#my computer blue screened when i finished this and deleted the whole thing and i had to do it again

[greasby]

jane doe upon ye

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #tf2 fanart #tf2 soldier #nudity #my computer blue screened when i finished this and deleted the whole thing and i had to do it again #if it wasnt for my awesome fucking friend boingward i wouldve had to do the whole thing again #SO YALL BETTER BLOW THIS UP I WENT THRU TOO MUCH #my art

[monicashipsnickyjoe]

soulmate/modern au

Nicky has a nervousness about him that he’s never been able to explain. He keeps feeling like something’s missing. Like he’s forgotten the name of an important thing and it’s sitting, impatient, at the tip of his tongue. He can’t recall. Or he doesn’t know. It’s all terribly confusing, and so, so frustrating.

He’ll walk down the street, see a family of duckings that makes him smile, and turn to his right to tell... someone. No one’s there.

Sometimes, when he’s tired, he’ll order two coffees at the shop on the corner, making one much sweeter than he likes it. Only when he walks away does he remember he’s alone.

When his friends encourage him, he goes to bars. He meets men, and occasionally he will let them touch his arm or his shoulder or his thigh from the bar stool beside his. Sometimes, he lets them kiss him. Never, is he able to ignore the feeling of wrong that prickles over his skin and twists in his stomach. Always, he leaves without them. If he has their number, he will delete it before he gets home.

Tonight, he cooks at the stove. He doesn’t realize he’s made any mistakes until, holding two plates, he thinks of something Booker said at work and turns, ready to share. There are two chairs at Nicky’s table. Both are empty. Nicky looks at his hands, and cursing, leaves one plate on the counter and takes the other into the living room. He sits on the couch, plate on his lap, and turns up the sound on the tv until he forgets that he’s forgotten.

The next morning, on his way to work, he sees a selection of sketchpads in an art store window. He buys one, and a set of charcoals. He carries the bag proudly until he gets to the office, to the cubicle he shares with Booker, and realizes with a deep sigh and heavy frown that he does not draw.

Booker looks at the bag, then at him. He lifts one lone brow. “You start taking art classes?”

Groaning, Nicky throws the bag under the desk and collapses into the chair. Whatever this is, it’s getting worse. What started as tri-monthly slip-ups are turning into daily routines. “Maybe I should see a doctor,” Nicky says.

“Maybe.” Booker scratches his chin. Behind him, on his computer screen, a game of solitaire is opened over the report he is supposed to be writing. “Or it could just be what it obviously is.”

“Don’t start.”

“Soulmates, Nicky,” Booker says.

Nicky rolls his eyes. “Be serious.”

Booker swivels his chair the whole way toward Nicky and leans forward. “I am serious.” He’s not smirking. That is his serious face.

But soulmates?

“I’d have better odds at the lottery,” Nicky says. He’s seen thousands of soulbonds... in movies. To find one in real life is a one in a billion chance. More, perhaps. Nicky is just a regular guy with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy he doesn’t use, a desk job that he hates, and a caffeine addiction. Normal. Boring. Not near special enough to catch the attention of another person’s soul.

“Maybe you should play the numbers, then.” Booker twists his chair back toward his desk.

“Soulmates,” Nicky huffs. He shucks off his coat and starts his computer. “Ridiculous.”

*

Across town, Joe has purchased two coffees, one much too bitter for him. When he realizes, he’s so excited, he nearly drops them both. He stops on the street, places both coffees on the ledge of a windowsill, and opens his phone.

“Nile,” he says before she even finishes saying, “Hello?”

“It happened again.” Joe can’t stop laughing. “That makes everyday this week!”

“That’s great, Joe.”

“Do you think I’ll meet him soon?” Joe bounces on his feet. “If it’s happening everyday, then surely -”

“Maybe? I mean, who knows? There’s not a lot of concrete info on this stuff,” Nile says. There’s a yawn in her voice. He woke her - again. They go to the same college - Nile for the first time, Joe for the second - but their shared classes aren’t until the afternoon. He feels a little bad about it now. It dampens his spirits somewhat. “Except movies, but who knows if those are right.”

Joe tries to reel in his excitement. “Right. Of course.”

Nile must be able to tell, because she immediately perks, brightening her voice. “But, Joe. If it takes a little time, it will be worth it, right? He’s out there. You just have to find him.”

“Thank you, Nile.” Joe’s smile presses his cheek tightly to his phone. “I am sorry I woke you.”

“Swing by, bring me that coffee, and we’ll call it even.”

“I promise.” Joe hangs up.

He thinks of the groceries that stock his cabinets at home. More pasta than he’s ever needed before.

He thinks of the book of Roman philosophers that he purchased that now sits on his coffee table, waiting.

He smiles at a family of ducklings he sees by a pond, and turns, ready to tell the person beside him. No one is there.

Yet.

“Soulmates,” Joe tells the ducks. “Amazing.”

*

The following day, it’s raining when Nicky leaves the office. He doesn’t have an umbrella, so with a lengthy sigh, he hunches his shoulders and presses forward. The rain is cold on the back of his neck and he shivers. But once you are wet, you can’t be more wet, so there is some comfort in that.

He makes it to the bus stop and sneezes.

“Bless you,” says the man already there, standing beside the soaked bench. He has a blue umbrella open, hiding his face, and another, this one green, closed, tucked under his arm.

“Grazie,” Nicky says and wipes his nose with his sleeve. It’s damp, but so is everything.

The blue umbrella shifts up a little. Nicky looks the other way, down the street, for the bus. Something nudges him in the side. He looks, and it’s the handle of the spare, green umbrella.

“May I tell you a story,” the man offering it says. Nicky looks up into a pair of warm brown eyes and with a wide, welcoming smile. Soft-looking curls cover his head, and a well-groomed beard rounds his face. He’s wearing a leather jacket with a t-shirt underneath. Paint splotches cover both, in a rainbow of colors.

Nicky, stunned by this man’s beauty, can only nod. The man moves the umbrella, poking him again, and Nicky takes it. He doesn’t open it, though, he can’t get his hands to cooperate.

“I saw the weather report this morning,” the man says, voice so bright and happy, it warms Nicky up from the inside out. “And I grabbed two umbrellas before I left the house. Two. I didn’t even think about it until I walked into the studio and my friend noticed.”

He’s looking at Nicky and Nicky should say something. He tries, “That’s interesting.”

The man looks at the umbrella in Nicky’s hands, at the way he’s clutching it and not opening it. He takes a step closer, so that his open blue umbrella covers them both.

This close, Nicky can only see freckles.

“I have a question to ask,” the man says, “and I really hope the answer is yes.”

Nicky swallows hard. He nods.

“Do you like bitter coffee, pasta, and philosophy?”

Nicky’s breath catches in his throat. It cannot be possible, but... if it is. And if it is this man... Nicky’s heart leaps out of his chest with hope.

He clears his throat, he must find words now. “Do you...” Nicky stops and tries again. “Are you an artist, do you like things too sweet, and do you notice the ducklings?”

If Nicky thought this man’s smile was bright before, he was mistaken. For now, it is a beaming sun, pushing back all the gray.

“I love the ducklings,” the man says.

Any moment now, Nicky will awake, having fallen asleep at his desk, and Booker will mock him.

Instead, the voice in Nicky’s heart whispers, This one, and he knows.

The man reaches out a hand and places it on Nicky’s chest. Nicky must look like hell, drenched in rain, but this man stares at him with open reverence like he can see the moon in his eyes.

“Hello, my heart,” the man says. “I have been looking for you.”

Nicky’s having trouble with full sentences again, so he takes a step closer instead.

“My shared soul,” the man continues, speaking for them both now. He knows the words Nicky’s heart whispers. “My light. My warmth.”

He motions to himself, then. “Joe.”

Nicky does the same. “Nicky.”

“Nicky,” Joe repeats, and it takes all Nicky has not to melt into a puddle on the sidewalk, ready to be washed away with the rain.

“Joe,” Nicky says, and it’s sudden relief. The word he could never quite remember right there on the tip of his tongue. He says it again, loving the feel of it in his mouth. “Joe.”

It’s perfect. It’s everything.

Later, Nicky will cook the pasta in Joe’s cabinets, and Joe will sketch Nicky with the charcoal.

For now, Nicky places his hand over Joe’s on his chest and knows he’s home.

#i wrote something nickyjoe #joe x nicky #kaysonova #nicky x joe #soulmate au #modern au #artist joe #finding each other :) #two halves of a whole #fluff #this is really only fluff lol #booker is here and so is nile

[krakenartificer]

When I got my ADHD diagnosis, I looked at the questions on the screening form and thought, "If this result comes back positive, then I'm definitely not the only person in my family who has it." Questions like

"Have difficulty finishing one activity before starting another one" and

"I finish others' sentences before they can finish it themselves" and

"have trouble staying on one topic when talking"

...I thought were just weird quirks of my family, but no. When I got my results, I contacted my cousin, and she contacted her sisters and mother, and .. .. yeah. Basically everyone in my dad's side of the family is ADHD.

Now there are some problems with that, obviously, (getting family reunions to stick to a schedule is lol no) but there are some really fantastic perks. For one thing, no one in that family minds if I interrupt them while they're talking ... everyone's happy to keep 3 conversations going at the same time .... and no one minds if you fidget constantly.

But the best perk -- at least that I've found so far -- is that all of our parents have coping mechanisms, and passed them on to us. When I found myself unable to handle tasks with more than one step, my father didn't say "WTF are you talking about? It's easy! Just do the thing! Stop being lazy!" No, he could relate completely, and he sat down and taught me how to handle that.

So today, I'm going to pass on to you the coping mechanism my dad taught me for handling the "cannot put tasks in order / cannot get started / forget what I'm doing" problem. You'll need to adjust it for your own needs and your own struggles, but hopefully it'll be helpful in setting up your own process.

I'm going to walk through it with a big project I'm doing at work, just to have a concrete example. That will make some of the discussion specific to computer programming and technical writing, but I do the same thing for all my projects, so hopefully it'll be generalizable.

So to set the stage:

I was supposed to modify this piece of code -- we'll call it "Rosetta" -- to make it handle call data as well as what it was already doing. I did that.... but we now need the code to be able to handle calls (if that's wanted) but also to be able to handle NOT having calls (if THAT'S wanted).

Which is just .... ugh. So much. SOOOOOOOO much.

So. Break it down.

Step one is to get some recording mechanism - pen and paper, whiteboard, blank computer document, whatever

(Technically, this is a different coping strategy, so we'll just take a quick detour: WRITE THINGS DOWN. Your brain is shit at remembering things, and anyway you've already got limits on your working memory; why would you choose to tie up some of that limited resource in something that could be accomplished with literal stone-age technology? Don't even try to remember things. WRITE THEM DOWN.)

I like sticky notes: they're readily available in all offices, they're pretty cheap, and (most importantly) they can be rearranged if it turns out that I forgot a step or put the steps in the wrong order (which, like, let's be honest, I am definitely going to do). But they kill trees and create unnecessary methane emissions, so I've recently switched over to using virtual sticky notes. That's the format I'm going to use for this example, but you can use anything that meets your purposes.

So, you've got something to write with, you're ready to start.

The first question is: what are you trying to accomplish here? What would "done" look like? What is our goal?

I need to end up with a version of Rosetta that will make the correct results if you don't want calls, and will also make the correct results if you do.

The goal here is that you end up with a statement that you can definitively say (a) Yes this is what I wanted or (b)No this is not right because _______

In this case, in order to do that, I'll need to define "correct results" for both call- and non-call versions. But if I have that nailed down, then this statement meets that criterion: I'll be able to say "Yes, this is what I wanted: see, it makes the correct result for calls, and it makes the correct result for not-calls". Or else I'll be able to say, "No, this is wrong: see, it makes the correct result for calls, but on not-calls it does X and we wanted Y."

I have a clear, definitive standard about what I need to do and whether or not I've done it.

But there was a prerequisite there: I need to define "correct results".

So that goes on a sticky note: Create test that will compare my results to existing call!Rosetta-results and to existing not-call!Rosetta-results.

[ID: Two blue boxes, one on top of the other. The top one says in white text "Create test to compare my results to call!results" The bottom one says "Create test to compare my results to not-call!results"] OK. So now we know what we want. The second question is: what do we need to do in order to get that? Here's where the sticky-note recording system really shines, because you don't have to answer this question sequentially. You just start writing down every single thing that is not the way you want it to end up.

I need it to remove commas in the python script, not the bash script

I need to delete the first part of the get_runs() function, which doesn't do anything

I need to delete the rest of the parameters passed to build_query_script() function, because runs encompasses all the others

while we're on that subject, runs doesn't even need the group_variable, so let's pull that out of the parameter document

we also have a dmf defined, which the bash script demands but doesn't use; let's change that demand

since we're changing the structure of the parameter document, we don't need to pull new metrics for each run, so let's move that outside of the runs() loop and only run once

right now the parameter document is ALMOST but not quite "one row per template". Make it so it's actually one row per template.

among other things, that's going to require making it possible for a template to be followed by nothing at all, since it's the assumption that a template will have a metrics block after it that makes it not quite one row per template. So make it possible to publish a template with a null block

the other thing that's weirdly hard-coded is the definition of what a block looks like. Would it make more sense to separate that out into an input file, like the parameters document? On the one hand, that would make it much more flexible; on the other hand, that's another piece that can break. Don't know. Put a question mark on it.

etc

Here's what it looks like at the end of this step:

[ID: A black and white background showing many boxes in two different shades of blue, all with white text. Some of the boxes are overlapping each other.]

As you can see, at this phase you don't need to worry about any of the following:

ordering the tasks. Just stick 'em right on top of each other for now

how you're going to do any of this. Right now we just need to know what, not how

sticking to only one project. As I was working on this, it occurred to me that this whole process would have been a heck of a lot easier if someone had just made a user manual for this, and since I have to go through all the code line-by-line anyway, I might as well write up the documentation while I'm at it. (To help out future-me, if nothing else.) So I put those tasks on another color of sticky note.

making notes that make any ***ing sense to anyone else. This process is for you, and only you need to understand what you're talking about it. Phrase it in ways that make sense to your brain, and to hell with anyone else.

on that topic, also don't worry about making steps that are "too small" or "too dumb" to write down. This is for you. If "save document" feels like a step to you, then write it down.

You also don't need to get every single step involved in the project right now. Get as many as you can, to be sure, but the process is designed on the assumption that you ARE going to forget important steps, and is designed to handle that.

When you can't think of any more steps, then the third question is: what order does it make sense to do these in? Are there any steps that would be easier if you did another step first? Are there any that literally cannot be done unless another step is complete?

This is also a good place to group steps if they fit together nicely. When I used physical sticky notes, I used two different sizes; digitally I can of course make them whatever size I want.

So I have several documentation steps that (a) do need to be written to make sense to other people and (b) I really need to know what's going on before I can do that. I could write them now, but if I did, I'd just end up re-writing them based on things that change as I'm coding. So we'll move those to the end:

[ID: Three dark blue boxes with white text. They read "Create step-by-step instructions for creating your own metric agg", "Create step-by-step instructions for modifying a metric", "Create step-by-step instructions for modifying a query."]

These parts, though -- if I had all the variable structures written down, I could look at them while I'm coding. Then I won't have to keep scrolling back and forth in the code, trying to remember if it's an array or a dictionary while also trying to remember what part of the code I was working on. Brilliant. Move that to the front.

[ID: Seven dark blue boxes with white text, three large, four small. The first one is large and says "Write up explanation of how Rosetta works." The second one is large and says "Document structure of all variables." Attached to that one are four smaller boxes that say "All_blocks", "Runs", "metric", "New_block". The third large one says "Document what qb_parameters.csv contains"]

Also, while I'm at it, I should get the list of variables I need to document -- then I won't have to keep scrolling to find them. Make those sub-steps.

I definitely keep needing to look up what's in the parameters document, so I should write that down, too. For the user manual I also should write down what's in the metric document, but I don't need that for myself, so I can send that to the end.

[ID: The same three dark blue boxes from two screenshots ago (create step-by-step instructions for metric agg, modifying a metric, and modifying a query), now with another dark blue box in front of them with white text that says "Document what granular_metrics.tsv contains."]

These five are all small steps, and are all related in that they don't actually (hopefully) change the functionality of the code; they're just stuff left over from prior versions of this code. So we can lump them all together.

[ID: Five light blue boxes with white text that say "Delete first part of get_runs()", "Have build_query_script only receive the "run" parameter" "Delete dmf" "Move metrics=get_metrics() outside build_all_blocks (all the way up to the top level?" "Delete group_variable from qp_parameters"]

My brain likes this better, so that I can keep track of fewer "main steps", but that's just a peculiarity of me -- you should lump and split however you prefer to make this process easier for you.

[ID: The same five boxes from the prior screenshot, now all made smaller and attached to a larger box that says "Remove Legacy Code"]

Keep going, step by step, sticky by sticky, until you've got them in order. If -- while you're doing this -- you remember another thing you need to do, write it on a sticky and slap it on the pile; you don't have to stop what you're doing to deal with it, because it's written down and it's on the pile and it will get processed; you can just keep working on the thing you're on right now.

[ID: All the same boxes from the first screenshot, now in a neat row. Some of the original boxes have been grouped together. The ones that were said to be at the beginning of the process are on the left and the ones that were said to be at the end are on the right.]

Step four: for the love of all that's holy, SAVE THIS LIST.

Write it on your cubicle whiteboard where it won't be erased

write it on a piece of paper and tape it to the office wall

send an email to yourself

take a picture with your phone

I don't care but save it.

When I used physical sticky notes, I kept them all on the hood of my cubicle's shelf. Now, as you can see, I use Powerpoint, which is irritating af but does allow me to keep everything in a single document, which I can write down the path of.

[ID: White text on a black background says "open ~/Documents/Rosetta\ Modifications\ and \Documentation.pptx" The next line says "Notes in Rocketbook pg 10-12, 16" The next line says "Turn that into documentation that can be used for making modifications."]

And now (finally) you can answer the question "How would I even get started on that?" You look at the first thing on the list, and you treat it as its own project. You can hyperfocus on this step and completely forget about everything else this project requires, because everything you need to remember for the rest of it is written down.

If, as you're working a step, you think of something else you need to do for the big project, write it on a sticky and slap it on the pile. Don't even worry about trying to order it or identify sub-steps; as long as it's not blocking the thing you need to work on right now, you don't have to care. Just stick that bugger anywhere at all on the list, and go back to what you were doing. When you un-hyperfocus and come back to look at your list, there'll be a big sticky note stuck sideways across all the rest of the steps, and you'll remember to file and order it then.

Other benefits of this system

1) The first question really helps with unclear directions from your boss. You can take whatever they told you to do, and translate it into a requirement that is clearly either met or not-met, and then run it back by the boss.

If they say, "No, no, we want ______" then phew! You just saved a huge miscommunication and weeks of wasted work! What a good employee you are! What an excellent team player with strong communication skills!

If they say "Yes, that's what I want," then you know -- for sure -- what it is you're trying to accomplish. Your anxiety is reduced, and your boss thinks you're super-conscientious.

(And if your boss is a jerk who likes to move the goalposts and blame it on their subordinates, then have this conversation over email, so you can show it to their boss or to HR should it become necessary.)

2) Having this project map means that when you spend an hour staring at the requirements and trying to figure out how to get started (which, let's be honest, you were definitely going to do anyway) ... When your boss/coworker comes by and says, "How's it going?" Instead of having to say "I haven't even started 😞" You can say, "Pretty well! I've got all the steps mapped out and am getting ready to start on implementation!" and show them your list, and they think you're very organized and meticulous. 3) Sometimes, especially in corporate jobs, you and your coworkers will run into a problem that's too big for even Neurotypicals to hold all in their heads. At that point, the NTs will be completely lost -- they've never had to develop a way to handle projects they can't just look at and know how to get started. So then you pipe up in the meeting and say, "OK, well, what exactly are we trying to accomplish?" and everybody at the conference table looks at you like you're a goddamned genius and you don't have to tell them that you use this exact same process to remember how to make a sandwich 😅

4) Having this project map makes it so much easier to stop work and then start it up again later, but this post is already really really really long, so I'm going to address that in a separate (really really long) post.

#adhd #adhd life #tips #semi-solicited advice #gpoy #your mileage may vary #long post #very long post #sorry I wish I wrote more concisely too

[mvttsvn]

Useless [pt1]

Modern college!au

toxic Eren x gn!reader

warnings: angst, explicit themes, dubcon, embarrassment, manipulation, degradation, OOC, cussing, and typos

authors note: this has been sittin in my drafts for months I just haven’t had the motivation to finish. there will be a part 2 with smut I just wanted to get this out first.

part 2

Eren liked to think he was a pretty simple guy. He’d meet someone, use them for his benefit, lead them on till he didn’t need them anymore, then disappear. A sick trick that he used to manipulate all kinds of people. Life really can be easy with the right looks and a smooth voice. He and only ever got what he needed. He understands how selfish it is. But gotten him this far, so what would be the point in changing. 

Unfortunately, you had been one of the unlucky few to get caught up in his schemes. Let’s be honest it wasn’t a surprise, you knew of him before. A few of your friends pinned over him for being the cute nicotine-addicted guy who couldn’t care less about World Literature 1-2. But you believed each and everyone of of his sweet little promises. “No you’re so special, I think I’m gonna keep you around for a long time sweetheart.” Deception dripping from his lips as he gave you a sinful grin.

You should’ve known...

It’s been a few months now since Eren blocked and deleted your number for his phone, the last time you spoke was when he texted you to thank you for helping him pass his English final. You replied with asking if he wanted to get lunch the following day only to be left with your text never going through. That motherfucker. Of course you were angry, mostly at yourself though. You tried not to sulk about it yet every time you’d go out you’d dress up a little then you would usually just in case you’d see him. And luckily he wasn’t in any of your classes this semester either so it would be easier to forget him.

At this point you haven’t thought of Eren in weeks, you’ve focused yourself in uni and started taking assignments and things more seriously. That was until one of Eren’s roommates unknowingly took a seat next to you in your intro to ethics course.

You’ve been to Eren’s apartment a multitude of times. You knew who his roommates were, even after having a few conversations in the late morning with them after you would spend the night. Armin, who was too engrossed from whatever was on his phone plopped his books right next to you and took a seat not sparing you a glance. Once you professor started speaking he locked his phone slipping it into his pocket and glance around the room. Once he looked at you his blue eye widened and he sorta whispered “oh hey! y/n didn’t know you were in here”

You shrugged and gave a polite smile while turning back to look at the front of the room to stare through one of the windows above the projector screen. It’s not like you hated Armin, he was very kind and never judged you when you’d take the walk of shame in the morning through Eren’s kitchen, it’s just you know that this interaction would eventually lead back to him and that made you nervous.

A week or two passed and Armin continued to sit next you, you supposed it was more comfortable for him because it didn’t look like he knew anyone else in this class, neither did you. Nor were you complaining he’d give you notes and lend you his book when you would forget. Not much conversation would happen between you either, a simple hello and other small talk would occur nothing more. A very professional relationship.

Yet when your professor assigned a partner projects you and Armin both looked at each other like :| and silently agreed to work together. It was just easier that way. The assignment wasn’t due for another 2 weeks so you had confidence that you wouldn’t have to grind at the end of the this week to do it. Until Armin caught your arm as you were leaving.

“Hey sorry to ask but would it be ok if we could work on this after school? I have a lot of stuff due this week and I’m in a bit of a time crunch.” He shyly laughed hoping you weren’t busy.

You held in a sigh “Uhh sure, can I meet you at 5 tho..I have a thing-”.

“Yeah! That’d be fine, my place?”

You kinda really didn’t want to go to his place, “yea!”

You both continued listening to your teacher’s lecture while your mind was elsewhere, you didn’t have anything after school you just wanted to go home for a bit and prepare for who you may or may not see at Eren’s Armins apartment. By the end of the day you raced home, flopping onto your bed, this was a bad idea, why didn’t you just ask for him to meet at the library or something?? This situation could’ve been a whole lot simpler if you just offered your place instead. Hell you don’t have any unconventional roommates you sleep with him so it’s just unfair. At 4:45 you gather your things and drove over to Armin’s apartment. You knocked on the door, your nerves going haywire.

You’re greeted by Armin he smiled and opened the door for you letting you walk inside. You took a glance to the side and luckily Eren’s familiar beat up tennis shoes weren’t by the door. At least you could relax for a little while, hopefully he wouldn’t come home till you were gone.

Jean was sitting on the couch watching some action movie at a low volume with Connie who was fast asleep curled up with a throw pillow. The lights in the living room were dim with the curtains on the windows shut. Yet you could still see from the light in the kitchen that shone from above the counter. Jean gave you a nod, “welcome back” he half whispered as he tipped his drink at you. You smiled and waved and made your way into Armin’s room. You sat at the edge of his desk in a borrowed kitchen chair, as he joined you sitting in his computer chair in front of his desktop. He left his door slightly ajar letting you see right through into the kitchen and front door, which made you slightly on edge. Armin started going over the project, opening a document, and reading through a few paragraphs. You tried your best you to concentrate but you were too paranoid. Every so often a loud noise from Jean’s movie on the tv would make you whip your head towards the door. About an hour in you and Armin had crunched through about a few paragraphs and of your project, to Armin’s mistake you guys definitely weren’t going to finish tonight. Hopefully the next time you’d offer your place instead.

After another 30 minutes you and Armin gave up, eventually you guys made your way back into the living room. You went to the door to gather your things until Jean and Connie basically begged you to stay and watch another movie with them. You didn’t want to, you knew if you stayed any longer the possibility of Eren coming home would increase. But when Connie got up from the couch and handed you a drink, you gave in. As you sat down you began slightly regretting your decision. Why were you staying? You and Armin were finished you can go home.

You asked yourself this when you heard keys jangle outside the door and the click of the lock. It’s roughly pushed open and Eren moves into the room, swiftly locking it behind him. “Hey man” Jean calls, you immediately tense next to Armin and fix a stare at the tv. You’re too aware of your surroundings right now to know what happening but you need a distraction. You can see his movement in your peripheral, Eren saunters in to the dark living room to stand by the opposite of the end of the couch from you. when he spots you,  you can feel his blazing stare in your skull, he laughs out a scoff and the room goes silent, except for the low murmur of the tv. 

The air is tense and awkward and everybody can see your apprehension. your heart it beating in your ears and you can feel you palms starting to sweat. The sounds of the tv are immediately drowned out when Eren breathes our your name. “What the hell are you doing here?” He grips the arm of the couch and places his left hand on his hip. You slowly turn your head to look him in the eyes when Armin speaks up trying to lighten the situation “We had a project for sadis’ class” 

Your eyes dart between Eren and Armin when Eren snides, “hmm...well it doesn’t look like your working on it” 

“hey layoff man” Jean gives him a side eye. “Yeah we finished just a few minutes ago.” Armin adds. 

“It was just a question” Eren shrugs. You can believe him, he such a fucking asshole, you’re staring at him in disbelief when he meets your eyes again he laughs “what did you miss me or somethin?” His grin is sickening, you feel the embarrassment hot on your face yet what can you do in the situation? If you leave you’ll destroy your pride and yet if you stay what if you give in to him again?

Your frozen in your seat you nails digging shapes into you palms as you clench them together. You feel the stare of everyone one in the room and it makes you want to cry. He tilts his head “can’t you speak? what wrong?” the malice in his voice makes your ears burn. You want to scream, you want to run, but he slowly walks right in front of you and holds out his hand. “C’mon”

You can leave at any moment, the door is only a few feet away yet you cautiously place your palm into his as he hauls you up from your seat. No one says anything as you guys leave the room, what a complicated situation this is huh? 

As he opens his door you try to glace back at the others yet he roughly pulls your arm though and slams his bedroom door. You hope they don’t blame you too much for going with him. You stand in the middle of a very familiar room, one you’ve visited many times yet you’re too scared too move from the spot you currently occupy. He turns to face you locking the door behind him and takes a few steps forward. You look at the floor as you begin speaking “Eren I-” 

“ohhhh so you can talk?” 

“yes’ you puff. 

He fits his hand under your chin proceeding to squish your cheeks to face him. “I don’t like you hanging out with them when I’m not around” his hot breath fan your face and you widen your eyes. The audacity. “What do you mean, were not even together anymo-” you voice smothered by his grip. 

He tips his head back and see concern in his eyes, its almost like he was hurt by your words, “Yes we are” his eyebrows scrunched together. You go to spit out another sentence when his hand moves to cover you entire mouth, he brings face to your ear, “You wound me y/n, how could you think that? I thought you loved me?” Why does he sounds so genuine? Your mind is fuzzy with confusion, of course he’s lying, you would never in a million years utter those words to him during the short time you were together. Yet the pain in his voice and the grip on your jaw is making you dizzy, his hot breath on your ear and neck are causing goosebumps to raise on your skin.

 Your smaller hand goes to grip his forearm that's holding your face. He moved to look into your eyes. The dim light from the lamp in the far corner of the room casts a shadow upon his face, yet his deep green eyes seem to glow. He slowly moves his hand away placing it on your shoulder as his free hand moves to your hip. You want to yell at him, ask his why he’s doing this to you, but you place your palm softly onto his chest and drop your head in shame, “I’m sorry..i..I didn’t know” you whispered.

His warm hand goes to caress your cheek and moves into your hair lightly pulling to make you face him. “It’s ok babe, you just have to make it up to me” his chest rumbles underneath your hands as you eye widen. “You can do that, right?” You slowly nod your head and bunch his t-shirt under your fingers. He places a soft kiss on your forehead and lead you towards his bed in the corner of the room. He takes a seat on his dark blue comforter and your stand in front of him. Your hands lightly holding onto his index fingers as he carefully rocks them back and forth.  You take another look at his face and see the artificial softness slowly fade away into something dark, and conspiring.

“On your knees babe” his voice sounding rougher than before. You begin another protest but he takes his warm palms and encircles your waist to urge you down. You slowly fall to your knees, your hands on his thighs while digging your nails into his rough jeans. Your mind slowly starts to unfog and start realizing what your doing. Your shame and regret tug at your heart and you feel the tears begin to prick your eyes. You look up at Eren and see the distain in his eyes. He hums and caresses you shoulder. You wept into your chest as you feel the air being stolen from your lungs Eren moves his calloused hand to your throat and tugs to make you look him in the eyes.

Why did you have to be so damn proud?

#eren angst #eren jeager #eren yeager #aot eren #eren imagines #eren x y/n #eren x you #eren x reader #eren jeager x reader #eren jeager x y/n #eren jeager x you #eren fic.📗 #useless series.mvt

[soulmate-game]

Part 2: The same prompt, but Siblings this time

Tim paused the video on his computer, the red figure on it in mid-leap off of a building. Be rewound the video, played it, paused again at the same time stamp.

No, his eyes were not deceiving him. The video was not doctored.

So what the hell was going on?

“Hey Timmie, find anything on that Paris situation Bruce asked you to look into?” Dick’s voice made Tim startle, nearly spilling his coffee all over the keyboard and possibly deleting his hard-earned research. Rescuing his lifeblood from certain doom, he hugged his mug to his chest and glared at his older brother for a second. Dick was not in the least bothered, used to this sort of reaction from the younger detective. Dick just grinned, leaning on the back of Tim’s chair and looking up at the images on the large computer screen above them. He whistled lowly, impressed. “You’ve made a lot of progress, nice! Anything you wanna share with me before the debrief tonight?”

Tim clenched and unclenched his jaw, weighing his options. Dick waited patiently, knowing that sometimes Tim needed a minute to sort through his rapid-forming thoughts. Finally Tim sighed, setting down his mug grimly.

“Actually, yes,” he admitted. Tim’s tense tone immediately made Dick stiffen, straightening up. His eyebrows pulled down, and he returned his gaze to the computer.

“Okay, that’s your serious voice. What is it?”

“I… need your confirmation with something,” Tim turned around and looked straight at Dick. And he hesitated again, because certain… past interactions with his eldest brother once again flashed through his head. The entire Bruce-is-alive and being threatened with Arkham interaction, to be specific. But Tim needed to know the truth, it was his fatal flaw he supposed. He couldn’t back away in fear of how Dick might react.

“Ohhhhkay?” Dick just grew more and more concerned the longer that Tim took to actually speak.

“So, just to recap. There are only four people in history who have been able to do a quadruple somersault, right?” Tim asked, knowing full well the answer. Dick, predictably, shifted and grew even more on alert at the inquiry. He knew that couldn’t mean anything good. His jaw clenched, and his hands formed tight fists. But Dick also remembered the Bruce incident with Tim all that time ago, and he didn’t want to repeat his mistakes. So he forced himself to take a deep breath, and shake himself away from jumping to conclusions.

“Yeah,” Dick nodded. “Me, my parents, and my sister,” he confirmed rigidly. Tim nodded, and then rewound the video on the screen again, nodding to show that Dick should focus on it.

“Okay. But watch this,” Tim suggested, starting the video again. Dick watched as the red and black-spotted heroine of Paris, Ladybug, zipped through the air and around buildings with her yo-yo. He watched as she let go, at a height that even a normal person could manage, and executed four perfect somersaults in mid-air before landing nimbly on the ground. Tim paused the video again, his eyes never leaving Dick’s tense face.

“It isn’t doctored,” Tim said, filling the silence and preemptively answering the questions he knew he would get. “I checked. Magic is involved, but Constantine and Zatanna both confirmed it would have no hold over basic physical abilities like flexibility or… gymnastics. Only specifically combat styles used by past Ladybugs can be transferred magically to the next Ladybug, not this.”

“Tim,” Dick’s voice was terrifyingly blank. “What are you suggesting?”

“Nothing yet,” Tim was quick to hold up his hands in surrender. “I’m still doing research. It’s possible, though extremely unlikely, that she managed to teach herself how to do that. You tell me, Dick, how likely is it?”

Dick swallowed, not wanting to say it but knowing he had to look at the facts. “... At her age? Next to impossible,” he admitted. “She could learn it, theoretically, as young as seven or eight, but only if someone who knew what they were doing taught her since she was about three.”

Tim nodded again. He knew those numbers, he knew where they came from.

“Then— and this is only a theory right now— we have what I think is the more plausible scenario,” Tim swallowed. This was the hard part. “Your sister was kidnapped after your parent’s death, but the body that was found wasn’t actually her’s. It wasn’t in a state to be physically identified, so—“

“I know what state it was in, Tim!” Dick snapped, forcing himself to take a few steps back and just breath. Even now, the image of a tiny body burned beyond recognition was burned into the inside of his eyelids, there to taunt him whenever he blinked or slept and let his mind wander in just the wrong direction. She would be… what, Jason’s age, now? She was seven… only seven, when their parents died and she ran off into the Gotham streets in despair. When she was kidnapped, as is what happens in Gotham.

When Dick was presented with a body he could not say WASN’T her’s a week later.

“The DNA…” Dick tried. “They said…”

“I know,” Tim’s voice was carefully soft. “But the records on your family’s DNA were all kept by the circus back then. The Talons had access to those files. It’s very possible they were tampered with. Switched. It wouldn’t be hard for them to burn your sister’s actual medical files and replace them with forged copies that had someone else’s DNA on them. The data of the girl who actually died.”

Dick closed his eyes, shaking his head. He didn’t want to hope, it would hurt too much if Tim was wrong.

Tim had been right about more unlikely things than this, a voice in the back of his head whispered. And yeah, that was true. But Dick was still too scared to hope.

“Finish your research, Tim,” Dick’s voice was strained with suppressed emotion. He couldn’t even look at the younger vigilante as he left the Cave. “Find out who Ladybug’s civilian persona is, and then we’ll talk.”

Tim could only sigh in relief when Dick was gone. That could have gone much worse.

—*—*—*—*—*

A week later, the entire family was gathered. This was the full debrief on the Paris case, rather than the progress update that they had had to do before. Research took longer than Tim had expected, he had years of data to go through after all. But he had come away with exactly what he had been looking for.

After running through the overall situation and where the fight against HawkMoth was at in the present day, Tim licked his lips and took a deep breath. This was it, the Who-Is-Ladybug part.

“I was able to get security footage of her detransformation, just one lucky shot from ten years ago, when this whole thing began,” he prefaced. “She was thirteen years old, and untrained as far as heroism goes, so it stands to reason she didn’t know yet how to be properly careful about transforming. This is that security picture,” he carefully put the enlarged picture up on the Batcomputer, as well as sliding a physical copy onto the table for everyone to pass around.

Dick didn’t even try to grab it, his eyes glued to the computer, expression unreadable. The picture was a little grainy, but most of the girl’s face could be made out. Pigtails, dark black hair that shimmered blue in direct light, blue eyes.

But it was the next picture that Tim pulled up that pushed everything over the edge.

“These are the official pictures of her that I was able to get from Paris records. This first picture is of her at the same age at the security footage, thirteen. The second picture is her now, age twenty-three,” Tim said, before the side-by-side came up on the screen. Tim’s eyes slid over to Dick, who was frozen in his seat, just staring at the images silently. He wasn’t even breathing.

“Dick?” Bruce asked, immediately noticing the behavior. His eyebrows furrowed. “Are you alright?”

Dick’s next breath came in with a shudder, and he clenched his eyes shut in a futile attempt to stop the tears that came out. He choked out a broken chuckle, shaking his head and giving out a lopsided, watery grin.

“Heh. Another point for Timmy being right,” Dick jokes weakly, rubbing at his eyes.

“What do you mean? Tim?” Bruce turned to the younger of the two insistently. “What’s going on? Who is she?”

“Currently, according to Parisian records, she is Marinette Dupain-Cheng,” Tim told them. “More specifically, her full name is Marinette Gray Dupain-Cheng. Which I believe is what she chose to change her name to after she was kidnapped sixteen years ago from right outside Haley’s Circus, and illegally transported to France,” Tim clicked another button to bring up a third picture in the side-by-side. It was of someone who was clearly a younger Marinette, but in the very familiar costume of the Flying Graysons, standing right next to a twelve-year old version of Dick. “Because her birth name is Marie Natalia Grayson. Dick’s younger sister, who until now was presumed dead. But I was able to confirm that the medical records back then for Marie were forged, and the information on them could not actually belong to her. The body that was presented as Marie’s… was a red herring to hide that Marie was no longer in America at all.”

Dick’s sob-laugh drew everyone’s attention back to the first Robin, who was now silently, openly, crying. Nobody really knew how to deal with that, and the room descended into awkward silence as Dick tried to regain his composure a little.

“Marinette… Gray,” he whispered, chuckling again and shaking his head as he wiped at his cheeks. “That idiot… her ability with subtlety hasn’t gotten any better, that’s for sure,” he was smiling now, still staring at the pictures of Marinette on the screen. Of his beautiful little sister, all grown up and not buried six feet under like he had thought for far too long.

Because this was different from Hope. This was certainty. The face, the far too on-the-nose name, the somersaults, Dick had even noticed it in the way she swung on her yo-yo. The body memory from years of Trapeze, those little quirks he recognized as belonging to his sister that he hadn’t wanted to acknowledge. But now, all together, he could admit to himself that it was her. It was really her.

Could it be a clone? Maybe. Maybe. But that was why Dick snuck out to France the very next day, informing absolutely nobody.

Because he had a test that only the real Marie would be able to pass.

—*—*—*—*—*

"How did you- No, nevermind, I don't want to know, plausible deniability and all that,” the deep, unfamiliar male voice made Marinette squeak in shock, nearly dropping the phone in her hands. She leaned so far to her right that she almost fell over, but her nearly perfect balance (that only failed her when she was nervous or self conscious) kept her upright.

Her eyes darted down to her phone screen, where an app that Max had helped her create was opened. It utilized at least five hundred little fly-shaped drones that Markov managed and kept track of to scan the city for corrupted butterflies and recognize the level of stress or other negative emotions that civilians were experiencing. It cut down severely on patrol time that the crew had to do, making it easier for them to balance their hero and civilian lives and also allowed for them to arrive at the scene of Akuma attacks twice as fast as before— along with helping with the original purpose of catching evidence to use against Hawkmoth, of course.

Marinette straightened her back, smiling sheepishly and closing out the app. She had just been making a routine check, it had only been open for a minute. How had he managed to sneak up on her in that time? Only chat could do that anymore.

That is, until Marinette turned around the rest of the way and got a good look at the man. Her eyes widened— what was Nightwing, a vigilante from Gotham, doing there?

“I don’t see what plausible deniability has to do with anything,” she replied in easy, unaccented English. She might not speak it often, but she did stay in practice. Even now a lot of her fashion notes and thoughts were in either English or Romani. “It’s just a game app that my friend created,” the practiced lie flew easily past her lips, and she was able to even smile confidently and begin to happily ramble about Max’s (public) achievements like she would in any normal situation. “It is still in the test phase of course, but it uses virtual reality and mapping technology to create a treasure hunt sort of adventure game that people can do as they walk around. Like Pokémon go, but with real-time footage of the city— with people not included besides the game characters of course— and it rewards caution as well as keeping active,” she explained their cover story for the app happily. But Nightwing only smiled easily at her with his arms crossed, clearly not believing a single word.

“Ah— but that probably isn’t interesting,” Marinette purposely stuttered, turning her face into one of (surprisingly genuine) confusion as she looked at the vigilante. “What are you here for anyway, Monsieur? This doesn’t seem like—“

“I have a riddle that a friend of mine told me to ask you,” he interrupted, instantly putting Marinette on guard. She took a step back, eyebrows pulling down at the odd request. But still, she chuckled nervously and shrugged. She had to maintain appearances after all.

“Uh, sure..? Riddles are fun, in the right circumstances I guess.”

Nightwing beamed happily, nearly blinding the poor girl. “Awesome!” His next words came out in fluent Romani though: “If a Hummingbird ever gets lost, what kind of animal will track it down?”

Marinette’s mouth went dry, her shoulders dropping. Her mouth opened and closed, the shock of the question leaving her unable to even pretend she didn’t understand exactly what was said. Nightwing’s gaze grew more intense, yet his smile got impossibly soft.

Marinette swallowed thickly, and she took a deep breath before responding in Romani: “You shouldn’t— only one person—“

“That doesn’t answer the riddle, ma’am.”

Marinette’s confusion turned into a harsh glare. “He would never tell someone else to ask me that. What are you trying to play at, Nightwing?” She hissed harshly, still in her native language.

“Listen, Marinette,” Nightwing held up both hands to try to calm her down. It did the opposite, making her take another step back. “Batman and the rest of our team has been looking into the Hawkmoth security—“ Marinette cursed, clearly seeing where this was going. “— We believe he found out who Ladybug is. But, we also found signs that your real name is—“

“Shut up!” She yelled in English, fists clenched tightly. Luckily she had gone into an alleyway to check her phone, or else they would be attracting attention by then. Her eyes sparked with anger. “You don’t get to use that name. And if you’re so smart,” Marinette tucked her phone into her purse and scaled the wall next to her nimbly, perching on the roof as Nightwing cursed and began to follow her. “Then try to predict my moves, birdy.”

It only took a few minutes and crossed rooftops for Marinette to call on her transformation and pick up speed. She knew by then that Nightwing, and probably the other Bats too, already found her out. Not ideal, but manageable. Now she wanted to show him why he shouldn’t come into her territory and dig into her past and think he could get away with it.

Somewhere during the chase, more Bats appeared one by one. Judging by what Ladybug was able to overhear, they had come as soon as they realized where Nightwing had snuck off to.

That made Marinette pause from where she hid behind a sloped roof, in the middle of a call to her own teammates. Nightwing hadn’t come on his team’s orders?

Why the hell had he come, then?

She shook thought thoughts away, focusing on her plan. Paris was her city, and she would make sure the Bats learned their lesson when it came to sticking their nose in Parisian business.

“Bug?” The soft, concerned call came from her yo-yo and pulled her from her contemplating. Max, in full Pegasus attire, was frowning at her in worry on the small screen. She just shook her head at him.

“I’m fine, Peg. Just don’t like how this feels like Gotham ruining my life again,” she remarked sourly. “But I’m fine. Start plan We’re Not Kids.”

Max nodded, but rolled his eyes and muttered something that sounded like; “even though we made this plan when we actually were kids…”

A portal opened in the air a few seconds later, releasing Honeybee in all her gold and black glory. The winged hero zipped through the air, immediately putting team Miraculous at an advantage since team Bat didn’t want to actually harm them.

It took a glorious five seconds for Honeybee to paralyze them all before Tortoise dropped out from another portal and surrounded the temporarily paralyzed vigilantes in a dome shield that kept them in just as easily as it kept everything else out.

One by one, Marinette’s teammates dropped out of more portals until Pegasus himself joined them. Ladybug took that as her que to come out, leaping over her hiding place to land in front of her friends, who had formed a half-circle in front of the trapped dome.

“Vixen,” she called to the fox-themed hero, whose ears twitched before she straightened to attention. “Create an illusion to hide us. The last thing we need are any pictures or anyone asking questions.”

“Got it!” Vixen agreed easily, raising her flute to her lips. A short melody later, and their surroundings warped. To those inside the illusion, it seemed as if the world merely ended off of the rooftop they were on, into only blankness. Outside, that very rooftop appeared empty.

It was then that Chat Noir stepped up to take Ladybug’s side, his acidic green eyes scanning over the Gotham vigilantes trapped inside Tortoise’s protective barrier.

“You can release the paralysis, Honeybee,” his order was noticeably softer than Ladybug’s clear commands. It was obvious that he was the deputy in this situation, the flexibility to Ladybug’s iron leadership. That was when the red clad hero crossed her arm, resuming control of the situation wordlessly. The Gotham heroes briefly glowed gold as Honeybee let their paralysis begin to gradually wear off.

“Paris is my city,” Ladybug’s voice was at a normal volume, but came out with such auditory steel that it was clear she expected to be listened to, or she’d know why. “If I needed or wanted your help, I would have asked for it. Now, if you had come here normally to offer aid, then we might be having a different discussion right now,” her eyes narrowed further. “But you dug into my past. You violated my privacy. And Nightwing, you crossed a line,” she would have continued if the blue and black clad hero didn’t use his sudden ability to move to rip off his mask.

Marinette’s voice died in her throat, and for a while she thought she might be hallucinating. Those eyes, that face— she knew them. She knew them, because she saw them whenever she dared close her eyes. Because the dreams she had, the dreams that made her never want to drag herself out of bed because she wanted to believe those dreams were real so badly, always contained those eyes. And that face, though it had been much younger in her memories.

She stumbled, and only Chat’s presence at her side kept her from toppling right over.

“Bugaboo?” He asked frantically, distraught. She just shook her head dazedly, pushing herself back to her feet and away from her partner.

“I’m fine, Chat. Just…,” she assured her partner, but her eyes never left Nightwing. She licked her lips nervously, before continuing; “... Bluebird,” she whispered, making Nightwing’s eyes widen. Her brother’s eyes. “That’s the answer to the riddle, right?”

Slowly, a wide smile split his face before he began to laugh happily, despite Robin slapping Nightwing’s mask back on his face with a furious grumble.

“Ladybug?” Tortoise asked, stepping up to her other side cautiously. Seeing as they were all adults now, none of them had to worry about time or power limits anymore. “Are you..?”

“Release the shield,” she ordered instead of answering, her eyes clearly damp behind her mask. “I need to strangle my idiotic older brother for scaring the hell out of me.”

That made the rest of her team make their various exclamations of shock, but Chat and Tortoise stayed silent. Chat just put a hand on Ladybug’s shoulder in support, while Tortoise zipped his wide gaze back to Nightwing before sighing and releasing his ability.

“Only you, Bug,” the green clad hero groused playfully. “Only you.”

If Marinette Dupain-Cheng suddenly introduced her long-lost brother to her closest friends and family that same night, nobody voiced the coincidence out loud.

—*—*—*—*—*

Part 1: Romance

Part 3: Bio!Parent

#maribat #ml x dc #mlb x dc #dickinette #platonic dickinette #3-from-1 challenge

[donaidk]

George Russell - We Don’t Have To Dance I.

In January I made a half ready au for something really outside Formula racing. Back then I was watching quite a bit of rally races before starting the F1 season off. Now I rewrote it as a George oneshot - which won’t stay a ONEshot - and finished it up. Sadly, this won’t be dripping from fluff just yet. Maybe there’s a chance for a happy end, but I didn’t decide on it yet 😂 Hope everyone will like it 🧡 (I accidentally deleted the previous post, so I’m just reposting it now again🤦‍♀️)

TW: car crash, injuries (not explicit but still, be careful) Title song is by Andy Black

Masterlist | Taglist/Queue | Request

" Welcome, everyone. Today will be quite a busy lobby as we have lots of people playing with us today. " He started his usual intro by describing what they will be doing. People were still arriving, but they had time until the first game would start.

Luckily streams like these were only chaotic in a funny way, making everything hilarious and ten times better. Just as the first notifications started coming in, he had to make sure the race's stream was still visible next to the other page. Then he could finally look at the incoming messages while they were waiting for the others to get ready. The first question made George realise he missed out important info from his intro.

" Hana isn't playing with us today. I almost forgot to tell you guys. I'm sorry in advance, but I will be quite distracted today. She is racing today, and the stream is open on my other screen. " He let out a laugh, already anticipating all the emojis and dripping comments about him and Johanna. " I usually put my off-days around her racing days, but it's a tournament, and I would have missed the whole week if I followed my usual plan for days like this. " He added, so they understood why today is like this. He had just a few streaming days planned every week during their off season, which always collided with Hana’s rally season, but luckily he could always play around with the schedule.

He hated not fully being there for his viewers, but at the same time, he wanted to support his girlfriend even when he couldn't travel there with her. Sometimes he could travel with her during his off-season but usually his training held George back, as he couldn’t miss them. It was the second-best way to get all the info of her racing in just seconds after the real events. Sadly the stream wasn't just about her, but as someone with a known name in the group, fortunately, they were showing her car quite frequently. By the time they went live, she already started and was on the first third of the track, completing that part in the perfect time, as she usually does. For a second, he just stared at the other screen as they were showing their inside cam but then had to focus back as they were starting the round in their game.

Luckily he manages the multitasking, mostly focusing on their game and trying to win, while catching every second they were showing Hana's car or maybe talking about her and how they're doing. He maybe lost a round because of an announcement about her time, but one game won't kill anyone, will it? In the first break, he retweeted a clip that was shared of her speeding down a straight, making him feel proud inside as they were saying no one has a chance against her. It always felt unreal how good she was in her category and how well they always talked about her. It was something that made him feel strangely proud, even though he had nothing to do with her skills. Everything she achieved was hers and no one else's, no matter what the haters would say. Her formula racing career may have ended early, but George was quite sure that she felt a lot more comfortable in the world of rally. After the first few bumps in the road, Hana found her place and style, getting her car onto the top half of the leaderboard every race.

The moment they start another round is when he hears the panicked voices in his headset, although lower than anything else. As soon as he looks at the stream, he sees the playback of a light blue car slipping on the road and flipping up in the air before hitting the ground with full force and starting to flip through the field until it finally comes to a stop as it hits a tree with Hana's door, the car staying on its roof. He waits for a second, hoping they will play the inside cam but as they don't include it, he knows there's probably a lot more to the crash than just a broken car. There are unmissable flames on the underside, but they switch to another driver just before he can see the marshalls getting to them and probably trying to get the team out before the fire consumes the frame of the vehicle and everything else inside of it.

" Fuck... " He doesn't even care about his own stream anymore, getting up and closing everything. As soon as the computer starts shutting off, he shoots out of the room. His phone in his hand already as there is an incoming call from Martha, his girlfriend's mother. " I just saw it, what's going on? " He spoke rushed, wanting to know everything that was said to them.

" They won't show anything, but the boss said they got them out just before it went up in flames. She was conscious but fainted as they took them to the ambulance. " Hana's mother was most likely in a full-fledged panic attack, and George could hear that they were packing in the background.

" I will get a ticket as soon as possible. I don't know when I'm getting there. " George sighed while pulling out a duffle bag to fill it with clothes for several days if needed. He didn't know how dangerous her condition was, and how many days they were spending there.

" It's okay. I will send you all the info when we get it finally. They will probably take them to the hospital. I just don't know which one, yet. Fucking hell. " It was the first time George ever heard her curse, but he didn't have the time to be surprised about it. More like it made him even more panicked as he knew the situation is probably worse than he anticipated.

He couldn't even push the phone into his pocket before another call came in from Alex. He knew they were probably puzzled about his disappearance, but he wanted to finish packing before talking to them. When he was in a taxi finally, on the way to the airport, he pulled it out of his jacket and dialled Alex's number.

" Hey, sorry for not answering. I just had to rush out of the house to the airport. Hana had a horrific crash. " He sighed, feeling as his body finally realised what's happening and started to stiffen up from the stress.

" Jesus Christ. Right. Just go, stay safe. I just wanted to ask if everything is okay, but fuck, didn't think it was this bad. " Alex mumbled out, and all the sounds were audible from the background as the others probably heard George's answer.

" She did a pretty high flip. They said she fainted just as they got to safety, so at least she's still alive. I don't think I would be if I have been the one inside. Man, I don't know what will happen. " The sentence was cut off by a choking sound as his throat tightened up at the idea of anything happening to Johanna.

" Hey, George. You know her. You know how fucking tough she is. Today's event won't be the one that stops her. Not even if she's injured. Don't even think about that as a possibility, because it isn't one. " He tried to reassure his friend, although he felt that it was almost useless. Without any real info about her condition, it's all up in the air and unstable. " The most important thing right now is for you to get there in one piece. You won't be of help if you fall apart. Her parents need you there. " He added with a sigh before saying goodbye and putting down the call so George can make the important ones towards Hana's friends and colleagues. It isn't easy but has to be done, as he knows her parents will be on their way to the hospital to be next to her, and won't be able to call everyone.

When he got to the airport, there was a ticket there already, waiting for him to pick up. It was a surprise, but a lovely one, as it saved him some time and stress before getting on the plane and starting his journey to Germany. He was sure he would have missed the first available flight if he had to buy it himself, but Hana's manager had the authority to get it for him in time. He made a note in his head to thank him for it when they met, as it wasn't something he had to do but decided to help George with it. As he had time on his hands, he tried to relax, although all the images in his head didn't let him sleep or anything. It was strange to see everyone so nonchalant about life while he was fearing for someone so much he was on the verge of throwing up the whole time. But he knew they were not horrible people, just that they didn't know what happened. They didn't have to know about everyone else's pain and life events. It was strange but completely normal.

As he knew he wouldn't be able to rest, he opened up his phone and went onto Twitter to see the news. Although there was nothing new on the tournament's page, Hana's team shared that she's on the way to hospital with injuries but nothing life threatening. It should have made him calm down, but as he thought how many small things can turn into huge problems, it didn't help. There were people, probably viewers and subscribers tweeting at him, sharing photos and thoughts with him, hoping Johanna is okay and healthy even though it was a nasty crash. The pictures of the wreck the car became, made all the good news unbelievable as he just couldn't understand how someone could get out of it without any injuries. He knew that her team wouldn't be lying and that they would have called him if there's anything he needs to know, but it was just all too much for his brain. He thought about putting out a tweet so everyone knew what was happening, but decided against it. Everyone knew already as they probably followed Hana's racing account and her team's one. He didn't need to put out everything and he didn't really feel like receiving even more messages than he already did. He knew they just wanted to let him know they were thinking about them, it wasn't good to see all of this 24/7. It was enough that he knew what was happening, he didn't need others to remind him every minute of the coming days.

' She's in theatre now, fractured leg and two broken ribs. They said she will need some days under anaesthesia to fully heal without the stress of the pain she will feel as soon as she wakes up. If everything goes as it should she will be out in an hour or so. We will get you a hotel room by the time you arrive, as our house is hours away from the hospital and I think we all want to be closer now. I'll send you the address of the hospital in a second. ' Came the awaited text from Martha, making him sigh out and save the address as soon as he got it, so he won't forget where he has to go after he arrives in the country. He remembered to send a message to the group, as they were people who deserved to know all the info. They were great friends of Hana and were probably pretty nervous about her state. They deserved to know.

It took him almost 20 hours to finally arrive and be able to get his baggage back. He first went to the hotel so he can put his stuff down before meeting up with Johanna's parents, so they can go to the hospital together. They had two rooms next to each other, so as soon as he had a shower and changed into fresh clothes, he went outside and knocked on their door.

" Hello! Are you okay? " He asked when the door opened, and he could see the worry on Martha's face.

" As much as you can be after something like this. " Martha let out a sigh, hugging George as he stepped closer. " They just called that she responded quite well to the medication. Her operated leg looks good too, although it was quite hard to fix in the surgeon's opinion. " She let go of him so they could leave for the hospital and finally really talk with the doctors that were part of the team caring for her.

" Is Andrew there already? " George asked while Michael locked up their door so they could head to the elevator.

" Yes. Theo wasn’t in need of medical care. Right after he was checked out by the doctor, they let him home. He and Andrew stayed. They wanted her to have someone while we were travelling here. " She nodded, pushing the first button inside, as it would take them down to the reception. " We got our car, so we won't have to call a taxi all the time. " She added, pulling out the keys from her purse, giving them to George as he was deemed the most put together to drive among the three of them.

" He was quite lucky if he's uninjured. " He let out a huff of air, feeling strange that while Hana was hurt, her co-driver walked away perfectly fine and without a scratch. Life took strange turns sometimes.

" Most of the damage was on Johanna's side. He's got a sore neck and back, but that's all. " She sighed, not saying more. She was probably blaming the navigator for her daughter's pain. In a situation like this no one could fault her for wanting someone to take the blame.

As they got down to the garage George opened up the car, and they all got inside. It was a 10 minutes long drive to the hospital and another 5 to find a parking spot not too far away from the entrance. Inside a nurse helped them find her room, but had to leave before they could ask any questions. She probably wouldn't have been able to answer them anyway, as she wasn't on her case. Although, looking at her and the huge cast on her leg answered most of their questions. She was asleep, as she was under anaesthesia to reduce the stress the pain would give her. At this point, George just hoped there wouldn't be any problems when they woke her up finally. They all knew that everything could change in 2-3 days, even though it looked perfect at the moment. Sitting down in the armchair he took out his phone to quickly text everyone, that they're finally at the hospital and in the room. He wanted to tell them more but could only type out that she looks okay, even though she was quite injured. Somehow the peace on her face made him calm down, even though he knew it was only from the drugs they gave her. It was nothing in connection with her being completely okay and perfectly healthy.

“ Family of Miss Braun, right? ” The german words made George turn towards the door, spotting a doctor who was the one taking care of Hana. Although his German wasn’t even close to perfect, he understood the question and nodded in synch with her parents. The following explanation of Johanna’s state was a bit too complicated for his basic knowledge, but George knew someone would eventually translate for him.

It took a minute or two before they told him that everything looked perfect on her charts, considering what her body went through. Although a relieved sigh left his body, everyone knew this wasn’t the end of the story. She will probably need rehabilitation after her leg heals, even if it’s a simple fracture and will heal easily. It didn’t help their worries that she was kept asleep for four days in the end, delaying the process and making them wait even longer before they got to talk to her. George hoped that with Hana awake they could get a bit more feedback for her treatment and also finally start the next part with physiotherapy. The sooner she got up and started moving around the easier it would be to get back to her previous physical fitness level. Everyone knew that laying around in a bed all day long didn’t help with staying fit and healthy.

George was in the middle of a meeting with the Williams engineers, sitting on his hotel bed, when he got the text that they would wake up Hana that day finally. Although he couldn’t just drop everything and leave for the hospital but made sure that their call finished as soon as possible, so he could get going. When he entered the hospital room she already had a bit more lively color but there was no sign of her being back to full consciousness yet. They were still inside the few hour window of the drugs finally working and didn’t really have to fear that something was going wrong. George was just sitting in the armchair next to the bed, legs pulled up and his fingers scrolling away on his phone while Hana’s mum was out for a coffee. Her dad couldn’t take off more time from work, but he was fine with the two of them looking after his daughter until he could visit in the late afternoons. The half-an-hour-checkups were slowly driving George crazy as the nurses never had answers, just took the data from the little screens and left with an understanding smile. It must have been between the 10th and 11th visit when they finally spotted a few movements, but it took another hour for her to finally open her eyes.

From the moment that she moved her arm for the first time George couldn’t get himself to sit back into the chair, rather opting for a walk down the hallway and then circling the room several times. Martha could only watch him pace but knew there weren’t any words that could help him calm down. They both knew they were finally getting closer to getting her back as much as they could in this moment of time, and it was nerve wracking to not have an exact time limit for it. It wasn’t surprising that he was the first one stepping next to hana’s bed when her eyes finally opened, with her mum arriving second. There were almost immediately several nurses and of course her main doctor stepping into the room, after being called through the installed button. While they tried not to overwhelm her they still had to run a few tests and George’s stomach turned at how scared Hana looked, before settling down at her mum’s gentle touch on her hand. They took their sweet time examining every little corner of her body and asking questions about her pain levels and just general state, leaving all of them tired from the stress and concentration when they finally finished everything up. There was only one nurse staying back to get some medication ready for Hana, when she could finally take a breather and look around the room. Seconds later her eyes finally reached George, and there was an evident smile getting onto her face.

“ Hello. ” Her voice was almost like music to his ears, after so many days of not being able to hear it, and George couldn’t help the relieved sigh that left his body.

“ Welcome back! ” He smiled down at her, squeezing her hand on the bed gently. He was still scared to use full force, after seeing how fragile the human body was actually. These were the few moments that made you realise you have no superpowers and that you’re not indestructible.

#george russell #george russell fanfiction #george russell fanfic #george russell ff #george russell oneshot #george russell imagine #george #russell #f1 #formula 1 #f1 fanfiction #f1 fanfic #f1 ff #f1 imagine #f1 oneshot #bydonaidk #not requested

[xmxisxforxmaybe]

Elliot, Just a Tech

Summary: Plagued by not having Admin rights on your work computer, you contact the IT department expecting to talk to your usual guy. However, you are greeted by someone new.

A/N: Consider this post-show

WC: 2596

Warnings: None

You looked over the icons on your desktop for the eleventh time, dragging the old version of Adobe into the trash for the tenth time, and growling with frustration as the error message appeared for what felt like the hundredth time.

Please enter an Administrator’s Username and Password.

After the great email phishing scam the month prior, the IT department had been directed to revoke all employee’s Admin rights to their computers. It wasn’t your fault your colleagues were too dumb to realize that you should not click on email that has been flagged as spam, even if it is a version of your boss’s name: Mattthew Whitman has scheduled a meeting with you at 9 pm!

As if Matthew spelled with three ts wasn’t enough to deter someone, scheduling a meeting at 9 at night should have been, not to mention the exclamation point to top it all off—no one ever enthusiastically scheduled a meeting. Ever.

Alas, no less than 13 people had opened the email, severely compromising the integrity of the network.

You needed to get rid of the old version of Adobe in order for your network’s cloud to allow the download of the updated version, so you were left with no choice but to submit a ticket to the IT department.

You and Matt, no relation to Mattthew your boss, had had several Zoom sessions since the start of the quarantine, mostly thanks to your need to actually get some work done. With so many more people on your network, the IT department was doing the best it could to make sure everyone was achieving basic functionality.

Opening a new work order, you quickly filled in your information and snapped a screen shot of the error message. In less than a minute, you had an email inviting you to a Zoom session.

“Matt’s really on it today,” you said while opening the link and waiting for him to start the session.

You had just glanced away to check your To-Do list when someone opened the Zoom session and you paused, staring at the downturned face of someone who was definitely not Matt.

“Hi,” you greeted awkwardly.

“Hi,” he answered, still not looking into the camera.

“Where’s Matt?”

The stranger looked into the camera, clearly caught off-guard.

“Uh, he’s off today.”

“So they finally unchained him from his desk—good for him!”

The stranger’s eyes widened a little in amusement, but he didn’t smile which caused your grin to quickly fade.

“Are you . . .” the stranger trailed off as he glanced at his other desktop monitor. “Y/N?”

“I am. And you are?”

“Elliot.”

“Are you the new Supervisor they were hiring for last week?”

“Nope. Just a Tech.”

“All right. Well, hi, Elliot, just a Tech. I’m in dire need of installing an update, which I cannot do because my colleagues are dumbasses.”

This time Elliot did smile, and you found yourself reaching up to fix the wild bun on the top of your head, wishing you had actually taken some time out not to look like a troll who had crawled out from under its bridge.

“I see that you can’t install Adobe’s update without administrative permission.”

“Yup. That’s my issue, I think.”

“I want to try something first,” Elliot said, concentrating on the task at hand as he looked away from the camera and to his other monitor.

“Can you locate your system preferences? You can find it by clicking on the appl-“

“Done. What do you want me to go into?”

Elliot looked back into the camera, then gave you a series of steps which you quickly followed.

“I am only semi-illiterate when it comes to technology,” you said, trying again to get him to smile and this time it worked.

Elliot adjusted his headset and lowered his eyes as he grinned. “You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve had to explain over the past few days.”

“Oh, I would absolutely believe them. I’ve talked three people in my department off a ledge just by explaining the magical powers of “Command + Z.”

Elliot chuckled, and the sound of his laughter filtering through the mic on his headset made you want to stay on the call as long as you could stretch it out.

“It looks like the program is not responding. I’ll need to take remote control of your desktop.”

“Have at it.”

You watched as Elliot worked, waiting for your mouse to start moving across the screen, but nothing happened.

“Uh, do you have any error messages on your end?”

“Nope.”

“Let me try one more thing,” Elliot mumbled, his eyes narrowed in concentration.

You sat quietly, letting him work, which gave you an excuse to just look at him and the more you looked at him, the more attractive you realized he was.

Elliot had a stylish haircut, although it looked like his fade had grown in quite a bit thanks to the lockdown. Tufts of straight black hair stood up on either side of his headset and you wondered if they’d be stiff or soft to the touch. His eyes were large, clearly the most enticing of the features of his face, except for his angular jaw that made you softly smile in appreciation of its masculinity. Elliot may consider himself “just a Tech,” but he was a damn good looking one.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” you blurted out, forgetting all of your manners thanks to the lack of social interaction.

Elliot fumbled as he was typing and looked into the camera, his lips parted.

“Oh, lord. That came out . . . blunt. I asked because Matt’s been loving working from home. His wife just had a baby and even though he’s chained up in his home office at all hours of the day he still gets to spend time with the people he cares about. Which is what I was trying to ask you—if you were enjoying working from home.” You finished with an awkward laugh, and a barrage of mental curses to yourself.

Elliot’s lip turned up with a quirk. “My sister stops by to bring supplies, but I live alone.”

“Oh—well, that’s nice you have someone to interact with. I still see my sister, too.”

“I like this. Not having to interact with people.”

“The only downside is the verbal vomit you spew when talking to someone new because you no longer understand social protocol.”

Elliot laughed again, that same breathy little chuckle that upgraded from drawing your attention to making you shift in your chair.

“I’ve never been particularly adept at social protocol. Hence . . . just a Tech.”

You laughed and Elliot must have liked the sound because he stopped to watch you, his eyes flicking over your face through the camera.

“You need to update the Zoom app for me to take over your desktop. I don’t know why yours seems to have this glitch, but are you ready for the steps?”

You grabbed your pen and a fresh post-it. “Lay it on me, Tech.”

Elliot smirked, then listed the steps. “I’m going to close the call, but as soon as you’ve completed the steps, click on our Zoom link again.”

“Got it!”

Your eyes connected and lingered for just a moment before Elliot closed out the call.

You missed him immediately.

“Oh, Matt. If I had known Zoom calls could be like this, I’d have dumped you long ago.”

You shook your head to clear it and began to go through the steps Elliot had listed for you. You wanted to get this right to prove to him that you weren’t incompetent.

Having successfully, and quickly, completed all of the steps on your Post-it, you reinitiated the Zoom meeting.

“You’re quick.”

“I’m sure you’re much, much faster,” you said.

“I can only go as fast as the web connection, unfortunately,” Elliot replied, staring into his other monitor again.

“Let’s try this again—remember the steps to give me remote access?”

“I think so . . .” you said, trailing off as you began to click.

You paused, then your mouse began to move without you.

“Excellent job,” Elliot praised and you knew you wanted him to praise you again . . . preferably away from a computer, maybe in a bedroom—

“All right. So I need to delete, reinstall, and wait for an error message that’s been popping up making this a little harder for people to do themselves.”

You watched Elliot control your computer, and once he got to a point where the app was updating, he paused and turned back to the camera.

“About that girlfriend thing you asked me earlier. Are you seeing . . . anyone?”

“I was . . . about six months ago. By the time I was ready to get back on the horse, the plague struck.”

Elliot chuckled. “Not exactly the best time to start dating.”

“No,” you said softly laughing, too. “I agree with you, about the whole nice not seeing people thing, though. For me, it’s more about setting my own schedule. I get so much more done without constant interruptions just to chat.”

“Kinda like we are now?”

“Hey! We are waiting on a signal to go to space and come back. It’s only polite to give it some time so it doesn’t feel like it’s being watched—like a watched pot never boils kinda thing.”

Elliot smiled, his eyes meeting yours and lingering as you smiled back.

A new box popped up breaking your eye contact and Elliot went back to work.

“Fixed. You shouldn’t have to worry about the next update. We’ve been reporting this glitch regularly so the developers should have it fixed by then.”

“Thanks, Elliot. I really appreciate it.”

“It’s my job,” he said with a slight shrug.

“Well, enjoy the rest of your afternoon,” you said, wishing you had a reason to stay connected.

“Yeah.” Elliot replied, looking at you again with those hypnotic, grey-blue eyes. If they could impress you through a screen, imagine what they looked like in person. “You too.”

You smiled at each other and when neither of you closed the call, you both laughed, Elliot looking a little shy and you looking a little embarrassed.

“I’ll close it. Don’t forget to fill in your survey so big brother knows I did my job.”

“Five-star service, all the way!”

Elliot chuckled again, and you shivered this time, the sound of his voice working its way through your entire body, filling you with a pleasant warmth.

“Bye,” he said, tucking his bottom lip between his teeth as he ended the meeting.

When the session closed out, you began to think of ways to break your computer so you needed to talk to him again, but before you could pull a purposefully dumbass move like downloading a virus, a sticky note popped up on your desktop.

212 555 0179

Probably breaking work protocol, but text me sometime if you want.

~Elliot, just a Tech

“Oh my god!” you gasped, glancing up at your camera to make sure you really were disconnected, unable to shake that feeling like someone was watching you. You reached for your packet of stickers and placed a fresh one over the camera of your computer—better paranoid than sorry!

“Should I text him now? Is that desperate? Or is it mean to make him wait? Fuck, fuck, fuck,” you said, pacing around your small office space.

“Just a simple hello,” you decided. “First, gotta find my phone.”

After walking through your apartment, you found your phone in the kitchen, unsurprisingly because snacking had become your favorite hobby since the lockdown began. It was a blessing and curse to be able to eat whenever you wanted.

You took your cell back to your computer and smiled again at Elliot’s virtual Post-it note and typed in his number and contact information.

Hi, Elliot ☺️

Hi, Y/N. I hope your emoji means I didn’t creep you out

That’s what this one 😱 is for

Lol. Got it. I don’t really do the emoji thing. They kinda confuse me

Well then! Maybe that’s why we met? You know all the real techy stuff, and I know all the silly techy stuff. I can teach you to emoji like a boss 😎

Sunglasses = boss? Shades? Because bosses are shady?

🤣more like the shades mean you’re just too cool to care. Like a boss attitude. But actually 🤔that’s a really great analysis!

See? Confusing 👽

Confusing as in no one knows what’s really “out there” huh? Wow. I like your way of emojiying (new word, just go with it)

Lol really?

I do!

Can I ask you something?

Sure

Which emoji makes you think of me?

👀🦋💬🧸🧨 😰📱😃  

You stared at Elliot’s text, a goofy grin on your face as you tried to puzzle out his emoji story. The eyes, okay, but the rest was sort of a mystery.

Lol! I need to do this in pieces so you can tell me if I’m right or wrong

Ok

So, you saw me and thought I was nice? Pretty? Delicate?

Lol pretty

Ok. Thanks, btw. We talked and then, oh boy, this is tough. An exploding bear? Talking to me made you feel like you were going to die? This is not good.

🤣 Poor choice of the firecracker, clearly, but take them as two separate things. What do you associate with a teddy bear?

Um, childhood . . . safety? Protection?

Close! Warm, safe. You seem like a warm, safe person to talk to.

I am grinning like an idiot right now. You are so sweet. But on to the firecracker? Wait! Like sassy? Like I have a firecracker personality?

Yes! You’re funny in a forward, witty way. I guess the “She’s a real firecracker” thing might be a bit outdated.

I LOVE IT. I gotta keep going now. This part is easy, I think. Sooo even though you felt nervous, you took a chance and left me your cell, and now you know it was a good choice because you made me happy.

Almost—when you texted, it made ME happy. Hence 😃 and I have big eyes so I used the big eye happy face.

I.am.dying. That’s the cutest thing anyone has ever done over a text in the history of the world!

Lol. Is there a dramatic emoji because I don’t think anything I’ve ever done is that great.

This WAS great. I’m serious

Do you wanna maybe have dinner over Zoom? God how lame is that?

You respect the quarantine—not lame at all. I’d love to!

They let me unchain myself around 6. I’ll send you a link at 7?

Perfect! But what are we going to order? Shouldn’t we order from the same place to make it more authentic?

Do you like Chinese?

Who doesn’t?

You looked at the location Elliot sent and laughed with the irony that it was your favorite take-out spot.

How did you know that was my favorite take-out spot?

Lucky guess 🤷🏽‍♂️

Well, lucky Elliot who is just a Tech. I’ll “see” you at 7. If we order the same dinner, I’ll consider it a sign that we are meant to take over the world together by eliminating one dumbass’s access to a computer at a time 🦸‍♀️🦸‍♂️

Lol except that would leave me out of a job

We will find you something more meaningful, I promise

Make me a list 😃

You got it! Can’t wait for 7 ☺️

Me either

* * * * *

Tags: @ramimedley @clumsybookworm18 @r-ahh-mi @aboutthatmelancholystorm​ @alottanothing​ @sherlollydramoine​ @txmel​ @diasimar​ @hah0106​ @flipper-kisses​ @rami-malek-trash​ @ramisgirl512​ @dancing-disco-deacy​ @just-a-queen-bee​ @eightiesriot​

Maybe a Part II? 

#Elliot Alderson #elliot alderson x reader #female reader (but it is pretty ambiguous) #elliot alderson fanfic #elliot alderson imagine #fluff #for now #Rami Malek character #rami malek fanfiction

[fatoujallovv]

so here’s my disclaimer: I hardly know what I'm doing. This is my glued together homemade giffing method that I’ve created over months of just random experimentation and bits and pieces from all kinds of tutorials. there are probably better or more correct ways to do a lot of these things! this also isn’t a completely universal tutorial, some of the specifics are geared towards giffing skam, specifically skam france. 

I gif in photoshop cc 2020 on a macbook. Some things like keyboard shortcuts and little things about the photoshop interface will probably vary if you are on a pc/ other version of photoshop! 

this is very long and very unprofessional, but I hope there is something in here that someone will find helpful!

we’ll be going from this:

to this:

up to date as of October 25, 2020

downloading clips

selecting what part you’re going to gif

cropping

my action for resizing, converting to a smart object, and sharpening

coloring

exporting and setting the delay

tldr tips

1. downloading clips

4k video downloader (which you can get for mac or pc here) is great for things posted to youtube, especially from skam france because all the clips are on their youtube with no weird geoblocks or anything! it’s really easy, you just have to open the clip in youtube, copy the link, and go into the program and hit paste link. I like to put on smart mode first and set the destination folder so all my clips go into the place I want. 

There is a 30 video per day download limit, so if you’re thinking you really want to gif lots of stuff from the show, and want a big chunk or a full season it’s definitely worth hunting for a mega or google drive with full episodes to download because it’s just less hassle! I might come back to this post later and compile a list of all of those, but for now if you type “[remake] no subs google drive” or “[remake] no subs mega” into a google search, you’ll probably find something! the all of skam website has no subs for several remakes, but not all!

If you don’t have enough space on your computer to be keeping full seasons, I know there are methods to get screencaps without having to download (generally for giffing movies and regular tv I think this is a common method), but I’ve never done it so I’ll redirect you to this tutorial that explains it! you should probably just go there for the whole thing tbh it’s much more coherent than this, but I digress. 

2. selecting the piece of the video you want to gif

now that you’ve got your episode or clip you’ll want to just open it in photoshop! if you go the screen capping route the way to do that is a bit wonky, so you can keep following the tutorial I linked above and join back in here at coloring if you like!

if the timeline at the bottom doesn’t pop up automatically you can go to window > timeline and turn it on! now you can use the scrubber bar thing to find the moment you want to gif! 

The advantage of this over screen capping is you can scrub with more precision. the arrows circled in blue below let you jump only one frame, where in screen capping I'm pretty sure you can only go by ten second or one minute intervals. 

I usually drag the scrubber as close as I can to the start of the shot/moment I want to use, fiddle with the arrows circled in blue below to jump forward or back one frame at a time until I'm at the first frame I want. I move the left grey handle to the scrubber and then I hit the play button and let the whole shot/moment play. Pause and repeat the shuffling with the arrows until you’ve landed on the last frame you want to use and move the other grey handle. 

the moment you want to use should be between your handles (it’ll look like what I have circled in red), and if you hit play, you should see the thing you want to gif playing on loop above the timeline. the speed will probably be weird, but we’ll deal with that at the end. 

now I recommend doing command or control + s to save your gif as a psd (photoshop document). this is a working, editable file which means if photoshop crashes you can open your file right back up and keep working as long as you’re hitting command or control + s at regular intervals as you work. later we’ll go through exporting in gif format that can actually be uploaded to tumblr.

3. cropping

next I crop out any logos or black space at the top and bottom. Just click on the crop tool on the lefthand side of the screen, drag the edges and hit enter when you’re done. you can of course crop out more than just that, but regardless of what you crop out, now is the time to do it. 

you can set an aspect ratio for your crop at the top of the screen if you’d like to be positive that all the gifs in your set will be the same:

4. my trusty action: resizing, converting to a smart object, and sharpening with one click

Now is when I use an action I made that does all the resizing, converts to a smart object, and sharpens. I’ll take you through the steps so you can conceptually get what’s going on, but I highly recommend using the actions window to record your process as you follow along so you have this action as well. It easily shaves at least 5-10 minutes off of the whole process, and these steps will be the same every time. 

here’s how you make an action: go to window > action and open the action panel. click the plus symbol to start recording a new action:

in the window that pops up, give it a name and hit record:

now just continue with the steps below, and it will save them!

first you flatten frames to clips (I think it says flatten to layers on older versions of photoshop). this is in the menu at the top right corner of your timeline:

next you convert to frame animation by clicking on the symbol in the bottom left, circled in red:

if there is more than one thing in the frame animation, delete the extra one. you don’t need to keep the last one but it won’t let you remove it until there are other frames in there. also go into your layers and delete video group 1 and its contents. don’t ask me why these steps are necessary, I don’t really know, but I’ve noticed it sometimes gets wonky if you don’t do this:

now you want to make frames from layers and delete that first frame that was there before:

then we return to the timeline: 

use command + option + a (control + alt + a for pc I'm pretty sure) to select all layers and then right click within your layers window and select convert to smart object. It’s important to convert to smart object after you go back to the timeline, or the gif won’t move:

next I resize. gifs for tumblr should be 540 pixels wide. for recording your action you should just go into image > image size and only change the width to 540 in case you ever have gifs cropped to different aspect ratios. don’t touch the height, let constrain proportions figure it out!

now, here’s what our base gif looks like, no sharpening, no coloring:

now to sharpen. go to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen. this is up to personal preference, but my go to settings are:

this is what we have after sharpening:

now is when you can stop recording your action. 

just press the stop button in the action window:

this action is pretty much universal and after I select the moment the gif will be and crop however I want, I use it on every gif I make!  so although this initial setup is tedious, now you’ll never have to do these steps again, and the process is magically much quicker.

5. it’s time to jump into coloring!

I typically start with exposure and sometimes some brightness/contrast. with really dark gifs like this, you kind of have to make it worse before you make it better. I did this:

now the gif looks like this:

we have some static and some ugly bits, and this is where selective color comes in to fix it! boost blacks like this:

and now your gif looks like this:

the skin tone is looking a little sickly and weird, so I go into the yellows and reds in my selective color layer to fix it! I also messed with the greens here because I didn't want color in the background (that part is totally optional and just up to your preference):

now we have this:

to really take the color 100% out of the background, I did one more separate selective color layer for cyan (again, I just felt like it but this is optional!):

and now the finished gif:

there’s lots of fun extra things you can add like text and tints and overlays and all that I won’t get into, but feel free to reach out for help on those types of things! 

this gif was certainly not the most complicated to color. some ridonkulously dark clips (*cough cough* vendredi 20h27 *cough cough*) take tons and tons more effort than this and a lot of the time you’ll want to use color balance layers and vibrance layers and all of that to mess with your coloring. 

with all of this coloring business, I really just learned by doing. I don’t know all the technical purposes of each type of adjustment layer, and I tend to stay away from curves just because I find them confusing and annoying. The bottom line is that you should always experiment and find out whatever coloring works for you and run with it! I’m sure every gif maker you talk to does things at least a little differently! 

I highly recommend taking the time to go through all the types of adjustment layers and just move the sliders around to see what they do! That’s honestly one of the best ways to learn and decide what you like!

6. now to export and adjust the delay!

the keyboard shortcut for exporting on mac is command + option + shift + s, control + alt + shift + s for pc, otherwise you can go to file > export > save for web

my settings are here:

the settings only need to be configured once! otherwise just hit save and follow the pop ups to choose where to save and what name you want to give your gif. Since you saved as a psd way back, that will be the name it’s automatically given, but call it whatever you want!

then I adjust my delay by opening the gif I just exported (not the psd, the .gif file) and using one of my delay actions. I’ve made an action for each delay between 0.05 (real time) and 0.08 (really slow mo for certain super short shots, typically for more ~artsy~ sets). 

all my action does is select all frames:

adjust the delay (which will differ based on whether you want them slowed down and by how much): 

for reference, this is a 0.05 delay:

and this is a 0.08 delay

now you just export the same way you did before! 

remember if you’re recording this as an action, you don’t want to touch the file name, just say yes when it asks if you want to replace the file. if you always save your gifs to the same place, your action will now enable you to override any gif with the incorrect delay with the correct one with one click!

7. tldr: the main tips

for downloading 4k video downloader works well for non geoblocked youtube videos, the all of skam website is another place you can look to download with no subs, here’s the screen capping method if you don’t want to download

The main way I combat dark lighting is to bump exposure to the right, gamma correction to the left, and then enhance black in a selective color layer. The amount of these three adjustments will vary gif to gif. I know lots of people use curves, but I find them really confusing for some reason, so this is my method! As my graphics teacher likes to say: there are always at least 3 different ways to reach the same result!

there’s a little bit of additional coloring on this one, but here’s another before and after example so you can get an idea of how those steps get you a better lit result without making the lighter parts super over exposed:

besides those three steps, you have free rein to use the other selective color channels, as well as color balance, vibrance, hue/saturation, etc. to restore color that was lost or to change the colors altogether! mess around with it and have fun experimenting!

7a. bonus coloring tip: 

sometimes you can make use of selective color to completely alter an isolated color in your gif. You can get very adventurous with this, but here's a simple example of changing blue tones to teal (I got away with these gifs being longer because they were in rows of two in the set I posted them in. I'm too lazy to trim frames so I can put them here at 540 px without going over the 10mb limit so just ignore the quality ok):

7b. actions, actions, actions! 

if you find yourself doing a certain thing over and over, always record it as an action. the amount of time they will save you is honestly really impressive. 

You can duplicate actions, so, for example, if you have different sharpening preferences for different shows or scenes, you can duplicate your gif process action and go into the steps, double click smart sharpen, and alter it however you want! 

This could also be good to do for the different widths for tumblr if you ever do sets with rows of two or three! Duplicate actions is also how I made my actions that set delay at 0.05, 0.06, 0.07, and 0.08!

when in doubt, always make an action! it’s worth minimizing the tedious bits of the process as much as possible so you can focus on the fun part of seeing your awesome gifs come to life! any little task you find yourself doing often, make an action!

and for now that’s all I have. if any of this made no sense, if you want to suggest a correction or addition I could make, if you’re ever curious how I did something on any gifs I post, or if you have any other sort of questions, feel free to send me an ask or a dm! if I can’t answer your questions I’ll be happy to try to direct you to someone who can or a tutorial to help! again, I'm no expert, not even close, but I hope at least one person will find one thing in this mess that helps. 

#this got . so long omg #mystuff #mytutorial #gif tutorial #tutorial #resources #fellow gif making peeps feel free to correct me or give input on how to improve or add to this tutorial!

[ask-de-writer]

I finally got my computer to working again!  Had a peculiar crash.

Was using my word processor the other night when, for reasons totally unknown, the whole desktop went away!  The word processor appeared to be working normally, so I finished up what I was doing and shut down.  Figured that a new start would be like a restart, right?  WRONG!!

Tried a new start after powering down,   Got the usual start up right up to the lock screen.  Put in my pin,  Got a gray screen.  Took a few moments  and got my cursor.  NOTHING ELSE!  Shut off power and restart.  SAME STORY, second verse!

This persisted through the day, except for a water haul.  FINALLY, I tried a bunch of things that I thought might help.  ESC.  Nope. Page Up and Page down,  Nope.  Several other things, all NOPE!

Remembered Ctrl, Alt, Delete.  That got me a blue screen and a short menu.  Tried Task Manager:  NO APPS RUNNING.  Duh, Gee, REALLY?

There was one that was enigmatic.  Just LOCK.  Figured that it  could hardly make things worse, so I tried it.  There was my familiar Lock Screen.  Put in pin and got ~ ~ the grey screen again!   

Tried Ctrl, Alt, Delete again and went to Lock.  There down in the corner were icons for web connected and a software power off.  Tried the software power off and got a menu with RESTART! 

Got it to Restart and finally, here I am!

#Got a crash #finally fixed it #Hello again

[beckysgomez]

✨ basic gif tutorial pt. 1 by vvondergifs !!

so i’ve been looking for a way to show people how i make my gifs but couldn’t find any way better than making a tutorial myself so here it is ! as the title refers this will be the first part of a few tutorials, they will be broken up so they are easy bite size so everyone can start making the gifs of their dreams ! 

in this part i’ll be showing you how i make my gifs from screen caps for a gif set ( i use a different method for gif packs that i’ll be covering in a later tutorial ). keep on reading if you’d like to know how i get to this !!

what you’ll need:

photoshop ( i’ll be using cc but i believe anyone you have would be fine! )

KMPlayer

your video/show/movie of choice downloaded into your computer

1. the first thing you want to do when you have your video downloaded is open up your KMPlayer, once you have it open you need your frame extraction window, you get there pressing  ctrl + g ( i believe for mac would be command + g ). this will pop up for you:

now you will want to replace the destination of your caps where i put a red rectangle, you do that by clicking on the little folder next to the box and choosing the folder on your computer. tip: i suggest making a folder for each gif you will want to make for your gifset so your caps are sorted for you, you do that by changing the destination every gif you cap.

make sure the settings are exactly like in the picture above specially the ones in blue !

2. now it’s time to open your video on the player, i just use ctrl + o but you can also go here:

3. once the video starts to play it’s when the fun part starts ! firstly you have to find the time frame that you would like to gif, just scroll by the timeline or just have a watch make a activity out of it, it’s up to you. but once you find were you’d like to gif go a few frames before and hit play, as you hit play you should also start to screen cap the video by hitting this handy button on the frame extraction window:

and that button will become a stop button that you will click once the scene you want to gif is over: 

now you have your screen caps ! yay. if you want to do multiple gifs i’d suggest capping them all now so you can get over with using KMPlayer, just repeat the same process for every gif and you’re golden.

tip: after i do all of that i like to go into the folder i put my caps in and delete the unnecessary ones, like the leftovers from another scene before or after. but you can also do it on photoshop and i’ll show you how, i just think it’s easier to do before hand.

4. now it’s the part we’ve all been waiting for.. photoshop ! open yours and let’s get cracking.

once you have it open what you’ll want to do is go in file > scripts > load files into stack...

5. a new window will pop up and in there you want to click on browse...

when you click browse your file explorer will pop up and there you’ll need to find where you put your screen caps on. once you’re there select all of them and click ok

once your photoshop loads your caps the ok in the top right corner of that pop up will turn white and when it does you click it,

photoshop will now get all your screen cap and put it in a file for you, for that step all you have to do is watch and have patience with it. it normally doesn’t take long but if you are doing a gif with many frames it will take a while.

6. now we going to start to gif, once photoshop finishes with your caps your workspace will be something similar to this

if it doesn’t go into window > timeline, on the top bar.

now on the bottom part of your screen there’s a button that says create video timeline, click it

when you do the bottom part will be turned into this:

and you’ll be able to see in the bottom left corner a button with three squares, click that

now you should have this:

7. now look for the little list icon on the top right of this area and click it:

it will open up a menu, in there you have to find the make frames into layers, select it

now you have all your layers as frames in your timeline, however they are reverse from what you want, to fix that go in the little list icon once again and select reverse frames

we are almost there !!

8. ok if you left your leftover frames to be deleted in photoshop now it’s when we are going to fix that. go over your timeline and look for the frames that don’t belong in this gif, select them by clicking on the first you don’t want holding shift you click on the last one you don’t want: 

and then hit delete or the little trash icon

photoshop will ask you if you’re sure just hit yes.

9. now we are going to crop the gif whichever dimensions you’d like ( here is a good reference for you ) in this case i’ll be making my 268px x 150px. for cropping gifs you’ll want to find the cropping tool that is located in the tools bar on the far left of your screen and it looks like this: 

once you click it your top bar will change to cropping settings, which you will change to these settings ( disregard the numbers, put your own dimensions there )

now we have to decide where to crop the gif, 

just play around with your grid by dragging and resizing from the corners, until you are satisfied with where you want to crop and hit enter

photoshop will crop it and resize it for you.

10. you’re on the finish line, now all we have to do is fix the time stamp and maybe sharpen it. let’s start by selecting all frames in that same place we made the frames and reversed them:

and now on the bottom of your frame preview there’s a “0 sec.” and an arrow

click it and you will get a menu, select other:

once you do it a pop up window will appear for you, there’s were you set the time your frames will go from one to the next. i find it that the delay 0.07 is the perfect one for a gif, so type that in the box of the pop up and hit ok.

once you hit ok you’re basically done, if you hit play on your timeline you’ll see your gif. but we like to go the extra mile, right ? 

( this next part will be totally optional, it makes your gif cleaner but you are free to choose not to do it, just jump ahead on this tutorial to see how to save your gif on step 13 ! )

11. let’s see how to simply sharpen your gif now ! select all your frames once again the same way we did it before and this time make sure you select all your layers too ( click on the first one and shift + click on the last ). now that you have everything selected we are going back to the video time line, on the same place there was three squares now there’s this icon:

click it and now we once again have this: 

now what we want to do it is go to the top bar and look for filter > convert for smart filters, select it and say ok when photoshop asks you if you’re sure.

your workspace should be looking like this now 

next thing you do is go back to filter > sharpen > smart sharpen

the smart sharpen window will show up to you and here is were you fix your settings, this next picture is how i like to sharpen my gifs and you’re more then welcome to just copy every setting, but if you feel like playing with the settings a little that’s also ok, it’s your gif make it how you like it !

click ok and you have a sharpened gif !

12. now we are done ! if you like to color your gif, this is the step that you would do it ( if you’re familiar with psd and coloring feel free to drop them in now ) but i’ll make a separate tutorial on how i make a base coloring for my gifs soon so i’ll skip this step for now and go directly to saving.

13. to save it is a little different than a picture, you need to go to file > export > save for web 

tip: if you’re a windows user you can use the shortcut alt + shift +crtl + s it will make your life so much easier, trust me ! ( i’m not sure what the shortcut is for mac but i’m sure there is one )

now your final pop up ! you will see the preview of your gif and a bunch of information on the side, the most important one lays on the looping options that if it isn’t set to forever already you have to change to it, if not your gif will only loop once and stop.

now click save and choose the folder destination of your file and TA DA you make yourself a gif !!

if you still have any questions about this process my inbox is always open and i’ll gladly help you understand how to do it !

i know this is a lot of information to take in at once, and i know it seems daunting at first, i’ve been where you are and this is going to be cheesy but practice makes perfect. once you got the hang of this whole process it’s like second nature and you’ll be making gifs in no time. ( also in a next tutorial i’ll teach you how to make an action in your photoshop that will cut this process in half, but you need all the steps to learn ! )

stay tuned for that though, my next tutorials will be how to make a gif from video frames to layer, how to color a gif, how to make an action and/or load them, how i screen cap for packs and how i make gif icons, if you are interested in anything else leave me a ask and i’ll help you out ! 

#gif tutorial #tutorial #itsphotoshop #rph #rpc #*m #*m:tutorial #it goes against my nature to post an unedited gif but #we gotta #hope this makes sense #im not usually the best at explaining stuff but i tried to be thorough #hope it helps someone

[timextoxhajima]

NCT One Shot Collection

Member: Yuta

Genre: Fluff, a teaspoon of sed 

Word Count: 4k

Ding

A message popped up on your laptop screen. It was one of those messages from an online dating app you had been using the past week, and you couldn't wait to delete the stupid thing off your laptop. Why, you ask? You were on a deal with a friend who was trying to get you hooked up with someone, so she helped you install the app into your laptop and she guaranteed you that you would get picked up in no time. The only problem was that you didn't want to be picked up. You were perfectly fine living alone, the peace and tranquility of being alone had become your favourite thing to look forward to at home after work. But being friends with her for 10 years, you decided that it wouldn't hurt, and she wouldn't know anything if you didn't tell her. You roll over back to your desk on your roller chair and click a cross on the popup, before rolling back to your cabinet and sorting out some files for work. 

Ding

"Ugh," You groaned and shoved the files back into the cabinet, annoyed. You rolled to the desk, opening the app and looking at the notifications. Someone had left you 2 messages, the first one you had crossed away.

OS0162: Hello! I saw that you were reading a Japanese book in your profile photo. Are you Japanese, or learning?

You frown and process the information. Nobody had ever commented on your profile photo and the Japanese book.

You: I spent some years in Japan when I was younger so I can read Japanese, but I'm Korean by blood.

You hit send, muting your computer and closing the window. After clearing the cabinet, you roll back to your laptop and notice more notifications. 

OS0162: Oh, sweet! I'm Japanese, but I'm in Korea now. The book you're reading is really good, and I love the plot.

You frown again, pleasantly surprised. Nobody you knew was aware that the book even existed. But you weren't so quick to buy into his words.

You: Really? What's the plot about? Have you read it?

You hit send again, trying to test his sincerity.

OS0162: I have! More than once! Yakuno travels back to his father's castle through water portals and he freaks when he finds out that Miwanaki had been taken hostage by the government. I won't spoil the ending for you, if you haven't finished the book.

You have, and that was exactly how the book went. He wasn't lying. 

You: Cool, so what brings you to Korea?

Send.

OS0162: Parents' family business.

You blinked.

You: Training to become heir?

Send.

OS0162: You could say so, but I'm not the most keen on running around and making sure my henchmen do what they are supposed to do. I kind of have other plans I want to do instead of living my life because I was born into my family.

You paused to wonder and noticed his profile photo was of his back, and yours was of the crown of your head as you were reading the book. Neither of you knew how each other looked. 

This is ridiculous.

You shake your head and huffed, shutting off your personal laptop and using your work allocated one instead. 

The sun had set and your colleagues began trailing out of the office building one by one, sometimes in two. You were one of the youngest employees, but seated in a supervisor's office. You had a heavier load than your colleagues, and though sometimes it held you back in that boring four-walled room way longer than you colleagues, you didn't mind at all. You loved your work, and nothing could ever tear you away from it, not even that dating website. 

"Bye, y/n, don't go home too late," The last standing colleague of yours knocked on your opened office door, her bag in hand. 

"I'll see you tomorrow," You smiled at her and waved.

You pushed your hair backwards, leaning forward and saving your work on your work laptop. Closing it, you looked over to your own personal laptop and saw the sticker of Yakuno, the character from the Japanese book, pasted on the back of it. You had spent the first decade of your life in Japan, and your best friend had gifted you that book, the same physical book you were holding in your profile photo you used on the dating website. Your best friend had specially printed a whole sheet of stickers of characters and objects from the book to gift to you before you had left Japan. It was the most heartbreaking thing you could remember from your childhood, because you never saw that person again. The one and only person whom you had diligently remembered every likes and dislikes, even till this day, and yet contact was never kept. It had been more than 10 years, and it hurt you to realise that your best friend probably couldn't even remember how you looked like.

You pushed open the door to your penthouse, the built-in home system turned on jazz, lo-fi music.You pulled off your blazer and your hair tie, making your way into your bathroom and turning on the tap, filling up your bathtub. It had been a long week, and you needed this. You grabbed your phone and sealed it in a small waterproof bag, just in case you drop it in your own bathtub.

Ding. 7 unread messages from Kandlelite

You roll your eyes, annoyed that your laptop and phone were so perfectly in sync that whatever happened on your personal laptop happened on your phone too. 

OS0162: Hey, uh... I'm in Korea for two weeks

OS0162: Do you wna hang?

OS0162: I kinda need help with orienting myself around in Korea

OS0162: Especially in Seoul

OS0162: And Busan

OS0162: It's alright if you don't and you're busy though

OS0162: I understand

You couldn't believe it. That flitting thought sped past your mind, thinking of agreeing and actually meeting up with someone you've spent a day talking to. 

"Don't be an idiot, how good of a relationship can it be if it was started online?" You locked your phone and lifted your elbow onto the edge of the bathtub, rubbing your temples with your fingers. You were slowly slipping into some kind of peace and sleepiness, before the sound of your doorbell woke you up. 

"Jesus Christ, it's Friday night..." You groaned, leaning your head backwards and refusing to get out of the bathtub. The doorbell rang again. You growled and got out of the bathtub, wrapping a baby blue silk robe around yourself, pulling all of your hair to one side and making sure you look the most presentable you could be with wet hair and a robe. You looked at the intercom camera fitted onto the wall near the door, noticing that it was a male right outside, his body language looking confused and anxious. His face was covered and shadowed by his hoodie, so you couldn’t tell who it was. You frown to yourself, pressing the voice button and leaning towards the device. 

"Can I help you?" 

"Erm yeah... does anybody by the name of y/n live here?"

You frown more. "That's me, who am I speaking to?"

"Open the door and you'll find out," The man replied, almost like a child playing hide and seek. You pull away from the device and fold your arms. If today was the day you were supposed to die, you wouldn't be able to change it anyway. Who was to say that you were not going to be brutally murdered in your own home on a Friday night, right? You took in a deep breath and wrapped your slightly wrinkled fingers around the door handle, pulling it open with some force given the weight of the door. 

You would have never forgotten those eyes even if you had dementia, or a billion things on your mind. It was Nakamoto Yuta, your best friend from your childhood. 

"Hi y/n," He grinned. His teeth might've gotten larger and looked different, but the shape of his lips when he smiled hadn't changed. The way his eyes remained twinkling, some of his long fringe covering part of his eyes. 

"Yuta?" You whisper, like you were scared someone was going to catch you for saying something illegal. He smiled again and nodded, looking at you brightly, not bothering about how you were only in a robe and uncombed hair. He had seen you in a kiddy swimsuit more than 10 years ago anyway. You slowly and messily found a way to get your hands to unlock the gate, your eyes never leaving him for a second. He was dressed in a black hoodie, jeans and sneakers.

"I... how did you find me? Why are you here? How are you here? What--" You stopped yourself, watching him let himself in and close the door behind him. 

"It's been a long 13 years, y/n. I hope you're as happy to see me as I am," He said softly, watching your eyes shift in its eye sockets and observing his facial features. You warily stretched out your arms, like there were weights holding them down. Wrapping your arms around his neck, you tiptoed and hugged him.

"I'm sorry I never kept in touch. My parents always told me I'll see you again soon, until your parents decided not to come back to Osaka," Yuta had his arms around your lower back, careful not to touch anywhere inappropriate.

"No, oh my God," You pulled away, tears now in your eyes threatening to fall. "I never blamed you. There wasn't anybody I could blame even if I was really angry. I tried looking for you, but I just... I googled your name everyday in high school!" You laughed softly, sniffling and rubbing your eyes. 

"Well then," He was now holding your hands between the two of you. "About how I found you... you can thank yourself for that. I found you through your company's website. Your name was so high up on the rankings, that I was so happy for you. I wanted to look for you earlier, but my parents kept me under some security system to protect me from anything the outside world could offer,"

"What? What do you mean 'protect'? Are you in any kind of danger? Your family?" 

"No... I... did you ever find out why exactly you grew up in Japan then had to move back to Korea?"

"No, my parents told me it was a business trip," You turned and gently pulled him to the sofa.

"Yeah, but do you know what business trip it made them stay in Osaka for 15 years, had you born there, then came back to Korea and not return to Osaka?" Yuta was now sitting down next to you, his eyes still fixated on you. 

You shook your head. It never occurred to you that the business trip and why they chose not to return to Osaka was related.

"Your parents were working with mine, and it was apparently a very dangerous business. Your parents never went back because it was under the safety protocol. They needed us separated because we were children, too big and too easy of some few targets to threaten the business with.”

You listened intently, confused. You never knew your parents were handling such a dangerous business. After you came to Korea with them, they just let you grow up like any other kid. Study hard, go to university, get a job, work to the top. Whatever your parents' lives had been in the first 12 years of your life was unknown to you. They covered it up so well and so carefully, it never occurred to you that you could've been in any trouble.

"I only found about this a few years ago, when my father told me the business was now stable and fixed. He wanted me to start preparing to take over the business, but before I could do that at home, I needed to find the Korean half of it for a merger sequence. Your parents now live in--"

"Busan," You looked at him, ready to break out in laughter. "You're on Kandlelite. OS0162. OS for Osaka and the numbers... it’s your birthdate reversed," You laughed. Yuta was confused for a moment, before he realised what you were talking about. 

"No way, you're the one I've been talking to the entire day? Man, the odds..." 

"I know, right? Lord, I just... the last thing I expected on a Friday night in the middle of July is for you to show up on my doorstep after virtually talking to you the entire damn day," You sigh and lean back in the sofa, running your fingers through your damp and uncombed hair. He smiles.

"It's a really nice place you've got here,' He says after a minute of silence. 

"You say it like you don't have a nicer place to stay, given what your parents are doing," You joked, nudging him on the side. 

"You mean our parents. Your parents are as equally as well to do as mine, and no, I told my dad I didn't want a nice five star hotel."

"What? Then where are you staying? For two weeks, right?" You sat up straight again, giving him the same look you always gave him when he took something of yours and hid it somewhere when you were younger.

"I'm staying at a loft that's more traditional Korean," Yuta nodded. "Just about 20 minutes away from your place,"

"20 minutes? That's great. You can check out now and stay here! I'll bring you around Seoul and Busan for the next two weeks," You got off the sofa and stood up, excited. 

"You really didn't change much, y/n. Still the same girl I knew back in Osaka," Yuta blinked at her, then looked away and around. "Are you sure though? Don't you have work? I can't just suddenly crash your place like this,"

"Oh, come on! I can apply for leave until you're done with Korea. And yes, I have more than one bedroom, tons of space and even if I didn't, I would definitely make time for you. Besides, you hate staying at hotels and lofts," You raised a brow. Yuta rolled his eyes before breaking out into a large smile, nodding then agreeing to the arrangement. 

It became the best two weeks of your life. It was like those 13 years was never lost and you just picked your friendship up with Yuta where you left it off. You showed him around Seoul in the first week, letting him eat all kinds of street food, visiting random tourist stores for him to pick up gifts for his family. In the second week, the two of you packed for Busan to stay with your parents for a few days. The days were filled with home cooked food by your mother and old ginseng alcohol (Insam-Ju) from your father who were both as excited to see Yuta as you were at the start of the two weeks. Yuta's schedule included visiting schools, hospitals and the poorer areas of Busan, for him to research on how he could help improve the environments through the business and what he could do to help. The business that both you and his parents had started was only dangerous because there were rival companies who wanted the ideas for themselves, with many ideas much more practical and realistic than the rival company's. Your father gave Yuta a bottle of wine that he was supposed to have with Yuta's father, but never did because of the circumstances, the same circumstances where your family was forced back to Korea due to the threats in Osaka. The last three days were spent back in Seoul, where you took him to all your favourite spots in the city. Ramen in a convenience store, a picnic by Han River, late night barbeque sessions and early morning cycling, all in 3 days. While the two weeks spanned longer than a day, it felt like it was a day, but never enough to compensate for the 13 years you had lost with him. All the times that the both of you had tough times, first relationships, first heartbreak, academic stress followed by the obligation to handle the company on Yuta's part, all done without one another and you could only imagine how easier life would've been growing up, had Yuta been with you all this time. 

Your last favourite stop which was the stop you procrastinated till the end, due to how cliche it was, was the N Seoul tower. You always loved the romantic part about getting locks as a symbol of promise and eternity. While Yuta took his time admiring the view of the city at the tip of the tower, you got two locks, one for him and one for yourself, whatever promise the both of you wanted, you would write on a sticker and paste it on or write it on the lock itself with a marker. 

Yuta wrote his in Japanese, while yours in Korean. You eyed his features from his side profile, marveling for the last 2 weeks how well he grew up to be. He was such a handsome man, with such a bright future and with one of the kindest hearts you knew, not just because he was your best friend. You turned back to your lock, and thought carefully before printing it down in ink. 

To Yuta whom I came with, I wish you happiness and love in the years to come. In success and in health, our friendship will never be replaceable. Not even if I get married. I love you with all my heart, I always have.

"I'm done," Yuta smiled at you, capping on his marker and looking at his blue lock like it was a pet. You smile back, looking around the fence for a space to lock them.

That night, the two of you decided to stay in and watch the movie that bonded the both of you: Yakuno's Fairytale. At the end of it, the both of you took deep breaths in synchronization, exhaling at the same rate and feeling some kind of peace, but at the same time, loss, knowing that he was leaving the next morning. 

"You know, y/n, this was the best 2 weeks I've had in a long long time. Seeing your parents again after so long made me realise how close I was to your family before, I really wish you could see mine," Yuta looked at you, then looked at his fingers, peeling small bits of skin off the edges. 

"You know I'd love to, but I have to stay and work unless it's during some official office break. I was lucky enough they let me off these two weeks," You sighed, leaning back on the pillows and watching him. 

"I know, y/n, I know... I just wish the last 13 years I spent alone could have been with you. When my dad told me about the company when I was 21, I freaked, you know. I was... angry and upset because their choice, and your parents' choice, had caused us to be separated. If our parents hadn't chosen to stay in that business, we would have never been separated so... abruptly. It sucked to have realised that they told us we'll be seeing each other again soon just to get us to leave one another... only to wait 13 years,"

"Yeah, but if they didn't take it up, both of us wouldn't have been so well off," You rested your head in your palm, your elbow perched on the top of the sofa.

"I just... 13 years lost, when it could have been with you," He looked at you, his eyes glistening and his eyebrows slightly furrowed near the center of his forehead. 

You watched him watch you, almost able to see your reflection in his. You chuckled to break the silence, shifting a little and pulling your legs in to yourself.

"What are you going on about now, Nakamoto?" You mumbled under your breath, your heart racing and suddenly unable to look at him in the eye. 

You thought you were the only one. 

"Remember when we were 10, we got lost at the Tenjin festival in Osaka together? When we were both scared, but for some God forsaken reason, I was more of a wuss than you were... and you took care of me, though I'm older than you?"

"Yeah, but you were like 2 inches shorter than me, it was easy to feel like you were the one needing protection," You snickered, eyeing him from the corner of your eyes.

"But now you're like 6 inches shorter than me," Yuta laughed widely. "Anyway, point is, y/n, 13 years was hard to get through, because as hard as I tried to forget about you, to move onto someone else, romantically, you were always at the back of my head, telling me that I was going to meet you soon, and that we were never meant to be separated." 

You went quiet again, ecstatic, yet afraid of what he was going to say next.

"y/n? Hey," Yuta shifted closer and looked at you intently. You didn't even realise that tears had formed in your eyes and your nose turned sour, your line of vision blur and Yuta's face was soft around the edges, instead of his defined features. "Hey, don't cry, please don't cry," Yuta wrapped his arms around you, quietly hushing you and you buried your face in his neck.

"I missed you, so much. When I was in college, I thought I'd never see you again. I couldn't blame anybody, not my parents or yours because they did what they had to do for our sake, and it hurt, not being able to blame anybody," You croaked, the back of your throat tasting bitter. Yuta hummed in response, gently stroking the crown of your head.

"But it's alright now, isn't it? We've found each other again and..." He pulled away and cupped your face. "I believe we both never lost our feelings for one another."

He said it. The truth that you had buried deep down in your heart for a long time, for more than 13 years, had finally been put out there. 

"I thought... I thought I was on my own... I thought you didn't know," You whispered. Yuta pressed his forehead against yours, reaching down to hold your hands.

"No, it wasn't just you. But I thought I was on my own too." 

You laugh. Fate was such a dumb idea. Separating you two when you were the best of friends, and more than a decade later, reunite the both of you, only to reveal the truth that both of you had kept to yourselves over the years. 

-

"I wish you could stay," You hugged Yuta's waist, feeling a kiss on the top of your head.

"I wish you could come," You heard him say into your ear. 

"I promise I'll visit Osaka soon," You reply. He hummed, stepping back and grabbing his luggage.

"I will see you soon, I promise," Yuta says, moving away with his luggage. You nodded, waving to him. 

Yuta walked into the departure hall, remembering every single moment he had with you in the last 14 days. He had wished you were there the last 13 years, and he could never tell you all the hard times he had been through. Just as he caught the last glimpse of you, he remembered what he wrote on the lock, and promised himself never to break it.

To y/n who taught me what love and friendship was, you are irreplaceable and nothing in the world could keep me away from you. When I'm done with the important things I have to do in Osaka, I will return for you, and for you only. I loved you for as long as I can remember, and it will stay like this. I promise.

#timetohajima #yuta #yuta fanfic #yuta imagine #yuta one shot #nct yuta #nct one shot #nct imagine #nct scenario #fluff

[byunsboyz]

Jamais Vu - Part Three

Baekhyun x Female Reader

Warnings: none?

Genre: Fluff

W/C: 2472

Part One Part Two

__________________________________________________________

You sit on hold impatiently waiting to be connected to the inter-company help desk. 

One minute you’re uploading an important journal to your client’s software, the next minute you get the blue screen of death.

“Shit shit shit” you mutter as you try to get your laptop to turn back on. You hear Kyungsoo sigh from across the room. 

“You saved before you uploaded right?”.

He looks up from his screen when you don’t reply, a glint of concern behind his glasses. 

“Right?”

You screw your eyes shut tightly and continue to ramble, “shit Shit SHIT”.

“Oh no,” Kyungsoo breathes. 

The irritating hold music finally cuts and a familiar voice sighs down the other end.

“...again?”

“I keep you busy don’t I?” you wince, as the low voice grumbles something indistinguishable.

“What did you do this time?” 

“I don’t even know Yixing, I was trying to upload this client journal and then the whole thing just broke!”

Zhang Yixing, a member of your company’s IT support department and a colleague you knew very well much to his dismay.

You were unfortunately infamous for breaking something IT-related every other week.

“How big was the file?” he starts, the sound of his keyboard tapping faintly through the line.

“I don’t know, like 3000 lines last time I checked”. 

In the corner of your eye, Kyungsoo stands up and raises his coffee mug while gesturing to yours. 

You nod gratefully and he picks up your mug on his way out. 

“Hmm, it might be a server crash. I heard they’ve had WiFi issues on and off this week”. 

“So it wasn’t my fault?” you ask, suddenly perking up.  

“For once,” Yixing deadpans, “Did you save the last version before upload?”

“....no.” you sigh, “I was in such a rush to get it done I forgot. Ugh-I’m such an idiot!” You slump down in your chair feeling depressed.

“It’s fine, It’s fine” the IT tech soothes, his voice always somewhat reassuring. 

“I’ve had your cloud drive set to take a backup every hour since that time you accidentally deleted your hard drive.”

“Yixing I owe you my life!” 

He just chuckles down the line.

“Try restarting your laptop, I’ll hop on remotely and restore what I can”. You nod gratefully, even if he can’t see you. 

It’s late in the evening when you finally leave the office. 

Yixing restores what he can but you still have some gaps to fill, so between that and the continued server crashes you finally give up and leave two hours past quitting time.

“You didn’t have to stay Yixing, but I still really appreciate it” you thank him gratefully. 

“It was mostly for the safety of our IT systems”, he yawns, scratching the back of his head as you walk side by side out of the building together.

“I didn’t have any issues until I worked here,” you huff as you swipe your ID card and exit the building. “My computer at home works just fine!”.

“Yeah yeah yeah” mocks Yixing with a dimpled smirk. You wave goodbye in defeat and walk towards the subway station. 

Much to your surprise, you see Baekhyun when you step onto the train.

Sitting towards the middle of the carriage, his tie loosened and hair dishevelled as he sits forward scrolling through his phone. 

He sighs about three times as you make your way towards him, plopping down in the seat next to him.

“Rough day?” you ask, nudging his shoulder gently with your own. 

He looks up disinterestedly at first, but then his usual warmth returns to his eyes and he smiles softly, dark circles present under his eyes. 

“That obvious huh? And you?”

You sigh “Computer issues and stressing out the IT department”.

 Baekyhun snorts, “Computers were never your strong point.”

You scoff, sitting up in your seat to cross your arms over your chest, “What does that mean!”.

“Um, what about those times you pressed the wrong button at the radio station!?”.

Memories of Baekhyun talking in a chipmunk voice flashes through your head, or the time he thought he was talking live on the radio for twenty minutes before you realised you hadn’t paused the commercial recordings, you snort.

“Can’t say I recall…” He looks up at you with accusing eyes, “Uhhh have you eaten yet?” you ask, looking to change the subject as your own stomach aches with hunger. 

He shakes his head in response. 

“I know a great burger place?” you offer, “and they serve alcohol”. 

He hums in satisfaction. “You had me at burgers”.  

“Great let’s get off at the next stop”.

It’s been a few weeks since Baekhyun came back into your life and things are slowly becoming more comfortable.

Things really eased one morning when you discovered Baekhyun had been walking to the wrong subway station. 

“Do you get a ride to work?” you’d asked nonchalantly as you both walked out of the building one morning.

“Huh-no the subway,” he shrugged, starting to turn off in the opposite direction.

“Wait!” you’d called out. “I thought you said you worked in the same part of the city as me?”

He turned to face you, his head tilted to the side, lines forming between his brows as he looked back at you. “What, yeah. Why?”.

“You’re walking to the station after ours…” you realise he’s making the same mistake you made when you first moved to the city.

Without thinking you step forward and link your arm in his, steering him in the right direction. 

“Come on Mr Byun”.

Turn out he thought you were the one getting a ride to work

You started walking to the subway together every morning after that day. Baekhyun cut ten minutes off his journey time thanks to you, but you never usually saw him on the ride home. 

Baekhyun’s office was situated farther in the city than yours so you’d get off a couple of stops before him. 

“Come on, let’s go eat, “ you yawn, standing up from your seat as the carriage halts at your stop. 

You walk to the restaurant together quietly, the street lights flickering on above you as the night seeps into the evening. 

“Table for two?” a cute waitress chirps when you enter the restaurant.

“Please” You both follow her over to an empty table. 

You take your seats and she pulls out her order pad, “Can I start you off with anything to drink?”.

“Can I get two beers please?” Baekhyun asks politely, the waitress failing to hide the way her eyes almost bulge out of her head when she looks at Baekhyun properly. 

“I’ll be right back to take your order” she sing-songs as she steps away.

“Rude, she didn’t even ask what you wanted to drink” he grins, looking up cheekily from the menu. 

You scoff and swat him with yours. 

“Menus are for reading not hitting” he whines, jutting out his bottom lip to feign upset. 

“I already know what I'm getting, this is one of my favourite places!” you declare, looking around at the bright American diner themed decor. 

Admiring the cute neon milkshake sign and wondering if you could buy one for your apartment. 

“Should I get Onion Rings or Bacon Cheese Fries” Baekhyun ponders out loud.

 As if your body heard him, your stomach growls audibly. “He says both” you laugh, pointing to your stomach. 

The waitress takes your order and after what seems like an eternity your food finally arrives. 

You stare down at the beauty in front of you. The golden crisp of the grilled cheese bread, the way the cheddar and monterrey jack oozes teasingly out of the sides. The smell of the freshly made fries as the salt grains twinkle under the lights of the restaurant.

“I think I'm in love...” you gasp, gazing down at the piece of art on your plate.

Your mouth salivates as you bring the first half of the sandwich towards your mouth and take your first bite.

Tears spring to your eyes as you groan in happiness.

“Shall I give you and the sandwich a moment” Baekhyun teases, snapping you out of your trance.

“Don’t ruin my happy place” you sigh contentedly, as you swallow the first delicious bite. You steal one of his onion rings and shove it into your mouth whole. 

He shakes his head at you as he lifts his burger to his mouth. 

“Might want to take the cucumbers out, it’ll ruin your experience”, you say absentmindedly as you take a long swig from your beer, gesturing towards the burger.

He puts the burger down and lifts up the bun, his eyes widening in surprise, “You remembered that?”.

The realisation hits you and you feel your face heating up, “Uh-yeah, well...of course” you stumble over your words, unsure of what to say. 

Baekhyun doesn’t take notice, removing the cucumbers from his burger with disgust and taking a huge bite.

“Wow, you weren’t wrong” he groans, his mouth still full. 

You raise your hand to the waitress to order two more beers as you both sit in comfortable silence enjoying your meals.

“Wow, you weren’t wrong about this place” Baekhyun swoons, patting his stomach in satisfaction when you both finish eating.

“Stick a fork in me, I’m done”. You sigh, causing Baekhyun to chuckle. 

“Thanks for inviting me” he starts, playing with the label on the beer bottle. “This has really cheered me up.”

“No problem” you smile back at him. 

He hums thoughtfully “I’m really grateful you know, to be able to sit together like this after all this time.” 

You drain the dregs of your beer and nod, you know from experience that he gets sentimental after a couple drinks. 

“Me too, shall we pay up?”

You call out to the waitress and bring the bill, despite arguing back and forth Baekhyun is adamant he’s paying and thrusts his card at the poor waitress, who is just standing there waiting for you to finish bickering.

“You guys are so cute” she giggles as she processes the transaction on the card machine. 

You start to shake your head to deny whatever she’s insinuating but Baekhyun throws his arm around your shoulder and drags you out of the restaurant. 

“Should we get a cab, it's pretty late?” He looks down at his watch as you walk down the street towards the subway station. It’s a little after 9 pm.

The night sky black with few stars twinkling sparsely against the city fog that seems to shield them from sight. Baekhyun still has his arm around your shoulder and you feel more and more self-conscious about his touch. 

You unwrap yourself out of his hold and stuff your hands in your coat pocket. “You’re always so clingy when you’re tipsy”.

“I didn’t want you to feel cold” Baekhyun replies absentmindedly, you bite your lip instantly feeling guilty.

He really is clueless. 

He stops suddenly and looks behind him, waving a cab over just before it passes you by. 

“Come on, jump in”. 

You both hop in the cab and Baekhyun gives the driver the address, as the taxi pulls off you opt to stare out of the window for the remainder of the journey, to refrain yourself from saying anything stupid.

When the cab pulls up you lean over and hand the driver payment, ignoring Baekhyun’s protests as you step out of the vehicle.

“You bought dinner, this is the least I can do” you shrug as you walk towards your building. 

“You’re so stubborn!” he huffs, jogging up behind you so that you’re walking side by side again. 

“Speak for yourself” you retaliate. 

 You feel yourself grinning as you continue to banter back and forth in the elevator until you arrive at your front door.

“Goodnight hyunnie” you grin. Leaning back against your door as you watch Baekhyun unlocking his own. 

He pauses at the sudden nickname. The name you used to call him all the time back in college, it was strange how easily it rolled off your tongue.

“Night sunflower” 

The nickname he called you over ten years ago. 

Smiling fondly back at you as you step back into your apartment, trying to still the way your heart flips at his words.

The next evening you’re at a karaoke bar with Key and Aria, it’s Friday evening so you don’t hold back from the cocktails that Key keeps reordering.

You fill them in on your evening with Baekhyun.

“That’s practically a date!” screams Key, shaking you by the shoulders. “He paid for your meal, escorted you home AND walked you to your door!”.

“They live together you dumb dumb” Aria sighs, flipping through the song lists with the karaoke remote. “But I mean it does sound like you both got closer?”.

You laugh nervously, throwing back your cocktail to calm your sudden nerves. “I mean it was nice, it felt like the old days but I also can’t help but feel cautious”. 

You run your fingers through your hair as you feel everything suddenly bubbling over and you start ranting.

“At the end of the day he stopped talking to me, I probably didn’t try that hard but why put in energy that’s not reciprocated, am I just convenient?”

You sigh “I realise now that he’s just himself, too friendly and doesn’t realise it. I was misleading myself”. 

Key wraps his arm around you,“You...my beautiful, intelligent, way too sober friend, need more cocktails!”. 

“She needs a date!” shouts Aria excitedly. “Remember that thing we were talking about?”. 

You look between your friends suspiciously. “What thing?” 

“Speed dating, there’s an event next weekend. You should go!”.

Key is sticking his head out of the door to order more drinks but he turns back into the room and points at Aria.

“You’re also going A”. 

Aria chokes on her soda, “ME!?”.

“Yes, you!!” Key shoots back, “when was the last time you had a date?”.

You don’t see your friend speechless often but in this situation Key has her stumped. 

“I never even agreed to this!” you defend, “Why do I need to go?”.

“Well why not” Aria turns the conversation back to you. “Is it because you're secretly hoping something will happen between you and Baekhyun?”.

“No!” you shout. 

Key gasps. “You still like him!” he points his finger at you accusingly. 

“No, I don’t” you whine, taking an extra-long slurp of your mojito. 

“Prove it!” Aria and Key shout back in unison. 

“Fine! If it shuts you both up! But Aria is coming or I’m out” you huff, selecting the next karaoke song and grabbing the mic angrily.

“He got, me, go-ing crazzzyyyyyyyyyyy” you shout out the lyrics. Venting out all your evening's frustration.

Your friends grin like hyena’s in the mirror behind you. 

What have you got yourself into.

Bonus Scene (in collaboration with @xingslove​ ) :

Aria practically herds you and Key out of the karaoke bar. 

“I feel bad leaving that last cocktail there. It must be so lonely” Key whines, looking back towards the bar longingly.

Aria dragged you away before you could finish off the last of your drinks, declaring you’d both had enough. 

There’s a long walk to the cabs at the far end of the street. Key dragging his feet on Aria’s right as she pulls you along from the left. 

“For someone so short you have the strength of a bull” groans Key, trying to wrestle himself out of Aria’s vice grip. “You could have at least let me finish my cocktail!”.

“Key, I am not your date from last week” Aria mutters under her breath, “I will not let you get into the same state that results in you throwing up on us!”. 

Key winces slightly at Aria’s words. You recount that night, Key stumbling through the door of Aria’s apartment covered in vomit.

You had been there watching a movie and had to help take care of your upset and incredibly drunk friend.

“Yeah, you disgrace!” You point at him mockingly.

“He challenged me! What was I supposed to do!” he shoots back at you. 

Maybe it’s the cocktails, but you start laughing like a hyena as your friends argue back and forth.

“Don’t think I forgot about you!” Aria retorts, rounding to face you. “Miss ‘throws up in the toilet after way too many shots’”.

“Wait, which time? That happens a lot?” Key asks, finally breaking free from Aria and starts to pirouette back towards the bar. 

“Hey!” you shout, but any words of defence are lost on you as the street starts to spin with Key. 

You brace yourself against the wall for a quick rest.

“Oh you know, that time I held her hair back as she threw up...” Aria starts to recount, letting you go to herd Key back in the right direction. 

“We left her to go get some fresh clothes since she pulled a you!” She pokes Key in the chest as she grabs his shirt collar and redirects him back towards you. 

“And we came back to find her taking a nice nap against the toilet seat”.

“Was that when she slipped off as soon as we walked in? You thought she had lowkey knocked herself out”.

Key grabs the lampost nearby to brace himself as he bursts into laughter.

“Oi” you slur, pointing at your friend only to trip over nothing. 

“You can’t judge ussssss”. You hiccup, clutching back onto Aria’s arm to steady yourself. “You don’t even drink!” 

“Yeah!” joins in Key, swinging around the pole like he’s dancing in the club, “isn’t it harsh to laugh at your friends' misfortunes!”.

“Just get in the cab!” huffs Aria, finally shoving you both into a waiting taxi.

________________________________________________________

Tag List: @xingslove​ @shesdreaminginoverdose​ @bbyunz​ @sehunsthetics​

inbox me if you want to be added? 

#bbh-net #bbhnet #bbh net #baekhyun #bbh #baekhyun fanfic #baekhyun fanfiction #baekhyun x reader #baekhyun x you #bbh x reader #bbh x you #baekhyun fluff #baekhyun imagine #baekhyun drabble #byun baekhyun #exo fanfic #exo fanfiction #exo x you #exo x reader #exo fluff #exo oneshot #exo imagine #exo drabble

[bobgasm]

hush | c.b

pairing: chris beck x reader word count: 4461 warnings: tooth rotting fluff,

prompt: librarian!au | college!au

summary: in which the good guy gets the girl

author’s note: repost

oneshot | masterlist

        If there was one thing she needed tonight, more than anything, was for the floor of her dorm not to host a party.  Yet, as she shoved her earbuds into her ears, she’s already packing her books and laptop into a backpack.  The earbuds do nothing to hide the fact that Ruby and her latest beau were going at it in the room next door, even with the music at a deafening volume.  The bed squeaking obnoxiously and the frame connecting with the wall.

        Y/N makes sure she’s got her key and purse before she leaves, locking the door to make sure no one goes inside.  It’s happened before and things have gone missing.  At least her roommate has finished her exams and gone home for break, which means no one will accidentally leave the door unlocked.

        Y/N nipped into the pizzeria on her walk to the library, tucking her earbuds into the pocket of her jacket as she ordered a large pepperoni.  Only needing to wait ten minutes before it was ready and she was carrying it into the library.

        You weren’t supposed to have food in the library, but the librarian on Tuesdays was more lenient than the one on Wednesdays or Fridays.  He didn’t mind if you ate, so long as you kept your area clean and didn’t use the library’s computers while you were eating.  The same went for the books.  Always keep them clean.

        The only reason she needed the library tonight was because of how quiet it was compared to her dorm currently.  She had one final exam to study for, which wasn’t for another two days, but she didn’t want to be cramming the night before.  She wanted to go to bed feeling well rested and prepared.  But knowing her, she’d be cramming, stressed she wasn’t going to pass.

        As Y/N entered the library her gaze turned towards the librarian’s desk.  He barely looked up from his astronomy textbook as she took a seat at a large group of desks.  Setting the box on the table as she unloaded her laptop and books from her bag.

        Y/N looked towards him, the librarian, as he scanned a few books for a customer.  Making small talk as he entered the card number in the system.

        He always looked so soft, wearing a slightly larger grey hoodie with a NASA symbol on the breast, his hair usually a mess from running his hands through it constantly.  Circles under his eyes making him look perpetually exhausted, which wasn’t a shock to any college kid.  Sleep was scarce around exam season.  Hell, it was scarce any season.  Y/N should know, the bags under her eyes were constant.

        The second she opened the box of pizza she’d caught the librarian’s attention.  He was in her space science class, but she’d never learnt his name.  He kept mostly to himself, except for when he dominated their professors questions, whereas almost every one else struggled.  He was effortlessly smart, and she’d admired him from afar for the longest time.  Noticing how some days he’d come to class wide awake and alert, but more often than not, he looked as exhausted as the rest of them.

        His fascination with space was incomparable to anyone Y/N had ever met.  His vast knowledge of the cosmos was intriguing.  Endearing.  It made no sense to her that she never saw him with anyone around campus, no bros, no girls.  It was always just him, with his nose buried in a new space book each time.

        Y/N typed with one hand as she ate, her eyes skimming her books for anything that she knew she needed to elaborate on with a further explanation.  Her hand grew tired of typing quickly and she sighed, wiggling her fingers and taking a break from staring at the screen of her laptop.  The bright white occasionally hurting her eyes, this time no different.

        She yawned as she shut the pizza box, unable to finish the last few slices.  Casting her gaze towards the librarian who’d gotten up from his desk and wandered towards a section of books, placing the ones from his arms back into their rightful places.

        Y/N looked at the clock hanging on the wall and groaned, it was almost eleven, which was when the library closed.  She rubbed my hands over my face to wake herself up a bit and started packing her things back into her bag.  She hadn’t thought it was that late when she’d first arrived, but clearly time had gotten away from her.  Taking one too many ‘breaks’ to admire the cute librarian as he spoke in a hushed whisper to himself.

        Scribbling out a little note on a scrap of paper before placing the half eaten pizza on his desk, the note sitting atop it.  Telling him he could’ve asked her earlier for a slice if he was as hungry as he looked, and leaving her name and number on the off chance he wanted to use it some time.

+++

        After Y/N left the library she had turned her phone off, too scared to learn whether or not he’d sent her a message at all.  She had a sudden burst in confidence, yet couldn’t even handle learning the truth; if he was interested in her or not.  No matter how hard a pill rejection is to swallow, no one wanted to learn that the person they’re interested in doesn’t share those same feelings.  It’s hard.

        At least that’s what Y/N kept telling herself.

        The day of her exam she turned her phone back on to see if he’d sent anything.  Clearing the notifications from a couple of apps, her breath catching in her throat when she realised there was a missed call from an unsaved number and a voicemail that’d been left.  She checked the voicemail first, holding her phone to my ear.

        “Uhh, hey, Y/N.  It’s Chris, uhh, the librarian you left your pizza for.  I’m just, thank you so much, honesty, I’ve been studying my ass off for finals and keep forgetting to eat.  So thank you.  You didn’t have to, but I’m glad you did.”

        Y/N smiled at the recorded message, finding Chris’ rambling adorable.  And his voice, god, his voice was like heaven.  She never wanted the rambling to stop.

        “I’m c-calling from the library’s phone because, well, long story short, I-I dropped mine in a puddle and someone d-drove over it.  And I don’t know w-why I told you that!  It’s not relevant, shit.  I’m s-sorry.  Um, I was just k-kinda hoping that m-maybe, on the off chance that you d-don’t already have plans this F-Friday, if you’d like to j-join me for dinner?  I, uhh,–” he couched to clear his throat, a nervous laugh sounded in the earpiece.  “I’ll be at t-the library all day T-Thursday if you wanna g-give m...”

        The dial tone sounded, letting her know that the message had been cut short since he’d exceeded the time limit.  But luckily he’d left another message which started off with a small nervous laugh.

        “I’m s-sorry, the last message was s-supposed to say I’ll be a-at the l-library all day Thursday if you w-want to give me a c-call or s-stop by.  I m-mean, if y-you don’t that’s...l’life, I guess.  I m-mean, I h-hope you do, b-but no p-pressure.  I – J-Jesus, you’re r-really nailing this w-whole thing, B-Beck.  Real s-smooth.  If I s-see you, I see you, a-and if I-I don’t, w-well, I’m sorry for w-wasting your t-time.  Good n-night, Y/N.  T-Thank you again for t-the pizza.”

        She saved the messages to her phone, unable to bring myself to delete them.  Spending ten minutes replying to a few texts before grabbing everything she needed and heading to her exam, a plan in her head to catch up with Chris at the library afterwards.

+++

        Y/N spent a total of two hours and thirty seven minutes in the exam, making sure she’d answered everything to the best of my ability before handing my paper in and making her trek across campus to the library.  SHe was nervous, to say the least.  Her hands sweaty as she gripped the straps of her backpack.  Blowing out a shaky breath as the building came into her line of sight.

        Campus was dead.  There were only two more days of exams and then it was Christmas/New Year break.  A few lights were strung up around the courtyard as she walked down the alley between two buildings.  The library was one of the only places still open, housing a few students sipping coffees from the shop next door as they tried their hardest to absorb any information they needed to prepare themselves for their exam.

        It was weird feeling like she’d done well in my exam.  Like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders the second she passed through those doors.  But it could have also been because she was going to see Chris at the library and confirm their date for tomorrow night.

        Y/N was excited.  Exams were over and she potentially had a date with the guy she’d been crushing on for months.  And it was Christmas in a little under a week.  Even though she wasn’t going home for the holiday there were a bunch of students in the dorms staying back and were planning their own Christmas shindig.  They had a tree put up and decorated on the 8th floor.  Y/N was making one of her favourite desserts.

        Hannah, on the third floor, had a friend who’d been buying them alcohol to stock up on since the shops would all be closed and the majority of our plans consisted of drinking.  Once they’d opened presents, of course.  They’re not totally uncivilised.

        Y/N unwrapped her scarf from her neck as she entered the library, automatically engulfed by a wall of warmth.  She walked towards Chris at his desk.  He was currently serving a customer but looked towards her when he noticed someone was standing to the side.  A grin forming on his lips as he went back to serving the customer.

        She didn’t mind waiting.  Watching him bumble around, stammering over his words as he kept sneaking a look in her direction.  The guy walked off with his books, leaving the pair alone to talk.

        “H-hey.  Uhh, hey,” Chris greeted nervously, walking out from behind the desk.  Rubbing the back of his neck as he walked towards her.

        “Hi,” she replied, breathing out a smile.  “I guess I should properly introduce myself, huh?  I’m Y/N.”

        Y/N held her hand towards him and he smiled down at it as he grasped it with his own.  “I’m Chris.”  He looked up at her with the most mesmerising smile, his blue/grey eyes catching the light from above.

        “So, tomorrow night…”

        “I was h-hoping I could c-cook for you,” he said, rubbing his arm.  “I’m a p-pretty good cook, and I-I’m kind of too b-broke to take you a-anywhere nice right n-now.”

         Y/N laughed, appreciating his honesty.  “A home cooked meal sounds lovely,” she assured him with a smile.  “Did you want me to bring anything?”

        He shook his head.  “Just yourself.”  He reached toward his desk for a pen and a piece of paper, quickly scribbling down his address before handing the paper to her.  “Does s-six-thirty suit?”

        “Perfect,” she replied, folding the paper and tucking it into her pocket for safe keeping.  “I’ll see you tomorrow at six-thirty, Chris.  Have a good night.”

        “You too, Y/N,” he farewelled, cheeks tinged with warmth and a smile on his lips.  “See-see ya tomorrow.”

        She gave him a slightly awkward wave before turning around and leaving the library, taking a peek over her shoulder to look back at him.  Still smiling after her.  Raising his hand in a wave before she braved the cold weather outside.  Wrapping her scarf around her neck and disappearing out the door.

+++

        Y/N stood in the middle of the room dressed in only her underwear, hands on her hips as she looked at the selection of clothes laid out.  A pair of jeans and a woollen jumper.  A cute dress and some stockings, with a lovely warm coat.  Her pyjamas.

        A chill ran up her spine, making her reach for the jeans even though she desperately wanted to put her pj’s back on and go to bed.  She wiggled the denim up her legs, doing a little hop, step and jump to bring the material over the curve of her ass.  Huffing as she finally managed to pop the button through the hole and tug the zipper up.  Grabbing a singlet to wear under a long sleeved shirt before putting a jumper on.

        Her bed looked extremely inviting, piled with a thick duvet and deliciously soft, warm blankets.  Still unmade from earlier today when she’d finally decided to crawl out of the warm nest and venture to Bobbie’s, since she’d agreed to buy her a nice bottle of wine for her date tonight.

        She was nervous for her date with Chris, but was also extremely excited.  It’d been awhile since she’d last been on a date, the last few having gone awry.  But those guys weren’t awkward, stuttering Chris Beck.  They were the over-confident, bordering on cocky assholes that assumed after a date she’d be willing to fuck them as a thank you.  The first couple of dates had been average, as well as the sex, so eventually she just stopped going on dates.

        She didn’t need a half-assed attempt at conversation when they both knew what direction the date was heading in, and more importantly, she didn’t deserve to be left high and dry after they came and left her to take care of herself.  College guys are the worst.  But she got the feeling that Chris wasn’t like that.  Even though he planned on cooking her dinner at his place, it didn’t feel like an attempt to get her into his bed.  she was excited to see how the shy, quiet guy treated a girl compared to the arrogant jerks she was used to seeing.

        Y/N spent a small amount of time on her makeup, since she’d already applied it this morning.  Just touching up a few areas here and there.  Not wanting to overdo it, but still wanting to look nice.

        She blew out a breath as she packed her makeup away and stuffed her feet into a pair of boots, sitting on the end of her bed as she laced them up.  Taking a minute to gather er nerves as she looked at the alarm clock sitting on the bedside table, the glowing red numbers reading 18:04, letting her know she had less than half an hour to get to Chris’ place, and that her Uber should be here any minute.

        Rising to her feet, Y/N shrugged into my jacket and tucked the bottle of wine into her purse.  Her phone buzzing with a text from the Uber driver, letting her know he was outside, so hastily making her way down.  Locking her dorm behind me.

        The ride to Chris’ place took just over 20 minutes, Y/N’s leg bouncing with nerves the whole way.  Rubbing her sweaty palms against her thighs.  Thanking the driver as she climbed out of the car and walked up to the house, knocking on the door thrice.

        She exhaled heavily, a smile coming easily to her face as soon as Chris opened the door.  A bright smile on his own face.

        “H-Hey, come in,” he greeted, stepping aside so she could come in out of the cold, already shrugging out of her coat.

        “I know you said not to bring anything but I couldn’t show up empty handed,” Y/N said, hanging her coat up and pulling the wine from her purse, handing it over to him.  “The finest wine eight dollars can buy.”

        Chris chuckled as he closed the door.  “Then l-let’s open it.  S-Shall we?”

        Y/N was already on her second glass when Chris finally served dinner, the delicious smell of a homemade roast chicken with all the fixings filling the little space.

        The house itself was cozy.  He lived with three other guys who were all home with their families for the holidays, but it was kept nice and tidy.  She suspected because it was just him there at the moment.

        They sat at the dining table to eat, a candle was lit between them, their glasses full of wine.  A warmth to Chris’ cheeks from the alcohol, or from Y/N’s flirting.  Perhaps both.  Asking each other why they were still here instead of with their families.  Her reason being that she couldn’t afford it, and his being that it was easier being apart for the holidays.  Family is messy.  That didn’t mean it was an easy decision for him to stay away.  The hurt she saw on his face told her there was more to the story, but that he wasn’t ready to share it.

        Dinner had been amazing, to the point that after they finished eating they stayed at the table drinking.  Their faces lit up with the flickering light of the candle dancing over our skin.

        He was beautiful.  The way he spoke, wise beyond his years.  Voice smooth, the alcohol ridding him of his stuttering, but slurring his speech.  The corners of his eyes crinkling with each laugh, his hand covering his mouth as he giggled.

        God, she was in deep, and it was only the first date.

+++

        Y/N ended up inviting Chris to the halls for Christmas, telling him a bunch of them had plans to eat and drink and celebrate together because they couldn’t be with their families.  He’d agreed to think about it, but when she’d swung by the library to see him on the 23rd he’d told her he’d be there.

        It’d been a couple of Christmases that he’d spent the holiday alone, and now that an opportunity presented itself where he didn’t have to be, he’d be stupid not to go at least for a couple of hours.  That was what he’d told her when she’d happily embraced him, anyway.

        And now it was Christmas day and Y/N was waiting in the lobby of the building to let Chris in.  He’d said he’d be there around ten, and it had just gone five past.  She was starting to get a little fidgety when he knocked on the glass door.  She stood up to open it for him, my mood changing from upset to happy upon seeing his face.

        “S-Sorry I’m a little l-late,” he apologised, shrugging out of his jacket.  “It’s i-icy and I k-kept s-slippin’ over.”

        Y/N laughed and shook her head.  “I’m sorry for laughing,” she replied.  “I’m glad you made it here in one piece, though.”

        “So am I.”  He smiled.

        “C’mon.  The party’s already started.”

        SHe took his hand in hers and led him towards the elevators, his gloved fingers slipping between her own as the doors opened and they stepped inside.  She hit the button for the eighth floor and held her key to the sensor, and only then did the elevator work.  Taking them up to the eighth.

        “Thank-thank you for i-inviting me again,” he said softly.

        “Thank you for agreeing to come,” she told him, smiling up at him and giving his hand a squeeze.

       The party was in full swing when the elevator doors opened.  They had to wait for a couple of guys racing on swivel chairs in the hallway to roll past before they could exit.

        “You can chuck your stuff in my room to keep it safe if ya want,” I offered and he nodded, letting her drag him around the hallway until they reached her room.  Using her keys to unlock the door and then pushing it open, letting him walk in first.

        He sat his bag on the desk and hung his coat up on the rack, unwrapping his scarf from his neck.  “I h-hope ya d-don’t mind,” he said as she leant against the doorframe.  “B-But I bought u-us a b-bottle of that w-wine.”

        “I don’t mind at all,” Y/N said as he handed the bottle to her, smiling at him as she grabbed two plastic glasses from her desk drawer and set them on the desk.  Opening the bottle and pouring themselves a glass each.  Ignoring the chaos out in the hallway, handing one of the glasses to him.  “To the finest wine eight dollars can buy.”

        His hand came up to cup her jaw, thumb brushing over her cheek lightly as he stared at er.  Gaze flickering from her eyes to her lips and back to her eyes.

        “And to n-not being alone on C-Christmas,” he added softly.

        “And to not being alone on Christmas,” she repeated, clinking her glass with his and having a sip as he did the same.

        “Can-can I…” he stuttered, looking back down at her lips as he shuffled closer.

        “Kiss me, Chris,” she whispered.

        He dipped his head and pressed his lips to hers, no trace of hesitation in his actions.  Kissing her with certainty.  Lips firm against her own at first, softening when she kissed him back almost instantly.  Tasting like the wine they’d just drank.

        Only detaching when Brooke waltzed in and announced it was time for presents.  She was gone as soon as she arrived, moving onto the next room.

        “I, uhh...”  Chris downed his drink.  “I’m not c-expectin’ anything in r-return, but I wanted to g-give you some-somethin’.”  He reached into his bag and pulled out a tupperware container.  “I m-made you some cookies.  F-Family recipe.  I-I hope you l-like ‘em.”

        Y/N rose to her tiptoes and pressed another kiss to his lips as she graciously accepted the container from him.  “Thank you, Chris,” she replied, smiling as she set the container and her wine on the desk.  Opening one of her clothing drawers and pulling out a hoodie she’d seen at an op shop.  “I haven’t seen you wearing this design so I wasn’t sure if you’ve got it or not.”

        He took the hoodie from her and his eyes lit up when he unfolded it, a large grin spreading across his face.  Reaching for the back of the current sweatshirt he was wearing and pulling it over his head so he could put it on.

        “I wasn’t sure about the size…”

        He shook his head after pulling it over his head, sliding his arms through it.  Wrapping his arms around her waist and lifting her off the ground, a laugh escaping her lips before he silenced her with a kiss.

        “It’s great–it’s the greatest g-gift anyone has ever g-given me,” he confessed.  “Thank you, Y/N.  S-So much.”

        Y/N laughed and shook her head.  “You’re welcome,” she told him.  “Merry Christmas, Chris.”

        “M-Merry Christmas, Y/N,” he said back, the most joyous expression on his face.

        “You wanna go and watch everyone else open presents or stay here and make out a little bit?”  She asked him, her hands running through his hair.

         Heat rose to his cheeks as he coughed.  “Uhh, m-make out a little b-bit,” he replied honestly.

+++

        With the holiday’s over and done with, a mistletoe kiss and a New Years Eve kiss crossed off her bucket list, college classes had officially started back up.  Chris and Y/N had made things official before they welcomed in the New Year together, and they’d been on several dates since he first cooked her dinner.

        She’d met his roommates, mostly because she spent a lot of her free time at his place.  They seemed nice enough – typical guy behaviour trying to piss Chris off by hitting on her.  Though he knew she only had eyes for him.

        He’d met her roommate, who’d badgered him with question after question since she’d given her no warning that she now had a boyfriend.  So she’d returned back from break to find him asleep in Y/N’s bed.  No funny business had been happening.  They’d just been sleeping after a long first day back of classes.

        Her flight had been delayed time and time again, which was why she had no idea when she was coming back; because she didn’t know herself until she was boarding her flight.

        It was fine.  She was cool with it.  And she was happy that Y/N’d finally met a guy who treated her the way she deserved.

        Y/N was too.  He was so good to her.  And she always made sure to look after him, too.  When he let her.

        It was Tuesday today and he still had his shift at the library to complete before he’d go home.  She knew he never took anything to eat with him – knowledge she’d gained from past experience, – so after making her own dinner, she took a container full of lasagne to the library for him.

        It was still warm when she got there, sneaking up behind him and wrapping her arms around his waist, tucking myself under his arm.

        “Hi-hi, beautiful,” he greeted with a soft chuckle.  “I d-didn’t think I’d get t-to see you today.”

        Y/N hummed as she leant up to press a kiss to his cheek.  “Brought you dinner,” she told him.  “Because I know you never bring anything to work.”

        “Thank you,” he told her, kissing her forehead as he took the container from her hand.  “Lasagne?”

        Y/N hummed, producing a fork from her pocket and placing it on top of the container.  “Yeah.  I hope you enjoy.”

        “Can’t stay?”

        “Afraid not,” she replied.  “Got a lot of reading to catch up on that I was supposed to do over the holiday but I got a little sidetracked.”

        “It’s that b-boyfriend of yours, I t-tell ya,” he said, nuzzling his nose into her hair.  “He’s a b-bad influence.”

        Y/N laughed.  Loud.  “He’s lucky I love him.”

        “He–you, what?”

        “I love you.”

        And she did.  He was the kind of guy you knew from the moment you met him that you’d fall in love with him.  All the blushing looks and nervous laughter, piled in with how much of a genuinely nice guy he was...it was a no brainer.  She’d happily fallen in love with him.

        “I-I love you, too-too.  Shit, no.  I can say this without stutt-stuttering.”  He took a deep breath and steadied himself, cupping my face with both of his hands.  Dinner all but forgotten about.  “I love-lo, no.  Wait-wait.  I love you too.”

#chris beck #chris beck x reader #chris beck x you #chris beck fanfic #chris beck fanfiction #*hush

[addictedtostorytelling]

Hello, there! Addicted- that sounds like an appropriate name kkkkk-, I would like your advice on one subject. I want to make a gif from a movie, "Fear" do you know it? I have it downloaded on my computer, Which program you advise me to use? I never made one before, so I'm pretty lost here.

hey, @mementovive!

you can call me aj, if you prefer. 😉

as far as gif-making goes, i make most of my gifs from dvds, but the process is pretty similar to making them from downloads, from what i understand.

the programs i use are:

handbrake (to convert files to mp4 format)

windows movie maker (to cut and manipulate the mp4 files down to the right scenes and sizes)

and adobe photoshop cs5 (to make the actual gifs)

the process itself is kind of involved, so i’ll put the instructions after the “keep reading,” if you’re interested.

__________

i suppose i should preface this post by saying i have a pc, and i have no idea if any of these programs work for macs.

so.

to make gifs, i start in handbrake, where i take the following steps:

(note: if your video file is already in mp4 format, you can skip down to the “windows movie maker” part of the tutorial.)

select the source from wherever i have the video file saved.

“browse” to find the destination where i want to save the converted file and save it under whatever file name i want.

select the “high profile” preset from the right-hand menu.

make sure the cropping is set to zero in all directions. (if a change to the cropping is needed, select “custom” in order to do so.)

make sure that the “anamorphic: none” and “modulus: 16″ size options are selected.

hit the “start button” up top and wait for the video to convert. 

the bigger the file is, the longer it takes to convert. 

(i typically try to only convert short clips, a few seconds or minutes in length at most, to avoid crashing the program.)

i then move to windows movie maker, where i select the little filmstrip icon in the center of the screen to import my newly-made mp4 file:

once the mp4 file uploads, i use the slide rule on the filmstrip to select where i want to crop the file. then i hit the “split” button and delete the excess video material i don’t want. 

since photoshop balks at longer files, i usually limit each clip to no longer than 25 seconds in duration. i also try to leave some extra frames before and after the scene i actually want to gif, as photoshop tends to shave off of a second or so from each clip when you upload to start giffing. 

after cropping the file down to the size/length i want it to be, i click on the blue “file” tab at the top of the program, select “save movie” and then the “recommended for this project” setting on the sub-menu. i then save the file to my preferred destination.

i am now ready to go to photoshop and begin giffing.

to open my intended mp4 file, i go to the “file” menu, select “import,” and then select “video frames to layers” from the sub-menu.

i then select the mp4 file from whatever destination i saved it to in movie maker.

at this point, a pop-up menu called “import video to layers” appears, like so:

if i want to gif the whole clip, i select the “from beginning to end” option. otherwise, i click “selected range only” and use the slide rule on the video viewer to select which portion of the clip i want.

in either case, i make sure that the “limit to every” box is checked, like so:

i typically choose 2 frames, as doing so makes the gifs smoother. 

(the higher the number of frames selected, the more gaps there will be between frames, which translates to the gifs ultimately being choppier.)

i also keep the “make frame animation” box at the bottom of the pop-up menu selected.

once i have selected everything i need to, i then hit the “ok” button, at which point photoshop creates an animation timeline at the bottom of my screen.

from here, my next tasks become

cropping,

sizing,

coloring,

and sharpening

my gifs, in that order.

my first item of business is to delete any extra frames i do not wish to gif from the timeline. i do so by selecting said frames in the timeline and clicking on the little trashcan icon at the bottom of the timeline, near the scroll bar.

once i have the frames i actually want to work with---which may all be for one gif or for multiple gifs i intend to make into a set---i click on the menu icon on the right-hand side of the animation timeline.

doing so opens up a pop-up “actions” menu.

i then select “select all” from the actions menu, which highlights all remaining frames in the animation timeline.

next, on the “layers” widget on the right side of the screen, i select all layers, making sure that they’re highlighted, and press CTRL + G to put them into a “group” folder. the name is this folder is unimportant. (photoshop will automatically name it “group 1.”)

i then return to the animation timeline, where, with all frames still selected, i click on the little black arrow at the bottom of a frame (beside the timestamp that says “0.03″ and select “other.”

i then input a set delay of 0.09 seconds and click “ok.”

now i select the crop tool from the tools widget on the left side of my screen. i use this tool to cut away any framing around the gif, like so:

next, i click on the “image” tab at the top of the screen and select “image size.”

the size of image i want will depend on what kind of gif(s) i’m making. if i am making a single gif or large gifs for a “stackable” set like this one, i make it no wider than 540px. if i am making a gifset that is two gifs across, then no wider than 268px. if a gifset that is three gifs across, then no wider than 177px. 

if i adjust my gif to the width i want and the height ends up being less than ideal, then i undo the width adjustment, input the height i want, and then crop the gif to the proper width (manually) using the crop tool rather than the “image size” menu, as doing so prevents skewing.

in any case, once i have the gif the size i want it to be, i start on coloring.

honestly, coloring gifs is the most artful and least scientific part of the whole process. the tools for doing so are found both in the “layers > new adjustment layer” tab at the top of the program and in the “adjustments” widget on the right-hand side of the program, adjacent to the layers widget.

there are lots of good tutorials on coloring available for beginners, both on tumblr and on youtube, so i recommend reading/watching a couple, just to get a feel for what all goes into the process. 

once you have the basics down, you kinda just have to play around to find what looks good to you. some gif-makers use psds, some color by hand.

i tend to have kind of a “base set” of coloration that i use and then go by feel on a lot of stuff, favoring bolder colors where i can, though i am still striving to achieve the kind of beautifully vivid hues expert gif-makers like @panchostokes create.

seriously! check these out. they’re gorgeous!

in any case, after coloring the gif comes sharpening, which is another process i suggest you check out tutorials to learn.

tbh, sharpening is one of my weakest skills as a gif-maker, and particularly as i most often make gifs of 90s and early 00s shows, which tend to have low resolution and therefore need a lot of work; in addition to using tutorials, i’ve been playing around with my own sharpening “recipe” lately, but i haven’t hit on the perfect admixture just yet.

once i’m finished with the gif---cropping, coloring, sharpening---i go to the “file” menu in photoshop and click “save for web devices.” 

before saving, i make sure that the lower left-hand corner of the pop-up shows that my gif is under the current tumblr gif size limit (to ensure maximum image quality).

at present---as of september 2020---the current limit is 8mb.

however, most gif-makers try to keep their gifs under 5mb, when possible, as tumblr compresses larger gifs, ultimately lowering the quality by changing them from .gif to .gifv files.

if i find one of my gifs is over the size limit, then i go back to make the gif smaller---by cropping it---shaving off the extra mbs. 

finally, i check to make sure that the “forever” looping option is selected, so that my gif doesn’t stop running after its first play-through. 

 once i have everything as i like, i click “save.”

---and that’s the basics of how i make gifs.

of course, mine is neither the only nor best way to make gifs, and i’m sure that more seasoned gif-makers reading this tutorial are probably side-eyeing my process 👀 👀 👀.

there are undoubtedly easier ways to do things and methods that achieve prettier results; this process is just the one i’ve developed through trial and error, so it’s the one i stick with.

note that i also didn’t say anything here about adding text to gifs, but that’s something else you can learn how to do through more thorough tutorials than this one.

my best advice for aspiring gif-makers is to find a gif-maker whose work wows you and see if they have any tutorials or tips; i personally learned almost everything i know about gif-making from this very excellent tutorial @everynineyearsandthirtyfourdays posted years ago.

anyway.

good luck giffing fear! 

i hadn’t heard of that movie before, but i see that billy plays a role. nice!

feel welcome to send more questions any time.

#answered #mementovive #** #my tutorials #giffing

[ttooccaa]

The impeccable timing of everything - Chapter 3

3/5

Guess who completely forgot they also post here... heh...

Rating: Teen

Ao3 link

Chapter 3: Slipping through my fingers 

Central City

November 24, 8:30 PST

Bart was sweating, he was currently on his morning run around the neighborhood. He knew he didn’t really need to be that slow, but it felt good just to run like a regular person around a world that wasn’t apocalyptic and filled with fear and dread. He felt his phone buzz, it momentarily silenced his music, he swiftly fished it out of his pocket. As soon as he saw that Ed had texted him he slowed down to a jog and then completely stopped. Bart leaned against a graffitied wall that said “SHAZAM!” in huge red and yellow letters. The handsome face of the hero was also there. He opened up his chat with Ed.

stressED: What is up, my dude? 😎

A child that was hurt™: getting my gains

Bart though for a moment and then quickly took a selfie. He looked at it for a second and swiftly deleted it, then he took another one, that went to the trash as well. After a couple more tries he sent the one he hated the least. He waited and felt his heart stop at Ed not answering immediately. He finally felt his phone ping and opened the message almost with superspeed.

stressED: what a stud 😏

A child that was hurt™: Thanks

stressED: I was talking about Shazam

Just as Bart felt his heart go up his throat until he received another text.

stressED: kidding!

Bart heard himself audibly sigh, but then caught himself. He obviously knew that Ed was joking from the beginning, but just when had such little things started to affect him so much. Perhaps around the time he started noticing Ed’s light dusting of freckles or that his smile was always a little crooked to the left or that his eyes shone almost like he had little specks of gold in them… he was so whipped. He returned his attention back to his phone.

A child that was hurt™: and u?

stressED: Just finished telling Kate’s parents where she’s at, also the correctional facility where Wayne stayed and his uncle as well. Also informed Kole’s foster home. I know that they basically sold her out, but it’s policy.

A child that was hurt™: Sounds like it went well

stressED: All of them, pieces of work. Kate’s parents basically told me to fuck off, Wayne’s uncle said that he won’t pay for the center, didn’t listen to me at all! The foster home and juvie denied either had ever stayed with them

A child that was hurt™: Geez, rough. Maybe we’ll find evidence today that will prove that they were involved, put ‘em in jail and all that good stuff

stressED: Hah, yeah I sure hope so

stressED: Moving on to lighter topics, I’m getting everything ready for Kate, Kole and Wayne

A child that was hurt™: It’s power testing and training day!

stressED: Hope the Center manages to survive this time as well. We are still grieving the loss of room C5

A child that was hurt™: RIP

stressED: forever in our hearts 😪

stressED: Good luck on the mission

A child that was hurt™: Thanks, I’ll make sure to bring you a souvenir 😉

stressED: Just make sure you get back safe

A child that was hurt™: Will do, amigo.

stressED: Kick some trafficker’s ass for me 😤😤😤

A child that was hurt™: Anytime, also good luck with the golden trio

stressED: Golden trio?

A child that was hurt™: 😉😉😉

stressED: Whatever… love talking to you, but gg

A child that was hurt™: bye⚡️

Bart briefly looked at Ed’s picture in his phone and grinned even wider – it was a close up of his face, Ed was mid teleportation, the gold around him shining and engulfing parts of his face. He had one eyebrow raised and was grinning mischievously. His honey brown eyes were looking at something to the right. It was a great picture that had happened by complete accident, though Bart was very grateful for it.

Jaime would often complain that Ed was the only one with a good picture in his phone, but come on. Jaime’s was hilarious, it was him laying on the ground in pain, because Traci had accidentally sent a small rock flying towards his nuts. She was leaning behind him, apologising so much that her mouth was a blur. Truly a classic.

Bart quickly realised that he’d been leaning against the wall and grinning at his phone for a good chunk of time, so he put it back in his pocket and continued his slow jog with renewed energy.

Taos

November 24, 9:45 MST

Ed felt like he was going to faint, well not really, but damn the feelings had hit him so hard he just felt overwhelmed. How could Bart just casually send him such a picture?! Ed had seen the other teen many times flushed and sweaty, but it was always during training or a mission, staring at him could get him hurt or cost him his life. The little glimpses didn’t compare to a picture. So yeah, maybe he’d forgotten how to breath for a second and maybe he’d also saved the picture, but could you really blame him? He was just a guy with a crush after all.

He took a big breath and checked that he was still alone in the room and nobody had seen his little panic attack. Ed was getting the room they used for meta-human power testing and training. There was a huge reinforced glass between where the metas will be, the people outside the glass will be there to keep track of the metas’ vitals and and so on and so fort. His father also wanted Ed outside because things could always go awry with metas who couldn’t control their powers. But Ed knew that due to his teleportation, it was better to be inside, Wendy wasn’t the only one who’d lost control over her powers. During those times Ed became especially useful.

He was putting in some commands into the computer, when he checked the time, 10:00 am, that means that Neut and the others will be arriving soon, also the STAR labs appointed scientists and doctors here to watch over their training and make sure everything goes on smooth. Well as smooth as it could be when dealing with emotionally unstable  teenagers with recently received powers.

He heard the automatic door open and turned to see the head doctor and his team coming into the room.

Ed went over to them “Hi, Dr. Wilcox.”

The man gave him one of tight smiles and shook his hand “Good, to see you again, Eduardo.”

Ed smiled in return, while his relationship with Dr. Wilcox wasn’t the best, due to still harbouring memories of being tested on by him, Ed knew that the doctor was a good guy and even better at his job.

The doctor sat down in front of one of the computers “I read the report you sent in about their powers, but is there more you could tell me?”

“Well we know that Kate can “melt” stuff and that Wayne similarly to Thirteen can influence the world around him. Kole still hasn’t shows us her powers, but we know it’s something similar to crystallisation.” Ed explained.

Just as he was about to text Neut to tell him to bring everybody in, the automatic doors opened and the other youth counselor came in, with Kate, Kole and Wayne in tow. Kole was holding onto Nathaniel’s arm and smiling brightly. She was almost hanging off of it.

All three of them looked times better then when they first came in, their original clothes had been washed and cleaned, so the teens had opted for a combination of both their clothes and those issued by the center.

Kate was wearing high waisted jeans with a loose Meta-human Youth Center T-shirt tucked in. Her longe blonde hair was falling around her shoulders.

Kole had a blue, cloth tied around her head like a headband, a purple skirt with stockings with holes in them and a blue zipped up hoodie. The blue really made her orange hair pop.

Since Wayne had come in in a plain T-shirt and pants (which he later explained were his uniform in juvie) he was wearing clothes from the center, simple grey sweats and a black T-shirt. He was definitely the most upset at not having any of his regular clothes with him, missing his leather jacket the most, though Ed had promised to help him, maybe arrange for him to go back to his uncle’s and get some stuff, but only after this whole thing had blown over.

Ed went over to them and grinned at Neut “What timing! I was just about to text you.”

The other counselor just smiled and shrugged “We’ve known each other for how long now?”

“Fair point.” The Argentinian mused, then turned towards the teens “Ready to unleash those powers?”

Kate smirked “Hell yeah!”

Wayne just rolled his eyes “Let’s get this over with.”

Ed smiled good-naturally and moved towards the doctors “Just so know, everything is recorded, that’s so it can be analysed later. This is Dr. David Wilcox, he is the head scientist, if you have any questions, turn towards him. When we are done, we will compile everything we know and write up reports on your powers, you’ll receive a copy, of course.”

The dark haired man nodded towards them, then turned around and continued adjusting things on the screen in front of him.

Ed mentioned for the other metas to follow him inside the space used for testing. They did albeit Wayne was a bit reluctant.

As they were entering Neut said “You’ll do great and if you don’t, it doesn’t matter, just don’t blow anything up!” He gave them a wide grin and a thumbs up.

Ed shook his head, but was smiling. He hoped the lame joke would ease a bit of their worries, when the door clicked closed behind them, he started talking “Okay, so we will start one at a time, each of you will show their power, don’t be nervous if you don’t have full control of it or anything like that, if you can’t do it at first, again, it’s okay, just concentrate.”

“I’ll start.” Kole volunteered.

She closed her bright green eyes and concentrated. Her right arm started to slowly harden and change in color, the surface became shiny and smooth, like a crystal. It had a pinkish hue to it. She opened her eyes “Alright!”

Ed nodded “Okay then, let’s see what you can do.”

Kole smirked, she raised her arm and aimed towards one of the targets not so far away, a couple of crystal shards flew, but didn’t come near the target, they were small and fragile and the moment they hit the ground they broke. She sighed, her expression sad.

Wayne made a noise of amusement and was swiftly hit in the arm by Kate’s elbow.

“Hey!”

She gave him an annoyed look, that appeared even more threatening because of their height difference, Kate being almost one head taller than him.

He closed his mouth then rolled his eyes and looked the other way.

Kole’s expression turned sour, anger and annoyance clear on her face. As her emotions became more erratic and panic overtook her, she quickly started losing control over her powers. The crystallization started to grow, it went over her neck reaching her face. That just added to her panic. The crystals became jagged and started tearing up her hoodie. Their light pink color turned dark. She was panicking and waving her arms around “Not the hoodie!”

Kate and Wayne looked like they were on the verge of panic themselves. Looking at each other and Kole frantically.

‘Well, that was just a matter of time.’ Ed took in a big breath, he knew that telling her to calm down wouldn’t do her any good, the one who should remain calm was Ed. He started talking “Kole, listen to me, focus on my voice.” She turned her wide eyes at him. “I want you to close your eyes and concentrate, breath with me.” He continued instructing her, while Kole slowly started to calm down. Slowly, but surely the crystals started to disappear, turning back into her regular skin.

Ed sighed, relived, while Kole herself looked emotionally drained.

“Thanks.”

Ed smiled “Of course.”

Kole slowly picked at the gashes in her hoodie left by the crystals, she looked sad.

The blonde came up behind her and put her hand on her shoulder “I think it looks cooler, very grungy!”

She looked over her shoulder at Wayne. He was quick to join in “Yeah, totally.” There was a twinge of regret in his eyes.

The Argentinian just sighed “Want to take a brake?”

The other three nodded.

Ed smiled and started walking towards the automatic doors, while the doors were opening he thought ‘I hope Bart’s doing better than me.’

Hollywood

November 24, 9:47 PDT

Bart had completely zoned out of the meeting. He knew he should be listening but at this point they were just saying the same things over and over again. He looked at Jaime, who looked bored, but was at least pretending to listen, while Virgil, well Virgil looked like he was somewhere else entirely, at least mentally.

Bart sighed and his mind continued to drift away, of course the first thing he thought of was Ed, it still slightly bothered him when Ed had just left him hanging for a bit during their morning chat, but he was sure he was overthinking… or at least hoping he was.

For now he decided to focus on more pleasant topics regarding Ed, like his cute accent and his amazing ass. Sometimes he would imagine what a date with him would be like, he’d never been on one and he wanted to see if it was like in the movies. Jaime and Cassie told him that it was like hanging out, except with a lot more physical contact, Bart didn’t mind the idea of that, not one bit.

But still doubts would creep in his thoughts, doubts like what if he was wrong about all of this? What if Ed had lost interested? What if he actually liked somebody else the entire time, but was just nice? What if the little flirting made him uncomfortable rather than flattered? ‘Feelings are too hard, man. They jump up and down and make your whole head a mess.’ He thought while twirling a pencil at superspeed between his fingers.

Finally the mission discussion was over. All of the teens got up, Virgil stretched and Bart heard the slight cracking of his joints. Technically the teens didn’t have anything else to do today, only classes but they were later this day. Bart promptly told everybody he’ll be heading home, but decided to forgo the Zeta tube and run instead, good thing he was in suit.

Just as he was entering Arizona, he heard his phone ping. He grabbed it and saw that it was a text from Ed. He was surprised, he didn’t except Ed to be able to text him today, because of the metas. He texted him back, still running home to Central. Apparently things had gone just as Ed had excepted, though he had hoped for better. They had a little recess going on right now and Ed asked Bart, if he wanted to come. That stopped the speedster dead in his tracks, he thought for a moment, then decided ‘Hell yeah, I can come.’ He texted the usual terrible pun, that all the Flashes used and headed towards Taos.  

Taos

November 24, 11:12 MST

Ed was feeling a little nervous, though he didn’t know why, he saw Bart all the time, this time will be like all the others, but still… his excitement over seeing him definitely beat out the uneasiness. He was still surprised how he had just asked him to come, he’d done it before he even realised. Bart had said yes, so he must be free right? Ed hoped he wasn’t being a bother. He was waiting for the speedster outside the main entrance, before his thoughts could spiral further Bart had appeared next to him, a trail of dust like in cartoons falling to the ground behind him.

“Hey there, amigo!” Bart winked.

Ed nodded in greeting “Sorry, hope you weren’t busy.”

Bart just grinned “Never busy enough to decline seeing you.”

This resonated pleasantly with Ed, he smiled slightly embarrassed, a blush evident on his face.

They walked over to one of the benches and sat down. There was a tree right over it, so it made a pleasant shadow over the sun. Bart looked at Ed, who was wearing a dark red sweatshirt with desaturated stripes going in the middle, they were colored like the rainbow. He had light wash, high waisted jeans on, which were cuffed. He was also sporting a pair of dark yellow vans.

Bart was in his Kid Flash costume, which was good, because he could use his superspeed that way.

Ed started talking first “How has your day been?”

“Eh, pretty boring, honestly. Just had a meeting about the mission, I’m so over debriefing… it takes forever.”

Ed ran a hand through his dark and unruly curls “Even when you phase out?”

“Even when I phase out.”

“Ugh.” Ed rolled his eyes

“And you?”

Ed shook his head from side to side “Nothing I wasn’t expecting. Though, none of them want a collar, which is great. Also I’ve convinced them to come to one of the meetings were we talk about everything that has happened.”

Bart smirked “So group therapy.”

Ed rolled his eyes, but was smiling “It’s not technically group therapy.”

“Yes, it is.”

“Yeah.”

There was a pleasant silence between them, just enjoying the slightly chilly breeze, that November brought, but still Bart pondered why Ed had decided to call him over. Was there a reason? Or was it just like that? Was something bothering Ed? Did he want to tell him something?

Finally he decided to just ask “So it’s something up or…?”

Ed’s eyes moved over to him “Oh, well I guess, I just wanted to see you? Were you busy?”

Ed had just wanted to see him! Bart’s heart leaped with joy “No-not at all! I just, you know, wanna make sure you’re doing alright?” He was slightly red, hoping he hadn’t offended Ed.

The Argentinian smiled and looked straight at Bart “Yeah, I’m fine, again, I just… missed you, I suppose…” His blush was definitely growing by the end of that sentence. His hand had slowly moved towards Bart’s.

The speedster noticed this and also moved his hand closer, then stated to talk “I missed you too.” He had moved his hand over Ed’s. He was blushing hard, but screw it.

Both of the were leaning slowly closer to each other. None of them knew what exactly they were planning to do when they met in the middle, but they were sure they were gonna figure it out- but then a loud banging noise was heard from somewhere inside the Center. Both of them jerked away and looked at the building.

Bart started to talk “Do you think we should-“ he was cut off by another such noise.

“Definitely.” Ed nodded. He turned his hand around and held Bart’s, then both of them teleported to where Ed assumed the noise had come from.  

He was right, it was the cafeteria. Inside of it, Wendy was up in a small tornado with sparks flying around Leslie and Andy half turned into mist. Half of one of the table was gone next to Kate, while Wayne was wobbling in the middle of it, until he finally fell down. Kole was just standing wide eyed in the middle of everything. There were pieces of food splattered on the ground.

Ed blinked once “What happened?”

“Oops, busted.” Leslie said and Wendy quickly got back on the ground.

Andy looked at him, then smirked and raised an eyebrow, indicating Bart and Ed’s still linked hands. Both teens blushed hard and let go of each other. Andy just rolled her eyes.

Ed sighed “I will repeat again, what happened and where is Neut?”

Wayne actually spoke from where he was getting up from the other side of the table “Some chick needed help.”

“Celia.” Kate was kind enough to clarify.

Ed put his hands on his hips “Okay, that’s one question answered, now the other one?”

He turned towards the three girls, who’d been here longer. Leslie was the first to speak up “I love it when you do that pose, it’s like I’m getting scolded by mom.” She chuckled.

“Leslie.” Ed dragged on her name, obviously tired.

“Okay, okay, I’ll talk, just don’t ground me.” She winked at end, grinning. “Well, we saw that the tree of them-“ She pointed towards Wayne, Kate and Kole “-weren’t training anymore and decided to say hi. Chatted for a bit, Kole asked us what our powers were.”

Ed cut her of “And you decided to show her…” He’d already heard that story a million times.

Leslie winked “Bingo!”

The Argentinian waited, but nothing, so he encouraged them “Okay and then?”

Wendy answered “Oh, you know, the usual, something went wrong. This time it was Kate getting scared and melting half the table, on which Wayne had gotten up after Leslie shocked him with a bit of electricity. Also he screwed up my tornado and one of the other tables went flying, hit the ceiling and fell down.” She pointed at what Ed assumed was a table, but now more resembled a beat up piece of metal. She was grinning all sweet like everything was a-okey.

Bart couldn’t help it and snorted at the sheer stupidity of the situation. Ed looked like he’d aged ten years, but also smiled.

“Okay then since you all seem so lively, we can get back to training.” He indicated for Kole, Kate and Wayne. “And you three-“ Ed turned towards the girls “clean up this mess and make a list of everything that needs replacing.”

All three of them groaned and he smirked “Come on, not the first time you’re doing this.”

“Exactly.” Andy’s dry tone replied.

Wayne, Kate and Kole headed for the testing room.

While Ed and Bart went into the hallway. Ed rubbed the back of his neck “Well, that happened.”

Bart chuckled “It sure did. Well since you have your hands full…”

“Yeah.”

Both of them were suddenly feeling embarrassed and self conscious, perhaps because of the handholding, perhaps because of the leaning in… Apparently, they both decided some things were better off left for later.

“Hey, thanks for coming, wish you could stay, but you know…” Ed indicted for the testing room with his head.

Bart nodded “Yeah…” The brunett sucked in a quick breath and continued talking “Wanna hang out some time?”

The Argentinian blinked “Like go out?”

The other teen nodded “Yeah, we haven’t, you know, had the time and… I like spending time with you.” He was feeling a bit awkward at the end.

Ed was a bit red as well “I’d... really like that.” Then he added quickly “I also like spending time with you!” He slightly bumped Bart’s shoulder with his fist at the end of the sentence.

“Text me, when you’re free, hermano! It’ll be totally crash!” Bart winked at the end.

“Likewise.” The teleporter smiled.

Bart gave him one last grin, before leaving in a streak of yellow, only leaving dust behind.

The short walk to the testing room was just the perfect amount of time Ed needed to have a small panic attack. ‘Go out?!’ He thought ‘Like a date?!’ He panicked for a bit more, which consisted of him coming up with various scenarios in which it was a date and it all went great and a couple overly exaggerated ones in which Bart was so disappointed he somehow left for the future.

Ed took one last breath and walked into the room, the other three metas were leaning against one of the desks on the outside of the enforced glass.

Wayne’s midwestern accent welcomed him soon after he entered the room “Took you long enough.”

“Chill out. He was just making plans with his boyfriend.” Kate said, grinning.

Ed was quick to retaliate “Boyfriend?! No, me and KF we are just uhh… friends… Okay, that right now isn’t important. C’mon.” He quickly changed the subject and headed towards the automatic doors of the training ground.

He turned around when he heard all three enter, Kate was still grinning, while Wayne was a bit red. Although for him blushing a bit was like getting burnt for most people, because of his pale complexion. Kole looked a bit nervous, but determined.

The Argentinian started talking “Okay, who’s next or do I have to choose?”

Kate stepped out of the uneven line “I can melt? Well it’s no exactly melt, disintegrate? Things. Is there something in here that needs to go?” She looked around.

Ed thought for a moment then went over to one of the chests, he came back with what looked like a bent out of shape batarang. “After they loose their shape this much, they are pretty useless for throwing, but they are still good for demonstrations.” He handed it over to Kate.

The blonde concentrated and her fingertips went through the metal. She twirled it around her pointer finger and turned towards Ed, her expression serious “I can control it pretty okey, but when I’m suddenly overtaken by a strong emotion, all that control just slips away.”

Ed nodded “Don’t worry, we can work that out. It’ll also be good to figure out what exactly you can and cannot “melt.” Though melt isn’t the right word, they just disappear as if dissolving to their molecular level.”

Kate tilted her head to the side “Well I haven’t tried it with anything organic or living and breathing.” She thought for a second, then turned towards her companion with a mohawk “I nominate Wayne to help out.”

“Hell no.” Came his immediate reply.

Ed chuckled “I’ll go get an apple or something for the organic test, though I’m not sure for the living and breathing one, maybe a plant?” He mused.

Kate laughed “I’m sure there are some weeds around the center.”

The peer counselor smirked, then turned towards Wayne.

The pale teen bit his lip and shrugged “I don’t know, man, I know I can screw around with people, but I’m not sure about inanimate objects.”

“Only one way to find out.” Said Kole as she took the abused batarang from Kate and placed it on the ground in front of Wayne. “The floor is yours.”

He rolled his eyes and looked at the batarang, he concentrated and narrowed his eyes, but nothing happened. Wayne groaned in frustration.

“Guess not.” Kate piped.

The pale teen turned towards her and rolled his eyes.

The Argentinian thought for a moment, the idea was stupid but it was worth a shot “What about me? We can try it out that way, if something goes wrong,

I can teleport and there’s also a medic nearby…” Ed thought for a second, he was more worried on putting the pressure of maybe hurting him on Wayne, rather than actually getting hurt.

“Well that’s a stupid ass idea.” Wayne said, crossing his arms.

“Kate has already been on the receiving end of it a few times.” Ed pointed out.

“That wasn’t on purpose!” Wayne said, before Kate gave him the side eye “Okay, most times it wasn’t purpose, also it was for a moment or two.” Wayne paused for a second “Am I really the only one worried here?” He turned towards the other three.

Kate shrugged “If he says he can do it, then he can do it.”

Kole joined her “I wanna see what happens!”

“Then it’s settled. You two go out.” Ed instructed and Wayne groaned behind him.

The Argentinian heard him mumble something along the lines of “I can’t believe I’m the one being responsible here…”

Ed turned towards Dr. Wilcox “Hey, doc, can you not tell my dad about what we’re about to do?”

The other man just sighed deeply.

Kate and Kole gave them thumbs ups from the other side of the glass.

The black haired teen turned towards Ed “Let’s get this show on the road.”

The peer counselor nodded. Wayne looked at him, suddenly a red ring appeared around his blue eyes and Ed felt lightheaded. He tried to step forward, but it was more of a weird wobble, his whole world felt like it had turned upside down. The feeling was similar to being hammered. His vision was getting slightly hazy, he tried to teleport on is left, but instead ended up slightly a step away from where he was originally standing. The longer this went on, the more nauseous and disoriented he felt. He wasn’t fighting it, it was an experiment after all. Ed decided enough was enough and made a timeout signal with his shaking hands. Suddenly all of the nausea was gone and Ed immediately sat on the ground.

He took a deep breath and looked at Wayne whose eyes were once again just blue “Well, that sucked.”

Wayne actually snorted “So what was it like it?”

“Like being really drunk.”

The other teen chuckled.

Then the voice of dr. Wilcox came through the speakers “I believe I can explain what happened a bit better, Wayne can create invisible waves that directly affect the primary motor cortex of the brain, that leads to motor skills like walking, understanding direction, keeping balance and so on being compromised.” He had shown a diagram of the human brain on one of the monitors.

Ed nodded “Makes sense, when I tried to teleport to the left, it didn’t work out.”

Suddenly Kate’s voice was heard from the speakers “Just call yourself Whisky man, Wayne!” She was leaning next to the doctor, who just looked done with their shenanigans.

Ed chuckled, but that only made his slight headache worse. Wayne rolled his eyes at her. He went over to Ed and held his hand out to him, Ed took it and got back on his feet.

Both Kate and Kole came back to the room actually looking pretty excited to continue learning about their powers and how to control them. Ed felt it was going to be a long and exhausting day.

Hollywood

November 24, 20:31 PDT

“What are you smiling for, ese?” Jaime suddenly appeared and leaned against Bart casually trying to look at his phone.

Bart put his phone in a pocket of his Kid Flash suit, made especially for the device and looked at his best friend “Just texting. Anyways, so Nightwing will be joining you?” He quickly changed the topic, he loved Jaime but lately he’s been a bit too invested in his “love life.”

Blue Beetle nodded “Though I am more surprised that Green Arrow will be with Alpha in Star City. I wasn’t expecting the League to be allowed to join in.”

Bart shrugged “Well we are trying to take down an intergalactic human trafficking ring. Also the laws regarding the League have been a bit more flexible after the Granny Goodness incident.” Bart looked over at their green skinned leader “Good call that he’s going to Star City, especially since the cops and media will be involved over there.” Bart struck a charming pose at the end as if wooing a reporter “He is a natural in front of the camera after all.”

Blue Beetle chuckled “Hope the cops don’t do anything stupid.”

“They will act only as back up.”

“That’s what they say, it’ll be fun explaining to the public afterwards that there were two more spots that we hit, without telling the forces over there.” Jaime mused already feeling a headache forming in the back of his head.

“Technically the League isn’t involved over there.” Bart winked, while fingerguning.

Jaime rolled his eyes good-naturally “Well, we all get a babysitter, Miss Martian is with you guys right?”

“Yup.”

Blue leaned against Bart “Okay, I’m tired of all of this official business talk. Any news with Edu?”

Bart shrugged, but a small smile found it’s way on his face “Honestly, no… but I think everything is going well, like it feels good, you know?”

Jaime smiled “But nothing official yet?”

Kid Flash scowled “Well… not yet. We talked about going on when we were free!” His demeanour was hopeful, but definitely unsure.

Jaime wiggled his eyebrows “So a date?”

“Not officially!” Bart had to clarify. ‘Sadly’ he added in his own thoughts.

Blue Beetle put his hand on Bart’s shoulder and smiled “Look whatever  happens, I’ll be here, Cassie as well.” He pointed at the blonde who was currently  holding with one arm a table with Garfield transformed into an elephant on top of it. She was smiling brightly while the others were cheering her on. Gregor looked especially impressed and flabbergasted.

Bart chuckled at the former prince’s expression “Tim’s one lucky guy, eh?”

Jaime grinned “For sure, hermano.”

Garfield transformed into a toucan and flew to the part of the room with the huge screens and the couch. He became human once again and called everybody over.

Their leader looked over at everybody “Okay, team you all know what to do right?”

Bart put his hand on his hip “Go there, kick some ass, save the day.” He was grinning.

“And look great while doing so.” Jaime was helpful enough to add. He high-fived Bart.

Beast Boy smiled “Yeah, something like that. Just don’t get cocky.” He knew that they were just messing around, but he still wanted to warn them, there was real danger to an overconfident superhero… maybe he was spending too much time with the Leaguers.

He believed in his team.

Taos

November 24, 9:45 MST

Ed was exhausted and that’s putting it lightly. Kole, Kate and Wayne had quickly gotten over their initial nervousness and had trained on controlling their powers a lot. Their newfound confidence also brought a lot of problems with it, such as recklessly using their powers without much thought, but he supposed that was better than being afraid of them.

They made a lot of progress, Ed was currently looking over the observations from today’s testing. Everybody had long since left, but he always liked analyzing the research and making his own conclusions, he supposed he did resemble his dad in that regard, maybe not all scientist genes had missed him. It also helped when somebody didn’t understand some of the overly fancy words scientist and doctors used to describe their powers, Ed could always explain. He had the recording from today open on his laptop’s screen and was making a few notes on how to further help the others with their powers. He paused the video when a fully crystallized Kole send a laser beam flying backwards. He wanted to focus, he really did, but just like they often did recently, his thoughts once again drifted away to the brunette speedster.

‘I wonder if everything’s going well on that mission.’ Ed had his eyes closed and his head perched on his hands. He couldn’t help but worry, finally he decided that since he wasn’t getting any work done he might as well head home, his dad had already called him not too long ago to do so as well. Apparently being a workaholic was another thing him and his dad had in common. Ed packed up his things and disappeared in a flash of golden light.

Detroit

November 25, 1:30 EDT

Kid Flash, Suberboy, Cyborg and Miss Martian had just dropped off near Inergang’s base of operation in Detroit. This time, thanks to the before mentioned white alien they had psychic communication, so the risk of being found out dropped, but it also meant Bart’s thoughts couldn’t always wander off to Ed… unless he wanted everybody else to hear them. Kid Flash was in his “dark mode”, so the costume was black and green, adding to their camouflage.

He along with everybody else received a text from the other teams, both had arrived on their sites without a hitch.

‘I’ll go have a quick look around.’ Miss Martian informed her team.

They all nodded. Bart took a better look at this facility, it was almost exactly like the other one, except larger, it didn’t seem abounded, there were delivery trucks and thugs moving around.

Miss Martian quickly informed as to what she was seeing and hearing inside ‘I see four metas. From what I heard the client is supposed to arrive soon. After that they are planning on shutting this place down.’

Just as she said that news came back from the other teams, their places were completely abandoned and all traces of something ever happening there were wiped. Cyborg was quick to respond that their place was still in use, though only for tonight.

‘Then we have to be fast.’ Superboy send through the mental connection.

‘Good thing that’s my specialty.’ Replied Bart and winked.

‘I see a computer, it appears that everything is being deleted.’ M’gan informed them. ‘We will wait for the buyer to appear, so that we can take them down as well, but we will start off by slowly decreasing the number of Intergang’s lackeys. I will go to the back and stop the power, that ought to buy us more time.’

‘Then I will quickly take out the guys outside.’ Bart continued.

The plan was affirmed by the team and was set into place a moment later. Kid Flash quickly beat up the gang members and hid their unconscious bodies.

Apparently inside the thugs were running around, pissed off and annoyed. One of them decided to go check the power out back and was quickly met with Miss Martian’s fist. The group had slowly moved around inside the building, everybody hiding in the darkness, good thing for night vision goggles. One of the gang’s members had turned on the emergency lights, but they produced little to no light.

Suddenly a portal either from a mother or a fatherbox appeared and a pink skinned alien in blue clothes came out of it. The portal closed. He was smiling like every bad guy ever. He looked around, looking unimpressed with the state of the facility, then he laid eyes on the teens bound in front of him. There were two boys with bright ginger hair that appeared no older than ten, a girl with a short bob, that looked to have blades coming out of her shoulders and a girl with curly black hair and eyes.

The alien spoke “Good, this time the goods are actually here, not like last time.”

The thugs only grunted. One of them spoke up “First the money, then you get them.”

The alien sighed and took out a small piece of plastic out of it’s pocket, it looked like a flash drive. He moved his arm to hand it over to the other man.

‘Now!’ M’gan’s voice rang through the mental connection.

Taking them down wasn’t hard, considering they were being shot at with alien guns. The salmon coloured alien had tried to open up another portal, but was quickly stopped by Cyborg and Superboy. When they were done all the bad guys were unconscious and bound. The actual power was turned on and the team connected Oracle to the computer so she could download everything that was left on it.

When they were done all the proper authorities were connected, apparently the alien was named Kanjar Ro and was the one who was supposed to buy Kate, Kole and Wayne. He was to be taken care of by Green lantern, he was the one who dealt with aliens. Soon after the police had also swarmed the place. After consulting, it was decided that the meta-teens were to be sent to the Meta-Human Youth Center for the time being, there were people there who had a so called nigh-shift, but Ed and his father were still called regardless of that.

Team Beta was more than happy to be heading back to Hollywood and the Watchtower, after Cyborg had opened up a portal for the four metas to go to the Center.

Hollywood

November 25, 3:44 PDT

When Beta arrived everybody else had already been there for a while now, Ed was also there Bart went over to him.

“Hey, amigo!” Bart leaned against Ed.

Ed yawned, but quickly smiled “Good on not getting hurt.”

“I’m just too damn fast.”

Ed snorted in retaliation.

Garfield quickly called everybody for a meeting, Alpha and Omega once again said they they found nothing, while Beta quickly summarised everything that had happened.

Barbara smiled from her screen “Good job on getting all the info, I’ll analyse it as soon as possible and get you all up to speed.”

Barbara was definitely looking worse for wear, with deep purple circles around her eyes and unkept hair that stuck out in every direction, then again who were they to judge, they were all peas in a pod in that regard.

Finally the briefing ended and everybody was glad to be able to finally get some sleep.

Bart turned towards Ed “Back to the center?”

Ed nodded “Yeah, have to make sure everything is fine with our four new residents.” He smiled.

“Want some help with that, amigo?” Bart was quick to offer.

Ed shook his head “No offence, man, but you look like death, go get some sleep…” Then he thought for a second “Want me to teleport you home?”

“Huh?”

Ed blushed “Well, you know, it’ll be faster than the zeta tube, considering the one closest to you is in STAR labs and I don’t want you to fall asleep while running and end up lost somewhere in Oklahoma.”

“Okay, that only happened like once!”

“More than enough.”

Virgil’s annoyed voice was heard shouting from the other side of the room “No fair! You never offer to teleport me anywhere!”

“You basically live next to a zeta tube!” Ed exclaimed and Virgil’s stuck his tongue out at him.

Bart laughed accepted Ed’s offer. He decided to change into civilian clothes in case somebody was lurking around Jay’s house. After he was done he went back to Ed, the Argentinian smiled and shyly offered his hand for Bart to hold, Bart took it enthusiastically and waved Virgil goodbye while they disappeared.

For what felt like a second later they were in front of Jay’s house.

Central City

November 25, 5:12 PST

“So crash.” Said Bart.

“Make sure to crash right on top of your bed and get some sleep.” Ed’s lame joke didn’t go unnoticed by Bart.

“That was a really bad one.” He commented.

Ed grinned “I’m only running on a few hours of sleep and a coffee, so don’t except a lot.”

“You always exceed my exceptions anyways.” Said Bart and as soon as the words registered in Ed’s sleep deprived brain he blushed.

Ed tried to cover it up “Stop it, it sounds like something my dad would say.”

“But it’s true!”

“Yeah, yeah…” Ed was rubbing the back of his neck, but then he perked up “Let’s hope this whole thing ends soon… so we can hang out, while not being completely drained.”

“True.”

Ed took his phone out and checked the time, he sighed “I have to get going.”

“Thought so.”

Ed put his hand on Bart’s shoulder “Bye.” He simply said.

“Yeah, see you soon.”

“Make sure you get enough sleep!” Ed said while disappearing.

Bart chuckled “Okay, mom, I got it.”

He headed towards his home, his mood massively improved, Ed just had that effect on him, he filled him with energy yet calmed him down. Just as he walked in he noticed Jay was awake and nursing a cup of tea.

“Good morning.” The older speedster offered, a mischievous glint in his eyes.

Bart’s smile widened “Yeah, good indeed.”

#bartuardo #zetaflash #eduardo dorado jr #bart allen #el dorado young justice

[niall-is-my-dream]

Power Over Me - Part Two

Thanks to @heart-attack-harry and @lizziespidiepridie for your help.

Catch up on part one below

https://niall-is-my-dream.tumblr.com/post/188083232033/power-over-me

"I wanna be king in your story I wanna know who you are I want your heart to beat for me Oh I"

3k words

Your eyes were struggling to open up this morning. Puffy from crying like a loser last night over a guy who is clearly an arsehole. Reliving the whole thing in your head had you pulling the covers up and hiding beneath them, wanting to hide away for the rest of your Sunday. 

But you knew you shouldn't.

Dragging yourself from your bed you managed to navigate your way to the bathroom, running the tap and splashing your face with warm water. Patting your face dry, you looked in the mirror above the sink and saw your face. 

You looked a right state. 

You needed paracetamol, a coffee and a two week vacation somewhere hot.

Preferably by yourself where you could wallow in your own self pity.

Sadly you'd have to make do with your sofa.

After making yourself a coffee and some toast you sat your bum on the sofa, turning on the tv and browsing the channels, you found some housey type programme. You know the ones where they want the cafe culture life in London but on a shoestring budget, then complain it's a two bed flat rather than a 3 bed house they'd dreamed off.

Well those twats can fuck off you thought as you switched the channels to an old episode of Friends. The One With The Prom Video, great. Basically the one where after years of lusting over Rachel, Ross finally wins her over by his sweet antics from when they were teenagers. 

A nice happy ending.

Well that can fuck off to.

You turned it off in the end, choosing to sit in silence and eat.

Your phone was on the coffee table with your bag and keys, exactly where you had left it last night when you'd got in. It had been ringing constantly on your journey home and the taxi driver had even commented about you not answering it.

After a quick text to Deo as promised to tell him you were home safe, you'd turned it off and left it. 

Now it was slowly torturing you.

A sucker for punishment, you moved to turn it on. The screen lit up and showed you how many missed calls, texts and voice messages you had.

A reply from Deo telling you to sleep well and to text him if you wanted to talk.

You didn't.

A couple from your friends who you'd been out with, asking you what was going on and that they hoped you were safely home.

And 23 messages from Niall.

13 missed calls. 

And 5 voice messages.

You didn't bother to read them and you hastily deleted them all without reading them. Same with the voice messages. Delete.

You didn't feel any better after doing it, the coffee and toast slathered in butter hadn't even helped how you were feeling. It wasn't a hangover or troubled night sleep that was causing you pain. 

It was your heart.

You were shamefully heartbroken at what had happened. Shameful because you had vowed since Lewis Burns broke up with you in Year Ten that you would never ever let a guy hurt you like that again. Granted you had been 15 at the time but it was a value that ten years later you still tried to follow.

Your heart felt heavy and it both scared you and annoyed you.

You just need some time to cool off and get over him.

Letting out a huge sigh you gathered up your plate and mug and took them to the kitchen. Opening up Spotify, you put some tunes on and started tidying up your flat. Washing up, making your bed, putting a load of washing in, it was all a distraction. A much needed one and it was working. When it was all done you grabbed your book and headed for a bath.

Throughout your day your phone beeped with messages, when you saw Niall's name you just deleted them. But as the afternoon went on, you opened up his contact and blocked him. Tears had followed and you ended up going to bed at 9pm. Your Sunday had turned out to be a quiet and lonely one, but something that was very much needed. 

Turning off your alarm the next day, you couldn't be bothered to get out of bed. But you had a meeting at 9am and another at 11am, and you had some prep to do.

The mornings routine was basically just going through the motions. You still felt like absolute shite, the heavy feeling in your heart hadn't even remotely subsided. After taking a hot shower you dressed and ate a quick breakfast, not even bothering to put the radio on like you normally did. Good luck to anyone who came in contact with you today.

The tube as usual was busy and you were squashed in amongst all the other commuters. By the time you'd arrived at your station your mood was getting worse. It hit its peak when you walked into your building and saw bimbo bambi on the front desk. She had a stupid smirk on her face that was definitely aimed at you as you walked past her. 

Luckily she had been on the phone and hadn't been able to speak to you. You were in no mood to be dealing with her high pitched squeaky voice this morning. How in the hell she had got the job as receptionist at the Recruitment Agency you worked at you will never know. You got the impression she couldn't even spell her own name. Which was Nina by the way. Bimbo bambi was just a nasty, horrible nickname that you and Annie from the second floor had come up with. Bullying wasn't something you condoned, but she didn't know that was her nickname and so she couldn't be offended if she didn't even know it. You were always polite to her and smiled nicely whenever she interacted with you. But she was definitely not a friend of yours and would never be one.

The reason behind her smirk became apparent when you saw the huge bouquet of flowers on your desk when you walked into your office.

Pausing in the doorway, you didn't want to go over to them. A few faces of your colleagues were smiling at you. Jack the office playboy was the first to speak, asking you who your new fella was. Choosing to ignore him, you walked to your desk dumping down your bag and looking at the arrangement.

The bouquet was beautiful, a mixture of light pink and cream flowers. A sealed note was attached to the cellophane wrap. Looking around as you opened it, a simple message was written.

Please can we talk x

Shoving the card in your bag, you didn't have time to even think about it now. You had a meeting with a company about helping them with recruitment in exactly 28 minutes. A large coffee was needed and you needed to gather all your prep together.

Dwelling on the card and over thinking about it would have to wait.

********

Your 9am meeting went well and you were back at your desk finishing the prep for the next one when your work phone rang. Seeing it was the reception office you let out a frustrated sigh before putting on your most polite voice.

"Hello?"

"Elizabeth, You have a visitor?" Nina said.

"Oh they're early." You replied looking at your watch and seeing 10:35am.

"No, it's not your next appointment."

Your heart sank.

Please no.

"You didn't tell me you were friends with Niall Horan?!" She whispered excitedly down the phone.

"Well it never came up in conversation." You replied quickly. "Please tell him I'm super busy and that I have a meeting at 11."

"Oh ok, will do." She replied, and you hung up before she could answer any further.

You were fuming, first the flowers then turning up at your work. Did he think that was the way to get you to listen? Well he was sadly mistaken.

Running your fingers across your temples you willed the anger to go away. You still had work to do. You'd managed to distract yourself this morning with the potential business that your meetings could secure. Letting him get into your head was not needed right now.

Breathing out a massive sigh, you looked up at your computer to continue answering some emails. That's when you saw him. 

Strolling through your floor coming for your office, attracting the attention of every single person. His casual attire of dark jeans and blue t-shirt being the biggest factor.

Fuck he looked so good.

His face was unreadable, something that was strange to you considering you'd known him 6 years. You had always been able to read him. 

But not today.

You stood up from your desk as he strolled into your office, closing the door firmly behind him.

"Niall...."

"Why haven't you answered my messages?" He asked you bluntly.

"Because I didn't want to." You replied in the same manner.

"You've not even read them, and the last ones I've tried to send you bounced back. Have you blocked me?!"

"Yes, and yet you still didn't get the hint." You said as you gestured towards the flowers.

"I just...... " He began but you cut him off.

"Look Niall, I can't do this right now. I have a meeting in 15 minutes to get ready for. To be honest I don't even want to have this conversation with you at all."

You were being rude now, desperate to save face. Your heart was pounding in your chest, it ached to reach over and touch him, but you held back when you remembered Saturday night. His cocky behaviour had infuriated you, but his lost looking face right now was making you feel guilty. But only for a split second before you remembered how hurt you were, how embarrassed and ashamed you'd felt.

Holding back the tears was becoming harder and you really needed him to leave before he saw how broken you were. The tough exterior you were trying to show him was crumbling.

"So, you don't even want to talk to me about what happened?" He asked you his voice calm.

"No."

This was a lie, well sort of. You did want answers from him but not now. You weren't ready.

He shook his head and started to look annoyed which infuriated you even more. He had no right coming into your office, surely the ignoring his calls and messages was enough of a hint for him, but apparently not.

You'd have to have a word with Nina in a subtle way to get her to actually listen to you when you need someone to go away.

"This isn't over." He said as he left.

"It never started." You replied.

**********

The second meeting had been ok, luckily it was a meeting with a client already on your books, because your mind had been elsewhere. 

Niall strolling into your office was not something that you had even been remotely prepared for. Seeing him had effecting you far more than you had thought. It was a silly crush and you needed to get over it.

It would be easy, he travelled a lot and he had a lot of friends. You were sure you could dodge seeing him, you'd probably lay low for a few weeks and avoid the dreaded conversation with your mutual friends.

Willie's voice asking Niall what the hell he had done to you, was still stuck in your head, he had messaged you today asking if you were ok. Willie had taken on the big brother role in the group and as one of the youngest you had been happy to have him care and support you. Deo had sort of become the annoying brother, but he had shown his caring side to when he helped you in a taxi on Saturday night. Neither had pushed you to talk and you appreciated it.

As you had got into the office early that morning you decided to head off at 5. Your head was still pounding and after taking some painkillers you tidied away your desk and grabbed your bag.

Nina was sitting at her desk on reception when you went past.

"I'm heading off now Nina so if anyone calls they will need to leave a message." You informed her.

"Got dinner with a certain someone?!" She replied with a wink.

God she was annoying.

"Not that it's any of your business but no."

"Oh it's just he's been outside in his car for the last half an hour."

"What?"

"Niall Horan." She said continuing to smirk.

"Spreading gossip isn't tolerated here. And not following orders from me when I ask not to be disturbed while I'm prepping for an important meeting is also a problem."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it."

"I know, but Niall is my friend and he's incredibly private. Please don't start making something out of nothing." You replied, defending him. He might have pissed you off, but you couldn't help but be protective.

"I am really sorry, I wouldn't spread gossip I promise. And I'll follow your orders about visitors from now on." She replied looking absolutely petrified of you.

"Thankyou, I'll see you in the morning." You said.

She mumbled a nervous goodbye as you left the building. You spied his car out the corner of your eye, what was he thinking hanging around waiting for you?

Walking quickly in the opposite direction towards the tube station, you hoped he hadn't spotted you.  

But of course he fucking had.

He called out your name, but you headed down the street winding in between the crowds. You knew he wouldn't follow you, wouldn't risk being seen chasing a woman down the street. In today's world, cameras were in your pockets and footage could be uploaded online for everyone to see in seconds.

He definitely wouldn't do that.

You reached the tube station, swiping your oyster card you made your way through the station to your platform, breathing a sigh of relief at having avoided him again.

The walk back from the station wasn't long and you called into little Tesco Express to get a microwave meal and a bottle of wine. You definitely couldn't be bothered to cook tonight. It when you were approaching your building that you saw his car in the car park.

Fuck.

You managed to avoid him and sneak around the back. There were two entrances to your block, accessing the way through the gate and the shared garden, you let yourself in hopeful that he hadn't seen you.

But it didn't matter, he hadn't been waiting in his car. He was waiting at your door.

Your heart sank.

After a rollercoaster day of emotions and a heavy workload you could cry just at the sight of him. You didn't have anymore fight in you to argue and you knew you'd crumble. 

The sight of him leaning against your door, knocked the breath out of you. His face looking straight ahead, the sound of you walking up the steps caused him to turn.

His face once again had that annoyed look, and you couldn't believe the cheek of it. How dare he look annoyed after how he had behaved.

Walking up to your door, he didn't move. Your eyes met his and the annoyed look was gone, replaced by one that was pleading with you. He knew you'd ask him to leave and he would fight you until you agreed to hear him out.

Moving closer to him, you were just inches away as you raised your right hand above his shoulder and put your key in the lock.

"Please talk to me. Let me explain." He whispered.

Your body betrayed you as your eyes filled with tears.

Turning the key, you unlocked the door and moved sideways to get around him. He was right behind you, walking into your flat as you were taking the key out the lock. Strolling in like it was perfectly ok to do after everything that had happened.

Shutting the door, not acknowledging him you put your shopping bag on the side. Carefully taking out your meal and your wine. You could sense him at the doorway as you took off your coat and sorted out your bag.

"Are you going to let me explain?" He asked his voice calm and low.

"Doesn't look like I have any choice does it?!" You scoffed aware that he could probably hear the way you were choked up.

"Why are you being like this?" He asked you.

"Like what Niall? An arsehole? Not nice is it?" You replied allowing your face to be seen, no longer hiding behind your long hair.

His eyes widened when he saw your face and upon hearing your words.

"I'm sorry."

"Doesn't matter."

"It does matter. I'm not good at this."

"Good at what exactly?"

"Talking about this sort of stuff."

"Then why are you here, why have you been messaging me, coming to my office and waiting outside my work? I specifically told you I didn't want to talk to you. Did you not listen or are you just trying to humiliate me even more?"

Silence.

You couldn't even look at him, choosing to walk past him and out to the hall, hanging your coat up on the hook on the wall.

"I think you should go." You said, eyes brimming with tears. You knew he was right behind you and you couldn't bare to turn around and face him.

"Not until you've let me explain."

"There's nothing to explain, it was a mistake. It shouldn't have happened. Done. Now you can go."

"Elizabeth."

"No, I can't deal with you right now. Please just go." You begged.

"I didn't mean to leave that night, I don't know why I left you to wake up alone."

You moved towards the door, opening it, unable to bare being near him. His scent was invading your senses and you couldn't take it anymore.

"Let me know when you figure out why you did." You said and he moved towards you.

Your eyes couldn't meet his as he looked at you before walking out the door.

Part Three

https://niall-is-my-dream.tumblr.com/post/188384634468/power-over-me-part-three

#Niall #Niall Horan #Niall angst #Niall smut #Niall fan fic #Niall fan fiction #Emily writes