was nice of them."

"That's so sweet," Mel beamed. "What else did you got?"

"A few sweets from Fred and George— don't worry, normal sweets, not their creations... a planner from Hermione, which I think will be very useful, if I'm honest... Lupin gave me a book on muggle history that looks really interesting— Oh, your Mum gave me this er... disk-man?"

"Discman," Mel laughed. "Those are for muggle music, I believe you'll like it a lot..."

"Hang on," Erick eyed her up, finally noticing her outfit. "Is that— wow— is that your sweater?"

"Yeah," She looked down. "Why?"

Erick's smiled widened.

"You'll love this..." He walked to the twins' room and looked inside. "Oi! Fred! Come here..."

He walked back to her with Fred beside him, when Mel noticed his sweater, she gasped.

"No!"

Fred's jumper was cream-coloured as well, with an F in the middle.

"What colour does George have?" Mel asked in worry.

"Blue," Fred made a face. "Oh no..."

"Did you tell your mother?" She asked hurriedly. "Frederick, did you tell your—?"

"Of course not!"

"It may have slipped from my mouth," George walked out of his room looking amused and just a little guilty. "I didn't think she would do something like this, though... I asked her not to tell..."

"Bloody brilliant," Mel groaned, flushed and embarrassed.

"Well, this surely will be a surprise for your mother," Erick said casually, walking towards the stairs. "Let's go have breakfast..."

After lunch, the kids, Moody, Mrs Weasley, Emily, and Lupin got ready to visit Mr Weasley back in St. Mungo's. Erick joined, he was eager to see what kind of things the healers had to deal with on the daily.

As they left Sirius with Tonks, Mel realized it'd been a while since she'd seen Kreacher. Actually, she hadn't seen him since the first day of their break. When she mentioned this to the girls, Ginny's expression darkened.

"We said the same to Sirius. You know how he told Kreacher 'out' when we arrived, and we didn't see him afterwards... well, Sirius doesn't mind, but we think that maybe..."

"Maybe he went out-out?" Mel glared. "I mean... he could if he wanted to..."

"That's what Harry said," Hermione sighed. "But maybe Sirius is right and Kreacher is just hidden somewhere in the house, with all the noise he's probably disoriented..."

Mel pushed away the uneasy feeling as soon as they got to the hospital. There were a few people there looking angry, apparently victims of some nasty family arguments. Erick stared at the poor witch in front of them and drowned a chuckle.

"I would love to stick a walnut up my father's—"

"You're going to love our dad, Erick!" George tackled him and pulled him in for a rough hug. Even though they were roughly the same height, Erick was thinner and easier to move around than the twins. "He's crazy about muggles!"

"I'm not crazy about muggles," Erick protested. "I just find them interesting..."

"Same thing," Fred put an arm around her shoulders. "You'll love what dad's got to say about that Discman you got..."

"Watch your hands, boy," Emily warned him as she walked past. "You better keep them where I can see..."

"Mum!"

"Don't worry, Em, you know I'm a proper gentleman," Fred grinned, pulling Mel closer. "At least in public I am— Ouch!"

"Don't be a pig, Weasley..." Erick replied walking away so Fred couldn't hit him back.

When they arrived at Mr Weasley's room, he was looking livelier and was finally gaining colour. He was propped up on the pillow and received Erick like he'd known him for years. Mel suspected that Mrs Weasley had told him about Erick's liking for the muggle world since he was incredibly eager to start talking about it.

Once Erick's interrogation was finally over -the poor boy was extremely anxious about all the attention he was getting from the Weasleys- Mr Weasley finally addressed his wife.

"You — er — haven't seen Healer Smethwyck, have you?"

"No," said Mrs Weasley dubiously, "why?"

"Nothing, nothing... Well, everyone had a good day? What did you all get for Christmas? Oh, Harry — this is absolutely wonderful —"

Harry had given the man fuse-wire and screwdrivers. When the man leaned over to shake his hand, Mrs Weasley tensed.

"Arthur— you've had your bandages changed. Why have you had your bandages changed a day early, Arthur? They told me they wouldn't need doing until tomorrow."

"What? No, no — it's nothing — it's — I — Well — now don't get upset, Molly, but Augustus Pye had an idea... He's the Trainee Healer, you know, lovely young chap and very interested in... um... complementary medicine... I mean, some of these old Muggle remedies... well, they're called stitches, Molly, and they work very well on — on Muggle wounds —"

Mel covered her mouth to hide her smirk.

"Oh, Merlin..."

"What?" Ginny looked at her. "What are stitches?"

In the brief second that passed, Lupin managed to move away towards the werewolf's bed, who clearly wasn't having a good day. Bill got up and mumbled something about tea, the twins quickly followed, both with the same knowing grins.

"Do you mean to tell me," Mrs Weasley spoke before they had the chance to run away, "that you have been messing about with Muggle remedies?"

"Not messing about, Molly, dear... It was just — just something Pye and I thought we'd try — only, most unfortunately — well, with these particular kinds of wounds — it doesn't seem to work as well as we'd hoped —"

"Meaning?"

"Well... well, I don't know whether you know what — what stitches are?"

"It sounds as though you've been trying to sew your skin back together," Mrs Weasley said tensely, then let out a rough laugh, "but even you, Arthur, wouldn't be that stupid —"

"I fancy a cup of tea too," Harry stood up abruptly.

The remaining group of teenagers all followed him, by the time they reached the door, Mrs Weasley was screaming:

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THAT'S THE GENERAL IDEA?"

"Typical Dad," said Ginny. "Stitches... I ask you..."

"Well, you know, they do work well on non-magical wounds," said Hermione. "I suppose something in that snake's venom dissolves them or something... I wonder where the tearoom is?"

"Fifth floor," said Harry.

"You mean to tell me," Erick was horrorstruck. "That muggles sew their skin back together?"

"Sometimes," Mel smiled. "Tough people those muggles, aren't they?"

"That's... that's barbaric," He winced. "Merlin..."

"Don't be so whiny," Ron rolled his eyes. "It's not a big deal, is it, guys?"

"Not really," Harry shrugged. "Muggles get stitches all the time. They don't sew the skin just like that, they give you anesthetics so you don't feel pain while they do it..."

They kept talking about muggles remedies until they reached a hall with several portraits trying to diagnose them with oddly specific diseases. They got distracted by one particular stubborn healer that kept insisting Ron had a bad case of spattergroit.

"And what's that supposed to be?" Ron asked in outrage as the healer ran through the portraits to keep up with them.

" 'Tis a most grievous affliction of the skin, young master, that will leave you pockmarked and more gruesome even than you are now —"

"Watch who you're calling gruesome!"

"The only remedy is to take the liver of a toad, bind it tight about your throat, stand naked by the full moon in a barrel of eels' eyes —"

Mel burst into laughter.

"I have not got spattergroit!"

"But the unsightly blemishes upon your visage, young master —"

"They're freckles! Now get back in your own picture and leave me alone!"

Ron turned to look at the others, who were doing a great job keeping straight faces. Mel was failing remarkably though, she kept laughing until they reached the next floor, at this point Ron wasn't even acknowledging her existence.

"What floor's this?"

"I think it's the fifth," said Hermione.

"Nah, it's the fourth," said Harry, "one more —"

He stopped, his eyes fixed on the door ahead of them. Mel looked ahead curiously, the door had a small window and a man was standing there, staring back. Hermione gasped behind her.

"Blimey!" Ron exclaimed.

"Oh my goodness, Professor Lockhart!" Hermione pointed out.

"Don't think he's much of a Professor now," Mel murmured with amusement.

"Well, hello there!" Lockhart walked out of the room. "I expect you'd like my autograph, would you?"

Harry muttered something to Ginny that caused her to laugh, Mel was divided between annoyance at the sight of the man and slight pity. He wasn't as tall as she remembered him, but she'd grown a bit the last three years, so it was understandable.

"Er — how are you, Professor?" said Ron.

"I'm very well indeed, thank you!" said Lockhart, pulling an old peacock-feather quill from his pocket. "Now, how many autographs would you like? I can do joined-up writing now, you know!"

"Brilliant," Mel said, trying not to giggle.

"Er — we don't want any at the moment, thanks," said Ron.

"Professor, should you be wandering around the corridors? Shouldn't you be in a ward?" Harry questioned.

"I insist, I don't think we should call him professor," Mel said.

The man looked at Mel intently, his smiled fading a bit, then he stared at Harry.

"Haven't we met?"

"Er... yeah, we have," said Harry. "You used to teach us at Hogwarts, remember?"

"That was hardly teaching," Mel grumbled, but Erick nudged her side to shut her up.

"Teach?" Lockhart blinked. "Me? Did I?"

His smile came back abruptly.

"Taught you everything you know, I expect, did I? Well, how about those autographs, then? Shall we say a round dozen, you can give them to all your little friends then and nobody will be left out!"

Mel opened her mouth to argue but Hermione gave her a pleading look as if saying 'give him a break', so she took pity.

"Gilderoy, you naughty boy, where have you wandered off to?" A Healer walked out of the room and realized Lockhart wasn't alone. "Oh Gilderoy, you've got visitors! How lovely, and on Christmas Day too! Do you know, he never gets visitors, poor lamb, and I can't think why, he's such a sweetie, aren't you?"

"We're doing autographs!" The man exclaimed. "They want loads of them, won't take no for an answer! I just hope we've got enough photographs!"

"Listen to him," said the Healer. "He was rather well known a few years ago; we very much hope that this liking for giving autographs is a sign that his memory might be coming back a little bit."

Mel shivered, thinking that fewer things were worse than a fully recovered Lockhart trying to scam more people.

"Will you step this way? He's in a closed ward, you know, he must have slipped out while I was bringing in the Christmas presents, the door's usually kept locked... not that he's dangerous! But bit of a danger to himself, bless him... Doesn't know who he is, you see, wanders off and can't remember how to get back... It is nice of you to have come to see him —"

"Er, actually, we were just — er —" Ron gestured vaguely.

Something about Lockhart washed her over with nostalgia, he reminded her of a time when things were simpler, and she felt terribly sad at the confirmation that not even someone as silly as him had come out clean out of their mess. She felt guilty and looked imploringly at the group.

"Just for a bit?" Mel asked softly, following the healer inside.

"Five seconds ago you wanted to hit him and now you want to stay?" Erick frowned.

"I got... sentimental," She admitted. "Felt bad about him, what am I supposed to do?"

"You could've ignored him," Harry offered coldly. "You're getting quite good at that..."

"Let's not stay long," Ron interrupted before Mel could answer, pulling her into the ward.

"This is our long-term resident ward," The healer explained as the group walked in. "For permanent spell damage, you know. Of course, with intensive remedial potions and charms and a bit of luck, we can produce some improvement... Gilderoy does seem to be getting back some sense of himself, and we've seen a real improvement in Mr Bode, he seems to be regaining the power of speech very well, though he isn't speaking any language we recognize yet... Well, I must finish giving out the Christmas presents, I'll leave you all to chat..."

Lockhart immediately started to sign pictures as soon as he sat down, continuing his senseless chatter.

"You can put them in envelopes, I am not forgotten, you know, no, I still receive a very great deal of fan mail... Gladys Gudgeon writes weekly... I just wish I knew why..." He paused, his hand dropping a photo on Ginny's lap absently. Then his smile came back again. "I suspect it is simply my good looks..."

"...And look, Broderick, you've been sent a potted plant and a lovely calendar with a different fancy hippogriff for each month, they'll brighten things up, won't they?" said the Healer, bustling along to the mumbling man, setting a rather ugly plant with long, swaying tentacles on the bedside cabinet and fixing the calendar to the wall with her wand. "And — oh, Mrs Longbottom, are you leaving already?"

[...] A formidable-looking old witch wearing a long green dress, a moth-eaten fox fur, and a pointed hat decorated with what was unmistakably a stuffed vulture and, trailing behind her looking thoroughly depressed — Neville.

Harry locked eyes with her, both of them froze unable to find a way to distract the others, and it was too late anyway, Ron had noticed.

"Neville! It's us, Neville!" He said excitedly. "Have you seen? Lockhart's here! Who've you been visiting?"

"Ron, stop yelling!" Mel scolded him.

"Friends of yours, Neville, dear?" Neville's grandmother asked calmly.

Neville was always quiet, but now he looked like he wanted to be swallowed by the earth.

"Ah, yes... Yes, yes, I know who you are, of course. Neville speaks most highly of you," She said, holding out a hand and shaking Harry's.

"Er — thanks," Harry replied.

"I'm afraid I don't recognize this boy," The old woman said, staring intently at Erick.

"Erick Flint," He said, tentatively reaching out to shake her hand. "I— er... I'm spending Christmas with the Weasleys."

"Flint, huh?" The woman said, her eyes narrowing a little. "Yes, I see that... I'm sorry about Eliot, he was a fine man."

"He was," Erick nodded, awkwardly glancing at Neville.

Neville was too embarrassed to even notice him.

"And you two are clearly Weasleys," Mrs Longbottom said appreciatively. "Yes, I know your parents — not well, of course — but fine people, fine people... and you must be Hermione Granger? Yes, Neville's told me all about you..."

Her eyes landed on Mel and she smiled.

"Most delighted to meet you, Miss Dumbledore," She shook her hand firmly. "Yes, I would recognize that gaze anywhere... have you been told that before? I'm sure you have... that sharp mind of yours, I'm sure it never misses a thing."

Mel smiled tightly, not knowing how to reply.

"You and Miss Granger have helped my grandson out of a few sticky spots, haven't you? He's a good boy, but he hasn't got his father's talent, I'm afraid to say..."

"What? Is that your dad down the end, Neville?" Ron asked in shock.

"What's this?" The woman asked sharply. "Haven't you told your friends about your parents, Neville?"

Neville stared up at the ceiling and shook his head a bit. Mel felt something pressing on her chest, but she still couldn't find the words. She realized that whenever she needed it the most her voice would simply vanish.

"Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of!" Mrs Longbottom exclaimed. "You should be proud, Neville, proud! They didn't give their health and their sanity so their only son would be ashamed of them, you know!"

"I'm not ashamed," said Neville quietly.

Ron was trying to look closer towards Neville's parents, but Mel pulled him down roughly.

"Well, you've got a funny way of showing it! My son and his wife," Mrs Longbottom turned to explain, "were tortured into insanity by You-Know-Who's followers."

Hermione and Ginny covered their mouths in shock. Ron paled and Erick went terribly stiff next to her. Harry and Mel were doing their best to control the situation.

"They were Aurors, you know, and very well respected within the Wizarding community," Mrs Longbottom stared at her. "Your father was a good friend of them, dear girl. Matthew was a fine man. Highly gifted, the three of them. And are you ashamed of your father, girl?"

The question took Mel by surprise.

"No, of course I'm not."

"See, Neville?" Mrs Longbottom said harshly, Mel wished she could've asked the woman not to use her against him. "I — yes, Alice dear, what is it?"

Neville's mother had come edging down the ward in her nightdress. She no longer had the plump, happy-looking face Harry had seen in Moody's old photograph of the original Order of the Phoenix. Her face was thin and worn now, her eyes seemed overlarge, and her hair, which had turned white, was wispy and dead-looking. She did not seem to want to speak, or perhaps she was not able to, but she made timid motions toward Neville, holding something in her outstretched hand.

"Again?" said Mrs Longbottom, sounding slightly weary. "Very well, Alice dear, very well — Neville, take it, whatever it is..."

But Neville had already stretched out his hand, into which his mother dropped an empty Droobles Blowing Gum wrapper.

"Very nice, dear," said Neville's grandmother in a falsely cheery voice, patting his mother on the shoulder.

"Thanks Mum," Neville muttered.

Mel looked down, feeling caged in the situation and desperately wanting to help her friend without being able to. When she looked up Neville had a hard stare on them as if ready to fight them in case they wanted to make any fun comments, but Mel knew none of them was thinking of such thing.

"Well, we'd better get back," Mrs Longbottom. "Very nice to have met you all. Neville, put that wrapper in the bin, she must have given you enough of them to paper your bedroom by now..."

Neville, however, made sure to put the wrapper into his pocket. Once gone, her friends started to speak.

"I never knew," Hermione said with tears in her eyes.

"Nor did I," Ron was looking at the door still, his voice dry.

"Nor me," Ginny said weakly.

Erick said nothing, but he looked as affected as the rest. The group turned in time to Harry and Mel. They shared a grim look, but Mel couldn't speak, so Harry started.

"We did. Dumbledore told us but we promised we wouldn't mention it... that's what Bellatrix Lestrange got sent to Azkaban for, using the Cruciatus Curse on Neville's parents until they lost their minds."

"Bellatrix Lestrange did that? That woman Kreacher's got a photo of in his den?" Hermione asked in shock.

"I think it's time we go back," said Mel, tightly holding onto Ron's arm. "The rest must be looking for us..."

Next Chapter —>

Taglist.

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#twoidiots writing #hp fanfic #Harry Potter #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter xoc #WITT fic

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historicity-was-already-taken · 4 years

Text

Guest Post: On Japanese Internment Camps

Since I am currently very

I’d like to post a piece of writing from one of this blog’s fave guests (and humans in general), Dr. Stephanie Hinnershitz; please note that this was originally posted to her personal facebook page, and is shared here with her permission: There's a reason why historians are moving away from using "internment" when discussing the forced removal of close to 120,000 Japanese Americans during WWII. I also realize that I recently used "internment" in an article I wrote. This was a stylistic choice on behalf of the editors and I should have pushed back more, but it made sense for context and readership. Incarceration is the appropriate term. Here's why: I received a few private messages and emails from friends and strangers asking if I knew that German Americans and Italian Americans were also interned during WWII. Yes. I am aware of this. Many times, people bring this up in a "gotcha!" way to try and prove the point that the incarceration of Japanese Americans was not racially-motivated or had no racial angle to it at all because if it did, why did close to 15,000 "white" people end up interned? In a more charitable way, people bring up the internment of German and Italian Americans because they did not know about it until well into their adult years and assume that I might not know about it. But let's return to the internment issue. I study the removal and incarceration of those--foreign and American-born--of Japanese descent. The internment of "enemy aliens" is not my area of specialty. Under American policy, internment during WWII was a specific term for the detention of immigrants who were nationals of enemy nations (Italy and Germany, for example). Now, there were certainly Japanese enemy aliens, but the majority of them were held with other German and Italian enemy aliens in detention centers overseen by the Department of Justice. Internment fell under the DOJ.

The word "internment" doesn't apply to Japanese Americans who were removed from their homes by the Army and then transferred first to "assembly" (detention) centers and later to the "relocation centers" or "camps" (or concentration camps--yes, this phrase was used by many officials in memos and correspondence--prisons, prison camps, etc.). The reason why internment is not the correct term is because the majority of those Japanese Americans who wound up in one of ten prison camps were American citizens, not "aliens." They were not "enemy aliens" because a) they were from America and America was not at war with America and b) they were citizens. Even the planners of incarceration and a lot of the military officials I researched were careful to avoid the term "internment" when discussing the removal and imprisonment of Japanese Americans after Executive Order 9066 because it was basically incorrect. (Side note: Many government and military officials knew that incarcerating American citizens was constitutionally a bad idea and tried to persuade FDR to avoid including Japanese American citizens in enemy alien roundups.)

Because internment was not really applicable to the majority of ethnically Japanese American citizens, the government created a new agency--the War Relocation Authority (WRA)--to oversee the ten prison camps. The Army was supposed to be free of any responsibility once Japanese Americans were transferred to the camps, but--if you read my article--this didn't work out. The WRA a bureaucratic nightmare, a massive waste of taxpayer money, and just a poorly-managed civilian agency tasked with running an unconstitutional program.

Internment of Germans and Italians WAS NOT the same as incarceration of Japanese Americans. Two different programs overseen by different agencies. So, really, there are responsible and interesting ways to place incarceration and internment in conversation, but you can't really responsibly do it if you're trying to say that there were not racial elements to Japanese American incarceration.

BUT--if you want to try and make that argument, here are some other reasons why you're wrong:

1) When you make a decision or policy based on the belief that an entire group of people behave a certain way because of racial characteristics, that's racism. And that's exactly what happened with Japanese American incarceration.

2) Did General John DeWitt (in charge of the military zones along the West Coast where most Japanese Americans lived) believe that ALL enemy aliens should be removed from vulnerable areas regardless of race? Yes. BUT this starts to break down once we get into citizenship...

3) German and Italian Americans (whether foreign or American-born) made up a HUGE portion of the American population, particularly on the East Coast. Initially, government officials thought that even American-born citizens of German and Italian descent should also be removed and incarcerated like Japanese American citizens, BUT Italians and German Americans should be given an opportunity to explain themselves--due process--before a committee. Japanese Americans did not receive this consideration at any point AND the idea of removing and incarcerating German American and Italian American citizens was eventually dropped. Officials argued that it would be impossible to do this because there were so many Italian Americans and German Americans. Also, because many of Italian and German descent were American citizens, they were obviously loyal to the U.S. and we shouldn't really be concerned

....

Wait--what?

I hope after reading that you were able to stop and think, "But I thought you just said the majority of Japanese Americans who ended up in the prison camps were American citizens?"

Yes! I did say that! Please continue reading.

4) Officials determined that Japanese American citizens were less trustworthy than Germans and Italian American citizens because even if ethnically Japanese individuals were born in the United States (and many of those incarcerated were members of the second generation--never been to Japan, went to public schools, had plenty of American-born friends), their parents (immigrants from Japan) were unable to naturalize or become American citizens...BECAUSE RACIST LAWS SAID ASIAN IMMIGRANTS WERE UNABLE TO NATURALIZE. See what's going on here?

5) Okay, so the next "whatboutisms" that usually pop up include planned attacks by Japan coordinated with Japanese Americans in the U.S. and the dual-citizenship of those born in America to Japanese parents. Were there attempts at or completed attacks of the West Coast by Japan? Yes, the "Bombardment of Ellwood" for example. Is there any proof that these were coordinated with the help of Japanese American citizens or even "enemy aliens?" No. Were there Japanese enemy aliens who did suspicious things or expressed anti-American attitudes? Yes--just as there were with German and Italian enemy aliens. But the fact remains that it was predominantly Japanese American CITIZENS with no connections to any subversive plans who ended up in the camps--a significant difference compared to German and Italian Americans.

As for dual citizenship, if you use this argument to justify the incarceration of Japanese Americans, congratulations! You're a bona fide 1920s racist! This is the exact argument used by 1920s racists and there's a grain of truth in there: Because of citizenship laws and negotiations in Japan and the United States, Japanese Americans born to Japanese parents in the United States before 1924 were automatically both citizens of Japan and--because of birthright citizenship under the Fourteenth Amendment--were also U.S. citizens. Officials used this to argue that with dual citizenship, even Japanese Americans born in the U.S. had loyalties to Japan and deserved to be locked up. What this argument did (and does not) take into consideration is the fact that between 1924 and 1940, Nisei (second-generation Japanese Americans) began to renounce their Japanese citizenship--approximately 70% (according to records kept by the WRA and other data). And after 1924, this dual-citizenship situation no longer existed.

6) The end result of this was that the government and the military determined that even Japanese American citizens were less trustworthy simply because they were of Japanese descent. Discrimination and segregation laws along the West Coast made sure that Japanese Americans had a difficult time fully integrating into American society...and then this was used against Japanese Americans to argue that because they remained unintegrated, this meant they were disloyal to the United States! Anti-Japanese sentiment had been building for a long time along the West Coast, and enterprising and racist politicians and farmers who wanted access to Japanese farmland (Japanese were incredibly successful farmers because they took risks and developed different crops in California especially) took advantage of wartime hysteria and lobbied for removal. And it worked.

So what does this all mean? You can't compare Japanese American incarceration to German and Italian enemy alien detention if you're trying to make the argument that there was no racism in incarceration. Some 11,000 German Americans (most enemy aliens) were interned in enemy alien detention camps. As for Italian Americans interned, you'll see the misleading figure of 600,000 Italian Americans interned. This is not true. The government classified 600,000 non-citizen Italian Americans as enemy aliens and they were placed under curfews and other restrictive actions that violated their civil liberties--but 600,000 Italian Americans were not interned. About 10,000 were removed from the West Coast and ultimately under a thousand interned--all enemy aliens, not citizens. Additionally, on Columbus Day in 1942, FDR officially declared Italian Americans no longer enemy aliens (he got a lot of pressure from Italian American Democrats in NY who basically said, "If you want our support for the New Deal, don't even think about it, clown."). Japanese American citizens were removed from their homes, placed in prison camps in terrible areas, and denied due process. People also like to say incarceration was not that bad because Japanese Americans had places to live, the camps provided games and entertainment, and they got to leave to go work by 1943. All true. But many of you can't even wear a goddamn mask without griping, so to say that "it's not a big deal" to have the government remove you from your homes and place you in a desert somewhere is a little disingenuous, no?

And if you're still going to say it's not a big deal--Japanese American citizens also had their guns confiscated. So there's that.

AND here's the best part: About 15 years ago, some members of Congress tried to issue pass legislation to issue a public apology to German Americans interned during WWII and create some required programming in school curriculum to be sure kids learned about this. But you know what? Republicans refused to have anything to do with it because it was "un-American" and unpatriotic.

#world war II #japanese internment

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